Chapter C: L. S. C. Round-Table.c (2)

The visitor of ten or even five years ago is struck with the changes in the physical aspect of the local Chautauqua. Then a few rude cottages and tents in the woods with undressed and unkept grounds, now a large village of beautiful summer homes. The unsightly tent has yielded to the one graceful and attractive, and tents and cottages are all ranged in comely streets. Ruts and gullies have been replaced with grades and lawns. Even the old Auditorium which was thought in former days to be without a rival of its kind, though still standing there in honor, has been compelled to yield precedence to the amphitheater of vaster proportions and better appointments. But the list is too long for recital. There is the grand Hotel Athenæum, said to rival any wood structure in the State, and equally superlative in every quality as a home for its guests; there too is the Oriental House, Model of Jerusalem, Hall of Philosophy, Children’s Temple, Tabernacle, and, if you listen a moment, there is sound of hammer and saw as the work of building and improving goes on rapidly as ever.

But if all this is of the local Chautauqua, what of the Chautauqua which is national—nay, more than national? Ten years ago from a very few of the neighboring States was gathered the first Sunday-school Assembly. To-day the methods and ideas of that and subsequent assemblies are being employed and taught by thousands of Sunday-school teachers throughout the Union. Then, the able and eloquent speakers that stood on the platform were heard only within the range of their vocal power, but now the pages of the _Assembly Daily Herald_ catch their thoughts and send them to distances of hundreds and thousands of miles in all directions. The _personnel_ of the Chautauqua platform, excellent as it was in the beginning, has been enhanced each year by others of the most distinguished thinkers, scholars and orators of this country and from beyond the waters.

We do not know how many dreamers there may have been, nor what their dreams, but certainly none of the thousands of enthusiastic visitors to Chautauqua in those days dreamed of the C. L. S. C. with tens of thousands of earnest students, of the School of Languages, Teachers’ Retreat, and School of Theology, with all their characteristics of power and inspiration.

Ten years of Chautauqua! Prolific mother, not alone of the above offspring, but of children resembling herself, and doing similar work at Lakeside, Lake Bluff, South Framingham, at Monterey, on the Pacific slope, at Monteagle, Tenn., and elsewhere. Only ten years! and yet the “Chautauqua Idea” has taken root, and is yielding its fruit of popular education in all the States and in the Territories. Ten years, and the meridian is not yet reached. Ten years are but a beginning in any work so far reaching, so broad in its scope as the work of Chautauqua. What has been done is but the starting point to what will be done. The years to follow have much to reveal in the maturity of the plans and principles now in operation, and of new ones yet to be inaugurated.

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE C. L. S. C.

The C. L. S. C. is becoming a great social power. From the first it has recognized that one of the great needs of the majority of the people is healthy, active companionship; that for such companionship people will undertake tasks for which they have otherwise little taste, and under its stimulus will do much good work. It has recognized that if the social life be kept clean and invigorating, there is no danger of any one sinking into idleness or vice. Its power for good lies in the fact that its method of work contains the very elements which are necessary for a pure, wholesome social life. In the first place it calls people together regularly and insures their intimate acquaintance. One of the great hindrances to cordial social intercourse is that people do not meet frequently and informally, so that they know each other well. We are prone to invest those with whom we have but a passing acquaintance with a dignity or knowledge so superior to our own that we are actually afraid of them. The local circle breaks this up. We learn to know our associates. No less important is it that the members of society take their rank according to merit. No other standard will be used in local circles. The ability to lead is the only quality which will give a member the leadership. The C. L. S. C. is veritably the People’s College, leveling all ranks.

_The_ reason, we may say, for the flatness of social life in the ordinary town, is that the members have, or find, so little to think about. People will not gossip, nor be recklessly extravagant, nor indulge in insipid flirtations if they have wholesome subjects for thought. The course of reading furnishes topics of vigor and interest. The mind is kept active. The tone of the society is changed, because the members are thinking and are experiencing the pleasure of an interchange of ideas and knowledge. Their society life becomes a recreation, instead, as is so often the case, dissipation.

There is, besides, a hearty good fellowship animating the circles generally, which is one of their most promising features. The true college spirit seems to inspire everyone with its life, energy, and enthusiasm.

To what results have these elements led? Thousands of circles have been formed all over the country, meeting for intellectual culture, but bound together by strong friendship and sociability. In themselves these circles are very powerful, but there are numberless offshoots which are intended to develop cordial feeling among the members. Among these are the large reunions, calling together the different classes and circles. Invariably the reports of these affairs show that all the appointments are in taste, and even elegance. Memorial days furnish frequent opportunities for entertainments as pleasant as the reunions. Large numbers of guests are frequently invited, the hall, church, or parlor is decorated, bountiful refreshments are served, and a carefully prepared and spicy program carried out. Numbers of programs, some of them exquisite in design and finish, are sent to us, giving the exercises of various memorial celebrations, and almost every circle reports some charming novelty in entertainments. Nor are these large and ambitious gatherings all. Informal “socials” sometimes take the place of the usual work. The regular study hour is followed by a merry half-hour devoted to games, music, spelling-matches, pronouncing contests, or “visiting.”

All these pleasant features are combined to develop a strong social feeling in every circle. New and better views of our social relations are opened up, and we learn, perhaps for the first time, what good fellowship means. The good which is done is inestimable. Indeed, we do not hesitate to say that the opportunities of the C. L. S. C. for social culture are excelled only by the opportunities it affords for mental culture.

THE ROEBLINGS.

The slab of black marble in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, which marks the last resting place of the English architect, Sir Christopher Wren, bears the inscription, in Latin, “If you would have his monument, look about you.” In the great Brooklyn bridge, recently opened for travel, people will see for ages the noble monument of those two men of genius—father and son—John Augustus and Washington A. Roebling. The men whose names are inseparably linked with such a work—a work, not for an age, but for the ages—have secured a fame to satisfy any human ambition. In the case of these great engineers we see again the old law illustrated: the world’s good comes from sacrifice. The one sacrificed life, the other health, to the work whose future benefits to mankind are so incalculable.

The elder Roebling was born in Mühlhausen, Prussia, June 12, 1806, and was educated at the polytechnic school in Berlin. He came to this country at the age of twenty-five, and settled near Pittsburgh. He worked for some time as an engineer on certain Pennsylvania canals, and was then engaged for three years in surveying the route of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad through the Alleghenies. In the city of Pittsburgh he established works for the manufacture of wire ropes—which manufacture he introduced into America. The works were afterward removed to Trenton, N. J. It was his aim to bring about the use of wire ropes in the construction of bridges, and in time he was successful. He was the father of suspension bridges in this country. His first work was the suspended aqueduct of the Pennsylvania Canal across the Allegheny River, which was completed in 1845. Soon after this he built the Monongahela suspension bridge at Pittsburgh, and some suspension aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. A much greater work than any of these was the Niagara suspension bridge, the building of which he undertook in 1851, and carried to a successful completion. But this was surpassed by the bridge across the Ohio at Cincinnati, which he completed in 1867. The length of the Niagara bridge is 821 feet, while that at Cincinnati has a clear span of 1,057 feet. It was in the winter of 1853, when, at one time, Mr. Roebling, his wife and son, were detained for several hours, while crossing East River, by the floating ice, that the idea, which certain others had entertained, of a bridge from New York to Brooklyn first took possession of his mind; but it was not until 1865 that steps were taken looking to the practical realization of the idea. Then this engineer prepared plans and estimates for the work, and in time the great structure was under way, whose history is now known and read of all men, and which stands as one of the latest marvels of the nineteenth century. The work was hardly commenced when the life of its author was cut short. In July, 1869, his foot was crushed by a ferry-boat, as he was standing on the pier at Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, and his death followed in two weeks.

The younger Roebling was born at Saxonburg, Butler County, Pa., May 26, 1837. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute at Troy, in 1857. He early became his father’s assistant in engineering, and came in time to be fully the equal, if not the superior, of his father in his peculiar line of work. He enlisted as a private in the Union Army at the breaking out of the rebellion, and had an honorable career as a soldier, rising to the rank of colonel. After the close of the war he spent some time in Europe, studying the more important works of engineering there. The death of his father left him the work of building the great bridge, of executing his father’s plans. Those plans were greatly modified by himself, and the completed bridge is by no means but the embodiment of the elder Roebling’s conception. In 1872 Colonel Roebling became the victim of the “caisson disease,” so called, and since that time has been an invalid. He is probably an invalid for life. But he continued at the head of the great enterprise, and from his sick-room has directed the work until at length it has been brought to a glorious consummation. He has had in his wife a most faithful and efficient coadjutor in all his work. Mention of her name should not be omitted in the laudations paid to the builders of Brooklyn bridge.

THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR.

After long delay and months of seclusion from his subjects, Alexander III. has been crowned Czar of all the Russias. The coronation ceremonies took place at Moscow, in the Church of the Assumption, in the Kremlin, within whose walls all the Romanoffs have been crowned. Vast concourses of people thronged the streets and crowded the thoroughfares of the city, the Kremlin was packed with a dense mass of humanity, intent on witnessing the imposing ceremonies of the coronation. Princes of every rank and government officials of all degrees were present from all parts of his broad domains to do homage to their master. The crowned heads of Europe sent their representatives to grace the august occasion and to convey their greetings and good wishes to the new-made monarch.

The pageant of the coronation is said to have been the most magnificent spectacle witnessed in Europe in modern times. It is estimated that not less than ten millions of dollars were expended in its preparation. The czar was everywhere received by his subjects with the greatest enthusiasm, seeming to betoken the utmost loyalty and reverence toward their rightful monarch. Nothing occurred to mar the pomp and splendor of the occasion. No bombs were thrown, no mines were exploded, no hostile demonstrations of any kind were made; everything seemed to indicate the return of an era of peace and security in the lately perturbed realm of Russia.

The crown with which the czar was invested is said to be worth not less than three millions of roubles, but it is as heavily ladened with cares as with jewels. No other ruler in Europe to-day has so unenviable a throne or rests under such heavy burdens and responsibilities. His vast domains have no bond of integral unity, save the military power, while in whole provinces the inhabitants are but one remove from barbarism. In addition to this the Nihilistic organization, which pervades all Europe, is strongly intrenched in his kingdom, and may, like a sleeping volcano, burst out in the future, as it has in the recent past, with terrible fury and disastrous results. Its representatives are everywhere; in the towns, cities and country; in the army and palace; among peasants and princes of the realm. Their threats of violence forced the czar into involuntary seclusion, and were the cause of his long delay in assuming the crown.

While the deeds of violence which have characterized the Nihilistic movement can not but be deprecated, they find some palliation in the fact that Russia has been the worst governed country in all Europe. Its czar is an absolute despot, and inasmuch as princes are not usually slow to use all the power placed at their disposal, Russian subjects have for centuries experienced all the ills coincident with an absolute despotism. It is true that serfdom has been abolished, but the tardy justice which accomplished this great work but whetted the appetite of the Russian people for larger liberty, and for the rightful privileges conceded by other European governments to their subjects. Their demands in this direction have been hitherto sternly denied. Every effort for their attainment has been met with the most determined opposition on the part of the government. For even slight political offenses, men are seized, and, with a mere apology of a trial, are condemned, and sentenced to penal servitude in the mines of Siberia. They are compelled to labor there from twelve to eighteen hours per day, at the hardest kind of toil and under the surveillance of brutal overseers. They are furnished but a meager supply of food, and that of an inferior kind. They are exposed to the stern severities of the Siberian winters, with but a scant supply of clothing and little shelter. Within five or six years death usually kindly puts a terminus to the sufferings of the miserable exiles.

It is barbarities like these on the part of the government that has put the sword and the bomb in the hand of the Russian Nihilist. Goaded by opposition and aggravated by the denial of the rights of citizenship, its subjects have resorted to the worst of revolutionary measures to secure the redress of their wrongs and the possession of the rights conceded to the subjects of other European states. It is to be hoped that the new czar may learn from the lessons of the past that the days of despots and autocrats are numbered, and that the nineteenth century of the Christian era is an age when the rights of subjects can not be disregarded, even by crowned heads, with impunity. The only possible way in which Alexander III. can secure the prolonged peace and perpetuity of his kingdom is to adopt a liberal policy toward his subjects, institute measures to redress their many and grievous wrongs, and surrender to the people or their representatives a portion of the power now lodged in his hands, which is by far too great for any monarch to possess, and which renders him alike dangerous to the state and to his subjects.

AMOS K. WARREN.

On the evening of the 9th of June, the well-known Secretary of the Chautauqua Assembly, Mr. A. K. Warren, died at his home in Mayville, N. Y., after an illness of several weeks. Mr. Warren was in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and, since the close of the third Assembly, in 1876, he has had charge of the business at Chautauqua, under the leadership and direction of Mr. Lewis Miller and the Board of Trustees. He grew in favor with the Chautauqua management and the general public from the time he first assumed the duties of his office. It was Mr. Warren that effected the purchase of the one hundred acres of land to add to the original Chautauqua grounds, and with taste and untiring zeal laid out pleasant walks and public parks, continually increasing the convenience and the beauty of the grounds.

Several of the most valued public buildings were erected during these years of his connection with the Assembly—the Children’s Temple and Hall of Philosophy, the Amphitheater and the commodious Hotel Athenæum. He has shown himself to be wise and skillful in executing the plans of President Miller and the Board. His loss will be keenly felt and the position he occupied difficult to fill. In addition to the office he occupied at Chautauqua Mr. Warren has served as sheriff of Chautauqua County, and at one time was manager of the Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western Railroad. In every position he proved himself to be a man of superior executive ability, born to be a leader of men and a manager of great movements. He leaves a widow and one daughter, well provided for by certain property which he owned and by an insurance of seven thousand dollars.

The funeral services were held in Mayville, June 13, at his late residence, being conducted by the Rev. Milton Smith, of Mayville. The Scriptures were read by the Rev. Dr. Flood, and the prayer offered and remarks made by the Rev. Dr. Vincent. Although not a member of the Church, Mr. Warren was a believer in the Christian religion. Were we permitted to break the confidence of the private correspondence which passed between Dr. Vincent and Mr. Warren just before his death, much would be revealed that would be comforting to the friends of the deceased and inspiring to all believers in Christianity.

His death brought together a large number of people, among them many of the Executive Board, who were obliged to call a meeting at once at Mayville in order to reorganize the working forces of the Assembly and supply the place left vacant by Mr. Warren’s death.

Notwithstanding the great loss sustained, it is expected that under the direction of President Miller and the Board, the work of improvement and building will be carried on as usual. The management is so complete that no work will be neglected nor any department be slighted. The grounds are in excellent condition as are also the streets, walks and public buildings, and improvement will constantly go on.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The _Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald_ will contain full reports of the July and August meetings. The first number will be issued on Saturday, August 4. There will be nineteen numbers in the volume. Price, $1.00; in clubs of five or more, 90 cents. See our combination offer on another page of this magazine.

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Some railroad managers are employing the machinery of the Young Men’s Christian Association among their men with good results. Mr. Vanderbilt employs a religious worker on a regular salary to keep open a room and conduct religious services for the benefit of his men in New York. The N. Y., P. & O. R. R., a trunk line to the west, running past Chautauqua, has adopted the same plan in Meadville, Cleveland, and other cities. Railroad men are absent from home a good portion of their time when on duty, and, as strangers in strange places, they are greatly benefited by the religious homes provided by the corporations.

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The Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent will deliver the Fourth of July oration at Ocean Grove, and lecture before the Ohio State Teachers’ Association the fifth of July at Chautauqua.

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The Hon. James G. Blaine seems to have retired from political life. A Washington correspondent, who evidently has studied his habits, says in a New York paper: “It is with his venture into literature that Mr. Blaine has mostly occupied his mind this spring. He seems suddenly to have discovered the charms of the library and the study, and as he has a literary workshop that is as suggestive and delightful as money can make it, he is drinking the newly-discovered cup to the dregs. His library is on the second floor. Here, after he has breakfasted, he repairs and plunges into his work. Occasional visits to the Congressional Library furnish him with much of the data that he requires for his work, and this is supplemented by correspondence, by his own letters and private records, and, more than all, by a memory that seems to be able to recall all the events of his twenty years of public life as though they were all crowded into yesterday. It is not Mr. Blaine’s intention to make the work in any sense a series of personal reminiscences, but briefly to describe, as a historian, the important public events of the past twenty years. There is a good deal of curiosity already to get hints of how he is doing it; but he keeps his own counsel, and asks advice and hints of no one. He spends five or six hours daily on this work, only quitting his desk in time to take his afternoon drive. He expects to finish the work early in the winter.”

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A beautiful satin program of the exercises of Shakspere’s Day, has been sent us by the “Greek Letter Circle,” of Milwaukee. Evidently the artistic as well as the “Literary and Scientific” is being cultivated there.

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The dean of the Chautauqua School of Theology, the Rev. A. A. Wright, of Boston, Mass., is noticed by Dr. Daniel S. Steele, in _Zion’s Herald_, thus: “It was the boast of Tyndale, before he translated the New Testament into English, that he would enable the very plow-boys to know more about the New Testament than the bishops themselves. The attempt of Bro. Wright is more audacious. He has undertaken to make the plow-boys and kitchen-maids know more of the original New Testament Greek than the professionals themselves, who acquired their knowledge in the slipshod and unscientific methods in vogue only forty years ago. In carrying out his scheme he is constructing a serial lexicon on a novel principle. He selects the most important word and groups under it all its derivatives and compounds in Greek and English, requiring a memorizing of these seed-words. Thus the student’s mind becomes a nursery in which a whole forest of Greek is sprouting.”

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In the political arena, young men are coming into position. Governor Pattison, of Pennsylvania, is thirty-three years old, and the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, Mr. Foraker, is thirty-seven.

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On Thursday, August 30, the C. L. S. C. alumni in New England will hold a reunion at South Framingham, Mass. This will be during the session of the Framingham Assembly. Preparations are being made by the officers and committees to insure an interesting and profitable gathering. Mr. A. W. Pike is president and Mrs. M. A. F. Adams is secretary of the alumni association. The C. L. S. C. has more than doubled its numbers in New England during the past year, and the history of New England people is that they don’t give up a good institution when they have once taken it to their hearts.

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John B. Gough says: “The lecture business is declining, because the people are inclining to music and theatricals.” We presume this is true where the people have nothing but _lectures_ and _lectures_; under such circumstances it is not a cause for wonder, but if any person will take the pains to read the reports of “Local Circles” published in THE CHAUTAUQUAN the past ten months they will observe how lectures on a wide range of subjects, scientific and historical, philosophical and practical, have been made popular, intermingled as they have been with concerts, reunions, banquets, social life and a variety of entertainments by enterprising organizations.

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=C=hautauqua’s waters, clear and bright!
=L=isten, thence there comes to-night
=S=ongs so sweet my heart they win.
=C=harmèd Circle, take me in.
—E. O. P.

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The symposium on the “Moral Influence of the Drama,” in the June number of the _North American Review_, is an able discussion of the subject. Dr. Buckley wields a keen lance, but there is a time for all things. The editorial management that brings on this discussion in the summer time, when the theaters are mostly closed, is not likely to do so much toward correcting existing evils as if it had brought on the debate when the theaters are opened in the fall time. The adaptation of truth to an end is wisdom, but the adaptation in this case is to the end of the season, when the evil is done, _vapor and effervescence_.

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We have some sympathy with the idea expressed by a correspondent in a western State, that we should have degrees conferred on the graduates of the C. L. S. C., under certain limitations, and in recognition of certain attainments in literature, history, etc. The degree of the Ph.D. is now conferred by some universities and colleges after the applicant has passed required examinations, though he has never been within the walls of the institution.

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Postmaster General Gresham has introduced practical civil service reform into his department. In a recent order he has issued to postmasters, of the second and third classes, he says that the postmaster must be in his office and attend to the business in person; absence from his post, without permission from the Postoffice Department, will be considered sufficient reason for dismissal from the service. This is a wise and timely order, and General Gresham deserves the thanks of the people of the country for inaugurating this reform.

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Alaska is sadly in need of a civil government. The lectures of the Presbyterian missionary, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, on the condition of the people of Alaska, delivered at Chautauqua and published in the ASSEMBLY HERALD and THE CHAUTAUQUAN, created quite a sensation and attracted the attention of thinking Christian people in all parts of the country. There is great need of interposition by the government at Washington. The Presbyterian General Assembly, at a recent session in Saratoga, appointed a committee, with Dr. Howard Crosby as chairman, to visit President Arthur relative to giving the people of Alaska a civil government. Let missionary societies and Christian assemblies petition the powers that be until Alaska is redeemed from her present state, which is little better in some places than barbarism.

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The reasons for divorces are only equalled by the devices which parties adopt to secure them. Major Nickerson, of the United States army, sent his wife and daughter to Europe in 1880. The major promised to follow them soon, providing he could secure leave of absence. His wife waited but he did not come. He continued to write her and send money, until about a year ago he began to send his letters and remittances to his daughter. His wife asked an explanation, but he gave her no satisfaction. At last she learned through her mother that he had obtained a divorce and was married again, and that the ground on which the divorce was obtained was desertion. The bare statement of the facts in such a case teach us that our laws, as to granting divorces, are lax and unscriptural, and should be reconstructed in the interests of justice and the safety of the family as an institution against designing men.

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The Argentine Republic is doing a great deal of quiet work in education, which might even be an example to us who look upon that far-away land as out of the world. They have in their national college a greater proportion of students than either England or Germany. To obtain the most advanced methods, the government has just obtained eight young women from the normal schools at Winona, Minn., to take charge of the normal schools in the republic.

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We learn that Prof. F. H. Bailey, the inventor of the astral lantern, so highly commended by Bishop Warren and others, is now located at Northville, Mich., and that orders for lanterns, or correspondence, should be addressed to him, or to the Michigan School Furnishing Company, at that place. We heartily wish that scores of our local circles might procure one of these invaluable helps to the study of the stars.

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The present number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN closes the third volume. In October will be published the first number of the fourth volume. Its place will be supplied during the summer by the _Assembly Herald_, published during August as a daily. Price, $1.00.

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The article in the present number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN by John Lord, LL.D., is an extract from a lecture delivered at Chautauqua.

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The faculty of the Summer Assembly at Pacific Grove, Cal., have determined to make natural history a specialty. The opportunities are unrivaled, for all the wonders of the sea-shore are at their command. In order to obtain specimens of the flora and fauna of the entire coast, they have solicited members to send or bring collections of dried plants, zoölogical specimens, etc.

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Curiosity and lack of coolness were the causes of the terrible disaster which marred Decoration Day of 1883, and threw a shadow over the glory of the Brooklyn bridge. To rush to see what is the cause of a crowd, a sudden noise or confusion, is a childish act, and yet there is hardly one in a hundred but will do it. To keep still and cool when the crowd becomes a stampede is almost unknown. How to prevent a panic and how to act in a panic, are questions worthy the study of all intelligent people, and it might not be amiss to teach the principles of coolness and self-restraint to the young.

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This month Mrs. Cook brings her party of Chautauquans back to America. They have finished their “Tour Around the World,” and will spend their vacation at home until it is time to start on their “Ideal Summer Trip Beyond the Sea.” We only hope that all those who have enjoyed so much their travels with Mrs. Dickinson and Mrs. Cook, will be able to take the latter trip.

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The new cover has been well received by both our subscribers and the press. An exchange says of us: “THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the organ of the Chautauqua Assembly, Chautauqua University, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and other Chautauqua institutions, has made its appearance in a very elegant new dress. It is not only handsome but it contains more really solid, instructive, interesting and valuable matter than any periodical known to us.” A lady from Illinois in expressing her thanks for the improvement, writes: “I like the new dress of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. It is artistic, and is a reminder of what Chautauqua has been, and is, and what she still offers to the world.”

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Macnabb’s photographic studio of art, at 813 Broadway, N. Y., is sending out some very finely finished work. They offer special inducements to clubs. The studio is certainly worthy the attention of persons visiting the city and wishing pictures.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

Q. Where can an edition of the New Testament containing the authorized version and new version in parallel columns, be obtained?

A. From Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

Q. From what book can a thorough knowledge of the New Testament Apocrypha be obtained?

A. Any work on the canon will contain more or less on the Apocrypha. Probably the best work is in French, Michael Nicolas’ “_Etudes sur les Evangiles Apocryphes_.”

Q. Is the sentence, “There is no world under our feet, no radiant clouds, no blazing sun, no silver moon, nor twinkling stars,” correct.

A. “Nor” is correlative to “neither” or “not.” Either the sentence should retain “not” before “stars,” or “neither” should be introduced into the first clause as a negative instead of “no,” so as to correspond with “nor.”

Q. Who is the author of the quotation, “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad?”

A. Euripides.

Q. Is the aërolite illustrated on page 122 of “Warren’s Astronomy,” the one which fell at Santa Rosa, California, a few years ago?

A. It is.

Q. On page 114 of the “Geology,” does the author intend to class snakes with mammals?

A. He does not.

Q. Was Alexander of Macedon, who, before the battle of Platæa, informed the Greeks of the intention of Mardonius to attack them, their ally?

A. He was not, though secretly friendly to their cause. He had been compelled to submit to the Persians and had accompanied Xerxes to Greece in 480 B. C.

Q. What was the reason that the Almæonidæ were considered sacrilegious by the Greeks?

A. In consequence of the way in which Megacles, one of the family, treated the insurgents under Cylon in 612 B. C., they brought upon themselves the guilt of sacrilege and were banished.

Q. What is the pronunciation of “applique,” as used in embroidery?

A. Ap-pli-kā´.

Q. What poet was born the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte?

A. There were three. Ernest Arndt, a German; Charles de Chenedolle, French; John Frere, an English diplomatist and poet.

Q. What authority is there for spelling the name “Shakespeare,” “Shakspere?”

A. Many of the best authorities consider this spelling preferable.

Q. Who is the author of the line, “It flies and swims a flower in liquid air!” referring to the butterfly?

A. P. Commire, a writer of Latin verse.

Q. What is the meaning of the Roman initials S. P. Q. R.?

A. _Senatus Populusque Romanus_ (The Senate and the Roman people).

Q. Who fixed the date of the birth of Christ?

A. About the middle of the sixth century Dionysius Exigius, a Roman abbot, introduced the method of dating from the birth of Christ. It is conceded that he placed the date four years too late, a fact of no importance in chronology, as all that is necessary is to place the Savior’s birth 4 B. C.

Q. What event in English history is connected with the “Royal Oak?”

A. After the battle of Worcester in 1651, in which Charles II. was defeated by Cromwell, the former was obliged to conceal himself in an oak at Boscobel, to avoid capture.

Q. What was the faith of George Henry Lewis?

A. He was a positivist.

Q. What was his nationality?

A. English.

Q. What is the Chautauqua salute?

A. The waving of white handkerchiefs.

Q. Explain the expression, “balance of power.”

A. The division of land and wealth among nations, which prevents any one being sufficiently stronger than the others to interfere with their independence.

Q. What is the difference between the majority and the plurality of votes?

A. When a candidate receives more than any other candidate, he has a _plurality_ of votes. When more than all others, a _majority_.

Q. Are the Goths, Scandinavians and Norsemen, the same people?

A. They are not. Scandinavians or Norsemen were the names given to the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. The Goths lived south of the Scandinavians. Although probably of the same origin, they are a distinct people.

TALK ABOUT BOOKS.

The first essential in a popular work of any kind is clearness. A glance at the contents of Prof. Welsh’s new history of English literature[E] shows that the work is so systematically arranged that one can not fail to understand it. The life of the nation which shaped the literature of each period is graphically and simply described. Each political, national, and social law which helped to form the thoughts and customs of the people, is noticed. The leading writers are discussed under the different heads of biography, writing, style, rank, character, and influence. This tabular method has, by no means, degraded the book into simply a school text-book. It has made it suitable for that and more valuable to the general reader. The style is fresh, never tiresome. The illustrations are so woven into the narrative that an idea of the plan of the book is readily seen, and besides the quotations are admirably chosen. The work has been wrought enthusiastically and conscientiously by a man thoroughly interested in what he was doing. Its reception has been his reward.

The Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,[F] have completed Mr. Froude’s task of reminiscence editing, and given the curious public ample information about the private life and character of Thomas Carlyle. The task has not been a pleasant one for Mr. Froude, but it has been faithfully and modestly performed. These letters are curiously interesting for many reasons. They are vivacious and sparkling, full of lively character sketches, and reveal the private life of one of the most discussed men of the age. Better than all of these, they introduce us to a woman to whom Arthur Helps once candidly said: “Well, really, you are a model wife,” to whom poor Mazzini could go whenever “in a state of crisis” (as he put it); whom Mills, Jeffrey, Tennyson, and many others, honored for her wit and womanliness. She was a clever woman, and a brave one. None but a clever woman could have written these charming letters, none but a brave one could have endured a husband like Carlyle. She was too loyal to cease loving him, too strong to complain, though many a letter shows her sense of his weakness. Jane Welsh Carlyle will find a permanent place among the famous women of the century for wifely devotion, as well as for being a brilliant letter-writer.

The book is chiefly valuable for its wide range of happily-told anecdotes, and its spicy comments. Here is a picture of Lord Jeffrey and Count D’Orsay, who were calling on her together: “What a difference! The prince of critics and the prince of dandies! How washed out the beautiful dandiacal face looked beside that little clever old man’s! The large blue dandiacal eyes you would say had never contemplated anything more interesting than the reflection of the handsome personage they pertained to in a looking-glass, while the dark penetrating ones of the other had taken notes of most things in God’s universe, even seeing a good way into millstones.” She makes wise and true as well as pointed comments on the wide range of men and society that came under her notice.

Undoubtedly Robert Browning’s “Jocoseria”[G] has been the most read and most thoroughly noticed of any book of poems of the season. It is a simple little volume of but ten poems. The best of them all is the unpretending one beginning:

“Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path—how soft to pace!
This May—what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face?”

The most influential book of the present day is undoubtedly the novel. They constitute four-fifths of all the books read. The philosophy of its development has become not only a question of great literary interest, but one of educational and moral interest. Mr. Sydney Lanier, in 1881, delivered a course of twelve lectures before the students of John Hopkins University, on this subject, and they have recently been published in book form,[H] forming a highly interesting and philosophical discussion. His object is to show that the growth in sentiment since the days of the Greeks has been so great that the old forms of literature and art have been inadequate to express our ideas, hence in the last two centuries three things have been developed—Science, Music, and the Novel. He gives most copious illustrations from modern novels to uphold his principles.

Lovers of American poetry and poets will be glad to welcome the recent “Life of William Cullen Bryant.”[I] Soon after Mr. Bryant’s death in 1878 his papers, containing useful materials for a biography of his life, were sent to Mr. Parke Godwin, a gentleman of long connection with the press, in order that he might prepare a memoir of the poet. Mr. Godwin has collected most of Mr. Bryant’s letters, his editorial writings, and the newspaper articles concerning him, until he has been able to lay before his readers a very complete and exact biography. Necessarily the work contains little of intense interest. Bryant’s life was a quiet, laborious one. Fifty years of it were spent in editorial work in which, as the author well says, “the labors consist of a series of incessant blows, of the real influence of which it is hard to judge.” But his career as editor and poet are well treated in a simple, pleasant narrative, which leave one with a profound respect for the upright, just and noble father of American poetry.

In September, 1881, the Presbyterian Church lost one of its most honored ministers by the death of the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D.D., the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions. The Presbytery of Baltimore at once arranged to prepare a memorial. The work was committed to the Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D.[J] The biography which Dr. Eaton has produced is a simple story of a devout, self-sacrificing Christian. Such books never fail in their purpose. The story of a life is, after all, the most influential of stories.

One of the best of the many sets of school readers, is the “Globe Readings.”[K] Beginning with the simple primers of two grades there are six readers in which the selections are very carefully graded, followed by a “Book of Golden Deeds,” by Charlotte Yonge; Lamb’s “Tales from Shakspere;” Scott’s “Marmion;” “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and “Lady of the Lake;” Cowper’s “Task,” and Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield.” The series has been carefully edited, and the notes give just the amount of help necessary to young readers.

The “Home College Series”[L] has reached the number of thirty-two. They cover a great range of subjects. History, science, biography, art, house-keeping, penmanship, wise-sayings, political economy and religion, and will be valuable reading for spare moments.

The last issues of the charming “Riverside Literature Series,”[M] are “Biographical Stories” and “True Stories from New England History.”

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FOOTNOTES:

[A] A lecture delivered at Chautauqua, August 17, 1882.

[B] Extract from a sermon delivered at Chautauqua, 1882.

[C] Eighth Round-Table held at the Hall of Philosophy, August 15, 1883.

[D] For Prof. Bailey’s address see Editor’s Note-Book.

[E] Development of English Literature and Language. By Alfred H. Welsh, M. A. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.

[F] Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Edited by James A. Froude. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[G] Jocoseria. By Robert Browning. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.

[H] The English Novel. By Sydney Lanier. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

[I] A biography of William Cullen Bryant, with extracts from his private correspondence. By Parke Godwin. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

[J] Memorials of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D.D., late Secretary of the Board of Home Missions. By Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D. Robert Carter & Brothers, New York.

[K] Globe Readings from Standard Authors. London: Macmillan & Co., 1883.

[L] Home College Series. New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1883.

[M] Numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10, of Riverside Literature Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1883.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired. The more usual Fräulein is spelled Fraulein in this text.

Page 566, “Calvanist” changed to “Calvinist” (is a Calvinist, but not)

Page 579, “dose” changed to “doze” (sense-overseer begins to doze)

Page 587, “exsited” changed to “existed” (Normans, and existed)

Page 587, “yoeman” changed to “yeoman” (southern yeoman delighted)

Page 595, “our” changed to “our” (generally given out)

Page 595, “person” changed to “persons” (the fifty persons present)

Page 602, “langguage” changed to “language” (about posy-beds, the language)

Page 602, “inqury” changed to “inquiry” (inquiry. Great forestry)