Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1892 — Girls Who Study Abroad. [ARTICLE]

Girls Who Study Abroad.

Varlna Anne Davis, the younges daughter of Jefferson Davis, In un article upon “ The American Girl Who Studies Abroad, ” makes a strong plea for American training for American girls. She maintains thut, to a woman instructed exclusively in European schools, the monarchical system Is usually very dear; nurtured on the divine right of kings os an unanswerable hypothesis, and dazzled by glimpses or court splendor, she often learns to look upon a republican form of government as a crude expedient of a people in the transition state between barbarism and monarchy. Her brain is filled with the gorgeous pageants of great kings and superb conquerors, that deiile in glittering procession through the history or older nations, but alKsl she stumbles over the battle of New Orleans, and is not quite sure whether It was Washington or Gen. Grant who commanded. Hero the resources of her own country are simply represented to her mind by a great pink or yellow spot on the map of North America, the whole continent being drawn in her atlas on no larger a scale than that devoted to some French arrondissement or (Swiss canton. She may, if exceptionally well informed, be instructed that the Indians do not depredate the suburbs of New York, or the buffalo roam over the thoroughfares of Chicago; but she will, nevertheless, learn to look upon her countrymen and women through some such spectacles as Dickens wore when he wrote his “ American Note#. ” She* will expect bombast instead of elegance, and braggadocio for merit. f course, an intelligqpt girl will re- . pair these deficiencies by subsequent study of men and books; but, study as she may, the glamour of her childish imagination can never re6t on the past of her own country’s history. She will not be able to believe the Washington story as she accepted the myth of William Tell. The critical faculty once uwake, feeds on the bones of dead ideals; the clear spirituality cf a conflict of ideas will be as tasteless to her, full as sbe is of the personal interest which animates the war of older worlds, as cold spring water would be after wine.

Counting Dust Motes. —Who would think that science could devise an apparatus or instrument for counting the number of dust motes that dance in a bar of sunlight? No one would imagine that such an unheard feat coaid be carried out with any degree of accuracy, but, if we are to believe official reports, that and much more* has recently been accomplished by the microacopists. At the Ben Nevis Observatory, Scotland, an attempt has been made to determine the relative purity of the* atmosphere. The maximum number of dust particles in a cubic centimeter of air examined with a high grade microscope at the Ben Nevia Observatory has been found to be 12,862, from a “specimen'’ esamned on March 30, 1891. The minimum is fifty-two particles to the eubio centimeter from an examination made on Jone 15,180 L At one time a difference oi some thousands of particles was noted within -a few hours. Observations were taken at 12 m., and ag tin at 6 p. m. The first showed but 26,785 particles, the last 12,682.