The following from the Chicago Tribune of April 30, exposes a grievous lack in the education of our time, one which needs to be understood and corrected in all the schools of Seventh-day Adventists:— The freshmen and sophomores of Columbia University are in a condition of humiliation because they have recently been put through a spelling examination, the spelling book not being considered an adjunct of the higher education. The results of the examination are generally humiliating, as they indicate that the spelling book is not an adjunct of either the higher or the lower education to the extent it should be. It is not unlikely that if the spelling test were applied to the students of all other colleges, the result would be the same. It might even prove disastrous to the faculties of the higher, and the teachers of the lower, schools. Ignorance of orthography is not confined to scholars and students. It is possible that, if further tests were instituted, a corresponding ignorance of some of the other “R.’s” might be revealed. If the present agitation in some quarters against the three R.’s and the craze for manual training shall continue without restraint, it is not unlikely that we shall have a10class of abnormally developed students who can not write, read, spell, or cipher correctly. The fault lies both with the colleges and with the schools. The college authorities take it for granted that those applying for admission can pass examination in the fundamentals, and hence pay no attention to such a trifling matter as orthography, even though bad spelling is a disgraceful blemish when he who has it lays claim to being well educated. The schools, on the other hand, are to blame for sending such crude material to the colleges, though they have been encouraged to do so because the colleges have attached no importance to the fundamentals. Now that Columbia has set the example, it is to be hoped other colleges will follow it. Once let it be understood that candidates can not be matriculated who fail to pass examination in the fundamentals of common school training, the lower schools will send applicants properly equipped. Of what profit is it to a man, though he gain a whole world of curious knowledge, if he can not spell?