FOOTNOTES

Comparing other states, one with the other—such as Alabama with Maine, Georgia with New Hampshire, Tennessee with Rhode Island, Mississippi with Massachusetts, etc.—we see similar, and in some cases even greater inequality.

Let us now apply these facts practically, and thus reach a clearer understanding of the effect of this great disparity.

The actual mean average cost of the schooling of each public school scholar in the United States is about ten dollars. Assuming then that the adult population of each state bears the burden of educating its children, and that all the children of school age in each state are enrolled in the schools—as they should be—let us ascertain how much the tax per capita would be on the adults bearing this burden in each state and territory. In other words, let us discover how much in each state and territory must every adult (male or female) pay every year in order to supply the ten dollars per annum that it costs to educate each and every child in that state or territory.

It would cost each adult in Montana, $1.95; in Wyoming, $2.12; Nevada, $2.12; Colorado, $2.20; Arizona, $2.34; New Hampshire, $2.78; Idaho, $3.00; Massachusetts, $3.23; Dakota, $3.30; Rhode Island, $3.22; California, $3.33; Connecticut, $3.27; Maine, $3.43; Vermont, $3.46; New York, $3.56; District of Columbia, $3.77; Washington, $3.94; New Jersey, $4.02; Michigan, $4.15; Oregon, $4.29; Delaware, $4.31; Pennsylvania, $4.26; Ohio, $4.55; Maryland, $4.55; Nebraska, $4.77; Minnesota, $4.70; New Mexico, $4.65; Wisconsin, $4.86; Illinois, $4.88; Indiana, $5.00; Iowa, $5.10; Missouri, $5.28; Kansas, $5.32; Louisiana, $5.54; North Carolina, $5.67; Virginia, $5.59; Texas, $5.86; Kentucky, $5.65; Florida, $5.78; Utah, $6.07; Alabama, $6.12; Arkansas, $6.12; Georgia, $5.98; South Carolina, $5.98; Tennessee, $6.00; West Virginia, $5.86, and Mississippi, $6.28—while, massing the entire Union, the cost to each adult in it would be $4.70.

Thus we find that while the school tax on each adult in New York would be but $3.56, in the adjoining state of Pennsylvania it would be $4.26; that while in Massachusetts it would be but $3.23, in Illinois it would be $4.88—a difference of $1.65 per capita to the adult; that while in New Hampshire it would be but $2.78, in Mississippi it would be more than double that amount. But the reader can himself, by a glance at the list presented, perceive even more glaring inequalities than these in the relative burdens which would be imposed upon the adultpopulation of the various states and territories, were that burden to be placed entirely on their shoulders.

If it be the true policy of a nation to equalize, as far as possible, the necessary burdens imposed upon its people, then we certainly have before us in these statistics, a condition of facts demanding serious consideration and efficacious action by the general government.

If inequality in the burdens imposed in order to educate our children be any argument in favor of national aid to education—and who will venture to deny it?—then we have in these statistics positive evidence of very great and possibly hitherto unsuspected inequalities; inequalities of which none could be aware without a close and critical analysis of the figures, the developments of which as previously hinted, may well cause us to modify somewhat the reproaches we may have felt inclined to cast upon some of our states for what seemed to be a lack of proper effort on their part in the direction of education.

While, however, reproachful criticism of them still appears to some extent justifiable, yet the deductions from rearrangement and classification of the census and educational bureau tables show that the fault does not altogether lie at the doors of those among whom the greatest amount of illiteracy is found.

In order to make this clear let us examine the ratio of children enrolled in schools, not to the state, but to the adult population. That ratio is, in Alabama, 34.6 per cent.; Arkansas, 31.4; California, 35.2; Colorado, 17.7; Connecticut, 36.1; Delaware, 34.6; District of Columbia, 32.1; Florida, 35.8; Georgia, 42; Illinois, 50; Indiana, 54.3; Iowa, 56; Kansas, 53.8; Kentucky, 36.3; Louisiana, 19.8; Maine, 40; Maryland, 31.4; Massachusetts, 33.5; Michigan, 44; Minnesota, 47.8; Mississippi, 48.6; Missouri, 47.7; Nebraska, 45.5; New Hampshire, 31.3; New Jersey, 40.7; New York, 40.3; North Carolina, 40.7; Ohio, 47.8; Pennsylvania, 42.2; Rhode Island, 30.2; South Carolina, 32.3; Tennessee, 49.1; Texas, 25.2; Utah, 44.4; Vermont, 38; Virginia, 35.4; West Virginia, 51.8; Wisconsin, 50.4, and in the entire Union, 42 per cent.

Now, the mean average number of children in the United States enrolled in the schools being forty-two to every one hundred adults, what is our surprise to find, in the figures just given, that every New England state, as well as New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, falls below this average, while on the other hand, every northwestern state (including Ohio, Missouri and Kansas), as well as Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia, stands above it!

That in proportion to the adult population of those states, there are more children at school in Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia, than in any of the New England states, is, indeed, an astounding revelation.

Supposing, then, the cost of educating a child in those states to be the same, it follows that each one hundred adults in Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia are paying more to educate their children than is paid by the same number of adults in any New England state!

At first sight these statistical results fairly stagger one, and give rise to doubts of their accuracy. But a careful examination of them will satisfy any reasonable mind that these developments are veritable facts, if the census returns and the school enrollment reported by the Commissioners of Education are to be accepted—being based upon and directly calculated from them. Even supposing the existence of some deficiencies in the returns or some minor errors in the calculations, the general facts they reveal must be accepted as true.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FOOTNOTES[D]By Senator Butler, of South Carolina.[E]“Notes on Virginia, Fourth American Edition, N. Y. 1801,” p. 241.[F]See Report of Commissioner of Education for 1881, page 49.[G]The surplus of percentage being due doubtless to the attendance at school of some children beyond the school age prescribed by law.

[D]By Senator Butler, of South Carolina.

[E]“Notes on Virginia, Fourth American Edition, N. Y. 1801,” p. 241.

[F]See Report of Commissioner of Education for 1881, page 49.

[G]The surplus of percentage being due doubtless to the attendance at school of some children beyond the school age prescribed by law.

BY FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.

The parson goes about his daily waysWith all the parish troubles in his head,And takes his Bible out, and reads and prays,Beside the sufferer’s chair, the dying bed.Whate’er the secret skeleton may be—Doubt, drink, or debt—that keeps within his lair,When parson comes, the owner turns the key,And lets him out to “squeak and gibber” there.It seems a possibility unguessed—Or little borne in mind, if haply known—The he who cheers in trouble all the restMay now and then have troubles of his own.Alas! God knows, he has his foe to fight,His closet-atomy, severe and grim;All others claim his comfort as of right,But, hapless parson! who shall comforthim?A friend he has to whom he may repair(Beside that One who carries all our grief),And when his load is more than he can bearHe seeks his comforter, and finds relief.He finds a cottage, very poor and small,The meanest tenement where all are mean;Yet decency and order mark it all:—The panes are bright, the step severely clean.He lifts the latch—his comforter is there,Propt in the bed, where now for weeks she stays,Or, haply, seated knitting in her chair,If this be one of those rare “better days.”A tiny woman, stunted, bent, and thin;Her features sharp with pain that always wakes;The nimble hand she holds the needles inIs warped and wrenched by dire rheumatic aches.Sometimes, but seldom, neighbors hear her moan,Wrung by some sudden stress of fiercer pain;Often they hear her pray, but none has known,No single soul has heard her lips complain.The parson enters, and a gracious smileOver the poor pinched features brightly grows;She lets the needles rest a little while;“You’re kindly welcome sir!”—ah! that he knows.He takes the Book, and opens at the place—No need to ask her which her favorite psalm;And, as he reads, upon her tortured faceThere comes a holy rapture, deep and calm.She murmurs softly with him as he reads(She can repeat the Psalter through at will);“He feeds me in green pastures, and He leads,He leads me forth beside the waters still.”The reading’s done, and now the prayer is said;He bids farewell, and leaves her to her pain;But grace and blessing on his soul are shed—He goes forth comforted and strong again.He takes his way, on divers errands bound,Abler to plead, and warn, and comfort woes;That is the darkest house on all his round,And yet, be sure, the happiest house he knows.

The parson goes about his daily waysWith all the parish troubles in his head,And takes his Bible out, and reads and prays,Beside the sufferer’s chair, the dying bed.

The parson goes about his daily ways

With all the parish troubles in his head,

And takes his Bible out, and reads and prays,

Beside the sufferer’s chair, the dying bed.

Whate’er the secret skeleton may be—Doubt, drink, or debt—that keeps within his lair,When parson comes, the owner turns the key,And lets him out to “squeak and gibber” there.

Whate’er the secret skeleton may be—

Doubt, drink, or debt—that keeps within his lair,

When parson comes, the owner turns the key,

And lets him out to “squeak and gibber” there.

It seems a possibility unguessed—Or little borne in mind, if haply known—The he who cheers in trouble all the restMay now and then have troubles of his own.

It seems a possibility unguessed—

Or little borne in mind, if haply known—

The he who cheers in trouble all the rest

May now and then have troubles of his own.

Alas! God knows, he has his foe to fight,His closet-atomy, severe and grim;All others claim his comfort as of right,But, hapless parson! who shall comforthim?

Alas! God knows, he has his foe to fight,

His closet-atomy, severe and grim;

All others claim his comfort as of right,

But, hapless parson! who shall comforthim?

A friend he has to whom he may repair(Beside that One who carries all our grief),And when his load is more than he can bearHe seeks his comforter, and finds relief.

A friend he has to whom he may repair

(Beside that One who carries all our grief),

And when his load is more than he can bear

He seeks his comforter, and finds relief.

He finds a cottage, very poor and small,The meanest tenement where all are mean;Yet decency and order mark it all:—The panes are bright, the step severely clean.

He finds a cottage, very poor and small,

The meanest tenement where all are mean;

Yet decency and order mark it all:—

The panes are bright, the step severely clean.

He lifts the latch—his comforter is there,Propt in the bed, where now for weeks she stays,Or, haply, seated knitting in her chair,If this be one of those rare “better days.”

He lifts the latch—his comforter is there,

Propt in the bed, where now for weeks she stays,

Or, haply, seated knitting in her chair,

If this be one of those rare “better days.”

A tiny woman, stunted, bent, and thin;Her features sharp with pain that always wakes;The nimble hand she holds the needles inIs warped and wrenched by dire rheumatic aches.

A tiny woman, stunted, bent, and thin;

Her features sharp with pain that always wakes;

The nimble hand she holds the needles in

Is warped and wrenched by dire rheumatic aches.

Sometimes, but seldom, neighbors hear her moan,Wrung by some sudden stress of fiercer pain;Often they hear her pray, but none has known,No single soul has heard her lips complain.

Sometimes, but seldom, neighbors hear her moan,

Wrung by some sudden stress of fiercer pain;

Often they hear her pray, but none has known,

No single soul has heard her lips complain.

The parson enters, and a gracious smileOver the poor pinched features brightly grows;She lets the needles rest a little while;“You’re kindly welcome sir!”—ah! that he knows.

The parson enters, and a gracious smile

Over the poor pinched features brightly grows;

She lets the needles rest a little while;

“You’re kindly welcome sir!”—ah! that he knows.

He takes the Book, and opens at the place—No need to ask her which her favorite psalm;And, as he reads, upon her tortured faceThere comes a holy rapture, deep and calm.

He takes the Book, and opens at the place—

No need to ask her which her favorite psalm;

And, as he reads, upon her tortured face

There comes a holy rapture, deep and calm.

She murmurs softly with him as he reads(She can repeat the Psalter through at will);“He feeds me in green pastures, and He leads,He leads me forth beside the waters still.”

She murmurs softly with him as he reads

(She can repeat the Psalter through at will);

“He feeds me in green pastures, and He leads,

He leads me forth beside the waters still.”

The reading’s done, and now the prayer is said;He bids farewell, and leaves her to her pain;But grace and blessing on his soul are shed—He goes forth comforted and strong again.

The reading’s done, and now the prayer is said;

He bids farewell, and leaves her to her pain;

But grace and blessing on his soul are shed—

He goes forth comforted and strong again.

He takes his way, on divers errands bound,Abler to plead, and warn, and comfort woes;That is the darkest house on all his round,And yet, be sure, the happiest house he knows.

He takes his way, on divers errands bound,

Abler to plead, and warn, and comfort woes;

That is the darkest house on all his round,

And yet, be sure, the happiest house he knows.

BY G. BROWN GOODE.

“Let the trust ofJames Smithsonto the United States of America be faithfully executed by their representatives in Congress, let the result accomplish his object, ‘the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,’ and a wreath of more unfading verdure shall entwine itself in the lapse of future ages around the name of Smithson, than the united hands of tradition, history, and poetry have braided around the name of Percy through the long perspective in ages past of a thousand years.”—John Quincy Adams.

The name of the Smithsonian Institution is a household word throughout North America, and its fame is current wherever printed literature exists. Abroad it is regarded as the chief exponent of the scientific activities of the people of the United States, and the administrative scientific department of our government. At home, its actual relations to the administration are better understood, and it is looked upon in its proper capacity—that of an organization closely affiliated to the government and tenderly cherished by its officers, yet, in virtue of its independent foundation, independent of political favor, and ready to encourage, advise and coöperate with any public or private enterprise without the necessity of annual appeals to the congressional committees on appropriations.

Visitors to the national capital usually carry away pleasant memories of the quiet old building among the trees in the mall, with its mediæval battlements and turrets of brown stone conspicuous from every point of view, and the multitude who enter its halls are at least impressed with the fact that the national treasure houses are becoming filled with valuable collections rather faster than the available money and space will allow to be properly arranged and displayed. Only a very few, however, of the four hundred thousand persons who visited the buildings last year can have had the opportunity to inspect the administrative offices or the scientific laboratories, and very few indeed of those who are acquainted with the general nature of the operations of the establishment, have the slightest conception of their meaning and importance.

No class of American people, except indeed our scientific investigators, better understand and appreciate the work of the Institution than do our members of Congress, as is clearly shown by the uniform liberality with which, throughout many successive terms, regardless of changes in the political complexion of the administration, they have supported its policy, by the care with which they disseminate its reports, by the judgment with which they select their representatives in its board of regents, and above all, by the scrupulous care with which they have protected its independence from political complications. Through the disinterested labors of Washington correspondents, novelists, and playwrights, the average congressman of current, popular belief, is not a person remarkable either for manners, honesty or intellect. Residents of Washington, however, do not find the representative men at the Capital counterparts of the eminent politicians depicted by the author of “Democracy,” but in their stead, practical men of business, hard-working in their committees and hard-worked by their constituents. It is its support by these men, and through them by the people of the United States, that has enabled the Smithsonian Institution to do its work in the past. It is to such support that it will owe its efficiency in the future, and it seems right that every opportunity should be taken to explain its operations to the public. Representatives of the best classes of thinking Americans will no doubt thoroughly appreciate the benefits which education has received and will continue to receive from the proper administration of the Smithsonian bequest.

The story of the foundation of the Institution sounds more like a romance than like fact. Its history seems like the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy—even more strikingly so because it is evident that the future is to fulfill the promise of the past. The father of the founder of the Smithsonian Institution was one of the most distinguished members of the English peerage. Upon the plate of his coffin in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried “in great pomp” in 1786, he is described as “the most high, puissant and most noble prince Hugh Percy, Duke and Earl of Northumberland, Earl Percy, Baron Warkworth and Lovaine, Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the Counties of Middlesex and Northumberland, Vice Admiral of the County of Northumberland and of all America, one of the Lords of His Majesty’s most Honorable Privy Council and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, etc., etc.” While his aged father was sustaining this overwhelming accumulation of dignities, and while his elder brother, Earl Percy, was acting as Lieutenant-General in the war against the rebellious British colonies in North America (he commanded the reinforcements at the battle of Lexington in 1775, and led the column that reduced Fort Washington, near New York in 1776), James Smithson, a youth of modest fortune, inherited from his mother, was laying the foundations of a scientific education in the English schools and colleges, receiving the degree of Master of Arts at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1786, the year of his father’s death. He was then known as James Louis Macie, Esq., and did not assume the name of Smithson until fourteen years later, after he had attained to some reputation as a man of science. His mother was not the Duchess of Northumberland, but a cousin of her father’s, Elizabeth Hungerford, who was subsequently known as Mrs. Macie. She appears to have been the daughter and heiress of Sir George Hungerford of Audley and the Hon. Frances Seymour, sister of the Duke of Somerset and aunt of Algernon Seymour, Lord Percy, by marriage with whose daughter Sir Hugh Smithson was enabled to assume the name of Percy and the title of Duke of Northumberland. The Smithsons were an old Yorkshire family, Sir Hugh Smithson, the great-grandfather of James Smithson, having been created baronet in 1660 by Charles II. after his restoration. The names of Percy and Northumberland were, as has been stated, assumed by James Smithson’s father. These barren, genealogical details are referred to because they seem to be necessary to the understanding of James Smithson’s career.

Proud of his descent he undoubtedly was. In his will he describes his identity himself in these words: “I, James Smithson, son of Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece to Charles the Proud, Duke of Somerset.” He was, however, a man of broad, philosophic mind, in whom a thorough training in the best scientific methods of his day, and associations with leading investigators in Germany and France, and his brother Fellows of the Royal Society of London, had developed a generous appreciation of the value of scholarship and scientific culture.

In one of his manuscripts was found the following sentiment, which I have already referred to as prophetic in its ring:

“The best blood of England flows in my veins; on my father’s side I am a Northumberland, on my mother’s I am related to kings, but this avails me not.My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten.”

These words came to my mind last summer in London when I saw the present Duke of Northumberland, grandson of Smithson’s half-brother, a feeble old man, still one of England’s greatest dignitaries, following in the train of the Prince of Wales, and rising to falter out a feeble speech proposing a vote of thanks to His Royal Highness for presiding at one of the conferences of the International Fisheries’ Exhibition, upon the occasion of an address by Prof. Huxley, president of the Royal Society. The name of the Smithsonian Institution has a world-wide fame; but who outside of English court circles ever heard of Algernon George Percy, Duke of Northumberland?

Smithson seems early in life to have become imbued with the scientific spirit of his time. In 1784, while still an undergraduate at Oxford, he made a scientific exploration of the coasts of Scotland in company with a party of geologists. In 1787 he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and during the remaining forty-two years of his life, a considerable portion of which was passed upon the continent, in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Florence and Geneva, he was the associate of the leading men of science, and devoted himself to research. He made an extensive collection of minerals, which was destroyed by the burning of a portion of the Smithsonian building in 1865, and always carried with him a portable chemical laboratory. His contributions to science are included in twenty-seven memoirs, chiefly upon topics in mineralogy and organic chemistry, but a number of them relating to applied science and the industrial arts.

His work was by no means of an epoch-making character, but seems to have been remarkable for its minute accuracy. Smithson was a much greater man than his published writings would indicate. In his eulogy the president of the Royal Society remarked: “He carried with him the esteem of various private friends, and of a still larger number of persons who admired and appreciated his acquirements.” He was evidently a man of broad, general culture, who understood thoroughly the needs of the world in the direction of scientific endowment, and whose action in bequeathing his estate to the people of America was deliberate and well considered.

In his admirable little monograph entitled “Smithson and His Bequest,” Mr. W. J. Rhees has shown the tendency of the time of Smithson to have been in the direction of establishing permanent scientific institutions. Between 1782 and 1826, over twenty of the most important academies and societies now in existence were organized. This period he remarks “was not less marked by the gloom occasioned by long protracted and almost universal war, and the extent and rapidity of its social changes, than by the luster of its brilliant discoveries in science, and its useful inventions in the arts. Pure, abstract science had many illustrious votaries, and the practical applications of its truths gave to the world many of the great inventions by means of which civilization has made such immense and rapid progress.” He quotes in support of these statements the words of Lord Brougham, the representative statesman of the day. “To instruct the people in the rudiments of philosophy,” Brougham remarked, “would of itself be an object sufficiently brilliant to allure the noblest ambition.”

He recommended this idea to the wealthy men of England, pointing out how, by the promotion of such ends, a man, however averse to the turmoil of public affairs, may enjoy the noblest gratification of which the most aspiring nature is susceptible, and may influence by his single exertions the character and fortunes of a whole generation.

Very closely do these ideas agree with those expressed by Smithson in various passages in his note books, especially with that which is used for a motto upon the publications of the Institution: “Every man is a valuable member of society who, by his observations, researches, and experiments, procures knowledge for men.” Or this: “It is in his knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals who inherit the earth with him, and consequently, no ignorance is probably without loss to him, no error without evil.”

It was with a mind full of such thoughts as these, with perhaps the support and inspiration of Lord Brougham’s words quoted above from his “Treatise on Popular Education,” printed in 1825, with such models in mind as the Royal Society, whose object is “the improvement of natural knowledge,” the Royal Institution “for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and for teaching the application of science to the common purposes of life,” and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge established in London in 1825, that in 1826 Smithson drew up his will containing the following weighty provision: “I bequeath the whole of my property to the United States of America to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

No one has been able to show why he selected the United States as the seat of his foundation. He had no acquaintances in America, nor does he appear to have had any books relating to America save two. Rhees quotes from one of these, “Travels Through North America,” by Isaac Weld, secretary of the Royal Society, a paragraph concerning Washington, then a small town of 5,000 inhabitants, in which it is predicted that “the Federal city, as soon as navigation is perfected, will increase most rapidly, and that at a future day, if the affairs of the United States go on as rapidly as they have done, it will become the grand emporium of the West, and rival in magnitude and splendor the cities of the whole world.”

Inspired by a belief in the future greatness of the new nation, realizing that while the needs of England were well met by existing organizations such as would not be likely to spring up for many years in a new, poor, and growing country, he founded in the new England an institution of learning, the civilizing power of which has been of incalculable value. Who can attempt to say what the condition of the United States would have been to-day without this bequest? In the words of John Quincy Adams: “Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever signalized the spirit of the age or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named more deserving the approbation of mankind.”

When the fact of the bequest became known, some six years after Smithson’s death, much opposition was shown in Congress toward its acceptance. Eminent statesmen like Calhoun and Preston argued that it was beneath the dignity of the United States to receive presents, and that it was too cheap a way of conferring immortality on the donor. The wise counsels and enthusiastic labors of John Quincy Adams, who seems to have had from the first a thorough appreciation of the importance of the matter, finally prevailed, and the Hon. Richard Rush was sent to England to prosecute the claim. He entered suit in the Courts of Chancery, in the name of the President of the United States, and in less than two years—an event unparalleled in the Court of Chancery—had obtained a favorable decision. The legacy was brought over in the form of 104,960 gold sovereigns which were delivered September 1st, 1838, to the Philadelphia mint, where they were immediately recoined into American money, producing $508,318.46, as the first installment of the Smithsonian legacy. This was increased in 1861 to $534,529.09.

For eight years the legacy lay in the Treasury, while the wise men of the nation tried to decide what to do with it. In this instance the adage that in the multitude of counselors there is wisdom did not appear to be applicable in the ordinary interpretation. The delay, though irksome to those who desired to see immediate results, was, however, the best thing in theend for the interests of the trust. Every imaginable disposition of the legacy was proposed and discussed in Congress; the debates fill nearly three hundred and fifty pages of Rhees’s compilation of Smithsonian documents. Letters by the hundred, advisory, expostulatory and dissuasive were received from representative thinkers and from societies at home and abroad. Every man had a scheme peculiar to himself, and opposed all other schemes with a vigor proportionate to their dissimilarity to his own. Schools of every grade, from a national university to an agricultural school, a normal school and a school for the blind were proposed. A library, a botanical garden, an observatory, a chemical laboratory, a popular publishing house, a lecture lyceum, an art museum, any and all of these and many more were proposed and advocated by this voluntary congress of many men of many minds. It is not necessary in this place to discuss the history of the period at length, nor to relate the manner in which the prevalence of wiser councils was brought about. It is sufficient to say that though the new institution was burdened from the start with various undertakings which have since proved unprofitable or better suited to the capacity of other institutions, such have been the flexibility of its organization and the vitality of its membership that it has been able to work out a career for itself unparalleled in the history of benevolent foundations.

It need not be said that the accomplishment of these effects was the result of long continued effort on the part of men of unusual ability, energy and personal influence. No board of trustees or regents, no succession of officers serving out their terms in rotation could have developed from a chaos of conflicting opinions, a strongly individualized establishment like the Smithsonian Institution. The names of Joseph Henry and Spencer F. Baird are so thoroughly identified with that of the Institution that their biographies combined would form an almost complete history of its operations. A thirty-two years’ term of uninterrupted administrative service has been rendered by one, thirty-four years by the other. It is very doubtful whether any other institution has ever had the benefit of such an uninterrupted administration of thirty-eight years, beginning with its birth and continuing in an unbroken line of consistent policy a career of increasing usefulness and enterprise.

Joseph Henry, the first secretary, entered upon his duties at the end of the year 1846, a man already famous as an investigator in physical science, a professor of fourteen years’ standing in Princeton College, and recognized as eminent in scientific and general acquirements. From the age of forty-seven to that of seventy-nine, his life was merged in that of the Institution. Professor Asa Gray has pointed out so clearly the deep impression which he made upon the Institution while it was yet plastic, that I venture to quote his words in order to explain the character of this new force in the evolution of good results from the Smithson benefaction. “Some time before his appointment,” writes Professor Gray, “he had been requested by members of the Board of Regents to examine the will of Smithson and to suggest a plan of organization by which the object of the bequest might, in his opinion, best be realized. He did so, and the plan he drew was in their hands when he was chosen secretary. The plan was based on the conviction ‘that the intention of the donor was to advance science by original research and publication; that the establishment was for the benefit of mankind generally, and that all unnecessary expenditures on local objects would be violations of the trust.’ His ‘Programme of Organization’ was submitted to the Board of Regents in the following year, was adopted as its governing policy, and has been reprinted in full or in part in almost every annual report. If the Institution is now known and praised throughout the world of science and letters, if it is fulfilling the will of its founder and the reasonable expectations of the nation which accepted and established the trust, the credit is mainly due to the practical wisdom, the catholic spirit, and the indomitable perseverance of its first secretary, to whom the establishing act gave much power of shaping ends, which as rough-hewn by Congress were susceptible of various diversion. Henry took his stand on the broad and ample terms of the bequest, ‘for the increase and diffusion of useful knowledge among men,’ and he never narrowed his mind and tolocalitygave what was meant for mankind. He proposed only one restriction, of wisdom and necessity, that in view of the limited means of the Institution, it ought not to undertake anything which could be done, and well done, by other existing instrumentalities. So as occasion arose he lightened its load and saved its energies by giving over to other agencies some of its cherished work.” The character of the work done in manifold directions will be discussed topically below; its spirit is sufficiently indicated in Dr. Gray’s terse summary just quoted. Professor Henry died in 1878. “Remembering his great career as a man of science,” remarked President Garfield, “as a man who served his Government with singular ability and faithfulness, who was loved and venerated by every circle who was blessed with the light of his friendship, the worthiest and the best, whose life added new luster to the glory of the human race, we shall be most fortunate if ever in the future we see his like again.”[H]His statue, erected by Congress, stands in the Smithsonian Park.

Concerning the influence of Professor Baird, upon whom the mantle of his predecessor has descended, it would perhaps be premature and out of taste to speak. His eminence as a naturalist and his patriotic service as Commissioner of Fisheries are too well known to need mention, and indeed may be quite as appropriately discussed elsewhere. As assistant secretary from the age of twenty-four he was intimately associated with Professor Henry for twenty-seven years, and his executive ability found full scope in the development of the systems of publication and international exchange, as well as the museum, and the explorations, biological and ethnological, which were from the beginning under his charge. As secretary his policy has been a direct continuation of that of Professor Henry. The services of Mr. William J. Rhees, for thirty-two years chief clerk, merit also especial notice.

The formal direction of the Institution is vested in a board of regents, consisting of the Vice President and Chief Justice of the United States, three members each from the Senate and the House of Representatives, and six persons citizens of the United States appointed by Congress. The President and his cabinet areex officiomembers of the Institution, and there is a provision, not at present carried into effect, providing for the election of honorary members of the Institution. The secretary is the only executive officer of the board, and is responsible to the board for his conduct of affairs. The regents meet once a year in January. Many eminent men have served in the capacity of regents, and the records of their proceedings indicate that their interest in the work under their charge has been uniformly very active.

The building occupied by the Institution and bearing its name is an ornate structure of Seneca brown stone, occupying a prominent position in the “Mall” which extends from the Capitol to the Washington monument. This building was begun in 1847 and completed in 1855. It is hybrid in character, combining features selected from both Gothic and Romanesque style, and is more admired by the public than by connoisseurs in architecture. It is doubtful if a building more unsuited to the purposes for which it was designed was ever constructed. The diversion of the funds of the Smithsonianbequest to this building was one of Professor Henry’s greatest griefs, and before the close of his life by careful economy of the annual income, he had succeeded in restoring the entire sum, amounting to about $450,000 to the permanent endowment fund, beside increasing this fund nearly $150,000 over and above the original bequest. The eastern wing of the building, for so many years the hospitable home of the secretary, has been reconstructed internally, and the offices of the Institution are all established within its walls. The remainder of the building is occupied by laboratories and exhibition halls connected with the National Museum. Another building has recently been built east of the Smithsonian for the reception of a portion of the national collections. This was put up by congressional appropriation, and Congress has at last recognized the justice of the claim, so many years urged upon them by the secretary, that the Smithson money should not be used to provide shelter for the government cabinets, and has assumed the care of the Smithsonian building and votes money for its repairs and maintenance.

Few people who visit Washington make the proper discrimination between the Smithsonian Institution proper, and the establishments under its custody. What they see is the National Museum. The relations of the Museum to the Institution will be discussed more fully in a separate article, but it is necessary to state just here that it is not the property of the Institution, but rather its ward—its management being intrusted by law to the Institution which is provided with funds for its maintenance by annual congressional grants. In early days the Smithsonian supported collections of its own, but these were not primarily for public exhibition, but for the uses of scientific investigators. Professor Henry always maintained that not one cent of the Smithson fund could with propriety be applied to the support of the National Museum, and his view is now the accepted one.

In the Smithsonian proper, little is to be seen by visitors. In the regents’ room is an interesting collection of relics of the founder, including his portrait, his scientific library, and certain of his pictures and personal effects. Beside the regents’ room there are offices, store rooms and packing rooms occupied by busy clerks and mechanics. The Smithsonian is, first of all, an executive establishment, to which have been confided various trusts, to be mentioned hereafter. It is also a publishing house, and an “exchange” for the reception and transmission of scientific materials. The great masses of books in brown wrappers and cases of papers, apparatus and specimens constitute therefore the greater bulk of the material with which it has to deal.

The leading feature of the plan proposed by Professor Henry was from the first “to assist men of science in making original researches, to publish them in a series of volumes, and to give a copy of them to every first-class library on the face of the earth.” The manner in which the first item of policy has been carried out can not be described here. Those who wish to know how it has been done must consult the thirty-four thick volumes of the annual reports, presented to and printed by Congress. It is safe to say, however, in general terms that there is probably not a scientific investigator in America to whom the helping hand of the Institution has not at some time been of service, and that assistance of this sort has been by no means restricted to this side of the Atlantic. Books, apparatus and laboratory accommodations have been supplied in thousands of instances, and every year a certain number of money grants have been made. Not less important has been the personal encouragement afforded, especially to beginners and persons remote from other advice, in the hundreds of thousands of letters which have been written by the two secretaries during the seventy years of their added terms of office. No communication is ever passed by unnoticed and the archive rooms of the Institution packed from floor to ceiling with letter files and letter copy books are well worthy of inspection.

The publications of the establishment are as numerous as those of a great publishing house, and as a matter of fact, they are all given away; although there is a provision for their sale at cost price, I doubt if a thousand dollars’ worth has been sold in five years. There are three series, the aspect of which must be familiar to every observing person who has ever spent a day among the shelves in any American library of respectable standing. The Smithsonian “Contributions to Knowledge,” now including twenty-three stately volumes quarto with 116 memoirs, in all 12,456 pages, and numerous fine plates, the Smithsonian miscellaneous collection, in octavo, containing 122 papers with 20,299 pages, and thirty-five annual reports. The papers included in these volumes are all published separately, the number of separate volumes printed up to this time being above 500. These include papers varying in length from 4 to 1,000 pages, by the most eminent specialists in every branch of science. The most recent work, one now in progress, two volumes having been published, is a systematic work on the botany of North America by Dr. Asa Gray; another is an illustrated work on prehistoric fishing, by Dr. Charles Rau.

I have never seen an estimate of the value of the books distributed during the thirty-eight years, but I should judge that it can not fall below $1,000,000, estimating the prices at standing publishing rates.

In addition to the direct publications of the Institution let us look at the numerous magnificent volumes of scientific reports printed in more or less direct coöperation with the Institution by the various government surveys and exploring expeditions, at government expense. Who can doubt that the extent of this literature, which is a constant source of comment in foreign scientific journals, where it is desired to stimulate European governments to publish scientific researches in a similar way, is largely a product of the influence of the Institution?

One of the main features of the Institution in its early days was its library. Its publications were distributed throughout the world to every scientific and literary institution of good repute, and in exchange they sent their own publications. In this way an immense collection of scientific periodicals and journals was received, and the Smithsonian library became one of the most extensive in the world in this department. Books came in freely from other quarters and the support of the library became a great burden to the Smithson fund. The same policy which led to the abandonment of the Smithsonian cabinet, led to a transfer of the library, and in 1866 the books were transferred to the Capitol where they are cared for as a section of the national library under the name of “The Smithsonian Deposit.” The books come in as heretofore, in exchange and as donations, and are sent weekly to their place of custody at the other end of the mall. The increase in 1883 amounted to 11,739 books and pamphlets, and the total deposit amounts to about 100,000 volumes. Several thousand volumes are retained in the working libraries of the Institution.

At the time of the Smithson bequest the endowment of research had scarcely been attempted in America. There were schools and colleges in which science was taught and certain of the professors employed in these institutions were engaged in original investigation. There were a few young and struggling scientific societies, the American Academy of Sciences in Boston, and the Boston Society of Natural History, the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, the New York Lyceum of Natural History (now the New York Academy of Sciences), the American Philosophical Society, and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The American Association for the Advancement of Science was not organized until 1840. The publications of these societies were necessarily very limited in extent and influence, but then together with the monthly journal published at New Haven, by Professor Silliman, they embodied the chief outcome of American scientific work. Science in America was an infant in swaddling clothes. Fortyyears have passed and American science now stands by the side of the science of Britain, of Germany, of France, a fellow worker, competing on an equal footing in nearly every field of research. No one is likely to question the statement that the Smithsonian Institution has done what was absolutely indispensable to the rapid and symmetrical development of American scientific institutions, and it is equally certain that the progress of American science has had an immense influence upon the welfare of America in every department of intellectual and industrial activity. It has offered a helping hand to every institution and every individual in America capable of profiting by its generous aid, and has stimulated coöperation by them with similar workers abroad. In this way its influence has been enormous, but still greater has been the benefit of its stimulating powers upon the policy of the general government toward scientific ends.

FOOTNOTES[H]“One trait,” remarks Professor Gray, “may not be wholly omitted from the biography of one who has well been called ‘the model of a Christian gentleman,’ and who is also our best example of a physical philosopher. His life was the practical harmony of the two characters. His entire freedom from the doubts which disturb some minds is shown in that last letter which he dictated, in which he touches the grounds of faith, both in natural and revealed religion; also in his sententious declaration upon some earlier occasions, that the person who thought there could be any real conflict between science and religion must be either very young in science or very ignorant of religion.”

[H]“One trait,” remarks Professor Gray, “may not be wholly omitted from the biography of one who has well been called ‘the model of a Christian gentleman,’ and who is also our best example of a physical philosopher. His life was the practical harmony of the two characters. His entire freedom from the doubts which disturb some minds is shown in that last letter which he dictated, in which he touches the grounds of faith, both in natural and revealed religion; also in his sententious declaration upon some earlier occasions, that the person who thought there could be any real conflict between science and religion must be either very young in science or very ignorant of religion.”

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,Western University of Pennsylvania.

“Now when the cheerless empire of the skyTo Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;Hung o’er the farthest verge of heaven, theSunScarce spreads o’er ether the dejected day.Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shootHis struggling rays in horizontal lines,Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;And, soon descending, to the long dark night,Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.”

“Now when the cheerless empire of the sky

To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,

And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;

Hung o’er the farthest verge of heaven, theSun

Scarce spreads o’er ether the dejected day.

Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot

His struggling rays in horizontal lines,

Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,

Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;

And, soon descending, to the long dark night,

Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.”

But as the days go by, his rays no longer struggle “through the thick air” in “horizontal lines,” nor does he so closely “skirt the southern sky,” but higher mounting pierces with penetrating power the dark shadows, lessening “the long, dark night,” driving “the dusky shades away.” So rapidly do these changes occur that in four weeks our daylight increases one hour and seven minutes, or our length of days from ten hours and nine minutes on the 1st to eleven hours sixteen minutes on the 28th. On the 1st, 16th and 28th the sun rises at 7:09, 6:52 and 6:34 a. m., and on the same days sets at 5:18, 5:36 and 5:50 p. m. respectively.

Presents us with great regularity her changes: Last quarter on the 6th at 5:29 p. m.; new, on the 14th, at 9:13 p. m.; first quarter, on the 22d, at 5:23 a. m.; and full on the 28th, at 10:52 p. m. In apogee (farthest from earth) on the 9th, at 7:24 p. m.; in perigee (nearest the earth) on the 25th, at 6:24 p. m. Least elevation, 10th, amounting to 30° 9´; greatest elevation, 24th, equal to 66° 45´.

“The fleet-footed,” makes a direct motion of 43° 18´ 37´´, moving from about the middle of the constellationSagittariusand throughCapricornus, and is the companion of Venus throughout the month (see “Venus”). Rises on the 1st at 5:55 a. m., and sets at 3:13 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 6:12 a. m., sets at 3:50 p. m.; on the 28th, rises at 6:22 a. m., sets at 4:46 p. m. On the 11th, at 7:00 p. m., is 44´ south of Venus; on the 12th, at 4:00 a. m., farthest from the sun; on the 13th, at 5:42 a. m., 5° 56´ south of the moon.

And Mercury are both morning stars during the entire month, and are so intimately connected as to afford a fine opportunity for making the acquaintance of the latter. On the 1st Venus is about one and a half degrees east and 1´ 38´´ north of Mercury; but as Mercury moves more rapidly than Venus, he will overtake and pass her on the evening of the 11th at a point 44´ south; on the 22d, he will cross her orbit to the north, and at a distance of 3½° east; and on the 28th will be found nearly 6° east and 53´ north of her. Before the 11th Mercury will rise earlier than Venus; on the 11th they will practically rise at the same time; after the 11th Mercury will rise later than Venus. On the 1st Venus rises at 6:00 a. m.; on the 16th, at 6:05 a. m.; and on the 28th, at 6:03 a. m. She sets on the corresponding days at 3:18, 3:51 and 4:19 p. m. respectively. Her motion is direct and amounts to 35° 54´ 10´´; on the 13th, at 5:18 a m., she is 5° 9´ south of the moon. Her diameter decreases from 11.2´´ on the 1st to 10.6´´ on the 28th.

Will during this month be both evening and morning star, changing his relation on the 11th, on which date he will be in conjunction with the sun, and will not be visible to the naked eye. His motion will amount to 21° 25´ 32´´ direct, and his diameter remain at 4.2´´. On the 14th, at 10:44 p. m., he will be 4° 30´ south of the moon; on the 28th, at 2:00 p. m., in perihelion, or nearest the sun. On the 1st he will rise at 7:26 a. m. and set at 5:22 p. m.; on the 16th, rise at 6:58 a. m., set at 5:24 p. m.; on the 28th, rise at 6:35 a. m., set at 5:25 p. m.

Rises on the 1st at 6:48 p. m., and sets on the 2d at 8:06 a. m.; rises on the 15th at 5:48 p. m., sets at 7:12 a. m. on the 16th; rises at 5:47 p. m. on the 28th and sets the next day at 5:17 a. m. On the 1st, at 2:07 a. m., he is 4° 9´ north of the moon; on the 19th, at 2:00 a. m., in opposition to the sun, that is, on the opposite side of the sun from the earth; on the 28th, at 6:43 a. m., he is again in conjunction with the moon, being 4° 27´ north of our satellite. During the month his diameter increases two-tenths of a second, and he has a retrograde motion of 3° 24´ 8´´. The statement that Jupiter retrogrades some 3½° may puzzle some of our younger readers, who have doubtless been instructed in what is a fact, that not one of our planets has a retrograde motion; but that all move from west to east about the sun as a center. What we mean by retrograde is really onlyapparentretrograde; and it was something very puzzling to the early astronomers, particularly to those who thought that the earth and not the sun was the center of our system; that the sun and all the heavenly bodies revolved each day about our earth. When it was discovered that the earth revolved each day on its axis, and all the planets revolved about the sun, the retrograde motions werecomparativelyeasy to understand. Let us see if we can obtain a clear idea of Jupiter’s actions for this month. As we view him on the night of the 1st he appears about five degreeseastand 1° 2´ south of the bright starRegulus, which can be seen almost the entire night as the brightest of the six stars forming the sickle in the constellationLeo. Noting his position again on the night of the 28th, we find that he has moved westward about 3½°, and is only about 1½°eastand 17´ north of Regulus; thus, as we say, having retrograded about 3½°. To assist us in understanding this, let us take an orange to represent the sun, a grain (of mustard, for example) to represent the earth, a pea to represent Jupiter, and a point of some kind for Regulus. Now place these objects on a stand in the following order: In one line, at the beginning, the orange; two inches distant, the grain; eight inches farther, the pea. Next drawa line through the center of the orange so as to make an angle of five degrees with the line through the orange, grain and pea, and at as great a distance as convenient, stick a pin to represent Regulus. Now move the grain and pea (the former about two and one-fourth times as fast as the latter) about the orange as a center, in the direction of the movement of the hands of the clock (that is, from left to right). We can readily see that on account of the more rapid motion of the grain, together with its being nearer the orange, that the pea willfall behind; and if we sight along the line of the grain and pea, the latter will be seen nearer the line joining the orange and the pin; and should we continue the moving of the grain and pea, making similar observations, we should find the pea approaching nearer and nearer, and perhaps even passing the line through the orange and pin. These relative motions we can see will continue until the grain makes nearly one-fourth of a circumference, after which the pea appears to make a movement in exactly the opposite direction. Now the foregoing represents tolerably well the relative positions and movements for this month of the bodies named. The earth, Jupiter and Regulus are on the same side of the sun; the earth nearest, Jupiter next (about five times as far as the earth), and Regulus next (at a distance of say 20,000,000,000,000 miles), and five degrees west of the line joining the earth and Jupiter. (These bodies we know move at the average rate of 18.38 and 8.06 miles per second respectively.) Our standpoint is the earth, and as we move eastwardly so much more rapidly than Jupiter, we find him dropping back each day, and apparently approaching nearer to Regulus, till at the end of the month we find him as before stated, only about 1½°eastof that star. Should we watch him through March and April, we should find him retrograding during the former month and twenty-two days of the latter, on the 23d of April being 1½°westof Regulus; and on the same date, as the earth would be going directly away from him, he would appear stationary; and immediately afterward would seem to start again toward the east. Jupiter, as we know, is one of the superior planets, and an explanation of his retrograde motion explains that of all the others of his kind. A little ingenuity, putting the earth for Jupiter and Mercury or Venus for the earth, will show what is meant by the retrograde motion of the inferior planets.

Rises at 12:58 p. m. on the 1st and sets at 3:34 a. m. on the 2d; rises at 11:58 a. m. on the 16th and sets at 2:35 a. m. on the 17th; rises at 11:12 a. m. on the 28th and sets at 1:48 a. m. on March 1st. On the 16th, at 4:00 a. m., stationary; on 23d, at 3:21 a. m., 3° 44´ north of the moon. Diameter diminishes one second. Will be an evening star during the entire month, and thus afford most convenient opportunities for observations.

Has a retrograde motion of 49´ 53´´; diameter, 3.8´´. On the 3d, at 3:25 a. m., is 1° 7´ north of the moon; on the 31st of January it rises at 9:25 p. m. and sets on the 1st at 9:23 a. m.; on the 15th, rises at 8:24 p. m. and sets on the 16th at 8:22 a. m.; rises on the 27th at 7:35 p. m. and sets on the 28th at 7:35 a. m. It is now a little south of the equator, in the constellationVirgo, and will remain in that constellation some six years.

Is only mentioned, lest the omission of his name might be regarded as a “slight.” He is a slow-goer, and, except that his presence confirms a law, we hardly know what he was created for. However, his habits are quite regular; and we note that he takes therôleof evening star, setting on the 2d at 1:22 a. m.; on the 17th, at 12:23 a. m., and on the 28th, at 11:37 p. m. Has a direct motion of 14´ 35´´; a diameter of 2.6´´; and on the 8th, at 9:00 p. m., is 90° east of the sun.

BY GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND.

New Orleans is our most pleasing American city to persons from a northern climate. Florida presents no place important enough to illustrate a large general society. Texas has rising towns, but the Anglo-Saxon domination there brings them more and more into resemblance to our own settled English, or rather, British communities. In San Francisco we are charmed not only with a complete change of foliage, scenery, and climate, but with unexpected varieties in the population, there being a little tinge of the south of Europe as well as of Mexico and of the Celestial Kingdom in the speculative yet placid elements there. Yet New Orleans is not so hard as even San Francisco. It is a land not merely of fruit, but of the sugar-cane. It lies on that warm gulf whose farther shores were more historical three hundred years ago than now. As time advances and we complete our own connections and general developments we see more and more that the American destiny must be southward. Canada, which has had a much longer history than the United States, presents even now but a thin rim of settlement, and her entire population from the banks of Newfoundland to Vancouver’s Island is not equal to that of the single state of New York. On the other hand, Mexico, through which the Americans have built costly railroad systems piercing to the very capital city, has a population certainly twice that of Canada, and probably three times the number, considering the extension of Mexico toward Central America. American diplomacy has little other ground to cover for the near future, than the republics to the south of us. The surfeit of enterprises and of productions in the United States compels us to consider a time when we must not only find markets in the Spanish American states, but shall become, if not pioneers, as we once were, certainly competitors in the Pacific Ocean, of the English, Germans, and other modern nations. We have opened a way to the Pacific by railroad, but the canal long contemplated across Central America will operate more impartially toward shippers, will cheapen the movement of goods, and incline the United States rapidly toward an understanding of the new peoples to our southwest, in methods no doubt providentially designed. New Orleans has been so clearly understood by our railroad magnates that they have hastened, almost without public assistance, to connect her not only with great points like Hampton Roads, Richmond, Cincinnati and Chicago, but the railroads are finished from San Francisco to New Orleans, and the only continental railroad system from ocean to ocean under a single management, does not pass by Chicago, but by New Orleans. The Americans originally stimulated by the governmental credit to build from the Missouri River to San Francisco, have upon their own credit and earnings stretched a railroad through California nearly to the gulf of that name, and then across the deserts and Texas, until New Orleans is at this moment the Atlantic seaport of California. Mr. Gould, who succeeded Colonel Thomas A. Scott, has stretched another railroad system parallel to Mr. Huntington’s from the desert through Northern Texas and down the Red River to New Orleans.

Near the close of the past year another important railroad was built from Memphis directly to New Orleans. A little earlier last year the Cincinnati Southern Railroad was extended directly to New Orleans by the great syndicate which hadleased it. Therefore, there now run into New Orleans four lines of rail east of the Mississippi River, and two great lines west of the Mississippi. Contrast this with the railroad facilities which existed there only fourteen years ago. At that time New Orleans had only one railroad to the north, and that had certain connections, and was under no consolidated sway. It was not even connected with its adjacent city of Mobile by rail. It had no railroad facilities whatever to reach Texas, except a little piece of road which ran to the Gulf near the mouth of the Atchafalaya, and there found steamships for Galveston.

While other cities in the South have shown a cheerful energy to revive themselves, and while new cities have started up at many points, and have become respectable centers of trade, New Orleans has retained all that imperial promise under freedom which she had in the palmiest days of slavery. Perhaps no city in the South, or in the world, has so thoroughly changed its ideas, political and social, in spite of sharp contests for party supremacy there.

The great exhibition of the present year is the best instance that New Orleans means to lead the industrial spirit of the South, and to become no longer the great filibuster in the tropics, but the energetic merchant and projector there. No lawless impulse guided the erection of the great buildings which are now crowded with the productions of America and Mexico.

The attempt to let the sugar interests of Louisiana and Mississippi go in favor of the productions of Cuba and the East Indies, distinctly points the people at the mouth of the Mississippi to the fact that their alliance is probably to be with the Northern states, not merely in politics, but in commerce.

New Orleans is not the only French city in the United States, but it is the only one which preserves the French quality and language perfectly, and in that respect resembles Montreal and Quebec. St. Louis had a French and Spanish basis, but when that post became American the small Latin element was compelled, in self-defense, to adopt the language and living of the Anglo-Saxons. New Orleans, however, had a sufficient start when the Americans occupied it in 1803, to grow relatively with the American settlers and consequently two cities arose side by side, which still preserve their differences as much as if a quarter of London and a quarter of Paris had been cut out and united. Besides, there was a large rural and planting element in Louisiana, of the French stock, which has assisted to keep up the French infusion, and hence the market at New Orleans is the most characteristic thing in the city, where thehabitantsand the hucksters, the fishers from the Gulf, and the porters and carters, carry us back to a scene anterior to the France of to-day, or before republican ideas had reached the far French colonies. New Orleans, too, constantly received emigration from neighboring French and Spanish islands and coasts as they were affected by negro insurrections, or by internal revolutions. Naturally the fleeing planters from Hayti and the Lesser Antilles made their way to the nearest large town, and the steam shipping of the Gulf all concentrates at the two centers of the ellipse, New Orleans and Havana. The Mississippi River, which is the only river of the first class on the globe to pass through a cultivated land and an enlightened population, sufficiently marks New Orleans as the eye of its destiny adjacent to its mouth. There are many Americans who have never been to New Orleans, who are unaware that it, like New York, has two distinct harbors or outlets. As New York has Long Island Sound and the Bay of New York, one opening a hundred miles to the east of the other, so New Orleans has a lake system close by which gives her internal communication far to the east, or almost to the bay of Mobile, and saves her two hundred miles of round-about river navigation to reach her own coasts. It may be thought that New Orleans is too far from the mouth of the Mississippi to command that the commerce of the Gulf should come a hundred miles up that river for her benefit, yet Philadelphia and Baltimore are quite as far from the ocean, and these cities have easily commanded a great interior trade through the communications they possessed, and from the products they had to supply. Coal, for example, makes the most effective article of the commerce of both Baltimore and Philadelphia, and coal is more valuable in the Gulf because farther from the mines, than it is on the near east coast. The coal furnished to the shipping at New Orleans has descended the entire line of the river, yet by such easy facilities that at New Orleans it is probably the cheapest coal in the world for the distance it has to come to get a market. Great floats, of which dozens are hauled by a small tug or tow boat, go down the Ohio to its mouth, and pass on to New Orleans and are there so easily discharged that the lumber in them finds a market with the coal.

Besides, the railroad projectors, without other inducement than their own sagacity, have concurred in running all their railroads to New Orleans, for the country at the mouth of the Mississippi is neither so healthy nor so strategical for trade as this old town which was founded by the French under the direction of their government when they picked slowly and carefully the sites of future trade and military empire. These same French located St. Louis, and it has not been found advisable by any succeeding generation to try a better situation.

We may ask whether New Orleans has as great an antiquity as our own English cities? It is not as old as Philadelphia by almost thirty years, and is somewhat younger than Charleston, and is about fifteen years older than Savannah. Of course it does not compare in antiquity with the colonial cities of the northeast, such as New York, Albany, Boston, Montreal and Quebec. But it is nearly a century older than any of our important Anglo-Teuton cities of the West. It is more than half a century older than Cincinnati, and we may almost call it a century older than Chicago. St. Louis was its Albany, or upstream neighbor, and was under the same political domination. Mobile was the parent place the French established on the Gulf, and Governor Bienville made New Orleans his capital as late as 1723, or about nine years before the birth of General Washington.

Soon after this a levee was built in front of the new town, and the early French authors and novelists took pleasure in visiting it, and even at that date they called it “the famous place.” As in Quebec and Montreal, the early French settlement was almost simultaneous with the bringing out of monks and nuns, and soon a cathedral was conceived and nunneries were built. The French, however, had not the vigorous nature of the English in founding new places, and after nearly half a century of occupation there were hardly three thousand persons in it to transfer to the Spanish who took possession of the place in the midst of a revolution, and had some of the best French citizens shot in order to be a terror to what the Spanish governor, O’Reilly, already suspected to exist in French Louisiana, the spirit of independence, which Spain wanted to extirpate in all her colonies, fearing that they would speedily rise to importance and overwhelm the parent power. Spain had been dismembered by a treaty early in the eighteenth century, and was left with enormous American possessions, and with a very small Spain to handle them. The Spanish cabinet then conceived the policy of preventing the growth of the colonies, so as to keep them down, use them merely for trade, and not let that spirit of municipal independence which makes great fermentations in states commence anywhere. Some of the Spanish governors, however, ordered public buildings to be constructed, and the American residents at New Orleans say that the Spanish sway of about forty years has left better monuments than the French.

A Spanish infusion of settlers marks the present population, and the Americans call all the Latin races, no matter whether they come from France and her islands, or Spain and her coasts, by the name of Creoles.

A curious feature of New Orleans is the existence of considerable elements there from states as foreign to ourselves as Yucatan.

At the close of the American Revolution there were less than five thousand persons in New Orleans. During that Revolution a considerable number of respectable British settlers who wanted to avoid the War of Independence, settled in West Florida and about Natchez, and in other spots contiguous to New Orleans. Hence the Revolution was hardly over before the first chapter of manifest destiny was directed from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky upon the opening of the Mississippi River. That physical achievement was so important to the producers on the Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers that schemes of every sort were tried to hasten the opening of commerce to the Gulf. One Senator of the United States was expelled from his place for an intrigue partaking of the nature of treason with the British who still backed up the Spanish on the Gulf; and a Vice President was actually pursued nearly to the Gulf and brought back and tried for treason at Richmond. How long the United States might have had to wait the slow course of diplomacy or the rough chance of war to get New Orleans, is uncertain, but Napoleon, who had acquired Louisiana by his mastery over Spain, believing that he could not hold it against the English fleets, made haste to sell it to the Americans for a sum of money and old commercial claims.

Eighty-two years ago, or about the rounded lifetime of an old man, the Americans occupied New Orleans, and much of the city burnt up the year our forefathers were voting for the first President of the United States. A French newspaper had been issued in New Orleans several years before the American possession. There were perhaps eight thousand persons in the city when it was transferred to us. Twelve years after the transfer, the Americans under General Jackson had to give battle to hold the city, which the English attacked with the best troops they had used in Spain against Napoleon who had already fallen. Napoleon was contemplating his last endeavor to astonish the world at Waterloo, when the English and Americans, unconscious that a treaty of peace had been made between themselves, fought the battle of New Orleans, which resulted in more disaster to the British arms than any battle on land during our second conflict for independence. In St. Paul’s Cathedral stand the monuments and statues of Packenham and Gibbs who lost their lives in the marshes around New Orleans.

In 1862, Farragut with his fleet took New Orleans. His victory drove an entering wedge into the heart of the Confederacy and gave to the navy of the United States a prestige which it had never enjoyed and which in its present enfeebled state it is rapidly losing. New Orleans was the wealthiest and most populous city of the Confederacy; it was four times larger than either Charleston or Richmond, and before the war had the largest export trade of any city in the world. Commanding mid-continental navigation and being the key to the Gulf, its military value was equal to its commercial importance.

The plan for the capture of New Orleans by the navy, and the reduction of the forts which guarded the approach to it from the south, originated in the Navy Department in the fall of 1861. The credit for proposing this plan has been claimed by more persons than one, and it is likely that it was conceived and developed from suggestions and hints received from a variety of sources. It was determined that a naval expedition should be sent against New Orleans. The plan found little favor with army officers, but the President became interested in it and Secretary Welles set about carrying it into effect. The attention of military men was concentrated on a proposed combination of the forces of the army and the navy for the capture of New Orleans, in an expedition which was to descend to the city from the upper waters of the Mississippi River. This scheme seemed more attractive, and the idea of taking New Orleans by means of a fleet advancing from the Gulf had never been entertained in military circles. When Stanton became Secretary of War and was told of the proposed naval expedition, he was astonished at the originality and audacity of the idea and exclaimed: “An attack upon New Orleans by the navy! I never heard of it! It is the best news you could give me.” Secretary Stanton entered cordially into the spirit of the project and increased the number of the troops which General McClelland had promised, from ten thousand to eighteen thousand. Shortly after this, General B. F. Butler was made acquainted with the purpose of Secretary Welles and he was given the command of the military force which was to hold New Orleans after the fleet had taken it. There is no evidence that General Butler suggested any of the important plans or details for the expedition or that he had any definite plans concerning it.

Congress had ordered the blockade of 3,500 miles of coast line. There were scarcely ships enough to maintain it, and the vessels for the New Orleans expedition had to be built or procured from other sources. After the Secretary of the Navy had decided to send a fleet against New Orleans and had given orders for the construction of it, the most serious question which presented itself was the selection of a commander. All of the naval officers of high rank were suggested and considered. It was to be the most powerful and splendid fleet ever gathered under the stars and stripes, and the Department moved cautiously in the matter of choosing a leader for it. Finally the name of David Glasgow Farragut was proposed. The Secretary of the Navy remembered that years before in the war with Mexico, Farragut had offered a daring plan for the capture of the strong fort of San Juan de Ulloa, at Vera Cruz. He proposed that the fort be “boarded” by attaching long ladders to the masts of the attacking ships, which should then be towed up to the walls of the fort. Secretary Welles was impressed at the time with the boldness and dash of the scheme, and though he had not seen Farragut since that day, and really knew very little of him, yet after some consultation he decided to offer him the command of the fleet. Farragut, who had never had a squadron, gladly accepted the honor and the responsibility. He had been trained by a life of study and active service for some great emergency like this, which came late in life, in his sixty-second year, but he was prepared for it and he knew it. Farragut adopted the plans which had been considered by the Navy Department and made them his own. He grasped the work before him with a degree of earnestness and enthusiasm unusual in men of his age. Secretary Welles says of him at that time: “In every particular he came up to all that was expected or required of him. He determined to pass the forts and restore New Orleans. He might not come back, he said, but the city would be ours.” After his arrival at Ship Island on the 25th of March, 1862, Farragut wrote: “I have now attained what I have been looking for all my life—a flag—and having attained it, all that is necessary to complete the scene is a victory. If I die in the attempt it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his country and at peace with his God, has played out the drama of life to the best advantage.” Here was a genuine pious hero of the old school, determined to do or to die. His task was a herculean one. New Orleans was defended by two forts erected at the lowest favorable point for the location of military works, above the Gulf. Fort St. Philip occupied the left bank of the river, and a short distance below it on the right bank stood Fort Jackson. These forts mounted in all one hundred and fifteen guns. A fort on the site of Jackson in 1815 held the British fleet in check for nine days. The rebel forts were garrisoned by 1,500 men commanded by General J. K. Duncan. A short distance above the forts lay fifteen rebel vessels. This fleet included the iron ram “Manassas” and a great floating battery clad with railroad iron. Below the forts a heavy chain supported by the hulks of eight dismasted ships obstructed theriver. Farragut was to break through the chain, fight his way by the forts, destroy or capture the rebel fleet and then steam up to New Orleans and place that city under his guns. The attack was commenced by the mortar fleet. For six days the mortars poured a ceaseless fire of shells into the fort. The shells were flying through the air at all times; nearly six thousand were thrown, but the forts were damaged very little and the Confederate loss was only fourteen killed and thirty-nine wounded. It was determined to pass the forts on April 24th. At sunset on the 23d there were indications of the approaching conflict on every ship in Farragut’s fleet. The attack was to be made under cover of darkness. At eleven o’clock that night an officer signaled that an opening which had been made in the chain was still clear. Five minutes before two o’clock in the morning two red lights were displayed from the peak of the flag ship. It was the signal to steam up the river. In about one hour the fleet of seventeen vessels, in three divisions, was moving. The moon was rising, but its light was lost in the fierce flames from bonfires and fire rafts. Both forts opened fire upon the first ship as she passed through the row of hulks. Five minutes later the little “Cayuga” was pouring grape and canister into Fort St. Philip, and in ten minutes more she had passed from the range of its guns and was in the arms of the rebel fleet. It was a lively moment for the brave little boat. Eleven rebel gunboats tried to demolish her at once. She could not go forward, she would not go backward. There was nothing to do but to close with the enemy. She drove an “eleven inch” shot through one of her antagonists and it ran aground and burned up. Another one was crippled by a well directed shot, and the “Cayuga” was about to grapple with the third when two ships of the Union fleet came to her aid, the “Oneida” and the “Varuna.”

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