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BALLOU'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE

Voi. XXVII.-No. 5. MAY, 1868... WHOLE NO. 161.

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FOOTBALL.

BY B. P. SHILLABER.

Tracing a resemblance between a game of football, and its ups and downs, and the game of after-life, in which latter the disproportion of winners is far greater.

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And skipping lightly o'er the ground,
As though it were indued with life,
I see the restless football bound,
Urged by the player's earnest strife.
Now high in air it boldly springs,
Now darts along the level plain,
Whilst note of boyish laughter rings
Through all the scale of fun's refrain.
Blest moment of the human span!

There is no grain of dark alloy
To mar in youth the gracious plan
That makes the total of its joy.

I feel delight yon shout to hear,
So full of melody and mirth,
As ceaselessly the stricken sphere
In airy journeys spurns the earth.
Now down, now up! with varied luck
The young contestants strive and strain
Attesting, by their nerve and pluck,

That all deserve the goal to gain.

Yet, as they chase the fickle round,

The stoutest in their strivings slip, While those who watch the timely bound The oftenest get the mastership.

The jolt, the rush, the strife, the meed,
The straining nerve and eager eye,
All in prophetic semblance plead-
Prefiguring the by-and-by.

They see it not; care weaves no spell
To knit their brows with anxious thought;
Like the light ball their feet repel

The world as yet affects them naught.
That bound is bound of all their hope,
That flight the height of all their aim,
Their only strife to friendly cope,

Their effort ending with the game.
I see-

There, in the jubilant scene,

With all its bustle, jolt and din-
The man-grown world's epitome,

The strife and toil-to lose and win.

Unequal is the exciting race

The strong, in eager effort, fall,
While orafty ones, of slower pace,

By subtle watching catch the ball.
And, with the boy's persistent might,
May we the manly game pursue:
The trial's more than half the fight-
Success is what we are or do.

IMPERIAL COLLEGE

We present, on page 407, a picture of the Royal College at Moscow, where the sons of the nobility are educated for public service to whichever brauch they may choose to devote themselves. This elegant structure, fronting upon a broad, public square, and ornamented with select shrubbery, is one of the good fruits of the great fire of 1812, when Napoleon was smoked out by the Russians. It is an ill wind, it is said, that blows nobody good, and so the fire, that swept off three quarters of the city, burning, in three days, 7932 houses, made room for a better style of architecture, which was availed of, exhibited in the present elegant structures of Moscow, like that represented in our engraving, which makes it one of the finest cities in the world. The rebuilding of Moscow was so actively pursued, that in the course of nine years, it had risen from its ruins in its present style of magnificence. The houses are principally of brick, the streets are paved with pebbles and bordered with foot-paths; fifteen main streets diverge from the centre, terminating at the fifteen barriers. It retains more of the Russian peculiarities than St. Petersburg, which has grown to be a centre of fashion and an exponent of European civilization, and there

AT MOSCOW.

fore the Russians love it. If any one praises St. Petersburg to a Russian, he invariably says, "You should see Moscow." The distance between Moscow and St. Petersburg is four hundred miles, which is made an easy journey by railroad. As formerly travelled, it was very tedious.

In the February number of our Magazine, we had an illustrated article on the educational system of Russia, in which the school under notice was alluded to, but its scope was confined mostly to the schools of St. Petersburg. It is pleasant to note the spirit of a government that tends to the instruction of its people, and prosperity and happiness are attendants upon the enlightenment of the public mind. The progress that Russia has made in this direction is most commendable, and, though the vastness of the country, and the indifference to education proceeding from the late condition of serfdom to which the poorer classes were subjected, are bars to the rapid progress made by more compact nations, there is a most gratifying report of the growth of schools and the spread of education in all parts of the vast empire. This must be the case where the heads of the nation are educated, as at the college under notice. A

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nobility, refined by the processes observed at such schools, is like gold refined, and from such proceeds an influence which affects society to its outer limit. It is the result of education. The influence must expand. It cannot remain selfishly inactive, but outflow for the good of the people. Educate the head, and the heart comes in for its share of the benefit. The general need is seen, and the remedy suggests itself to the enlightened mind.

This imperial university has a library of nearly, if not quite, 40,000 volumes. The course of instruction includes the moral and political sciences, physics, mathematics, medicine and polite literature. Several learned societies are also connected with it. The diplomatic, military, legal and clerical diguitaries of Russia are the finest educated men in the world, and have no superiors, and the emperor himself is remarkable for his intelli

gence and liberality. To this school they, and through them the nation, have received the benefit of the thorough instruction that has made them distinguished. The world outside of Russia, however, has little benefit from the college. It is a Russian institution literally, and its graduates are claimed by the State. This, indeed, holds true in all the Russian schools, the public good holding their graduates to service within their own borders. The tendency of this is the individualism of the Russian, and the exclusion of all approach to cosmopolitanism. The Russian is a Russian the world over.

There are many fine palaces of the nobility at Moscow, who, though remote from court, make a little court of their own, and enjoy a pleasant community. The city numbers about 250,000 population in summer, and in winter, the fashionable season, it receives an addition of some 150,000 more.

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We present a series of portraits of individuals representing the Punjaub country, and a few words about the country itself may not be uninteresting. The name signifies in the

A RAJAIL.

Persian "five waters," and is thus called from its position among five great effluents of the Indus, that is, Jhelum Chenaub, Ravee, Beas and Sutlej, the last named forming the

eastern border. The Punjaub is in the form of a triangle, and forms the northwest portion of Hindostan. The Himalayas bound it on the north, and the Khyber and Soliman ranges on the west. For the most part the country is an extensive plain, gradually sloping to the southwest, in the direction ot the five rivers by which it is abundantly irrigated. The soil is generally fertile, the climate hot and dry. The population, of about 12,000,000, is composed of various races, about one-fourth holding the Mohammedan faith. The Sikhs are the dominant race, though forming not more than one-fourth of the entire population, living between the Jhelum and Ravee. The Sikhs are a military and agricultural people, brave and hospitable. The language of the Punjaub is a jargon of various tongues. Education is very general, both elementary and advanced, in which female education is included.

Before the conquest of the country by England, the government was a sort of confederation of chiefs, or Rajahıs, all holding independent sway,

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