Chapter 2

One might imagine, from the way in which the enemies of this reform run on, that any changes made now would be the first to which English spelling had ever been subjected--would be the establishment of an evil precedent instead of merely a slight hastening, in the interest of convenience and economy, of a process that has been going on steadily ever since the day when English became a written language.

One of our correspondents said yesterday that, in his opinion, "before we try to monkey further with so good an instrument as the English language we ought to try to use it properly."

Well, not necessarily. With a little, or even with a lot, of "monkeying" an amount of time almost incalculably large, now devoted to the learning of such utterly useless and imbecile things as the arrangement of the vowels in "siege" and "seize," could be used on the task which our correspondent wisely intimated is so important.

The personality of the Simplified Spelling Board is guarantee that the demand for an improved orthography is not an outgrowth of ignorance or irreverence. These men have more than a little affection for the history of words, and they are not at all likely to do anything that will hide or distort it. They will, however, put and keep that history in its proper place.

How Dr. Johnson Takes It.

It would seem, however, that the shades of former lexicographers are incensed by the threat of "fonetic speling." The New York _Globe_ describes the reception of the news in the land across the Styx:

It has been the practise at the Cheshire Cheese Inn in the trans-Styx London, where post-mortem encyclopedists have their "clubs," to make light of the modern verbal reformers and "simplifiers." It was immediately seen, however, that Andrew's addition to the reformer's fold put a very different complexion on the case.

"Sir," said the doctor to Boswell, in his best "bow-wow" manner, "I have never slept an hour less nor eat an ounce less meat on account of these caitiffs, but now that the Scotch barbarian, that futile Highland Cherokee, has supplied them with money, they may ruin the language in a twelvemonth."

"I don't see, sir," replied Boswell, "why my countryman did not confine his charities to libraries and hero funds."

"Because, sir," thundered the doctor, "he is insane on the subject of charity; he could not make a worse use of his money than thus to threaten the integrity and purity of the great vehicle of expression."

"There is, however, sir," replied Boswell, "something to be said in their favor; thru saves three letters over through, catalog saves two, becaws one; they take less ink, and less room on a page; think of----"

"Well, sir," said the doctor, "suppose they do; what of that? A man with his arms and legs off would take up less room. You take up less room than I. Does that make you any more valuable to the world?"

"I can see no logical objection, sir," replied Boswell, "to the omission of silent letters. They do no good----"

"No good, sir!" snarled the doctor. "There are some letters, sir, as there are some men, who do themselves more credit, sir, when they are silent."

THE PUNISHMENT TO FIT THE OFFENDER.

Samuel J. Barrows Gives Reasons For Favoring the Indeterminate Sentence For Convicted Criminals.

Times and conditions have changed since Dickens and Charles Reade aroused the English-speaking world by revealing the inhuman abuses of the English prison system. To-day humane treatment is taken as a matter of course. The chief aim of the modern criminologist is not to punish the criminal but to cure him; and in curing him the first agency is fair treatment. Therefore is urged the necessity of making the penalty more nearly fit the crime.

According to Samuel J. Barrows, president of the International Prison Congress, "it is still more difficult to make the penalty fit the offender." In a recent article in the _Outlook_, he enters a plea for safeguarding the "indeterminate sentence" for convicted criminals. The best criminal code, he says, is an arbitrary instrument, and it is impossible, on any principle, so to construct one that the penalty and crime are commensurate. After making this assertion, he continues:

No legislator can show why the theft of twenty-five dollars should be punishable with one year's imprisonment, and the theft of twenty-six dollars with five years' imprisonment. Nor is the difficulty removed by empowering the judge to use his discretion in imposing sentence within certain limits of minimum and maximum. A judge would find it hard to tell why he sentenced one boy five years for stealing a dollar and another boy one year for stealing two hundred dollars, or another judge why he sent one boy to prison for a year, and another, a first offender, to sixteen years for the same offense. A study of codes on one hand and of sentences on another reveals an amazing amount of contradiction and confusion, not to say rank injustice, in the application of penalties. For this inequality and injustice the indeterminate sentence furnishes the necessary relief. Instead of making the code-maker or the judge decide when a man shall come out of prison, it puts the main responsibility of deciding that question upon the prisoner himself.

DOES COEDUCATION FEMINIZE COLLEGE?

Thorough Training, Rather than Separate Training, is the Need of the Times, Says President Jordan.

President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford Junior University, has ever been a strong advocate of coeducation. At the present time, when the system is being so severely criticized in so many quarters, his defense of it, which appears in _Munsey's Magazine_ for March, sounds a note of reassurance. The article is an answer to an attack on coeducation--in the February issue of the same magazine--by President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University.

To the charges that the character of college work has been lowered by coeducation, and that it offers difficulties or embarrassments in the class-room, Dr. Jordan replies with categorical denials. The argument that the presence of women tends to "feminize" the universities is, he grants, more serious. But he then enters into the following distinctions:

It has been feared that the admission of women to the university would vitiate the masculinity of its standards; that neatness of technique would impair boldness of conception; and delicacy of taste replace soundness of results. It is claimed that the preponderance of high school educated women in ordinary society is showing some such effects in matters of current opinion.

For example, it is claimed that the university extension course is no longer of university nature. It is a lyceum course designed to please women who enjoy a little poetry, play, and music, who read the novels of the day, who dabble in theosophy, Christian science, or psychology, who cultivate their astral bodies and think there is something in palmistry, and who are edified by a candy-coated ethics of self-realization. There is nothing ruggedly true, nothing masculine left in it.

Current literature and history are affected by the same influences. Women pay clever actors to teach them, not Shakespeare or Goethe, but how one ought to feel on reading "King Lear" or "Faust." If the women of society do not read a book, it will scarcely pay to publish it.

Science is popularized in the same fashion by ceasing to be science and becoming mere sentiment or pleasing information. This is shown by the number of books on how to study a bird, a flower, a tree, or a star, through an opera-glass, and without knowing anything about it. Such studies may be good for the feelings or even for the moral nature, but they have no elements of that "fanaticism for veracity" which is the highest attribute of the educated man.

These results of the education of many women and of a few men, by which the half-educated woman becomes a controlling social factor, have been lately set in strong light by Dr. Münsterberg; but they are used by him, not as an argument against coeducation, but for the purpose of urging the better education of more men. They form likewise an argument for the better education of more women.

The remedy for feminine dilettanteism is found in more severe training. Current literature reflects the taste of the leisure class. The women with leisure who read and discuss vapid books are not representative of woman's higher education. Most of them have never been educated at all.

In any event, this gives no argument against coeducation. It is thorough training, not separate training, which is indicated as the need of the times. Where this training is taken is a secondary matter, though I believe with the fulness of certainty that better results, mental, moral, and physical, can be obtained in coeducation than in any monastic form of instruction.

The question whether or not coeducation leads to marriage seems to present few difficulties to Dr. Jordan. "Love and marriage and parenthood," he says, "will go on normally whatever our scheme of education."

PREDOMINANCE OF COLLEGE ATHLETICS.

Sport is the Great Secondary Interest in Our Universities, Says Professor Ostwald, a German Visitor.

Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, of the University of Leipsic, is not only a great chemist; he is also a philosopher, and his mind is alert to every kind of human interest. The courses of lectures which he delivered not long ago at Harvard and Columbia universities attracted much attention. Among other things he predicted that before long scientists might be creating living things.

Since his return to Germany, Professor Ostwald has been preparing for the Prussian government a report on what he observed in America. Meantime he talks freely to German press interviewers. He says of our college sports:

The personal interest of the students, next to their studies, is concentrated on sport. Football before all is loved uncommonly, and it is practised in such a fashion that academic and State authorities are near to forbidding it altogether. In the course of a single semester nineteen students fell victims to brutal handling. At every American university is a sort of open amphitheater, in which many thousands of spectators view the periodic football battles.

The trouble is not, of course, that the great secondary interest of student life is sport, but that the American idea of college sport has come to be the training of a few champion athletes for the purpose of winning, not the training of all young men and women for the purpose of recreation. G. Upton Harvey dwells on this point in an article published in the _Review of Reviews_:

It really is not fair or profitable to judge athletics in general, or any particular sport or game, by the benefits secured by the few. The test should be the good accruing to the nation at large. Athletics should build us up as a people, raise the standard of average manhood, and thus benefit us as a nation, rather than develop a selected few who use their strength and skill chiefly as a means of earning money.

In America, we love our players rather than our games. The result is that only one man in a thousand acquires the strength and proficiency which make him an acceptable player. Our athletics develop the few, and benefit us but little, if at all, as a people.

Of course, we turn out teams and individual athletes unequaled anywhere else in the world. But what good does that do you and me, who are shut out from participation in the games because we are not giants in point of strength or wizards in point of skill?

We are compelled to be mere onlookers at the present-day baseball or football game, or track meet, to watch the players with mingled feelings of awe and admiration, much as the Romans of old sat about the amphitheater and marveled at the exploits of the gladiators.

The "sport" of the Romans--desperate encounters between man and man, or between man and wild beast--undoubtedly developed men of unsurpassed courage, skill, and strength. But did it benefit Rome?

Our athletes lead the world. That is a matter of record. But how has this superiority been achieved? By making athletics a business or a profession for selected individuals, instead of a sport, a pastime, and a recreation for all. Athletics as we know them may be sport or pastime for us as spectators, but our games are no recreation for those who participate in them.

The desire to excel, to win at any cost, is the root of the evil. If we can't win, we drop out of the game and join the ranks of spectators. The benefits of participating in an afternoon's sport, even as a loser, are lost sight of. We do not play for the sake of playing, or for the betterment of our physical condition--we play to win, to come out first, to excel our neighbors.

What we need to learn is to be cheerful losers. Any one can be a gracious winner, but few of us are good losers. Until we do learn that there is something in the game besides the winning of it, we cannot hope that our athletics will be of general benefit to the nation.

SHAW RAGES AGAINST THE AMATEUR STAGE.

The Author of "Candida" Declares With Emphasis That Charity Actors Make Themselves Ridiculous.

Bernard Shaw recently contributed to the London _Tribune_ a characteristic bit of criticism. It seems that he has been much annoyed by requests for permission to give amateur performances of his plays in behalf of charity. Mr. Shaw has a small opinion of amateur actors, as may be gathered from the following:

Almost all amateurs desire to imitate the theater rather than to act a play.

Reach-me-down dresses, reach-me-down scenery, reach-me-down equipments are considered good enough for dramatic masterpieces--are positively preferred to decent and beautiful things because they are so much more theatrical.

As to plays, they, too, must be second-hand reach-me-downs. Your amateurs don't want to bring plays to a correct and moving representation for the sake of the life they represent; they want to do Hawtrey's part in this or Ellen Terry's part in that, or Cyril Maude's part in the other.

The enormous and overwhelming advantage possessed by amateurs--the advantage of being free from commercial pressure and having unlimited time for rehearsal--is the last one they think of using.

The commercial plays, which are the despair of actors, but which they must produce or starve, are the favorites of our amateurs. They do out of sheer folly and vulgarity what our real dramatic artists do of necessity and give some saving grace and charm to in the doing.

KAISER MAKES NEW TEN COMMANDMENTS.

The Most Versatile of Monarchs Draws Up a List of Rules to be Followed by Horse-Owners.

Varied and numerous as are his regular activities, the German Emperor frequently adds new ones to the list. One of the latest manifestations of his ubiquitous interest is the following productions, which he has sent to his friends under the title, "The Ten Commandments for Horse-Owners." It is worth preserving for two reasons--first, because of the soundness of the advice it offers; second, because it indicates that the most important figure among continental monarchs is not above considering the welfare of his dumb servants.

First--Do not expose your horses to draft, in or out of the stable.

Second--Do not allow any broken windows in your stable. At the same time see that it is properly ventilated.

Third--Do not keep your horses too warm. Never cover them with blankets in the stable.

Fourth--Exercise your horses daily as the best preventive against disease.

Fifth--Don't feed wet fodder, but give dry fodder and fresh water. In winter let the water stand a while after taking it from the well or faucet.

Sixth--Prevent ammonia gases, which are bad for the eyes and the ligaments.

Seventh--Every fourth or sixth week remove the shoes and have the hoofs attended to. After that the shoes may be nailed on again.

Eighth--When the roads are covered with ice, use spiked shoes.

Ninth--Do not put an ice cold bit into a horse's mouth in winter unless you want him to have toothache and become ill.

Tenth--Be as careful of your horse's skin as of your own.

PARADOX PROVERBS.

These Pampered Children of Wisdom and Experience Find It So Difficult to Agree That if They Had Teeth and Claws They Might Fight It Out in the Manner of the Kilkenny Cats.

A proverb is defined in one of the more popular dictionaries of our language as "a brief, pithy saying, condensing in witty or striking form the wisdom of experience."

But experiences vary and often lead to different results, so that of proverbs it may be said that "what is one man's meat is another man's poison." It is as futile for a man to live his life in accordance with proverbs as it is for twenty cooks to collaborate in the making of a broth that will please the palates of all.

The truth is, proverbs are just as likely to disagree as are physicians. Here are a few that have agreed to disagree:

A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.

_A formal fool speaks naught but proverbs._

* * * * *

Education forms the man.

_By education most have been misled._

* * * * *

Everything comes to him who waits.

_He who would find must seek._

* * * * *

Better a patch than a hole.

_A true gentleman would rather have his clothes torn than mended._

* * * * *

Patience surpasses learning.

_Patience is the virtue of asses._

* * * * *

No wickedness has any ground of reason.

_Success makes some crimes honorable._

* * * * *

He who hunts two hares at once will catch neither.

_It is always good to have two irons in the fire._

* * * * *

Never spur a willing horse.

_A good horse and a bad horse both need the spur._

* * * * *

The middle path is the safe path.

_The neutral is soused from above, and singed from below._

* * * * *

Many hands make light work.

_Too many cooks spoil the broth._

* * * * *

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

_The seed you sow, another reaps._

* * * * *

Be sure you are right, then go ahead.

_Nothing venture, nothing have._

* * * * *

It is fortune, not wisdom, that rules man's life.

_Wisdom is the conqueror of fortune._

* * * * *

The wise man has a short tongue.

_Silence is the virtue of those who are not wise._

* * * * *

The face is the index of the mind.

_A fair skin often covers a crooked mind._

* * * * *

Trust not to appearances.

_A fair exterior is a silent recommendation._

* * * * *

Good fortune ever fights on the side of the prudent.

_Fortune helps the bold._

* * * * *

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

_Push on, keep moving._

* * * * *

Out of sight, out of mind.

_Absence makes the heart grow fonder._

* * * * *

A bad beginning makes a good ending.

_A good beginning makes a good ending._

* * * * *

Birds of a feather flock together.

_Two birds of prey do not keep each other company._

* * * * *

All truths are not to be told.

_Tell the truth and shame the devil._

* * * * *

No jealousy, no love.

_In jealousy there is more self-love than love._

* * * * *

The end justifies the means.

_Never do evil that good may come of it._

* * * * *

A sin confessed is half-forgiven.

_A sin concealed is half-pardoned._

WHEN THE LAST CURTAIN FELL.

Some Striking Instances of How Death Has Stepped Behind the Footlights and Claimed His Victims in Full View of Audiences Who Have Mistaken Real Tragedy for Play.

"Into Thy hands, O Lord! Into Thy hands!"

These words, inscribed on a card that was fastened to the cross of lilies sent by Queen Alexandra of England to be laid on the casket containing the body of Sir Henry Irving, were the last uttered on the stage by that famous actor. They are the last words of _Becket_, in Tennyson's drama of that name.

Though Irving did not die on the stage, the hand of death was upon him at the close of that last performance. He was scarcely more than outside the theater in Bradford, England, when he was stricken with syncope, and he died a few minutes after reaching his hotel.

There are a score of other cases on record in which death has appeared on the stage of a theater for the purpose of marking its victims.

It was a fateful irony that Signor Castelmary should be fatally stricken on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in the midst of the bright and romantic scenes of "Martha." A tragi-comedy if ever there were one!

Yet this overpowering mingling of the real and the unreal is by no means an unusual element of stage life. History records many instances of deaths on the stage; some of them the result of accidental violence, but by far the greater number caused by the sudden effect of overwrought emotions.

Sometimes death comes instantaneously; sometimes the blow is received from which recovery is impossible, and the actor lingers on with nothing but suffering and death before him. Both tragedy and comedy have been the scenes of actual death on the stage.

Peg Woffington, it will be remembered, was stricken with paralysis while playing _Rosalind_. She had gone through the entire play with a life and spirit which gave no sign of the weakening powers plainly evident to her companions on the stage, and had nearly concluded the epilogue:

"If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me----"

Her last words on the stage had been spoken. Staggering off the scene, she fell apparently lifeless, and recovered only to live three long years of loneliness and retirement away from the work she loved.

But most wonderful of all was Edmund Kean's last night on the stage. He was playing _Othello_ to his son's _Iago_ at Covent Garden, and, worn out with physical and mental excess, barely managed to conceal his incapacity and weakness from the audience.

Reaching the great scenes of the third act, they proved too much for his waning powers, and uttering the words, "Othello's occupation's gone," he began the next line, but was unable to complete it, and fell into his son's arms, with the faint cry:

"God, I am dying! Speak to them, Charles."

He was carried to his home, where he died seven weeks later.

The story of the death of John Palmer, while acting in "The Stranger" at Liverpool, in 1798, offers an instance almost analogous to the death of Castelmary. He had gone on with his part into the fourth act, when, faltering in his lines, he fell prostrate before his companion actor and died while being carried off the stage. The story that he died while uttering the lines in an earlier act, "There is another and a better world," is a fiction which requires denial almost as often as the story of his death is repeated.