Why Americans Should Study Chinese By FRIEDRICH HIRSH, Professor «112 Chlni'«e at Columbia. (Columbia Is the llrst American university to endowr a regular chair of Chinese) t b\ '■ } j But few people seriously consider the proposition ■ ; to teach the Chinese language in our American col- Vjhj leges. Yet there is much in Chinese literature and history that would prove valuable to the western |\ jJißwrlv world —especially now that China is being developed W an( l European and American influences are creeping H Why study Chinese? It would be well for us to understand the mys flKSHnßßftifl teries of modern government life in China. To do so we must know the native literature. It would be well for us to be familiar with the documents of the Chinese emperor concerning trade restrictions, in view of our increas ing commerce with his nation. At present we possess mere abstracts. Authorities upon these subjects have proved of great importance in recent times. To those interested in national life the Chinese language abounds with interest. Chinese literature is practically the only source of information concerning the history, geography and language of the nations east of Persia and north of India. Chinese records open up to us the history of the commerce carried on in ancient and medieval times between western and eastern Asia. In vain do we look to the literature of eastern Asia for information re garding this commerce. The Huns and other hosts of wanderers who swept from the heart of Asia to Europe—who were they? What of the Turks and the history of their migrations? These facts lie buried in Chinese lit erature. The history and geography of India, during the centuries of its development, would be a blank but for the industry of Chinese pilgrims who traveled through central Asia, the Holy Land of the Buddhists, and wrote elaborate accounts of what they saw and heard. Scholars interested in Asia are excited over the remains of buried cities found in eastern Turkestan by Russian, English and Swedish travelers. Manuscripts written in languages long forgotten are being collected and sent to the museums of the west. Stone inscriptions are so numerous that it is difficult to decipher them. A CLEAR IN SIGHT INTO ALL THESE PROBLEMS CAN BE BROUGHT ABOUT ONLY BY A CAREFUL PERUSAL OF CHINESE LIT ERATURE. Wanted a Professor of Professions By MRS. ANNA. CARLIN SPENCER, Noted Lecturer on Philanthropy. m SOMETIMES think our women's colleges need a Professor of Professions. Year by year, in response to a new social consciousness in the community, there are being created new forms of serial organization calling for personal service in a score of new professions. Organized charity is offering women positions as agents, investi gators and managers of departments. More and more women are being drafted into factory and tenement house and sanitary inspection. The medical inspection of schools is drawing women physicians, as the inspection of foods will draw chemists and diet-physciains. As the indeterminate sentence system is extended, parole and pro bation officers are being sought among women. Women truant officers are common, and women are being appointed as superintendents of truant schools. Women superintendents of women's reformatories must soon supersede mere keepers of jails. Every police building in enlightened communities now has its matron, and women officers are needed to time, train and raise the standard of these matrons. 1 he social secretary is a new official established in the department store to stand between employer and employes. Executive secretaries have become a necessity to numberless volunteer associations for civic work, the details of which are peculiarly suited to educated, able women. All these new professions require training which is as yet in most cases hardly outlined. The work has developed before workers are ready for it, and the call is to-day for women to fit themselves for these new duties. In order to prepare students for the practical art of personal service our colleges need special elective courses in social economics. T hey need, too, a new department to be headed by a Professor of Pro- Remedy for Modern Pessimism By REV. CHARLES L. HLOSS, Pastor Webster Grove Congregational Church, St. Louis. HE American is an unqualified boaster. There is much to justify him. He has the figures. What natioi. has such tall buildings, such export trade, such mechanical ingenuity, such comforts of living? We are the biggest nation out of doors, but we have commensurate problems. The total number of murders and homicides of various kinds for 1902 was 8,834, about a thousand more than that of the preceding year, with only 144 legal executions. There has been also, despite our grow ing facilities, a rapid increase in suicide, insanity and other forms of abnormal disease. Whatever we may say of the country's greatness, however much we may boast of our achievements and progress, it is nevertheless true that there has loomed over the horizon of our prosperity the specter of an overshadowing menace. Our very success is breeding the problem. The high pressure of modern civilization is placing a great strain upon nervous energy. Nerve exhaustion produces depression, and depression is the mother of pessimism. It is a remarkable fact that when a nation is overstimulated that succeeding generations pay for the sins of the fathers. It is unquestion ably true that the increase of nervous tension is chiefly accountable for the increase in crime and insanity. There is a club in New York called the "Restless club," whose motto is, "Anywhere but where we are." About nine Americans out of every ten evidently belong to this club. The man who goes around sniffing for evil, who discounts his neighbors' actions and misinterprets his motives, is the pessimist in real life who gives trouble. The remedy is to be found in health; healthy mindedncss. This is to be secured by a return to the simplicities of life. If we could be ron tent with smaller incomes, get back to the soil and live out of doors, w* could remove many of the causes of pessimism on the physical side. CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1903. NO TINKERS OF THE TARIFF. ■ E-crrtary Hoot I'rot)-*t« AKHIOHI H«- vlaiuu a-t Any Tlim- lulrm Ab solutely Needed. Klihu lioot, secretary of war, spoke before the Home Market club, of Bos ton, against the proposition that re vision of the tariff be undertaken at this time, or at any time unless the need of it was clearly shown, says the Albany Journal. He began with the statement that revision is favored by that class which is always opposed to whatever is, by lone who sincerely believe that a re vised tariff would produce even better results than that which is now in force, and by the democrats who desire a change in the administration, and see no better way to attempt to bring it about than to clamor for a change in the tariff system. Mr. Hoot then proceeded to direct at tention to the certainty that this coun try has become phenomenally prosper ous under the protective system, and assumed that the people of the United States wanted prosperity to continue. The question whether under another tariff law than that which is in force the country might not have prospered, or the question whether in the future the country might not prosper under another law, is not one that presses for consideration. The fact to be considered is that at Its very inception any step toward re vision of the tariff would bring doubt and dread to every citizen having ma terial interests at stake. Through groping after vague possibilities of im provement the good that we have would be jeopardized. Moreover, if the tariff were revised, it would not be uniform.lv satisfact TJ". No tariff law ever can be that. interests of the different sectiont of this country are too various. "The question is," said the speak whether there are really existi' g evils to be cured as great as the evi s to be endured from the long and dif cult process of revision." Whenever it may appear clearly that changes in the tariff are advisable, then changes will be made, but at the proper time and in the proper manner. Revision, if undertaken at all, should be undertaken only when the congress Is free from the influence of a political campaign and the task should be in trusted only to the friends of protec tion, so that, the essential principle may not be disturbed. In conclusion, Mr. Root said: "If the American people are ready to abandon the principle of protection and face the crash and downfall of our present prosperity, which would immediately result, then they should hand the revision over to the demo cratic party, and that is the meaning of the men who are crying: 'Revise the tariff, in order to destroy the trusts.' What they really mean is, abandon the principle of protection, in order to de stroy the trusts, and make all Amer ican producers take their stand on an equal footing with foreign competi tion." Secretary Root's utterances are of special importance, since it is generally understood that they express the views of the administration and fore shadow firm resistance to any and all attempts to bring about resumption of tariff-tinkering during the sessions of the next congress. PARAGRAPHIC POINTERS. t7.Mr. Bryan is being earnestly- asked to revise his own opinions. But he is still young enough to be principally concerned about the mistakes of other people.—Washington Star. C7.Mr. Bryan is> willing to concede that it might be well to give second place on the next democratic national ticket to some good man from Illinois or Ohio.—Chicago Record-Herald. tcr'Hie democrats of the country gen erally are watching the Wat.terson- Bryan rough and tumble from as far off as possible and fervently hoping that when it is over there won't be enough of either combatant found to fill a tin dipper.—Philadelphia Press. C"lf the American people are ready to abandon the principle of protec tion and face the crash and downfall of our present prosperity, which would immediately result, then they should hand the revision over to the democratic party, and that is the meaning of the men who are crying: 'Revise the tnriff in order to destroy •the trusts.' What they really mean is, abandon the principle of protection in order to destroy the trusts, and make all American producers take their stand on an equal footing with foreign competition."—Secretary Root. IC?"Some democrats never seem to know just how to do things. It is now proposed to have a joint, debate in Brooklyn between William J. Bryan and Edward M. Shepard "in the inter est of democratic harmony." But why stop there? Why noit include Grover Cleveland, Henry Watterson, "Golden Rule" Jones, David B. Hill and Richard Olney? To be sure, how ever, after the scrimmage there might not be much of the democratic party left. Good idea. Make it a fight to a finish, so that there could be no doubt as to where the cyclone struck. —Troy Times. the Milwaukee speech Presi dent Roosevelt simpl? showed that congress faithfully redeemed the pledges made in the last campaign rela tive to trusts, and the work the admin istration has done under existing laws to break up unjust discriminations by railroads, to a class of shippers and to put an end (to the conspiracy of the packing houses to control the meat trade, and to check dangerous com binations oi railroads. It is the presi dent's policy and achievement com bined. Put forth in the spirit of can dor it will receive candid considera tion.—lndianapolis Journal. DEMOCRATIC POLITICS. Some lit n I fl.* Fnetn |{ t-k .*t ril 111 u I'rub alt I lii t U-■ 1,/ u l.railinK Miinlirr of the- Party. Senator Teller has been interviewed in New York on the political situation, and he tells some new-1 hings which may or may not be welcome to his demo cratic friends. Parker, he says, is stronger in the west than he is in his own state or in the east in general. Cleveland, he deel'ares. is an impossibil ity, which will b? bad news for the clique which is trying to start a boom for him. Bryan, so Teller says, is not an aspirant for a renonvination.but "he will continue as a national democratic leader, and will be a bigvfactor in the convention." This is something which will not please the section of the democ racy to which he imparted thisinforma tion, says the St. Louis Globe-Demo crat. Perhaps the senator is out of touch with politics. This will possibly be the explanation which the CLevelanditea will give to his poor opinion of the ex president's chances. There is no doubt at all, however, that he is right in say ing that Bryan will be a big factor in the convention of 1904. Whether he goes there as a delegate or not, his influence will be potent in that gather ing. The man who rolled up 1,000,00(1 more votes than did his immediate predecessor on the ticket, and thnt predecessor Cleveland, is too great a figure to be cast aside because he was beaten twice in succession in his can vass for president. Any other man whom the democrats would have nom* inated would have been beaten in those years. Bryan got more votes in 189< and 1900 than could have been obtained by any other democrats in the count ry Bryan will be the ghost at everj feast of the democratic reorgan.izeri between now and the day of the elec tion in 1904. The Cleveland, Hill, (ior man, Parker and Olney factions of ths democracy know that Bryan is against all of tliem. They are aware that h< would rather see Roosevelt or any othej republican elected than see the aspir ant of any one of those factions win Bryan himself makes this pretty plain in all his interviews, and in all his lead ers in the Commoner. The democracy for which he stands is entirely differ ent from that, represented by any oi those elements. Senator Teller knowi this, and so does every other sensibl« democrat in the country. There will be halcyon and vociferous times in the democratic convention and canvass oi 1904. NEGRO WTHENORTH. KJiiorra Show That 'the Colored Vota Is to lleeome an linpor- « taut Factor. Those who have so much tosay about the political and social equality of the southern negro, should remember that the "black belt" is a somewhat elastic term, in every sense of the word, and that, the black population of this coun try laps over Mason and Dixon's line to an extent not commonly recognized by a certain class of uncertain observ ers, says the Florida Times-Union. As a matter of fact the black vote is>a sub ject of more than passing interest in many of the states of the north, as may readily be seen by the subjoined table: Persons Negroes of r.egro of vot descent. ing age. State or Territory. 1900. 1900. Missouri 161,234 46.41S Pennsylvania 156,545 51,668 New York 99,232 31,4 a Ohio 96,901 31,235 District of Columbia 86,702 20,075 Illinois 85,074 29,762 New Jersey 69,544 21,474 Indiana 52,008 14,695 Kansas 52,003 14,696 Wist Virginia 43,4!>9 14,78« Indian Territory 36,853 9,146 Massachusetts 31,794 10.456 Delaware 30,697 8,374 Oklahoma 18.531 4,827 Michigan 15,816 6,193 Connecticut 15,226 4,576 lowa 12,693 4,411 California 11,045 3,711 Rhode Island 9,0!12 2,765 Colorado 8,370 3,212 Nebraska 6,296 2,298 Minnesota 4,966 2,168 Wisconsin 2,542 1,006 Washington 2,514 1,230 Arizona 1,848 1,084 It goes without saying that the great majority of those northern ne groes vote the republican ticket—and it is more than probable that in some favored localities they obey the time honored political injunction, and "vote early and often." But education of any sort is the most uncertain of hand maidens; and no man can forecast with any degree of accuracy the nature of her current contributions to the moral and intellectual equipment of the "brother in black." One thing, at least, is certain, the "thinking ballot" is an uncertain ballot ; and the momewt the negro, whether in the north or in the south, learns how to operate his own mental machinery and to think for himself, that moment he will begin to distribute his political patronage among the two great parties of the country. IC7"Mr. Bryan, Senator Carmack and Senator Stone declare .that the. next democratic nominee for president must be a man who supported the demo-populist or populist-demo ticket, both in 1896 and in 1900. That is in teresting. considering the probability that no nominee who did that can. be elected, in 1904. —Brooklyn Eagle. tCMr. Bryan is still in doubt wheth er the "prodigals have repented." Aj the leader of a band who went into "a far country" and fed for two presiden tial seasons upon husks., Mr. Bryan ought to be able to answer for one of the "prodigals" at least.—N. Y. World (dem.). Bryan thinks the reorganiza tion of the democratic party would mean certain defeat. The democrat,* are so accustomed to victory under Mr. Bryan's leadership that this is likely to end all talk of reorg inization. —Detroit Free Press (deta.). Revival of Quilting Bee; Patterns New and Old. The quilting bee is likely to become an accepted social function, not only of the rural districts, but among city dwellers. The advantages of the old fashioned "pieced quilt" are again be ing recognized and the handiwork in volved in the quilting is receiving ar dent appreciation. Indeed it is the quilting rather than the piecing which is receiving marked attention, al though the designer of log cabins and EGYPTIAN PATTERN. star patterns is perhaps only a step removed in popularity. So widely spread is the inteiest in quilts that the art embroidery houses now issue perforated stamping pat terns of quilting designs and lists of several hundred patterns for piecing. Some of the modern designs for quilt ing are elaborate; others, no less so, are a return to the style <sf our grand mothers. Essentially new in effect are the Egyptian pattern and the ivy leaf, while among the old tii#e patterns are the star and crescent and the shell. In our grandmothers' day, when there were no patterns to be purchased —and it is doubtful if our thrifty grandmothers would have bought them if there had been—designs were cut from cardboard and were loaned or exchanged in a spirit of mutual helpfulness. Many of the old quilts were made from white muslin. An elaborate pattern was drawn and the parts were stuffed as the work pro gressed, leaving the finished design in prominent relief. No outer spreads were used in those days, and the elab orate pattern of such a quilt was not hidden from view. All sorts of devices were resorted to for designs. A flower center was encircled by rows of stitching marked by means of plates of various sizes. The shell pattern was made by using a piece of string doubled and tied with three knots at equal distances. Start ing at one corner of the quilt a pencil was placed in the end loop, the first STAR AND CRESCENT. knot was held firmly on the corner with the thumb, and a quarter circle marked. Then the second knot was held at the corner and a second quar ter circle marked, and this was repeat ed with the third knot. The first knot was then placed at the upper edge of the third circle and the process re peated, continuing the entire length of one side and following one row with another. The marking was usually done after the quilt was placed upon the frames, working a short distance ahead, as the quilt was rolled. At some of the mod ern bees, however, it has been found that more accurate marking can be done, and the time of the quilters saved, if the entire cover is marked before it is placed upon the frames. NEW STYLE BEDROOM SET MADE IN FUMED OAK a HE Norseman Is the rather stirring name given to a new style of bed room furniture which has just made its appearance. keeping with Its title, its characteristics are a sturdy simplicity and strong, massive build. The straight lines of the pieces are relieved by the ad dition of curved parts, which give the furni ture its Norse effect. Fumed oak and ash stained green ara the woods best suited to this style, the hinges and handles of copper, If one of the modern stamping pat terns is used the same rule holds good, and the entire surfuce is stamped by repeating the pattern before thequilt ing is begun. I'atterns for piecing quilts, like those for quilting, are sometimes bor rowed from old time models. The al bum pattern has been revived by church societies. This has a center piece of white in each block, on which the name of the maker is outlined or written. A member of a church or of a society will often pay a high price for one of these autograph quilts. They are also used for gifts or pres entations. Church societies find profitable em ployment for the weekly or fortnight ly meetings in piecing or quilting, as well as in tying comforters. The quilts are usually individual orders, while the orders for comforters often come from large dry goods houses. One society has a record of tying 25 com forters in a day. To save time in marking each one, they hit upon an ingenious plan. An old sheet was marked in diagonal lines. At each in tersection of these lines a hole as large around as a five-cent piece was cut. The sheet was then pinned on over a comforter and the tying was done through the holes thus prepared. The sheet could be used again and again. Frequently a bride-elect holds a quilting bee. to which her intimate friends are invited. Each one writes her name in a block, and the quilting OLD BASKET PATTERN. then proceeds. But it is the matrons who more frequently are found intent upon quilting, while the piecing is done by the younger folks, for quilting means work, even when done amtjng friends and relieved by an occasional sip of Russian tea. —N. Y. Ilerald. The Care of tlhe Hair. French women wash their hair much less often than English or American women, and probably for this reason they have finer heads of hair as a rule. Whatever there may be to say in favor of the good old English sham poo, as far as cleanliness is concerned, it is preeminently not a good thing for the hygiene of the hair. Hair dries much less quickly than one thinks, and is often dressed and put up -too soon after being shampooed, with the result that the damp remains in it still longer than is supposed. The very best dressing for hair is sunlight and fresh air; it cannot be aired too much or too long. To Keep Mirrors Bright. Do not clean plate-glass mirrors wit-li soap and water, which sooner or later dim the surface. Alcohol and water is safe, but unless the mirror is actually dirty, rubbing with a soft cloth cleanses it perfectly. It is best not to use soap on table glass, much of which is rather soft and easily scratched. For this reason avoid th< many patent polishing powders and cloths advertised to give a high pol ish to good glass. Delicacy for a Lnnrhnin. For a frozen cheese salad, beat a cream cheese to a smooth paste with one-fourth of a cupful of cream. Sea son with salt, paprika and a little lem on juice. Turn the mixture into the freezer and freeze slightly. Then re-* move it and pack it in a brick mould in salt and ice for an hour. Cut in slices and serve in lettuce leaves with a French dressing. adding a decorative touch to an otherwise plain design. A double row of tiles adorns the washstand back, serving the purpose of utility as well as beauty. The chairs ac companying the set have rush bottoms. While there are many more beautiful styles n bedroom sets, there are few novel ties In this line, and doubtless the new can didate for popularity will find favor amonij those who are In the search of somothjna new. 3
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers