Life and Education. THE only guarantee of good municipal government is the vigilant self-interest of the members of the community. No amount of education in the duties of citizenship can replace the direct interest which citizens are compelled to take in civic administration, when that administration has to care for widespread civic affairs. Two of the vital departments of municipal government are street-railway transit and the furnishing of light. One of these Philadelphia has already put into private hands, with a result that the citizens, in spite of certain compensation, have most inadequate facilities of transportation at maximum rates-rates that are extravagantly high compared with those of certain American cities, and compared with the rates of England and Germany, are extortionate. The projected lease of the gas works of Philadelphia will, if consummated, surrender the second great guarantee of good municipal government, and that largely to magnates of the traction company. In the light of the history of the gas works of Philain publish delphia, which another column, it is clear that we can worry along for some years longer under municipal management. With the increasing interest that is being aroused in municipal affairs, we can. look forward for relief from the political vultures that prey upon civic administrations, and when that relief comes we may rationally hope that Philadelphia may in some measure resemble Glasgow, where, under municipal management, gas is furnished at 60 cents per 1000 feet, and passengers are transported at an average rate of a cent and two-thirds. we THE mayoralty contest in New York City has maintained its extraordinary interest, and its result will remain uncertain until the votes are counted. There is a registration of 567,488, indicating a vote of only twenty thousand less than in the national election of last year. Three hundred thousand of these votes are within the present city of New York, twelve thousand in Staten Island, and the remainder in Brooklyn and Queens County. In the latter part of the campaign public attention has centred to a large extent in Brooklyn, where both President Low and General Tracy are well known and personally popular. There, if anywhere, the regular Republican candidate must make good the heavy losses which are caused by the revolt in Manhattan and the Bronx against the domination of Mr. Platt. But although Brooklyn has had no direct experience with the machines of Mr. Platt and Mr. Croker, there is no reason to suppose that the Brooklyn voter will sacrifice in this campaign, where it is pre-eminently in place, his well-earned reputation for independence and political insight. There would seem to be no possibility of the election of General Tracy. If the labor vote of Greater New York were behind Henry George, as in the contest of 1886, he would be the most formidable rival of the Citizens' Union. But there is much factional disturbance among the followers of Mr. George, and Seth Low himself is personally popular among the leaders of organized labor. Moreover, many of those who shout enthusiastically for George and his aggressive assertion of the doctrines of "personal liberty," "opposition to bossism, landlordism, and paternalism,' are really doubtful of his ability to serve in a responsible executive capacity. If the issue were between one machine and the people who oppose boss rule, it would be decided overwhelmingly in favor of the latter. The opportunity to "down" both machines is even more inspiriting, though of course more difficult, since the contest has thrown into the camp of those who fight the righteous battle of reform a party of social revolutionists who are honestly opposed to Tammany under its present absentee leadership, but who have little in common with the Citizens' Union. There are hardly enough of these discontented Democrats to win an election, notwithstanding their huge and enthusiastic mass meetings, but there are enough of them to imperil Tammany's otherwise good chance of winning against a divided enemy. At the present writing, it would appear that, in spite of the unexpected complications of the past month, the real struggle has narrowed down to a contest between the Citizens' Union on the one side, aided by the candidacy of Henry George, and on the other Tammany Hall, aided by the organization of the Republicans. But both party organizations have a strong hold in all parts of the city, and it may yet be found that even the double revolt has not loosened it. The New York Herald' has been much ridiculed for its inability to choose among the four candidates, but even those who have no hesitancy in choosing a candidate, and who would have had no difficulty in forecasting an ordinary election, are equally at sea with the 'Herald' as to the outcome of this unique contest. THE value of careful and patient study of facts as a corrective of sweeping judgments and unripe generalizations concerning social ques. tions is clearly seen in the work of governmental labor bureaus. To this is due their extension from the United States to Europe. In their infancy, the possibilities of these organs were only vaguely understood. Practical politicians discerned the growing force of the labor movement and its inevitable intrusion into the political arena. They were moved, in the language of current politics, to "do" something for labor. From a partisan standpoint the most inoffensive thing which can be "done" for a new question is to order an official investigation. But to show the solicitude of the politician for the weal of the working classes it seemed necessary to establish for the dear workingman, as had been done for the dear farmer, permanent organs of investigation. In this manner have arisen the labor bureaus of the United States, and in the presence of the growing demands of labor and the consequent increasing perplexity of legislation, European nations have been quick to perceive the utility of such organs and to copy them. In rapid succession we have seen the creation of labor bureaus in Switzerland, Belgium, France, and Great Britain. Party expediency cannot furnish a basis for permanent political institutions, though it is rarely absent in their creation. A higher purpose of the public welfare must always be discernible, however clouded by party interest, to insure success. Wherever there has been a fair measure of sincerity in the establishment of labor bureaus, they have taken firm root and rendered signal service to the state. When they have taken their task seriously, their results have been excellent. They have facilitated the understanding of the real labor problem. They have confounded the false prophets of labor, while the professional agitator has lost his grip. The laboring classes, by means of them, have been better able to understand their real situation and its needs, while the public listens with a more sympathetic ear to their just reclamations when supported by the statistics of responsible departments of the public service. A recent report of the youngest of the more important bureaus, the Labor Department of the English Board of Trade, is an excellent type of the services of these institutions. This report shows the gradual improvement in the condition of the working classes, both in wages and in the hours of labor. American investigations all tend in the same way. It has been the contention in all ages of those who deemed themselves oppressed, that their well recondition was growing worse. We may joice that such is not the case with the laboring classes in general, without blinding ourselves to the fact that their condition may be far from enviable, and without ceasing our efforts for its elevation. That such efforts have become in recent years more practical, that they seek to meet real needs and not to combat imaginary evils, is in no small measure due to the careful and painstaking efforts of the more important bureaus of labor. COMMON School education which once was thought to afford the average child full and sufficient instruction as a preparation for life and citizenship has ceased to be the ideal goal of popular education. The patent fact of the insufficiency of common school education, when the average child must leave school at the age of fourteen, has compelled thoughtful men and women to consider the problem of the education of the youth of the community forced to spend their days in offices, shops, and factories, and of adults called upon to exercise the duties of parentage and citizenship, for whom the education of the common schools has furnished in the average only the most elementary means of knowledge. The virtual darkness and poverty of thought, the hopeless monotony, that characterize the life of the great masses of people under the present industrial system, have impressed upon educational institutions and upon the educated classes of the community in general the gravity of their responsibility. Without taking Carlyle's extreme view that it is for us that their bodies are bent, for us their minds darkened, our duty of help towards the less instructed of the world is nevertheless obvious and pressing. To reach the great mass of the community helpfully is the problem of education more important, more imminent than that of adding to knowledge or raising the culture of classes already educated. It is often held that the laboring classes do not desire self-improvement. If this be so, it will be remembered that it was the greatest stigma of slavery that the slaves were often contented. But the experience of England, the experience of great cities of America, is that there exists. among the people a desire for knowledge of themselves, of the history and politics of their country, of their literature and of other lands. If the people do not desire self-improvement, how shall we account for the marvelous development of the free lecture system of the board of education of New York City? During the past season there have been given in the public schools and halls of that city, sometimes in courses accompanied with syllabus, a thousand lectures to half a million hearers. The plan of work of the season now beginning calls for twelve hundred sessions and one hundred and fifty lecturers. The educational character of these lectures is to be still further developed, so that in many cases they will approach what may seriously be called university extension lectures. They will in many instances be given in courses outlined and guided by syllabus and followed by open discussions. In view of this practical systematic effort to arouse the interest and self-activity of the people, it may be well said that no movement of the educated classes in the direction of the instruction and happiness of the community is more worthy of commendation, more likely to be followed with permanent educational result. So far from the people not wanting instruction, it is a truth of life that if humanity can see the good it must in the long run from its nature love it. Else were the progress of the race which we all believe in the mere dream of a visionary. How to reach educationally this general public ready for self-improvement is a great problem, to some a problem of making money, to others a problem of philanthropic effort. The air is full of schemes and rumors of schemescorrespondence colleges, culture clubs, homestudy associations, world universities. Methods are numerous and magazines to advocate them. Of the older permanent organizations the Chautauqua reading circles are probably the best known and most influential. On a more serious basis stands the plan of work on which the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching operates,-a plan which has been developed from the tried system of the Oxford and Cambridge Societies of University Extension, and which has furnished the model for the systems of university extension of the universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, the State of New York, Rutgers, and other colleges, and has been adopted for all the more thorough courses of lectures now offered by the New York board of education. It is universally admitted by those who have witnessed most success in the education of the public that the touchstone of any true system of education is the earnestness of its effort to encourage systematic study and reading on the part of the public addressed, to direct that study and reading so that individual effort may be guided at the same time that it is stimulated. Indeed, only the individual who is roused to the effort of self-improvement is permanently benefited, he alone is able to gain the intellectual salvation of a growing mind. Hence, lectures which hearers attend without preparation and leave without guidance cannot be regarded as permanently beneficial. Indeed, delivered sporadically by university men, they often stand in the way of genuine educational effort. They presume to extend university teaching, they often appropriate the name of it. The public, led to expect guidance and stimulus from university extension receive none from this semblance of it. The hungry sheep look up and are not fed. Carlyle's Prentice Hand. Genius is so rare that all manifestations of it deserve to be studied, even when the results obtained are purely negative. Such can be the only justification of those who have raked out the early essays of Carlyle from among the other "fossil bodies" in 'Brewster's Encyclopædia,' and of those who presume to write articles upon those articles. The sumptuous form in which these essays reappear in a recent volume of Messrs. Gowan & Son and the Lippincott Company, with their foreword from Mr. Crockett, cannot but awaken in our minds a painful surmise. Carlyle's own opinion of their literary value is no secret, and what he would probably say to the worshipful publishers and foreworder about giving to the world what he withheld, if he met them in the pale twilights of Elysium, is one of those things over which humanity willingly draws a veil. For the poor scholar, the transition period between leaving the university and finding his profession or life-work is anything but pleasant. For Carlyle it was purgatory. With him, "getting under way" meant not only sick heart and hope deferred, but the exasperating consciousness of most uncommon powers going to waste. It was in the midst of this sad time that he obtained an alms of work from Brewster, who gave an old student something to do to keep body and soul together. One of Carlyle's first references to this occupation occurs in long epistolary growl to his friend Mitchell in March, 1820, where he complains that "compiling the wretched lives of Montesquieu, Montagu, Montaigne, etc., for Dr. Brewster-the remuneration will hardly sustain life." To judge from the allusions in his Early Letters, this part of the work (all the M's) was done in March and April, 1820, and the material for the N's (Necker and Nelson) was taken home to be worked up leisurely during the summer at Mainhill. All these together amount in bulk to about one-third of the articles now rescued from Brewster; to the latter his printed letters do not allude. The articles on Nelson and Necker were not required for six months, and naturally those lower down in the alphabet would come much later. The last of the series is on the younger Pitt. At the time of writing these articles, Carlyle He was twenty-five years was not a mere lad. of age and unusually mature in mind; but he had not as yet really found himself or perfected his distinctive style. Every one remembers Macaulay's heresy about the superiority of the Cockney prentice to Scott and Robertson. Lately some admirer of Stevenson has set a counter-paradox going, to the effect that a Scot, by reason of his unfamiliarity with English, writes the language better when he really gives his mind to the task than the sophisticated Southron. The latter view receives no support from an examination of Carlyle's apprentice work. The Johnsonian tradition was perhaps stronger in Edinburgh in Carlyle's day than anywhere else; and though he read largely in the great literature then making, he evidently held by Johnson as a model writer. He might have done worse; but, as a matter of fact, he did better. In his 'Early Letters,' so admirably selected and edited by Professor Norton, two styles are apparent: the first, Johnsonian, chill, constrained, and formal, for mere acquaintances; the second, the genuine Carlyle, hearty, free, and fluid, for family and friends. Naturally he would use the first in his early efforts for the press; but by degrees, as he gained confidence, and saw how Richter made such peculiarities as his own a most effective vehicle of expression, he let himself go, and enriched English literature by a style recognized at last as various, powerful, and his own. Not for ten years was he to begin 'Sartor Resartus,' but the germs of Carlylese are to be found long before. Those interested in the embryology of style will find parallels to the most vivid and characteristic purple patches in 'Sartor' scattered with a free hand throughout the Early Letters.' The vignettes of Edinburgh and St. Paul's, the adventure of Waugh and the meerswine, the old ouvrier in the Morgue, the characterization of 'Wilhelm Meister,' or the Birmingham iron works, show how effective his native style could be; but in the Brewster articles there is no such putting forth of genial power. All is highly proper and undeniably dull. It is interesting to see how dull Carlyle could be. At the very time that he was pouring out his full heart to father, mother, brothers, friends, scattering the coin of a poet's imagination in unconsidered largess upon forgotten Mitchells and Johnstones, he compiles articles that could have been written just as well by a hundred other stickit ministers or village dominies. The style is absolutely frozen. Even in writing of Pitt and Nelson, only five years after that world-earthquake Waterloo, he felt not the slightest stir of patriotic pride, and he closes the article on the great admiral with a prophecy which time has completely falsified. The best parts of this contribution are the quotations from Southey. The "wise (sic), determinate sagacity of judgment," the "accents of ironic scorn" which Mr. Crockett discovers in such of the essays as he admits having read. must be set down to the notorious Scottish prejudice in favor of a countryman. To the cooler cis-Atlantic judgment these qualities are simply not there. It is cheering to think that the hours Carlyle spent in the Advocates' Library in gather ing material for these articles were not spent in vain. For example, he has to write about Norfolk, and he reads conscientiously the 'Beauties of England and Wales,' vol. XI, Kent's 'View,' and Young's Farmer's Tour." He discovers that Norfolk is celebrated for its turkeys, that they are driven to market in herds, and he compiles a stiff paragraph on the topic. After ten years of an Odyssey of the heart, he has set about writing a work of genius, and is closing a jesting chapter with the mournful turn which marks the humor of Northern races, when he recalls a long-disused and insignificant fact. At once, with the touch of genius, he transforms the poor, sordid thing into a magic-mirror of human life. "O my friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as 'turkeys driven, with a stick and red clout, to the market'; or if some drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle thereof terrifies the boldest." And this is only one of many instances which might be quoted. His memory is most tenacious, and works in harmony with his penetrating imagination. For slow-growing, late-fruiting natures, for men of long-enduring hopes, the conclusion is comforting. The compiler of these "lives" at twenty-five, wrote 'Sartor Resartus' at thirtyfive. It is almost incredible. But he forsook the schools and trampled the Johnsonian tradition under foot. He worked out his own style his own way, though Macvey Napier "edited" as much of the life out of his 'Edinburgh' articles as he dared, though critics of 'Fraser' reviled, and the oldest subscriber lifted up his voice and blasphemed. He had the courage to be himself, and we are all gainers by that determination. As for his apprentice work, there is really no reason for quarreling with his own verdict upon it. Though perhaps not exactly "silly" or "wretched," except in a strict Carlylean sense, they are certainly "dreary" and "not worth mentioning." No one would look at them twice, even in the gorgeous dress of the reprint of them, unless he knew they came from the right hand which has forgot its cunning beneath the clods of Ecclefechan churchyard. ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN. The History of the Gas Franchise in The Philadelphia gas works were established in 1835. During a preliminary investigation of the gas supply in other cities, Councils had been deeply impressed with the advantages of public management, but they shrank from the financial responsibility involved in municipal ownership. In establishing the works, they therefore devised a plan designed to throw the risk of the new enterprise on private capitalists, while reserving for the city the right of control. In pursuance of this plan, the ordinance of 1835 provided that the necessary capital to build and equip the plant should be secured by an issue of stock to the amount of $100,000. A board of twelve trustees, elected by Councils, was created to construct and manage the works. The entire net profit of the enterprise was to be distributed by the trustees in semi-annual dividends on stock. In spite of the peculiar arrangement which allowed the stockholders no direct control of the business, the required capital was eagerly furnished, and early in 1836 the gas works were in operation. But, while establishing indirect public control through a board of trustees elected by Councils, the ordinance of 1835 had further provided that the city might at any time take possession of the works by converting the stock into a loan redeemable in twenty years and paying 6 per cent interest. In 1841 Councils decided to take advantage of this provision, and against the protest of the stockholders the Philadelphia gas works became public property. The trustee system of management as originally established was continued, the ordinance providing that "said works shall be controlled and managed by a board of trustees, elected and constituted as heretofore, who shall have the whole control and management of the said works and of the sinking fund and of all other funds belonging to said works; and the said trustees shall pay no part of said funds nor any part of the profit of said works into the city treasury, but shall apply and appropriate the same as directed by this ordinance until the interest and principal of said loan shall be fully paid as they become due to said stockholders." Thus was created one of the most remarkable administrative bodies in municipal history. The motive for this unique attempt at public. control through a trust elected by Councils, but not responsible to them or to any other body, is judicially explained as follows: "By that system they (the gas works) are placed on a permanent footing and are effectually guarded against the changes and consequent mismanagement which might flow from the impulsive action of political parties." It is apparent that this system of irresponsible control would work well only as long as the trustees were personally honest and efficient; that dishonest and inefficient trustees would possess almost unlimited power for mischief. During the early history of the gas trust the system, bad as it was in theory, produced fairly good results. The price of gas was lowered from $3.50 per thousand feet in 1836 to $3 in |