Chapter V: By Paul S. Reinsch. Copyright, 1911, by the (1)

author.

... The zeal of the older teachers in trying to catch up with the foreign-trained men is at times almost pathetic. In most towns a "teachers' discussion class" has been organized. These classes were established by the initiative of the teachers themselves, in order that they might acquire the knowledge necessary for elementary instruction in the new branches. With great eagerness these men, varying in age from thirty-five to fifty-five years, will follow the instruction given by some youngster in the early twenties who has been fortunate enough to have had a course in Japan or the West. While the necessary superficiality of such a system must be deplored, the mere fact of this instruction being so eagerly sought by the teachers is the best proof that the old order, recognizing its inevitable fate, has abandoned the hope of regaining its former supremacy and is hurrying to adapt itself to the new conditions.

This enthusiasm also finds expression in great individual sacrifices, and even in martyrdom. Private gifts are made in large numbers, even without the solicitation of officials or the hope of rewards. Within the last few years, it has frequently happened that some person desirous of founding a school, and lacking the means to do so, has in truly Oriental fashion appealed to his or her townsmen by committing suicide, after writing out a touching request for aid in the new cause. A Tartar lady at Hankow who had founded a school for girls was unable to secure sufficient money for carrying on the work of the institution. In order to secure her object, she determined to commit suicide. In her farewell letter, she stated that she felt the need of the school so much that she would sacrifice her own life and thus impress the need upon those who were able to give money. Her act had the result desired, as after her death money came flowing in from many sources. In most cases, fortunately, the appeals for assistance are successful without going to such extremes. Thus, the wife of a district magistrate in Honan, having decided to establish a school for girls, wrote a circular setting forth that a girl, if uneducated, brings six kinds of injury to herself and three kinds to her children. The subtlety of her arguments fascinated the city folk, and sufficient funds for her purpose were soon provided.

The introduction of female education, which militates against the most deep-seated prejudices of the Chinese race, has called for greater personal sacrifices than any other part of educational reform. Some powerful patrons have indeed arisen. H. E. Tuan Fang urged the importance of this reform upon the Empress herself, with the result that, before her death, the great lady established a school for female education in the capital. Educated women are making a strong plea for the education of their sisters. Doctor King Ya-mei, herself educated in the West, points out that those who lament the superficial nature of the present reforms forget that "half the nation, whose special function it is to put into practice the ideas governing the world in which she lives, has not yet been touched; that the strong impressions of childhood are the lasting ones, and that man is but an embodiment of the ideas of the mother." But in the case of female education, it is not primarily the provision of funds that causes difficulties. The desire of women to share in the advantages of education is of itself looked upon by the majority of the Chinese as scandalous and not at all to be encouraged. Many heartrending tragedies have been brought about by insoluble conflicts of duty toward the old and the new. A short time ago, in an interior village in Kiang Su, a woman, ambitious to become educated, killed herself after bad treatment from her husband's relatives. Her farewell letter was everywhere copied by the Chinese press. It has become a national document, and almost a charter of the new movement. In it occur the following sentences: "I am about to die today because my husband's parents, having found great fault with me for having unbound my feet, and declaring that I have been diffusing such an evil influence as to have injured the reputations of my ancestors, have determined to put me to death. Maintaining that they will be severely censured by their relatives, once I enter a school and receive instruction, they have been trying hard to deprive me of life, in order, as they say, to stop beforehand all the troubles that I may cause. At first they intended to starve me, but now they compel me to commit suicide by taking poison. I do not fear death at all, but how can I part from my children who are so young? Indeed, there should be no sympathy for me, but the mere thought of the destruction of my ideals and of my young children, who will without doubt be compelled to live in the old way, makes my heart almost break."

The blood of such martyrs is beginning to make its impression upon the Chinese people, and is turning them to favor more liberal popular customs. A nation in which a spirit of such ruthless self-sacrifice is still so common may bring forth things that will astonish the world. It has been said that "China contains materials for a revolution, if she should start one, to which the horrors of the French revolution would be a mere squib;" but if turned into different channels, this spirit of self-sacrifice may, as it did in the case of Japan, bring about a quick regeneration of national life and national prestige, through the establishment of new institutions, that correspond to the currents of life thus striving to assert themselves.

GEORGE C. COMSTOCK

Professor George C. Comstock was born in Madison in 1855, and
after an education obtained at various colleges and
universities, including the institutions of Ann Arbor and
Madison, and after considerable and varied experience in
engineering and astronomical work, he became professor of
astronomy in our own University in 1887, and Director of
Washburn Observatory two years later. Since 1906 he has been
Director of the Graduate School. He is the member of many
learned societies, and has been highly honored in numerous
ways by institutions of learning. The stories that are told,
and truly told, of his mathematical prowess, such as
memorizing tables of logarithms, have excited wonder in the
heart of many a student at Madison. His lectures, even on the
most abstruse subjects, are notably clear. His illustrations
are timely, and his English is of the very purest. He is a
representative of the regular classical education that is now
comparatively rarely elected by university undergraduates.

ASTROLOGY IN LIFE AND LITERATURE

... The modern philosopher and historian alike deride and marvel at astrology as the most persistent disease with which the minds of men have ever been afflicted but from which they are now happily freed by the advance of science. I must confess my inability to share this view as to the patent folly of the art. The careful student of astrology cannot fail to be impressed with the logical coherence of its doctrines and their necessary relation to the fundamental postulates from which they spring. While these postulates can no longer be maintained they seem in no way inappropriate as stages in the development of human knowledge and their wide spread acceptance is sufficient evidence of their seeming reasonableness to nascent society. Indeed it is only the upper strata of European civilization that has now outgrown the beliefs above considered. Asia still teems with them, from Seoul to Bagdad, and even in the heart of Europe astrological calendars are current and find enormous circulation among the lower classes. The practicing astrologer who seeks business through advertising in the daily press is with us in America, and to judge by the persistence of his advertisements they bring response. I find upon the shelves of the principal scientific library of Chicago a manual of applied astrology whose dirty and dog's eared leaves, together with recent date upon its title page, are additional testimony that American cultivation of the occult is not limited to Boston. Even nearer home we all know people who will plant or sow, or cut their hair only at the right phase of the moon or who have an abiding faith that the planetary weather predictions of Mr. Hicks are sound, in theory at least. I venture to assert that within range of the reader's acquaintance there is a considerable number of persons who firmly believe that in case of premature birth a seven months baby has a better chance of life than one of eight months--an ancient doctrine, for which excellent reasons were adduced by the Greek astrologers but which seems to find little support in current medical theory.

But assuredly our best memorial of the part astrology has played in human affairs lies not in such paltry superstitions but in its incorporation into the great literatures of Europe. Casual illustrations of this fossilized relationship have been given in this essay, but far more impressive than these instances are those cases in which astrologic doctrine permeates and dominates the whole structure of a great work. Chaucer's treatise on the Astrolabe was avowedly written as an exposition of the astrologic art, and in Dante's Divine Comedy the whole moral structure of the Paradiso, with its successive heavens allotted to beatitudes of varying degrees, finds its key in the astrology that Dante knew and followed. The sequence of these heavens accords with that of the spheres allotted by astrologic doctrine to the several planets, arranged in the order of their increasing distance from the earth, the order of their altitude as Dante would have said. The lowest heaven, that of the moon, is allotted by the poet to virgins because forsooth they best typify those qualities of cold and moist with which astrologic doctrine endows the moon. They who have fought with fire and sword in defence of the Church militant are placed in a higher heaven than are those saints and theologians whose service has been intellectual in its nature; an impropriety in our eyes and doubtless little congenial to Dante's mode of thought. But astrologically it must be so, for Mars, who typified the warrior, is higher, i. e., more distant from the earth, than is the sun whose light and warmth are alike the symbol and the source of intellect and spirituality. But ancient and modern ideas are equally satisfied when the poet placed God and the Redeemer in the empyrean, the region of the fixed stars, alike the most exalted and by reason of its distance, the purest part of the universe.

Although far from extinct, the old faith in the influence of the heavens is waning and it is hard to believe that any mutations of human thought can ever restore it to a status comparable with that it enjoyed in classical and mediaeval times. As a factor in the conduct of life among enlightened people its power is gone, but the marks of its old time influence are dyed in the social fabric, imprinted alike upon language and literature and so long as that literature abides, astrology cannot sink below the horizon of man's intellectual interests.

JAMES FRANCIS AUGUSTINE PYRE

Professor Pyre is another teacher whom Wisconsin can claim as
wholly her own. He was born in 1871 in Rock County, and
graduated at our University in 1892. While teaching English
in his Alma Mater, he continued his graduate study, and was
given his Ph. D. in 1897. He continued to serve his
University, though for a brief space of time pursuing his
study elsewhere, and became associate professor in 1909,
which position he now holds.

No former student of the University reading this volume will
be content with this sketch of Mr. Pyre without reference to
his undergraduate football days, and to the nickname "Sunny,"
which will cling to him as long as he lives. Furthermore, no
one who has sat in his classes and been inspired by his
reading and his interpretation, and felt the optimism of his
philosophy will need to have it explained to him how Mr. Pyre
acquired his nickname.

The outstanding feature of his literary criticism, whether in
the form of magazine article, or lecture, or informal talk,
is clarity. In his class you could always understand what he
was getting at. The reader of this brief selection from
"Byron in Our Day," will sense that quality readily. The
sentences are crisp and well formed. Their structure is not
involved. The plan and organization are evident. At the same
time there is dignity and distinction in every paragraph.

BYRON IN OUR DAY

By J. F. A. Pyre. From the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XCIX, p.
547.

And with Byron passion was not merely a gift; it was a doctrine. In one of his letters to Miss Milbanke, there is an observation which comes very near to expressing the central principle of his existence. "The great object of life is sensation--to feel that we exist--even though in pain." To him, one of the chief curses of society was its ennui, the futility of its conventional pursuits, which all recognize, but most endure. He was for fanning the coal of life into a blaze. The vitality of his emotions demanded this. Hence, when friendship stagnated, when love lapsed into the inevitable mediocrity and torpor, he fretted or fled. In ordinary terms, he was fundamentally and abnormally impatient of being bored.

A being thus constituted, and cherishing so dangerous a doctrine, naturally found no peace in this life, but was goaded on from pleasure to pleasure, or from one violence to another. Passionate friendships, savage quarrels, gaming, carousing, travel and adventure, hard reading, hard riding, flirtations, and intrigues of varying intensity and duration, playing the social and literary lion, parliament, marriage, occupied but did not satisfy him. Avid of sensation, avid of power, he threw himself impetuously into his pursuits, lavished his life with the reckless waste of a cataract, and seemed as inexhaustible. He was too clear-sighted not to perceive the triviality of many of his occupations, and though too willful to change his ways, or employ his ample will power in self-restraint, he was not sordid enough to be happy so. Hence, he became a malcontent. Love soothed him, nature appeased him for a time; and in the presence of either, he soared into realms of serene delight and contemplation. But "he could not keep his spirit at that height;" say, perhaps, he was not a dreamer; his passion called for outlet in action, in enterprise; and he became--a writer!

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS

Edward Alsworth Ross is nationally one of the best-known men
here represented. He was born at Virden, Illinois, in 1866;
was graduated from Coe College, Iowa, in 1886; and then
continued his education in Berlin and Johns Hopkins. He has
been professor of economy, sociology, and kindred subjects at
many universities, including Indiana University, Cornell,
Leland Stanford, Junior, the University of Nebraska, and,
since 1906, the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of
many books and magazine articles, among the most noteworthy
of the former, perhaps, being "Sin and Society," "Social
Psychology," "Latter Day Sinners and Saints," and "The
Changing Chinese."

The selection here chosen is from the last named book. The
style is like the man, forceful, trenchant, and abounding in
life. Mr. Ross's tall, rugged, muscular figure and forceful
gestures are familiar to the lovers of lectures in Wisconsin,
and all who have been fortunate enough to hear him, whether
in regular classes at the University, or in extension or
other lecture work, will recall his striking appearance as
they read the clear, clean-cut statements in this selection.

THE CONFLICT OF ORIENTAL AND WESTERN CULTURES IN CHINA

From "THE CHANGING CHINESE." Chapter I. Copyright, 1911, by
the Century Co.

China is the European Middle Ages made visible. All the cities are walled and the walls and gates have been kept in repair with an eye to their effectiveness. The mandarin has his headquarters only in a walled fortress-city and to its shelter he retires when a sudden tempest of rebellion vexes the peace of his district.

The streets of the cities are narrow, crooked, poorly-paved, filthy, and malodorous. In North China they admit the circulation of the heavy springless carts by which alone passengers are carried; but, wherever rice is cultivated, the mule is eliminated and the streets are adapted only to the circulation of wheel-barrows and pedestrians. There is little or no assertion of the public interest in the highway, and hence private interests close in upon the street and well-nigh block it. The shopkeeper builds his counter in front of his lot line; the stalls line the streets with their crates and baskets; the artisans overflow into it with their workbenches, and the final result is that the traffic filters painfully through a six-foot passage which would yet be more encroached on but for the fact that the officials insist on there being room left for their sedan chairs to pass each other.

The straightened streets are always crowded and give the traveler the impression of a high density and an enormous population. But the buildings are chiefly one story in height, and, with the exception of Peking, Chinese cities cover no very great area. For literary effect their population has been recklessly exaggerated, and, in the absence of reliable statistics, every traveler has felt at liberty to adopt the highest guess.

Until recently there was no force in the cities to maintain public order. Now, khaki-clad policemen, club in hand, patrol the streets, but their efficiency in time of tumult is by no means vindicated. A slouching, bare-foot, mild-faced _gendarme_ such as you see in Canton is by no means an awe-inspiring embodiment of the majesty of the law.

There is no common supply of water. When a city lies by a river the raw river water is borne about to the house by regular water-carriers, and the livelong day the river-stairs are wet from the drip of buckets. When the water is too thick it is partially clarified by stirring it with a perforated joint of bamboo containing some piece of alum.

There is no public lighting, and after nightfall the streets are dark, forbidding, and little frequented. Until kerosene began to penetrate the Empire the common source of light was a candle in a paper lantern or cotton wick lighted in an open cup of peanut oil. Owing to the lack of a good illuminant the bulk of the people retire with the fowls and rise with the sun. By making the evening of some account for reading or for family intercourse, kerosene has been a great boon to domestic life.

Fuel is scarce and is sold in neat bundles of kindling size. Down the West River ply innumerable boats corded high with firewood floating down to Canton and Hong Kong. Higher and higher the tree destruction extends, and farther and farther does the axman work his way from the waterways. Chaff and straw, twigs and leaves and litter are burned in the big brick bedsteads that warm the sleepers on winter nights, and under the big, shallow copper vessels set in the low brick or mud stoves. Fuel is economized and household economy simplified among the poor by the custom of relying largely on the food cooked and vended in the street. The portable restaurant is in high favor, for our prejudice against food cooked outside the home is a luxury the common people cannot afford to indulge in.

Proper chimneys are wanting and wherever cooking goes on the walls are black with the smoke that is left to escape as it will. Chinese interiors are apt to be dark for, in the absence of window glass, the only means of letting in light without weather is by pasting paper on lattice. The floors are dirt, brick, or tile, the roof tile or thatch. To the passer-by private ease and luxury are little in evidence. If a man has house and grounds of beauty, a high wall hides them from the gaze of the public. Open lawns and gardens are never seen, and there is no greenery accessible to the public unless it be the grove of an occasional temple.

In the houses of the wealthy, although there is much beauty to be seen, the standard of neatness is not ours. Cobwebs, dust, or incipient dilapidation do not excite the servant or mortify the proprietor. While a mansion may contain priceless porcelains and display embroideries and furniture that would be pronounced beautiful the world over, in general, the interiors wrought by the Chinese artisan do not compare in finish with those of his Western _confrere_....

No memory of China is more haunting than that of the everlasting blue cotton garments. The common people wear coarse, deep-blue "nankeen." The gala dress is a cotton gown of a delicate bird's-egg blue or a silk jacket of rich hue. In cold weather the poor wear quilted cotton, while the well-to-do keep themselves warm with fur-lined garments of silk. A general adoption of Western dress would bring on an economic crisis, for the Chinese are not ready to rear sheep on a great scale and it will be long before they can supply themselves with wool. The Chinese jacket is fortunate in opening at the side instead of at the front. When the winter winds of Peking gnaw at you with Siberian teeth, you realize how stupid is our Western way of cutting a notch in front right down through overcoat, coat and vest, apparently in order that the cold may do its worst to the tender throat and chest. On seeing the sensible Chinaman bring his coat squarely across his front and fasten it on his shoulder, you feel like an exposed totem-worshipper.

Wherever stone is to be had, along or spanning the main roads are to be seen the memorial arches known as _pailows_ erected by imperial permission to commemorate some deed or life of extraordinary merit. It is significant that when they proclaim achievement, it is that of the scholar, not of the warrior. They enclose a central gateway, flanked by two, and sometimes by four, smaller gateways, and conform closely to a few standard types, all of real beauty. As a well-built _pailow_ lasts for centuries, and as the erection of such a memorial is one of the first forms of outlay that occur to a philanthropic Chinaman, they accumulate, and sometimes the road near cities is lined with those structures until one wearies of so much repetition of the same thing, however beautiful.

GRANT SHOWERMAN

Professor Showerman is another author-teacher whom Wisconsin
may claim as her own. He was born at Brookfield in 1870, was
graduated from the University in 1896, and took his doctorate
in 1900. He had the advantage of two years' study at Rome,
where he was Fellow of the Archaeological Institute of
America in the American School of Classical Studies. Since
returning, he has been Professor of Latin Literature at his
Alma Mater. He is member of many learned societies, and is
the author of "With the Professor" and "The Indian Stream
Republic and Luther Parker," besides many articles which are
familiar to readers of the Atlantic Monthly and other leading
periodicals.

His style will be noted at once by the careful reader as
being different from that of most other prose writers whose
works we quote here. It is more leisurely. He brings to the
common things about us in Nature the kindly, alert
intelligence of one who has seen many things in many lands,
but who has the memory to re-create truthfully the days of
youth.

A LAD'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS BOYHOOD HAUNTS AND EXPERIENCES IN THE EARLIER DAYS

"IN OCTOBER." From the Sewanee Review.

... On a late October Saturday morning, after a week in school at the village, you take your gun and a favorite play, whistle to already eager Billy, and follow the path to the Brush. You traverse its quiet length by the winding road that is always mysterious and full of charm, however often you tread it, you cross the stubbled barley-field that borders Lovers' Lane, and cross the lane itself and enter the Woods. You feel the friendly book in your pocket, and pat the friendly dog at your side, restfully conscious that you will spend neither profitless nor companionless hours. To be sure, you have in the back of your mind a thought or two about fox squirrels, or even red squirrels, and of a stew-pie--the savor of it is in your sensitive nostrils; but these thoughts are only vague. Your eyes are not greedily watchful--only moderately so; you have already begun to outgrow the barbarous boyhood delight of mere killing. Good will reigns in your breast.

You advance cautiously, the breech-loader resting in the bend of your left arm, every step causing pleasant murmurs among the autumn leaves. When you pause, the sound of your heart-beats is audible. The genial golden tone of Indian Summer pervades the air.

When you have penetrated to the heart of the Woods, you sit down on a familiar log, the gun caressingly across your knees, and drink in the fine wine of woodland enjoyment! Ah, the silence of the Woods! How deep and how full of mystery! And how deeper whenever some note of life emphasizes the stillness--the knocking of a woodpecker, the cry of a sapsucker, the scream of a jay, the caw of a crow aloft on some decayed topmost branch in the distance!

A distant barking note makes you start. There is a fox squirrel over yonder somewhere, beyond the ruins of the old arch. You strain your attention toward the sound. Billy sits bolt upright, with round eyes, questioning ears, and suspended breath.

But just as you are thinking of getting up, a nut drops with a thump on the log beside you and bounds lightly into the leaves at your feet. You know what that means! You look up instantly and catch just a glimpse of a sweeping foxy tail as it vanishes along a big branch and around the thick stem of a tree. He goes up forty or fifty feet, and then, far out on the big oak branch, lies close to the bark, out of sight.

Billy whines uneasily; he shivers with excitement. You say: "Sit still, Billy!"

There is only the least bit of the foxy tail visible. You tread softly to one side and another, slowly circle the tree, and all the while the owner of the tail subtly shifts his position so that you always just fail to get a shot.

Finally, you resort to stratagem; you pick up a nut and throw it with all your might to the other side of the tree. He hears it fall, and, suddenly suspicious, shifts to your side of the branch. But you are not quick enough; by the time you have raised the gun, he has become satisfied that you are the greater danger of the two, and has shifted back to safety.

And now you resort to more elaborate stratagem. You say: "Sit down, Billy!" and Billy obeys, keeping his eye on you, and dropping his ears from time to time, as he catches your glance, in token of good-will. You circle the big tree again, and as you go the tail shifts constantly.

Finally, when you are opposite Billy, you raise the gun with careful calculation. You call out quietly but sharply to your ally: "Speak, Billy, quick!"

Billy is tense with excitement at sight of the raised gun. He speaks out sharply, at the same time giving a couple of little leaps. The squirrel shifts again to your side, suddenly.

And now comes your opportunity! As he sits there a moment, his attention divided between you and the new alarm, the breech-loader belches its charge. A brownish-red body with waving tail comes headlong to the ground with a crash among the leaves, which rustle and crackle for a moment or two at your feet as you watch the blind kicks of the death struggle. You pick him up, with no very great eagerness, and go on your way--regretfully, for you are enjoying the life of the Woods, and are enough of a philosopher and sentimentalist to wonder what, after all, is your superior right to the enjoyment, and whether the contribution to the sum total of happiness in the universe through you is enough to compensate it for the loss through the squirrel.

You ask Billy about it and get no help. He simply says that whatever you think best is bound to be all right, and leads the way toward the old arch.

WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

William Ellery Leonard was born in New Jersey in 1876. He has
been a professor of English in the University of Wisconsin
only since 1909, so he is not, as yet, so closely connected
with the state in the thought of the alumni of the University
as are most of the men whose works have just been discussed
and illustrated. But if what he has produced may fairly be
taken as an earnest of his future work, his name will be one
which all lovers of our University will be proud to associate
with that institution. One needs read scarcely more than a
paragraph at almost any point in his published works to
realize that Mr. Leonard is a man of keen and kindly interest
in all things that he hears and sees, and that he has
traveled and studied and lived widely and wisely. He has
published several volumes, both of poems and prose,--notable
among them being "Sonnets and Poems," "The Poet of Galilee,"
"Aesop and Hyssop," "The Vaunt of Man and Other Poems," and
"Glory of the Morning." The selections given are taken from
the last two volumes mentioned.

One acquainted with modern English poetry may sense a marked
likeness between Mr. Leonard's poems and those of Swinburne,
though the former says he is not conscious of any such
resemblance. There is a warmth of passion, a fluid quality in
the rhythm, markedly like those elements in the great English
poet. The selection from "Glory of the Morning" here given
begins at that point in the play where Half Moon, the
Chevalier, the white trapper, comes back to his Indian wife
to bid her farewell and to take their two children with him
to his home in France. The reader will feel, even in this
brief extract, the sweep toward a climax of emotion, and will
be impelled to read the whole play at his first opportunity.

(One of the most interesting features of the editorial work
of this volume has been the adjustment of the choice of
selections respectively of the editors and authors. The
editors' choice of the poems from Mr. Leonard's volume, "The
Vaunt of Man," was "Love Afar"; the author, on the other
hand, tells us that he thought so little of this poem that he
even considered omitting it from the volume. His preference
is "A Dedication." What does the reader say?)

GLORY OF THE MORNING

Copyright, 1912, by the author.

The Chevalier: I will take care of the children. They are both young. They can learn.

Glory of the Morning: They can learn?

The Chevalier: Oak Leaf is already more than half a white girl; and Red Wing is half white in blood, if not in manners--_ca ira_.

Glory of the Morning (Beginning to realize): No, no. They are mine!

The Chevalier (Reaching out his arms to take them): No.

Glory of the Morning: They are mine! They are mine!

The Chevalier: The Great King will give them presents.

Glory of the Morning: No, no!

The Chevalier: He will lay his hands on their heads.

Glory of the Morning: He shall not, he shall not!

The Chevalier: I have said that I will tell him you were their mother.

Glory of the Morning: I am their mother--I am their mother.

The Chevalier: And he will praise Glory of the Morning.

Glory of the Morning: They are mine, they are mine!

The Chevalier: I have come to take them back with me over the Big Sea Water.

Glory of the Morning (The buckskin shirt falls from her hands as she spreads her arms and steps between him and her children): No, no, no! They are not yours! They are mine! The long pains were mine! Their food at the breast was mine! Year after year while you were away so long, long, long, I clothed them, I watched them, I taught them to speak the tongue of my people. All that they are is mine, mine, mine!

The Chevalier (Drawing Oak Leaf to him and holding up her bare arm): Is that an Indian's skin? Where did that color come from? I'm giving you the white man's law.

Glory of the Morning (Struggling with the Chevalier): I do not know the white man's law. And I do not know how their skin borrowed the white man's color. But I know that their little bodies came out of my own body--my own body. They must be mine, they shall be mine, they are mine! (The Chevalier throws her aside so that she falls.)

The Chevalier: Glory of the Morning, the Great Spirit said long before you were born that a man has a right to his own children. The Great Spirit made woman so that she should bring him children. Black Wolf, is it not so?

Black Wolf: It is so.

The Chevalier (To Glory of the Morning, standing apart): Black Wolf is the wise man of your people.

Black Wolf: And knows the Great Spirit better than the white men.

The Chevalier: Indeed, I think so.

Black Wolf: And the Great Spirit made the man so that he should stay with the squaw who brought him the children,--except when off hunting meat for the wigwam or on the warpath for the tribe.

Glory of the Morning (With some spirit and dignity): The white man Half Moon has said that he believes Black Wolf.

The Chevalier: The white man has not come to argue with the Red Skin, but to take the white man's children.

Black Wolf (In his role of practical wisdom): The Half Moon will listen to Black Wolf.

The Chevalier (With conciliation): If the Black Wolf speaks wisely....

Black Wolf: Neither Oak Leaf nor Red Wing is a mere papoose to be snatched from the mother's back.

The Chevalier: The Half Moon shares Black Wolf's pride in the Half Moon's children.

Black Wolf (Pointing to the discarded cradle-board): The mother long since loosened the thongs that bound them to the cradle-board, propped against the wigwam.

The Chevalier: And when she unbound the thongs of the cradle-board they learned to run toward their father.

Black Wolf: But invisible thongs may now bind them round, which even the Half Moon might not break, without rending the flesh from their bones and preparing sorrows and cares for his head.

The Chevalier: Let us have done, Black Wolf.

Black Wolf: Thongs which none could break, unless Oak Leaf and Red Wing themselves should first unbind them. (To the children.) Will Oak Leaf, will Red Wing unbind the mystic thongs of clan and home? Let the children decide.

The Chevalier: Black Wolf is wise. My children are babes no longer. They can think and speak.

Black Wolf: Let them speak....

Glory of the Morning: Yes. Let the children decide.

Black Wolf: Oak Leaf, do you want to leave Black Wolf and Glory of the Morning to go with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?

Oak Leaf (Looking up at her mother): O _do_ I, mother?

Glory of the Morning: I cannot tell. I love you, Oak Leaf.

Oak Leaf (Withdrawing toward her father): Mother, make father Half Moon take you with us too.

Glory of the Morning: The Half Moon has told you that he no longer needs Glory of the Morning.

The Chevalier (Taking Oak Leaf's hand caressingly): Oak Leaf, you are too beautiful to wither and wrinkle here digging and grinding and stitching, though the handsomest brave of the Winnebago bought you for his squaw. Beyond the Big Sea Water you won't have to dig and grind and stitch. And sometime a noble brave of my nation will come in a blue suit with gold braid to the chateau and say: "I love Oak Leaf; will you give Oak Leaf to me?"

Oak Leaf (Gladly): And you'll give me to him, father! ... (Oak Leaf leans against her father, with a half frightened glance at Glory of the Morning.)

The Chevalier: You see, Glory of the Morning.

Glory of the Morning (With restraint): I will say good-bye to Oak Leaf.

Black Wolf: Red Wing, are you going with your sister and with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?

Red Wing: Sister, _are_ you really going?--You are always making believe.

Oak Leaf: O, father,--tell him.

The Chevalier: She is going, Red Wing.

Red Wing: There is nothing for me beyond the Big Sea Water.

The Chevalier: Over there your father is a famous chief, and you might wear a sword and fight beside the Great King.

Red Wing: I shall not fight beside the Great King; and I shall not wear the white man's sword.

The Chevalier (Takes his arm, coaxingly): Little chief, why not? Why not, my son?

Glory of the Morning (Coldly and firmly): Because he is _my_ son.

Red Wing (Standing off; to the Chevalier with boyish pride): Because I am a Winnebago.

LOVE AFAR

From "THE VAUNT OF MAN AND OTHER POEMS," p. 75. Copyright,
1912, by B. W. Huebsch.

I dare not look, O Love, on thy dear grace,
On thine immortal eyes, nor hear thy song,
For O too sore I need thee and too long,
Too weak as yet to meet thee face to face.
Thy light would blind--for dark my dwelling place--
Thy voice would wake old thoughts of right and wrong,
And hopes which sleep, once beautiful and strong,
That would unman me with a dread disgrace:

Therefore, O Love, be as the evening star,
With amber light of land and sea between,
A high and gentle influence from afar,
Persuading from the common and the mean,
Still as the moon when full tides cross the bar
In the wide splendor of a night serene.

THE IMAGE OF DELIGHT

O how came I that loved stars, moon, and flame,
An unimaginable wind and sea,
All inner shrines and temples of the free,
Legends and hopes and golden books of fame;
I that upon the mountain carved my name
With cliffs and clouds and eagles over me,
O how came I to stoop to loving thee--
I that had never stooped before to shame?

O 'twas not Thee! Too eager of a white,
Far beauty and a voice to answer mine,
Myself I built an image of delight,
Which all one purple day I deemed divine--
And when it vanished in the fiery night,
I lost not thee, nor any shape of thine.

A DEDICATION

(For a privately printed collection of verse.)

Ye gave me life for life to crave:
Desires for mighty suns, or high, or low,
For moons mysterious over cliffs of snow,
For the wild foam upon the midsea wave;
Swift joy in freeman, swift contempt for slave;
Thought which would bind and name the stars and know;
Passion that chastened in mine overthrow;
And speech, to justify my life, ye gave.

Life of my life, this late return of song
I give to you before the close of day;
Life of your life! which everlasting wrong
Shall have no power to baffle or betray,
O father, mother!--for ye watched so long,
Ye loved so long, and I was far away.

THOMAS HERBERT DICKINSON

Thomas Herbert Dickinson was born in Virginia in 1877, and
after a wide and thorough scholastic preparation was made
associate professor of English in the University of Wisconsin
in 1909. Mr. Dickinson is known to thousands of the citizens
of Wisconsin as a friend of the drama. He believes that the
drama is one of the most legitimate and natural means for
the expression of the sentiments, tendencies, activities, and
ideals of any people. No doubt he has done much to raise the
standard of dramatic judgment and criticism among the
citizens of Wisconsin. However, he would not want it said
that he is trying primarily "to raise people's dramatic
ideals." His mission rather has been to encourage communities
to express themselves legitimately and wholesomely through
their own dramatic productions. He has won much distinction
both as an editor and an author of plays, but perhaps his
greatest service to Wisconsin in this direction is his work
in editing the little volume, "Wisconsin Plays," containing
one play each by Zona Gale, Professor Leonard, and himself.

The following selection is taken from his play, "In
Hospital," in the volume just mentioned. It depicts just such
a scene as takes place in our hospitals every day of the
year. The wife is about to undergo a serious operation. The
husband is trying to keep cheerful in anticipation of the
ordeal. That is the sort of scene which, Mr. Dickinson wants
us to realize, can be wholesomely and pleasantly represented
by the drama.

IN HOSPITAL

Copyright, 1909, by the author.

A Wife.
A Husband.
A Surgeon.
An Interne.
A Nurse.

Wife: Tell me about the children.

Husband: Oh, they are getting on--so, so.

Wife: I know they will.

Husband: But you should see them! (Turning toward her. She nods without speaking.) They're trying hard to be good, but it's a stiff pull for the little rascals. Well, I don't blame them. Freddie put me in quite a hole the other day. "What's the use of being good when mother's away?" he asked. (She smiles.) For the life of me I couldn't think of an answer. What would you say?

Wife: I'd be as bad off as you were.

Husband: But Robert wasn't. He had an answer. "So mother will be happy when she comes back," he said. Wasn't that good?

Wife: Just like Robert.

Husband: I don't know what we should have done without Robert. He serves at the table. He answers the door and the telephone. He ties the baby's bib. How he thinks of everything I don't know. I--I'm so helpless. Why didn't you ever teach me to take charge of the house?

Wife: Fancy teaching you anything you didn't want to learn.

Husband (After a moment's deep silence): All the kiddies send you their love.

Wife: Even Freddie?

Husband: Oh, Freddie, to be sure. Guess you know about what he's doing. Upstairs and downstairs. Outdoors and in.

Wife: I hope he won't get hurt.

Husband: Trust him for that. But how do you keep him in aprons? They're all dirty already. Yesterday he got all scratched up trying to put Kitty to bed and make him say his prayers. He has fallen in the flour bin, put the telephone out of commission, pulled the table-cloth and dishes off the table. There isn't anything he hasn't done. Freddie will welcome you back with a dish-pan band, when you come home.

Wife (Closing her eyes): Yes--

Husband (Pretending not to notice, though it is clear that he does): Did I tell you about night before last?

Wife: No.

Husband: Well, that night he slept over at Cousin, Ruthie's house. All his nightgowns were dirty so Aunt Ella made him wear one of Ruthie's. But she had the hardest time making him wear it. The next morning he said to me, "I'm glad I ain't a woman, ain't you, Paw?" "Yes, I suppose so," said I. "Why?" "Oh, they're all right, I guess," he said, "but before I'll wear another of those women's nightgowns, I'll go to bed raw."

Wife (Smiling): Little man. Does he ask for me much?

Husband: Just this morning he said, "Pop, you tell mamma to come back quick or I'll elope with the ice man."... Well, they're good children. I don't think any one ever had better. And that's something, isn't it?

Wife: That's everything. They make me very happy.... You know, dear, I have been doing a good deal of thinking since I came here. I've seen things very clearly, clearer than even at home. I think I've been able to tell why I've been so happy. You find out what's really worth while in a time like this, don't you? (Husband nods.)

Wife: I won't say anything about you. You know. But the children. (She smiles.) Yes, I know why I've been happy.

WILLIAM J. NEIDIG

Iowa and Illinois may rightly contest the claim of Wisconsin
for a proprietary interest in Mr. William Jonathan Neidig. He
was born in the first-named state, and is at present living
in Chicago, where he is engaged in business, though he still
finds time for an occasional story or poem. He was a member
of the faculty in the English Department of the University of
Wisconsin from 1905 to 1911, and it was during approximately
this period of his life that his literary activity was
greatest. "The First Wardens," which was nominated for the
Nobel prize in idealistic literature, was published in 1905,
and several critical works that attracted wide attention came
from his pen during his Wisconsin residence.

The one poem which we quote here shows an evenness of power
and an assurance of touch that mark real poetry. It also
would be generally recognized, the editors feel, as having
been written by a University man.

THE BUOY-BELL

From "THE FIRST WARDENS." Copyright, 1905, The Macmillan Co.

Bell! Bell!
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
Bell of the shallows, tell, O tell:
The swell and fall of foam on the sand,
Storm in the face from sea to land,
Roar of gray tempest: these, O bell,
What say these of the West?
Tell! O tell!

Bell! Bell!
Crowding the night with cries, O tell:
What of the moorings in the silt?
What of the blooms that drift and wilt?
What of the sea-chest wrenched wide?
Is it safe harbor by thy side?
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
What say these of the West?
Tell! O tell!

Bell! Bell!
It is a dirge the bell is tolling,
A dirge for the silent dead,--
With the cold sea rolling, rolling, rolling,
Rolling each restless head.
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
O, when will they lie all quietly,
Untossed by the slow sea-swell:
Nor breakers brave on the great sea-beach,
Nor ceaseless crash of the cresting sea,
Nor booming headland's sullen knell,
Nor bell, for elegy?
When is the last tide out of the West,
And the last restless dream for each?
Tell! O tell!

Toll! toll! toll!
Toll for the ebbing tide:
Toll for the lives that outward ride:
Toll for the deep-delved cold sea-seat:
Night in the West at every beat!
Toll! toll!

BRAYLEY--WINSLOW--JONES.

In this group of young writers, the editors present what
seems to them to be the best work done by students or young
graduates of the University while unquestionably under her
influence. They wish there were work by more such writers to
present. Possibly there is more that has not yet been brought
to their attention.

Berton Brayley has written extensively for newspapers. He has
facility in rhyme and the knack of "hitting off" a verse that
well fits an occasion. One has the feeling, however, that
there is a power and seriousness to the man that have not yet
found adequate expression. Perhaps in the next ten years the
qualities of ease, leisureliness, and reflection will assert
themselves more in his poetry. But from the first there has
been a wholesome tone about his work.

Horatio Winslow, son of Chief Justice J. B. Winslow, showed
marked ability while an undergraduate. He was a collaborator
in the writing of a play which was presented by University
students. As with Mr. Brayley, we would say of him that his
best work has not yet been published. There is power and
strength and grace latent in him that have not yet found
expression, but that are unmistakably foretold in the things
he has already produced.

Howard Mumford Jones is the youngest of these three men, and
comes from the spirit-haunted region of the Mississippi.
While his poems have not yet attained absolute surety of
touch and evenness of movement, yet of those presented in
this group they probably evince the most grace and music,
together with the highest and warmest poetic feeling. "When
Shall We Together" has real sweep and atmosphere and glow. It
is the production of a poet who loved the subject he was
writing about.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes I long for a lazy isle,
Ten thousand miles from home,
Where the warm sun shines and the blue skies smile
And the milk-white breakers foam--
A coral island, bravely set
In the midst of the Southern sea,
Away from the hurry and noise and fret
Forever surrounding me!

For I tire of labor and care and fight,
And I weary of plan and scheme,
And ever and ever my thoughts take flight
To the island of my dream;
And I fancy drowsing the whole day long
In a hammock that gently swings--
Away from the clamorous, toiling throng,
Away from the swirl of things!

And yet I know, in a little while,
When the first glad hours were spent,
I'd sicken and tire of my lazy isle
And cease to be content!
I'd hear the call of the world's great game--
And battle with gold and men--
And I'd sail once more, with a heart of flame,
Back to the game again!

--Berton Braley.
Saturday Evening Post, January 15, 1916.

THE PIONEERS

Current Opinion. Volume LIV. Page 497. (First published in
The Coming Nation.)

We're the men that always march a bit before
Tho we cannot tell the reason for the same;
We're the fools that pick the lock that holds the door--
Play and lose and pay the candle for the game.
There's no blaze nor trail nor roadway where we go;
There's no painted post to point the right-of-way,
But we swing our sweat-grained helves, and we chop a path ourselves
To Tomorrow from the land of Yesterday.

It's infrequent that we're popular at home,
(Like King David we're not built for tending sheep,)
And we scoff at living a la metronome,
And quite commonly we're cynical and cheap.
True--we cannot hold a job to save our lives;
We're a dreamy lot and steady work's a bore--
'Til the luring of the Quest routs us out from sleep and rest
And we rope and tie the world and call for more.

Well, they try to hold us back by foolish words--
But we go ahead and do the thing we've planned;
Then they drive us out to shelter with the birds--
And the ravens bring our breakfast to our hand.
So they jail us and we lecture to the guards;
They beat us--we make sermons of their whips;
They feed us melted lead and behold the Word is said.
That shall burn upon a million living lips.

Are we fighters?......By our fellows we are fanged.
Are we workers?......Paid with blows we never earned.
Are we doctors?......Other doctors see us hanged.
Are we teachers?......Brother teachers have us burned.
But through all a Something somehow holds us fast
'Spite of every beast-hung brake and steaming fen;
And we keep the torch on high till a comrade presses by
When we pass it on and die--and live again!

A LITTLE BOOK OF LOCAL VERSE

Author of "The Masque of Marsh and River." Copyright, 1915,
by the Author. Pages 13-14.

When shall we together
Tramp beneath the sky,
Thrusting through the weather
As swimmers strive together,
You and I?

How we ranged the valleys,
Panted up the road,
Sang in sudden sallies
Of mirth that woke the valleys
Where we strode!

Glad and free as birds are,
Laughter in your eyes,
Wild as poets' words are,
You were as the birds are,
Very wise.

Not for you the prison
Of the stupid town;
When the winds were risen,
You went forth from prison,
You went down,

Down along the river
Dimpling in the rain,
Where the poplars shiver
By the dancing river,
And again

Climbed the hills behind you
When the rains were done;
Only God could find you
With the town behind you
In the sun!

Don't you hear them calling,
Blackbirds in the grain,
Silver raindrops falling
Where the larks are calling
You in vain?

Comrade, when together
Shall we tramp again
In the summer weather,
You and I together,
Now as then?

JOSEPH P. WEBSTER.

No one who reads this book is unfamiliar with "The Sweet Bye
and Bye." But how many of us, as we sang that song, realized
that both its words and music were written by a Wisconsin
man,--Joseph P. Webster?

He was born in New Hampshire in 1819, but he lived most of
his life at Elkhorn, where he died in 1875. He was a member
of many musical societies, and was the composer of many other
songs, the best known of the latter being "Lorena."

SWEET BYE AND BYE

Composed by Joseph Philbrick Webster, February, 1868.

I.

There's a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar,
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

Chorus.