[Not Required.]
FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” COMPRISING THE LATTER HALF OF THE VOLUME, OR “HOMER.”
By ALBERT M. MARTIN,General SecretaryC. L. S. C.
1. Q. After Xenophon’s Anabasis what is it usual for the preparatory student to take up next in order? A. The Iliad of Homer.
2. Q. What is sometimes taken instead of the Iliad? A. The Odyssey.
3. Q. What is the position of the Iliad of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.
4. Q. From what is the Iliad entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.
5. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the Iliad? A. The wrath of Achilles.
6. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy.
7. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.
8. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, Briseïs, and usurp her to himself.
9. Q. What at length incites Achilles to again return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.
10. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.
11. Q. What forms the subject of the Odyssey? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.
12. Q. When and how does the Iliad itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.
13. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the Iliad? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book ofthe Iliad? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the Æneid.
22. Q. Of what is one of the most famous passages in the sixth book of the Iliad descriptive? A. The parting of Hector and Andromache, his wife, bringing with her their little child.
23. Q. Who among the Greeks takes the honors of the seventh book of the Iliad? A. Ajax.
24. Q. What constitutes a prominent feature in the eighth book of the Iliad? A. Another account of the Olympian gods in council.
25. Q. Technically described what is Homer’s verse? A. Dactylic hexameter.
26. Q. What is a dactyl? A. A foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.
27. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.
28. Q. Name a classic English poem written in dactylic hexameter. A. Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”
29. Q. In what celebrated descriptive passage does Homer exhaust all his art? A. In his description of the shield of Achilles.
30. Q. What does the Odyssey mean? A. The poem of Odysseus, or Ulysses, king of the island of Ithaca.
31. Q. When Troy was taken, for what place did Odysseus and his followers sail? A. Ithaca.
32. Q. On their way, to what land were they driven? A. That of the Cyclops, a savage race of one-eyed giants.
33. Q. Here what did Odysseus do to the Cyclop Polyphemus? A. He put out the eye of the monster after he had eaten six of the hero’s comrades.
34. Q. What did Poseidon, the god of the sea and father of Polyphemus, do in revenge? A. He doomed Odysseus to wander far and wide over the sea to strange lands.
35. Q. When the Odyssey begins, ten years after the fall of Troy, where is Odysseus? A. In the island of Ogygia, at the center of the sea, where for seven years the nymph Calypso has detained him against his will.
36. Q. Meanwhile what has befallen Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, in Ithaca? A. She has been courted by more than a hundred suitors, lawless, violent men, who feast riotously in the house of Odysseus as if it were their own.
37. Q. When Odysseus at length gets permission to sail from Ogygia, and starts on a raft, what occurs to him? A. Poseidon wrecks his raft, and he is thrown upon the island of the Phæacians, a rich and happy people near to the gods.
38. Q. Upon being entertained by the king of the Phæacians, what are the subjects of some of the adventures he relates? A. The Enchantress Circe, the sweet-singing sirens, and the passage between Scylla and Charybdis.
39. Q. After Odysseus is taken back to Ithaca by a Phæacian crew, what is the fate of the suitors of Penelope? A. They are all slain in the palace by Odysseus, assisted by his son Telemachus and two trusty servants.
40. Q. What are some of the most noted translations of the Odyssey? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Worsley’s, and Bryant’s.
41. Q. In what form is Worsley’s translation written? A. The Spenserian Stanza, that adopted by Edmund Spenser for his great poem of the “Fairy Queen.”
42. Q. Name some other well-known poems written in the Spenserian Stanza. A. Thompson’s “Castle of Indolence,” Beattie’s “Minstrel,” and Byron’s “Childe Harold.”
43. Q. What part of the adventures of Odysseus does our author first give in an extended quotation from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. His stay in the country of the Phæacians.
44. Q. What was the name of the king of the Phæacians, frequently referred to in poetry containing classical allusions? A. Alcinous.
45. Q. What American author has written a version of the legend of Circe? A. Hawthorne in his “Tanglewood Tales.”
46. Q. Of what is the next extended quotation descriptive that is given by our author from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. The slaughter of the suitors of Penelope by Odysseus and his son.
47. Q. Of what are the remaining quotations given descriptive? A. Odysseus making himself known to Penelope, his wife, and to Laertes, his father.
48. Q. Who now intervenes to avert further bloodshed? A. Athene.
49. Q. In what manner is this accomplished? A. She stays the hand of Ulysses raised in fell self-defense against the avenging kindred of the suitors, and enjoins a solid peace between the two parties at feud.
50. Q. In this appearance what familiar form does the goddess Athene assume? A. That of Mentor, ancient friend of Ulysses.
[Not Required.]
By ALBERT M. MARTIN,General SecretaryC. L. S. C.
1. What is the origin of the expression, “Possession is nine points in the law?” [Page 124, Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English.]
2. What was the preying sadness that Cowper sought to escape from by the work of translating Homer? [Page 130.]
3. Where is the original to be found of the quotation, “From the center to the utmost pole?” [Page 135.]
4. Who was “Macedonia’s Madman,” and why so called?
5. Give some of the features of the Cathedral of Cologne that render it famous? [Page 159.]
6. With whom did the expression originate, “Perish the thought?” [Page 163.]
7. In what particulars are the lines of Pope, “false and contradictory,” in his paraphrase of the moonlight scene, given in the closing part of the eighth book of the Iliad? [Page 185.]
8. When and on what occasion was Webster’s famous seventh of March speech delivered? [Page 193.]
9. Why is Athene called the “stern-eyed?” [Page 208.]
1. The glacial streams from ice-caves that are the sources of the Arveiron and the Rhone rivers are milk-white from the presence of innumerable molecules of triturated rock which they bear suspended. This powdered rock is in the form of a very fine, impalpable mud. It is an unctious, sticky deposit, and only requires pressure to knead it into a tenacious clay. This mud owes its origin to the grinding power of the glacier, the stones and sand being crushed and pulverized upon the rock below.
2. The Grinnell glacier, discovered by Captain Hall, is just north of and adjacent to Hudson’s Strait, on the extreme southern point of Baffin’s Land, called Meta Incognita.
3. The Loffoden Islands are famous for the great maelstrom, which is a narrow passage between two of them. They are also noted for their fisheries. The evidences of the powerful wearing action of tidal currents is seen in their extremely rugged and precipitous coasts, and deep channels. Sharp pointed peaks three to four thousand feet above the sea, rise nearly perpendicularly out of the water.
4. The volcano of Jorullo is situated one hundred and sixty miles southeast of the City of Mexico. It is famous for its recent and sudden upheaval during a single night, in the midst of a fertile and highly cultivated plain.
5. Earthquakes are spoken of as “convulsive movements of Old Vulcan” for the reason that the ancients ascribed the cause of them to that God. Vulcan was the god of fire, and his workshop was generally supposed to be in some volcanic island.
6. The connection of the former island of Tyre with the continent is not wholly due to the rising of the land from beneath. In the siege of Tyre by Alexander, 332 B. C., he united the island to the main land by an enormous artificial mole. This has been increased by ruins and alluvial deposits.
1. Earth and water given to the Persian heralds were regarded as symbols of submission, because the earth represented the land, and the water the sea, and the meaning was that they were willing to yield dominion of both to the Persians.
2. The festival of the Karneian Apollo was a festival observed in many of the Grecian cities, especially in Sparta, where it was first instituted, in honor of Apollo Carneius. The celebration lasted nine days, and during the time nine tents were pitched near the city, and nine men lived in them after the manner of a military camp, obeying in everything the order of a herald.
3. The pæan, or war song of the Greeks, was a song originally sung in honor of Apollo, and was always of a joyous nature. It was also sung as a battle song, both before an attack on an enemy, and after the battle was finished. In later times it was sometimes sung in honor of mortals.
4. The tomb of Mausolus is one of the seven wonders of the world, associated with the name of Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, inasmuch as the Mausoleum was built by another queen of the same name, distinguished as Artemicia, queen of Caria.
5. According to Thucydides the sacrifice made by Pausanias during the battle of Platæa was made to Jupiter in the market-place of Platæa. It was a bloody sacrifice, probably of some domestic animal, and from the entrails or the manner of the death the soothsayers sought to interpret the will of the gods.
6. The Island of Delos was called sacred because it was said to have been the birth-place of Apollo and Diana. In 426 B. C. it was purified by the Athenians by having all tombs removed from it.
1. The Fille-Fond, or Fille-Field, is a mountain plateau of Norway, connected with the Songe-Fjeld on the north and the Hardanger-Fjeld on the south. The summits vary in height from 4,900 feet to 6,300 feet.
2. The common name of the Chimæra is the Sea-cat. It is so called on account of its eyes. They have a greenish pupil surrounded by a white iris, and they shine, especially at night, like cats’ eyes. It is also called “King of the Herring.”
3. By the “Old Red Sandstone” of Europe is meant the Devonian Rocks. These rocks are called “red” on account of their color, and “old” to distinguish them from the New Red Sandstone, which appears in the triassic period.
4. Some of the eccentric features which probably caused the astonishment of Cuvier on examining the Plesiosauri for the first time are the following: to a lizard’s head it united the teeth of a crocodile, a neck like a serpent’s body, the trunk and tail of a quadruped, the vertebræ of a fish, the ribs of a chameleon, and the fins of a whale.
5. Some of the fossil footprints in the Connecticut Valley, made by colossal reptiles, are called “bird tracks” because they were at first supposed to be the tracks of birds, a large part of them resembling the impressions of birds’ feet more than those of any known animal.
6. The Loup Fork Beds are beds of Pliocene deposit which occur on the Loup Fork of the Platte River in the Upper Missouri region.
1. The Helots were Spartan slaves. They were said to have been the native population of a portion of the Peloponnesus, and to have been subjected to slavery by the invading Dorians.
2. The “sacred wars” were wars relative to the possession of the Temple at Delphi and its treasures.
3. The Alkmæonidæ were a noble and wealthy family of Athens, descended from Alkmæon, who was a descendant of King Codrus. They were considered sacrilegious on account of the way in which Megacles, one of the family, treated the insurgents under Cylon. Having taken refuge at the altar of Minerva, on the Acropolis, Megacles induced them to withdraw on the promise that their lives should be spared, but their enemies put them to death as soon as they had them in their power.
4. The Untori, in the plague of Milan, in 1630, were persons suspected of anointing doors with pestilential ointment, and thus spreading the disease. Many persons were arrested and put to death on this suspicion.
5. Hermes was the Greek name for Mercury, the messenger of the gods.
6. The class Mothakes were emancipated Helots, who had been domestic slaves.
Correct answers to all the questions for further study in the November number ofThe Chautauquanhave been received from Rev. R. H. and Mrs. Mary A. Howard, Saxonville, Mass.; Miss Maggie V. Wilcox, 605 North Thirty-fifth street, West Philadelphia, Pa.; Mrs. L. A. Chubbuck, New Bedford, Mass., and Miss Mary P. Whitney, Wagon Works, Ohio. A large number of other members have sent replies, and some of the papers show much diligent research, but as one or more of the answers in each paper are incorrect we have not given the names. A comparison of the answers as printed with those sent will show wherein the failures have been.
Members of the C. L. S. C. are not required to answer questions for further study. Those who are able to procure correct answers to all the questions for further study in this number ofThe Chautauquanwill receive an acknowledgment if the replies are forwarded to Albert M. Martin, General Secretary C. L. S. C., Pittsburgh, Pa., so as to reach him not later than the 31st of January. Answers will be published in the March number ofThe Chautauquan. No answers need be sent unless they are to all the questions.
For the month of January the required C. L. S. C. Reading comprises Prof. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, the last half of the book, and readings in English, Russian, Scandinavian, and Religious History and Literature, and also readings in Bible History and Literature. The reading in Prof. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek course in English is from page 124 to the end of the book. The remainder of the reading for the month is printed inThe Chautauquan. The following is the division according to weeks:
First Week—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from page 124 to page 158.
2. Reading in Bible History and Literature, inThe Chautauquan.
3. Sunday Readings, inThe Chautauquan, selection for January 7.
Second Week—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from last paragraph on page 158 to last paragraph on page 198.
2. History of Russia, inThe Chautauquan.
3. Sunday Readings, inThe Chautauquan, selected for January 14.
Third Week—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from last paragraph on page 198 to last paragraph on 229.
2. Pictures from English History, inThe Chautauquan.
3. Sunday Readings, inThe Chautauquan, selection for January 21.
Fourth Week—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course In English, from last paragraph on page 229 to end of book.
2. Readings in Scandinavian History and Literature, inThe Chautauquan.
3. Sunday Readings, inThe Chautauquan, selection for January 28.
The lecturer of the afternoon, Colonel Daniels, of Virginia, was introduced.
Colonel Daniels: Your commander-in-chief and shepherd of this flock asked me to talk about “How to Teach Geology.” I did not come down here for any such purpose. I came to have a little rest and have a good time, and get acquainted with Chautauqua. But as I am here, I am glad to be set at work in any way to keep me out of mischief.
He said on a subsequent occasion that he did not want me to give a written lecture. That reminds me of a story that I heard Senator Nye tell years ago in a speech. He told of one of those excellent boys that die young, standing by the roadside, and a man was on a prancing steed. The man said, “Boy, when I get up to you, don’t you take off your hat and make a bow and scare this colt; he will throw me off.” Said the boy, with rustic simplicity, “I was not going to.” [Applause and laughter.]
I suppose that my excellent friend has to keep on guard. There are prowling around through these trees people with their pockets stuffed full of old sermons and lectures, and he is always on guard to keep them from firing them off to scare his pet C. L. S. C. So I was not mad a bit. [Laughter.]
Well, now, to plungein medias res, it is a beautiful thing to study geology. This planet was our birth place. It is the way of God. And here in its strata is written by the finger of God himself the history of all that mighty series of events through which it passed from the time it emerged from primary chaos until to-day. It is scarcely possible that any person should believe in studying the works of God, and fail to see that this portion of his work, which lies in immediate contact with us, from which in so many ways we draw sustenance, in connection with which we have our being, and from out of which flows the stream of that abundant supply which God has provided for his children, and which for all our time is to be the theater of action of our race, should be studied.
But how, how taught? Don’t give any written lectures now. I will tell you how not to do it. If you are going to teach geology, don’t deliver written lectures. Write all you can about it, but don’t deliver it. I delivered a written lecture once, and that is the reason I never delivered any more.
I began studying geology when a boy, when I was put to studying a hoe-handle and ten acres of corn for about three weeks. There were lots of these pieces of stone, and my uncle, a good old Methodist class-leader, told me that God put those stones there at the time of the deluge. That satisfied me. But when I was on a government survey away in the West, I saw hundreds and thousands of feet of those rocks, such as I saw this morning when I picked up these stones. Here you see a complete mass of shells. Such rocks make up the bluffs of the Mississippi River. We have twenty thousand feet of these in Colorado. Major Buell told me that he got in one place twenty-seven thousand feet. Then I was not satisfied. I began to look a little further. By-and-by, in the district school library, I got hold of Randall’s Geology, that blessed old book, and it began to open my mind a little. I was on these surveys, and I began to have more and more practical lessons. Among the lead mines of Wisconsin I found the miners wanted practical knowledge, and I undertook to teach them a little. I remember my first attempt on a slate; then I took my bristol-board and made some diagrams. And then in a store, and then in a church; in the basement first, and then I got up into the church. So I taught the rudest kind of people, and from one lecture, I gave two, three, four, five, and on up to fifteen. I gained a local reputation, and got to be State Geologist of Wisconsin, and was tolerably well known in that country as a practical geologist. But I had no scientific knowledge of geology.
A good friend of mine wanted to see me advanced in life, and so sent word to me if I would come and deliver a lecture on geology before the board of their college, he thought I would get a professorship. It was an Old School Presbyterian college. I prepared myself without regard to expense. I went down to Boston, and saw Prof. Hitchcock and Prof. Agassiz, and I hunted through the books, and I made a lecture. You ought to have heard it. [Laughter.] You would not be here now. [Laughter.] It treated of all the cosmogonies; it went through primal chaos, through the azoic, the silurian, the devonian, and the various strata, until it introduced man on the scene. It took me two hours. It was a cold night, and they all shivered, and looked as if they wished I was in some warmer place. I did not get the professorship, and the college died the next year. [Laughter.]
Write all you can, it tends to make you accurate and fixes your knowledge, and then do with it as a good old Methodist presiding elder told me once on a time. We had planted some melons and cucumbers, but he did not seem to be pleased with them. He told the folks that we had splendid cucumbers, and he knew how to fix them: slice them up thin, put them in water, turn off the water, and put on pepper and salt, and throw them out of the window. That is what you are to do with the written lectures, read, write, and, as Emerson says, get drunk with your subject. You will not hear anything more of the dryness of your subject. It makes a subject dry because a man has not got enough of it in him to see the great connecting principles in him, so that he is aroused and sees the ultimate of it as well as the details, and the ultimate of it is man. It is for man and made for man. This being created here and being put in the midst of all of these things, is to make him greater, grander, and bring him into relation with the truth, and then by symmetrizing his being and aligning him with God in the great work of God, that is to make of this globe a heaven.
Geology will help you to do that, as the Bishop said yesterday, it will give you visions of the infinite possibilities of yourselves when you once align yourselves with God and live up to the truth. God has put into your hands the power to subordinate this globe, its storms, its climates, and their condition; you want geology for that. You want to begin to know these rocks at Chautauqua. I would like to put in your collection first, all the stones in the vicinity of Chautauqua.Go out into the quarry, with its masonry that God has built. Here you find the stones all covered over with God’s hieroglyphics, here they are, corals, shells, and things that were alive. If you knew a way of petrifying these trees and plants, would you not think it was a pleasing way and do it? Here it is done. Here you have a study, a whole natural history, a whole natural creation that God made in order to make man possible, and capable of producing grain and grass and flower to make man live, all depending upon the fact that these rocks were built up as you find them to-day.
You find the old rocks arranged in strata, layers. You have them there by the depot. How was that? Go by the hillside. Let a portion of the drops of rain get together and make a stream, and they will form a gulley. What do you see? The soil has been washed out, and the material of the soil has been spread out. A pond, perhaps, will be there, such as you and I used to navigate, and then it dries up on the surface, and cracks at right angles. Here it is. There was a little mud puddle, and it cracked when it dried up. If you will take up a piece of it, you will find that it is arranged in layers. Here, see that. Through all that summer, and the previous summer, there was a succession of storms, and each one brought its contribution to the whole. If it was a big storm, it was thick, if a little storm, it was thin. Just like the exogenous trees. You count the lines of growth, and know the age of the tree. We have one layer spread over the other, all little volumes, but when it has quit growing, as in libraries, you will have a thick book. So, I say the layers write the storms of the past.
What else would we find there? If there were snails, leaves and sticks, they would be carried down and buried in the mud. If we take a section, and take out all that loose stuff, we have a section which gives a history of the different seasons, and the animals and plants that washed in there during the time that little mud puddle had been in existence. That is the beginning, the starting point of all the knowledge of the rocks; to begin right by us and see what is done now, and observe that wearing action. If you will go from that little gulley on the hillside to a larger valley, and still larger, to the great valley of the Mississippi, you will find the same thing repeated.
Here is a specimen that I got right here where they are ballasting the road. Here you could see a mass of sand and gravel. It goes on wherever there is sand and gravel and there is lime and water; it is compounded together. We have there fossils. Here, for instance, you have various forms of plants and corals, and so on, and you have here in the rocks right about you shells, coral, seaweed, preserved in the same way. Thus you get your petrefactions. Thus you get the layers that you call strata. All these layers of rock are simply sediment that was once carried down and spread out in a body of water. Is not that simple enough?
Here is that slab, all covered over with seaweed and shells, that was one time a bottom of the ocean; there was a volume of clay, and you see resting in there rolls of seaweed. Trailing over this all along these shores on the spot where we now stand, there were seaweed, and coral, and all the animal life. Here is a head of a large animal, a cephalopod, and here is a tail, and the rest of the body is probably under the railroad track. Here is a curved shell. This rock abounds in the ocean. They were the pirates of the ocean. They were the ancient devilfish. They had enormous arms. They were very fine in their time, but, as some one says about the Pilgrim Fathers, we should be thankful that they did not come down to us.
We have another class of rocks in our boulders and hard heads. Here are some without any section. Here is a mass of modern lava. Here you see this huge mass. All these landscapes show the different kinds of rocks in their relations. This irregular mass is the unstratified rocks. They have been melted and cooled from a state of melting. We know them to be crystals. They consist of quartz, feldspar, and mica, which are the alphabet of mineralogy. We have the crystals, which we know only exist when there has been a state of melting. These unstratified rocks are the material of all our quarries and great rocks.
There are two great classes: the stratified, in layers, which came from sediment deposited in the ancient seas, and the unstratified, which were once melted masses thrown out of the interior of the earth. The granite, the unstratified rocks, form the backbone of the continent; they are the underlying rocks. They occur as veins, coming up through the stratified rocks, and overflowing the surface.
Now, in this section of the rocks which we have as they are stratified, formed in layers one above the other, we come to the idea of time. I was going along this morning, with a basket and one of these stones in my hand, and a man’s attention was attracted, and he asked how long since those animals were alive. I said a million of years. He looked rather astonished, and expressed himself that I could not know. The idea of such great amounts of time strikes any one like the vast areas of space. At the first step in geology we have got to expand our notions of time. The six thousand years will not do. Some people think there is something in the Bible about six thousand years. There is no such thing. It is a chronology that has grown up like Milton’s Paradise Lost. Many people think that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a part of the Bible. In Genesis we are told of days, which everybody understands to mean periods of time, and of time since the beginning, when the earth was without form and void. We have nothing definite said in the Bible, or any other book, except the approximate indications which are found in the great stone book of Nature.
Let us look at the idea of time, and see how we get at it. If we should come again to the mud puddle dried up, we should get an approximate idea of how long it took to form the deposit. Suppose we do not know the history, we know about the number of storms that are usual, and the amount of rainfall, and we have some guide in that succession of layers that are there. In the ancient rocks we have exactly the same guide. Somebody says in answer to all this, that in some places deposits take place very rapidly, and we can not judge. For instance, a flood in the Mississippi bears down a vast amount of matter. There is a delta of the Mississippi that has been built out during the memory of man. Whenever we find coarse material in a delta we say it was rapidly formed; if it is fine material, we say it was formed slowly. To-day the Mississippi is bearing down a vast mass of material, and the coarser materials drop by the mouth, but the finer are carried out over the sea, perhaps along the shore. This fine silt settles down amid the corals, the sea-weed and the ships. If the ocean could be drained, we would find on the decks of the ships that have been sunk a hundred years, as the divers tell us, this deposition on the bottom of the sea. No one can doubt about these deposits which have so many shells, that the deposit was made very slowly, because it would have been impossible for the shells to have lived if the material had been thrown down rapidly.
Therefore, when we come to take the rate of deposit, and the vast thickness of these rocks into account, we have a basis for determining approximately the periods of the time during which these rocks have formed. Of course, it is only to those who become minutely intelligent in regard to the details that this thought will have weight. If, for instance, I should go along where a man was cutting a tree, and count the annular rings, and I had never seen a tree cut down; if he should say an hundred years ago that treewas an acorn, I should be astonished, and it would have no weight with me, for I would not have the knowledge necessary. It is necessary to become familiar with this class of phenomena. Therefore in the beginning we want to study the phenomena that are taking place on the seashore, at the mouth of the rivers, and compare these with the phenomena that we find in the rock.
I recall a notable instance of this: That grand man, President Hitchcock, long since gone to rest, one of the greatest and most eminent scientists of his State, discovered tracks in the valley of the Connecticut River. He had to classify some sixty different classes of tracks, which are found in the valley of the Connecticut sandstone ledges, which, when it was soft, was admirably calculated to receive impressions. His attention was called to them, and he made them out to be bird tracks. The European naturalists were very reluctant to believe it. They did not believe that any such discovery could be made by any American. They sent over a man to see the alleged bird tracks, and he went all over the museum, and he went down to the quarry and saw all the specimens, and went away and came back again. President Hitchcock asked him about it, and he said that he did not think there were any bird tracks there. After dinner he took him out to the porch. A few days before he had found a flat stone, on which mud had been deposited, and a snipe had walked over it; the mud dried, and he thought it was an exact parallel with his bird tracks. So he put it on his porch. The gentleman said, “What have you got here?” There they were, the tracks of a bird, and a wader. He said nothing. He went away, and said they were bird tracks. He wrote afterward that he had for the first time to study how a wading bird walked on both sides of a median line. And so when he studied the habits of a bird, he saw that these fossils were bird tracks. I speak of this because it is a key.
I allude again to that sermon of Bishop Simpson’s, where Job asks these questions, and the Lord tells him to find out that right next to him. Why don’t you study that, and interpret it in that manner so sensible? You find everywhere we are doing that. On that account people can not get a knowledge of geology, because geology asks you to commence right at the door. Stoop and pick up the pebble there; learn the soil, and teach yourselves and your children what it was. This is a progressive world where we have all got to begin. It seems wonderful that we have not done that before. If you will try it, if you will get the first weed by your door, and teach your children about it, and go out further and study geology and all the other ologies in that way, life will be lifted on the highest plane for all. [Applause.] Everybody that has tried that has found an exceeding great reward.
I remember years ago a poem by James Russell Lowell, in which he describes the prophet going up to the hoary mountain to go and learn from God.
“Worn and footsore was the prophet,When he gained the holy hill;‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,‘Here his presence lingers still.’‘God of all the olden prophets,Wilt thou speak with men no more?Have I not as truly served theeAs thy chosen ones of yore?Hear me, Guider of my fathers,Lo! a humble heart is mine;By thy mercy I beseech thee,Grant thy servant but a sign!’Bowing then his head, he listenedFor an answer to his prayer;No loud burst of thunder followed,Not a murmur stirred the air:But the tuft of moss before himOpened while he waited yet,And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,Sprang a tender violet.‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,‘Hard of heart and blind was I,Looking to the holy mountainFor the gift of prophecy.Still thou speakest with thy childrenFreely as in eld sublime;Humbleness, and love, and patience,Still give empire over time.Had I trusted in thy nature,And had faith in lowly things,Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,And set free my spirit’s wings.But I looked for signs and wonders,That o’er men should give me sway;Thirsting to be more than mortal,I was even less than clay.Ere I entered on my journey,As I girt my loins to start,Ran to me my little daughter,The beloved of my heart;In her hand she held a flower,Like to this as like may be,Which beside my very threshold,She had plucked and brought to me.’“
“Worn and footsore was the prophet,When he gained the holy hill;‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,‘Here his presence lingers still.’‘God of all the olden prophets,Wilt thou speak with men no more?Have I not as truly served theeAs thy chosen ones of yore?Hear me, Guider of my fathers,Lo! a humble heart is mine;By thy mercy I beseech thee,Grant thy servant but a sign!’Bowing then his head, he listenedFor an answer to his prayer;No loud burst of thunder followed,Not a murmur stirred the air:But the tuft of moss before himOpened while he waited yet,And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,Sprang a tender violet.‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,‘Hard of heart and blind was I,Looking to the holy mountainFor the gift of prophecy.Still thou speakest with thy childrenFreely as in eld sublime;Humbleness, and love, and patience,Still give empire over time.Had I trusted in thy nature,And had faith in lowly things,Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,And set free my spirit’s wings.But I looked for signs and wonders,That o’er men should give me sway;Thirsting to be more than mortal,I was even less than clay.Ere I entered on my journey,As I girt my loins to start,Ran to me my little daughter,The beloved of my heart;In her hand she held a flower,Like to this as like may be,Which beside my very threshold,She had plucked and brought to me.’“
“Worn and footsore was the prophet,When he gained the holy hill;‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,‘Here his presence lingers still.’
“Worn and footsore was the prophet,
When he gained the holy hill;
‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,
‘Here his presence lingers still.’
‘God of all the olden prophets,Wilt thou speak with men no more?Have I not as truly served theeAs thy chosen ones of yore?
‘God of all the olden prophets,
Wilt thou speak with men no more?
Have I not as truly served thee
As thy chosen ones of yore?
Hear me, Guider of my fathers,Lo! a humble heart is mine;By thy mercy I beseech thee,Grant thy servant but a sign!’
Hear me, Guider of my fathers,
Lo! a humble heart is mine;
By thy mercy I beseech thee,
Grant thy servant but a sign!’
Bowing then his head, he listenedFor an answer to his prayer;No loud burst of thunder followed,Not a murmur stirred the air:
Bowing then his head, he listened
For an answer to his prayer;
No loud burst of thunder followed,
Not a murmur stirred the air:
But the tuft of moss before himOpened while he waited yet,And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,Sprang a tender violet.
But the tuft of moss before him
Opened while he waited yet,
And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,
Sprang a tender violet.
‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,‘Hard of heart and blind was I,Looking to the holy mountainFor the gift of prophecy.
‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,
‘Hard of heart and blind was I,
Looking to the holy mountain
For the gift of prophecy.
Still thou speakest with thy childrenFreely as in eld sublime;Humbleness, and love, and patience,Still give empire over time.
Still thou speakest with thy children
Freely as in eld sublime;
Humbleness, and love, and patience,
Still give empire over time.
Had I trusted in thy nature,And had faith in lowly things,Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,And set free my spirit’s wings.
Had I trusted in thy nature,
And had faith in lowly things,
Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,
And set free my spirit’s wings.
But I looked for signs and wonders,That o’er men should give me sway;Thirsting to be more than mortal,I was even less than clay.
But I looked for signs and wonders,
That o’er men should give me sway;
Thirsting to be more than mortal,
I was even less than clay.
Ere I entered on my journey,As I girt my loins to start,Ran to me my little daughter,The beloved of my heart;
Ere I entered on my journey,
As I girt my loins to start,
Ran to me my little daughter,
The beloved of my heart;
In her hand she held a flower,Like to this as like may be,Which beside my very threshold,She had plucked and brought to me.’“
In her hand she held a flower,
Like to this as like may be,
Which beside my very threshold,
She had plucked and brought to me.’“
[Applause.]
Now, I simply say, if there are those who wish to pursue the study of geology, I will be very glad while I stay here to be of any assistance I can to you. I know the difficulty of starting without some help. The geology published here by Prof. Packard is an admirable little treatise, but with the reading of that you need observation and the knowledge to be gained by handling the specimens. If there are those who would like to learn, I am at liberty after 5 o’clock in the morning for a few days. I get up at 5 and keep very still. If you could keep those bells still that keep me awake until about 11:30: I like babies, but if you could put the babies in some babies’ retreat for a little while——.
The geological charts are excellent for teaching in a circle or a school. These are the charts that are published with Prof. Packard’s Geology. With the book they will enable one to get a very good idea of geology. If you will take up geology now, and start here, we will start from the quarry. These specimens will decay; one-half of them will go down into the lake very soon. I went out here and saw these splendid books being wasted, so I made use of a few of them. These will be a starting point in your museum, and then every C. L. S. C. on this continent will send from his locality a box of specimens, two or three of them, express paid, to your museum, and I will send my quota from West Virginia. And I will come over here some time and help label them. [Applause.]
[Pointing to the charts behind him.] Here is a section of rocks from below, and here are the different phenomena of volcanic action. Here is a picture of the ancient seas. There is one of these valleys. There are vast species of chambered shells. We have now only one species living, the chambered nautilus. The animal had the power of increasing or diminishing his density by absorbing or casting out water. Here is another representative of the animals that have been restored by the laws of comparative anatomy. Cuvier, or Agassiz, by a bone, or scale, even, could restore an animal. Here are some of your ancestors. Here is a specimen of the plesiosaurus and the iguanodon. These are marine animals. These are more modern. This is the period of bone caves. This was a great clawed animal, that was for a long time supposed to be a lion. Here is a representation of the ice period, of which you hear so much, the period when the huge boulders were brought down. The entire collection will be one of value.
I thank you for your attention. [Applause.]
After some conversation on preparation for Commencement day, the Round-Table adjourned.
From the time that Washington boasted of a system that proposes to furnish the means of education to “every child of the republic,” the educational spirit has been a prominent characteristic of our people. Amid all our national vicissitudes and struggles, defending the flag from foes without and within, cutting down the forests to make farms for cultivation, and clearing up the waste places to make them habitable, we have never lost our educational enterprise. In the far West, as well as in Maine and Massachusetts, you meet it. Not to be wondered at, either, is this in a people who had the courage and faith to launch such a governmental scheme as is ours. Indeed, it required little discernment to see that popular institutions could be served by no other handmaid than popular education.
It is gratifying to note that our zeal for education did not prove a transient impulse, but that of an abiding conviction. Never have the reports from all parts of the Union, taken as a whole, been so encouraging as now. Stupidity and demagogism are still to be found in many places, and, of course, as ever, doing their best to hinder progress. But in spite of all such influences, educators throughout the nation feel that the cause, with the modifications of better methods, is understood and appreciated by the better and larger part of the public. An examination of reports and statistics of all the States and Territories for ten years past, shows advancement in almost every instance. Financial depression or shifting population will explain the exceptions. In the State of Ohio in the single year of 1879-80, three-fourths of a million dollars was expended in new school-houses. The young State of West Virginia reports seventeen hundred more teachers employed at the close of the decade than at the beginning. The State of Missouri reports a like number, and an increased enrollment of nearly sixty thousand, exclusive of those who had come of school age, thus showing a deep inroad into the ranks of illiteracy. These citations illustrate the advance movement all along the line. And while our common schools are thus moving onward, it is no less a sign of national devotion to education that schools of higher grades are springing up everywhere. Special and charitable schools for the deaf and dumb, for the weak-minded, industrial training schools, etc., all of them upheld by the same national spirit. Nor to be forgotten are the schools for all classes at home, where by correspondence and concert of work, results which none can measure are attained. Let us rejoice and give thanks!
But the most hopeful thought that comes to us in connection with our national education, is of the fact that in nearly all parts of the country it is required that moral instruction be given in the schools. “Instruction in morals and good manners,” is the language of requirement in the school laws of many States. Others charge “all instructors to impress on the youth committed to them the principles of morality, justice, a sacred regard of truth, love of country, chastity, temperance, etc.” The school code of New Hampshire demands that “religion, piety, and morality be encouraged.” In several States the Bible is to be brought before the pupils by the prescribed daily reading of it, as in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia; and in many others the reading of it has express legalization. Herein is the sheet anchor of all our hopes. Cultured mind and heart alone give assurance of a successful national voyage.