law. His case, in a word, is this: By a satisfactory arrangement contributors to the "International Scientific Series" are liberally paid by the English publisher, and then fairly paid again by the American publisher—what more is wanted? The answer, of course, is very simple: There is wanted legal protection to the property. The American publishers concede that there is a property-value in the books they reissue, for which they are willing to pay under a voluntary contract; but how does that proceeding absolve the United States Government from the duty of protecting that property as it protects other property? Reasonable men will see that the convention of publishers in different countries, to carry out such a project, is but a weighty testimony to the just claims of authors which it is the duty and office of government to sustain and enforce by the proper legislation. It is the one great duty of government to protect the rights of its citizens, and prominent among these is the right of property. All civilized countries recognize the right of property in books, and there have been attempts to make this recognition international, that is, to induce nations to extend their morality beyond their geographical borders. In the absence of any such arrangement, a few parties agree that they will voluntarily recognize the rights of intellectual property, and the very doing of this is to be made a new excuse for neglecting to enforce the fundamental obligations of justice.
COOKERY AND EDUCATION.
It was a suggestive remark of Count Rumford that "the number of inhabitants who may be supported in any country upon its internal produce depends about as much upon the state of the art of cookery as upon that of agriculture; but, if cookery be of so much importance, it ought certainly to be studied with the greatest care. Cookery and agriculture are arts of civilized nations; savages understand neither of them."
There is a great deal of important truth wrapped up in this passage, of vital interest to society in general and to individual welfare, but which it has taken a hundred years to appreciate so fully that any considerable number of people can begin to cooperate in reducing it to practice. But, if what Rumford said is true, if the scale of population as well as the comfort and health of the people depends to such a degree upon the art of cookery, what are all the issues of politics over which men are fighting with such desperation in comparison with the systematic improvement of the culinary art? How greatly the public weal is dependent upon the condition of agriculture begins now to be widely understood, and since the time of Rumford great progress has been made in its scientific study through the establishment of special schools and colleges for the purpose. Agricultural education is now a recognized branch of popular culture which is destined to be greatly developed and extended in the future. The next great step must be to do the same thing for the art of cookery; and the friends of genuine social improvement may congratulate themselves that the progress of education is beginning to take effect upon this important department of domestic life. Cooking-schools are springing up in many places in this country and in England, and the English are taking the lead in organizing them as a part of their national and common school system.
Of the importance, the imperative necessity of this movement, there cannot be the slightest question. Our kitchens, as is perfectly notorious, are the fortified intrenchments of ignorance, prejudice, irrational habits, rule of-thumb, and mental vacuity, and the consequence is that the Americans are liable to the reproach of suffering beyond any other people from wasteful,
