The Florentine goldsmiths of five hundred (Mr. Rockefeller has contributed $1,000,000 years ago grew fond of making nielli. A to the fund), but of grappling with the evil niello is a cup, brooch, or other metal of child labor and securing proper legislation. object in which the engraved lines are filled In connection with this work attention with black enamel. The word niello comes should be directed to the admirable studies from nigellum, meaning "black." The of the problems of Negro education and craftsman wished progress published by the Atlanta University to gain an idea of for the Higher Education of Negro Youth. the progress in his In one of these studies the following concluchasing before enam- sion is reached: "One-third of the negro eling permanently. children of school age in the United States For a while he took are attending school regularly; the session a sulphur cast of his lasts usually less than five months. Thus niello on a clay ma- negro children need about five times as much trix and filled up the school training as they at present receive." lines in the sulphur with lampblack. But this was a tedious process. It was not long before he spread ink over the metal and pressed it on a sheet of dampened paper. The result was-plate printing.

THE LATE

Education in the South.

It is asserted that in the former slave states the negro schools have not cost the whites one dollar since 1870, and that since emancipation the American freedmen have paid at least $40,000,000 for the education of their children. In some of the states the negroes have been contributing more than their share of the total cost of the schools.

Distinguished Roman Prelates.

Cardinal Martinelli, who came here a few years ago an unknown Italian prelate, bearing a modest title, returned to Rome a fortnight ago, a prince of his church, a member of its curia, and leaving behind him a record for faithful and sensible service results are assured. Recently a remarkable far and away more brilliant, both from the

An important movement for better and more general education has been in progress in the south for some time. Many distinguished citizens in the north are giving it moral and material support, and practical

conference of educators and earnest citizens

was held at Athens, Georgia, at the invitation of the state legislature. A tour of investigation has been made by a body of one hundred northern philanthropists and leaders of public opinion.

The real problem is the education of those residing in the rural sections, the colored and white labor of the plantations, farms, and villages. The aim of the movement is best stated in this sentence, uttered by Mr. Hoke Smith, a member of Mr. Cleveland's second cabinet: "Every child should get eight months' good schooling, white and black alike." This ideal is by no means easy of realization, but the difficulties are not underestimated by the leaders of the movement. It is not merely a question of funds

point of view of the country and of his communion, than his predecessor, Cardinal Satolli. He quieted a large number of incipient quarrels, and while he did not bring into harmony the widely separated elements obtaining in his church, and represented in one school by the late Archbishop Corrigan, and in the other by Archbishop Ireland, he proved as wise an administrator as is ever likely to succeed him. Who

that successor may be is guesswork at this J. H. Van Buren, who is already at work on writing. Some have said he will be Mgr. the island, but who was until recently the Falconio of Canada; others say not. We rector of the largest parish in Lynn, Massashall know when the official announcement is chusetts. The Honolulu matter has finally made. Archbishop Corrigan, who has just been adjusted by the retirement of Bishop died, was at the head of the largest Roman Willis, although not without some scandal, province in the world. He was a wise and the transfer of administrator, shrewd in the amassing of the property to the money, and strict in the obedience which American church. he gave to his superiors at Rome and Another new developexpected from his dependents in New ment is the agreeYork. At the same time there are in his ment on the part of archdiocese four hundred thousand men who the Episcopal Church never go to confessional or to holy commu- in America to consenion, who never so much as enter the portals crate three presbyof any church. There have been rumors ters as bishops of that Bishop Conaty, the head of the Univer- the Episcopal Church sity at Washington, is to be superseded, but in Mexico, which this is officially denied. means the setting up of an independent and autonomous church

Bishops for New Possessions.

THE LATE

REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

Presbyterian Missions.

President Roosevelt attended the centennial celebration of home mission effort of Presbyterians, held in New York during the Presbyterian General Assembly, saying in his speech that Presbyterian principles, institutions, and men have been large factors in the establishment and extension of this republic. During its one hundred years of work the Board of Home Missions received and disbursed $23,000,000, commissioned 74,000 missionaries, and helped to build 5,600 churches. The Assembly received the report of the committee on revision of the doctrinal standards, and after some debate referred the matter to the presbyteries. Presbyterian benevolences were never in better shape than this year, all of the societies being clear of debt, and most of them reporting larger incomes than they ever had before.

The first Protestant Episcopal Bishop con- in that country. secrated for a district formed out of our new political possession was the Rt. Rev. Dr. Brent, who sailed for the Philippines in the middle of May, taking with him $75,000 with which to build a school and make a start toward a church in Manila. Besides this sum, $75,000 has been raised to endow the episcopate of which he is the present occupant. At a meeting of the House of Bishops, held in Cincinnati at the middle of April, bishops were elected for Honolulu and Porto Rico. man chosen for the former district is the Rev. Dr. Restarick, who has been twenty years in San Diego, California, and who, during that time, has planted fifteen missions, some of them now parishes, in and near the capital city of southwestern Cali

The

fornia, using laymen for helpers. The man chosen for Porto Rico is the Rev. Dr.

Salvation Army.

It is announced that General William Booth is certainly comingto America this fall. He was to have come last fall, and arrangements were made in all principal cities to

prepared for him. The Civil War list is lengthened by the death of Wade Hampton of South Carolina, Confederate general, and Colonel Charles Marshall, who prepared the terms of surrender for General Robert

San Francisco for his reception, but at the
last moment complications arose in the Sal-
vation Army in England which compelled him
to remain there. Mrs. Booth-Tucker, just
returned from England, reports her father
hale and hearty, although aging rapidly E. Lee.

J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska was secretary of agriculture under President Cleveland. He was the originator of the annual Arbor Day which is now observed by many states.

and with snow-white Two congressmen died during the monthhair. An Anniver- Amos J. Cummings of New York, and sary Congress was Peter J. Otey of Virginia. held in New York at the end of May, which brought together five hundred officers, and at which news of the general's coming was confirmed and preparations made for a series of meetings next fall, designed to arouse new public interest in army work. This work is declared by some to be waning, with a possibility of the army failing out right, but official reports of work accomplished seem to show the army to be as prosperous as ever. A new task of the army this summer is to be the sale of ice to the poor, at prices about one-third those charged by the ice trust. The plan has been inaugurated in half a dozen cities.

Necrology.

In this editorial review, from month to month, it is very unusual to record almost a score of deaths of prominent American personages. To the death-roll of the SpanishAmerican war, formally closed by treaty in December, 1898, must now be added the name of Admiral William T. Sampson, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, off Santiago. Admiral Sampson's career was typically an American one, for he was born of poor immigrant parentage and rose to the highest office in the American navy, to the credit of his own ability. It is a source of national regret that his last days should have been embittered by official controversy, and that he could not live to receive official honors

Among educators, Francis W. Parker won a distinguished position as the promoter of what educational journals call" the new education." He was superintendent at Quincy, Massachusetts, supervisor of public schools in Boston, head of the Cook County normal school, and head of the Chicago Institute. Death has also taken President J. M. Ruthrauff of Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, and President Henry Morton of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J.

In the business world three deaths are to be noted: Alexander McLeod, of Reading Railroad fame; John Hays, who discovered and first opened up the marvelous copper deposits in the Great Lake region; and Potter Palmer, a Chicago hotel and real estate financier.

Sol Smith Russell, in the actors' profession, was an American favorite whose success in clean plays was very marked.

In the ranks of the clergy, perhaps there could not be more striking contrast than that between the late Archbishop Corrigan and the late T. DeWitt Talmage. It is certain that in the Roman Church in America Archbishop Corrigan had unequaled power. It is equally true that in his own independent way Talmage reached a larger American audience than any other Protestant preacher. In Letters we have lost Bret Harte, the novelist par excellence of the early far west; Frank R. Stockton, whose quality of humor was inimitable; and Paul Leicester Ford, one of the younger and more successful of American historical novelists.

THE RENAISSANCE OF OLYMPIA.

BY HORACE SPENCER FISKE.

(The ancient Olympic games were revived a few years since in Greece. In 1904 they will be celebrated in the city of Chicago, to be participated in by contestants from all nations.)

I stood on the slope of Kronos gray, above the Olympian plain,

Where swift Alpheus still pursues his vanishing love in vain,

And wondered deep at the picture rare revealed by the German spade-
A picture aglow on history's page with colors that never fade.

For I saw below me the Stadium, alive with flying feet,
And banked humanity gazing hard at the naked runners fleet;
And every city's son at prayer that his own shall win the race,
While a life's ambition flushes warm on every athlete's face.

And off toward the curve of the Cladeus, in the sacred Altis walls,
Rose the pillars of that temple vast whose god forever calls

The victor to bend at his throne, and be crowned with Hercules' olive bough
And go forth with the fame of his glory bound about his leafy brow.

And then, methought, amid the throng the gray Herodotus read,
As young Thucydides followed rapt his history's golden thread;
And soft in the temple's shadow the high-browed Plato walked,
While girt with a wondering multitude the sovereign Socrates talked.

Then slow past my eye through the Altis a stately procession moved,
With the psalm of the victor leading on the athletes that stood approved,-
Up the steps of the temple and on to the feet of Zeus,

Where the purpled judges placed the crowns Athena alone can produce.

And up from the free-born races, the lovers of beauty and strength,
From the trembling western river through the Altis' sacred length,
A tide of resounding plaudits swelled full to old Kronos' feet,
And played in the porch of Echo with a murmur long and sweet.

I stand on the shore of Michigan, where the mighty city rests,
And the rushing waves like charging steeds dash in with crystal crests,
And the old Greek world revives again the horses and charioteers,
The flying athletes fleeting past, and the burst of the people's cheers.

For here in the land by the Greek undreamed, on the shore of the inland sea,
Where Commerce wreathes her endless smoke and her flags are flying free,
The world's great athletes meet again to strive for the olive crown,
As the multitudes lift their names aloft in proof of their rich renown,

mer.

CONSULAR SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES.

BY LOUIS E. VAN NORMAN.

HEN a private business concern sends the president, by and with the consent of a man to another country to look the senate. Under the present law there after its interests there, this man are five grades of consuls: (1) consuls-genis known as its agent or repre- eral, (2) consuls, (3) vice-consuls, (4) deputy sentative. If he goes to solicit business he consuls, (5) consular agents and commercial is known as a commercial traveler, or drum- agents. Vice consuls-general, deputy conWhen an entire people send a man suls-general, consular clerks, interpreters abroad to look after their interests, protect and marshals, while members of the service, their citizens, and watch for opportunities are not classed as consular officers. These for their business men, we call this man a classes may be subdivided into consuls who consul. A consul is a commercial agent, a receive fixed salaries and are not permitted to business representative, and a drummer all engage in any private business, those who in one. In addition he has other duties and receive fixed salaries, but who are permitted dignities of a judicial and representative to engage in some private business, and those character, and, in a way, stands for a whole who receive no compensation but the fees nation, not an individual. Ambassadors and collected for official services, and are perministers are agents of one government au- mitted to engage in private business. thorized to conduct its business with another government. A consul is the representative of the people of his country, to look after their commercial interests. His business is not with high government officers but with local officials, and exporters and importers. A consul, per se, has no diplomatic powers or immunities. He is stationed at a commercial center for the purpose of facilitating trade, of preventing fraud on the revenues of his country, and of aiding such of his countrymen as may be in need or distress. The modern office of consul is a modification of the old Roman municipal magistracy of the same name. For centuries the consul was a judge or arbitrator selected by mercantile associations and not by governments. The development of international law deprived the consul of his judicial function (except in certain special cases), and today he is strictly a business agent.

The consular service of the United States was established by law in 1792, consuls being appointed by the secretary of state and serving without salary. Their compensation came from fees. Several attempts were made to reorganize the system, but it was not until 1856 that the present service was established as a salaried corps, appointed by

A consul-general is usually stationed at the chief commercial city of the country to which he is sent, and has general supervision of all the consuls of his own nation in that country. He may appoint his own viceconsuls, deputy consul, and the consular agents in his district, subject to the approval of the secretary of state. The United States appoints thirty-nine consuls-general. A vice-consul is a substitute, and a deputy consul an assistant. The first receives compensation only when he acts in his chief's absence, the second is a regular salaried official. A commercial agent is a consul of a lower grade and is appointed directly by the president without the nomination of the senate. Consular agents are representatives of the consul and can only act for him and through him. The intention of the law creating consular clerks was to establish a training school for consuls, but this intention has not been carried out, as the present corps of consular clerks are appointed by the secretary of state and hold office subject to him during good behavior. another class of consular clerks, temporary officials, who are appointed by the consuls themselves, with the approval of the secretary of state, and paid from the fees of the

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