professional and mercantile classes into which our students are very largely drawn. It is the duty of the college to send out its graduates physically equipped to stand this strain themselves, and to hand down to their offspring constitutions as good and strong as their own. This duty is now recognized in theory. Every college is compelled to build a gymnasium, and to throw it open during a portion of the day. This is, in itself, a step forward. No college in New England would dare to offer its students to-day such miserable facilities and such inefficient instruction as Harvard offered its students only 12 years ago.

Yet, after all, many of our colleges are only playing with the problem. There is no definite requirement, no specific program, no academic recognition of physical education. Physical education is of sufficient importance to receive the same intelligent and business-like consideration that is given to the other departments in a college. The building must be constructed with a view to the precise use that is to be made of it. The director must be a man of collegiate and medical training, proficient himself in physical exercises and able to impart enthusiasm for them to others, and endowed with something of the military capacity to command and manage men. A man who combines these qualities and attainments should have the same academic standing and remuneration as the heads of other departments. Then the work required of the students should be as systematic and dignified, in proportion to its amount, as that in other departments.

Leave physical education entirely to the whims and caprices of the students, and extravagance and excess must be expected. Leave it entirely to the toleration of an indifferent faculty, and what wonder that the exercises become either a bore or a farce! Enlist the enthusiasm of the student under the guidance of an interested faculty, combine the ardor of youth with the wisdom of maturity, and, at an annual expense of not more than $12.50 for each student in a college of average size, it is perfectly possi ble to maintain a course in physical education which will give to every student who is not hopelessly handicapped by heredity or dissipation, a sound and healthy body to be the support of a vigorous intellect and the instrument of a resolute will.

WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE.

THE NEW NORTH-WEST.

EXACTLY three hundred years after Columbus discovered the new world, Captain Gray entered the mouth of the Columbia River and laid the foundation of our claim to the territory out of which the States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho have been formed. His discovery was followed in 1804-5 by the expedition of Lewis and Clark and by the establishment of several trading posts; and as early as 1830 emigrants from the western States were making their way over the mountains into Oregon. When the Boston shipmaster sailed into the mouth of the great river of the West, less was known of the western half of this continent than was known of "Darkest Africa" before Stanley first penetrated it. It was one unbroken waste, one vast wilderness, apparently forever doomed to the solitude of nature. In less than a century a marvelous transformation has been wrought. Civilization reigns instead of barbarism; peace, law, and order prevail in place of violence, strife, and perpetual warfare; a productive country filled with thrifty, intelligent, civilized communities has taken the place of a barren region occupied only by a few savage tribes.

The progress of the best civilization has always been westward. The story of its march across the Alleghany Mountains and the vast slopes and rolling prairies of the West to the western shores of the continent forms one of the most interesting chapters in our history. What were the motives which induced the early pioneers to leave comfortable homes, to turn their backs upon civilization, and to march two thousand miles through a wilderness to find an abode on the Pacific coast? The discovery of gold is not sufficient to account for the movement, although it contributed to swell it and to hasten the settlement of California. The immigration to Oregon began long before Sutter's discovery. The prospect of cheap land does not account for it; land was cheap everywhere. The principal inducements

were undoubtedly the mild and equable climate and rich soil, which will continue to attract population until the Pacific coast shall be as densely populated as the Atlantic seaboard. An incident recorded in Barrows's "History of Oregon" illustrates another motive, which actuated some of the earlier immigrants to the North-west. Speaking of the missionary party which crossed the continent in 1836, the author records a scene which, he states, is surpassed by few in historic grandeur. When the party had reached the Pacific slope they stopped and dismounted.

"Then spreading their blankets and lifting the American flag, they all kneeled around the Book and with prayer and praise took possession of the western side of the continent for Christ and the church."

Again, many settlers were actuated by a desire to wrest this valuable region from British dominion. The patriotism and courage of a people and their capacity for self-government were never better illustrated than by the pioneers who settled the Oregon territory, maintained their allegiance to the general government during the period of joint occupation, and held the territory ⚫ for the United States. Isolated from civilization and ignored by the authorities at Washington, they established a government of their own, so that when Congress organized a Territory it adopted, in large part, the laws already in force.

There is a limit to the westward march of colonization-a point beyond which no inviting fields are found. The Pacific Ocean is a barrier which the movement cannot pass. From the earliest settlement of Oregon the tide of immigration, upon reaching this limit, has in part turned back. Oregon furnished settlers for Idaho and Montana, and many of those who first settled west of the Cascade Mountains became, in later years, pioneer settlers in eastern Oregon and Washington. Like a stream which meets an unsurmountable obstacle, immigration will gather in volume here upon the confines of the continent.

It may be supposed by some that the impetus of railroadconstruction and the westward movement of immigration to the Pacific coast has caused the advantages of the intervening territory to be underestimated; that there is room here for a great expansion of population and a large desirable field for enterprise; and that the north Pacific coast has something to fear

from its development. But it is a matter of common knowledge that this intermediate region can support but a relatively small population; that stock-raising there requires large areas of land in comparison with more favored regions; that the supply of water for irrigation is limited; and that but a small part of its area can be made productive. South of us are considerable regions adapted to some kinds of agriculture and to mining, but these offer no great inducements in this direction to American enterprise. North of us in the vast, unsettled areas of the Dominion of Canada, there is more to attract the intending settler; but notwithstanding her large area of unoccupied territory, extensive forests, and rich mines, Canada is unable to keep her thousands of immigrants, partly on account of her climate, and partly, on account of the condition of her industries and the character of her institutions, and there is a constant movement across the boundary line into the United States. For the near future, at all events, the most inviting field for adventure, investment, and settlement is thus on the north Pacific coast. In view of this it is pertinent to inquire about the capacity of this region to meet the great demands that will be made upon it and about the inducements that it offers to immigrants.

Nature everywhere in this region has been lavish with her gifts. The scenery of the Columbia River through the gorge of the Cascades is unsurpassed in grandeur by anything found in this country or in Europe, while the changing panorama of mountain scenery, of green islands, of land-locked harbors, and of thriving cities amply repays the tourist who makes the trip from Tacoma or Seattle to the British side of the Sound. The traveler going northward from California to Portland, when he enters the Willamette valley sees the snow-capped mountains of the Cascade range. From my residence in Portland, symmetrical and sublime Mount Hood, 11,218 feet high, and the beautiful sugar-loaf cone of St. Helens, 9,750 feet high, stand out in bold relief, while the rugged peak of Mount Adams, 9,570 feet high, and the summit of Mount Ranier, 14,440 feet above the sea level, are visible in the distance. Ranier is in full view from the cars for a considerable part of the distance from Portland to Tacoma, and at Tacoma and elsewhere on the Sound,

this grand mountain, with its three glittering peaks, seems to stand like a sentinel.

The climate of both Oregon and Washington is mild and equable. In western Oregon and Washington it is difficult to draw the lines that divide the seasons. Winter is usually a wet season, but there are often long periods of perfect weather in February and March. Flowers frequently bloom in the open air in January, and green fields of growing grass and grain may be seen all winter. Once or twice during the winter a few inches of snow falls, but it disappears rapidly. At intervals of several years cccurs a winter with ten days or two weeks of freezing weather and a considerable fall of snow. The summers are cool, and excessive heat is unknown. In eastern Oregon and Washington the climate is different. The dry season of summer is more protracted, the rainfall is less, and the heat is greater, though it is never excessive. The winters are colder, but of short duration, the snowfall is light and seldom lies long in the valleys, and live stock ranges on the plains all winter, thriving on the natural grasses without other food, except when the snow is unusually deep or the cold period unusually protracted. The great ocean current, 400 miles wide, formed off the coast of Asia, warms the waters of the Pacific and gives rise to the warm westerly wind known as the " Chinook," modifying the climate of the entire Pacific slope, so that the isothermal line which crosses northern Virginia is deflected northward on reaching the western slope of the continent and meets the Pacific Ocean 200 miles north of the northern boundary of Washington. Though all the cereals grow to perfection in this region, the staple product is wheat. The wheat of the Willamette valley has long been celebrated, the berry being large and plump and the weight considerably exceeding 60 pounds to the bushel. Until the last few years that valley was the principal wheatgrowing section of the new North-west, but of late years wheat has become the leading production of eastern Oregon and Washington. The volcanic soil of this region, much of which was supposed a few years ago to be worthless, is peculiarly adapted to the growth of the cereals. The average yield per acre in Washington is officially stated to be 23.5 bushels, exceeding