he sits on the right hand of the President. He would take the
President's place should both the President and the Vice-President die.
It is he who shapes or advises the shaping of our foreign policy, and
who has to deal with our ministers and consuls abroad. He does not have
nearly as much work to do, under ordinary circumstances, as several
other Cabinet officers; but whereas if they blunder it is only a
question of internal affairs, and is a blunder that we ourselves can
remedy, if the Secretary of State blunders it may involve the whole
nation in war, or may involve the surrender of rights which ought never
to be given up save through war. Questions of grave difficulty with
foreign powers continually arise: now about fisheries or sealing rights
with Great Britain, now about an island in the Pacific with Germany, now
about some Cuban filibustering expedition with Spain, and again with
some South-American or Asiatic power over insults offered to our flag,
or outrages committed on our citizens. All of these questions come
before the Secretary of State, and it is his duty to digest them
thoroughly, and advise the President of the proper course to take in the
matter. The Secretary of State very largely holds in his hands the
national honor.
Next in importance to the Secretary of State comes the Secretary of the
Treasury. The great economic questions which the country always has to
face are those connected with the currency and the tariff, and the
Secretary of the Treasury has to deal with both. On his policy it
largely depends whether the business of our merchants is to shrink or
grow, whether the workingmen in our factories shall see their wages
increase or lessen, whether our debts shall be paid in money that is
worth more or less than when they were contracted, or in money that is
worth practically the same. I do not mean by this to say for a moment
that the Secretary of the Treasury, or any other official, can do
anything like as much for the prosperity of any class or of any
individual as that class or individual can do for itself or himself. In
the end it is each man's individual capacity and efforts which count for
most. No legislation can make any man permanently prosperous; and the
worst evil we can do is to persuade a man to trust to anything save his
own powers and dogged perseverance. Nevertheless, the Secretary of the
Treasury can shape a policy which will do great good or great harm to
our industries; and, moreover, he has to work out the financial and
tariff policies which he thinks the President and the party leaders
demand. The position is therefore one of the utmost importance.
The Postmaster-General has to deal with more offices than any other
official, for he has to control all the post-offices of the United
States. He is the great administrative officer of the country.
Unfortunately, under our stupid spoils system, postmasters are appointed
merely for political reasons, and are changed with every change of
party, no matter what their services to the community have been. This is
a very silly and very brutal practice, and all friends of honest
government are striving to overthrow it by bringing in the policy of
civil service reform. Under this all these postmasters will be appointed
purely because they will make good postmasters, and will render
faithful service to the people of their districts, and they will be kept
so long as they do render it, and no longer.
[Illustration: J. Harmon, Attorney-General. J. D. Morton, Agriculture.
H. Smith, Interior. W. L. Wilson, Post. Gen.
President Cleveland. J. G. Carlisle, Treasury. H. Herbert, Navy. R.
Olney, State. D. Lamont, War.
A MEETING OF THE CABINET.]
The Secretary of the Interior has to deal with the disposal and
management of the great masses of lands we have in the West, and also he
has to deal with the management of the Indians, and with the
administration of the pension laws. All three are most difficult
problems, and their solution demands the utmost care, patriotism, and
intelligence.
The Attorney-General is the law officer of the government. He sees to
the execution of the Federal laws throughout the country, and appoints
his agents to do this work in every district of every State, and he also
advises the President and heads of departments on all legal matters.
The Secretary of Agriculture is a man of mixed duties. A good many
bureaus of one kind and another are under his supervision, and most of
the scientific work of the government is done under him. Some of the
scientific bureaus, however, are under other departments. The work done
by these scientific bureaus, as by the coast survey and the geological
survey, and by the zoologists in the department, has been of the very
highest value, and has won cordial recognition from all European
countries. Much of the work of the early scientific explorers in the
West reads like a veritable romance; and this governmental work has
added enormously to our knowledge in all branches of science, from the
natural history of mammals and birds, to the geological formation of
mountains, and the contour of the coasts.
The remaining two officers are the Secretary of the Navy and the
Secretary of War. The Secretary of the Navy, again, occupies a most
important position, for upon the navy depends to a very great extent the
nation's power of protecting its citizens abroad, and of enforcing the
respect to which it is entitled. Most fortunately for the last ten or
twelve years the secretaries of the navy have done admirable work. Each
has built on the good work of his predecessor, so that we are gradually
getting our navy to a pitch where it can worthily uphold the honor and
dignity of the American flag.
The Secretary of War is an officer whose duties are usually not very
important, as he has comparatively little of consequence to do during
time of peace, but is perhaps the most important officer of the Cabinet,
with the sole exception of the Secretary of State, whenever a war
arises. He has all kinds of work to do even in peace, however. Thus
during the last two or three years the experiment has been tried on a
large scale of working the Indians in as soldiers; and although hitherto
this experiment has not had the success its promoters anticipated, yet
good has been obtained by it. But when war comes, the Secretary, if not
a powerful man, will be crushed helplessly; and if a powerful man, can
do great good for the country and win a great name for himself, for in
war he stands as one of the supreme officers, and upon his energy and
capacity depends much of the success of the contest.
A strong President will usually make up his mind on certain policies and
carry them out without regard to his Cabinet, merely informing them that
their duty is to do the work allotted to them; but except in the case of
these few policies, to which the President is committed, and the
workings of which he thoroughly understands, he has to rely on his
advisers.
The necessary advice is given him in these Cabinet meetings as well as
privately. At these meetings the business of the departments is
discussed, and also all questions of public policy of sufficient
importance to make the President feel he would like advice about them.
Of course the importance of the questions thus discussed may vary much,
ranging between the adoption of a course of policy which may force Great
Britain into war with us on the one hand, and on the other the abolition
of the annual football games between Annapolis and West Point. The
average Cabinet officer has a great responsibility, and can exert a most
powerful influence for good or for evil throughout the entire republic.
[Illustration: THE PUDDING STICK]
This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
Editor.
You can tell me nothing about it, girls, nothing that I do not perfectly
understand when you confide to me that you find vacation days rather
slow of pace. Jenny Lucille spent last year in college, studying hard,
and under high pressure from her entrance as a Freshman till the day she
passed her examinations triumphantly, and was ready to begin her work as
a Sophomore. It was due to her parents, who were making a great
sacrifice in sending her from home, that she should do her best, and be
an honor and credit to them, and being a girl of acute sensitiveness and
much devotion to duty, Jenny would have been incapable of wasting her
time. Then it is, after the first feeling of homesickness wears off, a
gay and exciting world, this college world where so many young women are
gathered, where there are sports and games and pleasant social evenings,
and the feeling that something worth while is happening every day. The
time flies, especially the last half of the last term, and at last, when
there is a breaking-up, and the girls separate and take their different
ways for home, notwithstanding their gladness that they are going to
meet their dear home people, tears fill many eyes, and overflow
furtively, and wet dainty handkerchiefs, and not till the train or the
boat is fairly off are the faces quite bright again.
Well, home is reached, and home is sweet. How kind and hearty the
father's greeting, how loving the mother's word and look, how much the
children have grown, how nice it is to be in one's own room again, and
to sit in one's own old seat at the dear home table! But after a little,
if the household be a quiet one, and the village or town a place in
which little goes on, the girl is vexed to find herself a wee bit blue.
She wouldn't let anybody divine it; she shakes herself, and calls
herself names in private, but she has to fight to be cheerful, and now
and then she sits down and writes a long letter to her chum, and
indulges in a good comfortable cry, with nobody to guess that she is not
entirely contented, as indeed all sensible people would say she ought to
be. The chum at Bar Harbor or Put-in-Bay, or some nook in the White or
Green or Blue Mountains, some perch in the Rockies, or springs, or
beach, or other gay resort, has had no time to be blue, and _her_ letter
back will be a complete contrast to Jenny's.
Now, my dear Jenny, listen to me! This fit of low spirits will pass
presently, and you will be none the worse for it, if you will just
credit it to the account of reaction. Take hold of whatever work there
is to do in the house, the harder the better, and do it with both hands.
Read an entertaining book, not a study book, but a bright story, the
novel people are talking about, or else the novel of yesterday, which
you have always felt you ought to read, but have not yet had time to
attack in earnest. Hawthorne, Wilkie Collins, Thackeray, Dickens, choose
your author and your book, and float off into the life of imagination,
which cheats the life of the actual of so much of its pain.
Whatever else you do, resolutely speak brightly and look cheerful. The
brave effort to be bright and cheerful on the outside braces up the
inside wonderfully, soul and body, as you know, being such inseparable
partners.
[Illustration: Signature]
WEATHER INDICATIONS.
If you can't afford a barometer to tell you what kind of weather you are
going to have, perhaps the following old proverbs will prove of use in
helping you to prophesy as to whether it will rain to-morrow or not:
If spiders in spinning their webs make the termination filaments long,
we may, in proportion to the length, conclude that the weather will be
serene, and continue so for ten or twelve days.
If many gnats are seen in the spring, expect a fine autumn; if gnats fly
in compact bodies in the beams of the setting sun, there will be fine
weather.
If the garden spiders break and destroy their webs and creep away,
expect rain or showery weather.
If sheep, rams, and goats spring around in the meadows, and fight more
than usual, expect rain.
If cattle leave off feeding, and chase each other around the pastures,
rain.
If cats back their bodies and wash their faces, rain.
If foxes and dogs howl and bark more than usual, if dogs grow sleepy and
dull, rain.
If moles cast up hills, rain.
If horses stretch out their nicks and sniff the air and assemble in the
corner of a field with their heads to leeward, rain.
If rats and mice be restless, rain.
If peacocks and guinea fowls scream, and turkeys gobble, and if quails
make more noise than usual, rain.
If the sea birds fly toward land, and land birds toward the sea, rain.
If the cock crows more than usual, and earlier, expect rain.
If swallows fly lower than usual, expect rain.
If bats flutter and beetles fly about, there will be fine weather.
If birds in general pick their feathers, wash themselves, and fly to
their nests, rain.
Some of the queerest miscellaneous quips received are to the effect
that:
If there are no falling stars to be seen on a bright summer evening, you
may look for fine weather.
If there be many falling stars on a clear evening in summer, there will
be thunder.
A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning.
If fish bite more readily, and gambol near the surface of the ponds and
streams, then look out for rain.
If porpoises and whales sport about ships, expect a hurricane.
The best proverb of all, however, is the following couplet:
A coming storm your toes and teeth presage;
Your corns will ache, your hollow molars rage.
HOW TO MAKE A HERBARIUM.
BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY.
A young lady who was a great lover of wild flowers once brought me a
number of pressed specimens to name. They were carefully pressed, but
were loosely laid between the pages of a magazine. Among them were
several choice plants, one or two of the rarer orchids, and a ginseng
that I had never found. In handling them the leaves and flower petals
had become broken.
"Your specimens are being ruined," I said. "Why do you not gum them each
on a separate piece of paper and lay them in a box? You have here an
excellent beginning for a herbarium."
"Oh dear, no!" she said. "I never could take the trouble to make a
herbarium. I don't care for the flowers after I know what they are. You
may have them all, and welcome."
She had doubtless seen the longing look in my eyes. I was generous,
however, and tried to persuade my friend to treasure her own flowers,
which she had been at some pains to press, assuring her that the
herbarium did certainly pay for its trouble, and that unless she were a
collector she would fail of becoming a real botanist. My arguments had
no effect, and I fell heir to my friend's specimens.
Another time a lady (a member of a botanical club) said to me: "I don't
care to make a collection. I would as soon look at hay as dried plants.
What I want to study is _living nature_."
This sounds like a fine sentiment, and if the herbarium were to take the
place of out-door study, we would better burn our entire collection.
Here are the questions, then: How will the herbarium help us in our
study of flowers? and Why is it not better to confine our study to
"living nature"?
We cannot deny that the herbarium is a matter of time and trouble; but
nothing worth having can be acquired without trouble. There is a lever
which lightens all tasks wonderfully. That lever is enthusiasm. If you
are enthusiastic about anything, you will be pretty sure to succeed,
whether that thing be music, drawing, or even arithmetic. This is
especially true of nature studies. The successful student of insects,
birds, flowers, shells, or rocks must love his work with a passionate
ardor. He must almost be a man with a hobby.
Now perhaps you will say, "I have not this enthusiasm, and therefore I
shall not be successful." Let me tell you a secret. Nature herself
inspires enthusiasm. You have but to work in any one of her departments,
and you will learn to adore her. She is like a story-book. The first few
pages, and especially the preface, are somewhat dry. But pretty soon, as
the story opens up, you can hardly leave it for your meals or your
sleep.
The principal value of a herbarium is that one has it always on hand for
reference when the living flower cannot be studied. After the summer
comes winter. My young lady who threw away her flowers forgot their
names during the winter. She could not help forgetting some of them, for
the botanical names of flowers are often hard to learn, being composed
of Latin or Greek words, or of proper names with Latin terminations; and
sometimes it would seem that the smaller and more unpretentious the
plant the longer and more jaw-breaking its name.
When early spring comes, one can make a point of reviewing his herbarium
and refreshing one's memory, so as to begin where he left off last fall.
Thus each season's work is clear gain. The very labor necessary to make
a herbarium impresses the flower and its peculiarities vividly upon the
memory. If you handle and linger over your flowers, they will seem to
you like pets whose sweet faces you cannot forget.
You want your herbarium, then, for reference, just as you need an
encyclopaedia in your library. You want it when the snow is on the ground
and there is no "living nature" in the flower realm to study.
Every page of the herbarium should look neat and pretty. In order to
secure this result you must first know how to press your flowers. A
flower once wilted can never be made to look nice on paper. It is
therefore necessary to keep fresh the specimen you wish to preserve. You
might carry a large book, and shut your flowers in it as soon as
plucked. But that would be inconvenient. A better way is to buy a botany
box and carry it with you in all your walks. You never know when you may
find some new thing. The box is of tin, opening on one side, and it may
hang by straps from your shoulder. If you lay a little wet moss inside,
and close the door every time you lay in a flower, your plants will keep
fresh in their cool dark nest for three or four days.
To press them tear up newspapers into uniform sizes. Newspapers are
porous, and absorb the moisture from plant stems and leaves better than
brown wrapping-paper. Insert several leaves of the newspaper between the
single flowers. When all are ready, place the whole pile between two
boards, the same size as the papers (any carpenter will cut them for
you), and lay the whole under a heavy weight, like a trunk or pile of
large books. Once a day look over your plants, and put those not quite
pressed into clean dry papers. The papers already used, unless badly
stained, can be spread out, dried, and used again. The problem is how to
dry the plant quickly and thoroughly. The quicker it is dried the better
it retains its colors. The petals will fade, but careful pressing will
make them look very well, not at all like hay. If the plant be taken out
of its press too soon its leaves will wrinkle. Some delicate plants will
dry in twenty-four hours' time, others take three or four days, or even
a week.
Have ready sheets of nice white paper. These you can get a printer to
cut for you of uniform size. The regulation size is 17 by 11 inches. If
the specimen be too long for the paper, bend the stem once or twice. A
botanical specimen should include the whole stalk down to the root,
unless, like some of the taller sunflowers, it be quite too long for the
page. Place only one specimen on a page, and fasten it in several places
with narrow strips of gummed paper. Last fall I had a bright idea. After
the election I collected a number of unused ballot pasters. From these
next summer I shall cut blank strips, already gummed, and I shall
moisten them with a wet camel's-hair brush, and use them for my
herbarium. Large leaves will stay down better if a drop of mucilage be
placed in their centre. When the stem is very heavy I sew it with double
thread tied on the under side, or I cut two small slits in my paper, and
slip the stem through. As fast as sheets are prepared, leave them under
a large book till the mucilage is dry. The page is then ready for
labelling. Write now in the lower right-hand corner your own name, the
botanical and common name of the flower, where and when found; or you
can get labels with your name printed on them, which you can paste on
the bottom of your page.
HERBARIUM OF J. BROWN.
_Caltha palustris_
(Marsh-Marigold).
IN MARSH NEAR BRIDGEPORT, MAY 3, 1894.
The papers belonging to the same family should now be placed inside of
family covers, made of still brown paper, and these again should be
inclosed in a box. I use the boxes in which tailors send my husband's
shirts and suits of clothes. On the cover of the box write the families
which it contains. That plan facilitates finding any particular
specimen. Certain families, as ferns and orchids, go well together;
mints and figworts are allied. Composites should have a box to
themselves, and the species should be gathered into genus covers.
The botany gives directions for poisoning plants, if you are likely to
be troubled with insects. Many of my mounted specimens are ten or twelve
years old, yet I have never had any such annoyance. Therefore I do not
poison my plants. I always use mucilage. Perhaps flour paste or starch
would afford food for insects.
It is pleasant to keep a flower calendar as part of the herbarium.
Procure a diary, and note the day when you first find certain flowers.
This, if kept several successive years, will show interesting variations
of season, and of the time of the flowering of the same plants.
For study of trees keep a leaf album. I know of no other way to learn
the many species of oak and maple.
The herbarium is never a finished book. Each year, as you visit
different parts of the country, you will add to its beautiful pages. You
may well show it to your friends with pride. It is an achievement, a
monument of your industry, and proof of your knowledge. To yourself it
will be a source of never-ending pleasure. Here a leaf will recall a
visit to a friend, a trip to the mountains, or a month at the sea-side.
This flower suggests a picnic, or a shady walk, or mountain stroll with
choice companions. Turn to the herbarium on a day in January, when the
wind and snow are having a merry dance outside, and you will see visions
of sweet woods, fresh fields, and blooming wild flowers, biding their
time, but sure to come again.
THE RUNNING HIGH JUMP IN DETAIL.
From instantaneous photographs of Mr. Baltazzi jumping.
[Illustration: 3.]
[Illustration: 2.]
[Illustration: 1.]
[Illustration: 6.]
[Illustration: 5.]
[Illustration: 4.]
[Illustration: S. A. W. BALTAZZI.]
[Illustration: 8.]
[Illustration: 7.]
[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]
The pictures on the opposite page are reproductions of instantaneous
photographs taken especially for this Department of HARPER'S ROUND
TABLE. They clearly show the exact position and form of an athlete at
the various stages of action in the running high jump, and a careful
study of them will prove of great usefulness to any one desirous of
perfecting himself in this particular branch of out-door athletics. The
striking feature of the series is that it proves that a man practically
steps over the bar with one stride, instead of flying over it in a
compact bunch as he appears to do when watched by the naked eye. But
before describing the jump itself, it will be best to give certain
general directions about the necessary lay-out, and a few points on
preliminary work.
In the first place, no one should start in to train for this event until
after he is eleven or twelve years old. In fact, it is safe to say that
no boy under this age ought ever to go into any kind of systematic
athletic work, for his ambition is liable to lead him to injurious
over-exertion. Don't do any high-jumping in the winter months; for
running on a hard board floor is not a good thing, and you are apt to
slip and get injured. If you want to take up jumping as a specialty,
spend the winter, or the in-door season, in pulling weights so as to
strengthen the back and chest, and in going through leg motions to
fortify the limbs. No one can ever succeed as a high-jumper unless he
has a well-developed chest and back. As will be seen later on, the
strain on the dorsal muscles is practically what lifts the man over the
bar. This sounds very much like lifting one's self up by the
boot-straps, but it is nevertheless correct. The leg exercises are
simple. There are two kinds. One is to lift yourself up on your toes.
Start in by doing it about twenty-five times every day for a week; then
increase the number until you get up to about three hundred times. An
expert high-jumper can lift himself five hundred times without great
fatigue. The second exercise is the "frog motion." This consists of
placing the heels near together and of squatting and rising. Do this a
few times only, to start with, and gradually bring yourself to the
hundreds. Exercise the chest, as I have said before, with weights and
dumbbells. Strengthen the back by bending over with the legs stiff, the
arms thrown out in front until the finger-tips touch the floor easily.