Western 1875-05: Vol 1 Iss 5

NEW SERIES.

iat
The Western

Literature, Education and Art.

H. H. MORGAN, Epitror

ST. LOUIS, MAY, 1878.

CONTENTS.
Shakespeare’s Tragedies—King Lear. By D, J. Snider 271
Why the Sea Complains—a poem. Simeon Tucker Clark 285
Sonnet. By Lewis J. Block 286
Lady Macheth—a study in character. By Grace C, Bibb...............006. 0008 287
Thought on Pessimism and Educational Reforms. By W. T. Harris 304
Paris in America. By 5S. E. Cole 312
Editorial Department
OS PORT G iriicae cise teninn sdntteats cassis secdeesene Sodctsotnnsdidiatetendiains 319

weey 324
REE OS GE esses cinssbdpltdoins datddar oniccbsceces sosvap gases ade 327

cv ceecces cbesencseseceoce eccséénene 333

6 ae SS P-<S )

Notices of Societies......... seecvecccees

Books added to Public School Library

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Contents of January Number.

Art-Criticism, = - - . H. H. Morgan.
Cupid and Psyche, a Poem, -_ - - FF. E. Cook.
The Carnival, - - - - - W. T. Harris.
The Relation of Physical Salmons to ae Life, B. V. B. Dixon.
Shakespeare’s Tragedies; Romeo and Juliet, - D. J. Snider.
Editorial Department.

Contents of February Number.

Sbakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, - - D. J. Snider.
Tantalus—a poem, - - Lewis J. Block,
The Theatre in Blackfriars, - oe . - Grace C. Bibb.
On the Relation of the Will to the Intellect, & - Wm.T. Harris.

Ancient and Modern Ethics, - - - - 2Z.G. Wilson.
Rditorial Department.

Contents of March Number,

Shakespeare’s King Lear, - D. J. Snider.
Stella—a poem, - - - F. E. Cook.
J. J. Rousssau, - - 8. E. Cole.
Dante, - : - - - L. F. Soldan,
Editoria) Department.

Contents of f April Number.

The Necessity for the Specialist, and the nature of his Comple—

mentary Education, - - - - H. H. Morgan.
The Quest—a poem, - . . - Lewis J. Block.
Thoughts on the Music of Beethoven, - - Wn. T. Harris,
The Lincoln Monument at Springfield, - Thomas Davidson.
Shakespeare’s ae Lear, - - D. J. Snider.
Dante, - - - - - L, F. Soldan:
Editorial Department.

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‘The Western.

MAY, 1878.

SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGEDIES.

KING LEAR.

Continued from the April Number.)

We have reached in our analysis the second grand
movement of the play, which will depict the re-action
against the successful but guilty children, and will show
the completed retribution. The ethical world is lying
in ruins, falsehood is triumphant, honesty banished, all
moral ties destroyed, and the Family disrupted. Chaos
seems to have come again. But from this chaos the
elements are beginning to coalesce, which will restore
order and vindicate the shattered institutions of man’s
rational nature. The faithful children were unjustly
cast off by their parents, and the latter have been pun-
ished for their wrong. But thus a new guilt has arisen,
that of the faithless children, whose punishment must
now also be portrayed. For, in their case, the same
law of retribution holds good which was observed in
the case of their parents.

But who are to be the instruments of their chastise-
ly

272 The Western.

ment? The faithful children will return and seek to
avenge the wrongs and recover the rights of themselves
and of their parents. This attempt will constitute the
second movement: it is an attempt to restore the dis-
rupted Family. Thus the circle of the whole action is
complete; it begins with the wrong done to the faithful
children, and ends with putting into their hands the re-
tribution. But the effort will not be fully successful,
the parents can not be completely restored to their for-
mer condition, for their deed is essentially the same as
that of their faithless children.

In this second movement also there are two main
threads, though they are different from the two threads
of the first movement, which are composed of the fam-
ilies of Lear and Gloster. Now the faithless members
of both families coalesce, and also the faithful members
of both families are thrown together: Edmund unites
and works with Regan and Goneril on the one hand,
and on the other hand Edgar sympathizes with, if he
does not aid the party of Cordelia. These two sides
collide, the faithless children are victorious in the ex-
ternal conflict, but the daughters perish in a struggle
between themselves, and Edmund falls in single combat
with his brother.

Beginning, therefore, with the first thread, we ob-
serve that it is composed of the faithful children, Edgar
and Cordelia, together with the groups of which each
one is the central figure. Both are similar in conduct
and character, both now bring aid and solace to their
afflicted parents who, however, have done them the
deepest wrong. But their fidelity never falters, their
duty cannot give way to revenge or indifference. Such
has been their action from the beginning, such it will re-

Shakespeare's Tragedies. 273

main to the end. Their profoundest principle is to be
true to the Family: Edgar to Gloster, Cordelia to
Lear. Restoration, internal and external, for their pa-
rents, is the great object of their endeavor. The two
fathers are to be brought back to their previous circum-
stances of honor and power, if possible; at least, they
are to be solaced, comforted, and restored in mind.
Hence a great change is observable in this portion of
the drama. The tremendous upheavals of volcanic pas-
sion have ceased, and in their stead the tenderest emo-
tions of affection and pity stir the breast. The action
becomes more quiet and more pathetic ; tears succeed
to wrath, loving devotion to ingratitude.

First, then, let us follow the group which mainly con-
sists of Edgar and his father. They are almost inde-
pendent through the whole of the second movement,
and can be easily separated from the rest of the action.
Edgar still retains the disguise of mad Tom; he is
thinking of Lear, and prefers his own state, ‘‘better un-
known to be contemned, than still contemned and flat-
tered.” He would chose the reality, however bitter, to
a false appearance, however agreeable, so deep is the
truth and sincerity of his character. But who is this
wretched, mutilated man who meets him here upon the
wild heath? It is his father, Gloster, blind, fleeing
from the cruelty of his own son, accompanied by a
faithful tenant as a guide. The father’s thoughts are
occupied about his injured child; he is humbled to the
earth by his misfortunes, and still more by his own
deeds ; as in the case of Lear, calamity has tmade his
sympathy universal, his heart is full of commiseration
-for the poor and lowly, he thinks of the poor beggar
(who was the disguised Edgar) in the storm. But his

274 The Western.

chief mental state consists in the belief that he is the
victim of an almighty yet cruel power above:

“‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the Gods,

They kill us for their sport.’’
Such a creed is the fruit of his superstition, of his
belief in external determination. For if God be the
immediate cause, then misfortune can only be Divine
persecution, and hope is impossible. It therefore lies
deep in the characters of Lear and Gloster that the one
ends in insanity, the other in despair.

Gloster therefore wishes to end the unequal contest
by ending his own existence, and hence his desire is to
reach the precipice of Dover. But it is the object of
Edgar, who now acts as his leader instead of the aged
tenant, to rescue him from despair and to reconcile him
again with the world. Then will follow the disclosure
of the disguised son, when the father can endure the
recognitian. Consequently Edgar practices an artifice
upon the old, blind man—makes him believe that he
has fallen down the lofty cliff, that he has been pre-
served by the miraculous interposition of the Gods, that,
in fine, he must be the object of their special care and
protection. It is true that the son skillfully makes use
of his father’s weakness, namely, superstition, to effect
his pious purpose ; this motive is particularly apparent
in the description of the fiend whose eyes

“Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,

Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea ;
It was some fiend”

and truly it was a fiend, despair, which lured him to the
precipice. But Gloster is cured, he is now ready to ac-
cept life anew, and to endure every species of affliction ;

Shakespeare's Tragedies. 275

he seems also to abandon his notion of a Divine perse-

cution directed against himself.

Gloster again meets Lear, mad, roaming at large over
the country, though Cordelia is seeking to get posses-
sion of his person in order to restore him. It is the
last time that the two ill-fated parents come together,
both have touched the lowest depths of misfortune,
both are now found and cared for by the children to
whom they have done the greatest injustice. Finally
Edgar performs the highest filial act, he saves his father
from death at the hands of Oswald and slays the assas-
sin. Thus he has rescued the mind within from de-
spair, and preserved the body without from destruction.
He may hence be said to have restored his parent to
existence ; filial duty now reaches in him its climax.
But the roar of battle is heard around them; Edgar
puts his father in a place of safety and goes out to ob-
serve the result of the conflict. He does not seem to
have participated in the fight, he keeps aloof from the
collision with the State, and hence is preserved at the
end of the play. The great end of all his efforts is the
personal security and mental repose of his parent.

Finally the son reveals himself, can we wonder that
the old blind father could not support the conflict,
could not endure the joy and the grief of the recogni-
tion? Gloster, therefore, can not be restored to the
Family whose essence he has so deeply violated, his
heart breaks in the process, his emotional nature can not
bear up under the contradictory feelings of his situation.
His inability to make this transition is the logical ne-
cessity of his character. Gloster is not a bad, but a weak
man. He has unwittingly been made the instrument of
the disruption of his own family. Hence, if he be re-

276 The Western.

stored to it, there is the same possibility of his disrupt.
ing it again, for this result is the fruit of his intellectual!
weakness. It should also be observed that Edgar is no
longer the unsophisticated youth who was so com-
pletely outwitted by the Bastard. He has learned to
disguise himself and to assume a wonderful variety of
characters; the number and skill of the deceptions
which he practices upon his father to accomplish the
most unselfish and pious ends, are startling to the rigid
moralist. His education has been severe but thorough,
and when he now comes to meet Edmund, he is pre-
pared.

Gloster therefore perishes, the victim of his faithless
son, who in his turn must meet with retribution. To
Edgar remains this final duty of destroying the instru-
ment of destruction, a negative but necessary result of
his principle. For that principle is the restoration of
the disrupted family, which, however, since the death
of Gloster is impossible; but the cause of the disrup-
tion as well as of his own wrongs stil] exists and must
be removed. Thus Edgar, though declaring openly the
primal guilt of his father, slays his illegitimate brother.
The leading element of his character is fidelity to
Family, here in the form of devotion to parent, whose
enemies he destroys and whose mind he rescues from
despair.

Similar is the purpose and also the character of Cor-
delia, who is the main figure in the second group of this
first thread, which group we are now ready to consider.
She, too, is the faithful, yet injured child; she, too,
seeks the internal and external restoration of her father.
But she goes a step further than Edgar, she assails the
State in her attempt to recover the rights of Lear. She

a iia So

Whe

se

ees

Water ate

Shakespeare's Tragedies. 277

thus falls into guilt which leads tojthe most fatal conse-
quences. Her endeavor has three different phases, re-
storation of her parent to reason, to Family, and to
State.

First of all, the attempt must be made to cure the
insanity of Lear. He seems to be wandering alone
over the country, without care or guidance; his talk,
though wild and incoherent, is mainly connected with
his lost authority, with the cruelty of his daughters and
in general with the utter perversity of the ethical world
which he, in his raving mood, scoffs at and condemns
with sarcastic bitterness. The Poet has thus intimated
the cause of his madness, as well as the means of its
cure: restore him to a daughter’s love and to the im-
age of respect and power, and the ground of his
insanity is removed. These are just the spiritual med-
icines which Cordelia administers to him after sufficient
physical repose ; in the pathetic scene when he awakens,
she asks for his blessing with the deepest affection, and
assures him that he is again in his own kingdom. Lear
is thus restored to reason and to Family with its love,
the original cause of madness is taken away.

It is manifest that Cordelia is different trom what she
was in the First Act; a new element of her nature
seems to have developed itself. Previously we saw her
rigid moral code and her intellectuality brought into the
greatest prominence; now her character in its softer
and more beautiful features is shown, we behold her de-
votion to parent as well as her intense emotional nature,
which, however, she is able to keep under perfect con-
trol. Still the germ of this new trait can be fourd in
her earlier declarations and demeanor. In the first

278 The Western.

scene, that of the partition, she repeatedly expresses
her affection for her father :

‘*What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent,” etc.

It is not merely the physical repose prescribed by the
doctor which clears up the clouded intellect of Lear, it
is the presence of Cordelia who brings with her a double
restoration, that of subjective affection on the one hand
and that of objective institutions on the other. It was
the loss of these, through the conduct of Regan and
Goneril, which shattered his reason; sanity therefore
returns with the return of Cordelia.

But her third purpose is that which ruins her cause.
She brings a French army into England to secure to her
father his right, as she says, by which she evidently
means, to place him again on the throne. She thus as-
sails the highest ethical institution of man, the State, and
unwittingly commits herself the greatest wrong. More-
over Lear had resigned his power, and divided his King-
dom ; he had no longer any just claim to the crown.
Her invasion of the country rouses up against her the
head of the State, Albany, who was otherwise favorable
both to her and to Lear. But he had to defend his
own realm, though he hates his associates, and loves
those who are fighting against him. Had Cordelia been
satisfied with the restoration of her father to his reason
and to his family, Albany would have given her both
aid and sympathy. However much we may admire her
character and regret her fate, however indignant we
may be against her two sisters, still we must in the end
say, she did wrong, she violated the majesty of the State,
in her affection for parent she attempted to destroy the
higher principle for sake of the lower. The result is,
she loses the battle, is taken prisoner and perishes.

snl Pia ALLO RIN

ha

AE aie nhl ta a a

ee ee ee

ete Be nl A a i

ee ets ee en

a dinciacral tate Fro inliaien

Shakespeare's Tragedies. 279

The death of Cordelia is often felt to be unjustifiable,
and the play was once altered to suit this feeling. But
a true comprehension of the nature of Dramatic Art
will vindicate the Poet. The end of Tragedy is not that
somebody get killed, or even that a villain be brought
to justice; it must show the collision of two ethical
principles, both of which have validity in the reason of
man. The individuals who are the representatives of
these conflicting principles are brought into a struggle
which admits of no mediation; both, from one point
of view, are in the right, and yet both from another
point of view are in the wrong; the deeper, more uni-
versal thought must decide the conflict, and triumph in
the end, for strife can not be eternal. Cordelia’s pro-
foundest impulse is devotion to Family, a very lofty
principle of action; but she is led by it into a collision
with the State, a still higher principle. Undoubtedly
these two elements ought to be harmonized, if possible ;
but Tragedy means that they cannot always be har-
monized, and hence the lesser must be subordinated by
violence and by death.

Cordelia is therefore a truly tragic character, whom
we are compelled to condemn, though we shed tears
over her fate. But she is something more, she is the
tragic female character, for her collision is peculiar to her
sex. The Family is the highest ethical principle of
woman as woman; at least it has been hitherto in the
history of the world, even though we may think that
this state of things will be changed in the future. The
readers of her own sex therefore will always feel, per-
haps ought always to feel that she is in the right, that
her death is unjustifiable. Let us contrast her action
with that of Albany who is a man and holds to the other

280 The Western.

principle, the State. He too is indignant at the con-
duct of Goneril and Regan, he sympathizes deeply with
the misfortunes of Lear, and wishes well to the efforts
of Cordelia for the restoration of her father. But a
French army means the ruin of his country, at least its
control from without, he therefore is compelled to make
the choice, he takes the State as his ethical principle,
though he has to act with those whom he hates, and
against those whom he loves. Albany and Cordelia
hence collide; it is the collision of man and woman,
both of whom are the representatives of the essential
ethical principles of their respective sexes. It is also to
a certain extent the collision between emotion and
reason. Our feelings go along with Cordelia, even Al-
bany’s feelings went along with Cordelia, for the Fam-
ily is the realm of affection and must always call forth
the emotions of man; still intelligence must control
sentiment, and subordinate it to the higher end. The
consequences of their actions are seen in the catastrophe ;
Cordelia perishes, while Albany survives as the ruler of
his country.

But our next anxious inquiry is concerning the fate
of Lear. He has recovered from insanity through his
daughter's love ; what will be his condition, now that
she is gone? He relapses momentarily into madness ;
but this is not the end: he can not again be disrupted
from the Family. His affection for Cordelia is most
intense, he cares not for prison and captivity, if she
only be with him, her presence has become to him life
itself. Hence when he is convinced that she is dead,
his heart breaks over her corpse, an end similar to that
of Gloster. The first disruption of Lear’s domestic
ties cost him his reason, the second now costs him his

Shakespeare's Tragedies. 288

life. It is however, his own primal wrong which
reaches through the whole play and at last strikes the
fatal blow. Such is the first thread with its two very
similar groups of faithful children.

There remains finally the second thread of the second
movement to be considered. The faithless children of
both families have come together, similarity of charac-
ter naturally attracts them to one another. Edmund and
the two sisters therefore constitute the heads of this
group, to which also Albany must be added, though he
only belongs to it partially. An external conflict has
arisen with Cordelia, the nature and grounds of which
have already been given; in it they were successful, as
they happened to be the supporters of the State in con-
junction with Albany. But the internal conflict has also
arisen, as it must arise under the circumstances. The
unity of the faithless can not be permanent, they must
be true to the deepest principle of their character, and
hence must be faithless to one another. This gives the
struggle among themselves, which the poet has also de-
veloped, to make the delineation logical and complete.

The two sisters have become fired with the most in-
tense jeaiousy and enmity in their endeavors to obtain
the love of Edmund; they are playing false to each
other, and Edmund is playing false to both. The prin-
ciple of them all is falsehood, what else can be expect-
ed but mutual treachery? But Goneril and Regan are
now shown in a further yet very consistent development
of character: their faithlessness becomes universal.
Having been faithless to their father, they naturally
become faithless to the Family in all its relations ;
hence they are now portrayed as violating the great fun-
damental virtue of the Family, chastity. Infidelity to-

282 The Western.

ward parent is deepened into infidelity toward husband,
and the very possibility of any ethical ties is annihilated.
Their former conduct has therefore adequately mo-
tived this final development. For them every condition
of the Family is destroyed, daughterhood has long since
perished, now wifehood passes away. Union with them
is impossible, even for the Bastard, as he himself inti-
mates. What remains? Only Death, for every substan-
tial element of existence is gone. Goneril, always the
prime mover, destroys her sister with poison, as before
she brought ruin upon her father ; and when she knows
that her intrigue with Edmund is discovered by her
husband, she speedily thrusts a dagger into her own
bosom. Such is the end of the two faithless sisters ;
both perished in a struggle with each other for the pos-
session of an infamous villain who was faithless to both.

But Edmund remains, his success has been without a
parallel, he may well believe that his lucky destiny can-
not be arrested. Hitherto he has obtained all the hon-
ors, titles, and property of the family of Gloster; now
his object is the possession of the State. He fights
bravely against the French invasion for a crown which
he regards as his own, and to remove every obstacle
which might arise in his path after the victory, he orders
Lear and Cordelia to be put to death. This conduct
brings him into direct conflict with Albany the present
head of the State, whose life he has before sought to
destroy. But Albany according to the spirit of the
play can not be his slayer; this can only be his brother
Edgar whose father he has deceived, betrayed and out-
raged, and who therefore now appears as the avenger of
the Family. The Poet is thus careful to make the first
wrong of Edmund to return and to involve him in its in-

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Shakespeare's Tragedies. 28%

exhorable retribution. The Bastard in the course.of
his career has assailed quite all the ethical institutions
of man; he believed that the world was entirely con-
trolled by management, and not by principle; hence his
sole faith was in Lis own subjective cunning. His fate,
though long deferred, is the necessary consequence of
such a character; some one armed with the vengeance
of violated right destroys him. Such is the outcome of
the three faithless children.

The conduct and fate of Kent in this second move-
ment seem to be left somewhat indefinite. The Poet,
however, carefully informs us that it is so intended :

“‘50me dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up a while.”

No active participation in the war is manifested by
him, though he visits the camp of Cordelia. His de-
votion appears now to be to Lear as an individual ;
still the drama indicates little one way or the other.
Some critics have even imagined that his death is given
in the play, but this is certainly a mistake and also a
misunderstanding. The truth is, the Poet wishés to
preserve all the faithful; but to do so consistently, he
must keep them out of the collision with the State
which was the fatal deed of Cordelia. Hence the con-
duct of both Kent and Edgar in regard to the war is
left in obscurity, though their devotion is still brought
forward in the strongest light. They therefore survive
with Albany who defends the State and yet at the same
time respects the Family.

The action has now completed its revolution and
brought back to all the leading characters the conse-
quences of their deeds ; the double guilt and the double
retribution have been fully portrayed. The treatment

284 The Western.

of children by parents and of parents by children is the
theme; both fidelity and infidelity are shown in their
most extreme manifestation. Two families are taken,
that of the monarch and that of the subject ; the former
develops within itself its own collisions, free from any
external restraint, and hence exhibits the truest and
most complete result; the latter is largely influenced
and determined in its course by authority, but an au-
thority which is itself poisoned with domestic conflict.
The exhaustiveness of the treatment is worthy of care-
ful study; Regan is faithless to parent, Goneril is faith-
less to both parent and husband, Cordelia is true to
both, yet assails another ethical principle, the State.
The two sons and the two sons-in-law exhibit also dis-
tinct phases of the domestic tie; they are still further
divided by the fundamental theme of the play into the
faithful and faithless; that is, a son and a son-in-law
belong to each side. But it is a curious fact that one
very important relation of the Family is wholly omit-
ted; no mother appears anywhere; sonhood, daughter-
hood, wifehood, fatherhood are all present, but the ten-
derest bond of existence, motherhood, is wanting. The
Poet evidently does not need it, for the action is al-
ready sufficiently full and complicated ; perhaps too the
character of the mother may be supposed to re-appear
in some of her children, as for example in Cordelia, who
is so different from her father. But one cannot help
commending the true instinct, or it may be judgment,
which keeps such a mild and tender relation out of the
cauldron of passion and ingratitude which seethes with
such destructive energy in this appalling drama.

D. J. SNIDER.

Why the Sea Complains,

WHY THE SEA COMPLAINS.

Early in boyhood the sighing and sobbing
Sound of the sea-wave was oft in my ears,
Drowning the voice of my crying, and sobbing
Sleep from young eyes growing pale from their tears.
Down by the shore where the morning was breaking
Often I questioned and pitied the Sea ;
And the Great Deep, from its sad sorrow waking,
One day grew calm and made answer to me.

That was the time of his tender confession ;

That was the time when hissecret was told ;
Just as the Sun and his royal procession

Marched up the East with their banners of gold.
Just as a rivulet, loving, elated,

Paused for a moment for strength, ere she sprang
Into the arms of old Ocean, who waited

To answer the questioning song that I sang.

Ocean, give ear to the musical waters
Sliding down hillside, and gliding through lea—
The bright little brooklet that saucily scatters
Sparkling, pure drops, as in prodigal glee,
And in trustful profusion, she pours out for thee

Her life’s blood ! Now what wilt thou give her? O Sea!

“I will give her my all—my heart and my treasure—
And cherish her ever with tenderest care ;
She may float on my bosom and lie at her leisure
In these briny arms; but the Sun will not spare
One so lovely and fair some sweet summer day
He will dazzle and charm her and steal her away

7?

286

The Western.

‘All my life long I am mourning in sorrow ;
Longing for loves he has taken from me.
Only the hope of some swift-coming morrow
Calms the sad soul of the sullen, salt sea—
When brooklet aad dew-drop, and soft summer rain
May bring to my bosom my darlings again.”

—SIMEON TUCKER CLARK,

SONNET.

From depth of dusky dream I woke, and crossed
The new-fallen snow ; the sunrise splendor burned
Along the sky, and, like an alchemist, turned
The many clouds mild winds had deftly tossed
In shapes fantastical as those the frost
Graves on the window-pane, to crimsoned gold ;
The changeful rosy mists, soft fold on fold,
Crept, lit with radiance, where my gazing lost
The curving sky ; I stood within a vale
Engirt by shifting hills of glorious mist ,
The morning air was glad with colored light,
The trees like nuns stood wrapt in cloaks of bright
Chaste snow, and from the chimney rose the pale
Slow smoke to skies that shone clear amethyst,

Lewis J, BLocx,

ree ema

Lady Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH.

A STUDY IN CHARACTER.

That Lady Macbeth was not the original instigator
of the murder of Duncan, seems evident from the de-
signation of the play ; it is called by Shakespeare: ‘“The
Tragedy of Macbeth,”’ and Roetscher well says of the
Drama that ‘“‘ Lady Macbeth’s role is not only to clear
away her husband’s conscientious scruples, and to save
him from vacillation, but also to afford a lesson in her own

fate, of the eternal laws of the moral world. It is by no

means Lady Macbeth that enkindles Macbeth’s ambi-
tion and aspirations to the crown; these were aroused
by the meeting with the witches, who merely stir-
red up the desires which had been for a long time pre-
viously working in that heroic breast. Macbeth could
not have been the hero of the tragedy had he received
his first inspiration from his wife. She would appear
as a mere instrument in the progress of the action, and
afford no higher poetic interest if her role closed in hur-
rying Macbeth on to the deed.” Thus far Roetscher,
and thus far the rules of the tragedy in general—but it
is urged that Macbeth, as the less guilty instrument of
a most guilty temptress, meets a soldier's death on the
field of battle while his wife, the beautiful fiend of the
play, perishes miserably by her own hand, and that thus,
by allowing due weight to the laws of poetic justice, we
readily distinguish the degrees of guilt as intended by

the poet. Without entering at all into a discussion of
20

288 The Western.

the measure of honor accorded to Macbeth in that death
which though encountered on the field of battle, came to
him at the hands themselves of the much injured Mac-
duff, and which failed to ensure for him even the com-
mon rite of sepulture, it may be well to remember that
our only evidence of the queen’s suicide is contained in
the exclamation of Malcolm:

‘Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen, who,
as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands took off her
life,” —-admitting in its full force a passage regarded by
several critics as spurious, we have in it after all no evi-
dence of anything, unless it be of a rumor that the
mysterious close of Lady Macbeth’s stormy life resulted
from self-destruction ; to the prince the suicide is a
matter of inference, to the people it is an idle report, ris-
ing one knows not where, communicated one knows
not how. To the king the announcement causes none
of the perturbation of surprise ; he falls straightway in-
to melancholy reflections, but they seem to express the
resignation of a spirit which, long apprehensive of an
afflictive stroke of destiny, acknowledges at the final
blow that: ‘‘ Present woes are less than horrible imagin-
ings”—that certainty, even of the worst, is better than
the long agony of suspense,—that something of rest lies
in the self-assurance, that there is no longer anything
to fear from the vengeance of the gods—that the dregs
of the poisoned chalice commended to his lips, have
been drained; so life becomes :

“ A walking shadow ; a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

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Lady Macbeth. 289

It is apparent then that Shakespeare has left us in
doubt as to the exact means of Lady Macbeth’s death,
and that the measure of doubt is the uncertainty which
hangs over her participation in the crime. I am well
aware that to many minds this very vagueness of state-
ment will furnish strong presumptive evidence of the
entire depravity of a character whose vileness can only
be hinted at, of a death whose terrors are mercifully
veiled; but it may be argued, on the other hand, with
equal force and more justice, that this vagueness is a
stroke of high art, an intentional heightening of the sub-
limity of the character and of the play through a cer-
tain remoteness of suggestion, rather than disclosure of
characteristic traits. What then, shall we say of Lady
Macbeth ?

Without one allusion to her bodily presence other
than is contained in that woeful :

*“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand.”” Her beauty is a fact as duly received as if
declared by credible witnesses in a court of law; the
type of her beauty is a subject of more difference. Mrs.
Siddons thought it the brown-haired blue-eyed, the
fragile and graceful rather than the strong, and attrib-
uted to the popular identification of the character with
its stage representative, the very common view, that the
wife of Macbeth was a black-haired dark woman of state-
ly form and regal carriage. It seems probable that Mrs.
Siddons was influenced somewhat by the Mary Stuart
type of loveliness, that of the only Scottish queen who
might, in any degree, serve as a model of beauty fascina-
tion; all merely external graces combined with strong
intellect, great pride, and an unyielding ambition, and
who had withal a tenderness—a pathos, a passion rarely

290 The Western.

found in real life and well befitting a heroine of antique
tragedy. On the whole, I am inclined to think that
Mary Queen of Scots sat for Mrs. Siddon’s portrait of
Lady Macbeth, or it might have been merely, that the
great actress preferred another, to her own style of beau-
ty, attributing to it whatever of success she felt or imag-
ined herself to fail in: let us reserve our judgment, till
an examination into the artistic relations of the charac-
ter shall give some validity to our decision, if even then
we shall be able to find the mind’s construction in the
face.

Lady Macbeth is ambitious; some would even say, the
incarnation of ambition she has its mounting devil in her
heart, and falls a victim to the last infirmity of noble
minds. Personal ambition is not by any means, I think
a characteristic of women; and here first, the nature re-
volts from the frame of the sex, and yet not wholly.
The union of Macbeth with his wife is a true marriage
inspired by love, resting on mutual respect, ennobled
by a common aim, in the furtherance of which the char-
acters of the two complement each other most admir-
ably. So nearly are they united in sympathy and in
hope, that the success or failure of one is the success
or failure of both; hence, ambitious as she undoubtedly
is, Lady Macbeth’s aspirations are not more or less
rather for herself than for her husband. She is willing
to be queen because he is king, a separate royalty would
have been as impossible in aspiration, as real'ty It is
the very mixture of motive, the fluxion of interest, which
is likely to mislead in our study of the dominant trait
in this character; we are still so fond of that criticism,
which would make of the whole only an aggregation of
pieces, not a chemical union of elements.

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Lady Macbeth. 29!

Here we have ambition, masculine in its type, in so
far as it aims at personal elevation, feminine, in so far
as it is in large measure unselfish. Let us examine her
influences. The grand-daughter of the king, second
cousin to Duncan himself, with personal claim to the
throne, and with bitter personal wrongs to avenge, wife
to Macbeth, whose natural right to the throne was as
great as Duncan’s, and from whom only the accident of
election withheld the crown, the temptation of a dia-
dem, always just beyond grasping, was ever present to a
mind not diverted from its contemplation by active du-
ties of any wide range and aggravated by its own keep-
ing of a state, which must have seemed an aping of
the splendors of royalty.

There is no evidence of any association with her own
sex: an isolation so striking D’Avenant’s version would
remedy it by the introduction of Lady Macduff, as the
companion of Lady Macbeth at the reception of the
fatal letter. The author’s treatment is infinitely truer.
Lady Macbeth is not a woman of diffuse sympathies ;
her affections are very strong, hence they have few ob-
jects. Her father living,she had doubtless loved him with
a devotedness of heart since even the chance resem-
blance in Duncan, a resemblance of age to age probably,
was sufficient to unnerve her ;—in this there is much to
establish the relation of the guilty queen, to common
humanity. Out of the very depths of feeling, springs
doubtless, that devotion to her husband’s interests which
has made her the depository of Macbeth’s ambitious
projects, for it is characteristic of the two, that while
Lady Macbeth’s stronger nature suffers in silence, after
the commission of the crime, all its energies are direct-
ed to the restoration of the husband’s tranquillity.

292 The Western.

She bears the burden of remorse until crushed, literally
under its weight; Macbeth finds relief for doubt and fear
and calamity, by pouring into the ever sympathizing ear
of his wife, the story of his ambition’s hopes and fears,
conquests and defeats.

Lady Macbeth was ambitious—ambitious in the sense
in which a Cesar or a Napoleon was ambitious, or a
Catharine of Russia. Here am I and my station is not
here but yonder ; the way is long and dark, and they who
hold me from my place make valiant resistance; yet
what are they all but cumberers of the ground, shall |
turn from my appointed way to spare them? Why, no.
Let the rather my car of triumph roll on; they, if
they fall by the way, if they are crushed, shall their
blood indeed cry out against me from the ground !

This is the reasoning of ambition ; its logic bears true
results, and in the strongest natures, brings no remorse.
For Macbeth, true heir though he may be, no such am-
bition is possible; there is in him no such profound be-
lief in his own power, or mission; he is a man brave
indeed, but others too are valorous, and he advances no
claim to the throne, founded on his own right to rule.
He is nota true prince from whom a crown is wrongful-
ly withheld, who feels himself an alien and a stranger
till the golden circlet shall again rest on his brow; he is
a man who sees afar something which is not a part of
him as royalty is of the true king, but something ex-
ternal which, added to his possessions, would make him
richer indeed, which were therefore to be sought, but
which gained were nothing but accessory after all, with-
out it he is man and hero, with it, he is not more; hence
his hesitation, hence it is that he can say :—

“] have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only

an

Lady Macbeth.

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other.”

He does not delude himself; the crown is his by no
divine right—-thus we too esteem them—Lady Macbeth
is to us always the queen, whether receiving Duncan
with astately courtesy that seems borrowed from the fu-
ture, whether entertaining at the banquet the nobles,
and allaying their justly roused fears with royaily sooth-
ing words, or whether walking in the fearful compan-
ionship of her own thoughts in the awful sleep-walking
scene—always a queen, always with a queen’s beauty,
a queen’s loneliness.

Apart from her ambition, Lady Macbeth’s mental
power strikes us most forcibly, if indeed it be well to
speak of ambitionas of something apart from that intel-
lectual vigor of which it is generally but an exponent.
First of all there is her clearness of vision; she reads
the characters and capabilities of men truly, and is thus
enabled to appeal at once to the controlling influences
of life, and to bend the mind and energies of her
husband, to her will. She has accepted for Macbeth
and for herself a position, in which there is to be as re-
ward, the crown of Scotland ; there is one way, that fatal
nearest way, by which that crown may be gained; her
will accepts all the consequences of her ambition. Dun-
can is in the path, let him be removed ; there is no per«
sonal feeling whatever, in the matter. It is not that
Duncan is a weak prince whose too great mildness,
whose lack of proper firmness. has encouraged the dis-
affected or perhaps the patriotic, to revolt and to join
forces under the Norwegian banners; it is not that in
a monarchy, the crown of which is within certain limits
elective, Duncan has received the franchises to which

294 The Western.

Macbeth had equal legal right; it is no sense of per-
sonal or public wrong emanating from the king, which
inspires the tragedy, nor does the nomination of his
son as Prince of Cumberland, which might have seemed
the outcome of a desire not alone to ennoble his imme-
diate descendants, but by their investiture with his own
estate, so to direct the future action of his people that
at his death, Macbeth, who would again be eligible to
the crown, might be again obliged to yield the honors
to his kinsman’s house. What excuses for self might
not many a one have woven here, why might not Mac-
beth have declared himself an avenger of blood? Here
comes out the sincerity to themselves, which is charac-
teristic of both ; they will, to be great ; Lady Macbeth is
queen by natural right; they will do the crime to ob-
tain the glorious result, but they never palter, never
dissemble; they will kill Duncan, but the killing is as-
sassination, murder. Duncan shall die yet, it is true:

“This Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet tongned, against

The deep damnation of his taking-oif.”

There is even a pity for him as for a vicarious sacri-
fice, a victim of unequal fates. Says she:
“The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.”

The topic of the murder had been broached, how or
when we do not know, but first by Macbeth himself, it
there is any significance in

“What beast was’t then,
That made you break this enterprise to me ?”’

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Lady Macbeth. 295

And we are to infer, not only that Macbeth had spoken
of the matter to his wife, but also that there had been
discussion of means, and that he had been willing both
to assassinate Duncan and to make opportunity for the
crime. There is a profound simplicity in the motive
of the murder, nothing but the removal of an obstacle.

It is here, perhaps, rather than elsewhere, that Lady
Macbeth departs widely from the governing influences
of her sex, and here first, that a distinctively masculine
trait appears. It is natural for woman to grasp at
the absolute essence of things through their incidental
manifestations, that is, practically to ignore what does
not place itself in immediate relation to her own life.
The concrete appeals to her perhaps with even more
power than to man, but crime or suffering in the ab-
stract, affecting persons in different countries, or people
of other times, is seldom of any validity in determining
her thought or her action. For her to commit a crime,
murder, through passion, love, jealousy, revenge,.
incited by her victim, is dreadful to be sure, yet not ab-
normal; but when in cold blood, a woman resolves upon
assassination as the most direct means to an end, calmly,
deliberately, with no personal wrongs to avenge, no fan-
cied justice to mete out, her execution of her resolve
places her with the crown for which her masculine am-
bition toiled, in a rank apart, and it is only the subor-
dination of her ambition to her husbands advancement
which in the present instance lends a color of woman-
liness to her association with the crime. In the su-
bordination of the individual to the family is to be
found the unity of Lady Macbeth’s life; its purely
intellectual force is strongly brought out by contrast
with Macbeth. Lady Macbeth knows his character

296 The Western.

thoroughly, unless indeed she were wrong in fearing
too much, the milk of human kindness :

“ What thou would’st highly,
That would’st thou holily ; would’st not play false,

And yet would wrongly win: thoud’st have great Glamis,
That which cries, thus thou must do, if thou have it,
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wighest, should be undone.”’

She fears his courage, not that merely physical form
of it, with which he has fought so valiantly as to merit
the rebel Cawdor’s title and estates; but he is essen-
tially conservative, desires the throne, but desires with
it to keep also the praise of men, and his fear of failure
is almost paralysis to his plan of success. His super-
stitious dread of the life to come, and of a retribution
so direful that imagination fails to depict it, are ren-
dered plain enough to us by Shakespeare, in the intro-
duction into the pla? of the wierd sisters, the objective
forms in which the self-temptation of Macbeth is ex-
hibited; but Lady Macbeth is of another mould, deter-
mined upon the deed, she is capable of considering its
consequences as they are to be. She knows that failure
is possible, but takes the risk for the sake of the gain ;
and too wise to allow herself to dwell on the possibility
of disaster, dilates always on the glory of success. She
stakes all on the issue, but lets no weak reflections on
possible disgrace and death, unnerve herarm. Then
too Macbeth, who after all is the great gainer by the
crime, is to be so wrought upon that he shall no longer
let: ‘“‘I dare not wait upon | would;” and here comes in
the consummate art of the woman. She loves her hus-
band, but does she therefore on his arrival soften his
mind with tender words, rejoicings at his safe return,

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‘Lady Macbeth. 297

tears for the dangers overpast, as many a woman would
have done? In the letter of Macbeth she had been
called ‘‘My dearest partner of greatness” dnd she res-
ponds to the very spirit of the greeting in her saluta-
tion:
“ Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor !

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter !

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.”

His promised greatness is his first thought, it shall
be hers also; the present is almost the future, and the
past has vanished utterly. She establishes thus between
her husband and herself, first of all a relation of com-
plete sympathy in aspiration. The further questioning
and reply which follow, are an evidence, as it seems to
me, of the design on Lady Macbeth’s part, while assum-
ing that the commission of the deed is a foregone con-
clusion, to discover.in how far her husband has swayed
from his previous purpose.

“Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom,’’
is a direct appeal to his ambition as the later, “‘leave
all the rest to me,” appeals to that trait by reason of
which he would enjoy the fruit of crime, but would hold
his hands clear of blood. She goes forth to receive
Duncan, veiling her deep purpose in words that seem
the voluntary abnegation of royalty itself, gracious,
and not unfitting herself or her king; then in the next
scene she is again the inspiration of Macbeth, who
pauses to reflect on consequences and to remember
that:

“In these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach

The Western.

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor: This even handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips.”
And to conclude that he will proceed no farther in the
matter, until Lady Macbeth taunts him with the words:

“Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valor,

As thou art in desire ?”’
Always aiming her darts at the heel of Achilles, always
reaching directly the vulnerable point! There is no
quality of man more admirable to woman,than courage,
none, the absence of which renders him more contempt-
ible. Macbeth knows that his wife has no love for him
which can coexist with contempt. He could little
brook an imputation of the kind from anyone, least of
all from her who is the crown and glory of his life and
love. She knows her power and uses it; shall we say
cruelly. Perhaps not, if we refer her action as before,
principally to her love, yet unfalteringly working up
her weakness to the pitch of strength in the awful
speech beginning

/
“What beast was’t then,”

with which she answers Macbeth’s
“T dare do all that may become a man;”

Then too, when Macbeth returns to his old line of
thought

“If we should fail,”
She answers simply, ‘“‘We fail,” yet adds:

“But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail.”

Then there is the plan unfolded, and Macbeth, con-

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Lady Macbeth. 299

vinced that the deed may be accomplished with safety
and attributed to the grooms, especially if proper atten-
cc

tion be paid to the
finally :

roar of griefs and clamors,”’ says

“I’m settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.”

Now comes the crisis, and Macbeth, bemoaning alike
his victim and himself, has done the fatal deed. How
his superstition comes out here! Rapt from himself in
an ecstasy of fear or horror, his frenzied imagination
paints a bloody dagger which marshals him in the ac-
cursed yet destined way, and when Duncan’s blood is
on his hands, how every nerve quivers to impalpable
agencies. Is it a noise he hears, or is it his own heart
beats? Is it only his disturbed thought, or does some
voice out of mysterious spheres indeed cry :

“Sleep ne more ! to all the house:

Glamis hath murdered sieep; and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more—Ma2cbeth shall sleep no more.”

Under the full influence of all her will-power, Lady
Macbeth rises to the emergency. ‘‘Did she hear a
noise?” She heard the owl scream and the cricket cry
indeed, and by the token, is only so much more the
minister of fate. It is her office to suggest the prac-
tical. She has considered what is to be done, and she
it is, who is to comfort and sustain her husband ; she
asks him:

‘‘Who was it that thus cried? Why worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things.”

To what a sublimity of crime has she raised herself,

when she can utter the scathing speech:

The Western.

“Infirm of purpose !
Give me the dagger: The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.”

Up to this point Lady Macbeth contrasts with her
husband, as strength with weakness. The original con-
triver of the plot, he has been so far swayed, partly by
his better impulses, more by his fears of retribution, as
almost to abandon the design, that is for the time: that
this demon of ambition would have had but temporary
rest, we feel well assured. To the full measure of his
need however, his wife has always responded ; whatever
there has been of weakness in him, has been met always
by unfailing strength in her; but then the strength is
very peculiar, it lies largely in the domination by the
will, of the tender emotions, in a crushing, through the
very force of affection, of the affections themselves, in
an absolute violation of the highest impulses of the
woman’s nature, through impulses only less high than
the highest. Crushed as they are temporarily, these
best impulses assert themselves at the last with all the
violenc, of force gathered from their long repression,
bearing down all that is weaker than they.

The violent strain of all the mental powers, which
has thus far enabled the wife of Macbeth to lend her
strength to the boldest crime, reacts naturally upon the
physical constitution; the long tension exhausts the
brain, and leaves the whole system in a state of relaxa-
tion, such that a slight shock easily destroys the bal-
ance of the mental and physical powers. The queen,
who has been her husband’s evil genius in this most
foul murder of an almost reverend king, faints when
she hears announced the assassination of the grooms.

a iat ars li

ee te ere

Lady Macbeth. 301

This simple fact furnishes, as it seems to me, a key to
the character. A nature, fiend-like as that of Lady
Macbeth is sometimes depicted, could have felt no com-
punctious visitings of conscience; the degree of re-
morse is the measure of original purity. In the wholly
depraved there can be no divine aspiration, and it is
the awful longing of the spirit, the fearful realization of
its possibilities in contrast with its actual state, out of
which as from some Dives in térment, to whom Heaven
gleams beyond gulfs impassable, goes up that cry of
the lost soul.

Macbeth on the contrary, having plunged into crime
however reluctantly, accepts at once all the attendant
consequences ; he is no Brutus who takes a first step
and loses, through failure to take the succeeding ones, the
stake for which his enterprise was begun; he is no
Hamlet to halt ever on the threshhold of action ap-
proved of conscience and determined by reason, he is a
man to whom

“Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill,”
and to whom

“Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

Lady Macbeth, womanlike, lives over daily, hourly,
no doubt, the scene of slaughter. Instant by instant
she sees anew the dagger descending; for her there are
no illusions, no ghostly visitants; her imagination
is retroactive, it fears no retribution; that is left’ for
Macbeth whose fears take shape as if of incorporeal
agents of that extra mundane sphere, which is to him a
realm of vagueness and terror always.

There is to me nowhere shown, in the character of
Lady Macbeth, any fear of personal ill consequences;

302 The Western.

it is no plea for temporal or eternal safety which issues
from her lips; it is the wail of her woman-nature over
its lost purity; it is:
“What! will these hands ne’er be clean ?”’

It is that
*‘All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this tittle hand !”

Or it is the profound pathos, the awful pity for the
ruin she has wrought, which reveals itself when she
speaks of Lady Macduf.

“The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now ””

These are not the exclamations of a fiend; they are
cries out of terrible needs of the soul which would rise
again to its original heights, but which can neither
climb nor soar, only suffer, only despair. A nature
better or worse than that of Lady Macbeth would have
suffered less in the reaction. A worse nature would
have felt less remorse, the degree being lessened ac-
cording to the increased depravity; a better nature
might have applied itself to expiatory works, to self-in-
flicted penance, but for this woman there is nothing but
the suffering, the settling down deeper and deeper, of
the cloud of gloom, which gradually shuts out all light,
and finally, destroys reason itself.

It is not the spectacle of a depravity which with nerve
to commit a crime still lacks the nerve to bear the re-
sulting shock, to endure the consequences. It is the
recoil of the whole nature against the essentially false
position into which it has been forced by the will power,
This tension of the will, reacts upon itself, as long con-
tinued tension must do, in the destruction of elasticity ;
thus the pressure once removed, the relaxation once
felt, the reproduction of the tension becomes impossi-

Lady Macbeth. 303

ble, the dominion of the will is destroyed; it attempts
again to resume its authority, but its action is hence-
forth spasmodic, violent, indeed, but ineffective, broken
by weakness, tending only to failure, and to death. So
in the withdrawal of the mind’s activity, from the direct
control of the will, into the realm of dreams, the colli-
sion in the character ceases, and the real nature asserts
itself; here there is no longer resolution, courage,
pride, only shuddering horror.

Shakespeare’s justice cannot of course, be measured
by any fixed code of laws. It is not that he demands,
always with the severity of the Jewish dispensation, an
eye for an eye, and a tooth for atooth; tried by any
such standard, justice, upon plain and simple interpre-
tation of motives, will seem frequently to fail, and the
critic who insists upon his pound of flesh must often
make Shylock his model for justification; but the fate
of man lies in his own hands, his sentence procedeth
out of his own mouth. Outside of a belief in the gov-
ernment of law, and of a faith in the interdependence
of relations in the material universe, there can be for us
no essential harmony, no justice, which commends it-
self as absolute. Let us realize, however, that in the
very nature of things, the sins of the parent are visited
upon the child, that out of weakness, there must ever
proceed only weakness, that strength grows ever into
strength, that all conscious existence is progression, and
we are ready to comprehend faintly, perhaps, yet in a
measure, truly, the justice of Shakspeare.

So we are to seek, in Lady Macbeth herself, her des-
tiny. We are to trace the evil germs, which growing,
and ever growing, became at the last, poisonous plants,

interweaving and interlacing, till with their luxuriance,
21

304 The Western.

fed by decay, they crushed the very life on which they
grew. Beautiful, royal of mind and bearing, a gracious
lady, and loyal wife, Lady Macbeth was all these, but
in her very gifts lay doom. From the combination of
a hero’s will with a woman’s physical weakness, origi-
nates the conflict of nature itself, in which the queen
perishes. Nor, need we ask, ‘‘why this retribution ?”
We have only to see that the result can not logically be
other than it is. It is, in reality, no retribution at all,
only the sequence of events. There is the strong will,
first of all, then the strong intellect, and the strong pas-
sions; the mind, which could plan, the hand which
only fell short of execution, the personal magnetism
which could control and inspire, the heart which could
love with such intensity of devotion; the exaltation of
spirit which demanded acrown as its right; the abnega-
tion of self which could lay its crown at the feet of its
love. Grace C, Biss.

THOUGHTS ON PESSIMISM

AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMS.

It will not escape the attention of a careful ‘observer
of school methods, that there is a certain periodical re-
currence in the reforms that are proposed, as well as in
the staple arguments by which they are supported. This
recurrence is notable enough to cause a suspicion, in
the mind of one sceptically inclined, that there is some

Thoughts on Pessimism. 305

self-deception on the part of the most eager and impul-
sive who push these supposed reforms. The thought
spontaneously arises: Is this progress, or only a phase
of a process which goes round and round?

I. Pessimism.

Nothing disgusts and paralyzes a man of spirit so
much as to find that he is the unconscious instrument
of fate—the sport of circumstances—a link in a chain
of necessity. He is willing that everything in nature
should move cyclically in times and seasons, and be
governed by external necessity; indeed, he expects
nothing else of natural beings. But the prerogatives
of spiritual man should be free-will, an Infinite Ideal,
an eternal destiny—and an endless progress of each in-
dividual. Hence arises the paralysis that one feels at
the suspicion of an all-embracing social fate, whose final
ideal is not consciously seized by the individual, his life
being swayed by it, and being, perhaps, such an out-
come as destroys all individual strivings, by neutraliz-
ing them one with another. After all perhaps this fate
does not bring out any positive result even from the
whole process. In this view, the annual round of the
seasons with the budding life of springtime, the fullness
of summer, the lapse of autumn, and the still and in-
determinate repose of winter, seems the melancholy
type of spiritual life. Then spiritual life becomes a
phase of nature, and no new dispensation wherein ap-
pears the supernatural. Instead of being a phase of
a cycle, a transitory avatar of the inevitable Fate, man
ought to be, according to the Christian ideal, a whole
cycle in himself, so that his process is nota self-destruc-
tive one ending in a winter of death that breaks the con-

306 The Western.

tinuity of the individual, and mocks him with a phan-
tom show of immortality—a mere preservation of the
species, and not of the individual—as in the case of the
plant, another individual proceeding from him, similar,
but not identical.

The genial mind which views this interpretation of
life, becomes cynical, and, like Faust, turns from the
ethical conduct of life to the Vision of Sin and bitterly
ejaculates :

“Fill the can and fill the cup
All the windy ways of nien

Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.”

He sneers at enthusiasm, discourages hopeful views,
despairs of institutions, but will not help mend or re-
place them. ‘‘The present world is the worst possible
world,’’ says Schopenhauer and the Nirvana of quietis-

tic repose is the one thing desirable. But it would
seem as though these pessimists fall into the paradox
that the active endeavor to ameliorate this worst possi-
ble of worlds would even make it worse. Annihilation
alone is amelioration. Hence the scepticism that arises
from such perception of fate in human life produces a
paralysis of the will. I will not descend into the flow-
ing stream of activity, fancying that I am making pro-
gress when I am merely eddying round and round. |
stand, at the conclusion of it, and say: ‘“‘All is vanity,
I will not go hence merely to return empty handed.”
In this volition of mine to withold myself from the pro-
cession of life I exhibit my freedom and transcendence:
I stand on its general result, its outcome, and thus, in
my consciousness elevate myself above mere particular-
ity, or finite individuality, which forms and breaks,

Thoughts on Pessimism. 307

wavelike, on the oceanAurface, but does not abide, a
self-identical being, under all changes.

With this view, no earnest action can be undertaken:

No action from principle, because the principle is not

positive, leading to the realization of a definite ideal,

but a negative one, the destruction of all definite ideals

and ending in annihilation. Stoicism cannot satisfy

this stage of consciousness ; it may as well kill time

with sensualism, for that anticipates the Nirvana, and,
with its intoxication can drown sorrow, at least tempor-

eo
Ra iad aay

arily.
“Drink and let the parties rave ;
They are filled with idle spleen,
Rising, falling, like a wave,
For they know not what they mean.
‘‘He that roars for liberty,
Faster binds a tyrant’s power,
\nd the tyrant’s cruel glee
Forces on the freer hour,”

Does all insight produce paralysis of the will? Is
the doctrine of the Nirvana the outcome of all thor-
ough, speculative thinking? This must not be granted
foramoment. Thegreatest thinkers—Aristotle, Plato,
Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel—-all agree that the free-will of
man breaks the order of nature and begins an infinite,
responsible career, wherein insight leads to moral activ-
ity, and moral activity leads again to insight. They
agree that in the absolute to know and to do are one;
hence, to know, in the highest sense, is to create.

If we hold fast to this conviction we shall not be dis-
mayed at the appearance of any cyclical movements in
human history, or in any part of it—as, for example in
the department of pedagogy.

The Western.

II. Educational Reforms.

One experiences a great difficulty in attaining a point
of view from which to decide upon the merits of a pro-
posed reform in methods of instruction, or in the course
of study to be chosen in a school system. Without
any reflection upon the nature of such reforms, how-
ever, he will find himself continually misled, and will
become vacillating in the extreme.

The attacks upon the system of discipline in vogue,

hinge upon social and political questions of the most
fundamental.character: whether a system should be
harsh or mild, mechanical or genial, is to be settled by
an inquiry into the results demanded in society and the
State.

Whether grammar is to be taught as a science, and
its strict definitions and fine discriminations carefully
drilled into the mind of the pupil, or whether it is to be
taught more as an art, and the time devoted to English
composition and essay writing, are questions of a wider
than social or national bearing; they touch the cosmo-
politan questions of spiritual culture, whether the nat-
ural sciences shall be taught in common schools;
whether drawing is a proper study for all grades of
schools, or for any except special schools; whether
school education should begin with children under six
years of age; whether the Kindergarten is a proper ad-
junct to the public school system; whether it unduly
hastens intellectual development in childhood ; whether
in the study of arithmetic great stress should be laid on
the explanation of his process by the pupil; whether
much or little geography should be taught; these and
like questions, some important, some trivial, continual -

Thoughts on Pessimism. 309

ly arise, and press for answer, inasmuch as practical ar-
rangements are to be based upon them. It is, whether
possible or not, desirable to have a general form of so-
lution for them. One very general characteristic may
be readily observed. These questions all relate in some
way to the principle of obedience and may be all contain-
ed in a general formula, thus: In ‘how far shall the
child at the several ages of his growth be made to con-
form to principles prescribed for him by higher author-
ity and in how far shall he be permitted and encouraged
to develop spontaneously and direct himself by his own
insight. Under this statement we readily recognize the
two poles of the Theoretical and Practical, of the In-
tellect and the Will. From the standpoint of the In-
tellect we should favor the spontaneity of the child al-
ways. Nothing but self-activity can ever develop the
power of thought, or insight. From the standpoint of
the Will we should favor implicit obedience to the pre-
scribed rules and regulations, and a faithful study of es-
tablished literary and scientific forms, without a too
curious investigation into their genesis and rationale.
Learn with a view to practical utility, we should say.
Learn to write a correct sentence rather than to com-
prehend the logical basis on which all sentences are
made. Learn to make arithmetical calculation with
rapidity and accuracy, and never mind the minute and
tedious explanation of the process.

Thus vibrate the tendencies to reform from the pole
of the will or practical side, to the pole of the intellect
or the theoretical side. Now we are suddenly awakened
to the fact, that our pupils are doing work that they
do not understand, are being moulded mechanically
into forms of discipline, and are mechanically memor-

310 The Western.

izing rules of arithmetic or grammar, without insight
into their significance and necessity. They are acquir-
ing habits of obedience to established order, and skill
in applying the conventionalities of intelligence, but
they are not developing originality, nor gaining much
insight. On this discovery, we at once change our
methods. We break up mechanical discipline and have
less of combined movement; appeal more to the incli-
nation and humor of the pupil, perhaps, even go so far
as to adopt the self-reporting system. We lay stress
on mental arithmetic and on grammatical analysis ;
discourage the use of the text-book and introduce oral
teaching everywhere, and require much explanation on
the part of the teacher. After a few years we discover
again the defects of our methods. We are making im-
moral children by placing too much responsibitity upon
them, in the way of self-direction, and this leads, first,
to cunning and deceit, and then to open lying. They
had more pressure than they were able to withstand.
The reliance upon their good disposition was mis-
placed. The best pupils suffered the most from the
school penalties, and the rogues escaped by additional
roguery, lying themselves out of difficulty. We find,
on the other hand, that they know nothing practically.
They can perform astonishing feats of intellectual anal-
ysis, but cannot add a column of figures without mis-
takes, nor write a letter in a correct form, with correct
spelling and punctuation. They know much miscella-
neous information regarding nature and history, but are
not fitted for practical life. We immediately reverse
our methods, and begin to approach the other pole.
Thus to and fro move the tendencies to reform in

pedagogics.

Thoughts on Pessimism, Bil

But ato-and-fro movement is not a progress, although
it isa process. Progress requires a process which in its
onward movement does not lose what it has already
gained. The Will must not be ignored in the cultiva-
tion of the Intellect, nor vice versa. When we gain a

high grade of self-activity in the pupil, without any loss
of moral training in self restraint and obedience to
principle, then we have made progress. Progress is
synthetical; it combines elements before separated.
Mere process to-and fro is very frequently called pro-
gress, but it involves the early contradiction of a return
over the same path. Many, in fact, adopt one move-
ment in regard to one study or habit of discipline, and
the opposite tendency with another; believe in free
self-activity to the last degree on general principles, but
disparage the training of the power of thinking, in gram-
matical analysis, and would entirely replace it with learn-
ing to write correct essays, according to the prescribed
models of style.

But shall one be a cynic, or pessimist, and refuse
to believe in these movements? Not atall! There
is great good in the enthusiasm which comes with
a new aim. Fresh work is done with an energy
otherwise not to be obtained. The naive, uncon-
scious teacher who is not aware of the one sidedness
of the new tendency as well-as of the old, needed a new
impulse to prevent him from utter stagnation.

The chances in favor of widening his range of vision
are doubled, for he has got so far as to make a distinc-
tion between one method and another, and to makea
choice. Now there is a further possibility that he may
note his position between two essential poles of thought,
and make it his business to reconcile them by a synthe-

312 The Western.

sis, which is real progress. This progress to and fro,
which moves in cycles like the vegetable world, is la-
mentable in spiritual life. It leads to pessimism. But
we are reconciled to it when we remember that for ve-
getable nature it is the very thing to be desired, and,
indeed, for the vegetable stage of the human mind, for
the naive, unconscious teacher, who implicitly follows
‘use and wont,” a cyclical process is, indeed a very
great blessing. The worst that could happen would be
the petrifying of the seed in the ground. With the
cyclical process comes the unfolding of all the possible
phases—the complete differentiation of the subject, and
this makes posstble the synthesis, or combination of
these various phases and sides of the process into one,
and thus changing mere Process into Progress.
W. T. Harris.

PARIS IN AMERICA

CHAPTER lI.

An American Spiritualist.

“Mr. Jonathan Dream, the eminent Spiritualist and Medium, of
Salem, Mass., requests the pleasure of your company at a Psychic
and Mediumistic Soirée, at his house, No. 22 Moon Street, Tues-
day, April 1.

*One of the wittrest of books is “ Paris en Amérique,” and as it has not yet been
translated into English, it has seemed proper to present some of the more enjoy-
able chapters, as well as such as most strikingly present the idiosyncrasies of life
in France and in America: Space suffices but for the introduction, but the trans-
hetion will be continued. (EpiTor.)

isi

pee P pn I aa

Bit end hein abba lle as: lala wie VL:

Paris in Asmerica. 313

Somnrambulism, trances, prophecy, second-sight, divinations, evoca-
tions : conversation, poetry, spirit-writing ; thoughts from beyond
the grave, secrets of the future life unveiled, etc,, etc.

Doors closed at 8 o’clock pricisely.’’

Well! thought I, as I re-read this note, I should not
be sorry to make the acquaintance of an American me-
dium, a fellow-professor of positive and experimental
pneumatology ; for I am‘also a spiritualist. Though
but a plain citizen of Paris, I have already, as well as
anybody, called up Cesar, Napoleon, Voltaire, Mme.
de Pompadour, Ninon, Robespierre, etc. ; and, indeed, if
the truth must be told, though at the expense of my mod-
esty, these illustrious personages have not eclipsed me
by their genius; they all have replied tome as if I had
prompted them. Let us see if Mr. Jonathan Dream,
with his foreign pretensions, will have more spirit, or
more spirits, than your servant, Daniel Lefebore, D.
M. P., the pupil of Hornung of Berlin, of von Reichen-
bach, and of Baron von Goldstubbe. ‘‘Set a rogue to
catch a rogue.”

In a handsome suite of rooms, at one end of a parlor
with closed doors, but brilliantly lighted (which is un-
usual in our spiritualist meetings), | found Mr. Jona-
than Dream, seated at a round table. He had the
melancholy attitude and inspired face of the sybils.
Opposite him sat half-a-dozen adepts, with a meditative
air: nervous people, sentimental women, superannuated
officers, and widows; the audience one always sees at
such places. Each wrote on paper the name of the de-
ceased whom he wished to interrogate; I did the same.

The names were thrown together into a hat; the first
one drawn out was that of Joseph de Maistre. Jona-
than reflected a moment, put his hand to hisear, to hear

314 The Western.

the voice which spoke softly to him, and wrote rapidly
the following :

“There is no sterile knowledge ; all knowledge is like
that of which the Bible speaks: Adam knew Eve, and
she brought forth.

No credo, no credit.”

Oh! thought I, these paradoxes sound well; they
have all the bluster of their father: only it seems to
me as if I had already heard them somewhere: at Baa-
der’s, if | am not mistaken. After all, perhaps there
is no copyright law up above, and it is possible that, for
diversion, they amuse themselves there by stealing
each other’s ideas.

Hippocrates was the second; he had the kindness to
speak French. His interpreter wrote: “The man who
thinks most, digests least. Other things being equal,
he who thinks least, digests best.”

‘Alas !” said a little woman, whose thin face was hid-
den by waves of gray hair, ‘“‘that is a physician’s re-
sponse, a brutal response, made by men, and for men.
It is not thought which preys upon the heart, it is’—
and she sighed.

Nostradamus was called; his opinion concerning the
future of Poland, of France, and of Italy was asked.
This was the reply of the great magician, the sublime
genius who always leaves to others the trouble of com-
prehending what he says: “‘In France, Italy and Poland,
much wit, little shame; in Poland, France, Italy, men
are first foolish, then wise ; in Italy, Poland and France,
less happiness than hope.”

We were obliged to content ourselves with this ora-
cle, too profound to be clear. After the Provencal sor-
cerer, it was the turn of Kosciusko. This evening the

Paris in America. 315

Polish Washington was in a bad humor; we could get
trom him only the Latin motto: In servitute dolor, in
libertate labor; in servitude sorrow, in liberty labor.
Three times we questioned him, three times he made
this uncivil reply, and threw it in our faces as a re-
proach that we no longer had even any feeling.

The last note asked that Don Quixote, Tom Jones,
Robinson Crusoe, or Werther might be interrogated.
This made the circle laugh, though, to tell the truth,
unwillingly. The author of this impertinence, I am
ashamed to confess, was myself. The dead and the liv-
ing have bored me so long, that I should be delighted
to know what goes on in the heads of those who have
never existed.

Jonathan Dream threw the unlucky note into the bas-
ket, announced that the sitting was at an end, and
showed us out with great courtesy. Just as I was leav-
ing, he tapped me on the shoulder, and begged me to
remain.

When we were alone, “‘It is you, my colleague,’’ said
he, smiling in a singular way, ‘‘who addressed to me a
question which these profane considered indiscreet ; per-
haps you are of the same opionion. Blind that you are,
you have never fathomed the arcana of eternal truth.
You imagine that Don Quixote and Sancho, Robinson
Crusoe and Friday, Werther and Charlotte, Tom Jones
and Sophie never existed? Man cannot create an atom
of matter, and you suppose that he can create souls
which can never perish! Do you not believe in Don
Quixote more than in Artaxerxes? Is not Robinson
Crusoe more alive to you than Drake and Magellan ?”

“‘What! the ingenious Don Quixote really lived?
And I might converse with the wise prefect of the isi-
and of Barataria?”

316 The Western.

“Certainly. Think what a poet is. He is a seer, a
prophet, who soars to the invisible world. There, from
the millions of beings who have passed away from earth,
and whose memory has vanished, he chooses those
whom he would have live again in the memory of men.
He evokes them, he speaks to them, he listens to
them, he writes at their dictation. What stupid hu-
manity takes for an invention of the artist, is only the
confession of the unknown dead ; but you, a spiritual-
ist, or pretending to be, how is it that you do not recog-
mize a supernatural voice? How can you allow your-
self to be deceived like the common herd? Have you
really advanced so little in mediumistic ways ?”

Speaking thus, Jonathan Dream threw back his head,
and tossing up his arms, and opening and shutting his
hands, he advanced toward me as if to overcome me
with his magnetism.

‘‘My friend,” I said to him, ‘‘I see you are a man of
talent, though a spiritualist; I do not doubt that you
could write a little speech in the manner of Don Quixote,
or improvise some new provetbs worthy of Sancho. But
we are alone, and we are both augurs ; we have the right
to look at each other, and to laugh as we do so. Let us
stop here; I wish you much success. It is easily won
in France; the nation which thinks itself the most in-
telligent in the world is naturally the easiest to lead
by the nose. Ask the women of Paris.”

‘‘Stop!” cried the magician, in a tone of fury.
“*Have I been deceived? Are youa traitor? Do you
take me for a charlatan, for a fraud, for a mountebank?
Please to understand that Jonathan Dream has never
spoken a word of untruth. You doubt my power, my
good sir ; what proof of it will you have? Shall I de-

Paris in America. 317

prive you of all your ideas—no very difficult thing ;
shall I send you to sleep, or subject you to heat, cold,
wind, rain; shall 1’—

“Let us have no magnetism,” I said; ‘‘I know that
is a natural phenonemon, hitherto not well understood,

which you abuse. If you want to convince me, do not
begin by sending me to sleep. We are not at the Aca-
demy.”

*‘Well,” said he, fixing his flaming eyes on me, ‘‘what
should you say if I were to transport you to America?”

‘‘What should I say? Seeing is believing.”

‘Yes, you,” cried he; ‘‘and not you alone, but your
wife, your children, your neighbors, your house, your
street, and, if you say the word, all Paris. Yes,” he
added, with a feverish agitation, ‘‘yes, if I wish, to-
morrow morning Paris shall bein Massachusetts ; there
shall be only an uninhabited plain on the banks of the
Seine.”

‘‘My dear sorcerer, you ought to sell your influence
to the prefect of the Seine; it might, perhaps,*save us
some millions. In the absence of the Parisians, a quite
new Paris might be built for them as regular and mon-
otonous as New York; a Paris without a past, without
monuments or memories; all our architects and city
authorities would be ready to die of joy.”

**You are joking,” said Jonathan ; “‘you are afraid, I
repeat ; to-morrow, if I wish, Paris shall be in Massa-
chusetts, and Versailles with it. Do you accept the chal-
lenge ?””

“Yes, certainly I accept it,” I replied, laughing.
But nevertheless the assurance of this devil of a fellow
disturbed me. I am a judge of boasting; I read twen-
ty newspapers a day, and I have heard more than one

318 The Western.

minister in the tribune; but this enthusiast’s voice awed
me, in spite of myself.

“Take this box,’’ said the magician in an imperious
tone; “open it; there are two pills in it, one for you,
the other for me ; choose, and ask no questions.”’

I had gone too far to retreat. I swallowed one of
the globules ; Jonathan took the other, and saluted me,
saying in a hollow voice: ‘‘Farewell till to-morrow, on
the other side of the ocean.”

Once in the street, I found myself in a singular con-
dition. I ran without stopping to the Champs-Elysées,
never thinking of the distance. I felt lighter, more ac-
tive, more elastic than any human creature ever was, it
seemed to me that with one leap I could reach the hor-
izon. All my senses were incredibly acute. From the
Place de la Concorde I saw carriages driving around
the Arc de |’Etoile; I heard the ticking of the great
hand which marks the time on the clock of the Tuiler-
ies. Life coursed through my veins with unfamiliar
swiftness and warmth; I asked myself if some invisible
hand had already carried me across the Atlantic. To
reassure myself, I looked at the pale crescent slowly
climbing the sky. Sure of not having changed my long-
itude, I went home, ashamed of my credulity, and fell
asleep laughing at Mr. Dream and his idle threats.

S. E. Cote.
(To be Continued.)

Book Reviews.

BOOK REVIEWS.

Pestatozzi, His Lire, Work anp INFLUENCE. By Hermann
Kriisi. (Pablished by Wilson, Hinkle & Co., Cincinnati.
Price $2.25.)

In our April number we noticed this work as in press, and
now that we have read the book we can bear personal testi-
mony to its value. The part which pertains to the publisher
has been unusually well done, and it is a pleasure to deal with
a book of which the paper and typography are so excellent.
Pestalozzi is known to all teachers by name, and as many claim
to be his disciples while they betray no very exact acquaintance
with his tenets, this work will, we hope, meet with wide accept-
ance. The author divides his work into these five parts: Ist.
Life of Pestalozzi. 2d. Associates of Pestalozzi. 3d. Extracts
from the writings of Pestalozzi. 4th. Principles and Method
of Pestalozzi. Sth. Spread of the Pestalozzian System.

Mr. Kriisi, the author, has done his work in the most admira-
ble manner, and the most careless reader will feel that he has
secured that “impartial statement’’ which he “attempted.” It
should be understood that while this book is most likely to at-
tract and instruct “educationists,” it is not merely a teacher’s
manual, but would not be out of place on the shelves of any
general library. Mr. Kriisi departs from the custom of most
writers of manuals, and gives usa literary product quite distin-
guished by the simplicity, correctness and chasteness of its
style. In conclusion let us say that it is a personal pleasure to
bestow praise when so well deserved. [Ep.]

A Suort History or THe EnatisH Peopie. J. R. Green, M. A.
(Published by Macmillan & Co., and forsale by Gray, Baker
& Co.)

This is a title of an unusually well-written and reliable book
upon English history. The author, as he says in his preface
»

320 The Western.

“aims to give a history, not of English Kings, or English Con-
quests, but of the English people. At the risk of sacrificing
much that was interesting and attractive in itself, and which the
constant usage of our historians has made familiar to Englisb
readers, I have preferred to pass lightly and briefly over the
details of foreign wars and diplomacies, the personal adven-
tures of kings and nobles, the pomp of courts, or the intrigues
of favorites, and to dwell at length on the incidents of that
constitutional, intellectual, and social advance in which we read
the history of the nation itself.” The light in which Mr, Green
regards Spenser’s Faerie Queene has, at least, the merit of nov-
elty, and will be found interesting to the students of literature
We can fully recommend this work as a real addition to private
libraries, aud as largely vindicating the function of the bisto-
rian, by the manner in which his work has been executed.

[ Ep. }

Tae AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA.

We stated in our notice in Toe WesTERn, some of the prom
inent features of this new Cyclopedia. We have found the re-
cent volumes fully equal in every respect to the first ones is-
sued. In order to give the reader some notion of the value of
this work we will state that the Editors-in-chiet, George Ripley
and Chas. A. Dana, are too well known in the literary world
to require any commendation. The staff of revisers is composed
of thirty-three able men, well known in the realm of letters.

In the preparation of this work the greatest care has been
taken to make its contents thoroughly reliable, and only such
portions of the old work have been retained, as were found to
be in accordance with the present state of knowledge; every
statement has been compared with the latest authorities, every
error that could be detected has been corrected. All apparent
superfluities both in subject and treatment, have been rejected ;
a number of new titles have. been added, while obsolete ones
have been omitted.

The materials that serve as a foundation for the work, have
been derived from a great variety of sources. Besides the
standard works in literature, science and art, histories, biogra-
phies,. books of travel, scientific treatises, statistical reports, the

Book Reviews. 321

current journals and periodical literature have been put in con-
stant requisition, their contents carefully collected and utilized.
Information has been obtained from practical men in all de-
partments of business, from public officials, etc. In a work in-
tended for popular instruction, it is obvious that elaborate
treatises on the multitude of subjects treated, would be neither
desirable nor appropriate. Hence no attempt has been made
to furnish exhaustive treatment of subjects in science and liter-
ature. But the editors have endeavored to present such selec-
tions from the great treasury of knowledge as will give those
who are reading in one department of knowledge, a brief view
of the latest and best discoveries in all other departments, and
especially to spread before the great mass of intelligent readers
an epitome of the opinions, systems, discoveries, events, actions,
and characters that make up the history of a world.

Taugz Success in Lire, By Ray Palmer. A.S. Barnes & Oo.,
New York and Chicago.

As stated in the preface, the author has embodied in.a small
volume a few addresses, in all fourteen, formerly delivered to
young men and women as a distinct class, in the hope that they
may help those who are thoughtful in relation to what lies be-
fore them. lEarnestness marks every page of the book.
Thoroughly alive to the importance of youth as the formative
period of life, the author has striven to communicate to his
readers the intensity of his own feelings; to arouse them toa
truer appreciation of the worth of talents and opportunities
possessed. He would have them feel how utterly foolish and
base it is to misuse or fail to improve them, how truly wise and:
noble it is to make a right use of them. The central truth, ex-
pressed in a variety of ways in order to make the most lasting
impression, is that the possible is the measure of duty and no
one can be regarded as having attained success in life except in
so far as he has actualized the possibilities of his nature.

In the first chapter the characteristics of youth which seem to
the author to be most prominent and hence most likely to have
the greatest influence upon the after life are considered: the
rapid development and ceaseless activity of youth, its sanguine

322 The Western.

expectations, partial and hasty judgments, vague and undefined
longings after the noble and the good. The causes of failure
are then reviewed,and stated briefly are, the lack of a fixed
and definite purpose te be constantly kept in view; the want
of a proper appreciation of the difficulties which lie in the way
of the accomplishment of anything worth being done; the de-
sire to effect something grand and noble coupled with an un-
willingness to perform the ordinary tasks of life ; lastly, the
failure to obey the injunction “Do with thy might whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do.”

The tenth and eleventh chapters on “Moral Courage” are
especially readable, If there be any trait of character the want
of which is always to be deplored, that trait is moral courage.
It is well that the author has seen and felt its importance and
has given it so prominent a place, insisting on it as one of the
essentials to true success. The chapters on “Self Culture” and
“The Choice of a Life Work” both contain many good thoughts
which if acted upon would certainly result advantageously.

In writing a book of this kind there is always one great diffi-
culty to be overcome. It is: apt to be read by older persons,
while it is neglected or voted a bore by those whom it was in-
tended to benefit. The author seems to have foreseen this dif-
ficulty and has tried, not wholly without success, to present
these really serious subjects in as interesting and agreeable a
manner as possible. W. J. 8. B.

Tue Lost Beauties or THE Enaiish LAneuace. Charles Mac-
kay. (Furnished for review by Gray, Baker & Co.)

This book is a dictionary of words Anglo-Saxon in origin,
and now obsolete; the object of Mr. Mackay is to lead educa-
ted people to revive their use, This is not the first instance of
an amiable enthusiasm which hopes more than is attainable by
human compact. Roger Ascham hoped to revive the lost glo-
ries of archery, Sir Walter Scott labored earnestly to stay the
progress of “reform,” the French Academy used every means to
render their language classical, and yet the logic of events was
too powerful to be resisted. The genius of the English lan-
guage as stated by Mr. Mackay himself, “is omnivorous ;” it
oversteps the narrow limits of local pride, and appropriates

Book Reviews. 323

whatever is useful for the better communication of thought;
and no eulogiums of any one element of our vocabulary is
likely to lead to the disuse of the others. The whole move-
ment in modern language has been to regard present utility
rather than historical correctness, and this is more likely to in-
crease than to be diminished. Looking, however, at works of
this kind in a different light, their utility is great; any student
of literature needs these conveniences and if he does not seek
the end proposed by Mr. Mackay, will be grateful to this author
for his labor. [Ep.]

Tue Four Gospets 1n Onze. By Robert Allen Campbell.

Since the appearance of Strauss’ “Life of Christ,” the atten-
tion of readers and students has been claimed by many writers
presenting their conceptions of that same “Life,” viewed from
the stand-points of the philosopher, the Christian minister, or
the Biblical scholar. The book now before us takes its place
as an effort to present in one connected narrative and in their
own language, the various particulars contained in the writings
of the four evangelists. It might be considered a joint product
of the four writers, each supplying a part. It is an English
“Harmony of the Gospels.”

In this work Mr. Campbell has done for us what every sta-
dent of the Bible must otherwise laboriously and more or less
imperfectly do for himself, if he wishes to gain any adequate
view of the life of-the Savior.

The work is divided into chapters corresponding to different
periods in the life of Christ. The chapters are sub-divided into
sections comprising special topics, each with its appropriate
heading, and with references to chapters and verses by which it
may be verified. There is also an index by which any verse im
either of the Gospels may be found in this book, as well as a
table of contents detailing the titles of the chapters and sections,

There are some questions as to the chronology of certaim
events in the life of the Savior which will probably always re-
main in the category of questions; and the conclusions adopted
by the author of this book are probably as satisfactory as any.
It is a book which will be helpful to teachers of Sabbath

324 The Western.

School classes, as well as to all who seck to gain clear cencep-
tions of the relations of the gospel narrative. K.M.N.

Gorrue’s HerMANN AND DorotHea. €dited by Jas. Morgan
Hart. (Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, N. Y.]

This is the initial volume of a series of German classics and
the design of the author has been well oxecuted as we are in-
formed by those skilled in the teaching of German. The size,
typography, binding and price will recommend this series to
many who prefer to have in their libraries books best adapted
to frequent use, while the same considerations will weigh large-
ly in determining the choice of those who have to purchase
text-books. [Ep.]}

MocVicar’s NaTIonAL SPELLING BLANKS, in three humbers. No.
1, Words, No. 2, Words and Definitions, No. 3, Words, Defini-
tions and Sentences. A blotter is furnished with each book.
Introduction price, nine cents. Retail price, 15 cents.

We believe that Mr. McVicar is right in his theory as to the
proper method of learning to spell correctly, and with this pos-
tulate, we see nothing left to be desired in this set of blanks.

[Ep.}

NOTICES OF SOCIETIES.

NORMAL SCHOOL ASSOCIATION.

The March meeting of the Normal School Association took
place in the Session Room of the Board, on the 6th inst. A
paper: “Place of Grammar in a Course of Study” was pre-
sented by Grace C. Bibb.

The discussion following the paper, was so aminated and inter-

Proceedings. 325

esting, that it was only cut short by the announcement of the
president that the time for adjournment had already passed.

Mr. Hamilton objected to the dogmatic manner in which
grammatical instruction jg too often given.

Miss Hunter illustrated by a story, the distaste of the aver-
age pupil for text-books.

Mr. Hall strenuously, repeatedly and eloquently, insisted on
the value of Grammar as a culture study.

Mr. Dyer as earnestly presented the claims of Grammar as
a branch of instruction, from which information rather than cul-
ture should be sought.

Mr. Vickroy sketched his plan of work; he insisted upon
constant practice in the application of principles, and urged the
view that Analysis gives the pupil no new knowledge and is
only useful as a test of his ability to refer information to its
proper categories.

Dr. Christin objected to Analysis, except for the High School.
The only way to acquire correctness of language is by constant
practice in correct speaking. The gentleman illustrated his
remarks by showing the true method of acquiring facility in the
ase of a foreign language.

Mr. Soldan denied to practical Grammar, any great value as a
culture-study and spoke of Scientific Grammar, from which alone
culture in any wide sense could be gained, as beyond the reach
of our schools. G. C. B.

THE ACADEMY OF SCIENOE.

The regular meeting of the Academy of Science was held on
the evening of March 15, Dr. Engelman presiding. Prof. Riley
reported that four rare fresh water crustaceans found near Dal-
las, Texas, had been received. Prof. Adolf Schmidt read a full
and interesting paper entitled: “ Jron Manufacture in Missouri ;
a general review of the metallurgical districts and their re-
sources.”

‘‘The state is divided into four iron ore regions.

1. The Eastern region, extending over Butler, Stoddard,
Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Wayne, Reynolds, Iron, Madison,
Perry, Ste. Genevieve, St. Francois, Washington, Jefferson and
Franklin counties.

326 The Western.

2. The Central region in Crawford, Dent, Shannon, Phelps,
Pulaski, Gascunade, parts of Maries and Osage, and Callaway
counties,

8. The Western or Osage Region, in St. Clair, Henry, Ben-
ton, Morgan, Camden, Miller Cole, and parts of Maries and
Osage counties.

4. The Southern Region comprising Ozark, Douglas, Chris-
tian and Green counties.

These four ore regions were briefly described in regard to
their extent, to their means of communication by rail or river,
and to their natural advantages for iron making, such as their
resources in timber, coal, iron ore, water and furnace sites. The
iron ores of each district were mentioned.

To this was added a short account of “the St. Louis and
Grand Tower Manufacturing Districts,” their facilities for ob-
taining ore and fuel, and for manufacturing coke, pig-iron and
wrought iron.

The paper was referred to the committee on publication to
be published in the “transactions.”

Dr. Engelman made a report concerning the state of the
weather for the past forty years. In that time there were only
four winters in which the temperature feil lower than thirty de-
grees below zero. For the past twenty years the winters have
been colder than those of the twenty years preceding, and the
summers have also become much warmer. He thought there was
no ground for the fear that the country would in time become
uninhabitable by reason of the extremes of heat and cold, since
there had been no positive change in climates for the past 1,000
years, as seemed to be proved by the character of the vegetation
the same conclusions were stated in regard to the rain supply.
B.¥. B.D.

SOCIETY OF PEDAGOGY.

At the March meeting, Mr. Fitzpatrick read a paper on
“Teaching Elementary Geography.” The writer treated the
subject from its more practical and commercial aspects and ad-
vocated beginning with the child’s immediate surroundings and
thence extending the vision along the bighways of traffic. A
variety of views were advanced by the members, in the discus

Magazines and Reviews. 327

sion which followed. The debate finally shifted to an inquiry
into the Educational function of Geography, upon which Mr.
Harris offered some highly important remarks,which were gen-
erally concurred in.

Noticeable Articles in Magazines and Re-
views.

Littell’s Living Age, No. 1605. “Leonardo Da Vinci,” from
the Edinburgh Review, will have an interest for the general
reader.

No. 1607. “Sir Philip Sidney” (Henry Kingsley for the
Quarterly Review).

“Karly Kings of Norway” (Part 3d), Thomas Carlyle.

No. 1608. “Life at High Pressure” (W. R. Greg, Contempor-
ary Review). “Karly Kings of Norway” (Part 4), Thomas Car-
lyle. “German Home Life” (Part 3).

International. March and April. “E. A. Poe,” by J. H. In-
gram. “The Supernatural as Evidence,” by R. Payne Smith.
“The Money Problem,” Amasa Walker.

Unitarian Review. March. “Moral Distinctions in Social In-
tercourse.”

Galaxy. April. “A Tale of the Forest of Arden,’ by
Richard Grant White. “Michel Angelo Buonarroti,” by Geo.
Lowell Austin.

Scribner’s. April. ‘Hollow Land, a Farmer’s Vacation in
Holland,’’ by G. E. Waring. ‘The Shakespeare-Bacon Con-
troversy,” by E.O. Vaile. “Chat about German Parliaments,”
by Wm. Wells.

328 The Western.

Harper's. April. “Angoliva Kaufman,” a Biographical
Sketch. “Caricatures of the Reformation.”

Atlantic. April. “Crime and Automatism,” by O. W.
Holmes.

Popular Science Monthly. ‘‘The First Traces of Man in Eur-
ope,” Prof, Albrecht Mueller. “The Royal Institution and the
society of Arts,” Bernard H. Becker. “On the Correctness
of Photographs,” Dr. Hermann Vogel.

Locke’s National Monthly, Toledo, Ohio. One dollar per year.
This is an unusually creditable magazine, and deserves special
mention. The March number contains in “Our Orange Grove”
the obverse side of our many poetical accounts of Florida as a
new paradise for northern people, and those who have read the
articles in the eastern magazines, will do well to read this mag-
azine asa corrective. “Epistolary man,” is the title of a very
readable light article by Mary Hartwell. Mrs. Roga L. Segur
gives a very readable biography of Gerritt Smith, while Har-
riet Prescott Spofford writes a very pleasant story entitled
“The Campaign of the Calico.” The magazine offers itself as a
journal of American and Foreign Literature, and while it does
not present the more serious efforts of our writers, its selections
are made with good taste and certainly fairly represent the lit-
erary forms which they undertake to present. The price is ab-
surdly small, and those who are regular readers of magazines
will do well to see whether it does not meet their wants.

Fortnightly Review, April, 1875. “The Debt of English to
Italian Literature” is shown to be great on the side of subject-
matter and metrical form; but the writer justly awards to
England the glory of “independence and originality of treat-
ment.” Even now the two literatures are mutually beneficial ;
to quote from the article itself, “‘modern Italian poets may seek
by contrast with Shakespeare and Milten to gain freedom from
the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers of
Petrarch, while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be recom-
mended to all English people who have no ready access to the
masterpieces of Greek and Latin Literature.”

2. “The Practice of Medicine by Women” is confined to “a

Magazines and Reviews. 329

statement of the facts of the case, legal and professional, which
practically exclude women from the authorized practice of Med-
icine” in England. 3, “A Year of the Birmingham School
Board” presents interesting statistics confirmatory of three
principles held by the English National Educational League ;
namely, that education should be, Ist, national, 2nd, compul-
sory, 3rd, free.

Eclectic, April, 1875. 1, “Have We Two Brains?” (Cornhill
Magazine,) presents fresh anecdotes and advances the hypothe-
sis of Dr. Brown Sequard, together with arguments by Prof.
Henseley. 2, “The Lesser Light,” (British Quarterly Review.)
3, ‘Charles Kingsley” (Macmillan’s Magazine.)

F. E. C.

Journal des Bibliotheques Populaires. Bulletin de la Société
Franklin. Paris. A monthly, publishing extracts from the
“Popular Catalogue” of the Franklin Society, with brief book
notices, and aiming, as its title shows, to aid the officers of
Public Libraries in the selection of books.

A part of the work of the Franklin Society appears to be
the establishment of Public Libraries throughout France, es-
pecially in the remoter districts. To this end they furnish the
books of their catalogue, published by different firms, at a con-
siderable reduction from current prices, besides giving them
outright to needy libraries.

Among the volumes catalogued in the March Bulletin are
works by Guillemin, Figuier, Macé and Quatrefages, and Fara-
day’s History of a Candle. Among the reviews is a critique
on Brachet’s “New French Grammar, based on the History of
the Language”—an admirable work, by the Way—and another
on ‘Selections from the Great Writers of the Sixteenth Cen-
tury,” by the same authvr. In a notice of Garnier’s First No-
tions of Political Economy, we are told that the author has
“reprinted Poor Richard’s Maxims—Franklin’s masterpiece.”

S. E. C.

EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINES.

National Teacher Monthly, April. In an article entitled Educa-
tional Worthies, Prof. Richard Edwards gives a brief biogra-
phy of Miss M. J. Cragin and in St. Louis especially this testi-

330 The Western.

monial to an able teacher and noble woman will be read with
interest.

Prof. Nipher, of Washington University, has an article
upon, “Physical Science in the Modern School.”

Educational Journal of Va.—The March nunrber contains ‘‘Im-
proved methods of Teaching English Grammar’’ by Miss E. A.
Bowen. This article will interest all who have classes in this
subject.

The “Educationist”, Ind. publishes in its Feb. number the first
of a series of “Notes on the Lectures of Agassiz,” edited by D.
8. Jordan, of the Indianapolis High School. The lecture given
is the last but one which Agassiz ever delivered and was given
to bis class at Penekese, in Aug. 1873.

The “Illinois Schoolmaster” of March is ot great interest. Mr.
A. S. Forbes gives the results of his experience with classes in
Zoology; and Mr. Hiram Harly’s paper on language culture
deserves attention.

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 33 Pemberton
Square, Boston. In this, the 6th Annual Report, a number of
interesting topics are discussed. Ist, The Education of Work-
ing Children. Under this heading the Bureau presents an ac-
count of the English factory system, and the providing of acts
relating to the education of factory children; then after an ac
count of the “half time schools” of Massachusetts, the Bureau
takes ground against their continuance. 2d, Special Effects of
Certain Forms of Employment upon Female Health. 3d, Fac-
tory Legislation. 4th, Condition of Workingmen’s Families.
This is a very interesting part of the report and it appears that
66 per cent. expend an average of $9 a year for books and news-
papers, 34 per cent. paid society dues, 11 per cent. own pianos
or cabinet organs, 34 per cent. own sewing machines. 5th, Co-
operation—which the Bureau recommends.

Virginia School Report, 1874. The report of W. H. Ruffner,
Superintendent of Public Instruction of Virginia, bas several
features of interest. Ist, He gives the “History of Public Sen-
timent Concerning the Schools” digesting this from the reports
of county superintendents, and by no means suppressing any

Magazines and Reviews. 331

expression of unpopular sentiments. 2d, “Improvement in the
Qualifications of Teachers,” as reported in the same way. 34,
The workings of the “Phonetic Method” as reported upon by S.
H. Owens, Superintendent of Petersburg schools, and of ‘“‘Grube’s
Method,” a paper by the same author. 4th, “List of Publica-
tions during the year by Virginian authors.”

In the “Tuft's Collegian,’’ Z. L. W. says: “We need more and
better statesmen and fewer politicians. Supply this keenly felt
need,and almost every public and private good will follow as a
natural consequence. But whence is this need of statesmen to
be supplied? From the ranks of our men of liberal education
and thorough culture.” Z. L. W. desires to impress upon the
young men,the necessity of a more careful study than has here-
tofore been given to the fundamental principles which underlie
sound political science. Every graduate should be thoroughly
familiar with the theory of our government and the relation of
its different branches to each other and to the people. More
attention should also be given to the political history of the
United States.

The Journal of Education, Province of Ontario, Toronto, gives
in its February number an extract ofa “Report on the examina-
tion of pupils, from within and without the Public Schools, in
regard to the eligibility for admission into the Collegiate Insti-
tute,” from which we make the following extract. “Of 230 chil-
dren who came forward for examination, 216 were from the
Public Schools, and 14 from the Collegiate Institute. Of the 216
from the Public Schools, 67, or about 31 per cent,, passed_a sat-
isfactory examination, but of the 14 who had received their
training in the Institute and in private schools, not a single one
proved competent.

The Iowa School Journal of January, contains proceedings of
the Association of Superintendents and Principals of Southeast-
ern Iowa, convened at Oskaloosa, Iowa, December 29 and 30.
Among other resolutions, we find that they heartily indorsed
the system of County Normal Institutes; they request the su-
perintendent to cause to be published, a manual for the use of
teachers in County Normal Institutes ; said manual to contain
@ syllabus of all the branches and subjects taught in said Insti-

332 The Western.

tute, and such other suggestions as may be thought best, so as to
secure more uniform and satisfactory results in institute work ;
they acknowledge the high importance of mental cultivation,
and earnestly urge moral and physical culture as necessary to
regulate and sustain the mental; they regard short readings
from the Bible, without note or comment, as highly conducive
to the inculcation of sound principles, ete.

The New England Journal of Education, contains in number 9,
an article on “Sewing in the Public Schools” by Miss Baker,
principal of a Boston grammar school. Miss Baker realizes that
every woman should know bow to sew, but cannot believe in
the necessity ¢f taking one moment of our 27 hours per week
devoted to mental training, tor the purpose of acquiring that
knowledge. Every mother of the girls in Miss Baker’s Ist, 2d,
and 3d classes, without exception, was opposed to it. One of
them said, my daughter has time enough at home to sew. As
a mere “curiosum” we quote the following from Miss Baker’s
article : “We have a normal school for the special training of
teachers ; why not add to this, schools for teaching advanced
sewing and dressmaking to those who care to fit themselves to
earn their living in that way, letting the acquisition of a special
trade be optional with our girls, rather than forced upon them
at the expense of the little intellectual culture now afforded ?
For I earnestly maintain that the more crowding and hurrying
we have, the less real culture and mental discipline we obtain.”

In the High School of Springfield, Mass., there are now three
distinct courses of study in operation: Ist, the classical, to pre-
pare young people for college; 2d, the ordinary High School
course, revised and enlarged by the addition of several elective
studies ; 3d, the English course, including a thorough English
education, with the option of modern languages. The School
Committee of Springfield calls attention to this course as one
available to a large class of boys who are looking forward to a
life of active business.

Under the head of “Improvements Suggested,” the report of
the School Committee of the City of Springfield, for 1874 has
the following : “As a rule, we do not believe in special teach-
ers for children. Whatever we expect to teach in primary and
grammar schvole must first be put into the heads and hearts of

Magazines‘and Reviews. 333

the ordinary instructors of these grades. But in preparation of
these teachers for their work, special instruction of a temporary
or permanent character often becomes indispensable.”

Jational Teacher, April. Examination of Teachers, Miss
Delia A. Lathrop. This, although treating of local questions is
an article suggestive to all who have to do with the appoint-
ment of teachers, and would, we think, be found to have a gen-
eral interest for any one interested in education. ‘Class Inter-
wals in Graded Schools,” Superintendent Harrington concludes
his part of the discussion with Superintendent Harris, and the
series of articles will be read with interest by teachers.

Books Added to Public School Library.

PHILOSOPHY.

1. Legge, Mencius. Life and Works, with Essays and Notes.
THEOLOGY.

1. Campbell. The Four Gospels in One,

2. Fairfield. Ten Years with Spiritual Mediums.

8. Hyacinthe. Catholic Reform.

4. Mill. Three Essays on Religion. Berkeley’s Life and

Writings.
5. Novum Testamentum, Graece et Latine.

6. Supernatural Religion. An Inquiry into the Reality of
Divine Revelation.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES.

1. Bastiat. Essays on Political Economy.

2. Calderwood. On Teaching, Its Ends and Means.
8. Hutchinson. Resources of Kansas.

4. Martin. The Statesman’s Yearbook for 1875,

5. Pwedagogische Jahresbericht von 1878.

334 The Western.

6.

a > 9 00

> 99 fo

all allt ool Oe

Report of the Proceedings at the Dinner of the Cobden
Russell Club Recollections, and Suggestions, 1813-1873.

NATURAL SCIENCE AND USEFUL ARTS.

Bartlett. Parlor Amusements for Young Folks,

Becker. Scientific London.

Chase. Familiar Lectures on the Teeth.

Hotze. First Lessons in Physiology.

Jahresbericht ueber die Fortschritte der Chemischen Tech-
nologie (19 vols.)

Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association,
1874.

United States Daily Bulletin of Weather Reports, Sept.,
Nov., 1872.

Report of the Commissioners of Agriculture, 1873.

Williams. Diseases of the Har.

FINE ARTS AND POETRY.

A. L.O.E. Fairy Frisket.
Johnson. Little Classics, Love.
Lermontoff. The Circassian Boy.
Thaxter. Poems.

HISTORY AND TRAVELS.

American Cyclopedia, vol. x.
Campbell. Gazetteer of Missouri.
Campbell. New Atlas of Missouri.
Headley. The Island of Fire, or A Thousand Years of the
Old Norseman’s Home.
Jones. Africa, A History of Exploration and Adventure
from Herodotus to Livingstone.
Livingstone. Last Journals in Central Africa.
Russell (Earl). Recollections and Suggestions.

YS eels .

IS THE UNION OF

The Massachusetts Teacher, The Conn... School Journal,

The Maine Journal of Education, The Rhode Island Schoolmaster.

THE CoLLEGE CouRANT,

It is published under the auspices of the American Instiute of Instruction, and the six State
leachers’ Associations of the New England States

Is is edited by Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, A. M., for six years Commissioner of Public
Schools of Rhode Island, he having resigned that honorable position to enter upon this work

Its size 1s about the same as the best religious weeklies—16 pages—printed on fine paper,
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Its contributors rank among the best Teachers and educators in the country. The publisher
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Its departments, most of which are sustained weekly, and others bi-weekly, are the follo w-
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School; New Hampshire, J. E. Vose, Francestown Academy; Vermont, M. T. Fuller, St.
Johnsbury Academy; Massachusetts, Prof. B. F. Tweed, Superintendent of Schools, Charles-
town; Rhode Island, Hon. T. B. Stockwell, State Commissioner of Public Schools; Con-
necticut, Ariel Parish, Superintendent of Schools, New Haven

Its field is not confined to New England alone. Its discussions editorially, its contributions,
and its educational intelligence will be broad enough to make it of as much value and interest to
the educators in the South or West as to those in New England—te the head of the family,
with children to ecucate, as to the teacher in the school room.

It aims to be a paper that shall keep its readers informed of all matters of educational pro-
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Its subscriptien price is but $3.00 a year, the postage prepaid by the publisher. Fora
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A list ever 100 important articles to educators sent gratis to any address. Specimen copies
sent en receipt of stamp. Address

N. E. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION,

Cuarces C. Cuatrinip, Publisher. 16 Hawley Street, Boston.

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THE JOURNAL

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New Books Just Published.

Pestalozzi, His Life, Work and Influence.

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and Training School. Embraces large extracts from Pestalozzi's writings, some of which
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important educational work. 248 pp., 8 wo. cloth, with Portraits and other ilustra-
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Dramas and Dramatic Scenes.

Edited by W. H. Venasie, Authorof The School and Stage, The Amateur Actor, and
United States History. 20 Plays selected from the writings of standard authors. Adap-
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tions by Farny. 12 mo. cloth, 236 pp. 61.50.

Eclectic Historical Atlas.

Full 8 ve. cloth. Eighteen Double-Page Maps, accurately drawn and engraved. A Hand
ak for general readers and students in History 1.

Elements of Physics.

For Academies and Common Schools. By S.A. Norton, A. M., Professor in Ohio Agricul-
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cloth, 286 pp. Liberally Illustrated. @.15. Supplies for first introduction into schools,
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Independent Spelling Book
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BY PROF. W.G. PECK,
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First Lessons in Arithmetic
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NEW COURSE IN GEOGRAPHY.
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Clark's Easy Lessons in Language
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UNITED STATES HISTORY.

Barnes’ Brief History.

NATURAL SCIENCE.
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Steele's 14 Weeks in’ Chemistry.
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