“Press on, reaching after those things which are before.”
President—J. B. Underwood, Meriden, Conn.Vice President—C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio.Treasurer—Miss Carrie Hart, Aurora, Ind.Secretary—Miss M. M. Canfield, Washington, D. C.Executive Committee—Officers of the class.Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.
President—J. B. Underwood, Meriden, Conn.
Vice President—C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio.
Treasurer—Miss Carrie Hart, Aurora, Ind.
Secretary—Miss M. M. Canfield, Washington, D. C.
Executive Committee—Officers of the class.
Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.
The badges for ’85, phœnix-like, have risen from their ashes and can now be furnished promptly.
President Underwood would be glad if circles composed of members of the Class of ’85 would inform him of their existence and send name of president and secretary, that he may visit them when possible.
A Canadian classmate writes: “I am prosecuting my studies in connection with the C. L. S. C. all alone in a remote corner of our country, and find my greatest pleasure in holding communion with the good and great of the present and past ages. I am well pleased with the motto for our class and hope to be among those who verify its appropriateness by passing through the Gates next summer at Chautauqua.”
One member of ’85 writes: “Having just read the December column of ’85 inThe Chautauquan, have concluded to show my enthusiasm by sending for our colors.” We can all say amen to this: “Please place my name on the roll of the Invincibles, and may God for dear Jesus’ sake help us all to ‘Press on, reaching after those things which are before.’”
Another says: “Although I was nearly fifty years of age when I commenced study in this way, yet am greatly interested and love it more and more. I hope to ‘press on, reaching after those things which are before,’ until I can stand in the immediate presence of Him whom my soul loveth.”
From Kentucky comes this testimony: “I am hoping to be able, literally, to ‘pass through the Gates’ next August and receive from Chancellor Vincent my diploma. I was at Chautauqua in ’83, and will not be content till I go again. My interest and enthusiasm increase as the four years draw to a close. During this time I have pursued my studies alone, having failed entirely to form even a ‘straight line’ in my neighborhood, five miles from Versailles. Although I would doubtless have enjoyed being connected with a circle, I know that studying the course, even alone, has very greatly benefited me. One of these benefits, and by no means the least, has been the increasing and strengthening of my taste for solid reading.”
New York.—“I have often wished that I could express my gratitude for, and appreciation of, my C. L. S. C. studies and associations, but when I attempt it my list of adjectives seems all too meager and inadequate. Since taking up the course, life and all that pertains to it assume a different aspect. I have gained an outlook which gives life a charm and attractiveness of which I had never dreamed. I had passed my forty-fifth year when I comprehended the C. L. S. C. plan sufficiently to see that it was for such illiterate people as I. The benefits I have received are past computation.”
Our Class Memorial to our loved alma mater must not be forgotten. We want to prepare for a memorial, a present worthy ournameandaim. Fifty-five (55) names have up to this time been sent to the treasurer, with contributions to the class fund (some sending more than the amount requested). That is but a small beginning of the hundreds to hear from.
“We study for light, to bless with light.”
President—The Rev. B. P. Snow, Biddeford, Maine.Vice Presidents—The Rev. J. C. Whitley, Salisbury, Maryland; Mr. L. F. Houghton, Peoria, Illinois; Mr. Walter Y. Morgan, Cleveland, Ohio; Mrs. Delia Browne, Louisville, Kentucky; Miss Florence Finch, Palestine, Texas.Secretary—The Rev. W. L. Austin, New Albany, Ind.
President—The Rev. B. P. Snow, Biddeford, Maine.
Vice Presidents—The Rev. J. C. Whitley, Salisbury, Maryland; Mr. L. F. Houghton, Peoria, Illinois; Mr. Walter Y. Morgan, Cleveland, Ohio; Mrs. Delia Browne, Louisville, Kentucky; Miss Florence Finch, Palestine, Texas.
Secretary—The Rev. W. L. Austin, New Albany, Ind.
The officers of ’86 send greeting to their classmates and co-workers.
The new class badge will soon be ready to send out. The color of the badge remains the same, but the class emblem and motto will be added.
From Colorado—Durango—comes this encouraging bit of class news: “We have eleven members in our class and are pursuing our studies this winter with unabated interest. Belonging to the class of ’86, we mean to be true to the name ‘Progressives.’ We hold our meetings every Monday evening, and follow the program laid out inThe Chautauquan. There seems to be a growing interest in the Chautauqua work, and we hope to have another class organized in our little town before many months. The members of the present class are busy workers, teachers, mothers and housekeepers, but they have continued the course with increasing interest to this the third year, and purpose finishing the full course.”
“Neglect not the gift that is in thee.”
President—The Rev. Frank Russell, Mansfield, Ohio.Western Secretary—K. A. Burnell, Esq., Chicago, Ill.Eastern Secretary—J. A. Steven, M.D., Hartford, Conn.Treasurer—Either Secretary, from either of whom badges may be procured.Executive Committee—The officers of the class.Class paper may be procured from Mr. Henry Hart, Atlanta, Ga.
President—The Rev. Frank Russell, Mansfield, Ohio.
Western Secretary—K. A. Burnell, Esq., Chicago, Ill.
Eastern Secretary—J. A. Steven, M.D., Hartford, Conn.
Treasurer—Either Secretary, from either of whom badges may be procured.
Executive Committee—The officers of the class.
Class paper may be procured from Mr. Henry Hart, Atlanta, Ga.
The Canadian Pansies are doing good work in the promotion of the Chautauqua Idea.
The leaves swung lazily and slow,The wind hummed low its reverie,Chautauqua bells with loving chimePealed forth their sweetest melody.Their quaint, weird music rolling on,Mingling with heaven’s azure ray,Enwrapped the earth with bright, new joy;It was our “Pansies’” natal day.Remembrance fond brings back the hourWhen on our breast the pansy blueWe placed, with earnest, fervent prayerThat to its trust we might be true.Again, again, and yet again,Our widening circle grew apace;And pansies bloomed on every side;North, South and West each claimed a place.And now a year with hurried tread,Has paced its tiny cycle round,Girdled with moments richly spentIn wanderings on classic ground.Methinks we scarce could well have crownedThe year agone with richer gemsThan these bright visions of the past,Tho’ culled from monarch’s diadems.A goodly company our band—Twice seven thousand now we claim;And purpose with a royal loveThro’ every land to spread its fame.Tinted is the horizon’s rimWith wisdom’s deep, ethereal blue,Yet all may reach its shining goal,If firm their trust and true.E’en though the path may rugged be,And lengthening shadows bar the way,Onward we’ll press with firmer zeal,Knowing success shall crown the day.
The leaves swung lazily and slow,The wind hummed low its reverie,Chautauqua bells with loving chimePealed forth their sweetest melody.Their quaint, weird music rolling on,Mingling with heaven’s azure ray,Enwrapped the earth with bright, new joy;It was our “Pansies’” natal day.Remembrance fond brings back the hourWhen on our breast the pansy blueWe placed, with earnest, fervent prayerThat to its trust we might be true.Again, again, and yet again,Our widening circle grew apace;And pansies bloomed on every side;North, South and West each claimed a place.And now a year with hurried tread,Has paced its tiny cycle round,Girdled with moments richly spentIn wanderings on classic ground.Methinks we scarce could well have crownedThe year agone with richer gemsThan these bright visions of the past,Tho’ culled from monarch’s diadems.A goodly company our band—Twice seven thousand now we claim;And purpose with a royal loveThro’ every land to spread its fame.Tinted is the horizon’s rimWith wisdom’s deep, ethereal blue,Yet all may reach its shining goal,If firm their trust and true.E’en though the path may rugged be,And lengthening shadows bar the way,Onward we’ll press with firmer zeal,Knowing success shall crown the day.
The leaves swung lazily and slow,The wind hummed low its reverie,Chautauqua bells with loving chimePealed forth their sweetest melody.
The leaves swung lazily and slow,
The wind hummed low its reverie,
Chautauqua bells with loving chime
Pealed forth their sweetest melody.
Their quaint, weird music rolling on,Mingling with heaven’s azure ray,Enwrapped the earth with bright, new joy;It was our “Pansies’” natal day.
Their quaint, weird music rolling on,
Mingling with heaven’s azure ray,
Enwrapped the earth with bright, new joy;
It was our “Pansies’” natal day.
Remembrance fond brings back the hourWhen on our breast the pansy blueWe placed, with earnest, fervent prayerThat to its trust we might be true.
Remembrance fond brings back the hour
When on our breast the pansy blue
We placed, with earnest, fervent prayer
That to its trust we might be true.
Again, again, and yet again,Our widening circle grew apace;And pansies bloomed on every side;North, South and West each claimed a place.
Again, again, and yet again,
Our widening circle grew apace;
And pansies bloomed on every side;
North, South and West each claimed a place.
And now a year with hurried tread,Has paced its tiny cycle round,Girdled with moments richly spentIn wanderings on classic ground.
And now a year with hurried tread,
Has paced its tiny cycle round,
Girdled with moments richly spent
In wanderings on classic ground.
Methinks we scarce could well have crownedThe year agone with richer gemsThan these bright visions of the past,Tho’ culled from monarch’s diadems.
Methinks we scarce could well have crowned
The year agone with richer gems
Than these bright visions of the past,
Tho’ culled from monarch’s diadems.
A goodly company our band—Twice seven thousand now we claim;And purpose with a royal loveThro’ every land to spread its fame.
A goodly company our band—
Twice seven thousand now we claim;
And purpose with a royal love
Thro’ every land to spread its fame.
Tinted is the horizon’s rimWith wisdom’s deep, ethereal blue,Yet all may reach its shining goal,If firm their trust and true.
Tinted is the horizon’s rim
With wisdom’s deep, ethereal blue,
Yet all may reach its shining goal,
If firm their trust and true.
E’en though the path may rugged be,And lengthening shadows bar the way,Onward we’ll press with firmer zeal,Knowing success shall crown the day.
E’en though the path may rugged be,
And lengthening shadows bar the way,
Onward we’ll press with firmer zeal,
Knowing success shall crown the day.
The New England Branch of the Pansy class held its reunion November 28th in the People’s Church in Boston. The first hour, from one to two p. m., was spent in social enjoyment. Prof. Sherwin then introduced himself in one of his characteristic speeches and concluded by presenting the New England president, the Rev. F. M. Gardner. He was unknown to many of the members, as he was elected on the last day of the Framingham Assembly, when many of the class had gone home. The president made an appropriate and pleasing address. The secretary, Miss Corey, then read her report. The pupils of the Boston Conservatory of Music, under the direction of Prof. Sherwin, gave a delightful musical entertainment. At the close of the musical program the Rev. J. W. Hamilton, pastor of the church, addressed the class in a very happy andinteresting manner. A class poem was read by Miss Nell Robinson, of Lowell, Mass., which finds its place in this Pansy column this month. After some business the meeting was closed by singing a Chautauqua song. Nearly one hundred and fifty were present at this meeting. During the session the secretary called attention to the samples of class paper which had been sent on from Atlanta by direction of the committee appointed at Chautauqua last summer. The samples met the approval of those present.
“Let us be seen by our deeds.”
President—The Rev. A. E. Dunning.Vice Presidents—Prof. W. N. Ellis, Brooklyn, N. Y.; the Rev. Wm. G. Roberts, Bellevue, Ohio.Secretary—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.Treasurer—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.
President—The Rev. A. E. Dunning.
Vice Presidents—Prof. W. N. Ellis, Brooklyn, N. Y.; the Rev. Wm. G. Roberts, Bellevue, Ohio.
Secretary—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.
Treasurer—Miss M. E. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.
All items for this column should be sent to the Rev. C. C. McLean, Jacksonville, Florida.
The Class of ’88 will undoubtedly increase its numerical strength at the Florida Chautauqua, to be held at Lake De Funiak, February 10th to March 9th, 1885.
Miss Ella Pearsall, the secretary, writes that in October a C. L. S. C. was organized in Matteawau, New York, taking as its motto, “Labor and Progress.”
One from New Haven, Conn., writes objecting to our name, “Plymouth Rock.”
Mrs. C. H. Pike, of New Haven, Conn., informs us that at one of their meetings, they made successful experiments in chemistry, before a delighted audience. Speaks well for our ’88s.
The Rev. H. L. Brickett, of Linnfield Center, Mass., class ’88, was appointed as a committee of one to confer with the granite companies of New England in regard to a base of granite for the proposed new Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua, and has been successful in having donated one from the best granite, to be highly polished, bearing our name, monogram, motto, and year of our class. It is valued at $100. We extend to him, in the name of the “Plymouth Rocks,” the ’88s, more than thanks.
The Rev. Dr. Dunning, of Boston, has consented to deliver the address at our first annual “spread” in August next.
Stationery and badges for ’88 may be secured of Henry Hart, Atlanta, Ga.
Good for ’88. In the eight or ten circles found in St. Paul, Minn., about four fifths of the members are of the class of ’88.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” “CHEMISTRY,” AND “HOW TO HELP THE POOR.”
BY A. M. MARTIN,General Secretary C. L. S. C.
1. Q. Who is foremost among Greek philosophers? A. Socrates.
2. Q. Who is foremost of Greek philosophical writers? A. Plato.
3. Q. What four works have been the fruit, direct or indirect, of Plato’s “Republic?” A. Cicero’s “De Republica,” St. Augustine’s “City of God,” Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia,” and Bacon’s “New Atlantis.”
4. Q. In any just representation of Plato, who could not but be a very conspicuous figure? A. Socrates.
5. Q. In the first extract given from Plato’s “Republic,” what does the speaker, Glaucon, undertake to set forth for Socrates to overthrow? A. A notion which he avers to be current and accepted among men, that injustice is better policy than justice.
6. Q. From the discussion of the nature of justice and injustice, to what does Plato make a very unexpected passage? A. To that form of discussion which has given its name to the “Republic”—the ideal state.
7. Q. Who has recently made a scholarly and adequate translation of Plato’s entire works into English? A. Mr. Jowett.
8. Q. How is the so-styled “Platonic love” defined in the “Republic?” A. “A friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and this only for a virtuous end, and he must first have the other’s consent.”
9. Q. What was the “Socratic dæmon” to which Plato alludes in his “Republic?” A. A benign and beneficent influence—a kind of divinity within him that governed the conduct of Socrates.
10. Q. How is the Timæus of Plato described? A. As of all the writings of Plato the most obscure and most repulsive to modern readers, while the most influential of all over the ancient and mediæval world.
11. Q. What are some of the other best known works of Plato? A. “The Laws,” the “Symposium,” the “Phædrus,” the “Gorgias,” and the “Parmenides.”
12. Q. What is the name of the dialogue in which Plato tells of the end of Socrates? A. The “Phædo.”
13. Q. What was the sentence of antiquity in regard to Plato? A. That Zeus, if he had spoken Greek, would have spoken it like Plato.
14. Q. Who was a distinguished pupil of Plato? A. Aristotle, and in influence on human thought he equaled and rivaled his master.
15. Q. How does our author state the difference between ancient tragedy and modern, in a single antithetical sentence? A. Modern tragedy presents real life idealized; ancient tragedy presents an ideal life realized.
16. Q. What did Greek tragedy have for its chief purpose? A. To teach.
17. Q. How were Greek tragedies represented? A. By daylight, in the open air, before assemblages that numbered their tens of thousands of spectators.
18. Q. What is said of the dress of the actors? A. The actors wore masks on their faces and buskins on their feet. Beside this they wore a kind of wig designed to make them look taller, and dressed with padding to make them look larger.
19. Q. Who were the three masters of Greek tragedy? A. Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
20. Q. When and where was Æschylus born? A. In 525 B. C., in an Attic village near Athens.
21. Q. In the present volume, from what tragedy of Æschylus are selections presented? A. “Prometheus Bound.”
22. Q. Who was Prometheus? A. A mythical being of superhuman rank, who stole fire from heaven and brought it to men. For this offense against Zeus he was condemned to be chained alive to a rocky cliff in the Caucasus.
23. Q. What other great tragic poet was contemporary with Æschylus? A. Sophocles.
24. Q. From what masterpiece of Sophocles are the selections of the present volume made? A. “Œdipus Tyrannus, or Œdipus the King.”
25. Q. How is this tragedy considered by, perhaps, the majority of qualified critics? A. To be not only the best work of Sophocles, but the “bright, consummate flower” of all Greek tragedy.
26. Q. Of what does chemistry treat? A. All kinds of material substances.
27. Q. What is said of the number of the various kinds of matter already existing on our earth? A. The number is so great that the various kinds have never been so much as counted, much less described, in any list or volume.
28. Q. Of what are all things known to chemists made up? A. A few simple substances, either existing alone or in richly various combinations.
29. Q. What are called chemical elements, and what compounds? A. The simplest substances when alone are called the chemical elements, or elementary substances; the things resulting when different elements are united are called compounds.
30. Q. What does the two-fold character of chemical study involve? A. First, the examination of elementary substances and their compounds. Second, a consideration of the many general and special laws and forces which determine the various possible combinations.
31. Q. How many elementary substances are there now generally recognized as such? A. Sixty-six.
32. Q. About how many of the elements possess names that are familiar to ordinary readers? A. About one sixth of them.
33. Q. Of what two elementary substances is it probable that three fourths of our globe is composed? A. Of oxygen one half, and of silicon one fourth.
34. Q. What general name is given to most of the elements? A. Metals.
35. Q. What symbol and what weight has each element? A. An atomic symbol and an atomic weight.
36. Q. How is an atom of each elementary substance designated? A. By a symbol, usually the initial letter of the native or Latin name of the substance.
37. Q. What are three properties an elementary substance accepted as a metal should possess? A. It must possess the property of existing in a solid condition; it should possess the metallic luster; and it should possess the power and tendency to readily form a chemical union with oxygen.
38. Q. What are called binary and what ternary compounds? A. Compounds having only two kinds of elements are called binaries. Compounds having three kinds of elements are called ternaries.
39. Q. What four binary compounds are given as examples? A. Hydric chloride, sulphur di-oxide, sulphur tri-oxide, and plumbic oxide.
40. Q. Under what two heads are the principal ternaries grouped? A. Acids and salts.
41. Q. What are the two principal ternary acids used by chemists? A. Nitric acid and sulphuric acid.
42. Q. What is meant by the term atom? A. It is that portion of any kind of matter that is to human beings indivisible in fact.
43. Q. With what invisible, occult power is each atom and each molecule endowed? A. A power called chemical affinity.
44. Q. What are three of the peculiarities of chemical affinity? A. Each kind of atom has its peculiar chemical affinities. Each atom has a certain equivalence or atom-fixing power. Chemical changes produce striking results.
45. Q. What is the most common way of producing hydrogen? A. By bringing together sulphuric acid and zinc.
46. Q. What are some of the properties of hydrogen as a gas? A. It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and, bulk for bulk, it is the lightest substance known in nature.
47. Q. What is the most interesting chemical property of hydrogen? A. Its power to unite with oxygen.
48. Q. What is said of the uses to which hydrogen may be put? A. As an elementary gas it finds but few applications in the arts.
49. Q. For what standards is hydrogen used by chemists? A. As the standard of equivalence or atom-fixing power; the standard of atomic weight, and the standard of density for gases.
50. Q. What did the remarkable lightness of hydrogen early suggest? A. The fitness of that gas for the inflation of balloons.
51. Q. What is the aim of the book, “How to Help the Poor?” A. To give a few suggestions to visitors among the poor, and to lead all such visitors to attend the conferences which are now held weekly in almost every district of our large cities.
52. Q. What is one of the most direct commands in the Christian Scripture? A. “Give to him that asketh.”
53. Q. Why need there be no beggars in our American cities? A. Labor is wanted everywhere, especially educated labor; nowhere is the supply of the latter equal to the demand.
54. Q. What do the people crying continually “give to us” really need? A. A chance to learn how to work, and sufficient protection in the meantime from the evils of idleness, drunkenness and vice.
55. Q. What is “out-door relief?” A. It is the giving of money (or its equivalent) which is raised by taxing the people, if the applicants come under certain rules and laws.
56. Q. To what conclusion does Mr. Seth Low, of Brooklyn, N. Y., come in regard to “out-door relief?” A. That out-door relief, in the United States as elsewhere, tends inevitably and surely to increase pauperism.
57. Q. Of what three parts is the conference of a district composed? A. First, the district committee; second, the representatives of societies and officers; third, the visitors.
58. Q. How does one writer state that the disciplining of our immense poor population must be effected? A. By individual influence; and this power can change it from a mob of paupers and semi-paupers into a body of self-dependent workers.
59. Q. What does not, and what does visiting the poor mean? A. Visiting the poor does not mean entering the room of a person hitherto unknown to make a call. It means that we are invited to visit a miserable abode for the purpose, first, of discovering the cause of that misery.
60. Q. What does Dr. Tuckerman say of every child who is a beggar? A. Every child who is a beggar, almost without exception, will become a vagrant and probably a thief.
61. Q. What is the only just reason for taking children from their natural homes? A. To lift them out of moral poverty. Material poverty, alone, is not sufficient cause.
62. Q. What do the statistics of the Labor Bureau show in regard to homeless young women in Boston? A. That there are twenty thousand homeless young women in Boston whose wages average only four dollars per week.
63. Q. What is the first suggestion made for the better care of the aged? A. By patient study of each individual, and by ingenious experiment of one plan after another, some fit occupationcan often be found which shall bring both happiness and profit.
64. Q. When does not private charity do its full part? A. While any other than almshouse cases are allowed to fall into the care of the city authorities.
65. Q. What does experience, as the opportunities for observation widen, induce the writer to believe? A. That every human being can do something if he has a chance, and is intended to fill some gap in the universal plan.
66. Q. What does Edward Denison say of the crime of begging? A. It does not consist in the mere solicitation of alms. The gist of the offense is the intention of preying upon society; and of this intent the asking alms is only evidence—not proof.
67. Q. What is the root of a very large proportion of the suffering of the poor in the cities of America? A. Drunkenness.
68. Q. What is one of the first duties of a visitor in entering a tenement house? A. To use his senses.
69. Q. What knowledge means physical salvation, and thus a better prospect for understanding the spiritual? A. How to make even the smallest home clean and attractive, and to get the largest return from every dollar earned.
70. Q. What is one of the earliest and most important topics which should engage the attention of the visitor? A. That of helping people to save.
71. Q. What drives people into solitude? A. Trouble of any kind, and especially any misfortune which has a tendency to lower a person in the social scale.
72. Q. What is said of many of the poor who most deeply need visitors? A. They are lonely persons, and the fact of finding a friend at last is encouragement to them and the beginning of better times.
73. Q. What is almost the only true help of the worldly sort which it is possible to give the poor? A. To teach them how to use even the small share of goods and talents intrusted to them.
74. Q. What truth has been made clear in regard to the expenditure of money and goods alone? A. That it does not alleviate poverty.
75. Q. What has experience taught differently from the assertions that certain evils can not be helped, and that we may as well let things alone? A. That evils can be helped, and to let things alone is to lend ourselves to wrong.
BY PROF. R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
Can a language be taught by correspondence? Unhesitatingly, yes! Experience, though brief, gives warrant for the answer. The constantly increasing number of advertisements appearing in journals of wide circulation gives evidence that teachers at least believe instruction by this method both possible and profitable. It is in this belief that the only danger to the system lies. Incompetency in this field must fail. It can be hidden by no outward show. No would-be teacher, with text-book and printed question in hand, can parade before a class andhear a recitation. Only a teacher, a real teacher, can hope for success in this work, and that must come by methods entirely foreign to the ordinary methods of the class-room. Born a teacher, not made; such must be he who would successfully use the correspondence system in his work of teaching. Such teachers are rare, even in comparison with the multitudes of those who already fill the places in our hundreds of thousands of schools, and still more rare in the ranks of the throng which, filling the avenues leading to them, is expectantly awaiting the constantly occurring vacancies. For this reason we have said that the growing demand for correspondence schools constitutes their principal danger; for persons aware of this demand and allured by the hope of swelling moderate incomes, though they have no peculiar appreciation of the particular requirements demanded to fit one for the work, will yet enter the lists as competitors in this field. The inevitable results must be failure by the teacher, discouragement to honest and earnest students who can find no other means for acquiring education, distrust of the practicability of the system, and discredit for correspondence teachers as a class. To avoid this, to provide only competent instructors, and to arrange and systematize as broad and comprehensive a course of study as is furnished by an institution is one of the purposes of the Chautauqua University. In such a course languages, ancient and modern, must be taught, and must be taught by correspondence, or not at all. But while it will be conceded that instruction by correspondence is possible, in ordinary branches, yet the honest inquirer will ask in view of the peculiarities surrounding the subject of foreign languages, the question which begins this paper: Can a language be taught by correspondence? Again we answer, unhesitatingly, yes! and in no dubious way, but with a measure of success fully equal to that possible by oral instruction. The question of the time necessary to complete any given topic is not germane to this discussion. Yet in passing, it may be said, that of two persons who should be able to devote their whole time to study, one using oral and the other correspondence methods, we see no reason why the first should have any advantage in point of time required for the completion of any prescribed course of study.
We present four reasons in support of the answer we have so positively given:
First—The class of students seeking this instruction is more teachable than can be easily found elsewhere.Its members rank in earnestness and intensity of application with the best of those pursuing post-graduate or special courses in resident and special institutions. They are men already in professional life, physicians, attorneys, pastors, journalists and teachers. They are men who, having long looked wistfully from a distance at our great educational institutions without being able to avail themselves of their advantages, suddenly find excellent educational advantages brought to their very doors and offered on terms which they can easily accept. They are young men and women who during their school days felt the necessity of making the best use of their time, and acquired habits of steady application, of critical study, and of economy in the use of spare moments; but whose school days were limited by unconquerable circumstances to the village academy or high school, or even to the less ambitious country district school. These classes are easier to teach than almost any other, since they are ready to do to the fullest extent the work which alone can make any teaching successful.
Second—More skill is required in the work of preparing and assigning lessons than is ordinarily shown.The art of assigning lessons should form a part in every scheme of pedagogical instruction. Unfortunately, the methods with which most who have memories of the class room are familiar are worthy subjects for criticism. The recitation hour passes rapidly in question and answer over the technicalities of thetext. The closing moments are sufficient to direct a continuation of the advance reading, a review of previous lessons, and the assignment of certain portions from the grammar. There is no definite direction as to special points to be examined; no provision for particular work in etymology, or analysis, or comparison; no synthetic outline for the next day’s thought; no aids to help the student to test his own work or to detect his own errors before the next recitation assembly. Such methods or lack of methods in the correspondence school would surely cause its failure. How to assign lessons becomes here the crucial test of the teacher’s power. He must so lay out the work to be done that the pupil whom he has never seen will be stimulated to effort and not grow discouraged; will be led from the world of the known at his feet, into the world of the unknown in which the teacher lives; will be allowed to make no misuse of time in unprofitable study; will be wisely directed in the acquirement of lexical and grammatical knowledge, and will be enabled to test his own work with ever increasing accuracy. Such a teacher can not fail of success in his effort to teach a language by correspondence.
Third—More care is required in the matter of interrogation.Thorough mastery of the art of interrogation is an essential; almost priceless in any teaching—here it is asine qua non. The presence of teacher and pupil in the class room makes questioning easy; the oral question is quickly given, quickly answered, and many questions may be used to elicit a single truth, or to impress a single lesson. But the correspondence teacher is not so favored. His questions must be so framed that one, or at the most two, shall suffice. Again, the oral teacher through lack of memory and long custom, may allow his questions to become a mere matter of routine, and daily tread the same monotonous round. We speak from memory when we assert of a college class, that it became so familiar with the questions asked during Greek hour in junior year, as to be able to answer the coming question almost before its utterance. This will not do for the correspondence teacher. His questions must be only such as his lesson directions have suggested; they must be committed to paper, in remorseless ink; they are to be subjected to scrutiny; they must not be obscure, or repetitious; and their range must be as wide as his students’ knowledge. Such questioning can not fail of success.
Fourth—More earnest and thorough study is required of the student.He has in a certain sense the work of two persons to perform, his own and his teacher’s; his own, in that he investigates and acquires as directed; his teacher’s, in that he must prove and test that which he has done and is doing, by efforts of memory, by work of comparison, and by strict grammatical rule. He must recite to himself, ask of himself the questions which he must answer, and correct himself before finally his finished work is returned to his teacher for revision.
We think we have made sufficiently plain the possibility of success in teaching a language by correspondence. The reasons seem to us conclusive. That which remains to be said is even more potent. After all thinking, reasoning and objecting is done, after all testimony for or against has been received the established fact remains, successful teaching of languages, ancient and modern, by correspondence alone, has been done within the years just past, is now being done, and will be yet more effectively and widely done with each advancing year.
In support of these statements, which we believe are true, we present a testimonial from an experienced teacher, who has been and is a member of the College of Modern Languages in the Chautauqua University. It is as follows:
“I have been a member of the German class in the Chautauqua Correspondence School of Languages for two years, and I consider this plan of study, including the six weeks’ instruction each year at Chautauqua, superior to any other. The method is not only more comprehensive, it also advances the pupil much more rapidly, makes him more thorough, broadens his culture, enables him to become familiar with history, with literature, with art, and better than all, teaches him how to acquire knowledge.”
We add two statements of fact which can be verified as proofs of popular opinion regarding correspondence schools:
First—That the Director of the Department of New Testament Greek in the Chautauqua School of Theology has students to the number of almost four hundred who rely for instruction entirely upon correspondence lessons.
Second—That the Dean of the Department of Hebrew in the same institution has under instruction by the same methods, in the different enterprises with which he is connected, about seven hundred students. Could there be anything more significant?
The importance of good breeding can not be too diligently insisted upon. But what is good breeding? This is hardly to be understood as synonymous with good manners, though certainly involving them. Nor is it quite the same thing as exemplary or agreeable behavior, though likely to insure it. The latter is entirely the product of constant practice. Good manners, polished behavior, are the fruit of long discipline—perfection herein being reached only when these manners become habitual, natural, instinctive.
True courtesy, meanwhile, involves something deeper than mere manners or motions. It has its seat in the heart—its root in the moral nature. Fundamentally it consists in an inward kindly, neighborly, tender feeling toward every one, an interest in, and a desire to promote everybody’s welfare. Genuine courtesy, in a word, is born of love, springs from a benevolent disposition, a brotherly, chivalric impulse.
But what is good breeding? It consists in this inward principle of good will, and the outwardhabitof graceful demeanor combined—it consists in the aforesaid inward gracious impulse, rooted in the heart, and finding natural outward expression, or interpretation, through that disciplined elegance of deportment of which I have spoken. To the inward impulse, or sentiment, duly awakened, the outward, educated habit naturally, instinctively responds; and we have the deportment, or carriage, of the truly polished or accomplished gentleman or lady.
These twin principles, the inward nurture and the outward culture or training, working together, underlie what in the highest sense is to be understood as good breeding.
The practical value of the accomplishment under consideration can not well be overestimated. How charming, truly, this gentlemanly, lady-like conduct—this kindly, graceful, genial way of carrying one’s self socially. True courtesy, verily, is as delightful as a song. More eloquent is it, we may say, than any oratory. It is a fine art. Better still, it is Christian.
Is it not at once a privilege and a duty to promote the pleasure of others? As has just been suggested, how may we more effectually minister to the pleasure of others than by a charming behavior?
By cultivated, agreeable manners, moreover, we immensely enhance our personal influence—our power for good. A person of agreeable manners, by uniformly pleasing, will, naturally,always be popular—have hosts of friends. While, whatever one’s worth or attainments, we yet shun his presence if he be disagreeable or offensive in manner or speech; on the other hand, we instinctively covet the society of one who, in any way, delights us.
The irresistible charm of polished manners, even when cultivated solely for commercial purposes, is well illustrated by a remark said to have been made by Mr. Beecher concerning the clerks in the shops of Paris. They were, he said, so polite and engaging in their attentions that his first impression always was that he must have met them somewhere before. And who has not, indeed, under the influence of the benign spirit, the genial and engaging manners, the kindly and obliging offices of the accomplished tradesman, often felt his prejudices give way, his original intentions to purchase nothing yield, and, instead, a purpose gradually spring up in his mind to do just the opposite of what he originally designed?
Nothing can be more evident, therefore, than that this matter of manners and breeding is a no unimportant part of one’s education, constituting, truly, a no insignificant part of every true man’s character. How greatly, then, does that youth stand in his own light, who, for any cause, neglects his manners. The thoroughly courteous youth, other things equal, will surely win his way to success. Personally agreeable in all his ways, he conciliates opposing prejudices, charms the indifferent, and makes every one he meets his friend. The boorish man, on the contrary, as inevitably blocks his way to fortune by awakening, on the part of those with whom he has to do, only sentiments of aversion and disgust.
Girls, for some reason, seem to take more naturally and kindly to graceful ways, to gentle courtesies, than boys. Young America, we think, is characteristically boorish, if not clownish. The boy of the period manifestly places no adequate value on good manners. Doubtless this matter of breeding—this careful cultivation of a genial and amiable deportment—is sadly neglected in our day. The youth of our day should be taught not only that rudeness and vulgarity never pay; but that while awkwardness is disagreeable and burdensome, the slightest approach to rowdyism is detestable and unpardonable.
Some one has very happily represented good manners as “minor morals.” And certain it is that vulgarity and vice are intimately related; that the low, vulgar fellow will ever be found but a few removes from a positively vicious one.
Love, refinement, social cultivation are all closely allied with righteousness; these, always and everywhere, constitute the true gentleman and lady.
It was a noteworthy fact that two of the three great religious bodies of this country were holding councils in the same city in the last days of 1884. The city of Baltimore enjoys the distinction of being both a Catholic and a Methodist city. The former is the older claimant, since it was founded by English Catholics; but Methodism, also founded by Englishmen, has a Baltimore history which occasioned the centennial conference of last month. It was in Baltimore, Christmas 1784, that a few circuit riders organized the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is doubtless through the effectiveness of that organization that Methodism holds its position as the religious union of the largestpopulationembraced in any one organization in this country. The Catholics are ordinarily reckoned the most numerous, because they count population and Methodists count only members; but taking the former basis as a common measure, the various branches of Methodism are doubtless the most numerous; and it is probable that by the same tests the Baptists outnumber the Catholics. If the Presbyterian bodies could be counted together, and the Lutherans and Congregationalists included, we should have a third great body of Protestants which may possibly outnumber the Catholics. Two other communions, the Protestant Episcopal and the Unitarian, would be in the first rank of religious influence if we attempted to measure and compare by this test. Taking account of members only, the most difficult problem of religious statistics is to determine whether any religious organization is relatively increasing. The unattached population, and the independent Protestant organizations, have been growing in numbers for a score of years; and the Protestant communions can not count by population without including the same persons in more than one church. It is not surprising that the Catholics most easily make an imposing array in the statistical tables. The precise count is not important in this place. The Catholics and Methodists are large bodies of American Christians, and they have some common features as well as some striking contrasts.
Both communions owe their success (if we take worldly measurement) to their vigorous management and subordination of their clergy for the good of the common cause. A Methodist itinerant and a Catholic priest resemble each other very little, but they are alike in being men who are “sent,” and who “obey orders.” Their personal choices and well-being are subordinated to a service and devotion. They alike resign at the doors of the temple their rights to serve and please themselves. It may be said that all Christians should do this; but this self-surrender is to the priest and the itinerantsobjectiveas well assubjective. It means that they go where they are sent by a human authority which they identify with the divine will. They are sacrificed to the general good; they suffer that others may rejoice—always under an external and visible authority. Another point of resemblance is thepracticalliberty of laymen in both churches. Theoretically the Catholic and the Methodist laymen are both bound to considerable service and duties. Methodism began in a rigor of religious duties which makes one wonder how John Wesley missed founding a new Catholic order of world-renouncing priests and lay brothers. Catholicism is theoretically even more rigorous. In the progress of this century, both laities have achieved more liberty than is good for them; the priest and the itinerant serve and sacrifice for all. A bright-eyed Methodist editor called attention some years ago to the fact that his church tolerates no heresy in ministers and pays little attention to the doctrinal vagaries of its laymen. It is doubtless true of both Catholics and Methodists; though neither church is prepared to make any admission of the sort or ever will be. The theory in each case calls for sound believing; and it is probably a just judgment which says that liberty is the atmosphere required for the growth of sound faith.
Another point of resemblance between Catholic and Methodist is that both communions have had a great mission to preach to the poor; and that they have preached to such effect that large numbers of their poor have become rich, not so obviously in faith as in worldly goods. We mean not to sneer, but to put our finger on theobjectivereality which lies before us. He is a careless man who fails to see that Methodism and Catholicism have produced industry, thrift, temperance and wealth in classes of people who were miserably poor at the outset. The fact has long been understood of Methodists; a special fact has obscured this large one among Catholics. There has been a steady inflow of poverty from the Old World and the Catholics have received into their communion a very large portion of this poverty. Their needy have been most abundantly recruited and continue to be. But at the same time their poor have grown wealthy all over the land. The Puritan farmer is disappearing in New England and the Irish Catholic is taking his place. Wealthy Catholics abound in all the large cities.
There are many points of contrast between the two communions. We suggest a single one, still looking at externals and not at creeds. While Methodism has for a quarter of a century been one of the most influential factors in politics—notat all as a machine, but altogether as an influence—Catholicism has during the same period almost lapsed out of sight as a political element. This resulted from the foreign character and training of the majority of the priests and people, and from wise avoidance of occasions of odium by the Catholic prelates. We suggest this contrast without drawing any inferences from it. For the near future, it is safe to predict a change on the Catholic side. Their Baltimore council will, by force of associations which are full of significance, tend to produce change. In Baltimore the Catholic may properly remember his claims to be and live an American of the Americans. That church has had a vast body of foreigners to naturalize; it has done the work under an array of obstacles which seemed too formidable to be overcome. It is a near day when the Americanism of the Catholics of this country will come to the proof of its quality and value. At Baltimore the thoughtful priest must have been moved to remember what claims he has on the country and what claims the country has on him. We shall as a people suffer some bitter trials and humiliations if the Catholics are not to be genuine Americans and ardent patriots. They are too many to be neutral or hostile.
The labor problem has not yet received a solution. Its central difficulty is to secure to workmen a fair share of the blessings of life. No one supposes that, taking the world together, they do now receive a fair share. In this country, workmen have fared uncommonly well; but there is a belief, resting on some facts, that the actual rewards of labor, as measured in the blessings of life, are rapidly declining, and must go on declining under the existing industrial system. Some theories on the subject are no longer tenable. The workman’s theory that capital robs him is not sound. Money, once worth ten per cent., has fallen to three per cent. for perfectly safe loans; when higher interest is paid, it is paid for conducting the business of lending (as in banks) or for risks of the loans. The government can borrow a thousand and more millions at two and one-half to three per cent.—and this shows what a hard time of it capital is having. The risks of manufacturing probably bleed labor; but the bleeding is not in the form of which the workman thinks. It is not profit but loss which drives the lancet in to the hilt. Political economists have shown (and they are entirely unanimous) that the high profits produce a competition which brings down profits. Capital is cheap; large profits can be made only in conditions which are monopolistic.
Our system of industrial exchange has one very weak place, calledcredit. This credit is a hole in the net through which industrial gains are dropped into the bottomless sea; and the system is so fixed upon us that there is no hope of reform in our day. To pay when we buy more and more offends something in our make-up. A wise man proposed that one, two and five dollar bills be abolished, in order that we might circulate, as the French do, a large amount of silver. A member of Congress immediately amended the suggestion thus: “No. Put this silver in the United States Treasury, and let us use ‘silver notes.’” We insist upon having even a credit money, and object to “the trouble” of handling coin. This refined and transcendental sentiment, or taste, or æstheticism about coin runs through us. The man who always pays, as well as the sneak who never pays if he can avoid it, says, “Charge it,” when he buys goods. Goods are sold by the manufacturer to the jobber on credit; the jobber sells to the wholesale houses on credit; the wholesale dealers sell to retailers on credit; the retailers sell to consumers on credit. It is within the mark to say, that more is lost in these four credit traps than capital gets—much more. It is not, in fact, the capitalist, but the well-dressed and the shabbily-dressed thieves who cheat and rob labor.
At first sight, the reader will wonder how the losses of the four credits come home to labor. We reply: they are merely the aggregate of the risks incurred in making staple goods—all other risks being insignificant in such manufacturing. The order of things is like this: what the jobber loses the manufacturer loses by the failure of the jobber. The jobber loses what the dealers between him and the consumers lose. Not quite all, perhaps, for the capitals of the dealers must be of some worth; but the consumer has, in the end, to pay all these losses, and the result is an enhanced price. In other words, a bale of goods starts out with a burden of risk which grows as it travels, and adds to the cost of goods so much that the consumer can not buy as much as he needs. The from 250 to 300 or more failures each week tell a part of the workman’s trouble; another vast body of his losses does not go to record at all. It is the fifty-cents-on-a-dollar compromise system between wholesalers and retailers.
Workmen ought to get what consumers pay, less three per cent. on capital and about as much more for risk of ordinary kinds and a fair cost of handling goods. We maintain a system of extraordinary risks, called a credit system, which consumes two or three times as much as capital. It is plain that workmen can not get (we write of such staples as cotton cloth) pay for lost goods. Wherever they are lost, the sums lost can not reach labor. We do not enter into the details of this argument; we have suggested reasons for believing that a cash system would stop one of the great leaks of the industrial system.
There are other great wastes in the existing forms of industrial management which, like the credit system, come out of the bones and blood of the workman. We pass them by to suggest that the industrial system has gone wrong, and can never go right, under the empire of steam. Steam is a centralizer. It concentrates industry, and by packing laborers into a small compassenhances the cost of livingand enlarges the area of losses on sales and of distress in hard times. And to go at once to our solution of the labor problem, we will describe it as decentralization. A writer inMacMillan’s Magazinesuggests that electric motors may prove to be the decentralizing force. Of course, it is not in the power of any material agent to effect great changes except as it coöperates with our inclinations. The expensiveness of steam machinery coöperated with our inclination to congregate in cities. We have congregated there. The larger half of our growth is in towns. The result is dear food, dear rent, pestilential diseases, moral degradation. When we grow sick of the experiment of building a modern Babel, our inclinations may coöperate with a motor energy which is plebeian and democratic. Let us suppose, then, that a workman can make any of the innumerable small articles which have iron or steel for a material. This workman has his bits of machinery and tools in his house. They do not cost more than a carpenter’s chest of tools. He has the skill; he has the tools; he wants power. But a neighbor tells him that he can buy in quart or gallon cans stored-up electricity, and by a little contrivance, which may cost fifty cents, he can attach his machinery to this democratic motor and be an independent workman, with all the advantages of machinery. He can make all these iron and steel contrivances in the middle of a prairie and sell them to his neighbors for cheap food and cheap rent. Thedivisibilityof electric power may make it the poor man’s friend. You can not buy five cents’ worth of steam; there is now no reason to doubt that electric power may be sold in five-cent packages if there is a demand for it in such form. There is a vast aggregate of small manufacturing. Of course there are great industries to which our solution would not apply; but if half the laborers of the country could work profitably, each man by himself, in his own house—just as cobblers work—then the strain on the large industries, such as iron and steel making, would be so far reduced that workmen in those branches would probably command, permanently, excellent wages.
This article aims to do nothing more than to open a window of hope. We shall need to change a great deal; but the poor man’s motor will probably help us to change. A good many monopolies have grown up because steam favored their growth; others are the fruits of general ignorance. Under the sway of ignorance, the trade-mark becomes a tyrant, a grasping monopolist. For example, there are no patents on sewing machines, but machines of certain firms, wearing a certain trade-mark, command a monopoly price. Any good mechanic can build a good sewing machine for ten dollars. There might be men in every town engaged in supplying the local wants in the matter of sewing machines. No large factories, no heavy transportation bills, no eloquent traveling agents would be needed. There are thousands of things to which the same rule will apply when there is a poor man’s motor and such a diffusion of intelligence that the poor man can make, and people will buy, the home-made articles. The empire of the trade-mark will disappear when the motor and the intelligence come along, and both seem to be coming. It will not be necessary—if the motor arrives—to herd people together like cattle, or to transport goods long distances. The workmen will carry their kits of tools to the villages and live independently and cheaply in the midst of their customers. Is this a dream? But why should it not come true?
The French government is considering a proposition to restore the custom of deporting criminals. It is remarkable that the practical argument on this subject is decidedly favorable to this system. The argument against it is a sentimental one. The unsettled question about punishments for other than capital offenses is, how to secure the reform of criminals. Under the best managed prisons, reform of a lasting kind is rare. The best management seems to succeed until the prisoner is set at liberty. Then the reformed man finds himself an object of suspicion to orderly people and of special interest and sympathy to the criminal classes. The former will not employ him and the latter will. The result is, in most cases, that he relapses into crime. Perhaps there is some hope that the better classes may improve in their habits; but unless they do, it is well nigh useless to reform criminals in prison. The poor men who come out into an unsympathetic world which does not believe in their reformation, and in which unreformed ex-convicts are numerous enough to keep the general distrust of their class alive, have nothing like a fair chance to begin the world over again. If there were any hope that prisons could be perfected so as to reform all convicts, public prejudice could be broken down; but it is too much to expect that the general public will acquire a habit of distinguishing between good and bad ex-convicts. This is the difficulty for which no device has yet been found which will take it out of the path of humanitarian prison discipline. No faith is more stable than that which, among the public at large, affirms the total depravity ofsomemen; especially of ex-convicts.
Turning to penal colonies, experience is most favorable to the belief that it opens the road to reform. The reports on the British penal colonies are especially cheerful from this point of view. The majority of the criminals sent abroad during three centuries reformed their lives. Australia ought to be the most disorderly country on the globe, if deporting criminals to a colony could produce a bad society. But notwithstanding the fact that England sent a large criminal population to that colony, Australia is one of the most orderly and respectable of the English dependencies. The only possible explanation is that the official reports are true, and that the convicts did actually reform. If Botany Bay did not reform them, the honest opportunities of that vast island did coöperate with their good purpose and promote their reform. England deported criminals from 1597 to 1867—a period of 270 years. During the War of Independence she suspended deportation and enrolled her convicts in the armies sent to subjugate us. In 1838 more than 100,000 criminals had been sent to Australia. An official report sets forth that in 1850 an enumeration of ex-convicts in Australia accounted for 48,600, and that all of them except an insignificant fraction were living honestly. But it will be said that Australia protested against the continuance of the system. This is not the exact fact. In dealing with the question, the English government threw upon the Australians all the expense of the surveillance of the deported criminals. The colonial government demanded, most righteously that England should pay this bill of expense; but rather than pay it the English Parliament chose to abolish the system of deportation. The colonists did make sentimental objections to receiving convicts, but they did so on the ground that the cost of watching the criminals of England was unjustly thrown upon them. A French writer remarks that in this case, as in the quarrel with us, the money question was allowed to prevail over statesmanship. The British ex-convict is worse off than our own because there are fewer opportunities for men under the reproach of prison service.
The French proposition to resort again to penal colonies, or rather to dumping ship-loads of criminals on new and undeveloped countries, suggests the seriousness of the question. Every French colony will object to receiving the vicious cargoes of humanity; but the objections will lose their violence if the home government shall send a proper proportion of French gold with each cargo. The testimony on the subject seems to show that if the transported men are such as to give signs of real reform, ninety-five per cent. of them will make good citizens. The open country, the new moral scenery, the necessities of that new world, conspire with good resolutions to maintain reformed habits. What shallwedo with our reformed prisoners? It is not improbable that in a few years England will imitate France and restore the system of deportation. Why should not we make an experiment? Alaska, at least, might safely be used for the purpose. It would not be difficult to devise a system under which the best class of reformed men should be offered land and a small outfit in some remote corner of our country. By selecting the best, and making their removal voluntary, we might save to society the larger part of the men whom our prisons reform. We do not wish to disguise the fact that, however remote the place, the men who have lived by crime and escaped punishment would endanger the virtue of the ex-convict. But the criminal classes do not flow to the farthest frontiers except in scanty streams; and the Alaskan territory is as yet as safe as a wilderness can be. Some scheme of the sort is worth the devising. We are making little headway under our present best systems, simply because the ex-convict has no chance. Can he be given a fair chance?
The Civil Service Reform League—and every reform is dependent upon an organization—has addressed a letter to President-elect Cleveland, asking him what he proposes to do about removals from office. Mr. Cleveland answers, with full information, that he believes in the doctrine of civil service reform. We think that the practical application of the letter to the civil service will make a real and safe basis for judgment. Till we see this, we deem it wise not to express an opinion.
The old “Liberty bell,” which was on exhibition during the Centennial at Philadelphia, has been taken to the New Orleans Exposition in charge of a committee. The council of Philadelphia passed a resolution authorizing its removal from Independence Hall for that purpose.
Our national Congress is the subject of a shameful scandal, and the worst feature of it is, our Senators and Representatives know it, but fail to correct it themselves. It is this: By figures prepared by the Public Printer, it appears that during the last four congresses nearly six hundred speeches have been published in the “Congressional Record” as a part of the debates and proceedings of Congress, but not one of them was ever delivered in the House of Representatives. Here is a number of printed but undelivered speeches of Senators. This is an unnecessary expense entailed on the government. It is a falsehood and makes the “Record” a lie, for you can not tell by reading it what has been said or done in Congress. Senator Vest has introduced a resolution into the Senate to abolish the practice, but it is still an open question whether a body of men who do such things will have the moral courage to vote their undelivered speeches out of the “Record.”
Our readers will find the article by General John A. Logan, elsewhere in this impression, full of interesting and very remarkable statements concerning rudimentary education in the different states. We think his points concerning the common schools in the Southern states will be a surprise to many people. Another article on the subject from the General’s pen will appear inThe Chautauquanfor March.
A number ofBradstreet’s, issued in the latter part of December, shows that at that time the whole number of men out of employment in the United States, because the establishments had shut down, and by reason of strikes, etc., was 316,000, or thirteen per cent. of the whole number employed in 1880, which was 2,452,749.
Concerning General B. F. Butler, it is announced that he has signed an agreement with a publishing house to write his political reminiscences, in two volumes, for which he is to receive $50,000 in cash and a royalty beside. The advent of Messrs. Blaine and Butler into the literary world is suggestive. It is altogether probable that both of these men regard literary fame, when compared to political favor, as a more substantial and enduring quantity, and believe that their names will live longer in literature than in politics. Of course, there may be other motives prompting them, but to some menfamehath its peculiar charms.
It was a surprise and sorrow to Christian people to learn that the management at New Orleans had decided to keep the Exposition open on the Sabbath. The very liberal—perhaps we ought to say lax—ideas about the observance of the Sabbath which prevail throughout the country deserve serious thought. Certainly to extend opportunities for making sight seeing and pleasure seeking part of the day’s work should be emphatically discouraged.
One of Chautauqua’s staunchest friends and most devoted workers, the Rev. S. McGerald, has entered a new field of work. In a recent issue of the BuffaloChristian Advocatewe find his name announced as the future editor of that paper. Mr. McGerald’s new and important position is sure to be well filled. He has the hearty good wishes of all Chautauquans in his new enterprise.
The Indians of Arizona made an exhibit at the recent fair of that territory, which ought to open the public mind to the degree of civilization which some Indians have attained, and suggest, as well, the possibility of such civilization for all Indians. The first premium for the best modern plow displayed was awarded them, and to show their taste for the antique as well as the modern, it may be mentioned that a wooden plow was displayed which was an exact counterpart of those used 2,000 years ago in the valley of the Nile.
There is no doubt of it—the cause of much human failure and misery is insomnia. Mr. Gladstone has found the only panacea in Christendom which prevents and cures this dread disease, and he gave the secret to the world recently, when he said: “I never allow business of any kind to enter my chamber door. In all my political life I have never been kept awake five minutes by any debate in Parliament.”
Now that Mark Twain is attempting to become his own publisher, it may be of interest to read the record of his occupations. He has been in turn, practical printer, steamboat pilot, private secretary, miner, reporter, lecturer and book-maker. Should he succeed in his publishing scheme, he may start a fashion among successful writers which will be hard on publishing houses.
A winter resort where the thermometer falls frequently to 40° below zero, is fully launched at Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. The hotels are reported full, and prices of lots have gone up with the usual nimbleness which characterizes embryo resorts. If peculiar, this new fashion may serve as a blessing to the idle and half sick people who are apt to patronize fashionable resorts by bringing into use many vigorous and healthful winter sports.
The wonderful Fish River caves, discovered last year in New South Wales, have been given a new name by the government of that country, and will henceforth be known as the Jenolan caves. Astonishing discoveries are reported to have been made there recently. Our own Kentucky wonder begins to dwindle before the reports of these new subterranean palaces and gardens.
A reading people we know ourselves to be, but it is rather astonishing to discover that we publish twelve times as many daily papers as the United Kingdom.The Athenæumcalls attention to the fact that while the United States has one daily paper to every 10,000 inhabitants, the English have one to every 120,000. It would be gratifying if we could feel sure that the quality stood in the same ratio.
The work of the Chautauqua University is attracting attention far and wide. In a recent issue of theIrish Christian Advocate, published in Belfast, we notice in answer to a correspondent’s query, as to “What is the Chautauqua University?” a long and enthusiastic article upon the plan. The adaptation of the “Chautauqua Idea” to all people and all countries is very wonderful.
A lady is said to have recently offered $50,000 to the Boston school authorities, to be devoted to the filling of the teeth of children whose parents were too poor to employ dentists. Should she devote her money to the purchase of tooth brushes and toothpicks, and employ a police of teeth, who would compel their daily use by children from babyhood up, she would confer an inestimable benefit upon future generations.
Frances Power Cobbe, well known to the readers ofThe Chautauquan, concludes her powerful article on “A Faithless World,” in the December issue ofThe Contemporary Review, with these strong words: “We have been told that in the event of the fall of religion, ‘life would remain in most particulars and to most people much what it is at present;’ it appears to me, on the contrary, that there is actuallynothingin life which would be left unchanged after such a catastrophe.”
A wise thing is being done in London. A series of popular lectures upon the subject of precautions—national, local andpersonal—to be taken against cholera, has been begun. Now that the menace of this dread disease hangs over our own country, it would be a sensible plan for cities and villages to provide a similar course of instruction. It could be easily arranged, too.
We are happy to extend congratulations to a well known contributor toThe Chautauquan, Mr. C. E. Bishop. Mr. Bishop was married in Buffalo, December 31st, to Miss Emma Mulkins, of that city. As the former editor of the Jamestown (N. Y.)Journal, of the BuffaloExpress, and at present ofThe Countryside, of New York, as an editorial writer onThe Assembly Herald, as the author of “Pictures in English History,” and of frequent entertaining articles in our columns, Mr. Bishop is widely and favorably known.