cave chapels of Tung-Hwang, where he secured the eighth- and ninth-century frescoes that were the goal of the pilgrimage and, in addition, a sacred figure of great antiquity and value. The expedition achieved its end, but the way was one that none save the genuine prosecutor of research would willingly set out upon. It called for energy, for endurance, and for courage beyond the ordinary, and for an unshakable confidence in the value of the goal. The Warner expedition constitutes a notable vindication of the faith and the high courage of the scholar.

An Author of the Limberlost

IN THE streets of Los Angeles, on December 6th, a trolley car crashed into the limousine of Gene Stratton-Porter, the novelist, with fatal results. Her death will be mourned by a multitude. In the last twenty years, Mrs. Porter had written ten novels that have sold, in all, slightly more than ten million copies, a popularity almost unrivaled among modern authors.

Born on an Indiana farm, of a father who was famed throughout the countryside for his ability to quote the Bible, and of a mother who had the gift of flower magic in her fingers, Gene Stratton-Porter spent her early days on the banks of the Wabash. As a girl she hated being shut up in school droning over lessons, and often, playing truant, wandered through the fields and deep woods of the Limberlost country. Her schooling was scant, but she loved books and determined to be a writer. This ambition was delayed, when at a somewhat youthful age she married Charles Darwin Porter, a druggist and bookseller.

But still, in the spare time of keeping a house of fourteen rooms, with no servants, making her daughters' clothes, and cooking and washing dishes three times a day, she kept at her writing and also mastered the art of photography. In due time some of her photographs of the birds and butterflies of the Limberlost country were accepted by an Eastern magazine and soon little natural history stories from

her pen, illustrated by pictures caught by her camera, began to appear in various periodicals.

But Mrs. Porter realized that she could never reach the public that she wanted with her purely natural history studies, so she set about writing a novel that she called "Freckles," a "nature story sugar coated with fiction." She submitted the book to a publisher, and three editors told her to "cut the nature stuff" or the book wouldn't sell. But the story appeared as Mrs. Porter had written it, and for three years the editors were right. Then, with a rush, the public discovered the story, and now, twenty years after, "Freckles' is fast approaching its two millionth copy.

Mrs. Porter followed "Freckles" with a book of natural history. Although many editors made flattering and lucrative offers for her fiction, she held herself to a plan of writing one book of natural history between every two novels. In due time the novels, "Laddie," "A Girl of the Limberlost," and "The Harvester" appeared, and their sale was enormous. In England one of her novels sold more than half a million copies during the war years, and all her books were translated into many languages.

Having made a small fortune from her pen and at an age when she might well have retired and enjoyed the rewards of her labors, Mrs. Porter entered the motion picture industry. Movie magnates had told her that her stories could not be adapted to photodrama. With characteristic energy, she moved to Hollywood, organized and financed her own corporation, and minutely supervised the adaptation and production for the screen of her famous story of an orphan newsboy, "Michael O'Halloran." Mrs. Porter had just finished a novel and was at work on a new moving picture when she met her death in the tragic accident.

Perhaps Mrs. Porter's greatest accomplishment was that she, more than any one else in her time, drew people to wander in the out-of-doors and learn to love the natural beauty to be seen on every roadside. She was aided in this

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by the born ability of a story teller, and she developed that very special art of writing in a way that would hold a multitude to her pages. With a mothering sympathy she told of the fundamental things, of the beauty of nature, of character, of faith in time of sorrow and trial, of earned happiness, of tidiness in the home, and of the way of a man with a maid.

"Full Treaty Strength" for the Navy

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HERE is a cynical saying in Washington that a war is always threatening the United States about this season of the year-when the Naval Appropriation Bill is before Congress. Possibly that is one explanation for the current excitement about the "helpless" condition of our navy and the so-called "feverish" war activity in Japan.

There is a popular impression that the Washington Conference put an end to naval rivalry, but in any precise sense it did not do this. What it did do was to end rivalry in the construction of first class fighting ships—that is, battleships. It placed no restriction upon the building of auxiliary vessels-light cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft. The assumption, in 1922, was that the superdreadnaught constituted the main fighting force of the fleet, that all other ships were secondary, and that they were merely intended to facilitate the operations of the first line. Whether the battleship is entitled to this preeminence at the present time, or whether the development of the submarine and of aircraft has revolutionized warfare at sea, is something on which the experts are not agreed. Out of the rather discordant contradictory discussion that is taking place, however, two facts at least are apparent. The United States has not developed its navy in accordance with the decisions of the conference. Again, naval rivalry has not come to an end, but, instead of concentrating on first line battleships, is now concerned with so-called auxiliary vessels, which may have an even more decisive influence în another great war than the

heavier craft. So much must be admitted even without accepting at their face value all the wild stories coming from Washington.

Great Britain and Japan, in building these lighter craft, are not violating the Washington Treaty, for that treaty placed no limitations on such construction. If any nation has violated that document, it is the United States itself. Our violations, however, have not been those of commission, but of omission. The treaty was based upon the conception that the welfare of mankind and the cause of justice and peace depended upon a certain naval ratio to be maintained by the three great naval powers, Great Britain, the United States, and Japan. This ratio, in the matter of capital ships, was to be 5-5-3. The treaty implied a solemn obligation to uphold this standard. To maintain more ships than the number assigned each power would have violated this convention, but the fact that does not seem so apparent is that the maintenance of a lower naval strength violated it almost as seriously. This is evidently the shortcoming of the United States.

There are many and varying amateur estimates of the extent to which our battleship fleet has lost efficiency, but the official statement of Mr. Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, is that the ratio at present, instead of being 5-5-3, is 5-4-3-"4," of course, representing the United States and "3" Japan. In other words, both Great Britain and Japan have zealously maintained the standard established by the Washington Conference, but the United States has fallen below its position by one point. The deficiency is not that we have fewer battleships than the agreement contemplates, but that we have allowed several of our big ships to deteriorate, chiefly because of defective boilers, to an extent that has put us behind the procession. The naval appropriation bill of $110,000,000 provides for the reconditioning of the big ships and the correction of this defect. When this work is finished the ratio will thus be precisely that contemplated in 1922.

A Second Naval Conference

HE matter of auxiliary ships presents the problem in a new phase. Though the Washington agreement said nothing about these naval units, the spirit of that convention might easily be interpreted as including them. The old naval theory, concentrating the main strength in battleships, regarded auxiliary vessels merely as supports. It even arbitrarily stipulated the number of destroyers and light cruisers that were regarded as essential to each battleship. On this basis, the Washington treaty could be interpreted as permitting only a sufficient number of lighter craft to round out the Navy-to make it a complete and symmetrical fighting machine. Submarines and aircraft presented problems that were peculiar to each country; moreover, the place they would occupy in naval defense was not so clearly understood as it is perhaps now.

Tsents the problem in a new phase.

The United States is unquestionably deficient in cruisers, submarines, and naval aircraft-though it is extremely strong in destroyers. The belief is widespread that Great Britain and Japan are building extensively in ships of all these types and that in this particular regard, this country is left far behind. A naval competition has been renewed-the situation is summed up in these words-only the competition has now taken the form of auxiliary ships.

If that is true, this country has the solution in its own hands. That is to call a second conference to limit competition in these details. It is not too much to say that the calling of such a conference is entirely at our discretion, for there is little doubt that Great Britain and Japan would accede to such a request. It is enough to recall the events that brought forth the first conference. This country had embarked on a naval program of huge proportions, one which, in a few years, would have made it immeasurably the first naval power. Great Britain and Japan accepted the ratio proposed by this government because they felt themselves unable to engage in a com

petition on this scale. For the same reason they will meet this country in any fair proposal to limit auxiliary ships. If competition is demanded, the United States certainly has the means of participating to any scale desired, and there is little likelihood that either Great Britain or Japan would repudiate American advances. The Coolidge plan for a second naval conference, therefore, is sound statesmanship and there should be no delay in calling it.

Ridiculous Stories About Japan

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HE present excitement over Japan, and the newspaper effort to picture that nation as an immediate enemy, plotting revenge on America for its exclusion act, is an unfortunate phase of current journalism. To reach the truth in this matter it is not necessary to possess all the secrets in the diplomatic archives of the two nations, or the thoughts of Japanese and American statesmen. The predominating facts lie upon the surface, and these must necessarily control the statesmanship of the two countries.

Japan is a poor nation, dependent for her existence upon her foreign trade, which is mainly with the United States. She is slowly recovering from the effects of the most awful earthquake recorded in human annals. She has not the taxing capacity which would make possible the expenditures of such a vast enterprise as would be a war with the United States, and she has not the borrowing power in the great money markets of the world, even if these markets had capital available for such a purpose. The greatest lending country, of course, is the United States, the supposed enemy. Japan has no iron of her own, and thus, assuming that the suggested war breaks out, she would be compelled to import that commodity from foreign markets, such as-again leaving out the United States, infinitely the world's greatest producer-Great Britain, Germany, or France.

All these nations are under such great and increasing obligations to this country

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and so dependent upon us for their rehabilitation that it is not credible that they would assist an Asiatic power with exportations of steel, even though Japan should have a cause for war that enlisted their sympathy. But the only visible cause, the exclusion of Japanese immigrants, would almost certainly make Great Britain our ally. The attitude of the great British Dominions, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand is precisely the same on this point as our own. Australia has displayed even more earnestness on the subject and has gone to even greater extremes than has our Congress. Japanese exclusion is a more vital issue with these outlying dominions than the neutrality of Belgium was to Great Britain. The only things that protect these areas from a mighty influx of Japanese settlers are the British and the American fleets, and coöperation of Great Britain with Japan in such a war, or even neutrality, is inconceivable.

The course of an American-Japanese war, should such a calamity take place, can be easily foreseen. The Japanese fleet could at once capture the Philippine Islands and probably Guam. It could do this as easily as it seized the German settlement of Tsing-Tau in the World War. But that would represent the limit of her warlike accomplishments. She She could not take the Hawaiian Islands and, of course, could not cross the ocean and wage hostilities against our Pacific coast. The United States would simply play a waiting game, spend years, if necessary, to construct a mighty offensive fleet, retake the Philippines at leisure and then proceed against the mainland of Japan. Long before this could happen, however, the Japanese people would be reduced to destitution by the loss of American trade and the huge expenditures that the war would demand. It is hardly necessary to carry such an imaginary story into additional details. The idea is preposterous, and President Coolidge and Secretary Hughes are wise in deprecating the alarmists, and in extending a most cordial hand to Japan and its new Ambassador.

New Education for the New South

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R. JAMES B. DUKE'S gift of $40,000,000 for education, charity, and religious purposes in North Carolina sounds a modern note in more senses than one. It is probably the first great gift for Southern education from a Southern man, whose fortune is the outcome of business activities in the South. Nearly fifty years ago, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the founder of his line, at that time more than eighty years old, married a beautiful Southern widow who had just turned her thirtieth year. This marriage to a Southern woman had important consequences for Southern education. The Commodore himself cared nothing for books or schooling, and could not write half a dozen lines without outraging both English grammar and the spelling book, but, evidently as a testimonial to his young wife, he gave enough money to endow Vanderbilt University at Nashville, now one of the most flourishing educational institutions of the South.

Since then a large amount of Northern money has crossed the Mason and Dixon line for educational purposes. Mr. Duke has himself liberally helped Trinity, but this recent bequest does indeed herald the dawning of a new day-the day when the Southern states shall have so completely recovered from the calamities of the Civil War that they will be able to finance their own colleges and universities.

In still another way this gift indicates the growth of what may be called "modernism" in Southern education. Mr. Duke lays emphasis upon the "practical," even the "technical," side of university training. "I recognize," he says, "that education, when conducted along sane and practical lines, as opposed to dogmatic and theoretical lines, is, next to religion, the greatest stabilizing influence." "I advise that the courses at this institution be arranged first with special reference to the training of preachers, teachers, lawyers, and physicians, because these are most in the public eye and by precept and example can do most to up