a connection that it was left to a later day to materialize. He wrote descriptions of his travels, using his native Swedish to the surprise and disgust of his learned confrères. Nothing human was foreign to him, nothing or nobody too humble or too small to attract his attention. While thus dividing himself between practical and more abstract pursuits, he laid the basis for plant morphology,-the department of science dealing with the evolution of the various parts of the plant; he founded the science of plant geography, and he tried to trace the unity of the whole organic world which Darwin finally established. From the lips of Linnæus fell the famous utterance: "Nature makes no leaps." The strain of so much hard work under

mined his health completely at last. Melancholy and pain darkened partly his final years, but to the very end it remained true, that however much he was admired, he was loved still more. Not long before death came, in 1778, he wrote with trembling hand in his diary, using the third person, as was his wont in speaking of himself:

"Linnæus limps; he can hardly walk; his speech is mumbling; he can barely write."

Thus, to the last, he remained the keen and impassive observer, applying the same accuracy of observation and description to his own symptoms as to the picturing and classifications of the vegetable and animal kingdoms,-in other words, the type of the modern man of science.

SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE SPANISH ELECTIONS.

"THOSE Spaniards who, in the march dy, though not in humor, the action of the of national life, show something President of Costa Rica, who, immediately more than the frivolity and indifference which characterize our manner since the war with North America, may make a memorandum of two recent events of unusual importance from which may be drawn lessons and hopes for the future, the meeting which took place between Alfonso XIII. and Edward VII. at Cartagena, and the elections. to the Cortes."

It is doubtful whether the writer of the foregoing bitter paragaph in the Por Esos Mundos (Madrid) will find any comfort in the sort of interest shown in the elections as described in the following ingenuous passage from the Blanco y Negro:

The election of deputies to the Cortes was effected Sunday with tranquillity except for certain incidents, one of which escaped, by a miracle, from having the gravest consequences. In Section II of the district of Buena-vista, established in the Mint, right in the room where the ballots are sorted, one of the Republican supervisors, whom the president had several times called to order for his energetic protests, broke the electoral urn and discharged a revolver in the president's face.

This "tranquillity was also violently in evidence in Barcelona, where, according to the Nuevo Mundo:

upon his taking office, seized the five men who had been his rivals for the Presidency and sent them heavily guarded to the coast, where they were put aboard ships and sent into exile. The above-quoted article from Por Esos Mundos, speaking of the late elections in Spain, continues:

The daily press has made and still makes long comments on the elements composing the new House of Representatives, noting especially the undoubted triumph of the Conservatives, the advantageous position of the Carlists, who for more than thirty years never dreamed of having such large representation in the Cortes, and the success of the Catalonian Solidarity, which, between Republicans, Carlists, and Catalanistas," makes a minority of thirty-eight or forty votes, while in the last Cortes they could scarcely count a dozen deputies who entertained ideas of "Catalanismus."

The Epoca (Madrid) quotes short extracts from a French article which it characterizes as showing special insight. It says:

Señor Maura is the only leader capable of grouping under his flag a compact majority, homogeneous and disciplined. The Liberals lost largely through internal dissensions and rivalries. Their silly anti-clerical policy is responsible for the rising up of the Catholic element. In Congress the Conservatives will have to fight the anti-dynastic minority, especially the Republicans. Happily, the popularity of the young monarch and the spontaneous liberalism with which he is animated are sure guaranties of the failure of any anti-monarchical attempt. The overwhelming victory of the Conservatives shows that the elections are the result of popular These strenuous incidents surpass in trage- feeling. When the voting gives 258 Conserva

The elections had a sad prelude. One night, when all the various chiefs of the Solidarity, among them Señor Salmeron and Señor Cambo, were going to an electoral meeting in the precinct of Sans, they were shot at, and Señor Cambó was seriously wounded.

(This is the way the cartoonist of Blanco y Negro (Madrid) pictures the post-election situation in Spain).

tives, and reduces from 240 to 65 the number of taken in all seriousness and not at all as an the Liberals, the explanation of the result is not only in the docility of the electoral body. One attempt to be funny. It spite of evidence to must admit that it manifests the true public the contrary in his case, the accompanying cartoon shows that some such accusations are made against the Conservative leader, Señor

In Spain the statement that the elections are always in favor of the party in power is Maura.

THE SHORTEST ROUTE FROM EUROPE TO SOUTH
AMERICA.

Rio de
Janeiro

THE SHORTEST ROUTE FROM AFRICA TO SOUTH AMERICA.

(From Dakar, in Africa, to Pernambuco, in Brazil, it is only 1700 miles.)

A GERMAN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT.

PROFESSOR ALOIS BRANDL, of
Strassburg, a noted German Anglicist,
visited this country during the past year on
the occasion of the Benjamin Franklin cele-
bration, and records his impressions of our
university system in the Deutsche Rund-
schau. He came, he remarks, solely to learn,
not to describe, but received so many over-
whelming impressions that he had to free
himself by giving vent to them. Though
his stay was brief, he had exceptional oppor-
tunities for observation, and found far more
occasion for praise than blame. As con-
trasted with German higher education he re-
gards that of the United States greatly su-
perior in the attention given to physical and
moral development, while the Germans bend
their efforts almost exclusively upon the in-
tellectual side. He finds, too, that the
American college students,—and the English
as well, have a much better command of
their language than the German students of
theirs, the frequent writing of essays and the
debating clubs contributing much to this re-
sult. On the other hand, the uncertain ten-
ure and slender pay of the professors elimi-
nate in a measure the choicest material, other
callings offering far more brilliant material
inducements. It would be difficult to give
in a brief space an adequate idea of the wide
field covered by the professor's remarks, but
we reproduce what he says of the American
university president:

He must be a strong man who furthers the growth and prosperity of the institution in every respect. He is responsible to the trustees alone. If complaints are made to them against him, they must be able to say: "What do you want? He is a strong man; we could get no one better; we shall stick to him." If he have this backing, he is almost unlimited master of the faculty, and can dispose of removals as well as appointments with a freedom such as with us no minister enjoys, no monarch employs. Through such an arrangement of dictators the American, as is well known, likes to counterbalance the freedom of his constitution, in order to secure effective management. The head of the Library of Congress has a like autocratic sway over his 300 subordinates. On the other hand, the power of the president stops at the basis of the university, -the student-body. Toward them he usually displays the greatest complaisance; for a considerable falling off of their number, even numerous failures at examinations, would cast a shadow upon the prospects of the institution, and is consequently sought to be avoided as far as possible. Through the president the student in America has a hand upon his teacher, as with

us through the college-fee: thus do the inner-
The
most wheels work into each other there.
curator of a Prussian provincial university, who
may best be placed upon a parallel with the
president, has an essentially different office; he
has less say, but also less care; he is incom-
parably more dependent as to what is above and
intermediary and not an authoritative leader.
more independent below; he is only a respected

The strongest university president in America, in the opinion of this writer, is the president of Harvard, Charles William Eliot. "They say of him that as a permanent force he is more powerful than the President of the Republic himself."

Roosevelt will some day return to private life, and then his influence will be rather a personal one, on the occasion of political conventions: but Eliot, as the ruling spirit of Harvard, will be a controlling force in the spiritual life of the nation as long as he lives. I shall attempt to sketch in a few strokes this remarkable personality who has demonstrated in so signal a measure what can be made of the office of president. At the Franklin celebration I heard him in a public speech. A tall figure, of quiet dignity; a Low-Saxon face, with a mouth and chin of American energy; thus he stepped to the speaker's desk, from which much eloquence had already been directed at the closely thronged Franklin as Printer," without prefatory reaudience, and began with the simple theme, marks, citing at once some biographical facts. He emphasized the circumstance that Franklin from the very outset to the close of his career attachment to and preference for it. Through as a man busied himself with this trade, showed handling the press he was led to authorship, which, in keeping with its origin, was turned to the directly useful, and that course of action is perceptible even in his most deeply meditated utterances upon education. Franklin, namely, designated the clear, persuasive use of one's native tongue as the pith of all culture; starting with that, any ancient or modern language might at need be readily acquired. In this way Eliot led us imperceptibly to the most important educational problem of our time. No other speaker understood so well to draw present instruction from old Franklin. In a few sentences he gave an illuminating program. But so little did he allow himself to be misled into enthusiastic exaggeration, that he was indeed the only one who dared the role of critic of the hero of the day, and that, moreover, with a remark about Franklin's lack of nobility as regards women. What, finally, he lauded in Franklin's natural philosophy are evidently his own aims: absolute love of truth, directness, perseverance. In private intercourse I was permitted later to come in somewhat closer contact with him at Harvard. He is no late riser; it was not yet eight o'clock when he called for me to accompany him to the fifteen minutes' religious service with which his university, too, begins the day's work. When he became president every student was still com

66

derous volumes, etc. Eliot exercises an influence within the limits of Harvard and far beyond evidently not because he aims at anything extraordinary but because he strives for what is rational and seeks to accomplish it through the directest means. It is the secret of all success in practical affairs.

If we picture the influence of such a man extended over decades,-—and all the instructors of Harvard are Eliot's appointees,continues the German writer, we can realize to what a degree the universities of America are calculated to assume the complexion of their presidents, while with us they maintain a historical character.

pelled to attend; he made attendance optional. The hundred young people who come of their own accord," he remarked to me on entering the church, "rejoice me more than the thousand forced ones before." While a hymn was being sung I looked over the preface of the hymnbook; Eliot, noticing it, called my attention to the word undenominational" in the opening sentence, to the inter-confessional character of the religious service, that is. I saw how the "strong man of Harvard" understands how to respect freedom of thought. Still later, at his hospitable board, he was an attentive observer and left the speaking substantially to the others, who all seemed desirous to stand the test of his judgment. But all the more did I hear, in his absence, of his activity: how he had raised the quality and compass of English instruction, in order to give the undergraduates a skillful com- This is perceptibly connected with the repubmand of expression; introduced the system of lican form of government, which, strictly speakwriting daily essays, in spite of the considerable ing, signifies not the dominion of all but of the cost it involved in the way of teachers to correct strong. This vast, unmonarchical America is them; how he had established a closer corre- the land of forceful characters; they spring up spondence between the university and the higher with elemental freedom in academic as well as schools; how in the appointment of professors in economic and political life; that is the spirithe is more intent upon securing a person gifted ual importation which we may chiefly look for with inward fire than a celebrity boasting pon- from the other side.

POLISH AUTONOMY AND "INTERNATIONAL
COMPLICATIONS."

THE bill providing for the autonomy of cal wisdom and moderation adapted to the the Kingdom of Poland (ten " gov- present situation.

three.

ernments of Russian-Poland) was intro- No point was advanced in the bill that duced in the recently dissolved Russian could be regarded as an aggression upon the Duma by the Polish group on April reasonably conceived state idea of the Russian 23, with the motion that the project nation. This temperance of the Poles was be referred to a committee of thirty- expressly emphasized by two well-known St. Petersburg publicists, Nestor-Svatkovsky (in the Russ) and Pantaleyev (in the Tovarishch): The bill did not demand for Poland either an army, or a monetary and customs separateness, or an independent penal code; it restricted itself to the proximate needs of a self-active conduct of the affairs of the Kingdom of Poland that are of a purely internal nature." Nevertheless, the introduction of the bill in the Duma did not make an impression favorable to the Poles in the Russian press. Organs even diametrically opposite are of almost one voice in the question of Polish autonomy; the organ of the Constitutional Democrats, the Rech, is in almost perfect tune with the united chorus of the Novoye Vremya, Rossia, Sviet, Kyevlanin, and others.

In introducing its bill the Polish group had a very difficult problem to solve. The measure had to be the declaration of the political demands of the Polish community and at the same time to stand on the ground of the real political situation. That is, it had to show the Duma and the Russian community that the granting of autonomy to the Kingdom of Poland is not inadmissible from the point of view of the real interests of the Russian state. The Poles made certain concessions, therefore. They recognized certain prejudices of those Russian parties on whose support they counted, but understood that the autonomous statute must express those demands which the Polish community regards as necessary. The Polish group understood that it was impossible to demand more, and that it was impossible to demand less. Hence, the Polish community, without difference of parties, has expressed its sincere satisfaction with the bill, regarding it as an act of politi

Opposition to the Polish demands had been expected from the Conservatives, but not from the Constitutional Democrats, who in the electoral campaigns had included the demand of the autonomy of Poland as a plank in their