Custer entered West Point in June, 1857, and graduated in June, 1861, from a class numbering 125 on entering, and 35 at graduation. He left West Point on the 18th of July, having been ordered to report to LieutenantGeneral Scott at Washington, which place he reached on the 20th, and on the same evening was on his way with despatches for Gen. McDowell, whom he reached at three o'clock the next morning, and found preparing for the disastrous battle of Bull Run. Having participated with his company in that bloody conflict, he was assigned, on his own application at graduation, to the Second U. S. Cavalry as Second Lieutenant. This was the regiment of which Gen. R. E. Lee had been colonel. After Bull Run he remained in the defences of Washington until the army moved out under McClellan, still serving with his company. When the rear of Johnston's retreating army was overtaken at Catlett's Station, Custer led the charge of a platoon of cavalry ordered to drive in the enemy's pickets, during which he had one man wounded and a horse killed, being the first blood drawn by either army in the spring of 1862.

On the transfer of the army of the Potomac to the Peninsula, he was detailed for duty as engineer officer and assigned to the corps of General Sumner, when he laid out and superintended the construction of the earthworks in the closest proximity to the enemy's lines at the siege of Yorktown. He served on Gen. Hancock's staff at the battle of Williamsburg, and was the first Union soldier to discover a ford across the Chickahominy, before which the army had been delayed for many days. He waded the stream close to the enemy's pickets. For this service he was brought to Gen. McClellan's notice, and while standing before him in his dripping clothes, he was assigned to the General's personal staff and promoted from Second Lieutenant to the rank of Captain, and continued to serve in that capacity until McClellan was finally relieved from the command of the army, participating in all the battles fought under him. He was then ordered to join his regiment, reaching the army just as the battle of Chancellorsville was being fought. He remained with his company only on that day and the next, when Gen. Pleasanton, commanding the cavalry corps, detailed him as aid on his staff, and he participated in the numerous engagements fought by that officer until Hooker, in pursuit of Lee, had entered Pennsylvania and was relieved by Meade, in command of the army of the Potomac.

About this time many changes were made, and Custer was raised to the rank of Brigadier-General and was assigned to the command of a brigade of Michigan cavalry, under Kilpatrick as Division Commander. He continued to serve under Pleasanton until the latter was succeeded by Sheridan, soon after which he was assigned to the command of a division of cavalry. He took part in all of Sheridan's battles, with many others that were not his. He was promoted to the rank of Brevet Major-General for his gal

lantry and skill at the battle of Cedar Creek (Sheridan's Ride), and to a full Major-Generalship for the final battles around Richmond. General Custer was in the advance when Lee surrendered, and has now in his possession the white flag sent in by Lee when asking for a truce. He also has the table on which were written the terms of the surrender of Lee's army. This table was presented to Mrs. Custer by Gen. Sheridan, who, in the letter accompanying the trophy, used the following language: "Permit me to present to you the table upon which were written the terms of surrender of the army of Northern Virginia by Gen. Lee to Lieut.-Gen. Grant, and to add that in bringing about this most desirable event, I know of but few individuals who had more to do than your own very gallant husband." This letter was written and dated at Appomattox Court-House, April 10th, 1865, the day following the surrender.

Gen. Custer participated in many battles and in nearly every important skirmish fought by the army of the Potomac or the cavalry of that army, except that of Fredericksburg under Burnside. This battle he expressed to me no regret at having missed. As we have before stated, it so happened that Rosser, who commanded a cavalry division on the Confederate side, and Custer, seemed fated constantly to run into conflict with each other. The most important engagement in which they were opposed to each other was on the 9th of October, ten days before the battle of Cedar Creek. Here all the cavalry of the two armies were engaged. Rosser and Custer faced each other, each in command in line of battle. Rosser recognized Custer, but the latter did not see his opponent on that day to recognize him. When the Confederate commander saw Custer advancing at the head of his command, and before the engagement became general, he called his brigade officers about him, pointed out Custer to them with the remark: "There comes Custer; now let us break him up to-day." It so happened, however, that while Rosser and his officers were watching their antagonist's movements, Custer pushed ahead, whipped a Kentucky column around to the left, and before Rosser was aware of it the "boys in blue" charged him in front and on the left flank, driving everything before them, the pursuit continuing for nearly twenty miles. In this engagement Custer captured all of Rosser's artillery, all of his wagons and baggage, and large numbers of prisoners, including also his private wardrobe and a fine new uniform coat. Rosser being a much taller man than Custer, the latter sent him a message a few days after the battle that he was "much obliged to him for the present of a new coat, but that the next time he ordered one for him (Custer) he would oblige him by directing the tailor to make it shorter in the waist!"

Gen. Custer had nine horses shot under him during the war and one in an Indian fight on the Yellowstone, making ten in all. In two battles of the war, Gettysburg and Brandy Station, he lost two horses in each, both

being shot from under him, within three minutes of each other. When appointed Brigadier-General, Custer was but twenty-three years of age, and he was a full Major-General at twenty-six. He was the youngest officer in the army of his rank at the date of these two appointments. The General is addicted to none of the vices that so often disfigure the lives of the brave and the daring, but is in all respects an unexceptionable man as well as model officer. He neither swears, drinks, nor uses tobacco in any form.

Being but thirty-six years of age at this writing, he has to all appearances a long, honorable and useful life before him, although such a brilliant record as his is sufficient to crown any life, however protracted, as a grand and imposing success. His rank in the regular army is that of LieutenantColonel of the Seventh Cavalry, of which regiment he is at present in command. He led the Black Hills expedition of 1874, accomplishing the trip to, and the reconnoissance of that hitherto unknown region and the return, within the brief space of sixty days. His book, entitled "My Life on the Plains," and consisting of a series of letters to the Galaxy, is a work of thrilling interest. Wм. F. PHELPS.

EDITORIAL.

THE

GERMAN

QUESTION

AGAIN.

THE

HE Kutztown (Pa.) Educator mildly rebukes us for our sentiments on the teaching of German in the common schools of the United States. The Educator's line of argument is simply a flat denial in detail of the statements made in our article in the August MONTHLY, embellished with such choice epithets as "infatuated, dumm stolze, nativistic, puritanic yankee." We are glad that our ancestors are discovered by the scribe of Kutztown to have come out in the Mayflower, but sorry that he could wish that good ship sunk, for, in such a catastrophe, he might to-day be without public schools in which to teach the language of his love.

The sin of being a yankee (with a little y) is one whose guilt we can bear, since it removes a constitutional obstacle to our being President of the United States, and henceforward we shall keep alarmingly dark on the subject of our birth, which we fondly believed to have taken place at Clareen, parish of Emlygrinnen, barony of Cusleigh, county of Limerick, province of Munster, Ireland!

But our friend is critical. He orders us a dose of rhetoric because we make the pronoun it relate for its antecedent to German, spoken of as a language. True, in the expression die Deutsche Sprache the word Sprache is a noun feminine; but we venture to suggest that the same, or any similar usage, does not obtain in English. How would it sound to say, "German is one very great language; don't she?"

The learned editor has us at a disadvantage when he points to Pennsylvania to controvert our statement that this study is nowhere successful in the public schools. Our language on this point was not explicit. Of course we did not mean that German could not be successfully taught where it is the vernacular-in Germany and

certain parts of Pennsylvania. All his arguments are from a Pennsylvania standpoint; but though the State of Penn's woods may be the keystone of our federal arch, yet we must allow that there are other States besides Pennsylvania on this continent, and other cities than Kutztown. Nor did we mean that teachers in Pennsylvania could not keep order in school, for that State is renowned for its schools and school system; but, unfortunately for us, our knowledge of teachers of German has not been extended to persons coming from Pennsylvania, but from Deutschland direct. We had no reference to Pennsylvania in particular, nor to any section inhabited entirely by Germans or their descendants, where the admixture of races-so favorable to intellectual brightness-has not taken place. We contemplated the many great cities outside, and may be some inside, Pennsylvania, in which politicians, to flatter a large element that ought to be American by this time, introduce the German language into the public schools, in connection with incompetent teachers of the same, and under conditions in which success is impossible, and make children of various nationalities study it nolens volens.

What would our critic think of the plan in a city in which German is nominally optional, of having the teacher of German pass from room to room, remaining half an hour in each, teaching a baker's dozen of German children, while the remaining fifty pupils, by rule of the Board, are compelled to sit idle, and the division teacher obliged to keep order among both sets during an exercise whose every phase tends to destroy order, whose progress and incidents are to the majority of the audience prosy when not ludicrous? By and by it may dawn on us that Americans have rights which Germans should respect, at least outside the State of Pennsylvania.

I

DEVIATION FROM AN AVERAGE.

F all the adults of a nation were measured as to stature, and the height of each marked on a white surface with a pencil dot, the points would be most numerous at the middle, and would diminish in number towards either extreme. It is claimed that the number below the average in such a scale would be equal to the number above it, and that the scattered dots indicating the height of the giants would not vary in number from the points showing the height of the dwarfs.

There is a similar variation in mental stature among the members of the same race, and the degree of variation is not less constant. This is a truth which teachers do not always appreciate. They too often worry over deficiencies in children for which nature alone is responsible, and attempt to do things as impossible as to make a five footer stand six feet out of his boots. Our examinations for admission to the highschool indicate in their results this variation in an interesting manner. The average time spent in preparation is eight years; the quality of teaching in the several schools of a large city varies but little; yet the averages of five hundred children examined for the high-school at any one time will range from ninety-six to sixty-six per cent of

correct answers.

The principle of deviation from an average is observed in this test as in the measurement of bodily stature. The greatest number are observed to make the middle averages, and those very low or very high are seen to be few. There will be, perhaps, no more than one standing ninety-six, and one sixty-six, and the proportion making any certain per cent, increases as that per cent approaches the figure which marks the general average. This will be the case in a school attendance of 40,000 children. So it appears that of 40,000 children in school at a particular time 500

will enter the high-school, passing examination on the common English studies. But such ratio is not a correct index of the talent of the children at school. Of this 40,000, perhaps 30,000 are obliged to leave school before trying for the high-school, for reasons not at all relating to their mental capacity. And of the 10,000 remaining, at least 5,000 are prevented from reaching the highest common-school grade by overthoroughness in the lower classes, being detained therein for the sake of high averages, or to wait for inferior class-mates, till they consider themselves too old to complete the whole course, and leave school in discouragement. The possession of talent or precocity in learning will account for the withdrawal of 4,000 of this remainder. This is true especially of boys who look for work as soon as they take the notion that they have learned all they want to know. But it is safe to say that of the remaining 1,000 fully 500 are debarred from entering the high-school for want of ability to compass the studies required before admission.

We dare not estimate the proportion of children sufficiently gifted by nature to accomplish a common English course and reach a minimum of say seventy per cent for admission to the high-school. But that there is a certain per centage of such incompetents there is no denying, and it is a fact which teachers should keep constantly in mind and console themselves with, even though they may not dare hint the matter to the fond parents of the darling incompetents.

The range first mentioned, from ninety-six to sixty-six, does not cover the ground that the average of candidates would extend over in an examination free from restrictions. It must be remembered that not all who have had the average length of time at school, are allowed to try for the high-school in our principal cities. By means of test examinations classes are trimmed; so at any time perhaps not more than threefourths of those desiring to try are allowed that privilege by their teachers. If all who had spent a certain time in the common-schools, say eight years, and had enjoyed the average quality of instruction, were presented for admission, together with children from private schools, there is no doubt that the range of averages would be from ninety-six to four on the scale of one hundred per cent. Such a trial would be a fair exhibit of the varying capacity or receptivity of children. Such the difference in results from teaching which is identical or similar! and this exclusive of the feeble-minded. It is evident that different races would show different degrees of ability, though subjected to the same training. Even in this country there is a degree of mental calibre peculiar to certain sections. The questions published in school reports and the results of the same in examination indicate a degree of native ability in children, increasing, certainly but irregularly, from east to west. The questions calling for most judgment and mother-wit are given on the Pacific coast, while those on the Atlantic seaboard demand but little in the line of originality. Since the teaching out West can not be superior to that in the East, it must be inferred that the children there are brighter, and will stand the test of something more than hackneyed questions from the text-book. Were it politic to enter into a discussion of this phenomenon, it might be said that notwithstanding the superior educational facilities of the East a brighter race of children choose the West to be born in. This is true of America as compared with Europe, as it is of Europe compared with the Orient.

The explanation of the superior native in'elligence of western nations lies in the fact that emigration has tided westward, and that the more enterprising and self-reliant people are the ones to emigrate. Those who have courage to break away from old ties, though falling into rude habits, gain strength of character which tells in their offspring. The energy of body acquired in grappling with nature in a rude state, though appearing as roughness in the father, is apt to be translated into energy of mind in the son. "Westward the course of empire takes its way."