Chapter C: L. S. C. Literature

Among the many notable features connected with Chautauqua work, not the least is the influence of the C. L. S. C. on the educational literature of the times. Book making of a peculiar sort, to meet a special demand, has been one of its results. It is a maxim of commerce that whenever there is a demand there will be a supply to meet it. It is not strange that the supply did not exist at the beginning, for the demand, the want of a school of the people, such as the C. L. S. C. aims to be, is without precedent in our history. Books for the public schools and academies lacked adaptability as well as attractiveness in many instances. The greater part of them were too elementary, being prepared for younger minds and those more advanced and mature were generally too special in their character, failing to give that “outlook” which figures so largely in the Chautauqua Idea. It had to be recognized that the mind of one grown to adult years, though perhaps no farther advanced in a particular branch of study than the boy at school, yet because of other development, experience and observation required that the subject be presented in a different manner. College text books were not suited to the needs of the student of this People’s College. They were often too deep and not wide enough, too much of the students’ _sanctum_ to be suited to the fireside of the home.

A glance at the list of the Chautauqua text books, as they are found in the advertising pages of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, will suggest somewhat the extent and character of this feature. It will be seen that this literature is being published and sold by some of the best publishing houses in the country, and that writers and authors of high reputation have given their talent to meet this want. Let even the disinterested reader examine this list. They are _sui generis_. Wide in their range as the scope of the C. L. S. C. course, simple and attractive in the manner of treating the various subjects, yet philosophical and thorough in the best sense. They are the books that thousands, scattered here and there, thirsting for knowledge, have felt the need of without knowing they were attainable, and which were unattainable till this demand became focalized by the organization of the C. L. S. C. This new literature is therefore filling a wider sphere than the organization which called it into existence. Upon the table of many a professional man, and in many a home where there is not a desire to pursue a full course of study, these books find their way, by reason of the very peculiarities aimed at in their preparation. We do not speak here of the effect that such books is destined to exercise upon the writers of text-books for the schools and academies and colleges, nor of the quickening effect upon publishers to furnish a wide and varied range of books on all these and other subjects to meet the increased demand arising from mental appetites awakened by this course, nor do we venture to prophesy the dimensions to which this literary influence will grow. Mr. Bayard Taylor says that the literary bloom of the eighteenth century in Germany was largely indebted to the popular guilds of the “mastersingers” of preceding centuries. A great popular educational movement like the C. L. S. C. cannot fail to have a large influence on the popular literature of the future.

The Prospect for a Revival of Spiritual Religion.

There is evidently great need of a revival of spiritual religion in all the churches of the land. The fact that most of the great Christian bodies are increasing very slowly in membership, and that some of them, according to their own statistics for the past year, have suffered an actual loss, is evidence that the Church at large is not blessed with the vitality and spiritual power she ought to have. Another significant fact is, that the non-church-going element in both city and country is rapidly on the increase, so that it is estimated that from one-fourth to one-half of the population of the country, seldom, if ever, attend religious services. Indeed we are personally acquainted in communities, and that outside of cities, too, in which the steady church-going element does not comprise more than one-eighth of the population. In view of these things we are led to inquire what are the prospects for the much-needed revival of spiritual religion.

All revivals are necessarily of divine origin, but are dependent on human agency to make them operative among men. The Church is the agency through which divine influences have always been manifested to the world. A revival has never been known to begin outside the Church. The reformation began with Luther, a member of the Romanish Church. The great modern revival movement called Methodism began with Wesley, a member of the Episcopal Church. Concerning the Holy Spirit, there can be no doubt but he is always ready to do his work. The question then is this: Is the Church in condition to secure the spirit in awakening and converting power. This question must be answered in many instances in the negative and for the following reasons:

We must admit that a spirit of worldliness pervades the Church to an alarming degree. In the mad chase after material things that characterizes our age, Christians are seemingly as eager in pursuit of temporal things for temporal ends as are those who make no pretensions to a religious life. The love of money, which is the “root of all evil,” is productive of covetousness, which, like a deadly dry-rot, is destructive of spirituality, eliminates spiritual longings from the soul, and renders the man gross and groveling. In part as a result of this world-spirit developed in the Church, there has been engendered a lamentable indifference to vital piety. The religious forms remain, but the warmth, the glow, the fervor and the power of religion are often sadly wanting. In fact, modern culture too often frowns on fervency either in the pew or pulpit; and too often the sermon, instead of being a powerful appeal to the hearts and consciences of men, and awakening dead souls from the sleep of sin, is only a moral or æsthetic essay or oration, of the conventional half-hour pattern, and deals mainly in glittering generalities. The discussion in the pulpit, in the right spirit, of the justice of God, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, eternal punishment, human redemption by Jesus Christ, and kindred themes, will arouse men to duty, but these themes are by some thought to be unpopular. Consequently the thunders of Sinai are hushed and men are soothed by a sort of emasculated gospel into carnal security, both concerning themselves and their fellow-men, and make but little effort to raise themselves or others to a higher spiritual life.

The increasing secularization of the Sabbath is another great hindrance to a revival of spiritual religion. The sanctity of this day is essential to the spirituality of the Church, and whatever interferes with the proper religious observance of the day tends to destroy vital religion among the people.

In spite of these unfavorable symptoms which are manifest at present in the body of believers, we do not despair of the ultimate success of the Church in accomplishing her mission. There are many sincere, efficient and godly workers in the ranks of all denominations who are earnestly longing and laboring for the salvation of the world, but we fear for the present, at least, that their efforts are being neutralized by the worldliness, indifference, lukewarmness and formalism which characterize a large portion of the Church, so that the near future will not witness a grand revival of spiritual religion. We would be most heartily glad, however, if our forebodings should prove ill-founded, and if there should come upon the Universal Church a divine baptism which would consume all the dross of sin and make her more successful in winning souls.

Success of the Natural Method in Language at Chautauqua.

The natural method has been for several years past on trial, and has achieved a marked success. It has been practically demonstrated that in a very short time persons can be taught to speak French or German, or indeed any language for which there is a competent living teacher. The modern languages have been most successful because it is not easy to find those sufficiently familiar with the ancient ones to give to their pupils the necessary practice in them. Yet, even Greek and Latin have been taught to be spoken in this way. In the modern languages, however, but a few weeks have been needed to enable persons to speak them fluently and understand them well when spoken. From the beginning the scholar is taught to speak in the simple way in which the mother-tongue is taught in childhood. With the very first lesson single words at the beginning and then some simple phrases are mastered. These are increased with each succeeding lesson, and soon the pupil finds that he has quite a store of the words and phrases most commonly in use. By frequent practice these are retained, and others being daily added, at the end of six weeks, or thereabouts, of constant study, any ordinary conversation can be carried on with a facility which astonishes those accustomed only to the slow and tedious processes of the older methods.

It has been fortunate for the Chautauqua Assembly that teachers have taught here from the beginning who have been thoroughly devoted to this method of instruction. Hence the success of the schools, which have already attained to very large numbers, and have secured enthusiastic interest in all those who have attended them. Though the number of last year exceeded that of any that preceded it, it was but an earnest of what is yet to come. Any prediction of the future outcome of these schools, which would be recognized as at all moderate by others, would fall far short of what is confidently expected of them by those familiar with this natural method of instruction, and with the success with which it has met in the Chautauqua schools.

William Penn and His Policy.

The recent celebration of the bi-centennial of the landing of William Penn on this continent has once more attracted public attention to the founder of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Penn was a prominent personage during his lifetime and figured largely both in England and this country. His character was an odd mixture of fanaticism and moderation, and in his public career he managed to so blend Quaker simplicity and worldly wisdom that he was a great light in his sect and at the same time was possessed of great influence in court circles, especially during the reign of James II.

He received his patent for the territory now forming the State which bears his name from the crown, in payment of a debt of £16,000 due to his father, who had been an admiral in the English navy during the reign of Charles II. When he came to this country in 1682 to take possession of his grant, he did not endeavor to drive out by force the Indian tribes which occupied it, but formed a treaty of peace and friendship with them on such terms that the land made over to him by the crown was ceded to him and his colonies by the consent of the aboriginal inhabitants. In all his relations with the Indians he treated them with such justice and benevolence that his colonies were never molested by them, but enjoyed uninterrupted peace and prosperity. Of this treaty made by Penn with the Indians Voltaire said that it was “the only treaty never sworn to and never broken.”

Penn’s treatment of the Indians was as anomalous as it was wise and statesmanlike. Had a similar policy characterized the leaders and members of other colonies this country would have been spared many scenes of horror and years of bloodshed, and the story of the red men’s wrongs would never have disgraced its records. Penn’s course in this matter was all the more remarkable in that it was utterly foreign to the spirit of the age in which he lived. War was the trade of kings and their representatives. Its rude alarms were preferred to the “piping sounds of peace,” and the sword was deemed a more honorable emblem than the olive branch. Penn showed his greatness by rising completely above the spirit and temper of his times in the policy he pursued in relation to the Indians.

The world has grown wiser with the flight of time, and now, after the lapse of two centuries, the peace policy which Penn adopted in his treatment of the Indians is becoming more and more the policy of the nations toward one another. War has been found to be the most costly and cruel method of settling national difficulties. Besides causing the slaughter of millions of men, it has been the means of loading the states of Europe, as well as our own country, with burdensome debts which the coming generations of peace-loving men must pay. As the world becomes more thoroughly civilized and Christianized war will be looked upon as a relic of barbarism, and will be shunned as a horrid crime. National differences will be settled by arbitration and mutual concessions instead of by an appeal to arms, and the prophetic declaration that men “shall beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks” will be fulfilled in spirit if not in letter.

PERICLES.—A sonnet by the Rev. Theodore C. Pease:

His grave, impassive face was stern and cold;
Upon his brow majestic calmness sate;
The fine curve of his lips, as firm as fate,
Of deep resolve and fast persuasion told.
No features his of coarse or common mold,
But first of men in the world’s foremost state,
Even at her highest,—he among the great,
Excelled by brow and breast the men of old,
And unto us who, through the sight of years,
See men like shadows move along the dim
Horizon’s verge, high o’er them all appears,
Clearer than all beside, the shape of him
Who gave his name to Athens’ noblest age,
Whose life gave history her brightest page.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

Hail the night, all hail the morn,
When the Prince of Peace was born;
When amid the wakeful fold,
Tidings good the angel told.
Now our solemn chant we raise
Duly to the Savior’s praise;
Now with carol hymns we bless
Christ the Lord, our righteousness.
—_From the German._

General Neal Dow, the famous Prohibition leader, is now about seventy-eight years old, but he is so well preserved that he does not look to be more than sixty. He is of medium height, rather stout, and wears heavy side whiskers, which, like his hair, are silvered with age.

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The _London Echo_, which has been a most active sympathizer with Arabi Pasha, suggests the following lines as applicable to him:

Rebel or Patriot? Well, heads or tails!
Define the terms, and this is how it reads:
A Rebel is—a Patriot who fails;
A Patriot is—a Rebel who succeeds.

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