Managing Trouble in Troubled Times: A Responsibility of Honors

The best approach to honors students is to acknowledge that they are fully operating adults. This approach is the only and best way to confront the troubles that interrupt academic progress. Trouble requires either capitulation or growth. In a society that treats college as preparation for a job, honors holds out the hope that we can accomplish the crucial task of helping young people become strong and moral leaders in all areas of life. How we assist them achieve such a status determines our success and integrity as a special component of a university. The willingness and courage of our young honors students often defies our expectations, but what they wish for more than anything is that someone—often us—“have their back.” What we have to offer as academics is the application of reason to the problems our students face. Of course as humans we offer empathy and sometimes sympathy, but usually when problems threaten to overwhelm students, our best approach is to provide calm assistance in helping them think through potential solutions. Most often, students will take control and seek remedies. On occasion, however, students face physical or mental problems that simply cannot be resolved without intervention; in such cases, we assist them in finding the expertise they need by, for instance, escorting them to hospitals or campus health centers. Even in extreme cases, though, a spirit of collegiality in the relationship between faculty and student remains the bedrock for assisting students in trouble

Military changes affected by acquiring the Phillipines

Citation: Montgomery, Charles Dudley. Military changes affected by acquiring the Phillipines. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1900.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: Possibly there is no other question now confronting our statesmen, that assumes such an unsolvable indetermined aspect, as that of “Expansion” and its effect on our military organization. The United States is unskilled in provincial rule. She has ever shunned aggressive warfare, while conquest is certainly beyond her well tried spheres of action. Her military force has ever been held to the minimum necessary for home defense. She now has adopted provincialism, without special preparation for the defense of the Province. She has planted the “Stars and Stripes” some ten thousand miles from home, without strengthening our defensive force for its protection. Where our flag goes, be the ethics what it may, our armies must go to protect. That our martial strength must be increased, is an obvious fact; but the manner of its increase and disposal of its newly organized forces are problems as yet unsolved. In treating this subject, the theories of the best tacticians, who have published articles within recent date, will be used as a back-ground. To these men the writer acknowledges his indebtedness. The reader is asked to accept only what seems logically deducted from the correlation of these theories, bearing in mind the fact that tacticians are at this date slow to publish their ideas or make conjectures on a subject that is effected by so many external forces as that of “Expansion” or extending territory

Honoring Virginia Tech: Letter from Charles (Jack) Dudley

Your cards, letters, emails, and phone calls helped sustain us in the most terrible moments of our lives and for that we are forever in your debt. For the period Monday through today (April 16–25th), we have lived through periods of uncertainty, grief, intense emotions, and a profound sense of loss. We lost thirty-three students, our sense of security, and sense of direction. Your concern, as evidenced by more than two hundred communications, provided islands of comfort in a sea of horror. For your thoughtfulness we say a humble thank you

Linnaeus.

9077 LINN/EUS (1707-1778)\u27 BY JOHN MUIR SraEygHE immortal Linnaeus—Carl von Lmne — was born in Sweden, * a cold rocky country now famous forever. He was born in @4§?§i the bloom-time of the year, May 13th, 1707; and contemplating this great event, one may easily fancy every living thing dancing and singing and clapping hands for joy. Whether descended from sea-kings and pirates as is most likely, or from fighting Normans or Goths, matters not; for he was a lover sent of God to revive and cheer and bless all mankind. And this h@did in spite of crushing poverty, and all the black brood of disappointments and discouragements that ever beset the onway of genius. His parents were as poor and pious as the parents of great men usually are. He was a naturalist from his birth, and reveled in the bloom of the fields and gardens about his native village of Rashult as naturally as a bee. By his steady, slow-going neighbors he was looked on as one possessed. They did not know what to make of him; neither did his own father and mother. His father, a minister, naturally wished his son to follow in his footsteps, and with commendable self-denial saved money to send young Carl to school with this end in view. But the studies leading to the ministry did not interest the lad, and like other divine boys he was called a dunce. Accordingly, when his father visited the school and anxiously inquired how Carl was getting on, he was bluntly told that the boy was dull, had ho brains, and could never be made into a minister or scholar of any kind. Under these dark circumstances, the best advice the schoolmaster was able to offer the discouraged father was to take away his. boy and make a tailor or a shoemaker of him. Yet this was the boy who was to do the jnost of all for many generations to open men\u27s eyes to see the beauty of God\u27s gardens and the creatures that enliven them\u27. The real education of Linnaeus began as soon as he could sec. When only four years old he constantly questioned his father about the weeds and flowers around the house. His formal education began at the age of seven, when he was sent to a private school for three years; at the.end of which time he entered another private school at Wexio, In 1719, we are told, he was committed to the care of one Gabriel Hok, a teacher of repute, but who was as unsuccessful as his 9078 LINNAEUS predecessors had been\u27 in his efforts to overcome the lad\u27s distaste for scholastic studies and his seemingly irrational liking for plants. In 1724 he entered the gymnasium, caring for nothing but botany and biology in general,—-which in truth is almost everything. Here he managed to get together some of the books of the few Swedish authors who had written of plants, and over these he laboriously pored. It was\u27 when he was in the gymnasium, at the age of seventeen, that his father was advised to make a tailor or shoemaker of his dullard. The old clergyman, grieved and disappointed at the outcome of twelve years\u27 schooling, met Dr. Rothman, a practitioner of the town, to whom he mentioned his sad case. The doctor, a better judge of human nature than the minister, declared he could end the troubles of both father and son: he offered to board Carl the year that remained of the gymnasium course, and assured his father that though backward in theology, the boy would yet make a name in medicine and natural history. So Carl escaped cobbling, was kindly cared for by the good doctor, given instruction in physiology, and directed to Tournefort\u27s system of botany, the best then in existence. At the age of twenty he went to the University of Lund; and while studying there had the good fortune to lodge at the house of Dr. Stobaeus, who had a museum of minerals, shells, dried plants, and birds, which made the heart of young Linnaeus throb with joy. The learned doctor also had a library to which Carl at length gained access, and from which he got books on natural history, which he read stealthily by night against the rules of the orderly household. And thus genius made its own starry way, uncontrollable as the. tides of the sea. In the summer of 1728 Linnaeus again met his benefactor Rothman, who urged him to leave Lund and go to Upsala, where educational advantages were better. Accordingly, with about forty dollars in his pocket,—all he was to expect from his father,—he set out for the university he was soon to make famous, Of course his little stock of money quickly melted away; and being a stranger, he could earn nothing by teaching. Nearly a year he passed in dire poverty, glad when he could get one hard, meal a day. His worn-out shoes he patched with pasteboard. His eyes were full of plants, but his stomach was achingly empty most of the time.\u27 Only, by chance meals from fellow-students, and others almost as poor as himself, did he manage to keep body and soul together. A course of starvation, it would seem, is a tremendous necessity in the training of Heaven\u27s favorites. During the hunger period, in the autumn of 1729, Linnaeus was one day intently studying a plant in the academical garden, when a venerable minister happened to notice him, and asked what he was 06V39 LINN/EUS 9079 doing,—whether he knew anything about plants, whence he came, etc. This clergyman was Olaf Celsius, professor of theology, who was then writing his (Hierobotanicon.\u27 He was quick to see, as well any naturalist might, that the starved and ragged student was no ordinary fellow. He therefore invited him to his house and fed him. How could he help it ? And later, when he saw Linnaeus\u27s collection of plants and heard him talk about them, he gladly gave him a home. In the University at this time little attention was given to natural history; and it is said that Linnaeus did not hear a single lecture on botany all the time he attended the classes. In 1729 he began to write his wonderful books: first a small one on the sexes of plants, which he showed to his friend Celsius, who in turn showed it to Professor Rudbeck, who knew something of botany. In the following year Rudbeck, who was growing old, appointed Linnaeus his assistant; and the latter was now openly started on his flowery way, lecturing, traveling, and reveling in the wilderness of plants like a bee in a clover-field. He now wrote his celebrated epoch-making ( Systema Naturae. At Amsterdam in Holland he dwelt a year with the famous Professor Boerhaave, and there published his \u27 Fundamenta Botanical A rich banker by the name of Cliffort wiled him to his magnificent garden at Hartecamp, where he worked and lived like a prince; and there he published his Flora Lapponica,\u27 containing the new genus Linnaea. In 1736 he visited England, and was warmly welcomed by the plants and plant-lovers there. On his return to the Netherlands he completed his \u27Genera Plantarum,\u27 which may be regarded as the beginning of the natural systematic botany. This great work was followed in this hot, fertile, high-pressure period by his (Classes Plantarum.* His industry and fertility were truly wonderful. Books came from his brain as from an inexhaustible fountain; and neither pleasure nor pain; praise nor blame, nor the weariness and exhaustion that stop common mortals, could abate one jot his overmastering enthusiasm, or divert him in the least from his glorious course. In 1738 Linnaeus established himself as a physician in Stockholm, and was married there the following year. In 1740 Rudbeck died,, and Linnaeus gained his place as professor of natural history at the University of Upsala, where he had so long and so bravely studied and starved. Thenceforth his life was all congenial work, flowers and sunshine, praise and fame. In 1750, after many other less notable works, he published (Philosophia Botanica, and three years later ( Species Plantarum.) He shone now like a sun; honors of all kinds poured in on him, kings wanted him at their courts, every university wanted him; but he remained true to his own country and his own work, Students from near and far gathered about him. The five 90S0 LINNAEUS hundred at Upsala increased to fifteen hundred, attracted and inspired by his bright-burning love. He lived till 1778. In person he is described as of medium height, with large limbs and wonderful\u27 eyes. If one may judge from the portrait statue erected to his memory in Upsala, his features were beautiful and serene beyond those of most men, and surely beyond those of most statues. Of course plants were studied long before Linnaeus, but mostly as food or medicine; and the collections of living plants were called physic gardens. Solomon spake of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks studied botany in some form or other; for the showy multitudes of plant-people could not fail to attract the attention of scholars in every age. About three hundred years before Christ, Theophrastus wrote a ( History of Plants,\u27 in which he described about five hundred species supposed to be useful in medicine. The elder Pliny described about a thousand. But it was not until the sixteenth century that anything noteworthy was done in botany as a science. In 1583 Andreas Caesalpinus, professor of botany at Padua, published a work called (De Plantis,\u27 in which he distributed some one thousand five hundred and twenty plants in fifteen classes, according to the differences of their fruits and flowers, and their being herbaceous or woody. Then came John Ray, an Englishman, who died two years before Linnaeus was born; and who published in 1682 90S 2 LINNAEUS talked. Gray told many a story of his life and work on the Atlantic Allcghanies and in Harvard University; and Hooker told of his travels in the Himalayas, and of his work with Tyndall and Huxley and grand old Darwin. And of course we talked of trees, argued the relationship of varying species, etc.; and I remember that Sir Joseph, who in his long active life had traveled through all the great forests of the world, admitted, in reply to a question of mine, that in grandeur, variety, and beauty, no forest on the. globe rivaled the great coniferous forests of my much-loved Sierra, But it was not what was said in praise of our majestic sequoias and cedars, firs and pines, that was most memorable that night. No: it was what was said of the lowly fragrant namesake of Linnaeus,— Linnaea borealis. After a pause in the flow of our botanic conversation that great night, the like of which was never to be enjoyed by us again (for we soon separated and Gray died), as if speaking suddenly out of another country Gray said, Muir, why have you not found Linnaea in California? It must be here or hereabouts on the northern boundary of the Sierra. I have heard of it, and have specimens from Washington and Oregon all through these northern woods, and you should have found it here. In reply, I said I had not forgotten Linnaea. That fragrant little plant, making carpets beneath the cool woods of Canada and around the great lakes, has been a favorite of mine ever since I began to wander. I have found many of its relations and neighbors, high up in the mountain wood\u27s and around the glacier meadows; but Linnaea itself I have not yet found. Well, nevertheless said Gray, the blessed fellow must be living hereabouts no great distance off. Then we let the camp fire die down to a heap of ruby coals, wrapped our blankets about us, and with Linnaea in our minds, fell asleep. Next morning Gray continued his work, on the Shasta flanks, while Hooker and I made an excursion to the westward over\u27one of the upper valleys of the Sacramento. About noon we came to one of the icy-cold branches of the river, paved with cobblestones; and after we forded it we noticed a green carpet on the bank, made of something we did not at first recognize, for it was not in bloom. Hooker, bestowing a- keen botanic look on it, said What is that ? then stooped and plucked a specimen and said, Isn\u27t that Linnaea? It\u27s awfully like it. Then finding some of the withered flowers, he exclaimed, It is Linnaea. This was the first time the blessed plant was recognized within the bounds of California; and it would seem that Gray had felt its presence the night before, on the mountain ten miles away. It is a little slender, creeping, trailing evergreen, with oval crenate leaves, tiny thread-like peduncles .standing straight up and dividing into two pedicels at the top, on each of which is hung a delicate, 01**43 LINN/EUS 9083 fragrant white and purple flower. It was at the age of twenty-five that Linnaeus made the most notable of his many long, lonely botanical excursions. He set out from Upsala and wandered afoot or on horseback northward through endless pine and birch woods, tundras, and meadows, and along the shores of countless lakes into Lapland, beyond the Arctic Circle; now wading in spongy bogs, now crossing broad glacier pavements and moraines and smooth ice-burnished bosses of rock, fringed with heathworts and birch: a wonderful journey of forty-six hundred miles, full of exciting experiences and charming plants. He brought back hundreds of specimens new to science, among which was a little fragrant evergreen that he liked the best of all. Soon after his return he handed a specimen of it to his friend Gronovius, pointed out its characters, and requested him to describe it and name it for him; saying that somehow he felt that this little plant was related to him and like him. So it was called Linnaea borealis, and keeps his memory green and flowery and fragrant all round the cool woods of the world. Only last summer, when I was in the wildest part of the Rocky Mountains, where glaciers still linger and waterfalls like ribbons hang down the unscalable cliffs, I found Linnaea spreading and blooming in glorious exuberance far and wide over mossy ground, beneath •\u27 spruce and pine,— the wildest and the gentlest, the most beautiful and most loveful of all the inhabitants of the wilderness. Wherever\u27 Linnaea dwells, you will find enchanting woods and the dearest of the small plant-people,— chiogenes, Clintonia, orchids, heathworts, and hosts of bright mosses wearing golden crowns. No breath of malaria comes near Linnaea. The air and the scenery arc always good enough for gods or men, and a divine charm pervades it that no mortal can escape. In Linnaean woods I always feel willing to encamp forever and forego even heaven. Never was man\u27s memory more blessedly embalmed than is the memory of immortal Linnaeus in this little j flower, All around the cool ends of the world, while wild beauty endures, the devout pilgrim will see — — beneath dim aisles in odorous beds, The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads, And bless the monument of the man of flowers, Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1224/thumbnail.jp

EXPLORE Test and Ninth Grade Success in English 9 and Algebra I as related to End-of- Course Exams and Final Averages in a Rural East Tennessee High School

The purpose of this study was to compare scores students received on the eighth grade EXPLORE test in math and English to scores received in English 9 and Algebra I on both the End-of-Course (EOC) test and the final average in those courses. These scores were taken from a rural East Tennessee High School and the middle schools that feed into the high school. Data were collected over a 2-year period (2012 – 2014). Students who had a score in eighth grade and a corresponding score in ninth grade were included. All others were omitted. A series of Pearson correlations were conducted between EXPLORE scores in Math and English with final averages in English 9 and Algebra I and EOC scores in English 9 and Algebra I. An independent samples t test was conducted to determine whether the mean scores on the EXPLORE English and math test, mean scores for English 9 and Algebra I final averages and mean scores for EOC exams in English 9 and Algebra 1 differ between female and male students. Based on the findings of this study, the score received on the eighth grade EXPLORE in English has a strong positive correlation to the score received on the English 9 EOC and the final average in English 9. The same was true for the score on the EXPLORE in math, it also had a strong positive correlation to the score received on the Algebra I EOC and the final average in Algebra I. Additionally gender has an impact upon English 9 final averages, English 9 EOC scores, Algebra I final averages and EXPLORE scores in English, with female students scoring higher than male students in those categories. Conversely gender did not have an effect on Algebra I EOC scores or EXPLORE scores in math

A Wind-storm in the Forests.

10405 JOHN MUIR (1836-) !f0HN Muir, an explorer and naturalist, whose field of work has WapM. been particularly the western and northwestern mountain fegfe&M regions of America,— where at least one great glacier now bears his name,—was born at Dunbar, Scotland, in 1836. With his parents and a large flock of brothers and sisters, he came to the United States in 1850, after some good common-schooling in Dunbar. He began his study of nature in the region near Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin, with an ever increasing interest and delight in whatever belongs to the world of creatures, plants, and stones, particularly in the waving solitudes of forests and rock-and-snow tracts of the northwestern Sierras. Muir\u27s freedom to devote himself to a life of observation and record was delayed: and in the story of his years of manual work as a farmer, mechanic, lumberman, sheep-herder, and what not besides, there comes surprise at his power to find time and energy for other pursuits in the nature of an avocation; and with the surprise we have a sense of pleasure that a man of untiring muscles and mind could win free of all that checked his natural preferences. He studied grammar and mathematics while a farm hand, and read through a library of books when in the fields. He earned enough as a young man to give himself four years of special scientific study in the University of Wisconsin, Then began an independent life, in which he alternated seasons of hard work, wholly or much alone; partly through the circumstances of his wanderings, partly by his own choice. It is said that during ten years of mountaineering in the remoter Sierras, he met no men except one band of Mono tribesmen. For some ten summers and winters prior to 1876, Mr. Muir was settled near the Yosemite district, In the year named he became a member of the Geodetic Survey of the Great Basin, and attempted much botanical work. During 1879,and subsequently, after he reached Alaska, he explored and charted its vast mountain ranges, discovered 10406 JOHN MUIR Glacier Bay and the Muir Glacier system; and with that expedition and the two succeeding tours he became the foremost authority on Alaska\u27s geologic and other natural aspects. He also visited the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers, and traversed the canon country of California. He was of the party on board the Corwin in 1881, sent out to trace the lost Jeannette, which enterprise added largely to his sketches and notes for scientific use. Since 1879, the year of his marriage, Mr. Muir has had his home in California; but to find him in it at other than a given time, is somewhat an accident, so indefatigable is his industry as a naturalist. He is as ready to-day for an alpine excursion of weeks or months as in the early period of a naturalistic career exceptionally arduous and fruitful. Mr. Muir has written much less than his explorations would suggest: but as a contributor to the highest class of American and foreign periodicals, and the author of volumes dealing with his experiences, impressions, and discoveries, he is a writer of distinct and unusual individuality. He is less a man of letters in his manner than he is the direct, graphic, and sincere observer, whose aim is to write down simply what he see.s or feels, to put the reader in the quickest and closest touch with a topic or a scene. But the simplicity and personal effect of his style give it a peculiar vigor and eloquence. He has been spoken of as a naturalist whose observations have the force of mathematical demonstration. In the study of glacial conditions, botanic life, the fauna of the Northwest, and kindred subjects, he is reckoned a specialist by the first scientists of the day; and his personal traits have won him the esteem of the army of scientists who have visited the Western country where he lives and works. His most popular volume, \u27The Mountains of California,* promises to become a classic; his editorial contributions in Picturesque California are thoroughly effective; and he has won wide favor through descriptive pages, splendid for spontaneous and vivid prose pictures of great scenery,— studies of the wind\u27s movement of a pine forest, or a delicate flower of California, or a wild-bird\u27s lonely nest. A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS From Copyright 1894, by The Century Company The mountain winds, like the dew and rain, sunshine and snow, are measured and bestowed with love on the forests, to develop their strength and beauty. However restricted the scope of other forest influences,. that of the winds is universal. The snow bends and trims the upper forests every winter, the JOHN MUIR [0407 e (t WC -r lightning strikes a single tree here and there, while avalanches mow down thousands at a swoop as a gardener trims out a bed of flowers. But the winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed bole; not one is forgotten: the Mountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttresses of the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the dells,— they seek and find them all, caressing them tenderly, bending them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or limb as required, or removing an entire tree or grove, now whispering and cooing through the branches like a sleepy child, now roaring like the ocean; the winds blessing the forests, the forests the winds, with ineffable beauty and harmony as the sure result. After one has seen pines six feet in diameter bending like grasses before a mountain gale, and ever and anon some giant falling with a crash that shakes the hills, it seems astonishing that any, save the lowest thick-set trees,. could ever have found a period sufficiently stormless to establish themselves; or once established, that they should not sooner or later have been blown down. But when the storm is over, and we behold the same forests tranquil again, towering fresh and unscathed in erect majesty, and consider what centuries of storms have fallen upon them since they were first planted: hail, to break the tender seedlings; lightning, to scorch and shatter; snow, winds, and avalanches, to crush and overwhelm, — while the manifest result of all this wild storm-culture is the glorious perfection we behold: then faith in Nature\u27s forestry is established, and wc cease to deplore the violence of her most destructive gales, or of any . other storm implement whatsoever. There are two trees in the Sierra forests that are never blown down, so long as they continue in sound health. These are the Juniper and the Dwarf Pine of the summit peaks. Their stiff, crooked roots grip the storm-beaten ledges like eagles\u27 claws; while their lithe, cord-like branches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds, however violent. The other alpine conifers —the Needle Pine, Mountain Pine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce—are never thinned out by this agent to any destructive extent, on account of their admirable toughness and the closeness of their growth. In general the same is true of the giants of the lower zones. The kingly Sugar Pine, towering aloft to a height of more than two hundred feet, 10408 JOHN MUIR offers a fine mark to storm-winds; but it is not densely foliaged, and its long horizontal arms swing round compliantly\u27 in the blast, like tresses of green, fluent algae in a brook: while the Silver Firs in most places keep their ranks well together in united strength. The Yellow or Silver Pine is more frequently overturned than any other tree on the Sierra, because its leaves and branches form a larger mass in proportion to its height; while in many places it is planted sparsely, leaving open lanes through which storms may enter with full force. Furthermore, because it is distributed along the lower portion of the range, which was the first to be left bare on the breaking up of the ice-sheet at the close of the glacial winter, the soil it is growing upon has been longer exposed to post-glacial, weathering, and consequently is in a more crumbling, decayed condition than the fresher soils farther up the . range, and therefore offers a less secure anchorage for the roots. While exploring the forest zones of Mount Shasta, I discovered the path of a hurricane strewn with thousands of pines of this species. Great and small had been uprooted or wrenched off by sheer force, making a clean gap, like that made by a snow avalanche. But hurricanes capable of doing this class of work are rare in the Sierra; and when we have explored the forests from one extremity of the range to the other, we are compelled to believe that they are the most beautiful on the face of the earth, however we may regard the agents that have made them so. There is always something deeply exciting, not only in the sounds of winds in the woods, which exert more or less influence over every mind, but in their varied water-like flow as manifested by the movements of the trees, especially those of the conifers. By no other trees are they rendered so extensively and impressively visible; not even by the lordly tropic palms or tree-ferns responsive to the gentlest breeze. The waving of a forest of the giant Sequoias is indescribably impressive and sublime; but the pines seem to me the best interpreters of winds. They arc mighty waving golden-rods, ever in tune, singing and writing wind-music all their long century lives. Little, however, of this noble tree-waving and tree-music will you see or hear in the strictly alpine portion of the forests. The. burly Juniper, whose girth sometimes more than equals its height, is about as rigid as the rocks on which it grows. The slender lash-like sprays of the 064*/O JOHN MUIR 10409 Dwarf Pine stream out in wavering ripples, but the tallest and slenderest are far too unyielding to wave even in the heaviest gales. They only shake in quick, short vibrations. The Hemlock Spruce, however, and the Mountain Pine, and some of the tallest thickets of the Two-leaved species, bow in storms with considerable scope and gracefulness. But it is only in the lower and middle zones that the meeting- of winds and woods is to be seen in all its grandeur. One of the most beautiful and exhilarating storms I ever enjoyed in the Sierra occurred in December 1874, when I happened to be exploring one of the tributary valleys of the Yuba River. The sky and the ground and the trees had been thoroughly rain-washed and were dry again. The day was intensely pure: one of those incomparable bits of California winter, warm and balmy and full of white sparkling sunshine, redolent of all the purest influences of the spring, and at the same time enlivened with one of the -most bracing wind-storms conceivable. Instead of camping out, as I usually do, I then chanced to be stopping at the house of a friend. But when the storm began to sound, I lost no time in pushing out into the woods to enjoy it. For on such occasions Nature has always something rare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof. It was still early morning when I found myself fairly adrift. Delicious sunshine came pouring over the hills, lighting the tops of the pines, and setting free a steam of summery fragrance that contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the storm. \u27 The air was mottled with pine-tassels and bright green plumes, that went flashing past in the sunlight like birds pursued. But there was not the slightest dustiness; nothing less pure than leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered bracken and moss. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two or three minutes: some uprooted, partly on account of the loose, water- soaked condition of the ground; others broken straight across, where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. The gestures of the various trees made a delightful study. Young Sugar Pines, light and feathery as squirrel-tails, were bowing almost to the ground; while the grand old patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in a hundred storms, waved solemnly above them, their long, arching branches streaming fluently on the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringing and 104 3 0 JOHN MUIR shedding off keen lances of light like a -diamond. The Douglas Spruces, with long sprays drawn out in level tresses, and needles massed in a gray, shimmering glow, presented a mest striking appearance as they stood in bold relief along the hilltops. The madronos in the dells, with their red bark and large glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected the sunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on the rippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now the most impressively beautiful \u27of all. Colossal spires two hundred feet in height waved like supple golden-rods chanting and bowing low as if in worship; while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire, The force of the gale was such that the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots, with a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature was holding high festival, and every fibre of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement. I drifted on through the midst of this passionate music and motion, across many a glen, from ridge to ridge; often halting in the lee of a rock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees,—Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak,— and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet, Each was expressing itself in its own way,— singing its own song, and making its own peculiar gestures,— manifesting a richness of variety to be found in no other forest I have yet seen. The coniferous woods of Canada and the Carolinas and Florida are made up of trees that resemble one another about as nearly as blades of grass, and grow close together in much the same way. Coniferous trees, in general, seldom possess individual character, such as is manifest among Oaks and Elms. But the California forests are made up of a greater number of distinct species than any other in the world. And in them we find, not only a marked differentiation into special groups, but also a marked individuality in almost every tree, giving rise to storm effects indescribably glorious. Toward midday, after a long, tingling scramble through copses of hazel and ceanothus, I gained the summit of the highest ridge in the neighborhood; and then it occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to climb one of the trees, to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear close to the ^Eolian music of its topmost JOHN MUIR I0411 needles. But under the circumstances the choice of a tree was a serious matter. One whose instep was not very strong seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck by others in case they should . fall; another was branchless to a considerable height above the ground, and at the same time too large to be grasped with arms and legs in climbing; while others were not favorably situated for clear views. After cautiously casting about, I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that were growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemed likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively young, they were about a hundred feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one; and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed. In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees; but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried — bent -almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows — without breaking a fibre. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad swelling undulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air. . Oftentimes these waves of reflected light would break up suddenly into a kind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regular order, they would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, and disappear on some hillside, like sea waves on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the black shadows beneath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silvery splendor. Excepting only the shadows, there was nothing sombre in all this wild sea of pines. On the contrary, notwithstanding this 66 10412 JOHN MUIR was the winter season, the colors were remarkably beautiful. The shafts of the pine and liboccdrus were brown and purple, and most of the foliage was well tinged with yellow; the laurel groves, with the pale under sides of their leaves turned upward, made masses of gray; and then there was many a dash of chocolate color from clumps of manzanita, and jet of vivid crimson from the bark of the madronos; while the ground on the hillsides, appearing here and there through openings between the groves, displayed masses of pale purple and brown. The sounds of the storm corresponded gloriously with this wild exuberance of light and motion, The profound bass of the naked branches and boles booming like waterfalls; the quick, tense vibrations of the pine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to a silky murmur; the rustling of laurel groves in the dells, and the keen metallic click of leaf on leaf,— all this was heard in easy analysis when the attention was calmly bent. The varied gestures of the multitude were seen to fine advantage, so that one could recognize the different species at a distance of several miles by this means alone, as well as by their forms and colors and the way they reflected the light. All seemed strong and comfortable, as if really enjoying the storm, while responding to its most enthusiastic greetings. We hear much nowadays concerning the universal struggle for existence, but no struggle in the common meaning of the word was manifest here; no recognition of danger by any tree; no deprecation: but rather an invincible gladness, as remote from exultation as from fear. I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy the music by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past. The fragrance of the woods was less marked than that produced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea; but from the chafing of resiny branches against each other, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale was spiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from these local sources, there were traces of scents brought from afar. For this wind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny gulches, and spreading itself in broad undulating currents over many a flower-enameled ridge of the coast mountains, then across the JOHN MUIR 10413 ObM^d golden plains, up the purple foot-hills, and into these piny woods with the varied incense gathered by the way. Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of land-winds far at sea, and sea-winds carry the fragrance of dulse and tangle far inland, where it is quickly recognized, though mingled with the scents of a thousand land-flowers. As an illustration of this, I may tell here that I breathed sea-air on the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, while a boy; then was taken to Wisconsin, where I remained nineteen years: then, without in all this time having breathed one breath of the sea, I walked quietly, alone, from the middle of the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, on a botanical excursion; and while in Florida, far from the coast, my attention wholly bent on the splendid tropical vegetation about me, I suddenly recognized a sea-breeze, as it came sifting through the palmettos and blooming vine-tangles, which at once awakened and set free a thousand dormant associations, and made me a boy again in Scotland, as if all the intervening years had been annihilated. Most people like to look at mountain rivers, and bear them in mind; but few care to look at the winds, though far more beautiful and sublime, and though they become at times about as visible as flowing water. When the north winds in winter are making upward sweeps over the curving summits of the High Sierra, the fact is sometimes published with flying snow-banners \u27 a mile long. Those portions of the winds thus embodied can scarce be wholly invisible, even to the darkest imagination. And when we look around over an agitated forest, we may see something of the wind that stirs it, by .its effects upon the trees. Yonder it descends in a rush of water-like ripples, and sweeps over the bending pines from hill to hill. Nearer, we s\u27ee detached plumes and leaves, now spee

Revolt and revival in the valleys : the influence of religion and revivalism on the politics and labour relations of the Taff Vale Railway, south Wales, 1878-1914

This thesis considers the social, political and religious changes affecting south Wales in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods through a holistic study of the lives of the men employed by the Taft Vale Railway (TVR). Its importance derives from four novel features. At its core are the employees of an entire railway company, not just a single centre or grade, and it has been informed by a wide range of disciplines from anthropology to theology. It has provided a closely observed examination of east Glamorgan society over the period, and it is emphasised that religion and politics were inextricably entwined in much of Welsh society. A contribution is made to the ongoing debate on the nature of community and its usefulness as a concept, and from this a 'Network Community' is proposed as a concept or investigative tool for use by social historians. The management's treatment of its workforce and the control strategies employed by companies through paternalism, welfarism and discipline are analysed. The Taft Vale dispute of 1900 is set in the context of the company's industrial relations history, and Ammon Beasley, General Manager 1891-1917, is shown to have been of greater importance to labour history than has been recognised. The fault lines in the realms of religion and politics, their influence on the company and the communities it served, and the denominational involvement of the TVA workmen are investigated. It draws attention to the fact that religion still played a ubiquitous role in the mores and culture of late-Victorian and Edwardian society. In south Wales this was dramatically enhanced by the phenomenon of religious revival; that of 1904-05 is shown to have been facilitated by the technology of the period, including the Taft Vale Railway, but without much impact on the railwayme

Kinase pathways underlying muscarinic activation of colonic longitudinal muscle

The longitudinal muscle layer in gut is the functional opponent to the circular muscle layer during the peristalsis reflex. Differences in innervation of the layers allow for the contraction of one layer that corresponds with the simultaneous relaxation of the other, enabling the passage of gut contents in a controlled fashion. Differences in development have given the cells of the two layers differences in receptor populations, membrane lipid handling, and calcium handling profiles/behaviors. The kinase signaling differences between the two layers is not as well characterized. Upon activation of cells from the circular muscle layer, it is known that Rho kinase and ERK1/2 promote contraction, while CaMKK/AMPK and CaMKII perform inhibitory/self-inhibitory roles. Such behaviors are poorly understood in the longitudinal muscle layer. In longitudinal muscle strips, we measured muscarinic receptor-mediated contraction following incubation with kinase inhibitors. Upon comparison to control, contributions of Rho Kinase and ERK1/2 were similar to those seen in circular muscle. Inhibition of both of these enzymes leads to diminished contraction. However, CaMKK/AMPK and CaMKII have effects in longitudinal muscle opposite to their regulation in circular muscle – their inhibition also diminishes the contractile response. These contractile data from strips were supported by immunokinase assay measurements of MLCK activity from strip homogenates with and without kinase inhibition. Therefore, we suggest that the activities of CaMKK/AMPK and CaMKII in longitudinal muscle are indeed different from their regulatory roles in circular muscle, perhaps a consequence of the different calcium handling modalities of the two muscle types