446 



SCIEJSrCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 198 



by digging Sanscrit roots." Mr. Lowell's gener- 

 ous but just estimate of the vigor, ability, and 

 uprightness of the early Puritans, and his brief 

 but not superficial sketch of the influence of Har- 

 vard in the j)ast, ^i\\ not have escaped the atten- 

 tion of any v^ho have read the oration. Speaking 

 for that class of educated men who, vsrhile not be- 

 hind the times, are not radical, Mr. Lowell uttered 

 some weighty and eloquent words concerning the 

 study of Greek. Speaking of the Greeks, the 

 orator continued, "If their language is dead, yet 

 the literature it enshrines is crammed with life as 

 perhaps no other writing, except Shakspeare's, ever 

 was or will be. It is as contemporary with to- 

 day as with the ears it first enraptured, for it ap- 

 pears, not to the man of then or now, but to the 

 entu'e round of human nature itself. Men are 

 ephemeral or evanescent ; but whatever page the 

 authentic soul of man has touched with her im- 

 mortalizing finger, no matter how long ago, is 

 still young and fair as it was to the world's gray 

 fathers. Oblivion looks in the face of the Grecian 

 muse only to forget her purpose." Then, too, his 

 description of what a diploma should stand for 

 was exceedingly happy. " Let it [Harvard] con- 

 tinue to give such a training as will fit the rich to 

 be trusted with riches, and the poor to withstand 

 the temptations of poverty. Give to history, give 

 to political economy, the ample verge the times 

 demand, but with no detriment to those liberal 

 arts which have formed open-minded men and 

 good citizens in the past, nor have lost the skill to 

 form them. Let it be our hope to make a gentle- 

 man of every youth who is put under our charge, 

 not a conventional gentleman, but a man of cul- 

 ture, a man of intellectual resource, a man of 

 public spirit, a man of refinement, with that good 

 taste which is the conscience of the mind, and 

 that conscience which is the good taste of the 

 soul." In its calm and lofty eloquence, its grace- 

 ful and pungent diction, the oration was worthy 

 of the occasion that called it forth, and will rank 

 among the masterpieces of American oratory. 



Not to be behind the knights of labor, the 

 trades-unionists propose to hold a national council 

 for organization and discussion. The call for the 

 council has been issued to all the trades-unions in 

 the United States and Canada, and the meeting 

 will be held at Columbus, O., on Dec. 8. The 

 basis of representation is to be one delegate from 

 every national or international union of less than 

 four thousand members, two delegates from every 



union having more than four and less than eight 

 thousand members, and one additional delegate 

 for each additional four thousand members ; but 

 no trades-union, not organized for at least three 

 months prior to the session of the convention, 

 can be represented. The call for the meeting sets 

 forth as its objects, establishment of a trades- 

 congress for the formation of trades-unions and 

 the encouragement of the trades-union movement 

 in America ; the organization of trades-assemblies, 

 trades-councils, or central labor-unions in every 

 city in America ; the founding of state trades- 

 assemblies or state labor-congresses to influence 

 state legislation in the interest of the working 

 masses ; the establishment of national and inter- 

 national trades-unions, based upon the strict rec- 

 ognition of the autonomy of each trade, and the 

 promotion and advancement of such bodies ; an 

 American federation or alliance of all national and 

 international trades-unions, to aid and assist each 

 other, to secure national legislation in the inter- 

 est of the working people, and to influence public 

 opinion by peaceful and legal methods in favor 

 of organized labor ; to aid a,nd encourage the labor 

 press of America, and to disseminate tracts and 

 literature on the labor movement. 



Dr. J. E. Winters of New York, in a paper 

 read before the Academy of medicine, condemned 

 in no mild way the practice, now so common, 

 among society women, of employing wet-nurses 

 instead of themselves performing the duties of a 

 mother. He proves most satisfactorily that the 

 practice is not only demoralizing, but actually in- 

 creases the mortality among infants, and is often 

 the channel through which diseases of a most 

 loathsome nature are contracted. Dr. Winters 

 informs us that Queen Victoria was nursed by her 

 mother, the Duchess of Kent, and in her turn has 

 performed the same office for her nine children. 

 The lives of nine-tenths of the wet-nursed children 

 are purchased at the expense of the lives of other 

 children. The practice, therefore, of placing 

 children to dry-nurse, either in families or institu- 

 tions, in order that the mother may go as wet- 

 nurse, he regards as iniquitous. He sums up his 

 argument in the following language: "Briefly, 

 then, we usually select a hireling to perform the 

 mother's most sacred duty ; one who occupies the 

 lowest place in the social scale, and in whom there 

 is an absence of moral qualities ; usually one who 

 has been, in some degree at least, a prostitute; 

 one who can forsake her own child, and take a 



