One of the most horrible accidents of the month of April was the collapse of eight nearly completed tenement houses in New York City. Twelve persons were injured in the fall. The investigation discloses a deliberate intention on the part of the contractor to use the poorest material obtainable, and a criminal—whether intentional or not—neglect on the part of building authorities to prevent his plan. Indeed, contractors who are honest in their work, state the commission cares more for the fee which puts a contract through than for the material put into the building. A vigorous public sentiment which would put a few such criminals into State prison might prove beneficial. * * * * * “Arbor Day” is extending its conquests. Its latest subject is none other than the Province of Ontario, whose Minister of Education sends out a communication to all teachers asking that in the interest of sanitation and æsthetics the 8th of May be set apart as a holiday in every rural and village school, for grading school grounds, laying out walks, and setting out trees. * * * * * Hon. B. G. Northrop, in a letter dated April 4th, writes: “Sixteen states have adopted ‘Arbor Day,’ and to that result the article in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and extracts quoted from it, have greatly contributed.” * * * * * The Bureau of Education sends out a pamphlet on “Arbor Day.” It will help many a teacher to an interest in the scheme, and will tell him what trees to select, how to plant them, and how to arrange a program suitable for the holiday. * * * * * The trouble which we have with foreign tongues sometimes enables us to heartily appreciate the blunders of the foreigner who tries our English tongue. We can not possibly make worse blunders with French than a late number of the aristocratic _Révue des deux Mondes_, when in its attempts to express in English the idea of a candidate favoring a railway it said, “_My politic is railway_.” * * * * * One might almost call Lord Tennyson’s verses on “The Fleet” the literary sensation of the month. It is rather difficult to see just why the verses deserve the unstinted ridicule American papers have given them. Certainly they are tame, but Lord Tennyson is an old man—a man whom this generation ought to honor for the noble pleasure he has left to it and to its posterity. Were his lines much worse, courtesy demands that we remember that with age comes decay. * * * * * The new Minister of Education in Greece, where the four Gospels are used as a reading book by the advanced classes in the primary department of the public schools, proposes to introduce them into the higher schools. The purity of the diction of the four Gospels makes them, regardless of other considerations, most desirable reading for children who are just forming their literary style.