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Probably three-fourths of the books that are read today for pleasure are fiction - that is, stories. Most of them are long stories in prose, called novels. The popularity of novels comes from the fact that theytell stories about imagined men and women; and that the reader can put himself in the place of an imaginary character, live the character’s life, go through peril anc suffering and joy and love. In short, while the reader is lost in the pages of a novel he is living another life, living at a faster pace than his real existence has, and feeling more keenly, yet with a delightful sense of unreality. Most novels have much to do with the emotion of love.

The novel, as we know it, is not two centuries old. Of course, story-telling is as old as civilization, by voice in narration, by acting on the stage and in books. But the novel as a distinct form of literary art is nearly new.

It is true that the prose tale was very well known through Lyly, Lodge, Greene and Sidney in the sixteenth century, through Mrs. Behn in the seventeenth century and Defoe in the early eighteenth century. But these early forms of novel were stories of adventure rather than studies of character under the influence of love. The novel as it exists today dates from 1740, when Richardson published his story PAMELA.

Samuel Richardson (168g-176x) was the son of very humble parents, his father being an ordinary carpenter in Derbyshire, where Samuel was born. The boy had very little education and at the age of seventeen he was
apprenticed to a London printer, who made Samuel work so hard that he had no leisure for reading or study. But he made up for the time of which his master robbed him by sitting up at night to read any books he could secure. The candles used for these midnight studies he bought himself, so that his master might not have to pay.

An unambitious, steady, plodding, honest and industrious, and perhaps a very commonplace young man was this Samuel; but after fifteen years he had some reward from the printer, for he married his master’s daughter, having now become a printer on his own account in a court off Fleet Street, close by the old Church of St. Bride. Here he continued for many years to carry on his business like any other printer of his time, living above his workshop and thus spending most of his time amid the smell of printer’s ink. We can well believe that he was a kind and considerate master, and it is said he used to hide a silver coin among the types at night so that the first man to arrive at the workshop in the morning might have it as a reward.

Richardson was not far short of fifty years old when he determined to make himself famous by writing a novel. He was perhaps somewhat vain of his literary powers—which at the early age of thirteen he had first exercised by writing love letters for some village girls. In fact, he continued to oblige with such letters for many years. At any rate, PAMELA was the result of the little printer’s resolution. He certainly succeeded in making himself famous. The rest of his days were spent with much satisfaction in writirig for the sentimental ladies of his time, to whom the pale and tearful heroines of his novels seem to have been strangely attractive.

Though so few of us read his writings today, the little printer certainly gave a great impetus to the art of fiction in England; and the careful and elaborate way in which he traced the natures of imaginary people was also imitated by writers on the Continent, chiefly in France. He died on July 4, 1761, and by his own request was buried in the Church of St. Bride, near to which much of his life had been passed.

Richardson’s three important works were PAMELA, CLARISSA and SIR CHARLES GRANDISON: and PAMELA deserves to he called great. An American critic, William Rose Benét, places it among the fourteen outstanding prose works of the eighteenth century. though OU might not find it very thrilling to read today. It is the story of a simple. unsophisticated  country girl, servant to a squire of doubtful morals. Pamela marries and reforms him.

PAMELA, like most of Richardson’s other stories, was written in the form of long-winded letters. The book was issued in “parts,” as they were called, somewhat as the continued stories in our magazines appear, spread over some months. Nowadays our lives are much too varied and active to leave time for reading such very long and unexciting stories as he wrote, but our great- great-grandfathers had more leisure and fewer interesting books, so that they could find time to follow the slow and steady unfolding of his appallingly lengthy tales. In country villages people used to wait anxiously for the arrival of the next “part” of his novels to find out what was to happen to the characters; and when the heroine of PAMELA married the rather unmanly hero, church bells were rung in some villages as though Pamela had been a real person.

When an author invents some unusual way of telling a story, it frequently happens that another author will turn it into ridicule by writing what is called a parody of it. So it happened with Richardson’s 1AMELA, which an abler and far more gifted man than Richardson, two years after its appearance, took as the idea of a very different sort of story called JOSEPH ANDREWS.

Henry Fielding, Whose Novels are Full of Life and Humour

The writer of this was a born story-writer, a man of great force of character, the son of distinguished parents, and well educated, His name was Henry Fielding, and he was born in Somersetshire, England, on April  1707.

Being fond of the pleasures of life and disinclined to work or to study too closely, Fielding left the University of Leyden, in Holland, and returned to London, when he was twenty. But he soon found that his father was not able to allow him so much money as he had expected, and he had to exercise his abilities by writing for the stage.

After a while he married a beautiful girl who had a small fortune; but this he soon contrived to spend, and at thirty-three he became a barrister (lawyer), though it was chiefly by writing hooks that he made his living. His wife died in 1743, and not long afterward he married a servant, who was a very good wife to him for the rest of his days. Poor man, he was not long to enjoy the success of the great books he had written or the advantage of the comfortable salary he received from a legal appointment given to him in 1749.

In that year Fielding wrote a very brilliant satire called MR. JONATHAN WILD THE GREAT, and in the same year appeared his most celebrated novel, THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, which is one of the great masterpieces of English fiction. (This is also on William Benét’s list of foremost eighteenth- century prose writings.) Fielding’s third and last novel was AMELIA, which appeared in 1751. All his stories are written with a fine, vigorous feeling of life and overflow with humor, a quality in which Richardson was utterly deficient.

In 1754, while on a visit to Lisbon, where he had gone broken in health, Fielding died, and was buried in Os Cyprestres cemetery.

Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollett Wrote Lively Fiction 

Laurence Sterne was born in Ireland, though his ancestors were English. He was born on November 24, 1713, and educated at Halifax Grammar School and Cambridge University, becoming a clergyman in the year 1738.

For a good many years his life was, no doubt, that of an ordinary English country vicar, except that, being satirical and bitingly sarcastic in his speech, thin in appearance and poor in health, he was probably by no means so pleasant a companion as a country parson ought to be.

When he was forty-six years of age he published the first two volumes of his clever and amusing book, THE LIFE AND OPINIONS o TRISTRAM SHANDY. Very soon the wit and humor with which the characters in this great work were drawn had made the name of Sterne famous; and for years new volumes of the work continued to appear, until it was completed in 1767, just about two months before its author breathed his last.

On the whole, Sterne was not a pleasant kind of man to contemplate, and although his books are full of high spirits and laughter, it is not always the healthiest laughter, nor are his sentiments such as do credit to a preacher of the Gospel who during his later years may be said to have written under the shadow of death. His other famous book is called A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. It is very Witty.

Tobias Smollett was a Scotsman, born near the “bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond” in March 1721. He went to school at Dumbarton and to Glasgow University, and when he was about fifteen was apprenticed to a surgeon in Glasgow. He wished, however, to be a writer, and at the age of eighteen went to London with a play which he had written. But no one would buy the play and, as he had no money, he went to sea as assistant to a naval surgeon.

After his return to London he practiced as a surgeon. He married a lady who had some wealth, and he wrote for a time more for pleasure than for profit. Later he adopted writing as a profession. He became a journalist, wrote histories and books of travel, translated foreign stories and edited papers.

But, above all, he produced three novels very similar in style to those of Henry Fielding, and nearly always mentioned in company with them as the best examples of English novels written before the time of Sir Walter Scott. They are full of interesting and lifelike characters, and his sailors, especially, are the breeziest, saltiest sons of the sea to be found in English story-books. The names of his three famous books are RODERICK RANDOM, PEREGRINE PICKLE and HuMPHREY CLINKER, the first being written in 1748, and the last in in September of which year Smollett died at Leghorn, in Italy, and was buried in the English cemetery in that city on the Mediterranean.

Goldsmith’s Gentle Humour Still Charms His Readers 

Oliver Goldsmith, whose VICAR OF WAKEFIELD is one of the most beautiful stories in the English language. Although he was a dramatist (his comedy SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER is a perfect stage play) and a poet (Johnson called him “the greatest poet since Pope”), we must never forget the importance of Goldsmith’s work as a story-teller. No one reading this book today would realize that the writing of novels was so new when it was written. The narrative is easy, the plot is natural.

In 1766 Oliver Goldsmith published his VICAR OF WAKEFIELD, and in 1778 Fanny Burney published her EVELINA. These novels were free from the vein of coarseness that spoils Smollett and mars Fielding. Goldsmith did not again attempt fiction. Miss Burney, who had begun with great promise and won well-deserved popularity, spoiled her style in her later novels, CECILIA and CAMILLA, by imitating Doctor Johnson’s most formal compositions. Before the close of the eighteenth century the novel had been fairly started and had been purified from its first failures in good taste.

In less than fifty years there were many writers of novels, and a larger proportion of the honors began to go to women than had been gained by them in any other field of literature. As with the drama in Shakespeare’s day, fiction reached its greatest height of glory almost suddenly. Less than forty years lay between the coming of the better novel in the EvELINA of Fanny Bürney, and the capture of the whole reading world by the novels of Sir Walter Scott. This sudden collection of stories, so varied in time, character and subject, can only be compared with the abundance of Shakespeare’s plays two hundred years before.

Fiction broadened out, after the domestic stories of Richardson, into wild and romantic fancies. A fashion was set by Horace Walpole in his CASTLE OF OTRANTO, a fearsome, supernatural story. Walpole put his talents into all kinds of things, and of course he had to try story-telling.

He was followed by other writers bent on making the reader’s flesh creep with mysteries. For a time, too, the novel made a fashion of using fine language that was quite unnatural. The most popular writer of that day was Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. Her ROMANCE OF THE FOREST is still worth reading as an illustration of a kind of fashion that, under various forms, creeps again and again into fiction and is thought by the uncritical to be thrillingly fine. Being unnatural, it fades away and is only smiled at by a later generation of readers.

Maria Edgeworth, Who Wrote About Life in Ireland 

Two other women novelists who wrote in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) began the localizing of the novel - that is, the special study of the character, manners and speech of a district. Her ground was rural Ireland, and her success probably had some effect in prompting Sir Walter Scott to present to the world in fiction the Scotsman, past and present.

The Edgeworths were an English family made Irish by living in Ireland for two centuries. They kept up a constant connection with England, where Maria was born, and while they were quite Irish in their ways they were able to see Ireland from the outside as well as the inside.

Maria Edgeworth’s father was a wayward man of genius, fanciful, masterful and full of fads, and one of his fads was to regulate the writings of Maria according to his own ideas. As his ideas of writing a novel were clumsy, his admiring daughter was handicapped by his interference; but her pictures of the Ireland she knew, in CASTLE RACK- RENT, THE ABSENTEE and ORMOND, are the best pictures we have of it in her day.

Miss Edgeworth brought fiction back to real life; and because she makes us feel she is writing about men and women as they are, her stories will live as pictures of life in the past that have a historical as well as a human value.

Jane Austen Makes Quiet, Dull Lives Seem Exciting

And so it is in an even greater degree with Jane Austen’s novels. These are of a far choicer workmanship. Jane Austen was a Hampshire girl, daughter of the rector of Steventon, where she was born on December i6, 1775. Her first complete novel, but one that was not published till after her death, NORTHANGER ABBEY, was a mixed description of Bath, then the chief health resort and social center of England, and a clever exposure of the style of Mrs. Radcliffe’s tales, in the height of their popularity. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1811), PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813), MANSFIELD PARK (1814) and EMMA (1816), make up a complete study of life in rural England.

Readers who want sensation, high-flown sentiment, an exciting or involved plot, stirring adventure, problems of passion or boisterous laughter need not trouble themselves with Jane Austen. But Jane, writing only about a quiet life which she knew very well, gives us a picture of the thoughts and ways of English gentlefolks a the end of the eighteentn century. It is faithful in drawing and delightful in its quiet humor.

Of the life of the poor and humble, we scarcely have a glimpse in her books, and the governing class that circled round the court is equally left alone. She seems even to be unaware of earth-thaking events of her day - the Napoleonic Wars, for instance. It is the comfortable landed gentry to whom Jane Austen introduces us. Her writing gives us the most finished picture of a section of English society that any novelist has drawn.

It has been said, and there is some truth in the criticism, that the men and women in any one of her stories are much like those of any other story, but with their circumstances and aims somewhat changed. That is natural since a rather narrow round of country life is shown with no sensational characters or incidents introduced. But this only makes the quality of her skill the finer when she holds our interest.

She fully understood her own limitations and never tried to do what was beyond her power. She wrote herself of “the little bit of ivory, two inches wide, on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect - after much labor.” But that fails to do justice to her method, though it suggests it. Scott was nearer the truth when he spoke of “the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment.”

Miss Austen lived a very quiet country life, with gradually failing health before she reached middle age. She died at Winchester in her forty-first year on July 18, 1817, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

A List of the Greatest Prose Works of the Eighteenth Century

A few words more about William Rose Benéts list of the fourteen greatest prose works in English published in the eighteenth century. All but one are by British writers— the one exception is Benjamin Franklin’s PooR RICHARD’S ALMANAC. Nine are novels: ROBINSON CRUSOE, by Daniel Defoe; PAMELA, by Samuel Richardson; THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, by Henry Fielding; THE ADVENTURES OF PEREGRINE PICKLE, by Tobias Smollett; THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO, by Horace Walpole; THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD, by Oliver Goldsmith; TRISTRAM SHANDY, by Laurence Sterne; EvELINA, by Fanny Burney, and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, by Jane Austen. GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, by Jonathan Swift, is not really a novel, though it is imaginative writing.

Many amateur gardeners prefer to do their planting in the spring of the year, although certain plants are set out in the fall. Yet even if you prefer to plant in the spring, you must not neglect your gardens in the late autumn and winter months, or your plants will be sure to suffer. Here are some useful suggestions.

Suppose that two or three new rose trees and perhaps some rose cuttings have been planted in our garden. Suppose now that a spell of frost comes, and after that, naturally, a thaw. The ground becomes quite soft and loose. The plants - whether roses or anything else, for that matter - that are not firmly established in the soil, become loosened with the soil, and lose the little grip they had obtained upon it.

This is the one thing to fear, for if it happens and is not remedied, without a doubt the plants will die. But, fortunately, it is a state of things quite easy to remedy. It simply means treading or otherwise making the soil firm and close about the plants, as it was before the frost acted upon it. The loose soil danger is then avoided.

Action of Frost

Though the action of the frost on the soil may be a source of danger to newly planted trees and cuttings, we must bear in mind that, apart from this, the frost does a great deal to sweeten the soil and to put it in excellent condition. For this reason any bit of the ground that is not occupied by plants should be dug up so that the frost may penetrate and do the utmost good.

How does a gardener regard a heavy fall of snow over his many plants? As Nature’s wisest and best protection from the bitter winds and frosts. No wind can hurt our plants when they are safely under their snow blanket. But often the winter winds and frosts are keen and biting when there is no snow upon the ground. This is the hardest trial our plants have to bear.

If we are able to gather a few armfuls of fresh straw, we may put it round such plants as the rhododendron, and even round about a rose tree that is unusually fragile and anything else for which we have reason to fear. If some of these rather tender subjects die down completely, and are below ground for the winter, we may cover the earth above them with dry leaves or with ashes. Either of these is very helpful in keeping the frost from reaching them.

Violets in Cold Frames 

We have hitherto dealt with plants that grow in the open. Even in the case of violets or other flowers that grow in cold-frames or hotbeds (beds of earth covered with glass tops) there are some simple rules that should be observed if these flowers are to thrive when the cold weather comes.

Never coddle violets; they are hardy, brave little plants, and they strongly object to being treated as if they were tender and fragile. If they could speak, how often they would plead for air, air, air, more air! You ought to have gathered many pretty blooms from the violets before the cold weather sets in. They will be protected by their frames when sharp autumn winds threaten. You will continue to pick pretty bouquets and have the prospect of gathering a fine bunch on Christmas morning, though the time the plants flower will, to a certain extent, depend upon the variety which is being grown.

Very little water - generally none at allis needed for weeks at a time at this season. Unless the thermometer shows that it is freezing, or there is a sharp wind, raise the lid during the warmest portion of the slay. Even at night, unless very cold, the lid need not be closed entirely, but the opening can be covered with a bit of sacking, and in this way there will be a slight amount of ventilation.

You will think, perhaps, that great importance is being laid on giving plants sufficient air. But there is nothing like it to keep them healthy. Insufficient air generally means that leaves become affected with mildew, and whole plants may “damp off,” as it is called. But in really severe weather, we must run the risk of that for a short time. During sharp frosts the lids go down, and mats or anything we can lay hands on may be used to cover them. Do not forget to remove the coverings when warmer weather sets in.

Potted Plants

Our pot plants that we are sheltering in the house or in a greenhouse will now need less water than at other seasons when they are growing freely. In the winter a great many of them go almost to rest; at any rate, they are not pushing out new growths unless kept at a high temperature. Never let a pot plant stand in a saucer of water.

Certainly all flowers once were wild - and all animals, too. There are certain kinds of flowers and animals which men have developed by choosing the kind of thing they wanted and leaving the rest, and so gradually getting such things as the garden rose, the pouter pigeon, and so on.

These are what we call cultivated varieties, but all of them, even the most curious and newest orchid, or pigeon or breed of dog, have been made from wild or natural forms. Even now, if we are careless, our garden plants will return sometimes more or less completely to their natural state, and so will domestic animals.

Plant breeders can do wonderful things in the way of developing new varieties, and it is now possible for them to secure patents on their new specimens. One of the most interesting patented flowers is the super-double nasturtium, holding flower patent 141. The ordinary single nasturtium has five petals; the ordinary double blossom has ten or twelve. The super-double nasturtium has about fifty petals. Mr. Joseph Simson, president of the W. Atlee Burpee Company which owns the patent, tells you the story.

“Nasturtiums were first found growing wild in South America over three hundred and fifty years ago and seed was taken to Europe. They became favorite garden flowers, and as time passed, many new colors were found, but until ‘93’, all of the garden nasturtiums had only five petals, just like the wild ones first found in South America. Then some plants were found in Mexico whose flowers had from ten to twelve petals. Seed of this new double nasturtium called Golden Gleam was brought to the United States.

“It became so popular that seedsmen immediately wanted to get doubles in other colors. To get these, David Burpee had over 40,000 crosses made. Golden Gleam was crossed with all the different colored singles known. Mr. Burpee knew that it would take at least two generations to get the colored doubles he wanted, so the work was speeded up by shipping the valuable crossed seed by airplane to parts of the world where the winters were warm. All of the plants in this first generation were single, like their parents.. The seed was carefully saved, and planted and the second generation watched carefully. When the plants came into bloom, about one out of every four had double flowers.

“One evening Mr. Burpee was walking through the greenhouses looking at his new double nasturtiums when all at once he noticed one that was different from all the rest. Instead of having ten or twelve petals, like the other doubles it had about fifty petals and looked like a begonia. This new super-double nasturtium was watched with the greatest of care, but it would not set any seed because the flowers did not have any pistils.

“New plants could be grown, however, by cutting off pieces of the branches and sticking them in wet sand, where they would take root. Although the super-double nasturtiums did not give any seed, the flowers had some pollen, and this was used to make crosses on ordinary doubles.

“Finally, by making many crosses and taking cuttings, success was achieved.”

Young as was British art in the eighteenth century, during the second half of the century England’s portrait painters held a place in the very front ranks of contemporary European art.

Their fresh, unworn lustre shone the more brightly in a period that elsewhere was rather dim. Foremost on the roll of these painters of portraits stand two names side by side - Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough - for the owners of the names lived near together and knew each other, and painted famous likenesses of many of the same famous men and women. Reynolds was four years old when Gainsborough was born, and he lived four years after Gainsborough’s death.

The genius of Reynolds and the genius of Gainsborough were of such different strains that they seem each to supply what the other lacks. While Reynolds was an eager student of art in books and in the works of the greatest painters, traveling abroad and copying their pictures in foreign galleries, until he became a truly learned connoisseur, Gainsborough gave himself to nature as to the supreme teacher and never traveled outside his native island, going back again and again to the woods and fields he loved best. Reynolds was a thinker, of keen, acute, well-balanced mind. He sought and learned how to get the results he wished. Gainsborough felt what he wished to express, and it came through his brush naturally or not at all. Reynolds was systematic and industrious, planning out his time and carefully observing his own regulations. Gainsborough followed his impulse; he might stand unoccupied for hours looking from the window of his studio, dreaming of beauty. His muse would not be driven. Therefore, although Reynolds left about four thousand paintings, Gainsborough can be accredited with not more than three hundred, and of these about eighty are landscapes. To both men we give our admiration - to Reynolds for his fine, deep color, his warm but subtle tone, his skillful and understanding way of presenting the figures and the personalities of his sitters; to Gainsborough for the soft, elusive, haunting beauty of scenes and forms in which we perceive his own tender wistfulness mingling with the unspoiled charms of nature’s self.

Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) was the son of a learned clergyman of Devonshire who kept a grammar school. It was there that Joshua studied as a boy, although he spent much of the time that was due to Latin and mathematics in dreaming or eagerly getting all that he could out of a few books on the principles of art. And because his drawings showed unusual skill and a mastery of the points he had studied out for himself, he went at the age of nineteen to London to study with a painter who was then a favorite but whose work has no value to us now. In a few years the young man confidently established himself in an independent studio. Then he had the great fortune to be offered a trip to Italy.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of The Royal Academy 

Among the paintings of the Italian masters in the galleries the young Englishman walked, disappointed and dismayed because he could not feel their force and beauty as be had anticipated. But devotedly he studied and copied until he gained what he had lacked, and when he returned to England his knowledge of European painting was broad and discriminating. He was an authority. Immediately favor turned toward him. People flooded him with requests for portraits, and it was not long before he had a large house in London, with a luxurious studio, where he painted industriously from eleven until four every day. From that hour on be gave himself to social life, entertaining freely the most interesting and distinguished men of the time. Garrick the actor, Goldsmith the writer, Burke the statesman, and Dr. Johnson the philosopher were a few of his intimate friends, portraits of whom he has left us. At his balls the best society of London came together, for he was as noted for his distinction of manner as for his excellence in his art.

In 1768, when the Royal Academy was instituted, he was at once chosen as its president. Then he was knighted by George II, who later made him painter to the king. The last word of his last public address was by intention the mighty name of the artist who was his greatest admiration - “Michelangelo.” When Sir Joshua died he was honored in every possible way. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London.

Reynolds had remained a bachelor, with a sister to help keep his house; but who has painted pictures of childhood that we remember better or more affectionately than some of his? Groups of little ones with their mothers, like thatof Lady Cockburn and her children; portrait studies, like Master Hare and Little Miss Bowles with her dog; and others, like the Age of Innocence, and the cluster of Angels’ Heads, which are really five different studies of the one darling little head of Frances Isabella Gordon. Both of the last two pictures are in the Nationai Gallery, London. The painting of Master Hare can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where there are several other Reynolds portraits. Many of his works are in the Royal Academy and the National Portrait Gallery in London; but numbers of them are in private collections in both Europe and America.

Sir Joshua, by experimenting in the production of the colors he most desired - warm browns and reds - used some materials that were not lasting, so that in some cases the paint cracked and sometimes even fell from the canvas. Thus a few of his paintings have been lost. He loved to give his portraits a grand manner, with heroic or historic feeling. And for pleasure he painted historic compositions. In the portrait of the actress Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse we can trace his intelligent admiration for Michelangelo’s style. In others we can feel the influence of Correggio, Raphael, Leonardo, Murillo and others. He did not imitate, but he had absorbed. Hogarth said: “There is only one school, that of nature.” Reynolds said: “There is only one doorway to the school of nature, and of that the old masters hold the key.”

Thomas Gainsborough, Who Loved His Native Countryside

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) was another English lad who neglected study for love of drawing and for love of the outdoor world, though he won greatest fame as a portrait painter. Always a dreamer and impulsive in his tendencies was Gainsborough; and his expression in line and color was spontaneous and free. Reynolds had moved with ease in a sphere of large experience in life. Gainsborough, more shy and retiring, had to be drawn into prominence. Although at fifteen he went to London to study, when three years afterward he began his career as an independent artist it was back in the retirement of his old haunts.

He loved a quiet life in his own home, with his wife and his music and his dreams. He loved the familiar countryside of his boyhood, where meadows, trees and streams had sung to him and given him his first visions of beauty. There he lived and worked for fourteen or fifteen years before going to Bath, where he became popular as the portrait-painter of fashionable beauties and of royalty.

When he painted his rare portraits of lovely women he set them in an atmosphere of naturalness, for he seems to have perceived within them the impulses and feelings that belonged to them as human beings. His own sensitiveness helped him to catch vibrations from their hidden selves. A gentle melancholy and a brooding tenderness breathe lightly through the delicate colors with which the artist made his record of the impressions that came to him from his sitters. His pictures of children - whether peasants or gentler-born-show them moving with natural freedom through the light and air of out-of-doors. Among the most valued of his portraits are that of Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire (now in America) and that of the Honorable Mrs. Graham (in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh). For the most part his works are in private collections on both sides of the Atlantic.

Characteristics of Two Great Portrait Painters Compared

Sir Joshua Reynolds held that “the chief masses of light in a picture should always be of warm, mellow color, and that the blue, gray or green colors should be kept almost entirely out of these masses.” Whether or not, as has been said, Gainsborough deliberately took this as a challenge, he produced some most striking and beautiful pictures in which blue, gray and green form the central and dominant notes. Of these the most famous are his portrait of Mrs. Siddons in a blue-and-gray-striped gown and the picture known as the Blue Boy. In the latter - now in California - a charming boy in a costume of rich, pure blue stands out engagingly before a background of brown and green landscape.

As a rule, Gainsborough’s color is tender, soft and cool, greens and blues and grays and delicate yellows predominating; although in his landscapes - which he loved best of all to paint - he introduced warmer tones, rich browns and sometimes red. The landscapes show the same natural way of looking at things that we have noted in the portraits, the same originality of treatment. They are quiet in tone and feeling, with something of mystery or melancholy in their clouded skies or in the forest shade. They were made for his own pleasure, and few of them were sold during his lifetime. Appreciation of their value has grown with time, and they are considered the first examples of landscape showing a modern realistic treatment.

Gainsborough had not the reliable and cultivated correctness of Reynolds; but grace and spontaneity are in all his works - a peculiar distinction due to his faculty for seeing beauty in all simple things. “He had beauty in himself, and all his life it fed on simple delights.”

Sir Joshua Reynolds’ tribute in an address after Gainsborough’s death held a prophecy which has been fulfilled. “If ever this nation,” he said, “should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honorable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of the art, among the very first of that rising name.”

George Romney, Greater in Gift than in Character 

In George Romney (1734-1802) we come to an artist whose gift was great enough to make him a rival of Reynolds, but who had not the steady will, the resolution, in using his gift to carry it to the high performance for which it was fitted. In control of line he surpassed even the greater men, and his color and vivacity give his pictures true charm. While he did not make elaborate plans of composition, he had a natural ability for placing his figures so as to give a beautiful arrangement of masses and lines. The background is usually plain, laying the more emphasis on the portrait itself.

Romney’s faults are due to defects of character and to insufficient early training rather than to lack of genius. He had a tendency to lay plans larger than he could carry through, and in his later life this became almost a form of insanity. With one undertaking partly accomplished, he would turn from it to some new delightful project that beckoned. Had he possessed a firmer will, he would no doubt have reached great results.

Although his best work is to be seen in some of his portraits (chiefly in private collections), he painted, besides, historical and ideal scenes. His interesting and sad story is told elsewhere.

In Scotland’s Allan Ramsay (1713-84), a contemporary, you see, of the English painters of whom we have been thinking, painted portraits of many Scottish gentlemen and ladies which made his name well- known in England as well as at home. While his color is sometimes hard and opaque-looking, his drawing of the features is fine, and his pictures are marked by a grace that is characteristically his. The portrait of his wife is one of his most charming portraits. The latter part of his life was spent in England, where he became court painter to King George Ill.

Henry Raeburn (1756-1823), another Scottish painter, in childhood left an orphan and early apprenticed to a goldsmith, learned for himself the arts of miniature and oil painting. Possessed of the very qualities that Romney had not, he lost no opportunity of improving his knowledge and technique.

Scotland owes to this son of hers admirable portraits of many others of her honored children, including Sir Walter Scott. They are sincere and forceful likenesses, broad and well handled, somewhat crude in color and tone, but interesting in their vigor and power of characterization. Of Raeburn’s romantic marriage, which opened the way to study on the continent, you may read elsewhere. He became president of the Society of Artists in Edinburgh and, before his death, was knighted by the king. His portraits are in the National Galleries of Scotland and England and in a number of other public and private collections. One of the finest is that of Sir John Sinclair.

Among the lesser portrait-painters of the period in England we shall speak of three - Hoppner, Opie and Lawrence.

John Hoppner (1758-1810) confessed himself to be a follower of Reynolds; and though he painted some landscapes and pictures on ideal subjects, his portraits, especially those of women and children, are considered his most successful works. They are still sought and treasured, although time has dimmed the beauty of their coloring. An attractive example of his portraiture is the group of the Sackville children. Hoppner was a man of social accomplishments, who could count among his sitters members of the royal family and such celebrated persons as Sir Walter Scott, Wellington and Lord Nelson.

John Opie (1761-1807), when as a young man he went to London from his native Cornwall, became the fashionable portrait painter of the town, hailed as the self-taught, independent artist. After the wonder had subsided and he was less pressed with orders, he worked hard to learn how to overcome his faults, and divided his time between portraits and historical canvases. His pictures have far more vigor of treatment and more individuality than elegance and grace.

In Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) we come to the successor of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the post of painter to the king. Lawrence showed unusual talent as a boy and won fame while still in his teens. When he was only twenty-one years old, he was elected to the Academy by especial favor. Having started so young to observe and record the forms and features of society, he became very skilled in reproducing the airs and graces of its ladies and gentlemen. He drew well and painted in an easy manner, using a brilliant coloring that was sometimes hard in effect. Of all that he produced his pencil and crayon studies are rated as the most successful.

There are two kinds of balls that bounce, those that are solid, like a solid rubber ball or a golf ball, and those that are hollow, like a tennis ball.

No matter whether the ball is solid or hollow, its bounce is due to the fact that it is elastic. A thing is said to be elastic when it tends to return to its former size or shape after being pressed down or stretched. Rubber is a very elastic substance, as you know. Press a rubber ball on the ground. It loses its perfect roundness, but the instant you take away the pressure of your hand, it springs back into shape. Throw it sharply on the ground; it loses shape against the ground but springs back so sharply that it bounces.

Now a great law of science is that nothing is ever lost and that everything has to be paid for.

When the ball starts bouncing it has a certain amount of motion in it, which is force, or power, or energy. When it stops, that has gone. Either we must show that the energy has gone somewhere and has not been destroyed, or, according to the great law of the persistence of power, the ball should bounce forever. If it did not bounce forever, the law would be false. It is, however, quite easy to show that the ball does lose the power with which it started. What, then? Why does it stop bouncing? And what happens to the energy when it stops?

To begin with, the ball is moving, both up and down, through the air, and forcing millions of particles of air aside. All the motion it gives to the air it loses.

If a ball were bounced in a space as far as possible emptied of air, it would bounce far longer than it does in the atmosphere, just as a top will spin longer in the same circumstances. Suppose that, instead of bouncing the ball on something hard, we bounce it on a pillow or on loose sand. It will not bounce long in such a case. Its power has gone to move the pillow or the sand as well as the air. The ball itself is not completely elastic, nor is the ground. If the ball and the ground were completely elastic, and there were no air to move, and the ball never turned and rubbed the ground in falling, it would bounce forever.

In the case of a hollow rubber ball, it is not by any means the rubber only that explains why the ball is so elastic. The ball is filled with a mixture of several gases, which we call air. The air is elastic. It is pressed in upon itself when the ball hits the ground, but quickly tends to go back to its old space in the ball. We can see how much the air bounces if we compare an ordinary soft rubber ball with another one which has a small hole in it.

The air is expelled from the hole when the ball is bounced, and we find that the ball bounces very little, because its elasticity is so poor. But the other ball bounces exceedingly well, because, when it is bounced, the air in it is not squeezed out, but only compressed for an instant.

To Whom All Things Were Kin

In a green Italian field one summer day, almost seven hundred years ago, a small man, clad in a worn, patched robe, raised his head to the sky and called to the birds flying above him. Hearing his voice, they paused in their flight and glided to earth. Birds from the trees flew down to gather at the feet of this man. They seemed to bow and nod as he spoke to them.

“My little sisters the birds, much do you receive from God your Creator, and always and in every place you ought to praise Him. He has given you freedom to go into every place, and also did preserve your seed in Noah’s ark, so that your kind might not perish from the earth. Again, you receive from Him the element of air which He has made for you.

God feeds you and gives you the rivers and the fountains to drink from; He gives you the mountains and the valleys for your refuge, and the tall trees wherein to build your nests.

And as you can neither spin nor sew, God clothes you, you and your children.

Your Creator loves you much, since He has given you so many marvelous gifts. So beware, little sisters of mine, of the sin of ingratitude, but ever strive to praise God.” When the preacher had ended his sermon, the air filed with the glorious songs of the birds.

They soared into the sky, then divided into four parts like a cross. One group flew to the north, another to the south, the third to the east, and the fourth to the west, bearing the message they had heard to the four corners of the earth. The shabby little man left the field and continued his journey.

This man had not always been such a picture of poverty. Once he had been the most elegantly dressed young mati in Assisi. His father, Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy merchant, hoped that his son Francis would also become a merchant. Francis did not object to this and started working for his father. He loved fun and was a leader of the young people at the feasts and festivals. He wasted a good deal of money on rich dress, yet he always could spare a coin to any poor beggar who crossed his path. Francis had a careless, kind heart. He was afraid of only one thing, lepers.

One day, as he rode through the countryside, he saw a figure walking toward him on the road. Suddenly he realized that the man was a leper. With a start Francis spurred his horse to avoid meeting with this fearful being. Then, a new courage filled his soul. He sprang from his horse and threw his arms about the leper.

This incident marked a change that was taking place deep within Francis’ spirit.

This man who loved gaiety and laughter and freedom so well had to spend a miserable and lonely year as a prisoner of war, and his imprisonment was followed by a period of illness. He had time to think, to become acquainted with his own soul. When he came back to the busy life of Assisi, his family and friends soon learned that Francis had turned a very important corner. Forgotten were the parties, and the beautiful clothes and the wasted hours.

There were at this time in Italy many small old churches falling into decay— people were growing worldly and selfish and had little time for the simple, sincere devotion of the early Christians. Francis went from town to town, repairing the old churches with his own money and his own labor, aided by a few friends. When his father refused to give him any more money, he and his little band lived as beggars. They even took a vow of absolute poverty, promising to own nothing, lest the love of possessions corrupt their shining purpose.

Many people laughed at Francis and his band; but he preached in the market-places, begging men to be true to their own highest natures. He touched the hearts of multitudes. Singly, by tens and by hundreds, his band grew, until 5,000 men from all walks of life - rich and poor, young and old, ignorant and learned - put on the beggarly robe and became followers of Francis. The Pope blessed the rule of life which Francis planned, and the Franciscans, as they were called, formed the Friars Minor (Little Brothers).

A lovely girl, Clare Ortolana, under his advice, organized a women’s branch of the order: these women became known as Poor Clares.

Some there were who listened to Francis and almost wanted to follow him; but they could not say farewell to their homes or their dear ones, or their duties. For such Francis suggested a rule less rigid. This membership became known as the Third Order of Saint Francis. It, too, grew and flourished.

Francis of Assisi lived from 1182 to 1226. The religious orders that he founded have since spread over the globe. They have made many contributions to the world’s knowledge and civilization. Yet it is not as rounder of the Franciscans that Francis is most widely known today. He is remembered for his love of nature. The birds were his little sisters, the sun and winds were brothers, the moon and waters were sisters, and all created things were kin. He found a joy on earth more real and lasting than men can ever know who give their hearts to possessions. The poet Emerson might have been thinking of Francis when he said:

Cheerily know, when half-gods go The gods arrive.

Someday there no longer will be any coal or oil for man to use. How soon can not be predicted exactly; there are differences of opinion among scientists. Yet that time will surely come—one thousand, ten thousand, or perhaps one hundred thousand years from now—if we continue using fuel at the present rate. How, then, will man do the world’s work? Trains and steamships would stop, since they require coal or oil. A great many of the machines operated by electricity would cease to turn because most electric generators are driven by engines requiring steam or oil. The few that are driven by water turbines would be hardly sufficient for modern purposes. Electric cells and batteries can not do the work. The automobile would be motionless. No airplane could leave the ground.

Many homes would be cold, and most factories would be silent. Of course, we should still have the wind and flowing water, such wood as could be had from forests and the fuel that can be manufactured from plants. Yet modern civilization could not get along on these sources of power alone.

Few of us realize how much we depend upon coal and oil. What are these substances and how did they accumulate on and in the earth? For the present it is sufficient to say that coal and oil are the remains of certain plants and tiny animals which lived millions of years ago. These ancient living things used sunshine, just as plants and animals do today. Each time we burn a lump of coal, and each time we “step on the gas,” we are using up the energy of ancient sunshine.

The sun is still shining and its energy is being used by living things that could some day form great deposits of coal and oil. But we can not afford to wait for that slow process. A way must somehow be found for putting to use more of the present-day sunshine; or else we must find sources of energy that do not depend upon the sun. Scientists are beginning to make progress in both directions. Let us consider first what might be done to harness the sun for doing some of the work of the world.

Day after day, the sun pours out vast amounts of energy. It is estimated that the earth’s surface receives from the sun each year the equivalent of many thousand horsepower for every square mile. If we could make good use of the energy absorbed by even a dozen square miles the threat of a coal-and-oil famine would be banished forever. In the last one hundred years, the minds of many men have been busy trying to solve this problem.

In the year 1866, Emperor Napoleon III of France visited the shop of a French inventor named August Mouchot. In the yard of the shop stood a large, cone-shaped object resembling a huge lampshade. The opening of the cone was directed toward the sun; its inside was lined with a thin film of silver. At the small end of the cone lay a small copper box, blackened on the inside. The Emperor was told that this curious device was a solar engine, that is, a sun engine. The rays of the sun were gathered by the cone and reflected by the silver lining down upon the small copper box which contained water. The heat caused the water to boil. So impressed was the Emperor that he urged his government to support and finance the building of many of these solar engines. Yet, the scheme was not very successful.

After Mouchot came several other inventors of sun engines. All of them used one or more of three important arrangements for collecting the sun’s rays—the conical mirror; the cylindrical reflector, and the hot-box - an airtight box, black inside, and covered with two layers of glass. Heat waves pass through glass; and black absorbs heat.

A solar engine was set up in the Arizona desert in 1904. It used a cone-shaped reflector and weighed about 8,300 pounds. Seven hundred square feet of sunshine was collected, which boiled water into steam, which, in turn, operated an engine. In 1913 a solar engine erected in Egypt gathered sunshine falling on an area of 13,000 square feet. This engine developed about 55 horsepower every hour. However, the machine proved to be too costly and could not be kept running easily.

One of the most workable solar engines ever built stands atop Mount Wilson in California. It consists of a large cylindrical aluminum mirror that is free to rotate about an axis parallel to that of the earth’s. A clock mechanism causes the mirror to follow the apparent motion of the sun. The rays of the sun are focused on three continuously connected oil-filled glass tubes about six feet long. Each of these tubes is covered with two other tubes which enclose a vacuum, so that very little heat is lost by the oil. As the oil gets warm it rises and soon a circulation is set up from the oil tubes to a storage tank and from the tank to the tubes. As this continues in the sunshine, the oil gets warmer and warmer, sometimes reaching a temperature of about 390 degrees Fahrenheit—which is hot enough to bake bread, cook food or boil water into steam for power purposes.

Seven hours of sunshine a day are enough to keep the machine going day and night at a temperature near that of boiling water. This machine is sometimes called a sun cooker.

There have been other efforts to make use of direct sunshine. One of the most interesting is to use the sun’s heat to produce cold. You are familiar with the type of kitchen refrigerator which is operated by a gas flame. The heat of this flame evaporates a specIal liquid called a refrigerant. The evaporated refrigerant (now a gas) is then compressed. When the gas is allowed to expand again rapidly, it produces a cooling effect which freezes the ice cubes and keeps the food cold. Similarly, the sun’s heat pouring down upon the roof of a tropical bungalow can be made to evaporate a refrigerant which can then keep the air inside the bungalow cool.

Another scheme for making direct use of the sun’s energy is to allow it to heat the junction of two pieces of different metals. When this is done an electric current begins to flow in the metals. The current, though small in amount, can ring a bell, light a lamp, or run a motor. The metal junctions are called thermocouples. Some years ago a German scientist, by using several thermocouples, succeeded in keeping an electric lamp lit by sunshine for several months. A French scientist has proposed a plant for connecting together half a million thermocouples.

The junctions would all be exposed to the sun and the ends would be embedded in concrete, so as to keep them at a lower temperature. In this way, huge amounts of electricity would be obtained. Unfortunately, the cost of building the arrangement would be too great as long as there is still enough cheap coal and oil available for generating electricity.

The most likely use of direct sunshine in the near future is the opening up of desert areas. These regions have plenty of steady sunshine. If this almost boundless energy can be caught by some form of solar engine, it can be changed either into the heat energy of steam or into electrical energy. With energy available, many such deserts can be irrigated and transformed into fertile farms and gardens. Excess electrical energy can be sent out to other regions which do not enjoy such intense and steady sunshine.

We spoke of finding sources of energy that do not depend on the sun. Men have dreamed for years of using the power of the tides; and successful experiments have been made. The greatest field for power research today is within the atom. Ceaseless activity goes on inside the atom, and an enormous amount of energy is occasionally developed accidentally when atomic particles collide. Some atoms, as you know, are breaking up and giving off (radiating) energy. Radium is one of these elements whose atoms are breaking up. Other atoms can be made to break up. We call the process atom-smashing. For some years atom-smashing has been going on in laboratories all over the world. Not until 1945 was a way found to employ the energy thus created. This use, as you know, was in the terrible atomic bomb. When we can learn how to harness the enormous energy that is now locked within the atom, we can have all the heat and mechanical power, all the electric power and light that we need. But even then we shall be dependent upon the sun for other things.

The Enormous Heat of the Sun, Our Source of Energy 

The sun is a star some 93,000,000 miles away. It consists of many different layers of gases at a very high temperature. The temperature of the surface of the sun is estimated at about i r,ooo degrees Fahrenheit. This is twice as hot as anything man has been able to devise. The sun’s interior may be ten times hotter. At these temperatures, the molecules in matter break down into the smaller particles called atoms. The atoms themselves undergo change, sending out rays of light and heat. Though these rays travel for 93,000,000 miles before they reach the earth, they can cause a pretty severe sunburn in less than fifteen minutes.

The sun is the basis of our existence and the source of all our usable energy. There are several forms of energy: light, heat, mechanical, electrical and chemical. Each form can be changed into another. The starting point for most of these changes, however, is the light energy which pours down from the sun. You have probably tried to concentrate the light rays of the sun with a magnifying glass or a mirror. The light changes into heat, which can boil water into steam. The steam can turn a small dynamo.

Thus the heat energy is changed into mechanical energy. The dynamo generates electricity, showing how mechanical energy can be changed into electrical energy. Electricity can decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is a change from electrical to chemical energy. Aside from certain kinds of chemical energy and the energy within the atoms of matter, all means for carrying on life activities come to us from the sun.

How We Use Heat Energy to Get Electrical Energy 

The rays of the sun cause the water of lakes, rivers and oceans to evaporate into the air. Later the air moisture condenses and falls as rain, snow or hail. This fills the rivers, which can be dammed so as to store water at a height. When allowed to fall and press against the blades of a turbine or water-wheel, the mechanical energy is changed to electrical energy.

The sun warms the land and the water; but water heats up more slowly than land, and then holds the heat for a longer time. When the land is warmer (during the day) the air over it rises, letting in the cooler sea breezes. When the sea is warmer (during the night) the air over it rises, letting the cooler land air blow toward the sea.

You know that the earth is tilted with respect to its path around the sun. You know that because of this tilt certain regions of the earth receive the direct and concentrated rays of the sun, while other regions receive rays that are slanting and spread thinly over the area. The summer season comes to those parts of the earth which are bathed by direct sunshine, and the winter season arrives where a section of the earth receives the rays slantwise. Regions near the earth’s Equator receive rays that are close to perpendicular during the entire trip. Hence such regions enjoy hot summer weather all the time.

Areas near the Poles never receive direct rays, and have periods when they receive no sunshine. So polar regions are always cold.

The fact that certain areas are always warm and others always cold, sets up huge movements of the air. As the earth spins, these air movements are caused to swerve and give rise to the well-known wind belts. It is in these moving air masses that weather conditions start. In a sense, then, the sun is responsible for our weather. It is the sun’s energy which heats the land, heats the air, causes the air to rise and evaporates the water into the air. Even the electric storms are due to the sun, because evaporation produces electrical charges on the moisture particles and some of the sun’s rays help to increase these charges. We owe to the sun our seasons, our climate and our weather.

Light can stimulate the retina of the eye. The eye lens forms an image on the retina and the brain interprets the stimulus as the picture which we see. Certain chemicals are also affected by light. A piece of photographic film contains small grains of a chemical called silver bromide. This silver bromide is colorless and opaque. (Light can not pass through it.) When light strikes the film, the molecules of silver bromide are changed so as to leave a black silver deposit. This is what happens when a camera lens forms an image n the film. Even when you take a snapshot, the momentary flash of light produces an effect on the silver bromide. The effect is later continued when the film is developed and the picture printed.

Contained in sunlight is a kind of ray called ultraviolet. This ultraviolet light is colorless and invisible to our eyes, yet it makes its presence known and felt. It is very penetrating, and is responsible for sunburn. This can be observed in the effects produced by the mercury-vapor lamp, which is a rich source of ultraviolet light. While direct sunlight can produce a burn in about fifteen minutes, a mercury lamp can cause a similar, or even more serious, burn in two or three minutes. The nature of skin burning or tanning is quite interesting. The action of sunlight on the skin, or of the ultraviolet light contained in sunlight, is to produce a substance called vitamin D on the surface of the skin. The same vitamin D can be produced in foods, such as milk or oils and fats, by exposing them to ultraviolet light. The process is called irradiation. As you know, vitamin D is necessary if our bones are to grow strong, and it is most important to general good health.

It has been shown that ordinary window glass allows most of the sun’s light to pass but blocks the rays of ultraviolet. That is why we are warmed but not burned by the sun in a glassed-in porch, or sun-room. There are special types of glass which permit the passage of the ultraviolet rays. There is room for much further study and improvement in this field.

Every leaf, every blade of grass enjoys a secret which the wisest scientist does not know. For years scientists have been trying to find out how plants make use of sunshine. We know that water and minerals come up from the soil through the roots and stems of plants to the leaves. We know, too, that there are millions of openings on the under surfaces of leaves which let in air containing carbon dioxide. Then, in the presence of a green material called chlorophyl, and while the sun sends down its rays, a chemical action takes place in the cells of the leaves. As a result of this action, carbohydrates are formed and oxygen is released to the air. Carbohydrates—starches and sugars are examples of carbohydrates—are the food which the plant makes for its own use. Then we eat the plants. Thus corn, wheat, fruits and vegetables are the products which plants manufacture with the help of sunshine. They are the food for all animal life, including man. Yet we do not know all we should like to know about the chemical process in the leaf which means so much to our lives.

The Secret of Photosynthesis

It is estimated that one hour of sunshine, falling upon a square yard of leaf surface results in the manufacture of about one gram of carbohydrates. No wonder each plant always turns its leaves so that they catch as much direct sunshine as possible! In an acre of plants there are about two acres of leaf surface. During a summer’s growth, a wheat field may take from the air about eleven tons of carbon dioxide, and with the help of sun energy it will manufacture about seven tons of wheat.

Several scientists have already been able to duplicate the process of photosynthesis on a small scale, in the laboratory. It is as yet too costly for large-scale manufacture. Many are studying the substance, chlorophyl, whose presence is essential to the process. In the Boyce Thompson Laboratory for Plant Research, at Yonkers, New York, some very interesting experiments are now in progress. While the plant’s secret is not yet discovered, some strange results have been obtained.

Marine plant life is also affected by the light and heat of the sun. In the oceans there exists a kind of one-celled plant called the diatom. Diatoms are bacteria of a sort which, with the help of sunshine, can produce the starch needed for their growth. Small marine animals feed on the diatoms. Larger fish feed on the smaller ones, and so on. Thus the sun maintains ocean life.

The heat of the sun also affects all animal life. In the winter time, in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is closest to the earth. However, since the sun’s rays at this time reach us slantwise and not perpendicularly, little heat can be gathered. This absence of heat and the decrease in amount of sunlight (since the days are short) causes many animals to hibernate, that is, to go into a sleepy state for the winter. Snakes, lizards, frogs, most wild bears, ants and squirrels retire for the winter. If it were not necessary to come out occasionally for food, it is likely that many animals would scarcely be seen during the winter months. As the earth revolves about the sun, and spring arrives, the animals come out of their partial sleep. They become active. Everywhere on the earth animals tend to follow the sun. This is not just accidental. It is necessary for the preservation of their lives.

It is sometimes asked how long could life exist without the sun. Would life suddenly cease, or would there be a gradual decay? As you know, in the far north there is an almost total lack of sunlight for about six months. Does life cease during that time, to be revived with the coming of the sun? No, enough energy is stored away during the dark period to maintain the necessities of life. Animals hibernate and become dormant. Man needs more than just food and shelter. He can not afford to hibernate. Life must go on.

Should the sun fail to make an appearance for a single year the result would be ruinous. Plant life as we know it would vanish and animal life would soon follow.

Is there a substitute for the sun? Can an artificial sun be created? The nearest thing to an artificial sun is artificial ultraviolet light. However, it requires electricity to operate the mercury-vapor lamps, and electricity is dependent upon the sun.

Our debt to the sun is one that can not be repaid. All our lives we are indebted to the sun for food, clothing and shelter. There is only one thing we can do to repay in part this great debt. We can practice conservation. This means saving and not wasting. It is true that the sun’s energy is apparently endless, yet we must learn to take all we need and yet leave some for succeeding generations. In this sense, conservation means careful and purposeful use. Only in this way can we repay partially our debt to the sun.

A German Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, near the borders of a dense forest, there dwelt a poor man who earned his living by cutting wood.

One day, on his way home through the wood, he found a poor little girl who had been carried away by an eagle, and left high up on the branch of a tree to die. He took the little girl home to his wife, and they called her Grethel, and brought her up with their only son, Hansel. But the wife died, and the woodcutter married again. After a little while he became very poor indeed, and could hardly earn enough money to buy bread.

One night as they were lying awake, weak from hunger, Hansel and Grethel heard their stepmother say to their father:

“In a few days we shall die of hunger. If we had only ourselves to keep we might manage to live. I know what we must do. Tomorrow morning we will take the children far into the forest and leave them there.”

“No, wife,” said the man. “How can I have the heart to leave my children alone in the forest for wild beasts to devour?”

But the hardhearted woman talked and talked until the poor man agreed to what she proposed.

Hearing this dreadful plan, Grethel wept bitterly. But Hansel comforted her.

“Do not cry, dear Grethel,” he said; “I will find a way to get home safely.”

He then got up quietly, crept out of the house, and filled his pockets with little white pebbles. At sunrise their stepmother wakened Hansel and Grethel, saying: “Get up, children! We are going into the forest to gather wood”; and she gave them two slices of bread for their dinner. Grethel carried both pieces in her apron, as Hansel’s pockets were full of pebbles.

As they went along, Hansel kept looking back, until at last his stepmother asked him sharply why he kept lingering and looking behind.

“I can see my little white cat sitting on the roof, and I am sure she is crying for me,” said Hansel.

“You stupid!” she replied. “It is only the sun shining on the chimney pot.”

When they reached the middle of the wood their stepmother said: “Run and collect twigs, and we will make a bonfire to keep warm.”

And Hansel and Grethel soon had a blazing bonfire of brushwood. Tired with their long walk, they fell asleep; when they woke up it was dark, and they were alone. Grethel began to cry bitterly; but Hansel said: “We shall be able to find our way home all right when the moon rises, because I dropped a white pebble every time I looked behind this morning.”

When they reached home they were scolded by their stepmother for straying away; but their father was pleased to see them come back safely.

Not long afterward, however, the same poverty came upon them, and the stepmother persuaded her husband to take the children much farther into the wood. The children again overheard the cruel scheme; but Hansel was unable to get a pocketful of stones because his mother bad locked the door. He bravely lingered behind, however, and dropped crumbs from his piece of bread all the way along.

“Why do you lag behind so, Hansel?” said the woman.

“I am looking at my little dove sitting on the roof to say good-bye to me,” replied Hansel.

“Silly!” said she. “It is only the morning sun shining on the housetop.”

Their parents left them when they were asleep, just as before. When they awoke Grethel said: “What are we to do, Hansel, for the night is coming on and we are much farther in the forest than we were last time?” Hansel replied: “Do not fear, dear Grethel; I have left all my bread in little crumbs on the wayside.”

So Grethel dried her eyes and shared her piece of bread with Hansel. When the moon rose they started off; but, to their alarm, they found that there were no crumbs to be seen. The birds had eaten them all up. They wandered about the forest all through the night and the next day, finding only berries to eat; but they could not find their way home, so they lay down and went to sleep.

About noon the next day they saw a lovely snow-whitebird sitting on a branch, and singing so beautifully that they listened to it for a long while. When it had finished singing it flew slowly away, looking round at the children as if inviting them to follow. This Hansel and Grethel did, and after a little while the bird perched on the roof of a tiny house.

To their surprise they found that the walls of this little house were made of gingerbread, the roof of cake and the windows of frosting.

“Oh! Something to eat at last!” cried the hungry Hansel. And the two children pulled pieces of gingerbread off the walls, and ate to their heart’s content. Suddenly came a voice from within: “Munching, crunching, munching,
Who is eating up my house?”

And the children answered: “The wind, the wind, ‘Tis only the wind ‘” and went on eating hungrily.

In a minute or two the door opened, and a little old woman hobbled out.

“Poor little children,” said she. “How tired and hungry you look! Come in with me, and I will give you plenty to eat and drink.”

The children followed her in, and had a meal of milk and pancakes and apples and nuts. And then she put them into two pretty little beds, and they fell asleep.

Now, the old woman was really a bad witch, who had built this gingerbread house to attract children, so that she could capture them and eat them. So when Hansel was asleep she took hold of him and quickly shut him up in an iron cage. Then she shook Grethel, and said: “Get up, lazy-bones, and help me get water and cook some food, for I am going to fatten your brother and eat him.”

After breakfast the old woman went out. Grethel immediately ran and told Hansel all the old woman had said.

“The old woman must be a witch,” said Hansel. “Search for her magic wand and pipe, and then help me out of this cage.”

So Grethel found the wand and pipe, and they ran away together. After some time the old witch came back, and was very angry to find that Hansel and Grethel had escaped. She put on her seven-league boots, and quickly caught up with the children.

As soon as she saw the witch, however, Grethel waved the magic wand, and changed herself into a lake, and Hansel into a swan floating on it. The witch tried hard to entice the swan to the shore by offering him crumbs of bread and cake, but he would not move, so she gave it up and went home in disgust. Grethel then changed Hansel and herself back into their proper forms, and on they went. Next day they saw the witch overtaking them again. This time Grethel changed herself into a rose in a prickly hedge, and Hansel sat on a mossy bank beside it and waited.

The witch soon came up and mounted the bank to pick the rose which she knew must be Grethel. Hansel quickly put the pipe to his mouth and began to play. Now, as it was a fairy pipe, everyone who heard its music had to dance, even the old witch, and there she capered and jigged, till she was fixed firmly into the hedge, where the sharp thorns tore her clothes off and pricked her skin.

Grethel freed herself and the children once more started for home, but, getting tired, they went to sleep in an old hollow tree.

In the morning when they awakened, the sun had risen high above the trees, and it was very hot. Little Hansel said: “Sister, I am very thirsty; if I could find a brook I would go and drink, and fetch you some water too. Listen! I think I hear the sound of one.”

Then Hansel rose up and took Grethel by the hand and went in search of a brook. But the witch had found out all that had happened, and was ready to do them harm. When they had found a brook that ran sparkling over the pebbles, Hansel wanted to drink, but Grethel thought she heard the brook, as it babbled along, say: “Whoever drinks here will be turned into a tiger.” Then she cried out: “Ah, brother, do not drink, or you will be turned into a wild beast and tear me to pieces.”

“I will wait,” said Hansel, “for the next brook.”

But when they came to the next, Grethel listened again, and thought she heard: “Whoever drinks here will become a wolf.”

Then she cried: “Brother, brother, do not drink, or you will become a wolf and eat me!”

So he did not drink, but said: “I shall wait for the next brook; there I must drink, say what you will, for I am so thirsty.”

As they came to the third brook, Grethel listened, and heard: “Whoever drinks here will become a fawn.”

“Ah, brother,” said she, “do not drink, or you will be turned into a fawn and run away from me!”

But Hansel had already stooped down upon his knees, and the moment he put his lips into the Water he was turned into a fawn.

Grethel wept bitterly over the poor creature, and the tears, too, rolled down his eyes as he laid himself beside her. Then she said: “Rest in peace, dear fawn; I will never leave you.”

So she took off her little bead necklace, and put it around his neck, and plucked some rushes and plaited them into a soft string to fasten it, and led the poor little thing by her side farther into the wood.

After they had traveled a long way they came at last to a little cottage; and Grethel having looked in and seen that it was empty, thought to herself, “We can live here.” Then she went and gathered leaves and moss to make a soft bed for the fawn, and every morning she went out and plucked nuts,. roots and berries for herself, and sweet shrubs and tender grass for her companion; and it ate out of her hand, and was pleased; and played and frisked about her. They lived thus a long while in the wood by themselves, till it chanced that the king of that country came to hold a great hunt there. And when the fawn heard all around the echoing of the horns, and the baying of the dogs, and the merry shouts of the hunts- men, he wished very much to go to see what was going on.

“Ah, sister,” said he, “let me go out into the wood. I can stay no longert”

And he begged so hard that at last she agreed to let him go.

“But,” said she, “be sure to come to me in the evening. I shall bar the door to keep out those wild hunts- men; and if you tap at it, and say: ‘Sister, let me in,’ I shall know you; but if you don’t speak, I shall keep the door fast.”

Then away sprang the fawn and frisked and bounded along in the open air. The king and his huntsmen saw the beautiful creature and followed, but could not overtake him; for when they thought they were sure of their prize, he sprang over the bushes and was out of sight in a moment.

As it grew dark he came running home to the hut, and tapped, and said: “Sister, sister, let me in.” Then she opened the little door, and in he jumped, and slept soundly all night on his soft bed of moss.
Next morning the hunt began again; and when he heard the huntsmen’s horns, he said: “Sister, open the door for me, I must go again.”

Then she let him out, and said: “Come back in the evening, and remember what you are to say.”

When the king and the huntsmen again saw the fawn with the beaded collar they chased him; but he was too quick for them. The chase lasted the whole day; but at last the huntsmen nearly caught up with him, and one of them wounded him in the foot, so that he could hardly crawl home. The man who had wounded him followed close behind, and hid himself, so that he heard the little fawn say: “Sister, sister, let me in.” Then the door opened, and shut again. The hunts- man went to the king and told him what he had seen and heard. The king replied: “To-morrow we shall have another chase.”

Grethel was very much frightened whe’i she saw that her dear little fawn was wounded; but she washed the blood away and put some healing herbs on it, and said: “Now go to bed, dear fawn, and you will soon be well again.”

The wound was so small that in the morning there was nothing to be seen of it, and when the horn blew, the little creature said: “I can’t stay here; I must go to look on.”

But Grethel said: “I am sure they will kill you this time; I will not let you go.”

“I shall die,” answered he, “if you keep me here. When I hear the horns, I feel as if I could fly.”

Then Grethel was forced to let him go; so she opened the door with a heavy heart, and he bounded out gaily into the wood.

When the king saw him, he said to his huntsmen: “Now chase him all day long till you catch him; but let none of you do him any harm.”

The sun set, however, without their being able to overtake him, and the king called away the huntsmen, and said to the one who had watched the fawn: “Now come and show me the hut.”

So they tapped on the door, and said: “Sister, sister, let me in.”

Then the door opened, and the king went in, and there stood a maiden more lovely than any he had ever seen. Grethel was frightened to see that it was not her fawn but a king with a golden crown. However, he spoke kindly:
“Will you come with me to my castle and be my wife?”

“Yes,” said the maiden. “But if I do, my fawn must go with me.”

“Well,” said the king, “he shall come and live with you, and want for nothing.”

Just at that moment in sprang the fawn, and his sister tied the string to his neck.

Then the king took Grethel to his palace, and celebrated the marriage in great state. And she told the king all her story; and he sent for the witch and punished her. And the fawn was changed into Hansel again, and he and his sister and the king lived happily together all their days.

The last division of the Tertiary system is known as the Pliocene period. It was during this period that the great land masses of the world took on forms much like those of the present day. Although the seas still covered many areas which are now dry land, the great bodies of water were gradually becoming less and less extensive. This is shown by the limited number of remains of Pliocene sea life which we find stored as fossils in the rocks of the period.

Vast mountain-making movements, which began in the Eocene period, continued during the Pliocene. In Europe, for example, the mighty Alps were still in the process of being formed. In North America the Rocky Mountain region and the eastern part of the continent were being elevated. Many of the famous volcanoes about which we have read, such as Mount Etna in Sicily, show signs of great activity during the Pliocene period. The geysers and bubbling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park are the result of the violent volcanic disturbances that occurred during the Pliocene period.

In a great many ways the animal life of the Pliocene period closely resembled that of to-day. In fact, some of our present-day animals have come down to us from that far-off age almost completely unchanged in form and structure. Hyenas, wolves, bears and bison roamed the countryside. Fleet- footed deer, the hipparion (the three-toed horse), and long-necked camels fled before the ferocious attacks of the sabre-tooth tiger. The hippopotamus, tapir, wild boar and rhinoceros were also present during the Pliocene period. The mastodon, the great elephant-like beast that appeared in the Miocene period, lived on into the Pliocene of Europe and disappeared only late in that age. In America he continued to exist on into the Pleistocene period that followed.

Pliocene deposits have revealed a few scant indications that man may have existed at that time. Among the best known of these remains are those of Pit Izecant hro pus erectus, found in Java in 1891, and Sinanthro pus pekinensis, or Peking man, found in China in 1929. These early men knew how to make fire; and certain stones found with their remains may have been formed into implements of various sort by hand. These stones are known as eoliths, or “dawn stones.” It is not altogether certain that they were worked by hand. They may have been given their shape by purely natural action.

Toward the close of the Pliocene period the climate gradually turned colder and colder, a sign that the next age of the earth’s history was approaching.

This next period, called the Pleistocene, was the first section of the Quaternary, iii which we are now living. It is distinguished by the remarkable climatic changes which occurred, transforming whole continents into fields of ice. For this reason it is often called the Ice Age.

The climate grew colder than it ever had before. The snow fell in great quantities and became packed into vast ice-sheets a mile or more thick. From Canada, Greenland and northern Europe these ice-sheets, or glaciers, slowly spread south. A great ice-sheet covered England, filled the basins of the North Sea and the Baltic, and extended through Middle Europe as far as Silesia, Galicia and Poland. Enormous glaciers filled the Alpine valleys, and descended from the Pyrenees into Spain, while glaciers penetrated even into the heart of France. Practically all of Canada was under an ice-sheet, at least two miles thick in places. In the United States the ice covered New England, New York, northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and most of the region between the Ohio and Missouri rivers. In the Far West there was another ice-sheet. The mountainous regions of South America and Asia were also covered.

All Living Things Fled before the Advancing Ice 

Animal and plant life was unable to stand the bitter cold brought on by the glaciers and began to move towards milder climates in the south. It is difficult to imagine plants moving, but they really can if they are given sufficient time. However, it is an extremely slow process.

These arctic conditions passed away and the climate grew warmer. The glaciers ceased to spread over the world.

Plants began to move northward to those lands in which they had once flourished. They were followed by the animals who were dependent upon the plants for their food supply. This climatic change was only temporary, however, and again a period of ice and snow set in. It seems indeed likely that there were several glacial periods separated by intervals of warmer climate; certainly there are indications that the ice and snow alternately advanced and retreated more than once before they finally retired to the North. They left behind them many signs of their great force.

Ice Sheets, Thousands of Feet Thick, Marched Over Europe

In Europe the great distributing centre of the ice and snow seems to have been Scandinavia. From the high table-lands there the ice advanced over Europe in all directions, but the ice-sheet covering Great Britain, though joined with the Scandinavian ice- sheet, was independent, and slid down its own mountains and valleys. In the Scottish Highlands the ice-sheet was tremendous, and filled up valleys and lakes and fords, accumulating to a height of 4,000 or 5,000 feet. Mountains 3,000 feet high, with deep lakes at their bases, show marks of ice up to their summits.

In Canada there seem to have been three separate sheets which ran together, called the Labrador, the Keewatin, and the Cordilleran sheets. All of them came down into the United States.

As all these enormous ice-fields and glaciers moved along they brought about considerable geological changes. Huge masses of moving ice ground up the rocks over which they passed, and converted their surface layers into a mixture of clay, sand and stones known as boulder clay. As they carried the boulder clay along with them the sand and stones acted like great sheets of emery paper, and still further ground down the rocks. The glaciers even scoured over the floors of seas and lakes, and carried shells of shellfish in their further journey overland.

How the Glaciers Carved the Face of the Earth

There can be no doubt that the moving ice-sheets wore down the rocks to a considerable extent. We find everywhere rocks scratched, eaten away, ad polished, and the great masses of boulder clay sugest that enormous destruction occurred. Not only were rocks worn down, but they were often broken off, crumpled and bent by the weight and pressure of the ice. Thousands of lakes in Canada and the United States owe their origin to the ice-sheets. On the other hand, many lakes which existed during the period have now disappeared. The Great Lakes, once larger than at present, are of glacial origin.

When the ice-fields and the glaciers melted they naturally gave rise to streams and torrents whose rushing water continued the work of destruction. The direction of many streams was changed. Many of the waterfalls which now furnish power go back to glacial times. How long since the ice-sheet receded we can only guess. Few scientists think it was less than twenty-five thousand years.

Man and His Struggle to Exist in a Hostile World

Through all these changes man persisted. Flints, tools and skeletal remains are found in Pleistocene deposits, showing that man made great progress during that period. He must have had a hard fight for his life, but he managed to survive. He had to fight not only the glaciers but also the many formidable animals that then roamed the world. In this period the English Channel and the Irish Sea and the North Sea were all dry land and Britain was joined to the continent. The whole of northwestern Europe was overrun with elephants, mammoths, the wooly rhinoceros and the hippopotamus. Bears and hyenas were particularly plentiful in England. There were also great herds of reindeer, elk, bison, red deer and wild horses. All these man must have fought and hunted, and in the caves of the IJordogne Valley in France are found the bones of reindeer, elk, bison and other animals killed and eaten by the cave-men of those days. Even mammoths and bears fell a victim to these early hunters, for their bones are also found in the cave larders.

As man became better acquainted with the world about him, he developed a more advanced culture. Great strides were made in the fields of religion, social organization and the arts. In some of the caves of Spain and France are found remarkably life-like drawings of the animals hunted by early man.

Other drawings hint at religious ceremonies and rituals. On pages 192 and 193 some of these drawings are reproduced.

For tools, weapons and other implements to help him in his daily life, man first used naturally-formed stones found in stream- beds and along the shore. Later he discovered that these stones could be made into more serviceable implements by shaping them artificially. To be sure, his first attempts were crude, but as time went on he learned to become quite expert at chipping beautiful knives, arrow-points, axes and many other useful articles from stone. Still later he learned to polish these implements until they almost looked as though they bad been shaped and finished by modern machinery.

With each forward step, man slowly but surely became master oxer the other animals that had ruled the earth before him for millions and millions of years.

The Pleistocene period shades gradually into what we call the Recent or Human Age, and all the time there have been changes and redistributions of life. The mammoth has disappeared from America, the sabre-tooth tiger has gone, the elephants have departed from Europe. Such changes are still slowly going on. The wolf, among other animals, is doomed to extinction; even races of men are disappearing. Some animals are increasing in numbers and others are changing their haunts and habits. In many cases the march of civilization, more than nature, is responsible for these changes.

The surface of the earth, though in its larger features much the same through the Quaternary, has also been changing. It is changing still; the mountains are still being worn down into the sea, and under the sea new mountain ranges may still be in the process of formation.

Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor

Suppose you are a boy or girl living on a farm remote from town. Only fifty years ago you would have been dependent upon the feeble and uncertain light of candles or kerosene lamps at the coming of nightfall. But now the wonderful electric light is at your beck and call. You have only to reach out your hand and turn a switch, and the room in which you are will be flooded with light. You will be able to read or write and play games by artificial light that rivals even the light of the lordly sun.

Perhaps you may wish to hear a great orchestra or violinist or singer. Your radio may not provide you with what you want, but it does not matter. You have but to select the proper phonograph record, place it on your phonograph or combination phonograph and radio, and soon you will be listening to the magnificent chords of the orchestra or the singing tones of the violin or the superb voice of a great soprano. You may even study a foreign language through phonograph records.

Perhaps it is Friday evening. Home lessons are laid aside, for you are going to a movie in the nearest town. For two hours or more you will be taken to places of interest in your own country or in one far distant; you laugh heartily over a comedy, or your heart aches over some sad, pathetic story. A great parade is held in a distant city, and within a few days the men and women will march down toward you on the picture screen. You see the launching of a proud ship, the forging of a giant anchor, a carnival held in New Orleans or in Rome, or perhaps a native wedding procession in faroff Bombay, or a football game at Yale. Here we are going to read something about the man to whom we owe the fact that our lives are so much richer than the lives of our grandfathers and grandmothers, or even our fathers and mothers when they were young.

Thomas Alva Edison worked out his inventions by known laws of science. He had studied these laws, so that he was able to apply them to make real the visions of his imagination. Yet he had few advantages and little help, and his story is one of those that inspire us to great effort to cultivate the talents that have been given to each one of us.

He was born in February, 1847, in the little village of Milan, in Ohio. His parents were poor because his father did not keep to a settled occupation. Mr. Edison senior had the same kind of mind as his wonder - working son - the kind of mind that is called versatile, that can turn easily from one thing to another. He had not learned, however, that it is wise for a man with a versatile mind to find out how to do one thing thoroughly before he turns to another, and so he was not successful.

Thomas Alva Edison was a quiet, thoughtful little boy, but very inquisitive and always wanting to know how things were done. He was not very strong, however, and was not sent to school until he was quite a big child. When he did go, his teacher, who does not seem to have been very wise, thought him stupid because he asked so many questions. So his mother, who had herself been a teacher, took him away from school at the end of two months and taught him at home. With so kind and loving a teacher he made rapid progress; and above all, he learned to think. His mother had some good books, which he learned to enjoy; and when he was ten years old he read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Hume’s History of England. About that time he began to study an encyclopedia. It was probably from the encyclopedia that he first learned to take an interest in chemistry and to make experiments.

Edison’s First Sample Laboratory 

By this time his parents, who had moved with him to Port Huron, Michigan, were able to indulge him in his love for making experiments. He bought some books, made a little laboratory in the cellar of his home, and there, by himself, with no teacher, laid the foundation of his knowledge of chemistry.

When he was twelve years old he decided to start out in life for himself, and he became a newsboy on the train which ran from Port Huron to Detroit. Such a newsboy had never been seen before. He was given a corner in the baggage car in which to keep his stocks of newspapers, magazines and candy. To this corner he moved his little laboratory and library of chemical books, and when he was not engaged in his business, went on with his experiments. Still time hung heavy on his hands, and to fill it up he bought a printing-press and type and published on the train a weekly newspaper filled with local news, stories of things that happened on the railway and notes of the markets. The trainmen and passengers were glad to buy the paper from this enterprising young publisher.

An Accident With Sad Consequences

All went well for two or three years. But when he was in his sixteenth year, one day a phosphorus bottle was jarred off one of his shelves and broke on the floor. It set fire to the baggage car, and in his anger at the danger to his train the conductor not only put the boy off the train, but soundly boxed his ears. That was the most unfortunate part of the accident, for as a result of the boxing Edison gradually lost his hearing and became almost totally deaf. His stock was lost, but an act of great bravery and presence of mind on his part brought to his aid a new resource and opened up a new field for him to work in.

He was standing one day on the platform of the depot at Mt. Clemens, Michigan, watching a train come in, when he saw the station agent’s little boy on the track right in front of the oncoming engine. Another moment and the child would have been crushed, but Edison sprang to the track, seized the little one in his arms, and rolled with him to one side, just in time to escape the wheels. To show his gratitude the baby’s father offered to teach Edison telegraphy. The offer was gratefully accepted, and now that his career as a train newsboy was closed, he turned to his new accomplishment as a means of making a living.

First Jobs in Telegraphy

He worked at telegraphy for some years, first in Port Huron, Michigan, thea at Stratford, Canada, and a little later in the western states, and finally in Boston. At the same time he spent all his spare moments studying chemistry and electricity and experimenting on improved telegraph apparatus. It was during these years that he first turned his attention to duplex telegraphy, but through no fault of his own he was unable to sell his invention, and the matter dropped for a time.

In 1869, when he was in his twenty second year, he went to New York. He arrived penniless in the City; but he was a good telegraph-operator, and was fearless of the future. And now a strange thing happened. He applied to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company for work, and while he was waiting for a reply part of the apparatus broke down. No one knew what was the matter, and everything was in confusion until Edison said he could set the machine at work again. Permission was given him to try, and at the end of two hours, work in the office was going on as if nothing had happened. Edison was asked if he would accept a position at a salary of three hundred dollars a month and, needless to say, he accepted.

Edison Sells His Telegraph Inventions 

In a little over a year Edison sold his telegraph inventions for a large sum of money; this enabled him to set up in business for himself. First he built a factory at Newark, New Jersey, for the manufacture of telegraph apparatus.

He gave up this factory in 1876, and set up a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey. Later this laboratory was moved to West Orange, New Jersey. His chief business now was making inventions. He gave employment to hundreds of workmen and his inventions made him famous the world over.

His first great invention was the quadruplex system of telegraphy.

The First Phonograph is Invented 

It was about the same time that he invented the phonograph. The idea of an instrument which would “write sound” and reproduce it had been thought of before by scientists, though it is doubtful if Edison knew of their efforts to make such an instrument. At any rate, he was the first to make an instrument which would work, and even he did not know that it would work until he heard it repeat the words that he shouted into it.

Edison patented his invention, which from the first excited the wonder of the world. Of course, like all first things, it was crude, and the sounds that it gave back were harsh. For the time he had to lay it aside, for he was busied with many other important projects. But others took it up, and from his parent idea the phonograph and other instruments were invented. Later on, when he had more leisure, Edison himself worked out a phonograph that gave back each beautiful vibration from voice or instrument.

Wonderful Improvements in Electric Lights

When electricity was first used for illumination only large arc-lights were used. The lamps sputtered and scattered sparks, and the light was so harsh that it could be used only for street-lighting and large buildings, such as factories, drill halls and the like. Such a thing as incandescent lights, which make possible the use of softly shaded lamps or indirect lighting in our homes, or brilliant illumination of concert halls and theatres, was not even thought of. For this work Edison put aside the work of his phonograph. He believed that a number of lights could be supplied from one distributing wire, and he believed that the light could be improved so that its use would be a common thing, so he invented the incandescent lamp, from which our modern light.ing has grown. He spent a couple of years over tH work, and to perfect his system improved dynamo machines, and invented a whole scheme of distributing electricity so that it might be used on a large scale for supplying light, heat and power.

Now we come to the moving pictures, where again Edison took up an idea which others had had before him. While it can not be said that Edison invented the moving pictures, he did work out the underlying principle on which they are based, insofar as motion is shown on a screen. The development of “sound” pictures came later and was worked out by others.

Some Other Industrial Inventions

Other inventions of his were hardly less wonderful. He invented the apparatus called the Giant Rolls, by means of which huge rocks could be reduced to fragments in a few seconds. He perfected a new type of storage battery, which did away with the lead and sulphuric acid of the old type. He increased the speed of cement manufacture with his “Long Kiln,” used in burning the mixture of cement material. His new method of cement pouring made it possible to pour the cement for a complete house in a few hours.

When World War I broke out, he found himself in danger of being cut off from his source of supply of carbolic acid for his factories at West Orange. He therefore devised a means of making it for himself. He also erected a number of plants for manufacturing products which formerly had been obtained from Europe.

Artificial Rubber from Goldenrod

During the last years of his life he was busied with the problem of producing synthetic, or artificial rubber. Finally, in 1930, he patented a process for extracting rubber from goldenrod. He died October x8, i9r, at the age of eighty-four.

We have mentioned here but a few of the numberless inventions of this wonderful man. An attempt was made, indeed, to estimate the value of these inventions. When the United States Congress awarded Edison its Gold Medal, it set the value of his contributions to mankind at $15,599,000,000. Any estimate of this sort is futile. It is enouch to say that few men have done so much to make life more complete for countless millions.

Shortly before the death of this great man another important inventor, Henry Ford, established near Dearborn, Michigan, a museum known as Edison Institute. Among the memorials to Edison that it contains is his original laboratory, moved from Menlo Park.