“Press on, reaching after those things which are before.”
Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.
Letters are coming to the secretary from members in all parts of the United States—Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa being represented, and the indications are, the “Invincibles” will not be “lost in the woods” in August ’85. Those who attended the camp-fire last season at Chautauqua will appreciate the foregoing phrase.
One enthusiastic young lady writes: “I have read the course alone, could not form here even a ‘straight line’ or a ‘triangle;’” another, “I am alone in my studies, but hope to meet and greet my fellow-laborers ‘under the arches.’” Such courage is truly “Invincible” and should be rewarded by an extra seal.
Letters ending “Your Chautauqua friend,” “hoping to clasp hands with you at Chautauqua in August ’85,” etc., make one feel “Chautauqua” is the magic word that draws us together as links in the great C. L. S. C. chain, and that friendships formed through its medium may continue even after we have “finished our course.” “For so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
“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, Dunkirk, New York.
Class Headquarters was a new and most pleasant feature at Framingham last summer, and one which the limited hall accommodations rendered a necessity. The class tent was tastefully decorated, and over the entrance was displayed the device of the class—a hand passing a lighted torch to another hand—with the class motto, “We study for light to bless with light.” The committee having the matter in charge hope to provide suitable accommodations for the class at the Assembly next season.
A very pleasant reunion was held in Normal Hall, Thursday, July 24, at 10 a. m. The exercises consisted of an address by the president, the Rev. B. P. Snow, of Biddeford, Me., and stirring speeches by representatives from several states, with reading of original and selected articles. A most interesting item on the program was the reading of the well known poem, “No sect in Heaven,” by Mr. C. Cleveland, of Hartford, Conn., son of the authoress, who is also a member of the class. Miss Gelia H. Tewkesbury (Helen Hawthorne) was unanimously elected class poetess. Hon. Wm. Claflin, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, was made an honorary member of the class.
Six hundred and forty-eight names from one hundred and seventy-three towns are now enrolled, only a fraction of the whole number. Will all members of Class ’86 in New England, who have not yet registered, please send their names and address, stating whether they are studying alone or in a circle, and the name of the circle, to the New England Secretary at their earliest convenience?
The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:
President, the Rev. B. P. Snow, Biddeford, Me.; Vice Presidents, Miss Emily Jordan, Alfred, Me., Edwin F. Reeves, Laconia, N. H., the Rev. J. H. Babbitt, Swanton, Vt., Chas. Wainwright, Lawrence, Mass., H. Howard Pepper, Providence, R. I., the Rev. A. Gardner, Buckingham, Conn.; Secretary and Treasurer, Mary R. Hinckley, New Bedford, Mass.
A new badge bearing the emblem of the class is proposed. If it is adopted further particulars will be given hereafter.
Ida M. Grisell, of the class of ’86, died at her home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, June 30, 1884. She was an enthusiastic Chautauquan, having remarked shortly before her death that life seemed so much more worth living since she had taken the course.
From De Soto, Mo., comes news of most vigorous work in the C. L. S. C., a large circle of enterprising members and a program for the observance of the Bryant Day, that tells of a meeting of rare interest.
The Rev. N. B. Fisk, of Woburn, Mass., class of ’87, is the secretary and treasurer of the Board of Trustees who have in hand the erection of the “Hall on the Hill” for New England’s accommodation at Framingham.
In the November number ofThe Chautauquanthe New England branch of the Class of ’87 was given three presidents. The Rev. F. M. Gardner, of Lawrence, Mass., is the president; the other two names should have been grouped with the vice presidents.
Newspaper notices of C. L. S. C. work sometimes do more than we expect. Circles in the country and smaller towns read programs of meetings and other Chautauqua items with a good deal of interest, and often get encouragement from seeing what others are doing. The papers are glad to get the notices. We advise circles to use them freely, and to publish in their local papers notices of the memorial days, with a list of the reading for those days. Try it.
The “Pansy” bed at Chautauqua, projected as a testimonial improvement by the class of ’87, is in the hands of a committee who are to secure a good location and carry the matter to completion. It will be placed near the Amphitheater, a little toward Mrs. Alden’s cottage. Already a number of most exquisite designs have been furnished by widely separated members of the class. When agreed upon the description will be given in our column.
One New England minister, who is a member of ’87, writes: “I consider this Chautauqua business a part of my pastoral duties; it is so saturated with the spirit of Jesus, emanating from such a consecrated man as Dr. Vincent, and comprehending so much of the devotional, aggressive, and persuasive in religion. I have a Congregational church in a hotbed of infidelity and heresy, and can see very plainly that such books as ‘Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation’ and ‘Evidences,’ together with the devout spirit of the whole plan, are making an impression among the skeptical and shaking them somewhat in their infidel intrenchments.”
A Michigan mother nearly sixty years old writes a letter, touchingly grateful that the C. L. S. C. was ever organized. She has two sons who are members with her of the class of ’87, and who are herders of cattle in New Mexico. She says no one can appreciate her joy at the assurance that they are held by their reading to the improvement of their time, and thus escape the evils that work the ruin of many boys away from home. She with them forms a circle. Their meetings are only through correspondence. Neither has ever seen Chautauqua, or any other summer Assembly, but they bless the plan of improvement whose privileges they share.
Among pleasant C. L. S. C. experiences which are found among the members of ’87, as among those of the other classes, is the case of an engineer on the railway west from Chicago. The last argument he made to his wife why he could not join the class and do the reading was that he would unavoidably so soil his books that she could not tolerate them in their cosy cottage home. She said, “Try it, and I will clean every soiled page the year through and have them tastily on our little shelves.” He agreed to undertake it. She found no small task upon her hands, but she did it by pinching her allowance to the purchase of a duplicate for each successive book, to which joyous accomplishment on her part her husband points with pride in his growing library.
Quite a large proportion of the class are going on with the reading this second year. But the number can be increased by a little personal effort on the part of those who have the C. L. S. C. enthusiasm. See that your book stores keep the books ready for sale. See that each member has one of the C. L. S. C. circulars for 1884-5, so that they may not be in any doubt about what the reading for each month is. Help them about sending forThe Chautauquanby forming a club and sending together, thus saving expense. Some fail to send in their annual fees, but go on with the reading. Secretaries of circles should collect the annual fees of 50 cents, and send on by check or postoffice order to Plainfield. By attending to these matters some will be kept in the ranks who would otherwise fall behind. If any one can not do the prescribed reading just as directed inThe Chautauquan, week by week or day by day, let such try to keep a little in advance, rather than behind. The officers of circles ought to keep in advance especially, so as to be ready to arrange some parts of the program for the future meetings of their circles.
The most of the more than two hundred ’87s whose names were registered at Chautauqua, this year, promised to write Mrs. Alden, Carbondale, Pa.—“Pansy”—a letter of incident in the work, she most kindly indicating her willingness to write a book, dedicated to the class. It’s one thing to promise, another to perform, and while we could not think of a Chautauquan who would not do as they agree, the secretaries of ’87, with the president, are very anxious to know if Mrs. Alden has received nearly two hundred letters. Early in the new year the class officials will write to Carbondale to know if all the promises have been made good. Mrs. Alden’s book will be grand, every one of her more than fifty books are excellent. Let every one of us who promised do gladly all that we promised and more.
The ’87 badges were noticeably fine at Chautauqua last year, and every reader in that great class should have this badge. They should be worn uniformly at the circles and on all memorial days. Class love (call it pride if you will) is important indeed; it can scarcely be overestimated. You are and can be in but one class, and that is the class to you, and will be all through life. ’87 “Pansy” class is yours, and you love your classmates, and you are deeply interested in every one of them, and will be all along down through life. It is true that the first great class (in numbers at least) is ’87, and while we hope ’88 and ’89 and ’90 will every way excel it, it still remains for us of ’87 to make the most of every hour.
Miss Ellen A. Shaw, of Keeseville, N. Y., a member of the C. L. S. C., of the class of ’87, entered “that school where she no longer needs our poor protection, but Christ himself doth rule,” on September 30, 1884, aged nineteen years. They had been “nineteen beautiful years,” exceptionally happy to herself, and the source of great pleasure to all her friends. Graduating from the High School in Keeseville in June, 1884, she immediately took up the Chautauqua Idea, and began the prescribed course in October following. She enjoyed it exceedingly, interested others in it, read carefully, and made her memoranda and reports faithfully until her strength failed, and she laid down her hopes of earthly improvement, with brighter ones of the country where our mental powers know no fatigue or decay.
At a meeting of the “Bryant” circle of Worcester, Mass., C. L. S. C., October 7th, 1884, the following memorial was adopted: “Whereas, It has pleased our Heavenly Father to remove from our circle one of our beloved members, Miss Effie C. Warner, of the class of ’87, we desire to express our appreciation of her character and her worth as a member of our circle. Her presence was always welcomed with pleasure, and our meetings were made interesting by her fine musical attainments, which she was ever ready to devote to the cause she loved. While we mourn her loss, we bow in submission to the will of him who ‘doeth all things well.’ We are thankful for her pure, gentle life, and feel sure that its influence will long be felt in our circle.”
BY A. M. MARTIN,General Secretary C. L. S. C.
1. Q. What is the object of the volume, “College Greek in English?” A. To furnish readers not versed in any tongue but the English, with the means of obtaining, at their leisure, and without change of residence on their part, approximately the same knowledge of Greek letters as is imparted to students during a four years’ stay in the average American college.
2. Q. What is said of the courses of Greek reading in colleges? A. Various colleges have various courses of Greek reading prescribed for their students, and some colleges from time to time vary their courses.
3. Q. What is the Greek course considered in the present volume? A. A kind of eclectic and average Greek course.
4. Q. In Europe how does the university student accomplish his prescribed course of study? A. In any way he may choose to adopt, aiming simply at being able to pass the tests of examination that await him only at long intervals of his progress.
5. Q. How are the examinations of college students conducted in this country? A. The student is examined, not only at certain widely separated stations in his course, but every day.
6. Q. What is said of the standard of performance in recitation? A. It varies greatly under different teachers, at different colleges, in different classes. It is never anywhere too high.
7. Q. What is the average maximum accomplished in colleges in any one Greek author? A. About one hundred pages of text.
8. Q. What is probably a fair estimate for the average number of terms in which Greek is studied by the Greek student? A. Five or six terms, and it is rarely the case that to any one Greek author more than a single term is devoted.
9. Q. On an average how many Greek authors are introduced into a college Greek course? A. Six are as many as are perhaps introduced on an average.
10. Q. What is the plan in the present book? A. To give the readers a taste of some ten or twelve Greek authors, representing four departments of Greek literature.
11. Q. What are the four departments of Greek literature represented? A. History, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence.
12. Q. Who are the historians represented? A. Herodotus and Thucydides.
13. Q. What title has been bestowed upon Herodotus? A. The father of history.
14. Q. How many years may have elapsed after Homer wrote the world’s first great epic, before Herodotus wrote the world’s first great history? A. Five hundred years.
15. Q. When did Thucydides write his historical masterpiece? A. Promptly after Herodotus—perhaps while Herodotus was still among the living.
16. Q. What makes Herodotus differ so much in seeming antiquity from his younger contemporary, Thucydides? A. It is largely the striking contrast in tone and manner between the two historians.
17. Q. What has gained for Herodotus a traditional and popular repute of untrustworthiness, that he is far from deserving? A. His credulity, together with his plan of reporting reports, to a great extent irrespective of their probable truth.
18. Q. What is said of Herodotus’s efforts to gain information? A. He was very painstaking in his efforts to gain information, and traveled extensively.
19. Q. What does the word history in its present universal usage mean? A. A supposedly trustworthy account, written with a degree of philosophical insight into cause and effect, of transactions rising to a certain height of importance and dignity.
20. Q. In the use of Herodotus what did the word history mean? A. Merely a report of investigations, researches, inquiries undertaken by the author.
21. Q. What is there to the conception of Herodotus’s work? A. A kind of epic majesty and sweep.
22. Q. Where and when was Herodotus born? A. In Halicarnassus, a Dorian Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor, about 484 B. C.
23. Q. When and where did Herodotus die? A. When and where he died is not certainly known.
24. Q. What made up to Herodotus the whole world of mankind? A. The Greeks and the Barbarians.
25. Q. What are the ultimate objective points at which he aims? A. First, Marathon, and then Thermopylæ and Salamis, with Platæa and Mycale.
26. Q. To reach these points what start does the history take? A. From the origin of those empires older than the Persian, which in due time the Persian received and swallowed up.
27. Q. Of what countries does it fall within the comprehensive design of the history to treat? A. Of Lydia, Egypt, Babylon, Scythia, Libya, as well as of Persia and Greece.
28. Q. From what fact does the book on Egypt have a peculiar interest? A. From the fact of its being the only literature to furnish information concerning that country parallel with the information contained in the Bible.
29. Q. To what parts of the history does the present author chiefly limit himself? A. To the story of Crœsus and the invasion of Xerxes.
30. Q. What do these two parts together best illustrate? A. The peculiar theory of human life upon which Herodotus conceived and composed his history.
31. Q. How does Crœsus come in our historian’s way? A. As having, according to Herodotus, been the first Asiatic to commence hostilities against the Greeks.
32. Q. What Greek colonies did Crœsus bring under his dominion? A. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor.
33. Q. Of what empire was Crœsus the ruler? A. The Lydian empire.
34. Q. For whom did Sardis, the capital of the Lydian empire, become the resort? A. For the sages of Greece.
35. Q. Whom among the Greek celebrities to visit him did Crœsus make his own guest, and lodge him in his palace? A. Solon.
36. Q. With what is the first considerable extract from Herodotus made by our author occupied? A. With an account of a conversation between Solon and Crœsus.
37. Q. Against whom did Crœsus make war? A. Cyrus, king of Persia.
38. Q. What was the result of the war in which Crœsus engaged with Cyrus? A. Sardis was taken by Cyrus and Crœsus made a captive.
39. Q. How was Crœsus treated by Cyrus after he became his prisoner? A. He was made his companion and counselor.
40. Q. An account of the capture of what city by Cyrus is given in the extracts from Herodotus? A. The capture of Babylon.
41. Q. To what is nearly the entire second book of Herodotus’s history devoted? A. To an account of Egypt, the land and the people.
42. Q. What plan has our author followed in making extracts from Herodotus’s history of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes? A. A few salient anecdotes are selected from the full store supplied by Herodotus.
43. Q. What aim are the selections made to serve? A. Not only to show the matter and method of Herodotus, but to illustrate the characters of two men in particular, brought into the strong light of mutual contrast by the struggle—Xerxes and Themistocles.
44. Q. To what is the fact due that Thucydides is not so entertaining a historian as Herodotus? A. Partly to the nature of his subject; but partly to the nature of the man.
45. Q. What does Thucydides describe in his history? A. The so-called Peloponnesian war.
46. Q. To what conflict is this name given? A. To a conflict, continued with little interruption during twenty-seven years, between Sparta, with her allies, on the one side, and Athens, with her allies, on the other.
47. Q. What was the prize contended for in this war? A. The leadership in Hellenic affairs.
48. Q. How did Thucydides regard the Peloponnesian war? A. He thought that never in the world had there been a war so great as promised in its imminency to be the Peloponnesian war.
49. Q. In what particulars is the history of Thucydides important? A. Not as history, but, first, as literature, and secondly, as fund of illustration for the Greek national genius, it is of the very highest importance.
50. Q. In what form is it composed? A. In the form of annals, that is, the events and incidents are related chronologically by years.
51. Q. What is the design of the author in the argument of the book under consideration? A. To show the self-evidencing, superhuman character of Christ, forbidding his possible classification with men.
52. Q. What is the grand peculiarity of the sacred writings? A. That they deal in supernatural events and transactions, and show the fact of a celestial institution finally erected on earth.
53. Q. Who is the central figure of Christianity? A. Jesus Christ, and with him the entire fabric either stands or falls.
54. Q. In the argument, what is, and what is not assumed, in regard to the narrative by which the manner and facts of the life of Jesus are reported to us? A. The truth of the narrative is not assumed, but only the representations themselves as being just what they are.
55. Q. On what is it proposed to rest a principal argument for Christianity as a supernatural institution? A. On the single question of the more than human character of Jesus.
56. Q. What is the first peculiarity at the root of his character? A. That he begins life with a perfect youth.
57. Q. What is the early character of Jesus in this respect? A. It is a picture that stands by itself.
58. Q. What element in the character of Jesus in his maturity do we discover at once which distinguishes it from all human characters? A. His innocence.
59. Q. How does human piety begin? A. With repentance.
60. Q. What does Christ, in the character given him, acknowledge as to sin? A. He never acknowledges sin.
61. Q. What elements of character was Christ able perfectly to unite? A. Elements of character that others find the greatest difficulty in uniting, however unevenly and partially.
62. Q. What attitude of Jesus is distinct from any that was ever taken by a sane man, and is yet triumphantly sustained? A. The attitude of supremacy toward the race, and inherent affinity or oneness with God.
63. Q. What is there peculiar in the passive side of the character of Jesus? A. In opposition to the impression of the world generally, Christ connects the non-resisting and gentle passivities with a character of the severest grandeur and majesty.
64. Q. What is it easy to distinguish in what is called preëminently the passion of Christ? A. A character which separates it from all mere human martyrdoms.
65. Q. In what way does Christ show himself to be a superhuman character even more sublimely than in the personal traits exhibited in his life? A. In the undertakings, works, and teachings, by which he proved his Messiahship.
66. Q. What was the grand idea in the mission of Christ? A. To new-create the human race and restore it to God, in the unity of a spiritual kingdom.
67. Q. How is the plan of Christ related to time? A. It is a plan as universal in time as it is in the scope of its objects.
68. Q. With whom does Christ take rank? A. He takes rank with the poor, and grounds all the immense expectations of his cause on a beginning made with the lowly and dejected classes of the world.
69. Q. Hitherto what opinion had prevailed among all the great statesmen and philosophers of the world, in regard to a great change or reform in society beginning with the poor? A. No philosopher who had conceived the notion of building up an ideal state or republic ever thought of beginning with the poor.
70. Q. Where was any hope of reaching the world by any scheme of social regeneration to begin? A. With the higher classes, and through them operate its results.
71. Q. How is the more than human character of Jesus further displayed in his thus identifying himself with the poor? A. In the fact that he was yet able to do it without eliciting any feeling of partisanship in them.
72. Q. What is noticed first of all in the teaching of Christ? A. The perfect originality and independence of his teaching.
73. Q. What is not to be detected by any sign in his teaching? A. That the human sphere in which he moved imparted anything to him.
74. Q. By what methods does he not teach? A. He does not teach by the human methods.
75. Q. In what particular does he never reveal the infirmity so commonly shown by human teachers? A. He never veers a little from the point, or turns his doctrine off by shades of variation to catch the assent of multitudes.
76. Q. What is one remarkable fact that distinguishes Christ from any other known teacher of the world? A. Words could never turn him to a one-sided view of anything.
77. Q. What was the relation of Christ to the superstitions of his times? A. He was perfectly clear of all the current superstitions.
78. Q. Of what did Christ never take the ground or boast the distinction? A. Of a liberal among his countrymen.
79. Q. What is a remarkable and even superhuman distinction of Jesus in regard to the simplicity of his teachings? A. While he is advancing doctrines so far transcending all deductions of philosophy, and opening mysteries that defy all human powers of explication, he is yet able to set his teachings in a form of simplicity that accommodates all classes of minds.
80. Q. What form for truth was Jesus first able to find? A. A form for truth adequate to all the world’s uses.
81. Q. What is the character of the God that Christ revealed?A. God whom the humblest artisan can teach, and all mankind embrace with a faith that unifies them all.
82. Q. In what has the morality of Jesus a potential superiority to that of all human teachers? A. In the fact that it is not an artistic or theoretically elaborated scheme, but one that is propounded in precepts that carry their own evidence.
83. Q. What is a high distinction of Christ’s character as seen in his teachings? A. That he is never anxious for the success of his doctrines.
84. Q. In what was the character of Jesus different from that of all the mere men of the race as shown by familiarity? A. Instead of being reduced in eminence, as human characters are, it was raised and made sacred by familiarity.
85. Q. What two questions now remain which the argument of the author requires to be answered? A. Did any such being as Jesus actually exist? and, if so, was he a sinless character?
86. Q. What can we believe more easily than that Christ was a man, and yet a perfect character, such as here given? A. We can believe any miracle more easily.
87. Q. If Jesus was a sinner, of what was he conscious? A. He was conscious of sin, as all sinners are, and, therefore, was a hypocrite in the whole fabric of his character.
88. Q. What would such an example of successful hypocrisy be of itself? A. The greatest miracle ever heard of in the world.
89. Q. What is Mr. Parker’s estimate of the doctrine of Christ? A. “He pours out a doctrine beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and true as God.”
90. Q. What is the first conclusion reached by our author in his argument? A. That Christ actually lived and bore the real character ascribed to him in history.
91. Q. What is the second conclusion? A. That he was a sinless character.
92. Q. What is it incredible and contrary to reason to suppose of a being out of humanity? A. That he will be shut up within all the limitations of humanity.
93. Q. Jesus being a miracle himself, if he did not work miracles what would it be? A. It would be the greatest of all miracles.
94. Q. What is said of the mythical hypothesis to account for the Christian miracles advanced by the critics who deny them? A. It is itself impossible.
95. Q. What have the evangelists been able to give us concerning Christ? A. A doctrine upon which the world has never advanced, and a character so deep that the richest hearts have felt nothing deeper, and added nothing to the sentiment of it.
96. Q. Of what are these mighty works of Jesus, which have been done and duly certified, a fit expression to us? A. Of the fact that he can do for us all that we want.
97. Q. What does our author call the spirit of Jesus unabridged? A. The great miracle of Christianity.
98. Q. What only can draw the soul to faith, and open it to the power of a supernatural and new-creative mercy? A. Nothing but to say, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles and signs which God did by him.”
99. Q. In what way are all the conditions of life raised by the advent of Jesus? A. By the meaning he has shown to be in them, and the grace he has put upon them.
100. Q. What does our author say it would be easier to do than to get the character of Jesus out of the world? A. It were easier to untwist all the beams of light in the sky, separating and expunging one of the colors.
BY PROF. R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
“What is the relation of the Correspondence Schools to the University?”
“I am a member of the Correspondence Class in German; am I also a member of the University?”
Correspondents have recently asked these questions. They are important enough to receive public answer, since they represent many of the same import. They exhibit an uncertainty concerning the relation of the University to other Chautauqua institutions, which should be removed. To accomplish it is our present purpose.
We answer the first easily. There is no relation between the University and the Correspondence Schools; the latter have ceased to exist as separate institutions. We answer the second easily, though this answer may seem to contradict the former. A member of the Correspondence Class in German is, and is not, a member of the University. Both answers are true. The separate existence of the Correspondence School has ceased, but its existence in the University as the College of Modern Languages continues.
Again, although members of the Correspondence School are thus in the University, they are not matriculated members, not having met the matriculation requirement. The faculty is unchanged. Dr. Worman directs the College of Modern Languages; Prof. Lalande the Department of French.
But the answers thus given do not meet the spirit of the questions. To do this we must review the history which has resulted in the Chautauqua University. The Chautauqua Summer School of Languages held its first session in the summer of 1879. It made no claim to originality. It was among the earlier of these popular schools, and has achieved an enviable reputation. It ranged itself from the outset on the side of the so called “new education.” It adopted the system of Pestalozzi, and announced to the world the opening of a school for instruction in language by the natural method. Six schools were organized with a brilliant corps of teachers. After the lapse of six years, it is the candid judgment of a careful observer, that better teaching has never been done on this continent than was done in that first session of the Chautauqua Summer School. The original heads of the French and German Schools still occupy their positions with honor alike to themselves and to Chautauqua, while the standard of excellence has never been higher than at the present hour.
The session of the Summer School lasted for six weeks. It early became evident that these six weeks must in some way be supplemented if the student was to make any lasting acquisition. To meet this necessity members of the school were advised to continue their work at home, and were assured that needed aid would be rendered by correspondence by their department professors. The attempt was made. It failed. The causes were numerous. There was the lack of the teacher’s presence, and of a bond of union. Professional duties claimed the teacher’s time. Acquaintance had been too brief to create even personal interest of teacher in pupil. The student had no incentive to persistent effort, there was a lamentablewant of system, and the correspondence was irregular and unsatisfactory. It failed; but failure is not the end of Chautauqua enterprises. Another year witnessed another effort for an after-school course of study. One person was selected to receive all inquiries from the students, to forward them to the respective teachers, and to secure from the teachers prompt attention. This attempt failed; but failure brought yet deeper conviction that there were great possibilities in the after-school idea, if only a true method of work could be found. There were a few patient students who had persevered notwithstanding the difficulties. Something must be provided for them. After much deliberation a plan for Correspondence Schools was adopted. There was to be a regular course of study, lasting from October to July. Ten dollars was to be the annual tuition fee. Each professor was pledged to a definite amount of work, and each school was to have the benefit of the Chautauqua name; but there was no homogeneity. Each professor was independent of every other, giving attention only to the details of his own particular school, and with no interest save his own. The only benefit that could accrue to Chautauqua was a possible increase in attendance upon the Summer School.
The plan succeeded. For three years teachers and students have worked successfully. True, there have been disadvantages. French and German are living languages. Pronunciation is difficult even to one trained in language when aided by a present native teacher. Valuable as the lesson paper may be in helping to a knowledge of principles and translation, it can not speak, nor tell another how to speak. Yet it is plain that one who is correctly trained in principles, and can with rapidity translate, could easily master pronunciation when once in contact with the living teacher.
But notwithstanding these difficulties the schools have been successful. Good work has been done. The students have made notable progress; and some able to attend the Summer School, have speedily added to their foundation in principle the essentials of correct pronunciation. The problem was solved; but with its solution came another important question. Why may not all the subjects embraced in a college curriculum be taught by correspondence? To this there can be but one answer: There is no reason why any subject may not be so taught, except such as require the use of instruments and the performance of experiments; and for these good local instructors could be obtained. The next and logical step is the incorporation and organization of the Chautauqua University.
We have now reached a point where a comprehensive answer can be made to the questions which begin this paper. To organize the University, the professors identified with the Correspondence Schools were retained, while the schools themselves, which had achieved success by efforts of Chautauqua officials, and through the prestige of the Chautauqua name, were merged in Chautauqua’s crowning glory—the University.
Henceforth there are no separate and unrelated institutions, which professors shall control and direct as circumstances allow; but each is part of one grand institution, watched over and directed by its Chancellor, and managed through its central office. All this is effected without prejudice to any interest. The professor becomes the representative of an institution which will hereafter be known as the pioneer in the grandest educational movement of the century. The student, from an isolated class, is brought into relation with many other departments of study, with a curriculum which may end in a diploma and degree. All this has been possible only through the work which Chautauqua has accomplished. Not only has it been possible, but possible at a merely nominal cost. The little tuition charged has gone as an inadequate compensation to the faithful work of talented teachers. Chautauqua has received from these sources no pecuniary benefit. Here is a question for each student of the Correspondence Schools to ponder: Do I not owe something to the University in return for the advantages I have enjoyed, and to aid it in extending them to others? Here, too, is an anomaly: A University planning the largest educational work, without a dollar of endowment and with meager provision for necessary expenses. In addition to the former tuition fee of ten dollars there is required from all students, before entering, the payment of a matriculation fee of five dollars. Only those who have paid this fee are enrolled upon the University books. This explains the statement already made, that members of the Correspondence classes were, and were not, members of the University. There is no purpose to disturb the present status of the schools of French, German and English. Those who entered them under the previous arrangement are entitled to the benefits promised them. Should any student in these schools feel disposed to aid the work by the payment of the matriculation fee, proper acknowledgment will be made. It will not for the present year be required; but with the expiration of the year, when the obligation between student and teacher has been met, the University will assert its right to demand full conformance to its requirements by all who participate in its privileges. Professors will no longer be burdened with business details. All fees will be sent to the central office, and through it students will be introduced to their professors, and the University will enter upon a future of usefulness which no forecasting can express.
BY PHEBE A. HOLDER.
The age is trembling with the stepsOf an advancing God,Our pulses feel the thrill and beatWith sympathetic chord.The everlasting doors of TruthStand open to our sight,Along the shining way she leadsWe walk in purest light.Her precious words inspire the soul,Touch every hidden key,Sweep every chord with subtle power,And wondrous sympathy.A large, rich soul can always give,Scatter its wealth around,And like the sun that lights the world,No poorer shall be found.To meet the morning we go forthLeaving behind the night,And face the full, clear blaze that glowsWith pure electric light.Press on while deeper meanings comeInto the wondrous years,And brighter with God’s changeless loveImmortal life appears.“Press on to reach the things before”Our watchword still shall be,Until is sown the golden crownOf immortality.
The age is trembling with the stepsOf an advancing God,Our pulses feel the thrill and beatWith sympathetic chord.The everlasting doors of TruthStand open to our sight,Along the shining way she leadsWe walk in purest light.Her precious words inspire the soul,Touch every hidden key,Sweep every chord with subtle power,And wondrous sympathy.A large, rich soul can always give,Scatter its wealth around,And like the sun that lights the world,No poorer shall be found.To meet the morning we go forthLeaving behind the night,And face the full, clear blaze that glowsWith pure electric light.Press on while deeper meanings comeInto the wondrous years,And brighter with God’s changeless loveImmortal life appears.“Press on to reach the things before”Our watchword still shall be,Until is sown the golden crownOf immortality.
The age is trembling with the stepsOf an advancing God,Our pulses feel the thrill and beatWith sympathetic chord.The everlasting doors of TruthStand open to our sight,Along the shining way she leadsWe walk in purest light.
The age is trembling with the steps
Of an advancing God,
Our pulses feel the thrill and beat
With sympathetic chord.
The everlasting doors of Truth
Stand open to our sight,
Along the shining way she leads
We walk in purest light.
Her precious words inspire the soul,Touch every hidden key,Sweep every chord with subtle power,And wondrous sympathy.A large, rich soul can always give,Scatter its wealth around,And like the sun that lights the world,No poorer shall be found.
Her precious words inspire the soul,
Touch every hidden key,
Sweep every chord with subtle power,
And wondrous sympathy.
A large, rich soul can always give,
Scatter its wealth around,
And like the sun that lights the world,
No poorer shall be found.
To meet the morning we go forthLeaving behind the night,And face the full, clear blaze that glowsWith pure electric light.Press on while deeper meanings comeInto the wondrous years,And brighter with God’s changeless loveImmortal life appears.
To meet the morning we go forth
Leaving behind the night,
And face the full, clear blaze that glows
With pure electric light.
Press on while deeper meanings come
Into the wondrous years,
And brighter with God’s changeless love
Immortal life appears.
“Press on to reach the things before”Our watchword still shall be,Until is sown the golden crownOf immortality.
“Press on to reach the things before”
Our watchword still shall be,
Until is sown the golden crown
Of immortality.
The C. L. S. C. text-books are adapted to the peculiar method of C. L. S. C. work. They are the result of efforts to meet the wants of the main body of our members, and there has been no hap-hazard in their selection, but careful, patient and abundant thoughtfulness. Sometimes a member desires to substitute some book not in the course for one of ours. Sometimes his request may be granted; often it may not be granted. In the first place, it is desirable that there should be uniformity in the work done, and this we secure, for the most part, by uniform text-books. In a college, the uniformity is secured by the living teacher; we must secure ours by the printed page. Our need of common text-books is therefore peculiar and imperative. If we granted all the requests for substitutions which might be made, we should end by frittering away our course of study. We might seriously impair it by granting only those requests which seem to those who make them to be entirely reasonable. There must be hard and fast lines in any system of instruction; in our system the uniform text-books make one of those lines. It is our means of keeping together, of easily communicating with each other, of simplifying examinations and assisting our members in overcoming difficulties. In a rare case, a substitution may be allowed; but the substituted book must be equally good and equallyfresh. Very few old text-books are now good. The subjects have undergone changes of importance either in the principles or the modes of illustrating them. A good text-book must be a fresh book. Furthermore, our books are specially adapted to private study; the ordinary school-books are made to be interpreted by a living teacher. The full meaning of this difference will not be grasped at once by those who have not thought about it. We have had to think about it. Our success depended upon our thinking about it to some purpose. The result of much thinking and careful planning is the Chautauqua system of text-books. We find it more and more important to adhere to our own books.The books are our teachers.
We hope, therefore, that those who have desired changes to meet their special wants will remember the reason why their wishes can not be consulted. There is a call for loyalty on their part to the system. It depends on their loving it enough to forego some personal feelings or interests. We are in special and numerous ways dependent upon the affectionate respect of our members for the invisible authority of this institution—just as colleges depend on a like feeling toward the visible authority in their work. The colleges select their text-books; we select ours. In each case, substitutions ought to be very rare. If the disappointed applicant for a change of book has a loyal feeling toward the C. L. S. C. he will cheerfully sacrifice his preferences or his convenience to the welfare of the whole body. The whole body must move on common lines to common ends; and the individual members keep step, because a great army can not march in any other way—the individual must coöperate in the movement according to a common plan. We therefore appeal to the loyalty of our members to aid us in all reasonable ways to maintain our system of uniform books. We see more clearly than they possibly can that this uniformity is vital to the C. L. S. C. organization.
In theNorth American Reviewfor December Mr. John F. Hume repeats his appeal to the honest people of this country to vindicate the national honor by paying the dishonored bonds of twelve states. Mr. Hume is severe and almost bitter; but he tells us some truth which must needs be unpleasant and should be seriously told. We are in an anomalous position in the matter of these state debts; the states are by the eleventh amendment secure from legal pursuit, and the Union secures them from the forcible settlement which the law of nations authorizes. There is no doubt that each of these states would have been seized for debt by foreign powers, just as Mexico was seized a few years ago, if the national government did not cover them with its protection. The evil is precisely this, that the constitution cuts off creditors of states from any remedy when the states do not pay their debts. This state of things was brought about by the whole people when the eleventh amendment was adopted. We are all therefore responsible for state roguery. We have, though unintentionally, authorized the repudiation by opening the door to it; and so long as we leave the door open we are responsible for the rascally people who repudiate state bonds. We have tried hard to see some escape from the logic of Mr. Hume; but we have found none. We are as a nation responsible for the existence of these dishonored debts, which now exceed three hundred millions of dollars. We are a dishonest nation; it is a hard saying, but it is the exact truth of the case.
The logical remedy is the repeal of the eleventh amendment, but unfortunately there is no hope of that. The defaulting states are too numerous; and there is further some doubt whether the rest of us are honest enough to approve such a reform. Representatives in legislatures and in Congress are liable to be influenced by a set of considerations which have no proper relation to the matter. It is affirmed that the states were wronged by their officers in the issue of the bonds; that the bonds are now held by men who bought them for a small part of their face value; and that to pay them is to honor the rascalities which gave them birth, and reward speculators in unreasonable measure. If the subject is pressed upon our attention, we shall be told, and have no reason to disbelieve it, that the speculators are spending money through a lobby, and that the road to honor lies through more filth than is piled up in the path of dishonor. The evil, we shall be told, is done, and is irremediable. We can not reach the persons who were really wronged. They have parted with their property at an almost total sacrifice; the present holders have nomoralrights whatever. All this has been plentifully said, and it has lulled many consciences to sleep. Another moral opiate is thefactthat the creditors had due notice that the states could not be sued at law, and therefore can not complain of this defect in our constitution. But this is a two-edged argument and might well rouse a sleepy conscience. These state debts are for this very reason debts of honor, such as honest men pay before all other debts. And yet, it is true, and pity ’tis ’tis true, no hope exists that the unfortunate amendment can be repealed. It is perfectly just to say that it would be proper to accompany the repeal with any legislation which might be required to enable courts to take account of all the equities in each case, even to require that original holders of bonds, or their heirs be found, and that any reduction from par in the original sales be allowed to the state. It would, in short, be possible to do justice as exactly as men can do justice in transactions of this complicated character, and to secure the tax-payers of the states in default against any oppression. But the great public is not going to be convinced. It will be said that the remedial measure is for the relief of idle rich men in Wall street, and Congressmen and legislators will be warned not to sign their death warrants. In the course of such a campaignso much immorality will be taught, so many men now decent in life will be manufactured into rascals, that it may be wiser not to attempt to repeal the eleventh amendment. It is a disagreeable conclusion to reach, but we reach it frankly: We are a dishonest nation. There is no reasonable hope, rather no shadow of hope, that we can purge ourselves in the matter of dishonored state bonds. There are not enough honest voters to redeem our reputation. We may succeed in raising up an honest generation to follow us; for our part, we of this generation must wear the stigma and groan under the burden of our dishonor. We are not able to allow creditors of defaulting states to present their cases to our own courts and have them passed upon as all other debts are. The nation has a court to consider claims against itself; but a state is free of even such supervision, and is authorized to be guilty of any dishonesty. The other remedy which Mr. Hume proposes is not practicable for the foregoing reasons. He proposes that the nation shall assume all these debts. We could easily pay them; but for that matter, it would be easier for the indebted states to pay them than not to pay them. No one doubts that the state of Illinois did the best thing financially when in 1845 it assumed and provided for the crushing debt—for which, by the way, it had very little to show as value received. Good men avoid dishonest communities, and such states are resorted to by men of prey. Granted, however, that we might pass in Congress the proper bills to pay the dishonored bonds of states, it would certainly be better to pay thus than to bear our reproach. And yet this would only give us a short rest. The next decade would find us plunged back into the gulf of disgrace. So long as dishonest men can create debts, for which no one is legally responsible, by using the names of states, the business of making us all responsible for scoundrelism will go on. No, we will modify that. The men who made the debts are not necessarily rascals. They may mean that posterity shall pay the debts; but so long as a dishonest legislature can with a stroke of the pen plunge us back into dishonor, it is hardly worth while to pay the dishonored millions now staring our consciences in the face and humiliating us to the dust. The bill for paying off the debts should be contingent on the repeal of the eleventh amendment. In short, this repeal is the only road to honor. When we shake ourselves from our rogueries, we shall have to march to the eleventh amendment and wash ourselves in a national act of repeal. We write most sorrowfully our conviction that we shall not for some time rid ourselves of this uncleanness.
Mr. Hume very properly calls attention to the solemn silence of our American churches on this subject. We are glad that he has done so. Our church organizations are verily guilty in the matter. They often lift up their voices on subjects of far less obvious and direct moral concernment. We are living in a state of the national law whose direct effect is to make every citizen a thief, a partaker with thieves in their violation of the eighth commandment. Decalogue religion is, we sometimes fear, a little below par. Thousands of our citizens who are church members fail miserably in keeping the Decalogue in their public conduct as voters and members of political parties. And yet we believe that the silence of our churches is due to the forgetfulness of the facts, or to despair of any real and permanent cure. It is a hard case. More than one newspaper has asked how many bonds Mr. Hume owns; and the ministers who urge the duty of public honesty will in fact find themselves aiding and abetting the schemes of Wall street speculators and lobbyists. The road to righteousness is so foul and so infested with thieves that sublime courage is necessary to him who attempts the journey. We have written every sentence of this article with a consciousness that we are offending men who see the uncleanness of the path to honor, anddo notsee that it is the righteous road in spite of the foul smells with which it reeks. We recall such to the simple facts: First, by the eleventh amendment a state can not be sued. It is the only debt-creating power in the Union which is above any form of judicial inquiry or compulsion. Even the Union has a court of claims whose decisions are respected by Congress. Second, more than three hundred millions of money is apparently due by defaulting states to their creditors. The nation stands between the creditors and the states, and bars the way to the courts. It is our one colossal and unpardonable crime against the eighth commandment.
It is often disagreeable to admit a plain truth, and there are truths which one may safely admit in private which have an almost incendiary character when printed. To admit in private that the commercial outlook is not good costs nothing; to print the fact and prove it is to run the risk of aggravating the causes of the unpromising condition of affairs. The public is like a patient whose chance of recovery depends upon his not knowing his critical condition. If his nerves get to playing around that danger, they may drag him into it. To state in printed words that the times are bad and growing worse might be to tell a truth; but it would tend to produce the worse times. This is the reason why editors are either silent, or even lie a little, in seasons of financial and commercial depression. But it is also true that in our present circumstances there are unpleasant things which admit of mitigation, and even of radical cure; and it is perhaps wiser to state what most of us know and suggest the remedies for an evil case.
It is known that the wages of laboring men and clerks all over the country are being cut down. It is probably within the mark to say that seven millions of wage-earners (of all classes) will receive in 1885 an average of ten per cent. less compensation for their services than they received in 1884. Assuming a very low average for the old wages, $1.25 per day, the total reduction in wages for the year will amount to more than $260,000,000. This amount will of course be taken from the net total of trade. The workmen and clerks will buy two hundred and sixty million dollars worth less of goods in 1885. The reduction will be dispersed over a large area, but it will not spread into a thinness which will render it impalpable. Nor does the reduction end with the workmen. All the persons of whom workmen buy manufactured goods will buy less for their own consumption—they also will have less to buy with. This class is a very large one, and there are few of us who do not belong in it—are not in some way dependent on workmen for patronage. To say that all these will reduce their annual purchases two hundred and sixty millions, carrying the reduction up to five hundred and twenty millions, is probably within the mark. We may as well consider in this connection the reductions in the price of farm products, another great drain on the volume of trade. Agricultural products are worth at most ten per cent. less than in 1883. The effect of the reduction in prices of farm products acts more disastrously on trade, since farmers usually double their caution. They will not merely buy ten per cent. less; they will buy as little as possible. Old clothes, old wagons, old tools, will be kept in use, and it may be within the mark to say that the loss of farmers’ trade of all sorts will amount to as much as all the others—to five hundred and twenty millions more. One thousand and forty millions taken off from thenettotal of sales of goods will necessarily be keenly missed. The payment of all the national debt in a prosperous year would be easier and more pleasant. If it had no compensations this reduction would crush the life out of us. At least it is a burden to bear. Economies upon customary spending in a single household matter but little, but economies in millions of households—less buying of customary comforts—are a large matter. They are not merely a consequence of hard times; they make the times hard. And we are so bound together that the enforced economies in the families of workmen act on the whole purchasing line with mathematical certainty. It is a good thing, a beneficence of natural order, that there arecompensations. We see these natural offsets most easily by looking back at the case of the farmer. He has to sell his food in a cheaper market, and wants to buy also in a cheaper market. He has made food cheaper for the workman, and he wants the goods made by the workman at less cost. He wants the same amount of cloth, sugar, salt, tools, etc., for the same number of bushels of wheat. It is the cloth, tools, etc., that he wants as a farmer. As a debtor, indeed, he wants the same number of dollars; and this ishisreal pinch. He is in debt, and has to pay in the fall of grain a twenty per cent. premium on what he owes. As a producer, he would, however, suffer no harm if all other prices fell as much as the price of grain. If, then, by the corresponding and simultaneous reduction of the price of food and of wages, the ten per cent. less money would buy the same things to eat and wear—if the reduction were equalized all round—nobody would suffer. The farmer’s grain would buy as much as before; the workman’s wages would buy as much. Goods of all kinds would be so much cheaper in money terms, but just as valuable in barter terms. The reduction would be only in the figures and not in the facts of trade. The footings of the ledgers would be smaller, but the ledgers of comfort would show an undiminished balance in favor of happiness.
Will it work out in this way? Partly it will; partly it will not. Cheaper food will partly balance the accounts of all parties, but some accounts will not balance. Prices sink or rise unequally. And this is not half our trouble. In these matters “thinking makes it so;” the belief that we are losing ground causes the sliding back which we dread. There is a reluctance to buy what we are accustomed to buy. The reduction in wages makes menfeelpoor; and to feel poor is to be a poor customer of the seller. Suppose that a general fall in prices is going on—a possibly complete explanation of our troubles—then we must remember that all values are disturbed. We can not make a “horizontal reduction” by a stroke of the pen. It must be effected slowly and painfully and irregularly and in detail. The results are suffering and depression of spirit. The strain is severe, but it has to be borne; and patience really lightens all burdens. If we reflect that these stretches of bare ground in trade are really safe roads—safer than the smoother paths along which we have driven gaily and recklessly—we shall have confidence to keep company with patience, and the two will make a rough road tolerable, if not enjoyable. Honest and industrious souls thrive in such times. Speculative rogues thrive in good times. The honest man’s chief trouble is that hewillget into debt. His worst calamity is he is paying now with eighty-cent wheat debts contracted in dollar-wheat prices. The poor man can not be helped. May the Lord be good to him.
“But” one will say, “this is not our whole disease. We are really at war. Workmen are falling under the wheels of a great machine called progress; and the machine is driven by forces too powerful for any hope of resistance. It is not a mere readjustment of prices; it is a life and death struggle; and the god Competition must be dethroned, or the people will perish.” We do not believe this wild-eyed reformer, but we do expect a hard winter. Let us all remember the poor.
The steady growth of this country is shown by the fact that in the last fiscal year there was a net increase of 2,154 in the number of post-offices. The total number is now 50,071. About this time it is interesting to learn that there are only 2,323 President’s post-offices with salaries of $1,000 and higher; and there are only 159 free delivery offices. The expenses of the last year exceeded the receipts by more than three millions of dollars.
Hostile Apaches continue to be troublesome on the Mexican border. They escape across the line and are safe from pursuit. These troubles will end when the two governments make permanent arrangements for the pursuit of marauders across the boundary. A temporary provision of that kind has existed, but it should be permanent—unless, indeed, our citizens fear Mexican soldiers more than they fear Indians.
A United States Court has decided in due form that an “Indian not taxed is not a citizen of the United States.” It is time he was made a citizen. The fiction of regarding the Indians as independent powers, and dealing with them as tribes, ought to be made an end of. The Indians themselves need the discipline of citizenship, and we need to free ourselves from a useless and harmful fiction. By all means keep faith to the last farthing, but make a man of this red brother as soon as possible.
A Connecticut paper soberly declares that a citizen of that state did not know the name of either candidate for the presidency until the Saturday before the election. And yet people unreasonably complain that there was too much noise in the late campaign.
It is remarked that Presidential electors were scratched to a considerable extent this year. It is as unreasonable a performance as kicking the stone you have stumbled over, more so indeed for the stone has done you some harm, while a Presidential elector is incapable of doing any harm. He is, by our political customs, merely a machine for transmitting a vote to the candidate of the party. But there has been so much of this scratching this year that politicians will probably estimate its influence hereafter. In a close election this species of scratcher might defeat his own wishes and his party by blind stupidity.
A new life of the witty Sydney Smith has brought to light a new piece of his inimitable jesting. A friend complained to Smith that in an important interview Lord Brougham had treated himas if he were a fool. “Never mind, never mind,” said the incorrigible wit, in his most sympathetic tones, “never mind, never mind,he thought you knew it.”
“Swift as the wind” is not very swift after all. The record of its travels in New York City, for a whole week in November, showed only 1,076 miles. Ocean steamers go nearly three times as fast, and through trains from New York to Chicago travel five times as fast. A good pedestrian would beat an average wind if he did not have to rest.
Since the November election there has been a marked increase in business failures. The wages of workmen have been reduced in many places, and many mills have suspended. Politicians are not agreed about the cause, but it is probable that this will be a hard winter for the poor. Heavenly charity will, we trust, be everywhere equal to the tasks laid upon her. Remember the poor.
It is positively affirmed that physicians regard canned foods as dangerous. Many cases of poisoning occur from eating such foods, but chemical testimony is divided. Some chemists trace the poisoning to special conditions of the food used; in other words, the food was in an advanced state of decomposition when it was put into the can. This is the opinion recently expressed by an eminent English chemist. In this view, proper caution in examining the food will avert all danger.
What impressions would our chief cities make on those of us who do not live in them, if we received all our knowledge of them through the newsy papers? San Francisco, for example, is known in that way as the home of Sand Lot orators, astonishing divorce suits, fighting editors, and swearing preachers. The latest of these picturesque incidents is the shooting of an editor, Mr. De Young, who is the second man in his family to be shot by outraged and bloody-minded readers. Such incidents doubtless misrepresent the City of the Golden Gate; but many thousands of newspaper readers know only these miserable doings in San Francisco.
The sacred hen of Brahma has long been at home in American barn-yards; and now we learn that for several years the sacred cow of India has been establishing herself in the South. The Brahma cattle, judiciously crossed with English breeds, are becoming fashionable in New Mexico.
Perhaps the most unfortunate man in the late campaign was a distinguished one who ostensibly had nothing to do with politics. Ex-Senator Conkling is credited with depriving, by secret influence, Mr. Blaine of many votes. The misfortune is in the fact that good and bad politicians agree in despising a sneak.
The “roller-skating rink” is condemned in vigorous terms by one of the Methodist conferences. It is doubtless becoming a nuisance. The base-ball business is past praying for, so degraded and disreputable has it become. There seems to be no possibility of maintaining any form of athletics in a wholesome, moral condition. They are becoming a worse nuisance each year.
The outbreak of cholera in Paris has created almost a panic, in New York, in the middle of November. Cholera has always been a warm weather disease, and the apprehensions of New York were altogether unreasonable. The disease made very little headway in Paris. Perhaps we should provide for its reception in this country next summer; though it could be kept out by proper and sufficient quarantine measures.
We advise our readers not to give up Shakspere on account of the so-called cipher of the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly. Authority is of some importance in this case, and whatever authority Mr. Donnelly has is in Minnesota politics. All that has been reported about Mr. D.’s discovery might be true and still not disturb Shakspere’s claim to the writings which bear his name.
The last of the patents for sewing machines expired in 1876; but the women of the country are so attached to the old machines that they would not buy the new, and probably better machines. The result is that the new companies go into bankruptcy and the old companies monopolize the business. Here is a plain account of one of the “grasping monopolies” of the country. A few others are explained by the insane attachment of the men of the country to tools of a particular brand or make.
We notice in the papers an unusual number of reports of contests over wills containing charitable bequests. Let us say frankly that we think this post mortem method of being charitable rather a sneaking way of discharging the duty of benevolence. Give like a man what you might keep yourself. It is a coward’s way to assess your children to pay your debts to philanthropy. A man who really wants to be benevolent is usually able to execute his own will. Be your own executor.
The largest farm in America has been sold to foreign nabobs. It is a cattle ranch of 800,000 acres in Texas. Mr. King, who has just sold it for $6,500,000, built up this property, beginning with nothing. He is now eighty years old and thinks it time to retire from business. The new owners will operate the farm as a joint stock concern, and it will probably be bankrupt in twenty years. One King is better than a score of nabobs for such business.
Dr. Talmage is still picturesquely anti-evolution. In a recent speech he said: “There ought to be some place where God could go, where the evolutionists could not reach him. They keep ordering him off the premises.… According to evolutionists we are only a sort of Alderney cow among other cattle. I believe in an evolution of mortality into immortality—a heavenly evolution.”
The English House of Lords has obtained a great victory. After a summer of agitation in the form of great meetings, monster processions and burning eloquence, the Ministry has compromised with the Lords on the Franchise bill, on terms dictated by the Lords. The Radicals are very angry; but Mr. Gladstone has secured the extension of the ballot to some millions of Englishmen, and is believed to regard this success as a fitting crown of his public career. He will leave the “reform of the Lords” to his successors.
The immigration of ten months of this year brought us 414,000 new citizens; in the same period last year 501,000 came to us. The reduction is less than was expected; but the depression in trade is now acting as a check on immigration, though matters are even worse in Europe. This is, however, a stream which will not dry up in this century, perhaps not in the next.
A French chemist has thought of a useful device to prevent accidents in the handling of poisons. A large number of persons are killed every year by mistakes of apothecaries, of their friends, or of themselves. The French chemist suggests that white cylindrical bottles be used for medicines to be taken internally, and colored square bottles for medicines to be used externally. The suggestion can be improved by additional devices to prevent mistakes, but half the errors would be cut off by the proposed plan.