“I was promised on a time,To have reason for my rhyme;From that time unto this seasonI received nor rhyme nor reason.”
“I was promised on a time,To have reason for my rhyme;From that time unto this seasonI received nor rhyme nor reason.”
“I was promised on a time,To have reason for my rhyme;From that time unto this seasonI received nor rhyme nor reason.”
“I was promised on a time,
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season
I received nor rhyme nor reason.”
This spicy reminder brought him his £100, and Lord Cecil a sharp expression of her dissatisfaction. He was eventually given an estate—Kilcolman Castle—of three thousand acres, in Ireland. He was also laureated, with a pension of £50. When circumstances at last favored his enjoyment of peace, that had been denied him from childhood, he fell on evil times. Tyrone, a bold and crafty Irish chieftain, rose in rebellion, attacking Kilcolman Castle so unexpectedly that the poet and his wife barely escaped with their lives, after their infant child had perished in the cruel flames. He was now forty-six years of age, and a grief-stricken, broken-hearted mourner for his castle, library and babe, he went to London in poverty, and before his friends realized that he was in the metropolis, this great bard, Queen Bess’s laureate, died of starvation, in a rude, comfortless room, on a cold day, without a friend to minister to his necessities. After death, honors innumerable were paid to his memory.
Thus lived and died the first who wore the laurel in the royal household of that long line that has graced the court circle for three hundred years. Of the poets who have worn the wreath in sunshine and shadow under the Tudors, Stuarts and Brunswicks, a second article will treat.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
BY LAURA LORAINE.
The great middle class of American society to which, perhaps, most of us belong, contains an unsolved element, a puzzling factor, a something for which, so far, we have found no satisfactory niche. We have more girls than we know what to do with. In every town we find them bright, loving, energetic, ambitious, but sphereless. They are not needed at home, and there are no husbands available, for whom they can make homes; their needs are many and the parental purse is half empty; their energies are boundless, and they have no channel in which to turn them. What can they do? It is a sorely perplexing question. They might copy, but the business men of all the towns from the lakes to the Gulf will tell you there are twenty copyists for every position; they might teach, but school teachers overrun every community; there are more seamstresses than seams; more clerks than counters, more bookkeepers than desks.
A bright, stylish, well informed and popular girl lately applied at the office of a friend of mine, asking for “anything atall. I’ll make the fires, sweep the floors, run errands, do any kind of work to earn a little money. I have tried everywhere, but there are no positions of any kind vacant.”
Another young girl, an excellent musician, inquiring for work, said: “I have been given an ordinary musical education, but I can’t use it here. No one needs a music teacher or organist of my medium ability. If I had $2,000 to fit myself to be a superior teacher there would be no trouble about a position; but see there,” pointing to a shabby glove, “that is absolutely my best pair of gloves, and onemusthave clothes.” But these are common remarks, painfully common.
A gentleman who employs a large number of girls, remarked in my hearing recently: “One of my hardest trials is to listen to the pathetic stories of girls who come to me for work. Many of them are from good families, often moving in my own circle. They need something to do, and the positions which they are fitted to fill are overflowing. I can not give them work, and to refuse them seems cruel. There ought to be some way for such girls.”
But there is in this same class of society a second problem equally puzzling—the troublesome kitchen question, which haunts so many of those women who manage their own households and employ girls for “general housework.” They find it almost impossible to fill these positions with the proper kind of help. For such work they need willing, strong, reliable, lady-like girls; girls who will appreciate the importance of the domestic machinery, and who will be able not only to keep up the fire, but keep the cogs all greased and smoothly running. They need those who will take pleasure in the beauty of the home and the health of the family, who will be, in short, helpmates and supports to them, burdened as they are with social duties, care of children, and the sometimes unfathomable question of making the two ends meet. They need such helpers, but alas, not one in a thousand possesses such. There is one way to satisfy the want. It is to make the plus of our first problem satisfy the minus of the second. To so adjust matters that the thousands of girls waiting for work or dying under the strain of their poorly paid sewing, or of their weary days on their feet at the counter may take up the general housework in the thousands of homes where they are needed.
By many, such a solution is declared “out of the question.” The girls themselves flatly settle it by declaring they’ll starve first; the housekeepers give it little encouragement. It is generally conceded that it might be a good thing, but that “it is not practical.” But why not practical? Why is starvation preferable? Why can not the housekeepers adopt the plan? What objections are to be urged against such work by the girls themselves? They can earn more—we have no hesitation in saying that, for look at the figures in the case. Let us suppose that a girl has obtained a position as a copyist or clerk; she will receive $1.00 per day in our average towns—not more; and in nearly all cases absence, whether from sickness, trouble or a holiday, will be deducted; however, as employers differ in this particular, let us suppose that she have regular work, her yearly receipts will be in a year of 365 days, deducting fifty-two Sabbaths, $313. Of this, $4.00 per week at least will be spent for board, fire, lights and washing; she has a balance of $105. Put her in the school room at the ordinary salary of the primary teacher, $400, she will have a balance of $192, if her board be rated as above at $4.00 per week. Now this same girl in the kitchen doing general housework would have no difficulty in securing $3.00 per week. Her cash balance at the end of the year would be her entire wages, $156; $51 more than the girl at the counter, $36 less than the school teacher, but think of the difference in the expenses of the last two. A girl doing general housework needs no work dress the year round save calico. In this she will be becomingly and appropriately dressed. A teacher must, a large part of the year, dress in wool, a goods at least five times as expensive. She has a large item for the wear and tear of wraps, hats, gloves, and rubbers, and another for stationery and books. It is not unfair to say that an economical and industrious girl earning $3.00 per week at housework can more easily lay up $50 in a year and dress better on the street and for church than the school teacher on $400 per year. It is not a question of money. There is, if anything, a cash balance in favor of the housework.
Is it then the work which makes such places so undesirable? Housework is undeniably hard. There is much of what we call drudgery about it. There is scrubbing, and washing and ironing, but the drudgery of housework does not last the week through. There is but one washday in a week. Done faithfully and with spirit, it leaves in ordinary households a frequent hour for sewing or chatting, one or two afternoons of each week, and almost invariably every evening. More leisure, we honestly believe, than either a clerk, seamstress or teacher finds. It is healthy. Compare the effects upon the constitution, of housework and of those employments which keep the worker sitting or standing most of the day. Go over your list of acquaintances in kitchens, school rooms, shops, and at desks, and you will find that though the housework may make grimy hands, it leaves the spring in the step, that though it may tire the body it does not stretch the nerves, that it is followed by a good appetite and sound sleep, where too often the other pursuits exhaust the nerves, depress the spirits, and wear out the girls.
And it is certainly respectable work. Were the kitchen of a duchess vacant her ladyship would only be honored if she bravely broiled her own steak and washed up her dishes.
No one will say the work degrades. But though it is honorable, healthy, and pays, yet strangely enough the girl feels that she can not be anybody if she undertake it, and the world believes she has forfeited her position when she does. Strange anomaly, that what is respectable in the mistress of the house should unfit her maid for social standing. Yet there are reasons for it, and one weighty reason is the popular opinion of housework—the feeling that it is belittling drudgery, that it requires simply muscles and no brains, that it unfits a woman for intellectual pursuits and for the finer accomplishments. If this be true, then girls are wise to shrink from such work, for mere drudgery is of all things the most benumbing to one’s facility, and can not but degrade one in the end. But this is not true. Housework is a profession. Cooking is a fine art. Upon the skill and wisdom with which the daily work of a home is done depends the comfort, health and happiness largely of a family. The woman who manages your kitchen has it in her power to make perpetual discord in your home if she has not brains to manage your work; she can ruin your digestion if she does not understand the preparation of food and its effects in the human system; she can make a barn of your rooms if she has not artistic taste. The idea that the person who is to cook and serve your meals need have only big muscles and stout hands is totally false; she must be educated to her profession, must respect it and take pleasure in it, if she is to be a success.
Gradually the importance of household arts is becoming evident to the best educated women. The home and its duties have become subjects for serious study of late years, and to-day there is hardly a topic on which so much is being written. Schools of cookery are becoming prominent features of our larger cities. They are patronized by our first ladies. Their teachers receive salaries equal to the best of our high school teachers and are everywhere received as ladies. Neither going to a cooking school nor teaching in a cooking school unfits woman for society; yet she does the same kind of work there as she would in a kitchen. The difference is just here: The cooking school pupil mixes her bread with brains and salts her potatoes with wits, and the brains and wits make a profession of what we have been pleased heretofore to call drudgery. It is the lack of this seasoning that has outlawed kitchen work.It is not the bread and potatoes. Why should we not have girls who are superior housekeepers, who are known as rising young cooks? Why should not ambition and skill be respected and rewarded in this profession as well as in any other? No reason, certainly, but the poor one that the girls have not been able to feel yet, that cooking and housework are really important; that though housekeepers have begun to study the subjects, the ideas are yet in the abstract and have not yet reached the kitchen. It is, however, we may be sure, but a question of time. Housework will be honored as it deserves, and the girls who undertake this labor will feel that they are doing as elevating and as intellectual work, certainly, as they would do at the counter, copying desk or sewing table.
But however much girls may respect housework, and however thoroughly they may prepare for it, our problems can never be solved by them alone. The kitchen millennium is largely in the hands of the housekeeper. There must be a radical change in her opinion of the position, and in her treatment of her help. When reform in the treatment of help is suggested, a woman usually asks: “Do you mean that I ought to make my girl one of my family? that she should sit at my table?” The ordinary opinion is that this is the pivotal point in the discussion, and that in order to reform, the mistress must make a friend of her maid. It seems to me that this is a great mistake, and does not touch the vital point at all. It touches a social relation; while the relation between mistress and maid is purely a business one. A girl enters a house to do certain duties, not to be a part of the family. She does her work, to be sure, within the dwelling, but because she works there is no more a reason why she should become a companion than there is reason for the clerk, bookkeeper, tailor or dress-maker of the family becoming a companion. Not that she is not so good—she is often better; not that she is less a lady—she is often more—but simply because her relations with the housekeeper are business relations, and in the family circle it is very undesirable that these duties should be obtruded. To make her a part of the family and one of your friends, her whole social life must be changed. She has different views, different surroundings, different friends, from the lady of the house. Either the two different sets must be amalgamated in order that a social relation may exist, or mistress or maid must one of them give up her friends. A ridiculous idea, and one as undesirable to the one as to the other. The girl has no idea of being companion to the lady; when she complains of not being invited into the parlor, and to the table, it is generally because she feels that in some way, still does not understand exactly how, she is not respected as she deserves to be.
But, some one says, supposing the girl be one of our own set or from among our friends, what then? I have seen daughters in certain families doing the work, and I never saw any trouble about adjustment of relations. If the girl be your friend, then treat her as your friend, of course, and take her into the “inner courts.” But, as would generally be the case, if she be a stranger the relation is purely a business one, and what you owe to any one with whom you do business you owe her. But you do not owe it to her to make her a part of your family circle unless both you and she wish it.
It is a disagreeable fact that very many well bred women practice a system of “bossism” in their kitchens. They look upon their help as a necessary evil, a human machine, which by daily orders and scoldings they are to keep in running order. A vital mistake, for the girl who does your work is and ought to be regarded as holding an important position in your domestic economy. She is doing as honorable and necessary work in carrying out your directions as you in giving them. She sustains a relation as much to be respected as does a confidential clerk to your husband. Now, on this ground you owe her unfailing courtesy—a pleasant good morning, such as any well bred person will give to every one they meet, and kindly appreciation of her work and wants. This courtesy is oftenest wanting in giving directions. If she is to do the work, then it is due her that you plan with her, that you together talk over things. If her plans are better than yours, acknowledge it and give her her share of praise. If possible, inspire her with the feeling that this is “our” work, not merely “my work” that she is doing. When personal interest is inspired, almost invariably a home-like air will spring up in the kitchen. The girl who presides loses that belittling, humiliating feeling that she is only a drudge, and grows to know her real importance, to respect herself and her business, while the woman at the helm grows light hearted as she recognizes what a stanch, reliable support she has in this department of her home. Working together is the only successful plan for employer andemployé.
Another just cause of complaint is the too common practice of making a girl extra work. She deserves consideration in this respect. If the breakfast hour is at eight o’clock, it is a breach of etiquette on the part of the family to stretch it out until nine. The duties of the day demand that certain work of the kitchen be done at certain times. “A woman’s work is never done” is in some households accepted as a natural law. No one hesitates to ask an extra service of the kitchen girl, or to interrupt her labors. No one thinks to apologize if they hinder her regular work, or to even give a reason for asking a troublesome service at a busy time in the day. Is it strange that girls refuse to undertake kitchen work, when they know by observation that thoughtful consideration and courtesy will be denied them by the family? When a girl keeps books, clerks, or teaches, her rights are recognized. She is as a rule treated like a lady. Her hours are respected; until housekeepers learn this first duty of the employer to theemployé, it will not be strange if the better class of girls shun the work, however much they may need something to do.
There is a general impression—perhaps it would be true to say that it is a fact—that the comfort and surroundings of a girl are treated as matters of no importance. No special care is taken that her kitchen be homelike and airy, and her bedroom cheery. It is a most deplorable fact that in many households more attention is given to the stables than the kitchen, but itisa fact. The kitchen is the household laboratory. It is imperatively necessary that it be sunny and cheery, but how many times it is dark and dingy, poorly furnished, and uncomfortably arranged. The girl who finds her home in the house of another deserves further, a pleasant room, which shall be hers and hers alone. It ought to be neatly furnished, comfortably lighted and heated, and is it purely sentimental to say that she should have a rocking chair, a sewing table, a book rack and pictures? No, no. It is simple humanity to make her surroundings beautiful. The same nature is in her as in you; not only has she your taste, but a similar social nature; and beside pleasant surroundings she ought to have some provision made for her company. A pleasant room in which to entertain them, and time to give to them without being disturbed. I know a family in which the girl is allowed occasionally to have her friends to tea or to invite a friend to spend Sabbath with her. It is understood that this company never interfere with the work, and so perfectly do the mistress and maid work together that there is never any friction resulting from this—to most women—unendurable liberty. On the contrary, a higher value is put by the girl on her position. She respects the place which she sees her mistress respects, and grows more and more of a lady as she sees that she is treated in all respects like one. In this same home no Christmas ever goes by without a present to the girl as much as to any other member of the family. A little token is always brought her after a trip. In a word, she is valued, and the appreciation of the family proves it to her.
It is not in the home only that a barrier exists which makes proud girls shrink from this work which otherwise they would willingly do. It is a queer comment on our breeding to say that two thirds of American ladies will not recognize onthe street the girls who do their kitchen work. Absurd! Of course it is, and it is purely aparvenutrick. The queen of England herself would blush at such a breach of both common sense and good breeding. Noladywill pass on the street any one she may know without recognition, least of all will she pass a faithful, devoted servant, with whom she is associated in daily work. And if it may chance that both are members of one church, then by all means their relation should be cordial and natural. The footing of the church is one of common brotherhood, and no matter what work one may do, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, there should be an equal position.
Would any girl needing work and competent to do housework hesitate to take a place where she knew she would be respected, cared for and honestly dealt with by the lady of the house? You say though she were fairly treated in her place she would be despised without. I must differ with you. The girl who would have the sterling independence and pluck to adopt housekeeping as a profession, and who would go into the kitchen of a lady who was willing to honor and uphold her in her course would not be despised. On the contrary, her very independence would raise her in value. The loss of social position entailed by doing housework is purely fancied. Under the conditions which I have enumerated there could be no loss of social standing. The fact that almost invariably kitchen girls have little position does not prove that the kitchen and its work deprive them of it. Many of the girls (not all, let us be thankful for it!) doing housework in America are foreigners, ignorant, stupid, and too often unprincipled. They are unfit for the work they do. They are hard to deal with. They care nothing for the interests of the house. They cast a stigma on the work. But the fact that work of so much importance is being dragged down is a strong reason for its rescue by large-minded women and sensible, independent girls. It is, in truth, a pioneer’s field of infinite possibilities. A field which, redeemed and possessed, will solve two of the perplexities of the women of the day—what shall we do with these strong, good girls of ours, and how shall we save our kitchens out of the hands of the vandals?
BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
After the grand review—dress parade, oratory, music, flags, and fireworks—comes the common, everyday routine—plow, pen, needle and nursery. Farewell to the holiday! All hail to the working day! Between the two there is a vast difference; and both are good.
There is a difference between the peal of morning bells rolling over lake and through forest trees, with the warble of wild wood birds, waking one up to a day of music and eloquence, Sunday clothes and good society, and the gruff call or dissonant bell ring of somebody whose business it is to tell you to be up and at it, at once and for all day, whether you feel like it or not.
There is a difference between sitting down to a breakfast that was prepared for you by servants, and getting up to build a fire and boil a kettle and broil a steak, and wait for all the household to come down and in, and get through, and give you a chance to do something else before a half dozen other things claim your time and thought, and thus make way for a dozen and one additional things that fill up the unprinted program of your own domestic or official “assembly” at home.
There is a difference between a precious Bible reading at eight o’clock, with all the sweetest texts in the book put into lines or clusters or circles like gems in royal treasure plate, and the care of a “mussed up” table, a pile of soiled dishes, or a naughty, nervous, or afflicted child.
There is a difference between one of “dear brother” Adam’s devotional conferences at nine o’clock, with the fresh experiences of many hearts (who for the time forget crying children and crowded kitchen) full of joy and peace and triumph, with the ingenious interpretations of old, or difficult, or out-of-the-way texts, with the sweet and fervent prayers that sound as if heaven were near and not afar off, and as if all the people one saw filling the Amphitheater were saints of God who had left the “exceeding glory” for an hour to give Chautauqua a taste of the celestial life—there is, I say, a difference between all this and the sweeping and dusting, the stewing and sweating, the clerking and teaching, the hammering and plowing—and all the rest of the indoor and outdoor exercises that usurp the blessed nine o’clock devotional conference hour, for which at home no bell rings, and to which no organ or solo welcomes.
There is a difference between the eleven o’clock lecture about life, science and philosophy, full of wit and wisdom, and the planning and toiling for a dinner in which something will scorch or spoil, and concerning which peevish and fault finding words are sure to be spoken by one or more who ought to be, but are not, considerate and sympathetic.
There is a difference between a two o’clock afternoon concert of gifted voices, stringed instruments, and organs, and an aching head and quivering nerves, where rest is refused you, and the hard, straining, dragging workmustgo on, whether you like or loathe it.
There is a difference between the four o’clock “specialties,” full of help and instruction, and the insipid, fashionable call that wastes your time, disturbs your conscience, and makes you wish “society” to the dogs.
There is a difference between the precious five o’clock Round-Table or vesper hour, with its free conversations (like a family chat) about simple things connected with our beloved Circle, with its broad thoughts, its sweet friendships, its holy prayers, its soothing and uplifting “Day is dying in the West,” when the sunlight seems like a veritable revelation of the Shekinah, and the air is vibrant with divinest sympathies—thereisa difference between the Chautauqua five o’clock and the average five o’clock at home, in field, in street, in shop.
There is a difference between a Chautauqua evening of lectures, songs, burlesque, boat ride, camp-fire, reception, illuminated fleet and gorgeous fireworks, and the weariness of a routine life evening—the physical energy gone, the children out of sorts, misunderstandings in home, neighborhood or church, the prospect of a sleepless night, and of an enervating and irritating to-morrow.
A difference, to be sure, but then remember that these every-days should be glorified by the Chautauqua days. And remember that they test the sentiments enkindled and resolutions formed in the pleasurable excitements, devotional services, splendid processions and great audiences of the more favored season.
Fellow-students, let the charm of the Chautauqua days be felt through all the intervening days. By strong resolve put high thoughts, tender sympathies, devout aspirations, unwearying patience, into the most unsentimental, uncomfortable and vexatious experiences and emergencies of home and business life, and thus diminish the difference in real value between Chautauqua and other days.
It was a great disappointment to the class of ’84 that no word of greeting came to them on Commencement Day, this year, from the beloved “Chautauqua Bishop,” Counselor H. W. Warren. The mail was the miscreant, however. The letter did not reach Chautauqua on time, although sent promptly. Graduates of ’84, as indeed all members of the C. L. S. C., will be glad to read his cordial words:
“Beloved graduates of the C. L. S. C., Class of 1884:—I heartily congratulate you on the fact that you have mounted four rounds of the ladder of wisdom that stands on the earth, but reaches into the infinite heavens. It has taken a year to each step, and the number of the rounds is beyond our arithmetic.
“I congratulate you that you are intimately associated with one of the greatest intellectual movements of this or any age. It is great in the range of studies, in the unprecedented number of thousands pursuing them, and especially great in the eminently Christian standpoint from which all these studies are viewed.
“No discovery, theory or science in this age can escape being viewed from the Christian standpoint. This universe was made by and for Christ, its king, and nothing that opposes him shall prosper. Hence, you are on the right foundation, one that is everlasting. Build thereon, not gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, whereby you suffer loss, but build that which shall abide the fire that consumes the world.
“You have not come to this position by ways painful and humiliating, for wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. What a discovery for a world of misery—paths of pleasantness to possession of glory and power. This comes of keeping our heavenly Father in the midst.
“When the famous translator of the Bible into English promised to make the boy who followed the plow in England know more of God’s Word than certain famous prelates of his time, he showed that he knew where all great uplifts of humanity must begin, not with the well-to-do and content, but with those who had crying needs and high aspirations. So in this lifting up of nature into seen harmonies and revelation, till ‘We study the Word and the works of God’ with equal sense of their divine origin. The movement must begin with them full of ambition, and continue till many who follow the plan know more of the blessed harmony than others who are learned only in things of material nature. In this great work ‘Do not be discouraged.’
“I heartily congratulate the classes of 1882 and 1883 on such a worthy addition to their numbers.
“Let us all go forward, fearing no threatened night, expecting an occasional eclipse, to show us more stars than we should ever find by day, and looking beyond cry out:
“Joy, joy, to see on every shoreWhere my eternal growth shall beGod’s sunrise bright’ning on before,More light, more life, more love for me.
“Joy, joy, to see on every shoreWhere my eternal growth shall beGod’s sunrise bright’ning on before,More light, more life, more love for me.
“Joy, joy, to see on every shoreWhere my eternal growth shall beGod’s sunrise bright’ning on before,More light, more life, more love for me.
“Joy, joy, to see on every shore
Where my eternal growth shall be
God’s sunrise bright’ning on before,
More light, more life, more love for me.
“Yours truly,
Henry W. Warren, Counselor.
“Pacific Shore, August 13, 1884.”
First Week(ending November 8).—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter i to “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58.
2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Second Book,” page 87, to “Fourth Book,” page 105.
3. “The Bonds of Speech” inThe Chautauquan.
4. Sunday Readings for November 2, inThe Chautauquan.
Second Week(ending November 15).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58, to “Pronouns,” page 108.
2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Fourth Book,” page 105, to the middle of page 127.
3. “Home Studies in Chemistry,” and “Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life,” inThe Chautauquan.
4. Sunday Readings for November 9, inThe Chautauquan.
Third Week(ending November 22).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Pronouns,” page 108, to chapter ix, page 160.
2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from the middle of page 127 to bottom of page 149.
3. “Temperance Teachings of Science” and “Greek Mythology,” inThe Chautauquan.
4. Sunday Readings for November 16, inThe Chautauquan.
Fourth Week(ending November 30.)—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter ix to end of book, page 208.
2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from page 150 to top of page 172.
3. “Kitchen Science and Art,” inThe Chautauquan.
4. Sunday Readings for November 23 and November 30, inThe Chautauquan.
“Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
“Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
“Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
“Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
Music.
1. Select Reading—Autobiography of Early Life.
[This selection will be found in Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant;” also a part of it inSt. Nicholasfor December, 1876, under the heading, “The Boys of my Boyhood.”]
2. Essay—Bryant’s Time and Contemporaries.
3. Recitation—The Burial of Love.
Music.
4. Select Reading—Selections from His Letters.
5. Essay—Bryant as an Editor.
6. Recitation—The Planting of the Apple Tree.
Music.
The following will be found interesting subjects for essays for this Memorial Day: The Bryant Vase, Mr. Bryant’s Travels, Home and Social Life of Bryant, Methods of Work, Mr. Bryant’s Friends and Companions. Information can be gathered from Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant,” two volumes (D. Appleton & Co., publishers);Scribner’s Monthly, August,1878; “Letters of a Traveler” (G. P. Putnam);Potter’s American Monthly, February, 1879, “The Bryant Brothers;”Atlantic Monthly, December, 1878, “The Death of Bryant,” poem by Edmund C. Stedman; Appleton’s Annual Cyclopædia for 1878;Foreign Quarterly Reviewfor August, 1832;Democratic Reviewfor March, 1842;Blackwood’s Magazinefor April, 1832; Griswold’s “Poets and Poetry of America;”Appleton’s Magazine, Vol. ix.;International Review, Vol. i., “The Writings of Bryant;”The Lakeside Monthly, Vol. viii., “Bryant as a Man.”
An Evening on the Scientific Readings of the Month.
Roll-call—With quotations from eminent Scientists.
1. Essay—Springs and Wells.
2. Select Reading—Herbert Spencer on the value of Scientific Studies.
3. Essay—The Causes of Intemperance.
Intermission.
4. Essay—Corn; Its History and Habits.
5. A Talk on Siphons, and How They Work.
6. Essay—Water and Its Works.
An English Evening.
Music.
1. The Linguistic Tree Explained (see p. 28, “Art of Speech”).
2. Essay—Hints to Young Writers.
Music.
3. Select Reading—Blair on Style and Its Characteristics.
4. Essay—Blunders of our Every Day Speech.
Music.
5. A fifteen minute quiz on “Art of Speech.”
6. Essay—Figures of Speech.
Prayer.
Music.
Roll-call—Responded to by quotations from Bryant.
1. Question Box.
2. Essay—Homer.
3. Map Exercise—The Retreat of the Ten Thousand.
Music.
4. Recitation—Selection from Bryant.
5. Essay—Good English—How Attained.
6. A quiz on current history of the month.
7. General Review of “Questions and Answers.”
“We Study the Word and the Works of God.”—“Let us keep our Heavenly Father in the Midst.”—“Never be Discouraged.”
1.Opening Day—October 1.
2.Bryant Day—November 3.
3.Special Sunday—November, second Sunday.
4.Milton Day—December 9.
5.College Day—January, last Thursday.
6.Special Sunday—February, second Sunday.
7.Longfellow Day—February 27.
8.Shakspere Day—April 23.
9.Addison Day—May 1.
10.Special Sunday—May, second Sunday.
11.Special Sunday—July, second Sunday.
12.Inauguration Day—August, first Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of C. L. S. C. at Chautauqua.
13.St. Paul’s Day—August, second Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of the dedication of St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua.
14.Commencement Day—August, third Tuesday.
15.Garfield Day—September 19.
The long summer vacation, delightful as it is, always causes a sad falling off in the local circle mails ofThe Chautauquan. These letters from the scattered circles of the country are like the visits of those long absent, or the cordial greetings of new friends. We miss them in the long months of rest and are glad to get back again to our table and see the letters flocking in.
As the year begins it may not be amiss for us to chat a little with our friends about the work which we must do together in these local circle pages. It is something like a grand reception. No one can stay very long, and one can hardly hope to be more than introduced to the company—unless, indeed, they happen to be particularly famous in words or deeds. The letters that come to us will all sooner or later be noticed by us; but do you not see how impossible it is that all should be given in full? For the sake of the great Circle we must abridge each interesting letter, much as we might wish otherwise. And then, we really can not introduce you unless you will tell us your name and residence. Of course youmeanto do so. We know that well enough, but you would all be surprised to know how many reports come to us nameless and homeless. There is nothing to do but put them in our waste paper basket, much as we dislike to be so rude to even unknown friends. Again, you must not complain of us if your report does not appear in the first issue after it is sent. Please remember that the local circle department ofThe Chautauquanis prepared for the printer a month before the appearance of the magazine, so that copy must be on our table at least five weeks before the appearance of a number, to insure its appearance in a particular issue. Be sure thatThe Chautauquanwill open its doors to everybody that comes, and just as long as there is “standing room” in this Local Circle Hall, will gladly admit you. And now for the letter bag.
New Hampshirehas given its own popular title to theKeenelocal circle, “The Granite C. L. S. C.” This circle is made up of ’87s, having been formed in the autumn of ’83 with an enrollment of forty members. They meet at the houses of the members, for, as they say, and we believe them right, the meeting at the homes cultivates a better social feeling. During the year they followed a most inviting plan of work, of which they give a brief but suggestiverésumé. “Our method of work has been varied. Each study has been thoroughly investigated. There has been familiar conversation in regard to any matter not well understood, and the question box has been an interesting feature of the evening. Latterly the plan was adopted of assigning to different members topics upon which to prepare questions. They were printed by means of a hectograph, and distributed among the members previous to the next meeting. The design was to bring out all points of interest under consideration. The result has been satisfactory. A year of the course of study upon which we entered, so gladly and happily, has quickly passed, and we are already reaping the benefits in our everyday life. A few individuals can read in a desultory way with great profit, perhaps, but the majority require system and regularity in order to gain goodresults. Careless reading is a thing of the past. We have learned to think. Great changes have been wrought in our tastes for literature. We seek for something ennobling, striving to store the mind with enduring knowledge. The fifteenth of September we again organized with nearly our original number. Although we have done a good work we feel we can accomplish more in the future. We have a good start, and trust we shall land safely in port in ’87.”
Another circle of the Granite State just reported to us is the “Ivy Leaf,” ofNewton Junction. A lively band of busy people they are, too, numbering in their year-old circle of eight members, a railroad station agent, a telegraph operator, a school teacher, a music teacher, and so on. The best and most efficient members are often those who work the busiest during the day. Our “Ivy Leaf” friends have our heartiest wishes for success in their coming year’s work.
Vermont.—The “Invincibles,” ofBradford, organized their band of seven only last March, but they have found the undertaking so pleasant that the secretary has written us a glowing account of their work and methods. She adds a couple of personals too good to be lost: “Our president is Mrs. A. M. Dickey, who graduated in 1882, one of the first two C. L. S. C. graduates in Vermont. She is energetic and self-sacrificing, and with her for our leader we are sure to succeed. One of our members has a drive of four miles to attend meetings, and during the past two years has lost but one session. This will be appreciated by those who know Vermont in winter. It is a sample of the ‘Invincibles.’”
Massachusetts.—We shall expect great things from the New England, and particularly the Massachusetts, division of the C. L. S. C. this year. The wonderful enthusiasm which animated the Framingham Assembly ought to keep the circles at the front the year through. Certainly they have begun well in their reports, at the head of which we want to put the modest announcement of the faithful class of ’82, sent us by their secretary, and let it be a warning to their successors, that they must take care or they will be outdone by the veterans: “At the Framingham Assembly, class ’82 held several meetings. The following officers were elected: President, Mr. Alfred Pike, Holliston, Mass.; Vice Presidents, Dr. E. M. White, Boston, Mass., and Mrs. M. J. Farwell, Brocton, Mass.; Secretary, Mrs. M. A. F. Adams, East Boston, Mass. Mrs. M. J. Farwell will write a poem for our reunion at Framingham next year, and a hymn will be written by Mrs. Rosie Baketel. Rev. O. S. Baketel, of Greenland, N. H., was elected president of the Society of the ‘Hall in the Grove.’”
Bostonreports two circles unknown to us before. The “People’s Church” and the “Berkeley” circles. The first is under the leadership of the pastor of this famous church, Rev. J. H. Hamilton, and, although organized only a year ago, is a most enterprising circle. As yet it is small in numbers, there being scarcely twenty-five members, but it makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks numerically. This circle issues a paper semi-monthly, called thePeople’s Church Chautauquan, the editorship being undertaken by each member in turn, the other members furnishing articles upon such subjects as the leader may assign. This lively little body is not satisfied with prescribing routine programs, but it plans and carries out a different program for each evening, and in this way the exercises do not grow monotonous. The program for the evening of the Shakspere Memorial was especially interesting.
The “Berkeley” circle was formed in the fall of ’82: again in October of ’83 the circle was reorganized, meeting alternate Wednesday nights, and “although,” as they write in their letter of June last, “many things seemed to conspire against us, and we lost several members from various causes, and although the rain and alternate Wednesdays seemed synonymous, yet our circle ‘still lives’ and grows. Amongst our number we have a Harvard graduate of ’80, to whom our success has been largely due during the year just now at a close.” We hope it will not be long before the faithful “Berkeleys” will report their forty members gathered together for another year of work. A circle undaunted by loss of members and rain storms has the right sort of mettle.
There has been lying on our table all summer the following charming testimonial (received too late for the July issue) fromReadville, a part of the town of Hyde Park, a short distance from Boston. It paints so happy a picture of home study one loves to linger over it: “Mother and I are the only ones here in Readville who are studying. We have all of the books, encyclopædias and books of reference. We read to each other and comment on what we have studied. Hardly a day goes by but most grateful words of praise for what the C. L. S. C. is doing, fall from our lips. We enjoyThe Chautauquanexceedingly. It is a library in itself. A great deal of the work is review to me, but is just what I want. Believe that none of the thousands of Chautauquans are more grateful than mother and myself.”
And to follow this we have a “Pansy Triangle” of farmers’ daughters, two of whom belong toCumberland,Rhode Island, the third toNorth Attleboro,Massachusetts. Busy girls, and living far apart as they do, yet they find the time and make the exertion necessary for frequent meetings. “Our girls,” indeed, are beginning to take a very prominent part in local circle work. From every quarter we hear of their busy coteries. The latest is theTottenville(Staten Island, N. Y.) circle. They organised a year ago, and at the close of last year’s readings reported themselves more enthusiastic (if that could be) than they were in the beginning. Once in every two weeks they met at the house of some member of the class and spent two or three hours in talking over the readings; each member prepared a list of ten questions on one or several of the readings required; these questions were answered by the class from memory if possible. Sometimes in connection with the questions one of the Chautauqua games was played. Thus the meetings passed quickly and were thoroughly enjoyed by each member.
A pretty program containing the exercises arranged for each weekly meeting of the month has been received fromNorth Cambridge. It is printed by hectograph on an engraved card, thus making both an inexpensive program and a pretty souvenir of the month’s work. Large circles which have their exercises arranged for each evening will do well to consider this manner of arranging their work.
Rhode Island.—In the beautiful town ofPawtucket, busy with mills and factories as it is, there was organized last January a local circle of fifteen members, which has been doing most excellent work. “Enthusiastic Chautauquans,” they report themselves. We trust we shall hear from them often during the coming year.
New York.—In a letter received in June from the secretary of the “Literary Section of the Rochester Academy of Sciences” (Rochester), there was a pleasant prophecy expressed that the twenty-three members which the circle then numbered might be able this fall to add a cypher to the right hand of the number and send us an account of two hundred and thirty enrolled members, and they add in hearty appreciation of our words: “In a city so full of cultivated people as ours there ought to be double that number to which the course would be a blessing.”
The “Spare Minute” circle, ofNew York City, is one of the many which owe their origin to the interest of one or two readers. During the year 1882-83 there were two young ladies reading the course together, and finding it so interesting they tried to interest others. Soon three young ladies joined them, and in February they formed a circle, holding meetings once a month. The circle soon numbered seven, five ladies and twogentlemen. At a “special,” June 3d, they spent a most delightful two hours and a half with Latin Literature and Roman History. Their pastor, Rev. A. W. Halsey, of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church, met with them and took charge of the meeting. This circle wrote us of their plans for a C. L. S. C. picnic to be held in the summer. Was it a success?
New Jersey.—Everybody found the “Pictures from English History” in the course of last year a very delightful book, and atMarion, the circle of six organized late in the year was so pleased that they read it aloud, taking in connection with it the text-book on English history and the questions fromThe Chautauquan. A very interesting plan it must have proved. Our Marion friends hope this year to be able to report an increase of members and of interest in the work in that place.
Pennsylvania.—The reorganizing of the local circles has brought out many plans for the important work of collecting the old members again into the ranks, and of bringing in new members. That wonderfully energetic body, theAlleghenycircle of the class of ’87, did a capital thing in sending out a large number of copies of the following letter: