The Chautauquan, November 1884

[63]

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. V. NOVEMBER, 1884. No. 2.

Officers of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio. Superintendent of Instruction, Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn. Counselors, Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D. Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J. General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

REQUIRED READING FOR NOVEMBER.

THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

Our inquiry in the first paper of this series led us to follow the emigration of the Aryan, or Indo-European, peoples from their original seat in Central Asia until we found them in possession of the whole of Europe;—the whole, from Siberia to the western shore of Ireland, from the Arctic Sea to the Mediterranean. The people who were there before them, they seem to have totally displaced, with the exception of a small remnant in the Pyrenees, now and long known as the Basques. That there were people in Europe before the Aryans has been clearly established by inquiries which here need only be thus referred to. Neither the inquiries nor the people are anything to our present purpose. As the Aryans began their westward march more than four thousand years ago, this fact of preëxisting European peoples is strong confirmatory evidence of the truth of a quaint line in a little song in “Twelfth Night” (not written by Shakspere, however),

That the Aryans killed all their predecessors in Europe is hardly credible, even if possible; but that they were very thorough in the performance of this function, is also more than probable. The improving of other people off the face of the earth is by no means an original American invention. It is a process which long antedates the introduction of the arts of civilization; and looking at the subject from the cold heights of history and social science, it seems to have been a necessity, preliminary to the introduction of those arts. The civilization which now fills the best part of the earth, although not the largest, and which seems destined to fill the whole, is in its origin and development altogether Aryan. Probably much the greater part of the primitive European peoples—primitive, if they indeed had not also predecessors—were destroyed. Certainly by the two processes of destruction and absorption they were extinguished. The Aryans, however, were not mere bands of armed men, armies large or small; they were emigrating nations. The men were accompanied by their women and children; and the probability therefore is that there was little mingling of the blood of the superior and conquering race with the blood of the inferior race, or races, whom they conquered and displaced. At least, of such an intermingling no appreciable traces have been discovered. There is in the language of any of the Aryan peoples now in possession of Europe no remnant, either verbal or constructive, of a language like that of the Basques. The consequences in this respect of the Aryan immigration into Europe were probably much like the consequences of the entrance of that people into this country. The American races have disappeared here before the European, and have not in the slightest degree affected, in the United States, at least, the blood, or the civilization or the speech of the latter. “Indians,” as we strangely call them (the real Indians being in Asia, and the “Indians” of America having been so called because America on its discovery was supposed to be the eastern part of Asia)—“Indians” should be treated with justice and with all the humanity that can be shown them; but it is a narrow and really an inhuman sentimentality which mourns their displacement from the great country which they once occupied as a savage hunting-ground.

We have now to inquire what English is; what is the substance and the structure of the language which within only two hundred and fifty years has choked and stilled even the echoes of the speech of Sitting Bull, Squatting Bear, and their forefathers and kindred. But before we go directly into this inquiry it may be instructive, and I hope interesting, to glance briefly at a few of the evidences which the discovery of Sanskrit, and the consequent development of the science of comparative philology, have revealed of the original identity of all the Aryan peoples (those in Europe and those in Asia—that is in Persia and India) and to make a rudimentary acquaintance with the modes and processes by which this identity was discovered.

No single word is so good an example of the testimony of language to the common origin of the Indo-European peoples as one of the commonest that we use, one which expresses the first, or at least the second, thought that enters the human mind—me. An infant, a worm, if it can think, has awakened in it on its first touch of another object the consciousness of something else and of itself:—that is not me, this is me. Now the expression in sound of this first perception of the human mind is the most widely diffused, and one of the most ancient,[64] of existing words. In English, Frisian, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Mæso-Gothic, German, Irish, Gælic, Welsh, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, the word expressing the objective recognition of self-hood is either absolutely the same, or like with so little difference that the slightness of the variation is remarkable. When we get to the Latin and the Greek me (the accusative case—so-called—of ego, I, which is common to both languages) we have gone back more than two thousand years; and when we reach the Sanskrit mahyam, with its dative me and its accusative má, we are four thousand years in the past, and as many thousand miles in Central Asia.

This one word, it should seem, was sufficient to indicate identity of origin in all the European languages, ancient and modern; and if not to produce conviction, to arouse attention and stimulate investigation. When the word was found in Sanskrit, it is not too much to say that identity of origin in all the Indo-European tongues was so clear that further investigation could discover only an accumulation of evidence. For otherwise it would be necessary to assume some inherent, intrinsic, or, as we say, some natural, relations between the idea of objective self-hood and the sound me, or that very ancient original sound of which it is a slight modification. But there is no such relation. There is no such relation between any word and any thought. If there were, then all the peoples of the world would have expressed that idea, and would now express it, by this sound, or by some modification of it. This, however, is not true. It is and it has been so used only by the peoples of the great Aryan or Indo-European family. But what a tremendous fact it is, the use of this little word by hundreds and thousands of millions of people over half the civilized world for more than four thousand years, to express this first thought that enters the mind of man!—people who were strangers, and enemies, who were slaughtering each other as they fought through the dark cycles of centuries for land, for life, for supremacy; who hated each other as foreign and alien; and who were all calling themselves, each to himself and each to the other, me, and in doing so were telling each other that they were of one blood and one speech!

It should be very distinctly remembered that the me (with its variations) of the various European peoples is not derived from the Sanskrit mahyam, má, or me, but that the Sanskrit form, like the others, is derived from a root in the yet more ancient, and now wholly lost, original Aryan speech. That word, according to evidence which I believe is satisfactory to all the great comparative philologists, is the pronominal root ma, which, for reasons undiscovered, and which are probably undiscoverable, was used to express the first person. Many verbal roots have been thus satisfactorily unearthed; but in the consideration of our subject it must never be forgotten, that the Sanskrit, although it has proved to be the key that unlocks the mysteries of language, and makes them no longer mysteries, but mere successions of related facts, is not the original fact or form of Aryan or Indo-European speech. No word in Latin, Greek, in the Celtic, Teutonic, Slavic, or other European tongues is derived from a Sanskrit word, although the two may seem identical. Both are derived alike from an elder word or root. The supreme importance of Sanskrit in the study of language is in the fact that it is the oldest, very much the oldest, of all the existing Aryan languages, and that it has been preserved for thousands of years with a minute accuracy and a religious devotion.

Having made this discovery about the word for that very important, that most important, individual, I, we should naturally expect that the words expressive of the first and most important relation of that individual—that to his progenitors—would be in like manner general, and in like manner preserved among the various families of the Aryan race. This proved to be the case. The word for mother, is, with very slight variation, the same in all of them. For example, English mother, Anglo-Saxon moder, Dutch moeder, Icelandic mothir, Danish moder, German mutter, Celtic mathair, Russian mat-e, Latin mater, Greek meter,[A] Sanskrit matri; and on the other side, the male, we have, English father, Anglo-Saxon fæder, Dutch vader, Danish fader, Icelandic fathir, Mæso-Gothic fadar, German vater, Latin pater, Greek pater, Persian pedar, and Sanskrit pitri. Here again we have followed these household words through Europe and four thousand years into Central Asia. The root of mother, or mater, is assumed to be ma; although its significance is, I believe, yet unknown. That of father, or pater, is assumed by most of the best scholars (although on grounds which, with a hesitation only becoming in me, I venture to think not absolutely satisfactory) to be pa, conveying the idea of protection. In both cases, however, there can be no doubt of the radical positions of the syllables ma and pa; and thus we see a fact at once whimsically and touchingly significant; that the two childish household words ma and pa, so commonly, although not universally, used, are at least representatives of a speech of such hoary antiquity that it lies beyond the bounds of history and within the realm of conjecture. Ma and pa antedate not only mother and father, but the Sanskrit matri and pitri.

A difference between the historical forms of these two words will be remarked by the observant reader. In mother, mater, we have the initial consonant of the root preserved in all tongues, from the beginning (or as near the beginning as we can go); but in fa-ther, when we touch the Latin and the Greek, the f becomes p, pater; and this we find was the sound with which the word began in the elder speech,—Sanskrit pitri. This fact, so far from being at all inconsistent with the substantial identity of the word in its various forms, confirms that identity. The difference is the result of a phonetic change by which (according to well-established principles which can here be only thus mentioned) certain consonant sounds change to certain other sounds. The reason of this change is not known; but it is known as an observed fact, which observed fact is loosely called a law. We are in the habit of supposing that what always takes place does so because of a rule of law. But phonetic changes of this kind, which affect vowels and what are called semi-vowels, as well as consonants, take place in so regular a way that words can be traced through them with a certainty which is almost if not quite unerring. This change accounts not only for the f in father, but for the vowel difference between the Latin pater and the Sanskrit pitri. And in this word we have a good example in point as to the position of Sanskrit in relation to the other related Aryan languages. It is by no means certain, but rather the contrary, that the i in the pi of the Sanskrit pitri is older than the a in the Latin pater and the English father. The a in those words came not by any phonetic change from the i in the Sanskrit pitri and the Persian pidar. Probably, rather, it came directly down to the Teutonic, the Gothic, and the Celtic languages from that elder lost speech from which the Sanskrit as well as those others is derived.

One other family and household word is illustrative of our subject, and has a singular interest. Both son and daughter, like father and mother, are found in most of the Indo-European languages, and in Sanskrit. Son in Sanskrit is súnu, and is reasonably assumed to be derived from su, to beget, to bear, to bring forth. Daughter, the word just particularly referred to,[65] is in Anglo-Saxon dohtor, Dutch dochter, Danish datter, Swedish dotter, Icelandic dôttir, Mæso-Gothic dauhtar, Russian do-che, German tochter, Greek thugater, Sanskrit duhitri. And if the generally accepted derivation of this word (which so conforms to all the required conditions that there is no reasonable ground of doubt about it) is correct, it records an interesting fact and tells a little story. Duhitri, the Sanskrit for daughter, is from duh or dhugh, which means, to milk; and daughter means the milker, a milk-maid. The milk-maid of the rural past has been gradually yielding place, first to an Irish lad in cowhide boots, and next to a machine more or less india-rubber in its structure; but within the memory of living men, not aged, New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were filled with farmers’ daughters who performed a function which fell naturally to their share in the distribution of work, as it had done to their fore-mothers thousands of years before on the plateau of Central Asia; and every time that father or mother called one of them daughter, they heard unconsciously the name of their household place and office. Nor have these gentle milkers, these dugh-i-tri, I am glad to believe, quite disappeared before the march of Celtic emigration and machinery.

One of man’s first efforts at the orderly arrangement of things is numbering them, counting; and numeral words must have been among the earliest that were formed, and among those which, being most constantly used, would be most tenaciously preserved. So it proved. Most of the numeral words, one, two, three, etc., in all the Indo-European languages are found to be identical in origin, and some of them essentially so in form. For clearness and brevity of illustration let us take English two, which in Dutch is twe, Icelandic (in the objective) tvo, Danish to, Swedish tva, Mæso-Gothic twai, German zwei, Gælic da, Welsh dau, Russian dva, Latin duo, French deux, Italian due, Greek duo, Sanskrit dra:—so English three is in Dutch trie, Danish and Swedish tre, Icelandic thrir, in the Celtic tongues tri, in Russian tri, Mæso-Gothic threis, German drei, Latin tres, Greek treis, Sanskrit tri. It is unnecessary to continue the illustration of this point. Other numeral words are equally remarkable in their continuity; and all are traceable to a remote antiquity and through a wide dispersion.

One more pronoun may well be examined. The first thought of the human mind, as we have already seen, on the perception of something else than its own body is “me” and “not me:” a dual thought, both elements of which come into consciousness together:—this that I feel or see is not me. The second perception is of what we call the second person, for which the word in English until recently was, and among some English-speaking people still is, thou. This word, which supplies one of the commonest needs of life in language among people of all conditions, has been preserved among all the Aryan peoples for four thousand years almost without the signs of phonetic wear and tear. In Old Frisian (the language which, next to the so-called Anglo-Saxon, is nearest of kin to English) it is thu, in Dutch (which of spoken languages is next nearest) it has strangely disappeared, but in Icelandic it is thu, Danish and Swedish du, in Mæso-Gothic thu, in German du, in the Celtic tongues tu, in Russian tui, Latin, Italian and French tu, Greek su (for tu), Persian tu, Sanskrit tuam.

As the intelligent reader considers these lists of common words which are identical, or almost identical, in so many languages spoken through forty centuries, from a period extending far beyond historical records, the thought must arise that it was strange, almost unaccountable, that the close connection, the affiliation, of these languages was left to be clearly proved within only about fifty years. But it must be remembered that this affiliation in regard to some of them was as well known before that time as it is now. That the Scandinavian tongues were closely related, that English was connected with the Scandinavian and the Teutonic languages, that French, Spanish and Italian were close cousins, and were all direct descendants (with some mixture by inter-marriage) from Latin, was well known to all students of language. But beyond this line they were all abroad. Of the connection of the Celtic tongues—Welsh, Gælic, Erse (Irish) and Cornish—with the Teutonic and the Scandinavian, or even with the Latin and Greek (with which they are more nearly allied) there was no knowledge. Nor was it supposed that Greek and Latin had any other connection with English than that which existed through Greek words and Latin words transplanted into English. Latin was supposed to be derived from Greek, and indeed to be a debased form of that language; and as to the Sclavonic tongues, Russian, Polish, etc., they were the gabble of outside barbarians.

Besides all this, the influence of theology upon narrow and uninformed minds was felt in philology—if we can call the linguistic studies of those days philological. As the proclamation of the One God was made to the world in Hebrew, and as the grand generalities of the Mosaic record of creation were recorded in that language, it was assumed by many worthy and really learned men, at whose fond fancy we may smile but should not sneer, that Hebrew was the original speech of the human race; that it was bestowed upon man directly by divine beneficence; and that all the languages of the earth were derived from that in which the ten commandments were first written. Infinite labor, years of toilsome study, almost endless efforts of perverted ingenuity were given to the mistaken effort to establish this point, which was regarded by these in-the-dark-working linguists as one, almost if not quite, of religious importance. Now we know that the Hebrew language is totally, radically different from all the Indo-European languages; that they have no kinship whatever, and are as unlike as if they were spoken on two separate planets by creatures of different species. And besides, we know that Hebrew is not even in the position of a parent speech, but is one of a small, although very important family, the Semitic, and that in this family its position is that of a cadet.

The consequence in linguistic study of the discovery of Sanskrit, which was chief in importance, was not so much the establishment of kindred among all the languages of Europe, although that was very important, as the proof that they were not (with notable exceptions) derived the one from the other, but that they all were sprung from a common stock, to which the principal of them must be traced, not through one another, but directly. Thus the Danes and the Germans lie close together, and there is some likeness in substance between their languages, and a little in form; but it will not do to attempt to trace the Danish and the other Scandinavian languages to the German, or through the German to an older tongue. It is found that of the Scandinavian languages and the German, neither is derived from the other, but that both are the offspring of a lost elder speech, Teutonic or Gothic, of which the Mæso-Gothic is the oldest representative of which there are any remains. It is also found that the Latin language is not derived from the Greek, did not come through it, but that both Latin and Greek come independently from either a common branch of the old Aryan tongue, or directly from that tongue itself. Moreover it is now pretty well established to the total subversion of previous theories, that the Latin represents, or at least retains, older forms of the parent language than are to be found in Greek. This, however, is not true as to syntax, grammar, in which Latin diverges much more than Greek does from that approximation to the original language which we find in Sanskrit.

Let us glance at this subject of grammar; in doing which, without going into dry detail, or even into the niceties of construction, we may by the examination of one or two salient facts trace very clearly the connection of some of the most important and divergent branches of Indo-European speech. Every educated boy who has passed through a classical grammar[66] school will remember his surprise, not to say his disgust, at finding, after mastering toilfully a little Latin, that when he entered upon the study of Greek, he found the Greek verb very unlike the Latin in its conjugation, and much more complicated. It has a middle voice which is reflective in its signification. For example, etupsa means I struck, etuphthen, I was struck, but etupsamen, I struck myself. It has in tenses not only present, perfect, future, and so forth, but a first perfect and a second perfect, a first plu-perfect and a second plu-perfect, a first future and a second future, and, moreover, two pestilential contrivances called the first and second aorists. Besides this, every tense has not only a singular and a plural number, but a dual number, by which the action or the being, or the suffering, is confined to two persons—a sort of grammatical buggy. The nouns, the pronouns, the adjectives, the very articles, have also this dual number. This is a fact, an oppressive, mysterious, unrelated fact with which the young student is brought face to face, and into conflict with which he enters, wondering at the cause of this bountiful dispensation of grammar. When Sanskrit was discovered, it was found that this middle voice, these first and second perfects, and futures, and first and second aorists, these dual numbers of verbs, nouns, and what not, were Sanskrit as well as Greek, and were nearly two thousand years older than any Greek writing that exists. But they are found not only in Sanskrit and in Greek. In the Mæso-Gothic, which, as we have seen is our earliest representative of one of the two great European divisions of Aryan speech, to the other of which the Greek belongs—it, the Greek, having separated itself at a time long before the historical period—in this Mæso-Gothic we have also the middle voice, the dual number, and tenses and inflections multitudinous. These grammatical facts bind, and without other evidence would bind, the Greek, the Teutonic or Gothic, and the Sanskrit languages in a bond of kinship.

It had been supposed by classical scholars, and the supposition yet lingers among them, that these Greek double perfects and futures, these aorists, and these middle voices and dual numbers, were the fruit of a great genius for language and literary expression, that they had been elaborated and painfully produced in the successive development of the Greek intellect—which indeed was one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the world. But the discovery of Sanskrit has shown us that these grammatical excrescencies were mere relics of a past; things that the Greek poets and philosophers found made to their hands, and which they must use whether they would or no. Nor are we relieved from the necessity of this inference and its consequences by the fact that Sanskrit is a highly elaborated language, and has been the object of religious care and veneration on the part of profound grammarians for many centuries. Its grammar has been thus solicitously preserved and minutely studied because it was involved with the Brahminical religion. Its origin dates back in the darkness of savagery. The Mæso-Goths, who had no Greek intellect or refinement, had in their language also the dual number, the middle voice, and the swarming inflections. Nor only so. In a corner of Scythian Europe, in Cimmerian darkness, were, and are, a rude people, the Lithuanians, who lie between the Prussians and the Russians, who had no literature, whose language was not even written until it was furnished with characters by strangers so late as the sixteenth century, who had not advanced intellectually beyond the making of folk-songs and ballads, whose very national existence was hardly more important than that of Comanches or Piutes; and yet these people had the dual number, the variety of inflection, and the complicated grammar of the old speech. It had merely come down to them as it had come to the Mæso-Goths, and to the Greeks, and to the Brahmins, from the early days of the Aryan people and their language. Simply this, and nothing more.

The fact upon this subject is that as we look backward through history we find that grammar increases as civilization and culture diminish; or, to put it conversely, that as culture increases and civilization becomes more elaborate and complex, grammar diminishes and simplifies, and gradually passes away. The traits once regarded as special and distinguishing excellencies of the Greek language, its dual number, its middle voice, its double tenses, and to the horror of some of the classical scholars among my readers, if I am honored by any such—I add, even the aorists, are not signs of a high development of language, but mere relics of barbarism. They are so in the Greek, just as they are so in the Mæso-Gothic and in the Lithuanian languages. They had no relation whatever to the power, the subtlety and the loftiness of the Greek intellect; they were not a necessary means nor even a happily adapted tool for the work of that intellect in literature, in art, and in philosophy; although it is not to be denied that the Greek intellect did leave its impress upon the Greek language. The Greeks were the great people that they were simply because they were Greeks; we know not why; just as the Lithuanians were and remained Lithuanians, we know not why. In the one case the complicated instrument of expression had no more to do with the splendid achievements of which it was the medium than in the other it had to do with the rudeness which it did not help to refine, or the obscurity to which it lent no luster.

It is proper that I should say to my readers that in proclaiming this I am teaching heresy. This is not orthodoxy, but my doxy. I am willing to confess, like one who went long before me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose, that I speak as a fool; but I shall be content with the final verdict that shall be passed upon me, whatever it may be.

Emphasizing for the moment the fact that this grammar which increases with barbarism and which diminishes with civilization, coexists only with inflection and depends upon it, and that its diminution in the Latin development of Aryan speech as compared with the Greek, was a purely rational, although perhaps an unconsciously rational, movement, let us defer the further consideration of this subject until another occasion.

One minute but very largely significant fact connected with the Latin and Greek languages, which will be appreciated to a certain degree at least by every schoolboy who has studied those languages, may here properly be set forth and considered. In Latin, the name of the supreme god, whose name in Greek is Zeus, is Jupiter. Now Jupiter is no form of Zeus. It can not “come from” Zeus by any mode of phonetic modification or decay. Moreover, the declension of Jupiter through the various substantive cases is notably irregular. It is:

Now, Jovis, Jovi, Jovem and Jove can not be formed from Jupiter. Jovis is no more a real case of Jupiter than ours is a real case of we. How came the simple name of this god, used absolutely or in the way of invocation, to be Jupiter, and yet when used possessively to be Jovis, datively Jovi, etc.? To the young student of Latin this is a barren, brutal fact with which he is confronted, and which he is obliged to accept and to remember. It has no relation to any other fact. So at least it was forty years ago, as I and my contemporaries can testify.[B] But Jovis, although it can not be derived from Jupiter may be derived from or at least connected with Zeus. In fact it is so derived or connected. The supreme god of the Latin and the Greek mythology was the same god, and he had originally the same name, which was Dyus, or some like form. But the Latins did not derive this personage of their mythology from the[67] Greeks, nor take his name from them, as it was once assumed they did. This is shown by the name they gave him, Jupiter; yet that very name, unlike as it is to Zeus, and impossible to be derived from it, has in it the witness of identity of origin. The fact is that the Latins and the Greeks derived both their conception of the supreme god and his name from a common source; a fact which has been revealed by the discovery of Sanskrit.

In the mythology of the Vedas, the sacred books of the Brahmins, which are written in Sanskrit, the supreme god, the primum mobile of divine power is Dyaus, which is from the root dyu, meaning to beam, to emit light. Dyaus is therefore the sky god, a record and an expression of the recognition of divinity in the heavens.[C] So both to the Greeks and the Latins the supreme divinity was originally the sky god. Now, Dyaus and Zeus are the same word with little phonetic modification. But whence comes Jupiter? Hence. We have seen above that the Sanskrit word for father is pitri, which seems to be corrupted from pàtri, a protector,[D] and the simple union of these two words gives us, Dyaus-patri, which, as an earlier, if not an original form, of Zeus-pater, or Ju-piter, would be an unexceptional etymology. We are however not left to conjecture nor to etymological construction for the origin of this name; for, according to Max Müller, in the Veda Dyaushpitar or Dyupitar become almost as much one word as Jupiter in Latin. Here we have the otherwise anomalous Latin Jupiter completely accounted for, not only in accordance with etymology and reason, but by positive historical evidence. To the Latins Jupiter was merely a name, coming to them they knew not whence nor how; but they had received it in a direct line of communication from their Aryan forefathers, who were also the forefathers of the writers of the Sanskrit Vedas. Yet more; when the Roman said Jupiter he merely called his supreme god the Heavenly Father. So near, in the very idea of divinity, does the evidence found in the history of language bring the modern Christian to the primitive pagan.

This name Dyaus, or Zeus, is also regarded by some of the most eminent philologists as identical with the name of the Eddic god Tyr and the Saxon word Tiw, and as present in our Tues-day or Tiws-daeg. It may be so; but specialists who may claim submissive deference as to matters of fact within their specialty are often led by enthusiasm into theory and speculation which respect for their learning does not oblige us to accept.

But space fails me, and with a brief exposition of a very few points of my previous paper this one must be closed.

The records of possession left in the names of places by advancing tribes of Aryans may be well illustrated by two names more widely known, perhaps, than any other two in the world—Thames and Avon. Now, both these names mean merely river, running water. Why, then, do we say the river Thames and the river Avon; which is merely to say in each case the river River. Simply because our English (or Anglo-Saxon) forefathers going to England and conquering it, found those streams so called by the natives. In the old Welsh (Celtic) which was spoken in ancient Britain both tam or tama and afon mean a river, and the rude and simple people naturally called the running water nearest them merely the river. When there was but one theater in London, and when there was but one in New York, in each case it was called merely the theater, without any other name, which indeed was needless. But when the Anglo-Saxons heard the stream on which London stands called tam, and that on which Stratford stands called afon, those words did not mean running water to them; they were mere names; and names they have remained. There are no less than nine rivers in England called Avon (merely because they were the river to the old Britons in their neighborhood); and tam is found in composition in names of places (Tamworth, Tamarton) with the same meaning. The Celts have left these name-traces upon hills, forests, and streams, not only in England, but all over southern and western Europe. Other families have left similar vestiges. A moderate illustration of this one point would require a paper by itself. In this way the march and the dwelling places of the principal divisions of the great race can be discovered.

It was said in the foregoing paper that the development and the various stages of knowledge attained by the Aryans had left traces in the history of their language; and it was remarked that the facts that words for boat and oars are common to all the languages of the race, while those which pertain to navigation are radically unlike, shows that before the great separation took place, the Aryans had rowed small boats on rivers, but knew nothing of ships and deep-sea sailing. From similar evidence we infer that they never saw salt water before the separation; for at that time they did not know the oyster, which is found in the Caspian Sea. The name oyster is common to all the European peoples, ancient as well as modern (Latin ostrea, Greek ostreon, with the meaning bone, shell); but in Sanskrit the word for the much eaten bivalve is pushtika. Plainly the southeastern moving and the northwestern moving Aryans severally named the oyster after they had parted. It is also remarkable that the only tree of which the name is common to all the Indo-European peoples, Asiatic as well as European, is the birch; the name of which in Sanskrit is bhúrja (observe how like in sound the two words are); and that this tree is the most widely dispersed of all the forest flora, and is found in great variety and large quantity in Central Asia.

In most of the examples of etymology given in this paper the likeness between the recent and the remote has been more or less apparent to eye or ear on slight examination. It must not however be supposed that the history of a word is limited by such palpable bounds. On the contrary etymology, which when trustworthy proceeds step by step accounting for, but accepting every clearly established change, leads the inquirer in numberless instances into regions at first far beyond his ken. One illustrative instance must suffice: The French word for water is O. It is spelled eau; but that is not to the purpose; a word is a sound, not the name of an assemblage of signs called letters. Now this sound O, or eau, comes directly from the Latin aqua, in which there is no trace of it; and in which, moreover, there are, as will be seen, sounds of a marked character which have been wholly swept away. The course of derivation or degradation was this: Aqua by the common change of u to v, became aqva, which passed by phonetic decay into ava, and this by a common vowel change become eve, which in turn, by a common diphthongal extension, broadened into eave, the v in which changing back again into u gave eaue, of which the body, au, came to represent the whole word, which at last reached the simple vowel sound o. In like manner the Greek pente, the French cinq, the English five, and the Sanskrit pancan may all be traced to the same root, pani, the hand, with its five fingers; the English tooth and the Latin dens are from the same root (indeed it has been extracted), and so are coucher and locus, and even galaxy and lettuce. That I may not seem to tantalize my reader I will give the easy explanation of the last paradox-like assertion. The bond between the two words is in the Latin word for milk, lac, and the kindred Greek word for the same fluid, gala; the old forms having been severally lact and galact. The galaxy is the milky-way, and lettuce is the juicy, milky plant; the Old French name of which (from which ours comes) was laictuce, which itself represented the Latin lactuca.

The reader having now seen some few characteristic illustrations of the methods, the course, and the revelations of philology in regard to the language of the Aryan peoples, we are ready to examine the history and the structure of English.

[68]

HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.
Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.

WATER.—PHYSICAL PROPERTIES.

A glance at the map of our earth at once reveals the preponderance of water. Three-fourths of its surface is covered by the ocean, and if we divide the globe into northeastern and southwestern halves, one of the hemispheres will consist almost entirely of water. Yet there was a time when the ocean was still more extensive and covered islands and continents; even the loftiest mountain peaks were beneath the sea. We shall presently see how important an agency water became in moulding the earth and making it habitable for man. The lakes and rivers also constitute no small part of many lands, and even in the air, invisible streams are ever flowing, for “all the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again.” The summer’s heat is the power, and the air its instrument, by which vapors, fogs, clouds and rain are lifted and borne back to the mountains and again scattered over the plains.

WATER SEEKING ITS LEVEL.

WATER AS AN ARCHITECT—WORLD-BUILDING.

In the divine hand water has been used as the material with which to shape the earth, even as a workman employs his files, emery and diamond dust to shape the objects upon which he labors. At first the earth was characterized by one dead level—a wide, desolate, fire-scarred plain; then the mountains were upheaved, the depths were broken up, and, no longer resting in their quiet beds, everywhere rolled down the slopes, and by mere attrition, wore away the firm rocks and bore the material into the plains below; all valleys have thus been made. Some are still in process of formation. Far out in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Indian Ocean, the Mississippi and the Ganges are pouring their sediment and building future continents. Sometimes, where the volume of water was great, or the mountains steep, mighty gorges were carved out, like the river-bed below Niagara, the tremendous cuts of the Congo, or the awful cañons of the Colorado, some of which are five thousand feet in depth. Ceaseless waves beat upon the shore, powdered the rocks, and made the soft beaches; tides ebbed and flowed, and slowly wrought their changes. In addition to the wearing action of the water, which arises from the smoothness of its molecules, and the slight cohesion of its particles, thereby causing ceaseless motion, it possesses a wonderful solvent power. Solution arises from the fact that the adhesion between a liquid and a solid is greater than the cohesion between the molecules of the solid; whenever this is the case the latter will be dissolved. If water is heated, this action will be intensified; such was its condition in the early geologic ages, and this explains the extraordinary rapidity with which rocks were then dissolved. Beautiful grottoes were formed like that of Antiparos, vast caverns, such as those along the coasts of Scotland, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, and the Wyandotte of Indiana. It is a curious paradox which appears in this story of world-building that the New World was really the oldest in process of formation, and that the tallest mountains were the latest upheaved.

WATER TRANSMITS POWER EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

WATER AS AN ARTIST.

If we will stop and remember for a moment how often the painter and poet dwell upon variety in landscapes, we shall appreciate more fully the artistic work of water. We have already seen that by dissolving the rocks, the way was prepared for all verdure, and not less truly did it round the hills and carve the gorges, as well as smooth the outlines, which add so much to nature’s charms. Nor is this all. In the running brook, the sparkling cascade, the white foam of the cataract, the deep blue of the sea, the matchless variety and beauty of the clouds, we may behold the grandest exhibitions of color and form. There is endless variation in the tint, light and shade of water, owing to many causes. That this is true one will easily see in studying Church’s “Icebergs,” a picture of wonderful color and beauty, although one would scarcely expect these qualities in such a subject. Time would fail to describe the numberless forms of beauty displayed by water; it glitters in the dewdrop, shimmers in the wave, rounds the cheek of beauty, colors the rose, and paints the rainbow on the arching sky.

WATER AS A LABORER.

Water was early made to labor for man. Of the various forms of energy which he employs, animal, steam, electricity, wind, water, the last is probably the most inexpensive. It is a singular fact that all national progress and efficiency have depended largely upon proximity of water. Seas, indenting bays, sounds, rivers early bore the commerce of the world, and[69] formed the medium for interchange of ideas, inventions, arts and literature. The little peninsulas of Italy and Greece, with their broken coast-line, developed a hardy race of seamen, who penetrated to the remotest parts of the then known world. The story of the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece is one of the earliest, as it is one of the most beautiful traditions of antiquity.

CAPILLARY ATTRACTION—WATER AND QUICKSILVER.

Look at that sturdy little island in the north Atlantic, whose people have so utilized the ocean that “she has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous strain of the martial airs of England.” We build many hopes for the prosperity of our own country upon the fact of our extensive coast-line, which gives us one mile of shore-line to every one hundred and four square miles of surface, while that of Europe, which is far more favored in this respect than any other division of the world, has only one mile of coast for every two hundred and twenty-four square miles of surface. Water furnishes the most convenient and mobile instrument for applying gravity. As it flows on its way to the sea, everywhere it is made to turn the thousand busy wheels of industry, so that it used to be said that every pound of water in the Blackstone and Merrimac rivers did a pound of work before it reached the sea. The physical property of water which makes it in this connection so useful is, that it presses equally in all directions; it can therefore be adjusted with great ease to the sinuosities of tubes, water-wheels and kindred appliances. We also use it as a convenient power for obtaining pressure by means of the hydrostatic press.

THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS—PRESSING COTTON.

This depends upon the principle that water transmits force equally in all directions; therefore, strange as it may appear, we meet the paradox that a little water will accomplish as much as a great quantity. Thus, if a slender upright tube be connected with the bottom of a large tank the water will stand at the same height in both, and consequently the trifling amount of water in the tube supports and balances the vast amount in the tank. Suppose the area of the tube were as one to ten thousand. Now, if we should apply the force of one pound on the surface of the water in the tube, an uplifting force of one pound would be communicated to every equal area of a piston resting upon the surface of the water in the tank; so it is evident that with the pressure of one pound we might raise ten thousand pounds.

There are few more interesting proofs that “Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war,” than that found in the completion of the Erie Canal, whereby a path was made for the vast agricultural products of the west to the metropolis, and thence to all countries.

Re-read the story of that magnificent commemoration of human genius and effort, when, in New York harbor, Governor DeWitt Clinton joined in perpetual wedlock the lake and the sea.

An interesting illustration of the upward pressure of water in seeking its level may often be seen in the dry docks of our great seaport cities, where old ocean is frequently compelled to do heavy work for man by lifting his ships out of water. A vessel is on the shoals; after the storm has subsided a great number of empty air-tight casks are sunk around the ship and fastened to it. The gradual pushing of the water lifting against the casks slowly raises the vessel until she floats.

SHOWING AN ORDINARY PUMP.

WATER AS A LAPIDARY.

Allusion has already been made to the erosive action of water. Every day observation will furnish us examples of this. The pebbles beneath our feet have been rounded and polished by this lapidary. The most beautiful specimens of its handiwork, however, are to be found in crystallization. Snow exhibits many lovely forms. If the flakes are caught on any dark surface we shall readily see that they are fashioned with great symmetry, starlike in form, on the plan of six diverging rays. There is an endless variety formed by additions made to these primaries. Not less beautiful are many of the forms of ice. The Mer-de-Glace of the Alps is pronounced by Prof. Tyndall one of nature’s most resplendent pieces of handiwork. If we may judge from all descriptions, the lofty spires and glittering sides of an iceberg furnish a spectacle sublime and terrible. The vast ice fields of the North, in spite of all their desolation, possess a mysterious charm.

The most favorable condition for the crystallization of any substance is its solution in water. It will thus appear that water is one great source of that marvelous beauty of form which we find in the mineral world. This process of nature may readily be repeated by dissolving alum, sugar, and similar substances, and crystallizing them on glass, or a string placed in the solution, and allowed to remain undisturbed. Bouquets of crystallized grasses are made in this way, often being colored afterward.

Almost all mineral substances can be crystallized, and some of the finest observations of the microscopist are made upon these objects.

Among the most interesting phenomena produced are those of polarized light, and many important deductions in medicine and chemistry are derived therefrom.

[70]

WATER AS A FARMER.

Solids are not the only substances which water is capable of taking to itself. Gases are also absorbed by it. A pint of water under one pressure of the atmosphere will absorb one pint of carbonic acid. It will take seven hundred pints of ammonia gas. This power of absorption belonging to water is of the greatest importance to agriculture. As the rain descends it frees the air from noxious gases, and carries them to the earth, where they are distributed to the rootlets of the plants; in this instance that which is death to the animal is life to the plant; it also rises in all vegetation, from cell to cell, by what is known as endosmosis. It moves freely through the porous earth by capillary attraction, the interstices of the earth really constituting a system of tubing through which the liquids freely circulate. When the earth becomes compact and hard the water can not so freely move through it; if the weather is dry, then follows another important result—the air, which always bears with it more or less moisture, especially in hot weather, can not pass through the soil and bring to the roots its gift of nutrition. Any one can perform the following experiment: Walk into the garden some morning when the season is dry and hot. You will often notice that the garden walk looks damp, while the spot that you hoed the day before, perhaps, seems dry, but if you will dig down a little way into each you will find that the loosened earth where you had worked, is moist, while the former is, below the surface, quite dry. Hence a practical inference of much value—the importance of frequently hoeing and loosening the earth, to facilitate the growth of plants, especially when the season is dry. The philosophy of this is, that the air freely passing through the loosened earth becomes cooled, and the moisture it contains is condensed, and remains to nourish the plant. A curious illustration of this fact is found in the prolific growth of watermelons, which are raised with the greatest success in dry sand, which is often so hot on the surface as to be painful to the hand; and yet a hundred pounds of watermelon contain ninety-eight pounds of water. The agricultural value of a country depends as much upon its water supply as upon the excellence of its soil. Here again we find one of the grandest endowments of “our heritage.” This is a land of sweet and abundant waters. Even those portions once considered worthless have been made of immense value by irrigation. Through our pastures flow crystal streams for the advantage of the dairy, as the production of good butter depends as much upon pure water as it does upon sweet grasses.

MANY FORMS OF SIPHONS.

Glance over one of the broad corn-fields of the West. What a wonderful contrivance is each stalk for gathering sunlight and moisture! Water constitutes eighty per cent. of that vast growth! The forces of the sunbeam, which are locked up in it, will be surrendered during the coming winter, to sustain and invigorate man and beast. Take two large goblets, one of which is nearly filled with water. Place on it a piece of card-board, through which a hole has been made, pass through the opening the roots of any growing plant, like a spray of bergamot. Cover the plant with the other goblet; in a few moments the inner surface of the upper goblet will be covered with moisture, showing that the roots have absorbed and the stomata or pores of the leaves have exhaled the moisture. In every land drouth is synonymous with want and famine. With glad festivals the Egyptians greet the rising of the Nile. The seven lean years of Joseph’s time were years of drouth. If M. De Lesseps should carry out his mighty project of overflowing the Sahara with the waters of the Mediterranean, that desert may yet bud and blossom like the rose. Growth is intimately connected with climate, and the latter depends not a little upon proximity to water. The beautiful lake region of the United States would be almost uninhabitable were it not for the gentle influence of these inland seas. They cool the air in summer and warm it in winter, thus forming a great equalizing influence and preventing extremes of temperature.

WATER AS PHILANTHROPIST.

Few things are more interesting and suggestive of a kind Providence than the plan by which water is supplied to the human family by underground currents, where it is kept cool in summer, and prevented from freezing in the winter. Natural pipeage is found almost everywhere in the earth, consisting of a layer of sand or gravel found between layers of clay or rock, which are practically impervious to water.

Where the upper layer is wanting springs appear. They often gush from the foot of the hills, but not unfrequently we find them on lofty summits. Human skill has sought for these hidden streams at great depths by means of Artesian wells, some of which are two thousand feet deep. It is claimed that the Chinese used them two thousand years ago for procuring gas and salt water. There is a famous Artesian well at Grenelle, Paris, which yields six hundred and fifty-six gallons of water per minute, while two of these wells in Chicago discharge four hundred and thirty-two thousand gallons a day. As Chicago is situated on a level prairie, this water must come from the high hills of Rock River, a hundred miles away. The water coming from these great depths is warm, one proof of the heated condition of the interior of the earth.

Horticulturists have in some places conducted this heated water by underground pipes through their gardens, and thus produced a semi-tropical vegetation.

Human contrivances for lifting water to higher elevations are various. Archimedes invented a screw for this purpose. The siphon, the chain pump, the ordinary lifting pump, the force pump, and some other inventions are applied to do this work. It would be a profitable exercise to study out the philosophy[71] of these water lifters. You can also make them for yourself. The illustration of the forms of siphons and their various uses, for example, as given in this article, will well repay careful study.

SHOWING THAT PRESSURE DEPENDS UPON DEPTH.

Another way in which water acts as a friend to man, is in its hygienic effects. Think of the numberless uses of ice in summer, and how grateful to the fevered lips is ice! The invalid seeks in summer the cool sea breeze, freighted with its finely divided and stimulating salts and mineral vapors. In winter the genial atmosphere of Florida or the Gulf will fan the patient’s faded cheek. Or perhaps some health resort may be sought where there are mingled with the waters valuable medicinal restoratives. Vermont has the greatest number of these, but they are found at Sharon, Avon, Clifton, and Saratoga; while the hot springs of Arkansas have a great reputation, and who knows but what in some of the wonderful bath fountains of the West we may yet find what Ponce de Leon sought, the elixir which should transform old age into blooming youth. The latest new idea in medical practice is the hot water cure, which consists in drinking an indefinite amount of hot water whenever opportunity makes it possible. Public fountains are good temperance lectures.

SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE OF ARTESIAN WELLS.

One must travel in oriental lands, however, to learn all the sweet and beautiful significance of that one word, Water, which is so often used in the Bible as the best symbol of God’s abounding mercy.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[November 2.]

We read of Payson, that his mind, at times, almost lost sense of the external world, in the ineffable thoughts of God’s glory, which rolled like a sea of light around him, at the throne of grace.

We read of Cowper, that, in one of the few lucid hours of his religious life, such was the experience of God’s presence which he enjoyed in prayer, that, as he tells us, he thought he should have died with joy, if special strength had not been imparted to him to bear the disclosure.

We read of one of the Tennents, that on one occasion, when he was engaged in secret devotion, so overpowering was the revelation of God which opened upon his soul, and with the augmenting intensity of effulgence as he prayed, that at length he recoiled from the intolerable joy as from a pain, and besought God to withhold from him further manifestations of his glory. He said, “Shall thy servant see thee and live?”

We read of the “sweet hours” which Edwards enjoyed “on the banks of Hudson’s River, in secret converse with God,” and hear his own description of the inward sense of Christ which at times came into his heart, and which he “knows not how to express otherwise than by a calm, sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this world; and sometimes a kind of vision … of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and rapt and swallowed up in God.”

We read of such instances of the fruits of prayer, in the blessedness of the suppliant, and are we not reminded by them of the transfiguration of our Lord, of whom we read, “As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening?” Who of us is not oppressed by the contrast between such an experience and his own? Does not the cry of the patriarch come unbidden to our lips, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him?”

The scriptural examples of prayer have, most of them, an unutterable intensity. They are pictures of struggles, in which more of suppressed desire is hinted than that which is expressed. Recall the wrestling of Jacob: “I will not let thee go except thou bless me;” and the “panting” and “pouring out of soul” of David: “I wail day and night; my throat is dried: … I wait for my God;” and the importunity of the Syro-Phœnician woman, with her “Yes, Lord, yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs;” and the persistency of Bartimeus, crying out, “the more a great deal,” “Have mercy on me;” and the strong crying and tears of our Lord, “If it be possible—if it be possible!” There is no easiness of desire here. The scriptural examples of prayer, also, are clear as light in their objects of thought. Even those which are calm and sweet, like the Lord’s prayer, have few and sharply-defined subjects of devotion. They are not discursive and voluminous, like many uninspired forms of supplication. They do not range over everything at once. They have no vague expressions; they are crystalline; a child need not read them a second time to understand them. As uttered by their authors, they were in no antiquated phraseology; they were in the fresh forms of a living speech. They were, and were meant to be, the channels of living thoughts and living hearts.—Phelps.

[November 9.]

It is the highest stage of manhood to have no wish, no thought, no desire, but Christ—to feel that to die were bliss if it were for Christ—that to live in penury, and woe, and scorn, contempt, and misery, were sweet for Christ. To feel that it matters nothing what becomes of one’s self, so that our Master is but exalted—to feel that though like a sear leaf, we are blown in the blast, we are quite careless whither we are going, so long as we feel that the Master’s hand is guiding us according to his will; or rather, to feel that though like the diamond, we must be exercised with sharp tools, yet we care not how sharply we may be cut, so that we may be made brilliants to[72] adorn his crown. If any of us have attained to this sweet feeling of self-annihilation, we shall look up to Christ as if he were the sun, and we shall say within ourselves, “O Lord, I see thy beams; I feel myself to be—not a beam from thee—but darkness, swallowed up in thy light. The most I ask is, that thou wouldst live in me—that the life I live in the flesh may not be my life, but thy life in me; that I may say with emphasis, as Paul did, ‘For me to live is Christ.’” A man who has attained this high position has indeed “entered into rest.” To him the praise or the censure of men is alike contemptible, for he has learned to look upon the one as unworthy of his pursuit, and the other as beneath his regard. He is no longer vulnerable since he has in himself no separate sensitiveness, but has united his whole being with the cause and person of the Redeemer. As long as there is a particle of selfishness remaining in us, it will mar our sweet enjoyment of Christ; and until we get a complete riddance of it, our joy will never be unmixed with grief. We must dig at the roots of our selfishness to find the worm which eats our happiness. The soul of the believer will always pant for this serene condition of passive surrender, and will not content itself until it has thoroughly plunged itself into the sea of divine love. Its normal condition is that of complete dedication, and it esteems every deviation from such a state as a plague-mark and a breaking forth of disease. Here, in the lowest valley of self-renunciation, the believer walks upon a very pinnacle of exaltation; bowing himself, he knows that he is rising immeasurably high when he is sinking into nothing, and, falling flat upon his face, he feels that he is thus mounting to the highest elevation of moral grandeur.

It is the ambition of most men to absorb others into their own life, that they may shine more brightly by the stolen rays of other lights; but it is the Christian’s highest aspiration to be absorbed into another, and lose himself in the glories of his Sovereign and Savior. Proud men hope that the names of others shall but be remembered as single words in their own long titles of honor; but loving children of God long for nothing more than to see their own names used as letters in the bright records of the doings of the Wonderful, the Counselor.—Spurgeon.

[November 16.]

The peace of Christ, then, was the fruit of the combined toil and trust, in the one case diffusing itself from the center of his active life, in the other from his passive emotions; enabling him in the one case to do things tranquilly, in the other to see things tranquilly. Two things only can make life go wrong and painfully with us; when we suffer or suspect misdirection and feebleness in the energies of love and duty within us or in the providence of the world without us; bringing, in the one case, the lassitude of an unsatisfied and discordant nature; in the other the melancholy of hopeless views. From these Christ delivers us by a summons to mingled toil and trust. And herein does his peace differ from that which “the world giveth”—that its prime essential is not ease, but strife; not self-indulgence, but self-sacrifice; not acquiescence in evil for the sake of quiet, but conflict with it for the sake of God; not, in short, a prudent accommodation of the mind to the world, but a resolute subjugation of the world to the best conceptions of the mind. Amply has the promise to leave behind him such a peace been since fulfilled. It was fulfilled to the apostles who first received it, and has been realized again by a succession of faithful men to whom they have delivered it.

The word “peace” denotes the absence of war and conflict; a condition free from the restlessness of fruitless desire, the forebodings of anxiety, the stings of eternity.… The first impulse of “the natural man” is, to seek peace by mending his external condition; to quiet desire by increase of ease; to banish anxiety by increase of wealth; to guard against hostility by making himself too strong for it; to build up his life into a future of security and a palace of comfort, where he may softly lie, though tempests beat and rain descends. The spirit of Christianity casts away at once this whole theory of peace; declares it the most chimerical of dreams, and proclaims it impossible even to make this kind of reconciliation between the soul and the life wherein it acts. As well might the athlete demand a victory without a foe. To the noblest faculties of the soul, rest is disease and torture. The understanding is commissioned to grapple with ignorance, the conscience to confront the powers of moral evil, the affections to labor for the wretched and oppressed; nor shall any peace be found till these, which reproach and fret us in our most elaborate ease, put forth an incessant and satisfying energy; till instead of conciliating the world, we vanquish it; and rather than sit still, in the sickness of luxury, for it to amuse our perceptions, we precipitate ourselves upon it to mould it into a new creation. Attempt to make all smooth and pleasant without, and you thereby create the most corroding of anxieties, and stimulate the most insatiable of appetites within. But let there be harmony within, let no clamors of self drown the voice which is entitled to authority there, let us set forth on the mission of duty, resolved to live for it alone, to close with every resistance that obstructs it, and march through every field that awaits it, and in the consciousness of immortal power, the sense of ill will vanish; and the peace of God well nigh extinguish the sufferings of the man. “In the world we may have tribulation; in Christ we shall have peace.”—James Martineau.

[November 23.]

God is love; he who does not love him does not know him; for how can we know love without loving?… God who made all things in fact creates us anew every moment. It did not follow necessarily that because we were yesterday, we should exist to-day; we might cease to be, we might relapse into the nothingness from whence we came, if the same all-powerful hand who called us from it did not still sustain us. We are nothing in ourselves; we are only what God has made us to be, and that only while it pleases him. He has only to withdraw the hand which supports us in order to replunge us into the abyss of our nothingness, as a stone which one holds in the air falls from its own weight, as soon as the hand is unclosed which supports it. Thus do we hold existence only as the continual gift of God.…

It is not to know thee, oh God, to regard thee only as an all-powerful being who gives laws to all nature, and who has created everything which we see, it is only to know a part of thy being, it is not to know that which is most wonderful and most affecting to thy rational offspring. That which transports and melts my soul is to know that thou art the God of my heart. Thou doest there thy good pleasure.… Oh God! man does not know thee, he knows not who thou art. “The light shines in the midst of the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.” It is through thee that we live, that we think, that we enjoy the pleasures of life, and we forget him from whom we receive all these things.

Universal light! it is through thee alone that we see anything. Sun of the soul, who dost shine more brightly than the material sun! seeing nothing except through thee we see not thee thyself. It is thou who givest all things, to the stars their light, to the fountains their waters and their courses, to the earth its plants, to the fruits their flavor, to all nature its riches and its beauty, to man health, reason, virtue, thou givest all, thou doest all, thou rulest over all; I see only thee, all other things vanish as a shadow before him who has once seen thee. But alas! he who has not seen thee, has seen nothing, he has passed his life in the illusion of a dream; he is as if he were not more unhappy still, for as we learn from thy word, it were better for him if he had not been born.

For myself I ever find thee within me. It is thee who workest[73] with me in all the good I do. I have felt a thousand times that I could not of myself conquer my passions, overcome my habits, subdue my pride, follow my reason, or continue to will what I have once willed. It is thou who gavest me this will, who preservest it pure; without thee I am like a reed, agitated by the wind. Thou hast given me courage, uprightness, and all the good emotions which I experience. Thou hast created within me a new heart which desires thy justice, and thirsts for thy eternal truth. I leave myself in thy hands; it is enough for me to fulfill thy all-beneficent designs, and in nothing to resist thy good pleasure, for which I was created. Command, forbid, what willest thou that I should do? What that I should do? Lifted up, cast down, comforted, left to suffer, employed in thy service, or useless to every one, I still adore thee, ever yielding my will, I say with Mary, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”—Fénelon.

[November 30.]

Remember what St. Paul saith, “Our life is hid with Christ in God.” … Five cordial observations are couched therein. First, that God sets a high price and valuation on the souls of his servants, in that he is pleased to hide them; none will hide toys and trifles, but what is counted a treasure. Secondly, the word hide, as a relative, imports that some seek after our souls, being none other than Satan himself, that roaring lion, who goes about seeking whom he may devour. But the best is, let him seek, and seek, and seek, till all his malice be weary (if that be possible), we can not be hurt by him whilst we are hid in God. Thirdly, grant Satan find us there, he can not fetch us thence; our souls are bound in the bundle of life, with the Lord our God. So that, be it spoken with reverence, God must first be stormed with force or fraud, before the soul of a saint sinner, hid in him, can be surprised. Fourthly, we see the reason why so many are at a loss, in the agony of a wounded conscience, concerning their spiritual estate: for they look for their life in a wrong place, namely, to find it in their own piety, purity, and inherent righteousness. But though they seek, and search, and dig, and dive never so deep, all in vain. For though Adam’s life was hid in himself, and he intrusted with the keeping of his own integrity, yet, since Christ’s coming, all the original evidences of our salvation are kept in a higher office, namely, hidden in God himself. Lastly, as our English proverb saith, “He that hid can find;” so God (to whom belongs the issues from death) can infallibly find out that soul that is hidden in him, though it may seem, when dying, even to labor to lose itself in a fit of despair.…

Surely as Joseph and Mary conceived that they had lost Christ in a crowd and sought him three days sorrowing, till at last they found him, beyond their expectation, safe and sound, sitting in the temple; so many pensive parents, solicitous for the souls of their children, have even given them up for gone, and lamented them lost (because dying without visible comfort), and yet, in due time, shall find them, to their joy and comfort, safely possessed of honor and happiness, in the midst of the heavenly temple and church triumphant in glory.—Fuller.

GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

Selected from J. P. Mahaffy’s “Old Greek Life.”

CHAPTER II.—THE GREEK—HIS PROPERTY.

All Greek property was divided both according to its use, and also according to its nature. If it was such as merely produced enjoyment to the owner it was called idle; if it was directly profitable, it was called useful or fruitful. But this distinction is less often mentioned than that into visible and invisible property, which nearly corresponded to our division into real and personal property. But the Greeks included ready money, lodged at a banker’s, as a part of real property. Its principal kind, however, was of course landed property, as well as town houses, country farms, and sometimes mining property held under perpetual lease from the state. Of all these public accounts were kept, and when special taxes were required they were paid on this kind of property and according to this estimate. Personal or invisible property consisted of all movables, such as furniture, factories, changes of raiment, cattle, and above all slaves, who were employed in trades as well as in household work. In days of war and of heavy taxing it was common for the Greeks to “make away with” their property, which then meant, not to spend it, but to make it invisible property, that is, invisible to the state, and therefore not taxable.

At every epoch of Greek history land was considered the best and the most important kind of wealth, and the landholder enjoyed privileges and rights not allowed to other men, however rich. This arose from the early form of Greek society. It is clear in Homer that the nobles possess the greater part of the land as their private property, and much of even the kings’ wealth was made up of estates. These were also presented to public benefactors and other distinguished persons. What land was possessed by the common people can only be judged from Hesiod, who describes what we should call tenant farming—the occupying of small pieces of land in poverty, without telling us whether it was freehold or rented from the nobles. It was probably the former, at least in Bœotia, where we can imagine the rough slopes unoccupied of old as they now are, or covered with trees. These farms could be held by any one who had the perseverance to clear and till them. In later days, when aristocracies prevailed, they also took for themselves the lands, so much so that at Syracuse and elsewhere they were called “the land-sharers” as opposed to laborers and tradespeople. In some states, such as Sparta, it was said that the nobles, or conquering race, divided the land so as to leave the greater portion in equal lots for themselves to be worked by their slaves or dependants, and a smaller portion to the former owners, who were obliged to pay a rent to the state. But of course no such equality of lots, if ever carried out, could last. In all states we find the perpetual complaint that property had come into the hands of a few, while the many were starving. The Athenians met this complaint by allotting the lands of islands and coasts which they conquered among their poorer citizens, who retained their rights at Athens while holding their foreign possessions.

Land was either bare or arable land, or planted with trees. There were also stony mountain pastures. In historical days, all these lands were either let by the state on leases, usually for ever (as was especially the case with mines), or were similarly let by political and religious corporations, or were worked by private owners for their own benefit by means of stewards and slaves. Such country farms are often mentioned in lists of property by the orators. The main produce has already been described. We have no means of fixing the value of landed property in Greece, as we generally hear of prices without being told of the amount of land in question. But the low average of the actual prices mentioned in Attica points to a great subdivision of such property.

As was before observed, the older Greek houses built in narrow irregular streets were of little value, being very plain and without any ornament. Leotychides, who was king of Sparta in B. C. 500, could not contain his wonder at a ceiling paneled[74] in wood, which he saw at Corinth, and Demosthenes tells us that the houses of the most celebrated Athenians at the same period were so modest as to be in no way different from those of their neighbors. Such houses, which remained the ordinary fashion all through Greek history, were of course not very valuable, and we hear of one worth only three minæ (about $60 of our money), of another at Eleusis worth five, and Demosthenes speaks of what he calls a little house worth seven (about $140). But we know that Alcibiades and other fashionable men of his time began to decorate their houses with paintings—a fashion which became quite common at Tanagra later on; this and other improvements raised the price of some houses to forty or fifty minæ, and the rich banker, Pasion, possessed one which was let in lodgings and which was rated at one hundred.

All these prices are very low when compared with our standard, and can only be explained by the fact that at Athens, which was probably the most crowded and the dearest place in Greece, the circuit of the walls was greater than that required for the houses, so that there was always building ground to spare. It appears that Athenian citizens did not invest more than the fifth part of their property in dwelling houses, unless they kept them for letting out. The ordinary rent of country houses in Attica was from eight to eight and three-quarters per cent. of the total value, which is about the same that a builder now expects for the money he invests in houses. But when we reflect that the ordinary rate of interest was not five per cent. as among us, but twelve, we have another proof that houses and house-rent were cheap in Greece. But we should also remember the fact that as most of the day was spent abroad, the house was by no means so important as it is in our colder and harsher climate.

As to the other kinds of real property, that which we know most about, and which was perhaps the most important, was mining property. There were gold and silver mines in many parts of Greece, of which those of Thasos (gold) and Laurium (silver) are the best known. Both these were probably discovered by the Phœnicians. We are told that the Athenian state used to let the right of mining on leases for ever, for a fine at the outset, of which we can not tell the amount, and a rent of four per cent. on the profit. The shafts in pits were thus divided into lots, and the holder of the lease could sell it, or borrow money upon it, just as upon any other real property. Owing to the fixed yearly rent or tax upon the produce of the mine, the occasional taxes were not levied on this kind of property. There were officers appointed to watch the working of the mines and see that the rent was honestly paid, just as we have government officers constantly supervising distilleries, in order to see the taxes properly paid. The produce of the mines of Laurium was a great source of wealth to Athens; just as the gold mines of Thrace were an important gain to Philip of Macedon. This was especially the case, because they were worked not by free labor, which is subject to strikes and the raising of wages, but by slaves bought and hired out for that purpose.

By far the most important part of personal property was the possession of slaves and of ready money. There is indeed some doubt among Greek writers about the classing of the latter, and generally we find the money left by a citizen in bank counted as a part of his real property in the law courts. There can be no doubt that gold and silver were very scarce in Greece up to the time of the Persian wars, the first large quantities being presents from the Lydian and other Asiatic kings. Even in later days great fortunes were not frequent, and the Greeks always kept much of their wealth invested in slaves and in vessels of gold and silver or plate, as we should call it. These latter are always specially mentioned in inventories of property, and the ready money seems always a small fraction of the full value in these lists. States, on the other hand, kept large reserve funds of ready money, because of this general scarcity of it among private citizens, and the difficulty of borrowing it during a sudden crisis. Accordingly the ordinary rate of interest obtained on money was twelve per cent., which was of course greatly increased when the investment was risky. Thus it was very common to lend money to a ship-owner in order to enable him to lay in a cargo, and carry it to a foreign port. But as the money was lost if the ship foundered the lender expected twenty-five or thirty per cent. in case of its safe return. We are told that most of the trade in the Piræus was carried on in this way. Investments on the security of landed property, or of an established trade, were, of course, safer, and therefore made at a lower rate of interest.

The oldest banks in Greece had been the temples, in which all manner of valuables were deposited for safety. The priests had also been in the habit of lending money, especially to states, upon public security. But in later days we find banking, especially at Athens, altogether a matter of private speculation. Originally, the table of a money-changer was a banking office, and there accounts were kept in books by careful and regular entries. These private bankers often failed, and such failure was politely called rearranging his table. There was once an Athenian banker called Pasion, who had been originally a slave, but who received the freedom of the city, and was enrolled in one of the most important demes, because his bank had stood firm when all the rest failed, and he had thus sustained the public credit. We are told that letters from his house gave a man credit when traveling through all the Greek waters, as all the merchants had dealings with him, and he doubtless issued circular notes, like those of Coutts’s and other English banks, for the benefit of travelers.

Of the coinage of money I will speak hereafter. Though the Phœnicians, especially at Carthage, had invented the use of token money, like our notes, such a device was, as a rule, unknown to the Greeks, who did not advance beyond the use of formal bonds for the payment of money. We are told however that the people of Byzantium used iron money in this way.

It is difficult for us to put ourselves in the place of the ancients as regards slaves. They were looked upon strictly as part of the chattels of the house, on a level rather with horses and oxen than with human beings. No Greek philosopher, however humane, had the least idea of objecting to slavery in itself, which was, Aristotle thought, quite necessary and natural in all society; but there were Greeks who objected to other Greeks being enslaved and thought that only barbarians should be degraded to this condition. Hence, any Greek general who sold his prisoners of war as slaves, was not indeed thought guilty of any crime or injustice, but was sometimes considered to have acted harshly. Still a vast number of Greeks who might have been brought up in luxury and refinement, were doomed to this misfortune, in early days, by the kidnapping of pirates, as Homer often tells us; in later, through the many fierce civil wars; in both, by being taken up as foundlings, since the exposing of children was common, and most states allowed the finder to bring up such infants as his slaves. Frequently the men of captured cities were massacred, but in almost all cases the women and children were sold into slavery. There were some parts of Greece, such as Laconia and Thessaly, in which old conquered nations were enslaved under the conditions of what we call serfdom. They were attached to the land of their master, and supported themselves by it, paying him a very large rent out of the produce. These serfs, called by many names, helots at Sparta, penestæ in Thessaly, clarotæ in Crete, were also obliged in most places to attend their masters as light-armed soldiers in war. That they were subject to much injustice and oppression is clear from the fact that they repeatedly made fierce and dangerous insurrections, and a writer on the Athenian state significantly complains that such was the license allowed at Athens to slaves,[75] that they actually went about dressed almost like free men, and showed neither fear nor cringing when met in the streets.

Still, though slaves were on the whole better treated at Athens than elsewhere, they were always liable to torture in case their evidence was required, as it was common for the accused to offer his slaves’ evidence if he was suspected of concealing any facts which they knew, and they were not believed without torture. So also the respectable and pious Nicias let them out by thousands to be worked in the Laurian silver mines, where the poisonous smoke and the hardships were such that half the price of the slave was paid yearly by the contractor who hired them—in other words, if they lived three years Nicias received one and a half times the value of his slaves. The contractor was also obliged to restore them the same in number, no regard being had of the individual slave. Again, we find women slaves deliberately employed by their masters in the worst kinds of traffic. The general price of slaves was not high, and seems to have averaged about two minæ (under $40); even in the case of special accomplishments it did not often exceed ten minæ. They wore a tunic with one sleeve, and a fur cap, in fact the dress of the lower class country people.

The most important domestic animal in Greece, as in the rest of Europe, was the horse. Among the Homeric nobles, who went both to war and to travel in chariots, the use of horses was very great, and one Trojan chief is said to have possessed a drove of three thousand. And yet their carts were drawn by mules. In later days, the use of chariots in war and carriages in traveling almost disappeared from Greece, and was practiced only in Asia Minor. I suppose this was owing to the scarcity and bad state of the roads. Cavalry and pack horses were used instead, and the cavalry of most Greek states was very trifling. The Athenians, for example, had no cavalry at all at Marathon; and at Platæa none which could even protect foragers from the Persians, as the Thessalians were not on the Greek side. The Lacedæmonians had no cavalry at all before the year 424 B. C. Thus horses (except in Thessaly and a few other places) were only kept for cavalry purposes, and also for such displays as the Olympic games and the state processions in religious festivals. At Athens to keep horses and to drive four-in-hand (in public contests only) was a proof of either great wealth or great extravagance. The knights or cavalry were of the richest class, and only kept one horse each as a state duty. We know that the very cheapest price for a bad horse was three minæ—that is to say, more than the average for a good slave, though not in itself a large sum. Twelve minæ seems about the average price for an ordinary horse. The enormous and perfectly exceptional sum of thirteen talents is said to have been paid for Alexander’s horse “Bucephalus.” This name was one used of a special breed called ox-headed, from their short and broad head and neck, and which were celebrated in Thessaly. Other good breeds came from Sicyon, Cyrene, and Sicily.

For draught purposes and for traveling with packs, much greater use was made of mules and donkeys, especially of the former, as is still the case all over Greece. We have no certain knowledge as to the prices given for these animals. The history of the use of oxen is, on the other hand, much better known. In Homeric times, and before the use of coined money, prices were fixed by the number of oxen a thing would cost, and this old practice is preserved in the Latin word pecunia (from pecus) for money, and in the English fee.

But according as men, and with them farming, increased, so much land was withdrawn from pasture that few more oxen were kept than what were wanted for field work and for sacrifices. Beef was thought heavy diet, except in Bœotia; and cow’s milk was never much liked by the Greeks. In out-of-the-way parts of Greece, such as Eubœa and Epirus, there were still large herds, and this was also the case about Orchomenus; but in general we hear that hides and even cattle were imported from the Black Sea and from Cyrene. The price of an ox at Athens in Solon’s time is said to have been five drachmæ (one dollar), though much more was sometimes given. This was not so much on account of the plenty or cheapness of oxen, as owing to the scarcity of coined money all through Greece. Accordingly about the year 400 B. C. we find the price greatly increased, and ranging from fifty to eighty drachmæ. An ox fit for a prize at games was valued at one hundred ($15.50).

We are told that in Solon’s days an ox was worth five sheep, but probably in later days the difference was greater, for while oxen became scarce, the feeding of sheep and goats must at all times have been a very common employment throughout Greece. Even in the present day, the traveler can see that from a country for the most part Alpine, with steep ravines and cliffs and wild upland pastures, unfit for culture and difficult of access, no other profit could ever be derived. But now, in the day of its desolation, shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats have invaded many rich districts, once the scene of good and prosperous agriculture.

The old Greek peasant dressed in sheepskins, made clothes of the wool, used the milk for cheese and the lambs for feasting and sacrifice. We hear of no importing of wool into Greece, but find that the Ionian colonies in Asia Minor, such as Miletus and Laodicea, were most celebrated for fine woolen garments, which they made of the wool of the flocks of Mysia and Phrygia. Many districts all over Greece were also famed for their woolen stuffs, so much so that the woolen cloaks of Pallene were given as prizes to victors in some of the local games. Perhaps Arcadia has remained the least changed part of Greece in this and in other respects. Even now the shepherds go up in summer with great flocks to the snowy heights of Cyllene, and live like Swiss peasants in châlets during the hot weather. In winter they come down to the warm pastures of Argos and Corinth, where a tent of skins under an old olive tree affords them sufficient shelter, with a hedged-in inclosure protected by fierce dogs for their flocks. Such inclosures and even stalls are mentioned in Homer.

The price of a sheep at Athens in the fourth century B. C. seems to have varied from ten to twenty drachmæ, its chief value being the quality of the wool. There is nothing very special known about goats, which were kept, as they now are, very much in the same way as sheep, and their hair used for making ropes and coarse stuffs.

In the same way we know little of pigs beyond that their hides were used for rough coats, and that Homer’s heroes were very fond of pork. We hear of large droves being kept in the mountainous parts of Arcadia, Laconia, and Ætolia, where they fed on the acorns in the oak woods. Fowls were not a usual article of diet, and are therefore not prominent in our accounts of Greek property. The cock is spoken of as a Persian bird, the pheasant as a Colchian, and peacocks were an object of curiosity at Athens in Pericles’ day. The culture of bees, on the other hand, was of great importance, as it took the place of the sugar plantations of our day—all sweetmeats being flavored with honey.

It seems certain that the greatest part of the wealth of the Greeks consisted in these out-of-door possessions, which were managed by slave stewards and shepherds for their masters, if they lived in the city. There is reason to think that they neither laid up much money in banks, nor kept any great treasures in the way of changes of raiment, like the Orientals, nor in furniture and works of art, like the Romans and moderns. But owing to the many wars and invasions, this agricultural wealth was precarious, and liable to sudden destruction. House property, again, which in walled towns was pretty safe, is from its own nature perishable. Private wealth therefore was not great on the average, and the splendid monuments of Greek art in its best days were all the result of public spirit, and not of private enterprise or bounty. A fortune of $250,000 in all kinds of property is the extreme limit we know of, and is spoken of much as $250,000,000 would be now-a-days.

[76]

GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

CHAPTER II.

The early inhabitants of Greece, and of the islands in the beautiful Ægean, were an active race, sprightly, and highly imaginative. Though, as yet, uncultured and unaided, their vivid conceptions of things natural and supernatural, visible and invisible, found expression in legends that embodied their often crude ideas. After some progress in civilization, and the introduction of letters, these were perfected and embellished by men of poetic genius, to whom we are indebted for many a charming story. Are these stories true? Perhaps not, yet they are true types of the intelligence and thought of the men of that age and country.

Much is unreal. But, if to us with the diviner light, after centuries of progress, and habits of thought so different, some things appear childish, and others inexplicable if not absurdly false, we will not hastily condemn what we fail to understand. Modern writers have done much to remove from our common heritage of mythical tradition what seemed repulsive in it; while they preserve for us the exquisite poetry that breathes especially in Homeric lines, and will survive the most destructive criticism.

COSMOGONY.

The facts and problems of the visible universe have engaged the attention of thoughtful men in all ages. The outer sensuous world exists. Whence came it, and how? The early Greeks had, it seems, no idea of creation, or of an intelligent creator, yet felt bound to account to themselves for what they saw.

According to the most common account, the world, with all its solid, tangible things, was formed from chaos—and by chaos was meant, so far as appears, not a shapeless confused mass of things in any way objective to the senses, but merely space, a dark illimitable void wherein dwelt utter nothingness. As to how the world proceeded thence, there was little agreement. The most popular view is that, in some unaccountable manner, Gea (the earth) issued from the vast womb of chaos. The process once begun the development was surprisingly rapid. Tartarus, the abyss below, immediately severed itself. Eros (the love that forms and binds all things) sprung into existence. Gea then begot, of herself, Uranus (heaven), the mountains, and Pontus (the sea).

Their notions of the structure of the universe are a slight advance on their ideas of its origin. These give their coloring to many of their narratives.

“The Greek poets believed the earth to be flat and circular—their own country occupying the middle of it, the central point being either Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods, or Delphi, so famous for its oracle.” Those in the more remote parts, and having never seen the sacred mountain, supposed its summit quite in the heavens, and occupied by superior beings. Those who were nearer knew better, but fancied the gods, or immortals, often came down and frequented its grand solitudes, holding their councils, or having their pleasures apart from men.

The circular disc of the earth was crossed from east to west and divided into two equal parts by the “sea,” as they called the Mediterranean, and its continuation, the Euxine.

Around the earth flowed the “River Ocean,” its course being from south to north on the western, and in a contrary direction on the eastern side. It flowed in a steady, equable current, as was supposed, unvexed by storm or tempest. The sea and all the rivers on earth received their waters from it.

The northern portion of the earth they supposed inhabited by a happy race named Hyperboreans, dwelling in blissful bowers, and perpetual spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were believed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north-wind, which chilled the people of Hellas (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare. Moore has given us the “Song of a Hyperborean,” beginning—

On the south side of the earth, close to that fancied stream, or “River Ocean,” dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named Æthiopians. The gods favored them highly, and at times left their Olympian abodes, going down to share their sacrifices and banquets.

On the western margin of the earth, fast by the “River Ocean,” spread out a beautiful plain named Elysiam, whither mortals, favored by the gods, were transported without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss. This happy region was also called by them “Fortunate Fields,” and “Isles of the Blessed.”

It will be borne in mind by the young reader of their fables, or legends, that the Greeks of the mythological period were an isolated people, knowing but little of geography, and nothing of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean.

The western portion of this sea, of unknown extent, their imagination peopled with giants and enchantresses, while around them, at unknown distances, and perhaps but remotely connected with their own earthly habitation, they placed communities enjoying the peculiar favor of the gods, having serene happiness and longevity—human, but akin to the immortals.

Of the heavens above them still less was yet known, though they studied astronomy, and noted how some bodies moved, while others were apparently stationary.

Probably they had some vague notion of life and volition in things that move, and when the sun and moon were said to rise from the ocean and drive through the air, giving light to gods and men, the language was, to them, scarcely metaphorical.

Knowing nothing of the revolution of the earth, the succession of days and nights was accounted for by supposing the sun-god to descend into the “River Ocean,” and embark in his winged boat, which carried him swiftly around the northern part of the earth, back to his place of rising in the east.

Milton, in his “Comus,” thus translates their philosophy on the subject:

THE GODS OF OLYMPUS.

Zeus (Jupiter) was the supreme god of both Greek and Roman mythology. In our English literature on the subject the Latin names occur more frequently, are more familiar, and are used without further explanation.

Before Homer wrote the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” Jupiter had come to be regarded by the Greeks as the father of all gods and men, but he had not always that distinction. The earlier myths gave his descent, and according to some legends there was a[77] time when Cronos, father of Jupiter, was supreme; but even he was not first in the order of the gods. The imaginary line of their descent stretched far back till lost in deepest mystery, but it led not to the Everlasting Self-existent One. According to Hesiod their highest gods were really earth born. The first beings were Chaos and Gea. The latter gave birth to Uranus—whence sprang a race of twelve Titans, six males—Oceanus, Cœus, Crius, Hyperion, Japetus, and Cronus; six females—Thia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phœbe, and Thetis.

The interpretation of these divinities is difficult, but they doubtless represented some real or supposed elementary forces of nature.

The different stories respecting things, not known but imagined, were often at variance, nor need we attempt to harmonize them, as each district or city had its own version. From other sources it would be possible to construct a different genealogy, but that here given was somewhat generally accepted.

Ouranos, or Uranus, is the heaven which is spread like a vail over the earth, and was much the same to the Greeks as the old Hindu god Varuna, whose name has a verbal root meaning to vail or conceal.

Having attributed some kind of intelligence and personality to the vast expanse stretching itself overhead, they represent this sovereign, Ouranos, as hurling the Cyclops with Bronte, Sterope (thunder and lightning), and other children of Gea, into the abyss called Tartarus; and that Gea, in her grief and anger, urged her other children to insurrection against their father, and to set Cronos instead on his throne.

When Cronos (time) became king he is represented as so voracious and cruel that all his children were devoured soon after each was born. The basis of this legendary fact is evident, as time swallows up the days and weeks, months and years, as they come each in its order, and thus “bears all its sons away.”

These acts of Cronos, the reputed cannibal among such as interpret the fable literally, connect with the history of Jupiter. Rhea, his wife, and the mother of Jupiter, anxious to save her child, having already lost five, determined to save her next son from a cruel fate by stratagem. A stone was given to the husband, wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed without examination or suspicion, and the little Jupiter, thus rescued, was reared by the nymphs in a cave on Mount Diete, or Ida, in Crete. He was nourished on goat’s milk, and the bees brought him honey to eat. That the cries of the child might not betray his presence, and the mother’s strategy, the Curetes, or attendant priests of Rhea, drowned his voice by the clashing of their weapons.

Jupiter thus remained hidden till he speedily became a young, but very powerful god. He then attacked and overthrew his father Cronos, whom he also compelled by a device of Gea, to bring forth the children he had already devoured. Some of the Titans, as Oceanus, Themis, Mnemosyne, and Hyperion, at once submitted to the dominion of the new ruler of the world. The others refused allegiance. But after a contest of years Jupiter, with the help of the Cyclops and Centimani, overthrew them. As a punishment they were cast into Tartarus, which was then closed by Poseidon with brazen gates.

Thessaly, which bears evident traces of having suffered much from natural convulsions, was supposed to have been the scene of this mighty war.

Jupiter and his adherents fought from Olympus, the Titans from the opposite mountain of Othrys. Thenceforward the victor shared the empire of the world with his two brothers, Poseidon and Hades. The former he made ruler of the ocean and waters, the latter he set over the infernal regions. This new order of things, however, was by no means at once securely established. The resentment of Gea led her to produce a younger and most powerful son, the great Typhœus, a monster with a hundred fire-breathing heads, whom she sent to attack the thunder-bearer. A great battle took place which shook heaven and earth, but Jupiter, by means of his crushing thunderbolts, at length overcame his antagonist, and cast him into Tartarus, or, according to others, buried him beneath Mount Ætna, in Sicily, whence at times he still breathes out fire and flames toward heaven.

“Some tell of another rebellion of the giants against the dominion of Jupiter. From the plains of Phlegra they sought to scale and storm Olympus, by piling, through their great strength, Pelion on Ossa; but after a bloody battle they too were overpowered, and shared the fate of the Titans. After that no hostile attack ever disturbed the peaceful ease of the inhabitants of Olympus.”

The character of the acknowledged chief of their deities, who is supposed against all opposition to control and rule the universe, is not drawn, in the earlier myths, as one of untarnished excellence. Yet the good predominates, and he is confessed a beneficent ruler. He was, in time, reverenced as Jupiter-pater, the source of all life in nature, and the almoner of abundant blessings for his obedient subjects and children. All the phenomena of the air were supposed to proceed from him. “He gathers and disperses the clouds, casts forth the lightnings, stirs up his thunder, sends down rain, hail, snow, and fertilizing dew upon the earth. With his ægis he produces storm and tempest, and at his pleasure stills the warring elements.”

“The ancients, however, were not content to regard Jupiter as merely a personification of nature. They regarded him also from an ethical stand-point, from which side he appears far more important and awful. They saw in him a personification, so to speak, of that principle of undeviating order and harmony, which pervades both the physical and moral world. The strict, unalterable laws, by which he rules the community of the gods, form a strong contrast with the capricious commands of his father Cronos.”

Hence Jupiter is regarded as the protector and defender of political order. From him the kings of the earth receive their sovereignty and their rights; to him they are responsible for a conscientious fulfillment of their duties. Those of them who pervert justice he never fails to punish. He also presides over their assemblies, keeps watch over their orderly course, and suggests to them wise counsels.

One of the most important props of political society is the oath; and accordingly he watches over oaths, and punishes perjury.

He also watches over boundaries, and accompanies the youths of the land as they go out to defend the borders of their country, and gives them victory over the invaders. All civil and political communities enjoy his protection; but he watches particularly over that association which is the basis of the political fabric—the family.

The head of every household was, therefore, in a certain sense, the priest of Jupiter, and presented his offerings in the name of the family. As Jupiter hospitalis, he protects the wanderer, and punishes those who violate the ancient laws of hospitality by mercilessly turning the helpless stranger from their door.

The superstition of early times saw in all physical phenomena manifestations of the divine will, and this, their earliest and chief deity, was naturally regarded as the source of inspiration, revealing his will to men in the thunder, lightning, flight of birds, and dreams. He not only had his oracle at Dodona, which was the most ancient in Greece, but also revealed the future by the mouth of his favorite son, Apollo. In hours of real trouble and grief, Achilles and other Achaians prayed to Jupiter, not only as irresistible in might, but also as just and righteous.

Yet others, and possibly the same persons under other circumstances, and in different moods, represented him as partial, unjust, fond of pleasure, changeable in his affections, and unfaithful in his love.

[78]

Greater inconsistencies and contradictions in character can scarcely be conceived of. How such confused and contradictory notions could occupy the same mind, may seem inexplicable. The Greek name of their deity, a corporeal being, was used by men having many excellent qualities, to express all they thought of, or felt, toward God, the greatest and best, worthy to be trusted and worshiped, but anthropomorphic still, having human instincts and passions, in the essential elements of his exalted nature, “altogether like unto themselves.” Their ethical conceptions were marred by unconsciously projecting their common humanity into the field of view in which their god was contemplated.

But the name that became sacred also meant the physical heaven, the sky with its clouds and vapor, and all embracing atmosphere; and as the earth by a beautiful metaphor was spoken of as the bride of the sky, which was said to overshadow the earth with his love, in every land causing the birth of all things that live and grow, so this idea of production—its primary application forgotten by a people gross and sensual—transferred to a deity of human form and passions, grew up into strange stories of license, or unlawful love. It is by no means certain that the poets and moralists, or ethical writers accepted the grosser myths as true or expressive of their own conceptions. The probability is against it. For, while Hesiod, following the popular theology describes the descent of the gods, their earthly loves, intrigues and gross immoralities, yet he, at times, turns sharply away from all such things as loathsome, to “thoughts of that pure and holy Zeus (Jupiter), who looks down from heaven to see if men will do justice, love mercy, and seek after God.”

Some regard the conceded goodness of the supreme beings as sufficient reason for misbelieving all the stories that were to their discredit; or if the stories were credited they would disprove their supposed divinity.

Euripides said:

The great poets did not invent the myths, but found them the only embodiment of the crude theology that was current among the masses, perfected them by eliminating some of the grosser parts, and sought to use them in the cause of virtue and civilization.

Even those seeming most irrational, when traced to their primary source and analyzed, were found to have something of truth, and the glimmer of their light was welcomed where without it the darkness had been yet more profound.

Dr. Ziller in his lecture on the development of Monotheism in Greece says: “The great Greek poets were her first thinkers, her sages, as they were afterward called. They sang of Zeus (Jupiter), and exalted him as the defender of righteousness, the representation of moral order.

“Archilocus says that ‘Zeus weighs and measures all the actions of good and evil men, as well as those of animals.’ ‘He is,’ said Terpandros somewhat later, ‘the source and ruler of all things.’ According to Simonides, ‘the principle of all created things rests with him, and he rules the universe by his will.’”

Thus, as time went on, ideas of the divinity were elevated, and Zeus, whose parentage and birth are chronicled as after the manner of men, became, in the general conception, the personification of the world’s government, which was delivered from the fatality of destiny, and from the promptings of caprice.

Destiny, which according to the early mythical representation, it was impossible to escape, is resolved into the will of Zeus, and the other gods, which were at first supposed to be able to oppose him, became his faithful ministers. Such is the teaching of Solon and Epicharmos.

“Be assured that nothing escapes the eyes of the divinities. God watches over us, and to him nothing is impossible.” This impulse of the imaginative faculty combined with the process of reason is most plainly seen in the conceptions of the three great poets of the fifth century, Pindar, Æschylus, and Sophocles. In the words of Pindar: “All things depend on God alone; all which befalls mortals, whether it be good or evil fortune, is due to Zeus; he can draw light from darkness, and can vail the sweet light of day in obscurity. No human action escapes him; happiness is found only in the way which leads to him; virtue and wisdom flow from him alone.”

We need not multiply quotations to show that as the Greeks advanced in civilization the earlier barbaric notions were left for those more elevating, and though mostly polytheists till visited by Christian teachers, their theology, or what was believed respecting the divine beings, was more worthy of them and had in general an elevating influence on their character. Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hermes, Athene, Poseidon, Hera, Hephaistus, Hestia, Demeter, Aphrodite and Jupiter himself formed the body which in the days of Thucydides was worshiped, and called “the twelve gods of Olympus.”

This ordering or classification is not recognized in the poems of Homer. Hesiod more particularly describes the manner of their birth and the attributes of the Olympic gods, and hence that poem is called a Theogony.

Having mentioned the chief, the others may be briefly noticed in their order. Phœbus Apollo was called Phœbus, as being the god of light; in Homeric phrase the “Far glancing Apollo”—the last name meaning, some say, destroyer, because his rays, when powerful, can destroy the life of animals and plants. At first the name meant the sun, but in later times he was regarded as the god of light who was not confined to his habitation in the sun. “He is called the son of Zeus, because the sun, like Athene, or the dawn, springs in the morning from the sky—and son of Leto because the night, as going before his rising, may be considered as mother of the sun.”

One legendary story of his birth runs as follows: Leto, distressed, wandered through many lands seeking in vain for a resting place. At last she came to Delos (the bright land), and said if she could there find shelter it should become glorious as the birthplace of Phœbus, and that men should come from all parts to enrich his temple with their gifts. Here, then, Phœbus was born; heaven was propitious and the floating Delos, a hard and stony land, was anchored and covered itself with verdure and golden flowers. The nymphs clothed him with a spotless robe, and when Themis fed him with nectar and ambrosia, the food of gods, hating all things impure, he was at once prepared to battle with and drive away the evil powers of darkness.

With his bright arrows he slew the giant Tityus, and the Python, a monster near Delphi, that destroyed both men and cattle.

These and similar myths respecting his matchless conquering power forcibly declare the influence of the sun’s rays in scattering the night and dark gloom of winter. But though Phœbus Apollo thus appears as the foe of all that is evil or impure, other myths represent him as a terrible god of death, sending pestilences and dealing out destruction to men and animals by means of the arrows he scatters abroad.

Remembering the natural significance of the name this is perfectly consistent with the genial influence attributed to him. The sun’s rays do indeed put to flight the darkness of night and the cold of winter, but their intense heat also causes disease and death.

This is beautifully portrayed in the fable of the death of Hyacinthus that will be given in the next number. His reputation as a god of health, all powerful to protect against physical maladies is not damaged, though, in exceptional cases, his rays smite and destroy. But the healing that he brings is not alone for the outward “ills that flesh is heir to.” Diseases of the mind he cures or mitigates. Sin and crime flee from the light, and troubled souls, that escape from guilt, find consolation.

[79]

Even those pursued by the Furies he sometimes receives with tenderness and pity—a fine instance of which is found in the oft told story of Orestes.

Much of his healing power connects with his character as god of music, and from the fact of its soothing, tranquilizing influence on the soul of man.

His favorite instrument was the lyre, on which he played with masterly skill at the banquets of the gods, while the Muses accompanied him with their wondrous strains. He was regarded as the leader of the Muses and all the great singers of antiquity, as Orpheus and Linus, are mythically represented as his sons.

Of his prophetic character, statues, temples, and worship we will speak hereafter.

TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE;
Or, THE POISON PROBLEM.

BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.

CHAPTER II.—THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.

The undoubted antiquity of the poison vice has induced several able physiologists to assume the hygienic necessity of artificial stimulation. But the not less undoubted fact that there have been manful, industrious and intelligent nations of total abstainers would be an almost sufficient refutation of that inference, which is sometimes qualified by the assertion that the tonic value of alcoholic drinks is based upon the abnormal demands upon the vitality of races exposed to the vicissitudes of a rigorous climate and the manifold overstraining influences of an artificial civilization. For it can, besides, be proved that the alleged invigorating action of alcoholic drinks is an absolute delusion, and the pathological records of contemporary nations establish the fact that endemic increase of intemperate habits can nearly always be traced to causes that have no correlation whatever to the increased demands upon the physical or intellectual energies of the afflicted community. Potentially those energies have lamentably decreased among numerous races who once managed to combine nature-abiding habits with a plethora of vital vigor.

The physiologically unavoidable progressiveness of all stimulant habits is a further argument in favor of the theory that the poison vice has grown up from very small beginnings, and the genesis of the fatal germ has probably been supplied in the hypothesis of Fabio Colonna, an Italian naturalist of the seventeenth century. “Before people used wine,” says he, “they drank sweet must and preserved it, like oil, in jars or skins. But in a warm climate a saccharine fluid is apt to ferment, and some avaricious housekeeper may have drunk that spoiled stuff till she became fond of it and learned to prefer it to must.”

Avarice, aided perhaps by dietetic prurience, or indifference to the warnings of instinct, planted the baneful seed, and the laws of evolution did the rest.

But the tendency of those laws has often been checked, and as certainly often been accelerated, by less uncontrollable agencies.

The first venders of toxic stimulants (like our quack medicine philanthropists) had a personal interest in disseminating the poison habit. Reform attempts were met by appeals to the convivial interests of the stimulant-dupe, by the seduction of minors, by charges of asceticism; later by nostrum puffs and opium wars. More than two thousand years ago the worship of Bacchus was propagated by force of arms. The disciples of Ibn Hanbal, the Arabian Father Mathew, were stoned in the streets of Bagdad. The persecutions and repeated expulsions of the Grecian Pythagoreans had probably a good deal to do with the temperance teachings of their master. In Palestine, in India, in mediæval Europe, nearly every apostle of Nature had to contend with a rancorous opposition, inspired by the most sordid motives of self-interest, and our own age can in that respect not boast of much improvement. In spite of our higher standard of philanthropic principles and their numerous victories in other directions, the heartless alliance of Bacchus and Mammon still stands defiant. In our own country a full hundred thousand men, not half of them entitled to plead the excuses of poverty or ignorance, unblushingly invoke the protection of the laws in behalf of an industry involving the systematic propagation of disease, misery and crime. Wherever the interests of the poison traffic are at stake the nations of Europe have not made much progress since the time when the sumptuary laws of Lorenzo de Medici were defeated by street riots and a shrieking procession of the Florentine tavern-keepers.

The efforts of such agitators are seconded by the Instinct of Imitation. “In large cities,” says Dr. Schrodt, “one may see gamins under ten years grubbing in rubbish heaps for cigar stumps; soon after leaning against a board fence, groaning and shuddering as they pay the repeated penalty of nature, yet, all the same, repeating the experiment with the resignation of a martyr. The rich, the fashionable, do it; those whom they envy smoke; smoking, they conclude, must be something enviable.”

Without any intentional arts of persuasion the Chinese business men of San Francisco have disseminated a new poison vice by smoking poppy gum in the presence of their Caucasian employes and accustoming them to associate the sight of an opium debauch with the idea of enjoyment and recreation. Would the opponents of prohibition attempt to deny that analogous influences (the custom of “treating” friends at a public bar, the spectacle of lager beer orgies in public gardens, etc.) have a great deal to do with the initiation of boy topers?

Ignorance does not lead our dumb fellow-creatures to vicious habits, and prejudice is therefore, perhaps, the more correct name for the sad infatuation which tempts so many millions of our young men to defy the protests of instinct and make themselves the slaves of a life-destroying poison. Ignorance is nescience. Prejudice is mal-science, mis-creance, trust in erroneous teachings. Millions of children are brought up in the belief that health can be secured only by abnormal means. A pampered child complains of headache, want of appetite. Instead of curing the evil by the removal of the cause, in the way so plainly indicated by the monitions of instinct, the mother sends to the drug-store. The child must “take something.” Help must come through anti-natural means. A young rake, getting more fretful and dyspeptic from day to day, is advised to “try something,” an aloe pill, a bottle of medicated brandy, any quack “specific,” recommended by its bitterness or nauseousness. The protests of nature are calmly disregarded in such cases; a dose of medicine, according to the popular impression, can not be very effective unless it is very repulsive. Our children thus learn to mistrust the voice of their natural instincts. They try to rely on the aid of specious arts, instead of trusting their troubles in the hands of nature. Boys whose petty ailments have been palliated with stimulants will afterward be tempted to drown their sorrow in draughts of[80] the same nepenthe, instead of biding their time, like Henry Thoreau, who preferred to “face any fate, rather than seek refuge in the mist of intoxication.” Before the friends of temperance can hope for a radical reform they must help to eradicate the deep-rooted delusion of the stimulant fallacy; the popular error which hopes to defy the laws of nature by the magic of intoxicating drugs and thus secure an access of happiness not attainable by normal means. Our text-books, our public schools, should teach the rising generation to realize the fact that the temporary advantage gained by such means is not only in every case out-weighed by the distress of a speedy reaction, but that the capacity for enjoyment itself is impaired by its repeated abuse, till only the most powerful stimulants can restore a share of that cheerfulness which the spontaneous action of the vital energies bestows on the children of nature.

We have seen that the milder stimulants often form the stepping-stones to a passion for stronger poisons. A penchant for any kind of tonic drugs, nicotine, narcotic infusions, hasheesh, the milder opiates, etc., may thus initiate a stimulant habit with an unlimited capacity of development, and there is no doubt that international traffic has relaxed the vigilance which helped our forefathers to guard their households against the introduction of foreign poison vices. Hence the curious fact that drunkenness is not prevalent—not in the most ignorant or despotic countries (Russia, Austria, and Turkey), nor in southern Italy and Spain, where alcoholic drinks of the most seductive kind are cheapest—but in the most commercial countries, western France, Great Britain, and North America. Hence also the fallacy of the brewer’s argument that the use of lager beer would prevent the dissemination of the opium habit. No stimulant vice has ever prevented the introduction of worse poisons. Among the indirect causes of intemperance we must therefore include our mistaken toleration of the minor stimulant habits. The poison vice has become a many-headed hydra, defying one-sided attacks, and it is no paradox to say that we could simplify our work of expurgation by making it more thorough.

Polydipsia is a derangement of the digestive organs characterized by a chronic thirst, which forces its victims to swallow enormous quantities of stimulating fluids. The biographer of Richard Porson, the great classic scholar, says that his poison thirst was “so outrageous that he can not be considered a mere willful drunkard; one must believe that he was driven into his excesses by some unknown disease of his constitution.” … “He would pour anything down his throat rather than endure the terrible torture of thirst. Ink, spirits of wine for the lamp, an embrocation, are among the horrible things he is reported to have swallowed in his extremity.” Polydipsia is not always due to the direct or indirect (hereditary) influence of the alcohol habit, and the origin of the disorder was long considered doubtful; but it has since been traced to a morbid condition of the kidneys, induced by the use of narcotic stimulants (tea, coffee, tobacco), but often also by gluttony.

Like certain poison plants, the stimulant habit flourishes best in a sickly soil. Whatever tends to undermine the stamina of the physical or moral constitution helps to prepare the way for an inroad of intemperance, by weakening the resistance of the protective instincts. Hence the notorious fact that gambling dens and houses of ill-fame are rank hot-beds of the alcohol vice.

Asceticism has not yet ceased to be an indirect obstacle to the success of temperance reform. The children of nature need no special holidays; to them life itself is a festival of manifold sports. Hunting, fishing, and other pursuits of primitive nations become the pastimes of later ages. For the abnormal conditions of civilized life imply the necessity of providing special means of recreation, out-door sports, competitive gymnastics, etc., in order to satisfy the craving of an importunate instinct; and too many social reformers have as yet failed to recognize the truth that the suppression of that instinct avenges itself by its perversion; by driving pleasure-seekers from the play-ground to the pot-house, as despotism has turned freemen into bandits and outlaws. “Every one who considers the world as it really exists,” says Lecky, “must have convinced himself that, in great towns, where multitudes of men of all classes and all characters are massed together, and where there are innumerable strangers, separated from all domestic ties and occupations, public amusements of an exciting order are absolutely necessary, and that to suppress them is simply to plunge an immense portion of the population into the lowest depths of vice.”

“I am a great friend to public amusements,” says Boswell’s Johnson, “for they keep people from vice.” A home missionary in the character of a promoter of harmless recreations would double the popularity of our tenets, and by vindicating our people against the charge of joy-hating bigotry deprive our opponents of their most effective weapon. The free reading-rooms and gymnasium of the New York Y. M. C. A. have done more to promote the cause of temperance than the man hunts of Sir Hudibras and all his disciples. We must change our tactics. While our anchorite allies have contrived to make virtue repulsive, our opponents have proved themselves consummate masters of the art of masking the ugliness of vice; they have strewn their path with roses and left us the thorns. Yet I hope to show that we can beat them upon their own ground, for it is not difficult to make health more attractive than disease.

But the most obstinate obstacle to a successful propagation of total abstinence principles is the drug fallacy, a delusion founded on precisely the same error which leads the dram-drinker to mistake a process of irritation for a process of invigoration. During the infancy of the healing art all medical theories were biased by the idea that sickness is an enemy whose attacks must be repulsed à main forte, by suppressing the symptoms with fire, sword and poison—not in the figurative but in the literal sense, the keystone dogma of the primitive Sangrados having been the following heroic maxim: “What drugs won’t cure must be cured with iron” (the lancet), “if that fails resort to fire.” (Quod medicamenta non curant ferrum curat, quod non curat ferram ignis curat.) But with the progress of the physiological sciences the conviction gradually gained ground that disease itself is a reconstructive process, and that the suppression of the symptoms retards the accomplishment of that reconstruction. And ever since that truth dawned upon the human mind the use of poison drugs has steadily decreased. A larger and larger number of intelligent physicians had begun to suspect that the true healing art consists in the removal of the cause, and that where diseases have been caused by unnatural habits, the reform of those habits is a better plan than the old counter-poison method; when homœopathy proved practically (though not theoretically) that medication can be entirely dispensed with. The true effect of the more virulent drugs (opium, tartar emetic, arsenic, etc.) was then studied from a physiological stand-point, and experiments proved what the medical philosopher Asclepiades, conjectured eighteen hundred years ago, namely, that if a drugged patient recovers, the true explanation is that his constitution was strong enough to overcome both the disease and the drug. Bichat, Schrodt, Magendie, Alcott, R. T. Trall, Isaac Jennings and Dio Lewis arrived at the conclusion that every disease is a protest of Nature against some violation of her laws, and that the suppression of the symptoms means to silence that protest instead of removing its cause, so that we might as well try to extinguish a fire by silencing the fire-bells, or to cure the sleepiness of a weary child by pinching its eyelids—in short, that drastic drugs, instead of “breaking up” a disease, merely interrupt it and lessen the chance of a radical cure.

Are there reasons to suppose that alcohol or any other poison, makes an exception from that general rule? We must reject the idea in toto, and I hope to show that it is refuted:

1. By the testimony of our instincts.

2. By experience.

[81]

3. By the direct or indirect concessions of the ablest physiologists.

Our instincts protest against medication. Against ninety-nine of a hundred “remedial drugs” our sense of taste warns us as urgently as against rotten eggs, verdigris, or oil of vitriol. Shall we believe that nature repudiates the means of salvation? Or that our protective instincts forsake us in the hour of our sorest need—in the hour of our struggle with a life-endangering disease? And the same instincts that protest against other poisons warn us against all kinds of alcoholic drugs. Is it an exception to that rule that the depraved taste of a drunkard may relish a glass of medicated wine or a bottle of “Hostetter’s bitters” (rye brandy)? If it is certain beyond all limits of doubt that the health of the stoutest man is no safeguard against the bane of the wretched poison, shall we believe that he can encounter it with impunity when his vital strength is exhausted by disease?

Has the stimulus of alcoholic beverages any remedial or prophylactic effect? How does alcohol counteract the contagion of climatic fevers? In precisely the same way as those fevers arrest, or rather suspend, the progress of other disorders. The vital process can not compromise with two diseases at the same time. A fit of gastric spasms interrupts a toothache. A toothache relieves a sick headache. The severest cold in the head temporarily yields to an attack of small-pox. Temporarily, I say, for the apparent relief is only a postponement of an interrupted process. During the progress of the alcohol fever (the feverish activity of the organism in its effort to rid itself of a life-endangering poison) Nature has to suspend her operations against a less dangerous foe. But each repetition of that factitious fever is followed by a reaction that suspends the prophylactic effect of the stimulus, and sooner or later the total exhaustion of the vital energies not only leaves the system at the mercy of the original foe, but far less able to resist his attacks. “There is but one appalling conclusion to be deduced from hospital records, medical statistics and the vast array of facts which bear upon the subject,” says Professor Youmans, “it is that among no class of society are the ravages of contagious diseases so wide-spread and deadly as among those who are addicted to the use of alcoholic beverages.”

Is alcohol a digestive tonic? Can we cure an indigestion by the most indigestible of all chemical product! If a starving man drops by the roadside we may get him on his legs by drenching him with a pailful of vitriol, but after rushing ahead for a few hundred steps he will drop again, more helpless than before, by just as much as the brutal stimulus has still further exhausted his little remaining strength. Thus alcohol excites, and eventually tenfold exhausts, the vigor of the digestive system. We can not bully Nature. We can not silence her protests by a fresh provocation. Fevers can be cured by refrigeration; indigestions by fasting and exercise, and at any rate the possible danger of a relapse is infinitely preferable to the sure evils of the poison drug. A few repetitions of the stimulant process may initiate the alcohol vice and sow the seeds of a life-long crop of woe and misery. A single dose of alcoholic tonics may revive the fatal passion of half-cured drunkards and forfeit their hard-earned chance of recovery. That chance, and life itself, often depend on the hope of guarding the system against a relapse of the stimulant-fever, and I would as soon snatch a plank from a drowning man as that last hope from a drunkard.

Alcohol lingers in our hospitals as slavery lingers in South America, as torture lingers in the courts of eastern Europe. Quacks prescribe it because it is the cheapest stimulant; routine doctors prescribe it because its stimulating effect is more infallible than that of other poisons; empirists prescribe it at the special request of their patients, or as a temporary prophylactic; others because they find it in the ready-made formulas of their dispensatories. There is another reason which I might forbear mentioning, but I hold that a half truth is a half untruth, and I will name that other reason. Ignorant patients demand an immediate effect. They send for a doctor, and are to pay his bill; they expect to get their money’s worth in the form of a prompt and visible result. Instead of telling the im-patient that he must commit himself into the hands of Nature, that she will cure him in her own good time, by a process of her own, and that all art can do for him is to give that process the best possible chance, and prevent a willful interruption of it—instead of saying anything of the kind, Sangrado concludes to humor the popular prejudice and to produce the desired prompt and visible effect. For that purpose alcohol is, indeed, the most reliable agent. It will spur the jaded system into a desperate effort to expel the intruder, though the strength expended in that effort should be ever so urgently needed for better purposes. The dose is administered; the patient can not doubt that a “change” of some kind or other has been effected; the habitual drunkard perhaps feels it to be a (momentary) change for the better; at all events the doctor has done something and proved that he can “control the disease.” In some exceptional cases of that sort the influence of imagination may help to cure a believing patient, or Nature may be strong enough to overcome the disease and the stimulant at one effort. And if a doctor can reconcile it with his conscience to risk such experiments how shall we prevent it? As a first step in the right direction we can refuse to swallow his prescription. Physicians have no right to experiment on the health of their patients. They have no right to expect that we shall stake our lives on the dogmas of the old stimulant theory till they have answered the objections of the Naturalistic School.

Drastic drugs are not wholly useless. There are two or three forms of disease which have (thus far) not proved amenable to any non-medicinal cure, and can hardly be trusted to the healing power of Nature:—the lues venera, scabies and prurigo, because, as a French physiologist suggests, “the cause and the symptoms are here, for once, identical, the probable proximate cause being the agency of microscopic parasites, which oppose to the action of the vital forces a life-energy of their own.” Antidotes and certain anodynes will perhaps also hold their own till we find a way of producing their effects by mechanical means.

But with these rare exceptions it is by far the safer as well as shorter way to avoid drugs, reform our habits and not interrupt the course of nature, for, properly speaking, “disease itself is a healing process.” “It is not true,” says Dr. Jennings, “that the human system, when disturbed and deranged in its natural operations, becomes suicidal in its action …; such a view presents an anomaly in the universe of God’s physical government. It is not in accordance with the known operations and manifestations of other natural laws” (“Medical Reform,” p. 29). “The idea that the symptoms of disease must be suppressed,” says Wichat, “has led to innumerable fallacies and blunders.”

Dr. Benjamin Rush said in a public lecture: “I am here incessantly led to make an apology for the instability of the theories and practice of physic, and those physicians generally become the most eminent, who have the soonest emancipated themselves from the tyranny of the schools of physic. Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases; we have done more, we have increased their mortality. I will not pause to beg pardon of the faculty, for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weakness of our profession. I am pursuing Truth, and am indifferent whither I am led, if she only is my leader.”

“Our system of therapeutics,” says Jules Virey, “is so shaky (vacillant) that the soundness of the basis itself must be suspected.”

“The success of the homœopathic practice has astonished many discerning minds,” says Dr. Jennings. “It is unnecessary[82] for my present purpose to give a particular account of the results of homœopathy; … what I now claim with respect to it is, that a wise and beneficent Providence is using it to expose a deep delusion. In the result of homœopathic practice, we have evidence in amount, and of a character sufficient, most incontestably to establish the fact that disease is a restorative process, a renovating operation, and that medicine has deceived us. The evidence is full and complete. It does not consist merely of a few isolated cases, whose recovery might be attributed to fortuitous circumstances, but it is a chain of testimony fortified by every possible circumstance. All kinds and grades of disease have passed under the ordeal, and all classes and characters of persons have been concerned in the experiment as patients or witnesses; … while the process of infinitesimally attenuating the drugs was carried to such a ridiculous extent that no one will, on sober reflection, attribute any portion of the cure to the medicine. I claim then, that homœopathy may be regarded as a providential sealing of the fate of old medical views and practices” (“Medical Reform,” p. 247).

Since physiology was first studied methodically an overwhelming array of facts has, indeed, proved that the disorders of the human organism can be cured more easily without poison drugs; more easily in the very degree that would suggest the suspicion that our entire system of therapeutics is founded upon an erroneous view of disease. The homœopathists cure their patients with milk-sugar, the exponents of the movement cure with gymnastics, the hydropathists with cold water, the disciples of Dr. Schrodt with exercise and mountain-air, the primitive Christians with prayer, Nature cures her children with rest and a partial suspension of the digestive process (the fasting cure, indicated instinctively by a loss of appetite). Let all repudiate alcohol and all can record swifter, more numerous, and more permanent cures than the disciples of the nostrum school.

Considered in connection with the foregoing remarks, these facts admit only of one conclusion, and after giving the above-mentioned exception the benefit of a (temporary) doubt, we can assert with perfect confidence that drastic drugs have no remedial value, and that every drop of alcohol administered for medicinal purposes, has increased, instead of decreasing, the weight of human misery.

There is no doubt but these views will awaken the anathemas of the poison-worshipers; but it is equally certain that before the end of this century they will become truisms. We should regard the drift of the main current rather than the incidental fluctuations of scientific theories, and all the ripple of conflicting opinions can not conceal the progress of a strong tendency toward total abstinence from all virulent drugs.

STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

II. WHEAT, RYE AND CORN.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED.

The three grains here treated, viz.: wheat, rye and corn, belong to the vast order of plants known as the grass family (Gramineæ). This large group of plants, the members of which are so closely related as to be quickly recognized as such, contains many of the most valuable of all cultivated plants. It not only furnishes the cereals, namely: wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley and rice, which supply the world with the larger part of its starchy food, but clothes the pasture and meadow of the farmer with the herbage so essential to the sustenance of his live stock. There is a deep and weighty truth in the familiar expression: “All flesh is grass.” Blot out the grass family from existence and nearly all forms of life would suffer, and many kinds would soon perish from the earth.

The grasses are usually low and comparatively small plants—though the bamboos of the tropics are almost treelike, with jointed stems and alternate, slender leaves. The flowers are inconspicuous, usually in spikes or spreading clusters, with three stamens, anthers versatile, styles two, stigma feathery, ovary one-celled, becoming a grain.

Wheat has probably more intrinsic value than any other plant grown. It is probably a native of southwestern Asia, but like most grains and fruits cultivated from remote antiquity, its early history is extremely uncertain. Many varieties have been produced from the original Triticum vulgare—the scientific name of wheat—but they can all be placed in the two following groups: Those that are tender called spring wheats, sown in spring, and the winter sorts that are sown in autumn, remain on the ground through the winter and are harvested the subsequent summer. The winter wheats are the more valuable and bring a higher price than the spring varieties. Some wheats have long awns to the flowers, and are termed bearded, while other sorts are nearly or entirely awnless, and are sometimes styled bald. There is a great variation in the size and color of the grain. In some varieties it is long, others short; some are white, others brown, red, and amber; some are hard, others are soft. New sorts are produced yearly, and the varieties have become practically innumerable.

The area devoted to the growth of wheat in the United States is between thirty-five and forty million acres, and the yield of the present season (1884) will not be far from 500,000,000 bushels. The average yield per acre, take the whole country through, is not far from thirteen bushels per acre. Nineteen states (and territories) cultivate over a million acres each; six over two millions, and three over three millions, namely: Illinois, 3,218,542; Iowa, 3,049,288; and Minnesota, 3,044,670 acres, as given in the last census. In the order of the number of bushels produced, the leading states stand thus: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, California. New York stands thirteenth, and Rhode Island last, with seventeen acres and 240 bushels. It will be seen that the wheat region, strictly speaking, is in the Mississippi Valley, centering around Illinois, with a secondary area in middle California. According to the report on the cereal production of the United States by Professor Wm. H. Brewer, in the statistics of agriculture in the tenth census, the yield and quality of the wheat crops is stated to depend upon five conditions: climate, soil, variety cultivated, method of cultivation and the liability to destruction by insects. The quality of the grain depends more upon the climate than the soil. A hot, dry and sunny harvest produces a grain of the highest quality. The ideal climate for wheat growing is most nearly reached during the best years in California, and it is then and there that we have records of the greatest yields of the best of wheat.

A good rich soil is needed for successful wheat growing. This may be preserved on any farm by a well regulated system of crop rotation. It must be borne in mind that wheat has a short season for its growth and needs to have food prepared and close at hand. One of the best preparatory crops is clover. The clover sod, including the vast amount of roots, furnishes a most acceptable feeding ground for the wheat. The soil itself[83] is not one of the items most frequently overlooked in wheat growing. The importance of good plump seed of the best varieties is rarely overestimated. There is a vast deal in the sort of wheat grown, and no one can afford to grow any but the best.

The most common diseases of wheat are rust and smut, both of vegetable origin. These troubles, which appear so suddenly and are often very destructive, are minute microscopic plants of the order of fungi, and therefore related to the moulds and mildews common on various articles of food, etc. The insect enemies are somewhat numerous, but the Hessian fly, wheat midge, joint worm, chinch bug, army worms, and Rocky Mountain locust are the most destructive. There are a few insects that prey upon the grain after it is in the granary, and these are on the increase. Among the enemies we should not forget to mention various weeds that spring up in the fields and endeavor to choke out the legitimate occupants of the soil.

The nutritive value and chemical composition of wheat grain are important points worthy of consideration here, because this general article is to be followed by one upon the culinary aspects of the grain treated. The market value of a flour largely rests upon its appearance, while the nutritive value depends upon the results determined by the analytical chemist. The average of fifty-seven analyses of winter wheat in the kernel gave:

It will be seen that there is very little chemical difference between winter and spring wheats. The composition of the flour shows a removal of nearly all the woody fiber, two thirds of the ash, nearly half the fat and a small reduction of the albuminoids, while the water is somewhat and the carb-hydrates (starch, gum, etc.) considerably increased. It will be interesting to here give an analysis of wheat bran and shorts:

By a comparison of these tables it will be easy to note the positions in the kernel occupied by the various substances. The fiber, ash, fat, and albuminoids are more abundant in the outer portion of the grain, especially the first three. It must be kept in mind that the albuminoids are the most expensive elements of food, and are frequently called the “flesh formers,” because they produce muscles. The starchy compounds are employed for the production of heat in the animal system. The functions and comparative importance of these several constituents are already given at some length in the article on the potato in a previous issue of The Chautauquan.

Rye (Secale cereale).—This grain was grown by the Egyptians and other eastern nations, and its nativity is lost in oblivion. It is of far less importance than wheat, and does not possess any remarkable tendency to vary from its normal type. It has a wider range of growth than wheat, and flourishes in cooler regions than those adapted for most of the other grains. There are both spring and winter varieties. The preparation of the soil, the seeding, harvesting, etc., are much the same as for wheat. It will succeed on a poorer soil and with less attention than wheat. On this account rye was a more important crop in the earlier centuries of the development of the human race than to-day. Rye bread was a daily food among our people in the colonial days, and in some old countries where the soil has been too much worn out for wheat rye is grown successfully. The opening up of various parts of our country by railroads has checked the rye industry, and introduced wheat in its place.

The acreage of rye in the United States in 1880 was 1,842,303 acres, yielding 19,831,595 bushels. The states producing over a million bushels are only five, namely, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The amount of rye grown in the United States in 1839 was more than that at ten, twenty, or thirty years later. Its cultivation for bread has rapidly decreased, but for other purposes there is an apparent increase. Rye makes an excellent green fodder crop, and is also employed for plowing under as a green manure. The straw is the primary crop in many sections, there being a good market for this excellent product. The chemical composition of rye differs somewhat from that of wheat, being poorer in albuminoids. The wheat flours average 11.09 per cent. of albuminoids, while that of rye is 6.65. Rye bran is, on the other hand, richer in these constituents than wheat. Professor Brewer, to whom we are indebted for many of our percentages here given, says: “These figures are so plain that they scarcely require comment, and they illustrate why fine wheat flour is so much better than fine rye bread, and also why the difference in nutritious qualities between coarse rye bread and fine rye bread is so much greater than between coarse wheat bread and fine wheat bread.” Rye is subject to fungoid attacks, one of which is of special interest—the “spurred” rye, or ergot. The fungus causes the grains to increase to several times their normal size, and become purple, hard and curved, somewhat resembling the spurs of a cock. This ergotted or “spurred” grain is very poisonous. In some parts of Europe, where rye is largely grown, there have been extensive epidemics among the people, caused by eating rye affected with ergot. The insect enemies are nearly the same as those mentioned with wheat.

Corn.—Indian corn, or maize, is the leading grain crop of the United States. The area devoted to this grain for the present year is not far from seventy million acres, and the yield will not fall much short of two thousand million bushels (2,000,000,000). According to the census of 1880, the six following states produced over a hundred million bushels each: Illinois, over three hundred and twenty-five millions; Iowa, over two hundred and seventy-five millions; Missouri, over two hundred and two millions; Indiana, over one hundred and fifteen millions; Ohio, over one hundred and eleven millions, and Kansas over one hundred and five millions. Corn is very generally distributed over the whole country, but it attains its greatest excellence on the rich lands of the western prairies.

There is but little doubt that Indian corn is of American origin. Columbus and other discoverers found it cultivated by the natives of the New World. Since that time Indian corn has been carried to all parts of the globe, and in many places it is grown with profit. The corn plant is botanically Zea mays, and is very unlike any of the other cereals in the arrangement of its flowers. The clusters of male or pollen bearing flowers are at the upper end of the stalk, forming the tassel, while the female flowers are crowded upon a spike situated upon one side of the stalk, midway between the top and the bottom. This separation of the flowers permits of ready cross fertilization; that is, the grains of one ear are very likely to be impregnated with flower-dust showered down from the tassel of a neighboring plant. The truth of this is always demonstrated when two distinct varieties, as white and yellow sorts, are planted in adjoining rows. There will be a “mixing” in nearly every ear along the border line. This ease in crossing permits the farmer to combine the good qualities of desirable sorts; in other words corn may be bred and has been bred as successfully as any kind of live stock. The corn plant also has a very plastic nature, and quickly responds to any favoring conditions of soil, climate or culture. We should therefore expect to find the number of varieties of Indian corn without number. Many attempts have been made to classify the different sorts. A common grouping is into field, sweet, pop and husk sorts. Another is into flint, Tuscarora, dent, and sweet varieties. Some of the leading characteristics in the classification are color of grain, rows on cob, size and form of grain, etc. The field varieties include dents and flints, and are grown in large areas. The sweet corns have a large per cent. of sugar, and are grown for eating[84] in the green condition. The pop corns are small sorts, with a very hard covering. The stalks of corn vary from two to twenty feet in length, and the ears from half an ounce to a pound and a half. The number of rows of grain on the cob is always even, and ranges from four to forty. The grain varies in color; it may be white, yellow, violet, purple, blue, slate, black, or variegated.

A good corn ground is rich, warm, deep and mellow. Unlike the other cereals, the work of culture in the cornfield is only well begun when the plants appear above the surface. Being in rows there is a fine opportunity offered for weeds to come in and occupy the soil before the corn plants make enough growth to defend their rights to the land. The first enemy to the corn is the cut-worm, and the next is the crow. If it were not for the cut-worm it is probable that the crow would rarely visit the corn-field. The crow is the enemy of the cut-worm and many other injurious farm pests. He may pull some corn for two weeks in the year, but during the other fifty he is clearly on the farmer’s side. The weeds are the worst enemies to the corn, and smut comes next. This trouble is, like the wheat rust and the ergot of the rye, a member of the fungus group. The smut appears on various parts of the plant, but usually on the ear. All smutted parts should be cut out and burned, as they are unfit for food, and this prevents the spread of the disease.

The chemical composition of corn is more variable than that of wheat. The following table may be compared with that given for wheat. An average of a large number of analyses is given for each item:

The most striking difference between wheat and corn is the amount of oil or fat. In wheat this ranges from 1.26 to 2.67 per cent., while in corn it averages 5.29, or from two to three times as much. The popular opinion that corn is a heating and fattening food is therefore supported by chemical analyses. It will be seen from the table that the sweet corns contain much more fat and a larger per cent. of albuminoids than the other varieties. These, therefore, have a higher nutritive value. Whatever may have been said in favor of or against either the flint or dent varieties falls to the ground in the light of the average analyses of these classes when brought side by side. It will be seen that the differences are practically nothing. It is only a matter of fancy which is employed. Much has been said concerning color, but this is little more than skin deep, and does not affect the quality of the food derived from the grain. Those families which have become accustomed to yellow corn prefer it, and those using the white sorts like these best. It is a matter of taste, in one sense, and not of taste in another.

Chemistry shows no great difference in the percentage of albuminoids in wheat and corn, but it is a fact that all the differences can not be set down in figures. The housewife knows very well that a light, spongy bread is not easily made from corn; in other words, corn bread is very different in texture from wheat bread, even when the two flours are equally well prepared. Much may be due to the greater amount of oil in the corn, but there is little doubt that the gluten of corn is of a different texture or character than that in wheat. This most important constituent is subject to great variation in wheat, so much so that this grain grown in one locality makes a light bread, while that from another, in the same hands and under the same treatment, yields a heavy bread, and of poor quality. No one doubts that much improvement may be made in the milling of corn—as much, perhaps, as has been recently effected in that of wheat. We may look for a “new process” by which our corn bread may be vastly improved.

Corn is, however, the great fattening food for swine and other live stock, and we should be satisfied to take our corn in that transmuted form when it appears upon our tables as a fragrant spare-rib or a juicy and tender chop or beefsteak.

Of the three grains herein briefly treated we have seen that wheat stands at the head as a food for man in our country. In any form it is prepared it can be a complete and palatable food. The albuminoids (gluten, etc.) are in such abundance and form that the flour may produce snowy, spongy and most healthful bread—truly a staff of life on which all rejoice to lean. Rye is a declining grain, it being replaced by wheat. It will grow on poorer soil than wheat, but with the many kinds of commercial fertilizers at our service no one should grow rye because of an impoverished soil. Corn in all its bearings is a peer of wheat. It is in one sense our contribution to the world’s list of grains, and in this we justly take pride. It is more largely grown than any other crop, and as a source of natural wealth it stands ahead of wheat. As a plant corn is most interesting, being plastic and quickly responsive to any favoring conditions. If corn is king, as some claim, wheat is certainly queen in this royal family of cereals.

BREAD.

BY MRS. EMMA P. EWING.

The first thing to be considered in bread making is the yeast. Without good yeast it is impossible to make good bread. A great deal depends upon the quality of flour used for making bread; but unless the yeast is good the best quality of bread can not be made from the most superior grade of flour, and much excellent flour is spoiled by conjunction with worthless yeast in the attempt to make it into bread.

The compressed yeast, so much used in cities, is, in all respects, the best commercial yeast yet discovered, and when fresh, is perfectly reliable, but can not be obtained conveniently at all times, and in all places. And the housewife who is ambitious to supply her family with good bread should acquaint herself with the best method of making yeast, and have it prepared at home.

To Make Yeast.—Steep an eighth of an ounce of pressed, or a small handful of loose hops in a quart of boiling water for about five minutes. Strain the boiling infusion upon half a pint of flour, stirred to a smooth paste with a little cold water. Mix well, boil a minute; then add one ounce of salt and two ounces of white sugar. When lukewarm stir in a gill of liquid yeast or an ounce cake of compressed yeast dissolved in warm water. Let stand twenty-four hours, stirring occasionally, then cover closely, and set in a cool place. Yeast made in this manner will keep sweet for two weeks in summer, and much longer in winter, and can be used at any time during that period for starting a fresh supply of yeast, as well as for making bread.

The first step in bread making is the preparation of the ferment.

Pour gradually, stirring meanwhile, a quart of boiling water upon half a pint of wheat flour. When the mixture has cooled to about lukewarmness (80°) add a gill of yeast, stir well, cover closely, and let stand till thoroughly light and a mass of white foam. Taste it, and it bites like beer; stir it, and it seems to dance and sparkle with exuberant life, while the odor it emits is strongly alcoholic. Ferment can be kept for several hours[85] after it becomes light and foamy without growing sour, or appearing to deteriorate in any manner. But it is better to use it as soon as it reaches this stage, as it is then undoubtedly at its very best estate. The time required for ferment to grow light, varies from two to six hours, according to the strength of the yeast put in it and the temperature of the place where it stands. When due attention is given to these things, the custom of preparing or “setting” ferment in the evening to be used in bread making the next day is a convenient one; and, as it usually proves satisfactory, is in no way objectionable.

When the ferment is perfectly light, beat vigorously into it about half a pint of flour, cover, and leave to rise. By this addition of flour the ferment is transformed into sponge, which, under favorable conditions, will rise in from half an hour to an hour. As soon as the sponge rises, add more flour, and give it another beating; and so repeat each time it rises, until it gets too stiff to be easily stirred.

The mixture is then dough, and is ready for working or kneading. After it has been kneaded till flour is no longer required to keep it from sticking to the molding board, it is of the proper consistency for bread, and may be divided into four equal parts, molded, or shaped into loaves, and put in greased bread pans to rise for the last time, preparatory to baking; or it may be set to rise in a mass before being divided into loaves.

It is very difficult to decide whether it is better to let the dough rise in a mass or in separate loaves. Bread which rises in a mass appears to be a trifle more elastic and spongy than that which rises in separate loaves; but the latter seems to excel the former in sweetness and delicacy of flavor. In either case the bread will be good.

Two points in this mode of making bread deserve special attention:

1. The flour is added repeatedly after intervals of fermentation, and as it contains fresh food for the yeast, these frequent additions of flour keep the yeast in a vigorous and healthy condition during the entire period of bread making.

2. The fermentation is always arrested in the sponge and dough before it arrives at the exhaustive point; for whenever sponge or dough is allowed to reach its utmost limit of expansion and fall back or “tumble in,” as it invariably does at this crisis, it loses something of excellence that no after labor or attention can restore.

Another method of making bread is to mix the yeast with the wetting, and gradually add flour, working it meanwhile, until the dough is of the proper consistency, when it should be kneaded upon the molding board till smooth and elastic, and then put to rise. Dough may be mixed in this manner late in the evening, and, if not kept in too warm an atmosphere, will be in proper condition for making into loaves, rolls, etc., at an early hour the next morning.

Ferment, sponge and dough are all affected by atmospheric changes, and should be mixed and kept in thick stone or earthen vessels, and covered closely to exclude the air. And care should be taken to keep them at the proper temperature, which is about 75° during the entire process of bread making. Fermentation is arrested at a temperature below 30°, proceeds slowly at 50°, rapidly at 70°, very rapidly at 90°, and can be hastened or retarded, if necessary, by increasing or diminishing the temperature.

The quantity of flour necessary to make dough of the proper consistency for bread depends considerably upon its quality, and varies from two and a half to three measures of flour to one measure of “wetting.” More flour can, however, be added, and the dough made considerably stiffer, without perceptible detriment. Dough for fancy bread and rolls should be quite stiff, so as to retain any desired shape or form. Soft, spongy bread possesses greater delicacy when freshly baked, but appears to lose its moisture and grow stale much sooner than that which is more compact.

The length of time required for kneading or working dough is materially affected by the quality of the flour. Flour exposed to the atmosphere deteriorates quite rapidly, and the moisture it absorbs so impairs the tenacity of its gluten, that bread of the best quality can not be made from it, in spite of all the working and kneading that may be given to the dough. Much less time is required kneading dough made from choice, than from inferior brands of flour.

It is an established fact that dough is rendered tough and elastic by working and kneading; but as the same result can be accomplished sooner and less laboriously by pulling and stretching, it is advisable, in making bread, to pull and stretch as well as to work and knead the dough.

Bread dough may perhaps be kneaded a good deal with advantage, but it is by no means certain that much kneading is absolutely necessary for the production of the best quality of bread. The fermentation, back of the kneading, gives life and force to dough. When this is perfect, dough, in a suitable condition for molding into loaves or rolls, shows a great deal of resisting force. It seems, in fact, to have a will of its own, and its determination to rise is almost irrepressible. You may knead it in the most resolute manner and mold it into a compact ball; but in a short time it will rise, and swell, and spread, until it has doubled in dimensions. You may thrust your fist fiercely into a batch of good dough, but the impression you make upon it is by no means a lasting one. Almost as soon as you draw back your hand it regains elasticity and resumes its original position. This irrepressible spirit in dough is the surest test of its goodness, and when perfectly developed you can do as you please with the dough. You may roll it, or twist it, or plait it, with the greatest ease. You can mold it into any form without trouble. It does not stick to the hands or the molding board. It is in its most amiable mood. It is perfectly docile and obedient except in one respect—it can not be put down and kept down; and any bread dough that can is poor stuff that will never rise to distinction or win admiration.

Dough after having perfectly risen should not be kneaded again. If in pans, it should be immediately baked. If in mass, it should be divided into loaves or rolls, and gently pulled, rolled or folded into shape, when it may also be put to bake. These loaves or rolls will, however, be lighter and more delicate if permitted to rise again before they are placed in the oven. Much of the superior excellence of the Vienna imperial roll is due to the peculiar manipulation the light dough is subjected to just before it is placed in the baking pan.

The final and perhaps most important point in bread making has been reached when the loaves are put in the pans to rise for the last time. To decide when dough is just light enough to bake is a very delicate and important matter. If it is put in the oven a moment too soon, you fail to obtain the supreme loaf to which you are entitled for your toil; and if permitted to pass the point of perfect lightness you lose the best results of your labor. The exact time required for loaves to rise after they have been placed in the pans can not be given, as it varies in different temperatures, at different seasons, and with different brands of flour. But it is seldom less than half an hour, or more than an hour and a half.

A loaf of bread should nearly double in size after it is put in the pan; or if a deep gash be cut in the top of it, the incision should disappear by the time the loaf has perfectly risen. Bread, when light enough for baking, feels aerated all through; and by lifting and weighing it in the hand one can generally recognize the condition of lightness quite as accurately as by sight.

The exercise of a little observation and judgment will soon enable one to decide when dough has reached its best and most perfect state of lightness. But where any doubt exists in regard to the matter it is better to put it in the oven while rising toward perfection than after it attains the altitude at which it begins to retrograde.

Potato Bread.—Potato added to flour is generally supposed[86] to improve the quality of the bread. That it does is unquestionably true, where the flour used is of an inferior grade. “Of all starches,” says Dr. Graham, “the starch found in the potato is best adapted to the growth of yeast, and in using potato in bread, bakers made practical application of a fact long before chemists discovered it to be such.” Potatoes when used in bread should be well boiled and smoothly mashed, and equal portions of potato and flour be used in making the ferment. The bread is then made in the same manner as when flour alone is used.

Whole Wheat Flour.—It is claimed that bran in Graham flour often proves an irritant to delicate digestive organs. In whole wheat flour we have the entire food principle of the grain without the hull. The cold blast process of milling gives us this flour of a very superior quality.

Whole Wheat Flour Bread should be made in every particular like patent or new process flour bread, and baked in loaves, twists, or fancy rolls. It is very delicious baked in the form of muffins and eaten warm.

Graham Bread.—The ferment for Graham bread should be of white flour, and prepared in the same manner as the ferment for white flour bread. When light add sugar and salt to taste, and work in Graham flour until the dough becomes elastic and clinging and is sufficiently stiff. Let stand till perfectly risen; then shape into loaves by rolling gently under the hand on a well floured molding-board, and place in greased baking pans. Less flour is required in proportion to the “wetting” for Graham than for white bread. And unless Graham dough is of the proper consistency, the bread when baked will be moist, sticky and insipid, or dry, rough and unpalatable. The correct proportions are a little more than two measures of Graham flour to one measure of “wetting.”

Oat, Corn and Barley Bread.—Fermented bread can be made of oat, corn, or barley meal, or flour; care being taken to add wetting in proportion to the demands of the grain. When corn or oat meal is used, boiling water should be poured upon it and it be permitted to swell for at least an hour before the yeast is added. These grains make delicious muffins and bread to be eaten warm.

Pinhead oat meal, pearled barley, and corn grits, well cooked and made into bread by adding whole wheat flour, can be baked in muffin pans, or rolled thin and baked in crisp rolls.

Rye Bread.—The method of making rye bread is almost identical with that for making wheat bread—from three to three and a half measures of flour to one measure of “wetting” being required. More time is necessary for it to ferment or rise, and it will not become so light, spongy and elastic as wheat.

Boston Brown Bread.—Scald a pint of corn meal with a pint of boiling water. When sufficiently cool add a pint and a half of rye meal, a gill of yeast, a gill of molasses, and a teaspoonful of salt. Mix well, and when perfectly risen steam five hours, then put in the oven half an hour to dry and harden the crust.

Vienna Bread.—To a pint of new milk, add a pint of water, an ounce of compressed yeast, a teaspoonful of salt, and flour sufficient to make a thin batter. Stir well and let stand for an hour to rise, then work in flour until the dough is the proper consistency for bread. When very light, which will be in about three hours, divide and mold into loaves, and set to rise in the bread pans; or shape into imperial rolls and set to rise.

Imperial Rolls.—Separate one of the Vienna loaves, detached from the mass of dough, into ten or twelve irregular pieces of the thickness of about half an inch. Take separately each of these pieces in the left hand, and slightly stretch with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand one of the irregular points over the left thumb toward the center of the roll. Repeat this operation, turning the piece of dough as it proceeds, each time lifting the thumb and gently pressing it upon the last fold until all the points have been drawn in, when the roll can be placed to rise. If the folding has been properly done, the roll when baked will be composed of a succession of sheets or layers of delicate, tenacious crumb surrounded with a thin crisp crust. The fingers can be slightly greased to keep the dough from sticking to them while shaping these rolls; but if it is of the proper consistency, it will not stick to the hands.

Baking Bread.—When bread is ready for baking, it is desirable to fix the air cells as soon as possible by heat; but it does not follow that to do this it should be put in a very hot oven and a crust immediately formed on the loaves.

Temperature of the Oven.—The heat of the oven should not be greatest when bread is put to bake; it should slightly increase in intensity for about ten minutes, and after remaining at a firm, steady temperature for that length of time should gradually decrease till the baking is finished. The principal change to be effected by the baking, which is the coagulation of the albumen of the air cells, takes place at a temperature somewhere near 212°, and as the temperature within the loaf can not rise above that point, no changes go on there except those produced by the watery vapor or steam. Flour, however, is not browned except at a much higher temperature; hence a greater degree of heat is necessary to properly bake the outside of the loaf. During the period of baking bread the heat of the oven should not rise above 570° nor fall below 240°.

An ordinary sized loaf of bread, with the oven at the proper temperature, will bake thoroughly in an hour; a loaf the size of one of the pans recommended, in about half an hour. But as there are several hygienic and philosophical reasons why bread should be well baked, it is better to err by leaving it in the oven a little too long than not quite long enough.—Bread and Bread Making.

End of Required Reading for November.

HE MAKETH ALL THINGS NEW.

BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON.

[87]

THE PAUPER PROBLEM IN GERMANY.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.

The poorest Germans one sees are not here in Germany, but on the American side of the Atlantic, at Castle Garden and other landing places. All hours of the day and night I have been along the German thoroughfares of travel, and yet I can not recall that any one has put out his hand for alms, or that few have presented the appearance of extreme penury. There is no question that there has been a wonderful coming up of the general industrial life of Germany since the consolidation of the countries, and since the leadership of Bismarck has thrust new force into every part of the national civilization. But what with all the absorption of a million of men into the national army, and the coming and going from civil into military life of all the young in the land, there are multitudes to whom bread is the one supreme thought. There are millions for whom there must be work to-day for the loaf of to-morrow. There are two questions which constantly monopolize the thought of the Prussian government—to keep safe against the French, who do not forget the loss of Alsace and Lorrain, in 1871, and, then, how to keep the workingmen busy. Why all this talk about German colonies? Why does Prussia, with only a strip of the North Sea for its only outlet to the ocean, fill its days of Parliament and its periodical press, with discussions as to how to get more land, on some distant coast, where colonies may be planted? It is simply to furnish, as does India for Britain, an outlet for trade. Why did the old Kaiser Wilhelm, only the other day, declare that he had spent his reign in trying to develop the internal policy of the country, but that to his son and successor, Friedrich Wilhelm, would belong the mission of developing the German colonist policy? He meant, as does every Hohenzollern, that his people should be busy in peace, and therefore strong for war. But while there are few evidences in public of extreme poverty in Germany, and while there has been a singular elevation of the general cheerfulness of the lower classes, there is real pauperism, and a plenty of it. But it is not allowed to come to the light. No shrewder piece of management has ever been accomplished in Germany than the skillful dealing with the veritable pauper within the last ten years. It is as nearly a perfect work as one ever saw performed upon the man in rags. It is as exquisite an adjustment of legal and voluntary measures, an interlacing of what people choose to do and what they are compelled to do, as the sun shines on. But this must be said: the government could not manage the pauper alone. It was too great a task for even Bismarck and the Emperor. Christian people have done it, and of their own free will. In 1880 a body of earnest people, many of them evangelical Christians, formed themselves into an association for the care of the poor and for beneficiaries. Scattered societies had already existed, and for a long time. For example, in 1840, Gustav Werner founded an institution for the relief of the poor of Wurtemburg, which has grown into a mammoth affair, and now numbers one hundred and twenty-four houses for labor. Other benevolent spirits had followed in his footsteps. But here in Germany the watchword is now consolidation, and so the efforts to solve the pauper problem have been combined. The association which came into being only four years ago, to help the poor out of their misery, has held annual sessions, collected important statistics, presented themes for better methods, and has rallied to the standard men of the strongest hands and keenest minds in the Fatherland. They have told the government some things that the census taker knows nothing about. Each report of their annual meeting is a stout volume, and a more useful document can hardly be found in the current literature of even literary Germany.

I have said that there is but little semblance of extreme pauperism—the actual putting out the hand for the coppers with which to buy bread and cast off clothes. But this retirement of the pauper from public gaze is a new thing. What has he been doing? Until very lately, to every German square mile, which is four times the English mile, there were ten beggars, who averaged a mark, or twenty-five cents, a day, by the desperate plying of their craft. Now, the German empire covers just space enough to make the voluntary gifts to beggars amount to 36,500,000 marks, or $9,125,000. This state of things existed in much grosser forms when the gifts were simply enormous, until very recently, and since the beginning of the efforts to solve the question of beggary.

But the one great thing that has come to light, and which is now presented to the German people with tremendous force, is this: the cause of the pauperism is intemperance. This revelation has been slow in coming, but it has come at last, and the statistics show that where there is most beer there is most beggary. Hence the efforts made to do away with public pauperism touch upon the still broader and deeper one of intemperance.

The desperation of the beggar is well known. Here in Germany they have a proverb:

Which, rendered strictly, runs about thus:

But the efforts now made, by the banding into one great organization all associations for caring for the poor, are directed toward the actual disarming of the beggar by giving him work, and making him work, no matter how he comes by his beggary. The government comes in to aid the voluntary efforts, and enacts laws against the asking for alms, and any one offending is in danger of the work colony. The general public are not only cautioned against giving to a pauper, but are informed that it is an actual damage to the State and to the recipient. The government, of course, has nothing to say about the great cause of vagabondism—namely, intemperance. But no one now denies it. It is a confirmed thing, in every rank, that it is beer which makes the 100,000 beggars of the German empire. Various measures have been resorted to in order to cure intemperance. The one adopted in a Hessian town deserves the credit of originality. The name of any person found under the influence of liquor was posted on a public bulletin, so that every passer by, and even the school children, could read it. The effect has been marvelous. Previously, public drunkenness was common there, and even people otherwise respectable were found reeling along the streets. But so great has been the change that public intemperance has been driven from the place.

But what is now done with the German beggar? He is given work, such as he can do, and is paid for it. The whole land is getting to be covered with groups of paupers, or “colonies,” who soon lose the odious name and business, and are getting gradually converted into respectable and thriving citizens, and becoming absorbed into the surrounding population. The German believes that beggary is a mania, and grows upon one like any[88] other vice or craze, and that it must be broken up. But the gentlest measures are adopted. Such work is offered as is congenial. The hours are adjusted to the person’s age and ability. If the pauper is an invalid, even that feature is cared for. His family is considered, and made a special study. His work seems to be paid for at a fair rate, and he hardly knows, from anything he sees or hears, that he has ever been a beggar. If, after leaving the colony, he relapses into beggary, his labor becomes more enforced, and assumes the firmer form of a penalty. Is it not about time that, in all countries, we look at the beggar with a sympathy broad enough to show him the way to care for himself, and to make to him the great revelation that even for him, with all his rags and habit of taking alms, there is still a possible manhood?

ROMANCE VERSUS REALITY.

BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,
President of W. C. T. U.

Much as I disliked the restriction then, I am now sincerely grateful that my Puritan father not only commanded me not to read novels, but successfully prohibited the temptation from coming in his children’s way. Until I was fifteen years old I never saw a volume of the kind. “Pilgrim’s Progress” was the nearest approach we made, but it seems profanation to refer to that choice English classic in this degenerate connection. [I should add that Rev. Dr. Tefft’s “Shoulder Knot” was also early read at our house, in the Ladies’ Repository; but, then, that delightful work was a historical story, and even my father praised it.]

A kind and garrulous seamstress who declared that this law of our household was “a shame,” told us what she could remember of “The Children of the Abbey,” and finally brought in, surreptitiously, “Jane Eyre” and “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” But the glamor of those highly seasoned pages was unhealthful and made “human nature’s daily food,” the common pastoral life we led, and nature’s soothing beauty seem so tame and tasteless that the revulsion was my life’s first sorrow. How evanescent and unreal was the pleasure of such reading; a sort of spiritual hasheesh eating with hard and painful waking; a benumbing of the healthful, every-day activities of life; a losing of so much that was simple and sweet, to gain so little that was, at best, a fevered and fantastic vision of utter unreality. In all the years since then I have believed that novel writing, save for some high, heroic moral aim, while the most diversified, is the most unproductive of all industries! The young people who read the greatest quantity of novels know the least, and are the dullest in aspect, and the most vapid in conversation. The flavor of individuality has been burnt out of them, always imagining themselves in an artificial relation to life, always content to look through their author’s glasses, they become as commonplace as pawns upon a chess board. “Sir, we had good talk!” was Sam Johnson’s highest praise of any whom he met. But any talk save the dreariest commonplace and most tiresome reiteration is impossible with the regulation reader of novels or player of games. And this is, in my judgment, because God, by the very laws of mind, must punish those who kill time instead of cultivating it. For time is the stuff that life is made of; the crucible of character, the arena of achievement, and woe to those who fritter it away. They can not help paying great nature’s penalty, and “mediocre,” “failure,” or “imbecile” will surely be stamped upon their foreheads. Therefore I would have each generous youth and maiden say to every story-spinner, except the few great names that can be counted on the fingers of one hand: “I really can not patronize your wares, and will not furnish you my head for a football, or my fancy for a sieve. By writing these books you get money and a fleeting, unsubstantial fame, but by reading them I should turn my possibility of success in life to the certainty of failure. Myself plus time is the capital stock with which the good Heavenly Father has pitted me against the world to see if I can gain some foothold. I can not afford to be a mere spectator. I am a wrestler for the laurel in life’s Olympian games. I can make history, why should I maunder in a hammock and read the endless repetitions of romance? No, find yourself a cheaper pattern, for I count myself too valuable for the sponge-like use that you would put me to.”

Nay, I would have our young people reach a higher key than this. Because of life’s real story with its mystery and pathos; because of the romance that crowds into every year; the plot that thickens daily, and the tragedy that lies a little way beyond; because of Christ and his kingdom—the mightiest drama of the ages, let us be up and doing with a heart for any fate. Humanity is worth our while; to love, to bless, to work for it.

These ought to be the bread of life to us, the tireless inspiration of each full day of honest toil. God meant this to be so, for only thus do we cease chasing about for happiness, and find blessedness instead.

I thought, while fresh in mind, to sketch a real, live, every-day romance of which my heart is full; and I ask true hearts to cherish the impetus it is capable of giving toward noble character and Christlike deeds.

THE O’ER-TRUE TALE.

One stormy evening about thirty-five years ago a gentleman of lithe figure and alert face answered the door-bell of his spacious home in Portland, Maine. A lady stood before him closely veiled, who, on entering the cheery sitting-room where the gentleman and his wife had been cozily seated around the evening lamp, proved to be the latter’s girlhood friend. She had come on the saddest errand that woman’s misery ever compels. What she divulged was none the less a secret to her loyal heart because an open secret to her neighbors. It was the old, old story of an inebriate husband who had not come home for days, and whose business situation was forfeited, and children on the threshold of want. She closed by giving the location of the saloon where she had reason to believe him concealed, and pitifully murmured, turning to Neal Dow (for it was he), “Can’t you find my husband, and won’t you bring him home?”

In his own decisive fashion Mr. Dow sought the saloon, found the two-fold victim of inherent appetite and outward temptation, and asked the saloon keeper’s aid in conveying the half-unconscious man to the carriage. To his astonishment this was refused in tones of anger, and the declaration made that he had better attend to his own business, no man liked this impertinent interference, and the saloon keeper certainly did not propose to get the ill will of his best patron. He also pointed to his license hanging on the wall; said he paid a good sum for the privilege of selling, and meant to get his money back with interest. This was Neal Dow’s first[89] interview with a saloon keeper, and it aroused all the indignation of his upright nature and all the energies of his undaunted will. Turning to go he fired this Parthian arrow at the vender: “So you mean to tell me that you’ll go right on selling to this man?” and receiving an explosively affirmative reply, he added: “The people of the State of Maine will see if you will keep on selling.” From that time the grand old “Father of Prohibitory Law” took for his motto, “This one thing I do.” He associated good men with him; traveled over the state in his own carriage; spoke in school houses and wherever he could get admission; in his own phrase he “sowed the State of Maine knee-deep with temperance literature;” the common people heard him gladly; the caucus decided to send men to the legislature who would represent the people’s will in this supreme decision, and on the 26th of May, 1851, prohibition became the legal method of the Pine Tree State in reference to the liquor traffic.

During the great discussion that preceded this action three legislators were whittling, whistling and discussing “how it was best to vote.” Two of them said they should be struck with political lightning if they voted for the new law, but the third—“Farmer Skillig” was his name, I think—declared, in the honest, downright tones of the average “legislator with hay-seed in his hair,” that this was the right sort of a law, and he’d vote for it and take his chances. Sequel: The time servers were never heard of more, after they had served their time, but Farmer Skillig flourished on and on in the legislature like the green bay tree.

Last summer I met on the shore of Puget’s Sound, where he is a leading citizen of Olympia, capital of Washington Territory, Captain Hall, who told me a suggestive incident about the famous “Maine law.” It seems the bill was passed on Saturday, and the (Democratic) Governor Hubbard being absent from the capital over Sunday, it was feared the saloon interest would search out and destroy the legal copy, and as the date of adjournment was close at hand, the subject might be laid over for a year. True to their instincts, the liquor men did their best to find the “only true copy,” forcing their way into the State House on the Sabbath, breaking open desks, etc., but Captain Hale, who was a member of the House, had taken the precious “bill” under his care and carried it in his breast pocket until the Governor’s return, when his signature was promptly affixed and the law was safe. Four years later, by one of those “reactions” of which history is full, a license law was substituted, which, after two years of trial was overthrown, and by overwhelming majorities prohibition came again and took up its peaceful and permanent abode in Maine.

Like every other law it has been constantly strengthened by the introduction of better machinery for enforcement. The “search and seizure clauses” have greatly energized the executive arm; the outlawing of “clubs,” the including of cider, the provision for a constabulary force to be appointed by the Governor on application from a county—all these “cogs in the wheel” are a terror to evil doers, but a praise to them that do well. And now what has this law wrought out for Maine? It has driven every distillery and brewery out of the state. It has so decreased crime that Maine has less of it in proportion than any other state in the Union. Its state’s prison, by recent showing, had but 400 inmates, or only one in every sixteen hundred (1,600) inhabitants. In the same year Massachusetts had one to every four hundred and sixty of her population. It has decreased internal revenue receipts from the manufacture and sale of alcoholics to an average of seven cents to each person, while in the United States at large the average is one dollar and seventy-one cents per capita.

Many newspapers edited in the interest of license have circulated the report that Maine leads off in the number of persons arrested, according to its population, but artfully concealed the fact that so large a number of these arrests are not for what a license state calls “crime,” but are for selling intoxicating liquors at all!

In 1882 the United States revenue report shows that while $1.71 per inhabitant were collected in the whole Union, only 4 cents per inhabitant were collected in Maine. Prohibitory Maine has about the same population as license New Jersey; yet the liquor tax in the former state is only 3 cents per inhabitant, while in the latter state it is $2.40, and in the country at large $1.83. In reply to the assertion that tobacco and opium eating are taking the place of liquor drinking in Maine, I may mention that the tobacco tax paid by Maine is only 17 cents per inhabitant, while the average for the country is $1.00 per inhabitant; and that opium eating is far less prevalent here than in other eastern states.

This analysis might be carried on indefinitely with equally satisfactory results in answering the question: What has prohibition done for Maine?

In 1876 Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced to the people of the United States the idea of constitutional prohibition, and offered in Congress an amendment to the National Constitution prohibiting the traffic in strong drink. Coming from a source so prominent, and following so soon upon the woman’s crusade, this idea was like the spark to tinder, being caught up with zeal in all parts of the nation, and petitions have since been addressed to almost every state legislature, as well as annually presented to the National Congress. In 1880 the people of Kansas voted upon this question, giving eight thousand majority for prohibition; in 1882 Iowa gave thirty thousand, and in 1883 Ohio cast three hundred and thirty thousand votes for, and only ninety thousand against constitutional prohibition, but was “counted out” by party manipulation, as the temperance people publicly declare. Practically, then, the jury of the people has passed sentence against the liquor traffic every time that the great chancery suit of “Home versus Saloon” has been submitted to them. Meanwhile, “the mother of us all” in prohibition work was Maine, and the whole temperance host, both within and beyond that noble old pioneer state, felt that she should not be outdone by her daughters of the newer New England in the West. And so petitions poured in on the legislature of Maine asking for the submission of an amendment to the constitution which should ground the prohibitory principle in the state’s organic law. This request was at first declined, not from antagonism to prohibition itself, for neither party dare attack that by any open declaration, but on the ground that since the fathers fell asleep all things might well continue as they were; new fangled ideas were well enough for new regions, but said the average politician,

Still the temperance people urged that Maine should not be outdone; that she should march with the age; that

More than this, it was argued that constitutional prohibition has many advantages over local and statutory prohibition, and against it no good or logical objections have ever been made, although the organs, attorneys and friends of the saloon have said and written much.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is more democratic and best accords with the idea of republicanism. The friends of temperance, unlike the distillers, brewers and retailers, are willing to trust the people.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is a more certain and perfect expression of public sentiment; because it carries with it greater weight and dignity; because it is non-partisan (though it requires before it a party to submit, and after it a party to enforce).

[90]

Constitutional prohibition best accords with correct principles of law-making, the constitution being a general statement of principles, rights and obligations. It can not be repealed by the legislature, since every member of that body on being “qualified” raises his hand in solemn oath that he will defend the constitution. It holds the law already on the statute book as with a clinched nail, and therefore furnishes a stronger cage and better lock for the tiger of license and the lion of taxation. If it does not kill him it chains the mad dog of rum and beer with a short chain and puts up a sign—THIS IS A MAD DOG! So that few will go near him and nobody can let him loose without the consent of the people.

For these reasons, and many others cogently set forth by Rev. H. C. Munson, Secretary of the Maine Temperance Alliance, the people pursued the legislature and the amendment was submitted at its last session. Public interest was at once concentrated on Maine; nor in America alone, but wherever English is spoken the heart of the people was aroused. From New Zealand came a letter to Hon. John B. Finch, the great prohibition orator and chief Good Templar of the world. It read in this fashion: “We hear that the parliament in your province of Maine has submitted prohibition to a vote of the people to know if after thirty years’ trial they think it the best method of handling the liquor traffic. Tell them for the sake of humanity to stand by their law, for a vote in Maine counts one in New Zealand either for or against outlawing the dram shop.”

Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the gifted California lady who came to help in the campaign said: “If you defeat the prohibition amendment I can not go back to my vineyard-cursed state, and tell them so, but prefer to be buried face downward under a lone pine in the state that went back on its record.”

Mrs. Pearson, vice president of the Woman’s Temperance Association of England, and associate of its president, Margaret Lucas (sister of John Bright), declared that if Maine failed she would be glad that three thousand miles of brine separated her from the faces she would have no courage to look into. And so on every side rang the refrain of warning. Three hundred speakers went up and down through the state, most of them “to the manor born,” nearly all freely giving their services. This was perhaps our most effective argument as “speakers from a distance.”

Your verdict will be that of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. Sometimes a part stands for the whole, and to-day you are the world’s jury. Arnold of Winkelried stood for all the republics of the wide world. Luther stood for all Protestants. The men at Gettysburg stood for the nation. Who will ask, or who remember what man was chosen Governor in Maine this year? Only a handful of people for a little time, but humanity cares what decision you give on the outlawing of those dealers who would sell alcoholic poison as a drink, because we are in the midst of the great fight for a clear brain, and everybody has a vital interest that victory shall be won.

The “sword marks” of John B. Finch were everywhere; Mary A. Woodbridge, chieftain of Ohio’s gigantic battle, told how fields were won; Col. Chevis, a gallant Southron, “who served under Stonewall Jackson,” but whom the temperance cause has reconstructed, did admirable service. Mrs. McLaughlin, with her winsome eloquence; Mrs. Kimball, with her polished style; Mrs. Lucy H. Washington, with her rapier-like logic, all were there. Ministers of every denomination entered the field; a Catholic priest “stumped” one of the fifteen counties; the temperance societies were a unit in their devotion, and while the seething caldron of politics was at its height, the temperance campaign, perfectly distinct, went on beside it; with prayers instead of processions, torches of truth rather than pine knots, and “Coronation” instead of “We’ll vote for Blaine and Robie.”

Speaking in eleven chief towns on as many successive nights I found the W. C. T. U. had worked up the meetings with great care. For “a success” in this line does not “happen,” but is organized, preëmpted, captured by consecrated common sense. I can readily tell a meeting that is a work of art and “made up of every creature’s best” from one thrown together with a pitch-fork. In most towns they had the opera house and banked up the stage with flowers; in one there was a veritable hedge of golden rod; in nearly all the cross and flag were foremost, side by side, and our W. C. T. U. motto, “For God and Home and Native Land” was sometimes in gilt letters on emerald velvet, others in delicate tracery of decorative work, or in evergreen on a white ground. Always they gave our anthem of the national W. C. T. U., composed by Drs. J. E. Rankin and Bischoff, of Washington, and beginning:

At Belfast the ladies had turned the Unitarian Church into a bower of beauty with potted plants in every window, the national colors in great folds above the people’s heads, mottoes in profusion, and on a table below the tall, old fashioned pulpit they had placed a veritable ballot box, borrowed from the town clerk, and poised over it a snow white dove with a “Yes” ballot in its beak. When I saw that latest “witty invention” of the unrepresented class it seemed to me pathetic beyond words, and so eloquent that no matter how spent might be the arrow of my speech, the voters must give heed to its appeal.

Thus gently and patiently wrought the W. C. T. U. of Maine under its beloved leader, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, who has been for years the foremost temperance figure in the state, except Neal Dow, and whose mingled strength and gentleness outrank that famous leader in the people’s heart. Four days prior to the voting Mrs. Stevens presided over the annual convention of the W. C. T. U., held in the town of Gardiner, for the purpose of final and concerted action as to what should be done at the polls. Nothing proves more plainly the profound hold of the temperance reform upon the heart of woman, nor more surprisingly demonstrates the change in public sentiment, than the willingness of these conservative women of the church to go directly to the polls. At first they counseled with their western sisters who knew the methods pursued in Iowa, Ohio, and other states, but Mrs. Woodbridge suggested nothing beyond renting vacant rooms near the voting precincts, serving refreshments there, and giving out votes to those who passed that way. My own observations in Iowa were of similar character. I was in Marion, Iowa, on the 27th of June, 1882, their voting day, where an all day prayer meeting was held; the children marched and sang, the lunch was served, and out of nine hundred voters, eight hundred votes were cast for the amendment. But we women were like Mary’s little lamb, and “waited patiently about” till the voters came to lunch, though sending out the children with amendment ballots and bouquets. When these methods were suggested the ladies quietly said, “But the leading men in our towns think it important that we should see the votes go in, for they say ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’ in this matter, and our ‘Yes’ ballot might be cast aside when the men had left our presence.” It goes without saying that the western sisters did not discourage those brave women, but rejoiced in these modern Baraks who had said, “If thou wilt go with me I will go up,” and the brave Deborahs who had answered, “I will surely go with thee.”

Among the methods chosen was an address to the voters asking them to represent their home constituency, to be sent out just before the portentious September 8th, “a day for which all other days were made,” as it seemed to those earnest hearts. With this address plenty of “Yes” ballots were to be inclosed for the “vest pocket vote,” unknown to any save the man who casts it, is often a factor of power. Mrs. Woodbridge told the ladies that in Ohio they decorated tent, booth, or rooms of the[91] W. C. T. U. with mottoes, and had prominently in view a large Bible, on a pulpit cushion, which, without preconcerted action, was almost always open to Isaiah v., with the passage marked: “Woe unto him that justifieth the wicked for a reward.”

A delegation of ladies came four hundred miles to attend this convention, from Aroostook county, which covers a larger area than the State of Massachusetts. The W. C. T. U. in that county has “conquered a peace,” and is the right arm of the enforcing power. They reported that one hundred Scandinavians had become naturalized for the express purpose of voting “Yes” on the prohibition amendment.

Among the resolutions passed by this convention was the following (an exact copy of the one adopted by our National W. C. T. U. at its last session): “Resolved, That we will lend our influence to that party, by whatever name called, which furnishes the best embodiment of prohibition principles, and will most surely protect our homes.” In the evening we had a meeting under the trees in the town park, where thousands congregated, and the full moon looked down on us, an emblem of the purity and elevation that characterize our cause. Though the street population was out in force, there was perfect quiet and decorum, and not one whiff of tobacco smoke sullied the pleasant air.

And now the fateful day wore on apace. Fortunately the Sabbath came just before, and representative clergymen of all denominations, including the Universalist and Catholic, Episcopal and Unitarian, had united to request that every pulpit should be a temperance Gatling gun that day, to send into the pews a steady fire of intelligent conviction. From the circular I take this sentence, which furnishes the key of the campaign everywhere: “One thing we very much desire: that there should come over our people next Sunday a deep and solemn feeling that this is God’s battle with sin.”

The waking thought of the white-ribbon host in Maine can readily be guessed: “God grant us good weather to-day.” What was that but another way of wishing for the best light on this last act of a great drama, only this was no mimic stage, but one on which the measureless hope and uplift of humanity were to be exhibited for all the world to see? Woman’s secret prayer was to be transmuted by spiritual alchemy into manhood’s sturdy resolve; the cherished hope of the gentle was to become the stern decision of the strong; the “cause” was to radiate out from temperance ministry and Band of Hope into the wide, free area of a mighty Commonwealth. Let me give from telegrams, letters, and newspapers, a few pulses out of the people’s heart that day soon after noon:

I do not know how the foregoing extracts read to those fond of fictitious stories, but to me they have the ring of an epic; they are so real, so true-hearted, so full of humanity’s sacred aspiration toward a Golden Age

It is record of heart-words. So far as I have learned, all the temperance societies of the state had but twelve hundred dollars to spend—five hundred given by Dr. R. H. McDonald, of California, and seven hundred from the Grand Lodge of Good Templars. The rank and file won the victory, and I believe the inspiration of their work was this motto given by the president of their state W. C. T. U. at the Gardiner Convention: Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples.

What is the lesson Maine can teach? It is expressed in the raison d’être of the now famous “Memorial” presented this year to all the presidential conventions by the National W. C. T. U., viz.: “The poison habits of the nation can be cured by an appeal to the intellect through argument, to the heart through sympathy, to the conscience through the motives of religion. The traffic in those poisons can best be handled by prohibitory law.”

[92]

GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR NOVEMBER.

BY CHANCELLOR M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.

THE SUN

Has again returned to about the same place that it occupied this time last year; and as a result, we find that it rises and sets within a minute or two of the times given on the 1st, 16th, and 30th of last November. For the present month, it rises at 6:31, 6:48, and 7:04 a. m., and sets at 4:57, 4:41, and 4:34 p. m., respectively, on the dates mentioned. We find also that on the 16th day breaks as late as 5:11 a. m. Other phenomena connected with the sun are as follows: On the 4th, at 3:00 p. m., it is in superior conjunction with Mercury, rendering of course by its great brilliancy that little planet invisible. On the 13th it is in opposition to Neptune; that is, 180° distant. So that, on that date, the planet might be said to rise as the sun sets, or set as the sun rises. On the 20th, at 3:00 a. m., it is 90° east of Jupiter, so that if both had the same declination Jupiter must rise about six hours before the sun. But since the declination of Jupiter is north while that of the sun is south, the former actually rises nearly eight hours before the latter.

THE MOON

Exhibits the following phases: Full on the 3d, at 3:28 a. m.; last quarter on the 9th, at 6:04 p. m.; new moon on the 17th, at 1:03 p. m.; and first quarter on the 25th, at 5:08 p. m. On the 16th, it rises at 5:31 a. m.; on the 1st, it sets at 4:18 a. m.; and on the 30th, sets at 4:11 a. m. Is nearest the earth on the 4th, at 10:36 a. m., and farthest away on the 19th, at 9:12 p. m. The sun and moon play an important part, in fact, are the sole cause, as is believed, of a singular phenomenon observable in our largest bodies of water. We refer to the Tides, which are an alternate rising and falling of the waters of the ocean, at regular intervals. These have their greatest and least elevation twice a day, and are called High and Low Tides; twice a month, called Spring and Neap Tides; and also twice a year. The rising of the tide is called the Flood and the falling the Ebb tide. Similar tides, whether high or low, occur on opposite sides of the earth at the same time. Thus, if it is high tide at New York it is high tide 180° from New York. The same is true of low tides. The interval between two successive high tides is about twelve hours and twenty-five minutes; or, if we regard the tidal wave as passing entirely around the earth, it would each day reach the same meridian about fifty minutes later than on the preceding day. So that they occur in the course of time, at all hours of the night and day. Now, it is often very important to know just when they will take place. For example, a vessel wishing to enter a harbor where the water is ordinarily too shallow to let her pass, may propose to take advantage of high tide to make her mooring. It has been found that the connection between the tides and the motions of the sun and moon is so intimate that the one evidently depend upon the others, and so accurately has the relation been established that it is a matter of comparative ease to estimate the height of the tide at any given time on any coast of the world. The cause of the tides is the attracting power of the sun and moon. On the principle of universal gravitation the earth is drawn toward these two bodies, and were it a solid mass, all the body would move equally toward them; but as it is partly liquid, and as the attraction of all its parts is not equal, the liquid parts nearest the bodies move faster than the solid part; while the liquid part furthest away not being attracted so strongly as the solid part is left behind, and thus at the same time two waves are formed on opposite sides of the globe. Such tides as these would be called High Tides. At the moment of high water at any given place, the water is, as it were, piled up. And as the amount of water on the earth’s surface is constant, at 90° from this place the waters must be shallower, and thus low tides are created. The foregoing results would be produced, if the sun and moon had the same longitude or if their longitudes differed by 180°. Since these relative positions each occur once at least every month, there are each month two Spring Tides. But there also occurs twice each month a period when the sun and moon are 90° from each other; then instead of their united influence being exerted, it is divided, and the attractions are at right angles to each other. Thus are produced what are called neap tides. The attraction of the sun upon the earth is vastly greater than that of the moon, but on account of the greater inequality of the moon’s attraction, its influence in producing tides is really three times as great as that of the sun. Nor is the tidal wave always directly under the moon, but follows it at various distances, depending much upon the depth of water, the regularity of the channel, the size of the ocean, and the coast along which it moves.

MERCURY,

On the 4th, in superior conjunction with, and on the 16th, at 5:00 a. m., at its greatest distance from the sun; while on the 18th, at 3:53 a. m., it will be 5° 18′ south of the moon. It will rise on the 1st at 6:29 a. m.; on the 16th, at 7:29 a. m.; and on the 30th, at 8:26 a. m., and set on the corresponding days at 4:47, 4:51, and 5:14 p. m., being a morning star for the first four days and evening star for the remainder of the month, and perhaps visible to the naked eye on the last day. Motion for the month direct, and amounting to 46° 56′ 44″. Diameter increases from 4.6″ to 5″.

VENUS

Continues to reign queen of the morning, rising, however, later each day, and rapidly moving to her superior conjunction, her diameter diminishing 3.2″ in twenty-nine days. Her times for rising are these: On the 1st, 3:02 a. m.; on the 16th, 3:31 a. m.; and on the 30th, 4:00 a. m. On the 4th, at 6:00 a. m., she will be 50′ north of Uranus; on the 13th, at 10:00 p. m., nearest the sun; and on the 14th, at 12:38 a. m., 2° 1′ north of the moon.

MARS

Will be evening star during the entire month, and will afford nothing of especial interest. He rises at 8:46, 8:41 and 8:35 a. m., on the 1st, 16th and 30th, respectively; and sets on the same days at 6:06, 5:47 and 5:33 p. m., respectively. His direct motion amounts to 24° 52′ 6″, and his diameter diminishes two tenths of a second of arc. On the 19th, at 8:48 a. m., is 5° 26′ south of the moon.

JUPITER,

On the other hand, grows in interest each day, his diameter increasing from 33.2″ to 36″, and his countenance shedding its light on an average of half the night during the month. His motion is 2° 52′ 14″ direct. On the 11th, at 12:33 a. m., 4° 26′ north of the moon; and on the 26th, at 3:00 a. m., 90° west of the sun. He rises on the 1st at 12:53 a. m.; on the 16th, at 12:00, midnight; and on the 29th, at 11:11 p. m., and is consequently a morning star.

SATURN

Will be morning star, although visible nearly the entire night,[93] and will increase in diameter from 18.8″ to 19.4″. Will have a retrograde motion of 2° 8′ 38″, and on the 5th, at 10:18 p. m., will be 3° 23′ north of the moon. On the 1st, will rise at 7:25 p. m., and on the next morning set at 10:03 a. m.; on the 16th, will rise at 6:22 p. m., and on the 17th, set at 9:00 a. m.; and on the 30th, rise at 5:23 p. m., and set on December 1st, at 8:01 a. m.

URANUS

Is also morning star, rising on the 1st at 3:20 a. m.; on the 16th, at 2:25 a. m.; and on the 30th, at 1:32 a. m., and setting on the afternoon of the same days at 3:22, 2:25 and 1:30 p. m., in the same order. His motion is direct, and amounts to 1° 26′ 27″ of arc. Diameter increases one tenth of a second of arc. On the 3d, at 6:00 a. m., is 50′ south of Venus; and on the 13th, at 3:45 a. m., is 1° 54′ north of the moon.

NEPTUNE.

This distant neighbor of ours, in his far-away home, seems to have exhausted his resources in his early efforts at disturbing the motion of Uranus, and sinking to the common level, now makes his accustomed rounds without attracting any attention from the great mass of the world’s people, and but little from astronomers themselves. But he is still among his companions, and we find him claiming for himself this month the distinction of both a morning and an evening star—the former for the first half of the month, the latter for the remainder. On the 1st, 16th and 30th, he rises at 5:35, 4:35 and 3:38 p. m., respectively, and sets on the mornings of the 2d, 17th, and December 1st, at 7:33, 6:31, and 5:34. On the 3d, at 8:14 p. m., he is 1° 28′ north of the moon; and on the 13th, at 3:00 p. m., 180° west of the sun; that is, in opposition.

MELROSE AND HOLYROOD.

BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.

These two famous specimens of ruined Gothic architecture have been written and sung by many historians and poets. Scott says:

But the ordinary commonplace tourist can not always plan his trips by the almanac, and thus it was that we saw it not by moonlight, when indeed it must be a scene of enchantment, but under the broad sunlight of a glorious midsummer day. Though several years have passed since then, there comes to me now as in a dream, a perfect picture of the noble ruin, superb even in its desolation and decay, with the greenest, softest grass for its floor and the glorious canopy of a perfect summer sky for its roof, the soft sunlight streaming athwart pillar and carved window and the rich ivy clinging lovingly to its mouldering sides. And ah! how the birds sang, its only music now. And what must it have been with its roof, buttresses and pinnacles entire, its gorgeous windows ablaze with color, with chime of bells and solemn peal of organ resounding through its naves and aisles—an object of reverence and admiration to the brave, the good, the noble of the land of Wallace and Bruce!

Melrose was founded in 1136 by David I. of Scotland, who also founded the abbeys of Holyrood, Kelso and Dryburgh, and was consecrated ten years later with all the pomp and circumstance peculiar to the ecclesiasticism of those days. By royal charter it was granted to the Cistercian order of monks, which, previous to this, had been established in France. This monastery was the mother church to all of this order in Scotland. In the retreat from Scotland of Edward II., in 1322, the English wreaked their fury on religious houses, and among others destroyed Melrose.

To the end that the abbey might be rebuilt, King Robert made a grant of £2,000 to the Abbot of Melrose. Had it not been for this destruction we should have missed the exceeding beauty of this famous ruin, for at the time the church was restored, the Gothic style of architecture had attained its most perfect development.

In 1384 Richard II. made an inroad to Scotland, lodged one night in the abbey and set fire to it in the morning. Afterward he made grants to the church, which meant, let us hope, that his majesty repented his act of vandalism.

Again was the monastery destroyed in 1545 by the Earl of Hertford. Tradition has it that the English on their return at that time had passed the abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh when the bells were rung to express the joy of the monks at their escape; on hearing the sound, the English were not slow to return and turn their joy into sorrow.

Soon after the Scottish reformation took place and the abbey was never again rebuilt. After the reformation, one James Douglass, commendator, took down a good share of the ruin to build a house. His example was quickly followed by others, and for some time the people of Melrose used the venerable ruins for a quarry, and it is said there is not an old house in Melrose but has a stone from the abbey in its walls. Since it passed into the hands of his grace, the Duke of Buccleuch, every precaution has been taken to prevent its further decay. The rules of the Cistercians were very rigid, and for many years were strictly enforced. But there came a time when wealth flowed freely into the monastery, when royalty and nobility vied with each other in heaping costly gifts upon it, when the brothers waxed fat and loved their flesh-pots and goodly libations, and holy living was neglected and the name of the monks of Melrose came to be a hissing and a by-word.

Melrose, like all the other abbeys of olden time stands east and west. Nothing of the original structure remains save the side chapels on the south aisle, the first three of which are roofless. These chapels have been used as burying places for families of note in the vicinity. In one is a carved representation of the heads of David I. and his queen Matilda. In another is an ancient kneeling-stone facing toward the sunset, four horseshoes on its back and this inscription on its top: “Orate pro anima fratris Petre, ærari?” Pray for the soul of brother Peter, the treasurer.

The charm of the south transcript, lies chiefly in the wonderful carving and the graceful proportions of the various parts which form so symmetrical and perfect a whole. Perhaps the most exquisite specimen of carving is on the capital of a pillar which bounds the south aisle on the east, separating it from the nave; it represents the Scotch kale and is a most delicate piece of point lace carving. From the south transept also one can best see the small high window in the wall of the north transept, the tracery of which is quite perfect, and is said to represent the crown of thorns. In this part of the abbey are some curious and quaint inscriptions, one of which reads:

[94]

Another inscription a little higher up tells who this John Morrow was, and his connection with the abbey:

He is said to have been the first Grand Master of the Freemason lodge of Melrose.

Just east of this transept is St. Bridget’s chapel, where is still to be seen a statue of that saint beside one of the windows. In a corner between this chapel and the chancel is according to the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” the grave of the wizard Michael Scott.

Just beyond this grave is a flat stone which was the favorite resting place of that other wizard, Sir Walter Scott, when he came here to feast on the mournful beauty of the scene. To the magic influence of this noble ruin we may be indebted for many of the beautiful thoughts he has given us. Doubtless that wonderful imagination of his peopled those silent chapels and dim shadowy aisles with a host of illustrious dead. In speechless dignity and beauty they passed in review before him, a glorious company of the departed whose names, brightened by his magic touch, will live forever. But the chief place of interest is the chancel, under whose floor lie the ashes of those long, long dead. Alexander II. and Waldevus, the second Abbot of Melrose, a man of holy life, much loved for his exceeding gentleness, lie here.

The “Flower of Chivalry,” the famous Black Douglas, who was killed by his kinsman while hunting in Ettrick Forest, was buried here. Another Douglas, James the Earl, killed by Harry Hotspur, was here buried with the greatest pomp and ceremony.

But the most precious deposit, and the one for which these magnificent ruins seem a fitting tomb, is that right royal heart which once beat high with truth, valor and bravery, but which “feels its pulse no more,” the heart of “King Robert the Bruce.” It was the wish of the king that his heart should be buried in this abbey. However, subsequent to that, he expressed a desire that it should rather be interred in the Holy Sepulchre in Palestine. To this end Sir James Douglas set sail with the precious burden, but in Spain encountered the Saracens. Bravely refusing to retreat he fought and fell, but the king’s heart was saved, brought back to his nation’s land, and after such fitful fever was laid to rest at last in fair Melrose. The chancel is lighted by three superb windows, the one to the east being the one of which Scott wrote:

High on the west wall of the north transept can be seen the statues of St. Peter with his book and keys and St. Paul with a sword. When we saw them they were in an excellent state of preservation. In the north wall of the north transept are two doors with rounded arches; the first led into the sacristy or wax cellar, where the tapers and the communion wine were kept; the other it is supposed led to the treasury.

The carving in the north aisle is almost as worthy of admiration as that of the south aisle, being quite fresh and wonderfully beautiful. An ancient inscription here catches the eye:

The cloisters also show much fine carving. In the true Gothic, nature alone was imitated, which accounts for the endless variety of design. At the top of the east wall of the cloisters is an excellent representation of a negro’s grinning face; at the corner is seen the figure of a flying angel. The roof is quite gone, as are the pillars which supported it. The beholder realizes the ruin and decay more here than in any other portion of the abbey. The ornamentation of the central tower can best be seen from the cloisters. There is a legend that Cromwell once turned his cannon upon the abbey from Gattonside heights, and marks on the north wall are shown to carry out the tale.

Grand as is the interior, the visitor is more impressed by the massive yet graceful exterior, with its pinnacles, flying buttresses and its exquisite pillars and windows. The zealous Scottish reformers pulled down nearly all the statues, only two remaining, those of the Virgin and child, and of St. Andrew.

A famous and grotesque gargoyle, a pig playing upon bagpipes, projects from the roof in a noticeable manner.

West of the south entrance is a pedestal supported by the figure of a monk holding a scroll, on which is inscribed:

(When Jesus came the darkness of the world ceased.)

On the opposite side of the doorway is another inscription held by the figure of an aged monk:

(He suffered because he himself willed it.)

Over the doorway is a half length figure of John the Beloved, with this inscription in Latin:

But it is impossible to enumerate all of the interesting carvings, heads, figures and inscriptions. The picture of the magnificent ruin with its delightful accessories, the songs of birds, the soft, genial summer air, the peaceful sky, the half pleasant, half mournful recollections which it arouses, fades from memory, and in its stead rises the semblance of another venerable pile, half abbey, half palace, lying at the foot of lofty crags—the world famous Holyrood.

The story of the founding of Holyrood or Holy Rude is told by ancient chroniclers as follows: The munificent and good King David I. was not absolutely faultless. He was minded to hunt on a holy day, the festival of the exaltation of the cross or Rude day as it was called, in spite of the admonitions of his confessor. Heated with the chase the king had ridden to the “fute of the crag,” when there rushed suddenly upon him the “farest hart that ever was sene,” and threw both him and his horse with violence to the ground. The king threw back his hands between the antlers of the stag to save himself from the blow, when suddenly “the haly croce slaid into his hands.” The stag fled in dismay at sight of the sacred emblem, and the king resolved to found a house to the “Holy Rude,” the Virgin, and all saints on the spot where “he gat the croce.”

This legend, however, is not generally credited, there being a more satisfactory reason given by other chroniclers for the founding of the abbey. Margaret, the grand niece of Edward the Confessor, and mother of King David, gave to her son a cross of pure gold, which opened and shut like a casket, and which contained, it was claimed, a portion of that cross on which Christ died. It might be reasonable to believe that the king built the abbey as a receptacle for this sacred relic, as he bestowed it upon this religious house. This emblem was called “the black rude,” and was for ages regarded as the palladium of the kings of Scotland. It was at last captured from David II. at the battle of Neville’s Cross, and for centuries after was kept in the Cathedral of Durham. But it matters[95] not whether built to form a fitting shrine for the holy relic or to commemorate the king’s narrow escape from death by the interposition of the “Holy Rude,” the noble pile has not been spared by time’s ruthless hand, and only the chapel royal remains of that great monastery, the choir and transepts being entirely gone, and the sole remaining portion even being roofless.

But the crumbling, ivy grown walls have wonderful associations connected with them. The crown of Scotland has here been placed upon many royal brows; here James II. was married to Mary of Gueldres, and James III. to Margaret of Denmark; here James IV. was presented by the legate of his holiness, Pope Julius II., with that sword and crown which are yet preserved among the regalia of Scotland; and here, strangest scene of all its eventful history, under the great eastern window, in an evil moment, the beautiful White Rose of Scotland was married to the profligate Darnley. We are told that this abbey was the last resting place of many great ones, but when the transepts and choir were destroyed the ancient memorials were lost. It is said that David II., James II. and James V. were buried here, but of the tomb of David not a vestige remains, and there is much doubt as to the exact locality of the tombs of the others.

The most striking feature of the abbey is the western front, consisting of a great square tower, and an immense gateway with two curious windows above it. This tower is a superb specimen of the architecture of the period of transition from the Romanesque to the Early English. Above the doorway and between the windows is a tablet placed there by Charles I., who also was crowned here, which bears this inscription, strange indeed, under the circumstances:

But interesting as is this ancient abbey, the palace is of more attraction to visitors. Ill-fated James IV. founded it, and it was no sooner completed than he brought his bride to live therein. They were married and she was crowned in the chapel royal. Here also came the fair French princess Magdalene, first queen of James V., received with every indication of joy and affection, blooming in youth and beauty, only to be laid in the earth forty days after her arrival. The second queen of James and mother of Mary Stuart, Mary of Guise, was also crowned in the chapel. But of the multitude of famous women who have swept in the glory of their pride and beauty through the halls of this palace, the most thrilling interest clusters round the name of the ill-starred Mary Stuart. Here occurred those events which will forever link the name of Holyrood with that of the unfortunate “White Queen.”

To Holyrood she came first after her arrival from “her pleasant land of France” she loved so much; here she married the inferior and dissolute Darnley, and her Rizzio was foully murdered before her eyes; in the council chamber of the palace she married “Black Bothwell,” and her last night before being sent a captive to Lochleven was spent within these walls.

That part of the palace built by Charles II. is of quadrangular shape, having a court in the center. It was while passing through this court that we met a pompous, overdressed woman who was saying in a loud voice to her companion, “Well, what of it? What if Mary Stuart did live here? What does that amount to?”

The great picture gallery is in this part of the palace. It is one hundred and fifty feet in length and is hung round with portraits of a hundred Scotch kings. This room is of historical interest, for “Bonnie Prince Charlie” used it for a ball room, while he was staying at Holyrood. Readers of “Waverley” will remember the description in that book of the great ball given in this room. From this vast room the visitor may enter Lord Darnley’s apartments, which are soon scanned, for one is more eager to see Queen Mary’s room. At last we mount a gloomy stairway and enter what is perhaps the most famous and sadly interesting suite of rooms in all Europe.

The queen’s audience chamber is a large room lighted by two windows. The walls are draped with faded and time-worn tapestry. Here stands the bed upon which two other unfortunate Stuarts laid their uneasy heads, Charles I. and the Pretender, and after “Culloden’s bloody field, dark source o’ mony a tear” the conqueror of the latter, the Duke of Cumberland, slept upon the same pillow. It was in this room that Mary had those stormy scenes with Knox, the Scottish reformer.

In the bedroom still stand her chairs, her bed with its faded hangings, and the basket which Elizabeth sent her filled with baby linen. There is also a bit of her embroidery, carefully preserved in a glass case. On the walls hang the sadly tarnished mirror which has so often reflected her lovely face, her portrait and those of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, given her by the Virgin Queen, “her sister and her foe.”

Poor, unhappy queen! How she must have pined for her sunny France, among those cold, northern people. How often has she stood at these very windows and turned her beautiful eyes, filled with tears, toward those great mountains which shut her in. Whatever she was, good or vile, an abused, suffering woman, or an unprincipled, intriguing queen, we can think of her only with pity. But the most famous room is that little chamber, no larger than a good sized closet, where Rizzio was so cruelly murdered. Into this little room rushed the conspirators, overturning the table and putting out the lights, dragging their victim from Mary’s feet out through her bedroom, audience chamber, and into the hall beyond, stabbing him at every step and leaving him at last with fifty-six wounds in his body. And to this room the brutal Ruthven returned and demanded a cup of wine, and in the frightened queen’s presence tossed it off with wine red hand. Could it have been imagination only that loaded the air of that dark, damp, silent palace with heavy sighs? that caused one to look behind, at sound of footsteps and the sweeping of robes? that peopled those empty rooms with tenants of air, troubled ghosts of the illustrious dead?

Each old ruin has a charm all its own. Under these ivy-grown battlements how many fair women and brave men have lived, eaten, drunken, danced, sorrowed, loved and died; within these gray old walls what heartaches, ambitions, loves and hates have been nurtured, all to end at last and leave only silence and decay.

We left the palace and went out into the glad sunlight, to the green fields, to the flowers, to life; leaving behind desolation, death. Slowly we turned back to the city, and the last thing we heard was the mournful song of the birds which were flying about the ruins.

The rich man, indeed, is better able to indulge his passions, and to bear up against any harm that may befall him. The poor man’s condition prevents him from enjoying such advantages; but then, as a set-off, he may possess strength of body, freedom from disease, a mind relieved from many of the ills of life, is blessed in his children, and active in his limbs. If he shall, besides, end his life well, then, O Crœsus, this is the happy man, about whom thou art curiously inquiring. Call no man happy till thou knowest the end of his life; up till that moment he can only be called fortunate.—Herodotus.

[96]

THE LAUREATE POETS.

BY REV. A. E. WINSHIP.

CHAPTER I.

For three centuries England has luxuriated in a succession of regal poets, wearing, not hereditary crowns, but laurel wreaths bestowed by royal hands in virtue of the loyalty rather than the melody of their stanzas. Two centuries earlier Edward III. indulged Chaucer, the “Father of English Poetry,” in his harmless aspiration to enjoy the title of laureate, and the honor skipped along with irregular movement until Queen Elizabeth wreathed the brow of Spenser in laurel, giving the position such dignity that succeeding monarchs considered it an indispensable luxury to have a rhymer in the royal household to honor the birthday of king and queen, princes and princesses with an ode, graceful, polished, fervent.

The idea of poet laureate is not of English birth, but comes with other literary sentiments from Grecian days, the custom being to enliven the great musical contests by publicly crowning the successful poet. Rome in the days of the empire adopted the custom, adding to the formality and grace of the occasion. Germany revived the long neglected courtesy in the twelfth century, and was the first to christen the crowned bard “Laureate.”

The French had special poets for the rhythmic praises of the imperial household, but from prejudice or neglect did not adopt the German title, while the Spaniards had both the poets and the title, but lacked the favor of the goddess of song. The Saxons, from their earliest days, were lovers of music, though content with a low order of song. For centuries the minstrels were the favorites with the unalloyed Saxon race. Not until the eleventh century, when William the Conqueror grafted the Norman blood into the sturdy Saxon veins, was there call for a higher order of song than the minstrel furnished. As the two nations intermingled their habits and social customs, as the languages blended the strength of the one with the grace of the other for three centuries, the people were prepared in mind and heart, in thought and sentiment, to appreciate a national poet, and after nine centuries without a poet or a language out of which poetry could be woven, they found themselves suddenly possessed with a poet of highest order and a language melodious in its every accent.

The splendor of chivalry had reached its height, and the magnificent court of Edward III. brought to a climax the progressive spirit of the Plantagenets, and the series of victories that initiated his reign exalted the pride of the nation and brought it to a degree of patriotic order that must voice itself in a national poet. For such an hour was Geoffrey Chaucer sent, a poetic genius, whose birth and associations calculated to make the art in his hands chivalric.

His name—Chaussier—of Norman birth, anglicised itself gracefully into Chaucer, indicative of the ease with which, reciprocally, he translated the legends of Saxon life in a new language, the poetic.

Born in London, possibly educated at Cambridge, probably a child of wealth, a page in the service of a noble lady, a soldier of the king, a prisoner in French hands, and ransomed by his king, all before he was twenty, it is easy to see that he ingratiated himself early into a variety of experiences from which a poet can profitably draw. In his young manhood, following the adventures of youth, he was in the service of the king as valet of the chamber. He served as comptroller of customs, and negotiated delicate personal matters for the king at home and in foreign courts, was employed on important embassies open and secret, even negotiating for the marriage of the Prince of Wales in France.

Upon one of these foreign missions he witnessed tourneys, grand receptions and magnificent displays, of such a character that he was possessed with a desire to see his own country follow suit, and as an initiative step aspired at being himself crowned poet laureate to the king, in which he was humored by Edward III., who allowed him also £100 as an annual allowance. The succeeding king, Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, confirmed him in the position and secured to him its financial reward.

This first laureate purples the horizon of English literature, but so faint is the flush of dawn that it is impossible to fix the year of his birth, which may have been as early as 1328, and may have been as late as 1345. To understand the circumstances under which he wrote we must consider the England in which he lived, and for which he wrote. It was no more thickly settled than the state of Vermont, the entire population being only about the same as that of Missouri. The city of London then had no more than Lynn, Portland, Omaha, or Somerville—35,000. It had been larger, but had suffered from the great plagues. But this must not mislead us, for, notwithstanding her diminutive size, England was the most powerful nation of western Europe, and three nations of historic prominence were suppliants for her favor. The nation was wealthy, and the middle classes appreciated and demanded increased financial, political and social privileges. It was this first hope and purpose of the people that ripened the nation for its poet.

Cæsar set foot on British soil fourteen centuries earlier; the Saxons made permanent abode nine centuries before his day; Alfred the Great glorified the Saxon Heptarchy five centuries before the poet sang; and what wonder that he who created the very language that could be poetic should aspire for the first laurel wreath?

For nearly a thousand years there had been no poetry in the Saxon life, there had never been on British soil. Beauty and harmony were missing in their speech and deeds. The history they had made was devoid of sentiment, hence the almost universal disinclination to read the history of those years. As soon as there was sentiment in their life it was poetized.

Chaucer was merely a beautifier of thought. He originated little, he glorified whatever he voiced. He breathed life into the thought and language of the people, making them living souls, the Adam and Eve of English life. It is too much to ask that the primal poet who has to create language, create thought also. He did for the language of England what no other man was ever privileged to do for any nation. He took the chaotic speech and gave it beauty and rhythmic symmetry. He took foreign thought and made a home dress in which to clothe it. He took a language that foreigners despised, and of which the countrymen were ashamed, and christened it into the triune of strength, beauty and melody, so that it promises to be the universal tongue. He made a language that has the elements of perpetual youth, such as is possessed by no words but the Saxon’s.

In speaking of Chaucer as the initial laureate, it is with full knowledge that a century earlier, before there was a poet worthy the name, Henry III., of Magna Charta fame, had a “Versificator Regis,” whom he allowed £100 per year, but since it is impossible to find his name, or a line he ever wrote,[97] it has not seemed wise to discount the honor so justly due him who wrote the first classic English verse.

After Chaucer there was no inheritor of his wreath for nearly a century, when, in the reign of Edward IV., who died 1485, John Kay was laureate, but he left no verse to show whether or not he adorned his position.

The growth of the custom into dignity and permanence was through the universities. Each of the large classic institutions had the established degree of poet laureate bestowed upon those who graduated with honors from the courses in grammar, rhetoric and versification. It was a requisite for all graduates who presented themselves for this honorable degree, to write a hundred creditable Latin verses on the glory of the university—though sometimes another subject was assigned. Upon graduation, and the acceptance of the Latin verses, he was publicly crowned with a wreath of laurel, and styled “poeta laureatus.” If he was ever selected by the king to rhyme his praise he might style himself the “king’s humble poet laureate.”

John Skelton is the first whom we know to have taken all these honors. He was a graduate of Cambridge in 1484, and nine years later was wreathed poet laureate of Oxford, and soon after of Lauvain, and in 1504, twenty years from graduation, Cambridge gave him the same honorary title and wreath. He also won the regal versifier’s crown, writing a poem when Henry VII.’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, was created Prince of Wales, and Latin verses when the infant Prince Henry (VIII.) was created Duke of York in 1494. Skelton is spoken of by his contemporaries as a special light and ornament to British literature.

Bernard André, of whom nothing is known except that he was a tutor of Prince Arthur, was poet laureate.

It was left to popular Queen Bess, among the many good things of her fickle reign, to establish the rank of regal laureate by conferring the laurel upon Edmund Spenser, since whom there has been no vacancy except when Cromwell took the poetry out of high life in England. Her reign is justly famed for its abundance of literary, poetic and dramatic talent. It was then that for the first time “Men of Letters” were a prominent feature in national life, and in that galaxy of artists the most brilliant star was her poet laureate.

Edmund Spenser was a charity boy, struggling for all his opportunities, supported at school by a benevolent Londoner, Robert Newell, but despite circumstances he was head boy. While a grammar school boy his benefactor died, and in the list of funeral expenses, still extant, is an item of two yards of cloth given Edmund Spenser to make a gown, that he might attend the funeral. This was the boyhood of the author of the “Faerie Queen.” There were multitudes in England whose parents, rolling in wealth, urged their children to study, but it was left for a charity student to lead his age and rank as one of the five great poets of the English tongue.

Pope Pius V. attempted to bring recreant England under the sway of the Church of Rome, and issued a bull of deposition against Elizabeth, attempting to enforce it by rebellion in the counties of the north. But he underestimated the grit and popularity of the queen, in whose interest the nation rose as one man. It was in the fervor of this patriotic ardor that Spenser published his first poems, awaking a sense of expectancy in the public mind, which he gratified later with his matchless glorification of Queen Bess in the “Faerie Queen.”

In the Elizabethan days even a poet of Spenser’s genius, whom the nation ardently admired, could not hope to live by poetic writing. In our own day Longfellow received from a weekly paper $4,000, or $20 a line, for his “Hanging of the Crane,” but Spenser’s pen could not have produced poems fast enough to have guaranteed him a living. Substantial favors from the royal court were indispensable unless he turned his mind and hand to other employments. Queen Elizabeth made it her established policy to encourage literature by special bequests, and Sir Philip Sidney, her confidential counselor, proposed an award to Spenser’s loyalty and genius, and she instructed Lord Cecil of the treasury to give him £100, but he remonstrated that it was too much for such indulgence as poetry, whereupon she permitted him to give what was reasonable, and consequently he gave nothing which measured his value of verse. Spenser’s need was so great that he was forced to remind the queen of her neglect, which he did in these lines:

This spicy reminder brought him his £100, and Lord Cecil a sharp expression of her dissatisfaction. He was eventually given an estate—Kilcolman Castle—of three thousand acres, in Ireland. He was also laureated, with a pension of £50. When circumstances at last favored his enjoyment of peace, that had been denied him from childhood, he fell on evil times. Tyrone, a bold and crafty Irish chieftain, rose in rebellion, attacking Kilcolman Castle so unexpectedly that the poet and his wife barely escaped with their lives, after their infant child had perished in the cruel flames. He was now forty-six years of age, and a grief-stricken, broken-hearted mourner for his castle, library and babe, he went to London in poverty, and before his friends realized that he was in the metropolis, this great bard, Queen Bess’s laureate, died of starvation, in a rude, comfortless room, on a cold day, without a friend to minister to his necessities. After death, honors innumerable were paid to his memory.

Thus lived and died the first who wore the laurel in the royal household of that long line that has graced the court circle for three hundred years. Of the poets who have worn the wreath in sunshine and shadow under the Tudors, Stuarts and Brunswicks, a second article will treat.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

COMMON SENSE IN THE AMERICAN KITCHEN.

BY LAURA LORAINE.

The great middle class of American society to which, perhaps, most of us belong, contains an unsolved element, a puzzling factor, a something for which, so far, we have found no satisfactory niche. We have more girls than we know what to do with. In every town we find them bright, loving, energetic, ambitious, but sphereless. They are not needed at home, and there are no husbands available, for whom they can make homes; their needs are many and the parental purse is half empty; their energies are boundless, and they have no channel in which to turn them. What can they do? It is a sorely perplexing question. They might copy, but the business men of all the towns from the lakes to the Gulf will tell you there are twenty copyists for every position; they might teach, but school teachers overrun every community; there are more seamstresses than seams; more clerks than counters, more bookkeepers than desks.

A bright, stylish, well informed and popular girl lately applied at the office of a friend of mine, asking for “anything at[98] all. I’ll make the fires, sweep the floors, run errands, do any kind of work to earn a little money. I have tried everywhere, but there are no positions of any kind vacant.”

Another young girl, an excellent musician, inquiring for work, said: “I have been given an ordinary musical education, but I can’t use it here. No one needs a music teacher or organist of my medium ability. If I had $2,000 to fit myself to be a superior teacher there would be no trouble about a position; but see there,” pointing to a shabby glove, “that is absolutely my best pair of gloves, and one must have clothes.” But these are common remarks, painfully common.

A gentleman who employs a large number of girls, remarked in my hearing recently: “One of my hardest trials is to listen to the pathetic stories of girls who come to me for work. Many of them are from good families, often moving in my own circle. They need something to do, and the positions which they are fitted to fill are overflowing. I can not give them work, and to refuse them seems cruel. There ought to be some way for such girls.”

But there is in this same class of society a second problem equally puzzling—the troublesome kitchen question, which haunts so many of those women who manage their own households and employ girls for “general housework.” They find it almost impossible to fill these positions with the proper kind of help. For such work they need willing, strong, reliable, lady-like girls; girls who will appreciate the importance of the domestic machinery, and who will be able not only to keep up the fire, but keep the cogs all greased and smoothly running. They need those who will take pleasure in the beauty of the home and the health of the family, who will be, in short, helpmates and supports to them, burdened as they are with social duties, care of children, and the sometimes unfathomable question of making the two ends meet. They need such helpers, but alas, not one in a thousand possesses such. There is one way to satisfy the want. It is to make the plus of our first problem satisfy the minus of the second. To so adjust matters that the thousands of girls waiting for work or dying under the strain of their poorly paid sewing, or of their weary days on their feet at the counter may take up the general housework in the thousands of homes where they are needed.

By many, such a solution is declared “out of the question.” The girls themselves flatly settle it by declaring they’ll starve first; the housekeepers give it little encouragement. It is generally conceded that it might be a good thing, but that “it is not practical.” But why not practical? Why is starvation preferable? Why can not the housekeepers adopt the plan? What objections are to be urged against such work by the girls themselves? They can earn more—we have no hesitation in saying that, for look at the figures in the case. Let us suppose that a girl has obtained a position as a copyist or clerk; she will receive $1.00 per day in our average towns—not more; and in nearly all cases absence, whether from sickness, trouble or a holiday, will be deducted; however, as employers differ in this particular, let us suppose that she have regular work, her yearly receipts will be in a year of 365 days, deducting fifty-two Sabbaths, $313. Of this, $4.00 per week at least will be spent for board, fire, lights and washing; she has a balance of $105. Put her in the school room at the ordinary salary of the primary teacher, $400, she will have a balance of $192, if her board be rated as above at $4.00 per week. Now this same girl in the kitchen doing general housework would have no difficulty in securing $3.00 per week. Her cash balance at the end of the year would be her entire wages, $156; $51 more than the girl at the counter, $36 less than the school teacher, but think of the difference in the expenses of the last two. A girl doing general housework needs no work dress the year round save calico. In this she will be becomingly and appropriately dressed. A teacher must, a large part of the year, dress in wool, a goods at least five times as expensive. She has a large item for the wear and tear of wraps, hats, gloves, and rubbers, and another for stationery and books. It is not unfair to say that an economical and industrious girl earning $3.00 per week at housework can more easily lay up $50 in a year and dress better on the street and for church than the school teacher on $400 per year. It is not a question of money. There is, if anything, a cash balance in favor of the housework.

Is it then the work which makes such places so undesirable? Housework is undeniably hard. There is much of what we call drudgery about it. There is scrubbing, and washing and ironing, but the drudgery of housework does not last the week through. There is but one washday in a week. Done faithfully and with spirit, it leaves in ordinary households a frequent hour for sewing or chatting, one or two afternoons of each week, and almost invariably every evening. More leisure, we honestly believe, than either a clerk, seamstress or teacher finds. It is healthy. Compare the effects upon the constitution, of housework and of those employments which keep the worker sitting or standing most of the day. Go over your list of acquaintances in kitchens, school rooms, shops, and at desks, and you will find that though the housework may make grimy hands, it leaves the spring in the step, that though it may tire the body it does not stretch the nerves, that it is followed by a good appetite and sound sleep, where too often the other pursuits exhaust the nerves, depress the spirits, and wear out the girls.

And it is certainly respectable work. Were the kitchen of a duchess vacant her ladyship would only be honored if she bravely broiled her own steak and washed up her dishes.

No one will say the work degrades. But though it is honorable, healthy, and pays, yet strangely enough the girl feels that she can not be anybody if she undertake it, and the world believes she has forfeited her position when she does. Strange anomaly, that what is respectable in the mistress of the house should unfit her maid for social standing. Yet there are reasons for it, and one weighty reason is the popular opinion of housework—the feeling that it is belittling drudgery, that it requires simply muscles and no brains, that it unfits a woman for intellectual pursuits and for the finer accomplishments. If this be true, then girls are wise to shrink from such work, for mere drudgery is of all things the most benumbing to one’s facility, and can not but degrade one in the end. But this is not true. Housework is a profession. Cooking is a fine art. Upon the skill and wisdom with which the daily work of a home is done depends the comfort, health and happiness largely of a family. The woman who manages your kitchen has it in her power to make perpetual discord in your home if she has not brains to manage your work; she can ruin your digestion if she does not understand the preparation of food and its effects in the human system; she can make a barn of your rooms if she has not artistic taste. The idea that the person who is to cook and serve your meals need have only big muscles and stout hands is totally false; she must be educated to her profession, must respect it and take pleasure in it, if she is to be a success.

Gradually the importance of household arts is becoming evident to the best educated women. The home and its duties have become subjects for serious study of late years, and to-day there is hardly a topic on which so much is being written. Schools of cookery are becoming prominent features of our larger cities. They are patronized by our first ladies. Their teachers receive salaries equal to the best of our high school teachers and are everywhere received as ladies. Neither going to a cooking school nor teaching in a cooking school unfits woman for society; yet she does the same kind of work there as she would in a kitchen. The difference is just here: The cooking school pupil mixes her bread with brains and salts her potatoes with wits, and the brains and wits make a profession of what we have been pleased heretofore to call drudgery. It is the lack of this seasoning that has outlawed kitchen work.[99] It is not the bread and potatoes. Why should we not have girls who are superior housekeepers, who are known as rising young cooks? Why should not ambition and skill be respected and rewarded in this profession as well as in any other? No reason, certainly, but the poor one that the girls have not been able to feel yet, that cooking and housework are really important; that though housekeepers have begun to study the subjects, the ideas are yet in the abstract and have not yet reached the kitchen. It is, however, we may be sure, but a question of time. Housework will be honored as it deserves, and the girls who undertake this labor will feel that they are doing as elevating and as intellectual work, certainly, as they would do at the counter, copying desk or sewing table.

But however much girls may respect housework, and however thoroughly they may prepare for it, our problems can never be solved by them alone. The kitchen millennium is largely in the hands of the housekeeper. There must be a radical change in her opinion of the position, and in her treatment of her help. When reform in the treatment of help is suggested, a woman usually asks: “Do you mean that I ought to make my girl one of my family? that she should sit at my table?” The ordinary opinion is that this is the pivotal point in the discussion, and that in order to reform, the mistress must make a friend of her maid. It seems to me that this is a great mistake, and does not touch the vital point at all. It touches a social relation; while the relation between mistress and maid is purely a business one. A girl enters a house to do certain duties, not to be a part of the family. She does her work, to be sure, within the dwelling, but because she works there is no more a reason why she should become a companion than there is reason for the clerk, bookkeeper, tailor or dress-maker of the family becoming a companion. Not that she is not so good—she is often better; not that she is less a lady—she is often more—but simply because her relations with the housekeeper are business relations, and in the family circle it is very undesirable that these duties should be obtruded. To make her a part of the family and one of your friends, her whole social life must be changed. She has different views, different surroundings, different friends, from the lady of the house. Either the two different sets must be amalgamated in order that a social relation may exist, or mistress or maid must one of them give up her friends. A ridiculous idea, and one as undesirable to the one as to the other. The girl has no idea of being companion to the lady; when she complains of not being invited into the parlor, and to the table, it is generally because she feels that in some way, still does not understand exactly how, she is not respected as she deserves to be.

But, some one says, supposing the girl be one of our own set or from among our friends, what then? I have seen daughters in certain families doing the work, and I never saw any trouble about adjustment of relations. If the girl be your friend, then treat her as your friend, of course, and take her into the “inner courts.” But, as would generally be the case, if she be a stranger the relation is purely a business one, and what you owe to any one with whom you do business you owe her. But you do not owe it to her to make her a part of your family circle unless both you and she wish it.

It is a disagreeable fact that very many well bred women practice a system of “bossism” in their kitchens. They look upon their help as a necessary evil, a human machine, which by daily orders and scoldings they are to keep in running order. A vital mistake, for the girl who does your work is and ought to be regarded as holding an important position in your domestic economy. She is doing as honorable and necessary work in carrying out your directions as you in giving them. She sustains a relation as much to be respected as does a confidential clerk to your husband. Now, on this ground you owe her unfailing courtesy—a pleasant good morning, such as any well bred person will give to every one they meet, and kindly appreciation of her work and wants. This courtesy is oftenest wanting in giving directions. If she is to do the work, then it is due her that you plan with her, that you together talk over things. If her plans are better than yours, acknowledge it and give her her share of praise. If possible, inspire her with the feeling that this is “our” work, not merely “my work” that she is doing. When personal interest is inspired, almost invariably a home-like air will spring up in the kitchen. The girl who presides loses that belittling, humiliating feeling that she is only a drudge, and grows to know her real importance, to respect herself and her business, while the woman at the helm grows light hearted as she recognizes what a stanch, reliable support she has in this department of her home. Working together is the only successful plan for employer and employé.

Another just cause of complaint is the too common practice of making a girl extra work. She deserves consideration in this respect. If the breakfast hour is at eight o’clock, it is a breach of etiquette on the part of the family to stretch it out until nine. The duties of the day demand that certain work of the kitchen be done at certain times. “A woman’s work is never done” is in some households accepted as a natural law. No one hesitates to ask an extra service of the kitchen girl, or to interrupt her labors. No one thinks to apologize if they hinder her regular work, or to even give a reason for asking a troublesome service at a busy time in the day. Is it strange that girls refuse to undertake kitchen work, when they know by observation that thoughtful consideration and courtesy will be denied them by the family? When a girl keeps books, clerks, or teaches, her rights are recognized. She is as a rule treated like a lady. Her hours are respected; until housekeepers learn this first duty of the employer to the employé, it will not be strange if the better class of girls shun the work, however much they may need something to do.

There is a general impression—perhaps it would be true to say that it is a fact—that the comfort and surroundings of a girl are treated as matters of no importance. No special care is taken that her kitchen be homelike and airy, and her bedroom cheery. It is a most deplorable fact that in many households more attention is given to the stables than the kitchen, but it is a fact. The kitchen is the household laboratory. It is imperatively necessary that it be sunny and cheery, but how many times it is dark and dingy, poorly furnished, and uncomfortably arranged. The girl who finds her home in the house of another deserves further, a pleasant room, which shall be hers and hers alone. It ought to be neatly furnished, comfortably lighted and heated, and is it purely sentimental to say that she should have a rocking chair, a sewing table, a book rack and pictures? No, no. It is simple humanity to make her surroundings beautiful. The same nature is in her as in you; not only has she your taste, but a similar social nature; and beside pleasant surroundings she ought to have some provision made for her company. A pleasant room in which to entertain them, and time to give to them without being disturbed. I know a family in which the girl is allowed occasionally to have her friends to tea or to invite a friend to spend Sabbath with her. It is understood that this company never interfere with the work, and so perfectly do the mistress and maid work together that there is never any friction resulting from this—to most women—unendurable liberty. On the contrary, a higher value is put by the girl on her position. She respects the place which she sees her mistress respects, and grows more and more of a lady as she sees that she is treated in all respects like one. In this same home no Christmas ever goes by without a present to the girl as much as to any other member of the family. A little token is always brought her after a trip. In a word, she is valued, and the appreciation of the family proves it to her.

It is not in the home only that a barrier exists which makes proud girls shrink from this work which otherwise they would willingly do. It is a queer comment on our breeding to say that two thirds of American ladies will not recognize on[100] the street the girls who do their kitchen work. Absurd! Of course it is, and it is purely a parvenu trick. The queen of England herself would blush at such a breach of both common sense and good breeding. No lady will pass on the street any one she may know without recognition, least of all will she pass a faithful, devoted servant, with whom she is associated in daily work. And if it may chance that both are members of one church, then by all means their relation should be cordial and natural. The footing of the church is one of common brotherhood, and no matter what work one may do, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, there should be an equal position.

Would any girl needing work and competent to do housework hesitate to take a place where she knew she would be respected, cared for and honestly dealt with by the lady of the house? You say though she were fairly treated in her place she would be despised without. I must differ with you. The girl who would have the sterling independence and pluck to adopt housekeeping as a profession, and who would go into the kitchen of a lady who was willing to honor and uphold her in her course would not be despised. On the contrary, her very independence would raise her in value. The loss of social position entailed by doing housework is purely fancied. Under the conditions which I have enumerated there could be no loss of social standing. The fact that almost invariably kitchen girls have little position does not prove that the kitchen and its work deprive them of it. Many of the girls (not all, let us be thankful for it!) doing housework in America are foreigners, ignorant, stupid, and too often unprincipled. They are unfit for the work they do. They are hard to deal with. They care nothing for the interests of the house. They cast a stigma on the work. But the fact that work of so much importance is being dragged down is a strong reason for its rescue by large-minded women and sensible, independent girls. It is, in truth, a pioneer’s field of infinite possibilities. A field which, redeemed and possessed, will solve two of the perplexities of the women of the day—what shall we do with these strong, good girls of ours, and how shall we save our kitchens out of the hands of the vandals?

CHAUTAUQUANS AT HOME.

BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

After the grand review—dress parade, oratory, music, flags, and fireworks—comes the common, everyday routine—plow, pen, needle and nursery. Farewell to the holiday! All hail to the working day! Between the two there is a vast difference; and both are good.

There is a difference between the peal of morning bells rolling over lake and through forest trees, with the warble of wild wood birds, waking one up to a day of music and eloquence, Sunday clothes and good society, and the gruff call or dissonant bell ring of somebody whose business it is to tell you to be up and at it, at once and for all day, whether you feel like it or not.

There is a difference between sitting down to a breakfast that was prepared for you by servants, and getting up to build a fire and boil a kettle and broil a steak, and wait for all the household to come down and in, and get through, and give you a chance to do something else before a half dozen other things claim your time and thought, and thus make way for a dozen and one additional things that fill up the unprinted program of your own domestic or official “assembly” at home.

There is a difference between a precious Bible reading at eight o’clock, with all the sweetest texts in the book put into lines or clusters or circles like gems in royal treasure plate, and the care of a “mussed up” table, a pile of soiled dishes, or a naughty, nervous, or afflicted child.

There is a difference between one of “dear brother” Adam’s devotional conferences at nine o’clock, with the fresh experiences of many hearts (who for the time forget crying children and crowded kitchen) full of joy and peace and triumph, with the ingenious interpretations of old, or difficult, or out-of-the-way texts, with the sweet and fervent prayers that sound as if heaven were near and not afar off, and as if all the people one saw filling the Amphitheater were saints of God who had left the “exceeding glory” for an hour to give Chautauqua a taste of the celestial life—there is, I say, a difference between all this and the sweeping and dusting, the stewing and sweating, the clerking and teaching, the hammering and plowing—and all the rest of the indoor and outdoor exercises that usurp the blessed nine o’clock devotional conference hour, for which at home no bell rings, and to which no organ or solo welcomes.

There is a difference between the eleven o’clock lecture about life, science and philosophy, full of wit and wisdom, and the planning and toiling for a dinner in which something will scorch or spoil, and concerning which peevish and fault finding words are sure to be spoken by one or more who ought to be, but are not, considerate and sympathetic.

There is a difference between a two o’clock afternoon concert of gifted voices, stringed instruments, and organs, and an aching head and quivering nerves, where rest is refused you, and the hard, straining, dragging work must go on, whether you like or loathe it.

There is a difference between the four o’clock “specialties,” full of help and instruction, and the insipid, fashionable call that wastes your time, disturbs your conscience, and makes you wish “society” to the dogs.

There is a difference between the precious five o’clock Round-Table or vesper hour, with its free conversations (like a family chat) about simple things connected with our beloved Circle, with its broad thoughts, its sweet friendships, its holy prayers, its soothing and uplifting “Day is dying in the West,” when the sunlight seems like a veritable revelation of the Shekinah, and the air is vibrant with divinest sympathies—there is a difference between the Chautauqua five o’clock and the average five o’clock at home, in field, in street, in shop.

There is a difference between a Chautauqua evening of lectures, songs, burlesque, boat ride, camp-fire, reception, illuminated fleet and gorgeous fireworks, and the weariness of a routine life evening—the physical energy gone, the children out of sorts, misunderstandings in home, neighborhood or church, the prospect of a sleepless night, and of an enervating and irritating to-morrow.

A difference, to be sure, but then remember that these every-days should be glorified by the Chautauqua days. And remember that they test the sentiments enkindled and resolutions formed in the pleasurable excitements, devotional services, splendid processions and great audiences of the more favored season.

Fellow-students, let the charm of the Chautauqua days be felt through all the intervening days. By strong resolve put high thoughts, tender sympathies, devout aspirations, unwearying patience, into the most unsentimental, uncomfortable and vexatious experiences and emergencies of home and business life, and thus diminish the difference in real value between Chautauqua and other days.

[101]

BISHOP WARREN TO THE CLASS OF 1884.

It was a great disappointment to the class of ’84 that no word of greeting came to them on Commencement Day, this year, from the beloved “Chautauqua Bishop,” Counselor H. W. Warren. The mail was the miscreant, however. The letter did not reach Chautauqua on time, although sent promptly. Graduates of ’84, as indeed all members of the C. L. S. C., will be glad to read his cordial words:

“Beloved graduates of the C. L. S. C., Class of 1884:—I heartily congratulate you on the fact that you have mounted four rounds of the ladder of wisdom that stands on the earth, but reaches into the infinite heavens. It has taken a year to each step, and the number of the rounds is beyond our arithmetic.

“I congratulate you that you are intimately associated with one of the greatest intellectual movements of this or any age. It is great in the range of studies, in the unprecedented number of thousands pursuing them, and especially great in the eminently Christian standpoint from which all these studies are viewed.

“No discovery, theory or science in this age can escape being viewed from the Christian standpoint. This universe was made by and for Christ, its king, and nothing that opposes him shall prosper. Hence, you are on the right foundation, one that is everlasting. Build thereon, not gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, whereby you suffer loss, but build that which shall abide the fire that consumes the world.

“You have not come to this position by ways painful and humiliating, for wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. What a discovery for a world of misery—paths of pleasantness to possession of glory and power. This comes of keeping our heavenly Father in the midst.

“When the famous translator of the Bible into English promised to make the boy who followed the plow in England know more of God’s Word than certain famous prelates of his time, he showed that he knew where all great uplifts of humanity must begin, not with the well-to-do and content, but with those who had crying needs and high aspirations. So in this lifting up of nature into seen harmonies and revelation, till ‘We study the Word and the works of God’ with equal sense of their divine origin. The movement must begin with them full of ambition, and continue till many who follow the plan know more of the blessed harmony than others who are learned only in things of material nature. In this great work ‘Do not be discouraged.’

“I heartily congratulate the classes of 1882 and 1883 on such a worthy addition to their numbers.

“Let us all go forward, fearing no threatened night, expecting an occasional eclipse, to show us more stars than we should ever find by day, and looking beyond cry out:

“Yours truly,

Henry W. Warren, Counselor.

“Pacific Shore, August 13, 1884.”

OUTLINE OF REQUIRED READINGS.

NOVEMBER, 1884.

First Week (ending November 8).—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter i to “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Second Book,” page 87, to “Fourth Book,” page 105.

3. “The Bonds of Speech” in The Chautauquan.

4. Sunday Readings for November 2, in The Chautauquan.

Second Week (ending November 15).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58, to “Pronouns,” page 108.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Fourth Book,” page 105, to the middle of page 127.

3. “Home Studies in Chemistry,” and “Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life,” in The Chautauquan.

4. Sunday Readings for November 9, in The Chautauquan.

Third Week (ending November 22).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Pronouns,” page 108, to chapter ix, page 160.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from the middle of page 127 to bottom of page 149.

3. “Temperance Teachings of Science” and “Greek Mythology,” in The Chautauquan.

4. Sunday Readings for November 16, in The Chautauquan.

Fourth Week (ending November 30.)—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter ix to end of book, page 208.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from page 150 to top of page 172.

3. “Kitchen Science and Art,” in The Chautauquan.

4. Sunday Readings for November 23 and November 30, in The Chautauquan.

WEEKLY PROGRAM FOR LOCAL CIRCLE WORK.

BRYANT’S DAY—NOVEMBER 3.

Music.

1. Select Reading—Autobiography of Early Life.

[This selection will be found in Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant;” also a part of it in St. Nicholas for December, 1876, under the heading, “The Boys of my Boyhood.”]

2. Essay—Bryant’s Time and Contemporaries.

3. Recitation—The Burial of Love.

Music.

4. Select Reading—Selections from His Letters.

5. Essay—Bryant as an Editor.

6. Recitation—The Planting of the Apple Tree.

Music.

The following will be found interesting subjects for essays for this Memorial Day: The Bryant Vase, Mr. Bryant’s Travels, Home and Social Life of Bryant, Methods of Work, Mr. Bryant’s Friends and Companions. Information can be gathered from Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant,” two volumes (D. Appleton & Co., publishers); Scribner’s Monthly, August,[102] 1878; “Letters of a Traveler” (G. P. Putnam); Potter’s American Monthly, February, 1879, “The Bryant Brothers;” Atlantic Monthly, December, 1878, “The Death of Bryant,” poem by Edmund C. Stedman; Appleton’s Annual Cyclopædia for 1878; Foreign Quarterly Review for August, 1832; Democratic Review for March, 1842; Blackwood’s Magazine for April, 1832; Griswold’s “Poets and Poetry of America;” Appleton’s Magazine, Vol. ix.; International Review, Vol. i., “The Writings of Bryant;” The Lakeside Monthly, Vol. viii., “Bryant as a Man.”

SECOND WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

An Evening on the Scientific Readings of the Month.

Roll-call—With quotations from eminent Scientists.

1. Essay—Springs and Wells.

2. Select Reading—Herbert Spencer on the value of Scientific Studies.

3. Essay—The Causes of Intemperance.

Intermission.

4. Essay—Corn; Its History and Habits.

5. A Talk on Siphons, and How They Work.

6. Essay—Water and Its Works.

THIRD WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

An English Evening.

Music.

1. The Linguistic Tree Explained (see p. 28, “Art of Speech”).

2. Essay—Hints to Young Writers.

Music.

3. Select Reading—Blair on Style and Its Characteristics.

4. Essay—Blunders of our Every Day Speech.

Music.

5. A fifteen minute quiz on “Art of Speech.”

6. Essay—Figures of Speech.

MONTHLY PUBLIC MEETING.

Prayer.

Music.

Roll-call—Responded to by quotations from Bryant.

1. Question Box.

2. Essay—Homer.

3. Map Exercise—The Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Music.

4. Recitation—Selection from Bryant.

5. Essay—Good English—How Attained.

6. A quiz on current history of the month.

7. General Review of “Questions and Answers.”

LOCAL CIRCLES.

C. L. S. C. MOTTOES.

“We Study the Word and the Works of God.”—“Let us keep our Heavenly Father in the Midst.”—“Never be Discouraged.”

C. L. S. C. MEMORIAL DAYS.

1. Opening Day—October 1.

2. Bryant Day—November 3.

3. Special Sunday—November, second Sunday.

4. Milton Day—December 9.

5. College Day—January, last Thursday.

6. Special Sunday—February, second Sunday.

7. Longfellow Day—February 27.

8. Shakspere Day—April 23.

9. Addison Day—May 1.

10. Special Sunday—May, second Sunday.

11. Special Sunday—July, second Sunday.

12. Inauguration Day—August, first Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of C. L. S. C. at Chautauqua.

13. St. Paul’s Day—August, second Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of the dedication of St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua.

14. Commencement Day—August, third Tuesday.

15. Garfield Day—September 19.

The long summer vacation, delightful as it is, always causes a sad falling off in the local circle mails of The Chautauquan. These letters from the scattered circles of the country are like the visits of those long absent, or the cordial greetings of new friends. We miss them in the long months of rest and are glad to get back again to our table and see the letters flocking in.

As the year begins it may not be amiss for us to chat a little with our friends about the work which we must do together in these local circle pages. It is something like a grand reception. No one can stay very long, and one can hardly hope to be more than introduced to the company—unless, indeed, they happen to be particularly famous in words or deeds. The letters that come to us will all sooner or later be noticed by us; but do you not see how impossible it is that all should be given in full? For the sake of the great Circle we must abridge each interesting letter, much as we might wish otherwise. And then, we really can not introduce you unless you will tell us your name and residence. Of course you mean to do so. We know that well enough, but you would all be surprised to know how many reports come to us nameless and homeless. There is nothing to do but put them in our waste paper basket, much as we dislike to be so rude to even unknown friends. Again, you must not complain of us if your report does not appear in the first issue after it is sent. Please remember that the local circle department of The Chautauquan is prepared for the printer a month before the appearance of the magazine, so that copy must be on our table at least five weeks before the appearance of a number, to insure its appearance in a particular issue. Be sure that The Chautauquan will open its doors to everybody that comes, and just as long as there is “standing room” in this Local Circle Hall, will gladly admit you. And now for the letter bag.

New Hampshire has given its own popular title to the Keene local circle, “The Granite C. L. S. C.” This circle is made up of ’87s, having been formed in the autumn of ’83 with an enrollment of forty members. They meet at the houses of the members, for, as they say, and we believe them right, the meeting at the homes cultivates a better social feeling. During the year they followed a most inviting plan of work, of which they give a brief but suggestive résumé. “Our method of work has been varied. Each study has been thoroughly investigated. There has been familiar conversation in regard to any matter not well understood, and the question box has been an interesting feature of the evening. Latterly the plan was adopted of assigning to different members topics upon which to prepare questions. They were printed by means of a hectograph, and distributed among the members previous to the next meeting. The design was to bring out all points of interest under consideration. The result has been satisfactory. A year of the course of study upon which we entered, so gladly and happily, has quickly passed, and we are already reaping the benefits in our everyday life. A few individuals can read in a desultory way with great profit, perhaps, but the majority require system and regularity in order to gain good[103] results. Careless reading is a thing of the past. We have learned to think. Great changes have been wrought in our tastes for literature. We seek for something ennobling, striving to store the mind with enduring knowledge. The fifteenth of September we again organized with nearly our original number. Although we have done a good work we feel we can accomplish more in the future. We have a good start, and trust we shall land safely in port in ’87.”

Another circle of the Granite State just reported to us is the “Ivy Leaf,” of Newton Junction. A lively band of busy people they are, too, numbering in their year-old circle of eight members, a railroad station agent, a telegraph operator, a school teacher, a music teacher, and so on. The best and most efficient members are often those who work the busiest during the day. Our “Ivy Leaf” friends have our heartiest wishes for success in their coming year’s work.

Vermont.—The “Invincibles,” of Bradford, organized their band of seven only last March, but they have found the undertaking so pleasant that the secretary has written us a glowing account of their work and methods. She adds a couple of personals too good to be lost: “Our president is Mrs. A. M. Dickey, who graduated in 1882, one of the first two C. L. S. C. graduates in Vermont. She is energetic and self-sacrificing, and with her for our leader we are sure to succeed. One of our members has a drive of four miles to attend meetings, and during the past two years has lost but one session. This will be appreciated by those who know Vermont in winter. It is a sample of the ‘Invincibles.’”

Massachusetts.—We shall expect great things from the New England, and particularly the Massachusetts, division of the C. L. S. C. this year. The wonderful enthusiasm which animated the Framingham Assembly ought to keep the circles at the front the year through. Certainly they have begun well in their reports, at the head of which we want to put the modest announcement of the faithful class of ’82, sent us by their secretary, and let it be a warning to their successors, that they must take care or they will be outdone by the veterans: “At the Framingham Assembly, class ’82 held several meetings. The following officers were elected: President, Mr. Alfred Pike, Holliston, Mass.; Vice Presidents, Dr. E. M. White, Boston, Mass., and Mrs. M. J. Farwell, Brocton, Mass.; Secretary, Mrs. M. A. F. Adams, East Boston, Mass. Mrs. M. J. Farwell will write a poem for our reunion at Framingham next year, and a hymn will be written by Mrs. Rosie Baketel. Rev. O. S. Baketel, of Greenland, N. H., was elected president of the Society of the ‘Hall in the Grove.’”

Boston reports two circles unknown to us before. The “People’s Church” and the “Berkeley” circles. The first is under the leadership of the pastor of this famous church, Rev. J. H. Hamilton, and, although organized only a year ago, is a most enterprising circle. As yet it is small in numbers, there being scarcely twenty-five members, but it makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks numerically. This circle issues a paper semi-monthly, called the People’s Church Chautauquan, the editorship being undertaken by each member in turn, the other members furnishing articles upon such subjects as the leader may assign. This lively little body is not satisfied with prescribing routine programs, but it plans and carries out a different program for each evening, and in this way the exercises do not grow monotonous. The program for the evening of the Shakspere Memorial was especially interesting.

The “Berkeley” circle was formed in the fall of ’82: again in October of ’83 the circle was reorganized, meeting alternate Wednesday nights, and “although,” as they write in their letter of June last, “many things seemed to conspire against us, and we lost several members from various causes, and although the rain and alternate Wednesdays seemed synonymous, yet our circle ‘still lives’ and grows. Amongst our number we have a Harvard graduate of ’80, to whom our success has been largely due during the year just now at a close.” We hope it will not be long before the faithful “Berkeleys” will report their forty members gathered together for another year of work. A circle undaunted by loss of members and rain storms has the right sort of mettle.

There has been lying on our table all summer the following charming testimonial (received too late for the July issue) from Readville, a part of the town of Hyde Park, a short distance from Boston. It paints so happy a picture of home study one loves to linger over it: “Mother and I are the only ones here in Readville who are studying. We have all of the books, encyclopædias and books of reference. We read to each other and comment on what we have studied. Hardly a day goes by but most grateful words of praise for what the C. L. S. C. is doing, fall from our lips. We enjoy The Chautauquan exceedingly. It is a library in itself. A great deal of the work is review to me, but is just what I want. Believe that none of the thousands of Chautauquans are more grateful than mother and myself.”

And to follow this we have a “Pansy Triangle” of farmers’ daughters, two of whom belong to Cumberland, Rhode Island, the third to North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Busy girls, and living far apart as they do, yet they find the time and make the exertion necessary for frequent meetings. “Our girls,” indeed, are beginning to take a very prominent part in local circle work. From every quarter we hear of their busy coteries. The latest is the Tottenville (Staten Island, N. Y.) circle. They organised a year ago, and at the close of last year’s readings reported themselves more enthusiastic (if that could be) than they were in the beginning. Once in every two weeks they met at the house of some member of the class and spent two or three hours in talking over the readings; each member prepared a list of ten questions on one or several of the readings required; these questions were answered by the class from memory if possible. Sometimes in connection with the questions one of the Chautauqua games was played. Thus the meetings passed quickly and were thoroughly enjoyed by each member.

A pretty program containing the exercises arranged for each weekly meeting of the month has been received from North Cambridge. It is printed by hectograph on an engraved card, thus making both an inexpensive program and a pretty souvenir of the month’s work. Large circles which have their exercises arranged for each evening will do well to consider this manner of arranging their work.

Rhode Island.—In the beautiful town of Pawtucket, busy with mills and factories as it is, there was organized last January a local circle of fifteen members, which has been doing most excellent work. “Enthusiastic Chautauquans,” they report themselves. We trust we shall hear from them often during the coming year.

New York.—In a letter received in June from the secretary of the “Literary Section of the Rochester Academy of Sciences” (Rochester), there was a pleasant prophecy expressed that the twenty-three members which the circle then numbered might be able this fall to add a cypher to the right hand of the number and send us an account of two hundred and thirty enrolled members, and they add in hearty appreciation of our words: “In a city so full of cultivated people as ours there ought to be double that number to which the course would be a blessing.”

The “Spare Minute” circle, of New York City, is one of the many which owe their origin to the interest of one or two readers. During the year 1882-83 there were two young ladies reading the course together, and finding it so interesting they tried to interest others. Soon three young ladies joined them, and in February they formed a circle, holding meetings once a month. The circle soon numbered seven, five ladies and two[104] gentlemen. At a “special,” June 3d, they spent a most delightful two hours and a half with Latin Literature and Roman History. Their pastor, Rev. A. W. Halsey, of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church, met with them and took charge of the meeting. This circle wrote us of their plans for a C. L. S. C. picnic to be held in the summer. Was it a success?

New Jersey.—Everybody found the “Pictures from English History” in the course of last year a very delightful book, and at Marion, the circle of six organized late in the year was so pleased that they read it aloud, taking in connection with it the text-book on English history and the questions from The Chautauquan. A very interesting plan it must have proved. Our Marion friends hope this year to be able to report an increase of members and of interest in the work in that place.

Pennsylvania.—The reorganizing of the local circles has brought out many plans for the important work of collecting the old members again into the ranks, and of bringing in new members. That wonderfully energetic body, the Allegheny circle of the class of ’87, did a capital thing in sending out a large number of copies of the following letter:

They wisely preceded this by issuing for September 9th the following invitation: “Yourself and friends are invited to attend the first annual picnic excursion of the Allegheny circle, C. L. S. C., class of ’87, to be given Tuesday, September 9th, 1884, at Conoquenessing Grove and Rocks.”

Similar to the letter was a notice sent out by the circle at Omaha, Nebraska, in connection with the Popular Education circular, which explains the methods of the C. L. S. C. The following announcement was included in the notice: “the branch organized in this city last fall, and known as the Omaha C. L. S. C., is now arranging for next year’s work. A preliminary meeting will be held in Y. M. C. A. Hall, September 16th, at eight o’clock. All members of the circle, and those intending to read the course for 1884-5, are invited to be present.” These plans are always effective, and they have the added value of being simple.

At Eldred (Pa.), the local circle was reorganized in September with an increased membership. In honor of Chautauqua’s distinguished visitor from England, the circle will hereafter be known as the “Fairbairn Circle.”

We conclude from the encouraging report which has reached us from Berwick, of the past work of the circle there, that they have undoubtedly resumed work again this fall. The second year of the class of ’86 closed very successfully, with an increased membership. The interest manifested at the outset continued to the last. The advancement and thoroughness in study were marked. Through the medium of the Y. M. C. A. the C. L. S. C. enjoyed lectures during the year from eminent Chautauquans. Among them were Dr. Lyman Abbot, Wallace Bruce and Mr. Frank Beard.

The Carbondale circle is a flourishing, wide-awake member of the great C. L. S. C. It numbers among its members clergymen, bankers, lawyers, business men, and many of the most accomplished ladies of the city, prominent among the latter, the popular author, Mrs. G. R. Alden, with whose nom de plume, “Pansy,” the class of 1887 has been christened. The circle closed its first year June 25th with an “English Night.” The “Customs,” “Life,” “Holidays,” “Parks,” “Roads,” etc., were subjects of short and pithy essays. The London Graphic’s bird’s-eye view of London from a balloon was the occasion of much interest and inquiry. Mrs. Alden transformed the circle into a party of tourists, and made a delightful and instructive excursion to England (on paper). After the circle’s return from England the leader of the Round-Table surprised the circle by an innovation on the “question slip” plan, in shape of ices and other refreshments. The circle finds the evenings are too short, and are discussing the advisability of meeting oftener. Its second year’s work begun on Garfield day, by a public meeting announced by press and pulpit, reviewing the past year’s reading and taking in new members.

Another wide awake Pennsylvania circle is that at Elizabeth. It was organized just a year ago. Since that time it has given two public entertainments which were well received. At the last meeting, when the circle adjourned for three months, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: “Resolved, That we have found pleasure and profit in pursuing the course of reading laid down by the C. L. S. C., and in attending the meetings of the local circle, and we hereby individually pledge ourselves that if circumstances permit we will follow up the readings until we have completed the four years’ course.”

The “Whiting” circle (so called from its president, Dr. H. C. Whiting, of Dickinson College), of Carlisle, had enrolled last year its first year of work—thirty-two members. Their methods of work were excellent. The circle resolved itself into groups of five or six, to meet each week for the study of the several subjects. The meeting of the whole circle was generally held monthly. Some time prior to the general meeting the president arranged a program and assigned work to the members. The plan was varied from time to time. Occasionally a whole work was divided into topics to be reviewed and summed up in essays. Again, special subjects connected with a work were assigned for essays; then again, questions were given to the several members, upon which preparation was to be made, and answers rendered by the members of the circle, with comments by the president. These exercises have been supplemented by excellent music. Last year they prophesied a material increase in this year’s membership. We trust it has come.

Ohio.—The closing exercises of the “Home” circle, of Cleveland, were of more than usual interest. They were held June 23d, nearly every one of the twenty-one members being present. A fine literary and musical entertainment was given, and refreshments were served, after which the president, W. P. Payne, delivered a very forcible address on the Chautauqua Idea. We wish we had space to quote it, but can give only the closing lines: “Sooner or later we shall learn that the great Man works not before men with gold and greed, with affectation and noise; but withdrawing himself, alone with his soul, into the inner temple, in solitude solves the problems of highest and deepest interest to men. I know not who the coming Man shall be, but I believe that to Chautauqua shall be the glory of his coming and the praise.”

Another Ohio circle of great interest is that of Tallmadge. It was organized in October, 1883, with six members, all of whom belong to the class of ’87. Eight local members were added to that number before the close of the year. The meetings, which are held semi-monthly, were well attended. A charming program was carried out on Longfellow’s day.

About the time that the Tallmadge circle came into existence, a pleasant circle was formed at Findlay, of the same state. The membership grew to the goodly proportion of twenty-nine regular members, and reported to us at the closing of the year[105] that their meetings had been unusually profitable and pleasant.

Indiana.—We are indebted to the Terre Haute circle for one of the most beautiful programs which has ever reached us. It is satin backed and hand-painted. A lovely little memento of what must have been a charming evening. The annual reception of the club was the occasion of its use, and a correspondent writes us that one of these pretty affairs was laid at every one of the sixty plates spread for the banquet. The painting was all done by members of the circle. Prominent on the program was an admirable poem, “A Symposium of Classic Tales,” by Rev. Alfred T. Kummer, of the Centenary M. E. Church in Terre Haute. We quote the opening stanzas, and had we space we would gladly give it all:

A new Memorial day has been adopted by the Danville Circle, in honor of the late Bishop Simpson. This circle closed a prosperous year’s work on June 20th. And at Martinsville of the same state the circle closed the year by a brilliant reception at the opera house. Several hundred invitations were sent out, and the house was filled with an appreciative audience. From the neighboring town of Spencer a C. L. S. C. delegation of twenty-two ladies was present. The Martinsville circle furnished a rich program, and sent their friends away deeply impressed by the sterling worth of the C. L. S. C. work. We are pleased to notice also a new circle of twelve members at West Newton, organized in November, 1883. We hope to hear the particulars of their work soon.

Illinois.—A letter from Pana contains a suggestion which might, we are sure, be adopted successfully by any circle: “As an addition to our program, each lady is requested to bring to every meeting some selection that seems to her particularly fine. It is to be written out, so that it may be pasted into a book that shall be kept as a sort of memorial of the society.” This circle writes that they had their first public entertainment this winter, which their friends kindly pronounced a success.

Michigan.—We are pleased to introduce for the first time a circle of fourteen in Grand Rapids. They write us that they have been enjoying a prosperous existence since October last, and are looking hopefully forward to an increase this year.

Wisconsin.—Two more Wisconsin circles from whom we have heard before in these columns have recently sent us notices of interesting sessions. At Markesan the circle commemorated Garfield’s death by an afternoon session, at which an able program was carried out.

From Rusk a lady writes: “We are only a small circle of six members living in the country, but try to be very zealous Chautauquans. To say that we are thankful for the institution of the C. L. S. C. would but feebly express our feelings, for we truly feel that it brightens our homes and helps us enjoy life. We are all housekeepers, and have all its attending cares, yet we feel that the pleasure we get from these readings more than compensates us for the little additional labor in the direction of the C. L. S. C. We are doing the work much more thorough this year than our first year, and find the better we do our work the more pleasure, as well as profit, we derive from it.”

Minnesota.—The “Flour City” circle of Minneapolis writes that “as we could not expect to visit Chautauqua this summer we decided to celebrate the closing of our first year at our own lovely Minnetonka. In answer to an invitation from a lady member of our circle we went to the lake to spend the day with her; and a wonderful day we had, going by sail twenty miles to the cottage, where we were met by words and faces full of welcome.” At the gay banquet, which was one of the features of the day, they found a unique device: “As we sat down to the sumptuously loaded and elegantly decorated table, some curiosity was aroused at the sight of a small sack by the side of each plate, filled with something, and tied with bright ribbon and labeled ‘F. C. C., 1887.’ Presently, as one noticed that the sacks were of fine bolting cloth, through which the flour began to sift, the riddle was solved. The badge of the ‘Flour City’ circle is a sack of flour, and we wore them proudly home. Next dinner was discussed, and everything proved to be of the best—appetites and all. Then came the feast of reason, and so pleasant did we find it that we lingered quite as long as over that of strawberries and cream.” Fishing, boating and gathering lilies finished their happy day. The “Flour City” circle certainly could not have had a more delightful time—even at Chautauqua.

Missouri.—The third annual meeting of the literary societies of Carthage took place in June. A C. L. S. C. class is one of the prominent members of the association, and on this occasion, as its part of the entertainment, took the audience on an imaginary tour. The Carthage Press thus speaks of the conductors of the tour: “Mrs. Ross was a bright companion in the trip from Carthage to New York; the pictures of the ocean voyage and a visit to Scotland were given by Mrs. Nailon; Miss Belle Ross escorted the party to England in so charming a manner that all hated to give her up, but Mrs. Clarkson proved a worthy successor as she guided them through France; Germany received so original and philosophical a treatment from Mrs. Rombauer that we would fain have lingered longer in the Fatherland; Mrs. Miller took us to Greece and explained entertainingly all the wonders to be seen there; Miss Hayne showed ancient Rome; Miss Devore’s description of the Rome of to-day was so well written and so vivid that we felt as if we had really stood in old Rome in the rooms of new Rome; Mrs. Heywood gave the trip from Italy home to America; and Mrs. Case closed with an entertaining account of a visit to Lake Chautauqua.” A capital idea for some of our friends who are longing for “something new.” At about the same time of this celebration the St. Louis circles, “Vincent” and “Round Table,” held their third annual meeting. These two circles number jointly about seventy members, and they prepared for this entertainment an exceedingly fine program. One attractive feature of the entertainment was the “Tangent,” a monthly paper made up of original articles contributed by the members of the circles, and read by an editor. The idea is to develop and strengthen any latent literary talent possessed by the members, and to furnish an audience for their productions without the embarrassment of making known the authorship.

[106]

Kansas.—From Emporia we had the pleasure of receiving in June a pleasant letter from a faithful C. L. S. C. worker in that town. The circle was organized only a year ago, but soon became so large that it had to be divided. Our correspondent thinks it would be hard to find more enthusiastic workers. She says: “We have resolved to be ever true and faithful in the grand work. It is generally understood that nothing but sickness—not even Kansas mud—will keep us at home Chautauqua evenings. We have imitated Cæsar in his plan of a speedy construction of bridges—ours, not across the Rhine, but across the muddy street, for some of us live off the sidewalk.”

California.—Our thanks are due to the “Vincent” local circle of Sacramento, for a copy of their excellent rules of government. From the appearance and character of these regulations we conclude that our “Vincent” friends have come to stay.

In the scattered farming community of San Lorenzo, across the bay from San Francisco, there has been for five years a lively circle of C. L. S. C. workers. It began with but two members, and has increased until there are eleven workers in the club. “During the nine months’ study of each year scarcely a week has passed,” writes the secretary, “without our meeting together for review and talk over the lesson. We have never allowed ourselves to fall behind in the course as marked out in The Chautauquan.”

In a letter received too late for the July issue of The Chautauquan, the secretary of the Yuba City local circle writes: “I believe our local circle has had a report in your columns every year, and we desire to be represented this, our third year, which finds us even more zealous (were it possible) than any preceding one, and realizing more and more each day the great benefit of this systematic course of reading. Our method is to carefully go through the lesson as it is marked out in The Chautauquan, and to have a general exchanging of ideas and views on all its principal topics. This consumes so much of our time that we have had as yet but little outside work, such as essays, and the like. We observe all Memorial days.”

Los Angeles has a very interesting and prosperous circle. It was formed in 1881 with twelve members. In 1882-3 they kept up the readings, but becoming discouraged they abandoned the regular meetings until October of 1883, when a circle of thirty-nine members was reorganized. The plan which their president has found most successful has been to bring carefully prepared questions into the class and encourage free conversation on the book study of the week. The topics in The Chautauquan she assigns to some gentleman or lady particularly interested in the special themes, who comes prepared with illustration, demonstration, and experiment, to instruct and please. The work grows, and its influence is being felt in the strangely mixed populace of that growing coast city.

Another Pacific Coast Branch is that of Bakersfield. Its members, twenty-five in all, include ministers, lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, bankers, and their wives, together with a large number of lads and lassies, most of whom are enthusiastically interested in their studies. There is one German lady now in her sixty-second year, who is endeavoring to compete with other members of the class, and will come out victorious if she continues to be as thorough in the next three years as she has been in the past few months. The evening gatherings are enlivened occasionally by essays, readings, music, etc. This circle predicts for the coming year a membership of forty. We hope that the prediction may be verified.

Mrs. Mary H. Field, the competent and enthusiastic secretary of the Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C., has sent us the following full report of last year’s work in her district: “The Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C. has grown and prospered during the past year. Its affairs were all so well ordered and arranged by her predecessor that but little remained for the secretary to do save to carry out their good designs. It has been like sailing on a smooth sea in a well manned ship, with all the machinery in perfect order, and with a fresh breeze filling every sail. The work has consisted chiefly in an immense correspondence, the issuing of three thousand circulars, the writing of series of newspaper articles, and the keeping of records and accounts.

“I have the pleasure of reporting six hundred and twenty-four new members, and the renewal of more than two hundred old members. About forty circles are reported as being in prosperous condition. Probably in no other part of the United States is there so scattering a population as on this coast, and it is in the isolated hamlets, the solitary homes, and in the one man or one woman “circles” that the C. L. S. C. does its most salutary work.

“Southern California is a growing center of C. L. S. C. influence. The secretary deeply regrets that Monterey is so far from Los Angeles and San Diego, and that those excellent circles are not represented there.

“It has been my sad duty during the past year to write the little star, which means deceased, against several names in our record. Against one, that of Mrs. M. H. McKee, of San José, I mingled deep personal regret with my official task. Alas for us that one so bright, so useful, so variously endowed, should have passed from earth in the midst of her years and usefulness.”

THE C. L. S. C. CLASSES.

CLASS OF 1885.

“Press on, reaching after those things which are before.”

OFFICERS.

• President—J. B. Underwood, Meriden, Conn.
• Vice President—C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio.
• Treasurer—Miss Carrie Hart, Aurora, Ind.
• Secretary—Miss M. M. Canfield.
• Executive Committee—Officers of the class.

Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.

From Carlisle, Pa., we have received a note announcing the death of a member of the class of ’85. “In August last Miss Annie M. Green ‘finished her course’ on earth. Our fellow student was ambitious, energetic, and enthusiastic. She has ‘passed through the gates’ of the eternal city, there to reach those heights of knowledge which will satisfy her loftiest aims, while we who remain ‘press on, reaching after those things which are before.’”

All communications for the ’85 class page should be addressed to C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio, so that they will reach him by the 10th day of the month before the date of the issue.

The purpose in raising a Memorial Fund is to purchase a memento for presentation to the faculty next Commencement, by way, we suppose, of a well-advertised “surprise.”

How many members of the class of ’85 are still in the ranks? Will Miss Kimball inform us?

Ladies writing the officers of the class will please affix “Miss” or “Mrs.” to their names, as may be the truth in their cases, so that no mistakes may be made by such of the members of the class as are bachelors!

[107]

President Underwood is in charge of a circle at Meriden, Conn., is also president of an association of thirty-three Sunday-schools, has three meetings to preside over during the next ninety days, two addresses to make, and is to tell two circles, in a lecture, why he is a Chautauquan. Then he has an exacting and absorbing private business to attend to! Evidently Mr. Underwood is not a loafer!

NOTES FROM THE CLASS OF ’85 AT SOUTH FRAMINGHAM.

The Class of ’85, N. E. Branch, had their headquarters at the N. E. Assembly in the Congregational Social Tent. Their thanks are due to Rev. G. B. De Bevoise, Sunday-school Secretary for Massachusetts, for his courtesy and kindness in opening the tent to them.

Prize examinations of the class of ’85 in English Literature and in American Literature were held. The prizes offered were a copy of Whittier’s Birthday Book and Longfellow’s Birthday Book, with the autographs of the class. Miss Jennie M. Daniels, of West Newton, Mass., took the prize in American Literature, and Miss M. L. Stevens, of Readville, Mass., in English Literature.

We regret that our faithful secretary and treasurer, Mr. A. B. Comey, felt compelled to resign. He has shown great interest in the organization, and spent much time and energy and money in its interest.

Miss Antoinette Tucker, of Hopkinton, Mass., the new class secretary, has been one of the chief supporters of the large C. L. S. C. Reading Class in her town, and is greatly interested in the whole movement.

The class had a social reunion on the evening of July 25th. Fifty members were present. They were honored by the presence, as an invited guest, of ex-Governor Claflin, who was one of the chief supporters of the whole assembly at Lakeview. An address of greeting was given by Rev. J. E. Fullerton, president of the class. Remarks were also made by J. C. Haskell, of Auburn, Me., one of the new vice presidents, and the retiring secretary, A. B. Comey, Esq. An original poem was read by Miss Tilden, of Chelsea. Recitations followed by Miss Evans and Miss Daniels. A poem entitled “Framingham Bells,” of March, 1882, was read by the author, Miss Phœbe A. Holder, a member of the class. A song written for the occasion by Miss Evans was sung. Miss Tayler and Miss Stevens added much to the occasion by their solos.

Mr. J. C. Haskell, the new vice president, is leader of a class in Auburn.

Miss Celia E. Valentine, of New Gloucester, Me., vice president, is one of the leading spirits in the large circle in her town.

Mr. B. T. Thompson, of South Framingham, Mass. (they call him Dea), is a man whose time and purse are generously enlisted in moral, educational, and religious interests.

The class voted to send around circular letters during the winter, that the members might become more interested in each other and learn the different plans of conducting circles. All the members of the class of ’85 in New England are requested to send a postal card containing their names and addresses, and all the other pleasant words they choose to the president, Rev. J. E. Fullerton, that none may be forgotten.

TO NEW ENGLAND MEMBERS OF ’87.

NEW ENGLAND SECRETARY’S REPORT.

At the Lakeview Assembly, in South Framingham, Mass., the New England branch of the class of ’87 was well represented, three hundred and fifty members of the class being on the ground at different times. In the procession on “C. L. S. C. Day” nearly three hundred members of ’87 followed the Pansy banner. The class gave proof of enterprise and enthusiasm from the very first; its class meetings were held on every day of the Assembly—except Sunday—and were well attended. Class headquarters were secured and tastefully decorated. To meet the expenses of headquarters, banner, and other expenditures, the members present at Lakeview were invited to contribute twenty-five cents each into the treasury. This contribution was optional with each member. One hundred and eighty-seven responded, supplying enough funds to meet the expenses during the Assembly, and leave $16.82 in the treasury.

On the evening of “C. L. S. C. Day” the ’87s held a social reunion at their headquarters, where a pleasing musical and literary entertainment was given by members of the class.

Much of the class enthusiasm was doubtless due to the president, Rev. George Benedict, of Hanson, Mass., who was untiring in his efforts to secure the highest degree of class prosperity.

On Friday, July 25, the following class officers were elected for this year:

Presidents—Rev. F. M. Gardner, Lawrence, Mass.; Mr. E. A. Gowen, Biddeford, Me.; Rev. Benj. Merrill, Swanzey, N. H.

Vice Presidents—Mrs. F. B. Gilman, Springfield, Vt.; Rev. George Benedict, Hanson, Mass.; Mr. O. A. Jeffers, Pawtucket, R. I.; Miss Mary Bradford, Mystic Bridge, Conn.

Secretary—Sadie M. Corey, Brighton, Mass.

Assistant Secretary—Miss Nellie F. Crocker, Providence, R. I.

Treasurer—Mrs. David Morrill, Allston, Mass.

A constitution was adopted by the class; in accordance with Article 4 of this constitution, the executive committee has appointed the first mid-year reunion to be held in Boston, on the day after Thanksgiving, at one o’clock p. m., in the vestry of the People’s Church, corner of Columbus Avenue and Berkeley Street. This will be a social reunion, with an entertainment comprising vocal and instrumental music, a class poem, and an address. At this meeting the date and place of the second mid-year reunion will be announced. A few items of business will come before the meeting, the most important being in regard to hiring or building a class headquarters at Lakeview for next year. The executive committee will try to make this reunion an enjoyable occasion, and it is hoped that as many as possible of New England ’87s will be present.

S. M. Corey, Sec. N. E. ’87.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

“THE ART OF SPEECH,” VOL. I., AND “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.”

BY A. M. MARTIN,
General Secretary C. L. S. C.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “THE ART OF SPEECH.” VOL. I.

1. Q. What is the number of distinct tongues now employed? A. It is variously estimated from eight to nine hundred.

2. Q. From what tongues are elements taken that our English speech of to-day possesses? A. From every important tongue on the globe.

3. Q. To what three languages is the indebtedness of the English tongue disclosed, in almost every sentence framed? A. The French, the Latin, and the Greek.

4. Q. From what period does modern English speech date? A. From about 1550 A. D.

5. Q. For the two preceding centuries how is English speech characterized? A. As old English.

6. Q. For the next preceding two centuries, 1150 to 1350, how[108] is English speech denominated? A. As Semi-Saxon, the outgrowth of the Norman invasions and conquests.

7. Q. What is the period called for five hundred years preceding the Semi-Saxon period? A. The Anglo-Saxon period.

8. Q. From what did the Anglo-Saxon speech spring? A. From the mingling of Teutonic dialects on British soil.

9. Q. To what great primitive family of languages does the Teutonic belong? A. The Aryan.

10. Q. From whom are those who used this primitive Aryan speech supposed to have descended? A. From Japhet, one of the sons of Noah.

11. Q. By what nations are the languages belonging to the Aryan family spoken? A. By nearly all modern civilized nations.

12. Q. What are some of the causes which contribute to make many of the changes in speech? A. Differences in climate and natural scenery; different methods of increasing vocabularies; different methods of inflection; the development of different muscles of the vocal organs; the manner of accenting, pronouncing and spelling words.

13. Q. To what conclusion may these, and other considerations, lead us as to the origin of all existing and historic tongues? A. That they had their origin from one primitive stock.

14. Q. What is the materialistic evolutionist’s theory of the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate men, being developed from races of inarticulate creatures, built up from brute sounds existing human speech.

15. Q. What are three strong objections to this theory? A. It lacks the support of well-established facts. It is opposed by the fact that primitive tongues show a descent, but in no case a radical ascent. It is contrary to Scripture history.

16. Q. What is a second theory as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate beings, who were created at one time, but in different localities, developed in those different localities the different historic and existing tongues.

17. Q. What are some of the objections to this theory? A. It is in conflict with a large number of facts pointing to the strict unity of the human race, and is opposed to sacred history.

18. Q. What is a third view as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of fallen beings descended from a representative head that had at the start command of either a perfect speech, or else readily developed it as occasion required; that his descendants adopted this speech, which subsequently, by some strange modification of the vocal organs, was violently disturbed.

19. Q. What are some of the things that can be said in favor of this theory? A. It is not opposed by either physical or linguistic science; and it has the support of sacred history.

20. Q. What inference does the author draw as to the probable origin and development of human speech? A. That it is both God-given and from human invention.

21. Q. By what laws ought speech to be governed? A. By the same laws essentially as are found in force throughout the various domains of matter and mind.

22. Q. What number of laws does the author formulate as a linguistic code? A. Fifteen.

23. Q. What is the first law? A. The law of symbolization.

24. Q. What are three ways in which this law is illustrated? A. By imitative words, by the formation of new words from existing roots, by symbolizing the past.

25. Q. What is the second law? A. The law of development.

26. Q. What does the law of development require as to changes in and additions to language? A. That they should be rather by development from its own resources than by the adoption of foreign words.

27. Q. What does the third law, that of definiteness, require as to an expression of ideas? A. That it shall give the person addressed the least possible conscious mental effort in order to understand.

28. Q. What does the law of economy require of the speaker? A. To give with definiteness and elegance the largest number of ideas with the fewest and shortest words possible.

29. Q. In what does the law of selection consist? A. In giving the utmost effect to expression in the fewest words.

30. Q. How does it differ from the law of economy? A. It not only reduces a given quantity, but reduces it with wise discrimination.

31. Q. Upon what does the law of suggestion fix attention? A. Upon the undertone in speech. It is constantly saying, Write something between the lines.

32. Q. How are the tendencies to conform to the law of analogous usage seen? A. In the change of irregular into regular forms or inflections and speech.

33. Q. What suggestion is made in regard to words introduced into English from other languages? A. That they shall, both in structure and pronunciation, doff their foreign and don the English dress.

34. Q. How is the law of variation and contrast in speech shown? A. By an examination of standard literature.

35. Q. In what way do we find this law illustrated by Shakspere? A. In the midst of the highest tragedy he gives us the lowest comedy.

36. Q. What does the law of unity and harmony in speech require? A. Agreement between the terms used, the sentiments expressed, and the time, place and occasion of their expression.

37. Q. What is said to be the law of authority in the domains of speech? A. The usage of a writer of commanding genius; likewise the sanction of the literary world at a given period.

38. Q. What are some of the rules that are indorsed by nearly all writers upon this subject? A. Use is the law of language. The eldest of the present, and the newest of the past language is best. Words must be reputable, national and present.

39. Q. What three suggestions are made as to rendering language euphonically beautiful? A. By dropping its harsh words. By softening its harsh words. By mastering the pronunciation of all difficult words before using them in public.

40. Q. To what statement does the practical application of the law of needful practice to language lead? A. That if one would master the arts of oral speech and of literary construction he must keep speaking and writing.

41. Q. What is the golden rule of speech? A. That, first of all, the speaker must utter the truth.

42. Q. In the science of speech, to what does diction relate? A. To the selection and use of words.

43. Q. What is correct diction? A. The use of such words as are reputable and present.

44. Q. Of what does the subject of diction include a discussion? A. Of barbarisms, archaisms, obsoletisms, and solecisms.

45. Q. What do the laws of speech require as to the different parts in the formation of compound words? A. That they shall be taken from the same tongue.

46. Q. What class of words do several laws of language demand still further that English-speaking people shall use? A. Such words as are characteristic of their mother tongue.

47. Q. Why do the Scotch love Burns, the Americans Whittier, and the English-speaking world Longfellow as they love no others? A. Because they use the language of purpose, of affection, and of passion which finds its best utterances through the means of simple Anglo-Saxon words.

48. Q. Who is quoted as authority for the saying that “He who is acquainted with no foreign tongue knows nothing of his own?” A. Goethe.

[109]

49. Q. What fact is stated as contradicting this statement? A. Among the most distinguished representatives of the mother tongues of different nations are men who were not general linguists.

50. Q. What is idiom? A. It is the peculiar mould in which the sentences of a given tongue naturally shape themselves.

51. Q. Where do Cicero and Quintilian assert that purity of idiom is to be found chiefly? A. Among women and children.

52. Q. Of what does syntax treat? A. The choice and arrangement of words into sentences according to established usage.

53. Q. Concerning what is there a general agreement in regard to the length of sentences? A. That long sentences are more majestic, short ones more emphatic; continuous long sentences fatigue, continuous short ones distract the mind.

54. Q. What is the only rule generally agreed upon in regard to the close of a sentence? A. Avoid concluding a sentence with an insignificant word.

55. Q. In what three ways, in written speech, are the construction of a sentence, and some peculiarity of thought or some peculiar use of words, indicated to the eye? A. By the use of capital letters, by the use of italics, and by the use of punctuation marks.

56. Q. Relating to what are further specific rules given, belonging to the grammar and rhetoric of speech? A. Verbs, nouns, pronouns, qualifying and descriptive words, connecting words and sentences.

57. Q. What is the general agreement as to what style is? A. That it is the most delicate form in which thought incarnates itself.

58. Q. What are the prime excellencies in style? A. Naturalness, clearness, simplicity, conciseness, force, pertinency, variety, and beauty or elegance.

59. Q. In what three ways may clearness be developed and cultivated? A. By constantly practicing in heart and life the thoughts and ways of honesty and frankness. By thoroughly mastering a subject before publishing it. By unwearied application of the arts of rhetorical composition.

60. Q. What are preëminent, in the judgments of all critics, as models for the English-speaking tongue? A. The dramas of Shakspere and the text of the English Bible.

61. Q. What do grammar and rhetoric define figures of words to be? A. Designed and artistic deviations from the ordinary form, construction or application of words or sentences.

62. Q. What are figures of etymology? A. They are deviations from the ordinary form of a word.

63. Q. In what do figures of etymology consist? A. Either in a defect, an excess, or a change in some of the elements of a word.

64. Q. What are figures of syntax? A. They are deviations from the ordinary construction of a sentence.

65. Q. Under what headings are figures of syntax classified? A. Ellipsis, pleonasm, enallage, and hyperbaton.

66. Q. What are usually grouped under figures of rhetoric? A. Figures of poetry, figures of poetic prose, and figures of oratory.

67. Q. What are the three fundamental principles underlying the class of rules governing the use of figurative speech? A. First, figurative speech is used in order the more effectually to persuade. Second, it is used for the purpose of elucidation. Third, after persuasion and elucidation are sought, then for purposes of elegance.

68. Q. What is to be avoided in the use of figurative speech? A. Excess in the use, and mixed, and to a certain extent complex figurative speech.

69. Q. What is Hazlitt’s definition of poetry? A. It is the language of the imagination.

70. Q. Of what is poetry the science and art? A. Of putting the productions of the imagination into figurative and measured or balanced speech.

71. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is poetic speech classified? A. Parallelism, alliteration, and accented meters.

72. Q. Into what classes are accented meters subdivided according to the measure which predominates? A. The iambic, trochaic, anapæstic, dactylic, and mixed.

73. Q. Into what eight classes is poetic speech divided according to subject-matter? A. Epic poems, lyric poems, dramatic poems, didactic poems, pastoral poems, satirical poems, epigrams, and epitaphs.

74. Q. What six classes of figures are given belonging to poetic speech? A. Metaphor, simile, comparison, allegory, parable, and fable.

75. Q. What two rules are given for acquiring skill in poetic representation? A. 1. Cultivate figure-making habitudes. 2. Store the mind with information.

76. Q. In what is prose speech used, and of what does it form the basis? A. It is used in ordinary conversation, and it forms the basis of all didactic and oratoric addresses.

77. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is prose speech classified? A. Narration, description, exposition, and maxims or proverbs.

78. Q. What is admitted as to the relations existing between thought and speech, and also between morals and speech? A. That they are so intimate that any impurity or impropriety in the one quickly taints the other.

79. Q. What are varieties of speech termed that fall partly under poetic and partly under prose representation? A. Prose, poetry, or poetic-prose speech.

80. Q. What are some of the distinctions between poetic-prose and the other forms of speech? A. Poetic-prose is poetic in conception, but the construction of the sentences is not poetic; it often uses terms in other than their ordinary senses; it often utterly disregards resemblances.

81. Q. What are some of the most common figures of poetic-prose speech? A. Metonymy, trope, personification, hyperbole, irony, antithesis, and climax.

II.—QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” FROM PAGE 87 TO PAGE 172.

82. Q. During the truce that followed the death of Cyrus what five generals among the Greeks were enticed into the tent of Tissaphernes, made prisoners, and afterward put to death? A. Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon, Agias and Socrates.

83. Q. What was one of the first steps now taken to secure the safety of the Greeks? A. A general meeting was called of all the surviving officers, and new commanders were chosen to take the places of those lost.

84. Q. In whose place was Xenophon chosen? A. That of his friend Proxenus.

85. Q. After this had been done what action was taken as to the rank and file? A. The men were called together and stoutly harangued by three men in succession—Xenophon being the last.

86. Q. What was one of Xenophon’s heroic propositions that was agreed to? A. To burn everything they could possibly spare on the homeward march.

87. Q. What answer did they return to Mithradates, a neighboring Persian satrap, when asked to know what their present plans might be? A. If unmolested, to go home, doing as little injury as possible to the country through which they passed, but to fight their best if opposition was offered.

88. Q. Of what character were the Greeks convinced the mission of Mithradates was? A. That it was a treacherous one.

89. Q. For this reason what resolution did the Grecian generals take? A. That there should be no communication with the enemy by heralds.

90. Q. What was the general direction taken by the Greeks in the first part of their retreat? A. A northerly direction, toward the Black Sea.

[110]

91. Q. By whom were they followed, and almost daily attacked, during the first portion of their retreat? A. Tissaphernes and a Persian army.

92. Q. What Persian governor did they encounter in Armenia? A. Tiribazus.

93. Q. With what foes in the elements did they next meet? A. Deep snow and a terrible north wind.

94. Q. What do travelers tell us at the present time as to the manner in which the Armenians of that region build their houses? A. They still build them underground.

95. Q. Into what country did the Greeks next advance? A. The country of the Taochians.

96. Q. At what mountain did the Greeks get the first view of the Black Sea? A. At Mount Theches.

97. Q. At what place did they reach the sea two days afterward? A. At Trebizond.

98. Q. On what mission did Chirisophus go forward to Byzantium? A. To endeavor to procure transports for the conveyance of the army.

99. Q. Chirisophus delaying to return, how did they continue their journey? A. Partly by land and partly by water.

100. Q. When they were finally joined by Chirisophus, what did he bring with him? A. Only a single trireme.

101. Q. At what place did the Greeks pass from Asia into Europe? A. At Byzantium.

102. Q. Afterward, whom did the army engage to serve in a war against Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus? A. The Lacedæmonians.

103. Q. To what number was the army now reduced? A. To six thousand.

104. Q. After the incorporation of the remainder of the ten thousand with the Lacedæmonian army where did Xenophon go? A. To Athens.

105. Q. What is the position of the “Iliad” of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.

106. Q. From what is the “Iliad” entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.

107. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the “Iliad”? A. The wrath of Achilles.

108. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris.

109. Q. Who was Paris? A. Son of Priam, the king of Troy.

110. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.

111. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, Briseis, and usurp her to himself.

112. Q. What at length incites Achilles to return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.

113. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.

114. Q. What forms the subject of the “Odyssey”? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.

115. Q. When and how does the “Iliad” itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.

116. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the “Iliad”? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.

117. Q. Of what are some of the most noted passages in the first book of the “Iliad” descriptive? A. The descent of Apollo, the wrangle between Achilles and Agamemnon, the promise of Jupiter to Thetis, and the feast of the gods.

118. Q. What does the second book of the “Iliad” recount? A. How Jupiter sends a deceiving dream to Agamemnon, to induce that chieftain to make a vain assault on the Trojans.

119. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.

120. Q. To us who read in the light of present views what is a feature of the “Iliad” fatal to any genuine interest in the story? A. The introduction of supernatural agencies into the action of the poem.

121. Q. What is one of the prominent scenes introduced in the third book of the “Iliad”? A. A duel between Paris, the thief, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen.

122. Q. What takes place at the crisis of the duel? A. Venus steps in and carries Paris off to his bed-chamber in the palace of Priam.

123. Q. In the fourth book what is described by a simile, one of the most nobly conceived and nobly expressed of all that occur in the “Iliad”? A. The advance of the Achaians to battle.

124. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book of the “Iliad”? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the “Æneid.”

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

THE OUTLOOK FROM THE PLAINFIELD OFFICE.

He must be a very indifferent man, indeed, who does not feel the quick flush of pride at the growth and success of the institutions with which he is connected. Doubly glad will he be if it be one for whose enlargement he has labored.

We surmise that there are very few of our readers—many of whom are more than members of the C. L. S. C., being actual workers for its interests—but that will be eager to know the present outlook for our work from the Plainfield office, anxious to know what are the prospects for 1884-’85.

Nowhere excepting at the central office is it possible to sound our work, to know its breadth, its depth, the permanency of its interest among our members, and its growth among the people. Here we can gauge its dimensions. And, perhaps, the first sign, and certainly it is a most significant one, is that which every casual visitor at our business headquarters must observe at once, as he looks in upon the busy workers of the office; the work is too big for its quarters. The mammoth mails are swelling beyond the prescribed boundaries. The office must grow with the C. L. S. C., and next spring it is decreed that there shall be a Chautauqua floor at Plainfield instead of an office, and that there, side by side, shall be found the business centers of the two great divisions of the “new education”—the C. L. S. C. and the Chautauqua University.

Of equal import is the work that the office secretary and her associates are being called upon to do this fall. Much work is always the sign of growth. It proves a demand for that which you are able to supply. It shows that you are filling a needed place. The C. L. S. C. never made more work than it does now—the most conclusive proof that the cause is prospering. The mails have become enormous. The average number of letters daily received through September and up to this date was over six hundred. These letters are the pulses of public feeling toward this work. They contain queries of all kinds respecting the methods of the Circle; they ask for circulars in great quantities, saying that there are everywhere people waiting to receive them; they proclaim enlarged boundaries and steadily increasing strength.

In many towns where the membership has always been large it has been doubled this fall. On October 4th the class of ’88 numbered over 3,000 members, a much larger number than the class of ’87 had at the same time last year.

[111]

One particularly encouraging feature is the vigor of the work. The C. L. S. C. grows up strong. There are records innumerable in those Cyclopean books at the Secretary’s office of readers who have caught the true idea, that education is life work, and they have joined the C. L. S. C. to stay. There are numbers of established circles, and this fall’s records are increasing the number of post-graduate readers, and the list of circles which have become fixed institutions.

There are, too, some interesting facts to be gleaned from a careful study of these records. We like to know where lie the strongholds of our work, among what kind of people are its rank and file, and here are the answers to our queries. The outlook for the present year shows that, as has been true heretofore, the leaders in the C. L. S. C. are the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, California and New England, that close in their train follow Illinois, Iowa and Indiana; that the class of people taking up the work is now, as always, the busy class, whose lives are full of thought and work and plans; that their ages, on an average, lie between twenty and forty years.

The outlook from the Plainfield office is to-day upon an ever growing band of earnest hearted men and women, gathered from all the states and territories of the Union, and from over the seas; it is upon an enthusiasm never before surpassed by any body of students in any land, and it presages, beyond doubting, the largest, grandest year in the history of the movement.

THE DECLINE OF ORATORY.

The political campaign affords a good view of the decline of oratory and of its chief causes. Oratory is not a less potent force on account of any decrease in the production of the talents which under proper culture form the orator. Humanity is probably richer in such gifts. And yet oratory had notice to prepare for an eclipse when printing was invented, and the shadow upon oratorical influence has grown larger in each half century until the illuminating office has passed almost entirely over to the press. In the old campaigns, the orator furnished a feeble press with facts and arguments; in the present campaign the positions are exactly reversed. The press furnishes the ideas, the arguments, the facts, the illustrations. The stump speaker no longer invents; he crams. He is not an original thinker, developing lines of attack and defense, fortifying weak positions and fashioning a line of battle by a single speech. He is the mouthpiece of party opinion, the obedient servant of party tactics, and the illustrator and peddler of other men’s thoughts. And all this work is cut out for him by men who in the press represent both public opinion and party councils of war. Men are living who can remember when the words of Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Seward, Lincoln, were waited for; and the words came—they were battle cries and marching orders. Now nobody waits for any orator, and the orator gets his instructions from the press. It is not very wise to attribute the change to the decline of statesmanship and leadership. It is not clear that the former has declined; it is certain that the latter has not. But the leader is no longer a man who makes a speech, but he has become a man who writes an article or plans a campaign in which the telegraph, the literary bureau, the campaign document, and the contriving genius in himself do the large work. He puts orators into the field and tells them what to say. They are his instruments, very useful instruments, because the love of public speaking is still strong in men; but still oratory uses the tools of the man with a pen and types.

The causes of the changed relations of writer and speaker are made conspicuous by the campaign. A carefully prepared and printed document can be circulated in millions of copies; a speech can be heard by from one to five thousand people only. These words of ours are addressed to one hundred and fifty thousand readers; he is a genius, before whom this present writer would take off his hat, who can collect five thousand men to listen to him on any subject. The press has the large audience, a vast congregation never dreamed of until the press and swift modes of communication made the immense audience possible. Another cause is that, while we have more talents, there are competing demands for the services of those which prevail in argument and persuasion. Fifty years ago this country had no great editors; it could easily furnish a liberal supply of orators. Now it uses up a large amount of its oratorical ability in the editorial rooms. Other pursuits have silenced tongues that might have moved mankind, by employing the brains in mercantile and industrial work on large lines. Many a great railroad man might have been a great orator. But the diversion of born pleaders and debaters to the newspapers sufficiently accounts for their absence from the stump.

The genius for mastery over political thought and action is not blind; it has gone into the press because it could prevail and direct and conquer in the press. It is a natural consequence of the shifting of the central point of persuasive power that we perceive a third cause of the decline of oratory. The press is at the center, the headquarters so to say, while the orator is out in the field making a raid or conducting a skirmish. Centralization is an inevitable effect of the press, the telegraph and the railway. Some effects are to be regretted as we regret the existence of unpleasant incidents of wholesome movements in progress. But our regret can hardly extend to the power of directing a party campaign from a center of the field. It is, in our day, the only way of making it a distinct engagement. It would be a series of isolated skirmishes if we did not have a headquarters and a central committee. This central power speaks in telegraphic clicks and printed words. The orator may be a dashing lieutenant, he can not be a general.

Oratory has taken a subordinate position. The fact has its bearings on deliberative assembly government. Congress can not have great orators in an age when the public will is expressed by editors, and the shape of bills fixed by the newspapers. The business of the legislators is restricted on all sides by the press. The discussions of a legislature are feebleness itself in the presence of the ringing and decisive editorials of influential newspapers. The press hems in the assemblymen within narrow limits of choice; and a speech can not be great when it can not command the field, but only a corner of it. All this does not mean that oratory is dying or to die; it has simply taken a lower place as an agent in argument and persuasion. Nor do we mean that great orators are no longer possible. A great orator, by natural endowment, may make and hold a commanding place—by the aid of the press. But the greatness which will do this must be of a prodigious power and altogether exceptional magnitude. The best men will, as a rule, seek the easier paths to influence, and these lie through types and ink. To speak well will always be an admirable and effective art; but the orator must serve and follow the press. He is a necessary part of the machinery of persuasion, but he is no longer the driving wheel.

THE NEW ORLEANS WORLD’S FAIR.

World’s fairs are special products of modern civilization, and they present in a picturesque and dramatic way the essentials of modern progress, liberty, intercourse between nations, world-wide exchanges. The world’s fairs are for all the world, and representatives of all nations, and the products of all nations are gathered into them. These fairs are milestones of progress; for all new arts and appliances of all lands are exhibited; and they are social gatherings for civilized humanity. If they had no other value than to reflect the unity of mankind under modern liberty and Christianity, they would be worth more than they cost. The spectacle of civilized mankind[112] and the products of their brain and hand collected together in one place is in itself a lesson and an inspiration. The world moves—toward concord, fraternity, unity.

The next world’s fair will have several new values. It is to be held a long distance nearer to the equator than any of its predecessors. It is to be at the mouth of one of the world’s great streams, on the borders of the American Mediterranean, in the midst of the tropical luxuriance of the South. A world’s fair at New Orleans has all the qualities of a luxuriant and inspiring prospective for the imagination. In a dozen ways it invites enthusiasm. It is, for example, one of our reasons for spending so freely our blood and treasure to keep the mouth of the Mississippi within the United States of America; one of the rewards of the South for its own failure to draw a boundary line across that mighty stream. The nation which held the city of New Orleans with a grip of iron, now spends a million and a half to celebrate the concord of humanity in that city. The nation will throng southward this winter, not to secure its territorial integrity, but to celebrate its unity, and the larger unity of mankind. Peace will have larger armies than war had. We shall go in masses, because we want to see our fair South, because it will cost each of us but little, to the land we loved enough to die for, because a tropical world’s fair has for us of the North a fascination which no other fair ever had or ever will have. They are wise down there, and tell us that the tropical display will be the leading feature of the show. Of course it will, and it is that which will attract us and pull us to the exhibition. We have all dreamed of the wealth and magnificence of tropical verdure, and it is to be, so to say, “on tap” in New Orleans next winter when our verdure is asleep under the snow, or nestled at the roots of the trees in saps which are mere possibilities of life next spring. “Tropical display!” What other exhibition could have such a charm?

Rumor says that the railways will astonish us by a schedule of fares which will almost equalize riding and going on foot. They are wise. They could afford to carry us for nothing. Some time, and not a distant time, is to witness a great migration southward. The railroads can richly afford to take us all down there to see the great, rich, open field which has thus far invited us in vain, while we have been following the westering sun to the Pacific coast. Cheap lands, a climate and soil favoring abundant production, undeveloped industrial opportunities, and near markets, attract us, or would attract us, if we realized them. A world’s fair at New Orleans affords the needed incentive to a great movement of many classes of our people to the South. Few of us know the country or its people. The war and the turbulence of the reconstruction era, and political disorders, on which we have no disposition to dwell, have made us strangers and unsympathetic with each other as North and South. The fair will disperse false notions and correct wrong impressions in both sections. It will be a temple of concord for the nation. We shall begin after this celebration of industry to fill up the vacant lands and opportunities of the Gulf region.

The details of the preparations are interesting. The grounds are to be two hundred and twenty-seven acres of land on the banks of the Mississippi. An electric railway is to encircle them, and the spot is accessible both by land and water. The buildings are five in number, and the main edifice is 1,378 feet long and 905 feet wide without courts, and a glass roof, and so arranged within as to afford an unobstructed view of the whole of a magnificent hive of industry. Horticultural Hall is the largest conservatory in the world, 600 feet long and 194 feet wide; and 20,000 plates of fruit, double the number ever before displayed at once, will be shown on the tables. It stands among live oak trees; it will be filled with tropical productions. An infinite variety of southern trees and flowers will be exhibited outside of this hall. Eminent horticulturists are now engaged in arranging for our eyes a bewildering spectacle of the verdure of the lands lying under the rich blessing of the sun. Can New Orleans give shelter and food to all who will visit the exhibition? The people think they can. It is a city of 250,000 people, and from the inception of the enterprise they have had committees at work upon this problem. They are making a thorough canvass of the city for homes for guests; charges will be fixed in advance and strictly supervised throughout the exhibition. Let us all go to the New Orleans World’s Fair.

JUDICIOUS READING OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS.

There is room for good judgment in everything, and daily reading is no exception to the rule. It has come to pass that periodical publications take up a large part of the time and attention of readers, and the tendency in the case is for this kind of printed page to draw too heavily upon us. Most persons in towns read too much newspaper and too little book. The newspapers are abundant, are good as newspapers, and they are full of matter. They claim first attention because they contain the news; they keep attention because the news is abundantly padded, and because the newspaper furnishes other attractive reading. Two or three bad effects of confining ourselves to such reading must be experienced. One is that a feverish interest in events of no great importance is created, and our thoughts revolve about such events. Another bad effect is that the knowledge of the newspaper devourer is imperfect, scrappy, and mixed with errors of fact and principle. The newspaper is produced in haste. Editors have no time to verify all facts and sift out unsound opinions. It is a kind of intellectual bar-room, where all sorts jostle each other and live in good fellowship. The very copiousness and breadth of the journal create a need of better and more accurate reading. Its fragments need to be pieced together by wider knowledge than it gives. It is not enough to say that the present reading habits of our people give to the newspaper the first position as a teacher of the people; one should go on to reflect that this education is not by any means the best. It is too fragmentary and disconnected. The tendency which we regret is not the fault of the press, but it none the less requires the corrective of some kind of restraint upon its habit of monopolizing so large a portion of our time. One may easily learn to read the paper swiftly, get its proper value in a few moments and pass on. Information in more connected and complete forms invites our attention to books; and an intelligent person should save some time for these more valuable products of the press. There is a place, in short, for good judgment in limiting the intellectual tax which the newspaper levies upon us.

Good sense and sound discretion have a place also in our selection of newspapers. They differ, not exactly as one star differeth from another star in glory, but rather as a pure article of merchandise differs from an adulterated article. A clean press, in the general sense of the term, has almost become the rule; but there are still many unclean papers. The obviously unclean are easily shunned. Our danger comes from periodicals conducted for particular ends, to gain which the proprietors will on occasion sacrifice purity. A body of ministers, the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has recently condemned in the strongest terms a newspaper long honored for its purity, which has recently depreciated the importance of personal chastity in public men. The incident and its cause are a warning that newspapers change their tone as they change editors, and that a strong desire to promote some object may blind an editor and stain the fairest page. There is but one remedy for this form of the evil, and that is to cast out the newspaper which is guilty of the offense. There is need of caution at this point, because a favorite newspaper, like the king in absolutism, can do no wrong. We grow accustomed to believing it right, to accepting its teachings, to dropping all critical safeguards and taking[113] for good and sound opinions whatever it may deliver to us. This is not a safe habit. Editors like William Cullen Bryant die and their successors may be of another spirit. Few newspapers are the same in moral complexion for twenty years; death and business changes inevitably alter them. Even our favorite newspaper needs watching; and we ought never to condone so gross an outrage on the sanctities of life as the one to which we have reluctantly referred.

Another place for good judgment is in selecting the kind of periodical literature we read. There is a great variety. Some are too light; some are too heavy. Some are frivolous in spirit and purpose; others are so solid that they weigh down the eyelids of the reader. It is not necessary that good reading should be dull, lifeless and soporific. On the other hand, the periodicals which live upon love of fiction and curiosity are too light for the use of people who are living on purpose and for some proper ends. The popular magazine is too light. It is, at best, like dress worn to be looked at rather than for comfort and warmth. The ornamental has become too prominent and too monopolizing. The readers of the popular periodical add little to their wisdom and nothing to their aspirations. Really good results from periodical reading must be had in one of two ways or not at all. Wisdom or inspiration—or both—should come to us from such reading. We are stating the creed and the platform of The Chautauquan. Its special aims are these two: We wish to increase the knowledge of our readers; we wish also to inspire them with two forms of zeal, one which pursues wisdom, and another which aims at sound and pure character. We believe that we help our readers by giving them information and an appetite for it, and that those who read The Chautauquan carefully are stimulated by it to intellectual and moral effort. It has seemed to us that the inspiring quality has disappeared from the average monthly. Indeed, if we look for it in these days we must search in periodicals which have a definite and pronounced moral purpose. There is a pestilent theory that good literature must have only an artistic purpose, that to be in bloody earnest is not good form in letters. The Chautauquan is in earnest; it is the organ of one of the most vigorous and aggressive organizations for popular improvement, and its tone and matter are fixed for it by the high purpose of that organized crusade against ignorance and its consequences. We are not content to please or to satisfy passing curiosity. The whim or incident of the hour gets little of our attention. We are concerned with permanent and useful things. We desire to enlarge the horizon of our readers and fix their interest upon the best and tested objects of living. We are confident that any habitual reader of ours will be made wiser and better. There is not much glitter about such results, and yet they will shine when aimless literature has long ceased to glitter.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

What is in a name? Isaac Newton recently committed suicide in New York; Wilbur Fisk is traveling a circuit in Iowa; George Washington was lately sent to prison in Georgia, and Andrew Jackson has escaped from jail in Louisiana. Any attentive newspaper reader can continue the list of great names filling modest roles in contemporary history. Perhaps it is a pity we have not names enough to go around.

In reply to an inquirer: You will learn to write by writing, and by always writing as well as you can.

And art is a fruit of laborious practice. Spend as much time writing as you would in learning to play a piano; then you will begin to begin learning the art.

The public lands of the West are being rapidly transferred to private hands. During the year ended June 30th, last, nearly twenty-seven millions of acres were disposed of. Of this total, little more than seven millions were sold. More than fourteen millions were given away as homesteads and timber tracts; and the rest were given away, some 3,300,000 acres going to railroad companies. The total is an increase of more than eight millions over the previous year. And yet an abundance of land remains in the hands of the government. It will be a good while before we shall be crowded in this country.

At this writing it is difficult to predict the end of the troubles in China. It is most probable that France will secure herself in Tonquin. But a suspicion has existed for months that Bismarck had a hand in this affair, and that he has secretly encouraged France, hoping she would come to grief. It is now rumored that he has intimated to the French that they have gone far enough. Most political affairs in Europe are managed by the Chancellor of the German empire, and he is probably the only who can give a good guess at the result of the French imbroglio in China.

Impure water supply is one of the greatest perils of our great cities. Philadelphia and Chicago have old troubles. Washington is more recently in trouble. There is only one thorough remedy, and that is a system of sewage which transports offal outside of the city and restores to the soil as much as possible of the elements of our food. That gives a chance for clean water, and it gives a chance for food for the next generation. Chautauqua employs this system, and has pure wells on the hillside and a pure lake at its feet.

It seems to us that more property has been burned up this summer than is usual in the warm portion of the year. Insurance agents say that accidental fires are much more common in years of financial depression than in those of prosperity; and they think out a moral connection between the two sets of phenomena. Let us hope that the improvement in the times will go on rapidly, else the winter may be one of unexampled severity—for insurance companies.

A pleasant piece of statistic tells us that our people produce forty-eight bushels of grain per capita, and consume forty-one bushels per capita; and both these figures are the highest in the world. We raise more grain and eat more food than any other people. That test of prosperity is decisive. We have our troubles, but let us “think on our mercies.”

Jerry McAuley, the evangelist of the slums, died last month. There is refreshment in the man’s history. Born and trained among the thieves of the worst quarter of New York, he got into prison under a sentence for fifteen years, became a Christian in prison, and spent the rest of his life reclaiming the fallen men and women of his native city. Men do reform under Christian forces, and a reformed man may do a glorious work.

Stolen marriages are not usually happy ones. In those cases, especially where a well bred, liberally educated, and luxuriously inclined girl elopes with a coachman or a deck hand, the hasty espousals commonly end in misery for the wife. Several such elopements have recently occurred; and they seem to be “catching.” A Canadian girl of wealthy parentage read the story of the Morosini elopement, and thereupon got up an elopement of her own. The “catching” symptom is probably due to the glories of the reporter’s rhetoric.

Dr. Woodrow is the last clergyman who has had fame[114] thrust upon him, for a peculiarly unsuccessful attempt to become an evolutionist. He first succeeded in getting Adam evolved from an ape or something, and left Eve to be created. More lately, he has, if we understand the story, evolutionized the first human pair from a pair of apes by an accidental variation. But there are no accidents in the genuine evolution; and Dr. Woodrow is being made fun of from both sides.

The extraordinary liberality of the English Wesleyans has attracted deserved attention and respect. They have collected very large sums of money for new churches in London and for missionary fields—millions of dollars in a few years. It is now noted that the Scotch churches have been visited with refreshing showers of the grace of giving. In one year the three branches of Presbyterians have raised more than seven millions of dollars for their own work. That sort of grace is proof of other and more spiritual sorts.

The Young Men’s Christian Associations have grown marvelously. Their New Year Book shows that on this continent this child of yesterday has created $3,400,000 in Association buildings, and put a great army of Christian workers into the field. Its rapid growth and vigorous work are one of the marvels of the time.

There is a notable lull in the storm against speculative and religious philosophy. The reason is plain. The hope that we should soon be able to see through creation and its cause with a microscope has begun to expire, if it be not already dead. This relegates science to its proper domain, and recalls reason to her old office. Some abatement of scientific enthusiasm as a speculative force is also to be noted. The British and American Associations at Montreal and Philadelphia did not show a puff of this sort of wind. Both attended strictly to scientific business.

Attention has been called to the fact that people may live too economically, by the havoc made by cholera among the under-fed Italian peasants. Statesmen in Italy complain that the rural peasants will save at the expense of vitality; in short, starve themselves. In this country people do not fast or eat insufficiently if they can get “square meals;” but they often starve their souls.

“Gath” is out with a sound letter against beer guzzling. “Boys,” he says, “were never seen in drinking places so long as whiskey was the standard.” That is so. Everybody knows that beer drinking by boys has become common. The sentimental argument that beer would cure drunkenness has come to this issue.

It is once more remarked that Jews are seldom victims of cholera. In France, it is said, only seven Jews were this year attacked by the disease. But perhaps this was a fair proportion of Jews when we count them and the non-Jews and make allowance for degrees of exposure to attack. It is not time yet to condemn the hog to extermination on this branch of the evidence.

There has been less than the usual supply of hazing barbarities in the colleges this fall. Some tragical results in former years have given the barbaric custom of outraging freshmen serious blows. Here and there a case of hazing has attracted attention this year. The evil has lost the prestige of honored custom, and is now more honored in the breach than in the observance. It will die without being regretted. Only brutal creatures, unfit for decent society, engage in this form of midnight violence.

Jean Robie, the Belgian flower painter, has a surprisingly versatile genius. He is exceedingly able as a colorist, and his flower-pieces have an enduring charm, but are so subtilely rendered that their reproduction is extremely difficult. A very successful effort has recently been made, by L. Prang & Co., to reproduce one of his latest works by color printing on satin. As a publication it is unique, and suitable either for an easel picture, panel decoration, or for framing.

Good Chautauquans everywhere have a warm attachment to the “Chautauqua Bells,” and will, we feel sure, unite with us in a vote of sincere thanks to the McNeely Bell Co., of Troy, N. Y., through whose courtesy, each summer, we hear the beautiful chime on the point.

David Dudley Field renews the demand for a change of the name of New York to Manhattan. It would be convenient, no doubt; but the change is not practicable. Besides, New York is already bigger than Manhattan Island, and Mr. Field wants to take in Brooklyn. The effect of the enlargement of the city is to make old Manhattan a section only of our American metropolis, which, if it gets what belongs to it, Brooklyn and Jersey City, will probably be the largest city on the globe in 1984.

Let no one twit the West any more on the subject of youth and inexperience. Michigan, Ohio and Indiana have participated in an earthquake—and earthquakes have chiefly favored venerable countries. This earth-shiver, following closely upon one on the Atlantic coast, confirms a scientific prophecy that seismic disorders would have a revival over a wide field in these years. Probably destructive earthquakes are not to be expected to occur in new regions.

A bad custom of gambling on the high seas, on the fashionable steamers, has at last been called up for rebuke. The evil has become intolerable to well-instructed people. The present writer has heard more than one man boast that he “made his passage money” by betting on cards during the trip. Fast steamers are rapidly becoming gambling hells.

A fashionable woman went to Saratoga this summer with twenty-one trunks containing ninety-three complete toilets. She wore from two to five toilets a day, and left Saratoga the day on which she had exhibited number ninety-three. This species of fool dies hard, but she is dying, and the world will by and by see the last of her. Respect for her decreases steadily; in a few years she will be less interesting than the shop window in which dresses are displayed on automata.

The United States Court in San Francisco has ruled that a Chinese man and a Chinese woman, though ostensibly married, are not one flesh. Judge Field said the country would be flooded with Chinese if women could come in on the certificates of their husbands. The decision relates to the right of Chinamen to return after visiting their fatherland. The golden gate is being gradually shut against these people; but they are now coming in across the imaginary boundary line between us and Canada. They can not be kept out. The effort to prevent their coming is “love’s (?) labor lost.”

We do not yet realize the greatness of this country. We knew long ago that there is an iron mountain in Missouri. Now we are told that there are four alum mountains in lower California, containing one hundred millions of tons of alum. Please do not invest in alum at present prices. “It may go lower.”

It is reported that a movement for reform in the city government of Chicago is ready to march. We suppose that the object is to influence the elections next spring. Some excellent results have followed these local organizations for good government. Their success depends upon the energy and enthusiasm with which they confine their work to home business. When they mix national politics with local reform they go to wreck. The excellent Brooklyn movement seems to have been close to the rocks this summer, through dabbling in politics. There ought to be no politics in administering the affairs of a city, no more than in a bank or lumber yard.

[115]

C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR NOVEMBER.

PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.

P. 95.—“Gorˈgi-as.” (B.C. 487-380.) A Greek rhetorician and sophist. He captivated the Athenian populace by the splendor of his eloquence, and had among his pupils Alcibiades and Æschines.

P. 97.—“Socrates.” The advice given by Socrates, who was very fearful “lest it might be a matter of censure on the part of the state” should Xenophon take part in this expedition, was that he should go to Delphi and consult the oracle of the great god Apollo concerning the undertaking.

P. 98.—“Pæˈan.” One of the names of Apollo; afterward transferred from him to a triumphal song dedicated to him.

P. 100.—“Larissa.” Now Nimroud, and probably (with its excavated palaces) the southern portion of the vast circuit of Nineveh, “Resen” mentioned in Gen. 10-12.

P. 105.—“Brazen Utensils.” They very artfully forebore to molest these, trying in every way possible to lead the Carduchians to look upon them as friendly, so that they, the Greeks, might have a safe passage through the country.

P. 108.—“Centrites.” Now called Bohtan Chai; eastern branch of the Tigris.

Xenophon’s explanation: “For they,” his followers, “all knew that any one might go to him at breakfast, or at dinner, or, if it should be necessary, might rouse him up from sleep to say whatever one might have to say concerning the war.”

P. 112.—“Părˈa-săng.” A Persian measure of length; about four English miles.

P. 115.—The Armenians lived in underground houses then, as they do now, on account of the excessive cold of the winters. The great elevation of the uplands explains the extreme severity of the cold.

P. 119.—“Golden Fleece.” The Argonauts were the earliest heroes of Greek antiquity; they were the first to navigate unknown and dangerous seas. The story is as follows: Jason was ordered by his uncle Pelias, of Thessaly, to bring him the golden fleece of a ram which was nailed to an oak in the grove of Mars, in Colchis, and which was watched by a sleepless dragon. After a voyage full of adventures he and his followers reached the goal of their expedition. Æëtes, king of the country, promised the fleece to Jason on condition that he would perform some difficult and dangerous tasks. Medea, the king’s daughter, fell in love with Jason, and taught him how to overcome the dangers and seize the fleece. Then she fled with him back to Iolcus.

P. 120.—“Pancratium,” pan-crāˈshĭ-um. An athletic contest which combined boxing and wrestling.

P. 121.—“Ulysses.” A Greek hero of the Trojan war. For account of his arrival, “outstretched and asleep,” see “Preparatory Greek Course in English,” page 222, the fifth stanza from the end.

“Cerasus.” Whence our word cherry, which fruit was brought from this region into Italy by Lucullus in 73 B. C.

“Mosynœci.” A people celebrated for their warlike spirit and savage customs. Their houses were built of wood and were of conical form. Their government was very curious; a king chosen by them was strictly guarded in a house higher than the rest, and was maintained at public cost; but as soon as he displeased the people they starved him to death.

P. 128.—“Atrides,” a-triˈdes. The name signifies son or descendant of Atreus, and was bestowed especially upon Agamemnon and Menelaus. Agamemnon is referred to here.

“Keats.” (1795-1821.) An English poet. His chief works were “Endymion,” “Eve of St. Agnes,” and “Hyperion.” He died in Rome.

P. 129.—“Thetis.” The wife of Pelé-us, and mother of Achilles. She dwelt in the depths of the sea, and had the power of assuming any form she pleased. All the gods were invited to be present on the occasion of her marriage to Peleus, except Discord, who avenged herself by throwing into the assembly the apple which was the source of so much misery. Thetis foretold Achilles that his fate was either to gain glory and die early, or to live a long and inglorious life. The hero chose the former, and took part in the Trojan War, from which he knew he was not to return.

“Derby.” (1799-1869.) A distinguished English statesman; for several years a member of Parliament, and among the first and most eloquent orators of the time; was elected Chancellor of Oxford on the death of the Duke of Wellington, and was made Premier after Lord Palmerston. “His version of the ‘Iliad,’” says the Edinburgh Review, “is far more allied to the original, and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our language.”

P. 132.—“Newman.” An English author, born 1805. He was a great traveler, and wrote many works on historical, political, and theological subjects. He was a brother of John Henry Newman, who was converted to Roman Catholic doctrines.

“Worsley.” See “Preparatory Greek Course in English,” page 203.

“Ipsissimus.” His very own self. A strengthened form of the Latin pronoun ipse, meaning himself.

P. 134.—“Quære.” From the Latin word quæ-ro, meaning to question; whence our word query.

P. 136.—“Macedonia’s Madman.” A title given to Alexander the Great, so called because of his fiery, impetuous character.

P. 142.—“Empyrean,” ĕm-py-rēˈan. The highest heaven.

P. 144.—“Ajax.” One of the great chiefs of the Trojan War, second only to Achilles in martial powers. There was another of the same name, and the two were distinguished by adding the words greater or lesser after their names.

“Pelides.” Son of Peleus; Achilles.

“Phthiˈa.” The city in which Achilles resided, situated in the southeastern part of Thessaly. Thessaly now forms part of the Turkish province of Salonika.

P. 147.—“By this sacred scepter.” As the oath was a renunciation of service to Agamemnon, the general-in-chief, Achilles very naturally swears by his scepter, which was the emblem of regal power.

P. 148.—“Centaurs.” A race said to have lived on Mt. Pelion, in Thessaly. They were represented as half horses and half men, perhaps from the fact that hunting on horseback was a national custom. From this very easily the fable might have arisen, just as the Americans, when they first saw a Spaniard on horseback, thought horse and man to be one being.

P. 150.—“Ambrosial.” Divine, immortal.

“Here,” heˈre or heˈra. Juno.

P. 160.—“Achaians.” One of the chief Greek races. As they were the ruling nation in the heroic times, Homer frequently calls the collective Greeks by their name.

“Danaäns.” Another name applied to the Greeks. It was derived from Danaus, one of the earliest settlers in Greece.

P. 161.—“Neologism,” ne-ŏlˈo-gism. The introduction of new words.

P. 164.—“Tydides,” ty-dīˈdes. Son of Tydeus, Diomed.

P. 165.—“Son of Capaneus.” Sthenelus, commander of the Greeks under Diomed, and one of those who afterward were concealed in the wooden horse.

“Well-greaved.” Greaves were armor for the legs, a sort of heavy boots.

P. 166.—“Iris.” The messenger of the gods. She traveled on the rainbow.

P. 167.—“Ichor,” īˈkor. An ethereal fluid that supplied the place of the blood in the veins of the gods.

“Pergamus.” The citadel of Troy.

P. 170.—“Simoïs and Scamander,” simˈo-is, sca-manˈder. Rivers of Troy. “Simoïs,” also name of the river god. The Scamander was sometimes called Xanthus.

THE ART OF SPEECH.

P. 11.—“Leibnitz,” fon līpˈnĭts. (1646-1716.) Preëminent as a philosopher and mathematician. In his papers on “Language” he advanced theories which place him among linguists in the same position[116] which Hallam considers him to hold among geologists, when he says: “Of all the early geologists, or indeed of all down to a time not very remote, Leibnitz came nearest to the theories which are most received in the English school at this day.”

“Halhed.” It may be of interest to note the various works which these scholars have contributed to the science of philology; Hălˈhed (1751-1830), an English author, prepared a “Grammar of the Bengal Language;” “Jones” (1764-1794), of whom it has been said that in the branch of literature to which he devoted his attention he undoubtedly surpassed all other Europeans, translated from the Persian, Turkish, and Sanskrit, and organized the “Asiatic Society” for investigating the language and customs of Asia; “Colebrooke,” kōlˈbrŏok (1765-1837), wrote a “Grammar” and “Dictionary of the Sanskrit Language;” “M. de Chézy,” deh shāˈzeˌ (1773-1832), was a learned and popular scholar, for whom a chair of Sanskrit was founded in Paris in 1815. W. Humboldt and A. Schlegel were among his pupils. He translated much and wrote a Sanskrit grammar; “Schlegel,” schlāˈgel (1767-1845) is said to be the first German who mastered Sanskrit, on which he wrote much; “Bopp” (1791-1867) founded the science of comparative philology. His greatest work was a “Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Sclavonian, Gothic and German languages.” This work was translated into English by Prof. Wilson (1786-1860), who, while a surgeon in Bengal, had learned Sanskrit. Returning to England, he was made professor of Sanskrit at Oxford; “Grimm” (1785-1863), the great German philologist furthered the study by the discovery of the law by which words change their forms; “Weber” (1825-⸺), a pupil of Bopp’s, contributed a large number of translations and papers on oriental lore; “Kuhn,” kōōn (1812-⸺), also Bopp’s pupil, is called the founder of comparative Indo-Germanic mythology; for many years he has been connected as editor, with two German periodicals devoted to comparative philology; “Steinthal,” stīnˈtäl (1823-⸺), a Jew, is the author of several volumes on the classification of languages, primitive speech, the development of speech, and similar subjects; “Eichhoff,” āˈkofˌ (1799-⸺), a Frenchman, wrote a “Comparison of the Languages of Europe with those of India;” “Renan,” reh-nonˈ (1823-⸺), the French critic and author, has written a “History of the Semetic Languages,” and a treatise on the “Origin of Languages;” “Chavée,” shäˌvāˈ (1815-1877), a Belgian, has attempted to disprove the unity of the human race, in an “Essay on the Knowledge of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French and Russian Words;” “Müller,” müˈler (1823-⸺), the present German-English authority on language, has written several volumes, and Prof. “Whitney” (1827-⸺), at present professor of Sanskrit, in Yale College, is the author of works on “Language and the Study of Language,” the “Life and Growth of Language,” etc.

P. 17.—“Farrar.” Canon of Westminster, chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and the author of several valuable works.

“Sporadic,” spo-rădˈic. Occurring singly or apart from other things of the same kind.

“Agglutinative,” ag-glūˈti-na-tive. Formed by agglutinations, as the union of several words into one compound vocable is called.

“Alloplylian,” ăl-lo-plylˈi-an.

P. 20.—“Estrays,” strays. Adopted from a law term referring to a lost animal.

P. 21.—“Humboldt.” (1767-1835.) A brother of the famous scholar and traveler of this name. He wrote much on language and comparative philology, his most ambitious work being a “Memoir on Comparative Linguistics.”

P. 26.—“Du Ponceau,” du-ponˈsō. (1760-1844.) His contributions to philology consisted of several treatises on language and a “Memoir oh the Indian Languages of North America.”

“Charlevoix,” sharˈlĕh-vwäˌ. (1682-1761.) A Jesuit missionary to America.

P. 29.—“Onomatopoetic,” ŏnˈo-mătˌo-po-ëtˌic. Words found to resemble the thing signified. The term is derived from two Greek words signifying to make a name.

P. 31.—“Heyse,” hēˈzeh. (1797-1855.) An able German scholar who wrote a valuable work on philology.

P. 33.—“Bleek,” (1827-1875.) He spent many years in Africa, where he collected materials for a “Vocabulary of the Mozambique Language,” and a “Grammar of South Africa.” He assisted in writing a “Handbook of African, Australian, and Polynesian Philology.”

“Schleicher,” shlīˈker. (1821-1869.) A German linguist, said to rank next to Bopp in comparative philology.

“Vinet,” ve-naˈ. (1797-1847.) A Swiss theologian and author, particularly well versed in the French language and literature.

P. 42.—“Ultimo,” etc. These expressions from the Latin have all English equivalents. Ultimo, on the last; instanter, at once; proximo, on the next; cultus, culture; onus, burden; magnum opus, a great work; status, state, standing; curriculum, course, particularly a course of study; ultimatum, the end, a final condition; maximum, the greatest; minimum, the least.

“Distingué,” etc. For these French terms we have equally expressive English words. Distingué, distinguished; blasé, surfeited, incapable of pleasure; à merveille, marvelously; beau monde, the fashionable world; coup d’œil, a quick glance; demi monde, loose livers; haut ton, aristocracy, the high toned; coiffée à ravir, charmingly dressed; debutante, a lady making her first appearance.

P. 47.—“Tooke.” (1736-1812.) A philologist and politician whose fame rests on one valuable work on language.

P. 49.—“De Quincy,” de kwĭnˈsĭ. (1785-1859.) His contributions to the art of speech consist of several valuable essays and literary criticisms.

P. 62.—“Kames,” kāmz. (1696-1782.) The most famous of all the various works of this eminent Scotch jurist was a treatise on the “Elements of Criticism.”

P. 63.—“Alford.” (1810-1871.). We are indebted to this English clergyman for a “Plea for the Queen’s English,” a very valuable book.

P. 75.—“Quintilian,” kwĭn-tĭlˈi-an. A Roman critic and rhetorician of the first century, the author of the “most complete and methodical treatise on rhetoric that has come down to us from antiquity.”

P. 81.—“Blair.” (1718-1800.) A Scottish clergyman whose “Lectures on Rhetoric” were famous in his own day, and until recently were used in a text-book in the United States.

P. 148.—“Aphæresis,” a-phérˈe-sis; “Syncope,” synˈcō-pe; “Apocope,” a-pŏcˈo-pe; “Prosthesis,” prŏsˈthe-sĭs; “Paragoge,” părˌa-gōˈge; “Synæresis,” syn-ĕrˈe-sis; “Diæresis,” dĭ-erˈe-sis; “Tmesis,” mēˈsis.

P. 149.—“Pleonasm,” plēˈo-nasm. “Enallage,” e-nălˈla-je; “Hyperbaton,” hy-pĕrˈba-tŏn.

P. 153.—“Theremin,” teˈreh-meenˌ. (1783-1846.) A German theologian and author.

P. 156.—“Paiezade,” pā-ē-dzäˈdĕ.

“Ruggiero,” rood-jāˈro. A young Saracen knight in Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso.” He possessed a winged horse or hĭpˈpo-griff.

“Astolpho,” as-tŏlˈpho. Another character of the same work, a cousin of Orlando’s. He possessed a magic lance and a horn which routed armies with a blast.

“Frerabras,” frĕ-räˈbräs.

P. 163.—“Alliteration,” al-lĭt-er-āˈtion; “Iambic,” so called from the Greek iambus, the name of a foot consisting of a short and long syllable.

“Trochaic,” tro-chaˈic. From trochee (troˈkee), the name of the foot which forms the verse. The word trochee is derived from the Greek word for running.

P. 164.—“Anapæstic,” anˌa-pestˈic. Composed of anapests. Anapest means struck back, being so named because the foot is a reversed dactyl.

“Dactylic,” dac-tylˈic. Of dactyls. A word derived from the Greek for finger, and applied to this peculiar foot because of the similarity of the arrangement to that of the joints of the finger.

P. 187.—“Synecdoche,” syn-ĕcˈdo-che; “Anthropopathy,” ănˌthro-pŏpˈa-thy.

P. 188.—“Trope,” trōpe; “Metonymy,” me-tŏnˈy-my.

P. 192.—“Apostrophe,” a-posˈtro-phe; “Hyperbole,” hy-pĕrˈbo-le.

P. 194.—“Oxymoron,” ŏx-y-mōˈron.

P. 198.—“Ploce,” plōˈce; “Anaphora,” a-năphˈo-ra; “Epistrophe,” e-pĭsˈtro-phe; “Antistrophe,” an-tĭsˈtro-phe; “Anadiplosis,” an-a-di-plōˈsîs.

P. 203.—“Incongruentia,” in-conˈgrū-enˌshe-a.

P. 205.—“Innuendo,” ĭn-nu-ĕnˈdo.

[117]

NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”

THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

P. 63, c. 1.—“Basques,” bask. The inhabitants of three Spanish provinces on the slopes of the Pyrenees. The government, customs and language of these people are peculiar and interesting. In government they are nearly republican. “Each province is governed by a parliament composed of representatives selected partly by election, partly by lot, among the householders of each county parish or town. A deputation, named by the parliament, insures the strict observance of the special laws and customs of the province, and negotiates with the representative of the Spanish crown. Delegates from the three parliaments meet annually to consider the common interests of the provinces; they employ a seal representing three interlaced hands, with the motto, ‘The three are one,’ but no written federal pact exists.” In their habits the people are very simple; agriculture is the principal occupation. They live on very equal terms, the class of nobles being small. The language was not written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is said to present some grammatical resemblance to the North American and certain East African languages.

P. 64, c. 1.—“Frisian,” frishˈe-ans. A Germanic people inhabiting at present the eastern coast of Holland, the fens of Saterland, the western shore of Schleswig, and a few adjacent islands. There exists now but a remnant of the ancient Frisians.

P. 66, c. 1.—“Cimmerian,” cim-mēˈri-an. An adjective derived from the Cimmerii, a mythical people represented by Homer as inhabiting a remote region of mist and darkness. Later writers locate this country near Lake Avernus, a lake of Italy about eight miles from Naples, or in the Crimea, or in Spain. “Their country was fabled to be so gloomy that the expression ‘Cimmerian darkness’ became proverbial; and Homer, according to Plutarch, drew his images of hell and Pluto from the dismal region they inhabited.”

“Comanches,” co-manˈches; “Piutes,” pi-utesˈ. Tribes of American Indians belonging to the Shoshone family. Only remnants of them now remain. The Piutes are one of the numerous divisions of the Utahs or Utes.

P. 67, c. 1.—“Primum Mobile.” The prime mover; first power; the beginning.

“Eddic.” Found in the Edda, the sacred books of the old Scandinavian tribes. These books contain almost all that we know of the mythology of the Northmen.

The original signification of “Edda” is “great-grandmother.” It is properly applied to but one collection, the other being a misnomer. The true Edda, or Younger Edda, is a prose collection, giving a history of the world and the gods. The Elder Edda is a collection of poems, dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. Many of them are only fragments. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic form of Icelandic verse.

HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

P. 68, c. 2.—“Antiparos,” an-tipˈa-ros. A small island of the Grecian Archipelago. The grotto is its chief feature of interest. “It consists of an immense marble arch, the roof, sides and center of which are covered with stalactites and dazzling crystallizations, assuming the shapes of columns, screens, flowers, trees, etc. The stalactites hanging from the roof unite in several places with stalagmites rising from the floor, so that the arch is apparently supported by a continuous series of pillars. The grotto is entered by a natural arch of rugged rock, overhung with trailing plants.”

“Caverns.” To the caverns mentioned here must be added the “Fish River Caves” near Sydney, Australia. A writer in a late issue of the Scientific American thus describes them: “These caves are situated about eighty miles west of Sydney, Australia, and are some 3,000 feet above sea level, in an interesting mountainous locality. They were first discovered by a party of settlers in 1866, while in pursuit of bush-rangers. They are singularly attractive. The intricate galleries, halls, and passages in their subterranean scenes are so magnificent that a person having once seen them is desirous of viewing them again and again, new features being presented to his view at each visit and at every turn. The strange forms that have been assumed by the drippings from the limestone are almost infinite, and are in beauty unsurpassable in their own character elsewhere. When lighted up by the incandescent magnesium wire or other strong light, these sublime chambers, so strangely formed by nature’s hands, present a gorgeous spectacle, filled as they are with drooping sprays, coral growths, delicate pendants, gigantic columns, handsome shawls, huge curtains, and shadowy arches of the most fantastic kind.”

“Church,” F. E. (1826-⸺.) An eminent American landscape painter. His earliest pictures of note were scenes from the Catskills. Among his later productions are “Under Niagara,” “The Heart of the Andes,” “Cotopaxi,” and “Sunrise on Mount Desert Island.” “The Icebergs” is ranked among his best works.

P. 69, c. 2.—“Mer-de-Glace,” mer-deh-gläs. Sea of ice. A glacier in the valley of the Chamouni.

SUNDAY READINGS.

P. 71, c. 1.—“Payson,” Edward. (1783-1827.) An American clergyman of the Congregational Church, Portland, Me., and the author of several works.

“Cowper,” William. (1731-1800.) A celebrated English poet. He was subject to attacks of insanity, and fancied himself destined to eternal woe.

“Tennents,” Gilbert and William. Two American clergymen of the Presbyterian Church, who lived during the first part of the eighteenth century. William was at one time seriously ill, and remained for several days in a condition of apparent death. His account of his emotions was, that at the moment of his seeming death he found himself surrounded by an unutterable glory, and saw a great multitude in the height of bliss; and that when he was about to join the happy throng some one came to him and said: “You must go back.” When he found himself in the world again he fainted. For three years the recollection of what he had seen and heard was so intense as to make earthly things seem worthless.

“Edwards,” Jonathan. (1703-1758.) An American divine and metaphysician, the greatest theologian of his century. Dr. Chalmers, of Scotland, said of him: “On the arena of metaphysics he stood the highest of all his contemporaries.” This American divine affords, perhaps, the most wondrous example in modern times of one who stood gifted both in natural and spiritual discernment.

P. 72, c. 1.—“Spurgeon,” Charles H. (spurˈjon). The great English preacher, born 1834. In 1854 he was called to the new Park Street Baptist Chapel in Southwark, London; and his preaching soon drew such crowds that the congregation removed first to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Music Hall, the largest public room in London. In 1861 a new chapel of great size was completed for his congregation. For several years he has preached an average of nearly a sermon a day, traveled extensively, and written several books.

P. 72, c. 2.—“Martineau,” marˌtēˌnoˈ. An English Unitarian clergyman, born about 1805. Author of several theological works.

P. 73, c. 2.—“Fuller,” Thomas. (1608-1661.) An English divine, court chaplain to Charles I. and II.

GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

P. 73, c. 2.—“Leotychides,” leˌo-tīkˈi-dēs.

“Aristocracies.” For account of the freedom of early Athens from anything like aristocracy, see “Brief History of Greece,” pp. 46 and 47.

P. 74, c. 1.—House decorations. The dwelling houses of the Greeks were small and insignificant, so that their skill in architecture would show to better advantage on their public buildings. In the time of Pericles they were forbidden by law to build fine houses or to have a display of any kind about them. See “Brief History of Greece,” p. 84, note. Alcibiades began to indulge his love of beauty by home decoration; and for a description of a Greek house in later times see “Brief History of Greece,” p. 83.

[118]

“Thasos.” All traces of its ancient gold mines which yielded such large revenues have entirely disappeared. When Xerxes marched through Thrace, the Thasians, on account of their great wealth, and possessions on the mainland, were compelled to provide for the Persian army as it passed through their territories, and their expenditure was four hundred talents, about $460,000. Some remains of the ancient city still exist.

P. 74, c. 2.—“Demes,” dēˈmēs. Originally the Athenians were divided, according to their places of residence, into a number of boroughs or wards, demes.

“Coutts.” (1731-1822.) The wealth of this great banker was estimated at between two and three millions sterling. It finally reverted to his granddaughter, Miss Frances Burdett, on condition she would assume the name of Coutts. By her this wealth was dispensed freely in various charities.

P. 75, c. 1.—“Talent.” A talent is about $1,180.

“Bucephalus,” bu-sephˈa-lus. See “Cyrus and Alexander.”

“Orchomenus,” or-komˈe-nus.

P. 75, c. 2.—“Châlets,” shä-lāˈ. Mountain huts, in which the herdsmen live. They are low and flat, and are covered with stones to protect them against the elements. The interior has scarcely anything beyond the apparatus of the dairy. In the loft above is a store of straw for beds. All the Swiss valleys are covered with huts of this kind. Each herdsman has to collect about a hundred cows twice a day, and make cheese, which is the principal occupation inside the abodes. The owners of the cattle sometimes reside also in châlets, but they are of a superior kind, and frequently offer a delightful retreat to weary travelers.

“Bees.” Hybla, in Megaris, and Mt. Hymettus, in Attica, were celebrated far and near on account of the honey produced there.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

P. 76, c. 1.—“Cosmogony.” Derived from two Greek words signifying the world, and to create; hence its meaning, the doctrine or science of the creation of the world.

“Gea.” This name appears in many of our words to-day, such as geography, geology, geometry, etc., and in each retains its primitive meaning.

P. 76, c. 2.—“Comus.” From a Greek word meaning revel. From it comes our word comedy. In Milton’s poem Comus is represented as a base enchanter who endeavors to beguile and entrap the innocent by means of his “brewed enchantments.”

P. 77, c. 1.—“Centimani,” hundred-handed. Three giants, sons of Uranus and Gea. They had each one hundred hands and fifty heads, and were of extraordinary size and terrible strength.

P. 77, c. 2.—“Phlegra,” phlegˈraˈ. The most westerly of three peninsulas running out from Chalcidice, in Macedonia.

P. 78, c. 1.—“Anthropomorphic,” an-thro-po-morˈphic. Pertaining to the representation of the deity under human form.

“Monotheism.” The doctrine that there is but one God.

“Polytheism.” The doctrine of many gods.

“Archilocus,” ar-chilˈo-chus. (B. C. 714-676.) The first Greek poet who wrote according to fixed rules.

“Terpander.” (B. C. 700-650.) The father of Greek music, and through it, of lyric poetry.

“Epicharmos,” ep-i-charˈmos. Lived about B. C. 540. The chief comic poet among the Dorians, one of the races of the Greeks.

P. 78, c. 2.—“Theogony,” the-ogˈo-ny. That branch of heathen theology which taught the genealogy of their gods.

“Tytyus.” A son of Jupiter.

“Python.” A monster serpent. Apollo founded the Pythian games in honor of this victory.

P. 79, c. 1.—“Orestes.” Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, was murdered by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra. Orestes avenged his father’s death by killing his mother and her guilty partner, for which he was pursued by the Furies.

“Orpheus.” One of the Argonauts. He enchanted with his music act only the wild beasts, but the trees and rocks, so that they followed the sound of his golden harp. He went after his lost wife, Proserpine, into the abodes of Hades, and suspended the torments of the lost, by his music. He won his wife back from the most inexorable of all deities, but had promised not to look back at her till they had arrived in the upper world. The anxiety of love overcame him, and he looked round to see that she was surely following. At that moment she was caught back to the infernal region.

TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE.

P. 79, c. 1.—“Bichat,” beˈshä. (1771-1803.) A French anatomist and physiologist.

“Pathological.” Pertaining to disease.

“Plethora,” plethˈo-ra. The state of the vessels of the human body when they are too full, or overloaded with fluids, and hence the state of being overfull in any respect.

“Must.” Wine pressed from the grape, but not fermented.

“Toxic.” Poison. The word intoxicate is derived from it.

“Ibn Hanbal,” ibˈn hanˈbäl.

“Father Mathew.” (1790-1856.) Theobald Mathew, D.D., Ireland’s “Apostle of Temperance.” He devoted his life to this cause, and in its interests visited every large town in Ireland and England, and the principal cities in the United States.

P. 79, c. 2.—“Lorenzo de Medici,” dŭh medˈĕ-che. (1448-1492.) He was styled the magnificent. He was distinguished by his liberal patronage of literature and art, and his munificent encouragement of the commercial and social development of Florence. He belonged to a distinguished Florentine family. From the early history of Florence the Medici were conspicuous in the service of the republic.

“Gamin,” ga-mangˈ. A neglected and unruly child in the streets.

P. 80, c. 1.—“Nepenthe,” ne-penˈthe. A drug used by the ancients to relieve from pain, and produce great exhilaration of spirits.

“Thoreau,” thoˈro. (1817-1862.) An American author who lived the life of a hermit for more than two years in a forest near Concord.

“Porson.” (1759-1808.) An Englishman, generally considered one of the greatest classical scholars of modern times; without a rival as a Greek critic. His memory was miraculous. The complaint against him is, that with such great capabilities he did so little. He bestowed considerable pains on the restoration of the Greek text on the Rosetta stone.

“Polydipsia,” polˈi-dipˈsi-a.

“Embrocation.” Any lotion used for washing or rubbing a diseased part of the body.

P. 80, c. 2.—“Lecky,” lĕkˈĭ. (1838.) A British author who devoted himself to political and philosophical literature. His most celebrated work was “History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne.”

“Boswell.” (1740-1795.) An Englishman. His “Life of Johnson” is called the best biography extant.

P. 80, c. 2.—“Sir Hudibras,” huˈde-bräs. The title and hero of a celebrated satirical poem by Samuel Butler. Hudibras is a Presbyterian justice, who at the time of the Commonwealth, travels forth to correct abuses, and to enforce observance of the laws.

“A main forte,” ä mang fort. By main force.

“Sangrado,” Doctor, san-gräˈdo. The name of a physician in Le Sage’s novel, “Gil Blas” (zhēl bläs), who practices blood-letting as a remedy for all sorts of ailments.

“Asclepiades,” asˈcle-piˈa-dēs.

“Magendie,” maˈzhŏn-deeˈ. (1783-1855.) A French physiologist. He insisted that experimentation was the only source of knowledge, and resorted to vivisection constantly, saying it was the only method by which he could learn the nature of animals.

P. 81, c. 2.—“Jules Virey,” veˈraˈ. A French physician.

“Therapeutics,” therˈa-pūˈtics. The discovery and application of remedies for diseases.

STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

P. 82, c. 1.—“Gramineæ,” grä-minˈe-ē.

“Triticum.” Wheat. “Vulgare,” vul-gaˈrē.

P. 83, c. 1.—“Secale cereale,” se-cāˈle se-re-aˈle. The Latin word and the similar English word, cereal, are derived from Ceres, who was fabled to have invented agriculture, and was therefore styled the goddess of corn. Secale means a kind of corn.

[119]

THE CHAUTAUQUA UNIVERSITY.

Work has begun in the Chautauqua University. Courses of study in several departments have been prepared. Some students have been enrolled. Large numbers of letters of inquiry are being daily received, and the outlook is brilliant for a work far in advance of anything which the projectors of the enterprise had hoped. A lovely spot at Chautauqua, on the north side of the grounds, toward Mayville, has been selected as the center of the University. It will be inclosed and beautified. Within it will be the University offices, and colonnades, and halls accessible to those of our members who shall be able to visit Chautauqua in July and August. It will be known as “The Academia.”

The professors who have been appointed are for the most part men whose reputation as successful and experienced teachers is firmly established, and who will bring to this new work the same enthusiasm which has characterized them in other fields. Circulars containing full information concerning the aims of the University, the courses already prepared, the departments to be organized, the requirements for specific degrees, and the estimated cost of the course, may be obtained by addressing the Registrar, R. S. Holmes, at the central office in Plainfield, N. J. The Chautauquan for October announced our purposes and general plan. We now present some of the prominent and distinguishing features of our work:

1. The Chautauqua University is the only institution of the kind in the world. It stands alone. True, there are some other circles which, by correspondence, have pursued special and limited courses upon some particular subject; but ours is the only school whose avowed object is to conduct its students over the whole field of liberal learning, and reward them at their journey’s close, with a well earned degree. To all, who as pioneers in the field of education by correspondence, have helped to demonstrate the feasibility of organized effort in this direction, the Chautauqua University pays willing tribute. Their success gives footing to our confidence. If history can be so taught, why not philosophy, or logic, or literature, or any kindred topic? If Hebrew can be so taught, why not any ancient language? If French can be so taught, why not any modern language? True, we lack the presence of the living teacher, but the chief value of the teacher’s presence is to test the accomplished work of the student, and to prompt by word and hint to better work in lines of which the student had not thought. Both of these can be accomplished by our method. The one condition is work—earnest, persistent work.

Teaching by correspondence is like conversation by telephone. We may never see each other, yet speak as face to face. We are miles apart, maybe, yet answer voice to voice. We are far without the range of possible personal contact, yet more in immediate obedience to each other’s will. So with teacher and pupil, they are mutually unseen; yet teacher’s letter on pupil’s table, and pupil’s letter on teacher’s table are a visible presentation of each to the other. They are widely separate; yet by correspondence question and answer are interchanged in rapid succession. Their paths of life never converge; yet teacher and pupil move mutually in daily lines which want and its supply make necessary.

As the soldier may fight battles and win victories under the direction of a general whom he has never seen, so the student may win in fields of learning without once seeing his teacher’s guiding hand.

2. The Chautauqua University makes no limitation in the time allowed to students, to complete her prescribed courses. Our students are not limited by time. They are not actuated by the spirit which hurries young men through college, seminary, and professional school, that at the earliest possible moment they may reach their chosen field of labor. Many of our students have reached their life work. They are on farms, in shops and stores, in factories and foundries, in press-room and in pulpit, in counting-room and court house, at home and by the way. They thirst for knowledge; to them we open the fountain. Their leisure time they would use in making reparation for lost opportunities of earlier years; or in supplementing the moderate acquirement which those earlier years had given. We offer them wise direction in this work, and say, Use the leisure that you have—make moments even at the cost of sacrifice; learn how to double moments by the quality of the work you crowd into them; choose from our courses of study those which you can pursue, and then pursue them till you reach the reward which we offer for their satisfactory completion. Do it; in four years, or six years if you can; in eight years, or ten years if you must, but do it; let nothing turn you from your purpose—after the struggle comes the victory, and the fruit of that victory will be not only the knowledge which you crave, but what is far better, power over self, and the habit of self use.

3. The Chautauqua University does not require one who is enrolled as a student to take a complete course of study before giving official recognition to work already accomplished. It is not possible for persons circumstanced as our students will be to devote so much of time each day to study that they can do the whole work of a college course in the ordinary four years. It may be that after a year or two of study, and the completion of some one department course, interruptions may arise which will disarrange a student’s plans and thwart for the time his purpose. To such students we promise to give official recognition. Should the work pursued be that of a single department, of several, or of all, much or little, for each finished branch of study the student will receive an official certificate signed by the professor with whom he has studied, and by the Chancellor and Registrar of the University; and whenever any student shall have obtained certificates, representing all the departments which are essential to the obtaining of any specified degree, the presentation of these certificates to the Board of Trustees will entitle their owner to the degree without further examination. In this there is no purpose of lowering the standard of requirement or of making an easy road to a degree. Certificates will represent rigid, searching and thorough examinations. We are not aware that such a course is pursued by any other institution. The student who is compelled to leave his college course unfinished leaves behind him on the books of the institution his record, but bears with him no official certificate of that record.

4. The Chautauqua University takes the student where it finds him. This makes education possible for the classes of society for which this enterprise is begun. Absence from home becomes unnecessary. We bid no man leave other duties undone, in order to study. We shorten no business hours; we shut no office doors; we turn no key upon the wants of a busy world. But when days are rainy and trade is dull, when the harvest is ended and the fences are mended, the winter’s fuel gathered and the farm implements are all repaired, when the shut-down of dull times comes in the factory, when household work is over, when evening comes, then are we ever at hand to whisper, give us your hours, and turn your backs upon the amusements, the frivolities, the wastefulnesses of the world. We ask no father or mother to toil and save that one from the home fireside may have the benefits of college education. We say to all, pursue together the paths we mark out for you.[120] We increase no household expenses by the evening and morning hour’s study which we require. The small comparative outlay of money our courses make necessary will be repaid in ennobled character, and in more comprehensive views of life. We lay our text-books on the anvil, and some day we shall see Elihu Burritt or Robert Collyer emerging from the smoke and grime of the shop. We will place a law book by the cobbler’s side, and ever and anon he casts his eye at the open page; and by and by the cobbler’s sign is down and the shop is deserted—but an eloquent voice is pleading at the bar the claims of justice and humanity.

5. The Chautauqua University comes into competition with no other institution. We do not want as students those who can go to college. We do not wish to influence any one to neglect college opportunities freely offered. We expect that the work of the Chautauqua University will be to arouse so much interest in the subject of general liberal education that by and by in all quarters young men and women will be seeking means to obtain such education in established resident institutions. We expect to see the cause of education receive an impetus which it has had from no other source in the last quarter of a century. Meanwhile, we appeal to the classes already mentioned in our first article. “Worthy young people not able to go to college;” “those who, having begun a college course, have been compelled to abandon it by circumstances beyond their control;” and those “more mature men and women who, at the maximum of their mental power, desire to make amends for the educational omissions of the earlier years.”

In touching upon these several points we have to some extent repeated ideas already advanced in our general announcement. This was necessary in order to give prominence to these aspects of our scheme which seem to be worthy of emphatic public notice, and also to serve the purpose of making general answer to questions being asked in numbers too great to admit of personal answer. With a single word we close. October has come and well nigh gone, but let no one by that consideration be debarred from entering upon our course of study. Our doors are always open. It is better to begin with the year. But it is better to begin now than not at all. Our professors will gladly welcome as pupils any who are actuated by an earnest desire to enter the realms of the liberal arts, and in their names it is our pleasure to urge upon you careful consideration of the purposes and possibilities of the Chautauqua University.

TALK ABOUT BOOKS.

Bishop Foster is a vigorous writer, always clear and forcible. His last work, “Centenary Thoughts for the Pew and the Pulpit,”[E] will be regarded as one of his best productions; a book for the times, but containing much of permanent value. It evidently was not manufactured, but grew. The thought or germ took root in generous soil, and the growth was rapid. The volume is instructive, and must do good to the thousands who will be eager to read it. It was prepared specially for the members of the great Christian brotherhood known as Methodists, but will interest others, and lead to a better understanding of both the privileges and duties of Church membership. Its appeals are forcible, but made in great kindness. If there are sharp rebukes for delinquents and offenders, they are given with manifest tenderness, and in the spirit of love unfeigned.

The “Dictionary of Miracles,”[F] a unique and unpretentious volume of nearly six hundred pages, is a classified collection of legendary miracles and stories of saints taken from authentic sources. Dr. Brewer is a ripe scholar, in the fiftieth, or golden year of his authorship, and has earned his laurels. These extracts are made with great fairness, the author expressing no opinion as to the historic truth of the reported miracles, but presenting them in a compact form as evidence of the religious opinions of those among whom they are current.

To all who have been readers of The Sunday-School Times a book written by the editor needs no words of recommendation in order to secure it a welcome. All workers in the Sunday-school will find this book to be a helper and a friend. It is full of good, practical thoughts and plans on the work, and clearly brings before the mind what teaching really is, and the relation that a teacher should bear to his class. We make a short extract: “It takes two persons to make one teacher. You can be one of them; the other must be a learner.” “Teaching and Teachers”[G] is a book every teacher should have.

A very neat little book, which curiosity hunters will enjoy, comes bearing the title “Curious Epitaphs.”[H] Epitaphs on all sorts of persons; epitaphs containing puns and warnings, and miscellaneous epitaphs of all kinds are to be found in its pages.

Joseph Cook and his Boston lectures are too well known to need comment. All who are interested in following the “advanced thought” of this remarkable man will require his “Occident.”[I] This valuable book contains Mr. Cook’s lectures on “advanced thought” in England, Germany, Italy and Greece; his remarkable expositions of Professor Zöllner’s views of spiritualism, and the views of his opponents; the discussion on probation after death, and many talks on current topics of the time. It contains decidedly the most interesting collection of lectures published this season.

A work on physiology and hygiene, eminently practical, and showing the most approved methods of the school room, has just been published by A. Lovell & Co.[J] For primary and intermediate grades it is decidedly the best work we have seen. The object lessons, given or suggested, will be valuable aids to teachers, and for all young readers the principal facts are well expressed, and amply illustrated. Though a book for children it is not childish, and any one may gather from it lessons of great value. The chapters on alcohol and narcotics furnish the basis of lessons that should be taught plainly in all our schools.

“Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene”[K] is a work evidently prepared by one having a thorough knowledge of the subject. Though scientific and scholarly, it is popular in style, and not burdened with useless technicalities. It is well illustrated. The great advance made in physiological and hygienic knowledge in the last decade is noted with no ordinary[121] satisfaction. The millions who now know so much of themselves, their needs and resources, liabilities and safeguards, are congratulated. Such knowledge and obedience to nature’s laws connect closely with the progress of society, and all that is most valuable in human achievement.

A little volume of poems by Andrew Lang bears the title, “Ballades and Verses Vain.”[L] The poems are classified into five different groups. There are ballads on all sorts of subjects and charming society verses, a handful of sonnets and a collection of bright translations, beside a few songs, “Post Homerica.” Austin Dobson has written these pretty verses of introduction for Mr. Lang’s “Laughter and Song:”

Visitors so bright and so pleasantly introduced will not want warm hearts to greet them.

A treat awaits all the little folks who can be made the happy possessors of “Queer Stories for Boys and Girls.”[M] There may be found fairy stories and stories of real folks; stories of good children and those of bad children—and somehow the bad ones always “get the worst of it,” just as they ought to do. Then those stories told by the “Cellar Door Club!” They are enough to make any boy want to go right out and start a club like that in his own neighborhood. Parents would do well to see that their children are provided with these Queer Stories. They will help to cultivate in them such a love for the true and the good as to lead them to shun frivolous literature.

The striking originality displayed in “The King’s Men”[N] must secure for the book a wide reading. The scene is laid in the twentieth century, and the present times are alluded to as the days of old. The pitiable attempt at keeping up the show of royalty in his narrow quarters in America, on the part of England’s exiled king, George V., the grandson of the present Prince of Wales, is well depicted. The struggle of the young English republic, and the sympathy and aid given it by its elder sister, America, are as real as if true. A capital hit is made in the employment he finds for the poor British aristocracy. These remnants of “better days,” in order to obtain a livelihood, let themselves out to a sort of caterer. This personage uses them as guests at the entertainments of the new families in the rising republic, who wish to hire titles to give them prestige in society.

What is to be done with the negro factor in our nation is a question over which the minds of our statesmen have been long interested. Judge Tourgée now comes to the front, and very vividly, and in the earnest manner so characteristic of the man, shows the dangers threatening in the not far distant future. To avert these action, prompt and specific, is necessary now. What, in the estimation of the Judge, this action should be he sets forth in his “Appeal to Cæsar.”[O] This appeal is forcible and logical. His Cæsar, the great American People, it is to be hoped, will not turn a deaf ear to it. This appeal to his Cæsar is a serious book. It is not fiction—nor plain truth clothed in fiction—it is the honest conviction of an earnest, far-seeing man, told plainly and with ringing effect. “The color line,” the author claims, “which before marked only the distinction of caste, has now become the line of demarkation between hostile forces. Out of the ‘irrepressible conflict’ between freedom and slavery has grown one of far graver portent to the nation and the world. Must one of these forces overthrow, subjugate, and forever hold in subjection the other? Or is it possible that the two races live peacefully side by side, and equality of right and power be cheerfully accorded to all?” The author believes this may be done, but that it must be done quickly. For us it is to act. And how? By educating our freedman. A national appropriation is pleaded for as the only sure way of avoiding the ills which threaten the Union from the South. It is not croaking to talk plainly on an evil, or the possibility of an evil. The book on the contrary is manly and forcible, and deserves careful attention.

A good feature of “young American” literature is its biography. Many of the short papers which appear in the periodical press are remarkably strong. Such certainly are the articles by James Parton which for some time have been appearing in leading papers, and which have lately been gathered into book form under the title, “Captains of Industry.”[P] The strongest feature of this collection is the freshness of the material. A few of the models which we hold before our boys have become not a little threadbare. They no longer arouse much enthusiasm. Here is a book full of new heroes who have done not impossible things like becoming the father of one’s country, or inventing a steam engine, or discovering America, but have done deeds which are, or at least seem, practical. Here is the history of Frederick Tudor, the Boston ice exporter, with a capital story of the appreciations which East Indians have for the man who gave them the blessing of ice; of Chauncey Jerome, the Yankee clock maker; of Carême, the famous French cook, and of over forty more, most of them equally new. Material so good deserves thorough treatment. It has not had such in this volume. The newspaper mark lingers on the work. The literary finish of the book is not equal to the spirit with which it was evidently written, nor to the amount of labor which must have been expended in collecting these valuable and entertaining facts and anecdotes. The book is so good that this is to be regretted.

There has never been a satisfactory explanation advanced by geologists of the origin of what is called “the Drift” period of the earth’s history. One theory attributes it to the action of great waves, but “the Drift” contains no fossils; another to icebergs, but the heaviest rocks are not found on top, and there is no regular stratification of material. All theories have been more or less incomplete. The author of that strange book “Atlantis,” has in “Ragnarok”[Q] found a new explanation. The name itself explains his theory. It is derived from an old Scandinavian legend, and means “the rain of dust.” “The Drift” is nothing, our author holds, and argues with great ingenuity, but the dust scattered by a comet which struck the earth ages ago. Novel and fascinating as is the book, its scientific value is not very great. Lovers of legends will find many strange myths introduced in support of the theory. The author, too, by ingeniously rearranging the verses in the first and second chapters of Genesis, thinks he has found the key that will unlock all the troubles that are claimed to exist between the Bible and science.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Young Folks’ Library: Evening Rest. By J. L. Pratt. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. 1884.

Standard Library: Himself Again. By J. C. Goldsmith. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.

Gymnastics of the Voice; A System of Correct Breathing in Singing and Speaking. By Oscar Guttman. Albany, N. Y.: Edgar S. Werner. The Voice Press. 1884.

The Boston Correspondence School of New Testament Greek. Kindergarten Cards, Chautauqua Series. Copyrighted by Alfred A. Wright. 1884.

[122]

SPECIAL NOTES.

The “Chemistry” designed for the required reading is the one bearing the imprint of the Providence Lithograph Company. This was prepared by Professor Appleton expressly for the Circle, and the publishers furnished the colored lithograph plates and most of the other illustrations specially for this book. Neither the “Young Chemist,” by the same author, nor any other book can be accepted as a substitute for the book specially prepared for the Circle.

All local circles should report directly to The Chautauquan. A prompt notice of the organization of each new circle should be sent to us, and as well of the reorganization of all old clubs. It is especially desirable that any new feature in conducting a circle, or new plan for Memorial Days should be written up for the local circle column. Let all have the benefit of your successes.

The garnet badges necessarily worn by all graduates of the C. L. S. C. are manufactured and for sale by Mrs. Rosie M. Baketel, of Greenland, N. H. Also the badges of the Class of 1888, and of the C. Y. F. R. U. These can be obtained by mail at the following rates: For the garnet badges, 40 cents; Class of ’88, 15 cents; C. Y. F. R. U., 10 cents.

The Chautauquan for December will contain a Christmas Vesper Service prepared especially for our subscribers. This service will also be printed on single sheets and supplied in quantities to those desiring such an exercise for their Christmas festivities. See advertisement.

All business correspondence relating to Chautauqua or the Hotel Athenæum should be addressed to W. A. Duncan, Syracuse, N. Y.

CHAUTAUQUA INTERMEDIATE CLASS, 1884.

FIRST PRIZE.

SECOND PRIZE.

THIRD PRIZE.

DESERVING SPECIAL MENTION.

GENERAL LIST.

CHAUTAUQUA CHILDREN’S CLASS, 1884.

PRIZE PAPERS.

SPECIAL HONORABLE MENTION.

SPECIAL MENTION.

GENERAL LIST.—FIRST GRADE.

SECOND GRADE.

THIRD GRADE.

FOURTH GRADE.

The following members of the Children’s Class, who have already taken the Diploma, are entitled to seals by having passed parts of the Intermediate examination:

The * at the end of names in the list of children is to show who have passed examinations previous to this year.