but little of physics or biology.  Interestingly enough, this whole system of education and life has not been without some elements of very genuine culture.  Literature has been mainly in the diction of Shakespeare and Milton; but Shakespeare and Milton, though not of the twentieth century, are still good models, and because the officials have had to compose many state documents and deliver many formal addresses, there has been developed in the country a tradition of good English speech.  A service in any one of the representative churches is dignified and impressive.

The churches and schools of Liberia have been most largely in the hands of the Methodists and the Episcopalians, though the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Lutherans are well represented.  The Lutherans have penetrated to a point in the interior beyond that attained by any other denomination.  The Episcopalians have excelled others, even the Methodists, by having more constant and efficient oversight of their work.  The Episcopalians have in Liberia a little more than 40 schools, nearly half of these being boarding-schools, with a total attendance of 2000.  The Methodists have slightly more than 30 schools, with 2500 pupils.  The Lutherans in their five mission stations have 20 American workers and 300 pupils.  While it seems from these figures that the number of those reached is small in proportion to the outlay, it must be remembered that a mission school becomes a center from which influence radiates in all directions.

While the enterprise of the denominational institutions can not be doubted, it may well be asked if, in so largely relieving the people of the burden of the education of their children, they are not unduly cultivating a spirit of dependence rather than of self-help.  Something of this point of view was emphasized by the Secretary of Public Instruction, Mr. Walter F. Walker, in an address, “Liberia and Her Educational Problems,” delivered in Chicago in 1916.  Said he of the day schools maintained by the churches:  “These day schools did invaluable service in the days of the Colony and Commonwealth, and, indeed, in the early days of the Republic; but to their continuation must undoubtedly be ascribed the tardy recognition of the government and people of the fact that no agency for the education of the masses is as effective as the public school....  There is not one public school building owned by the government or by any city or township.”

It might further be said that just now in Liberia there is no institution that is primarily doing college work.  Two schools in Monrovia, however, call for special remark.  The College of West Africa, formerly Monrovia Seminary, was founded by the Methodist Church in 1839.  The institution does elementary and lower high school work, though some years ago it placed a little more emphasis on college work than it has been able to do within recent years.  It was of this college that the late Bishop A.P.