dear mother; for my father had died when I was a tiny child. My mother was an invalid and, for weeks at a time when she was worse, I would steal in on tiptoe after breakfast to kiss her thin cheek, and again at nightfall before going to bed, to say good-night; so the days were long and rather lonely.

There was a small tract of woodland behind the house and this served as an enchanted forest where scaly, fire-breathing dragons guarded a buried treasure which I longed to discover, or as my pleasure park where I rode a-hunting with my train of lords and ladies.

"The huge bronze gates of the palace are flung open by lackeys in brilliant coats of red and gold," I would murmur to myself, "and the Princess Royal steps forth attended by her two favorite maids of honor, the Arch-Duchess Louise and the Countess Marie, and a dozen knights. As she descends the grooms lead up the horses and the Princess mounts and sits gracefully in her saddle patting the arching neck of her beautiful Arabian steed that, eager for the chase, chafes the bit beneath her gentle but firm hand. Her escort mounted, Her Royal Highness gives the signal and away they dash into the green wood. The Princess wears a gown of white embroidered with pearls; a great black hat with long feathery plumes shades but does not conceal her lovely face." Childish egotism! In my fancies I was always beautiful. Pug nose, straight mousecolored hair were transformed into Grecian features and locks the color of the sun, or occasionally black as a raven's wing; but this did not give my courtiers so many chances for flattering comparisons, and so was not so often chosen. And, of course, I had a lover; but he was rather vague, a combination of Sir Galahad, Richard Coeur de Lion, the Black Prince, and other heroes of my childhood; however, he loved me, slew the dragon, recovered the treasure, and danced divinely at the court ball given by the king on my wedding eve.

My grandfather Deyer was a deacon of the church, therefore I was not allowed to dance, and on Thursdays at school I suffered untold agonies hearing the other girls talk about the good time they would have at dancing class, and how often Tom, Dick, or Harry would ask them to dance. So you see that the prince who was to win my heart and hand must know how to dance, for I danced like a woodland nymph, at least my courtiers swore I did.

Long ago I laid aside my scepter and sovereign duties, but the throne is not empty, for my dearest godchild and namesake reigns. One day, seeing Betty bowing and kissing her hand before the long glass in my dressing-room, I sank on my knees beside her and flung my arms around her waist.

"Betty," I gasped, "are you a Princess?"

"Yes," she answered simply, "I am, but how did you know it, Cousin Elizabeth?"

How did I know it ?-only because long years ago I too had reigned and played at being a Princess Royal.

ELIZABETH ROBINSON JACKSON.

EDITORIAL

The survival of the fittest as a law of the universe is unquestioned in our day. If a maxim then has pursued us from our earliest recollection we may believe with some confidence that there is a sound kernel of truth in it. The person who maintained that every adage is either a truism or a lie must have been possessed of an over-literal mind or inclined to extreme hastiness in generalization. No doubt there are in circulation flashy sayings of an epigrammatic order that remain current for a time by virtue of some empty conceit, but the day of these is brief. One by one they fall into disuse and are forgotten. Not so those sterling maxims, defying the test of time, which contributed to the moral growth alike of our parents and of our grandparents and so on ad libitum, and of which we in our day and generation must not expect to be wholly independent. There is something very insistent about these venerable pieces of good advice, these words of consolation or of warning; and it is well for us that it is so. An adage may seem to be cold comfort; but there are times when it is the best antidote for the ills of life, if it is received in a spirit not too skeptical and acted upon accordingly. Thanks to the number and variety of these maxims, there is scarcely an unhappy contingency that can not be met by one of them. And where better can one turn in the period of discontent that comes in the middle of the winter term?

On the whole, there is no more trying time during the college year. The Christmas vacation seems a part of another life in some remote age; Easter and the spring term seem myths. If the passing of examinations has left a feeling of relief, it has also left a feeling of much hard and steady work done. One has an ardent longing for one's home and family which must in most cases remain unsatisfied. One's existence is too likely to seem made up of dead routine, without ambition or aim.

Dull and lethargic discontent is too likely to be one's prevailing sensation. If this is so, now is the time above all others to seek help from the army of maxims ever ready at hand; to find one's best good in reverting to the familiar admonitions of childhood. The languid spirit, thus reinforced, remembers that all things come to them that wait, counts the weeks to some alleviating event, and finds the prospect less unendurable; remembers that every cloud has its silver lining, investigates the situation, skeptically at first, and admits reluctantly that life is not wholly joyless. Or better-and she who forgets this misses the best that maxims have to offer-remembers that king among good counsels that points to labor as the universal panacea. Then she may reflect that she is really not doing her best in basket-ball; or that she could write an excellent story for the Monthly if she would take the time to work out the idea that she has had in her head for weeks; or that she might be rather more useful on that committee of hers that has so many efficient workers; or-incidentals failing-there is always the curriculum! In the winter of her discontent, let her moralize.

EDITOR'S TABLE

A new, though by no means a novel contribution to the discussion of the old question, "Shall woman's education differ from man's"? comes in an article in the Forum for this month, by President Thwing, of Western Reserve University. Dr. Thwing takes up in order the conditions, the methods, and the forces of education, the subject to be educated, the aim and the content of education. As regards what he calls "the conditions of education," namely, time and space, there need be, he says, no difference between the education of women and that of men. The time of education should be, in every case, as long as purse will buy and individual will allow. The relative advantage or disadvantage of an urban, a rural, or suburban. location for a college is practically the same to students of either sex. In regard to the methods and the forces of education he comes to a similar conclusion. Co-education, coördinate education, separate education,-each method has its weaknesses and its strength; each is good or bad, better or worse, best or worst, according to the individual student, man or woman, to whom it is applied. And the great teacher, the teacher of a great personality, is required to the same degree by men and women alike. Thus far Dr. Thwing's argument has been of so general a nature that it has been as impossible definitely to disagree as definitely to agree with him. Now comes our first intimation of his distinctive position. "The fourth thing that I wish to say," he continues, "relates to the subject to be educated, the man, the woman." Whereupon he goes about to prove woman's intellectual equality with man, assuming here and in the treatment of his next head that education has to do solely with the life of the intellect. When he comes to consider the content of education, however, Dr. Thwing departs suddenly and widely from this intellectual view of education with the statement, "Of the many things I should like to say about the