CHAPTER I.

“God’s prophets of the Beautiful these poets are.”

For three centuries England has luxuriated in a succession of regal poets, wearing, not hereditary crowns, but laurel wreaths bestowed by royal hands in virtue of the loyalty rather than the melody of their stanzas. Two centuries earlier Edward III. indulged Chaucer, the “Father of English Poetry,” in his harmless aspiration to enjoy the title of laureate, and the honor skipped along with irregular movement until Queen Elizabeth wreathed the brow of Spenser in laurel, giving the position such dignity that succeeding monarchs considered it an indispensable luxury to have a rhymer in the royal household to honor the birthday of king and queen, princes and princesses with an ode, graceful, polished, fervent.

The idea of poet laureate is not of English birth, but comes with other literary sentiments from Grecian days, the custom being to enliven the great musical contests by publicly crowning the successful poet. Rome in the days of the empire adopted the custom, adding to the formality and grace of the occasion. Germany revived the long neglected courtesy in the twelfth century, and was the _first to christen the crowned bard_ “_Laureate_.”

The French had special poets for the rhythmic praises of the imperial household, but from prejudice or neglect did not adopt the German title, while the Spaniards had both the poets and the title, but lacked the favor of the goddess of song. The Saxons, from their earliest days, were lovers of music, though content with a low order of song. For centuries the minstrels were the favorites with the unalloyed Saxon race. Not until the eleventh century, when William the Conqueror grafted the Norman blood into the sturdy Saxon veins, was there call for a higher order of song than the minstrel furnished. As the two nations intermingled their habits and social customs, as the languages blended the strength of the one with the grace of the other for three centuries, the people were prepared in mind and heart, in thought and sentiment, to appreciate a national poet, and after nine centuries without a poet or a language out of which poetry could be woven, they found themselves suddenly possessed with a poet of highest order and a language melodious in its every accent.

The splendor of chivalry had reached its height, and the magnificent court of Edward III. brought to a climax the progressive spirit of the Plantagenets, and the series of victories that initiated his reign exalted the pride of the nation and brought it to a degree of patriotic order that must voice itself in a national poet. For such an hour was Geoffrey Chaucer sent, a poetic genius, whose birth and associations calculated to make the art in his hands chivalric.

His name—Chaussier—of Norman birth, anglicised itself gracefully into Chaucer, indicative of the ease with which, reciprocally, he translated the legends of Saxon life in a new language, the poetic.

Born in London, possibly educated at Cambridge, probably a child of wealth, a page in the service of a noble lady, a soldier of the king, a prisoner in French hands, and ransomed by his king, all before he was twenty, it is easy to see that he ingratiated himself early into a variety of experiences from which a poet can profitably draw. In his young manhood, following the adventures of youth, he was in the service of the king as valet of the chamber. He served as comptroller of customs, and negotiated delicate personal matters for the king at home and in foreign courts, was employed on important embassies open and secret, even negotiating for the marriage of the Prince of Wales in France.

Upon one of these foreign missions he witnessed tourneys, grand receptions and magnificent displays, of such a character that he was possessed with a desire to see his own country follow suit, and as an initiative step aspired at being himself crowned poet laureate to the king, in which he was humored by Edward III., who allowed him also £100 as an annual allowance. The succeeding king, Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, confirmed him in the position and secured to him its financial reward.

This first laureate purples the horizon of English literature, but so faint is the flush of dawn that it is impossible to fix the year of his birth, which may have been as early as 1328, and may have been as late as 1345. To understand the circumstances under which he wrote we must consider the England in which he lived, and for which he wrote. It was no more thickly settled than the state of Vermont, the entire population being only about the same as that of Missouri. The city of London then had no more than Lynn, Portland, Omaha, or Somerville—35,000. It had been larger, but had suffered from the great plagues. But this must not mislead us, for, notwithstanding her diminutive size, England was the most powerful nation of western Europe, and three nations of historic prominence were suppliants for her favor. The nation was wealthy, and the middle classes appreciated and demanded increased financial, political and social privileges. It was this first hope and purpose of the people that ripened the nation for its poet.

Cæsar set foot on British soil fourteen centuries earlier; the Saxons made permanent abode nine centuries before his day; Alfred the Great glorified the Saxon Heptarchy five centuries before the poet sang; and what wonder that he who created the very language that could be poetic should aspire for the first laurel wreath?

For nearly a thousand years there had been no poetry in the Saxon life, there had never been on British soil. Beauty and harmony were missing in their speech and deeds. The history they had made was devoid of sentiment, hence the almost universal disinclination to read the history of those years. As soon as there was sentiment in their life it was poetized.

Chaucer was merely a beautifier of thought. He originated little, he glorified whatever he voiced. He breathed life into the _thought_ and _language_ of the people, making them living souls, the Adam and Eve of English life. It is too much to ask that the primal poet who has to create language, create thought also. He did for the language of England what no other man was ever privileged to do for any nation. He took the chaotic speech and gave it beauty and rhythmic symmetry. He took foreign thought and made a home dress in which to clothe it. He took a language that foreigners despised, and of which the countrymen were ashamed, and christened it into the triune of strength, beauty and melody, so that it promises to be the universal tongue. He made a language that has the elements of perpetual youth, such as is possessed by no words but the Saxon’s.

In speaking of Chaucer as the initial laureate, it is with full knowledge that a century earlier, before there was a poet worthy the name, Henry III., of Magna Charta fame, had a “Versificator Regis,” whom he allowed £100 per year, but since it is impossible to find his name, or a line he ever wrote, it has not seemed wise to discount the honor so justly due him who wrote the first classic English verse.

After Chaucer there was no inheritor of his wreath for nearly a century, when, in the reign of Edward IV., who died 1485, John Kay was laureate, but he left no verse to show whether or not he adorned his position.

The growth of the custom into dignity and permanence was through the universities. Each of the large classic institutions had the established degree of poet laureate bestowed upon those who graduated with honors from the courses in grammar, rhetoric and versification. It was a requisite for all graduates who presented themselves for this honorable degree, to write a hundred creditable Latin verses on the glory of the university—though sometimes another subject was assigned. Upon graduation, and the acceptance of the Latin verses, he was publicly crowned with a wreath of laurel, and styled “poeta laureatus.” If he was ever selected by the king to rhyme his praise he might style himself the “king’s humble poet laureate.”

John Skelton is the first whom we know to have taken all these honors. He was a graduate of Cambridge in 1484, and nine years later was wreathed poet laureate of Oxford, and soon after of Lauvain, and in 1504, twenty years from graduation, Cambridge gave him the same honorary title and wreath. He also won the regal versifier’s crown, writing a poem when Henry VII.’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, was created Prince of Wales, and Latin verses when the infant Prince Henry (VIII.) was created Duke of York in 1494. Skelton is spoken of by his contemporaries as a special light and ornament to British literature.

Bernard André, of whom nothing is known except that he was a tutor of Prince Arthur, was poet laureate.

It was left to popular Queen Bess, among the many good things of her fickle reign, to establish the rank of regal laureate by conferring the laurel upon Edmund Spenser, since whom there has been no vacancy except when Cromwell took the poetry out of high life in England. Her reign is justly famed for its abundance of literary, poetic and dramatic talent. It was then that for the first time “Men of Letters” were a prominent feature in national life, and in that galaxy of artists the most brilliant star was her poet laureate.

Edmund Spenser was a charity boy, struggling for all his opportunities, supported at school by a benevolent Londoner, Robert Newell, but despite circumstances he was head boy. While a grammar school boy his benefactor died, and in the list of funeral expenses, still extant, is an item of two yards of cloth given Edmund Spenser to make a gown, that he might attend the funeral. This was the boyhood of the author of the “Faerie Queen.” There were multitudes in England whose parents, rolling in wealth, urged their children to study, but it was left for a charity student to lead his age and rank as one of the five great poets of the English tongue.

Pope Pius V. attempted to bring recreant England under the sway of the Church of Rome, and issued a bull of deposition against Elizabeth, attempting to enforce it by rebellion in the counties of the north. But he underestimated the grit and popularity of the queen, in whose interest the nation rose as one man. It was in the fervor of this patriotic ardor that Spenser published his first poems, awaking a sense of expectancy in the public mind, which he gratified later with his matchless glorification of Queen Bess in the “Faerie Queen.”

In the Elizabethan days even a poet of Spenser’s genius, whom the nation ardently admired, could not hope to live by poetic writing. In our own day Longfellow received from a weekly paper $4,000, or $20 a line, for his “Hanging of the Crane,” but Spenser’s pen could not have produced poems fast enough to have guaranteed him a living. Substantial favors from the royal court were indispensable unless he turned his mind and hand to other employments. Queen Elizabeth made it her established policy to encourage literature by special bequests, and Sir Philip Sidney, her confidential counselor, proposed an award to Spenser’s loyalty and genius, and she instructed Lord Cecil of the treasury to give him £100, but he remonstrated that it was too much for such indulgence as poetry, whereupon she permitted him to give what was reasonable, and consequently he gave nothing which measured his value of verse. Spenser’s need was so great that he was forced to remind the queen of her neglect, which he did in these lines:

“I was promised on a time, To have reason for my rhyme; From that time unto this season I received nor rhyme nor reason.”

This spicy reminder brought him his £100, and Lord Cecil a sharp expression of her dissatisfaction. He was eventually given an estate—Kilcolman Castle—of three thousand acres, in Ireland. He was also laureated, with a pension of £50. When circumstances at last favored his enjoyment of peace, that had been denied him from childhood, he fell on evil times. Tyrone, a bold and crafty Irish chieftain, rose in rebellion, attacking Kilcolman Castle so unexpectedly that the poet and his wife barely escaped with their lives, after their infant child had perished in the cruel flames. He was now forty-six years of age, and a grief-stricken, broken-hearted mourner for his castle, library and babe, he went to London in poverty, and before his friends realized that he was in the metropolis, this great bard, Queen Bess’s laureate, died of starvation, in a rude, comfortless room, on a cold day, without a friend to minister to his necessities. After death, honors innumerable were paid to his memory.

Thus lived and died the first who wore the laurel in the royal household of that long line that has graced the court circle for three hundred years. Of the poets who have worn the wreath in sunshine and shadow under the Tudors, Stuarts and Brunswicks, a second article will treat.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

COMMON SENSE IN THE AMERICAN KITCHEN.

BY LAURA LORAINE.

The great middle class of American society to which, perhaps, most of us belong, contains an unsolved element, a puzzling factor, a something for which, so far, we have found no satisfactory niche. We have more girls than we know what to do with. In every town we find them bright, loving, energetic, ambitious, but sphereless. They are not needed at home, and there are no husbands available, for whom they can make homes; their needs are many and the parental purse is half empty; their energies are boundless, and they have no channel in which to turn them. What can they do? It is a sorely perplexing question. They might copy, but the business men of all the towns from the lakes to the Gulf will tell you there are twenty copyists for every position; they might teach, but school teachers overrun every community; there are more seamstresses than seams; more clerks than counters, more bookkeepers than desks.

A bright, stylish, well informed and popular girl lately applied at the office of a friend of mine, asking for “anything at all. I’ll make the fires, sweep the floors, run errands, do any kind of work to earn a little money. I have tried everywhere, but there are no positions of any kind vacant.”

Another young girl, an excellent musician, inquiring for work, said: “I have been given an ordinary musical education, but I can’t use it here. No one needs a music teacher or organist of my medium ability. If I had $2,000 to fit myself to be a superior teacher there would be no trouble about a position; but see there,” pointing to a shabby glove, “that is absolutely my best pair of gloves, and one _must_ have clothes.” But these are common remarks, painfully common.

A gentleman who employs a large number of girls, remarked in my hearing recently: “One of my hardest trials is to listen to the pathetic stories of girls who come to me for work. Many of them are from good families, often moving in my own circle. They need something to do, and the positions which they are fitted to fill are overflowing. I can not give them work, and to refuse them seems cruel. There ought to be some way for such girls.”

But there is in this same class of society a second problem equally puzzling—the troublesome kitchen question, which haunts so many of those women who manage their own households and employ girls for “general housework.” They find it almost impossible to fill these positions with the proper kind of help. For such work they need willing, strong, reliable, lady-like girls; girls who will appreciate the importance of the domestic machinery, and who will be able not only to keep up the fire, but keep the cogs all greased and smoothly running. They need those who will take pleasure in the beauty of the home and the health of the family, who will be, in short, helpmates and supports to them, burdened as they are with social duties, care of children, and the sometimes unfathomable question of making the two ends meet. They need such helpers, but alas, not one in a thousand possesses such. There is one way to satisfy the want. It is to make the plus of our first problem satisfy the minus of the second. To so adjust matters that the thousands of girls waiting for work or dying under the strain of their poorly paid sewing, or of their weary days on their feet at the counter may take up the general housework in the thousands of homes where they are needed.

By many, such a solution is declared “out of the question.” The girls themselves flatly settle it by declaring they’ll starve first; the housekeepers give it little encouragement. It is generally conceded that it might be a good thing, but that “it is not practical.” But why not practical? Why is starvation preferable? Why can not the housekeepers adopt the plan? What objections are to be urged against such work by the girls themselves? They can earn more—we have no hesitation in saying that, for look at the figures in the case. Let us suppose that a girl has obtained a position as a copyist or clerk; she will receive $1.00 per day in our average towns—not more; and in nearly all cases absence, whether from sickness, trouble or a holiday, will be deducted; however, as employers differ in this particular, let us suppose that she have regular work, her yearly receipts will be in a year of 365 days, deducting fifty-two Sabbaths, $313. Of this, $4.00 per week at least will be spent for board, fire, lights and washing; she has a balance of $105. Put her in the school room at the ordinary salary of the primary teacher, $400, she will have a balance of $192, if her board be rated as above at $4.00 per week. Now this same girl in the kitchen doing general housework would have no difficulty in securing $3.00 per week. Her cash balance at the end of the year would be her entire wages, $156; $51 more than the girl at the counter, $36 less than the school teacher, but think of the difference in the expenses of the last two. A girl doing general housework needs no work dress the year round save calico. In this she will be becomingly and appropriately dressed. A teacher must, a large part of the year, dress in wool, a goods at least five times as expensive. She has a large item for the wear and tear of wraps, hats, gloves, and rubbers, and another for stationery and books. It is not unfair to say that an economical and industrious girl earning $3.00 per week at housework can more easily lay up $50 in a year and dress better on the street and for church than the school teacher on $400 per year. It is not a question of money. There is, if anything, a cash balance in favor of the housework.

Is it then the work which makes such places so undesirable? Housework is undeniably hard. There is much of what we call drudgery about it. There is scrubbing, and washing and ironing, but the drudgery of housework does not last the week through. There is but one washday in a week. Done faithfully and with spirit, it leaves in ordinary households a frequent hour for sewing or chatting, one or two afternoons of each week, and almost invariably every evening. More leisure, we honestly believe, than either a clerk, seamstress or teacher finds. It is healthy. Compare the effects upon the constitution, of housework and of those employments which keep the worker sitting or standing most of the day. Go over your list of acquaintances in kitchens, school rooms, shops, and at desks, and you will find that though the housework may make grimy hands, it leaves the spring in the step, that though it may tire the body it does not stretch the nerves, that it is followed by a good appetite and sound sleep, where too often the other pursuits exhaust the nerves, depress the spirits, and wear out the girls.

And it is certainly respectable work. Were the kitchen of a duchess vacant her ladyship would only be honored if she bravely broiled her own steak and washed up her dishes.

No one will say the work degrades. But though it is honorable, healthy, and pays, yet strangely enough the girl feels that she can not be anybody if she undertake it, and the world believes she has forfeited her position when she does. Strange anomaly, that what is respectable in the mistress of the house should unfit her maid for social standing. Yet there are reasons for it, and one weighty reason is the popular opinion of housework—the feeling that it is belittling drudgery, that it requires simply muscles and no brains, that it unfits a woman for intellectual pursuits and for the finer accomplishments. If this be true, then girls are wise to shrink from such work, for mere drudgery is of all things the most benumbing to one’s facility, and can not but degrade one in the end. But this is not true. Housework is a profession. Cooking is a fine art. Upon the skill and wisdom with which the daily work of a home is done depends the comfort, health and happiness largely of a family. The woman who manages your kitchen has it in her power to make perpetual discord in your home if she has not brains to manage your work; she can ruin your digestion if she does not understand the preparation of food and its effects in the human system; she can make a barn of your rooms if she has not artistic taste. The idea that the person who is to cook and serve your meals need have only big muscles and stout hands is totally false; she must be educated to her profession, must respect it and take pleasure in it, if she is to be a success.

Gradually the importance of household arts is becoming evident to the best educated women. The home and its duties have become subjects for serious study of late years, and to-day there is hardly a topic on which so much is being written. Schools of cookery are becoming prominent features of our larger cities. They are patronized by our first ladies. Their teachers receive salaries equal to the best of our high school teachers and are everywhere received as ladies. Neither going to a cooking school nor teaching in a cooking school unfits woman for society; yet she does the same kind of work there as she would in a kitchen. The difference is just here: The cooking school pupil mixes her bread with brains and salts her potatoes with wits, and the brains and wits make a profession of what we have been pleased heretofore to call drudgery. It is the lack of this seasoning that has outlawed kitchen work. It is not the bread and potatoes. Why should we not have girls who are superior housekeepers, who are known as rising young cooks? Why should not ambition and skill be respected and rewarded in this profession as well as in any other? No reason, certainly, but the poor one that the girls have not been able to feel yet, that cooking and housework are really important; that though housekeepers have begun to study the subjects, the ideas are yet in the abstract and have not yet reached the kitchen. It is, however, we may be sure, but a question of time. Housework will be honored as it deserves, and the girls who undertake this labor will feel that they are doing as elevating and as intellectual work, certainly, as they would do at the counter, copying desk or sewing table.

But however much girls may respect housework, and however thoroughly they may prepare for it, our problems can never be solved by them alone. The kitchen millennium is largely in the hands of the housekeeper. There must be a radical change in her opinion of the position, and in her treatment of her help. When reform in the treatment of help is suggested, a woman usually asks: “Do you mean that I ought to make my girl one of my family? that she should sit at my table?” The ordinary opinion is that this is the pivotal point in the discussion, and that in order to reform, the mistress must make a friend of her maid. It seems to me that this is a great mistake, and does not touch the vital point at all. It touches a social relation; while the relation between mistress and maid is purely a business one. A girl enters a house to do certain duties, not to be a part of the family. She does her work, to be sure, within the dwelling, but because she works there is no more a reason why she should become a companion than there is reason for the clerk, bookkeeper, tailor or dress-maker of the family becoming a companion. Not that she is not so good—she is often better; not that she is less a lady—she is often more—but simply because her relations with the housekeeper are business relations, and in the family circle it is very undesirable that these duties should be obtruded. To make her a part of the family and one of your friends, her whole social life must be changed. She has different views, different surroundings, different friends, from the lady of the house. Either the two different sets must be amalgamated in order that a social relation may exist, or mistress or maid must one of them give up her friends. A ridiculous idea, and one as undesirable to the one as to the other. The girl has no idea of being companion to the lady; when she complains of not being invited into the parlor, and to the table, it is generally because she feels that in some way, still does not understand exactly how, she is not respected as she deserves to be.

But, some one says, supposing the girl be one of our own set or from among our friends, what then? I have seen daughters in certain families doing the work, and I never saw any trouble about adjustment of relations. If the girl be your friend, then treat her as your friend, of course, and take her into the “inner courts.” But, as would generally be the case, if she be a stranger the relation is purely a business one, and what you owe to any one with whom you do business you owe her. But you do not owe it to her to make her a part of your family circle unless both you and she wish it.

It is a disagreeable fact that very many well bred women practice a system of “bossism” in their kitchens. They look upon their help as a necessary evil, a human machine, which by daily orders and scoldings they are to keep in running order. A vital mistake, for the girl who does your work is and ought to be regarded as holding an important position in your domestic economy. She is doing as honorable and necessary work in carrying out your directions as you in giving them. She sustains a relation as much to be respected as does a confidential clerk to your husband. Now, on this ground you owe her unfailing courtesy—a pleasant good morning, such as any well bred person will give to every one they meet, and kindly appreciation of her work and wants. This courtesy is oftenest wanting in giving directions. If she is to do the work, then it is due her that you plan with her, that you together talk over things. If her plans are better than yours, acknowledge it and give her her share of praise. If possible, inspire her with the feeling that this is “our” work, not merely “my work” that she is doing. When personal interest is inspired, almost invariably a home-like air will spring up in the kitchen. The girl who presides loses that belittling, humiliating feeling that she is only a drudge, and grows to know her real importance, to respect herself and her business, while the woman at the helm grows light hearted as she recognizes what a stanch, reliable support she has in this department of her home. Working together is the only successful plan for employer and _employé_.

Another just cause of complaint is the too common practice of making a girl extra work. She deserves consideration in this respect. If the breakfast hour is at eight o’clock, it is a breach of etiquette on the part of the family to stretch it out until nine. The duties of the day demand that certain work of the kitchen be done at certain times. “A woman’s work is never done” is in some households accepted as a natural law. No one hesitates to ask an extra service of the kitchen girl, or to interrupt her labors. No one thinks to apologize if they hinder her regular work, or to even give a reason for asking a troublesome service at a busy time in the day. Is it strange that girls refuse to undertake kitchen work, when they know by observation that thoughtful consideration and courtesy will be denied them by the family? When a girl keeps books, clerks, or teaches, her rights are recognized. She is as a rule treated like a lady. Her hours are respected; until housekeepers learn this first duty of the employer to the _employé_, it will not be strange if the better class of girls shun the work, however much they may need something to do.

There is a general impression—perhaps it would be true to say that it is a fact—that the comfort and surroundings of a girl are treated as matters of no importance. No special care is taken that her kitchen be homelike and airy, and her bedroom cheery. It is a most deplorable fact that in many households more attention is given to the stables than the kitchen, but it _is_ a fact. The kitchen is the household laboratory. It is imperatively necessary that it be sunny and cheery, but how many times it is dark and dingy, poorly furnished, and uncomfortably arranged. The girl who finds her home in the house of another deserves further, a pleasant room, which shall be hers and hers alone. It ought to be neatly furnished, comfortably lighted and heated, and is it purely sentimental to say that she should have a rocking chair, a sewing table, a book rack and pictures? No, no. It is simple humanity to make her surroundings beautiful. The same nature is in her as in you; not only has she your taste, but a similar social nature; and beside pleasant surroundings she ought to have some provision made for her company. A pleasant room in which to entertain them, and time to give to them without being disturbed. I know a family in which the girl is allowed occasionally to have her friends to tea or to invite a friend to spend Sabbath with her. It is understood that this company never interfere with the work, and so perfectly do the mistress and maid work together that there is never any friction resulting from this—to most women—unendurable liberty. On the contrary, a higher value is put by the girl on her position. She respects the place which she sees her mistress respects, and grows more and more of a lady as she sees that she is treated in all respects like one. In this same home no Christmas ever goes by without a present to the girl as much as to any other member of the family. A little token is always brought her after a trip. In a word, she is valued, and the appreciation of the family proves it to her.

It is not in the home only that a barrier exists which makes proud girls shrink from this work which otherwise they would willingly do. It is a queer comment on our breeding to say that two thirds of American ladies will not recognize on the street the girls who do their kitchen work. Absurd! Of course it is, and it is purely a _parvenu_ trick. The queen of England herself would blush at such a breach of both common sense and good breeding. No _lady_ will pass on the street any one she may know without recognition, least of all will she pass a faithful, devoted servant, with whom she is associated in daily work. And if it may chance that both are members of one church, then by all means their relation should be cordial and natural. The footing of the church is one of common brotherhood, and no matter what work one may do, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, there should be an equal position.

Would any girl needing work and competent to do housework hesitate to take a place where she knew she would be respected, cared for and honestly dealt with by the lady of the house? You say though she were fairly treated in her place she would be despised without. I must differ with you. The girl who would have the sterling independence and pluck to adopt housekeeping as a profession, and who would go into the kitchen of a lady who was willing to honor and uphold her in her course would not be despised. On the contrary, her very independence would raise her in value. The loss of social position entailed by doing housework is purely fancied. Under the conditions which I have enumerated there could be no loss of social standing. The fact that almost invariably kitchen girls have little position does not prove that the kitchen and its work deprive them of it. Many of the girls (not all, let us be thankful for it!) doing housework in America are foreigners, ignorant, stupid, and too often unprincipled. They are unfit for the work they do. They are hard to deal with. They care nothing for the interests of the house. They cast a stigma on the work. But the fact that work of so much importance is being dragged down is a strong reason for its rescue by large-minded women and sensible, independent girls. It is, in truth, a pioneer’s field of infinite possibilities. A field which, redeemed and possessed, will solve two of the perplexities of the women of the day—what shall we do with these strong, good girls of ours, and how shall we save our kitchens out of the hands of the vandals?

CHAUTAUQUANS AT HOME.

BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

After the grand review—dress parade, oratory, music, flags, and fireworks—comes the common, everyday routine—plow, pen, needle and nursery. Farewell to the holiday! All hail to the working day! Between the two there is a vast difference; and both are good.

There is a difference between the peal of morning bells rolling over lake and through forest trees, with the warble of wild wood birds, waking one up to a day of music and eloquence, Sunday clothes and good society, and the gruff call or dissonant bell ring of somebody whose business it is to tell you to be up and at it, at once and for all day, whether you feel like it or not.

There is a difference between sitting down to a breakfast that was prepared for you by servants, and getting up to build a fire and boil a kettle and broil a steak, and wait for all the household to come down and in, and get through, and give you a chance to do something else before a half dozen other things claim your time and thought, and thus make way for a dozen and one additional things that fill up the unprinted program of your own domestic or official “assembly” at home.

There is a difference between a precious Bible reading at eight o’clock, with all the sweetest texts in the book put into lines or clusters or circles like gems in royal treasure plate, and the care of a “mussed up” table, a pile of soiled dishes, or a naughty, nervous, or afflicted child.

There is a difference between one of “dear brother” Adam’s devotional conferences at nine o’clock, with the fresh experiences of many hearts (who for the time forget crying children and crowded kitchen) full of joy and peace and triumph, with the ingenious interpretations of old, or difficult, or out-of-the-way texts, with the sweet and fervent prayers that sound as if heaven were near and not afar off, and as if all the people one saw filling the Amphitheater were saints of God who had left the “exceeding glory” for an hour to give Chautauqua a taste of the celestial life—there is, I say, a difference between all this and the sweeping and dusting, the stewing and sweating, the clerking and teaching, the hammering and plowing—and all the rest of the indoor and outdoor exercises that usurp the blessed nine o’clock devotional conference hour, for which at home no bell rings, and to which no organ or solo welcomes.

There is a difference between the eleven o’clock lecture about life, science and philosophy, full of wit and wisdom, and the planning and toiling for a dinner in which something will scorch or spoil, and concerning which peevish and fault finding words are sure to be spoken by one or more who ought to be, but are not, considerate and sympathetic.

There is a difference between a two o’clock afternoon concert of gifted voices, stringed instruments, and organs, and an aching head and quivering nerves, where rest is refused you, and the hard, straining, dragging work _must_ go on, whether you like or loathe it.

There is a difference between the four o’clock “specialties,” full of help and instruction, and the insipid, fashionable call that wastes your time, disturbs your conscience, and makes you wish “society” to the dogs.

There is a difference between the precious five o’clock Round-Table or vesper hour, with its free conversations (like a family chat) about simple things connected with our beloved Circle, with its broad thoughts, its sweet friendships, its holy prayers, its soothing and uplifting “Day is dying in the West,” when the sunlight seems like a veritable revelation of the Shekinah, and the air is vibrant with divinest sympathies—there _is_ a difference between the Chautauqua five o’clock and the average five o’clock at home, in field, in street, in shop.

There is a difference between a Chautauqua evening of lectures, songs, burlesque, boat ride, camp-fire, reception, illuminated fleet and gorgeous fireworks, and the weariness of a routine life evening—the physical energy gone, the children out of sorts, misunderstandings in home, neighborhood or church, the prospect of a sleepless night, and of an enervating and irritating to-morrow.

A difference, to be sure, but then remember that these every-days should be glorified by the Chautauqua days. And remember that they test the sentiments enkindled and resolutions formed in the pleasurable excitements, devotional services, splendid processions and great audiences of the more favored season.

Fellow-students, let the charm of the Chautauqua days be felt through all the intervening days. By strong resolve put high thoughts, tender sympathies, devout aspirations, unwearying patience, into the most unsentimental, uncomfortable and vexatious experiences and emergencies of home and business life, and thus diminish the difference in real value between Chautauqua and other days.

BISHOP WARREN TO THE CLASS OF 1884.

It was a great disappointment to the class of ’84 that no word of greeting came to them on Commencement Day, this year, from the beloved “Chautauqua Bishop,” Counselor H. W. Warren. The mail was the miscreant, however. The letter did not reach Chautauqua on time, although sent promptly. Graduates of ’84, as indeed all members of the C. L. S. C., will be glad to read his cordial words:

“_Beloved graduates of the C. L. S. C., Class of 1884_:—I heartily congratulate you on the fact that you have mounted four rounds of the ladder of wisdom that stands on the earth, but reaches into the infinite heavens. It has taken a year to each step, and the number of the rounds is beyond our arithmetic.

“I congratulate you that you are intimately associated with one of the greatest intellectual movements of this or any age. It is great in the range of studies, in the unprecedented number of thousands pursuing them, and especially great in the eminently Christian standpoint from which all these studies are viewed.

“No discovery, theory or science in this age can escape being viewed from the Christian standpoint. This universe was made by and for Christ, its king, and nothing that opposes him shall prosper. Hence, you are on the right foundation, one that is everlasting. Build thereon, not gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, whereby you suffer loss, but build that which shall abide the fire that consumes the world.

“You have not come to this position by ways painful and humiliating, for wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. What a discovery for a world of misery—paths of pleasantness to possession of glory and power. This comes of keeping our heavenly Father in the midst.

“When the famous translator of the Bible into English promised to make the boy who followed the plow in England know more of God’s Word than certain famous prelates of his time, he showed that he knew where all great uplifts of humanity must begin, not with the well-to-do and content, but with those who had crying needs and high aspirations. So in this lifting up of nature into seen harmonies and revelation, till ‘We study the Word and the works of God’ with equal sense of their divine origin. The movement must begin with them full of ambition, and continue till many who follow the plan know more of the blessed harmony than others who are learned only in things of material nature. In this great work ‘Do not be discouraged.’

“I heartily congratulate the classes of 1882 and 1883 on such a worthy addition to their numbers.

“Let us all go forward, fearing no threatened night, expecting an occasional eclipse, to show us more stars than we should ever find by day, and looking beyond cry out:

“Joy, joy, to see on every shore Where my eternal growth shall be God’s sunrise bright’ning on before, More light, more life, more love for me.

“Yours truly,

HENRY W. WARREN, Counselor.

“PACIFIC SHORE, August 13, 1884.”

OUTLINE OF REQUIRED READINGS.

NOVEMBER, 1884.

_First Week_ (ending November 8).—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter i to “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Second Book,” page 87, to “Fourth Book,” page 105.

3. “The Bonds of Speech” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 2, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

* * * * *

_Second Week_ (ending November 15).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Law of Unity and Harmony,” page 58, to “Pronouns,” page 108.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from “Fourth Book,” page 105, to the middle of page 127.

3. “Home Studies in Chemistry,” and “Glimpses of Ancient Greek Life,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 9, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

* * * * *

_Third Week_ (ending November 22).—1. “Art of Speech,” from “Pronouns,” page 108, to chapter ix, page 160.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from the middle of page 127 to bottom of page 149.

3. “Temperance Teachings of Science” and “Greek Mythology,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 16, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

* * * * *

_Fourth Week_ (ending November 30.)—1. “Art of Speech,” from chapter ix to end of book, page 208.

2. “Preparatory Greek Course,” from page 150 to top of page 172.

3. “Kitchen Science and Art,” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

4. Sunday Readings for November 23 and November 30, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

WEEKLY PROGRAM FOR LOCAL CIRCLE WORK.

BRYANT’S DAY—NOVEMBER 3.

“Knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”

Music.

1. Select Reading—Autobiography of Early Life.

[This selection will be found in Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant;” also a part of it in _St. Nicholas_ for December, 1876, under the heading, “The Boys of my Boyhood.”]

2. Essay—Bryant’s Time and Contemporaries.

3. Recitation—The Burial of Love.

Music.

4. Select Reading—Selections from His Letters.

5. Essay—Bryant as an Editor.

6. Recitation—The Planting of the Apple Tree.

Music.

The following will be found interesting subjects for essays for this Memorial Day: The Bryant Vase, Mr. Bryant’s Travels, Home and Social Life of Bryant, Methods of Work, Mr. Bryant’s Friends and Companions. Information can be gathered from Parke Godwin’s “Life of Bryant,” two volumes (D. Appleton & Co., publishers); _Scribner’s Monthly_, August, 1878; “Letters of a Traveler” (G. P. Putnam); _Potter’s American Monthly_, February, 1879, “The Bryant Brothers;” _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1878, “The Death of Bryant,” poem by Edmund C. Stedman; Appleton’s Annual Cyclopædia for 1878; _Foreign Quarterly Review_ for August, 1832; _Democratic Review_ for March, 1842; _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for April, 1832; Griswold’s “Poets and Poetry of America;” _Appleton’s Magazine_, Vol. ix.; _International Review_, Vol. i., “The Writings of Bryant;” _The Lakeside Monthly_, Vol. viii., “Bryant as a Man.”

SECOND WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

_An Evening on the Scientific Readings of the Month._

Roll-call—With quotations from eminent Scientists.

1. Essay—Springs and Wells.

2. Select Reading—Herbert Spencer on the value of Scientific Studies.

3. Essay—The Causes of Intemperance.

Intermission.

4. Essay—Corn; Its History and Habits.

5. A Talk on Siphons, and How They Work.

6. Essay—Water and Its Works.

THIRD WEEK IN NOVEMBER.

_An English Evening._

Music.

1. The Linguistic Tree Explained (see p. 28, “Art of Speech”).

2. Essay—Hints to Young Writers.

Music.

3. Select Reading—Blair on Style and Its Characteristics.

4. Essay—Blunders of our Every Day Speech.

Music.

5. A fifteen minute quiz on “Art of Speech.”

6. Essay—Figures of Speech.

MONTHLY PUBLIC MEETING.

Prayer.

Music.

Roll-call—Responded to by quotations from Bryant.

1. Question Box.

2. Essay—Homer.

3. Map Exercise—The Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Music.

4. Recitation—Selection from Bryant.

5. Essay—Good English—How Attained.

6. A quiz on current history of the month.

7. General Review of “Questions and Answers.”

LOCAL CIRCLES.

C. L. S. C. MOTTOES.

“_We Study the Word and the Works of God._”—“_Let us keep our Heavenly Father in the Midst._”—“_Never be Discouraged._”

C. L. S. C. MEMORIAL DAYS.

1. OPENING DAY—October 1.

2. BRYANT DAY—November 3.

3. SPECIAL SUNDAY—November, second Sunday.

4. MILTON DAY—December 9.

5. COLLEGE DAY—January, last Thursday.

6. SPECIAL SUNDAY—February, second Sunday.

7. LONGFELLOW DAY—February 27.

8. SHAKSPERE DAY—April 23.

9. ADDISON DAY—May 1.

10. SPECIAL SUNDAY—May, second Sunday.

11. SPECIAL SUNDAY—July, second Sunday.

12. INAUGURATION DAY—August, first Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of C. L. S. C. at Chautauqua.

13. ST. PAUL’S DAY—August, second Saturday after first Tuesday; anniversary of the dedication of St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua.

14. COMMENCEMENT DAY—August, third Tuesday.

15. GARFIELD DAY—September 19.

* * * * *

The long summer vacation, delightful as it is, always causes a sad falling off in the local circle mails of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. These letters from the scattered circles of the country are like the visits of those long absent, or the cordial greetings of new friends. We miss them in the long months of rest and are glad to get back again to our table and see the letters flocking in.

As the year begins it may not be amiss for us to chat a little with our friends about the work which we must do together in these local circle pages. It is something like a grand reception. No one can stay very long, and one can hardly hope to be more than introduced to the company—unless, indeed, they happen to be particularly famous in words or deeds. The letters that come to us will all sooner or later be noticed by us; but do you not see how impossible it is that all should be given in full? For the sake of the great Circle we must abridge each interesting letter, much as we might wish otherwise. And then, we really can not introduce you unless you will tell us your name and residence. Of course you _mean_ to do so. We know that well enough, but you would all be surprised to know how many reports come to us nameless and homeless. There is nothing to do but put them in our waste paper basket, much as we dislike to be so rude to even unknown friends. Again, you must not complain of us if your report does not appear in the first issue after it is sent. Please remember that the local circle department of THE CHAUTAUQUAN is prepared for the printer a month before the appearance of the magazine, so that copy must be on our table at least five weeks before the appearance of a number, to insure its appearance in a particular issue. Be sure that THE CHAUTAUQUAN will open its doors to everybody that comes, and just as long as there is “standing room” in this Local Circle Hall, will gladly admit you. And now for the letter bag.

* * * * *

_New Hampshire_ has given its own popular title to the KEENE local circle, “The Granite C. L. S. C.” This circle is made up of ’87s, having been formed in the autumn of ’83 with an enrollment of forty members. They meet at the houses of the members, for, as they say, and we believe them right, the meeting at the homes cultivates a better social feeling. During the year they followed a most inviting plan of work, of which they give a brief but suggestive _résumé_. “Our method of work has been varied. Each study has been thoroughly investigated. There has been familiar conversation in regard to any matter not well understood, and the question box has been an interesting feature of the evening. Latterly the plan was adopted of assigning to different members topics upon which to prepare questions. They were printed by means of a hectograph, and distributed among the members previous to the next meeting. The design was to bring out all points of interest under consideration. The result has been satisfactory. A year of the course of study upon which we entered, so gladly and happily, has quickly passed, and we are already reaping the benefits in our everyday life. A few individuals can read in a desultory way with great profit, perhaps, but the majority require system and regularity in order to gain good results. Careless reading is a thing of the past. We have learned to think. Great changes have been wrought in our tastes for literature. We seek for something ennobling, striving to store the mind with enduring knowledge. The fifteenth of September we again organized with nearly our original number. Although we have done a good work we feel we can accomplish more in the future. We have a good start, and trust we shall land safely in port in ’87.”

Another circle of the Granite State just reported to us is the “Ivy Leaf,” of NEWTON JUNCTION. A lively band of busy people they are, too, numbering in their year-old circle of eight members, a railroad station agent, a telegraph operator, a school teacher, a music teacher, and so on. The best and most efficient members are often those who work the busiest during the day. Our “Ivy Leaf” friends have our heartiest wishes for success in their coming year’s work.

* * * * *

_Vermont._—The “Invincibles,” of BRADFORD, organized their band of seven only last March, but they have found the undertaking so pleasant that the secretary has written us a glowing account of their work and methods. She adds a couple of personals too good to be lost: “Our president is Mrs. A. M. Dickey, who graduated in 1882, one of the first two C. L. S. C. graduates in Vermont. She is energetic and self-sacrificing, and with her for our leader we are sure to succeed. One of our members has a drive of four miles to attend meetings, and during the past two years has lost but one session. This will be appreciated by those who know Vermont in winter. It is a sample of the ‘Invincibles.’”

* * * * *

_Massachusetts._—We shall expect great things from the New England, and particularly the Massachusetts, division of the C. L. S. C. this year. The wonderful enthusiasm which animated the Framingham Assembly ought to keep the circles at the front the year through. Certainly they have begun well in their reports, at the head of which we want to put the modest announcement of the faithful class of ’82, sent us by their secretary, and let it be a warning to their successors, that they must take care or they will be outdone by the veterans: “At the Framingham Assembly, class ’82 held several meetings. The following officers were elected: President, Mr. Alfred Pike, Holliston, Mass.; Vice Presidents, Dr. E. M. White, Boston, Mass., and Mrs. M. J. Farwell, Brocton, Mass.; Secretary, Mrs. M. A. F. Adams, East Boston, Mass. Mrs. M. J. Farwell will write a poem for our reunion at Framingham next year, and a hymn will be written by Mrs. Rosie Baketel. Rev. O. S. Baketel, of Greenland, N. H., was elected president of the Society of the ‘Hall in the Grove.’”

BOSTON reports two circles unknown to us before. The “People’s Church” and the “Berkeley” circles. The first is under the leadership of the pastor of this famous church, Rev. J. H. Hamilton, and, although organized only a year ago, is a most enterprising circle. As yet it is small in numbers, there being scarcely twenty-five members, but it makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks numerically. This circle issues a paper semi-monthly, called the _People’s Church Chautauquan_, the editorship being undertaken by each member in turn, the other members furnishing articles upon such subjects as the leader may assign. This lively little body is not satisfied with prescribing routine programs, but it plans and carries out a different program for each evening, and in this way the exercises do not grow monotonous. The program for the evening of the Shakspere Memorial was especially interesting.

The “Berkeley” circle was formed in the fall of ’82: again in October of ’83 the circle was reorganized, meeting alternate Wednesday nights, and “although,” as they write in their letter of June last, “many things seemed to conspire against us, and we lost several members from various causes, and although the rain and alternate Wednesdays seemed synonymous, yet our circle ‘still lives’ and grows. Amongst our number we have a Harvard graduate of ’80, to whom our success has been largely due during the year just now at a close.” We hope it will not be long before the faithful “Berkeleys” will report their forty members gathered together for another year of work. A circle undaunted by loss of members and rain storms has the right sort of mettle.

There has been lying on our table all summer the following charming testimonial (received too late for the July issue) from READVILLE, a part of the town of Hyde Park, a short distance from Boston. It paints so happy a picture of home study one loves to linger over it: “Mother and I are the only ones here in Readville who are studying. We have all of the books, encyclopædias and books of reference. We read to each other and comment on what we have studied. Hardly a day goes by but most grateful words of praise for what the C. L. S. C. is doing, fall from our lips. We enjoy THE CHAUTAUQUAN exceedingly. It is a library in itself. A great deal of the work is review to me, but is just what I want. Believe that none of the thousands of Chautauquans are more grateful than mother and myself.”

And to follow this we have a “Pansy Triangle” of farmers’ daughters, two of whom belong to CUMBERLAND, _Rhode Island_, the third to NORTH ATTLEBORO, _Massachusetts_. Busy girls, and living far apart as they do, yet they find the time and make the exertion necessary for frequent meetings. “Our girls,” indeed, are beginning to take a very prominent part in local circle work. From every quarter we hear of their busy coteries. The latest is the TOTTENVILLE (_Staten Island, N. Y._) circle. They organised a year ago, and at the close of last year’s readings reported themselves more enthusiastic (if that could be) than they were in the beginning. Once in every two weeks they met at the house of some member of the class and spent two or three hours in talking over the readings; each member prepared a list of ten questions on one or several of the readings required; these questions were answered by the class from memory if possible. Sometimes in connection with the questions one of the Chautauqua games was played. Thus the meetings passed quickly and were thoroughly enjoyed by each member.

A pretty program containing the exercises arranged for each weekly meeting of the month has been received from NORTH CAMBRIDGE. It is printed by hectograph on an engraved card, thus making both an inexpensive program and a pretty souvenir of the month’s work. Large circles which have their exercises arranged for each evening will do well to consider this manner of arranging their work.

* * * * *

_Rhode Island._—In the beautiful town of PAWTUCKET, busy with mills and factories as it is, there was organized last January a local circle of fifteen members, which has been doing most excellent work. “Enthusiastic Chautauquans,” they report themselves. We trust we shall hear from them often during the coming year.

* * * * *

_New York._—In a letter received in June from the secretary of the “Literary Section of the Rochester Academy of Sciences” (ROCHESTER), there was a pleasant prophecy expressed that the twenty-three members which the circle then numbered might be able this fall to add a cypher to the right hand of the number and send us an account of two hundred and thirty enrolled members, and they add in hearty appreciation of our words: “In a city so full of cultivated people as ours there ought to be double that number to which the course would be a blessing.”

The “Spare Minute” circle, of NEW YORK CITY, is one of the many which owe their origin to the interest of one or two readers. During the year 1882-83 there were two young ladies reading the course together, and finding it so interesting they tried to interest others. Soon three young ladies joined them, and in February they formed a circle, holding meetings once a month. The circle soon numbered seven, five ladies and two gentlemen. At a “special,” June 3d, they spent a most delightful two hours and a half with Latin Literature and Roman History. Their pastor, Rev. A. W. Halsey, of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church, met with them and took charge of the meeting. This circle wrote us of their plans for a C. L. S. C. picnic to be held in the summer. Was it a success?

* * * * *

_New Jersey._—Everybody found the “Pictures from English History” in the course of last year a very delightful book, and at MARION, the circle of six organized late in the year was so pleased that they read it aloud, taking in connection with it the text-book on English history and the questions from THE CHAUTAUQUAN. A very interesting plan it must have proved. Our Marion friends hope this year to be able to report an increase of members and of interest in the work in that place.

* * * * *

_Pennsylvania._—The reorganizing of the local circles has brought out many plans for the important work of collecting the old members again into the ranks, and of bringing in new members. That wonderfully energetic body, the ALLEGHENY circle of the class of ’87, did a capital thing in sending out a large number of copies of the following letter:

“ALLEGHENY, September 24, ’84.

“_Dear Friend_:—The Allegheny circle, class of ’87, C. L. S. C., will hold their first meeting for the term 1884-5, at 7:30 p. m., on Monday, September 29, 1884, at 55 Ohio Street, corner East Diamond. Members and friends cordially invited to be present.

“Have you any friends who may be made happier, wiser, and better, by using the spare moments of life in useful, pleasant and profitable reading? If so, bring them with you. Do you know any persons who have read part of the C. L. S. C. course, who, becoming discouraged, have given up the work? Speak to such ones and induce them to begin again and finish the course. We invite all to meet with us who wish to enter upon a four years’ course of useful reading, under the direction and wisdom of some of the best educators of the country.”

They wisely preceded this by issuing for September 9th the following invitation: “Yourself and friends are invited to attend the first annual picnic excursion of the Allegheny circle, C. L. S. C., class of ’87, to be given Tuesday, September 9th, 1884, at Conoquenessing Grove and Rocks.”

Similar to the letter was a notice sent out by the circle at OMAHA, _Nebraska_, in connection with the Popular Education circular, which explains the methods of the C. L. S. C. The following announcement was included in the notice: “the branch organized in this city last fall, and known as the Omaha C. L. S. C., is now arranging for next year’s work. A preliminary meeting will be held in Y. M. C. A. Hall, September 16th, at eight o’clock. All members of the circle, and those intending to read the course for 1884-5, are invited to be present.” These plans are always effective, and they have the added value of being simple.

At ELDRED (_Pa._), the local circle was reorganized in September with an increased membership. In honor of Chautauqua’s distinguished visitor from England, the circle will hereafter be known as the “Fairbairn Circle.”

We conclude from the encouraging report which has reached us from BERWICK, of the past work of the circle there, that they have undoubtedly resumed work again this fall. The second year of the class of ’86 closed very successfully, with an increased membership. The interest manifested at the outset continued to the last. The advancement and thoroughness in study were marked. Through the medium of the Y. M. C. A. the C. L. S. C. enjoyed lectures during the year from eminent Chautauquans. Among them were Dr. Lyman Abbot, Wallace Bruce and Mr. Frank Beard.

The CARBONDALE circle is a flourishing, wide-awake member of the great C. L. S. C. It numbers among its members clergymen, bankers, lawyers, business men, and many of the most accomplished ladies of the city, prominent among the latter, the popular author, Mrs. G. R. Alden, with whose _nom de plume_, “Pansy,” the class of 1887 has been christened. The circle closed its first year June 25th with an “English Night.” The “Customs,” “Life,” “Holidays,” “Parks,” “Roads,” etc., were subjects of short and pithy essays. The London _Graphic’s_ bird’s-eye view of London from a balloon was the occasion of much interest and inquiry. Mrs. Alden transformed the circle into a party of tourists, and made a delightful and instructive excursion to England (on paper). After the circle’s return from England the leader of the Round-Table surprised the circle by an innovation on the “question slip” plan, in shape of ices and other refreshments. The circle finds the evenings are too short, and are discussing the advisability of meeting oftener. Its second year’s work begun on Garfield day, by a public meeting announced by press and pulpit, reviewing the past year’s reading and taking in new members.

Another wide awake Pennsylvania circle is that at ELIZABETH. It was organized just a year ago. Since that time it has given two public entertainments which were well received. At the last meeting, when the circle adjourned for three months, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: “_Resolved_, That we have found pleasure and profit in pursuing the course of reading laid down by the C. L. S. C., and in attending the meetings of the local circle, and we hereby individually pledge ourselves that if circumstances permit we will follow up the readings until we have completed the four years’ course.”

The “Whiting” circle (so called from its president, Dr. H. C. Whiting, of Dickinson College), of CARLISLE, had enrolled last year its first year of work—thirty-two members. Their methods of work were excellent. The circle resolved itself into groups of five or six, to meet each week for the study of the several subjects. The meeting of the whole circle was generally held monthly. Some time prior to the general meeting the president arranged a program and assigned work to the members. The plan was varied from time to time. Occasionally a whole work was divided into topics to be reviewed and summed up in essays. Again, special subjects connected with a work were assigned for essays; then again, questions were given to the several members, upon which preparation was to be made, and answers rendered by the members of the circle, with comments by the president. These exercises have been supplemented by excellent music. Last year they prophesied a material increase in this year’s membership. We trust it has come.

* * * * *

_Ohio._—The closing exercises of the “Home” circle, of CLEVELAND, were of more than usual interest. They were held June 23d, nearly every one of the twenty-one members being present. A fine literary and musical entertainment was given, and refreshments were served, after which the president, W. P. Payne, delivered a very forcible address on the Chautauqua Idea. We wish we had space to quote it, but can give only the closing lines: “Sooner or later we shall learn that the great Man works not before men with gold and greed, with affectation and noise; but withdrawing himself, alone with his soul, into the inner temple, in solitude solves the problems of highest and deepest interest to men. I know not who the coming Man shall be, but I believe that to Chautauqua shall be the glory of his coming and the praise.”

Another Ohio circle of great interest is that of TALLMADGE. It was organized in October, 1883, with six members, all of whom belong to the class of ’87. Eight local members were added to that number before the close of the year. The meetings, which are held semi-monthly, were well attended. A charming program was carried out on Longfellow’s day.

About the time that the Tallmadge circle came into existence, a pleasant circle was formed at FINDLAY, of the same state. The membership grew to the goodly proportion of twenty-nine regular members, and reported to us at the closing of the year that their meetings had been unusually profitable and pleasant.

* * * * *

_Indiana._—We are indebted to the TERRE HAUTE circle for one of the most beautiful programs which has ever reached us. It is satin backed and hand-painted. A lovely little memento of what must have been a charming evening. The annual reception of the club was the occasion of its use, and a correspondent writes us that one of these pretty affairs was laid at every one of the sixty plates spread for the banquet. The painting was all done by members of the circle. Prominent on the program was an admirable poem, “A Symposium of Classic Tales,” by Rev. Alfred T. Kummer, of the Centenary M. E. Church in Terre Haute. We quote the opening stanzas, and had we space we would gladly give it all:

All hail! ye noble seekers after truth; All hail! ye spirits growing still in youth, Though years roll on, and Time, with hand of strength, Plows furrows deep, but brings us home at length.

Chautauquans come with joyful hearts to-day, Their homage true, and faithful vows to pay To the Circle wide, a star of holy light, A Circle blazing with its truth and right.

With brow of care, and smoother brow of youth, With eye of fire, and strength of conquering truth, We come with brilliant hopes for days to come, To glance in haste at days forever gone.

We come to-night from sacred desk divine, We come from noble learning’s sacred shrine, We come from halls where justice righteous reigns, We come from happy homes where peace remains.

In learning’s name, in friendship’s pure delight, To close a happy year, we meet to-night; Chautauquans all, our courage to renew, To plight our vows to all that’s pure and true.

* * * * *

A new Memorial day has been adopted by the DANVILLE Circle, in honor of the late Bishop Simpson. This circle closed a prosperous year’s work on June 20th. And at MARTINSVILLE of the same state the circle closed the year by a brilliant reception at the opera house. Several hundred invitations were sent out, and the house was filled with an appreciative audience. From the neighboring town of SPENCER a C. L. S. C. delegation of twenty-two ladies was present. The Martinsville circle furnished a rich program, and sent their friends away deeply impressed by the sterling worth of the C. L. S. C. work. We are pleased to notice also a new circle of twelve members at WEST NEWTON, organized in November, 1883. We hope to hear the particulars of their work soon.

* * * * *

_Illinois._—A letter from PANA contains a suggestion which might, we are sure, be adopted successfully by any circle: “As an addition to our program, each lady is requested to bring to every meeting some selection that seems to her particularly fine. It is to be written out, so that it may be pasted into a book that shall be kept as a sort of memorial of the society.” This circle writes that they had their first public entertainment this winter, which their friends kindly pronounced a success.

* * * * *

_Michigan._—We are pleased to introduce for the first time a circle of fourteen in GRAND RAPIDS. They write us that they have been enjoying a prosperous existence since October last, and are looking hopefully forward to an increase this year.

* * * * *

WISCONSIN.—Two more Wisconsin circles from whom we have heard before in these columns have recently sent us notices of interesting sessions. At MARKESAN the circle commemorated Garfield’s death by an afternoon session, at which an able program was carried out.

From RUSK a lady writes: “We are only a small circle of six members living in the country, but try to be very zealous Chautauquans. To say that we are thankful for the institution of the C. L. S. C. would but feebly express our feelings, for we truly feel that it brightens our homes and helps us enjoy life. We are all housekeepers, and have all its attending cares, yet we feel that the pleasure we get from these readings more than compensates us for the little additional labor in the direction of the C. L. S. C. We are doing the work much more thorough this year than our first year, and find the better we do our work the more pleasure, as well as profit, we derive from it.”

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_Minnesota._—The “Flour City” circle of MINNEAPOLIS writes that “as we could not expect to visit Chautauqua this summer we decided to celebrate the closing of our first year at our own lovely Minnetonka. In answer to an invitation from a lady member of our circle we went to the lake to spend the day with her; and a wonderful day we had, going by sail twenty miles to the cottage, where we were met by words and faces full of welcome.” At the gay banquet, which was one of the features of the day, they found a unique device: “As we sat down to the sumptuously loaded and elegantly decorated table, some curiosity was aroused at the sight of a small sack by the side of each plate, filled with something, and tied with bright ribbon and labeled ‘F. C. C., 1887.’ Presently, as one noticed that the sacks were of fine bolting cloth, through which the flour began to sift, the riddle was solved. The badge of the ‘Flour City’ circle is a sack of flour, and we wore them proudly home. Next dinner was discussed, and everything proved to be of the best—appetites and all. Then came the feast of reason, and so pleasant did we find it that we lingered quite as long as over that of strawberries and cream.” Fishing, boating and gathering lilies finished their happy day. The “Flour City” circle certainly could not have had a more delightful time—even at Chautauqua.

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_Missouri._—The third annual meeting of the literary societies of CARTHAGE took place in June. A C. L. S. C. class is one of the prominent members of the association, and on this occasion, as its part of the entertainment, took the audience on an imaginary tour. The _Carthage Press_ thus speaks of the conductors of the tour: “Mrs. Ross was a bright companion in the trip from Carthage to New York; the pictures of the ocean voyage and a visit to Scotland were given by Mrs. Nailon; Miss Belle Ross escorted the party to England in so charming a manner that all hated to give her up, but Mrs. Clarkson proved a worthy successor as she guided them through France; Germany received so original and philosophical a treatment from Mrs. Rombauer that we would fain have lingered longer in the Fatherland; Mrs. Miller took us to Greece and explained entertainingly all the wonders to be seen there; Miss Hayne showed ancient Rome; Miss Devore’s description of the Rome of to-day was so well written and so vivid that we felt as if we had really stood in old Rome in the rooms of new Rome; Mrs. Heywood gave the trip from Italy home to America; and Mrs. Case closed with an entertaining account of a visit to Lake Chautauqua.” A capital idea for some of our friends who are longing for “something new.” At about the same time of this celebration the ST. LOUIS circles, “Vincent” and “Round Table,” held their third annual meeting. These two circles number jointly about seventy members, and they prepared for this entertainment an exceedingly fine program. One attractive feature of the entertainment was the “Tangent,” a monthly paper made up of original articles contributed by the members of the circles, and read by an editor. The idea is to develop and strengthen any latent literary talent possessed by the members, and to furnish an audience for their productions without the embarrassment of making known the authorship.

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_Kansas._—From EMPORIA we had the pleasure of receiving in June a pleasant letter from a faithful C. L. S. C. worker in that town. The circle was organized only a year ago, but soon became so large that it had to be divided. Our correspondent thinks it would be hard to find more enthusiastic workers. She says: “We have resolved to be ever true and faithful in the grand work. It is generally understood that nothing but sickness—not even Kansas mud—will keep us at home Chautauqua evenings. We have imitated Cæsar in his plan of a speedy construction of bridges—ours, not across the Rhine, but across the muddy street, for some of us live off the sidewalk.”

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_California._—Our thanks are due to the “Vincent” local circle of SACRAMENTO, for a copy of their excellent rules of government. From the appearance and character of these regulations we conclude that our “Vincent” friends have come to stay.

In the scattered farming community of SAN LORENZO, across the bay from San Francisco, there has been for five years a lively circle of C. L. S. C. workers. It began with but two members, and has increased until there are eleven workers in the club. “During the nine months’ study of each year scarcely a week has passed,” writes the secretary, “without our meeting together for review and talk over the lesson. We have never allowed ourselves to fall behind in the course as marked out in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”

In a letter received too late for the July issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the secretary of the YUBA CITY local circle writes: “I believe our local circle has had a report in your columns every year, and we desire to be represented this, our third year, which finds us even more zealous (were it possible) than any preceding one, and realizing more and more each day the great benefit of this systematic course of reading. Our method is to carefully go through the lesson as it is marked out in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and to have a general exchanging of ideas and views on all its principal topics. This consumes so much of our time that we have had as yet but little outside work, such as essays, and the like. We observe all Memorial days.”

LOS ANGELES has a very interesting and prosperous circle. It was formed in 1881 with twelve members. In 1882-3 they kept up the readings, but becoming discouraged they abandoned the regular meetings until October of 1883, when a circle of thirty-nine members was reorganized. The plan which their president has found most successful has been to bring carefully prepared questions into the class and encourage free conversation on the book study of the week. The topics in THE CHAUTAUQUAN she assigns to some gentleman or lady particularly interested in the special themes, who comes prepared with illustration, demonstration, and experiment, to instruct and please. The work grows, and its influence is being felt in the strangely mixed populace of that growing coast city.

Another Pacific Coast Branch is that of BAKERSFIELD. Its members, twenty-five in all, include ministers, lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, bankers, and their wives, together with a large number of lads and lassies, most of whom are enthusiastically interested in their studies. There is one German lady now in her sixty-second year, who is endeavoring to compete with other members of the class, and will come out victorious if she continues to be as thorough in the next three years as she has been in the past few months. The evening gatherings are enlivened occasionally by essays, readings, music, etc. This circle predicts for the coming year a membership of forty. We hope that the prediction may be verified.

Mrs. Mary H. Field, the competent and enthusiastic secretary of the Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C., has sent us the following full report of last year’s work in her district: “The Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C. has grown and prospered during the past year. Its affairs were all so well ordered and arranged by her predecessor that but little remained for the secretary to do save to carry out their good designs. It has been like sailing on a smooth sea in a well manned ship, with all the machinery in perfect order, and with a fresh breeze filling every sail. The work has consisted chiefly in an immense correspondence, the issuing of three thousand circulars, the writing of series of newspaper articles, and the keeping of records and accounts.

“I have the pleasure of reporting six hundred and twenty-four new members, and the renewal of more than two hundred old members. About forty circles are reported as being in prosperous condition. Probably in no other part of the United States is there so scattering a population as on this coast, and it is in the isolated hamlets, the solitary homes, and in the one man or one woman “circles” that the C. L. S. C. does its most salutary work.

“Southern California is a growing center of C. L. S. C. influence. The secretary deeply regrets that Monterey is so far from Los Angeles and San Diego, and that those excellent circles are not represented there.

“It has been my sad duty during the past year to write the little star, which means _deceased_, against several names in our record. Against one, that of Mrs. M. H. McKee, of San José, I mingled deep personal regret with my official task. Alas for us that one so bright, so useful, so variously endowed, should have passed from earth in the midst of her years and usefulness.”

THE C. L. S. C. CLASSES.

CLASS OF 1885.

“_Press on, reaching after those things which are before._”

OFFICERS.

_President_—J. B. Underwood, Meriden, Conn. _Vice President_—C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio. _Treasurer_—Miss Carrie Hart, Aurora, Ind. _Secretary_—Miss M. M. Canfield. _Executive Committee_—Officers of the class.

Class badges may be procured of either President or Treasurer.

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From Carlisle, Pa., we have received a note announcing the death of a member of the class of ’85. “In August last Miss Annie M. Green ‘finished her course’ on earth. Our fellow student was ambitious, energetic, and enthusiastic. She has ‘passed through the gates’ of the eternal city, there to reach those heights of knowledge which will satisfy her loftiest aims, while we who remain ‘press on, reaching after those things which are before.’”

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All communications for the ’85 class page should be addressed to C. M. Nichols, Springfield, Ohio, so that they will reach him by the 10th day of the month before the date of the issue.

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The purpose in raising a Memorial Fund is to purchase a memento for presentation to the faculty next Commencement, by way, we suppose, of a well-advertised “surprise.”

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How many members of the class of ’85 are still in the ranks? Will Miss Kimball inform us?

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Ladies writing the officers of the class will please affix “Miss” or “Mrs.” to their names, as may be the truth in their cases, so that no mistakes may be made by such of the members of the class as are bachelors!

President Underwood is in charge of a circle at Meriden, Conn., is also president of an association of thirty-three Sunday-schools, has three meetings to preside over during the next ninety days, two addresses to make, and is to tell two circles, in a lecture, why he is a Chautauquan. Then he has an exacting and absorbing private business to attend to! Evidently Mr. Underwood is not a loafer!

NOTES FROM THE CLASS OF ’85 AT SOUTH FRAMINGHAM.

The Class of ’85, N. E. Branch, had their headquarters at the N. E. Assembly in the Congregational Social Tent. Their thanks are due to Rev. G. B. De Bevoise, Sunday-school Secretary for Massachusetts, for his courtesy and kindness in opening the tent to them.

Prize examinations of the class of ’85 in English Literature and in American Literature were held. The prizes offered were a copy of Whittier’s Birthday Book and Longfellow’s Birthday Book, with the autographs of the class. Miss Jennie M. Daniels, of West Newton, Mass., took the prize in American Literature, and Miss M. L. Stevens, of Readville, Mass., in English Literature.

We regret that our faithful secretary and treasurer, Mr. A. B. Comey, felt compelled to resign. He has shown great interest in the organization, and spent much time and energy and money in its interest.

Miss Antoinette Tucker, of Hopkinton, Mass., the new class secretary, has been one of the chief supporters of the large C. L. S. C. Reading Class in her town, and is greatly interested in the whole movement.

The class had a social reunion on the evening of July 25th. Fifty members were present. They were honored by the presence, as an invited guest, of ex-Governor Claflin, who was one of the chief supporters of the whole assembly at Lakeview. An address of greeting was given by Rev. J. E. Fullerton, president of the class. Remarks were also made by J. C. Haskell, of Auburn, Me., one of the new vice presidents, and the retiring secretary, A. B. Comey, Esq. An original poem was read by Miss Tilden, of Chelsea. Recitations followed by Miss Evans and Miss Daniels. A poem entitled “Framingham Bells,” of March, 1882, was read by the author, Miss Phœbe A. Holder, a member of the class. A song written for the occasion by Miss Evans was sung. Miss Tayler and Miss Stevens added much to the occasion by their solos.

Mr. J. C. Haskell, the new vice president, is leader of a class in Auburn.

Miss Celia E. Valentine, of New Gloucester, Me., vice president, is one of the leading spirits in the large circle in her town.

Mr. B. T. Thompson, of South Framingham, Mass. (they call him Dea), is a man whose time and purse are generously enlisted in moral, educational, and religious interests.

The class voted to send around circular letters during the winter, that the members might become more interested in each other and learn the different plans of conducting circles. All the members of the class of ’85 in New England are requested to send a postal card containing their names and addresses, and all the other pleasant words they choose to the president, Rev. J. E. Fullerton, that none may be forgotten.

TO NEW ENGLAND MEMBERS OF ’87.

NEW ENGLAND SECRETARY’S REPORT.

At the Lakeview Assembly, in South Framingham, Mass., the New England branch of the class of ’87 was well represented, three hundred and fifty members of the class being on the ground at different times. In the procession on “C. L. S. C. Day” nearly three hundred members of ’87 followed the Pansy banner. The class gave proof of enterprise and enthusiasm from the very first; its class meetings were held on every day of the Assembly—except Sunday—and were well attended. Class headquarters were secured and tastefully decorated. To meet the expenses of headquarters, banner, and other expenditures, the members present at Lakeview were invited to contribute twenty-five cents each into the treasury. This contribution was optional with each member. One hundred and eighty-seven responded, supplying enough funds to meet the expenses during the Assembly, and leave $16.82 in the treasury.

On the evening of “C. L. S. C. Day” the ’87s held a social reunion at their headquarters, where a pleasing musical and literary entertainment was given by members of the class.

Much of the class enthusiasm was doubtless due to the president, Rev. George Benedict, of Hanson, Mass., who was untiring in his efforts to secure the highest degree of class prosperity.

On Friday, July 25, the following class officers were elected for this year:

Presidents—Rev. F. M. Gardner, Lawrence, Mass.; Mr. E. A. Gowen, Biddeford, Me.; Rev. Benj. Merrill, Swanzey, N. H.

Vice Presidents—Mrs. F. B. Gilman, Springfield, Vt.; Rev. George Benedict, Hanson, Mass.; Mr. O. A. Jeffers, Pawtucket, R. I.; Miss Mary Bradford, Mystic Bridge, Conn.

Secretary—Sadie M. Corey, Brighton, Mass.

Assistant Secretary—Miss Nellie F. Crocker, Providence, R. I.

Treasurer—Mrs. David Morrill, Allston, Mass.

A constitution was adopted by the class; in accordance with Article 4 of this constitution, the executive committee has appointed the first mid-year reunion to be held in Boston, on the day after Thanksgiving, at one o’clock p. m., in the vestry of the People’s Church, corner of Columbus Avenue and Berkeley Street. This will be a social reunion, with an entertainment comprising vocal and instrumental music, a class poem, and an address. At this meeting the date and place of the second mid-year reunion will be announced. A few items of business will come before the meeting, the most important being in regard to hiring or building a class headquarters at Lakeview for next year. The executive committee will try to make this reunion an enjoyable occasion, and it is hoped that as many as possible of New England ’87s will be present.

S. M. COREY, Sec. N. E. ’87.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

“THE ART OF SPEECH,” VOL. I., AND “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.”

BY A. M. MARTIN,

General Secretary C. L. S. C.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “THE ART OF SPEECH.” VOL. I.

1. Q. What is the number of distinct tongues now employed? A. It is variously estimated from eight to nine hundred.

2. Q. From what tongues are elements taken that our English speech of to-day possesses? A. From every important tongue on the globe.

3. Q. To what three languages is the indebtedness of the English tongue disclosed, in almost every sentence framed? A. The French, the Latin, and the Greek.

4. Q. From what period does modern English speech date? A. From about 1550 A. D.

5. Q. For the two preceding centuries how is English speech characterized? A. As old English.

6. Q. For the next preceding two centuries, 1150 to 1350, how is English speech denominated? A. As Semi-Saxon, the outgrowth of the Norman invasions and conquests.

7. Q. What is the period called for five hundred years preceding the Semi-Saxon period? A. The Anglo-Saxon period.

8. Q. From what did the Anglo-Saxon speech spring? A. From the mingling of Teutonic dialects on British soil.

9. Q. To what great primitive family of languages does the Teutonic belong? A. The Aryan.

10. Q. From whom are those who used this primitive Aryan speech supposed to have descended? A. From Japhet, one of the sons of Noah.

11. Q. By what nations are the languages belonging to the Aryan family spoken? A. By nearly all modern civilized nations.

12. Q. What are some of the causes which contribute to make many of the changes in speech? A. Differences in climate and natural scenery; different methods of increasing vocabularies; different methods of inflection; the development of different muscles of the vocal organs; the manner of accenting, pronouncing and spelling words.

13. Q. To what conclusion may these, and other considerations, lead us as to the origin of all existing and historic tongues? A. That they had their origin from one primitive stock.

14. Q. What is the materialistic evolutionist’s theory of the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate men, being developed from races of inarticulate creatures, built up from brute sounds existing human speech.

15. Q. What are three strong objections to this theory? A. It lacks the support of well-established facts. It is opposed by the fact that primitive tongues show a descent, but in no case a radical ascent. It is contrary to Scripture history.

16. Q. What is a second theory as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of articulate beings, who were created at one time, but in different localities, developed in those different localities the different historic and existing tongues.

17. Q. What are some of the objections to this theory? A. It is in conflict with a large number of facts pointing to the strict unity of the human race, and is opposed to sacred history.

18. Q. What is a third view as to the origin of speech? A. That a race of fallen beings descended from a representative head that had at the start command of either a perfect speech, or else readily developed it as occasion required; that his descendants adopted this speech, which subsequently, by some strange modification of the vocal organs, was violently disturbed.

19. Q. What are some of the things that can be said in favor of this theory? A. It is not opposed by either physical or linguistic science; and it has the support of sacred history.

20. Q. What inference does the author draw as to the probable origin and development of human speech? A. That it is both God-given and from human invention.

21. Q. By what laws ought speech to be governed? A. By the same laws essentially as are found in force throughout the various domains of matter and mind.

22. Q. What number of laws does the author formulate as a linguistic code? A. Fifteen.

23. Q. What is the first law? A. The law of symbolization.

24. Q. What are three ways in which this law is illustrated? A. By imitative words, by the formation of new words from existing roots, by symbolizing the past.

25. Q. What is the second law? A. The law of development.

26. Q. What does the law of development require as to changes in and additions to language? A. That they should be rather by development from its own resources than by the adoption of foreign words.

27. Q. What does the third law, that of definiteness, require as to an expression of ideas? A. That it shall give the person addressed the least possible conscious mental effort in order to understand.

28. Q. What does the law of economy require of the speaker? A. To give with definiteness and elegance the largest number of ideas with the fewest and shortest words possible.

29. Q. In what does the law of selection consist? A. In giving the utmost effect to expression in the fewest words.

30. Q. How does it differ from the law of economy? A. It not only reduces a given quantity, but reduces it with wise discrimination.

31. Q. Upon what does the law of suggestion fix attention? A. Upon the undertone in speech. It is constantly saying, Write something between the lines.

32. Q. How are the tendencies to conform to the law of analogous usage seen? A. In the change of irregular into regular forms or inflections and speech.

33. Q. What suggestion is made in regard to words introduced into English from other languages? A. That they shall, both in structure and pronunciation, doff their foreign and don the English dress.

34. Q. How is the law of variation and contrast in speech shown? A. By an examination of standard literature.

35. Q. In what way do we find this law illustrated by Shakspere? A. In the midst of the highest tragedy he gives us the lowest comedy.

36. Q. What does the law of unity and harmony in speech require? A. Agreement between the terms used, the sentiments expressed, and the time, place and occasion of their expression.

37. Q. What is said to be the law of authority in the domains of speech? A. The usage of a writer of commanding genius; likewise the sanction of the literary world at a given period.

38. Q. What are some of the rules that are indorsed by nearly all writers upon this subject? A. Use is the law of language. The eldest of the present, and the newest of the past language is best. Words must be reputable, national and present.

39. Q. What three suggestions are made as to rendering language euphonically beautiful? A. By dropping its harsh words. By softening its harsh words. By mastering the pronunciation of all difficult words before using them in public.

40. Q. To what statement does the practical application of the law of needful practice to language lead? A. That if one would master the arts of oral speech and of literary construction he must keep speaking and writing.

41. Q. What is the golden rule of speech? A. That, first of all, the speaker must utter the truth.

42. Q. In the science of speech, to what does diction relate? A. To the selection and use of words.

43. Q. What is correct diction? A. The use of such words as are reputable and present.

44. Q. Of what does the subject of diction include a discussion? A. Of barbarisms, archaisms, obsoletisms, and solecisms.

45. Q. What do the laws of speech require as to the different parts in the formation of compound words? A. That they shall be taken from the same tongue.

46. Q. What class of words do several laws of language demand still further that English-speaking people shall use? A. Such words as are characteristic of their mother tongue.

47. Q. Why do the Scotch love Burns, the Americans Whittier, and the English-speaking world Longfellow as they love no others? A. Because they use the language of purpose, of affection, and of passion which finds its best utterances through the means of simple Anglo-Saxon words.

48. Q. Who is quoted as authority for the saying that “He who is acquainted with no foreign tongue knows nothing of his own?” A. Goethe.

49. Q. What fact is stated as contradicting this statement? A. Among the most distinguished representatives of the mother tongues of different nations are men who were not general linguists.

50. Q. What is idiom? A. It is the peculiar mould in which the sentences of a given tongue naturally shape themselves.

51. Q. Where do Cicero and Quintilian assert that purity of idiom is to be found chiefly? A. Among women and children.

52. Q. Of what does syntax treat? A. The choice and arrangement of words into sentences according to established usage.

53. Q. Concerning what is there a general agreement in regard to the length of sentences? A. That long sentences are more majestic, short ones more emphatic; continuous long sentences fatigue, continuous short ones distract the mind.

54. Q. What is the only rule generally agreed upon in regard to the close of a sentence? A. Avoid concluding a sentence with an insignificant word.

55. Q. In what three ways, in written speech, are the construction of a sentence, and some peculiarity of thought or some peculiar use of words, indicated to the eye? A. By the use of capital letters, by the use of italics, and by the use of punctuation marks.

56. Q. Relating to what are further specific rules given, belonging to the grammar and rhetoric of speech? A. Verbs, nouns, pronouns, qualifying and descriptive words, connecting words and sentences.

57. Q. What is the general agreement as to what style is? A. That it is the most delicate form in which thought incarnates itself.

58. Q. What are the prime excellencies in style? A. Naturalness, clearness, simplicity, conciseness, force, pertinency, variety, and beauty or elegance.

59. Q. In what three ways may clearness be developed and cultivated? A. By constantly practicing in heart and life the thoughts and ways of honesty and frankness. By thoroughly mastering a subject before publishing it. By unwearied application of the arts of rhetorical composition.

60. Q. What are preëminent, in the judgments of all critics, as models for the English-speaking tongue? A. The dramas of Shakspere and the text of the English Bible.

61. Q. What do grammar and rhetoric define figures of words to be? A. Designed and artistic deviations from the ordinary form, construction or application of words or sentences.

62. Q. What are figures of etymology? A. They are deviations from the ordinary form of a word.

63. Q. In what do figures of etymology consist? A. Either in a defect, an excess, or a change in some of the elements of a word.

64. Q. What are figures of syntax? A. They are deviations from the ordinary construction of a sentence.

65. Q. Under what headings are figures of syntax classified? A. Ellipsis, pleonasm, enallage, and hyperbaton.

66. Q. What are usually grouped under figures of rhetoric? A. Figures of poetry, figures of poetic prose, and figures of oratory.

67. Q. What are the three fundamental principles underlying the class of rules governing the use of figurative speech? A. First, figurative speech is used in order the more effectually to persuade. Second, it is used for the purpose of elucidation. Third, after persuasion and elucidation are sought, then for purposes of elegance.

68. Q. What is to be avoided in the use of figurative speech? A. Excess in the use, and mixed, and to a certain extent complex figurative speech.

69. Q. What is Hazlitt’s definition of poetry? A. It is the language of the imagination.

70. Q. Of what is poetry the science and art? A. Of putting the productions of the imagination into figurative and measured or balanced speech.

71. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is poetic speech classified? A. Parallelism, alliteration, and accented meters.

72. Q. Into what classes are accented meters subdivided according to the measure which predominates? A. The iambic, trochaic, anapæstic, dactylic, and mixed.

73. Q. Into what eight classes is poetic speech divided according to subject-matter? A. Epic poems, lyric poems, dramatic poems, didactic poems, pastoral poems, satirical poems, epigrams, and epitaphs.

74. Q. What six classes of figures are given belonging to poetic speech? A. Metaphor, simile, comparison, allegory, parable, and fable.

75. Q. What two rules are given for acquiring skill in poetic representation? A. 1. Cultivate figure-making habitudes. 2. Store the mind with information.

76. Q. In what is prose speech used, and of what does it form the basis? A. It is used in ordinary conversation, and it forms the basis of all didactic and oratoric addresses.

77. Q. Into what rhetorical forms is prose speech classified? A. Narration, description, exposition, and maxims or proverbs.

78. Q. What is admitted as to the relations existing between thought and speech, and also between morals and speech? A. That they are so intimate that any impurity or impropriety in the one quickly taints the other.

79. Q. What are varieties of speech termed that fall partly under poetic and partly under prose representation? A. Prose, poetry, or poetic-prose speech.

80. Q. What are some of the distinctions between poetic-prose and the other forms of speech? A. Poetic-prose is poetic in conception, but the construction of the sentences is not poetic; it often uses terms in other than their ordinary senses; it often utterly disregards resemblances.

81. Q. What are some of the most common figures of poetic-prose speech? A. Metonymy, trope, personification, hyperbole, irony, antithesis, and climax.

II.—QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” FROM PAGE 87 TO PAGE 172.

82. Q. During the truce that followed the death of Cyrus what five generals among the Greeks were enticed into the tent of Tissaphernes, made prisoners, and afterward put to death? A. Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon, Agias and Socrates.

83. Q. What was one of the first steps now taken to secure the safety of the Greeks? A. A general meeting was called of all the surviving officers, and new commanders were chosen to take the places of those lost.

84. Q. In whose place was Xenophon chosen? A. That of his friend Proxenus.

85. Q. After this had been done what action was taken as to the rank and file? A. The men were called together and stoutly harangued by three men in succession—Xenophon being the last.

86. Q. What was one of Xenophon’s heroic propositions that was agreed to? A. To burn everything they could possibly spare on the homeward march.

87. Q. What answer did they return to Mithradates, a neighboring Persian satrap, when asked to know what their present plans might be? A. If unmolested, to go home, doing as little injury as possible to the country through which they passed, but to fight their best if opposition was offered.

88. Q. Of what character were the Greeks convinced the mission of Mithradates was? A. That it was a treacherous one.

89. Q. For this reason what resolution did the Grecian generals take? A. That there should be no communication with the enemy by heralds.

90. Q. What was the general direction taken by the Greeks in the first part of their retreat? A. A northerly direction, toward the Black Sea.

91. Q. By whom were they followed, and almost daily attacked, during the first portion of their retreat? A. Tissaphernes and a Persian army.

92. Q. What Persian governor did they encounter in Armenia? A. Tiribazus.

93. Q. With what foes in the elements did they next meet? A. Deep snow and a terrible north wind.

94. Q. What do travelers tell us at the present time as to the manner in which the Armenians of that region build their houses? A. They still build them underground.

95. Q. Into what country did the Greeks next advance? A. The country of the Taochians.

96. Q. At what mountain did the Greeks get the first view of the Black Sea? A. At Mount Theches.

97. Q. At what place did they reach the sea two days afterward? A. At Trebizond.

98. Q. On what mission did Chirisophus go forward to Byzantium? A. To endeavor to procure transports for the conveyance of the army.

99. Q. Chirisophus delaying to return, how did they continue their journey? A. Partly by land and partly by water.

100. Q. When they were finally joined by Chirisophus, what did he bring with him? A. Only a single trireme.

101. Q. At what place did the Greeks pass from Asia into Europe? A. At Byzantium.

102. Q. Afterward, whom did the army engage to serve in a war against Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus? A. The Lacedæmonians.

103. Q. To what number was the army now reduced? A. To six thousand.

104. Q. After the incorporation of the remainder of the ten thousand with the Lacedæmonian army where did Xenophon go? A. To Athens.

105. Q. What is the position of the “Iliad” of Homer in literature? A. It is the leading poem of the world.

106. Q. From what is the “Iliad” entitled? A. From the word Ilium, which is the alternative name of Troy.

107. Q. What episode in the siege of Troy is the real subject of the “Iliad”? A. The wrath of Achilles.

108. Q. What occasioned the siege of Troy? A. The carrying off of Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Grecian king, by Paris.

109. Q. Who was Paris? A. Son of Priam, the king of Troy.

110. Q. Who engaged in the siege against Troy? A. The confederate kings of all Greece, with Agamemnon as commander-in-chief.

111. Q. What was the occasion of the wrath of Achilles? A. The arbitrary interference of Agamemnon to deprive Achilles of a female captive, Briseis, and usurp her to himself.

112. Q. What at length incites Achilles to return to the field? A. The death of Patroclus, his close friend, slain by the Trojans.

113. Q. What is the result as to Achilles? A. He slays Hector, the Trojan champion, and is himself killed by Paris.

114. Q. What forms the subject of the “Odyssey”? A. The adventures of one of the Greek chieftains, Ulysses, or Odysseus.

115. Q. When and how does the “Iliad” itself close? A. Before the fall of Troy, and with the death and funeral rites of Hector.

116. Q. What are some of the best known translations of the “Iliad”? A. Chapman’s, Pope’s, Cowper’s, Derby’s and Bryant’s.

117. Q. Of what are some of the most noted passages in the first book of the “Iliad” descriptive? A. The descent of Apollo, the wrangle between Achilles and Agamemnon, the promise of Jupiter to Thetis, and the feast of the gods.

118. Q. What does the second book of the “Iliad” recount? A. How Jupiter sends a deceiving dream to Agamemnon, to induce that chieftain to make a vain assault on the Trojans.

119. Q. With what does the book close? A. With a catalogue of the Greek forces assembled.

120. Q. To us who read in the light of present views what is a feature of the “Iliad” fatal to any genuine interest in the story? A. The introduction of supernatural agencies into the action of the poem.

121. Q. What is one of the prominent scenes introduced in the third book of the “Iliad”? A. A duel between Paris, the thief, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen.

122. Q. What takes place at the crisis of the duel? A. Venus steps in and carries Paris off to his bed-chamber in the palace of Priam.

123. Q. In the fourth book what is described by a simile, one of the most nobly conceived and nobly expressed of all that occur in the “Iliad”? A. The advance of the Achaians to battle.

124. Q. What noted hero is introduced in the fifth book of the “Iliad”? A. Æneas, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s poem, the “Æneid.”

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

THE OUTLOOK FROM THE PLAINFIELD OFFICE.

He must be a very indifferent man, indeed, who does not feel the quick flush of pride at the growth and success of the institutions with which he is connected. Doubly glad will he be if it be one for whose enlargement he has labored.

We surmise that there are very few of our readers—many of whom are more than members of the C. L. S. C., being actual workers for its interests—but that will be eager to know the present outlook for our work from the Plainfield office, anxious to know what are the prospects for 1884-’85.

Nowhere excepting at the central office is it possible to sound our work, to know its breadth, its depth, the permanency of its interest among our members, and its growth among the people. Here we can gauge its dimensions. And, perhaps, the first sign, and certainly it is a most significant one, is that which every casual visitor at our business headquarters must observe at once, as he looks in upon the busy workers of the office; the work is too big for its quarters. The mammoth mails are swelling beyond the prescribed boundaries. The office must grow with the C. L. S. C., and next spring it is decreed that there shall be a Chautauqua floor at Plainfield instead of an office, and that there, side by side, shall be found the business centers of the two great divisions of the “new education”—the C. L. S. C. and the Chautauqua University.

Of equal import is the work that the office secretary and her associates are being called upon to do this fall. Much work is always the sign of growth. It proves a demand for that which you are able to supply. It shows that you are filling a needed place. The C. L. S. C. never made more work than it does now—the most conclusive proof that the cause is prospering. The mails have become enormous. The average number of letters daily received through September and up to this date was over six hundred. These letters are the pulses of public feeling toward this work. They contain queries of all kinds respecting the methods of the Circle; they ask for circulars in great quantities, saying that there are everywhere people waiting to receive them; they proclaim enlarged boundaries and steadily increasing strength.

In many towns where the membership has always been large it has been doubled this fall. On October 4th the class of ’88 numbered over 3,000 members, a much larger number than the class of ’87 had at the same time last year.

One particularly encouraging feature is the vigor of the work. The C. L. S. C. grows up _strong_. There are records innumerable in those Cyclopean books at the Secretary’s office of readers who have caught the true idea, that education is life work, and they have joined the C. L. S. C. to stay. There are numbers of established circles, and this fall’s records are increasing the number of post-graduate readers, and the list of circles which have become fixed institutions.

There are, too, some interesting facts to be gleaned from a careful study of these records. We like to know where lie the strongholds of our work, among what kind of people are its rank and file, and here are the answers to our queries. The outlook for the present year shows that, as has been true heretofore, the leaders in the C. L. S. C. are the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, California and New England, that close in their train follow Illinois, Iowa and Indiana; that the class of people taking up the work is now, as always, the busy class, whose lives are full of thought and work and plans; that their ages, on an average, lie between twenty and forty years.

The outlook from the Plainfield office is to-day upon an ever growing band of earnest hearted men and women, gathered from all the states and territories of the Union, and from over the seas; it is upon an enthusiasm never before surpassed by any body of students in any land, and it presages, beyond doubting, the largest, grandest year in the history of the movement.

THE DECLINE OF ORATORY.

The political campaign affords a good view of the decline of oratory and of its chief causes. Oratory is not a less potent force on account of any decrease in the production of the talents which under proper culture form the orator. Humanity is probably richer in such gifts. And yet oratory had notice to prepare for an eclipse when printing was invented, and the shadow upon oratorical influence has grown larger in each half century until the illuminating office has passed almost entirely over to the press. In the old campaigns, the orator furnished a feeble press with facts and arguments; in the present campaign the positions are exactly reversed. The press furnishes the ideas, the arguments, the facts, the illustrations. The stump speaker no longer invents; he crams. He is not an original thinker, developing lines of attack and defense, fortifying weak positions and fashioning a line of battle by a single speech. He is the mouthpiece of party opinion, the obedient servant of party tactics, and the illustrator and peddler of other men’s thoughts. And all this work is cut out for him by men who in the press represent both public opinion and party councils of war. Men are living who can remember when the words of Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Seward, Lincoln, were waited for; and the words came—they were battle cries and marching orders. Now nobody waits for any orator, and the orator gets his instructions from the press. It is not very wise to attribute the change to the decline of statesmanship and leadership. It is not clear that the former has declined; it is certain that the latter has not. But the leader is no longer a man who makes a speech, but he has become a man who writes an article or plans a campaign in which the telegraph, the literary bureau, the campaign document, and the contriving genius in himself do the large work. He puts orators into the field and tells them what to say. They are his instruments, very useful instruments, because the love of public speaking is still strong in men; but still oratory uses the tools of the man with a pen and types.

The causes of the changed relations of writer and speaker are made conspicuous by the campaign. A carefully prepared and printed document can be circulated in millions of copies; a speech can be heard by from one to five thousand people only. These words of ours are addressed to one hundred and fifty thousand readers; he is a genius, before whom this present writer would take off his hat, who can collect five thousand men to listen to him on any subject. The press has the large audience, a vast congregation never dreamed of until the press and swift modes of communication made the immense audience possible. Another cause is that, while we have more talents, there are competing demands for the services of those which prevail in argument and persuasion. Fifty years ago this country had no great editors; it could easily furnish a liberal supply of orators. Now it uses up a large amount of its oratorical ability in the editorial rooms. Other pursuits have silenced tongues that might have moved mankind, by employing the brains in mercantile and industrial work on large lines. Many a great railroad man might have been a great orator. But the diversion of born pleaders and debaters to the newspapers sufficiently accounts for their absence from the stump.

The genius for mastery over political thought and action is not blind; it has gone into the press because it could prevail and direct and conquer in the press. It is a natural consequence of the shifting of the central point of persuasive power that we perceive a third cause of the decline of oratory. The press is at the center, the headquarters so to say, while the orator is out in the field making a raid or conducting a skirmish. Centralization is an inevitable effect of the press, the telegraph and the railway. Some effects are to be regretted as we regret the existence of unpleasant incidents of wholesome movements in progress. But our regret can hardly extend to the power of directing a party campaign from a center of the field. It is, in our day, the only way of making it a distinct engagement. It would be a series of isolated skirmishes if we did not have a headquarters and a central committee. This central power speaks in telegraphic clicks and printed words. The orator may be a dashing lieutenant, he can not be a general.

Oratory has taken a subordinate position. The fact has its bearings on deliberative assembly government. Congress can not have great orators in an age when the public will is expressed by editors, and the shape of bills fixed by the newspapers. The business of the legislators is restricted on all sides by the press. The discussions of a legislature are feebleness itself in the presence of the ringing and decisive editorials of influential newspapers. The press hems in the assemblymen within narrow limits of choice; and a speech can not be great when it can not command the field, but only a corner of it. All this does not mean that oratory is dying or to die; it has simply taken a lower place as an agent in argument and persuasion. Nor do we mean that great orators are no longer possible. A great orator, by natural endowment, may make and hold a commanding place—by the aid of the press. But the greatness which will do this must be of a prodigious power and altogether exceptional magnitude. The best men will, as a rule, seek the easier paths to influence, and these lie through types and ink. To speak well will always be an admirable and effective art; but the orator must serve and follow the press. He is a necessary part of the machinery of persuasion, but he is no longer the driving wheel.

THE NEW ORLEANS WORLD’S FAIR.

World’s fairs are special products of modern civilization, and they present in a picturesque and dramatic way the essentials of modern progress, liberty, intercourse between nations, world-wide exchanges. The world’s fairs are for all the world, and representatives of all nations, and the products of all nations are gathered into them. These fairs are milestones of progress; for all new arts and appliances of all lands are exhibited; and they are social gatherings for civilized humanity. If they had no other value than to reflect the unity of mankind under modern liberty and Christianity, they would be worth more than they cost. The spectacle of civilized mankind and the products of their brain and hand collected together in one place is in itself a lesson and an inspiration. The world moves—toward concord, fraternity, unity.

The next world’s fair will have several new values. It is to be held a long distance nearer to the equator than any of its predecessors. It is to be at the mouth of one of the world’s great streams, on the borders of the American Mediterranean, in the midst of the tropical luxuriance of the South. A world’s fair at New Orleans has all the qualities of a luxuriant and inspiring prospective for the imagination. In a dozen ways it invites enthusiasm. It is, for example, one of our reasons for spending so freely our blood and treasure to keep the mouth of the Mississippi within the United States of America; one of the rewards of the South for its own failure to draw a boundary line across that mighty stream. The nation which held the city of New Orleans with a grip of iron, now spends a million and a half to celebrate the concord of humanity in that city. The nation will throng southward this winter, not to secure its territorial integrity, but to celebrate its unity, and the larger unity of mankind. Peace will have larger armies than war had. We shall go in masses, because we want to see our fair South, because it will cost each of us but little, to the land we loved enough to die for, because a tropical world’s fair has for us of the North a fascination which no other fair ever had or ever will have. They are wise down there, and tell us that the tropical display will be the leading feature of the show. Of course it will, and it is that which will attract us and pull us to the exhibition. We have all dreamed of the wealth and magnificence of tropical verdure, and it is to be, so to say, “on tap” in New Orleans next winter when our verdure is asleep under the snow, or nestled at the roots of the trees in saps which are mere possibilities of life next spring. “Tropical display!” What other exhibition could have such a charm?

Rumor says that the railways will astonish us by a schedule of fares which will almost equalize riding and going on foot. They are wise. They could afford to carry us for nothing. Some time, and not a distant time, is to witness a great migration southward. The railroads can richly afford to take us all down there to see the great, rich, open field which has thus far invited us in vain, while we have been following the westering sun to the Pacific coast. Cheap lands, a climate and soil favoring abundant production, undeveloped industrial opportunities, and near markets, attract us, or would attract us, if we realized them. A world’s fair at New Orleans affords the needed incentive to a great movement of many classes of our people to the South. Few of us know the country or its people. The war and the turbulence of the reconstruction era, and political disorders, on which we have no disposition to dwell, have made us strangers and unsympathetic with each other as North and South. The fair will disperse false notions and correct wrong impressions in both sections. It will be a temple of concord for the nation. We shall begin after this celebration of industry to fill up the vacant lands and opportunities of the Gulf region.

The details of the preparations are interesting. The grounds are to be two hundred and twenty-seven acres of land on the banks of the Mississippi. An electric railway is to encircle them, and the spot is accessible both by land and water. The buildings are five in number, and the main edifice is 1,378 feet long and 905 feet wide without courts, and a glass roof, and so arranged within as to afford an unobstructed view of the whole of a magnificent hive of industry. Horticultural Hall is the largest conservatory in the world, 600 feet long and 194 feet wide; and 20,000 plates of fruit, double the number ever before displayed at once, will be shown on the tables. It stands among live oak trees; it will be filled with tropical productions. An infinite variety of southern trees and flowers will be exhibited outside of this hall. Eminent horticulturists are now engaged in arranging for our eyes a bewildering spectacle of the verdure of the lands lying under the rich blessing of the sun. Can New Orleans give shelter and food to all who will visit the exhibition? The people think they can. It is a city of 250,000 people, and from the inception of the enterprise they have had committees at work upon this problem. They are making a thorough canvass of the city for homes for guests; charges will be fixed in advance and strictly supervised throughout the exhibition. Let us all go to the New Orleans World’s Fair.

JUDICIOUS READING OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS.

There is room for good judgment in everything, and daily reading is no exception to the rule. It has come to pass that periodical publications take up a large part of the time and attention of readers, and the tendency in the case is for this kind of printed page to draw too heavily upon us. Most persons in towns read too much newspaper and too little book. The newspapers are abundant, are good as newspapers, and they are full of matter. They claim first attention because they contain the news; they keep attention because the news is abundantly padded, and because the newspaper furnishes other attractive reading. Two or three bad effects of confining ourselves to such reading must be experienced. One is that a feverish interest in events of no great importance is created, and our thoughts revolve about such events. Another bad effect is that the knowledge of the newspaper devourer is imperfect, scrappy, and mixed with errors of fact and principle. The newspaper is produced in haste. Editors have no time to verify all facts and sift out unsound opinions. It is a kind of intellectual bar-room, where all sorts jostle each other and live in good fellowship. The very copiousness and breadth of the journal create a need of better and more accurate reading. Its fragments need to be pieced together by wider knowledge than it gives. It is not enough to say that the present reading habits of our people give to the newspaper the first position as a teacher of the people; one should go on to reflect that this education is not by any means the best. It is too fragmentary and disconnected. The tendency which we regret is not the fault of the press, but it none the less requires the corrective of some kind of restraint upon its habit of monopolizing so large a portion of our time. One may easily learn to read the paper swiftly, get its proper value in a few moments and pass on. Information in more connected and complete forms invites our attention to books; and an intelligent person should save some time for these more valuable products of the press. There is a place, in short, for good judgment in limiting the intellectual tax which the newspaper levies upon us.

Good sense and sound discretion have a place also in our selection of newspapers. They differ, not exactly as one star differeth from another star in glory, but rather as a pure article of merchandise differs from an adulterated article. A clean press, in the general sense of the term, has almost become the rule; but there are still many unclean papers. The obviously unclean are easily shunned. Our danger comes from periodicals conducted for particular ends, to gain which the proprietors will on occasion sacrifice purity. A body of ministers, the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has recently condemned in the strongest terms a newspaper long honored for its purity, which has recently depreciated the importance of personal chastity in public men. The incident and its cause are a warning that newspapers change their tone as they change editors, and that a strong desire to promote some object may blind an editor and stain the fairest page. There is but one remedy for this form of the evil, and that is to cast out the newspaper which is guilty of the offense. There is need of caution at this point, because a favorite newspaper, like the king in absolutism, can do no wrong. We grow accustomed to believing it right, to accepting its teachings, to dropping all critical safeguards and taking for good and sound opinions whatever it may deliver to us. This is not a safe habit. Editors like William Cullen Bryant die and their successors may be of another spirit. Few newspapers are the same in moral complexion for twenty years; death and business changes inevitably alter them. Even our favorite newspaper needs watching; and we ought never to condone so gross an outrage on the sanctities of life as the one to which we have reluctantly referred.

Another place for good judgment is in selecting the kind of periodical literature we read. There is a great variety. Some are too light; some are too heavy. Some are frivolous in spirit and purpose; others are so solid that they weigh down the eyelids of the reader. It is not necessary that good reading should be dull, lifeless and soporific. On the other hand, the periodicals which live upon love of fiction and curiosity are too light for the use of people who are living on purpose and for some proper ends. The popular magazine is too light. It is, at best, like dress worn to be looked at rather than for comfort and warmth. The ornamental has become too prominent and too monopolizing. The readers of the popular periodical add little to their wisdom and nothing to their aspirations. Really good results from periodical reading must be had in one of two ways or not at all. Wisdom or inspiration—or both—should come to us from such reading. We are stating the creed and the platform of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Its special aims are these two: We wish to increase the knowledge of our readers; we wish also to inspire them with two forms of zeal, one which pursues wisdom, and another which aims at sound and pure character. We believe that we help our readers by giving them information and an appetite for it, and that those who read THE CHAUTAUQUAN carefully are stimulated by it to intellectual and moral effort. It has seemed to us that the inspiring quality has disappeared from the average monthly. Indeed, if we look for it in these days we must search in periodicals which have a definite and pronounced moral purpose. There is a pestilent theory that good literature must have only an artistic purpose, that to be in bloody earnest is not good form in letters. THE CHAUTAUQUAN is in earnest; it is the organ of one of the most vigorous and aggressive organizations for popular improvement, and its tone and matter are fixed for it by the high purpose of that organized crusade against ignorance and its consequences. We are not content to please or to satisfy passing curiosity. The whim or incident of the hour gets little of our attention. We are concerned with permanent and useful things. We desire to enlarge the horizon of our readers and fix their interest upon the best and tested objects of living. We are confident that any habitual reader of ours will be made wiser and better. There is not much glitter about such results, and yet they will shine when aimless literature has long ceased to glitter.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

What is in a name? Isaac Newton recently committed suicide in New York; Wilbur Fisk is traveling a circuit in Iowa; George Washington was lately sent to prison in Georgia, and Andrew Jackson has escaped from jail in Louisiana. Any attentive newspaper reader can continue the list of great names filling modest roles in contemporary history. Perhaps it is a pity we have not names enough to go around.

* * * * *

In reply to an inquirer: You will learn to write _by writing_, and by always writing as well as you can.

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have _learned_ to dance.”

And art is a fruit of laborious practice. Spend as much time writing as you would in learning to play a piano; then you will begin to begin learning the art.

* * * * *

The public lands of the West are being rapidly transferred to private hands. During the year ended June 30th, last, nearly twenty-seven millions of acres were disposed of. Of this total, little more than seven millions were sold. More than fourteen millions were given away as homesteads and timber tracts; and the rest were given away, some 3,300,000 acres going to railroad companies. The total is an increase of more than eight millions over the previous year. And yet an abundance of land remains in the hands of the government. It will be a good while before we shall be crowded in this country.

* * * * *

At this writing it is difficult to predict the end of the troubles in China. It is most probable that France will secure herself in Tonquin. But a suspicion has existed for months that Bismarck had a hand in this affair, and that he has secretly encouraged France, hoping she would come to grief. It is now rumored that he has intimated to the French that they have gone far enough. Most political affairs in Europe are managed by the Chancellor of the German empire, and he is probably the only who can give a good guess at the result of the French imbroglio in China.

* * * * *

Impure water supply is one of the greatest perils of our great cities. Philadelphia and Chicago have old troubles. Washington is more recently in trouble. There is only one thorough remedy, and that is a system of sewage which transports offal outside of the city and restores to the soil as much as possible of the elements of our food. That gives a chance for clean water, and it gives a chance for food for the next generation. Chautauqua employs this system, and has pure wells on the hillside and a pure lake at its feet.

* * * * *

It seems to us that more property has been burned up this summer than is usual in the warm portion of the year. Insurance agents say that accidental fires are much more common in years of financial depression than in those of prosperity; and they think out a moral connection between the two sets of phenomena. Let us hope that the improvement in the times will go on rapidly, else the winter may be one of unexampled severity—for insurance companies.

* * * * *

A pleasant piece of statistic tells us that our people produce forty-eight bushels of grain per capita, and consume forty-one bushels per capita; and both these figures are the highest in the world. We raise more grain and eat more food than any other people. That test of prosperity is decisive. We have our troubles, but let us “think on our mercies.”

* * * * *

Jerry McAuley, the evangelist of the slums, died last month. There is refreshment in the man’s history. Born and trained among the thieves of the worst quarter of New York, he got into prison under a sentence for fifteen years, became a Christian in prison, and spent the rest of his life reclaiming the fallen men and women of his native city. Men _do_ reform under Christian forces, and a reformed man _may_ do a glorious work.

* * * * *

Stolen marriages are not usually happy ones. In those cases, especially where a well bred, liberally educated, and luxuriously inclined girl elopes with a coachman or a deck hand, the hasty espousals commonly end in misery for the wife. Several such elopements have recently occurred; and they seem to be “catching.” A Canadian girl of wealthy parentage read the story of the Morosini elopement, and thereupon got up an elopement of her own. The “catching” symptom is probably due to the glories of the reporter’s rhetoric.

* * * * *

Dr. Woodrow is the last clergyman who has had fame thrust upon him, for a peculiarly unsuccessful attempt to become an evolutionist. He first succeeded in getting Adam evolved from an ape or something, and left Eve to be created. More lately, he has, if we understand the story, evolutionized the first human pair from a pair of apes by _an accidental variation_. But there are no accidents in the genuine evolution; and Dr. Woodrow is being made fun of from both sides.

* * * * *

The extraordinary liberality of the English Wesleyans has attracted deserved attention and respect. They have collected very large sums of money for new churches in London and for missionary fields—millions of dollars in a few years. It is now noted that the Scotch churches have been visited with refreshing showers of the grace of giving. In one year the three branches of Presbyterians have raised more than seven millions of dollars for their own work. That sort of grace is proof of other and more spiritual sorts.

* * * * *

The Young Men’s Christian Associations have grown marvelously. Their New Year Book shows that on this continent this child of yesterday has created $3,400,000 in Association buildings, and put a great army of Christian workers into the field. Its rapid growth and vigorous work are one of the marvels of the time.

* * * * *

There is a notable lull in the storm against speculative and religious philosophy. The reason is plain. The hope that we should soon be able to see through creation and its cause with a microscope has begun to expire, if it be not already dead. This relegates science to its proper domain, and recalls reason to her old office. Some abatement of scientific enthusiasm as a speculative force is also to be noted. The British and American Associations at Montreal and Philadelphia did not show a puff of this sort of wind. Both attended strictly to scientific business.

* * * * *

Attention has been called to the fact that people may live too economically, by the havoc made by cholera among the under-fed Italian peasants. Statesmen in Italy complain that the rural peasants will save at the expense of vitality; in short, starve themselves. In this country people do not fast or eat insufficiently if they can get “square meals;” but they often starve their souls.

* * * * *

“Gath” is out with a sound letter against beer guzzling. “Boys,” he says, “were never seen in drinking places so long as whiskey was the standard.” That is so. Everybody knows that beer drinking by boys has become common. The sentimental argument that beer would cure drunkenness has come to this issue.

* * * * *

It is once more remarked that Jews are seldom victims of cholera. In France, it is said, only seven Jews were this year attacked by the disease. But perhaps this was a fair proportion of Jews when we count them and the non-Jews and make allowance for degrees of exposure to attack. It is not time yet to condemn the hog to extermination on this branch of the evidence.

* * * * *

There has been less than the usual supply of hazing barbarities in the colleges this fall. Some tragical results in former years have given the barbaric custom of outraging freshmen serious blows. Here and there a case of hazing has attracted attention this year. The evil has lost the prestige of honored custom, and is now more honored in the breach than in the observance. It will die without being regretted. Only brutal creatures, unfit for decent society, engage in this form of midnight violence.

* * * * *

Jean Robie, the Belgian flower painter, has a surprisingly versatile genius. He is exceedingly able as a colorist, and his flower-pieces have an enduring charm, but are so subtilely rendered that their reproduction is extremely difficult. A very successful effort has recently been made, by L. Prang & Co., to reproduce one of his latest works by color printing on satin. As a publication it is unique, and suitable either for an easel picture, panel decoration, or for framing.

* * * * *

Good Chautauquans everywhere have a warm attachment to the “Chautauqua Bells,” and will, we feel sure, unite with us in a vote of sincere thanks to the McNeely Bell Co., of Troy, N. Y., through whose courtesy, each summer, we hear the beautiful chime on the point.

* * * * *

David Dudley Field renews the demand for a change of the name of New York to Manhattan. It would be convenient, no doubt; but the change is not practicable. Besides, New York is already bigger than Manhattan Island, and Mr. Field wants to take in Brooklyn. The effect of the enlargement of the city is to make old Manhattan a section only of our American metropolis, which, if it gets what belongs to it, Brooklyn and Jersey City, will probably be the largest city on the globe in 1984.

* * * * *

Let no one twit the West any more on the subject of youth and inexperience. Michigan, Ohio and Indiana have participated in an earthquake—and earthquakes have chiefly favored venerable countries. This earth-shiver, following closely upon one on the Atlantic coast, confirms a scientific prophecy that seismic disorders would have a revival over a wide field in these years. Probably destructive earthquakes are not to be expected to occur in new regions.

* * * * *

A bad custom of gambling on the high seas, on the fashionable steamers, has at last been called up for rebuke. The evil has become intolerable to well-instructed people. The present writer has heard more than one man boast that he “made his passage money” by betting on cards during the trip. Fast steamers are rapidly becoming gambling hells.

* * * * *

A fashionable woman went to Saratoga this summer with twenty-one trunks containing ninety-three complete toilets. She wore from two to five toilets a day, and left Saratoga the day on which she had exhibited number ninety-three. This species of fool dies hard, but she is dying, and the world will by and by see the last of her. Respect for her decreases steadily; in a few years she will be less interesting than the shop window in which dresses are displayed on automata.

* * * * *

The United States Court in San Francisco has ruled that a Chinese man and a Chinese woman, though ostensibly married, are not one flesh. Judge Field said the country would be flooded with Chinese if women could come in on the certificates of their husbands. The decision relates to the right of Chinamen to return after visiting their fatherland. The golden gate is being gradually shut against these people; but they are now coming in across the imaginary boundary line between us and Canada. They can not be kept out. The effort to prevent their coming is “love’s (?) labor lost.”

* * * * *

We do not yet realize the greatness of this country. We knew long ago that there is an iron mountain in Missouri. Now we are told that there are four alum mountains in lower California, containing one hundred millions of tons of alum. Please do not invest in alum at present prices. “It may go lower.”

* * * * *

It is reported that a movement for reform in the city government of Chicago is ready to march. We suppose that the object is to influence the elections next spring. Some excellent results have followed these local organizations for good government. Their success depends upon the energy and enthusiasm with which they confine their work to home business. When they mix national politics with local reform they go to wreck. The excellent Brooklyn movement seems to have been close to the rocks this summer, through dabbling in politics. There ought to be no politics in administering the affairs of a city, no more than in a bank or lumber yard.

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

PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.

P. 95.—“Gorˈgi-as.” (B.C. 487-380.) A Greek rhetorician and sophist. He captivated the Athenian populace by the splendor of his eloquence, and had among his pupils Alcibiades and Æschines.

P. 97.—“Socrates.” The advice given by Socrates, who was very fearful “lest it might be a matter of censure on the part of the state” should Xenophon take part in this expedition, was that he should go to Delphi and consult the oracle of the great god Apollo concerning the undertaking.

P. 98.—“Pæˈan.” One of the names of Apollo; afterward transferred from him to a triumphal song dedicated to him.

P. 100.—“Larissa.” Now Nimroud, and probably (with its excavated palaces) the southern portion of the vast circuit of Nineveh, “Resen” mentioned in Gen. 10-12.

P. 105.—“Brazen Utensils.” They very artfully forebore to molest these, trying in every way possible to lead the Carduchians to look upon them as friendly, so that they, the Greeks, might have a safe passage through the country.

P. 108.—“Centrites.” Now called Bohtan Chai; eastern branch of the Tigris.

Xenophon’s explanation: “For they,” his followers, “all knew that any one might go to him at breakfast, or at dinner, or, if it should be necessary, might rouse him up from sleep to say whatever one might have to say concerning the war.”

P. 112.—“Părˈa-săng.” A Persian measure of length; about four English miles.

P. 115.—The Armenians lived in underground houses then, as they do now, on account of the excessive cold of the winters. The great elevation of the uplands explains the extreme severity of the cold.

P. 119.—“Golden Fleece.” The Argonauts were the earliest heroes of Greek antiquity; they were the first to navigate unknown and dangerous seas. The story is as follows: Jason was ordered by his uncle Pelias, of Thessaly, to bring him the golden fleece of a ram which was nailed to an oak in the grove of Mars, in Colchis, and which was watched by a sleepless dragon. After a voyage full of adventures he and his followers reached the goal of their expedition. Æëtes, king of the country, promised the fleece to Jason on condition that he would perform some difficult and dangerous tasks. Medea, the king’s daughter, fell in love with Jason, and taught him how to overcome the dangers and seize the fleece. Then she fled with him back to Iolcus.

P. 120.—“Pancratium,” pan-crāˈshĭ-um. An athletic contest which combined boxing and wrestling.

P. 121.—“Ulysses.” A Greek hero of the Trojan war. For account of his arrival, “outstretched and asleep,” see “Preparatory Greek Course in English,” page 222, the fifth stanza from the end.

“Cerasus.” Whence our word _cherry_, which fruit was brought from this region into Italy by Lucullus in 73 B. C.

“Mosynœci.” A people celebrated for their warlike spirit and savage customs. Their houses were built of wood and were of conical form. Their government was very curious; a king chosen by them was strictly guarded in a house higher than the rest, and was maintained at public cost; but as soon as he displeased the people they starved him to death.

P. 128.—“Atrides,” a-triˈdes. The name signifies _son_ or _descendant_ of _Atreus_, and was bestowed especially upon Agamemnon and Menelaus. Agamemnon is referred to here.

“Keats.” (1795-1821.) An English poet. His chief works were “Endymion,” “Eve of St. Agnes,” and “Hyperion.” He died in Rome.

P. 129.—“Thetis.” The wife of Pelé-us, and mother of Achilles. She dwelt in the depths of the sea, and had the power of assuming any form she pleased. All the gods were invited to be present on the occasion of her marriage to Peleus, except Discord, who avenged herself by throwing into the assembly the apple which was the source of so much misery. Thetis foretold Achilles that his fate was either to gain glory and die early, or to live a long and inglorious life. The hero chose the former, and took part in the Trojan War, from which he knew he was not to return.

“Derby.” (1799-1869.) A distinguished English statesman; for several years a member of Parliament, and among the first and most eloquent orators of the time; was elected Chancellor of Oxford on the death of the Duke of Wellington, and was made Premier after Lord Palmerston. “His version of the ‘Iliad,’” says the _Edinburgh Review_, “is far more allied to the original, and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our language.”

P. 132.—“Newman.” An English author, born 1805. He was a great traveler, and wrote many works on historical, political, and theological subjects. He was a brother of John Henry Newman, who was converted to Roman Catholic doctrines.

“Worsley.” See “Preparatory Greek Course in English,” page 203.

“Ipsissimus.” His very own self. A strengthened form of the Latin pronoun _ipse_, meaning _himself_.

P. 134.—“Quære.” From the Latin word _quæ-ro_, meaning _to question_; whence our word _query_.

P. 136.—“Macedonia’s Madman.” A title given to Alexander the Great, so called because of his fiery, impetuous character.

P. 142.—“Empyrean,” ĕm-py-rēˈan. The highest heaven.

P. 144.—“Ajax.” One of the great chiefs of the Trojan War, second only to Achilles in martial powers. There was another of the same name, and the two were distinguished by adding the words _greater_ or _lesser_ after their names.

“Pelides.” Son of Peleus; Achilles.

“Phthiˈa.” The city in which Achilles resided, situated in the southeastern part of Thessaly. Thessaly now forms part of the Turkish province of Salonika.

P. 147.—“By this sacred scepter.” As the oath was a renunciation of service to Agamemnon, the general-in-chief, Achilles very naturally swears by his scepter, which was the emblem of regal power.

P. 148.—“Centaurs.” A race said to have lived on Mt. Pelion, in Thessaly. They were represented as half horses and half men, perhaps from the fact that hunting on horseback was a national custom. From this very easily the fable might have arisen, just as the Americans, when they first saw a Spaniard on horseback, thought horse and man to be one being.

P. 150.—“Ambrosial.” Divine, immortal.

“Here,” heˈre or heˈra. Juno.

P. 160.—“Achaians.” One of the chief Greek races. As they were the ruling nation in the heroic times, Homer frequently calls the collective Greeks by their name.

“Danaäns.” Another name applied to the Greeks. It was derived from Danaus, one of the earliest settlers in Greece.

P. 161.—“Neologism,” ne-ŏlˈo-gism. The introduction of new words.

P. 164.—“Tydides,” ty-dīˈdes. Son of Tydeus, Diomed.

P. 165.—“Son of Capaneus.” Sthenelus, commander of the Greeks under Diomed, and one of those who afterward were concealed in the wooden horse.

“Well-greaved.” Greaves were armor for the legs, a sort of heavy boots.

P. 166.—“Iris.” The messenger of the gods. She traveled on the rainbow.

P. 167.—“Ichor,” īˈkor. An ethereal fluid that supplied the place of the blood in the veins of the gods.

“Pergamus.” The citadel of Troy.

P. 170.—“Simoïs and Scamander,” simˈo-is, sca-manˈder. Rivers of Troy. “Simoïs,” also name of the river god. The Scamander was sometimes called _Xanthus_.

THE ART OF SPEECH.

P. 11.—“Leibnitz,” fon līpˈnĭts. (1646-1716.) Preëminent as a philosopher and mathematician. In his papers on “Language” he advanced theories which place him among linguists in the same position which Hallam considers him to hold among geologists, when he says: “Of all the early geologists, or indeed of all down to a time not very remote, Leibnitz came nearest to the theories which are most received in the English school at this day.”

“Halhed.” It may be of interest to note the various works which these scholars have contributed to the science of philology; Hălˈhed (1751-1830), an English author, prepared a “Grammar of the Bengal Language;” “Jones” (1764-1794), of whom it has been said that in the branch of literature to which he devoted his attention he undoubtedly surpassed all other Europeans, translated from the Persian, Turkish, and Sanskrit, and organized the “Asiatic Society” for investigating the language and customs of Asia; “Colebrooke,” kōlˈbrŏok (1765-1837), wrote a “Grammar” and “Dictionary of the Sanskrit Language;” “M. de Chézy,” deh shāˈzeˌ (1773-1832), was a learned and popular scholar, for whom a chair of Sanskrit was founded in Paris in 1815. W. Humboldt and A. Schlegel were among his pupils. He translated much and wrote a Sanskrit grammar; “Schlegel,” schlāˈgel (1767-1845) is said to be the first German who mastered Sanskrit, on which he wrote much; “Bopp” (1791-1867) founded the science of comparative philology. His greatest work was a “Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Sclavonian, Gothic and German languages.” This work was translated into English by Prof. Wilson (1786-1860), who, while a surgeon in Bengal, had learned Sanskrit. Returning to England, he was made professor of Sanskrit at Oxford; “Grimm” (1785-1863), the great German philologist furthered the study by the discovery of the law by which words change their forms; “Weber” (1825-⸺), a pupil of Bopp’s, contributed a large number of translations and papers on oriental lore; “Kuhn,” kōōn (1812-⸺), also Bopp’s pupil, is called the founder of comparative Indo-Germanic mythology; for many years he has been connected as editor, with two German periodicals devoted to comparative philology; “Steinthal,” stīnˈtäl (1823-⸺), a Jew, is the author of several volumes on the classification of languages, primitive speech, the development of speech, and similar subjects; “Eichhoff,” āˈkofˌ (1799-⸺), a Frenchman, wrote a “Comparison of the Languages of Europe with those of India;” “Renan,” reh-nonˈ (1823-⸺), the French critic and author, has written a “History of the Semetic Languages,” and a treatise on the “Origin of Languages;” “Chavée,” shäˌvāˈ (1815-1877), a Belgian, has attempted to disprove the unity of the human race, in an “Essay on the Knowledge of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French and Russian Words;” “Müller,” müˈler (1823-⸺), the present German-English authority on language, has written several volumes, and Prof. “Whitney” (1827-⸺), at present professor of Sanskrit, in Yale College, is the author of works on “Language and the Study of Language,” the “Life and Growth of Language,” etc.

P. 17.—“Farrar.” Canon of Westminster, chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and the author of several valuable works.

“Sporadic,” spo-rădˈic. Occurring singly or apart from other things of the same kind.

“Agglutinative,” ag-glūˈti-na-tive. Formed by agglutinations, as the union of several words into one compound vocable is called.

“Alloplylian,” ăl-lo-plylˈi-an.

P. 20.—“Estrays,” strays. Adopted from a law term referring to a lost animal.

P. 21.—“Humboldt.” (1767-1835.) A brother of the famous scholar and traveler of this name. He wrote much on language and comparative philology, his most ambitious work being a “Memoir on Comparative Linguistics.”

P. 26.—“Du Ponceau,” du-ponˈsō. (1760-1844.) His contributions to philology consisted of several treatises on language and a “Memoir oh the Indian Languages of North America.”

“Charlevoix,” sharˈlĕh-vwäˌ. (1682-1761.) A Jesuit missionary to America.

P. 29.—“Onomatopoetic,” ŏnˈo-mătˌo-po-ëtˌic. Words found to resemble the thing signified. The term is derived from two Greek words signifying to _make a name_.

P. 31.—“Heyse,” hēˈzeh. (1797-1855.) An able German scholar who wrote a valuable work on philology.

P. 33.—“Bleek,” (1827-1875.) He spent many years in Africa, where he collected materials for a “Vocabulary of the Mozambique Language,” and a “Grammar of South Africa.” He assisted in writing a “Handbook of African, Australian, and Polynesian Philology.”

“Schleicher,” shlīˈker. (1821-1869.) A German linguist, said to rank next to Bopp in comparative philology.

“Vinet,” ve-naˈ. (1797-1847.) A Swiss theologian and author, particularly well versed in the French language and literature.

P. 42.—“Ultimo,” etc. These expressions from the Latin have all English equivalents. _Ultimo_, on the last; _instanter_, at once; _proximo_, on the next; _cultus_, culture; _onus_, burden; _magnum opus_, a great work; _status_, state, standing; _curriculum_, course, particularly a course of study; _ultimatum_, the end, a final condition; _maximum_, the greatest; _minimum_, the least.

“Distingué,” etc. For these French terms we have equally expressive English words. _Distingué_, distinguished; _blasé_, surfeited, incapable of pleasure; _à merveille_, marvelously; _beau monde_, the fashionable world; _coup d’œil_, a quick glance; _demi monde_, loose livers; _haut ton_, aristocracy, the high toned; _coiffée à ravir_, charmingly dressed; _debutante_, a lady making her first appearance.

P. 47.—“Tooke.” (1736-1812.) A philologist and politician whose fame rests on one valuable work on language.

P. 49.—“De Quincy,” de kwĭnˈsĭ. (1785-1859.) His contributions to the art of speech consist of several valuable essays and literary criticisms.

P. 62.—“Kames,” kāmz. (1696-1782.) The most famous of all the various works of this eminent Scotch jurist was a treatise on the “Elements of Criticism.”

P. 63.—“Alford.” (1810-1871.). We are indebted to this English clergyman for a “Plea for the Queen’s English,” a very valuable book.

P. 75.—“Quintilian,” kwĭn-tĭlˈi-an. A Roman critic and rhetorician of the first century, the author of the “most complete and methodical treatise on rhetoric that has come down to us from antiquity.”

P. 81.—“Blair.” (1718-1800.) A Scottish clergyman whose “Lectures on Rhetoric” were famous in his own day, and until recently were used in a text-book in the United States.

P. 148.—“Aphæresis,” a-phérˈe-sis; “Syncope,” synˈcō-pe; “Apocope,” a-pŏcˈo-pe; “Prosthesis,” prŏsˈthe-sĭs; “Paragoge,” părˌa-gōˈge; “Synæresis,” syn-ĕrˈe-sis; “Diæresis,” dĭ-erˈe-sis; “Tmesis,” mēˈsis.

P. 149.—“Pleonasm,” plēˈo-nasm. “Enallage,” e-nălˈla-je; “Hyperbaton,” hy-pĕrˈba-tŏn.

P. 153.—“Theremin,” teˈreh-meenˌ. (1783-1846.) A German theologian and author.

P. 156.—“Paiezade,” pā-ē-dzäˈdĕ.

“Ruggiero,” rood-jāˈro. A young Saracen knight in Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso.” He possessed a winged horse or hĭpˈpo-griff.

“Astolpho,” as-tŏlˈpho. Another character of the same work, a cousin of Orlando’s. He possessed a magic lance and a horn which routed armies with a blast.

“Frerabras,” frĕ-räˈbräs.

P. 163.—“Alliteration,” al-lĭt-er-āˈtion; “Iambic,” so called from the Greek _iambus_, the name of a foot consisting of a short and long syllable.

“Trochaic,” tro-chaˈic. From trochee (troˈkee), the name of the foot which forms the verse. The word trochee is derived from the Greek word for running.

P. 164.—“Anapæstic,” anˌa-pestˈic. Composed of anapests. Anapest means _struck back_, being so named because the foot is a reversed dactyl.

“Dactylic,” dac-tylˈic. Of dactyls. A word derived from the Greek for finger, and applied to this peculiar foot because of the similarity of the arrangement to that of the joints of the finger.

P. 187.—“Synecdoche,” syn-ĕcˈdo-che; “Anthropopathy,” ănˌthro-pŏpˈa-thy.

P. 188.—“Trope,” trōpe; “Metonymy,” me-tŏnˈy-my.

P. 192.—“Apostrophe,” a-posˈtro-phe; “Hyperbole,” hy-pĕrˈbo-le.

P. 194.—“Oxymoron,” ŏx-y-mōˈron.

P. 198.—“Ploce,” plōˈce; “Anaphora,” a-năphˈo-ra; “Epistrophe,” e-pĭsˈtro-phe; “Antistrophe,” an-tĭsˈtro-phe; “Anadiplosis,” an-a-di-plōˈsîs.

P. 203.—“Incongruentia,” in-conˈgrū-enˌshe-a.

P. 205.—“Innuendo,” ĭn-nu-ĕnˈdo.

NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”

THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

P. 63, c. 1.—“Basques,” bask. The inhabitants of three Spanish provinces on the slopes of the Pyrenees. The government, customs and language of these people are peculiar and interesting. In government they are nearly republican. “Each province is governed by a parliament composed of representatives selected partly by election, partly by lot, among the householders of each county parish or town. A deputation, named by the parliament, insures the strict observance of the special laws and customs of the province, and negotiates with the representative of the Spanish crown. Delegates from the three parliaments meet annually to consider the common interests of the provinces; they employ a seal representing three interlaced hands, with the motto, ‘The three are one,’ but no written federal pact exists.” In their habits the people are very simple; agriculture is the principal occupation. They live on very equal terms, the class of nobles being small. The language was not written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is said to present some grammatical resemblance to the North American and certain East African languages.

P. 64, c. 1.—“Frisian,” frishˈe-ans. A Germanic people inhabiting at present the eastern coast of Holland, the fens of Saterland, the western shore of Schleswig, and a few adjacent islands. There exists now but a remnant of the ancient Frisians.

P. 66, c. 1.—“Cimmerian,” cim-mēˈri-an. An adjective derived from the Cimmerii, a mythical people represented by Homer as inhabiting a remote region of mist and darkness. Later writers locate this country near Lake Avernus, a lake of Italy about eight miles from Naples, or in the Crimea, or in Spain. “Their country was fabled to be so gloomy that the expression ‘Cimmerian darkness’ became proverbial; and Homer, according to Plutarch, drew his images of hell and Pluto from the dismal region they inhabited.”

“Comanches,” co-manˈches; “Piutes,” pi-utesˈ. Tribes of American Indians belonging to the Shoshone family. Only remnants of them now remain. The Piutes are one of the numerous divisions of the Utahs or Utes.

P. 67, c. 1.—“Primum Mobile.” The prime mover; first power; the beginning.

“Eddic.” Found in the Edda, the sacred books of the old Scandinavian tribes. These books contain almost all that we know of the mythology of the Northmen.

The original signification of “Edda” is “great-grandmother.” It is properly applied to but one collection, the other being a misnomer. The true Edda, or _Younger Edda_, is a prose collection, giving a history of the world and the gods. The _Elder Edda_ is a collection of poems, dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. Many of them are only fragments. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic form of Icelandic verse.

HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

P. 68, c. 2.—“Antiparos,” an-tipˈa-ros. A small island of the Grecian Archipelago. The grotto is its chief feature of interest. “It consists of an immense marble arch, the roof, sides and center of which are covered with stalactites and dazzling crystallizations, assuming the shapes of columns, screens, flowers, trees, etc. The stalactites hanging from the roof unite in several places with stalagmites rising from the floor, so that the arch is apparently supported by a continuous series of pillars. The grotto is entered by a natural arch of rugged rock, overhung with trailing plants.”

“Caverns.” To the caverns mentioned here must be added the “Fish River Caves” near Sydney, Australia. A writer in a late issue of the _Scientific American_ thus describes them: “These caves are situated about eighty miles west of Sydney, Australia, and are some 3,000 feet above sea level, in an interesting mountainous locality. They were first discovered by a party of settlers in 1866, while in pursuit of bush-rangers. They are singularly attractive. The intricate galleries, halls, and passages in their subterranean scenes are so magnificent that a person having once seen them is desirous of viewing them again and again, new features being presented to his view at each visit and at every turn. The strange forms that have been assumed by the drippings from the limestone are almost infinite, and are in beauty unsurpassable in their own character elsewhere. When lighted up by the incandescent magnesium wire or other strong light, these sublime chambers, so strangely formed by nature’s hands, present a gorgeous spectacle, filled as they are with drooping sprays, coral growths, delicate pendants, gigantic columns, handsome shawls, huge curtains, and shadowy arches of the most fantastic kind.”

“Church,” F. E. (1826-⸺.) An eminent American landscape painter. His earliest pictures of note were scenes from the Catskills. Among his later productions are “Under Niagara,” “The Heart of the Andes,” “Cotopaxi,” and “Sunrise on Mount Desert Island.” “The Icebergs” is ranked among his best works.

P. 69, c. 2.—“Mer-de-Glace,” mer-deh-gläs. Sea of ice. A glacier in the valley of the Chamouni.

SUNDAY READINGS.

P. 71, c. 1.—“Payson,” Edward. (1783-1827.) An American clergyman of the Congregational Church, Portland, Me., and the author of several works.

“Cowper,” William. (1731-1800.) A celebrated English poet. He was subject to attacks of insanity, and fancied himself destined to eternal woe.

“Tennents,” Gilbert and William. Two American clergymen of the Presbyterian Church, who lived during the first part of the eighteenth century. William was at one time seriously ill, and remained for several days in a condition of apparent death. His account of his emotions was, that at the moment of his seeming death he found himself surrounded by an unutterable glory, and saw a great multitude in the height of bliss; and that when he was about to join the happy throng some one came to him and said: “You must go back.” When he found himself in the world again he fainted. For three years the recollection of what he had seen and heard was so intense as to make earthly things seem worthless.

“Edwards,” Jonathan. (1703-1758.) An American divine and metaphysician, the greatest theologian of his century. Dr. Chalmers, of Scotland, said of him: “On the arena of metaphysics he stood the highest of all his contemporaries.” This American divine affords, perhaps, the most wondrous example in modern times of one who stood gifted both in natural and spiritual discernment.

P. 72, c. 1.—“Spurgeon,” Charles H. (spurˈjon). The great English preacher, born 1834. In 1854 he was called to the new Park Street Baptist Chapel in Southwark, London; and his preaching soon drew such crowds that the congregation removed first to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Music Hall, the largest public room in London. In 1861 a new chapel of great size was completed for his congregation. For several years he has preached an average of nearly a sermon a day, traveled extensively, and written several books.

P. 72, c. 2.—“Martineau,” marˌtēˌnoˈ. An English Unitarian clergyman, born about 1805. Author of several theological works.

P. 73, c. 2.—“Fuller,” Thomas. (1608-1661.) An English divine, court chaplain to Charles I. and II.

GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.

P. 73, c. 2.—“Leotychides,” leˌo-tīkˈi-dēs.

“Aristocracies.” For account of the freedom of early Athens from anything like aristocracy, see “Brief History of Greece,” pp. 46 and 47.

P. 74, c. 1.—House decorations. The dwelling houses of the Greeks were small and insignificant, so that their skill in architecture would show to better advantage on their public buildings. In the time of Pericles they were forbidden by law to build fine houses or to have a display of any kind about them. See “Brief History of Greece,” p. 84, note. Alcibiades began to indulge his love of beauty by home decoration; and for a description of a Greek house in later times see “Brief History of Greece,” p. 83.

“Thasos.” All traces of its ancient gold mines which yielded such large revenues have entirely disappeared. When Xerxes marched through Thrace, the Thasians, on account of their great wealth, and possessions on the mainland, were compelled to provide for the Persian army as it passed through their territories, and their expenditure was four hundred talents, about $460,000. Some remains of the ancient city still exist.

P. 74, c. 2.—“Demes,” dēˈmēs. Originally the Athenians were divided, according to their places of residence, into a number of boroughs or wards, demes.

“Coutts.” (1731-1822.) The wealth of this great banker was estimated at between two and three millions sterling. It finally reverted to his granddaughter, Miss Frances Burdett, on condition she would assume the name of Coutts. By her this wealth was dispensed freely in various charities.

P. 75, c. 1.—“Talent.” A talent is about $1,180.

“Bucephalus,” bu-sephˈa-lus. See “Cyrus and Alexander.”

“Orchomenus,” or-komˈe-nus.

P. 75, c. 2.—“Châlets,” shä-lāˈ. Mountain huts, in which the herdsmen live. They are low and flat, and are covered with stones to protect them against the elements. The interior has scarcely anything beyond the apparatus of the dairy. In the loft above is a store of straw for beds. All the Swiss valleys are covered with huts of this kind. Each herdsman has to collect about a hundred cows twice a day, and make cheese, which is the principal occupation inside the abodes. The owners of the cattle sometimes reside also in châlets, but they are of a superior kind, and frequently offer a delightful retreat to weary travelers.

“Bees.” Hybla, in Megaris, and Mt. Hymettus, in Attica, were celebrated far and near on account of the honey produced there.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

P. 76, c. 1.—“Cosmogony.” Derived from two Greek words signifying the _world_, and _to create_; hence its meaning, the doctrine or science of the creation of the world.

“Gea.” This name appears in many of our words to-day, such as _geography_, _geology_, _geometry_, etc., and in each retains its primitive meaning.

P. 76, c. 2.—“Comus.” From a Greek word meaning _revel_. From it comes our word _comedy_. In Milton’s poem Comus is represented as a base enchanter who endeavors to beguile and entrap the innocent by means of his “brewed enchantments.”

P. 77, c. 1.—“Centimani,” hundred-handed. Three giants, sons of Uranus and Gea. They had each one hundred hands and fifty heads, and were of extraordinary size and terrible strength.

P. 77, c. 2.—“Phlegra,” phlegˈraˈ. The most westerly of three peninsulas running out from Chalcidice, in Macedonia.

P. 78, c. 1.—“Anthropomorphic,” an-thro-po-morˈphic. Pertaining to the representation of the deity under human form.

“Monotheism.” The doctrine that there is but one God.

“Polytheism.” The doctrine of many gods.

“Archilocus,” ar-chilˈo-chus. (B. C. 714-676.) The first Greek poet who wrote according to fixed rules.

“Terpander.” (B. C. 700-650.) The father of Greek music, and through it, of lyric poetry.

“Epicharmos,” ep-i-charˈmos. Lived about B. C. 540. The chief comic poet among the Dorians, one of the races of the Greeks.

P. 78, c. 2.—“Theogony,” the-ogˈo-ny. That branch of heathen theology which taught the genealogy of their gods.

“Tytyus.” A son of Jupiter.

“Python.” A monster serpent. Apollo founded the _Pythian games_ in honor of this victory.

P. 79, c. 1.—“Orestes.” Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, was murdered by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra. Orestes avenged his father’s death by killing his mother and her guilty partner, for which he was pursued by the Furies.

“Orpheus.” One of the Argonauts. He enchanted with his music act only the wild beasts, but the trees and rocks, so that they followed the sound of his golden harp. He went after his lost wife, Proserpine, into the abodes of Hades, and suspended the torments of the lost, by his music. He won his wife back from the most inexorable of all deities, but had promised not to look back at her till they had arrived in the upper world. The anxiety of love overcame him, and he looked round to see that she was surely following. At that moment she was caught back to the infernal region.

TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE.

P. 79, c. 1.—“Bichat,” beˈshä. (1771-1803.) A French anatomist and physiologist.

“Pathological.” Pertaining to disease.

“Plethora,” plethˈo-ra. The state of the vessels of the human body when they are too full, or overloaded with fluids, and hence the state of being overfull in any respect.

“Must.” Wine pressed from the grape, but not fermented.

“Toxic.” Poison. The word _intoxicate_ is derived from it.

“Ibn Hanbal,” ibˈn hanˈbäl.

“Father Mathew.” (1790-1856.) Theobald Mathew, D.D., Ireland’s “Apostle of Temperance.” He devoted his life to this cause, and in its interests visited every large town in Ireland and England, and the principal cities in the United States.

P. 79, c. 2.—“Lorenzo de Medici,” dŭh medˈĕ-che. (1448-1492.) He was styled _the magnificent_. He was distinguished by his liberal patronage of literature and art, and his munificent encouragement of the commercial and social development of Florence. He belonged to a distinguished Florentine family. From the early history of Florence the Medici were conspicuous in the service of the republic.

“Gamin,” ga-mangˈ. A neglected and unruly child in the streets.

P. 80, c. 1.—“Nepenthe,” ne-penˈthe. A drug used by the ancients to relieve from pain, and produce great exhilaration of spirits.

“Thoreau,” thoˈro. (1817-1862.) An American author who lived the life of a hermit for more than two years in a forest near Concord.

“Porson.” (1759-1808.) An Englishman, generally considered one of the greatest classical scholars of modern times; without a rival as a Greek critic. His memory was miraculous. The complaint against him is, that with such great capabilities he did so little. He bestowed considerable pains on the restoration of the Greek text on the Rosetta stone.

“Polydipsia,” polˈi-dipˈsi-a.

“Embrocation.” Any lotion used for washing or rubbing a diseased part of the body.

P. 80, c. 2.—“Lecky,” lĕkˈĭ. (1838.) A British author who devoted himself to political and philosophical literature. His most celebrated work was “History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne.”

“Boswell.” (1740-1795.) An Englishman. His “Life of Johnson” is called the best biography extant.

P. 80, c. 2.—“Sir Hudibras,” huˈde-bräs. The title and hero of a celebrated satirical poem by Samuel Butler. Hudibras is a Presbyterian justice, who at the time of the Commonwealth, travels forth to correct abuses, and to enforce observance of the laws.

“A main forte,” ä mang fort. By main force.

“Sangrado,” Doctor, san-gräˈdo. The name of a physician in Le Sage’s novel, “Gil Blas” (zhēl bläs), who practices blood-letting as a remedy for all sorts of ailments.

“Asclepiades,” asˈcle-piˈa-dēs.

“Magendie,” maˈzhŏn-deeˈ. (1783-1855.) A French physiologist. He insisted that experimentation was the only source of knowledge, and resorted to vivisection constantly, saying it was the only method by which he could learn the nature of animals.

P. 81, c. 2.—“Jules Virey,” veˈraˈ. A French physician.

“Therapeutics,” therˈa-pūˈtics. The discovery and application of remedies for diseases.

STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

P. 82, c. 1.—“Gramineæ,” grä-minˈe-ē.

“Triticum.” Wheat. “Vulgare,” vul-gaˈrē.

P. 83, c. 1.—“Secale cereale,” se-cāˈle se-re-aˈle. The Latin word and the similar English word, _cereal_, are derived from Ceres, who was fabled to have invented agriculture, and was therefore styled the goddess of corn. Secale means a kind of corn.

THE CHAUTAUQUA UNIVERSITY.

Work has begun in the Chautauqua University. Courses of study in several departments have been prepared. Some students have been enrolled. Large numbers of letters of inquiry are being daily received, and the outlook is brilliant for a work far in advance of anything which the projectors of the enterprise had hoped. A lovely spot at Chautauqua, on the north side of the grounds, toward Mayville, has been selected as the center of the University. It will be inclosed and beautified. Within it will be the University offices, and colonnades, and halls accessible to those of our members who shall be able to visit Chautauqua in July and August. It will be known as “The Academia.”

The professors who have been appointed are for the most part men whose reputation as successful and experienced teachers is firmly established, and who will bring to this new work the same enthusiasm which has characterized them in other fields. Circulars containing full information concerning the aims of the University, the courses already prepared, the departments to be organized, the requirements for specific degrees, and the estimated cost of the course, may be obtained by addressing the Registrar, R. S. Holmes, at the central office in Plainfield, N. J. THE CHAUTAUQUAN for October announced our purposes and general plan. We now present some of the prominent and distinguishing features of our work:

1. The Chautauqua University is the only institution of the kind in the world. It stands alone. True, there are some other circles which, by correspondence, have pursued special and limited courses upon some particular subject; but ours is the only school whose avowed object is to conduct its students over the whole field of liberal learning, and reward them at their journey’s close, with a well earned degree. To all, who as pioneers in the field of education by correspondence, have helped to demonstrate the feasibility of organized effort in this direction, the Chautauqua University pays willing tribute. Their success gives footing to our confidence. If history can be so taught, why not philosophy, or logic, or literature, or any kindred topic? If Hebrew can be so taught, why not any ancient language? If French can be so taught, why not any modern language? True, we lack the presence of the living teacher, but the chief value of the teacher’s presence is to test the accomplished work of the student, and to prompt by word and hint to better work in lines of which the student had not thought. Both of these _can be accomplished_ by our method. The one condition is _work—earnest, persistent work_.

Teaching by correspondence is like conversation by telephone. We may never see each other, yet speak as face to face. We are miles apart, maybe, yet answer voice to voice. We are far without the range of possible personal contact, yet more in immediate obedience to each other’s will. So with teacher and pupil, they are mutually unseen; yet teacher’s letter on pupil’s table, and pupil’s letter on teacher’s table are a visible presentation of each to the other. They are widely separate; yet by correspondence question and answer are interchanged in rapid succession. Their paths of life never converge; yet teacher and pupil move mutually in daily lines which want and its supply make necessary.

As the soldier may fight battles and win victories under the direction of a general whom he has never seen, so the student may win in fields of learning without once seeing his teacher’s guiding hand.

2. _The Chautauqua University makes no limitation in the time allowed to students, to complete her prescribed courses._ Our students are not limited by time. They are not actuated by the spirit which hurries young men through college, seminary, and professional school, that at the earliest possible moment they may reach their chosen field of labor. Many of our students have reached their life work. They are on farms, in shops and stores, in factories and foundries, in press-room and in pulpit, in counting-room and court house, at home and by the way. They thirst for knowledge; to them we open the fountain. Their leisure time they would use in making reparation for lost opportunities of earlier years; or in supplementing the moderate acquirement which those earlier years had given. We offer them wise direction in this work, and say, Use the leisure that you have—make moments even at the cost of sacrifice; learn how to double moments by the quality of the work you crowd into them; choose from our courses of study those which you can pursue, and then pursue them till you reach the reward which we offer for their satisfactory completion. Do it; in four years, or six years if you can; in eight years, or ten years if you must, but do it; let nothing turn you from your purpose—after the struggle comes the victory, and the fruit of that victory will be not only the knowledge which you crave, but what is far better, _power over self, and the habit of self use_.

3. _The Chautauqua University does not require one who is enrolled as a student to take a complete course of study before giving official recognition to work already accomplished._ It is not possible for persons circumstanced as our students will be to devote so much of time each day to study that they can do the whole work of a college course in the ordinary four years. It may be that after a year or two of study, and the completion of some one department course, interruptions may arise which will disarrange a student’s plans and thwart for the time his purpose. To such students we promise to give official recognition. Should the work pursued be that of a single department, of several, or of all, much or little, for each finished branch of study the student will receive an official certificate signed by the professor with whom he has studied, and by the Chancellor and Registrar of the University; and whenever any student shall have obtained certificates, representing all the departments which are essential to the obtaining of any specified degree, the presentation of these certificates to the Board of Trustees will entitle their owner to the degree without further examination. In this there is no purpose of lowering the standard of requirement or of making an easy road to a degree. Certificates will represent rigid, searching and thorough examinations. We are not aware that such a course is pursued by any other institution. The student who is compelled to leave his college course unfinished leaves behind him on the books of the institution his record, but bears with him no official certificate of that record.

4. _The Chautauqua University takes the student where it finds him._ This makes education possible for the classes of society for which this enterprise is begun. Absence from home becomes unnecessary. We bid no man leave other duties undone, in order to study. We shorten no business hours; we shut no office doors; we turn no key upon the wants of a busy world. But when days are rainy and trade is dull, when the harvest is ended and the fences are mended, the winter’s fuel gathered and the farm implements are all repaired, when the shut-down of dull times comes in the factory, when household work is over, when evening comes, then are we ever at hand to whisper, give us your hours, and turn your backs upon the amusements, the frivolities, the wastefulnesses of the world. We ask no father or mother to toil and save that one from the home fireside may have the benefits of college education. We say to all, pursue together the paths we mark out for you. We increase no household expenses by the evening and morning hour’s study which we require. The small comparative outlay of money our courses make necessary will be repaid in ennobled character, and in more comprehensive views of life. We lay our text-books on the anvil, and some day we shall see Elihu Burritt or Robert Collyer emerging from the smoke and grime of the shop. We will place a law book by the cobbler’s side, and ever and anon he casts his eye at the open page; and by and by the cobbler’s sign is down and the shop is deserted—but an eloquent voice is pleading at the bar the claims of justice and humanity.

5. _The Chautauqua University comes into competition with no other institution._ We do not want as students those who can go to college. We do not wish to influence any one to neglect college opportunities freely offered. We expect that the work of the Chautauqua University will be to arouse so much interest in the subject of general liberal education that by and by in all quarters young men and women will be seeking means to obtain such education in established resident institutions. We expect to see the cause of education receive an impetus which it has had from no other source in the last quarter of a century. Meanwhile, we appeal to the classes already mentioned in our first article. “Worthy young people not able to go to college;” “those who, having begun a college course, have been compelled to abandon it by circumstances beyond their control;” and those “more mature men and women who, at the maximum of their mental power, desire to make amends for the educational omissions of the earlier years.”

In touching upon these several points we have to some extent repeated ideas already advanced in our general announcement. This was necessary in order to give prominence to these aspects of our scheme which seem to be worthy of emphatic public notice, and also to serve the purpose of making general answer to questions being asked in numbers too great to admit of personal answer. With a single word we close. October has come and well nigh gone, but let no one by that consideration be debarred from entering upon our course of study. Our doors are always open. It is better to begin with the year. But it is better to begin now than not at all. Our professors will gladly welcome as pupils any who are actuated by an earnest desire to enter the realms of the liberal arts, and in their names it is our pleasure to urge upon you careful consideration of the purposes and possibilities of the Chautauqua University.

TALK ABOUT BOOKS.

Bishop Foster is a vigorous writer, always clear and forcible. His last work, “Centenary Thoughts for the Pew and the Pulpit,”[E] will be regarded as one of his best productions; a book for the times, but containing much of permanent value. It evidently was not manufactured, but grew. The thought or germ took root in generous soil, and the growth was rapid. The volume is instructive, and must do good to the thousands who will be eager to read it. It was prepared specially for the members of the great Christian brotherhood known as Methodists, but will interest others, and lead to a better understanding of both the privileges and duties of Church membership. Its appeals are forcible, but made in great kindness. If there are sharp rebukes for delinquents and offenders, they are given with manifest tenderness, and in the spirit of love unfeigned.

* * * * *

The “Dictionary of Miracles,”[F] a unique and unpretentious volume of nearly six hundred pages, is a classified collection of legendary miracles and stories of saints taken from authentic sources. Dr. Brewer is a ripe scholar, in the fiftieth, or golden year of his authorship, and has earned his laurels. These extracts are made with great fairness, the author expressing no opinion as to the historic truth of the reported miracles, but presenting them in a compact form as evidence of the religious opinions of those among whom they are current.

* * * * *

To all who have been readers of _The Sunday-School Times_ a book written by the editor needs no words of recommendation in order to secure it a welcome. All workers in the Sunday-school will find this book to be a helper and a friend. It is full of good, practical thoughts and plans on the work, and clearly brings before the mind what teaching really is, and the relation that a teacher should bear to his class. We make a short extract: “It takes two persons to make one teacher. _You_ can be one of them; the other must be a _learner_.” “Teaching and Teachers”[G] is a book every teacher should have.

* * * * *

A very neat little book, which curiosity hunters will enjoy, comes bearing the title “Curious Epitaphs.”[H] Epitaphs on all sorts of persons; epitaphs containing puns and warnings, and miscellaneous epitaphs of all kinds are to be found in its pages.

* * * * *

Joseph Cook and his Boston lectures are too well known to need comment. All who are interested in following the “advanced thought” of this remarkable man will require his “Occident.”[I] This valuable book contains Mr. Cook’s lectures on “advanced thought” in England, Germany, Italy and Greece; his remarkable expositions of Professor Zöllner’s views of spiritualism, and the views of his opponents; the discussion on probation after death, and many talks on current topics of the time. It contains decidedly the most interesting collection of lectures published this season.

* * * * *

A work on physiology and hygiene, eminently practical, and showing the most approved methods of the school room, has just been published by A. Lovell & Co.[J] For primary and intermediate grades it is decidedly the best work we have seen. The object lessons, given or suggested, will be valuable aids to teachers, and for all young readers the principal facts are well expressed, and amply illustrated. Though a book for children it is not childish, and any one may gather from it lessons of great value. The chapters on alcohol and narcotics furnish the basis of lessons that should be taught plainly in all our schools.

* * * * *

“Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene”[K] is a work evidently prepared by one having a thorough knowledge of the subject. Though scientific and scholarly, it is popular in style, and not burdened with useless technicalities. It is well illustrated. The great advance made in physiological and hygienic knowledge in the last decade is noted with no ordinary satisfaction. The millions who now know so much of themselves, their needs and resources, liabilities and safeguards, are congratulated. Such knowledge and obedience to nature’s laws connect closely with the progress of society, and all that is most valuable in human achievement.

* * * * *

A little volume of poems by Andrew Lang bears the title, “Ballades and Verses Vain.”[L] The poems are classified into five different groups. There are ballads on all sorts of subjects and charming society verses, a handful of sonnets and a collection of bright translations, beside a few songs, “Post Homerica.” Austin Dobson has written these pretty verses of introduction for Mr. Lang’s “Laughter and Song:”

“Laughter and song the poet brings, And lends them form and gives them wings; Then sets his chirping squadron free To post at will by land or sea, And find their home, if that may be.

“Laughter and song this poet, too, A Western brother sends to you; With doubtful flight the darting train Have crossed the bleak Atlantic main— Now warm them in your hearts again.”

Visitors so bright and so pleasantly introduced will not want warm hearts to greet them.

* * * * *

A treat awaits all the little folks who can be made the happy possessors of “Queer Stories for Boys and Girls.”[M] There may be found fairy stories and stories of real folks; stories of good children and those of bad children—and somehow the bad ones always “get the worst of it,” just as they ought to do. Then those stories told by the “Cellar Door Club!” They are enough to make any boy want to go right out and start a club like that in his own neighborhood. Parents would do well to see that their children are provided with these Queer Stories. They will help to cultivate in them such a love for the true and the good as to lead them to shun frivolous literature.

* * * * *

The striking originality displayed in “The King’s Men”[N] must secure for the book a wide reading. The scene is laid in the twentieth century, and the present times are alluded to as the days of old. The pitiable attempt at keeping up the show of royalty in his narrow quarters in America, on the part of England’s exiled king, George V., the grandson of the present Prince of Wales, is well depicted. The struggle of the young English republic, and the sympathy and aid given it by its elder sister, America, are as real as if true. A capital hit is made in the employment he finds for the poor British aristocracy. These remnants of “better days,” in order to obtain a livelihood, let themselves out to a sort of caterer. This personage uses them as guests at the entertainments of the new families in the rising republic, who wish to hire titles to give them prestige in society.

* * * * *

What is to be done with the negro factor in our nation is a question over which the minds of our statesmen have been long interested. Judge Tourgée now comes to the front, and very vividly, and in the earnest manner so characteristic of the man, shows the dangers threatening in the not far distant future. To avert these action, prompt and specific, is necessary now. What, in the estimation of the Judge, this action should be he sets forth in his “Appeal to Cæsar.”[O] This appeal is forcible and logical. His Cæsar, the great American People, it is to be hoped, will not turn a deaf ear to it. This appeal to his Cæsar is a serious book. It is not fiction—nor plain truth clothed in fiction—it is the honest conviction of an earnest, far-seeing man, told plainly and with ringing effect. “The color line,” the author claims, “which before marked only the distinction of caste, has now become the line of demarkation between hostile forces. Out of the ‘irrepressible conflict’ between freedom and slavery has grown one of far graver portent to the nation and the world. Must one of these forces overthrow, subjugate, and forever hold in subjection the other? Or is it possible that the two races live peacefully side by side, and equality of right and power be cheerfully accorded to all?” The author believes this may be done, but that it must be done quickly. For us it is to act. And how? By educating our freedman. A national appropriation is pleaded for as the only sure way of avoiding the ills which threaten the Union from the South. It is not croaking to talk plainly on an evil, or the possibility of an evil. The book on the contrary is manly and forcible, and deserves careful attention.

* * * * *

A good feature of “young American” literature is its biography. Many of the short papers which appear in the periodical press are remarkably strong. Such certainly are the articles by James Parton which for some time have been appearing in leading papers, and which have lately been gathered into book form under the title, “Captains of Industry.”[P] The strongest feature of this collection is the freshness of the material. A few of the models which we hold before our boys have become not a little threadbare. They no longer arouse much enthusiasm. Here is a book full of new heroes who have done not impossible things like becoming the father of one’s country, or inventing a steam engine, or discovering America, but have done deeds which are, or at least seem, practical. Here is the history of Frederick Tudor, the Boston ice exporter, with a capital story of the appreciations which East Indians have for the man who gave them the blessing of ice; of Chauncey Jerome, the Yankee clock maker; of Carême, the famous French cook, and of over forty more, most of them equally new. Material so good deserves thorough treatment. It has not had such in this volume. The newspaper mark lingers on the work. The literary finish of the book is not equal to the spirit with which it was evidently written, nor to the amount of labor which must have been expended in collecting these valuable and entertaining facts and anecdotes. The book is so good that this is to be regretted.

* * * * *

There has never been a satisfactory explanation advanced by geologists of the origin of what is called “the Drift” period of the earth’s history. One theory attributes it to the action of great waves, but “the Drift” contains no fossils; another to icebergs, but the heaviest rocks are not found on top, and there is no regular stratification of material. All theories have been more or less incomplete. The author of that strange book “Atlantis,” has in “Ragnarok”[Q] found a new explanation. The name itself explains his theory. It is derived from an old Scandinavian legend, and means “the rain of dust.” “The Drift” is nothing, our author holds, and argues with great ingenuity, but the dust scattered by a comet which struck the earth ages ago. Novel and fascinating as is the book, its scientific value is not very great. Lovers of legends will find many strange myths introduced in support of the theory. The author, too, by ingeniously rearranging the verses in the first and second chapters of Genesis, thinks he has found the key that will unlock all the troubles that are claimed to exist between the Bible and science.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Young Folks’ Library: Evening Rest. By J. L. Pratt. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. 1884.

Standard Library: Himself Again. By J. C. Goldsmith. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.

Gymnastics of the Voice; A System of Correct Breathing in Singing and Speaking. By Oscar Guttman. Albany, N. Y.: Edgar S. Werner. The Voice Press. 1884.

The Boston Correspondence School of New Testament Greek. Kindergarten Cards, Chautauqua Series. Copyrighted by Alfred A. Wright. 1884.

[E] Centenary Thoughts for the Pew and Pulpit of Methodism. By R. S. Foster, one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati, Cranston & Stowe.

[F] A Dictionary of Miracles. By the Rev. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1884.

[G] Teaching and Teachers, or the Sunday-School Teacher’s Teaching Work, and the Other Work of the Sunday-School Teacher. By H. Clay Trumbell, D.D. Philadelphia: John D. Wattles.

[H] Curious Epitaphs collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland. With Biographical, Genealogical, and Historical Notes. By William Andrews, F. R. H. S. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.

[I] Boston Monday Lectures. Occident, with Preludes on Current Events. By Joseph Cook. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

[J] Practical Work in the School Room. Part I. A Transcript of the Object Lessons on the Human Body Given in Primary Department, Grammar School No. 49, New York City. New York: A. Lovell & Co. 1884.

[K] Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene: A Manual for the use of Colleges, Schools, and General Readers. By Jerome Walker, M.D. New York: A. Lovell & Co. 1884.

[L] Ballades and Verses Vain. By Andrew Lang. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1884.

[M] Queer Stories for Boys and Girls. By Edward Eggleston. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1884. Price, $1.00.

[N] The King’s Men; A Tale of To-morrow. By Robert Grant, John Boyle O’Reilly, J. S. of Dale, and John T. Wheelwright. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1884.

[O] An Appeal to Cæsar. By Albion W. Tourgée. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 1884.

[P] Captains of Industry; or, Men of Business who did something beside Making Money. By James Parton. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Cloth, $1.25.

[Q] Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel. By Ignatius Donnelly. Illustrated. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1884.

SPECIAL NOTES.

The “Chemistry” designed for the required reading is the one bearing the imprint of the Providence Lithograph Company. This was prepared by Professor Appleton expressly for the Circle, and the publishers furnished the colored lithograph plates and most of the other illustrations specially for this book. Neither the “Young Chemist,” by the same author, nor any other book can be accepted as a substitute for the book specially prepared for the Circle.

* * * * *

All local circles should report directly to THE CHAUTAUQUAN. A prompt notice of the organization of each new circle should be sent to us, and as well of the reorganization of all old clubs. It is especially desirable that any new feature in conducting a circle, or new plan for Memorial Days should be written up for the local circle column. Let all have the benefit of your successes.

* * * * *

The garnet badges necessarily worn by all graduates of the C. L. S. C. are manufactured and for sale by Mrs. Rosie M. Baketel, of Greenland, N. H. Also the badges of the Class of 1888, and of the C. Y. F. R. U. These can be obtained by mail at the following rates: For the garnet badges, 40 cents; Class of ’88, 15 cents; C. Y. F. R. U., 10 cents.

* * * * *

THE CHAUTAUQUAN for December will contain a Christmas Vesper Service prepared especially for our subscribers. This service will also be printed on single sheets and supplied in quantities to those desiring such an exercise for their Christmas festivities. See advertisement.

* * * * *

All business correspondence relating to Chautauqua or the Hotel Athenæum should be addressed to W. A. Duncan, Syracuse, N. Y.

CHAUTAUQUA INTERMEDIATE CLASS, 1884.

FIRST PRIZE.

Harriet J. Price, Erie, Pa.

SECOND PRIZE.

Lillie M. Whitney, Murray, Calloway Co., Ky.

THIRD PRIZE.

Rev. G. M. Elliott, Selma, Dallas Co., Ala.

DESERVING SPECIAL MENTION.

Jessie S. Hunt, Olean, N. Y. Susan E. Monroe, 1424 Poplar Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

GENERAL LIST.

Mary E. Van Fleet, Pinckney, Mich. Frank E. Meigs, Warrensburg, Mo. Lena Scott, 1011 Upper 6th Street, Evansville, Ind. Eva M. Moll, Hiawatha, Brown Co., Kan. Mrs. J. L. Tourtellot, 95 Messer Street, Providence, R. I. Daisy R. Doren, 307 6th Street, Dayton, O. Mrs. S. M. Tucker, Springboro, Crawford Co., Pa. Fannie E. Peacock, 84 Joy Street, Detroit, Mich. G. W. Newman, Kendall, McKean Co., Pa. Mrs. E. L. Taylor, Fulton, Bourbon Co., Kan. Marion I. Springer, South Oil City, Pa. A. May Peck, Jamestown, N. Y. Vladimir E. Dolgoruki, Siloam Springs, Benton Co., Ark. Caleb G. Ensign, Madison, O. Kate Brown, Pinckney, Mich. Amy Pemberton, West Milton, O. Belle Flesh, Piqua, O. Mrs. J. Paton, Jr., Flushing, Genesee Co., Mich. Mrs. J. M. Foster, Leech’s Corners, Mercer Co., Pa. Mrs. J. Y. McLean, Leech’s Corners, Mercer Co., Pa. Inez A. Harris, Box 1159, Bradford, Pa. Anna Harris, Box 1159, Bradford, Pa. Florence Kerr, Mercer, Mercer Co., Pa. Helen M. Martin, W. Henrietta, Monroe Co., N. Y. Homer N. Kimball, Madison, Lake Co., O. Mrs. Sarah L. Parker, Sherman, N. Y.

CHAUTAUQUA CHILDREN’S CLASS, 1884.

PRIZE PAPERS.

1st. Cora E. Faber, 62 Lansing Street, Utica, N. Y. 2d. Ernest C. Wheeler, Manchester, Iowa. 3d. Mary Adelaide Jay, Richmond, Ind.

SPECIAL HONORABLE MENTION.

Willis E. McGerald, Tonawanda, N. Y. Mary D. Potter, 192 Washington Street, Allegheny, Pa. Louisa Sauer, 244 Williams Street, Buffalo, N. Y.

SPECIAL MENTION.

* Percy A. Barlow, 88 Mayberry Avenue, Detroit, Mich. * L. Mary Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa. * Herbert Russell, Mansfield, O. * Martha S. Colburn, Jamestown, N. Y. * Jessie Galey, Pollock, Clarion Co., Pa. * John H. Pierce, Holly, N. Y. * Grace J. Kirkland, Dewittville, N. Y.

GENERAL LIST.—FIRST GRADE.

Theresa Waggoner, Chautauqua, N. Y. Nellie B. Lowe, Springville, Erie Co., N. Y. * May Herrick, Chautauqua, N. Y. * Rachel Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa. Annie W. Crane, 30 E. 14th Street, New York, N. Y. * Mabel M. Rice, Petrolia, Butler Co., Pa. * Florence A. Jones, Greenfield, Erie Co., Pa. * Carrie M. Dithridge, Tionesta, Pa. Lillie Babcock, Box 194, Bradford, Pa.

SECOND GRADE.

* Jessie Leslie, Chautauqua, N. Y. * Mary A. Sixbey, Mayville, N. Y. A. May Peck, Jamestown, N. Y. * Willie Walworth, 117 Public Square, Cleveland, O. Eddie Mead, Union City, Ind. Louisa W. Knox, Connellsville, Pa. Charles A. Harris, 964 Seneca Street, Buffalo, N. Y. George L. Hoxie, Leonardsville, Madison Co., N. Y. * Anna Taylor, Chautauqua, N. Y. * Carrie Perkins, Box 8, Dunkirk, N. Y. Lillian Kennedy, 1426 Master Street, Phila., Pa. * Grace E. Bosley, Haselton, Barber Co., Kansas. Ada Miller, South Oil City, Pa.

THIRD GRADE.

Wilkie D. Neville, Box 187, South Toledo, O. Mary R. Stevens, Wellsville, N. Y. * Bessie Barrett, Box 54, Titusville, Pa. * Miner Crarey, Sheffield, Warren Co., Pa. Genevieve E. Merritt, Chautauqua, N. Y. Dana Jewell, Olean, N. Y. Kate Foulke, Albion, Erie Co., Pa. Allien Davis, Youngsville, Warren Co., Pa. Frances E. Sersall, Warren, Pa. Torrence Parker, Randolph, N. Y. May Wallace, Erie, Pa.

FOURTH GRADE.

Leon Tallman (no address given). * Gracie Jones, Greenfield, Pa. Anna Gale, 745 N. Logan Street, Cleveland, O. Willie Anderson, Wellsville, N. Y. Daisy Morris, New Wilmington, Lawrence Co., Pa. E. D. Williamson, 275 Christian Avenue, Indianapolis, Ind. * Nellie Vance, Sheakleyville, Mercer Co., Pa. Orry Bashline, Cottage, Cattaraugus Co., N. Y. Florence Milliman, Buffalo, N. Y.

* * * * *

The following members of the Children’s Class, who have already taken the Diploma, are entitled to seals by having passed parts of the Intermediate examination:

One seal, Carrie M. Dixon, Box 213, Titusville, Pa. One seal, Grace J. Kirkland, Dewittville, N. Y. Two seals, Grace E. Barrett, Box 54, Titusville, Pa.

The * at the end of names in the list of children is to show who have passed examinations previous to this year.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 72, “jar” changed to “war” (“peace” denotes the absence of war)

Page 79, “analagous” changed to “analogous” (deny that analogous influences)

Page 106, “has” added (It has been my sad duty)

Page 109, “em hatic” changed to “emphatic” (short ones more emphatic)

Page 115, repeated word “of” deleted (Æëtes, king of the country)

Page 115, “Isis” changed to “Iris” (“Iris.” The messenger of the gods.)

Page 118, “Clytemnesta” changed to “Clytemnestra” (murdered by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra)