Chapter VI: Iuri Dolgoruki, and Andrei Bogoliubski, Founders (8)

_Gilroy, California._—We organized in 1879 and ’80 a local circle with about twenty-five members. In the study of history, besides the regular lesson, some of the members were appointed to read selections, and others to write short sketches of principal characters whose names are found in our lessons. The selections were mostly poems from Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome and Tennyson’s King Arthur. In the study of biology, geology, etc., questions were distributed to the class on slips of paper by a committee appointed by the chair at the previous meeting. The questions and answers were read at the next meeting. Sometimes topics or subjects were given; the general divisions of the vegetable kingdom, glacial formation, the orders of Greek and Roman architecture, etc. Last year we were favored by having Prof. Norton, of the State Normal School, for one of our leaders. In the study of art we had the benefit of stereoscopic views exhibited by the aid of a magic lantern, of the ancient ruins and public buildings, and scenes of interest in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In the study of geology and chemistry, the Professor gave us illustrative diagrams on the blackboard, and chemical experiments illustrating volcanic action, and various other phenomena resulting from scientific investigation. This year we have taken “a new departure.” We do not have a regular leader, as heretofore, but the person occupying the chair appoints a successor for the next meeting, who conducts the recitation, makes up the order of work, and then appoints a successor for the next meeting. Our plan of work is still the same as in former years. Prof. Norton is still with us occasionally; also Miss S. M. Severance, who has been a great help to the circle since its organization, not only as an efficient teacher at the regular meetings, but one to whom we could refer questions of importance, her extensive and varied information enabling her to be, as it were, a living encyclopedia for our benefit.

* * * * *

_Reading, Pennsylvania._—To our own pleasant city has swept the “happy circle” and like its many members, we too, feel blessed that

——“our Heavenly Father granted
Us the boon of being numbered
With the army of Chautauqua.”

Two weeks ago a dozen of us ladies and gentlemen organized ourselves into—

——“a band that owe allegiance to a monarch called the Mind,
Who believe to-day is better than the yesterday behind;
We laugh at party limits, breathe no single word of barter,
But our all absorbing passion is to grow a trifle smarter.”

Through the kindness of Mr. Wm. Price, a spacious room in his residence has been put at our disposal, and herein we hold our meetings every Monday evening, and examine one another on the matters we have read during each preceding week, and the answers form vital topics for discussion of surpassing interest. But we are by no means selfish with our highly prized acquirements, and our circle is greatly honored by the leading Lyceum of this city, the management of which has graciously requested us to take charge of the first half of their program. In response we send some one of our circle in a representative capacity, to each meeting to deliver a lecture upon one of the subjects of the course, and we expect to take up all in due season. Already much interest is awakened, and our circle promises to become famous for its capable and willing workers for Christianity and culture.

* * * * *

_Holliston, Maine._—Our local circle numbers forty members. Our meetings are held monthly, and the program is arranged by a committee of two, and announced a month in advance. Synopses of readings are given, and essays on leading characters and topics. We have talks on subjects of general interest and Round-Table conversations. On memorial days we have readings from the authors whose day we celebrate. We allow considerable time for music, for the singing of class songs, and we expect all qualified to furnish music, to do so by making their own selections. Once a year we give an entertainment of a musical and literary character, inviting friends who are not members. From time to time we have public lectures, arranged on subjects of interest and connected with C. L. S. C. work.

* * * * *

The Rev. R. H. Howard writes from Saxonville, Massachusetts: Under what was at first deemed extremely unpropitious circumstances we have now what appears to be a flourishing circle in this place. At the outset all signs seemed discouraging; but the energy and pluck of a few young ladies were honored by the awakening of marked and very hopeful interest in the enterprise, and our meetings thus far have been fully attended and enthusiastic. Even the perplexing, though unavoidable, delay in obtaining the text-books has not perceptibly dampened or diminished the ardor excited. Meanwhile, not feeling able to purchase large and expensive maps and charts, one of our members, who wields a facile pencil, sketches, on a large scale, such maps and charts as we require as we proceed. A large map, in connection with a history exercise in a circle meeting, would seem to be indispensable. Certain charts, also, however simple or crude, illustrative of geological formations, and race and language relations, cannot but serve a very important purpose. Let me observe just here, that I learn that the same enthusiasm in C. L. S. C. work that has been developed in this place is obtaining in adjoining communities. Teachers in public schools, I am told, gather, after the labors of the day, in one of the school-rooms, and, for an hour or so, daily, read together. How interesting a spectacle! Yea, in view of this interest in these higher intellectual pursuits, thus awakened among these young people under my own eye, I have been impressed, as never before, as I have thought of the vast popular intellectual ferment produced throughout the country, not to say throughout the world, by this wonderful C. L. S. C. of Dr. Vincent’s. Arising from this very wide-spread, and ever-extending and deepening interest in, and devotion to intellectual and moral pursuits, crowned through his timely instrumentality, what could well have been more timely, aye, providential, in the best sense of the term, than this movement? Who can begin to estimate its results in the years and ages to come? Already the important fact is developed that the life, and doubtless the continued existence, of Chautauqua, Framingham Assembly, and other similar enterprises, are bound up in, and are destined to depend upon the support derived from the C. L. S. C. The mother thus already leans hard upon the young and vigorous daughter.

* * * * *

At Elkham, Wisconsin, local circle, the president appoints two or more members at each meeting to prepare questions on the lesson for the next week. These members teach that part of the lesson on which they have prepared questions. Some recite with open books, while others are prepared to answer the questions with closed books. The questions and answers published in THE CHAUTAUQUAN are always used as a review. Of course there is a free interchange of opinion and frequent discussions on points of the lesson, which are of peculiar interest.

* * * * *

_Meriden, Connecticut._—The officers of our local circle constitute the Instruction Committee. The president appoints a committee of five, whose duty it is to assist the Instruction Committee. Said committee appoint leaders of reviews, and, in fact, they have charge of all work of the circle, memorial exercises, lectures, entertainments, etc. We have another committee of four, whose work it is to see all strangers at meetings of the circle, and invite them to join; also to welcome new members, and see that they are introduced to other members, especially to the officers and Instruction Committee. We number seventy members, thirty-four regular and thirty-six local members. We regret to say that we lost one member by death, last summer; quite a young man, and, so far as we know, the only one who has taken the White Seal course. We regret his death, as he promised to become a valuable member to our circle. A few have left the circle this year, but new members are continually being added, eight names being proposed at our last meeting. We meet the first and third Monday evenings of each month. Some of our members walk from a mile to a mile and a half to attend the meetings. Our method of work is as follows: We open the meeting with singing and prayer; all business is then transacted. We have about five reviews in an evening. At present the reviews are in Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course, History of Russia, and English and Scandinavian History and Literature. These are prepared in the following manner: One member prepares from three to twelve questions on a subject, gives them to other members to answer at next meeting, and at that time calls for answers, and gives other members opportunity to ask any questions on the subject. Five-minute essays are sometimes read on other important subjects. We take up geology soon, on which subject Prof. Chapin, Ph. D., president of Meriden Scientific Circle, will give a few talks. The circle has just decided to purchase the set of geological diagrams. The committee intend all memorial days shall be celebrated this year. Last June we had a circle picnic, spending the day at a very pleasant place about twelve miles from here. It was a great success. Monday evening, September 18, we had memorial exercises for Garfield Day. On Monday evening, October 2, Rev. J. L. Hurlbut, of Plainfield, delivered a public lecture under the auspices of the circle, his subject being, “How to Spend our Leisure.” Both the lecturer and lecture have been very highly spoken of by all who attended, and we consider it the greatest success of all lectures as yet given. Our circle is growing, and we believe a great amount of good has been and is being done by it.

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The local circles of the C. L. S. C. of Cincinnati, O., have this winter adopted the plan of visiting each other. This new arrangement was commenced on Tuesday evening, Oct. 31,—the Wesley, York street and Grace Church circles visiting the one at Christie Chapel. The lesson for the evening was a review of Grecian History, and was ably conducted by Mr. John A. Johnson, President of the Christie Circle. At the close of the lesson some minutes were passed in social intercourse, and then followed a comparison of the methods pursued in conducting the various circles present. All expressed themselves highly pleased with the meeting and it is the purpose to continue them throughout the year, as this system of visitation serves to make the members better acquainted with each other, which is desirable in a large city like Cincinnati. It also serves to strengthen the bond of fellowship existing among those engaged in the common cause.

* * * * *

The first of the 3rd series of free lectures, under the auspices of the Chautauqua Circles of Cincinnati and vicinity, was given at Christie Chapel M. E. Church, corner of Court and Wesley avenue, in October. The church was filled with a highly intelligent and attentive audience. Rev. Dr. Blackburn, of Central Presbyterian Church, delivered a very instructive and eloquent lecture of an hour’s length on the subject, “The Origin and Spirit of the Greeks.” The lecturer traced the march of the Greeks from their Aryan fatherland, ranged them in the two main divisions of the Ionians and the Dorians; traced the rise of Doric Sparta and Ionic Athens; sketched their periods of successive overlordship; showed the want of political unity in all the Greek States, and emphasized the fact of a social unity in the Pan-Hellenic sentiment, the Greek language, religion, Amphictyonic council, festivals, literature, philosophy and art. The Greeks could appreciate a good thing wherever it originated. They caused art to stand out in its own beauty and on its own merits. The lecture closed with these words: “Greece had a mission to the human race, a noble work for the world. It was not in the domain of political government, nor of conscience, but in that of intellect. The lasting outcome of her work was culture. She fulfilled her mission. She ran her race among the nations and won the laurel. She fell, and thorns now bind her delicate hands, but the old olive wreath has not faded. The heritage of her culture has passed to the westward Aryans. We read our New Testament and remember her marvelous gift of speech. We run our Christian course and think of the Olympian races. Plato is studied where Paul is believed. The classics are recited where the Gospel is read for its wonderful words of life.”

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_Flushing, Michigan._—Our local circle meets every Friday evening. We have roll-call, and each member responds, either with a verse of Scripture or a gem from one of the poets, as decided on at our last meeting. Then singing and prayer. We next take the questions given in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, with additional questions on some of the required reading. We also have select reading or an essay each week. We had ten members last year; we now have eighteen. Our first meeting for this year was on the evening of September 29. The exercises were as follows: Reading of Psalms i:8-23; President’s greeting; essay on “The Excellencies of the C. L. S. C.;” recitation, “Hope Song of C. L. S. C.;” Bryant’s letter on the C. L. S. C.; paper on the “Design and Method in the C. L. S. C.” Then followed the enrollment of members by the secretary, and the appointment of committees by the president.

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_Nebraska City, Nebraska._—Two years ago our C. L. S. C. sprang into existence in the form of a triangle, widened into a circle in 1881, and now, in 1882, we have a membership of thirty. Monthly meetings have been held, at which we have had short oral accounts of subjects discussed in Geology, and questions and answers on Greek history. A noticeable feature of our last meeting was a “match” on the pronunciation of words selected from our reading. Were Herodotus or Thucydides present at our meetings, we think he would take pity upon us, and give to his places and men names less jaw-breaking to learn. The correct pronunciation of them seems to us like a “piling of Pelion upon Ossa.” Though our officers are ladies, we have able gentlemen in our circle. Some of the reading is a little “deep” for us, but, by perseverance, we hope to come up to it, “since the mountain can not come to Mahomet.” We all now see its beneficence insomuch that we present a unanimous vote of thanks to the projector of this grand scheme—the People’s College.

[_Not Required._]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN
ENGLISH,” COMPRISING THE LATTER HALF OF THE VOLUME, OR
“HOMER.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.

1. Q. After Xenophon’s Anabasis what is it usual for the preparatory student to take up next in order? A. The Iliad of Homer.

2. Q. What is sometimes taken instead of the Iliad? A. The Odyssey.

3. Q. What is the position of the Iliad of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.

4. Q. From what is the Iliad entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.

5. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the Iliad? A. The wrath of Achilles.

6. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy.

7. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.

8. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, Briseïs, and usurp her to himself.

9. Q. What at length incites Achilles to again return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.

10. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.

11. Q. What forms the subject of the Odyssey? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.

12. Q. When and how does the Iliad itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.

13. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the Iliad? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.

14. Q. Of what are some of the most noted passages in the first book of the Iliad descriptive? A. The descent of Apollo, the wrangle between Achilles and Agamemnon, the promise of Jupiter to Thetis, and the feast of the gods.

15. Q. What does the second book of the Iliad recount? A. How Jupiter sends a deceiving dream to Agamemnon to induce that chieftain to make a vain assault on the Trojans.

16. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.

17. Q. To us who read in the light of present views what is a feature of the Iliad fatal to any genuine interest in the story? A. The introduction of supernatural agencies into the action of the poem.

18. Q. What is one of the prominent scenes introduced in the third book of the Iliad? A. A duel between Paris, the thief, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen.

19. Q. What takes place at the crisis of the duel? A. Venus steps in and carries Paris off to his bed-chamber in the palace of Priam.

20. Q. In the fourth book what is described by a simile, one of the most nobly conceived and nobly expressed of all that occur in the Iliad? A. The advance of the Achaians to battle.

21. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book of the Iliad? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the Æneid.

22. Q. Of what is one of the most famous passages in the sixth book of the Iliad descriptive? A. The parting of Hector and Andromache, his wife, bringing with her their little child.

23. Q. Who among the Greeks takes the honors of the seventh book of the Iliad? A. Ajax.

24. Q. What constitutes a prominent feature in the eighth book of the Iliad? A. Another account of the Olympian gods in council.

25. Q. Technically described what is Homer’s verse? A. Dactylic hexameter.

26. Q. What is a dactyl? A. A foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.

27. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.

28. Q. Name a classic English poem written in dactylic hexameter. A. Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”

29. Q. In what celebrated descriptive passage does Homer exhaust all his art? A. In his description of the shield of Achilles.

30. Q. What does the Odyssey mean? A. The poem of Odysseus, or Ulysses, king of the island of Ithaca.

31. Q. When Troy was taken, for what place did Odysseus and his followers sail? A. Ithaca.

32. Q. On their way, to what land were they driven? A. That of the Cyclops, a savage race of one-eyed giants.

33. Q. Here what did Odysseus do to the Cyclop Polyphemus? A. He put out the eye of the monster after he had eaten six of the hero’s comrades.

34. Q. What did Poseidon, the god of the sea and father of Polyphemus, do in revenge? A. He doomed Odysseus to wander far and wide over the sea to strange lands.

35. Q. When the Odyssey begins, ten years after the fall of Troy, where is Odysseus? A. In the island of Ogygia, at the center of the sea, where for seven years the nymph Calypso has detained him against his will.

36. Q. Meanwhile what has befallen Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, in Ithaca? A. She has been courted by more than a hundred suitors, lawless, violent men, who feast riotously in the house of Odysseus as if it were their own.

37. Q. When Odysseus at length gets permission to sail from Ogygia, and starts on a raft, what occurs to him? A. Poseidon wrecks his raft, and he is thrown upon the island of the Phæacians, a rich and happy people near to the gods.

38. Q. Upon being entertained by the king of the Phæacians, what are the subjects of some of the adventures he relates? A. The Enchantress Circe, the sweet-singing sirens, and the passage between Scylla and Charybdis.

39. Q. After Odysseus is taken back to Ithaca by a Phæacian crew, what is the fate of the suitors of Penelope? A. They are all slain in the palace by Odysseus, assisted by his son Telemachus and two trusty servants.

40. Q. What are some of the most noted translations of the Odyssey? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Worsley’s, and Bryant’s.

41. Q. In what form is Worsley’s translation written? A. The Spenserian Stanza, that adopted by Edmund Spenser for his great poem of the “Fairy Queen.”

42. Q. Name some other well-known poems written in the Spenserian Stanza. A. Thompson’s “Castle of Indolence,” Beattie’s “Minstrel,” and Byron’s “Childe Harold.”

43. Q. What part of the adventures of Odysseus does our author first give in an extended quotation from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. His stay in the country of the Phæacians.

44. Q. What was the name of the king of the Phæacians, frequently referred to in poetry containing classical allusions? A. Alcinous.

45. Q. What American author has written a version of the legend of Circe? A. Hawthorne in his “Tanglewood Tales.”

46. Q. Of what is the next extended quotation descriptive that is given by our author from Worsley’s translation of the Odyssey? A. The slaughter of the suitors of Penelope by Odysseus and his son.

47. Q. Of what are the remaining quotations given descriptive? A. Odysseus making himself known to Penelope, his wife, and to Laertes, his father.

48. Q. Who now intervenes to avert further bloodshed? A. Athene.

49. Q. In what manner is this accomplished? A. She stays the hand of Ulysses raised in fell self-defense against the avenging kindred of the suitors, and enjoins a solid peace between the two parties at feud.

50. Q. In this appearance what familiar form does the goddess Athene assume? A. That of Mentor, ancient friend of Ulysses.

[_Not Required._]

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY.

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.

1. What is the origin of the expression, “Possession is nine points in the law?” [Page 124, Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English.]

2. What was the preying sadness that Cowper sought to escape from by the work of translating Homer? [Page 130.]

3. Where is the original to be found of the quotation, “From the center to the utmost pole?” [Page 135.]

4. Who was “Macedonia’s Madman,” and why so called?

5. Give some of the features of the Cathedral of Cologne that render it famous? [Page 159.]

6. With whom did the expression originate, “Perish the thought?” [Page 163.]

7. In what particulars are the lines of Pope, “false and contradictory,” in his paraphrase of the moonlight scene, given in the closing part of the eighth book of the Iliad? [Page 185.]

8. When and on what occasion was Webster’s famous seventh of March speech delivered? [Page 193.]

9. Why is Athene called the “stern-eyed?” [Page 208.]

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY IN THE NOVEMBER NUMBER OF THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

_Geology._

1. The glacial streams from ice-caves that are the sources of the Arveiron and the Rhone rivers are milk-white from the presence of innumerable molecules of triturated rock which they bear suspended. This powdered rock is in the form of a very fine, impalpable mud. It is an unctious, sticky deposit, and only requires pressure to knead it into a tenacious clay. This mud owes its origin to the grinding power of the glacier, the stones and sand being crushed and pulverized upon the rock below.

2. The Grinnell glacier, discovered by Captain Hall, is just north of and adjacent to Hudson’s Strait, on the extreme southern point of Baffin’s Land, called Meta Incognita.

3. The Loffoden Islands are famous for the great maelstrom, which is a narrow passage between two of them. They are also noted for their fisheries. The evidences of the powerful wearing action of tidal currents is seen in their extremely rugged and precipitous coasts, and deep channels. Sharp pointed peaks three to four thousand feet above the sea, rise nearly perpendicularly out of the water.

4. The volcano of Jorullo is situated one hundred and sixty miles southeast of the City of Mexico. It is famous for its recent and sudden upheaval during a single night, in the midst of a fertile and highly cultivated plain.

5. Earthquakes are spoken of as “convulsive movements of Old Vulcan” for the reason that the ancients ascribed the cause of them to that God. Vulcan was the god of fire, and his workshop was generally supposed to be in some volcanic island.

6. The connection of the former island of Tyre with the continent is not wholly due to the rising of the land from beneath. In the siege of Tyre by Alexander, 332 B. C., he united the island to the main land by an enormous artificial mole. This has been increased by ruins and alluvial deposits.

_History of Greece._

1. Earth and water given to the Persian heralds were regarded as symbols of submission, because the earth represented the land, and the water the sea, and the meaning was that they were willing to yield dominion of both to the Persians.

2. The festival of the Karneian Apollo was a festival observed in many of the Grecian cities, especially in Sparta, where it was first instituted, in honor of Apollo Carneius. The celebration lasted nine days, and during the time nine tents were pitched near the city, and nine men lived in them after the manner of a military camp, obeying in everything the order of a herald.

3. The pæan, or war song of the Greeks, was a song originally sung in honor of Apollo, and was always of a joyous nature. It was also sung as a battle song, both before an attack on an enemy, and after the battle was finished. In later times it was sometimes sung in honor of mortals.

4. The tomb of Mausolus is one of the seven wonders of the world, associated with the name of Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, inasmuch as the Mausoleum was built by another queen of the same name, distinguished as Artemicia, queen of Caria.

5. According to Thucydides the sacrifice made by Pausanias during the battle of Platæa was made to Jupiter in the market-place of Platæa. It was a bloody sacrifice, probably of some domestic animal, and from the entrails or the manner of the death the soothsayers sought to interpret the will of the gods.

6. The Island of Delos was called sacred because it was said to have been the birth-place of Apollo and Diana. In 426 B. C. it was purified by the Athenians by having all tombs removed from it.

_Geology._

1. The Fille-Fond, or Fille-Field, is a mountain plateau of Norway, connected with the Songe-Fjeld on the north and the Hardanger-Fjeld on the south. The summits vary in height from 4,900 feet to 6,300 feet.

2. The common name of the Chimæra is the Sea-cat. It is so called on account of its eyes. They have a greenish pupil surrounded by a white iris, and they shine, especially at night, like cats’ eyes. It is also called “King of the Herring.”

3. By the “Old Red Sandstone” of Europe is meant the Devonian Rocks. These rocks are called “red” on account of their color, and “old” to distinguish them from the New Red Sandstone, which appears in the triassic period.

4. Some of the eccentric features which probably caused the astonishment of Cuvier on examining the Plesiosauri for the first time are the following: to a lizard’s head it united the teeth of a crocodile, a neck like a serpent’s body, the trunk and tail of a quadruped, the vertebræ of a fish, the ribs of a chameleon, and the fins of a whale.

5. Some of the fossil footprints in the Connecticut Valley, made by colossal reptiles, are called “bird tracks” because they were at first supposed to be the tracks of birds, a large part of them resembling the impressions of birds’ feet more than those of any known animal.

6. The Loup Fork Beds are beds of Pliocene deposit which occur on the Loup Fork of the Platte River in the Upper Missouri region.

_History of Greece._

1. The Helots were Spartan slaves. They were said to have been the native population of a portion of the Peloponnesus, and to have been subjected to slavery by the invading Dorians.

2. The “sacred wars” were wars relative to the possession of the Temple at Delphi and its treasures.

3. The Alkmæonidæ were a noble and wealthy family of Athens, descended from Alkmæon, who was a descendant of King Codrus. They were considered sacrilegious on account of the way in which Megacles, one of the family, treated the insurgents under Cylon. Having taken refuge at the altar of Minerva, on the Acropolis, Megacles induced them to withdraw on the promise that their lives should be spared, but their enemies put them to death as soon as they had them in their power.

4. The Untori, in the plague of Milan, in 1630, were persons suspected of anointing doors with pestilential ointment, and thus spreading the disease. Many persons were arrested and put to death on this suspicion.

5. Hermes was the Greek name for Mercury, the messenger of the gods.

6. The class Mothakes were emancipated Helots, who had been domestic slaves.

* * * * *

Correct answers to all the questions for further study in the November number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN have been received from Rev. R. H. and Mrs. Mary A. Howard, Saxonville, Mass.; Miss Maggie V. Wilcox, 605 North Thirty-fifth street, West Philadelphia, Pa.; Mrs. L. A. Chubbuck, New Bedford, Mass., and Miss Mary P. Whitney, Wagon Works, Ohio. A large number of other members have sent replies, and some of the papers show much diligent research, but as one or more of the answers in each paper are incorrect we have not given the names. A comparison of the answers as printed with those sent will show wherein the failures have been.

Members of the C. L. S. C. are not required to answer questions for further study. Those who are able to procure correct answers to all the questions for further study in this number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN will receive an acknowledgment if the replies are forwarded to Albert M. Martin, General Secretary C. L. S. C., Pittsburgh, Pa., so as to reach him not later than the 31st of January. Answers will be published in the March number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. No answers need be sent unless they are to all the questions.

OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. STUDIES FOR JANUARY.

For the month of January the required C. L. S. C. Reading comprises Prof. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, the last half of the book, and readings in English, Russian, Scandinavian, and Religious History and Literature, and also readings in Bible History and Literature. The reading in Prof. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek course in English is from page 124 to the end of the book. The remainder of the reading for the month is printed in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The following is the division according to weeks:

FIRST WEEK—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from page 124 to page 158.

2. Reading in Bible History and Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, selection for January 7.

SECOND WEEK—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from last paragraph on page 158 to last paragraph on page 198.

2. History of Russia, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, selected for January 14.

THIRD WEEK—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course in English, from last paragraph on page 198 to last paragraph on 229.

2. Pictures from English History, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, selection for January 21.

FOURTH WEEK—1. Wilkinson’s Preparatory Greek Course In English, from last paragraph on page 229 to end of book.

2. Readings in Scandinavian History and Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, selection for January 28.

C. L. S. C. ROUND-TABLE.[I]

The lecturer of the afternoon, Colonel Daniels, of Virginia, was introduced.

COLONEL DANIELS: Your commander-in-chief and shepherd of this flock asked me to talk about “How to Teach Geology.” I did not come down here for any such purpose. I came to have a little rest and have a good time, and get acquainted with Chautauqua. But as I am here, I am glad to be set at work in any way to keep me out of mischief.

He said on a subsequent occasion that he did not want me to give a written lecture. That reminds me of a story that I heard Senator Nye tell years ago in a speech. He told of one of those excellent boys that die young, standing by the roadside, and a man was on a prancing steed. The man said, “Boy, when I get up to you, don’t you take off your hat and make a bow and scare this colt; he will throw me off.” Said the boy, with rustic simplicity, “I was not going to.” [Applause and laughter.]

I suppose that my excellent friend has to keep on guard. There are prowling around through these trees people with their pockets stuffed full of old sermons and lectures, and he is always on guard to keep them from firing them off to scare his pet C. L. S. C. So I was not mad a bit. [Laughter.]

Well, now, to plunge _in medias res_, it is a beautiful thing to study geology. This planet was our birth place. It is the way of God. And here in its strata is written by the finger of God himself the history of all that mighty series of events through which it passed from the time it emerged from primary chaos until to-day. It is scarcely possible that any person should believe in studying the works of God, and fail to see that this portion of his work, which lies in immediate contact with us, from which in so many ways we draw sustenance, in connection with which we have our being, and from out of which flows the stream of that abundant supply which God has provided for his children, and which for all our time is to be the theater of action of our race, should be studied.

But how, how taught? Don’t give any written lectures now. I will tell you how not to do it. If you are going to teach geology, don’t deliver written lectures. Write all you can about it, but don’t deliver it. I delivered a written lecture once, and that is the reason I never delivered any more.

I began studying geology when a boy, when I was put to studying a hoe-handle and ten acres of corn for about three weeks. There were lots of these pieces of stone, and my uncle, a good old Methodist class-leader, told me that God put those stones there at the time of the deluge. That satisfied me. But when I was on a government survey away in the West, I saw hundreds and thousands of feet of those rocks, such as I saw this morning when I picked up these stones. Here you see a complete mass of shells. Such rocks make up the bluffs of the Mississippi River. We have twenty thousand feet of these in Colorado. Major Buell told me that he got in one place twenty-seven thousand feet. Then I was not satisfied. I began to look a little further. By-and-by, in the district school library, I got hold of Randall’s Geology, that blessed old book, and it began to open my mind a little. I was on these surveys, and I began to have more and more practical lessons. Among the lead mines of Wisconsin I found the miners wanted practical knowledge, and I undertook to teach them a little. I remember my first attempt on a slate; then I took my bristol-board and made some diagrams. And then in a store, and then in a church; in the basement first, and then I got up into the church. So I taught the rudest kind of people, and from one lecture, I gave two, three, four, five, and on up to fifteen. I gained a local reputation, and got to be State Geologist of Wisconsin, and was tolerably well known in that country as a practical geologist. But I had no scientific knowledge of geology.

A good friend of mine wanted to see me advanced in life, and so sent word to me if I would come and deliver a lecture on geology before the board of their college, he thought I would get a professorship. It was an Old School Presbyterian college. I prepared myself without regard to expense. I went down to Boston, and saw Prof. Hitchcock and Prof. Agassiz, and I hunted through the books, and I made a lecture. You ought to have heard it. [Laughter.] You would not be here now. [Laughter.] It treated of all the cosmogonies; it went through primal chaos, through the azoic, the silurian, the devonian, and the various strata, until it introduced man on the scene. It took me two hours. It was a cold night, and they all shivered, and looked as if they wished I was in some warmer place. I did not get the professorship, and the college died the next year. [Laughter.]

Write all you can, it tends to make you accurate and fixes your knowledge, and then do with it as a good old Methodist presiding elder told me once on a time. We had planted some melons and cucumbers, but he did not seem to be pleased with them. He told the folks that we had splendid cucumbers, and he knew how to fix them: slice them up thin, put them in water, turn off the water, and put on pepper and salt, and throw them out of the window. That is what you are to do with the written lectures, read, write, and, as Emerson says, get drunk with your subject. You will not hear anything more of the dryness of your subject. It makes a subject dry because a man has not got enough of it in him to see the great connecting principles in him, so that he is aroused and sees the ultimate of it as well as the details, and the ultimate of it is man. It is for man and made for man. This being created here and being put in the midst of all of these things, is to make him greater, grander, and bring him into relation with the truth, and then by symmetrizing his being and aligning him with God in the great work of God, that is to make of this globe a heaven.

Geology will help you to do that, as the Bishop said yesterday, it will give you visions of the infinite possibilities of yourselves when you once align yourselves with God and live up to the truth. God has put into your hands the power to subordinate this globe, its storms, its climates, and their condition; you want geology for that. You want to begin to know these rocks at Chautauqua. I would like to put in your collection first, all the stones in the vicinity of Chautauqua. Go out into the quarry, with its masonry that God has built. Here you find the stones all covered over with God’s hieroglyphics, here they are, corals, shells, and things that were alive. If you knew a way of petrifying these trees and plants, would you not think it was a pleasing way and do it? Here it is done. Here you have a study, a whole natural history, a whole natural creation that God made in order to make man possible, and capable of producing grain and grass and flower to make man live, all depending upon the fact that these rocks were built up as you find them to-day.

You find the old rocks arranged in strata, layers. You have them there by the depot. How was that? Go by the hillside. Let a portion of the drops of rain get together and make a stream, and they will form a gulley. What do you see? The soil has been washed out, and the material of the soil has been spread out. A pond, perhaps, will be there, such as you and I used to navigate, and then it dries up on the surface, and cracks at right angles. Here it is. There was a little mud puddle, and it cracked when it dried up. If you will take up a piece of it, you will find that it is arranged in layers. Here, see that. Through all that summer, and the previous summer, there was a succession of storms, and each one brought its contribution to the whole. If it was a big storm, it was thick, if a little storm, it was thin. Just like the exogenous trees. You count the lines of growth, and know the age of the tree. We have one layer spread over the other, all little volumes, but when it has quit growing, as in libraries, you will have a thick book. So, I say the layers write the storms of the past.

What else would we find there? If there were snails, leaves and sticks, they would be carried down and buried in the mud. If we take a section, and take out all that loose stuff, we have a section which gives a history of the different seasons, and the animals and plants that washed in there during the time that little mud puddle had been in existence. That is the beginning, the starting point of all the knowledge of the rocks; to begin right by us and see what is done now, and observe that wearing action. If you will go from that little gulley on the hillside to a larger valley, and still larger, to the great valley of the Mississippi, you will find the same thing repeated.

Here is a specimen that I got right here where they are ballasting the road. Here you could see a mass of sand and gravel. It goes on wherever there is sand and gravel and there is lime and water; it is compounded together. We have there fossils. Here, for instance, you have various forms of plants and corals, and so on, and you have here in the rocks right about you shells, coral, seaweed, preserved in the same way. Thus you get your petrefactions. Thus you get the layers that you call strata. All these layers of rock are simply sediment that was once carried down and spread out in a body of water. Is not that simple enough?

Here is that slab, all covered over with seaweed and shells, that was one time a bottom of the ocean; there was a volume of clay, and you see resting in there rolls of seaweed. Trailing over this all along these shores on the spot where we now stand, there were seaweed, and coral, and all the animal life. Here is a head of a large animal, a cephalopod, and here is a tail, and the rest of the body is probably under the railroad track. Here is a curved shell. This rock abounds in the ocean. They were the pirates of the ocean. They were the ancient devilfish. They had enormous arms. They were very fine in their time, but, as some one says about the Pilgrim Fathers, we should be thankful that they did not come down to us.

We have another class of rocks in our boulders and hard heads. Here are some without any section. Here is a mass of modern lava. Here you see this huge mass. All these landscapes show the different kinds of rocks in their relations. This irregular mass is the unstratified rocks. They have been melted and cooled from a state of melting. We know them to be crystals. They consist of quartz, feldspar, and mica, which are the alphabet of mineralogy. We have the crystals, which we know only exist when there has been a state of melting. These unstratified rocks are the material of all our quarries and great rocks.

There are two great classes: the stratified, in layers, which came from sediment deposited in the ancient seas, and the unstratified, which were once melted masses thrown out of the interior of the earth. The granite, the unstratified rocks, form the backbone of the continent; they are the underlying rocks. They occur as veins, coming up through the stratified rocks, and overflowing the surface.

Now, in this section of the rocks which we have as they are stratified, formed in layers one above the other, we come to the idea of time. I was going along this morning, with a basket and one of these stones in my hand, and a man’s attention was attracted, and he asked how long since those animals were alive. I said a million of years. He looked rather astonished, and expressed himself that I could not know. The idea of such great amounts of time strikes any one like the vast areas of space. At the first step in geology we have got to expand our notions of time. The six thousand years will not do. Some people think there is something in the Bible about six thousand years. There is no such thing. It is a chronology that has grown up like Milton’s Paradise Lost. Many people think that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a part of the Bible. In Genesis we are told of days, which everybody understands to mean periods of time, and of time since the beginning, when the earth was without form and void. We have nothing definite said in the Bible, or any other book, except the approximate indications which are found in the great stone book of Nature.

Let us look at the idea of time, and see how we get at it. If we should come again to the mud puddle dried up, we should get an approximate idea of how long it took to form the deposit. Suppose we do not know the history, we know about the number of storms that are usual, and the amount of rainfall, and we have some guide in that succession of layers that are there. In the ancient rocks we have exactly the same guide. Somebody says in answer to all this, that in some places deposits take place very rapidly, and we can not judge. For instance, a flood in the Mississippi bears down a vast amount of matter. There is a delta of the Mississippi that has been built out during the memory of man. Whenever we find coarse material in a delta we say it was rapidly formed; if it is fine material, we say it was formed slowly. To-day the Mississippi is bearing down a vast mass of material, and the coarser materials drop by the mouth, but the finer are carried out over the sea, perhaps along the shore. This fine silt settles down amid the corals, the sea-weed and the ships. If the ocean could be drained, we would find on the decks of the ships that have been sunk a hundred years, as the divers tell us, this deposition on the bottom of the sea. No one can doubt about these deposits which have so many shells, that the deposit was made very slowly, because it would have been impossible for the shells to have lived if the material had been thrown down rapidly.

Therefore, when we come to take the rate of deposit, and the vast thickness of these rocks into account, we have a basis for determining approximately the periods of the time during which these rocks have formed. Of course, it is only to those who become minutely intelligent in regard to the details that this thought will have weight. If, for instance, I should go along where a man was cutting a tree, and count the annular rings, and I had never seen a tree cut down; if he should say an hundred years ago that tree was an acorn, I should be astonished, and it would have no weight with me, for I would not have the knowledge necessary. It is necessary to become familiar with this class of phenomena. Therefore in the beginning we want to study the phenomena that are taking place on the seashore, at the mouth of the rivers, and compare these with the phenomena that we find in the rock.

I recall a notable instance of this: That grand man, President Hitchcock, long since gone to rest, one of the greatest and most eminent scientists of his State, discovered tracks in the valley of the Connecticut River. He had to classify some sixty different classes of tracks, which are found in the valley of the Connecticut sandstone ledges, which, when it was soft, was admirably calculated to receive impressions. His attention was called to them, and he made them out to be bird tracks. The European naturalists were very reluctant to believe it. They did not believe that any such discovery could be made by any American. They sent over a man to see the alleged bird tracks, and he went all over the museum, and he went down to the quarry and saw all the specimens, and went away and came back again. President Hitchcock asked him about it, and he said that he did not think there were any bird tracks there. After dinner he took him out to the porch. A few days before he had found a flat stone, on which mud had been deposited, and a snipe had walked over it; the mud dried, and he thought it was an exact parallel with his bird tracks. So he put it on his porch. The gentleman said, “What have you got here?” There they were, the tracks of a bird, and a wader. He said nothing. He went away, and said they were bird tracks. He wrote afterward that he had for the first time to study how a wading bird walked on both sides of a median line. And so when he studied the habits of a bird, he saw that these fossils were bird tracks. I speak of this because it is a key.

I allude again to that sermon of Bishop Simpson’s, where Job asks these questions, and the Lord tells him to find out that right next to him. Why don’t you study that, and interpret it in that manner so sensible? You find everywhere we are doing that. On that account people can not get a knowledge of geology, because geology asks you to commence right at the door. Stoop and pick up the pebble there; learn the soil, and teach yourselves and your children what it was. This is a progressive world where we have all got to begin. It seems wonderful that we have not done that before. If you will try it, if you will get the first weed by your door, and teach your children about it, and go out further and study geology and all the other ologies in that way, life will be lifted on the highest plane for all. [Applause.] Everybody that has tried that has found an exceeding great reward.

I remember years ago a poem by James Russell Lowell, in which he describes the prophet going up to the hoary mountain to go and learn from God.

“Worn and footsore was the prophet,
When he gained the holy hill;
‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured,
‘Here his presence lingers still.’

‘God of all the olden prophets,
Wilt thou speak with men no more?
Have I not as truly served thee
As thy chosen ones of yore?

Hear me, Guider of my fathers,
Lo! a humble heart is mine;
By thy mercy I beseech thee,
Grant thy servant but a sign!’

Bowing then his head, he listened
For an answer to his prayer;
No loud burst of thunder followed,
Not a murmur stirred the air:

But the tuft of moss before him
Opened while he waited yet,
And, from out the rock’s hard bosom,
Sprang a tender violet.

‘God, I thank thee,’ said the prophet,
‘Hard of heart and blind was I,
Looking to the holy mountain
For the gift of prophecy.