The School News from Cottonwood Falls, Kansas • 13

Great wants give scope for great virtues. 13 the memory has been trained in the vocabulary of Volapuk, reading or writing in this language will become very easy. Forty per cent of the roots chosen for the formation of Words in Volapuk are from the English language, so that it is much easier for an Englishman to learn than for a person whose native tongue is not the English. The book contains the usual subjects treated in a grammar and many exercises for practice. It also contains 6ome reading lessons and a vocabulary.

So Volapuk seems to have come whether to stay or not. Ere long it may be discussed at educational meetings then it may be studied by reading circles and taught in our schools and perhaps become an essential qualification for graduation from both literary and commercial institutions. Who is not already curious to see the book and to learn the language? Only a few persons in this country have, as yet, interested themselves in its study, but now that a guide to its study has appeared it is not improbable that, very soon classes will be formed for its study in many cities and towns where enterprising teachers are accustomed to co-operate in such matters. 'Journal of Education. little group Asa Gray has fairly won for himself a lasting position.

But he was something more than. a mere systematise He showed himself capable of drawing broad philosophical conclusions from the dry facts he collected and elaborated with such untiring industry and zeal. This power of comprehensive generalization he showed in his paper upon the "Characters of Certain New Species of Plants Collected in Japan" by Charles Wright, published nearly thirty years ago. Here he first pointed out the extraordinary similarity between the Floras of Eastern Iforth America and Japan, and then explained the peculiar distribution of plants through the northern hemisphere by tracing their direct descent through geological eras from ancestors which flourished in the arctic regions down to the latest tertiary period. This paper was Professor Gray's most remarkable and interesting contribution to science.

It at once raised him to high rank among philosophical naturalists and drew the attention of the whole scientific world to the Cambridge botanist. Asa Gray did not devote himself to abstract science alone; he wrote as successfully for the student as for the professional naturalist. His long list of educational works have no equals in accuracy and in beauty and compactness of expression. They have had a remarkable influence upon the study of botany in this country during the half century which has elapsed since the first of the series appeared. Botany, moreover, did not satisfy that wonderful intellect, which hard work only stimulated but did not weary, and one of Asa Gray's chief claims to distinction is the prominent and commanding position he took in the great intellectual and scientific struggle of modern times, in which, almost alone and single handed he bore in America the brunt of the disbelief in the Darwinian theory shared by most of the leading naturalists of the time.

But, the crowning labor of Asa Gray's'life was the preparation of a descriptive work upon tho plants of North America. This great undertaking occupied his attention and possess it, and to possess it is to study it, and to study it is to seek to correspond in the new language which it teaches; and so it promises to be the guilty agent which will turn the heads of poor school teachers and students who already have more work than they can get through with. In foreign lands the craze has already become quite formidable. It is said that more than a hundred thousand persons have studied this new language already in Europe, and that there are schools or classes where it is publicly taught in France, Germany, Switzerlrnd, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Russia and Denmark. There are several books and periodicals published in this language, but none hitherto in England or America.

What it is and what it is for we will not undertake to tell. It can easily be discovered by reading Colonel Sprague's new book. This language is a novel invention, for it is nothing but an invention, and when we think about it, it really seems strange that no man ever before succeeded in inventing a language which received any favorable Hticism from the press and which met with any public favor. The idea of a universal language is not new, by any means, but the idea which lies at the foundation of this languago is entirely original with its author. He has built up a systematic and simple language by artificial means and in cold blood, as we might say, for he has been wholly reckless in the manufacture of words and has been impartial in the choice of roots, though favoring English.

In this way he could avoid all irregularities and exceptions and build up his words with tne most reckless indifference to inflections and derivations. But what is this book? On its title page is a strange looking symbol. It consists of the globe in two hemispheres, joined by the caduceus of Mercury, and the inscription, Me-nad Bal, Puk Bal," meaning One humanity, one languago." Its author claims that by one hour's fctudy an intelligent person can become acquainted with all its rules for inflection, and then with the aid of a dictionary we may read Anything written iu Volapuk. Aftjr Asa Gray. The whole civilized world is mourning the death of Asa Gray with a depth of feeling and appreciation perhaps never accordea before to a scholar and man of science.

The career of Asa Gray is interesting from many points of view. It is the story of the life of a man born in humble circumstances, without the advantages of early education, without inherited genius for there is no trace in his yeoman ancestry of any germ of intellectual greatness who succeeded in gaining through native intelligence, industry and force of character, a position in the very front rank of the scientific men of his age. Among the naturalists who, since LiniicX'us, have devoted their lives to the description and classification of plants, four or five stand out prominently in the character and importance of their work. In this.