Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

If God were always our desire, we should not be so much troubled when our inclinations are opposed.

2. But oftentimes something lurks within, which draweth us after it.

Many secretly seek themselves in their actions, but know it not.

They live in peace of mind when things are done according to their will: but if things succeed otherwise than they desire, they are straightway troubled.

Diversity of inclinations and opinions often causes dissensions between religious persons, between friends and countrymen.

3. An old custom is hardly broken, and no man is willing to be led farther than himself can see.

If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason, than upon Jesus Christ, late, if ever, shalt thou become illuminated.

OF WORKS DONE OUT OF CHARITY.

The outward work, without charity, profiteth nothing; but whatsoever is done out of charity, be it ever so little and contemptible in the sight of the world, is wholly fruitful.

For God weigheth more with how much love one worketh, than how much he doeth.

He doth much that loveth much.

2. He doth much that doth a thing well.

He doth well that serveth his neighbor, and not his own will.

Often it seemeth to be charity, and it is rather carnality; because natural inclinations, self-will, hope of reward, and desire of our own interest, are motives that men are rarely free from.

3. He that hath true and perfect charity seeketh himself in nothing, but only desireth in all things that God should be exalted.

He envieth none, because he seeketh not his own satisfaction: neither rejoiceth in himself, but chooses God only for his portion.

He attributes nothing that is good to any man, but wholly referreth it unto God, from whom, as from the fountain, all things proceed: in whom finally all the saints rest.

O that he had but one spark of true charity, he would certainly discern that all earthly things are full of vanity!

[_End of Required Reading for May._]

THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY—ASTROLOGY.

By R. K. MILLER.

A very interesting portion in the study of planetary astronomy is the mysterious influence which these bodies were supposed to have had on the affairs of men. Astrology comprehended the other heavenly bodies as well as the planets, but the simple regularity of their movements rendered them far less interesting than the “wanderers.” The seemingly arbitrary and irregular course of these bodies caused them to be selected to represent the varying turns of fortune’s wheel. The father of the written science of astrology was Ptolemy, who seems to have studied astronomy for astrological purposes. According to him, the planet in the ascendant at the time of birth was the chief ruler of the character and fortune of the “native,” as the person was technically called. Mercury presided over the mental faculties and literary and scientific pursuits; he caused a desire of change. Venus was called the Lesser Fortune. She produced a mild disposition, with an inclination to pleasure, and brought good fortune to the native in his or her relations to the other sex. Mars was the Lesser Infortune: his influence was decidedly risky, and needed to be well aspected by the other planets to lead to good. He, of course, presided over war and over trades connected with iron and steel. Jupiter was regarded as by far the most propitious of the heavenly orbs. He ruled all high offices. The mortal born under him would be high-minded, liberal, just and devout. Happy the kingdom ruled by a sovereign on whose birth he shone. English astrologers tell with pride that Queen Victoria was born when Jupiter rode high in the heavens. Next to him we have the grim and ill-omened Saturn, the Greater Infortune. Those born under him are gloomy and reserved—faithful in friendship but bitter toward an enemy. Failure, disease, disgrace and death beset the steps of the child of Saturn. Uranus causes abruptness of manners and general eccentricity, while astrologers have not made up their minds about Neptune. The signs of the Zodiac were supposed to have a good deal to do with personal appearance. Thus Pisces produced a short person, with round face and slow gait; Taurus, a well-set person, with broad face and thick neck. Different parts of the human life were allotted to different luminaries, as infancy to the Moon, youth to Venus, and so on. Lastly the visible firmament was divided into twelve equal portions. The first was the house of health; the second, that of wealth; the third, brothers and sisters; the fourth, parents; the fifth, children and amusements; the sixth, sickness; and so on up to the twelfth. The connection is, of course, obvious, as $1 in the fifth house foretells misfortune with one’s children.

Probably few persons have their horoscopes erected now-a-days, but we have before us that of the Prince of Wales, calculated at the time of his birth of Zadkiel, according to the rules of Ptolemy. The sign in ascendant was Sagittarius, which produces “a tall, upright body, an oval face, ruddy complexion and chestnut hair, good eye, courteous, just, a lover of horses, accomplished and deserving of respect.” The Sun, being well aspected, foretold honors, and as he was in Cancer, in sextile with Mars, the Prince was to be partial to maritime affairs, and win naval glory. The house of wealth was held by Jupiter, and this betokened great wealth through inheritance—a prognostication which, in spite of republican shoemakers and baronets, is not unlikely to come true. The house of marriage was inhabited by Venus, Mars and Saturn, but fortunately the first was to predominate, and the Prince, “after some trouble in his matrimonial speculations,” was to marry a princess of high birth. A few particulars of history are given, but we are overwhelmed with information about his character, over fifty characteristics actually being enumerated, and the horoscope ends, “All things considered, though firm and sometimes decided in opinion, this royal native, if he lives to mount the throne, will sway the scepter of these realms in moderation and justice, and be a pious and benevolent man and a merciful sovereign.”

AMUSEMENTS—TENNIS.

By ROBERT MACGREGGOR.

It was in France that what its devotees call “the king of games,” tennis, was originated; but the ground-work is found in the simple old hand ball play that figured so conspicuously in the every-day life of the classical world. It is of little use to speculate in which of the varieties of ball-play mentioned by ancient writers is to be found the progenitor of this pastime. At any rate, a game very like tennis, in which the ball was driven to and fro by a racket, was played in 1380, and soon after we find Richard II. including this game among those unlawful for laboring people. The name “tennis” first occurs in Gower’s “Ballade” in 1400. There is an old story of historical interest told in connection with our game. When Henry V. was meditating war against the King of France, the old “Chronicle” tells us that “The Dolphyn thynkyng Henry to be still given to such plaies and follies as he exercised before the tyme that he was exalted to the croune, sent hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie with, as he saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.” Shakspere makes Henry reply to the ambassador who brought the gift and message:

“We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for;
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.”

While Henry received the ambassadors, James I. of Scotland lost his life, it may be said, through his devotion to tennis. While holding the Yuletide festival at Perth, conspirators attacked the castle. The king tore up a plank in the flooring of the room where he was, and dropped into a vault below the apartment, where it was thought escape would be easy. There had been an opening by which he might have escaped, but this had, a few days earlier, been closed by his own orders, because the balls by which he played at tennis were apt to drop into it.

When we reach the reigns of the fourth and fifth Jameses of Scotland, we find from the accounts of the lord high treasurer many evidences of the kings’ fondness for this game and the considerable sums they lost at it.

Henry VII., as the register of his expenditures shows, was a tennis player.

The fifth Scottish James was so devoted to pastimes of all sorts that all his leisure was devoted to amusements, and naturally his people followed his example, especially his fondness for tennis: even the friars caught the fever, for Lyndesay draws us a picture, probably common in that age:

“Though I preich nocht, I can play at the caiche [tennis].
I wat thair is nocht ane amang you all
Mair ferilie can play at the fute ball.”

The game is traced in English history to Henry VIII., who was very fond of it. It is said by a historian: “His propensity being perceived by certayne craftie persons, they brought in Frenchmen and Lombards to make wagers with hym; and so he lost muche money, but when he perceyved theyr crafte he escheued their company and let them go.” Though devoted to the game, the bluff old king passed a stringent act against the keeping of any tennis-court, and against the enjoyment of several games by apprentices, mariners, artificers, and many others. This was only repealed in 1863. The Reformation gave the game a shock, especially in Scotland. During the Commonwealth the exiled court played the game abroad. At the Restoration Charles reintroduced the game, and probably the next few years were the palmy days of tennis in England. In 1664, we learn from Pepys’ diary, that the gossipy secretary had been watching the king at tennis, but was disgusted with the flattery bestowed upon him. He says: “I went to the tennis-court and there saw the king play at tennis. To see how the king’s play was extolled, without any excuse at all, was a loathsome sight, though sometimes he did indeed play very well, but such open flattery is beastly.”

During the last century the records of tennis are meagre: it seems to have been played in only one or two places. Even in England it may be said that tennis as a popular game went out with the Stuarts. Of course the pastime has never actually died out, and in recent years it has had increased attention paid to it, but even now the number of courts does not appear to exceed a score. “Tennis,” says the _Edinburgh Review_, “the most perfect of games, because with the most continuous certainty it exercises and rewards all the faculties of the player, has only been prevented hitherto from becoming as popular as it deserves from its being, under its original conditions, so expensive, so difficult to learn, and so puzzling to count, as to discourage those who are not ‘to the manner born,’ from touching it.” The first objection of expense seemed almost insuperable, the cost of a tennis-court being from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, until the recent revival turned the game out to grass, and introduced its rudiments to our lawns. Lawn-tennis, however, like the croquet, which it drove off the lawn, is not a new form of tennis. It is at least three centuries old.

CELIA SINGING.

By THOMAS STANLEY.

Roses in breathing forth their scent,
Or stars their borrowed ornament,
Nymphs in the watery sphere that move,
Or angels in their orbs above,
The wingèd chariot of the light,
Or the slow silent wheels of night,
The shade which from the swifter sun
Doth in a circular motion run,
Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,
Make far less noise than Celia’s breath in sleep.

But if the Angel, which inspires
This subtle flame with active fires,
Should mould this breath to words, and those
Into a harmony dispose,
The music of this heavenly sphere
Would steal each soul out at the ear,
And into plants and stones infuse
A life that Cherubim would choose,
And with new powers invert the laws of fate,
Kill those that live, and dead things animate.

GERMAN-AMERICAN HOUSE-KEEPING.

By the Author of “Home Life in Germany,” etc.

I received a letter from Germany the other day, written by a young American woman who was recently married to a German officer. They live in a city with about the population of Rochester, N. Y., only distinguished from other places of its size in possessing an old cathedral, a water-cure (_Bade Anstalt_), and being a military post. These distinguishing features have nothing to do, however, with the part of her letter which I desire to reflect upon. She writes:

“I am so fortunately situated in domestic matters; I have really no care, the _mädchen_ is so competent, and so willing, it is a real pleasure to keep house.”

Just before the arrival of this letter I had patiently listened for two hours to the just and lamentable complaints of an American house-keeper about “the impossibility of procuring a good servant!” The latter resides in a university town, and if a university is worse than a garrison, or students than military men, in destroying the tone of the laboring women and girls, then let the fact have its weight against the statement that the relation between mistress and maid in Europe is better regulated and understood than in America. The two cases I have presented seem to me to have about equal accessories, and it is a curious search to find the reasons for the difference in them.

“Six years ago the Empress of Germany announced that
she would henceforth decorate with a golden cross
every female servant who had passed forty years of her
life in the same family. The Empress has been called
upon to bestow this mark of her royal favor 893 times.
Can any other country make such a remarkable showing?
In America house-maids are apt to reckon their terms
of continuous service by weeks and months instead of
by years. The beginning of reform in this matter is
anxiously awaited by millions of worried households.
The heavy emigration from Germany to this country ought
to bring to our shores some of these steady-going
maids. Possibly there is something in the atmosphere of
America, in the restless movement of our people that
puts the devil of change into the heads of Gretchens
and Bridgets.”

It is the “devil of change,” as the writer expresses it, which gets into the heads of the Gretchens and Katherinas when they come to this country. I think I have discovered a still better reason, which I shall timidly reveal later on, for, in doing so, I must encroach upon national taste and education.

First of all, we should consider that especially the uneducated German man, or woman, girl, or boy, loves the _Vaterland_. The _heimath_, with its low ceilings and plastered walls, its sanded floors and wooden bench outside the door, where the father smokes his pipe in the evening, while the mother knits, is all enshrined in the hearts of the children, and the recollection of the _festtage_, when the father and mother put on their best clothes and take all the children to the neighboring beer-garden to hear music, is always joyous. It is only by rumors of “higher wages” that such people are ever induced to bundle up the feather beds, and lock the wooden chest, and start as poor steerage passengers across the great Atlantic. After the horrors of the voyage, and the strange and confusing days of Castle Garden, what do they find in place of the old home and the familiar ways of the _Vaterland_? The daughters hire out probably for cooks. First of all, they are expected to cook a heavy breakfast by 8 o’clock, and nothing seems so hard to a foreigner as this. Their traditions are at once set at naught. They begin to grind on a differently constructed wheel. Just as John Chinaman has to learn that we even turn the screw the opposite way to the way in which he has been drilled, so the poor Germans have to learn that if Americans offer higher wages, they also expect things done in their own way. The dull gray kitchen is perhaps a previous disappointment to the heavy breakfast. No white tiles around the oven; no brassware to see her face in! No open market with benches where she can sit and talk with the market women under their red umbrellas, and watch the lads go by: covered, dull grey places are our American markets compared with the bazar appearance of the meat and vegetable markets of Europe. No concert in the evening for five cents. Nothing—but a long day and a longer evening in an uninteresting kitchen, with different food and different duties. Finding a young, fresh-looking girl with her white cap on her head, in the kitchen of a friend of mine, recently, where I chanced to be visiting, I asked her in German if she was contented in this country, remarking at the same time that she was fortunate to live with a lady who could speak German, and who was so kind. “O yes,” said she; “but then I think I can do better. If I can’t, it were happier for me in the _Vaterland_.”

One of our distinguished politicians and scholars, who served in Germany as United States minister, brought back with him a German _diener_, or butler. Karl did well for a season; maintained his respectful bearing toward the _herrschaften_ and their guests until finally he announced he was “discontented,” and the reason for his desire to change places was that the _herrschaften_ did not entertain as grandly in this country as they did in Germany, and that the guests were not such fine ladies and gentlemen—they did not give _trink-gelt_ (civility money). But the most heartfelt reason was, he was lonely. He missed music, he missed beer, he missed _gemüthlichkeit_, and fine and high titles by which to call the ladies and gentlemen. And then the _festtage_—no days in America for the poor working classes to be relieved from care and have a good time. This did not please Karl.

On these _festtage_ in Germany a servant man or woman has as good a chance to go to a picture gallery, or a pottery, or a museum, or a concert, as gentlefolks; and does not the knowledge and pleasure gained at such places make the servant more cheerful, and intelligent, and competent to look at work not as drudgery, but as something in which the whole human family is engaged in one way or another? Said an observing servant to me after an afternoon in a picture gallery: “How can those poor artists sit all day long with their feet on the stone floor and copy pictures? They look so tired I was glad I was not one of them!” After a visit to the _Königliche Porzellan Manufactur_, in Charlottenburg, I remember once having asked a servant if she knew how much labor it required to manufacture a cup and saucer; and I proceeded to tell her how the feldspar found in the vicinity of Berlin was ground to powder, cleaned through various tanks of water, each time running through a sieve, then how they pass it between heavy weights so that it came out in great sheets of pliable putty, which are laid over moulds, just as a piece of dough is laid over a pie-pan. When these forms are taken off, they are carefully finished in every indentation by skilful workmen, who have delicate tools for the purpose. Afterward they take these forms, cups, saucers, plates, vegetable dishes, as they may be, and bake them in ovens for sixteen hours the first time, and after they are taken out they are glazed and baked again, and then if the ware is to be painted it must be baked again; and if gilded, still again. I ended this elaborate description all out of breath, for it required as much command of the German language as I at that time thought I had. The attentive girl, however, relieved my excitement by saying: “Yes; I have been out there, _gnädige frau_, and seen it all, and this is why I try to be so careful with china.” In the five years this good girl had lived with me she had rarely broken a piece. I could but think how unlike the answer “Biddy” would have given, that “the kitchen floor is very hard on china.” I have known servant girls as much interested in the collections of laces in the museums, especially the specimens made by poor peasant women in different centuries, as any high-born lady, and much more capable of reproducing specimens of this industry. The costumes of the peasants and the costumes of the kings and queens, and the furniture used by the latter, will attract crowds of ignorant people by the hour in European museums. But who ever sees any but the intelligent and rich walking about in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, or the Academy in Boston. We do not care to interest the working classes in this country; only care to see that they work well and as many hours as possible. “There remains,” says a writer on duties of contract, “outside of their actual service, or of any assumption of authority on our side, really limitless fields for the exercise of our natural influence as their immediate superiors and friends.” I think, in the matter of lodging—the rooms the Americans give their servants to sleep in—they fare infinitely better than in any foreign country; but the food is not so well adapted to their physical wants. Delicate dishes and highly seasoned food are sent into the kitchen for the servants by our American housekeepers, and you hear them say: “O, we would not think of denying our servants all the dainties of our own table.” Do they ever think that a working man or woman, no matter of what nationality, prefers boiled beef and turnips, or bacon and cabbage, to sweet breads and peas, or venison and cauliflower. But this is an inexhaustible theme, and one I must defer yet again before I venture to say what I think about the genuine American table.

In the town of Delitzsch, in the province of Posen, resides a man—Herr Schulze-Delitzsch—who has devoted himself almost exclusively for years to the study of the labor question and the elevation of the working classes. He is a great reformer, but escapes being known as a revolutionist. More practical and perhaps more methodical than Lasalle, he relies not upon the state for aid, but upon the sympathy and help of the working classes themselves. He organized workingmen’s associations, union stores, etc. France, Belgium, Italy, and even England, became awakened, and looked with interest upon his work, and inquiries were made by authority of the English government into the real manner and methods adopted. As a writer on the subject remarks: “Schulze’s methods are economical and reformatory; Lasalle’s were political and revolutionary.” The _Credit und Vorschuss Verein_, which is a species of savings bank, was practically his work. The members contributed of their savings to this fund, and when old age, sickness, or misfortune overtook them, and they were obliged to give up laboring by the day, they were in turn helped. The _Vereins_ were entirely under the management of the members. The investment of the capital was entirely under their control, the surplus being divided annually, and the “sick funds” and “funeral funds” were distributed by them. The first institution was founded in 1850, and in 1869 the number reached 1,750. The permanent capital was then 12,000,000 thalers. The hired laborers form a tenth of the membership of the unions, and they are on the increase; the farmers something more than a fifth; the tradesmen a tenth, and the mechanics a third. The farmer’s aim is, in part, the procuring, in common, seed, implements, etc.; in part, the sale in common of milk, butter, cheese, hops, wine, and other products. Thus, through moderate and just ideas and management, much has been accomplished. Working people must not be fed on incendiary ideas. Ruskin’s lectures to working men savor of _dilettante_ ideas. A man who has never been poor rarely knows how to appeal to the poor or guide them. Schulze-Delitzsch’s philosophy has been learned from actual experience. There is nothing of the factious orator about him, but he is calm and persuasive. He is not a social-democrat, but belongs to the progressive party, which stands for the most advanced form of liberalism. He organizes the poor to teach them to resist their own worst faults. He was burgomaster of Delitzsch at one time, after leaving political life in the capital, because of differences which arose. He was assisted by his mother to go on lecturing tours, and when this was no longer practicable—as she had also small means—there was a purse raised by the citizens, which reached the sum of 50,000 thalers; the greater part being given by the poor working people in paltry sums. Thus he was saved for higher work, and gave up the position of burgomaster. He accepted this money only in trust—investing part in a home at Potsdam and the rest in such a way that the interest only accrues to him. If it was worth England’s time to inquire into the economic methods of the _Credit und Vorschuss Verein_, perhaps America could utilize some ideas on this subject. Germany is finding out many of our ways and means, which she considers superior to her own conservative methods. Dr. Max Zering, of Berlin, was recently commissioned by the government of Prussia to investigate and report upon the agricultural and transportation interests and methods of the United States. He will visit the different cities, make the acquaintance of their boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and railroad managers. It seems that the day has come when nations are becoming very liberal toward one another. The exclusive spirit which prevails in China, more than in any other country, is fast being eradicated, and all people are exclaiming, “If you know anything better, or accomplish anything in an easier way than we do, pray let us have a lesson of you.”

Perhaps different nations show their identity more in regard to preparing and eating food than in any other particular. The roots from which their different languages spring are more easily discerned by a philologist, than the common-sense basis which has suggested to each people its separate ideas on food and the preparation of it, is found out by any scientific chemist. I have been asked so often how the German markets and groceries compare with ours in variety and price, that it occurs to me to insert here an extract from an account book of my butcher and grocer of the _preis courant_ for the years 1876, 1877, 1878, etc.:

Price per pound.
Marks Pf. $ cts.
Filet (Beef) 1 20 .28½
Schmorfleisch (Stewing Meat) 1 00 .238
Schabefleisch (Hashed Meat) 90 .21
Rindfleisch-Braten (Roast Beef) 95 .22½
Suppenfleisch (Meat for Soup) 80 .19
Kalbskeule (Veal) 90 .21
Kalbsbrust (Breast of Veal) 75 .18
Kalbs-Cotelette (Veal Cutlets) 1 20 .28½
Hammelkeule (Shoulder of Mutton) 80 .19
Hammel-Cotelettes (Mutton Chops) 75 .18
Hammelbrust (Breast of Mutton) 75 .18
Schweinefleisch (Pork) 90 .21

This was taken from a printed circular which every butcher of standing in a large German city presents to his customers once a year. The market list below is not complete, of course, but the great American turkey, it will be observed, brings a high price in Germany, as well as American hams.

Marks. Pf. $ cts.
One Goose, 3 00 .71
One Turkey, 10 00 2.38
Fish, — — ——
Oysters, — — ——
Ham per lb. 1 80 .428
Corn Beef per lb. 2 00 .47½
Cheese per lb. 50 .12
Butter per lb. 1 80 .428
Lard per lb. 90 .21
Candles per lb. 1 00 .238
Salt per lb. 1 00 .238
Sugar per lb. 60 .14
Coffee per lb. 1 50 .35½
Rice per lb. 40 .10
Chocolate per lb. 80 .19
One dozen Vienna rolls or cakes of bread for 30 days cost $2.50.

Some of these prices will show that Germany is no longer a cheap country to live in, but the way in which articles of food are used and managed is where the French and Germans excel in economy. For instance, American housekeepers say in the winter and fall and spring, “It is so difficult to keep a good table, because there is so little variety in our markets.” And when they say this there will oftentimes be ten different meats and as many vegetables to be had. Now why does this complaint go on from year to year? Men and women are both to blame for it, and to show how they are is an easy task. If these ten meats and corresponding number of vegetable are judiciously managed, both health and economy can be forwarded. I will enumerate the meats and vegetables, that no housekeeper may say this is random talk: Beef (1), mutton (2), veal (3), pork (4), ham (5), corn beef (6), turkey (7), chicken (8), fish (9), game (10); kidneys, sweet-breads, and the like, not to be mentioned here, for fear our American taste will falter. Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, cabbage, beets, beans, squash, celery. Here you have ten without all the fine canned peas and tomatoes and corn on your shelves. Now, I am laughing because every delicately-minded woman in America exclaims at once, “But you have enumerated vegetables that our husbands and we ourselves would not touch!” Well, neither would a Frenchman, if they came on his table with the combinations of meat, etc., that you serve them with. A Frenchman knows (and the highest toned German has learned from him) that there are chemical affinities in food, and he selects his meat to correspond with his vegetable, or _vice versa_, as carefully as he would combine chemical properties in a laboratory; or as discreetly as he would choose guests for his drawing-room or dinner-table; or as daintily as his wife would select gloves to match her bonnet. Food assorted with bad taste and judgment on his table is as distasteful as a delicate watercolor framed in a moulding which belongs to a heavy old historical oil painting is to his eye. The subject may seem to many unworthy such attention. There are those who boast that “they do not care what they eat, so they get enough! or how the table is set, or whether everything comes on at once or not!” Well, this is the way Frederick the Great’s father felt; the ruder and rougher, the better for his children; whether they took bread with a fork, or ate with their knives, or mixed cabbage and eggs, it didn’t matter to him, so the exchequer was sound. But what effect did all this boorish home-life have upon young Frederick? It made him eschew every German custom, every Teutonic idea, and give himself up entirely to the French, to be ruled by his French cooks, and dressed by French tailors, and entertained by French wits. Now the Germans have established their own reputation for combinations which they consider good, and it appears that the wife of our honored poet, who died as United States Minister in Berlin (a German woman by birth), is not ashamed to write on German cookery, although a woman of high and unquestioned literary attainments, who could help her husband in the arduous task of translating Faust. We Americans do not study this matter, or if we do, and make an effort to improve, it is simply an imitation, and a poor one at that, of some European ways. As health and happiness depend so much upon whether our dinner “sets well,” the knowledge of instituting such a mode of living as is best calculated to preserve health, is a most desirable acquisition. And if errors are committed in this respect, our injured system must suffer the bad consequences.

Now let us make a practical résumé of the subject: There are ten meats and ten vegetables in the market and twenty-one meals in the week to provide for. Let us first think of Sunday, for every man wants a good dinner on Sunday, especially if he has done his duty at church, and contributed his rightful portion to the Lord’s kingdom. If a woman has but one girl, or servant, it seems only right for her to take Sunday about with that servant, or propose to do so, that the poor girl may also know occasionally the pleasure of putting on her good clothes early Sunday morning and walking with a quiet conscience to the house of God. And then it gives the lady of the house a good two hours to reflect upon the drudgery that the hired laborer does for the household—and if she be an inexperienced woman, she should learn to cook one dinner a week. Perhaps these are rigid rules, but they bring good results to a woman’s heart and home. Suppose you have purchased some game for Sunday dinner: see that it is prepared for cooking on Saturday, so that the mere roasting of it will cause you little trouble on Sunday; and if, in addition to this, you and your husband have determined, instead of having six vegetables, as most American tables present, to have but one and a salad, let it be in this instance mashed Irish potatoes and celery, or lettuce, or even fine-chopped cabbage, if no other acid can be had. If you have not had soup, manage to compensate by beautiful desserts, which are easily arranged on Saturday also. Blanc mange or custards are better by being cold. Then you can have fresh fruits, and after dinner coffee. Does this seem a meagre and miserably arranged dinner, or does the following combination, which I not long ago found on an American table, seem better? Fish, beef, onions, eggs, cabbage, dried peaches, and pickles, before one’s eyes all at once! There is as much difference to an æsthetical taste between the simple but harmonious dinner, described above, and the incongruous, distasteful dinner just mentioned, as there is between a well-selected costume on a pretty woman, and an ugly mixture of color and cut, covered by laces and jewelry, on an ugly woman; or, between a tastefully arranged drawing-room and a hodge-podge of furniture and drapery, which have no one element of similitude.

As the legend goes, Monday is the “tug of war” for housekeepers. Admit that the dinner is the secondary thing and that it must be late in starting. But if you have an understanding with your butcher to send a piece of beef for boiling and you put it on at 10 o’clock with a few carrots and an onion to flavor it, you will have some deliciously tender stuff at 12 o’clock, with enough _bouillon_ to set away for to-morrow, and if you have horse-radish to eat your beef with, and some macaroni _a la creme_, or baked tomatoes or sweet potatoes (one, not all three), with a good salad (an indispensable article), your Monday dinner will not be so dreadful, although it has cost little or no time in the preparation. See that your husband makes the salad dressing if he is well disposed to do his part, at the table. A woman has enough to look after of such details. Dispense with the dessert on Monday, but let fresh fruit never be absent from your table if you can afford it. Oranges, bananas, apples, grapes, pears, peaches; how lavish Nature is in this direction!

For our Tuesday dinner we have the _bouillon_ set away from yesterday—so that a roast is essential—always alternating between boiling and roasting, and never letting a dinner be roasted throughout, or _vice versa_. A roast of lamb or mutton with mint sauce, and turnips boiled, and apple jelly, will perhaps answer, as we have had the soup to begin with. A good plum pudding would taste well after this and some acid fruit, with your coffee to finish with. Of course, Europeans begin every dinner with soup, and their recipes are innumerable. But we are here endeavoring to get up inexpensive meals that almost any family can indulge in.

Wednesday: Chickens or squirrel fricasseed, or boiled with rice and seasoned with East India curry, makes a very inviting dish, if the rice is laid around the chicken and garnished with parsley. Give us peas, or lima beans, or Saratoga potatoes with this meat. Saratoga potatoes served when the chicken is brought on, and later a course of tongue and peas—if the gentleman of the house complains that chicken is too delicate a fowl for him to make a dinner from. Dessert, a lemon pie or pudding, etc., etc.

Thursday: To-day the washing and ironing are all through with, and the best dinner of the week can be prepared. What shall it be? An Englishman would say, roast beef; a German, a goose; an Italian, veal, tomatoes, and macaroni; a Frenchman, wild pigeons, or sweet-breads, or deviled crabs, or some dainty combinations. What does the great American heart cry out for? Turkey and oysters! turkey and oysters! and six vegetables; everything the season affords, reserving nothing for the morrow. Have your own way about this Thursday dinner. I shall not interfere with economic ideas or European combinations, but promise to tell me when it is over if your purse is not lighter and your stomach heavier than you anticipated? If so, Friday, I shall take you under instruction again, and to restore your over-taxed stomach we will have, first, a good beef soup, and, to invigorate you mentally, after the soup, we will have a beautiful salmon, or any large fish, stuffed and baked; served with potatoes and barley bread, which will also give phosphorus. Stewed cherries for dessert, and cheese and crackers will supply other needs.

By Saturday you will have recovered from that heavy dinner of Thursday, and from Friday’s dinner the cook will possibly have saved enough fish to make some nice little fish patties to serve before the good, rare roast of beef, which for our Saturday dinner is accompanied by spinach, made very fine, mashed to the consistency of mashed potatoes, and served with a plateful of bread-dice, (in form of cubes), which have been fried as one fries doughnuts; roasted potatoes and a fresh salad; a cardinal, or transparent, or cream pudding, and your fresh fruit, and after dinner coffee.

You will feel, as Sunday approaches again, that you have at least had variety from day to day, and not eaten something of everything the market affords every day, until you are utterly tired of everything! From the beef of Saturday can be prepared for Sunday breakfast what the French call a _râgout_, which is more savory than hash, because the pieces of meat are left about two inches in size, and flavored with a bit of bacon, potatoes, carrots, and onions.

In this enumeration I have left beefsteak, liver, kidneys, sweet-breads, and ham untouched. All of these I presumed you would claim for your breakfasts and teas. Sardines, and dried beef and tongue, and many other things the market also gives you, and in exercising some ingenuity you will not have to repeat the same dish day after day, nor confine yourself to roasting and frying everything, when things are often better boiled, or stewed, or smothered. And now I will not intrude upon another Sunday dinner. I can only hope, in parting from the subject and from you, that the kitchen and dining-room have grown more interesting.

I think of but one other habit and one custom in which the Germans differ from us. Instead of sitting in their bed-rooms, as so many Americans do, they invariably have a sitting-room attached to the bed-room, and the bed-room is used merely as a place for repose.

They pay their physicians so much a year, whether there be need for their services or not. Some years it happens there will be many members of the household sick, but the doctor is not expected to ask more that year than he did the year before, when he was only called once or twice. Fifty thalers is the usual amount for a small family, or about forty dollars of our money. Professional nurses are to be found even in small provincial towns, and neighbors are not called upon, as among us, to serve this purpose.

* * * * *

“Slander,” says Saint Bernard, “is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the person who listens to it; so that a single calumny may prove fatal to an infinite number of souls, since it kills not only those who circulate it, but also all those who do not reject it.”—_Pascal._

CHANGES IN FASHIONS.

From the French of M. A. CHALLAMEL.

Fashion is the expositor of our habits and our social relations, from the standpoint of costume. It is a much more serious subject than it may seem at first; far from serving only as a source of frivolous talk, even when it is specially concerned with our dress and ornamentation, the subject of fashion, it has been wisely said, has its value as a moral sign-post, and supplies the historian, the philosopher, and the novelist with a guide to the prevailing ideas of the time.

It is of the French fashions we speak here; for in France, the land of classic fancy, the empire of fashion, has assuredly been more deeply felt than elsewhere. Even in primitive Gaul were the fashions fixed, but their common sense is to be commended. The Gallic woman was demanded by fashion to follow a strict course of bathing. In every locality baths were established, and they were to her a delight, a duty, and a necessity. At Marseilles young girls were forbidden by custom the use of wine, lest it should injure the ivory whiteness of their complexion. To guard against excess in dress, the law required that the highest marriage portion of a woman should not exceed one hundred golden crowns. The history of political events has had more influence on fashion than may be generally supposed. Upon the conquest of the country by Cæsar, Roman manners were introduced into primitive Gaul, and the Gallic women, declining to be beaten in the art of pleasing, as their husbands had in arms, adopted the fashions of Rome. Extravagance in dress became boundless. We have in this early period the beginning of two modern fashions. Some ladies chose to wear garments which, on account of their breadth, were called by Horace _palissades_. From these the crinoline appears to have been derived. Ovid observes that to equalize the shoulders, if one were slightly higher than the other, it was customary to drape lightly the lower of the two. Thus originated padding. These Gallo-Roman ladies were elegant in all their surroundings, and the Frenchwoman of to-day has not a better sorted wardrobe. Parasols, mirrors, fans, perfumes, pomatums, and cosmetics—all these things were known to the Gallo-Roman period.

It was not until about the tenth century that dress in France became original. The women of the provinces adopted costumes of their own, and, at their will, added details. Indeed, if the history of fashion is studied, it will be seen that the original type of dress has not changed. It is the subordinate parts that undergo continual alteration. The skirt, the tunic (or overskirts), the mantle, the cap and reticule have always existed since the time of our Gallic mothers. One modification of the skirt produced a great furore in religious circles—it was the trail to the gown. A disgusted prior said: “The tail gives a woman the look of a serpent,” and the council of Montpellier forbade the appendix in question on penalty of excommunication. No fashion ever brought down more anathemas on the fair sex than the “_hennins_.” It was introduced, too, in a period when it would naturally be supposed that the very terror of the time would have destroyed all passion for dress and capricious fashions—the melancholy time of the Hundred Years’ War. This hennin was a kind of two-horned head-dress, made of muslin, stiffly starched and kept in place by fine wire, and of most exaggerated size. Paradin says: “It was peaked like a steeple, or with tall horns; from these horns hang flags, capes, fringe and other material. Such head-dresses were naturally very expensive, and husbands were loud in complaint.” Confessors and monks added their curses. They considered the hennin as an invention of the evil one, and organized a deadly warfare against the obnoxious article; but this uproar availed nothing, the women only gave up their hennins from a caprice similar to that which had invented them.

One strange fashion of the whole Middle Ages related to the color of the hair. Fair hair alone was considered beautiful. On this point the French and the Greeks were of one mind. In Shakspere’s play of “As You Like It” we find Rosalind as she hoots at Phœbe, laughing at her “black silk-hair” as a mark of her plainness. The word “fashion” seems to convey an almost absolute sense of novelty, but that which is new to-day may be but a revival of what is old. “There is nothing new under the sun,” applies with special force to fashion. The pretty trifles worn by women of to-day are nothing but the reproduction of similar ornaments worn by the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, or the Gauls, and all our novelties find their origin many centuries in the past.

THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.

By W. T. HARRIS.

VI.—GREECE AND ITS RELATION TO THE EAST.

In previous chapters we have studied the nations of Western Asia and Africa in regard to internal appliances for education, but more especially in regard to external educational influence upon other peoples.

At this important point in our discussions, when we are passing into a new region—that of Europe, or “the West,” as contrasted with Asia as “the East”—we may sum up briefly the chief results before considering the special theme of this chapter.

Education in Egypt consisted, on the part of the common people, in learning to read and write the script alphabet derived from the hieroglyphics, the elements of arithmetic, and one’s trade or vocation. A higher system of education was reserved for the candidates for the priestly caste, including the branches of language, mathematics, astronomy, natural science, music and religion. There was also a secret doctrine taught to the illuminated ones who entered on the duties of the priestly caste.

In Egypt the State was as thoroughly subordinated to the priestly class as in Persia to the military caste, or in Phœnicia and Carthage to the mercantile caste. The aim of life was there to prepare for death, and the earthly hull of the body was to be carefully preserved as the soul would need its body again after 3,000 years; it was carefully embalmed and laid to rest in the tombs of the hills, or if royal was placed in a pyramid. The court in which the dead were tried and judgment pronounced upon their lives, decreeing the honors of burial or denying this privilege was the great national educational institution.

With the old Persians education according to Herodotus consisted chiefly in training its youth to bear arms and to tell the truth. To use the bow and arrow skilfully and to ride on horseback fitted him for duties in his warlike nation.

Theoretical education included the arts of reading, writing, and polite behavior, and was in the hands of the eighty thousand Magi, a carefully educated class, who divided their members into three grades: (_a_) the apprentices, or first initiated; (_b_) journeymen, those who had passed the second degree, and (_c_) masters, those who had reached the highest degree. The Persian mind set up the principles of light and darkness, which he further defined as good and evil. It was a point upon which great stress was laid by their teachers, to inculcate a practice of good and an abhorrence of evil. The public education lasted from the age of seven to that of twenty-four. Before the fifth year the child was not to be told “this is bad,” or “this is good,” but only told “do not do it again,” when he committed a fault. Before the age of seven years he was never to be whipped. The virtues of self-denial in matters of eating and drinking, of conquest over one’s appetites, and of obedience to what is prescribed, were especially inculcated.

Of the Phœnician education we know only that it laid great stress upon what is useful in the arts and trades. The Carthaginian colony taught their youth reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious duties, besides a special trade and the use of arms. Their moral instruction was of a questionable character, useful in their commerce perhaps, but admitting of deceit and violence. “Punic faith” became a by-word in surrounding nations for treachery. In Phœnicia we find a marked departure from the family training that formed so large a part of the instruction in other Oriental nations. Indifference toward family and one’s native land, and a passionate love for adventure and commercial gain were fostered necessarily in its system of education, because the State depended upon these qualities for its prosperity.

In Judea the education wore an oriental stamp. Religious history perhaps was the foremost of the branches of study. The arts of reading and writing were required in order that the youth might learn to read the written law which had been especially delivered to his nation from the most high to Moses on Mount Sinai. The law was impressed upon the memory of the child. Song and music were taught but gymnastics was neglected. The girls learned household employments—spinning, weaving, sewing, painting, cooking, dancing, and cymbal-playing. They were educated by their mothers in piety, cleanliness, and morality. A school of prophets seems to have been established by Samuel when music and religious poetry were cultivated. After the Babylonian exile rabbinical lore was prominent in the higher education.

The Mediterranean Sea is the center of all progressive civilization in modern history. Upon its shores the Orient and Occident have met and mingled. Phœnicia, Judea, Greece, Rome, Carthage,—these have played their parts in its history. The European states trace the first impulses of their culture to Asia. But Europe borrowed nothing without assimilating it to a new principle radically different from the Oriental principle. It is the principle of individuality—of personal development, of personal achievement, of personal freedom,—that we meet upon the shores of Europe, and education assumes at once a new interest to us when we come to Greece and Rome.

A wide chasm separates the European education from the Asiatic. The East celebrates the infinite as something not only without bounds and limits, but as something devoid of all distinction, and hence devoid of conscious personality; God is in his essence not revealable to man, is their doctrine. Europe, on the other hand, celebrates the distinctions within the personality. In Western Asia, and particularly in Egypt, there was an approach toward the recognition of personality in God, and in the Hebrew religion there was the complete attainment of this idea. The Hebrew idea finds its beginnings in Asia, but its development looks to Europe, whose peoples find in the religion derived from Judea their ideal.

Greece and Rome develop the idea of individuality in a very different manner from Persia and Egypt, and do not know anything of the Hebrew idea until their national career has been run. Greece does not reach the idea of one God as Jehovah, but it conceives the divine as beautiful individuality—the gods of Olympus, serene and graceful, but having the special character of human beings.

It was a great step to recognize this human character in the divine,—and the Greek mind rejoiced in the consciousness that his gods were so nearly of his own nature that they could and did dwell in human bodies.

This idea furnishes us the first phase of Greek education—the education of the body by gymnastic games, so as to make it perfectly beautiful and graceful. Cultivation of the body was a religious exercise, for it was a celebration of the divine by realizing it in the form of the beautiful. The East Indian ascetic sought by all means to mortify and deform the body. The Greek sought to perfect it.

There were games for all the Greek States—the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemæan, and Isthmian—international expositions of strength and beauty.

When the ideal of beauty had been fixed, there came the sculptor who conceived the forms and expressions of the gods of Olympus, taking his hints from human models that he saw all around him. The national culture in gymnastics first, the plastic arts second, these conspired to produce the ideals of beauty which educated the Greek people, and furnish an essential element in the education of all subsequent time. Preceding all plastic art was the poetry of Homer, out of which the Greek civilization seems to have been breathed.