subscribing has about doubled as each new call has been made; that is to say, in round numbers, 4,000,000 people subscribed to the first loan, 9,000,000 to the second, and 17,000,000, or perhaps more, to the third.

The present probabilities are that no Fourth Liberty Loan will be necessary before the end of the year.

TRAINING CAMPS FOR NURSES

To supply the military need for nurses it has been necessary to take nurses from civilian hospitals and private practice everywhere. So far nine thousand nurses are already in military service. The result is that only a bare skeleton of the nursing organizations is left in many an institution, and in some localities the entire force of visiting and supervising nurses has gone. Where is America going to find substitutes for these? Women who are more than nurses are needed, for they must have some initiative, sympathy, and understanding of social problems; for as nurses have gone to war, so have social workers, and so, of course, have physicians and surgeons. The women who take the places of these nurses at home must have the capacity to fit in as well as they can where the gaps have been left by the social workers and the doctors. There is one class of women especially equipped for the duty that is calling to women. The college woman, well grounded in history, languages, sciences and sociology, and presumably, possessed of an alert, acquisitive mind, can bring to the study of nursing equipment which makes possible intensive training in the simpler, specialized aspects of the nursing profession.

This summer the American Red Cross and the Council of National Defense will stand sponsors to a project which has been characterized as one of the most constructive educational schemes brought forward since the war began. A training camp for nurses will be held at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. It will enroll only college women. It will condense into three months work which ordinarily occupies approximately a year. The Faculty includes such specialists as Professor Florence Sabin, Johns Hopkins, who will instruct in anatomy and physiology; Professor C. E. A. Winslow, of Yale, Dr. William H. Park and Miss Anna Williams, of the New York Health Laboratories, in bacteriology and hygiene; Professor Otto Folin, Harvard, in chemistry; Miss Nina D. Gage, former superintendent of Hunan Yale Hospital, China, in materia medica; Assistant Professor Isabel M. Stewart, of Columbia, in the historical and social aspects of nursing; Professor Margaret F. Washburn, of Vassar, in psychology; Miss Helen Pope, of the Pittsburgh Carnegie Institute, in dietetics; and Professor Herbert E. Mills, also Dean of the Training Camp, in social economics. Near-by hospitals and clinics are co-operating to give the students practice as well as theory.

The student fee, which covers all living expenses as well as tuition, is $95. (The cost of the camp will not be met by the fees; so the Red Cross is giving $75,000 to help meet expenses.) The present undergraduates will leave the rooms and the dormitories completely furnished, and the college farm will supply fresh vegetables and milk for the table. The entire equipment of the college will be at the disposal of the visitors— the three scientific laboratories, the infirmary, the gymnasium, the students' building, the outdoor theater, where both lectures and dramatic entertainments will be given, the two lakes, athletic fields, and the library, with special loan collections, will all be available.

From the Training Camp the young women will enter approved hospitals to complete the two years' work necessary to qualify as registered nurses. Before a single application to the Camp had been received more than two hundred hospital places were assured. It will be extremely advantageous to hospitals to receive these students, as the institutions will be relieved of much of the usual expensive and time-consuming training. In the hospitals actual nursing experience begins at once.

College women have not been slow to perceive the opportunity given them to put their ability and training to the best patriotic use. The Training Camp project was not completed and the lists opened till early in February. Between then and June 24, the opening date of the Camp, the need had to be made plain to college women, many already absorbed in local activities had to

be reached, others with definite plans for their careers convinced of the greater usefulness of this, and all made aware of the length of time necessary for study and the seriousness of the undertaking. The first week in May saw graduates from thirty-six States enrolled, and applications and inquiries coming in from alumnæ of seventy-five colleges. The Training Camp will open its doors with an enrollment of patriotic, devoted, intelligent women, willing to do not only their bit but their all for America in her emergency.

TRAINING FOR WOMEN WAR WORKERS

Many a woman says, "I wish I could be of some use in this war. But I don't know how to be of use." Such a wish grows with the knowledge that the demands from Government and military authorities for women's work have greatly increased and cannot be met without a large augmentation of workers.

Women who wish more intimate knowledge of the activi ties which may help win the war, women who can do odd jobs, committee women, administrators, investigators, organizers, teachers, clerical workers and nelpers, leaders in girls' and women's clubs and patriotic leagues, and many other kinds of women-these are they who are longing for wider usefulness.

Let them apply to the Young Women's Christian Association, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York City. Day courses are already in progress there to fit women who "don't know" to "know." The next course begins July 9; the next, September 17; the next, November 5; and the next, February 4, 1919. These courses extend over a period of about three and a half weeks. If women want training during the periods between the prescribed courses, the Y. W. C. A. may make special arrangements. An evening course will be added, provided there are at least twenty-five registrations. The present courses include one morning session from ten to one every week-day except Saturday and one afternoon round table every Friday,

The lectures and conferences are open to women, whether or not they intend to complete the whole course and qualify for a certificate. Those who can attend only occasionally are asked not to judge the value of any one session by itself, as each is planned in relation to the whole course.

Opportunities for observation and field work are provided several afternoons or evenings weekly during the lecture session. Some form of personal work is required of each candidate for a certificate. Required themes on designated subjects may be written at any time suitable to the volunteer.

At the close of the lecture part of the training course the "trainees " go out to give active service in whatever branch of work most attracts them. This is done under a trained worker's supervision. It enables the "trainee" to find her proper niche and prove her capabilities.

The passing mark for the whole course is eighty per cent. Preparation for examinations, apart from attendance at lectures, may be made at any time suitable to the volunteer, and written examinations may also be taken at any time by correspondence, on the honor system. Oral examinations are to be taken at specified times and places.

In order to afford opportunity for home study at leisure, books and papers needed for examinations will be forwarded upon request to any applicant who registers and sends her fee. The fee for each course is ten dollars, which includes payment for note and text books.

Upon satisfactory completion of all the required work a certificate is given which entitles the graduate to become an active or associate worker or teacher for the Young Women's Christian Association.

But whether the women students intend to work for it or for any other organization, they will have enjoyed the advantages of a laboratory for volunteers. Each will have become fitted to serve in some station of war work where most needed or best qualified.

GO WITHOUT WHEAT ENTIRELY IF YOU CAN

A month ago the Federal Food Administration appealed to all those who could do without wheat to abstain entirely from its use until next harvest.

The response has been gratifying. Hardly was it made before

hundreds of hotel men pledged themselves to it. The students in educational institutions followed-those of Drew Theological Seminary, at Madison, New Jersey, being the first, we believe. Various associations and societies followed, and now at least two States have swung into line. Senator Sheppard, of Texas, informs us that his State has voluntarily determined to abstain from the use of wheat until next harvest," and thirty-seven out of the forty-one county Food Administrators of Idaho, on behalf of the citizens of that State, have come to a similar determination.

In view of the fact that statements continue to appear showing how the one and one-half pound ration of wheat per week per person may best be used, The Outlook recently wrote to the Federal Food Administration inquiring whether it would not be better now to concentrate all effort on the appeal to abstain entirely from the use of wheat. The reply is as follows. It is characteristic of the Administration's human and broadgauged policy under Mr. Hoover:

While the Food Administration has consistently urged the well-to-do and those who can abstain entirely from the use of wheat to cut it from their diet, it has never gone so far as to urge the American people as a whole to maintain themselves exclusively on the other cereals.

There is a large element in our population which cannot very well go entirely without wheat. This, you understand, is not because the other cereals lack any of the nutritional qualities to be found in wheat It is more a matter of convenience and of home economics. A large part of our working populace is forced to purchase its bread from bakers, and it is practically impossible for a commercial baker to distribute bread which does not have wheat as its basis Not only is it extremely difficult to make non-wheat breads on a commercial scale, but it is almost impossible to distribute such loaves, as they must be consumed a few hours after being baked. In view of the present shortage, our responsibility to feed this element is almost as great as our duty to those across the sea If wheat should be cut entirely from the American diet, these people would suffer very materially.

However, the Food Administration is asking very definitely and very clearly for the greatest possible reduction in consumption. It is asking those who must use wheat to eat no more than one and one-half pounds a week, and it is asking all who can possibly do without it to eat absolutely none.

The Federal Food Administration's latest published statement informs householders that they will have no difficulty in following the wheat flour allowance of one and one-half pounds per person per week if they consider one and three-quarter pounds of Victory bread equal to one pound of wheat flour, thus leaving half a pound of wheat flour to be used during the week in other foods.

Among those other foods are, for instance, macaroni, wheat cereals, wheat crackers, pastry, cake. But why "go to the limit" of the one and one-half pound allowance? Why not do as much as possible towards lessening that allowance?

Among the wheat substitutes are barley flour, buckwheat flour, corn flour, corn grits, corn-meal, edible corn-starch, rolled oats, potato flour, soya-bean flour, and sweet-potato flour.

In other words, we believe that the Federal Food Administration's reasonable attitude will be appreciated not only by those who can well abstain entirely from the use of wheat but also by those who cannot.

THE ERIE CANAL

Mr. McAdoo, Director-General of our land transportation system, has testified to the value of inland waterways in his recent order that the Erie Canal be taken over by the Federal Railway Administration and that a fleet of barges be immediately constructed.

Several hundred steel barges of about seven hundred tons each, it is announced, are being ordered at once from construction companies on the Great Lakes. Investigation is also being made of the practicability of concrete barges, which, it is said, can be built quickly and cheaply.

The Federal Railway Administration will simply direct the construction of barges and boats and the operation of freight. It will not interfere with the construction work on the Erie Canal now under way.

The Erie Canal runs from Buffalo to the Hudson River.

The chief commodities it transports are grain from Buffalo and coal from central points.

The Erie Canal is the first canal to come under Federal operation. Other canals will probably follow. Possibly some disused canals may later be considered. The country's overtaxed railway system needs them too if we are to move all the freight which ought to be moved. This has already been put before the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House of Representatives, but the Committee has passed it over. Now that the Rivers and Harbors Bill is before the Senate, perhaps that body will deem it wise to appropriate a sum necessary to restore some of the disused canals to usefulness. No one can face the possibility of any such coal shortage as last winter's without dread and apprehension. Why not avert such possibility as much as we can by bringing into use every means of transportation?

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

As the war goes on the "business of play" is increasing instead of diminishing. This is as it should be, for, quite apart from the pleasure and profit of play at any time, many observers are beginning to ask what reduction in the cost of training soldiers to fight there would have been had they been first trained to play in years past. Had such been the case, a large number of those who volunteered for military service and were refused might have possessed physical qualifications closer to the standard of their patriotism. That our Government realizes the importance of organized recreation is shown by the fact that the War and Navy Department Commissions on Training Camp Activities have taken over bodily the Playground and Recreation Association of America to carry on its beneficent work for our new armies under the name War Camp Community Service.

Recent figures compiled by this Association show the extension of play into the winter months, and the increasing demand for lighted playgrounds for evening use. Some six hundred playgrounds are now opened and lighted throughout the evening. It is impossible to conceive of the number of unhealthy and unwholesome places from which children are thus saved. The number of schools established to train playground leaders is increasing, and the standard of those workers has been raised by civil service examinations. About 9,000 men and women are now employed to direct play at recreation centers. About three-quarters of a million boys and girls daily swarm in the play centers, and some 700 school buildings are used for play after school hours. One of the consequences of this is the birth of a kindlier feeling for the school buildings in the heart of the pupil who may have regarded that building as a place of torture!

Throughout the country, we read, there are some 200 bathing beaches, 400 public baths, and 300 swimming pools; and during 1917 some 4,000 playgrounds and neighborhood recreation centers were maintained. A recreation center often means an open place where a brass band plays, and it sometimes means an indoor place where one may take a book from the library shelf: we learn that in 1917 about fifty cities "specalized" in brass bands, sixty in orchestras, and 200 in community sings; that there were debating clubs in forty cities and free libraries in

many more.

While it is good to read that there has been an increase of eighteen per cent in the number of playgrounds operated and of fifty per cent in the dollars spent, we know that the present crowded play and recreation centers serve only one in fifty of those children who should be served. We also know that those who should be served-indeed, those who are being served-are not only babies and boys and girls and young people, but some men and women who are never going to grow old.

As one sees the happy youth, therefore, from the poorer tenement districts of our cities in the municipal and other playgrounds, breathing better air, playing games, singing songs, crowding the swings, seesaws, and coasting slides, a sense of gratitude comes for their escape from unsanitary living conditions, from the danger of disease, and the danger of injury from street accidents.

But there is a future good to reckon with, for play makes for better and cleaner citizenship later.

LESS LOAFING

In compulsory labor legislation New Jersey has now followed West Virginia and Maryland. The New Jersey law provides that it shall be the duty of every able-bodied male resident of the State between the ages of eighteen and fifty years to be regularly engaged in some lawful and recognized employment, trade, or profession until the end of the war.

A large placard, prepared by the State Commissioner of Labor, has been sent for public posting to the sheriffs and other officials charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law:

The Compulsory Work Law

requires that

All Able-Bodied Males

between 18 and 50 Years, inclusive

MUST WORK 36 HOURS EACH WEEK

IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROVISIONS OF CHAPTER 55, LAWS OF 1918

HON. WALTER E. EDGE, Governor of New Jersey, by proclamation issued March 8th, 1918, called upon

the Sheriffs, Mayors and heads of Police Departments
to apprehend all violators, under penalty

$100 FINE, 3 Months in Jail, or Both

Those desiring work should apply in person or by mail to nearest
FEDERAL-STATE MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT OFFICE, or to
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, STATE HOUSE, TRENTON, N. J., when

Suitable Work will be Provided
or Exemption Cards issued

Persons having sufficient resources arising from ownership of property or income, and those supported by others, are included among those coming within the provisions of this not. NOT INCLUDED

(a) Students and persons fitting themselves to engage in trade or industrial pursuits. (b) Persons temporarily unemployed by reason of differences with employers.

(0) Such seasonable or other regular employment as require in the proper discharge of their duties less than minimum number of 36 hours indicated in this act.

CITIZENS WILL PLEASE REPORT VIOLATION TO, OR ADVISE WITH, SHERIFF OF YOUR COUNTY, THE MAYOR, CHIEF OF POLICE, OTHER MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES, THE FEDERAL-STATE-MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT OFFICE, OR LEWIS T. BRYANT,

Commissioner of Labor.

take employment. If employment has not been obtained within the week, he must return and get another card if he can.

Mr. Bryant assures the sheriffs that the entire machinery of the Department of Labor "will be included in the effort to curb vagrancy, uselessness, and mendicancy during these times when every red-blooded citizen of our country should be doing his bit towards the successful termination of our present conflict."

HOBOES AND THE IDLE RICH

In the operation of this law New Jersey, we hope, will have the same success as West Virginia and Maryland have had. West Virginia has the distinction of beginning this reform in our economic system. In May a year ago the State Legislature passed a Compulsory Labor Law. In the eleven months since, in Charleston, the State capital, alone there have been under this Act some three hundred cases on the police docket, and in nearly every case fines have been imposed or else the accused has accepted employment. A like degree of success was obtained in other communities of the State. The justices of the peace, mayors, and police judges have jurisdiction to try and punish offenders. Those found guilty are fined not more than $100 for each offense, and-here is the "stinger "-as a part of the punishment the offender is ordered to work not exceeding sixty days upon the public roads or upon some other public work being done by the county or municipality in which the offender has been convicted. Half of the value of any such labor is paid by the county or municipality towards the support of any persons legally dependent upon the vagrant. If there is no dependent, then no payment is made. Furthermore, we learn from the Hon. Samuel B. Montgomery, the State Commissioner of Labor, from whom the above facts come, that the "idle rich" are as amenable to the law as are the idle of any other class. It is a satisfaction also to learn that the Supreme Court of the State has recently upheld this law.

In West Virginia the law applies to those whose ages are between sixteen and sixty years. In Maryland and New Jersey the law in that respect is not as strict, applying only between the ages of eighteen and fifty years.

Concerning the working of the law in Maryland, Mr. George A. Malone, who was appointed by the Governor to enforce the measure, thinks it not only sound and practicable, but presents statistics to support his opinion. In one respect the Maryland law is superior to the others, and that is because its penalties are heavier. The fine is $500 or less and the imprisonment not more than six months, or both.

Writing to The Outlook, Mr. Malone adds an expression of opinion which strikes us as being particularly pertinent. "The main good the law does," he affirms," is not expressed in figures of men reported for not working, or in those assigned to work, or of those punished for not working. The main good effect of the law is that it sends men to work before they get on the delinquent list and keeps them at work when they would otherwise drop out."

THE PIGGERY PLAN

Garbage is a disagreeable subject. Perhaps, because it is so disagreeable, the notion has prevailed that garbage must be dumped somewhere as rapidly as possible, so as to get it out of the way. Then we think no more about it.

As a matter of fact, garbage is not now as plentiful as it has been. The reason is that less is being put into the garbage pail. Everywhere housewives are materially reducing the waste. The Food Administration's report shows that collections in seventysix American cities are some fourteen per cent smaller than they were during the same period a year ago.

Nor is the garbage dumped so rich in quality. The housewives have taken from it the most promising percentage of what would ordinarily seem mere waste foodstuffs. There is not now half as much grease in garbage collected as in that collected last year. But the refuse really inedible by humans (the gristle, vegetable peelings, table and kitchen scraps), when freshly collected, constitutes a proper food for hogs and produces pork of good quality. It has even been said that from the average waste from kitchens every year we might

At present we produce only thirty-seven per cent of the chromite needed and sixty-five per cent of the tungsten.

have some seventy million pounds of pork and over $16,000,000 worth of grease and fertilizer.

Hence in the present effort to increase food production the methods of garbage disposal have come suddenly to the fore. Dumping has long since been shown to be unsanitary. The burning of garbage is now the rule in many cities. In Minneapolis, with its $110,000 incinerator, the burned garbage has been utilized for steam produced in the generation of electricity.

Now, however, Minneapolis has found a more profitable means of disposal, Beginning with April, the city began to feed its garbage to hogs. The city collected the garbage, so Alderman Dight tells us, placed it on board cars at a certain garbage collection station, and sold it at $1.26 a ton. At the price the value of the garbage collected by the city during 1917 would amount to some $30,000. The saving to the city in the cost of coal to burn the garbage would increase this sum to about $50,000.

As the price of garbage is advancing, because of the price of pork, the saving should be all the greater to taxpayers. Like Minneapolis, Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, had used the incinerator plan. Mr. Nelson, the City Auditor, writes to The Outlook that the city now sells its refuse to the farmers for $1.25 a ton delivered at loading stations near by, from which it is hauled away by the farmers who live in the vicinity.

Another city which has recently tried hog feeding is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where the garbage had hitherto been dumped. Writing to The Outlook, Mayor Rall says that the new system has been almost entirely a clear gain.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the reduction system has been employed, but now the hog-feeding system is used. Mayor Kiester says that the saving to the municipality by what he calls the "piggery plan " may reach no less than one hundred and fifty per cent.

Proper garbage utilization is now more than a mere economic method of disposal. It has become a patriotic duty. We must conserve all our assets-even our garbage assets-in order to increase our food production.

OUR MINOR MINERALS

It is all very well to talk about increasing our Army in France, but the controlling factor is ships. We must have more ships.

Mr. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, recently suggested a plan whereby the crying need for ships could in some degree be met. He proposed that our mines of so-called minor minerals, especially those the production of which was essential to the making of munitions of war, be developed to their fullest capacity, so that the ships now bringing to our shores some two million tons of these minerals be released for taking men and supplies to France. The minerals come from many distant sources-from China, Ceylon, Chile, Spain, Madagascar, Australia, Greenland. The import involves long voyages, delays in loading and unloading the bulky materials, and the congestion of our ports.

Chief among our minor minerals is manganese. It is an essential for high-grade munition steel. Because of the lower grade of our manganese ore, we have been getting over three-quarters of our supply from abroad, principally from Brazil; the collier Cyclops, supposed to have been lost, was, it is reported, loaded with it. Owing to lack of facilities in Brazil, all the ore has been smelted here. Certain Montana companies, however, have invested, it is said, a million and a half in machinery to develop the manganese supply of that State, and they have developed it amazingly. This shows what can be done by private initiative with ample means.

The idea that lies behind the legislation now pending in Congress, however, consequent upon Mr. Lane's suggestion, is that the Government should establish a minimum price to encourage small producers. Similar to the case of manganese is that of chromite, of which two-thirds of our supply comes from abroad. Chromite is an alloy for particular forms of steel, such as that going into armor-piercing projectiles. Tungsten is used in toughening the steel used in auto and airplane frames. Our chromium mines in Pennsylvania and our tungsten mines in Colorado and Arizona may soon be the scenes of greater activity.

Two fundamental materials in the manufacture of all modern high-power explosives are nitrate, chiefly as nitric acid, and concentrated sulphuric acid, made from pyrite or sulphur; we produce only a third of the pyrite that we need.

Mercury is used as a fulminate to explode cartridges and shells, and is essential for the safe and effective use of all high explosives. We produce only a part of what we need.

Antimony is required for hardening lead and bullets. We produce only a tenth of what we need.

Mica is indispensable as an insulating material in the manufacture of electrical apparatus. Again we produce only a small part of what we need.

And so we might go on. A bill to provide for the immediate expansion of our supply of these minor minerals was introduced into Congress. It has now passed the House of Representatives, and, we are glad to say, by the emphatic vote of 290 to 7.

It provides, however, a ten-million-dollar appropriation instead of the fifty million dollars requested. A reading of the "Congressional Record" discloses the fact that the smaller appropriation was voted, not so much because of any lack of faith in the project, but because a smaller sum was deemed sufficient to begin with. Another reason was the report that our war expenses are now a billion dollars a month.

THE ROAD OF SILENCE

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has been doing a good work in its lectures on art for the benefit of the deaf. These lectures were delivered by Miss Jane Walker during the winter; they came to an end with one of May 2 on "Myths in Marble." Of course such lectures appeal to a restricted audience; and the audience has also been the smaller because only comparatively few people have known about them. The lectures are given by the means of lip reading, an art of seeing another's thought.

The subject of art is peculiarly appealing to the deaf. They are necessarily deprived of music, the spoken drama, sermons, lectures, and that great world of spiritual and intellectual stimulus which reaches the hearing child through his ears; hence art is one field to which the footsteps of the deaf instinctively turn. This is Miss Walker's belief, and in her lectures she seeks not only to teach various phases of the history of art, but also to give some stimulus to those who watch her to use their own hands, and, if possible, themselves to become creators of beauty.

66

In this connection we may remember that among such creators the Italian painter Pintoricchio was called "Il Sordacchione" because of his deafness, that Goya and Sir Joshua Reynolds were deaf, while, of course, the case of Beethoven is the best known of all. There have been other artists also traveling this "Road of Silence," as Margaret Baldwin, in a recent number of the "Atlantic Monthly," calls it.

Why should we not make the otherwise dreary lives of the hard of hearing more beautiful by bringing them more and more in contact with the beautiful? The little deaf New York City child, coming from some crowded and unbeautiful home, as it passes through the spacious galleries of the Metropolitan Museum and feels about it the presence of lovely forms and colors, may be awakened to a new, and perhaps a creative, life.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MEAT INDUSTRY

In value of products, what is our greatest industry? Most men would probably reply, Food. And they are right. It is very much our greatest industry. It is followed by textiles; iron, steel, and their products; chemicals and allied products; lumber and its manufactures; paper and printing; metals and metal products other than iron and steel; leather and its products; and, finally, vehicles for land transportation.

The subject of land transportation suggests a comparison between its volume of business and that of any of our industries. It may surprise some to learn that the total annual revenue of our railways is not as great as the annual value of food, textile, or iron and steel products, indeed that the volume of business of