SPIRITS FROM THE VASTY DEEP

If Columbia University desires to complete its already very large curriculum, it may well establish the Chair of Spiritonomy and Spirities proposed by Mr. Chelsey, a New York spiritualist. Nothing could be more appropriate than to add these new sciences to the classic ones, Salesmanship and Domestic Science. Mr. Chelsey is now in touch with the late Dr. Charles Steinmetz, and with that aid is attempting to make an invention to "free mankind from its deplorable ignorance."

In this day, when spirits are hard to get and usually cut when got, to fill a Chair of Spiritonomy would be a difficult task. But with sufficient inspiration the incumbent might well make researches of inestimable value to History. Dr. Johnson might be summoned to tell the true story of Cock Lane. With Banque, Hamlet and Poor Yorick new worlds of Shakespearean lore could be revealed, but perhaps there needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us this. The headless Horseman and Byron's last appearance to Sir Walter Scott could be reenacted.

But if these advantages fail to convince the gentlemen who have made Columbia famous as the Home of Optometry, no doubt they will be entranced by the scholarship of Mr. Chesley. Etymology is his forte, for he explains that "spiritonomy" is a new word, part Anglo-Saxon and part Greek. And Columbia psychologists may be interested.