doubtless need the service and assist ance of some able and wise men from the West. In this country, at least, I am sure that there is no lack of such men, for thousands of graduates are turned out every year from various educational centers all over the land, fully equipped by training to grapple with the problems of life.

DISEASE IN SECOND-HAND BOOKS

Second-hand school books have found their way into nearly every neighborhood and school in Kentucky; so have smallpox and other contagious diseases. Scarcely a county in the state has escaped the ravages of this contagion, and in most instances the manner of its approach is mysterious and unknown.

It is a well known fact that contagious diseases may be communicated through second-hand clothing, or other articles of cotton or wollen goods used by patients afflicted with these diseases, unless such articles are thoroughly disinfected; nor does the disinfecting always destroy the germs of disease. This is true of second-hand books. While modern disinfecting is great benefit, it does not always disinfect. Especially is this true of books. The outside may be thoroughly disinfected, and yet germs within-between the leaves-remain unharmed unless the leaves, one by one be subjected to the most careful fumigation. This process in itself would necessarily be so slow, and therefore expensive, that it would be cheaper to buy a new book than to sterilize an old one.

It is remarkable how long an old, soiled garment or an infected book will retain the germs of disease. The writer is well acquainted with a family that had smallpox twenty years ago; it was before vaccination was so extensively employed, and before the disease was so well understood by physicians as it is to-day. Every member of the family had the disease; when they had recovered, the house

was disinfected well, it was thought, and the intense alarm in the village and surrounding country subsided. Twelve years passed; two other children were born into the family; the story of the smallpox and the terrible. fight which it occasioned was almost forgotten, when the younger child, in his play, found some old yarn stockings, which had been used by one of the family while he had smallpox, and which had been rolled up by a nurse and put into an obscure corner of a closet. The child, not realizing danger, unrolled the garments. In a few days, he had a well developed case of smallpox. During the twelve years since the first attack in the family, there had not been a case of the disease in the neighborhood, and the boy who contracted the disease in the manner just described had never been exposed to the disease in any way whatever prior to the time of finding the soiled soiled garments. It is as easy for disease germs, once in an old book, to be retained indefinitely, and finally communicated as readily as by an old garment.

In support of this position, the testimony of many of the most eminent physicians of Kentucky has been taken and is here given:

Dr. J. N. McCormack, of Bowling Green, Ky., Secretary of the State Board of Health, a gentleman who has perhaps treated more cases of smallpox in the last three years than any other physician, says: "It is easy to see how the use of second-hand books might become a source of contagion in our scchools, especially with scarlet fever, and diphtheria. The practice with some of our booksellers of dealjectionable." ing in second-hand books is very ob

Dr. A. J. Andrews, of Lexington, Ky., a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, Director of the Gymnasium of Kentucky University, and a practitioner of wide experience, says: "The use of second-hand books certainly might become a fruitful source of contageion Pupils in our public schools should not

be allowed to use second-hand books at all, especially when they do not know who used the books first, unless the books have been thoroughly disinfected; even then, it is possible that some books will be overlooked. Better discard the use of them altogether. One case of smallpox, scarlet fever, or diphtheria may do more damage in a family or community than it is possible to repay by the savings on second-hand books in a lifetime."

Dr. J. B. Marvin, President of Kentucky University Medical department in Louisville, and one of the most noted specialists in the South, says: "Experience of the medical world is in favor of contagiousness of smallpox, measels, itch, scarlet fever and diphtheria, and the transmission of them through clothing, books, toys, etc. It is possible for these diseases to be communicated through the use of second-hand books. Pupils in our public schools should not buy and use a second-hand book used by a pupil while he had any of these diseases."

Dr. T. C. Evans, Dean of Kentucky University Medical Department, says: "Such diseases as smallpox, measels, itch and scarlet fever can be communicated through second-hand books, and pupils in our public schools should not be allowed to use them."

The Boards of Health in many of our cities are now investigating this question. County Boards are looking into it, also.

The Chicago Library Board has a special committee at work on the subject of infected books now. The following is taken from a partial report made by that committee as reported by the Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1901.

"All the books in the Chicago Public Library should be sterilized to prevent the spread of disease, according to the report of Dr. W. Kuflewski, submitted yesterday. Dr. Kuflewski was chairman of the special committee appointed by the Library board two weeks ago to investigate the subject. He displayed several small glass tubes containing countless germs taken from

books in the library. He examined fifty volumes, he said, and found them more or less infected. He was convinced the books spread contagion." The committee was continued and is now pushing its work.

Cincinnati is now agitating the question, and at work on lines very similar to those of Chicago. The following clipping is taken from the CommercialTribune of January 22 last:

"At the January meeting of the City Hospital Trustees, a letter was read from Dr. White, of the Public Library Board, offering to deliver and return free of charge such books and periodi cals as may de desired by the patients. in the Hospital.

The offer was promptly accepted at the time, and Messrs. Smith and Holmes were appointed a committee to confer with the Library Board to complete the arrangements.

Since then several meetings have been held, but nothing has been done towards putting the project into effect because of the discussion which has arisen over consolidating the two li braries.

Many of the local practitioners believe the Hospital Library should be transferred to the building on Vine street, but they are heartily opposed to the free delivery scheme.

They say it would be a constant menance to the public health, and, as evidence, they cite innumerable instances where contagion has resulted from books exposed to infectious diseases, sometimes after a period of fifty years.

Books are considered one of the best natural cultures for disease germs known, and no mode of sterilization will cleanse them. This fact has been recognized by the Health Department for a long time. Where books have been exposed even to the atmosphere of rooms in which contagion has been present they have been promptly ordered destroyed.

The subject was called to the attention of Superintendent Fahrenbatch yesterday, and he said he had never considered the matter in that light.

He at once recognized the danger of contagion, and said he would call the attention of the committee to the fact. All contagious diseases at the Hospital are confined in the Hospital Annex, where, of course, books would not be allowed; but almost every day some patient in wards far removed from the annex develops either diphtheria, scarlet fever, measels, or some other disease and has to be isolated.

When admitted to the Hospital they presented none of the symptoms of those diseases, and if books were to fall into their hands then damage would be done, and if the book had passed on, there is no telling to what extent the disease would be spread.

Mr. Green, the President of the Library Board, said last night that such a thing as sending books from a circulating library to a hospital could not be thought of.

"There

would be danger of spreading disease germs and endangering the safety of the other patrons of the library," said Mr. Green.

would

"The Health Department not permit such a thing to be done. Every day the Library is furnished with a statement from the Health Department of the houses where are contagious diseases, and no books are issued on cards to the people living at the addresses given until the department gives consent."

"The Library has many hundreds of magazines every month and these will be given to the Hospital, as the trustees requested, but will not send bound books for circulation."

Dr. Healy the Health Officer of Lexington, in speaking to the writer, regarding the danger of using second hand books, said: "There can be no doubt that dirty second-hand books can convey contagious diseases. Some Chicago houses are buying them in states which have made recent adoptions.

They re-bind them, and brush them up a little, and sell them all over the country. I find that there is really no economy in buying them, as the

difference in price of the second-hand, and the new books is only about ten cents per book, on an average. The saving is too small and the risk is too great. One case of smallpox, measles, diptheria or scarlet fever taken from these books might do more damage than the savings of many years of their use would benefit us. I think our Board of Health will restrict the handling of such books by our dealers, and regulate the secondhand school book trade more carefully. We can't take the risk of leaving it altogether in the hands of the dealers."

It is also a fact that second-hand books are now sold in large quantities in nearly all our county seats and school towns, and there is hardly a country store that does not have them. These books have been gathered from every conceivable source; they have been used in the public schools of every race and color; they have been used by children of every degree of culture-from the best to the worst and most filthy-and when we permit a child to use such a book, we have no way of knowing whose child used it first.

Kentucky has never had so much smallpox as within the last two or three years. Dr. McCormick, Secretary of the State Board of Health, says that nearly every county in the state has had it. In some counties it has amounted to a fearful epidemic. A singular feature is that, in so many places, the disease seems to appear almost spontaneously; at least, the patient and physicians do not know where it came from; even in counties having only a few cases, it seems to be widely distributed.

No county has suffered a worse epidemic than Greenup. At one time, nearly every neighborhood in the county had it; no county seems to have used more second-hand books in the country schools. A prominent educator of that county says: "Quite a number of second-hand books have been sold within the last few years. These books were bought of a firm in

Chicago, whose agent told the dealers that the books came principally from Tennessee, when a change in books was made in that state."

It is a well known fact that smallpox has been widely distributed over the state of Tennessee in recent years. This may be the source of the smallpox in Greenup county, and, as for that matter, in many other localities throughout the state. What is true of smallpox, is equally true of many other diseases. Besides the disease mentioned above, it is well known that Tuberculosis (consumption) is communicable by contact with the baccilli thrown off by victims of this dread disease, and the secondhand book, better than almost any other medium can harbor and communicate such germs to unsuspecting

users of them.

Under the circumstances, is it wise, safe, or economical to allow the indiscriminate use of second-hand books in our public schools and homes? Should we take any such risks? The cost of books is one of the least of all the expenses of the student; why take such hazard when so little is to be gained? Besides, the filth of the thing is repulsive to children and teachers of good breeding. If we could always know what child or children have used the books before us, the case would be different. But as it is, is it not almost as cleanly to wear the soiled garments of an unknown (probably diseased) person? What aesthetic self-respecting child should be forced to use such books?

It is high time that this state of affairs should come to an end.

-Southern School Journal.

Over the winter glaciers

I see the summer glow,

And through the wild-piled snowdrift The warm rosebuds below.

-Emerson.

Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree.

-Robert Burns.

Views on Education

Our State constitution provides that: "The Legislature shall foster and encourage moral, intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement." Provision has been made not only for the higher attainment along the line of education, but "The Legislature shall provide by general law, for a thorough and efficient system of free schools." The rightness and necessity of such laws are evident, when we remember that the mission of the Fublic school is to train good citizens. And in so far as education at the public expense fails to elevate the citizenship of the State, it so far fails to justify itself as public education. The specific work, then, of our public schools, is to so equip its pupils that they will have habits of industry as well as a foundation for being intelligent citizens.

Through the public schools as a medium the pupils must be furnished with and directed to such sources of knowledge as will gain for them concepts of truth, beauty and law-all of which should enter into the ideals which they will set up for themselves. With these lofty ideals made a part of his own life, the morality of each individual, as a citizen, can be made sure. Even as the individual is bound by the ten commandments, so is the whole town and State.

Before the work of our schools can be termed complete, they must have so labored that the pupils shall act upon their enviroments with skill and aptitude, making a safer, better, happier world for those who must follow, and thus would those environments be the more easily conformed to the high ideals of those who shall compose the succeeding generation.

Our system of free schools, as operated to-day, is a system of partnership, in which the members, the State and the parent, share equally the responsibility. The training education received by a child in the home and at school is its capital upon entering lifeand assuming business relations. The

interest of the State and the parent should be the same, and they should so labor that the child would receive the best and greatest good from the school. It is not sufficient that the parent should permit his child to attend school. Every parent should know that his child is not only regu larly attending school but that it is doing the amount of work necessary for a thorough understanding of the lesson assigned for that day. The very fact that the children are allowed to attend school, day after day with little or no preparation at home, creates a continual drag that is not only harmful to those children themselves but has a demoralizing influence upon every pupil in their classes. If this responsibility is met on the part of the parent, the school life of the child will be more pleasant and profitable, for the teacher could add supplementary work that would give the pupil a wider range of knowledge as well as a more practical application of the subject matter taught.

Where the pupil never looks into his books except during the few minutes he has between classes, the whole time must be taken up with a series of questions and explanations, that will do, in some small degree, what the pupil has failed to do for himself. Never can our schools reach that degree of thoroughness and efficiency that they can be the greatest benefit to the greatest number, until the parents give them their most hearty support and co-operation. Yea, more, the child must feel that it has not met the just approbation of its parent, until it has done more than barely manage, with the smallest amount of study possible, to pull through at the tail end of his class from year to year. -Marvin D. Boland, in Fairmont Erening Times.

We acknowledge invitations to attend the closing exercises of the schools at Winfield, Hinton, Ceredo, and Mason, and regret that duties in the office prevented us from going to these thriving towns.

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar;The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below-
No more shall feel the victor's tread,

Or know the conquered knee;-
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave:
Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail;
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

-Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Water Lillies are Easily Grown

All that is needed to grow waterlilies is a tub, sunlight from six to eight hours a day, some rich garden soil, and a little water. The easiest way to grow them is from seed, and the prettiest varieties are the African, or Zanzibar; they are purple, blue and red. To sow them take a common bowl and half fill with finely sifted soil packed down level and hard. On the surface scatter the seed evenly and cover with not over a quarter of an inch of fine sand; then very gently fill the bowl with water so as not to disturb nor wash away the sand. Place where the water will be kept at a temperature of about eighty degrees. In two weeks they will be ready for transplanting.-April Ladies' Home Journal.