The Russians at Home and Abroad [pp. 209-215]

The Russians at Homne and Abroad.
have that peculiar solidity and thoroughness
of construction which seems to have belonged
to all the buildings erected by Ralston. In
short, the estate is a lonely country farm,
with a fine city house on it, and city conven iences all over it-a singular aggregation of
contradictory attractions. It meets the het erogeneous requirements which have been set
forth in this paper after a fashion which could
hardly have been more prophetic had Mr.
Ralston consulted the writer with the intention of preparing the place for a boys' school.
The reputation of Mr. W. T. Reid, the
head of the new institution, is even a better
guarantee for the practical merit of the institution than are locations and fittings for
its mere lodging. Mr. Reid, as everybody
in California knows, has for the last four
years been President of the University of
California. As such, he has had both friends
and opponents; but the attitude of the Belmont School towards the University is entirely friendly, and vice versa, so far as the
writer knows; and both friends and opponents would argue that Mr. Reid is certainly
no worse fitted to prepare students for the
University in consequence of having been
its President. His previous professional
experience as assistant in the famous Boston
Latin School and as principal of the Boys'
High School of San Francisco, is ample
evidence of his technical fitness; and it
would be at least superfluous to indorse him
personally, or to enumerate the offers which
he has declined of high educational positions elsewhere, from a laudable ambition to
identify himself with an important forward
step in the educational improvement of this
coast.
Our Academical Problem. Let the new
Belmont School succeed, and let a compe tent number of schools of like high aims and
abundant and appropriate equipment arise
after it, and one of the most important
problems for California's future will have
been solved. The gambling era of Califor nia is closed. The increase of small farms
and growing variety of legitimate industries
will, in due time, answer the hoodlum question, and the tramp question, and the Chinese question. This industrial movement is
already solidifying perceptibly the very foundations of genuine and healthy sociological
conditions in California. It is in higher
grades of improvement, preeminently in educational improvement, that we must trust for
the symmetrical completion of the social edifice. When we shall possess our full proportion of means for the higher training of youth,
objects will have been secured which no industrial conditions could attain. To solid
and legitimate industrial prosperity will be
added the purity of politics, the reform of
abuses, and the development of a genuinely
and highly cultivated society. Such schools
as the Belmont School will perform a work
impracticable by any other agency, playing
an important part in supplying to American
society an element not less important than
any other whatever, and in American society
peculiarly necessary, yet hitherto comparatively lacking-accomplished gentlemen.
THE RUSSIANS AT HOME AND ABROAD.1-4
FOR the last eighteen months we have
heard little of the Nihilists. Attempts, even,
at assassination, seem to have been few in
1 The Russians at the Gates of Herat. By Chas.
Marvin. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. i885.
For sale in San Francisco by A. LI,. Bancroft & Co.
2 Russia Under the Tzars. By Stepniak. Rendered
into English by Wrm. Westall. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. i885. For sale in San Francisco by
A. L. Bancroft & Co.
VOL. VI. — 14.
number, and in the rare cases of which we
have had intelligence, not directed at either
the Czar or any of the hig,her Russian offi 3The Russian Revolt. By Edmund Noble. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. i885. I'or sale in San Francisco by Chilion Beach.
4Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute. By
Theo. F. Rodenburgh, Bvt. Brig. Gen. U. S. A. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. i885. For sale in San
Francisco by Strickland & Pearson.
1885.]
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