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placid and immobile countenance the faintest trace of strain or worry. He organized the Conference. The conception was his. The execution was also his. He sketched out its programme, and he carried it through with an ability and devotion, tempered with a never-failing geniality which made him the most attractive perso- nality in that historic gathering of the journalists of the Empire. It is now several years since we met, but the memory of his kindli- ness and readiness to serve must remain imprinted on the minds of the members of the Conference.

Our programme, as I have said, was ready, and we set to work. We began the day with a visit to New College, which was almost opposite our hotel. We inspected the college building, almost every nook and corner of it, the lecture-rooms, the common-room, the smoking-room, and even the wine-cellar. To an Indian educationist like myself, bred in the puritanic ideas of our educational system, I confess the sight of the smoking-room and the wine-cellar gave a shock. No Indian educational institution or hostel has either of these appurtenances. Smoking among our students we dislike and discourage, and drinking among them, even in moderation, we abhor. There may perhaps be nothing immoral, the feeling is perhaps not based upon reasoned judgment, but our educational ideas have their roots in the Brahminical system of old, which was rigidly austere in its character and ascetic in its complexion, and in its outlook upon men and affairs. Poverty, purity, total contempt of wordly luxuries, are the basal ideas which built up the ancient educational system of India, and moulded its culture and civiliza- tion. The Brahmin has an instinctive dislike of both smoking and drinking, though sometimes, in imitating the failings of a civiliza- tion not his own, he takes to both.

I have throughout my life been a non-smoker. Often my friend, the late Mr. Turnbull, one of the most genial of men, pressed me to have a smoke with him, without success. At last he had recourse to a dodge. He made me a present of a fine cigarette-holder 'which he had purchased at the Paris Exhibition. I could not refuse the gift, coming from a friend so kind and so courteous. Equipped with this beautiful cigarette-holder, I took to smoking. But the practice was short-lived. It lasted for three or four days. I could endure it no longer. I felt the stench through every pore of my body. I put away the cigarette-case then and for ever; and I felt greatly relieved when I learnt that a thievish servant of mine had stolen it.