The evening times., 1898-12-31
THE JANUARY MAGAZINES.
A Lesson of the War.

LcSSOh ~ thC ais
1t is the first and greatest lesson of this
war that good ships and guns are useless
if there are not good officers, engineers
and seamen to work the ships, and good
gunners to lay the gums. Farragut's wise
saying, that 1.-The best defense against the
enemy is a well-directed fire from our
own guns is triumphantly yindicated. 1t
is an extraordinary fact that the Spanish
government, while purchasing or b1ildsng
the ships took no steps to train the men,
Unlike the great navies OF Europe-Brit-
ish French, Russian, German, and Italian
the Spanish navy has neglected maaeu-
vers in peace. We search in vain for any
sign of that incessant drilling upon the
sea which has made the American, Brit
ish and French fleets so formidable
Target practice, which in these three ma
vies and the German has received the ut
most possible attention, was similarly
overlooked. There are tales, true or
untrue, that the ammunition issued to
Spanish ships was never expended. Span
ish vessels, indeed, presented a fine ap-
pearance at Kiel, Spithead and the Co
lumbian review, but an imposing exterior
is nothing in war. The neglect of bait
training has terribly avenged itself.
The explanation of this neglect may be
found in several directions-in national OBJ
stinacy, which imagined that the Spaniard
was in courage the superior OF every for
eigner and that naval war was a mere
matter of luck and pluck; in corruption,
which diverted from their proper aim sums
voted for the navy; and in national power
ty, which could not support the heavy cost
of an adequate fleet. Ii is fairly obvious
fact that five ships with trained crews are
better than ten ships with unframed men.
But the imbecile mismanagement of Spain
during the war renders it probable that her
| rulers had not grasped even this truism.-
Harper's.
4 College Not IA Home for Incurab1es
A college is not a home for incurables
or a limbo for the dull and inefficient.
| Moreover, as Western father observed to
President Eliot, it does not pay to spend
| 81, 900 on a two-dollar boy" Though
| firm believer in college training as the su-
preme intellectual privilege of youth, l am
| convinced that the salvation OF some young
men (for the practical purposes OF this
| present world) is in taking them out of col
! lege and giving them long and inevitable
| hours in some office or factory.
| / do not mean that all success in col
| lege belongs to the good scholars; for many
| a youth who stands low in his classes gets
| incalculable benefit from his college course
1t is the weakened dawdler who
| ought to go, the youth whose body and
mind are wasting away in bad hours and
bad company, and whose sense of truth
| grows DINNER and DINNER in the smoke
| of his cigarettes; yet it is precisely this
youth who, through mere inertia, is hard
est to move, who seems glued to the uni
versity, whose father is helpless before his
| future. and whose relatives contend that,
| since he is no mans enemy but his own,
| he should be allowed to stay in college so
! long as his father will pay his tuition fee
as il a college were a public convenience
wherein anybody that pays his fare may
abide unless personally obnoxious" or
| a hotel where anybody that pays enough
may lie in bed and have all the good
| things sent up to him. No college-cer-
| tainly no college with an elective system,
I which presupposes a youths interest in his
| own intellectual welfare-can afford to
| keep such as he. Nor can he afford TO be
| kept. One of the first aims of college life
| is increase OF power; be he scholar or
athlete, the sound undergraduate learns to
meet difficulties; stumbling blocks" in
| the words of an admirable preacher, be-
| come stepping Stones" 1t is a short
sighted kindness that keeps in college
with its priceless opportunities for growth
and its corresponding opportunities for de-
generationl youth who lies down in front
of his stumbling blocks in the vague hope
that by and by the authorities Will have
them carted away.-Atlantic.