Part 1

THE SCRAP BOOK

Vol. II. OCTOBER, 1906. No. 2.

HOW TO LIVE WELL.

BY GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the estimation of the widow’s mite, that it is not every one that asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy of the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer. Do not conceive that fine clothes make fine men, any more than fine feathers make fine birds. A plain, genteel dress is more admired, and obtains more credit, than lace and embroidery, in the eyes of the judicious and sensible.—_From a Letter to His Nephew, Bushrod Washington, 1783._

The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While

Lady Ward Discusses Female Suffrage in New Zealand—C. F. Birdseye Shows That the Scope of College Fraternities is Widening—Professor Borgerhoff Points Out Merits of Esperanto—Mormon Elder Says It Costs $1,500 to Save a Soul—President Faunce Believes Public Schools Will Supply Antidote for War—Dr. Louis Elkino Writes of German Methods in Fight for Commercial Supremacy—Bernard Shaw Says Americans Are Children in Business—Queen Margherita on Race Suicide—Charles F. Pidgin Finds Boston a Big Debtor—Lord Roberts Wants Rifle-Shooting Made a National Sport.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

HOW FEMALE SUFFRAGE WORKS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Even Maori Women Vote, But Only Men Hold Office—Lack of Servants Keeps Fair Sex Home.

What about woman in New Zealand? We are arguing for and against woman suffrage in the United States with almost as much theory and as little practical knowledge of the proposed conditions as was the case thirty years ago. Some of us are positive in the conviction that the right to vote would unsex the sex—would harden motherhood and sisterhood into a sedulous mannishness.

Others believe that womanly intuitions would soften the sheer practicality of politics and induce gentleness where roughness has ruled. And for a dozen years we need only have looked to the Antipodes to learn how woman suffrage might work out in practise.

Lady Ward, wife of the premier of New Zealand, during a recent visit to the United States, said to a representative of the New York _Tribune_ that the women of New Zealand, despite their participation in colonial politics, are very feminine. She added:

Sometimes women do speak at political meetings, but it generally turns out afterward that they are visiting Americans, or perhaps English women. No, we don’t sit on juries, and we don’t run for Parliament. The law would have to be changed before we could do so, but I don’t believe we want to. Perhaps some time in the future it will come to that, but I think it will be a long time.

We did have a mayoress once in a town in the northern part of the colony, but no one seems inclined to repeat the experiment. In fact, we are very busy with our domestic affairs, and are quite content for the present to leave the management of public affairs to the men.

The women of New Zealand place their homes before every other consideration, and their domestic problems are just as serious as those of any other country. Our young women would rather be stenographers than domestic servants, and we have not found any way of getting on without servants.

But don’t imagine that we are not interested in politics and that we don’t vote. There isn’t a woman in New Zealand who doesn’t know every member of Parliament either by sight or by reputation, and there isn’t one who can’t talk intelligently about political questions. Out on the farms and in the villages it is just the same as in the cities, and it makes life very much more interesting.

No matter whom you meet, you will always find one subject of common interest. People here don’t seem to be much interested in politics, and even your men don’t vote, I am told. Isn’t it strange? Perhaps it is because our country is smaller that we take so much more interest in its affairs.

Our elections are most interesting events, and the women do a great deal of electioneering, just as they do in England. But they don’t do much speechmaking, except among themselves. Political afternoon teas are a favorite method of winning over doubtful women voters.

What becomes of the babies when the mothers are out electioneering? Why, I really don’t know. I suppose there is always some kind-hearted woman to take care of them. Perhaps the women take care of one another’s babies. I never heard of any difficulties of that kind.

Do the native women vote? Yes, certainly. Every woman over twenty-one votes. The only qualification is a residence of twelve months in the colony and three months in the electorate where the vote is cast. The native women take just as much interest in politics as the white women, and are thoroughly well posted in everything concerning native affairs. We have an aboriginal population of forty thousand, and they have their own representatives in Parliament.

Women in New Zealand have the more time for politics because they do not carry the burden of charitable work. The charities there are subsidized by the State.

WIDENING SCOPE OF COLLEGE FRATERNITIES.

C. F. Birdseye Believes They Bring Undergraduates More Under Influence of Alumni.

The American college fraternity has become a farce, educational and social, intellectual and moral, so great that even but few fraternity leaders appreciate it. At more than one college, chapter-houses have done away with the need of dormitories. As colleges have grown larger and more unwieldy, and the members of the faculties have been less frequently in personal touch with their students, the fraternities have in no slight degree taken the place of the old small-college units, alumni now influencing the undergraduates through their fraternities, much as the professors used to.

Writing in the _Outlook_, Clarence F. Birdseye points out that our college fraternities are to-day great educational influences:

The pick of our alumni in wealth and influence are fraternity men. If a tithe of this power can be turned back into the lives of the undergraduates to supplement the efforts of the faculties, we can do much to restore individualism.

Neither college nor fraternity conditions are at present ideal. They are often bad, and there is real foundation for all complaints. Unless promptly checked, the evils will grow far worse and more difficult to root out. This question must be studied by its friends, and the reform must come from the fraternity alumni; for the fraternities can be awakened and developed, but not driven, nor driven out.

Like every other historical, educational, or social question, this must be studied carefully and with open minds by many alumni and from different standpoints, so as to cover widely divergent conditions in institutions that may be universities or colleges, rich or poor, large or small, old and conservative or recent and radical, public or private, at the North, South, East, or West, and therefore governed by widely different religious, social, educational, and political influences.

Wide Distribution of Chapters.

The wide distribution of its various chapters adds greatly to the perspective and corrective power of every fraternity, and makes it an ideal instrument for wisely investigating and righting undergraduate conditions at the same time in widely scattered institutions.

The true fraternity alumnus can mold the lives and motives of his younger brothers. In most colleges the fraternities are so strong that if we can change the atmosphere of the fraternity houses, which for four years are the undergraduates’ homes, we can change the whole undergraduate situation.

The fraternity alumni have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars for housing and otherwise helping the undergraduates. Every fraternity has many loyal and devoted graduates who willingly give time or money or both to the true interests of their younger brothers, and whose word is law to them.

The character of the influence of each chapter depends largely on the local alumni, strengthened, guided, and impelled by a strong central organization. Why not apply modern business principles and systematic organization to this all-important problem?

Atmosphere of Chapter-House.

We have one thousand seven hundred fraternity chapters in three hundred and sixty-three of our institutions of higher learning as _foci_ from which the good influences might constantly and powerfully radiate. There has been too much tendency to make the fraternity the end and not the means.

The alumni have not realized that the atmosphere of the chapter-house determines the character of the chapter’s influence on its individual members, and that the ultimate responsibility for this atmosphere is on the alumni. If we would make this atmosphere permanently good, we must appreciate that the alumni are the permanent and the undergraduates the transient body—completely changing every three years; and the seniors, the governing body, every year.

We, as the permanent body, have no right to furnish our undergraduates with fine and exclusive homes, and then shirk responsibility for the future conduct and influence of those homes.

The proper government of a chapter is a strict one, with the power in the hands of the upper classmen, especially the seniors, who are in turn held strictly accountable to alumni who are in constant touch with the situation and personally acquainted with every undergraduate and his work and needs.

Where such conditions are continuous, the chapter’s success is assured, and the effect on the undergraduates is highly beneficial. The fraternities, through strong central organizations, must make these conditions prevalent and continuous in every chapter. This has long been the theory, but the practise has been poor.

Correction of Waste.

The fraternities, with their numerous chapters in different institutions, have the best possible opportunities for the investigation and correction of the wastes and for the enforcement of economies in college life.

No one can measure the waste and lack of economy, to the college, the fraternity, the community, the family, or the individual, of a failure in college life, from whatever cause it comes.

It is criminal that we have not studied these wastes in our colleges as we have in our factories, railroads, and other great industries, and that we have allowed the pendulum to swing so far to the other side, and have not long ago returned it to its mean, and found educational influences to replace the small units of the earlier colleges.

Mr. Birdseye maintains, in conclusion, that it is for the fraternities to devote their wealth and influence to improve undergraduate conditions, incite their men to the best work, and prevent the wastes which result from a failure in college lives.

THE LATEST IDEA OF A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

Professor Borgerhoff Points Out Some of the Merits of the Latest Invention, Esperanto.

In the preface to his famous dictionary Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote: “Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.” If that be true, it is not strange that man should so constantly seek to improve the instrument. We have the selective process by which worn-out words and idioms are dropped into the limbo of archaism and new coinages come into use. Then we have the attempts to supply new languages, ready-made. There was Volapük; and now comes Esperanto.

Professor J. L. Borgerhoff, of the Western Reserve University, sets forth in the Atlanta _Constitution_ the claims of Esperanto as a world-language. After brief reference to former candidate languages, he says:

The latest attempt, and the one which bids fair to be final, is Esperanto, so called by its author, Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian physician, who under this pseudonym published scientific articles before he became famous as the inventor of an artificial language.

Zamenhof, like his predecessors in the same field, was struck by the useless wealth of idioms that divide the inhabitants of the earth and make international relations so difficult, while at the same time they are a prolific source of misunderstanding and enmity among the nations.

He was also convinced that the reason why the existing universal languages had failed in their purpose was that they were too difficult—almost as difficult as the natural ones. The cause of their difficulty lay in the grammar, which was too intricate, and in the vocabulary, which was far too varied. He forthwith composed a grammar which was simplicity itself; this he did by setting aside all rules not strictly needed for the construction of a logical sentence and by eliminating all exceptions. The few remaining grammatical principles may be learned in half an hour.

His next concern was the vocabulary. What makes the acquisition of a foreign vocabulary so hard to students is the variety of roots, the great number of different words. To take an instance from English, to express the various ideas suggested by the one conception of death, we have: dead, to die, deadly, and deathly, mortal, to kill, to murder, to assassinate, to suicide, to commit homicide, etc. What a cumbersome luxury of roots, and how discouraging to the foreigner who wishes to learn this language!

Number of Roots Reduced.

And yet English is one of the easiest of all European tongues. How to reduce this number of roots was the great problem before Zamenhof. He therefore took one out of a number, and by means of a system of suffixes and prefixes he made this one root do duty for all the others.

In this manner the Esperanto dictionary contains only about two thousand roots, yet they are sufficient to form, by means of derivation, a vocabulary large enough for all purposes.

But what makes matters simpler still, he chose his two thousand roots in such a manner that they appear familiar to all educated persons of European civilization, by selecting first those terms which are already in universal usage, like sport, toilet, train; then by taking words common to two or three leading languages, and finally by adding to these a small number of roots not international, but picked out judiciously from various idioms, so that any one, be he Slav, Teuton, or Latin, finds that Esperanto has a familiar appearance.

The suffixes number about thirty and the prefixes half a dozen; they have well defined meanings, and once they are known any person provided with a list of the simple roots can compose his own vocabulary almost _ad libitum_, so that the finest shades of meaning may be expressed to a nicety.

I should say that the most remarkable feature about Esperanto, and one which no natural idiom possesses to such a degree, is this power of forming new words once the key-word is given, and it should be remembered that in the majority of instances this key-word is already known.

Simplicity a Striking Feature.

The second striking feature is the simplicity and regularity of the whole grammatical scheme; thus are placed within easy reach two essential parts of a language—the vocabulary, and the very simple device whereby this vocabulary may be made to express all ideas clearly.

To take again the word “death” as an example: the key-word is “mort” (which we have in the English mortal). Remembering that in Esperanto all nouns end in “o,” all adjectives in “a,” adverbs in “e,” infinitives in “i”; that contraries are formed by prefixing “mal”; that the prefix “sen” means without; that the suffix “ant” marks the agent (corresponding to the English “ing”), and that the suffix “ig” means to cause, we get from the above root: morto, death; morta, mortal; morti, to die; morte, mortally; mortano, the dying man; mortanta, dying; mortigi, to cause death, or kill; mortigo, murder; mortiganto, murderer; mortiga, death-dealing; malmorta, living; senmorta, Immortal; senmorto, immortality, etc.

The conjugation of verbs, which is the great stumbling-block in the study of all natural languages, presents no difficulty whatever in Esperanto. In the first place, there are no irregular verbs; secondly, there is only one ending for each tense; thirdly, the number of tenses is reduced to a strict minimum, mainly past, present, future, and conditionally.

The infinitive of all verbs ends in “t”; the present always in “as”; the past always in “is”; the conditional always in “us”; these endings are the same in the singular and the plural.

To sum up, Esperanto is the easiest of all languages; all that is needed to read and write it is a familiarity with the few grammatical principles, most of which have been explained above, a knowledge of the thirty-odd suffixes and the half-dozen prefixes alluded to, and a dictionary giving the two thousand roots, many of which most of us know already.

Any one with the merest smattering of Latin and German and a knowledge of English can write a letter in Esperanto practically from the start; in fact, a person with a knack for languages can do so without this previous knowledge if provided with a dictionary.

As for speaking it, that is, of course, a matter of practise. It is easy enough, yet practise for a couple of months is indispensable to become fluent. Those interested should form a club and meet for the purpose of conversing. The pronunciation is as easy as the rest of the language.

Is this artificial language to come into real use? Professor Borgerhoff shows us that it is at least spreading rapidly. In June, 1905, there was only a handful of Esperantists in America. One year later there were fifty clubs, mostly in colleges. Paris offers about twenty free public courses. All over Europe the language has hundreds of thousands of adherents. Three thousand Esperantists, representing fifteen different countries, attended the congress at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in August, 1905.

THE CASH COST OF CONVERTING A SOUL.

Mormons Figure That It Amounts to $1,500, While Volunteers of America Find That $5 Will Do.

The Mormons appear to spend more money to secure a single convert than any other sect. Elder Ellsworth, of the Chicago Mormon Mission, told the Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ that his church expended probably fifteen hundred dollars for each convert. The statement came out in connection with the _Inter-Ocean’s_ inquiry into the cash cost of saving souls in Chicago. The Mormon figures were highest; the figures of the Volunteers of America—five dollars a convert—were lowest. It is patent that the average cost of conversion is much higher to-day than it used to be.

The Rev. George Soltau, a well-known evangelist, at work in Chicago, said to the _Inter-Ocean’s_ representative:

Twenty-two years ago the cost of soul-saving was infinitesimal. A picture of heaven, a few passages from the Scripture, a prayer, and a request were sufficient—a few cents, in fact, and our task was accomplished. To-day people have no leisure. They have no time to listen to what preachers have to say. They read cheap literature, which, as a rule, is antagonistic to evangelization.

Present Facts in a Commercial Way.

Religious phraseology doesn’t work. We have to present our facts in a commercial way. We don’t relish it, but we have to move with the times. We content ourselves with the fact that, after all, true religion is transacting business with God and with heaven.

General education has made it much more difficult to convert the people and to conduct a campaign of evangelization. The people are provided with so many methods of occupying their time and thought that there is no longer any possibility of getting individuals to come to a church to fill in a spare hour as they used to do so readily.

This fact has been demonstrated to me again and again, and forced home when I find myself in places where I used to hold meetings with five or six hundred people in attendance and where now I find difficulty in getting together an audience of twenty or thirty people.

A minister of to-day is also familiar with the fact that the Bible no longer occupies the place of authority in the minds of the people that it used to. And when a preacher has to prove the truth of his only authority it is a bad tendency on the part of the people.

It is the same as if a lawyer, when he appeared in court to plead his case, were obliged to prove the truth of the Constitution, which is the fundamental law. On the other hand, the evangelist himself hasn’t the slightest doubt of the authority of his message, while he knows his hearers have.

Education and Evangelism.

Asked whether, in his opinion, the education which had proved detrimental to evangelism was a bad thing for the people themselves, Mr. Soltau replied:

It is both good and bad. It is good in that it develops the minds and gives the people something to think about, and it is bad in that it diminishes their fear and reverence for the Scriptures.

Culture has undermined faith largely. It has destroyed the foundations on which faith used to rest; not that the foundations are one whit injured, but the building of character has been shifted to other foundations, namely, those of human opinion, research, discovery, and creed untested by what was supposed to be divine revelation.

Modern thought has infected universally the people with doubt upon all that was supposed to be established fact. And it has given nothing in its place except speculation and private opinion, so that every man is practically his own God to do and think as he chooses.

The production of literature—scientific, historical, and fictional—is so enormous as to demand the spare time of every one to read it. The pulpit and the pew, the magazine reader and the newspaper reader, have been infected with the German rationalism and philosophy, which has dared to assert itself as of higher authority than the Scriptures.

Authority has been destroyed, there is no court of appeal above human reason. That being so, there is nothing to correct human reason and bring it back to its old bearings. We have to evangelize people who have little or no substratum of Bible knowledge, and have no cultivated faith in any one but themselves.

The enormous wealth and rapid development of the material resources of the country have opened up innumerable outlets for the energies of mind and body, and the possibilities of getting rich have absorbed every one almost, so that the dollar has first and last place in the people’s minds. It is almost impossible to dislodge it. The altered conditions of civilization have destroyed simplicity of living and of thinking, hence there is no room or time for spiritual things.

The Average Churchgoer.