ACADIA UNIVERSITY 



16 



ACCENT 



much anxiety to the British government be- 

 cause of their sympathy for the French cause, 

 and in 1755 they were commanded to take an 

 unconditional oath of allegiance to the British 

 sovereign. Their refusal to do so was met by 

 an order to leave the country; accordingly 

 about six thousand men, women and children 

 carried away to the English colonies and 

 scattered at various places from Massachusetts 

 to Georgia. See NOVA SCOTIA. 



This melancholy chapter in the history of the 

 Acadians has been treated poetically in Long- 

 follow's well-loved epic Evangeline, a poem 

 which will preserve the name of Acadia as long 

 as there are readers to appreciate its pathos 

 and its beauty (see EVANGELINE). Interest in 

 the tale centers about the sweet and loyal hero- 

 ine, whose faithfulness to her lover is the theme 

 of the poem. The author has expressed this 

 fidelity in the familiar lines 



Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and en- 

 dures, and is patient, 



Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of 

 woman's devotion, 



List to the mournful tradition still sung by the 

 pines of the forest ; 



List to a tale of love in Acadie, home of the 

 happy. 



ACADIA UNIVERSITY, an institution for 

 higher education, at Wolfville, N. S. It was 

 founded in 1838 by the Nova Scotia Baptist 

 Education Society, received a charter in the 

 year, and adopted the name Acadia Col- 

 lege in 1841. The name was changed to 

 Acadia University in 1891. The board of gov- 

 ernors of the university is chosen at the annual 

 Baptist convention of the Maritime Provinces, 

 and the board must report to the convention. 

 Two courses of study, leading to the degrees of 

 B. A. and B. S., are offered. The faculty com- 

 prises thirty professors and instructors, and 

 tin -re are about 250 students. In affiliation 

 with tin university are the Acadia Seminary 

 for Young Ladies and Horton Academy, a 

 boy's preparatory school. 



ACANTHUS, a kan' thuss, an order of plants 

 or shrubs, most of which are but ordinary 

 weeds, although several species form beautiful 

 :--n and hothouse plants. These latter, with 

 r large, white flowers and deeply-indented 

 mg leaves, arc tropical in habit, and will 

 grow in the United States and lower Canada 

 nly if carefully protected. 

 In arrhitrcturc the name ia given to a kind 

 decoration, much employed in Greek 

 Roman times, and later. The convention- 

 alized form is the characteristic decoration of 



the capital in the Corinthian column, the 

 richest and most ornamental type of Grecian 

 architecture. See COLUMN. 



ACANTHUS 



The plant, the conventionalized design adopted 

 in architecture, and an example of its use in a 



column. 



ACAPULCO, ah ka pool' ko, a seaport of 

 Mexico, 200 miles southwest of the City of 

 Mexico, has a better harbor than any other 

 port on the entire Pacific coast of America. 

 In spite of this advantage the town is of little 

 commercial importance, for the extremely hot 

 and unhealthy climate and the frequent earth- 

 quakes of the region have been heavy draw- 

 backs. The city was, in fact, almost wholly 

 destroyed by an earthquake in 1909. The 

 exports, most of which are sent to San Fran- 

 cisco, include cochineal, fruit, timber, wool, 

 hides and indigo. During the time of the 

 Spanish ascendancy in Mexico, Acapulco was 

 an important port and had an extensive com- 

 merce, but since Mexico obtained indepen- 

 dence, in 1821, its trade has diminished. In 

 time it will profit from new trade routes opened 

 as the result of the completion of the Panama 

 Canal. The population is about 6,000. 



ACCENT, ack' sent. When a word of more 

 than one syllable is pronounced, one syllable 

 is made more prominent than the others by 

 means of special emphasis. This emphasis is 

 called accent, and is indicated when words are 

 being spelled to show their exact pronuncia- 

 tion, by the sign ', placed after the stressed 

 syllable. Some long words have more than 

 one accent in the word examination, for 

 example, the syllables am and no receive more 

 emphasis than the others. But there is always 

 one accent which is stronger than the others, 

 and this is known as the primary accent. In 

 thr word iviVin .1 to :ihove, no has the primary 

 accent, that on am being secondary. Such a 

 secondary stress is indicated by two marks, *, 

 or by one which is lighter than the primary 

 accent mark. Frequently, no one can say just 

 "hy, accents shift, and there is at present a 

 tendency in English to place the accent as near 



