Part 19

It is fitting that, in this last number of the Chautauquan year, we should remind our readers that the gathering of our students and teachers is at hand, and that the opening of the sessions of our schools and the breaking of silence on our platform are to occur this year under auspicious circumstances. Our columns afford indications that the class of this year is unusually large; our correspondence shows that the interest of the public in our work is enlarging its boundaries; the program for the sessions is the richest and most attractive ever furnished. Dr. Vincent has taken great pains in the selection of topics, teachers and lecturers. Old and tried men and women remain in the force, and it has been increased by addition of talents approved by excellent work and good fame in other fields. The Chautauqua Idea is still peculiarly Chautauquan. No other place or organization does its work. It is a school for all—a university in which, by joining self-instruction with the schools and platform of Chautauqua, a man or woman of any age may pursue knowledge in almost any field with profit and pleasure. The original impulse to this work of ours was given by providing for the wants of those who had not good advantages in early life; but it has been found in the actual work that an arrangement of subjects and lectures could be made which enables any man to add to his knowledge and quicken his interest in personal study. It has come to pass that our best patrons and friends are those who have graduated in other schools, while we continue to increase the usefulness of Chautauqua for those in whose behalf it was founded. The success of the “Idea” along the whole line is not merely a satisfaction; it is a promise and a prophecy. There is every reason to believe that its broad, philanthropic, refining and elevating tendencies will continue to develop new methods of giving knowledge to all. But, of course, a benevolent enterprise like ours depends upon the sustained interest and enthusiasm of its friends. We are just as liable to flag in this as in any other benevolent work. It is not carried on to make money; money is made to carry it on. All the conditions of failure which must surround an undertaking which has not the force of self-interest behind it, exist of course in this large and expensive enterprise. Therefore we may properly remind the friends of Chautauqua that their patronage and coöperation in many ways are essential still, and must always be, to its progress. We make these suggestions, not from any doubt of the fidelity and perseverance of our friends, but, to recall attention to the fact that the Chautauqua Idea is a philanthropic and not a commercial one. Chautauqua does not exist to enrich any one, but to increase knowledge and spread culture in the land. It has no antagonisms, and need not have, but it can not dispense with the active zeal of its numerous friends.

The managers have done their whole duty in making preparations for the approaching campaign. Let every high private emulate their industry and zeal. Bring your friends to the Lake. Remember that we want the coöperation of the sober, thoughtful and earnest people. The Chautauqua season is not a picnic; it is a season of rest, because a change of scene and occupation always refreshes mind and body. But our patrons are expected to bring their heads with them—and their consciences—that when they return home they may carry back new force and larger power to influence their neighbors. Chautauqua is ready to receive its pupils and guests. It has wide arms and a generous heart. The season will be what its patrons choose to make it. We are confident that they will choose to make it the best of the series.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The fourth volume of THE CHAUTAUQUAN closes with the present number. In the month of August we shall issue at Chautauqua the _Assembly Daily Herald_, with its numbers of invaluable lectures, its racy reports and varied sketches of Chautauqua life. For the advantage of our friends we make an attractive combination offer of the fifth volume of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and the _Assembly Daily Herald_, for $2.25. See advertisement.

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Among the great figures missed at the Republican National Convention this year was that of ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling. Not having admired him politically, we are the more free to express our respect and admiration for the courage with which he declined a seat on the supreme bench, and the splendid success he is achieving at the bar. A certain intense ardor which marks him as a man give assurance of still higher success and permanent fame in his profession.

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The unveiling of an imposing statue of Martin Luther, in Washington, is one of the events which reminds us of the granite character of Luther; and in the same breath set us thinking of the solidarity of humanity. Luther is a great way from home in Washington, four centuries after his birth; but he is among his own people and as much alive as he ever was.

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The cap-sheaf of official negligence is put on in the case of a bank which wallows for years, perhaps, certainly for months, in insolvency, and is never in all the time honestly and thoroughly examined by the various persons whose duty it is to know the facts.

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“Men were giants in those days.” The five hundredth anniversary of the death of John Wyclif was celebrated in England in May last. The Bishop of Liverpool preached, dissenters of all denominations were represented. The public was told again that Wyclif was the first Englishman to maintain the supremacy of the Scriptures. The Lord Mayor of London presided over a great conference, and a fund was founded to print and circulate Wyclif’s works. After five centuries of all kinds of progress that man’s memory is still as fresh as a May morning.

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The State Superintendent in New York has decided that no religious exercises are in order in public schools. The schools are for all, and until some common system of religious instruction is agreed upon, there should be none. This is the substance of the decision, and we can not help thinking it sound. Religious instruction is amply provided in other ways; and in order that Protestant and Catholic children may study together in peace, it seems wisest to let each class be religiously instructed elsewhere, according to the wishes of their parents.

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The most effective speech in the late Methodist Episcopal General Conference was made by a colored delegate, the Rev. Dr. Taylor of Kentucky. The effectiveness came of the fact that he had not only considered what he had to say, but also meditated on the best way of saying it. We are often told that oratory is a lost art. Is it not a faded art merely because speakers give too little attention to the manner of their speech?

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Charles O’Conor, the greatest jury pleader of the century, died in May, at the age of eighty. Four years before his death, having been very ill, he had the pleasure of reading the longest obituary notice that any convalescent ever perused with personal interest. His power over juries was such that cases were often given up by the other side in advance of the pleading. He was an Irish Catholic whose warmest friends were American Protestants.

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Several additions have been made to the evidence that it does not destroy women to educate them. Professor Seelye of Amherst is among the new witnesses. We are at a loss to know why it ever needed testimony. Professor Seelye gravely says that some hard-worked women students were carefully examined by a competent woman and found to be perfectly healthy! When our readers recover from their astonishment let them enter their girls for the C. L. S. C.

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The new scheme for registering time seems to encounter a resistance which in physics is called the _vis inertia_. Most towns of any size—except the largest cities—still maintain local time. We respectfully hint to the almanac makers, that they have a great opportunity to spread intelligence on this subject. It will not be long before all towns within the meridional divisions will have common time. Why protract the agony of computing a dozen times a day the differences between several standards of time in the same community?

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They continue to find Charley Ross. One was found last month. But each time it is not the true Charley Ross. What an amount of agony his parents have suffered! What a mercy were the knowledge that the boy died long ago! But reflect, too, on the uses of that tragedy. Thousands of children are watched over with more diligence because that tragedy recurs daily to the minds of parents as a solemn warning.

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Psychologic classification is getting into disorder. Sir William Thompson has defined a “Magnetic Sense,” and a critic of him says: “We might as well be logical and liberal, and add to the present senses the touch sense, the self sense, the power sense, the logical sense, and the psychic, muscular, and electro-magnetic senses.” We suppose it is a wise thing to be “liberal;” but it is better to be accurate, and this use of the word _sense_ is not accurate.

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The nomination by the Chicago Republican Convention of the Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine, for President, and Senator John A. Logan, of Illinois, for Vice President, seems likely to precipitate a political contest over the tariff. Mr. Blaine and the platform on which he stands speak for protection, while the opposition will favor free trade.

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Members of the Class of ’84 who expect to be at Round Lake, N. Y., on C. L. S. C. Day (Wednesday, July 10), and who wish to receive their diplomas there, should report to Miss Kimball, at Plainfield, N. J., by July 10.

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We burn up, in this country, three hundred and fifty-nine hotels in a year. In the last eight years the aggregate is set down by the National Board of Underwriters as two thousand eight hundred and seventy-two. Here is another wound in the economic body through which our life-blood is pouring in a great stream, and nothing will stanch the wound but a better moral character in the people. Unsafe buildings are built for the most part by people who are smart and wicked.

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All over the country Salvation-army captains, lieutenants and corporals are getting into trouble, and the organization is falling into disgrace. The movement may as well be voted a failure. It is, however, the only religious failure of any importance in the last two decades. In London, where it is held in vigorous hands by General Booth, it is still a respectable success; but no one else has been able to work it on a large scale. Petty successes here and there do not disprove the general rule of failure.

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In Baltimore, last month, the fourth floor of a warehouse fell and six persons lost their lives. Accidents in buildings are becoming far too numerous. In such cases, as well as in broken banks, we have a proof that our complex civilization requires a higher grade of conscientious character—or more of it—than we are producing. Our brains are good enough; we want better morals.

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It is reported from Europe that Prince Napoleon and his son Victor are both “running” for the office of Emperor of France. The office does not exist at present, and there is no prospect of its being created—the gunpowder facilities are lacking. But father and son are said to be quarreling over the matter. If France wants a monarch she now has a chance to get a gentleman in the person of the Count of Paris, who was with our army of the Potomac for some months, and has written a capital book on the civil war in our country.

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It was a pleasant thing to see the Governor of Pennsylvania taking the lead in the Methodist General Conference when the resolutions against polygamy came up for discussion. Governor Pattison was a lay member of the body, and made a vigorous speech in favor of energetic measures to suppress this evil.

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A distinguished Israelite of New York said to a reporter last month that he expected to see the synagogues opened for religious services on Sunday. The movement would begin with the religious use of both sacred days; but it will probably end in the general neglect of the seventh day. The inconvenience of having a different Sabbath from the rest of the people is doubtless a great embarrassment to the religious teachers of the Hebrews.

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It is a proper prayer, “Remember not against me the sins of my youth.” But it is as well for young people to remember that human society does not readily forget our errors. And somebody has said that “God can afford to forgive when men can not afford to forget.” Perhaps he is not quite right; to forgive is not to give a man an office or a farm. We have forgiven all who have wronged us, if we are good Christians, but that does not oblige us to indorse their notes.

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An ungracious thing is the fault-finding with Mr. George I. Seney, because, before the late troubles in Wall Street, he gave away some two millions of money to philanthropic uses. People who never give away things seem to think that, having given largely, Mr. Seney should have rolled himself into a safe nest and remained there. It occurs to us that no man has a better right to risk his own money than the man who has acquitted himself generously of his obligations to humanity. We have seen no proof that Mr. Seney was guilty of even an irregularity in the conduct of his business, or that he is not able to meet all his engagements.

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Mr. Ferdinand Ward is the most picturesque and romantic figure in the late crisis in monetary New York. His success in Wall Street, by which a poor youth laid his hands on a dozen or more millions of other men’s money, appropriately climaxed by his enforced visit to the cell formerly tenanted by William M. Tweed, is a romance of rascality; and yet no one can tell just how he succeeded in using the cupidity of mankind to blind their eyes to the plainest principles of finance. The scheme was simple enough: Loan $70,000 on securities worth $100,000. Then take the securities to a bank and hypothecate them for $90,000. To a thief the profit is just $20,000. But the genius lies in concealing the simplicity of the business.

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It was not strange that General Grant was deceived by young Ward. No one supposes that the General is an acute and expert man of business. But men who ought to be acute and expert men of business—for that is their calling—were as completely deceived as General Grant. There are always hindsight philosophers and small-eyed sons of detraction to seize such an occasion as the late panic to criticise great and good men. General Grant’s vindication lies in the fact that there are very few moneyed men in New York whom Ferdinand Ward did not deceive.

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The zeal with which some persons labor to make benevolence unpopular is one of the worst manifestations of human nature. Why can not the critics remember that very few men ever catch the disease of giving away large amounts of money? So uncommon a disorder ought to be given the benefit of a corner of that mantle of charity which is usually employed to cover a multitude of sins.

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One of the most remarkable statements we have lately seen was made by the president of a brewers’ convention recently held at Rochester, N. Y. He said: “Our hope is based on the fact that prohibition can not last in a progressive state.” We have tried to analyze this “hope,” and the result is this: A progressive state is one in which the drink-sellers are powerful enough to overthrow prohibition. _Progress_ has a peculiar signification in the drink-seller’s dictionary. We are at a loss to conjecture what truly progressive elements of a population should rise up to put down prohibition.

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Among our reformers no class deserves more support than those who seek to improve the health of mankind. Some of them have exaggerated the value of this or that means; but the end they seek is a very useful one. We are coming to agreement on everything but food and sleep. We shall agree about these by-and-by. Plenty of sleep _in the night_—and wholesome food _in moderation_—these are two articles of the coming man’s health creed. The italicised words express the best evidence on the subject of longevity. A recent writer says that gluttony kills more people—who it may be said by parenthesis know no better—than tobacco and drink. Eating too much is the next evil to be reformed; then sleeping too little.

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One of the beautiful customs of Brooklyn, N. Y., is to have a parade of the Sunday-school children of all denominations on one of the first warm days of May. This year fifty thousand children were in line, and the city kept holiday. The custom would bear transportation to other cities and towns.

TALK ABOUT BOOKS.

We have a new candidate for the honorable position of expounder and teacher of English.[E] It is for those who desire to learn, and have no teacher; for the tens of thousands whose school advantages have been limited, or mis-improved, and who are now studying out of school, and seek by self-exertion to acquire the culture and practical knowledge they need. It will not be found in the technical sense a grammar, but a series of familiar and most entertaining letters, in which the author discusses the principles and usage of the English language. The style is conversational, and remarkable for its perspicuity. The vigorous sentences are clear as sunbeams, and as purely English as Cobbett himself. The editor’s well considered and generally incisive notes are good reading, and add much to the value of the work.

One of the most able, scholarly and exhaustive commentaries on the New Testament is now in process of publication by Funk & Wagnalls, New York. It is a translation, with notes by American editors, of the expositions and critical analyses of the well known German scholar and exegete, Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer. The whole work may require ten or more volumes of fair size, eight of which are promised during the year. The one on the “Epistles to The Corinthians”[F] is now before us. As a philologist Meyer has certainly but few equals, and his grammatical expositions of the Greek text give evidence of much patient research, acute discernment, and a thorough comprehension of the subjects discussed. The work will prove an invaluable aid to all who critically study the New Testament in the original language, and even lay readers may, if they will examine, find much that is refreshing in the author’s incisive criticisms, and clear, concise statements of evangelical doctrines.

An ingenious portfolio[G] has been invented by a member of the Philadelphia bar, for those who may not have studied thoroughly the laws of thought and composition, yet wish to know how to work up a subject. On the side of a neat little slate are placed certain typical questions which are to be applied to the subject of contemplation, and space is given under each to jot down the points to be considered under each heading. Thus in one’s pocket may be carried a scientific outline by which one may classify immediately the scraps of illustration, the fancies or thoughts which they pick up on any given subject.

Miss Emily Raymond, of Toledo, has written a very pleasing, comprehensive, and satisfactory account of the Chautauqua Idea and its home. This little volume, entitled “About Chautauqua,” is probably the most complete report yet given of this modern movement. The price of the book is 50 cents. Address Miss Raymond, 48 Bush Street, Toledo, O.

A collection of first-class short stories by American authors has been begun by Charles Scribner’s Sons.[H] They are being gathered from the great number of stories which have been sent out in the leading magazines of the country during the last twenty years, and promise to make a remarkably entertaining collection. Many of the foremost writers of fiction of the day are in the list of authors.

The entertaining volume, “Our Famous Women,”[I] will be, we think, a decided success. Thirty of the prominent women of the times are discussed most pleasantly in as many easy and appreciative essays. The papers are not critical or comprehensive, but gossipy, entertaining, and very well written. One finds in most of them exactly the facts they want about such favorites as Mrs. Burnett, Louisa M. Alcott, Rose Terry Cooke, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Mary A. Livermore, etc. As far as possible, the writers have been wisely chosen from the ranks of the famous women themselves. The book will be worth a great deal to women who are trying to win position and a livelihood by their own exertions. Its heroines are striking examples of what bravery, earnestness, cheerfulness and faithfulness will do in a life.

Another volume of Charles Scribner’s Sons’ new edition of “Ik Marvel” is out. “Rural Studies,” first published in 1867, has been revised and reissued under the title of “Out-of-Town Places.”[J] The book was not more timely fifteen years ago than it is now; perhaps it will be even more useful now, for the last fifteen years have taught us more of beauty and its uses than we had ever before had time to learn. Mr. Mitchell’s little book gives many capital suggestions to farmers and owners of country places about practical improvements. It is not a book for horticulturists, or for fancy stock or high-art farmers, but it will be very useful to people who by their own labor and planning are trying to beautify their homes.

A good book on etiquette—and, as it often happens, a very ordinary one—is pretty sure of finding a wide circle of readers in America. A sensible, reliable guide-book into the mysteries of the best society has lately been published by the Harpers.[K] We like it. The writer knows exactly what her readers need and is competent to supply their want clearly and reliably. What more could be asked of the writer of a book on etiquette?

Uncle Remus[L] has become the representative of a vanishing type of American life. It is a matter of congratulation that so much of his humor, shrewd sense and peculiar dialect has been saved to us in “His Songs and His Sayings,” a little book which, though we are apt to consider it merely humorous, really has much material for interesting study. The aim of the author was as he says: “To preserve the legends [of the plantation] in their original simplicity, and to wed them permanently to the quaint dialect—if indeed it can be called a dialect—through the medium of which they have become a part of the domestic history of every Southern family.”

BOOKS RECEIVED.

How the Bible was Made. By Rev. E. M. Wood, D.D. Cincinnati: Walden & Stowe. 1884.

The Exodus and Other Poems. By Rev. T. C. Reade. Cincinnati: Printed by Walden & Stowe for the author. 1884.

Quicksands. From the German of Adolph Streckfuss. By Mrs. A. L. Wister. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1884.

Standard Library: The Fortunes of Rachel. By Edward Everett Hale. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.

Standard Library: Chinese Gordon. By Archibald Forbes. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.