Allusion has been made more than once to the code prepared by Lieber for the government of the United States Army in the field. It was issued by the War Department under the designation General Order No. 100, and was frequently referred to by its author as "the Old Hundred." Perry's memoir throws some interesting light upon its preparation. In February, 1863, he sends the projet of the code to General Halleck, earnestly asking for suggestions and amendments. For this purpose, he is going to send one copy to the soldier General Scott, and one to the civilian Horace Binney; fifty copies also to General Hitchcock for distribution.

"You," he says to Halleck, "well read in the literature on this branch of international law, know that nothing of the kind exists in any language. I had no guide, no groundwork, no text-book. I can assure you as a friend, that no counselor of Justinian sat down to his task of the Digest with a deeper feeling of the gravity of his labor than filled my breast in the laying down for the first time such a code, where nearly everything was floating. Usage, history, reason, and conscientiousness, and sincere love of truth, justice, and civilization have been my guides; but, of course, the whole must still be very imperfect."

At a later date, it is evident that he was quite well aware of the significance of this pioneer code. Twenty years have passed, and the idea which he gave birth to has been nurtured by skillful hands with ever increasing vigor, till at length it seems very near its maturity. It seems probable that the manual on this subject, approved by the Institute of International Law, in its meeting at Oxford in 1880, will receive the official sanction of European powers.

Lieber loved correspondence. He gave freely, and freely he received, -not finished, copied, formal epistles, nor the diffuse utterances of dictation, but sharp, lively, racy notes and queries. If his style was sometimes staccato, it had the merit of being pointed and of compelling attention. Consequently, the letters now brought together are very readable. The choice has been made with a nice instinct, which has retained personalities, as in his long-continued intimacy with G. S. Hillard; philosophical reflections, like those addressed to Samuel Tyler in Maryland, and to Bluntschli and Mittermaier in Germany; pleasantry, like his letters to Mrs. Ticknor; and patriotism, like his letters during the war. By this course, Mr. Perry has succeeded in giving us a rounded portrait, not a flat one, the many-sided likeness of a many-sided man. Mittermaier, Bluntschli, and Holtzendorff are the German correspondents, Hilliard, Sumner, Samuel Tyler, Allibone, Thayer, General Halleck, and Hamilton Fish, the Americans, whose letters from Lieber have been most fully printed.

I miss the letters addressed to Binney, Laboulaye, Woolsey, and others who are known to have been his friends; and I venture the surmise that another volume might be collected from the stores at the editor's command. In behalf of many readers, I bespeak from Mr. Perry another volume of Lieber's letters, two or three years hence.

D. C. Gilman.

The Christian League.-A Postscript.

THANK you, Mr. Editor. Your invention of “Open Letters" gives me just the chance I want to grind my own little hatchet. Your types, far better than my hectograph, will multiply the answer that I ought to make to the many who are writing me kind and curious letters about "The Christian League of Connecticut." Mr. Franklin mentioned, at the last Convention, the large correspondence which had grown out of his connection with the League as its Secretary; and upon me, as its historian, an almost equal burden has been thrown. Some of the inquirers write to head-quarters, as they should; but letters directed to the League at Hartford are sometimes forwarded to me. A few of my English correspondents seem to be puzzled by the geography, but that is nothing strange for Englishmen. If Mr. Franklin should visit England, as I hope he may, he will undoubtedly prepare a large map, after the manner of the missionary secretaries, showing the location of the principal League Clubs, and indicating with spots of some bright color the towns in which churches have been consolidated. I trust that my English friends will avail themselves of the opportunity of hearing Mr. Franklin's lecture, if for no other purpose, that they may obtain a little information about American geography.

The grateful and appreciative words that have come to me from all quarters give me far greater honor than belongs to me. In making the record that I have made of this beneficent movement, I have only done my duty. The praise is due to those-and they are many, nor do they all live in Connecticut-in whose minds and hearts this impulse toward coöperation in Christian work lives and grows from year to year. It is plain that a destructive analysis has done its worst upon the church, and that we have reached a period of reconstruction and synthesis. The fragments of the great denominations steadily gravitate together; the Presbyterians, North and South, are beginning to talk in their assemblies about coming together, and disunion can never survive discussion. No man can give a Christian reason for opposing reunion; every reason against it is drawn from selfish considerations or hateful passions which Christian men cannot long justify themselves in cherishing. When the Presbyterians come together, the Methodists and the Baptists cannot afford to stay apart, and we shall presently see the centripetal forces acting as vigorously as the centrifugal forces have been acting for a century or two. All this is in the air. He who cannot discern it is dull-witted indeed. I have only reported the movements of the Zeitgeist.

Mr. Franklin made a few quotations from his letters. Let me give an extract or two from mine, to indicate the depth of the feeling on this subject, and the social and ecclesiastical conditions out of which this feeling springs. A minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New England writes to me as follows:

"You see from my address where I am. Here are five churches and only eight hundred people in the entire township. The church has no regular preaching. The other churches are in good order as to buildings and parsonages. The Methodists are said to have the largest congregations. At my first service, last Sunday, there were eighty-six. The salaries

*

#

are three hundred and fifty or four hundred dollars and rent, save that the clergyman has to pay his rent from his salary of four hundred dollars. ** It seems to me that as long as such churches can get men to be pastors they will stick to their narrow denominational ideas and have different churches. But I do not think that God has called me into the ministry for any such purpose. One of the clergymen said he had been very happy here for ten years, and thought I should be. I cannot be, unless I can bring about some union of these churches. With the call for men

here?

#

to heathen lands and the West, how can I be happy This much is settled. I cannot give my life to the preservation of mere denominational lines. What can I do in the way of the Christian League? Have you those articles in pamphlet form? If I could put one in every family here, and call a meeting in the large, beautiful town hall!"

The good man in his perplexity sees a glimmer of light in the West; but there is reason to fear that his flight thither would prove to be only a translation from a Yankee frying-pan to a prairie fire, as the following extracts will show. The writer of the letter from which they are taken is a Congregational minister in the Far West—a man with the most ample knowledge of all that region, and with a grasp of mind and a temper of soul that speak for themselves : "I am convinced that if the policy of our missionary societies could be this, to have fewer churches and better, to withdraw from competition in many a hopeless field, that we may do the right thing where the way is open and the need great, we should do a much better work than we do. Only last week I was told by Rev. who has long known Kansas, that he knew of fifty places in which the Congregationalists and Presbyterians should unite. If that could be done so that there would be twenty-five less Congregational churches and twenty-five less Presbyterian, there would be (1) a saving of fifteen thousand dollars missionary money; (2) a saving of an indefinite amount for church-buildings; (3) the release of fifty men to preach the Gospel in other places; (4) fifty fields that would be an attraction to men of spirit, in the place of fifty fields that no one but a mendicant would think of taking.

"I am not at all surprised at the scarcity of ministers. The policy of our home missionary societies tends to keep men from the ministry. We have a dead and dreary level of little churches that offer no inviting field for young men. It is easy to say that any young man fit for the ministry ought to be ready to enter the smallest field, that he ought to have the spiritual efficiency to make his small field a large one. I have said this myself. It is the true thing to say. But if the field is small, not because of the wickedness of sinners, but because of the folly of saints and the mistakes of the home missionary authorities, the case becomes hopeless. We must expect to begin small in new places; the trouble is that our fields remain small, and must remain so while this mistaken policy continues. If a young man is asked to endure hardships for Christ's sake, by all means let us not take the courage out of him by false pity; but if it turns out that the call for self-sacrifice is not for Christ at all, but for our church, we need not wonder if the truest consecration comes to be a forgotten grace, and that the best men cannot be found for the ministry."

The writers of these letters — and I have many like

them are not theorists; they are men who stand in the midst of this sectarian confusion, and who are doing their best to bring a little order out of its tumult, and to mix a little sweetness with its bitter waters.

Such voices have a right to be heard, and they will be heard. The men who have the ordering of the work mischiefs at once. Some of them, as I happen to know, of our home missionary societies must attend to these are heartily disposed to do so; others, I fear, are ready to wink at any amount of "scrouging" if it do but inure to the benefit of their respective sects.

I will add but one word more, that the scarcity' of ministers, so much complained of, is due, as my Western correspondent shows, to the spirit of schism,

perhaps quite as much as to any other cause. There would be no lack of ministers, even numerically, if the churches that have no right to exist were blotted out. And, if that were done, we should soon report a great gain not only in the number but also in the quality of the men seeking the ministry.

Washington Gladden.

[THE following letter has been received by the Editor from the (Protestant Episcopal) Bishop of New Mexico and Arizona:]

I read with great interest Dr. Gladden's series of articles in THE CENTURY, entitled "The Christian League of Connecticut." The subject is handled with marked ability and in an excellent spirit. The Doctor has hit the plague-spot of modern Christianity. I am thoroughly convinced that the needless divisions among Christians is to-day a greater hinderance to the spread of Christ's religion than any other evil, not excepting infidelity and intemperance. If this seems to some to put the case too strongly, let them remember that divisions kill charity, the most important of Christian graces.

Doubtless the evil is sufficiently grave in New England; but it grows worse the farther West you come. I think I understate the case when I say that in the great cities of the West not one in ten of the nomihally Protestant population are in the habit of attending any place of worship. Farther West, and in thinly settled districts, the evil is still greater. In the Western States and Territories, you may travel hundreds of miles and not meet with a place where any regular service is held.

You will pass a score of small settlements, around stations with sufficient population to make a congregation; but, not being able to unite on any one denomination, they live practically heathens. When you reach a town of from one thousand to five thousand inhabitants, you will find half a dozen sects, each generally with a handful of followers, a half-starved minister, and a shabby little church; and yet an expert would often fail to discover in what essential particular these denominations differed with each other.

Of course, there must be a cure, but my object in writing this letter is to help men to see the enormity of the evil. When Christian men begin to look in earnest, a remedy will be found.

In conclusion, let me recommend Dr. Gladden's suggestion, in organizing new congregations, to use only the short platform of the Apostles' Creed. I would add to this a request that all sincere followers of Our Lord would use daily that touching prayer of his, "that all may be one," on which is conditioned the concluding sentence "that the world may believe

that Thou hast sent me.'

Geo. K. Dunlop.

LAS VEGAS, N. M., June 26, 1883.

Standard Railway Time.

PEOPLE whose journeyings have been limited to short distances can hardly appreciate the perplexity experienced by a traveler who undertakes to make a long tour in this country, when he endeavors to ascertain by what standard he must time his movements in order to catch a train advertised to depart at a certain hour. It is a lamentable fact that our railways are run to-day by no less than fifty different meridian times, varying from each other by all sorts of odd combinations of minutes. The roads using the various standards cross and interlace each other in such a puzzling manner as to render any ready acquisition of knowledge of the standard by which each is governed a sheer impossibility. Studying a map of the system is like tracing the intricacies of a labyrinth.

This condition of affairs has largely arisen from the fact that, in the early days of railroads, the several lines were isolated from each other, and each, as a rule, adopted as its standard the meridian time of the city in which its head-quarters happened to be located. As these lines were extended and branches were constructed, each adhered to its original standard, or compromised upon some intermediate meridian suitable for its own system, without regard to the standards of other lines in the same section. Many new lines of road, using standards varying from all the others, have been constructed across the original lines, thus adding to the confusion, which was bad enough before. So generally does this condition of affairs exist, that there is to-day scarcely a railroad center of any importance in the United States at which the standards used by the roads entering it do not number from two to five. The inconvenience this causes was aptly expressed, not long since, by a bright and intelligent Virginia lady, one of a party of tourists. Finding herself utterly unable to reconcile the time shown by her usually reliable watch to the varying times shown by the railway clocks at different points, she turned to the writer, and, using a provincial expression, asked appealingly: "Please tell me what is sure enough time? An effort is now being made in railway circles to arrive at a "sure enough" time, which has been not only indorsed but strongly recommended for adoption by the managing officers of a large number of important railway lines.

The system proposed is based, so far as it affects the railway lines, upon readily understood principles. First. That the same standard should be used by all lines within sections as largely extended as may be possible, without entailing such a difference between local and railroad time as to cause inconvenience to the public. It is believed, however, that as exact time is seldom required except for purposes connected with transportation, standard time could be readily substituted for local time in all cases where the difference would not be much over thirty minutes.

Second. That where a second standard becomes necessary, it should differ from the first by the simplest and most readily calculated variation,—an even hour. Third. That the changes from one standard to another should be made at well known points of departure, and so far as may be possible at points where changes now occur, and where no practical difficulty would cause danger or inconvenience to railway operations.

The section of country which includes within its limits over eighty per cent. of all the railways lies within thirty degrees of longitude westward from the eastern boundary of the State of Maine.

In railway circles, all roads east of Buffalo, Pittsburg, Wheeling, Bristol (Tennessee), etc., are distinctively known as Eastern roads, and the lines west of those points as Western roads. In examining a map of these Eastern roads, grouped together, we find that a meridian line, drawn centrally between their eastern and western extremities, coincides almost exactly with the seventy-fifth meridian west from Greenwich. A similar grouping of the Western roads between Buffalo, Pittsburg, etc., on the east, and the western boundary of Kansas on the west, develops the fact that the ninetieth meridian west from Greenwich is very approximately the central meridian for the system of roads embraced within that section.

The seventy-fifth and ninetieth meridians being fifteen degrees apart, their time differs, of course, by an even hour. It is proposed that all railroads east of Buffalo, Pittsburg, etc., shall use the seventy-fifth meridian time, which is approximately four minutes slower than the meridian time of New York; and that the Western roads shall use the ninetieth meridian time, which is nine minutes slower than Chicago time.

The meridian equidistant from these central meridians crosses the railway lines in Ohio and other States at points where the peculiarities of railway operations prevent the change being made from one standard to another, and the difficulty has been met by extending the Western standard to the eastern termini of such roads at Buffalo, Salamanca, Pittsburg, etc. Similar practical questions decide the standards for all roads south of the points named to Charleston, South Carolina. In Canada, all roads between Quebec and Detroit would use the seventyfifth meridian time. The western limit of the ninetieth meridian, or "central time" system, is fixed at points on the great transcontinental lines, where a complete change is now made in the personnel of the hands in charge of trains, or, more technically speaking, at the ends of divisions. The standard for the next western or "Mountain" system is the time of the one hundred and fifth meridian, which coincides with Denver (Colorado) time, and, for the Pacific coast, that of the one hundred and twentieth meridian. The change from the Mountain to the Pacific system is proposed to be made at Yuma, Ogden, and Missoula, all convenient locations. For the extreme eastern section, east of Quebec and Vanceboro, the sixtieth meridian time may be employed.

By the adoption of this system over eighty per cent. of the railroads will use but two standards where they now use forty, and these standards will differ from each other by an even hour. The standard for each section will differ from every other section by one, two, three, or four hours; hence the minutes will be identical in all the sections. At points where the changes are made from one standard to the next, as Pittsburg, Wheeling, etc., similar changes are now made, the distinction being that instead of the readily calculated difference of one hour these changes now consist of differences of odd minutes varying from thirteen to thirty-six, numbers inconvenient to calculate and which constantly cause annoying mistakes.

It has been pretty generally conceded that the system proposed will be, per se, advantageous to the railway companies. As affecting the general public, the traveling portion will certainly be benefited. For the rest, numerous instances now exist where railroad time is exclusively used without inconvenience in localities where the railroad standard differs by over thirty minutes from true local time.

Multiples of Greenwich time have been adopted for the system proposed, because they have been found to be the meridians best adapted for the purpose desired to be accomplished. It is a petty, school-boy patriotism which urges that Washington time should be adopted as the prime meridian, in the face of the fact that its adoption would aggravate rather than diminish the difficulties of the situation, so far as the railways at least are concerned.

The adoption of the system proposed will reduce the present uncertainty to comparative if not absolute certainty; and as Greenwich time is the standard by which all navigators' chronometers are regulated, it will give us a national standard time that will be in harmonic accord with a system which may be extended to include within its limits the whole world. For reasons of this nature, every scientific society in this country which has considered the subject has recommended the adoption of the seventy-fifth, ninetieth, etc., meridians west from Greenwich as those upon which time standards should be based.

But the question whether these meridians are also best adapted for the use of the railways, and how they can be practically adopted without serious inconvenience, has been heretofore an open one in railway circles. It is hoped and believed that a solution has now been reached. The question is to be finally decided at conventions of railway managers to be held in Chicago and in New York City in October, 1883.

Reforming the Alfabet.

W. F. Allen.

IN "Science" for June 1st, Mr. Alexander M. Bell designates six consonant sounds in the English language as having no proper letters to represent them, and proposes that the deficiency be supplied with "Visibl Speech" symbols. Five of the six sounds which he mentions ar the same as five of the six usually designated by spelling reformers as not properly represented; but he puts in wh and leaves out ch. Now that the combination wh represents, not a singl sound, but two sounds, any one can prove for himself. If there is but one sound it wil be possibl to "hold" it, in the musical sens; but the result of a trial in this case is the sound of h followed by that of u in quack, or els som noise never represented by wh.

Then why is ch omitted? From his spelling catch in his list of exampls with the sign for sh, it may be inferred that Mr. Bell would reply that ch is made up of t and sh. The holding test does not giv a distinct result in this case, owing to the peculiarity of the sound; but a trial wil prove that ch is pronounct with the vocal organs in one position, and hence stands for a singl sound. That the sound of ch does not include that of sh becoms evident from it being necessary,

after pronouncing the former, to change the positions of the tongue and lips slightly before sh can be spoken. Mr. Bell givs the six "Visibl Speech" letters which he proposes as substitutes, and invites the reader to judg as to the simplicity of their forms and their adaptability for intermixture with Roman letters. They are not prepossessing, for, not having any structural elements in common with Roman characters, they look even more out of place than script letters would if mixt with Roman. The sign for sh is almost exactly like an eye such as ar used with hooks on ladies' dreses; that for zh (z in azure) is the same with an aded mark; those for the two sounds of th resembl script w's; that for ng is not so easily described, but the main part of it resembls the apothecary's scrupl mark. Their foreign look is, of course, the least rational objection, but practically it would be found the hardest one to remove. Another disadvantage is that the similarity of two pairs of these letters would cause many mistakes in distributing type. The argument that by these and other fysiological signs the pronunciation of foreign words can be represented, is no reason for introducing them into the alfabet in which our daily papers, our Bibls, and school-books ar printed. "Why not hav two alfabets?" Mr. Bell asks; an excellent suggestion, but let the "Visibl Speech" alfabet be kept distinct for the use of def mutes, for grammars of foreign languages, and other filological uses. There is no more need of continually reminding the reader of the vocal proces he uses in speaking each letter, than of reminding him as often as he sees the word that husband was originally house-band.

What shal we do, then? for, as Mr. Bell says, the new letters advised by som reformers hav failed to be adopted by the rest. Wel, here is a plan which the writer formed over thre years ago, and which he stil deems the most feasibl. Reformers ar agreed that q, x, and either c or k must go. The retaining of k rather than c would seem preferabl, because when a person sees a k he knows alredy what it stands for, and would not hav to forget that it sometimes denoted the same sound as s. A tendency in this direction has begun in the spelling of Sokrates, Sanskrit, and som other foreign words. The fact that k is preferred in German, to which the Anglo-Saxon part of our language is so closely allied, also pronounces in its favor, for, as Mr. Bell insists, international agrement is highly desirabl. Now, why not use these discarded familiar letters for thre of the unrepresented sounds, insted of offending the eye unnecessarily with newly devised signs, and requiring every foreigner who lerns our language to share the burden? In deciding which sound each letter shal represent, let us invoke again the principl of international agrement. Thus, in Italian, in certain situations has the sound of ch in church; why not choose a change that makes one more point of agrement between the two languages insted of one that makes another point of differenc? The use of x for the zh sound would not be far from its present initial use, as in xylofone; and, if no weightier determining reason arose, let 9 take the place of ng, because it resembls g in projecting below the line. Perhaps it wil be decided to replace w and y by vowels, as in Franklin's scheme; if so, these with one Anglo-Saxon letter, alredy lookt upon with favor, would make up the six lacking consonants.

IN THE CENTURY for last December was an articl on the spelling reform by Professor Lounsbury, with all but one of the views in which I desire to expres ful agrement, together with great admiration of the manner of treatment. But Professor Lounsbury, to, deems the introduction of new letters "a necessity of the situation." Besides mentioning the six consonant sounds alredy referred to, he states that we hav fourteen simpl vowel sounds, and only five letters to represent them. But there is a simpl remedy for this deficiency also, and that, to, in conformity with the principl of international agrement. We hav only to use with each of these five letters two of the diacritical marks so frely used in continental languages to hav the means of representing fifteen vowels.

New letters have alredy been devised, and ar used in the organ of the Spelling Reform Association. "Transition letters" hav also been invented, to make the change to ful fonetic spelling a gradual one; but this scheme savors of the wisdom that cut off a dog's tail an inch at a time out of compassion.

Surely, if the growing disposition of the Germans to replace their peculiar alfabet by the one used in writing English, French, Italian, and Spanish is a move in the right direction, and if it would be well for the Russians and Chinese to do the same, then the formation of a peculiarly English alfabet, by the introduction of ten or more new letters, is a long step backward.

Frederick A. Fernald.

The Training of Children's Voices.

THE experience of teachers trained at this college and practicing its methods is exactly that which Mr.

who teach singing by note in English and Scotch elementary schools, seventy per cent. practice our system of singing; hence their experience is wide and various. With Mr. Tomlins, our teachers find that coarse and loud tone limits the compass of the voice; they find, too, that children who are in the habit of shouting, either in the play-ground or at the Sundayschool, have very poor singing voices. As an illustration of Mr. Tomlins's point that children's voices are naturally high, let me mention the work of Mr. Frank Sharp, superintendent of music in the board schools at Dundee, Scotland, and a teacher of our system. Mr. Sharp's children's choir has frequently performed Handel's "Messiah" in public, not only in Dundee, but in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. In these performances, the treble and alto parts both of the solos and choruses are sung by children, without the assistance of a single adult voice, tenors and basses only being brought in to complete the harmony. I have noticed the ease with which the boy and girl trebles attack the G's and A's of Handel's music. They sing these notes with far less effort than most adult sopranos. The reason is that the low and medium voices have been carefully separated from the really high ones, and the registers of the voice have been developed. Mr. Tomlins evidently means that a fair proportion of children's voices are high. We find that they differ in compass just as much as the voices of adults.

The habit of singing by ear, once formed, is difficult to cure, and we regard it as of utmost importance that the understanding should keep pace with vocal skill.

J. Spencer Curwen.

In Swimming-time.

CLOUDS above, as white as wool,
Drifting over skies as blue

As the eyes of beautiful

Children when they smile at you; Groves of maple, elm, and beech, With the sunshine sifted through Branches, mingling each with each,

Dim with shade and bright with dew; Stripling trees, and poplars hoar, Hickory and sycamore,

And the drowsy dogwood bowed
Where the ripples laugh aloud,
And the crooning creek is stirred

To a gayety that now

Mates the warble of the bird

Teetering on the hazel-bough; Grasses long and fine and fair

As your school-boy sweetheart's hair,

Backward roached and twirled and twined By the fingers of the wind;

Vines and mosses, interlinked

Down dark aisles and deep ravines, Where the stream runs, willow-brinked, Round a bend where some one leans

Faint and vague and indistinct

As the like reflected thing

In the current shimmering.
Childish voices farther on,
Where the truant stream has gone,
Vex the echoes of the wood
Till no word is understood,
Save that one is well aware
Happiness is hiding there.
There, in leafy coverts, nude
Little bodies poise and leap,
Spattering the solitude
And the silence everywhere-
Mimic monsters of the deep!
Wallowing in sandy shoals

Plunging headlong out of sight;
And, with spurtings of delight,
Clutching hands, and slippery soles,
Climbing up the treacherous steep
Over which the spring-board spurns
Each again as he returns.
Ah! the glorious carnival!

Purple lips and chattering teeth-
Eyes that burn-but, in beneath,
Every care beyond recall,

Every task forgotten quiteAnd again, in dreams at night, Dropping, drifting through it all!

James Whitcomb Riley.