The Saint Paul globe., 1898-04-17

Correspondence The St. Paul Globe
BOSTON, April 14-Madrid and
washington, the army and the navy,
Being the sole subjects in which Bos-
ton has been really interested for weeks
1t is very good time for the appear
aTlce of Maj. w. r. Livermores amer
lean KrieSsspiel," which, after some
eighteen years of preparation and eX-
pertinent, is now ready for publication.
and will be issued next week by the
w. b. Clarke company. 1t is not al
together national vanity which makes
American officers regard this Kriegs-
spiel as combining the good points of
the free" and the rigid German sys-
TENS, for experience has shown them
that it can be played with sufficient
fapld1ty to satisfy even Napoleon, and
that its system of computing. and
recording results would leave nothing
Tor Won Moitke to desire. An ingenious
table Of logarithms, arranged like a
cribbage board, and added and SUBJ
tracted by, moving a peg, and tables Of
nlod1flcat1GnS cOnfornled to the very
latest. standards, are the machinery by
which speed and perfect eXactitude are
obtained The chance factor is found
by throwing a die, and subtracting one
from the number exhibited; the blocks
used are so scored that by turning
them they can be made to show the
exact condition of each company, bat
terry or squadron engaged; and means
are provided for indicating fatigue. dis
organization, motion and direction and
intensity Of fire, so that the game
might be played silently. if desired.
ard is sufficiently simplified to be with
in the comprehension of the lowest of
militia subalterns.t Originally. this
method was devised for detachment
hr1egsspiel, but it has been so extended
as to include grand tactics, strategical
movements, siege operations and naval
engagements. The educational value Of
Kriegsspiel, played by Maj. Livermore's
plan, is beyond cavil, which is more
than can be said of either the free"
or the rigid" forms, one sometimes
degenerating into pure guess work
and the other too often becoming
rather less exciting than the multiple
cation table set to slow music.
1T is not surprising" Hrothar iona
than will say. that my sons can devise
a good war game. Thay can PLAY one
in earnest and forget it, and that thew
really can forget, not only civil war
but its origin, is shown by the surpris-
ing popular indifference to the protest
OF the mill owners against the eight
hour law, forbidding them to use their
costly machinery and immense water
power to full advantage. It was With
the endeavors Of the New England
| manufacturers to obtain protection for
| their products that the devastating war
! OF the last generation began, and this
| appeal to the legislative power may be
| the initial movement of a struggle more
| deadly; but eyes and cars exist only to
read and hear news from Spain ard
| Havana.
| Perhaps Boston eyes may turn aside
| for a moment in a Week or two, when
Mr.. Arthur Stanley Piers THE Second
String" a story Of the Harvard Sum-
mer School, is to be issued, for the
school is a pet with Boston and Cam
bridge, and both towns are somewhat
strenuous in demanding that their IA
vorites shall be admired and respected.
| The heroine is a Western teacher. not
one of those superb instructors whom
| DR.. Rice found in the West and describ-
ed as models for Eastern imitation, hut
a silly, half-educated girl, too lazy for
manual labor, and really caring for
nothing but filtration. She and her
betrothed lover, a poet of the same
class as Mr.. HeZekiah Butterworth,
come to the summer school together,
and she promptly begins to WOO the
| supercilious, well-dressed instructor in
| English literature, youth who despises
his heterogeneous classes until it dawns
upon him that his pupils are really
earnest, devoted seekers for knowledge,
| although their clothes and their accent
are unlike his 1t is easy to foretell the
wrath of "Old Teacher" and "Peda-
! gogue," and all the other regular, cor
/ respondents of the "eduoationa jour-
nails, and it is easy to imagine the
peevishness of certain foppish, cigar,
! ette-smoking tutors and instructors at
Harvard, although. really, the story is
a very fair account of a struggle be-
! tween crude vulgarity and crude knowl-
| edge, and neither has cause to COM
plain that the other is unduly favored.
The publishers of ''The Second
String" will be Messrs. Copeland &
Day, who also announce .'The Man
Who Worked for Collester," a volume
of short stories, by Miss Laura Tracy
Earle. "The Birds Highway" by Mr.,
Reginald Heber Howe, which is also to
have their imprint, is to contain some
rather extraordinary heliotypes, so sac-
curately initiating Mr.. Fuertes'' water
colors that it seems impossible that
they should be mere press work. The
fastidious souls who pine to behold
the actual brush strokes of the artist
viii be sorely puzzled to know whether
or not TO be enthusiastic about them.
The promised History Of the Lowell
Institute" by Miss Harriette Knight
Smith. really includes a hriaf oooo,,<