And then these three who had pursued my steps Like stern, relentless foes, year after year, Unmasked, and turned their faces full on me.

And lo! they were divinely beautiful, For through them shown the lustrous eyes of Love.

AMBITION'S TRAIL

If all the end of this continuous striving Were simply to attain, How poor would seem the planning and contriving, The endless urging and the hurried driving Of body, heart and brain!

But ever in the wake of true achieving, There shines this glowing trail-- Some other soul will be spurred on, conceiving New strength and hope, in its own power believing, Because thou didst not fail.

Not thine alone the glory, nor the sorrow, If thou dost miss the goal; Undreamed of lives in many a far to-morrow From thee their weakness or their force shall borrow-- On, on! ambitious soul.

MORNING PRAYER

Let me today do something that shall take A little sadness from the world's vast store, And may I be so favored as to make Of joy's too scanty sum a little more.

Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, Or sin by silence when I should defend.

However meagre be my worldly wealth Let me give something that shall aid my kind, A word of courage, or a thought of help, Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

Let me tonight look back across the span 'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say Because of some good act to beast or man-- "The world is better that I lived today."

I AM

I know not whence I came, I know not whither I go; But the fact stands clear that I am here In this world of pleasure and woe.

And out of the mist and murk Another truth shines plain: It is my power each day and hour To add to its joy or its pain.

I know that the earth exists, It is none of my business why; I cannot find out what it's all about, I would but waste time to try.

My life is a brief, brief thing, I am here for a little space, And while I stay I should like, if I may, To brighten and better the place.

The trouble, I think, with us all Is the lack of a high conceit.

If each man thought he was sent to this spot To make it a bit more sweet, How soon we could gladden the world, How easily right all wrong, If nobody shirked, and each one worked To help his fellows along.

Cease wondering why you came-- Stop looking for faults and flaws, Rise up today in your pride and say, "I am a part of the First Great Cause!

However full the world, There is room for an earnest man.

It had need of me or I would not be-- I am here to strengthen the plan."

WHICH ARE YOU?

There are two kinds of people on earth today; Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for 'tis well understood, The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth, You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span, Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.

No; the kinds of people on earth I mean, Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses Are always divided in just these two classes.

And, oddly enough, you will find too, I ween, There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.

In which class are you? Are you easing the load Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?

Or are you a leaner, who lets others share Your portion of labor, and worry and care?

RAY STANNARD BAKER.

(David Grayson.)

Ray Stannard Baker was born in 1870 at Lansing, Michigan, and came to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, with his parents at the age of five. Here he spent his boyhood and youth. He returned to the Agricultural College of his native state for study, and received his degree from that institution, afterwards attending the University for a short time. He then went into business with his father at St. Croix Falls, but the desire to write was strong upon him, and he began his career of authorship. During recent years his residence has been in Amherst, Massachusetts, but he visits Wisconsin every summer.

He is one of the state's most voluminous writers. He has the habit of keen and sympathetic observation, and this quality, when combined, as it has been in his case, with extensive and judicious travel and reading, usually results in a considerable literary output. Those of us who have read Mr.

Baker's magazine articles and books feel that the writer has seen a great many things,--that he has seen them with his own eyes, and that he has seen them intelligently. Aside from the fact that nearly all of his works grow rather from observation of men and things than from a study of philosophy or metaphysics, Mr. Baker's range of interest has been exceedingly wide. Perhaps he is best known as a writer on social, political, and economic subjects, but the selections given here from "The Boys' Book of Inventions," (I and II), indicate a field of interest that is entirely apart from politics.

The editors feel bound, in justice to Mr. Baker, to say that he feared that our readers would think that we had erred in choosing the accounts of inventions which have progressed so immeasurably since his articles were written. The editors, on the other hand, desired to do precisely the thing that Mr.

Baker feared to have them do. They desire to show what a keen, well-trained observer saw in these inventions, which now play so vital a part in our lives, when the inventions were new. Further, it is our desire that the name of Professor Langley, of Washington, D. C., should be properly honored in connection with the advance of the science of aviation. Indeed, but recently, when tried by an experienced aviator, his machine flew successfully. Professor Langley died as an indirect result of his untiring, unselfish, and heroic efforts in this then new cause. In spite of ridicule and contempt, in spite of lack of support, he went courageously ahead; and it is right that the boys of Wisconsin should know that a young man of their state has given due credit in his book to this heroic soul.

[Illustration: RAY STANNARD BAKER]

THROUGH THE AIR

From "THE BOYS' BOOK OF INVENTIONS," Chapter IX, by Ray Stannard Baker. Copyright, 1899, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

Probably no American inventor of flying machines is better known or has been more successful in his experiments than Professor S. P.

Langley, the distinguished secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Professor Langley has built a machine with wings, driven by a steam-engine, and wholly without gas or other lifting power beyond its own internal energy. And this machine, to which has been given the name Aerodrome (air-runner), actually flies for considerable distances. So successful were Professor Langley's early tests, that the United States Government recently made a considerable appropriation to enable him to carry forward his experiments in the hope of finally securing a practical flying machine. His work is, therefore, the most significant and important of any now before the public (1899).

The invention of the aerodrome was the result of long years of persevering and exacting labor, with so many disappointments and set-backs that one cannot help admiring the astonishing patience which kept hope alive to the end. Early in his experiments, Professor Langley had proved positively, by mathematical calculations, that a machine could be made to fly, provided its structure were light enough and the actuating power great enough. Therefore, he was not in pursuit of a mere will-o'-the-wisp. It was a mechanical difficulty which he had to surmount, and he surmounted it.

Professor Langley made his first experiments more than twelve years ago at Allegheny, Pennsylvania.... Professor Langley formed the general conclusion that by simply moving any given weight in plate form fast enough in a horizontal path through the air it was possible to sustain it with very little power. It was proved that, if horizontal flight without friction could be insured, 200 pounds of plates could be moved through the air and sustained upon it at the speed of an express train, with the expenditure of only one horse-power, and that, of course, without using any gas to lighten the weight.

Every boy who has skated knows that when the ice is very thin he must skate rapidly, else he may break through. In the same way, a stone may be skipped over the water for considerable distances. If it stops in any one place it sinks instantly. In exactly the same way, the plate of brass, if left in any one place in the air, would instantly drop to the earth; but if driven swiftly forward in a horizontal direction it rests only an instant in any particular place, and the air under it at any single moment does not have time to give way, so to speak, before it has passed over a new area of air. In fact, Professor Langley came to the conclusion that flight was theoretically possible with engines he could then build, since he was satisfied that engines could be constructed to weigh less than twenty pounds to the horse-power, and that one horse-power would support two hundred pounds if the flight was horizontal.

That was the beginning of the aerodrome. Professor Langley had worked out its theory, and now came the much more difficult task of building a machine in which theory should take form in fact. In the first place, there was the vast problem of getting an engine light enough to do the work. A few years ago an engine that developed one horse-power weighed nearly as much as an actual horse. Professor Langley wished to make one weighing only twenty pounds, a feat never before accomplished. And then, having made his engine, how was he to apply the power to obtain horizontal speed? Should it be by flapping wings like a bird, or by a screw propeller like a ship? This question led him into a close study of the bird compared with the man. He found how wonderfully the two were alike in bony formation, how curiously the skeleton of a bird's wing was like a man's arm, and yet he finally decided that flapping wings would not make the best propeller for his machine. Men have not adopted machinery legs for swift locomotion, although legs are nature's models, but they have, rather, constructed wheels--contrivances which practically do not exist in nature.

Therefore, while Professor Langley admits that successful flying machines may one day be made with flapping wings, he began his experiments with the screw propeller.

There were three great problems in building the flying machine. First, an engine and boilers light enough and at the same time of sufficient power. Second, a structure which should be rigid and very light.

Third, the enormously difficult problem of properly balancing the machine, which, Professor Langley says, took years to solve....

Professor Langley established an experimental station in the Potomac River, some miles below Washington. An old scow was obtained, and a platform about twenty feet high was built on top of it. To this spot, in 1893, the machine was taken, and here failure followed failure; the machine would not fly properly, and yet every failure, costly as it might be in time and money, brought some additional experience.

Professor Langley found out that the aerodrome must begin to fly against the wind, just in the opposite way from a ship. He found that he must get up full speed in his engine before the machine was allowed to go, in the same way that a soaring bird must make an initial run on the ground before it can mount into the air, and this was, for various reasons, a difficult problem. And then there was the balancing.