for more. It was then I found out he was unconscious, and had been so, as I afterwards discovered, since 20,000 feet was reached, when he fell back in an attempt to pass me a note. I managed to hang on till we reached 30,500 feet, when the petrol pressure pumps behind the engine ceased to work owing to the rarefaction of the air and the engine stopping. The temperature was then equal to about 70 degrees of frost Fahrenheit.' Speaking of the descent, Captain Lang said the first 10,000 feet occupied 25 minutes, when he was well off Yarmouth, there being a hurricane blowing from 150 to 170 miles an hour. At 20,000 feet the observer regained consciousness. The two airmen have suffered badly from frost on the hands and face. The younger, Lieutenant Blowes, who is only nineteen, and has been in the Air Force one and a half years, has serious injuries to his hands which are very painful. Captain Lang, who has been flying since 1915, is very keen on experimental work, and while delighted with his performance regards it as little more than part of an ordinary day's work. - HERR EBERT YEARS ago, writes a correspondent, I met Ebert, the present head of the German Government. He is a small, dark man with thick black hair, moustache, and beard. His speech is lively, and betrays a vivid temperament, but well controlled. A South German he was born at Heidelberg, the son of a master tailor- he has a good deal of South German adaptability and understanding, and is as unlike as possible to the stiff Prussian bureaucrat. Ebert is, of course, suspect with the bourgeoisie, but, it may be added, he is less suspect than would be possible to almost any other Social Democrat. A self-made man, he is, entirely due to his own efforts, sufficiently well educated and of very quick understanding. He has great powers of work, and once he undertakes anything puts immense energy into it. Ebert was first in the Reichstag in 1912, and it is a curious turn of fortune which in six years has brought the deputy for Elberfeld-Barmen to the head of the late German Empire. AMERICAN STUDENTS AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIES Now that the prestige of German culture has been shaken, France hopes to attract American students to French Universities: We all know how large was the number of American students who came to France to fight for the good cause. The students of the United States became Paladins of The Ideal by the thousand. But now the war is over, and the authorities have reason to believe that by February or March, 1919, the soldiers of the starry banner will be free. Why should these soldiers not make use of their presence in Europe by taking some of the courses in our universities. Before the war of 1914, they appeared to have preferred German culture; German science, in particular, attracted them. Now the scales have fallen from their eyes. They have lived with us during the struggle; they will stay with us after the victory. During the demobilization the Government of the United States authorizes the students to attend our lecture courses; they will obey with joy. So we are going to have in the Latin Quarter in a short time, a goodly number of newcomers sympathetic newcomers. Now rises a question- where shall we lodge them? The American student is apt to be a quiet kind of lad. He does not take to la vie de Bohème, to the carefree life of the café at the corner. He likes the calm and peaceful atmosphere of home. To see that he is suited, a committee has just been formed at the Sorbonne. The aim of this body is to find lodgings for American students in French University families. This may be somewhat difficult. The French professor, unlike his English colleague, does not usually accept boarders; it irks him to open his home to newcomers. On the other hand, Parisian lodgings are cramped, and the student cannot find the comfort to which he is accustomed; he wants a bath room, a living room, social life. The Sorbonne committee does not consider these objections insurmountable. Its members believe that many professors will be willing to make room, and allow a stranger a seat at their family table when that stranger is an American; that is to say, almost a Frenchman. The American will be willing to go without those smaller luxuries which are in use at home. He will pay willingly, says the University circular, a sum varying from two hundred to three hundred and fifty francs a month. For a lodging with many commodities, the American student is willing to pay from three hundred and fifty to five hundred francs. With such a sum one can struggle, not altogether victoriously but with some chance of success against the rising cost of living. But the committee, in urging French university families to receive students, counts less on the financial appeal than on the patriotic call of the affair. Nothing can quicker bring about that fusion of two peoples who already like each other without knowing each other very well. The American student in the thick of the fray has scarcely had time to form an opinion of the French family, he imagines it as being such as French novelists picture it, and our novelists have often been severe on France. On the other hand, the French family is too accustomed to regarding the American as a mere practical man of affairs, it does not realize the idealism honored in the land of the dollar. A longer contact between the two peoples will dispel this double illusion. The committee requests the university families attracted by these propositions to give in their names at the Sorbonne Bureau of Information. It is to be hoped that the American contingent at the Sorbonne will be constantly renewed and that the old Sorbonne, heritor of the German Universities, will behold the elite of the New World flowing to its gates, visiting its amphitheatres and drinking in its spirit. |