General Neal Dow, the famous Prohibition leader, is now about seventy-eight years old, but he is so well preserved that he does not look to be more than sixty. He is of medium height, rather stout, and wears heavy side whiskers, which, like his hair, are silvered with age.

The London Echo, which has been a most active sympathizer with Arabi Pasha, suggests the following lines as applicable to him:

C. L. S. C. students will find the following item of special interest in connection with this year’s course of study: Of all Scandinavian men of letters, none, perhaps, commands a wider, deeper influence than Dr. Gorg Brandes, whose name has become familiar in many lands by his personal association with leading thinkers and writers in England, France, and Germany, his manful contests with ecclesiastical prejudices, and his persistent efforts to introduce modern ideas into the hide-bound universities of the North. Ten years ago, after a determined struggle, he obtained the nomination to the chair of Literature in the University of Copenhagen, but was rejected at last through the influence of the metropolitan bishop. Since then he has been living in Berlin, and the university chair has remained unoccupied. At last, however, a committee of private citizens has been formed, and has raised enough money to assure Dr. Brandes a comfortable salary for ten years, if he will return to Copenhagen as resident lecturer on literature at the University. Although the salary thus offered him is not nearly as large as the one he now receives at Berlin, he has accepted the proposition, and will begin his first course of lectures in Copenhagen about Christmas next. There is room for hope that the influence of his thought and scholarship will so aid the progress of toleration and liberal ideas that when the ten years expire the Church will offer no opposition to his occupying the chair that has so long been awaiting him.

The necessary sum for the Garfield monument ($10,000) at Cincinnati has been raised by dollar subscriptions. The statue is to be of bronze, full length, of heroic size, and mounted on a granite pedestal.

The geological diagrams prepared for the C. L. S. C. are in the form of landscapes. They may be used to great advantage in local circles. It is the object method of teaching applied to geology, and it makes this seemingly dry study fascinating and profitable. Dr. Vincent becomes enthusiastic over teaching geology by this method. Ten diagrams cost a member of the C. L. S. C. only $5.

Zion’s Herald, of Boston, Mass., puts individual responsibility in a nutshell in this item: “Who can tell the importance of one vote? It is said that when the war of 1812 was declared, the measure was carried in the United States Senate by one majority. One of those senators was elected, in the Rhode Island Legislature, by one majority, and one member of that legislature was detained at home unexpectedly, who, if he had been present, would have voted against that senator. He was about getting on the stage to go to the legislature in the morning of the day of the vote, when, casually looking around, he saw that his pigs had got out of the pen and were in mischief. He stopped at home to take care of them and could not reach the legislature that day. One vote changes many currents. Massachusetts once had a governor elected by one plurality. Every good man should be counted on the right side.”

Our English cousins have resolved to place a bust of Longfellow in the poets’ corner of Westminster Abbey. £500 have already been subscribed toward the erection of the memorial. Longfellow will be the first American thus honored at Westminster.

London Truth: “The aim of illustrated newspapers ought to be to give pictorial realization of passing events. Their merit is in proportion to their accuracy. Of late, however, they have taken to fancy sketches.”

Longfellow, on being introduced to the late Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, a quick-witted old gentleman, who dearly loved a joke, reference was made to the similarity of the first syllables of their names. “Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow,” replied Mr. Longfellow, quoting Pope’s famous line.

The recent elections vindicate the memory of the lamented ex-President James A. Garfield. They demonstrate that there is no dominating moral principle in the creed of any of the great political parties, and that the voters who believe in principles rather than offices or men, hold the balance of power in our civilization. A little philosophy fully explains the present political condition of the American people.

The Watchman says: “How to get people to church, is a much discussed question in these days. When Mr. Spurgeon was asked how he succeeded so wonderfully in keeping his church full, he replied, ‘I fill the pulpit, and let the people fill the pews.’ Dr. Chalmers told a part of the secret when he said, ‘A house-going preacher makes a church-going people.’”

A deputation of astronomers from Germany has come to this country to witness the transit of Venus on December 6.

The ladies are responsible for this: In the last five or six years New York city’s trade in ostrich feathers has increased from about half a million dollars a year to nearly five million dollars.

Mr. Bancroft, the historian, rises at 5 o’clock in the morning. His breakfast is a light one, usually consisting of a cup of chocolate, some fruit, an egg and a roll. He eats nothing more until dinner, which is always a substantial meal. Few men, he believes, can perform good brain work with a full stomach. He spends the morning dictating to his secretaries, and revising the work of the preceding day. From 1 until 2:30 he receives visitors. The latter part of the afternoon he spends in the saddle, riding from twenty to thirty-five miles, and managing his steed, mounting and alighting with the agility of a young man, although he completed his eighty-second year more than a month ago.

The season has come for members of the C. L. S. C. to use the local papers, in towns and cities. While you are at work over your books and in your local circles, you are making items of news which, if you will write up and hand to the editors they will thank you and publish them gladly. You may thus extend a knowledge of the C. L. S. C. among the people without. You may induce many to take up the course of reading. You may banish ignorance from a great many homes, and you may awaken talents, that now sleep, in young men and women who are in ignorance and idleness because nobody cares for them. Write up the C. L. S. C. work for the local papers, and tell who you are and what you are, and why you are connected with this great Circle.

The Chautauqua School of Languages is growing into a school of correspondence. Prof. Lalande and Dr. Worman invite their students in French and German to adopt this method in pursuing their studies. They hold that the art of reading and writing can be as well taught by letter as in the school room. In England and Germany correspondence schools have long existed, and been remarkably successful. The Chautauqua school is growing in numbers and interest, and we look for a large increase through the new plan.

In response to requests from a number of our readers we give below a list of Memorial Days:

1. Opening Day. October 1. Read psalms i, viii, and xxiii, and Mr. Bryant’s “Letter on the C. L. S. C.,” page 47. [At noon on October 1, and on every other “Memorial Day” during the year, the Chapel Bell at Chautauqua will ring. Every true Chautauqua heart will hear and heed the call.]

2. Bryant’s Day. November 3. [Bryant born November 3, 1794.] Read “Thanatopsis,” “A Forest Hymn,” and “The Planting of the Apple-Tree.”

3. Special Sunday. November—Second Sunday. Read Job xxviii.

4. Milton’s Day. December 9. [Milton born December 9, 1608.] Read “Hymn of the Nativity,” and “Satan.”

5. College Day. January—last Thursday. This is the day of prayer for colleges usually observed in the churches.

6. Special Sunday. February—Second Sunday. Read Psalm xix.

7. Shakspere’s Day. April 23. [Shakspere born April 23, 1564.] Read “Fall of Cardinal Wolsey,” (Henry VIII, act iii, scene 2,) and “Hamlet’s Soliloquy on Death,” (Act iii, scene 1.)

8. Addison’s Day. May 1. [Addison born May 1, 1672.] Read the “Vision of Mirza,” and “Omnipresence and Omniscience of the Deity.”

9. Special Sunday. May—Second Sunday. Read Matt. xxv.

10. Special Sunday. July—Second Sunday. Read 1 Cor. xiii.

11. Inauguration Day. August—First Saturday after First Tuesday. Anniversary of C. L. S. C., at Chautauqua.

12. St. Paul’s Day. August—Second Saturday after First Tuesday. Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua. Read Acts xvii, 10-34.

Special Note.—Let each member of the C. L. S. C. prepare a brief memorandum, for his own use, on the birth, life, times, and influence of Bryant, Milton, Shakspere, and Addison.

It is a pleasant surprise to read the proceedings of the recent national convention of the W. C. T. U., held in Louisville, Ky. This is certainly one of the most complete and efficient temperance organizations this nation ever produced. The women have divided their work into several departments: temperance literature, the evangelistic work, prison and police station work, the Southern work, the German work, work among colored people, the young women’s work, hygiene, legislative department, etc., etc. The convention was entertained handsomely by the good people of Louisville. Its session was harmonious, and its proceedings will create a stronger temperance sentiment wherever they are read. Miss Frances E. Willard was re-elected president, receiving every vote of every delegate in the convention, and there were more than thirty States represented. Elsewhere in this number of The Chautauquan our readers will find an article that was read before the convention, which traces the history of the W. C. T. U. back to Chautauqua as the place of its origin. The W. C. T. U., with its fifty thousand workers, can say of Chautauqua, “I was born there.”

The Advance puts our “winter work” in these words: “It presses now—what is it? First and chiefly, at least for ministers, to edify believers in holy character; for the perfecting of the saints, the edifying of the body of Christ. For it is Christian character which converts sinners to Christ, which burns with a holy evangelistic zeal, and is likely to secure conversions even without directly aiming at them. It is consecrated character which has power with God and with men.”

Mr. Bezkrovoff, a Russian engineer, is in this country. He said to a reporter recently: “Our government ordered me to study your ways and means of transportation. We have a costly system of canals uniting our seas, the Baltic, the White, the Caspian, and the Black; we have many great navigable rivers, and, besides, we have built tens of thousands of versts of railroads, and yet transportation in our country is in its infancy. Thousands of tons of grain rot annually at our railroad stations, for there are no stores. In the southern part of Russia there is abundance of fish, meat, vegetables, and other provisions, and yet in the northern part of the country the people can not afford to buy those provisions, for the cost of transportation puts it beyond their means. We have plenty of coal and kerosene, but at St. Petersburg, and even at Moscow, the English coal and the American kerosene are cheaper than the Russian. Our canals and railroads don’t pay to the government the cost of keeping.”

There are very few who have not been puzzled how to pronounce some out-of-the-way word which has suddenly sprung into common use. A bewildered reader writes to a Boston paper saying that the pronunciation of Whittier’s “Maud Muller” has long been such a puzzle to him. “When I was a little fellow,” he says, “I pronounced it phonetically, of course, Mul-ler. Well, shortly after I heard a literary gentleman—a judge, too—read the poem at an evening gathering, and I noticed particularly he pronounced it MÜ-ler. I made a note of it and carried that pronunciation with confidence for a long time, until one day in High School the teacher informed us that the proper pronunciation of that name was ‘MwË-ler.’ So I changed my colors again and sailed under MwËler for quite a while, until one day I got into conversation with a young physician, a good German student. ‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘I can tell you how to pronounce that name! Whenever you see a German word with two dots over the letter u, it is always pronounced as if immediately followed by an r, thus: ‘Murl-er, Maud Murler.’ By this time I had lost all confidence in everyone and decided to let the young lady severely alone, but the other day I happened to run across a German fresh from the old country, and I said: ‘Do you have any people over in your land called Muller? M-u-l-l-e-r!’ ‘Oh, yes, plenty.’ ‘Well, what do you call them—how do you pronounce it?’ ‘Miller,’ said he. ‘It’s a very common name—Miller.’ I thanked him and left, and now if there is another way in which that word can be pronounced I should like to hear it. I am honestly seeking for information.”

The first volume of The Chautauquan is out of print, but the second volume, beginning with October, 1881, and closing with July, 1882, may be obtained by sending the price, $1.50. We can supply The Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald for 1882. There are nineteen numbers in the volume, which contain more than sixty lectures and addresses on live questions of the day—philosophy, literature, the sciences, history, practical life, etc. Price, $1.00.

A provoking error occurs in the first line on page 156 of this number. It should read “The history of the origin of,” etc. The words “history of the” were dropped out by mistake, and the omission was not discovered until the form was entirely printed.

At a recent meeting of the “Parker” C. L. S. C., in Washington, D. C., Dr. H. A. Dobson illustrated how ice will move downward by pressure of its own weight, applicable to the glacial chapter of Packard’s Geology. In the top of a wooden bucket or tub, drive two tacks or small nails on opposite sides, and about two inches apart. Stretch across two fine iron wires—such as is used for wax flowers will do—winding the wires around the tacks so as to be kept in position. Upon the wires place a piece of clear ice, about six inches long, four inches wide and two inches thick, placing the thin edge in contact with the wires. Almost instantly the wires will be imbedded in the ice, and in the course of an evening the downward movement of the ice will be so great as to cause the wires to pass entirely through the block of ice, which, strange as it may seem, unites again below the wires, and though it is actually severed by the wires in three parts by its course downward, it falls into the vessel a solid piece, leaving no trace of the path the wires made. An interesting question for C. L. S. C. readers to solve, after repeating the experiment, is, Why does the ice re-unite?

The Hon. Hiram Price, of Iowa, one of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, comments severely on the iniquity of the liquor traffic among the Indians, and quotes instances of trouble arising from it. He reports the total number of Indians in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, as being 262,366.

The work of revising the Old Testament is going on under the direction of Dr. Philip Schaff as chairman of the American portion of the committee. They are now engaged on the third and last revision, which will be completed in about a year from this time. The American committee meet on the last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of each month, in Dr. Schaff’s study, in the Bible House, New York. The English committee meet in Jerusalem Chapel, in Westminster Abbey. The Bishop of Winchester is chairman.

We shall furnish our readers with a complete list of the names of the C. L. S. C. graduates for 1882 in The Chautauquan for February.

Messrs. Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 739 and 741 Broadway, New York, have in press for immediate publication, “Evangeline—The Place, The Story and the Poem.” By Prof. Noah Porter, President of Yale College. To be issued in an elegant large folio volume, limited to 500 copies, numbered and signed by Prof. Porter, containing nineteen magnificent original illustrations by Frank Dicksee, A. R. A., fifteen of which are elegantly reproduced in photogravure by Messrs. Goupil & Co., of Paris, and four are proof impressions on India paper from the original blocks, beautifully illustrating Longfellow’s poem of Evangeline. The publishers claim that this will prove the handsomest artistic gift book of the season.