PART II.

BY GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN,

U. S. Senator from Illinois.

Having ascertained the extraordinary fact, from a close analysis of tabulations of authoritative statistics furnished by the Census and Education Bureaus, that, assuming the cost of educating a child in Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia to be equal to such cost in the New England states, every one hundred adults in the former pay more to educate the children in those states than is paid by the same number of adults in any one of the latter, let us explore a little further for the reasons underlying that fact.

It might naturally be asked: How can these calculations be correct, when, for example, we learn from the report of the Commissioner of Education that Massachusetts pays annually for each child enrolled in her schools $15.44, while Mississippi pays but $3.38?

There are several factors which aid in bringing about this result. Some of these can be exactly ascertained; others of them, for want of statistics, can not.

In the first place, the $15.44 per scholar which Massachusetts pays amounts to but $4.98 per capita of her adult population, while the $3.38 per scholar that Mississippi pays amounts to $2.12 per capita of her adult population. Hence the real difference, so far as the payers of the cost are concerned, is only $2.86 per capita.

Another cause of this difference or inequality is the fact that Massachusetts pays her teachers, on an average, about $49.06 per month, while Mississippi pays hers only $30.07. While this doubtless affects the efficiency and equality of the education, it does not necessarily indicate a less number of pupils.

Still another cause lies in the fact that while the length of the school year is in Massachusetts one hundred and seventy-seven days, in Mississippi it is but seventy-seven days.

And still another may grow out of the larger proportion of teachers employed in Massachusetts than in Mississippi, for we find that while in the former, one teacher is employed for every 35.7 enrolled scholars, in the latter, one is employed for every 42.5.

These items enable us to understand why there are differences between the amounts paid in the two states, and what those differences are that exist under the present order of things.

We perceive, therefore, that while a strict scrutiny may bring to light the facts that the education in the one state or section is more efficient, the terms of school attendance longer, and the amount paid for school purposes more liberal than in the other, yet this in no wise tends to invalidate the statistics heretofore presented, nor to affect the argument based thereon. Although it may be true that Massachusetts spends more than $15.00 per scholar while Mississippi spends less than $3.50, it is also true that the latter has forty-eight pupils enrolled in school to every one hundred adults, while the Bay State has but thirty-three; and that while it costs the adults of the Northern state but $4.98 each to pay this $15.44, a similar service, similarly compensated, for its enrolled scholars would cost the adults of the Southern one $9.70 each.

The fact, then, that this remarkable inequality in the cost of educating the children of the different localities in the Union does exist, can not be successfully controverted; and that there is no method of equalizing the burden save by government aid can not be truthfully denied.

The time has gone by when it could be said that Mr. A., who is poor in this world’s goods, but surrounded by a full household of ruddy youths, must provide for their education from his own depleted pocket, just as Mr. B., who is rich, and has but a single child, provides for its instruction out of his plethoric pocket.

The principle is now fully acknowledged that it is the duty of the state or government—of the people, as a body-politic—to bear this burden, and thus to equalize it. This is the principle upon which our common school system is founded, which, notwithstanding the tax it imposes, is even now looked upon by the people as one of our most important institutions, second only to the republican basis on which our government is founded.

To bring this vital institution as near to perfection as is possible, to distribute its benefits as equally as possible, to render the tax as light as is consistent with efficiency, and to bring the burden to bear as equally as is practicable on all sections and localities, should be one great aim of our Federal legislation.

All the great nations of Europe are beginning to throb with the divine impulse which is first seen in the great, questioning eyes of the speechless babe. Some of them have lain for long centuries encrusted in the densest ignorance, and awake but sluggishly to a realization of the tremendous national power, which others have long since discovered, embedded in the education of the masses. Thus Russia, with her population of 78,500,000, although almost exhausting herself with wars for territorial aggrandizement, has awakened to the necessity of granting to her schools $9,000,000 annually—a mere pittance for such a nation, yet containing the germ of higher promise. So also Austria, with her population of 22,144,244, is slowly stirring. Education there is now made obligatory, and in 1881 she supplemented prior national aid to it by a grant of $6,500,000. Italy, in 1882, with a population of 28,000,000, gave like aid to the extent of $6,200,000, beside providing school buildings and other necessary desiderata—previous aid having borne good fruit in a marked decrease of illiteracy. Prussia, with a population of 27,251,067, is fortunate in the possession of endowed schools with regular incomes. Yet she gave national aid to education to the extent of $10,000,000 in 1881, and $11,458,856 in 1882. France, with a population of some 37,000,000—independent of the millions of dollars expended for a like purpose annually by her departments and communes—gave in 1881-2 to the extent of $22,717,880 for the education of her masses. Little Belgium, with a population of but 5,403,006—about one twelfth of ours—in 1882 gave national aid to education to the extent of about $4,000,000; for she perceives, as a direct consequence of periodical aid of this character, that Belgian illiteracy is surely and rapidly decreasing, while in like ratio her prosperity is increasing. Great Britain is similarly alive to the necessity for government aid to elementary schools. Such aid was given by her in 1882 to those in England and Wales, whose united population is 25,968,286—less than half the number we boast—to the extent of £2,749,863, or—roughly calculating at five dollars to the pound—nearly $14,000,000. This, too, in a land that is also rich in well endowed universities, colleges, grammar schools, and other institutions of learning. Such aid was also given in 1882-3 to elementary schools in Scotland, whose population is but 3,734,370, to the extent of £468,512, or, say $2,342,560; and to Ireland, with a population of 5,159,839, to the extent of £729,868, or, say $3,648,340. Thus, in addition to the great educational advantages arising from the numerous well founded and amply endowed educational institutions for the various grades and classes of the British people that have long existed in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, we find the government of the United Kingdom aiding elementary instruction to the extent of about $20,000,000 in one year—the combined population being but 34,862,495 souls; the United States, with a larger population, is without the advantages either of such national aid or such endowed schools as those countries possess. Even the colonies of Great Britain are equally impressed with the importance and essential necessity of general public education. Taking as an example that one of her colonies with which our relations are most intimate—the province of Ontario. Its population comprises but 1,913,460 souls, yet the amount expended there upon education in 1880 reached $3,414,267. A similar ratio of expenditure to the total population—counting the latter at 55,000,000—would call for nearly $100,000,000 in the United States.

But while it may be of interest to note what other peoples and other governments are doing toward the advancement of general education within their borders, and while the contrast with that which is done, or fails to be done, in the same direction in the United States, furnishes food for instruction and ultimate benefit, yet it by no means follows that this nation, destined, as every one of its citizens proudly believes, to march in the van of the world’s civilization, is to limit its aims, its labors, its appropriations in the furtherance of education—the prime factor in all civilization—by the standards of other nations. The rather should the comparison, while it may for the moment bring to our cheeks the blush of shame, act as a stimulus to higher effort and larger expenditure, if necessary on our part to reach that preëminent position of prosperity, power, and enlightenment, of which the intellectual alertness of our people and the genius of our institutions give abundant promise.

In considering this subject we must not fail to remember that among the nations of the world ours stands alone in this: that here the sovereignty is in the people. An ignorant sovereignty is a tyrannical sovereignty, whether held by the many or the few. Its capabilities for good can alone be drawn out by education. That Liberty sits enthroned in this land is due solely to education and that proper spirit of freedom and independence in thought and action which is begotten of education. As has been well said by another: “We have gained all that we possess by reason of the education of the individual, and we hold it upon the same tenure. What we hold for ourselves we hold for mankind, and we hold it for both upon the same condition by which it was gained, and that is the continued and universal education and development of the people.”

Every child born in this great republic is born with the inherent right to be educated. He is born heir to that popular sovereignty which, upon coming of age, he is entitled to exercise. The coming responsibilities rest upon him from his very cradle up. He has an absolute right to such an education as will enable him to properly meet them. His parents who brought him into the world weighted with such responsibility, did it with the implied obligation on their part to give him that education without which his birth would be either a mockery or a crime. As with the parents, so with the state-local, and so with the state-national. If the parents fail in meeting this obligation it becomes a binding obligation upon the state-local, and if the state-local fails the obligation devolves upon the nation.

Again, the obligation of every parent in this republic to educate his children so as to enable them in due time to intelligently and wisely exercise the great power of the franchise, implies the obligation on his part to give them, up to that point, _equal_ educational advantages. By a parity of reasoning it logically follows that in case of failure by parent or state-local—whether from inability or other cause—the obligation to secure to all children within its domain not only facilities, but equal facilities, for the attainment of a sufficient education to enable them to cast an intelligent ballot, rests upon the nation. Nor does this obligation cease when such equal facilities are provided. It goes further. It extends, if necessary, to the compulsion of those children to avail themselves of the facilities which the nation provides for their education.

That it is the right, then, of every American child to have a rudimentary education, and that it should be equal to that of every other American child, seems clear; and that where, through any cause, that child fails to get such education, it is the duty of the national government to enable him to gain it, seems equally manifest.

To what extent, and from what resources, the nation should grant this educational aid to its children, and through what channels and upon what basis the distribution of that aid should be made, are subjects that will now command our attention.

The burden of educating the children of the nation is a heavy one—a fact perhaps not as fully realized by our rulers and legislators as it ought to be. From the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1882-3, it appears that the estimated real value of sites, buildings, and all other school property in all the states and territories, is $216,562,197. That of course is the existing “school plant” as it may be termed; but to get such a “school plant”—utterly insufficient as it may be—has been more or less burdensome. From the same authority it appears that the amount imposed and expended for common school purposes, in all the states and territories for 1880, was $91,158,039; a large sum, yet after all but little more than half the amount absolutely needed in order to provide adequate school facilities for all entitled thereto.

A careful and conservative estimate founded upon all attainable data will show that not less than $160,000,000 annually must be provided to secure the education of all the children of our country of lawful age. Of this amount, provision, as we have seen, is already made in the various states and territories to the extent of over $90,000,000 annually. Of the various measures relating to the subject of national aid to education that have been urged upon the attention of Congress, none has ventured to appropriate a larger annual sum[J] than $50,000,000. Should Congress at any time make an appropriation of that amount, there would still be an annual deficiency of some $20,000,000.

It is not at all certain that our national legislators have considered the magnitude of the subject with which they are to deal, nor that they have all investigated it with that degree of care and seriousness which it plainly deserves and even demands at their hands.

Every one, without controversy, admits the importance of educating our children; and without doubt, every one of our legislators has not only a warm and friendly feeling for this work, but also a willingness to do something to afford it national aid. But with how many of them is this a willingness without a formed and definite purpose? It were almost better that the importance of such education should be a disputed point—that a storm of controversy should arise and shake them in its throes, forcing them to lay hold of the very horns of the sacred altar of education—rather than that the dead, arid level of inert concession should bring forth nothing save a deceptive mirage. It is time to wake up to the fact that government aid in the line of education means nothing unless it be in the form of an annual appropriation of sufficient amount to produce tangible results.

Do our legislators appreciate the significant fact that of the $91,158,039 expended on the public schools in the thirty-eight states and nine territories and the District of Columbia during 1882, more than one quarter of that entire expense was borne by the three states of Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa? That nearly one third of that great expense was borne by and expended in the four states of New York, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania? That more than one half of it was borne by and expended in the six states of New York, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Iowa and California? That nearly two thirds of it all was borne by and expended in the nine states of California, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New York?

Of what practical avail, then, is the bill[K] which passed the United States Senate on the 7th of April last, so far, at least, as the amount to be appropriated is concerned? It proposes to appropriate a total amount of $77,000,000. That amount certainly sounds well and looks generous at first sight. But how is it appropriated? Let us see.

This $77,000,000 that looks so large and adequate, is to be scattered over the whole country, and over a period of eight years, thus:

The first year, $7,000,000—which is much less than Illinois alone gives in one year for her own children; the second year, $10,000,000—which is much less than Massachusetts and Iowa together give in one year for their own children; the third year, $15,000,000—which is much less than Ohio and Pennsylvania together give for one year’s schooling of their own children; the fourth year, $13,000,000—or about what Massachusetts, Indiana, and Wisconsin together give a year for such purposes; the fifth year, $11,000,000—or less than New York alone gives in one year; the sixth year, $9,000,000—very little more than Ohio alone gives; the seventh year, $7,000,000—or only a trifle more than Missouri and California together give in a year; and the eighth year, $5,000,000—or a trifle over what Indiana gives, and less than Iowa gives, in one year!

Now, if such appropriations as these are not absurdly inadequate, what are they?

They are limited to eight years, and during those eight years the mean average annual appropriation is less than $10,000,000. Think of it for a moment. An amount ($9,625,000) appropriated by Congress to cure the illiteracy of the whole nation—only $1,057,325 more than Illinois now spends in a year for educational purposes; only $1,361,755 more than Pennsylvania spends, and only $804,086 more than is spent by Ohio; while it is $1,797,593 less than the state of New York expends in a single year within her borders for like purposes!

Take the exact figures of the census returns, and the amount actually needed is easily ascertained for that year—though it must be remarked that the amount needed is not remaining the same, nor diminishing, but increasing every succeeding year. The school population in 1880 was 16,243,822. To educate that population required an assumed average annual expenditure of not less than $10 each, or $162,438,220. The real expenditure was but $91,158,039. Hence there was in that year a necessity for an expenditure of at least $72,085,783 more than was actually expended.

But let us examine the statistical facts a little more closely. It is true that the school population then was 16,243,822, but it is also true that of that number only 10,013,826 were enrolled in the public schools, and of these again only 6,118,331 took advantage of their opportunities for instruction by daily attendance at those schools. Here, then, we find that the $91,158,039 was expended in educating the 6,118,331 children who daily attended school, and that the actual average cost per scholar, therefore, was $14.90, and not $10. We discover also, that while 6,118,331 children were in daily attendance at the public schools, 3,895,495 children on the rolls of such schools were not in daily attendance, and that 6,229,996 other children of school age had not even the opportunity or facilities for any such education! It is plain, therefore, that had the 10,125,491 children of school age in the two latter classes—those who failed to take advantage of the school opportunities offered them, and those who had no such opportunities at all—been compelled, as they should be (except in case of sickness or other very sufficient cause), to daily attend public schools, then instead of the $91,158,039 actually expended in such schools that year, there should have been expended $242,027,855 that year, in order to give all children of school age an equal educational chance. In other words, the expenditure, as compared with the necessities of the case, left a deficit for that one year of $150,869,816.

Now it is to make up for the deficiencies in the school facilities already provided in the states and territories, that Congressional legislation and national aid is proposed. But it would puzzle the combined mathematicians of all countries and ages to demonstrate that an annual deficiency of $150,000,000, or more, can be made up by an expenditure of $77,000,000, dribbled out in annual sums varying from $5,000,000 to $15,000,000, during eight successive years.

While, however, to meet the necessities of the case fully and absolutely would call for enormous annual appropriations, yet as the utmost conservatism and moderation should govern all experimental legislation involving large appropriations, so in legislating upon this subject it were safer to adopt the basis and estimate of least requirement heretofore given, and adopt $50,000,000 as the amount that should be annually appropriated for this important purpose.

It is to be kept in mind, also, that an annual appropriation to this extent need not add one dollar to the burden of taxation now borne by the people.

In this connection it is not necessary to discuss any of the questions relating to the methods of raising our national revenue. Whatever differences of opinion there may be touching those methods or means, it must be conceded that our nation, under the present system and laws, holds a high and even commanding position among the civilized governments of the world, and that our people are enjoying more than an average degree of prosperity. It is our duty to use every effort to advance to still higher prosperity. In the meantime, however, any bill appropriating national aid to education should be based upon our present condition. Our revenue now exceeds our expenditures per annum by fully the amount ($50,000,000) sought to be appropriated by the bill referred to. Hence its enactment would not add one dollar to the taxes already imposed. It follows, then, that should Congress be asked to support a measure making annual appropriation of $50,000,000, derived from the internal revenue taxes and the sale of public lands, for school purposes, opposition to such a measure on the pretext that it would impose additional burdens upon the people would be flimsy and without force, and only transparently veil an opposition to increased facilities for educating our children.

If our children are to be provided with adequate facilities for proper and necessary instruction, the burden must be imposed in some form; and none can be devised that will bear more equally upon all, and be felt as little as this.

It is an old truism that “every rose hath its thorn.” The advance of civilization and knowledge has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. This is manifested very distinctly in one direction in our own country. The rapid invention and introduction of labor-saving machinery has had a very marked tendency to draw the laboring population from the rural districts, and congregate it at the manufacturing centers. This, although it may be attended with many important advantages, has some very serious disadvantages, and is, perhaps, in part the cause of the serious contests we have seen of late years between capital and labor. It increases the population of the cities, and proportionately decreases that of the rural districts, and, as a consequence, increases the cost of living, as it advances the price of property in the cities. It also tends very largely to increase the power and influence of corporations, monopolies, and other associations of this kind. The single item of transportation is vastly enlarged by this fact, and thus is increased the necessity for, and the power of, the railroads of our country. The effect of bringing together at these manufacturing centers large bodies of employés is, that for self-protection, combinations of labor, as against the encroachments of capital, are formed. Irritation and contests follow.

It is from these facts that we are confronted with one of the most difficult problems forced upon any nation for solution—a problem which thus far seems to be beyond the reach of legislation.

To check the advance of scientific and inventive genius, or to stop the progress of knowledge, is neither desirable, practicable, nor possible.

The only possible solution of this perplexing problem would seem to lie in the education of the masses, and thus elevating the laboring population as nearly as may be to the educational level of the capitalists—the rural districts to the educational level of the cities. By adequate national and state legislation, very marked and important progress in this respect may be secured. Should the government adopt the policy of adequate national aid to education, its distribution according to the number of persons under twenty-one years of age would perhaps be the best basis for such distribution at the start, but future experience and more exact knowledge would, no doubt, enable the remedy to be applied, in due time, more exactly to our needs. At present the statistics of illiteracy are not sufficiently definite and thorough to take them as a reliable guide in determining the basis for the distribution of so large an amount of funds.

One means, however, of meeting the difficulty named—one possible step toward the solution of this puzzling problem—is certainly within our reach. Educate the masses, elevate the laboring and producing population, and bring them up as nearly as possible to the educational plane already reached by those who hold and wield the moneyed power.

Education increases our wants and demands; increase in demand brings increase in supply; and this of necessity increases the demand for labor.

Economy on the part of the nation as well as the individual is a correct principle, and holds good in all states and conditions of life, but we must not forget that it is a relative term. For the individual who can neither read nor write to expend money for books and writing materials is a useless expenditure; but would you count that an extravagance on the part of him who can do both, so long as he keeps within his wants and means? What constitutes the difference in the application of the principle to the two cases? _Education._

The pioneer farmer may have spent a life of patient toil on his farm, satisfied to live in his log cabin, with possibly a single room, a puncheon floor, and a clapboard door, unable to read or write—an upright, honest man, and probably as nearly contented as it falls to the lot of mortals to be. But mark the change! His sons and daughters are growing up toward manhood and womanhood; the free school has invaded his neighborhood; and they attend it. How soon it affects the household arrangements, manners, dress, and everything about the family! What has wrought the change? Education. Their wants, and what are now their necessities, are greatly increased. What follows? The desire to meet and supply these wants brings increased effort and industry for the purpose. And every family thus advanced in its views of what is necessary to comfort and happiness increases to the same extent the demand upon the producer and manufacturer, and thus widens the field of labor. Hence the solution of this great and knotty problem is to be reached chiefly by the education of the masses—by raising them toward educational equality with the wealthy.

There are many who delight in picturing the days of primitive simplicity, when wants were few and easily supplied; but is there one of these moralizers who would willingly go back to them? “Strict economy as gauged by our means” is a correct maxim everywhere and at all times. But civilization and enlightenment are progressive, and no laws save such as would trample under foot the inalienable rights of the people to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” can check that progress. We must therefore either foster the comparatively few more fortunate and energetic of our people, or we must endeavor by appropriate and legitimate and adequate legislation to link together and advance the entire mass. The noblest work of man is the elevation of his fellowman, and the grandest work in which a government can engage is the enlightenment of its people. But these can alone be accomplished by the aid of the great lever: Education.

FOOTNOTES

[J] And that bill was introduced by myself.

[K] S. 398, 1st Session XLVIIIth Congress.

A TRIP TO THE LAND OF DREAMS.

BY ROBERT R. DOHERTY.

It is strange how soon we all turn into redoubtable adventurers, after the “soft dews of kindly sleep” have fallen. Not Marco Polo, fresh from the glories of the Cathayan court; nor Orellana, with his glittering lies about Dorado; nor Hans Pfaali, big-mouthed with the wonders of his voyage to the moon; not even Baron Munchausen himself, could tell more astonishing tales, than can the prosiest among us on his return from Dreamland.

Dreams were believed by the ancients to be vehicles of supernatural communication with mortals. Homer says that they come from Jove; Mohammed tells us that Allah sends them; and according to Job, “God speaketh in dreams.” Milton, on the other hand, pictures Satan, “squat like a toad close at the ear of Eve,” assaying by his devilish art to reach the organs of her fancy, and with them to forge phantoms and dreams. So deep-seated was the belief in the supernatural origin of night visions, that the law of ancient Rome required those who dreamed of public affairs to report to the augurs, so that an authoritative interpretation might be promptly given to the rulers. There was hardly a governor or general of antiquity, but had a number of professional augurs in his retinue; and the course of events was often modified by the meanings they attached to their patrons’ dreams. Professor Creasy has written a unique volume on the “Fifteen Decisive Battles of History,” and has suggested another, on the dozen or more “Decisive Love Affairs.” As many fateful dreams could easily be selected, around which, as on a pivot, the destiny of the world has seemed to turn. The most ludicrous, and in many cases wicked interpretations were given to dreams; and Cato—himself an augur—said it was strange how two augurs could meet without laughing in each other’s face.

Even at the present day belief in the prophetic character of dreams is widely prevalent, and many lists of “interpretations” are in circulation among the credulous. When Rory O’More assured us that dreams go by contraries, he followed current superstition. Tears are supposed to indicate joy, and laughter, woe. Dream of the dead, and you may expect tidings of the living; dream of the living, and unlooked for danger—perhaps death—is imminent. Many of the interpretations printed in the “guide books” are, however, exceedingly natural, as, for instance, that visions of gold foretoken wealth, and orange blossoms, marriage.

Let us place in contrast with such fanciful absurdities a tabulation of some of the veritable indications of dreams, as made by a modern scientist. Lively dreams, according to Dr. Winslow, are a sign of the excitement of nervous action; soft dreams, of slight irritation of the brain, often in nervous fever announcing the approach of a favorable crisis; frightful dreams, of determination of blood to the head; dreams of blood and red objects, of inflammatory conditions. Visions of rain and water are often signs of diseased mucous membranes and dropsy; distorted forms frequently point to disorder of the liver. Dreams in which the patient sees any part especially suffering indicate diseases of that part. Dreams about death often precede apoplexy, which is so connected with determination of blood to the head. The nightmare, with great sensitiveness, is an indication of determination of blood to the chest.

To adequately define dreaming must ever be a difficult, if not an impossible task. Professor Wilson, of Edinburgh, has graphically outlined peculiarities which distinguish dreams from the imaginings of wakeful hours and from the hallucinations of madness. The current of thought that rushes through the sleeper’s mind is quite free from the control of his will. Dr. Rush has called a dream a transient paroxysm of delirium, and delirium a permanent dream; but the dreamer’s intellect is withdrawn from almost all relation to external objects; while the lunatic holds communication by all his senses with the world about him. But while sleep has thus closed “the five gateways of knowledge” to the dreamer, he still hears and sees and feels and smells and tastes. An imaginative person, on visiting Niagara Falls, can afterward reproduce it graphically in memory; but his most vivid mental picture seems pale and hopelessly inaccurate when the scene is revisited. The visions of our sleep, on the contrary, are among the most vivid of our life, and where the objects have been seen before, the most accurate. “The main difference,” says Dr. Smith, “between our sleeping and waking thoughts appears to lie in this, that in the former case the perceptive faculties of the mind are active, while the reflective powers are generally asleep. Thus it is that the impressions of dreams are in themselves vivid, natural, and picturesque, occasionally gifted with an intuition beyond our ordinary powers, but strangely incongruous and often grotesque; the emotion of surprise or incredulity, or of unlikeness to the ordinary course of events, being in dreams a thing unknown.”

Of the vividness of impressions made in dreams, illustrations are plentiful. Dr. Abercrombie first told the often quoted story of the English army officer whose susceptibility was so remarkable that “his friends could produce any kind of dream they pleased by softly whispering in his ear.” On one occasion they led him, in this way, through a long quarrel, which threatened to end in bloodshed. Just as the dreamer was to meet his enemy a pistol was handed to him; he fired it off in his sleep, was awakened by the report, and repeated to his laughing friends the fancies they had whispered to him a moment before. A well authenticated case is on record of a young Englishman who, at the age of twenty-eight, through disease, lost the power of speech for four years. He dreamed that he fell into a cauldron of boiling beer, and in his agony and fright shrieked for help. Of course, he at once awoke, and from that moment the use of his tongue was fully recovered. A bottle filled with warm water, which touched the feet of Dr. James Gregory after he had fallen asleep, produced an awful vision of a bare-footed tramp over the hot crater of Mount Ætna, through clouds of sulphurous vapors, and amid spurtings of scalding lava. Because of a blister on the head of Dr. Reid, he “positively endured all the physical torture of being scalped, while dreaming that he had fallen into the hands of a party of red Indians.” A lady dreamed that a man entered her chamber, and tightly clasped her left hand in his without offering her further violence or uttering a word of explanation. She remonstrated with him in vain; she shrieked for help, but could not make herself heard; then began a desperate struggle with the imaginary stranger, which culminated in awaking the sleeper—but not in releasing her hand, which, to her great alarm, was still held as in a vise. Summoning all her will-power, she rose from her couch and crossed the room, and it was only when she attempted to light a lamp that she discovered that she was holding her own hand with the other, which had become numb by the tightness of the grasp.

Indefinite expansion of time—or, rather, a total ignoring of the limitations of time—is another peculiarity in dreaming. It has been demonstrated that a man can dream in detail the events of years, and consume in the act of dreaming only a small fraction of one minute. “I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in one night,” says De Quincy, the prince of dreamers: “nay, I sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time.” Dr. Macnish, from whose delightful essays several of these illustrations have been taken, within an hour dreamed that he made a voyage, remained some days in Calcutta, returned home, then took ship for Egypt, visited the cataracts of the Nile, Cairo, and the Pyramids; “and, to crown the whole, had the honor of an interview with Mehemet Ali, Cleopatra, and Alexander the Great!” A gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted as a soldier, performed many military duties, deserted, been apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. His eyes were blindfolded; after an interval of awful agony he heard the rattle of the fatal musketry, and awoke—to find that “a noise in the adjoining room had at the same moment produced the dream and awakened him.” We have, perhaps, all, though in less degree, had similar experience of the rapidity of thought in dreaming.

There is hardly any limitation to the fancy of the dreamer; he may even lose his identity, and for the nonce personate Cæsar, or Cromwell, or the King of the Cannibal Islands. It is said, however, that no man or woman ever dreamed that he or she belonged to the other sex; although the strange notion that the dreamer is a fish, or beast, or bird, is not infrequent. Usually, however, “we are somewhat more than ourselves in our dreams.” The tired school girl cries herself to sleep over some difficult arithmetical task, dreams, perhaps, that her teacher assists her, and wakens with the correct “answer” in her mind. So Condorcet successfully pursued his most intricate calculations in his dreams; and Benjamin Franklin has acknowledged his indebtedness to his midnight visions for the solution of many grave political problems which had hopelessly taxed his reason during his waking hours. An austere philosopher, who ordinarily seemed to be destitute of risibility, tells us that in one dream he could compose a whole comedy, witness its performance, relish its jests, and laugh himself awake.

But to the marvels of Dreamland there is no end. “Strange it is,” says the poetical essayist, “when regal Mab rides forth, drawn by a team of little atomies across men’s noses as they lie asleep, galloping through lovers’ brains, and over courtiers’ knees, and lawyers’ fingers, and soldiers’ necks, and ladies’ lips!” Strange, indeed, and blessed as strange. Let us thank God for our dreams. They are the great levelers of life. The cruel distinctions of wealth and blood are forgotten, and our personal disadvantages are set aside. The bashful stutterer talks with the grace and fire of Demosthenes, and the wasted invalid regains his pristine vigor. In dreams

“The child has found its mother, And the mother finds her child, And dear families are gathered, That were scattered o’er the wild.”

The poor drudge who toils wearily through twelve long hours for the mere necessities of life, can at night sit on a golden throne and dispense royal favors. The ambitious soldier can fight bloodless contests, and win empires, without staining his soul with the crimes of a Napoleon.

And if the dreams of the mass of mankind be so full of wonders, what must be those of the giants of intellect and passion? What exquisite sensuous delight must have thrilled the poet Coleridge during his vision of Xanadu of Kubla Khan, when the mere fragmentary strains that he then heard sung are so beautiful! How wild and spectral, how awfully magnificent, were the dreams of Albrecht Dürer, judged by the allegorical pictures in which he has attempted to reproduce them! If to read of the visions of a Bunyan or a De Quincy thrills us, what must it have been to experience them—to have floundered with Pliable in the Slough of Despond, and stood with Christian on the Delectable Mountains—to have been “grinned at, stared at, chattered at,” by thousands of alligators such as the “Opium-eater” describes, or to have with him “sunk fathoms deep in Nilotic mud.”

Physiologists have made many curious and valuable observations bearing on our subject. They have found that when a sleeper dreams, the brain swells greatly, and becomes red in color, while the brain of the dreamless sleeper is “pale, shrunken, and bloodless;” they have shown that, from physical causes, he that sleeps on his left side will have visions of fantastic incongruities, while the dreams of the slumberer who reclines on his right side will at least be logical and self-consistent; they have divided “the exciting causes of dream-images into peripheral and central stimulations”—that is, into those caused by muscular movements or positions, and by the hygienic condition of the various organs of the body, and those which originate somewhat mysteriously, in the nerve-centers.

After all, however, very little is known of the true philosophy of dreaming; and perhaps the quaint fancy of Sir Thomas Browne may not be as utterly absurd as at first it seems—that this life is but a dream, and that death will be an agreeable awaking to our real life, whose past is now forgotten only because we are now asleep.

THE HOMELIKE HOUSE.

BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.