upon other countries for things which are of vital necessity, and how dangerous such a dependence is. Its safety is now seen to be in its ability to produce what it requires from its own soil and factories, or at least from those of the Empire as a whole. It is, moreover, apprehended that Germany will endeavor to dump upon British markets the moment peace is declared, the products which are believed to have been accumulated during the war. With such cogent reasons there is little doubt that the difficulties will be overcome which stand in the way of the proposed economic pact.

France.

The internal situation in France is almost identical with that in Great Britain. The nation as a whole is as united as ever in its resolve to continue the war to a successful conclusion. The only ground for division is whether the Government can be trusted to carry out, with sufficient energy, the will of the nation. The Cabinet is criticized for the same reason as that of Great Britain-that it is too large to decide upon and take prompt action. During the past few months the French Chamber has been full of irritation, and there have been frequent scenes of violence. It is claimed that there is lack of decision; that the Ministers do not govern; that they shirk responsibility; that they are the dupes of the bureaucracy ; that their vacillation is the reason why the German lines have not been broken. M. Clemenceau has made himself the chief spokesman of these complaints, and as a remedy he has advocated a virtual supersession of the Government by Grand Commissions, and that to them should be intrusted the carrying on of the war. Daily in his paper, L'Homme Enchaîné, does he reiterate that France is neither governed nor commanded, that she is going adrift under the guidance of lawyers who imagine that words are deeds. He has assailed even General Joffre, declaring him to be responsible for the presence of the Germans in France. Others have advocated the formation of a Committee to supersede both the Cabinet and Parliament, somewhat on the lines of the Comité de Salut Public of 1793, of which Committee M. Clemenceau should be the head. This, however, is not his own proposal, nor has he given his consent, nor is it likely to be adopted. There seems, however, to be a growing conviction that authority in France to be efficient must be concentrated in the hands of fewer men, and that they should not be hampered in the way in which the present Government is hampered by parliamentary interference. Such a suggestion as this,

however, goes in the teeth of the whole spirit of the Third Republic. It would be an admission that the parliamentary system is unequal to the execution of military plans, and consequently unable to free France from the grasp of Germany. The plan is therefore at present supported only by a minority, the majority still relying upon being able to avoid any change in the Constitution. The German assault on Verdun has done good, for it has shown. the necessity of a continued union of forces. "We needed just such a cut from the German whip to keep us quite 'fit.'" The only change which has taken place in the Cabinet is the resignation of the Minister of War, General Galliéni, due, it is said, to ill-health. His successor is a General who has been in command of the active forces during the conflict at Verdun, and is therefore familiar with the necessities of the situation.

Belgium.

The rumors that were in circulation that Germany had offered favorable terms to Belgium, and that King Albert was on the point of yielding, have, like so many other similar rumors, proved untrue. Any doubt, however, that may have been felt has been set at rest by the renewed declaration of the Allies that they will not cease hostilities until Belgium has been reinstated in her political and economic independence, and largely indemnified for the wrongs suffered, an assurance which has been accepted by the Belgian Government.

Germany.

The chief event in Germany is, of course, the failure of Grand Admiral von Tirpitz's health. He had been Secretary of State for the Navy since 1897, a term of office which was only surpassed by Prince Bismarck's. He has been the chief agent in building the navy upon which Germany has relied for the attainment of world-power; and in particular for the wresting from Great Britain the control of the ocean. The utter failure of those longcherished aims may well have made the alleged cause of his retirement the real one: it is, however, generally believed that his resignation was connected with the Emperor's decision not to extend submarine warfare beyond the limits announced to neutrals in the memorandum, and not to direct it against neutral ships. As, however, submarine warfare since his retirement has not been confined to these limits, and has been carried on in defiance of these

restrictions, the true cause must be sought elsewhere. Possibly it may be an indication of the Chancellor's victory in the conflict that has long been waged between the two officials of the Kaiser.

The subscriptions to the fourth war loan amounted to more than two and one half billions, making Germany, according to the Secretary of State for Finance, the only power at war which has covered her total war expenditure by long term loans. Dr. Helfferich failed to explain the means by which the loan was raised. The Government has practically withdrawn the metal currency from circulation, and has flooded the country with paper money, which has no adequate gold basis. Everything except imports is paid for in paper. When the State wants more money, it just borrows the paper and pays it out again. When another loan becomes necessary the investor in the former loan borrows more. paper on his war loan stock, and reinvests in the new loan. And so on ad infinitum. The process was started with the assurance that Germany's enemies by the payment of huge indemnities would make good all claims, but now that there is no longer even talk about indemnities in the peace proposals of German origin, the economic prospects of the German people are very dark.

The battle for Verdun has gone on almost Progress of the War. without intermission for nine weeks and more, and although the Germans have succeeded in some points, the French are confident that the city will never fall into the hands of the enemy. Nothing of importance has occurred at any other part of the Western front. The British, however, have extended their lines so that they are now eighty miles in length, and have thereby relieved French forces for other service. On the Eastern front the Russians have made some little advance in the neighborhood of Dvinsk, but in the rest of the line the situation is unaltered. No change has taken place at Saloniki, while the Italian positions remain practically unchanged. Durazzo is now in the hands of Austria, Italy having been content with maintaining a firm hold on Avlona. Trebizond, it is just announced, has fallen into the hands of Russia, but has the latter reached Bagdad? The force under General Townshend is still unrelieved, but the British army under General Lake has drawn nearer to Kut, and entertains hope of success. The advance of the British into German East Africa, the last of the German colonies, is making good progress under the command of General Smuts.

With Our Readers.

WHATEVER the effective agencies at work, a spiritual awakening or

at least the beginnings of it, are manifest throughout our country. Many who apparently had forgotten its existence, are beginning to think of the soul and to search for it. It is well and hopeful that this is so. Side by side with it is still the sordid, servile pursuit of money; speculation in industrials; passion for gain without scruple; oppression of the poor-all those things that kill every spiritual ambition. and brutalize a nation's soul.

The happier side, that of the awakening to better things, is evidenced by the increased demand for religious education: the growing conviction that our public school system, even from a purely earthly and material standpoint, is a fatal mistake, and will inevitably-unless other influences prevail-drive the nation on the rocks.

It is stimulating as it is surprising to see in a New York daily a long editorial on the supreme need of moral and spiritual preparedness. And another New York daily, The Evening Sun, commenting on a meeting attended by five hundred students of Columbia University, New York, and addressed by two members of the faculty who denounced obedience to any direction of authority, states:

These remarkable speeches point straight as an arrow to the deplorable ignorance of fundamental laws of nature and man under which many thousands of Americans, native as well as foreign born, are laboring to-day.

Mr. Kipling once told a story of a puppy who escaped from his master and ran away into the bathroom, where he had a great frolic, chewing up a wonderful substance which he had never seen before, until he found it in the soap dish on that occasion. After the puppy regained something of his normal health and spirits he retained a clear perception that there are some things in the world which a puppy may not do without disaster. Thousands and thousands and thousands of young men and women in this country at this time are no more intelligent than the puppy; they are just as ignorant of certain natural laws and as rebellious against any authority which tries to teach them. These young people are scarcely as much to blame as their parents or whatever natural guardians have allowed them to pass from childhood into adolescence without drilling into them the most truly vital lesson which life holds the requirement of obedience.

The most pitiable folly which has crept into the rearing, training and education of children, under the guise of developing the child's "naturally good and healthful instincts," is the abdication of wise authority, the abandonment of the vital principle that the child should obey because his preceptor, whose wisdom must be postulated, directs him, without any reference to what the child thinks about it. The wiser mind must decide, or the ignorant creature will suffer for his own ignorance.

This is nature's law, and for the parent or teacher to palter with its truth and to allow affectionate indulgence to cloud the child's budding intelligence on the subject, is to diminish the child's equipment for plain duty and his fitness to survive in the world's struggle of life. Such ignorant or indolent failure to give the child a fair start as has characterized the training of a large percentage of the young generation is bound to bring grave disgrace and disaster upon the whole body of American citizens; the older generation will not suffer proportionately with the younger, for their activity and personal risk are less, though their responsibility is greater for the false and perilous ideas with which their neglect has dowered their children.

There is a saving remnant in the population, however, which has not fallen into this ignorant and slipshod conception of a parent's or educator's duty to a child. Upon this remnant, and their children, the country will have to depend for leadership and initiative in the tedious and difficult work of teaching things to adults which should have been assimilated in childhood. The general stuff of American manhood-conglomerate of many racial characteristics and prejudices as it is at present-is abundantly capable of development into high character, but such adequate development among adults (in the light of human experience) is likely to be effected through such national discipline as comes only by national disaster. Since the War of Secession this country has had practically no national discipline either physical or mental, and the results are obvious in selfish inertia of the mass and the flabby thought which forms much of the stock in trade even of such persons as are put forward to express American opinion in Congress and in many other public forums to-day. As to the mass of persons who "think they think," their thought is so uninformed, and their mental process so untrained and futile that its unguided development and expression result only in self-bewilderment and a spectacle for the world to laugh at.

As

S long ago as 1895 Alexander Johnston, professor at Princeton University, expressed the following opinion:

Even among the warmest friends of the public school system there is an increasing number who are disposed to think that the American common school system is mischievously one-sided in its neglect of the religious element in man's nature, and that a purely secularized education is really worse than no education at all. It is on this ground that the Roman Church has officially declared its uncompromising hostility to the whole system; but there are not a few Protestants who, while detesting this opposition to the system, begin to see more reason in the basis of it than they have hitherto seen. It is, in fact, of little use to deplore the growing alienation of the body of the people from all forms of religious effort, so long as a vast machine, supported at the public charge, is busily engaged in educating the children of the nation to ignore religion. As well might a father deplore the ultimate malformation of a son whom he had diligently taught to be left-handed, and whose right hand he had tied up as some Indians do the heads of their papooses.

THE New England Journal of Education, discussing our present

public school system wrote:

There is one Church which makes religion essential to education-and that is the Catholic Church, in which mothers teach their faith to the infant