Very remarkable accounts reach England of the abundance of gold in Australia. According to a careful return, compiled from reliable sources, it is stated that from the 29th of September, the date of the discovery of the gold field, to the 17th of December, there had been taken out gold valued at £730,242. The papers report that the field seems to be unlimited—the indications of gold extending over scores of miles, and each new deposit apparently surpassing all others in richness.
The opening of the new Senate and Legislative body took place on the 29th of March. In his speech on that occasion the President briefly rehearses the reasons which made his usurpation necessary, and cites the readiness with which the people have submitted to a temporary abridgment of their liberties as proof of their conviction that they had been abused. He says, with regard to the rumors that he intends to make himself Emperor, that he has had the opportunity to do so on three occasions if he had been so disposed, and he refers to his forbearance then as evidence of the falsehood of the reports. He declares that he is firmly resolved to maintain the government in its present form, unless the machinations of the disaffected shall compel him to claim greater powers. He repeats his assurances of peace, and declares that he will restore popular freedom and rights as rapidly as the security of the country will permit. —— The ceremony of opening the chambers was brilliant and imposing. General Cavaignac refused to take his seat, as he could not take the oath required. Previous to the opening of the session the President issued a decree regulating the mode of doing business in the Senate, Council of State, and the Legislative Corps. No member of the latter can publish his speech without having obtained the authority of the Assembly, and any unauthorized publication subjects the offender to heavy fines. —— It was generally supposed that fixing the budget, or making appropriations for the civil list, for the current year, would be left to the Legislature; but just before the meeting of that body the President established this also by a simple decree. The expenses of the year are estimated 1,503,398,861 francs—the receipts at 1,449,413,404. There are some extra resources from the reduction of interest on the national debt, from the Paris and Lyons railroad, and from the alienation of the national forests. The salaries of the Ministers are to be 100,000 francs a year, except the Minister of War and of Foreign Affairs, who will have each 130,000. The President's civil list has been fixed at twelve millions. —— On the evening of April 4th, the highest judicial authorities of the state attended at the Elysée to take the oaths prescribed by the Constitution in presence of Louis Napoleon, who received them surrounded by his Ministers. A complimentary speech was made to him on behalf of the judges. In his reply the President used strong expressions concerning the basis of his right to the office he holds. He said: "Since the day on which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people replaced that of divine right, it may be affirmed with truth that no government has been as legitimate as mine. In 1804, four millions of votes, in proclaiming the power to be hereditary in my family, designated me as heir to the empire. In 1848, nearly six millions called me to the head of the Republic. In 1851 nearly eight millions maintained me there. Consequently, in taking the oath to me, it is not merely to a man that you swear to be faithful, but to a principle—to a cause—to the national will itself." These expressions have been generally considered as indicative of hereditary imperial pretensions, to be made good at the earliest convenient opportunity. Public rumor, indeed, had assigned the 5th of May, the occasion of a grand review of troops, as the day when the Empire would be proclaimed. —— A circular had been addressed by the Minister of the Interior to the prefects of the departments, concerning the organization of the new National Guard. Its chief peculiarities are that the Government is to determine the exact number of citizens which is to compose the service, and on what occasions they are to be called out; and that they are to be selected (by a special committee appointed by the Government in each district) from those persons between the ages of 25 and 50, who are best known for their devotedness to the cause of order, as understood by Louis Napoleon.
A decree has appeared reconstituting the University of France. In accordance with its provisions MM. Michelet, Quinet, and Mickiewitz are deprived of their professorships. Both MM. Michelet and Quinet had been suspended by the Government of Louis Philippe, but it is only since the decree of the 9th of March that the Government has the power of depriving professors of their honorary rank. They are dismissed, asserts the Government, for having abused their chairs to infuse violent political sentiments into the minds of the rising youth, and for having converted their lectures into violent Republican harangues. —— The estates of Neuilly and Monceaux, formerly belonging to the Orleans family, and confiscated to the state by the decree of January 22, have been taken possession of by the administration of the domain of the state.
The Swiss question has received further elucidation. In our last Record we gave the text of a French note dated January 24, and demanding in peremptory terms the right of designating refugees in Switzerland obnoxious to the French Government, and requiring their immediate expulsion. The Paris Debats publishes the reply of the Swiss Government to this demand. It is dated the 9th of February, and after declaring that the Swiss Government had hitherto exerted, and would continue to exert all legal means at its disposal to suppress or prevent all hostile movement among the refugees within its borders against the peace of neighboring nations, it positively refuses to accede to the demands of the French Minister to be allowed to point out for instant expulsion from Switzerland such refugees as he in his discretion might consider most dangerous to France. The honor and independence of the Swiss Confederation permit no other answer to be given to the French note. The law of nations sustains Switzerland in the position taken, and from this position, declares the Council, in conclusion, the threats of France will not avail to drive her. The reply to this note has not been published; but it is generally understood that the assurances which it contains of increased vigilance against attempts among the refugees against the peace of other powers, had been accepted as satisfactory.
In Austria the sudden death of the Prime Minister, Prince Schwarzenberg, which occurred from apoplexy on the 7th of April, is the only event of interest during the month. The Prince was a man of energy, ability, and political hardihood, and was the author of the severe policy which Austria has lately pursued toward Hungary. He is succeeded by Count Buol Schauenstein, who has been for some time Austrian Minister in England. An official announcement has been made by the Austrian Government that no change in policy will follow this change of Ministry. ---- Count Batthyani's estates have been seized by the High Court of Hungary.
In Prussia public attention is largely absorbed in measures for relief to the inhabitants of the eastern districts, who are suffering from famine. The corn harvest and potato crop have almost entirely failed in Eastern Prussia and Silesia. —— The first Chamber has ratified a resolution in favor of voting the supplies for the ordinary budget of the State for a period of three years, instead of annually, as at present. Another resolution enables the Chamber to discuss the items of the budget, which now can only be accepted or rejected as a whole. The Prince of Prussia congratulated a deputation from the first Chamber upon their recent reactionary votes, and impressed on them the necessity of increasing the army.
In Spain the summary dismissal of Gen. Concha as Captain-General of Cuba, excites a good deal of interest. The Government has given no reasons for the act. His brother declares that he had fallen a victim to his desire to reform certain inveterate abuses in the administration. General Caredo left Cadiz, March 20th, as his successor. ---- Severe measures have been taken by the Government to restrain the freedom of the press. Very heavy fines have been imposed upon several journals for their strictures on the Government. —— A squadron is to be fitted out to cruise in the Mediterranean as a practical school for Spanish sailors.
In Turkey Reshid Pascha has been reinstated as Prime Minister. His dismissal was the result of a court intrigue, and did not indicate any abandonment of the reform policy which he has established. —— A new tax has been decreed—not upon foreign imports, but upon the domestic productions of the country. —— Gen. Perczel, who distinguished himself during the Hungarian war, and subsequently was detained in Turkey, has left for the United States.
In Greece a good deal of interest has been excited by the trial, conviction, and banishment of Rev. Dr. King, who has been for several years a zealous American Missionary at Athens. He was accused of reproaching the established religion, tried by the Areopagus, and, without being allowed to speak in his own defense, adjudged guilty. He was allowed fourteen days to leave the country.
WHAT IS EDUCATION? On this question every man feels at home, and we know not, therefore, why it may not be made the subject of some brief remarks in our Editorial Table. The answers are almost innumerable—education is useful knowledge—it is practical training for all pursuits in life—it is culture—it is growth—it is discipline—it is learning to think—it is learning to act—it is educing the statue from the block of marble—it is development—the development of the mind—the development of the mind and body—the development of the whole man, physically, mentally, morally—it is a preparation for business, for success in life, for working out the problem of humanity, &c., &c., &c. May we not find one term that will embrace whatever of truth there is in these metaphors, and yet exclude the error which may be regarded as attaching, more or less, to each one of them. Perhaps the safest guide here to right thinking may be found in following out that analogy which Providence has established between our spiritual and our material organization. What is the highest good of the body considered in itself, and without reference to any more ultimate bearing upon the well-being of the soul. Health, is at once the answer. If man were all body (could such a case be conceivable), that state or organization of it we call its health, would be the highest end of human existence.
We need not stop to define this prime excellence or well-being of our corporeal organism. It is sufficient for our argument that there is such a state, better than all others, and therefore most desirable. The necessary assumption of the fact is enough to show the absurdity of that view which would regard this state as a means to bodily utilities lower than itself, or to any thing else as an end which is not the transcending good of the spirit. Why is bodily health desirable? What is the measure of its value? Suppose the answer to be—We want it, and we take care of it, as an excellent help to making money, or to fit us for business, or in general, as a means of acquiring the means for the gratification of those ends which are not only lower than the good of health, but, in many cases, actually destructive of it when attained. Would not the least reflecting mind be struck with the absurdity. It is making that which is itself an end, a means to other things having all their value from their relation to that very thing whose position is so irrationally reversed.
In how much higher a sense does the analogy hold good in respect to our spiritual organization? Education, then, aims at the HEALTH OF THE SOUL, the production of a sound mind. Without now going into any analysis of that in which this health consists, it is enough for us at present that there is such a state, most real as well as most desirable. There is such a sound mind—a good thing in itself, irrespective of any use to which it may be applied. The certainty of its reality furnishes the true answer to our question, lifting it, at once, above those views which would regard education solely as a means to some other and lower thing than could be rationally included in this essential idea of the spiritual hygieia.
Let us make clear our meaning by a well-known popular illustration. The famous pugilists, Hyer and Sullivan, as we were told by the Newspapers, went through a course of most careful training or education of the body. Its appetites, its affections, its faculties were all brought under proper regulation. They were made to practice the strictest temperance, the nicest discrimination was employed in respect to healthful and strengthening nourishment—in a word, the utmost attention was paid to the development of their corporeal powers. Now, had all this been for the promotion of the bodily health as an end (even in itself considered), it would have commanded respect as a noble, though not the noblest motive. But how are the reason and the conscience both shocked at the thought, that all this seeming care of the bodily well-being was intended only as a means to the brutal contests of the ring, and these a means to the still more beastly ends of the vile gamblers who had superintended this whole course of corporeal education. Do we not feel, instinctively, that the lowest intemperance is less degrading than such a use of the body and the body's health? And why should not even a deeper condemnation be visited on that kindred view which would regard the spiritual training in a similar light—which would look upon the soul's education only, or mainly, as subservient to what is called success in business, or the ends of political ambition, oft-times as deeply defiled with the base gambling spirit as any of the parties on the race course or the boxing ground, or, in short, to any object which, though better than these has no value in itself except as a means to that very thing which is so degraded from its proper ultimate rank.
Let this then be our general answer to the question—What is education? We would carry it through all departments, the nursery, the family, the common school, the high school, the academy, the college, the university. It is every where the spirit's health, as a good per se, as something even higher, and better, and, therefore, more desirable than happiness, or "pleasing sensations"—as, in fact, a true end in itself, irrespective of any thing else to which it may contribute any incidental aid or utility. Take away wholly this idea, and its incidental benefits must ultimately perish. It will cease to be useful, it will, in the end, cease to stimulate thought, or to call out that enthusiasm which quickens invention, when it is degraded from the high position that gives it all its truly useful power. Its intrinsic beauty is the source of its utility, its dignity of its value, its glory of its strength.
When we have settled what this health of the soul is, both intellectually and morally, then whatever contributes to such an end is education. Whatever tends to some other end is not education. It may be very useful as a means of training to certain particular pursuits, but it is not education. In any other use of the term we not only burst the bounds of any practicable definition, but are estopped from denying the claim of any other profession, trade, or business, to a like inclusion.
The true idea, then, of education is catholic, in distinction from what is partial in human pursuit. It is that which pertains to man, as man, in distinction from what belongs to him as a farmer, a mechanic, a lawyer, an engineer, or a merchant. It embraces not the trades, the businesses, but the humanities. Let the word be properly qualified, and there is then no serious objection to applying it in this partial and sectional way. We may thus have mercantile education, mechanical education, professional education. To prevent confusion, some other word would doubtless be better here, such as training, or apprenticeship, but when we speak of education in general, and of the schools in which it is to be obtained, the catholic idea must be preserved, or all ideas are lost, and we are declaiming on a matter to which there are no possible bounds except such as are imposed by each man's arbitrary conception.
We may at some other time follow out this idea into some of its particular modifications. At present, however, we would take it, in its most general aspect, as the guiding thought in the exposition of some of the more common fallacies. Tried by this test, all education is the same in idea, the same in quality, and differing only in the quantity, or the extent to which that idea is carried out. There is a unity pervading all, from the common school to the university. The philology, the mathematics, the belles-lettres, the philosophy of the one, are the expansion of the grammar, the arithmetic, the reading lesson, the catechism of the other. In the light of this thought we see at once the hollowness of that declamation which would represent these departments as opposed to each other—which would set forth the support of the one as the peculiar duty of the State, while all aid given to the other is denounced as aristocratic, impolitic, and unjust.
It is sometimes dangerous reasoning from a metaphor. It frequently presents but one aspect of a truth, and the changing or inverting that aspect may invert the whole argument built upon it. It is very common, for example, to compare knowledge to heat. We lately read what the speaker doubtless regarded as a very imposing argument, grounded wholly upon such a simile. He was contending, with the greatest moral courage, that our common schools should receive the most liberal patronage of the State, while the colleges should be "left to themselves." "Knowledge," says the undaunted advocate of this very unpopular doctrine, "knowledge will no more descend than heat will descend. If you wished to warm the lower stratum of air, would you heat the upper stratum first? No, sir! Warm the lower stratum, and then you can not keep the upper cold." We know not which to admire most here, the science or the logic. A pretty good argument in favor of a higher education for legislators might be deduced from it, but not in such a way, perhaps, as the orator imagined. Knowledge then is heat. Heat ascends. Ergo, the common schools are the foundation and, therefore, keeping the stove well supplied below is certainly the best means of warming the dummy above.
Admirably argued. But let us now change the metaphor. Knowledge is light. This must strike most minds as being, to say the least, quite as appropriate a simile as the other. Knowledge is light, and light comes down. Its native seat is in the upper region. Where now is our metaphorical argument? Turned upside down, and every inference pointed like a battery against the very positions it was intended to support. With the change of a very few terms all that follows becomes a parody on the former meaning. "If you wish to enlighten the lower stratum, keep clear the atmosphere above, and thus will the colleges give the common schools their clearest support. Take care of the former, and they will take care of the latter," &c., &c. This is hardly better than another argument, employed by the same reasoner in favor of what he calls "practical knowledge." "Our five later Presidents," he says, "were men who were never taught to chop logic secundum artem, nor to play shuttlecock with abstractions in college halls." Now it is well known that the four early Presidents who preceded them were not only men of liberal education, but eminent for learning and the highest mental culture. They had learned to deal with abstractions, and to reason secundum artem in college halls. To which side of the scale the real force of this argument inclines, we believe our intelligent readers of all parties may well be trusted to decide.
If we must have a metaphor, the common school, we may say, is the digging for the foundation, but not the foundation itself. It is the gathering of some of the materials, but is neither the main, nor the supporting part, of the great structure of national education. We have no wish to underrate its importance—its very great importance—and for this very reason do we attempt to expose those fallacies which, in aiming at the depreciation of the higher, would infallibly injure the lower and dependent interest. The best argument is simply an appeal to facts. All this inane declamation flies at once before it. In what States of our Union are common schools most flourishing? Precisely those, we answer, in which the best support is given to the higher institutions of learning. Who will venture to charge the Pilgrim Fathers with anti-popular tendencies? and yet, in laying the foundation of a system of national education, they began with the college. The leading institution of the kind was founded before the birth of one generation, and only eighteen years after they first broke the silence of the wilderness. How much of that leaven of a sound mind which has characterized New England may be traced to this one source?
Again—let any thoughtful man look over the face of our own State of New York. Millions and millions have been given for the cause of popular education; and this is as it should be, as far as money is concerned. But will such means alone secure the desired result? No man at all acquainted with the facts can fail to see, that just in proportion as there is to be found in any town or locality in our State that higher intelligence which is the offspring of the higher institutions of learning, there the common school has ever had its best support, its best teachers, its most sound, and elevated, and healthful system of instruction. From thence, too, have been sent forth in return the best candidates for our colleges, or, to get up our metaphor again, the best supplies for those distributing reservoirs, of whose light and heat they had so liberally partaken. Wherever, on the other hand, there has been no such leaven of a higher intelligence, the funds so lavishly bestowed have left the common mind very much as they found it. The stream has failed to rise above its fountain. Light has failed to act contrary to its own law, in ascending out of darkness; and if there has been any "heat," it has only been the fermentation of ignorance, or of crude smatterings of knowledge, more mischievous, perhaps, than ignorance itself. Any process, or public provision, by which our best colleges (and by such we mean those which have the least lowered their own standard in obedience to popular clamor) should be enabled to plant each year one of its most intelligent graduates in every county in the State, would do more to promote common school education than all the money that has been thrown broadcast over the land for the past quarter of a century.
Some seem to think that the only thing necessary is to distribute money over a certain space, and the work is done. "The great object," says the authority we have quoted, "is to endow the masses with sound minds and discriminating judgments." A most noble undertaking, truly! But how is it to be done? Will the mere insertion of an item in the supply-bill create this magical power? It is very plain to one who thinks at all, that this "endowment of the masses with sound minds, &c.," must be somehow under the management of those who already possess "sound minds and discriminating intelligence," and this is something far more than a knowledge barely on a level with the instruction itself to be imparted within the walls of a district school. Something higher, too, is required than Normal institutions, supplying candidates more or less thoroughly instructed in the particular branches they are to teach, and thus placing them just in advance of their future pupils. No man is qualified to teach at all, unless his knowledge is much beyond that range of science to which his actual teaching is confined. There must be something higher than this—something more, even, than an acquaintance with particular branches far transcending that line. There must be an initiation, at least, into what we have called the science of sciences—the knowledge of knowledges. All this is necessary to make "sound minds and discriminating judgments," capable of distinguishing in respect not only to the quantity but the quality of different kinds of knowledge—of determining what truly enter into the idea of education, and what belong to the partial, the sectional, or the ephemeral. Thus viewed as leavening the community with minds of broad and liberal culture, the college becomes not only the "foundation," but the elevator of the common school. It is just such a class of minds as are now most, needed in this country—a class of thinkers in distinction from your men of action, your noisy demagogues, your self-styled practical men, of whom we have at present so great an overstock. We want a class of minds who shall gradually create a philosophical and learned interest, thus causing, if we may use here the language of political economy, a steadily increasing demand for the article they represent—elevating the profession of the teacher, and in this way the whole national mind, to react again in a more liberal and fraternal support of all our institutions, the highest as well as the lowest.
But our present editorial musings must be confined mainly to education in connection with the common school. And here there is one application of our leading thought on which we would briefly dwell. There are those who might admit the general correctness of our principle, and yet contend for some deviation from it in these primary departments. Here, they would say, knowledge should be practical, predominantly physical, mainly connected with the outer world, and those partial pursuits that are afterward to occupy the active every-day life. The other view may belong, more or less, to the college and the university; but this brief period should not be wasted upon any thing except immediate practical utilities. We can not think so. The question still remains—What is the truest utility? and a proper settlement of this may lead to the conclusion that education in the common school should be even more catholic, in its idea, than that of the higher institutions. In some of the later periods of the college course, there may be some propriety in giving the studies a direction toward professional or partial pursuits. In the earlier stages this can only be done at the expense of that which is of far more value in itself, and which, if not then attained, can never afterward be secured.
This thought is so practical that it is wonderful how it escapes the notice of those who claim to be pre-eminently our practical men. Professional knowledge, mechanical knowledge, almost any branch of natural history, almost any modern language, may be obtained in after life. One who has laid a good foundation may at any time stoop down and pick them up when he has need of them. But there are other branches (although we can not now stop to specify them) in respect to which this is not the case. There is the knowledge, or the culture through which all other knowledge is acquired. It is the knowledge which, to a greater or less extent, is for all men, as men, for all ages, yea, for all worlds of rational beings. Each particular world in the universe may be supposed to have its own botany, its own geology, its own mineralogy, its own natural history; but a spiritual necessity, a behest of the reason compels us to say, that in all worlds there must be the same logic, the same grammar or universal laws of language, whether by sounds or signs, the same laws of thinking, the same geometry, the same pure mathematics, the same ultimate rules of taste, the same principles of art, the same elements of the beautiful, the same æsthetic and moral philosophy. In other words, the good, the beautiful, the true in themselves must be essentially the same for all rational souls, and can not even be conceived of as having a diversity for different parts of the universe.
Now, we contend that that is the most truly practical view of education which makes this the pervading idea even for the common school. Any youth of good ordinary intelligence may be made to understand its practical application to what we have called the spirit's health; and when once truly seen, this single idea may be of more practical value in guiding and elevating all his after thinking, than all the smattering of mineralogy, and zoology, and French, and agricultural chemistry, and civil engineering, and phrenology, too, which are now so much the rage. There are branches of natural science exceedingly valuable, even in connection with that idea of education which we are maintaining. We would underrate none of them when they can be pursued as they ought to be. But this can only be in one of two ways. It must be either philosophically, that is, in their seen connections with every other department of thought—and here we have the ground on which they would come into the general college course—or scientifically, that is, as they are studied by those whose minds have been peculiarly drawn to them, and from whom they exact the enthusiastic devotion of a life. If neither can be done, it is the most really practical and useful way to be content with giving, as empirical knowledge, those results which have been elaborated by the truly scientific, rather than foolishly attempt to render each boy in our schools his own chemist, his own botanist, and his own engineer, anymore than his own clergyman, his own lawyer, or his own physician.
And here comes up a distinction proceeding directly from that wise providential analogy of soul and body to which we first alluded. Our bodily food maybe divided into two classes. One kind, besides pleasing the palate, may be useful in giving a temporary refreshment, or a temporary stimulus, which may be employed for various practical ends. But this is all of it. It passes off, leaving the system as it was, if not sometimes in a worse condition than it found it. Again, there is other food which not only imparts vigor for a time, and for a particular purpose, but actually enters into the physical system, and becomes a part of it, constituting the elements of its growth, yea, of its very life. So it is with knowledge. Some kinds lodge only in the memory; they have their abode on the surface of the soul; they have no inward hold. Hence they are easily effaced, and when their outward scientific details are lost from the memory, they are lost entirely. There are other kinds that not only become assimilated to, but enter into the soul itself, into its very spiritual constitution. When the outward facts are forgotten, they still remain. The soul has grown by them, and out of them. In one sense it may be said to be made of them.
If there be good grounds for this, how important the distinction! It is but little we can know at the utmost. It becomes, therefore, even in the highest and widest education, a question of selection and discrimination. How important, then, the choice in respect to the shorter period of common school instruction. If this precious season is so very brief, if so little can be learned, surely that small quantity should be of the choicest quality, and the highest considerations connected with the soul, intellectual and moral health, should be taken into the estimate of its nature and its value. In making such estimate more regard should be had to what enters into the future thinking, than to what will enter into the future action, to the knowledge that assimilates itself to the very being of the soul rather than to that which belongs to particular and ever-changing circumstances. In other words, the preference should be given to that instruction which forms the law of the thoughts, which refines the taste, which elevates the affections, which gives a stock of ideas, precious though small, and ever in demand as the spirit's daily food amid the drudgery and worldliness of the coming life, rather than to those outward facts of science which must be to a great extent empirical for the brief primary school, and, in their best form for the college or the university, have but little hold upon the inner life.
To make the practical application of this, let us suppose that two or three years are all that can be given, in some places, to common-school education. A part of this time is necessarily occupied with the very elements of knowledge, reading, writing, and numbers. How shall we best employ the residue? One plan is to give it up wholly to practical knowledge, as it is called, or what is supposed to have an immediate connection with the active business of life, although greatly overrated even in this respect. Another would devote it to as good an acquaintance as can be formed with the best things in the best English classics—and this by a course of well-directed reading, or, as the Greek boys were required to do in respect to their poets, by committing largely to memory. It would be well if time could be given to both. But this, we will suppose, can not be done, and we are to decide between the rival claims. Can there be a doubt as to who is likely to be the useful man, the healthy-souled man, the sound man, in the best sense of the terms? Can we doubt as to who will have the richest store laid up for that future thinking and future feeling which is the true life of the soul—the boy whose precious time has been given to a little physiology, a little natural history, a little of that trash which sometimes goes under the name of meteorology, all forgotten as soon as learned, because never learned either philosophically or scientifically—or he whose mind has been brought in as close communion as possible with the richest, the most elevated, the most beautiful thinking in English literature—with Milton, with Shakspeare, with Young, with Addison, with Johnson, with Cowper, with Irving, with Wordsworth, and, above all, that "well of English undefined," as well as mine of thought unfathomable—The Holy Scriptures?
But we can not pursue this train of thought farther at present. At some other period we may attempt to fill up these outline ideas with some more particular and varied illustrations. We should like, especially, to call attention to the subject of school-books for our primary institutions. It may strike some as rather a humble theme, and yet there are but few of higher practical importance.
If ever, in the chronicle of any year, the old Georgic averment of "semper imbres" might be written truthfully, it certainly must belong to that weeping April which made the middle of our slow-coming spring.
Forty days of rain were once reckoned a drowning punishment for a sinning world; and if equal dampness is any test of our present demerit, there was never a wickeder world than ours.
It is easy, in our office-chair, to talk humorsomely of the floods which, since our last writing, have carried off the last white stains of winter. But a bitterer truthfulness lies in the woes and losses that the rains have showered upon thousands of the poor than we are wont to take cognizance of.
It is a pretty thing to see—as we have seen—the mountain rivulets growing white and angry, and swelling into great torrents that run writhing around the heel of mossy rocks, and start the mouldering logs that bridged them, into sharp-flung javelins that twist and dash along the growing tide; and it is grand to see the lithe saplings that border such maddened streamlet, dipping their sappy limbs, and struggling, and torn away by the chafing waters; and it is like a poem—richer than any tame pastoral—to listen to the rush and whirl bearing down scathed tree-trunks, and mossy boulders, and loitering with a hissing laziness in some spreading eddy at the foot of a mountain-slope: but it is terrible, when the rush of a thousand such streams has doubled the volume of a river, and drowned the sweet spring banks, and borne off struggling flocks, and rose to the level of firesides—deluging gardens and families—spreading through the streets of a town like a reeling monster of a thousand heads, lifting its yellow ghastliness into chambers, and rocking from their foundations rural homes, and swaying the topmost limbs of fruit trees that shadow the roof.
All this, it has been our lot, once in our life to see;—when panic seized the strongest-minded, and fathers crowded their crying households into tottering skiffs that went rocking and doubtful over the swift eddies among bent forest trees—bearing within them the poor remnant of the husbandman's estate. And just such scenes, if report speak true, have startled the men and women of Western Pennsylvania, and have made this year of 1852 a sad epoch in their history.
But we turn from this gladly to the bursting summer, which, with Minerva's suddenness, has leaped from the cleft skull of winter. In a week the flower-trees have put on bloom, and the grass caught its cloak of greenness. Why is it, that thus far we have no Virgil, or no prose pastoral to tell of the wondrous things which adorn the American spring and summer? If quick and gorgeous contrasts be any item in the sum of what makes up the beauty of a country, we have no rivals in the world; and we can show the gorgeous glassiness of ice, as wondrous in its adornments as are the silvan graces of our prairie wood. The time will come, by-and-by when the ocean-crossing shall be a matter counted by hours instead of days, when the searchers after the wonderful will gaze upon the ice-beauties of Niagara as they now feast on its summer.
Schaffhausen, and Handel, and Terni, and the Clyde never wear those crystal robes and trimmings which deck, bridally, the bass-toned pipes of our great organ of Erie. The gush and the flow of sparkling water are all that lend grandeur or beauty to the great cataracts of Europe. And if summertime do not steep them in warm mists that catch the sunshine in "bounteous colors three," the autumn only hangs heavy and cold—spitting catarrhal spray, and no winter is keen enough to set the edge of the torrents in sharpened icicles, and to sheet the near-lying wood with silver.
But Niagara—in such winter as has hung its lengthened pall upon our hoping hearts—dresses itself bridally; the rocks, loosened from the base, are sheathed in pearly casements, that rise with every morning's light, and comb over right and left, and climb in the very eye of the waters—breasting the spray, that clings ever, with new-added pearls, and cumulates into a mounded miracle of beauty.
The near trees, too, catch the dampened air, day after day, and wear it in fleecy vestments, that bow them down, till their limbs touch the icy ground, and the visitor roams in fairy bowers of ice, and looks upon the spanning bow from the interstices of a crystal forest. Far away along shore the dripping boughs wear silvery coats, and glisten in the January sun, like trees of glass. The eddies below whirl crashing fragments, that come over the sounding precipice, like atoms playing in the sunbeams; the foam plays round the ice-cakes, like whipt cream around transparent jellies; and the blue of the unfathomed depths gleams to the light, like a sky, relieving the sparkle of a starry "milky way."
Beyond this, streaming from bank to bank, like the gossamer web, which a dewy morning of June shows—stretching from grass-tip to grass-tip—the wire bridge spans the fretted chasm, and shakes, as summer webs shake, in the growing breath of a summer's day.
Nor is foliage wanting; for firs, green as those of Norway, lie black against the carpeting snows, and black against the light clouds that the spray drifts along the wintry sky. And from amid the iciness, and the clearness, and the silvered woods the roar raises its organ-notes, pealing through the ice-haunted boughs, and dying upon the stillness of winter!
But we are forgetting ourselves and our season. The violets are up and fragrant; the butter-cups are lying golden upon the hills, where we may not go; and the sweet haze of summer is stretching toward us from the country its alluring spell. Happy the man who can cast off the city dust, and loiter by pleasant streams with books of old rhyme, or with rod and angle! A murrain on those who laugh at such enjoyment as this; and who cluster their withered comforts, from year's end to year's end, within the close-pent alleys of our city!
And this mood of speech, into which the soft sun slanting upon our window has decoyed us easily, tempts us to lift a pleading voice, once more, for that park and wood, which seems to drift before our scheming lawgivers like a good thing—never to be caught. If only, when this Easy-Chair-writing were done, we could wear the hope of a stroll under trees, where country silence reigned, and where wayside flowers lifted their mild eyes, to wean us from the perplexities of toil, with what richer relish would we not pursue our task; and with what heartier prayer would we not thank God for our daily walk—as for our "daily bread!"
Look to it, you scheming rulers of our city, that you do not worry tender-heartedness into city hardness, and cramp, by your misplaced economy, the better instincts of our nature, into that careless and wiry spirit, which acts without love, and which works without feeling.
That charity which honors wealth can find no better play than in spreading before the eyes, and the weakened feet of the poor, those paths of greenness, which bless with Heaven's own refreshment.
Two arrivals of the spring are in people's mouths—Kossuth and Jenny Lind Goldschmidt.
Kossuth comes pleading with his old eloquence, not a whit diminished by the labors of his long journeyings, and even sharpened by the approaching farewell into a more plaintive earnestness. Reformers of every creed would do well to study, and emulate the sincerity and fervor with which he presses his claims. The same devotion, and the same tongue—tuned to such harmony as belongs to this extraordinary Hungarian, would carry triumphantly to their issues a hundred halting causes of philanthropy, and of Christian endeavor.
It is not our province to speak of the weight of the Hungarian claim, or to rebuke or foster the spirit which his ardor must enkindle. Only be it said—in our easy way—that whatever national action may be, as a government, national sympathy will lie largely on the side of such struggling nation; and the redemption of Hungary from Austrian bonds would be welcomed with such heartfelt greeting, as no other nation would bestow.
But, as we have hinted in our former careless on dits, sympathy is but a flimsy weapon to parry bayonet thrusts; and the destiny of suffering European nations lies more nearly (under Providence) in their own resolve, and steadfastness, and manly growth, than in the pleas of demagogues, or the contributed thousands of well-wishing Americans.
As for Jenny—(we write before her farewell song is sung)—she will have a grouping at her bridal concert, that may well add to her bridal joy. But we warn the fortunate bridegroom that he will meet critical and captious gazers; and that the world which has so long cherished his Jenny, as a bride of its own, will not give up its claim without a sparkling of jealousy. Let him wear his honor modestly, or he will kindle these sparkles into a blaze of burning rebuke.
Poor Jenny!—that she should have gone the way of all the world, is not a little saddening! That her angel habit of song and charity should not have lifted her forever into a sphere, above the weaknesses of human attachments, may point the moral of a ditty! The issue only shows how human are the best; and that life, however lorded over by triumphant souls, yet drags us down to the bonds of that frail mortality, which lives and thrives by propping on mortality as frail as we, and which in its best estate is strong—not alone of ourselves—but through the aids and sympathies of others!
As usual at this season, the talk of the town is running upon the prospective enjoyments of the summer. And it is not a little curious to note, how, as the means of communication multiply and extend, our summer rambles take in a wider and wider circumference.
Years ago, and a sight of those mountain glories, which in grim stateliness, and darkened shadows, frown upon the Hudson, was the limit of a summer jaunt. But now, even a trip beyond the Alleghenies is not a thing of moment; and there are families who plot a season's festivity upon the upper Mississippi.
Indeed, if beauty of scenery is the attracting cause, we know of no more glowing outline of shore and mountain than hems the summer traveler, over the Alleghenies and along the rich wooded banks of the Ohio. Western Pennsylvania, with its Juniata, and its heavy-forested mountains, has no rival in the world of silvan beauty. The heights are sharp, and bold; the torrents are foamy, and wreathed into combing waterfalls, that drip, to the eye, through bowers of green. You see below you tops of woods, and forests that seem bandlets of shrubbery, and great rivers that are ribbons of silver. You see around you climbing heights, in all the sullenness of undisturbed nature—rich with every tree that grows, and echoing the shrill sounds of wild birds, and catching, with four-fold echoes, the sharp whistle of your groaning and puffing engine. You run along the edge of cliffs, with a nearness and a speed that would shock you to fear, did not the amazing grandeur sublime all sense of danger, and hand over your admiring sense into the guardianship of that Providence which rears the mountains, and plumbs the depths.
And when the mountains are past, there is no low-lying fat Bedford level, to fatigue the eye; but the country is rounded into sweeping, irregular hillocks of green, whose sides are hoary with old wood, or verdant with the richest of springing grain crops. And in the bosoms of such hills, where the flow of water finds outlet, bright brooks silver the rounded mountains, and cover the earth into fragmentary lapses of meadow that tax the mower with the luxuriance of their grasses.
If the reader has ever loitered among the green hill-slopes of Northern Devonshire, he may form therefrom a just, though a miniature idea of those green billows of land, which drop the Allegheny heights to the borders of the Ohio.
And as for that far-western stream, which the French called, with a fitness of calling which we rarely cherish, la belle rivière—its banks are all a wonder, and its islands floating wonders. The time is not far away when the loiterers of the civilized world who have not drank in the beauties that hedge the Ohio banks, and mirror themselves in the placid Ohio water, will be behind their profession.
The Rhine and the Hudson have each their beauties; and so has Lake George, with its black mountain lying gaunt upon the water: but the Ohio, with its bordering hills, fat and fertile to their very summits—various in outline as are summer shadows—and with its rich drooping foliage, touching the water, and its islands seeming to float in the stillness—and its bordering towns of modest houses sprinkling the banks and dotting the alluvial edge, and all mirrored, as clearly as your face in your morning glass, upon the bright steel surface that shines through a thousand miles of country—is worthy of as honorable mention as any river that flows.
We see, in no very distant future, the time when Pittsburgh packets will show companies of pleasure-seekers, who will luxuriate in the picturesqueness of the Kentucky and Ohio shores, as they now luxuriate along the Hudson or the Rhine.
The time is coming, too—gliding now upon our clairvoyant vision, as we sit in our office solitude—when legends of early war, and Indian chieftain, and poor Blennerhasset, and border settlements, shall spring up under artist pen, and crown the graceful mountains, that swoop right and left from the Ohio voyager, with charming historic beauty.
We have forgotten thus far that foreign chit-chat which has usually fallen under our pen. Yet, with what spirit, can we speak of foreign gayety when the scheming tyrant of the day is forcing even festivity under the prick of his army bayonets, and winning willingness to his power, by debauching thought, and making joy drunk with lewdness?
The honest American is no way bound to keep temper with such action as assails the principles he holds most dear—least of all at the hands of a man who gains his force by no poor right of prescription or inheritance, but only by usurpation.
Belgium, they tell us, is full of runaways from the autocrat of the army; and a poor exiled gayety makes glad the hearts of thousands of refugees.
Among these, in this day of proscription, is the man of a hundred romances—Alexandre Dumas. Busy, as in the old time, he now gleans from the outcasts around him, the material for his versatile pen.
Madame Hugo, he tells us, has latterly contrived a scheme for the relief of the neediest of suffering exiles, which does equal honor to her heart and to her cleverness. It was nothing more than the sale of valuable autographs, which were furnished at the mere cost of a few pen-strokes by well-wishers to the scheme.
Dumas tells us that the collection was most rich, not consisting merely of simple names, but such bits of thought added, as seemed to belong to the occasion, and as gave value to the writing. It is, we believe, the first instance on record where the barbarous hunt for autographs has been turned to a profitable and charitable account.
We hope the hint will not be lost upon the benevolent intentioned of our own city; and when next some Hague-street catastrophe shall call for deeds of kindness, let those whose "handwriting" is worth a dime, contribute their mite to the hospitable fund.
Who would not bid high for some kind and sympathetic expression in the ink, and from the pen of Henry Clay? What up-town lady, spending her eagles for Peyser's crewels, would not willingly transmute a few of them for the purchase of some benevolent thought, set down in the ink-lines of an Irving or a Bryant? At least, the hint is worthy of consideration, and we dash it down for what it may count.
Dumas always finds incident, let him go where he will; and it was to record something of the sort, that he has introduced his mention of Madame Hugo's autograph lottery. The assemblage, he says, was the gayest possible; the distinguished men of Belgium, of France, and of England, honored the occasion.
But, continues our romancer (and we only hope to catch an outline of his story), I was compelled to leave the charming scene at an early hour. The night was stormy, the streets wet, and the sky dismally dark. I congratulated myself on having secured a cabriolet—a thing, by-the-by, which I always do. Every cabman of Paris knows me; every cabman of Brussels will know me shortly. (By way of parenthesis, we must interpolate the fear, that the cabmen may possibly know Dumas as a bad paymaster.)
Well, continues our veteran romancer, I made my way to my coach. At the moment a gentleman was claiming possession. I remonstrated. He represented that a young lady, his sister, had been promised attendance at a ball in the neighborhood. He desired the coach for her conveyance. None other was to be had. It was her first ball.
In short, says he, I was constrained to allow him the carriage, bargaining only that I should be set down at the Embassador's of ——.
The face of the young man struck me familiarly. I had seen him before. We compared notes. I had met him in Italy, and again in Algiers. He was involved in the affair of May, 1848. He was an earnest worthy young fellow of fortune. He was in high favor at the Revolution of 1848, and by singular good luck, saved his property from the great commercial wreck of that period. Afterward he lost ground was subject to constant espionage—was driven from the country, and on his return was imprisoned.
He had no relatives in the world, save only this younger sister. One day, as he mused despondingly in his casemate, he was told that a lady desired to speak with him. It was his sister. She had learned of his imprisonment, and desired to share his solitude. Her request was granted.
After some months he was offered freedom, provided he should quit France with his sister forever. He accepted the conditions, and emaciated, impoverished, despairing, he repaired to Brussels. A few friends contributed to his support. His sister, a most estimable young girl, had won her way, by her attractions, no less than by her many virtues.
It was at this epoch I met him; he confided his griefs to me. I gave him what encouragement I could.
A week after I met him again; his face was glowing with satisfaction. He put in my hands a letter from a distinguished gentleman of the country, of large fortune and of high character. It ran thus:
"Sir—I have seen and love your sister, and have the honor to ask your assent to my continued and serious attentions, Yours, &c.
"And your sister?" said I.
"Is as happy as I."
Fortune comes in a flood, continues Dumas, for the next day my young friend found an advantageous place, with fifteen thousand francs a year.
The story shows how French fortunes are the matter of the hour; it shows how marriage is a thing of French anxiety, and of commercial importance; it shows how fate plays pranks with French mortality, and it shows how Dumas can twist a story out of trifles, and weave a tender romance from a quarrel at a cab-stand!
And here we bid Dumas, and French trifles, and Ohio scenery, and the bursting season of new-come summer, our monthly adieu!
Indeed, my dear sir, I can not write any thing worth reading. You are very kind—very flattering, when you would persuade me that, at the end of a long life, I can amuse the public, through the pages of your New Monthly Magazine, preoccupied as the great literary stage is with writers of reputation. If I attempt a tale, there are Bulwer, and James, and Dickens, and Hawthorne. If I write a History, there is Macaulay; if an essay, there is Legion. However, I will do my best, and tell you the story of "The Bride of Landeck," that you may make the experiment. Only remember it is none of my seeking. I am like, in one respect, the great statesman of whom my friend, Judge R——, in the character of a cockney, wrote: