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                            THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

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

                 VOL. V.      JANUARY, 1885.      No. 4.




Officers of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.


_President_, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio. _Chancellor_, J. H. Vincent,
D.D., New Haven, Conn. _Counselors_, The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.,
the Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C.
Wilkinson, D.D.; Edward Everett Hale. _Office Secretary_, Miss Kate
F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J. _General Secretary_, Albert M. Martin,
Pittsburgh, Pa.




Contents

Transcriber’s Note: This table of contents of this periodical was created
for the HTML version to aid the reader.

    REQUIRED READING
    Temperance Teachings of Science; or, the Poison Problem
        Chapter IV.—The Cost of Intemperance                     183
    Sunday Readings
        [_January 4_]                                            186
        [_January 11_]                                           186
        [_January 18_]                                           186
        [_January 25_]                                           187
    Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life
        Chapter IV.—Public Life of the Greek Citizen             187
    Greek Mythology
        Chapter IV.                                              190
    Studies in Kitchen Science and Art
        IV.—Apples, Peaches, Blackberries and Strawberries       194
    Home Studies in Chemistry and Physics
        Air—Physical Properties                                  199
    The Homelike House
        Chapter I.—The Hall                                      203
    A Prayer by the Sea                                          206
    Geography of the Heavens for January                         207
    Yale College and Yale Customs                                208
    New Zealand                                                  211
    The Laureate Poets                                           212
    The Bells of Notre Dame                                      215
    The New York Custom House                                    215
    The Christian Revolt of the Jews in Southern Russia          218
    The Inner Chautauqua                                         220
    Outline of Required Readings                                 221
    Programs for Local Circle Work                               221
    Local Circles                                                222
    The C. L. S. C. Classes                                      227
    Questions and Answers                                        229
    The Chautauqua University: The Correspondence Schools        231
    “Invincible”—Class of ’85                                    232
    Editor’s Outlook                                             233
    Editor’s Note-Book                                           235
    C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for January           238
    Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautauquan”              239
    A Chapter of Blunders                                        242
    Talk About Books                                             244
    Special Notes                                                245
    Sunday-School Normal Graduates, Class of 1884                246




REQUIRED READING FOR JANUARY.




TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE; OR, THE POISON PROBLEM.

BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.


CHAPTER IV.—THE COST OF INTEMPERANCE.

    “Shall we sow tares and pray for bread?”—_Abd el Wahab._[1]

If we consider the manifold afflictions which in the after years of so
many millions of our fellowmen outweigh the happiness of childhood, we
can hardly wonder that several great thinkers have expressed a serious
doubt if earthly existence is on the whole a blessing. Yet for those
who hold that the progress of science and education will ultimately
remove that doubt, it is a consoling reflection that the greatest of all
earthly evils are avoidable ones. The earthquake of Lisbon[2] killed
sixty thousand persons who could not possibly have foreseen their fate.
In 1282 an irruption of the Zuyder Sea overwhelmed sixty-five towns
whose inhabitants had not five minutes’ time to effect their escape.
But what are such calamities compared with the havoc of wanton wars,
or the ravages of consumption and other diseases that are the direct
consequences of outrageous sins against the physical laws of God? The
cruelty of man to man causes more misery than the rage of wild beasts
and all the hostile elements of Nature, but the heaviest of all evils in
our great burden of self-inflicted woe is undoubtedly the curse of the
poison vice. The alcohol habit is a concentration of all scourges. In
the poor island of Ireland alone one hundred and forty million bushels
of bread-corn and potatoes are yearly sent to the distillery. The
shipment of the grain, its conversion into a health-destroying drug, the
distribution and sale of the poison, are carried on under the protection
of a so-called civilized government. _Waste_ is not an adequate word for
that monstrous folly. If the grain farmers of Laputa[3] should organize
an expedition to the sea-coast, and under the auspices of the legal
authorities equip an apparatus for flinging a hundred million sacks
of grain into the ocean, the contents of those sacks would be lost,
and there would be an end of it. The sea would swallow the cargo. The
distillery swallows the grain, but disgorges it in the form of a liquid
fire that spreads its flames over the land and scorches the bodies
and souls of men till the smoke of the torment arises from a million
homesteads. We might marvel at the extravagance of the Laputans, but
what should we say if the priests of a pastoral nation were to slaughter
thousands of herds on the altar of a national idol, and in conformity
with an established custom let the carcasses rot in the open fields till
the progress of putrefaction filled the land with horror and pestilence;
if moreover, among the crowd of victims we should recognize the milch
cows of thousands of poor families whose children were wan with hunger,
and if furthermore the intelligent rulers of that nation should supervise
the ceremonies of the sacrifice, distribute the carcasses and calmly
collect statistics to ascertain the percentage of the resultant mortality?

The LOSS OF LIFE caused by the ravages of the alcohol plague equals the
result of a perennial war. The most belligerent nation of modern times,
the Russians, with the perpetual skirmishes on their eastern frontier,
and their periodical campaigns against their southern neighbors, lose
in battle a yearly average of 7,000 men. The average longevity of the
Caucasian nations is nearly 38 years. Of their picked men about 45 years.
The average age of a soldier is now-a-days about 25 years. The death of
7,000 soldiers represents therefore a national loss of 7,000 times the
difference between 25 and 45 years, _i. e._, a total waste of 140,000
years. Medical statistics show that in the United States alone the direct
consequences of intoxication cost every year the lives of six thousand
persons, most of them reckless young drunkards, who thus anticipate
the natural term of their lives by about twenty years. But at the very
least, two per cent. of our population is addicted to the constant use
of some form of alcoholic liquors. Prof. Neison, of the British General
Life Insurance Company, estimates that rum-drinkers shorten their lives
by seven years, beer-drinkers by five and one-half, and “mixed drinkers”
by nine and one-half years. For the city of London, Sir H. Thompson
computes that drinkers of all classes shorten their lives by six years.
But let us be quite sure to keep within the limits of facts applying to
all conditions of life, and assume a minimum of four years. A total of
4,120,000 years for the population of the United States is therefore a
moderate estimate of the annual life waste by the consequences of the
poison vice! In other words, in a country of by no means exceptionally
hard drinkers, alcohol destroys yearly thirty times as much life as the
warfare of the most warlike nation on earth. The first year of the war
for the preservation of the Union and the suppression of slavery cost
us 82,000 lives. When the death list had reached a total of 100,000 the
clamors for peace became so importunate that the representatives of our
nation were several times on the point of abandoning the cause of the
most righteous war ever waged. Yet the far larger life waste on the altar
of the Poison-Moloch continues year after year, and for a small bribe
not a few of our prominent politicians seem willing to perpetuate that
curse to the end of time. Among all the nations of the Christian world,
with the only exception of the Syrian Maronites,[4] the poison vice
has shortened the average longevity of the working classes by at least
five years. Political economists have calculated the consequent loss of
productive force, but there is another consideration which is too often
overlooked. The progress of degeneration has reduced our life term so
far below the normal average that the highest purposes of individual
existence are generally defeated. Our lives are mostly half-told tales.
Our season ends before the harvest time; before the laborer’s task
is half done he is overtaken by the night when no man can work. The
secret of longevity would, indeed, solve the chief riddle of existence,
for the children of toil could then hope to reach the goal of the
visible compensation which, on earth at least, is now reserved for the
exceptional favorites of fortune. That hope is diminished by everything
that tends still further to reduce our shortened span of life, and beside
increasing the burdens of existence, the poison vice therefore directly
decreases the possibility of its rewards.

Yet that result is almost insured by the LOSS OF HEALTH which all
experienced physiologists admit to be the inevitable consequence of the
stimulant habit. Every known disease of the human system is aggravated by
intemperance. The morbid diathesis, as physicians call a predisposition
to organic disorders, finds an ally in alcohol that enables it to defy
the expurgative efforts of Nature. A consumptive toper will fail to
derive any benefit from a change of climate. A dram-drinking dyspeptic
can not be cured by outdoor exercise. The influence of alcoholic tonics
tends to aggravate nervous disorders into mental derangements. But
even the soundest constitution is not proof against the bane of that
influence. Before the end of the first year habitual drinkers lose that
spontaneous gayety which constitutes the happiness of perfect health as
well as of childhood. The system becomes dependent upon the treacherous
aid of artificial stimulants, and the lack of vital vigor soon begins to
tell upon every part of the organism. Alcohol counteracts the benefit
of all the hygienic advantages of climate and habit, and it is doubtful
if the effect of its continued influence could be equaled by the
intentional introduction of contagious diseases. A medical expert might
collect the most incurable patients in the leper slums of Shanghai, in
the lazarettos[5] of Naples and the fever hospitals of Vera Cruz, and
distribute them in the cities of another country; yet a year after the
dissemination of such diseases the hygienic condition of a temperate
nation would be better than that of a drunkard nation after a year of the
strictest quarantine protection. In the sanitary history of the Caucasian
nations alcohol has proved a worse plague than the Black Death.

The WASTE OF LAND and the WASTE OF LABOR must be considered together,
in order to comprehend the total amount of the loss which the fourteen
most civilized nations inflict on themselves by the unspeakable folly of
devoting from 20 to 25 per cent. of their fertile area to the production
of stimulating poisons. If the land thus abused were simply neglected, if
it were abandoned to the weeds and tares, the laborers who now cultivate
it in the interest of hell might employ their time in assisting their
friends and help them to cultivate better or larger crops on the soil of
the adjoining lands. If they should prefer to emigrate, their abandoned
fields might be cultivated by their neighbors. Even children in the
intervals of their play might plant cherry stones, and help the soil to
contribute to the welfare of the community. As it is, it contributes only
to the development of diseases, vices and crimes. The productions of the
land, the toil of the husbandmen, are not only utterly lost, but become a
curse to the population of the country. Starving Ireland devotes a third
of her arable lands to the production of distillery crops. Spain begs
with one hand and with the other flings two-fifths of her produce to the
poison vender. The statistics of the last census show that distilleries
devour every year 34,300,000 acres of our total farm produce; breweries,
9,600,000; wine cellars, cider mills (not to mention tobacco factories),
about five millions more!

The old settlers of western Arkansas still remember the excitement caused
by occasional raids of predatory Indians who used to cross the Texas
border and devastate the farms of the frontiersmen. Near Arkadelphia they
once burned three hundred acres of ripe corn, and half a dozen counties
joined in the pursuit of the marauders. Imagine the blazing indignation,
the mass meetings, the general uprising of an outraged people, if the
Mormons should take it in their heads to burn three million acres of
our grain crop. Yet the distillers not only burn up more than the
tenfold amount, but fan the flames to kindle a soul and body consuming
conflagration, and shriek about infringements of their privileges if a
bold hand here and there succeeds in snatching a brand from the burning.

The WASTE OF REMEDIAL EXPENDITURE must be considered under a separate
head, for beside squandering their own resources, the votaries of the
poison fiend waste those of their neighbors, who have to devise means
for mitigating the resulting mischief. The care of drunkards, _i. e._,
of persons picked up in the streets in a state of life-endangering
intoxication, costs our hospitals a yearly sum of $5,000,000. A list
of the various diseases which can be traced to the direct or indirect
influence of intemperance would require the enumeration of nearly all
known disorders of the human organism, but, though drunkards become a
burden to their families oftener than to the charitable institutions of
the community, it has been ascertained that they constitute 30 per cent.
of the inmates of such establishments as county infirmaries, charity
hospitals, almshouses, poorhouses and lunatic asylums. Prisons proper,
that is, institutions for the cure of moral disorders, are filled with
patients where derelictions in forty out of a hundred cases have been
committed either under the immediate influence of intoxicating liquors,
or as a consequence of such direct results of intemperance as loss of
property, loss of credit, loss of moral or mental integrity. In 1870 the
prisons of the United States cost the nation a yearly sum of $87,000,000.
By this time their cost probably amounts to a full hundred millions.
The magistrates of our city courts have to waste half their time on
the trial of drunkards. On the blackboards of our metropolitan station
houses “D. D. C.” after the name of a prisoner means So-and-So locked
up for drunkenness and disorderly conduct; they have to abbreviate the
specification of that offense to save a little space for other memoranda.
If the indirect consequences of the poison vice could be traced through
all their ramifications, it would be found that the suppression of that
vice would relieve our cities from a burden equivalent to a full half of
all their municipal taxes.

The MORAL LOSS is not confined to the direct influence of the
brutalizing poison. The liquor traffic defiles all participants of
a transaction which involves a sin against Nature, a crime against
society and posterity, and an outrage against the moral instincts of
the veriest savage, for more than five thousand years ago the lawgivers
of the Bactrian nomads[6] recorded their protest against the vice of
intoxication. A drunkard who flees from the prohibitory laws of his
native place can not escape the voice of an inner monitor. The liquor
dealer who points to his license is not the less conscious that he is an
enemy of mankind, and that his servants eat the wages of a soul and body
corrupting vice. The lawgiver who can be bribed to connive at that vice
not only sins against the laws of political economy, but against Nature
and the first principles of natural ethics, and forfeits his claim to the
respect of the community. Faith in the sanctity of the law, in the wisdom
and integrity of the legislator, is the very corner-stone of public
morals, but that faith is incompatible with a system of legalized crime,
and the lawgiver who consents to sanction the outrage of the poison
traffic undermines the basis of his authority, and thereby the authority
of the law itself. It is wholly certain that larceny and perjury
combined do not damage the state the hundredth part as much as the curse
of the poison vice; yet what should we think of the moral status of a
legislative assembly devising a plan to increase the national revenues
by granting license to pickpockets and professional false witnesses?
Imagine a Titus Oates[7] offering his services on the public streets,
and a chief justice compelling the courts to recognize the legality
of his business, and protect him in the enjoyment of its emoluments!
Imagine Jack Sheppard[8] filching the weekly wages of a half-witted
working man, and flaunting a government license if the wife of his victim
should demand the restitution of the plunder. The absurdity of such an
arrangement might seem too glaring to imagine its possibility. Yet for
the same reason posterity may refuse to credit the records of our liquor
system; for, translated into plain speech, the contract between the state
and the rum vender means even this: “On condition of receiving a share in
the yearly profits of your business, I herewith grant you the right to
poison your fellow-citizens.”

The LOSS OF WEALTH, which some of the foregoing considerations will
enable us to estimate, has increased with the progress of our national
development in a way which in many respects has made that progress a
curse instead of a blessing. Thirty-five years ago our brethren in
Maine had a hard fight against the champions of the liquor traffic, but
they had to deal with whiskey alone. Since then our foreign immigrants
have introduced ale, lager beer, and French high wines, and threaten
to introduce _absinthe_[9] and opium. The poison vice has assumed the
magnitude of a pandemic plague. According to the statistics of the
Treasury Department, the alcohol drinkers of the United States spent
during the last ten years a yearly average of $370,000,000 for whiskey,
$53,000,000 for other distilled liquors, $56,000,000 for wine, and
$140,000,000 for ale and beer. Together, $624,000,000 a year. Under the
head of liquors evading the revenue tax, Prof. W. Hoyle, of Manchester,
adds 20 per cent. for Great Britain, Commissioner Halliday 15 per cent.
for the United States, and Dr. Bowditch 18 per cent. for the state of
Massachusetts alone. Let us assume the minimum of 15 per cent. The total
direct cost of the poison vice (without including tobacco and other
narcotic stimulants) is therefore $705,000,000 a year. The indirect cost
eludes computation, except under the three following heads: 1. The loss
of productive capacity, as revealed in the difference between the yearly
earnings of a manufacturing community under the protection of prohibitory
laws or under the influence of the license system. 2. The inebriate
percentage of patients in our public hospitals, and of convicts in our
prisons. 3. The loss sustained by the employers of agents, trustees,
clerks, etc., addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors. The aggregate
of these indirect losses we will assume to be only $350,000,000 a year,
though several political economists compute it as _equal to the direct
cost_. Our estimate does not include the amount of rum-begotten distress
relieved by private charity, nor the rum percentage of undetected crime,
nor yet the wholly incalculable value of the benefactions, reforms and
improvements _prevented_ by the use of intoxicating liquors among the
upper classes. We can therefore be quite sure of understating the truth
if we estimate the aggregate cost of the poison vice at $1,055,000,000
a year—a yearly sum equivalent to the cost value of all our public
libraries, our church property, school property, steamboats, bridges, and
telegraphs taken together.

Prohibition would put a stop to one half of that prodigious waste. We
will not delude ourselves with the hope that the deep-rooted habit of
the stimulant vice could at once be wholly eradicated by any legislative
measures whatever. For years to come 20 per cent. of the aggregate
would undoubtedly be devoured by liquor venders finding means to elude
the vigilance of the law. Fifteen per cent. would be spent on other
vices. Fifteen per cent. more would probably be wasted for frivolous
purposes—innocent, as compared with the crime of the poison traffic, but
still on the whole amounting to a loss of national resources. The waste
of the remaining fifty per cent. could be prevented by prohibition. In
ten years the saving of that sum and its application to useful purposes
would transform the moral and physical condition of our country. With
five billion dollars we could construct ten bridges over every one of our
hundred largest rivers. We could build an international railroad of a
gauge that would enable the denizens of snow-bound New England to reach
the tropics in twenty-four hours. We could realize Professor Lexow’s
project of providing every large city with a system of free municipal
railways connecting the centers of commerce with the suburban homes of
the workingmen. We could make those suburbs attractive enough to drain
the population of the slums. We could counteract the temptations of the
grog-shops by providing the poor with healthier means of recreation; city
parks with free baths, competitive gymnastics and zoölogical attractions
for the summer season, and reading rooms with picture galleries and
musical entertainments for the long winter evenings. We could employ
home missionaries enough for a direct appeal to every fallen or tempted
soul in the country. We could cover our hillsides with orchards and
line our highways with shade trees; we could plant forest trees enough
to redeem thousands of square miles in the barren uplands of the West.
Each township in the country could have a free school, each village a
free public library; we could help the sick by teaching them to avoid
the causes of disease; we could prevent rather than punish crime; we
could teach our homeless vagrants the lessons of self-support, and found
asylum colonies for the lost children of our great cities. And moreover,
we could increase the savings of the next decade by the endowment of
a National Reform College, with a corps of competent sanitarians and
political economists, for the training of temperance teachers, with local
lecturers, traveling lecturers, and free lecture halls in every larger
city of the country.

Only thus prohibition could be brought to answer its whole purpose, for
we should remember that the practical efficiency of all government laws
depends on the consensus of the governed. Without the coöperation of the
teacher the mandates of the legislator fall short of their aim. But it is
equally certain that in the field of social ethics the teacher can not
dispense with the aid of the legislator, and that our lawgivers can not
much longer afford to ignore that truth, for the penalty of the neglect
already amounts to the equivalent of the average yearly income of _seven
million working people_. In the South a million men, women and children
of farm laborers earn less than a hundred millions a year, _i. e._, $500
for every family of five persons. In the manufacturing districts of the
North they would earn less than $200,000,000. We can therefore again be
wholly certain of not overstating the truth, if we assert that in the
United States alone the poison vice devours every year the aggregate
earnings of more than _fourteen hundred thousand families_. In one dollar
bank-notes of the United States Treasury, one billion dollars could be
pasted together into a paper strip that would reach up to the moon.
Stacked up in bundles, they would form a paper pile a hundred feet long,
fifty feet wide, and fifty feet high.

If the equivalent of so many creature-comforts could be employed for
the benefit of the poor, it would almost realize the dreams of a Golden
Age. But even if we could save it from the hands of the poison vender by
burning it on the public streets, all friends of mankind would hail the
conflagration as the gladdest bonfire that ever cheered the hearts of
men. For its flames would save more human lives than the perpetual peace
of the millennium; it would prevent more crimes than the civilization of
all the savages that infest the prairies of our border states and the
slums of our large cities. Nay, it would save us from evils for which
mankind has thus far discovered no remedy, for intemperance robs us of
blessings which human skill is unable to restore.




SUNDAY READINGS.

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


[_January 4._]

Think of God as your constant benefactor—that he made you, that he
sustains you in every moment of your existence—that, to express yourself
with the simple energy of inspiration, in him you live, and move, and
have your being—that in all the joys which are scattered over the
pilgrimage of life, we see nothing but the kindness of God always
exerting itself in our favor, and meeting us in every direction—that
though we seldom look beyond the creatures which surround us, it is God
who reigns in these creatures and makes them subservient to his most
wise, his most gracious, his most benevolent purposes; that though in
the hey-day of youth we are carried along the tide of gayety without
care and without reflection, it is God who gives to the spirit of man
all its cheerfulness; that though we stop short in our gratitude at the
benefactor who relieved and at the friend who supported us, it is God
who reigns over the constitution of the mind, and could by a single word
of his power make every companion abandon us, and every friend look upon
us with an altered countenance; that though I call the house in which I
live my own, and find in the endearments of my family my repose and my
happiness, it is God who gave me my home, who spreads security around
it, and fills it with all its charities; that though my path in society
be dignified by the homage and civility of my acquaintances, it is God
who reigns in the human breast and administers all the delight of social
intercourse; that though my eye expatiates in rapture on the landscape
around us, it is the living God who beautifies the scene, and gives it
all its magnificence and all its glory; in short, that everything we
enjoy is a gift; that in whatever quarter happiness is met with, a burden
of obligation and dependence lies upon us; that we have nothing which
we did not receive—that our all is suspended on God, and that to him we
owe all the praise, all the gratitude, all the obedience. Now will any
man who is acquainted with the movements of his own breast, say that
this praise and this obedience are actually given? Are not the pleasures
of life often tasted without acknowledgment? Is not the conduct of life
often proceeded in without any reference to the will and authority of
him who is the author of it? Is not the mind in a state of habitual
estrangement from God, his existence absent from our reflections, and his
superintendency as a judge and as a lawgiver absent from our principles?
Go to whatever quarter you please for happiness, there is no escaping
the conclusion that God is the giver of it, in his pervading energy
which gives effect and operation to all things. You can not fly out of
his presence, nor repair beyond the limits of his sovereignty.—_From Dr.
Chalmers._


[_January 11._]

Of all the impossibles which ever were attempted, there is none so wild
and so irrational as to attempt an independence upon God. It is in virtue
of him that you are held together. He measures out to you every moment of
your existence. He gives you not merely the air you breathe, but he gives
you the faculty of breathing. He provides for you not merely the external
goods which are scattered around you in such bounteous profusion, but
it is he who furnishes you with the capacity of enjoying them. You talk
of the pleasures of the world, and fly to them as your refuge and your
consolation against the displeasure of an offended Deity, but think that
it is only by a continuance of his unmerited favor that you have these
pleasures to fly to. He can take them away from you; or, what perhaps
is a still more striking demonstration of his sovereignty, he can make
them no longer pleasures to you. He reigns within as well as without you.
To him you owe not merely what is external, but to him you owe the taste
and the faculty which enjoys it. He can pervert these faculties. He can
change your pleasures into disgust. He can derange the constitution of
the inner man, and make you loathe as tasteless and unsatisfying what
you at present indulge in with delight or look forward to with rapture.
He is all in all. The whole of our being hangs upon him, and there is no
getting away from his universal, from his ceaseless, from his unexcepted
agency. Now, do the Almighty the same justice that you would do to an
earthly benefactor; measure the extent of his claims upon you by the
extent of his benefits; think of the authority over you which, as your
Creator and as your constant preserver, he has a right to exercise; think
of your perpetual dependence, and that all around you and within you, for
every moment and particle of your existence is upheld by God; and tell
me, if either in the thoughts of your hearts or in the actions of your
life you come up to the demand which his justice and his authority have a
title to prefer against you?—_From Dr. Chalmers._


[_January 18._]

What then, art thou, O, my God; what, I ask, but the Lord God? For who is
Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most high, most excellent,
most potent, most omnipotent, most piteous and most just; most hidden
and most near; most beauteous and most strong; stable, yet contained
of none; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old,
making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they
know it not; always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing
nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing,
and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou lovest, and
burnest not; art jealous, yet free from care; repentest, and hast no
sorrow; art angry, yet serene; changest thy ways, leaving unchanged thy
plans; recoverest what thou findest, having yet never lost; art never
in want, while thou rejoicest in gain; never covetous, though requiring
usury (Matt. xxv:27).… Thou payest debts, while owing nothing; and when
thou forgivest debts, losest nothing. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy
joy, what is this that I have said? And what saith any man when he speaks
of thee? Yet woe to them that keep silence, seeing that even those who
say most are as dumb!

Oh! how shall I find rest in thee? Who will send thee into my heart to
inebriate it, so that I may forget my woes, and embrace thee, my only
good? What art thou to me? Have compassion on me, that I may speak. What
am I to thee, that thou demandest my love, and unless I give it thee art
angry and threatenest me with great sorrows? Is it, then, a light sorrow
not to love thee? Alas! alas! tell me of thy compassion, O Lord my God,
what thou art to me: “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.” So speak
that I may hear. Behold Lord, the ears of my heart are before thee; open
thou them, and “say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.” When I hear, may I
run and lay hold on thee. Hide not thy face from me. Let me die, lest I
die, if only I may see thy face.

Cramped is the dwelling of my soul; do thou expand it, that thou mayest
enter in. It is in ruins, restore thou it. There is that about it which
must offend thine eyes; I confess and know it, but who will cleanse
it? or to whom shall I cry but to thee? Cleanse me from my secret
sins, O Lord, and keep thy servant from those of other men. I believe,
and therefore do I speak; Lord, thou knowest. Have I not confessed my
transgressions unto thee, O my God; and thou hast put away the iniquity
of my heart. I do not contend in judgment with thee, who art the truth;
and I would not deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie against itself. I
do not, therefore, contend in judgment with thee, for “if thou, Lord,
shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”

O Lord God, grant thy peace unto us, for thou hast supplied us with
all things; the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath, which hath no
evening. For all this most beautiful order of things, “very good” (all
their courses being finished), is to pass away, for in them there was
morning and evening.

But the seventh day is without any evening, nor hath it any setting,
because thou hast sanctified it to an everlasting continuance; that
which thou didst after thy words, which were very good, resting on the
seventh day, although in unbroken rest thou madest them, that the voice
of thy Book may speak beforehand unto us, that we also after our works
(therefore very good, because thou hast given them unto us) may repose in
thee, also in the Sabbath of eternal life.—_From St. Augustine._[1]


[_January 25._]

Now tell me, Christians, have you hitherto understood it, and do you
still understand it, in this manner? Let each candidly examine himself
in the presence of God. Where is the ambitious man, who, looking on
his ambition as the wound of his soul, desires in good earnest to be
thoroughly cured? Where is the voluptuous man, who, truly afflicted at
his unhappy situation, wishes efficaciously, and as his sovereign good,
to be freed from his passion? Where is the avaricious man, who, ashamed
of his injustice, sincerely and from his heart detests his iniquity?
Where is the woman, who, listening to religion, hath a horror of vanity,
and thinks of extirpating her self-love? From what passion, from what
vicious and ruling inclination hath this divine Savior as yet delivered
you? By what, then, do you know him to be a Savior? And if he be a
Savior, by what mark do you pretend to know that he is yours? What hath
he by your own means performed in your regard? Now, as I perceive that
you are so ill disposed, should I not prevaricate, did I declare to you
his coming as a cause of joy? And to speak as a faithful minister of
the Gospel, ought I not to tell you, what in fact I tell you? Undeceive
yourselves, and bewail your woeful situation, for, while enamored with
the world, you obstinately persist in such criminal dispositions, though
the Savior be born, no more advantage accrues to you from his sacred
birth, than if he were not born.…

… Hath this spirit of truth been hitherto a spirit of truth for us?…
Whatever profession we may make of being, as Christians, the disciples
of the spirit of truth, are we really persuaded of the truths of
Christianity? Hath he made us relish them? Hath he given us a sincere
and efficacious disposition to put them in practice? We adore these
divine truths in speculation; but do we conform our conduct to them?
We speak of them perhaps with eloquence and enthusiasm; but are our
morals correspondent with our words? We give lessons to others upon that
head; but are we ourselves fully convinced of them? Do we believe with
a steadfast and lively faith that, to be Christians, it is our duty not
only to carry our cross, but to place our glory in it? That, to follow
Jesus Christ, we must internally renounce not only all things, but even
ourselves? That, to belong to him, not only must we not indulge the
flesh, but must crucify it? That, to find grace before God, we must not
only forget injuries received, but return good for evil? Do we firmly,
and without hesitation, believe all these points of the Evangelic
doctrine? And can we bear witness to ourselves that we believe them as
fully and constantly in heart as we openly confess them in words? The
Apostles, the moment they received the Holy Ghost, were ready to lay
down their lives for the truth; are we ready, I do not say to lay down
our lives but to destroy our irregular passions? According to this rule,
is there room to believe that the spirit of truth hath undeceived us
with respect to a thousand errors which occasion all the misdeeds in the
world? That he hath disabused us of I know not how many maxims which
pervert us?… If he hath done nothing of all this, what proof have we
that we have received him? And if we have not received him, whom have
we to blame for it but ourselves?… Preserve us from so great and fatal
an irregularity, O Divine Spirit! and, to that intent, make us know the
things thou didst teach the Apostles. Grant that at last we may become
truly thy disciples; and be to us not only a Spirit of Truth, but a
Spirit of Holiness.—_From Bourdaloue._[2]




GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

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


CHAPTER IV.—PUBLIC LIFE OF THE GREEK CITIZEN.

The aristocracy of the older Greek society was one based on the exclusive
owning of land, and of civic rights, and was not marked by titles, but
by the name of the clan. Thus at Athens an Alcmæonid[1] was respected
much as the member of an old Scottish clan is now by his fellows. But
poverty injured the position of the old Greek more than that of the
Scotchman. In the aristocratic days all work in the way of trade or
business was despised by the landed gentry, and idleness was called the
sister of freedom. The pursuit of a trade often disqualified a man for
political rights, and in any case deprived him of all public influence.
This feeling did not die out even in the complete democracies of later
days, and there was always a prejudice in the Greek mind against trades
and handicrafts, because they compelled men to sit at home and neglect
the proper training of the body by sports, and the mind by society.
Mercantile pursuits were also objected to by Greek gentlemen, but on
different grounds. It was considered that the making of profits by retail
trading was of the nature of cheating, and the life of a merchant in any
Greek city not his own was always one of dependence and fear, for nowhere
were aliens treated with real justice and liberality. Thus even the poor
citizen of Athens, living by the small pay (nine cents daily) given him
for sitting on juries, and performing other public duties, looked down
with contempt upon the rich tradesman, who was confined all day to a
close dark shop, or still worse, did his work in the hot atmosphere of
a furnace. Consequently the greater part of the shops in Athens, and
most of the trades were in the hands of licensed aliens who paid certain
taxes to the state, and by making large profits recouped[2] themselves
for the risk of being persecuted and plundered by the citizens in days
of danger and distress. These people may be compared, as to their social
and political position, with the Jews in the middle ages, who lived all
through the cities of Europe without civic rights, or landed property,
merely by trade and usury. They were despised and persecuted, but still
tolerated as useful, and even necessary, by the governments of those
days. Rich capitalists, on the contrary, who were able to manage a large
business through an overseer and a number of slaves, were not at all
despised, even though their ways of making profits were sometimes very
shameful. But any free man who was compelled by poverty to perform this
manual labor was held little better than a slave. There were certain
privileged classes in Homer’s day, such as the leech,[3] the seer, the
bard, and the cunning worker of brass. So in later days the sculptor and
the sophist were in some respects considered good society, but still the
gaining of money by giving up their time to others told very seriously
against them.

A great part of the ordinary clothing and breadstuffs was prepared by the
slave within the Greek house. The principal tradesmen who supplied the
other necessaries of life were the architect, who was often a great and
important person—indeed, the only tradesman very honorably mentioned;
under him masons, carpenters, and cabinet-makers. There were potters, who
must have been a very large body, considering the great demand for their
wares, as neither glass nor wooden vessels were much used. So there were
separate makers of lamps, jewelry, weapons of war, musical instruments.
There were a few weavers, and hardly any tailors—as the forms of dress
were perfectly simple, and the fashions did not change—but many bleachers
and dyers of clothes. The making of shoes was even subdivided among
several tradesmen. There were in the market, cooks (hired by the day),
ropemakers, tanners, and also many perfumers and druggists. Tanners were
generally compelled to have their workshops outside the city. We may
also, without doubt, consider military service by sea or land one of the
ordinary trades of Greece, practiced from very early times in Asia, and
all through Greek history by the Arcadians, who were the Swiss of the old
world. The usual pay for a mercenary soldier or sailor was four obols,
which was often raised in times of difficulty. When the former outlet
which enterprising young men had found in new colonies throughout Asia
Minor, Pontus, and Magna Græcia, was closed by the rise of new races
and new empires, this trade, disreputable as it was, became very common
indeed. The celebrated 10,000 whom Xenophon brought safely from the heart
of the Persian empire, were an army made up of these adventurers, who had
followed the younger Cyrus merely for the sake of pay and plunder. Thus
Agesilaus[4] and Cleomenes, kings of Sparta, were not ashamed to serve in
Egypt as mercenaries.


MERCANTILE PURSUITS.

We may first notice the lower sort, the retail merchants, who were
employed in buying the husbandman’s and the tradesman’s goods, and
selling them in the markets or through the towns at a profit. It was
indeed much in fashion among the Greeks, to sell one’s own produce in
the market, but of course such people as fishermen or shepherds could
not leave their business to journey often a long way to a market town.
Thus we find in large places like Athens, many butchers, fishmongers,
vegetable and other grocers, and particularly wine sellers, who went
about with their wine in carts. All these people were accused of
extortion and insolence, the fishmongers of selling stale fish, the
vintners of watering their wine (a very harmless adulteration). There
were street cries, and often even the buyer going into the market called
out what he wanted.

The wholesale merchant was of course a more important person, and the
rise of this larger trade was in fact what raised up a wealthy city class
in opposition to the landed aristocracy, and was generally the cause of
overthrowing oligarchies.[5] Many respectable citizens (except in Sparta)
thought it no disgrace to follow this sort of business, and none of them
scorned to invest money in it as a speculation. As the land traffic in
Greece is unusually difficult and roundabout, almost all commerce was
carried on by sea, so that a merchant was often called a skipper. We are
fully informed about Athenian commerce only.

We must imagine the Greek waters not as they are now, lonely and
desolate, with often not a single boat to give life to a great bay or
reach of water, but rather covered in the summer with traffic and with
life, so much so that a Greek poet speaks of sailors as the “ants of the
sea,” hurrying in all directions with ceaseless industry. There were
public wharves and warehouses close to the quays, where the skipper
brought samples of his cargo. With the exception of the corn and slave
factors, the Greek merchants did not confine themselves to trading in one
kind of goods, but conveyed anything according as they saw chances of
profit. Pottery from Samos and Athens, fine woolen stuffs and Assyrian
carpets from Miletus, paper, unguents, and glass from Egypt, salt fish,
skins and corn from the Black Sea, ship timber and slaves from Thrace
and Macedonia, ivory and spices from Cyrene[6]—these were among the
usual articles imported and exported through the Greek waters. Merchants
were in some places treated with peculiar favor, had their taxes and
military duty forgiven, and above all, were granted a speedy trial, and
in the idle winter months, in case of disputes about contracts, or other
lawsuits.


WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND COINAGE.

All these great helps to trade were originally imported from the
Babylonians, through the Phœnicians into Greece, but with so many
variations that the computing of values according to the different
standards is very intricate.

As to measures of length, it seems that the Olympic stadium or furlong
was generally received through Greece. It was the one-fortieth of our
geographical mile, and was divided into six plethra of one hundred feet
each. Each foot, which was nearly equal to our English foot, was divided
into four hands, and each of these into four inches.

Cubic measures started from the half pint, and were used for both fluids
and solids.

In these measures the Æginetan,[7] Attic, and Olympic standards varied.
The latter, though originally brought from Babylon, was somewhat smaller,
the cubic foot being only two-thirds of the Babylonian. To this Olympic
cubic foot the Attic was as twenty-seven to twenty, the Æginetan as nine
to four. Similarly as to weight, the Babylonians had fixed a cubic foot
of rain water as the standard weight of their talent. The Attic talent
was much smaller.

All the various talents, however, agreed in having sixty minæ; each mina
one hundred drachmæ; each drachme six obols. The terms Æginetan and
Eubœic point to the fact that the early Greek trade was chiefly in the
hands of these people, where the weights and coinage were first fixed,
just as the Attic standard became almost universal afterward. The Attic
talent was about $1,180; the mina accordingly about $19.50; the drachme
nineteen cents; the obolus three cents. This Attic drachme was of silver,
which was the only metal habitually coined for a long time in Greece, as
gold was very scarce. The Macedonian mines first produced gold enough
for ordinary coinage. So also copper coinage came in from Sicily and
Magna Græcia, where the talent was regarded as a weight of copper, and
only equal to six (or even less) Attic drachmæ. There were at Athens
silver pieces of four and eight drachmæ, and even half and quarter obols.
This shows how much scarcer money was then than now, and how the public
treasures and private fortunes, which seem to us so small, were really
large in proportion to the prices paid even for the luxuries of life.

Debasing the coinage, and using alloy, were common devices among the
Greeks, whose local coins seem seldom to have had any general currency.
It was specially noted of the Attic money, that it passed everywhere, on
account of its excellence.


POLITICS.

The general principle of Greek states was to consider high political
office as both a duty and an honor, but not a profession, so that no
salaries were attached to such duties. It is certain, however, that the
indirect profits were very great, inasmuch as the bribery of that day
was applied, not to the electors, but to the holders of even very high
office. This form of corruption is said to exist even now in Greece,
where bribery of electors is very rare. The lower state officials, such
as secretaries and heralds, were paid moderate salaries.

When Athens became an imperial city, the sovereign people were paid
sundry emoluments from the taxes of their subjects. For example, those
Athenian citizens who were employed as dicasts,[8] or judges in court,
received three obols per day—an income on which most of the poorer
citizens lived. They were also paid by public distribution a sufficient
sum for their entrance to the theater, and to enjoy themselves at the
great festivals of the city. These profits were the direct result of
political privileges.

As mercenary warfare was common, so that of mercenary general was
practiced, even by distinguished Greeks, such as Agesilaus and Cleomenes,
in later days. As the pay was only four times that of the common soldier,
it is evident that extortion and plunder must have been presupposed as
an additional means of gain, and this was the case with many of the
older citizen generals of whom we read in history, such as Pausanias,
Themistocles, and others. The profession of military engineer was not
common, but was practiced with success and fame by a few remarkable men,
such as Artemon,[9] whose mechanical genius made them very valuable.


LAW.

As men pleaded their own case among the Greeks, the legal profession, as
far as we know, could only give friendly advice, or compose speeches for
litigants, and this was an extended and lucrative profession at Athens.
In some cases friends or supporters were allowed to speak in addition
to the actual litigants, but paid counsel were not directly recognized.
When the state retained what we should call a public prosecutor, he was
only paid one drachma (nineteen cents) for a speech, which reminds us
of a mediæval entry quoted by Hallam, where eight cents and his dinner
was a lawyer’s fee. But distinguished orators like Demosthenes obtained
large private fees. There was also in almost all democracies special
encouragement, in the absence of state lawyers, for any citizen to
denounce any violation of the laws which he could detect. This gave rise
to a profession called sycophancy, which usually degenerated into that
of a spy or informer; and such men constantly extracted money from rich
people and from politicians by threats of accusation.


LITERATURE.

In addition to the schoolmasters, who were not in high repute, and were
rather considered a trade than a profession, there were the sophists, who
were both rhetoricians and philosophers, and who performed exactly the
functions now expected from universities, as distinguished from schools.
People spoke of a pupil of Isocrates as they now do of “a Harvard man.”
These men taught politics, rhetoric, literary criticism, and higher
science in a practical way, and made large incomes in spite of their
great unpopularity with the old-fashioned side of both political and
social Greece. At first they obtained enormous fees, but by competition
these were reduced to an average of from five to ten minæ for a course of
instruction. Their course lasted about three years.

We do not hear of any authors making a livelihood by their work, except
poets, who were largely paid for occasional poems by both states and
kings, and whose dramatic works were a source of profit as well as honor.
Copies of books were easily multiplied by means of slave labor, so that
we hear of Anaxagoras’[10] treatise being sold for one drachma, then
very dear. This was at a regular bookstall in Athens, from whence books
were actually an article of exportation as far as the Black Sea. Still,
collections of books were rare till after the time of Euripides, and we
know of no fortunes made by writing books. Anaxagoras himself, though so
popular with the rising generation, is said to have died in poverty.

The profession of architects was esteemed far the greatest among artists,
and was the most richly paid. They were no doubt men of culture, and
were literary men, as, for example, Ictinus,[11] one of the architects
of the Parthenon, who wrote a special work about the great temple. The
professions of sculptor and painter were not so at first, the sculptor
being hardly more than a skillful workman, and this seems to be the case
in most great art epochs. Men like Pheidias and Polygnotus,[12] who
were of a higher level, often worked without accepting any pay, but the
sculptors who adorned the Erectheum at Athens, one of the most beautiful
of Greek temples, were either paid by the day from one to two drachmæ, or
by the job, receiving two hundred to two hundred and forty drachmæ (under
$50) for each figure or small group of figures. This was in Pericles’
time, when art had reached its highest perfection.

Similarly in music, though amateur singing and playing were very common,
it was not thought gentlemanly to live by them, and professional
musicians were ranked with actors and jugglers, and the other classes who
lived by amusing the rich. At later periods, however, both celebrated
musicians and celebrated actors became important personages, and were
courted by a society which had abandoned higher and more serious pursuits.

The medical profession had always a high position in Greek life, from the
days of Machaon Podalirius,[13] in Homer, down to the doctors of Plato’s
day, who sometimes brought an orator with them to persuade the patient to
take their remedies. This was done because it was the fashion to discuss
everything in Greece, and people were not satisfied to submit silently to
anybody’s prescriptions.

There was of course a great deal of superstitious quackery, which dealt
in amulets and charms, and there were slave assistants, who visited slave
patients, but the higher members of the profession were not only well
paid, but appointed publicly by the various cities as official physicians.

The most famous schools for medicine were at Croton, Cnidus, Rhodes, and
Cos, where the name of Hippocrates is celebrated as the founder. These
schools were guilds or trade unions, into which the apprentice entered
with a very remarkable and solemn oath. Such accredited physicians
were specially exempted by law, in some cities, from prosecution for
manslaughter, if their patients died. The descriptions of the symptoms
and the treatment of various diseases still preserved in the works
attributed to Hippocrates, are so striking for their good sense and acute
observation, that the most competent judges consider them the foundation
of all rational medicine in Europe.

In all the larger Greek towns the art collections were always the main
object of curiosity, which every one went to see. There were the temples
either venerable for age, or remarkable for architectural splendor, and
in them the statues of the gods, and the portraits of heroes and victors
which were the work of famous sculptors. The inner walls of both temples
and porticoes were often covered with frescoes, and had even separate
pictures hung upon them. In fact, just as we now-a-days go to see in
such a town as Antwerp or Rouen the churches, the pictures, the statues
and carvings, and the antiquities, so every educated Greek enjoyed the
arts, and thought his life incomplete without having seen their highest
products. Crowds went to see the Pheidian statue of Zeus at Olympia, the
Eros of Praxiteles at Thespiæ, the cow of Myron at Athens. Such great
works were constantly copied, and to this practice we owe the inestimable
benefit of finding in Roman galleries close imitations of the Greek
masterpieces brought from Greece itself.

Each important state was indeed represented in considerable cities by
a proxenus, who corresponds to our modern consuls, but of course he
could not be expected to offer hospitality to all travelers, though he
did so to official visitors. Every distinguished family had accordingly
family friends in foreign cities, to whom they were bound by mutual
ties of hospitality. These friendships were handed down from generation
to generation, and when the traveler had never seen his host he often
brought with him a token formerly given to his family by the family
he went to visit. On his arrival the host gave him a separate set of
apartments, and supplied him with light, fuel and salt; he also sent him
his dinner the first day, and invited him to dine afterward, but for the
rest the guest was attended by his own servants, and supplied himself. As
to the actual traveling, so much of it was done by sea that there seems
to have been but indifferent means of journeying on land. To Delphi,
Olympia, and such public resorts there were good roads, which could be
traveled in carriages, but elsewhere pack mules and riding, or even
walking was, as it now is, the only way of crossing the country.

Athletic contests were always held conjointly with festivals, so that we
must separate two phases in the greatest and most complex enjoyment of
Greek society. In fact, the Greeks always combined religion with sport.
The greatest of these meetings was undoubtedly that held at Olympia every
five years, and at which the victors were recorded since 776 B. C. It
was gradually thrown open to all Peloponnesians, then to all European
Greeks, and finally to all the colonies, in 620 B. C. This extension was
followed by the founding in rapid succession of the public contests at
Delphi (586), the Isthmos of Corinth (582), and Nemea (576 B. C.). They
were celebrated in honor of the peculiar god honored at the place—Apollo
at Delphi, Poseidon at the Isthmus, Zeus at Nemea and Olympia. There was
a solemn truce declared throughout Greece during the Olympic games, and
all the world flocked thither to enjoy the sports, meet their friends,
transact mercantile or even political business, and publish or advertise
new works and new inventions. At Delphi musical and poetical contests
predominated, but at the others the athletic elements.

In addition to athletic games, many musical and poetical contests were
encouraged at the festivals, as, for example, at the Pythian games,
held at Delphi, and at the Dionysia, held at Athens. So much did
these competitions come into fashion, that the best advertisement and
publication of a new poem, or of a novelty in music, was its production
on one of these occasions. The great tragedies handed down to us were
all composed in this way, and brought out at Athens in honor of the god
Dionysus. For a fee of two obols, granted him by the state, every citizen
and his wife, at some contests even resident strangers, could go and
sit at the theater, and hear four plays of Æschylus pitted against four
plays of Sophocles, and four of Euripides. The endurance of an audience
not given to reading, and not fond of staying at home, is of course much
greater than that of our modern play-going people.


FESTIVALS.

As the games and dramatic shows were in honor of the gods, or sometimes
in honor of deceased heroes, the real celebration consisted in
sacrifices, prayers, and solemn processions. These sacrifices were
combined with public feasts, as a great many victims were slain. In all
processions the military, or citizens in armor, and on horseback, formed,
as they now do, an important and imposing part. But we are bound to
add that in addition to all the splendor of the festivals and athletic
contests, there was the usual collection of mountebanks, jugglers,
thimble-riggers, and other bad characters, who now frequent horse races.
This was so much the case in later days, that Cicero indignantly denies
the report that he had gone to the Olympic games. On the other hand,
we must regard the home festivals in each Greek city among the most
humane and kindly institutions in their life. They corresponded to our
Sundays and holidays, when the hard-worked and inferior classes are
permitted to meet and enjoy themselves. This was particularly the case
with the slaves, who enjoyed many indulgences on these special days.
The women also in such cities as usually insisted upon their seclusion,
were allowed to join in processions, and see something of the world;
and “the stranger that was within their gates,” or who came to worship
at the feast, was received with kindness and hospitality. No executions
or punishments were allowed; prisoners were let out on bail, and the
sentences of the law for debts or fines were postponed in honor of the
gods, who were worshiped not in sadness, but with joy.




GREEK MYTHOLOGY.


CHAPTER IV.

HESTIA (VESTA).[1] In the domestic life of the Greeks Hestia, the hearth
goddess, occupied an important position. She was one of the twelve great
divinities, and her expressive symbol, the fire, they carefully guarded
and kept constantly burning. In the more rude, barbaric state of society
her worship was, perhaps, not general, as there is no mention of her
by Homer in the “Iliad” or “Odyssey.” But as society advanced and the
importance of domestic order and purity was more fully recognized, no
other deity was held in greater veneration. She gives security to the
dwelling, and especially guards the virtue and happiness of the family.
“The hearth possessed among the ancients a far higher significance than
it does in modern life. It served not only for the preparation of the
daily meals, but was esteemed the sacred altar in the house. There the
images of the Penates,[2] or household gods, were placed; and then, after
the old patriarchal fashion, the father and priest of the family offered
sacrifice on all important occasions of their domestic life.” (Seemans.)

The well-ordered home, under the guardianship of the virgin goddess,
herself pure as the bright flame that was her symbol, is the secure
abode of happiness as complete as mortals know. For the maintenance of
its purity and peace the most solemn vows were made and the tutelary[3]
goddess invoked to avenge the injured and reward the faithful. For those
without, the hearth itself was a sacred shrine before which suppliants,
if danger threatened, sought not in vain protection from the inhabitants
of the house. And, as the state is an extended family, embracing all the
domestic organizations in its domain, Hestia, protectress of the home
circle, regards also the interest and safety of every civil community.
So, thoughtful men of upright character, their statesmen and wise
senators, did not hesitate to carry the religion of their homes into
political matters that engaged their best endeavors.

In the Greek states the senate house, or department of the governing
body, was solemnly dedicated to Hestia, and in it they built her an
altar, on which fire was kept ever burning. That the daily sacrifice
might not be wanting, or that sacred fire ever become extinct, it was
assiduously guarded by vestal[4] virgins, whose negligence would be
severely punished.

The name Hestia is not only very sacred, but has a stem or root meaning
that indicates the fixed abiding position of her altar in the room where
the family dwelt, or the senators met for business.

HERMES (MERCURY). For the accredited pedigree, characteristics, and
exploits of this sly deity—things of much interest to students of the
old mythology—we are mostly indebted to Homer and his imitators, the
Rhapsodists, some of whose productions were accepted as Homeric. He was
the reputed son of Zeus and the mountain nymph Maia, and born in a cave,
or grotto, on Mount Cyllene,[5] in Arcadia. The so-called “Homeric Hymn,”
assuming cunning and dexterity as his principal characteristics, tells
in a way to interest the reader, with what amazing capacity his powers
developed. Having such a father, and his mother a daughter of Atlas, he
grew as none but gods can, almost instantly revealing his divine powers.
Only a few hours after his birth he sprung from his mother’s arms, or
from the cradle where he lay, already planning an expedition of vast
proportions, and escaped from the grotto to at once execute his purpose.
On the way he met a beautiful tortoise that he killed, and extracting the
carcass from the shell, stretched resonant cords across the cavity, and
thus made him a harp on which he played most skilfully. The same day he
hurried off to Pieria, where he stole fifty kine from the herd of Apollo,
and undertook to drive them to the grotto of his mother. Fearing that the
theft, so adroitly accomplished, might be detected by their tracks in
the sand, he managed to drive them in such circuitous paths that, where
most exposed to observation, the tracks showed them to be going toward
the place from which they were stolen. His own footsteps he disguised by
wrapping his feet with tamarisk and myrtle leaves. The next morning, at
early dawn, he reached the stream of Alpheus,[6] and then rubbed sticks
of wood against each other till they were ignited. Thus Hermes is said to
have first given fire to mortal men. Another legend attributes the same
to Prometheus,[7] who is said to have stolen fire from the altars of the
gods. But this was kindled in the forest by the friction of dry branches
rubbed against each other by the wind. In that forest Hermes slaughtered
two of the herd, but, though pressed with hunger, he ate none of the
roasted meat. After quenching the fire, and effacing all signs of it, he
proceeded to Cyllene, where he concealed the cattle, and, having entered
the place of his birth softly as a summer breeze, resumed his place as a
babe, and lay innocently playing with the cradle clothes, while his right
hand held the tortoise lyre hidden under them. His absence and the booty
with which he returned were not unobserved by his mother, who chided him
for the theft, but was assured that, by such exploits, he would secure
for her and for himself admission to the assembly of the gods. In the
morning Apollo, missing part of his herd, set out in search of them. An
old man informed him that a child was seen the day before driving cows
along the road. At Pylos he saw confused tracks of his cattle, but was
amazed at the strange footprints of the driver. Greatly chagrined at his
loss, and meditating chastisement for the thief, he entered the cave
of the nymph. Hermes, seeing him, gathered himself under the clothes,
feigning fear of the angry god. Apollo searched all the premises for his
stolen property to no purpose. But convinced that the child, his own
younger brother was certainly guilty of the theft, he threatened to hurl
him into Tartarus[8] if he did not tell at once where the cows were. The
little fellow in his cradle, winking slyly, and making a low whistling
sound, as if amused at Apollo’s excitement, denies any knowledge of the
matter, and innocently asks what cows are like. “I know nothing of cows,”
he said, “but their name. We must refer the matter to Zeus, who will
decide for us.”

When the father of gods and men heard the complaint and the evidence,
little Hermes, to the great amusement of the celestials, stoutly denied
the charge, and with his cradle clothes about his person, argued the
absurdity of supposing a mere child like himself capable of such deeds.

Zeus admonished the contestants to be friends, but with a significant
nod, the suit was decided in Apollo’s favor, and the brothers sent in
quest of the missing kine. The miscreant led the way, and when the cattle
were brought out of the cave, Apollo missed two, and was surprised to
find their hides stretched on a rock to dry—more so, that when attempting
to drive the others away their feet were found fastened in the earth.
Again he seized the offender for punishment, but he in the emergency,
thought of his lyre, and touching its chords, called forth music so sweet
and soothing that Apollo, forgetting his anger, coveted the instrument
and besought the musician to teach him his wondrous art. “Take it,” said
he, “since you are wise, and will know how to use it well, but if touched
by those unskilled in the divine art, it will utter strange nonsense,
making uncertain, discordant moanings.” Delighted with his acquisition,
Apollo gave his brother a magic wand, by which he could confer happiness
on whom he would; and, henceforth, they dwelt together in great harmony
and love, the honored sons of a common father.

Interpreting this myth one says, “while Apollo represents the genial
sunshine, Hermes, as a power of nature, is the rain—rain and sunshine
being both from the great God of heaven, or, in the language of
mythologists, his sons. They are both beneficent and have many things so
similar as to indicate a common origin.”

In the process of time their conceptions of the younger brother seem to
have undergone some change, or possibly the different shades of opinion
may indicate the places rather than the times in which they prevailed.
To those who regarded him as sending the fertilizing rain, and thus the
dispenser of manifold gifts, he also, and naturally, represented the
wind that “bloweth where it listeth,” and carries the clouds about on
their mission. This idea of personification may account for some things
in their legends that otherwise seem inexplicable. Helpless infancy, in
a very few hours leaving the cradle and performing exploits the most
astonishing, has its parallel in the wind, which, at first only gentle
zephyrs whispering softly, soon may freshen to a gale, and in an hour
sweep over the earth with a force that defies resistance; and when people
make inquest for the mischief done they hear but the mocking laugh as it
hastens on, and the calm after a squall is like the quiet return of the
adventurous god to the cave and cradle that were left for the exploits
of that eventful day. Then the clouds of various shape and color that
are seen grouped above the horizon, or scattered over the vast field of
the sky, were, to a vivid imagination, the herd of Phœbus, who watches
over them. When the rising wind, represented by Hermes’ leaving the cave,
carries them away, a stupendous theft has been committed.

The offices of Hermes were many, and supposed to be useful, nor was his
many sided character thought bad when judged by the moral code of a
people who made him a god after their own likeness. Crafty, dishonest
merchants did not mean to impeach his honesty when they implored him
to give them such shrewdness as to outwit and supplant others in the
bargains they made. Rogues and thieves prayed to him, just as bandits and
robbers in the same country and in parts of Italy ask the patron saints
to aid their assaults on defenseless travelers, and give them a rich
booty.

Arcadian shepherds invoked Hermes as the guardian of flocks while he
inspired their pastoral songs and directed in the manufacture of the
rustic instruments on which they played.

Moreover, he was regarded and often spoken of as the fleet messenger and
dextrous agent of his father, Zeus. In this character the epic poets most
frequently present him. Swifter than the wind he passes over the land
and sea to execute whatever commissions are intrusted to him. Once he
destroyed the hundred eyed Argus, the guardian of Io, on which account he
is called by Homer the Argus slayer.

Seemans suggests that Argus in that myth represents the starry heavens,
and the suggestion is plausible—Argus is slain by the rain god; that is,
the stars are hid by the thick clouds.

As represented in art, he bears the herald’s staff, or wand, given
him by Apollo, by the means of which he can induce sleep or rouse the
slumberer; but it was supposed to be used chiefly in guiding souls to
their abodes in the under world. The earliest Greeks, as indeed men of
all nations, and in every state of society, civilized, semi-civilized
or savage, cherished the expectation of a state after death, and though
vaguely hoping for happiness hereafter, they also felt the need of an
escort, though unseen, to that “land of deepest shade unpierced by human
thought.” The belief in Hermes as psychopompus,[9] or conductor of the
soul, doubtless gave the dying mythologist when consciously loosing his
hold on things visible and tangible, some crumbs of comfort. With no
other rod or staff on which to lean, a heathen poet could say:

    “_Non ego omnis moriar._”[10]

Such was at least the longing for immortality in the darkest ages.

The statues and plastic representations of Hermes, as also of the other
divinities, changed with the progress of this ideal development. They
represent him as a shepherd, sometimes a herald, or messenger, and always
as a powerful, bearded man. Those of later date show him as a beardless
youth, but of great strength, with broad chest, lithe but powerful limbs,
curly hair, small mouth and eyes, a wonderful combination of grace and
vigor. “If we add to this the expression of kindly benevolence which
plays around his finely cut lips, and the inquiring look of his face
as he bends forward thoughtfully, we have the principal characteristic
features artists have given of this god.” Of existing statues, in bronze
and marble, we can not speak more particularly—such are found in the
Vatican, at Naples, and in the British Museum.

HADES.—This name now, and from the beginning of the Christian era, used
only to distinguish a place, was in mythology a personal appellative,
and given to one of the Olympic divinities who received, by allotment,
control of the lower world. He was son of Cronos and Rhea, and there
are but few legends of him that the reader would care to see recorded,
on account of the mysterious gloom that enveloped his person and his
kingdom. It is enough to say he was at first regarded with dread as the
unpitying, unrelenting foe of mankind, and while all were fated in their
appointed time to descend to his dismal realms, heedless of their mortal
reluctance and agony, he gathered them in, and deaf to their prayers kept
his gate so guarded by that hundred headed monster Cerberus[11] that none
could ever escape. The conception was so horrible that men shrank from
it in dismay. Hades, being inexorable, was not worshiped. Prayer had no
encouragement, no utterance. Those who dreaded to become his victims
might wail in their agony or curse bitterly, but no door of hope was open
for them.

In the course of time—how long none can tell, as no details are given,
but in after ages—the Greek conception of Hades as a divinity seemed
to undergo considerable change. Not only other but very different
characteristics were given to him. He even received a new name, Pluton
(riches), possibly indicating for him some agency in sending up, from
the bosom of the earth, nourishment for things that grow on its surface,
and also as offering unbounded wealth to mankind in the metals whose
mines are in the subterranean chambers. But though the original dismal
conception of this stern, inexorable deity was partially relieved,
mention of him seems always to have conveyed to the mind the idea of
something grim and painfully mysterious, and that probably caused them to
speak of him but seldom, and with fear.

We are more interested to trace their notions of the underworld itself,
and respecting the state of the dead who have entered it. On these
subjects there was evidently some diversity of opinion, not between
different persons only, but of the same person at different times. Even
Homer presents two distinct views respecting the abode and condition of
the dead. In the “Iliad” he locates it beneath the flat earth, and not
far from the upper surface. Describing the battle of the gods he says:

    “Pluto, the infernal monarch, heard alarmed,
     And, springing from his throne, cried out in fear,
     Lest Neptune breaking through the solid earth
     To mortals and immortals should lay bare
     The dark and drear abode of gods abhorred.”

But in the “Odyssey,” the realm in which the shades of the departed
wander, lies far west of the earth-girdling Oceanus, or is an island
in the midst of that fabled stream. Nor is this at all wonderful,
since, after the progress of centuries, and the partial unveiling of
the future in the divine oracles, the _heaven_ revealed, as to its
latitude, longitude and topography, remains, even to Christians, a _terra
incognita_.[12]

In the profoundly interesting problem of a future life the question of
locality is of little importance. That which more concerns the mortal,
yet immortal man, is what that life shall be; and, in their answers to
that question, theology and mythology differ widely. The latter claims
for departed spirits only a shadowy, dreamy, dismal existence, devoid
of any real happiness. At first they seem to have had no thought of
any difference in their allotments, and say nothing of the judgment of
the dead. Further on in their history the idea of future reward and
punishment had some development. Thenceforward there was a division in
Pluto’s realm, and the nethermost part was called Tartarus, a deep,
dark, cavernous abode of wretchedness and woe, where those condemned
by the judges,[13] Minos, Rhadamanthus and Æacus were tormented by the
Furies. The good, being special favorites of the gods, are transferred to
elysian fields—isles of the blessed—and find their happiness complete,
while those of a middle class, without either positive excellence or
damning wrong, are permitted to remain in a dusky region, where, as dim
but ghastly shades, they pass a dull, joyless existence, without much
positive suffering.

The punishment of great criminals was a fruitful theme for the
imaginations and pens of the Greek poets. Tityus, who had offered
violence to Leto, is chained to the earth while vultures constantly tear
his ever growing liver. Tantalus,[14] who had been admitted to the table
of the gods, but impiously thought to test their superior discernment by
putting before them the flesh of his son Pelops, is for his crime doomed
to suffer the torments of continual hunger and thirst. Just above his
head are branches laden with beautiful and luscious fruits, but when he
attempts to pluck them a gust of wind bears them quite beyond his reach.
He stands on the bank of a beautiful stream clear as crystal, or in the
midst of the water, but when he attempts to quench his raging thirst it
is impossible even to wet his lips. Sisyphus, once king of Corinth, and a
great sinner, was condemned to roll a block of stone up a high mountain,
but, soon as the top was reached, the huge stone, by some sudden impulse,
rolled back to the plain, and with weary limbs he must continue the
fruitless struggle. Ixion, also an insolent offender, is chained, hands
and feet, to an ever revolving wheel and tortured without respite or hope
of release. And the daughters of Danaus, who at their father’s bidding
had slain their husbands the night of their nuptials, are laboriously
pouring water into a perforated cask with despair of ever accomplishing
the required task of filling it. The punishment was deemed retributory,
and in these examplary cases from its nature without end.

EROS AND PSYCHE[15] (CUPID AND THE SOUL).—Eros, reputed a son of
Aphrodite and Ares, in the earlier legends appears a winged child; then
a boy of marvelous beauty on the verge of youth, but small of stature.
His characteristic is the golden bow, from whose taut string arrows fly
to their mark, with unerring aim, and inflict wounds that represent the
consuming pangs of love. As the charming but mischief-making Eros, being
solitary, did not grow, his mother, by the advice of Artemis, gave him
as a play-fellow a brother whom they named Anteros; his company caused
content and happiness. Eros was venerated not only as the god of love,
kindly influencing the sexes toward each other, and kindling purest
fires on their home altars, but as the author also of loving friendships
between youths and men. For this reason probably, his statue was placed
between those of Hermes and Hercules in the gymnasia, and the warlike
Spartans sacrifice to him before battle, pledging themselves to be
faithful, and stand by one another in time of need.

The significant myth showing the love of Eros for Psyche is of
more recent origin and shows some higher religious notions. Various
interpretations of the legend have been suggested, all of them
sufficiently fanciful. We give here an abridgment of a much lengthier
account found in “Stories from the Classics.”

In a certain city were three daughters of the king, of whom the youngest,
Psyche, being exceedingly beautiful, was thought the loveliest of
mortals. Her enraptured admirers built altars for her worship as a
goddess, and strewed them with flowery garlands. The charming Psyche was
too gentle and good to be elated by the homage, however extravagantly
expressed, but the hearts of her less beautiful sisters were soon filled
with envy and jealousy. Moreover Venus herself, the goddess of beauty,
became like a mortal jealous of poor Psyche. Highly offended that her
own altars should be neglected for those of an earth-born maiden, she
retired in anger to her favorite isle, and there cherished purposes of
revenge. Thither her winged boy, Cupid, came quickly at his mother’s
call. With tears and many passionate lamentations she told him the story
of her wrongs—how Psyche was honored and Venus neglected. “You alone, my
son,” she said, “can punish this presumptuous beauty, and make her feel
that it is a serious thing to incur the displeasure of the immortals.”
When her plans were made known, soothing his mother with fond caresses,
Cupid readily promised to execute all her wishes. Then, in obedience to
her commands, he hastened away to a luxuriant island in the midst of
the ocean, where were two fountains side by side, one clear as crystal,
imparting health and happiness to all who drank of the delicious water;
the other turbid and of a most deadly nature. Those who tasted its
poisoned water were never happy again. From the one, a living fountain,
he took water of joy, from the other of sorrow, and placing each in a
little amber urn, flew away to the palace of Psyche, where he found her
lying upon a couch, fragrant with roses, asleep, and smiling in her
pleasant dreams. Too intent on accomplishing his mission to be deterred,
even by the sight of such transcendent beauty, silently and lightly as
falls a noxious dew upon a gentle flower he shed on her slightly parted
lips the fatal drops of grief, and was preparing to wound her with
his arrow, when his victim suddenly awoke. The scene was changed and
the mischievous, cruel Cupid was now quite overcome with her strange
loveliness, and the gentle expression of her lustrous eyes. Filled with
remorse for what was done he hastily shed on her golden ringlets the
balmy drops of joy, intended for another, and vanished from her sight.

The father of Psyche fearing the wrath of the celestials on account of
the adoration paid to his daughter, inquired, at the oracle of Apollo,
what course he should pursue. The response filled him with anguish. He
was directed to place the maiden on a barren rock on the top of the
mountain, and there abandon her to her unknown fate. The poor king and
his queen wept much, but dared not disobey the oracle, cruel as it
seemed. Preparations were made in sadness, and on the day appointed
Psyche was attended to the destined rock by a mournful procession of
friends whose lamentations rent the air. When the broken-hearted parents
bade a last adieu to their beloved child, they ordered the gates of
their palace to be shut and gave themselves up to despair. As the train
of mourners gradually disappeared Psyche stood trembling on the top of
the lone mountain, and now overcome with grief and fear, she burst into
tears, bemoaning her sad condition. Then the gently blowing zephyr caught
and raised her in the air, and bearing her over the valley at the foot
of the mountain left her on a flowery turf, in a sweet sleep. When she
awoke all fear was gone. Looking around she saw, near a grove of lofty
trees, a cool fountain gently flowing, and within the grove a palace so
gorgeous that it was evidently the residence of a god. It was of costly
materials, exquisite workmanship, and filled with immense treasures, all
of which seemed secure without guards or doors. As the astonished but
now delighted maiden entered, a voice of angelic sweetness addressed
her, saying, “Lovely Psyche, all these treasures are yours, and we whose
voices you hear, though invisible, are your servants, who will obey all
your commands. Come to the banquet already prepared for our rightful
mistress.” She was conducted to a rich repast of ambrosia and nectar,
served by invisible hands, and entertained with delightful music from
Æolian harps.

Psyche did not know who the lord of the palace was, but, without being
suffered to behold him, she became his wife, and lived for a long time
contented and happy; treated by him, when present, with the utmost
kindness, and, in his absence, cheered by the voices of her unseen
attendants.

When her sisters, wicked women, who had heard of her happiness, and were
invited to share it, arrived at the palace they were received by Psyche
most cordially. She tenderly embraced them, showed them her treasures,
and bestowed such gifts as sisterly affection suggested. But their hearts
were hard and cruel. More envious than before at the sight of such
magnificence, they artfully planned to destroy their unsuspecting victim,
who had been warned not to allow any idle curiosity about her husband,
lest, by so doing, she might lose him forever. “Dearest sister,” they
say, concealing their real feelings under a mask of sisterly kindness,
“our love constrains us to make known to you that the being you call your
husband is doubtless some malignant spirit who dares not show to you his
hideous person, and who will some day destroy you. Take therefore, we
entreat, this lamp and dagger; conceal the lamp in the tapestry of your
chamber, and in the night satisfy your curiosity. If he prove the monster
we suspect, you can kill him in his sleep and return to the home of your
distracted parents.”

Poor Psyche was overwhelmed with sorrow, and after much talking they so
wrought on both her fear and curiosity that she reluctantly promised to
heed their advice. As night approached her courage failed, and all the
past kindness of her husband coming in mind made her design appear most
ungrateful, yet she must keep her promise, and at any risk, satisfy the
doubts that were distracting her. So when all voices were hushed, the
lights out, and deep silence reigned in the palace, she took the lamp
from the place where she had concealed it, and, with trembling, drew
near the couch where she saw her husband lying fast asleep. What was
her glad surprise when she found him none other than the beautiful god
Cupid himself. His countenance was so radiant that the very light of
the revealing lamp seemed to grow dim. On his shoulders were wings of
delicate whiteness, covered with a tremulous down. His bow and arrows
lay at his feet. As she stood over him, entranced by the sight, the oil
in the lamp, as if to punish her crime, bubbled over and the burning
liquid fell on the shoulder of the sleeper. Immediately he started up,
and looking reproaches stronger than words, at once flew away in silence.
Alas! for the imprudent wife’s distress, when the husband she adored left
her in anger, and, as she feared, never to return.

The deceitful sisters, themselves deceived by a false tale of Cupid’s
regard for them, miserably perished. When the indignant Venus learned
that Cupid, instead of punishing, had taken to his palace her detested
rival, and then suffered injury at her hand, she threatened vengeance and
sent Mercury in search of the object of her hate. Her wounded son was
cared for, but not without upbraiding him for his conduct, and proposing
such chastisement as anger mingling with maternal love suggested.

As for the deserted Psyche, having attempted in vain to drown herself
in a neighboring stream, she wanders through the world in search of her
lost love. Relentlessly persecuted by her adversary, who subjected her to
numerous and severe trials, the plants and animals, the reed, the swan,
the eagle, offer advice and assistance. Pitied, but unaided, unprotected
by the higher goddesses, Ceres and Juno, her case becomes desperate, and
she determines, at once, to surrender herself into the hands of Venus.
“Possibly she may be won by my good and dutiful conduct, and in the
house of his mother I may get a sight of him I have so long sought in
vain.” That hope, too, was doomed to disappointment. The haughty goddess,
forgetting alike the dignity of her rank, and the tenderness of a mother,
spoke bitter, revengeful words, and, calling two servants, Sorrow and
Solicitude, she ordered them to chastise her in the severest manner. The
suffering of her victim did not satisfy the angry Venus, and the most
difficult tasks were enjoined. Having tried her ability by requiring
many things thought impossible for mortals, but that were all, by the
aid of favoring divinities, accomplished, as a last effort she bade her
go to the palace of Pluto, in the infernal regions, and, carrying a
box given her for the purpose, to request of Proserpine[16] a portion
of her divine beauty, and bring back the treasure untouched. It was a
perilous undertaking; but again helped and instructed how to proceed,
it was accomplished in safety, and with entire success. She escaped the
wiles with which Proserpine sought to detain her guest, and obtained
the treasure box, filled and carefully closed. In her instructions she
was enjoined not, on any account, to open the box or meddle with its
precious contents. When returning, the chief difficulties and dangers of
the way already past, her woman’s curiosity again prevails, and silencing
her fears and her conscience, she decides to appropriate a very small
portion of its contents, desiring to become more pleasing to her offended
husband, whom she still hopes to meet. The lid was cautiously raised,
when lo! instead of the celestial beauty that was expected, there issued
from within, a black, dense vapor which enveloped her so closely, that,
presently, overcome with a deep stupor, she fell senseless to the ground.

Cupid having escaped from the palace, and, having on his downy wings,
witnessed the whole of this proceeding, flew to the spot, and, quickly
gathering up the deadly vapor, confined it again within the casket.
Then gently arousing the stupefied Psyche, with a touch of his arrow,
“See,” said he, “how thou wouldst perish by this foolish curiosity! Arise
now and complete the task imposed by my mother, while I supplicate the
mighty Jupiter to appease her anger.” Thus saying he soared on high, nor
ceased his flight till he reached Olympus, the lofty dwelling of the
gods. Then kneeling before the throne he pleaded with such eloquence the
cause of his hapless spouse that the king of gods was moved to pity, and
promised, by the exercise of his sovereign will, to end forever Psyche’s
misfortunes and sufferings. Mercury was ordered to conduct her to his
presence, and, eager to fulfill so pleasant a commission, the winged
messenger darted through the air with utmost speed and soon returned with
his charge.

The joy of Cupid was boundless, when Psyche, more lovely than ever, stood
by his side. Jupiter, regarding her for a time with silent admiration,
then, presenting a cup of nectar, said: “Take this, and be henceforth
immortal. The bitter waters that have occasioned all your sufferings,
after this divine draught will be forgotten. Venus shall no longer mourn
your union with her son. It has the approval of the gods, and shall
endure forever.”

Psyche thus indued with a new and glorious nature, looked imploringly at
mother Venus. Friendly influences stealing into her heart, the goddess
yielded, and embraced her radiant daughter with maternal affection. The
wedding banquet was prepared, and the Hours with roseate fingers decked
the bride. Ganymede,[17] as commanded, poured for them the sparkling
nectar, and cloud-capped Olympus echoed to the glad sounds of choral
voices.

Neptune came from his ocean cave; Apollo and the Muses were attracted
by the sweet notes of song; Minerva laid aside her helmet to grace the
marriage feast with her presence; Mars, with swordless hand, and merry
Bacchus, the grape wreath that bound his golden hair nodding as he
stepped, all joined the festive company. The Graces had decorated the
spacious hall; there were thrilling strains of music in the orchestra,
and Venus herself danced for joy. Psyche, the admired of all, reclining
on the bosom of her reconciled husband, in the bliss of so divine a union
lost forever the remembrance of all her sorrows.

This beautiful fable, some say, represents the trials and destiny of
human beings. The soul—so the mythologists held—though of divine origin,
is here subjected to error and evil in its prison, the body. Trials
and purifications are necessary, that it may become capable of purer
pleasures and nobler aspirations. Two loves meet it, one earthly and
degrading, the other heavenly and elevating. This, when victorious leads
off the soul, disenthralled and purified, to the abodes of the blessed.

According to these expositors the myth is a moral one, and represents
the dangers to which nuptial fidelity was exposed in such a country as
degenerate Greece, and also gives an instance of true constancy subjected
to many and strong temptations, but victorious over them all.

As allegorical myths are of doubtful interpretation, the reader may
escape some perplexity by accepting the story as a tale of fancy,
intended for innocent amusement, rather than for instruction in
psychology or morals.




STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

IV. APPLES, PEACHES, BLACKBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED, SC. D.


In our study of the food products of the earth, we now come to a
consideration of some of our leading fruits. All of the four given above
are furnished us by a single order of plants, namely: the Rose Family,
or _Rosaceæ_.[1] This order not only contains the “Queen of Flowers,”
but the “King of Fruits;” it is, in short, a royal family among plants,
without which we should be deprived of much that is very beautiful, and
more that is exceedingly useful. We are dependent upon the cereals for
our flour, but what would flour be without some fruit to mix with it in
the formation of a very long list of our most highly prized viands? Apple
pies, peach dumplings, blackberry puddings and strawberry shortcakes all
have their ardent admirers, and happy is the housewife who can make them
to perfection.

THE APPLE.—Well might the apple be the fruit to tempt mankind. The
schoolboy feels this when before him stands a neighbor’s tree loaded with
the golden spheres of ripeness and sweetness. Well might Solomon with
all his wisdom acknowledge the beauty and worth of this best of fruits
when he writes: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures
of silver.” Downing, in his classic work on “The Fruits and Fruit Trees
of America” says: “Among the heathen gods of the north there were apples
fabled to possess the power of conferring immortality, which were
carefully watched over by the goddess Iduna,[2] and kept for the special
dessert of the gods who felt themselves growing old.” Apples may not
confer immortality, but they lend new charms to life, and we should guard
this fruit as did the sleepless dragon the golden apples in the orchards
of Hesperus.[3]

If the “tree of knowledge” is not an allegory, and it bore apples, we
have the antiquity as well as ancient edibility of the apple at once
established. The origin and first home of the apple, like all the fruits,
flowers and vegetables in cultivation before the time of human records,
is all obscurity, and speculation has free course in seeking for the
early history of the apple. This fruit was extensively cultivated by the
Romans, and is widely diffused through all parts of the temperate zone.

The apple tree is one of slow growth and medium size, though there
are some specimens in this country of great dimensions. The head is
low-spreading, and the flowers sweet and beautiful. The blossom, as well
as the fruit that follows it, is famous in story and in song. The kinds
of apples are very numerous, and the number is increasing every year. The
genus _Pyrus_,[4] to which the common apple belongs, has several species,
including the mountain ashes, common chokeberry, and several kinds of
crab apples, and last, but far from the least, the pears. The orchard
apple is thus seen to be in the midst of good company.

Apples are classified in various ways; that by J. J. Thomas, in his
“American Fruit Culturist,” is as follows: Three divisions are made upon
the time of ripening—as, summer, autumn, and winter apples. Under each of
these are two classes, namely: sweet apples, and those with more or less
acidity. Under each of these six classes are two sections, viz.: color
striped with red—color unstriped. The three points in this classification
are season, taste, and color of skin. For example, the apple before
me is a summer fruit, sweet, with skin not striped. It belongs in the
second section of class one of the first division. It is the sweet
bough. Again, the apple is striped, acid, and winter; by referring to
the descriptive list we find it is northern spy, king of Tompkins,
or Wagener. The characteristics of the groupings above given are not
properly distinct. As Thomas says: “Summer apples gradually pass into
autumn, and autumn into winter apples. A few … possess nearly a neutral
flavor between a dead sweetness and slight acidity. Again, apples classed
with those that are striped, sometimes present a nearly uniform shade
of red.” So much interwoven are the colors, periods of ripening, etc.,
that Downing discards all classification and arranges his descriptive
list alphabetically. In describing apples and similar fruit the word
_base_ is used for the stem end of the fruit, and _apex_ the blossom end.
The primary forms of apples are: oblate, roundish, conical, and oblong.
The last report of the American Pomological Society[5] catalogues three
hundred and thirty-seven varieties of apples, with the standing of each
in the several states and territories. From this tabulation we select
the following varieties as among those that proved the best: For summer,
early harvest, red astrachan, sweet bough, American summer, Carolina
June, and Oldenburg; for autumn, fall pippins, Porter, maiden’s blush,
Gravenstein, late strawberry, sops of wine, and primate; for winter,
Baldwin, Ben Davis, Hubbardston, Rhode Island greening, northern spy, and
farmer’s. These sorts are not equally good everywhere, but taken all in
all they are among the leading sorts. There may be some varieties of only
local reputation that do better in their native section than any here
mentioned. Some apples are adapted to the warmer climate of the southern
states, while others are suited to the cold regions farther north. The
wealthy apple is a fine illustration of the latter; it is especially
suited to New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Colorado.

Apple trees are raised from seed sown in autumn, and remain in the seed
bed for two or three years, when they are removed in the spring, with
their tap-root or main root cut to the nursery rows. The following autumn
they are budded with the desired variety. The well ripened bud is
inserted in the bark of the twig, near the ground. The growth from the
bud afterward forms the tree top. The trees may be set in the orchard
the third year after budding. The soil best adapted for an orchard is
a strong loam containing abundant limestone or calcareous matter. The
soil should be kept mellow by frequent cultivation, until the trees are
of considerable size. It must be remembered that the trees are of first
importance, and they should not be starved by lack of richness in the
soil or by the growth of exhausting grain crops.

There are many insect enemies to the apple tree, the leading among which
are the borers, American tent caterpillar, canker worm, bark-lice and
codling moth. The methods of treating each one of these pests have been
well worked out, but space forbids our giving them in this connection.

It is important that apples be gathered with care, especially if to be
sent to market. The reputation of American apples in the English market
has suffered greatly from carelessness in picking and packing. Fruit
sells more by appearance than anything else, and therefore the packages
should be neat and the contents uniformly good. Apples are employed in
various ways beside cooking. They are the source of much cider that
afterward by fermentation forms the best quality of vinegar.

THE PEACH.—The peach (_Prunus Persica_[6]) is a native of Persia, as the
botanical name indicates, and was brought from that country to Italy
by the Romans. It is frequently mentioned by ancient writers, and was
regarded with much veneration by the people of Asia. The peach reached
the British Isles in the sixteenth century. There is no country where
the peach is more successfully grown than in some portions of the United
States. It can not be grown with profit north of 42° north latitude, but
south of this line it flourishes as far as the Gulf of Mexico. There are
some localities specially adapted for the peach, and here it is grown
in its perfection. First among such sections is the Delaware peninsula,
a territory of six thousand square miles, within which more peaches per
acre are produced than anywhere else on the globe, and of the finest
quality. A portion of Michigan, known as the “peach belt,” is likewise
famous, and supplies the western markets with vast quantities of this
luscious fruit.

The peach is a small tree, with long narrow leaves and beautiful pink
blossoms. It grows rapidly to maturity, and after bearing a few crops is
through with its best work, and should be replaced by another.

Mr. Fulton, in his small book on “Peach Culture,” writes: “The seed
should be of natural fruit. It is more vigorous, more hardy, more certain
to germinate, and the tree lives longer. This should never be overlooked
by any planter who wishes the full reward of his labors.” This indicates
that the seed in the budded fruit loses some of its vitality. It is
doubtless a law that as we go farther from the native or wild state the
less vigorous becomes the nurtured plant. The artificial life that many
plants lead leaves them no time to store up strength for the continuation
of the race, and in many cases they have lost all power of producing
offspring. The young peach trees are provided by sowing the seeds in
beds, carefully kept free from weeds. After the proper size is reached,
buds are inserted, as above mentioned under the apple, and in a year or
two the budded trees are ready for the orchard.

This process of budding is similar to that of making cuttings or slips,
only, a single bud is set in the cleft bark of a living stem, instead of
a piece of branch, with two or more buds, set in moist sand. Grafting
differs from budding in that the cion is a stem with two or more buds,
usually set in a cleft of a living branch; it is budding on a larger
scale, and is suited to large trees.

The varieties of peaches are very numerous, more than one hundred and
fifty sorts being set down in some lists. It is not an easy task to
select the best. There are many things to consider in deciding upon the
merit of a peach. It may have the best flavor, but be subject to rot, a
poor bearer, or be so small that it will not sell well. The tree should
be vigorous and productive, with fruit large, rich flavored, and fine
colored. Such fruit is fit food for the gods. From the recent Pomological
Society catalogue we find that the following varieties are the most in
favor, take the whole country through. Among those known as very early
are: Alexander, early York, large early York, Hales and truth; medium,
early Crawford, Chinese cling, Columbia, oldmixon free and oldmixon
cling; late, smock, stump-the-world, late Crawford, Heath cling, and
Ward’s late. By a careful selection of varieties with regard to their
time of ripening, a small orchard would furnish fruit from midsummer
until the frosts come. In setting out an orchard there is a tendency to
purchase new sorts, and for this the nurserymen are largely to blame. A
man’s interest in the sale of so simple a thing as a tree may cause it to
be overestimated. A half dozen time-tested standard sorts are worth more
than a score of new seedlings without any record.

Peaches are classified by their fruit into those with white flesh and
yellow flesh, and these are divided again into free-stones and clings.
In some of the clings the flesh is very superior, but owing to its close
union with the stone it is difficult to eat, and therefore is far less
popular than free-stones of an inferior quality.

The leading enemies to the peach are the borer, curculio,[7] the
leaf-curl and the “yellows.” The “curl” is caused by a fungus, and the
remedy is picking and burning the leaves. The “yellows” is the most fatal
of all the enemies, having ruined hundreds of the finest orchards. The
cause is not fully understood, but the indications are that it may be a
low form of microscopic life known as bacteria. No cure has been found,
and when a tree turns the characteristic yellow it should be torn out and
burned, root and branch.

We can not close this brief sketch without thinking of that happy boy
reclining upon the shady sod, who

        —lifted his head to where hung in his reach
    All laden with honey, the ruddy-cheeked peach.

BLACKBERRIES.—The two fruits already described in this paper are of
a comparatively large size, and grow on trees. We now come to the
so-called “small fruits,” among which are the blackberry, raspberry,
strawberry, currant, and gooseberry. The genus _Rubus_[8] furnishes both
the blackberries and the raspberries, thus showing that these two kinds
of small fruits are very closely related. There are about one hundred
and fifty species of blackberries scattered throughout the world, but
of these only two have furnished our gardens with the best cultivated
varieties, namely: the high blackberry (_R. villosus_[9]), growing
everywhere in thickets, with a strong prickly stem, six feet high, and
the low blackberry, or dewberry (_R. canadensis_[10]), a long trailing
plant, with slightly prickly stems, and small, early ripening fruit.

The cultivation of the blackberry has been retarded to a considerable
extent by the excellence of the wild sorts—the people being satisfied
with the fruit of the bramble in the fence row. The varieties that now
head the list have all been chance seedlings found growing wild, and
afterward improved by garden culture. The Lawton was found growing on a
roadside in Westchester county, New York, and is often known by the name
of its native town, New Rochelle. The Lawton did much to introduce the
blackberry to the fruit gardens. The canes winter kill, and the fruit,
unless perfectly ripe, is hard and sour at the core. The Kittatinny
stands among the first for the size and richness of its fruit. This
berry is a little earlier than the New Rochelle. It was found near the
Kittatinny mountains, in New Jersey, and bears the peculiar Indian name
of the place of its nativity. Mr. Roe, in his “Success with Small Fruits”
says of the discoverer of the Kittatinny blackberry: “He has done more
for the world than if he had opened a gold mine.”

The Wilson’s early is a third variety, of New Jersey origin, that grows
low, with the canes trailing upon the ground. As the name indicates, this
is a remarkably early blackberry, and were it not subject to attacks from
insects it would be a very superior variety. The Snyder is of western
origin, is wonderfully productive and hardy. The small size of the berry
is the greatest defect of the Snyder. There are some recent candidates
for popular favor, but the four mentioned have been found worthy of a
place in the small fruit garden.

The blackberry prefers a rather dry soil, of medium richness. On a moist
and very fertile soil the canes grow rank and large and produce very
little fruit. The plants need to be set in rows six to eight feet apart
each way. It is best to set the plants in autumn, because they start
into growth very early in the spring, before there is opportunity for
transplanting. Stakes or cheap wire trellises are usually provided for
holding up plants. The canes that grow up one season produce fruit the
succeeding year, and then die. It is therefore necessary to treat as
weeds all shoots that are not needed for the bearing canes the following
season. Judicious pruning of the cane while it is growing will produce
much branched tops, which are more productive than those that grow to
great length, and they are less liable to be injured by frost. Mr. Roe
says: “More can be done with the thumb and finger at the right time
than with the most savage pruning shears after a year of neglect.” The
blackberry produces many suckers, and if these are left to grow for a
year or two the whole ground becomes a wilderness that is not productive,
and very difficult to subdue.

STRAWBERRIES.—It is not an easy task to find the person who dislikes
strawberries. They are acceptable to the vast majority, and in almost any
form, from the plain berry just picked off the vine to the juicy, red
layer in a shortcake, or the heaping saucer with its fragrant contents
half floating in sweet cream. The name strawberry probably came from the
old Saxon _streawberige_, either because of the strawlike stems to the
plants, or from the berries being strewn upon the ground. In olden times
children strung the berries upon straws and sold them thus, and possibly
from this we now have the name for our earliest and finest of small
fruits. The name of the strawberry genus is _Fragaria_,[11] the Latin
for “sweet smelling.” The cultivated varieties of strawberries represent
five species. The most common one, growing wild almost everywhere being
_Fragaria vesca_. In this species the seeds are superficial on the
luscious cone. The Virginian strawberry, _F. Virginiana_, abundant in all
parts of the United States, has roundish fruit, with the seeds embedded
in deep pits. At the time of the introduction of this species in English
gardens the culture of the strawberry took a fresh start. By sowing the
seed of the Virginian species new varieties have been produced in large
numbers, so that now it is the parent of nine-tenths of all the sorts
grown in our gardens. The Hovey, Wilson, monarch, Seth Boyden, Charles
Downy, and Sharpless are some of the improved varieties of this species.
A new impetus was given to strawberry culture by the introduction of a
South American species, _F. grandiflora_. The fruit is large and sweet,
with a peculiar sprightliness that makes the varieties derived from this
species highly prized in England and on this continent. Our cold winters
and hot summers are too severe extremes for these offsprings of a more
tropical species. The triumphe de gand and jucunda are two superb sorts
derived from the _F. grandiflora_.

Some varieties of strawberries have what are known as pistillate flowers;
that is, the stamens or male organs are imperfect or wanting. In such
cases it is necessary to grow a perfect-flowered (bi-sexual) variety in
close proximity, in order to insure fertilization and the formation of
fruit. The famous Hovey seedling is a pistillate variety, and there are
many others of this character.

One of the leading features of the strawberry plant is to multiply by
means of long, slender branches, called runners. There are, however,
three methods of propagating the strawberry, viz.: by the runners, by
division of the root, and by seeds. The chief method is by runners.
Strawberries need a rich, mellow soil. The plants may be set either
in the spring or fall, though the spring is generally preferred by
experienced strawberry growers. Plants set in autumn will not come into
bearing the next season unless they are pot-grown. These pot-grown plants
are obtained by sinking small flower pots in the earth of the strawberry
bed, into the contents of which the runners strike root and form plants.
The roots of the plants are not disturbed by transplanting, and one
whole season is gained. In setting out strawberry plants care needs to
be observed that the crown is not buried. The holes should be large, so
that the roots may be spread out in all directions. If set in rows two
and a half feet apart, and a foot or so distant in the row, a horse and
cultivator may be used to advantage in keeping down the weeds. After two
or three full crops have been gathered from a bed the rows may be plowed
up. Some growers gather only one crop, and reset the land. There are many
methods of treatment. In the fall the strawberry bed should be covered
with a mulch. The success of many cultivators of the strawberry is due,
in great measure, to the protection of their plants in winter.

The insect enemies to the strawberry are numerous, not the least of
which is the white grub, the larvæ of the May beetle or “June Bug,” the
strawberry worm, the leaf-roller, crown borer, saw fly, and various cut
worms. A rust sometimes attacks the plants and almost ruins them.

It is very difficult to indicate what are the best varieties of
strawberries. Again referring to the chart in the last issue of the
American Pomological Society, we find forty-one varieties there
tabulated. Of these the Charles Downing and the Wilson take the lead,
being suited to a wide range of climate, soil, and other conditions. The
Downing is the type of excellence in flavor and other qualities, while
the Wilson is a firm, sour, and very prolific berry well suited for the
market garden. Among the other sorts worthy of attention, mentioned
alphabetically, are: Crescent, Cumberland, Hovey, Kentucky, Manchester,
miner’s prolific, Monarch, Sharpless, and triumphe de gand. A dozen or
more new sorts appear each year, some of which may take their places
among the time-tested sorts here mentioned. It may be that in a few
years all of these old varieties will be superseded by new sorts, and
the berries that we now eat with so much relish will seem poor by the
contrast. Let the future be as it may, no one should neglect the culture
of the kinds we now possess. A person with only a village half acre may
grow his own berries of various sorts, and still have room for a few
pear, apple, peach, and cherry trees.

Let us close this brief treatment of small fruits at the same place
where Mr. Roe began his large, elegant and exhaustive book on the same
subject, by quoting the following passage from his “Preliminary Parley:”
“Many think of the soil only in connection with the sad words of the
burial service, ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes.’ Let us, while we may,
gain more cheerful associations with our kindred dust. For a time it can
be earth to strawberry blossoms, ashes to bright red berries, and their
color will get into our cheeks, and their rich, sub-acid juices into
our insipid lives, constituting a mental, moral and physical alteration
that will so change us that we shall believe in evolution, and imagine
ourselves fit for a higher state of existence. One may delve in the earth
so long as to lose all dread at the thought of sleeping in it at last,
and the luscious fruits and bright hued flowers that come out of it, in a
way no one can find out, may teach our own resurrection more effectually
than do the learned theologians.”




APPLES, PEACHES, BLACKBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES.


“The liberal use of various fruits as food is conducive to good health.
Fruit is not a solid and lasting element like beef and bread, and does
not give strength to any great extent. But fruits contain those acids
which refresh and give tone to the system during the season when it
is most needed. They should never be eaten unless thoroughly ripe, or
cooked. Stale fruits, or those that have been plucked some time, are
unhealthy in the extreme. The proper time to eat fruit is in the morning
and early afternoon. At night it is ‘leaden,’ according to the Spanish,
who call fruit ‘golden in the morning and silver at noon.’” These words
of general advice fitly introduce our “apples, peaches, strawberries, and
blackberries,” for whose use, fresh and uncooked, we would strongly plead.

RIPE FRUIT.—Wash and polish apples with a clean towel, and pile in a
china fruit basket, with an eye to agreeable variety of color. Of peaches
and pears the finest should be selected, handling as little as may be,
and pile upon a salver or flat dish, with bits of ice between them,
and ornament with peach leaves or fennel sprigs. One of the prettiest
dishes of fruit I ever saw upon a dessert table was an open silver
basket, wide at the top, heaped with rich red peaches and yellow Bartlett
pears, interspersed with feathery bunches of green, which few of those
who admired it knew for carrot tops. Wild white clematis wreathed the
handle and showed here and there among the fruit, while scarlet and
white verbenas nestled amid the green. Send around powdered sugar with
the fruit, as many like to dip peaches and pears in it after paring and
quartering them.

Never wash strawberries or raspberries that are intended to be eaten as
fresh fruit. If they are so gritty as to require this process keep them
off the table. You will certainly ruin the flavor beyond repair if you
wash them, and as certainly induce instant fermentation and endanger the
coats of the eaters’ stomachs, if, after profaning the exquisite delicacy
of the fruit to this extent, you complete the evil work by covering them
with sugar, and leaving them to leak their lives sourly away for one or
two hours. Put them on the table in glass dishes, piling them high and
lightly; send around powdered sugar with them and cream, that the guests
may help themselves. It is not economical, perhaps, but it is a healthful
and pleasant style of serving them—I had almost said the only decent one.
“But I don’t know who picked them,” cries Mrs. Fussy.

No, my dear madame! nor do you know who makes the baker’s bread, or
confectioner’s cake, creams, jellies, salads, etc. Nor, for that matter,
how the flour is manufactured out of which you conjure your dainty
biscuits and pies. I _know_ God made strawberries. “Doubtless,” says
Bishop Butler, “he could have made a better berry, but he never did.” The
picker’s light touch can not mar flavor or beauty, nor, were her fingers
filthy as a chimney sweep’s, could the delicate fruit suffer from them
as from your barbarous baptism.—_Marion Harland in “Common Sense in the
Household.”_

PUDDINGS AND PIES.—_Apple Dumplings._—Make a crust as for biscuit, or a
potato crust, as follows: Three large potatoes boiled and mashed while
hot. Add to them two cups of sifted flour and one teaspoonful of salt,
and mix thoroughly. Now chop or cut into it one small cup of butter,
and mix into a paste with about a teacupful of cold water. Dredge the
board thick with flour, and roll out—thick in the middle and thin at
the edges. A thick pudding-cloth—the best being made of Canton flannel,
used with the nap-side out—should be dipped in hot water and wrung out,
dredged evenly and thickly with flour, and laid over a large bowl. Upon
the middle of this place the rolled-out crust, fill with apples pared
and quartered, eight or ten good-sized ones being enough for this amount
of crust. Gather the edges of the crust evenly over it. Then gather
the cloth up, leaving room for the dumpling to swell, and tying very
tightly. In turning out, lift to a dish, press all the water from the
ends of the cloth; untie and turn away from the pudding, and lay a hot
dish upon it, turning over the pudding into it, and serving at once, as
it darkens or falls by standing. In using a boiler, butter well, and fill
only two-thirds full, that the mixture may have room to swell. Set it
in boiling water, and see that it is kept at the same height, about an
inch from the top. Cover the outer kettle, that the steam may be kept in.
Peaches pared and halved, or canned ones drained from the syrup, may be
used instead of the apples. When canned fruit is used the syrup can be
used as a sauce, either cold for cold puddings and blancmanges, or heated
and thickened for hot, allowing to a pint of juice a heaping teaspoonful
of corn starch, dissolved in a little cold water, and boiling it five
minutes. Strawberry or raspberry syrup is especially nice.

_Bread and Apple Pudding._—Butter a deep pudding dish and put first a
layer of crumbs, then one of any good acid apple, sliced rather thin,
and so on until the dish is nearly full. Six or eight apples and a quart
of fresh crumbs will fill a two-quart dish. Dissolve a cup of sugar and
one teaspoonful of cinnamon in one pint of boiling water and pour into
the dish. Let the pudding stand half an hour to swell; then bake until
brown—about three-quarters of an hour—and eat with liquid sauce. It can
be made with slices of bread and butter instead of crumbs.

_Short-Cake._—One quart of flour, one teaspoonful of salt and two of
baking powder sifted with the flour, one cup of butter, or half lard and
half butter, one large cup of hot milk. Rub the butter into the flour;
add the milk and roll out the dough, cutting in small square cakes and
baking to a light brown. For a strawberry or peach short-cake have three
tin pie-plates buttered; roll the dough to fit them, and bake quickly.
Fill either, when done, with a cup of sugar, or with peaches cut fine and
sugared, and served hot.

PIES—APPLE, PEACH, AND BERRY.—In the first place, don’t make them except
very semi-occasionally. Pastry, even when good, is so indigestible that
children should never have it, and their elders but seldom. A nice
short-cake, filled with stewed fruit, or with fresh berries, mashed and
sweetened, is quite as agreeable to eat and far more wholesome. But, as
people will both make and eat pie-crust, the best rules known are given.
Butter, being more wholesome than lard, should always be used if it can
be afforded. A mixture of lard and butter is next best. For a plain
pie-crust, take: One quart of flour, one even teacup of lard and one of
butter, one teacup of ice water or very cold water, and a teaspoonful of
salt. Rub the lard and salt into the flour till it is dry and crumbly,
add the ice water and work to a smooth dough. Wash the butter and have it
cold and firm as possible, divide it in three parts. Roll out the paste
and dot it all over with bits from one part of the butter, sprinkle with
flour and roll up. Roll out and repeat until the butter is gone. If the
crust can now stand on the ice for half an hour it will be nicer and more
flaky. This amount will make three good-sized pies. Enough for the bottom
crusts can be taken off after one rolling in of butter, thus making the
top crust richer. Lard alone will make a tender, but not a flaky, paste.

For puff paste there is required one pound of flour, three quarters of a
pound of butter, one teacupful of ice water, one teaspoonful of salt, one
of sugar, and yolk of one egg. Wash the butter, divide into three parts,
reserving a bit the size of an egg, and put it on the ice for an hour.
Rub the bit of butter, the salt, and sugar, into the flour, and stir in
the ice water and egg beaten together. Make into a dough and knead on
the moulding-board till glossy and firm—at least ten minutes will be
required. Roll out into a sheet ten or twelve inches square. Cut a cake
of the ice-cold butter in thin slices, or flatten it very thin with the
rolling-pin. Lay it on the paste, sprinkle with flour, and fold over the
edges. Press it in somewhat with the rolling-pin and roll out again.
Always roll _from_ you. Do this again and again until the butter is all
used, rolling up the paste after the last cake is in, and then putting
it on the ice for an hour or more. Have filling all ready, and let the
paste be as nearly ice-cold as possible when it goes into the oven. There
are much more elaborate rules, but this insures handsome paste. Make a
plainer one for the bottom crusts. Cover puff paste with a damp cloth and
it may be kept on the ice a day or two before baking.

_Apple Pie._—Line a pie-plate with plain paste. Pare sour
apples—greenings are best—quarter and cut in thin slices. Allow one
cup of sugar, and quarter of a grated nutmeg mixed with it. Fill the
pie-plate heaping full of the sliced apple, sprinkling the sugar between
the layers. It will require not less than six good-sized apples. Wet
the edges of the pie with cold water, lay on the cover and press down
securely, that no juice may escape. Bake three-quarters of an hour, or a
little less if the apples are very tender. No pie in which the apples are
stewed beforehand can compare with this in flavor. If they are used stew
till tender and strain. Sweeten and flavor to taste. Fill the pies and
bake half an hour.

_Berry Pies._—Have a very deep plate, and either no under crust, save a
rim, or a very thin one. Allow a cup of sugar to a quart of fruit, but
no spices. Prick the upper crust half a dozen times with a fork, to let
out the steam.—_Helen Campbell, in “The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and
Cooking.”_

_Apple Méringue Pies._—Stew and sweeten ripe, juicy apples, when you have
pared and sliced them. Mash smooth and season with nutmeg. If you like
the flavor, stew some lemon peel with the apple, and remove when cold.
Fill your crust and bake until just done. Spread over the apple a thick
méringue,[1] made by whipping to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs
for each pie, sweetening with a tablespoonful of powdered sugar for each
egg. Flavor this with rose-water or vanilla; beat until it will stand
alone, and cover the pie three-quarters of an inch thick. Set back in
the oven until the méringue is well “set.” Should it color too darkly,
sift powdered sugar over it when cold. Eat cold. Peach pies are even more
delicious made in this manner.

_Apple Snow_ requires six apples, whites of two eggs and three
tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Peel and grate the apples into the
whites, which must have been whipped to a stiff froth. Beat in the sugar
with a few light sweeps of the egg; whip and set in a cold place until
wanted. Eat with crackers or cake.—_Marion Harland._

_Apple Fritters._—Pare some fine apples, and with an apple-corer cut out
the core from the center of each; now cut them across in slices, about
one-third of an inch thick, having the round opening in the center, dip
these in a fritter batter and fry in boiling lard; sprinkle over sugar.
Fresh or canned peaches may be used in the same way.—_Mrs. Henderson, in
“Practical Cooking.”_

PUTTING UP FRUIT.—One of the most satisfactory operations which is
carried on in the household is the annual putting up of fruit. To be
sure, it has its disadvantages, like everything else. The fruit generally
gets ripe a week or two earlier than you expect it will, and is brought
to you on a day for which you have planned other work; but, after all,
there is to the well-regulated mind a rare pleasure in being confronted
with a basket of luscious fruit which may be preserved for enjoyment in
the winter; and I maintain that the pleasure we receive in midwinter
from a dish of peaches, cherries, or plums on the table is not wholly
of the senses, but the mind itself enjoys the contrasting picture which
inevitably comes before it. Something of the brightness of the long
summer days in which it grew and ripened is felt again, and just as
chopped pickle in June will suggest a November day when the tomatoes
no longer ripen, the cucumbers have gone to seed, and the frost has
covered the tangled vines in the garden with a fairy-like network, so
red raspberries and pears in December and March minister to other wants
than those of the palate. Half the trouble of putting up fruit—the broken
cans, the scalded fingers and stained dresses—might be done away with if
a woman could enter upon the work in the right spirit. If, instead of
complaining in May because the trees are full of blossoms, and exhausting
ourselves mentally by putting up the fruit and having it spoil long
before it is ripe, we were to refrain from asking if we shall live to eat
it or to see it eaten, we should accomplish something really great in
preserving our peace of mind as well as our fruit. It is a simple matter
also, if entered into with calm cheerfulness, to look over and can the
fruit. After the fruit has been carefully examined, set it in a cool
room or into the refrigerator, while you examine your cans. It is well
to have some new rubber rings on hand, as you may need them; have also
a cup of flour paste ready; then if the zinc rings or covers are bent a
little, you may still make them air-tight with the paste. If you are at
all doubtful about the condition of your cans, use the paste. In a long
experience of putting up fruit I have never broken but one can, and that
was on account of carelessness in rinsing it in too hot water. I rinse
the can in warm water, then set it in a two-quart basin with a little
water in it, set it on the stove beside my porcelain kettle, fill the can
with boiling fruit, and seal up as quickly as may be. One thing which
should be carefully avoided is too much boiling of the fruit after the
sugar is put with it. The injury which boiling does is not by any means
well understood by many good cooks. Last year I gave up all the care of
putting up fruit and pickles to a competent and honest girl; but, by her
not knowing that sugar, when boiled, actually changes its nature, and
loses much of its sweetness, she used more than twice the quantity which
I have used this year, and then the fruit was not so sweet as it ought to
be. (When making syrup to eat on hot cakes bear this in mind: after the
sugar is dissolved let it come to a boil, but do not boil it.)

PEACHES.—If possible, pare and cut up your peaches the afternoon before
they are to be canned, and scatter sugar over them. In the morning
there will be syrup enough to cook them in. Put this syrup into your
porcelain kettle—if you have one, if not, into a bright tin pan; cook a
few peaches at a time, try them with a broom-splint; just before they
are done add the necessary quantity of sugar. Some housekeepers make a
practice of putting one whole peach into a can, to give the almond flavor
of the stone to the whole can. You can not, of course, guess at just the
number of halves or quarters needed to fill the can; if you have too
many pieces, and are afraid of their cooking too much, take them out
carefully on a plate and, after cooking others for the next canful, add
to them. By cooking a few at a time you can preserve the shape and have
much finer results than if you cook a great many at a time.

QUINCES AND SWEET APPLES.—Prepare the quinces and apples as for canning.
Steam them in the same way, having about one-third as many quinces as
apples. Make a very sweet syrup, as they will keep better with plenty of
sugar. These may be canned or kept in a large stone jar.—_Emma Whitcomb
Babcock, in “Household Hints.”_

PRESERVES.—Preserves are scarcely needed if canning is nicely done. They
require much more trouble, and are too rich for ordinary use, a pound of
sugar to one of fruit being required. If made at all, the fruit must be
very fresh, and the syrup perfectly clear. For syrup allow one teacup
of cold water to every pound of sugar, and, as it heats, add to every
three or four pounds the white of an egg. Skim very carefully, boiling
till no more rises, and it is ready for use. Peaches, pears, green gages,
cherries, and crab-apples are all preserved alike. Peel, stone, and halve
peaches, and boil only a few pieces at a time till clear. Peel, core, and
halve pears. Prick plums and gages several times. Core crab-apples, and
cut half the stem from cherries. Cook till tender. Put up _when cold_ in
small jars, and paste paper over them.

JAMS.—Make syrup as directed above. Use raspberries, strawberries, or any
small fruit, and boil for half an hour. Put up in small jars or tumblers;
lay papers dipped in brandy on the fruit, and paste on covers, or use
patent jelly-glasses.

MARMALADE.—Quinces make the best; but crab-apples or any sour apple
are also good. Poor quinces, unfit for other use, can be washed and
cut in small pieces, coring, but not paring them. Allow three-quarters
of a pound of sugar and a teacupful of water to a pound of fruit, and
boil slowly two hours, stirring, and mashing it fine. Strain through a
colander, and put up in glasses or bowls. Peach marmalade is made in the
same way.

FRUIT JELLIES.—Crab-apple, quince, grape, etc., are all made in the same
way. Allow a teacup of water to a pound of fruit; boil till very tender;
then strain through a cloth, and treat as currant jelly. Cherries will
not jelly without gelatine, and grapes are sometimes troublesome. Where
gelatine is needed, allow a package to two quarts of juice.

CANDIED FRUITS.—Make a syrup as for preserves, and boil any fruit,
prepared as directed, until tender. Let them stand two days in the syrup.
Take out; drain carefully; lay them on plates; sift sugar over them, and
dry either in the sun or in a moderately warm oven.—_Helen Campbell, in
“The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking.”_




HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.

Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.


AIR.—PHYSICAL PROPERTIES.

    To make the _weight_ for the winds.—Job xxviii:25.

One day an old Florentine pump-maker came to Galileo[1] to inquire why he
could not make a pump work effectively when it was more than thirty-four
feet long. The philosopher could not answer, nor did he solve the problem
during his lifetime, but bequeathed it to his pupil, Torricelli.[2] This
famous Italian succeeded in partially answering the question in 1643. He
performed the following experiment: Taking a glass tube thirty-six inches
long and one-fourth of an inch in diameter, closed at one end, he filled
it with mercury, and holding his finger over the open end, inverted and
placed it in a cup of mercury, then removing his finger, discovered that
the quicksilver settled in the tube six inches, leaving a column of
the shining metal thirty inches high. He thus demonstrated that air has
weight, equal to that of a column of mercury thirty inches in height.

On this supposition it was argued that if the whole height of the air
should be _lessened_ the column would fall. Such was the opinion of
Blaise Pascal,[3] who in 1646 requested M. Périer, his brother-in-law, to
ascend the Puy de Dome, a summit near Clermont, and repeat the experiment
of Torricelli. To his delight, upon reaching the top of the mountain, the
column stood three inches lower. Pascal then used a tube fifty feet long,
which he filled with water, and found that this liquid could be supported
by the air to the height of thirty-four feet. Water is 13.6 lighter
than mercury, and it will be observed from the foregoing statement, that
it was supported 13.6 higher than quicksilver. Here was a full answer
to the pump-maker’s query! A column of water, thirty-four feet long and
one square inch at the base, weighs fifteen pounds. A column of mercury,
thirty inches long and one square inch at the base, weighs fifteen
pounds. A column of air the whole height of the atmosphere, one square
inch at the base, weighs fifteen pounds.

Any influence, therefore, which varies the weight of the air, will vary
the height of a column of quicksilver; and the reverse will of course be
true, that any fluctuation in the column of mercury indicates a change
in the condition of the atmosphere. Thus, a “falling barometer” predicts
foul weather, for it shows that the air is becoming lighter, and will
therefore rise, while other air will rush in, with varying speed, to take
its place, producing breezes, gales, and possibly tornadoes. The warm air
rising may come in contact with a cold stratum above and its moisture be
condensed into rain or snow. We shall presently refer to this again.

[Illustration: SHOWING DENSITY OF ATMOSPHERE AT DIFFERENT HEIGHTS.]

A quart of air, at ordinary temperature, weighs about eight hundred times
less than a quart of water, yet the aggregate pressure of the atmosphere
is equal to fifteen pounds on every square inch. A person of average
size presents a surface of about two thousand square inches. This would
receive a pressure of fifteen tons, a weight more crushing than that of
all the shields cast upon the traitorous Tarpeia[4] at the Roman gate.

Herschel calculates that the total weight of the atmosphere is one
twelve-hundred-thousandth of that of the earth.

Why does not such enormous pressure destroy life? Because it is
counterbalanced by the pressure of air, gases and blood within the body.
That this is true may readily be seen in the process of dry-cupping.
Bare the arm, take a bit of writing paper an inch and a half long, dip
it in alcohol, light, and instantly place in a small wine glass, and at
once apply the glass to the soft part of the arm. The flesh under the
glass will rise like a pin-cushion, and become red from the pressure
of the blood within. Persons going down in diving-bells suffer from
the condensation of the air in the bell, while on a high mountain they
experience a pressure in the opposite direction, on account of the
rarefaction of the atmosphere, the blood often gushing from the nose and
ears.

We shall better understand the phenomena of the air by first considering
some of its distinctive properties.

[Illustration: MAGDEBURG HEMISPHERES.]


AIR PRESSES EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

This great principle, which applies to all gases as well as to fluids,
has many illustrations in nature. The haliotis[5] is held to the rock
with a tenacity which sometimes resists the strength of the collector,
who would add its iridescent beauty to his cabinet of shells.

Alas for the fisherman’s line whose bait has been swallowed by a
skate![6] Quickly descending to the bottom, this broad, flat fish expels
the air from beneath it, and defies all effort at capture.

The most complete demonstration of this law is shown by the Magdeburg
hemispheres,[7] invented by Otto von Güricke[8] and used by him before
Charles V. and his brilliant court. They are still preserved in the
ancient city which gave them their name, are twenty-four inches in
diameter, and after the air in them had been removed, required twelve
horses to separate them.

The pressure of the air varies greatly at different altitudes. At the
height of three and one-half miles the column of mercury in a barometer
falls to fifteen inches, showing that below that elevation we have as
much air as in all the space above.

[Illustration: SHOWING TORRICELLI’S HISTORICAL EXPERIMENT AND THE
PRINCIPLE OF THE BAROMETER.]

The boiling point of liquids is materially influenced by the pressure
of the atmosphere. On high mountains potatoes and even eggs can not be
cooked by boiling, as the water will all evaporate before it is heated
sufficiently to cook them.

Partially fill a glass flask with water, heat it until steam begins to
escape, then remove the lamp and insert a stopper, the boiling will
cease. Now pour cold water upon the flask, and the water within begins
again to boil vigorously. The cold water condenses the steam, creating
a partial vacuum, thus relieving the heated water from pressure, and
it boils at a lower temperature than 212°. This illustrates the famous
culinary paradox that “cold water will make hot water boil.”

The buoyancy of substances in air depends upon the same principle that
determines their buoyancy in liquids. It will be proportioned to the
amount of air which they displace.

It is correct to say that a balloon rises because the air is heavier, and
therefore pushes under the balloon and forces it up; or, that it rises
because it displaces more than its own weight of air. Thistle-down may
be compressed so that it will fall like shot. The resistance offered by
the air to the fall of bodies led men long to hold to the fallacy that
the rapidity of the descent of falling bodies was proportioned to their
weight. This error was at length exploded by Galileo in his interesting
experiment on the leaning tower of Pisa.[9] In a vacuum, a cannon ball
and a feather fall in the same time.

[Illustration: AIR PUMP.]


COMPRESSIBILITY.

The statement that air can be expanded involves the counter-truth that it
may be compressed.

Mariotte[10] announces the law as follows: Doubling the pressure upon
a given amount of gas will halve the space it occupies, and double its
expansive energy. The application of this principle in one form gives
us the air-gun.[11] If the air in a gun-barrel forty inches long were
compressed into the space of half an inch it would press with eighty
times its previous force, or with a power equal to twelve hundred pounds
to the square inch. Compressed air is often used as a power in mines
and excavations, and its advantages are many; it was so employed in
the Hoosac tunnel. Though the engine that compressed the air was three
miles away, the loss from friction was very slight, and the air, having
performed its work in driving the drill, was then liberated to purify
the atmosphere of the tunnel and expel noxious gases which accumulated
from continuous blasting. The apparatus for compressing air is called
a condenser. It consists essentially of a cylinder and piston, with a
valve in the bottom of each, opening downward. A precisely opposite
arrangement of valves is found in the air-pump, a machine for exhausting
air from a given space, usually a receiver. As the piston is raised in
removing the air, the valve closes, and the air is thus forced out of
the cylinder; the air in the receiver then expands, opens the valve at
the bottom of the cylinder, and rises into it; as the piston descends
its valve is opened; rising, it again removes the cylinder full of air;
the air in the receiver again expands, opens the lower valve, and so
continues, until the air in the vessel becomes too much rarefied to lift
the delicate valve and make its escape. The vacuum thus produced is by no
means so perfect as the “Torricellian vacuum,”[12] the name given to the
unoccupied space above the column of mercury in a barometer.

Various substances may be placed in a receiver to show the expansive
tendency of air. A piece of wood immersed in a jar of water will throw
off thousands of little bubbles. A shriveled apple will become round and
plump. The air in an empty rubber bag will often expand so as to fill the
receiver. Air in a thin glass vessel, tightly corked, will expand so as
to burst the vessel into fragments.

The following simple but useful piece of apparatus can easily be made:
Take a pint bottle with a nicely fitted cork, through the cork insert
a small glass tube so as to be perfectly air-tight (melted sealing wax
is convenient for making tubes or glass tight;) a perforated _rubber_
stopper is better. Let the end of the tube inserted be drawn out in
the flame of an alcohol lamp (this is not essential, but will make the
experiments more interesting), suck the air from the bottle, close the
end of the tube at once with the finger and place it in a glass of water,
and a miniature fountain, in vacuo, will be revealed. After performing
this pretty experiment remove the tube and reinsert it with the larger
end down, having filled the bottle two-thirds full of water. With the
lips force a quantity of air into the bottle, upon removing the mouth
the water will rise in the tube and fall in a fine spray from the small
aperture at the top. This last experiment is particularly interesting, as
it is a perfect illustration of a flowing oil well. Closely allied to the
expansibility of air is its


ELASTICITY,

Or tendency to regain its former volume after being compressed. Many a
school-boy has observed this property, while manipulating his fascinating
popgun. When he places his finger over the open end of the piece of
elder, utilized as a gun, and suddenly pushes down the piston upon the
wad, he notices that it quickly flies back. An inflated bladder thrown
upon the floor bounds like a rubber ball; force pumps in our houses
act upon this principle. The air in the chamber of the pump is first
compressed by the entrance of the water; it reacts like a spring, and
forces the water through the pipes to the rooms above.

[Illustration: EXPANDING RUBBER BAG IN AN EXHAUSTED RECEIVER.]

The hydraulic ram is another application of the same principle. Perhaps
the reader may know some place where this apparatus can be used. Let us
briefly describe the conditions of its operation. Near your house, at a
lower elevation, may be a beautiful spring, so situated that, within the
distance of about seventy feet, a fall of from five to ten feet can be
obtained. Now run a large pipe from the spring to the spot where the ram
is to be placed, below the level of the spring. The ram is a pear-shaped,
cast iron cylinder, open at the small end, at which point a valve is
placed, opening upward. The pipe coming from the spring is screwed into
the bottom of the ram below this valve, in such a manner as to conduct
the water past the valve, and out through an opening beyond. At this
point, however, is placed a metallic valve, against which, as the water
escapes, it continues to crowd. Presently the rushing stream obtains
sufficient momentum to close this valve, and thus prevent for a moment
its further escape. The accumulated force of the water then raises the
valve in the bottom of the ram and it rises into the chamber, which is
partially filled with air. This air is compressed, but on account of its
elasticity at once reacts upon the water and forces it through another
pipe to the required height. Only about one-eighth of the water is sent
through the last pipe, as seven-eighths of it is required to force the
remainder to the desired elevation. I have a great respect for this
useful apparatus, the invention of the elder Montgolfier.[13] I know of
one hydraulic ram which for fifteen years has raised, through a pipe
twenty-two hundred feet long, to an elevation of seventy-five feet, an
average of twenty-four barrels of water daily. Its total cost for repairs
has not exceeded twenty-five dollars, and yet it has done every day the
work of four men. If men had been hired to do this labor at $1.50 per day
each, their wages would have amounted to the snug sum of $32,850.

[Illustration: A FOUNTAIN MADE BY COMPRESSING AIR IN A BOTTLE.]

Atmospheric pressure is employed in many of our cities to convey packages
from one part of a building to another, and to even greater distances.
This “Pneumatic Dispatch”[14] system, as it is called, was first tried
successfully in Paris, in 1865. A company was then established, which
now claims to send eight hundred and thirty packages daily. In our own
country this curious appliance may be seen in operation at the United
States Express office in New York City, in the mammoth establishment of
Mr. Wanamaker, in Philadelphia, and doubtless in many other places. For
many years attempts have been made to propel cars by compressed air, but
as yet the expense of such a plan greatly exceeds that of steam.


LIGHT.

Among the most gracious and beautiful offices performed by the atmosphere
is the reflection and refraction of light. The blue dome of the sky, the
magnificent coloring of the clouds, and all the delicate and ever varying
tints of the morning and evening twilight are due to its influence.
Without the air we should be in complete darkness until the sun rose,
a fiery ball, above the horizon. All day long the only light we should
receive would come directly from the sun, or be reflected from objects
on the earth. At sunset, darkness would instantly be spread over us like
a pall. No gentle gradations of light and deepening shade would usher in
and close the day.

All must have observed during the past year the remarkable appearance
of the western sky after the sun had set. Cities were more than once
supposed to be burning, reflecting their lurid blaze upon the clouds. The
cause of this is still a matter of dispute, but is generally attributed
to the presence of star dust, or some minute mineral matter suspended in
the higher atmosphere.

It will be remembered that color is not an inherent property of a
substance, but depends upon what portion of the light rays it absorbs.
Snow is white, as it absorbs none of the prismatic colors, but reflects
them all to the eye. Whatever, then, varies the absorbing or reflecting
power of an object varies its tints. Thus, objects seen on the horizon
are red, because the dense atmosphere has turned aside the violet,
indigo, blue, green, yellow and orange, and only the red color reaches
the eye.

Observe that the initial letter of the prismatic colors taken in their
order make the word “vibgyor.”

Again, were there no atmosphere, there could be no


CLOUDS NOR RAIN.

The moon is destitute of these, or at least that half of it which is
always turned toward us. The most powerful telescopes can detect there
the presence of neither atmosphere nor cloud.

A most remarkable proof of divine wisdom can be seen in the nice
adjustment by which the pressure of the air prevents undue evaporation
from the lakes and seas, and at the same time furnishes the medium by
which moisture is conveyed to the remotest parts of the earth. The fact
that water, in the form of mist or clouds, should float, and not fall in
a substance many times lighter than itself, is one of the most wonderful
of nature’s phenomena. When shot are dropped into water, we expect that
they will sink; yet lead is but eleven times heavier than water, while
water is eight hundred times heavier than air.

The following seems to be the most satisfactory explanation of the
matter: It is a well known fact that the air has the power to absorb and
hold, in an invisible form, a certain amount of moisture. The quantity
which it can contain depends upon its temperature. If the air is cooled,
it parts with a portion; thus if the grass radiates its heat, dew is
deposited upon it; if it is very cold, the frost covers it with sparkling
crystals. It is thought that when cooling from any cause takes place in
higher altitudes, the atmospheric moisture changes from the invisible
to the visible form, and assumes the physical condition of spheroids or
vesicles, minute bubbles of water in point of fact, each bubble filled
with air. These bubbles, heated by the sun’s rays, would become lighter
than the medium in which they float, for the same reason that soap
bubbles float while they are warm. In this condition they are drifted
along by currents until they reach a colder stratum of air, when they are
condensed and fall as rain. If cooled sufficiently, snow would be formed.

Cloud forms are four in number, cirrus, cumulus, nimbus, and stratus, all
of which may sometimes be seen at once, in the sky of a summer’s day. At
times they float above the loftiest mountains. Gay-Lussac,[15] rising in
his balloon to an elevation of 21,600 feet, perceived clouds drifting far
above him.

[Illustration: AIR CURRENTS—SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH MINES ARE
OFTEN VENTILATED.]

The work performed by the atmosphere in supplying water to the soil is
worthy of profound attention. Close observation shows that it varies in
amount, year by year, much less than one would suppose. For example,
the average yearly rain-fall in western New York, for the last thirteen
years, has been thirty-six inches. Contrary to the general impression,
the record shows a slight yearly increase in the amount. While this is
true, the quantity of water carried down by our rivers is constantly
diminishing. All must have observed the lessening size of our streams.
Many a mill has ceased to run from lack of its former supply of water.
This has resulted from the destruction of forests, and clearing of land,
which have greatly increased evaporation of moisture from the soil. So
grave a matter has this become, that it is attracting the attention of
governments, because of its relation to agriculture and the navigation of
rivers.

One can have but little idea, unless he carefully calculates it, of the
inestimable blessings conferred by the atmosphere upon man, in furnishing
to the soil its supply of water.


MR. THOUGHTFUL THANKFUL,

Being disposed properly to acknowledge the care of a kind Providence,
in carrying on the work of his farm, one day sat down to figure out the
value of a recent shower, which had refreshed his crops. The leaves of
his corn had begun to curl, the oats and wheat were growing prematurely
yellow, a few more days of the scorching heat and drouth would have
made his harvests a failure, but to his great relief a plenteous shower
fell. The rain gauge showed half an inch of water. Mr. Thankful took
out his pencil and, after careful mathematical calculations, arrived
at this astounding conclusion: An unseen hand had conveyed from a
remote distance, and deposited upon every acre of his little farm,
more than fifty-six tons of water. He owns a hundred acres. There must
therefore have been scattered upon the entire farm over 5,600 tons of
rain, an amount so large that if he had been compelled to pay for its
transportation it would have required more than all the income of his
farm.

[Illustration: MAKING WATER BOIL BY APPLYING COLD WATER.]


SOUND.

Our atmosphere is the medium of sound. Upon lofty mountains its
vibrations become faint, while in a vacuum all sound ceases. The world of
music, with which we are surrounded, were the air removed, would become
forever silent. No song of birds, no murmur of the brook, no sighing of
the trees, no thunder of the cataract, no grand diapason of the sea, no
sweet voice of friendship, no thrilling words of love could ever again
fall upon human ear. Gather together in one heap of useless rubbish (for
they will never more be needed), harp, lyre, flute, flageolet, violin and
guitar, piano and organ. Even that harp of three thousand strings, which
the divine hand has placed in the human ear, shall not again vibrate to
the delicate touch of nature’s hand.


ELECTRICITY AND METEORS.

We will close our present article by mentioning two other interesting
atmospheric phenomena.

Dr. Franklin proved that lightning and electricity are identical. This
wonderful agent manifests itself in a variety of ways. The zigzag track
of light across the darkened sky, with its accompanying crash, is one of
nature’s exhibitions of tremendous power. The irregularity of its path is
due to the resistance of the air, compressed by the electric motion. The
beautiful illumination called heat or sheet lightning, is caused by the
reflection of the electric flash, at a great distance from the observer.

A very curious form of electricity is that known as St. Elmo’s fire,
which appears as a glowing ball, often poising itself on the spars of
ships, to the great consternation of superstitious sailors.

Judge Dana, in his admirable book, “Two Years Before the Mast,” more than
once alludes to the sensation caused by these weird visitors, as they
rounded stormy Cape Horn.

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, with their throbbing, shifting,
crimson and purple tints, sometimes called “the merry dancers,” are
supposed to be produced by the discharge of electricity in high altitudes
and in rarefied air. All around us there is slumbering this power, which
science may some day awaken to do the common work of the world.

Meteors, or “shooting stars,” as they are often incorrectly called, are
small bodies, often not larger than grains of sand, which rush into our
atmosphere at a speed equal to the earth’s motion, eleven hundred miles
a minute, and by friction are set on fire, and blaze for a moment in
the sky. Lockyer[16] says that seven millions of these, visible to the
naked eye, traverse our atmosphere in a single day, and that a powerful
telescope would reveal in the same time not less than four hundred
millions.

Once in thirty-three years an astonishing display of these celestial
fireworks takes place. The last was in 1866. At that time these bodies
chanced to cross the track of the earth’s orbit, and were thus brought
into collision with it. The largest of them, called meteorites, sometimes
pass through the atmosphere unconsumed and reach the earth. They have
been known to kill both men and cattle.

In 1866 one thousand of these stones, the largest weighing six hundred
pounds, fell in Hungary.

It is very incorrect to call these flashing bodies in the air shooting
stars, for they are extremely minute in size, while stars are vast suns;
again, in point of distance, they are different, being near at hand,
while the latter are millions of miles away. It would be difficult to
find an instance in which language can convey a greater error than this
phrase, which constantly implies that vast worlds, by thousands, are
flying hither and thither, like sky-rockets. Often a single glance at the
sky on a clear night, would show how unsafe this world would be as the
object of such tremendous cannonading.

    _End of Required Reading for January._




THE HOMELIKE HOUSE.

BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.


CHAPTER I.—THE HALL.

In studying how to make home beautiful, we must not forget that, first
of all, there must be a home; and that in a true home, the household,
and not the house, is of primary importance. We have all seen careful
housekeepers whose first and last thought was to keep their domains with
absolute neatness, and whose domestic law was of Median and Persian
inflexibility. Overshoes must be left here; slippers must be put on
there; the front stair-carpet must only be trodden by the visitor’s
foot; the front door-latch must never be lifted by the children’s hand;
curtains must be drawn close lest carpets fade; and autumn fires remain
unlighted lest ashes fly. These were housekeepers, not home makers. The
virtue of carefulness is a housewife’s glory; but when carried to an
excess, it becomes a woman’s shame, leading her to imagine that meat is
more than life, raiment than body, and house than man. Of the virtuous
woman we read first: “She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her
tongue is the law of kindness;” then that “she looketh well to the ways
of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness;” after which it
follows naturally that “her children rise up and call her blessed, her
husband also, and he praiseth her;” but when the devil of neatness enters
into a woman he defies family comfort, and banishes the angel of peace
from the home. And yet comfort, important though its place may be in the
home economy, is not to be the first aim. A wise critic says: “Every
house should have in it that which tells of strength, and seems to favor
self-sacrifice, simplicity, self-control. Nothing is finer in a house
than a kind of subtle ubiquitous spirit, which asserts the superiority
of the household, and tells you that they fear neither hunger nor cold,
neither toil nor danger, and do not bow down, night and morning to the
vulgar divinity, Comfort.” Not the house we live in, but the life we live
in it is that on which the real beauty of home depends. In the House
Beautiful, not Mr. Cook’s, nor Mrs. Allen’s, but in that incomparable
House Beautiful which Bunyan has described for us, even there the
boy Matthew fell sick from tampering with the fruit of Beelzebub’s
garden. Compared with this soundness of inner life in the house, these
questions of outer adornment, of taste, or expediency, or expense, are
but unimportant matters, since no home can be truly beautiful that is
tarnished by an unworthy life within its walls.

So much of preliminary statement must be pardoned me, because in the
refined paganism of these days there seems to be a mania for magnifying
the house we live in, and the highest religion of many a family is
simply to make their home beautiful and attractive. It is better than no
religion at all—but a higher religion teaches us to make the homes of the
poor comfortable before—we make our own beautiful, shall I say? Not at
all; but before we spend freely to gain this end. For the external beauty
of home does not depend on the amount of money spent in its adornment.
Money buys a great deal of clutter that had far better be left in the
shops; money buys a vast amount of superfluous stuck-on ornaments, that
were better left off, but money does not and can not buy good taste—an
eye for color, thoughtful care for the general comfort, a quick wit, and
common sense. Yet these are the safest and surest helps to the woman who
aims to make her home attractive to the eye and restful to the body.

Let us enter the door of this woman’s house and see what she allows and
what she disallows.

First, we notice that her entry and stairways are planned upon as
liberal a scale as possible. That is but common sense, for furniture
and trunks must go in and out, up and down, to say nothing of household
and visitors, and the broader the entry way, the more hospitable and
inviting it can be made with chairs, table and sofa. Modern builders
have at last learned this, and they are giving us the old-fashioned hall
again, with a corner or side fireplace, and, if possible, an outlook on
the back garden. This hall is not kept too dark in winter, nor too light
in summer. In cold weather we need cheerfulness, warmth, and light on
entering the house. In summer we should step from the glare of a vertical
sun and heat of the nineties, into a cool, refreshing shade, kept, of a
purpose, darker than sitting-room, dining-room and kitchen, to prevent
flies from swarming into the hall and up the stairway and becoming the
pest of the morning sleeper. The back stairs also are closed, either
above or below, so that premonitory hints of meals to come may not ascend
to the bedrooms and go down the front stairs to guests in the parlor,
thus proclaiming on the housetop what you whisper to your cook in the
kitchen.

“Aim at a gold gown and you’ll get a sleeve,” says our grandmother’s
proverb; so our wise woman knows what is best and aims for it, but
contents herself with what she can get. For an American house, the best
flooring, generally speaking, would be—for a vestibule—tiles of small
pattern and modest color, such as yellow and brown, which would take no
injury from muddy overshoes or dripping umbrellas; for the rest of the
house hard wood floors (Southern pine is admirable), plain or very simply
inlaid. Elaborate patterns in inlaid woods should be avoided, except in
large rooms, and contrasts of colors, such as stripes of black walnut and
hard pine, which make a narrow hallway look yet narrower; but a modest
border might be inlaid around any room, hall, parlor, or bedroom with
good effect, if desired, with a substantial oriental rug in the midst of
it all. There can be nothing better than this.

But a cheap pine floor, if properly laid, can be stained and made to
do good service, instead of hard wood, and a strip of cocoanut matting
running the length of the hall is not to be despised; or, if cracks yawn
too perceptibly to have the floor bare, it can be covered with a plain,
self-colored drugget or carpet filling, or “two ply,” while a strip of
bright carpet passes from the doorway up the stairs, and enlivens the
hall. Or, simpler yet, the floor can be painted a serviceable yellow
or gray, and a width of rag carpet can add warmth and color. There are
pretty straw mattings in greens and reds and cream colors which, with
the aid of rugs, serve admirably for floor coverings, but they are
hardly durable enough for entry ways. Our wise woman bears in mind that
a well-laid, hard wood floor will outlast many a drugget, or carpet, or
coat of paint, or oil cloth, and she does up her hall floor, at first, in
as durable a fashion as her purse will allow.

There is a certain fitness of things also to be observed. Good taste
forbids her to step from an entry with stained or painted pine floor
and rag carpet to a parlor with inlaid floors and Persian rugs. The
rag carpet of the hall demands something correspondingly simple in the
reception room; a floor stained or painted in the same fashion, or a
straw matting, with perhaps a few breadths of “Morris” carpet, of warm
color and quiet figure, sewed together to make a rug, and raveled at the
ends for fringe.

As for walls, it is convenient to divide them with a chair rail or
moulding of the same stuff as that used for mop-boards and door casings,
fastened about four feet from the floor and running around the entry and
up the side wall of the stairway. The wall below this moulding can be
painted in oil a warm olive-brown or green, or a dull red, and, when so
painted, can be washed like the woodwork.

A more expensive way would be to panel off this space with big cedar
shingles of the sort that cost about $25 a thousand, provided the rest
of the woodwork is repainted, or with wood corresponding with the finish
of the room. Unpainted woodwork, even though made of soft pine, is far
better from the housekeeper’s standpoint than that which is coated
with paint. Pine, when oiled and varnished—not too heavily—assumes a
rarely beautiful hue and shows the variety of its markings to very good
effect. The wall space above could be papered with some figured pattern
corresponding in color with that below the chair-rail, or dado, as it
is called (if that is painted rather than paneled), but the wall-space
should be of lighter tint than the dado, or it could be calcimined, or
_kalsomined_, as they spell and pronounce it in New Jersey.

When paper is used, the pattern should not be so large as to make the
room look small, nor so pronounced as to prevent the walls from serving
as a fair back-ground for pictures and plants.

But suppose our prudent woman can afford neither chair-rail nor
oil-painted dado, and yet would like to divide the wall space. Then let
Mr. Kalsominer paint a dado of olive-brown or green, a wall space of much
lighter shade, and a ceiling of cream color. He can also paint a band
of dull red where the chair-rail should be, and then our wise woman,
if she be also a woman of faculty, will take the little red paint pot
into her own hand and will cut out of varnished paper some conventional
leaf or flower, and using this as a stencil, with a stiff brush she will
powder[A] this leaf or flower at regular intervals of about a foot all
over the dado. Or, discarding the stencil, some simple arrangement of
triple dots might be used that need only be indicated with a pencil point
and then painted on, with a small brush, free hand. The kalsominer would
double his prices if he did it, but the room will be twice as pretty
if she does it herself. Or she may powder her lighter wall space with
figures of the same dark shade as the dado, so harmonizing the upper
and lower portions, while a yet darker brown line divides them. But the
stenciling of a wall space requires too much step-ladder work for the
ordinary woman. Last, and probably cheapest of all, she may use wall
paper—the darkest shade below—of some stiff diaper or tile pattern, the
lighter above, with border between; the ceiling being washed a lighter
harmonizing color.

As to the furniture of the hall, it ought to begin outside the door, with
a bench, or settle, or chair, at least, upon the piazza, or “stoop,” for
any weary body to drop down upon while the door is undoing. A wide piazza
gives room not only for a few chairs, and the picturesque and comfortable
hammock, but for a table, as well, where the afternoon cup of tea can
rest, or the work-basket with the weekly mending. A broad platform with
awnings is a comfortable and picturesque addition to a house of plain and
unattractive exterior. Happy and healthy are the households whose piazzas
are their summer sitting-rooms.

The vestibule should have closets or some very plain and simple
receptacle for umbrellas and India rubber shoes. In the hall proper comes
up the vexed question of the hat tree. It is an ungainly, aggressive
piece of furniture, and very cumbersome. If possible, let it be done
away with. If there is a closet under the stairs for the family hats and
coats, then the chance visitor can throw off his coat on the hall sofa
or table. Hall chairs are useful, with a box seat holding whisk broom,
hat brush, driving gloves, and things of that sort, and so is the table
drawer; any of these contrivances are better than the hat tree, and so is
a simple rail hidden away in some dark corner under the stairs, if there
be no closet, with pegs attached for hats and coats. “There can be no
reasonable law against making a hall chair both comfortable and suitable
to its situation. The common Windsor high-backed arm-chair, made in the
same wood as the table, and with a cushion covered with some bright
colored material is well suited for this purpose; or a chair … with a
high back and broad, low seat looks both severe enough to discourage
unbecoming lounging, and yet sufficiently comfortable to secure a proper
degree of rest for the weary.”

And where in the hall can hangings and stuffs be used to best advantage?
Enter any house and look about for yourself. If the ground glass of the
vestibule door be exposed and staring, the hall floor bare and cold, the
hall chair hard and stiff, the doors to the reception or sitting-room all
closed, rising black and grim before you, and the hall itself so dark
that you can not see even where to lay down your companionable umbrella,
does there not come over you a chill, as if you were being repelled by
the spirit of inhospitality? The entrance hall gives you no hearty cheer
of welcome. But warm up the floor with a rug, lay a restful and inviting
cushion on the chair; open the door that leads to the room where the
household gathers, or where your hostess is to receive you, or take it
off the hinges bodily and lay it away, and hang instead a curtain that
shall give a glimpse of the warmth and light within, while still shutting
out the draught. Let soft silk or Madras muslin hang in full folds over
the window in the door, and the stranger who enters no longer feels like
a prisoner in Doubting Castle, whom Giant Despair has cast into a dungeon
for trespassing on his grounds, but rather shall I not say, as if he had
fallen upon the House Beautiful, built on purpose for the entertainment
of pilgrims, where only the fair virgins Prudence, Piety and Charity
would be his companions?

Just so inviting was the entrance to my wise woman’s house when I last
visited her. It was a house with a door in the middle, the hall running
through the entire depth. Midway, an arch curtained with Mexican blankets
half screened the back hall, which served for the family music room.
Facing the piano was a long, old-fashioned sofa, where the weary head of
the house could lie and be rested by music from his daughter’s fingers
or the voices of his children. This happy man, who had his quiver full
of them, had one of those charming houses that grows with the household.
Near the side entrance, what used to be a dining-room is now known as
_the coat room_. I saw one side of the room literally lined with coats
and wraps, hats and bonnets, depending from some hat rack arrangement
of domestic manufacture. Boots, shoes, and galoches of all shapes and
sizes stood in a suitable rack beneath. Guns and hunting gear, fishing
rods and tackles, bows and arrows, grace hoops, battle-doors and
shuttle-cocks, tennis rackets and croquet mallets and balls all found
their appointed places here. Water and towels awaited the convenience of
those who must make a partial toilet in haste. Even the shoe-blacking
had its own corner. A book case on the wall held well thumbed grammars
and geographies side by side with dictionaries, college text-books and
a cook book or two; while before the fireplace that “filled the room on
one side,” you might see a young Nimrod greasing his boots or polishing
his gun; and later, the little folks popping corn, making caramels, or
boiling taffy. When the wise woman, after looking well to the ways of
her household, devises such liberal things as these in their behalf, no
wonder her children rise up and call her blessed.

The room on which the average American housekeeper expends the most
thought and pains is the parlor, as she calls it. The word parlor means,
primarily, a room for conversation. Properly speaking, the room where
members of the family gather that they may talk together, is the parlor
(from the French _parler_), but somehow the word has been applied to
“the best room of a house, kept for receiving company, as distinguished
from the sitting room of the family.” We have an English word for
that—drawing room—contracted from withdrawing room—a room appropriated
for the reception of guests “to which a company withdraws from the dining
room.” Since the household is more important than the house, the best of
the house should be at the service of the household; hence whatever is
most comfortable and cheerful should be in the parlor where the family
congregate. If aside from the dining room and kitchen there is but one
other room on the first floor, let that be the parlor for family use, the
“living room,” unless there be a family sitting room on the second floor.

For people who entertain many guests the reception or withdrawing room
is a necessity, and it is often convenient in city houses to have, in
addition, a smaller room near the door, where the lady of the house can
receive visitors without disturbing the family party or the friends whom
she may be entertaining in the drawing room.

There is never need of saying to an American housewife, let the room
where you receive your friends be as handsome as may be. I would rather
say let it be as comfortable as you know how to make it. Do not keep it
dark and unwholesome, stuffy and shut up. If your economical soul refuses
to expose its treasures always to the light of day, at least do your
best to make the room look habitable, and as if it were put into daily
use. What can be more embarrassing to a guest than to be ushered into a
dark room, cold and repellent in winter, close and stifling in summer,
there to wait drearily till the mistress of the house has donned her good
clothes and is ready to push back the shutter or raise the curtain that
she may have light enough to recognize her guest?

Our English sisters set us a good example in this respect. Their drawing
rooms are made comfortable, with easy chairs strong enough to hold a
man’s weight, with tables conveniently placed, with books here and an
embroidery frame there, and a lady’s work basket near at hand, not at
all too fine for daily use. I have seen an American lady hustle her work
basket out of the room when the door-bell rang, hide her thimble in her
pocket, and assume an air of elegant idleness and leisure, as if she were
ashamed to be caught needle in hand. Her English sister, better bred,
would lay down her work to welcome her guest, and resume it again, as a
matter of course, to set her visitor at ease.

A marble-topped center table is not essential to a drawing room; nor
are a photograph album and illustrated books essential ornaments of the
center table. The morning papers, the last number of _The Century_, and a
readable book are more attractive ornaments than the most costly album,
though filled with pictures of all the celebrities you have ever seen.
I would have a book case, at least a book-shelf, in every room in the
house—I have three in my hall, even—and the reception room surely is no
exception to the rule. Let there be books at hand for the entertainment
of guests, and let there be every facility possible for rendering the
room light enough to read or to sew. In a large room there should be
more than one table, and student lamps in abundance where there is no
gas. Where gas is burned there should still be lamps or drop-lights on
the tables. Parsimony in lamp-light is as bad as parsimony in fuel or
in bedding, and results in serious injury to the eyes. As to the matter
of heating our houses, there have been so many funny things done in the
attempt to affect a compromise between the fire place and the furnace
that almost every house has in it something incongruous in this line. The
old-fashioned fireplace for burning wood was healthful and artistic, but
it often smoked, and in the depth of winter seldom gave out sufficient
heat. The grate in which anthracite coal is burned, or soft coal, was
good, but the care of the coal fire, though not so continuous as of
the wood, was still a heavy burden. There is a price to pay for every
comfort, and we can not rightly enjoy the comfort without paying its
full price. But that seemed a hard doctrine, and so the inventors went
to work. They gave up that abomination, the air-tight stove, which rose
in grim blackness an offense to the eye, and parched all the air for us
before we had breathed it in. Then the furnace came in and there was
an era of real rejoicing. Fireplaces were walled up and holes cut in
all the floors, but with hot air furnaces there were new complications.
Water pans which should be replenished daily were as often as not left
empty, and the air was no better to breathe than that baked dry by an
air-tight stove, and the fire, as a rule, required a man’s hand. Beside,
holes in the floor were not inviting to have around. But the furnace,
whether hot air or steam, did warm the house. Thermometers stood at
from seventy to eighty instead of being kept where they belonged, down
in the sixties, and throat and lung diseases multiplied. Then some one
who had not forgotten the cheer of the fireplace introduced the hot air
from a chimney register, giving out heat, with no sign of fire, from the
old spot, and then came the make-believe iron logs with an internal gas
arrangement which was lighted when guests came, and burned in a pathetic,
appealing way, provoking the beholder now to laughter and now to tears.

It was left to the æsthetic craze to bring in the last and worst affront
of all to comfort and common sense, a fireplace with highly glazed
tiles and elaborate wrought iron back, with choice and costly fenders,
tongs, and andirons of brass and steel, with all the appointments of the
fireplace of the most luxurious stamp, but all too fine for possible use,
with absolutely nothing intended for use. The poor, foolish, iron logs
never deceived any one, but they burned; nevertheless, these beautifully
tiled fireplaces, with their spick and span hearths are mere husks, and
are as loathsome and cluttersome as are the “air castles” and wax fruit,
which these æsthetics would banish in contempt from their homes. The
height of luxury is to have the sharpness of winter’s cold subdued by a
good furnace in the cellar, which modifies the air all over the house,
and then to have open fires here and there to give cheer as well as
additional warmth and good ventilation, and a fireplace finished with
plain brick, without a tile, the brick work, freshened up occasionally by
painting it with Indian red mixed with milk, after the fashion of fifty
years ago, or a plain iron grate for coal, used as occasion calls, is in
better taste for a drawing room than the most elaborate combination of
tiles, brass and steel kept for mere show. When any object, not alone a
fireplace, but any object designed primarily for use is so excessively
ornamented as to fail of its mission of utility, this very excess of
decoration becomes an offense and renders the object neither useful nor
beautiful.

Wm. Morris’s stringent rule, “Have nothing in your homes that you do not
know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” applies with full force to
the drawing room; and when the housekeeper has striven first of all to
supply her drawing room with comfortable, useful pieces of furniture, she
may look around her with surprise to find that almost without her thought
the place has grown beautiful as well.

[A] POWDER—a technical term used in heraldry—a figure is powdered on a
coat of arms, when it is repeated at uniform intervals over its surface.




A PRAYER BY THE SEA.

BY SARAH DOUDNEY.


    I saw the ships on a windy sea
      In the light of the morning’s gold;
    And the shout of the sailors came to me
      Like songs from the days of old.

    Wild waves leaped up on the crags and beat
      On the edge of the rock-bound shore;
    And the thought of a coming time was sweet,
      When the sea should be no more.

    No more, no more shall mothers and wives
      Dream of loves that the blue wastes hide,
    No more shall the vigorous hearts and lives
      Be flung to the wind and tide!

    Oh, Father, follow the gallant ships
      Through the light of the morning pale!
    Thou hearest the prayer of the loving lips,
      Thy mercy never can fail.

    And guide us all to some haven blest
      Where never a tempest is known;
    For life is sad, and the secret of rest
      Is hidden with Thee alone.




GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR JANUARY.

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,

Western University of Pennsylvania.


THE SUN.

During this month the sun makes rapid strides northward, moving from
declination 22° 57′ south on the 1st to declination 17° 11′ south on the
31st. This occasions also quite an increase in the length of the day,
from sunrise to sunset on the 1st being 9h. 23m. 36s., and on the 30th,
10h. 4m. 56s. On the 1st, 16th and 30th, 7:22, 7:21 and 7:11 a. m. are
the respective hours of rising, and 4:46, 4:59 and 5:16 p. m. the hours
of setting. On the 16th, day breaks at 5:40 a. m., and twilight ends
at 6:40 p. m., giving just thirteen hours between “early dawn and dewy
eve.” The sun is slower than the clock, on the 1st, being on the meridian
at three minutes and thirty-eight seconds past twelve, and on the 31st
reaching the meridian thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds after the
clock indicates noon.


THE MOON

Will present its ordinary four changes at the following times: last
quarter on the 7th, at 10:28 p. m.; new moon, 16th, 3:28 a. m.; first
quarter, 23d, 8:18 p. m.; full, 30th, 11:11 a. m. It will be in apogee,
or farthest from the earth, on the 13th, at 3:42 a. m., and in perigee,
or nearest to the earth, on the 28th, at 8:42 p. m. It will reach its
greatest elevation, amounting to 66° 55′, on the 28th, and the least
elevation, 30°, on the 14th.


MERCURY,

Well named from its mercurial habits, having the smallest orbit, and
being the most rapid traveler, presents in a given time more phases than
any other of the planets. Thus we find that on the 3d, at 5:00 p. m.,
it is in inferior conjunction with the sun, that is, between the earth
and the sun; on the 14th, at 8:42 a. m., 2° 1′ south of the moon; on the
14th, at 3:00 p. m., stationary, that is, it is moving in a direct line
(or nearly so) away from the earth, and thus _seems_ to stand still;
on the 24th, at 5:00 a. m., is 1° 6′ north of Venus, on which occasion
the latter will serve as a good “pointer,” enabling one readily to find
this peculiar planet. On the 26th, it is at its greatest distance (24°
53′) west of the sun. Its motion for the first fourteen days is 12° 45′
retrograde; and for the remainder of the month, 29° 51′ 40″ direct. On
the 1st it rises at 7:39 a. m., and sets 5:11 p. m.; and on the 16th,
rises at 5:52 a. m., sets at 3:22 p. m.; and on the 30th rises at 5:52 a.
m., and sets at 3:10 p. m.; changing from evening star during the first,
to morning star in the latter part of the month.


VENUS

Continues morning star, and will remain so till the 4th of May. On the
1st, rises at 5:11 a. m., sets 2:39 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 5:40 a.
m., sets 2:52 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at 5:59 a. m., sets 3:17 p. m.
Motion 41° 32′ 59″ direct. Diameter diminishes from 12.4″ to 11.2″. On
the 13th, at 3:34 p. m., 4° 8′ south of the moon. On the 24th, at 5:00 a.
m., 1° 6′ south of Mercury.


MARS.

This planet presents nothing peculiar this month. It will be an evening
star, though appearing but a short time after sunset each day. On the
1st it rises at 8:10 a. m., and sets at 5:20 p. m.; on the 16th rises at
7:51 a. m., sets at 5:21 p. m.; on the 30th rises at 7:29 a. m., sets at
5:21 p. m. It has a direct motion of 25° 16′ 2″, and its diameter remains
about the same during the month, namely: 4.2″. On the 16th, at 6:48 p.
m., is 5° 42′ south of the moon.


JUPITER

Makes a retrograde motion of 2° 24′ 47″, and is classed as a morning
star, though he shines nearly the entire night, rising on the 1st at
9:02 p. m., and setting next morning at 10:14 a. m.; rising on the
16th at 7:59 p. m., setting on the 17th at 9:13 a. m.; and on the 30th
rising at 6:56 p. m. and setting at 8:14 on the morning of the 31st.
An indication that he is approaching the earth is that his diameter
increased from 39.6″ on the 1st to 42.2″ on the 30th. On the 4th, at 7:24
p. m., he is 4° 2′ north of the moon.


SATURN

Has a retrograde motion of 1° 31′ 53″, and his diameter decreases during
the month six-tenths of a second of arc; but this diminution affects
but very slightly his brightness. As he is an evening star, the most
convenient opportunities are afforded for obtaining a fine view. He rises
on the 1st at 3:07 p. m., and sets on the 2nd at 5:43 a. m.; on the 15th
rises at 2:04 p. m., and sets the following morning at 4:40; on the 30th,
rises at 1:07 p. m., and sets on the 31st at 3:43 a. m. On the 26th, at
9:02 p. m., is 3° 27′ north of the moon.

The use of the telescope in developing the rings of Saturn is one of the
interesting items in astronomical history. To one looking at this planet
with the naked eye, he appears simply as a bright star; but to a person
using a telescope of moderate power, he now presents some such appearance
as was hinted at in the December number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and resembles
a globe with an appendage on either side similar to a new moon (the
concave part turned toward the globe). To the early astronomers, whose
telescopes were so much inferior to ours, his appearance was a great
puzzle and produced a great variety of opinions. To Galileo the planet
appeared like three globes, a large one with a smaller detached one on
each of two sides. To Scheiner, in 1614, he appeared as one large globe,
with a small attached ball on either side. To others he appeared as a
globe with crescents (shape of new moon) sometimes detached, and at
other times having their cusps (sharp points) meet on the edge of the
planet. And it was not until 1655 that the discovery was made that these
appendages were neither balls nor crescents, but were, as then supposed,
a ring (seen in various positions) around the body of the planet. In
the spring of this year, Huyghens discovered that what had appeared as
handles extended out on each side and were somewhat like a veritable
ball with its projecting axes ready to be laid in their “bearings.” The
next spring the “gudgeons” had disappeared and only the plain sphere
remained. In the fall of 1656 the axes had reappeared. Thus was suggested
to Huyghens that these appearances were produced by the alternate
presentation to view of the edge and face of a ring, whose thickness was
so small as to be invisible when its plane was directed to the eye. Being
anxious to secure to himself the honor of this discovery, and yet not
wishing to publish it prematurely, lest his conception should turn out
to be incorrect, he printed at the end of a little pamphlet descriptive
of the planet the following characters: _aaaaaaa ccccc d eeeee g h
iiiiiii llll mm nnnnnnnnn oooo pp q rr s ttttt uuuuu_. Should his theory
prove to be incorrect no one would be likely to solve the riddle; should
it be correct, as it proved to be, he readily arranged the letters to
read: _Annulo cingitur tenui, plano nusquam cohaerente, ad eclipticam
inclinato_; which being translated means: “Girdled by a thin, plane ring,
nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic.” It was soon ascertained
that the ring had an inclination of 27° to the plane of its orbit, and
as it with the planet revolves about the sun, its axis maintains the
same absolute position; so that as the revolution is made once in every
twenty-nine and a half years, every fourteen and three-fourth years
its edge is directly toward the sun, and, practically, toward the earth
(since the distance of the earth from the sun is comparatively small),
and is invisible except through the most powerful telescopes. In like
manner, every fourteen and three-fourth years the greatest possible
portion of the ring’s surface is presented to the sun, and if the ring
were perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s orbit, and its axis
directed toward the earth, we should see the globe entirely girdled,
instead of seeing, as we do, a large portion of one side of the ring and
the opening only on two sides between it and the planet.

After Huyghens, the discovery was made by an English astronomer named
Ball, that instead of only one ring, Saturn had two rings, divided by a
narrow, dark line, and that the inner ring was broader than the outer in
about the ratio of seventeen to ten; that is, the breadth of the inner
was estimated to be 17,000 miles, while that of the outer was only 10,300
miles. In 1850, Prof. Bond, of Cambridge, discovered a third ring lying
between the inner ring and the planet. But this was hardly regarded as a
discovery, as this ring had been “seen in England by Messrs. Lassell and
Dawes, before it was formally announced by the Bonds;” and “something of
the same kind had been seen by Dr. Galle, at Berlin, as far back as 1838.”

Another perplexing question is, whether there are changes going on in
these rings, and if so, what they are. Struve, in 1851, propounded
the theory that the inner edge of the ring (or rings) was gradually
contracting, and thus lessening the space between it and the planet, and
this at the rate of about 1.3″ per century; at which rate it would close
in on the planet about the year 2150—a date at such a distance that the
event, should it transpire, will be of little moment to our readers.

Another not yet satisfactorily answered question is, of what are these
rings composed? The generally accepted answer at present is, that it is
neither a solid nor a fluid ring, but a cloud of satellites, too small
and too numerous to be seen singly. “They are like the separate little
drops of water out of which are composed fogs and clouds, which, to our
eyes, seem like solid masses.”


URANUS

Reaches his stationary point on the 6th, at 5:00 p. m., having made a
direct motion of 51.45″; during the rest of the month he retrogrades 17′
12.6″. On the 6th, at 6:50 p. m., he is 1° 18′ north of the moon. He
figures as a morning star, rising on Dec. 31st, ’84, at 11:29 p. m., and
setting on New Year’s at 11:25 a. m.; on the 15th, rising at 10:30 p. m.,
and setting on the 16th at 10:26 a. m.; on the 29th, rising at 9:33 p.
m., and setting on the 30th at 9:31 a. m.


NEPTUNE

Also plays the _rôle_ of morning star, rising in the afternoon of the
1st at 1:31, and setting on the morning of the 2d at 3:25; on the 16th,
rising at 12:31 p. m., and setting next morning at 2:25; and on the 30th,
rising at 11:36 a. m., and setting at 1:30 a. m. on the 31st. On the
24th, at 11:34 p. m., he is 1° 48′ north of the moon; is stationary at
3:00 a. m. on the 30th, up to which date he has retrograded 14′ 51.6″.
His diameter being only 2.6″, he can only be seen through a telescope of
higher power.




YALE COLLEGE AND YALE CUSTOMS.

BY GEORGE H. VINCENT.


The good people who, in 1638, came over from England and settled New
Haven, came with a definite purpose. They aimed to establish a model
community in church and state, and, as an important means to this end,
they proposed to found a college. At first, events conspired to keep
the classic groves from taking root on the bleak Connecticut shore. A
capricious government in England was granting and annulling charters
with alarming frequency, and the colonies were in a corresponding state
of uncertainty and apprehension, while the ravages of the Indian wars
did much to occupy and distract the thoughts of the New Haven people.
Finally, in 1660, a bequest of Governor Hopkins induced the colonists
to found an institution which they called a “Collegiate School,” lest a
more pretentious title might make it difficult to obtain a charter. The
Governor’s will, however, was contested by the legislature, which finally
obtained a part of the bequest. This fact, together with the depression
caused by the compulsory union of New Haven with the Connecticut colony,
prevented any marked advance in the prosperity of the institution which,
under the title of the “Hopkins Grammar School,” still prepares students
for the various departments of Yale.

After the peace of Ryswick in 1697, prosperity returned to the colonists,
and a second time the subject of a college was agitated. Ten trustees,
most of them ministers from New Haven and vicinity, met some time in 1700
at Brandford, a small town near New Haven. Each trustee presented a few
volumes with the declaration: “I give these books for the founding of a
college.”

The next year a charter was granted to the new college, which was located
at Saybrook, with the Rev. Abraham Pierson, a metaphysician of some
note, as president. The students, eight in number, and “put into classes
according to the proficiency they had antecedently made,” lived in the
president’s house, under his supervision and instruction. The first
commencement was held at Saybrook, September 13, 1702.

The French war of the same year had its effect upon the college, and
when in 1707 Rector Pierson died, it was found impossible to support a
resident professor at Saybrook. Consequently the senior class was sent to
Milford and placed under the Rev. Samuel Andrew, while the other classes
remained at Saybrook with two tutors. At this time Yale College extended
from the senior class at Milford to the juniors, sophomores and freshmen
at Saybrook, a distance of forty miles.

In 1714, the death of the Rev. James Pierpont, who may be regarded as
the founder of the college, struck another blow at its prosperity. At
the same time complaints about their accommodations from the Saybrook
students made it evident that if the college was to become a permanent
institution, some active measures were required. At a meeting of
trustees in 1716, after a protracted discussion, and not a little to
the dissatisfaction of Hartford, it was decided to locate the college
permanently at New Haven. Hartford was appeased by building there a new
court house, and the scattered students were gathered at New Haven, which
that day became a college town.

Among several donations to the college, the most generous was that of
Elihu Yale, a former resident of New Haven, and at the time a wealthy
London merchant. In view of his munificence, the trustees called the new
building which his donation had enabled them to complete, Yale College.

It would be superfluous for our purpose to trace the history of the
college from this permanent foundation in 1718 to the present time. Among
its presidents we find such names as Elihu Williams, Ezra Stiles, Timothy
Dwight, Jeremiah Day, Theodore D. Woolsey and Noah Porter—grand men of
the orthodox school, some of them rigid and severe in administration,
but all respected and honored. The character of the presidents is an
index to the institution, which has developed under the severe discipline
of New England. The students who of late years have come from distant
states have modified the general character of the college, but have not
destroyed the old influence. The recognition of religion, which in some
universities has well-nigh disappeared, still holds its own, and the same
bell which, in years gone by, summoned sleepy and half-dressed students
to the murky chapel, at five in the morning, now, at a more convenient
hour, assembles in the handsome “Battell” those who have come to college
from every state in the Union. Thus the old New England _régime_ makes an
impression upon the rising generation of the whole country.

It is not within the scope of this article to consider the development
of the college curriculum; but, perhaps, in view of the radical changes
which the Yale faculty have introduced for the college year 1884-’85, it
may not be out of place rapidly to sketch the innovations. In 1786 the
requirements for admission were “Virgil, Tully, and the Greek Testament.”
This is characteristic of the college, which has always been remarkably
conservative in its devotion to the classics. Charles Francis Adams’
oration at the Harvard “Phi Beta Kappa” dinner two years ago, aroused
no little antagonism in New Haven. President Porter has written several
articles defending the classics, and when Matthew Arnold and Lord
Coleridge addressed the Yale students, both congratulated the institution
upon its attitude toward the ancient languages. Heretofore Latin and
Greek have been compulsory during both freshman and sophomore years. But
under the new system German and French may be substituted for a portion
of the classics. To the senior and junior classes even greater liberty
is given. They are offered between twenty and thirty elective courses;
so that now, instead of turning a whole class out of the same mould, the
college permits men to select those studies which they find attractive,
or which will best prepare them for their pursuits in life. Thus in one
year Yale has made very rapid strides, and now stands a “golden mean”
between the conservatism of the past and the rashly radical tendencies of
the present. So much for the origin and curriculum of Yale.

It is not the instruction alone that makes a college course desirable.
The associations, friendships, and experiences in the college community
are also important factors. It has been well said that a college is a
miniature world, with its successes, failures, and temptations as real as
those of the world without.

It is impossible, in an article like the present, to do more than give
a few of the peculiarities of Yale. The writer disclaims any attempt to
analyze critically the influences and tendencies of the college, but aims
merely to present a few facts concerning its students, buildings, class
spirit, and every-day life.

The college catalogue shows that in the academic department the classes
average one hundred and fifty students. In the Sheffield Scientific
School the aggregate number is about two hundred and twenty-five. The
other departments swell the total to between ten and eleven hundred. It
is probably unnecessary to state that co-education is not “dreamed of” in
the Yale philosophy. The warm affection which the faculty feel for the
dead languages seems only to increase their coldness toward the gentler
sex.

Yale is eminently a cosmopolitan institution. When two years ago state
clubs were being formed at Yale, some one remarked that if the same
experiment were attempted at Harvard, there would be two clubs, one from
Boston, and one from the rest of Massachusetts. While this statement is
by no means true, it suggests the sectional character of the other New
England colleges. A few figures will sustain this claim. In 1883-’84,
out of 824 students in the academic and scientific departments, only
twenty-nine per cent. were from Connecticut. There were nineteen men
from California, six from Colorado, seven from Georgia, fifty-one from
Illinois, thirty-three from Ohio, twenty from Missouri, and sixty-five
from Pennsylvania. Almost every state, and many of the territories, were
represented, and the very fact that Yale draws its men from so many
widely different sources has an important influence upon the character of
the students. The swift-coursing, tingling blood of the West is infused
into the old, staid, New England institution, which restrains, modifies,
and directs it. The enthusiasm of Yale is due in a great measure to this
western element. There is a whole-heartedness about Yale students which
you will find in no other eastern institution. Nor is money at Yale the
basis of social standing. A man may command any position which he has the
character or ability to attain.

It is generally supposed that in a large institution the numbers in a
class prevent that personal contact with the instructors which smaller
classes afford. This objection can be easily answered. Let us suppose
that a freshman class numbers one hundred and fifty students, and that
the curriculum includes five studies. The class will be divided into
five sections of thirty men each, and will recite to five instructors
in order. There are fifteen recitations a week, so that every member of
the class recites three times a week to each of these instructors, and
that, too, in a class of only thirty. This affords all the “contact”
that either instructors or instructed need or desire. The divisions are
arranged according to excellence in scholarship at the end of every term,
so that each division has its own standard of attainment; hence the
diligent are not retarded by their more leisurely classmates. Recitations
and examinations are marked upon a scale of four. When one’s average
standing falls below two, he is given the choice between leaving college
or entering the class next below. This unpleasant experience is known
as being “dropped.” For irregularities and tardiness in attendance, the
penalties are inflicted in the form of “marks,” which have no influence
upon scholarship standing. The penalty for “cutting” chapel on a week
day is two marks, on Sunday, eight. As these marks accumulate, parents
are informed by “letters home” when a certain limit is approached, which
varies in the different years—more latitude being granted to seniors and
juniors than is enjoyed by the lower classes. For seniors, the first
letter comes at thirty marks; the second at about fifty; and the third,
if there be one, informs the parent that his son has incurred sixty
marks, and has been suspended for six weeks. This is “rustication.”
The unfortunate retires to Milford, where he pursues his studies in
interesting solitude. This marking system has many “defects,” which are
especially patent to the down-trodden student, but it certainly has
the merit of securing method and regularity in college duties. Other
colleges, notably Amherst, have adopted new methods for which they claim
great superiority over the archaic system. But it is safe to say that the
Yale faculty must be thoroughly converted before they will discard the
old system, which has been for years the bone of contention in every Yale
debating club.

We come now to speak of the material world of Yale—its buildings
and campus. Architecturally, Yale is inferior to both Harvard and
Princeton. There are between thirty and forty buildings connected with
Yale University; but on the college campus there are sixteen. Six of
these are dormitories, occupied exclusively by members of the academic
department, or Yale College proper. Four of these dormitories, together
with three other buildings, the “Athenæum,” “Lyceum,” and “Old Chapel,”
extend in a line along the east side of the campus, and constitute the
“old brick row.” The dormitories are called “south,” “south middle,”
“north middle,” and “north,” and are separated by the three recitation
buildings mentioned above. “South middle,” erected in 1750, is the oldest
building on the campus. Until within a few years, it was reserved for
the use of the sophomore class, and many a trembling freshman has had
his first experience of hazing within its ancient walls. The faculty
concluded, however, that they would best consult the interests of good
order and education by razing this sophomore stronghold. “South middle,”
thoroughly renovated, is to-day as quiet as the seniors’ retreat—“South.”
Durfee Hall, at the north end of the campus, is a handsome dormitory
of brown stone, accommodating eighty students. Farnam Hall is a modern
building of brick, furnishing rooms for an equal number. Battell Chapel,
on the north-eastern corner of the campus, is a large stone building
with a seating capacity of eight or ten hundred. Its walls contain many
handsome memorial windows, and in one of its towers are the clock and
chimes. Graduate’s Hall is a massive brown stone building, presenting the
general appearance of a feudal castle. It is, in fact, the stronghold
of the college, and must be taken several times during the course—it
is the examination hall. Next comes the Library, a gothic building
with low wings on either side. It is a repository for some one hundred
and seventy-five thousand volumes. The Art School is one of the most
expensive buildings on the campus. It is of brown stone, and, like the
library, is overgrown with ivy planted by graduating classes. The Art
School contains excellent collections of paintings, marbles, and casts,
together with several studios and class rooms. The other buildings, known
as “Old Lab.,” “Cabinet,” and “Treasury” are, it is to be hoped, as
useful as they are unattractive. So much for the campus proper. Near by
are the new Sloane Physical Laboratory, the gymnasium, and the Peabody
Museum, which even in its present incomplete state is one of the largest
buildings in New Haven. The collections are excellent, being especially
complete in the departments of mineralogy and palæontology. Within the
radius of a few squares are the Sheffield Scientific School, the Divinity
School, and the departments of Law and Medicine.

Let us now turn to the composition of the college community. The
four classes are separated by very clearly defined lines. While, of
course, there are many friendships between men of different classes,
as a rule men associate exclusively with their own classmates. When
it is remembered that a class averages one hundred and fifty men, one
explanation of this clannishness is obvious. It takes four years for
a student to know his classmates, and among them he will find all the
friends he needs. Until within the last year or two the elective system,
which brings members of different classes into the same recitation
room, has not been in operation, and men have always recited with their
classmates exclusively. Another prominent reason for class feeling, as
it is called, is found in athletic rivalry. Let one attend a class boat
race, hear the shouting, observe the ecstacy of delight with which the
winners carry their crew on their shoulders from the boat, and he will
begin to understand the real significance of class spirit. This class
spirit is warmest between the two lower classes, where the friction
is greatest. Just here we may refer to hazing and rushing, which are
objects of so much popular misapprehension. That in early years freshmen
were subjected to rough, and often brutal treatment, can not be denied.
But that order of things has passed away, together with early chapel
and biennial examinations. A “rush” is nothing more than an attempt of
freshmen and sophomores, arranged in solid phalanxes, to force each
other back. Such a thing as a decision on a rush is unknown, and the
whole affair has the advantage of leaving both sides assured of a “most
decisive and brilliant victory.” Hazing is confined to the first few
weeks of the term, and is harmless, not to say puerile, in its character.
Sophomores wander about the streets, admonishing freshmen to “put out”
their lights. If these commands are not complied with, the hazers ascend
to the room of the audacious freshman, quiz him awhile, and then put him
to bed, where he stays until his persecutors have left, when he resumes
his interrupted tasks. The whole thing is a farce, and can not last much
longer. Although the custom may be childish, it certainly is not the
pernicious thing which the press would have the public believe.

Athletics have a very prominent place in the college world. Youthful
vitality finds a safety valve in athletic exercises. Inter-collegiate
rivalry is a most natural thing. University foot ball teams, crews and
ball nines follow as a matter of course. These contests are of absorbing
interest, and are eagerly anticipated. Alumni of many years’ standing
are carried away with enthusiasm at a college match. The public is led
to suppose that athletics monopolize the student’s thought and interest.
It is true that students do talk of a ball match more frequently than
of Greek particles. The one belongs to the recreative side of college
life, the other to the recitation room. When relieved from his regular
duties, the normal student seeks recreation. Beside affording exercise,
athletics engender a college spirit which helps to bind together the Yale
alumni all over the land. Whatever may be the excesses, the advantages
are manifold. The faculty declare that athletics have never been more
prominent, nor the standard of scholarship higher than at the present
time.

One trace, at least, of the good, old, puritanic days is found in
“compulsory prayers.” At seven every morning, except Sunday, when there
are regular services at 10:30, the old bell in the lyceum tower disturbs
the peacefully slumbering student. At eight it gives a second warning,
and at about seven minutes after it rings again, until, tolling the last
minute, it stops at 8:10 precisely. The students who have been dropping
in one by one since eight, come in increasing numbers as the time
approaches. As the bell and organ voluntary cease, a few stragglers drop
into their seats. If it is the last of the term, there are often a few
men who, having only two marks between them and the cold world, appear in
conspicuously superficial toilets.

The chapel has two transepts, one occupied by the juniors, the other by
the sophomores. The seniors fill the seats on either side of the center
aisle; while the freshmen are consigned to the gloomy region under the
rear gallery. The deportment of the students during chapel exercises is,
without exception, dignified and respectful. President Porter reads a
selection from the scriptures and announces four verses of a hymn, which
are sung by the choir. Then follows the “long prayer,” during which
almost every head is bowed. It can not be denied, however, that many a
lesson is rapidly scanned during this part of the devotions. At the close
of the prayer all stand until the president and instructors have left
the building. The seniors face the center aisle, and as the president
passes make a low bow, bringing the body into a horizontal position.
The effect from the galleries is ludicrous, and affords visitors no
little amusement. Immediately after prayers the classes repair to their
recitation rooms. Although compulsory prayers are not universally
popular, yet if regarded merely as a means of securing regularity, and,
by assembling the classes, of fostering a spirit of college unity, they
are undeniably valuable.

It would not do to describe Yale customs and neglect the “fence.” The
uninitiated can not read of the “fence” and its traditions without a
smile. To one who has not been a member of the Yale world, the customs
of the fence seem as ridiculous as the antics and gambols of brokers
on ’change. But having once, as a freshman, felt the joy of balancing
on that “fence,” after defeating the Harvard freshman at base ball; as
sophomore having displayed the wonders of the tailor’s art from the
next higher division of the same perch; as junior having sung there
the college songs, and watched the people “pass on the other side of
the way,” and at last, as senior, having parted from one’s classmates
there, the Yale “fence” must be to him more than any other dingy-brown,
two-railed old structure can be.

Among several privileges which are withheld from the freshman when he
begins his course, is that of sitting on the “fence.” Most readers would
not regard this in the light of a serious privation. But such it really
seems to the new comer. As soon as the Yale freshmen defeat the Harvard
freshmen at base ball, they are rewarded by being permitted to sit on the
freshmen fence. A man on taking his seat in the United States Senate can
not feel any more real satisfaction than a Yale freshman perched for the
first time on the “fence we’ve won.”

One of the most amusing exercises of commencement time is the
presentation of the sophomore fence to the freshmen. A sophomore makes
the speech of presentation, to which a freshman replies. These speeches
are often bright and witty, and are received with great applause.

The “fence” is the forum, the market place of the college. Here
appointments are made. It is here you look for a student before you
seek him in his room. Here in the twilight, and far into the beautiful
evenings of May and June, you may hear the college songs—now a lively air
or snatch of opera; now a warble, loud and clear; again, some plaintive
plantation melody. This is the time when the magic of the fence is most
potent in its influence. There are more romantic things with which to
associate the delightful memories of college life, perhaps, but nothing
can bring a pleasanter throng of recollections to the Yale alumnus than
the mention of the fence.

Fond as they are of being “on the fence,” Yale men are by no means
undecided or vacillating. Yale is a positive institution, strong,
orthodox, and conservative. Its alumni are prominent not so much in
letters as in the affairs of state. Yale College is yearly sending out
into the world enthusiastic, practical, sensible young fellows to strive,
as the grand old song has it,

    “For God, for country, and for Yale.”

NEW HAVEN, CONN.




NEW ZEALAND.

BY M. EMILE BLANCHARD.

Translated for THE CHAUTAUQUAN from the _Révue des Deux Mondes_.


During a long cycle of years, upon the land called New Zealand, there
were no inhabitants more powerful than gigantic eagles and moas, enormous
birds now extinct. At some indeterminate time men landed upon these
desolate shores; being, doubtless, unable to return to their point of
departure, and, perhaps, finding the country an asylum, they remained
there. They were Melanesians, men of dark color, and of coarse hair, like
those who inhabited the archipelago in the western part of the Pacific,
put down upon the maps as Melanesia.

Later came people from Polynesia, of whom all tradition is lost. At
a time, the date of which can be approximately fixed, some canoes
reached this land whose occupants declared that they came from Hawaïki,
probably Hawaii. Afterward, in the first relations of the Europeans
with these inhabitants, they were quickly satisfied that the leading
races were of Polynesian origin, though in some parts all the races
were so intermingled that it was hard to distinguish them. These better
developed classes were known under the name of the Maoris. These people,
full of treachery, robbers without shame, barbarians of a remarkable
intelligence, able to construct fishing utensils, fine canoes, implements
of warfare, and even to sculpture rude figures and to design ornaments
which indicated a certain artistic taste, inclined to observation enough
to attach a name to all objects which fell under their notice, appeared
to the first European voyagers to their land as a people that could be
easily civilized.

They were in general of tall figure, and had regular features; their
small, jet black eyes were always in motion. According to an artist who
has traveled nearly round the world, the young men would serve well
as models for a statue of Hercules. The women were well formed, had
beautiful eyes and an abundance of black hair. Their faces looked quite
intelligent, and even possessed a certain grace.

Former explorers tried to find out what religious sentiments, what
superstitions, reigned among these people; they sought to gather up their
traditions. Owing to their idiomatic language the information was derived
slowly and only after great effort. In the midst of a people presenting
the spectacle of primitive life it is impossible not to take a lively
interest in their belief touching the origin and the final destiny of
man. Many of their ideas on these subjects present a striking similarity
to those prevailing among civilized people.

They have a long mythological history concerning the migrations of
several distinguished ancestors. The life of one of these in its
beginning is of peculiar interest. At his birth his mother, seeing that
he was very feeble, put him in a little skiff which she placed upon the
sea. The winds and the waves rocked him. He was finally wafted ashore,
and found and cared for by a woman in high authority. His after life was
full of wonderful and supernatural deeds. Then comes an age of heroes.
These at death were deified and shone as stars in the heavens. Their
brilliancy was greater or less according to their deeds of valor.

In the cosmogony of these New Zealanders the earth is a plain, the
heavens an opaque body extending around it, separated from it by a
transparent substance. They supposed that the sun and moon glided on
the outside of this crystal-like appearance. Above is the reservoir of
the rain, higher the haunts of the winds, higher still the dwelling of
spirits, then that of light, and then the highest region, the abode of
the greatest of all the gods.

They recognized a multitude of divinities, and accorded to each one a
special function. They occasionally presented offerings to the gods, in
order to render them propitious.

They did not anticipate any pain nor any recompense in the future life.
After death souls, having remained three days near the bodies which they
had abandoned, took themselves to the extreme north of New Zealand, in
order to take their last plunge into eternal night, or into glory.

As to their customs, scholars say that among the Maoris the family
existed, the tribe, and, in a certain rude sense, the nation. Under
ordinary circumstances the people lived independent of one another. Upon
great occasions the chief called together the tribes under his sway. He
had, however, the power to declare war or peace, or to dispose of any
question of interest to the public, only with the consent of his people.
There was little distinction in regard to rank among them. The practice
of tattooing themselves prevailed largely, especially among the warriors.

They had a custom of flattening the noses of the boys and bandaging their
knees and the lower part of the legs, in order to make them smaller. Thus
they manifested the æsthetic sentiment. The hands of the girls were bound
in such a way as to render them more skillful, in their estimation, in
separating and weaving the fibers of the plant which affords the famous
linen of New Zealand.

Eight days after the birth of a child it underwent a sort of baptismal
ceremony. The marriage relation was observed. At the death of an
individual the whole tribe assembled, and from time to time uttered loud
cries, expressive of their grief. The relatives cut off their hair.

By their work the Maoris excited the surprise of their first civilized
visitors. They displayed remarkably inventive minds, struggling under
the most restricted resources. The necessary work was divided between
the men and women very much after the manner of our times. The men built
the houses, constructed canoes, cultivated the earth, carved their rude
ornaments, and went hunting and fishing. The women prepared the food,
spun the linen, and wove the cloth. Their language was well adapted to
oratorical effects. There were fourteen letters in the alphabet; each
syllable ended in a vowel, whence resulted a singularly harmonious
speech. They had many proverbs bearing a striking analogy to many used
throughout Europe. For instance, they said: “One may avoid the point
of a lance, but not a slander;” also, “One may in time learn all the
nooks and corners of any house, but never those of the heart.” In their
assemblies the most eloquent exercised a great influence, and gave proofs
of a remarkable memory in reciting with great effect proverbs, songs and
poems, capable of producing a great impression upon their auditors.

The exploits of heroes were only perpetuated by these frequent recitals.
Whenever any notable event occurred it became the motive power of some
improvisation. They entertained themselves as people in Europe do,
by all sorts of amusements, especially dancing. Certain dances were
engaged in by the women alone, others by the men; but in most the men
and women danced together. The women had for their especial amusement
the _tangi_, or scene of despair. They feigned the deepest grief, wrung
their hands, and uttered the most heart-rending cries, while tears
flowed in abundance. A stranger moved at the sight always learned with
surprise that it was simply a pastime, and reproached himself for having
misplaced his sympathy. Whenever a visitor presented himself, the mode
of salutation was for the host to rub his nose against the nose of
his guest. Small baskets of provisions were brought in, and a cordial
invitation given to the visitor to join in partaking of the refreshments.

But these people, hard, cruel, without pity in the execution of
vengeance, but of a quick intelligence and unquestioned bravery,
industrious and ingenious, cultivating a rude kind of art and of poetry,
have been crushed in their struggles with the Europeans. The descendants
of the fierce New Zealand warriors, as prisoners in certain districts
which the English colonists have promised to respect, live sad and
miserable, hating the plunderers of their land. At the present time they
are scattered by families over the island, nearly always at a distance
from the colonies. Each year this population diminishes; in the near
future they will have entirely disappeared. Soon there will live only the
memory of an extinct race.

But while this is true of the Maoris, the English colonists, masters of
the country, exceedingly prosperous, occupy all the places possessing the
greatest advantages.

Important cities have been built upon the most desirable locations, both
on the sea coast and river banks. Vast agricultural districts are now
tilled. New Zealand has become a European country, where the population
lives with no fear of the original inhabitants. It is a dependency of
England, a colony which since its formation has made great progress. The
mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the extent of its
forests, the presence of the best materials for industrial occupations,
the independence and safety which an insular position gives have marked
this island as a privileged region. New Zealand comprises two islands,
separated from each other by Cook’s Straits; they are distinguished as
North Island and South Island. The development of the country since the
occupation by the English has been remarkable. At the commencement of
1881 there remained only 36,000 Maoris; the colonial population numbered
500,910. Some of its cities have acquired considerable importance.
Dunedin, in South Island, has 42,794 inhabitants, and Auckland, in North
Island, the ancient capital, 30,952; Wellington, the present capital,
20,536. In 1881 there were about 1,310 miles of railroad built, and about
3,000 miles of telegraph lines. The revenues of the government amounted
to nearly $18,036,000, and the expenses to $17,644,000. The exportation
was valued at $15,212,000, and the precious metals at $5,602,000. There
are on the island 100,000 horses, 500,000 cattle, and 10,000,000 sheep,
yielding great profit. Ships cross from Canterbury in the eastern part of
the country to London in forty days.

The linen produced on the island affords a fine branch of industry, and
the colonies send it to London, receiving for it not less than $6,000 or
$8,000 per year. Trees of the coniferous order furnish a quantity of gum
or resin, which is an important source of revenue. The commerce carried
on in grain, woods and fats is very great. In the whole country the
abundance of combustible material constitutes a great source of wealth.
Beside its fine forests, it has numerous coal fields. Petroleum is found
in several places, and the colonists affirm that it is inferior in no
respect to that found in the United States.

Gold districts are so extensive and productive that a great part of the
population is engaged in them. Then add that silver, mercury, copper,
lead, manganese, antimony, and iron exist in abundance. They are as
reserves of public fortune to the colony. This country has had the rare
good fortune of having already among its inhabitants distinguished
scientific men who have explored the region for the greater profit of
the new society, and for the interests of those who are occupied with
the general knowledge of the globe. The Institute of New Zealand was
founded at Auckland in 1868. Its members proposed to have for their use
museums and public libraries, and to disseminate by all means possible,
instruction relative to questions of art, of science, and of literature.
When the capital was moved to Wellington the Institute was also
transferred. Since its opening it has published every year a great volume
filled with reports and communications of deep interest in regard to the
ancient inhabitants of the country, the fauna and the flora, the geology
and mineralogy and economy. It is a valuable work on the natural history
of this region of the world.

The decline, the oppression, almost the annihilation of one race of
mankind has been seen here. We may see now upon the same soil, rising to
prominence, men of another race who talk of liberty for themselves, and
are preparing for a long and glorious future for their descendants.




THE LAUREATE POETS.

BY THE REVEREND A. E. WINSHIP.


CHAPTER III.

Royal favors skip from small to great and back again by no law of ethics
or æsthetics, and if we flatter ourselves that we can account for the
choice of some candidates for the poet’s pension we shall certainly find
our wits tested in search of a philosophy to apply to Charles II., who,
with equal felicity, placed the crown on the geniusless Davenant and the
immortal Dryden.

John Dryden, with all his faults of verse and purpose, was the genius
of his age, and remains one of the five names that star the diadem
of English song. In circumstances that tended to enervate rhyme, at a
time when the rebound from Puritanism paid a premium on license and
licentiousness, when no element in national life had the electrical
currents to stimulate literary, least of all poetic genius, John Dryden
had the skill to attune the age in which he lived to a melodious key that
harmonizes with Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere and Milton.

In character and record he is inexplicable. Born in the erratic days of
Cromwell he is the most heartily English of all her “men of letters;” of
strictest Puritan training, he died a devout Romanist; of cleanly life
and chaste conversation, his verses are morally reckless; educated at
Cambridge, where he remained for a seven years’ post-graduate course,
he was noted for disloyalty to his _Alma Mater_; never wrote a line in
praise of it, but went out of his way to endorse its rival—Oxford—to whom
he owed nothing.

It was his unanticipated loyalty to royalty that led Charles II. to
appoint him laureate to succeed Davenant, at the same time creating a
post of literary honor and financial profit—historiographer—receiving
£100 for each position. His honors cost him dearly in public favor. It
was currently believed that he renounced the cause of the people for
court favors, and Puritanism for self-advancement, and for a score of
years he lost in popularity all that he won of financial ease and royal
distinction.

His greatness consisted in the sublime tact with which he used the
opportunity that disfavor brought him to immortalize himself in verse.

The Duke of Buckingham, the people’s favorite, ridiculed the laureate
in scathing rhyme, which called forth vociferous applause from all the
lesser poets whom envy and jealousy led to bitter hatred of the favorite
of the court.

Dryden had the grit and genius to hurl the masterpiece of his age at
the whole range of critics under the title of “Absalom and Achitophel,”
and by sheer superiority of brilliancy and wit dethroned Buckingham
and seated himself on the throne of popular favor. A specimen of his
characterization may not be amiss.

    “Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
     In the first rank of these did Zimri stand.
     A man so various that he seemed to be
     Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.
     Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
     Was everything by starts and nothing long;
     But in the course of one revolving moon
     Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon,
     Then _all_ for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
     Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,
     Blest madman, who could every hour employ
     With something new to wish or to enjoy.
     Railing and praising were his usual themes,
     And both to show his judgment in extremes.
     So over violent or over civil,
     That every man with him was God or devil.
     In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,
     Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
     He laughed himself from court, then sought relief
     By forming parties, but could ne’er be chief.
     Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
     He left not faction, but of that was left.”

Dryden was the first well-paid poet England ever had. For the translation
of his fables he received £300, while for translating Virgil he received
the fabulous sum of £1,200.

His most distinguished poem is his “Ode to St. Cecilia,” which he wrote
at the age of seventy, at a single all-night sitting. In the evening hour
the thought occurred to him and he could not drop his pen until at dawn
the last word was on paper.

Wordsworth could not love Dryden, because there is not an image in all
his poetry suggested by nature. While Chaucer seems to have been always
out of doors, Dryden apparently never knew there was any out of doors.
He could not create, could not be pathetic, but in power of argument, in
satirical skill, in “declamatory magnificence,” he is without a peer in
the language.

Thomas Shadwell, “mature in dullness from his tender years,” who only
lives through the grace of Dryden’s crucifying satire, by a fortune no
art can explain enjoyed the laurel that had decked the brow of Dryden for
a generation. Without poetic merit he was skillful as a hater, shrewd as
a schemer; he missed no opportunity to make Dryden wince until he made
himself acknowledged as his rival, and when William and Mary ascended
the throne the only way they could effectively snub the royalty they
supplanted was to transfer the laurel from Dryden to Shadwell, who owed
all the fame he ever enjoyed to his artful drawing of Dryden’s fire.

It is too bad that William and Mary were fated to divest their reign of
all literary glory by bestowing the court honors first upon Shadwell and
then upon Nahum Tate, who had some veins of merit, but no popular talent.
Dryden praised him in his day, and the “Book of Common Prayer” and our
church hymn books retain some choice lines that he wrote. Queen Anne
retained him ten years, but he was almost universally regarded as stupid
and juiceless in poetry, and at the age of sixty-five, poor, homeless,
unable to earn a living, she ejected him from the laureateship, and he
retired to the “Mint,” the prison for the better class of poor debtors.
Thus, in poverty and humility ended the days of him who wrote our
familiar hymn,

    “While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
     All seated on the ground;
     The angel of the Lord came down,
     And glory shone around.”

Nicholas Rowe, with no popular fervor of verse, won high favor in classic
circles through an independent fortune and rare social gift. Pope’s
friendship welcomed him to the circle of rare visits, while the _élite_
of Queen Anne’s reign courted him with royal art. Few men of real genius
ever have been so splendidly rewarded as he. Swift and Addison were only
second in their admiration to Pope, who wrote this tender epitaph:

    “Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust,
     And near thy Shakspere place the honored bust;
     Oh! next him skilled to draw the tender tear,
     For never heart felt passion more sincere;
     To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,
     For never Briton more disdained a slave.
     Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
     Blest is thy genius, is thy love, too, blest!
     And blest that timely from our scene removed,
     Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved.”

Unknown as Rowe has proved to be to fame, he was blest with the respect
of his contemporaries, which could not be said of his successor, Lawrence
Eusden, then as well as now unknown to fame, and yet he wore the laureate
wreath twelve years. Pope abused him in his “Dunciad,” Cooke in the
“Battle of the Poets” has this couplet:

    “Eusden, a laurel’d bard by fortune raised,
     By very few was read, by fewer praised.”

The rhetorician, Oldmixon, says he never met a poet with so much of the
“ridiculum and fustian jumbled together, a sort of nonsense which so
perfectly confounds all ideas that there is no distinct one left in the
mind.” And yet the Georges I. and II. placed the laurel on his brow.

George II., with characteristic misfortune, selected Colley Cibber, whom
Pope made famous—I had almost said infamous—in these lines:

    “In merry Old England it once was a rule,
     The king had his poet, and also his fool,
     But now we’re so frugal, I’d have you to know it,
     That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet.”

His father, Caius Gabriel Cibber, an artist, sculptured the statues of
two lunatics over the gates of Bedlam hospital. Although the artistic
work was creditable, Pope made the father’s hand the medium of a savage
attack on the son in the first book of the “Dunciad,” which was written
for the purpose of making Eusden and Cibber, the laureates of George II.,
ridiculous. He thus introduces them as dunces:

    “Still Dunce the Second reigns like Dunce the First.”

And thus he makes the father’s art serve his wicked purpose:

    “Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
     When o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand,
     Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand.”

His only literary work that has endured even in the knowledge of scholars
was an admirable autobiography which would have honored his name had he
the wit to let poetry alone.

Eusden and Cibber succeeded in one thing, they made the position of
laureate thoroughly undesirable, so that when upon the latter’s death it
was offered the author of the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
Thomas Gray promptly declined it, but William Whitehead accepted, serving
during the excitement preceding and attending the American Revolution.
He became at once the target for the shafts of satire aimed by his
fellow poets, Churchill endeavoring to persecute him as Pope had his
predecessors. But Whitehead had the rare grace to bear all attacks in
silence, living as comfortable and happy a life as though there had
been no satirical buzzing. He knew he was not brilliant, and did not
propose to make himself miserable over it. Churchill might rasp him as
caustically as he chose, he would lose neither sleep nor peace of mind
in consequence, and this sublime indifference ultimately silenced all
critics, permitting him to enjoy thirty years of self-satisfied service.

At his death Thomas Warton, the senior of two poetic brothers, whom
Hazlitt says was studious with ease and learned without affectation,
reclaimed the position from the contempt in which it had been so
long held. He achieved what should satisfy the aspiration of any man
successfully challenging the public taste that had been the slave of the
didactic school of poetry under Pope, imparting a love for the poetry of
nature and the literary style of the Old English masters who lived out of
doors. It is hard to think that at his death the laureateship sank lower
than ever. It is humiliating to record that for a quarter of a century
Henry James Pye bore the honors, ushering out the eighteenth and ushering
in the nineteenth century, a man of whom Byron expressed the universal
disdain when he wrote:

      “What! What!
    Pye come again? No more, no more of that.”

Three names grace the laureate record of the past seventy years, names
of pioneers, each rapturously praised by admirers, and as violently
condemned by critics—Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson.

Taine, our racy French critic, places Southey in the first rank of his
class of poets, a clever man, an indefatigable reader, inexhaustible
writer, crammed with erudition, gifted in imagination, gifted like Victor
Hugo for the freshness of his annotations and splendor of his picturesque
curiosity. De Quincy criticises him as being too intensely objective,
with too little exhibit of the mind as introverting upon its own thought
and feelings. He is distinguished at once for his unwearying attacks
upon the institutions of which the natural Englishman is proud. This is
readily accounted for from the fact that at fourteen he was disgraced
at Westminster school for writing a sarcastic article on corporal
punishment, for which the publisher was prosecuted by the head-master,
and that at Oxford University, where he took a partial course, he was
annoyed by the exasperations of financial infelicities preventing high
rank, and ultimately forcing him away from scholastic privileges.

As a critic, historian and antiquarian Southey held high rank among the
scholars of the land, and yet he acquired his scholarly taste and vast
learning by out of school studies.

He was preëminently one of those curious creatures of circumstance who
are such because they have the tact to make unpromising events serve
them. He was too active a democrat to hope for court favors, and too
closely allied with the Unitarians to venture within the church, and
therefore happily fell into association with Coleridge and his coterie.
At the time Coleridge was scheming as a high-toned communist to send a
colony to America to found a model, impracticable republic on the banks
of the Susquehanna, from which all selfishness was to be banished, and
Southey, at eighteen, attempted to raise money for that object, failing
in which he was frequently a penniless youth.

To prevent the poverty stricken youth from marrying Mrs. Coleridge’s
sister, his uncle shipped him to Lisbon, but it was too late, as the lad
had already married her secretly on borrowed money.

He was sixty years of age before he was financially straight, and before
he was eighty he died, leaving one of the finest libraries in Europe and
an estate of £12,000. His library was the result of his habits of close
study and devout love of books. Of himself he wrote:

    “My days among the dead are passed;
     Around me I behold,
     Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
     The mighty minds of old;
     My never-failing friends are they,
     With whom I converse night and day.”

A college chum befriended him in his youthful poverty and settled upon
him an annuity of £160, which prevented suffering many times. He prided
himself on early rising and was at his desk soon after rising, whether he
had special work on hand or not. The morning after he had finished one of
his leading poems he wrote the first hundred lines of a more successful
one before breakfast. He worked almost literally every hour of every day
of every month of every year of his life, until at seventy-six he broke
down with softening of the brain.

William Wordsworth, a companion and admirer of Southey, succeeded him
as laureate. He was good naturedly ridiculed by the literary world,
but instead of being maddened thereby as Byron was, instead of being
heart-broken and sent to an untimely grave as Keats was, he smiled
serenely on his critics and studiously sought to write as his critics
did _not_ wish him to write, and thereby lived to enjoy a generous and
widespread appreciation.

While others went to Greece and Rome, to history and mythology for
heroes, he went into the streets, highways and byways, huts and hovels,
and chose the rude and crude, the loveless and homeless for his poetic
purpose. A more uniformly prosperous, serene, moral man never graced
English authorship, and in his age he said with pride, “Whatever the
world may think of me or of my poetry is now of little consequence; but
one thing is a comfort in my old age, that none of my works … contain
a line which I should wish to blot out because it panders to the baser
passions of our nature.” Who could ask to have more said of him than that
he was always correct in life, sweet in spirit, amiable in disposition,
unwaveringly conscious that he was doing his utmost to make the world
better?

Upon his death an effort was made to abolish the office of laureate, but
it failed and Alfred Tennyson was selected, and has for thirty-five years
poetized for the glory of England. It is popular in our day to make light
of Tennyson’s verse, but it was not always thus, for our own classic
Longfellow wrote:

    “O sweet historian of heart!
     To thee the laurel leaves belong,
     To thee our love and our allegiance,
     For thy allegiance to the poet’s art.”

The criticisms of no poet are so amusing. Ward (T. H.), who is unrivaled
in general judicious criticism, calling from oblivion innumerable
forgotten names, seems never to have so much as heard of him, while
Taine, our French critic, who unceremoniously “skips” numerous poets of
acknowledged rank, gives to scarcely one English poet so extended, clear,
close, appreciative criticism as to Tennyson. Shaw in his “Literary
Compendium” does not deign to mention him, while Bayard Taylor said “No
English poet, with the possible exception of Byron, has so ministered to
the natural appetite for poetry.” The average newspaper ridicules him
as stupid, but one of our keenest critics says, “He can gather up his
strength like a serpent in the gleaming coil of a line, or dart it out
straight and free.”

When Tennyson appeared as a poet at the age of thirty-two he evidenced
a rare poetic taste, unlike that which had hitherto catered to English
readers. For a long time the poetry of England had been prosy in the
extreme, metaphysical, monotonous, remorseful, dark and somber, and
the appearance of a poet light, graceful and sentimental, was an event
calculated to arouse the nation into joyous enthusiasm.

There was about his life, as in his stanzas, a poetic halo, living as
he did in the Isle of Wight, away from the rivalries and annoyances of
society. Queen Victoria appointed him laureate, out of respect to the
public demand that he be thus honored.

It is three centuries since Spenser first wore the laurel. The first
century embraced five names, three of whom—Spenser, Johnson and
Dryden—were men of recognized superiority. The second had no poet of
note. From the reign of the Prince of Orange to the independence of
America there was no man of talent who consented to sing the praises of
William, Mary, Anne or the Georges. The present century has been honored
by scholarly, virtuous men, devoid of marked genius.

It is a delightful thing to be able to say that of the entire sixteen,
dull as some of them have been, they have been almost unexceptionally men
of recognized purity of character, in ages when poets were renowned for
their laxity of morals.

    [CONCLUDED.]




THE BELLS OF NOTRE DAME.

BY ADA IDDINGS GALE.


    Thy deep tones burden all the air
    And hearing, strangest thoughts are mine;
    Thou’rt calling all the world to prayer,
    To contemplation all divine.
    Fled are the pageants of the past
    That once turned at thy deep voiced calls,
    In glooms doth stand the palace vast,
    And silent are its splendid halls.

    The galaxy of kings and queens,
    Of courtiers—maids of honor fair,
    The glittering robe of costly sheen,
    The tossing plume, the jewel rare,
    The wild retainers in their glee,
    That passed unheeded, thy sad tone;
    Alas! that life so frail should be
    By moulded brass and iron outdone.

    Beneath thy chimes passed pomp of pride,
    Here many a royal love hath come,
    Whose beauties long since faded—died,
    Whose dulcet voice is long since dumb.
    Thou rang’st the royal infant’s birth,
    Thou tolled’st above the royal bier:

    Kings, potentates have sunk to earth—
    Still art thou speaking calmly here.
    Still speak’st above the noise and din
    Of the fair city’s glittering sweep—
    Thy deep, pathetic tones do win
    My very soul—I list and weep.

    Thou only art eternal here,
    Thy voice the only voice that stays,
    Out-ringing, far-toned, deep and clear—
    Unmeasured is thy length of days.
    Thrones crumble—empires pass away,
    And great republics spring to place;
    If but men better seem to-day,
    Why mourn the faults of age or race?

    Why mourn the sad and bitter past,
    If but from it the perfect flower
    Of justice springeth up at last
    To sweeten all the present hour?
    Why mourn that gilded thrones should fall,
    And jeweled crowns forget to shine,
    Since Right will triumph over all,
    Moved onward by a power divine?




THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE.

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.


One day I said to the Factotum of the Collector of Customs in New York,
“I must do up the Custom House in a magazine article of three thousand
five hundred words; how much time shall I need to give to the collection
of data here?”

Factotum smiled compassionately on me and said: “About three months!”

In this granite building on Wall Street, with its tall Ionic columns,
is transacted a business greater than all the industries of the United
States combined half a hundred years ago. The merchandise that was
inspected, weighed, counted, measured, valued, catalogued here last year
was valued at—count the figures!—$857,430,637. The catalogue includes
over three thousand articles, many of which you never heard of and
would not even recognize the names thereof. Each of these articles has
its particular rate of duty, some having two or three different ones.
These have to be calculated specifically on every package by quantity,
or if the duty be _ad valorem_, the value of the article has to be first
determined and the duty then calculated on the quantity of goods of
that class. These estimates and adjustments form the most intricate and
delicate business known to civilization. We sometimes think _things_ are
plain and easy to administer upon, but the whole range of metaphysics
and abstract thought is not more perplexing and doubtful than this mere
business matter of levying and collecting the duties on goods passing
the custom house.

I remember of hearing a debate in the Senate of the United States upon
a proposed amendment to the tariff laws. The bill had been prepared
and revised in a committee of Senators most experienced and acute in
such matters, and it had been hammered over in long days of debate.
Some one now asked what would be the exact duty collectible under this
bill on the class of merchandise to which it related, and not a man in
the Senate could tell. Last winter, when it was proposed in the House
of Representatives to cut down the duties twenty per cent. all around
(“horizontal reduction”), it was demonstrated by experts that the measure
would work such confusion that it could _not_ be executed.

To illustrate the nicety and intricacies that have grown around this
business, take fabrics. The duty on silk goods and that on cotton goods
are different. In the case of mixed, silk and cotton, it is, of course,
different still. Then, whether the goods be silk or cotton, or mixed,
the duty is calculated by a double standard—so much per square yard, and
so much according to its fineness and weight. They count the threads of
warp and woof in a square inch, and charge duty accordingly. If there
are two hundred threads to the inch the fabric must pay a duty of, say,
thirty-five per cent. _ad valorem_, if it cost over twenty-five cents per
yard; while on another piece counting two hundred and one threads to the
inch the duty shall be six and a half cents per square yard and fifteen
per cent. of its cost. A single thread more or less may change the duty.
Then there is all the complication of fixing the value of goods. I don’t
suppose there is a farmer in the United States who can ascertain by any
amount of figuring what it costs him to raise a pound of wool; yet the
customs officers must fix the cost for all wool that is imported. So of
all other products on which _ad valorem_ duty is levied. Congress two
years ago made a change in the basis of valuation, by decreeing that the
value of the package in which goods are imported, the fees of brokers
and other middlemen in the country where the goods were bought, and the
cost of transporting them from points inland abroad to the seaboard,
should not be counted in the value of the goods. All these items had
before to be included in the appraisement. The fine distinctions and
the contested points in fixing duties are innumerable. If any of them
seem absurd and needlessly exact, you must remember that every one of
them has been fought over between government and importers, between
foreign and American dealers, and between rival importers, and has been
established by experience as the best adjustment of all conflicting
interests. For the tariff system is the growth of centuries. We inherited
its leading features from England’s protective system—what time that,
instead of free trade, was her better policy—and have gradually modified
and expanded it to suit the exigencies of our own national growth. Each
item in it is the record of more than fiscal economy. It measures the
government’s efforts, as well to defeat the devices of smugglers and
the designs of foreign producers as to raise its own revenues. “As the
laws of nations are the crystallizations of its historical experiences,
so the customs regulations of a people are the residual crystallization
of its commercial relations with foreigners, its efforts at industrial
development and self-preservation, and its bitter acquaintance with
greed, guile and guilt.”[B]

The country’s acquaintance with greed, guile and guilt does not stop
at such manifestations of human nature in those who seek to evade the
payment of duties, either. It has to protect itself at the same time
against the dishonesty and incapacity of its own servants. The customs
system is therefore one of checks and balances to secure (1) the
impartial and rigorous collection of _all_ duties; (2) the prevention
of mistakes in accounts; (3) the prevention of frauds and peculations,
both inside and outside the custom houses. To secure all these the
system of book-keeping and business detail is grown wonderfully complex
and ingenious. The work is divided into three departments, or bureaus,
each under the head of its official, all separate and distinct from one
another, all under the jurisdiction of the Collector of Customs, and yet
each official having his prerogatives and duties which the Collector can
not interfere with. Each department revises the work of the others and
tests accuracy and fidelity therein.

The Collector’s duties are to see that all the departments do theirs.

The Surveyor of the Port has charge of all outside matters. He is the eye
of the Custom House. He is its right hand, which is laid upon a vessel,
its passengers and cargo as soon as they enter the Narrows, and never
taken off until all dues and requirements of the government are paid and
fulfilled.

The Appraiser is to inspect, value, and catalogue all merchandise, and
apportion the duties thereon.

The Naval Officer is to revise the work of all the others, and correct
errors and neglects, but he has nothing to do with the machinery of
collection.

To insure greater correctness there is a reviser of the revisers,
who about a year after the clearance of a cargo takes all the papers
connected with it, computes, compares and checks them off, and ascertains
what has become of all the goods invoiced.

One would suppose that after a ship and its invoices had run the gauntlet
of all these lynx-eyed officials, and the accounts had been cast in half
a dozen different ways, and the whole affair probed, and pried open, and
pried into, and taken to pieces and put together again in different ways,
errors and frauds would be impossible. Importers evidently have not such
faith in the perfection and inevitableness of the system, for appeals
from the demands of the custom house are frequent, and upward of five
hundred suits in a year are brought in court against the collector.

The best way to get a slight comprehension of the way this labyrinthine
business is done is to go through it once, in fancy. Say you are a
merchant traveling in Europe, and keeping an eye on the main chance
by buying a stock of silks, woolens, and fancy goods; also dresses,
gloves, and “knick-knacks,” for gifts. When the former are ready to be
shipped you have three invoices made and presented to the United States
Consul of the port of shipment, for him to revise and approve as correct
descriptions of the goods. One of these invoices he keeps, one he mails
to the Collector of Customs at New York, and one he gives the owner or
consignee of the goods. If on opening the consignment in New York the
inspector find this invoice does not correspond with the goods, it must
be returned to the consul for correction. Thus early in the transaction
do the safeguards begin.

Arrived in port, the vessel is boarded by inspectors who take from
the master the ship’s manifest and the other papers, and seal up the
hatchways, one remaining in charge of the ship while another takes
duplicates of the papers to the collector. The master of the vessel also
proceeds to the custom house and submits his papers, which convey a
complete history and description of his vessel, its voyage, passengers,
crew, cargo, stores, etc., etc. There are in some cases port dues and
other charges against the vessel for him to pay. His statement includes
a schedule of the number, nature, contents, consignees’ names and
residences, and markings and numbers of your packages of goods, and of
all others in the cargo. All this he vouches for under oath. Thus, to
begin with, the government has three accounts of the cargo. The master is
then given a permit to land his cargo, still under surveillance of the
inspector.

The cargo while being discharged on the wharf is checked off by the
manifest, so as to determine whether the cargo apparently corresponds
with the representations of the master and his papers. The cargo being
landed, the interests of yourself and other consignees become active. You
go to the custom house in person, or by a broker, present the bill of
lading and the invoices of your goods, certified by the consul; and you
state under oath that you have certain merchandise in the cargo as set
forth in the invoices, with the marks of the packages and description of
their contents. This is called an entry of the goods. If approved, the
papers are stamped, dated and numbered, and the value of the goods and
the rate of duty are indorsed on the back of your invoice by the entry
clerk. He then issues to you a permit to take away such of the goods
as you choose, upon payment of the estimated duties thereon, and after
compliance with the further conditions described below. If you choose to
leave any of the goods for a season in government warehouses, you need
not pay the duties thereon, but may give bonds for payment to be made
whenever you do take them. This is a bonded warehouse, and when you take
the goods it is called “taking them out of bond.” Often goods intended
for re-export are left in bond until sent out of the country, and no duty
is ever paid on such.

The correctness of these preliminary steps having been reviewed and
vouched for by the naval officer, certain portions of the goods, about
ten per cent., are sent to the appraiser’s office, as samples from
which the value of the whole consignment may be appraised. Before the
appraisal is made, however, you must go to the cashier’s office and pay
the _estimated_ duty on the goods wanted immediately, on their _apparent_
value as shown in the invoice; you must also give what is called a
“return bond” that you will not open the goods until ten days after the
appraiser has passed upon the samples, and that you will return the
goods to the custody of the collector if required during that time; this
enables the government to keep its hold on the goods until the final
adjustment of its claims. You now get your permit indorsed by the deputy
collector and the naval officer, and take it to the inspector in charge
of the vessel.

All your other papers are sent to the appraiser, with the sample goods.
His examiner identifies the one by the other and he makes his estimates—a
difficult and delicate task, sometimes. The changes from the invoices,
either in the quantity or value of goods are noted, and the papers are
returned to the collector’s office, where the work of the appraiser as
to classification of goods and proper duties, to be paid is carefully
revised. If the appraiser’s work be disapproved it is returned to him
for correction. After he has amended it, it goes to the naval office,
where the whole work is again revised. Then it goes finally to the Bureau
of Liquidation, where if you have already paid the right duty you can
get a permit to take your goods; if there is more to pay you pay it; if
you have paid too much the amount of the overcharge is returned to you.
If you be not satisfied with the valuation or any other feature of the
adjustment you can appeal, within a certain time, to the Secretary of the
Treasury, and if he sustain the collector you can still further appeal
to the United States Court. Or if the valuation do not satisfy you, you
can ask for a re-appraisement, or demand to have the goods valued by a
disinterested outsider expert in such goods. Before him you can call
expert witnesses and make as good a case as possible.

If you find any of your goods have been damaged in the voyage—say by
bilge water or breakage—you can demand a reduction of the valuation (and
hence of the duty) in consequence.

You have now done with the custom house, but it has not done with your
papers. They are all gone over again in another way, so as to verify
them; and then all the data are tabulated in such a way as to again prove
the accuracy of the processes. There is another review of them before the
much-tested documents are finally laid to rest. And as before noted, the
whole account of the cargo is re-examined a year later.

With the kid gloves and finery in your trunk you will have less red-tape
trouble. Inspectors from a revenue cutter have boarded the ship down the
Bay, and taken a sworn statement from every passenger as to the number of
pieces of baggage he has, and whether or no he has any dutiable goods
therein. You may not know whether your goods are dutiable or not, and
what is of more importance to you, you may not know that some things
which are strictly dutiable in law and would have to pay if put through
the custom house in an invoice, can pass free in your baggage. You shall
see how and why this liberality of the government is exercised.

Now you and your baggage are taken off the steamer and transported
on barges to the barge office at the Battery. Here the scene is as
animated, if not as picturesque, as at Castle Garden, described in the
October CHAUTAUQUAN. A large rotunda is piled with long tiers of trunks,
boxes and parcels, each ranged under a placard bearing the letter
which is the initial of the owner’s name—so that it is easy for you to
find yours, unless you are as uncertain as to the orthography of your
name as Tony Weller was. A blue-clad, brass-badged inspector, holding
your sworn statement in his hand, demands the keys to your trunks.
The manner in which you comply will have much to do with the rigor of
his investigation, as will your general appearance and make-up. These
officials become as good judges of character by externals as do railroad
conductors. One of the latter once said to me: “I can pick out all the
fresh passengers in a coach as soon as I open the door, by the way they
sit, look, and breathe. If they try to deceive, their faces will betray
them; they look too unconcerned and innocent. If they feign sleep they
overdo it; their attitudes betray them.” So an inspector here says that
people’s words, movements, dress, all tell of them.

I can tell the incoming traveler an open secret. Uncle Sam is extremely
liberal in the matter of baggage inspection. You would be surprised, sir
or madam, at the things the inspector don’t see, if you simply throw
yourself on the government’s generosity and act as if you expected to be
liberally dealt with. You have only to remember that your foot is on your
native heath, and you are an American citizen, one of the sovereigns. An
inspector said: “This property is personal effects, and public sentiment
is very sensitive as to domiciliary inspection and invasion of private
sanctity. The inspector is given wide latitude of judgment; he must have
it. By law, every pair of kid gloves that has not been worn is dutiable,
but we began to allow a lady a few extra pairs, and finally the limit was
set at a dozen. Although that is liberal, we find that plenty of ladies
have more pairs in use; and if her appearance, dress, and the other
contents of the trunks justify it, we pass as many as we fancy a lady in
her station _might_ possess. So of dresses, laces, fans, fancy articles,
et cetera. Even piece goods not cut or sewed are under certain conditions
ignored, if the owner declares they are for her own necessary use. So of
cigars. Our rule is to pass a hundred duty free; but we don’t always stop
to count them, if the passenger looks like a man of means and character.
What would the seizure amount to if there were ten or twenty, or even
fifty over the arbitrary limit we have fixed? The government does not do
such ‘picayune business.’”

“Does not this leave the door open for smuggling?”

“Not much. A person can not get much through openly in a trunk that can
affect the revenues or injure honest importers. The chief thing we need
to prevent is passing goods intended for selling. This sort of fraud is
usually attempted by deception, and we are pretty sure to detect it,
either by the nervousness or appearance of the person, by the looks
of the baggage, or by having been forewarned by detectives abroad, on
shipboard or here. We get a moiety share of the forfeiture and fine, if
we detect such attempts, and this is so large a sum that our interests
are mostly with the government.”

We will learn more about smuggling. False bottoms and secret pockets
in trunks are an old device for hiding things; but the man who first
secreted diamonds in his boot heel originated something. Secreting about
the person is the ruse oftenest used, and, women’s costumes affording the
best resources for this purpose, women are the most frequent smugglers.

Some of them—reputable women, too—take quite superfluous pains and make
themselves look needlessly ridiculous by loading their persons with
apparel that no one would question if in their trunks, and no one does
on their persons, except to smile at the self-exposure. On a hot July
day I saw elegant appearing ladies in the barge office, sweating under
enormous fur cloaks that made them look like Arctic explorers. This
foible is neatly satirized in “Nothing to Wear,” in which is described
the enormously stout appearance of _Miss Flora McFlimsy_ upon landing.

One day the inspector witnessed a woman waddling down the gang plank with
the body of a two hundred pounder and the face and head of a skinny,
ninety-five pounder. Of course she was invited to the examination room
by the female inspector, where the peripatetic ladies’ furnishing store
was opened up and duty demanded on the whole outfit. The same things in a
trunk would probably have gone through, most of them. Here the open and
honest course were the wisest.

Laces, silks, and linens are wound around the body and limbs, or made
up into extra and superfluous skirts. Coiffeurs are made to serve as
bustles; extra gold watches and jewelry are hung to the inside of skirts,
and a dozen other devices are the suggestion of lovely and ingenious
woman.

Here, as well as on the Canada frontier, women are found most apt at
amateur smuggling. The reasons for this are numerous. Women are by
education and domestic necessity close buyers and can not usually forego
a bargain. The lines of duty, moral or fiscal, are not closely drawn
or clearly defined here. Smuggling is a statutory offense, not a moral
crime, and from time immemorial injustice and favoritism have been
alleged against the whole tariff on imports. You shall hear plenty of
good moral men to-day denouncing all tariff as robbery. Besides, what
deference for or loyalty to government demands should we expect of women
when they are denied all share in government or law-making? Over against
these customs peccadilloes we may set the unanimous verdict of business
men that in positions of financial trust and responsibility, and as
debtors, women are almost universally honest.

The belief is quite common that smuggling through luggage is much
practiced by feeing the inspectors. Of course, the inspectors deny this.
They point to the superior inducements to fidelity on their part in the
share they secure of seizures, forfeitures, and penalties; to the risk
they run of detection in accepting bribes, the inspection being done
openly with many interested spectators and paid spies about, and to the
serious consequences of detection. Moreover, since the courts in the
celebrated Astor suit decided that anything may pass which the person
would swear is for personal or family use, the _necessity_ for bribery
is largely done away. Mr. Astor recovered from government duties upon
$40,000 worth of luggage that had been seized.

This story is told: Two years ago a woman landed with as many trunks as a
banyan tree; the inspector had been notified that she was a fashionable
milliner in New York. She said to the inspector, “I am in great hurry,
and if you will put my baggage right through and come up to my store
this evening I will give you a five pound note.” The collector scented
more than twenty-five dollars for himself in forfeitures, and began the
examination. A dozen pairs of new kid gloves, of four different sizes,
were the first thing uncovered. The lady protested that they were all for
herself, and that she was entitled to a dozen, and they were passed. But
when more gloves of different sizes were found, until there were half a
gross, she began to raise her bid. Then fifty pairs of new shoes of many
different sizes were turned out, and then silks, flowers, ribbons, fans,
and finery _à la_ McFlimsy. She at last offered three hundred dollars to
have the trunks passed, but as there was about twelve hundred dollars
worth of goods on which was a duty to collect of, say, five hundred
dollars, all of which (seventeen hundred dollars) was forfeit, it was no
use. The business had gone to a point where the owner could not afford
to bid against the government for the purchase of the inspector’s honor.
The goods were sent to the seizure room, and the woman was sued for the
penalty, as it exceeded the value of the property. After two years of
obstacles and delay the case was compromised and settled. The inspector
told me that his share of the damages would be much more than the three
hundred dollars she offered. Honesty is the best policy, virtue is its
own reward, and everybody is honest when it pays best, you see. If the
woman had not offered the bribe, and thus put it out of the power of the
official to show her any leniency, she would have been allowed to take
the goods away on payment of simple duty. She at least learned that there
is a time and way for all things, including bribery.

[B] _Harper’s_ for June, 1884.




THE CHRISTIAN REVOLT OF THE JEWS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D.D., LL.D.


There is a little country in the south-eastern corner of Europe,
bordering on the Black Sea, which goes by the name of Bessarabia. It
drops into the angle formed by the Black Sea and one of the three mouths
of the Danube. Before the Crimean war it was a part of Russia, but in
consequence of Russia’s defeat in that war she was compelled, in the
treaty, to give it up to Turkey, and until six years ago it remained a
part of the Turkish Empire. But in the late war between Russia and Turkey
it was Russia’s time to win, and so she took back Bessarabia, and it
again became a part of her dominions. It has always been the scene of a
busy and peculiar life. The very river itself seems to have imparted much
of its current to the people, and they have been thinking, in their own
humble way, of the best means to promote their own interests.

The most recent movement in this small section of Russia is the religious
awakening of the Jews who settled in Bessarabia many years ago, being
driven there by the pressure of persecution, and leading a quiet life,
saying nothing as the lash came down upon them. From one step to another
this religious reformation has proceeded, all the while approaching
Christianity, until now it is a strong and still growing work, and in all
essential respects, save only organic unity, is allied with the Christian
church. It has already attracted the attention of inquiring minds in
western Europe, and threatens to extend into the hitherto firm body of
Judaism, and awaken intense Christian aspirations and sympathies in the
Jewish mind throughout the world. Delitzsch, of Leipzig University,
has given some account of the general features of the revolution in
his _Documente der National-jüdischen Christgläubigen Bewegung in
Südrussland_, but the most that has been written has thus far been in
fugitive form, in the Slavic periodicals of the Danubian principalities.
The whole affair has taken place in such an obscure country, and so far
removed from the busy centers of European thought and life, that it has
not had time to get into the permanent field of literature. Its leaders
have been so little accustomed to rely on the press, or to take it into
view as a means of propagating their opinions, that in this new phase of
their work they have depended simply on the justice of their cause and
the firm principles which they believe underlie it. From various sources,
and especially from the Rev. Dr. Kleinheim, of Bucharest, who has been a
resident of this far-off city about twenty years, and is probably better
acquainted with the internal working of Judaism in eastern and southern
Europe than any other man, I have gathered the most of the data which I
herewith present to your readers. This gentleman has spent his life in
trying to christianize the Jews of Moldavia and Wallachia, and his labors
have been remarkably successful. He has been kind enough to answer all my
inquiries, and to open to me some of the interior views of this important
and unique movement which could not have been secured at a distance.

The prime mover in this revolt against pure Judaism, and in favor of
Christian adaptations, is a layman, Joseph Rabinowitz. He is a lawyer
by profession, and for learning, and as a pure and elevated character,
he has been long held in the highest repute by his companions in faith
throughout Bessarabia. From his very development into manhood he seems
to have been interested in the improvement of their condition, and to
have conceived the idea that there must be some new and easy solution of
their solitude and sorrow. In 1880 he presented a plan, which was more
theoretical and fanciful than practical, by which the Jewish priesthood
might be thoroughly reorganized, and thereby the whole Jewish system
undergo a most salutary rehabilitation. There was, however, no intimation
here that any form of Christianity should be superadded to Judaism. But
he had his thoughts, and applied himself with redoubled energy to helping
his brethren to something better than they had so far possessed, both
in faith and material comfort. The Jews have seldom shown any sympathy
with agriculture. They are a folk of trade, the world’s shopmen and money
changers. But Rabinowitz endeavored to introduce agriculture among the
Bessarabian Jews, and to locate them in pleasant and open homes. By and
by, in 1882, the violent persecution of the Jews of the whole of southern
Russia broke out, and neither life nor property seemed to rest on any
approach to a secure base.

Rabinowitz now turned his attention to the Holy Land. He felt that Russia
was no place for the Jews to live in, that they should go to a country
where their fathers had once been great and strong, that now Palestine
had only a sparse population, that the Jews would not be disturbed there
in any way, and that they should wander hither, become tillers of the
soil, and develop once more into a great people. He went there himself,
made a careful study of the country, and especially of its history, and
came to the startling conclusion that the land itself, from positive
internal evidence, gives the fullest and clearest proof possible, to-day,
that such a character as Jesus Christ did live in it, that he, and none
other, is the promised Messiah, that all further expectation of a Messiah
on the part of the Jews is idle, and that the only proper course for
them to adopt is to accept him as their Savior and Redeemer. This is
concession which lies at the root of all Judaism; once granted, there is
positively nothing essential left.

Rabinowitz had gone to Palestine for the sole purpose of opening the
country for a new immigration, not only of Jews from Bessarabia, but
from every land. He saw in the occupation of the country, by his
fellow-believers, a magnificent future for them. But through some strange
providence, which no one seems yet to understand, he saw a larger
future—the Jews of all lands coming to the cross of Christ. He went back
to Bessarabia, and soon astounded his companions in doctrine by his bold
and impassioned declarations of the divine character of Jesus. With the
genius of the real leader, he adopted a watchword, which has now become
broadly known as the rallying cry of all Jews who share his doctrine:
“The key of the Holy Land lies in the hand of our brother Jesus.”

There is no want of clearness in the creed of this new and striking
departure in Judaism. It is an adoption of the fundamental doctrines
of Christianity; at the same time, however, those who entertain these
doctrines do not propose to withdraw from Judaism completely, but to
retain some of the minor features of the old system, and to refrain from
joining any Christian denomination. They call themselves “The National
Jewish Society of the New Testament.” In their articles of faith, as
communicated by Pastor Faltin, of Kischinev, to Dr. Delitzsch, they hold
the following general views: There is one living and true God, creator
of all things. He made a covenant with Israel, his people, that he would
raise from their midst a prophet, who should have the spirit of the Lord,
and himself be the Lord, who would plant righteousness throughout the
earth. This prophet is the promised Messiah, who taught the people the
truth, and bore their sins, and died for the whole world. He was born
about seventy years before the destruction of the second temple, and died
at the hands of his enemies. He will rule the house of David, and exalt
the horn of his people for ever more. The Jews of his time were stricken
with blindness. The light was before them, but because of their hardness
of heart they were punished with helplessness. Hence they killed their
Lord. It is now time to open their eyes, and see him whom their fathers
slew. He alone is Redeemer. He alone can build up the Jewish people. From
all lands they should hasten to Palestine, and accept Christ immediately,
and expect nothing less than that he will restore Jerusalem to its former
glory, and build there once more the throne of David.

Such is the mere thread of doctrine which pervades this new system, but
there is interwoven with it a certain general paraphrase of teaching,
which it is also necessary to understand. This is furnished Dr. Delitzsch
by Wilhelm Faber (of Kirsanoff), who took notes one afternoon when
Rabinowitz himself gave a survey of his creed. “We Jews,” says the
leader, “who have come into the full vision of Jesus Christ, and now feel
the power of his spirit, have not come to the great light through any
general indoctrination from without. No, we have looked deeply into the
Old and New Testaments, and have found that God takes no pleasure in the
death of the sinner, and that he loves his people Israel, and is willing
to save them. Our reflection has become stirred by the miracles of Jesus.
We see in them the evidences of his divinity and the proofs of his love
toward us. We have come to look to our brother Jesus as the Messiah, and
to find in him our only hope of salvation.”

While Rabinowitz has organized his companions in this new doctrine into
a separate religious body, which does not alienate itself fully from
Judaism, it differs from Christianity widely enough to prevent perfect
affiliation with it. It stands upon the border-line, being neither
positively Jewish nor altogether Christian. Rabinowitz finds fault with
Christians for being divided into many confessions, and congratulates
his fellow-believers from among the Jews on the ease with which they
can build themselves into a new organization without the embarrassment
of subdivisions. In answer to the question as to whether circumcision
should be enforced in this new religious society, Rabinowitz says: “It
is not sinful to abstain from circumcision, but he who does so abstain
cuts himself off from all relation to his people.” He, therefore, makes
this rite a part of the creed of his church, but not a necessity. He
regards the sentences of the Old and New Testaments as of equal validity,
and rejects the Talmud and the writings of the rabbinists as not of
authoritative force, but as valuable monuments of an early time. He
adopts the communion service of the Lutheran church, and makes baptism an
essential part of his system.

Rabinowitz propounded his doctrines to his fellow Jews only two years
ago, and in this brief time over two hundred families have formally
united with him. Of course the regular Jews do not endorse such a
departure. They regard it as a miserable apostasy, and proclaim loudly
against it. On the other hand, the Christian church can not hail it with
unmixed pleasure, inasmuch as the “National Jews” still adhere to some
parts of the Jewish system, and must make some important concessions
before they can be regarded as a thorough religious body.

In what light, therefore, must these Jews, who have accepted Christ and
his full atonement, be held? Can we see in their doctrines a sign of real
hope for the entire Jewish world? We think that only one answer can be
given, the one which Delitzsch and other close students of the Hebrew
mind, both past and present, have been compelled to give—namely, that
we see here an evidence of the breaking up of the old Jewish solidity.
Mendelssohn and others have proven that the Jews are subdivided among
themselves, that there are numerous tendencies which pervade the entire
body, and that these are constantly growing stronger. This, however,
is the first instance where an important part of the Jewish church has
openly adopted the atonement of Christ, and proposes to rise or fall by
that alone. May it not be the great outcome of the Jewish mystery, that
large sections will formally adopt Christianity; that not as individuals
but as vast territorial sections they will renounce their old faith and
take their place among Christian bodies; and that in due time they will
drop the Jewish name altogether, and be thoroughly identified with the
great Christian church in all its activities and grand purposes?

The middle ground of the National Jews of to-day, as occupied and
preached by Rabinowitz, is simply an impossibility for the future. It is
neither one thing nor another. Its exact parallel, in our day, can be
found in the impossible church of Father Hyacinth. His work is neither
all Protestant nor all Roman Catholic. To succeed it must become
Protestant, and formally reject all attachments to the old Romanism.
There must be no looking back when once the “hand is put to the plow.”
Had Martin Luther stood all his life upon the door-sill of Roman
Catholicism, looking out and yet not going out, his work would have been
a total failure, and have shown a lack of that final courage which makes
a successful revolution. We must, however, bear in mind the fact that
he was preceded by men who had taken positive ground, but not the last
step. To their moderate work he owed much. He saw their failure, and the
cause of it, and hence he broke the whole yoke and became a free man. In
the same useful line must we rank the doctrines and work of Rabinowitz.
He may not take all the advanced course which we would like, and which
history reveals as only the true Reformer, but he is the sure forerunner
of one or more who will do this work. It is one of the ways in which God
distributes his honors, that his great movements are not conducted by one
alone. There is always the Baptist, and sometimes many, who must preach
in the wilderness, before the full gospel of the mountain side and sea
shore can be heard from the lips of the world’s Teacher. In this light,
as the prophecy of a new religious awakening among the Jews, who have for
all ages rejected all approaches from Christianity, must we regard the
doctrines and work of Rabinowitz and his friends. His cause is rapidly
growing, and must continue to grow. While it is not a finality, it is in
the right direction, and hence a blessing which all Christian people must
hail with pleasure.

BUCHAREST, ROUMANIA, October 7, 1884.




THE INNER CHAUTAUQUA.

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


Chautauqua is a place and an idea. The idea was before the place;
although it must be confessed that the embodiment of the thought in a
physical frame-work of soil and forest had a most wholesome effect on
the idea itself, giving it a chance to draw strength from its external
conditions; to “ultimate” its conceptions in action; to experiment with
raw material; to command the attention and elicit the commendation on
which good things thrive, and to adapt its aim and energy to the variety
of people and conditions with which it proposed to deal.

The place is beautiful, and grows more beautiful with the passing years.
Nature has not suspended her beneficent ministries since Art pitched her
pavilion by the side of these waters. Trees still put forth branches and
clothe them with foliage. The old trees stand like venerable giants,
with as much of hope as of memory in their hearts, and in their annual
robe of verdure forget that for so many years they have watched the
coming and the going of the seasons. Young trees that have grown a dozen
years older since the first Chautauqua song broke the silence are now
stately and beautiful, ready to be witnesses for a hundred years, of the
strange things to be done here, and of which we who are looking about
for graves only dream of now. The lake—who shall tell of its moods, its
smiles and frowns, its loud murmurings of unrest when the fierce winds
come down in power upon it; its low sobbings after the storm, trying to
forgive and forget; its sweet answers to the toying breeze; its splendor
when the moon flings a robe of silver over it; and when the sun, making
it a mirror, rejoices in it (as Christ in the true saints) because it
faithfully reflects his own glorious image?

Art has not altogether been useless, although more than once unwise.
Penuriousness has sometimes spoiled lines and angles, and mixed bad
colors. Stupidity has blundered into sad combinations and contrasts;
but on the whole Art has clasped hands with Nature, and made the place
Chautauqua a lovely and fitting tabernacle for the Chautauqua Idea.

There is a Chautauqua within Chautauqua. To see this other Chautauqua,
one must have eyes—eyes that look into the innermost things. He must
see beyond groves and crowds, beyond lake and sky, beyond buildings and
programs. He must be able to see necessities, intellectual and spiritual,
in the individual and in society, tendencies of thought, forces of
conviction, pressures of desire and ambition, the conflict of new and old
civilizations in the personal life, as circumstances bring a man face to
face with the new, while yet from habit and feeling he is held half-slave
by the old.

He who sees Chautauqua must understand the relations (not generally
understood) between gracious culture and the rough, unæsthetic services
which people must render each other and their own lives in this world,
services of feeding and clothing and cleaning and housing—low, gross and
humiliating, as judged from an artist’s studio or a “poet’s frenzied
mood.” He must find out that high and low, noble and ignoble are relative
terms; that a kitchen may for a time cage an angel whose hands dabble
in dough, and whose tired feet in coarse shoes tread rough floors. She
may serve her inferiors and treasure the pittance they give her to buy
books for her brain life, at least that portion of the pittance she does
not need to feed unfortunate people who depend upon her. When crowns are
given out, a marvelous readjustment of relations will take place, and
certain little neighborhoods will be shaken with surprise.

Chautauquans with eyes see the distinctions in advance, and recognize
the crowns that hover in mid-air over the saints, and they pay honors to
“Alfreds in neat herd’s huts” before the throne is ready.

Chautauquans who have eyes to see have discovered the strong and
delicate cords of religious life which run through and unite all the
diverse elements of life into a sacred harmony—a sacrament exceeding holy.

Chautauquans see God in everything and find in everything ways of coming
near to him. They believe in nature and in science—true science—and
abide by her final decisions, and take delight in her processes. But
they believe also in a FATHER whose thought makes scientific thought
possible, and of whose creative and controlling thought science is but an
interpretation.

Chautauquans believe in the God of the Book—the BOOK of Books. They
do not trouble themselves about the _modus_, the _quantum_ and the
_qualitas_ of inspiration. They simply take the book in its entirety, as
the book given to be studied, trusted, loved, and obeyed, as individual
conscience and judgment respond to its contents after calm, devout and
diligent study thereof; and not to be quarreled over or quibbled about,
or forced to sustain preconceived or preaccepted notions by a string of
separated texts on the cord of a curious fancy, or an antiquated dogma.
They put BOOK and soul together, and trust both thoroughly for fair
treatment.

Chautauquans “study the Word and the Works of God.” And so firm is their
faith in the SPIRIT who wrought the works and inspired the Word, and in
the spirit of man for whom the Word was inspired, that they feel it not
strange that God the Father should “dwell in the midst of them,” folding
his own children to his heart and breathing of his own spirit into their
spirits, enlightening, regenerating, comforting, witnessing. And as trust
grows and desire increases this access becomes less and less interrupted,
and they hope one of these days in all wisdom, reason and sense to trust
in God continually, and every day to feel his presence and rejoice in his
grace.

Chautauquans, however, discriminate between this divine possession which
captures and sways intellect and will week days and Sundays, in business
and in church life steadily and effectively, and the mere spasms of
resolution under pressure of occasion; the selfish efforts over fancied
personal security; the studied outward conformity to religious duties
according to the ebb and flow of religious emotion. They believe so
firmly in the kingdom and patience of our Lord that obedience is worth
more than comfort and faith, a firmer foundation than sight or feeling.

To Chautauquans, therefore, all things hold a measure of God’s infinite
wisdom. All things are precious, for in all things one may find traces of
his grace. All things are sublime, for all things are connected with a
glorious unity, which fills heaven and earth, eternity past and eternity
to come. Flowers, fossils, microscopic dust, foul soil, things that
crawl and things that soar, ooze from the sea-depths, lofty heights that
salute the stars—all are divine in origin and nature. A boot-black may be
a king—boot-black and king—both at once. Human eyes see only the black
hands, patched knees and crouching form that bespeak servility. There are
eyes that can see deeper and further. Seeing so much they extend a hand
of greeting. Then kings and saints converse.

Chautauquans believe in Wealth when honesty wins it, prudence protects
it, and benevolence uses it. They believe in Position when worth secures
it, work honors it, and humility attends it. They believe in Culture,
when teachableness goes before it, and all the faculties in true harmony
receive it and religion inspires and controls it. They believe in Labor,
when true social relations distribute it, when no one family of faculties
is abused by it, and when true, reverent and philanthropic motives direct
it.

Chautauquans are believers in a common brotherhood—but are not
“communists.” They are open to truth, and hold an inheritance in all
truth, and are subject only to the truth. But they are not boastful free
thinkers in

    “Realms remote, mysterious, divine,”

dogmatizing and denouncing. They believe in truth, God, and humanity.
They seek the first, rejoice in the second, and serve the third.

These are some of the ideas which belong to the Chautauqua movement—the
thoughts within the things—the theories of which phenomenal Chautauqua is
a visible expression.




OUTLINE OF REQUIRED READINGS.


JANUARY, 1885.

_First Week_ (ending January 8).—1. “Preparatory Greek Course in
English,” from page 1 to 21.

2. “Character of Jesus,” from page 1 to 45.

3. “Temperance Teachings of Science,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for January 4, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Second Week_ (ending January 15).—1. “Preparatory Greek Course in
English,” from page 21 to 43.

2. “Character of Jesus,” from page 40 to 87.

3. “Greek Mythology,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. “Kitchen Science and Art,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

5. Sunday Readings for January 11, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Third Week_ (ending January 23).—1. “Preparatory Greek Course in
English,” from page 43 to 63.

2. “Character of Jesus,” from page 87 to 129.

3. “Old Greek Life,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for January 18, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Fourth Week_ (ending January 31).—1. “Preparatory Greek Course in
English,” from page 63 to 83.

2. “Character of Jesus,” from page 129 to 173.

3. “Home Studies in Chemistry and Physics,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for January 25, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.


PROGRAMS FOR LOCAL CIRCLE WORK.


FIRST WEEK IN JANUARY.

1. Review of the Persian War.

[Giving cause of the war, date and location of each battle, leaders on
both sides, and a brief outline of the life of each leader.]

2. Recitation—“Picture of Modern Greece,” by Lord Byron. From “The
Giaour.” Found also in Chambers’s “Cyclopædia of English Literature.”

3. Essay—Torricelli and Pascal.

Music.

4. Select Reading—“Ancient Greece,” by Lord Byron. From “Childe Harold.”
Canto II. Stanzas 2 to 9.

5. Essay—The Proposed New Word, “Thon.”

6. Question Box.

7. Talk on the New Orleans Exposition.


SECOND WEEK IN JANUARY.

1. Roll-call—Responses by Mottoes.

2. Essay—Use and Abuse of Food.

3. Fifteen minutes’ talk on “Temperance Teachings of Science.”

4. Recitation—“Pericles and Aspasia,” by the Rev. George Croly, found in
Chambers’s “Cyclopædia of English Literature.”

Intermission.

5. Essay—Herodotus.

6. Select Reading—“Cautions to be Observed in the Reading of Ancient
Greek and Roman Historians.” By Addison.

7. One-half of the “Questions and Answers” for January.

8. Conversation on the Topics of the Times.


THIRD WEEK IN JANUARY.

1. Talk and Questions on the Month’s Readings.

2. Essay—Thucydides.

3. Recitation—“Psyche and Pan.” By Mrs. Browning.

Music.

4. Select Reading—“On the Athenian Orators.” By Macaulay. [The last third
of the article, beginning, “Oratory is to be estimated—”]

5. Essay—Visible Forms of Electricity.

6. Chemical Experiments.


MONTHLY PARLOR MEETING.

Music.

1. Roll-call—Quotations from Readings of the Month.

2. Paper on Plato’s Republic, carefully prepared, followed by discussion
of the subject by the members.

[Articles upon it may be found in Mahaffy’s “History of Classical Greek
Literature,” and in De Quincy’s writings.]

3. Recitation—“Marriage of Psyche and Cupid.” By Mrs. Browning.

Music.

4. Essay—Apples.

[It need not be entirely practical; allusions may be made to the apples
of mythology and history.]

5. Select Reading—“Dissertation on Roast Pig.” By Charles Lamb.

Music.

6. Question Match—Answers relating to Greek History and Literature given
to all questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN of the present volume.


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. FOUNDER’S DAY—February 23.

8. LONGFELLOW DAY—February 27.

9. SHAKSPERE DAY—April 23.

10. ADDISON DAY—May 1.

11. SPECIAL SUNDAY—May, second Sunday.

12. SPECIAL SUNDAY—July, second Sunday.

13. INAUGURATION DAY—August, first Saturday after first Tuesday;
anniversary of C. L. S. C. at Chautauqua.

14. ST. PAUL’S DAY—August, second Saturday after first Tuesday;
anniversary of the dedication of St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua.

15. COMMENCEMENT DAY—August, third Tuesday.

16. GARFIELD DAY—September 19.

       *       *       *       *       *

How shall we arrange a program? It is a constantly recurring query
for instruction committees. A skillfully planned program insures an
interested society, but it is no easy undertaking for even a very wise
committee to plan a series of exercises which shall be of just the right
length, of pleasing variety, and on topics in which every one will be
interested. Only a careful study of the reading of the month, a knowledge
of the taste and ability of the circle, and considerable practice will
guarantee a really good program. Many hints may be gathered, we believe,
each month from the programs presented in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. At least,
many circles report that they find them helpful. The QUINCY, ILL.,
circle writes: “Those programs are a very great help to us.” At KITTERY,
MAINE, where a circle of ten active members has been in operation for
three years, they have adopted THE CHAUTAUQUAN programs, and express the
belief that with them they will do better work than ever before. This
modest little circle has never made itself known before, but in a quiet
way has done much good with the “Popular Education” circular. At least
one circle in another state owes its existence to its efforts. One of
their amusements is the Chautauqua games, and they say that the use of
these games has led to much close reading of the books and articles.
The regular programs are used, too, at SHENANDOAH, IOWA, where a circle
of twenty-five members, representing the classes of ’86, ’87, and ’88,
are meeting weekly. The plan has proven very successful with them, they
write. Bryant’s Day was celebrated by special exercises. This circle
has found, as we believe all readers will, that bringing all the Greek
studies into one year is a great help, instead of a drawback. The more
one knows on any subject, the greater his interest. The Greek course of
this year enables us to learn a great deal on that subject.

At PUTNAM, CONN., WEST MIDDLESEX, PA., and DARTFORD, WIS., circles
report the adoption of these same programs. The organization at Putnam,
numbering eighteen members, is of recent date, although there have been
several young people there pursuing the prescribed course for the past
five years. An interesting variation to their program is a paper called
the _Olla Podrida_. It is made up of original contributions from the
members, and is issued monthly, a different editor being appointed each
time. The Middlesex circle is in its second year. It has had already an
addition of four ’88s. Dartford circle of six members is a new addition
to our ranks, and a very welcome one. We feel sure that the hope they
express of gaining great benefit from the Required Readings will not be
disappointed.

While many circles find the prescribed exercises satisfactory, we are
glad to know that others vary performances to suit the talents and
interests of their members. This is found necessary in the BOWLING GREEN,
OHIO, circle, we learn from a recent letter. They use the programs simply
as a model, and work according to their talent. All the features of a
first-class circle are found in this year-old circle at Bowling Green.
They boast a goodly membership, an efficient president, a thorough
organization, a constitution which all cordially support, and much social
life. The first annual reception of our Bowling Green friends was given
last summer. In September they wisely held their first meeting, that
their plans might be laid to begin work the first week of October—a
point which many of us would do well to bear in mind until next fall.
Bryant’s Day was observed, and very flatteringly noticed in their local
paper. Among the virtues which we infer belong to this circle we must
include the missionary spirit. They have in mind the conversion of their
whole county to the C. L. S. C.

The same plan in regard to programs is followed at LUDINGTON, MICH.,
where there is a new circle of twenty-seven members, called “Père
Marquette”—a magnificent beginning. Our correspondent writes: “We enjoy
our reading and our weekly meetings very much indeed; the only regret I
have is that I have let so much time slip by before taking the course.”

Some of the programs sent us contain novelties which when introduced
into a purely literary program are very agreeable diversions. One which
is capable of being made very entertaining we find in a program from a
newly organized circle of thirty members—nearly all ’88s—at NORWICH,
CONN. It is character personation (“Who am I?”). The well known game,
“Characters,” is another number on one of their programs. The response
to roll-call by quotations on Bryant’s Day was improved by stating
after the quotation an interesting fact from the life of the poet. The
Norwich members are certainly to be congratulated on the variety in their
exercises.

Another CONNECTICUT circle which has a particularly good plan for its
evenings is the “Quintette” local circle, of SHARON. They have but
recently organized, and report their plan for work as experimental;
successful, too, we prophesy it will be. The secretary informs us: “We
intend to learn the questions and answers in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and recite
at our regular meetings, held every two weeks. For the present we in
turn are to read aloud selected articles from THE CHAUTAUQUAN and ‘Cyrus
and Alexander;’ after each reading discussing in general conversation,
what has been read, commenting on pronunciation, looking up references
concerning people and places mentioned, and trying to inform ourselves
thoroughly about what has been read.” That plan of preparing programs
a month in advance, and giving to each member a printed copy has been
adopted by the “Longfellow” circle, of NORTH CAMBRIDGE, MASS. This circle
has begun its second year with extraordinary vigor, the membership being
largely increased.

One objection that may be urged against the majority of the programs is
that they are too long. It is difficult to make them short. There is so
much we want to talk about; so many charming selections to read, such
a wealth of subjects for essays, it is not strange that sometimes we
tire out ourselves and our guests by overdoing matters. To avoid this
try the plan of the SACRAMENTO, CAL., circle, which introduces midway
in the evening a “recess of fifteen minutes.” It will prove many a time
a saving clause. Another feature of their plan of work may furnish some
one an idea; it is that a committee should prepare a set of questions,
distribute them one week, and that at the following meeting, the
answers, as original and concise as possible, should be read. The circle
which has given us these two ideas enrolls itself among the strong and
enthusiastic circles. Their year opened most promisingly, six new names
being added to their roll. “We all,” they write, “seem to have caught the
true Chautauqua inspiration, and it has fired our hearts and elevated
the character of our work.” To the hints on programs which the letters
of the month have given us we must add two programs, which seem to us
particularly good; the first one comes from the circle at BALTIMORE, MD.,
now in its sixth year, and is of the Bryant memorial service:

    WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT—BORN NOV. 3, 1794—DIED JUNE 12, 1878.

    Chautauqua Vesper Service.
    Bryant Letter to C. L. S. C.
    Quotations from Bryant.
    Anniversary Hymn.
    “Bryant as a Student of Nature.”
    Illustrated Readings.

The other is from the “Vincent” circle, of ALBANY, N. Y. We print the
slip in full. It will furnish a useful model for those who may wish to
send out similar notices:

                               C. L. S. C.

                                THE FIRST
                         MONTHLY MEETING OF THE
                             VINCENT CIRCLE
                              WILL BE HELD
              In the North Second Street Methodist Church,
                  _Thursday Evening, November 6, 1884_,
                       At half past seven o’clock.

                                PROGRAM.

        1. Geography of Greece.
        2. Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life.
        3. Our Every Day Speech.
        4. Why are the French at War with China?
        5. William Cullen Bryant—A Conversazione.
        6. Our Round-Table.

    The New Year opens invitingly. Its wealth of instruction is
    proffered to the earnest student. Remember our motto: “WE
    STUDY THE WORD AND WORKS OF GOD.” There is no royal road to
    learning—save that of hard work! We hope to greet the older
    members of the Circle. A welcome to all.

    The “Bryant Memorial Day” is November 3; let us work up a hearty
    conversazione. Every monthly meeting we shall have at least one
    current topic: No. 4 is such. Remember the Round-Table and make
    it witty and wise. Come promptly.

                                                        H. C. FARRAR,
                                                         _President_.

                                                        A. M. WRIGHT,
                                                         _Secretary_.

The many newly organized circles which are coming in day after day
testify that a great amount of work has been done by somebody in the
interests of the C. L. S. C. It is true, much has been done. Much more is
being done; of how much nothing that we have received is more suggestive
than the following letter from a prominent member of the class of ’87,
Mr. K. A. Burnell, and it must be remembered that there are many more
workers as zealous as is Mr. Burnell:

                     WALLA-WALLA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, November 10, ’84.

    DEAR CHAUTAUQUAN:—As a member of ’87, and deeply interested in
    every one of the 18,000 whose names appear on the two big books
    at Plainfield, as well as every one reading in any one of the
    classes of all of the great Chautauqua household, I venture
    an account of an evangelistic tour over the Northern Pacific
    Railroad.

    Miss Kimball most kindly mailed me the names of the two to three
    score of readers in Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington
    Territories, and I wrote eighteen letters to as many points,
    indicating that as one deeply interested in the C. L. S. C., I
    was to be over the Northern Pacific Railroad on an evangelistic
    tour, and should be happy to meet circles or individual readers,
    and render any service possible, and I felt sure if I imparted
    nothing I should not fail to be a recipient. I heard from most of
    the messages, and with uniform and marked interest in the fact of
    meeting one late from Chautauqua, and especially with a member of
    the Pansy class of ’87.

    At Fargo, Casselton, Cooperstown and Mandan, Dakota, I found
    individual readers, and did what I could to induce others to take
    up the course. My habit was at the close of each service to make
    a few minutes’ statement concerning the C. L. S. C. readings,
    their rapid growth, and their very great advantage and exceeding
    helpfulness. I received from Plainfield a generous package of the
    green books, admission sheets, and circulars, and at each place
    these documents were placed in the hands of the people at the
    close of the public service, and were received gladly.

    At Gladstone, Dakota, the very patient and self-forgetting
    Scotch-Irish minister brought from his five miles distant ranch,
    his three sons and two daughters, with whom after the service I
    drove home, passing the night and most of the next day, the good
    minister then driving me to my next appointment (Dickinson),
    which also was one of his preaching places.

    This family, as a whole, became so interested in the C. L. S. C.
    readings (it was not new to them) as to fully decide to take the
    course, and at once enter upon it. These bright, thoughtful and
    inquiring young people will be benefited beyond estimate by their
    thought, research and study, and by their intimate relations to
    the great numbers who are pursuing the same stimulating studies.
    The adaptation of our grand everybodies’ college to meet a great
    want has striking application in this exemplary minister’s home.

    At Helena, Montana’s capital, rich and wicked, there is a
    single reader, but I failed to find her after repeated public
    intimations. At Rathdrum, Idaho, the only reader (a school
    teacher) had gone away to the mines. No readers from Oregon were
    announced from Plainfield, but I was glad indeed to find a circle
    in good beginning in connection with and at the rooms of the
    Young Men’s Christian Association of Portland.

    The Portland Y. M. C. A. is a vigorous and hard-working company,
    and in its adoption of the C. L. S. C. readings is doubtless a
    prophecy as to the future. At Seattle and Tacoma, Washington
    Territory, under the shadow of grand, old, snow-capped Mount
    Tacoma, the only glacier mountain in this county, I found a
    single reader, and one family reading. Steps were taken for
    forming a circle at an early day. The delights of an evangelistic
    campaign of forty-five days on the Northern Pacific Railroad have
    been deepened because of our Chautauqua classmates.

                                                           K. A. BURNELL.

This individual effort has been supplemented by a great deal of newspaper
work. Through the past year very many valuable articles on the C. L.
S. C. have appeared from time to time. The _Daily Arkansas Gazette_,
of LITTLE ROCK, recently contained such an article from the pen of
Mrs. Myra Vaughan. It gave all the details of our work, correctly and
interestingly—an article that everybody would read, and having read would
ponder. These efforts have told. The number of new circles claiming our
recognition this month is the best proof of their success. Listen while
we run through the list: A club called the “Clio” club has been formed
at NEWPORT, VERMONT. There are sixteen members, and the meetings are
held weekly. The club has a corresponding secretary, and would be glad
to open communication with other circles.——At WOODSTOCK, VT., seven
ladies organized, on September 19, the “Mayflower” circle. They began
on Garfield’s Day, with a celebration—an admirable plan—and on November
10th observed Bryant’s memorial day. A bit of personal effort comes
with our report, which is worth saving. The lady to whom the circle
largely owes its life is the mother of five children, two of whom she
teaches at home, while she does all the work for a family of eight. Still
she finds time for the C. L. S. C. Another demonstration of our old
proverb about “a will” and “a way.”——A letter from NEWTONVILLE, MASS.,
says: “We have started this year a local circle, and hasten to inform
you of the fact which gives us so much pleasure; although our number
is at present small, being but thirteen, still we are in earnest, and
interested in our work, and propose to go through. Our number is made
up of very busy people—housekeepers, teachers, young men of business,
etc. We attended—that is, most of us—the Framingham Assembly, and there
became filled with enthusiasm which terminated in the foundation of
our circle.”——Another Massachusetts circle is heard from at IPSWICH,
whence the secretary writes: “This fall a C. L. S. C. was formed in our
town in time to begin work October 1. We organized with about fifteen
members; since then our circle has steadily increased, additions being
made at every meeting, until now we are thirty in number. We follow, with
slight variation, the programs laid out in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The chemical
experiments are performed, and the Bryant memorial day was observed.
We are young yet, but we start out under quite favorable auspices,
having an intelligent and enthusiastic president, and a circle of busy,
wide-awake members. You may hear from us again.”——Last year a few persons
at ROCKVILLE, CONNECTICUT, subscribed for THE CHAUTAUQUAN and read its
numbers with growing interest. This year the fervor was unabated, and
steps were taken in October to organize a local circle. They number at
present thirty-one members, including one or two graduates—twenty-five
belonging to the general Circle, class of ’88. The present prospect is
of much profit and real enjoyment in the literary field, during the
winter months.——In the quiet old town of BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND, upon the
borders of the beautiful Narragansett, a number of persons have been
pursuing the Chautauqua course of reading by themselves. “Last autumn
the idea of forming a local circle was advanced. A preliminary meeting
was held October 23d, and the ten Chautauquans present agreed to form a
circle. As we are all busy people, with no spare time, we shall hold our
meetings but once a month, but we intend to make every meeting a decided
success. As Bristol is noted for having within its limits the classic
hill where Philip—not of Macedon, but of Narragansett—lived and died,
we call ours the ‘Mount Hope’ circle. We hold our meetings at private
residences, as this gives them a more social air, and those who have any
part assigned them feel more at ease than if in a public hall. At our
meeting on November 13th, twenty-one members were present, and responded
to roll-call by quotations from Greek authors. Brief papers were read
upon mythological events; an interesting biographical sketch of Bryant
was also read, and a humorous poem, written for the occasion. Vocal and
instrumental music also found a place. The enthusiasm manifested was
a promise of future success. The ‘Mount Hope’ circle is exceptionally
fortunate in having for its president, Mr. George W. Arnold, the
librarian of our excellent ‘Rogers Free Library.’ His familiarity with
this choice collection of books, and his ability to place before us
just the reference needed at any time, is of inestimable value to us as
readers and students. We have, in our membership, representatives from
every Protestant church in town. Many of us are teachers, either in the
Sunday-school or in public schools, or in both. We are confident that the
C. L. S. C. is a power for good, and in the words of an old Sunday-school
hymn, ‘We’re glad we’re in this army.’”——In that pleasant summer resort
by the sea, WESTHAMPTON, N. Y., a few “Pansies” have been studying
together, but this year they generously opened their doors, and by their
genial influence have drawn together a pleasant set of twenty-one young
people. Much good is naturally looked for from this circle. “Already,”
writes a friend, “beneficial results are manifest.”——At BUFFALO, N.
Y., the “Alyssum,” an offshoot from the old circle in that city, has
been well organized. They have a plan in their program committee which
seems practical. At each meeting a new member is appointed. The former
chairman drops out and the next in order takes the position. In this
way each member of said committee becomes chairman in turn, serves
at three committee meetings, and those who have never done such work
have the advantage of seeing how others do before their turn comes. It
works admirably. Each member is assessed ten cents a month for the nine
months. The circle has decided it shall be the social duty of each member
unable to be present to send notice of such absence to the hostess of
the evening.——A fine compliment, evidently deserved, is paid the circle
at SCRANTON, PA., in the following letter: “It affords us pleasure to
report the formation of a C. L. S. C. in PITTSTON, PA. We have long felt
the need of such an organization, but it was at a parlor entertainment
given by the ‘Vincent’ C. L. S. C. of Scranton that we fully determined
to have one of our own, and we are indebted to that circle for help
and encouragement received in forming our circle. Ours, known as the
‘Riverside’ C. L. S. C., was organized in September, and has already
reached the limit of its membership—twenty. We meet on Monday evening
of each week, at the home of one of the members, and follow the program
given in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. We are all delighted with the work, and are
already satisfied that the time spent in the pursuance of the course
could not be spent more profitably.”

Another new Chautauqua circle is reported in SULLIVAN, OHIO, from
which place a lady writes: “I think our members all appreciate the
value of this great educational movement and have the success of the
work at heart. We number but five members, but have met regularly
since October 8th, the time of organization. We celebrated Bryant’s
Day, spending a most delightful evening in the study of Bryant and his
productions.”——A local circle of five members has entered upon the
work of the class of ’88 at MONTEZUMA, IND. Full of enthusiasm for the
present, and determination for the future, we do not for a moment doubt
that they will be able to accomplish the good report which they express
themselves so anxious to have ready in 1888.——Two readers in the village
of ONARGA, ILL., last year, were the leaven from which has risen this
year a prosperous circle of eighteen members. Busy mothers and teachers,
young ladies at home, and one professor make up their membership. Their
methods and plans we hope to hear of in the year.——Three new circles
are reported from MICHIGAN: The “Mayflower” of twenty-two members, all
“Plymouth Rocks,” at SCHOOLCRAFT, where, as they write, they are brimming
over with Chautauqua enthusiasm; a circle of a dozen energetic young
people organized by the Rev. and Mrs. L. F. Bickford, at PONTIAC, and at
CLIMAX a very enthusiastic circle of ten members organized in October
through the effort of J. H. Brown, a member of the class of ’86; the
nine remaining members belong to the class of ’88. They follow the plan
given for local circles in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.——Two circles are reported
from IOWA—a state which always has a C. L. S. C. report. At CHEROKEE,
owing to the energetic efforts of a young lady graduate from the State
Normal, a local circle of eleven members was organized on Bryant’s Day.
Though the plans of the infant association are still indefinite, great
hopes are entertained of its ultimate success. From ALTA, also, a friend
writes us of the “Summit Gleaners,” a society lately organized. They
began with four members, but have quickly increased to eleven, and hope
for more. Two or three of their circle are members of the “Pansy” class;
the rest are of the class of ’88. They follow the course prescribed in
THE CHAUTAUQUAN as near as possible, for, as they write, they find it
better than anything they can suggest.——In October last a local circle
was organized in EUREKA SPRINGS, ARKANSAS. Special credit is due the
Presbyterian minister of the place for working up an interest in the
“Chautauqua Idea.” He undertook it at the suggestion of an earnest
Christian lady belonging to his church, who has been reading the C. L. S.
C. books for more than a year. They have in the circle thirty members,
nearly all of whom are reading the books, and more are joining all the
time. The circle is popular. The course of reading is well received by
their most intelligent people.——MISSOURI presents the last new circle—a
class of seven members formed at MOUND CITY. The books have been secured,
and they are now ready for work. All have started with a determination to
finish the four years’ course.

The circles of other years are writing us of much that is interesting
and suggestive. Many of their bits of circle history and circle social
life are so good that we feel a little envious; for example, of the good
fortune of the circle at BRANTFORD, ONTARIO, CANADA, where they were
recently honored by a visit from Chancellor Vincent. The organization
at Brantford, which town, by the way, is a former reserve of the Six
Nations, dates from October, 1883, and numbers twenty-one members; “up
to the standard” they must be, for they write: “Last month we tried some
of the chemical experiments given in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, some of which
proved quite successful. Another evening we tested an experiment made
by our hostess in cooking potatoes after one of the rules given in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN, and they were pronounced by all to be excellent.”

A name we have, too, this month, which is particularly pleasing to those
of us who read the “Art Readings” of last year. It is the “Dorionic”
Circle, of BIDDEFORD, MAINE. From its start the circle has been much
interested in Greek history and literature. In comparing the two
leading types of Grecian character, the Doric and the Ionic each found
enthusiastic champions. Excellent qualities were discerned in both,
and in recognition of the value of the combination the circle decided
to call itself “Dorionic.” This circle, formed November, 1883, has had
a prosperous and pleasant experience. It now numbers sixty, with new
members coming in every evening. The Bryant memorial exercises were of
special interest. The president of this circle is the Rev. B. P. Snow,
president of the class of ’86.

The “Alpha” circle, of RUTLAND, VT., has entered upon its fourth year
full of zeal and enthusiasm. They commenced the year’s reading promptly
on the first of October. In her report, the secretary gives an account
of their special features. “We all craved additional information about
the great men in Roman history, so at our last meeting we had five-minute
sketches of Julius Cæsar, Scipio Africanus, Cicero, Camillus, and Pompey,
and at our next meeting are to have as many more. We are also to have an
essay on Roman women. A new feature with us is the question-box. Each
member is requested to hand in one question upon some given subject,
these are distributed and answered at the next succeeding meeting. We
observed Bryant’s Memorial and passed a delightful evening.”

The vigorous circle which sprang into existence at the beginning of the
year of ’83-’84 at EAST WEYMOUTH, MASS., has had this year a very marked
increase in its members. A public meeting was called early in October and
its effects were soon evident in the dozen new names which were added to
their roll. Much of the energy with which the circle has been enabled to
begin its work is attributed to the inspiration which the members who
visited the Framingham Assembly gathered from its inspiring meetings.
This spirit seems to have spread through all New England. The circles
are teeming with new ideas and swelling with numbers. At GLOUCESTER,
MASS., where the “Prospect” C. L. S. C. was organized in 1883, they have
a membership of nineteen, and have begun the year expecting large things
in the future. At READING, MASS., a “Triangle” of young ladies is meeting
fortnightly to compare notes and talk over the readings. They find the
course valuable, and send us the encouraging word that soon they hope to
unite the several readers in the town into a circle. And the “Hurlbut”
circle of EAST BOSTON are writing a book—“A Cyclopædia of Animal Life.”
Each member in turn prepares his or her paper with a good deal of care,
obtaining information from standard works of reference. The writer must
confine himself to four pages—letter paper size—and as he is expected to
describe two representatives of the animal kingdom within this compass,
he must select the most important and interesting characteristics, and
condense his statements. The Cyclopædia is necessarily limited—but ten
representatives of each letter of the alphabet. The members of the
“Hurlbut” circle are learning strange and beautiful things concerning
animal life.

Some of the “old circles” are new to us. Such is the one at NEW CANAAN,
CONN., whence a friend writes: “You ought to have been informed last
year of the existence of a flourishing C. L. S. C. in this place. We
have twenty members, with the promise of others. Our meetings are both
pleasant and profitable, each member faithfully doing his part. During
the past year we had some very interesting programs. Our members are
enjoying the work. We are greatly pleased with THE CHAUTAUQUAN.” The
growth and energy started during the summer is not confined to New
England, either. There is a word from LONG ISLAND, which is as ringing
as any Framingham report. It comes from EAST NORWICH, where the circle
was reorganized this year with a regular membership of eighteen. Their
meetings are held in a very pleasant school house, and are rapidly
increasing in interest. They take great pride in the circle, which they
rightly consider one of the best in the land.

At CALEDONIA, N. Y., the year-old circle has returned to work. Nearly
all the old members are back, and several new ones have joined, swelling
the membership to twenty-seven. They must thoroughly enjoy the course,
for they do all the work. The secretary informs us that the “Temperance
Teachings of Science” have evoked quite a lively and interesting
discussion which was entered into by nearly all present. They expect that
some time during the winter they will be favored with some interesting
chemical experiments, performed by a prominent chemist of Rochester.

The local circle at HARRISBURG, PA., was reorganized on September 30th,
with an increased membership, the total number now being fifty, of which
thirty-one are new members. Although the meetings of last year were very
interesting and profitable, those of this year bid fair to surpass them
in every way. The members appear to have decided to do thorough work and
already its effect can be seen upon the meetings. The programs are varied
and take in as much of the month’s readings as it is possible to crowd in
and yet do justice to all.

Eleven large circles are registered in WASHINGTON, D. C. Each month we
hear some good thing from them. An item from the Washington _Evening
Star_ says of the “Union” circle: “With the approach of the winter season
the literary and social clubs of the city begin to attract attention,
and none have begun the season’s work with more vim than the Chautauqua
Literary and Scientific Circles, of which there are now several in
the city, all owing allegiance to the central organization, whose
headquarters are at Plainfield, New Jersey. One of the oldest of these
Chautauqua organizations in the city is ‘Union’ circle, which meets every
Thursday evening at the residence of the president. It has a total of
nearly thirty members, all of whom are enthusiastic in the work, and each
meeting’s exercises are of an interesting character. Some of the members
of ‘Union’ circle will graduate in the four years’ course of reading next
year.” And the secretary of “Foundry” circle writes: “‘Foundry’ local
circle, of this city, enters upon the third year of its existence with
thirty-five enthusiastic members. Our meetings are held weekly in the
parlor of Foundry M. E. Church. We have followed some of the programs for
weekly meetings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and have had interesting meetings.
The evening of October 27th was given up to chemistry, Prof. Israel, of
the Washington High School, delivering an interesting lecture on the
subject, and performing the experiments explained in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for
October, and some others not mentioned there.”

A new circle at KALAMAZOO, MICH., has led the former organization to
adopt the title of “Alpha” circle. This latter is a very lively body, we
judge from their report. Their reorganization was a time for a general
meeting, to which invitations were issued. So well has the year started
off that the secretary writes: “Our past four meetings have been so
very enjoyable that the closing hour—ten o’clock—comes only too soon.
One feature of the evenings which has caused us the greatest sport has
been the ‘pronouncing’ match (also ‘questions and answers’ match), which
was carried on as a spelling match, choosing sides, etc.; the one who
first takes his seat through failure must favor the society with a song,
suggested by the fortunate one. The roll-call responded to by quotations,
as suggested in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, monthly report, essays and impromptu
speeches form pleasing variety. A speech on a given subject is required
as penalty for former absence. Then, too, the music! How we enjoy that
part of the program! As our musical committee varies each Monday evening,
singing or playing often falls to the lot of non-musicians, who amuse us
by compliance; on one occasion an organ grinder’s instrument was secured
for the evening’s entertainment.”

An Egyptian campaign in the interests of the C. L. S. C. is being
organized at METROPOLIS, in ILLINOIS. Have they a Chinese Gordon, we
wonder, to conduct their forces? They must have a leader as efficient,
surely, for they write that their circle, strengthened by a goodly
increase, organized promptly at the beginning of the year, that their
former members belonging to the class of ’86 are becoming more in
earnest as the year advances, and that they are planning to go down into
Egypt, an expedition which has the heartiest good wishes of us all.——At
AURORA, ILL., too, a campaign was planned for the fall, which proved
most successful. The secretary of the “First” circle of that city, while
at Chautauqua, planned a Round-Table, at which the three circles should
unite in celebrating “Opening Day.” A very entertaining program was
prepared, and Chancellor Vincent kindly wrote them a letter of greeting;
the hope that the circle had had of increasing their membership by this
union meeting was not disappointed. Aurora now boasts _five_ circles,
each numbering from eighteen to twenty members.

ILLINOIS also sends us a chapter of history this month which is very good
reading. It is from the WINCHESTER circle: “Our circle has just entered
its fourth year’s work, with nine members. Having consisted mainly, in
previous years, of teachers, our number has been fluctuating. Since
October, 1880, we have enrolled eighteen names, nearly all of whom proved
zealous workers. At present we have only two of the original number, who
are called the ‘Veterans.’ During the summer of 1881 two of our members
went on to attend the convention; that of 1882 was spent by three of
them on ‘A Tour Around the World,’ in THE CHAUTAUQUAN; and the recent
vacation, that of 1883, was devoted to the ‘Art Papers’ of last year;
by the way, when those appeared in the journal, they seemed so fully to
meet the wants of some of the members that an ‘Art Branch’ was promptly
organized and a thorough study of the subject commenced. As we took up
each artist separately, and only held our branch meetings every two
weeks, we did not finish with the year’s work, nor are we through yet,
having gotten as far as Rubens in the May number of 1884. We feel repaid
a thousand times for doing the extra work. Last year Prof. J. M. Crow,
of Grinnell, Iowa, a student of Leipsic University, and a gentleman who
has made several trips to Europe, lectured for us on ‘Greece and the
Parthenon.’ This year we propose to hold an extra meeting each month,
invite our friends in, and thus strive to convince them that the C. L.
S. C. work is _not superficial_ (as some have the impression). We defend
our _Alma Mater_ from the attacks of the skeptical, with almost as
much energy as ‘Horatius held the bridge,’ and trust we are laying the
foundation for a circle that will flourish in the future. Our president
and others of the class hope to represent us at Chautauqua next summer.
Miss M. Huston, our former enthusiastic president, is now a teacher in
California, whither she has doubtless carried the C. L. S. C. spirit.
Since taking up the course, the hitherto dismal days of fall have become
golden ones, and life has grown sweeter, brighter and better.”

A local circle was organized in the little village of BLUE EARTH CITY,
MINN., several months since, with about ten members, now increased to
thirteen. They meet every Tuesday evening at the house of some member.
Their reading is confined to the magazine principally; each gives some
item of news at the opening of the meeting, then questions are asked on
the preceding lesson, and persons are appointed to look up and report
at the next meeting any subject which may arise in connection with the
lesson. They are all greatly interested and feel that the meetings are
a benefit, as well as a help in cultivating among the members a better
acquaintance and more friendly relations.

From FAIRFIELD, IOWA, a friend writes: “We would like to report ourselves
as living and active in our work. This new year has opened auspiciously.
Our circle numbers twenty-five are not found outside the C. L. S. C.
We are known as the ‘Hawkeye Arc,’ have our meetings weekly and hope to
greatly profit by the studies of the year. We have met a serious loss in
the death of our president, Mrs. T. D. Ewing, the wife of the president
of Parson’s College, of this place. She was a lady of culture and liberal
education, and gave her best efforts to the advancement of the C. L. S.
C. in this, her adopted home. But we are glad that while many of our
associates are called to ‘come up higher,’ the work does not languish
and is still exerting the beneficent influence of this wonderful band of
reading ones.”

NORFOLK, NEBRASKA, is as far as we can go west this month. A live,
enterprising circle at that point is working with a western vim. They
seem to take a rather unusual pride in being “like everybody else,”
but when we remember the points of resemblance, it is not surprising
that they should be proud. They send word: “All bear stories open with
‘once upon a time,’ so all reports of C. L. S. C.s read, ‘Our circle was
organized on such an evening, and consists of lawyers, doctors, bankers,
ministers, merchants, and their wives and daughters; all intelligent,
enthusiastic workers,’ etc. Ours is no exception to this rule. We have
twenty-five members with three officers, president, vice, and secretary.
As variety hath charms, our president is authorized to appoint a new
leader for each evening, and as no two men or women of different
professions have minds made after the same mould, we succeed in the
_variety_. Especially do we succeed in this particular, when we undertake
to pronounce the Greek words found in the readings.”




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, Washington, D. C.
    _Executive Committee_—Officers of the class.

Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.

       *       *       *       *       *

Letters are coming to the secretary from members in all parts of the
United States—Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota
and Iowa being represented, and the indications are, the “Invincibles”
will not be “lost in the woods” in August ’85. Those who attended the
camp-fire last season at Chautauqua will appreciate the foregoing phrase.

       *       *       *       *       *

One enthusiastic young lady writes: “I have read the course alone, could
not form here even a ‘straight line’ or a ‘triangle;’” another, “I am
alone in my studies, but hope to meet and greet my fellow-laborers ‘under
the arches.’” Such courage is truly “Invincible” and should be rewarded
by an extra seal.

       *       *       *       *       *

Letters ending “Your Chautauqua friend,” “hoping to clasp hands with
you at Chautauqua in August ’85,” etc., make one feel “Chautauqua” is
the magic word that draws us together as links in the great C. L. S. C.
chain, and that friendships formed through its medium may continue even
after we have “finished our course.” “For so the whole round earth is
every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”


CLASS OF ’86.

“_We study for light, to bless with light._”


CLASS ORGANIZATION.

_President_—The Rev. B. P. Snow, Biddeford, Maine.

_Vice Presidents_—The Rev. J. C. Whitley, Salisbury, Maryland; Mr. L. F.
Houghton, Peoria, Illinois; Mr. Walter Y. Morgan, Cleveland, Ohio; Mrs.
Delia Browne, Louisville, Kentucky; Miss Florence Finch, Palestine, Texas.

_Secretary_—The Rev. W. L. Austin, Dunkirk, New York.


NEW ENGLAND ORGANIZATION.

Class Headquarters was a new and most pleasant feature at Framingham
last summer, and one which the limited hall accommodations rendered a
necessity. The class tent was tastefully decorated, and over the entrance
was displayed the device of the class—a hand passing a lighted torch
to another hand—with the class motto, “We study for light to bless
with light.” The committee having the matter in charge hope to provide
suitable accommodations for the class at the Assembly next season.

       *       *       *       *       *

A very pleasant reunion was held in Normal Hall, Thursday, July 24, at 10
a. m. The exercises consisted of an address by the president, the Rev.
B. P. Snow, of Biddeford, Me., and stirring speeches by representatives
from several states, with reading of original and selected articles. A
most interesting item on the program was the reading of the well known
poem, “No sect in Heaven,” by Mr. C. Cleveland, of Hartford, Conn.,
son of the authoress, who is also a member of the class. Miss Gelia H.
Tewkesbury (Helen Hawthorne) was unanimously elected class poetess. Hon.
Wm. Claflin, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, was made an honorary member of
the class.

       *       *       *       *       *

Six hundred and forty-eight names from one hundred and seventy-three
towns are now enrolled, only a fraction of the whole number. Will all
members of Class ’86 in New England, who have not yet registered, please
send their names and address, stating whether they are studying alone or
in a circle, and the name of the circle, to the New England Secretary at
their earliest convenience?

       *       *       *       *       *

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

President, the Rev. B. P. Snow, Biddeford, Me.; Vice Presidents, Miss
Emily Jordan, Alfred, Me., Edwin F. Reeves, Laconia, N. H., the Rev. J.
H. Babbitt, Swanton, Vt., Chas. Wainwright, Lawrence, Mass., H. Howard
Pepper, Providence, R. I., the Rev. A. Gardner, Buckingham, Conn.;
Secretary and Treasurer, Mary R. Hinckley, New Bedford, Mass.

       *       *       *       *       *

A new badge bearing the emblem of the class is proposed. If it is adopted
further particulars will be given hereafter.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ida M. Grisell, of the class of ’86, died at her home in Upper Sandusky,
Ohio, June 30, 1884. She was an enthusiastic Chautauquan, having remarked
shortly before her death that life seemed so much more worth living since
she had taken the course.


CLASS OF ’87—“THE PANSIES.”

From De Soto, Mo., comes news of most vigorous work in the C. L. S. C., a
large circle of enterprising members and a program for the observance of
the Bryant Day, that tells of a meeting of rare interest.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Rev. N. B. Fisk, of Woburn, Mass., class of ’87, is the secretary and
treasurer of the Board of Trustees who have in hand the erection of the
“Hall on the Hill” for New England’s accommodation at Framingham.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the November number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN the New England branch of the
Class of ’87 was given three presidents. The Rev. F. M. Gardner, of
Lawrence, Mass., is the president; the other two names should have been
grouped with the vice presidents.

       *       *       *       *       *

Newspaper notices of C. L. S. C. work sometimes do more than we expect.
Circles in the country and smaller towns read programs of meetings and
other Chautauqua items with a good deal of interest, and often get
encouragement from seeing what others are doing. The papers are glad to
get the notices. We advise circles to use them freely, and to publish
in their local papers notices of the memorial days, with a list of the
reading for those days. Try it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The “Pansy” bed at Chautauqua, projected as a testimonial improvement by
the class of ’87, is in the hands of a committee who are to secure a good
location and carry the matter to completion. It will be placed near the
Amphitheater, a little toward Mrs. Alden’s cottage. Already a number of
most exquisite designs have been furnished by widely separated members of
the class. When agreed upon the description will be given in our column.

       *       *       *       *       *

One New England minister, who is a member of ’87, writes: “I consider
this Chautauqua business a part of my pastoral duties; it is so saturated
with the spirit of Jesus, emanating from such a consecrated man as Dr.
Vincent, and comprehending so much of the devotional, aggressive, and
persuasive in religion. I have a Congregational church in a hotbed of
infidelity and heresy, and can see very plainly that such books as
‘Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation’ and ‘Evidences,’ together with
the devout spirit of the whole plan, are making an impression among the
skeptical and shaking them somewhat in their infidel intrenchments.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A Michigan mother nearly sixty years old writes a letter, touchingly
grateful that the C. L. S. C. was ever organized. She has two sons who
are members with her of the class of ’87, and who are herders of cattle
in New Mexico. She says no one can appreciate her joy at the assurance
that they are held by their reading to the improvement of their time, and
thus escape the evils that work the ruin of many boys away from home. She
with them forms a circle. Their meetings are only through correspondence.
Neither has ever seen Chautauqua, or any other summer Assembly, but they
bless the plan of improvement whose privileges they share.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among pleasant C. L. S. C. experiences which are found among the members
of ’87, as among those of the other classes, is the case of an engineer
on the railway west from Chicago. The last argument he made to his wife
why he could not join the class and do the reading was that he would
unavoidably so soil his books that she could not tolerate them in their
cosy cottage home. She said, “Try it, and I will clean every soiled
page the year through and have them tastily on our little shelves.” He
agreed to undertake it. She found no small task upon her hands, but she
did it by pinching her allowance to the purchase of a duplicate for each
successive book, to which joyous accomplishment on her part her husband
points with pride in his growing library.

       *       *       *       *       *

Quite a large proportion of the class are going on with the reading this
second year. But the number can be increased by a little personal effort
on the part of those who have the C. L. S. C. enthusiasm. See that your
book stores keep the books ready for sale. See that each member has one
of the C. L. S. C. circulars for 1884-5, so that they may not be in
any doubt about what the reading for each month is. Help them about
sending for THE CHAUTAUQUAN by forming a club and sending together,
thus saving expense. Some fail to send in their annual fees, but go on
with the reading. Secretaries of circles should collect the annual fees
of 50 cents, and send on by check or postoffice order to Plainfield.
By attending to these matters some will be kept in the ranks who would
otherwise fall behind. If any one can not do the prescribed reading just
as directed in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, week by week or day by day, let such try
to keep a little in advance, rather than behind. The officers of circles
ought to keep in advance especially, so as to be ready to arrange some
parts of the program for the future meetings of their circles.

       *       *       *       *       *

The most of the more than two hundred ’87s whose names were registered
at Chautauqua, this year, promised to write Mrs. Alden, Carbondale,
Pa.—“Pansy”—a letter of incident in the work, she most kindly indicating
her willingness to write a book, dedicated to the class. It’s one
thing to promise, another to perform, and while we could not think of
a Chautauquan who would not do as they agree, the secretaries of ’87,
with the president, are very anxious to know if Mrs. Alden has received
nearly two hundred letters. Early in the new year the class officials
will write to Carbondale to know if all the promises have been made good.
Mrs. Alden’s book will be grand, every one of her more than fifty books
are excellent. Let every one of us who promised do gladly all that we
promised and more.

       *       *       *       *       *

The ’87 badges were noticeably fine at Chautauqua last year, and every
reader in that great class should have this badge. They should be worn
uniformly at the circles and on all memorial days. Class love (call it
pride if you will) is important indeed; it can scarcely be overestimated.
You are and can be in but one class, and that is the class to you, and
will be all through life. ’87 “Pansy” class is yours, and you love your
classmates, and you are deeply interested in every one of them, and will
be all along down through life. It is true that the first great class
(in numbers at least) is ’87, and while we hope ’88 and ’89 and ’90 will
every way excel it, it still remains for us of ’87 to make the most of
every hour.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Ellen A. Shaw, of Keeseville, N. Y., a member of the C. L. S. C., of
the class of ’87, entered “that school where she no longer needs our poor
protection, but Christ himself doth rule,” on September 30, 1884, aged
nineteen years. They had been “nineteen beautiful years,” exceptionally
happy to herself, and the source of great pleasure to all her friends.
Graduating from the High School in Keeseville in June, 1884, she
immediately took up the Chautauqua Idea, and began the prescribed course
in October following. She enjoyed it exceedingly, interested others in
it, read carefully, and made her memoranda and reports faithfully until
her strength failed, and she laid down her hopes of earthly improvement,
with brighter ones of the country where our mental powers know no fatigue
or decay.

       *       *       *       *       *

At a meeting of the “Bryant” circle of Worcester, Mass., C. L. S. C.,
October 7th, 1884, the following memorial was adopted: “_Whereas_, It has
pleased our Heavenly Father to remove from our circle one of our beloved
members, Miss Effie C. Warner, of the class of ’87, we desire to express
our appreciation of her character and her worth as a member of our
circle. Her presence was always welcomed with pleasure, and our meetings
were made interesting by her fine musical attainments, which she was
ever ready to devote to the cause she loved. While we mourn her loss, we
bow in submission to the will of him who ‘doeth all things well.’ We are
thankful for her pure, gentle life, and feel sure that its influence will
long be felt in our circle.”




QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,”
AND “THE CHARACTER OF JESUS.”

BY A. M. MARTIN,

General Secretary C. L. S. C.


I.—FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” FROM
COMMENCEMENT OF BOOK TO PAGE 82, INCLUSIVE.

1. Q. What is the object of the volume, “College Greek in English?” A. To
furnish readers not versed in any tongue but the English, with the means
of obtaining, at their leisure, and without change of residence on their
part, approximately the same knowledge of Greek letters as is imparted to
students during a four years’ stay in the average American college.

2. Q. What is said of the courses of Greek reading in colleges? A.
Various colleges have various courses of Greek reading prescribed for
their students, and some colleges from time to time vary their courses.

3. Q. What is the Greek course considered in the present volume? A. A
kind of eclectic and average Greek course.

4. Q. In Europe how does the university student accomplish his prescribed
course of study? A. In any way he may choose to adopt, aiming simply at
being able to pass the tests of examination that await him only at long
intervals of his progress.

5. Q. How are the examinations of college students conducted in this
country? A. The student is examined, not only at certain widely separated
stations in his course, but every day.

6. Q. What is said of the standard of performance in recitation? A.
It varies greatly under different teachers, at different colleges, in
different classes. It is never anywhere too high.

7. Q. What is the average maximum accomplished in colleges in any one
Greek author? A. About one hundred pages of text.

8. Q. What is probably a fair estimate for the average number of terms in
which Greek is studied by the Greek student? A. Five or six terms, and it
is rarely the case that to any one Greek author more than a single term
is devoted.

9. Q. On an average how many Greek authors are introduced into a college
Greek course? A. Six are as many as are perhaps introduced on an average.

10. Q. What is the plan in the present book? A. To give the readers a
taste of some ten or twelve Greek authors, representing four departments
of Greek literature.

11. Q. What are the four departments of Greek literature represented? A.
History, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence.

12. Q. Who are the historians represented? A. Herodotus and Thucydides.

13. Q. What title has been bestowed upon Herodotus? A. The father of
history.

14. Q. How many years may have elapsed after Homer wrote the world’s
first great epic, before Herodotus wrote the world’s first great history?
A. Five hundred years.

15. Q. When did Thucydides write his historical masterpiece? A. Promptly
after Herodotus—perhaps while Herodotus was still among the living.

16. Q. What makes Herodotus differ so much in seeming antiquity from his
younger contemporary, Thucydides? A. It is largely the striking contrast
in tone and manner between the two historians.

17. Q. What has gained for Herodotus a traditional and popular repute
of untrustworthiness, that he is far from deserving? A. His credulity,
together with his plan of reporting reports, to a great extent
irrespective of their probable truth.

18. Q. What is said of Herodotus’s efforts to gain information? A. He
was very painstaking in his efforts to gain information, and traveled
extensively.

19. Q. What does the word history in its present universal usage mean? A.
A supposedly trustworthy account, written with a degree of philosophical
insight into cause and effect, of transactions rising to a certain height
of importance and dignity.

20. Q. In the use of Herodotus what did the word history mean? A. Merely
a report of investigations, researches, inquiries undertaken by the
author.

21. Q. What is there to the conception of Herodotus’s work? A. A kind of
epic majesty and sweep.

22. Q. Where and when was Herodotus born? A. In Halicarnassus, a Dorian
Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor, about 484 B. C.

23. Q. When and where did Herodotus die? A. When and where he died is not
certainly known.

24. Q. What made up to Herodotus the whole world of mankind? A. The
Greeks and the Barbarians.

25. Q. What are the ultimate objective points at which he aims? A. First,
Marathon, and then Thermopylæ and Salamis, with Platæa and Mycale.

26. Q. To reach these points what start does the history take? A. From
the origin of those empires older than the Persian, which in due time the
Persian received and swallowed up.

27. Q. Of what countries does it fall within the comprehensive design of
the history to treat? A. Of Lydia, Egypt, Babylon, Scythia, Libya, as
well as of Persia and Greece.

28. Q. From what fact does the book on Egypt have a peculiar interest?
A. From the fact of its being the only literature to furnish information
concerning that country parallel with the information contained in the
Bible.

29. Q. To what parts of the history does the present author chiefly limit
himself? A. To the story of Crœsus and the invasion of Xerxes.

30. Q. What do these two parts together best illustrate? A. The peculiar
theory of human life upon which Herodotus conceived and composed his
history.

31. Q. How does Crœsus come in our historian’s way? A. As having,
according to Herodotus, been the first Asiatic to commence hostilities
against the Greeks.

32. Q. What Greek colonies did Crœsus bring under his dominion? A. The
Greek colonies in Asia Minor.

33. Q. Of what empire was Crœsus the ruler? A. The Lydian empire.

34. Q. For whom did Sardis, the capital of the Lydian empire, become the
resort? A. For the sages of Greece.

35. Q. Whom among the Greek celebrities to visit him did Crœsus make his
own guest, and lodge him in his palace? A. Solon.

36. Q. With what is the first considerable extract from Herodotus made by
our author occupied? A. With an account of a conversation between Solon
and Crœsus.

37. Q. Against whom did Crœsus make war? A. Cyrus, king of Persia.

38. Q. What was the result of the war in which Crœsus engaged with Cyrus?
A. Sardis was taken by Cyrus and Crœsus made a captive.

39. Q. How was Crœsus treated by Cyrus after he became his prisoner? A.
He was made his companion and counselor.

40. Q. An account of the capture of what city by Cyrus is given in the
extracts from Herodotus? A. The capture of Babylon.

41. Q. To what is nearly the entire second book of Herodotus’s history
devoted? A. To an account of Egypt, the land and the people.

42. Q. What plan has our author followed in making extracts from
Herodotus’s history of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes? A. A few salient
anecdotes are selected from the full store supplied by Herodotus.

43. Q. What aim are the selections made to serve? A. Not only to show the
matter and method of Herodotus, but to illustrate the characters of two
men in particular, brought into the strong light of mutual contrast by
the struggle—Xerxes and Themistocles.

44. Q. To what is the fact due that Thucydides is not so entertaining
a historian as Herodotus? A. Partly to the nature of his subject; but
partly to the nature of the man.

45. Q. What does Thucydides describe in his history? A. The so-called
Peloponnesian war.

46. Q. To what conflict is this name given? A. To a conflict, continued
with little interruption during twenty-seven years, between Sparta, with
her allies, on the one side, and Athens, with her allies, on the other.

47. Q. What was the prize contended for in this war? A. The leadership in
Hellenic affairs.

48. Q. How did Thucydides regard the Peloponnesian war? A. He thought
that never in the world had there been a war so great as promised in its
imminency to be the Peloponnesian war.

49. Q. In what particulars is the history of Thucydides important? A.
Not as history, but, first, as literature, and secondly, as fund of
illustration for the Greek national genius, it is of the very highest
importance.

50. Q. In what form is it composed? A. In the form of annals, that is,
the events and incidents are related chronologically by years.


II.—FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “THE CHARACTER OF JESUS.”

51. Q. What is the design of the author in the argument of the book under
consideration? A. To show the self-evidencing, superhuman character of
Christ, forbidding his possible classification with men.

52. Q. What is the grand peculiarity of the sacred writings? A. That they
deal in supernatural events and transactions, and show the fact of a
celestial institution finally erected on earth.

53. Q. Who is the central figure of Christianity? A. Jesus Christ, and
with him the entire fabric either stands or falls.

54. Q. In the argument, what is, and what is not assumed, in regard to
the narrative by which the manner and facts of the life of Jesus are
reported to us? A. The truth of the narrative is not assumed, but only
the representations themselves as being just what they are.

55. Q. On what is it proposed to rest a principal argument for
Christianity as a supernatural institution? A. On the single question of
the more than human character of Jesus.

56. Q. What is the first peculiarity at the root of his character? A.
That he begins life with a perfect youth.

57. Q. What is the early character of Jesus in this respect? A. It is a
picture that stands by itself.

58. Q. What element in the character of Jesus in his maturity do we
discover at once which distinguishes it from all human characters? A. His
innocence.

59. Q. How does human piety begin? A. With repentance.

60. Q. What does Christ, in the character given him, acknowledge as to
sin? A. He never acknowledges sin.

61. Q. What elements of character was Christ able perfectly to unite?
A. Elements of character that others find the greatest difficulty in
uniting, however unevenly and partially.

62. Q. What attitude of Jesus is distinct from any that was ever taken
by a sane man, and is yet triumphantly sustained? A. The attitude of
supremacy toward the race, and inherent affinity or oneness with God.

63. Q. What is there peculiar in the passive side of the character of
Jesus? A. In opposition to the impression of the world generally, Christ
connects the non-resisting and gentle passivities with a character of the
severest grandeur and majesty.

64. Q. What is it easy to distinguish in what is called preëminently the
passion of Christ? A. A character which separates it from all mere human
martyrdoms.

65. Q. In what way does Christ show himself to be a superhuman character
even more sublimely than in the personal traits exhibited in his life?
A. In the undertakings, works, and teachings, by which he proved his
Messiahship.

66. Q. What was the grand idea in the mission of Christ? A. To new-create
the human race and restore it to God, in the unity of a spiritual kingdom.

67. Q. How is the plan of Christ related to time? A. It is a plan as
universal in time as it is in the scope of its objects.

68. Q. With whom does Christ take rank? A. He takes rank with the poor,
and grounds all the immense expectations of his cause on a beginning made
with the lowly and dejected classes of the world.

69. Q. Hitherto what opinion had prevailed among all the great statesmen
and philosophers of the world, in regard to a great change or reform in
society beginning with the poor? A. No philosopher who had conceived
the notion of building up an ideal state or republic ever thought of
beginning with the poor.

70. Q. Where was any hope of reaching the world by any scheme of social
regeneration to begin? A. With the higher classes, and through them
operate its results.

71. Q. How is the more than human character of Jesus further displayed in
his thus identifying himself with the poor? A. In the fact that he was
yet able to do it without eliciting any feeling of partisanship in them.

72. Q. What is noticed first of all in the teaching of Christ? A. The
perfect originality and independence of his teaching.

73. Q. What is not to be detected by any sign in his teaching? A. That
the human sphere in which he moved imparted anything to him.

74. Q. By what methods does he not teach? A. He does not teach by the
human methods.

75. Q. In what particular does he never reveal the infirmity so commonly
shown by human teachers? A. He never veers a little from the point, or
turns his doctrine off by shades of variation to catch the assent of
multitudes.

76. Q. What is one remarkable fact that distinguishes Christ from any
other known teacher of the world? A. Words could never turn him to a
one-sided view of anything.

77. Q. What was the relation of Christ to the superstitions of his times?
A. He was perfectly clear of all the current superstitions.

78. Q. Of what did Christ never take the ground or boast the distinction?
A. Of a liberal among his countrymen.

79. Q. What is a remarkable and even superhuman distinction of Jesus
in regard to the simplicity of his teachings? A. While he is advancing
doctrines so far transcending all deductions of philosophy, and opening
mysteries that defy all human powers of explication, he is yet able to
set his teachings in a form of simplicity that accommodates all classes
of minds.

80. Q. What form for truth was Jesus first able to find? A. A form for
truth adequate to all the world’s uses.

81. Q. What is the character of the God that Christ revealed? A. God
whom the humblest artisan can teach, and all mankind embrace with a faith
that unifies them all.

82. Q. In what has the morality of Jesus a potential superiority to that
of all human teachers? A. In the fact that it is not an artistic or
theoretically elaborated scheme, but one that is propounded in precepts
that carry their own evidence.

83. Q. What is a high distinction of Christ’s character as seen in his
teachings? A. That he is never anxious for the success of his doctrines.

84. Q. In what was the character of Jesus different from that of all the
mere men of the race as shown by familiarity? A. Instead of being reduced
in eminence, as human characters are, it was raised and made sacred by
familiarity.

85. Q. What two questions now remain which the argument of the author
requires to be answered? A. Did any such being as Jesus actually exist?
and, if so, was he a sinless character?

86. Q. What can we believe more easily than that Christ was a man, and
yet a perfect character, such as here given? A. We can believe any
miracle more easily.

87. Q. If Jesus was a sinner, of what was he conscious? A. He was
conscious of sin, as all sinners are, and, therefore, was a hypocrite in
the whole fabric of his character.

88. Q. What would such an example of successful hypocrisy be of itself?
A. The greatest miracle ever heard of in the world.

89. Q. What is Mr. Parker’s estimate of the doctrine of Christ? A. “He
pours out a doctrine beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and true
as God.”

90. Q. What is the first conclusion reached by our author in his
argument? A. That Christ actually lived and bore the real character
ascribed to him in history.

91. Q. What is the second conclusion? A. That he was a sinless character.

92. Q. What is it incredible and contrary to reason to suppose of a being
out of humanity? A. That he will be shut up within all the limitations of
humanity.

93. Q. Jesus being a miracle himself, if he did not work miracles what
would it be? A. It would be the greatest of all miracles.

94. Q. What is said of the mythical hypothesis to account for the
Christian miracles advanced by the critics who deny them? A. It is itself
impossible.

95. Q. What have the evangelists been able to give us concerning Christ?
A. A doctrine upon which the world has never advanced, and a character so
deep that the richest hearts have felt nothing deeper, and added nothing
to the sentiment of it.

96. Q. Of what are these mighty works of Jesus, which have been done and
duly certified, a fit expression to us? A. Of the fact that he can do for
us all that we want.

97. Q. What does our author call the spirit of Jesus unabridged? A. The
great miracle of Christianity.

98. Q. What only can draw the soul to faith, and open it to the power of
a supernatural and new-creative mercy? A. Nothing but to say, “Jesus of
Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles and signs which God did by
him.”

99. Q. In what way are all the conditions of life raised by the advent of
Jesus? A. By the meaning he has shown to be in them, and the grace he has
put upon them.

100. Q. What does our author say it would be easier to do than to get the
character of Jesus out of the world? A. It were easier to untwist all the
beams of light in the sky, separating and expunging one of the colors.




THE CHAUTAUQUA UNIVERSITY.

THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS.

BY PROF. R. S. HOLMES, A.M.


“What is the relation of the Correspondence Schools to the University?”

“I am a member of the Correspondence Class in German; am I also a member
of the University?”

Correspondents have recently asked these questions. They are important
enough to receive public answer, since they represent many of the same
import. They exhibit an uncertainty concerning the relation of the
University to other Chautauqua institutions, which should be removed. To
accomplish it is our present purpose.

We answer the first easily. There is no relation between the University
and the Correspondence Schools; the latter have ceased to exist as
separate institutions. We answer the second easily, though this answer
may seem to contradict the former. A member of the Correspondence Class
in German is, and is not, a member of the University. Both answers are
true. The separate existence of the Correspondence School has ceased,
but its existence in the University as the College of Modern Languages
continues.

Again, although members of the Correspondence School are thus in the
University, they are not matriculated members, not having met the
matriculation requirement. The faculty is unchanged. Dr. Worman directs
the College of Modern Languages; Prof. Lalande the Department of French.

But the answers thus given do not meet the spirit of the questions. To
do this we must review the history which has resulted in the Chautauqua
University. The Chautauqua Summer School of Languages held its first
session in the summer of 1879. It made no claim to originality. It was
among the earlier of these popular schools, and has achieved an enviable
reputation. It ranged itself from the outset on the side of the so called
“new education.” It adopted the system of Pestalozzi, and announced to
the world the opening of a school for instruction in language by the
natural method. Six schools were organized with a brilliant corps of
teachers. After the lapse of six years, it is the candid judgment of
a careful observer, that better teaching has never been done on this
continent than was done in that first session of the Chautauqua Summer
School. The original heads of the French and German Schools still occupy
their positions with honor alike to themselves and to Chautauqua, while
the standard of excellence has never been higher than at the present hour.

The session of the Summer School lasted for six weeks. It early became
evident that these six weeks must in some way be supplemented if the
student was to make any lasting acquisition. To meet this necessity
members of the school were advised to continue their work at home, and
were assured that needed aid would be rendered by correspondence by their
department professors. The attempt was made. It failed. The causes were
numerous. There was the lack of the teacher’s presence, and of a bond of
union. Professional duties claimed the teacher’s time. Acquaintance had
been too brief to create even personal interest of teacher in pupil. The
student had no incentive to persistent effort, there was a lamentable
want of system, and the correspondence was irregular and unsatisfactory.
It failed; but failure is not the end of Chautauqua enterprises. Another
year witnessed another effort for an after-school course of study. One
person was selected to receive all inquiries from the students, to
forward them to the respective teachers, and to secure from the teachers
prompt attention. This attempt failed; but failure brought yet deeper
conviction that there were great possibilities in the after-school
idea, if only a true method of work could be found. There were a few
patient students who had persevered notwithstanding the difficulties.
Something must be provided for them. After much deliberation a plan for
Correspondence Schools was adopted. There was to be a regular course of
study, lasting from October to July. Ten dollars was to be the annual
tuition fee. Each professor was pledged to a definite amount of work, and
each school was to have the benefit of the Chautauqua name; but there was
no homogeneity. Each professor was independent of every other, giving
attention only to the details of his own particular school, and with no
interest save his own. The only benefit that could accrue to Chautauqua
was a possible increase in attendance upon the Summer School.

The plan succeeded. For three years teachers and students have worked
successfully. True, there have been disadvantages. French and German
are living languages. Pronunciation is difficult even to one trained in
language when aided by a present native teacher. Valuable as the lesson
paper may be in helping to a knowledge of principles and translation, it
can not speak, nor tell another how to speak. Yet it is plain that one
who is correctly trained in principles, and can with rapidity translate,
could easily master pronunciation when once in contact with the living
teacher.

But notwithstanding these difficulties the schools have been successful.
Good work has been done. The students have made notable progress; and
some able to attend the Summer School, have speedily added to their
foundation in principle the essentials of correct pronunciation. The
problem was solved; but with its solution came another important
question. Why may not all the subjects embraced in a college curriculum
be taught by correspondence? To this there can be but one answer: There
is no reason why any subject may not be so taught, except such as require
the use of instruments and the performance of experiments; and for these
good local instructors could be obtained. The next and logical step is
the incorporation and organization of the Chautauqua University.

We have now reached a point where a comprehensive answer can be made to
the questions which begin this paper. To organize the University, the
professors identified with the Correspondence Schools were retained,
while the schools themselves, which had achieved success by efforts of
Chautauqua officials, and through the prestige of the Chautauqua name,
were merged in Chautauqua’s crowning glory—the University.

Henceforth there are no separate and unrelated institutions, which
professors shall control and direct as circumstances allow; but
each is part of one grand institution, watched over and directed by
its Chancellor, and managed through its central office. All this is
effected without prejudice to any interest. The professor becomes
the representative of an institution which will hereafter be known
as the pioneer in the grandest educational movement of the century.
The student, from an isolated class, is brought into relation with
many other departments of study, with a curriculum which may end in a
diploma and degree. All this has been possible only through the work
which Chautauqua has accomplished. Not only has it been possible, but
possible at a merely nominal cost. The little tuition charged has gone
as an inadequate compensation to the faithful work of talented teachers.
Chautauqua has received from these sources no pecuniary benefit. Here
is a question for each student of the Correspondence Schools to ponder:
Do I not owe something to the University in return for the advantages I
have enjoyed, and to aid it in extending them to others? Here, too, is
an anomaly: A University planning the largest educational work, without
a dollar of endowment and with meager provision for necessary expenses.
In addition to the former tuition fee of ten dollars there is required
from all students, before entering, the payment of a matriculation fee
of five dollars. Only those who have paid this fee are enrolled upon
the University books. This explains the statement already made, that
members of the Correspondence classes were, and were not, members of
the University. There is no purpose to disturb the present status of
the schools of French, German and English. Those who entered them under
the previous arrangement are entitled to the benefits promised them.
Should any student in these schools feel disposed to aid the work by the
payment of the matriculation fee, proper acknowledgment will be made. It
will not for the present year be required; but with the expiration of
the year, when the obligation between student and teacher has been met,
the University will assert its right to demand full conformance to its
requirements by all who participate in its privileges. Professors will
no longer be burdened with business details. All fees will be sent to
the central office, and through it students will be introduced to their
professors, and the University will enter upon a future of usefulness
which no forecasting can express.




“INVINCIBLE”—CLASS OF ’85.

BY PHEBE A. HOLDER.


    The age is trembling with the steps
      Of an advancing God,
    Our pulses feel the thrill and beat
      With sympathetic chord.
    The everlasting doors of Truth
      Stand open to our sight,
    Along the shining way she leads
      We walk in purest light.

    Her precious words inspire the soul,
      Touch every hidden key,
    Sweep every chord with subtle power,
      And wondrous sympathy.
    A large, rich soul can always give,
      Scatter its wealth around,
    And like the sun that lights the world,
      No poorer shall be found.

    To meet the morning we go forth
      Leaving behind the night,
    And face the full, clear blaze that glows
      With pure electric light.
    Press on while deeper meanings come
      Into the wondrous years,
    And brighter with God’s changeless love
      Immortal life appears.

    “Press on to reach the things before”
      Our watchword still shall be,
    Until is sown the golden crown
      Of immortality.




EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.


PRACTICAL LOYALTY—C. L. S. C. BOOKS.

The C. L. S. C. text-books are adapted to the peculiar method of C. L.
S. C. work. They are the result of efforts to meet the wants of the
main body of our members, and there has been no hap-hazard in their
selection, but careful, patient and abundant thoughtfulness. Sometimes a
member desires to substitute some book not in the course for one of ours.
Sometimes his request may be granted; often it may not be granted. In the
first place, it is desirable that there should be uniformity in the work
done, and this we secure, for the most part, by uniform text-books. In a
college, the uniformity is secured by the living teacher; we must secure
ours by the printed page. Our need of common text-books is therefore
peculiar and imperative. If we granted all the requests for substitutions
which might be made, we should end by frittering away our course of
study. We might seriously impair it by granting only those requests which
seem to those who make them to be entirely reasonable. There must be hard
and fast lines in any system of instruction; in our system the uniform
text-books make one of those lines. It is our means of keeping together,
of easily communicating with each other, of simplifying examinations
and assisting our members in overcoming difficulties. In a rare case, a
substitution may be allowed; but the substituted book must be equally
good and equally _fresh_. Very few old text-books are now good. The
subjects have undergone changes of importance either in the principles
or the modes of illustrating them. A good text-book must be a fresh
book. Furthermore, our books are specially adapted to private study; the
ordinary school-books are made to be interpreted by a living teacher. The
full meaning of this difference will not be grasped at once by those who
have not thought about it. We have had to think about it. Our success
depended upon our thinking about it to some purpose. The result of much
thinking and careful planning is the Chautauqua system of text-books. We
find it more and more important to adhere to our own books. _The books
are our teachers._

We hope, therefore, that those who have desired changes to meet their
special wants will remember the reason why their wishes can not be
consulted. There is a call for loyalty on their part to the system.
It depends on their loving it enough to forego some personal feelings
or interests. We are in special and numerous ways dependent upon the
affectionate respect of our members for the invisible authority of
this institution—just as colleges depend on a like feeling toward the
visible authority in their work. The colleges select their text-books;
we select ours. In each case, substitutions ought to be very rare. If
the disappointed applicant for a change of book has a loyal feeling
toward the C. L. S. C. he will cheerfully sacrifice his preferences or
his convenience to the welfare of the whole body. The whole body must
move on common lines to common ends; and the individual members keep
step, because a great army can not march in any other way—the individual
must coöperate in the movement according to a common plan. We therefore
appeal to the loyalty of our members to aid us in all reasonable ways
to maintain our system of uniform books. We see more clearly than
they possibly can that this uniformity is vital to the C. L. S. C.
organization.


THE DISHONESTY OF REPUDIATION.

In the _North American Review_ for December Mr. John F. Hume repeats his
appeal to the honest people of this country to vindicate the national
honor by paying the dishonored bonds of twelve states. Mr. Hume is
severe and almost bitter; but he tells us some truth which must needs
be unpleasant and should be seriously told. We are in an anomalous
position in the matter of these state debts; the states are by the
eleventh amendment secure from legal pursuit, and the Union secures them
from the forcible settlement which the law of nations authorizes. There
is no doubt that each of these states would have been seized for debt
by foreign powers, just as Mexico was seized a few years ago, if the
national government did not cover them with its protection. The evil is
precisely this, that the constitution cuts off creditors of states from
any remedy when the states do not pay their debts. This state of things
was brought about by the whole people when the eleventh amendment was
adopted. We are all therefore responsible for state roguery. We have,
though unintentionally, authorized the repudiation by opening the door
to it; and so long as we leave the door open we are responsible for the
rascally people who repudiate state bonds. We have tried hard to see some
escape from the logic of Mr. Hume; but we have found none. We are as a
nation responsible for the existence of these dishonored debts, which now
exceed three hundred millions of dollars. We are a dishonest nation; it
is a hard saying, but it is the exact truth of the case.

The logical remedy is the repeal of the eleventh amendment, but
unfortunately there is no hope of that. The defaulting states are too
numerous; and there is further some doubt whether the rest of us are
honest enough to approve such a reform. Representatives in legislatures
and in Congress are liable to be influenced by a set of considerations
which have no proper relation to the matter. It is affirmed that the
states were wronged by their officers in the issue of the bonds; that the
bonds are now held by men who bought them for a small part of their face
value; and that to pay them is to honor the rascalities which gave them
birth, and reward speculators in unreasonable measure. If the subject
is pressed upon our attention, we shall be told, and have no reason to
disbelieve it, that the speculators are spending money through a lobby,
and that the road to honor lies through more filth than is piled up
in the path of dishonor. The evil, we shall be told, is done, and is
irremediable. We can not reach the persons who were really wronged. They
have parted with their property at an almost total sacrifice; the present
holders have no _moral_ rights whatever. All this has been plentifully
said, and it has lulled many consciences to sleep. Another moral opiate
is the _fact_ that the creditors had due notice that the states could
not be sued at law, and therefore can not complain of this defect in
our constitution. But this is a two-edged argument and might well rouse
a sleepy conscience. These state debts are for this very reason debts
of honor, such as honest men pay before all other debts. And yet, it
is true, and pity ’tis ’tis true, no hope exists that the unfortunate
amendment can be repealed. It is perfectly just to say that it would
be proper to accompany the repeal with any legislation which might be
required to enable courts to take account of all the equities in each
case, even to require that original holders of bonds, or their heirs be
found, and that any reduction from par in the original sales be allowed
to the state. It would, in short, be possible to do justice as exactly as
men can do justice in transactions of this complicated character, and to
secure the tax-payers of the states in default against any oppression.
But the great public is not going to be convinced. It will be said that
the remedial measure is for the relief of idle rich men in Wall street,
and Congressmen and legislators will be warned not to sign their death
warrants. In the course of such a campaign so much immorality will be
taught, so many men now decent in life will be manufactured into rascals,
that it may be wiser not to attempt to repeal the eleventh amendment. It
is a disagreeable conclusion to reach, but we reach it frankly: We are a
dishonest nation. There is no reasonable hope, rather no shadow of hope,
that we can purge ourselves in the matter of dishonored state bonds.
There are not enough honest voters to redeem our reputation. We may
succeed in raising up an honest generation to follow us; for our part,
we of this generation must wear the stigma and groan under the burden of
our dishonor. We are not able to allow creditors of defaulting states
to present their cases to our own courts and have them passed upon as
all other debts are. The nation has a court to consider claims against
itself; but a state is free of even such supervision, and is authorized
to be guilty of any dishonesty. The other remedy which Mr. Hume proposes
is not practicable for the foregoing reasons. He proposes that the
nation shall assume all these debts. We could easily pay them; but for
that matter, it would be easier for the indebted states to pay them than
not to pay them. No one doubts that the state of Illinois did the best
thing financially when in 1845 it assumed and provided for the crushing
debt—for which, by the way, it had very little to show as value received.
Good men avoid dishonest communities, and such states are resorted to by
men of prey. Granted, however, that we might pass in Congress the proper
bills to pay the dishonored bonds of states, it would certainly be better
to pay thus than to bear our reproach. And yet this would only give us
a short rest. The next decade would find us plunged back into the gulf
of disgrace. So long as dishonest men can create debts, for which no
one is legally responsible, by using the names of states, the business
of making us all responsible for scoundrelism will go on. No, we will
modify that. The men who made the debts are not necessarily rascals. They
may mean that posterity shall pay the debts; but so long as a dishonest
legislature can with a stroke of the pen plunge us back into dishonor,
it is hardly worth while to pay the dishonored millions now staring our
consciences in the face and humiliating us to the dust. The bill for
paying off the debts should be contingent on the repeal of the eleventh
amendment. In short, this repeal is the only road to honor. When we shake
ourselves from our rogueries, we shall have to march to the eleventh
amendment and wash ourselves in a national act of repeal. We write most
sorrowfully our conviction that we shall not for some time rid ourselves
of this uncleanness.

Mr. Hume very properly calls attention to the solemn silence of our
American churches on this subject. We are glad that he has done so.
Our church organizations are verily guilty in the matter. They often
lift up their voices on subjects of far less obvious and direct moral
concernment. We are living in a state of the national law whose direct
effect is to make every citizen a thief, a partaker with thieves in their
violation of the eighth commandment. Decalogue religion is, we sometimes
fear, a little below par. Thousands of our citizens who are church
members fail miserably in keeping the Decalogue in their public conduct
as voters and members of political parties. And yet we believe that the
silence of our churches is due to the forgetfulness of the facts, or to
despair of any real and permanent cure. It is a hard case. More than one
newspaper has asked how many bonds Mr. Hume owns; and the ministers who
urge the duty of public honesty will in fact find themselves aiding and
abetting the schemes of Wall street speculators and lobbyists. The road
to righteousness is so foul and so infested with thieves that sublime
courage is necessary to him who attempts the journey. We have written
every sentence of this article with a consciousness that we are offending
men who see the uncleanness of the path to honor, and _do not_ see that
it is the righteous road in spite of the foul smells with which it reeks.
We recall such to the simple facts: First, by the eleventh amendment a
state can not be sued. It is the only debt-creating power in the Union
which is above any form of judicial inquiry or compulsion. Even the Union
has a court of claims whose decisions are respected by Congress. Second,
more than three hundred millions of money is apparently due by defaulting
states to their creditors. The nation stands between the creditors and
the states, and bars the way to the courts. It is our one colossal and
unpardonable crime against the eighth commandment.


THE FALL IN PRICES.

It is often disagreeable to admit a plain truth, and there are truths
which one may safely admit in private which have an almost incendiary
character when printed. To admit in private that the commercial outlook
is not good costs nothing; to print the fact and prove it is to run the
risk of aggravating the causes of the unpromising condition of affairs.
The public is like a patient whose chance of recovery depends upon his
not knowing his critical condition. If his nerves get to playing around
that danger, they may drag him into it. To state in printed words that
the times are bad and growing worse might be to tell a truth; but it
would tend to produce the worse times. This is the reason why editors
are either silent, or even lie a little, in seasons of financial
and commercial depression. But it is also true that in our present
circumstances there are unpleasant things which admit of mitigation, and
even of radical cure; and it is perhaps wiser to state what most of us
know and suggest the remedies for an evil case.

It is known that the wages of laboring men and clerks all over the
country are being cut down. It is probably within the mark to say that
seven millions of wage-earners (of all classes) will receive in 1885 an
average of ten per cent. less compensation for their services than they
received in 1884. Assuming a very low average for the old wages, $1.25
per day, the total reduction in wages for the year will amount to more
than $260,000,000. This amount will of course be taken from the net total
of trade. The workmen and clerks will buy two hundred and sixty million
dollars worth less of goods in 1885. The reduction will be dispersed over
a large area, but it will not spread into a thinness which will render it
impalpable. Nor does the reduction end with the workmen. All the persons
of whom workmen buy manufactured goods will buy less for their own
consumption—they also will have less to buy with. This class is a very
large one, and there are few of us who do not belong in it—are not in
some way dependent on workmen for patronage. To say that all these will
reduce their annual purchases two hundred and sixty millions, carrying
the reduction up to five hundred and twenty millions, is probably within
the mark. We may as well consider in this connection the reductions
in the price of farm products, another great drain on the volume of
trade. Agricultural products are worth at most ten per cent. less than
in 1883. The effect of the reduction in prices of farm products acts
more disastrously on trade, since farmers usually double their caution.
They will not merely buy ten per cent. less; they will buy as little
as possible. Old clothes, old wagons, old tools, will be kept in use,
and it may be within the mark to say that the loss of farmers’ trade of
all sorts will amount to as much as all the others—to five hundred and
twenty millions more. One thousand and forty millions taken off from the
_net_ total of sales of goods will necessarily be keenly missed. The
payment of all the national debt in a prosperous year would be easier
and more pleasant. If it had no compensations this reduction would
crush the life out of us. At least it is a burden to bear. Economies
upon customary spending in a single household matter but little, but
economies in millions of households—less buying of customary comforts—are
a large matter. They are not merely a consequence of hard times; they
make the times hard. And we are so bound together that the enforced
economies in the families of workmen act on the whole purchasing line
with mathematical certainty. It is a good thing, a beneficence of natural
order, that there are compensations. We see these natural offsets most
easily by looking back at the case of the farmer. He has to sell his food
in a cheaper market, and wants to buy also in a cheaper market. He has
made food cheaper for the workman, and he wants the goods made by the
workman at less cost. He wants the same amount of cloth, sugar, salt,
tools, etc., for the same number of bushels of wheat. It is the cloth,
tools, etc., that he wants as a farmer. As a debtor, indeed, he wants
the same number of dollars; and this is _his_ real pinch. He is in debt,
and has to pay in the fall of grain a twenty per cent. premium on what
he owes. As a producer, he would, however, suffer no harm if all other
prices fell as much as the price of grain. If, then, by the corresponding
and simultaneous reduction of the price of food and of wages, the ten
per cent. less money would buy the same things to eat and wear—if the
reduction were equalized all round—nobody would suffer. The farmer’s
grain would buy as much as before; the workman’s wages would buy as much.
Goods of all kinds would be so much cheaper in money terms, but just as
valuable in barter terms. The reduction would be only in the figures and
not in the facts of trade. The footings of the ledgers would be smaller,
but the ledgers of comfort would show an undiminished balance in favor of
happiness.

Will it work out in this way? Partly it will; partly it will not. Cheaper
food will partly balance the accounts of all parties, but some accounts
will not balance. Prices sink or rise unequally. And this is not half
our trouble. In these matters “thinking makes it so;” the belief that
we are losing ground causes the sliding back which we dread. There is
a reluctance to buy what we are accustomed to buy. The reduction in
wages makes men _feel_ poor; and to feel poor is to be a poor customer
of the seller. Suppose that a general fall in prices is going on—a
possibly complete explanation of our troubles—then we must remember
that all values are disturbed. We can not make a “horizontal reduction”
by a stroke of the pen. It must be effected slowly and painfully and
irregularly and in detail. The results are suffering and depression of
spirit. The strain is severe, but it has to be borne; and patience really
lightens all burdens. If we reflect that these stretches of bare ground
in trade are really safe roads—safer than the smoother paths along which
we have driven gaily and recklessly—we shall have confidence to keep
company with patience, and the two will make a rough road tolerable,
if not enjoyable. Honest and industrious souls thrive in such times.
Speculative rogues thrive in good times. The honest man’s chief trouble
is that he _will_ get into debt. His worst calamity is he is paying now
with eighty-cent wheat debts contracted in dollar-wheat prices. The poor
man can not be helped. May the Lord be good to him.

“But” one will say, “this is not our whole disease. We are really at
war. Workmen are falling under the wheels of a great machine called
progress; and the machine is driven by forces too powerful for any hope
of resistance. It is not a mere readjustment of prices; it is a life and
death struggle; and the god Competition must be dethroned, or the people
will perish.” We do not believe this wild-eyed reformer, but we do expect
a hard winter. Let us all remember the poor.




EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The steady growth of this country is shown by the fact that in the
last fiscal year there was a net increase of 2,154 in the number of
post-offices. The total number is now 50,071. About this time it is
interesting to learn that there are only 2,323 President’s post-offices
with salaries of $1,000 and higher; and there are only 159 free delivery
offices. The expenses of the last year exceeded the receipts by more than
three millions of dollars.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hostile Apaches continue to be troublesome on the Mexican border. They
escape across the line and are safe from pursuit. These troubles will
end when the two governments make permanent arrangements for the pursuit
of marauders across the boundary. A temporary provision of that kind has
existed, but it should be permanent—unless, indeed, our citizens fear
Mexican soldiers more than they fear Indians.

       *       *       *       *       *

A United States Court has decided in due form that an “Indian not taxed
is not a citizen of the United States.” It is time he was made a citizen.
The fiction of regarding the Indians as independent powers, and dealing
with them as tribes, ought to be made an end of. The Indians themselves
need the discipline of citizenship, and we need to free ourselves from
a useless and harmful fiction. By all means keep faith to the last
farthing, but make a man of this red brother as soon as possible.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Connecticut paper soberly declares that a citizen of that state did not
know the name of either candidate for the presidency until the Saturday
before the election. And yet people unreasonably complain that there was
too much noise in the late campaign.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is remarked that Presidential electors were scratched to a
considerable extent this year. It is as unreasonable a performance as
kicking the stone you have stumbled over, more so indeed for the stone
has done you some harm, while a Presidential elector is incapable of
doing any harm. He is, by our political customs, merely a machine for
transmitting a vote to the candidate of the party. But there has been so
much of this scratching this year that politicians will probably estimate
its influence hereafter. In a close election this species of scratcher
might defeat his own wishes and his party by blind stupidity.

       *       *       *       *       *

A new life of the witty Sydney Smith has brought to light a new piece of
his inimitable jesting. A friend complained to Smith that in an important
interview Lord Brougham had treated him _as if he were a fool_. “Never
mind, never mind,” said the incorrigible wit, in his most sympathetic
tones, “never mind, never mind, _he thought you knew it_.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“Swift as the wind” is not very swift after all. The record of its
travels in New York City, for a whole week in November, showed only 1,076
miles. Ocean steamers go nearly three times as fast, and through trains
from New York to Chicago travel five times as fast. A good pedestrian
would beat an average wind if he did not have to rest.

       *       *       *       *       *

Since the November election there has been a marked increase in business
failures. The wages of workmen have been reduced in many places, and many
mills have suspended. Politicians are not agreed about the cause, but
it is probable that this will be a hard winter for the poor. Heavenly
charity will, we trust, be everywhere equal to the tasks laid upon her.
Remember the poor.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is positively affirmed that physicians regard canned foods as
dangerous. Many cases of poisoning occur from eating such foods, but
chemical testimony is divided. Some chemists trace the poisoning to
special conditions of the food used; in other words, the food was in an
advanced state of decomposition when it was put into the can. This is the
opinion recently expressed by an eminent English chemist. In this view,
proper caution in examining the food will avert all danger.

       *       *       *       *       *

What impressions would our chief cities make on those of us who do not
live in them, if we received all our knowledge of them through the
newsy papers? San Francisco, for example, is known in that way as the
home of Sand Lot orators, astonishing divorce suits, fighting editors,
and swearing preachers. The latest of these picturesque incidents is
the shooting of an editor, Mr. De Young, who is the second man in his
family to be shot by outraged and bloody-minded readers. Such incidents
doubtless misrepresent the City of the Golden Gate; but many thousands of
newspaper readers know only these miserable doings in San Francisco.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sacred hen of Brahma has long been at home in American barn-yards;
and now we learn that for several years the sacred cow of India has been
establishing herself in the South. The Brahma cattle, judiciously crossed
with English breeds, are becoming fashionable in New Mexico.

       *       *       *       *       *

Perhaps the most unfortunate man in the late campaign was a distinguished
one who ostensibly had nothing to do with politics. Ex-Senator Conkling
is credited with depriving, by secret influence, Mr. Blaine of many
votes. The misfortune is in the fact that good and bad politicians agree
in despising a sneak.

       *       *       *       *       *

The “roller-skating rink” is condemned in vigorous terms by one of the
Methodist conferences. It is doubtless becoming a nuisance. The base-ball
business is past praying for, so degraded and disreputable has it become.
There seems to be no possibility of maintaining any form of athletics in
a wholesome, moral condition. They are becoming a worse nuisance each
year.

       *       *       *       *       *

The outbreak of cholera in Paris has created almost a panic, in New
York, in the middle of November. Cholera has always been a warm weather
disease, and the apprehensions of New York were altogether unreasonable.
The disease made very little headway in Paris. Perhaps we should provide
for its reception in this country next summer; though it could be kept
out by proper and sufficient quarantine measures.

       *       *       *       *       *

We advise our readers not to give up Shakspere on account of the
so-called cipher of the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly. Authority is of some
importance in this case, and whatever authority Mr. Donnelly has is in
Minnesota politics. All that has been reported about Mr. D.’s discovery
might be true and still not disturb Shakspere’s claim to the writings
which bear his name.

       *       *       *       *       *

The last of the patents for sewing machines expired in 1876; but the
women of the country are so attached to the old machines that they would
not buy the new, and probably better machines. The result is that the
new companies go into bankruptcy and the old companies monopolize the
business. Here is a plain account of one of the “grasping monopolies” of
the country. A few others are explained by the insane attachment of the
men of the country to tools of a particular brand or make.

       *       *       *       *       *

We notice in the papers an unusual number of reports of contests over
wills containing charitable bequests. Let us say frankly that we think
this post mortem method of being charitable rather a sneaking way of
discharging the duty of benevolence. Give like a man what you might keep
yourself. It is a coward’s way to assess your children to pay your debts
to philanthropy. A man who really wants to be benevolent is usually able
to execute his own will. Be your own executor.

       *       *       *       *       *

The largest farm in America has been sold to foreign nabobs. It is a
cattle ranch of 800,000 acres in Texas. Mr. King, who has just sold it
for $6,500,000, built up this property, beginning with nothing. He is
now eighty years old and thinks it time to retire from business. The
new owners will operate the farm as a joint stock concern, and it will
probably be bankrupt in twenty years. One King is better than a score of
nabobs for such business.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Talmage is still picturesquely anti-evolution. In a recent speech
he said: “There ought to be some place where God could go, where the
evolutionists could not reach him. They keep ordering him off the
premises.… According to evolutionists we are only a sort of Alderney
cow among other cattle. I believe in an evolution of mortality into
immortality—a heavenly evolution.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The English House of Lords has obtained a great victory. After a summer
of agitation in the form of great meetings, monster processions and
burning eloquence, the Ministry has compromised with the Lords on the
Franchise bill, on terms dictated by the Lords. The Radicals are very
angry; but Mr. Gladstone has secured the extension of the ballot to
some millions of Englishmen, and is believed to regard this success as
a fitting crown of his public career. He will leave the “reform of the
Lords” to his successors.

       *       *       *       *       *

The immigration of ten months of this year brought us 414,000 new
citizens; in the same period last year 501,000 came to us. The reduction
is less than was expected; but the depression in trade is now acting as a
check on immigration, though matters are even worse in Europe. This is,
however, a stream which will not dry up in this century, perhaps not in
the next.

       *       *       *       *       *

A French chemist has thought of a useful device to prevent accidents
in the handling of poisons. A large number of persons are killed every
year by mistakes of apothecaries, of their friends, or of themselves.
The French chemist suggests that white cylindrical bottles be used
for medicines to be taken internally, and colored square bottles for
medicines to be used externally. The suggestion can be improved by
additional devices to prevent mistakes, but half the errors would be cut
off by the proposed plan.

       *       *       *       *       *

A great many Republicans are unhappy because their party has not settled
the Mormon question. Probably the Senate will resist the admission of
Utah as a state; but the evil is only postponed. Some vigorous measures
must be taken, or plural marriage will become one of the established
modes of regulating the American family. If polygamy becomes a state
institution, it will be as strongly entrenched as slavery was; and it may
be held that a plural marriage in one state is good in all the states;
this is the rule for monogamous marriage.

       *       *       *       *       *

In New York City, in 1884, eleven thousand and fifty girls under fourteen
years of age were arrested by the police; the number of boys of like age
was only two thousand two hundred and forty-eight. The disproportion has
its melancholy lesson.

       *       *       *       *       *

A story went over the country that the temperance people of an Ohio town
mobbed and killed a liquor man. The story should have been that some
rejoicing Democrats refused to leave a saloon, where they were drinking,
and fatally wounded the proprietor while he was attempting to put them
out. Our authority for the revised version is the New York _Sun_.

       *       *       *       *       *

A decision, under the anti-Chinese laws, seems to nullify them. Judge
Brown has decided that a Chinaman has a right to land and visit with us.
This looks reasonable, but we have no police to look him up and send him
packing when he has visited enough.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Indian question moves to a final settlement. Commissioner Price
reports a considerable increase in the number of Indian farmers and
students; and General Crook’s annual report on the murderous Apaches of
New Mexico and Arizona is full of promise. The General has had no serious
trouble with American Apaches for a whole year. Mexican Apaches still
trouble us.

       *       *       *       *       *

A story is circulating that the watch of Arctic-explorer De Long and the
watch of his wife stopped at the same instant—he with his watch being in
the Arctic Ocean, and she with hers in this country. It is added that
the clock at home and the chronometer on the far-off ship united with
the watches in the conspiracy. It is not worth while to believe this
story, at least not until proper corrections for longitude are made. When
meridian time shall be used everywhere, such stories will come within the
range of intelligent consideration.

       *       *       *       *       *

A ghastly corpse of a woman is found among ashes in a cellar in New
York City. The police do not know whether it is a case of murder or of
suicide. But the pathetic and blood-chilling fact is that many persons
who had mysteriously lost female relatives came to see if the body might
be that of their sister, wife or friend. Many people go down out of sight
suddenly in the waves of city life.

       *       *       *       *       *

A commercial treaty with Spain is pending in the United States Senate.
Its object is to facilitate trade between our country and Cuba. We need
foreign markets for our manufactures—and those markets lie in the West
Indies, Mexico, and South America.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Centennial Methodist Conference held in Baltimore, December 10th to
16th, commemorated the organization in that city, Christmas week, 1784,
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It should not be forgotten, however,
that Methodism had existed in this country for about twenty years. The
recent celebration represented some 3,000,000 of Methodists.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two pieces of new wit deserve a place in this record. The first is the
“288 joke,” and it is explained as “too gross.” Spell _too_ with a _w_.
Pepper and salt to your taste. The other describes a sermon as like
champagne. The preacher is elated by the criticism until it is added that
“extra-dry” champagne is meant.

       *       *       *       *       *

The most unreasonable man we have heard of during the last month went to
a physician to be treated for several diseases. The doctor looked him
over carefully, minutely examined all the implicated organs, and informed
the patient that there was nothing the matter with him, whereupon the
hero of several diseases assaulted the physician, and became the hero of
a police court.

       *       *       *       *       *

Quacks receive a blow by a legal decision in Massachusetts that men
who administer drugs, whose effects they do not know, are criminally
responsible for the mischief they do. It is common sense and deserves a
wide circulation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Silver dollars continue to accumulate in the Treasury. The Secretary
advises Congress to abolish one, two and five dollar bills, so that all
payments under ten dollars may be made in silver. This is the French
method, and a good one. It is the best compromise offered, and the silver
men ought to accept it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The French are considering a plan to restore the practice of transporting
ex-convicts to some far-off French colony. Experience shows that
transportation is the best practical measure for securing the permanent
reformation of the criminals; but the colonists always object to this
class of new citizens.

       *       *       *       *       *

We produce apples for Europe. It is expected that 2,000,000 barrels will
be exported this year. Good eating apples are but little cultivated in
Europe; ours are the best in the world. This is an apple year. Who says
that times are hard?

       *       *       *       *       *

The Rev. Dr. A. G. Haygood has resigned the presidency of Macon College,
Georgia, to give his time to the management of the Slater Educational
Fund. We regret that Dr. Haygood has taken this step. He is a man of
broad views and generous impulses, and useful in a high institution of
learning. It is not too much to say that he is better known at the North
than any educator in the South. His sermons and lectures in Northern
States have awakened new sympathies in the hearts of many people for the
cause of higher education in the South, and indeed, Dr. Haygood has been
one of the best representatives of the South. Always standing firmly by
his college and people, he has done much to strengthen the bonds of union
between the two sections. Perhaps his new office will give him a new
range on more people, and increase his opportunities for usefulness. It
is not the privilege of many men to decline the offices of bishop and the
presidency of a college such as that at Macon inside three years, but Dr.
Haygood has done both of these things. We predict for him large success
in his new educational work.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is refreshing to find that the Christmas idea of making others
happy has at last reached our Sunday-schools. For years teachers and
parents have made annually an exhaustive effort to feast their schools
on Christmas day. However great their efforts the results could never
be entirely satisfactory. Somebody was unavoidably overlooked, and the
managers were always too nearly worn out to enjoy the holiday. A new
plan, we hope, is to be instituted. Last season many schools tried it,
more are making the experiment this year. It is to substitute giving by
the school. On Christmas eve the classes bring in offerings for the poor.
Whatever they wish and their purses allow is offered. The plan meets
with the heartiest reception wherever proposed, the smallest children
often being the most eager to give. A general adoption of this method of
celebrating Christmas would do much to counteract the selfish feeling so
often found in Sunday-schools that gifts, entertainments and prizes must
be continually given in order to keep the school together.

       *       *       *       *       *

Edward Everett Hale has consented that his name be added to the list of
the counselors of the C. L. S. C. This announcement will be received with
genuine satisfaction by every one interested in our work. It is an honor
to us to number such a man in our faculty. Mr. Hale’s position in the
religious and literary world is well established. Last spring when _The
Critic and Good Literature_ asked the public to cast a vote for the forty
native American authors whom it deemed most worthy to form the “forty
immortals” of a proposed American Academy, his name was the eleventh on
the list, which ran: Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Bancroft, Howells, Curtis,
Aldrich, Harte, Stedman, White and Hale. His books are known most widely;
his sympathies are broad and wise; he is a man of the truest culture of
both mind and heart. He will be welcomed most warmly by Chautauquans as
one of their honored counselors.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Richard Grant White, whose articles on English form so important and
interesting a part of this year’s course of reading, has been for several
weeks seriously ill; so ill, indeed, that he has been quite unable to
prepare his article for the present issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. By another
month, however, Mr. White writes us that he believes his health will be
so improved that he can continue his work.

       *       *       *       *       *

The announcement of the Chautauqua School of Church Work, found in
this issue, associates with the Chautauqua work a name well known and
deeply honored by many of our readers. Dr. Geo. P. Hays, the director of
this new department at the great summer school, was for several years
president of Washington and Jefferson College, and since his connection
with that institution ceased he has been the pastor of a Presbyterian
church in Denver, Col. His name has several times appeared on the
Chautauqua programs, and his appearance on that platform has always been
very welcome. Dr. Hays will represent the C. L. S. C. in the West, and we
look for large results from his efforts. This new department of church
work will be a great addition to the Chautauqua attractions for 1885.




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


COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.

P. 16.—“Herodotus.” Critical essays containing the results of the
researches concerning Herodotus will be found in the works of the
eminent Germans, Creuzer, Dahlman, Heyse, Blum, A. Bauer, K. O. Müller,
Stein, Kirchhoff and Blakesley. De Quincey has an essay in Vol. i. of
“Historical and Critical Essays.” See also Vol. ii. of “A History of
Classical Greek Literature,” by J. P. Mahaffy.

The following abridged opinions on Herodotus are interesting. Macaulay
says of him: Of the romantic historians, Herodotus is the earliest and
the best. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful
talent for description and dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of
his language place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a
delightful child.… But he has not written a good history.… The faults
of Herodotus are the faults of a simple and imaginative mind. He wrote
as it was natural he should write. He wrote for a nation susceptible,
curious, lively, insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement; for a
nation in which the fine arts had attained their highest excellence, but
in which philosophy was still in its infancy. Mahaffy quotes the German
Blakesley’s opinion that Herodotus wrote not to instruct but to _please_,
that he selected such events and attributed such motives as he thought
would be striking and popular, without any misgivings as to the accuracy
of statement; that at his time there was no historic sense, but that
the idea of exact and critical historical writing is a late and gradual
acquisition which Thucydides acquired only by his extraordinary genius
and circumstances in those early days.

P. 21.—“Rawlinson,” The Rev. George. (1815-⸺.) An Oxford man, in 1874
made Canon of Canterbury. Besides his “Herodotus” he has published a
celebrated work called “The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern
World, or the History, Geography and Antiquities of Chaldea, Assyria,
Babylonia, Media and Persia.” To this he added, in 1873, the “Sixth
Great Oriental Monarchy,” meaning Parthia, and in 1876 the “Seventh
Great Oriental Monarchy; or the Geography, History and Antiquity of the
Sassanian or New Persian Empire.”

“Rawlinson,” Sir Henry. (1810-⸺.) A brother of the former. When but
sixteen years of age he was sent to the East in the service of the East
India Company; being transferred to the Persian army, he began to study
the Persian cuneiform inscriptions and forwarded valuable copies to
England. He also explored the countries of Central Asia. His studies have
given him high rank among modern archæologists. His publications include
several valuable works on the history and inscriptions of Assyria,
Babylon and Chaldea, and he has contributed many learned papers to the
journals of the Asiatic Society.

“Wilkinson.” (1797-1875.) An Englishman who during a residence of twelve
years in Egypt studied the history, ruins, manners and customs of the
country. His studies were embodied in voluminous works on a great variety
of phases of Egyptian life and history, including the “Topography of
Thebes and General View of Egypt,” “Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians,” “Architecture of Ancient Egypt,” “Modern Egypt and Thebes,”
and others. In striking contrast was a subject on which he published
a work in 1858—“Color, and the General Diffusion of Taste among all
Classes.”

P. 22.—“Lydian Empire.” Lydia was a very early seat of Asiatic
civilization, the empire being founded at Sardis in mythical times.
Three dynasties of kings are said to have ruled the country, the Atyadæ,
the Heraclidæ and the Mermnadæ, the last of which alone is authentic.
Of their civilization Smith says: “Among the inventions or improvements
which the Greeks are said to have derived from them were the weaving and
dyeing of fine fabrics; various processes of metallurgy; the use of gold
and silver money, which the Lydians are said to have first coined; and
various metrical and musical improvements, especially the scale or mode
of music called the Lydian, and the form of lyre called the Magadis.”
After the Persian conquest of Lydia it formed with Mysia, the second
satrapy. After the Macedonian conquest it passed to the kings of Syria,
thence to those of Pergamus, and finally to the Romans, who made it a
part of the province of Asia.

“Sardis,” or Sardes, stood until the wars of the Middle Ages, when in
1402 it was almost entirely destroyed by Tamerlane. The remains extend
over a wide space. Two Ionic columns (see illustration, page 33, of
“College Greek Course,”) are the most conspicuous of the remains. These
columns are supposed to have belonged to a temple of Cybele. The walls
of the Acropolis, some of its towers, a few remnants of the magnificent
palace of Crœsus, of a gymnasium, and a few other buildings are all that
can be traced. The tombs of the Lydian kings are in the neighborhood,
prominent among which is the tumulus of Alyattes, a huge circular mound
1,140 feet in diameter. An Arabian village of mud huts called Sart now
stands on its site.

P. 26.—“Crœsus’s father.” Alyattes, king of Lydia, B. C. 617-560.

P. 27.—“Hermus.” A good sized river of Asia Minor, rising in Phrygia,
flowing through Lydia, watering the plain of Sardis, and emptying into
the Gulf of Smyrna.

P. 28.—“Telmessus.” A town of Cana about six miles from Halicarnassus.
Its people were celebrated for their power in divination.

P. 32.—“Agbatana.” The usual form of writing the word is Ecbatana; the
first form is the Ionic, used in poetry.

“Pactyas.” An army was sent against this man when he fled to Cyme, thence
to Mytilene, and from there to Chios. The Chians gave him up to the
Persians.

P. 33.—“L’Allegro,” läl-lāˈgrō. The merry, the gay.

P. 35.—“Nitocris.” Supposed to have been the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and
the mother or grandmother of Belshazzar. While queen of Babylon many
important works were carried on by her for the improvement of the city.

P. 37.—“Massagetæ.” They were probably a nomad people of Central Asia.
The best authorities suppose them to have lived north of the Jaxartes
and the sea of Aral. Some critics identify them with the Mesech of the
Scriptures. Many of their customs were very peculiar. They worshipped the
sun, to which they sacrificed horses. Their very old people were killed
and eaten. The race to which they belonged is in dispute, though usually
considered the Turkoman.

P. 40.—“Prexaspes.” He had always been held in high honor by Cambyses,
having been employed by the latter to kill his brother Smerdis, whom he
feared. Later in life an impostor calling himself Smerdis, tried to usurp
the throne and Cambyses suspected Prexaspes, but he cleared himself.
After the death of Cambyses this false Smerdis was acknowledged king,
and the Magi, who had put him on the throne, tried to win over Prexaspes
to their plans, but he told before the assembled Persians of the
assassination of the true Smerdis, and then threw himself from the tower
on which he was standing.

P. 43.—“Apis.” A bull worshipped by the Egyptians. He was supposed
to contain the spirit of the divinity Osiris, and was the symbol of
fertility. The god must be black, with a white square or triangular mark
on his forehead, an eagle on the back, and other mysterious marks about
the body. When such an animal was found he was carried to Heliopolis and
thence to Memphis, where he had his own temple and priests. The lifetime
of Apis was twenty-five years. If one died the whole land was in mourning
until a successor was found.

P. 45.—“Staters,” stāˈter. The chief gold coin of the Greeks, usually
worth about $5.50, though it varied much in value.

P. 51.—“Andrians.” The inhabitants of Andros, the most northerly of the
Cyclades.

“Ca-rysˈti-ans.” Those of Carystus, a town on the southern coast of
Eubœa. Beautiful white marble and the mineral asbestos abounded near
Carystus.

“Parians.” From Paros, one of the largest of the Cyclades, north of Delos.

P. 52.—“Thucydides.” For additional readings on Thucydides see Grote’s
History of Greece, and also Thirwall’s, Mahaffy’s History of Classical
Greek Literature, Müller and Donaldson’s History of Greek Literature,
and Mure’s History of the Greek Language and Literature.

Cicero commends Thucydides as “a faithful and dignified narrator
of facts,” and declares that he surpasses all others in the art of
composition.

Macaulay says: “Thucydides has surpassed all his rivals in the art
of historical narration, in the art of producing an effect on the
imagination by skilful selection and disposition without indulging in the
license of invention.”

Mahaffy thus compares Herodotus and Thucydides: “While the conceptions
of history in Herodotus and Thucydides were mainly the consequence of
the temper of the men and of their surroundings, it must be declared
that, _for an historian_, the atmosphere in which the latter lived, while
giving him critical acumen and freeing him from theological prejudices
narrowed his view and distorted his estimate of the relative importance
of events. We may indeed feel very grateful that Herodotus was not
attracted in early life by this brilliant exclusiveness, and that he
remained an Ionic instead of becoming an Attic historian.”

P. 56.—“Jowett,” jowˈet. (1817-⸺.) An English Greek scholar and professor.

P. 72.—“Peabody.” (1811-⸺.) An American theologian and author.

P. 73.—“Eurymedon.” One of the Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian
war. After the expedition to Corcyra, Eurymedon commanded in the
expedition against Sicily in 425. In 414 he was a leader in a second
armament fitted out against Syracuse; he fell in the first sea fight in
the harbor of that city.

P. 81.—“Alcæus.” About B. C. 600. A native of Mytilene. In a war between
Athens and his country he is said to have fled, leaving his arms on the
field of battle. He was afterward driven from his native land in a strife
between the nobility and people, and spent the remainder of his life
traveling. Some of his odes are extant, and the imitations of Horace
have made the character of Alcæus’ verse well known. See “Brief History
of Greece,” page 52. Mahaffy says of Alcæus, we see in him “the perfect
picture of an unprincipled, violent, lawless Greek aristocrat, who
sacrificed all and everything to the demands of pleasure and power.”


THE CHARACTER OF JESUS.

Excellent works to read in connection with “The Character of Jesus”
are Farrar’s “Life of Christ,” Thomas Hughes’s “Manliness of Christ,”
Geikie’s “Life and Words of Christ,” Pollock’s “The Christ of
Christianity and of Modern Criticism.”

P. 108.—“Celsus.” An Epicurean philosopher who lived in the second
century. Only fragments of his works have been preserved as quotations
given by Origen. He charges Christians with blind credulity, with
religious arrogance, with party divisions, and with having altered their
sacred writings. His own doctrines were that evil is necessary and
eternal, and that sin can never be entirely removed, least of all by
vicarious sacrifice.

P. 109.—“Justin Martyr.” The earliest of the church fathers after the
apostolic age. He lived in the second century, and attended the pagan
schools of Asia Minor, Greece and Egypt. Afterward he embraced the
Christian religion and wrote two apologies in its behalf. He suffered
martyrdom at Rome under Marcus Aurelius, because he refused to sacrifice
to the heathen gods.

“Tertullian.” An eminent Latin father of the church who lived at Carthage
in the second century. He was converted from paganism to Christianity.
He was a man of powerful intellect and great learning; was the author of
numerous works which are still extant.

P. 111.—“Summum bonum.” A Latin expression meaning the highest good.

P. 134.—“Talmud.” The work which gives the laws, both civil and
canonical, of the Jews. It contains the rules by which the conduct of
the people is regulated, and relates not only to religion, but also to
philosophy, medicine, history, and the branches of practical duty.

P. 136.—“Mr. Parker,” Theodore. (1810-1860.) A distinguished American
scholar; a Unitarian minister. His new doctrines gave great offence
to the New England Unitarians, as he assumed the absolute humanity of
Christ, and said his inspiration differed in no respect from that of
other men. He died in Florence, whither he had gone for his health.

P. 161.—“Vishnu.” One of the gods of the Hindoos, a sun god. He gave the
earth to man as his inheritance. The unbroken order of the world is due
to him.




NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”


TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE.

1. “Abd el Wahab.” The founder of a recent Mohammedan sect now dominant
throughout the greater part of Arabia. He was the son of an Arab chief,
and was born about the end of the seventeenth century. He was highly
educated, and conceived the idea of restoring in its primitive shape the
ruined structure of Islam. The Koran had fallen into abeyance, and their
religion was little else than a round of external ceremonies. He gained
a numerous following in his efforts to revive the old zeal in their
religion. The sect took the name of the Wa-haˈbis, or the Wa-haˈbites.

2. “The earthquake at Lisbon.” This, the greatest of the frequent
earthquakes at Lisbon, and one of the most remarkable that ever occurred
anywhere, took place in 1775, and destroyed a great part of the city. The
area affected was very extensive. The shock was felt on one side as far
as the southern shore of Finland, and on the other it reached to Canada,
an area of 7,500,000 square miles. The force required to move this must
have been enormous, for suppose the thickness of the earth’s crust moved
to have been only twenty miles, then 150,000,000 cubic miles of solid
matter was moved. The sea wave caused by it rose to a height of sixty
feet at Cadiz.

3. “Laputa.” The name of a flying island described by Swift in his
imaginary “Travels of Lemuel Gulliver.” It is said to be “exactly
circular, its diameter seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven
yards, or about four miles and a half, and consequently contains ten
thousand acres.” The inhabitants are speculative philosophers, devoted to
mathematics and music.—_Webster’s Dictionary._

So materializing is the spirit of the age that the extended study of
physical and mechanical science seems likely one of these days to convert
our island (Great Britain) into a _Laputa_.—_Keightly._

4. “Syrian Maronites,” marˈo-nites. A Christian tribe of very ancient
origin. In the year 1445 they were formally united to the Roman Catholic
Church, but were allowed to retain their own national rites and usages.
Their priests are allowed to marry.

5. “Lazaretto.” A pest-house or hospital for the reception of the sick,
particularly for those affected with contagious distempers.

6. “Bactrian nomads.” Bactria is a country of Central Asia. A great part
of it is made up of stretches of barren and drifting sands, so that the
inhabitants are obliged to resort to the nomadic style of life. It was
subjugated by Alexander the Great, but afterward became independent. Its
modern history is not important.

7. “Titus Oates.” An Englishman who in the reign of Charles II.
communicated the details of a pretended plot, “the figment of his own
brain,” in which were revealed a rising of the Catholic party, a general
massacre of the Protestants, the burning of London, and the assassination
of the king. Several incidents seemed to corroborate the monstrous
assertion, and it was universally believed. All London went wild with
fear and rage, and at one time a massacre of the Roman Catholics seemed
likely to occur in anticipation of the one the Protestants feared. Many
of the Catholics were arrested, tried and condemned to meet the death of
traitors at the block. On the accession of James II., Oates was tried,
sentenced to be pilloried, publicly whipped, and afterward imprisoned for
life. When William III. came to the throne he was pardoned, and was no
more heard of. He died in obscurity seventeen years later, in 1705, at
the age of seventy-six.

8. “Jack Sheppard.” (1701-1724.) He was noted for twice escaping from
prison at Newgate, whither he was sent for taking part in the revolution
against the king, George I. He was hung at Tyburn.

9. “Absinthe.”—A cordial of brandy flavored with wormwood.


SUNDAY READINGS.

1. “St. Augustine.” (354-430.) One of the fathers of the Christian
church. He was born at Tagaste, in Africa. He was sent to Carthage to
be educated, and there plunged into the frightful abyss of corruptions
which marked that wicked city. In his “Confessions” he describes his
life at this time, and does not seek to excuse himself. At the age of
thirty-three years he embraced the Christian religion and was baptized
by Ambrose. His conversion from his errors was complete and permanent.
Monica, his mother, who through all these years had been praying for her
son, died shortly after, feeling that she could depart in peace, as her
eyes had seen his salvation. He wrote with great zeal and voluminously
against all the sects which the church held to be heretical.

2. “Bourdaloue,” Louis. (1632-1704.) A most eloquent French preacher.
Louis XIV. was an attendant upon his ministry, and on many different
occasions invited him to preach the festival sermons before the court of
Versailles. He was renowned for the solid dignity of his thought and his
fervid religious eloquence.


GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

1. “Alcmæonid,” alc-meˈo-nid. One of the tribe of the Alcmæonidæ, a noble
family of Athens. It received its name from Alcmæon, a great-grandson of
Nestor. The story of the sacrilege brought upon the family by Megacles is
given on page 11 of “Brief History of Greece.” Clisthenes was their most
famous member in after years.

2. “Recouped,” re-koopˈed. Recompensed.

3. “Leech.” The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for healer,
physician, but in this sense is now almost obsolete.

4. “A-gesˌi-laˈus.” “Cle-omˈe-nes.” See “Brief History of Greece.”

5. “Oligarchies,” olˈi-garchˌies. Governments in the control of a few
persons.

6. “Cyrene,” cy-reˈne. A maritime city in Northern Africa, founded
by a Greek colony; beautiful for situation, and of great mercantile
importance. “It was built on a high terrace of the Cyrenæan table-land,
about nine miles from the coast of Appolonia, which became its port. The
road which connected the city with the harbor, a vast necropolis, and
ruins of streets, temples, theaters, tombs, and remnants of art, are
still visible. The site of the ancient city has been identified with the
modern Grennah.”

7. “Æginetan,” æg-i-neˈtan. Pertaining to the island and city of Ægina.

8. “Dicasts.” The _dicasts_ in ancient Athens exercised the functions of
our jurymen, rather than of the judges of courts.

9. “Arˈte-mon.” Said to have been from Clazomenæ. He was an engineer, and
to him was attributed the invention of the testudo and the battering ram.
In the siege of Samos he was employed by Pericles.

10. “Anˈax-agˌo-ras.” (B. C. 500-428.) An Ionian philosopher, a native
of Clazomenæ. When a young man he went to Athens, where he became the
teacher of Pericles, Euripides and others. See “Brief History of Greece,”
page 62.

11. “Ic-tiˈnus.” A Grecian architect who lived about 450 B. C. He was the
architect of the great temple of Minerva, on the Acropolis, and of that
of Apollo Epicurius, in Arcadia.

12. “Pol-yg-noˈtus.” (460?-430? B. C.) A painter, whose native home
was Thasos, but who afterward became a citizen of Athens, where he was
employed by Cimon to ornament the temple of Theseus. “He is styled ‘The
Homer of painting,’ because he treated his subjects in an epic rather
than a dramatic spirit. He had imagination in the highest degree. In
allusion to the ideal character and moral expression of his works,
Aristotle calls him an _ethic_ painter. The same critic says, in another
passage, ‘Polygnotus represented men better than they are (superior to
nature).’ Among his works were the ‘Capture of Troy,’ and the ‘Visit of
Ulysses to the Lower World.’”

13. “Ma-chaˈon Pod-a-lirˈi-us.” A son of Æsculapius, celebrated among the
Greeks for his ability as a physician; he is said to have gone to the
Trojan war with thirty ships; he acted as a surgeon as well as serving
in battle. He is mentioned by some writers as one of the heroes who were
concealed in the wooden horse.


GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

Those desiring to carry on more fully their readings in Greek Mythology
will find the following works peculiarly helpful: “Mythology of the
Aryan Nations,” G. W. Cox; “Introduction to the Science of Religion,”
Max Müller; “Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” Baring-Gould;
“Handbook of Mythology,” G. W. Cox; “Myth and Science,” Vignole;
“Mythology,” Seeman.

1. “Hestia.” The Greek form corresponding to the Latin Vesta. It is
conjectured by some that the two words are the same, going back to a
period when the Greeks and Latins were still an undivided people.

2. “Pe-nāˈtēs.” The word is derived from _penus_, the innermost part
of the house, and referred to those divinities who, as exercising
providential care over domestic affairs, were considered as the gods of
the household. The Penates were also the gods of the state, considered
as a family, and as such had a sanctuary near the center of Rome, where
sacrifices were made by public men.

3. “Tutelary,” tūˈte-la-ry. Derived from the Latin word _tutela_,
protection, and signifying protecting goddess.

4. “Vestal.” The priestesses of Vesta. A temple to this goddess stood in
Rome, in the Forum, and over the temple presided four, afterward six,
virgins, who were chosen to the office at first by the kings, and later
by lot. They entered on this service when no older than ten years, and
served thirty years; the first ten being spent in learning, the second
ten in performing, and the third in teaching, their duties. A vow of
chastity was taken, the violation of which was punished by being buried
alive. The chief duty of the virgins was to keep the fire on the altar of
the goddess ever burning. After the term had expired they might marry,
although it was considered unlucky.

5. “Cyl-leˈne.” The highest mountain in Peloponnesus. It was sacred to
Mercury, who was said to have been born there, and was hence called
Cyllenius.

6. “Alˈphe-us.” The largest river in Peloponnesus. It rises in Arcadia,
but soon sinks underground. It rises again and unites with the Eurotas.
After flowing together for nearly three miles the two rivers disappear
underground. The Alpheus rises again at Pegæ, and flows northwest into
the Ionian Sea.

7. “Pro-meˈthe-us.” See page 54 of “Brief History of Greece.”

8. “Tartarus.” According to Homer Tartarus is the lowest hell, a locality
as far below Hades as earth is below heaven; into this dark region
all who rebelled against Zeus were hurled. Later the word was used
synonymously with Hades.

9. “Psychopompus,” si-ko-pomˈpus.

10. “Non ego,” etc. I shall not all die.

11. “Cerˈbe-rus.” “The monster that guarded the entrance to the infernal
regions. He was a son of Typhon and Echidna, and is represented as a
dog with three heads, the tail of a serpent, and a mane composed of the
anterior extremities of numberless snakes. His business was to admit the
spirits of the dead into their subterranean abode, and to prevent them
from leaving it. Orpheus lulled him to sleep with his lyre, and Hercules
dragged him from Hades, and exhibited him to the eyes of wondering
mortals.”

12. “Terˈra in-cog-niˈta.” Unknown land.

13. “Judges.” Miˈnos, and Rhadˌa-manˈthus were brothers, sons of
Jupiter and Europa. The former, the king and legislator of Crete, was
distinguished for his wisdom, and with the latter, famous throughout life
for his justice, was made a judge of the lower world. The third judge,
Æˈa-cus, was a son of Jupiter and Ægina. The island where he was born was
named after his mother, and he became its ruler. He was renowned for his
justice, being called upon by gods as well as men to settle disputes.

14. “Tanˈta-lus.” From this name we have the word tantalize, signifying
to put a good within sight, that it may excite desire, but still to keep
it out of reach.

15. “Psyche,” siˈke.

16. “Pro-serˈpi-na,” or Per-sephˈo-ne. The daughter of Jupiter and Ceres,
and wife of Pluto, by whom she is said to have been carried off to Hades.

17. “Ganˈy-meˌde.” Said to have been the most beautiful of human beings.
Jupiter was so delighted with him that he carried him to Olympus as his
cup-bearer.


KITCHEN SCIENCE.

1. “Ro-saˈce-æ.” A highly important order in botany, including herbs,
shrubs and trees that have stipulate leaves and regular flowers,
resembling those of the rose family. It includes five sub-orders,
eighty-seven genera, and 1,000 species. It embraces our finest ornamental
flowering shrubs, and a long catalogue of delicious fruits, as apples,
pears, peaches, plums, cherries, strawberries, blackberries and
raspberries.

2. “I-duˈnä.” The goddess who kept in a box the apples which the gods
tasted in order to preserve their perpetual youth.

3. “Orchards of Hesperus.” The lands watched over by the Hesperides,
maidens who guarded the golden apples which Earth gave Hera at her
marriage to Zeus. The apples grew on a tree which was also further
guarded by a sleepless dragon. These “orchards” were in that part of the
heaven where the sun sets.

4. “Pyˈrus.” A genus of trees of the order Rosaceæ, including the apple
and pear and some ornamental trees.

5. “The American Pomological Society.” This society was organized in New
York October 10, 1848. Its main object was to elicit and disseminate
information relating to fruit growing, and to promote a cordial spirit
of intercourse among horticulturists. It has brought together from all
the states and territories the most intelligent, experienced and skilful
cultivators who have taught each other and made the knowledge of one the
property of all. Its sessions are held in the different leading cities of
the country.

6. “Pruˈnus Perˈsi-ca.” The Prunus is a genus of trees of the order
Rosaceæ, including those species which have the stone of the fruit
sharp-pointed, and a longitudinal furrow passing all round. The young
leaves are rolled up. “Persica” means that it is a native of Persia.

7. “Curculio,” weevil. A Linnæan genus of insects characterized by the
elongation of the head into a beak or snout, at the extremity of which
the mouth is placed, and from which the club-shaped antennæ spring. The
species are very numerous and are distributed over all parts of the earth.

8. “Ruˈbus.” A genus of the order Rosaceæ, distinguished by a five-lobed
calyx, without bracts, and the fruit formed by an aggregation of small
drupes.

9. “Rubus Vil-loˈsus.” Villosus signifies shaggy or long-haired; given
because the leaflets of the high blackberry are hairy on both sides.

10. “Rubus Can-a-denˈsis.” So called because it is found growing in
Canada.

11. Fra-gaˈri-a.


APPLES, PEACHES, BLACKBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES.

1. “Méringue,” mā-răngˈ.


CHEMISTRY.

1. “Galileo,” găl-i-leeˈo. (1564-1642.) An illustrious astronomer,
mathematician and philosopher, the creator of experimental science. He
made a number of important discoveries in the science of astronomy,
among which were Jupiter’s satellites, Saturn’s rings, the sun’s spots,
and the starry nature of the milky way. He was a strong advocate of
the Copernican system—which represents the sun to be at rest in the
center and the earth and other planets to move round it—and for this was
twice persecuted by the Inquisition. On both occasions he was publicly
compelled to abjure the system, but the last time he is said to have
stamped his foot while muttering to himself, “but nevertheless it does
move.” The later years of his life were spent in his country house near
Florence.

2. “Torricelli,” tor-ri-celˈli. (1608-1647.) A celebrated Italian
mathematician and philosopher. He made himself renowned for all time by
his interpretation of the fact that water will rise in a suction pump to
a height of thirty-two feet, which, up to his time, had been explained
on the ground that “nature abhors a vacuum;” above that limit the law
was modified. Torricelli employed mercury to perform this experiment,
and soon found the clue to the mystery. He discovered that the column of
fluid was sustained by the pressure of the atmosphere on the open surface
of the fluid.

3. “Blaise Pascal.” (1623-1662) A distinguished French philosopher and
scholar. In his sixteenth year he produced a treaty on conic sections;
in his nineteenth year he invented a calculating machine. Turning his
attention to the theory of fluids which Torricelli had advanced, he
wrote two essays which established his reputation as an experimental
physicist. He was the author of the magnificent but unfinished “Pensées.”
He was of a deeply religious turn, and before his death was entirely
given up to prayer and practices of mortification, among which may be
mentioned that of wearing an iron girdle studded with sharp points which
he forced into his flesh whenever he felt himself assailed by sinful
thoughts. “Puy de Dome,” pwī deh dōm.

4. “Tarpeia,” tar-peˈya. The daughter of Tarpeius, the governor of the
citadel of Rome. She promised to open the gates of the city to the
Sabines if they would give her what they carried on their left hands,
meaning their gold bracelets. The king consented, and as he entered the
gates, to punish her perfidy he threw not only his bracelet, but his
shield upon her. His soldiers followed his example, and she was crushed
to death. She was buried in the capitol, which from her has been called
the Tarpeian Rock.

5. “Haliotis,” hal-i-ōˈtis. A genus of gasteropods with a shell
resembling the human ear. The gasteropods are a class of univalve
mollusks, like the snail.

6. “Skate.” A kind of shark. A name given to several species of fish
having a rhomboidal body.

7. “Magdeburg Hemispheres.” They are two hollow hemispheres generally
made of brass or copper, with edges accurately fitted to each other, and
one of them provided with a stop cock. When the edges are pressed tightly
together and the globe thus formed is exhausted of air through the cock,
the hemispheres are held together with such force that it is with great
difficulty they can be pulled apart.

8. “Otto von Güricke,” fon gāˈrik-eh. (1602-1686.) A celebrated German
physicist. He invented the air-pump and made the famous experiment with
the Magdeburg hemispheres.

9. “Tower of Pisa.” The round marble belfry called “The Leaning Tower”
because it deviates about fourteen feet from the perpendicular. It is
180 feet high, and consists of seven stories divided by rows of columns,
and surmounted by a flat roof and an open gallery commanding a splendid
view of the surrounding country. It was built in the twelfth century by a
German architect, Wilhelm of Innsbruck.

10. “Mariotte,” Mä-ri-ŏtˈ. A French philosopher of the seventeenth
century. He possessed an extraordinary power of drawing conclusions
from experiment. He made a thorough investigation of the subject of the
conduction of water, and calculated the strength necessary for pipes
under different circumstances.

11. “Air-gun.” An instrument resembling a musket. By means of a condenser
the air is forced into a metallic globe which is attached to the musket
nearly opposite the trigger.

12. “Torricellian Vacuum.” To produce this vacuum a small quantity of
pure mercury is placed in the tube and boiled for some time. It is then
allowed to cool and a further quantity, previously warmed, added, which
is boiled, and so on until the tube is quite full; in this manner the
moisture and the air which adhere to the sides of the tube pass off with
the mercurial vapor.

13. “Mont-golˈfi-er.” There were two brothers of this name, Etienne and
Joseph, distinguished as the inventors of the first kind of balloons.
They were both received as members of the French Academy. They lived in
the latter part of the eighteenth century.

14. “Pneumatic Dispatch.” The packages are placed on easily rolling
carriages which are nicely fitted within tubes. The force necessary to
move them is produced by the alternate compression and expansion of
air in large reservoirs. This compression and expansion is caused by
forcing the water into, and then allowing it to run out of a connecting
reservoir, the action being changed by a system of cocks.

15. “Gay-Lussac.” (1778-1850.) A Frenchman, one of the most distinguished
chemists and physicists of modern times. In 1804 he made a balloon
ascension of 23,000 feet, and Humboldt examined with him the air brought
down from that height, for the purpose of discovering the intensity of
the magnetic force. In 1839 Gay-Lussac was created a peer of France.

16. “Lockyer.” (1836-⸺.) An English astronomer. He invented a method
of observing the red flames of the sun without being obliged to wait
for an eclipse. In 1870 and 1871 he was sent to Sicily by the English
government, as the chief of the eclipse expedition.




A CHAPTER OF BLUNDERS.


Pass, certificate, and competitive examinations are, no doubt, all
sufficiently serious affairs to examinees, and sufficiently trying ones
to examiners. To the outer public, however, to those “who have no son or
brother there,” such “exams.” are, as a rule, nothing if not a source
of amusement. The “results” aimed at in examinations are, for the most
part, admirable; but in the course of the processes, in the answering
of examination questions, the unexpected constantly happens, and it
is the unlooked-for results, the “surprises” of the occasions, that
make sport for the Philistines. The situation on this head is easily
explicable. It is a natural result of the modern system of preparation
for examination—the cram system. Examinees bent only on “getting through”
will answer questions on the hit-or-miss principle, while others, whose
brains have become more or less addled under the pressure of “memory
work,” will evolve from their unbalanced inner consciousness replies
fearfully and wonderfully made.

Some of the “exam.” stories current in educational circles, though
characteristic, and possibly “founded on fact,” have an air of belonging
to the too-good-to-be-true category. A number of these are told
against—and, if invented, were probably invented by—undergraduates.
Thus—so the story goes—an undergraduate was asked to name the minor
prophets, and, not having “got them up,” neatly and politely replied that
he would rather not make invidious distinctions. Another university man,
called upon to give the parable of the Good Samaritan, did so correctly
enough until he came to the passage where the Samaritan said to the
innkeeper: “When I come again I will repay thee,” to which he added,
“This he said, knowing that he would see his face no more.” Perhaps,
however, the examinee upon this occasion was a conscious humorist, and
had in mind the worldly-wise saying, that there are a great many people
willing to play the part of the Good Samaritan, less the oil and the
twopence.

Something of the same stamp must have been the candidate for a degree,
who, asked to state the substance of St. Paul’s sermon at Athens,
said that it was “crying out for two hours, ‘Great is Diana of the
Ephesians.’” With variations, that is the substance of a great many
sermons, and of other discourses beside sermons.

Such stories as the above may or may not be rather broadly illustrative
than strictly true, but in any case they can be pretty well matched by
others, about the truthfulness of which there is no doubt. Every year a
certain proportion of the children of the London board schools enter into
a competitive examination in Scriptural knowledge, for the “Peek Prizes,”
which consist of handsomely got-up Bibles and Testaments. They are “paper
work” examinations, and the following are a few of the many curious
“hash” answers that have at various times been put in at them.

“Abraham was the father of Lot, and ad tew wives. One was called Hishmale
and tother Haggar, he kept wun at home, and he turned tother into the
desert where she became a pillow of salt in the day time, and a pillow of
fire by night.”

“Joseph wore a koat of many garments. He was chief butler to Faro and
told is dreams. He married Potiffers dortor, and he led the Gypshans out
of bondage to Kana in Gallilee, and there fell on his sword and died in
sight of the promised land.”

“Moses was an Egypshion. He lived in a hark made of bulrushes, and he
kept a golden calf and worshipt brazen snakes, and he het nothing but
kwales and manner for forty year. He was kort by the air of his ed while
riding under the bow of a tree and he was killed by his son Absolon as he
was hangin from the bow. His end was pease.”

Of the numerous stories told in connection with diocesan inspection
“exams.” in public elementary schools, the two following are perhaps
the best known and most worth quoting. At one of these exams., a boy,
asked to mention the occasion upon which it is recorded in Scripture
that an animal spoke, made answer: “The whale when it swallowed Jonah.”
The inspector, being something of a humorist, maintained his gravity
and asked: “What did the whale say?” To which the boy promptly replied:
“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Another inspector, finding
a class hesitating over answering the question, “With what weapon did
Samson slay the Philistines?” and wishing to prompt them, significantly
tapped his own cheek, and asked, “What is this?” and his action touching
“the chords of memory,” the whole class instantly answered: “The jawbone
of an ass.”

A good example of the manner in which students who are “in” for several
“subjects” at the same time get their ideas mixed, is that of the youth
who having to answer the question, “Who was Esau?” replied; “Esau was a
man who wrote fables, and sold the copyright for a bottle of potash.”
Here the confusion thrice confounded of Esau and Æsop, birthright and
copyright, and pottage and potash, is really admirable in its way.

As might be expected, the examinations of medical students afford some
good stories—true or otherwise. As might also be expected, some of them
are wittily impudent. For instance, a “badgering” examiner asked a
student what means he would employ to induce copious perspiration in a
patient, and got for answer: “I’d try to make him pass an examination
before you, sir.” The most frequently cited anecdote of this kind is that
of the brusque examiner—said by some to have been Dr. Abernethy—who,
losing patience with a student who had answered badly, exclaimed:
“Perhaps, sir, you could tell me the names of the muscles I would put in
action if I were to kick you?” “Undoubtedly, sir,” came the prompt reply;
“you would put into motion the flexors and extensors of my arm, for I
should knock you down.” On the same lines as this was the retort made
to M. Lefebvre de Fourcy, a French examiner, celebrated, not only for
his learning, but also for his severity and rudeness. He was examining
a youth, who, though well up in his work, hesitated over answering one
of the questions put to him. Losing temper at this, the examiner shouted
to an attendant: “Bring a truss of hay for this young gentleman’s
breakfast.” “Bring two,” coolly added the examinee, “Monsieur and I will
breakfast together.” Of such alleged answers by students as that the
pancreas was so named after the Midland railway station, that the bone
of the upper arm (_humerus_) was called the humerous, and was so styled
because it was known as the funny-bone; or that the ankle-bone (_tarsus_)
was so called because St. Paul walked upon it to the city of that name—of
such alleged answers as these it is charitable to suppose that they must
be weak inventions of the enemy.

Many of the comicalities in the way of examination answers recorded by
her Majesty’s inspectors of schools, the examiners in the school board
scholarships competitions, and other the like official personages, go
a long way to prove that in examination blundering, as in many other
matters, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. At least, it seems
to us that no invented story—supposing examination stories ever are
invented—could equal for “nice derangement” the following written answer
which was actually given at an examination in the “specific subjects” in
a public elementary school within the metropolitan area. The specific
subject taken was physiology, and the children “presented” in it were
asked to “describe the processes of digestion,” which one of them did
in this wise: “Food is digested by the action of the lungs. Digestion
is brought on by the lungs having something the matter with them. The
food then passes through your windpipe to the pores, and thus passes
off your body by evaporation, through a lot of little holes in your
skin called capillaries. The food is nourished in the stomach. If you
were to eat anything hard you would not be able to digest it, and the
consequence would be you would have indigestion. The gall-bladder throws
off juice from the food which passes through it. We call the kidneys the
bread-basket, because it is where all the bread goes to. They lay up
concealed by the heart.”

Domestic economy, as nowadays taught to “children of the elementary
school class,” embraces a good deal of physiological knowledge,
or rather, as applied to such children, physiological jargon. It
is a subject which affords hosts of amusing answers, though, from
considerations of space, two or three must here suffice for specimens.
Thus, in reply to the question, “Why do we cook our food?” one girl gives
the delightfully inconsequent reply: “Their of five ways of cooking
potatoes. We should die if we eat our food roar.” Another girl writes:
“The function of food is to do its proper work in the body. Its proper
work is to well masticate the food, and it goes through without dropping,
instead of being pushed down by the skin.” A third domestic economy
pupil puts in her examination paper that “food digested is when we put
it into our mouths, our teeth chews it, and our tongue roll it down into
our body.… We should not eat so much bone-making foods as flesh-forming
and warmth-giving foods, for if we did we would have too many bones,
and that would make us look funny.” On the subject of ventilation, one
student informs us that a room should be kept at ninety in the winter
by a fire; in the summer by a thermometer: while a classmate writes: “A
thermometer is an instrument used to let out the heat when it is going to
be cold.” Another girl sets down: “When roasting a piece of beef place
it in front of a brisk fire, so as to congratulate the outside.” But an
answer—still in domestic economy—that better, perhaps, than any of the
above illustrates the jargoning that comes of the cram system, is the
following: “Sugar is an amyolid, if you was to eat much sugar and not
nothing else you would not live because sugar has not got no carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. Potatoes is another amyolids.”

The definitions sometimes given by children in reply to examination
questioning, are, to say the least of it, original. After a reading of
Gray’s “Elegy” by a fourth-standard class, the boys were asked what
was meant by “fretted vaults,” and one youth replied: “The vaults in
which those poor people were buried; their friends came and fretted
over them.” Asked what he understood by “elegy,” another boy in the
same class answered: “Elegy is some poetry wrote out for schools to
learn like Gray’s ‘Elegy.’” A class of girls, who had read a passage
from “Evangeline,” were told to write out the meaning of “the forge,”
and these were among the answers, “A firnest in a blacksmith shop.” “A
firnest in a blacksmith.” “The village smithy’s anvil.” “The dust that
rises from the floor of a blacksmith’s.” A teacher, giving a reading
lesson to his class in the presence of an inspector, asked the boys what
was meant by conscience—a word that had occurred in the course of the
reading. The class having been duly crammed for the question, answered as
one boy: “An inward monitor.” “But what do you understand by an inward
monitor?” put in the inspector. To this further question only one boy
announced himself ready to respond, and his triumphantly given answer
was, “A hironclad, sir.”

A few years back there was published, as a curiosity, in its way, the
subjoined transcript from Cowper’s poem on Alexander Selkirk written
(from dictation) by a fifth-standard boy at a government examination of
a public elementary school: “I Ham Monac of hall I searve, there is none
heare my rite to Dispute from the senter. Hall round to the sea I am
lorde of the fowls to the Brute all shoshitude ware are the charms that
sages have sene in thy face better Dewel in miste of a larms than in this
moste horribel place. I am how of umity reach if must finish my Jurny a
lone never here the swete music of speach i start at the sound of my hone
the Beasts that rome over the place my form with indrifence see they are
so unocent with men such tamess is shocking to me.”

The examiner for the School Board Scholarship competed for in 1882, gives
the following among other equally strange answers on historical matters.
“When Commonwealth comes to the throne it is called Oliver Cromwell.”
“The treaty of Utrecht was fought between the Zulus and the English.”
“Lord Clive captured the Fiji Islands in 1624.” “Cardinal Wolsey was a
great warrior.” “Walpole translated the Bible.” “Walpole was another
favorite of Henry VIII. He was the chief man in helping Henry to get a
divorce.” “Chaucer wrote Æsop’s fables.” In another of these scholarship
examinations Jack Cade was described as “a great Indian conqueror,” Sir
Christopher Wren was set down as “a discoverer” and “an animal painter,”
and Mr. Gladstone as “a great African traveler.” The battle of Crecy
was stated to have been fought in the reign of George III., between the
Britons and Romans, and “The Wide, Wide World” was named as Shakspere’s
greatest work. This last, however, was not so bad as the history of a
pupil-teacher, who informed the examiner that “Shakspere lived in the
reign of George III., discovered America, and was killed by Caliban.”

A schoolboy habit of placing upon a question some literal meaning other
than that intended by the examiner, often leads to answers as curious
as unexpected. Thus an inspector, testing a class upon their knowledge
of the succession of the kings of Israel, asked the boy to whose turn
it had come to be questioned: “And who came after Solomon?” To which
the youngster answered: “The Queen of Sheba, sir.” Asked what were the
chief ends of man, another boy replied, “His head and feet;” and a third,
questioned as to where Jacob was going when he was ten years old, replied
that he was “going on for eleven.” One specially practical juvenile,
called upon to say for what the Red Sea was famous, answered, “Red
herrings!”

To the type of answers here in view, belongs an answer given by a boy
whose father was a strong teetotaler, and upon whom it would appear home
influence had made a stronger impression than school lessons. “Do you
know the meaning of syntax?” he was asked. “Yes,” he answered; “sin-tax
is the dooty upon spirits.” An inspector, who had been explaining to a
class that the land of the world was not continuous, said to the boy who
happened to be standing nearest to him: “Now, could your father walk
round the world?” “No, sir,” was promptly answered. “Why not?” “Because
he’s dead,” was the unlooked-for response. As little anticipated,
probably, was the answer made to another inspector, who asked, “What is a
hovel?” and was met with the reply: “What you live in.”

A prettily humorous examination story is that of the little Scotch boy
at the Presbytery examination. He was asked: “What is the meaning of
regeneration?” “To be born again,” he answered. “Quite right! Would you
not like to be born again?” He hesitated, but being pressed, said that
he would not, and asked why not, replied: “For fear I might be born a
lassie.” Alike astonishing and amusing was an answer given by an adult
examinee, who was “sitting” for a certificate as acting teacher. In the
examination to test general knowledge, he was asked, “What is the age of
reason?” and answered: “As many years as have elapsed since the birth
of the person so named.” It was also a certificate candidate, who, in
reading, rendered two lines from Goldsmith’s “Edwin and Angelina” thus:—

    The wicket opening with a latch
      Received the armless pair.

    —_All the Year Round._




TALK ABOUT BOOKS.


The “Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Gospel of Matthew,”[C] now
given to American readers with an admirable preface by Dr. Crooks, is
just what the title asserts, a critical exegesis of the text. The author
was a thorough linguist, and especially familiar with the language in
which Matthew wrote. His expositions, which are accurately grammatical,
give evidence of much philological research, and a strict, attention
to the _usus loquendi_ of both classic and New Testament Greek. As an
exegete he ranks with the best; albeit, the exegesis itself is, at times,
clearer than the English used to state it. Some sentences are burdened
with adjuncts, and there is not always the most felicitous arrangement of
the explanatory clauses. One familiar with good writing will occasionally
feel an impulse to recast and improve what does not quite suit him. For
professional men, and especially young ministers, the Hand-book has great
value, and is worthy of their careful study.

At least one novel book has been issued among the recent holiday volumes.
It is “One Year’s Sketch Book,”[D] a collection of engravings following
the birth, growth, and death of a year. Flowers are made to interpret
the changing phases of the seasons by the artist, for, though she weaves
in many landscapes, they are almost always as backgrounds, for now a
bunch of ox-eyed daisies, a bouquet of blue violets, a loose cluster of
roses, a spray of clematis, or a bunch of bitter-sweet. She deals more
sympathetically, too, with flowers than with other subjects, and her work
on them shows much more finish. There are several anachronisms in the
book that are annoying. March is made to follow May; the page called the
end of spring-time bears a cluster of trailing arbutus as its emblem,
a flower which belongs to the birth of spring; and in her preface, she
makes her newly wedded birds hesitate between nest building in the
locust, with its “drooping white blossoms heaving with sweetness,” and
the apple trees with their “pink and white glory blushing against the
sky,” forgetful that the “pink and white glory” has fallen to the ground
before the locust flower has come. The pictures are quite as beautiful,
however, as if placed in strict calendar order, and the make up of the
book is delightful.

Probably the most suggestive work on education ever written is Rousseau’s
“Emile.”[E] It is the work to which we owe the common sense and the
thoughtful training which more and more characterize our system of
education. It is the work which aroused Pestalozzi and Frœbel, but it has
been for many years practically a dead volume, particularly to English
readers. Old, poorly translated, long, and with many tedious digressions,
teachers and mothers who ought to have been reading it were repelled by
these difficulties. Some time ago M. Jules Steeg removed these barriers
from his French countrymen by arranging a volume into which he gathered
the most valuable portions of Emile, and now one of our country-women has
removed the difficulties from English readers by a clear translation of
Mr. Steeg’s work. It is a book worth possessing, and educators ought to
welcome this practical and satisfactory arrangement of Rousseau’s great
book.

A jest book and a history are not often found in the same volume, but the
“Enchiridion of Wit,”[F] is not only what it professes, a hand book of
English conversational wit; it is a very delightful history of certain
periods of English court and society life. The author has adopted the
novel plan of arranging chronologically the _bon-mots_ he has collected.
The effect is very striking. This grouping into periods enables a reader
to study the progress, the men, the culture and refinement of each age
from an entirely new standpoint, and one which no other book with which
we are familiar makes possible. The volume will form a valuable handbook
in studies of the education and polish of the social and literary
coteries from the time of Sir Thomas Moore down to the days of Thackeray
and Bishop Wilberforce.

“A Penniless Girl”[G] is the story of one who, simply because she was a
girl, could not inherit the immense fortune which would have fallen to
a son. Her father’s disappointment, and neglect of the daughter whose
mother died at her birth, her reception into the house of a wealthy noble
family where, after she had been well educated, she accepted the position
of governess; and her struggles to free herself from the meshes spread
on all sides to lead her into a marriage for wealth and position, and to
remain true to herself and the man she loved, make up the plot. It is a
book that will help while away an hour or so very pleasantly.

A few short extracts from the first page of “Episodes of My Second
Life”[H] give the meaning of the title. “On the 15th of August, 1836,
I was born again. On that day I embarked at Gibraltar for New York,
being then twenty-five years old. It was the beginning of a new life.”
The author is an Italian, and had passed his seventieth birthday before
beginning this book. It is made up principally of reminiscences of his
life in America and in England. His comments on some of the customs of
American social life give us a not very flattering view of ourselves as
others sometimes see us. His appreciation of the treasures of English
literature is very great, and his commendation of them as warm as his
denunciation of French literature is bitter. His patriotic, diplomatic,
literary, parliamentary, and journalistic experiences give quite an
insight into these great fields of labor. There is much of egotism within
its pages, but the book is very readable and possesses literary merit.

“Light Ahead”[I] is one of those satisfactory books in which the poor
good characters all turn out well, and have abundant opportunity to heap
coals of fire on the heads of the bad rich ones, who in former years had
treated them with contempt. The story of the little _spirituelle_ Alice,
who, from a refined home where poverty dwelt, won her way among the noble
and the true in the highest circles, until she gained an established
position in the very best society, will do good wherever it goes.

“Pretty Lucy Merwyn”[J] is a charming story for the young. There is a
freshness and an individuality about it that captivates the reader from
the first. The racy, original little speeches of Lucy and her companions
have in them a naturalness that is seldom found, and the descriptions of
their travels abroad are so vivid that those reading half believe that
they themselves are visiting the “memory haunted lands beyond the seas.”
It is written in good style and in the purest English.

Marion Harland, with her usual good sense in taking everything new and
good into the kitchen, has prepared a “Calendar”[K] for housewives. It is
the aptest device we have ever seen for furnishing a daily inspiration to
model housekeeping. No woman with a spark of household pride in her soul
can pull away the leaves of this pretty calendar day by day and read the
bright thoughts, the practical hints, and the encouraging words which
Mrs. Terhune has put on them without profit. It is a pretty object, too,
for a wall, with its richly colored sketch of Marion Harland herself,
sitting in the corner of her library.

A choice little book is the one containing two brief sketches called
“Miss Toosey’s Mission” and “Laddie.”[L] One experiences something of
a sense of wrong on looking in vain at the title page for the author’s
name. Both stories are written in a delightful manner, and find their
way straight to one’s heart. Would that there were more like poor
Miss Toosey, who grieve over making just such failures of their lives
as she thought she had. Could she only have known of the purpose which
she fanned to life in the breast of strong John Rossiter to go into the
mission field and really do what she so fondly dreamed of once, she would
have felt that she had wrought “better than she knew.”

The “Laddie” was a prominent physician in London, who years before as
an uncommonly promising youth had left his simple rural home and poor
mother. The story tells of how she went to find him, and the thoughtless
words he spoke which made her leave his grand house, and of the long
search he had for her and the sad finding.

The firm, convinced statements of Dr. Van Dyke in “The Reality of
Religion”[M] are a welcome change from much “popular” writing and
preaching on religious themes. To him there is no question of the
truths of the Bible. God is _manifest_ as a physical reality, a moral
reality, an historical reality, a spiritual reality. The saving power
of the Cross of Christ is no theory; it is a fact. The whole is ringing
with the perfect confidence the writer feels in the living truths which
he presents. It carries in its tone conviction. The book is a strong
argument for what it teaches. If one man has found such perfect knowledge
no reader can afford to overlook his experience. It is a forcible appeal
to unbelievers; it is splendid help to wavering minds.

Mrs. Harrison, in writing “The Old Fashioned Fairy Book”[N] has not only
opened up a world of delight for little readers in which they can amuse
themselves by the hour, but has also conferred a great favor upon mothers
and many other older persons by putting into their hands the means by
which they may be enabled to respond to the oft repeated wish, “tell us
a story, please.” The book is a treasure house in which one may find
that which will suit any hour and any mood. There are tales of dwarfs
and witches, and “lots of fairies,” and lovely princesses, and brave
champions, and all the rest of the things that belong to fairy lore.
And charming illustrations set off the whole book; even the cover is a
delight.

We are pleased to welcome a complete collection of Lucy Larcom’s
poems.[O] For many years she has been sending out her fresh, loving
verses, until she has won a warm place in the hearts of earnest
readers. Her poems possess beside a real melody in versification, a
pure, devotional tone which makes them something better than merely
pleasing; it makes them inspiring. Her deep appreciation of nature, her
quick sympathy with the sorrowing and the tempted, her tender love for
childhood, fill her poems, making them most beautiful collections for
lovers of verse.

“How We Live”[P] is a little book finely illustrated, that treats of
Physiology and Hygiene. It is adapted to the use of scholars in the
elementary schools. The chapters are short, well arranged, and clearly
expressed; at the end of each is a list of questions upon the subjects
taught in the chapter, put in a novel and interesting manner. The effects
of alcohol and narcotics upon the system are pointed out, but great
care has been taken not to exaggerate the statements, as is too often
the tendency in a work of this nature. The book merits a welcome from
all parents, who should see that their children are learning just such
lessons as it teaches, and so growing up to be strong men and women.

One of the new series of Appleton’s Science Text-Books is a Compend of
Geology.[Q] The aim of the author has been to make an interesting as well
as an instructive book, and to direct the attention of scholars to the
phenomena now occurring on all sides. No roundabout method for leading
up to the study proper has been used, but the author has very simply
commenced at the beginning. The directness of the whole book is one of
its best features. His method of unfolding the science is at once easy
and natural, and can not fail to awaken and retain the close attention of
the student. The definitions are clear, concise, and simply stated; the
illustrations are numerous and finely supplement the text.

A very neat little book is that called “Vocal and Action Language.”[R]
In a carefully prepared introduction the objections against the study of
elocution are very fairly met, and its necessity, importance and history
set forth. Public speakers can gather many a useful hint from its pages
aside from the practical drill lessons which it contains.

[C] Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Gospel of Matthew. By
Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Th.D. Translated from the sixth edition of
the German, by the Rev. Peter Christie. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. 1884.

[D] One Year’s Sketch Book. Illustrated and arranged by Irene E. Jerome.
Boston: Lee & Shepard, Publishers. New York: Charles T. Dillingham. 1885.

[E] Emile; or Concerning Education. Extracts, with an Introduction
and Notes by Jules Steeg, Dêputé Paris, France. Translated by Eleanor
Worthington. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1885.

[F] The Enchiridion of Wit. The Best Specimens of English Conversational
Wit. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1885.

[G] A Penniless Girl. A Novel. From the German of W. Heimburg. Translated
by Mrs. A. L. Wister. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1885.

[H] Episodes of My Second Life. By Antonio Gallengo. Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott & Co. 1885.

[I] Light Ahead. By Cecelia A. Gardiner. New York: Phillips & Hunt.
Cincinnati: Walden & Stowe. 1884. Price, $1.25.

[J] Pretty Lucy Merwyn. By Mary Lakeman. Boston: Lee & Shepard,
publishers. New York: Charles T. Dillingham. 1884.

[K] The Common Sense Calendar. By Marion Harland. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons. 1885.

[L] “Miss Toosey’s Mission” and “Laddie.” Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1884.

[M] The Reality of Religion. By Henry J. Van Dyke, Jr., D.D. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[N] The Old Fashioned Fairy Book. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated by
Miss Rosina Emmet. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1884. Price, $2.00.

[O] The Poetical works of Lucy Larcom. Household edition. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885.

[P] How We Live, or the Human Body and How to Take Care of it. By James
Jolonot and Eugene Bouton, Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1884.

[Q] A Compend of Geology. By Joseph Le Conte. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
1884.

[R] Vocal and Action Language. By E. N. Kirby. Boston: Lee & Shepard,
publishers. New York: C. T. Dillingham. 1885.




SPECIAL NOTES


CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF CHURCH WORK.

Rev. Geo. P. Hays, D.D., Director, Box 2529, Denver, Colorado.


This school is designed to do whatever may be found practicable in
training Christians for official position in their churches, and for
personal effort for the conversion of their acquaintances and friends.
With this in view, it is divided into two departments, and will during
the summer session of 1885 hold two sessions per day.

_Official Duty._—This department will hold a morning session. Here the
theory of all official authority and influence, and the best methods of
meeting the same, will be studied in their scriptural statements, their
abstract application in the rules of business and of the church, and
their concrete illustrations in the lives of successful officers in the
church and the world.

_Personal Effort._—This department will hold an afternoon session, at
which the Scriptural obligation to work as individuals will be carefully
considered, and, afterward, the best methods of dealing with our
friends as to their objections, their fears, and their indifference.
In both departments an effort will be made duly to appreciate personal
peculiarities, and yet for all make the experience of others as useful as
possible.

The stationery adopted for the classes of ’87 and ’88 is out, and very
pretty it is, too. Mr. Henry Hart, of Atlanta, Ga., manufactures and
sells the paper for these classes. The satisfaction which his badges have
given is the best recommendation for his stationery. Readers of the C. L.
S. C. who may wish to secure either badges or paper will reach Mr. Hart
by addressing Atlanta, Ga.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Alma Mater_, No. 3, which has just been sent to all members of the C.
L. S. C., is the first number for the current year 1884-5. Four numbers
will be sent during the year, but on account of some necessary changes,
the various “lessons” in every-day speech, self-discipline, etc., will
not appear in the order first announced. The readings in each of the four
numbers will be _required_, but not in connection with the work of any
one month.

       *       *       *       *       *

Members of the class of ’88 should send items of particular interest to
the class to the Rev. C. C. McLean, Jacksonville, Florida. Mr. McLean has
been chosen to prepare class matter for THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Do not let him
lack for news. Those items which interest you as a “Plymouth Rock” will
interest your classmates.




SUNDAY-SCHOOL NORMAL GRADUATES.

CLASS OF 1884.


CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY NORMAL ALUMNI.

  O. B. Booth                  Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Mrs. O. S. Baum              Chautauqua, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  Harriet E. Borden            Kalkaska, Kalkaska Co., Mich.
  O. S. Baum                   Chautauqua, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  Gertrude E. Cutler           Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  Alvaretta Crouse             118 Brown St., Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Caroline C. Cornnelle        Madisonville, Hamilton Co., Ohio.
  Harry E. Crankshaw           409 E. Center St., Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Josephine L. Creque          Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Orra N. Chamberlain          Watseka, Iroquois Co., Ill.
  Charles E. Caskey            Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Bella C. Carter              Randolph, Cattaraugus Co., N. Y.
  George W. Dithridge          751 Broadway, New York, N. Y.
  Harriet M. L. Dithridge      Tionesta, Forest Co., Pa.
  Ella B. Downey               Windsor Hotel, Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Morris Elwell                Newark Valley, Tioga Co., N. Y.
  Hattie M. Ensign             Madison, Lake Co., Ohio.
  Sadie L. Gifford             Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Cornelius C. Hunt            Summerville, Jefferson Co., Pa.
  Clara E. Hill                Buffalo, Erie Co., N. Y.
  Ella M. Holden               Marlborough, Middlesex Co., Mass.
  Carrie E. Hill               46 York St., Buffalo, Erie Co., N. Y.
  Rettie M. Hanna              Lakeville, Livingston Co., N. Y.
  Mrs. E. J. Harper            North Hope, Butler Co., Pa.
  W. C. Herrick                713 E. Market St., Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Cora J. Hoover               Flushing, Genesee Co., Mich.
  Emma M. Jones                Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Lillie W. Johnson            Memphis, Shelby Co., Tenn.
  Emma D. Knapp                Box 102, Fairfield, Fairfield Co., Conn.
  Jennie F. Kenyon             207 S. Union St., Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Lorenzo Kidder               Connellsville, Fayette Co., Pa.
  J. H. King                   133 W. Fourth St., Cincinnati, Ohio.
  Christina Lang               Fetterman, Allegheny Co., Pa.
  Celia R. Long                Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Sadie Lyle                   37 Liberty St., Allegheny City,
                                   Allegheny Co., Pa.
  Inez Marshall                Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Mrs. Fanny A. Marsh          Union City, Erie Co., Pa.
  Miss Vie Maynard             Busti, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  F. E. Meigs                  Warrensburg, Johnson Co., Mo.
  Marcia Mitchell              Terre Haute, Vigo Co., Ind.
  Ora M. Neeld                 81 Wood St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
  Ella Paterson                Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Frank C. Perkins             Dunkirk, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  Sarah J. Payne               Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co., Pa.
  Amos A. Rothtrock            Westerville, Franklin Co., Ohio.
  Ida E. Rockwell              Darien, Genesee Co., N. Y.
  Louise Rickart               1131 Madison St., St. Louis, Mo.
  May Rhodes                   Corry, Erie Co., Pa.
  William G. Roberts           Bellevue, Huron Co., Ohio.
  Charles L. Reifsnider        115 James St., Akron, Ohio.
  J. Frumont Scott             Delaware, Delaware Co., Ohio.
  T. C. Strickland             Randolph, Cattaraugus Co., N. Y.
  Laura L. Smith               120 W. Seventh St., Terre Haute, Ind.
  Helen A. Storer              Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  James H. Smart               Kingsville, Essex Co., Ontario.
  L. M. Swanzey                Ridott, Stephenson Co., Ill.
  Harry G. Limric              Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  Frances M. Sawyers           32 Ward St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
  M. E. Taylor                 513 Prospect St., Cleveland, Ohio.
  Mrs. Alice Trow              Drake’s Mills, Crawford Co., Pa.
  Mrs. Josephine Taylor        Pittsburgh, Pa.
  Emily Gertrude Weegar        Akron, Summit Co., Ohio.
  The Rev. Charles G. Wood     Kansas, Edgar Co., Ill.
  Cora E. Wise                 110 N. Summit St., Akron, Ohio.
  Hattie M. Wise               110 N. Summit St., Akron, Ohio.
  Mrs. Margaret A. Watts       13 Main St., Louisville, Ky.
  E. E. Williams               Tilsonburg, Oxford Co., Ontario.
  Hattie L. Waters             Southfield, Oakland Co., Mich.
  Jennie T. Weimer             209 S. Forge St., Akron, Ohio.


FRAMINGHAM NORMAL UNION.

  Rubie L. Adams               care of the Rev. E. A. Adams, Chicago, Ill.
  Nellie F. Alexander          56 Messer St., Providence, R. I.
  Lottie M. Alexander          63 Court St., Boston, Mass.
  Emily J. Anthony             13 Chestnut St., Providence, R. I.
  Anna L. Batchelder           Westborough, Worcester Co., Mass.
  Annie C. Beale               Wiscasset, Lincoln Co., Maine.
  Mrs. Sarah J. Bragg          Spencer, Worcester Co., Mass.
  Emma F. Brown                17 Piedmont St., Worcester, Mass.
  M. Anna Burns                Oakdale, Worcester Co., Mass.
  Mrs. H. K. Burrison          West Newton, Middlesex Co., Mass.
  Mrs. Geo. Clark              5 Home St., Worcester, Mass.
  Mary E. Dorr                 Cordaville, Worcester Co., Mass.
  Mrs. S. C. Dyer              Spencer, Mass.
  Minnie E. Gaskins            Mattapan, Suffolk Co., Mass.
  Jessie E. Guernsey           Framingham, Mass.
  Mrs. S. C. Hayward           Fitchburg, Mass.
  Jesse H. Jones               North Abington, Plymouth Co., Mass.
  Miss G. F. Leonard           Cambridgeport, Mass.
  Elizabeth Merriam            South Framingham, Mass.
  Ella F. Moore                Framingham, Mass.
  Mrs. Nellie E. Moulton       8 Madison St., Worcester, Mass.
  Abbie P. Noyes               72 Line St., Newburyport, Mass.
  Ella C. Roberts              19 Mount Vernon St., Boston, Mass.
  Mary L. Sawyer               Boxford, Essex Co., Mass.
  Miss M. J. Sherman           Brookfield, Mass.
  Carrie L. Smith              13 Broadway, Providence, R. I.
  Elizabeth F. Thayer          Lexington, Mass.
  Effie L. Warner              574 Maine St., Worcester, Mass.
  Florence E. Whitcher         Lexington, Middlesex Co., Mass.
  Mrs. Emma C. White           Braintree, Norfolk Co., Mass.
  Stella M. A. Wilcox          Providence, R. I.
  Lillia T. Witherbee          100 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.


INTER-STATE ASSEMBLY, OTTAWA, KANSAS.

  A. P. Allen                  Hillsborough, Montgomery Co., Ill.
  Robert Cochran               Bridgeport, Kan.
  H. J. Coker                  Garnett, Anderson Co., Kan.
  J. F. Drake                  Emporia, Lyon Co., Kan.
  Mary H. Gardner              1023 Grand Ave., Kansas City, Mo.
  George K. Grant              Media, Douglas Co., Kan.
  O. Hansen                    Centralia, Nemaha Co., Kan.
  M. Ingels                    Lanna, Allen Co., Kan.
  Rose M. Kinney               Hamlin, Brown Co., Kan.
  Mary E. Leonard              Ottawa, Franklin Co., Kan.
  Mrs. C. B. Markham           1121 Parallel St., Atchison, Kan.
  R. L. McNabb                 Council Grove, Morris Co., Kan.
  Jennie Penrod                Emporia, Lyon Co., Kan.
  The Rev. Francis Rice        Augusta, Butler Co., Kan.
  Mary E. Gibson               Ottawa, Franklin Co., Kan.
  Mrs. Sarah K. Stebbins       Atchison, Atchison Co., Kan.
  The Rev. F. C. Sherman       Stockton, Rooks Co., Kan.
  William Wheeler              Ottawa, Franklin Co., Kan.


SUNDAY-SCHOOL PARLIAMENT.

  Herman C. Boehme             Fordham, N. Y.
  Sadia E. Baird               193 Waverly Place, N. Y. City.
  Mrs. Hattie E. Buell         Cazenovia, Madison Co., N. Y.
  Delia A. Matson              Oswego Falls, Oswego Co., N. Y.
  Libbie I. McLean             193 Waverly Place, N. Y. City.


MOUNTAIN LAKE PARK ASSEMBLY.

  Robert W. Armstrong          128 Lexington St., Baltimore, Md.
  The Rev. L. E. Peters        Clarksburg, West Va.
  The Rev. M. W. Ryder         Oakland, Md.
  G. W. Atkinson               Wheeling, West Va.
  Laura W. Rice                197 Carrolton Ave., Baltimore, Md.


CHAUTAUQUA TEACHERS’ UNION.

[Individual students who have taken the Normal Course and Examination.]

  Effie Danforth               Peru, Huron Co., Ohio.
  Minnie A. Fletcher           122 East 19th St., New York City.
  John T. Judd                 Lewisburg, Union Co., Pa.
  Mrs. Ella C. Keith           16 Cambridge St., Worcester, Mass.
  John A. Parker               Schooley’s Mountain, Morris Co., N. J.
  Cyrus Poling                 Philippi, Barbour Co., West Va.
  Antoinette F. Peterson       720 14th St., N. W., Washington, D. C.
  Margaretta V. Wilcox         649 North 35th St., Philadelphia, Pa.
  William S. Corlett           Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio.
  Fred. C. Abbott              Waterbury, Conn.
  Florence Edwards             594 Prospect St., Cleveland, Ohio.
  Mrs. E. P. Hickok            Winfield, Cowley Co., Kan.
  Ida A. Mahler                Box 564, Waterbury, Conn.
  William McKay                East Norwich, Queens Co., N. Y.
  A. W. Moss                   Sweet Valley, Luzerne Co., Pa.
  Retta Richardson             Stockton, Chautauqua Co., N. Y.
  Edwin H. Williams            Waterbury, Conn.
  Minnie A. Wyman              Waterbury, Conn.
  Jennie G. Haight             Cleveland, Ohio.
  Emily H. Miller              New Vienna, Clinton Co., Ohio.
  Mrs. Cornelius D. Tinsley    3 Adams St., Petersburg, Va.
  Miss E. Beswick              58 Anne St., Toronto, Ontario.
  Carrie Baur                  432 North 6½ St., Terre Haute, Ind.
  Mary J. Erwin                Charlotte, Mich.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 188, “term” changed to “terms” (The terms Æginetan and Eubœic)

Pages 188-189, “drachma” and “drachme” are both used for the singular.
Not changed.

Page 189, “when” changed to “then” (one drachma, then very dear)

Page 189, “Similarily” changed to “Similarly” (Similarly in music)

Page 190, “856” changed to “586” (the public contests at Delphi (586))

Page 192, “taught” changed to “taut” (from whose taut string arrows fly)

Page 194, “beome” changed to “become” (to become more pleasing)

Page 198, reversed order of lines “apples into the whites, which must
have been whipped to a” and “stiff froth. Beat in the sugar with a few
light sweeps of the”, originally printed the other way around.

Page 202, “Guy Lussac” changed to “Gay-Lussac” (the loftiest mountains.
Gay-Lussac)

Page 225, “Chatuauquan” changed to “Chautauquan” (the chemical
experiments given in THE CHAUTAUQUAN)

Page 228, “Worccster” changed to “Worcester” (Worcester, Mass.)

Page 229, “he” changed to “the” (contained in the Bible)

Page 229, “ffrst” changed to “first” (been the first Asiatic)

Page 234, “sinc” changed to “since” (since farmers usually double their
caution)

Page 234, noted more for amusement than anything else, the line “in
millions of households—less buying of customary comforts—are” was
originally printed upside down.

Page 241, “Pensees” changed to “Pensées” (the magnificent but unfinished
“Pensées.”)

Page 241, “Guy-Lassac” changed to “Gay-Lussac” (Gay-Lussac was created a
peer)

Page 241, “th eEnglish” changed to “the English” (by the English
government)

Page 242, repeated word “are” removed (students who are “in” for several
“subjects”)

Page 244, “Gibralter” changed to “Gibraltar” (I embarked at Gibraltar for
New York)

Page 245, “Steegs” changed to “Steeg” (an Introduction and Notes by Jules
Steeg)