can come as a detail of soldiers comes sorrowfully to the battle-field where the dead and the wounded lie. You may be able to do a little to avert further disaster. Skirt the field, and put out the fire wherever a sign of it remains; remembering that nothing is safe as long as there is a spark or cinder to fly, or a smouldering root to carry the creeping fire to new fuel beyond. If you are a new hand at fires, I warn you that just here will be your greatest danger. You will be tempted to think the fire safe, and leave it too soon.

One other point. I would say this also to the ranger: You know how in a city at the first stroke of the fire-bell horses and men spring to their places, and all is rush and action to reach the fire at the earliest moment possible. Every moment counts. It is so with the forest fire; every moment counts. But unfortunately the distances are often so great and the rangers so few and scattered that the fire is up and away long before the men can reach it. Now in such a case pluck and judgment must go together. There is no work harder on occasion than firefighting. A man can easily kill himself at it if he likes. So keep cool. Use judgment as well as courage. If you are in charge of a squad, hold your men well in hand. The fight may last for days. Choose your ground, and choose your time. See to it that you are at your strongest and freshest when the fire is at its weakest. There are times when the only wise thing to do is to eat a good meal and go to sleep; and then, just at dawn, when the air is "heavy" and there comes the lull common in the mountains between the darkness and the day, when you are at your full strength and the fire is at its least, mass your forces, make your attack, and win the fight.

(V) A word or so as to the men's resources for fire-work. It is seldom that water is available against a forest fire.

(1) In all serious cases fire is much the best agent with which to fight fire. Usually, at such times, it is not only the best agent, but the only one. A chief element in the make-up of a good fire-fighter is his knowledge and skill in regard to back-firing. If a man loses his head, his back-fire may escape, and may itself in turn become a forest fire.

To illustrate: A fire that had been smouldering for days unexpectedly gained such sudden and furious headway that there was no chance whatever to meet it at the ridge, where under ordinary conditions it could have been stopped. It reached and leaped the ridge, and then, helped by a strong wind, swept on into a thick, dry forest. A quarter of a mile or so in front was a good county road. On the east and the west the men in charge ran a narrow furrow through the pine needles and low

brush. Then along the inner side, the fireward side, of the furrows and the county road they kindled their small back-fires. By the time these met the main fire, they had overrun a strip too wide for it to jump. The only further danger was from the falling and rolling of the tall trees. It was a bad fire, and in each direction it burned up to the fire-break but nowhere crossed it.

(2) Next in importance to fire as a substitute for water is dirt. One who had never seen it tried would be surprised at the effectiveness of a spadeful of earth swept heavily over a stretch of creeping fire or against burning logs. In the fire referred to above, a great five-foot tree, badly decayed and hollowed, had burned at the base until it fell. It fell parallel to the length of the steep hill, and rolled until it lodged in the roadway beneath. Driving hard to reach the fire I came suddenly upon it. Its hollow butt was a roaring and raging open furnace. Had the tree rolled six feet farther, another stretch of forest would have gone up in smoke. The men came with saw and tackle, and cut the trunk into sections small enough for handling. They were in no haste about the furnace end. When the time came, a few shovelfuls of earth, dashed into its mouth, killed the fire almost as quickly as water could have done it. Then, when it was certain that there were no smouldering coals left, the log was rolled into the brush below.

(3) Many fires can be easily beaten out with any extemporized flail arrangement green boughs, for example, when they can be found, or gunny sacks from camp, or bare sticks if there is nothing better.

(4) Every ranger is expected to have with him or at his camp an iron-toothed rake, a shovel, and an axe; and some camps are supplied in addition with saws, pickaxes, brush-hooks, and canvas buckets.

With preparatory and defensive work, carefully and systematically planned and executed along lines such as have been indicated, and with a body of men in charge who are clear-headed, trustworthy, strong, brave, and not working perfunctorily, but with real esprit de corps, much has been accomplished for the safeguarding of the forests. The fire-record of the government reserves as a whole, in the few years since there has been serious effort at protection, is satisfactory. The results are to the credit of the rangers and supervisors in immediate charge; but the needs are evident the need of continuous work, of more men, of larger appropriations. Even the forests of the Old World are not absolutely safe from fire; and the care of them is child's play as compared with the service which these splendid forests of the New World demand.

CHARLES S. NEWHALL.

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF WORLD'S FAIRS.

THE chief and crowning good of the world's fair is the fact that it works for the peace of mankind and the good of humanity. It is significant that at no other epoch in the world's history would a world's fair ever have been thought of. It shows the coming together of mankind man's appreciation of man and of his duty to his neighbor; and, to paraphrase the words of John Fiske, it shows that the world of the physical senses has no barrier that hinders in the kingdom of the spiritual man.

The fact that most of the world's fairs in this country have left, to a certain extent, local financial disaster in their train has nothing to do with the larger spiritual and social aspect of the subject, because there is enough vitality in our cities to outlive a temporary financial setback, such as Chicago experienced after her world's fair, and as Buffalo has experienced since the Pan-American. The great cause to be served is the peace and well-being of mankind, which the world's fair is bringing about in a way more practical, feasible, and direct than any such meeting as was held at The Hague, or any peace conference that may be held in the future; because it is the people, not the peace commissioners, who bring peace.

The educational value, then, of such a fair is, first of all, a great social and spiritual one. It relates man to man; it teaches the mountaineer to come down from his mountain stronghold and mingle with those who dwell in the valley, and whom he may have considered his natural enemies. There are enlisted the interest and curiosity of the nations — their desire to represent their genius and their arts in an honorable way before their fellow-men.

We all know that the Centennial of 1876 began a new era for the fine arts and the trade arts, if I may so call them, in this country. The growth of the furniture industry in oak and the new woods, the lifting of this class of work out of the old finical, pseudo-classical walnut industry into something durable, substantial, and permanent, dates from the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The thousands of people

who visited it saw in the art collection and in the exhibition of mechanical arts that we had in ourselves something that could contend successfully with the other nations of the world.

The World's Fair at Chicago was a miracle. We can speak of it in no other way. The Pan-American can in no wise be compared with it, and it may be a long time before we shall see its equal. It was a glorious example of self-sacrifice and self-effacement on the part of the men whose work led to such a great artistic success.

The fair held at Paris in 1900 cannot be compared, in the ordering of the grounds, in the character of the architecture, or in the simplicity of the whole design, with the fair at Chicago. The Paris Fair was one such as might have been expected of a decadent people—a people from whom we still have much to learn, but who, if they had the good sense to learn from their simple-hearted neighbors or from us the lesson of sturdy, virile manhood, would improve their art in a way that all their finical technical excellence can never do. If the word tawdry seems too strong to apply to the Paris buildings, the words finical and picturesque would certainly suit them. They could not, in any sense, be called architectural and sculpturesque, any more than fashion-plates can be compared with the masterpieces of Michael Angelo. The eye searched in vain for some place to rest upon; but there was no rest. There was nothing but ornament, like barnacles on the side of an old hulk a sure sign of decadence. Even our own small fair at Buffalo can well hold its own with the fair at Paris, which has had so much éclat, though its reputation rests on the newspaper reports of it rather than upon what it really was. We must not underrate the educational value of the exhibition of old masters at that fair. In fact, all the exhibitions were creditable and valuable, and our furniture and bric-a-brac dealers are loud in their praise of them. But men of the world, educators and artists, are looking for some larger lesson than can be taught by the Court of Louis the Sixteenth. However, it has been said that this fair at Paris saved France from a disastrous war with England, and perhaps saved England from having an enemy at her very gates while carrying on an almost fruitless war in South Africa. I dwell particularly on the peace side of the world's fair because without peace there can be no progress. When nations are at war with one another, education virtually ceases and the fine arts are at a standstill.

Let us return to our own world's fair at Chicago, and see the tremendous influence it has had upon our people for good. The men from the far West, from the mountains of Kentucky, from the cañons of Colo

rado, and from the valley of the Yukon met on common ground with their more cultivated countrymen from the Atlantic seaboard; and they were in common overawed with the view from the Court of Honor looking out through the magnificent Peristyle at a lake as blue and beautiful in the sunlight as the waters of the Egean. They walked dumbfounded through the great Machinery Hall, and saw what the brain and spirit of an untrammelled people had accomplished. Pole, Hun, Frank, and all the nations of the world had contributed their quota to the making up of the machinery, from the steam engine to the steam drill. Europe learned many lessons from our world's fair, and our people learned to appreciate their own power and possibilities. Since that epoch-making exhibition our ground has been surer, and our stand has been as firm as that of the well-balanced Greek who knew his province and his potentiality, and had the good sense to appreciate his limitations.

An all-important matter that our people have learned from these world's fairs is that art must be regarded as a factor in the solution of social problems in the great cities; and, thanks largely to our White City at Chicago, the scientists and socialists, who twenty or thirty years ago snubbed the artist or looked upon him as a mere theorist or dreamer, now turn to him to furnish something which bread and science cannot give something to enlarge man's thoughts and give his spirit a greater freedom.

A word of prophecy may be safely spoken about the St. Louis Fair, which, alas, a great many of the St. Louis people do not wish to have. If it can only be guided into the hands of the right men, it will be a great success and a great educational stimulus to our people. But if it should be given over to the business artist, or the man who has had a superficial culture, perhaps a Cook's tour abroad, and has come back with a jumble of styles in his mind, and intends to dazzle the mob with the technique of a bizarre architecture, it is not unsafe to prophesy a failure for this new enterprise.

The Chicago World's Fair was the expression of a nation's power, nay, more than that, of a nation's potentiality. Although a great many creditable exhibits were sent to us from other countries, yet American thought and American genius dominated the whole exhibition, and gave a glorious promise as to the part our nation will play in that larger sphere upon which it has entered so hopefully.

The great strength of the Chicago Fair lay, as I have said, in its unity of design and in the self-effacement of the men who worked to make it an artistic success. I am glad that it is remembered as the White City,