After beholding so beautiful a scene as this, one loves to remember Poughkeepsie, not for its beauty alone, but for the beneficence of a great man--Matthew Vassar. Mr. Vassar wanted to do something worthy with his money and at first thought of erecting a great monument commemorating the discovery of the Hudson river. "It was to be a monument of unsurpassing beauty; one that should cause the people to marvel at its magnificence." But the people of Poughkeepsie were not enthusiastic over his project, whereupon Mr. Vassar decided to use his money for something far more worthy. Here is located Vassar college, occupying about eight hundred acres, and is the first institution in the world devoted exclusively to the higher education of women. It solved in a practical way the question that had been discussed in many lands for ages: "Could women be granted equal intellectual privileges with men without shattering the social life?" Therefore, Matthew Vassar, because he was blessed with vast wealth, has taught the world the all- important fact that "ignorance is the curse of God and knowledge the wings whereby we fly to heaven," a statement as applicable to women as to men. Had the countries of Europe spent their money for a cause as worthy as this in place of building such expensive monuments in memory of tyrannical rulers of the Hohenzollern type, the world might never have witnessed the indescribable horrors of a world war. What matters it if Russia and Italy contain such marvelous cathedrals as long as ignorance holds sway among the peasant? Mr. Vassar shall long live in the memory of a grateful people, and he erected a monument so vast and magnificent that only Eternity will rightly gauge its proportions, for he built not for a dead past, but a bright and glorious future. THE CATSKILLS We spent a never-to-be-forgotten evening near the base of Mount Treluper at the Howland House. How cool and quiet the place was, with only the rippling melody of a mountain stream to disturb it! We walked along the highway that led through the most charming scenery of this lovely region and glimpsed pictures just as beautiful as many places of Europe that have an international reputation. As we strolled along the babbling stream that flowed over its rock-strewn bottom, we thought of Bryant's words: "The river sends forth glad sounds and tripping o'er its bed Of pebbly sands or leaping down the rocks, Seems with continuous laughter to rejoice In its own being." How these songful streams beguile you to the woodland and through tangles of tall ferns and grasses, until they emerge in some meadow where they loiter among the tall sedges and iris or "lose themselves in a tangle of alder to emerge again in sweet surprise, then as if remembering an important errand, they bound away like a school boy who has loitered along the road all morning until he hears the last bell ring."