Title: The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, November 1884, No. 2
Author: Literary, The Chautauquan, Circle, Scientific
Language: English
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                            THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

      _A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE.

             VOL. V.         NOVEMBER, 1884.         No. 2.

Officers of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

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



Contents

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

    REQUIRED READING FOR NOVEMBER
    The Bonds of Speech                                        63
    Home Studies in Chemistry and Physics
        II.—Water—Physical Properties                          68
    Sunday Readings
        [_November 2_]                                         71
        [_November 9_]                                         71
        [_November 16_]                                        72
        [_November 23_]                                        72
        [_November 30_]                                        73
    Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life
        Chapter II.—The Greek—His Property                     73
    Greek Mythology
        Chapter II.                                            76
    Temperance Teachings of Science; or, the Poison Problem
        Chapter II.—The Causes of Intemperancy                 79
    Studies in Kitchen Science and Art
        II.—Wheat, Rye and Corn                                82
        Bread                                                  84
    He Maketh All Things New                                   86
    The Pauper Problem in Germany                              87
    Romance Versus Reality                                     88
    Geography of the Heavens for November                      92
    Melrose and Holyrood                                       93
    The Laureate Poets                                         96
    Common Sense in the American Kitchen                       97
    Chautauquans at Home                                      100
    Bishop Warren to the Class of 1884                        101
    Outline of Required Readings                              101
    Weekly Program for Local Circle Work                      101
    Local Circles                                             102
    The C. L. S. C. Classes                                   106
    Questions and Answers                                     107
    Editor’s Outlook                                          110
    Editor’s Notebook                                         113
    C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for November       115
    Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautauquan”           117
    The Chautauqua University                                 119
    Talk About Books                                          120
    Special Notes                                             122
    Chautauqua Intermediate Class, 1884                       122



REQUIRED READING FOR NOVEMBER.



THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.


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

    A great while ago the world began.

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

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

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

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

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

Having made this discovery about the word for that very important,
that most important, individual, _I_, we should naturally expect that
the words expressive of the first and most important relation of that
individual—that to his progenitors—would be in like manner general, and
in like manner preserved among the various families of the Aryan race.
This proved to be the case. The word for mother, is, with very slight
variation, the same in all of them. For example, English _mother_,
Anglo-Saxon _moder_, Dutch _moeder_, Icelandic _mothir_, Danish _moder_,
German _mutter_, Celtic _mathair_, Russian _mat-e_, Latin _mater_, Greek
_m_e_t_e_r_,[A] Sanskrit _matri_; and on the other side, the male, we
have, English _father_, Anglo-Saxon _fæder_, Dutch _vader_, Danish
_fader_, Icelandic _fathir_, Mæso-Gothic _fadar_, German _vater_, Latin
_pater_, Greek _pater_, Persian _pedar_, and Sanskrit _pitri_. Here again
we have followed these household words through Europe and four thousand
years into Central Asia. The root of _mother_, or _mater_, is assumed to
be _ma_; although its significance is, I believe, yet unknown. That of
_father_, or _pater_, is assumed by most of the best scholars (although
on grounds which, with a hesitation only becoming in me, I venture to
think not absolutely satisfactory) to be _pa_, conveying the idea of
protection. In both cases, however, there can be no doubt of the radical
positions of the syllables _ma_ and _pa_; and thus we see a fact at once
whimsically and touchingly significant; that the two childish household
words _ma_ and _pa_, so commonly, although not universally, used, are at
least representatives of a speech of such hoary antiquity that it lies
beyond the bounds of history and within the realm of conjecture. _Ma_ and
_pa_ antedate not only _mother_ and _father_, but the Sanskrit _matri_
and _pitri_.

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

One other family and household word is illustrative of our subject,
and has a singular interest. Both _son_ and _daughter_, like _father_
and _mother_, are found in most of the Indo-European languages, and in
Sanskrit. _Son_ in Sanskrit is _súnu_, and is reasonably assumed to
be derived from _su_, to beget, to bear, to bring forth. _Daughter_,
the word just particularly referred to, is in Anglo-Saxon _dohtor_,
Dutch _dochter_, Danish _datter_, Swedish _dotter_, Icelandic _dôttir_,
Mæso-Gothic _dauhtar_, Russian _do-che_, German _tochter_, Greek
_thugat_e_r_, Sanskrit _duhitri_. And if the generally accepted
derivation of this word (which so conforms to all the required conditions
that there is no reasonable ground of doubt about it) is correct, it
records an interesting fact and tells a little story. _Duhitri_, the
Sanskrit for _daughter_, is from _duh_ or _dhugh_, which means, to milk;
and _daughter_ means the milker, a milk-maid. The milk-maid of the rural
past has been gradually yielding place, first to an Irish lad in cowhide
boots, and next to a machine more or less india-rubber in its structure;
but within the memory of living men, not aged, New England, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania were filled with farmers’ daughters who performed a
function which fell naturally to their share in the distribution of work,
as it had done to their fore-mothers thousands of years before on the
plateau of Central Asia; and every time that father or mother called one
of them _daughter_, they heard unconsciously the name of their household
place and office. Nor have these gentle milkers, these _dugh-i-tri_, I am
glad to believe, quite disappeared before the march of Celtic emigration
and machinery.

One of man’s first efforts at the orderly arrangement of things is
numbering them, counting; and numeral words must have been among the
earliest that were formed, and among those which, being most constantly
used, would be most tenaciously preserved. So it proved. Most of the
numeral words, _one_, _two_, _three_, etc., in all the Indo-European
languages are found to be identical in origin, and some of them
essentially so in form. For clearness and brevity of illustration let
us take English _two_, which in Dutch is _twe_, Icelandic (in the
objective) _tvo_, Danish _to_, Swedish _tva_, Mæso-Gothic _twai_, German
_zwei_, Gælic _da_, Welsh _dau_, Russian _dva_, Latin _duo_, French
_deux_, Italian _due_, Greek _duo_, Sanskrit _dra_:—so English _three_
is in Dutch _trie_, Danish and Swedish _tre_, Icelandic _thrir_, in the
Celtic tongues _tri_, in Russian _tri_, Mæso-Gothic _threis_, German
_drei_, Latin _tres_, Greek _treis_, Sanskrit _tri_. It is unnecessary
to continue the illustration of this point. Other numeral words are
equally remarkable in their continuity; and all are traceable to a remote
antiquity and through a wide dispersion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    _Nom._ Jupiter,      Jupiter.
    _Gen._ Jovis,        of Jupiter.
    _Dat._ Jovi,         to or for Jupiter.
    _Accus._ Jovem,      Jupiter (objectively).
    _Voc._ Jupiter,      O, Jupiter.
    _Abl._ Jove,         with, in, from, or by Jupiter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In most of the examples of etymology given in this paper the likeness
between the recent and the remote has been more or less apparent to eye
or ear on slight examination. It must not however be supposed that the
history of a word is limited by such palpable bounds. On the contrary
etymology, which when trustworthy proceeds step by step accounting for,
but accepting every clearly established change, leads the inquirer in
numberless instances into regions at first far beyond his ken. One
illustrative instance must suffice: The French word for water is _O_. It
is spelled _eau_; but that is not to the purpose; a word is a sound, not
the name of an assemblage of signs called letters. Now this sound _O_,
or _eau_, comes directly from the Latin _aqua_, in which there is no
trace of it; and in which, moreover, there are, as will be seen, sounds
of a marked character which have been wholly swept away. The course of
derivation or degradation was this: _Aqua_ by the common change of _u_
to _v_, became _aqva_, which passed by phonetic decay into _ava_, and
this by a common vowel change become _eve_, which in turn, by a common
diphthongal extension, broadened into _eave_, the _v_ in which changing
back again into _u_ gave _eaue_, of which the body, _au_, came to
represent the whole word, which at last reached the simple vowel sound
_o_. In like manner the Greek _pente_, the French _cinq_, the English
_five_, and the Sanskrit _pancan_ may all be traced to the same root,
_pani_, the hand, with its five fingers; the English _tooth_ and the
Latin _dens_ are from the same root (indeed it has been extracted), and
so are _coucher_ and _locus_, and even _galaxy_ and _lettuce_. That I
may not seem to tantalize my reader I will give the easy explanation of
the last paradox-like assertion. The bond between the two words is in
the Latin word for milk, _lac_, and the kindred Greek word for the same
fluid, _gala_; the old forms having been severally _lact_ and _galact_.
The galaxy is the milky-way, and lettuce is the juicy, milky plant; the
Old French name of which (from which ours comes) was _laictuce_, which
itself represented the Latin _lactuca_.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

[A] Here and elsewhere I use italic letters to spell a Greek word; doing
so because it is quite possible that many intelligent and inquiring
readers who may look to me, as to a fellow-student, for a little help,
may be unacquainted with the Greek alphabet, and the force of its various
characters. We are obliged to use this letter in Russian and Sanskrit;
why not in Greek? As to that however there is one notable and often
recurring difficulty in the use of an alien alphabet: the short _e_
is one letter, _epsilon_, and the long _e_ another, _eta_ (pronounced
_aytah_). The sound and value of the latter is that of the French or
Italian _e_; that is the name sound of English _a_, without the slight
_e_ sound, with which we close it. This sound—the long _e_ (or _a_)—I
have endeavored to indicate by using for it a Roman letter. Strictness
would demand other like indications of sound which must be passed by with
this allusion.

[B] And so I find it turning to a Latin grammar for schools published in
1871. I do not refer to grammars like Madvig’s.

[C] See Max Müller, “Science of Language,” vol. ii, pp. 468-472.

[D] Monier Williams’ Sanskrit Grammar, p. 70.



HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

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

Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.


WATER.—PHYSICAL PROPERTIES.

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

[Illustration: WATER SEEKING ITS LEVEL.]


WATER AS AN ARCHITECT—WORLD-BUILDING.

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

[Illustration: WATER TRANSMITS POWER EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.]


WATER AS AN ARTIST.

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


WATER AS A LABORER.

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

[Illustration: CAPILLARY ATTRACTION—WATER AND QUICKSILVER.]

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

[Illustration: THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS—PRESSING COTTON.]

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: SHOWING AN ORDINARY PUMP.]


WATER AS A LAPIDARY.

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

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

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

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


WATER AS A FARMER.

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

[Illustration: MANY FORMS OF SIPHONS.]

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


WATER AS PHILANTHROPIST.

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: SHOWING THAT PRESSURE DEPENDS UPON DEPTH.]

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

[Illustration: SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE OF ARTESIAN WELLS.]

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

    NOTE.—The cuts in this article are from “Elements of Physics,”
    by Prof. A. P. Gage, the richest contribution to experimental
    philosophy printed in many years. Teachers as well as students
    will find it full of valuable suggestions.



SUNDAY READINGS.

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


[_November 2._]

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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


[_November 9._]

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

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


[_November 16._]

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

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


[_November 23._]

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

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

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

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


[_November 30._]

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

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



GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

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


CHAPTER II.—THE GREEK—HIS PROPERTY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



GREEK MYTHOLOGY.


CHAPTER II.

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

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


COSMOGONY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “I come from a land in the sun bright deep,
       Where golden gardens glow,
     Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep,
       Their conch-shells never blow.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Now the gilded car of day
    His golden axle doth allay
    In the steep Atlantic stream;
    And the slope sun his upward beam
    Shoots against the dusky pole,
    Pacing towards the other goal
    Of his chamber in the east.


THE GODS OF OLYMPUS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Euripides said:

    “If the gods do aught unseemly, then they are not gods at all.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE; OR, THE POISON PROBLEM.

BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.


CHAPTER II.—THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.

    The Discovery of the Cause is the Discovery of the Remedy.—BICHAT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. By the testimony of our instincts.

2. By experience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.


II. WHEAT, RYE AND CORN.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

               WATER.  ASH.  ALBUMINOIDS.  FIBER.  STARCH, GUM, &C.  FAT.

  Winter Wheat  11.18  1.70      11.70      1.66       71.81        1.95
  Spring Wheat  10.50  1.84      11.97      1.86       70.64        2.19
  Wheat Flour   11.56  0.59      11.09      0.17       75.43        1.14

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

               WATER.  ASH.  ALBUMINOIDS.  FIBER.  STARCH, GUM, &C.  FAT.

  Bran          11.65  5.63      14.00      9.13        55.56       4.03
  Shorts        11.26  3.95      15.13      7.46        57.35       4.85

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


               WATER.  ASH.  ALBUMINOIDS.  FIBER.  STARCH, GUM, &C.  FAT.

  Flint         10.85  1.45      10.87      1.61        70.29       4.93
  Dent          11.23  1.48      10.49      1.91        70.15       4.74
  Sweet          8.81  1.87      12.15      2.31        66.87       7.99
  Hominy        13.49  0.38       8.25      0.32        77.12       0.44
  Meal          15.97  1.27       8.19      1.61        69.50       3.46
  Cob            9.16  1.32       2.22     32.04        54.85       0.43

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

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

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

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



BREAD.

BY MRS. EMMA P. EWING.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR BREAD should be made in every particular like patent or
new process flour bread, and baked in loaves, twists, or fancy rolls. It
is very delicious baked in the form of muffins and eaten warm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    _End of Required Reading for November._



HE MAKETH ALL THINGS NEW.

BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON.


    Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate,
      Like sentinels grim and sad,
    While, out in the night damp, weary and late,
    The King, with a gift divinely great,
      Waited to make me glad.

    Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud,
      Over a sunless day;
    Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed,
    Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud—
      They have passed like a dream away.

    In the world without and the world within,
      He maketh the old things new;
    The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin,
    Have fled from the gate where the King came in,
      From the chill night’s damp and dew.

    …

    Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine,
      On earth new blossoms spring;
    The old life lost in the life divine,
    “Thy will be mine, my will is thine,”
      Is the song which the new hearts sing.



THE PAUPER PROBLEM IN GERMANY.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.


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

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

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

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

    Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht;
    Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.

Which, rendered strictly, runs about thus:

    The old story—we have it still;
    The beggar’s sure to have his fill.

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

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



ROMANCE VERSUS REALITY.

BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,

President of W. C. T. U.


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

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

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

    “The cause that lacks assistance,
     The wrong that needs resistance;
     The future in the distance
       And the good that we can do.”

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

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


THE O’ER-TRUE TALE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “The good old ways are good enough for me.”

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

    “New occasions teach new duties,
     Time makes ancient good uncouth;
     They must upward still and onward,
     Who would keep abreast of truth.”

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

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

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

Constitutional prohibition best accords with correct principles of
law-making, the constitution being a general statement of principles,
rights and obligations. It can not be repealed by the legislature, since
every member of that body on being “qualified” raises his hand in solemn
oath that he will defend the constitution. It holds the law already on
the statute book as with a clinched nail, and therefore furnishes a
stronger cage and better lock for the tiger of license and the lion of
taxation. If it does not kill him it chains the mad dog of rum and beer
with a short chain and puts up a sign—THIS IS A MAD DOG! So that few will
go near him and _nobody can let him loose without the consent of the
people_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “‘For God and Home and Native Land,’
     Our motto here we write it;
     There is no foe we’ll not withstand,
     No battle but we’ll fight it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                        PORTLAND, ME.

    Be of good cheer, all goes well. My faith claims a majority of
    fifty thousand.

                                               MRS. L. M. N. STEVENS.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                            BATH, ME.

    At nine o’clock a. m., one hour before the voting, the church
    bells rang out their call for the friends of temperance to
    assemble and pray. Meetings largely attended, and conducted
    by the pastors. Ladies went to ward rooms to distribute “Yes”
    ballots.

    A delegation of eight young ladies were present at West Bath
    with bouquets for all who would vote for the amendment. “Yes,”
    sixty-six; “No,” one.

    One young toper voted the “Yes” ballot and the prohibition ticket
    straight.

    The boys of the Cold Water Army parade to-night with torches to
    celebrate the victory in Bath. Five hundred and six majority for
    the amendment. Praise meeting at headquarters.

    It was amusing to watch the men in ward five go down stairs to
    smoke their pipes. They did not like to do this in the presence
    of the ladies who remained until the close of the polls.

    The distributors of the “No” ticket were very scarce. In one ward
    a fellow passed them for awhile, but felt so lonesome that he
    gave it up.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                          BANGOR, ME.

    A barge, bearing appropriate mottoes, filled with children, was
    mounted on a wagon, drawn by four black horses, and driven by a
    well known citizen, from one polling place to another, and the
    way those young folks sung “For God and Home and Native Land” was
    a caution to the rummies! Button-hole bouquets were presented
    to “Yes” voters by the ladies. Ice water was furnished at each
    polling place by the W. C. T. U. Not a man was arrested for
    drunkenness or disturbance, and “Wicked Bangor,” which was given
    up as “sure to go no,” even by the temperance people, counts
    1,718 “Yes” against 1,146 “No.” Praise ye the Lord.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                             AUGUSTA.

    Seven wards; three to six women at each all day. Gov. A. P.
    Morrill called on Mrs. Dr. Quinby, President W. C. T. U., and
    said he had never known an election so orderly and pleasant.
    He and others attributed it to the presence of the ladies. He
    wished they could deposit ballots in their own right. Mrs. Q.’s
    sons, fourteen and nineteen years of age, went with her to the
    different wards. One pastor escorted his wife to the polls.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                            PORTLAND.

    Ladies had a tent in Market Square; decorated the polling places
    with flowers; gave out votes and copies of amendment; gave
    bouquets to temperance voters; in ward four about every other
    young man had this decoration in button-hole.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                           SKOWHEGAN.

    We have heard from twenty-one towns; our majority is 2,378.
    Surely God has moved upon the hearts of men in this great crisis.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                        PRESQUE ISLE.

    Our great day is over. We have three hundred and fifty three for
    the amendment, fifty-seven against it. We had our national motto
    framed and trimmed with flowers, and a big “Yes” vote in the
    center. This hung directly behind the ballot-box.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                         NORTH ANSON.

    We had one hundred and eighty-eight “Yes” to twenty-three “No.”
    God has blessed us far beyond our hopes. All our people are
    astonished at so large a majority. Many men told me they were
    surprised at the softening influence the women had over those
    profane, rough men. There was no rude word all day.

    One town in Aroostook county cast one hundred and eighty-two
    “Yes” and two “No.” Its total political vote was one hundred
    and ninety-three. Surely they “remembered to vote” (contrary to
    faint-hearted prediction) in the State of Maine to-day.

    Never was the prophecy so visibly realized: _The tabernacle of
    God shall be with men._

    Lewiston is the only large city giving a majority against the
    amendment. So far as learned, the women did not come out in that
    place.

    _Evening._—Sure of my fifty thousand.

                                                              L. S.

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

    “Of sweeter manners, purer laws!”

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

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



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR NOVEMBER.

BY CHANCELLOR M. B. GOFF,

Western University of Pennsylvania.


THE SUN

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


THE MOON

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


MERCURY,

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


VENUS

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


MARS

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


JUPITER,

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


SATURN

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


URANUS

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


NEPTUNE.

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



MELROSE AND HOLYROOD.

BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.


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

    “If thou would’st view fair Melrose aright,
     Go visit it by the pale moon light.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Sa gaes ye compass even about,
     Sa truth and laute do but doute.
     Behalde to ye hande of John Muroo.”

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

    “John : Morow : sum : tyme : callit :
     Was : I : and : born : in : Parysse :
     Certainly : and : had : in : kepping :
     All : mason : work : of : Sautau :
     Druys : ye : hye : kyrk : of : Glasgu :
     Melros : and : Pasley : of :
     Nyddysdale : and : of : Galway :
     I : pray : to : God : and : Mary : bath :
     And : sweet : St. : John : keep : this : holy :
         Kirk : frae : skath :”

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

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

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

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

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

    “The moon on the east oriel shone
     Through slender shafts of shapely stone;
     By foliaged tracery combined;
     Thou would’st have thought some fairy’s hand
     ’Twixt poplars straight the osier wand
     In many a freakish knot had twined;
     Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
     And changed the willow wreaths to stone.”

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

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

    “Heir lys the race
     Of ye hoos of Leir.”

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

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

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

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

    “Cu : Venit : Tes : Jeg : Cessabit : Umbra.”

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

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

    “Passens : c : q : ipse : voluit.”

(He suffered because he himself willed it.)

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

    “Behold the Lamb of God.”

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

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

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

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

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

    “He Shall Build Ane House
     For My Name, And I Will
     Stablish The Throne
       Of His Kingdom
         For Ever.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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



THE LAUREATE POETS.

BY REV. A. E. WINSHIP.


CHAPTER I.

    “God’s prophets of the Beautiful these poets are.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “I was promised on a time,
     To have reason for my rhyme;
     From that time unto this season
     I received nor rhyme nor reason.”

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

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

    [TO BE CONTINUED.]



COMMON SENSE IN THE AMERICAN KITCHEN.

BY LAURA LORAINE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAUTAUQUANS AT HOME.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



BISHOP WARREN TO THE CLASS OF 1884.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Joy, joy, to see on every shore
       Where my eternal growth shall be
     God’s sunrise bright’ning on before,
       More light, more life, more love for me.

                            “Yours truly,

                                          HENRY W. WARREN, Counselor.

“PACIFIC SHORE, August 13, 1884.”



OUTLINE OF REQUIRED READINGS.


NOVEMBER, 1884.

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

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

3. “The Bonds of Speech” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 2, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

3. “Home Studies in Chemistry,” and “Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life,” in
THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 9, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

4. Sunday Readings for November 16, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

4. Sunday Readings for November 23 and November 30, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.



WEEKLY PROGRAM FOR LOCAL CIRCLE WORK.


BRYANT’S DAY—NOVEMBER 3.

    “Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”

Music.

1. Select Reading—Autobiography of Early Life.

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

2. Essay—Bryant’s Time and Contemporaries.

3. Recitation—The Burial of Love.

Music.

4. Select Reading—Selections from His Letters.

5. Essay—Bryant as an Editor.

6. Recitation—The Planting of the Apple Tree.

Music.

The following will be found interesting subjects for essays for this
Memorial Day: The Bryant Vase, Mr. Bryant’s Travels, Home and Social
Life of Bryant, Methods of Work, Mr. Bryant’s Friends and Companions.
Information can be gathered from Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant,” two
volumes (D. Appleton & Co., publishers); _Scribner’s Monthly_, August,
1878; “Letters of a Traveler” (G. P. Putnam); _Potter’s American
Monthly_, February, 1879, “The Bryant Brothers;” _Atlantic Monthly_,
December, 1878, “The Death of Bryant,” poem by Edmund C. Stedman;
Appleton’s Annual Cyclopædia for 1878; _Foreign Quarterly Review_ for
August, 1832; _Democratic Review_ for March, 1842; _Blackwood’s Magazine_
for April, 1832; Griswold’s “Poets and Poetry of America;” _Appleton’s
Magazine_, Vol. ix.; _International Review_, Vol. i., “The Writings of
Bryant;” _The Lakeside Monthly_, Vol. viii., “Bryant as a Man.”


SECOND WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

_An Evening on the Scientific Readings of the Month._

Roll-call—With quotations from eminent Scientists.

1. Essay—Springs and Wells.

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

3. Essay—The Causes of Intemperance.

Intermission.

4. Essay—Corn; Its History and Habits.

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

6. Essay—Water and Its Works.


THIRD WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

_An English Evening._

Music.

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

2. Essay—Hints to Young Writers.

Music.

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

4. Essay—Blunders of our Every Day Speech.

Music.

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

6. Essay—Figures of Speech.


MONTHLY PUBLIC MEETING.

Prayer.

Music.

Roll-call—Responded to by quotations from Bryant.

1. Question Box.

2. Essay—Homer.

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

Music.

4. Recitation—Selection from Bryant.

5. Essay—Good English—How Attained.

6. A quiz on current history of the month.

7. General Review of “Questions and Answers.”



LOCAL CIRCLES.


C. L. S. C. MOTTOES.

“_We Study the Word and the Works of God._”—“_Let us keep our Heavenly
Father in the Midst._”—“_Never be Discouraged._”


C. L. S. C. MEMORIAL DAYS.

1. OPENING DAY—October 1.

2. BRYANT DAY—November 3.

3. SPECIAL SUNDAY—November, second Sunday.

4. MILTON DAY—December 9.

5. COLLEGE DAY—January, last Thursday.

6. SPECIAL SUNDAY—February, second Sunday.

7. LONGFELLOW DAY—February 27.

8. SHAKSPERE DAY—April 23.

9. ADDISON DAY—May 1.

10. SPECIAL SUNDAY—May, second Sunday.

11. SPECIAL SUNDAY—July, second Sunday.

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

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

14. COMMENCEMENT DAY—August, third Tuesday.

15. GARFIELD DAY—September 19.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

                                       “ALLEGHENY, September 24, ’84.

    “_Dear Friend_:—The Allegheny circle, class of ’87, C. L. S. C.,
    will hold their first meeting for the term 1884-5, at 7:30 p. m.,
    on Monday, September 29, 1884, at 55 Ohio Street, corner East
    Diamond. Members and friends cordially invited to be present.

    “Have you any friends who may be made happier, wiser, and
    better, by using the spare moments of life in useful, pleasant
    and profitable reading? If so, bring them with you. Do you know
    any persons who have read part of the C. L. S. C. course, who,
    becoming discouraged, have given up the work? Speak to such ones
    and induce them to begin again and finish the course. We invite
    all to meet with us who wish to enter upon a four years’ course
    of useful reading, under the direction and wisdom of some of the
    best educators of the country.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

    All hail! ye noble seekers after truth;
    All hail! ye spirits growing still in youth,
    Though years roll on, and Time, with hand of strength,
    Plows furrows deep, but brings us home at length.

    Chautauquans come with joyful hearts to-day,
    Their homage true, and faithful vows to pay
    To the Circle wide, a star of holy light,
    A Circle blazing with its truth and right.

    With brow of care, and smoother brow of youth,
    With eye of fire, and strength of conquering truth,
    We come with brilliant hopes for days to come,
    To glance in haste at days forever gone.

    We come to-night from sacred desk divine,
    We come from noble learning’s sacred shrine,
    We come from halls where justice righteous reigns,
    We come from happy homes where peace remains.

    In learning’s name, in friendship’s pure delight,
    To close a happy year, we meet to-night;
    Chautauquans all, our courage to renew,
    To plight our vows to all that’s pure and true.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



THE C. L. S. C. CLASSES.


CLASS OF 1885.

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

OFFICERS.

    _President_—J. B. Underwood, Meriden, Conn.
    _Vice President_—C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio.
    _Treasurer_—Miss Carrie Hart, Aurora, Ind.
    _Secretary_—Miss M. M. Canfield.
    _Executive Committee_—Officers of the class.

Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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


NOTES FROM THE CLASS OF ’85 AT SOUTH FRAMINGHAM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


TO NEW ENGLAND MEMBERS OF ’87.

NEW ENGLAND SECRETARY’S REPORT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Secretary—Sadie M. Corey, Brighton, Mass.

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

Treasurer—Mrs. David Morrill, Allston, Mass.

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

                                         S. M. COREY, Sec. N. E. ’87.



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

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

BY A. M. MARTIN,

General Secretary C. L. S. C.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.


THE OUTLOOK FROM THE PLAINFIELD OFFICE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


THE DECLINE OF ORATORY.

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

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

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

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


THE NEW ORLEANS WORLD’S FAIR.

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

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

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

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


JUDICIOUS READING OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS.

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

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

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



EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.


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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

    “True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
     As those move easiest who have _learned_ to dance.”

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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



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


PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. 134.—“Quære.” From the Latin word _quæ-ro_, meaning _to question_;
whence our word _query_.

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

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

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

“Pelides.” Son of Peleus; Achilles.

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

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

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

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

“Here,” heˈre or heˈra. Juno.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Pergamus.” The citadel of Troy.

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


THE ART OF SPEECH.

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

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

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

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

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

“Alloplylian,” ăl-lo-plylˈi-an.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. 42.—“Ultimo,” etc. These expressions from the Latin have all English
equivalents. _Ultimo_, on the last; _instanter_, at once; _proximo_, on
the next; _cultus_, culture; _onus_, burden; _magnum opus_, a great work;
_status_, state, standing; _curriculum_, course, particularly a course of
study; _ultimatum_, the end, a final condition; _maximum_, the greatest;
_minimum_, the least.

“Distingué,” etc. For these French terms we have equally expressive
English words. _Distingué_, distinguished; _blasé_, surfeited, incapable
of pleasure; _à merveille_, marvelously; _beau monde_, the fashionable
world; _coup d’œil_, a quick glance; _demi monde_, loose livers; _haut
ton_, aristocracy, the high toned; _coiffée à ravir_, charmingly dressed;
_debutante_, a lady making her first appearance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. 156.—“Paiezade,” pā-ē-dzäˈdĕ.

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

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

“Frerabras,” frĕ-räˈbräs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. 194.—“Oxymoron,” ŏx-y-mōˈron.

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

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

P. 205.—“Innuendo,” ĭn-nu-ĕnˈdo.



NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”


THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

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

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

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

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


SUNDAY READINGS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Orchomenus,” or-komˈe-nus.

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

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


GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Polytheism.” The doctrine of many gods.

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

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

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

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

“Tytyus.” A son of Jupiter.

“Python.” A monster serpent. Apollo founded the _Pythian games_ in honor
of this victory.

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

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


TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE.

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

“Pathological.” Pertaining to disease.

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

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

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

“Ibn Hanbal,” ibˈn hanˈbäl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Polydipsia,” polˈi-dipˈsi-a.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Asclepiades,” asˈcle-piˈa-dēs.

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

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

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


STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

P. 82, c. 1.—“Gramineæ,” grä-minˈe-ē.

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

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



THE CHAUTAUQUA UNIVERSITY.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



TALK ABOUT BOOKS.


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

       *       *       *       *       *

The “Dictionary of Miracles,”[F] a unique and unpretentious volume
of nearly six hundred pages, is a classified collection of legendary
miracles and stories of saints taken from authentic sources. Dr. Brewer
is a ripe scholar, in the fiftieth, or golden year of his authorship, and
has earned his laurels. These extracts are made with great fairness, the
author expressing no opinion as to the historic truth of the reported
miracles, but presenting them in a compact form as evidence of the
religious opinions of those among whom they are current.

       *       *       *       *       *

To all who have been readers of _The Sunday-School Times_ a book written
by the editor needs no words of recommendation in order to secure it a
welcome. All workers in the Sunday-school will find this book to be a
helper and a friend. It is full of good, practical thoughts and plans on
the work, and clearly brings before the mind what teaching really is, and
the relation that a teacher should bear to his class. We make a short
extract: “It takes two persons to make one teacher. _You_ can be one of
them; the other must be a _learner_.” “Teaching and Teachers”[G] is a
book every teacher should have.

       *       *       *       *       *

A very neat little book, which curiosity hunters will enjoy, comes
bearing the title “Curious Epitaphs.”[H] Epitaphs on all sorts of
persons; epitaphs containing puns and warnings, and miscellaneous
epitaphs of all kinds are to be found in its pages.

       *       *       *       *       *

Joseph Cook and his Boston lectures are too well known to need comment.
All who are interested in following the “advanced thought” of this
remarkable man will require his “Occident.”[I] This valuable book
contains Mr. Cook’s lectures on “advanced thought” in England, Germany,
Italy and Greece; his remarkable expositions of Professor Zöllner’s
views of spiritualism, and the views of his opponents; the discussion on
probation after death, and many talks on current topics of the time. It
contains decidedly the most interesting collection of lectures published
this season.

       *       *       *       *       *

A work on physiology and hygiene, eminently practical, and showing the
most approved methods of the school room, has just been published by A.
Lovell & Co.[J] For primary and intermediate grades it is decidedly the
best work we have seen. The object lessons, given or suggested, will be
valuable aids to teachers, and for all young readers the principal facts
are well expressed, and amply illustrated. Though a book for children it
is not childish, and any one may gather from it lessons of great value.
The chapters on alcohol and narcotics furnish the basis of lessons that
should be taught plainly in all our schools.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene”[K] is a work evidently prepared
by one having a thorough knowledge of the subject. Though scientific
and scholarly, it is popular in style, and not burdened with useless
technicalities. It is well illustrated. The great advance made in
physiological and hygienic knowledge in the last decade is noted with no
ordinary satisfaction. The millions who now know so much of themselves,
their needs and resources, liabilities and safeguards, are congratulated.
Such knowledge and obedience to nature’s laws connect closely with the
progress of society, and all that is most valuable in human achievement.

       *       *       *       *       *

A little volume of poems by Andrew Lang bears the title, “Ballades and
Verses Vain.”[L] The poems are classified into five different groups.
There are ballads on all sorts of subjects and charming society verses, a
handful of sonnets and a collection of bright translations, beside a few
songs, “Post Homerica.” Austin Dobson has written these pretty verses of
introduction for Mr. Lang’s “Laughter and Song:”

    “Laughter and song the poet brings,
     And lends them form and gives them wings;
     Then sets his chirping squadron free
     To post at will by land or sea,
     And find their home, if that may be.

    “Laughter and song this poet, too,
     A Western brother sends to you;
     With doubtful flight the darting train
     Have crossed the bleak Atlantic main—
     Now warm them in your hearts again.”

Visitors so bright and so pleasantly introduced will not want warm hearts
to greet them.

       *       *       *       *       *

A treat awaits all the little folks who can be made the happy possessors
of “Queer Stories for Boys and Girls.”[M] There may be found fairy
stories and stories of real folks; stories of good children and those
of bad children—and somehow the bad ones always “get the worst of it,”
just as they ought to do. Then those stories told by the “Cellar Door
Club!” They are enough to make any boy want to go right out and start a
club like that in his own neighborhood. Parents would do well to see that
their children are provided with these Queer Stories. They will help to
cultivate in them such a love for the true and the good as to lead them
to shun frivolous literature.

       *       *       *       *       *

The striking originality displayed in “The King’s Men”[N] must secure
for the book a wide reading. The scene is laid in the twentieth century,
and the present times are alluded to as the days of old. The pitiable
attempt at keeping up the show of royalty in his narrow quarters in
America, on the part of England’s exiled king, George V., the grandson of
the present Prince of Wales, is well depicted. The struggle of the young
English republic, and the sympathy and aid given it by its elder sister,
America, are as real as if true. A capital hit is made in the employment
he finds for the poor British aristocracy. These remnants of “better
days,” in order to obtain a livelihood, let themselves out to a sort of
caterer. This personage uses them as guests at the entertainments of the
new families in the rising republic, who wish to hire titles to give them
prestige in society.

       *       *       *       *       *

What is to be done with the negro factor in our nation is a question over
which the minds of our statesmen have been long interested. Judge Tourgée
now comes to the front, and very vividly, and in the earnest manner so
characteristic of the man, shows the dangers threatening in the not far
distant future. To avert these action, prompt and specific, is necessary
now. What, in the estimation of the Judge, this action should be he sets
forth in his “Appeal to Cæsar.”[O] This appeal is forcible and logical.
His Cæsar, the great American People, it is to be hoped, will not turn
a deaf ear to it. This appeal to his Cæsar is a serious book. It is not
fiction—nor plain truth clothed in fiction—it is the honest conviction
of an earnest, far-seeing man, told plainly and with ringing effect. “The
color line,” the author claims, “which before marked only the distinction
of caste, has now become the line of demarkation between hostile forces.
Out of the ‘irrepressible conflict’ between freedom and slavery has grown
one of far graver portent to the nation and the world. Must one of these
forces overthrow, subjugate, and forever hold in subjection the other?
Or is it possible that the two races live peacefully side by side, and
equality of right and power be cheerfully accorded to all?” The author
believes this may be done, but that it must be done quickly. For us it
is to act. And how? By educating our freedman. A national appropriation
is pleaded for as the only sure way of avoiding the ills which threaten
the Union from the South. It is not croaking to talk plainly on an evil,
or the possibility of an evil. The book on the contrary is manly and
forcible, and deserves careful attention.

       *       *       *       *       *

A good feature of “young American” literature is its biography. Many of
the short papers which appear in the periodical press are remarkably
strong. Such certainly are the articles by James Parton which for some
time have been appearing in leading papers, and which have lately been
gathered into book form under the title, “Captains of Industry.”[P] The
strongest feature of this collection is the freshness of the material. A
few of the models which we hold before our boys have become not a little
threadbare. They no longer arouse much enthusiasm. Here is a book full of
new heroes who have done not impossible things like becoming the father
of one’s country, or inventing a steam engine, or discovering America,
but have done deeds which are, or at least seem, practical. Here is the
history of Frederick Tudor, the Boston ice exporter, with a capital
story of the appreciations which East Indians have for the man who gave
them the blessing of ice; of Chauncey Jerome, the Yankee clock maker;
of Carême, the famous French cook, and of over forty more, most of them
equally new. Material so good deserves thorough treatment. It has not had
such in this volume. The newspaper mark lingers on the work. The literary
finish of the book is not equal to the spirit with which it was evidently
written, nor to the amount of labor which must have been expended in
collecting these valuable and entertaining facts and anecdotes. The book
is so good that this is to be regretted.

       *       *       *       *       *

There has never been a satisfactory explanation advanced by geologists of
the origin of what is called “the Drift” period of the earth’s history.
One theory attributes it to the action of great waves, but “the Drift”
contains no fossils; another to icebergs, but the heaviest rocks are not
found on top, and there is no regular stratification of material. All
theories have been more or less incomplete. The author of that strange
book “Atlantis,” has in “Ragnarok”[Q] found a new explanation. The name
itself explains his theory. It is derived from an old Scandinavian
legend, and means “the rain of dust.” “The Drift” is nothing, our author
holds, and argues with great ingenuity, but the dust scattered by a comet
which struck the earth ages ago. Novel and fascinating as is the book,
its scientific value is not very great. Lovers of legends will find many
strange myths introduced in support of the theory. The author, too, by
ingeniously rearranging the verses in the first and second chapters of
Genesis, thinks he has found the key that will unlock all the troubles
that are claimed to exist between the Bible and science.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Young Folks’ Library: Evening Rest. By J. L. Pratt. Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co. 1884.

Standard Library: Himself Again. By J. C. Goldsmith. New York: Funk &
Wagnalls. 1884.

Gymnastics of the Voice; A System of Correct Breathing in Singing and
Speaking. By Oscar Guttman. Albany, N. Y.: Edgar S. Werner. The Voice
Press. 1884.

The Boston Correspondence School of New Testament Greek. Kindergarten
Cards, Chautauqua Series. Copyrighted by Alfred A. Wright. 1884.

[E] Centenary Thoughts for the Pew and Pulpit of Methodism. By R. S.
Foster, one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York:
Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati, Cranston & Stowe.

[F] A Dictionary of Miracles. By the Rev. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1884.

[G] Teaching and Teachers, or the Sunday-School Teacher’s Teaching Work,
and the Other Work of the Sunday-School Teacher. By H. Clay Trumbell,
D.D. Philadelphia: John D. Wattles.

[H] Curious Epitaphs collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain
and Ireland. With Biographical, Genealogical, and Historical Notes. By
William Andrews, F. R. H. S. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.

[I] Boston Monday Lectures. Occident, with Preludes on Current Events. By
Joseph Cook. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

[J] Practical Work in the School Room. Part I. A Transcript of the Object
Lessons on the Human Body Given in Primary Department, Grammar School No.
49, New York City. New York: A. Lovell & Co. 1884.

[K] Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene: A Manual for the use of Colleges,
Schools, and General Readers. By Jerome Walker, M.D. New York: A. Lovell
& Co. 1884.

[L] Ballades and Verses Vain. By Andrew Lang. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons. 1884.

[M] Queer Stories for Boys and Girls. By Edward Eggleston. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1884. Price, $1.00.

[N] The King’s Men; A Tale of To-morrow. By Robert Grant, John Boyle
O’Reilly, J. S. of Dale, and John T. Wheelwright. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons. 1884.

[O] An Appeal to Cæsar. By Albion W. Tourgée. New York: Fords, Howard &
Hulbert. 1884.

[P] Captains of Industry; or, Men of Business who did something beside
Making Money. By James Parton. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884.
Cloth, $1.25.

[Q] Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel. By Ignatius Donnelly.
Illustrated. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1884.



SPECIAL NOTES.


The “Chemistry” designed for the required reading is the one bearing
the imprint of the Providence Lithograph Company. This was prepared by
Professor Appleton expressly for the Circle, and the publishers furnished
the colored lithograph plates and most of the other illustrations
specially for this book. Neither the “Young Chemist,” by the same author,
nor any other book can be accepted as a substitute for the book specially
prepared for the Circle.

       *       *       *       *       *

All local circles should report directly to THE CHAUTAUQUAN. A prompt
notice of the organization of each new circle should be sent to us,
and as well of the reorganization of all old clubs. It is especially
desirable that any new feature in conducting a circle, or new plan for
Memorial Days should be written up for the local circle column. Let all
have the benefit of your successes.

       *       *       *       *       *

The garnet badges necessarily worn by all graduates of the C. L. S. C.
are manufactured and for sale by Mrs. Rosie M. Baketel, of Greenland, N.
H. Also the badges of the Class of 1888, and of the C. Y. F. R. U. These
can be obtained by mail at the following rates: For the garnet badges, 40
cents; Class of ’88, 15 cents; C. Y. F. R. U., 10 cents.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE CHAUTAUQUAN for December will contain a Christmas Vesper Service
prepared especially for our subscribers. This service will also be
printed on single sheets and supplied in quantities to those desiring
such an exercise for their Christmas festivities. See advertisement.

       *       *       *       *       *

All business correspondence relating to Chautauqua or the Hotel Athenæum
should be addressed to W. A. Duncan, Syracuse, N. Y.



CHAUTAUQUA INTERMEDIATE CLASS, 1884.


FIRST PRIZE.

    Harriet J. Price, Erie, Pa.


SECOND PRIZE.

    Lillie M. Whitney, Murray, Calloway Co., Ky.


THIRD PRIZE.

    Rev. G. M. Elliott, Selma, Dallas Co., Ala.


DESERVING SPECIAL MENTION.

    Jessie S. Hunt, Olean, N. Y.
    Susan E. Monroe, 1424 Poplar Street, Philadelphia, Pa.


GENERAL LIST.

    Mary E. Van Fleet, Pinckney, Mich.
    Frank E. Meigs, Warrensburg, Mo.
    Lena Scott, 1011 Upper 6th Street, Evansville, Ind.
    Eva M. Moll, Hiawatha, Brown Co., Kan.
    Mrs. J. L. Tourtellot, 95 Messer Street, Providence, R. I.
    Daisy R. Doren, 307 6th Street, Dayton, O.
    Mrs. S. M. Tucker, Springboro, Crawford Co., Pa.
    Fannie E. Peacock, 84 Joy Street, Detroit, Mich.
    G. W. Newman, Kendall, McKean Co., Pa.
    Mrs. E. L. Taylor, Fulton, Bourbon Co., Kan.
    Marion I. Springer, South Oil City, Pa.
    A. May Peck, Jamestown, N. Y.
    Vladimir E. Dolgoruki, Siloam Springs, Benton Co., Ark.
    Caleb G. Ensign, Madison, O.
    Kate Brown, Pinckney, Mich.
    Amy Pemberton, West Milton, O.
    Belle Flesh, Piqua, O.
    Mrs. J. Paton, Jr., Flushing, Genesee Co., Mich.
    Mrs. J. M. Foster, Leech’s Corners, Mercer Co., Pa.
    Mrs. J. Y. McLean, Leech’s Corners, Mercer Co., Pa.
    Inez A. Harris, Box 1159, Bradford, Pa.
    Anna Harris, Box 1159, Bradford, Pa.
    Florence Kerr, Mercer, Mercer Co., Pa.
    Helen M. Martin, W. Henrietta, Monroe Co., N. Y.
    Homer N. Kimball, Madison, Lake Co., O.
    Mrs. Sarah L. Parker, Sherman, N. Y.


CHAUTAUQUA CHILDREN’S CLASS, 1884.


PRIZE PAPERS.

    1st. Cora E. Faber, 62 Lansing Street, Utica, N. Y.
    2d. Ernest C. Wheeler, Manchester, Iowa.
    3d. Mary Adelaide Jay, Richmond, Ind.


SPECIAL HONORABLE MENTION.

    Willis E. McGerald, Tonawanda, N. Y.
    Mary D. Potter, 192 Washington Street, Allegheny, Pa.
    Louisa Sauer, 244 Williams Street, Buffalo, N. Y.


SPECIAL MENTION.

    * Percy A. Barlow, 88 Mayberry Avenue, Detroit, Mich.
    * L. Mary Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa.
    * Herbert Russell, Mansfield, O.
    * Martha S. Colburn, Jamestown, N. Y.
    * Jessie Galey, Pollock, Clarion Co., Pa.
    * John H. Pierce, Holly, N. Y.
    * Grace J. Kirkland, Dewittville, N. Y.


GENERAL LIST.—FIRST GRADE.

    Theresa Waggoner, Chautauqua, N. Y.
    Nellie B. Lowe, Springville, Erie Co., N. Y.
    * May Herrick, Chautauqua, N. Y.
    * Rachel Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa.
    Annie W. Crane, 30 E. 14th Street, New York, N. Y.
    * Mabel M. Rice, Petrolia, Butler Co., Pa.
    * Florence A. Jones, Greenfield, Erie Co., Pa.
    * Carrie M. Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa.
    Lillie Babcock, Box 194, Bradford, Pa.


SECOND GRADE.

    * Jessie Leslie, Chautauqua, N. Y.
    * Mary A. Sixbey, Mayville, N. Y.
    A. May Peck, Jamestown, N. Y.
    * Willie Walworth, 117 Public Square, Cleveland, O.
    Eddie Mead, Union City, Ind.
    Louisa W. Knox, Connellsville, Pa.
    Charles A. Harris, 964 Seneca Street, Buffalo, N. Y.
    George L. Hoxie, Leonardsville, Madison Co., N. Y.
    * Anna Taylor, Chautauqua, N. Y.
    * Carrie Perkins, Box 8, Dunkirk, N. Y.
    Lillian Kennedy, 1426 Master Street, Phila., Pa.
    * Grace E. Bosley, Haselton, Barber Co., Kansas.
    Ada Miller, South Oil City, Pa.


THIRD GRADE.

    Wilkie D. Neville, Box 187, South Toledo, O.
    Mary R. Stevens, Wellsville, N. Y.
    * Bessie Barrett, Box 54, Titusville, Pa.
    * Miner Crarey, Sheffield, Warren Co., Pa.
    Genevieve E. Merritt, Chautauqua, N. Y.
    Dana Jewell, Olean, N. Y.
    Kate Foulke, Albion, Erie Co., Pa.
    Allien Davis, Youngsville, Warren Co., Pa.
    Frances E. Sersall, Warren, Pa.
    Torrence Parker, Randolph, N. Y.
    May Wallace, Erie, Pa.


FOURTH GRADE.

    Leon Tallman (no address given).
    * Gracie Jones, Greenfield, Pa.
    Anna Gale, 745 N. Logan Street, Cleveland, O.
    Willie Anderson, Wellsville, N. Y.
    Daisy Morris, New Wilmington, Lawrence Co., Pa.
    E. D. Williamson, 275 Christian Avenue, Indianapolis, Ind.
    * Nellie Vance, Sheakleyville, Mercer Co., Pa.
    Orry Bashline, Cottage, Cattaraugus Co., N. Y.
    Florence Milliman, Buffalo, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following members of the Children’s Class, who have already taken the
Diploma, are entitled to seals by having passed parts of the Intermediate
examination:

    One seal, Carrie M. Dixon, Box 213, Titusville, Pa.
    One seal, Grace J. Kirkland, Dewittville, N. Y.
    Two seals, Grace E. Barrett, Box 54, Titusville, Pa.

The * at the end of names in the list of children is to show who have
passed examinations previous to this year.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 72, “jar” changed to “war” (“peace” denotes the absence of war)

Page 79, “analagous” changed to “analogous” (deny that analogous
influences)

Page 106, “has” added (It has been my sad duty)

Page 109, “em hatic” changed to “emphatic” (short ones more emphatic)

Page 115, repeated word “of” deleted (Æëtes, king of the country)

Page 115, “Isis” changed to “Iris” (“Iris.” The messenger of the gods.)

Page 118, “Clytemnesta” changed to “Clytemnestra” (murdered by Ægisthus
and Clytemnestra)





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