attempt to provide? It does provide more in almost every case where it provides anything. The result is the free high school, an institution in which are taught the elements of algebra and geometry, the abstracts of several sciences, the grammar of two or three languages, and probably an outline of history, mental and moral philosophy, and civil government. All this is furnished without money and without price to all who will come and partake. Why should the public purse undertake to furnish this extra education any more than it should provide free dinners or decent tenement homes for the poor? It must be that the education is considered of great value.

Some years ago I heard an observant elderly lady say that the free high school was destined to be the ruin of this country. I attributed her remark, which shocked me as having the spirit of the eighteenth century, to the prejudices and conservatism of one who had no sympathy with the masses. In fact, I was so indignant about it that I began observations to disprove her statement. While I am still far from acknowledging its truth, my enthusiasm about the high school has become modified so much that it appears no longer an unmixed blessing, but an institution quite unadapted to the needs of the country.

Why is it that there is such a constant cry about the lack of skilled mechanics, artisans, and domestic servants? Why is it that there is such a surplus of cheap professional men, clerks, and copyists? It is because education with the lower classes (I use the term for convenience) has

come to mean a synonym for a training that provides means for people to live without labor. It is with them a sort of magic oil, which, if poured into people's heads for a certain number of years, will enable them during the remainder of their lives to keep their hands white, and at the same time to enjoy dainty food and fine clothes. What wonder, when fountains of this potent fluid are distributed at public expense all over the land, that manual labor is despised? The common people, who wish to advance the fortunes of their children, have no comprehension of the satisfaction of a cultivated mind, nor can they understand that mental labor is of the severest and most taxing kind. But they do believe that if they surrender the entire youth of their children to the public schools, that the schools, since they incapacitate their pupils for manual labor, ought to teach them to get a living by their wits.

Let us take some every-day examples. I know a respectable Irishman, a laborer. His wife, before her marriage, "worked out." She now works in her own family. They live in a town which for many years has boasted a complete public-school system.

Their eight children enjoy its benefits. The parents have become thoroughly imbued with the American idea that their children must have a better opportunity than themselves. The eldest daughter has just graduated from the high school. I saw the hack sweep down the alley in which they live, and convey her in muslin robes and satin ribbons from a tenement in whose parlor the cookstove and the crib are the most strik

ing ornaments, to the flower-decked stage where she read her essay. Her parents weep tears of joy at the height she has reached. One or two of my friends remark that it is extremely creditable for a poor girl like her to have gained such an education. It might be, if it had been by any effort of her own. Not one sacrifice has she made to procure her learning. She has been a passive instrument in the grasp of the public-school system. She has continued her course because the school was pleasanter than any other place, because it cost nothing, and because she must always be dressed well to appear there. She has had no industrial training: she could not very well have obtained it had she wished it, for the schools absorb so much of the time and energies of their pupils.

Having once conferred its diploma, the high school washes its hands of its pupils. I felt somewhat concerned for Miss O'Hafferty. I wondered what she would do. I understood that, like the seventeen other girls in her class, she wished to teach. Even if I had not known this. I should not have dared to approach her with an offer of domestic service. No, indeed. By virtue of her much learning she is raised completely out of her natural environment, and expects to be forever freed from the necessity of toiling with her hands.

Some months afterward I was called from my work by a summons to the parlor. I found Miss O'Hafferty seated therein. Having failed in her efforts to obtain a school, she had decided to become a book agent, and she offered a gilt-edged volume for my inspection. I do not know what

she will do when she finds that she cannot support herself in this way.

Here is another instance: The father is a painter; the mother before her marriage was a dress maker. They have a boy and three girls. The father has no idea of having his son follow his trade; few American fathers have. At the age of fifteen the boy drifts into the high school because that saves the parents the trouble of deciding what other occupation he shall follow, and because they fondly hope that the learning acquired there will be in such demand that it will procure him a thousanddollar situation immediately upon graduation. He graduates. After some months of waiting he becomes a clerk in a dry goods store at a salary of two dollars a week.

Since most Americans must work in some way for their bread and meat, it would seem that training for this work ought to begin during the school age. In large cities, where everything is carefully specialized, children often grow up without knowing how to use their hands. City homes offer so few opportunities for manual labor that if industrial education is not provided in the public schools, we may have a race of beings born without digital appendages, because their ancestors' have dwindled away from lack of use.

Some German schools pursue the admirable plan of instructing children from text-books during one half of the day, and from tools the other half. This system has results similar to those of the country district-schools. The children bring to their books sharpened wits and a persistency learned from a contact with things.

School is a novelty and a pleasure to them. Their advancement always equals that of children who spend all their working hours in study.

The papers are continually printing articles about the immense value to every person of the knowledge of some practical handicraft by which he can earn his own living. They cite instances of European nobles who have apprenticed their sons, and of a few wealthy men in this country who have followed their example. But it is no use. So long as the public schools teach as they do, and especially so long as the high school remains free, their mighty influence all goes against manual labor.

In old times it was accounted that a child seven years old was able to earn its living. It may be a disadvantage for a child to have to do it, but it certainly is no less a one for the child to be put into the public school system and turned out at the age of seventeen without knowledge of one practical craft by which he

can provide for himself. When Horace Greeley saw Oxford graduates in New York city unable to earn their daily bread, no wonder that he "thanked God that he was graduated from a New England very common school."

I have no wish to depreciate the value of learning. It is because I would not have it held cheap that I would not give it away in any grade beyond the grammar school. If parents had to pay a tuition fee, however slight, to the high school, they would be compelled to appreciate the relative values of things. There should be no niggardliness in expenditure for public education. School appropriations, if judiciously applied, cannot be too large. There are not half enough school-houses in the land; but that which the people most need to know should be taught in them. The instruction of the high school may well be left to those who can afford time and money for learning for its own sake.

No part of the Dark Continent has been opened up longer to the commerce of the world than has the west coast, and yet to the average reader no part of the African coast is less known than the long stretch of harborless shore line from Goree to the Bights of Benin and Biafra.

No trading coast of the world can offer richer inducements to the American shipmaster or owner, yet but few

capitalists are found with sufficient knowledge of its constant value to induce them to engage in its trade. England skirts the coast with steam and sail, carrying protection with man-of-war and mail-boat to every trading-post where any handful of Englishmen have made a thirty days stand. Nearly half a century before Columbus's first voyage westward the Portuguese had nominally taken pos

session of the gold coast, with headquarters at Delmina (Elmina), nine miles from the now flourishing English port of entry, Cape Coast Castle. They built Fort Delmina and flung out the flag of Portugal, but in 1491 the Dutch came in, landing above them, fortified the elevated ground on the landward side, dubbed the fort St. Jago, and with the conclusive argument of heavier round shot reminded the Portuguese of the transitory nature of things, so that the Latin gathered himself up with alacrity and hied him beyond the equator.

The Dutch held possession until 1872, when all their possessions on the Gold coast were transferred to Great Britain. This old town in its palmy days was the pride of its possessors. Paved streets, turnpiked roads, long rows of quite imposing residences and warehouses, gave an air of dignity to the town, and inspired the traveller with a feeling of home, when, worn down by weeks of travel through sand and jungle, he came in view of the whitewashed town nestling down on the verge of its surf-fretted beach. The Dutch are good colonizers. They do not insist that sealskin overcoats shall be worn in Africa because they do it in "our country, you know." They adapt themselves to the environment, and their African towns are composite in architecturehalf Ham, half Hamburg-and so are the inhabitants.

But the glory of the old town passed when the royal ensign of Portugal was lowered. The colonial policy of England is felt here in all its selfishness.

but not a penny for colonial improvement," is the motto of the home government. The streets are going to decay, the grass and jungle cactus are creeping into the formerly well kept turnpike from Elmina to Cape Coast Castle, and the old resident feels that his home is being dismantled for the aggrandizement of Cape Coast and Accra. The governor resides at the latter town, while Cape Coast rejoices in a fortified castle, a black regiment, and a staff of English officers who curse the "beastly coast," do their duty like Englishmen, stay two years and are relieved, or stay longer and are gathered into the inclosure rendered sacred by a few white slabs that mark the resting-place of such English and Americans as have succumbed to the deadly climate.

A description of one town on the coast, with a few corrections, will answer for all. Cape Coast, viewed from the sea or land approaches, presents a picture of beauty. The blending of brown, white, and green is unique and satisfying. Entering the town from either side, the illusion is dispelled. Let us open it up from the landward side. We will leave Elmina at 5 A. M., by the trans-continental African coach. Said coach is a hammock carried on the heads of four stalwart Fantee savages. A fancy canopy serves as an awning, and, bolstered half upright by pillows, fanned by the sea breeze that tempers the sultry air, we enjoy a ride that is truly delicious. Four miles an hour is regular score. As we leave Elmina, the road is lined by a lavish growth of

*The author's notes were made in 1877, while travelling in Africa.

bloom; soon it breaks, and the bush jungle comes up to the roadside. Here

and there the jungle breaks; patches of corn are seen, where some enterprising heathen has burned off the "bush" and put in his "kanky" seed. The scenery across the country is beautiful and satisfying, rather than grand. On the right, occasional glimpses of the sea are had, while to the left the highlands of the interior raise their tops to meet the eye above the jungle. We cross a miniature iron suspension bridge over the Sweetwater river, built by the English during the Ashantee war. Over this bridge the troops of Sir Garnet Woolsey crossed on their march to Koomassee. The emotion one experiences as he first comes upon this little gem is akin to what he might feel at a successful manipulation of Aladdin's lamp.

This looks like English public spirit, but the facts demur. It cost treasure, but its raison d'être was to assist in pushing the troops to the capital of the Ashantee country, where, after staying but two days, and burning Koomassee, they brought away enough of barbaric ornaments in beaten gold to pay the entire expenses of the war. But the bridge is now left to wear out with time, and, like the improvements of the Dutch, will go to desolation and the bush.

But as the ride across the country will tire the reader, we will cut its recital short. Our heathen friends gather us flowers and catch us butterflies, and we try a few shots at some white-breasted crows. Now and then a suggestive growl from the jungle causes my four horses to quicken their pace, or a serpent glides lazily across the road, a type of African indolence. But we are at last in Cape Coast, and

our hammock-men are discharged until early evening. The town presents a far more interesting view as you enter from the country than it does from the beach, but the beauty is lost as one threads its narrow lanes, saluting his nostrils with the never-to-be-forgotten West Coast odor. Cape Coast, like all Fantee towns, is irregularly laid out, although making some show of streets. There are some residences quite imposing, and around the government buildings are grounds that show the handiwork of white men, garnished with a flora of which the tropics are ever lavish. The castle itself, or fort, is an extensive structure, seemingly well garrisoned. The greater portion of the town is made up of mud houses, so called. They are built from the earth upon which they stand. This earth, wet and mixed with gravel, forms, when sunbaked, a hard cement. The walls are raised from two to three feet thick. Those that are roofed are covered with thatch, or long country grasses, save a few boasting roofs of corrugated iron-an English blunder. The native experience teaches the Fantee that a non-conductor is the proper roof in a hot country. Those that are not roofed tumble down every wet season and are rebuit in the dry, giving the inhabitants all the variety and privations of a summer tour without the extra hazard of travel. We pass a chapel, but, hearing something that resembles the hum of a giant bee-hive, we turn back, and, making our way through flocks of goats, pigs, sheep, and fowls, enter what we find to be a school-room. A hundred eyes from the shiny black faces of fifty Fantee scions turn toward us, and the tumult