ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Hail to thee, spirit of De Foe! What does not my own poor self owe to thee? England has better bards than either Greece or Rome, yet I could spare them easier far than De Foe, "unabashed De Foe," as the hunchbacked rhymer styled him.

The true cord had now been touched; a raging curiosity with respect to the contents of the volume, whose engravings had fascinated my eye, burned within me, and I never rested until I had fully satisfied it; weeks succeeded weeks, months followed months, and the wondrous volume was my only study and principal source of amusement. For hours together I would sit poring over a page till I had become acquainted with the import of every line. My progress, slow enough at first, became by degrees more rapid, till at last, under "a shoulder of mutton sail," I found myself cantering before a steady breeze over an ocean of enchantment, so well pleased with my voyage that I cared not how long it might be ere it reached its termination. And it was in this manner that I first took to the paths of knowledge.

About this time I began to be somewhat impressed with religious feelings. My parents were, to a certain extent, religious people; but, though they had done their best to afford me instruction on religious points, I had either paid no attention to what they endeavored to communicate, or had listened with an ear far too obtuse to derive any benefit. But my mind had now become awakened from the drowsy torpor in which it had lain so long, and the reasoning powers which I possessed were no longer inactive. Hitherto I had entertained no conception whatever of the nature and properties of God, and with the most perfect indifference had heard the divine name proceeding from the mouths of the people-frequently, alas! on occasions when it ought not to be employed; but I now never heard it without a tremor, for I now knew that God was an awful and inscrutable being, the maker of all things; that we were His children, and that we, by our sins, had justly offended Him; that we were in very great peril from His anger, not so much in this life as in another and far stranger state of being yet to come; that we had a Savior withal to whom it was necessary to look for help; upon this point, however, I was yet very much in the dark, as, indeed, were most of those with whom I was connected. The power and terrors of God were uppermost in my thoughts; they fascinated though they astounded me. Twice every Sunday I was regularly taken to church, where, from a corner of the large spacious pew, lined with black leather, I would fix my eyes on the dignified high-church rector, and the dignified highchurch clerk, and watch the movement of their lips, from which, as they read their respective portions of the venerable liturgy, would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.

RECTOR: "Thou didst divide the sea, through Thy power; Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters." PHILOH: "Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness."

RECTOR: "Thou broughtest out fountains and waters out of the hard rocks; Thou driedst up mighty waters."

PHILOH: "The day is Thine, and the night is Thine; Thou hast prepared the light and the sun."

Peace to your memories, dignified rector, and yet more dignified clerk! by this time ye are probably gone to your long homes, and your voices are no longer heard sounding down the aisles of the venerable church; nay, doubtless, this has already long since been the fate of him of the sonorous "Amen!"-the one of the two who, with all due respect to the rector, principally engrossed my boyish admiration-he, at least, is scarcely now among the living! Living! why, I have heard say that he blew a fife-for he was

a musical as well as a Christian professor-a bold fife, to cheer the Guards and the brave Marines as they marched with measured step, obeying an insane command, up Bunker's height, whilst the rifles of the sturdy Yankees were sending the leaden hall sharp and thick amidst the red-coated ranks; for Philoh had not always been a man of peace, nor an exhorter to turn the other cheek to the smiter, but had even arrived at the dignity of a halberd in his country's service before his six-foot form required rest, and the gray-haired veteran retired, after a long peregrination, to his native town, to enjoy ease and respectability on a pension of "eighteen pence a day;" and well did his fellowtownsmen act when, to increase that ease and respectabil-ity, and with a thoughtful regard for the dignity of the good church service, they made him clerk and precentor-the man of the tall form and of the audible voice, which sounded loud and clear as his own Bunker fife. Well, peace to thee, thou fine old chap, despiser of dissenters, and hater of papists, as became a dignified and high-church clerk; if thou art in thy grave the better for thee; thou wert fitted to adorn a bygone time, when loyalty was in vogue, and smiling content lay like a sunbeam upon the land, but thou wouldst be sadly out of place in these days of cold philosophical latitudinarian doctrine, universal tolerism, and half-concealed rebellion-rare times, no doubt, for papists and dissenters, but which would assuredly have broken the heart of the loyal soldier of George the Third, and the dignified highchurch clerk of pretty D.

We passed many months at this place; nothing, however, occurred requiring any particular notice, relating to myself, beyond what I have already stated, and I am not writing the history of others. At length my father was recalled to his regiment, which at that time was stationed at a place called Normon Cross, in Lincolnshire, or rather Huntingdonshire, at some distance from the old town of Peterborough. For this place he departed, leaving my mother and myself to follow in a few days. Our journey was a singular On the second day we reached a marshy and fenny country, which, owing to immense quantities of rain which had lately fallen, was completely submerged. At a large town we got on board a kind of passage-boat, crowded with people; it had neither sails nor oars, and those were not the days of steam-vessels; it was a treck-schuyt, and was drawn by horses.

one.

Young as I was, there was much connected with this journey which highly surprised me, and which brought to my remembrance particular scenes described in the book which I now generally carried in my bosom. The country was, as I have already said, submerged-entirely drowned -no land was visible; the trees were growing bolt upright in the flood, whilst farmhouses and cottages were standing insulated; the horses which drew us were up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and "greedy depths," were not unfrequently swimming, in which case the boys or urchins who mounted them sometimes stood, sometimes knelt, upon the saddle and pillions. No accident, however, occurred either to the quadrupeds or bipeds, who appeared respectively to be quite au fait in their business, and extricated themselves with the greatest ease from places in which Pharaoh and all his host would have gone to the bottom. Nightfall brought us to Peterborough, and from thence we were not slow in reaching the place of our destination.

TO BE CONTINUED.]

Thos. S. Skein, Annville, Pa., is anxious to get a complete set of THE CHAUTAUQUAN for last year. The publisher is able to furnish the required readings only for a part of the months. Any member of the Circle who will furnish the complete volume to Mr. Skein will confer a favor by communicating with him.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON MAN'S ANTIQUITY AND LANGUAGE, AND GENERAL HISTORY.

1. THE ANTIQUITY AND PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF MAN.

1. Q. What is the belief of the 'vast majority of Christian scholars as to the length of man's past existence on the earth? A. That there is no evidence within or without the Scripture records sufficient to prove it longer ago than four or five thousand years before the Christian era.

2. Q. How far back does reliable history, aside from the Mosaic record, trace the history of man? A. The monuments of the East take us back the farthest, and shed no light on known history beyond, at the utmost, 3,000 B. C. 3. Q. What is there in all the varnished stories of mythology to warrant the assumption of an immense antiquity for man? A. Nothing.

4. Q. What is now the prevailing opinion as to the cause of the diversity in form, size, color, and physiognomy of members of the human race? A. Differences of climate and modes of life, rather than a great antiquity, or a plurality of human species.

5. Q. How do the latest investigations of modern science, with all accumulated helps, serve to interpret the tenth chapter of Genesis? A. Only to verify and illustrate it.

6. Q. To what do the latest results of comparative philology strongly point? A. To a common origin, not very remote, of the entire human family.

7. Q. In what are we told that human fossils are found imbedded in such positions as to require us to believe they were deposited ages ago? A. River beds, caves, peat bogs, shell mounds, and stone monuments.

8. Q. From these geological evidences what are some of the estimates that have been made as to the period of man's first appearance? A. Mr. Jukes, one hundred thousand years ago; Dr. Hunt, nine million years ago; Prof. Huxley, hundreds of millions of years ago.

9. Q. What are the characteristics of the Somme Valley of France, that are adduced to show the great antiquity of man? A. At the bottom, a bed of peat twenty-five to thirty feet thick, and below that deposits of gravel and sand in which bones of extinct animals and rude flint implements are found.

10. Q. What answer is made to the argument from these deposits? A. The peat is forest peat of modern formation, containing Roman relics at all depths; immense land freshets rapidly deposited the gravel beds in one formation; and the remains of mammoths do not evidence a vast antiquity.

11. Q. What fertile sources of evidence touching prehistoric man are found chiefly in England, France, and Germany? A. Caves, in which human remains and relics have been discovered along with those of extinct animals.

12. Q. What is one of the most famous of these caverns? A. Kent's Cavern, on the Coast of Devonshire, England.

13. Q. What is the conclusion of Dr. Dawson as to the history of this cave and others resembling it? A. Such histories may at any time be contradicted, or modified by new facts, and too much value should not be attached to them.

14. Q. What is said of the contents of lake dwellings of Switzerland and elsewhere? A. They contain nothing that is necessarily ancient.

15. Q. Upon what does the argument for the antiquity of the Danish shell mounds rest? A. The unpolished character of the flint implements found among them, and the absence of metal.

16. Q. What is one of the facts given in contradiction of this argument? A. The use in the seventeenth century of precisely similar implements by the Indians of New Jersey and Canada.

17. Q. What facts are given that effectually oppose a conclusion of great antiquity for the stone monuments found in Great Britain, Germany, France, and other parts of Europe? A. Excavations reveal relics of Roman and Christian times. 18. Q. What general statement is made in reference to human skulls and skeletons found in positions supposed to import vast antiquity? A. In no one instance has there been adduced a well authenticated case in which the facts would warrant a conclusion of very remote antiquity.

19. Q. What age does the reckoning of Dr. Andrews make the Tiniere Cone, which M. Marlot estimates as of ten thousand years? A. The entire mass, at the most, only 4,500 years old.

20. Q. In what way was the calculation of Mr. Horner that a piece of pottery he found at Memphis, Egypt, at a depth of thirty-nine feet, had been buried thirteen thousand years, set at naught? A. By the discovery, in the delta of the Nile, at a greater depth, of a brick bearing the stamp of Mohammed Ali.

21. Q. According to the most recent calculations, at what time was the termination of the glacial age in the north of Europe, and on the basins of the North American lakes? A. It need not have been much over five thousand years ago.

22. Q. What are some of the wide gaps evolution needs to fill up before it can be accepted as accounting for the origin of man? A. The gaps that separate man and the ape, vegetable and animal life, and living organism and inert matter. 23. Q. In what other essential point does evolution also fail? A. In accounting for the origin of matter.

24. Q. What is said of all the evidences of the primitive condition of man? A. None show that he was originally a savage. The most ancient nations of which we have any reliable history were highly civilized.

25. Q. What is said of the Biblical account of man's primitive condition and subsequent degeneracy? A. It is confirmed by the traditions of many nations, and is every way compatible with reason and all known facts of human history derivable from other quarters.

II. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.

26. Q. How is one's native language acquired. A. By experience and intercourse with others, and study under similar conditions.

27. Q. What is said of the English language of three hundred years ago? A. No one to-day speaks it.

28. Q. What amount of study does it require to understand the Anglo-Saxon of the time of the Norman conquest? A. As much as to learn to read French or German.

29. Q. How many new words have new inventions introduced into our language within one hundred years? A. A thousand.

30. Q. How many words do Shakspere and Milton use of the more than eighty thousand of the English language? A. Shakspere uses only fifteen thousand, and Milton less than ten thousand.

31. Q. What has followed the compiling of a dictionary of the language of certain American Indian tribes by missionaries? A. Their language changed so rapidly that in ten years such a dictionary would become antiquated and worthless.

32. Q. To what language of a thousand years ago do we trace back English? A. The Anglo-Saxon.

33. Q. Mention three other languages that belong to the same group with English. A. German, Swedish, and Russian.

34. Q. What four languages form the Romanic group of

the same family? A. Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

35. Q. Name four other languages belonging to this same family. A. Greek, Persian, Zend, and Sanscrit.

36. Q. What is this great family to which these several groups belong commonly called? A. Indo-European.

37. Q. Mention four of the languages belonging to the Semitic family. A. The Hebrew, the Phoenician, the Syriac, and the Arabic.

A.

38. Q. What literature does the Hebrew possess? The oldest and grandest; the sacred Scriptures of the race of Abraham.

39. Q. What is said of the extent of the Arabic literature, the language of the Koran? A. It contains vast libraries of poetry and philosophy, history and fable, science and religion.

40. Q. What are some of the related languages that belong to the Turanian family? A. The languages of the Laplanders, Finns, Hungarians, and Turks in Europe, and tribes of northern and central Asia.

41. Q. What are some of the languages that belong to none of the families mentioned? A. The Japanese and the Chinese tongues, and the numerous dialects of the native tribes of America, Africa, and the islands of the Pacific.

42. Q. In order to develop, perfect and preserve a language, what seems absolutely necessary? A. The art of writing.

43. Q. So far as any direct or collateral evidence bears on the subject to what time is the origin of writing to be referred? A. To the most remote antiquity.

44. Q. What is the most plausible supposition as to the manner in which the art of writing was first invented? A. That it began with the carving of rude pictures.

45. Q. What is the responsive theory that has been advanced to show how men might have taught themselves to speak? A. That man was originally gifted with a creative faculty which spontaneously gave a name to each distinct conception as it first thrilled through his brain.

46. Q. What is the onomatopoetic theory of the origin of speech? A. That the earliest names of objects and actions were produced by imitation of natural sounds.

47. Q. What is the interjectional theory of the origin of spoken language? A. That exclamations uttered in moments of emotions are the ultimate elements of speech.

48. Q. How have these several theories been characterized? A. As the ding-dong theory, bow-wow theory, and the pooh-pooh theory.

49. Q. What is the only logical inference of science as to the origin of language? A. That the first man was assisted to speak by a superior intelligence, by living long enough in his society, and learning as a child learns.

50. Q. State some characteristic facts connected with the existence of language and writing? A. Written language alone makes history possible; language and writing are essential factors in all civilization; languages are an index of national character.

[ocr errors]

III. GENERAL HISTORY.

51. Q. Into what three divisions is the history of the world often divided? A. Ancient, mediæval, and modern.

52. Q. What period does ancient history comprise? A. From the creation of man, B. C. 4,004, to the subversion of the Western Empire of the Romans, A. D. 476, nearly four thousand and five hundred years.

53. Q. What period is embraced by medieval history? A. From the subversion of the Western Empire of the Romans, A. D. 476, to the end of the Eastern Empire, A. D. 1453, nearly a thousand years.

54. Q. What period is included in modern history? A. From the end of the Eastern Empire of the Romans to the present time, about four and a quarter centuries.

55. Q. The ancient period is how many times as long as the modern period? A. More than ten times as long. 56. Q. By what four great monarchies is ancient history distinguished? A. Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome.

57. Q. By what were the Middle Ages characterized? A. The origin and progress of Mohammedanism and the Saracen Empire, the Feudal System, the Crusades, and Chivalry. 58. Q. What are some of the most distinguishing features of modern history? A. Discoveries and explorations, inventions, revival of learning, reformation in religion and governments, and wide diffusion of intelligence among the

masses.

59. Q. What is meant by sacred history? A. The history contained in the Scripture.

60. What is the meaning of profane history? A. The history of ancient heathen nations.

61. Q. Where are the records of profane history chiefly found? A. In the writings of the Greeks and Romans.

62. Q. What populous communities were so little known to the Greek and Roman writers that they are beyond the range of ancient history? A. Those of India, China, and Japan.

63. Q. Who was the earliest profane historian whose works are extant? A. Herodotus.

64. Q. When was his history written? A. About four hundred and fifty years before Christ.

65. Q. How far back of the time when it was composed does his history extend? A. About two hundred and fifty years.

66. Q. For the history of the world during the ages preceding about seven hundred years before the Christian era upon what do we almost wholly depend? A. The Bible.

67. Q. What are some of the most important events recorded in the Bible previous to the commencement of the records of profane history? A. The creation, the fall, the deluge, the dispersion, the planting of the different nations, the call of Abraham, and the history of the Israelites.

68. Q. By whom and where was the earliest known attempt made to form a settled community? A. By the sons of Noah, at Babel, after the flood.

69. Q. Into what three divisions may the nations of ancient history be divided? A. Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic, descended from the sons of Noah respectively, as they separated after the confusion of tongues at Babel.

70. Q. What were three principal Semitic nations? A. Assyrians, Hebrews, and Arabs.

71. Q. What were three prominent Hamitic nations? A. Chaldæans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians.

72. Q. Into what two great classes are the Japhetic nations divided? A. Asiatic Aryans, and European Aryans.

73. Q. In what has the active intellect of the Aryan race made it the leader? A. Art. literature and laws.

74. Q. Mention four ancient nations of the Aryan race. A. Persians, Greeks, Romans and Germans.

75. Q. At the close of the period of ancient history, what race became predominant in Europe, and overthrew the Roman Empire of the West? A. The German race.

76. Q. Into what two periods may mediæval history be divided? A. The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages.

77. Q. What period is included in the Dark Ages? A. The first six hundred years, when the destructive passions of men were in ascendency.

78. Q. What is meant by the Middle Ages? A. The last four hundred years of the medieval period, when the tendencies to order and civilization had gained strength.

79. Q. What barbarous nations from the north possessed themselves of the middle and south of Europe at the beginning of the Dark Ages? A. The Goths, Vandals and Huns. 80. Q. What is said of learning in the Dark Ages? A. It

had almost wholly disappeared from among the laity, and the clergy alone could read and write.

81. Q. Mention five names prominent in the history of the Dark Ages. A. Justinian, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire; Mohammed, founder of Mohammedanism; Haroun al Raschid, Caliph at Bagdad; Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks; and Alfred the Great, King of England.

82. Q. In less than a hundred years from the time of Mohammed, what countries did the Saracen Empire embrace? A. Persia, Syria, Asia Minor, Arabia, Egypt, Northern Africa, and Spain.

83. Q. What was the Feudal System in force largely in Europe during the Dark Ages? A. A system under which lands were held by military service and homage to the chief or king who granted them.

84. Q. What were the Crusades of the Middle Ages? A. Military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers of Europe for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mohamme

dans.

85. Q. What were the two great powers of Europe during the Middle Ages? A. The Church and the Roman Empire, often at deadly strife.

86. Q. What were the three great Universities of the Middle Ages? A. The schools of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford.

87. Q. What three important events mark the dawn of the era of modern history? A. The invention of gunpowder, the invention of printing, and the discovery of America.

88. Q. What countries of Europe took the lead in the maritime discoveries and commercial enterprise of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? A. Portugal and Spain.

89. Q. By what countries were they succeeded in maritime enterprise and activity? A. By the Netherlands, Holland, and England, which became in turn the most commercial states in Europe.

90. Q. What are the five most powerful states in Europe at the present time? A. England, France, Germany, Russia and Austria.

91. Q. From what time does the history of the French monarchy date? A. The latter part of the fifth century. 92. Q. In 1871 what form of government was proclaimed in France for the third time in its history? A. A Republic. 93. Q. What is the farthest back any of the other sovereignties of Europe can trace their origin? A. To the commencement of the ninth century.

94. Q. From what time does the present German empire date its existence? A. 1872.

95. Q. The histories of what two European governments are intimately connected, and are the most important to Americans? A. England and France.

96. Q. What was the great event of the sixteenth century? A. The separation of the most of the northern nations of Europe from the Roman Church, and the result in the Reformation.

97. Q. Who was the great leader in the Reformation? A. Martin Luther.

C. L. S. C. NOTES AND LETTERS.

A C. L. S. C. student says: "In the dining room I have a library chair. It was thought too shabby for use, and had been banished for years. I returned it from exile, and covered it with cretonne, and the desk with oil cloth, and dedicated it to Chautauqua. In the drawer underneath are my books. Whenever I have a moment to myself I read them there."

The art students of the Chautauqua Course will always be glad to hear anything from Prof. J. L. Corning. We quote from a letter to Dr. Vincent the following information in regard to pictures of ancient cities: Professor Corning says: "I suppose I. Levy & Company, 113 Boulevard Sebastopol, Paris, France, has the most extensive list of slides of ancient cities. The size is just about three inches, and of course they could easily supply photographs from their negatives. I append a hints from their catalogue: (1) All the architectural relics of Rome. (2) All the architectural relics of Tivoli. (3) All the architectural relics of Pompeii. (4) All the architectural relics of Poestum. (5) All the architectural relics of Syracuse. (6) All the architectural relics of Athens. (7) All the architectural relics of Egypt (Alexandria, Cairo, Beni-Hassan, Luxor, Karnak, Thebes, etc., etc.) (8) All the architectural relics of Baalbek. For photographs I would consult catalogue of John P. Soule, Art Publisher, 338 Washington street, Boston, Mass. A few views can be found of ancient cities in his collection. I suppose the best illustrated works on ancient cities are published in Germany. . . I doubt not many electrotypes could be procured at moderate figures of Hallberger, of Stuttgart; Sumann, Leipzig; Wachsmuth, Berlin; Neff, Stuttgart."

A young man from Boston, twenty-two years of age, clerk in a dry goods house, canvassing the question of withdrawing from business that he may secure a college education, says: "I have been a member of the C. L. S. C. for one year. This is a wonderful encouragement, and has really awakened me. I am happy in reading, and send my papers this week. Aside from business hours, and my almost daily study of Latin, my time is very short, but I use every second in perfect enjoyment, looking into the Chautauqua studies."

Members of the Circle do not forget to speak good words for THE CHAUTAUQUAN. We quote from a number of letters before us, as follows: "THE CHAUTAUQUAN is highly prized by the Circle. Each issue is an improvement on the previous. It is a literary triumph, and full of good things." A New England member writes, "THE CHAUTAUQUAN improves with age. I should like to thank the gentleman who conceived the bright idea of those one hundred questions and answers we are having. It is such a help in fixing

98. Q. By what European nations were the principal things in our minds." A member writes from Minnesota:

early discoveries and settlements in America made? A. Spanish, English, French and Dutch.

99. Q. Following the Revolution, when was the independence of the United States acknowledged by Great Britain? A. In 1783.

100. Q. Who was the first President of the United States, and who is the present one? A. George Washington was the first, and Chester A. Arthur is the present.

The class of 1885 is rapidly increasing in membership. Thousands of circulars and blanks have been sent from the Plainfield office to those asking for information. There is yet time to join the ranks the present year, as applications for membership will be received until the 1st of January, 1882.

"I am delighted with THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The only thing that troubles me is that being the only subscriber in our pleasant little village, I have to lend them to so many of my friends that they come back all worn out, and I find that I need to re-read them also." A member writes from the State of New York: "I think THE CHAUTAUQUAN is grand. It contains so much instructive reading that it seems to give one a glimpse into each corner of this great universe of ours. I can not help wishing everybody could or would read it."

We have had circles and triangles in the C. L. S. C. work, and now comes a letter from a member in Alabama, telling of a straight line. She writes to Dr. Vincent as follows:

"I want to thank you for the C. L. S. C., which has opened to me such a new and wonderful source of pleasure and improvement, and to tell you how lonely I feel away down | here in the back woods, among the mountains of North Alabama, prosecuting the studies all alone. I have tried to organize a local circle, but failed, owing to the fact that there is so little accessible material of which to form one. We could not even form a triangle, as they did in Michigan, but only a straight line extending from me to my neighbor over the hills; and so far as I know, she and I are the only members in Alabama; but perhaps in thinking so I am as greatly mistaken as the prophet Elijah when he said, ‘and I, even I only, am left.""

The intellectual and moral influence the circle has on the homes of its members finds frequent illustration in the letters that come to Dr. Vincent. We have before us two letters of this character, one from Michigan and one from New York, and we make the following quotations: "My little boy, who is barely eleven years old, was very much interested in reading aloud to me Ridpath's History of the United States, during the long winter evenings, and I was equally interested in more fully explaining much of it to him. I read aloud to him from 'Cyrus and Alexander,' last fall. He was greatly delighted with Alexander at first, but finally

made his own observation that 'when a man grew to have so much power he would be almost certain to use it wrong, and ruin himself as well as injure others.' I anticipate much pleasure and profit in reading and talking about the books of the entire course with my boy in the future, as we have time and opportunity, and I feel so grateful for the course myself. I feel it will make me more useful as a

Temple. On the same page it mentions him passing through New Inn. On page 301 we read where Sir Roger and the Spectator look back upon London and Temple-Bar. Now I think to the majority of readers those words are only names of places, and so they are; but upon an investigation each is discovered with a hidden history. I find in my 'memory library' a book read March 12-21, 1878, entitled 'Patty Grey's Journey,' by Caroline H. Dall, published 1870, from which I had copied the following extracts, page 114:

"INNER TEMPLE.-A great law school; one of the inns of court in London. Two or three hundred years ago an inn meant a great family house, and great professors had classes and taught law in their own houses, and at last when the classes crowded out the professors and their little children they called the houses inns of court.

"TEMPLE.-There are four large schools in London-Lincoln's Inn, Grey's Inn, and the Inner and Middle Temple. The King of Jerusalem gave the old knights who went to the crusades a home near the Temple, and so they came to be called Templars. At last they grew rich and spread all over the world. They had their houses in London, the old Temple-which has been pulled down-and the Inner and Middle Temple, which the lawyers bought for law colleges.

"TEMPLE-BAR.-A gate in the old wall of the city, near these very temples. The wall was Roman, almost two thousand years old, but the gate was the work of Sir Christopher Wren, not quite two hundred years ago."

things in reserve that might prove interesting to the readers This correspondent intimates that she has many more

of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. We trust that she will not keep them all to herself, but that the members of the Circle may have further opportunities to learn of her methods of classi

teacher, and especially better prepared to guide and help fying and rendering more available the results of her read

my boy in forming his tastes, developing his character, and informing his mind." From the other letter we take this extract: "This reading has been the source of untold comfort to me. It is so pleasing to learn something of those studies I have always longed to understand. Although I get but a little, still that is a pleasure, and I hope will be profitable. Truly it may be to my grandchildren. A little boy four years old tells a number of constellations at sight, and says he never will be satisfied till he can learn Pegasus. He is asking for 'a 'zervatory' on the house, and a telescope. Physiology is very interesting to him. He asks where is the 'tonograph' line that tells his head when he hurts his hand, and is the part situated in the head or heart that goes to heaven to live with Jesus when we die? For such reasons I cannot give up the course, unless actually compelled by failing health."

A member of the C. L. S. C., whose educational enthusiasm takes a methodical shape worthy of wide imitation, writes as follows: "Since 1874 I have kept a list of every book I have read, the date of reading, the author's name, the publishers, and date of publishing, and what is most important, all items of special information, or anything I desired especially to remember. It is all in one nice large blank book, with ruled pages, so smooth and clear it tempts one's pen to write. I can date many an improvement of mind back to the first page of that book. You will not wonder that I call it my 'memory library' within two covers. You know it is not time most people would need for such a plan, but an incentive, and an inclination to benefit themselves and others. My incentive was a book, 'How to Do It,' by Edward Everett Hale, 1872. It is the first book on the list, and from it are taken extracts as to the best way to read, etc. And now, here is a point to the plan. See April CHAUTAUQUAN, page 300, in extracts from The Spectator, we read of a person who is a member of the Inner

ing and study.

LOCAL CIRCLES.*

Fifty-two new local circles have reported organization this year and others are coming. There is room enough for thousands more.- -Dr. S. Stewart, President of the Big Grove, Iowa, local circle, writes: "Our little circle numbers about a dozen of good, faithful workers, and most of us hope to come to Chautauqua next year to receive our degree, if we are deemed worthy to have it conferred on us."—Members of the C. L. S. C., whether belonging to local circles or not, are not required to send answers to "Questions for further study." The failure to send answers will in no wise affect the standing of any member in the circle. The responses to the request to send answers are to be considered as entirely voluntary. The questions have evidently widened the research of a good many members, and have been, we trust, productive of corresponding good.—One of the members of the local circle in Calcutta, India, writes: "We all hope that the day is not far distant when India will have a local circle wherever an American missionary is sent.”—Mr. I. E. James, Pittston, Pa, says: "I have been collecting coal plants for several years, and if you know of any members of the circle who wish to exchange either minerals, fossils, or objects of natural history for coal plants, please refer them I can furnish from two hundred to three hundred

to me. pounds."

For this month the Memorial Day comes on Friday, the 9th-"Milton's Day." It will not be forgotten by loyal members of the C. L. S. C. The life and works of Milton afford grand themes for a special meeting of local circles.

* All communications from local circles intended for THE CHAUTAUQUAN, should be addressed to Albert M. Martin, General Secretary of the C. L. S. C., Pittsburgh, Pa.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »