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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.      JULY, 1885.      No. 10.




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.

    Some Damascene Pictures                         559
    The Boston Museum of Fine Arts
        Second Paper                                562
    Sanitary Conditions of Summer Resorts           564
    Wayside Homes                                   567
    Sunday Readings
        [_July 5_]                                  570
        [_July 12_]                                 570
        [_July 19_]                                 570
        [_July 26_]                                 571
    “We Salute Thee, and Live”                      571
    A Group of Mummies                              572
    A Trip to Mt. Shasta                            573
    Reassurement                                    576
    Will It Pay?                                    577
    Geography of the Heavens for July               578
    How Air Has Been Liquefied                      579
    American Decorative Art                         582
    Some Modern Literary Men of Germany             585
    Historic Niagara                                586
    Two Fashionable Poisons                         589
    Our C. L. S. C. Column                          591
    Glimpses of the Chautauqua Program              592
    Local Circles                                   593
    The C. L. S. C. Classes                         600
    The Summer Assemblies                           603
    Editor’s Outlook                                606
    Editor’s Note-Book                              609
    Talk About Books                                611
    Chautauqua in Japan                             612
    Program of Popular Exercises                    613
    Special Notes                                   616




SOME DAMASCENE PICTURES.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D.D.


One is forcibly struck with the Damascene bazars. They thread the old
city in all directions. Some of them are new, and some very old. The most
of them are covered ways, where either side is divided into small booths,
or shops. The bazar has its specialty—the brass bazar, the silversmith
bazar, the goldsmith bazar, the shoe bazar, the silk bazar, and all the
rest. Then there is another order of division, such as the Greek bazar
and the Frank bazar. There is sometimes, however, a breaking up of all
orders, for goods of very varied character you can sometimes get in the
same bazar. The oldest of these quaint marts date back many centuries,
and are mere holes, or rickety houses, where buying and selling have
been going on for many a generation. The venders love these old places.
I imagine their fathers, and even remote ancestors sat in the same spot,
and did business in much the same way, and chaffed about the prices in
quite as much hyperbole, four or five centuries ago, as their children
do to-day, when a Frank drops into the busy way, and halts, and asks a
question concerning the beautiful wares.

The love is for the old. No Damascene wants to change to the new. The
smooth floor and familiar shelves of his booth he could not give up to
another for many a bright _bishlik_.

Not long since the Pasha of Damascus, who had been long making vain
efforts to get the shop-keepers of a stretch of the bazar in the “street
that is called straight,” to pull down their booths and put up new ones,
had to give up the task as hopeless. Finally he ordered that, at a given
signal, one night, the bazar should be set fire to in a number of places.
His officers did their duty well. They knew what they were about. The
result was that long reaches of this one bazar were burned to the ground.
The wares went up in smoke with the tinder which enclosed them.

“What could the people do?” I asked my informant.

“Do? Why, nothing at all.”

“Were they insured? Did they get any compensation back again for the
destruction of their property?”

“Not in the least. The Pasha had the power. No questions were asked. The
consequence is, that, as you see, new bazars are building in various
places. Soon they will be occupied by gay, oriental wares, and things
will go on quite the same as before. Only there will be more light and
fresher air.”

Among the specialties sold in the Damascene bazars we may mention silk
goods, first of all. They are combined with cotton, and woven into
various patterns for dress and furniture. They defy all competition the
world over. The patterns are exquisite. No wonder this artistic weaving
has given the city’s name, or damask, to such fabrics for all time.
Curtains and all manner of stuffs are woven, and are here displayed in
such combinations as to bewilder any but Orientals. I saw, during my
stay, the places where these fine silks are woven. There are no great
shops, no few places where they come from. They are produced in small
houses, in obscure and ill-odorous streets, and by thousands of hands,
young and old. It is the toil of the poor, the young, and the infirm, in
sunless cellars and obscure corners which brings out these sunny silks
and beautiful designs. Queens send here from afar to buy them. There, in
the hotel, I saw the Crown Prince of Austria and his fair-haired Belgian
bride. Before twenty-four hours will have passed they will be buying
these silks of Damascus, and in less than six months Stephanie will be
wearing them at a court dinner. When she becomes Empress she will be
having more of them, and her favorite rooms will likely be hung with the
rich stuffs sent direct from these busy bazars, but coming first from
dingy homes and little rickety looms.

Yes, one learns an easy lesson here, in these oriental countries, of
the contrast between the hand that weaves and the body that wears the
stuffs that adorn the world’s gayest places. In Agra, behind the barred
gate, I saw the chained prisoners of the jail weaving most patiently one
rich India carpet for the ex-Empress Eugenie, and another, of different
figure, but even more rich, for Queen Victoria. It takes about six months
for the workers to finish their work. As they weave, one hears the clank
of the chains about their feet. But, in the later years, when those great
carpets will still delight the eye, few will ever think of the places
where the fine wool from Cashmere was woven into such pleasing shapes.


DAMASCENE TRADITIONS.

There is nothing in the way of safe tradition in Damascus. They will show
you—yes, what will they not show you? I let them tell me everything,
and have given no interdict to our dragoman. He is to tell me all the
wildest traditions he pleases, and take me to every sacred spot, and I
am to listen. No wonder he has brought me to the house of Ananias, the
good friend of the blind Saul, before he became the far-seeing apostle to
the Gentiles. We had to leave our carriage and go through several narrow
and dirty streets, and got thoroughly wearied by the walk, and then had
to wait for a key, and be surrounded by begging children, and be pounded
between donkeys with heavily-burdened panniers, and be led down a damp
stairway into the darkness, to find the way to the house of Ananias.

There is no harm in asking questions. So, to the question as to how they
know this is where he lived, the answer came:

“Until lately, nobody knew where Ananias lived. But some years ago a
learned man from the west came here and told us this was the place, and
so it must be true.”

Now, I take this comfort: Ananias lived somewhere in Damascus, and there
is as much probability that he lived here as anywhere else. That is
enough for me. Why should we disturb things of such little moment?

But there is not much room for doubting the neighborhood of the place
where Paul entered the city. It was the gate nearest the southern side
of the city. The old Roman road northward terminated at the gate. It is
probable that no change has taken place in the road, and that it follows
just the general line, and even the curves, that it did in the remote
period. On this southern side of Damascus there has been but little
change in the wall from Paul’s day to ours. You can see at a glance that
all the lower part of the wall is of Roman work. The blocks are large,
clear cut, and brought into closest brotherhood without a grain of
mortar. The joining is still perfect. It was the wall of Paul’s time, and
only the upper part has been torn down and rebuilt. It is as easy to see
the difference between Roman and Turkish workmanship as to trace the line
between a Moslem mosque and the Theseum in Athens.

They will show you, in Damascus, the very place where Paul was let down
from the wall in a basket. Let them enjoy their definite locality! But
I did get, very near the alleged spot, an idea which I had never had
before—that there was a mode of building which favored the letting down
of any one from the top of the wall. One can see, in several places on
this same southern side of Damascus, that people live in houses adjusted
on the top of the wall itself. I saw one of these diminutive houses which
projected over the wall so far that one might well wonder why it did not
fall down to the earth. What more natural thing than that Paul was let
down from just such a place. There was not a gate in the wall near by,
and nothing was more natural and easy than to aid his escape in this way.

I lingered some time about the Roman gateway. It is an enchanting spot.
The great blocks of stone, the pillars, the archway, the smooth stones,
over which you walk to reach it, the general curve of the wall, tell
of the Roman times, and bring you face to face with the little church
in Damascus which was soon to set the whole eastern and western world
ablaze by its leading of Paul to the light. Along all the ways, out by
this Roman gate, the people were twisting silk, and getting it ready
for the loom. It was of hard fiber, yellow, rich, and glistening in the
afternoon shimmer of the sun, as it came back from the pink sides of
the Anti-Libanus mountains. There was no available spot which was not
utilized by long stretches of the silk cord. It was drawn off in all
directions, and we had to walk carefully to keep from stumbling against
the twister’s twist.


THE CAMELS.

Not very far from the Roman gate was the great camel space. It was the
point of departure for caravans to Palmyra, Mecca, and the whole eastern
world. Here were hundreds of camels. They seemed to be waiting for the
finishing burdens. Some were already loaded, and were pausing for the
rest. I know not how long it requires for the completing of a caravan.
But it seems that when some camels are loaded they are taken to the
outside space, and are kept watch over until all of the others are ready.
It must be no small or brief matter to get a caravan ready. Then, when
the last camel is laden, and he takes his place in the caravan, and the
signal is given to move on, what a commotion it makes! Friends come down
to see their friends off. It is the moving off of many people, and of
vast treasures of merchandise. Merchants and travelers, and many others
who wish to go to the distant places across the desert, for any purpose
whatever, go with the caravan. It is the safest way, for the train is
guarded, and has, I imagine, the protection of the government. There is
something singularly poetical, as well as practical, in the moving of the
caravan. It is a thing which does not occur every day. Much commercial
gain depends upon its safe conduct and arrival. The camels must be of
just the right kind to endure the long journey and the great fatigue.
The gait is slow and dull. There is the dreariest monotony. Yet this is
the way these people have been traveling and doing business, and keeping
up the connections for all these long ages. As things now seem, it would
appear to be ages still before the railway, or even the wagon, will take
the place of the much-enduring camel, the ship of the desert.


BUCKLE’S GRAVE.

Close beside the space allotted for the camels which make the long
caravans for Damascus, I came across the little English cemetery. It is
a quiet spot, surrounded by a high wall. The gate was locked, and there
was no way of getting within it. I could not tell where the key was to be
found; wherever it was, it was a long distance off, in the heart of the
city. So, by the aid of our dragoman, I succeeded in climbing to the top
of the wall, and seeing the one grave in which I was most interested—that
of Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of the “History of Civilization.”
Buckle had wearied himself out with literary work. His methods were not
the most wise nor expeditious. He was an indefatigable gleaner of facts,
and a patient gatherer of notes from all quarters, and he piled up his
note-books in great heterogeneous masses. He seems to have had but little
help, and not to have husbanded his strength. So, like many men who
begin to rest when it is all too late, he went off on distant travel. He
reached Damascus. His mind must have kindled afresh as he saw this city
of weavers and strange oriental combinations, and the thought of the long
and hoary history of the place. But he was too weary to think longer. He
lay down to die, and here he rests, under the shadow of the thick and
high walls of a little graveyard, where only seldom an Anglo-Saxon comes
to visit the sacred place. The accumulation of years is beginning to tell
upon the inscription. But it is still very legible, and gives the record
of his brief and toiling life.

There is something singularly touching in this little graveyard. There
are only a few graves, yet among them, besides Buckle’s, are several
English noblemen and titled ladies. The inscriptions repeat the story of
love and tears, as everywhere else. None who come here expect to die.
But the difficulties of removal are great. There are great and long
settled superstitions against the transportation of the dead in all these
eastern countries. The best way is to let our friends lie where they
fall, and to care for the perpetual beauty of their resting place. The
little graveyards of the Anglo-Saxons in all the eastern cemeteries make
a strange appeal to the sympathies. I have seen many of them, and always
they teach a new lesson of the suddenness of death, of the pilgrimage
which we call life, and of the burning love of those who remain behind,
and who write their words of tenderest affection upon stone in far-off
lands.


THE GREAT MOSQUE.

There are few mosques which have a more interesting history than the
great one of Damascus. Of all those in existence, save only that of
Mecca, the greatest interest probably clusters about this one. It is not
as splendid as that of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, and yet it has
some elements of touching story that not even that one possesses. It
stands upon the foundation of a Greek temple. In the early Christian ages
it required only an imperial order to convert a temple into a church.
So, when the Emperor Arcadius, toward the close of the fourth century,
wished to convert this temple into a church, all he needed to do was
to declare his will, and hurl out the pagan priesthood, and make a few
minor changes, and the deed was done. It became a splendid church, whose
fame went out into all lands. Thus it remained until the rise of the
Mohammedan faith. When Damascus was conquered, so arduous was the strife
that the leader of the Christians met the leader of the Moslems near the
spot where the church stood, and, by agreement, part of the church was
given up to the Mohammedans, and part still reserved by the Christians.
But Christian and Moslem had the same doorway. This state of things
could not last a great while. The Caliph Omar I. asked the Christians
to sell their right to a part of the church. They refused, and then he
took it from them. But he was fair enough to given them perpetual right
to other churches in the city and its environs. He then set to work to
beautify and make still more splendid this ancient building. He is said
to have brought from Constantinople 1,200 skilled artists, and to have
searched over all Syria for the most splendid pillars and architectural
adornments, with which to beautify and enlarge the building. Precious
stones were used for mosaic, vines of solid gold were made to run over
the archways, the wooden ceiling was overlaid with a plating of gold, and
from its glittering height there hung six hundred gold lamps.

The wars and time have told strangely upon this rich, historical
building. The lamps are gone, no doubt to serve the purposes of warfare.
The plating on the ceiling has disappeared, probably for the same reason.
Much of the splendor has departed. But there are still the magnificent
columns, with mutilated capitals and defaced bases, which once belonged
to the Greek pagans of Syria, and in their long life, have witnessed the
worship of Baal, Jupiter, Mohammed, and the one true Savior.

The present reminders of the time when this vast building of four hundred
and twenty-nine feet in length and one hundred and twenty-five feet wide,
was new, are numerous and very prominent. Everywhere, at every step you
take, you see the old peering out boldly through the new and the late.
Here is a patch of rich and deep-stoned mosaic, which has escaped a
thousand destructive forces, and still stands as a witness to the time of
remote Christianity, when Mohammed was not yet born. The stained windows,
with glass so somber and subdued that one can hardly see even this
blazing Syrian sun’s rays through it, are few in number, but they must
have been made by Christian hands, in the far gone and fading Byzantine
times. Even the Roman peers through the Christian, and one sees strong
evidences of the times when the star had not yet stood over the manger
at Bethlehem, and when the Greek paganism ruled from the Mediterranean
to the borders of India. Here is an archway with only one stone missing,
which is as perfect a bit of Greek architecture as Athens can furnish
to-day.

One of the most singular features of this building is this—the respect
which the Mohammedan shows here for Christianity. I have seen nothing
equal to it elsewhere. There is here, belonging to the Greek mosque, the
Madinet ’Isa, or “Minaret of Jesus,” and the Mohammedans have a belief
that when the Christ comes he will appear on this minaret. Bloody as
has been the history of Damascus, and violent as has often been the
treatment of the Christians by the natives, the Mohammedans have been
compelled to respect the Christians, and to remember the relation of this
wonderful city to early Christianity.

Let me give another illustration of how the old still looks through the
new. To the dragoman I said, when he seemed to have shown us everything:

“Where is that Christian inscription?”

“Oh,” he replied, “nobody goes there much now. It is dangerous to get to
it. You have to leap across a bazar, from one house-top to another. It is
very dangerous.”

There were two ladies in our little party, and they were not at all
frightened by the outlook. It was simply a dragoman’s excuse to save
himself a little trouble. We all agreed that Franz must show us the
inscription. We went out of the mosque, down the street, then into the
silver bazar, then up a rickety stairway, and finally out over the flat
roofs of various buildings back to the outer wall of the mosque. We were
at the limit, and either had to leap over a deep span, the width of a
narrow street, or put a wide board across it. A couple of piasters soon
provided the board from a man who was just waiting to serve us, and in
one minute more we were reading, along the architrave of one side of the
old mosque, these words from David, in early Greek:

    “Thy kingdom [O, Christ] is an everlasting kingdom, and thy
    dominion endureth throughout all generations.”

This inscription has stood here through all the years since they were
put there first by the Christians of the fourth century, after they had
changed the temple into the church. The letters are as clear as the sun
in the heavens.

It is, perhaps, the only illustration where Mohammedanism has permitted
a Christian inscription to stand. It is not likely to be removed in the
future, but will come into use when all the mosques are again made into
Christian temples.

It is not an easy climb to the top of one of these lofty minarets. But
we resolved to do it. The picture never fades from the mind. Toward
the west we could see, as though within arm’s length, Ubel Sheikh, or
Mount Hermon, with its great folds of snow, that make his perpetual
turban of spotless white. Out from the sides of the Anti-Libanus burst
the Abana and Pharpar, which go singing down to the desert, and produce
the damascenes of all the countries. Yonder is the Christian quarter,
there the Jewish, and in another direction the Mohammedan. Far off to
the northeast lies Palmyra. But we can not see it. It is a four days’
camel journey distant. The illimitable desert stretches east and south
and north, and these two “better rivers” of Damascus lose themselves
in those two little lakes, whose silver surface just glistens a little
in this perfect sun. Fruit trees are everywhere in bloom. The almond,
the plum—the damson takes its name from Damascus—and the apricot, are
everywhere in full blaze, and make the city one vast nosegay. The murmur
of fountains rises from a thousand courts, while the streets are alive
with the streams which have been vexed and teased away by many a device
from these living rivers. You get weary with the view.

We now descend. How shall we see the way down the dingy steps? By the
same lamp which had guided us up. Yes, it is a veritable coal-oil
lantern. Think of it—the mixing up of the centuries! My Anglo-Saxon
feet have been guided to the topmost point of one of the world’s oldest
buildings here in grand and hoary Damascus, by the aid of a kerosene
lantern, every drop of whose petroleum has come from Oil City or its
neighborhood.

DAMASCUS, March 8, 1885.

       *       *       *       *       *

I do not pretend that books are everything.… Some day I may say some very
hard things about people who keep their books so close before their eyes
that they can not see God’s world, nor their fellow men and women. But
books rightly used are society.—_E. E. Hale, in “How to Do It.”_




THE BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS.

BY CLARENCE COOK.


SECOND PAPER.

Before proceeding to describe the contents of the second floor of the
Museum, I must say a few words about the School of Drawing and Painting
which, for the present, has its home in the building.

Although it is generally thought by those who hear of this school, and
always in connection with the Museum, that it is a department of the
institution, yet in fact it is only partially under the control of the
trustees.

It will be remembered that the Museum was not made all at once, and out
of whole cloth, so to speak, but was formed by bringing together certain
collections already existing—the Athenæum casts and pictures, and the
Gray collection of engravings, for instance, and by offering hospitality
to certain projects connected with the study of the arts, which were in
the air, but which could not take shape without some such help as an
institution could give.

As my readers know, the Museum became a fact in 1876, but two years
earlier, in 1874, there had been earnest talk about a school of drawing
and painting, and though nothing was actually done, yet the ground was
prepared by much discussion for establishing such a school on right
principles of theory and practice when the time should come for doing
something. The Museum once established, the trustees conferred with those
of their fellow-citizens who had been urging the foundation of a school;
the trustees offered rooms in the new building, the others raised the
necessary funds to equip the school, and on Tuesday, January 2, 1877, the
school was opened.

The school is under the control of a permanent committee, consisting
of four painters, three architects, the three principal officers of
the Museum, and two other gentlemen. The rooms occupied by the school
are in the basement of the building; they are well lighted, warmed,
and ventilated, and are furnished with all the necessary means and
appliances for instruction, while the pupils have, in addition to the
excellent teaching provided for them in the school itself, the advantage
of free access to the permanent collections of the Museum, as well as
to the special exhibitions that, from time to time, take place in the
building. The school holds a high rank among similar institutions in the
country; it is under the able and high minded management of Mr. Frederic
Crowninshield, and it is sincerely to be hoped that before long it may
find itself in quarters more ample, and better suited to the dignity
of so important a factor in the culture of the community. At the same
time the hope may be expressed, that the school and the Museum may never
part company, but that their relations, on the contrary, may grow closer
and stronger, and that in time the school may become an active part of
the foundation, and be put under the complete control of the trustees.
There could not be a better place for students than an institution like
this, where daily seeing the finest forms of antique art, and constantly
increasing opportunities for acquaintance with good modern work,
illustrate and strengthen the lessons learned in the school itself.

Immediately in front of the visitor as he enters the Museum rises the
ample staircase that leads to the upper rooms. The stairs mount in a
broad flight in the middle of the hall, to the first landing, where they
divide, and returning on themselves finish the ascent in two flights, one
at the right hand and the other at the left. On this first landing was
at one time placed a handsome original example of the carved settles
or benches of the Italian Renaissance, but this has now been replaced
by a cast of the reclining female figure called Cleopatra, but to which
the name of Ariadne is now more commonly given. The original marble is
in the Vatican. This cast is one of those purchased with the bequest of
the late Charles Sumner. On the walls of the staircase and of the upper
hall several pictures are hung, among them a few that have, at least for
Americans, a historic interest. Here are the “Belshazzar’s Feast” of
Washington Allston, a picture at one time much talked and written about,
and which played an important part in the artist’s life; the “St. Peter
delivered from Prison,” by the same painter; the “King Lear” of Benjamin
West, and the “Sortie from Gibraltar” of Jonathan Trumbull. Of course
these pictures are only placed here for a time, until the Museum building
shall be enlarged, for when all deductions have been made on the score of
artistic merit that sound criticism can demand, they will still remain as
monuments in our development, and as such deserve to be hung where they
can be better seen.

Lack of room crowds into the hall of this second story a number of small
works, such as the collection of water-color copies from the pictures
of Dutch and Italian masters made for the late Mr. Douse, and by him
bequeathed to the Athenæum. They are of little value except as memoranda,
and might as well be removed from their frames, mounted, and consigned to
the custody of portfolios in the print-room.

Of far more value are the drawings in chalk, in pencil, and in pastel
by the late J. F. Millet, belonging to Mr. Martin Brimmer; they were
among the first things loaned to the Museum, and they still remain among
the most valuable for delight and for instruction. At the same end of
the hall, and so placed that the light from the large window is most
advantageous to it, is placed a cast of the second of the Gates, made by
Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery in Florence.

At the left hand, as we leave the stairs, is the entrance to the
extensive loan-collections which fill all but one of the rooms on this
side of the building. Although they are directly over the rooms on the
first floor, the space they occupy is not so subdivided; we have only
four rooms above the five below. The apartment we first enter is a large
one, fifty-five feet long by thirty-two wide, and was formerly given up
to the pictures which have since been transferred to the answering room
on the opposite side of the building. The room opening out of this, at
the western end, and of nearly the same size, is devoted to the same
object, but it would be impossible within our narrow limits to give an
adequate notion of their contents, particularly since, owing to want of
space, no scientific arrangement is possible, and the dazed spectator
moves about among objects of great value and interest, brought from every
clime and belonging to every age, but deprived of much of their value
because the key which order gives, is wanting.

The department of textiles, embroideries and laces is full, and of great
value, and includes some Italian stuffs and embroideries purchased by the
Museum under the direction of the late Alessandro Castellani. There are
some fine Flemish tapestries which came from the Château de Neuilly, and
a few other pieces of value, but the Museum is richest in that part of
the loan collection which belongs to Japan. Dr. W. S. Bigelow has loaned
to the Museum his magnificent collection of objects from that country,
and it may be said of it that in the field of embroideries, lacquers,
swords, sword-mounts, bronzes, ivories, and ceramics, it exhausts the
subject. It is now greatly to be desired that some one should undertake
the collection of the works of the Japanese artists in painting—a field
of great importance, and strangely neglected.

The Museum is rich in specimens of pottery and porcelain of Oriental
and European manufacture. In the latter field it is richer than the
Metropolitan Museum of New York, but the Avery collection of Chinese
and Japanese porcelain in the New York Museum is finer in quality and
more complete in its representative character than anything the Boston
Museum has. It is also far more attractively displayed. The collection
of Captain Brinckley, of Japan, of eight hundred and forty-two pieces of
Chinese and Japanese porcelain, loaned to the Boston Museum since 1884
is, however, an acquisition of great value and artistic interest, and
although not particularly well displayed is instructively arranged and
classified.

In the large western room there is a considerable number of small objects
of the period of the Italian Renaissance, some bronzes belonging to the
Athenæum, and some medals loaned by Mr. Charles C. Perkins; there is
also a considerable number of reproductions of Italian medals, made by
Elkington, of London, which serve a useful purpose in the absence of
original specimens. There are also, in this room, several good pieces of
Italian majolica; two specimens of the Della Robbia ware—one attributed
to Luca, the other to Andrea, both loaned by Mr. Perkins. The collection
is not rich in glass, either antique or modern. There are a few pieces
of old Venetian glass, but they are neither very interesting nor very
valuable.

On the south side of this division of the Museum are two rooms, one of
which is occupied with a miscellaneous collection of objects in carved
wood and ivory, Italian marriage chests, cabinets, tables, etc., etc.,
with some Japanese objects, chiefly swords, while the other is fitted
up with carved oak of the sixteenth century, the lining of a room in
some English house, with additions from other quarters. This is an
extremely interesting apartment, and, besides the wood-carving, contains
six portraits painted on panel, and forming a part of the original
decoration of the room; among them heads of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and
Queen Elizabeth. There are several pieces of antique furniture in this
room, and in the center a glass case containing some good illuminated
manuscripts. The mantelpiece, in the style of the period, is a modern
reproduction.

Returning to the stair-case hall, and crossing to the eastern side of
the building, we find ourselves in the picture-galleries. The shape and
disposition of these rooms are similar to those in the opposite wing,
but owing to the greater height of the sculpture-gallery on the ground
floor at the eastern end, the space above it, divided into two rooms, is
several feet higher than the rest of the wing. The great height of the
upper story permits this division be to made without injury to the effect.

The pictures belonging to the Museum are not without interest, although
their value is not very great, if reckoned in money. The early American
pictures include portraits by Copley, Stuart, Allston, and West, but
with the exception of the well-known portraits of Washington and Mrs.
Washington, by Stuart, there is nothing here of particular interest,
although there are often pictures loaned to the Museum by old residents
of Boston, which are historically valuable. It is much to be desired that
the collection of portraits by Copley in the Museum of Harvard College
could be deposited in the Museum. There ought to be in this institution
as complete a representation of the early art of the country as can
be procured, and it would be comparatively easy to accomplish this at
the present time. It must not be inferred that the authorities of the
Museum have neglected this portion of their mission. On the contrary,
they have rendered important service in this direction, and the special
exhibitions have been of interest, and of great importance. Beside
miscellaneous loan collections, there have been exhibitions of the works
of Allston, of William M. Hunt, and of George Fuller, and every year the
visitor finds representative pictures by artists of repute at home and
abroad, which excite interest, discussion, criticism, and keep the flame
of art and the love of art burning, even if—and this by no fault of the
institution—comparatively few avail themselves of the light. The French
school of painters which had its seat near the Forest of Fontainebleau,
and which is associated with the names of Millet, Corot, Rousseau, and
Diaz, is better represented here than any other of the modern schools,
although Courbet and Couture are both seen in good examples, Courbet
especially, of whom there is a fine picture, “La Curée”—the huntsman
winding his horn to call the chase together to cut up the stag. The
Couture is the Heads of Two Soldiers seen in profile, and though of no
importance as subject, is a good example of his method.

The school of Fontainebleau, or more properly speaking, of Barbizon,
is represented by the large “Dante and Virgil,” a companion in size to
the “Orpheus” of the Cottier collection in New York, but by no means so
fine a work. There is no important work by Millet at present, although
there have been here some good examples from time to time, and especially
his “Sower,” the fine _replica_ of that picture belonging to Mr. Quincy
A. Shaw, with other smaller subjects, particularly a Sheep-shearing, a
picture in which all that is best in Millet was to be seen.

The picture gallery at the Museum is such a movable feast that it
would be useless to attempt a catalogue of its contents. Just now the
“Automedon taming the Horses of Achilles,” by Baptiste Regnault, the
“Joan of Arc,” by Bastien Lepage, and “The Walk by the River Side,” by
Henri Lerolle, are among the most noticeable of the contents of the
large room, although there are a number of smaller pictures that are
well worth looking at. There is an effort making to purchase the picture
by Regnault, and the Lerolle was presented to the Museum in 1884 by Mr.
Francis C. Foster.

The remaining rooms in this portion of the building are a small one
in which some fine old Dutch paintings are exhibited, and those which
contain the Gray collection of engravings. The Dutch pictures, it is
hoped, will one day belong to the Museum; they will form a valuable
addition to its collection.

The Gray collection fills the room which runs along the southern side of
this wing answering to the large picture gallery which is parallel with
it on the north. This collection, formed for the late Francis C. Gray
by M. Thies, a German connoisseur, is one of the two or three important
collections of prints that are owned in America, and in some departments
is excelled by none, while the fact that there is a fund derived from
moneys left by Mr. Gray, which is devoted to the maintenance and increase
of the collection, gives it the advantage over all others here, and
ensures its one day becoming of national importance. It is already very
rich in Rembrandts and Dürers, but the aim of those who have it in charge
is to make it representative in its character, not of any one school in
particular but of all the schools and styles of engraving which have
existed. The collection is under the intelligent care of Mr. Edward
H. Greenleaf, who makes the contents of the portfolios useful to the
public by a series of exhibitions of the finest specimens of the various
schools, accompanied with titles, notes, and instructive memoranda, so
that in default of proper space for doing full justice to the collection
in any permanent way, the course of the year brings before the eyes of
students and visitors a considerable number of the prints, and thus makes
no slight contribution to general enlightenment on the subject.

The next paper in this series will take up the Metropolitan Museum of New
York.




SANITARY CONDITION OF SUMMER RESORTS.

BY THE HON. B. G. NORTHROP, LL.D.


The progress of modern civilization is marked by increasing attention to
the sanitary condition of cities, towns and homes. Barbaric races are
comparatively puny and short lived. Very old men are seldom found among
savages, and the rate of mortality bears some proportion to the degree of
barbarism, while early deaths everywhere diminish as the art and science
of sanitation advance. The increase of knowledge and the influence of
Christianity have greatly lengthened human life. Science is constantly
showing how many diseases and deaths are preventable. These facts are
abundantly established by statistics in all the most educated nations,
and, more recently, by the careful investigations of life insurance
companies and public boards of health. There has been a far greater
advance in sanitary science during the last fifty years than in any
previous century. But the popular appreciation of this science, though
steadily advancing, has not kept pace with its discoveries. The pressing
demand now is the diffusion of the art of sanitation—the practical
application of its methods by the people at large. The public press, the
daily, weekly and monthly journals are doing much in this direction.
Some of the most widely circulated religious journals have a column
regularly devoted to this subject. Our schools are helping on this good
work, and here the art of promoting health and prolonging life should be
learned and then applied in the family. Such principles, though they seem
truisms to the scientist, should be taught to our youth, who should early
memorize mottoes like the following: “Health is the prime essential to
success.” “The first wealth is health.” “The health of the people is the
foundation upon which all their happiness and all their power depend.”
“The material precedes and conditions the intellectual.” The school
may do more to popularize sanitary science than any other one agency.
When this work is once done here, it will not long be true that a large
proportion of our people are still living in ignorance and violation of
so many of the essential laws of health. The _popular_ neglect of such
laws should not be overlooked in our gratification at their discovery.

Our wisest sanitarians affirm that more than one fourth of the diseases
which still afflict modern life are preventable. Great prominence has
recently been given to this subject in England and other European
countries. Dr. Simon, chief medical officer of the English Privy Council,
says that “the deaths which we in each year register in this country
(now about five hundred thousand) are fully a hundred and twenty-five
thousand more numerous than they would be, _if existing knowledge_ of
the chief causes of disease, as affecting masses of population, were
reasonably well applied throughout England.” With our larger population,
probably a still larger number of lives in America might be prolonged by
the more general observance of the laws of health. If 125,000 needless
deaths occur annually, that implies 3,500,000 needless sicknesses, there
being on an average twenty-eight cases of sickness to every death. Saying
nothing of the hopes thus blasted and the hearts and homes desolated, the
mere money value of the lives thus prematurely ended every year would
amount to many millions of dollars, often involving the abandonment of
lucrative enterprises, and inducing poverty if not pauperism. In this
lowest view, it costs to be sick and it costs to die.

Modern civilization relates specially to the homes and social life of the
people, to their health, comfort and thrift, their intellectual and moral
advancement. In earlier times and other lands men were counted in the
aggregate and valued as they helped to swell the revenues or retinues
of kings and nobles. The government was the unit, and each individual
only added one to the roll of serfs or soldiers. With us the individual
is the unit, and the government is _for_ the people, as well as by the
people. This interest in the people has been manifested in new laws for
protecting their health, and by the general organization of State and
local Boards of Health.

Their investigations have embraced not only the needs of cities, towns
and individual homes, but have revealed startling facts as to the
unsanitary condition, and consequently the peril, of certain summer
resorts. Cases of loss of life from the burning of hotels have led to
the enactment of laws requiring fire escapes. On account of disasters
by the explosion of steam boilers, all steamboats are required to get a
“bill of safety” from an official expert examiner. But the violations of
sanitary laws in boarding houses, hotels and summer resorts have produced
annually far more sickness and death than have such fires and explosions.
The circumstantial horrors connected with these sudden and terrible
disasters produce a deep and lasting impression, and prompt to stringent,
preventive laws, while the deaths from bad sanitary conditions, though
more numerous, are so isolated as to attract little notice. The patronage
of summer resorts is already so large, and is so rapidly increasing from
year to year, as to multiply their number and increase their attractions.
This summer migration from city to country is more than a fashion, and
is favored by such substantial reasons as to insure its permanence and
growth. Even city clerks have their fortnight’s vacation for rest and
refreshment by the seaside or among the hills and mountains. There is a
greater exodus of teachers and members of all professions during their
longer vacations—still more, families, and especially those having
young children, seek this escape from the heat, dust, and miasmatic
exhalations of the crowded city. Though their children may have attended
the kindergarten in the city, they find the best sort of kindergarten
in the open fields and varied objects of the country, with its wider
range for rambles and those freer sports that are so attractive to every
wide-awake boy, such as boating, fishing, hunting, watching turtles,
gathering bugs and butterflies, roaming in the woods, taking long
excursions on the lakes or rivers, climbing steep hills and rocky cliffs,
loving flowers, observing the properties of plants and trees, and the
names, habits, retreats and voices of the birds. Living much in the open
air, nature becomes the great educator, and for the summer at least, the
country proffers superior advantages for the physical, mental and moral
training of youth. The boy, for example, who observes the birds so as to
distinguish them by their beak, claws, form, plumage, song or flight has
gained an invaluable habit of accurate observation never acquired while
cooped up in a city.

The apprehension of cholera during the present summer is likely to
increase the patronage of rural resorts. The condition of some dense
centers of population invites this pest. Its most terrible ravages last
summer in Naples, Marseilles and Toulouse occurred in the squalid dens
so long the reproach of those cities. Our summer retreats should all
be health resorts in fact as well as in name. Yet many of them—little
villages in winter, with a population of a few scores or hundreds—are too
often ill-prepared to be suddenly expanded into cities with a population
of many thousands, during the hottest and most trying months of the year.
Several State Boards of Health, within a few years, have examined many
watering-places and have been reluctantly compelled to make startling
statements as to their unsanitary conditions.

In some cases these unwholesome and unwelcome discoveries, though a
surprise and regret to the owners, were accepted as facts, and the
needful remedies promptly applied. In other instances, such disagreeable
revelations awakened resentment and were treated as absurd alarms or
slanderous attacks, and ignorance and prejudice held their ground
undisturbed.

In regard to one famous resort the State Board of Health of Massachusetts
said six years ago: “The unsanitary grounds invite a pestilence. They
violate the plainest teachings of hygienic common sense. There is no
adequate provision for the removal of refuse, and the wells and privies
are everywhere in close proximity, and some of the latter are immense
and offensive affairs, emptied only once a year, in the absence of the
summer boarders. At a large boarding house the sink drain empties on the
ground within three feet of the well, and at another, the well is within
a foot of an open trough sink drain, so filled and obstructed that the
water sets back, and a filthy puddle surrounds the well.” These were
mostly driven wells, reaching water from eight to twenty feet below the
surface. The theory was, that the foulest water would be fully filtered
by the soil above and around a driven well. The peddlers of this patent,
with their boastful advertisements, are in a measure responsible for
this mischievous error, which I have met in many states. I found a large
hotel beyond the Missouri River, where, instead of even a cess-pool,
the kitchen drainage gathered in a surface pool close to the well. At
a bakery in another resort the sink drain and cess-pool are but twelve
feet from the well. Twenty-four privies and thirteen cess-pools are
within a radius of 140 feet of a well used by many families. When the
water from forty wells was analyzed, the chemical examination proved that
sixteen of them were bad and unsafe. The official State report for 1879
contains many pages of similar details. In fifteen days after the State
Board of Health called attention to the results of this investigation,
the citizens held a town meeting, at which it was _unanimously_ voted
that the Board of Health of this town should adopt all proper methods
to perfect and enforce stringent sanitary regulations, and promising
them their most cordial support in all reasonable efforts they may
make in the furtherance of this end. The Board of Health of another
well-known resort, after a careful examination of the sanitary condition
of Oak Bluffs and Martha’s Vineyard Camp-grounds, frankly said that
“unless proper remedial measures were carried out, the abandonment of
the place, as a residence for health, is but a question of time.” The
State Board subsequently commended this local board for adopting wise
sanitary regulations and carrying them out with such energy that the high
reputation of the place as a health resort might be preserved.

The same report says: “It must not be taken for granted that this
condition of things is confined to one place. Visits to various seaside
resorts of a similar character on both north and south shores show little
change for the better. Many individual cases are worse.”

The official inspection of many such summer resorts revealed sickening
details connected with the large hotels and boarding houses. One hundred
and fifty summer houses examined were, almost without exception,
objectionable, on the score of danger to health, due in part to foul air,
but more to contaminated well water. There is always a risk in the use
of such water, and the only safe rule is to make privies and cess-pools
absolutely tight, and frequently empty and disinfect them, so that they
_can not_ poison the water supply. Nearly every State health report
abounds in instances of the outbreak of typhoid fever due to bad well
water, and one affirms that the majority of wells in the rural districts
of that state are tainted.

As is my custom, in order to adapt my lectures on “Village Improvements”
to local needs, I made a cursory inspection of the streets and private
grounds in the town of ⸺, which revealed a prolific source of peril to
its citizens. Though I had heard nothing of the actual experience of the
place, I spoke in strong terms of the danger of an early outbreak of
typhoid fever and diphtheria, from the proximity of vaults and wells.
After the lecture I was informed that such a dire visitation had already
desolated many homes, but it was regarded as “a mysterious visitation
of Providence,” and nothing was done to abate the obvious cause of the
pestilence. I find it exceedingly difficult to convince men of any danger
from their water supply. They are apt to resent a disparagement of their
wells as they would of their children, and yet I seldom inspect a town
where there is not found urgent need of the warning, “LOOK CAREFULLY
TO YOUR WELLS.” Gross sanitary defects are often found even around the
homes of isolated farmers, with every natural advantage for drainage and
healthfulness. Hence I advise that securing “better sanitary conditions
in our homes and surroundings” be made prominent among the various
objects of the “Village Improvement Associations” organized in many
states, and now numbering nearly three hundred.

The unsanitary condition of Memphis invited the terrible scourge of
yellow fever in 1878. The occurrence of four thousand deaths in one
season compelled attention to the cause and remedy. If Memphis was then
the filthiest and sickliest city of the South, it now claims to be the
healthiest. The case demanded and received “heroic treatment.” Over
forty-two miles of sewers have been built, on the most approved plan,
with one hundred and ninety automatic flushing tanks, each discharging
one hundred and twelve gallons of water twice a day. While collecting
facts for a lecture there on “The Needs of Memphis,” I inspected the
city, and especially the “man-holes,” in company with the city engineer,
who had supervised their construction, and found in none of them any
offensive odor. These improvements were costly, but the recent rapid
growth of this city in population and wealth proves that these liberal
expenditures were wise investments. The “death-pool” of 1878 now justly
aspires to be a health resort. An excellent sewer system, with automatic
flushing tanks, is now in use in Denver, Colorado. I made a similar
examination of the man-holes there last October, with similar results,
and received the testimony of a prominent physician, to the marked
diminution of zymotic diseases since the completion of the new sewers.

Cumulative evidence on the danger of using tainted water might be given
to an indefinite extent, like the following: Thirty-one out of one
hundred inmates of a convent in Munich, affected with typhoid fever; the
outbreak of typhoid fever in Princeton, New Jersey, two years ago; the
fearful epidemic at Waupun, Wisconsin, in April last, and the terrible
pestilence now desolating Plymouth, Pa. are all attributed to infected
water. In Plymouth nearly one hundred persons have already died, and
over one thousand have been prostrated—in the opinion of the physicians,
poisoned by water pollution. Such facts should everywhere prompt to
sanitary precautions, and enforce the motto, “Eternal vigilance is the
price of public health.”

In a popular summer resort of Massachusetts there occurred eighty cases
of typhoid fever during 1881, out of a population of only 1,500. The
citizens were alarmed, and prompt and thorough investigation discovered
and removed the cause. The mischief had been done mainly by tainted
water. The remedies suggested by the board of health—clearing of
premises, securing of better drainage and plumbing, removing of all
decomposing matter, abolishing all cess-pools and leaching vaults,
draining marshes and pumping out and cleansing all wells and cisterns
that afforded chemical evidence of being tainted—were energetically
applied. The owners of these beautiful cottages and villas spared no
effort or expense to restore this attractive resort to its former
salubrity. If any community of its size was ever more earnest, prompt and
united in such a work of restoration, I should be glad to learn its name.
In the face of peculiar difficulties on this rocky peninsula, nearly
five miles of sewers were constructed. Hundreds of chemical analyses of
the drinking water were made. Of the wells and cisterns so examined,
nearly sixty per cent. contained water unfit for drinking or cooking. As
a result of this renovation, the local board of health is quoted in the
Massachusetts report for 1883 as saying: “These vigorous correctionary
measures completely checked the epidemic, and not a single case of the
fever has since appeared here that could not be traced to some other
locality for its origin.”

Another seaside city, much resorted to in summer, with a regular
population of over 3,000, after suffering severely from zymotic
diseases, especially typhoid fever, requested the State Board of Health
to investigate the cause of this excessive mortality. Nine tenths of
the population here are crowded in one village of small area, having
many narrow streets, with small house lots, necessitating a dangerous
proximity of cess-pools, privy vaults and wells. This danger is increased
by the nature of the soil, mostly sand or gravel, that facilitates
rapid percolation. The climate itself is pronounced more equable and
salubrious than that of any other part of the State, and therefore
specially attractive to the health-seeker. The mean winter temperature is
seven degrees warmer than that of Cambridge. The insular position of the
town, and the sensible proximity of the Gulf Stream lend their combined
influence to modify the extremes of temperature, such as exist in the
inland parts of the State. The summer temperature of the water upon its
shores renders sea-bathing recreative, invigorating and pleasurable, even
to the delicate invalid. With such rare natural advantages for salubrity,
the high death rate is traced to preventable causes. The water of eleven
wells showed, on chemical analysis, a great degree of pollution. The
remedial plans, prepared at the suggestion of the State Board of Health,
were submitted to the action of the town meeting held February, 1884,
and were favorably received. But at a subsequent meeting, this favorable
action was reconsidered, and since that time no action has been taken.

The last two reports of the State Board of Health of New Jersey contain
valuable accounts of the sanitary investigations of the health resorts
of that state. The following statements are abbreviated from these
volumes. Within thirty miles of New York City is to be found half the
population of the state of New Jersey. Of this number, according to the
judgment of engineers, chemists, physicians, and boards of health, not
one half are supplied with water fit to drink. As our risks from impure
water are even more than those from ordinary impure air, it behooves
all to guard against any contamination of potable water. If there is
a neglect of sanitary care, and especially of a good water supply, it
is too late to adopt the policy of concealment, or to point to a death
rate of from twenty-six to thirty as a justification, when so large a
city as London can point to a death rate of only twenty per thousand,
and many an English town of 30,000 inhabitants, to a death rate of only
sixteen or eighteen. The sea coast of New Jersey, more than that of
any other state, abounds in popular summer resorts. The State Board of
Health has carefully inspected these resorts, notified the proprietors
of existing defects, and reported them to the public when they were not
remedied. Their first visits were often occasions of protest, and even of
denunciation on the part of proprietors, many of whom, on sober second
thought, were convinced of the truth, and corrected the evils complained
of. The latest inspection says that the sanitary condition of most of
these places has been greatly improved. In 1883 it is said of ⸺, where
are six hotels and over one hundred cottages, “This locality shows no
improvement in its care of sanitary conditions. No skilled attention is
given to drainage. The water supply is mostly from driven wells, which
are generally surface wells. Privy vaults are of the crudest description.
Slop water is disposed of in cess-pools, often in close proximity to
wells. This sanitary lawlessness has not been without its deleterious
results.” The last report speaks of the same place as improving, but
there are still some sanitary defects.

One popular resort shows some marked improvements. While some of the
large hotels have still rows of cess-pools, they are kept in better
condition than formerly. Still it has not equaled expectation in its
efforts to provide a much needed system of sewerage. The hotels exhibit
some of the very best and some of the very worst methods for the disposal
of water-closet refuse. In one hotel enormous brick vaults had no modes
of ventilation, and nothing but the shortness of the season protects
the inmates. These New Jersey resorts are no worse than those in other
states, and as a rule are salubrious and most desirable retreats, but
the self-satisfied carelessness of some wealthy owners of hotel property
has made light of these defects, and they have been tardy in their
correction. Visitors in such hotels, before taking rooms, should have an
expert make a sanitary inspection in their behalf.

These facts from different states clearly show that the sanitary
condition of summer resorts is the question of first importance to all
who frequent them, and that a rural location, naturally salubrious,
has often proved a death-pool when made the home of a dense crowd in
the hottest months of the year. This frequent outbreak of preventable
diseases in large watering places proves the necessity of applied hygiene
in such resorts, where the management often betrays gross ignorance or
carelessness on this vital point.

In this respect the Assembly grounds at Chautauqua form a happy
exception. Some details may suggest the changes and plans needed
elsewhere. Last summer, while meeting lecture appointments there, I made
a cursory inspection of the grounds around each of the four hundred
and twenty-eight cottages in this “city in a forest,” including its
numerous boarding houses. The village is very compact, and the cottages
are sometimes too closely crowded together. But everywhere the sanitary
conditions are admirable. The three essentials—pure air, pure soil, and
pure water—are well assured. Special effort is made to guard these three
“Ps.” No old fashioned privies are _now_ allowed. The last two nuisances
of this sort were removed while I was on the grounds. Some ten public
vaults are located at convenient points, each built of stone or brick,
laid in cement, and thus made water tight. Each is _daily_ supplied with
disinfectants, and emptied every other night, and then well cleansed with
water. There are sixty-seven private vaults, made in like manner, water
tight, and frequently emptied. The water-closet pipes emptying into them
are said to be all carefully trapped. The waste is conveyed by night to
farms far away from the grounds.

Every family is required to provide a barrel for garbage, kitchen slops
and wash water, which is emptied _daily_. No soiled water may be thrown
on the grounds. The daily inspection detects any violation of this rule.
There are no alleys, lanes, back yards or dumping grounds where garbage
can be thrown and secreted. There is no filth-saturated soil, and the
atmosphere is not tainted with the gases of decay. The decaying leaves,
so abundant in this forest city, are removed or burned.

Numerous wells, carefully guarded from surface drainage, and eight
springs furnish pure water. Borings some thirty feet deep, near the
engine house by the lake, have opened three flowing springs, the water
in five-inch pipes rising seven feet above the lake. This proves to be
a mineral water (pronounced by Dr. Edwards, the lecturer on chemistry,
a wholesome chalybeate tonic), is forced into a large tank on the hill,
and thence distributed in pipes near the surface over the grounds free
to all. There was little to criticise in the sanitary condition of the
grounds, and the few suggestions which I made were promptly carried out
by the efficient superintendent.




WAYSIDE HOMES.

BY HELEN CAMPBELL.


No form of charitable work undertaken in this busy century holds more
perplexity and uncertainty than that for women, who, whether for great or
small offenses, have come under the ban of the law, and who pass from the
shadow of the prison to confront a public feeling which is, in the main,
so absolutely antagonistic as to leave small chance for reform, or hope
of making new and better place.

It is certain that there is much justification for such feeling. There
are few in whom the missionary spirit is strong enough to enable them to
accept undaunted, the possibilities involved in receiving as a member
of the family, a woman whose desire for reform may be outweighed a
thousand times by the power of her appetites, and whose influence may
bring contamination to all within its reach. Even in less dangerous
cases, where youth and ignorance are the excuses for the violation of
law, there is always the fear that association with older offenders has
given a knowledge of evil that will work equal disaster, and thus the
door is as effectually closed against the slight as against the confirmed
transgressor. It is part of the popular conviction that work for women
is far less productive of results than work for men, a conviction that
has a certain foundation of truth. Even in the Water Street Mission of
New York, in which the most apparently hopeless class was reached and
held, McAuley was constantly baffled by this fact, and in time accepted
it as inevitable. He did not question, more than other workers have done,
why this was so, or how far the world was responsible for the state of
things he bewailed, but came at last, by almost unconscious steps, to the
conclusion given in a talk with the writer.

“You’ve wondered, at times, that we didn’t have more women here,” he
said, a year or two before his death. “Don’t you know that you can haul
in a hundred men to one woman? What it means, the good Lord only knows,
but they don’t stay put. They cry an’ promise, an’ promise an’ cry,
an’ you do for ’em with all your might, an’ all at once they’re off,
an’ may be you never see ’em again.… When a girl’s once down, it isn’t
once in five hundred times that you can pull her out. Take that very
one you was so sorry for. She’s been to every meeting ’round here, an’
cried an’ begged to be helped. She’s been taken first to one ‘Home’ an’
then to another, an’ she’s run from every one back to her old life. The
system’s wrong. That’s my opinion. You take a ‘Home’ where a lot are in
together, an’ the devil’s let loose. They chew tobacco an’ chew snuff,
an’ get drunk on the sly, an’ the old ones tell the young ones all their
lives, an’ the last end is worse than the first, for they learn a lot of
deviltry to add to their own. There ain’t but one way, as I can see, to
save ’em. Keep ’em apart. Let Christian families that can, make up their
minds to take one at a time; hedge her round; give her enough to do, an’
get her interested, an’ pray night an’ day she may be kept. That will
save a good many, for it’s mostly worked where it’s been tried. But there
ain’t anything in our work so discouragin’ as this very thing. What you
going to do? These girls comin’ out of homes where a dozen, may be, has
herded in one room, what do they know of decency or cleanliness? What
can they know, I’d like to know? No, I tell you; the work’s got to begin
at the beginning. Get hold of the children. Send them off. Do anything
that’ll train them differently. They’re born in sin and born to sin, and
the Lord only knows what’ll come if good men and women don’t wake up and
take hold.”

Admitting the serious nature of the difficulties involved, it is quite
certain that many of them have been born of an utterly false estimate
of the relative degrees of guilt in men and women. Neither time nor
space allows discussion of this point beyond the suggestion that in the
present White Cross movement, and the questions that at once arise as
the first necessity in any understanding of its nature or need, may be
found the secret of much that has made against women. Simple justice, the
last acquired and, it would seem, the hardest won of all virtues, makes
chastity as binding an obligation upon man as upon woman, and gives to
both, when repentant, the same pardon and the same hope for a future.
Thus far, charity has ignored the woman, forcing her to bear not only the
pain and sorrow of unblessed motherhood, but the sentence of perpetual
banishment from the society whose laws she has defied.

It is at this stage that workers among the poor most often find her,
hopeless, and in the large proportion of cases driven back to crime as
her only resort. They form a great proportion of the inmates of any
prison for women. Every town and village has its quota of candidates for
reformatory or jail, and mourns, collectively and individually, over the
terrible tendencies of this class, with small thought that prevention
may be easier than cure, and that if children born to such conditions
come into the world, society is bound to see that their training shall,
as far as possible, neutralize the results of such inheritance. Society
has no time for prevention. It proposes to pay for prisons rather than
for industrial schools; to labor with full fledged criminals, rather
than to crush out vice while still in embryo, and congratulates itself
on the magnificent liberality of its provision for the criminal, and the
remarkable success of the prison system as a whole.

Women are supposed to be merely occasional offenders, and that there
are, in every state, hundreds outside of the prison who are habitual
law breakers, and an equally large proportion within its walls, is a
proposition received as incredible. Yet it was not till Massachusetts
found herself forced to deal with eight hundred per year of such cases,
that the first reformatory was organized, in 1865, and the number has
increased steadily with the increase in population. County prisons,
of which there were twenty-one, were, too often, simply nests for
propagating vice. In a few of the larger ones great order and system
prevailed. In the smaller ones there was next to none, and male and
female prisoners, dirty, ragged and obscene, mingled together and
interchanged lessons in new forms of vice. In all of them three classes
of offenses were to be found, women convicts being sentenced usually for
drunkenness, unchastity, or larceny; the relative prevalence of the three
being indicated by the order in which they are given. The first class,
wherever found, are most often Irish women, at, or past, the middle age.
They are not criminals, though at times, in some cases, dishonest or
unchaste. Often they are eager to reform, and yield to the temptation to
drink as many men yield, for the momentary relief from grinding care and
anxiety. Many of them become accustomed to the short sentences usually
given by magistrates for this offense, and there are countless women
who have had thirty, forty, and even fifty short imprisonments. A long
term, or, in aggravated cases, imprisonment for life, affords the only
security, the mere smell of liquor being often enough to awaken appetite
and bring on a wild debauch. The three crimes can in almost every case be
traced back to a neglected childhood.

“My mother died whan I was a bit of a child, an’ my father drank and beat
me,” is the story of nine tenths of these cases, and will remain the
story. The life of a single great tenement house, if told in full, as
it has recently been done, shows how the seed is sown, and what harvest
we may expect, and prison systems, however admirable, can touch but the
smallest proportion of those who come within their walls. And even here,
in this system, which deserves all the eulogy it receives, women have had
but the most meager share of the benefit intended. It is only here and
there that, spurred on by some great souled woman, wrought to white heat
of indignation at the suffering and ignominy heaped upon these weak and
most miserable sisters, there has grown up a better system of treatment,
or a refuge in which reform has been made possible. Even to-day, in
cities where reform is supposed to have perfected itself, there are
Houses of Detention, at the mention of which compassionate judges shake
their heads, and use any and every pretext to avoid condemning, for even
a week, a young girl guilty of some first and slight offense, to their
unspeakably infamous walls. Who enters there leaves hope behind, and
life in any real sense, is over, once for all, for the sad soul that has
learned what awaits it there.

In a little town of Massachusetts, many phases of this question have long
since been answered. The work is so quietly carried forward that few
save those interested in philanthropic problems have any knowledge of
its nature or scope. In the belief that its story will awaken, not only
interest, but stronger faith in the possibilities of reform, its outlines
are given here. From its success grew the greater work which makes the
title of the present article, a work which would have seemed well nigh
impossible had not such demonstration first been made of its entire
feasibility.

Practically, its foundation was laid in Dedham, thirty years or more
ago, where a temporary asylum was afforded to women just discharged from
prison, and much the same methods were adopted in the Springfield “Home
for Friendless Women.” But as one of the most efficient workers wrote at
the time: “The more thoughtful saw from the first that they were working
only at the top of the tree, and must go to the root to accomplish real
good in large measure. The necessity of making the term of imprisonment
one also of instruction, was apparent; also the vital need of purifying
the corrupted by personal contact with pure and good women, laboring
among them in a spirit of love and sympathy.”

It was not until 1870 that, after a preliminary meeting in Boston,
officered by some of her most earnest citizens, a memorial was presented
to the legislature, in which the need was set forth of better prisons for
women, and of a reformatory discipline for all criminals. This was called
“The Memorial of the Temporary Asylum for Discharged Female Prisoners in
Dedham, and of the Springfield Home for Friendless Women and Children,
and of others concurring with them.” The names of Whittier, Henry Wilson,
Bishop Eastburn, and many others equally noble, were affixed, and the
almost immediate result was the establishment of the Prison Commission
of the state, and a few years later, the building of the separate prison
for women at Sherborn. Thirty acres of land were purchased here, and the
prison was placed upon a knoll, from which one of the finest views in
the county may be had, a neighboring pond giving a full supply of pure
water, and the facilities for drainage being excellent. The form chosen
for building was a cross, with two more transverse sections, one at the
front, and one for hospital purposes, at the rear. But forty-eight strong
cells for the more refractory class were built, the majority occupying
small, separate rooms, divided by brick partitions, and each owning a
window. The basement has two large laundries, one for prison, the other
for outside use, the latter bringing in a comfortable income toward
the support of the prison. Over this laundry is the prison kitchen and
bakery, the work in both being done by the prisoners, under supervision.
Above this, in the third story, is the large hall used as a chapel, and
a library adjoining it, while the second story contains two large work
rooms, one for sewing, and the other for making chair bottoms. Sewing
machines are in the first one, and here all the clothing for the prison
is made, as well as a good deal for another institution. A school room is
also on this floor, occupied six hours a day, the women going to it in
classes, each class having an hour’s instruction a day. Here many take
their first lessons in reading and writing; easy arithmetic and geography
are also taught.

The prison has four divisions, for the classification of convicts, the
three higher ones each containing what is known as a “privilege room,”
the prisoners who have obeyed the rules being allowed to spend an hour
each evening under the supervision of the matrons, before they are
locked in for the night. Four cheerful dining rooms are provided, and
unlike the county jails, where prisoners eat alone from a tin pan, the
women gather, under the supervision of matrons, each with neat plate and
basin, learning order and decorum, and in many cases having their first
experience of clean and palatable food. The matrons have comfortable
rooms, commanding a view of the corridors, and a private dining room and
kitchen in the basement. A parlor on the second floor is also at their
disposal, thirty matrons and assistants using it in such intervals of
leisure as come.

The chief officers may be either men or women, at the pleasure of
the Governor, these being superintendent, steward and treasurer, the
remainder being all women, and including a deputy superintendent, a
chaplain, a physician, school mistress, and clerk. The wishes of the
founders were carried out in making the superintendent a woman, Mrs.
Edna C. Atkinson’s name having become the synonym for patient and most
faithful labor in this untried field. There are others as worthy, but
with her, they shrink from any public recognition, content to have laid
silently the foundation of a work which is copied in detail wherever the
same results are desired.

The hospital is a model of its kind, three stories in height, and
thirty-two feet wide by seventy-seven long. The dispensary and wash
room, the doctor’s sitting room and some small wards for special cases
are on the first floor. The second one has a large ward, sunny and airy,
with space for twenty beds, and at one side bath rooms, and a small
room where the dead are laid until burial. The convalescent ward is on
the third floor, and in each and all, is the exquisite neatness which
is a revelation to every occupant. Of the physical misery that finds
alleviation here, one can hardly speak. “Intemperance, unchastity, abuse
from male companions, neglected childbirth, hereditary taints, poor food
and clothing,” have all done their work, and demand all the skill the
physician can bring to bear. The work is hard and often repulsive, but
the sick prisoner is especially susceptible to influence, and often, when
all means have been tried in vain, yields at last under the pressure
of pain and gratitude for its relief, and goes out from the ward a new
creature spiritually as well as physically.

From the beginning they are made to feel that here is one spot where love
and sympathy are certain. There is no convict dress branding them at once
as infamous. Each division has its own; blue check of different patterns
being chosen to distinguish the different grades. The upper ones have
neat white aprons for Sundays. Night dresses and pocket handkerchiefs
are provided to teach neatness, and every woman is required to have
smooth hair and a well-cared-for person. In the nursery, an essential
department of a woman’s prison, the babies show well fed, happy faces,
and are as neatly and warmly clothed as the mothers. This department
has sixty rooms, each ten by twelve, with a bed and crib for mothers
with infants, while above it is a lying-in ward, with all necessary
appliances. Often there is not the slightest hint of maternal instinct,
and the mother must be watched to prevent the destruction of the child,
but more often it is strong, and desire for reform is first awakened with
the longing that the child should know a better life. The bright, clean
quarters, the regular employment, the sympathy and encouragement, on
which, no matter how skeptical or scoffing in the beginning, they come
to depend, all foster this desire. Indifferent even to common decency
in the beginning, unknown instincts awaken, and here is one answer to
the argument sometimes made, that criminals have no right to attractive
quarters. Here, again, the same worker already quoted may speak: “In the
first place, the loss of liberty is a terrible privation, especially when
the term of confinement is long. Most persons will bear any hardship
rather than be confined, even in a pleasant place. The depraved women
of our prisons are indifferent, at first, to the things which please a
higher taste. The dark and filthy slums of Boston are far more charming
to them than the clean and sunny prison. The work is hateful to their
idle habits, and being unpaid, it has no motive to incite them to
performance. The silent, separate rooms, the quiet work room, try them
inexpressibly. There is no danger that the prison will be too tempting.
They long for the intoxicating drink, the low carousals of their usual
life, and when discharged from an ordinary prison, with no reformatory
influence, eagerly rush into the old haunts, and begin anew the foul
life.… Ferocious, indeed, are they, when long habits of intoxication,
joined to ignorance and strong passions, are subjected to the restraints
of a prison.”

“No woman can govern a ferocious woman,” was asserted in the
beginning, by a well known Senator; but that point settled itself
years since, women having proved better able to control women, no
matter how brutalized, than any man has ever been. In one case a woman
was sent from a neighboring prison, who came determined to create
disturbance. Insurrection seemed inevitable, such passion of revolt
had she communicated to many, but wise management quelled it at once.
Three strong men were necessary to convey her from the yard to the
punishment cell, but this was done under the personal direction of the
superintendent, and the men were allowed no violence or abuse. For days
she remained unsubdued; then quieted, and at the end of ten was conquered
and transformed into a quiet, orderly, obedient worker.

“She was that patient and kind she did all she could for me,” was her
comment on the superintendent, and her case is illustrative of dozens of
the same nature. Nothing impresses them more than the unselfish nature
of the care bestowed, and as their skill in manual labor develops,
their interest grows with it, and they begin to take pride in what may
be accomplished. They are ready, when the term of confinement ends, to
lead decent lives, but they must be shielded for a time, else ruin is
inevitable.

Here, then, comes in the mission of a “Wayside Home.” The thought of
such shelter came many years ago, to the man who gave all his life to
making paths plainer for sinning and suffering souls, and who in the
“Isaac Hopper Home,” as often called the “Father Hopper Home,” solved
the problem in a degree. Even here, however, admission was conditioned
on a letter or word of endorsement, and there was no spot in all the
great city in which a homeless and friendless woman, without such word,
could find temporary refuge. It remained for Brooklyn to offer such a
possibility, and the quiet home that in the early spring of 1880 opened
its doors, asked but three questions:

“Do you need help?”

“Are you homeless?”

“If taken in, will you remain a month, keep the necessary rules of the
house, and do your share of its work?”

These question are “the hinge on which the door swings, and when once a
woman crosses its threshold she stands on her honor, and is trusted just
as far as she will allow.”

Cramped for room, dependent upon voluntary contributions for furnishing,
provisions, and all the running expenses of such an undertaking,
the first year found them without debt, and with ninety-nine women
sheltered and protected, sixty-two of whom found places, and, with
but few exceptions, proved faithful and worthy of trust. During the
second year two hundred and twenty-four were helped, cramped quarters
forcing the managers to refuse many applications. Half of the income
for that year was earned by the inmates, in laundry, sewing room, and
days’ work outside. A larger house was taken, but the same principle of
free admission continued. Many who left the Home voluntarily, and some
even who had been expelled, returned, penitent and sorrowful, and were
received again, and given another chance, the only bar to return being in
the discovery that the influence of a woman in some cases did more harm
than could be counteracted in the Home, in which case there is written
across her name, “Not to be admitted again.”

A matron and two assistant matrons are employed, the matron having
general charge of the house, keys, and work; the first assistant, of
sewing room and laundry; and the second of the kitchen and all household
supplies. But thirty women can be accommodated at any one time, and it
is hoped that a building especially for the purpose may soon give the
added facilities so imperatively demanded. The work holds little poetry,
and the expression of some of its subjects is so debased and apparently
hopeless, that one gentleman, accustomed to give freely, remarked: “I see
nothing better to do than to tie a rope round their necks and pitch them
into the river.”

The poor souls were themselves much of his mind, but a month or two gave
a very different aspect to affairs, work and the certainty of sympathy
bringing new life. Undisciplined and weak, in the power of appetite
both inherited and acquired, they have fought battles whose terror the
untempted can never know; fought and won, the roll now holding hundreds
of names. Working against perpetual obstacle and disadvantage, the story
of the five years is one of triumph for managers as well as managed. “We
began,” said one of the workers, “holding in one hand the key to an empty
house, for which the rent was paid for one month, and in the other hand
all our worldly possessions—five dollars—and since that time we have
bought our present home, and furnished it comfortably for our work. It
accommodates thirty-five women, and three matrons, and we have paid on
it $5,000, carrying a mortgage of $9,000. None of these things are the
ultimate of our work. They are but means to an end, and that end the
saving of the lives and souls of these women.”

Effort of as extended a nature is possible only for a body of earnest
workers, but this mere hint of its nature and results may perhaps
convince some who have doubted its possibility, and serve as the clue
to companion methods in country towns. Faith in possibilities, both
human and divine, has been the condition of success for what is already
accomplished, and the village may test these no less than the city.
Reports filled with every practical detail may be had by addressing a
note to “The Wayside Home, 352 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.,” and the
writer stands ready, at any time, to answer questions as to methods,
assuring all doubters that, for all patient workers, success is certain.

       *       *       *       *       *

The finest pleasures of reading come unbidden. In the twilight alcove
of a library, with a time-mellowed chair yielding luxuriously to your
pressure, a June wind floating in at the windows, and in your hand some
rambling old author, good humored and quaint, one would think the Spirit
could scarce fail to be conjured. Yet often, after spending a morning
hour restlessly there … I have strolled off with a book in my pocket to
the woods; and, as I live, the mood has descended upon me under some
chance tree, with a crooked root under my head, and I have lain there
reading and sleeping by turns till the letters were blurred in the
dimness of twilight.—_From Prose Writings of N. P. Willis._




SUNDAY READINGS.

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


[_Sunday, July 5._]

THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS.—(I note again, as a characteristic of the
morality of sonship, the way in which it secures humility by aspiration,
and not by depression.) How to secure humility is the hard problem
of all systems of duty. He who does work, just in proportion to the
faithfulness with which he does it, is always in danger of self-conceit.
Very often men seem to have given up the problem in despair, and they
lavish unstinted praise upon the vigorous, effective worker, without any
qualifying blame of the arrogance with which he flaunts the duty that he
does in the world’s face. “The only way to make him humble,” they would
seem to say, “would be to make him idle. Let him stop doing duty and
then, indeed, he might stop boasting. His arrogance is only the necessary
price that the world and he pay for his faithfulness.” To such a problem
the Christian morality brings its vast conception of the universe. Above
each man it sets the infinite life. The identity of nature between
that life and his, while it enables him to emulate that life, compels
him, also, to compare himself with it. The more zealously he aspires
to imitate it, the more clearly he must encounter the comparison. The
higher he climbs the mountain, the more he learns how the high mountain
is past his climbing. It is the oneness of the soul’s life with God’s
life that at once makes us try to be like him, and brings forth our
unlikeness to him. It is the source at once of aspiration and humility.
The more aspiration, the more humility. Humility comes by aspiration.
If, in all Christian history, it has been the souls which most looked
up that were the humblest souls; if to-day the rescue of a soul from
foolish pride must be not by a depreciation of present attainment, but
by opening more and more the vastness of the future possibility; if the
Christian man keeps his soul full of the sense of littleness, even in
all his hardest work for Christ, not by denying his own stature, but by
standing up at his whole height, and then looking up in love and awe and
seeing God tower into infinitude above him—certainly all this stamps the
morality which is wrought out within the idea of Jesus with this singular
excellence, that it has solved the problem of faithfulness and pride, and
made possible humility by aspiration.

And yet, once more, the morality of Jesus involves the only true secret
of courage and of the freedom that comes of courage. More and more we
come to see that courage is a positive thing. It is not simply the
absence of fear. To be brave is not merely not to be afraid. Courage is
that compactness and clear coherence of all a man’s faculties and powers
which makes his manhood a single operative unit in the world. That is
the reason why narrowness of thought and life often brings a kind of
courage, and why, as men’s range of thought enlarges and their relations
with their fellowmen increase, there often comes a strange timidity. The
bigot is often very brave. He is held fast unto a unit, and possesses
himself completely in his own selfishness. For such a bravery as that
the man and the world pay very dear. But when the grasp that holds a
man and his powers is not his self-consciousness, but his obedience
to his Father, when loyalty to him surrounds and aggregates the man’s
capacities, so that, held in his hand, the man feels his distinctiveness,
his distinctive duty, his distinctive privilege, then you have reached
the truth of which the bigot’s courage was the imitation. Then you have
secured courage, not by the limitation, but by the enlargement of the
life. Then the dependence upon God makes the independence of man in which
are liberty and courage. The man’s own personality is found only in the
household of his Father, and only in the finding of his personality does
he come to absolute freedom and perfect fearlessness.—_Phillips Brooks._


[_Sunday, July 12._]

TRUE CHRISTIANITY.—Lord Jesus Christ, thou eternal and only Prince of
Peace! Thou most blessed and truest rest of faithful souls! Thou hast
said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and ye shall
find rest to your souls. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in
me ye shall have peace.

Alas! how often have I sought for rest in this world, but have not found
it! For my soul, being immortal, can not rest or be satisfied with
anything but thee alone; O immortal God, thou and thou alone art the rest
of our souls. The world and all that is in it is hastening to decay; they
all wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them,
and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not
fail. How then shall my soul find rest in such fleeting and changeable
things?… O God, my soul can not be satisfied but in thee, the supreme
good. My soul hungereth and thirsteth after thee, and can not rest till
it possess thee.…

O thou rock of my salvation! in which my soul trusteth and is at rest.…

O Lord Jesus, how ardent is thy charity! how pure, how free from deceit!
how perfect! how spotless! how great! how exalted! how profound! In a
word, how sincere and hearty is thy love! Suffer, I beseech thee, my soul
to rest in this thy love.… Here let my poor soul rest free from fear of
danger or disquiet. In thee let all my senses rest, that I may hear thee
sweetly speaking, O thou highest love! Let my eyes behold thee, O thou
celestial beauty! Let my ears hear thee, thou most harmonious music! Let
my mouth taste, thou incomparable sweetness! Let the refreshing odors
of life breathe upon me from thee, thou most noble flower of paradise!…
Let my heart rejoice in thee, my true joy! Let my will desire thee
alone, thou only joy of my heart! Let my understanding know thee alone,
O eternal wisdom! Lastly, let all my desires, all my affections rest in
thee alone, O blessed Jesus, who art my love, my peace, and my joy!

Take out of my heart everything that is not thyself. Thou art my riches
in poverty; thou art my honor in contempt; my praise and glory against
reproaches; my strength in infirmity; and in a word, my life in death.
And how, then, should I not rest in thee, who art my all in all? My
righteousness against sin; my wisdom against folly; redemption from
condemnation; sanctification from my uncleanness.…

Let me, I beseech thee, surrender my whole heart to thee, since thou hast
given me all thine. Let me go out of myself, that I may enter into thee.
Let me cleanse my heart and empty it of the world, that thou mayest fill
it with thy celestial gifts, O Jesus, the rest of my heart, the Sabbath
of my soul! Lead me into the rest of a blessed eternity, where there are
pleasures at thy right hand for evermore. Amen.—_Arndt, “A prayer for
obtaining true rest and tranquility of soul.”_


[_Sunday, July 19._]

    For Prayer is a
      Conversing with God,
      The Key of Heaven,
      The Flower of Paradise,
      A Free Access to God,
      A Familiarity with God,
      The Searcher of His Secrets,
      The Opener of His Mysteries,
      The Purchaser of His Gifts,
      A Spiritual Banquet,
      A Heavenly Enjoyment,
      The Honey-comb of the Spirit,
      Honey Flowing from the Lips,
      The Nurse of Virtues,
      The Conqueror of Vices,
      The Medicine of the Soul,
      A Remedy against Infirmities,
      An Antidote against Sin,
      The Pillar of the World,
      The Salve of Mankind,
      The Seed of Blessing,
      The Garden of Happiness,
      The Tree of Pleasure,
      The Increase of Faith,
      The Support of Hope,
      The Mother of Charity,
      The Path of Righteousness,
      The Preserver of Perseverance,
      The Mirror of Prudence,
      The Mistress of Temperance,
      The Strength of Chastity,
      The Beauty of Holiness,
      The Fire of Devotion,
      The Light of Knowledge,
      The Repository of Wisdom,
      The Strength of the Soul,
      The Remedy against Faint-heartedness,
      The Foundation of Peace,
      The Joy of the Heart,
      The Jubilee of the Mind,
      A Faithful Companion in this Earthly Pilgrimage,
      The Shield of a Christian Soldier,
      The Rule of Humility,
      The Forerunner of Honor,
      The Nurse of Patience,
      The Guardian of Obedience,
      The Fountain of Quietness,
      The Imitator of Angels,
      The Conquest of Devils,
      The Comfort of the Sorrowful,
      The Triumph of the Just,
      The Joy of the Saints,
      The Helper of the Oppressed,
      The Ease of the Afflicted,
      The Rest of the Weary,
      The Ornament of the Conscience,
      The Advancement of Graces,
      The Odor of an Acceptable Sacrifice,
      The Encourager of Mutual Good-will,
      The Refreshment of this Miserable Life,
      The Sweetening of Death,
      The Foretaste of the Heavenly Life.—_Arndt._


[_Sunday, July 26._]

SERMON ON LUKE iv, 1-13.—The _weapons_ of Jesus?—say we rather _the
weapon_—for he has but one, it is the _Word of God_. Three times tempted,
three times he repels the temptation by a simple quotation from the
Scriptures, without explanation or comment. “_It is written_”—this one
expression tells upon the tempter like a tremendous discharge upon an
assaulting battalion. “It is written”—the devil withdraws for the first
time. “It is written”—the devil withdraws for the second time. “It
is written”—the devil gives up the contest. God’s word is the weapon
which Satan most dreads—a weapon before which he has never been able
to do aught but succumb. Most justly does Paul call it the “Sword of
the Spirit;”[A] and John describes it, in the Revelation, as “a sharp,
two-edged sword, proceeding out of the mouth of the Son of man.” With
that “Sword of the Spirit” in our hands, our cause becomes that of the
Holy Spirit himself, and we shall be as superior in strength to our
adversary, as is the Spirit of God to the spirit of darkness. Without
it, on the contrary, left to ourselves, we shall be as much below him as
is man’s nature below that of angels. Adam fell, only because he allowed
this sword to drop. Jesus triumphs, because no one can wrest it from his
hand. But why is it that the Son of God, instead of meeting the enemy
with some new sword brought from the heavens whence he came, took up only
our own weapon, from that very earth where Adam had, with such cowardice,
left it? This is for our example. From what that weapon accomplished in
his hand, we must learn what it can do in ours. Let us, then, take it
up in our turn; or, rather, let us receive it from him, resharpened as
it were, by his victory, and we shall have nothing to fear. To all the
adversary’s attacks let us oppose a simple “_It is written_,” and we
shall render vain his every endeavor.… If after having heard him on the
theater of temptation, scoffing at the word of God, we could (allow me
the expression) follow him behind the scenes, and hear him confess to his
accomplices that he is lost if he can not succeed in wresting from our
hands this irresistible weapon! If we did but know all this, and if, like
the valiant Eleazar, “we could keep hold of our sword till our hand clove
unto it”—oh, then we should be invincible, yea, _invincible_!—_Monod._

[A] Revelation i:16; ii:16; xix:15-21; Hebrews iv:12, “The word of God is
quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joint and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”




“WE SALUTE THEE, AND LIVE.”

BY MARY MATHEWS-SMITH.


     Soldiers brave, in days of old,
     Facing dangers manifold,
     Looked unto their king to cry—
    “Thee we do salute, and die.”

     Service for an earthly king
     Other ending can not bring;
     Whatso’er thy record be,
     Death is all it gives to thee.

     Christian brave, where’er thy way,
     Thine it is with joy to say—
    “King, to whom our hearts we give,
     Thee we do salute, and live.”

     Service for the heavenly King,
     Love and life eternal bring;
     He alone true life can give,
     Him we may salute, and live.




A GROUP OF MUMMIES.

BY OTIS T. MASON.


Whenever the word mummy is mentioned almost everybody thinks of Egypt
and the ancient embalmers, with their tedious processes and costly
ceremonials. The term does include the Egyptian prepared bodies, but it
does not exclude some found elsewhere. Indeed, in Washington, there will
be seen in close proximity, in the Smithsonian building, an exceedingly
dry company, made up of individuals from Alaska, Arizona, Mexico,
Kentucky, Peru, and Egypt.

Whoever has marked the tender solicitude with which the things around us
seem to beckon us in this way or in that will understand that even the
disposal of the dead has been influenced by such suggestions. Passing
through a dense forest one seems to hear the branches and undergrowth
say: “Come this way, pass along here, we are opening to make way for
you.” Well, it is so in every human art; natural objects supply the
materials, the tools, and suggest the simplest forms. There can be no
potters where there is no clay, no chipped arrow heads where there is
no stone to flake, no wood carving in the arctic regions where grows no
timber. Yet the good people in all these places have arts, they make
excellent baskets in which they carry water and boil their meat, polished
spearheads and axes of volcanic stone, and most delicate carvings in
ivory or antler.

As to the disposal of the dead in different regions and ages, all we
have space to say is that the voices of nature around each people have
told them how to perform this sad rite. In the frozen regions, where the
ground is never thawed, no graves are dug. By the seaside the primitive
fisherman is launched upon the wide expanse in his own canoe. In rocky
regions cairns and cists conceal the wasting form. On the soft prairie
mounds cover the dead out of sight. In those arid regions where the
rainfall does not affect the atmosphere to any extent the process of
desiccation takes place more rapidly than chemical changes. The water,
which forms the greater part of the human body, soon removes and leaves
but a few pounds of bones, dried flesh and skin. This may be called
natural mummification, the process of which is aided either by extreme
cold, extreme aridity, or preservative elements in the soil.

In the National Museum there is the body of a little boy, lying on his
back, his feet drawn up, and all sorts of curious relics hanging in the
case with him. The body was discovered in one of the cliff ruins of the
Cañon de Chelly, Arizona. The particular ruin referred to is on a benched
recess, seventy-five feet above the cañon, and extends backward about
thirty feet. The ancient Pueblo people, driven by some invading force,
constructed their cliff houses along only a part of this bench. About
fifty feet from the walls Mr. Thomas Kearn found a little oven-like
cist composed of angular bowlders laid in clay. The rooflet consisted
of sticks supporting stones and clay. At the bottom lay the little
child, and the remains of other burials, together with grave deposits.
Here, in this last resting place, the waters escaped so quickly and so
quietly from the body that even the form of life was not disturbed nor
any chemical changes awakened. So perfectly dried is this little fellow
that even the coatings of the eye remain. This is natural embalmment
by desiccation simply. In the Peabody Museum, at Cambridge, are dried
bodies from Mexico, preserved in the same manner. Around them were their
clothing and utensils, silent and patient watchers, waiting all these
centuries to give in evidence as to how those dead people dressed, ate,
drank, worked, and warred.

In the palmy days of our grandparents there was a desiccated body
discovered in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. This, also, has had the good
fortune, after many peregrinations, to find its way into the Smithsonian.
Now, Mammoth Cave is a damp place, but the earth accumulated on the floor
is in places full of nitrous and other preservative salts. Indeed, the
Kentucky cave subject may be called a natural pickle.

To Mr. William H. Dall we are indebted for bringing to light mummies
from the frozen regions. At the time of their discovery by the Russians,
the Aleuts of Unalashka had a process of mummification peculiar to
themselves. Mr. Dall informs us that they eviscerated the bodies of
those held in honor, removed the fatty matter, placed them for some
time in running water, and then lashed them into as compact a bundle as
possible. A line was placed around the neck and under the knees, to draw
them up to the chin. If any part stuck out, the bones were broken so
as to facilitate the consolidation. After this the body was thoroughly
dried and packed in a wooden crate, wrapped round and round with seal,
sea-otter, and other precious furs, enough to make a fashionable belle’s
head swim. Over these were wrapped coarser skins, waterproof cloth of
intestines, and fine grass mats. This crate was slung to upright poles,
or hung, like a wall-pocket, to a peg driven into a crevice in some cave.
In 1874 Captain E. Hennig, of the Alaska Commercial Company’s service,
found in a cave on the island of Kagamil, near Unalashka, a number of
these framed mummies, all but two of which the company presented to the
Smithsonian Institution.

The Egypt of America for mummies is Peru. Scarcely a museum in the world
is without its dried dogs, guinea pigs, parrots, and human beings wrapped
in costly cloths, and the last mentioned wearing the greatest profusion
of gold and silver jewelry. Along with these bodies are found corn,
beans, peanuts; pottery, gourds, and silver vases; pillows, haversacks
and masks; knives, war clubs and spearheads; needles, distaffs, spindles,
work-baskets and musical cradles. Thousands and thousands of the most
interesting things turn up, almost as expressive of ancient Peruvian life
as was the library of Sennacherib, exhumed by Layard at Kouyunjik, of
Assyrian life.

Beyond the care of the Peruvians and Bolivians in the clothing and
encysting of the dead, it is almost certain that they left them to the
atmosphere to manipulate. The work was done most effectually. Nothing
can be dryer than a Peruvian mummy. It is perfectly useless to dust the
cases containing them, and those who handle them are in a steady sneeze,
as though invisible spirits, filled with indignation, held impalpable
snuff-boxes to the nose. It is still more wonderful that insects have not
done their destructive work upon these bodies. The wrappings doubtless
were so securely made as to prevent their inroads, and must have
contained some substance to keep them away.

In the National Museum, finally, are two Egyptian mummies. It is hard to
tell how they got into such outlandish boxes and mountings. There they
stand, nailed and screwed into narrow, white boxes, side by side, with
mouths open, as if Pompeian convulsions had seized and embalmed them by
instantaneous mummification just as the curtain was falling on a grand
duet. Now, these two bodies were really embalmed (embalsamed); all the
other mummies were simply dried up.

The Egyptians, Peruvians, and perhaps the Alaskans preserved the bodies
as integral parts of the individual, that would be needed again. The
others simply dried up, their depositors cherishing no belief in the
resurrection of the body.




A TRIP TO MT. SHASTA.

Report of a lecture delivered in the National Museum of Washington, D.
C., by Prof. J. S. Diller, of the U. S. Geological Survey.


The Great Basin Country is bounded to the westward by the Cascade Range
in Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in eastern California. The axes
of these two mountain ranges make an angle of over 140° with each other,
and at their point of intersection in northern California rises Mt.
Shasta, one of the most conspicuous and imposing topographical features
of the Pacific coast, above which it rises 14,440 feet. Early in the
days of western exploration its summit was declared to be inaccessible,
but whether this assertion was made to inspire greater respect for the
abode of the Indian gods, or to excuse a disinclination to physical
exertion, must ever remain a matter of conjecture. Certain it is that
the ascent, frequently made within the last few years by ladies is not a
remarkable feat of mountaineering. Under the direction of Captain Dutton
of the Geological Survey, a detailed exploration of the mountain has been
accomplished.

The belt of territory bordering upon the Pacific embraces two parallel
mountain chains, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the east, and
the illy-defined Coast Range on the west. Between these lies the valley
region of the Willamette and Sacramento rivers, whose headwaters are
among that complex group of mountains through which the Klamath River, in
a deep cañon, finds its way to the sea.

Of all the volcanic regions of the world, the one to which Mt. Shasta
belongs is the largest. It extends from Lassen’s Peak, in California,
north through Oregon to Mt. Rainier in Washington Territory, and eastward
far into Idaho, covering an area larger than that of France and Great
Britain combined. Within this wide expanse are extensive plains, whose
broad surfaces indicate that the basaltic lava beneath at the time of
its eruption possessed such a high degree of fluidity that it spread
out far and wide like the waters of a lake. Upon the western border the
more viscous lavas built up the Cascade Range, whose mammoth arch is
surmounted by numerous mighty volcanoes, among which Mt. Shasta is one of
the most prominent.

Seen from all sides Mt. Shasta presents a remarkably regular outline, and
its beautiful conoidal form has excited the admiration of many observers.
Its slopes are exceptional for the high angle and graceful curves of
their inclination. The upper 3,000 feet of the mountain, where cliffs are
most abundant, dips away toward all points of the compass at an average
angle of 37°. Further down the mountain the slope gradually decreases in
inclination to 20°, then to 15°, 10°, and finally the long, gentle slope
about the base of the mountain deviates but 5° from a horizontal plane.
In all directions from the summit of Mt. Shasta its flanks increase in
length as they decrease in angle of inclination, presenting a curved
mountain side concave upwards, and has the greatest curvature near the
top. Mr. Gilbert, in his excellent monograph of the Henry Mountains,
shows that such a curve is the natural result of erosion. In the case of
some volcanic mountains, however, an important coöperative cause may be
found in the fact that at each successive eruption the lava decreased in
quantity and became more viscous. The grandest approach to Mt. Shasta
is from the north, in the broad valley of the same name, where it is
presented to full view, and the deepest impression of its colossal
dimensions is experienced. It stands at the head of Shasta valley, above
which it rises 11,000 feet, with a volume of over 224 cubic miles, and
presents, in strange contrast with the sterility of the valley, the
luxuriant vegetation of the forest belt. The timbered slopes lie between
the altitudes 4,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea, and belong to the
most magnificent forest regions of the world. Above the forest belt the
mountain rises more than a mile into the heights of eternal snow, and its
brilliant white slopes present an imposing contrast to the deep green of
the pines beneath. Viewed from the southeast, Mt. Shasta appears to be
surmounted by a single peak, but seen from the north, the upper portion
is found to be double. The smaller of the two cones, broad topped and
crater shaped, has been designated Shastina, to distinguish it from the
other acute cone, which rises 2,000 feet higher and forms the summit of
Shasta proper.

The influence of temperature upon precipitation, and the limits which it
throws about arboreal vegetation, are here most forcibly illustrated.
In Shasta valley, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet above the sea,
where the average temperature is high as compared with that upon the
mountain itself, the precipitation is always in the form of rain,
but not sufficient in quantity, especially on account of its unequal
distribution throughout the year, to support more than a scanty growth
of stunted trees. In the autumn storm clouds gather about the summit,
and showers become frequent, spreading over the land in copious rains.
Before the spring eight ninths of all the annual rain has fallen and the
country is brilliant with living green. As summer advances the refreshing
showers disappear and the cloudless sky affords no protection from
the burning sun; the bright green fades away and the earth gradually
assumes that uninviting seared aspect which pervades all nature in the
season of drought. Upon the lower slopes of the mountain, by its cooling
influence upon the atmosphere, the rainfall is greatly increased, and
the vegetation is luxuriant. The vegetation is almost wholly coniferous.
Among nearly a score of species the sugar-pine is monarch, frequently
attaining a diameter of twelve and a height of over two hundred feet.
Farther up the mountain these gradually give way to the firs, whose
tall, graceful forms are in perfect keeping with the majestic mountain
behind them. Their black and yellow spotted trunks and branches, draped
in long pendant moss, present a weird, almost dismal aspect, making a
fit promenade for the mythical deities supposed by the aborigines to
inhabit the mountains. To assume that in the timber belt the slopes of
the mountain are everywhere covered with majestic trees, would certainly
be wide of the truth, for within the forests are large treeless tracts,
sometimes hundreds of acres in extent. From a distance these green,
velvety acres appear to be very inviting pastures, and present the most
desirable path of ascent. A closer examination, however, discovers to the
observer that instead of grass these green fields are clothed in such a
dense shrubbery of manzanita, ceanothus, and other bushy plants, as to be
almost impassable. One attempt to cross a patch of chaparral, or “Devil’s
acre,” as it is sometimes appropriately called in western vernacular,
will convince the traveler that his best path lies in the forest.

As the timber gradually dwindles away from the foot of the mountain
to almost nothing in Shasta valley, so also it diminishes in stature,
from an altitude of 7,000 feet upwards to the snow region, where the
precipitation is generally, if not always, in a solid form of snow in
winter and sleet in summer.

Of the tree-like vegetation, one of the pines reaches farthest up
the slopes. Its stem grows shorter and the top flattens until, at an
elevation of about 9,000 feet, the branches are spread upon the ground,
so that not unfrequently the pedestrian finds his best path upon
the tree-tops. Beyond these, on the snowless slopes, are found only
scattered blades of grass, and the welcome little hulsea, the edelweiss
of our Alpine regions, with its bright flowers to alleviate the arctic
desolation of the place. The red and yellow lichens cling to the
rocks and the tiny prolococcus flourishes in the snow, so that one is
frequently surprised, upon looking back, to see his bloody footsteps.

In the Alps, between the forests and the snow, are often found extensive
pastures where the herds which furnish milk for the celebrated Swiss
cheese are grazed during the milder seasons of the year. In northern
California similar pastures do not occur about the snow-capped summits,
probably on account of the unequal distribution of the annual rainfall.

To those who are fond of novelty, the greatest interest of the upper
portion of Mt. Shasta attaches to its glaciers. They are five in number,
and all are found side by side upon its northern half, forming an almost
continuous covering above 10,000 feet for that portion of the mountain
point. Upon the northern and western slope of the mountain is the Whitney
glacier, with its prominent terminal moraines. Next to the eastward is
the Bulam glacier, with the large pile of debris at the lower end. Then
comes the broad Hottums glacier and the Wintum. The Konwakitong, which is
the smallest of the group, lies upon the southeast side of the mountain.
Whitney glacier is more like those of the Alps than any other one of the
group. Its snow-field lies upon the northwestern slope of the mountains,
from whence the icy mass moves down a shallow depression between Shasta
and Shastina. Mr. Ricksecker, who has made a careful topographical survey
of the mountain, has measured the dimensions of all its glaciers. The
limits of the Whitney glacier are well defined; its width varies from
1,000 to 2,000 feet, with a length of about two and one-fifth miles,
reaching from the summit of the mountain down to an altitude of 9,500
feet above the sea. It is but little more than a decade since the first
glaciers were discovered within the United States, and we should not be
disappointed to learn that the largest of them, about the culminating
point of the Cascade Range, would appear Liliputian beside the great
glacier of the Bernese Oberland, and yet the former are as truly glaciers
as the latter. In the upper portion of its course, passing over prominent
irregularities in its bed, the Whitney glacier becomes deeply fractured,
producing the extremely jagged surface, corresponding to the surfaces of
the Alpine glaciers. Lower down the crevasses develop, and these, with
the great fissure which separates it from the steep slopes of Shastina,
attest the motion of the icy mass. They frequently open and become
yawning chasms, reaching 100 feet into the clear, green ice beneath. Near
its middle, upon the eastern margin, the Whitney glacier receives large
contributions of sand, gravel and bowlders, from the vertical cliffs
around which it turns to move in a more northerly direction. In this way
a prominent lateral moraine is developed. From the very steep slopes
of Shastina, upon the western side, the glacier receives additions in
the form of avalanches. Here the snow clings to its rocky bed until the
strain resulting from accumulation is great enough to break it from its
moorings and precipitate it upon the glacier below. The most striking
feature of the Whitney glacier, and that which is of greatest interest
from a geological point of view, is its terminal moraine, which appears
to be fully a mile in length. Its apparent length is much greater than
the real, from the fact that the glacial ice extends far down beneath the
covering of detritus. It is so huge a pile of light colored debris, just
above the timber line, that it is plainly visible from afar off.

In comparing the morainal material about Mt. Shasta with that of Alpine
glaciers, a feature that is particularly noticeable is the smallness
of the bowlders. Upon Alpine glaciers they frequently have a diameter
greater than ten feet, but about the Whitney and other glaciers of Mt.
Shasta they are rarely as much as three feet in diameter. This is readily
explained by the fact that the glaciers of Mt. Shasta do not move in
deep valleys bounded by long, deep slopes, with many high cliffs which
afford an opportunity for the formation of large bowlders. Although the
Whitney glacier has its boundaries more clearly defined than any of the
other glaciers about Mt. Shasta by the depression in which it moves,
the valley is very shallow, and one looks in vain along its slopes for
traces of polished rocks like those so magnificently displayed on the way
from Meiningen to Grimsel, in the valley of the Aar. Below the terminal
moraine the milky water of Whitney creek wends its way down the northern
slope, plunges over a fall hundreds of feet high, into a deep cañon, and
near the base of the mountain is swallowed up by the thirsty air and
earth. The presence of marginal crevasses, lateral and terminal moraines,
and the characteristic milky stream which issues from the lower end, are
proofs that the Whitney glacier still moves, but the rate of motion has
not yet been determined. The row of stakes planted last July were covered
with snow before the party could reach them again in the latter part of
October.

Upon the northwestern slope of the mountain, besides the Whitney glacier,
there is the Bulam, differing chiefly in that it is contained in a
broader, less definite valley, and forming an intermediate step toward
the Hottum glacier, which is one of the most important and remarkable
of the group. Unlike ordinary glaciers, it has no valley in which it is
confined, but lies upon the convex surface of the mountain. Its upper
surface, instead of being concave anywhere, is convex throughout from
side to side, and its width (123 miles) is almost as great as its length
(162 miles). At several places the surface of the glacier is made very
rough by the inequalities of its bed. This is especially true of its
southern portion, where prominent cliffs form the only medial moraine
discovered upon Mt. Shasta. Throughout the greater part of its expanse
the glacier is deeply crevassed, exposing the green ice occasionally
to the depth of a hundred feet. The thickness of this glacier has been
greatly overestimated. In reality, instead of being 1,800 to 2,500 feet
thick, it does not appear where greatest to be more than a few hundred,
for at a number of places it is so thin that its bed is exposed. Its
terminal moraine is a huge pile, nearly half a mile in width, measured in
the direction of glacial motion.

Next south of the Hottum glacier is the Wintum, which attains a length of
over two miles, and ends with an abrupt front of ice in a cañon. Upon the
southeastern slope of Mt. Shasta, at the head of a large cañon, is the
Konwakitong glacier. Notwithstanding its diminutive size, its crevasses
and the muddy stream it initiates indicate clearly that the ice mass
continues to move. The amount of moraine material upon its borders is
small, and yet, of all the glaciers about Mt. Shasta, it is the only
one which has left a prominent record of important changes. The country
adjacent to the west side of the Konwakitong cañon has been distinctly
glaciated so as to leave no doubt that the Konwakitong glacier was once
very much larger than it is at the present time. The rocks on which it
moved have been deeply striated, and so abraded as to produce the smooth,
rounded surfaces so common in glaciated regions. At the time of its
greatest extension the glacier was 5.8 miles in length and occupied an
area of at least seven square miles, being over twenty times its present
size. Its limit is marked at several places by a prominent terminal
moraine. The thickness of the glacier where greatest was not more than
200 feet, for several hills within the glaciated area were not covered.
The striated surfaces and moraines do not extend up the slopes of those
hills more than 200 feet above their bases. The thinness of the glacier
is completely in harmony with the limited extent of its erosion, although
the rocks are distinctly planed off, so that the low knobs and edges have
regularly curved outlines. It is evident that a great thickness of rock
has been removed by the ice, and that the period of ice erosion has been
comparatively brief. During the lapse of time, however, there have been
important climatic oscillations, embracing epochs of glacial advance and
recession. None of the glaciers about Mt. Shasta, excepting the Wintum,
terminate in cañons, but all of them give rise to muddy streams which
flow in cañons to the mountain’s base. The cañons are purely the product
of aqueous erosion, and contain numerous waterfalls, whence the streams
in descending leap over the ends of old lava flows 50 to 300 feet in
height.

In strong contrast with the arctic condition of Mt. Shasta to-day,
are the circumstances attending its upbuilding, when it was an active
volcano belching forth streams of fiery lava that flowed down the slopes
now occupied by ice. It is the battlefield of the elements within the
earth against those above it. In its early days the forces beneath were
victorious, and built up the mountains in the face of wind and weather,
but gradually the volcanic energy died away and the low temperature
called into play those destructive agents which are now reversing the
process and gradually reducing the mountain toward a general level. A
microscopical examination of the rocks of Mt. Shasta reveals the fact
that it is composed chiefly, if not wholly, of three kinds of lava.
Several small areas of metamorphic rocks occur within its borders, but
there is no evidence to show that they form any considerable portion of
the mountain.

The range in mineralogical composition of the lavas is not extensive.
There are only four minerals which deserved to be ranked as essential and
characteristic constituents: they are plagioclase, feldspar, pyroxene,
generally in the form of hypersthene hornblende, and olivine. The kind
of lava which has by far the widest distribution upon the slopes of Mt.
Shasta is composed essentially of plagioclase, feldspar and hypersthene,
with some angite, and belongs to the variety of volcanic rocks which,
on account of composition, and the place where first discovered, has
been designated hypersthene andesite. Lava of this type has been shown
by Messrs. Cross and Giddings of the Geological Survey to be widely
distributed beyond the Mississippi. Upon the western slope of the
mountain, especially in the vicinity of the prominent volcanic cone, the
form of which suggests its name sugar loaf, the lava contains prominent
crystals of hornblende instead of so much hypersthene and angite, and
closely resembles the celebrated hornblende andesite lava from among
the extinct volcanoes of central France. The third variety of lava
which enters into the structure of Mt. Shasta is familiar to every
one as basalt. It occurs in relatively small quantities, and has been
extruded low down upon the slopes of the mountain. From the fact that
there are three kinds of lava in the structure of Mt. Shasta, it must
not be concluded that they all issued from the same volcanic vent, nor
that they were effused from three separate and distinct openings. In
reality, contributions to the upbuilding of Mt. Shasta have been made by
over twenty volcanic orifices, of which two have been principal and far
more prolific than all the parasitic events combined. This enumeration
does not include those large fissures in the side of the cone, which are
evidently attributable to the hydrostatic pressure of the molten mass
within. The small number of parasitic cones on the slopes of Mt. Shasta
is somewhat remarkable, especially when we compare it with the largest
volcano in Europe. Although it is much higher than Etna, its base is less
expansive, and its size about half that of the mighty monarch of the
Mediterranean. Upon the irregular slopes of Etna there are 200 prominent
subsidiary cones, beside over 400 of smaller size. On the contrary, Mt.
Shasta has but a score of such accessories, and the remarkable regularity
of its acute form forcibly expresses the highly concentrated type of
volcanic energy which it represents.

From none of the vents upon its slopes have all three kinds of lava
escaped, but from the summits of Shasta and Shastina, which are the
products of the two largest and most prolific vents, both hornblende
and hypersthene andesite have been effused. All the other orifices were
subordinate, and each furnished but one kind of lava; from seven of them
came hypersthene andesite; eight, hornblende andesite; and the remaining
five, basalt. The relative age of the cones which mark the position of
the volcanic vents is indicated by the amount of degradation which each
has suffered. Judged by this criterion, those of hornblende andesite
are the oldest and those of basalt the youngest. The latter are for
the most part made of lapilli, and are not crater-shaped as is usually
the case in other portions of the Cascade Range, but are elliptical in
form, with dome-shaped summits. The presence of considerable piles of
ejectments about the subsidiary vents indicates that the eruptions from
these orifices were often of a violent character. On the other hand there
are some without a trace of lapilli, or anything else to indicate an
interruption in the quiet flow of lava welling out of the depths.

Upon the eastern slope of the mountain the cañon, excavated by Mud
creek, brings to light the oldest Shasta lavas now exposed, and they
are seen under such circumstances that their succession can be readily
understood. The oldest lava known is hornblende andesite, which is now in
an advanced state of disintegration, and it seems probable that in the
early stages of its development a large proportion of the lavas ejected
from Mt. Shasta were of the same mineralogical constitution. These were
succeeded by extensive effusions of hypersthene andesite. Later in its
history, several small streams of hornblende andesite again burst forth
from the northeastern side of the cone, but the final effort of the
volcanic energy was spent in the ejection of hypersthene andesite. The
conditions which determine the oscillation in mineralogical composition
of the lavas are as yet conjectural, but when discovered, and their
influence demonstrated, an important step forward will have been made in
determining the relations of many volcanic rocks.

A striking feature in the structure of Mt. Shasta is the paucity of
volcanic ashes, lapilli, and other ejected matter. Only one important
deposit of the kind has been discovered. It clings about the summit of
the mountain, and is evidently the product of its last eruption. The
summit of Shastina is so regular in outline, and the shape of its crater
so well preserved, that many have supposed it to be composed chiefly of
scoria and ashes; but this is not the case, for its slopes are of angular
fragments of compact lava.

Mt. Shasta is almost a pure lava cone, and its remarkably regular form
is a matter of wonder. That it is so regular is a sequence of several
favorable circumstances. Although a score of parasitic cones spring from
the side of the mountain, and have contributed to its upbuilding, yet
their additions have been so small compared with the vast effusions from
the summit craters Shasta and Shastina, as not to greatly modify the
outline of the mountain. More important circumstances are to be found in
the non-explosive character of the eruptions and the successive changes
in the physical properties of the erupted lava, as the development of the
mountain progressed.

It is well known that among the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands the
eruptions are quiet and effusive. The fiery streams of liquid lava course
down the gentle slopes for many miles.

Although the mountain is 14,000 feet high, its lavas have such a high
degree of liquidity, and retain their mobility so long after eruption,
that the base of the mountain spread by them has a diameter of about
seventy miles, and an average slope of 5° 1,800 feet below its summit.
Mauna Loa is nearly twenty miles in diameter. On the contrary, at a
corresponding position its greatest diameter is less than two miles, a
very remarkable difference, which is due chiefly to the unequal fluency
of the two lavas. The very oldest lavas of Mt. Shasta lie buried within
its mass, and we know nothing of their physical properties, but from an
examination of the oldest ones now visible, it is evident that at the
time of their eruption they possessed a higher degree of fluidity, and
were more voluminous than those of later date. The long, gentle slopes
about the base of the mountain are formed by comparatively old lavas.
Ascending the mountain, one goes up as if upon a giant staircase, with
long, inclined steps rising abruptly over the ends of successive shorter
and newer lava flows.

It is evident in comparing the older and newer lava flows of Mt. Shasta
that there has been a more or less regular decrease in the quantity of
lava extruded during successive eruptions, and this is exactly what
we should expect when we consider that as the pipe is lengthened by
successive effusions, the hydrostatic pressure of the columns of lava
within is gradually augmented. The increased compress of the lava flows
toward the summit of the mountain indicates that the lava of successive
extrusions became more and more viscous until at last the eruptions
became explosive, and gave rise to the ejectments now clinging upon the
upper slopes of the mountain to evidence the character of the final
outburst.

It is not only possible, but very probable that the increased viscosity
of lava toward the closing scenes of the volcano is correllated to the
diminution of temperature. Since the beginning of the historic period
there have been no eruptions from Mt. Shasta, but the freshness of its
lavas indicate that not many centuries ago, with other volcanoes of the
Cascade Range, it was in a state of vigorous activity, and groups of
hot springs and fumeroles about the summit still attest the presence of
smouldering volcanic energy, which may perhaps some day break through its
confining walls.

The upbuilding of Mt. Shasta is but a matter of yesterday, as compared
with the lapse of ages, since the birth of some of its neighbors. The
complex group of mountains to the westward, embracing the Scott, Trinity,
Salmon and Siskiyou, are composed in large part, at least, of ancient
crystalline rocks of both aqueous and igneous origin; through these the
rivers have cut deep cañons, the Klamath, on its way to the Sacramento
southward, from the very base of Mt. Shasta to its broad valley
stretching from the Sierra Nevada to the Coast Range. The cañon of the
Sacramento was cut down to nearly its present level, and the mountains
sculptured into existing forms long before the eruptions of Mt. Shasta
had ceased, for a fiery deluge escaping from the southern slope of Mt.
Shasta entered the Sacramento cañon, and as a lava stream 200 feet deep
followed its course for over fifty miles.

Towering more than a mile above its neighbors, perhaps the youngest of
the group, Mt. Shasta is the end of a long series of volcanoes in the
Cascade Range, stretching northwest to Mt. Tacoma. This range, composed
chiefly of volcanic material, is cut across by the cañons of the Columbia
and the Klamath rivers, in the former of which, beneath a thickness of
3,500 feet of lava, are found strata containing Tertiary fossils. At the
southern base of Mt. Shasta, in the cañon of the McLoud River, similar
beds of volcanic debris are found, but without fossils, nevertheless it
is evident that the main mass of the Cascade Range and its volcanoes
originated in recent geologic times, and from the fact that solfataras,
fumeroles, and hot springs are still abundant upon their slopes, they can
not be reckoned among those which are wholly extinct.

A frontiersman in Washington Territory tells of an outburst of Mt. St.
Helens in the winter of 1841-2.

Upon somewhat more trustworthy authority it is said that to the southward
of Mt. Shasta, about forty miles, a small cone which may be considered
parasitic to Lassens Peak, has been in eruption as late as January,
1850, ejecting considerable ashes and cinders, and pouring forth a mass
of lava, which gradually spread, attaining a circumference of over four
miles, and presenting an abrupt embankment-like termination upon all
sides eighty to ninety feet in height. Trees, blackened by the fiery
stream, are still standing to furnish incontestable evidence of its
recency.

The country is full of rumors of subterranean rumblings, and the people
are prone to attribute them to the dying throes of volcanic energy.

One of the most striking features of the region is the strongly
contrasted types of volcanic action in Mt. Shasta. Both have
approximately the same area. In the valley there have been many scores of
volcanic vents, among which the energy has been so widely diffused that
none of them have furnished lava sufficient to form a hill more than a
few hundred feet in height.

On the contrary, the mountain represents a small number of vents, and the
volcanic was nearly all concentrated in one place, so that the extrusions
were all piled up, one upon another, and resulted in the upbuilding of
one majestic elevation.

Thus it has been from a small beginning, probably in early Tertiary
times, that by successive boilings over, so to speak, additions have
been made to the mountain until it attained a height beyond its present
altitude. The constructive agents reached their limit, dissipated their
energy, and gave way to destructive ones, which are gradually undoing the
work.

Mt. Shasta must ever be one of the most popular mountains among tourists
of the West. It is easily accessible from a main line of travel which
passes by its base, at Berryvale, where comfortable quarters and
necessary outfit for the ascent can be obtained.

The streams are filled with trout, and the forest with game, so that the
region affords many attractions for the sportsman.

Several hours’ travel by a good trail brings the party to Camp Ross,
at the timber line, from which the ascent can easily be made in a day
without danger.




REASSUREMENT.

BY ADA IDDINGS GALE.


    Fear not, heart—though round thee ply
    Battle’s emblems—far and nigh.
    Though thy comrades round thee fall—
    Ensigns totter on the wall—
    Though the long battalions grim
    Seem to cloud thy future’s rim.
    If amidst the wild affray
    Thou grow sick, and turn away—
    Pause: that would be worst of all,
    If in fleeing, thou should’st fall.
    Stand fast, girt with sword and shield—
    If thou fall, fall in the field.
    What matters it if sad defeat
    Meet thy eager, hurrying feet;
    What, if when the banners wave
    Thou should’st find a shallow grave.

    Foeward, bravely turn thy face,
    Seek no measure small of grace;
    And when loud the trumpets call,
    Bravely stand or bravely fall.
    Whether vict’ry or defeat,
    Laurel wreath or winding sheet
    Be thy meed—’twill differ not,
    Soon or late ’twill be forgot.
    Only thou, heart, e’er shalt know
    Thy deserved praise here below.
    Thou, and One that on his throne
    Ne’er forgets to watch his own,
    One that marks where sparrows flee,
    Thee will guard with equity.
    Then be brave with all thy might—
    This thy guerdon—for the right.




WILL IT PAY?

BY CHARLES BARNARD.


There are some people who always ask this question. You may suggest
anything, a book to read, a science to be studied, or some new work to be
done, and, though they may not be so rude as to say so, they will wonder
how it will pay. “Better not go into farming, my boy. It doesn’t pay.”
“Better not do this or do that. It won’t pay you.” After a little more
of this sort of thing you wonder if it pays to be born, or to live, or
to do anything whatever. Now, what do they mean by this question? By far
the larger part of those who ask it mean that the work, whatever it may
be, does not pay a handsome return in money. A few mean something quite
different. They know all about it, they have seen the world, and it is
all a hollow show, and their favorite dolls are full of sawdust. These
people are dead, but they have forgotten it.

Let us see about this. If there is any one business in the world about
which the people in it are sure it does not pay, it is farming. “It does
not pay.” So many people have said this that people who are not farmers
have really come to think it must be so. Is it true? Here is an ear of
field corn with twelve rows of grains, and twenty grains to a row. Fair
average corn, with 240 grains to the ear. We can take off one grain
and plant it in the ground, and within six months have two ears of the
same corn, or 480 grains from one grain. How big a profit is that? One
grain increases to 480 grains. Is there any manufacturing business, art
or profession that pays such an enormous return? In spite of this they
say it does not pay. Then there must be something the matter with the
business. Nature has provided that the increase of plants shall be very
great. One seed may increase a hundred fold, or five hundred fold, or a
thousand fold. Clearly the work of raising plants with such advantages
in its favor ought to pay, and if it does not, it is equally clear that
something is wrong, some one to blame.

The city housekeeper finds at her store on the avenue a head of lettuce.
Rather wilted and damaged by rough handling. Six cents. You can plant
43,560 heads of lettuce on one acre of ground. At six cents a head that
is $2,613.60 taken out of one acre of land inside of eight weeks. And
yet this person gravely tells us lettuce raising does not pay. What can
the matter be, and where has all this money gone? A city like New York
will calmly eat 40,000 heads of lettuce in a day or two, and pay out over
$2,000 for it, and be ready to eat and pay as much more the next week.
The money is certainly paid to somebody, and if the farmer still insists
it does not pay to raise the lettuce, there must be a reason for it.

Ask the groceryman. He replies that he must live and must have a good
slice out of the money to pay him for buying the lettuce down town and
bringing it up to his store. It isn’t so evident that he must live as he
fancies, because there was a time when there were no storekeepers and
the world got along beautifully without them. However, he is convenient,
and we will allow him his slice out of the profits. The teamster, the
wholesale dealer, the freight handler, the railroad people all say that
they too must live, and to please them we will admit that is so, though
there is not much to prove it. They must share in the $2,000 paid for
the acre of lettuce. Lastly, the farmer gets what the others decide he
may have after they have had what they decide is their share. If we ask
each one of this row of men, it is quite possible each one will say it
does not pay, but, somehow, none except the farmer says anything about
it. The last man, the actual producer of the lettuce, is the only one to
complain. His business is the only one concerned that people say does not
pay.

There was once a young man who started out bravely in life, resolved
to reform the world. After trying for some time he gave it up and was
ever after entirely contented if he paid his board regularly every week.
It is useless to think we can reform this matter all in a day. The day
will come when these things will be changed and equity and justice will
take the place of the utter selfishness that now marks competition in
business. Our best plan is to see what we can do to become producers
ourselves. We want the lettuce ourselves. We must pay the retail price
for it, and if at this price there is a big profit in raising it, we
would like the entire profit placed in our hands. The people in these
United States are divided into two great classes—the producers and the
consumers—those who raise things to eat, and those who are in other
trades and eat without producing. The producers are the farmers and
fishermen. The consumers make all the rest of the people. The producers
also eat, but their food costs them very much less than the food used
by the non-producers. Of course we can see there must be non-producers
or the trades and arts would perish, and the nation would become a mere
agricultural community, content with sleeping and eating. At the same
time, we must observe that a very large proportion of those who produce
nothing live in small towns and villages and own land. We see everywhere
in our smaller cities and towns hundreds of homes having gardens about
the house. A little discouraged grass, a dyspeptic tree or two, a forlorn
grape vine straggling over the fence, plenty of dusty gravel, and a
mortgage on the house and lot. Within the house bitter complaints against
the high price of food, much fretfulness and weariness at the scant,
monotonous bill of fare. Boys and girls growing up with white hands and
narrow chests (to say nothing of stomachs that they should be ashamed to
own) and the storekeeper saving money on the next corner.

This is the reason it does not pay. We want to have white hands and be
genteel and all that. We want to be consumers, and we unwittingly combine
to get all we can out of the selling and handling of food and leave the
producer as little as we think he can be forced to take. We must get rid
of this imported nonsense about work. (It all came from Europe, and is
wholly un-American.) We must make the land give us more food. Our boys
and girls must go out of doors, must learn to be producers. They should
be shown that it is disgraceful to live in a mortgaged house, that it is
disgraceful to stand on any part of God’s ground and complain that food
is scarce or high when that food might come out of the very ground under
our ungrateful feet. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Dutch, the French,
the Swiss cultivate every rod of ground they own. No barren yards about
their houses, taxed and yet paying no return. Why, in England even the
strips of waste land along the railway tracks are cultivated, and the
trains move between rows of cabbages half a hundred miles long.

This is the way for thousands of families to make it pay. Produce your
own food and sell it to yourselves. A head of lettuce grown on your own
ground and eaten on your own table saves the retail price of a head of
lettuce, and if there is a profit on it for all the people who touch it,
clearly you have the entire profit for yourself. On reading this about
five hundred people will calmly remark that this is not so. They have
tried it and it cost more to raise their own vegetables than it did to
buy them at the stores. The wages of the gardener come to more than all
the things were worth. So much the worse for the gardener. You should
be your own gardener. Where are your boys and girls? At the base ball
grounds, or the rink, or at the foolish piano—doing nothing—earning
nothing and trying to be genteel? Garden work is hard on the back and
hurts the hands. Yes, because your hands are weak and your back is not
strong, and of these things you should be ashamed.

The price of land in this country is steadily rising. All the best farm
land is being taken up. The cost of food is advancing. It will never
again be as cheap as it has been in the past. The time has come when we
must economize. We can not longer afford to carry those neglected garden
plots and waste spaces about our houses. They must produce food for the
people who own them. We must be our own producers. We must study plants
and animals. These represent food and wealth, and it is simply an untruth
to say it will not pay to raise them. If your garden costs more than the
retail price of food in your neighborhood the fault is your own. There
is something the matter with your soil or your seeds, or your method
of culture. Think of the profit of raising lettuce at $2,000 an acre,
and yet that is the return that an acre will produce if paid for at the
retail price. Moreover, the lettuce would be removed from the ground in
ample time for another crop, likewise bringing a profit. Of course, if
your land is worth five dollars a foot, the interest on one foot would
be more than the value of the single lettuce plant you could raise upon
it. In such a case you had better sell out and buy cheaper land. For
the majority of homes where there is a garden the land is cheap enough
to produce more or less of the food needed in the house, and there is no
reason whatever why it may not be raised at a handsome profit.

The Chautauqua University recognizes the importance of this matter. Its
aim is to help, to guide, and to instruct, and it is now, through the
liberality of its friends, able to help, guide and instruct all who wish
to learn something of the art of producing food and saving money. It sees
hundreds of boys and girls totally ignorant of these common things. It
sees young people wondering what they shall do, perplexed and worried
over this question of earning a living, and discouraged at the high cost
of living, when a part of their living is going to waste beneath their
feet. The Chautauqua Town and Country Club was formed to help those
who wish to help themselves. It aims to show by simple lessons how to
raise plants of all kinds, how to care for animals, how to take care of
your garden so that it will be a source of pleasure and profit. Half
a thousand people have already joined the club and are now at work in
good earnest. Should you wish to know more about it, write to Miss K. F.
Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

All this is meant for you.

What are you going to do about it?




GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR JULY.

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,

Western University of Pennsylvania.


THE SUN,

Of which so much has been said in these pages, continues to be
discussed with increasing interest by astronomers of both hemispheres,
who every day supply their quota of new ideas as the result of their
investigations. In THE CHAUTAUQUAN for March, 1884, the statement was
made that “it has already been demonstrated that the colored prominences
may be examined at any time when the sun can be seen; and it is believed
that Mr. Huggins has accomplished the difficult feat of photographing
the corona, so that it, too, may be scrutinized _at leisure_.” In the
April number of the _Nineteenth Century_, we find a very interesting
account by Mr. Huggins himself, of his operations in this line. As yet
the experiments have not been in all respects satisfactory; but so much
has been done as to leave no doubt of the final result. As Mr. H. tells
us, the great obstacle to overcome is the immense curtain of air, which
“hangs” between us and the sun, and absorbs some forty per cent. of the
sun’s light (and heat). This absorption renders our atmosphere as light
at least as the sun’s corona, and makes it as difficult of observation
as a lesser light placed behind a greater. The same atmosphere being as
bright, or brighter, than the stars, prevents our seeing the latter in
daylight. During an eclipse of the sun, the shadow of the moon affords
us a long, funnel shaped tube through this great air curtain (which may
be forty, or one hundred, or more miles in thickness) and we are enabled
through it to see the sun’s corona. But “on an average, once in two years
this curtain of light is lifted for from _three_ to _six_ minutes”—a very
contracted period in which to obtain a knowledge of a phenomenon that
we know is constantly changing. If we had a Joshua, who could command
sun, moon and earth to stand still for the space of a few hours even, we
might discover what we so much wish to know, what is this corona. Or, if
we could go beyond this atmosphere of ours—place it between us and the
earth, we might do without a Joshua. But we can not get outside. Then the
next best thing is to get as nearly outside as possible. Dr. Copeland
tried this by climbing an elevation of 12,400 feet. Prof. Langley
ascended Mt. Etna, and on Mt. Whitney ascended to the height of 15,000
feet; but at these heights the curtain was still too heavy, and no view
of the corona was obtained; or, as Prof. Langley expressed it, he “met
with entire non-success.” From reports in regard to observations made
in Egypt of the total eclipse of 1882, Mr. Huggins conceived the idea
of making a photographic plate so sensitive that it would distinguish
differences imperceptible to the eye, and on this plate take a picture
of the corona, and then examine it as one would the “photo” of a friend,
and mark its peculiarities. He made his first experiment in 1882, and
as a result “there seemed to be good ground to hope that the corona had
really been obtained upon the plates.” In 1883, a second attempt, under
more favorable circumstances was made, and “images of the sun exquisitely
defined, and free from all sensible trace of instrumental imperfection
were obtained.” On the 6th of May of the same year (1883) a total eclipse
of the sun occurred at Caroline Islands, and was there photographed by
Messrs. Lawrence and Woods, photographers of the Royal Society; and on
a comparison of these photographs of the sun’s corona during an eclipse
with his own taken both before and after the time of the eclipse (which
was not visible to Mr. H.), he had the satisfaction of seeing so strong
a resemblance as to convince him that he had photographed the corona
without an eclipse. Although having no doubt of the success of his
experiment, yet, on account of the unfavorable conditions of the climate,
it was determined to try a higher elevation; and the Riffel, near
Zarmatt, Switzerland, was selected as a suitable place to make further
trials. Mr. Ray Wood was selected as artist, and reached Riffel in July,
1884. But unfortunately, the “veil of finely divided matter of some
sort,” “of which we have heard so much in the accounts from all parts
of the earth of gorgeous sunsets and after-glows” seriously interfered
with the work; nevertheless, a number of plates were obtained on which
the corona showed itself with more or less distinctness. Not satisfied
with these results, Mr. Woods was deputed to go to the Cape of Good Hope,
where, under the direction of Dr. Gill, he is to make, or is, perhaps,
now making daily photographic representations of the corona, and laboring
fully to realize the anticipations of the esteemed Mr. Huggins.

Meantime our sun makes his accustomed rounds, bringing with him the usual
accompaniments, hot weather and the “dog days.” He will on the 1st rise
at 4:34 a. m. and set at 7:33 p. m.; on the 16th, rise at 4:43 a. m., set
at 7:28 p. m.; and on the 30th, rise at 4:56 a. m., and set at 7:17 p. m.
During the month the length of the day will decrease from 15 h. 1 m. on
the 1st to 14 h. 21 m. on the 30th. The declination will in the same time
decrease four degrees and forty-three minutes.


THE MOON

Enters upon its last quarter on the 5th, at 7:18 a. m.; new moon occurs
on the 12th, at 12:07 a. m.; first quarter on the 18th, at 7:11 p. m.;
full moon on the 26th, at 9:14 p. m. In perigee, or nearest the earth, on
the 11th, at 8:24 p. m.; in apogee, or farthest from the earth, on 25th,
at 4:18 a. m. Reaches its greatest elevation above the horizon, 66° 55′,
on the 11th; least elevation, 30° 7′, on the 23d. On the 1st, rises at
10:00 p. m.; on the 16th, sets at 10:26 p. m.; on the 30th, rises 9:05 p.
m.


MERCURY

On the 13th, at 6:57 a. m., is 5° 39′ north of the moon; on the 17th, at
9:00 a. m., 11′ south of Venus; and on the 26th, at 2:00 a. m., 11′ south
of _Alpha_ in the constellation _Leo_, a very interesting conjunction,
but not visible to the naked eye. Mercury has a direct motion during the
month of 51° 51′; and his diameter increases from 5″ to 6.8″. On the 1st,
he rises at 4:56 a. m., and sets at 7:56 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at
6:23 a. m., and sets at 8:31 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at 7:16 a. m., and
sets at 8:22 p. m.


VENUS

Makes but little show this month, being too near the “Source of Light.”
She will be evening star throughout the month, growing brighter as the
days pass by; her diameter increasing from 10.4″ on the 1st to 11.2″ on
the 30th. She has a direct motion of 38° 8′ 45″. On the 1st, rises at
5:50 a. m., sets at 8:34 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 6:25 a. m., sets at
8:33 p. m.; and on the 30th, rises at 6:57 a. m., sets at 8:23 p. m. On
the 13th, at 10:21 p. m., 5° 22′ north of the moon; on 17th, at 9:00 a.
m., 11′ north of Mercury.


MARS

Will be a morning star during this month. On the 1st rising at 2:30 a.
m., and setting at 5:08 p. m.; on the 16th, rising at 2:11 a. m., setting
at 5:01 p. m.; and on the 30th, rising at 1:54 a. m., setting at 4:50 p.
m. His diameter increases one tenth of a second of arc, and he makes a
direct motion of 22° 56′. On the 9th, at 3:44 p. m., he is 5° 1′ north of
the moon.


JUPITER.

_Et tu, Jupiter_, art on the wane. Each day he sets more nearly with the
sun, and his diameter grows smaller, though monarch still of all the
planets. He rises on the 1st, 16th and 30th, at 9:00, 8:14, and 7:33 a.
m., respectively, and sets on the corresponding days at 10:19, 9:28, and
8:39 p. m. He makes a direct motion of 5° 25′ 42″. On the 15th, at 2:02
a. m., is 3° 7′ north of the moon.


SATURN.

Those who have not improved the past few months to obtain a view of the
beauties of this planet can not blame the writer. Their attention has
been called to the fact that his rings stand more widely open now than
they will again for fifteen years. But they need not despair; for in the
delightful coolness of a summer morning they may still improve their
opportunities; for Saturn rises the latter part of this month nearly with
the dawn, and those who care to leave their “downy couch” can catch him
before the rising of the sun. 3:56, 3:05, and 2:18 a. m., on the 1st,
16th and 30th will find him “at home;” and in August an earlier hour
will suit as well. During the month his diameter increases two tenths
of a second. On the 10th, at 5:48 p. m., he may be found 4° 7′ north of
the moon; and on the 20th, one minute south of the star _Eta_ in the
constellation _Gemini_.


URANUS.

This planet, on the 1st, rises at 11:14 a. m., and sets at 11:20 p. m.;
on the 16th, rises at 10:17 a. m., sets at 10:23 p. m.; on the 30th,
rises at 9:25 a. m., sets at 9:29 p. m. No change in diameter, which
remains at 3.6″. On the 16th, at 6:37 p. m., 34′ north of the moon.


NEPTUNE.

This slow motioned body, of which we know so little, and which not more
than one person out of 10,000 ever saw, makes a direct motion during the
month of 42′ 55″; its diameter is 2.6″; and on the 8th, at 6:59 a. m.,
its position is 2° 33′ directly north of the moon. It may be interesting
to know that it will be a morning star which “will _not_ light the
traveler on his way,” during the entire month. Its times of rising are
1:52 a. m. on the 1st; 12:57 a. m. on the 16th, and at midnight on the
30th.




HOW AIR HAS BEEN LIQUEFIED.

BY J. JAMIN,

Of the French Academy.


In the interval between 1602 and 1626 four philosophers were born who
seem to have been divinely appointed to teach men the mysteries of air.
These were a German, Otto von Guericke (1602); two Frenchmen, Mariotte
and Pascal (1620, 1623), and finally an Englishman, Boyle (1626). Pascal
conceived the idea that air being material must have weight like other
materials, and consequently that the earth must be pressed upon by its
atmospheric envelope, and he proved this by the celebrated experiment at
Puy de Dôme.

Soon after, Otto von Guericke, having invented the air pump, succeeded in
exhausting the air from a vessel and confirmed Pascal’s idea that air was
really heavy, while Mariotte and Boyle at the same time, each in his own
country, and by almost identical experiments, proved that air is elastic,
that its volume decreases by pressure, and generally in proportion to the
weight to which it is subjected. Mariotte modestly called this discovery
a rule of nature. We call it a physical law, and very suitably name it
in France “Mariotte’s Law,” and in England “Boyle’s Law.”

It seemed necessary for science to collect her thoughts after this great
achievement. She seemed to think there was nothing more to discover.
Boyle and Mariotte would have been very much astonished if some one had
told them that this air, whose properties they had been demonstrating,
could be reduced to a liquid like water, and even to a solid like snow.
Nearly two centuries passed before the world was prepared for this new
discovery. We ourselves were ignorant of it until the month of April,
1883, when the Academy of Sciences received from Cracow these two
dispatches:

    “Oxygen completely liquefied; the liquid colorless as carbonic
    acid.” (April 9th.)

    “Nitrogen frozen, liquefied by expansion; the liquid colorless.”
    (April 16th.)

                                                        WROBLEWSKI.

Thus air has been reduced to a volume a thousand or fifteen hundred
times less than under ordinary conditions. It ceased to be a gas and took
the appearance of water. This astonishing result is only the last in a
long list of experiments which for a long time were fruitless; it is the
finishing touch to a building begun long ago, and on which many workmen
have labored. What has been the work of each of them? It is a long story.

Van Marum, a philosopher and chemist of Harlem, is celebrated as the
constructor of an electric machine, the largest known, but he is more
justly celebrated for having been the first to liquefy a gas. Wishing
to know if ammonia would obey Mariotte’s law, he compressed it. Under a
pressure of six atmospheres it changed quickly to a transparent liquid.
Van Marum did not foresee the consequences of his experiments, and is
honored only as being the first successful performer of the experiment.
But Lavoisier, whose keener mind grasped all that these results implied,
did not hesitate to declare the general law that all substances were
capable of existing in three different states, and he illustrated his
belief most forcibly. “Let us consider for a moment what would happen to
the different substances which form the earth, if the temperature should
be quickly changed. Let us suppose that the earth were suddenly placed in
a region where the temperature would be much above that of boiling water;
soon the air, all liquids which can be vaporized at a temperature near
that of boiling water, and many metallic substances even, would expand,
be transformed into air-like fluids, and form part of the atmosphere.

“On the contrary, if the earth should be suddenly placed in a very cold
temperature, for example, that of Jupiter or Saturn, the water of our
rivers and seas, and, probably, the greatest number of liquids which we
know would become solid.”

“Air,” according to this supposition, or at least a part of the air-like
substances which compose it, “would doubtless cease to exist in its
present form; it would be changed to a liquid state, and this change
would produce new liquids of which we know nothing.”

Lavoisier was mistaken about the temperature of Jupiter and Saturn, but
was right in his supposition that air would become a liquid; however,
as experiment did not prove the theory, the prediction was forgotten
and the question dropped. It slept a long time, for it was not until
1823 that it was revived by Faraday. The first experiments of this great
philosopher were on this subject. He was but twenty-two when he made
his first discovery, the liquefaction of chlorine. The details of this
experiment have been told by Tyndall. It is well known that when chlorine
gas and cold water are united, crystals are formed which contain to every
molecule of chlorine ten molecules of water. Faraday put some of these
into a closed tube and heated them until two separate liquids appeared;
one was water, the other floated on the surface of the water, and a
certain professor of Paris declared that it could be nothing but oil
carelessly left in the vessel. Faraday having opened the tube, found that
this substance began to boil, and then changed with an explosion into a
green gas. It was chlorine. Faraday, who was quick-tempered, immediately
took his revenge on the professor, to whom he wrote: “You will be pleased
to know, sir, that the oil left by carelessness in my apparatus was
nothing less than liquefied chlorine.”

This first success decided the career of the young chemist. He announced
that all gases could be reduced to this state if subjected to a
sufficient pressure, and he undertook a series of experiments, of which
the success was doubtful, but the danger certain. He operated in this
way: He took a thick glass tube in the form of an inverted U; one branch
was left empty, in the other the materials for producing the gas to be
studied were placed and the whole closed. Obliged to gather in the empty
branch, the gas continually increased in pressure, and there were two
possible results to the experiment; either the gas would not change its
state, and the pressure would increase until the vessel broke, or when a
certain limit of pressure was reached, then the liquid would appear and
would continue to accumulate as long as the gas was disengaged. A dozen
gases were reduced in this way; among them were the following, which we
shall need: Ammonia, sulphurous acid, carbonic acid, and protoxide of
nitrogen, which at a temperature of ten degrees required a pressure equal
to sixty atmospheres.

This pressure leaves no doubt about the danger which one runs in carrying
on such researches. If we remember that steam boilers generally support
a pressure of no more than ten atmospheres, if we recall the number and
the horror of their explosions we can hardly understand how a simple
glass tube could resist a pressure five or six times as great. When a gas
reaches the point of liquefaction, then the pressure ceases to increase,
but if it does not change from that condition the pressure increases
until an explosion necessarily occurs, and the debris of the vessel is
scattered as powder scatters the fragments of a shell. In the course of
Faraday’s researches he had thirty explosions. They did not stop him, but
it is easy to see that they did not encourage others.

Happily there is a less dangerous method of reaching the same result,
it is to freeze the gas. In the same way that the vapor of water is
condensed when the temperature is lowered, so gases, which are really
vapors, will yield to sufficient cold. In 1824, Bussy succeeded in
condensing sulphurous acid gas. The gas was introduced into a balloon,
which was plunged into a freezing mixture of ice and salt. The gas was
liquefied and could be preserved indefinitely, if the balloon were
enclosed in an enamel vessel. In heating, it gave off vapors which, by
their pressure kept the remainder of the fluid, providing the glass was
strong enough. Thus, in two ways, by cold and by pressure, and still
better, by both combined, it is possible to liquefy a large number of
gases.

When water is heated, it remains immovable up to 100 degrees Centigrade,
but then it is changed into vapor, or boils. This boiling is
characterized by a peculiar feature, the temperature remains fixed at
100 degrees. It must be concluded, therefore, that the heat produced by
the furnace and absorbed by the liquid is simply used in transforming
the water into vapor. This fact was first discovered by the English
philosopher, Black, who, not being able to explain the phenomenon, was
content to demonstrate it and to speak of the heat as _latent_. He saw
that it took five and a half times as long to change water into vapor
as to heat it from zero to 100 degrees, and that consequently it must
require five and a half times as much heat to work the change. Such is
the law of boiling in the air, but let us see what it is in a vacuum.

It is clear that the pressure of the atmosphere on water is a hindrance
to its expansion into vapor, and that this hindrance increases or
diminishes with the pressure. In a vacuum, of course, the liquid is
free from the pressure, so that boiling ought to take place at a lower
temperature.

And experiment teaches that this is the case; water boils at a
temperature of 82° or 65°, as the pressure is reduced to one half or a
quarter of an atmosphere, it boils at zero, and even below, in a vacuum.
And we reach this remarkable result, that the boiling and freezing points
unite, and that ice is formed while vapor is set free. But, although the
boiling is advanced, although it takes place at zero instead of at 100
degrees, although the vapor is cold instead of hot, and the change takes
place in a vacuum instead of in the air, it is a general law that a large
quantity of heat is used, becomes latent, and enters into the formation
of vapor.

Supposing that we fill a bronze vessel of very thick sides with water,
close it with a lid and fit into it a valve loaded with lead. Place this
in a furnace whose temperature has been raised to, say, 230 degrees. The
water will reach this temperature, and vapor will accumulate until it
reaches a pressure equal to more than twenty-seven atmospheres.

Let us now open the valve, the vapor will escape, and as it carries with
it the heat necessary for its expansion, the temperature of the water
will gradually fall until it reaches 100 degrees, after which the boiling
will continue slowly and regularly; thus the water has been cooled and is
kept below the temperature of its surrounding wall because it must absorb
the extra heat which is required to change it to vapor. This apparatus is
called Papin’s digester.

There is a similar experiment, but performed in a vacuum at the ordinary
temperature. Put some water into a closed decanter which is connected by
a tube with an air pump. As soon as a vacuum is produced the water begins
to boil and to freeze, for the vapor can only be formed by borrowing
heat, and there is nothing to take it from but the water itself, which
soon reaches zero and is frozen. This apparatus makes a very simple ice
house, as useful as convenient, and it proves, first, that boiling takes
place at the lowest temperatures providing the pressure is sufficiently
diminished; secondly, that it is always accompanied by a loss of heat;
and thirdly, that it lowers the temperature of the liquid below that of
the surrounding envelope, and the more as the vacuum is more complete.

Just as opening the valve lets the vapor accumulated above the water in
Papin’s digester escape, and causes a fall in the temperature, so, by
opening the reservoirs in which one has confined a liquefied gas, one
sees it fall back to the boiling point. For example, take the liquid
obtained from the compression of sulphurous acid gas. As soon as the
reservoir containing it is opened the liquid begins to boil, and a
vapor is formed, it is the gas which re-forms. It absorbs the latent
heat necessary, taking it from exterior objects by radiation from the
liquid itself, from the vessel which holds it, and from the materials
into which it has been placed. It cools these until the point at which
sulphurous acid gas boils is reached, twelve degrees below zero; then the
liquid remains balanced between the radiation which tends to heat it and
vaporization, which cools it. The final result is that the temperature is
lowered and remains fixed at twelve degrees below zero. This is not all:
just as the boiling point of water is lowered below zero in a vacuum,
in the same way that of sulphurous acid gas falls below twelve degrees.
Bussy brought it down to sixty-eight, where it remained; not only water,
but mercury may be frozen by this means.

Finally, the boiling of liquefied gases will freeze all neighboring
substances, and the greatest cold which one could obtain is produced
by their boiling in a vacuum. This property of sulphurous acid was
discovered in a still greater degree in protoxide of nitrogen, which was
changed into a liquid at a temperature of 0 degrees, and under a pressure
of thirty atmospheres. If allowed to boil in a vacuum, a temperature of
one hundred and ten degrees below zero was obtained. When science has
sown trade reaps the harvest; since by allowing liquefied gases to boil,
a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees below zero can be obtained,
and since the vapors which they give off carry away an enormous amount
of heat from the surrounding bodies, it is possible by means of this
cold produced to freeze water, make cold drinks, solidify mercury, cool
cellars, prevent food from decay, and to do many other things of similar
nature. A new art became possible, that of making cold. To-day it is
at the height of success. It is founded on this general principle: to
liquefy the gas by means of pressure, taking care that it does not become
heated, to introduce it into a freezer, where it is allowed to boil,
and from which it absorbs the heat, to carry off the gas and introduce
it again into the vessel, where it will by pressure be liquefied. The
action is constant, the same gas acts indefinitely, and there is no other
expense than that which is caused by running the pumps. In spite of these
fine results and the extraordinary efforts put forth, the end was not
attained. To be sure, some gases had yielded, but still there was a large
number which resisted every effort. Was it necessary to give up the idea
that the law of liquefaction of gases was general, or was it true that
the exceptions were only the results of insufficient means? Faraday had
never varied in his belief. One easily returns to the affections of his
youth, and he believed that the time had come for making fresh efforts
to prove his theory. After a rest of twenty-two years he determined to
again take up the liquefaction of the rebellious gases. Means were not
wanting. Thilorier had taught him how to solidify easily large masses
of carbonic acid, and by mixing this solid with ether make a powerful
freezing mixture; protoxide of nitrogen could be prepared with the same
ease and abundance, and would boil regularly in a vacuum at a temperature
of one hundred and twenty degrees below zero. Thus he was able to secure
a degree of cold before unknown. For compression, he had a pump formed
of two parts; one took the gas at its generation, and accumulated it in
a reservoir under a pressure of fifteen atmospheres; the second part
then received it; here it was subjected to a much greater pressure in a
strong glass vessel which was plunged into carbonic acid or protoxide of
nitrogen. Cold and pressure were thus combined. At that time nothing more
could be done; fortunately this was enough to subdue most gases. Faraday
had the satisfaction of liquefying nearly all gases, and of extending the
law which he had announced, but still six, only six, refused to give up;
among them were marsh gas, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen. Science is a
battle which must be continually renewed; the more the gases resisted,
the greater the efforts made to conquer them. At first, new and energetic
means of pressure were invented. Aimé, a professor in Algiers, secured a
pressure of four hundred atmospheres, without result. M. Cailletet used a
hydraulic press which exerted a force equal to seven hundred atmospheres,
and afterward increased this to one thousand atmospheres, but still the
gas resisted. At last it was found that pressure alone, however enormous
it might be, could not liquefy the gases.

An English philosopher, called Andrews, put a new face on matters.
He took carbonic acid gas at a temperature of about thirteen degrees
and compressed it. The gas began to diminish in volume, and under a
pressure of fifty atmospheres was suddenly liquefied, taking quickly
a very great density, and falling to the bottom of the vessel, where
it remained separated from its vapor by a surface as plainly marked
as that which marks water and air. Andrews afterward tried the same
experiment at a higher temperature, about twenty-one degrees. The same
results were produced with but one difference: the liquefaction was less
sudden. At a temperature of thirty-two degrees, instead of a separate
and distinct liquid, undulating striæ appeared as the only signs of a
change in condition which was not completed. Finally, at a temperature
of above thirty-two degrees there was neither striæ nor liquefaction,
but still it seemed as if a trace was preserved, for under certain
pressure the density increased more quickly, and the volume diminished
more rapidly. Thirty-two degrees is then the limit, a point between the
degrees which permit and which prevent liquefaction. It is the _critical
point_ which marks the separation between two very different conditions
of a substance; below, we have a liquid; above, there is no change in
appearance, but there enters a new condition, whose characteristics I
will describe.

Generally a liquid is more dense than its vapor; for this reason it
falls to the bottom, and the two are separated by a level surface.
But supposing that we heat the vessel which contains them. The liquid
expands little by little, until it equals, or even surpasses, the
expansion of the gas, so that an equal volume weighs less and less. On
the other hand, a continually increasing quantity of vapor is formed,
accumulates at the top of the vessel, and becomes constantly heavier.
Now, if the density of the vapor increases, or if that of the liquid
diminishes under the right temperature, the two densities become equal.
Then there is no longer a reason for the liquid falling, the vapor
rising, or for a surface of separation. The two are mingled. Neither are
they any longer distinguished by their different degrees of heat. When
this critical point is reached, it is impossible to tell whether it is
liquid or gas, since in either state it has the same density, the same
heat, the same appearance, the same properties. This is a new state, a
gaseous liquid state. The discovery of these properties showed why all
the attempts to liquefy air had been useless. At an ordinary temperature
the gas is in a gaseous liquid condition. Liquefaction can take place
only when the liquid is separated from the vapor by its own greater
density. The next step was therefore to lower the temperature below that
of the critical point. This was understood and carried out about the
same time by MM. Cailletet and Raoul Pictet. On the 2nd of December,
1877, M. Cailletet subjected oxygen in a glass tube to a pressure of
three hundred atmospheres, and reduced its temperature to twenty-nine
degrees below zero. The gas did not change in appearance, and was in all
probability in the gaseous liquid condition. Nothing but more cold was
wanting to liquefy it. The valve was turned, the gas escaped, and the
temperature fell two hundred degrees, and the characteristic whitish
mist was seen. Oxygen had been liquefied, perhaps solidified. The same
result was reached with nitrogen, but nothing was done with hydrogen.
While M. Cailletet performed this decisive experiment at Paris, M. Raoul
Pictet achieved the same at Geneva. He had at his command all necessary
materials, so that he subjected the oxygen to a pressure of three hundred
and twenty atmospheres, and to a temperature of one hundred and forty
degrees below zero. In this condition the gas was probably below the
critical point, and when the reservoir was opened suddenly it began
to boil and was thrown in every direction. M. Pictet believed that he
liquefied, and even more, had solidified hydrogen, but he was doubtless
mistaken. These results, however, were not satisfactory. M. Cailletet was
preparing a new experiment when the Academy received the two telegrams
given at the beginning of this article.

Wroblewski and his colleague, Olszewski, had boiled ethylene, a gas
similar to that used for heating purposes, in a vacuum. The temperature
fell to one hundred and fifty degrees below zero. It was the greatest
degree of cold yet obtained, and was sufficient. The success was
complete. The oxygen, previously compressed in a glass tube, became
a fixed liquid. It was like the others, in the form of a colorless
and transparent liquid, like water, but of a little less density. Its
critical point was at one hundred and thirteen degrees below zero,
forming itself below, never above, this temperature, and boiling rapidly
at a temperature of one hundred and eighty-six degrees below zero. A few
days after this the two Polish professors succeeded, in the same way, in
liquefying nitrogen.

But if the question was settled for air was it also for nitrogen? M.
Pictet, in his experiment, had used a weight of three hundred and twenty
atmospheres, and cold of one hundred and forty degrees below zero. When
he opened the reservoir a jet of gas, mingled with mist of steel gray
color, burst forth. At the beginning of the experiment, solid fragments
accompanied the jet; these fell to the floor with a sound like that
of grains of lead. Naturally, M. Pictet thought that he had not only
liquefied, but even solidified hydrogen, but unfortunately the experiment
was not wholly satisfactory. For perfect success still more acute cold
was needed, and here was oxygen and nitrogen to get it from. Nitrogen,
the most refractory, was taken, and a degree of cold undreamed of before,
attained; in the open air it reached one hundred and ninety-four degrees
below zero, and in a vacuum two hundred and thirteen degrees below. These
temperatures were so low that it was necessary to invent new methods
for measuring them. A mercury thermometer was useless, because it froze
at forty degrees, and alcohol because it became a solid at one hundred
and thirty degrees. No liquid is able to resist such temperatures, so
electric, or hydrogen thermometers, were employed.

Wroblewski and Olszewski have but lately achieved success. Having
compressed the hydrogen in the above named manner, they froze it by
means of nitrogen boiling in a vacuum. Still it did not liquefy. It was
yet in a gaseous liquid state, but when the tube was opened then there
appeared a transparent and colorless liquid. At last the question of
the liquefaction of gases, which has been discussed so long, has been
settled. When we think of the simplicity of these final experiments, it
seems strange that the problem was so difficult to solve. The trouble lay
in the fact that at the start there was everything to find out; there
was the critical point and the means of freezing to discover. It was
necessary to proceed by steps, using each gas for the reduction of the
one more stubborn than itself. Really, as Biot says, nothing is so easy
as what was discovered yesterday, nothing so difficult as what must be
discovered to-morrow. It might be asked whether the result is worth the
trouble necessary to collect these liquids. The answer must be left to
the future. The chemist will take up this new law of gases, and art will
adapt it to its purposes. For the present, all that it amounts to is
that the natural philosopher has proven that all kinds of materials may
exist in three conditions, and obey the same common laws.—_Abridged and
Translated from “Révue des Deux Mondes” for “The Chautauquan.”_




AMERICAN DECORATIVE ART.

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.


Among the many so-called “booms” that followed the civil war, as the
result of the wonderful intellectual, moral and material impulse that
it gave the country, one of the most marked and promising of influence
on the national character is the advancement in decorative art that
this generation has seen and felt. Its presence and influence are
observable in the general demand for more artistic interior finishing
and furnishing: for better form and coloring in wall paper, frescoing,
painting, floor-coverings, upholstery and drapery, and in that broader
study of the harmonious wholes of which these are related parts.

It is not an art renaissance, so much as a new birth of popular art
feeling; a creation, rather than a revival. Facts seem to indicate the
beginning of the long-talked-of American school of art. It is a peculiar,
and peculiarly-encouraging circumstance that this new development is
native and popular instead of imported and select.

For, we may be very sure that any movement that is to abide and have
much power over our people must be one that touches the average citizen.
To reach him it must be American. It need not be divergent from, and
it should not be antagonistic to established art principles; but, not
the less, in its sympathies, subjects, and methods it must be national.
An art that is to live with any people must be _of_ that people. With
us this requirement of popularity is doubly strong, because we are so
intensely national; because all institutions live and move and have their
being in the commonalty, and because the citizen is the only source of
living patronage of art here, where the state does not foster art as
foreign states do. The artist must eat, and the people must feed him.
Before they will pay for art, they must have sufficient culture to
care for it dollars’ worth, and it must be of a nature to reach their
sympathies. Even in monarchial England, Ruskin perceives the necessity
for beginning at the bottom to upbuild national taste, and he addresses
volumes of letters upon art “To the Workmen and Laborers of Great
Britain” (see “Fors Clavigera”).

We have not much to hope for in the way of education of American taste
from imported art, for this can never reach or touch the people. A few
_dilettanti_ in our cities can do very little toward creating, or even
influencing a national taste. They have no _rapport_ with true American
culture; they offend national sensibilities by unreasoning rejection of
everything undertaken here; and, above all, if they be brought to the
test, it will be found that they generally have no fixed art principles
back of their opinions and—prejudices. If the average American could
not appreciate foreign works, he was not much helped to a better
understanding of them by their admirers; and he came to think himself at
least quite capable of correctly estimating devotees who could no more
give good reasons for worshiping everything foreign than they could for
scorning everything indigenous.

The most hopeful augury for this new interest is in the fact that it
relates to that department of art which goes most directly into the lives
and the homes of the people: and that it has been the first to take on
marked American characteristics. Moreover, its commercial features will
be potent influences for its spread and growth. It is capable of being at
once the refiner, the educator and the almoner of thousands.

Confidence in the inherent genius of my countrymen, led me years ago to
predict that all that was needed for the establishment of a school in
any art was (1) the foundational training of mind or hand; (2) a belief
that it can be done; (3) a market for it. The last most important of
all, because demand inspires originality and creates supply, and because
recompense is the great stimulus to inspiration. Genius in this age is
pretty apt to have an eye to the main chance.

For all these reasons we are prepared for the conclusion that the impulse
given to decorative art by the organizations known as the “Decorative Art
Society,” and the “Associated Artists,” all of New York City, is the most
valuable of anything that has been done since the nation’s new sense of
the beautiful awoke. These are the parts of one movement possessing these
characteristics:

It is distinctively American.

It has compelled recognition at home and abroad as well of its indigenous
originality as of its artistic correctness and merit.

It has begun the production of exclusively American materials, designed
and manufactured in this country, which are unequaled by anything foreign.

It is commercially successful.

By virtue of all these achievements, it is doing a missionary work for
American art by encouraging similar efforts in other cities and other
countries; by demonstrating that “good _can_ come out of Nazareth;”
by putting in the way of thousands of talented women, suffering under
repression and lack of opportunity or for inspiration of hope, the
opening for culture and compensation combined.

It is to celebrate what has been accomplished, and haply, to suggest the
opportunities open to others, that this narration is essayed.

The movement was, indeed, patriotic in its birth. It was inspired by the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. The specimens of decorative art
from the South Kensington School in the English exhibit impressed Mrs.
Thomas M. Wheeler, of New York, by their lack of originality and freedom,
insomuch that she declared, “We can do better than that in this country
without any school!” and she set about doing it in genuine American
spirit. The first organization, The Decorative Art Society, which she
instituted, was composed of several hundred ladies of New York. The plan
was national, philanthropic and commercial—to serve art, help women,
beat the British, and make money. Ladies in a large number of cities
were influenced by correspondence and other efforts to form auxiliary
societies. The seed of the new art interest thus widely sown is still
bearing crops.

From this nucleus there were before long offshoots in two directions—in
a higher and in a more rudimentary line. The Woman’s Exchange was
organized to provide a market for the large surplus of handiwork of
all kinds that was pressed upon the society; and a less numerous, more
compact organization was originated to attempt a higher development
of the work—this being called the Associated Artists. Thus they had
three efficient agencies occupying ground in this order, artistically
considered—The Woman’s Exchange, The Decorative Art Society, The
Associated Artists. Each of these is still doing its appointed work, but
our present purpose has to do only with the most advanced—The Associated
Artists.

It should be said, however, of the Woman’s Exchange, that it has spread
the most widely; because it deals with the simple forms of ornamentation
which require but little training, but it produces articles that are
salable. Thus it has become a bread-and-butter enterprise to a large mass
of women. Not only do all of our leading cities now boast of Exchanges,
but Princess Louise, after her first visit to this country, caused one to
be formed in Canada. This “Yankee notion” has also been transplanted to
Germany and Sweden.

The Associated Artists, as first organized, was directed by Mrs. Wheeler
and three gentlemen, artists like herself—Mrs. Wheeler having charge of
the needlework department; one gentleman, of interior wood decoration;
another, of glass painting, and the third, of the color scheme, painting,
etc. They undertook the interior finish of rooms and houses upon entirely
new decorative notions. Among their public undertakings, also, were the
entire interior decoration of the Madison Square Theater, including the
drop curtain; the finish of the “Veterans’ Room” in the Seventh Regiment
Armory, and parts of the Union League Club House.

The business success of the Associated Artists grew on the managers. The
educational and philanthropic aims were in danger of being overshadowed
by the commercial consideration, and New York gave them abundant
employment without their going into all the world and preaching the
gospel of beauty and self-help to all women. Moreover, Mrs. Wheeler’s
department in the work grew so rapidly and opened out possibilities of
development and creation so great, that she decided to make it a special
and separate enterprise. This she did three years ago, retaining the
name, Associated Artists.

Success has vindicated the wisdom of the segregation, while the other
members of the older organization have not suffered by the separation.
From that time to the present the enterprise has been managed and worked
by women only.

The gentlemen formerly of the Associated Artists are working on
independent lines. The decoration of the new Lyceum Theater, New York, is
the latest and greatest triumph of one of them.

The Associated Artists now have to do with decoration as using or applied
to textile fabrics, including as well all upholstery as the hangings,
draperies, tapestry and applied decoration of any part of a room. In
the building which they occupy in East Twenty-third Street, there are
large exhibition and salesrooms, the studios or designing rooms, the
departments of embroidery, of tassels, fringes, etc., of tapestry, and
the curtain department—an entire floor. There are about sixty employes.

This is an art school as well as a business house. Many women come
to them with no other preparatory training than the drawing lessons
of our public schools afford. The best talent is furnished by the
Women’s Art School of Cooper Union. Aside from such preparation, the
Associated Artists furnish the education of their own designers and
workers. Unendowed, small, modest and young as it is, we shall see in
what respects this American school has outstripped the great English
institution.

One of the most serious obstacles that the effort to create American
design has had to meet, is the lack of suitable materials to work with.
All imported textiles were found to be, in color, texture and pattern,
unsuited to the new uses and ideas; and American manufacturers were so
much under tutelage to European tastes, that nothing different was to be
had from them. It is a fact as lamentable as it is astonishing, that a
carpet, wall paper or textile mill in this country rarely has an American
designer of patterns and colors. The schemes of color made by the
Associated Artists were out of harmony with French, English and American
fabrics and embroidery materials. The colors of these were too sharp,
strong and cardinal for the blending of tones that was sought.

To meet this case a Massachusetts silk mill was engaged to manufacture,
first embroidery silks of the desired shades; and, that being
accomplished, to undertake the coloring of fabrics. The greater step to
the manufacture of special fabrics was next taken. Now the Associated
Artists use only materials made for them in this country.

There are three different mills engaged on their work, one of which last
year supplied them with $30,000 worth. The work is a great advertisement
to a mill—such recognition have these fabrics gained, here and in
Europe, for fineness, design and beauty. Several European decorators of
first rate have sent for samples of them. Foreign artists and designers
visiting this country regularly have in their note-book memoranda to see
the wonderful new American fabrics at the Associated Artists. These goods
have also been used for garments. Mrs. Langtry, Mrs. Cornwallis West and
Ellen Terry bought largely of them for their wardrobes. Felix Moschelles,
artist, and son of that Moschelles who was the biographer of Mendelssohn,
declared that there was nothing in Europe to compare with these joint
products of American artists and artisans. Truly, there is nothing on the
shelves of dry goods men on either continent to match them; they revive
the traditions of the wonderful products of Oriental looms.

Another _chef d’œuvre_ of these artists is their tapestry work. It has
the definiteness and freedom of drawing, and the delicacy and feeling
of color of an oil painting; nay, deft fingers with a needle and thread
can produce effects in colors that the painter’s brush can not, because
colored threads reflect and complement each other. This work is done
upon the surface of a canvas, the stitch being similar to that used
upon “honey comb canvas,” all surface work. To make it more effective,
a fabric has been woven with a double warp, the embroidery being run in
under the upper thread, somewhat like darning. The process and fabrics
were invented by Mrs. Wheeler and are protected by letters-patent in this
country and Europe.

A portrait was woven in this way, thread by thread, so faithful as to be
preferred by the family, to the best work they had of photographer or
painter. A piece of this tapestry has been under the hands of from one
to three embroiderers—or darners, if you please—every day for nearly a
year. It is one of ten large needle-work pictures of American subjects
now in preparation. One of them is a Zuni Indian girl, by Miss Rosina
Emmett, and another, “Hiawatha,” a typical Indian girl of the North, by
Miss Dora Wheeler. (These two artists are directors of the Association.)
The pictures are life size, and are very characteristic studies. The
remaining eight tapestries are mainly upon events of American history.
Only close examination would convince any one that they were not oil
paintings. After seeing this work I am inclined to think less of the
famous Bayeux tapestry and all other pictorial needlework. William the
Conqueror was unwise not to have deferred his exploits until Yankee girls
could embroider them. The best we can now offer William is to invade and
conquer England over again—with American tapestry.

These high-class works are mentioned simply to show the height that this
line of decorative art has reached, in a short time, by the efforts of
native genius and mechanical skill.

Nor is the story yet all told of the relation of design to manufactures.
One of the largest manufacturers of paper hangings in this country not
long since offered prizes amounting to $2,000 for the best four designs
for wall paper. The competition was great, sixty designs being entered by
European artists, and many times more by American. When the awards were
opened the examining committee, as well as the donors, were astonished to
learn that the Associated Artists had taken all the prizes, the European
trained talent none. Now, the freshest, best-selling patterns for wall
paper are of American design.

There is more still to tell that is gratifying to patriotism. These
efforts have discovered to the world, as a fact, what was before the
cherished theory of a few, viz.: that an American school of art already
existed, dominant in brains and hands, waiting to be awakened to
activity. There is a distinctive character in all that has been done
in decoration, different from anything seen in other people’s work. It
has a nationality in choice of subjects and materials, an originality
in conception, a freedom and freshness in treatment, that fairly mark
the beginning of a new school. More than that, when the work of native
designers has come in comparison with that of the Kensington or other
schools, it has justified the opinion that was expressed at the outset as
to the ability of our women to surpass the latter.

When the Decorative Society was organized, it sent to Kensington for a
teacher, and employed the one that was the most highly recommended by the
management there. At the close of the very first lesson that was given by
this instructor to the leading ladies of the society, she was overcome
by the reception her teaching had met. “Why,” she said, ruefully, “these
ladies have got from me, in a single lesson, all that I know. _I have
nothing more to teach them._” This incident reveals the reason for the
contrast in work—gives the explanation of the stereotyped forms and stiff
designs of the foreign school. The difference is in the human material
that enters into the work in either case—the difference of development
and general culture back of special art training. The English girl who
is forced to earn a livelihood by needlework, and qualifies therefor at
Kensington, represents a different order of preparatory training, general
culture, social position and aims, from those leaders in art who engage
in the work _con amore_ in this country. But there is, also, a race
difference that runs through all society in both countries. The American
woman is a thinker—the English an observer; the American woman is by
nature an innovator, the English conventional; the one an originator,
the other an imitator. The same climatic, dietary, social and political
influences that make the American artisan the most inventive and free
handicraftsman in the world; the American business man the most daring
and rapid, have conspired to make their sisters, and their cousins, and
their aunts the most original and apt pupils of art in the world. We
may confidently look to them, and the sons that they shall give their
country, to go on and create for it a school of art as free and as
characteristic as are all our institutions.

The movement is but in the embryo stage. All this is the result of a
single effort, and it is still young. Time is of the essence of art
culture, and the United States offers ample verge and scope enough for a
wonderful work in the future. The field for invention in decorative art
is boundless, because genius may touch every item and phase of home and
carry into the innermost life of the whole people the refining influence
of Beauty.




SOME MODERN LITERARY MEN OF GERMANY.


Professor George Ebers, the distinguished Egyptologist, strange to
say, is known in America more by his novels than by his scientific
attainments. He had a severe attack of rheumatism, or something similar,
which confined him to his bed for a long time, but did not prevent him
from using his mind, and during this tedious suffering he undertook, as
I think he himself relates, in the preface of his first novel, to put
into story facts and history with which his mind was so richly stored.
The work grew and fascinated him, and now I dare say it has not only
become remunerative but beguiling. Since the death of Prof. Lepsius, the
distinguished scholar of Egyptian history, George Ebers will doubtless
stand in his stead as the next best informed man in Germany, on Egypt.
The deceased Lepsius thought highly of one of our countrymen, Dr. Joseph
P. Thompson, as a successful student under him, and here we pay a tribute
of respect to this generous man who never failed to escort party after
party of Americans through the Egyptian department of the Berlin Museum,
explaining the tombs and reading the inscriptions. “The Egyptian King’s
Daughter” is the title of Ebers’s most elaborate novel, and if one is
disposed to read it carefully and observe all the foot-notes, there is
quite a chance for the reader to feel delighted with himself for all he
can acquire in this way about Egypt, and to have an inexpressible longing
for more. And what a power of enchanting one these Egyptians have, with
their gloomy and mystified learning, and their frequent contemplation of
death. To give the reader an idea of Ebers’s style, in romance writing
and subject matter, we quote what accurate pictures he gives of all the
state of affairs in Egypt. Speaking of the schools or universities,
in his novel entitled “Uarda,” he says: “The lower school was open to
every son of a free citizen, and was often frequented by several hundred
boys, who also found night quarters there. The parents were, of course,
required either to pay for their maintenance or to send due supplies of
provision for the keep of their children at school. This university, or
school, was connected with the House of Seti, or one of the sanctuaries
of the Necropolis, founded by Rameses I, and carried on by his son
Seti. High festivals were held there in honor of the god of the gods of
the under world. This extensive building was intended to be equal to
the great original foundations of priestly learning at Heliopolis and
Memphis; they were regulated on the same pattern, and with the object
of raising the royal residence of Upper Egypt, namely, Thebes, above
the capitals of Lower Egypt, in regard to philosophical distinction.”
“Many proficient in the healing art,” he tells us, “were brought up in
the house of Seti, but few need to remain after passing the examination
of the degree of Scribe. The most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where
flourished in the great “Hall of the Ancients,” the most celebrated
medical faculty of the whole country, whence they returned to Thebes,
endowed with the highest honors in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in
any other branch of their profession, and became physicians to the king,
or made a living by imparting their learning, and by being called in
to consult on serious cases.” From this short extract from Ebers any
one can see that he treats his situations, although lying so remote in
history, in the most simple and natural manner. Egypt, with her enormous
architecture, her ponderous institutions, peculiar beliefs and somber,
heated atmosphere, is not to him the dark “sorceress of the Nile,” but a
real, breathing and tangible thing—he has so seriously studied her that
he writes of her as he would of a familiar friend in whom he is intensely
interested.

Ebers not alone excels in historical pictures and accurate descriptions,
but he has, as a novelist, much feeling, and makes clear comments on
human nature—for example, in writing of Nebsecht, the learned surgeon,
in his novel “Uarda,” he says: “Nebsecht was of the silent, reserved
nature of the learned man, who, free from all desire of external
recognition, finds a rich satisfaction in the delights of investigation;
and he regarded every demand on him to give proof of his capacity, as a
vexatious but unavoidable intrusion on his unanswering but laborious and
faithful investigations.” Then he remarks Nebsecht loved Pentaur, who
possessed all the gifts he lacked, manly beauty, child-like lightness of
heart, the frankest openness, artistic power, and the gift of expressing
in word and song every emotion that stirred his soul.

Again, behold the picture or a glimpse into a feast of the best
Egyptians. In an open court, surrounded by gaily painted wooden pillars,
and lighted by many lamps, sat the feasting priests in two long rows, on
comfortable arm chairs. Before each stood a little table, and servants
were occupied in supplying them with the dishes and drinks which were
laid out on a splendid table in the middle of the court. Joints of
gazelle, roasted geese and ducks, meat pasties, artichokes, asparagus,
and other vegetables and various cakes and sweet-meats were carried to
the guests, and their beakers well filled with the choice wines of which
there was never a lack in the lofts of the house of Seti. In the spaces
between the guests stood servants with metal bowls, in which they might
wash their hands, and towels of fine linen.

“Tante Therese,” a drama in four acts by Paul Lindau, is a cleverly
conceived and brightly written thing, showing that the writer is full of
pathos and wit. The audience cried and laughed and applauded the first
night it was given in Berlin. In fact, Lindau is so sharp a critic and
so talented a writer, that, as editor of _Die Gegenwart_, a neat and
pungent weekly, he was a great potentate in Berlin society. His pen
spared no one—musician, artist, soldier—and even royalty fell under
its point if he, Lindau, was not in sympathy with their productions or
actions. He is the life of a dinner party, the most interested musician
and art connoisseur, and among journalists and in the literary coterie
he is the star which lights or exposes the objects around. His reviews
in _Die Gegenwart_ (The Present) are somewhat after the matter of the
reviews in _The Nation_—a little pessimistic or hypercritical, but always
accomplishing their object, and whatever comes from his pen is looked
for with eagerness. With a lovely home, and a beautiful young wife to do
its honors, he attracts about him many brilliant companies. He was once
thrown into prison for having written something which was not prudent in
regard to government matters—the press being not so free in Germany, as
the reader will observe, as in this country.

Dr. Julius Rodenburg, editor of _Die Rundschau_, is of Jewish extraction,
resembling Felix Mendelssohn so much that one must immediately remark
it. As Mendelssohn was also a Jew, the association seems to grow more
intimate in one’s mind, as an acquaintance with this light-hearted,
spirited man progresses. He seems never to be weary—the world and his
friend have a charm for him, and he and his intelligent wife know well
how to attract them to their weekly receptions. They both speak English
well, and have spent some time in England. He has published a little book
entitled “Ferien in England”—Vacation in England.

Sometimes he comes out in his review, which corresponds to our _Atlantic
Monthly_, with learned and elaborate articles, but his time is, as
editor, consumed with other people’s productions. Editors of papers and
presidents of colleges have little time for anything but reflection upon
the merits or demerits of others.

Ferdinand Gregorovius, half German and half Italian, has published four
volumes of the “History of Rome,” also in 1874 a very attractive volume
on “Lucrezia Borgia.” In the back of the book appears a _fac-simile_
letter from Pope Alexander IV. to Lucrezia, and one of hers to Isabella
Gonzogo—most curious documents.

Dr. Friedrich Kapp, who came to America when Carl Schurz did, returned
after a short residence and entered political life in his own country.
Beyond his exertion in this direction he has found time for considerable
literary work; has edited the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,”
which contains a preface by Berthold Auerbach. Dr. Kapp is better known,
perhaps, through the press, than through his books.

Adolf Stahr, in his book on Goethe’s “Frauengestalten,” or female
characters, gives a close analysis, and if the same theme has been
written and rewritten upon as all Goethe’s productions have, Stahr
maintains a dignified review, as if he were surveying the subjects for
the first time. His wife, who is a novelist, is equally literary, and
the two old people have grown beautiful in common sympathy in their
winter work and summer resorts. She attracts more attention than he at a
fashionable watering place, but one is the accompaniment of the other,
and both have done honest, good work.




HISTORIC NIAGARA.

BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.


The Chautauquan takes back to his or her busy life in the school room,
the college chair, the pulpit, the sanctum, the parlor, and the kitchen,
many beautiful pictures of memory.

In fancy does one often see the branches of grand old trees, fit pillars
of one of God’s first temples, cross above one’s head, making a network
for the laughing, blue, summer skies; in imagination does one again see a
green landscape turn golden in the light of a fast setting sun. Ah! those
vistas about the Hall in the Grove; can not you see those leafy avenues
bending down to the lovely lake, now in the early morning stretching
glassy and waveless, now at noon, tumbling and tossing its white
caps abroad, now in the solemn night lying black and motionless, and
reflecting the light of stars? Can one who has seen the moon rise over
Long Point ever forget the sight? Recall now that midsummer night, when
drifting out in your boat you idly watched those masses of clouds shift,
part and separate to let the white glory of the moon shine through! How
serene and lofty she hung, poised in mid-heaven. Higher and higher she
climbed, pouring her wealth of light down upon the clouds heaped beneath
her, until they, massed and piled upon each other, seemed like the
glittering domes and towers of a city not made with hands. In vivid fancy
you could almost trace the shining streets of gold, the gates of pearl,
the walls of precious stones. The summer wind sighed softly around; the
murmuring waters rippled about the keel of your boat; on the shore the
lights danced and flickered like fireflies. Such a night is never to be
forgotten. It is a scene of enchantment, a mid-summer night’s dream.

    “In such a night as this,
     When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
     And they did make no noise in such a night,
     Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls,
     And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
     Where Cressid’ lay that night.

    “In such a night,
     Stood Dido with a willow in her hand,
     Upon the wild sea banks, and waved her love
     To come again to Carthage.”

Ah! these beautiful pictures “that hang on memory’s wall,” these day
dreams, by their potent magic, heal the heart and brain when life’s fret
and worry are hardly to be endured. A writer has truly said:

                 “’Tis well to dream.”

    “I dream, and straightway there before me lies
       A valley beautifully green and fair;
     Bright, sparkling lakes, blue as the summer skies,
       And trees and flowers dot it here and there.

    “I wake, and straightway all familiar things
       Display new beauty to my wondering gaze.
     My soul refreshed by wandering, folds her wings
       And finds contentment in life’s common ways.”

To all these beautiful pictures of memory many a Chautauquan adds the
remembrance of one indescribable scene—a look at the great fall.

A short trip to Niagara is indeed one of the features of a summer’s
sojourn at the city in the woods. Every week a crowd of excursionists
leaves with reluctance the delights of the fair lake and takes a day’s
jaunt to the Falls, which are distant about eighty miles from Chautauqua.
Many of you, my readers, remember that trip—the magnificent views of Lake
Erie, which you got from time to time, on the way to Buffalo. Then the
run down from that city along Niagara River, past Fort Erie and Black
Rock, historic names. You remember how your heart beat a little faster
when the brakeman called, “Niagara Falls,” and you realized that you were
soon to stand in sight of one of the wonders of the world. Of course you
remember the clamoring hackmen, once heard not easily forgotten. Then
have you forgotten that short walk or drive down a shaded street, past
many shops filled with feathers and Indian temptations? Do you recall
that dull, booming sound which suddenly broke upon your ear, and can you
not now sense that delicious, fresh smell of the water as you turned into
Prospect Park, and ah! can you ever forget when you at last stood within
hand reach of that awful presence, when your bewildered and startled
eyes glanced now at the shouting, leaping, laughing, maddening, scornful
rapids; now at that overwhelming mass which flung itself over that
tremendous precipice into a seemingly bottomless pit? Was it a pleasant
day when you were there? Do you then remember the exquisite coloring of
the water, the dazzling white, the vivid green, the pellucid blue? How
the sun seemed to catch up every drop of that vast volume, and shine
through it, giving a tiny rainbow effect to every crystalline particle?
How the rapids called aloud to each other in glee, and chased one another
in a mad race, as to which should first make that mighty leap? Or was it
a dull, gloomy day? Then did they not shriek aloud in horror, and hurl
themselves in black and hissing despair to their awful plunge?

Did you chance at nightfall to drive or walk about Goat Island, and hear
the chattering and cawing of myriads of crows, which blackened the tree
tops? This is their rendezvous, and the woods are alive with them, and
their weird sounds at dusk, added to that ever present, sullen roar,
produce an unearthly and fantastic effect. Did not your breath almost
forsake your body when you crossed to the three fair sisters lying so
peacefully far out in the midst of that seething, tumbling, foaming hell
of waters?

At night you saw the electric lights turned on the American Fall, playing
now with sulphuric effect, now giving a ghastly, blue appearance, and now
turning this white, pure Undine to a very Scarlet Woman. The day on which
you first saw these pictures will long be marked with a red letter in
your calendar.

But, sublime as is the physical beauty of Niagara, we have to deal
with quite another phase of her character; one of which the tourist,
limited by time, seldom thinks. It is only after becoming familiar with
every inch of her picturesque surroundings, after spending days and
weeks drinking in her superb beauty, content to sit, oblivious of time
or space, or sun or sky, that one at last remembers that for many miles
around the ground is covered with the footprints of history. Ground that
has echoed the thundering tread of armies, that has been drunken with
the blood of brave men, that now smiles peacefully, from which violets
spring, and on which children play.

    “Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands
       Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
     And fiery hearts and armed hands
       Encountered in the battle cloud.

    “Now all is calm and fresh and still,
       Alone the chirp of flitting bird
     And talk of children on the hill,
       And bell of wandering kine is heard.”

To say nothing of the French and Indian wars, the country about Niagara
was the scene of many of the fiercest struggles of the war of 1812, and
some of the sorest defeats to the American side. The battle of Queenston
Heights and Lundy’s Lane, or Bridgewater, were both disastrous to the
American cause, while Fort George, at the mouth of Niagara River, a hard
earned and costly acquisition of the Americans, was wrested from them by
General Drummond, who also laid waste Lewiston, Youngstown, Tuscarora,
and Manchester, then called, now the village of Niagara Falls. Those were
dark days for the Americans, when they fought not only Englishmen, but
crafty and treacherous Indians.

The first great battle of the campaign on the Niagara during the war
of 1812, was that of Queenston Heights, on the 13th of October. This
was the second attempted invasion of Canada, the first having been the
humiliating failure of Hull, at Detroit, in August previous. General
Stephen Van Rensselaer determined to capture Queenston Heights, and for
that purpose, early in the morning, sent two small columns down the
river, most of which succeeded in landing under a brisk fire from the
vigilant English. Captain John E. Wool led the Regulars up the hill, and
was met by the British on the broad plateau, where a sharp engagement
took place, ending in the Americans being forced back to the beach.
Here they were reinforced and ordered to scale the Heights. This order
was obeyed, and for a short time the Americans had the advantage, when
suddenly brave General Brock, who defeated Hull at Detroit, and who was
now at Fort George, at the mouth of the river, having ridden from thence
at full speed, appeared and took command. A furious contest followed, in
which the Americans, though fighting with the bravery of despair, were
driven to the extreme edge of the precipice, and in which Brock fell,
mortally wounded.

Then General Winfield Scott crossed the river and assumed command of the
American forces, expecting to be reinforced by the militia, but through
stubbornness and cowardice they fell back on their prerogative, and
refused to be taken out of the state. Twice was Scott attacked by the
British and Indians, and twice repelled them with the bayonet, but at the
third attack the Americans were obliged to retreat. Back, back, further
yet, over the edge of that awful chasm they went scrambling from ledge to
ledge, leaping from rock to rock, stumbling, falling, blindly catching
at twig, branch, stem, blade of grass, even, powder blackened, faint,
weary, bleeding, wounded, dying, only to reach the river to find no boats
waiting to succor them, compelled at last to surrender. Ah! dead heroes!
that was indeed a descent into Avernus.

In this engagement the Americans lost one thousand men.

Let the visitor to Niagara not leave until he has taken the drive to
Queenston Heights. It is only seven miles below the cataract, not a long
drive for a summer afternoon. A pretty drive, too, past many beautiful
farms and country seats. Once there one can drive to the top of the
broad plateau, on which the lofty and magnificent monument to General
Brock stands. Now leave your carriage, go to the front of the plateau,
and look. What a view! Directly at your feet lies old Queenstown; across
the river old Lewistown; for seven miles before you, peacefully and
languidly, as if weary from its terrible work up above, flows the green
river, flecked with foam. Yonder, at its mouth, lies Fort Niagara, on the
American side; the ruins of Forts George and Mississaga, on the Canadian
side, while beyond, far as the eye can reach, stretches Lake Ontario,
flooded with the light of a western sun—a sea of glass, mingled with fire.

In the spring of 1813, Isaac Chauncey, an American Commodore, after a
successful expedition against York, now Toronto, which he held for four
days and then abandoned, after firing the government buildings, captured
Fort George. The Americans held it until the following December, when
General Drummond appeared on the peninsula, between Lakes Ontario and
Erie. On his approach the American garrison abandoned Fort George and
fled across the river to Fort Niagara. As they went they ruthlessly
burned the village of Newark. One week after, the British captured Fort
Niagara, and killed eighty of the garrison, showing no quarter to the
sick in the hospital. Then followed the triumphant march of the British
up the American side of the river, burning and sacking Youngstown,
Lewistown, Tuscarora, Niagara Falls, even to Black Rock and Buffalo. All
the farms were laid waste, and desolation stalked relentlessly through
the entire region.

The whole campaign on the Niagara had been a series of blunders, and was
most disastrous to the American cause.

The old town of Niagara, at the mouth of the river, is to-day an
interesting and picturesque place to visit. Here the tourist takes the
steamer for Toronto, and if he have an hour or two to wait, let him
stroll about through the beautifully shaded streets, past the elegant
hotels and private country seats, for the old town is a famous summer
resort now, and is likely to be still more attractive, for a little
Chautauqua is soon to spring up within stone-throw of the ruined
breastworks of old Fort George.

From the round tower of Fort Mississaga, which commanded the harbor, one
gets a superb view of the lake and of Fort Niagara, just over the border
on the American side. Fort and lighthouse are in capital condition, and
the sight of the flutter of the stars and stripes against the blue sky is
very dear to the American who stands on British soil, and, thinking of
all it has cost to preserve that flag, realizes that it is still there.

In 1814, the Secretary of War having persisted in his project to invade
Canada, determined, as a first step, to take Kingston. In order to
conceal this movement, and also that there might be no enemy left in the
rear, Major-General Brown, of the American forces, commenced operations
on the peninsula, between Lakes Erie and Ontario.

On the 2nd of July he left Buffalo, and captured Fort Erie, on the
opposite side of the river. He then pursued his way down the river until
he reached Chippewa Creek. He then fell back a little to Street’s Creek,
and waited for the main body of the force, which arrived on the morning
of the 5th.

General Scott’s camp was located on a little plain lying mid-way between
these two creeks. In the afternoon he ordered out his brigade for a
dress parade. Approaching the bridge he was met by General Brown, who
informed him that a battle was imminent. The head of Scott’s column
had scarcely reached the bridge when the British opened fire from the
extensive forests that surrounded the creek. Riall, the British General,
sneered contemptuously at the “Buffalo militia,” as he believed them
when they first came in sight, but when he saw them cross the bridge
steadily under fire, he discovered they were Regulars. General Peter B.
Porter had command on Scott’s left, and his men fought well until charged
by the bayonet, when they gave way. Major Jesup, however, covered the
exposed flank, and the fighting became hot and furious along the entire
front. After a time the right wing of the British disengaged from the
line and charged against Jesup. Scott was quick to observe this, and in
his turn charged against the exposed flank. Simultaneously Leavenworth
attacked the left wing of the British, and through the gap between these
two attacking columns, Towson’s battery poured in its canister with
speedy effect, and the British soon retreated in great confusion, and the
Americans had won their only decisive victory on Niagara.

Chippewa is to-day a tumbledown, uninteresting spot, attractive only to
the student of history. There are some beautiful private residences near
the town, on the banks of the river, and just below the village the river
breaks into the rapids. After the well fought battle of Chippewa, the
invasion of Canada seemed more feasible. General Brown was very sanguine
of success, providing he could secure Commodore Chauncey’s assistance,
with his fleet. He wrote urgently to Chauncey, assuring him that the
British force at Kingston was very light, and that between their two
forces they could conquer Canada in two months, if they were active and
vigilant. But those qualities Chauncey did not possess; besides, he was
ill, and thought he had more important business on hand than to carry
provisions for the troops, and therefore did nothing. Nearly opposite the
American Fall a road runs back over the hill, past the Clifton House and
the Canada Southern Railroad Depot. The tourist following this road, and
turning to the left after passing the depot, will soon find himself in a
beautiful little village. Cottages of quaint and old fashioned design,
nearly covered with vines and roses, and narrow lanes in lieu of streets,
are its distinguishing features. Up a hill you go past a brick church,
and a graveyard, in which you may find many curious inscriptions. The
top of the hill is reached. Look back down that pleasant street, where
old trees stretch out their long arms to meet each other. See those
comfortable happy homes on each side. Hear that group of children laugh
at their play; and listen, from that little brick Methodist church, on
a soft summer evening, come the solemn strains of an old time hymn. No
more peaceful, pastoral scene in the world, and yet the spot on which we
stand was the scene of frightful carnage, terrific struggle, horrible
bloodshed; here was fought the famous battle of Lundy’s Lane. At noon
of July 25, 1814, General Brown received intelligence at Chippewa,
that General Drummond had reached Fort George the night previous, with
reinforcements, with which he intended to capture the stores of the
Americans at Fort Schlosser, which was located just above the rapids,
on the American side. Scott—now a Brigadier-General—was ordered forward
to divert the enemy from this project. He had advanced about two miles
when he was confronted by the entire British force, drawn up in Lundy’s
Lane. Scott engaged the right wing of the British, ordering Jesup to look
after the left. These movements were successful, Jesup capturing many
prisoners, among whom was General Riall. After the battle was well under
way, General Brown arrived from Chippewa with reinforcements. The British
held an eminence on which were planted seven guns. General Brown saw at
once that unless this battery could be captured no impression could be
made.

“Can you take that battery?” he asked Colonel James Miller.

“I’ll try, sir,” was the memorable answer of Miller—and he tried. It was
now night, and the approach of Miller’s men was hidden by a high fence.
The gunners held their lighted matches in their hands when Miller’s men
thrust their muskets through the fence, shot down the men at the guns,
rushed forward and captured the battery.

The British made two valiant attempts to retake the battery, but were not
successful. Generals Brown, Scott, and Major Jesup were all wounded, and
the command devolved upon the inefficient Ripley, who, after idly waiting
half an hour, anticipating another attack, instead of following up the
advantage already gained, withdrew from the field. The British returned,
took possession of the field and the battery which Miller had captured.
The American forces were obliged to beat a retreat to Chippewa for food
and water, and the British claimed the victory as the last occupants of
the field. The loss of men on both sides was about equal.

Drummond followed the Americans to Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, and
there ensued a regular siege until the 17th of September, when the
Americans made a sudden sortie and destroyed the works of the enemy.
This was accomplished only by terrific fighting on both sides, in which
the Americans lost five hundred men, and the British nine hundred.
Drummond now abandoned the siege, and in October the Americans destroyed
Fort Erie, and returned to their own side of the river. Thus ended the
campaign on the Niagara. It had been productive of no results save the
digging of thousands of graves, and proving to the British that the raw
Yankee troops were able to give the trained English soldiers some hard
work.

Just above Goat Island, where the river breaks into rapids, on the
American side, the tourist notices the ruins of Fort Schlosser, of which
we have spoken before as containing stores and provisions on which
General Drummond had designs. Later history has something to say of this
fort. Here occurred a circumstance out of which grew results which for
a time threatened a third war between England and the United States. In
1837, just after the close of the second Seminole war, a rebellion broke
out in Canada. Great sympathy was felt on the American side, for the
insurgents. Despite the fact that the United States made great efforts
to preserve neutrality, a small American steamer, the “Caroline,” made
regular trips across to Navy Island, carrying supplies to a party of five
hundred insurgents, who were staying there. In December, one Captain
Drew was sent out from Chippewa with a force to capture this steamer. He
did not find her at Navy Island, as he expected, and so crossed to Grand
Island, which was American territory, boarded her, killed twelve men on
board, towed her out in the stream, set her on fire, and left her to
drift down the river and go over the Falls.

The United States promptly demanded redress, but could obtain no
satisfaction for three years. In 1840, one McLeod, who had boasted of his
part in this affair, came over to the American side, where he was under
indictment for murder. He was seized and held for trial.

The British government demanded his release on the ground that he had
participated in an act of war, and therefore could not for that act
be tried before a civil court. The President answered that as yet the
United States had received no answer to the question whether the burning
of the “Caroline” had been an authorized act of war. In all events the
administration could not interfere with a state court, and prevent it
from trying any one indicted within its limits. England threatened war
unless McLeod was released; but the trial proceeded. The two countries
would doubtless have been brought into conflict had not McLeod been
acquitted. It was proved that he was asleep in Chippewa at the time the
“Caroline” was burned, and that a vain desire for notoriety had caused
him to inculpate himself. There was great excitement in 1841, over
this trial, which was augmented by the indifferent attitude of acting
President Tyler. A District Attorney of New York was allowed to act as
McLeod’s counsel, and retain his office, thus presenting the astonishing
spectacle of a government officer attempting to prove, in such a question
as this, which was liable to result in war, his own government to be in
the wrong.

Nothing now remains of Fort Schlosser but a tall, gaunt chimney, which
has weathered for many long years the terrific winds which sweep down the
river.

Throughout this fair and smiling region there are but few traces of these
fierce battles.

    “No solemn host goes trailing by
       The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;
     Men start not at the battle cry,—
       O, be it never heard again.”

No blackened farms and desolated villages; no rattle of musketry and roar
of cannon; the sword is turned into plow-share and pruning hook; from
the soil watered with the blood of heroes spring thrifty orchards and
sweet flowers; in the place of fire from the blazing torch of red handed
war rises the smoke of prosperous town and thriving hamlet; Canada and
the United States stretching out friendly hands to each other; the Union
Jack and the Stars and Stripes floating side by side; peace, plenty, and
prosperity on both sides the broad river. Everything is changed save the
great Falls themselves. Unceasingly they do their awful work; unceasingly
their thunders sound; unceasingly their mists roll heavenward.




TWO FASHIONABLE POISONS.

BY M. P. REGNARD.


Some one said one day before Fontenelle, that coffee was a slow poison.
“I can bear witness to that,” replied the witty academician, “for it will
soon be fifty years since I began taking it every day.”

This, which was on the part of the cultivated scholar, a brilliant sally
of wit, is, alas! the common reasoning of many people who, simply because
danger does not immediately confront them, allow themselves to be slowly
but surely drawn to the tomb, because, forsooth, the way, for the time
being, is pleasant, or fashionable!

In the midst of us there are persons poisoning themselves to death. I
refer to those addicted to the use of morphine. In England they have
another class of these unfortunates, for whom the most adulterated
liquors no longer suffice, and who drink ether; they are a sort of
perfected inebriates, who by the scientific laws of progress succeed
simple drunkards just as habitual morphine users follow the opium smokers
of China. Our fathers in Asia who have already bequeathed to us many
misfortunes, held in check until within recent years, among themselves,
the singular taste which they have for opium. Let me tell you in a few
words of the ancestors of morphine users of to-day, and you will better
understand the history of the latter.

The mania for opium eating diminishes rather than increases among the
Mussulmans. Zambaco, who for a long time lived in the Orient, gives the
reason. The Turk seeks in opium only intoxication—a delicious sort of
annihilation—which he finds to-day more readily in champagne or Bordeaux
wine. These give him, in addition, the pleasures of taste. Then, too, he
can indulge himself freely in them, and still hold to the letter of the
Koran. In the time of Mahomet neither rum nor cognac were invented; it
does not then forbid them. But that which is not forbidden is permitted,
and so the Mussulman, who considers wine so impure that he will not touch
it, even with his hands, will become beastly intoxicated upon brandy, and
think that by this process he is not compromising his part in Paradise.
But their religionists—and above all their medical men—do not reason
thus. They still cling to the opium.

Its first effect upon the system is far from causing sleep. It is rather
a sort of intellectual and physical excitant, which renders the Oriental
(in his natural state sad and silent), turbulent, loquacious, excitable,
and quarrelsome.

These Turks are not contented to take opium themselves, they give it also
to their horses. “I have just,” says Burns, “traveled all night with a
cavalier of this country. After a fatiguing ride of about thirty miles I
was obliged to accept the proposition he made to rest for a few minutes.
He employed this time in dividing with his exhausted horse a dose of
opium of about two grammes. The effects were very soon evident upon both;
the horse finished with ease a journey of forty miles, and the cavalier
became more animated.”

In China they do not eat opium, they smoke it. There is an historical
fact connected with them well known to all the world to which I would
not now call attention were it not to show you to what extent a like
calamity may go, and consequently with what the French people are
threatened if the love of morphine continues to take among us the same
intensity.

Hundreds of years ago opium was, in the Chinese empire, a great luxury,
reserved for the mandarins, who did not keep secret at all their use of
it, but who interdicted it to all persons under their jurisdiction. All
the more did they consider it a great honor to their invited guests, and
especially to strangers, to be asked to partake of it. Recently it has
come into general use, and since 1840 its abuse has reached the last
limits. There is for all this an economic reason which I shall not fear
to call abominable. The Chinese received in payment for their products
only gold and silver, in money or in ingots; the specie thus introduced
into their country never left it, and it was a veritable drainage which
on this account Europe and America underwent.

A neighboring nation of ours, and one whose Indian possessions furnish
prodigious quantities of opium, forced China, in a celebrated treaty,
to allow the entrance of this opium into her ports and to pay for it in
ingots and not in merchandise; the empire was thus obliged to disgorge
a part of its money held in reserve. You will have an idea of the
importance of this operation when you know that to-day there enters
annually into China 70,000 packing cases of opium from India, worth at
least $558,000. So much poison forced by right of war upon a whole people!

The Chinese smoke opium from the age of twenty to twenty-five years. The
immediate effect is a sort of dizzy sensation. The preoccupations of the
mind disappear, as do also all ailments of the body. Then comes a noisy
delirium, a kind of insanity, in which the subject is deeply agitated; he
is apt to hurl down and break everything around him. Sometimes he rushes
out of the house, attacks the first passer-by, and not infrequently in
his frenzy has committed murder.

The opium smoker, as well as the eater, is obliged rapidly to increase
the dose of his poison. At the end of six or eight months he must smoke a
dozen pipes a day. His money is soon all spent; he is ruined in a year.
He sells all that he possesses, and then he gambles. Writers agree in
saying that the maximum of the life of a smoker is then five or six years.

In the face of such an evil as this the imperial government has tried to
act on the defensive; it placed a heavy duty on the entrance of opium;
but this system was not successful. And before this attempt it tried
penal jurisprudence.

This is the decree which the Viceroy of Canton published in 1841:

“It is two years since the Emperor of the Celestial Empire forbade all
his subjects to smoke opium. This delay of grace expires the twelfth
day of the twelfth moon of this year. Then all those guilty of offense
against this law will be put to death, their heads will be exposed in
public, in order to frighten those who might be tempted to follow their
example.” (Then follows this modification.) “I have reflected, however,
that solitary confinement would be more efficacious than capital
punishment, in order to arrest such a dreadful misdemeanor. I declare
then, that I am going to have built a special prison for opium smokers.
There they will all, rich or poor, be shut in narrow cells, lighted by
one window, with two boards serving as a bed and a seat. They will be
given each day a ration of oil, of rice, and of vegetables. In case of a
second offense they will be put to death.”

This legislation was not practicable. The punishment was out of
proportion to the crime, and consequently inapplicable.

Besides, in looking around him the emperor found that his own wives
smoked opium, and I would not guarantee that if he meant to live up to
the letter of his law, he would not have to begin by committing suicide.

After this legislation they tried moralization and preaching. The
misfortunes of the opium smoker were depicted in an infinite number of
ways. All this propagandism had about as little success as societies
against intemperance, and this state of affairs is existing to-day in the
East.

There are not noticeably many opium eaters or smokers among the French.
But every one knows that the people of the Orient have for their European
brothers the morphine users. There is between the first and second the
same difference that is found in everything pertaining to barbarous
and to cultivated men. Civilization prescribes as to the manner of the
poisoning.

While the Oriental eats or smokes simply the juice of the poppy almost as
nature furnishes it, the European is more refined, and wishes only the
active principles of opium. So he uses it prepared in such a way as to
have lost almost entirely its disagreeable properties.

How does one become a morphine user when he is a Frenchman, an inhabitant
of Paris, and when there is not a temptation to it from the fact of a
general habit, or the existence of special establishments? This can be
accounted for by two methods. The most common is some painful affliction
from which one is suffering, it may be neuralgia, acute dyspepsia, or
violent headaches. The physician, often at the end of his resources,
prescribes injecting a little morphine under the skin. The effect is
marvelous; the pain ceases instantly, but temporarily. The next day it
returns with new force. The afflicted patient remembers the success of
yesterday, and insists upon his anodyne. It seems necessary to give it,
and so it goes on for several days. Soon the nature of the drug manifests
itself: no longer will one injection a day answer; there must be two,
then three, later four, and so on, always increasing, until it reaches
formidable quantities. Meantime, the original trouble may have entirely
disappeared, but the patient does not cease to use the remedy. The first
time that the sick one insists upon having the treatment the doctor is
called to perform the operation. But soon, as it becomes necessary to
repeat the process oftener, making it expensive, it is entrusted to the
nurse or to the family, and from that day the patient is lost; for how
can the supplications of a suffering person whom one loves be resisted?
Then on a day the sick one practices on himself—and from that on, without
any control, with the avidity of passion, he uses the drug in the
quantities of which I have told you.

This is one way in which many victims fall into this sad habit. There is
another. The victims of the second method are those who seek in exciting
tonics the sensations which their weakened nerves and their surfeited
imagination can no longer afford them. These are the proselytes of a
veritable association, and they, in their turn, soon become missionaries
in the same cause. It is a habit which the vicious have of wishing to
make others like themselves. The fable of the fox which had its tail cut
off is not a fable of yesterday. Two friends meet; one of them complains
of slight annoyances; dullness, _ennui_; he no longer enjoys anything;
the world, the races, the theater, do not procure for him distraction;
he is _bored to death_. His friend admits that he also has suffered in
the same way, but that he had recourse to morphine, of which some one
had told him, and that he found in it a perfect cure. And thus by such
conversations there is formed, as it were, a new class; they are the
volunteers in this unhappy army.

One can but remark, that luxury, which tends to introduce itself
everywhere, has already invaded the domain of morphine. The little
syringe of Pravas, which permits of the injection of the poison under the
skin, and the consequent avoidance of the bitter taste and the nausea
which would be occasioned by eating morphine, has received ingenious and
artistic modifications. It was necessary to render it easy to carry, and
at the same time to make it deceptive to the eye. I visited a surgical
instrument maker at Paris, and he placed at my disposal for inspection
his whole line of morphine instruments, those which the taste, the
luxury, or the imagination of his clients had caused him to fabricate.

There was first the syringe, containing a centigram of morphine, such
as the physicians employ. It was not delicate enough, was difficult to
handle and difficult to conceal; it is used now only by those who no
longer care to conceal their vice—who feel no shame in regard to it.
Then there was one adroitly concealed in a match box. At one side was a
little bottle containing a dose of powder necessary for a half day. There
was, too, a false cigar holder, containing all that was necessary for
injecting the poison. But most remarkable of all was a long, sheath-like
instrument. It is somewhat inconvenient in the midst of company to put
the morphine into the syringe before making a puncture. This sheath,
filled beforehand, can be carried in the pocket; the puncture can be
made, and to inject the drug it is only necessary to move the piston in a
certain direction; in the evening the sheath will be found empty. There
were little gold syringes contained in smelling bottles; a little silver
sheath which one would take for an embroidery stiletto; open it; it
contains an adorable little syringe of gold and a bottle of the poison.

Among morphine users in fashionable life they make gifts according to
their taste, and there are manufactured syringes and bottles enameled,
engraved, and emblematic—in every conceivable device.

Do men more often become subject to this vice than women? According to
the printed statistics, yes. Out of every one hundred who used the drug
there are counted only twenty-five women. But practicing physicians say
that the women are the more numerous victims. They are more artful, and
try to keep the habit concealed; they do not consult the physicians
regarding it, and so are not counted in the statistical returns.

Is it then so very agreeable to live under the influence of this poison,
since so many people expose themselves, for its sake, to such grave
perils? To this I reply, no, not at the beginning. It is with this vice
as with others, the beginning is hard. The first injections are not
enjoyable—the puncture is painful, and sometimes nausea follows. But
the habit is easily and quickly formed, and the disagreeable effects
disappear. The introduction of the morphine produces almost immediately
a sort of general vagueness, an annihilation of being which causes to
disappear all external realities and replaces them by a sort of happy
reverie; and at the same time the mind seems more alert, more active.
Physical and moral grievances disappear, all troubles are forgotten for
the time being. “You know,” says Mr. Ball, “the famous soliloquy of
Hamlet, and the passage where the Prince cries out that without the fear
of the unknown, no one would hesitate to escape by means of a sharp point
from the evils of life which he suffers, in order to enter into repose.
Ah well! this sharp point of which Shakspere speaks—this liberating
needle—we possess; it is the syringe of Pravas. By one plunge a person
can efface all sufferings of mind and of body; the injustice of men and
of fortune; and understand from this time on, the irresistible empire of
this marvelous poison.”

The habit of taking ether is induced by the same causes that lead to the
use of morphine. The danger, however, is not so great, and the habit can
more easily be broken up. At the end of the inhalation one experiences
a little dizziness that is not at all disagreeable; the sight becomes a
little blurred, and the ears ring; the mental conceptions become gay,
charming; hallucinations are developed, generally very pleasing. It is
not necessary to increase the dose, for one would then reach a state of
excitement, or be thrown into a sound sleep, such as physicians produce.
Those who use it know this well, and moderate the dose, in order to make
the pleasure of long duration. After the inhalation the subject returns
almost immediately to his natural state. There is a little heaviness
in the head and a dullness of the mind. Morphine users can secretly
indulge in their habit, but ether emits a penetrating odor. In London,
where it is more frequently practiced, the keepers of public squares and
large parks often find in the more retired places empty bottles labeled
“Sulphuric Ether.” These have been thrown down by those who have left
their homes in order to give themselves up in the open air to their
favorite passion.

These victims commence by breathing ether. Then they drink a few
drops—and after a while larger quantities. This burning liquid soon
becomes a necessity; and some even go so far as to drink chloroform—a
veritable caustic.

Can anything be done for these unfortunate people? Yes, certainly—but
only on one condition—that they wish to be cured. The best method is to
separate, instantly, entirely, the patient from his family; to place him
in an establishment where his movements can be watched, where he can be
debarred, suddenly or gradually, as shall be judged best, from the poison.

The Americans—a practical people—have already built asylums for the
treatment of morphine users. The Germans have recently finished two, one
at Marienberg, the other at Schönberg.

But unfortunately, the French law does not permit us to do this. We can
place in hospitals only those poison users who have become maniacs or
idiots.

If the French are to be saved from this rapidly increasing evil, it is
evidently necessary to prevent its beginnings. In order to do this,
the sick must be kept from procuring it. Its sale must be regulated so
that it will be impossible to get it in any quantity, or to use the
same prescription twice. The emperor of Germany, upon the proposition
of Prince Bismarck, has issued a decree to this effect. Under such a
regulation the law for the physician would be never to prescribe the use
of these drugs save in cases of absolute necessity.

The reading of medical books by the people is generally pernicious. I
would, however, permit them to read the recent accounts of the effects
of these drugs. If they are of comparatively late origin, these two
fashionable poisons have already destroyed more victims than in a whole
century has all the poison used by assassins.—_An Abridged Translation
for “The Chautauquan” from the “Révue Scientifique.”_




OUR C. L. S. C. COLUMN.

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


For the past year I have given in THE CHAUTAUQUAN a series of articles
on the interior significance and higher aims of the Chautauqua movement,
instead of the answers to questions which filled the C. L. S. C. column
in former years. The closing article of this year must be made up of
answers to questions which are of general interest.

1. A correspondent inquires “whether Alfred Ayres, author of the
‘Orthoepist,’ and editor of the English Grammar of William Corbett, is a
recognized standard authority in pronunciation, and whether he should be
preferred to Webster or Worcester.” To this I can only reply that I do
not so understand Mr. Ayres’s claim or position in the field of letters.
He certainly is not accepted as are Webster and Worcester; and the chief
advantage of his little volumes is in showing what one man who has given
much attention to the subject of pronunciation thinks on the subject.
That is all.

2. “How can a knowledge of Greek, Roman, or any other history be of any
benefit to me? I prefer to study the works of God, and in chemistry and
other departments of science to trace the signs of his wisdom.”

_Answer_: It is important to study God’s great gifts to the race in the
great characters of history and literature. The genius of Homer is as
much a wonder as is any fact in physical science. Acquaintance with the
vivacity, enterprise and energy of the Greek character is as valuable
to people who now live in the world as is a knowledge of the physical
constitution, shape, habits of life, and movements of the colossal
creatures reported by geology as having occupied this planet ages on ages
ago. No education is complete that has not to some extent been influenced
by the spirit of the old Greek culture. The whole history of that people
shows the impotence of mere culture without moral character, and we may
trace through the ages of Greek history the evidences of divine wisdom
and justice. By all means let us study natural science, but let us not
abandon history. Whatever pertains to man in any age of the world should
possess peculiar interest to us.

3. “People in our neighborhood often say to me: ‘Why study those books?
You will not live to finish the course; and if you do, what good will it
do you or your children?’”

_Answer_: Ignorant people often ask the question, “Of what use is
education, beyond a small amount of reading, writing and arithmetic? Why
should people who have to work in kitchens and fields study the stars?
Why should men who neither care to act on the stage, or to write for the
press, give much attention to William Shakspere?” Whatever our business
may be, we need to read general literature because we are members of
society, and owe something as rational beings to society. Parents should
keep in sympathy with their children, whose world of knowledge must
of necessity in this age grow wider and richer all the time. We are,
moreover, members of this universe, and God is our Father. We have a
right as his children to know something about his works and ways and
wisdom. Life is a wearisome thing to people who are ignorant. There is
sustaining power in the large thoughts which a true culture brings. If
one expects to live forever with God, he should cultivate noble and
worthy character on this side the grave, and such nobility is increased
and such holiness promoted by a wide range of reading and study with
worthy motive.

4. I am happy to announce that the “Chautauqua Press” has been fully
organized. Under its direction some of the books of the C. L. S. C. will
be published, and a series of standard books will be issued at once for
the formation of home libraries; books adapted to the special courses and
bearing also upon the Required Readings.

The first series of three or four volumes will be ready by August 1st,
and will supplement the regular work of the coming C. L. S. C. year.
While all the classes are reading Roman History, Latin Literature,
Italian Biography, and Italian Art, our “Chautauqua Library, … Garnet
Series,” will provide for those who wish to read more than the required
books, and for those who, as graduates, wish to win seals, the following
admirable volumes:

“Readings from Macaulay. Italy. With an Introduction by Donald G.
Mitchell (Ik Marvel).”

“Readings from Ruskin. Italy. With an Introduction by H. A. Beers,
Professor of English Literature in Yale College.”

“Art and the Cultivation of Taste, by Lucy Crane, with an Introduction by
Charles S. Whiting, of the Springfield (Mass.) _Republican_.”

[The fourth volume of the first series will soon be announced.]

This series of four volumes will constitute a special course, for the
reading of which the Garnet Seal (a new one) will be given to all
graduates, and may be won by those undergraduates who are able to do more
than the Required Reading for each year.

The Chautauqua Press will soon have on hand a rich library of cheap but
handsomely printed and bound volumes with which every Chautauquan will
desire to decorate and enrich “The Chautauqua Corner.”

Now we are on the eve of another summer of rest, of convocation, of
Assembly reunions. From these retreats comes much of inspiration which
keeps the Chautauqua movement in operation during the remainder of
the year. Let me urge all members who can possibly do so to attend
the nearest Assembly. Go to the Round-Table. Record your name on the
list kept by the local secretary. Show your colors, and thus lend your
influence to the Circle.

In behalf of the administration, the president, the counselors, the
secretaries, I extend to all members of the Circle a hearty salutation;
and to all of you who read these lines who have for any reason grown
remiss or apathetic in C. L. S. C. service, I give an earnest invitation
to come back, resume your readings, join the class of ’89, and make sure
of a successful four years’ course.

You will join me, I am sure, in one universal Chautauqua salute to the
honored editor of THE CHAUTAUQUAN and his competent associates and
contributors as our tribute to the ability with which our monthly has
been conducted.

And now, as we “study the word and the works of God,” may our Heavenly
Father be “in the midst,” and “may we never be discouraged” in pursuing
the high and beautiful ideal of the C. L. S. C.: The attainment of
symmetrical and practical culture which will fit us the better to serve
our fellows upon the earth, and to enjoy the blessings promised by our
Father in the heavens!

PLAINFIELD, N. J., May 21, 1885.




GLIMPSES OF THE CHAUTAUQUA PROGRAM.


A part of our creed of late has come to be that we need change in summer.
If our homes are in cities, we need it because we can not have there the
requisites of good health—fresh air, pure water, quiet; if we live in the
country, we want and need a change which will give us social advantages;
if we are teachers or students, we want opportunities to see, to get new
ideas, to observe new people and their customs. This theory of summer
living makes the demand for summer resorts. It is rare, however, that
any place offers with any degree of completeness health, society and
opportunities. It is claimed for Chautauqua that all three may be found
there; that it is, in short, an ideal summer resort, open to all classes
of people. The outlook for Chautauqua in 1885 confirms this claim, and
gives to its admirers most satisfactory glimpses of what is in store for
them during the coming season.

Chautauqua is fortunate in having had candid, disinterested men examine
its condition and management, and pronounce their verdict as to its
healthfulness. One of the most critical examiners of public places in
America, Hon. B. G. Northrup, made his visit to Chautauqua last summer
a kind of inspection tour. He pried into every corner and cranny, and
publicly denounced every abuse he found. With “courage indomitable,” the
Chautauqua “powers that be” attacked the enemy, and “they are ours.” This
summer there is no pestilential spot, not one vault nor cess-pool nor
wet spot to poison the water and breed disease. The determination of the
management to have perfect sanitary arrangement at any cost—even if all
other improvements are abandoned—is producing a condition unparalleled.
This result, and the means taken for its accomplishment, are worthy of
close study by every visitor at Chautauqua, particularly by those who are
property owners, or are interested in the government of towns.

Chautauqua is a _safe_ resting place. But it is more. It is preëminently
a social place. Its social life is as pure and wholesome and natural as
the air and water. Simple, unaffected manners, free, kindly intercourse,
characterize the daily life of the people. “How very democratic you
are here,” said a visitor last year, “and I don’t see a particle of
snobbishness.” And it is true. The simple reason, perhaps, is that
Chautauqua brings out of every one the best in them. People literally
live too high there for snobbishness. They can run out in the morning
for their milk or bread or steak; they can carry their bundles or do
their own washing, and the high, clear, mental atmosphere of the place
forbids them minding who sees them at their duties, forbids any one who
sees them feeling that the work is menial. This mental and social air is
indeed one of the most exhilarating things about the place. You do live
socially above your ordinary level—live so because it is “in the air.”
You can not help it.

How wonderfully good health and good company contribute to making a good
_working place_. Above all things else Chautauqua is that. Its pure air
stirs your blood until you feel like working; its social life stimulates
you; its opportunities are a constant temptation. Of course Chautauqua
temptations begin with the platform. There are at least two features of
the program for the platform of 1885 which deserve special attention.
Of these the first is—it is timely. The questions which are interesting
society are the questions it discusses. Note what a prominent place
“Mormonism” holds. Miss Kate Field makes it the subject of two lectures:
“The Mormon Creed” and the “Political and Social Crimes of Utah,” and
Mr. W. L. Marshall takes up “Utah and the Mormon Question” in a third
lecture. Temperance, our knottiest social problem, is elucidated by
Miss Frances Willard in the “Evolution in the Temperance Reform,” by
Mrs. Ellen Foster, by Hon. G. W. Bain, by a National Temperance Society
Day, by temperance bands, by conventions, and by every attraction
which Chancellor Vincent can devise and valiant Chautauqua temperance
workers carry out. Missions, too, have a brave array of talent to plead
their claim. The first four days of August are mission days, on which
are discussed means of increasing interest and improving methods of
evangelizing both foreign and home heathens, of raising funds, and of
securing workers. One of the leading mission workers of 1885 will be
the Rev. Wm. F. Johnson, of Allahabad, India. Mr. Johnson has been in
the field nearly twenty years. He will fill the place this summer that
Ram Chandra Bose and the Rev. Mr. Osborne filled in the missionary
conferences of last year.

A second characteristic is—the program is practical. Every day is full of
hints; every exercise is suggestive. As an illustration, no profession
is attracting so much attention to-day as is journalism; a successful
journalist is to discuss it. Such a subject will be of practical benefit
to numbers of young men and women who will be listeners to Mr. Carroll.
Practical Christian ethics and Christian work form prominent subjects;
as, for example, the three days’ examination of “Parish Work in Cities,”
by Edward Everett Hale, and the interesting meetings of the Society
of Christian Ethics. The tours abroad, while they are so bright and
entertaining, are brimful of suggestions. This summer is to be unusually
rich, the time being given largely to Italy. One pleasing variety will be
a tour around the world with Philip Phillips.

The special features of the summer will be strong. The Teachers’ Retreat,
which begins its sessions in July, is arranged to do for teachers one
peculiarly necessary work, to show them how to use the best methods, to
lessen the friction which is incident to all school work. It is ably
manned to produce this result, Prof. J. W. Dickinson, of the State Board
of Education of Massachusetts, being at the head of the department of
Pedagogy, and nearly a score of successful specialists assisting in
expositions of their peculiar methods. The terms for the C. T. R. are
very low.

Persons holding the $5 ticket of the Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat will
be entitled to the following privileges: All general exercises in the
Amphitheater, including lectures, concerts, recitals, and entertainments,
during the sessions of the Retreat; fourteen lessons in Pedagogy;
fourteen lessons in Practical Application of Pedagogical Science;
four Tourists’ Conferences; two Expositions of Method in Chemistry;
one Exposition of Method in Penmanship; two Expositions of Method in
Elocution; one Exposition of Method in Phonography; one Exposition of
Method in Stenographic Reporting; two admissions to each of the several
classes in the Schools of Language; two lectures on School Methods by
Prof. Edw. E. Smith, Superintendent of Schools, Syracuse, N. Y.; ten
Half-hour Drills in School Calisthenics. Special classes are arranged as
well for those who can find time to take in more than the full program,
or who desire special instructions.

Each summer, since the idea of a summer school was conceived, there
has been a steady growth in the opportunities given to students. The
coming season keeps up the record for improvement. The C. S. L. stands
preëminent among Chautauqua institutions. In its departments of Greek,
Latin, Hebrew, English, French, German and Spanish, the practical benefit
to be derived in six weeks is altogether inconceivable to those persons
who are unacquainted with the teachers directing the studies, and with
the methods used. To two or three features we would call particular
attention—features which serve merely as samples of work being done daily
in all classes. In the Anglo-Saxon room there is a class which studies
“Hamlet” for four weeks, a series of lessons rich in illustrations and
full of facts. A particular beauty of this class is the free discussion
and analysis of character which Professor M’Clintock encourages.

Professors Worman and Lalande have many novel devices for fascinating
their students. As interesting study as there was at Chautauqua last
summer was the children’s hour in German, conducted by Professor Worman;
as a lesson to teachers it was unsurpassed, as a drill for children it
would teach them German if anything would. As for the French, the weekly
lectures, the French receptions, and now this year, the “French table”
which Professor Lalande has arranged for, are prominent features.

Not content with reading Latin, Professor Shumway proposes that his
students talk it. For many students at Chautauqua last summer a tree
became _arbor_, the forest _silva_, the shade _umbra_, the dead alive—a
result, by the way, that very often is accomplished at Chautauqua. The
successful introduction of a School of Microscopy was accomplished in
1884; 1885 will see the work enlarged. This department is under the
direction of an able teacher, Professor Hall. His outfit for observation,
and for preparing and mounting objects is most complete.

It is said that when the Egyptians moved the huge rocks which form the
pyramids, musicians were stationed among the workmen, and every motion
was made in time to music. Chancellor Vincent seems to have profited by
this suggestion in preparing the Chautauqua program for 1885, for it is
all set to music of the rarest kind. To begin with, the great organ is
handled by a skillful master, Mr. I. V. Flagler. His series of recitals
contain selections from the greatest masters. The chorus will be led by
our old favorites, Professors Case and Sherwin. The Fisk Jubilees, the
Meigs-Underhill Combination, a new quartette—the Schubert, of Chicago,
vocalists with rare voices, and with a splendid _repertoire_—and Miss
Dora Henninges, of Louisville, a superb mezzo-soprano, will complete the
musical program for 1885.

These are but hints of what the six weeks’ session holds in store for
visitors to Chautauqua this season. The entire program, with all its
specialties, has been prepared with consummate care and with close
regard for popular needs. The management has striven honestly to make
Chautauqua a perfectly healthy place, with abundant social life, and with
opportunities suited to the needs of all classes of people. The verdict
of its thousands of visitors is that in the past they have succeeded. The
outlook for 1885 declares that this year will be still more abundantly
successful.




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.

       *       *       *       *       *

The present number closes Volume V. of THE CHAUTAUQUAN and interrupts
for a time the pleasant monthly visits with Local Circles. A review of
the year’s work must be satisfactory to all. It has been a progressive
year for the circles; few have fallen out of line; numbers of new
organizations have been formed; almost all have increased their
membership; the circle work has been done more thoroughly than ever
before; new methods have sparkled on every page of reports; the social
life has been quickened and intensified; the circle evening has become
the most important evening of the week; it has been made the occasion of
practical discussions and of intelligent conversation; a stronger feeling
of union exists; the local circle has become a permanent institution.
There is much encouragement in the review, but there is much for each
circle to learn in a study of the reports of the past year.

The present issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN will contain all the reports
received up to the date of going to press; those received after that date
will necessarily be held over for the October issue.

Very interesting and encouraging reports have been received from HALIFAX,
NOVA SCOTIA, where the local circles are prospering, and much earnest
work has been done. While their routine work and the required course of
reading and study are pursued by the several circles separately, their
occasional reunions are found profitable, and furnish much real enjoyment
for the members. One such was held on Longfellow day at Dartmouth,
across the harbor, which proved intensely interesting to an expectant
audience. Thorough preparation was made for this meeting, and the whole
arrangement was admirable. On Shakspere day an equally excellent program
celebrated the day. The programs for both were highly original. The
annual _conversazione_ of the “Central” circle, TORONTO, was held on
May 19th. The novel little arrangement for a program—three ribbon-tied
circles—looks most inviting. A half hour of orchestra music preceded the
address and concert, after which were stereopticon views and a promenade.
The guests were entertained at the Normal School building, where the
museum and picture galleries were thrown open to them.

Among the MAINE circles is a goodly one at ROCKPORT, composed at its
beginning in 1882 of twenty-one ladies. They have clung together through
separation in a way quite remarkable. One of their number spent last
year at sea, but took her books along, and had her CHAUTAUQUAN sent
to meet her at various points. Another friend who has been around the
world during the past year missed her books at Antwerp, but writes
from San Francisco that she is ready to make up the year’s work. The
Rockport circle has the peculiar honor of having for its president a
lady over seventy years of age.——“Mountain Echoes” have reached us from
BRIDGETON—nineteen of them. This circle was formed in 1883, and for a
year met monthly; the success was so great that they have doubled their
number of meetings. A sufficient proof of their statement that “good
work is being done.”——Fifteen members of a circle at BANGOR write us
that they have enthusiasm quite sufficient for a class much larger. It
is the steady variety, too, we fancy, for since 1881 they have met, with
few exceptions, every Monday night from October to July. The studying is
done on this evening, and time has been faithfully used, for they have
succeeded in reviewing several books. A talented young physician in their
midst has favored them this winter with lectures on Animal and Vegetable
Biology, with microscopic illustrations.——A spirited circle, the
“Whittier,” of twenty-five members, is working at NORTH BERWICK. Debates
are frequent features of their programs, and they have adopted the
sensible habit of choosing timely questions. Shakspere day was observed
by a reading of the “Merchant of Venice,” the characters being assigned
by a committee. At North Berwick the circle is fortunate in having
members of different denominations who mingle in perfect cordiality. The
result of their work together has been, they write, “an improvement of
mind and broadening of ideas.”

A pleasant gathering of C. L. S. C. folks has been carrying on local
circle work since October last at MEREDITH VILLAGE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Some fifteen members are in the company. A gentleman interested in the
work kindly furnishes them a room, lighted, warmed, and furnished. The
memorial days are held in honor, and recently they have had “an extra” in
a talk on chemistry from a teacher of the town.

VERMONT is represented this month in a lively letter from MONTPELIER:
“Our circle is not dumb, as might be inferred from our silence, neither
are we deaf to the appeals for reports from local circles. The trouble
is this: Though an organization of about twenty members since October
last, we have until this month been nameless. One name after another was
suggested until ‘The Idea Hunters’ was proposed, and met with general
favor. I think our motto should be, ‘Hunt until you find,’ for we are
constantly hunting in reference books for settlements to the many
questions proposed. We are learning, of course, and getting no little
amusement out of our researches as well.”

From the “Chautauqua Quintette,” of CHELSEA, MASS., we have this cheery
report: “We are a little company of five ladies, all intensely interested
in the C. L. S. C. work. We derive great benefit from our work, and
some of our programs would be creditable to a larger organization.”——A
slightly discouraged circle, finding it “hard to exist,” is the
“Thaxter,” of ATTLEBORO. The small membership troubles them. It should
not, it seems to us, especially since they have five members who write
“fine essays.” We surmise that if the “Thaxter” has five good essay
writers it is better off than many a large circle, and from the program
of their Longfellow entertainment it is evident that some one of their
number knows how to manage such things. Cheer up, friends.——A really
joyous letter comes from MELROSE, where the secretary of the “Alpha”
has been delaying her report because the new members would not cease
coming in, and she wanted to get them all. She writes: “Every member is
enthusiastic, and I believe that excellent work is being done. This is
my last year—that is to say the last of my _first_ four years’ course.
Please accept the most cordial greetings of our circle; we hope to send
annual greetings for many years to come.”——A dainty hand-painted souvenir
of the Shakspere evening of the “Alpha,” at UXBRIDGE, accompanies their
report of good, strong work. The circle is small, but, says one of
their number, “Chautauqua means a good deal with us.” The “Alphas” are
to be congratulated on the success of the memorial exercises they have
held this year.——Twenty-eight “Pilgrims,” of DORCHESTER, with their
pastor as leader, are pursuing their course up the hill of knowledge
courageously. Their meetings are well attended and interesting. Their
verdict is: “We certainly feel that our circle has been a great benefit
to us all the year, though it has been our first attempt at such work.
We have no reason to regret starting, and look to next year for greater
results.”——At LYNN the “Raymond” circle carried out a very taking list
of exercises in celebration of April 23d. It was the first entertainment
of the kind the circle has ever given, and certainly they ought to
be pleased with their success. Their program has that unusual merit,
originality.——The “Vincent” circle, of NEEDHAM, was organized early in
the fall, and has been flourishing since. Nearly forty members are in the
class, and next year additions are expected. The “Vincent” is going to do
what we wish every circle in existence would do, have a representative
at their nearest Assembly—if you can not go to Chautauqua. The ideas
and stimulus gained would be worth many times the cost and fatigue.——A
suggestion comes from “Clark” circle, of JAMAICA PLAIN, that deserves a
comment. It is that THE CHAUTAUQUAN print more of the programs which it
reports. Did we not furnish at least four programs each month for the use
of circles we should certainly do this. As it is, we prefer to take the
many good suggestions which we get from the programs sent us, and use
them in our monthly programs. We do this because the programs sent us can
not be printed until so long after the performance has taken place that
they are of no practical use to circles; by readapting them we can give
them to circles in a way in which they will be of use. The “Clark” itself
has sent us a program that deserves reprinting, only of what practical
good would be a March program in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for July?——“Although but
a very small part of the great Chautauqua army, we have caught something
of its spirit, and wish it ever increasing success.” So writes the
secretary of the correspondence circle of “Earnest Workers,” of which
Alice C. Jennings, of Auburndale, is president. The circle has a thorough
and systematic plan of work. Frequent letters from the president offer
counsel and hints. At each monthly meeting memoranda from the students
are read. These memoranda contain answers to a list of printed questions,
such as: “What books have you read in connection with the C. L. S. C.?
What three subjects in them have most interested you? Have you met with
any difficulties, and if so, what?” etc. The whole plan of their work
is admirable——The “Acadia” circle of FRANKLIN, MASS., was organized in
1882. It has now sixty members. The president, although pastor of a large
church, has been absent but five times since the circle’s organization.
One of their great helps has been the pronouncing matches on Greek names
and common English words. On Shakspere day the circle had the pleasure of
listening to a lecture from Dr. R. R. Meredith, on “Leisure Hours.”

From WOODBURY, CONN., comes a plea: “Pray receive into your host of
local circles the ‘Lone Star,’ for we are alone. There were others with
us who are not faded, but gone.” Marriage and going west has robbed the
circle of its members, until but one is left to keep the fire burning on
the shrine. We are glad to find a corner for that one here—certainly in
these columns there is plenty of company and no need to grow lonely.——The
“Newfield” circle of WEST STRATFORD is still “marching on.” On Shakspere
day the circle read “Merchant of Venice” and “Julius Cæsar” with hearty
appreciation, closing their celebration with a C. L. S. C. experience
meeting. Many were the stories told of what Chautauqua had done for
them.——MANSFIELD CENTER, a rural village in a dear old fashioned
Connecticut street, is the home of a circle of eleven members. It was not
begun until January last, but has shown its colors by having quite caught
up. Two of the professors of the neighboring Agricultural College have
given them very interesting lectures, and on Longfellow and Shakspere
days recitations and music furnished pleasing entertainments.

A report of a successful first year comes from AUBURN, RHODE ISLAND,
where the “Clio,” of fourteen members, was formed in October last. The
new circles are all, like the “Clio,” promising to start next fall with
fresh vigor.——Our thanks are due the “Esmeralda Bachelor” circle for the
program of the first memorial services under the auspices of the Rhode
Island Chautauqua Union. Great credit is due to Prof. John H. Appleton,
the president of the Union, for his efforts to make the occasion a
success.——The _Sentinel Advertiser_, of HOPE VALLEY, devoted almost
a column to a Shakspere evening, at which the “Aryans” of that town
entertained the “Pawcatuck” circle of CAROLINA. Some twenty-six of the
guest circle were present and were greeted with elegant hospitality by
the home circle.

They are always doing something new at OCEAN GROVE, NEW YORK. The last
has been a Tree Planting Day. On April 15 the C. L. S. C. planted a
beautiful maple for each class respectively of ’85, ’86, ’87, and ’88.
Representatives of each class were present, the largest number, of
course, being for 1888. There was a short address by Dr. Stokes, prayer
by the Rev. A. E. Ballard, and an appropriate song for each tree set out
in Bishops’ Grove. In the evening a “service extraordinary” was held;
trees and tree planting were the topics of talks, of songs, reading
and reminiscences.——The PALMYRA C. L. S. C. has enjoyed two evenings
in chemistry recently, Prof. J. C. Norris, of Walworth Academy, kindly
explaining dark points to them, and performing many fine experiments.
The circle is very warm in its praise of the lecture and lecturer.——A
Chautauqua circle consisting of fifteen members was organized at
UNION SPRINGS in January of this year. The members make their lessons
interesting and profitable with music, questions, and readings.——The
“Philomathean,” of LANCASTER, has a capital way of working in its
inexperienced members. “Questions, criticisms, and commendations are
interspersed through the whole evening. We aim to draw out the silent
ones, to make all interested and feel themselves responsible; try to
have every one feel that he _must_ take every appointment, and allow no
one to escape his turn at getting up question lists and easy work, and
so seek to train them for the more difficult work.” This circle is not
yet a year old, and numbers fifteen members.——We are happy to introduce
the first C. L. S. C. inventors. The “Unique” circle, of LOCKPORT, claim
that honor. Their invention is a game made up from the questions and
answers in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and is intended to form a comprehensive
review of the year’s work. “The Unique” is the title of it. Would it
not be generous in the Lockport circle to share their discovery with
the rest of us?——The “Argonaut” circle, of Buffalo, entertained a large
number of invited friends at a special meeting held in April. The affair
was a decided success. The “Argonauts” deserve special credit for the
efforts that they are making to awaken interest in the affairs of the
C. L. S. C. by extra meetings.——At YONKERS there is a circle now in
its third year which has never reported to THE CHAUTAUQUAN before. In
all it numbers twenty. Their work during the past three years of their
existence has been in regular programs of essays, readings, and questions
and answers, with an occasional variation to suit necessity. This year
they held a very successful memorial service in honor of Longfellow’s
day, and more recently have had a valuable lecture, with experiments, on
chemistry.——Fourteen persons are reading the Bryant course in connection
with THE CHAUTAUQUAN, at MUNNSVILLE. The circle did not undertake work
until January, so adopted a short course for the rest of this year rather
than try the regular course. We hope to find them at work on the regular
course next fall, with their hopes of a larger membership gratified.

“Our Junto” is a circle within a circle. Five young men of the “Broadway”
circle, of CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, form it. Their program for the spring
(of which they ought to be very proud) is a little book rather than a
single page, containing the work laid out for the “Juntonians.” The
plan is admirable. Each member has something to do at every meeting,
and he knows what it is to be so long beforehand that he has ample
opportunity to gather material. All circles will find it to their
advantage to give attention to “Our Junto’s” plan.——Last October a few
of the many students in the C. L. S. C. in NEWARK, organized a local
circle. By the perseverance of these few others have been persuaded
to join until the circle numbers about twenty. They have taken the
name “Arcadia.” Memorial days in particular find pleasant observance.
The last celebration, Longfellow day, was especially interesting. The
chemistry is furnishing an excellent opportunity for experiments, which
the “Arcadia” is fortunate enough to have a chance to carry on in an
academy laboratory.——For the sake of northern New Jersey, which they are
sorry not to see often reported in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the members of the
“Hawthorne,” of HACKETTSTOWN, a circle of five members, formed in April
last, has sent us thus promptly its report. The “Hawthorne” plunged _in
medias res_ and celebrated the Shakspere memorial almost as soon as its
organization was complete. Such a vigorous start promises well for their
progress next year.——The “Round Table” circle of JERSEY CITY is a band
of twenty enthusiastic workers. A great deal of genuine hard work has
been done by them the past year. The memorial days are celebrated, and
every incentive used to foster the true Chautauqua spirit. Experiments
have recently been given the class at the high school under the direction
of the teacher of science.——The “Ionic,” organized in DOVER, in January
last, grows in interest with each meeting. There are nine members, whose
happy experience thus far has been never to be discouraged. But why
should they be? “Each member does his part.”

The “Kensington,” of PHILADELPHIA, is a circle of eleven members who are
much in love with their readings. Such a success has their circle become
that the members are willing to sacrifice other things to be present, and
the president writes that he has received great benefit in going over
again the fields of study that he harvested years ago.——A letter from
the secretary of the “Pleiades,” of PHILADELPHIA, says: “‘Pleiades’ is
now nearly two years old. We began the present school year by increasing
our membership from nine to eighteen. We took the advice given in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN on simplicity of government, adopting such rules only as
would systematize matters, and having as little formality as possible.
It is a success. The meetings are so profitable that we think of
continuing them all summer. Two of our members have taken college courses
in chemistry, and they have been giving us some practical experiments
in this delightful study. Greetings to our sister circles, and praises
to our _alma mater_.”——The “Emanon” circle, of WEST PHILADELPHIA, has
sustained a sad loss in the death of Mr. John S. Rodgers, to whom the
circle ascribes its success. He had been the instructor of the class for
a long enough time for its members to appreciate his worth and sincerely
mourn his death.——A similar sorrow has come to the circle of WEST
BELLEVUE, where Mrs. Dr. W. G. Humber, a loyal member of the C. L. S.
C., died on the morning of May 3d.——The Chautauquans of PITTSBURGH make
more of Special Sunday than any other circles that we know of. Our last
reminder of this is a tiny vest-pocket program of the exercises carried
out by the “Duquesne” and “Mount Washington” circles on the second
Sabbath in May.——The circle at UNIONDALE writes us that it has chosen
for its name “Meredith,” in honor of Samuel Meredith, first Treasurer of
the United States, and for their motto they have selected “Spare minutes
are the gold dust of time.”——What better proof of the efficiency of the
course than this testimony from the “Tennyson” circle of thirty members,
at ROCHESTER, PA.: “We think generally that our most pleasant evenings
are spent at our circle. One thing that deserves to be especially noted
is that light reading among us is being superseded by solid study and the
reading of standard authors.”——A circle of ’88s, at ALLEGHENY CITY, bears
the popular name of “Wallace Bruce.” Starting with eighteen members they
have grown to twenty-eight, a sign, we hope, that next year they will
increase with the same rapidity. Their program of Shaksperean exercises
is before us, and it bears some excellent numbers.——The “Carbondale”
circle reports a prosperous year. The interest and enthusiasm of the
members is increasing. The memorial days are all observed, and by
devoting ten to fifteen minutes of each session to singing the circle is
becoming familiar with Chautauqua songs. Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Alden gave
the circle some very happy talks on their return from their recent trip
to the Florida Chautauqua and New Orleans Exposition. The circle closed
its first year with a trip to England; this year it closed with a “Greek
night.” Going direct to France they propose to visit Paris, Switzerland,
Italy and Greece. Arrived in Hellas, the manners, customs, home life and
amusements of the Greeks are to be described in short essays. Each member
intends to constitute “thonself” a committee of one to secure a new
member for next year’s circle.——An appreciative letter reaches us from
SPRINGBORO, where a circle now numbering fifteen has been in existence
since 1881. The president writes: “While we are nearing the goal of
graduation we look back with gratitude at our rich feast with kings and
princes, with masters of art, of science, and of literature. Best of all,
we find that we have been made to more clearly understand the wonderful
power of the Infinite in all things. With our motto ‘Invincible’ still
before us we hope not only to finish the course, but keep climbing with
the Chautauqua brotherhood while life lasts.”——Let all good Chautauquans
congratulate the fraternity at MONTROSE. Thus the secretary writes: “It
has long been a wish that we might have a branch of the C. L. S. C.
in our ‘City on the Hill.’ Four attempts were made, but to no avail;
finally a few who were especially enthusiastic endeavored to push ahead
once more. The result has been more successful than we anticipated. We
organized in January with nine members, and now have grown to sixteen. We
trust that July will find us with the desired amount of work fully and
well accomplished. There is a most encouraging prospect of doubling the
membership another year.”

Twenty-seven enrolled members make up the circle at ERIE, PA. The circle
meets in the Y. M. C. A. parlors, and the informal, pleasant meetings
have proved a great attraction to the members. The Shakspere memorial
was observed very successfully, by a parlor session. The literary part
of the program consisted of a discussion on the authorship of Shakspere,
followed by readings, then came refreshments and the evening was closed
by a half hour of Chautauqua songs. Not many evenings ago an address was
delivered by the president on Emerson, followed by an hour of practical
observation through the telescope. The Erie circle claims that they have
interesting meetings, and as a proof say that a non-member, a blind man,
is in almost constant attendance.——About 100 members of the C. L. S. C.
Alumni Association of PITTSBURGH met in a social way at the parlors of
the Seventh Avenue Hotel on April 20th, to enjoy the pleasures attendant
upon the third annual reunion of the society. Arrangements had been
partially made for the reception of Dr. Vincent, who had been expected,
but the following letter was received instead:

    To the Annual Reunion of the Pittsburgh C. L. S. C. Alumni
      Association, Pittsburgh, Pa.:

    MY DEAR FELLOW-STUDENTS—I sincerely regret the engagement which
    had been made prior to the invitation to meet you this evening.
    The original engagement it was impossible to break. I am
    therefore denied the privilege of your feast of reason and flow
    of soul. The Chautauqua work increases in expansion and power.
    The later classes are steadily growing. I have the good hope that
    the classes of ’89, already forming, will be the largest and
    most flourishing of all. I am more and more convinced that there
    are multitudes of people who would hail with joy the provisions
    of the “C. L. S. C.” if they were simply informed concerning
    them. Are you doing all you can toward the enlightenment of the
    great public with regard to the C. L. S. C. and other branches
    of the Chautauqua work? Let me urge you to renewed zeal in this
    direction. Bidding you “a hearty God speed,” I remain your
    servant in this goodly work.

                                                       J. H. VINCENT.

The banquet passed off most pleasantly.

At a recent meeting of the “Evergreen” circle, of GREENVILLE, S. C., the
circle expressed in a series of fitting resolutions the sorrow of the
members at the death of Mr. Richard Grant White, and their appreciation
of the value of his recent work for THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

A letter from PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA: “We organized our circle last
October, but it was almost January before we got fairly started. We
follow closely the work laid out in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, occasionally having
a public meeting. Our observance of the Longfellow and Shakspere days was
as creditable as any literary exercises ever presented in our vicinity.
Our desire for books has been so much increased by the C. L. S. C. that
we have resolved to establish a library for the reading element of our
city, and we have begun by the purchase of a few works as a nucleus.”

ORANGE CITY, FLORIDA, has the beginning of, we hope, a large circle, in
six readers who are taking the C. L. S. C. with their general reading.
They use the questions and answers and make the general news of the week
a feature of every program. The “Orange City” circle is looking forward
to an assembly some day at Mount Dora.

OHIO comes in with a letter too good to lose: “I discover in your May
number that a Kansas member of the C. L. S. C. class of ’85 says he is
the oldest of that class and was born (1815) in the year of the great
battle of Waterloo. I hope he will persevere and enjoy the exercises
until he reaches the age of at least three of the ‘Irrepressibles of
’84,’ two of whom are 75 years of age and one 84. The last is still
reading for another seal and hopes to be at Chautauqua in August. Hope
the member from Kansas will press on in the work he has begun, for
there are great possibilities before him which can only be attained by
perseverance. He will retain his mental faculties fresh and vigorous as
in youth. Press on, good brother, and you will reap your reward here and
hereafter.”——The C. L. S. C. of CINCINNATI and vicinity held their _Sixth
Annual Reunion_ on May 5th in the parlors of the First Presbyterian
Church. A goodly number were present from “Alpha” circle, “Cumminsville,”
“Christie,” “Mt. Auburn,” “Cheviot,” “Grace M. P.,” “Third Presbyterian,”
“Emanuel,” “Covington,” “Newport,” “Madisonville” and “Walnut Hills.”
The program consisted of an address of welcome by J. G. O’Connell, Esq.;
prayer by Rev. S. N. Spahr, followed by music, readings, and recitations.
The room was brilliantly decorated with mottoes and class emblems, and
a profusion of choice and fragrant flowers. From the chandeliers were
suspended the class dates, ’85, ’86, ’87, and ’88, and the letters S. H.
G. and under these were grouped merry companies, who took part in the
collation, which was not the least enjoyable feature of the program. The
quarterly vesper service was held on Special Sunday, May 9th, at Grace
M. P. Church. It was ably conducted by Mr. E. F. Layman, President of
“Grace” circle. Rev. S. N. Spahr gave a very excellent address to the
members upon knowledge rightly directed.——The “Young Men’s” circle of
CINCINNATI has been doing good work this year. The circle is composed
of companion workers in church and Sabbath school, and the bounds of
union have been strengthened by the united study of the “Word and Works
of God.” The Chautauqua studies were taken up by them with an earnest
desire to better fit themselves for successful work. Their faith and
courage has been severely tried by the death of one of their active,
earnest members, Mr. George E. Wilcox—a sorrow which they are struggling
to make a blessing.——The class of ’88 has a live section at MORROW, the
“Irving.” There are over thirty regular attendants in the band and their
fortnightly meetings are conducted like college recitations, a pastor
being the instructor. May the “Irvings” prosper and multiply.

A friend writes from NORWAY, MICHIGAN: “We wish to be recognized by our
fellow-workers as a prosperous circle, although a small one, and we are
very glad we have joined them.” The “Norway” has made a splendid record
in its year’s existence, having met every week since last October. It
need not fear a lack of cordial welcome here.——“Thornapple” circle, of
NASHVILLE, boasts a history very similar to that of the “Norway.” It
was first organized a year ago, and its membership is ten. The members
are all workers, and kindly report themselves highly pleased with the
Chautauqua Idea.——A letter full of the Chautauqua characteristics comes
from DECATUR: “Our ‘Pansy’ circle of twenty-five members have held
regular meetings since October. We are enthusiastic, and have done
genuine work. But it has not all been work. We have had a ‘question
match’ upon Greek History and Mythology, the winner of the contest
receiving as a prize an original poem. On Founder’s day the question
box was on ‘What has Chautauqua done for me?’ On Longfellow’s memorial
the circle visited a neighboring class, spending a merry evening. But
the red-letter day of the year was April 23d, when a dinner party was
tendered the members and their husbands by one of the circle. It was
generally pronounced the most enjoyable affair the town had had in many
a day and served as a good advertisement of what the C. L. S. C. does
for its members. Few of our guests knew how much we had done or could
do.”——An unusually good joint meeting took place at FLINT in honor of
Shakspere. Two circles of the C. L. S. C. and one of the Spare Minute
Course united. We like one thing on the program particularly. After
taking up in essays Shakspere’s Character, Home Life and Contemporaries,
the essays were all studies of one play—“Macbeth;” thus the plot of
“Macbeth” was outlined, then followed “Macbeth’s Character,” “Lady
Macbeth,” “Who was Duncan?” “Witches and Ghosts,” and “Moral of Macbeth.”
This is a much more satisfactory method than several disjointed readings
or studies. The evening was closed by conversation and readings,
conducted by an able Shaksperean scholar, Hon. E. H. Thompson.

Shakspere himself would, we wager, have been nothing loath to have taken
part in the celebration given in his memory at GOSHEN, INDIANA; for
“Kitchen Science” illustrated took up the first part of the evening, and
the supper, we are told, was not confined to the articles on which THE
CHAUTAUQUAN has tried to instruct its readers this past year. In the
evening, after these gastronomic exercises were finished, a literary
program was carried out.——Here is a circle “of the first magnitude.” Read
its record. “The FRANKLIN C. L. S. C. of INDIANA has increased during the
past three years from a membership of twelve to forty-five. We have never
failed in having our regular meetings every two weeks since we first
organized. During the past winter the circle managed the lecture course
of our city, and as one of the results cleared nearly $100. Chancellor
Vincent was one of the lecturers, and the members of our circle were
delighted to meet him after hearing ‘That Boy.’”——The C. L. S. C. at
LIMA, representing classes ’85, ’86, ’87 and ’88, is one of the brightest
and most wide-awake circles in the State. The circle was organized
three years ago, and now has a pleasantly furnished room with piano,
library, etc.; meets every Friday evening, and observes all memorial
days.——SHAWNEE MOUND has a Chautauqua class of twenty-three members. We
are pleased to notice that the circle passed, at a recent meeting, a
resolution of respect in memory of Richard Grant White, expressing their
sorrow at the loss which American scholarship, and in particular the
C. L. S. C. have sustained.——We are pained to record the death of Mr.
Hermon St. John, at SALEM, on May 1st. The Chautauqua work loses in him a
faithful friend.

It has been remarked in these columns already that “Alpha” of QUINCY,
ILLINOIS, is famous for its novelties. Their latest sensation was the
very practical illustration of a subject given before the circle by the
secretary. This gentleman is a native of Hibernia, and so was chosen for
a paper on dynamite. When called upon to perform he produced a package
of the explosive, much to the consternation of the members.——There died
at RUSHVILLE, on April 18th, the oldest member, without doubt, of the
C. L. S. C. in the world, Mr. Van Rensalaer Wells. Three years ago his
daughter began reading to him the books of the course. He took a lively
interest in these readings, and finally joined the class of ’86. Had he
lived it was his intention to have visited Chautauqua at the graduation
of his class.——A good woman from CHICAGO writes: “I went about from house
to house among my friends, and finally succeeded in inducing three young
persons, all earning their own living, to begin the readings with me.…
We sit around a table socially, and discuss freely our literary repast.…
I forgot to say that I am a very busy woman, the mother of three boys.
My best reading is often done after nine at night, when the little eyes
are closed in sleep.”——The announcement of a new C. L. S. C. arrival
is made from OREGON, where the “Ganymede” of twenty members appeared
in October last. Busy people, but they feel that they can not afford
to miss the Saturday evening meeting. The meetings are to be continued
through the summer for the purpose of review.——Another Illinois addition
made to the C. L. S. C. last fall was at SAVOY, where a club of eighteen
was gathered. Notwithstanding the very severe weather and deep snow,
and the fact that the circle members are farmers, living far apart, the
sessions are full and wide-awake. A very good plan has been tried by
the circle in chemistry, the blackboard being used for exercises. Every
circle ought to have a blackboard.——The history of the class at BUCKLEY
began in 1882, when six members met in informal meetings for discussion.
In 1884 it was thought wise to organize formally. Since that time the
circle has been making a decided impression upon the community. Two
public meetings have been given, which have attracted general attention.
At the last, the closing session of the year, thoughtful remembrance was
made of the president by the gift of a beautiful chair.——A band of nine
join the ranks from WARREN. It is only of late the class has found a
name. It is “Meridian,” from the fact that the town is situated on one
of the meridians. The circle has been following THE CHAUTAUQUAN in its
plan of work, using the published programs, with slight variation.——“It
takes three to make a circle,” writes a lady from FARINA, “and we are
three; one ‘Invincible,’ one ‘Pansy,’ and one ‘Plymouth Rock.’ We are
scattered as to time, but are united in interest, in enthusiasm, and
in determination. Our circle was organized in November, 1881, only a
dot—myself—but though alone, and unsuccessful in securing readers,
and hindered in every way from doing the best of work, there was a
satisfaction in doing the readings that nothing had ever brought into my
life. What we shall accomplish as a circle, the future will reveal, but
there is no ‘giving up’ to any of us.”——A Chautauqua circle of MOLINE,
not yet a year old, and a Shaksperean circle, under the same direction
as the former, have been coöperating the past season in a series of
parlor meetings of great interest. In January it was a dinner party; on
Founder’s day a literary performance with brief essays on Chautauqua
subjects; and on Shakspere day a decidedly new thing—a Shaksperean
quotation contest. No one was allowed to give a quotation that had been
given by another, and the successful competitor took the prize on his
ninety-fifth quotation.——We are in receipt of the Longfellow program of
the “Oakland” circle, of CHICAGO; an excellent and varied list of numbers
it is. The “Oakland” is a wide-awake circle.

From MARKESAN, WISCONSIN, the secretary of “Climax” circle writes: “We
are still in a flourishing condition. Although some who were with us last
year have gone to new homes, we have new members to make up those we have
lost. There are no very young students in the class, but one has to wear
two pairs of spectacles to see. We have observed most of the memorial
days, and found the programs in THE CHAUTAUQUAN very useful.”——What one
zealous reader did is told in a note from DARLINGTON: “Last year myself
and daughter read the course alone. Before the beginning of the present
year I put a short article explaining the C. L. S. C. scheme into our
local paper, and called a meeting of all those who would like to take the
course. The result is that we now have a circle of thirteen. There will
probably be an increase next year.”

A beautiful souvenir of the Longfellow celebration of the “Vincent”
circle at MILWAUKEE, MINN., has reached our table. The memorial was a
perfect success, and with justice the members felt very proud of it. The
“Vincent” is another circle sprung from the faithfulness of a single
reader, a lady who in 1883 began the course, and in 1884 had gathered a
circle of twenty-two about her, each one of whom responds promptly and
faithfully to all calls for class work.——The “Quintette” of “Plymouth
Rocks” at DULUTH have been doing the regular work since October, in
informal meetings led by the different members in turn. They expect soon
to change their name to suit an enlarged membership.——The “Gleaners,”
of ZUMBROTA, with a goodly number of their friends were treated to an
interesting program of exercises on Shakspere day. The “Gleaners” are
a power in their community, and have, they say, “enough enthusiasm to
fill up an evening without refreshments.”——At HASTINGS a circle began
life in October with sixteen regular members, besides several local
members. The class has had a sad break in its ranks by the death of Miss
Kate Stebbins, a bright young woman who had undertaken the C. L. S. C.
studies.——ST. PAUL bids fair to become exactly what its Chautauquans are
aiming to make it, a great C. L. S. C. center. To this end a “Central”
circle has been formed in the city, composed of six circles, the
“Wakouta,” “Itasca,” “Dayton’s Bluff,” “Plymouth,” “Canadian American,”
and “Pioneer,” and numbering in all over an hundred members. The
“Central” circle celebrated Longfellow’s day by a very enjoyable program,
and is trying to make arrangements for other joint entertainments. The
St. Paul friends are proud of having two of their number prominent at
Lake de Funiak, Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, one of the founders of
the “Pioneer” circle, and Dr. L. G. Smith, pastor of the First M. E.
Church.——The home of the Minnesota Summer Assembly, WASECA, is the center
of a stirring circle of twenty members. The increase in the circle is
largely due to the efforts of the Rev. A. H. Gillet and his colaborers at
the Assembly, which met at this lake for the first time last year. The
“North Star,” of Waseca, offers a very attractive plan of work.

The IOWA friends come in as strong as ever. WINTERSET reports a new
circle of twenty-five members, with a weekly program published in the
local paper, and growing zeal.——DUNLAP reports another which is in its
second year, and which numbers twenty-three. An especially good program
was arranged by these friends recently. A number of their members
visited New Orleans the past winter, and an evening of sketches of
Exposition sights was arranged.——“Sunny Side Straight Line,” of HAMBURG,
is composed of two school ma’ams. They meet whenever and wherever it is
convenient; after five p. m., before eight a. m., at the gate or in the
kitchen. Pleased with the course, they are looking forward to joining
the “Pansies” at Chautauqua in 1887.——The AFTON circle had the pleasure
of celebrating its first memorial day on April 23d. They succeeded so
admirably that Addison day was observed as well. The Afton circle pays a
kind tribute to the work: “We are glad the Chautauqua Idea struck us, but
sorry it failed to reach us sooner. It has been of untold benefit to us,
opening to our view new fields of thought, and arousing new resolutions
for the future.”——At BLANCHARD the “Pansy” class gave an entertainment
not long ago for the benefit of their work. An elocutionist was secured
and after the performance the C. L. S. C. and its aims were presented to
the audience. The circle realized a nice little sum from their venture,
which they propose to turn into maps, charts and the like for their room.
An excellent idea.——Kindly mention we must make, also, of the DECORAH
circle. Like all Iowa circles, it “grows.” The secretary writes: “We
began last year with quite a small number, but have kept adding to our
numbers until there are eighteen now who are reading the course. Our
circle is composed entirely of ladies, the most of whom have work that
takes up the greater part of their time. We have very pleasant meetings
and derive much pleasure and profit from them.”——WASHINGTON, IOWA, has a
circle of thirty members. It has been holding weekly meetings for over
two years. At the close of last year this circle held a picnic with
the Fairfield circle, and this year they have distinguished themselves
by an elaborate Longfellow entertainment. “Miles Standish” was read
and illustrated by tableaux. The Washingtonians certainly displayed
extraordinary artistic ability in arranging one, at least, of these
tableaux. They wanted “Priscilla” led in on her “Snow-white Bull,” but
how to manage the “palfrey” was a question. Here is how they did it: A
long narrow table was padded, the legs wrapped, a head with suitable
horns constructed, and the whole thing finally wrapped with white
cotton-flannel. “Necessity is the mother of invention.”——A beautiful
memorial comes from one of the members of the circle at HUMBOLDT. “My
mother, aged eighty-one years, died March 4th. She was the first one in
this county to become interested in the C. L. S. C. She made her eldest
grandson a member, bought the books for the first year’s course, and
read them first, marking whatever she wished him to notice. At our class
meetings she always selected from the Bible the chapter to be read at
the opening exercises.… A grand helper has left us.”——At KEOSAUQUA a
circle was organized as long ago as ’82. Of the original eight members
only three are left, but the circle has more than held its own, now
numbering twelve or more members. They are fortunate in having as a
leader a teacher of unusual ability.——At TABOR a circle was organized
last September, which, with a goodly membership of interested members,
is doing excellent work. A Professor from Tabor College has helped this
circle much by performing for them chemical experiments.

The Chautauqua work has lost one of its strongest members in COOPERSTOWN,
DAKOTA, this year, in the sad death of Mrs. H. G. Pickett, who
accidentally shot herself in her husband’s bank in that town. She was an
ardent admirer of the Chautauqua work, and her life a true exposition of
the truths that the C. L. S. C. is striving to bring into the practical
every-day life of its members.——A spirited Shakspere anniversary was
celebrated at FAULKTON. The parlors where the circle met were filled to
overflowing with delighted guests, and full exercises of tragedy, song
and jest were carried out.

The “Kate F. Kimball” circle, of MINNEAPOLIS, KANSAS, started on its
career in October last with a membership of thirteen. Their plan is
simple and practical—a sure way of introducing conversation. Each member
is required to prepare five questions on the readings, which are given
to the circle, and which are then discussed. This method would serve a
good purpose in the _conversazione_.——The _Kansas City Journal_ suggests
that Tuesday night in that city ought to be called Chautauqua night, as
nearly a dozen circles meet there on that evening.——The “Clytie,” of
ARKANSAS CITY has had a severe trial of its loyalty this year. Malarial
fever has broken their ranks so that they have been able to hold but a
few meetings. It does not dampen their ardor though, and they express
all honor and gratitude to Superintendent and Counselors for their wise
help. The “Clytie” joins another Kansas circle in protesting against
the name “Plymouth Rocks.” This is the “Greenwood,” of EUREKA, which
declares, “We can not become reconciled to it.” The “Greenwood” does not,
however, allow its pleasure in the reading to be spoiled by the class
name, for it writes: “Chautauqua gives us a broad departure from our
daily cares and ruts which is very refreshing, and we trust it will be of
benefit to us.”——Here is a five-year-old Kansas town, EVEREST, of five
hundred inhabitants, with a circle of sixteen members. Here is certainly
a chance, with such a start, to grow up with the country.——Greetings
to the class of ’86, and to all Chautauquans, come from the circle at
LEAVENWORTH. This circle has ten members. Its chief circle interest is
the question box, which frequently leads to a lively discussion. They are
favored in having secured an excellent leader, the Rev. J. A. Monteith.
Several of this class are reading the White Seal course.

There are in NEBRASKA nineteen circles of the C. L. S. C. A strong
effort is being made to secure at the Assembly at CRETE, in July,
a full attendance of representatives from all these organizations.
Accept a word of advice from THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Go to Crete if you can
get there. It will pay you in more than double measure to take part in
the exercises of C. L. S. C. day. Of the nineteen circles of Nebraska,
the one at LINCOLN takes the lead, we believe, in numbers. It has
reached forty-seven, with an average attendance of about forty. In
recognition of the literary character of the circle the Superintendent
of Public Instruction in Lincoln has kindly opened a room in the new
State House to the circle. The Lincoln circle, as befits its location
at the capital of the State, is taking active measures to make the C.
L. S. C. day at Crete a success. Already they have attracted public
attention by a unique Shaksperean festival, at which a number of guests
were entertained.——Another of the nineteen is at FALLS CITY, an ’88
offspring. The circle has seventeen members. An executive committee of
three appoints instructors for the review of each meeting, following
the plan in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The class observed Longfellow day with
appropriate exercises. Our Falls City friends have chosen a name with a
meaning—“Misselts”—“I will surmount all difficulties.” Not an easy name
to take, by any means, but the “Misselts” is made up of school teachers
mainly, and what can they not do?——An addition to the Nebraska circles
is made at HOLDREGE. It came about in this way, writes a friend: “I left
my home circle in Indiana in December last and started out to ‘try my
fortune in the far West.’ I first stopped at Odell, Nebraska, and tried
to introduce the ‘Chautauqua Idea’ there. I found it was already being
talked of, and by the efficient efforts of a gentleman interested in the
movement, a grand, earnest circle was organized. In February I came to
Holdrege, the ‘Magic City,’ as it is called, naturally expecting every
one to be interested in the C. L. S. C. I had almost decided to give up
the course, because I was so busy, when I met a teacher of the town—a
‘Pansy.’ We have formed a circle, and next year instead of having the
smallest number possible, expect to compare favorably with any in the
State.”——BLAIR has a circle of twenty-two members this year. A small
circle has been at work in the town for two years, but this year its
membership has increased in remarkable proportions. Blair is situated
within sight of the Missouri River, and from this noble stream the circle
calls itself the “‘Souri.” Occasional parlor meetings for invited friends
are enlarging the work rapidly in Blair.

Already we have given our readers hints of the noble way in which
Professor Spring has been representing Chautauqua at NEW ORLEANS. His
last public exploit was the Shaksperean Anniversary. From a local paper
we learn of the success of the undertaking: “The thirty-first birthday of
the Stratford-on-Avon bard was celebrated last evening at the Exposition.
The ceremonies were gotten up almost entirely by Prof. Edward A. Spring,
director of the Chautauqua classes in sculpture. It was hoped that Judge
Braughn and other local gentlemen learned in Shaksperean lore would have
been present, but a heavy storm prevented. The ceremonies, however,
were very successful, though briefer than had been intended. They were
presided over by ex-Governor Hoyt, from far-away Wyoming, chief of the
jury on education, who made a brief but eloquent oration in commencing
the proceedings. He dwelt on the incomparable greatness of Shakspere
and the immense influence his writings have had on the many millions of
people speaking the English tongue, and showed how, as the centuries roll
on and as the English speaking peoples grow and multiply, the luster
that attaches to his name must grow brighter and brighter. Following
Governor Hoyt, Professor Spring made a neat little speech, setting forth
the benefits accruing to those connected with the great educational
institutions with which he was connected, and how appropriate it was for
the Chautauquans to include in the fifteen great events they commemorate,
the birth of Shakspere. Mr. Spring then introduced Mrs. Florence Anderson
Clark, of Bonham, Texas, a member of the C. L. S. C., who closed the
evening by reading an original poem on Shakspere.”

From the far western frontier of TEXAS, at ALBANY, comes this letter:
“Three of us associated ourselves together the first of October to read
the Required Readings of the C. L. S. C. In January we were joined by two
more. Our method of study has been to have each member originate twenty
questions, to present at each weekly meeting to the members, who on the
following week take them up to answer and discuss. The circle has been
quietly but seriously working. The benefit of having a certain course of
reading has already been felt, and we believe that many others will be
influenced to join us the next year.”

COLORADO is represented by a circle of seventeen at DELTA, a growing
young town blessed with many people of culture and refinement. The circle
belongs to the ranks of the ’88s, and is proceeding with the vigor
characteristic of the class. They luckily can introduce good music as a
part of each evening’s program. By the secretary of the Delta circle a
word of experience is added: “After pursuing the course of study nearly
four years, I can add my testimony as to its great inspiration to all who
are systematically keeping it up.”

CARSON, NEVADA, has the “Sierra Nevada” circle of twenty-five ’88s, a
vigorous young life that, in spite of delays in getting books, and the
discouragements in starting, is getting along famously. The spread of the
C. L. S. C. in the West depends very largely upon the organized circle.
The “Sierra Nevadas” have a summer work of bringing in recruits, as well
as of making up back lessons.

The flags are flying from the “Green” circle, of PORTLAND, OREGON, and
“we are getting along splendidly,” is their watchword. They write that
they are growing more and more enthusiastic, and that the circle is
becoming “a joy and a feast of good things” to them all. “Green” circle
had a brilliant Longfellow celebration last winter. The feature of it
was a Longfellow picture gallery, representing the principal heroes and
heroines. A good idea to remember when we come around to February 27,
1886.

The remarkable Floral Festival held in SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, on May
5th, in honor of Mrs. M. E. Crocker, to whom that city owes so much for
her munificent charities and endowments, was participated in by two of
the local circles of that city. The “Sacramento” circle sent an elegant
tribute to the festival. On a bust about three feet high, decorated
with flowers and bearing the letters C. L. S. C., was erected a gateway
with gates ajar; within was an open book. The “Vincent” circle sent one
equally unique—a pyramid of flowers surmounted with a flower-wreathed
pole, from which was suspended a banner of flowers.

The “Alma” circle of SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, consists of seventeen members
of the class of ’87. Longfellow’s day was a very pleasant occasion with
them. The president tells us: “The good effects of the reading are
already to be seen among our numbers; a desire for good and profitable
reading being manifested more and more as we pursue the course.”——The
Chautauquans of SAN JOSÉ had a very interesting meeting in celebration
of the “Bard of Avon.” A most excellent program was rendered. One of the
leading features was a very able critical review of “As You Like It,”
read by a lady of the circle.




THE C. L. S. C. CLASSES.


CLASS OF 1885.—“THE INVINCIBLES.”

“_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.

       *       *       *       *       *

There will be excursions from Chautauqua to Niagara Falls every few days
during the season, and there will be no difficulty in securing ample and
satisfactory accommodations for the class of 1885, or any portion of it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The challenge of our classmate in Kansas brings forth the following from
Maryland: “I see in the May CHAUTAUQUAN a chivalric old gentleman hailing
from Kansas, claiming to be the oldest member of the class—being born in
the year the battle of Waterloo was fought. Now, I have entered on my
seventy-fifth summer, and remember distinctly the battle of Waterloo.
But, he claims also to be the _youngest_. Now, if I shall have the
pleasure of meeting him at Chautauqua, and he is so disposed, we will
run a foot race. But, really, this is the time for ‘grave and reverend
seigniors’ to speak out. Who comes next?”

       *       *       *       *       *

NEBRASKA.—I trust that I shall be numbered with those who shall “pass
under the Arches” at dear Chautauqua this summer, thereby proving that
I am one who is earnestly striving to “Press on, reaching after those
things which are before.” The C. L. S. C. means a great deal to me. These
magic letters are the key which unlocks all the enthusiasm of my being.
These four years have been a new revelation to me, and have been of
deep, abiding interest, and a well-spring of joy. Last year my dearest
friend, a devoted Chautauquan, a member of the class of ’85, a thorough
“Invincible,” in every sense where right was involved, went on before.
Since that time I have read alone, but hope to be one of the successful
many who shall pass under the Arches and “begin” again, instead of ending
on Commencement day.

       *       *       *       *       *

An earnest society lady writes: “The whole bent of my life is changed by
the C. L. S. C. Next to being a Christian, it is the greatest blessing of
my life. I read and listen to sermons and lectures more intelligently,
and have been led into a spiritual life.”

       *       *       *       *       *

ONTARIO.—I have often felt it my duty to express my thankfulness to the
C. L. S. C. for the information I have received from their well chosen
books. Words are inadequate to express my gratefulness to Chancellor
Vincent and his coadjutors for the great and lasting benefit I have
received from this course, although being unable to do the work as
thoroughly as I would if time permitted. I complete my four years this
summer, and I am more anxious than ever to explore other books which
I have not read. This circle of reading has created a desire for some
branches that hitherto was dormant, and revived the desire for others.
From the first I have been anticipating a trip to Chautauqua, but will be
unable to gratify my desire this summer. I hope to be able to receive my
diploma at home. I think our class motto is excellent, and hope we will
all prove worthy of our name—“Invincible.”


CLASS OF 1886.—“THE PROGRESSIVES.”

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


CLASS ORGANIZATION.

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

    _Vice Presidents_—The Rev. J. T. 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, New Albany, Ind.

       *       *       *       *       *

From all quarters there comes up the assurance from members of ’86 that
they mean to be at Chautauqua or Framingham this summer. Attendance at
an Assembly, with its enthusiastic “Round-Tables,” conferences upon
literature, art and science, new lights upon past reading, and new
outlooks for the future, well nigh doubles the value of the course. Come,
earnest readers of ’86, and see.

       *       *       *       *       *

Plans are already being formed for the graduation exercises at Chautauqua
next year, and the hardly less interesting observances at the New England
Assembly. Any suggestions bearing upon this important matter may be
freely made by letter to the president or secretary, by those who can not
be present at the Assemblies. The class of ’86 is the first _large_ class
to graduate; it has done grand work in the course, and it means to honor
Chautauqua and itself by suitable exercises and observances, when its
thousands shall come up to receive from the University their diploma in
August, 1886.

       *       *       *       *       *

We shall hear, personally or by letter, at the Assemblies, from our
honorary members, of whom the class of ’86 is justly so proud.

       *       *       *       *       *

Will members of ’86, in New England, remember the new Hall of Philosophy
at Framingham, now under way, and to be completed by July 1st? Send your
subscription, if you have not done so; subscribe and send at once if you
have not yet taken a share in this grand enterprise, and induce your
friends to lend assistance, that the few hundred dollars needed to finish
and furnish the building may be at once forthcoming. Remit to N. B. Fisk,
Woburn, Mass.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is hoped that there will be a large number of the New England members
at the Framingham Assembly in July.

       *       *       *       *       *

Let your light shine! hold the torch on high! let every one see that the
class of ’86 is true to its name—“Progressives.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Alice C. Jennings, ’86, whose poems from time to time have appeared
in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, writes as follows: “A severe sickness in childhood
deprived me entirely of the sense of hearing. This has been more
effectual than bolts and bars in excluding me from all institutions of
learning. You can easily imagine how precious to a person so situated
must be the opportunities of the C. L. S. C., and of the ‘Society to
Encourage Studies at Home.’ At least four of my deaf friends have joined
the C. L. S. C. on my own solicitation. We have tried to have a circle
among ourselves. We live in five different places, but our headquarters
are at Boston Highlands, and we send reports there every month.”

       *       *       *       *       *

    “We study for the light,” we would not be
     Like the black hue, absorbing every ray,
     But like the white, gladly reflecting all,
     That we may be true children of the day.
    “Blessing with light,” as we have each been blessed,
     For wisdom makes the weary earthway bright,
     And walking in its ways we soon shall rest
     With _Him_ in realms of everlasting light.

                                              —_Mrs. E. J. Richmond._

       *       *       *       *       *

To the New England Branch a suggestion is made in the interest of the
class, and in behalf of the excellent Secretary of the New England
Branch. Will not _every_ member not able to attend at Framingham this
summer send (July 15-28) to Miss Mary R. Hinckley, South Framingham,
Mass., a postal card with postoffice address, and bearing, if nothing
more, “Yours for ’86”? To ascertain those who and how many are affiliated
with “the good class of ’86” in New England, is most desirable for
weighty senior and graduation interests.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reports from various quarters lead to the conclusion that, compared with
the whole number at any time enrolled in the class of ’86, the number
entering upon the Senior year will be exceptionally large. It ought to be
large—larger than any class preceding, more thorough, more enthusiastic.
We have the advantage of the experience of all who have gone before. Let
us rise to our privileges.


CLASS OF 1887.—“THE PANSIES.”

“_Neglect not the gift that is in thee._”


OFFICERS.

    _President_—The Rev. Frank Russell, Mansfield, Ohio.

    _Western Secretary_—K. A. Burnell, Esq., 150 Madison Street,
    Chicago, Ill.

    _Eastern Secretary_—J. A. Steven, M.D., 164 High Street,
    Hartford, Conn.

    _Treasurer_—Either Secretary, from either of whom badges may be
    obtained.

    _Executive Committee_—The officers of the class.

       *       *       *       *       *

At a great camp meeting near Indianapolis, in the first week of August,
the Rev. Frank Russell, President of the class of ’87, is to set forth
in an address, the nature of the C. L. S. C. as an educational and moral
force.

       *       *       *       *       *

The wake of a C. L. S. C. class is found to kindle a bright way for the
next. Much correspondence of the officers of the class of ’87 has been
toward the interest of the class of ’88, and is now extending even toward
that of ’89. Each succeeding class seems to promise increasing numbers
and power.

       *       *       *       *       *

A member of ’87 has succeeded in forming a circle at Jefferson, Ohio, of
ten members. She writes: “I can not tell you all the good our circle is
doing for us individually. We have enjoyed our chemistry very much. We
were very pleasantly entertained and instructed by experiments given by
Professor Perry in April.”

       *       *       *       *       *

From St. Johns, N. B., Mr. G. A. Henderson sends the following account of
the C. L. S. C.: “We organized with five ‘Pansies,’ and were joined this
year by seventeen ‘Plymouth Rocks.’ We were the means also of influencing
the formation of another circle of ’88, over twenty in number. At present
there are about sixty reading the course in our city. We look forward
with deep interest to the publication of the book by our chief ‘Pansy,’
and although we have not contributed to it, we hope to meet and march
with you through the Gates in ’87.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Hannah Percival Hamer, a member of the “Pansy” class, died at her home in
Taunton, Mass., April 24, 1885. She was a most faithful worker and firm
advocate of the Chautauqua course.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the 9th of April Miss Maggie B. McKnight, of Chambersburg, Pa., a
member of the “Pansy” class, died. She was a devoted and enthusiastic
Chautauquan, and looked with great pleasure toward the time when she
could visit Chautauqua. She was reading with another member of the class,
who intends, however, to keep on, saying that she “could not do without
it now.”

       *       *       *       *       *

              “Pansy—a tender thought!”
    A happy prophecy was that, to send
    That one bright flower of our class to hide
    Behind this modest emblem, while she penned
    Her strong, sweet thought. A prophecy fulfilled;
    For pansies—tender thoughts of her—are found
    Within the garden of our hearts in bloom
    The whole year round.—_J. B. Stuart._

       *       *       *       *       *

Westfield, N. J., is the home of a “Pansy” circle, calling itself by
the cheerful name of “Hope.” It began with three sisters reading the
course together. It was very fitting that they should receive their
first inspiration from reading “Four Girls at Chautauqua.” The “Hope” is
working hard to increase its membership.


CLASS OF 1888.—“THE PLYMOUTH ROCKS.”

“_Let us be seen by our deeds_.”


CLASS ORGANIZATION.

    _President_—The Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., Boston, Mass.

    _Vice Presidents_—Prof. W. N. Ellis, 108 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn,
    N. Y.; the Rev. Wm. G. Roberts, Bellevue, Ohio.

    _Secretary_—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.

    _Treasurer_—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.

    All items for this column should be sent, in condensed form, to
    the Rev. C. C. McLean, St. Augustine, Florida.

    Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following are among the circles not yet reported in our column. I
first give name of circle, then place and number of members: “Gradatim,”
Kennebunk, Me., four; Bloomfield, Ind, seven; Niobrara, Neb., eight;
“Master” (motto, “Labor is the price of mastery”), Ionia, Mich., eleven;
“Peripatetics,” Chicago, Ill., twelve; “Magnolia,” Marianna, Fla.,
fourteen; “Philomathean,” Lancaster, N. Y., eighteen. The last named has
by quotations, recitations, readings and essays celebrated the “memorial
days.” For six months none but ladies composed the circle. They, however,
so charmed three gentlemen that they sought admission and became
enthusiastic students. The members of this circle so dislike the class
name that they have refused to adopt it. They are among the others who
express their enjoyment of the class reports in our ’88 column.

       *       *       *       *       *

The circle at Hastings, Minnesota, twenty-three members, has instructed
its secretary to write their objection to our name. Among other things
is the following: “In THE CHAUTAUQUAN we read of one class talking of
establishing a ‘Heliotrope Bed’ at Chautauqua, and another a ‘Pansy Bed.’
We might send a coop of ‘Plymouth Rocks,’ but we fear they might demolish
the beds of flowers.” We have received encomiums of praise of the name.
One from Mount Carmel, Connecticut, says: “Our name, like every other
worthy thing, in spite of its ‘fowl’ associations, needs no defenders.”
One from Toronto, Canada, writes: “I am satisfied with our name, for
although it represents a speckled bird it will ‘crow’ a good deal when
four years old.” Another from Marine, Ill., after thanking Chancellor
Vincent for “How to Read Alone,” protests against a change of name or
motto.—A member of our class, a boarder in a Young Women’s Christian
Association of New Haven, Connecticut, writes: “I think as one takes up
Chautauqua books he loses the relish for stories, e’en though written by
good authors. What an opportunity for gaining knowledge of the highest
order!”—“Angle” circle, North Groton, N. H., is bereaved in the loss of
one of their earnest workers, Mrs. E. E. Merrill, a lady who read much
and well, and yet in the five short months had become so fascinated with
the C. L. S. C. that almost her last words were those of appreciation of
the same.—The East Norwich, L. I., circle is likewise bereaved in the
death of a devoted member, Miss Lizzie Franklin.—A class of unmarried
ladies complains that they have not been noticed. If they will send us
another letter, writing the name of their circle so we can decipher it,
and also give the town, or city, and state in which they live, we will
gracefully and gladly bow our recognition.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Among the Indians: Osage Agency, Indian Territory.—Our circle consists
of six members—five teachers and one bookkeeper. Although each lives
a busy life, we have had weekly meetings, kept up with the required
reading, and celebrated two authors’ days, Bryant’s and Longfellow’s.
Surrounded as we are by Indians, who still wear blankets instead of
citizen’s dress, and who are not far advanced in the arts of civilized
life, we feel doubly thankful for the benefits arising from such a course
of reading.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In Bingham Cañon, Utah, a mining camp situated about twenty-eight miles
southwest of Salt Lake City, the New West Education Commission has a
school established. One of the teachers proposed taking the Chautauqua
course alone, but, mentioning it to several, organized a circle of six.
Of the name she writes: “I like it so much. My home is in Plymouth, Mass.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Half of the members of “Carleton” circle, Hudson, Mich., live out of town
from two to six miles, yet they are numbered among the most enthusiastic
and faithful. They have had full programs at every meeting, and have
observed all memorial days. They number thirty-seven, twelve being of our
class. The ’88s wear on their hats a symbolical badge (a _fac-simile_, in
brass, of the pedal extremity of a Plymouth Rock). They like the _motto_,
but not the _name_.

       *       *       *       *       *

One from Gilbert’s Mills, N. Y., writes: “I can not longer refrain from
expressing how much I enjoy the reading of the course, although I am
pursuing it alone, occasionally meeting with the circle at Fulton, five
miles from here, which I much enjoy. The more I read and learn, the more
anxious I am to go on, that I may be no disgrace to our grand class name,
that takes me back to dear New England, and home. I would prove myself
worthy of it and of our motto.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The “Chippewas” is the name of a circle of twenty-two members, formed at
the city of Eau Claire, Wis., October of 1884. Four of the members belong
to the class of ’86, the others to that of ’88. The society has met once
a week, and has observed the memorial days. In addition to the prescribed
course, the class is reading the two volumes of Timayenis’s History of
Greece.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Mountain City” circle, Frederick, Md., very appropriately and
enthusiastically celebrated “Shakspere Day.” The program consisted of a
“Sketch of his Life,” and the reading of “The Merchant of Venice,” the
members taking the different characters.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. F. B. Edwards, who with her daughter joined the class of ’88 last
fall, and was a faithful and diligent member, died at her home in
Hartford, Conn., March 14, 1885. She was a lady of excellent education,
and had also the culture of much foreign travel and residence in Europe.
She was delighted with the C. L. S. C. plan, and especially with the
opportunities it offers for mental and moral growth.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most earnest and beloved members of the “Pierian” circle,
of Brooklyn, N. Y., Morgan Morgans, has lately died. Mr. Morgans was a
young man of but twenty years of age—a member of the class of ’88, and a
zealous Christian.

       *       *       *       *       *

So much having been written _pro_ and _con_, respecting our class
name, it is proposed to have the entire class vote for or against the
name. The circles will send their vote, giving the number in favor and
against present name. Those who are not in circles can send their votes
as individuals. The vote should be sent to the Rev. C. C. McLean, St.
Augustine, Fla., at as early a date as possible.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Thoughts are but the seeds of truth ready for the ground,
    Promises of future good that will within be found;
    Yet, with purer, truer thoughts the words have purer sound.

    Words are slender saplings, growing in the earth,
    Starting from the very spot where the thoughts had birth,
    But the noblest words can never tell the deed’s great worth.

    Deeds are mighty forests, towering and grand,
    Not results of thoughts that were planted in the sand,
    But deeply rooted, broad-leaved trees that will forever stand.

    Thoughts are truly noble, yet their work lasts but a day,
    Words are often mighty, still their power may not stay,
    But the influence of noble deeds can never pass away.

                                                      —_Emily G. Weegar._




THE SUMMER ASSEMBLIES.


FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS.

The writer of this article has visited, in different years, most of the
Sunday-school Assemblies, and he has found none, not even Chautauqua
itself, where the wave of C. L. S. C. enthusiasm runs higher than at
the New England Assembly, South Framingham, Mass. Every class has its
headquarters, trimmed with greens and flowers, with the class-motto
wrought upon its walls; and every class has its anniversary, with toasts
and cream. The Round-Table is crowded at every session with intelligent
students, who can both ask and answer questions. If a reporter could have
taken down and printed all the replies given one afternoon last summer
to the inquiry, “What good is the C. L. S. C. doing?” it would have
furnished a valuable document for the use of workers in the cause. The
camp-fire is always crowded; last year the ranks, arranged by classes,
counted over five hundred members; and this year it will be greater.

The traveler on the railway sees already a white columned building
gleaming among the trees on the summit of the hill. If he be a
Chautauquan, he needs no one to tell him “The Hall of Philosophy,” for
he recognizes it at once as the copy in every detail of the building at
Chautauqua. This Hall will be dedicated by the Chancellor during the
coming session of the Assembly, when from all New England the faithful
will rally to participate in the great occasion. Its dedication will take
place on Wednesday, July 22d, and the address will be delivered by the
Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., one of the Counselors of the C. L. S. C.

The Recognition day services will be held on Thursday, July 25th, when an
address will be given by the Rev. Luther T. Townsend, D.D., of the Boston
University.

Among the leading lecturers (and lecturesses) of the Assembly during the
present season will be the Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D., Prof. W. N. Rice,
Dr. E. C. Bolles, Dr. R. R. Meredith, Dr. Geo. C. Lorimer, Robert J.
Burdette, Miss Kate Field, and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore.


MONTEAGLE, TENNESSEE.

Monteagle is in the State of Tennessee, upon the Cumberland Mountains,
2,200 feet above the sea-level. We have here the most invigorating,
health-giving atmosphere, the purest water, the most beautiful wild
flowers, the grandest mountain scenery, the most picturesque views of
the valley lying hundreds of feet below, the loveliest vales, the most
magnificent forests of native trees—indeed, a combination of all the
desirable natural conditions for a pleasant summer resort.

This is the place which has been selected by the Christian people of
the South, of broad views, of liberal hearts and generous impulses, of
intellectual culture and refinement, for the location of the Monteagle
Sunday-school Assembly. This Assembly is permanently established by a
charter granted by the State of Tennessee. For two years they have been
very successful.

If there is virtue in faithful and capable teachers and honest work, no
one in 1885 will go away from Monteagle dissatisfied.

These schools offer to teachers and intellectual people a place where
they can spend the heated term of each year, combining study with rest
and recreation, in a delightful and inexpensive mountain resort, free
from all social dissipation. It is proposed to furnish in the summer
schools of Monteagle the best instruction in every department open. All
who seek absolute rest on these mountain heights will be free to take it;
those who shall seek only lighter courses will find entertainment; and
those who wish thorough instruction will not be disappointed.

The summer schools open June 30th. The Assembly opens August 4th, and
closes August 28th. Among the lecturers will be Dr. B. M. Palmer,
President Chas. Louis Loos, Dr. D. M. Harris, Bishop Walden, Sau Ah-Brah,
the Rev. Sam Jones, Dr. Lansing Burrows, Wallace Bruce, and Hon. G. W.
Bain.


ISLAND PARK, INDIANA.

The Island Park Assembly will hold its seventh annual session on the
beautiful grounds of the association near Rome City, Indiana. The
Assembly will open July 14th, and remain in session until July 30th. The
Tabernacle Lecture Course will be unusually brilliant and attractive.
Among the speakers will be Bishop Foster, Bishop Bowman, Prof. C. E.
Bolten, Wallace Bruce, Dr. Geo. C. Lorimer, Dr. H. H. Willets, Dr. John
Alabaster, the Rev. John DeWitt Miller, and Miss Lydia Von Finkelstein.

The music will be under the general management of Prof. C. C. Case. The
Goshen full band and orchestra, and the Hayden Quartette will be in
attendance. The Sunday-school Normal Class will be under the personal
instruction of the Superintendent of Instruction, and will be one of
the most important features of the coming Assembly. The course will be
identical with the Chautauqua course, and graduates will be entitled to
the Chautauqua diploma.

The visitor finds the Island, some twenty acres in extent, a few
minutes’ walk over a bridge and through a shady avenue from the railroad
station, Rome City, with the village at an equal distance westward.
The Island is naturally beautiful, always fanned by cool breezes, with
hills and miniature valleys, romantic nooks, a beautiful beach, and a
drive partially surrounding it, many fountains and wells, and a plaza
surrounded by hotels and offices. Beyond the rustic bridges of the canal
are a Tabernacle seating 3,000, a building containing the Model of
Palestine, and the Art Hall with its large lecture rooms.

From the north is to be seen, a mile across the Lake, “Spring Beach,” a
well appointed hotel in an elaborately improved park, containing mineral
springs and the famous trout ponds.

South of the Island, across a bridge, are the Assembly lands, containing
the Amphitheater, and laid out in lots and avenues, with a high bluff
to the Lake. Here are opportunities to tent in perfect quiet or in the
liveliest streets of the Assembly City.

Two steamers ply on Sylvan Lake, between the Island, the head of the Lake
and Spring Beach. Two hundred row boats are kept.

Postoffice, telegraph, bathing and laundry facilities on the ground.
Ample hotel and boarding arrangements in the village.


MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.

The sixth summer Assembly of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific
Circle will be held at Pacific Grove, near Monterey, California, opening
with an address Monday evening, June 29th, and closing Friday, July 10th.

This Assembly, in spirit and purpose, resembles the famous Assembly held
each summer at Chautauqua Lake, New York. The course of lectures during
the coming session will include in its subjects not only scientific
themes, but those of art, history, and general literature.

Microscopes, stereoscopes and other apparatus will abundantly illustrate
the lectures. The managers also intend to add to each evening’s lecture
the attraction of beautiful music, illustrative tableaux, recitations,
etc.

The Assembly will open on the evening of June 29th, with an address by
Dr. C. C. Stratton, of San José, President of the Pacific Branch.

A few of the speakers and subjects will be as follows: The Rev. Dr.
Wythe, Oakland, “Scenes in Great Britain and the Continent;” Prof. H.
B. Norton, San José, “The Knights of the Temple;” F. B. Perkins, San
Francisco, “Wit and Humor;” Dr. C. L. Anderson, Santa Cruz, “Diatoms;”
Edward Berwick, Carmel Valley, “World Federation;” Adley Cummins, Esq.,
San Francisco, “The Sanscrit Language and Literature;” the Rev. Dr. E. G.
Beckwith, San Francisco, “School and Skill.”

Sunday-school Normal Work will receive its due share of attention.

The music of the Assembly will be in the very competent hands of Mrs.
Helen M. Cushman, of San Francisco, and will be artistic and delightful.

The morning of Friday, July 10th, will be occupied with the interesting
exercises of the Third Graduating Class of the Pacific Branch C. L. S. C.

Pacific Grove is situated on the beautiful Bay of Monterey, and connected
with the ancient capital of the State by a pleasant drive of one and a
half miles, over a macadamized road lately constructed. In beauty of
location it can not be excelled—its graceful pines, extending to the
water’s edge, affording a delightful refuge from the heat of the sun. As
a healthful place of resort, it is not surpassed by any locality in the
State. The value of the Assembly held here has been fully assured by the
delightful sessions of the past five years.

The well known facilities for studying Natural History at Pacific Grove
have made that one of the important topics of study, and much enthusiasm
has been aroused on the coast by the work of the C. L. S. C. in this
department.


LAKESIDE, OHIO.

The prospects for the work of 1885 in this beautiful and healthful
summer resort are commensurate with the energy displayed by the zealous
management. The grounds are charmingly located on the northern shore
of the Peninsula, opposite Sandusky, Ohio; accessible by an hour’s
delightful steamer ride from this city, and will probably be connected
with the Danbury station of the Lake Shore Railroad by rail this season.
The Encampment sessions begin on Tuesday evening, July 21st, the brief
enthusiastic “Reunion” to be followed by one of the spicy and wise
lectures of the Rev. P. S. Henson, D.D., of Chicago. There will then
follow for nearly two weeks a rare program under the superintendency
of the Rev. B. T. Vincent, of Philadelphia, Pa., assisted by the Revs.
F. Russell and E. Persons. Mrs. B. T. Vincent will have charge of the
Primary Teachers’ Department, and also the Boys’ and Girls’ Meeting,
assisted by the Rev. J. S. Reager, of Ohio. The Models of the Tabernacle,
Jerusalem, etc., will be explained daily by the Rev. Dr. Hartupee and
Mr. Tannyhill. Miss Ross, of Chicago, will give daily instruction in
Kindergarten work, and Professor Trueblood, of Delaware, Ohio, in
Elocution. Daily devotional meetings will be conducted by the Rev. W. H.
Pearce, of Erie, Pa. Lectures and sermons are announced from Bishop R. S.
Foster, Drs. Henson, Alabaster, Nelson, Bayless, Parsons, Rev. Messrs.
Young, Pearce, Russell, Reager; Colonel Bain, of Kentucky, Wallace Bruce
and Leon H. Vincent. Brilliant stereopticon exhibitions, with lectures by
the Rev. Mr. Young and Professor Bolton. Oriental exhibitions by Miss and
Mr. Von Finkelstein, with their gorgeous collection of Oriental costumes,
etc. The Meigs Sisters and Professor Underhill will give concerts and
elocutionary readings; Professor Trueblood will also give popular
readings. Mr. French, of Chicago, a racy and instructive Chalk-talker,
will “draw.” The music will be under the able direction of Professor
Brierly, of Erie, Pa., and Miss McClintock will delight the crowds who
gather at Lakeside. The C. L. S. C. will, of course, have a large place
in the attention of the people, as Lakeside is a center of a large field
of workers in this line. There will be “Round Tables,” etc., and a public
Recognition service for the class of ’85, all of whom who desire it may
secure this privilege there, and receive their diplomas, which will be
there for distribution, if they inform the Rev. B. T. Vincent in time to
see that the diplomas are sent to him for them. A Soldiers’ day, with war
songs and a lecture on “Echoes from Round Top,” by the Rev. J. B. Young,
of Harrisburg, Pa., will form one of the enthusiastic features. The
promises of Lakeside, one of the finest of Chautauqua’s daughters, were
never so good, nor so sure of rich fulfillment.


CRETE, NEBRASKA.

The Nebraska Sunday-school Assembly Grounds consist of one hundred and
nine acres on the banks of the Blue River, at Crete, Nebraska. Its first
session was held in that town in July, 1882, under the direction of the
Rev. J. D. Stewart. Last year, at its third session, a splendid tract of
land was donated to the Assembly. It extends along the river bank, with
admirable opportunities for boating, contains a beautiful grove and ample
grounds for buildings, walks, drives, and other purposes. Two lecture
halls and a dining hall have already been erected, and some hundreds
of tents provided; while a Normal Hall, several cottages, and other
buildings are proposed.

The Normal Department will be in charge of Prof. R. S. Holmes, who has
been for many years a teacher of this department at Chautauqua.

The Primary Normal Department will be in charge of Miss Lucy J. Rider,
who will also conduct a children’s class daily.

Dr. J. H. Vincent, President of the Circle since its commencement, and
Chancellor of the Chautauqua University, will be present and give two
lectures. Others who have had wide experience in literary pursuits will
give their counsels on the ways of spending time most profitably in
reading and study for the people.

Among the lecturers engaged are: The Rev. R. R. Meredith, D.D., of
Boston; the Rev. O. H. Tiffany, D.D., of New York City; the Rev.
Robert Nourse, of Washington, D. C., and the Rev. H. M. Ladd, D.D., of
Cleveland, O.

A course of musical instruction will be given by Prof. J. E. Platt. Prof.
W. F. Sherwin will give a lecture and conduct concerts.


OTTAWA, KANSAS.

By the time that this reaches the readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN the
Inter-State Assembly of Kansas and Missouri will be in session at its
home in Forest Park, in the city of Ottawa, Kansas. No other assembly
is entertained with such hospitality, for the people of Ottawa throw
open to it their public park, in the limits of their city, on the banks
of the historic Marais du Cygne, “The Swamp of the Swan,” celebrated
by Whittier’s pen in the border days of Kansas. Among the orators
whom they expect to hear are many whose names are well known to all
Chautauquans, as Wallace Bruce, Dr. Henson, Robert Nourse, Dr. Tiffany,
Sau Ah-brah, and our own Chancellor, Dr. Vincent. Indeed, it will be
quite a transplanting of the Chautauqua Idea to the western prairie,
for as at “the Mecca of us all,” we shall hold daily a Round-Table; the
Commencement service will be fulfilled, the Chancellor will deliver the
address to the graduating class and confer the diplomas of the C. L. S.
C.; Prof. Sherwin will wave the baton before the chorus on the platform;
Prof. Holmes will teach the Normal class; Sculptor Spring will instruct
the class in clay modeling; and the general Superintendent of Instruction
will be Dr. J. L. Hurlbut.

Last year, the C. L. S. C. interest showed a great increase. In 1883,
the number of C. L. S. C. members who clasped hands around the camp-fire
was twenty. In 1884, it was nearly ninety, and if we could count those
who joined before the close of the Assembly it would reach a hundred.
We look for twice as many on Tuesday evening, June 30, when we expect
to be entertained with stereopticon pictures of “Sights and Insights
at Chautauqua” by the Rev. O. S. Baketel, of New Hampshire, and at the
close of the lecture, march in procession to the camp-fire, and sing and
talk together. We expect also a great day on July 1st, which is given
to the “Grand Army of the Republic.” Perhaps no other State went into
the war with quite the enthusiasm of Kansas; certainly no other has as
large a proportion of veterans settled within its borders. Every year
the Assembly recognizes these old heroes, and “Old Soldiers’ Day” always
draws a multitude. We shall have a concert of war songs in the morning,
and a lecture by General O. O. Howard, U. S. A., in the afternoon, when
the Governor of Kansas is expected to preside.

No gathering in Kansas is complete without a Temperance meeting, for
Kansas is the banner State in constitutional prohibition. Let it be said,
all stories to the contrary notwithstanding, that there is no defection
in the ranks of the prohibition army, and no retreat. The cause is as
strong as ever, and no one thinks of rescinding or re-submitting the
Amendment. We hold “Temperance Day” on July 2, when Dr. Philip Krohn
and Col. Geo. W. Bain will speak, and various conferences on different
aspects of the work will be held.

The Ottawa Assembly extends a welcome to all Chautauquans who may enter
its gates, and gives its assurance that they will find themselves at home.


MOUNTAIN LAKE PARK, MARYLAND.

This delightful summer resort is situated on the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad, in Garrett County, Maryland. It is 2,800 feet above sea level,
in the midst of sublime scenery. The place itself is enough to attract
all lovers of the true, the beautiful, and the good, but besides the
feast for the eyes and lungs, there is a feast of reason and a flow of
soul prepared to profit, entertain, and inspire the hosts who gather to
the Assembly.

The principal lecturers are Prof. H. L. Baugher, D.D., of Pennsylvania
College; the Rev. G. W. Miller, D.D., of Philadelphia; the Rev. C. P.
Marsden, D.D., of St. Louis; the Rev. Z. Warner, D.D., of Parkersburg,
West Virginia; the Rev. N. L. Reynolds, of Mt. Pleasant, Pa.; the Rev.
J. B. Van Meter, D.D., of Baltimore; J. B. Phipps, Esq., Secretary of
Maryland Sunday-school Union and author of pictorial designs for the
Berean Lesson Periodicals.

“Thorough Normal Work” is the motto of Mountain Lake Park Assemblies. The
Assembly Normal Union course of study will be pursued during the session,
and diplomas awarded on Normal Union day, August 19th.

The C. L. S. C. Department was organized two years ago, and Monday,
August 17th, has been set apart to this interest. A lecture on
“Self-help” will be delivered by the Rev. J. T. Judd, A.M., of Lewisburg,
Pa., president of the circle, with special C. L. S. C. exercises.
Round-tables, vesper services, class unions, and camp-fires will be
enjoyed during the Assembly session.

New Testament Greek will be made a specialty. The Rev. C. E. Young, of
Baltimore, instructor.

Geology will receive the attention of the Rev. N. L. Reynolds, who
inspires enthusiasm in this noble study.

Elocution classes will be formed as last year, and Amateur Photography
will be the pleasant recreation of lovers of the art.

The Assembly meets August 6th and closes August 19th. For further
information address the Rev. W. Maslin Frysinger, D.D., Baltimore, Md.,
or the Rev. Jesse B. Young, Harrisburg, Pa.


ROUND LAKE, NEW YORK.

The management of the Round Lake, N. Y., Sunday-school Assembly sends
greetings to its hosts of old friends and to many others whom it hopes to
make warm friends in the near future. The last year was one of the best
in its history. Numbers, meetings, speakers, work and workers, influence
and the divine blessing, all combined, made it a power for good,
wide-felt and lasting. It is the aim to make the coming Assembly better
than ever. They have planned on the same generous breadth and scope of
the last season, and are confident their work will merit approval.

The program already completed is full and rich and varied. On July 9th
and 10th there will be a reunion of chaplains and soldiers. The meeting
is most vigorously planned for. There will be a large gathering of the
old soldiers; Col. G. A. Cantine will act as Grand Marshal. Gen. John
A. Logan has been secured as speaker. The Sunday-school Assembly will
hold a longer session this season than ever. Beginning July 14th, it
will continue fourteen days, and each day will be packed with varied and
most profitable exercises. They have a larger variety of specialties
than formerly, viz.: French, German, Painting, Drawing, Clay Modeling,
Oratory, Vocal Music, Kindergarten, Calisthenics, Phonography, etc., etc.

On C. L. S. C. day, Tuesday, July 21st, Dr. John H. Vincent, the
originator of the Idea and developer of its plans and inspirer of its
growing work, will be present and address the graduating class, who
will pass the “golden gate” and from his hand receive their well-earned
diplomas.

The following is a partial list of the lecturers: The Rev. J. H. Vincent,
D.D., the Rev. John P. Newman, D.D., the Rev. H. A. Buttz, D.D., the Rev.
S. W. Dike, A.M., the Rev. A. D. Vail, D.D., the Rev. Geo. L. Taylor,
D.D., the Rev. I. J. Lansing, A.M., Prof. J. L. Corning, the Rev. D. H.
Snowden, the Rev. C. C. McCabe, D.D., Senator James Arkell.

The Trustees, with great care and cost, have given special attention to
every part of the grounds, draining, cleansing and beautifying, rendering
the grounds, if possible, more healthful than ever.

Never was this “charming spot of nature and art” more beautiful and
health-inspiring than to-day! Never was it more sought for as a FAMILY
SUMMER HOME than this spring.


MONONA LAKE, WISCONSIN.

The Sunday-school Assembly at Monona Lake, Madison, Wisconsin for 1885,
will hold its session from July 28th to August 7th. The specialties
are: Music, Prof. Sherwin; Grand Chorus of 300 voices; Goshen Band and
Orchestra; Sunday School Normal; Children’s Class. Some of the speakers
are: Bishop R. S. Foster, Wallace Bruce, Miss L. M. Von Finkelstein, the
Rev. George C. Lorimer, D.D., Prof. William I. Marshall, Prof. W. C.
Richards, Ph.D., the Rev. O. C. McCulloch, D.D., the Rev. D. Read, D.D.,
the Rev. G. H. Ide, D.D., Meigs Sisters Vocal Quartette, C. F. Underhill
reader.


WASECA, MINNESOTA.

The Assembly at Maplewood Park, Waseca, Minnesota, opens June 30th, and
continues in session until July 10th.

Thursday, July 9th, will be Chautauqua day, and on that day a public
recognition service of the graduating class will be held. There will be
an address suitable to the occasion, and the recognition service as used
at Chautauqua will be used here. In the evening there will be a camp-fire.

The names of Prof. H. B. Ridgeway, D.D., the Rev. Frank Bristol, Miss L.
M. Von Finkelstein, the Rev. C. A. Van Huda, D.D., and the Rev. J. F.
Chaffee, D.D., are found in the list of lecturers. No one has visited
Maplewood Park without feeling that Nature has done her part in providing
here a delightful retiring place for tired people and for those who are
in danger of becoming so.

A dense grove rises forty or fifty feet above the lake. The lake itself
is a beautiful sheet of water, around which is a magnificent carriage
drive. All so quiet that the busy world seems shut out, while all Nature
seems to say, “Come and rest.”

Besides, there are the attractions of the Assembly, calling the mind
into new channels and awakening new thoughts and kindling new and noble
desires for intellectual and moral improvement.

The time at which the meetings are to be held this year has been
selected, with special reference to the convenience of the people.

Bro. Gillet, superintendent of the Assembly, never needs an introduction
to the Northwest. He will make the occasion one of lasting good to the
interests he represents.


MAINE CHAUTAUQUA UNION.

Arrangements are being made by the officers of the Maine Chautauqua
Union for a grand meeting at Fryeburg, to begin July 27th, 1885, and
to continue one week. The grounds at Martha’s Grove are being put in
order and beautified by Mrs. Nutter, the prime mover in this matter, and
everything will be done for the comfort and enjoyment of all Chautauquans
who visit this lovely spot. There is soon to be erected on the grounds a
“Hall in the Grove,” after the style of the one at Chautauqua.

The program for this season is an attractive one and will consist of
illustrated lectures, vocal and instrumental music, essays and readings.
Some part of each day is to be devoted to the Round-Table, question box,
discussions and reports of circles. As a result of our meeting last year,
circles have sprung up all over the State. In Portland alone, there are
_three hundred_ Chautauquans where there were only _nine_ last year.




EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.


VICTOR HUGO.

The greatest of the French writers of this century has passed away from
earth, after eighty-three years of a life which was, like Carlyle’s, full
of work to the very end. Victor Hugo’s greatness is difficult to measure
at this hour; we are too near to know whether this is an Alp or only a
hill. That it has attracted the attention, the admiration, the homage of
mankind for half a century would seem to mean that this was one of the
three or four great lives of the nineteenth century. Victor Hugo came of
a union of aristocratic and plebeian blood. His father’s tribe had been
of the nobles since 1531; his mother was the daughter of a seafaring
race. The current sketches of his father omit the most dramatic incident
of Colonel Hugo’s career. We refer to his long chase and final capture of
Fra Diavalo—the brigand hero of the opera which bears his name. In the
whole history of brigandage in South Italy, there is no more exciting and
romantic story than that of his hunt and capture of the “Friar-Devil” by
the father of Victor Hugo. In the blood of the poet the plebeian mother
triumphed at length over the Monarchist father, and Victor Hugo’s pen
has rendered the Republicanism of France more valuable service than his
father’s sword gave to the Napoleonic crown.

His genius was fortunate in the poverty which compelled him to work for
bread, and the banishment which in 1853 threw him into exile, and again
forced him to take up the severe literary labor which brought forth
“Les Miserables” in 1862. This son of the aristocracy might have lived
a life with out fruit if he had not abandoned the ideals of his father
for those popular sympathies which made him the most dangerous enemy of
Napoleon III. The change in his views came slowly. He was a Royalist
under Louis Phillippe, and that king created him a peer of France in
1845. It was not until 1849 that he changed his political attitude, and
he was then forty-seven years of age—so that he divided his life pretty
evenly between the aristocratic and popular causes. His works show the
influence of his political thoughts, and the differences between the
earlier and later are very marked. The earlier works gave him the ears
of the great world; the later won him the hearts of the people. Whether
in prose or in verse, all that he ever wrote was poetry. His later prose
is a collection of poems of human aspirations. It is idle to seek in
them any system, they are emotion rather than thought; but the emotion
is the throbbing of the universal human heart. He believed in God and
in man. He rejected the religion of his people less under the stress of
conviction than through the force of his hostility to the organized human
world in which he saw men suffering. It was not his office to resolve
the riddles of human pain; it was his to gather men’s tears into God’s
bottle. It may be called a one-sided life; but it was on that side where
great lives are too seldom found. It may be said that emotion is blind,
passionate, dangerous, as Frenchmen have abundantly proved; but it is
still true that the emotion which rouses men from lethargy is necessary
to beneficent change, and that even though the wail of human misery
must go up forever, we must honor the great souls who seek solutions of
the mystery of evil in a happier ordering of human society. We need not
become socialists to reverence Victor Hugo’s socialistic philanthropy.
Its aim was high, and it has its great uses. Though only God’s bottle
be large enough to hold the tears of his children, it is a noble poetry
which considers the sorrows of the earth and seeks to pour the sunshine
or hope into the low valleys of humanity. Hugo’s way may be the wrong
way—probably it is—but it is good for men to hold fast the hope that
there is _some_ way through the sea to the promised land. There is a
desert beyond the sea; but somehow we shall cross the desert into the
Canaan of humanity.

It is, therefore, as a poet of the sorrows and aspirations of our race
that we shall most profitably think of Victor Hugo. He was somewhat
too French in spirit to be a poet of mankind; he was too egotistic to
be on the heights of his human song; he would have been greater if his
knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth had been deeper, and his imitation of
him perfect in the measure of his great capacity; he would have left
something unsaid which wounded men whose purpose was as high as his own,
if he had been more Christian and less Hugoist. But why do we ask all
things of all men? Victor Hugo did a great work in his own great way.
A dangerous socialism has temporarily profited by his denunciations of
society, but in the end of the account it will probably appear that he
has advanced Christian socialism by the uplift he has given to human
aspirations. Men are not so willing to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt,
not so much in danger of leaving the bones of the whole race in the
desert, more anxious to move on to their promised land.


THE REVISED OLD TESTAMENT.

It required fifty years of the Elizabethan age to introduce that revision
of the English Bible which has so long been the standard edition of
the Holy Scriptures in our tongue. It would be strange if the revision
of that standard Bible which has just been completed were to come into
immediate and general use. The New Testament revision met with a harsh
reception from the critics of conservative temper; and it certainly
has some defects, though the _sense_ of the original is more obvious,
to use the mildest term, in the new than in the older revision. The
revised Old Testament has consumed fourteen years of the labor of the
English and American committees, and the most obvious fact is that it is
a more conservative piece of work than the revised New Testament. The
committees probably profited by the buffetings of their New Testament
revision brethren; but they had a simpler task, since they had not to
settle the text of the original Hebrew, whereas the Greek text of the
New Testament is still a battle ground of criticism. After all, however,
the two revisions constitute one “revised Bible,” and must stand or
fall together. The general judgment may probably run to the effect that
the New Testament is revised too much and the Old too little. There
is a special defect, however, in the New Testament English—it is not
idiomatic, and it is not always intelligible. There is a rumor that it
will be re-revised into harmony with the conservatism which characterizes
the new Old Testament. It is not to be overlooked that there are various
demands made upon a revision. Those who most earnestly desire one have
in view a more plain and understandable text for popular use. Wycliffe’s
great thought, “a Bible understonden of the people,” is their desire.
But the literary demands upon the revisers exclude intelligibility by
the people as a governing rule. This group of demands defies the skill
of any revision committee. They ask for improvements; but they object
to any changes. The Bible as an Elizabethan classic is their admiration
and they seem not to be willing that the people should have any other
Bible. There would seem to be ample room for both revisions; let the
literary people have their English of 1611, while the people have English
of this century. We are not yet, however, sufficiently advanced in the
thinking which revision requires to qualify even the critics among us
to distinguish between a classic text for scholars and a plain text for
the millions. A modern English Bible will come by and by; we can afford
to wait, and meanwhile to study the fruits of the labors of a Revision
Committee loaded down with a great weight of conservative environments.
For it is not the classicist alone who stands guard over the old English
text; conservative theologians regard that old text as too sacred to be
modernized, and distrust modernizing as involving changes in the moral
and religious influence of the Bible upon mankind. The intelligibility of
the Bible is not, to such thinkers, a leading requisite; reverence for
its mysteries ranks all other considerations. We are probably outgrowing
this view of Holy Scripture; but it is an opinion strong enough yet to
keep utterly dead English locutions in the revised Old Testament of 1885.
This conservatism is much stronger in England than in this country; the
American Committee desired to substitute modern for obsolete words.

That any changes have been made under such respectable and imposing
auspices is a great gain to Christian knowledge. The thing is done; the
grand old text has been subjected to a revision. It is quite possible
that we are entering an age of biblical revision; and it should be
remembered that the Bible of 1611 closed an age of revision. It was
the last in a series of revisions, each of which contributed to the
perfection of the English text. We can not be content with an English
Bible which employs _which_ for _who_, _wist_ for _knew_, _earing_
for _plowing_ and _ouches_ for _settings_. The American Committee was
thoroughly right in desiring to use modern words in these and other
cases. If any revision is to stand, it must contain such modifications
of the old text. A satisfactory English text can not be attained so long
as the English Christians insist upon retaining archaic forms of such
insignificance as the foregoing; there must be an agreement to make an
English text on Wycliffe’s principle of popular intelligibleness, before
a revision can be of very high utility. The present revision breaks the
ice; we have begun; some time or other we shall go on to the logical
conclusion of the movement—a modern English Bible for all who use our
mighty speech. The assent of the conservative to a single change concedes
the principle of revision; his assent to many changes prepares the way
for all that are necessary to the modernizing of the Book of Books.


SUMMER HEALTH AND PLEASURE.

The summer is looked forward to with eager desire and it is dismissed
without regret by the residents of the temperate zone. The explanation
lies partly, if not mainly, in our defective adaptation of ourselves
to the hot season. Charles Lamb once wrote, “The summer has set in with
its usual severity.” The wit covers a truth; we adjust ourselves so
imperfectly to the heated term that we suffer from the high temperature.
The art of living must include devices and cautions through which we
get the good and shun the evil of each season. Men are slowly learning
that to “enjoy life” on this planet one must pay the same price as for
liberty—“eternal vigilance.” The summer of the North ought to be our
golden time of health and enjoyment. We have the whole of the atmosphere
to breathe from—not bits of it let into artificially heated spaces.
There is shade for the noonday heats, and the evenings and mornings
for exercise and refreshment of muscular energy. But the hot hours are
often dangerous and the atmosphere may be poisoned by our own neglect
of decaying vegetables or animal matter. We must aim to keep clean and
keep all things about us clean; food should be lighter than in winter
(less heat-producing); exercise should avoid the hours of fervent heat;
the occupations should take a more leisurely pace; the scene of life
should, if possible, be shifted for some week or weeks so as to diversify
our mental interests and break the dreary monotony of long days spent
in one environment of body and soul. The word which describes the art
of summer life is _moderation_; but moderation is not indolence, though
there is a natural tendency to drop into the laziness which characterizes
barbarian humanity in hot lands. To be healthy and happy one should
resist the disposition to be idle. Neither health nor happiness come to
lazy people in any desirable measure. The best forms of both depend on
activity; but in summer it must be moderate and regular. If, then, one
has constant occupation, he should cultivate moderation of interest and
exertion, shun the blazing noontide, and take his food as well as his
exercise in reduced doses. Too much food, care, exercitation, these are
our northern summer dangers. Our civilization is yet very imperfect in
this region of art. We have attained to food, clothing, shelter. We do
not quite understand how to use them all wisely; but beyond these lie
the adjustment of exertion, rest, air, water, electrical and chemical
instruments of vitality, and the inner forces of our own being. Happiness
is the result of a complex mass of conditions and instruments of life
acting upon the spirit and reacted against by the spirit. Our knowledge
grows; but while it is growing we have to take for our text moderation,
and elaborate the sermon each man for himself.

The great opportunities of the year come to us in summer. Nature is all
alive to please and instruct us—to give us the delights of the eye and
the inspiration of study. The world has been dressed with infinite art,
to afford us a holiday which shall be full of instruction. We need travel
to widen our vision of God’s modern Edens dressed by human art. We need
an active intelligence, to see and understand the Eden world of summer.
But all depends upon our care of our bodies. Health is the condition of
all summer pleasures. Is it not strange that we will spend months and
years learning how to use lifeless tools, and yet will not spend needed
time to learn the management of this vital tool by use of which all
happiness comes to us? Let us all try this time to keep the instrument
of life in tune for the music of the summer; to make of the season of
highest opportunity all there is in it for ourselves. Starting with that
selfish purpose, we shall soon find that we need social food, and that
here also, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Helping others
to enjoyment is the healthiest of “health movements;” for no tonic is so
spiritually exhilarating as the sight of other people’s happiness which
we have made. The man who sends a child out of the city suffocation
of summer time has a poor imagination if he can not enjoy the gambols
of that child in the country meadows and groves as he never enjoyed a
banquet in his own house. Doing as many generous actions as possible is
one way to get both health and pleasure out of the summer.


SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL LIFE.

It is somewhat remarkable that at a time when science is indubitably
failing to justify the exalted hopes of those who looked to it for a
solution of the deepest questions of being, it is enlarging our sense
of its value to practical every-day life. The mystery of the molecule
is insoluble, but the usefulness of chemistry is rapidly increasing.
Professor W. Mattieu Williams proposes to use maltose as a cooking agent
to produce foods which are both more palatable and more easily digested.
Those who attend the cooking school at Chautauqua this summer will
probably learn how this work is to be done, and what results will follow.
The theory sprang out of attempts to feed cattle on malted grain. It was
found to be too expensive for cattle, and also hardly necessary, because
cows have good digestive apparatus. Human beings have impaired digestion,
and can afford more expensive food than the beasts have need of. The
maltose cooking carries graniverous foods up into an advanced stage of
nutritive condition, lessens the labor of weak stomachs, and tickles
dull palates with new flavors. There is no near limit to the possible
fruits of this thought. The chemist may render us incalculable services
along this line. We have suffered something from the chemistry of men
who adulterate our food; it is a comfort to know that the good uses of
chemistry are coming forward to render us most valuable compensations.

It is a matter of course that in this field we shall often be
disappointed; but so many solid gains are secured that we shall readily
excuse some fanciful experiments. In lighting public streets and
buildings, electricity has made it possible to turn night into day;
chemical studies have perfected the grinding of flour; a hundred more of
small and great practical advances in scientific living are secure. We
shall go on. It is very noticeable that the conveniences of modern life
have triumphed in unexpected ways over natural difficulties. The zone
of comfort for human life has been widened toward the pole and toward
the equator. The gains are more slowly harvested southward; any reader
who feels the languor of this season will know why we do not march so
triumphantly toward the equator as we do toward the north pole. Moral
energy is in larger demand, as we go south, to resist the tendency to
idleness. The north wind puts spurs into us and whips us into action.
We shall therefore find the northward limit of vigorous life before we
find the south boundary of it. And naturally our science, invention and
discovery bear upon cold rather than heat. We have the means now of
living in higher latitudes, in full moral and mental activity, than were
good for body or brain a hundred years ago. We know how to build for
warmth in zero weather, and we have cheap fuel and cheap light for the
frosts and the dark of the North.

An enthusiastic writer says that natural gas is to be the fuel of the
immediate future—the next fuel. We have as yet found it only here and
there on the earth; but we are not done searching for it. Imagine, then,
that we have found this gas all round the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and
calculate the consequences. A new Mediterranean is opened in a region
which has always been reckoned uninhabitable. Poets and philosophers
flourish far up toward Doctor Warren’s original Eden! For what but a
cheap and abundant fuel and light is needed to make possible a large and
flourishing empire around Hudson’s Bay? Migration, which is said to move
on parallel lines, has been trending northward for twenty-five years. The
wheat fields of America are a hundred and fifty miles nearer the pole
than they were fifty years ago. The Dakota and British Northwest which
we were willing to leave to the Indians fifty years ago, are eagerly
coveted for the plow of the wheat farmer. We are undeniably moving north;
the limit of that movement will be fixed for us by devices, discoveries,
sciences, which will enlarge our fields toward the eternal ice—on
principles similar to those which have already extended our domain in
that direction. For several generations the silk grown in Lombardy has
been packed on the backs of horses or in carts and transported across
the Alps to be spun and woven in Switzerland. Why should not our cotton
travel by sea to the shores of Hudson’s Bay to be spun and woven? Give
them power, heat and light in one natural agent, and the people of the
American Mediterranean might excel in any industry. And in default of
natural gas, who will now dare to say that the chemist may not solve the
problem in a more intellectual way than by the use of the drill? We write
here only of a _possible_ expansion of the human domain by the services
of science.

A more practicable matter is that the age of steam, out of which, into
something better, we are probably to pass at a day not distant, has been
a very prodigal one. Waste is its great fault. It wastes three fourths
of the coal it consumes; it therefore wastes infinite sums of human
energy. It wastes everything, nature and man, the streams, the forests,
the vitality and the hopes of men. Its motto is _concentration_. It
herds human beings in towns; it makes transit laborious and long. The
age of economies has begun, and new agents, such as electricity and gas,
have for their mottoes _disperse_ and _distribute_. It is probably not
extravagant to say that mankind are wasting every week enough of natural
bounties to sustain them for a month, perhaps for a year. If science,
then, shall only barely help us to the economic use of all natural
bounties, it will have enriched human life (for the mass of mankind)
at least four-fold. It will probably be well for us if this enrichment
comes gradually and is preceded by a moral preparation for the use of
abundance. We have never, as a race, been good enough to be safely rich.
We have no poets from the equatorial regions. It may be many generations
before we are good enough to grow philosophy and high bred cattle in the
torrid zone. Perhaps we do not any where keep up in moral training with
the march of science.


THE COURSE OF READING FOR 1885-86.

The student about to enter college has scarcely a pleasanter task than
that of examining the course he is about to begin. The prospect of
future achievements, how fascinating it is! That Livy which he has heard
discussed by learned seniors and professors will soon be his property,
too. The problems that are historical among his big brothers and cousins,
and sisters as well, sometimes, he will soon grapple with. Whole fields
of unknown literature and science and art open to him in his brief
glance. He enjoys familiarizing himself with the names of the authors
of the text-books, in marking among the elective studies his choice, in
looking up the old text-books in the library, in preparing note-books
for the next year, in picking up random bits of information. Getting
ready for his college course often becomes quite as engrossing as the
actual work. The C. L. S. C. student will experience this same interest
in looking over what he is going to do another year. The course is now
ready, and he will have the entire summer for contemplating his coming
conquests. Enjoy the prospect to the full; it is certainly a goodly
one. The bone and sinew of next year’s course is to be Roman History
and Literature. The place Greece and its men filled in the course of
1884-85 will be taken by Rome. While the subject is equally interesting,
the course of the coming year has one great advantage. Greece has no
modern history of particular importance, its heroes died with Corinth’s
destruction, its literature and art and philosophy faded with its loss
of patriotism. Where Rome stood, now Italy stands. The history of the
decadence of Roman rule and the growth of Italian freedom is one of the
most thrilling chapters in the world’s history. A literature, an art, and
a science belong to this new growth. In studying Rome’s life we have a
modern chapter that keeps up our interest. The course happily provides
for us papers on “Modern Italy” and “Italian Biography,” in addition
to the works on the History of Rome, the “Preparatory Latin Course in
English,” the “College Latin Course in English,” and “A Day in Ancient
Rome.” A practical turn is given to the work by a study of the relations
of Rome to modern history.

The more general work of the course is selected from the wide fields of
philosophy, science, art and religion. Dr. Geo. M. Steele has prepared
a work on “Political Economy,” which will furnish some of the liveliest
reading for the year. This subject will be supplemented by two series
of papers on “Parliamentary Practice” and “International Law,” to be
published in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

Robert Browning in “Pomegranates from an English Garden” will be the
representative of English poetry. It will be seen that, as in the case
of Robert Browning’s poems, several studies are introduced to brighten
the more solid work; for this purpose we have “In His Name,” by Edward
Everett Hale, read in connection with a book by Dr. Townsend on “The
Bible and the XIXth Century,” and a series of studies, to appear in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN, on “God in History.”

One work which will be a real treat to everybody is “Studies in Human
Nature,” by Dr. Lyman Abbott. The additional readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN
are: “Wars and Rumors of Wars To-day,” “The Age we Live In,” “Religion
in Art,” “Art Outlines,” “Studies in Mathematics,” “Moral Philosophy,”
studies on “How to Live,” by Edward Everett Hale, papers on the past,
present and future of electricity, and “Home Studies in Physical
Geography.” A better course has never been presented to the members of
the C. L. S. C.




EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.


The July issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN closes the fifth volume of the
magazine. In October the sixth volume will begin. The outlook for THE
CHAUTAUQUAN for 1885-86 is much brighter than ever before. We shall offer
our friends a much improved magazine. The place of THE CHAUTAUQUAN will
be taken in the summer by the _Assembly Herald_. The _Herald_ for 1885
will contain full reports of the work of the Assembly for the summer. A
glance at the elaborate program printed in this impression will convince
the reader of the value of a paper containing such a course of lectures
as that of the Chautauqua platform. Besides the lectures many suggestive
and useful reports will be printed, which members of the C. L. S. C. in
particular will find helpful. Those who may wish to subscribe for both
THE CHAUTAUQUAN and _Herald_ will find it profitable to take advantage of
our COMBINATION OFFER, found in another column of this impression.

       *       *       *       *       *

The war rumors of a month ago have subsided almost as quickly as they
were aroused. The cries of “On to Khartoum” and “Smash the Mahdi” have
died out. Instead of running the frontier below the Soudan, the English
have been content to fix it at Wady Halfa. After all the excitement over
Afghanistan, peace has been established between Russia and England.
The Americans, most of them, have come home from Panama. Riel has been
captured. The comparatively easy settlement of misunderstandings between
nations is our best hope for the future. Each new victory of arbitration
over “bad blood,” even if it be at the sacrifice of a little of our pride
and possessions, is so much of a stride toward the millennium.

       *       *       *       *       *

For the third time Mr. James Russell Lowell has been called upon to speak
in Westminster Abbey. This time at the unveiling of the bust of the poet
Coleridge. In summing up his remarks he said: “Whatever may have been
his faults and weaknesses, he was the man of all his generation to whom
we should most unhesitatingly allow the distinction of genius, that is,
of one authentically possessed from time to time by some influence that
made him better and greater than himself. If he lost himself too much in
what Mr. Pater has admirably called ‘impassioned contemplation,’ he has
at least left us such a legacy as only genius, and genius not always, can
leave. It is for this that we pay him this homage of memory.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A series of statistics most suggestive to those interested in the
temperance question have of late been published. According to this
table there was drunk in the United States twenty-five years ago over
86,000,000 gallons of spirituous liquor, while now, with a population
almost doubled, the consumption is decreased by about 15 per cent. To
balance this comes in the enormous consumption of light liquors, nearly
six times as great as in 1860. But it must be remembered that a large
proportion of the latter is consumed by the foreign element introduced
since 1860.

       *       *       *       *       *

The tragic fate of the town of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, is one more
melancholy example of the result of breaking Nature’s laws. There is
no doubt but that an epidemic of typhoid fever is a crime traceable to
somebody’s neglect. In Plymouth the refuse from a house situated at the
head of the stream which supplied the village with drinking water was
allowed to poison the water. This outrageous state of affairs is to be
seen in many other towns, and in parts of our cities. If after Plymouth’s
suffering a repetition occurs in any part of the country, public
sentiment ought to be strong enough to hunt down and punish the guilty
authorities that will hold human life and God’s law so lightly.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is one sure way of securing sanitary reform in every city or town
with dilatory health board or indifferent council. Arouse the women. The
Ladies’ Health Protection Society, of New York City, has done work in
that community during the past six months, before which its large Board
of Health seemed perfectly helpless. If cleanliness and purity are not
to be secured by the civil authorities, there is no more suitable public
work for women than to constitute themselves the guardians of the health
of their home towns.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the recent commencement of the Union Theological Seminary, of New
York, the alumni association elected as president an Indian of pure
Choctaw blood, now a pastor in the Indian Territory. His son was a member
of the graduating class of this year. We are growing broader.

       *       *       *       *       *

The position that Mr. Phelps will take at the Court of St. James has
been agitating the English correspondent of one of our great dailies.
He finds that being a minister merely, Mr. Phelps must come in among
the ministers, after all the seven ambassadors; and that, alas! he
will be literally at the foot of this class of twenty-three. Ministers
take social rank according to the length of time they have held their
positions, so Mr. Phelps and the stars and stripes trot along after
Guatemala and Columbia and Siam and Hayti.

       *       *       *       *       *

The teachers who tried Chautauqua last summer for their vacations, found
the spot so suitable for their uses, so delightful for recreation, that
they have spread abroad the rumor of her beauty, and in July of the
coming summer two State Teachers’ Associations—that of Ohio and that of
New York—will meet there.

       *       *       *       *       *

There are very few people unfamiliar with law and its phrases, who have
not been bewildered over the complicated expressions and seemingly
useless repetitions found in almost all documents. This “iteration in
law” has lately been made the subject of some interesting computations by
David Dudley Field. By his counting every deed contains 860 superfluous
words, and every mortgage 1,240. The people of New York State, he
calculates, pay every year $100,000 for the recording of useless words.
The next reform in law should be rhetorical.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. John Ruskin, of Oxford, and Prof. J. Rendel Harris, of Johns Hopkins,
have resigned their professorships in their respective universities
because, it is stated, vivisection is practiced in the institutions.
There is no reason in such hyper-sympathy. The abuse of vivisection is
quite probable, but that does not lessen the force of the fact that
vivisection has done much to alleviate human misery, and will in the
future undoubtedly do more. The question is, if man or beast must suffer,
which life is the more precious.

       *       *       *       *       *

Houghton Farm, the headquarters of the Chautauqua Town and Country Club,
has an interesting history. Several years ago 1,000 acres of land lying
about nine miles from Newburgh, N. Y., were purchased by a Mr. Valentine
as an experimental farm. About thirty buildings, adapted to every kind of
farm work, were erected; the best of stock, the most skillful laborers
were secured. The farm soon became a kind of educational institution.
Farmers were invited to inspect its work, and to listen to lectures from
the learned managers; children had days set apart for their enjoyment.
Orange county has been educated by the Houghton Farm. Now its generous
hearted proprietor has extended the work by opening its advantages to all
those who will join the Chautauqua Town and Country Club.

       *       *       *       *       *

The strange fascination lurking in dangerous feats which so powerfully
affects some minds, was never more forcibly manifested than in the case
of Robert E. Odlum, who jumped from the Brooklyn bridge not long ago.
For some time the thought had been a passion with him, and although the
police were watching to prevent the attempt, he escaped their vigilance
and took the fatal leap. His body was three and one-fourth seconds in
making the descent of 140 feet, thus corroborating almost exactly the law
of falling bodies. He breathed only a few times after he was picked up,
being inwardly literally “mangled to death.” His is only one more name
added to the list of those who, by their folly, may teach others lessons
of wisdom, and so, perhaps, have not died utterly in vain.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although war-like preparations have ceased in the Soudan, and no
more troops are to be transported thither to help “smash the Mahdi,”
the railroad across the desert is progressing slowly but surely. The
correspondent of the _Times_ telegraphs the following: “The construction
of the railway is a curious and interesting sight. In advance is a
picket of cavalry, while far off on either side the videttes scout in
the bush. At the immediate head of the line is a battalion of infantry
echeloned, and advancing as the rails are laid. Streams of coolies carry
the sleepers from the trucks, and teams of four artillery horses drag up
the rails, two at a time, to the navvies, who lay them in a twinkling,
and drive the spikes. In the rear are gangs who complete the line, and
further back the ballasting parties.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Visitors to Niagara Falls this summer will enjoy their trip as never
before. Everything that tends to mar the beauty of the natural scenery is
to be removed, and after July 15th, access to all points of interest is
to be free of charge. To bring about this happy consummation which during
so many long years past has been devoutly wished by all right-thinking
men, required a long and hard-fought battle against willful ignorance and
greed of gain.

       *       *       *       *       *

General Gordon’s “Life and Letters,” recently published, prove him to
have one accomplishment of rare beauty and usefulness, but too often
nowadays neglected. He was a good letter writer, and that under
circumstances the most trying. Here is the picture his biographer draws
of the surroundings under which many of his letters were written: “The
temperature is over 100°; the ink dries on the pen before three words are
written; books curl, as to their backs; mosquitoes are busy at the ankles
under the table, and the hands and wrists above; prickly heat comes and
goes. How one realizes, for instance, the whole scene in the over-wakeful
traveller’s night: ‘I am writing in the open air by a candle-lamp, in
a savage gorge; not a sound to be heard. The baboons are in bed in the
rocks.’” The letters which the most of us write under the most favorable
circumstances are limited to the narrowest space possible. What we would
do in Gordon’s place it is difficult to say.

       *       *       *       *       *

The most beautiful celebration of the month of June is Children’s day.
With every season Protestant churches give more time and money to their
preparations for it, and it bids fair to take rank in importance with
Christmas and Easter. Certainly no day comes at a season when it is more
easy to decorate, it being the very heyday of the flower season, and no
cause is more worthy our efforts than the children’s.

       *       *       *       *       *

An important discussion has been going on for a few weeks in the New
York papers, concerning the advisability of closing the dry goods
stores on Saturday afternoons. Clerks have no day for recreation or for
improvement except Sabbath. The same is true of nearly all classes of
laboring people. The result is that the Sabbath, instead of being a day
of religious rest, is turned into one of pleasure, and often of extra
work. A half holiday would enable busy workers to prepare for Sabbath. It
is a reform in the arrangement of time that is worthy the attention of
Christian people particularly.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a capital hint in the following story, told by a lady prominent
in mission school work in one of our large cities: “We had some of our
Chinese pupils at a church sociable a few nights ago, and we had at
supper some candies which are rolled up in paper with printed couplets
inclosed—some of them extremely silly. The Chinese boys read them and
looked surprised, but were too polite to say anything. Soon afterward
they gave an entertainment, and the same sort of candies were provided;
but when we unrolled the papers we found they had taken out the foolish
verses and had substituted texts of Scripture printed on little slips of
paper.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Here are a few of M. Bartholdi’s interesting figures about his great
Statue of Liberty: “The forefinger is 96½ inches in length, and 56½
inches in circumference at the second joint. The nail measures 17¾
inches by 10½ inches. The head 13¾ feet in height. The eye is 25½ inches
in width. The nose is 44 inches in length. About forty persons were
accommodated in the head at the Universal Exposition of 1878. It is
possible to ascend into the torch above the hand. It will easily hold
twelve persons.” Compared with other colossi it far outstrips them all,
being about three times the height of both the statue of Bavaria and
of the Virgin of Puy, and about 58 feet higher than the Arminius in
Westphalia.

       *       *       *       *       *

The French Republic would not allow the remains of Victor Hugo to
be placed in the Pantheon until that celebrated structure was again
secularized. The priests were allowed just forty-eight hours to vacate
the sacred precincts which, as a church, they had held uninterruptedly
since 1877. This action plainly shows the position of the Republic toward
the Church. “French skeptics,” says _The Nation_, “are not content, like
English or German skeptics, with ceasing to go to church.… They insist
on proclaiming in every possible way their hostility to the clergy.” The
fact that the Pantheon is again restored to its primitive design as “a
last resting place for distinguished public men” can but be pleasing to
all.




TALK ABOUT BOOKS.


Among the books belonging to the “Famous Women Series,” the biography of
Harriet Martineau[B] takes a leading place. The life of this remarkable
woman is written by one whose clear insight into human character, and
keen appreciation of that which tends to make it noble and strong,
render her eminently qualified for such an undertaking. The style of
the book is simple, unadorned, direct. No step has been neglected which
could add to the author’s information, or, as she quaintly expresses
it, could help her “get touch” with her subject. That Mrs. Miller is
something of a hero worshiper is evident from the fact that, with but
one or two slight exceptions, she justifies all the facts of the life
she relates. The rigor of Harriet Martineau’s early home; the longings
of the young girl for freedom from a needless restraint, and the desire
to read and study, which led her to steal the time for it in the early
morning and late at night, might convey a lesson to many a mother who
now insists upon having her daughters follow the conventional methods of
living. One can but rejoice in the advanced position women have attained
as he reads of Harriet Martineau, the statesman, and sees that she is
as thoroughly understood and appreciated in this aspect of her life by
her biographer as in the more womanly elements and instincts of her
nature, which were never in the least violated by her study of political
interests. Excepting the skepticism which marked all the mature years of
Harriet Martineau’s life, one finds in her a good type of strong, noble
womanhood. Christian readers can but deprecate this fact, and also that
it is justified by Mrs. Miller.

A volume of the prose writings of N. P. Willis[C] will be received by
the reading public in much the same manner as the work of a new author,
so little are they known. His reputation rests almost entirely upon
his poems and a few Scriptural sketches, which it seems natural to
think of as belonging to the early periods of American literature. It
will probably strike most people with a feeling of surprise to recall
that his death occurred so recently as 1867, and that he was therefore
contemporary with Bryant and Longfellow. Just why this recent oblivion
has fallen upon his writings is hard to tell, for the collection in this
volume shows that they deserve a better fate. The character sketches
are fairly drawn; and the bits of description indicate powers of a high
order in this particular. The personality of the author is manifest in
all the articles; the reader is conscious of constantly looking through
the writer’s eyes. The wild, unchecked bent of his imagination is shown
in such pieces as “The Lunatic’s Skate,” and “The Ghost-Ball at Congress
Hall,” somewhat resembling the more intense works of Poe. Aptness in
illustration, implying a delicate perception of resemblances, and a happy
faculty of associating ideas is a marked characteristic. He fails to
touch the deeper emotions of one’s nature, and there is a lack of both
strength and plot in all he writes. Whether Mr. Beers succeeds in making
Willis’s works live or not, he has by his selections and editing, and by
his introductory memoir, given to the public a very interesting work.

Perhaps no one ever more perfectly caught the spirit of all things
Egyptian than Professor Ebers. The _genius_ of the country which brings
under its sway all that comes within its domain, affecting them to such
a degree that one can but fancy even the sphynx would be less gloomily
impressive in any other land, gained such an influence over him, and so
makes itself felt in his books, that it is almost impossible to imagine
him otherwise than as a man wrapped round with that somber, mysterious
air which constantly hints of the power to reveal things more and more
wonderful. From the beginning to the end of Serapis[D] one is conscious
of being under some spell that fascinates and charms. The little
party introduced at the beginning gives rise to a sense of the vast
possibilities hidden away in each life—even that of little Dada, the
merry-hearted, seemingly thoughtless, young girl—and the sequel reveals
in each one these possibilities realized. The story is laid in the times
of the Roman emperor, Theodosius I., and its interest centers in the
destruction of the Serapeum, the Alexandrian temple containing the statue
of Serapis, the great Egyptian divinity, which was also mutilated and
torn down. A description of the races is given in such a way as to render
readers virtually eye-witnesses of the scene, and it is with an effort
that one keeps himself from rising with the crowd as the decisive moment
nears, and shouting in the general frenzy of excitement. The author lacks
the power of putting his readers into nearer relation with his characters
than that of mere acquaintances, in whose welfare a general sympathetic
interest is taken. One prizes the book for its impressive historical
facts and beautiful descriptions.

“Troubled Waters”[E] is a novel with a purpose. The question of capital
and labor is discussed, and the plan of coöperation is upheld as the key
which is to unlock the difficulties thickening fast and threateningly
around the business interests of to-day. The dangers lurking in the
fact of poorly compensated labor, as it watches the fast increasing
gains of capital amassed at its expense, are vividly set forth. In the
strike of the Tradelawn mill hands, will be seen a faithful picture
of what transpires in many a similar town. The style of the book is
vigorous, independent, and clear. The number of persons introduced, and
the characterization of some of them, particularly Mr. Thomas Street,
reminds one of Dickens. In the web of adverse circumstances enmeshing and
ever tightening about the really noble Robert Croft, until he is driven
to the very verge of desperation and crime, the greatest power of the
author is shown. Of course all ends well, and as one leaves all the hands
in the new mills, in which every worker is a stockholder, contented and
happy, there remains with him a conviction that coöperation is the right
principle.

One of the most attractive of all the books of its kind is “The
Chautauqua Birthday Book”[F] just issued. Daintily bound, and containing
illustrations of the places so familiar and endeared to all Chautauquans,
it can not fail to receive a warm welcome at their hands. The “Prefatory
Note” is written by Chancellor J. H. Vincent. The selections made of the
best things said by the best authors. As one turns the pages bearing
the dates, the eye lights upon the names of many familiar friends, and
the pleasing memories that instantly arise make one glad for the happy
thought that originated so genial a souvenir.

No undertaking more deserves the thoughtful consideration and hearty
support of every community than that of the introduction of a line of
classics for children into the public schools. Mr. Ginn has already
edited for the use of scholars of from nine to fourteen years of age, a
number of very attractive books, among which are “Tales from Shakspere,”
by Charles and Mary Lamb, and Scott’s “Tales of a Grandfather.”[G] The
original works have been changed very little. A few verbal alterations
were required, and the parts beyond the comprehension of a child were
omitted. A young boy or girl after reading these editions will have
practically the same knowledge that the older acquire from the unabridged
works, and they certainly will be equally as much interested in them.

[B] Harriet Martineau. By Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller. Boston: Roberts
Brothers. 1885. Price, $1.00.

[C] Prose Writings of Nathaniel Parker Willis. Selected by Henry A.
Beers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[D] Serapis. By George Ebers. New York: William S. Gottsberger, 11 Murray
Street. 1885. Price, paper cover, 50 cents.

[E] Troubled Waters. A Problem of To-day. By Beverly Ellison Warner.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. 1885. Price, $1.25.

[F] The Chautauqua Birthday Book. Arranged by Annie M. Cummings. Buffalo,
N. Y.: H. H. Otis. Price, $1.00.

[G] Tales from Shakspere. By Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales of a
Grandfather, Vol. I. Being the History of Scotland. By Walter Scott.
Abridged and edited by Edwin Ginn. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1885.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

Valeria. By the Rev. W. H. Withrow. New York: Phillips & Hunt.
Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. 1885. Price, $1.00.

The Sentence and Word Book. By James Johonnot. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. 1885.

Vain Forebodings. By E. Oswald. Translated from the German by Mrs. A. L.
Wister. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1885. Price, $1.25.

Pestalozzi’s Leonard and Gertrude. Translated and Abridged. By Eva
Channing. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1885.

Dante. A Rare Collection of Texts, Commentaries, etc., of Dante’s Divina
Commedia. Cincinnati: Anton Bicker.

The Meisterschaft System for the Italian Language. By Dr. Richard S.
Rosenthal. Part I. Boston: Meisterschaft Publishing Company.

General Gordon: The Christian Hero. By the author of “Our Queen,” “New
World Heroes,” etc. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

Pulpit and Easel. By Mary B. Sleight. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

Hearing and How to Keep It. By Charles H. Burnett, M.D. Philadelphia: P.
Blakiston, Son & Co. 1885.

Dogma No Antidote for Doubt. By a member of the New York Bar.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1885.

Catechism on Alcohol. (In German.) By Julia Colman. New York: National
Temperance Society. 1885.

Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education. No. I.—1885.
Washington: Government Printing Office.

Planting Trees in School Grounds and the Celebration of Arbor Day.
Washington: Government Printing Office. 1885.

The Russian Revolt. By Edmund Noble. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1885. Price, $1.00.

From the Golden Gate to the Golden Horn. By Henry Frederick Reddall. New
York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. 1885. Price, $1.25.




CHAUTAUQUA IN JAPAN.

BY WM. D. BRIDGE.


Japan moves to the front, for _Chautauqua_ has taken firm root in Japan.
The Chautauqua Idea is an ecumenical idea, and it is the province of this
article to show the workings of this idea in Japan during the past six
months.

Late in the summer of 1884 Mrs. A. M. Drennan (C. L. S. C. class of ’82),
a resident missionary in Japan, at Osaka, entered into correspondence
with Chancellor Vincent as to the possibility of translating valuable
English materials in the line of the “C. L. S. C.” into the Japanese
vernacular. Among the material tracts, papers, etc., sent, was one
which she put into the hands of an educated native, well versed also in
English, who said on reading it: “If that book can be put into the hands
of the young men, Tom Paine and other infidels must leave Japan.”

Chancellor Vincent, on reviewing the necessities of the field, and
marking the wondrous developments of that newborn nation, arranged
with Mrs. Drennan for the translation of the “Required Reading” in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN into Japanese, guaranteeing a prescribed sum per month for
expenses of translating for one year.

March 30, 1885, Mrs. Drennan writes: “I wish I could convey to you
something of an idea of the enthusiasm in reference to our Chautauqua
Society here. In much less than a week after the first advertisement in
the papers, our secretary had received nearly three hundred letters of
inquiry, and, on application, had given out every one of the first five
hundred copies of the ‘Hand-Book.’ A second edition of five hundred was
made, and now, in less than a week, only two hundred copies remain.”

The “Hand-Book” referred to is the first number of a magazine, in book
form, containing articles from THE CHAUTAUQUAN, viz.: “Mosaics of
History,” “Africa,” “Alexander the Great,” “One Hundred Questions,”
“World of Science,” and “The Results of the Discovery of America.”

Mr. C. S. Hongma, of Osaka, a native Japanese, President of the “Japanese
Literary and Scientific Circle,” writes to Chancellor Vincent, in good
English, a letter full of hope, and expressing his delight in aiding to
organize the circle, and asking help and prayers for its success.

The laws of Japan require six months’ notice to be given of intention to
publish a magazine, and but one month’s notice for publishing a book. The
quotations from THE CHAUTAUQUAN are therefore given the book form.

Mrs. Drennan says the natives will pay the expense of advertising
the movement in Japanese papers, and will, ere long, pay the cost of
translation.

April 13, 1885, Mrs. Drennan writes: “It would take a long letter to
tell you the good things about our J. L. S. C. We have just received
to-day from the press our third edition of the ‘Hand-Book;’ this makes
twenty-five hundred printed. Our secretary is preparing to-night a list
of the paid-up members. There have been over three hundred applicants
for membership, but only one hundred and fifty have as yet paid all
dues. You know there is the house rent (for place of meeting of the local
circles), and the fixing up, lights, etc., to give us a comfortable place
of meeting. These, with most of the advertising and other expenses, have
been met by the members; and with your kind aid for a little while we
will have an influence that will spread over this entire land, doing
great things for this people. Our secretary has answered over _seven
hundred letters of inquiry_. Applications have come from several cities
for the privilege of organizing branch societies.

“The first article in our ‘Hand-Book’ is an editorial by the editor
of the largest paper in this part of Japan. He is a very fine writer
and highly educated. He is perfectly enthusiastic over the work. It
is an argument for this plan, giving his views as to the good it will
accomplish in Japan. The second article explains the object and aim of
the Society.

“My heart has been thrilled with delight on receiving letters and
applications for membership from some soldiers in a distant city. It
has been a punishable offense for any teacher of Christianity, or Bible
reader, to go into the army or among the soldiers. I thought, if this
course of reading spread among them, who can compute its influence, who
can tell the result of this silent teacher for Christ!”

The new members are not satisfied with Japanese cards of membership, but
are anxious for enrollment at the Central Office of the C. L. S. C.,
Plainfield, N. J., and for cards of membership from America.

Mrs. Drennan, under date of April 14th, says: “One hundred and
seventy-five names of members have just been given me, fifty new names
being added last evening. [She sends for three hundred membership cards.]
I never saw such an interest created by anything in any country. Oh that
God may bless it to the good of this people, and make it a permanent
organization for all time! Pray for us.”

That our readers may know of what “stuff” this earnest C. L. S. C.
worker is made, I will say that she has charge of a Girls’ School at
Osaka, teaches young men three hours per day, teaches a Bible class of
young men (twenty-five in number) on Sabbath evenings, and for a year
and a half has kept up a Chautauqua circle among the English speaking
people and others. In order to secure government permission to publish
the Chautauqua literature, permanent resident officers must be chosen;
therefore the existing local circle suspended, and was reorganized with
such officers as the government will recognize.

One of the members is now translating “Outline Study of Man,” another
“Cyrus and Alexander,” and two others are at work on THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

Mrs. Drennan sends an itemized financial statement, showing three eighths
of the expenses (total, $66.25) paid by the Japanese to date and five
eighths by the Central Office, with the assurance that hereafter the
heaviest part will be borne by the enthusiastic natives. God bless a work
like this in young Japan, and God bless Mrs. Drennan and her associates!




PROGRAM OF POPULAR EXERCISES.

TWELFTH SUMMER ASSEMBLY AT CHAUTAUQUA.


_Saturday, July 11._

    10:00 a.m.—Organ Prelude, Mr. I. V. Flagler, of Auburn, N.Y.

    10:30 a.m.—Opening Address before the “Chautauqua Teachers’
               Retreat” and “Chautauqua Schools of Language,”
               by Chancellor C. N. Sims, of Syracuse University.

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilee Singers.

     8:30 p.m.—Parlor Reception, C. T. R. and C. S. L.

    10:00 p.m.—Night Songs—Flotilla on the Lake.


_Sunday, July 12._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Opening Sermon, by Chancellor C. N. Sims.

     2:00 p.m.—Platform Meeting—Addresses by Dr. C. N. Sims
               and Dr. J. H. Vincent.

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics.

     5:00 p.m.—Vesper Service of the C. L. S. C.

     7:30 p.m.—Evening Song, conducted by W. A. Duncan, Esq.,
               assisted by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.


_Monday, July 13._

    8:00 a.m.—Adjustment of Classes, and Beginning of C. T. R.
              and C. S. L. Work.

    8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. C. H. W. Stocking. Subject: “Venice,
              the Faded Queen of the Adriatic.”


_Tuesday, July 14._

    11:00 a.m.—First Organ Recital, Mr. I. V. Flagler.

     1:30 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilee Singers.

     5:00 p.m.—First Tourists’ Conference.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. C. H. W. Stocking. Subject: “Florence,
               the Athens of Italy.”


_Wednesday, July 15._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture: John Alabaster, D.D., “Michel Angelo.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilees.

     7:00 p.m.—Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. John Alabaster: “Leonardo Da Vinci.”


_Thursday, July 16._

    11:00 a.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilee Singers.

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. John Alabaster: “Naples, Pompeii
               and Vesuvius.”

     5:00 p.m.—Second Tourists’ Conference.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. C. H. W. Stocking. Subject:
               “Rome;” first lecture.


_Friday, July 17._

    11:00 a.m.—Second Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture: “From Chautauqua to Casamicciola,”
               by Prof. J. C. Freeman.

     7:00 p.m.—A Popular Lesson in Music, Prof. A. T. Schauffler.

     8:30 p.m.—Lecture, C. H. W. Stocking. Subject: “Rome;”
               second lecture.


_Saturday, July 18._

Excursion to Niagara Falls, at Reduced Rates, for Members of the C. T. R.
and C. S. L.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture: “Around Vesuvius,” Prof. J. C. Freeman.

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilee Singers.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-school Teachers’ Meeting.

     8:00 p.m.—Readings, Prof. A. Lalande.


_Sunday, July 19._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon by ——

     2:00 p.m.—Sermon by Dr. B. G. Northrop: “The Bible as an
               Educator.”

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     7:30 p.m.—Song Service, Fisk Jubilees.


_Monday, July 20._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Dr. B. G. Northrop: “Memory, and
               How to Train It.”

     7:00 p.m.—Latin Symposium.

     8:00 p.m.—Spelling Match.


_Tuesday, July 21._

    11:00 a.m.—Third Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Meigs Sisters Vocal Quartette, and
               Chas. F. Underhill, Elocutionist, all of New York.

     5:00 p.m.—Third Tourists’ Conference.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Leon H. Vincent: “A Trip through Italy.”


_Wednesday, July 22._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Dr. G. C. Lorimer, of Chicago: “Philanthropy
               of Humor.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Meigs Sisters Vocal Quartette, and
               Chas. F. Underhill.

     7:00 p.m.—Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Parlor Soirée.


_Thursday, July 23._

    11:00 a.m.—

     2:00 p m.—Fourth Organ Concert, I. V. Flagler.

     5:00 p.m.—Fourth Tourists’ Conference.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. D. H. Wheeler: “Memories of Life
               in Italy.”


_Friday, July 24._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Miss Kate Field: “The Mormon Creed.”

     2:00 p.m.—The Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook, Lecture: “The
               Homes and Habits of Ants.”

     7:00 p.m.—Lecture on “The Oil Regions.”

     8:00 p.m.—Pronouncing Match.


_Saturday, July 25._

Excursion to Oil City, Pa.

     9:00 a.m.—Conference on “Visible Speech” and “Phonetics,”
               Dr. J. W. Dickinson.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Miss Kate Field: “Political and Social
               Crimes of Utah.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Mr. A. T. Schauffler, of New York, conductor.

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-school Teachers’ Meeting.

     8:00 p.m.—


_Sunday, July 26._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon by the Rev. Dr. George Dana Boardman,
               of Philadelphia.

     2:00 p.m.—Sermon by the Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook, of Philadelphia.

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     7:30 p.m.—Sermon by the Rev. George W. Miller, D.D., of
               Philadelphia.


_Monday, July 27._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Geo. W. Miller, D.D.: “Martin Luther.”

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. G. D. Boardman: “The Graphic Art.”

     3:30 p.m.—Public Exposition Chautauqua School of Modern
               Languages and Methods.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. J. T. Edwards: “The Telephone and
               Edison’s Inventions.”


_Tuesday, July 28._

    11:00 a.m.—Fifth Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

     2:00 p.m.—Public Readings, Prof. R. L. Cumnock.

     5:00 p.m.—Public Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat Question Drawer.

     8:00 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilees.


_Wednesday, July 29._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Dr. George Sexton, of England.

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, the Rev. Robert Nourse: “Blighted Women.”

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—First Lecture on “Khartoum and the Soudan,” by
               the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Ladd, with Stereopticon.


_Thursday, July 30._

    10:00 a.m.—Sixth Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon by Dr. J. M. King: “The Dignity of
               Small Duties.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert—Fisk Jubilees.

     8:00 p.m.—Second Lecture on “Khartoum and the Soudan,”
               by Dr. H. M. Ladd, with Stereopticon.


_Friday, July 31._

    11:00 a.m.—Concert, A. T. Schauffler, conductor.

     2:00 p.m.—Sermon by Dr. J. M. King: “Paris, and a Chapter
               on Cæsarism.”

     4:00 p.m.—Closing Exercises C. T. R.

     4:00 p.m.—C. Y. F. R. U. Round-Table.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Philip Phillips: “Around the World,”
               with Stereopticon.


_Saturday, August 1._

“Mid-Season Celebration.” Excursion to Panama Rocks.

     9:00 a.m.—First Woman’s Missionary Conference: 1. “Best
               means of creating an interest in missions.” 2. “How
               can we increase the zeal and efficiency of present
               methods of work?”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture: “Wm. Carey,” by the Rev. J. W. A.
               Stewart, of Hamilton, Ont.

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Fisk Jubilees.

     4:00 p.m.—First General Missionary Conference: “How can
               the work for Missions, being done in every church by
               a minority of its members, be presented for the
               consideration of the church _en masse_?”

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-school Teachers’ Meeting.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Philip Phillips: “Around the World.”


_Sunday, August 2._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon by the Rev. J. W. A. Stewart.

     2:00 p.m.—Second General Missionary Conference: Addresses
               by Dr. George Sexton, the Rev. C. C. Creegan, and Dr.
               William Butler. Topic: “The Ability and Responsibility
               of the Church to Evangelize the World.”

     4:00 p.m.—Second Woman’s Missionary Conference: Mrs.
               D. R. James, of Washington, D. C.: “The Future of
               Our Country.”
               Society of Christian Ethics.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Service of Song, Philip Phillips.


_Monday, August 3._

     9:30 a.m.—Third Woman’s Missionary Conference: “The
               Immediate and Pressing Necessity for Home Mission
               Work.”

    11:00 a.m.—General Missionary Meeting: Address by the Rev.
               Dr. Wm. F. Johnson, of Allahabad, India.

     2:00 p.m.—Songs of the South, Fisk Jubilees.

     4:00 p.m.—Third General Missionary Conference: “The
               Present and Pressing Emergency for Increased Activity
               in Home Missionary Work, how can we meet it?”

     7:00 p.m.—Missionary Prayer Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Anniversary “Chautauqua Missionary Institute:”
               Addresses by the Rev. William Kincaid and Dr.
               William Butler.


_Tuesday, August 4._

“OPENING DAY.”

     9:00 a.m.—Fourth Woman’s Missionary Conference: 1. “The
               Importance of Missionary Training, especially
               for the young.” 2. “The Relation of Missionary
               Literature to successful Missionary Work.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Mr. H. K. Carroll, editor New York
               _Independent_: “A Lost Doctrine.”

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. George Sexton.

     4:00 p.m.—Fourth General Missionary Conference: 1. “Active
               Service,” Dr. William Butler. 2. “Systematic
               Giving,” the Rev. C. C. Creegan.

     7:00 p.m.—Chautauqua Bells.

     7:30 p.m.—Chautauqua Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Chautauqua Reunion: Addresses; Music by Fisk
               Jubilees, Miss Dora Henninges, Mr. Hutchins, of
               Chicago, cornetist, etc.

     9:30 p.m.—Fireworks.


_Wednesday, August 5._

     8:00 a.m.—Early Lecture, Dr. George Sexton.
               Bible Reading, Dr. John Williamson.
               Normal Class, Dr. J. L. Hurlbut, the Rev. R. S. Holmes.
               Children’s Class, the Rev. B. T. Vincent.

     9:00 a.m.—Devotional Hour, Dr. B. N. Adams.
               Intermediate Class, the Rev. B. T. Vincent.

    10:00 a.m.—Primary Teachers’ Class, Mrs. B. T. Vincent.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Colonel Homer B. Sprague, of Boston:
               “Shakspere’s Youth.”

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, H. K. Carroll, Editor N.Y. _Independent_,
               “Journalism.”

     4:00 p.m.—First W. C. T. U. Conference.
               C. Y. F. R. U. Round-Table.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—Denominational Prayer Meetings.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture (illustrated), Miss Von Finkelstein and
               Brother: “The Bedouins of Arabia.”


_Thursday, August 6._

     8:00 a.m.—Early Lecture, Dr. George Sexton.

    10:00 a.m.—Eighth Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Colonel Homer B. Sprague: “Shakspere
               as an Author.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Henninges-Hutchins.

     4:00 p.m.—Second W. C. T. U. Conference.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—S. S. Normal Question Drawer—Dr. J. H. Vincents.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Miss L. M. Von Finkelstein and Brother:
               “The Fellaheen of Palestine.”


_Friday, August 7._

“LOOK-UP LEGION DAY.”

     8:00 a.m.—Early Lecture, Dr. George Sexton.

    10:00 a.m.—First Session “American Church-School of Church-Work.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Colonel Homer B. Sprague: “Milton
               as an Educator.”

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Miss Frances E. Willard: “Evolution
               in the Temperance Reform.”

     4:00 p.m.—Third W. C. T. U. Conference.
               “Look-Up Legion Anniversary.”

     8.00 p.m.—Lecture, Miss L. M. Von Finkelstein and Brother:
               “City Life in Jerusalem.”


_Saturday, August 8._

“C. L. S. C. INAUGURATION DAY.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Colonel Homer B. Sprague: “Milton’s
               Paradise Lost.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Prof. C. C. Case, conductor.

     4:00 p.m.—Fourth W. C. T. U. Conference.

     5:00 p.m.—“C. L. S. C. Inauguration Day.” Address, the Rev.
               R. S. Holmes.

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-School Teachers’ Meeting.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. George Sexton.


_Sunday, August 9._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon, Bishop R. S. Foster.

     2:00 p.m.—“Memorial Service:” Bishop I. W. Wiley, Mrs.
               Victor Cornuelle, the Rev. Joseph Leslie, Hon.
               Schuyler Colfax.

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics. Lecture, Dr. George
               Sexton.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     8:00 p.m.—Sermon, J. A. Worden, D.D.


_Monday, August 10._

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture: “The Story of Two Brothers,” the Rev.
               H. M. Bacon.

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Bishop R. S. Foster: “India and its
               People.”

     7:00 p.m.—Normal Council.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, the Rev. S. R. Frazier: “A Yankee in
               Japan.”


_Tuesday, August 11._

    10:00 a.m.—Ninth Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore: “Wendell
               Phillips.”

     2:00 p.m.—Concert, Schubert Quartette.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—A Question Drawer, Dr. J. M. Buckley.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, W. M. R. French: “The Wit and Wisdom
               of the Crayon.”

     9:30 p.m.—Music on the Lake.


_Wednesday, August 12._

“DENOMINATIONAL DAY.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Dr. J. M. Buckley: “The Peculiarities of
               Great Orators.”

     2:00 p.m.—Denominational Sunday-school Congresses.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—Denominational Prayer Meetings.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Mr. W. M. R. French: “A Knack of
               Drawing.”


_Thursday, August 13._

“ALUMNI DAY.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore: “A Dream of
               To-morrow.”

     2:00 p.m.—Dedication of Normal Hall: Addresses by B. F.
               Jacobs, Esq., the Rev. A. E. Dunning, and Dr. J.
               L. Hurlbut.

     4:00 p.m.—Conference, Chautauqua Alumni.

     7:00 p.m.—Alumni Reunion, Annual Address: Dr. J. M.
               Freeman, of New York.

     9:00 p.m.—Illuminated Fleet.


_Friday, August 14._

“INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL DAY.”

    10:00 a.m.—Tenth Organ Recital, I. V. Flagler.

    11:00 a.m.—Concert by the Choir of the Lafayette Street
               Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N. Y.

     2:00 p.m.—International Sunday-school Meeting, B. F. Jacobs,
               Esq., presiding.

     4:00 p.m.—C. Y. F. R. U. Round-Table.

     5:00 p.m.—Conference, “Chautauqua Baptist Circle.”

     8:00 p.m.—Concert, Prof. C. C. Case, conductor.


_Saturday, August 15._

    11:00 a.m.—Anniversary “Chautauqua Baptist Circle,” B. F.
               Jacobs, Esq., presiding. Address of Salutation by
               Dr. J. H. Vincent.
               Oration: The Rev. Dr. O. P. Gifford.

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Mr. W. M. R. French: “A Chalk Talk.”

     3:00 p.m.—Concert, “Schubert Quartette.”

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table: “St. Paul’s Day.”

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-school Teachers’ Meeting.
               Lecture: “Sunday-schools in New England,” W. F.
               Sherwin.


_Sunday, August 16._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Baccalaureate Sermon, Dr. J. H. Vincent.

     2:00 p.m.—Sermon, Dr. Charles F. Deems, of the “Church
               of the Strangers,” New York City.

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics.
               Y. M. C. A. Conference, B. F. Jacobs, Esq.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     7:00 p.m.—Even-Song.

     8:00 p.m.—Address, B. F. Jacobs, Esq.


_Monday, August 17._

     8:00 a.m.—Early Lecture, Edward Everett Hale: “Parish
               Work in Cities.”

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Dr. Charles F. Deems: “A Scotch Verdict.”

     2:00 p.m.—

     4:00 p.m.—Public Exposition Chautauqua School of Modern
               Languages, Methods.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—“Look-up-Legion” Reception to the Rev. Edward
               Everett Hale.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. A. I. Hobbs, of Louisville, Ky.:
               “Poverty Amidst Plenty.”


_Tuesday, August 18._

     8:00 a.m.—Early Lecture, Edward Everett Hale: “Parish
               Work in Cities.”

    11:00 a.m.—Opening “Chautauqua Society of Fine Arts.”

     2:00 p.m.—Lecture, Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald, of Nashville, Tenn.

     4:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Class Reunions.
               Meeting C. L. S. C. Counselors.

     7:00 p.m.—Concert, Prof. W. F. Sherwin, conductor.

     9:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Camp-Fire.


_Wednesday, August 19._

“C. L. S. C. RECOGNITION DAY.”

     9:00 a.m.—Guards of “Gate” and “Grove;” Misses with
               Floral Offerings; “Society of S. H. G.;” Glee Club
               and Choir; Members of ’85.

    10:00 a.m.—Chautauqua Procession; Passage of the “Arches.”

    10:30 a.m.—“Recognition” in the Hall.

    11:00 a.m.—“Public Recognition” and Commencement Oration,
               Counselor Edward Everett Hale.

     2:00 p.m.—Addresses, Counselor Lyman Abbott and others.
               Presentation of Diplomas.

     7:00 p.m.—Prayer Meetings.

     8:00 p.m.—Athenian Watch-Fires and “Reception.”


_Thursday, August 20._

“NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY DAY.”

     8:00 a.m.—Lecture, Edward Everett Hale: “Parish Work in Cities.”

    11:00 a.m.—Temperance Address, Hon. George W. Bain, of Kentucky.

     2:00 p.m.—Temperance Address, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, of Iowa.

     7:00 p.m.—Temperance Address, Prof. J. C. Price, President
               of Zion Wesley Institute, North Carolina.

     9:00 p.m.—Lecture, W. I. Marshall—“An Evening in Wonderland,
               or the Yellowstone,” with Stereopticon Illustrations.


_Friday, August 21._

“ROMAN DAY.”

     8:00 a.m.—A Conference on the Study of Latin—Prof. Edgar
               S. Shumway.

    11:00 a.m.—Lecture, Francis Murphy.

     2:00 p.m.—Readings, Prof. R. L. Cumnock.

     4:00 p.m.—Closing Exercises C. S. L.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Round-Table.

     7:00 p.m.—Normal Sunday-school Council, Prof. W. F. Sherwin.

     8:00 p.m.—Lecture, W. I. Marshall: “Sierra’s Enchanted
               Valley, or the Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees.”

     9:30 p.m.—Songs by the Schubert Quartette.


_Saturday, August 22._

“HARVEST AND C. T. C. C. DAY.”

    10:00 a.m.—Harvest Service, the Rev. R. S. Holmes, conductor.

    11:00 a.m.—First Rally C. T. C. C. Addresses by Mr. Charles
               Barnard, of New York, Major Henry E. Alvord, of
               “Houghton Farm,” and Dr. J. H. Vincent.

     2:00 p.m.—Grand Army of the Republic Reunion.

     3:30 p.m.—Concert, Prof. W. F. Sherwin.

     5:00 p.m.—Meeting “Chautauqua Society of Fine Arts.”

     7:00 p.m.—Sunday-school Teachers’ Meeting.

     8:00 p.m.—W. I. Marshall: “Utah and the Mormon Question.”

     9:30 p.m.—Illuminated Cottages.


_Sunday, August 23._

     9:30 a.m.—Sunday-school and Assembly.

    11:00 a.m.—Sermon, Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D.D., LL.D., of
               Minnesota.

     2:00 p.m.—Sermon, the Rev. R. B. Welch, D.D., LL.D., of
               Auburn Theological Seminary.

     4:00 p.m.—Society of Christian Ethics.

     5:00 p.m.—C. L. S. C. Vesper Service.

     7:00 p.m.—Sermon, Dr. B. M. Adams.

     9:00 p.m.—“Vigil,” Class of 1886.


_Monday, August 24._

    8:00 a.m.—“The Farewell.”




SPECIAL NOTES.


Readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, particularly if they do not expect to visit
Chautauqua this summer, will find a very useful and interesting paper
in the _Assembly Daily Herald_. The _Herald_ is the daily chronicler of
the proceedings at Chautauqua during the session of the Assembly. Its
most important work is to furnish to its readers stenographic reports of
all the leading lectures delivered on the platform. More than seventy
lectures appear in its columns during the nineteen daily issues of the
_Herald_. Among the lectures of the present season are to be several on
Italy. The Tourists Ideal Foreign Tour will be mainly located in Italy.
Now, for those who expect to read the C. L. S. C. course of 1885-86
this will be particularly interesting and profitable, as a portion of
the course is to be on Italy and its life. A feature to which we would
particularly call the attention of readers of the C. L. S. C. is the
reports of special meetings and special classes, together with the daily
reports of C. L. S. C. news. Much of the best of the C. L. S. C. work and
planning is done at the Assembly, so that no one thoroughly interested in
the C. L. S. C. can keep abreast of the news of this institution without
the _Herald_. The first issue of Volume X. of the _Assembly Herald_ will
be on August 1st, and it will appear daily, Sundays excepted, in nineteen
numbers. Its price is $1.00 for the season, or in clubs of five or more,
90 cents. Subscribers to THE CHAUTAUQUAN will find it to their advantage
to accept our combination offer until August 1st of THE CHAUTAUQUAN and
_Assembly Daily Herald_ for $2.25.

       *       *       *       *       *

Through the help of the C. L. S. C. Loan Library, a number of students
who would otherwise have been obliged to give up their C. L. S. C.
studies entirely, have been enabled to continue the course during the
past year. These books (about half a dozen sets) will be for sale at
reduced rates, at the Plainfield office after July 1st.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another Chautauqua Idea of great practical importance is out. It has been
devised to meet the demand for competent training in phonography. Within
the last ten years shorthand writers of ability have become necessary to
business offices, courts and editorial rooms. For those young men and
women who would fit themselves for the numerous positions open to expert
phonographers, the “Chautauqua University” has opened a “College of
Phonography.” It is under the direction of W. D. Bridge, A.M., a reporter
of nearly thirty years’ experience, who has associated with him F. G.
Morris, A.M., one of the most successful and accomplished phonographic
teachers in the country. For circulars of the College of Phonography,
address the registrar, R. S. Holmes, A.M., Plainfield, New Jersey.

       *       *       *       *       *

We are in receipt of the finely illustrated catalogues of the church
furnishers, Messrs. J. & R. Lamb, of New York City. The designs which
they are offering in Metal Work, Stained Glass, Church Upholstery and
Church Embroideries are all of them beautiful, many of them unique and
original. Churches that are contemplating refurnishing, or are building,
can not do better than to send for the Messrs. Lamb’s catalogue. They
will get good ideas, if nothing else.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Chautauquans of Minnesota and the Northwest propose to hold this
summer a Chautauqua Assembly of the Northwest. The first step in
furtherance of this plan has been taken by the circles of St. Paul and
Minneapolis, best situated as they are for united action, and strong in
the presence of sixteen circles. On the 15th day of May, an association
was formed by representatives from ten of the sixteen circles, to be
known as the Central Chautauqua Committee.

The first Assembly will be held at the “Enchanted Island,” a beautiful
place in Lake Minnetonka, Hennepin County, Minn., on June 26th. Reduced
rates have been obtained on all railroads leading into Minneapolis and
St. Paul. Circulars containing programs and full particulars will be sent
to all applicants. Let all Chautauquans of the Northwest be present at
the “Enchanted Island.” Address E. T. Brandeburg, Secretary, Room 14,
Webb Block, Minneapolis, Minn.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reports from the following local circles have been received at this
office too late for the July issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN: Osceola, Iowa;
“Thornapple,” Vermontville, Michigan; “Beta,” Milwaukee, Wis.; “Aryan,”
Hope Valley, R. I.; “Vincent,” Needham, Mass.; Jewett City, Conn.;
“Springhill,” Morris Cross Roads, Pa.; “King Philip,” Medfield, Mass.;
West Winsted, Conn.; Prattsburgh, N. Y.; “The Athenian,” Lanark, Ill.;
“Longfellow,” Cambridge, Mass.; “Pansy Quartette,” Oshtemo, Mich.;
Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reports from local circles in the following
towns have been forwarded to THE CHAUTAUQUAN from Plainfield, but too
late for the July issue: Hope, R. I.; Luverne, Minn.; Rushville, Ill.;
Wellington, South Africa; Monroe, Iowa; Jonesville, Mich.; Jacksonville,
Ill.; Billerica, Mass.; Charlestown, Mass.; Wabash, Ind.; Amherst, N.
H.; Brookville, Ind.; Madison, Conn.; Minneapolis, Minn., from “Highland
Park,” “Alden” and “Vincent” circles.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 566, “differents” changed to “different” (These facts from different
states)

Page 572, “Onalashka” changed to “Unalashka” (the island of Kagamil, near
Unalashka)

Page 576, “Helena” changed to “Helens” (an outburst of Mt. St. Helens)

Page 581, duplicate word “by” removed (mercury may be frozen by this
means)

Page 584, “in honor of the god of the gods of the under world” _may_ be a
misprint for “in honor of the god of the under world” or “in honor of the
gods of the under world”, but has been left as printed: it’s not obvious
which alternative might be correct, or indeed whether it’s an error at
all.

Page 594, “Shakespere” changed to “Shakspere” (souvenir of the Shakspere
evening)

Page 599, “eighteen” changed to “nineteen” (There are in NEBRASKA
nineteen circles of the C. L. S. C.)

Page 605, “Monoan” changed to “Monona” (Assembly at Monona Lake, Madison,
Wisconsin)

Page 609, “Gautemala” changed to “Guatemala” (the stars and stripes trot
along after Guatemala)