Chapter XXVII (4)

The question of Greek is a distinct one. For those who study the classics for the sake of their intrinsic value as works of art, Greek has the precedence of Latin in importance. It is evident, therefore, that a most thorough and extensive course of Greek is necessary for students of this class. Whether such a course ought to be made a part of the obligatory collegiate curriculum of studies, or merely provided for a select class who may choose to enter upon it, we leave to the discretion and judgment of the learned. Undoubtedly, we ought to have a certain number of accomplished Grecians among our men of letters. It is necessary in the interests of ecclesiastical learning that we should have thorough Greek scholars among our clergy. For all useful purposes, however, the value of the amount of Greek actually learned by the majority is exceedingly small, and not to be compared with the practical utility of a knowledge of any one of several modern languages, for example, the German. A clergyman, for instance, who does not aspire to become a learned philologist, but only to make himself acquainted with the labors of the best commentators on the Scripture, will not find it very necessary to be able to read the Septuagint or the Greek New Testament. As for Hebrew, whatever can be learned by a short and superficial course will be almost useless. If he desires to read Aristotle, Plato, or the Greek fathers, for the sake of their sense and ideas, he can do so in the Latin translations without any fear of being led into any erroneous interpretation. The point we are driving at is, that the thorough study of Latin is the most essential thing to be secured in a _classical_ course. Philosophy; a moderate course of mathematics; the English language and literature; the physical sciences, and the modern languages, especially the French, are the other essentials of a complete collegiate course. Whatever time remains will be most usefully employed in the study of history and of modern political and social questions, branches which are certainly essential to a complete liberal education, though for many, or perhaps most, students their thorough cultivation may have to be postponed until after their college course is finished. The improvement of the collegiate education in all these branches, requires, of course, a corresponding improvement in the preparatory schools, since the school and college depend on each other. It is our opinion, in which we are sure that the men most experienced in these matters concur, that those who begin their schooling at the earliest suitable age need to be well trained in an excellent preparatory school until the age of seventeen, before they are fit to profit fully by a high collegiate course. Those who begin later must enter college at a more advanced age, unless they can make up by diligence for lost time, or be content with a shorter course of study. The raising of the conditions for entering college, which can be done gradually, must improve the preparatory schools, and the improvement of these schools will in turn benefit the colleges, by furnishing them with subjects fitted for a higher course of studies.

In saying this, we beg to disavow any intention of undervaluing or finding fault with the colleges and schools at present existing, or the learned and laborious corps of teachers employed in them. They deserve the highest meed of praise and gratitude, and we may well congratulate ourselves on the truly vast work which has been accomplished, at great cost and by dint of great efforts, in the cause of Catholic education in this country. But our motto should ever be, like that of the past generations of laborers in this great cause, "Upward and onward!" We trust, therefore, that all we may say in favor of improvement will be taken as an encouragement and not as a fault-finding criticism--as a friendly suggestion, and not as a presumptuous attempt at dictation.

We have now reached the proper place for speaking of the great necessity of a Catholic University in the United States. A well-conducted college for undergraduates is not a university, though it is often dignified with that name; but is merely one of the principal constituent parts of a university. In regard to the proper constitution, nature, and conduct of a university, much has been written, of late, both in Europe and America. In Europe, those who write on the subject either consider the subject of improvement or reform in universities already existing, or the demands existing in various quarters for the foundation of new ones. These last are chiefly among Catholics, who are extremely alive to this necessity in several countries, but especially in Germany and England. The foundation of a great Catholic University for Germany at the spot which is most appropriate for such a grand undertaking, on account of its hallowed and scholastic memories, Fulda, has been determined. We hope that the efforts to make the Catholic University of Dublin completely successful, and to found another in England, may speedily produce their desired result. In this country, the heads of the older Protestant colleges are considering what measures can be taken to raise these institutions to the level of the universities of Europe. Among the papers which we have read from different quarters on this subject, those of Professor Seeley, of Cambridge, and of one or two professors of Yale College, writing in the _New Englander_, have especially attracted our attention; and we may have occasion to reproduce some of their remarks or suggestions in the present article. Among the Catholics of the United States, the Germans have manifested what looks like the most serious disposition which has yet shown itself for taking the actual initiative in the movement. We rejoice to see it, and hope they may go on. They are a most respectable body; their energy, wealth, and power of organized action are great. Germany is full of young ecclesiastics of the best education, who are sighing for employment, and competent to fill chairs in all the departments except that of English literature. We have but one precaution to suggest, in case this enterprise is undertaken, which is: that proper care be taken to secure the entire subordination of the corps of governors and teachers to the hierarchy and the Holy See, and to ascertain the strict orthodoxy of the persons called to fill the professorial chairs. We want no followers of Hermes, Döllinger, or any other leader of a German sect in philosophy or theology; and persons of that class whose _rôle_ is played out at home, might be the very first to look out for a new field in which to practise their manœuvres, in a German University in the United States, if they saw a chance of securing in it the desirable position of professors--a position which has special attractions for the German mind.

The _Advocate_ of Louisville has recently spoken out very strongly on the need of a Catholic University in this country; and the topic is frequently broached in conversation, as, indeed, it has been for the last fifteen years. Let the Germans go forward and take the lead if they are able and willing; but this will not lessen the necessity of the same action on the part of the other Catholics of the country, who, we may hope, will be stimulated by the example of a body of men so much smaller in number than themselves. When the time comes for action in this matter, the direction of it will be in higher hands than ours; but, meanwhile, we will indulge ourselves in the at least harmless amusement of sketching an ideal plan of the university as it lies in our own imagination, and of the possible method of making it a reality.

A university is a corporation of learned and studious men who are devoted to the acquisition and communication of science and art in all their higher branches. It may be more or less complete and extensive. In its greatest extension it ought to comprise one or more colleges for undergraduates, schools of all the special professional studies, and a school of the higher and more profound studies in every department of literature and science. It must have a permanent body of learned men residing within its precincts, whose lives are entirely devoted to study and instruction. It must have a vast library; museums of science and antiquities; a gallery of painting, sculpture, and all kinds of artistic works; a complete scientific apparatus, a botanical garden, magnificent buildings, beautiful chapels, and a grand collegiate church, with its chapter of clergymen and perfectly trained choir. It should have, also, a great publishing-house, and issue regularly its periodical reviews and magazines, as well as books, of the first class of excellence in the several distinct departments of science and letters. It must be richly endowed, and well governed, under the supreme control and direction of the hierarchy and the Holy See. A plan combining the chief distinctive features of the Roman University, Oxford, Louvain, and the best universities of France and Germany, with some improvements, would represent the full and complete idea we have in our mind.

When we come to the practical question. What could be done now, at once, toward the beginning of such a colossal undertaking? it is by no means so easy to solve it as it is to sketch the plan of our ideal university. We do not fancy, of course, that such a grand institution as this we have described, or even one similar to the best existing European universities, can be created in a hurry by any speedy or summary process. But if it is commenced now, can it not be brought to completion by the beginning of the twentieth century? It seems to us that in the year 1900 or 1925 we shall need not one only, but three grand Catholic universities in the United States. That we can and ought to begin the work of founding one without delay, we have no doubt. The difficulty is, however, in pointing out a sensible and feasible method of doing well what many or most of us are ready to acknowledge ought to be done quickly. Let us suppose that the requisite authority and the necessary funds are confided to the hands of the proper commission, who are to lay the first stones in the foundation of a university. How should they proceed, and what should they first undertake? As these high powers exist only potentially and in our own imagination, we can be certain that they will not take offence if we presume to offer them our opinion and advice.

What is the first and most obvious want which we seek to satisfy by founding a university? It is the want of a collegiate system of education and discipline superior to the one already existing in our colleges, and equal to any existing elsewhere. The first thing to be done, then, is to select some already existing college, or to establish a new one, as the nucleus of the future university. We will suppose that some one of our best colleges can be found which has the requisite advantages of location, etc., making it an eligible place for a great university. Let measures be taken to place the grade of education and instruction in this college at the highest mark. The first of these measures must be to give it a corps of professors and tutors fully equal to their task, and to make the position of these professors a dignified, honorable, and permanent one. Another measure of immediate necessity would be the total separation of the college from the grammar-school, and the establishment of a system of discipline suitable not for boys but for young men. The mere announcement by sufficiently high authority that such a system would be inaugurated in a college, would draw at once within its walls students enough eager to begin a thorough course of study, to secure the success of the experiment. At first, the course of study already in vogue might be carried on, merely adding to it such branches as would not presuppose a previous preparation not actually possessed by the students. For admission to the class of the next year to come, the conditions might be raised one grade higher, and thus by successive changes, previously made known, the maximum standard might be reached without inconvenience or injustice to any; and the grammar-schools would be enabled and obliged to prepare their pupils expressly for the examination they would have to pass for admittance into the college. The college thus properly planted and cultivated would grow of itself in due time to maturity and perfection. Nothing more is wanted than a good system, fit men to administer it, plenty of money, and a body of youth fit and desirous to be instructed and educated in the best manner. The library, the scientific cabinets, the philosophical apparatus, the buildings, grounds, and other exterior means and appliances, should be provided for as speedily and amply as circumstances would permit.

The second great want, in our opinion, is the provision for ecclesiastical students of the advantages for education which can only be completely furnished by a university, and which cannot, therefore, be fully enjoyed at separate ecclesiastical seminaries. The Little Seminary is only a superior kind of grammar-school, even though it gives instruction in the ancient languages and some other branches to the same extent with a college. The Grand Seminary is, strictly speaking, a college for instruction in theology, although it includes a year or two of that study of philosophy which is only introductory to the theological course. A thorough university course, in which all the instruction preparatory to theology should be finished, would give a more complete and thorough education to young ecclesiastics, fit them much better for their professional studies, and prepare them much more efficaciously for the high position which belongs, by all divine and human right, to the priesthood. This is the way in which the clergy, both secular and regular, were trained during the Middle Ages. The system of separate training came in afterward, and has been kept up by a sort of necessity, chiefly because the universities have become so secularized as to be dangerous places. We have touched, in these last words, the tender spot, which we well know must be handled delicately. The great argument for secluding young ecclesiastics in seminaries entirely separate from secular colleges is, that their morals, their piety, their vocation, are otherwise endangered. We reply to this by a suggestion intended to do away with the objection to a university life, and at the same time to show how its advantages may be secured. Let both systems be combined. Let there be a college exclusively intended for young ecclesiastics, in which they shall be kept under the discipline of the Little Seminary, at the university. The Little Seminary will then take its place as a separate grammar-school for boys who are intended for the ecclesiastical state. From this school they can pass, not before their seventeenth year, to the college at the university, and they will have seven years still remaining in which to finish their education, before they arrive at the canonical age for ordination to the priesthood. It seems to us that the separate college is a sufficient security for the morals, piety, and vocation of any young man above seventeen years of age who is fit to be a priest in this country outside of the walls of a monastery. Moreover, we are speaking about a model Catholic university, which, we should hope, would not be so extremely dangerous a place for young men. We have never heard that Louvain is considered in that light by the clergy of Belgium, and the glimpse we had of a large body of the Louvain students at Malines during the session of the Congress of 1867, gave us the most favorable impression of their virtuous character.

The university should also be the seat of the principal Grand Seminary, and of a school of Higher Theology. The reasons for locating the place of education for ecclesiastics at a university apply to all the grades of their distinct schools above that of the grammar-school with nearly equal force, and they are very weighty in their nature. They concern in part the professors and in part the students. So far as the former are concerned, it is evident that they would derive the greatest advantage from the facilities for study and intercourse with learned men afforded by the university, and would exercise the most salutary influence over the professors in the departments of philosophy and secular science. One great end of the university is to collect together a great body of learned men devoted to the pursuit of universal science; and it is obvious that this cannot be successfully accomplished unless the ecclesiastical colleges are included within the corporation.

In regard to the students, it seems plain enough that all that part of their course which precedes theology can be much more thoroughly carried on at a university of the highest class than at a Little Seminary, especially if these seminaries are numerous and therefore necessarily limited in numbers and all kinds of means for improvement. A concentration of the endowments, the instructors, and the pupils in one grand institution, makes it possible to give a much better and higher kind of education, and saves a great deal of labor besides. It is especially, however, in relation to the lectures on physical science, and the cultivation of other general branches distinct from the routine of class recitations, that the university has the advantage over the seminary. The students of theology, moreover, can receive great benefit from lectures of this kind, and from the libraries, museums, cabinets, etc., which a great university will possess, as well as from the greater ability and learning which men chosen to fill the chairs of sacred science in such an institution are likely to have, in comparison with those who can be made available for giving instruction in many of the smaller seminaries. Over and above all these advantages for actually gaining a greater amount of knowledge, there is the immense advantage to be gained of bringing up together and binding into one intellectual brotherhood our most highly educated Catholic youth. There is something in the atmosphere and the surroundings of a great university which quickens and enlarges the intellectual life; brightens the faculties; trains the mind for its future career, and fits it to act in society and upon men. The alma mater is a centre of influences and associations lasting through life. The learned men residing there, and their pupils in all professions, are bound together by sacred ties, which are not only a cause of pleasure to them in future years, but of great power for good in the community. Such a university as we have described would in twenty-five years produce a body of alumni who would intellectually exert a great influence over the Catholic community throughout the United States, and make themselves respected by all classes of educated men. The clergy ought to retain the first place and a commanding influence among this body of educated Catholics. For this purpose, it seems to us that they ought to be educated with them, and look to the same university as their alma mater.

We see no reason, moreover, why the religious orders and congregations should not share and co-operate in the labors and advantages of this great enterprise. The smaller congregations find the suitable education of their postulants a difficult task. One or more colleges at a university, where these students could reside by themselves, under their own rule and superior, but receiving their instruction from the university professors, would solve this difficulty. The older and more numerous religious societies have greater facilities for educating their students, and are governed by their own old and peculiar traditions. We will not presume so far as to give them any suggestions from our modern brain in regard to matters in which they have the experience of from one to six centuries. It strikes us, however, as a very pleasing and quite mediæval idea, that our proposed grand university, which we may as well make as splendid as possible while it remains purely ideal, should have its Dominican, Jesuit, Sulpician, and Lazarist colleges. There is no reason why such colleges should not make constituent parts of the university, each one having its own laws and regulating its own internal affairs according to its own standards.

We will say nothing about the law, medical, scientific, and artistic schools which a university ought to have to make it complete.

We have only attempted to show how a university might be started on its career. Once really alive and in motion, the rest would be more easily provided for. Undoubtedly, a vast sum of money would be requisite for such an undertaking. Our wealthy Catholics would have to exercise a princely liberality, and the whole mass of the people would be obliged to contribute generously for many years in succession. We must admire the remarkable instances of princely liberality in the cause of general education recently given by Mr. Peabody, Mr. Cornell, and a considerable number of other wealthy gentlemen in the United States, whose benefactions to colleges and schools have been frequent and munificent. Let us have one-twentieth part of the money expended on education by other religious or learned societies, and we will show again what we did in former ages, when we founded Oxford, Cambridge, St. Gall, Bec, Paris, Salamanca, Fulda, Louvain, Cologne, Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and the other famous schools of the middle ages. What more important or more glorious work can be proposed to the Catholics of the United States than this? We know what our Catholic youth are, for we have spent much time in giving them both scholastic and religious instruction. What can be more ingenuous, bright, and promising than their character--more capable of being moulded and formed to everything that is virtuous and noble? They contain the material which only needs the proper formation to produce a new and better age, which we fervently hope is already beginning to dawn. As the Alcuins, Lanfrancs, and other illustrious fathers of education in former times were among the principal agents in producing epochs of new life, so those who take up their work now in our own country, and throughout Christendom, will be among the principal benefactors of the church and the human race, and deserve for themselves a most honorable crown.

Our topic in the present article has led us to present almost exclusively and in strong light the advantages to be derived from a university and from university education, in relation both to the ecclesiastical state and secular professions. To prevent mistake, we add in conclusion, that we do not desire or anticipate the suppression or merging into one institution of all our colleges and seminaries. It is scarcely possible that all the students of this vast country should be educated in one place. The necessity for other colleges and seminaries will of itself create or continue them. The university will give them an example and model to follow, will furnish those not already amply provided for from the bosom of old and learned religious orders with professors, will give those who desire it a chance to complete their studies after leaving college by residing for a time within its walls, and will reign as a queen among lesser institutions, giving tone, character, and uniformity to the scientific and literary community of Catholic scholars throughout the country. There are doubtless certain respects in which the universities of Europe must always have an advantage over any institution we can hope to found in this new country. Some, or even many, will always have a longing for a residence abroad in these ancient seats of learning, which they may and ought to gratify, when it lies in their power to do so. Above all other places, Rome must ever draw to her those who desire to drink faith, piety, and knowledge from their fountain-head. And, if a better age is really coming, not only will the Pope necessarily be secured in a more tranquil and firm possession of his temporal kingdom in all the extent which he justly claims, that he may govern the church with all the plenitude of his supremacy, but also that the wealth and prosperity of the Roman Church may give to her institutions of learning an amplitude and splendor which they have never yet attained. Planets are nevertheless necessary as well as a sun in a system, and so also are satellites. However ample and extensive the provisions made at Rome may be for educating a select portion of the clergy of all countries, they can never make it unnecessary to provide also in every country for the best and highest education of its own clergy. So far as we can see, every reason and consideration cries out imperatively for the speedy foundation of a Catholic University in the United States.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] Prof. Seeley advocates the plan of devoting a part of the time during the last two years at English schools to Latin. The proper study of English must also include in it an analysis of the Latin element, and an explanation of the derivation of words of Latin origin.

THE WARNING.

Ye nations of earth, give ear, give ear,
From Holy Writ comes the warning true,
The voice of the ancient captive seer
Through the dim-aisled centuries reaches you.

Thus saith the seer: "Ye have lifted high
Against his altar your impious hand;
From the Lord's spoiled house is heard the cry,
'Destruction swift to this guilty land.'"

But a deeper than Belshazzar's wrong
Veils the light of these mournful years,
And many an eye in the saintly throng
Turns from the earth bedimmed with tears.

The Holy City by promise given,
A precious dower to the spotless bride,
Is trodden by feet outlawed, unshriven,
And her streets with martyrs' blood are dyed.

The crown that ever has fallen as light
On holy brows, from the Hand above,
Has been torn away by sinful might
From him whose rule was a father's love.

The deed was by one; the sin by all;
By ay, or by silence, ye gave assent;
Ye saw the shrine to the spoiler fall,
Nor hand ye lifted, nor aid ye lent.

O nations of earth! give ear, give ear,
From Holy Writ comes the warning true,
The voice of the ancient captive seer,
From the far-off ages, speaks to you!

WRITING MATERIALS OF THE ANCIENTS.

It is curious to remark the various and apparently incongruous substances which men, in their efforts to preserve knowledge or transmit ideas, have used as writing materials. The animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms have each and all been laid under contribution. In every land and in every age, stone and marble have been employed to perpetuate the remembrance of the great deeds of history. Inscriptions cut in jasper, cornelian, and agate are to be met with in every collection of antiquities. A cone of basalt covered with cuneiform characters was found some years since in the river Euphrates, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library of Paris, side by side with the sun-baked bricks on which the Babylonian astronomers were wont during seven centuries to inscribe their observations on the starry heavens.

The Romans made books of bronze, in which they engraved the concessions granted to their colonies; and they preserved on tablets and pillars of the same durable material the decrees and treaties of the senate, and sometimes, even, the speeches of their emperors.

"The Bœotians," says the learned Greek geographer Pausanias, "showed me a roll of lead on which was inscribed the whole work of Hesiod, but in characters that time had nearly effaced."

"Who will grant me," cries Job, "that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book? With an iron pen and in a plate of lead, or else be graven with an instrument in flintstone?" (xix. 23 24.)

Tanned skins were likewise employed for writing purposes by the Asiatics, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Celts. In the Brussels library there is to be seen a manuscript of the Pentateuch, believed to be anterior to the ninth century, written on fifty-seven skins sewed together, and forming a roll more than thirty-six yards long.

The custom of writing on leathern garments appears to have been prevalent during the middle ages. The great Italian poet, Petrarch, used to wear a leathern vest, on which, while sitting or sauntering near the shaded margin of the fountain of Vaucluse, he would note each passing thought, each poetic fancy. This precious relic, covered with erasures, still existed in 1527.

We read, too, of a certain abbot who strictly enjoined his monks, if they happened to meet with any of the works of St. Athanasius, to transcribe the precious volumes on their clothes, should paper be unattainable.

The use of prepared sheep-skin, that is, parchment, dates from about a hundred and fifty years before the Christian era; its Latin name, _pergamena_, is very evidently derived from Pergamos, but whether because invented there, or because it was more perfectly prepared in that city than elsewhere, is a question not yet decided. Besides white and yellow parchment, the ancients employed purple, blue, and violet. These dark shades were intended to be written on with gold and silver ink. Several very beautiful manuscripts of this description are to be seen in the Imperial Library of Paris. Parchment manuscripts were sometimes of great size; thus, the roll containing the inquiry concerning the Knights Templars, which is still preserved in the archives of France, is full twenty-three yards long.

Parchment became very scarce during the invasions of the barbarians, and this scarcity gave rise to the custom of effacing the characters of ancient manuscripts in order to write a second time on the skin. This unfortunate practice, most prevalent among the Romans, and which was continued until the invention of rag paper, has occasioned the loss of many literary and scientific treasures. The primitive characters of some few of these doubly-written manuscripts, or palimpsests, as they are called, have been restored by chemical science, and several valuable works recovered; among others, for instance, Cicero's admirable treatise on the Republic.

Even the intestines of animals have been used as writing material. The magnificent library of Constantinople, burnt under the Emperor of the East, Basiliscus, is said to have contained, among its other curiosities, the Iliad and the Odyssey, traced in letters of gold on the intestine of a serpent. This rare specimen of caligraphy measured one hundred and twenty feet.

The most ancient inscribed characters we possess are upon wood. A sycamore tablet containing an engraved inscription was discovered, about thirty years since, in one of the Memphis pyramids; the learned Egyptologist who deciphered it pronounced it to have been in existence some five thousand nine hundred years! The Chinese, also, before they invented paper two thousand years ago, wrote upon wood and bamboo. Many oriental nations still make books of palm-leaves, on which the characters are scratched with a sharp-pointed instrument. The Syracusans of bygone times used to write their votes on an olive-leaf. The modern Maldivians trace their hopes, fears, and wishes on the gigantic foliage of their favorite tree, the makareko, of which each leaf is a yard long and half a yard wide. The Imperial Library of Paris, rich in all that is rare and interesting, possesses several ancient leaf manuscripts, some beautifully varnished and gilt.

In Rome, before the use of bronze tables and columns, the laws were engraven on oak boards. "The annals of the pagan high-priests," says a French writer, "which related day by day the principal events of the year, were probably written with black ink on an _album_, that is, a wooden plank whitened with white-lead. These annals ceased a hundred and twenty years before Christ, but the use of the _album_ was kept up some time longer." The Romans also wrote their wills on wood.

Linen cloth covered with writing has been found in most of the mummy-cases that have been opened. The Egyptian Museum in the Louvre contains several rituals on cloth. The Sibylline Oracles were traced on cloth. The first copy of the Emperor Aurelian's journal that was made after his death was written on cloth, and is still preserved in the Library of the Vatican. On cloth were written also some of the edicts of the first Christian emperors.

No certain epoch can be ascribed to the fabrication of paper from the papyrus reed. The celebrated French _savant_, Champollion the younger, discovered during his travels in Egypt several contracts written on papyrus, which by their date must have been drawn up seventeen hundred years B.C.

Egypt appears to have kept the monopoly of the papyrus paper trade. The principal manufactories of it were situated at Alexandria, and so important an article of commerce did it become that a dearth of papyrus was the cause of several popular disturbances in some of the great cities of Italy and Greece. Under the Emperor Tiberius, a scarcity in the supply produced so formidable a riot in Rome, that the senate was compelled to take measures similar to those necessary in years of famine, and actually had to name commissaries, whose duty it was to distribute to each citizen the quantity of writing-paper he absolutely required.

The papyrus reed seems indeed to have been ancient Egypt's greatest material blessing, for not only was it the principal article of foreign commerce and source of immense wealth in the form of paper, but it was also of the most extraordinary utility to the poorer classes. Household utensils of every description were fabricated from its roots; boats were constructed of its stem; roofing, sail-cloth, ropes, and clothes were made of its bark; and from the appellation of "eaters of papyrus," often applied to the Egyptians by the Greeks, some have thought that it was a common article of food. How extraordinary does it then seem that a plant of such inestimable value should ever have disappeared from a land which derived such benefits from it. Nevertheless, it is a singular fact that the papyrus is no longer to be found in Egypt; recent travellers assure us that not a stalk is to be seen at the present day in the Delta. Sicily alone now possesses the beautiful reed.

We are ignorant of the exact period of the introduction of the papyrus paper into Greece and Italy, but Pliny has left us copious details concerning the manipulations it underwent among the Romans. Sizing was then, as it is now, one of the most important operations in paper-making. The membranous covering of the stem of the papyrus reed was far from being of a firm, compact texture, and the Alexandrian factories probably sent it forth very imperfectly prepared. The best quality of paper was made by gluing together, with starch and vinegar, two sheets of papyrus, one transversely to the other, and then sizing them. These sheets were sometimes of considerable dimensions; documents have been discovered written on paper three yards in length.

Those true lovers of literature, art, and science, the Athenians, raised a statue to Philtatius--to him who first taught them the secret of sizing paper!

It is a curious fact that, about thirty years since, the vegetable size used by the ancient Egyptians was introduced, with some slight improvement, as a new discovery, into the paper manufactories of France, and has now almost entirely abolished the use of animal size in that country for all purposes connected with the fabrication of paper.

About the fourth century, the Arabs made Europe acquainted with cotton paper, just then invented in Damascus, thereby causing a great diminution in the papyrus trade. A long struggle ensued between the rival productions, which was only put an end to at the commencement of the twelfth century, by the invention of paper manufactured from flaxen and hempen refuse. The papyrus disappeared at once and completely; soon forgotten by commerce, but immortal in the remembrance of poets and sages--immortal as the pages of Cicero and Virgil, whose sweet and eloquent thoughts were first traced on Egypt's reed.

Until the present time, this flaxen and hempen rag paper has been produced in sufficient quantities for the necessities of our civilization, but as civilization increases, and as education becomes more general, especially among the masses of Europe, it is evident that the supply of rags will be inadequate to the demand, and wood will most probably again be brought into requisition, as in the age of Pericles.

Not, however, in the form of the ancient tablets, but transformed by mechanical and chemical science into sheets of white and pliant paper; or the numerous fibrous plants of Algeria, Cuba, and other tropical countries will be turned to account, and no longer permitted to waste their usefulness on the desert air. Even now, in France, among the Vosges Mountains, there is a paper manufactory where wood is manipulated with the most complete success. And some few years since, a newspaper paragraph informed the civilized world that a process of making paper from marble had been discovered by a canny Scotchman of Glasgow! It is not, indeed, impossible that the marble painfully hewn and engraven by our forefathers to perpetuate the memory of a bloody struggle or of some vain triumph, may in time to come, by the magic power of modern science, become a sheet of snowy tissue, whereon the fair, slight hand of beauty shall trace the dainty nothings of fashionable life!

The tablets so continually mentioned by ancient writers must be noted. They were made of parchment, thin boards, ivory, or metal, prepared to receive ink, or coated with wax and written on with a stylus, or sharp-pointed pencil. In the Fourth Book of Kings we read: "I will efface Jerusalem as tables are wont to be effaced, and I will erase and turn it, and draw the pencil over the face thereof." Herodotus and Demosthenes speak of their tablets. In Rome, they were used not only as note-books and journals, but also for correspondence in the city and its environs, while the papyrus served for letters intended to be sent to a distance. The receiver of one of these notes not unfrequently returned his answer on the same tablet. Made of African cypress and highly ornamented and inlaid, they were given as presents, precisely as portfolios, souvenirs, and note-books are nowadays. On the wax-covered tablets was generally traced the first rough copy of any document, to be afterward neatly written out either on papyrus or parchment. These wax-covered tablets were used in France until the beginning of the last century.

Two-leaved tablets were called diptychs, and were sometimes of extraordinary cost and beauty. The Roman consuls and high magistrates were accustomed, on their first appointment to office, to present their friends with ivory diptychs, exquisitely engraved and carved, and ornamented with gold.

Ancient ink was composed of lamp-black and gum-water. Pliny says that the addition of a little vinegar rendered it ineffaceable, and that a little wormwood infused in it preserved the manuscript from mice. This ink was used until the twelfth century, when our present common ink was invented.

Not only black, but also red, blue, green, and yellow inks were employed in antiquity. Sepia ink and Indian ink are mentioned by Pliny. Red ink, made from a murex, was especially esteemed, and reserved for the emperor's exclusive use, under pain of death to all infringers of the privilege. Gold and silver inks, principally used from the eighth to the tenth centuries, were also prized; writers in gold, termed chrysographers, formed a class apart among writers in general. The Imperial Library of Paris possesses several Greek Gospels, and the _Livre des Heures_ of Charles the Bold, entirely written in gold. Few manuscripts are extant written in silver; the most celebrated are the Gospels, preserved in the Upsal Library.

The stylus, a dangerous weapon when made in iron, and proscribed by Roman law, which required it to be of bone; the painting brush, used still by the Chinese; the reed, which was cut and shaped like our modern pen, and with which some oriental nations write even now; and the feather pen, which is mentioned by an anonymous writer of the fifth century, were the general writing implements of antiquity and the middle ages. Metallic pens are also supposed to have been known; the Patriarchs of Constantinople were accustomed to sign their official acts with a silver reed, probably of the form of a pen.

Some paintings found in Herculaneum give evidence that the ancients were accustomed to make use of most, if not of all the various conveniences with which modern writers surround themselves. The writing-desk, the inkstand, the penknife, the eraser, the hone, and the powder-box were well-known. They do not seem, however, to have had the habit of sitting up to a table to write, but rested their tablet or paper on their knee, or on their left hand, as the orientals do at the present day.

DOÑA FORTUNA AND DON DINERO.[16]

FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.

Well, sirs, Doña Fortuna and Don Dinero were so in love that you never saw one without the other. The bucket follows the rope, and Don Dinero followed Doña Fortuna till folks began to talk scandal. Then they made up their minds to get married.

Don Dinero was a big swollen fellow, with a head of Peruvian gold, a belly of Mexican silver, legs of the copper of Segovia, and shoes of paper from the great factory of Madrid.[17]

Doña Fortuna was a mad-cap, without faith or law, very slippery, uncertain, and queer, and blinder than a mole.

The pair were at cross purposes before they had finished the wedding-cake. The woman wanted to take the command, but this did not suit Don Dinero, who was of an overbearing and haughty disposition. Why, sirs! my father (may glory be his rest!) used to say that if the sea were to get married he would lose his fierceness. But Don Dinero was more proud than the sea and did not lose his presumption.

As both wished to be first and best, and neither would consent to be last or least, they determined to decide by a trial which of the two had the more power.

"Look," said the wife to the husband, "do you see, down there in the hollow of that olive-tree, that poor man so discouraged and chop-fallen? Let's try whether you or I can do more for him."

The husband agreed, and they went right away, he croaking, and she with a jump, and took up their quarters by the tree.

The man, who was a wretch that had never in his whole life seen either of them, opened eyes like a pair of great olives when the two appeared suddenly in front of him.

"God be with you!" said Don Dinero.

"And with his grace's worship also," replied the poor man.

"Don't you know me?"

"I only know his highness to serve him."

"You have never seen my face?"

"Never since God made me."

"How is that--have you nothing?"

"Yes, sir; I have six children as naked as colts, with throats like old stocking-legs; but, as to property, I have only _grab and swallow_, and often not that."

"Why don't you work?"

"Why? Because I can't find work, and I'm so unlucky that everything I undertake turns out as crooked as a goat's horn. Since I married, it appears as though a frost had fallen on me. I'm the fag of ill-hap. Now, here--a master set us to dig him a well for a price, promising doubloons when it should be finished, but giving not a single _maravedi_[18] beforehand."

"The master was wise," remarked Don Dinero. "'Money taken, arms broken,' is a good saying. Go on, my man."

"I put my soul in the work; for, notwithstanding your worship sees me looking so forlorn, I am a man, sir."

"Yes," said Don Dinero, "I had perceived that."

"But there are four kinds of men, señor. There are men that are men; there are good-for-naughts; and contemptible monkeys; and men that are below monkeys, and not worth the water they drink. But, as I was telling you, the deeper we dug, the lower down we went, but the fewer signs we found of water. It appeared as if the centre of the world had been dried. Lastly, and finally, we found nothing, señor, but a cobbler."

"In the bowels of the earth!" exclaimed Don Dinero, indignant at hearing that his ancestral palace was so meanly inhabited.

"No, señor!" said the man deprecatingly; "not in the bowels; further on, in the country of the other tribe."

"What tribe, man?"

"The antipodes, señor."

"My friend, I am going to do you a favor," said Don Dinero pompously; and he put a dollar in the man's hand.

The man hardly credited his eyes; joy lent wings to his feet, he was not long in arriving at a baker's shop and buying bread, but, when he went to take out his money, he found nothing in his pocket but the hole through which his dollar had gone without saying good-by.

The poor fellow was in despair; he looked for it, but when did one of his sort ever find anything? No; St. Anthony guards the pig that is destined for the wolf. After the money he lost time, and after time patience, and, that lost, he fell to casting after his bad luck every curse that ever opened lips.

Doña Fortuna strained herself with laughing. Don Dinero's face turned yellower with bile, but he had no remedy except to put his hand in his pocket and bring out an _onza_[19] to give the man.

The poor fellow was so full of joy that it leaped out of his eyes. He did not go for bread this time, but hurried to a dry-goods store to buy a few clothes for his wife and children. When he handed the _onza_ to pay for what he had bought, the dealer said, and stuck to it, that the piece was bad; that no doubt its owner was a coiner of false money, and that he was going to give him up to justice. On hearing this, the poor man was confounded, and his face became so hot that you might have toasted beans on it; but he took to his heels and ran to tell Don Dinero what had happened, weeping the while with shame and disappointment.

Doña Fortuna nearly burst herself with laughing, and Don Dinero felt the mustard rising in his nose.[20] "Here," said he to the poor man, "take these two thousand reals; your luck is truly bad; but if I don't mend it, my power is less than I think."

The man set off so delighted that he saw nothing until he flattened his nose against some robbers. They left him as his mother brought him into the world.

When his wife chucked him under the chin and said it was her turn, and it would soon be seen which had the more power, the petticoats or the breeches, Don Dinero looked more shame-faced than a clown.

She then went to the poor man, who had thrown himself on the ground and was tearing his hair, and blew on him. At the instant the lost dollar lay under his hand. "Something is something," he said to himself; "I'll buy bread for my children, for they have gone three days on half a ration, and their stomachs must be as empty as a charity-box."

As he passed before the shop where he had bought the clothes, the dealer called him in, and begged of him to overlook his previous rudeness; said that he had really believed the _onza_ to be a bad one, but that the assayer, who happened to stop as he passed that way, had assured him that it was one of the very best, rather over than under weight, in fact. He asked leave to return the piece, and the clothes besides, which he begged him to accept as an expression of sorrow for the annoyance he had caused him.

The poor man declared himself satisfied, loaded his arms with the things; and, if you will believe me, as he was crossing the plaza, some soldiers of the civil guard were bringing in the highwaymen that had robbed him. Immediately, the judge, who was one of the judges God sends, made them restore the two thousand reals without costs or waste. The poor man, in partnership with a neighbor of his, put his money in a mine. Before they had dug down six feet they struck a vein of gold, another of lead, and another of iron. Right away people began to call him Don, then "You Sir," then Your Excellency. Since that time Doña Fortuna has had her husband humbled and shut up in her shoe, and she, more addle-pated and indiscriminating than ever, goes on distributing her favors without rhyme or reason, without judgment or discretion--madly, foolishly, generously, hit or miss, like the blows of the blind stick; and one of them will reach the writer, if the reader is pleased with the tale.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Madame Fortune and Sir Money.

[17] The Bank of Madrid.

[18] Less than a farthing.

[19] A gold piece valued at sixteen dollars.

[20] Was becoming angry.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.

My brothers, ye are sad, and my sisters, ye are poor,
But once was holy poverty the cloak that angels wore;
My fathers, ye are lame, and my children, pale ye be,
But in every face, by his dear grace, that blessed Lord I see
Who brother is and father is, and all things, unto me.

In the sigh of sick men's prayers, in the woeful leper's eye,
In the pangs of wicked men, in the groans of them that die,
Thy voice I hear, thine eye I see, thy thought doth hedge me in.
Oh! may thy sinner bear thy stripes for them that toil in sin,
And with thy ransomed suffering ones find me my choicest kin.

For, whether down to pious rest on these bare stones I lie,
Or if at last upon thy cross triumphantly I die,
The joy of thee, the praise of thee, is more than all reward;
For holy misery doth most with heavenly bliss accord:
All ways are sweet, all wounds are dear, to them that seek the Lord.

I made a harp to praise the Lord with ever-glorious strain;
I tuned a harp to praise my God, and all its strings were pain:
Its song was like to fire, but sweet its keenest agony,
And thus in every tune and tear its burden seemed to be,
"So great is the joy that I expect, all pain is joy to me."

Through all the weary world do I an exiled orphan roam,
Yet for thy sake were desert cave a palace and a home;
And birds, and flowers, and stars are lights to read thy Scripture
by,
And earth is but a comment rude unto thy wondrous sky,
The which to reach, my soul must teach earth's body how to die.

With thy wayfaring ones my crust I've broken by the brooks,
When flowers were as our children fair, our comrades were the oaks,
And wildest forests for thy praise were churches, choirs, and
clarks--
Such house and kindred doth he find who to thy wisdom harks.
Praise ye the Lord, ye spirits small--my sisters sweet, the larks!

The untented air is home for me who in thy promise sleep,
Or wake to find thee ever nigh, and still my sins to weep;
And holy poverty's disguise is pleasant to thine eye;
Yea, richer garb was never worn, that treasures may not buy,
Since thou hast clad me with thy love, and clothed me with the sky.

Oh! could I for one moment's light thy heavenly body see,
All joy were pain, all pain were joy, all toil were bliss to me.
I would give mine eyes for weeping, and my blood should flow like
wine,
To purchase in that sight of bliss one blessed look of thine,
Who hath ransomed with a crown of pain this sinful soul of mine!

My brethren, ye are poor, but as children ye are wise,
Who wander through the wilderness in quest of paradise.
O little children! seek the Lord, wherever he may be,
Whose blessed face by his dear grace on every side I see,
Who brother is, who father is, and all things, unto ye.

LETTER FROM ROME.

ROME, Jan. 21, 1871.