A NATIONAL IDEAL

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 28, 1 February 1919, Page 10

A NATIONAL IDEAL

ENGLAND'S UNPARDONABLE SIN.

To be an English gentleman had for centuries been the weekday religion of a great part of our nation, said Dean Ings at a meting' of the Parents' Educational Association. The onry unpardonable sin in England was to bo a. cad, that was,.to fill short of the standard of honour to which all gentlemen had to conform. The ideal was bo sacred to us that we did not like to talk about it or appeal to it. -• As for the essentials o£ a gentleman, the whole cult of old families was rather absurd.' Only a, very few of our noble families had shown unusual ability for more than two generations. Fine manners were certainly an ingredient. In occupation they found a nest of dying prejudices, though there was no reason why a gentleman should not be a working farmer or any other sort of working man.

Bernard Sb&\7 had sai3: "A gentleman is a man who tried not to take out of life more than he _puts in." That was a rerohitionary definition, but strictly true to what at Heart we all/felt to be the character of a gentleman, and it was a saying which could cot be rubbed in too Vigorously in- training tho young gentleman.

According to , the English school of thought, the usual qualities of a gentleman were truthfulness, courage, justice, and fair-play, the aborrence of meanness ajxl crooked dealing, and respect for the personality of human beings as such.

Experiments made at tho Pasteur Institute, in Paris, by M. Kayser, indicate that the seaweed Laminaria <Bgitata is a promising source of alcohol. The plants previously washed to extract the mineral salts or unwashed, were reduced by evaporation to 10 per cent. They were then treated with water containing from 3 to 6 per cent, of sulphuric acid for half an hour or an hour, at 122 degrees C. The sugary liquid was neutralised to 1 per cent, of acidity, nitrogonou3 material aided in some cases, and was sprinkled with, brewers' yeast. Fermentation was readily induced, especially if the flasks containing nitrogoous material and an average of six liters of alcohol per 100 pounds of dry seaweed was, obtained. Tho investigator "believes that with higher pressures larger quantities could be obtained, and that the residue could be used for the extraction of mineral matter and potash as byproducts.