has left a demand for workmen apt with tool and intelligent in method. It is a noteworthy characteristic of the drift of popular opinion that our system of general education is coming to be regarded as too much a preparation for a life of leisure. To-day the various trades are beginning to ask for a share in training and instruction. As there have been schools of the so-called learned professions, so, in response to this demand, there are springing up in city and town, schools of science, schools of technology, industrial and trade schools.

In the effort to obtain a high standard of general culture, some of the most promising possibilities of the educational system have been overlooked. In failing to teach the masses the use of the tools by which most of them earn their living, and by the absence in youth of proper training in industrial handicrafts and technical arts, there has been, without doubt, a defect in the system which tends to produce an increase of misery and crime, and a re-enforcement to the ranks of the unemployed. What we have attained without this provision, now so urgently asked, should not inspire us with confidence for the future.

In spite of the conservative murmur against utilitarianism in education, experience has shown that a purely scholastic training makes men averse to manual labor, although by far the larger number of them are compelled ultimately to undertake it for their support.

Capital has been oppressive because labor knew not how to effectively defend itself. Co-operation has been a failure because intelligence did not enter into daily toil and was beyond the reach of the toilers. Disease and death are abroad because homes are ill-kept and sanitary laws unwittingly violated. Drunkenness and vice prevail because of the ignorance of moral and physical law. This is the field which opens wide before the teacher, the humanitarian, the Christian minister.

It is upon these brain-toilers that the burden and responsibility rest of so moulding and strengthening the character of the men and women of this and coming generations, that

they shall neither succumb to hardship nor be enfeebled by prosperity.

The teacher, be he at work in church or school, must take the wisdom of the scholar and apply it to the needs of a struggling and suffering humanity. The practical education of the laboring classes leads to the avoidance of waste in production and waste in living; to the conservation of all those forces which, when rightly directed, tend toward the elevation of mankind and the triumph of industrial liberty.

From the condition of helplessness there is but one way of escape and that lies through education. As Spencer says, "there is no other alchemy by which golden conduct can be gotten from leaden instincts.'

Organization of labor for the profitable direction of its own enterprises is possible only when the artisan shall be master of his art; when the operative shall comprehend the complete management of his factory; when all laboring classes shall understand not alone the fundamental laws of their work, but also the primary principles of production and distribution and the duties and obligations of citizenship.

This is the calling of the brain-toiler and in God's good time he will have answered it. The joyful new year bells may then

Industrial liberty, increased ability to earn daily bread, increased knowledge of the laws of nature and of God, attained through a closer blending of brain-toil with hand-toil will make the workingman indeed the "product of the race as the heir of the ages," and hasten the time when all mankind will be "inspired workmen to build the grand temple of civilization." EDWARD L. STEVENS, '90.

THE FUTURE OF THE CREEDS.

HE nineteenth century has been a century of progress. During the past hundred years questions in science, politics and sociology have been solved, which indicate, in this progress, man's higher development. In all departments of thought new questions are constantly arising which demand the attention of every thinker.

Whether we enter the domain of political, sociological, or religious investigation, we must first, and above all, consider the tendency of these changes. The question which agitates the age is: "Whither are we drifting?" What will be the outcome of all these reforms?

In the religious world there have been changes, striking, almost revolutionary. The bitter rivalry, sometimes amounting to hatred which existed between the churches of a century ago has gradually disappeared. The beliefs of the people are forcing the creeds into wider channels. This change does not imply any loss of belief in regard to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. It evinces a spirit of toleration, a broader and a truer faith. The more enlightened and scholarly biblical interpretation of the day has modified the beliefs of many; but no essential truth has been relinquished; no principle of Christianity has been invaded. That spirit of brotherly love which was taught by the founders of the faith, pervading the church which He established, is leading men to recognize the opinions of others.

Everywhere we see men who adhere to all that has the sanction of years. They are firm believers in the "good old times." To them progress is innovation; innovation is sin. "Were not the mighty men of old superior to their degenerate descendants of to-day? Shall we, then, supersede their beliefs with the new-fangled notions of modern philosophers?" Actuated by such a horror of change they deprecate the present tendency to modification of creeds in religion and affirm that, if continued, it will shake the Christian church to its very foundations! Such men adhere to their beliefs, not from any external evidence that they

are true, but for no other reason than that their fathers held the same opinions.

The creeds of Christianity must broaden with the progress of the age. The Reformation of the middle ages accomplished what it could, but the times were not yet ripe for a greater reaction. Many fallacies, the accumulated superstitions and opinions of ages, still disgraced the church, still obscured the faith. The day will never come when all men will view the same truth from the same standpoint; but the time is near at hand when, petty jealousy and bigotry cast aside, men will recognize that liberty of thought and simplicity of creed having been attained, they follow most closely in the footsteps of Him in whom they put their trust.

We, of to-day, are on the eve of a great reformation in the Christian world for which the Reformation of the middle ages has prepared the way; a reformation which the simultaneous progress in other fields of thought has rendered possible; of which the recent advancement of biblical scholarship is the direct cause, and whose outcome will be the broadening of Christian thought and Christian creeds throughout the world. JOSEPH D. IBBOTSON, JR., '90.

A

THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION.

GENTLEMAN walking down Genesee street, Utica, one October evening in 1835, had thrust into his hand. a poster which read somewhat as follows: "We, the citizens of Utica, protest against the indignity of an abolition assemblage being held in a public building in this city; and since the common council gave the abolitionists permission to hold a convention in the court house, we hereby call a meeting to resist such action."

Until recently there stood on the corner of Bleecker and Charlotte streets a church building, erected far back in the time when Utica was a small town, which has been the scene of many an eloquent sermon, brilliant lecture and hard contested debate important to the city and country. In an historical sketch of the church, recently prepared by Mr. Seward, October 21st, 1835, is mentioned as one of the most

memorable days in its existence, for it was then that the anti-slavery convention met there. At nine o'clock in the morning about six hundred delegates, men of high standing from every part of the state, came together to consider how the condition of the negro, both in the north and in the south, might be improved. They organized the convention, adopted a constitution, and a paper was being read when some one in the vestibule cried out: "Make way for the committee, or we'll break down the doors."

While the delegates had been organizing the convention, those opposed to their views had been busy. A mob of men and boys, many of them excited by liquor, collected in the streets, some from curiosity, some from a hint that they would be wanted. A meeting of the leaders of this crowd, held in the court house, selected a committee of twenty-five who should go to the church and cause the abolitionists to disperse," peaceably if they would, forcibly if they must."

The arrival of this committee was that which interrupted the proceedings of the convention. They enter, headed by a Mr. Beardsley and followed by as many of the men from the street as could find standing room. Mr. Beardsley orders the one speaking to cease and he himself begins to address the assembly, asking why they had come to hold such a convention since the citizens did not wish them. If one of the delegates tries to answer the crowd at once begins to shout so that further effort is useless. The committee now orders the convention to adjourn, seizes the minutes and demands that the delegates leave the church at once. Then Gerrit Smith, who was not present as a delegate nor had before been a sympathizer with the anti-slavery movement, arose and invited the convention to come home to Peterboro with him. Accordingly the delegates dispersed, not however before the windows had been broken, hymn books and seats destroyed by the crowd.

Fearing that enough kindness had not been shown those visiting their city, the mob went to the hotels and boarding houses of the delegates to bid them farewell and assist their departure with such agreeable missiles as chunks of mud and spoiled eggs. When all were gone there was great