"The organs of a living body,' he says, 'perform their functions chiefly by virtue of their chemical composition.' Undoubtedly, but what made it a living body and gave it organs? Of course the functioning of any bodily organ involves chemical processes, but do the processes determine the function? Do they assign one function to the liver, another to the kidneys, another to the heart? In other words, is the organizing effort that awakens in matter, the result of chemistry and physics?

Do we not need to go outside of the material constituents of a living body to account for its purposive organization? Can we deduce an eye or an ear or a brain from any of the known chemical properties or from their material elements? Does any living thing necessarily follow from its known chemical composition? Do the material constituents of the different parts of a machine decide the part they shall play in the whole? The function of an organ, and the organ itself, are the result of some unknown but intelligent power in the body as a whole.

I have no purpose to discredit Haeckel's science or his philosophy, but only to show how great is his scientific faith, - how much it presupposes, and what a burden it throws upon chemistry and physics. Like all the later philosophical biologists, he reaches a point in his argument when chemistry and physics become creative, while he fails to see that they differ at all in their activities from the chemistry and physics of inorganic matter. To be consistent he is

forced to believe in the possibility of the artificial production of life. He helps himself out by endowing all matter with sensation and purpose, and thus its passage from one condition to another higher in the scale is easily accomplished.

Haeckel's manipulation of matter to get life will to many persons seem like a sleight-of-hand trick. One thing disappears, and at a word another entirely different takes its place. Now we see the solid lifeless crust of the earth, then we see water and carbon dioxide, then nitrogenous carbon compounds, then, presto! we have albumen or protoplasm, the physical basis of life. Out of protoplasm by a deft use of words comes the monera; another flourish of his pen and there is that marvel, the living cell, with its nucleus, its chromosome, its centrosome, and all its complicated, intelligent, and self-directed activities. This may be the road the creative energy traveled, since we have to have creative energy whether in matter or apart from it; but our scientific faith hesitates until these steps can be repeated in the laboratory and life appear at the behest of chemical reactions.

The scientific faith of mankind faith in the universality of natural causation is greatly on the increase; it is waxing in proportion as theological faith is waning; and if love of truth is to be our form of love of God, and if the conservation of human life, and the amelioration of its conditions, are to be our form of brotherly love, then the religion of a scientific age certainly has some redeeming features.

I

WHEN the Fifth Graders returned in the fall, they knew, to a boy and a girl, that they were to go to Room H, and they knew, too, that by passing over the threshold they would automatically become the elderly and dignified Sixth Grade. Proud and disdainful were Sixth Graders, in that they carried the largest geographies made; highly pedantic, too, were they, because they coped with mysterious institutions called fractions, which occupied the clean, unexplored back part of one's arithmetic. Fearsomely learned were they in words of seven, eight, and nine syllables. To be one of such was to be indeed Grown Up. When the new class, half-timorous, and wholly suspicious, entered Room H, they were startled to find their thirty names already written in a neat column on the blackboard, with an imperative 'Do NOT ERASE' underneath. How on earth had Miss Prawl found out their names?

It was hard for Theodora Bowles to take her seat inconspicuously, as if she were no better than stupid Freddy Beal; as if, in fact, she had not been for five years the leader of the class. The odora, however, was not nearly so obscure as she supposed; for Miss Prawl, in secret session with the Fifth-Grade teacher, had been informed that Theodora was so quick-witted that she usually called out the answer before the teacher had finished putting the question. Furthermore, whenever the class was asked to recite in concert, she

invariably shouted the answer first, and then the rest of the class repeated what Theodora had said, and were therefore always right. The fact that she knew more than any one but the teacher had made Theodora's life one delightful arrogance of intellectual supremacy. Pretending that she was royalty in disguise, Theodora gazed impatiently at Miss Prawl, and wondered how long it would be before the new teacher found out how bright she was.

After all the children were located at desks corresponding to the ones they had occupied in Grades Five, Four, Three, Two, and One, Miss Prawl opened a drawer of her shiny, spotless desk, and took out a box which proved to contain six new pieces of different-colored chalk, lying side by side. The combination of the bright colors was so alluring that every child immediately resolved to save up for just such an outfit, in order to play hopscotch in colors. With every eager eye riveted upon her, Miss Prawl took out the piece of pink chalk, and made a very beautiful pink star on the blackboard, directly after Stella Appleton's name. Stella, it may be said, always had a good deal of undeserved prominence, because her name began with an A.

'If, at the end of the week, Stella or any one of the rest of you is perfect in spelling, that person will get a pink star after his name,' announced Miss Prawl. And she put away the pink chalk, and drew a blue-chalk star after Freddy Beal's name. 'You will all receive blue stars if you are perfect in

After this entrancing monologue, Miss Prawl rubbed out the explanatory stars, replaced the chalk carefully in the box, and waited. Theodora's hand at once shot up into the air.

'Well?' asked Miss Prawl. 'My-name's-Theodora-Bowles,' said Theodora. 'And there's a piece of purple chalk in your box, Miss Prawl, that you did n't say anything about. And so I wondered if you had n't forgotten to tell us about purple stars.'

The whole class leaned forward in breathless expectancy, proud of their discerning Theodora.

'I am very glad that you asked me this question, Theodora,' said Miss Prawl. 'I keep the purple chalk for a very special, wonderful reason.' Thirty pairs of glistening eyes grew rounder. "The purple star,' said Miss Prawl, in a hushed voice, 'is the greatest reward that I can bestow on any girl or boy. It is given only for some very great deed: for some deed which shall show that the girl or boy is either very brave or very kind, or both. Although I have seen a great many fine girls and boys, it has never happened that I felt that the right time had come to give any one a purple star. But perhaps this will be purple-star year.'

Theodora listened with a great dawning worship in her eyes. How exciting it was of Miss Prawl to set up such an impossibly high standard! And how altogether interesting Miss Prawl was, too! Her eyes seemed much given to dancing and twinkling; her voice was sweet and pleasant, being especially persuasive when she said 'boy' or 'girl'; and her smile was a blended maternal

siren affair which nobody of either sex had ever been able to resist. Miss Prawl made one feel a little ashamed, as if one had never before appreciated what a privilege and a responsibility it was to be a boy or a girl. The new teacher's dress was a soft, pretty brown, dainty and fresh. Yes, Theodora resolved that she must attain the purple star, and thus forever become famous.

Just as she had arrived at this engrossing decision, the hall door opened, and Mr. Wadsmore, the adored, portly principal, strode energetically in, leading a new boy. This person, this upstart, this unidentified stranger, this perfect nobody of a new boy faced the critical, penetrating eyes of the assembled class with an almost superhuman

ease.

'Miss Prawl, this young man is Charley Starr,' said Mr. Wadsmore. 'Can you make a place for him?'

Beside Theodora there was an empty seat, the only one in the room. As it was on the 'girls' side,' the male aspirants for education with difficulty smothered their roars of laughter at the idea of a boy's sitting, debased, among the girls. Observing this ill-concealed hilarity, Miss Prawl at once led Charley to the empty seat beside Theodora.

'If you'll sit here to-day, Charley, I will rearrange the seating to-morrow,' she said.

As Charley sank into the place assigned, Theodora blushed painfully. Being nearest to the unwelcome masculine stranger embarrassed her frightfully. Her hand flew up into the air. 'MayIgwoutandgettadrink?' she ask

ed.

'Yes, Theodora,' replied Miss Prawl evenly.

She had heard of Theodora's continuous and unquenchable thirst, and had been advised by no less a person than Mr. Wadsmore that the best

course was to allow Theodora to drink as much and as often as she wished.

After a copious raid on the watercooler, Theodora returned, feeling a little bloated, but much more composed and natural.

'Five minutes for whispering,' announced Miss Prawl, at eleven o'clock. A deafening hubbub immediately arose.

'Say,' began Charley Starr to Theodora, from behind his desk cover, 'how do you like her?' He nodded toward Miss Prawl, and winked.

Theodora was unwilling to indulge in the intimacies of gossip on so slight an acquaintance.

in detail, so he could n't possibly compete with her. And when she received the purple star, she would be entirely safe. Star-why, the new boy's name was Star.

'Is your name spelled plain S-t-a-r?' she asked.

'S-t-a-double r,' replied Charley. 'I'm Charles Augustus Starr, Junior,' he said, in a bragging tone.

Theodora gave a shriek of delight, and punched the girl in front of her. 'Say, Laura, the new boy's father is Coal-Cart Starr!' she cried.

Laura immediately shrieked, too, and so did all the other girls when they

she icily inquired.

'Skipped up from the Fourth Grade.' 'You did!' Hauteur was drowned in

awe.

noise, Miss Prawl rang the bell, and asked Theodora, who seemed to be a sort of cheer-leader, to look up the word 'whisper' in the large dictionary,

Theodora studied Charley with detached, incipient dislike. Charley must be very bright indeed to have skipped two classes. She herself, with all her brains, had never arrived at the pinnacle of skipping. And she had so much wanted to feel the importance of marching into chapel with the class next higher up, and of smiling back at her old mates with condescending tolerance. Theodora did not know that she might have skipped several times, but for the fact that her parents, who believed in the slow unfolding of her almost too brilliant mind, had begged to have her kept back. All unconscious of this parental duplicity, Theodora was having some very uncomfortable minutes. If Charley Starr had skipped two classes, it looked as if the impossible were true, that there actually existed on the earth a person who was brighter than she. It could not be, and yet, and yet-Charley looked disturbingly intelligent. But there, of course he had n't studied last year's subjects

board.

The cause of all the undue commotion was the fact that Charles Augustus Starr, Senior, was in the coal business, and that daily, all day long, up and down the city went huge coal carts labeled 'C. A. Starr.' At Theodora's instigation, the girls in her class had formed the 'C. A. Starr Club,' which was a very original organization. There were no dues, and the responsibilities were light. They consisted of merely looking upward into the sky, and of pointing upward simultaneously with the index finger of the right hand every time one met a coal cart. C. A. Starr was thus cunningly interpreted as 'See a star!' It rather spoiled things that there were no stars to be seen in the daytime, and that the club members never met any coal wagons at night. Still, it was extremely good fun, when you caught sight of a coal cart, to point up and look up suddenly, and to have the vulgar, uninitiated outsider ask, 'What are you doing?' and then to explain that you belonged to a secret order,

and that there were times when it was necessary to give the high sign.

As Theodora was president of the See-A-Star Club, she at once called a meeting, to be held at the noon hour, for the purpose of considering whether or not club members ought to give the high sign in the presence of C. A. Starr, Junior. It was at length decided by the president, who did all the talking, that they would point up and look up when they met C. A. Starr, Junior, outside the school grounds. Otherwise, with Charley Starr right there in the same room, they would have to be pointing up and looking up all the time, and Miss Prawl might with reason object.

'Say,' said Charley Starr to Theodora, in the afternoon whispering period, 'did you hear about the purple star?'

Theodora nodded. She was speechless, because she had just crammed an entire licorice 'shoe-string' into her mouth.

'Well, I'm laying all my plans to get that star,' proclaimed Charley.

'So 'm I,' said Theodora, thickly, with black lips. 'So there's no use in your trying. I'd give up the idea, if I was you.'

'Not much I won't. I'd like to see a girl get ahead of me,' retorted Charles, witheringly.

Violent sex-antagonism sprang up full grown within the soul of Theodora. This insignificant upstart who casually skipped must be taught the lesson, once and for all, that school was one of the places where girls excelled.

'Let us refresh our memories by reviewing some of last year's geography,' said Miss Prawl, ringing the dinner-bell which called the class to order.

'Aha!' thought Theodora, swallowing the last of the shoe-string whole,clearing the decks for action, as it were, -'I guess I'll surprise C. A. Starr, Junior, now!'.

'Recite in concert. What is the capital of Maine?' asked Miss Prawl.

'Augusta-on-the-Kennebec!' shouted Theodora Bowles and Charley Starr, as in one voice. "Ter-ron-the-Kennebec!' echoed the rest of the class.

'What is the capital of New Hampshire?'

Again the two brilliant ones roared the right answer, and the rest recited, 'Curd-on-the-Merrimac!'

'Vermont?' continued Miss Prawl.
'Montpelier-on-the-Winooski!' yell-

ed the rivals.

'She's going straight through the United States in order,' decided Theodora. 'I know 'em all, backwards and forwards, and I guess Charley Starr will get left long before we get to the Dakotas.'

'What is the capital of Rhode Island?' asked the wily Miss Prawl, who had noted the absent look on Theodora's face, and purposely omitted Massachusetts. And she caught everybody in the class.

'Boston-on-Massachusetts-Bay!' the leaders cried. And the parrots mimicked them.

Miss Prawl paused so long that Theodora recalled her question.

'Providence-and-Newport-on-Narragansett-Bay!' howled Charles Starr, ahead of Theodora, and in a voice that could be heard all over the building.

Theodora could scarcely keep back the flood of her tears. Charley Starr had thought quicker than she! It was the first time in all her life that she had been worsted, and—well, those smarting tears were already spilling over and showing.

'MayIgwoutandgettadrink?' she asked. And from the depths of the dressing-room, where she was sobbing into the heart of the roller towel, she could hear Charles, the usurper, yelling, — 'Harrisburg-on-the-Susquehanna!' When Theodora felt able to return