and close attention to etymology and syntax this recitation by a class of about twenty colored students would bear favorable comparison with that of any class of white students in any New England college. On another of these hills, with a fine, commanding position stands Roger Williams University, on another the Central Tennessee College with its preparatory, industrial, collegiate, dental, medical, law, and theological departments. Still farther around is the Montgomery-Bell Acade.ny and The Nashville University and Peabody Normal College. This last mentioned institution is one of the noblest, best managed, and most successful and useful of all our American institutions of learning. It deserves to be better known than it is. It is under the management of William H. Payne, Ph. D., LL. D., as President and Chancellor, assisted by an able corps of twelve professors.

This college was founded in 1875, by the Peabody Board of Trust, for the education of teachers for the higher positions in the educational service of the South. It is supported by the following boards: The Peabody Board of Trust, which contributes $32,800 a year, in salaries and scholarships; The Trustees of the University of Nashville, contributing the use of buildings and grounds, valued at $150,000; and the State Board of Education of Tennessee, expending $10,000 yearly, in salaries and current expenses. Its special work is the training of superintendents, principals, and assistants in schools of the higher grades. It is the only institution in the South which is prepared to give teachers a professional training for high grade. It is, for teachers, what law schools and medical colleges are for lawyers and physicians. The most attractive field of labor, for young men and women of scholarly tastes, is this new profession; and this College is a professional school of the highest type.

Tuition is free to all white youth of the South of proper qualifications. The only charge is an incidental fee of six dollars a year. All students have the free use of textbooks. It has a library of about ten thousand volumes; a large chemical laboratory; a museum of natural history; a cabinet of minerals; a reading-room with whatever is best in periodical literature; five students' societies for training in debate; and a fine gymnasium for physical training. The Course of Study leads, in succession, to the degrees of Licentiate of Instruction," “Bachelor of Arts,” and “Master of Arts "

"

During the current year the enrollment in the Peabody College has increased sixty per cent., and the graduating classes number over one hundred. There is no better moneyed investment, for a young man or a young woman, than a sound education, such as the Peabody Nor mal College proposes to give. And there is no institution in the South better equipped for serving "the noblest of the professions."

MISCELLANY.

A WORD MORE ABOUT SPENCER.

THE

BY C. HANFORD HENDERSON.

HE quotations from Spencer given by Mr. Greenwood in the March issue are interesting, but I do not see that they serve the purposes of adverse criticism. To do that, they ought to be vague and contradictory. But they are not, though evidently selected by no friendly hand. On the contrary, they are singularly definite and consistent. They all assert in the most explicit manner what Mr. Spencer has always and everywhere asserted, the essential unknowableness of the cosmic ultimates. One may or may not assent to this proposition, but that is quite a different matter, and is not, I think, germane to the present discussion.

No one will disagree with Mr. Greenwood that a philosopher must abide by all conclusions which are validly deducible from the philosophy he lays down, but unless I have read very carelessly, Mr. Spencer has always done this, and is prepared to do it in the future. It is not fair play for his critics to assert the contrary, either directly or by implication, unless they can make good the accusation. Neither by quotations nor by his own arguments has Mr. Greenwood done this.

The picture drawn by Mr. Greenwood of the cautious English philosopher marching up to the brink of the precipice and looking over, is really quite dramatic, but I think that it is not entirely true to the life. In the first place, Mr. Spencer does not believe that there is any abyss between true Science and true Religion, and he would be unable to find the necessary cliff were he disposed to attempt the dramatic action indicated. By eliminating the irreligious element in Religion and the unscientific element in Science, he arrives at an abstract residuum, which he regards as a truth of the highest degree of probability. When Religion and Science have thus been purified from error, there is found to be no conflict between them. The Reconciliation which Mr. Spencer attempts is simply a just statement of the two phases of thought. In all the phenomena of life, he distinguishes two elements, that which is knowable, or within the domain of Science, and that which transcends knowledge, or belongs to Religion. In view of these facts, it seems to me that only by a very flexible use of the language can it be said that the two are reconciled in the Unknowable. With the unknowable, Science has nothing to do. With the known,

and physically demonstrable, Religion has nothing to do. The essence of religion is faith: it is a trust in the unseen things. Its propositions may appeal to us more deeply than the objective facts of Science, but they are not susceptible of proof. As soon as we have direct proof of the existence of God, and the truth of immortality, God and immortality will become scientific facts and the office of Religion will be at an end. An equally serious misnomer is the application of the term "materialistic" to a class of philosophers who hold so transcendental a belief as this. But personal labels seldom fit. In particular, the term materialistic, like the term heterodox, seems to do duty all around to describe any individual, whatever may be his views, provided only that they are different from one's own.

It is not my purpose, however, to criticise Mr. Greenwood, or his use of the vernacular. I only wish to ask that justice be done to a philosopher to whom I, for one, feel sincerely grateful. And I ask this, not for his sake, but rather to satisfy that obligation to be just which each man owes to himself.

FOREIGN NOTES.

FRANCE.

The Minister of public instruction has just issued a decennial report on education covering the period from 1877 to 1887 inclusive. It is in three volumes relating respectively to superior, secondary and primary education.

In a previous number of EDUCATION some account has been given of the great increase of buildings and equipment for the superior grade which has taken place during the decade. The scholastic development is not less remarkable. This is manifested particularly in the creation of teaching courses; formerly the faculties were simply examining and lecturing bodies, but at the beginning of the decade the work of teaching was added to their functions. In 1875 they counted in all, 9,963 students; in 1887, they had 17,630, or nearly double the first number. Medicine naturally takes the lead, having 8,658 students, of whom more than 5,000 are inscribed in the faculty of Paris. Law follows with 5,152 students, of whom 2,300 are in Paris. The faculties of letters have 2,388 students, and the faculties of science 1,335. Although the last two faculties are far below medicine and law in point of numbers, their actual increase is greater, since in 1875 these courses did not exist.

The financial part of the report of instruction in France is rather a complicated affair when presented in detail. The expenditures are

treated under the heads of ordinary obligatory, diverse and extraordinary. The ordinary obligatory are made up of the expenditures required by law and are permanent in their nature; the diverse include many necessary expenditures involved in a school system; the optional expenditures are those assumed at will by the authorities that provide for them; the extraordinary expenditures are such as occur at irregular periods of which the principal relate to the construction of school buildings. These expenditures are met by the combined resources of the communes, the departments, and the state.

The total expenditure in 1887 amounted to $23,458,352.66, of which amount ninety-two per cent. was paid for obligatory expenditures, ordinary and diverse, and eight per cent. for optional expenditures.

The proportional part derived from each source named above was as follows:

Or a total of 32.9 per cent. from the communes, of 4 per cent. from the departments, and of 63.1 per cent. from the state.

The law makes it the duty of the communes to provide school buildings, nevertheless, as many communes are unable to do this the state comes to their aid. Between 1878 and 1885 the state subventions to the communes for building school houses amounted to $34,418,103, and the loans for the same purpose to $36.602,122.

In 1885 a new law was passed requiring the communes to provide their own school houses in all cases, but at the same time giving them the privilege of borrowing the necessary money from the state. The aid of the state was to take the form of a loan payable in four installments, to be repaid in thirty years at the least, and in forty years at the most. Under this law the state has advanced $13,608,040.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The association for the education of women in Oxford offers a prize of $100, the gift of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. The prize is intended to promote independent research, and competitors are advised to select a town to the records of which they have convenient access. The competition is open to students of the association who shall have completed their registration by January, 1890.

The subject of free education is practically shelved in England for the present. The motion in parliament for an expression of regret that no reference was made in the Queen's speech to the subject having been lost by a vote of 223 to 163.

Mr. Thomas Gilray of the University College, Dundee, has been selected to fill the chair of English Language and Literature, in the University, Otago, New Zealand. There were upwards of forty candidates in Great Britain. Professor Gilray, who is thirty-seven years of age, was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, where he gained in all twenty-eight prizes, including the Carson medal for the best essay on "Spenser's Life and Poetry," and the medal as dux of the school in English. At Edinburgh University he obtained the degree of M. A. with honors in classics, the Greek Travelling Fellowship, and the Earl of Derby's rectorial prize for the best paper on "The Foreign Policy of the Pitt Administration of 1757-'61." He also studied at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, and for three sessions he acted as assistant to Professor Masson in Edinburgh University. He was subsequently for four years one of the English masters in the senior department of George Watson's College, and assisted Doctor Ogilvie in the general management of the school. For three years he filled the office of English examiner to the Edinburgh University Local Examinations Board, and for three sessions he was head English master in the Glasgow Academy. During the last six years he has discharged with great ability the duties of Professor of English Language and Literature and Modern History in the University College, Dundee. He has also been an extensive contributor of literary biographies to the Encyclopædia Brittanica.

University settlements of college women are not confined to New York nor to the United States.

The Women's University settlement at Southwark, England, an incorporated body, is working on much the same lines for women as those on which Toynbee Hall is working for the men of East London. In addition to the usual work for poor children and women, some of the non-resident workers are assisting Miss Octavia Hill in her Friday evening meetings for girls.

This lady's name is well known in America in connection with her long experience in work for the poor and her admirable articles on the subject. Though not young enough to belong to the generation of college graduates, the latter have gladly availed themselves of her services and have induced her to take a place on the committee of the Women's University Settlement. The head of the settlement is Miss Argles, who was educated at one of the Oxford colleges.