Part 17

When a boy has learned that in the genitive plural of the first declension of Greek nouns the final syllable is circumflexed, but to this there are the following exceptions: 1. That feminine adjectives and participles in [Greek: -os, -ê, -on] are accented like the genitive masculine, but other feminine adjectives and participles are perispomena in the genitive plural; 2. That the substantives _chrestes_, _aphue_, _etesiai_, and _chlounes_ in the genitive plural remain paroxytones, (Kühner's _Elementary Greek Grammar_, page 22,)--I say, when a boy has learned this and twenty other things just like it, his mind has not been one whit more disciplined than if he had learned the list of the old thirteen States, the number and names of the newly adopted ones, the times of their adoption, and the population, commerce, mineral and agricultural wealth of each. These, too, are merely exercises of memory, but they are exercises in what is of some interest and some use.

The particulars above cited are of so little use in understanding the Greek classics that I will venture to say that there are intelligent English scholars, who have never read anything but Bohn's translations, who have more genuine knowledge of the spirit of the Greek mind, and the peculiar idioms of the language, and more enthusiasm for it, than many a poor fellow who has stumbled blindly through the originals with the bayonet of the tutor at his heels, and his eyes and ears full of the Scotch snuff of the Greek Grammar.

What then? Shall we not learn these ancient tongues? By all means. "So many times as I learn a language, so many times I become a man," said Charles V.; and he said rightly. Latin and Greek are foully belied by the prejudices created by this technical, pedantic mode of teaching them, which makes one ragged, prickly bundle of all the dry facts of the language, and insists upon it that the boy shall not see one glimpse of its beauty, glory, or interest, till he has swallowed and digested the whole mass. Many die in this wilderness with their shoes worn out before reaching the Promised Land of Plato and the Tragedians.

"But," say our college authorities, "look at England. An English schoolboy learns three times the Latin and Greek that our boys learn, and has them well drubbed in."

And English boys have three times more beef and pudding in their constitution than American boys have, and three times less of nerves. The difference of nature must be considered here; and the constant influence flowing from English schools and universities must be tempered by considering who we are, what sort of boys we have to deal with, what treatment they can bear, and what are the needs of our growing American society.

The demands of actual life, the living, visible facts of practical science, in so large and new a country as ours, require that the ideas of the ancients should be given us in the shortest and most economical way possible, and that scholastic technicalities should be reserved to those whom Nature made with especial reference to their preservation.

On no subject is there more intolerant judgment, and more suffering from such intolerance, than on the much mooted one of the education of children.

Treatises on education require altogether too much of parents, and impose burdens of responsibility on tender spirits which crush the life and strength out of them. Parents have been talked to as if each child came to them a soft, pulpy mass, which they were to pinch and pull and pat and stroke into shape quite at their leisure,--and a good pattern being placed before them, they were to proceed immediately to set up and construct a good human being in conformity therewith.

It is strange that believers in the divine inspiration of the Bible should have entertained this idea, overlooking the constant and affecting declaration of the great Heavenly Father that _He_ has nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Him, together with His constant appeals,--"What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" If even God, wiser, better, purer, more loving, admits Himself baffled in this great work, is it expedient to say to human beings that the forming power, the deciding force, of a child's character is in their hands?

Many a poor feeble woman's health has been strained to breaking, and her life darkened, by the laying on her shoulders of a burden of responsibility that never ought to have been placed there; and many a mother has been hindered from using such powers as God has given her, because some preconceived mode of operation has been set up before her which she could no more make effectual than David could wear the armor of Saul.

A gentle, loving, fragile creature marries a strong-willed, energetic man, and by the laws of natural descent has a boy given to her of twice her amount of will and energy. She is just as helpless, in the mere struggle of will and authority with such a child, as she would be in a physical wrestle with a six-foot man.

What then? Has Nature left her helpless for her duties? Not if she understands her nature, and acts in the line of it. She has no power of command, but she has power of persuasion. She can neither bend nor break the boy's iron will, but she can melt it. She has tact to avoid the conflict in which she would be worsted. She can charm, amuse, please, and make willing; and her fine and subtile influences, weaving themselves about him day after day, become more and more powerful. Let her alone, and she will have her boy yet.

But now some bustling mother-in-law or other privileged expounder says to her,--

"My dear, it's your solemn duty to break that boy's will. I broke my boy's will short off. Keep your whip in sight, meet him at every turn, fight him whenever he crosses you, never let him get one victory, and finally his will will be wholly subdued."

Such advice is mischievous, because what it proposes is as utter an impossibility to the woman's nature as for a cow to scratch up worms for her calf, or a hen to suckle her chickens.

There are men and women of strong, resolute will who are gifted with the power of governing the wills of others. Such persons can govern in this way,--and their government, being in the line of their nature, acting strongly, consistently, naturally, makes everything move harmoniously. Let them be content with their own success, but let them not set up as general education-doctors, or apply their experience to all possible cases.

Again, there are others, and among some of the loveliest and purest natures, who have no power of command. They have sufficient tenacity of will as respects their own course, but have no compulsory power over the wills of others. Many such women have been most successful mothers, when they followed the line of their own natures, and did not undertake what they never could do.

_Influence_ is a slower acting force than authority. It seems weaker, but in the long run it often effects more. It always does better than mere force and authority without its gentle modifying power.

If a mother is high-principled, religious, affectionate, if she never uses craft or deception, if she governs her temper and sets a good example, let her hold on in good hope, though she cannot produce the discipline of a man-of-war in her noisy little flock, or make all move as smoothly as some other women to whom God has given another and different talent; and let her not be discouraged, if she seem often to accomplish but little in that great work of forming human character wherein the great Creator of the world has declared Himself at times baffled.

Family tolerance must take great account of the stages and periods of development and growth in children.

The passage of a human being from one stage of development to another, like the sun's passage across the equator, frequently has its storms and tempests. The change to manhood and womanhood often involves brain, nerves, body, and soul in confusion; the child sometimes seems lost to himself and his parents,--his very nature changing. In this sensitive state come restless desires, unreasonable longings, unsettled purposes; and the fatal habit of indulgence in deadly stimulants, ruining all the life, often springs form the cravings of this transition period.

Here must come in the patience of the saints. The restlessness must be soothed, the family hearth must be tolerant enough to keep there the boy, whom Satan will receive and cherish, them if his mother does not. The male element sometimes pours into a boy, like the tides in the Bay of Fundy, with tumult and tossing. He is noisy, vociferous, uproarious, and seems bent only on disturbance; he despises conventionalities, he hates parlors, he longs for the woods, the sea, the converse of rough men, and kicks at constraint of all kinds. Have patience now, let love have its perfect work, and in a year or two, if no deadly physical habits set in, a quiet, well-mannered gentleman will be evolved. Meanwhile, if he does not wipe his shoes, and if he will fling his hat upon the floor, and tear his clothes, and bang and hammer and shout, and cause general confusion in his belongings, do not despair; if you only get your son, the hat and clothes and shoes and noise and confusion do not matter. Any amount of toleration that keeps a boy contented at home is treasure well expended at this time of life.

One thing not enough reflected on is, that in this transition period between childhood and maturity the heaviest draft and strain of school education occurs. The boy is fitting for the university, the girl going through the studies of the college senior year, and the brain-power, which is working almost to the breaking-point to perfect the physical change, has the additional labor of all the drill and discipline of school.

The girl is growing into a tall and shapely woman, and the poor brain is put to it to find enough phosphate of lime, carbon, and other what not, to build her fair edifice. The bills flow in upon her thick and fast; she pays out hand over hand: if she had only her woman to build, she might get along, but now come in demands for algebra, geometry, music, language, and the poor brain-bank stops payment; some part of the work is shabbily done, and a crooked spine or weakened lungs are the result.

Boarding-schools, both for boys and girls, are for the most part composed of young people in this most delicate, critical portion of their physical, mental, and moral development, whose teachers are expected to put them through one straight, severe course of drill, without the slightest allowance for the great physical facts of their being. No wonder they are difficult to manage, and that so many of them drop, physically, mentally, and morally halt and maimed. It is not the teacher's fault; he but fulfils the parent's requisition, which dooms his child without appeal to a certain course, simply because others have gone through it.

Finally, as my sermon is too long already, let me end with a single reflection. Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted, some groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each one by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper groove.

THE JAGUAR HUNT.

The dark jaguar was abroad in the land; His strength and his fierceness what foe could withstand? The breath of his anger was hot on the air, And the white lamb of Peace he had dragged to his lair.

Then up rose the Farmer; he summoned his sons: "Now saddle your horses, now look to your guns!" And he called to his hound, as he sprang from the ground To the back of his black pawing steed with a bound.

Oh, their hearts, at the word, how they tingled and stirred! They followed, all belted and booted and spurred. "Buckle tight, boys!" said he, "for who gallops with me, Such a hunt as was never before he shall see!

"This traitor, we know him! for when he was younger, We flattered him, patted him, fed his fierce hunger: But now far too long we have borne with the wrong, For each morsel we tossed makes him savage and strong."

Then said one, "He must die!" And they took up the cry, "For this last crime of his he must die! he must die!" But the slow eldest-born sauntered sad and forlorn, For his heart was at home on that fair hunting-morn.

"I remember," he said, "how this fine cub we track Has carried me many a time on his back!" And he called to his brothers, "Fight gently! be kind!" And he kept the dread hound, Retribution, behind.

The dark jaguar on a bough in the brake Crouched, silent and wily, and lithe as a snake: They spied not their game, but, as onward they came, Through the dense leafage gleamed two red eyeballs of flame.

Black-spotted, and mottled, and whiskered, and grim, White-bellied, and yellow, he lay on the limb, All so still that you saw but just one tawny paw Lightly reach through the leaves and as softly withdraw.

Then shrilled his fierce cry, as the riders drew nigh, And he shot from the bough like a bolt from the sky: In the foremost he fastened his fangs as he fell, While all the black jungle reëchoed his yell.

Oh, then there was carnage by field and by flood! The green sod was crimsoned, the rivers ran blood, The cornfields were trampled, and all in their track The beautiful valley lay blasted and black.

Now the din of the conflict swells deadly and loud, And the dust of the tumult rolls up like a cloud: Then afar down the slope of the Southland recedes The wild rapid clatter of galloping steeds.

With wide nostrils smoking, and flanks dripping gore, The black stallion bore his bold rider before, As onward they thundered through forest and glen, A-hunting the dark jaguar to his den.

In April, sweet April, the chase was begun; It was April again, when the hunting was done: The snows of four winters and four summers green Lay red-streaked and trodden and blighted between.

Then the monster stretched all his grim length on the ground; His life-blood was wasting from many a wound; Ferocious and gory and snarling he lay, Amid heaps of the whitening bones of his prey.

Then up spoke the slow eldest son, and he said, "All he needs now is just to be fostered and fed! Give over the strife! Brothers, put up the knife! We will tame him, reclaim him, but take not his life!"

But the Farmer flung back the false words in his face: "He is none of my race, who gives counsel so base! Now let loose the hound!" And the hound was unbound, And like lightning the heart of the traitor he found.

"So rapine and treason forever shall cease!" And they wash the stained fleece of the pale lamb of Peace; When, lo! a strong angel stands wingèd and white In a wonderful raiment of ravishing light!

Peace is raised from the dead! In the radiance shed By the halo of glory that shines round her head, Fair gardens shall bloom where the black jungle grew, And all the glad valley shall blossom anew!

LATE SCENES IN RICHMOND.

In the July (1864) number of this magazine there is an article entitled "The May Campaign in Virginia," which gives an outline of the operations of the Army of the Potomac in its march from its encampment on the Rapidan, through the tangled thickets of the Wilderness, to the bloody fields of Spottsylvania, across the North Anna, to the old battle-ground of Cold Harbor. The closing paragraph of that article is an appropriate introduction to the present. It is as follows:--

"The line of advance taken by General Grant turned the Rebels from Washington. The country over which the two armies marched is a desolation. There is no subsistence remaining. The railroads are destroyed. Lee has no longer the power to invade the North. On the other hand, General Grant can swing upon the James, and isolate the Rebel army from direct communication with the South. That accomplished, and, sooner or later, with Hunter in the Shenandoah, with Union cavalry sweeping down to Wilmington, Weldon, and Danville, and up to the Blue Ridge, cutting railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies of ammunition and provisions, the question with Lee must be, not one of earthworks and cannon and powder and ball, but of subsistence. Plainly, the day is approaching when the Army of the Potomac, unfortunate at times in the past, derided, ridiculed, but now triumphant through unparalleled hardship, endurance, courage, persistency, will plant its banners on the defences of Richmond, crumble the Rebel army beyond the possibility of future cohesion, and, in conjunction with the forces in other departments, crush out the last vestige of the Rebellion."

So it has proved. The railroads are destroyed, the bridges burned, the supplies of ammunition and provision exhausted; the flag of the Union floats over the city which the Rebels have called their capital; the troops of the Union patrol the streets of Richmond, and occupy all the principal towns of Virginia; Lee's army has melted away, and the power of the Rebellion is broken.

Before entering upon a narration of the campaign of a week which gave us Richmond and the Rebel army at the same time, it will widen our scope of vision to inquire

HOW RICHMOND BECAME THE CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERACY.

On the 17th of April, 1861, Virginia in Convention passed an Ordinance of Secession. The Convention, when elected on the 4th of February preceding, was largely Anti-Secession; but the events which had taken place,--the firing on Sumter, its surrender, with the machinations of the leaders of Secession,--their misrepresentations of the North, of what Mr. Lincoln would do,--their promises that there would be no war, that the Yankees would not fight,--their bullyings when they could not cajole, their threatenings when they could not intimidate,--their rejoicings at the bloodless victory won by South Carolina, single-handed, over a starved garrison,--their bonfires and illuminations, their baskets of Champagne and bottles of whiskey,--all of these forces combined were sufficient to carry the Ordinance of Secession through the Convention. But it was hampered by a proviso submitting it to the people for ratification on the Fourth Thursday of May following.

John Letcher was Governor of Virginia. Weak in intellect, grovelling in his tastes, often drunk, rarely sober, at times making such beastly exhibition of himself that the Richmond press pronounced him a public nuisance, he was a fit tool of the Secession conspirators. Ready to do what he could to commit the State to overt acts against the United States Government, on the evening after the passage of the Ordinance he issued orders to the State militia around Winchester to seize the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry,--on his own sole responsibility, and without a shadow of authority from the people of the State, inaugurating civil war, a proceeding which he followed up directly afterwards by proclaiming Virginia a member of the Confederacy, and thus carrying the State at once out of the Union, without awaiting the formality of a popular vote.

Already the intentions of the Confederate Government were manifest.

"I prophesy that the flag which now flaunts the breeze here will float over the old Capitol in Washington before the first of May," said Mr. L.P. Walker, Secretary of War, the evening after the fall of Sumter, to a crazy crowd in Montgomery, then the Rebel capital.

"From the mountain-tops and valleys to the shores of the sea, there is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington City at all and every human hazard. That filthy cage of unclean birds must and will assuredly be purified by fire," shouted John Mitchell, through the "Richmond Examiner," on the 23d of April.

"Washington City will soon be too hot to hold Abraham Lincoln and his Government," wrote the editor of the "Raleigh Standard" on the 24th.

"We are in lively hope, that, before three months roll by, the Government, Congress, Departments and all, will have been removed to the present Federal capital," wrote the Montgomery correspondent of the "Charleston Courier" on the 28th of the same month.

"We are not in the secrets of our authorities enough to specify the day on which Jeff Davis will dine at the White House, and Ben McCullough take his siesta in General Sickles's gilded tent. We should not like to produce any disappointment by naming too soon or too early a day; but it will save trouble, if the gentlemen will keep themselves in readiness to dislodge at a moment's notice," said the "Richmond Whig" on the 22d of May.

The Rebel Congress had already adjourned, and was on its way to Richmond. Not only Congress, but all the Departments, were on the move, intending to tarry at Richmond but a day or two, till General Scott, and Abraham Lincoln, and the Yankees, who were swarming into Washington, were driven out. Thus Richmond became, though only temporarily, as all hands in the South supposed, the capital of the Confederacy.

A week later Jeff Davis was welcomed to Richmond by the people, says Pollard, the author of the "Southern History of the War," an implacable hater of the North, "with a burst of genuine joy and enthusiasm to which none of the military pageants of the North could furnish a parallel." President Davis, in response to the call of the populace, made a speech, in which he said,--

"When the time and occasion serve, we shall smite the smiter with manly arms, as did our fathers before us, and as becomes their sons. To the enemy we leave the base _acts of the assassin and incendiary_; to them we leave it to insult helpless women: to us belongs vengeance upon men. We will make the battle-fields in Virginia another Buena Vista, drenched with more precious blood than flowed there."

But Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was in command of the Rebel forces in Virginia, was not quite ready to take Washington; and so the Rebel Congress commenced its sessions in the State capital. Mr. Memminger set up his printing-presses, and issued his promises to pay the debts of the Confederacy two years after the treaty of peace with the United States; Mr. Mallory began to consider how to construct rams; while Mr. Toombs, and his successor, Mr. Benjamin, wrote letters of instruction from the State Department to Rebel agents in Europe, and looked longingly and expectantly for immediate recognition of the Confederacy as an independent power among the nations.

The sleepy city awoke to a new life. Regiments of infantry came pouring in, not only from the hills and valleys of the Old Dominion, but from every nook and corner of the Confederate States,--the Palmetto Guards, Marion Rifles, Jeff-Davis Grays, Whippy-Swamp Grenadiers, Chickasaw Braves, Tigers, Dare-Devils, and Yankee-Butchers,--fired with patriotism and whiskey, proud to be in Richmond, to march through its streets, beneath the flags wrought by the fair ladies of the sunny South, for whom each man had sworn to kill a Yankee! Lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and generals, glittering with golden stars, with clanking sabres, and twinkling spurs, thronged the hotels in all the pomp of modern chivalry. With the marching of troops, and the gathering of men from every precinct of the Confederacy in search of official position in the bureaus or to obtain contracts from Government,--with the rush and whirl of business, and the inflation of prices of all commodities,--with the stream of gayety and fashion attendant upon the Confederate court, where Mrs. Jefferson Davis was queen-regnant,--with its gilded drinking-saloons and gambling-hells,--Richmond became a Babylon.

"ON TO RICHMOND!"