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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 958 



Technical schools, the Franklin Institute, the 

 Drexel Institute and similar bodies, as well as 

 such institutions as the Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences, the Academy of Pine Arts, the Carnegie 

 Institute of Pittsburgh, should be aifiliated. 



All degrees in course should be granted by the 

 board of education through the University of 

 the State of Pennsylvania, and to it should be 

 affiliated all examining boards, such as those that 

 now admit to the practise of law, of medicine, of 

 pharmacy and of other professions requiring a 

 state license. 



In this way the state would unify and advance 

 the work of higher education. 



From the state board of education should come 

 appointments for all scientific and technical com- 

 missions, thus enlisting for the state and its needs 

 the service of trained experts in law and legisla- 

 tion, in medicine and the prevention of disease, in 

 mining and other branches of scientific and tech- 

 nical subjects of inquiry. 



Such commissions would go far to make a sub- 

 stantial return to the state for the income from a 

 mill tax. 



The preparation of a code of laws for the dis- 

 tribution of such an income could follow a provi- 

 sion in the proposed new constitution for the 

 automatic collection of such a state mill tax for 

 higher education. 



A similar constitutional provision might be 

 made for a tax for the support of purely public 

 charities, under such regulations as would secure 

 to the state and its people the highest efficiency 

 and the most economical management of hospitals, 

 homes, asylums for the insane, the blind and de- 

 fectives and dependents. 



The state board of charities should be given 

 large powers of inspection and require standards 

 of excellence that would put all such institutions 

 in the highest state of efficiency. 



Uniform methods of accounting, supervision of 

 purchases of supplies, constant interchange of 

 officers in charge would secure reforms that of 

 themselves would invite increased gifts from indi- 

 viduals. 



With a state mill tax for higher education and 

 for purely public charities, Pennsylvania would 

 take its place with the great western states, in 

 which, with this fostering care, universities have 

 rapidly grown great, in useful work and good 

 results as well as numbers. 

 Seprisals, Contraband and Piracy under Queen 



Elizabeth: Edward P. Cheynet, A.M., LL.D. 



The English had the reputation in the sixteenth 



century of being the greatest pirates in Europe. 

 Everywhere that English ambassadors went they 

 were forced to hear complaints of the seizures at 

 sea by their fellow countrymen. The Venetian 

 governor of the Island of Zante reports to his 

 home government, ' ' I am firmly convinced that 

 there is not a sailor of that nation that is not a 

 pirate." The reasons for this bad reputation 

 were fourfold. In the first place many letters of 

 reprisal were given by the government. Ad- 

 miralty courts in many countries were inefficient 

 or not inclined to do justice, and English mer- 

 chants, after failing to obtain justice for injuries 

 suffered, appealed to their own government and 

 were given letters of mark and reprisal author- 

 izing them to reimburse themselves from the prop- 

 erty of fellow countrymen of those who had in- 

 jured them, even though the governments of the 

 two countries were in close alliance. These letters 

 of reprisal were objects of value and were sold, 

 divided, bequeathed or seized for debt; whoever 

 possessed one having a right to seize goods from 

 foreigners up to the value expressed in it. 

 Seizures made on the authority of such letters 

 seemed legal enough to the possessors, but they 

 were scarcely distinguishable from piracy in the 

 eyes of those whose goods were seized. After 

 1585, when Spain seized the English ships that 

 were then in her harbors, the English government 

 gave these letters still more freely to any one who 

 could bring forward any shadow of proof that he 

 had lost goods in Spain. This practically 

 amounted to privateering against that country. 



Secondly, Spain was largely dependent for food 

 and warlike supplies on France, Holland and the 

 countries along the Baltic. When England and 

 Spain went to war England declared all such sup- 

 plies contraband and seized ships of those nations 

 taking such goods to Spain. The law of contra- 

 band was not yet well developed and the merchants 

 whose goods were seized naturally resented it and 

 declared the actions of the English captains 

 piracy. 



Adventurers with letters of reprisal, privateers 

 and captains in the Queen 's service seizing contra- 

 band, all had commissions for what they did. But 

 there were many genuine English pirates who had 

 no commissions. Their names became famous, 

 they were very bold, were often in collusion with 

 fitting-out merchants on shore or with petty offi- 

 cials of the coast districts, and were comparatively 

 seldom captured or punished. They attacked Eng- 

 lish and foreign vessels alike and threw overboard 

 passengers and sailors and carried away ships and 



