rates as a base of comparison with the charges of private companies instead of com paring the cost of a standard are per year in a public plant with the cost of a standard arc per year in a private plant under similar conditions of production, as an unscientific person would be apt to do rather than spend a couple of weeks writing down guesses at schedules and ciphering out mysterious and irresponsible hour rates to four places of decimals, so as to forget that the said hour rates are based on guesses and proceed to draw inferences from them that never could be obtained from the simple, undifferentiated, unmystified, unsophisticated cost per arc per year. The public plants included in Mr. Foster's investigation are in every part of the country from Maine to California under all sorts of conditions as to output and length of run, cost of labor and power, but Mr. Foster says nothing about said relations of cost (except the general remark that in more than half of these places a private plant could probably not be made to pay), and selects a lot of places in New York state, nestling near the coal fields, pairs them off by population with the public plants-underground system against overhead, little street plants against commercial plants, stations with tremendous investment (9473 per arc in the case of Alameda, Cal., which counts pretty fast at 13 per cent), and $5 or $6 coal, against stations with low investiment and $2 ooal; and then, without making any allowance for differences of condition, sums up his groups, takes the average on each side, and announces that "The result is somewhat surprising, as there is a difference of twenty per cent in favor of the private companies." As already remarked (p. 94 of the ARENA for September, 5), if the manifestly unjust comparisons are omitted Mr. Foster's tables result in favor of publie ownership in spite of the odds arising from Mr. Foster's overestimate of fixed charges, reckless guessing at hours, and special selection of private plants, which was probably not done with any intent to color the truth, but simply because the figures in respect to New York are easily attainable. It does seem strange, however, that Mr. Foster should have any confidence in results that rest so largely on the estimated schedules, reliance on which is expressly disclaimed by him.

Valid comparisons and useful averages are plentiful enough, and it is best to conAne ourselves to them. If we find that Py paid $185 a lamp last year, and this year gets the same service or better from its own plant at a total cost of $62 per lamp, while the rates of private companies not affected by the growth of publio ownership remain substantially the same as last year, we may conclude with reasonable cer tainty that public ownership has resulted in a saving of about two-thirds of the former cost per lamp in Py. If we find that S gets a 2,000-candle-power lamp burning all night and every night for $75 a year on a contract fair to all parties, while B, Y, and P pay $146 to $180 for the same or lower service, and on studying the conditions of production in S, B, Y, and P discover that the difference in cost of produation between S and the other cities is little or nothing we may conclude that B, Y, and P pay more than they ought, more than they would if they had as much wisdom as 8 and used it upon their street-lighting contracts. If we find two cities with practically identical conditions, and one makes a standard are for $46 a year, while the other pays $146 per standard are, we may conclude that the latter pays about $100 per lamp more than if it managed the business for itself as skilfully as the former city does. If we find one city paying $100 a year for an all-night sub-arc on a fair contract, and another paying $182 a year for the same service, and learn that the difference in conditions of production is decidedly in favor of the latter, we may conclude that it is losing more than $82 a year on each lamp. If we find in one city a fair profit at $87 a year for a standard are with 50 lamps, coal at $2.58, etc., and another city paying $127 a standard arc with 488 lamps, coal at $3, etc., and having allowed for all important differences of condition we ascertain that the cost of producing a standard arc in the latter city is 87 a year less than in the former, we may conclude that the $127 should be reduced to $80. On these and other methods that seem to us to conform to the laws of scientific reasoning we have placed our trust in this report.

NOTE 4.--ERRATA.

Page 396 ARENA for May, 1895, twenty-second line from top, "2 cents" should be 2 cents. Page 129 ARENA for June, Table IX, San Francisco $148 should be San Francisco $200.

Page 389 ARENA fór August, fourth line from the top, "full arcs" should be sub

arcs.

THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE.

BY B. O. FLOWER.

To the casual observer the. life of Sir Thomas More presents so many contradictions that it will prove an enigma unless he is acquainted with the type of individual to which the philosopher belonged; the cold, calculating intellect little understands, much less appreciates, a mind so profoundly sensitive to the varied and multitudinous influences of environment as that of the author of "Utopia." His brain received and reflected the complex and frequently opposing influences of his wonderful time as did the mind of no other man of his epoch. His intellect was largely swayed by the thought-waves which beat upon the brain of his century with a force and persistency hitherto unknown. He felt most keenly, and with a sympathy for both, the struggle between the old and the new. But he also felt the higher and diviner thought-waves-those subtle influences which inspired Angelo, and drove with tireless energy the brush of Raphael. He was a man of vivid imagination, but, true to the spirit of his country at this age, the divine afflatus which came to him awakened the ethical nature, while in sunny Italy, it spoke to the artistic impulses.

In great transition periods there are always a few children of genius, who hear something higher than the din and tumult below-lofty souls who hear a voice calling them to ascend the mountain of the ideal and catch glimpses of the coming dawn; these chosen ones bear messages from the Infinite to humanity. They behold the promised land from the heights, and they return with a word and a picture; but to the careless rich, the frivolous, the poor, who are absorbed in self, to the slow-thinking and the slaves to intellectual conventionalism, their messages are as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. They who speak of peace, progress and happiness through altruism usually find that they have spoken in an unknown tongue to prince and pauper. But their messages are not in vain; the true word once given will not return barren. It touches some awakened intellects, it kindles a fire which burns brighter and brighter with each succeeding generation. The ideal once given becomes an inspiration. The prophet is the annunciator of the

Infinite. The eternal law of justice and progress, when once more broadly and truly stated, sits in judgment on individuals, societies and nations.

The philosopher when upon the mountain of the ideal receives truths larger and more potential for good than aught man has before conceived. But when he returns to earth, that is to say when he is jostled by the positive thoughts of masterful brains, when he is confronted by dominant ideas struggling to maintain supremacy in the empire of thought, he is in peril; that which was a blessing upon the mount becomes a dirge in the valley, for unless he is great enough to hold steadfastly to the high new truth, and rise above sensuous feeling, personal ambition and innate prejudices, he is liable to yield to the psychic forces in the atmosphere below. Then he falls, and the fall is pitiful, for after calling the world to judgment by a great new ideal of truth, he rejects the divine message which he has uttered, and by it is condemned. Painful to relate, this was, I think, to a great degree true of Sir Thomas More, as we shall presently see.

But the point I wish to illustrate just now is the liability on the part of historians and biographers to misjudge persons who are profoundly sensitive, endowed with a wealth of imagination, but who also possess deep-rooted convictions-men who love the good in the old, and yet who yearn for the new; those who in moments of ecstasy speak for the ages to come, but when oppressed by the fear and prejudice which environ them, reflect the dominant impulses of the old. Without a clear understanding of the mental characteristics of such natures, it will be impossible to understand, much less sympathize with, the noblest and most far-seeing English philosopher of his age.

Sir Thomas More was born when the twilight of mediavalism was paling before the dawn of modern times. Feudalism had lived its day; there were everywhere the signs of a coming storm. The conditions of the poor had grown most pitiful. The ambition of kings had received a strange new impulse; the superior rulers surged forward toward absolute power, with a confidence and recklessness which cowed the feudal lords. The popes, as we have seen. in many instances were secular potentates rather than spiritual fathers. Dreams of conquest swelled in the breasts of those born to the ermine, those who had risen to the scarlet cap, and those who had carved out position and power by the possession of military genius and daring, aided by the fortunes of war. But while the anarchy of

feudal brigandage was giving way before a more centralized and, in a way, orderly rule, while kings were engrossed with plans for personal aggrandizement, scholars, scientists, and skilled artisans were intoxicated by an intellectual stimulation seldom if ever equalled in the history of the race. Some were revelling in the rediscovered treasures of ancient Greece; some were brooding over the wonder-stories of the far East. Artists and sculptors were transferring to canvas and marble the marvellous dreams which haunted their imagination. Gutenberg had recently invented the printing press, Copernicus was interrogating the stars, and another profound dreamer was gazing upon the western ocean with a question and a hope-the one which would not be silenced, the other so big as to appear wild and absurd to the imagination of small minds. At this momentous time, when the clock of the ages was ringing in the advent of an epoch which should mark a tremendous onward stride in the advance of humanity—at this time when change was written over every great door of thought or research throughout civilization, Sir Thomas More was born.

At an early age he was sent to St. Anthony's School in London; afterward he entered the home of Cardinal Morton as a page; here his fine wit and intellectual acuteness greatly impressed the learned prelate, who on one occasion remarked, "This child here waiting on the table will prove a marvellous man." On the advice of the cardinal, young More was sent to Oxford University, where a strong friendship grew up between the youth and Colet. At Oxford Thomas More learned something of Greek. From this college his father removed him to New Inn that he might perfect himself in law; still later he entered Lincoln Inn, where he continued his studies until he was ready for admission to the bar.

Shortly before Thomas More entered Oxford, England began to respond to the intellectual revolution which had enthused the advanced scholarship of the Continent. In a few years, thanks to a few bold, brave men, Great Britain was convulsed with a religious and intellectual revolution which struck terror to the old-school men and the conventional theologians. In 1485 Linacre and Grocyn visited Italy, where they diligently studied under some of the great masters who were making Florence the most famous seat of culture in Europe. Linacre was tutored by Poliziano. In 1493 Colet visited Italy and came under the influence of Pico della Mirandola and Savonarola. These three scholars returned to England, fired with moral and intellectual enthu

siasm and touched by the dawning spirit of scientific inquiry. Linacre and Grocyn taught Greek at Oxford; later, the former founded the College of Physicians of London. Colet broke away from the scholastic methods of mediævalism and startled England no less by his handling the New Testament in a plain, common-sense way than by his plea for a purified church. Later he proved how deep were his convictions and how sincere his desire for a higher and truer civilization, by devoting the fortune left him by his father to the founding of St. Paul's Latin Grammar School, where children were to receive kind consideration instead of being subjected to the brutal treatment which characterized the education of that time,* and where, under the wisest and most humane teachers, "the young might," as the founder expressed it, "proceed to grow." In this noble innovation Colet laid the foundation for that rational and popular system of education which has grown to such splendid proportions throughout the English-speaking world, and which probably finds its most perfect expression in the publicschool system in the United States.

We now come to a passage in the life of Thomas More, which calls for special notice, as it illustrates the intensity of his religious convictions even when a youth. Had the philosopher been born a few years earlier, in all probability he would not only never have written "Utopia," but we should doubtless have found him among the foremost enemies of the new order. Throughout his life he ever exhibited a divided love. The new learning and the spirit of the dawn wooed and fascinated him until he paused long enough to realize how rapidly the old was falling away, then a great fear came upon him lest the church should go down and civilization degenerate into barbarism. He was by turns the most luminous mind among the philosophers of the dawn, and the most resolute defender of conventional religion. In this he reflected the varying intellectual atmosphere which environed his sensitive and psychical mind, and which sprang from ideas and influences which challenged his confidence or coincided with his convictions. When he completed his education he and William Lilly (afterward head master of the Latin Grammar School founded by Colet) determined to forswear the world and become monks. For four years they dwelt at Charterhouse, subjecting themselves to the most severe discipline, scourging their bodies on Friday, wearing coarse hair shirts next

*Youths were brutally beaten at that time at school; it being an all but universally accepted precept that "Boys' spirits must be subdued."- Maurice Adams.