Items of Interest June 25, 1904 Issue

Items of Interest

The Constellation, the oldest ship of the old navy, has been brought from Newport to the New York Navy Yard to await there her further disposition by the Navy Department. For the past ten years she has been in service at Newport as a receiving ship for navy apprentices. She was built in Baltimore in 1797 and, aside from the Constitution, is one of the most notable of the old oak-ribbed vessels set afloat in the early years of the nation. She was fast in every point of sailing and early became known as the "water witch." She had the reputation early in the last century of being the fastest frigate afloat.

Princeton University has just announced changes in her curriculum that are quite radical. The leading feature, which will not come into full operation until 1905-06, is to take away from the two lower classes the hitherto carefully guarded system of electives. The course of study in the academic department will be narrowed down to three general lines, each leading to a degree. At the end of the second year a large measure of freedom will be allowed in the matter of electives. This action is a deliberate return toward the curriculum of earlier days, which has been regarded as too unyielding and narrow.

There are nine thousand burning lights and signals stretched along the American coasts, forming a perfect link, so that the navigator never need be beyond sight of one of the beacons. One thousand of these are located on the Atlantic coast, fifteen hundred are scattered along the rivers and inland waterways, five hundred on the Great Lakes, and two hundred on the Pacific coast. Of the grand total, including lighthouses of different classes, buoys, beacons, and danger signals, three thousand are lighted, giving forth their warnings at night time. Of these a score or more throw a beam of one hundred thousand candle-power. To maintain the lighthouse service a crops of over four thousand men is constantly employed and a fleet of more than fifty vessels. A modern

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Report of the Clerk of the Mother Church