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prayed at the scuddin'-pole. What he said in his prayer I don't know, and what he saw after I don't know, 'ceptin' what he told me. But when the skipper got up from his knees, he was a young man again. His eyes were shinin', he was as straight as any young chap, and'-the mate raised a forefinger to emphasize his next words, which he whispered-"Joe Benson

warn't alone at the mitch-board!"

"What do you mean, George?" asked Mr. Cufande, shifting uneasily at the unstudied impressiveness of the other.

"I mean that there was somethin' or someone with the skipper. We couldn't none of us see anything, but ole Joe was a-talkin' to it. His lips kept movin', though we couldn't catch a sound. The chaps thought he was mad, but they didn't say nothing. They had called up the others, and all the crew was on deck.

"Well, ole Joe went on talkin' to whatever was at his side, and then he come up to me at the helm. 'I'll take the wheel, George,' he said, quite quiet like. 'We've got a pilot.'"

"A what?" asked Mr. Cufande. The mate repeated himself. "We've got a pilot,' he said. "Tell Bob to get steam up in the donkey.' Well, to humor him, as we thought 'twas best, we got up steam in the donkey-engine; and then the skipper he steered her out to the east'ard. There was a light wind, and he told us to open the netroom and get ready for a shot. 'What, now?' I said. 'Yis, George.' said he; 'I'm actin' under orders.'

"Well, there warn't a sign of a fish near us, not a porpoise, or a gull, or a solan goose, or nothin'; but ole Joe he had to be obeyed, and we got ready for a shot. The skipper kept on talkin' to himself like, but he warn't, and he kept her head p'intin' east'ard.

"Then, in 'cordance with orders, we lowered the foremast backward and

h'isted the driftin'-lights. Arter that we got the nets over, and looked to hev a quiet four or five hours. But ole Joe didn't mean to hev no drift-watch set. He wanted us all, he said, and we hadn't got to turn in. Some of the chaps said they'd had enough of this fulery, but when the skipper looked 'em over in his quiet, sad way, they ha'n't another word to say.

"The nets hadn't been out more'n a quarter of an hour, ondle just time for the cork-line to drift out straight, when Joe stepped away from the wheel, and gave the word to haul the nets. I went to the wheel, but the wind held light, so I just put a turn round it, and went to help. She was driftin' on the end of the warp, of course. Bob Aldred got the donkey goin', and then we begun to haul the nets. When the lookon net came aboard I could see we'd got a catch. It was fair solid with fish. I ain't never seen the look-on net like it afore. Ole Joe he called out, 'I told you we'd got a pilot aboard!' and then we got to work.

"We hauled them nets-ninety-one the Three Sisters carry-in a couple of hours, and they was almost rendin' with the fish in them."

"A couple of hours, George?" commented Mr. Cufande in surprise. This was a feat in net-hauling.

"Yes, a couple of hours, sir. You never see anything like it. The sea fairly seemed to bring them nets in, full of fish though they was. There warn't no baggin' of the nets. they kept as straight as ever you see, and the sea fairly seemed to bring 'em in. Ole Joe looked on as they came over the gun'le, and he saw they was prime fish. We got 'em in, as I say, in about a couple of hours, and then I reckoned there was about fifteen lasts of herrings . We was just gettin' the last net and buoy over the side, when someone said. 'Look at Joe! And ole Joe was flat on his back on a pile of

lint, snoring like a pig, and chokin' every now and then, with his eyes astarin', and him as stiff as a poker.

"We got him down below, and then Harry Sillick he came to me, and he said, 'George, that's how my ole mother used to be took with a stroke. It's appleplexy, that's what it is.' And he told us what to do for it. We put cold cloths on the skipper's head, set him up, and warmed his feet and hands. All the time he kept a-snorin' and starin' his eyes out of his head. But suddenly he stopped the noise, and he looked quiet at me. 'I want to talk to you, George,' he said, arter he'd rambled on a bit. I turned out the men, and they shaped the Three Sisters for home."

The mate nodded at the empty bench opposite where they sat, and went on: "He sat just there, with his head agin the bulkhead, just as we had set him. And he turned his head to me, and he said, 'George, I ain't got no feelin' in iny left side. I can't move anything. I'm paralyzed.' And so he was. This was how the stroke left him. Then the skipper said, 'I'm a-goin' out this tide, George; but you'll see the ole lady will be provided for.' He made me promise to get the chaps to hand over their shares to his old missus. He know'd they would, if he was to die, and he felt easier arter he'd asked me. They hev promised now; they're a good-hearted lot, and they liked ole Joe. I laid him down, but he didn't fare to feel sleepy, and he couldn't move his left side. He was helpless as a baby.

"What was it you see. Joe?' I axed him presently. He didn't answer me, but he said, 'Pass me my prayer-book, George-he was a rare good sort was Joe. Then he said, 'I can't open it, The Cornhill Magazine.

George. Take it to the light, and look in the beginnin'. But wait a minute,' he told me. Then he said on, 'Somehow I know'd I was a-goin' when I woke up to-night. I was told in a dream; and when I came on deck to pray, I prayed for a good catch at the scuddin'-pole-I prayed for a good catch for the ole woman. When I got up off my knees there was someone else there, a tall man in a dark gown, and I spoke to him. He had a hearty seafarin' way with him, and I see his hands were rough, like a fisherman's. Well, he told Le to take the helm, and he chose the spot for makin' the shot, and you see the catch we got.'

"I didn't like to ax the skipper who it was he see, I was half frightened; but he said, 'Look in the beginnin' of the book for November the thirtieth, and I did, and I read out loud 'St. Andrew's Day'; and he said, 'Yes, George. that was who I saw." "

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"Yesterday was the twenty-ninth, St. Andrew's Eve," mused Mr. Cufande. "What happened next?"

"I was trying to piece it together in my mind, when I looked at the skipper. He was tryin' to set up, and his face were gettin' red agin. 'You'll look arter the ole woman,' he kind of choked out. 'It's gettin' on for the bottom of the ebb, and I'm goin' out this tide.' Then he turned purple, and begun snorin' agin, and in half an hour the noise stopped. We'd done what we could, but he was dead."

When the mate's story was ended. the salesman made his way thoughtfully towards the widow's home, with a confused picture of the skipper's death and a vision of the Fisherman Saint in his mind's eye.

W. J. Batchelder.

CULTURE AND TRAINING.

Speaking the other night at a dinner of the Glasgow University Club, Lord Rosebery made some exceedingly apposite remarks. He pointed to the multiplication of universities, which is one of the signs of our time. Within the memory of men still living, England was content with its two ancient and venerable foundations by the Cam and Isis. Then came the University of London, instituted with the idea of bringing the higher education, or at any rate the higher examination, to the middle classes; and now we have Manchester and Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, and others, so that before long it seems that universities may be as numerous in Great Britain as they are in Germany. In due course every great town may have its university as it now has its borough council.

the

We see no objection, provided always that the honored name is not given, as it is sometimes in the United States of America, to a mere secondrate provincial college. Adequate precautions should be taken that standard of the degrees and examinations is maintained at a high level, and that sufficient means are available to provide a competent teaching staff. We do not want to see men entitled to call themselves university professors ana lecturers who could otherwise have hardly obtained a post in a secondgrade public school. With these reserves we welcome the increase of what may be called popular universities.

Every large centre of industry and population might well have its seminary, where its youths and maidens could be prepared for the practical business of life by going through a preliminary training under those who had mastered the subject scientifically. Mr. Chamberlain once said that he looked forward to a period when no

man would hold an important post in a great factory or house of business who had not obtained a university degree. He did not of course mean that this degree would have been obtained in the Oxford "Greats" school or any of the Cambridge Triposes. His idea was that the maker of machines would have studied mechanics, the shipbuilder marine engineering, under skilled professors and teachers at the local colleges, or at some substitute, such as Birmingham is providing, for the Charlottenburg Institute at which the German manufacturer learns the theory and technology of his business. Nor is it to be expected or desired that this sort of learning shall be confined to the few. It should be democratic enough to be linked on to the elementary and the secondary schools; so that the clever industrious lad of the working-classes may rise by an easy ascent to the lecture-room, and enter upon life with something more than that empirical knowledge which is acquired at the bench and in the workshop. We want trained men all through the army of industry-officers as highly educated as possible, and educated sergeants and corporals, and a good number of educated privates. A systematic, even a scientific preparation for their calling in life is desirable for all classes.

But it is necessary to distinguish what some impetuous "reformers" in the older universities, and particularly in the University of Oxford, fail to do. We referred not very long ago to the efforts of a group of "advanced" Oxford dons who are anxious that working-men should be received, and cherished in the bosom of alma mater. And these foster-children, according to the manifesto to which we drew attention, are not to come as occasional or exceptional visitants, nor are their num

bers to be scanty. On the contrary,

it is proposed that they should form a considerable part of the university population. Nor are they to be segregated in Ruskin Hall or any other seminaries specially allotted to their use. On the contrary, they are to be scattered through the existing colleges, which will adapt themselves for their reception by lowering the invidious bar of matriculation to such a moderate level that an intelligent artisan, prepared by a short course of popular lectures at evening classes, may easily step over it. A similar process of adaptation is to be carried out with regard to the university examinations and degrees; so that it will be unnecessary for the working-man candidate to dim the freshness of his intellect by exhausting

studies in unfamiliar

branches of learning. He will have no occasion to prepare himself for Mods. or Greats or any of the present schools, indulgent as some of these already are; the Latin grammar, the Greek dictionary, the works of Aristotle, and the books of the late Bishop Stubbs may be alike neglected; neither classics nor mathematics nor natural science need occupy his attention. He will be enabled to obtain his degree with suitable honors in more attractive subjects, such as economics, politics, and contemporary history. He can fleet the time pleasantly at the expense of the State, the university, and the tradeunions, over socialism and anarchism, tariff reform and free trade, the theories of Tolstoy and the practices of Mr. Winston Churchill. His academic career will be a continuation of the discussions at the local trades' council and the local debating society. He may emerge a very fluent politician and labor leader, but no better acquainted with scientific literature than when he first donned the cap and gown. We can only repeat that this seems to us an admirable scheme for turning out

a large number of British Babus who will neither be good workmen nor good scholars.

It is strange indeed to find such projects receiving influential support. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, himself a finished scholar, an intelligent aristocrat in the best sense, seems to have become a convert to the idea of democratizing the university and making it a centre of popular education for the masses. But that is not the function of Oxford and Cambridge, and it is entirely superfluous in these days or technical colleges and provincial universities. Let the latter by all means devote themselves to the duty of preparing their students for the practical business of life. The great majority of youthful mankind have small leisure for general culture; if they can spare the time to go to classes and lectures it must be with the direct object of making themselves more efficient for the commercial or professional battle. They must learn something that will "pay," something that will speedily bring its reward in the shape of increased earning power. But there are still left a certain number of persons who are able to enjoy a liberal education in the old sense, who can devote three or four years to enlarging their culture and improving their minds without any immediate reference to the remunerative result of their studies. In this sense, and in this sense alone, Oxford and Cambridge should still remain aristocratic. There are scholarships in great abundance for enabling the clever sons of impecunious fathers to obtain all the advantages of the college system and all the honors of the schools-if they can get them. This arrangement, which in one form or other goes back to mediæval times, is really all that is necessary to link the two older universities with the general life and culture of the nation; and if it be necessary,

the scholarships can be increased, not try. There is no sense at all in spoilso much in number as in the amount of their stipends. We are in favor of making the educational ladder reasonably easy of access; our protest is against those who would make its slope so gentle that it can be ascended without ability and without steady indusThe Outlook.

ing Oxford as a home of culture and a centre of research in order to turn it into a place of resort for a horde of mediocrities drawn from the ranks of Labor. For such students, ample and much more suitable provision can be made elsewhere.

BUSINESS CONTRACTS IN FAMILY LIFE.

What would be "the effect of the introduction of business contracts into family life"? asks "an elderly bachelor" who has rewarded the niece who keeps his house for her services, past, present, and to come, by a device which will avoid Legacy-duty. How would it be if such procedure became very much more common, or if it became the custom for all those whose relations render them services to pay for such, not by will, but on the spot? Would "contract stifle affection"? It is a difficult point. There are so many "pros" and "cons."

That fathers should pay their children, or husbands their wives, for doing those duties which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred affection makes imperative is clearly a repellent suggestion. On the other hand it is difficult not to admit that, since affection cannot be created by money, neither can it be destroyed by it. Even in those cases where affection is most intense and ideal some money must pass in the form of gift or allowance between the head of a house and the members of his family. That this matter of allowancing should partake of the nature of a contract is not, it seems to us, undesirable. There is no doubt that many men like to ensure their influence with sons or daughters by keeping them in pecuniary uncertainty,-by letting them feel their dependence, while not desiring to curtail

their expenditure. We cannot help thinking that this plan is likely to undermine the independence and the initiative of the recipient. It goes without saying that a man, however well off, cannot be expected to give his children money in order to free them to do the thing of all others which he desires that they should not. It is an unreasonable daughter who complains that she cannot have money to study art in Paris when that course of action is abhorrent to her father, and it is absurd in a son to expect that his father should smooth his way to a marriage which he considers will disgrace the family. As a rule, however, no such vagaries are on the cards, and no such fears prevent the ordinary man from dealing in a business-like way with his children. Very often it is a sort of jealous affection which makes him dole out money, instead of clearly explaining what he can do for them, and on what conditions he will do it. He wants to feel that he still retains the place in their lives which he had when they were children, that he is still a sort of Providence to whose hand they are to look in uncertain expectation. He likes to be asked, for the act of giving is sweet to him, and he wants the gratitude which he hopes he may obtain. forgets that it is useless to try to buy gratitude, for its price has never been known, that humiliation instantly an

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