sat down inside the head, and looked out through the eyebrows on the lake, under whose waters lies buried the wide-brimmed shovel-hat which once covered the shaven crown, but was swept off by a storm-wind one winter night.*

Throughout the term of these charming excursions the strictest order was observed. And herein was evinced the power of that honorable party spirit which imposed on every one of us a certain charge as to the good conduct of the whole, making each, as it were, alive to the faults and responsible for the shortcomings of our little community. Rude noise, unseemly confusion, the least approach to dissipation at a tavern, or any other violation of propriety on the road, would have been considered an insult to the college. And thus it happened that we established, throughout Switzerland, a character for decorum such as no other institution ever obtained.

Nor did influences thus salutary cease with the term of our college life. So far as I know anything of the after-fortunes of my college-mates, they did honor to their alma mater, if older and more learned foundations will not grudge ours that name. As a body, they were distinguished for probity and excellent conduct, some attaining eminence. Even that Alexander of Würtemberg whom we so lightly esteemed seemed to have profited by the Hofwyl discipline; for I heard him spoken of, at a later period, as one of the most estimable young princes of the court he graced. Fifteen years ago I met at Naples (the first time since I left Hofwyl) our quondam master of the goats, now an officer of the Emperor of Russia's household, and governor of one of the Germano-Russian provinces.

His death seems to have affected men as did that of Abraham Lincoln. Here is the record: "It was such a lament as had been given to no prince or hero within the memory of man. At the first alarm that their bishop was dying, a cry went up in the streets which reached to every house and convent and chamber. Some ran to the churches to pray. Some waited at the gate of the palace for instant tidings. All Italy was mourner for this good man.” -Amer. Cyclo., Art. Borromeo.

We embraced after the hearty German fashion, -a kiss on either cheek, still addressed each other, as of old, with the familiar du and dich; sat down, forgetting the present, and were soon deep in college reminiscences, none the less interesting that they were more than thirty years old.

So also of the Vehrli institution. It assumed a normal character, sending forth teachers of industrial schools, who were in great request and highly esteemed all over Europe. I found one of them, when, more than forty years since, I visited Holland, intrusted by the Dutch government with the care of a public school of industry; and his employers spoke in the strongest terms of his character and abilities.

It does not enter into my present purpose to consider whether, in the hundred universities that are springing up throughout our country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it is practicable to reproduce, under a system of selfgovernment, the noble spirit that animated the Hofwyl College. But one conviction it may not be out of place here to record. I regard such reform as this to be impracticable, unless, in the persons of those who preside over these learned foundations, we can unite, with the highest cultivation, literary and social, not only eminent administrative talent, but, above all, a devotion such as marked the Alsatian Pastor Oberlin, Thomas Arnold of Rugby, or our own Horace Mann. The soul of Hofwyl was its great president and founder; its palmy days ceased with Fellenberg's life. Under the inefficient management of his son and the son's successors, it gradually dwindled into an ordinary seminary, with little to distinguish it from many other reputable boarding - schools to be found throughout Switzerland.

But, while I live, the golden memories of our college, as it once was, can never fade. With me they have left a blessing,- a belief which existing abuses cannot shake nor worldly scepticisms destroy, an abiding faith in human virtue and in social progress.

Robert Dale Owen.

THE

'HE proverbial diversity of men's minds has a notable exception in the universal harmony of opinion in favor of the resumption of specie payment. The President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the blunt-spoken Treasurer, Congress, the party and commercial conventions, and the free and enlightened press all join in the chorus. Inasmuch as specie payment is called the key-note of commercial soundness and of public and private faith, this accord is a cheering testimony to the general sentiment of integrity. It is agreed with like harmony that resumption shall take place as soon as the country shall be prepared for it. But it is found that every measure to prepare for resumption meets almost unanimous opposition. In all things else, progress toward a condition of good is good; but although the state of specie payment is unanimously thought good, all progress toward it is unanimously held to be bad, and all the methods proposed to hasten it are with one accord pronounced destructive. The fact is so curious as to excite inquiry.

The reason of this hostility to any measure to promote resumption is the common notion that it can be positively promoted only by a withdrawal of part of the paper-money, or, in other words, a contraction of the currency. Contraction is so fearful a thing that no public man dares to propose it. It is one of the mysteries of the monetary problem, that, whilst the contraction of the currency is by all held to be a curse, the appreciation of the currency is accepted as a blessing. Who shall be so rash as to say their effect is the same? But what is appreciation? Simply the increased purchasing power of money. It takes more of labor and commodities to buy the dollar. Debts contracted in cheap money have to be paid in dear. The rise in the purchasing power of money is meas

ured by the fall in the values of all other things. This is the only real appreciation of the currency.

What is the effect of contraction of the currency? It is the same. It makes money grow dearer. Its purchasing power rises. It takes more of labor and its products to buy the dollar. Debts have to be paid in dearer money. Appreciation is all that can come of contraction. Yet contraction is thought a calamity, and appreciation a blessing. Therefore the financial genius of the country is turned to the contrivance of resumption without contraction. Many reckon this easy by the old banking theory, that one third in specie in bank is a good basis for circulation. They apply this rule to the volume of greenbacks, and they liberally reckon all the specie they guess at in the country. But what has resumption to do with the greenbacks? For the resumption chorals are not more harmonious than were the declarations that these notes were issued upon military necessity, an extraordinary recourse in the nature of a "forced loan," justifiable only by that common peril which gave warrant to take even the lives of citizens for the public defence. All agreed that a power so arbitrary and so liable to abuse should be laid down as soon as the country was saved.

But since that salvation the Treasury has received from $450,000,000 to $600,000,000 a year in taxes. It has had a surplus of from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 a year. It has taken into the Treasury the whole amount of greenbacks several times over. It needed only to cancel so much of them each year as it could spare from its surplus, as they came in by way of revenue, to withdraw all these notes by payment, without the use of a dollar in coin. It has only to receive and hold them, to do the same now. Their withdrawal would leave the banks no medium of redemp

tion but coin. This would be specie payment as was promised, when the legal-tender notes were emitted.

But this would be redemption of the greenbacks, not resumption. The curious fact is that the popular want is resumption, not redemption. It looks, not to the payment of the "forced loan," but to keeping it out. And so we find that all the talk by which we kept virtuous principles while emitting legal-tender notes has subsided; we have accepted their issue as the permanent function of a party government, and parties will vie with each other in increasing this blessing to the people. Development is the order of creation.

There are $356,000,000 of greenbacks in authorized circulation, and $40,000,000 of fractional notes. Some

india-rubber warrant has been found for issuing more greenbacks “to move the crops"; but we will reckon for the time when there are no crops to move. The one-third rule would require $ 132,000,000 of coin in the Treasury; but as the greenbacks are the "people's currency," this calculation takes in all the coin in the country, which is generally thought to exceed this sum; and it seems reasonable that, if the Treasury shall thus float the greenbacks and fractionals with resumption, thereby furnishing to the banks a specie currency of $ 396,000,000 for their medium of redemption, the whole $732,000,000 of paper-money can be floated on $132,000,000 of specie. By resting one thing on another thing, in the manner of Irving's Hindoo Cosmogony, our expanded paper-money structure may, after two or three removes, rest on a very narrow base of coin.

In this great country, whose progress is a continual surprise to itself, the experience of the past is no guide for the future. For example, in the era of intermittent specie-paying banks, the proportion of one third coin - when the banks had it- was the lesser part of the specie in the country. The whole bank circulation seldom, if ever, equalled the specie. When it rose to near that

amount, there was a disturbance, and that periodical turn which was called a crisis; and a suspension and a sharp contraction of the circulation took place before payment could be renewed. The one-third rule for greenback resumption ignores the main premise. It has not yet been proved that a paper currency equal to the whole amount of coin can be floated with specie payment.

It is true, no way had been invented for finding out the quantity of coin in a country until we invented one by putting the specie out of circulation. But when we think of the prejudices of the common people in favor of specie, of their habit of getting it for all their hoards, and of that habit of saving which money of intrinsic value promotes, we have to conclude that a reasonable estimate of what was in the hands of the people, added to what was visible in banks and Treasury, prior to 1860, would be more than $ 200,000,000.

The wonderful capacity of our country to carry paper-money without payment has made us forget how limited were its capabilities with payment. But the highest point ever reached by the circulation with specie payment was $214,000,000 in 1857, which caused a crisis, a suspension, and a sharp contraction. It is commonly thought our favored people never felt the pains of currency contraction till Secretary McCulloch withdrew $ 4,000,000 a month from an aggregate paper currency of over $700,000,000, counting only greenbacks, fractional notes, and issued national bank circulation. Pathetic descriptions were given by a leader in the House of Representatives of "the groans of the great West, and of her cries, now, as she feels the life's blood drawn from her veins, and her limbs chafed and swollen by the gyves of contraction," — the very mild reduction of the volume of paper-money, at the rate of little over six per cent a year. But our beloved country's veins and limbs have really been used to more heroic treatment.

According to figures published by the Treasury, the bank circulation of

$214,778,822 in 1857, sank to $ 155,208,344 in 1858, being a contraction of more than $69,500,000 in one year, which was at the rate of near twentyeight per cent. That was a contraction to speak of. During the same time the volume of bank loans was contracted from $684,456,000 to $533,165,000. That was another severe pinch. But a virgin soil, a great foreign demand for our crude products, and the rapid growth of industry under a moderate taxation gave wonderful recuperative power against the calamity of a vicious paper-money system. Prosperity brought another increase of bank circulation, which had reached $207,000,000 in 1860, when it was settled by suspension. Yet it is not likely that in either of these inflations the volume of paper-money equalled the specie in the country.

In the historic inflation of 1837 the bank circulation had risen from $61,000,000 in 1830, to $ 103,000,000 in 1835, to $140,000,000 in 1836, and to $ 149,000,000 in 1837. Then came the crisis, the suspension, and contraction. In 1843 the circulation was but $58,500,000. Let no one think this contraction and appreciation of money was pleasant; for it would need a whole volume to tell its calamities. But all the sins of paper-money are easily forgotten in this blessed land.

It is not likely that the great bank inflation of 1837 exceeded the specie of the country. In 1849 the flow of gold from California began, and the specie must have largely gained on the volume of paper-money, which increased very slowly till 1853.

An approximate estimate of the specie in this country can now be made, because the most of it is visible in the banks and the Treasury, save that which serves the diminishing gold circulation of California. Nowhere else does it circulate, and the hoarding of specie in small savings has ceased. It is questionable if there are $160,000,000 of specie in the whole country, including the amount circulating in California.

The resumption problem, therefore, is to float our paper-money on something under $ 160,000,000 of coin in the country, of which the California circulation will contribute nothing to the work. If we judge by the past, this would be impossible; but, as was remarked, the past is no criterion for America.

A more distinguished class of financiers have made the resumption problem easy by a stroke of that simplicity which marks true genius. “The preparation for resumption is to resume." A former Secretary of the Treasury, holding the disputed title of Father of the Greenbacks, made this great utterance. It was advocated by another distinguished but unfortunate public man and writer on political economy, who founded it on a principle deep in the wellsprings of human nature,that principle which makes man indifferent to whatever he can have for nothing. It was reasoned that, as soon as the holders of paper-money found they could have specie for it, they would cease to want it. Thus, without any preparation, resumption could be achieved by simply placarding the Treasury door with the legend, "Specie Payment is Resumed." Yet it was feared the note-holders might suspect that specie would not continue to be had for the asking, and so with one accord would take Time by the forelock. This admirable method, therefore, was condemned by the administration party, and in a conspicuous manner by its late finance minister.

That officer justified himself by presenting a theory quite as simple, and

even

more agreeable, and founded on substantial principles universally accepted by our people. His theory frankly grants that our currency is too great at present; but it affirms the wonderful growth of the country, and holds that, if the currency be kept at the present amount, the country will in time grow up to it. The premises of this are such as no American can deny. First, this is a great country. Second, a great country needs a great currency. As it grows greater it must have more.

With increase in population, settlement, industry, production, and trade, there must be an increase of money to make the exchanges. It is as plain as that it takes more blood to keep up the circulation of a man than of an infant. If these premises be granted, then, if the currency be in excess now, we have only to let it be till the growth of the country catches up.

This was declared by the Secretary of the Treasury to be the only way of resumption, save the destructive one of contraction. It is generally accepted by our statesmen and by the press. There are still a few who talk of the ancient monetary principles, and insist that there is no way to specie payment but by reducing the volume of paper money; but, as they deny the self-evident American truth that a great country needs a currency expanded in proportion, they are regarded as men destitute of patriotism, if not bereft of judgment.

The growing up process may be called the development theory of resumption. But it proposes to stop the currency development while the development of the country goes on. the development theory of resumption is, after all, only inverted contraction.

Thus

A more consistent application of the development theory of paper - money was made by one of our leading statesmen, now representing the country in a diplomatic capacity, in a speech in the House of Representatives, July, 1868, from which we extract briefly here and there, to show its expansive American spirit: —

"Our currency, as well as everything else, must keep pace with our growth as a nation. My plan is to increase our circulation until it will be commensurate with the increase of our country in every particular..... Expansion is the natural law of currency, and of a healthy growth as a nation... Five times as much postage is paid today as was paid ten years ago; consequently we need five times as much of a circulating medium to transact this little item of business as we previously

....

needed..... Reduce the currency, the means of the people, — and, in my opinion, you are fast finding the road to universal bankruptcy, from which may be seen leading repudiation..... But, says my hard-money friend, the price of gold proves that we have a redundancy of money. No such thing; if it did, we had less when the war closed than now, for gold was lower... The great cause that made gold go up to 280 was the fact that there was a doubt in the minds of some as to our ability to conquer the South; not because we had too much paper, but too little confidence. And the same thing enters into the price of gold to-day, and any return to a gold basis, before it is settled, will be only at the expense of the people..... France has a circulation per capita of $30; England, of $ 25; and we, with our extent of territory and improvements, certainly require more than either..... Then, to determine the amount necessary, we must take into consideration the area of our territory, extending across a continent larger than England, France, and Prussia combined, with a network of railroads unparalleled anywhere. Soon the great iron artery will be spanning our whole country, furnishing the great through route to China. With everything yet in its infancy and unfinished, from the cabin in the far West to our magnificent Capitol above us, farms to be opened, and manufactories building, railroads reaching out here and there with a rapidity unknown anywhere else, no calculation can tell how much we need or can use. You have no past to judge from; for nowhere upon the page of history do you find the counterpart of ours, nor can you institute a comparison with our past."

An unappreciated Philistine of Massachusetts tried to contend with this Samson of speech, by a letter published in a Treasury document, showing that he had greatly exaggerated the per capita circulation of these foreign countries. But this was not heeded; for a free, enlightened, self-gov