BY BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU, D.D.
London and Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia and New Orleans share the honor of having been selected as sites for the grandest displays of which modern civilization is capable. This far-away city of the Southeast was selected in view of the fact that it is the great metropolis of a vast and rapidly developing portion of the Union, and to emphasize the fact that the time has come when the past, with its mistakes and antagonisms should be left behind, and also to encourage the rising industries of the entire South. The general government did well when it extended most generous financial aid to the enterprise. And should further need of such assistance be developed, it is to be hoped that enough will be supplied to make the Exposition a complete success.
The formal opening took place on December 16, 1884, by the President of the United States. True, he was not present, and yet the touch of his fingers set in motion the engine that drives a thousand whirling gears and pulleys. Fifty years ago it would have taken President Jackson a month to travel from Washington to New Orleans, but now, quicker than the revolving planet turns upon its axis, the President, standing in his office in Washington, executes his will in a city a thousand miles away. This world used to be twenty-four thousand miles in circumference, and it took six months to make a voyage around it. Now it has become so small there are no distant lands; we are all neighbors, and crowded at that, and thought, which is a part of man and the best part, travels round the world in the twinkling of an eye. It is a great thing to live on so small a world in such an age as this. Nowhere do such thoughts more forcibly impress themselves upon the observer than in a World’s Exposition, for here, side by side in friendly rivalry, are the people and productions of almost all the nations of the earth. The Chinaman is here with his hideous gods and all sorts of queer things, from ivory chopsticks to the most elaborate porcelains. The men of Japan are found wherever there is an honest dollar to be made. They bring things to show and to sell. With their thin lips and sharp pointed noses, and keen, bright eyes, they remind one of the shrewdest types of Yankee peddlers. Nobody expects to get the better of one of these Yankees from the land of the rising sun. Their ingenuity is surprising, and their powers of imitation are nearly equal to those of the Chinese. With the inspiration which comes with Christianity, it is safe to predict that a future of great promise is the portion of this nation. The ubiquitous Turk is here with the same articles, or their duplicates, that he has had in every exposition, and which he is gradually introducing into state fairs. These institutions of the present age must greatly stimulate the small industries of the Turkish Empire, though some people have thought the Turks at Philadelphia were, for the most part, born in Ireland, and these of New Orleans are supposed to be native Creoles, but still they sell olive wood paper weights, paper cutters, work boxes and trinkets of various sorts, said olive wood having the reputation of coming from Jerusalem, and, to support the reputation, being inscribed with divers Hebrew letters which the sellers are unable to decipher. Of course the European nations are represented, but not to so great an extent as at Philadelphia, and not so fully as will be the case a month later. The foreign countries best represented are our next door neighbors. Here is Jamaica, true to its past and present, with an exhibition of all sorts of rum, from thirty years old and less, in bottles and barrels of all shapes. It is put up with a nicety and even elegance which would be worthy of something better. Then she sends sugar and molasses, dye woods, coffee, cocoa, and skins dressed and undressed, with samples of varied workmanship in several departments. Mexico sends the military band of the Eighth Regiment of cavalry, more than fifty pieces, and it does credit to that Republic. There is an air of Spain about all the productions of Mexico, whether it be the crude ore from her mines of gold and silver, or the richly caparisoned saddles, which in beauty and comfort are unsurpassed. Honduras, both Spanish and British, Guatemala, and Central America, add largely to the extent and attractiveness of the display. No one can carefully study the exhibits of these four last named countries without being profoundly impressed with the idea that they must possess a wealth of undeveloped resources which will, in the near future, attract the attention of the civilized world. It is manifest that they have a soil of exuberant fertility, and a climate that is free from the cold rigors of the north and even from all dangers of frost, and that all circumstances offer the promise of the maximum of results for the minimum of toil and capital. It seems as if a good many of the physical conditions of the Garden of Eden were still retained by these favored countries.
Nearly, if not quite all the states of our Union are represented, though it is to be regretted that some of them, especially Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, are deserving of severe criticism for the very meager displays which they offer. The people of Massachusetts will have more cause for shame than pride when they visit the spot where their activities and achievements should be fairly and fully set forth. There is no excuse for such a failure. Even little Rhode Island does better than her proud neighbor. It is a Rhode Island Harris-Corliss engine that drives the machinery, and the same State sends one of the grandest locomotives that ever ran on rails. Connecticut, the land of notions and wooden nutmegs, makes a fine show of her thread manufactures. The whole process, from preparing the raw cotton to selling the thread in spools, is displayed before the eyes of the admiring spectators. Not a few of the Southern people are led to ask, as they see the thread making and, close beside it, the weaving of cotton cloth, why should we send the cotton we raise to the North, especially to the most distant eastern corner of the North, and after the people there have made it into thread and cloth bring the same cotton back again? Why pay them for transporting it both ways and also for manufacturing it? It is well for them that they are asking such questions. When people begin to inquire it is a sure sign that they are getting ready to act. Soon we may expect to find them making their own cloth and thread where the cotton is grown.
The great West is here in full force, the states west of the Mississippi being especially prominent. It is not long since Kansas and Nebraska were both included within the limits of “The Great American Desert,” on whose sandy soil it was said not even grass could grow. But now from those same arid plains come the best of corn and wheat, and all the other cereals, with fruits and vegetables that are truly surprising. Such potatoes as Oregon and Colorado send need at least such hills as those in which eastern farmers raise similar crops. Think of potatoes ten inches long, six inches wide, and four thick. But time and space would alike fail to specify the abundance and variety of the horticultural and pomological products of the West, this including all west of the Alleghenies, and especially west of the Father of Waters.
One of the most important sources of national prosperity, growth, and riches is to be found in our mineral deposits. Here we see rich specimens of almost every known mineral, and all found within our own borders. Within the list are tin, zinc, copper, silver, gold, iron and coal, with unnumbered others; but these mentioned are the principal, and these are the factors which enter largely into all problems of modern progress and civilization; they add to the riches, if not the wealth of any people; and wisely used, they will add to the wealth as well as riches. The central and eastern portions of the Union abound in coal and iron; these give strength and stability to the enterprise and industry of a people. The Rocky Mountain range, in all its length, from its outlying spur reaching through Alaska to Behrings Strait on the north, to the Mexican border on the south, is full of gold and silver. These deposits excite the ambition and stimulate the energies of the people; and it is sure that the fact just stated will help the American people to find a solution to the disgusting problem presented by Mormons. The heart of the Rocky Mountains will not always be dominated by the most virulent enemies of all that is truly American and Christian. The forests, with the endless variety of woods they produce, never made a better showing than at this Exposition. From Maine to California, and from Florida to Dakota, various woods gathered from the plains, the mountains and the swamps show the abundant supply with which the country is provided. The specimens are prepared so that the trunk of the tree, with the bark covering it, the wood showing the grain polished, and varnished and unvarnished, can all be seen at a glance.
To most people of middle age or beyond, the collection of machinery is peculiarly interesting. Young people have no personal knowledge of the extraordinary progress of invention within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Thirty years ago and men and women were reaping the ripened grain just as the Greeks and Romans did 700 B. C., and just as the servants of Boaz did on the plains of Bethlehem 1100 B. C., and, in fact, just as Noah and his family did when they raised the first crop after they left the ark. But there has been a revolution in the implements of husbandry. A crooked stick is no longer used as a plow, but in the place of the stick are plows of all shapes and sizes, gold mounted and nickel plated, as ornamental as a parlor piano. The rude hoe is superseded by all sorts of cultivators. Planting is done by machinery, elaborate, exact, scientific and elegant. The great Daniel Webster when asked as to the best way to hang a scythe replied the best way he had ever found (and he was brought up on a farm) was to hang it over the limb of a tree. If he could see these mowers and the many other machines to make hay, he would conclude that he had reached the millennium as far as hay making is concerned. So, too, the sickle has given way to the machinery drawn by a span of horses, that can almost do the work required on a trot. The machine reaps, gathers up and binds the bundles. Not long ago all threshing was done by tying two straight sticks together with a string, the best string was an eelskin dried and tanned, and then the farmer, in dust and solitude, would pound away at the straw laid out upon the barn floor; but here is a machine that will thresh and winnow wheat as fast as six men can toss in the bundles to the man who feeds, and it will take as many more to remove and stack the straw. And so it is with the whole business of farming. What is true of the processes is equally true of almost every other manual industry. It is a revelation of wonders to walk about amid these exhibits of machinery, and remember that to all intents and purposes the results we behold are the achievements of the last fifty, and in most cases of the last thirty years. And it is equally remarkable that most of these inventions are the offspring of American thought.
It is most natural for every thoughtful person to ask, how is this and why? The ready and superficial answer is that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and that the American people, by the conditions of life surrounding them, have been compelled to invent. But surely such an answer can not be considered satisfactory. There are two events in modern times that no philosopher, physicist, ethnologist or theologian has up to this time fully measured, and much less has been able to estimate their relation to the future of humanity. The first of these events is the vast migration of the peoples of the Old World to the New, by which, within the last sixty years 12,000,000 of human beings, most of them young men and women, have left Europe to make their homes in the United States. God only knows the importance and significance of this movement. The second marvelous event of these days in which we live is the sweep and triumph of invention. It is worth considering that the steam power of the United States represents more than the entire muscular force of all the able-bodied men in the world. And the improvements in machinery represent immeasurable conquests of mind in the realm of matter. It does not take omniscience to apprehend, to some extent, the fact that these things must affect the destiny of the whole family of mankind. With such thoughts as these in mind one walks amid these minute or ponderous contrivances for the application of power, with something of the reverence and wonder felt by Moses when he stood in the presence of the bush that burned but was not consumed. It is evident that God, the Eternal Ruler of all things, is in the midst of these “flying wheels.”
One of the most interesting exhibits is that made of the live stock. The spirited, clean-limbed trotting stock of Kentucky is here. The little Shetland ponies are side by side with the vast Normans. Some of the full grown ponies are so small that a strong man could easily toss one of them to his shoulders, but a Norman that weighs more than 2,000 pounds is altogether a different creature. The Clydesdales may be good for draft horses, but their enormous fetlocks so disfigure their feet and legs as to make them appear homely and uncouth. The Normans and Percherons do not have this disfigurement. They are magnificent in size, some of them black and glossy as anthracite coal, others are deep bay, almost a rich mahogany color, others are dapple gray, from very dark to very light, and two of them are as white as milk. To any one who loves horses this show is worth the travel of a thousand miles. It would make the heart of Rosa Bonheur glad to walk through the stables; and if the finest of the horses could be grouped together under her artistic eye she would have all she could wish for one of her famous pictures. These, or such as these, Job had in mind when he wrote: “Thou hast given the horse strength, thou hast clothed his neck with thunder. He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, he rejoiceth in his strength.”
Nothing less, in every praiseworthy point, is the exhibit of horned cattle. Short Horns, Herefords, Devons, Jerseys, Holsteins, Galloways, vie with each other in size and beauty. One ox weighs 2,990 pounds, and many of them exceed 2,000 pounds. They are thoroughbreds, or carefully crossed, and it is doubtful if finer specimens could be obtained, even in the original habitats of the respective breeds. But I need not write of jacks and jennies, of mules, and sheep, and hogs, they are all here, after their kind, and worthy of admiration for the perfection they display as the result of painstaking skill.
The educational interests are variously represented, and many of the cities and educational societies, and even private or denominational schools find space to show the methods and results of each. The Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church makes a creditable display. The same is true of the American Missionary Society, and of several Roman Catholic institutions. The facts, however, seem to show that comparatively little progress has been made in the science of education in the last twenty years. Whether we have reached the ultimatum, so far as methods are concerned, is the question. The child is yet to be born who knows his letters without being taught them. The capital of each, at start, is nothing, and only one thing can be learned at a time, and the human brain is only capable of a certain amount of work. These are some of the limitations a good many educators are inclined to overlook, and yet they will continue to confront all practical people as long as the world stands. Would it not be well, at about this time, for visionary people, with all sorts of educational vagaries, to halt for a little while and inquire if a thorough, plain, fundamental education is not the desideratum for the great majority of the youth of every land. A good part of modern education partakes of the frivolous character of the times. Substantial, honest, common-sense education is vastly better than the illusions and flippancies of sentimental theorists.
Speaking of the Freedman’s Aid Society as above, reminds one that the colored people are admitted to participate in the Exposition. Well, the world moves. We are not where we were twenty-five years ago. We are coming up out of the wilderness. Shall we come “full as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” Yes, if we come in God’s order. No, if we do not. It always pays to do right. It never pays to do wrong. No curse ever comes causeless. It is sometimes worth remembering that the 7,000,000 colored people in the United States own on an average property to the amount of $14, and it is not long since they started with nothing. They will send some missionaries to Africa, but most of them will live and die with us, and where we are buried there will they be buried. It is time we recognized the fact that our God is their God. Let us all rejoice that they have a place in the World’s Exposition in New Orleans. We need them, they need us. Why not recognize our brotherhood with them, and then together consecrate ourselves to the glorious task of making this land the first and foremost of all the world in the possession and exemplification of all Christian, and manly, and patriotic graces? And why not join all forces, North, South, East and West in one sublime and divinely led effort to carry the untold blessings of education, morality, freedom, and Christianity to all peoples who still sit amid the shadows of tyranny, superstition, poverty and ignorance? This World’s Exposition will reach its highest and grandest legitimate possibilities just in proportion as it shall help forward these desires of all good men and these plans and purposes of the World’s Redeemer.
BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.
In the early ages of the world eclipses were regarded as alarming deviations from the established laws of nature, presaging great calamities, as famines, pestilences and earthquakes; and among heathen and superstitious peoples, as evidence of the displeasure of the Deity, or deities. Herodotus tells of an eclipse of the sun occurring in 585 B. C., which put an end to a battle between the Medes and Lydians, who were so terrified by the day turning suddenly into night, that the contending armies ceased fighting and concluded a peace which was cemented by a twofold marriage. Another total eclipse of the sun occurred on March 1, 557 B. C., which so terrified the defenders of the Median city Larissa, that they withdrew from its walls, thus permitting it to fall into the hands of its besiegers, the Persians.
Among the Hindoos, it is imagined that the moon, as it covers from sight the face of the sun, is a huge dragon which devours our luminary, and can only be compelled to disgorge and then driven away “by the beating of gongs and rending the air with discordant screams of terror and shouts of vengeance.”
An eclipse of the moon, March 1, 1504, was employed by Columbus to obtain provisions for himself and his starving companions. Having been wrecked on the coast of Jamaica, the natives refused him supplies. Knowing that an eclipse of the moon was about to take place, he informed them that the Great Spirit was displeased with them on account of their ill-treatment of the Spaniards, and would manifest his displeasure by shutting out the light of the moon. When the eclipse occurred, the Indians, terrified by the sight, hastened to him with abundant supplies, beseeching him to intercede with the Great Spirit in their behalf.
At the present day we look upon these wonderful events as the results of natural causes, whose operations have long since been explained. We have learned that an eclipse of the sun is merely the moon coming between the earth and the sun, thus shutting off from the former all or a portion of the light of the latter; that this event may occur as often as five times, and never less than twice in one year; that it can only occur at time of new moon; that it occurs only in limited portions of the earth at any one time, and hence, that although happening so often, for any given place it is a comparatively rare event—especially the last two of the three kinds, partial, annular, and total; and that the portion of the earth affected by a total eclipse does not exceed 170 miles in diameter; or, in other words, the width of the moon’s shadow, when it falls perpendicularly on the earth’s surface, is not more than 170 miles. We have learned, also, that an eclipse of the moon is occasioned by the earth coming between the moon and the sun; that this event can not occur more than twice in any one year, and may not occur even once; that it happens always at full moon; that it can be seen in all parts of the earth where the moon is above the horizon at the time of the occurrence; and for this reason, although it only happens in the ratio of 29 to 41 as compared with eclipses of the sun, yet there are more lunar than solar eclipses visible in any given place.
During the present month we shall have two eclipses, one of the sun and one of the moon.
Will be eclipsed on the 16th, first contact taking place in longitude 136° 49.3´ west and latitude 13° 25.3´ north, at 8:26 p. m., Washington mean time; and the last contact in longitude 32° 58.3´ west and latitude 49° 0.8´ north, at 1:22 a. m. on the 17th. The central eclipse will begin in longitude 156° 39.5´ west and latitude 35° 54.5´ north at 9:48 p. m., and end in longitude 15° 4.6´ west, latitude 71° 24.1´ north, at 12:00, midnight. The path of the central eclipse in North America will be about 35 miles wide, and will take a northeasterly course from a point near Cape Mendocino on the western coast of California, and will embrace Weaverville, Cal., Idaho and Boise cities in Idaho; Bannock City and Gallatin, Montana; cross the boundary line between the United States and the British Possessions in longitude about 105° west; pass through the central part of Hudson’s Bay; cross Hudson Strait, Davis’s Strait, and Greenland, ending as above in longitude 15° 4.6´ west, latitude 71° 24.1´ north. As this is an annular eclipse, the shadow of the moon being too short to reach the earth, parties located in the path named will see the edge of the sun like a bright ring around the dark shadow of the moon. Persons outside of this path will see the sun more or less eclipsed, dependent on their position. The beginning and end of the eclipse at a number of places in the United States is given below, in the local time of the cities mentioned: Bangor, Me., begins at 12:48 p. m., ends at 3:23 p. m.; Concord, N. H., begins at 12:32 and ends at 3:07 p. m.; at Montpelier, Vt., lasts from 12:26 to 3:03 p. m.; Boston, Mass., from 12:36 to 3:09 p. m.; Providence, R. I., from 12:33 to 3:05 p. m.; Hartford, Conn., from 12:25 to 2:58 p. m.; New York, 12:17 to 2:50 p. m.; Trenton, N. J., 12:13 to 2:45; Pittsburgh, Pa., 11:38 a. m. to 2:18 p. m.; Wilmington, Del., from 12:07 to 2:40 p. m.; Charleston, S. C., from 11:37 a. m. to 2:04 p. m.; Columbus, Ohio, 11:20 a. m. to 2:01 p. m.; Detroit, Mich., 11:21 a. m. to 2:04 p. m.; Indianapolis, Ind., 11:02 a. m. to 1:45 p. m.; Chicago, Ill., 10:55 a. m. to 1:40 p. m.; Jefferson City, Mo., 10:24 a. m. to 1:09 p. m.; Lawrence, Kan., 10:07 a. m. to 12:52 p. m.; Omaha, Neb., 10:04 a. m. to 12:51 p. m.; St. Paul, Minn., 10:26 a. m. to 1:13 p. m.; Des Moines, Ia., 10:18 a. m. to 1:04 p. m.; Janesville, Wis., 10:47 a. m. to 1:33 p. m.; Santa Fé, New Mex., 8:59 to 11:49 a. m.; Wheeling, W. Va., 11:32 a. m. to 2:13 p. m.; Washington, D. C., 11:58 a. m. to 2:31 p. m.; Louisville, Ky., 11:03 a. m. to 1:44 p. m.; Denver, Col., 9:10 a. m. to 12:01 p. m.; Bismarck, Dakota, 9:44 a. m. to 12:33 p. m.; New Orleans, La., 10:28 a. m. to 1:08 p. m. Our usual notes for the sun are as follows: Rises on the 1st at 6:33; on the 16th, at 6:09; and on the 30th, at 5:45 a. m.; and sets on the corresponding days at 5:51, 6:10 and 6:22 p. m. respectively. Spring begins on the 20th at 5:21 a. m.; northward movement, 12° 6´.
Will be partially eclipsed on the 30th, entering the earth’s shadow at 9:50 a. m. and leaving it at 1:02 p. m. Magnitude of the eclipse, .886. As the moon does not rise with us on this date till between 6:00 and 7:00 p. m. it is evident that the eclipse will not be visible in the United States. It will be visible, however, in the western Pacific Ocean, Asia, and the eastern portions of Europe and Africa. On the 1st, moon rises at 6:42 p. m.; on the 15th, at 5:29 a. m.; and on the 31st, at 7:39 p. m. It presents the following phases: Last quarter, 8th, 1:46 p. m.; new moon, 16th, 12:28 p. m.; first quarter, 23d, 12:15 p. m.; full moon, 30th, 11:32 a. m. Farthest from earth, 9th, 3:12 p. m.; nearest earth, 23d, 3:54 p. m.; least elevation, 9th, 30° 17´ 23´´; greatest elevation, 23d, 66° 41´ 16´´ (in latitude 41° 30´ north).
Has a direct motion of 52° 59´ 4´´; increase in diameter, one second; on 7th, at 9:00 a. m., 1° 3´ south of Mars; 13th, at 1:00 p. m., in superior conjunction with the sun; 16th, at 8:02 p. m., 1° 37´ south of the moon; 28th, at 4:00 a. m., nearest the sun. On the 1st, 16th and 30th, rises at 6:23, 6:26 and 6:22 a. m. respectively; and sets on same days at 4:51, 6:16 and 7:42 p. m. Can be seen with naked eye on the last few evenings of the month.
Continues as morning star throughout the month, but makes little display, both on account of her distance from us and her proximity to the sun. Her diameter diminishes from 10.6´´ to 10´´, and her time of rising is as follows: On the 1st, 6:02 a. m.; on the 16th, 5:51 a. m.; on the 30th, 5:36 a. m.; on the 6th, at 6:00 a. m., she is farthest from the sun; on 15th, at 1:42 p. m., 3° 32´ south of moon; 27th, at 10:00 p. m., 36´ south of Mars. Her motion is direct and equals 37° 23´ 30´´.
Rises on the 1st at 6:32 a. m. and sets at 5:24 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 6:00 a. m. and sets at 5:28 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at 5:33 a. m., sets at 5:25 p. m. Motion direct and amounts to 22° 25´ 38´´; diameter, 4.2´´; on 7th, at 9:00 a. m., 1° 3´ north of Mercury; 16th, at 12:50 a. m., 2° 34´ south of moon; 27th, at 10:00 p. m., 36´ north of Venus.
Lessens his diameter two seconds, and makes a retrograde motion of 2° 56´. On 27th, at 9:57 a. m., is 4° 40´ north of the moon. He rises on the 1st at 4:42 p. m. and sets on the 2d at 6:07 a. m.; rises on the 16th at 3:35 p. m. and sets on the 17th at 5:09 a. m.; rises on the 30th at 2:34 p. m. and sets on the 31st at 4:10 a. m.
As a telescopic object, is still improving, and his time of setting permits him to be viewed with less than usual inconvenience. On the 2d he sets at 1:44 a. m.; on the 17th at 12:49 a. m.; and on the 30th at 11:55 p. m., affording thus all the evening for observations. On the 7th, at 3:00 p. m., he is “in quartile,” or 90° east of the sun; on 22d, at 10:28 a. m., 3° 56´ north of the moon.
Retrogrades 1° 12´ 23´´; his diameter remains at 3.8´´; on 2d, at 11:59 a. m., he is 1° 6´ north of moon; 21st, at 3:00 a. m., in opposition to the sun (on the other side of the sun from the earth); 29th, at 7:05 p. m., 1° 13´ north of moon; sets on the 1st at 7:31 a. m.; on the 16th, at 6:30 a. m.; on the 31st, at 5:30 a. m. Morning star till the 21st; after that evening star.
With his diameter of 2.6´´ moves some 44´ 46´´ of arc in his orbit, which is not so slow after all when we consider that his average absolute motion is 3.36 miles per second, and that his aggregate for the 31 days of this month is a little less than nine million miles. His right ascension on the 1st is 3 hours, 15 minutes, 18 seconds, and his declination 16° 17´ 57´´ north. He sets on the 1st at 11:33 p. m.; on the 16th at 10:29 p. m.; and on the 30th at 9:43 p. m.—an evening star.
BY FRANCES E. WILLARD,
President National W. C. T. U.
Long ago, and long ago it was, in the days when I used proudly to write “School Teacher” after my name, I bought a certain book for the express purpose of reading it to “the girls I’ve left behind me.” The book is one beloved by train boys, of which they and other venders have sold so many that the latest “dodgers” read, “Twentieth thousand now in press.” It is sensible in matter, attractive in style, and goes by the enticing name of “Getting on in the World.” Naturally enough it was written in Chicago, and like most “Garden City” notions, is “a success.” But the trouble with this volume was that it didn’t fill the bill. I wanted to read it to “my girls,” to stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance that “life is real, life is earnest,” and the rest of it. But as I scanned its bright and pleasant pages I found out—what do you think I found? Why, that with the light of a new dispensation blazing in upon him, and the soprano voices of several million “superfluous women,” crying, “Have you no work for me to do?” this honored author had written never a word about creation’s gentler half! His book contained 365 pages, but if you had read a page each day, all the year round, you wouldn’t have found out at last that such a being as a woman was trying to “get on” in this or any other world. Not a bread-winning weapon had he put into the hand of the neediest among us, nor had he, even in a stray chapter or “appendix,” taken us off by ourselves and drawn us a diagram of “our sphere.”
I was so pained by this that I wrote Prof. Matthews (the gifted author, and my personal friend), asking him why he had thus counted out the women folks in his book upon success in life. I even ventured to hypothecate his reason, saying to him:
“Dear Sir:—I do not think you did this with malice aforethought, or from lack of interest in our fate, but simply and only because, like so many of our excellent brethren, you ‘done forgot all about us,’ as Topsey would say.”
Whereupon came a prompt and gracious reply, with the frank and manly admission:
“You guessed aright. I simply forgot to speak of women.”
Now, you perceive, it set me thinking—this obliquity of mental vision, which had led a writer so talented and wise to squint thus at the human race, seeing but half of it. I recalled the fact that, into most families, are born girls as well as boys; nay, as many an over-burdened pater familias can testify, they come not unfrequently in largely superior, if not exclusive numbers. Having, also, at a remote period of my history, belonged to the same helpless fraternity, I was haunted by the wish that I might write a sequel to the Professor’s excellent book, talking therein to girls and women about success in life. Perhaps my time has come; perhaps, in the generous pages of The Chautauquan, whose editor is so tolerant of the “strong minded” sisterhood, I have the largest audience that has yet consented to listen to my “views.” Anyhow, I mean, in these newly acquired pages to talk to girls of “How to Win” in something besides the sense treated of in books of etiquette and fashion magazines, or systematically taught in dancing schools.
And now, my dears, if you are patient and my small assistant keeps me in lead pencils, I shall try to show that if every young woman held in her firm little hand her own best gift, duly cultivated and made effective, society would not explode, the moon would not be darkened, the sun would still shed light. Somehow, dear girls, when I see an audience of young men, they remind me of a platoon of soldiers, marching with fixed bayonet, to the capture of their destiny. An assembly of young women, on the other hand, recalls a flock of lambs upon a pleasant hillside. They frisk about and nibble at the herbage and lie down in the sun, while above them soars the devouring eagle of their destiny, sweeping in concentric rings through the blue air, and ready to pounce down upon them, while the meek little innocents turn their white faces upward and mildly wonder “what that graceful creature is up yonder?” They remind me, too, of the reply given by a bright young friend of mine to the solemn exhortation that she should “make the most of life.”
“Humph!” she exclaimed with a rueful grimace, “I have no chance, for life is busy making the most of me!”
The trouble is, we women have all along been set down on the world’s program for a part so different from the one we really play upon its stage. For instance, the program reads: “Woman will take the part of Queen in the Drama of Society,” but often times, before the curtain falls, the stage reveals her as a dressmaker, a school teacher, perchance that most abused of mortals, a reformer! The program reads: “This august actress will be escorted to the stage by Man, her loyal and devoted subject, to whom has been assigned the part of shielding her from the glare of the footlights, and shooting anybody in the audience who dares to hiss.” But, alas! ofttimes the stage reveals her coming in alone, dragging her own sewing machine, while her humble and devoted subject, with tailor’s goose in one hand and scissors in the other, indicates by energetic pantomime his fixed intention to drive her speedily behind the scenes. The program, my beloved innocents, attires you all in purple and fine linen and bids you fare sumptuously every day, but not infrequently the stage reveals you attired in calico gowns, and munching your hard-earned crackers and cheese. The world’s theory furnishes every young lady that draws breath, with a lover, loyal and true, but the world’s practice shoots him on the battlefield, or poisons him with alcohol and nicotine until he can only “rattle around” through life in the place God meant him to fill within home’s sacred sanctuary. It is just this discrepancy that I complain of, and the generous age we live in is complaining of it with a thousand tongues, so that “the logic of events” that happen, instead of events that ought to happen, is impelling toward nobler fortunes that phenomenal creature whom a French author has called “the poor woman of the nineteenth century.”
Naturally enough, in thinking over the “case,” I contrast your aims in life with what were once my aims, your outlook upon life with mine. The other day—a rainy one, you may be sure—I brought from the vasty deep of the family garret some of my girlish journals, which I was curious to compare with the diary of a friend and former pupil at Evanston. Let me give you a few parallel passages because of the lesson they teach. My pupil (aged sixteen) writes thus:
“Was registered this day a member of the Freshman class in the Northwestern University. The president advises me to take the classical course, and I’ve made up my mind to try it.”
From mine at fifteen years I read:
“Caught a blue jay in my trap out in the hazel thicket. I knew he wasn’t “game” and let him go. The school house in our district is finished at last. A graduate of Yale College, and former tutor at Oberlin, is to be our teacher. I shall attend regularly, visiting my traps on the way.”
Later:
“Sister and I got up long before light to prepare for the first day at school. We put all our books in mother’s satchel; had a nice tin pail full of dinner. I study arithmetic, geography, grammar, reading and spelling, which takes up every minute of my time. Stood next to Pat O’Donahue in spelling, and Pat stood at the head.”
From my pupil’s diary, a few months later, take this extract:
“I am thinking seriously about my future. Perhaps this is premature, for I am only in my freshman year, but I have just about decided that I’ll study medicine.”
From mine, at a similar age (you see precocity was not among my failings):
“Sister was sick, and I brought out all my little bottles of sugar, salt and flour. Besides these medicines, I dosed her with pimentoes and poulticed her with cabbage leaves, but she grew no better, quite fast, so mother called another doctor. Dear me, if I were my brother, instead of being only a girl, we’d soon see whether I’ve a talent for medicine or not.”
From my young friend I quote again:
“I am greatly interested in the question for debate in our literary society this week, especially as I am chief disputant on the affirmative. It reads as follows: Resolved, That the votes of women are needed to help put down the liquor traffic.”
From mine:
“It is election day and my brother is twenty-one years old. How proud he seemed as he dressed up in his best clothes and drove off with father to vote for John C. Fremont, like the sensible ‘Free Soiler’ that he is! My sister and I stood at the front window and looked out after them. Somehow I felt a lump in my throat, and then I couldn’t see their wagon any more, things looked so blurred. I turned to Mary, and she, dear little innocent, seemed wonderfully sober, too. I said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to vote as well as Oliver? Don’t you and I love the country just as well as he, and doesn’t the country need our ballots?’ Whereupon she looked scared, but answered, ‘Of course we do, but don’t you go ahead and say so, for then we should be called strong minded.’”
From my pupil at seventeen I quote once more:
“The recent articles by members of the ‘Women’s Congress,’ some people would call radical, but they express precisely my opinions on the dress question. It is time for me to assume the garb of a young lady, but upon two things I am determined: First, I will never trail my garments on a filthy pavement while I live. If I am the only young lady in this university, who, when she walks, wears walking costume, I will still be true to my individual sense of cleanliness and taste. I will also carry the jewel of an unpunctured ear through life, though, by so doing, I oblige Mr. Darwin to confess ‘a missing link’ between me and my evolutionary ancestors.”
Finally, from mine:
“This is my seventeenth birthday, and the date of my martyrdom. Mother insists that at last I must have my hair ‘done up woman fashion.’ She says she can hardly forgive herself for letting me ‘run wild’ so long. We had a great time over it all, and here I sit, like another Samson, ‘shorn of my strength.’ That figure won’t do, though, for the greatest trouble with me is that I never shall be shorn again! My ‘back hair’ is twisted up like a corkscrew; I carry eighteen hair-pins; my head aches, my feet are entangled in the skirt of my new gown. I can never jump over a fence again so long as I live. As for chasing the sheep down in the shady pasture, it’s out of the question, and to climb to my ‘Eagle’s Nest’ seat in the big burr oak would ruin this new frock beyond repair. Altogether, I recognize the fact that ‘my occupation’s gone.’”
My readers smile at this, but they may be assured there are such blots upon the page where it was written, as briny drops alone can make.
You see, dear friends, from this contrast I have drawn, showing a glimpse of past and future in two eager, young lives, how fast this world is getting on. What is the difference in the outlook of your life that is, and mine that used to be? Let us consider: I was a daring sort of girl; you are the sort of girls who dare. I had aspiration; you have opportunity. I breathed an atmosphere laden with old time conservatisms, from which my glorious mother’s liberality of soul was my one safety valve of deliverance. But you are exhilarated by the vital air of a new liberty. “The world is all before you, where to choose.” If I required but little of myself, it was because the world required so little of me. No college of first rank in east or west—save noble old Oberlin and generous Antioch—could have been coaxed to count me in when she made up her jewels. Briefly, public opinion proposes to give you a chance. It proposed to let me shirk for myself. It means to put a shield in your left hand and a sword in your right. It let me go forth, as best I could, to beat the air with unarmed hands, or to sharpen my weapons on the field and in plain sight of the enemy.
Society set before me very few incentives, and commended to me only the passive virtues. Indeed, she never really bestirred herself on my behalf at all, save that she ceased not in story and poem, by sermon and song by precept and example, and (most cogently of all) by setting no other hope before me to ground me, so far as she was able, in the philosophy that sustained the illustrious Micawber. “Now my daughter,” thus was she wont to speak, “do you but be docile and obedient, as a young woman should, and something, something very particular indeed will most assuredly turn up.”
But I learned early to distrust a Mentor who took so little cognizance of the imperious ardor of my youth; who was so stupidly oblivious of the varied possibilities in brain and hand and heart, and so I began early to follow out my own devices as to a plan of character and work. Would that the generous impulse of your enthusiasm, guided by your broader opportunity, might
More anon.
Evanston, January 31, 1885.
BY ISAAC TODHUNTER.
I have from time to time recorded such examples of language as struck me for inaccuracy or any other peculiarity; but lately the pressure of other engagements has prevented me from continuing my collection, and has compelled me to renounce the design once entertained of using them for the foundation of a systematic essay. The present article contains a small selection from my store, and may be of interest to all who value accuracy and clearness. It is only necessary to say that the examples are not fabricated; all are taken from writers of good repute, and notes of the original places have been preserved, though it has not been thought necessary to encumber these pages with references. The italics have been supplied in those cases where they are used.
One of the most obvious peculiarities at present to be noticed is the use of the word if when there is nothing really conditional in the sentence. Thus we read: “If the Prussian plan of operations was faulty, the movements of the crown prince’s army were in a high degree excellent.” The writer does not really mean what his words seem to imply, that the excellence was contingent on the fault; he simply means to make two independent statements. As another example we have: “Yet he never founded a family; if his two daughters carried his name and blood into the families of the Herreras and the Zuñigos, his two sons died before him.” Here again the two events which are connected by the conditional if are really quite independent. Other examples follow: “If it be true that Paris is an American’s paradise, symptoms are not wanting that there are Parisians who cast a longing look toward the institutions of the United States.”
Other examples, differing in some respects from those already given, concur in exhibiting a strange use of the word if. Thus we read: “If a big book is a big evil, the ‘Bijou Gazetteer of the World’ ought to stand at the summit of excellence. It is the tiniest geographical directory we have ever seen.” This is quite illogical; if a big book is a big evil, it does not follow that a little book is a great good. “If in the main I have adhered to the English version, it has been from the conviction that our translators were in the right.” It is rather difficult to see what is the precise opinion here expressed as to our translators; whether an absolute or contingent approval is intended. For the last example we take this: “… but if it does not retard his return to office it can hardly accelerate it.” The meaning is, “This speech can not accelerate and may retard Mr. Disraeli’s return to office.” The triple occurrence of it is very awkward.
An error not uncommon in the present day is the blending of two different constructions in one sentence. The grammars of our childhood used to condemn such a sentence as this: “He was more beloved but not so much admired as Cynthio.” The former part of the sentence requires to be followed by than, and not by as. The following are recent examples: “The little farmer (in France) has no greater enjoyments, if so many, as the English laborer.” “I find public school boys generally more fluent, and as superficial as boys educated elsewhere.” “Mallet, for instance, records his delight and wonder at the Alps and the descent into Italy in terms quite as warm, if much less profuse, as those of the most impressible modern tourist.” An awkward construction, almost as bad as a fault, is seen in the following sentence: “Messrs — having secured the coöperation of some of the most eminent professors of, and writers on, the various branches of science.…”
A very favorite practice is that of changing a word where there is no corresponding change of meaning. Take the following example from a voluminous historian: “Huge pinnacles of bare rock shoot up into the azure firmament, and forests overspread their sides, in which the scarlet rhododendrons sixty feet in height are surmounted by trees two hundred feet in elevation.” In a passage of this kind it may be of little consequence whether a word is retained or changed; but for any purpose where precision is valuable it is nearly as bad to use two words in one sense as one word in two senses. Let us take some other examples. We read in the usual channels of information that “Mr. Gladstone has issued invitations for a full-dress Parliamentary dinner, and Lord Granville has issued invitations for a full-dress Parliamentary banquet.” Again we read: “The government proposes to divide the occupiers of land into four categories;” and almost immediately after we have “the second class comprehends…”: so that we see the grand word category merely stands for class. A writer recently in a sketch of travels spoke of a “Turkish gentleman with his innumerable wives,” and soon after said that she “never saw him address any of his multifarious wives.” One of the illustrated periodicals gave a picture of an event in recent French history, entitled “The National Guards Firing on the People.” Here the change from national to people slightly conceals the strange contradiction of guardians firing on those whom they ought to guard.
Let us now take one example in which a word is repeated, but in a rather different sense: “The grand duke of Baden sat next to the emperor William, the imperial crown prince of Germany sitting next to the grand duke. Next came the other princely personages.” The word next is used in the last instance in not quite the same sense as in the former two instances; for all the princely personages could not sit in contact with the crown prince.
A class of examples may be found in which there is an obvious incongruity between two of the words which occur. Thus, “We are more than doubtful;” that is, we are more than full of doubts: this is obviously impossible. Then we read of “a man of more than doubtful sanity.” Again we read of “a more than questionable statement;” this is I suppose a very harsh elliptical construction for such a sentence as “a statement to which we might apply an epithet more condemnatory than questionable.” So also we read “a more unobjectionable character.” Again: “Let the Second Chamber be composed of elected members, and their utility will be more than halved.” To take the half of anything is to perform a definite operation, which is not susceptible of more or less. Again: “The singular and almost excessive impartiality and power of appreciation.” It is impossible to conceive of excessive impartiality. Other recent examples of these impossible combinations are, “more faultless,” “less indisputable.” “The high antiquity of the narrative can not reasonably be doubted, and almost as little its ultimate Apostolic origin.” The ultimate origin, that is the last beginning, of anything seems a contradiction. The common phrase bad health seems of the same character; it is almost equivalent to unsound soundness or to unprosperous prosperity. In a passage already quoted, we read that the czar “gave audience to numerous visitors,” and in a similar manner a very distinguished lecturer speaks of making experiments “visible to a large audience.” It would seem from the last instance that our language wants a word to denote a mass of people collected not so much to hear an address as to see what are called experiments. Perhaps if our savage forefathers had enjoyed the advantages of courses of scientific lectures, the vocabulary would be supplied with the missing word.
Talented is a vile barbarism which Coleridge indignantly denounced; there is no verb to talent from which such a participle could be deduced. Perhaps this imaginary word is not common at the present; though I am sorry to see from my notes that it still finds favor with classical scholars. [Webster says: “This word—which is said to be of American origin—has been strongly objected to by Coleridge and some other critics, but as it would seem, upon not very good grounds, as the use of talent or talents to signify mental ability, although at first merely metaphorical, is now fully established, and talented, as a formative, is just as analogical and legitimate, as gifted, bigoted, turreted, targeted, and numerous other adjectives having a participial form, but derived directly from nouns, and not from verbs.”—Ed. The Chautauquan.]
Ignore is a very popular and a very bad word. As there is no good authority for it, the meaning is naturally uncertain. It seems to fluctuate between wilfully concealing something and unintentionally omitting something, and this vagueness renders it a convenient tool for an unscrupulous orator or writer.
The word lengthened is often used instead of long. Thus we read that such and such an orator made a lengthened speech, when the intended meaning is that he made a long speech. The word lengthened has its appropriate meaning. Thus, after a ship has been built by the Admiralty, it is sometimes cut into two and a piece inserted; this operation, very reprehensible doubtless on financial grounds, is correctly described as lengthening the ship. It will be obvious on consideration that lengthened is not synonymous with long. Protracted and prolonged are also often used instead of long; though perhaps with less decided impropriety than lengthened.
A very common phrase with controversial writers is, “we shrewdly suspect.” This is equivalent to, “we acutely suspect.” The cleverness of the suspicion should, however, be attributed to the writers by other people, and not by themselves.
The simple word but is often used when it is difficult to see any shade of opposition or contrast such as we naturally expect. Thus we read: “There were several candidates, but the choice fell upon — of Trinity College.” Another account of the same transaction was expressed thus: “It was understood that there were several candidates; the election fell, however, upon — of Trinity College.”
The word mistaken is curious as being constantly used in a sense directly contrary to that which, according to its formation, it ought to have. Thus: “He is often mistaken, but never trivial and insipid.” “He is often mistaken” ought to mean that other people often mistake him; just as “he is often misunderstood” means that people often misunderstand him. But the writer of the above sentence intends to say that “He often makes mistakes.” It would be well if we could get rid of this anomalous use of the word mistaken. I suppose that wrong or erroneous would always suffice. But I must admit that good writers do employ mistaken in the sense which seems contrary to analogy; for example, Dugald Stewart does so, and also a distinguished leading philosopher whose style shows decided traces of Dugald Stewart’s influence.
I should like to ask why a first charge is called a primary charge, for it does not appear that this mode of expression is continued. We have, I think, second, third, and so on, instead of secondary, tertiary, and so on, to distinguish the subsequent charges.
Cobbett justly blamed the practice of putting “&c.” to save the trouble of completing a sentence properly. In mathematical writings this symbol may be tolerated because it generally involves no ambiguity, but is used merely as an abbreviation, the meaning of which is obvious from the context. But in other works there is frequently no clue to guide us in affixing a meaning to the symbol, and we can only interpret its presence as a sign that something has been omitted. The following is an example: “It describes a portion of Hellenic philosophy; it dwells upon eminent individuals, inquiring, theorizing, reasoning, confuting, &c., as contrasted with those collective political and social manifestations which form the matter of history.…”
A recent cabinet minister described the error of an Indian official in these words: “He remained too long under the influence of the views which he had imbibed from the board.” To imbibe a view seems strange, but to imbibe anything from a board must be very difficult. I may observe that the phrase of Castlereagh’s which is now best known, seems to suffer from misquotation; we usually have “an ignorant impatience of taxation;” but the original form appears to have been, “an ignorant impatience of the relaxation of taxation.”
The following sentence is from a voluminous historian: “The decline of the material comforts of the working classes, from the effects of the Revolution, had been incessant, and had now reached an alarming height.” It is possible to ascend to an alarming height, but it is surely difficult to decline to an alarming height.
“Nothing could be more one-sided than the point of view adopted by the speakers.” It is very strange to speak of a point as having a side; and then how can one-sided admit of comparison? A thing either has one side or it has not; there can not be degrees in one-sidedness. However, even mathematicians do not always manage the word point correctly. In a modern valuable work we read of “a more extended point of view,” though we know that a point does not admit of extension. I suppose that what is meant is, a point which commands a more extended view. “Froschammer wishes to approach the subject from a philosophical standpoint.” It is impossible to stand and yet to approach. Either he should survey the subject from a stand-point, or approach it from a starting-point.
A large school had lately fallen into difficulties owing to internal dissensions; in the report of a council on the subject it was stated that measures had been taken to introduce more harmony and good feeling. The word introduce suggests the idea that harmony and good feeling could be laid on like water or gas by proper mechanical adjustment, or could be supplied like first-class furniture by a London upholsterer.
A passage has been quoted with approbation by more than one critic from the late Professor Conington’s translation of Horace, in which the following line occurs:—