operation, sanitation, and protection of the said enterprise. The Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of all islands within the limits of the zone above described, and in addition thereto the group of small islands in the Bay of Panama named Perico, Nacs, Culebra, and Flamingo." (Art. II.) The sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States within these limits is to be absolute. (Art. III.) The United States further receive in perpetuity the monopoly of all systems of canal or railroad transportation across the isthmus. (Art. IV.) Colon and Panama, and the termini of the canal are declared free ports (Art. IX.), and the two firstnamed are subjected to the sanitary regulations made for them by the United States. (Art. VII.) The United States are given the right to land and station troops, and to erect fortifications, in order to protect the canal. (Art. XXI.) Finally, no change in the government or laws of Panama affecting the rights of the United States can be made without the consent of the latter power. (Art. XXIII.)

In return, the United States guarantees to Panama its independence, and is to pay the latter power the sum of $10,000,000 upon the exchange of ratifications, and beginning nine years from that date, the sum of $250,000 annually during the continuance of the agreement. (Art. XXII.) The canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto shall be neutral in perpetuity. (Art. XVI.)

This treaty was ratified by the provisional government of Panama, without amendment, on December 2d. Ratification by the United States Senate was delayed by the obstructive tactics of the - Democratic minority, who seized the opportunity for arraigning the President's entire policy in. reference to the recognition of Panama, and the negotiation of the treaty. An effort to bind the Democrats by caucus rule, however, failed. February 23d was finally agreed upon for the taking of the vote, and upon this day the treaty was ratified, without amendment, by a vote of 66 to 14. All of the Republican and fourteen of the Democratic Senators voted in favor of the measure. An amendment to grant compensation to Colombia for the loss of Panama was rejected by a vote of 24 to 49. The ratifications were exchanged at Washington on February 26th.

In following the history of the negotiations in reference to the

trans-isthmian canal it will have become apparent that the United States has followed three distinct lines of policy. The first, which distinguished the diplomacy prior to the civil war, favored the construction of the canal as a private enterprise, and its free and unlimited use by all nations, subject to control by none. The second line of policy was inaugurated as part of the larger diplomacy of Mr. Seward, and was carried to its height by Mr. Blaine and Mr. Frelinghuysen. This policy still advocated a canal constructed by private capitalists, but subject to the political control of the United States. The third and present policy is that of a canal constructed as a government enterprise, and under the control of the United States. This view was clearly favored by President Grant, but did not become a settled policy of the government until the administrations of Harrison and McKinley. It finds its latest and most effective expression in the act of Congress of June 28, 1902, and in the Panama treaty.

The canal is assured, and events have decided the question of the route. After centuries the strait will be made to yield up its secret. It is submitted that, for the present, government control of the canal by the United States furnishes the best possible solution of its international position. Time alone will show whether Europe will acquiesce in America's exclusive control over a great highway of commerce.

From the view-point of world politics the construction and operation of the canal as a government undertaking means the extension of the political control of the United States over the Spanish-American nations. Perhaps the canal may one day become "a part of the coast line of the United States." The next generation may see the fulfilment of the prophecy of de Tocqueville that the Anglo-American empire will some day extend from the polar ice to the tropics.

THE UNIVERSITY.

BULLETINS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS.

The official publications of The University of Texas have recently been more completely consolidated and organized, and some notice of these changes should be given in the RECORD, which will hereafter appear as a bulletin, and cease to be an entirely distinct publication.

The Regents and Faculty of the University are emphatically of the opinion that its activities should not be exclusively confined to the class room and laboratory, but should permeate and beneficially influence the whole State. A university supported by public taxation has especially for its field the entire people, and fails in its highest duty unless it tries to help all who are striving after greater intellectual power and enjoyment, greater commercial effectiveness and prosperity, greater social responsibility and justice. But the difficulty, even impossibility, of reaching the great mass of the people in any effective way with the available means, is clear to any one upon a moment's reflection. Of course, students of the University when they leave its halls scatter themselves very widely over Texas, and in numberless ways influence the whole life of the people for the better. This is the chief reason for supporting higher education out of the public funds. Three other principal ways of spreading the benefits of higher education among the mass of the people are available, and are being used more and more in various parts of the country to good effect. These are, in the order of importance, University extension (technically so called), correspondence courses, printed matter. It must at once be admitted that none of these ways are as effective as actual class room work, and yet great good can be done, and is being done, in each of these ways. The present writer, who holds that the ideal of our common school system is to give to each child in the nation all the education that it is capable of utilizing, hopes soon to see The University of Texas much more actively engaged in trying to spread sound and useful knowledge by each and all of the above methods.

This larger aspect of the University work has been pretty thoroughly discussed for some time past by different members of the Faculty, called together in committees by President Prather. It is difficult to summarize these discussions, which took a wide range and covered all the activities which the State has a right to demand of its University, in fair proportion to the means provided. Ways of fulfilling the legitimate expectations of the State were also discussed. It is impossible even to list all of these questions here, in fact, so many plans are as yet undeveloped that any reference to them now would be premature. We are concerned here only with the organization of the University publications that resulted from these discussions.

It is, of course, a plain duty of the University to spread abroad the results of the original investigations carried on by its staff of instructors. Provision has accordingly been made for the distribution of reprints from the learned journals and for the direct publication of valuable articles at the University itself. Learned articles appearing as Bulletins of The University of Texas will be classified into three series, it being felt that some subdivision was necessary, and that undue multiplication of series was to be avoided. These three series are called, respectively, Humanistic, Scientific, and Medical. The first series will include papers of a literary, historical, legal, philological, economic, and sociological nature, in fact, all papers relating to Man as distinguished from Nature. The second series will include papers dealing with the natural sciences, pure and applied mathematics, and engineering, in fact, all papers relating to Nature as distinguished from Man. As thus defined, these two series include every possibility, yet it is possible to have a Medical Series, especially for the Medical Department, without destroying the integrity of the first two series, which appertain especially to the Departments of Literature, Science, and Arts, Law, and Engineering.

A fourth series is the Official, which is to contain such Bulletins as the catalogues, the reports of the Board of Regents, the catalogues of the Summer Schools, etc., etc.

The fifth, and last series, is the General, which is to contain all Bulletins addressed to the general public, and conveying useful information to that public in as untechnical a form as possible. The RECORD will in future be a Bulletin of this series, and each issue of it is to be made up somewhat according to the following plan: two or three articles, either new or reprints of recent bulletins, followed by an account of the life, growth, and progress of the University, accompanied by notes concerning the alumni.

Each Bulletin is to carry a "whole number" and a "series number." Bulletins of the Mineral Survey will carry only the whole number and will belong to no series, not being published out of the University funds. The Texas State Historical Association and the Bulletins of The University of Texas are co-operative, and will have but one business manager. It is hoped that this arrangement will lead to greater efficiency and economy.

On the inner side of the front cover of this RECORD will be found a list of the series, accompanied by the names of the editorial board.

H. Y. B.

NEW MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY.

MILTON BROCKETT PORTER.

A native Texan, Dr. Porter was born at Sherman in 1869, and, after a course at Austin College and three years of work in the University, graduated here in 1892. He then taught for two years, entering Harvard in 1894,

where he obtained the degree of A. M. in 1895 and of Ph. D. in 1897. Returning to this University in 1897, as Instructor in Pure Mathematics, he accepted a similar position at Yale in 1899. He was soon promoted to an assistant professorship there, which position he retained until he returned this fall as head of the School of Pure Mathematics in The University of Texas.

As a scholar Dr. Porter is characterized by the breadth of his intellectual interests and the clearness of his thought. He has already written several papers on differential equations and geometry, his bibliography including such distinct titles as "On Spherical Conics," "On the Roots of the Hypergeometric and Bessel's Functions," and "Sets of Coincidence Points on the Non-singular Cubics of a Syzegetic Sheaf," which, with others, have appeared in the American Journal of Mathematics, in the Transactions and Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, and in the Annals of Mathematics. Dr. Porter has been one of the associate editors of the just mentioned Transactions, and is a member of the Council of the American Mathematical Society.

Above all, Dr. Porter is a man of most attractive personality, thoroughly genuine in all his ways, gifted with a charming humor and cherishing a diffidence that greatly handicaps the author of this "vita" in depicting him as he deserves. Successful as a teacher, he is a valuable addition to the assets of the University.

PROFESSOR ARTHUR CURTIS SCOTT, PH. D.

The development of the Department of Engineering, and its immediate extension in the direction of electrical engineering, have, of necessity, brought many problems which demand for their solution large experience and organizing ability on the part of those to whom the task is intrusted. The design of the new Engineering Building, the purchase and installation of an efficient electrical equipment, the arrangement of the courses of study, all are matters of vital importance, if the work of the present is to form a sure foundation for continued progress. So, too, there are many practical problems connected with the growth of the University as a whole which continually demand the attention of a competent engineer. Such, for example, are the extension and management of our heating and lighting systems, the repair of our buildings, and numerous other matters, which, minor in themselves, become of large importance in their relation to the work of the entire institution.

To second and supplement the able efforts of Professor T. U. Taylor in these directions, the University has been fortunate in securing the services of Dr. Arthur Curtis Scott, until recently Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering in the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

Though one of the younger men in his chosen profession, Dr. Scott has