EDITORIALS

The present number marks the fiftieth appearance of THE SEWANEE REVIEW-thirty-one issues under the editorial supervision of Professor Trent and nineteen under the present editor. With the completion of the tenth volume the editor indulged in a retrospective glance; and the two and a half years since have but emphasized the points then taken as to the office and service of the REVIEW.

But the SEWANEE's title to respect, however just, is small when compared with the splendid services to American scholarship by Professor Gildersleeve and the American Journal of Philology which has just completed its one hundredth number under the one editor. In the "Brief Mention"-always delightful and wholly characteristic—the editor gives a brief survey of the twenty-five years of the Journal and admits that he ends the period in a cheerier mood than he began. No other American scholar could so well, if at all, have carried this work through this period of time; and though many hours of these twenty-five years, which could have produced other books, must have passed into editorial work, yet the scholarly guidance and inspiration and criticism of a great teacher and commentator, which have made themselves felt, are surely as well worth while as adding a few more volumes to the shelf.

Another hundredth anniversary is one of years on the part of the South Carolina College, which celebrated the Centennial of her opening on January 10. Two of the early founders and supporters of the University of the South at Sewanee were graduates of the South Carolina College-Stephen Elliott and Alexander Gregg-and there have been other cordial relations between the two institutions. The South Carolina College was fortunate in having her history written in a spacious volume by a former member of her faculty, Dr. Laborde; and doubtless it was only the untimely death of Professor Means Davis that prevented this history from being formally brought down to the Centennial year. The history of the College has been singular

ly parallel with that of the State, and at this Celebration reminiscencies were evoked in many stirring speeches, in which, interestingly enough, there was not a single public reference to the Confederacy and the "Lost Cause." The emphasis was everywhere laid upon State education and the State relationship and service; and the very just desire was prevalent that the "College" in name should be transformed into a "University" both in name and in fact. Particularly the fine roll-call of Gov

ernors and Judges and the State's statesmen educated within her walls was enumerated. But the South Carolina College has done more a wider work than this last- which was in a measure overlooked. The State of South Carolina has notably furnished to the nation a number of gifted literary men, scholars and scientists-Dr. Gildersleeve, whom we have already mentioned, himself, being among these. And of these the South Carolina College has graduated her reasonable quota, and performed a service for herself and the whole country. In her faculty have been Thomas Cooper and Francis Lieber and James H. Thornwell and others. The two greatest personal enthusiasms and ovations at the Celebration were aroused by two venerable scholars through the presence of Dr. James Woodrow, a former professor and president, and in the mention of the name of a graduate, Dr. James H. Carlisle, the State's foremost educator. Taking the younger men, in the decade from 1880 to 1890, a number of bright journalists and writers, educators and scholars, who may be brought into comparison with her legislators of the same period, came from her campus. And in her entire history the College's contributions to education and to literature are well worth as special emphasis as her contributions to politics and to law.

College celebrations are more than frequent, they are numerous; but these circumstances merely emphasize the extent of our country and the generous rivalry, co-operation, and public spirit manifested everywhere. In October President Dabney was formally inaugurated as the head of the University of Cincinnati; in March President Craighead was formally inducted

into office at Tulane; this month on Jefferson's birthday, April 13, President Alderman is being inaugurated as the first formal head of Jefferson's notable foundation, the University of Virginia. Each of these gentlemen, in seeing clearly and emphasizing frankly particular features of work his institution is called to do, is consciously facing great responsibilities and opportunities. An institution ought to have, and when true to itself and the privileges of its environment and conditions, must have as definite a personality as a man. Every successful institution, like every successful man, specializes in the line of its genius and its interests. No institution can be a dragnet for everybody and every whim and caprice, and prosper. It is a wise man that learns the nature of his particular gifts; and it is a great institution that discerns the strongest points in its own work and develops these into a special character, while not neglecting anything reasonable to a fuller and more rounded development, which, however, is always subsidiary to the main character. Even to the ordinary intelligence the mention of the names Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Michigan, connote a set of very definite ideas which are in no two instances alike. And it is a good thing that each of our best institutions, South as East and West, has this favored personality.

The determination on the part of the trustees of the Peabody fund to give a million dollars to the Peabody Normal College in Nashville with accompanying conditions offers a great opportunity for the display of wisdom in using the income of this amount to the best advantage and a corresponding responsibility for its successful discharge. The purpose is for developing further a great Teachers' College for the Southern States. It has been a long felt want; and here is the opportunity for realizing this ideal and filling this want. One may assume that the easy temptation to give the South and Tennessee and the city of Nashville still another “University" will be successfully and promptly withstood. The sum-notable as it is-is not large enough for that; and there is, unquestionably, not room enough for two

"universities" in the same town, one in the east and another in the west end. Indeed, with the example before us of the proposed co-operation, though not union, of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it might be well worth making the trial of correlating most of the educational work and interest in the same place, as far as may be, so as to get the greatest momentum available: the College for Teachers; the Carnegie Library; the classical training and certain specializations of Vanderbilt University-each independent in its corporation and work and at the same time each acting in perfect accord and sympathy in a right educational correlation. What good might not thus come to the teachers and the school system of the South, of Tennessee, and even of Nashville!

The Conference on Uniform College Entrance Requirements in English, which met on Washington's Birthday at the Teachers' College in New York City, at least opened the way for some radical changes which may bring with them salutary results. The Conference consisted of twelve delegates, three each from the Associations of Schools and Colleges in the New England States, the Middle States, the North Central States, and the Southern States. Instead of the usual prescribed ten books for reading, forty books were named, representing various periods and sorts of literature and divided into six groups, one or two books to be chosen from each group so as to make up ten. This gives both pupil and teacher a much wider choice in literature. An effort to introduce certain books of the English Bible failed, but a special committee was appointed to consider the matter and report at the next Conference. In the books for study, Shakespeare and Milton were retained because they were regarded as the great poets of English literature. The Milton developed sturdy opposition, which, in time, yielded. In the prose, however, there was again permitted a choice: the selection of Washington and Webster over against Burke and of Carlyle against Macaulay. Doubtless no course of study likely to be agreed upon will be thought ideal; nevertheless the great ad

vantage of uniformity throughout the country is obvious. Pupils preparing for college whether in Massachusetts or Wisconsin, Texas or Tennessee, can go over similar courses in English and in theory ought to get enough of the same training to be able to enter the Freshman Class of any college in the country. The schools thus become united in one organized educational system for the nation, the Association of each section acting independently but concurrently and in essential agreement.

The German Kaiser, who is always interesting, has proposed an exchange of visits between Professors of the German and the American Universities; and forthwith the University of Pennsylvania presented both the Kaiser and the President of the United States with a Doctor's degree, without intimating, however, a courteous temporary interchange of chairs on the part of these two learned Doctors. This proposed interchange is almost of necessity limited to the large universities with very specialized graduate courses. The professors would enjoy the holiday—it will be a sort of Sabbatical year for them, with the additional opportunity of preaching in some one else's pulpit. It would give some of them the chance of playing the lion, as Professor Barrett Wendell has been doing in France, or as happened to the foreign delegates to the Congress of Arts and Sciences in St. Louis last autumn. The plan would probably do more to educate the professors than the pupils in the respective countries and as such is to be welcomed.

The proceedings of the Conference for Education in the South which met in Birmingham, Alabama, in April, 1904, appeared during the winter, edited by the Secretary, Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy. This year's meeting, again in April, will be held at Columbia, South Carolina. The proceedings represent a campaign of education in that the greatest benefit resulting is the bringing together of representative men of different sections of our country. The reports from the field by the several Superintendents of Education form probably the most valuable and en