per week. The only endowment of the Society is the life membership fund formed by the life membership fees of $25, and the houses which generous friends have given for the work. Greens Farms and Farmington Lodge in Connecticut, and two houses at Westport, Neversink Manor and a home in Orange County, New York, besides Hillcrest and Uplands, the homes at Santa Clara in the Adirondacks, were last summer filled with guests who returned refreshed to the year's toil. The homes in the Adirondacks are of special hygienic value, for to them the wage-workers who are threatened with tubercular complaints are sent, and often serious illness is averted by thus checking the trouble at its beginning. The Outlook readers have long been loyal supporters of the Society's work. Contributions may be sent to the Treasurer, Miss Edith Bryce, 20 West Thirty-fourth Street, New York City.

Joseph Le Conte

The death of Professor Le Conte last Saturday, in the Yosemite Valley, removes another scientist of the first rank from the roll of university teachers. The Le Conte family, with other exiled Huguenots, settled at New Rochelle, N. Y., rather more than two centuries ago. Five of the family, Professor Le Conte, his father, uncle, brother, and cousin, won distinction during the last century in the cultivation of various branches of science. Professor Le Conte was born in Georgia in 1823, and after a few years devoted there to the practice of medicine he became a pupil of Agassiz at Harvard in 1850. Short terms of service as a teacher of science in three Southern colleges from 1852 onward ended with his appointment in 1869 to the chair of Geology and Natural History in the University of California, which he held until his death. Professor Le Conte's scientific interest was many-sided. His numerous publications are concerned with geology, biology, optics, education, art, philosophy, theology, and aeronautics. Among his best known works are his "Elements of Geology" and "Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought." Like his somewhat older contemporaries, the late Asa Gray, of Harvard, and James D. Dana, of Yale, Joseph Le Conte was

no less thoroughly a Christian man than a man of science, and, like them, counted for much in clearing the air of doubts concerning the compatibility of science and religion. Indeed, to this day we know no better work for one to read who is thoughtful, studious, and perplexed by the incongruity between scientific and theological theories than "Evolution and Its Relation to Religious Thought." Others have since more fully developed his thought, but the germs of modern evolutionary theology are nearly all to be found in this unpretentious treatise.

in Chicago

The somewhat sensa

The People's Church tional report that a large fund has been placed in the hands of the People's Church, Chicago, is premature. But there is more justification for the statement than sometimes is found for similar newspaper announcements. A friend and admirer of the Rev. Dr. Thomas, pastor of the People's Church, Chicago, somewhat advanced in years, and the possessor of what seems to be an ample fortune, has expressed his purpose to place a large amount of money at the disposal of a board, organized for the purpose, to aid and perpetuate the work represented by Dr. Thomas. This new board has been legally created. Dr. Thomas himself is President of the board, and he has associated with him prominent members of his church, some leading citizens of Chicago, among which are ex-Governor Altgeld and the editor of Unity." The necessary legal steps have been perfected. Meanwhile the name of the donor and the sum of the donation are naturally withheld. The board, having but just been created, has as yet held no executive sessions, and any statement of its plans of work is premature, but enough is known of the attitude of the board, which is to have exclusive control of this fund, and of the wishes of the donor, to justify the statement that the fund as realized will be spent in strengthening and extending the religious work represented by the People's Church of Chicago, the Congress of Religion, the President and Secretary of which are members of the new board, "Unity" and other publication interests that look towards the amelioration of the

sectarian spirit, the union of religious organizations and individuals in the "thought and work of the world under the great law and life of love." This fund as it accrues will not be spent in establishing a new denomination or in sustaining the old ones, for donor and directors believe that the analytic and dogmatic spirit in theology has carried Protestantism into needless divisions and profitless controversies. The experience of the People's Church in Chicago, reaching through twenty years, leads this donor and the trustees to believe that there is an unoccupied field for popular religious work in the leading theaters and opera houses of our country when they are put at the service of strong men backed by the progressive, public-spirited men and women of the community. These meetings will seek to interpret religion in terms of life and not of doctrine, making the Church the center of civic reform, municipal helpfulness, and intelligent work with out denominational interference or theological entanglements. The object of the fund, as it becomes available, as it is explained by those who are engaged in the movement, is to make permanent and more effective such work as is represented in Chicago by the People's Church, the Central Church, established by Professor Swing, All Souls' Church, under the lead of Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and three or four other independent movements more or less successfully established. The one characteristic most marked concerning all these movements is found in the fact that they are not controversial either in their methods or in their foundations.

A Bible Teachers' College According to a distinguished theological instructor, "most of our theological seminaries are weakest in the department of English Bible study." It was therefore a wise thought on the part of Dr. Wilbert W. White to attempt the establishment of a Bible Teachers' College, where that essential may be provided. The first and experimental year of this institution has now closed, after a gratifying success. Located but without endowment or buildings as yet-in Montclair, N. J., this institution, by its admirable pro

vision for critical Bible study in the most recent methods and of the highest grade, has attracted a considerable body of students and aroused a distinct interest both here and abroad. Neigh boring seminaries have encouraged their students to take certain of its courses foreign missionaries on home leave have gladly availed themselves of it; educa tional officers of the Young Men's Chris tian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association have enrolled them selves; many Bible-class and Sunday school teachers have greatly profited by it; and such of the lectures as were gen erously thrown open to the public were numerously attended. Some of the fea tures have been these: the chief method scholarly, stimulating instructors; teach ing the English Bible, without limitation or restriction of theory or system of doctrine; including work by both lec tures and teaching, but laying stress or teaching; assigning definite work, encour aging original investigation with ful reports; normal training in practice, both in class under inspection and criticism and independently outside. It is impos sible here to name all of the twenty-four well-known scholars who have giver courses during the past year, but a few o them have been: President Patton, of Princeton; Professor Marcus Dods, of Edinburgh; President Weston, of Croze Theological Seminary; Professor Rogers of Drew Theological Seminary; Presiden Barrows, of Oberlin College; Dr. Gregory editor of the "Homiletic Review;" Pro fessor Ballantine, of the Springfield Bible Training School; and Dr. White, Principa of the College. The general courses have been on the Old and the New Testaments (certain books), Prayer, the Holy Spirit and ten special courses, by acknowledged masters, on the Prophets, Assyriology the Gospels, and the Epistles, as well as others on the use of the Bible in Christian life, Missions, Personal Work, and Sunday school instruction. The plans for next year are expected to gain by having longer courses from fewer instructors, and to include a systematic normal course in Bible teaching in certain needy districts in New York City. This college is not creating but supplying an eager demand and doing it judiciously, skillfully, and with positive inspiration.

prophesy that its appeal will meet with very little response. It is not true that the President exercises a power as despotic as the Czar's over the Filipino nation; his power is explicitly limited by the act of Congress which conferred it on him, and impliedly by certain provisions of the Constitution, and by his own public pledge guaranteeing to the Filipinos the civil and religious rights recognized as universal in the Constitution. His power is more limited than that exercised by Jefferson in Louisiana after the purchase, and has been thus far used for one purpose only, to take the Filipinos from under military rule, and to give them a civil government which they have never in their whole history enjoyed. Congress has not abdicated its functions; it has exercised them in conferring on the President power to organize a provisional government, in compliance with the urgent demand of the Filipinos themselves, pending the careful study necessary to the wise solution of the problem what the permanent government shall be and what shall be the ultimate relations of the archipelago to the United States. Nor is the President the absolute ruler of Cuba. He is protecting persons and property and preserving order in that island until the representatives of the people in convention assembled can organize a government to suit themselves. As soon as the conditions prescribed, not by the President but by Congress, believed by the majority of the American people to be necessary to the fulfillment of our pledge to secure to Cuba a free and independent government, and now accepted by the Cubans themselves, are incorporated in their Constitution and embodied in a treaty between free Cuba and the United States, there is every reason to believe that our forces will be withdrawn and that Cuba will venture on her experiment of independence under our protection. The Supreme Court has not left the law in doubt, except in so far as a doubt is involved in any decision rendered by a divided court. It has decided that the Porto Ricans and the Filipinos are not subject to the tariff provisions of our Constitution; and a majority of the judges have at least implied, what the Secretary of War has very explicitly declared, that they are

It is a

protected by those provisions which declare inviolable the essential civil and religious rights of a free people under a just government. It is difficult to take seriously the statement that " in organized society there is no liberty that is not constitutional liberty," if by constitutional liberty is meant liberty secured by a written constitution. Written constitutions are a purely modern invention; the liberties of England without any written constitution are as secure as our own. Nor is our Constitution a contrivance for our protection against ourselves. compact or articles of partnership between independent States, defining their relations to each other, and what the Supreme Court has decided is that no people can be brought into and made a member of this partnership without the action of Congress representing the entire body of the Nation. To treat this as equivalent to a denial of all human rights to the people of the new territories and a reversion to the Roman method of holding conquered territory is an interpretation of the action of the Federal Government and of the decision of the Supreme Court which can find for itself no justification in the acts of the one or the opinions of the other.

The entirely sufficient answer to this Address is a simple statement of the facts: Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines have been delivered from the despotism of Spain, which has always treated her colonies as ancient Rome treated hers—as provinces to be plundered in the interest of favored politicians; Cuba has been set free and is preparing herself for a trial of independent life; Porto Rico has been admitted to substantially all the privileges of the States and Territories of the Union, except the privilege of sharing in governing the other States and Territories; the Philippines, freed from despotism long endured and anarchy seriously threatened, is already given a government in spirit, and, as far as it is applicable, in method, like our own; and Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines are being provided by us with the beginnings of that common-school system which universal experience has demonstrated to be absolutely essential to the permanent maintenance of a free republican government.

That this is the view taken by an in

creasing number of the inhabitants of these islands is indicated by the cable reports of their celebrations of Fourth of July. For while the American Anti-Imperialists were lamenting the establishment of a despotism like that of the Czar in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, the people of those islands were celebrat ing the advent of freedom. In Cuba the celebration reported was largely confined to Santiago, and chiefly devoted to celebrating the destruction of Admiral Cervera's squadron, but there was a celebration also at Havana, and at Santiago an extemporized mass-meeting voted that Fourth of July ought to be a permanent holiday throughout Cuba. In Porto Rico the celebration was at once on a larger scale and more significant. By the Foraker Act it is provided that whenever the Legislative Assembly of Porto Rico shall have enacted and put into operation a system of local taxation adequate to meet the necessities of the Government of the island and shall so notify the President, be shall make proclamation thereof, and thereafter there shall be free trade between the island and the United States. The Porto Rican Assembly chose the Fourth of July to pass a resolution notifying the President that this condition had been complied with and asking him to make the necessary proclamation on July 27, the day set apart by the Porto Ricans to celebrate the anniversary of the American occupation. The Fourth was also devoted to a great celebration, one feature being a procession with over four thousand persons in line, including twenty-five. hundred school children.

If the more joyous celebration was in Porto Rico, the more significant one was in the Philippines, the day being chosen for the inauguration of Judge Taft as Civil Governor and the substitution of civil for military rule in the greater part of the archipelago. It was officially announced that the insurrection continues in only five provinces out of thirty-eight. The Commission was increased by the addition of three native Filipinos, and its organization in departments after the fashion of constitutional governments generally was announced. A message of congratulation from the President was read, and was enthusiastically cheered. Leading Filipinos took an active part in

the demonstrations of rejoicing, although the New York "Tribune's" correspondent reports that in the crowd there were more Americans than natives. This may perhaps be taken to indicate that the civil Government has yet to win the confidence of the people; but that it has the friendly co-operation of many of their leaders is quite evident. Making all due allowances for sanguine accounts by American reporters, a quite sufficient answer to the denunciations leveled against the Administration for setting up imperialism in our insular possessions is the joyousness in some localities and the cordial acquiescence in all with which that Government is welcomed. We think that the future will attest that the Cubans, the Porto Ricans, and the Filipinos are wiser interpreters of recent American history than the American Anti-Imperialists.

African Railways

The coast formation of Africa is peculiar. It has but few harbors. There is also a scarcity of waterways offering entrance to the interior. It is true that plenty of navigable water exists in the interior, but vessels intended for such navigation must be transported in pieces. and then put together. Hence Africa is notably fitted for development by means of railways. If recent progress is continued, the once Dark Continent will witness a wonderful development. Already there are in operation or under actual construction ten thousand miles of railway. The most ambitious project is the Cape-toCairo route-a line which is to extend from the southern to the northern extremity of the continent. Of this route about. fifteen hundred miles north of Cape Town are covered, and southward from the Mediterranean about twelve hundred miles. Three thousand miles intervene, but twothirds of this is traversed by navigable rivers and large lakes which, as in the case of the Trans-Siberian Railway, would form a temporary completion of the route. Sentiment in favor of such completion has been aroused in England since Lord Kitchener's victory over the Sudanese at Khartûm, and whatever success is being achieved by him in South Africa will add point to the persistent arguments of