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medans in the Sudan, the country still remains completely barred to the agents of the various missionary societies of Europe and America. The societies which had long since established stations in that part of Africa were forced to abandon them twenty years ago by the Dervish insurrection; it has been understood that since then none of them have been allowed to resume operations, a rule operating with equal impartiality against Protestant and Roman Catholic missions. Rumor has it, however, that an exception to this rule has been made in favor of the Copts, and that the latter are now endeavoring to Christianize the Sudanese; but that the Copts receive no direct encourage ment from the British Government, which simply tolerates their presence. In view of the lack of exact information on the subject, The Outlook takes great satisfaction in printing the following official statement from the British Government, which it has just received in answer to a request for information. In a letter to The Outlook Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan, says: "There was no decree issued by Lord Kitchener prohibiting Christian missionary enterprise in the Sudan, but he made it a rule not to allow Christian missionaries to work among the Mohammedan population, though he offered no objection to their working among the pagan population. This rule is still observed, and there are Christian missionaries now at work south of Fashoda. No distinctive treatment is made between Catholics and Protestants. The Copts exist in considerable numbers in the Sudan, especially in Khartûm; they have their own clergy, but do not proselytize. In this respect they do not receive treatment different to that accorded to members of any other religion." It should be added that this letter is received through the Marquis of Lansdowne, British Foreign Secretary, and thus receives additional official sanction.

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opportunities not only for those who desire to become specialists in archæology, but also for those who wish to become better students and teachers of classical philology. When the School was founded, says Professor Seymour, of Yale (Chairman of the Managing Committee of the School, 1887-1901), the linguistic study of Greek was more fashionable than it is at present, and no one doubted that some of the students would be interested in the study of modern Greek in its relation to the ancient language. Strange to say, however, none of the 127 American students has as yet chosen this field of research, although the characteristics of the popular language are gradually fading before the efforts of the public schools to further the use of the literary language. In archæology the School has proved its usefulness: last year, for instance, more American scholars were in Greece for archæological study and research in connection with the School than visited Greece for a stay of more than two months during all the years of the nineteenth century before the School was established. It should be reaffirmed, says Professor Seymour, that the School does not aim solely, nor perhaps mainly, at training specialists in archæology; it desires also, and perhaps chiefly, to encourage on the part of classical scholars archæological study which will throw light upon their classical studies and give life to their teaching and interpretation of literature. A review of the two decades of work recalls many distinguished names in scholarship, among others, of Professors Baird, Goodwin, Allen, Packard, White (the present President of the Archæological Institute which founded the School), Merriam, Waldstein, J. R. Wheeler (Chairman of the Managing Committee), B. I. Wheeler, Tarbell, and Richardson, the present Director of the School. The Outlook has already called attention to the valuable excavations conducted by our School. These have not only added to the world's sum of archæological knowledge, but have given to the School a prestige not otherwise obtained. The expenditures for these excavations have been about $16,000. For the new home of the School the Greek Government gave the building site; it immediately adjoins the ground of the British school. The American School needs a

larger income than it has at present; it should have a permanent endowment of at least $150,000, with an additional income of $100 per year from each of thirty American colleges and universities.

The organization known A Council of as the Council of Jewish Jewish Women Women originated in Chicago in 1893. The Congress of Jewish Women held as a part of the Parliament of Religions at the World's Columbian Exposition proved such an inspiration to the Mothers in Israel, who never in all the centuries of Judaism had been as a distinctly religious body "in congress assembled," that it was determined at the final session to organize permanently as a national body. But, two sections having since been organized in Canada, the term national was necessarily dropped from the title. The chief objects of the association are the bringing about of closer relations among Jewish women, with a view to the united study of Hebrew history, literature, affairs, and conditions, and for the work of social reform and philanthropy. Two triennial meetings have been held since 1893-one in New York, in November, 1896; the other in Cleveland, in March, 1900; the third, which took place in Baltimore early in December, was no less important and interesting than the others. The sessions were very largely attended; those in the morning and afternoon being chiefly restricted to delegates and reserved for the transaction of business and reports of the actual work of the Council, while the evening sessions held in the large auditorium were open to the public, and were addressed by prominent men and women, specialists in those matters in which the organization is interested, but not all of Hebrew birth. Among the speakers was Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, on "The New Social Spirit," which is, she says. preventive rather than curative. Social hygiene rather than social medicine is needed by the body politic; we reform by eliminating causes. A particularly interesting discussion followed the presentation of the report of the Committee on Religion. The works of Heine and Disraeli had been studied by some sections, while a certain rabbi had lectured to his people

on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, with the view that they should be "informed, and not misinformed," regarding it. The query whether these were properly the subjects of investigation by the organization as such was freely argued, and the opinion of the Rev. Dr. Rosenau and other rabbis who chanced to be present was asked. One of these was of the mind that what was most needed was the strengthening of the emotional side of feminine religion. No positive conclusion was reached on this important subject; but the balance of opinion seems to have been against the study of the life and work of "apostates " from Judaism. This, however, is a considerable advance from former standpoints of Hebrew orthodoxy.

Thanks to the vigilant Trained Nurses at public spirit of the Nurses'

Public Sohools

Settlement, an unusually promising innovation has just been made in New York Ci y's system of caring for the health of public-school children. For some time past the schools have been visited periodically by physicians, who examine the children and send home those not well enough to be in school or who show signs of disorders likely to be epidemic. Under the present efficient head of the Board of Health, Dr. Lederle, this system has been enforced so scrupulously that, while the health of the schools has been materially improved, the attendance in many of the poorer districts has been materially diminished. Children, for example, who had sore eyes have been sent away and told to return when their eyes were well, but have had such inefficient treatment at home that when they returned their eyes were still affected, and they had to be sent away again. In this way many fell behind their classes and dropped out altogether. Thus a serious condition confronted the Board of Education, and it almost seemed as if the interests of education were in conflict with the interests of health. this juncture Miss Lillian D. Wald, the head of the Nurses' Settlement, suggested to President Burlingham, of the Board of Education, and Dr. Lederle, of the Health Board, that two trained nurses should be assigned to school buildings in the neglected districts, and should treat in

At

the schools all minor disorders, and visit the homes of children requiring more serious attention to instruct their - mothers as to what should be done for them-how, for instance, boracic acid should be put on sore eyes, and simple remedies administered for colds and other troubles. The plan was warmly welcomed, and Miss Wald's associates who volunteered for the work took hold of it with enthusiasm. The results even exceeded the high expectations at once aroused, and in a few weeks nearly all the children who were out of school on account of various disorders were back again in their places. Furthermore, it was shown that one nurse who took hold of this work sympathetically and not perfunctorily could, under normal conditions, look after the children in three or four great buildings, teaching the foreignborn mothers to do most of the work without the expense of calling in physicians. The plan has worked so well that the educational authorities have decided to engage nearly a dozen trained nurses to look after some forty buildings, and the innovation promises soon to become an institution.

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Wireless Telegraphy

The

December 21, 1902, will The Triumph of be a memorable date in the history of transoceanic telegraphy. On that day formal inauguratory and congratulatory messages were exchanged through the Marconi wireless telegraphy system between Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and the Poldhu station at Cornwall, Great Britain. Governor-General of Canada sent a message to King Edward; a similar message was transmitted to the King of Italy; and one or more press despatches were also successfully passed over the ocean with ́out the intervention of cable or wire. It is stated that in a very short time the line will be in operation for commercial purposes, and a low rate is thought to be possible because of the comparative cheapness of the actual operating expenses after a wireless system has been installed. It need not, however, be supposed that the day of the cable is over; as a rule, great inventions have found for themselves new uses and have supplemented rather than 'supplanted former inventions. It remains

to be seen, also, exactly how far the new system may be depended upon for continuous and unbroken working, and for freedom from possible interruption. The Outlook has already described Mr. Marconi's inventions, which, in the main, are of skillfully devised practical adaptations of principles already recognized. These adaptations and his immensely ingenious apparatus for making the wireless system effective will deservedly place Marconi's name among those of the greatest inventors of our century.

The Mask of the Years

The sunlight has marked the hours for centuries on old dials in English gardens, but there remains no record of their number or their beginning? In the heart of the earth there are ancient memories which have been deciphered; and men have kept, for a part of their life in the world, a register of their thoughts and deeds. But no one knows when time began, nor does any one foresee its ending. So accustomed are we to its divisions and subdivisions that we forget that it has no real existence outside our own minds. It is a universal convention, but it is only a convention; something agreed upon and accepted for convenience; an accommodation to our limited vision and knowledge. So long has this convention been established and so universal is its acceptance that we have fallen into the habit of setting it in antithesis with eternity; forgetting that it is only a very imperfect. attempt to bring eternity within the range of our experience and to make it, if not comprehensible, at least usable. Time is one way of reckoning the bit of eternity which our earth or our race remembers. There is nothing outside ourselves which corresponds to it; it is a convenient and necessary fiction; 'eternity is the only reality.

The time-sense is of importance because it helps us to give our lives order and to keep us in working relations with our fellows; but it is the sense of eternity which makes deep thinking and noble living possible. Time is a little section of the great whole which is eternity; it is a detail in a great plan;, to live as if it were all of life, to see things as if their

time-relations expressed their real significance, to value our opportunities and tasks and burdens as if they were related to the years which we number, is to put a part in place of the whole and to miss the meaning and glory of living. It has been said of Dante that he saw life under the aspect of eternity. When he looked at the seed, the tree stood before him; when he saw the sowing, he saw in the same vision the harvesting; in every act he discerned a cause whose effect was present, in every deed he foresaw the fruitage in power or in misery. He did not look ahead; he simply looked into the heart of things; he saw things through the sense of eternity. The greatness and the terror of "The Divine Comedy" lies in the fact that it destroys the fiction of time and makes us suddenly aware that on this very to-day, the hours of which are registered on dials in sunny gardens, we are in eternity.

In so far as art is noble and significant it annihilates the sense of time and brings us face to face with the beauty and the terror of eternity. The Sistine Madonna sets the mother in the light of eternity, and all heads are uncovered and all voices are hushed in the sudden discernment of the meaning of motherhood in that language of the spirit which is the speech of eternity, when all disguises are torn away and the divinity of true living is revealed. The "Last Judgment" fills us with awe, not because it is a picture of a great event to come in some distant age, but because it makes us aware that we are sifted, tried, and judged hour by hour, and that the great artist has dramatized in a moment of time the eternal process. There are portrait-painters who have such power of divination, of penetrating the mask of the countenance to the character, that their canvases are revelations of the eternal elements in the nature of the man or woman behind the touches and moldings of time. Whenever the soul comes into view, the man is seen under the aspect of eternity. It is one of the highest services of art that it shows life under the aspects of eternity; the fiction of time dissolves under the searching glance of the great artist or thinker. Shakespeare's genius lies in the unique power with which he gives us the feature of the time and the hidden soul which is

eternal behind it; the graphic dramatic force with which he delineates the deed, the masterful insight with which he relates it to the man and his fortunes.

In this double power the Bible is unique among the books of the world. Concrete, pictorial, historic, it flashes light at every turn on the ultimate results and conditions; picturing with marvelous vividness the sowing of the seed, it instantly discloses the harvest. In this lies its pervading, prophetic quality; its steady discernment of the things that are to come because at every stage it lays bare the hidden process which, in the eye of the prophet, is accomplished as soon as it is set in motion. So the Christ moves to his martyrdom with such certainty that long before the star shines over Bethlehem the agony of the cross is announced.

The years come out of the great silence in unbroken succession because we need their divisions in our endeavor to realize, in daily experience, the continuity of eternity. They give us something to grasp and use; but they must not confuse or blind us to the truth that the life we now live is eternal, and that while we number our years and distinguish them one from another, we are already in eternity. To-morrow is already in to-day; the distant future is part of this swiftly departing present. What we think and Ido in this brief instant we are and shall be in the far-off cycles to which we move. Our deeds are not of the day; they are of eternity. Below all the shiftings and changes, the moods and emotions, the depressions and exaltations, something indestructible is shaping itself as surely as below the bareness and icy bondage of winter a vast life is organizing itself.

Our sorrows are registered by the days, but if the root of submission and faith is in them they are as certainly overpast as if already the shadows were gone and the heavens were soft and gracious over our heads. So far as the righteous are able to look through the mask of the years, light is not only sown for them; it already floods the skies. So far as the high purpose is deep-rooted and loyally held, nobility and strength and freedom are already achieved. So far as love is pure, unselfish, and sacrificial, it is already safe against the ravages of death. Life is not yet at the flood, but it is ours as truly as

if we were in full possession of its unbounded resources; the perfect stature is yet afar off, but if the law of growth is working in us, it is already ours as surely as if we had completely attained. The sorrows which the years bring the years take away; they are of the time and the place, and we are not the slaves of time and place; but our joys, having their source in the soul, are indestructible. In the darkest night we know that the day is below the horizon; the shadow on the dial does not confuse us; we know that the sun is on the way, In our deepest griefs, if we look into our souls, the joy of eternal possession already stirs; it needs but the ripening of our faith and patience to bear its perfect flower. The life of love is not counted by the years; once born in the heart, it abides forever. Sown in the furrows of time, it blooms in those immortal fields where no shadows wait to hide the Isun and no chill of death checks the eternal growth.

Beauty

taste, individuality, originality, they must have a chance to become skillful. If they are to have conscience and joy in their work, they must be put in the way of having joy and conscience in their lives. Society must deal, in other words, with the workingman as a man; must build up his character, his intelligence, his skill, as a man before it can get the best out of him as a worker.

It is not many decades since this truth, which has been slowly evolved out of the economic experience of the last three hundred years, began to be practically applied in the endeavor not only to make the homes of workingmen wholesome, but to make their surroundings beautiful; not only to give the factories solidity of structure and proper light and air, but also to make them attractive. When the suggestion was first made that working people needed the beauty of the world as other people need it, and that business men would do well to meet that need, the suggestion was scouted as sentimental, unbusinesslike, doctrinaire. As a matter of

Working fact, everything that makes men

for People

It has taken a good while to make men understand that, as the artist is conditioned on the strength, character, and quality of the man, so the workingman as a factor in the industrial world is conditioned on the force, energy, and character of the man. In other words, working men and women are not simply hands, they are complex human beings, whose work is not a matter of routine, but is diversified by numberless differences of temperament, strength, intelligence, and character. The best investment that the country can make economically is to build up a high grade of working people men and women, in other words, who are not machines, but who have individuality, health, vitality, conscience. Such work ing people are not produced under bad sanitary, physical, and moral conditions. They are not bred under the system which regards them as so many hands to be paid so much money at the end of the week. If the best is to be gotten out of them, the best must be given to them. If they are to be intelligent, they must have opportunities which will enable them to gain the intelligence. If they are to have

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efficient is in the last degree businesslike; and the agitation for making working people's homes and factories attractive instead of ugly has steadily made progress, until the time has come when many of the foremost manufacturers in the country not only cordially recognize the principle, but are doing their best to apply it. The magazine which has the attractive title of "Home and Flowers" and is devoted "to a more beautiful American life," has been securing the opinions of a number of leading manufacturers touching the matter of making business plants attractive. More than five hundred business men in all parts of the country were addressed, and of those replying the editor of "Home and Flowers reports that ninety-five per cent. agreed that the product of a factory or of a business of any kind is much more valuable when the factory or office is clean, attractive, and beautiful, and when the employees do their work amid surroundings which are orderly and artistic.

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The President of a large cutlery manufactory, for instance, puts the whole matter in a paragraph when he says: "The more a man a man is, the more valuable he will be to any concern and the more

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