with sand mountains, country roads, and other wonders of geography all around it. "What we want," said Karl, " is people to live in it."

the keelson with every roll of the vessel, and he packed his scant kit with a heavy heart. An ordinary sailor's bag held most of it; but there was a brown-paper parcel, evidently just

The girl sighed again wistfully. "Oh, but I mean truly dolls with long yellow hair and eyes that open and shut, same as mamma used to read about in the book. Some little boys and girls have them for Christmas."

"The sea will bring them," said the boy, stoutly; "it brings us everything. I heard papa say so."

"Come, children," he said; "you must come in now. The fog is coming, and it will be cold."

A hundred miles to the southwest the little coasting schooner Edith had entered this fog at dawn, and was still sailing sluggishly through it. Summer fogs are windless, but those of winter often carry the beginning of a gale folded in their clinging white. The Edith had been a fisherman; then she was too old for that, and became a coaster. She was old for a coaster now, but she was well insured. Her owner, the captain, had seen to that. He had owned her but a year, but Romney, the mate, had sailed in her since she was launched, and she was like an old friend to him. She had sailed the morning before, in ballast, and leaking. The captain and Romney were all the crew. The captain said he would take on two foremast hands at Halifax. It made the work of this trip hard for Romney, but he was anxious to get home to his wife and children, and he did not complain. The boat seemed to leak faster now, and the captain, who had been down in the fore peak for some time, came up.

"Romney," he said, "I'm afraid we are going to lose the old girl. The water's making fast, and it's no use for just you and me to try and keep her pumped out. We can probably make Boone Island before she sinks. I'll take the wheel, and you go below and pack up your things."

Romney understood, but he had a lump in his throat. "The old girl" had been his home for so long; he bent his head and went below. He heard the water swashing along

Afternoon came, but there was no thought of dinner. The captain was gloomy and anxious. There was no change in the wind and no break in the fog, which sailed by like a fleet of ghost ships, but gave no glimpse of sun or sky. The Edith went swirling along like a strong swimmer, low in the water but struggling bravely to keep afloat.

"Do you suppose she will stand it till night?" asked the captain, as Romney paced uneasily toward him. "I'm not sure where we are in this fog, and I'd hate to be dropped in the middle of the bay at this time of year."

"You shouldn't have sailed with her leaking," said Romney, hotly. "She's been a good boat to us, and now you are letting her go to the bottom without lifting a hand, and everything with her."

The captain looked at him steadily. "The insurance won't go to the bottom," he said, "and we'll have a better boat under us in a month. We'll make Boone Island in the dory all right, and an easy landing if this cursed fog will only lift."

Romney looked at him fiercely, and then turned away, sick at heart. It was easy to see now why they had come out of port leaking, and with neither cargo nor crew. felt like one who stands by at the deliberately planned murder of an old friend.

He

The dusk of a midwinter afternoon found the Edith still headed northeast and steered by an anxious captain, who had seen no sign

of Boone Island nor any other land. The schooner's decks were almost awash now, and though she held her course and struggled bravely on, there were signs that the end was near. Finally, as the dusk grew, the captain gave a gesture of impatience and took a turn of rope about the wheel, lashing it firmly.

Help me with that boat," he said to Romney. "We've got to get out; she's going soon."

The captain's chest and other belongings were already in the dory, as were Romney's bag and the package done up in oiled canvas. The two took a heave at the dory tackle, swung the boat to the rail, and dropped it overboard. Oars and a jug of water were placed in it, and then the two men got in, dropping astern, towed at a long end of the main sheet fastened at the dory's bow.

"We can't risk it aboard there any longer," said the captain; "and I reckon Boone Island isn't far off. She might as well tow us till she goes under. It won't be long now. I wish this cursed fog would lift.”

As if in answer to the words, a single pencil of bright light shot through the gloom on the port side.

"Look at that," cried the captain, jubilantly; "there's Boone Island light now. They've just lighted it."

The two men looked intently at the light. "Are you sure?" said Romney. "The fog may have gotten us off our reckoning."

"Watch it," replied the captain. "Boone Island is a steady white light. If it is Nigger Head, it will show a flash of red once in two minutes; but we can hardly be as far west as Nigger Head. Then there's Twin Reef. God help us if it was that! But Twin Reef is two lights, and it is twenty miles to the east of this. We must be pretty near to see it through this fog. Watch and see if it flashes."

A minute passed, two, three, but the light shone steadily, though dimly, through the fog, which seemed lifting a little.

"It's Boone Island," said the captain, exultingly. "We're all right. My God, the schooner!"

Romney turned at the cry and stared wildly at what had been the fast-settling Edith, but was now only a whirling huge dimple in the black water, into which they sagged, dragged down by the tightening rope. The schooner was taking them with it. The captain clawed at the fastening, but the knot bound, and the dory's head plunged

till the water curled over his hands. Then he plucked from his belt the sheath-knife which most sailors carry, and with one frantic blow severed the rope.

"Get out your oars," he yelled to Romney. "Back her out of this." But there was no need to tell Romney; he already had them out, and, with the captain's help, the dory backed away from the huge, dangerous dimple. "Further!" cried the captain. "Further away! She'll come up and blow, and if she hits us—"

Even as he spoke the bowsprit of the Edith shot again above the surface, and the whole forward part of her hull followed. Then, with a rush of imprisoned air which burst her hatches and forward planking, she half turned and sank forever.

She was so near that when she went down Romney saw near her fore foot two augurholes with fresh splinters. He sprang up, towering with rage and holding an oar.

"You cowardly sculpin !" he roared. "You scuttled her!"

The captain sprang at him, sheath-knife in hand. "Curse you!" he cried. "You know too much."

A blow from Romney's oar sent the knife flying, and in another moment the two were rolling in the bottom of the dory, which swept toward the momentary gulf left by the sinking schooner and was tossed by the commotion of the incoming waves, yet by some fatality did not sink. Romney was the stronger, and after a little he felt the captain's grasp relax. Then he unclasped his hand from the other's throat and laid him unresisting in the stern of the dory.

The light shone quite clear now, for the fog was lifting and being torn in shreds by a keen northwest wind. This same wind was drifting the dory rapidly, and as Romney picked up the oars and glanced at the light he stared like one turned to stone.

The captain slowly pulled himself together and followed Romney's glance. Below the light they had at first seen, and a little to the right of it, was a similar light, gradually widening its distance from the first with the drift of the dory.

"You don't need to kill me," the captain said, hoarsely. "The sea will do that, and you too. That's Twin Reef. We had the bluffs in line at first."

Romney turned the dory's head north"We'll make the land," he said, dog"It's only ten miles,"

west.

gedly.

"You'll make nothing in the face of this northwester," said the captain. "It'll be blowing us to bally-hack in half an hour. There's just about one chance in a thousand that we can land on the reef, but we've got to take it. Give me a pair of oars. I'll sit aft here, and you need not be afraid of me."

Half an hour later the dory, unseen in the twilight, drifted by the rising northwester and tossed by conflicting currents, entered the tortuous channel through which alone lay safety. Then, with the lift of a great ground-swell, it vanished in the woolly smother of foam which tosses continually over the sunken rocks.

found and opened. Annette gave a little cry of delight.

"Dolls!" she cried. 66 Big dolls, with long yellow hair, and eyes that open and shut. Two of them! It's what we wanted for our play-house."

"Yes," said Karl; "the sea brought them. I knew it would. The sea brings us everything."

Annette looked at him admiringly. "God sent them," she said. "Mamma told us that He sent everything. He's good to everybody. Come, let's put them in the play-house."

Sheltered in their peaceful, sunny corner of the black cliffs, the children played happily, and knew that God was good. The captain, swaying five fathom deep among the kelp and rockweed of the foam-covered reef, knew that God was just; but honest Romney, the mate, swaying five fathom deep by the captain's side-what was he to know?

W

The

AR is not always an unmitigated evil. The results of a great conflict are more than public debt and private bereavement. Men cannot be cast into that fiery crucible and come out unchanged. Strife begets strength. The clash of steel may be the opening strains of the overture of a new drama more lofty in purpose and more perfect in setting than any that has preceded it. All this and more is especially true if the contest touches the field of morals. When it clearly possesses the power to warm the hearts of men, and stirs them to new and higher spiritual life, the contest becomes an epoch.

Such, unquestionably, was our Civil War. We are just beginning to realize how much we are indebted to that contest for the large and generous life, the magnificent enthusiasm, and the superb organization of the last years of the nineteenth century.

The war brought us a sense of equality which we had hardly known before; or which, if we had known it in a much earlier day, had begun to fade away. There is no such leveler as military discipline; and nothing makes more surely or rapidly for the true democratic spirit than community of life in

sun.

The signal gun brought tens and hundreds of thousands from every rank and grade of society, and welded them all together in the white heat of a common purpose, a common hope, a common loyalty. Lawyers, carpenters, teachers, blacksmiths, artists, masons; the clerks from the stores, the more trusted employees from the counting-room, the workmen from the shops-all these were inevitably thrown together upon precisely the same footing, with no exemption from arduous toil or dangerous exposure because of any previous conditions in rank or station; all enlisting under the same banner, following the same leaders, and looking forward with the same high hope and lofty expectation to the same great end. It was the old, old story: "He who fights with me this day becomes my brother." In the midst of this equality men were taught again and again, by undaunted courage, by heroic effort, by

the most unexpected manifestations of power, that the likeliest in America is still to be found in the unlikeliest spots.

Soon there came to the entire people of this country, both North and South, a new sense of unity of purpose. Whatever may have been our condition in this respect prior to this conflict, or however we may have seemed at times to depart from this since the close of the war, during the stress and strain of those terrible days there was a sudden overleaping of the bounds of municipal life, a sudden breaking down of all dividing walls, a sudden and complete forgetfulness of that which lay within the narrow circle of individual existence; and a broad and complete and hearty acceptance of one great thought, one great moral purpose, one mighty determination. The Union party which played such a powerful part in the political events of those stirring times was born of this new condition. The ease with which men who had been political enemies or commercial antagonists now worked together, tugging mightily at the great load of responsibility and anxiety and care that weighed upon the Nation, showed clearly enough the amalgamating power of this great conflict.

Almost for the first time in the history of this country came also an awakening to the power of combination, the value of co-operation. The beginnings of all modern economics and sociology are to be found in the period of our civil strife. Prior to that time we had taken for granted that the only power that would ever bring the world out of barbarism into civilization was competition-the tendency of every man to fly at the throat of his neighbor. The thought of service as being fundamental to real and lasting success in either the business or the professional world was almost unknown. The better thought of to-day, which makes competition mean a larger and more intelligent service to the community, in some given line, was not known. But the war quickened within us a clear understanding of the marvelous power of a people who will heartily unite in any given undertaking. The vast enterprises which must necessarily accompany a conflict like that were in themselves an education and an inspiration to all who touched them even remotely. We came to feel, finally, that a great and free people, intelligent in their choice of ends and means, could accomplish practically anything to which they gave their hearts, their time, and their strength.

And with this came a recognition of the helpfulness of the Government. Up to 1861 we had not been troubled with paternalism. In spite of the strongest of the old Federal doctrines, there was apparently very little sense of dependence upon the central government. We had much to say about individualism, about the power of the States as well as the rights of the States. We were rather proud, and perhaps rightly proud, of the fact that each community had very largely gone its own way and had very generally worked out its own salvation. But suddenly there was forced home upon us the conclusion that the General Government could be, not only a great power, but a very helpful contributor to the success of any great movement. That in the natural swing of the pendulum we may have gone too far is perhaps true. Yet it was worth much to us to secure a clear understanding of the forces that could be rallied around central standard, and of the value of authority commensurate with responsibility. It is not too much to say that our whole thought of the place and value of the General Government radically changed from 1861 to 1865. National existence, in the true sense of the words, certainly dates from the Civil War.

The Civil War also bred within us a desire for great enterprises, and an appreciation of all that these enterprises demand, and all that they promise to ambitious men. There had been no movement since the Revolutionary conflict that could really be called great. In war or in peace, in commerce, in trade, even in the field of invention, we had shown ourselves to be more than ordinarily brilliant. But suddenly we found stirred within us a new sense of power and a new and strong desire to take hold of large things in a large way. When the revenues and expenditures of a single month far outran those of a year in prior administrations; when manufacturing and the production of all that was needed for our maintenance during this great strife were pushed to the front under the spur of immediate and pressing demand; when it became necessary to master time and space and make the powers of earth and air subservient to the will of man-the awakening was simply marvelous. Men who in charge of brigades and divisions had moved great forces of men with enormous expenditures of money, or who in the administrative or commercial world, under the largest scheming, were spurred by necessity into a broader field of human effort

than they had ever dreamed of entering before-these men could not go back quietly to the petty affairs of a petty life.

Well, it all came to an end so suddenly that we hardly knew when the day of peace dawned. It was more like the sudden flashing of the sun at noonday from the midst of clouds that had lain unbroken for four years. Up from the South came the regiments of those who had escaped sickness and death; those who had served their country and their age so gloriously were mustered out; and with mingled tears and laughter the Nation was at peace. What was to become of these men? In what direction were to set these mighty currents of new thought and new impulses? What was to gratify this new sense of new power? On the platform, from the pulpit, in the press, were words of wisdom and warning. Some anticipated tumult and lawlessness. The bravest and most philosophical could only say that they believed that the heart of the American people was sound and true, but could not venture the slightest hazard of prophecy as to what the result would be. These had been away from their home, away from their usual vocations, out of their accustomed places, for four long years. Others had stepped in and filled the decimated ranks of the local communities. There seemed no room for the million men who were to exchange the blue of the army for the homespun; who were to drop the sword and take up the hammer; who were to put pick on shoulder in place of rifle; who were to exchange for the direness of war all the arts and ways of peace. But the great West was open to these men. Crowded out at home or oppressed with a strange sense of the limitations of the old circles, the narrowness of the old paths, they turned toward the new country in which there was room for development and growth, for magnificent scheming and the grandest enthusiasm, in which there were still worlds to conquer, and in which the mightiest might find tasks that would call for all possible strength and power. Tempted by the cheapness of lands, by the Government grants, by the freedom of that life upon the quasi-frontier, rejoicing in the friendships which had been formed with Western men who poured into the armies from Western States as from no other section of the country (it will be remembered that, in proportion to the population, Kansas sent the largest number into the field, and Illinois stood second), the men of the Grand Army

turned westward in a mighty current which spread out over the entire country beyond the Alleghanies. Consciously or unconsciously, they have played their part-not always wisely, perhaps, but always with spirit, with power, with enthusiasm, with self-sacrifice hitherto unknown in the history of any people.

These people felt, rather than clearly understood, that the one great factor in maintaining the equality, the community of purpose, the successful co-operation, the supremacy of law, and the success of all great enterprises was public intelligence. They could not be made to accept any basis of public prosperity less narrow, less sound, less durable, than the interest and effective co-operation of the people and of all the people. They were willing to follow wise leaders, but they were unwilling to accept dictation, and still more unwilling to be ignored or treated with indifference. They came to accept completely the truth of the statement that, in proportion as power is relegated to the people, and is to be held and administered by the people, popular intelligence must be advanced and strengthened. It was only natural, therefore, that in the West there should come to be a remarkable recognition of the part which had been played and the part that was to be played in all this by education. It was only natural that such a people, looking at life in such a way, should not be willing to accept anything less than public and free education-education as large and generous and inclusive as the State itself.

The West, in common with the entire country, had always known something of public schools. In the days of a sparse population, of restricted commerce, of small markets, of limited means of communication with the outside world, the district school seemed enough. In this new era of royal endeavor, these people felt that the district school would never make kingly citizens nor citizens kings. So there sprang up in all the Western States a system of public education which, while imperfect and as yet far from accomplishing all that has been desired or expected, is in its general outline one of the most typical of American movements. The general scheme of State education in the West recognizes sixteen years or grades. Of these, eight grades are in what are known as the primary schools-including the rural district schools and the primary grades of city schools; four are in the secondary schools, including the city, township, and county high schools,