A great many Republicans are unhappy because their party has not settled the Mormon question. Probably the Senate will resist the admission of Utah as a state; but the evil is only postponed. Some vigorous measures must be taken, or plural marriage will become one of the established modes of regulating the American family. If polygamy becomes a state institution, it will be as strongly entrenched as slavery was; and it may be held that a plural marriage in one state is good in all the states; this is the rule for monogamous marriage.
In New York City, in 1884, eleven thousand and fifty girls under fourteen years of age were arrested by the police; the number of boys of like age was only two thousand two hundred and forty-eight. The disproportion has its melancholy lesson.
A story went over the country that the temperance people of an Ohio town mobbed and killed a liquor man. The story should have been that some rejoicing Democrats refused to leave a saloon, where they were drinking, and fatally wounded the proprietor while he was attempting to put them out. Our authority for the revised version is the New York Sun.
A decision, under the anti-Chinese laws, seems to nullify them. Judge Brown has decided that a Chinaman has a right to land and visit with us. This looks reasonable, but we have no police to look him up and send him packing when he has visited enough.
The Indian question moves to a final settlement. Commissioner Price reports a considerable increase in the number of Indian farmers and students; and General Crook’s annual report on the murderous Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona is full of promise. The General has had no serious trouble with American Apaches for a whole year. Mexican Apaches still trouble us.
A story is circulating that the watch of Arctic-explorer De Long and the watch of his wife stopped at the same instant—he with his watch being in the Arctic Ocean, and she with hers in this country. It is added that the clock at home and the chronometer on the far-off ship united with the watches in the conspiracy. It is not worth while to believe this story, at least not until proper corrections for longitude are made. When meridian time shall be used everywhere, such stories will come within the range of intelligent consideration.
A ghastly corpse of a woman is found among ashes in a cellar in New York City. The police do not know whether it is a case of murder or of suicide. But the pathetic and blood-chilling fact is that many persons who had mysteriously lost female relatives came to see if the body might be that of their sister, wife or friend. Many people go down out of sight suddenly in the waves of city life.
A commercial treaty with Spain is pending in the United States Senate. Its object is to facilitate trade between our country and Cuba. We need foreign markets for our manufactures—and those markets lie in the West Indies, Mexico, and South America.
The Centennial Methodist Conference held in Baltimore, December 10th to 16th, commemorated the organization in that city, Christmas week, 1784, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It should not be forgotten, however, that Methodism had existed in this country for about twenty years. The recent celebration represented some 3,000,000 of Methodists.
Two pieces of new wit deserve a place in this record. The first is the “288 joke,” and it is explained as “too gross.” Spell too with a w. Pepper and salt to your taste. The other describes a sermon as like champagne. The preacher is elated by the criticism until it is added that “extra-dry” champagne is meant.
The most unreasonable man we have heard of during the last month went to a physician to be treated for several diseases. The doctor looked him over carefully, minutely examined all the implicated organs, and informed the patient that there was nothing the matter with him, whereupon the hero of several diseases assaulted the physician, and became the hero of a police court.
Quacks receive a blow by a legal decision in Massachusetts that men who administer drugs, whose effects they do not know, are criminally responsible for the mischief they do. It is common sense and deserves a wide circulation.
Silver dollars continue to accumulate in the Treasury. The Secretary advises Congress to abolish one, two and five dollar bills, so that all payments under ten dollars may be made in silver. This is the French method, and a good one. It is the best compromise offered, and the silver men ought to accept it.
The French are considering a plan to restore the practice of transporting ex-convicts to some far-off French colony. Experience shows that transportation is the best practical measure for securing the permanent reformation of the criminals; but the colonists always object to this class of new citizens.
We produce apples for Europe. It is expected that 2,000,000 barrels will be exported this year. Good eating apples are but little cultivated in Europe; ours are the best in the world. This is an apple year. Who says that times are hard?
The Rev. Dr. A. G. Haygood has resigned the presidency of Macon College, Georgia, to give his time to the management of the Slater Educational Fund. We regret that Dr. Haygood has taken this step. He is a man of broad views and generous impulses, and useful in a high institution of learning. It is not too much to say that he is better known at the North than any educator in the South. His sermons and lectures in Northern States have awakened new sympathies in the hearts of many people for the cause of higher education in the South, and indeed, Dr. Haygood has been one of the best representatives of the South. Always standing firmly by his college and people, he has done much to strengthen the bonds of union between the two sections. Perhaps his new office will give him a new range on more people, and increase his opportunities for usefulness. It is not the privilege of many men to decline the offices of bishop and the presidency of a college such as that at Macon inside three years, but Dr. Haygood has done both of these things. We predict for him large success in his new educational work.
It is refreshing to find that the Christmas idea of making others happy has at last reached our Sunday-schools. For years teachers and parents have made annually an exhaustive effort to feast their schools on Christmas day. However great their efforts the results could never be entirely satisfactory. Somebody was unavoidably overlooked, and the managers were always too nearly worn out to enjoy the holiday. A new plan, we hope, is to be instituted. Last season many schools tried it, more are making the experiment this year. It is to substitute giving by the school. On Christmas eve the classes bring in offerings for the poor. Whatever they wish and their purses allow is offered. The plan meets with the heartiest reception wherever proposed, the smallest children often being the most eager to give. A general adoption of this method of celebrating Christmas would do much to counteract the selfish feeling so often found in Sunday-schools that gifts, entertainments and prizes must be continually given in order to keep the school together.
Edward Everett Hale has consented that his name be added to the list of the counselors of the C. L. S. C. This announcement will be received with genuine satisfaction by every one interested in our work. It is an honor to us to number such a man in our faculty. Mr. Hale’s position in the religious and literary world is well established. Last spring when The Critic and Good Literature asked the public to cast a vote for the forty native American authors whom it deemed most worthy to form the “forty immortals” of a proposed American Academy, his name was the eleventh on the list, which ran: Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Bancroft, Howells, Curtis, Aldrich, Harte, Stedman, White and Hale. His books are known most widely; his sympathies are broad and wise; he is a man of the truest culture of both mind and heart. He will be welcomed most warmly by Chautauquans as one of their honored counselors.
Mr. Richard Grant White, whose articles on English form so important and interesting a part of this year’s course of reading, has been for several weeks seriously ill; so ill, indeed, that he has been quite unable to prepare his article for the present issue of The Chautauquan. By another month, however, Mr. White writes us that he believes his health will be so improved that he can continue his work.
The announcement of the Chautauqua School of Church Work, found in this issue, associates with the Chautauqua work a name well known and deeply honored by many of our readers. Dr. Geo. P. Hays, the director of this new department at the great summer school, was for several years president of Washington and Jefferson College, and since his connection with that institution ceased he has been the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Denver, Col. His name has several times appeared on the Chautauqua programs, and his appearance on that platform has always been very welcome. Dr. Hays will represent the C. L. S. C. in the West, and we look for large results from his efforts. This new department of church work will be a great addition to the Chautauqua attractions for 1885.
P. 16.—“Herodotus.” Critical essays containing the results of the researches concerning Herodotus will be found in the works of the eminent Germans, Creuzer, Dahlman, Heyse, Blum, A. Bauer, K. O. Müller, Stein, Kirchhoff and Blakesley. De Quincey has an essay in Vol. i. of “Historical and Critical Essays.” See also Vol. ii. of “A History of Classical Greek Literature,” by J. P. Mahaffy.
The following abridged opinions on Herodotus are interesting. Macaulay says of him: Of the romantic historians, Herodotus is the earliest and the best. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of his language place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child.… But he has not written a good history.… The faults of Herodotus are the faults of a simple and imaginative mind. He wrote as it was natural he should write. He wrote for a nation susceptible, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement; for a nation in which the fine arts had attained their highest excellence, but in which philosophy was still in its infancy. Mahaffy quotes the German Blakesley’s opinion that Herodotus wrote not to instruct but to please, that he selected such events and attributed such motives as he thought would be striking and popular, without any misgivings as to the accuracy of statement; that at his time there was no historic sense, but that the idea of exact and critical historical writing is a late and gradual acquisition which Thucydides acquired only by his extraordinary genius and circumstances in those early days.
P. 21.—“Rawlinson,” The Rev. George. (1815-—.) An Oxford man, in 1874 made Canon of Canterbury. Besides his “Herodotus” he has published a celebrated work called “The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, or the History, Geography and Antiquities of Chaldea, Assyria, Babylonia, Media and Persia.” To this he added, in 1873, the “Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,” meaning Parthia, and in 1876 the “Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy; or the Geography, History and Antiquity of the Sassanian or New Persian Empire.”
“Rawlinson,” Sir Henry. (1810-—.) A brother of the former. When but sixteen years of age he was sent to the East in the service of the East India Company; being transferred to the Persian army, he began to study the Persian cuneiform inscriptions and forwarded valuable copies to England. He also explored the countries of Central Asia. His studies have given him high rank among modern archæologists. His publications include several valuable works on the history and inscriptions of Assyria, Babylon and Chaldea, and he has contributed many learned papers to the journals of the Asiatic Society.
“Wilkinson.” (1797-1875.) An Englishman who during a residence of twelve years in Egypt studied the history, ruins, manners and customs of the country. His studies were embodied in voluminous works on a great variety of phases of Egyptian life and history, including the “Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt,” “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,” “Architecture of Ancient Egypt,” “Modern Egypt and Thebes,” and others. In striking contrast was a subject on which he published a work in 1858—“Color, and the General Diffusion of Taste among all Classes.”
P. 22.—“Lydian Empire.” Lydia was a very early seat of Asiatic civilization, the empire being founded at Sardis in mythical times. Three dynasties of kings are said to have ruled the country, the Atyadæ, the Heraclidæ and the Mermnadæ, the last of which alone is authentic. Of their civilization Smith says: “Among the inventions or improvements which the Greeks are said to have derived from them were the weaving and dyeing of fine fabrics; various processes of metallurgy; the use of gold and silver money, which the Lydians are said to have first coined; and various metrical and musical improvements, especially the scale or mode of music called the Lydian, and the form of lyre called the Magadis.” After the Persian conquest of Lydia it formed with Mysia, the second satrapy. After the Macedonian conquest it passed to the kings of Syria, thence to those of Pergamus, and finally to the Romans, who made it a part of the province of Asia.
“Sardis,” or Sardes, stood until the wars of the Middle Ages, when in 1402 it was almost entirely destroyed by Tamerlane. The remains extend over a wide space. Two Ionic columns (see illustration, page 33, of “College Greek Course,”) are the most conspicuous of the remains. These columns are supposed to have belonged to a temple of Cybele. The walls of the Acropolis, some of its towers, a few remnants of the magnificent palace of Crœsus, of a gymnasium, and a few other buildings are all that can be traced. The tombs of the Lydian kings are in the neighborhood, prominent among which is the tumulus of Alyattes, a huge circular mound 1,140 feet in diameter. An Arabian village of mud huts called Sart now stands on its site.
P. 26.—“Crœsus’s father.” Alyattes, king of Lydia, B. C. 617-560.
P. 27.—“Hermus.” A good sized river of Asia Minor, rising in Phrygia, flowing through Lydia, watering the plain of Sardis, and emptying into the Gulf of Smyrna.
P. 28.—“Telmessus.” A town of Cana about six miles from Halicarnassus. Its people were celebrated for their power in divination.
P. 32.—“Agbatana.” The usual form of writing the word is Ecbatana; the first form is the Ionic, used in poetry.
“Pactyas.” An army was sent against this man when he fled to Cyme, thence to Mytilene, and from there to Chios. The Chians gave him up to the Persians.
P. 33.—“L’Allegro,” läl-lāˈgrō. The merry, the gay.
P. 35.—“Nitocris.” Supposed to have been the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and the mother or grandmother of Belshazzar. While queen of Babylon many important works were carried on by her for the improvement of the city.
P. 37.—“Massagetæ.” They were probably a nomad people of Central Asia. The best authorities suppose them to have lived north of the Jaxartes and the sea of Aral. Some critics identify them with the Mesech of the Scriptures. Many of their customs were very peculiar. They worshipped the sun, to which they sacrificed horses. Their very old people were killed and eaten. The race to which they belonged is in dispute, though usually considered the Turkoman.
P. 40.—“Prexaspes.” He had always been held in high honor by Cambyses, having been employed by the latter to kill his brother Smerdis, whom he feared. Later in life an impostor calling himself Smerdis, tried to usurp the throne and Cambyses suspected Prexaspes, but he cleared himself. After the death of Cambyses this false Smerdis was acknowledged king, and the Magi, who had put him on the throne, tried to win over Prexaspes to their plans, but he told before the assembled Persians of the assassination of the true Smerdis, and then threw himself from the tower on which he was standing.
P. 43.—“Apis.” A bull worshipped by the Egyptians. He was supposed to contain the spirit of the divinity Osiris, and was the symbol of fertility. The god must be black, with a white square or triangular mark on his forehead, an eagle on the back, and other mysterious marks about the body. When such an animal was found he was carried to Heliopolis and thence to Memphis, where he had his own temple and priests. The lifetime of Apis was twenty-five years. If one died the whole land was in mourning until a successor was found.
P. 45.—“Staters,” stāˈter. The chief gold coin of the Greeks, usually worth about $5.50, though it varied much in value.
P. 51.—“Andrians.” The inhabitants of Andros, the most northerly of the Cyclades.
“Ca-rysˈti-ans.” Those of Carystus, a town on the southern coast of Eubœa. Beautiful white marble and the mineral asbestos abounded near Carystus.
“Parians.” From Paros, one of the largest of the Cyclades, north of Delos.
P. 52.—“Thucydides.” For additional readings on Thucydides see Grote’s History of Greece, and also Thirwall’s, Mahaffy’s History of Classical Greek Literature, Müller and Donaldson’s History of Greek Literature, and Mure’s History of the Greek Language and Literature.
Cicero commends Thucydides as “a faithful and dignified narrator of facts,” and declares that he surpasses all others in the art of composition.
Macaulay says: “Thucydides has surpassed all his rivals in the art of historical narration, in the art of producing an effect on the imagination by skilful selection and disposition without indulging in the license of invention.”
Mahaffy thus compares Herodotus and Thucydides: “While the conceptions of history in Herodotus and Thucydides were mainly the consequence of the temper of the men and of their surroundings, it must be declared that, for an historian, the atmosphere in which the latter lived, while giving him critical acumen and freeing him from theological prejudices narrowed his view and distorted his estimate of the relative importance of events. We may indeed feel very grateful that Herodotus was not attracted in early life by this brilliant exclusiveness, and that he remained an Ionic instead of becoming an Attic historian.”
P. 56.—“Jowett,” jowˈet. (1817-—.) An English Greek scholar and professor.
P. 72.—“Peabody.” (1811-—.) An American theologian and author.
P. 73.—“Eurymedon.” One of the Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian war. After the expedition to Corcyra, Eurymedon commanded in the expedition against Sicily in 425. In 414 he was a leader in a second armament fitted out against Syracuse; he fell in the first sea fight in the harbor of that city.
P. 81.—“Alcæus.” About B. C. 600. A native of Mytilene. In a war between Athens and his country he is said to have fled, leaving his arms on the field of battle. He was afterward driven from his native land in a strife between the nobility and people, and spent the remainder of his life traveling. Some of his odes are extant, and the imitations of Horace have made the character of Alcæus’ verse well known. See “Brief History of Greece,” page 52. Mahaffy says of Alcæus, we see in him “the perfect picture of an unprincipled, violent, lawless Greek aristocrat, who sacrificed all and everything to the demands of pleasure and power.”
Excellent works to read in connection with “The Character of Jesus” are Farrar’s “Life of Christ,” Thomas Hughes’s “Manliness of Christ,” Geikie’s “Life and Words of Christ,” Pollock’s “The Christ of Christianity and of Modern Criticism.”
P. 108.—“Celsus.” An Epicurean philosopher who lived in the second century. Only fragments of his works have been preserved as quotations given by Origen. He charges Christians with blind credulity, with religious arrogance, with party divisions, and with having altered their sacred writings. His own doctrines were that evil is necessary and eternal, and that sin can never be entirely removed, least of all by vicarious sacrifice.
P. 109.—“Justin Martyr.” The earliest of the church fathers after the apostolic age. He lived in the second century, and attended the pagan schools of Asia Minor, Greece and Egypt. Afterward he embraced the Christian religion and wrote two apologies in its behalf. He suffered martyrdom at Rome under Marcus Aurelius, because he refused to sacrifice to the heathen gods.
“Tertullian.” An eminent Latin father of the church who lived at Carthage in the second century. He was converted from paganism to Christianity. He was a man of powerful intellect and great learning; was the author of numerous works which are still extant.
P. 111.—“Summum bonum.” A Latin expression meaning the highest good.
P. 134.—“Talmud.” The work which gives the laws, both civil and canonical, of the Jews. It contains the rules by which the conduct of the people is regulated, and relates not only to religion, but also to philosophy, medicine, history, and the branches of practical duty.
P. 136.—“Mr. Parker,” Theodore. (1810-1860.) A distinguished American scholar; a Unitarian minister. His new doctrines gave great offence to the New England Unitarians, as he assumed the absolute humanity of Christ, and said his inspiration differed in no respect from that of other men. He died in Florence, whither he had gone for his health.
P. 161.—“Vishnu.” One of the gods of the Hindoos, a sun god. He gave the earth to man as his inheritance. The unbroken order of the world is due to him.
1. “Abd el Wahab.” The founder of a recent Mohammedan sect now dominant throughout the greater part of Arabia. He was the son of an Arab chief, and was born about the end of the seventeenth century. He was highly educated, and conceived the idea of restoring in its primitive shape the ruined structure of Islam. The Koran had fallen into abeyance, and their religion was little else than a round of external ceremonies. He gained a numerous following in his efforts to revive the old zeal in their religion. The sect took the name of the Wa-haˈbis, or the Wa-haˈbites.
2. “The earthquake at Lisbon.” This, the greatest of the frequent earthquakes at Lisbon, and one of the most remarkable that ever occurred anywhere, took place in 1775, and destroyed a great part of the city. The area affected was very extensive. The shock was felt on one side as far as the southern shore of Finland, and on the other it reached to Canada, an area of 7,500,000 square miles. The force required to move this must have been enormous, for suppose the thickness of the earth’s crust moved to have been only twenty miles, then 150,000,000 cubic miles of solid matter was moved. The sea wave caused by it rose to a height of sixty feet at Cadiz.
3. “Laputa.” The name of a flying island described by Swift in his imaginary “Travels of Lemuel Gulliver.” It is said to be “exactly circular, its diameter seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven yards, or about four miles and a half, and consequently contains ten thousand acres.” The inhabitants are speculative philosophers, devoted to mathematics and music.—Webster’s Dictionary.
So materializing is the spirit of the age that the extended study of physical and mechanical science seems likely one of these days to convert our island (Great Britain) into a Laputa.—Keightly.
4. “Syrian Maronites,” marˈo-nites. A Christian tribe of very ancient origin. In the year 1445 they were formally united to the Roman Catholic Church, but were allowed to retain their own national rites and usages. Their priests are allowed to marry.
5. “Lazaretto.” A pest-house or hospital for the reception of the sick, particularly for those affected with contagious distempers.
6. “Bactrian nomads.” Bactria is a country of Central Asia. A great part of it is made up of stretches of barren and drifting sands, so that the inhabitants are obliged to resort to the nomadic style of life. It was subjugated by Alexander the Great, but afterward became independent. Its modern history is not important.
7. “Titus Oates.” An Englishman who in the reign of Charles II. communicated the details of a pretended plot, “the figment of his own brain,” in which were revealed a rising of the Catholic party, a general massacre of the Protestants, the burning of London, and the assassination of the king. Several incidents seemed to corroborate the monstrous assertion, and it was universally believed. All London went wild with fear and rage, and at one time a massacre of the Roman Catholics seemed likely to occur in anticipation of the one the Protestants feared. Many of the Catholics were arrested, tried and condemned to meet the death of traitors at the block. On the accession of James II., Oates was tried, sentenced to be pilloried, publicly whipped, and afterward imprisoned for life. When William III. came to the throne he was pardoned, and was no more heard of. He died in obscurity seventeen years later, in 1705, at the age of seventy-six.
8. “Jack Sheppard.” (1701-1724.) He was noted for twice escaping from prison at Newgate, whither he was sent for taking part in the revolution against the king, George I. He was hung at Tyburn.
9. “Absinthe.”—A cordial of brandy flavored with wormwood.
1. “St. Augustine.” (354-430.) One of the fathers of the Christian church. He was born at Tagaste, in Africa. He was sent to Carthage to be educated, and there plunged into the frightful abyss of corruptions which marked that wicked city. In his “Confessions” he describes his life at this time, and does not seek to excuse himself. At the age of thirty-three years he embraced the Christian religion and was baptized by Ambrose. His conversion from his errors was complete and permanent. Monica, his mother, who through all these years had been praying for her son, died shortly after, feeling that she could depart in peace, as her eyes had seen his salvation. He wrote with great zeal and voluminously against all the sects which the church held to be heretical.
2. “Bourdaloue,” Louis. (1632-1704.) A most eloquent French preacher. Louis XIV. was an attendant upon his ministry, and on many different occasions invited him to preach the festival sermons before the court of Versailles. He was renowned for the solid dignity of his thought and his fervid religious eloquence.
1. “Alcmæonid,” alc-meˈo-nid. One of the tribe of the Alcmæonidæ, a noble family of Athens. It received its name from Alcmæon, a great-grandson of Nestor. The story of the sacrilege brought upon the family by Megacles is given on page 11 of “Brief History of Greece.” Clisthenes was their most famous member in after years.
2. “Recouped,” re-koopˈed. Recompensed.
3. “Leech.” The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for healer, physician, but in this sense is now almost obsolete.
4. “A-gesˌi-laˈus.” “Cle-omˈe-nes.” See “Brief History of Greece.”
5. “Oligarchies,” olˈi-garchˌies. Governments in the control of a few persons.
6. “Cyrene,” cy-reˈne. A maritime city in Northern Africa, founded by a Greek colony; beautiful for situation, and of great mercantile importance. “It was built on a high terrace of the Cyrenæan table-land, about nine miles from the coast of Appolonia, which became its port. The road which connected the city with the harbor, a vast necropolis, and ruins of streets, temples, theaters, tombs, and remnants of art, are still visible. The site of the ancient city has been identified with the modern Grennah.”
7. “Æginetan,” æg-i-neˈtan. Pertaining to the island and city of Ægina.
8. “Dicasts.” The dicasts in ancient Athens exercised the functions of our jurymen, rather than of the judges of courts.
9. “Arˈte-mon.” Said to have been from Clazomenæ. He was an engineer, and to him was attributed the invention of the testudo and the battering ram. In the siege of Samos he was employed by Pericles.
10. “Anˈax-agˌo-ras.” (B. C. 500-428.) An Ionian philosopher, a native of Clazomenæ. When a young man he went to Athens, where he became the teacher of Pericles, Euripides and others. See “Brief History of Greece,” page 62.
11. “Ic-tiˈnus.” A Grecian architect who lived about 450 B. C. He was the architect of the great temple of Minerva, on the Acropolis, and of that of Apollo Epicurius, in Arcadia.
12. “Pol-yg-noˈtus.” (460?-430? B. C.) A painter, whose native home was Thasos, but who afterward became a citizen of Athens, where he was employed by Cimon to ornament the temple of Theseus. “He is styled ‘The Homer of painting,’ because he treated his subjects in an epic rather than a dramatic spirit. He had imagination in the highest degree. In allusion to the ideal character and moral expression of his works, Aristotle calls him an ethic painter. The same critic says, in another passage, ‘Polygnotus represented men better than they are (superior to nature).’ Among his works were the ‘Capture of Troy,’ and the ‘Visit of Ulysses to the Lower World.’”
13. “Ma-chaˈon Pod-a-lirˈi-us.” A son of Æsculapius, celebrated among the Greeks for his ability as a physician; he is said to have gone to the Trojan war with thirty ships; he acted as a surgeon as well as serving in battle. He is mentioned by some writers as one of the heroes who were concealed in the wooden horse.
Those desiring to carry on more fully their readings in Greek Mythology will find the following works peculiarly helpful: “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” G. W. Cox; “Introduction to the Science of Religion,” Max Müller; “Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” Baring-Gould; “Handbook of Mythology,” G. W. Cox; “Myth and Science,” Vignole; “Mythology,” Seeman.
1. “Hestia.” The Greek form corresponding to the Latin Vesta. It is conjectured by some that the two words are the same, going back to a period when the Greeks and Latins were still an undivided people.
2. “Pe-nāˈtēs.” The word is derived from penus, the innermost part of the house, and referred to those divinities who, as exercising providential care over domestic affairs, were considered as the gods of the household. The Penates were also the gods of the state, considered as a family, and as such had a sanctuary near the center of Rome, where sacrifices were made by public men.
3. “Tutelary,” tūˈte-la-ry. Derived from the Latin word tutela, protection, and signifying protecting goddess.
4. “Vestal.” The priestesses of Vesta. A temple to this goddess stood in Rome, in the Forum, and over the temple presided four, afterward six, virgins, who were chosen to the office at first by the kings, and later by lot. They entered on this service when no older than ten years, and served thirty years; the first ten being spent in learning, the second ten in performing, and the third in teaching, their duties. A vow of chastity was taken, the violation of which was punished by being buried alive. The chief duty of the virgins was to keep the fire on the altar of the goddess ever burning. After the term had expired they might marry, although it was considered unlucky.
5. “Cyl-leˈne.” The highest mountain in Peloponnesus. It was sacred to Mercury, who was said to have been born there, and was hence called Cyllenius.
6. “Alˈphe-us.” The largest river in Peloponnesus. It rises in Arcadia, but soon sinks underground. It rises again and unites with the Eurotas. After flowing together for nearly three miles the two rivers disappear underground. The Alpheus rises again at Pegæ, and flows northwest into the Ionian Sea.
7. “Pro-meˈthe-us.” See page 54 of “Brief History of Greece.”
8. “Tartarus.” According to Homer Tartarus is the lowest hell, a locality as far below Hades as earth is below heaven; into this dark region all who rebelled against Zeus were hurled. Later the word was used synonymously with Hades.
9. “Psychopompus,” si-ko-pomˈpus.
10. “Non ego,” etc. I shall not all die.
11. “Cerˈbe-rus.” “The monster that guarded the entrance to the infernal regions. He was a son of Typhon and Echidna, and is represented as a dog with three heads, the tail of a serpent, and a mane composed of the anterior extremities of numberless snakes. His business was to admit the spirits of the dead into their subterranean abode, and to prevent them from leaving it. Orpheus lulled him to sleep with his lyre, and Hercules dragged him from Hades, and exhibited him to the eyes of wondering mortals.”
12. “Terˈra in-cog-niˈta.” Unknown land.
13. “Judges.” Miˈnos, and Rhadˌa-manˈthus were brothers, sons of Jupiter and Europa. The former, the king and legislator of Crete, was distinguished for his wisdom, and with the latter, famous throughout life for his justice, was made a judge of the lower world. The third judge, Æˈa-cus, was a son of Jupiter and Ægina. The island where he was born was named after his mother, and he became its ruler. He was renowned for his justice, being called upon by gods as well as men to settle disputes.
14. “Tanˈta-lus.” From this name we have the word tantalize, signifying to put a good within sight, that it may excite desire, but still to keep it out of reach.
15. “Psyche,” siˈke.
16. “Pro-serˈpi-na,” or Per-sephˈo-ne. The daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, and wife of Pluto, by whom she is said to have been carried off to Hades.
17. “Ganˈy-meˌde.” Said to have been the most beautiful of human beings. Jupiter was so delighted with him that he carried him to Olympus as his cup-bearer.
1. “Ro-saˈce-æ.” A highly important order in botany, including herbs, shrubs and trees that have stipulate leaves and regular flowers, resembling those of the rose family. It includes five sub-orders, eighty-seven genera, and 1,000 species. It embraces our finest ornamental flowering shrubs, and a long catalogue of delicious fruits, as apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries.
2. “I-duˈnä.” The goddess who kept in a box the apples which the gods tasted in order to preserve their perpetual youth.
3. “Orchards of Hesperus.” The lands watched over by the Hesperides, maidens who guarded the golden apples which Earth gave Hera at her marriage to Zeus. The apples grew on a tree which was also further guarded by a sleepless dragon. These “orchards” were in that part of the heaven where the sun sets.
4. “Pyˈrus.” A genus of trees of the order Rosaceæ, including the apple and pear and some ornamental trees.
5. “The American Pomological Society.” This society was organized in New York October 10, 1848. Its main object was to elicit and disseminate information relating to fruit growing, and to promote a cordial spirit of intercourse among horticulturists. It has brought together from all the states and territories the most intelligent, experienced and skilful cultivators who have taught each other and made the knowledge of one the property of all. Its sessions are held in the different leading cities of the country.
6. “Pruˈnus Perˈsi-ca.” The Prunus is a genus of trees of the order Rosaceæ, including those species which have the stone of the fruit sharp-pointed, and a longitudinal furrow passing all round. The young leaves are rolled up. “Persica” means that it is a native of Persia.
7. “Curculio,” weevil. A Linnæan genus of insects characterized by the elongation of the head into a beak or snout, at the extremity of which the mouth is placed, and from which the club-shaped antennæ spring. The species are very numerous and are distributed over all parts of the earth.
8. “Ruˈbus.” A genus of the order Rosaceæ, distinguished by a five-lobed calyx, without bracts, and the fruit formed by an aggregation of small drupes.
9. “Rubus Vil-loˈsus.” Villosus signifies shaggy or long-haired; given because the leaflets of the high blackberry are hairy on both sides.
10. “Rubus Can-a-denˈsis.” So called because it is found growing in Canada.
11. Fra-gaˈri-a.
1. “Méringue,” mā-răngˈ.
1. “Galileo,” găl-i-leeˈo. (1564-1642.) An illustrious astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, the creator of experimental science. He made a number of important discoveries in the science of astronomy, among which were Jupiter’s satellites, Saturn’s rings, the sun’s spots, and the starry nature of the milky way. He was a strong advocate of the Copernican system—which represents the sun to be at rest in the center and the earth and other planets to move round it—and for this was twice persecuted by the Inquisition. On both occasions he was publicly compelled to abjure the system, but the last time he is said to have stamped his foot while muttering to himself, “but nevertheless it does move.” The later years of his life were spent in his country house near Florence.
2. “Torricelli,” tor-ri-celˈli. (1608-1647.) A celebrated Italian mathematician and philosopher. He made himself renowned for all time by his interpretation of the fact that water will rise in a suction pump to a height of thirty-two feet, which, up to his time, had been explained on the ground that “nature abhors a vacuum;” above that limit the law was modified. Torricelli employed mercury to perform this experiment, and soon found the clue to the mystery. He discovered that the column of fluid was sustained by the pressure of the atmosphere on the open surface of the fluid.
3. “Blaise Pascal.” (1623-1662) A distinguished French philosopher and scholar. In his sixteenth year he produced a treaty on conic sections; in his nineteenth year he invented a calculating machine. Turning his attention to the theory of fluids which Torricelli had advanced, he wrote two essays which established his reputation as an experimental physicist. He was the author of the magnificent but unfinished “Pensées.” He was of a deeply religious turn, and before his death was entirely given up to prayer and practices of mortification, among which may be mentioned that of wearing an iron girdle studded with sharp points which he forced into his flesh whenever he felt himself assailed by sinful thoughts. “Puy de Dome,” pwī deh dōm.
4. “Tarpeia,” tar-peˈya. The daughter of Tarpeius, the governor of the citadel of Rome. She promised to open the gates of the city to the Sabines if they would give her what they carried on their left hands, meaning their gold bracelets. The king consented, and as he entered the gates, to punish her perfidy he threw not only his bracelet, but his shield upon her. His soldiers followed his example, and she was crushed to death. She was buried in the capitol, which from her has been called the Tarpeian Rock.
5. “Haliotis,” hal-i-ōˈtis. A genus of gasteropods with a shell resembling the human ear. The gasteropods are a class of univalve mollusks, like the snail.
6. “Skate.” A kind of shark. A name given to several species of fish having a rhomboidal body.
7. “Magdeburg Hemispheres.” They are two hollow hemispheres generally made of brass or copper, with edges accurately fitted to each other, and one of them provided with a stop cock. When the edges are pressed tightly together and the globe thus formed is exhausted of air through the cock, the hemispheres are held together with such force that it is with great difficulty they can be pulled apart.
8. “Otto von Güricke,” fon gāˈrik-eh. (1602-1686.) A celebrated German physicist. He invented the air-pump and made the famous experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres.
9. “Tower of Pisa.” The round marble belfry called “The Leaning Tower” because it deviates about fourteen feet from the perpendicular. It is 180 feet high, and consists of seven stories divided by rows of columns, and surmounted by a flat roof and an open gallery commanding a splendid view of the surrounding country. It was built in the twelfth century by a German architect, Wilhelm of Innsbruck.
10. “Mariotte,” Mä-ri-ŏtˈ. A French philosopher of the seventeenth century. He possessed an extraordinary power of drawing conclusions from experiment. He made a thorough investigation of the subject of the conduction of water, and calculated the strength necessary for pipes under different circumstances.
11. “Air-gun.” An instrument resembling a musket. By means of a condenser the air is forced into a metallic globe which is attached to the musket nearly opposite the trigger.
12. “Torricellian Vacuum.” To produce this vacuum a small quantity of pure mercury is placed in the tube and boiled for some time. It is then allowed to cool and a further quantity, previously warmed, added, which is boiled, and so on until the tube is quite full; in this manner the moisture and the air which adhere to the sides of the tube pass off with the mercurial vapor.
13. “Mont-golˈfi-er.” There were two brothers of this name, Etienne and Joseph, distinguished as the inventors of the first kind of balloons. They were both received as members of the French Academy. They lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
14. “Pneumatic Dispatch.” The packages are placed on easily rolling carriages which are nicely fitted within tubes. The force necessary to move them is produced by the alternate compression and expansion of air in large reservoirs. This compression and expansion is caused by forcing the water into, and then allowing it to run out of a connecting reservoir, the action being changed by a system of cocks.
15. “Gay-Lussac.” (1778-1850.) A Frenchman, one of the most distinguished chemists and physicists of modern times. In 1804 he made a balloon ascension of 23,000 feet, and Humboldt examined with him the air brought down from that height, for the purpose of discovering the intensity of the magnetic force. In 1839 Gay-Lussac was created a peer of France.
16. “Lockyer.” (1836-—.) An English astronomer. He invented a method of observing the red flames of the sun without being obliged to wait for an eclipse. In 1870 and 1871 he was sent to Sicily by the English government, as the chief of the eclipse expedition.
Pass, certificate, and competitive examinations are, no doubt, all sufficiently serious affairs to examinees, and sufficiently trying ones to examiners. To the outer public, however, to those “who have no son or brother there,” such “exams.” are, as a rule, nothing if not a source of amusement. The “results” aimed at in examinations are, for the most part, admirable; but in the course of the processes, in the answering of examination questions, the unexpected constantly happens, and it is the unlooked-for results, the “surprises” of the occasions, that make sport for the Philistines. The situation on this head is easily explicable. It is a natural result of the modern system of preparation for examination—the cram system. Examinees bent only on “getting through” will answer questions on the hit-or-miss principle, while others, whose brains have become more or less addled under the pressure of “memory work,” will evolve from their unbalanced inner consciousness replies fearfully and wonderfully made.
Some of the “exam.” stories current in educational circles, though characteristic, and possibly “founded on fact,” have an air of belonging to the too-good-to-be-true category. A number of these are told against—and, if invented, were probably invented by—undergraduates. Thus—so the story goes—an undergraduate was asked to name the minor prophets, and, not having “got them up,” neatly and politely replied that he would rather not make invidious distinctions. Another university man, called upon to give the parable of the Good Samaritan, did so correctly enough until he came to the passage where the Samaritan said to the innkeeper: “When I come again I will repay thee,” to which he added, “This he said, knowing that he would see his face no more.” Perhaps, however, the examinee upon this occasion was a conscious humorist, and had in mind the worldly-wise saying, that there are a great many people willing to play the part of the Good Samaritan, less the oil and the twopence.
Something of the same stamp must have been the candidate for a degree, who, asked to state the substance of St. Paul’s sermon at Athens, said that it was “crying out for two hours, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’” With variations, that is the substance of a great many sermons, and of other discourses beside sermons.
Such stories as the above may or may not be rather broadly illustrative than strictly true, but in any case they can be pretty well matched by others, about the truthfulness of which there is no doubt. Every year a certain proportion of the children of the London board schools enter into a competitive examination in Scriptural knowledge, for the “Peek Prizes,” which consist of handsomely got-up Bibles and Testaments. They are “paper work” examinations, and the following are a few of the many curious “hash” answers that have at various times been put in at them.
“Abraham was the father of Lot, and ad tew wives. One was called Hishmale and tother Haggar, he kept wun at home, and he turned tother into the desert where she became a pillow of salt in the day time, and a pillow of fire by night.”
“Joseph wore a koat of many garments. He was chief butler to Faro and told is dreams. He married Potiffers dortor, and he led the Gypshans out of bondage to Kana in Gallilee, and there fell on his sword and died in sight of the promised land.”
“Moses was an Egypshion. He lived in a hark made of bulrushes, and he kept a golden calf and worshipt brazen snakes, and he het nothing but kwales and manner for forty year. He was kort by the air of his ed while riding under the bow of a tree and he was killed by his son Absolon as he was hangin from the bow. His end was pease.”
Of the numerous stories told in connection with diocesan inspection “exams.” in public elementary schools, the two following are perhaps the best known and most worth quoting. At one of these exams., a boy, asked to mention the occasion upon which it is recorded in Scripture that an animal spoke, made answer: “The whale when it swallowed Jonah.” The inspector, being something of a humorist, maintained his gravity and asked: “What did the whale say?” To which the boy promptly replied: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Another inspector, finding a class hesitating over answering the question, “With what weapon did Samson slay the Philistines?” and wishing to prompt them, significantly tapped his own cheek, and asked, “What is this?” and his action touching “the chords of memory,” the whole class instantly answered: “The jawbone of an ass.”
A good example of the manner in which students who are “in” for several “subjects” at the same time get their ideas mixed, is that of the youth who having to answer the question, “Who was Esau?” replied; “Esau was a man who wrote fables, and sold the copyright for a bottle of potash.” Here the confusion thrice confounded of Esau and Æsop, birthright and copyright, and pottage and potash, is really admirable in its way.
As might be expected, the examinations of medical students afford some good stories—true or otherwise. As might also be expected, some of them are wittily impudent. For instance, a “badgering” examiner asked a student what means he would employ to induce copious perspiration in a patient, and got for answer: “I’d try to make him pass an examination before you, sir.” The most frequently cited anecdote of this kind is that of the brusque examiner—said by some to have been Dr. Abernethy—who, losing patience with a student who had answered badly, exclaimed: “Perhaps, sir, you could tell me the names of the muscles I would put in action if I were to kick you?” “Undoubtedly, sir,” came the prompt reply; “you would put into motion the flexors and extensors of my arm, for I should knock you down.” On the same lines as this was the retort made to M. Lefebvre de Fourcy, a French examiner, celebrated, not only for his learning, but also for his severity and rudeness. He was examining a youth, who, though well up in his work, hesitated over answering one of the questions put to him. Losing temper at this, the examiner shouted to an attendant: “Bring a truss of hay for this young gentleman’s breakfast.” “Bring two,” coolly added the examinee, “Monsieur and I will breakfast together.” Of such alleged answers by students as that the pancreas was so named after the Midland railway station, that the bone of the upper arm (humerus) was called the humerous, and was so styled because it was known as the funny-bone; or that the ankle-bone (tarsus) was so called because St. Paul walked upon it to the city of that name—of such alleged answers as these it is charitable to suppose that they must be weak inventions of the enemy.
Many of the comicalities in the way of examination answers recorded by her Majesty’s inspectors of schools, the examiners in the school board scholarships competitions, and other the like official personages, go a long way to prove that in examination blundering, as in many other matters, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. At least, it seems to us that no invented story—supposing examination stories ever are invented—could equal for “nice derangement” the following written answer which was actually given at an examination in the “specific subjects” in a public elementary school within the metropolitan area. The specific subject taken was physiology, and the children “presented” in it were asked to “describe the processes of digestion,” which one of them did in this wise: “Food is digested by the action of the lungs. Digestion is brought on by the lungs having something the matter with them. The food then passes through your windpipe to the pores, and thus passes off your body by evaporation, through a lot of little holes in your skin called capillaries. The food is nourished in the stomach. If you were to eat anything hard you would not be able to digest it, and the consequence would be you would have indigestion. The gall-bladder throws off juice from the food which passes through it. We call the kidneys the bread-basket, because it is where all the bread goes to. They lay up concealed by the heart.”
Domestic economy, as nowadays taught to “children of the elementary school class,” embraces a good deal of physiological knowledge, or rather, as applied to such children, physiological jargon. It is a subject which affords hosts of amusing answers, though, from considerations of space, two or three must here suffice for specimens. Thus, in reply to the question, “Why do we cook our food?” one girl gives the delightfully inconsequent reply: “Their of five ways of cooking potatoes. We should die if we eat our food roar.” Another girl writes: “The function of food is to do its proper work in the body. Its proper work is to well masticate the food, and it goes through without dropping, instead of being pushed down by the skin.” A third domestic economy pupil puts in her examination paper that “food digested is when we put it into our mouths, our teeth chews it, and our tongue roll it down into our body.… We should not eat so much bone-making foods as flesh-forming and warmth-giving foods, for if we did we would have too many bones, and that would make us look funny.” On the subject of ventilation, one student informs us that a room should be kept at ninety in the winter by a fire; in the summer by a thermometer: while a classmate writes: “A thermometer is an instrument used to let out the heat when it is going to be cold.” Another girl sets down: “When roasting a piece of beef place it in front of a brisk fire, so as to congratulate the outside.” But an answer—still in domestic economy—that better, perhaps, than any of the above illustrates the jargoning that comes of the cram system, is the following: “Sugar is an amyolid, if you was to eat much sugar and not nothing else you would not live because sugar has not got no carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. Potatoes is another amyolids.”
The definitions sometimes given by children in reply to examination questioning, are, to say the least of it, original. After a reading of Gray’s “Elegy” by a fourth-standard class, the boys were asked what was meant by “fretted vaults,” and one youth replied: “The vaults in which those poor people were buried; their friends came and fretted over them.” Asked what he understood by “elegy,” another boy in the same class answered: “Elegy is some poetry wrote out for schools to learn like Gray’s ‘Elegy.’” A class of girls, who had read a passage from “Evangeline,” were told to write out the meaning of “the forge,” and these were among the answers, “A firnest in a blacksmith shop.” “A firnest in a blacksmith.” “The village smithy’s anvil.” “The dust that rises from the floor of a blacksmith’s.” A teacher, giving a reading lesson to his class in the presence of an inspector, asked the boys what was meant by conscience—a word that had occurred in the course of the reading. The class having been duly crammed for the question, answered as one boy: “An inward monitor.” “But what do you understand by an inward monitor?” put in the inspector. To this further question only one boy announced himself ready to respond, and his triumphantly given answer was, “A hironclad, sir.”
A few years back there was published, as a curiosity, in its way, the subjoined transcript from Cowper’s poem on Alexander Selkirk written (from dictation) by a fifth-standard boy at a government examination of a public elementary school: “I Ham Monac of hall I searve, there is none heare my rite to Dispute from the senter. Hall round to the sea I am lorde of the fowls to the Brute all shoshitude ware are the charms that sages have sene in thy face better Dewel in miste of a larms than in this moste horribel place. I am how of umity reach if must finish my Jurny a lone never here the swete music of speach i start at the sound of my hone the Beasts that rome over the place my form with indrifence see they are so unocent with men such tamess is shocking to me.”
The examiner for the School Board Scholarship competed for in 1882, gives the following among other equally strange answers on historical matters. “When Commonwealth comes to the throne it is called Oliver Cromwell.” “The treaty of Utrecht was fought between the Zulus and the English.” “Lord Clive captured the Fiji Islands in 1624.” “Cardinal Wolsey was a great warrior.” “Walpole translated the Bible.” “Walpole was another favorite of Henry VIII. He was the chief man in helping Henry to get a divorce.” “Chaucer wrote Æsop’s fables.” In another of these scholarship examinations Jack Cade was described as “a great Indian conqueror,” Sir Christopher Wren was set down as “a discoverer” and “an animal painter,” and Mr. Gladstone as “a great African traveler.” The battle of Crecy was stated to have been fought in the reign of George III., between the Britons and Romans, and “The Wide, Wide World” was named as Shakspere’s greatest work. This last, however, was not so bad as the history of a pupil-teacher, who informed the examiner that “Shakspere lived in the reign of George III., discovered America, and was killed by Caliban.”
A schoolboy habit of placing upon a question some literal meaning other than that intended by the examiner, often leads to answers as curious as unexpected. Thus an inspector, testing a class upon their knowledge of the succession of the kings of Israel, asked the boy to whose turn it had come to be questioned: “And who came after Solomon?” To which the youngster answered: “The Queen of Sheba, sir.” Asked what were the chief ends of man, another boy replied, “His head and feet;” and a third, questioned as to where Jacob was going when he was ten years old, replied that he was “going on for eleven.” One specially practical juvenile, called upon to say for what the Red Sea was famous, answered, “Red herrings!”
To the type of answers here in view, belongs an answer given by a boy whose father was a strong teetotaler, and upon whom it would appear home influence had made a stronger impression than school lessons. “Do you know the meaning of syntax?” he was asked. “Yes,” he answered; “sin-tax is the dooty upon spirits.” An inspector, who had been explaining to a class that the land of the world was not continuous, said to the boy who happened to be standing nearest to him: “Now, could your father walk round the world?” “No, sir,” was promptly answered. “Why not?” “Because he’s dead,” was the unlooked-for response. As little anticipated, probably, was the answer made to another inspector, who asked, “What is a hovel?” and was met with the reply: “What you live in.”
A prettily humorous examination story is that of the little Scotch boy at the Presbytery examination. He was asked: “What is the meaning of regeneration?” “To be born again,” he answered. “Quite right! Would you not like to be born again?” He hesitated, but being pressed, said that he would not, and asked why not, replied: “For fear I might be born a lassie.” Alike astonishing and amusing was an answer given by an adult examinee, who was “sitting” for a certificate as acting teacher. In the examination to test general knowledge, he was asked, “What is the age of reason?” and answered: “As many years as have elapsed since the birth of the person so named.” It was also a certificate candidate, who, in reading, rendered two lines from Goldsmith’s “Edwin and Angelina” thus:—