Chapter II (5)

We have for the twenty-fifth time chosen a President. The office has grown in its burdens, but it has not grown in its constitutional powers. For ten years there was a great danger that its wholesome powers would be seriously reduced by the so-called “courtesy of the Senate,” according to which the President became the clerk of the Senators for Federal appointments in each state. But since the pistol shot which killed President Garfield was fired, the so-called “courtesy” has ceased to be named except for condemnation; and the President retains the power Washington had to nominate office-holders in the several states. Probably there has never been a time when the highest office was more carefully and exactly defined by practice in harmony with the constitution. The President does not dictate to Congress, force nominations through the Senate, or interfere with the independence of the Federal courts. On the other hand one may search the newspapers in vain for a trace of distrust or criticism in any of these vital concernments. After the war there was a period during which the constitution underwent severe strain at several points. The criticisms of the times of Johnson and Grant turned mostly upon constitutional questions. The conflicts of politics bore upon that class of differences. To many it seemed doubtful whether our institutions could survive these struggles. Providence has been good to us; we have been good to ourselves and our children. The storms are overpast. The constitution exists unimpaired; it is universally accepted as the fundamental law. There has not been a breath of discussion about it in the late campaign. It is many quadrenniums since the like occurred; indeed we doubt if there ever was any such campaign in this respect. Here and there a man may be found to explain our peace as ignorant indifference; but he is profoundly wrong. The separate powers of the government are well defined, and the independence of each in its own domain is preserved. The single new machine—national supervision of congressional elections through U. S. Marshals—had in it great possibilities of danger. It might have been so handled as to vest the power to hold the ballot-boxes in the President’s hands; but it has simply created salutary checks on frauds. Here and there an isolated case of improper interference may reach the record; but there is no fear abroad that our chief magistrate abuses his powers. The errors when they occur are only the blunders of individual officers, not an organized invasion of the people’s rights. So little has been said about this piece of machinery recently, that we half fear that some readers have forgotten or never heard of the Federal election laws. The sum of what we would say is that the late election marks the subsidence of those waves of constitutional disorder or conflict which had run high from the beginning of the war to the death of President Garfield. We have evidently entered upon a new field of partisan controversy; and no constitutional questions, only questions of expediency, are before us or are likely to be. The industrial problems as related to tariff questions, perhaps also some others, such as the expediency of National savings banks and life insurance bureaus for the poor, are likely to lead the political thought into channels which were never before open to it in the line of humanitarianism and the general welfare. In becoming a manufacturing nation we have traveled to new political outlooks. We have to adjust ourselves to the results of our tariff laws, whether or not we like either the laws or its results. The results are some millions of men and women earning wages in mills, whose fate and that of their children is in our hands. We shall be tempted to follies of protection as well as follies of free trade; to follies of philanthropy as well as follies of indifference and neglect. To thoughtful men the path to safety may well seem as narrow as the edge of that scimetar along which the Moslem saint skated into Paradise. Let us hope that the conservative genius of our people will not fail in these new fields of political activity; and that the buoyant hope of this growing people may continue to lift us out of the dangers of the failure of self-confidence. It is our happiness that we feel able to govern ourselves, equal to our problems, superior to our perils. If it should ever come to pass that the mass of our citizens lost the self-assurance for which foreigners sometimes unwisely rebuke them, they would begin to transfer the government to oligarchies, aristocracies, or “the man on horseback.” The campaign has had many unpleasant incidents—political mills can not be clean and quiet any more than other mills can—but a judicious observer will have noted with satisfaction that the plain men have everywhere felt equal to forming their own judgments about grave matters concerning which the so-called wise have differed most energetically. And inasmuch as the wise could not agree, it is safe to say that the wayfaring men have displayed as much sense as “their betters,” and more courage and consistency. We have been impressed by the experience of the campaign with the belief that the average American, who knows neither Latin nor science, does understand his principal business—that of governing this country.

PRINCIPAL FAIRBAIRN’S LECTURES.

The lectures of Principal A. M. Fairbairn, of England, on the Chautauqua platform last summer, were a valuable contribution to contemporary philosophy. Their subject is Modern Philosophy in its specifically English form. Starting with Locke, and passing along through the ideas of Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, Comte, and Herbert Spenser, the learned and brilliant lecturer gave us a history of modern speculation respecting the problem, “How is knowledge possible? What are its conditions? How does man come by it?” We have lately read over again these lectures in the careful reports made for the _Assembly Herald_; and we believe we shall render our readers a service by calling their attention to the importance of them and reminding those who have not files of them that they are on sale at this office. There is a very remarkable unity in the empirical philosophy which is associated with the names we have just given, and this unity was developed with rare skill by Principal Fairbairn. John Locke, the English founder of the school, formulated and determined the problem of philosophy for the English and the French peoples; and though each of them was original after his kind, Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, Comte and Herbert Spenser have worked upon lines which Locke laid down. Locke asked himself, how do ideas come into the mind? and answered his question by saying, there are no ideas in the mind until the senses have conveyed them in. In other terms, he undertook to disperse as a metaphysical mist the “innate ideas” in which philosophy believed when he began to write. In varying forms, the notion that there is nothing in the mind except what the senses have put there remains the creed of the empirical philosophy. The criticism of Principal Fairbairn upon the successive statements of the doctrine that the outer world is prior, and creates the inner world, is very keen and accurate. Locke was fond of saying that the mind was like a clean table, to which the senses brought ideas. Our critic asks: “Did you ever find a table that could grasp the significance of what was graved on it?” and adds, “It is the power to read the writing and weave it into a connected and reasonable and rational whole, which is the very thing to be explained. It is not how nature through the senses comes to me, but how I through the senses read nature.” And one of his strong and luminous statements is, that “Ideas can not get into the mind unless there is a mind to get into.”

The purpose of the critic throughout these lectures was to establish the priority of thought by disposing one by one of the various attempts to post-fix mind to matter. The attempts successively made to attach mind, ideas, thought, conscience, and philosophy to the tail of the material kite, all tended, of course, to skepticism. As a theologian Dr. Fairbairn was instinctively drawn to the task of reversing this order so as to attach matter as a tail to the kite of the spiritual world. No matter how plausibly stated, the theory that our knowledge and our minds are a result of material energy reduces any possible God to the status of a product of nature. If in reasoning about ourselves we shall finally conclude that our inner totality is simply and only a product of the external world, we shall be forced to conclude that all thought in the universe is of like origin. The skeptical result is inevitable. Whatever view we take of substance in nature we are compelled to decide whether or not it is so moulded as to express the thoughts of an infinite God. If we so believe we shall find it easy to explain how thought in us finds a cosmos in nature. If the infinite mind reveals his thought in the order and harmony of the external world, the fact easily explains why we _find_ order and harmony there. It is not necessary to reduce the external world to a phantasmagoria of the mind in order to vindicate a place for God. Rather the most subtle and dangerous of skepticisms may lie in the teaching that innate ideas construct the harmonies of nature. Berkeley said we are reading God’s thoughts in the visible world; and hegelianism, to which Principal Fairbairn evidently leans, dispenses with matter while filling the universe with thought. It is equally easy to give matter reality as a plastic thing on which God writes his thoughts so that we may read them. This question of the reality of substance may very properly be the next one to command the attention of philosophy. But it must be remembered that the science which resolves matter into motion and force conspires with the philosophy which makes matter merely the expression of divine ideas.

But we do not wish to make our readers heads ache with philosophy; only to suggest to those who are interested in it that these lectures will afford them valuable instruction. At their close on the Chautauqua platform, Chancellor Vincent expressed in happy terms the admiration of thousands who heard these lectures for their vigor and eloquence. He said: “Principal Fairbairn, in behalf of Chautauqua I desire to say a very few words. We are glad that you came. We are sorry that you must go. You have commanded our admiration by the elegance, clearness and force of your diction, but preëminently by the vigor and freshness of your thought. You stand before us a great ‘phenomenon.’ [Applause.] For we have been accustomed to vigorous thought read from manuscript, we have been accustomed to vigorous thought put into memory and recited with accuracy, but this living, present, compact, vigorous thinking on one’s feet, that has held us spell-bound, is a very remarkable occurrence at Chautauqua.” [Applause.]

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The saying “politics makes strange bed-fellows,” never had a more dramatic exhibition than in the case of Henry Ward Beecher. In the late campaign, he was violently handled by the only paper in New York which supported and defended him in his trial; and he has been on the same side with the papers which at that time most infamously abused him. The press is also fairly representative of the public around him; his life-long friends have now been opposed to him; and one friend of other years has been branded by him as “a continental liar,” whatever that may be. “It is,” say his present friends, “the fate of a prophet.” His older friends say “he is growing old.”

* * * * *

In England, in one county, 30,000 acres of good land are tenantless because the laborers and farmers have gone to manufacturing towns. To cure this evil Lady Catherine Gaskell wants to put a stop to educating the poor. She is a picturesque reformer who may be safely classed with the Roman pontiff. She would forbid the humble classes to wear clothes such as other people wear, send them to the fields at three o’clock in the morning, and keep them with the cattle. The dear soul is probably mad, at least “south by southwest.”

* * * * *

It is said that the Jesuits are creeping back into Rome and buying property in the names of private persons. The Pope is very busy and hopeful in his work of strengthening the church. One aspect of this matter of the Papacy and its Jesuit agents, is too much overlooked. Italy can not successfully fight either the Papacy or Jesuitory _with atheism_. So long as the Catholics have the religion of the country they will actually rule it, whatever may be the form of government. A dreadfully perverted Christianity is still a positive force, advancing and aggressive. Atheism is not a force; it is a barren negation. A Protestant Italy is the want of liberty in that peninsula.

* * * * *

Wm. H. Vanderbilt has given $500,000 to the New York City College of Physicians and Surgeons. The gift is wise and generous, and it breaks a disagreeable silence. It is only by such gifts that very rich men can satisfy our moral sense. The vast wealth can be justified only as a stewardship for one’s fellow men; and we want to see the proofs that the stewardship is righteously exercised.

* * * * *

A Chinese pamphlet, instigated by the French invasion, and designed to inflame the passion of the celestials, says that Europeans are not human beings at all, but wild animals descended from monkeys. We fear that an imperfect copy of Darwin has fallen into the hands of this pamphleteer; but he gives us a chance to see ourselves as others see us.

* * * * *

October is the month of political parades in the political almanac. This year the display at some points was magnificent. Broadway, New York, with from thirty to sixty thousand men in line, in the picturesque costumes of contemporary politics, is the most imposing sight in the world. And our sober-sided people seem to like and enjoy this single form of public theatrical effects.

* * * * *

Now and then a good man is plentifully advertised as “a man with a conscience.” Would it not be easier and more wholesome to morals to confine this kind of advertising to the men who are without consciences? The men who have consciences must be very numerous.

* * * * *

The appointment of the Hon. Hugh McCullough as Secretary of the Treasury reminds us, not only that President Lincoln nominated him to the same office, but also that he returns to the most arduous office in the United States at the age of seventy-three. His health is perfect, and he has the vigor of middle age. The old men are holding out in American public life about as well as they do in English politics.

* * * * *

Mr. Wm. J. Stillman, an American artist and writer who has lived abroad for twenty-five years, makes a practical suggestion which all who have crossed the Atlantic just once will appreciate. He proposes that the eating on ocean steamers be done on the restaurant principle, each passenger paying for what he eats, at fixed prices. If the plan is adopted, it will considerably reduce the cost of that trip to Europe of which most of our readers are dreaming. Eating and a first voyage are antipathetic.

* * * * *

It is a very amusing thing (to us Americans) which Professor Goldwin Smith says in a recent number of the _Contemporary Review_, that the organization of a government in England can not be long delayed. The fictitious constitution has broken down, he thinks, and a real one (somewhat like ours, but better) must be made for modern England. But the Professor always was hysterical.

* * * * *

The result of the French war in China is still in doubt. Three months ago the French papers were writing about their great victory and proposing that their Tonquin army conquer the Christian queen of Madagascar. Now the latest public statement is that the army in Tonquin is sufficient for _defensive_ operations. There is a gradual growth of manifestations of hostility by the Chinese against all foreigners, and an outbreak is _possible_ which might arm the Christian world against China; but that seems to be the only door of escape for the French from a long and costly war.

* * * * *

The desperate condition of railroad property has been made more desperate by a rate-cutting war. There are more roads than are needed, and this state of things reduces the fares and freights to be divided among an increased number. The result is a still further reduction by reduced fares of passengers. The problem of this class of property is a difficult one; and it is a large one and closely related to the general prosperity. A first step would seem to be getting speculators out of the directorates.

* * * * *

The Northern Pacific Railroad recently transported a solid wheat train containing one hundred and ten cars. Ten years ago the whole region in which this wheat grew was a wilderness. But the farthest great wheat field has now been opened to culture. Wheat will not always be cheap, though it need not be scarce. With the rise in price will come a vast increase of production in the older states.

* * * * *

We are entertained by the solemn pleadings of certain journals that boys be allowed to take exercise, that the schools be restrained from spoiling their bodies while cultivating their minds. Any one who knows a boy when he sees one must “laugh consumedly” over this reform. Teachers will find special and boundless amusement in the idea that a boy can be kept from abundant and even violent exercise.

* * * * *

An interesting side-light on our civilization is the fact that some of the Sitting Bull Indians have been exhibiting themselves and their costumes and customs in a New York theater—“to make money to build houses and buy furniture,” the manager says. This is more heroic than taking scalps for glory.

* * * * *

Once when the superior generalship of General Lee was explained to General Grant, he replied with his usual modesty of tone: “I believe I beat Lee.” We are reminded of the incident by an elaborate explanation that England had all the points of success in her favor, and had them all properly counted in our two wars with her. And yet—we seem to have heard that—we came out ahead. These metaphysical victories are not very satisfactory. Artemas Ward said: “I pulled my enemy down on top of me and firmly inserted my nose between his teeth.” Still, his nose got the worst of it.

* * * * *

The humors of campaign politics are often good enough to keep. After the October election in Ohio a Republican paper said: “John R. McLean, the Democratic manager, married a wife a few days before the election, and after the state was lost to his party, was _the only happy Democrat in Ohio_.” We hope Mrs. McLean saw the neat compliment to herself.

* * * * *

Farmers are peaceable people, and yet the lawyers would starve to death if farmers did not furnish them lawsuits. A movement is on foot in New York state to settle farmers’ differences by arbitration. The Patrons of Husbandry recommend this method, and there is some prospect of its adoption on a considerable scale. We commend the plain common sense of it to our agricultural readers.

* * * * *

King Humbert distinguished the throne of Italy by visiting the plagued cities and following the cholera into hospitals. The Pope, as the pretender to the temporal throne of Rome, had to demonstrate also. He has called for an organized assault by prayer on the heart of the Virgin Mary. It is easier than visiting plague-infested towns, and safer. But the Pope proposes to pay those who pray. All who take part in the “rosary prayer” will get absolution for seven years—not from cholera, but from their sins.

* * * * *

How many people will be in the world in 2000 A. D.? is one of the questions pressing for settlement in the heads of statisticians. It is comforting to know that these interesting and romantic persons assure us that the United States will have six hundred millions, if nothing in the nature of a preventing Providence intervenes. It is a comfort to know that the jury have no personal interest in this verdict in our favor.

* * * * *

This country will have to make some laws on the subject of timber. The big forests are rapidly becoming only memories. We make some kinds of lumber from straw, and iron has taken the place of other kinds. But the woods have climatic uses, and a treeless land is exposed to evils more costly than the value of the timber we are wasting. The annual floods are one item of the cost of destroying trees; changes of climate, which can hardly be measured, are another item but little thought of. The trees are a part of natural economy of the earth.

* * * * *

Public debts are made with far too much carelessness; but people who wish to evade taxes so arising, repudiate _en masse_; and hence comes the interesting question: “Are we a nation of rascals?” If one judges by the number of worthless (or little worth) bonds of all sorts which are in existence, we _are_ a nation of rascals. There must, in other words, be some rascally element in the national character, or all these promises to pay would not be dishonored. The genesis of the good-for-nothing bonds ought to be written philosophically; that may be a necessary preface to writing it with a moral purpose.

* * * * *

The Boston _Traveler_ of November 6th contains, in its editorial department, the following noble compliment to the C. L. S. C.: “This society that teaches the use of leisure hours and inspires the men and women of America with an intelligent aspiration to learn something of all that it is practicable to learn in home study by imparting the enthusiasm of companionship in work, has this year almost twice as many ardent, self-sacrificing students of its curriculum as the combined membership of all the American colleges from Maine to Washington Territory. When we consider the influence of a single collegiate institution, many of whose students attend from parental rather than personal aspirations, and think how much money is annually raised through benevolence for them, exceptional praise is due him who has by his own wit and wisdom, without financial appeal or charitable pretence, called into line for the study of history, philosophy, science and literature nearly double the constituency of all our colleges.”

* * * * *

A story comes from one of the Southern states that a man recently committed suicide rather than pay his taxes. Of the two inevitable things, death and taxes, he seems to have preferred, contrary to the common choice, to suffer death. The story furnishes a text for a sermon on the modification of general feeling relative to taxation. The suicide of the story was a survival; taxes are no longer regarded with aversion; they are paid, as grocers’ bills are, with equanimity.

* * * * *

The desire to fly “springs eternal in the human breast,” and the balloon is a very fascinating field of experiment. A Frenchman seems to have gained a point, and a good one. By using stored electricity he has succeeded in going where he wanted to go, moving for four hours against the wind. An Englishman has invented a means of keeping a balloon at the same level, he thinks. Perhaps ballooning may yet become a practical science.

* * * * *

Eccentric opinions sometimes have a fine and ancient flavor combined with a modern taste. Such is the statement recently made in a public meeting that insanity is increasing among the colored people, and that education is the cause of it. The reader can pick out the two tastes. We fear that the colored people are not yet educated enough to cause insanity, and we do not seem to know that education ever caused anybody to become insane.

* * * * *

Among the “fashions” is the rage for old furniture. Grandmother’s spinning wheel adorns the parlor, and worm-eaten old bureaus flank it on either side. But a dealer in this kind of goods, speaking of course against his rivals in trade, says that most of this old furniture is made at modern factories. Even the old spinning wheels are imitated to perfection. A story—wicked, perhaps—says that a Connecticut man is getting rich making “Mayflower heirlooms.” Persistent rumors of this kind will kill the fashion.

* * * * *

One of the notable events of October was the celebration throughout the world of the hundredth birthday of Sir Joseph Montefiore, the wealthy Jew whose philanthropy has shed luster on his race. In this celebration the Hebrews have the sympathy and congratulations of Christians everywhere. The venerable philanthropist has shown what wealth is good for, and set an example of faithful stewardship which ought not to be lost on other millionaires.

* * * * *

Some one has figured out that “just now, in the United States,” twenty-one deaths in a hundred are caused by violence. It is safe to avoid this kind of statistics. There is no means of knowing what the rate of death by violence really is “just at present,” and it is perfectly certain it is not twenty-one. It is only seven in England, where statistics are kept. We keep none except in large cities, but we certainly are not three times as bloody-handed as Englishmen.

* * * * *

New York had pending in the late election an amendment to the constitution limiting the debts of towns and cities in the ratio of population. In Illinois, in 1870, the new constitution put in force a similar rule. The effect, in many towns, was a series of “improvements,” carrying the debt up to the constitutional limit. The towns were ashamed of themselves when they found that they did not owe as much as the law allowed them to owe.

* * * * *

The horror of being buried alive is the most blood-curdling one known to civilized life, and yet cases of people being buried alive continue to be reported. The death of a woman at Hornellsville, N. Y., was certified by a physician. She was removed from the grave, and report says that, though in all other respects apparently dead, the body perspired freely. It looks like a case of trance. At all events she was buried too soon, and it is probable that in other cases bodies are frozen to death a few hours after apparent death. The whole subject of trance invites study of a more thorough sort than it has hitherto had.

* * * * *

Unpunctuality is a seductive vice in social matters. When a party or a dinner is announced for a given hour, it should begin at that hour, and not an hour or two later. The French custom is to allow half an hour for dilatory guests at dinners; but in other matters the French way is for each of the parties who have made a rendezvous—unless as duelists—to give the other half an hour’s margin, which being taken on both sides makes in all an hour. This system of addition is analogous to what a Californian said of a big tree—it grew so high that it took two men and a boy to see to the top.

* * * * *

ERRATA.—Dr. Felix Oswald, speaking of the principle governing schools of medicine, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for November, made a quotation concerning the school of Homœopathy, to which a few of our readers filed exceptions. It was not Dr. Oswald’s design to reflect on this honorable class of people, beside, THE CHAUTAUQUAN is not sick, and needs no physician; therefore it is not a partisan among medical men.

* * * * *

In Miss Frances E. Willard’s article, “Romance vs. Reality,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for November, the statement that in Ohio in 1883 only 90,000 votes were cast against constitutional prohibition is misleading. There were cast at that election 721,310 votes; now the constitution of Ohio requires that an amendment to be adopted must receive a majority of all the votes cast, which would be 360,655, while the actual vote cast for the amendment was but 223,189.

* * * * *

The class of ’84 “shines for all.” Up to November 1st 1,387 have graduated, and still more to come.

C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR DECEMBER.

PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.

P. 172.—“Hip-polˈo-chus.” This son, Glaucus by name, was a prince of Lycia, a country on the south side of ancient Asia Minor, and an ally of Priam. Hippolochus is remembered only as the father of Glaucus and the son of Bel-lerˈo-phon, who slew the fire-breathing monster, Chi-mæˈra, which had long ravaged Lycia. Glaucus was slain at last by Ajax.

“Braggadocio,” brag-ga-dōˈshĭ-o. Boasting; brag. _Braggadocio_ is a character in Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” famous for his boastful talk, and his name furnishes us this word.

P. 173.—“Bentley,” Richard. (1662-1742.) “Perhaps the best classical scholar England has ever produced.”

“Foster.” (1770-1843.) A Baptist minister of no great prominence as a preacher, but the author of a large number of valuable essays on biography, literature, philosophy and society.

P. 174.—“An-dromˈa-che.” The daughter of the king of Theˈbe in Cilicia. Her father and seven brothers were killed at the taking of Thebe, and she was ransomed. After the fall of Troy, Andromache fell to Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, and he dying, she married Helenus, the brother of Hector, who had escaped the fury of the Greeks and gained the favor of Pyrrhus.

“Hecˈto-rīˌdes.”

P. 175.—“E-eˈtion.” The king of Thebe.

“Plaˈcos.” A mountain of Mysia, near Thebe.

“Adˈja-ces.” The plural of Ajax, the name of two Greek heroes in the Trojan war. Ajax the Great was a son of the king of Salamis, and second in valor to Achilles. After the death of this latter hero, Ajax contended for his armor with Ulysses, but being defeated, he went mad and took his own life. The Lesser Ajax, as he was called, was a prince of the Locricans, and rivaled Achilles in swiftness of foot. He was drowned while returning to Greece.

“I-domˈe-neus.” The king of Crete, one of the bravest heroes of the Trojan war.

“Aˈtre-us.” “The two chiefs born to Atreus” were Agamemnon and Menelaus.

“Ty-diˈdes.” Diomed, the son Tydeus.

P. 176.—“Hecˈu-ba.” The mother of Hector.

“Mes-seˈis.” A fountain in Laconia.

“Hyp-e-reiˈan.” Homer speaks of several fountains called Hyperia, located in Thessaly.

P. 181.—“An-teˈnor.” One of the wisest counselors of the Trojans, and one of the few spared by the Greeks at the capture of Troy.

“As-træˈa.” Referring to the constellation _Virgo_, between which and the Scorpion “the golden scales” or Libra lies. Astræa was a daughter of Zeus fabled to have lived among men during the Golden Age, and to have been set among the stars at its close.

P. 191.—“Voss.” (1751-1826.) A German scholar. His translation of the “Odyssey” has been, since 1781, the standard German version of that poem. He made translations of many classical works, wrote on Grecian mythology, and was a poet of ability.

“Chry-seˈis.” The daughter of a priest of Apollo, captured at Thebe, and the booty of Agamemnon. Her father solicited her ransom, and when refused, Apollo sent a plague upon the Greeks. Agamemnon was obliged to surrender her, and to make good his loss, demanded Briseis, Achilles’ prize, hence “the wrath of Achilles.”

P. 193.—“Seventh of March.” A speech delivered in Congress by Webster on March 7, 1850, in which he justified the fugitive slave law.

P. 196.—“Dædˈa-lus.” Fabled to have been an Athenian architect who, for murder, was condemned to death. He fled to Crete, where he constructed among other works a labyrinth at Gnosˈsus, or Cnossus, in which to confine the monster Minotaur. The caves and quarries in Mount Ida probably led to this legend.

P. 197.—“Aˌri-adˈne.” The daughter of Minos, the king of Crete.

P. 201.—“Mōˈly.”

“That _Moly_,
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.”—_Milton._

(See page 231 of “Preparatory Greek Course.”)

P. 202.—“Euˈry-tus.” A legendary hero of Thessaly, said to have been a famous archer. He instructed Hercules in this art, and even boasted to be equal to Apollo.

P. 208.—“Dyˈmas.”

P. 210.—“Er-y-manˈthi-an.” Pertaining to a mountain in Arcadia, famous as the scene of the hunt by Hercules of the Erymanthean boar.

“Ta-ygˈe-tus.” A range of mountains between Laconia and Messuria.

P. 214.—“Euˈry-me-duˌsa;” “A-peiˈra.”

P. 215.—“A-reˈte;” “Perˌi-boiˈa;” “Nau-sithˈo-us;” “Eu-rymˈe-don.”

P. 216.—“Rhex-eˈnor;” “Scheria.” (See page 224 of “Preparatory Greek Course.”)

P. 217.—“Argus-Slayer.” Mercury, who, by the order of Jupiter, killed Argus, whom Juno set to watching Io after she had been changed into a cow.

P. 218.—“Echˌe-neˈus;” “La-odˈa-mas;” “Lustral.” Purifying.

P. 219.—“Pon-tonˈo-us.”

P. 222.—“Rha-da-manˈthus;” “Titˈy-us.” A giant of Eubœa, fabled to have been after death cast into Tartarus, where he lies with two vultures devouring his liver—a punishment for attempting to violate Diana.

P. 227.—“De-iphˈo-bus.” A son of Priam. The Greeks went first to his home on the capture of Troy, being bitter against him, as he was counted second in valor to Hector, and as he had married Helen on Paris’ death.

P. 230.—“Eu-rylˈo-chus;” “Pramˈmi-an.”

P. 235.—“An-tinˈo-us.”

P. 236.—“Eu-rymˈa-chus;” P. 237, “Am-phinˈo-mus;” P. 238, “Agˈe-laˌus;” “Me-lanˈthi-us.”

P. 239.—“Eu-mæˈus;” “Doˈli-us.”

P. 240.—“Menˈtor.” A firm friend of Ulysses, to whom the latter confided his property when he went to the Trojan war. Minerva assumed his form in order to teach Telemachus. “Da-masˈtor;” “Alˈki-mus;” “Eu-rynˈo-mus;” “Am-phimˈe-don;” “Demˌop-tolˈe-mus;” “Pei-sanˈder;” “Polˈy-bus.”

P. 241.—“Eu-ryˈa-des;” “Elˈa-tus;” “Cte-sipˈpus;” “Eu-rydˈa-mas.”

P. 242.—“Lei-ocˈri-tus;” “Lei-oˈdes;” “Pheˈmi-us.”

P. 243.—“Laˌer-tiˈa-des.” The son of Laertes. “Meˈdon;” “Phil-œˈti-us.”

P. 245.—“Eu-rynˈo-me;” “Euˈry-cleiˌa.”

P. 247.—“Acˈto-ris;” “Lamˈpus and Phaˈe-thon.” The goddess of the morning dawn (Eˈos in Greek, in Latin Au-roˈra). “At the close of every night rose from the couch of her spouse Tithonus and on a chariot, drawn by the swift horses, Lampus and Phaethon, she ascended up to heaven from the river Oceanus, to announce the coming of the light of day to the gods, as well as to mortals. In the Homeric poems Eos not only announces the coming sun, but accompanies him throughout the day, and her career is not complete until the evening; hence she came to be regarded as the goddess of the daylight.”

P. 249.—“Ciˈcons.” After the capture of Troy Ulysses set out for home, but was driven by a storm on to the coast of Ismarus, a town of the Cicones in Thrace, north of the island of Lemnos. He took much booty from the town, though in the fray several of his men were killed. The adventures of the company with the Lotus-eaters are told on page 228, and with the Cyclops on page 200. After leaving these giants he came to the island of the god of the winds, Æolus. This island has been said to be Lipara, or Strongyle, in the group of Lipara islands, northeast of Sicily. Ulysses was well treated by Æolus, who gave him a bag of winds on his departure, which was to carry him home. The companions of Ulysses, however, opened the bag, and the winds escaped. The ships were driven back to the island, but Æolus would give no further help. Six days afterward the fleet arrived at “the wide-gated Les-try-goˈni-an town,” supposed to be Tel-epˈy-los, in the north of Sicily, where dwelt the Les-trygˈo-nes, a race of cannibals. Ulysses fared hard among them, escaping with but one ship. Circe and her wiles are told on page 230. In Hades Ulysses learned mainly that he was at last to get safely to Ithaca, providing that he let the herds of Heˈli-os, “the sun’s kine,” in Thrinacia go unharmed. The “Sirens” lived on an island somewhere near the western coast of Italy, and sang so sweetly that all who came that way were forced to stop, when they were destroyed. Ulysses filled the ears of his companions and fastened himself to the mast of the ship. Next he came to the rocks called Scylˈla and Cha-rybˈdis. The former received its name from a fearful monster with twelve feet, six heads, and a bark like a dog, which dwelt thereon, and the latter from a being who thrice every day swallowed the waters of the sea and thrice threw them up. They passed uninjured and came to Helios’ (the sun’s) land. Ulysses was compelled by his companions to land, and while he was one day asleep they killed some of the sacred oxen. When again under way the storms arose which drowned all the company save Ulysses.

P. 252.—“Ar-keiˈsi-as.”

P. 253.—“Alˈy-bas;” “A-pheiˈdas;” “Pol-y-peˈmon;” “E-perˈi-tus.”

P. 254.—“Par-nasˈsus.” See map, History of Greece. It was on Mount Parnassus that Au-tolˈy-cus lived. He was a son of Mercury, and renowned for his robberies.

NOTES ON CYRUS AND ALEXANDER.

P. 14.—“As-tyˈa-gēs.”

P. 25.—Names of the nine muses. See “Brief History of Greece,” page 73, and note in Cyrus and Alexander.

P. 29.—The mother of Cyrus was named Pa-rysˈa-tis. There is a brief reference to her in “Preparatory Greek Course,” page 65. The attempt on the part of Cyrus to assassinate his brother is denied by some writers. From the “Introduction” to “Kendrick’s Anabasis” the following quotation is taken: “During the last illness of his father, Cyrus was summoned to his bedside, and with Tissaphernes as an ostensible friend, and with three hundred Greeks he went up to the capital, with strong hopes, doubtless, that the question of the succession to the throne might be decided in his favor; the queen-mother espousing his cause, and he being, though not the oldest son, yet the oldest son born after Cyrus was king. He was disappointed in his hopes; and, not only so, but, through the accusations of Tissaphernes, was even seized on charge of a conspiracy, and escaped death only through the powerful intercession of his mother, Parysatis. Being dismissed from the court, he returned to his satrapy, burning with resentment, and determined, if possible, to shake off all dependence on his brother by succeeding to the throne. He immediately commenced a secret mustering of the troops needed for so great an enterprise.”

P. 30.—“The Auxiliary army,” from Greece. “The Peloponnesian War had just come to a close, and had released from service large numbers of trained soldiers, fond of war, and ready to enlist, as soldiers of fortune, in any enterprise that promised success and good pay.” Also see “Brief History of Greece,” page 33, note.

P. 35.—“Cyropedia.” For pronunciation and definition see “Preparatory Greek Course,” page 62.

P. 37.—“Cam-byˈses;” “Man-daˈne.”

P. 40.—“Harˈpa-gus.”

P. 42.—“Mitˈri-daˈtes.”

P. 51.—“Ar-temˈba-ris.”

P. 75.—“Sacian.” The Sacians, or Saciæ, were one of the numerous and most powerful of the Scythian nomad tribes, and had their abodes northeast of the Massagetæ, in the steppes of Central Asia. They were made tributary to the Persian empire, and were among the best troops that the kings of Persia had. They were very warlike, and excelled especially as cavalry. The name of the Sacians is often used loosely for other Scythian tribes, and sometimes for Scythians in general.

P. 97.—“A-rasˈpes.”

P. 101.—“Mermˈna-dæ;” “Gyges,” jiˈjes.

P. 102.—“Can-dauˈles.”

P. 106.—“A-ly-atˈtes.”

P. 107.—“Thrasˈy-buˈlus.”

P. 108.—“A-riˈon.”

P. 113.—“Pac-toˈlus.”

P. 117.—“Aˈtis.”

P. 148.—“Promˌe-neˈa;” “Te-marˈe-te;” “Ni-canˈder;” “As-tragˈa-lus.”

P. 167.—“Thaˈles.”

P. 168.—“The celebrated fifth proposition of the first book.” If two sides of a triangle are equal, then the angles opposite these sides are equal.

P. 170.—“Pteria,” teˈri-a.

P. 178.—“Tmolus,” moˈlus; “Hyrædes,” hy-rēˈdes.

P. 193.—“Belus.” Son of Neptune. He was believed to be the ancestral hero and national divinity of several eastern nations. He was the same as the god Baal, of whom we read in the Scriptures, and, perhaps, the one known to the Phœnicians as Moloch. His temples were built on the tops of high hills, or still more frequently in solemn groves, and sometimes altars were erected to him on the roofs of houses. Incense was the most frequent offering presented to him, but we also read of sacrifices of bullocks, and even of children. Priests danced about the altar during the sacrifices, and barbarously cut and mangled themselves if their gods did not speedily answer their prayers.

P. 200.—“Pacˈty-as;” “Ta-baˈlus.”

P. 202.—“A-ris-to-diˈcus.”

P. 228.—“A-bra-daˈtes.”

P. 256.—“Phe-rauˈlas.”

P. 267.—“A-glaiˈta-das.”

P. 272.—“Massagetæ,” mas-sajˈe-te; “Tomˈy-ris.”

P. 273.—“Spar-ga-peˈzes.”