Brown and White Vol. 6 no. 19

              the equipment of the civil en gineering department has been in creased and improved during the summer by the entire remodeling of the testing laboratory by the addition of machines for torsion according to statistics taken from world almanac of 1(898 there are twenty-six institutions of higher education in the jjnited states whose professors an,d . . i-n structors number more than pne hundred members harvard lead ing with three hundred and nine four there are also thirty-eight other universities and colleges with faculties ranging from fifty 1o one hundred the brown and white lehigh university south bethlehem pa friday december 9 1898 vol vi calendar friday dec 9 ■ — choir rehearsal at 4 30 o'clock saturday dec 10 i—re1 — re examina tion in trigonometry algebra and analytic oeometry at 9.30 a m ' lehigh minstrel show in the fountain hill o-j>er.a house sunday dec 11 — meeting ol v m c a in christmas hall aft 6.15 p m tuesday dec 13 — examination in differentia equations at 10.30 a m regular meeting oi ferum in saucon hall at 7 p m notices forum meeting the regular meeting of the forum will be held in the society's room saucon hall on tuesday evening dec 13 at 7 o'clock an interest ing literary program has been ar ranged the debate will be con ducted by members of the sopho more class the subject being " re solved that the negro should v.c deprived of the right of suffrage the meetings of the forum hekl every two weeks are public visi tors always being welcome there will be a meeting of the senior class on saturday morfcing at 9.30 o'clock in packer hall it is now getting late in the year and it is time that important class af fairs be attended to so al'j members of the class should be present pkkstpent there will be a meeting of the sophomore cotillion club at the delta tau delta house market street bethlehem on monday at 7p m • . •..;■. and compression the pamphlet entitled " the slate regions of pennsylvania gives in compre hensive form the interesting results of a very complete series at tests on roofing slates ; the methods f testing cement and flexure and impact will form the subject of an extended series of researches < l ii ring the present year the interest felt hy vh'e ' under graduates of the engineering courses is shown by the activity o.f the en gineering society of the ;: upjiver sity which has begun its ;: re^v)lar meetings for the ' discussion of papers on engineering subjects professor stewart's lecture professor stewart in his lecture yesterday first considered the sig nificance of the various great nations in the world's progress going back as far as there are any authentic records the hebrew nation is found standing as the ex ponent of religion all of the religious ideas of a christian are derived from the hebrew nation which stands alone as the upholder of a national religion it is a note worthy fact that all of the great religions are of asiatic origin — christianity mohammedanism buddhism brahminism and con fucianism have all had their start in asia and by other than the aryan race greece stands for the cultivation of the beautiful and for intellectual development when a thing is spoken of as being classi cal the mind at once reverts to athens the athenians were philosophers but not lawyers and even under their great leader pericles never had a perfectly organized government rome stands pre-eminent as the founder of government and from her laws have been constructed the governments of many european countries among them being france italy holland and switz erland while in all of the south american countries and indeed in all countries where the latin race has spread the inspiration of gov ernment has been drawn from ancient rome it is strange to see in how many ways the united states resembles rome it is said said that today on the streets of our large cities types of faces can be seen resembling those to be seen on the streets of rome we have a better government than rome but it will take careful management jo guide it safely through the storms that will assail it in coming years it may now be asked " what has the united states contributed to civilization ? " this country has given an example of self gov ernment lasting for a century but this has not been sufficient to con vince the nations of europe that government by the people is the panacea for all social evils it is no doubt true that american citizens are the happiest the most prosperous and the best people morally on the earth but there is so much corruption in municipal affairs that the best men will have nothing to do with politics president eliot of harvard has asserted that america's great gift to civilization is international arbi tration five years ago the united states was the ardent advocate as she was the : originator of this plan but today she stands in a different relation to it ; . i she has refused to submit any cuban affairs to arbi tration and has almost placed her self in the position which her rivals claimed when they said she would arbitrate what suited her and what did not suit she would not arbitrate it is true that at the close of the civil war the claims for damages against england were successfully arbitrated but at that time the united states had the largest seasoned army in the world and the strongest navy so england was obliged to " knuckle under the fact that gladstone who was then prime minister in england did this and paid the 15,000,000 damages awarded to this country gave him an unpopularity which clung to him until his death at the close of the last century there was a universally hopeful anticipation for the nineteenth cen tury the revolution in france had thrown the yoke of govern ment off the people and in the new world an entirely new democracy had been set up writers of this time such as rousseau in france and goodman in england took the stand that man was naturally good and that it was the burden of des potic government which bore him down bringing him to evil those writers claimed that when this burden was removed as it had been in the above named countries man would suddenly rise to a higher position evil would disappear and a season of millennium set in in addition it was thought that war would cease but the fallacy of this last theory was finally proven by the fearful conflict waged between sections of this country which was one of the greatest wars in history since the time of the struggle in peloponesus between athens and sparta in fact during this century of democ racy some of the greatest wars of history have been carried on the french revolution which set out to secure peace at the point of the sword hoping to set up a reign of democracy along the rhine end ed in napoleon's setting up his great empire and today the civilized nations of the earth with america the foremost are trying to outdo each other in the realms of science and invention to find machines capable of exterminating the greatest possible number of human beings continued on seoond page but wars are and have been waged for commercial reasons only starting with primitive man the wars between various tribes have been for economic advantages such as the best pastu rage or best hunting grounds the celebrated trojan war although covered by a cloud of mythology had the same economic point at its base as is today causing the nations ol europe to watch with intense interest the self same spot troy situated on the hellespont com manded the trade of the east just as constantinople does today and england andßussia are watching the latter city as covetously as greece did the former if the power of the turk is ever broken and constan lehigh university the following is taken from the mining and metallurgical journal of november : lehigh university has begun the new college year with two important additions to its teaching force the chair of philosophy after being vacant for some time was filled by the election of pro fessor langdon 0 stewardson of worcester mass and he after six months of study in german has now taken up the duties of that department while professor john l stewart has come from phila delphia to take charge of the new department of history and econo mics the coming of these two professors has greatly strengthed the classical and literary depart ments of the university ; but it has also served to emphasize the policy of requiring a due amount of so-called culture studies in the courses of technical education the fact is recognized that as at present arranged in this country such courses are of a distinctly under graduate character and should in clude a certain proportion of gen eral studies along with those of a purely professional aim great in terest has been shown by the stu dents in the work of their new professors and the optional courses which they offer in addition to their required courses are largely attended the corps of instructors remains unchanged excepting in the department of mechanical en gineering in which messrs b h jones and l 0 danse resigned at the close of last year their places have been filled by the election of messrs l n sullivan of the shef field scientific school and j c peck of the eose polytechnic institute the university course of lectures by distinguished specialists in var ious departments of science has been continued and the lectures thus far delivered have been by 0 b dudley of altoona pa on " what a chemist does on a kail road and by professor john l stewart on " territorial expansion in the united states arrange ments have been made for lectures in the near future by mr john c trautwine jr chiei of the water department of philadelphia on " the water works of philadel phia ; " by mr g s morrison of new york on " masonry and by mr r w hunt of chicago on the iron manufacture in sweden dr alexander macfarlane non resident lecturer on mathematical physics will give his course of lectures before the students in the electrical engineering department at the beginning of the second term no 19