yard is not large, but within its limits has existed at times a veritable Prussian autocracy. This happily is not the case at present, but there is nothing except the sanity of the superintendent to prevent it.

When a recent superintendent came to the Academy almost the first person he met in a stroll about the yard was the chief of the labor gang.

'What's your job?' demanded the admiral.

'I'm boss of the labor gang, sir,' was the straightforward reply.

'You're boss, are you? Well, let me tell you that in this place there is only one boss, and I am that. Understand?'

Whenever such bossism has existed at the Naval Academy in the past, the inevitable result has been to breed a spirit of subserviency such as one can scarcely find in any other institution of learning within the United States. I have known times when personal independence in small matters or big was permitted to only one man; when to walk humbly before the superintendent became the creed of all who would find life within the Academy yard even passably agreeable; when junior officers who happened to incur the displeasure of the superintendent suddenly found themselves ordered to some distant station; when instructors who dared to evince a modicum of personal spirit were compelled to resign. Thus this great, splendidly equipped, elaborately furnished institution, which ought to be the breeding place of independent thought, simple democracy, and the best American idealism, may, and sometimes has, become a harborage of lick-spittle humility, such as tends to sap one's natural genius as an iron ring around a branch chokes the fibrous growth. Leadership in any institution undoubtedly should be vested in one person, but unless it is tempered by a decent

respect for the feelings and opinions of others it is not true leadership. Naval Academy superintendents have not always been leaders of the highest type.

Under the trying conditions which at times obtain it would seem as if the Naval Academy would scarcely attract civilian educators of a very high grade. In fact, a former superintendent is reported to have said: 'No civilian of any real ability would come to the Academy to teach.' If he meant by this remark that the character of the instruction given to the midshipmen was such as did not require any unusual ability, it was a sad commentary on the Academy as a national school. At any rate the remark well illustrates the traditional naval point of view, which is that the Academy, being only a training school, requires neither scholarship nor professional skill nor experience in the faculty, but mainly the presence of men in uniform able to maintain the Spartan discipline. And, as young men can do that as well as old men, only youthful officers are ever sent to the Academy to carry on classroom work. Officers of any considerable rank and experience never do any teaching there. The natural consequence is that the profession of pedagogy is not really held in high repute at the Academy, and the civilian professor, who is devoting his life to the work, is not usually regarded as of much importance in the scheme of things.

It is therefore an easy step to the belief that no man of ability would come to the Academy to teach, and that those who do come are not men of ability or they would go somewhere else. Hence the civilian teachers on the faculty occupy a rather humble sphere. Call them instructors, professors, or what you will, they are generally regarded by the ranking officers at the Academy as necessary appendages, perhaps, but as little more than that.

They are subjected to all the petty annoyances of a military society, but are granted few of its compensations. At most of the social and academic gatherings they take, or are given, a back seat. Their names are printed in the annual Academy register frequently without their academic degrees, although after every officer's name appears his U.S.N. University degrees seem to have but little significance at the Naval Academy. Neither age nor experience nor literary or scholastic accomplishment receives decent recognition. The most accomplished scholar ever attached to the English department, a man of genuine literary ability, who had done more for the study of naval history, for example, than had all the rest of the force put together, was in June 1924 forced out of the Academy because he had somehow incurred the personal ill will of the reigning superintendent; and that, too, after a service of twenty-one years.1

Thus the position of the members of what we might call the educative force at the Academy, as distinguished from the training force, is often belittling and unhappy. Only by cultivating a certain callousness to the slights and those 'spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes' can an educator retain any marked degree of self-respect. Much of the recognition that his ability and services at a university should bring him is withheld. Indeed, what he does of a nonintellectual, nonprofessional character seems to be regarded as of more importance than his scholastic accomplishments or his work as a teacher. So we have the rather unedifying spectacle of professors in mathematics, English, and modern

1 The hostility of the superintendent was incurred by the professor's contributing to the Atlantic two articles critical of the navy and its traditions. See the Atlantic for November 1918 and March 1919.-THE EDITORS

languages putting in most of their spare time outside of the classroom coaching officers' bowling teams or midshipmen's tennis and track athletics. And these activities have in more than one case undeniably had their professorial rewards!

III

on

Educational ideals are apparently not high at our Naval Academy. Greater emphasis seems to be laid on outward appearances than inward graces. A well-known Maryland jurist, long familiar with the Academy, once said to me: 'It is a good thing for a boy to spend a year or two at the Academy. He learns to say "Sir," is taught to keep his nails clean and the soap out of his ears, and to know the value of a fresh collar once in a while.' The indictment underlying this sarcasm is strong, to say the least, but it shows that to thinking, observing people, who see beneath the glamour of the uniform, our great national school is stressing the unimportant over the important things of life. A department chief who can place a newly reaped chin above the glories of Shakespeare is no slight evidence of that fact.

I have said that the Naval Academy is regarded mainly as a training school. It may be that this is what we wish it to be rather than a national university. It may be that, while Yale, Harvard, and other great institutions continue to stress broad scholarship, we shall continue to be satisfied to have our Naval Academy magnify the importance of the classroom mark and the shaven chin. But if we wish this school to sow in the minds of its students the seeds of a liberal culture as well as to give them a certain readiness to adapt hand and brain to material ends; if, to put it bluntly, we wish the Naval Academy to take equal rank

with other American institutions of learning in the classroom as well as on the gridiron and in the ballroom, then certain changes in administration and method should be adopted.

A more fixed and more stable policy should obtain at the Academy. A constant shifting of administrative heads can scarcely benefit any institution. Being a naval school, it should be under naval control, but the officers chosen for duty there should be men with especial fitness for it; they should not be selected on the present hit-or-miss plan. To transfer a man from the deck of a battleship to a college classroom for a few months and expect him to do efficient educational work there is about as fatuous a policy as could be devised. It seems worse, perhaps, to place him in a position to supervise such work. Yet this is exactly our policy at the Naval Academy to-day, and it always has been.

Furthermore, the Academy should never be a one-man institution. Its head should be a capable administrator, never a dictator; and broad-minded directorship, when found, should be given some permanency there. The superintendency of the Naval Academy should be such as to encourage independent thought and scholarly ambition, never the subserviency which has certainly vitiated the atmosphere in times past. It should stimulate activity on the part of midshipmen and instructors through ambition rather than through fear.

The cultural education of the men who are to represent us in the ports of the world should be given more serious attention than at present; it should be considered at least as important as the physical training, not less so. In the two great English naval schools the subjects of English, modern languages, and history continue through the four years; with us they practically cease at

the end of the second year, and much of the work in these subjects meanwhile is of the preparatory-school order.

Then, too, the teaching body at the Academy should be an educative force, not a mere group of umpires to call strikes and outs. The more professional departments al departments - seamanship, navigation, discipline, and others should be controlled wholly by naval officers. Unquestionably the naval officer can bring to the midshipman out of his practical experience that which no civilian can bring, and much that the midshipman needs. On the other hand, the departments of English, modern languages, mathematics, and possibly the more technical departments of physics, electricity, and steam engineering, should as surely be filled by universitytrained teachers, men who have chosen teaching for their life work and who represent the best cultural and educational ideas of the times. And the members of the civilian corps should be given more permanency; they should not be regarded as temporary appendages, hired from year to year. A professorship at the Academy should mean in both honor and emolument what such a position means in the best universities. To-day it means little except salary. Indeed, if a professor occupies himself outside of the classroom in serious reading or doing some useful work calculated to make himself a better teacher and citizen, instead of playing golf or tennis or bridge whist or coaching midshipmen's athletics, he is likely to be looked upon askance. It would seem as if university ideals in education should prevail at the Academy, not preparatory-school notions.

Moreover, the Academy should be divorced from politics, as are the English naval schools. It is hard to see how this can be done absolutely, since the institution is one of the playthings of Congress, but an effort should be

made to minimize political influence over it as much as possible. Appointments to the Academy are still frequently given to curry political favor or to pay a political debt, and rumors that appointments can be purchased for money, and have been purchased, will not down. Political influence has not yet ruined the Academy, but to my certain knowledge it has at times kept slack and unable boys there month after month to the exclusion of possibly worthier ones.

Finally, the ambitions of the midshipmen should be stimulated above the acquisition of marks and the attainment of social and naval rank. In

other words, let the Naval Academy strive to educate in the highest sense, to give its students at least the groundwork of a broader and a sounder culture and a keener vision of life's realities, as well as a disciplined hand and brain; and with its material equipment and noble traditions it should become a splendid model for other institutions to follow. American colleges to-day may be said to educate their students without disciplining them very much; the Naval Academy disciplines its students extremely well, but I question if it gives them that broad knowledge which their profession demands.

THE Commonwealth Government of Australia is building, on a virgin site in the bush, a Federal Capital which is to be the most beautiful garden city in the world. This new city has begun its career under most favored conditions, although there was a great deal of political wirepulling before the site was finally selected by the Commonwealth Parliament. Within the limitations fixed by the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth it is an ideal site. It is in the east of Australia, in the State of New South Wales, about 80 miles from the coast, 35 degrees south of the equator and 149 degrees east of Greenwich. It lies in an amphitheatre of hills, with an outlook toward the north and the northeast.

The average altitude above sea level is 1800 feet. The site consists of gently undulating country, and prominent hills of moderate altitude have been reserved in the plan of the city for the erection of public buildings. The chief eminence has been named Capitol Hill, and there, in imitation of Washington, the Parliamentary buildings will be erected. A 'temporary' building in which the Commonwealth Parliament will meet for the first time in May next, when the seat of Government will be formally transferred from Melbourne to the new city, has just been completed at a cost of $2,500,000. This two-story structure is built of stone and will last for a hundred years, but it is officially regarded as temporary,

because the intention of the Government is to erect in the distant future, on the opposite side of Capitol Hill, a more costly and beautiful building as the permanent home of the Commonwealth Parliament.

The name of Australia's new Federal Capital is Canberra. The accent in the name has been officially placed on the first syllable, to preserve the aboriginal sound of the word; but for some years Australians have been accustomed to place the accent on the second syllable, and it is by no means certain that the official edict will triumph over custom.

Building operations have been carried out on the site for six years, but progress has been comparatively slow, and it will be many years before the city becomes a place of any importance apart from its official status. Its population at present is less than 5000, and more than half consists of workmen engaged in building houses, making streets, laying down water supply, electric light, and sewerage, and laying out public parks and gardens.

But, despite its small size and its unfinished condition, Canberra will become, next May, the capital of Australia. The Duke of York will formally open the first session of Parliament on May 9, 1927. He will make the voyage from England to Australia in the British battleship Renown, and the transfer of the seat of Government from Melbourne - with a population of 900,000 to Canberra will be carried out with much stately ceremony. Owing to the small size of the new city, the accommodation available on this occasion will be sufficient to provide only for the numerous official guests. Members of the general public who desire to attend will have to camp in tents and provide their own meals.

In opening the first session of Parliament at the new seat of Government, the Duke of York will be

following in the footsteps of his father, who exactly twenty-six years before, when he was Duke of York, inaugurated the federation of the six Australian States by opening the first session of the first Commonwealth Parliament in Melbourne.

Although Parliament will continue to meet at Canberra every year, ministers will continue, for some years to come, to carry out much of their official work in Melbourne when Parliament is in recess. A first batch of civil servants, numbering about 600, will be transferred to Canberra early in 1927, in time to get settled down to work before the opening of Parliament in May. The Federal Capital Commission, which is invested with the responsibility of building the city and of controlling its affairs, will have at least 500 new houses ready by the time the influx begins. Civil servants will have the option of purchasing these houses from the Commission for cash, or on terms extending over twenty-five years. Those who do not wish to purchase houses will be able to rent them from the Commission. Those who prefer to build their own houses and employ their own architects to design them will be able to obtain sites from the Commission on lease; but no house or building of any kind may be erected until the design has received the approval of the Commission.

The Commission has built twentyseven different standard types of houses, and in order to prevent residential streets from presenting an appearance of monotonous regularity no street will contain a row of houses of the same type. The rents will range from $4.50 a week for a four-roomed cottage, suitable for a workman and his family, up to $15 a week for a better house of seven rooms, suitable for civil servants who have incomes of upward of $4000 a