them, and proves his mastery by his answers on the test examination blank which accompanies each paper, he returns them to the schools to be checked and corrected by the teachers. All errors are carefully marked, difficult points made clear and letters of explanation written as often as required.

In order that no defect in his tools may handicap their student, the International Correspondence Schools furnish with the chemical scholarship a full laboratory outfit; the electrical courses include testing and demonstrating apparatus; drawing students get full sets of fine drawing instruments and materials.

The International Correspondence Schools first introduced the phonograph in teaching modern languages to pupils at a distance. The student of French, German or Spanish is furnished an improved Edison phonograph accurately reproducing the conversation made on the wax by the native French, German or Spanish professor. The student recites on blank cylinders furnished by the schools so that really the "natural

method" of teaching a language has been adapted to correspondence.

Every year the International Correspondence Schools have grown greater in enrollment, equipment and methods. The growth was comparatively slow up to 1896. Then the success of the method had been proved by the success of the graduates and increase took place by leaps and bounds. In 1896 the schools had only 8,500 pupils; in 1897 they had 35,000; in 1901, 262,000. At present they have 420,000 pupils and new ones are coming in at a rate of 10,000 a month.

The strangest and quite the most interesting department of the work of the International Correspondence Schools is the method of giving instruction to railway employes in the practical operation and management of locomotives and air-brake and train apparatus. In addition to the regular correspondence, stereopticon lectures and air-brake demonstrations are conducted in private instruction cars. Each car is fitted with a steam boiler, and air pump and a full air-brake equipment for a six-coach pas

OF BRAKE VALVES

senger train. The railroads haul these cars without expense to schools OF students, in order to encourage their employes to better their practical knowledge; and the I. C. S. is now conducting railroad instruction on seventy railroads of the United States. There is a constant demand

for the graduates of this great school.

IT was a bitter cold afternoon in December. The blizzard had already delayed street cars on Huntington avenue in Boston. A business appointment had called me up that way, wrapped in a heavy ulster, and my thoughts went out to the thousands who must have been suffering from cold, owing to empty coal bins and the scarcity and high price of fuel. As the bitter winds stung my ears, these reflections made my nerves tingle with indignation. Stray thoughts passed through my mind as I ploughed through the piling snow drifts as to what are, after all, the things really worth while in this life. Is it really the desire for wealth and comforts, necessities and luxuries that impels us on and on in this maddening chase for gold, chattels and distinction? Is it the fascination of the chase, as with the huntsman and hounds, or is it just the impelling force to liquidate our already discounted anticipations? The trolley wires whirred in the storm, and the stray pedestrians on the street scurried along the lee side, as if to dodge the snowy squalls sweeping up and down the

avenue.

In front of Symphony Hall I saw a battalion of musical students - young men and bright American girls-braving

the storm to attend the Friday afternoon Symphony concert. For a moment I stopped to look at this Mecca of musicians and the impulse came upon me to stop and enter, as I would a cathedral, for a moment of rest from the battle with the blizzard and business flurries. What! An American business man to stop while it is yet day and waste time on music? Visions of the satires upon long haired, pink tea poets and one of Editor Bok's "cissy" men came before me. Well, I paid the twenty-five cents to a sad faced and chilly door-keeper and passed within the portals of Symphony Hall in broad daylight. The curtain hoods drawn over the windows shut out the lowering grayness of the storm. The rectangular hall, with its long double decked balconies rail-topped with red, suggested the saloon decks of fairy steamers, and the great organ back of the Symphony's ever faithful "old guard" loomed up like a giant steam radiator defying all the terrors of polar currents. Conductor Gericke, with a characteristic jerk of his head and subtle motions which flashed electric response from string, reed and drum, was rushing the accelerando on the close of Listz's symphonic poem. The rich harmony transported me. The dozen classic statues in the niches overhead appeared to blink

sympathetic approval. The audience included the business man, professional man, the clerk and working man, the young women students from the New England Conservatory across the way, stenographers, society leaders-rich and poor-all devout music lovers. Here were two following an elaborate conductor's score with keen interest; others looking up a reference in some book descriptive of the number. Closing my eyes for the last number.it seemed to me I had never heard so inspiring and fascinating a tale told as Beethoven's Eroica. The work, written in 1802, was dedicated to Napoleon, and what a prophetic life story it told! funeral march, to me, could suggest nothing else but those closing days at St. Helena. In that brief thirty minutes the tragedy of the Little Corporal was presented as no words or printed page could present it.

The

Beethoven is truly the Shakespeare of music. Every phase of the human intellect and emotions seemed within his grasp, and one does not have to go further to discover the fountain-head of

Wagner's inspiration. Over the stage in Symphony Hall, on a gilded lyre, is the name Beethoven-and most appropriately placed.

I

This symphony brought back those early days when a sainted mother gave me the first lessons on the violin. loved the music, but oh, the drudgery of mastering six positions and conquering an obstinate and weak fourth finger. And the desire to play "tunes" rather than exercises and Beethoven's sonatas. With the tips of my fingers indented. from many hours of practice, and bow arm aching from the exactions of "down bow" on the first of every measure, it was reward enough to win her smile of approval. After she had retired I would play-even the scraping seemed to lull

her-but let a false tone come, or a skip and slide on a difficult passage, and there was a word of admonition from her chamber. It was years after that I realized a sincere love for the music of Beethoven. But it all came to me as I better comprehended life's meaning and its purposes. In that symphony clustered the sweet memories of mother; in that symphony there was a revelation of the things really worth while.

As I was leaving the Massachusetts avenue entrance, dazed and under the spell of the occasion, a kindly bystander reminded me that I was going out with my overcoat on—hat missing. I went back for it, two flights up. The oval glass window panes in the red doors leading to the balconies seemed like glittering giant eyes in the softened light. The players had gone; the great auditorium was nearly deserted; but still there seemed to linger an echo, an inaudible refrain of the great symphony Eroica, which had vibrated in that space only a short time before. The spirit of worship came over me, and I meditated a prayer "Help me to do something every day to make some one else happier and fill my life with those things worth while."

The Childrens' Hospital is near by, and I went. It would not do to tell you all that happened. There were the bright faces-a symphony of human love and affection. They simply filled my heart to overflowing with love for human kind and made me feel that I had done very little in life in cultivating the real things worth while. They brought to mind a little face and form that used to be in our home, and was taken away. Then I called on an elderly lady-bed-ridden. It was only for a few minutes, and a little book and a symphony program was all I left, but

what a light of pleasure shone from her eyes! Then she told me how, with those withered hands, she had played Beethoven, and attended symphonies in the old music halls; and when I told her of my afternoon it was her suggestion that I write it for you. Then an old bed-ridden sea captain-just a minute-but his hearty good cheer was refreshing. Then a telephone from the office. A hundred dictated and unsigned letters will miss the mail-let them catch the next. I went back to the office with an inspiration for a New Year's resolution. In

less than four hours on a blizzard day I had won more real happiness than I could express. And the sum resultant of it all is, that no matter what my shortcomings may be in other ways - no matter how the human frailities may give way under vexations of business, I am going to try to do some good to at least one person every day in 1903, and as long as I live one concrete attempt will be entered daily in the life ledger. Moreover, I mean to give more time to music-the music that stirs and inspires -and to all other things "worth while."