Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1889 — Official Encouragement of Talent. [ARTICLE]

Official Encouragement of Talent.

A fact noticed in the' Belgian corregp mdence of one of the Parisian pa pers affords another illustration of the inefficaey of the official encouragement of talent by the state. The King of the Belgians has regularly offered every year, for the last ten years, a prize of £J,UOO for the best work on some subject of general interest, the greatest latitude of choice being allowed the candidates, provided the work came within the sufficiently comprehensive category of “oeuvres d’intelligcnce.” During the whole ten years the prize has only been awarded once. Year after year the jury appointed to decide on the merits of the different essays sent in have had to make the melanoholy return that not one of them came up to a decent standard. Macaulay (himself a writer of prize poems) has somewhere said that p*tze sheep are only fit to make candles of, and prize poems to light them with. Young Oxford would probably object to the dictum; but in Belgium, if prize essays and prize poems may be placed on the same footing, it would seem to be in part true.— Pall Mall Gazette. tempting to oonvmce gentlemen tc adopt a new practice when the old is so convenient to follow—reserving this for future consideration or allowing it to rest upon what has heretofore been said—we desire to urge the use of enough oil meal to keep the animals in a thriving, healthy condition. A very little, given regularly, will answer the purpose, and it will be found admirable in preventing constipation and imparting to the stomach and digestive organs a fine, healthy tone. It assists greatly in the digestion and assimilation of other foods, and the use will be found in every way satisfactory. It can tdso be fed to other descriptions of live-stock, in smaller quantities, and , we have found its use particularly advantageous with horses subject to colic or intestinal disorders. -Breeders’ Go■telle.