and thousands who would fail to find relief on the classical hunting-grounds of Peter Bayle might imitate his landlord, who practiced sharp-shooting with a medieval hunting-bow till he could challenge the best pistol shots of the neighboring garrison. In a choice of evils the most puerile game of skill is, indeed, clearly preferable to games of chance; but to that last resort of inanity the traditional aversion to manual employments has actually driven thousands of city idlers. Yet our American towns have never sunk to the abject effeminacy of European cities, where physical apathy has become a test of good breeding and a taste for mechanical accomplishments a stigma of eccentricity, and where, consequently, social prestige has to be purchased at the price of practical helplessness, of dependence in all mechanical questions of life on the aid and the judgment of hirelings. Life-endangering accident may now and then illustrate the disadvantages of physical incapacity; a drowning bather may be inclined to admit that the saving influence of a swimming-school might compare favorably with that of the baptismal miracle tank; but the survivors will persist in relying on the vicarious omnipotence of coin, ignoring the clearest illustrations of the truth that physical incapacity avenges itself in every waking hour, even of the wealthiest weakling, while the guardian-spirit of Skill accompanies its wards from the workshop to the playground and follows them over mountains and seas. E.—REFORM. The growing impatience with the dead-language system of our monkish school-plan will soon lead to a radical reform of college education, and a fair portion of the time gained should be devoted to the culture of mechanical arts. For boys in their teens the “instinct of constructiveness” would still prove to retain enough of its native energy to make the change a decidedly popular one, as demonstrated by the success of the mechanical training schools that have attracted many pupils who have to find the requisite leisure by stinting themselves in their recreations. “Applied gymnastics” (riding, swimming, etc.) would be still more popular, and greatly lessen the yearly list of accidents from the neglect of such training.