Knowledge that Transforms

THE time is not very remote when the idea that the workingman could not only satisfy his immediate wants but make some provision for the future was scarcely entertained. At the present time it is not going too far to say that much of the best efforts now being put forth for the improvement of the welfare of the working classes has this object in view. The present century, and particularly its last half, has seen the creation and rapid development of provident institutions of all sorts. The movement for workingmen's insurance has swept over Europe, resulting in the enormous extension, either under the auspices of the state or through voluntary efforts of this form of provision for the future. Raiffeisen, Schulze-Delitzch, people's banks, co-operative credit, and kindred institutions, have been organized in great numbers throughout Europe. Savings banks, so organized as to appeal directly to the poorer classes, have progressed with remarkable rapidity. In this movement the state has felt compelled to play a part. In addition to assuming a more or less strict regulative control

In view of this attitude toward his subject, it is well to remember that his actual achievements were all in the field of practical economics, thus keeping that poise between logical reasoninig and concrete experience which was so marked in Adam Smith and Bagehot. But his mnind kept a firm and steady grasp upon the theoretical discussions, no matter how far they wandered into ethical or political complications. This quality appears at its best in "The Reaction in Political Economy," written as a declaration of the editor in the first numnber of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. By showing that the reaction was largely due to the stoppage of scientific inquiry by the failure to extend discussion to the fresh experience of recent tii-nes, he made it evident that the differences of opinion as to method were mainly differences in degree, and aided in bringing about in America the present freedom from dispute on this matter. Likewise, by pointing out that the most rigid Ricardian may reject or accept laissez faire, without doing violence to his standing as a member of the so-called old school, he explained that it had nothing to do with economic reasoning itself, that it concerned only the applications of such reasoning. His position, then, among modern economists was clearly that of a consistent, broad, philosophical student closely interested in practical problems; too learned to be an extremist; too exact to be visionary; too penetrating to be carried away by any passing fads. Possessing a frail body, a weak voice, an impersonal manner, and no great magnetism as a teacher, yet no one of Professor Dunbar's friends will ever forget his strong, refined face, his penetrating eye, his self-possession, his deliberation of perfectly-adjusted speech, his keenness, his flashes of humor, his knowledge of human nature, his practical common sense, and his political sagacity. His students everywhere throughout the land will unite in doing honor to his memory. J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

IT has been repeated bv the public press, and assumed by the country, chiefly on the basis of reports emanating from Washington, that the act of March I4, I900, whatever may have been its shortcomings in other directions, has at least firmly established the gold standard in the United States. The belief is generally prevalent that the election of a president pledged to the cause of free silver would no longer be a source of danger to our monetary system, because the gold standard has been placed by the new legislation beyond the reach of executive control; that the mere action of a future Secretary of the Treasury hostile to gold could not cause public or private obligations to be paid in silver; and that nothing could now be done for silver except by new and positive legislation, a contingency, which would be impossible so long as the Senate and the Executive favor gold. Hence we are assured that we may rest free from all danger of the "silver issue," which we hear on all sides is now " dead." On the strength of this belief, political lines are being drawn, and a plan of campaign is being formed. That there has been a subtle game of politics played

TilE export of first importance during the third decade of the century was cotton. Its value for the ten years was 256 million dollars. This was 48 per cent. of the total value of domestic exports and 44 per cent. of the value of all imports retained for home consumption.

Historical siirvey.-In order to understand the present situation of agricultural labor in Bohemia, some slight review of the history of the country is necessary. In the first place, it is to be remembered that the population is not homogeneous. On the one hand, we have the German element, dominant in the politics of the empire, leader in the financial and industrial world. On the other 1hJand the Czech, of different racial stock, a majority as to numbers, ardent patriots as a class, regarding the German party as a usurper, but seemingly unable to oust it from its position either of I)olitical or of industrial supremacy. The latter element furnishes the bullk of the agricultural population. Although both races are represented in varying proportions in all the large cities of the lking.dom and both are to be found in greater or less numbers throughout most of the districts, yet from early times there seems to have been a somewhat sharp geographical line of division between them. This line follows pretty closely certain physical aspects of the country. The kingdom of Bohemia as a whole is basin-shaped. The hilly and mountainous districts in the north and west contain extensive coal beds and numerous iron deposits, offering facilities for manufacture similar to those of Lancashire, England. Even before the rise of the factory system, these districts, with the adjacent lower lands, were the chief seats of the woolen and linen Weaving and spinning industries, and, later, of the cotton