{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18936/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18936","id":"gutenberg_18936","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18936","summary":null,"tags":["Alfred, King of England, 849-899","Arnold, Thomas, 1795-1842","Benedict, Saint, Abbot of Monte Cassino","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Confucius","Eddy, Mary Baker, 1821-1910","Erasmus, Desiderius, -1536","Fr\u00f6bel, Friedrich, 1782-1852","Hypatia, -415","Moses (Biblical leader)","Plato","Pythagoras and Pythagorean school","Teachers -- Biography","Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Little\n  Journeys\n  To the Homes of Great Teachers\n\n\n  Elbert Hubbard\n\n\n  Memorial Edition\n\n\n\n\n  Printed and made into a Book by\n  The Roycrofters, who are in East\n  Huron, Erie County, New York\n\n  Wm. H. Wise & Co.\n  New York\n\n  Copyright, 1916,\n  By The Roycrofters\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS\n\n\n  MOSES                                                                9\n\n  CONFUCIUS                                                           41\n\n  PYTHAGORAS                                                          69\n\n  PLATO                                                               97\n\n  KING ALFRED                                                        123\n\n  ERASMUS                                                            149\n\n  BOOKER T. WASHINGTON                                               183\n\n  THOMAS ARNOLD                                                      217\n\n  FRIEDRICH FROEBEL                                                  245\n\n  HYPATIA                                                            269\n\n  SAINT BENEDICT                                                     293\n\n  MARY BAKER EDDY                                                    327\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: MOSES]\n\nMOSES\n\n\n    And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt\n    thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.\n    And God said, moreover, unto Moses: Thus shalt thou say unto the\n    children of Israel, The Lord God of your Fathers, the God of\n    Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto\n    you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all\n    generations.\n\n    --_Exodus iii: 14, 15_\n\n\nMOSES\n\nMoses was the world's first great teacher. He is still one of the\nworld's great teachers. Seven million people yet look to his laws for\nspecial daily guidance, and more than two hundred millions read his\nbooks and regard them as Holy Writ. And these people as a class are of\nthe best and most enlightened who live now or who have ever lived.\n\nMoses did not teach of a life after this--he gives no hint of\nimmortality--all of his rewards and punishments refer to the present. If\nthere is a heaven for the good and a hell for the bad, he did not know\nof them.\n\nThe laws of Moses were designed for the Now and the Here. Many of them\nring true and correct even today, after all this interval of more than\nthree thousand years. Moses had a good knowledge of physiology, hygiene,\nsanitation. He knew the advantages of cleanliness, order, harmony,\nindustry and good habits. He also knew psychology, or the science of the\nmind: he knew the things that influence humanity, the limits of the\naverage intellect, the plans and methods of government that will work\nand those which will not.\n\nHe was practical. He did what was expedient. He considered the material\nwith which he had to deal, and he did what he could and taught that\nwhich his people would and could believe. The Book of Genesis was\nplainly written for the child-mind.\n\nThe problem that confronted Moses was one of practical politics, not a\nquestion of philosophy or of absolute or final truth. The laws he put\nforth were for the guidance of the people to whom he gave them, and his\nprecepts were such as they could assimilate.\n\nIt were easy to take the writings of Moses as they have come down to us,\ntranslated, re-translated, colored and tinted with the innocence,\nignorance and superstition of the nations who have kept them alive for\nthirty-three centuries, and then compile a list of the mistakes of the\noriginal writer. The writer of these records of dreams and hopes and\nguesses, all cemented with stern commonsense, has our profound reverence\nand regard. The \"mistakes\" lie in the minds of the people who, in the\nface of the accumulated knowledge of the centuries, have persisted that\nthings once written were eternally sufficient.\n\nIn point of time there is no teacher within many hundred years following\nhim who can be compared with him in originality and insight.\n\nMoses lived fourteen hundred years before Christ.\n\nThe next man after him to devise a complete code of conduct was Solon,\nwho lived seven hundred years after. A little later came Zoroaster, then\nConfucius, Buddha, Lao-tsze, Pericles, Socrates, Plato,\nAristotle--contemporaries, or closely following each other, their\nphilosophy woven and interwoven by all and each and each by all.\n\nMoses, however, stands out alone. That he did not know natural history\nas did Aristotle, who lived a thousand years later, is not to his\ndiscredit, and to emphasize the fact were irrelevant.\n\nBack of it all lies the undisputed fact that Moses led a barbaric people\nout of captivity and so impressed his ideals and personality upon them\nthat they endure as a distinct and peculiar people, even unto this day.\nHe founded a nation. And chronologically he is the civilized world's\nfirst author.\n\nMoses was a soldier, a diplomat, an executive, a writer, a teacher, a\nleader, a prophet, a stonecutter. Beside all these he was a farmer--a\nworkingman, one who when forty years of age tended flocks and herds for\na livelihood. Every phase of the outdoor life of the range was familiar\nto him. And the greatness of the man is revealed in the fact that his\nplans and aspirations were so far beyond his achievements that at last\nhe thought he had failed. Exultant success seems to go with that which\nis cheap and transient. All great teachers have, in their own minds,\nbeen failures--they saw so much further than they were able to travel.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll ancient chronology falls easily into three general divisions: the\nfabulous, the legendary, and the probable or natural.\n\nIn the understanding of history, psychology is quite as necessary as\nphilology.\n\nTo reject anything that has a flaw in it is quite as bad as to have that\nexcess of credulity which swallows everything presented.\n\nIt is not necessary to throw away the fabulous nor deny the legendary.\nBut it is certainly not wise to construe the fabulous as the actual and\nmaintain the legendary as literally true. Things may be true\nallegorically and false literally, and to be able to distinguish the one\nfrom the other, and prize each in its proper place, is the mark of\nwisdom.\n\nIf, however, we were asked to describe the man Moses to a jury of sane,\nsensible, intelligent and unprejudiced men and women, and show why he is\nworthy of the remembrance of mankind, we would have to eliminate the\nfabulous, carefully weigh the traditional, and rest our argument upon\nrecords that are fair, sensible and reasonably free from dispute.\n\nThe conclusions of professional retainers, committed before they begin\ntheir so-called investigations to a literal belief in the fabulous,\nshould be accepted with great caution. For them to come to conclusions\noutside of that which they have been taught, is not only to forfeit\ntheir social position, but to lose their actual means of livelihood.\nPerhaps the truth in the final summing up can best be gotten from those\nwho have made no vows that they will not change their opinions, and have\nnothing to lose if they fail occasionally to gibe with the popular.\n\nOn a certain occasion after Colonel Ingersoll had delivered his famous\nlecture entitled, \"Some Mistakes of Moses,\" he was entertained by a\nlocal club. At the meeting, which was of the usual informal kind known\nas \"A Dutch Feed,\" a young lawyer made bold to address the great orator\nthus: \"Colonel Ingersoll, you are a lover of freedom--with you the word\nliberty looms large. All great men love liberty, and no man lives in\nhistory, respected and revered, save as he has sought to make men free.\nMoses was a lover of liberty. Now, wouldn't it be gracious and generous\nin you to give Moses, who in some ways was in the same business as\nyourself, due credit as a liberator and law-giver and not emphasize his\nmistakes to the total exclusion of his virtues?\"\n\nColonel Ingersoll listened--he was impressed by the fairness of the\nquestion. He listened, paused and replied: \"Young man, you have asked a\nreasonable question, and all you suggest about the greatness of Moses,\nin spite of his mistakes, is well taken. The trouble in your logic lies\nin the fact that you do not understand my status in this case. You seem\nto forget that I am not the attorney for Moses. He has more than two\nmillion men looking after his interests. I am retained on the other\nside!\"\n\nLike unto Colonel Ingersoll, I am not an attorney for Moses. I desire,\nhowever, to give a fair, clear and judicial account of the man. I will\nattempt to present a brief for the people, and neither prosecute nor\ndefend. I will simply try to picture the man as he once existed, nothing\nextenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. As the original office of\nthe State's Attorney was rather to protect the person at the bar than to\nindict him, so will I try to bring out the best in Moses, rather than\nhold up his mistakes and raise a laugh by revealing his ignorance.\nModesty, which is often egotism turned wrong side out, might here say,\n\"Oh, Moses requires no defense at this late day!\" But Moses, like all\ngreat men, has suffered at the hands of his friends. To this man has\nbeen attributed powers which no human being ever possessed.\n\nMoses lived thirty-three hundred years ago. In one sense thirty-three\ncenturies is a very long time. All is comparative--children regard a man\nof fifty as \"awful old.\" I have seen several persons who have lived a\nhundred years, and they didn't consider a century long, \"and thirty-five\nisn't anything,\" said one of them to me.\n\nGeologically, thirty-three centuries is only an hour ago. It does not\nnearly take us back to the time when men of the Stone Age hunted the\nhairy mammoth in what is now Nebraska, nor does thirty-three centuries\ngive us any glimpse of the time when tropical animals, plants and\nprobably men lived and flourished at the North Pole.\n\nEgyptian civilization, at the time of Moses, was more than three\nthousand years old. Egypt was then in the first stage of senility,\nentering upon her decline, for her best people had settled in the\ncities, and this completes the cycle and spells deterioration. She had\npassed through the savage, barbaric, nomadic and agricultural stages and\nwas living on her unearned increment, a part of which was Israelitish\nlabor. Moses looked at the Pyramids, which were built more than a\nthousand years before his birth, and asked in wonder about who built\nthem, very much as we do today. He listened for the Sphinx to answer,\nbut she was silent, then as now. The date of the exodus has been fixed\nas having probably occurred during the reign of the Great Pharaoh,\nMineptah, or the nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The date is, say, fourteen\nhundred years before Christ. An inscription has recently been found\nwhich seems to show that Joseph settled in Egypt during the reign of\nMineptah, but the best scholars now have gone back to the conclusions I\nhave stated.\n\nAt the time of the Pharaohs, Egypt was the highest civilized country on\nearth. It had a vast system of canals, an organized army, a goodly\ndegree of art, and there were engineers and builders of much ability.\nPhilosophy, poetry and ethics were recognized, prized and discussed.\n\nThe storage of grain by the government to bank against famine had been\npractised for several hundred years. There were also treasure-cities\nbuilt to guard against fire, thieves or destruction by the elements. It\nwill thus be seen that foresight, thrift, caution, wisdom, played their\nparts. The Egyptians were not savages.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbout five hundred years before the birth of Moses there lived in Arabia\na powerful Sheik or Chief, known as Abraham. This man had a familiar\nspirit, or guide, or guardian-angel known as Yaveh or Jehovah. All of\nthe desert tribes had such tutelary gods; and all of these gods were\nonce men of power who lived on earth. The belief in special gods has\noften been held by very great men: Socrates looked to his \"demon\" for\nguidance; Themistocles consulted his oracle; a President of the United\nStates visited a clairvoyant, who consented to act as a medium and\ninterpret the supernatural. This idea, which is a variant of ancestor\nworship, still survives, and very many good people do not take journeys\nor make investments until they believe they are being dictated to by\nShakespeare, Emerson, Beecher or Phillips Brooks. These people also\nbelieve that there are bad spirits to which we must not harken.\n\nAbraham was led by Jehovah; what Jehovah told him to do he did; when\nJehovah told him to desist or change his plans, he obeyed. Jehovah\npromised him many things, and some of these promises were fulfilled.\n\nWhether these tutelary gods or controlling spirits had any actual\nexistence outside of the imagination of the people who believed in\nthem--whether they were merely pictures thrown upon the screen by a\nsubconscious spiritual stereopticon--is not the question now under\ndiscussion. Something must be left for a later time: the fact remains\nthat special providences are yet relied upon by sincere and intelligent\npeople.\n\nAbraham had a son named Isaac. And Isaac was the father of Jacob, or\nIsrael, \"the Soldier of God,\" so called on account of his successful\nwrestling with the angel. And Jacob was the father of twelve sons. All\nof these people believed in Jehovah, the god of their tribe; and while\nthey did not disbelieve in the gods of the neighboring tribes, they yet\ndoubted their power and had grave misgivings as to their honesty.\nTherefore, they had nothing to do with them, praying to their own god\nonly and looking to him for support. They were the chosen people of\nJehovah, just as the Babylonians were the chosen people of Baal; the\nCanaanites the chosen people of Ishitar; the Moabites the chosen people\nof Chemos; the Ammonites the chosen people of Rimmon.\n\nNow Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, and his brethren were\nnaturally jealous of him. So one day out on the range they sold him into\nslavery to a passing caravan, and went home and told their father the\nboy was dead, having been killed by a wild beast. To make the matter\nplausible they took the coat of Joseph and smeared it with the blood of\na goat which they had killed. Nowadays, the coat would have been sent to\na chemist's laboratory and the blood-spots tested to see whether it was\nthe blood of beast or human. But Jacob believed the story and mourned\nhis son as dead.\n\nNow Joseph was taken to Egypt and there arose to a position of influence\nand power through his intelligence and diligence. How eventually his\nbrethren, starving, came to him for food, there being a famine in their\nown land, is one of the most natural and beautiful stories in all\nliterature. It is a folklore legend, free from the fabulous, and has all\nthe corroborating marks of the actual.\n\nFor us it is history undisputed, unrefuted, because it is so natural. It\ncould all easily happen in various parts of the world even now. It shows\nthe identical traits of human nature that are alive and pulsing today.\n\nJoseph having made himself known to his brethren induced some of them\nand their neighbors to come down into Egypt, where the pasturage was\nbetter and the water more sure, and settle there. The Bible tells us\nthat there were seventy of these settlers and gives us their names.\n\nThese emigrants, called Israelites, or Children of Israel, account for\nthe presence of the enslaved people whom Moses led out of captivity\nthree hundred years later.\n\nOne thing seems quite sure, and that is that they were a peculiar people\nthen, with the pride of the desert in their veins, for they stood\nsocially aloof and did not mix with the Egyptians. They still had their\nown god and clung to their own ways and customs.\n\nThat very naive account in the first chapter of Exodus of how they had\ntwo midwives, \"and the name of one was Shiphrah and the other Puah,\" is\nas fine in its elusive exactitude as an Uncle Remus story. Children\nalways want to know the names of people. These two Hebrew midwives were\nbribed by the King of Egypt--ruler over twenty million people--in\nperson, to kill all the Hebrew boy babies. Then the account states that\nJehovah was pleased with these Hebrew women who proved false to their\nmaster, and Jehovah rewarded them by giving them houses.\n\nThis order to kill the Hebrew children must have gone into execution, if\nat all, about the time of the birth of Moses, because Aaron, the brother\nof Moses, and three years older, certainly was not killed.\n\nWhether Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, his father an\nIsraelite, or both of his parents were Israelites, is problematic. Royal\nfamilies are not apt to adopt an unknown waif into the royal household\nand bring him up as their royal own, especially if this waif belongs to\nwhat is regarded as an inferior race. The tie of motherhood is the only\none that could over-rule caste and override prejudice. If the daughter\nof Pharaoh, or more properly \"the Pharaoh,\" were the mother of Moses,\nshe had a better reason for hiding him in the bulrushes than did the\ndaughter of a Levite, for the order to kill these profitable workers is\nextremely doubtful. The strength, skill and ability of the Israelites\nformed a valuable acquisition to the Egyptians, and what they wanted was\nmore Israelites, not fewer.\n\nJudging from the statement that there were only two midwives, there were\nonly a few hundred Israelites--perhaps between one and two thousand, at\nmost.\n\nSo leaving the legend of the childhood of Moses with just enough mystery\nmixed in it to give it a perpetual piquancy, we learn that he was\nbrought up an Egyptian, as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and that it\nwas she who gave him his name.\n\nPhilo and Josephus give various sidelights on the life and character of\nMoses. The Midrash or Commentaries on the History of the Jews, composed,\nadded to or modified by many men, extending over a period of twenty\ncenturies, also add their weight, even though the value of these\nCommentaries is conjectural.\n\nEgyptian accounts of Moses and the Israelites come to us through\nHellenic sources, and very naturally are not complimentary. These\npicture Moses, or Osarsiph, as they call him, as an agitator, an\nundesirable citizen, who sought to overturn the government, and failing\nin this, fled to the desert with a few hundred outlaws. They managed to\nhold out against the forces sent to capture them, were gradually added\nto by other refugees, and through the organizing genius of Moses were\nrounded into a strong tribe.\n\nThat Moses was their supreme ruler, and that to better hold his people\nin check he devised a religious ritual for them, and impressed his god,\nJehovah, upon them, almost to the exclusion of all other gods, and thus\nformed them into a religious whole, is beyond question. No matter what\nthe cause of the uprising, or who was to blame for it, the fact is\nundisputed that Moses led a revolt in Egypt, and the people he carried\nwith him in this exodus formed the nucleus of the Hebrew Nation. And\nfurther, the fact is beyond dispute that the personality of Moses was\nthe prime cementing factor in the making of the nation. The power,\npoise, patience and unwavering self-reliance of the man, through his\nfaith in the god Jehovah, are all beyond dispute. Things happen because\nthe man makes them happen.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe position of the Israelites in Egypt was one of voluntary vassalage.\nThe government was a feudal monarchy. The Israelites had come into Egypt\nof their own accord, but had never been admitted into the full rights of\ncitizenship. This exclusion by the Egyptians had no doubt tended to fix\nthe Children of Israel in their religious beliefs, and on the other\nhand, their proud and exclusive nature had tended to keep them from a\nfull fellowship with the actual owners of the land.\n\nThe Egyptians never attempted to traffic in them as they did in slaves\nof war, being quite content to use them as clerks, laborers and\nservants, paying them a certain wage, and also demanding an excess of\nlabor in lieu of taxation. In other words, they worked out their\n\"road-tax,\" which no doubt was excessive. Many years later, Athens and\nalso Rome had similar \"slaves,\" some of whom were men of great intellect\nand worth. If one reads the works of modern economic prophets, it will\nbe seen that wage-workers in America are often referred to as \"slaves\"\nor \"bondmen,\" terms which will probably give rise to confusion among\nhistorians to come.\n\nMoses was brought up in the court of the king, and became versed in all\nthe lore of the Egyptians. We are led to suppose that he also looked\nlike an Egyptian, as we are told that people seeing him for the first\ntime, he being a stranger to them, went away and referred to him as\n\"that Egyptian.\" He was handsome, commanding, silent by habit and slow\nof speech, strong as a counselor, a safe man. That he was a most\nvaluable man in the conduct of Egyptian official affairs, there is no\ndoubt. And although he was nominally an Egyptian, living with the\nEgyptians, adopting their manners and customs, yet his heart was with\n\"his brethren,\" the Israelites, who he saw were sore oppressed through\ngovernmental exploitation.\n\nMoses knew that a government which does not exist for the purpose of\nadding to human happiness has no excuse for being. And once when he was\ndown among his own people he saw an Egyptian taskmaster or foreman\nstriking an Israelitish workman, and in wrath he arose and killed the\noppressor. The only persons who were witnesses to this affair were two\nHebrews. The second day after the fight, when Moses was attempting to\nseparate two Hebrews who had gotten into an altercation with each other,\nthey taunted him by saying, \"Who gavest thee to be a ruler over\nus?--wilt thou also kill us as thou didst the Egyptian?\"\n\nThis gives us a little light upon the quality and character of the\npeople with whom Moses had to deal. It also shows that the ways of the\nreformer and peacemaker are not flower-strewn. The worst enemies of a\nreformer are not the Egyptians--he has also to deal with the Israelites.\n\nI once heard Terence V. Powderly, who organized the Knights of\nLabor--the most successful labor organization ever formed--say, \"Any man\nwho devotes his life to helping laboring men will be destroyed by them.\"\nAnd then he added, \"But this should not deter us from the effort to\nbenefit.\"\n\nAs the Hebrew account plainly states that the killing of all the male\nHebrew children was carried out with the connivance of Hebrew women who\npretended to be ministering to the Hebrew mothers, so was the flight of\nMoses from Egypt caused by the Hebrews, who turned informants and\nbrought him into disgrace with Pharaoh, who sought his life.\n\nVery naturally, the Egyptians deny and have always denied that the order\nto kill children was ever issued by a Pharaoh. They also point to the\nfact that the Israelites were a source of profit--a valuable asset to\nthe Egyptians. And moreover, the proposition that the Egyptians killed\nthe children to avoid trouble is preposterous, since no possible act\nthat man can commit would so arouse sudden rebellion and fan into flame\nthe embers of hate as the murder of the young. If the Egyptians had\nattempted to carry out any such savage cruelty, they would not only have\nhad to fight the Israelitish men, but the outraged mothers as well. The\nEgyptians were far too wise to invite the fury of frenzied motherhood.\nTo have done this would have destroyed the efficiency of the entire\nHebrew population. An outraged and heartbroken people do not work.\n\nWhen one person becomes angry with another, his mental processes work\novertime making up a list of the other's faults and failings.\n\nWhen a people arise in revolt they straightway prepare an indictment\nagainst the government against which they revolted, giving a schedule of\noutrages, insults, plunderings and oppressions. This is what is politely\ncalled partisan history. \"Uncle Tom's Cabin\" was a literary indictment\nof the South by featuring its supposed brutalities. And the attitude of\nthe South is mirrored in a pretty parable concerning a Southern girl who\ncame North on a visit, and seeing in print the words \"damned Yankee,\"\ninnocently remarked that she always thought they were one word. A\ndescription of the enemy, made by a person or a people, must be taken\ncum grano Syracuse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Moses fled, after killing the Egyptian, he went northward and east\ninto the land of the Midianites, who were also descendants of Abraham.\nAt this time he was forty years of age, and still unmarried, his work in\nthe Egyptian Court having evidently fully absorbed his time.\n\nIt is a pretty little romance, all too brief in its details, of how the\ntired man stopped at a well, and the seven daughters of Jethro came to\ndraw water for their flocks. Certain shepherds came also and drove the\ngirls away, when Moses, true to his nature, took the part of the young\nladies, to the chagrin and embarrassment of the male rustics who had\nleft their manners at home. The story forms a melodramatic stage-setting\nwhich the mummers have not been slow to use, representing the seven\ndaughters as a ballet, the shepherds as a male chorus, and Moses as\nbasso-profundo and hero. We are told that the girls went home and told\ntheir father of the chivalrous stranger they had met, and he, with all\nthe deference of the desert, sent for him \"that he might eat bread.\"\n\nVery naturally Moses married one of the girls.\n\nAnd Moses tended the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law, taking the\nherds a long distance, living with them and sleeping out under the\nstars.\n\nNow Jethro was the chief of his tribe. Moses calls him a \"priest,\" but\nhe was a priest only incidentally, as all the Arab chiefs were.\n\nThe clergy originated in Egypt. Before the Israelites were in Goshen,\nthe \"sacra,\" or sacred utensils, belonged to the family; and the head of\nthe tribe performed the religious rites, propitiating the family deity,\nor else delegated some one else to do so. This head of the tribe, or\nchief, was called a \"Cohen\"; and the man who assisted him, or whom he\ndelegated, was called a \"Levi.\" The plan of making a business of being a\n\"Levi\" was borrowed from the Egyptians, who had men set apart,\nexclusively, to deal in the mysterious. Moses calls himself a Levi, or\nLevite.\n\nAfter the busy life he had led, Moses could not settle down to the\nmonotonous existence of a shepherd. It is probable that then he wrote\nthe Book of Job, the world's first drama and the oldest book of the\nBible. Moses was full of plans. Very naturally he prayed to the\nIsraelitish god, and the god harkened unto his prayer and talked to him.\n\nThe silence, the loneliness, the majesty of the mountains, the great\nstretches of shining sand, the long peaceful nights, all tend to\nhallucinations. Sheepmen are in constant danger of mental aberration.\nSociety is needed quite as much as solitude.\n\nFrom talking with God, Moses desired to see Him. One day, from the\nburning red of an acacia-tree, the Lord called to him, \"Moses, Moses!\"\n\nAnd Moses answered, \"Here am I!\"\n\nMoses was a man born to rule--he was a leader of men--and here at\nmiddle life the habits of twenty-five years were suddenly snapped and\nhis occupation gone. He yearned for his people, and knowing their\nunhappy lot, his desire was to lead them out of captivity. He knew the\nwrongs the Egyptian government was visiting upon the Israelites. Rameses\nthe Second was a ruler with the builder's eczema: always and forever he\nmade gardens, dug canals, paved roadways, constructed model tenements,\nplanned palaces, erected colossi. He was a worker, and he made everybody\nelse work. It was in this management of infinite detail that Moses had\nbeen engaged; and while he entered into it with zest, he knew that the\nhustling habit can be overdone and its votaries may become its\nvictims--not only that, but this strenuous life may turn freemen into\nserfs, and serfs into slaves.\n\nAnd now Rameses was dead, and the proud, vain, fretful and selfish\nMineptah ruled in his place. It was worse with the Israelites than ever!\n\nThe more Moses thought of it the more he was convinced that it was his\nduty to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage. He himself,\nhaving been driven out, made the matter a burning one with him: he had\nlost his place in the Egyptian Court, but he would get it back and hold\nit under better conditions than ever before!\n\nHe heard the \"Voice\"! All strong people hear the Voice calling them. And\nharkening to the Inner Voice is simply doing what you want to do.\n\n\"Moses, Moses!\"\n\nAnd Moses answered, \"Lord, here am I.\"\n\nThe laws of Moses still influence the world, but not even the orthodox\nJews follow them literally. We bring our reason to bear upon the\nprecepts of Moses, and those which are not for us we gently pass over.\nIn fact, the civil laws of most countries prohibit many of the things\nwhich Moses commanded. For instance, the eighteenth verse of the\ntwenty-second chapter of Exodus says, \"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to\nlive.\" Certainly no Jewish lawyer nor Rabbi, in any part of the world,\nadvocates the killing of persons supposed to be witches. We explain that\nin this instance the inspired writer lapsed and merely mirrored the\nignorance of his time. Or else we fall back upon the undoubted fact that\nvarious writers and translators have tampered with the original\ntext--this must be so, since the book written by Moses makes record of\nhis death.\n\nBut when we find passages in Moses requiring us to benefit our enemies,\nwe say with truth that this was the first literature to express for us\nthe brotherhood of man.\n\n\"Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth\nthe words of the righteous.\" Here we get Twentieth-Century Wisdom. And\nvery many passages as fine and true can be found, which prove for us\nbeyond cavil that Moses was right a part of the time, and to say this\nof any man, living or dead, is a very great compliment.\n\nIn times of doubt the Jewish people turn to the Torah, or Book of the\nLaw. This book has been interpreted by the Rabbis, or the learned men,\nand to meet the exigencies of living under many conditions, it has been\nchanged, enlarged and augmented. In these changes the people were not\nconsulted. Very naturally it was done secretly, for inspired men must be\nwell dead before the many accept their edict. To be alive is always more\nor less of an offense, especially if you be a person and not a\npersonage.\n\nThe murmurings against Moses during his lifetime often broke into a\nrumble and a roar. The mob accused him of taking them out into the\nwilderness to perish. To get away from the constant bickering and\ncriticisms of the little minds, Moses used to go up into the mountains\nalone to find rest, and there he communicated with his god. It was\nsurely a great step in advance when all the Elohims were combined into\none Supreme Elohim that was everywhere present and ruled the world.\nInstead of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful,\nfussy, boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or doing other\nthings quite as useless, it was a great advance to have one Supreme\nBeing, dispassionate, a God of Love and Justice, \"with whom can be no\nvariation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.\" This gradual\nennobling of the conception of Divinity reveals the extent to which man\nis ennobling his own nature.\n\nUp to within a very few years God had a rival in the Devil, but now the\nDevil lives only as a pleasantry. Until the time of Moses, the God of\nSinai was only the God of the Hebrew people, and this accounts for His\nviolence, wrath, jealousy, and all of those qualities which went to make\nup a barbaric chief, including the tendency of His sons and servants to\nmake love to the daughters of earth.\n\nIt is probable that the idea of God--in opposition to a god, one of many\ngods--was a thought that grew up very gradually in the mind of Moses.\nThe ideal grew, and Moses grew with the ideal.\n\nThen from God being a Spirit, to being Spirit, is a natural, easy and\nbeautiful evolution.\n\nThe thought of angels, devils, heavenly messengers, like Gabriel and the\nHoly Ghost, constantly surrounding the Throne, is a suggestion that\ncomes from the court of the absolute monarch. The Trinity is the\noligarchy refined, and the one son who gives himself as a sacrifice for\nall the people who have offended the monarch is the retreating vision of\nthat night of ignorance when all nations sought to appease the wrath of\ntheir god by the death of human beings.\n\nGod to us is Spirit, realized everywhere in unfolding Nature. We are a\npart of Nature--we, too, are Spirit. When Moses commands his people that\nthey must return the stray animal of their enemy to its rightful owner,\nwe behold a great man struggling to benefit humanity by making them\nrecognize the laws of Spirit. We are all one family--we can not afford\nto wrong or harm even an enemy.\n\nInstead of thousands of warring, jarring families or tribes, we have now\na few strong federations of States, or countries, which, if they would\nmake war on one another, would today quickly face a larger foe. Already\nthe idea of one government for all the world is taking form--there must\nbe one Supreme Arbiter, and all this monstrous expense of money and\nflesh and blood and throbbing hearts for purposes of war, must go, just\nas we have sent to limbo the jangling, jarring, jealous gods. Also, the\nbetter sentiment of the world will send the czars, emperors, kings,\ngrand dukes, and the greedy grafters of so-called democracy, into the\ndust-heap of oblivion, with all the priestly phantoms that have obscured\nthe sun and blackened the sky. The gods have gone, but MAN IS HERE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe plagues that befell the Egyptians were the natural ones to which\nEgypt was liable: drought, flood, flies, lice, frogs, disease. The\nIsraelites very naturally declared that these things were sent as a\npunishment by the Israelitish god. I remember a farmer, in my childhood\ndays, who was accounted by his neighbors as an infidel. He was struck by\nlightning and instantly killed, while standing in his doorway. The\nSunday before, this man had worked in the fields, and just before he was\nkilled he had said, \"dammit,\" or something quite as bad. Our preacher\nexplained at length that this man's death was a \"judgment.\" Afterward,\nwhen our church was struck by lightning, it was regarded as an accident.\n\nIgnorant and superstitious people always attribute special things to\nspecial causes. When the grasshoppers overran Kansas in Eighteen Hundred\nEighty-five, I heard a good man from the South say it was a punishment\non the Kansans for encouraging Old John Brown. The next year the\nboll-weevil ruined the cotton crop, and certain preachers in the North,\nwho thought they knew, declared it was the lingering wrath of God on\naccount of slavery.\n\nThree nations unite to form our present civilization. These are the\nGreek, the Roman and the Judaic. The lives of Perseus, Romulus and Moses\nall teem with the miraculous, but if we accept the supernatural in one\nwe must in all. Which of these three great nations has contributed most\nto our well-being is a question largely decided by temperament; but\njust now the star of Greece seems to be in the ascendant. We look to art\nfor solace. Greece stands for art; Rome for conquest; Judea for\nreligion.\n\nAnd yet Moses was a lover of beauty, and the hold he had upon his people\nwas quite as much through training them to work as through his moral\nteaching. Indeed, his morality was expediency--which is reason enough\naccording to modern science. When he wants them to work, he says, \"Thus\nsaith the Lord,\" just the same as when he wishes to impress upon them a\nthought.\n\nNo one can read the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth\nchapters of Exodus without being impressed with the fact that the man\nwho wrote them had in him the spirit of the Master Workman--a King's\nCraftsman. His carving the ten commandments on tablets of stone also\nshows his skill with mallet and chisel, a talent he had acquired in\nEgypt, where Rameses the Second had thousands of men engaged in\nsculpture and in making inscriptions in stone.\n\nSeveral chapters in Exodus might have been penned by Albrecht Durer or\nWilliam Morris. The commandment, \"Thou shalt not make unto thyself any\ngraven image,\" was unmistakably made merely to correct a local evil: the\ntendency to worship the image instead of the thing it symbolized. People\nwho do not contribute to the creation of an object fall easy victims to\nthis error. With all the stern good sense that Moses revealed, it is\nbut fair to assume that he did not mean the command to be perpetual. It\nwas only through so much moving about that the Jews seemed to lose their\nart spirit.\n\nAnd certainly the flame of art in the Jewish heart has never died out,\neven though at times it has smoldered, for wherever there has been peace\nand security for the Jews, they have not been slow to evolve the talent\nwhich creates. History teems with the names of Jews who, in music,\npainting, poetry and sculpture, have devoted their days to beauty. And\nthe germ of genius is seen in many of the Jewish children who attend the\nmanual-training and art schools of America.\n\nArt has its rise in the sense of sublimity. It seems at times to be a\nfulfilment of the religious impulse. The religion which balks at work,\nstopping at prayer and contemplation, is a form of arrested development.\n\nThe number of people in the exodus was probably two or three thousand.\nRenan says that one century only elapsed between the advent of Joseph\ninto Egypt and the revolt. Very certain it was not a great number that\nwent forth into the desert. A half-million women could not have borrowed\njewelry of their neighbors--the secret could not have been kept. And in\nthe negotiations between Moses and the King, it will be remembered that\nMoses asked only for the privilege of going three days' journey into the\nwilderness to make sacrifices. It was a kind of picnic or religious\ncampmeeting. A vast multitude could not have taken part in any such\nexercise. We also hear of their singing their gratitude on account of\nreaching Elim, where there were \"twelve springs and seventy palm-trees.\"\nHad there been several million people, as we have been told, the\ninsignificant shade of seventy trees would have meant nothing to them.\n\nThe distance from Goshen in Egypt to Canaan in Palestine was about one\nhundred seventy-five miles. But by the circuitous route they traveled it\nwas nearly a thousand miles. It took forty years to make the passage,\nfor the way had to be fought through the country of foes who very\nnaturally sought to block the way. Quick transportation was out of the\nquestion. The rate of speed was about twenty-five miles a year.\n\nHere was a people without homes, or fixed habitation, beset on every\nside with the natural dangers of the desert, and compelled to face the\nfury of the inhabitants whose lands they overran, fearful,\nsuperstitious, haunted by hunger, danger and doubt. By night a man sent\nahead with a lantern on a pole led the way; by day a cavalcade that\nraised a cloud of dust. One was later sung by the poets as a pillar of\nfire, and the other a cloud. Chance flocks of quail blown by a storm\ninto their midst were regarded as a miracle; the white exuding wax of\nthe manna-plant was told of as \"bread\"--or more literally food.\n\nThose who had taken part in the original exodus were nearly all\ndead--their children and grandchildren survived, desert born and savage\nbred. Canaan was not the land flowing with milk and honey that had been\ndescribed. Milk and honey are the results of labor applied to land.\nMoses knew this and tried to teach this great truth. He was true to his\ndivine trust. Through doubt, hardship, poverty, misunderstanding, he\nheld high the ideal--they were going to a better place.\n\nAt last, worn by his constant struggle, aged one hundred twenty, \"his\neye not dim nor his natural force abated\"--for only those live long who\nlive well--Moses went up into the mountain to find solace in solitude as\nwas his custom. His people waited for him in vain--he did not return.\nAlone there with his God he slept and forgot to awaken. His pilgrimage\nwas done. \"And no man knoweth his grave even unto this day.\"\n\nHistory is very seldom recorded on the spot--certainly it was not then.\nCenturies followed before fact, tradition, song, legend and folklore\nwere fused into the form we call Scripture. But out of the fog and mist\nof that far-off past there looms in heroic outline the form and features\nof a man--a man of will, untiring activity, great hope, deep love, a\nfaith which at times faltered, but which never died. Moses was the first\nman in history who fought for human rights and sought to make men free,\neven from their own limitations. \"And there arose not a prophet since\nIsrael like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: CONFUCIUS]\n\nCONFUCIUS\n\n\n     The highest study of all is that which teaches us to develop those\n     principles of purity and perfect virtue which Heaven bestowed upon\n     us at our birth, in order that we may acquire the power of\n     influencing for good those amongst whom we are placed, by our\n     precepts and example; a study without an end--for our labors cease\n     only when we have become perfect--an unattainable goal, but one\n     that we must not the less set before us from the very first. It is\n     true that we shall not be able to reach it, but in our struggle\n     toward it we shall strengthen our characters and give stability to\n     our ideas, so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same\n     direction, we shall be rendered capable of applying the faculties\n     with which we have been gifted to the best possible account.\n\n     --_\"The Annals\" of Confucius_\n\n\nCONFUCIUS\n\nThe Chinese comprise one-fourth of the inhabitants of the earth. There\nare four hundred millions of them.\n\nThey can do many things which we can not do, and we can do a few things\nwhich they have not yet been able to do; but they are learning from us,\nand possibly we would do well to learn from them. In China there are now\ntrolley-cars, telephone-lines, typewriters, cash-registers and American\nplumbing. China is a giant awaking from sleep. He who thinks that China\nis a country crumbling into ruins has failed to leave a call at the\noffice and has overslept.\n\nThe West can not longer afford to ignore China. And not being able to\nwaive her, perhaps the next best thing is to try to understand her.\n\nThe one name that looms large above any other name in China is\nConfucius. He of all men has influenced China most. One-third of the\nhuman race love and cherish his memory, and repeat his words as sacred\nwrit.\n\nConfucius was born at a time when one of those tidal waves of reason\nswept the world--when the nations were full of unrest, and the mountains\nof thought were shaken with discontent.\n\nIt was just previous to the blossoming of Greece.\n\nPericles was seventeen years old when Confucius died. Themistocles was\npreparing the way for Pericles; for then was being collected the\ntreasure of Delos, which made Phidias and the Parthenon possible. During\nthe life of Confucius lived Leonidas, Miltiades, Cyrus the Great,\nCambyses, Darius, Xerxes. And then quite naturally occurred the battles\nof Marathon, Salamis and Thermopylae. Then lived Buddha-Gautama,\nLao-tsze, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Pythagoras, Pindar,\nAEschylus and Anacreon.\n\nThe Chinese are linked to the past by ties of language and custom beyond\nall other nations. They are a peculiar people, a chosen people, a people\nset apart. Just when they withdrew from the rest of mankind and\nabandoned their nomadic habits, making themselves secure against\ninvasion by building a wall one hundred feet high, and settled down to\nlay the foundations of a vast empire, we do not know. Some historians\nhave fixed the date about ten thousand years before Christ--let it go at\nthat. There is a reasonably well-authenticated history of China that\nruns back twenty-five hundred years before Christ, while our history\nmerges into mist seven hundred fifty years before the Christian era.\n\nThe Israelites wandered; the Chinese remained at home. Walls have this\ndisadvantage: they keep people in as well as shut the barbarians out.\nBut now there are vast breaches in the wall, through which the\ninhabitants ooze, causing men from thousands of miles away to cry in\nalarm, \"the Yellow Peril!\" And also through these breaches, Israelites,\nEnglishmen and Yankees enter fearlessly, settle down in heathen China,\nand do business.\n\nIt surely is an epoch, and what the end will be few there are who dare\nforecast.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis then is from the pen of Edward Carpenter, the Church of England\ncurate who was so great a friend and admirer of our own Walt Whitman\nthat he made a trip across the sea to join hands with him in preaching\nthe doctrine of democracy and the religion of humanity.\n\n     In the interior of China, along low-lying plains and great\n     river-valleys, and by lake-sides, and far away up into hilly and\n     even mountainous regions,\n\n     Behold! an immense population, rooted in the land, rooted in the\n     clan and the family,\n\n     The most productive and stable on the whole Earth. A garden one\n     might say--a land of rich and recherche crops, of rice and tea and\n     silk and sugar and cotton and oranges;\n\n     Do you see it?--stretching away endlessly over river-lines and\n     lakes, and the gentle undulations of the low-lands, and up the\n     escarpments of the higher hills;\n\n     The innumerable patchwork of civilization--the poignant verdure of\n     the young rice; the somber green of orange-groves; the lines of\n     tea-shrubs, well hoed, and showing the bare earth beneath; the\n     pollard mulberries; the plots of cotton and maize and wheat and yam\n     and clover; the little brown and green tiled cottages with\n     spreading recurbed eaves, the clumps of feathery bamboo, or of\n     sugar-canes;\n\n     The endless silver threads of irrigation canals and ditches,\n     skirting the hills for scores and hundreds of miles, tier above\n     tier, and serpentining down to the lower slopes and plains--\n\n     The accumulated result, these, of centuries upon centuries of\n     ingenious industry, and innumerable public and private\n     benefactions, continued from age to age;\n\n     The grand canal of the Delta plain extending, a thronged waterway,\n     for seven hundred miles, with sails of junks and bankside villages\n     innumerable;\n\n     The chain-pumps, worked by buffaloes or men, for throwing the water\n     up slopes and hillsides, from tier to tier, from channel to\n     channel;\n\n     The endless rills and cascades flowing down again into pockets and\n     hollows of verdure, and on fields of steep and plain;\n\n     The bits of rock and wildwood left here and there, with the angles\n     of Buddhist or Jain temples projecting from among the trees;\n\n     The azalea and rhododendron bushes, and the wild deer and pheasants\n     unharmed;\n\n     The sounds of music and the gong--the Sin-fa sung at eventide--and\n     the air of contentment and peace pervading;\n\n     A garden you might call the land, for its wealth of crops and\n     flowers,\n\n     A town almost for its population.\n\n     A population denser, on a large scale, than anywhere else on\n     earth--\n\n     Five or six acre holdings, elbowing each other, with lesser and\n     larger, continuously over immense tracts, and running to plentiful\n     market centers;\n\n     A country of few roads, but of innumerable footpaths and waterways.\n\n     Here, rooted in the land, and rooted in the family, each family\n     clinging to its portion of ancestral earth, each offshoot of the\n     family desiring nothing so much as to secure its own patrimonial\n     field,\n\n     Each member of the family answerable primarily to the family\n     assembly for his misdeeds or defalcations,\n\n     All bound together in the common worship of ancestors, and in\n     reverence for the past and its sanctioned beliefs and accumulated\n     prejudices and superstitions;\n\n     With many ancient, wise, simple customs and ordinances, coming down\n     from remote centuries, and the time of Confucius,\n\n     This vast population abides--the most stable and the most\n     productive in the world.\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     And Government touches it but lightly--can touch it but lightly.\n\n     With its few officials (only some twenty-five thousand for the\n     whole of its four hundred millions), and its scanty taxation (about\n     one dollar per head), and with the extensive administration of\n     justice and affairs by the clan and the family--little scope is\n     left for government.\n\n     The great equalized mass population pursues its even and accustomed\n     way, nor pays attention to edicts and foreign treaties, unless\n     these commend themselves independently;\n\n     Pays readier respect, in such matters, to the edicts and utterances\n     of its literary men, and the deliberations of the Academy.\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     And religious theorizing touches it but lightly--can touch it but\n     lightly.\n\n     Established on the bedrock of actual life, and on the living unity\n     and community of present, past and future generations.\n\n     Each man stands bound already, and by the most powerful ties, to\n     the social body--nor needs the dreams and promises of Heaven to\n     reassure him.\n\n     And all are bound to the Earth.\n\n     Rendering back to it as a sacred duty every atom that the Earth\n     supplies to them (not insensately sending it in sewers to the sea),\n\n     By the way of abject commonsense they have sought the gates of\n     Paradise--and to found on human soil their City Celestial!\n\n\nThe first general knowledge of Confucius came to the Western world in\nthe latter part of the Sixteenth Century from Jesuit missionaries.\nIndeed, it was they who gave him the Latinized name of \"Confucius,\" the\nChinese name being Kung-Fu-tsze.\n\nSo impressed were these missionaries by the greatness of Confucius that\nthey urged upon the Vatican the expediency of placing his name upon the\ncalendar of Saints. They began by combating his teachings, but this they\nsoon ceased to do, and the modicum of success which they obtained was\nthrough beginning each Christian service by the hymn which may properly\nbe called the National Anthem of China. Its opening stanza is as\nfollows:\n\n  Confucius! Confucius!\n  Great was our Confucius!\n  Before him there was no Confucius,\n  Since him there was no other.\n  Confucius! Confucius!\n  Great was our Confucius!\n\nThe praise given by these early Jesuits to Confucius was at first\nregarded at Rome as apology for the meager success of their\nministrations. But later scientific study of Chinese literature\ncorroborated all that the Jesuit Fathers proclaimed for Confucius, and\nhe stands today in a class with Socrates and the scant half-dozen whom\nwe call the saviors of the world.\n\nYet Confucius claimed no \"divine revelation,\" nor did he seek to found a\nreligion. He was simply a teacher, and what he taught was the science of\nliving--living in the present, with the plain and simple men and women\nwho make up the world, and bettering our condition by bettering theirs.\nOf a future life he said he knew nothing, and concerning the\nsupernatural he was silent, even rebuking his disciples for trying to\npry into the secrets of Heaven. The word \"God\" he does not use, but his\nrecognition of a Supreme Intelligence is limited to the use of a word\nwhich can best be translated \"Heaven,\" since it tokens a place more than\nit does a person. Constantly he speaks of \"doing the will of Heaven.\"\nAnd then he goes on to say that \"Heaven is speaking through you,\" \"Duty\nlies in mirroring Heaven in our acts,\" and many other such New-Thought\naphorisms or epigrams.\n\nThat the man was a consummate literary stylist is beyond doubt. He spoke\nin parables and maxims, short, brief and musical. He wrote for his ear,\nand always his desire, it seems, was to convey the greatest truth in the\nfewest words. The Chinese, even the lowly and uneducated, know hundreds\nof Confucian epigrams, and still repeat them in their daily conversation\nor in writing, just as educated Englishmen use the Bible and Shakespeare\nfor symbol.\n\nMinister Wu, in a lecture delivered in various American cities, compared\nConfucius with Emerson, showing how in many ways these two great\nprophets paralleled each other. Emerson, of all Americans, seems the\nonly man worthy of being so compared.\n\nThe writer who lives is the man who supplies the world with portable\nwisdom--short, sharp, pithy maxims which it can remember, or, better\nstill, which it can not forget.\n\nConfucius said, \"Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you\none corner, and it is for you to find the other three.\"\n\nThe true artist in words or things is always more or less\nimpressionistic--he talks in parables, and it is for the hearer to\ndiscover the meaning for himself.\n\nAn epigram is truth in a capsule. The disadvantage of the epigram is the\ntemptation it affords to good people to explain it to the others who are\nassumed to be too obtuse to comprehend it alone. And since explanations\nseldom explain, the result is a mixture or compound that has to be\nspewed utterly or taken on faith. Confucius is simple enough until he is\nexplained. Then we evolve sects, denominations and men who make it their\nprofession to render moral calculi opaque. China, being peopled by human\nbeings, has suffered from this tendency to make truth concrete, just as\nall the rest of the world has suffered. Truth is fluid and should be\nallowed to flow. Ankylosis of a fact is superstition. Confucius was a\nfree-trader.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nChina has always been essentially feudal in her form of government.\nChina is made up of a large number of States, each presided over by a\nprince or governor, and these States are held together by a rather loose\nfederal government, the Emperor being the supreme ruler. State rights\nprevail. State may fight with State, or States may secede--it isn't of\nmuch moment. They are glad enough, after a few years, to get back, like\nboys who run away from home, or farmhands who quit work in a tantrum.\nThe Chinese are very patient--they know that time cures all things, a\ntruth the West has not yet learned. States that rebel, like individuals\nwho place themselves beyond the protection of all, assume grave\nresponsibilities.\n\nThe local prince usually realizes the bearing of the Social\nContract--that he holds his office only during good behavior, and that\nhis welfare and the welfare of his people are one.\n\nHeih, the father of Confucius, was governor of one of these little\nStates, and had impoverished himself in an effort to help his people.\nHeih was a man of seventy, wedded to a girl of seventeen, when their\ngifted son was born. When the boy was three years old the father died,\nand the lad's care and education depended entirely on the mother. This\nmother seems to have been a woman of rare mental and spiritual worth.\nShe deliberately chose a life of poverty and honest toil for herself\nand child, rather than allow herself to be cared for by rich kinsmen.\nThe boy was brought up in a village, and he was not allowed to think\nhimself any better than the other village children, save as he proved\nhimself so. He worked in the garden, tended the cattle and goats, mended\nthe pathways, brought wood and water, and waited on his elders. Every\nevening his mother used to tell him of the feats of strength of his\nfather, of his heroic qualities in friendship, of deeds of valor, of\nfidelity to trusts, of his absolute truthfulness, and his desire for\nknowledge in order that he might better serve his people.\n\nThe coarse, plain fare, the long walks across the fields, the climbing\nof trees, the stooping to pull the weeds in the garden, the daily bath\nin the brook, all combined to develop the boy's body to a splendid\ndegree. He went to bed at sundown, and at the first flush of dawn was up\nthat he might see the sunrise. There were devotional rites performed by\nthe mother and son, morning and evening, which consisted in the playing\nupon a lute and singing or chanting the beauty and beneficence of\ncreation.\n\nConfucius, at fifteen, was regarded as a phenomenal musician, and the\nneighbors used to gather to hear him perform. At nineteen he was larger,\nstronger, comelier, more skilled, than any other youth of his age in all\nthe country round.\n\nThe simple quality of his duties as a prince can be guessed when we are\ntold that his work as keeper of the herds required him to ride long\ndistances on horseback to settle difficulties between rival herders. The\nrange belonged to the State, and the owners of goats, sheep and cattle\nwere in continual controversies. Montana and Colorado will understand\nthis matter. Confucius summoned the disputants and talked to them long\nabout the absurdity of quarreling and the necessity of getting together\nin complete understanding. Then it was that he first put forth his\nbest-known maxim: \"You should not do to others that which you would not\nhave others do to you.\"\n\nThis negative statement of the Golden Rule is found expressed in various\nways in the writings of Confucius. A literal interpretation of the\nChinese language is quite impossible, as the Chinese have single signs\nor symbols that express a complete idea. To state the same matter, we\noften use a whole page.\n\nConfucius had a single word which expressed the Golden Rule in such a\npoetic way that it is almost useless to try to convey it to people of\nthe West. This word, which has been written into English as \"Shu,\"\nmeans: My heart responds to yours, or my heart's desire is to meet your\nheart's desire, or I wish to do to you even as I would be done by. This\nsign, symbol or word Confucius used to carve in the bark of trees by the\nroadside. The French were filled with a like impulse when they cut the\nwords Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, over the entrances to all public\nbuildings.\n\nConfucius had his symbol of love and friendship painted on a board,\nwhich he stuck into the ground before the tent where he lodged; and\nfinally it was worked upon a flag by some friends and presented to him,\nand became his flag of peace.\n\nHis success in keeping down strife among the herders, and making peace\namong his people, soon gave him a fame beyond the borders of his own\nState. As a judge he had the power to show both parties where they were\nwrong, and arranged for them a common meeting-ground.\n\nHis qualifications as an arbiter were not, however, limited to his\npowers of persuasion--he could shoot an arrow farther and hurl a spear\nwith more accuracy than any man he ever met. Very naturally there are a\ngreat number of folklore stories concerning his prowess, some of which\nmake him out a sort of combination Saint George and William Tell, with\nthe added kingly graces of Alfred the Great. Omitting the incredible, we\nare willing to believe that this man had a giant's strength, but was\ngreat enough not to use it like a giant.\n\nWe are willing to believe that when attacked by robbers, he engaged them\nin conversation and that, seated on the grass, he convinced them they\nwere in a bad business. Also, he did not later hang them, as did our old\nfriend Julius Caesar under like conditions.\n\nWhen twenty-seven he ceased going abroad to hold court and settle\nquarrels, but sending for the disputants, they came, and he gave them a\ncourse of lectures in ethics. In a week, by a daily lesson of an hour's\nlength, they were usually convinced that to quarrel is very foolish,\nsince it reduces bodily vigor, scatters the mind, and disturbs the\nsecretions, so the man is the loser in many ways.\n\nThis seems to us like a very queer way to hold court, but Confucius\nmaintained that men should learn to govern their tempers, do equity, and\nthus be able to settle their own disputes, and this without violence.\n\"To fight decides who is the stronger, the younger and the more skilful\nin the use of arms, but it does not decide who is right. That is to be\nsettled by the Heaven in your own heart.\"\n\nTo let the Heaven into your heart, to cultivate a conscience so\nsensitive that it can conceive the rights of the other man, is to know\nwisdom.\n\nTo decide specific cases for others he thought was to cause them to lose\nthe power of deciding for themselves. When asked what a just man should\ndo when he was dealing with one absolutely unjust, he said, \"He who\nwrongs himself sows in his own heart nettles.\"\n\nAnd when some of his disciples, after the Socratic method, asked him how\nthis helped the injured man, he replied, \"To be robbed or wronged is\nnothing unless you continue to remember it.\" When pushed still further,\nhe said, \"A man should fight, only when he does so to protect himself\nor his family from bodily harm.\"\n\nHere a questioner asked, \"If we are to protect our persons, must we not\nlearn to fight?\"\n\nAnd the answer comes, \"The just man, he who partakes moderately of all\ngood things, is the only man to fear in a quarrel, for he is without\nfear.\"\n\nOver and over is the injunction in varying phrase, \"Abolish\nfear--abolish fear!\" When pressed to give in one word the secret of a\nhappy life, he gives a word which we translate, \"Equanimity.\"\n\n\nThe mother of Confucius died during his early manhood. For her he ever\nretained the most devout memories.\n\nBefore going on a journey he always visited her grave, and on returning,\nbefore he spoke to any one, he did the same. On each anniversary of her\ndeath he ate no food and was not to be seen by his pupils. This filial\npiety, which is sometimes crudely and coarsely called \"ancestor\nworship,\" is something which for the Western world is rather difficult\nto appreciate. But in it there is a subtle, spiritual significance,\nsuggesting that it is only through our parents that we are able to\nrealize consciousness or personal contact with Heaven. These parents\nloved us into being, cared for us with infinite patience in infancy,\ntaught us in youth, watched with high hope our budding manhood; and as\nreward and recognition for the service rendered us, the least we can do\nis to remember them in all our prayers and devotions. The will of Heaven\nused these parents for us, therefore parenthood is divine.\n\nThat this ancestor worship is beautiful and beneficial is quite\napparent, and rightly understood no one could think of it as\n\"heathendom.\" Confucius used to chant the praises of his mother, who\nbrought him up in poverty, thus giving a close and intimate knowledge of\na thousand things from which princes, used to ease and luxury, are\nbarred.\n\nSo close was he to nature and the plain people that he ordered that all\nskilful charioteers in his employ should belong to the nobility. This\ngiving a title or degree to men of skill--men who can do things--we\nregard as essentially a modern idea.\n\nChina, I believe, is the first country in the world to use the threads\nof a moth or worm for fabrics. The patience and care and inventive skill\nrequired in first making silk were very great. But it gives us an index\nto invention when we hear that Confucius regarded the making of linen,\nusing the fiber of a plant, as a greater feat than utilizing the strands\nmade by the silkworm. Confucius had a sort of tender sentiment toward\nthe moth, similar to the sentiments which our vegetarian friends have\ntoward killing animals for food. Confucius wore linen in preference to\nsilk, for sentimental reasons. The silkworm dies at his task of making\nhimself a cocoon, so to evolve in a winged joy, but falls a victim of\nman's cupidity. Likewise, Confucius would not drink milk from a cow\nuntil her calf was weaned, because to do so were taking an unfair\nadvantage of the maternal instincts of the cow. It will thus be seen\nthat Confucius had a very fair hold on the modern idea which we call\n\"Monism,\" or \"The One.\" He, too, said, \"All is one.\" In his attitude\ntoward all living things he was ever gentle and considerate.\n\nNo other prophet so much resembles Confucius in doctrine as Socrates.\nBut Confucius does not suffer from the comparison. He had a beauty,\ndignity and grace of person which the great Athenian did not possess.\nSocrates was more or less of a buffoon, and to many in Athens he was a\nhuge joke--a town fool. Confucius combined the learning and graces of\nPlato with the sturdy, practical commonsense of Socrates. No one ever\naffronted or insulted him; many did not understand him, but he met\nprince or pauper on terms of equality.\n\nIn his travels Confucius used often to meet recluses or monks--men who\nhad fled the world in order to become saints. For these men Confucius\nhad more pity than respect. \"The world's work is difficult, and to live\nin a world of living, striving and dying men and women requires great\ncourage and great love. Now we can not all run away, and for some to\nflee from humanity and to find solace in solitude is only another name\nfor weakness.\"\n\nThis sounds singularly like our Ralph Waldo who says, \"It is easy in the\nworld to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live\nafter our own; but the Great Man is he who in the midst of the crowd\nkeeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.\"\n\nConfucius is the first man in point of time to proclaim the divinity of\nservice, the brotherhood of man, and the truth that in useful work there\nis no high nor low degree. In talking to a group of young men he says:\n\n\"When I was keeper of the herds I always saw to it that all of my cattle\nwere strong, healthy and growing, that there was water in abundance and\nplenty of feed. When I had charge of the public granaries I never slept\nuntil I knew that all was secure and cared for against the weather, and\nmy accounts as true and correct as if I were going on my long journey to\nreturn no more. My advice is to slight nothing, forget nothing, never\nleave things to chance, nor say, 'Nobody will know--this is good\nenough.'\"\n\nIn all of his injunctions Confucius never has anything in mind beyond\nthe present life. Of a future existence he knows nothing, and he seems\nto regard it as a waste of energy and a sign of weakness to live in two\nworlds at a time. \"Heaven provides us means of knowing all about what is\nbest here, and supplies us in abundance every material thing for present\nhappiness, and it is our business to realize, to know, to enjoy.\"\n\nHe taught rhetoric, mathematics, economics, the science of government\nand natural history. And always and forever running through the fabric\nof his teaching was the silken thread of ethics--man's duty to man,\nman's duty to Heaven. Music was to him a necessity, since \"it brings the\nmind in right accord with the will of Heaven.\" Before he began to speak\nhe played softly on a stringed instrument which perhaps would compare\nbest with our guitar, but it was much smaller, and this instrument he\nalways carried with him, suspended from his shoulder by a silken sash.\nYet with all of his passion for music, he cautioned his disciples\nagainst using it as an end. It was merely valuable as an introduction to\nbe used in attuning the mind and heart to an understanding of great\ntruth.\n\nConfucius was seventy-two years old at his death. During his life his\npopularity was not great. When he passed away his followers numbered\nonly about three thousand persons, and his \"disciples,\" or the teachers\nwho taught his philosophy, were seventy in number.\n\nThere is no reason to suppose that Confucius assumed that a vast number\nof people would ever ponder his words or regard him as a prophet.\n\nAt the time that Confucius lived, also lived Lao-tsze. As a youth\nConfucius visited Lao-tsze, who was then an old man. Confucius often\nquotes his great contemporary and calls himself a follower of Lao-tsze.\nThe difference, however, between the men is marked. Lao-tsze's teachings\nare full of metaphysics and strange and mystical curiosities, while\nConfucius is always simple, lucid and practical.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nConfucius has been revered for twenty centuries, revered simply as a\nman, not as a god or as a divinely appointed savior. He offered no\nreward of heaven, nor did he threaten non-believers with hell. He\nclaimed no special influence nor relationship to the Unseen. In all his\nteachings he was singularly open, frank and free from all mystery or\nconcealment. In reference to the supernatural he was an agnostic. He\noften said, \"I do not know.\" He was always an inquirer, always a\nstudent, always open to conviction. History affords no instance of\nanother individual who has been so well and so long loved, who still\nholds his place, and who, so far as his reasoning went, is unassailed\nand unassailable. Even the two other great religions in China that rival\nConfucianism--Buddhism and Taoism (the religion of Lao-tsze)--do not\nrenounce Confucius: they merely seek to amend and augment him.\n\nDuring his lifetime Confucius made many enemies by his habit of frankly\npointing out the foibles of society and the wrongs visited upon the\npeople by officials who pretended to serve them. Of hypocrisy,\nselfishness, vanity, pretense, he was severe in his denunciation.\n\nPoliticians at that time had the very modern habit of securing the\noffice and then leaving all the details of the work to menials, they\nthemselves pocketing the perquisites. As Minister of State, Confucius\nmade himself both feared and detested on account of his habit of\nsummoning the head of the office before him and questioning him\nconcerning his duties. In fact, this insistence that those paid by the\nState should work for the State caused a combination to be formed\nagainst him, which finally brought about his deposition and exile, two\nthings which troubled him but little, since one gave him leisure and the\nother opportunity for travel.\n\nThe personal followers of Confucius did not belong to the best society;\nbut immediately after his death, many who during his life had scorned\nthe man made haste to profess his philosophy and decorate their houses\nwith his maxims. Humanity is about the same, whether white or yellow,\nthe round world over, and time modifies it but little. It will be\nrecalled how John P. Altgeld was feared and hated by both press and\npulpit, especially in the State and city he served. But rigor mortis had\nscarcely seized upon that slight and tired body before the newspapers\nthat had disparaged the man worst were vying with one another in glowing\neulogies and warm testimonials to his honesty, sincerity, purity of\nmotive and deep insight. A personality which can neither be bribed,\nbought, coerced, flattered nor cajoled is always regarded by the\nmany--especially by the party in power--as \"dangerous.\" Vice, masked as\nvirtue, breathes easier when the honest man is safely under the sod.\n\nThe plain and simple style of Confucius' teaching can be gathered by the\nfollowing sayings, selected at random from the canonical books of\nConfucianism, consisting of the teachings of the great master which were\ngathered together and grouped by his disciples and followers after his\ndeath:\n\n     The men of old spoke little. It would be well to imitate them, for\n     those who talk much are sure to say something it would be better to\n     have left unsaid.\n\n     Let a man's labor be proportioned to his needs. For he who works\n     beyond his strength does but add to his cares and disappointments.\n     A man should be moderate even in his efforts.\n\n     Be not over-anxious to obtain relaxation or repose. For he who is\n     so, will get neither.\n\n     Beware of ever doing that which you are likely, sooner or later, to\n     repent of having done.\n\n     Do not neglect to rectify an evil because it may seem small, for,\n     though small at first, it may continue to grow until it overwhelms\n     you.\n\n     As riches adorn a house, so does an expanded mind adorn and\n     tranquillize the body. Hence it is that the superior man will seek\n     to establish his motives on correct principles.\n\n     The cultivator of the soil may have his fill of good things, but\n     the cultivator of the mind will enjoy a continual feast.\n\n     It is because men are prone to be partial toward those they love,\n     unjust toward those they hate, servile toward those above them,\n     arrogant to those below them, and either harsh or over-indulgent to\n     those in poverty and distress, that it is so difficult to find any\n     one capable of exercising a sound judgment with respect to the\n     qualities of others.\n\n     He who is incapable of regulating his own family can not be capable\n     of ruling a nation. The superior man will find within the limits of\n     his own home, a sufficient sphere for the exercise of all those\n     principles upon which good government depends. How, indeed, can it\n     be otherwise, when filial piety is that which should regulate the\n     conduct of a people toward their prince; fraternal affection, that\n     which should regulate the relations which should exist between\n     equals, and the conduct of inferiors toward those above them; and\n     paternal kindness, that which should regulate the bearing of those\n     in authority toward those over whom they are placed?\n\n     Be slow in speech, but prompt in action.\n\n     He whose principles are thoroughly established will not be easily\n     led from the right path.\n\n     The cautious are generally to be found on the right side.\n\n     By speaking when we ought to keep silence, we waste our words.\n\n     If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally and others\n     sparingly.\n\n     There is no use attempting to help those who can not help\n     themselves.\n\n     Make friends with the upright, intelligent and wise; avoid the\n     licentious, talkative and vain.\n\n     Disputation often breeds hatred.\n\n     Nourish good principles with the same care that a mother would\n     bestow on her newborn babe. You may not be able to bring them to\n     maturity, but you will nevertheless be not far from doing so.\n\n     The decrees of Heaven are not immutable, for though a throne may be\n     gained by virtue, it may be lost by vice.\n\n     There are five good principles of action to be adopted: To benefit\n     others without being lavish; to encourage labor without being\n     harsh; to add to your resources without being covetous; to be\n     dignified without being supercilious; and to inspire awe without\n     being austere. Also, we should not search for love or demand it,\n     but so live that it will flow to us.\n\n     Personal character can only be established on fixed principles, for\n     if the mind be allowed to be agitated by violent emotions, to be\n     excited by fear, or unduly moved by the love of pleasure, it will\n     be impossible for it to be made perfect. A man must reason calmly,\n     for without reason he would look and not see, listen and not hear.\n\n     When a man has been helped around one corner of a square, and can\n     not manage by himself to get around the other three, he is unworthy\n     of further assistance.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PYTHAGORAS]\n\nPYTHAGORAS\n\n\n     Consult and deliberate before you act, that thou mayest not commit\n     foolish actions. For 't is the part of a miserable man to speak and\n     to act without reflection. But do that which will not afflict thee\n     afterwards, nor oblige thee to repentance.\n\n     --_Pythagoras_\n\n\nPYTHAGORAS\n\nWith no desire to deprive Mr. Bok of his bread, I wish to call attention\nto Pythagoras, who lived a little more than five hundred years before\nChrist.\n\nEven at that time the world was old. Memphis, which was built four\nthousand years ago, had begun to crumble into ruins. Troy was buried\ndeep in the dust which an American citizen of German birth was to\nremove. Nineveh and Babylon were dying the death that success always\nbrings, and the star of empire was preparing to westward wend its way.\n\nPythagoras ushered in the Golden Age of Greece. All the great writers\nwhom he immediately preceded, quote him and refer to him. Some admire\nhim; others are loftily critical; most of them are a little jealous; and\na few use him as a horrible example, calling him a poseur, a pedant, a\nlearned sleight-of-hand man, a bag of books.\n\nTrial by newspaper was not invented in the time of Pythagoras; but\npersonal vilification has been popular since Balaam talked gossip with\nhis vis-a-vis.\n\nAnaxagoras, who gave up his wealth to the State that he might be free,\nand who was the teacher of Pericles, was a pupil of Pythagoras, and used\noften to mention him.\n\nIn this way Pericles was impressed by the Pythagorean philosophy, and\nvery often quotes it in his speeches. Socrates gave Pythagoras as an\nauthority on the simple life, and stated that he was willing to follow\nhim in anything save his injunction to keep silence. Socrates wanted\nsilence optional; whereas Pythagoras required each of his pupils to live\nfor a year without once asking a question or making an explanation. In\naggravated cases he made the limit five years.\n\nIn many ways Pythagoras reminds us of our friend Muldoon, both being\nbeneficent autocrats, and both proving their sincerity by taking their\nown medicine. Pythagoras said, \"I will never ask another to do what I\nhave not done, and am not willing to do myself.\"\n\nTo this end he was once challenged by his three hundred pupils to remain\nsilent for a year. He accepted the defi, not once defending himself from\nthe criticisms and accusations that were rained upon him, not once\ncomplaining, nor issuing an order. Tradition has it, however, that he\nmade averages good later on, when the year of expiation was ended.\n\nThere are two reasonably complete lives of Pythagoras, one by Diogenes\nLaertius, and another by Iamblichus. Personally, I prefer the latter, as\nIamblichus, as might be inferred from his name, makes Pythagoras a\ndescendant of AEneas, who was a son of Neptune. This is surely better\nthan the abrupt and somewhat sensational statement to the effect that\nhis father was Apollo.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe birthplace of Pythagoras was Samos, an isle of Greece. He was born\nof wealthy but honest parents, who were much in love with each other--a\nrequisite, says Pythagoras, for parentage on its highest plane. It is\nprobable that Pythagoras was absolutely correct in his hypothesis.\n\nThat he was a very noble specimen of manhood--physically and\nmentally--there is no doubt. He was tall, lithe, dignified, commanding\nand silent by nature, realizing fully that a handsome man can never talk\nas well as he looks.\n\nHe was quite aware of his physical graces, and in following up the facts\nof his early life, he makes the statement that his father was a\nsea-captain and trader. He then incidentally adds that the best results\nare obtained for posterity where a man is absent from his family eleven\nmonths in the year. This is an axiom agreed upon by many modern\nphilosophers, few of whom, however, live up to their ideals.\nAristophanes, who was on friendly terms with some of the disciples of\nPythagoras, suggested in one of his plays that the Pythagorean domestic\ntime-limit should be increased at least a month for the good of all\nconcerned.\n\nPlato, Xenophon and Aristotle make frequent references to Pythagoras. In\norder to impress men like these, the man must have taught a very exalted\nphilosophy. In truth, Pythagoras was a teacher of teachers. And like all\nmen who make a business of wisdom he sometimes came tardy off, and\nindulged in a welter of words that wrecked the original idea--if there\nwere one.\n\nThere are these three: Knowledge, Learning, Wisdom. And the world has\nuntil very recent times assumed that they were practically one and the\nsame thing.\n\nKnowledge consists of the things we know, not the things we believe or\nthe things we assume. Knowledge is a personal matter of intuition,\nconfirmed by experience. Learning consists largely of the things we\nmemorize and are told by persons or books. Tomlinson of Berkeley Square\nwas a learned man. When we think of a learned man, we picture him as one\nseated in a library surrounded by tomes that top the shelves.\n\nWisdom is the distilled essence of what we have learned from experience.\nIt is that which helps us to live, work, love and make life worth living\nfor all we meet. Men may be very learned, and still be far from wise.\n\nPythagoras was one of those strange beings who are born with a desire to\nknow, and who finally comprehending the secret of the Sphinx, that there\nis really nothing to say, insist on saying it. That is, vast learning is\naugmented by a structure of words, and on this is built a theogony.\nPractically he was a priest.\n\nWorked into all priestly philosophies are nuggets of wisdom that shine\nlike stars in the darkness and lead men on and on.\n\nAll great religions have these periods of sanity, otherwise they would\nhave no followers at all. The followers, understanding little bits of\nthis and that, hope finally to understand it all. Inwardly the initiates\nat the shrine of their own conscience know that they know nothing. When\nthey teach others they are obliged to pretend that they, themselves,\nfully comprehend the import of what they are saying. The novitiate\nattributes his lack of perception to his own stupidity, and many great\nteachers encourage this view.\n\n\"Be patient, and you shall some day know,\" they say, and smile frigidly.\n\nAnd when credulity threatens to balk and go no further, magic comes to\nthe rescue and the domain of Hermann and Kellar is poached upon.\n\nMystery and miracle were born in Egypt. It was there that a system was\nevolved, backed up by the ruler, of religious fraud so colossal that\nmodern deception looks like the bungling efforts of an amateur. The\ngovernment, the army, the taxing power of the State, were sworn to\nprotect gigantic safes in which was hoarded--nothing. That is to say,\nnothing but the pretense upon which cupidity and self-hypnotized\ncredulity battened and fattened.\n\nAll institutions which through mummery, strange acts, dress and ritual,\naffect to know and impart the inmost secrets of creation and ultimate\ndestiny, had their rise in Egypt. In Egypt now are only graves, tombs,\nnecropolises and silence. The priests there need no soldiery to keep\ntheir secrets safe. Ammon-Ra, who once ruled the universe, being finally\nexorcised by Yaveh, is now as dead as the mummies who once were men and\nupheld his undisputed sway.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Egyptians guarded their mysteries with jealous dread.\n\nWe know their secret now. It is this--there are no mysteries.\n\nThat is the only secret upon which any secret society holds a caveat.\nWisdom can not be corraled with gibberish and fettered in jargon.\nKnowledge is one thing--palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of\nour callow days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come the\nElks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke,\nsave that brotherhood and good-fellowship are actually a saving salt\nwhich excuses much that would otherwise be simply silly.\n\nAll this mystery and mysticism was once official, and later, on being\ndiscarded by the authorities, was continued by the students as a kind of\nprank.\n\nGreek-letter societies are the rudimentary survivals of what was once an\nintegral part of every college. Making dead languages optional was the\nlast convulsive kick of the cadaver.\n\nAnd now a good many colleges are placing the seal of their disapproval\non secret societies among the students; and the day is near when the\nsecret society will not be tolerated, either directly or indirectly, as\na part of the education of youth. All this because the sophomoric mind\nis prone to take its Greek-letter mysteries seriously, and regard the\ncollege curriculum as a joke of the faculty.\n\nIf knowledge were to be gained by riding a goat, any petty crossroads,\nwith its lodge-room over the grocery, would contain a Herbert Spencer;\nand the agrarian mossbacks would have wisdom by the scruff and detain\nknowledge with a tail-hold.\n\nThere can be no secrets in life and morals, because Nature has so\nprovided that every beautiful thought you know and every precious\nsentiment you feel, shall shine out of your face so that all who are\ngreat enough may see, know, understand, appreciate and appropriate. You\ncan keep things only by giving them away.\n\nWhen Pythagoras was only four or five years old, his mother taught him\nto take his morning bath in the cold stream, and dry his baby skin by\nrunning in the wind. As he ran, she ran with him, and together they sang\na hymn to the rising sun, that for them represented the god Apollo.\n\nThis mother taught him to be indifferent to cold, heat, hunger, to exult\nin endurance, and to take a joy in the glow of the body.\n\nSo the boy grew strong and handsome, and proud; and perhaps it was in\nthose early years, from the mother herself, that he gathered the idea,\nafterward developed, that Apollo had appeared to his mother, and so\ngreat was the beauty of the god that the woman was actually overcome, it\nbeing the first god at which she had ever had a good look.\n\nThe ambition of a great mother centers on her son. Pythagoras was filled\nwith the thought that he was different, peculiar, set apart to teach the\nhuman race.\n\nHaving compassed all there was to learn in his native place, and, as he\nthought, being ill appreciated, he started for Egypt, the land of\nlearning. The fallacy that knowledge was a secret to be gained by word\nof mouth and to be gotten from books existed then as now. The mother of\nPythagoras wanted her son to comprehend the innermost secrets of the\nEgyptian mysteries. He would then know all. To this end she sold her\njewels, in order that her son might have the advantages of an Egyptian\neducation.\n\nWomen were not allowed to know the divine secrets--only just a few\nlittle ones. This woman wanted to know, and she said her son would\nlearn, and tell her.\n\nThe family had become fairly rich by this time, and influential. Letters\nwere gotten from the great ones of Samos to the Secretary of State in\nEgypt. And so Pythagoras, aged twenty, \"the youth with the beautiful\nhair,\" went on his journey to Egypt and knocked boldly at the doors of\nthe temples at Memphis, where knowledge was supposed to be in stock.\nReligion then monopolized all schools and continued to do so for quite\nsome time after Pythagoras was dead.\n\nHe was turned away with the explanation that no foreigner could enter\nthe sacred portals--that the initiates must be those born in the shadows\nof the temples and nurtured in the faith from infancy by holy virgins.\n\nPythagoras still insisted, and it was probably then that he found a\nsponsor who made for him the claim that he was a son of Apollo. And the\nholy men peeped out of their peep-holes in holy admiration for any one\nwho could concoct as big a lie as they themselves had ever invented.\n\nThe boy surely looked the part. Perhaps, at last, here was one who was\nwhat they pretended to be! Frauds believe in frauds, and rogues are more\neasily captured by roguery than are honest men.\n\nHis admittance to the university became a matter of international\ndiplomacy. At last, being too hard-pressed, the wise ones who ran the\nmystery monopoly gave in, and Pythagoras was informed that at midnight\nof a certain night, he should present himself, naked, at the door of a\ncertain temple and he would be admitted.\n\nOn the stroke of the hour, at the appointed time, Pythagoras, the youth\nwith the beautiful hair, was there, clothed only in his beautiful hair.\nHe knocked on the great, bronze doors, but the only answer was a faint,\nhollow echo.\n\nThen he got a stone and pounded, but still no answer.\n\nThe wind sprang up fresh and cold. The young man was chilled to the\nbone, but still he pounded and then called aloud demanding admittance.\nHis answer now was the growling and barking of dogs, within. Still he\npounded! After an interval a hoarse voice called out through a little\nslide, ordering him to be gone or the dogs would be turned loose upon\nhim.\n\nHe demanded admittance.\n\n\"Fool, do you not know that the law says these doors shall admit no one\nexcept at sunrise?\"\n\n\"I only know that I was told to be here at midnight and I would be\nadmitted.\"\n\n\"All that may be true, but you were not told when you would be\nadmitted--wait, it is the will of the gods.\" So Pythagoras waited,\nnumbed and nearly dead.\n\nThe dogs which he had heard had, in some way, gotten out, and came\ntearing around the corner of the great stone building. He fought them\nwith desperate strength. The effort seemed to warm his blood, and\nwhereas before he was about to retreat to his lodgings he now remained.\n\nThe day broke in the east, and gangs of slaves went by to work. They\njeered at him and pelted him with pebbles.\n\nSuddenly across the desert sands he saw the faint pink rim of the rising\nsun. On the instant the big bronze doors against which he was leaning\nswung suddenly in. He fell with them, and coarse, rough hands seized his\nhair and pulled him into the hall.\n\nThe doors swung to and closed with a clang. Pythagoras was in dense\ndarkness, lying on the stone floor.\n\nA voice, seemingly coming from afar, demanded, \"Do you still wish to go\non?\"\n\nAnd his answer was, \"I desire to go on.\"\n\nA black-robed figure, wearing a mask, then appeared with a flickering\nlight, and Pythagoras was led into a stone cell.\n\nHis head was shaved, and he was given a coarse robe and then left alone.\nToward the end of the day he was given a piece of black bread and a bowl\nof water. This he was told was to fortify him for the ordeal to come.\n\nWhat that ordeal was we can only guess, save that it consisted partially\nin running over hot sands where he sank to his waist. At a point where\nhe seemed about to perish a voice called loudly, \"Do you yet desire to\ngo on?\"\n\nAnd his answer was, \"I desire to go on.\"\n\nReturning to the inmost temple he was told to enter a certain door and\nwait therein. He was then blindfolded and when he opened the door to\nenter, he walked off into space and fell into a pool of ice-cold water.\n\nWhile floundering there the voice again called, \"Do you yet desire to go\non?\"\n\nAnd his answer was, \"I desire to go on.\"\n\nAt another time he was tied upon the back of a donkey and the donkey was\nled along a rocky precipice, where lights danced and flickered a\nthousand feet below.\n\n\"Do you yet want to go on?\" called the voice.\n\nAnd Pythagoras answered, \"I desire to go on.\"\n\nThe priests here pushed the donkey off the precipice, which proved to be\nonly about two feet high, the gulf below being an illusion arranged with\nthe aid of lights that shone through apertures in the wall.\n\nThese pleasing little diversions Pythagoras afterward introduced into\nthe college which he founded, so to teach the merry freshmen that\nnothing, at the last, was as bad as it seemed, and that most dangers are\nsimply illusions.\n\nThe Egyptians grew to have such regard for Pythagoras that he was given\nevery opportunity to know the inmost secrets of the mysteries. He said\nhe encompassed them all, save those alone which were incomprehensible.\n\nThis was probably true.\n\nThe years spent in Egypt were not wasted--he learned astronomy,\nmathematics, and psychology, a thing then not named, but pretty well\nunderstood--the management of men.\n\nIt was twenty years before Pythagoras returned to Samos. His mother was\ndead, so she passed away in ignorance of the secrets of the gods--which\nperhaps was just as well.\n\nSamos now treated Pythagoras with great honor.\n\nCrowds flocked to his lectures, presents were given him, royalty paid\nhim profound obeisance.\n\nBut Samos soon tired of Pythagoras. He was too austere, too severe; and\nwhen he began to rebuke the officials for their sloth and indifference,\nhe was invited to go elsewhere and teach his science of life. And so he\njourneyed into Southern Italy, and at Crotona built his Temple to the\nMuses and founded the Pythagorean School. He was the wisest as well as\nthe most learned man of his time.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSome unkind person has said that Pythagoras was the original charter\nmember of the Jesuits Society. The maxim that the end justifies the\nmeans was the cornerstone of Egyptian theology. When Pythagoras left\nEgypt he took with him this cornerstone as a souvenir. That the priests\ncould hold their power over the masses only through magic and miracle\nwas fully believed, and as a good police system the value of organized\nreligion was highly appreciated. In fact, no ruler could hold his place,\nunsupported by the priest. Both were divine propositions. One searches\nin vain for simple truth among the sages, solons, philosophers, poets\nand prophets that existed down to the time of Socrates. Truth for\ntruth's sake was absolutely unimagined; freethought was unguessed.\n\nExpediency was always placed before truth.\n\nTruth was furnished with frills--the people otherwise would not be\nimpressed. Chants, robes, ritual, processions, banging of bells, burning\nof incense, strange sounds, sights and smells: these were considered\nnecessary factors in teaching divine truth.\n\nTo worship with a noise seems to us a little like making love with a\nbrass band.\n\nPythagoras was a very great man, but for him to eliminate theological\nchaff entirely was impossible. So we find that when he was about to\nspeak, red fire filled the building as soon as he arose. It was all a\nlittle like the alleged plan of the late Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage,\nwho used to have an Irishman let loose a white pigeon from the\norgan-loft at an opportune time.\n\nWhen Pythagoras burned the red fire, of course the audience thought a\nmiracle was taking place, unable to understand a simple stage-trick\nwhich all the boys in the gallery who delight in \"Faust\" now understand.\n\nHowever, the Pythagorean School had much virtue on its side, and made a\nsincere and earnest effort to solve certain problems that yet are vexing\nus.\n\nThe Temple of the Muses, built by Pythagoras at Crotona, is described by\nIamblichus as a stone structure with walls twenty feet thick, the light\nbeing admitted only from the top. It was evidently constructed after the\nEgyptian pattern, and the intent was to teach there the esoteric\ndoctrine. But Pythagoras improved upon the Egyptian methods and opened\nhis temple on certain days to all and any who desired to come. Then at\ntimes he gave lectures to women only, and then to men only, and also to\nchildren, thus showing that modern revival methods are not wholly\nmodern.\n\nThese lectures contain the very essence of Pythagorean philosophy, and\ninclude so much practical commonsense that they are still quoted. These\nare some of the sayings that impressed Socrates, Pericles, Aristotle and\nPliny. What the Egyptians actually taught we really do not know--it was\ntoo gaseous to last. Only the good endures. Says Pythagoras:\n\n     Cut not into the grape. Exaltation coming from wine is not good.\n     You hope too much in this condition, so are afterwards depressed.\n     Wise men are neither cast down in defeat nor exalted by success.\n     Eat moderately, bathe plentifully, exercise much in the open air,\n     walk far, and climb the hills alone.\n\n     Above all things, learn to keep silence--hear all and speak little.\n     If you are defamed, answer not back. Talk convinces no one. Your\n     life and character proclaim you more than any argument you can put\n     forth. Lies return to plague those who repeat them.\n\n     The secret of power is to keep an even temper, and remember that no\n     one thing that can happen is of much moment. The course of justice,\n     industry, courage, moderation, silence, means that you shall\n     receive your due of every good thing. The gods may be slow, but\n     they never forget.\n\n     It is not for us to punish men nor avenge ourselves for slights,\n     wrongs and insults--wait, and you will see that Nemesis unhorses\n     the man intent on calumny.\n\n     A woman's ornaments should be modesty, simplicity, truth,\n     obedience. If a woman would hold a man captive she can only do it\n     by obeying him. Violent women are even more displeasing to the gods\n     than violent men--both are destroying themselves. Strife is always\n     defeat.\n\n     Debauchery, riot, splendor, luxury, are attempts to get a pleasure\n     out of life that is not our due, and so Nemesis provides her\n     penalty for the idle and gluttonous.\n\n     Fear and honor the gods. They guide our ways and watch over us in\n     our sleep. After the gods, a man's first thought should be of his\n     father and mother. Next to these his wife, then his children.\n\nSo great was this power of Pythagoras over the people that many of the\nwomen who came, hearing his discourse on the folly of pride and\nsplendor, threw off their cloaks, and left them with their rings,\nanklets and necklaces on the altar.\n\nWith these and other offerings Pythagoras built another temple, this\ntime to Apollo, and the Temple to the Muses was left open all the time\nfor the people.\n\nHis power over the multitude alarmed the magistrates, so they sent for\nhim to examine him as to his influence and intents. He explained to them\nthat as the Muses were never at variance among themselves, always living\nin subjection to Apollo, so should magistrates agree among themselves\nand think only of being loyal to the king. All royal edicts and laws are\nreflections of divine law, and therefore must be obeyed without\nquestion. And as the Muses never interrupt the harmony of Heaven, but in\nfact add to it, so should men ever keep harmony among themselves.\n\nAll officers of the government should consider themselves as runners in\nthe Olympian games, and never seek to trip, jostle, harass or annoy a\nrival, but run the race squarely and fairly, satisfied to be beaten if\nthe other is the stronger and better man. An unfair victory gains only\nthe anger of the gods.\n\nAll disorders in the State come from ill education of the young.\nChildren not brought up to be patient, to endure, to work, to be\nconsiderate of their elders and respectful to all, grow diseased minds\nthat find relief at last in anarchy and rebellion. So to take great care\nof children in their infancy, and then leave them at puberty to follow\ntheir own inclinations, is to sow disorder. Children well loved and kept\nclose to their parents grow up into men and women who are an ornament to\nthe State and a joy to the gods. Lawless, complaining, restless, idle\nchildren grieve the gods and bring trouble upon their parents and\nsociety.\n\nThe magistrates were here so pleased, and satisfied in their own minds\nthat Pythagoras meant the State no harm, that they issued an order that\nall citizens should attend upon his lectures at least once a week, and\ntake their wives and children with them.\n\nThey also offered to pay Pythagoras--that is, put him on the payroll as\na public teacher--but he declined to accept money for his services. In\nthis, Iamblichus says, he was very wise, since by declining a fixed fee,\nten times as much was laid upon the altar of the Temple of the Muses,\nand not knowing to whom to return it, Pythagoras was obliged to keep it\nfor himself and the poor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nChurchmen of the Middle Ages worked the memory of Pythagoras great\ninjustice by quoting him literally in order to prove how much they were\nbeyond him. Symbols and epigrams require a sympathetic hearer, otherwise\nthey are as naught.\n\nFor instance, Pythagoras remarks, \"Sit thou not down upon a bushel\nmeasure.\" What he probably meant was, get busy and fill the measure with\ngrain rather than use it for a seat.\n\n\"Eat not the heart\"--do not act so as to harrow the feelings of your\nfriends, and do not be morbid.\n\n\"Never stir the fire with a sword\"--do not inflame people who are\nwrathful.\n\n\"Wear not the image of God upon your jewelry\"--do not make religion a\nproud or boastful thing.\n\n\"Help men to a burden, but never unburden them.\" This saying was used by\nSaint Francis to prove that the pagan philosophers had no tenderness,\nand that the humanities came at a later date. We can now easily\nunderstand that to relieve men of responsibilities is no help; rather do\nwe grow strong by carrying burdens.\n\n\"Leave not the mark of the pot upon the ashes\"--wipe out the past,\nforget it, look to the future.\n\n\"Feed no animal that has crooked claws\"--do not encourage rogues by\nsupplying them a living.\n\n\"Eat no fish whose fins are black\"--have nothing to do with men whose\ndeeds are dark.\n\n\"Always have salt upon your table\"--this seems the original of \"cum\ngrano salis\" of the Romans.\n\n\"Leave the vinegar at a distance\"--keep sweet.\n\n\"Speak not in the face of the sun\"--even Erasmus thought this referred\nto magic. To us it is quite reasonable to suppose that it meant, \"do not\ntalk too much in public places.\"\n\n\"Pick not up what falls from the table\"--Plutarch calls this\nsuperstition, but we can just as easily suppose it was out of\nconsideration for cats, dogs or hungry men. The Bible has a command\nagainst gleaning too closely, and leaving nothing for the traveler.\n\n\"When making sacrifice, never pare your nails\"--that is to say, do one\nthing at a time: wind not the clock at an inopportune time.\n\n\"Eat not in the chariot\"--when you travel, travel.\n\n\"Feed not yourself with your left hand\"--get your living openly and\navoid all left-handed dealings.\n\nAnd so there are hundreds of these Pythagorean sayings that have vexed\nour classic friends for over two thousand years. All Greek scholars who\nreally pride themselves on their scholarship have taken a hand at them,\nand agitated the ether just as the members of the Kokomo Woman's Club\ndiscuss obscure passages in Bliss Carman or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Learned\npeople are apt to comprehend anything but the obvious.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe School of Pythagoras grew until it became the chief attraction of\nCrotona. The size of the town was doubled through the pilgrims who came\nto study music, mathematics, medicine, ethics and the science of\ngovernment.\n\nThe Pythagorean plan of treating the sick by music was long considered\nas mere incantation, but there is a suspicion now that it was actual\nscience. Once there was a man who rode a hobby all his life; and long\nafter he was dead, folks discovered it was a real live horse and had\ncarried the man long miles.\n\nPythagoras reduced the musical scale to a mathematical science. In\nastronomy he anticipated Copernicus, and indeed, it was cited as the\nchief offense of Copernicus that he had borrowed from a pagan.\nCopernicus, it seems, set the merry churchmen digging into Greek\nliterature to find out just how bad Pythagoras was. This did the\nchurchmen good, but did not help the cause of Copernicus.\n\nPythagoras for a time sought to popularize his work, but he soon found\nto his dismay that he was attracting cheap and unworthy people, who came\nnot so much out of a love of learning as to satisfy a morbid curiosity\nand gain a short cut to wisdom. They wanted secrets, and knowing that\nPythagoras had spent twenty years in Egypt, they came to him, hoping to\nget them.\n\nSaid Pythagoras, \"He who digs, always finds.\" At another time, he put\nthe same idea reversely, thus, \"He who digs not, never finds.\"\n\nPythagoras was well past forty when he married a daughter of one of the\nchief citizens of Crotona. It seems that, inspired by his wife, who was\nfirst one of his pupils and then a disciple, he conceived a new mode of\nlife, which he thought would soon overthrow the old manner of living.\n\nPythagoras himself wrote nothing, but all his pupils kept tablets, and\nAthens in the century following Pythagoras was full of these Pythagorean\nnotebooks, and these supply us the scattered data from which his life\nwas written.\n\nPythagoras, like so many other great men, had his dream of Utopia: it\nwas a college or, literally, \"a collection of people,\" where all were on\nan equality. Everybody worked, everybody studied, everybody helped\neverybody, and all refrained from disturbing or distressing any one. It\nwas the Oneida Community taken over by Brook Farm and fused into a\nreligious and scientific New Harmony by the Shakers.\n\nOne smiles to see the minute rules that were made for the guidance of\nthe members. They look like a transcript from a sermon by John Alexander\nDowie, revised by the shade of Robert Owen.\n\nThis Pythagorean Community was organized out of a necessity in order to\nescape the blow-ins who sailed across from Greece intent on some new\nthing, but principally to get knowledge and a living without work.\n\nAnd so Pythagoras and his wife formed a close corporation. For each\nmember there was an initiation, strict and severe, the intent of which\nwas absolutely to bar the transient triflers. Each member was to turn\nover to the Common Treasury all the money and goods he had of every kind\nand quality. They started naked, just as did Pythagoras when he stood at\nthe door of the temple in Egypt.\n\nSimplicity, truth, honesty and mutual service were to govern. It was an\noutcrop of the monastic impulse, save that women were admitted, also.\nUnlike the Egyptians, Pythagoras believed now in the equality of the\nsexes, and his wife daily led the women's chorus, and she also gave\nlectures. The children were especially cared for by women set apart as\nnurses and teachers. By rearing perfect children, it was hoped and\nexpected to produce in turn a perfect race.\n\nThe whole idea was a phase of totemism and tabu.\n\nThat it flourished for about thirty years is very certain. Two sons and\na daughter of Pythagoras grew to maturity in the college, and this\ndaughter was tried by the Order on the criminal charge of selling the\nsecret doctrines of her father to outsiders.\n\nOne of the sons it seems made trouble, also, in an attempt to usurp his\nfather's place and take charge of affairs, as \"next friend.\" One\ngeneration is about the limit of a Utopian Community. When those who\nhave organized the community weaken and one by one pass away, and the\nyoung assume authority, the old ideas of austerity are forgotten and\ndissipation and disintegration enter. So do we move in circles.\n\nThe final blow to the Pythagorean College came through jealousy and\nmisunderstanding of the citizens outside. It was the old question of\nTown versus Gown. The Pythagoreans numbered nearly three hundred people.\nThey held themselves aloof, and no doubt had an exasperating pride. No\nstrangers were ever allowed inside the walls--they were a law unto\nthemselves.\n\nInternal strife and tales told by dissenters excited the curiosity, and\nthen the prejudice, of the townspeople.\n\nThen the report got abroad that the Pythagoreans were collecting arms\nand were about to overthrow the local government and enslave the\nofficials.\n\nOn a certain night, led by a band of drunken soldiers, a mob made an\nassault upon the college. The buildings were fired, and the members were\neither destroyed in the flames or killed as they rushed forth to escape.\nTradition has it that Pythagoras was later seen by a shepherd on the\nmountains, but the probabilities are that he perished with his people.\nBut you can not dispose of a great man by killing him. Here we are\nreading, writing and talking yet of Pythagoras.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PLATO]\n\nPLATO\n\n\n     How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the\n     question, \"How does love suit with age, Sophocles--are you still\n     the man you were?\"\n\n     \"Peace,\" he replied; \"most gladly have I escaped that, and I feel\n     as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.\"\n\n     That saying of his has often come into my mind since, and seems to\n     me still as good as at the time when I heard him. For certainly old\n     age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax\n     their hold, then, as Sophocles says, you have escaped from the\n     control not of one master only, but of many. And of these regrets,\n     as well as of the complaint about relations, Socrates, the cause is\n     to be sought, not in men's ages, but in their characters and\n     tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel\n     the pressure of age, but he who is of an opposite disposition will\n     find youth and age equally a burden.\n\n     --_The Republic_\n\n\nPLATO\n\nA thinking man is one of the most recent productions evolved from\nNature's laboratory. The first man of brains to express himself about\nthe world in an honest, simple and natural way, just as if nothing had\nbeen said about it before, was Socrates.\n\nTwenty-four centuries have passed since Socrates was put to death on the\ncharge of speaking disrespectfully of the gods and polluting the minds\nof the youths of Athens. During ten of these centuries that have passed\nsince then, the race lost the capacity to think, through the successful\ncombination of the priest and the soldier. These men blocked human\nevolution. The penalty for making slaves is that you become one.\n\nTo suppress humanity is to suppress yourself.\n\nThe race is one. So the priests and the soldiers who in the Third\nCentury had a modicum of worth themselves, sank and were submerged in\nthe general slough of superstition and ignorance. It was a panic that\ncontinued for a thousand years, all through the endeavor of faulty men\nto make people good by force. At all times, up to within our own decade,\nfrank expression on religious, economic and social topics has been\nfraught with great peril. Even yet any man who hopes for popularity as\na writer, orator, merchant or politician, would do well to conceal\nstudiously his inmost beliefs. On such simple themes as the taxation of\nreal estate, regardless of the business of the owner, and a payment\nof a like wage for a like service without consideration of sex, the\nstatesman who has the temerity to speak out will be quickly relegated\nto private life. Successful merchants depending on a local constituency\nfind it expedient to cater to popular superstitions by heading\nsubscription-lists for the support of things in which they do not\nbelieve. No avowed independent thinker would be tolerated as chief ruler\nof any of the so-called civilized countries.\n\nThe fact, however, that the penalty for frank expression is limited now\nto social and commercial ostracism is very hopeful--a few years ago it\nmeant the scaffold.\n\nWe have been heirs to a leaden legacy of fear that has well-nigh\nbanished joy and made of life a long nightmare.\n\nIn very truth, the race has been insane.\n\nHallucinations, fallacies, fears, have gnawed at our hearts, and men\nhave fought men with deadly frenzy. The people who interfered, trying to\nsave us, we have killed. Truly did we say, \"There is no health in us,\"\nwhich repetition did not tend to mend the malady.\n\nWe are now getting convalescent. We are hobbling out into the sunshine\non crutches. We have discharged most of our old advisers, heaved the\ndulling and deadly bottles out of the windows, and are intent on\nstudying and understanding our own case. Our motto is twenty-four\ncenturies old--it is simply this: KNOW THYSELF.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSocrates was a street preacher, with a beautiful indifference as to\nwhether people liked him or not. To most Athenians he was the town fool.\nAthens was a little city (only about one hundred fifty thousand), and\neverybody knew Socrates. The popular plays caricatured him; the topical\nsongs misquoted him; the funny artists on the street-corners who modeled\nthings in clay, while you waited, made figures of him.\n\nEverybody knew Socrates--I guess so!\n\nPlato, the handsome youth of nineteen, wearing a purple robe, which\nmarked him as one of the nobility, paused to listen to this uncouth man\nwho gave everything and wanted nothing.\n\nYe gods! But it is no wonder they caricatured him--he was a temptation\ntoo great to resist.\n\nPlato smiled--he never laughed, being too well-bred for that. Then he\nsighed, and moved a little nearer in.\n\n\"Individuals are nothing. The State is all. To offend the State is to\ndie. The State is an organization and we are members of it. The State is\nonly as rich as its poorest citizen. We are all given a little sample of\ndivinity to study, model and marvel at. To understand the State you must\nKNOW THYSELF.\"\n\nPlato lingered until the little crowd had dispersed, and when the old\nman with the goggle-eyes and full-moon face went shuffling slowly down\nthe street, he approached and asked him a question.\n\nThis man Socrates was no fool--the populace was wrong--he was a man so\nnatural and free from cant that he appeared to the triflers and\npretenders like a pretender, and they asked, \"Is he sincere?\"\n\nWhat Plato was by birth, breeding and inheritance, Socrates was by\nnature--a noble man.\n\nUp to this time the ambition of Plato had been for place and power--to\nmake the right impression on the people in order to gain political\npreferment. He had been educated in the school of the Sophists, and his\nprincipal studies were poetry, rhetoric and deportment.\n\nAnd now straightway he destroyed the manuscript of his poems, for in\ntheir writing he had suddenly discovered that he had not written what he\ninwardly believed was true, but simply that which he thought was proper\nand nice to say. In other words, his literature had been a form of\npretense.\n\nDaily thereafter, where went Socrates there went Plato. Side by side\nthey sat on the curb--Socrates talking, questioning the bystanders,\naccosting the passers-by; Plato talking little, but listening much.\n\nSocrates was short, stout and miles around. Plato was tall, athletic and\nbroad-shouldered. In fact, the word, \"plato,\" or \"platon,\" means broad,\nand it was given him as a nickname by his comrades. His correct name was\nAristocles, but \"Plato\" suited him better, since it symbols that he was\nnot only broad of shoulder, but likewise in mind. He was not only noble\nby birth, but noble in appearance.\n\nEmerson calls him the universal man. He absorbed all the science, all\nthe art, all the philosophy of his day. He was handsome, kindly,\ngraceful, gracious, generous, and lived and died a bachelor. He never\ncollided with either poverty or matrimony.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPlato was twenty-eight years old when Socrates died. For eight years\nthey had been together daily. After the death of Socrates, Plato lived\nfor forty-six years, just to keep alive the name and fame of the great\nphilosopher.\n\nSocrates comes to us through Plato. Various other contemporaries mention\nSocrates and quote him, some to his disadvantage, but it was left for\nPlato to give us the heart of his philosophy, and limn his character for\nall time in unforgetable outline.\n\nPlato is called the \"Pride of Greece.\" His contribution to the wealth of\nthe world consists in the fact that he taught the joys of the\nintellect--the supreme satisfaction that comes through thinking. This is\nthe pure Platonic philosophy: to find our gratifications in exalted\nthought and not in bodily indulgence. Plato's theory that five years\nshould be given in early manhood to abstract thought, abstaining from\nall practical affairs, so as to acquire a love for learning, has been\ngrafted upon a theological stalk and comes down to our present time. It\nhas, however, now been discarded by the world's best thinkers as a\nfallacy. The unit of man's life is the day, not the month or year, much\nless a period of five years. Each day we must exercise the mind, just as\neach day we must exercise the body. We can not store up health and draw\nupon it at will over long-deferred periods. The account must be kept\nactive. To keep physical energy we must expend physical energy every\nday. The opinion of Herbert Spencer that thought is a physical\nfunction--a vibration set up in a certain area of brain-cells--is an\nidea never preached by Plato. The brain, being an organ, must be used,\nnot merely in one part for five years to the exclusion of all other\nparts, but all parts should be used daily. To this end the practical\nthings of life should daily engage our attention, no less than the\ncontemplation of beauty as manifest in music, poetry, art or dialectics.\nThe thought that every day we should look upon a beautiful picture, read\na beautiful poem, or listen for a little while to beautiful music, is\nhighly scientific, for this contemplation and appreciation of harmony is\na physical exercise as well as a spiritual one, and through it we grow,\ndevelop, evolve.\n\nThat we could not devote five years of our time to purely esthetic\nexercises, to the exclusion of practical things, without very great\nrisk, is now well known. And when I refer to practical affairs, I mean\nthe effort which Nature demands we should put forth to get a living.\nEvery man should live like a poor man, regardless of the fact that he\nmay have money. Nature knows nothing of bank-balances. In order to have\nan appetite for dinner, you must first earn your dinner. If you would\nsleep at night, you must first pay for sweet sleep by physical labor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPlato was born on the Island of AEgina, where his father owned an estate.\nHis mother was a direct descendant of Solon, and his father, not to be\noutdone, traced to Codrus.\n\nThe father of Socrates was a stonecutter and his mother a midwife, so\nvery naturally the son had a beautiful contempt for pedigree. Socrates\nonce said to Plato, \"Anybody can trace to Codrus--by paying enough to\nthe man who makes the family-tree.\" This seems to show that genealogy\nwas a matter of business then as now, and that nothing is new under the\nsun. Yet with all his contempt for heredity, we find Socrates often\nexpressing pride in the fact that he was a \"native son,\" whereas Plato,\nAspasia, the mother of Themistocles, and various other fairly good\npeople, were Athenian importations.\n\nSocrates belonged to the leisure class and had plenty of time for\nextended conversazione, so just how much seriousness we should mix in\nhis dialogues is still a problem. Each palate has to season to suit.\nAlso, we can never know how much is Socrates and how much essence of\nPlato. Socrates wrote nothing, and Plato ascribes all of his wisdom to\nhis master. Whether this was simple prudence or magnanimity is still a\nquestion.\n\nThe death of Socrates must have been a severe blow to Plato. He at once\nleft Athens. It was his first intention never to return. He traveled\nthrough the cities of Greece, Southern Italy and down to Egypt, and\neverywhere was treated with royal courtesies.\n\nAfter many solicitations from Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, he went to\nvisit that worthy, who had a case of philosophic and literary scabies.\nDionysius prided himself on being a Beneficent Autocrat, with a literary\nand artistic attachment. He ruled his people, educated them, cared for\nthem, disciplined them.\n\nSome people call this slavery; others term it applied socialism.\nDionysius wanted Syracuse to be the philosophic center of the world, and\nto this end Plato was importuned to make Syracuse his home and dispense\nhis specialty--truth.\n\nThis he consented to do.\n\nIt was all very much like the arrangement between Maecenas and Horace, or\nVoltaire and Frederick the Great. The patron is a man who patronizes--he\nwants something, and the particular thing that Dionysius wanted was to\nhave Plato hold a colored light upon the performances of His Altruistic,\nBeneficent, Royal Jackanapes. But Plato was a simple, honest and direct\nman: he had caught the habit from Socrates.\n\nCharles Ferguson says that the simple life does not consist in living in\nthe woods and wearing overalls and sandals, but in getting the cant out\nof one's cosmos and eliminating the hypocrisy from one's soul.\n\nPlato lived the simple life. When he spoke he stated what he thought. He\ndiscussed exploitation, war, taxation, and the Divine Right of Kings.\nKings are very unfortunate--they are shut off and shielded from truth\non every side. They get their facts at second hand and are lied to all\nday long. Consequently they become in time incapable of digesting truth.\nA court, being an artificial fabric, requires constant bracing. Next to\ncapital, nothing is so timid as a king. Heine says that kings have to\ndraw their nightcaps on over their crowns when they go to bed, in order\nto keep them from being stolen, and that they are subject to insomnia.\n\nWalt Whitman, with nothing to lose--not even a reputation or a hat--was\nmuch more kingly walking bareheaded past the White House than Nicholas\nof Russia or Alfonso of Spain can ever possibly be.\n\nDionysius thought that he wanted a philosophic court, but all he wanted\nwas to make folks think he had a philosophic court. Plato supplied him\nthe genuine article, and very naturally Plato was soon invited to\nvacate.\n\nAfter he had gone, Dionysius, fearful that Plato would give him a bad\nreputation in Athens--somewhat after the manner and habit of the\n\"escaped nun\"--sent a fast-rowing galley after him. Plato was arrested\nand sold into slavery on his own isle of AEgina.\n\nThis all sounds very tragic, but the real fact is it was a sort of\ncomedy of errors--as a king's doings are when viewed from a safe and\nconvenient distance. De Wolf Hopper's kings are the real thing.\nDionysius claimed that Plato owed him money, and so he got out a\nbody-attachment, and sold the philosopher to the highest bidder.\n\nThis was a perfectly legal proceeding, being simply peonage, a thing\nwhich exists in some parts of the United States today. I state the fact\nwithout prejudice, merely to show how hard custom dies.\n\nPlato was too big a man conveniently either to secrete or kill. Certain\npeople in Athens plagiarized Doctor Johnson who, on hearing that\nGoldsmith had debts of several thousand pounds, in admiration exclaimed,\n\"Was ever poet so trusted before!\" Other good friends ascertained the\namount of the claim and paid it, just as Colonel H. H. Rogers graciously\ncleared up the liabilities of Mark Twain, after the author of\n\"Huckleberry Finn\" had landed his business craft on a sandbar.\n\nAnd so Plato went free, arriving back in Athens, aged forty, a wiser and\na better man than when he left.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNothing absolves a reputation like silence and absence, or what the\nvillage editors call \"the grim reaper.\" To live is always more or less\nof an offense, especially if you have thoughts and express them. Athens\nexists, in degree, because she killed Socrates, just as Jerusalem is\nunforgetable for a similar reason. The South did not realize that\nLincoln was her best friend until the assassin's bullet had found his\nbrain. Many good men in Chicago did not cease to revile their chiefest\ncitizen, until the ears of Altgeld were stopped and his hands stiffened\nby death. The lips of the dead are eloquent.\n\nPlato's ten years of absence had given him prestige. He was honored\nbecause he had been the near and dear friend of Socrates, a great and\ngood man who was killed through mistake.\n\nMost murders and killings of men, judicial and otherwise, are matters of\nmisunderstandings.\n\nPlato had been driven out of Syracuse for the very reasons that Socrates\nhad been killed at Athens. And now behold, when Dionysius saw how Athens\nwas honoring Plato, he discovered that it was all a mistake of his\nbookkeeper, so he wrote to Plato to come back and all would be\nforgiven.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose who set out to live the Ideal Life have a hard trail to travel.\nThe road to Jericho is a rocky one--especially if we are a little in\ndoubt as to whether it really is the road to Jericho or not. Perhaps if\nwe ever find the man who lives the Ideal Life he will be quite unaware\nof it, so occupied will he be in his work--so forgetful of self.\n\nTime had taught Plato diplomacy. He now saw that to teach people who did\nnot want to be taught was an error in judgment for which one might\nforfeit his head.\n\nSocrates was the first Democrat: he stood for the demos--the people.\nPlato would have done the same, but he saw that the business was extra\nhazardous, to use the phrase of our insurance friends. He who works for\nthe people will be destroyed by the people. Hemlock is such a rare and\nprecious commodity that few can afford it; the cross is a privilege so\ncostly that few care to pay the price.\n\nThe genius is a man who first states truths; and all truths are\nunpleasant on their first presentation. That which is uncommon is\noffensive. \"Who ever heard anything like that before?\" ask the literary\nand philosophic hill tribes in fierce indignation. Says James Russell\nLowell, \"I blab unpleasant truths, you see, that none may need to state\nthem after me.\"\n\nPlato was a teacher by nature: this was his business, his pastime, and\nthe only thing in life that gave him joy. But he dropped back to the\ngood old ways of making truth esoteric as did the priests of Egypt,\ninstead of exoteric as did Socrates. He founded his college in the grove\nof his old friend Academus, a mile out of Athens on the road to Eleusis.\nIn honor of Academus the school was called \"The Academy.\" It was\nsecluded, safe, beautiful for situation. In time Plato bought a tract of\nland adjoining that of Academus, and this was set apart as the permanent\nschool. All the teaching was done out of doors, master and pupils seated\non the marble benches, by the fountain-side, or strolling through the\ngrounds, rich with shrubs and flowers and enlivened by the song of\nbirds. The climate of Athens was about like that of Southern California,\nwhere the sun shines three hundred days in the year.\n\nPlato emphasized the value of the spoken word over the written, a thing\nhe could well afford to do, since he was a remarkably good writer. This\nfor the same reason that the only man who can afford to go ragged is the\nman with a goodly bank-balance. The shibboleth of the modern schools of\noratory is, \"We grow through expression.\" And Plato was the man who\nfirst said it. Plato's teaching was all in the form of the \"quiz,\"\nbecause he believed that truth was not a thing to be acquired from\nanother--it is self-discovery.\n\nIndeed, we can imagine it was very delightful--this walking, strolling,\nlying on the grass, or seated in semicircles, indulging in endless talk,\neasy banter, with now and then a formal essay read to start the\nvibrations.\n\nHere it was that Aristotle came from his wild home in the mountains of\nMacedonia, to remain for twenty years and to evolve into a rival of the\nmaster.\n\nWe can well imagine how Aristotle, the mountain-climber and horseman, at\ntimes grew heartily tired of the faultily faultless garden with its high\nwall and graveled walks and delicate shrubbery, and shouted aloud in\nprotest, \"The whole world of mountain, valley and plain should be our\nAcademy, not this pent-up Utica that contracts our powers.\"\n\nThen followed an argument as to the relative value of talking about\nthings or doing them, or Poetry versus Science.\n\nPoetry, philosophy and religion are very old themes, and they were old\neven in Plato's day; but natural science came in with Aristotle. And\nscience is only the classification of the common knowledge of the common\npeople. It was Aristotle who named things, not Adam. He contended that\nthe classification and naming of plants, rocks and animals was quite as\nimportant as to classify ideas about human happiness and make guesses at\nthe state of the soul after death.\n\nOf course he got himself beautifully misunderstood, because he was\nadvocating something which had never been advocated before. In this lay\nhis virtue, that he outran human sympathy, even the sympathy of the\ngreat Plato.\n\nYet for a while the unfolding genius of this young barbarian was a\ngreat joy to Plato, as the earnest, eager intellect of an ambitious\npupil always is to his teacher. Plato was great in speculation;\nAristotle was great in observation. Well has it been said that it was\nAristotle who discovered the world. And Aristotle in his old age said,\n\"My attempts to classify the objects of Nature all came through Plato's\nteaching me first how to classify ideas.\" And forty years before this\nPlato had said, \"It was Socrates who taught me this game of the\ncorrelation and classification of thoughts.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe writings of Plato consist of thirty-five dialogues, and one essay\nwhich is not cast in the dramatic form--\"The Apology.\" These dialogues\nvary in length from twenty pages, of, say, four hundred words each, to\nthree hundred pages. In addition to these books are many quotations from\nPlato and references to him by contemporary writers. Plato's work is as\nimpersonal as that of Shakespeare. All human ideas, shades of belief,\nemotions and desires pass through the colander of his mind. He allows\neverybody to have his say.\n\nWhat Plato himself thought can only be inferred, and this each reader\ndoes for himself. We construct our man Plato in our own image. A\ncritic's highest conception of Plato's philosophy is the highest\nconception of the critic's own. We, however, are reasonably safe in\nassuming that Plato's own ideas were put into the mouth of Socrates, for\nthe one intent of Plato's life was to redeem Socrates from the charges\nthat had been made against him. The characters Shakespeare loved are the\nones that represent the master, not the hated and handmade rogues.\n\nPlato's position in life was that of a spectator rather than that of an\nactor. He stood and saw the procession pass by, and as it passed,\ncommented on it. He charged his pupils no tuition and accepted no fees,\nclaiming that to sell one's influence or ideas was immoral.\n\nIt will be remembered that Byron held a similar position at the\nbeginning of his literary career, and declared i' faith, he \"would not\nprostitute his genius for hire.\" He gave his poems to the world. Later,\nwhen his income was pinched, he began to make bargains with Barabbas and\nbecame an artist in per centum, collecting close, refusing to rhyme\nwithout collateral.\n\nByron's humanity is not seriously disputed. Plato also was human. He had\na fixed income and so knew the worthlessness of riches. He issued no\ntariff, but the goodly honorarium left mysteriously on a marble bench by\na rich pupil he accepted, and for it gave thanks to the gods. He said\nmany great things, but he never said this: \"I would have every man poor\nthat he might know the value of money.\"\n\n\"The Republic\" is the best known and best read of any of Plato's\ndialogues. It outlines an ideal form of government where everybody would\nbe healthy, happy and prosperous. It has served as inspiration to Sir\nThomas More, Erasmus, Jean Jacques Rousseau, William Morris, Edward\nBellamy, Brigham Young, John Humphrey Noyes and Eugene Debs. The\nsub-division of labor, by setting apart certain persons to do certain\nthings--for instance, to care for the children--has made its appeal to\nUpton Sinclair, who jumped from his Utopian woodshed into a rubber-plant\nand bounced off into oblivion.\n\nPlato's plan was intended to relieve marriage from the danger of\nbecoming a form of slavery. The rulers, teachers and artists especially\nwere to be free, and the State was to assume all responsibilities. The\nreason is plain: he wanted them to reproduce themselves. But whether\ngenius is an acquirement or a natural endowment he touches on but\nlightly. Also, he seemingly did not realize \"that no hovel is safe from\nit.\"\n\nIf all marriage-laws were done away with, Plato thought that the men and\nwomen who were mated would still be true to each other, and that the\nless the police interfered in love-relations, the better.\n\nIn one respect at least, Plato was certainly right: he advocated the\nequality of the sexes, and declared that no woman should be owned by a\nman nor forced into a mode of life, either by economic exigency or\nmarriage, that was repulsive to her. Also, that her right to bear\nchildren or not should be strictly her own affair, and to dictate to a\nmother as to who should father her children tended to the production of\na slavish race.\n\nThe eugenics of \"The Republic\" were tried for thirty years by the Oneida\nCommunity with really good results, but one generation of communal\nmarriages was proved to be the limit, a thing Plato now knows from his\nheights in Elysium, but which he in his bachelor dreams on earth did not\nrealize.\n\nIn his division of labor each was to do the thing he was best fitted to\ndo, and which he liked to do. It was assumed that each person had a\ngift, and that to use this gift all that was necessary was to give him\nan opportunity. That very modern cry of \"equality of opportunity\" harks\nback to Plato.\n\nThe monastic impulse was a very old thing, even in the time of Plato.\nThe monastic impulse is simply cutting for sanctuary when the pressure\nof society gets intense--a getting rid of the world by running away from\nit. This usually occurs when the novitiate has exhausted his capacity\nfor sin, and so tries saintship in the hope of getting a new thrill.\n\nPlato had been much impressed by the experiments of Pythagoras, who had\nactually done the thing of which Plato only talked. Plato now picked the\nweak points in the Pythagorean philosophy and sought, in imagination, to\nconstruct a fabric that would stand the test of time.\n\nHowever, all Utopias, like all monasteries and penitentiaries, are made\nup of picked people. The Oneida Community was not composed of average\nindividuals, but of people who were selected with great care, and only\nadmitted after severe tests. And great as was Plato, he could not\noutline an ideal plan of life except for an ideal people.\n\nTo remain in the world of work and share the burdens of all--to ask for\nnothing which other people can not have on like terms--not to consider\nyourself peculiar, unique and therefore immune and exempt--is now the\nideal of the best minds. We have small faith in monasticism or\nmonotheism, but we do have great faith in monism. We believe in the\nSolidarity of the Race. We must all progress together. Whether\nPythagoras, John Humphrey Noyes and Brigham Young were ahead of the\nworld or behind it is really not to the point--the many would not\ntolerate them. So their idealism was diluted with danger until it became\nas somber, sober and slaty-gray as the average existence, and fades as\nwell as shrinks in the wash.\n\nA private good is no more possible for a community than it is for an\nindividual. We help ourselves only as we advance the race--we are happy\nonly as we minister to the whole. The race is one, and this is monism.\n\nAnd here Socrates and Plato seemingly separate, for Socrates in his life\nwanted nothing, not even joy, and Plato's desire was for peace and\nhappiness. Yet the ideal of justice in Plato's philosophy is very\nexalted.\n\nNo writer in that flowering time of beauty and reason which we call \"The\nAge of Pericles\" exerted so profound an influence as Plato. All the\nphilosophers that follow him were largely inspired by him. Those who\nberated him most were, very naturally, the ones he had most benefited.\nTeach a boy to write, and the probabilities are that his first essay,\nwhen he has cut loose from his teacher's apron-strings and starts a\nbrownie bibliomag, will be in denunciation of the man who taught him to\npush the pen and wield the Faber.\n\nXenophon was more indebted, intellectually, to Plato than to any other\nliving man, yet he speaks scathingly of his master. Plutarch, Cicero,\nIamblichus, Pliny, Horace and all the other Roman writers read Plato\nreligiously. The Christian Fathers kept his work alive, and passed it on\nto Dante, Petrarch and the early writers of the Renaissance, so all of\ntheir thought is well flavored with essence of Plato. Well does Addison\nput into the mouth of Cato those well-known words:\n\n  It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--\n  Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,\n  This longing after immortality?\n  Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,\n  Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul\n  Back on herself, and startles at destruction?\n  'T is the divinity that stirs within us;\n  'T is heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,\n  And intimates eternity to man.\n\nAll of that English group of writers in Addison's day knew their Plato,\nexactly as did Cato and the other great Romans of near two thousand\nyears before. From Plato you can prove that there is a life after this\nfor each individual soul, as Francis of Assisi proved, or you can take\nyour Plato, as did Hume, and show that man lives only in his influence,\nhis individual life returning to the mass and becoming a part of all the\ngreat pulsing existence that ebbs and flows through plant and tree and\nflower and flying bird. And today we turn to Plato and find the\ncorroboration of our thought that to live now and here, up to our\nhighest and best, is the acme of wisdom. We prepare to live by living.\nIf there is another world we better be getting ready for it. If heaven\nis an Ideal Republic it is founded on unselfishness, truth, reciprocity,\nequanimity and co-operation, and only those will be at home there who\nhave practised these virtues here. Man was made for mutual service. This\nway lies Elysium.\n\nPlato was a teacher of teachers, and like every other great teacher who\nhas ever lived, his soul goes marching on, for to teach is to influence,\nand influence never dies. Hail, Plato!\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: KING ALFRED]\n\nKING ALFRED\n\n\n     A saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a\n     warrior who fought only in defense of his country, a conqueror\n     whose laurels were never stained with cruelty, a prince never cast\n     down by adversity, nor lifted up to insolence in the hour of\n     triumph--there is no other name in English history to compare with\n     his.\n\n     --_Freeman_\n\n\nKING ALFRED\n\nJulius Caesar, the greatest man of initiative the world has ever seen,\nhad a nephew known as Caesar Augustus.\n\nThe grandeur that was Rome occurred in the reign of Augustus. It was\nAugustus who said, \"I found your city mud and I left it marble!\" The\nimpetus given to the times by Julius Caesar was conserved by Augustus. He\ncontinued the work his uncle had planned, but before he had completed\nit, he grew very weary, and the weariness he expressed was also the old\nage of the nation. There was lime in the bones of the boss.\n\nWhen Caesar Augustus said, \"Rome is great enough--here we rest,\" he\nmerely meant that he had reached his limit, and had had enough of\nroad-building. At the boundaries of the Empire and the end of each Roman\nroad he set up a statue of the god Terminus. This god gave his blessing\nto those going beyond, and a welcome to those returning, just as the\nStars and Stripes welcome the traveler coming to America from across the\nsea. This god Terminus also supplied the world, especially the railroad\nworld, a word.\n\nJulius Caesar reached his terminus and died, aged fifty-six, from\ncompulsory vaccination. Augustus, aged seventy-seven, died peacefully\nin bed.\n\nThe reign of Augustus marks the crest of the power of Rome, and a crest\nis a place where no man nor nation stays--when you reach it, you go over\nand down on the other side.\n\nWhen Augustus set up his Termini, announcing to all mankind that this\nwas the limit, the enemies of Rome took courage and became active. The\nGoths and Vandals, hanging on the skirts of Rome, had learned many\nthings, and one of the things was that, for getting rich quick, conquest\nis better than production. The barbarians, some of whom evidently had a\nsense of humor, had a way of picking up the Termini and carrying them\ninward, and finally they smashed them entirely, somewhat as country\nboys, out hunting, shoot railroad-signs full of holes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the Middle Ages the soldier was supreme, and in the name of\nprotecting the people he robbed the people, a tradition much respected,\nbut not in the breach.\n\nTo escape the scourge of war, certain families and tribes moved\nnorthward. It was fight and turmoil in Southern Europe that settled\nNorway, Sweden and Denmark, and produced the Norsemen. And in making for\nthemselves a home in the wilderness, battling with the climate and\nunkind conditions, there was evolved a very strong and sturdy type of\nman.\n\nOn the north shore of the Baltic dwelt the Norsemen. Along the southern\nshore were scattered several small tribes or families who were not\nstrong enough in numbers to fight the Goths, and so sought peace with\nthem, and were taxed--or pillaged--often to the point of starvation.\nThey were so poor and insignificant that the Romans really never heard\nof them, and they never heard of the Romans, save in myth and legend.\nThey lived in caves and rude stone huts. They fished, hunted, raised\ngoats and farmed, and finally, about the year Three Hundred, they\nsecured horses, which they bought from the Goths, who stole them from\nthe Romans.\n\nTheir Government was the Folkmoot, the germ of the New England Town\nMeeting. All the laws were passed by all the people, and in the making\nof these laws, the women had an equal voice with the men.\n\nWhen important steps were to be taken where the interests of the whole\ntribe were at stake, great deference was paid to the opinions of the\nmothers. For the mother spoke not only for herself, but for her\nchildren. The mother was the home-maker. The word \"wife\" means weaver;\nand this deference to the one member of the family who invented,\ncreated, preparing both the food and the clothing, is a marked Teutonic\ninstinct. Its survival is seen yet in the sturdy German of the middle\nclass, who takes his wife and children with him when he goes to the\nconcert or to the beer-garden. So has he always taken his family with\nhim on his migrations; whereas the Greeks and the Romans left their\nwomen behind.\n\nSouth America was colonized by Spanish men. And the Indians and the\nNegroes absorbed the haughty grandee, yet preserved the faults and\nfailings of both.\n\nThe German who moves to America comes to stay--his family is a part of\nhimself. The Italian comes alone, and his intent is to make what he can\nand return. This is a modified form of conquest.\n\nThe Romans who came to Brittany in Caesar's time were men. Those who\nremained \"took to themselves wives among the daughters of Philistia,\" as\nstrong men ever are wont to do when they seek to govern savage tribes.\nAnd note this--instead of raising the savages or barbarians to their\nlevel, they sink to theirs. The child takes the status of the mother.\nThe white man who marries an Indian woman becomes an Indian and their\nchildren are Indians. With the Negro race the same law holds.\n\nThe Teutonic races have conquered the world because they took their\nwomen with them on their migrations, mental and physical. And the moral\nseems to be this, that the men who progress financially, morally and\nspiritually are those who do not leave their women-folk behind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen we think of the English, we usually have in mind the British Isles.\nBut the original England was situated along the southern shore of the\nBaltic Sea. This was the true Eng-Land, the land of the Engles or\nAngles. To one side lay Jute-Land, the home of the Jutes. On the other\nwas Saxony, where dwelt the Saxons.\n\nJute-Land still lives in Jutland; the land of the Saxons is yet so\nindicated on the map; but Eng-Land was transported bodily a thousand\nmiles, and her original territory became an abandoned farm where\nbarbarians battled.\n\nAnd now behold how England has diffused herself all over the world, with\nthe British Isles as a base of supplies, or a radiating center. Behind\nthis twenty miles of water that separates Calais and Dover she found\nsafety and security, and there her brain and brawn evolved and expanded.\nSo there are now Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Africans, Anglo-Indians,\nAnglo-Australians, and Anglo-New-Zealanders. As the native Indians of\nAmerica and the Maoris of New Zealand have given way before the onward\npush and persistence of the English, so likewise did the ancient Britons\ngive way and were absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons; and then the Saxons,\nbeing a little too fine for the stern competitor, allowed the Engles to\ntake charge. And as Dutch, Germans, Slavs and Swedes are transformed\nwith the second generation into English-Americans when they come to\nAmerica, so did the people from Eng-Land fuse Saxons, Norsemen, Jutes,\nCelts and Britons into one people and fix upon them the indelible stamp\nof Eng-Land.\n\nYet it is obvious that the characters of the people of England have been\nstrengthened, modified and refined by contact with the various races she\nhas met, mixed with and absorbed. To influence others is to grow. Had\nEngland been satisfied to people and hold the British Isles, she would\nere this have been outrun and absorbed by Spain or France. To stand\nstill is to retreat. It is the same with men as it is with races.\nEngland's Colonies have been her strength. They have given her poise,\nreserve, ballast--and enough trouble to prevent either revolution,\nstagnation or introspection.\n\nNations have their periods of youth, manhood and old age. Whether\nEngland is now passing into decline, living her life in her children,\nthe Colonies, might be indelicate to ask. Perhaps as Briton, Celt, Jute\nand Saxon were fused to make that hardy, courageous, restless and sinewy\nman known as the Englishman, so are the English, the Dutch, the Swede,\nthe German, the Slav, transplanted into America, being fused into a\ncomposite man who shall surpass any type that the world has ever seen.\nIn the British Isles, just as in the great cities, mankind gets\npot-bound. In the newer lands, the roots strike deep into the soil, and\nfind the sustenance the human plant requires.\n\nWalls keep folks in as well as shut other folks out. The British Isles,\nrock-faced and sea-girted, shut out the enemies of England without\nshutting the English in. A country surrounded by the sea produces\nsailors, and England's position bred a type of man that made her\nmistress of the seas. As her drum-taps, greeting the rising sun, girdle\nthe world, so do her lighthouses flash protection to the mariner\nwherever the hungry sea lies in wait along rocky coasts, the round world\nover. England has sounded the shallows, marked the rocks and reefs, and\nmapped the coasts.\n\nThe first settlement of Saxons in Britain occurred in the year Four\nHundred Forty-nine. They did not come as invaders, as did the Romans\nfive hundred years before; their numbers were too few, and their arms\ntoo crude to mean menace to the swarthy, black-haired Britons. These\nfair stranger-folk were welcomed as curiosities and were allowed to\nsettle and make themselves homes. Word was sent back to Saxony and\nJute-Land and more settlers came. In a few years came a shipload of\nEngles, with their women and children, red-haired, freckled, tawny. They\ntilled the soil with a faith and an intelligence such as the Britons\nnever brought to bear: very much as the German settlers follow the\npioneers and grow rich where the Mudsock fails. Naturally the\nfair-haired girls found favor in the sight of the swarthy Britons.\nMarriages occurred, and a new type of man-child appeared as the months\nwent by. More Engles came. A century passed, and the coast, from Kent\nto the Firth of Forth, was dotted with the farms and homes of the people\nfrom the Baltic. There were now occasional protests from the original\nholders, and fights followed, when the Britons retreated before the\nstrangers, or else were very glad to make terms. Victory is a matter of\nstaying-power. The Engles had come to stay.\n\nBut a new enemy had appeared--the Norsemen or Danes. These were\nsea-nomads who acknowledged no man as master. Rough, bold, laughing at\ndisaster, with no patience to build or dig or plow, they landed but to\nravish, steal and lay waste, and then boarded their craft, sailing away,\njoying in the ruin they had wrought.\n\nThe next year they came back. The industry and the thrift of the Engles\nmade Britain a land of promise, a storehouse where the good things of\nlife could be secured much more easily than by creating or producing\nthem. And so now, before this common foe, the Britons, Jutes, Celts,\nSaxons and Engles united to punish and expel the invaders.\n\nThe calamity was a blessing--as most calamities are. From being a dozen\nlittle kingdoms, Britain now became one. A \"Cyng,\" or captain, was\nchosen--an Engle, strong of arm, clear of brain, blue of eye, with long\nyellow hair. He was a man who commanded respect by his person and by his\ndeeds. His name was Egbert.\n\nKing Alfred, or Elfred, was born at Wantage, Berkshire, in the year\nEight Hundred Forty-nine. He was the grandson of Egbert, a great man,\nand the son of Ethelwulf, a man of mediocre qualities. Alfred was shrewd\nenough to inherit the courage and persistence of his grandfather. Our D.\nA. R. friends are right and Mark Twain is wrong--it is really more\nnecessary to have a grandfather than a father.\n\nEnglish civilization begins with Alfred. If you will refer to the\ndictionary you will find that the word \"civilization\" simply means to be\ncivil. That is, if you are civilized you are gentle instead of\nviolent--gaining your ends by kindly and persuasive means, instead of\nthrough coercion, intimidation and force.\n\nAlfred was the first English gentleman, and let no joker add \"and the\nlast.\" Yet it is needless and quite irrelevant to say that civilized\npeople are not always civil; nor are gentlemen always gentle--so little\ndo words count. Many gentlemen are only gents.\n\nAlfred was civil and gentle. He had been sent to Rome in his boyhood,\nand this transplantation had done him a world of good. Superior men are\nalways transplanted men: people who do not travel have no perspective.\nTo stay at home means getting pot-bound. You neither search down in the\nsoil for color and perfume nor reach out strong toward the sunshine.\n\nIt was only a few years before the time of Alfred that a Christian monk\nappeared at Edin-Borough, and told the astonished Engles and Saxons of\nthe gentle Jesus, who had been sent to earth by the All-Father to tell\nmen they should love their enemies and be gentle and civil and not\nviolent, and should do unto others as they would be done by. The natural\nreligion of the Great Spirit which the ancient Teutonic people held had\nmuch in it that was good, but now they were prepared for something\nbetter--they had the hope of a heaven of rest and happiness after death.\n\nChristianity flourishes best among a downtrodden, poor, subdued and\npersecuted people. Renan says it is a religion of sorrow. And primitive\nChristianity--the religion of conduct--is a beautiful and pure doctrine\nthat no sane person ever flouted or scoffed.\n\nThe parents of Alfred, filled with holy zeal, allowed one of the\nmissionary monks to take the boy to Rome. The idea was that he should\nbecome a bishop in the Church.\n\nEthelred, the elder brother of Alfred, had succeeded Ethelwulf, his\nfather, as King. The Danes had overrun and ravished the country. For\nmany years these marauding usurpers had fed their armies on the products\nof the land. And now they had more than two-thirds of the country under\ntheir control, and the fear that they would absolutely subjugate the\nAnglo-Saxons was imminent. Ethelwulf gave up the struggle in despair and\ndied. Ethelred fell in battle. And as the Greeks of old in their terror\ncast around for the strongest man they could find to repel the Persian\ninvaders, and picked on the boy Alexander, so did the Anglo-Saxons turn\nto Alfred, the gentle and silent. He was only twenty-three years old. In\nbuild he was slight and slender, but he had given token of his courage\nfor four years, fighting with his brother. He had qualities that were\nclosely akin to those of both Alexander and Caesar. He had a cool, clear\nand vivid intellect and he had invincible courage. But he surpassed both\nof the men just named in that he had a tender, sympathetic heart.\n\nThe Danes were overconfident, and had allowed their discipline to relax.\nAlfred had at first evidently encouraged them in their idea that they\nhad won, for he struck feebly and then withdrew his army to the marshes,\nwhere the Danish horsemen could not follow.\n\nThe Danes went into winter quarters, fat and feasting. Alfred made a\ndefinite plan for a campaign, drilled his men, prayed with them, and\nfilled their hearts with the one idea that they were going forth to\ncertain victory. And to victory they went. They fell upon the Danes with\nan impetuosity as unexpected as it was invincible, and before they could\nget into their armor, or secure their horses, they were in a rout. Every\ntimid Engle and Saxon now took heart--it was the Lord's victory--they\nwere fighting for home--the Danes gave way. This was not all\naccomplished quite as easily as I am writing it, but difficulties,\ndeprivations and disaster only brought out new resources in Alfred. He\nwas as serenely hopeful as was Washington at Valley Forge, and his\nsoldiers were just as ragged. He, too, like Thomas Paine, cried, \"These\nare the times that try men's souls--be grateful for this crisis, for it\nwill give us opportunity to show that we are men.\" He had aroused his\npeople to a pitch where the Danes would have had to kill them all, or\nelse give way. As they could not kill them they gave way. Napoleon at\ntwenty-six was master of France and had Italy under his heel, and so was\nAlfred at the same age supreme in Southern Britain--including Wessex and\nMercia. He rounded up the enemy, took away their weapons, and then held\na revival-meeting, asking everybody to come forward to the\nmourners'-bench. There is no proof that he coerced them into\nChristianity. They were glad to accept it. Alfred seemed to have the\npersuasive power of the Reverend Doctor Torrey. Guthrum, the Danish\nKing, who had come over to take a personal hand in the looting, was\ncaptured, baptized, and then Alfred stood sponsor for him and gave him\nthe name of Ethelstan. He was made a bishop.\n\nThis acceptance of Christianity by the leaders of the Danes broke their\nfierce spirit, and peace followed. Alfred told the soldiers to use their\nhorses to plow the fields. The two armies that had fought each other now\nworked together at road-making and draining the marshes. Some of the\nDanes fled in their ships, but very many remained and became citizens of\nthe country. The Danish names are still recognizable. Names beginning\nwith the aspirate, say Herbert, Hulett, Hubbard, Hubbs, Harold, Hancock,\nare Danish, and are the cause of that beautiful muddling of the \"H\" that\nstill perplexes the British tongue, the rule governing which is to put\nit on where it is not needed and leave it off where it is. The Danes\ncalled the Engles, \"Hengles,\" and the Engles called a man by the name of\nHenry, \"Enry.\"\n\nIn saving Wessex, Alfred saved England for the English people; for it\nwas from Wessex, as a center, that his successors began the task of\nreconquering England from the Danes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith the rule of Alfred begins the England that we know. As we call\nHerodotus the father of history, so could we, with equal propriety, call\nAsser, who wrote in the time of Alfred, the father of English history.\nThe oldest English book is the \"Life of Alfred\" by Asser the monk.\n\nThat Asser was a dependent on his subject and very much in love with\nhim, doubtless gave a very strong bias to the book. That it is right in\nthe main, although occasionally wrong as to details, is proved by\nvarious corroborating records.\n\nThe king's word in Alfred's time was law, and Alfred proved his modesty\nby publicly proclaiming that a king was not divine, but only a man, and\ntherefore a king's edicts should be endorsed by the people in Folkmoot.\nHere we get the genesis of popular government, and about the only\ninstance that I can recall where a very strong man acting as chief ruler\nrenounced a part of his power to the people, of his own accord. Kings\nusually have to be trimmed, and it is revolution that does the shearing.\nIt is the rule that men do not relinquish power of their own\naccord--they have to be disannexed from it.\n\nAlfred, however, knew the popular heart--he was very close to the common\npeople. He had slept on the ground with his soldiers, fared at table\nwith the swineherd's family, tilled the soil with the farmer folk. His\nheart went out to humanity. He did not overrate the average mind, nor\ndid he underrate it. He had faith in mankind, and knew that at the last\npower was with the people. He did not say, \"Vox populi, vox Dei,\" but he\nthought it. Therefore he set himself to educating the plain people. He\nprophesied a day when all grown men would be able to read and write, and\nwhen all would have an intelligent, personal interest in the government.\n\nThere have been periods in English history when Britain lagged woefully\nbehind, for England has had kings who forgot the rights of mankind, and\ninstead of seeking to serve their people, have battened and fattened\nupon them. They governed. George the Third thought that Alfred was a\nbarbarian, and spoke of him with patronizing pity.\n\nAlfred introduced the system of trial by jury, although the fact has\nbeen pointed out that he did not originate it. It goes back to the hardy\nNorseman who acknowledged no man as master, harking back to a time when\nthere was no law, and to a people whose collective desire was supreme.\nIn fact, it has its origin in \"Lynch Law,\" or the rule of the\nVigilantes. From a village turning loose on an offender and pulling him\nlimb from limb, a degree of deliberation comes in and a committee of\ntwelve are selected to investigate the deed and report their verdict.\n\nThe jury system began with pirates and robbers, but it is no less\nexcellent on that account, and we might add that freedom also began with\npirates and robbers, for they were the people who cried, \"We\nacknowledge no man as master.\"\n\nThe early Greeks had trials by jury--Socrates was tried by a jury of\nfive hundred citizens.\n\nBut let the fact stand that Alfred was the man who first introduced the\njury system into England. He had absolute power. He was the sole judge\nand ruler, but on various occasions he abdicated the throne and said: \"I\ndo not feel able to try this man, for as I look into my heart I see that\nI am prejudiced. Neither will I name men to try him, for in their\nselection I might also be prejudiced. Therefore let one hundred men be\ncalled, and from these let twelve be selected by lot, and they shall\nlisten to the charges and weigh the defense, and their verdict shall be\nmine.\"\n\nWe sometimes say that English Common Law is built on the Roman Law, but\nI can not find that Alfred ever studied the Roman Law, or ever heard of\nthe Justinian Code, or thought it worth while to establish a system of\njurisprudence. His government was of the simplest sort. He respected the\nhabits, ways and customs of the common people, and these were the Common\nLaw. If the people had a footpath that was used by their children and\ntheir parents and their grandparents, then this path belonged to the\npeople, and Alfred said that even the King could not take it from them.\n\nThis deference to the innocent ways, habits and natural rights of the\npeople mark Alfred as supremely great, because a great man is one great\nin his sympathies. Alfred had the imagination to put himself in the\nplace of the lowly and obscure.\n\nThe English love of law, system and order dates from Alfred. The\npatience, kindliness, good-cheer and desire for fair play were his,\nplus. He had poise, equanimity, unfaltering faith and a courage that\nnever grew faint. He was as religious as Cromwell, as firm as\nWashington, as stubborn as Gladstone. In him were combined the virtues\nof the scholar and patriot, the efficiency of the man of affairs with\nthe wisdom of the philosopher. His character, both public and private,\nis stainless, and his whole life was one of enlightened and magnanimous\nservice to his country.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the age of Augustus there was one study that was regarded as more\nimportant than all others, and this was rhetoric, or the art of the\nrhetor. The rhetor was a man whose business it was to persuade or\nconvince.\n\nThe public forum has its use in the very natural town-meeting, or the\npowwow of savages. But in Rome it had developed and been refined to a\npoint where the public had no voice, although the boasted forum still\nexisted. The forum was monopolized by the professional orators hired by\nthis political clique or that.\n\nIt was about like the political \"forum\" in America today.\n\nThe greatest man in Rome was the man who could put up the greatest talk.\nSo all Roman mammas and matrons had their boys study rhetoric. The\nfather of Seneca had a school of oratory where rich Roman youths were\ntaught to mouth in orotund and gesticulate in curves. He must have been\na pretty good teacher, for he had two extraordinary sons, one of whom is\nmentioned in the Bible, and a most exemplary daughter.\n\nOratory as an end we now regard as an unworthy art. The first requisite\nis to feel deeply--to have a message--and then if you are a person of\nfair intelligence and in good health, you'll impress your hearers. But\nto hire out to impress people with another's theme is to be a\npettifogger, and the genus pettifogger has nearly had his day.\n\nHistory moves in circles. The Chicago Common Council, weary of rhetoric,\nhas recently declined to listen to paid attorneys; but any citizen who\nspeaks for himself and his neighbors can come before the Council and\nstate his case.\n\nChief Justice Fuller has given it as his opinion that there will come a\nday in America when damage-cases will be taken care of by an automatic\ntribunal, without the help of lawyers. And as a man fills out a request\nfor a money-order at the Post-Office, so will he file his claim for\ndamages, and it will have attention. The contingent fee will yet be a\nmisdemeanor. Also, it will be possible for plain citizens to be able to\ngo before a Court of Equity and be heard without regard to law and\nprecedent and attorney's quillets and quibbles, which so often hamper\njustice. Justice should be cheap and easy, instead of costly and\ncomplex.\n\nEvidently the Chief Justice had in mind the usages in the time of King\nAlfred, when the barrister was an employee of the court, and his\nbusiness was to get the facts and then explain them to the King in the\nfewest possible words.\n\nAlfred considered a paid advocate, or even a counselor, as without the\npale, and such men were never allowed at court. If the barrister\naccepted a fee from a man suing for justice, he was disbarred.\n\nFinally, however, the practise of feeing in order to renew the zeal of a\nbarrister grew so that it had to be tolerated, because things we can't\nsuppress we license, and a pocket was placed on each barrister's back\nbetween his shoulders where he could not reach it without taking off his\ngown, and into this pocket clients were allowed slyly to slip such\ngratuities as they could afford.\n\nBut the general practise of the client paying the barrister, instead of\nthe court, was not adopted for several hundred years later, and then it\nwas regarded as an expeditious move to keep down litigation and punish\nthe client for being fool enough not to settle his own troubles.\n\nIn England the rudimentary pocket still survives, like the buttons on\nthe back of a coat, which were once used to support the sword-belt.\n\nIn America we have done away with wigs and gowns for attorneys, but\nattorneys are still regarded as attaches of the court, even though\none-half of them, according to Judge DeCourcy of Boston, are engaged\nmost of the time in attempts to bamboozle and befog the judge and jury\nand defeat the ends of justice. Likewise, we still use the word \"Court,\"\nsignifying the place where lives royalty, even for the dingy office of a\ncountry J. P., where sawdust spittoons are the bric-a-brac and\npatent-office reports loom large, and justice is dispensed with. We now\nalso commonly call the man \"the Court.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlfred was filled with a desire to educate, and to this end organized a\nschool at the Ox Ford, where his friend Asser taught. This school was\nthe germ of the University of Oxford. Attached to this school was a\nfarm, where the boys were taught how to sow and plant and reap to the\nbest advantage. Here they also bred and raised horses and cattle, and\nthe care of livestock was a part of the curriculum. It was the first\nCollege of Agriculture.\n\nIt comes to us as somewhat of a surprise to see how we are now going\nback to simplicity, and the agricultural college is being given the due\nand thoughtful consideration which it deserves. Twenty years ago our\nagricultural college was considered more or less of a joke, but now that\nwhich adds greatly to the wealth of the nation, and the happiness and\nwell-being of the people, is looked upon as worthy of our support and\nhighest respect.\n\nUp to the time of Alfred, England had no navy. For the government to own\nships seemed quite preposterous, since the people had come to England to\nstay, and were not marauders intent on exploitation and conquest, like\nthe Norsemen.\n\nBut after Alfred had vanquished the Danes and they had settled down as\ncitizens, he took their ships, refitted them, built more and said: \"No\nmore marauders shall land on these shores. If we are threatened we will\nmeet the enemy on the sea.\"\n\nIn a few years along came a fleet of marauding Norse. The English ships\non the lookout gave the alarm, and England's navy put out to meet them.\nThe enemy were taken by surprise, and the fate that five hundred years\nlater was to overtake the Spanish Armada, was theirs.\n\nFrom that time to this, England has had a navy that has gradually grown\nin power.\n\nLet no one imagine that peace and rest came to Alfred. His life was a\nbattle, for not only did he have to fight the Danes, but he had to\nstruggle with ignorance, stupidity and superstition at home. To lead men\nout of captivity is a thankless task. They always ask when you take away\ntheir superstition, \"What are you going to give us in return?\" They do\nnot realize that superstition is a disease, and that to give another\ndisease in return is not nice, necessary or polite.\n\n\nAlfred died, at the age of fifty-two, worn out with his ceaseless labors\nof teaching, building, planning, inventing and devising methods and\nmeans for the betterment and benefit of his people.\n\nAfter his death, the Danes were successful, and Canute became King of\nEngland. But he was proud to be called an Englishman, and declared he\nwas no longer a Dane.\n\nAnd so England captured him.\n\nThen came the Norman William, claiming the throne by right of\nsuccession, and successfully battling for it; but the English people\nreckoned the Conqueror as of their own blood--their kith and kin--and so\nhe was. He issued an edict forbidding any one to call him or his\nfollowers \"Norman,\" \"Norse\" or \"Norsemen,\" and declared there was a\nUnited England. And so he lived and died an Englishman; and after him no\nruler, these nine hundred years, has ever sat on the throne of the\nEngles by right of conquest.\n\nBoth Canute and William recognized and prized the worth of Alfred's\nrule. The virtues of Alfred are the virtues that have made it possible\nfor the Teutonic tribes to girdle the globe. It was Alfred who taught\nthe nobility of industry, service, education, patience, loyalty,\npersistence, and the faith and hope that abide. By pen, tongue, and best\nof all by his life, Alfred taught the truths which we yet hold dear. And\nby this sign shall ye conquer!\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: ERASMUS]\n\nERASMUS\n\n\n     We see not a few mortals who, striving to emulate this divine\n     virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a feeble and\n     disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject and burdening the\n     wretched ears of their hearers with a vacant mass of words and\n     sentences crowded together beyond all possibility of enjoyment. And\n     writers who have tried to lay down the principles of this art have\n     gained no other result than to display their own poverty while\n     expounding abundance.\n\n     --_Erasmus on \"Preaching\"_\n\n\nERASMUS\n\nErasmus was born in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-six, and died in Fifteen\nHundred Thirty-six. No thinker of his time influenced the world more. He\nstood at a pivotal point, and some say he himself was the intellectual\npivot of the Renaissance.\n\nThe critics of the times were unanimous in denouncing him--which fact\nrecommends him to us.\n\nSeveral Churchmen, high in power, live in letters for no other reason\nthan because they coupled their names with that of Erasmus by reviling\nhim. Let the critics take courage--they may outwit oblivion yet, even\nthough they do nothing but carp. Only let them be wise, and carp, croak,\ncough, cat-call and sneeze at some one who is hitching his wagon to a\nstar. This way immortality lies. Erasmus was a monk who flocked by\nhimself, and found diversion in ridiculing monkery. Also, he was the\nwisest man of his day. Wisdom is the distilled essence of intuition,\ncorroborated by experience. Learning is something else. Usually, the\nlearned man is he who has delved deep and soared high. But few there be\nwho dive, that fish the murex up. Among those who soar, the ones who\ncome back and tell us of what they have seen, are few. Like Lazarus,\nthey say nothing.\n\nErasmus had a sense of humor. Humor is a life-preserver and saves you\nfrom drowning when you jump off into a sea of sermons. A theologian who\ncan not laugh is apt to explode--he is very dangerous. Erasmus, Luther,\nBeecher, Theodore Parker, Roger Williams, Joseph Parker--all could\nlaugh. Calvin, Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards never gurgled in glee,\nnor chortled softly at their own witticisms--or those of others.\n\nErasmus smiled. He has been called the Voltaire of his day. What\nRousseau was to Voltaire, Luther was to Erasmus. Well did Diderot say\nthat Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched. Erasmus wrote for the\neducated, the refined, the learned--Luther made his appeal to the plain\nand common mind.\n\nLuther split the power of the Pope. Erasmus thought it a calamity to do\nso, because he believed that strife of sects tended to make men lose\nsight of the one essential in religion--harmony--and cause them simply\nto struggle for victory. Erasmus wanted to trim the wings of the papal\noffice and file its claws--Luther would have destroyed it. Erasmus\nconsidered the Church a very useful and needful organization--for social\nreasons. It tended to regulate life and conduct and made men\n\"decentable.\" It should be a school of ethics, and take a leading part\nin every human betterment. Man being a gregarious animal, the\ncongregation is in the line of natural desire. The excuse for gathering\ntogether is religion--let them gather. The Catholic Church is not two\nthousand years old--it is ten thousand years old and goes back to Egypt.\nThe birth of Jesus formed merely a psychosis in the Church's existence.\n\nHere he parted company with Luther, who was a dogmatist and wanted to\ndebate his ninety-five theses. Erasmus laughed at all religious\ndisputations and called them mazes that led to cloudland. Very\nnaturally, people said he was not sincere, since the mediocre mind never\nknows that only the paradox is true. Hence Erasmus was hated by\nCatholics and denounced by Protestants.\n\nThe marvel is that the men with fetters and fagots did not follow him\nwith a purpose. Fifty years later he would have been snuffed out. But at\nthat time Rome was so astonished to think that any one should criticize\nher that she lost breath. Besides, it was an age of laughter, of revolt,\nof contests of wit, of love-bouts and love-scrapes, and the monks who\nlapsed were too many to discipline. Everybody was busy with his own\naffairs. Happy time!\n\nErasmus was part and parcel of the Italian Renaissance. Over his head\nblazes, in letters that burn, the unforgetable date, Fourteen Hundred\nNinety-two. He was a part of the great unrest, and he helped cause the\ngreat unrest. Every great awakening, every renaissance, is an age of\ndoubt. An age of conservatism is an age of moss, of lichen, of rest,\nrust and ruin. We grow only as we question. As long as we are sure that\nthe present order is perfect, we button our collars behind, a thing\nwhich Columbus, Luther, Melanchthon, Erasmus, Michelangelo, Leonardo and\nGutenberg, who all lived at this one time, never did. The year of\nFourteen Hundred Ninety-two, like the year Seventeen Hundred\nSeventy-six, was essentially \"infidelic,\" just as the present age is\nconstructively iconoclastic. We are tearing down our barns to build\ngreater. The railroadman who said, \"I throw an engine on the scrap-heap\nevery morning before breakfast,\" expressed a great truth. We are\ndiscarding bad things for good ones, and good things for better ones.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRotterdam has the honor of being the birthplace of Erasmus. A storm of\ncalumny was directed at him during his life concerning the irregularity\nof his birth. \"He had no business to be born at all,\" said a proud\nprelate, as he gathered his robes close around his prebendal form. But\nsouls knock at the gates of life for admittance, and the fact that a man\nexists is proof of his right to live. The word \"illegitimate\" is not in\nthe vocabulary of God. If you do not know that, you have not read His\ninstructive and amusing works.\n\nThe critics variously declared the mother of Erasmus was a royal lady, a\nphysician's only daughter, a kitchen-wench, a Mother Superior--all\naccording to the prejudices preconceived. In one sense she was surely a\nMother Superior--let the lies neutralize one another.\n\nThe fact is, we do not know who the mother of Erasmus was. All we know\nis that she was the mother of Erasmus. Here history halts. Her son once\ntold Sir Thomas More that she was married to a luckless nobody a few\nmonths after the birth of her first baby, and amid the cares of raising\na goodly brood of nobodies on a scant allowance of love and rye-bread,\nshe was glad to forget her early indiscretions. Not so the father. The\ndebated question of whether a man really has any parental love is\nanswered here.\n\nThe father of Erasmus was Gerhard von Praet, and the child was called\nGerhard Gerhards--or the son of Gerhard. The father was a man of\nproperty and held office under the State. At the time of the birth of\nthe illustrious baby, Gerhard von Praet was not married, and it is\nreasonable to suppose that the reason he did not wed the mother of his\nchild was because she belonged to a different social station. In any\nevent the baby was given the father's name, and every care and attention\nwas paid the tiny voyager. This father was as foolish as most fond\nmothers, for he dreamed out a great career for the motherless one, and\nmade sundry prophecies.\n\nAt six years of age the child was studying Latin, when he should have\nbeen digging in a sand-pile. At eight he spoke Dutch and French, and\nargued with his nurse in Greek as to the value of buttermilk.\n\nIn the meantime the father had married and settled down in honorable\nobscurity as a respectable squire. Another account has it that he became\na priest. Anyway, the little maverick was now making head alone in a\nprivate school.\n\nWhen the lad was thirteen the father died, leaving a will in which he\nprovided well for the child. The amount of property which by this will\nwould have belonged to our hero when he became of age would have\napproximated forty thousand dollars.\n\nHappily, the trustees of the fund were law-wolves. They managed to break\nthe will, and then they showed the court that the child was a waif, and\nabsolutely devoid of legal rights of any and every kind. He was then\ncommitted to an orphan asylum to be given \"a right religious education.\"\nIt's a queer old world, Terese, and what would have become of Gerhard\nGerhards had he fallen heir to his father's titles and estate, no man\ncan say. He might have accumulated girth and become an honored\nburgomaster. As it was he became powder-monkey to a monk, and scrubbed\nstone floors and rushed the growler for cowled and pious prelates.\n\nThen he did copying for the Abbe, and proved himself a boy from Missouri\nValley.\n\nHe was small, blue-eyed, fair-haired, slender, slight, with a long nose\nand sharp features. \"With this nose,\" said Albrecht Durer, many years\nlater, \"he successfully hunted down everything but heresy.\"\n\nAt eighteen he became a monk and proudly had his flaxen poll tonsured.\nHis superior was fond of him, and prophesied that he would become a\nbishop or something.\n\nChildren do not suffer much, nor long. God is good to them. They slide\ninto an environment and accept it. This child learned to dodge the big\nbare feet of the monks--got his lessons, played a little, worked his wit\nagainst their stupidity, and actually won their admiration--or as much\nof it as men who are alternately ascetics and libertines can give.\n\nIt was about this time that the lad was taunted with having no name.\n\"Then I'll make one for myself,\" was his proud answer.\n\nHaving entered now upon his novitiate, he was allowed to take a new\nname, and being dead to the world, the old one was forgotten.\n\nThey called him Brother Desiderius, or the Desired One. He then amended\nthis Latin name with its Greek equivalent, Erasmus, which means\nliterally the Well-Beloved. As to his pedigree, or lack of it, he was\nneedlessly proud. It set him apart as different. He had half-brothers\nand half-sisters, and these he looked upon as strangers. When they came\nto see him, he said, \"There is no relationship between souls save that\nof the spirit.\"\n\nHis sense of wit came in when he writes to a friend: \"Two parents are\nthe rule; no parents the exception; a mother but no father is not\nuncommon; but I had a father and never had a mother. I was nursed by a\nman, and educated by monks, all of which shows that women are more or\nless of a superfluity in creation. God Himself is a man. He had one son,\nbut no daughters. The cherubim are boys. All of the angels are\nmasculine, and so far as Holy Writ informs us, there are no women in\nheaven.\"\n\nThat it was a woman, however, to whom Erasmus wrote this, lets him out\non the severity of the argument. He was a joker. And while women did not\nabsorb much of his time, we find that on his travels he often turned\naside to visit with intellectual women--no other kind interested him, at\nall.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo belong to a religious order is to be owned by it. You trade freedom\nfor protection. The soul of Erasmus revolted at life in a monastery. He\nhated the typical monks--their food, their ways of life, their\nsophistry, their stupidity. To turn glutton and welcome folly as a\nrelief from religion, he said, was the most natural thing in the world,\nwhen men had once started in to lead an unnatural life. Good food,\ndaintily served, only goes with a co-ed mental regimen. Men eat with\ntheir hands, out of a pot, unless women are present to enforce the\ndecencies. Women alone are a little more to be pitied than men alone, if\n't were possible.\n\nThrough emulation does the race grow. Sex puts men and women on their\ngood behavior.\n\nMan's desire for power has caused him to enslave himself. Writes\nErasmus, \"In a monastery, no one is on his good behavior, except when\nthere are visitors, but I am told that this is so in families.\"\n\nThe greasy, coarse cooking brought on a nice case of dyspepsia for poor\nErasmus--a complaint from which he was never free as long as he lived.\nHis system was too fine for any monastic general trough, but he found a\ncompensation in having his say at odd times and sundry. At one time we\nhear of his printing on a card this legend, \"If I owned hell and a\nmonastery, I would sell the monastery and reside in hell.\" Thereby did\nErasmus supply General Tecumseh Sherman the germ of a famous orphic.\nSherman was a professor in a college at Baton Rouge before the War, and\nevidently had moused in the Latin classics to a purpose.\n\nConnected with the monastery where Erasmus lived was a printing-outfit.\nOur versatile young monk learned the case, worked the ink-balls,\nmanipulated the lever, and evidently dispelled, in degree, the monotony\nof the place by his ready pen and eloquent tongue. When he wrote, he\nwrote for his ear. All was tested by reading the matter aloud. At that\ntime great authors were not so wise or so clever as printers, and it\nfell to the lot of Erasmus to improve upon the text of much of the copy\nthat was presented.\n\nErasmus learned to write by writing; and among modern prose-writers he\nis the very first who had a distinct literary style. His language is\neasy, fluid, suggestive. His paragraphs throw a shadow, and are pregnant\nwith meaning beyond what the lexicon supplies. This is genius--to be\nbigger than your words.\n\nIf Erasmus had been possessed of a bit more patience and a jigger of\ndiplomacy, he would have been in line for a bishopric. That thing which\nhe praised so lavishly, Folly, was his cause of failure and also his\nfriend.\n\nAt twenty-six he was the best teacher and the most clever scholar in the\nplace. Also, he was regarded as a thorn in the side of the monkery,\nsince he refused to take it seriously. He protested that no man ever\nbecame a monk of his own accord--he was either thrust into a religious\norder by unkind kinsmen or kicked into it by Fate.\n\nAnd then comes the Bishop of Cambray, with an attack of literary\nscabies, looking for a young religieux who could correct his manuscript.\nThe Bishop was going to Paris after important historical facts, and must\nhave a competent secretary. Only a proficient Latin and Greek scholar\nwould do. The head of the monastery recommended Erasmus, very much as\nArtemus Ward volunteered all of his wife's relatives for purposes of\nwar.\n\nAndrew Carnegie once, when about to start for Europe, said to his\nironmaster, Bill Jones, \"I am never so happy or care-free, Bill, as when\non board ship, headed for Europe, and the shores of Sandy Hook fade from\nsight.\"\n\nAnd Bill solemnly replied, \"Mr. Carnegie, I can truthfully say for\nmyself and fellow-workers, that we are never so happy and care-free as\nwhen you are on board ship, headed for Europe.\"\n\nVery properly Mr. Carnegie at once raised Bill's salary five thousand a\nyear.\n\nThe Carthusian Brothers parted with Erasmus in pretended tears, but the\nfact was they were more relieved than bereaved.\n\nAnd then began the travels of Erasmus.\n\nThe Bishop was of middle age, with a dash of the cavalier in his blood,\nwhich made him prefer a saddle to the cushions of a carriage. And so\nthey started away on horseback, the Bishop ahead, followed at a\ndiscreet distance by Erasmus, his secretary; and ten paces behind with\nwell-loaded panniers, rode a servant as rearguard.\n\nTo be free and face the world and on a horse! Erasmus lifted up his\nheart in a prayer of gratitude. He said that it was the first feeling of\nthankfulness he had ever experienced, and it was the first thing which\nhad ever come to him worth gratitude.\n\nAnd so they started for Paris.\n\nErasmus looked back and saw the monastery, where he had spent ten\narduous years, fade from view.\n\nIt was the happiest moment he had ever known. The world lay beyond.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Bishop of Cambray introduced Erasmus to a mode of life for which he\nwas eminently fitted. It consisted in traveling, receiving honors,\nhospitality and all good things in a material way, and giving his\ngracious society in return. Doors flew open on the approach of the good\nBishop. Everywhere he went a greeting was assured. He was a\nChurchman--that was enough. Erasmus shared in the welcomes, for he was\nhandsome in face and figure, had a ready tongue, and could hold his own\nwith the best.\n\nEurope was then dotted with monasteries, nunneries and other church\ninstitutions. Their remains are seen there yet--one is really never out\nof sight of a steeple. But the exclusive power of the Church is gone,\nand in many places there are only ruins where once were cloisters,\ncorridors, chapels, halls and gardens teeming with life and industry.\n\nThe \"missions\" of California were founded on the general plan of the\nmonasteries of Europe. They afforded a lodging for the night--a\nresting-place for travelers--and were a radiatory center of\neducation--at least all of the education that then existed.\n\nIn California these \"missions\" were forty miles apart--one day's\njourney. In France, Italy and Germany they were, say, ten miles apart.\nBetween them, trudged or rode on horseback or in carriages, a\npicturesque array of pilgrims, young and old, male and female. To go\nanywhere and be at home everywhere, this was the happy lot of a church\ndignitary.\n\nThe parts in church institutions were interchangeable; and by a system\nof migration, life was made agreeable, and reasonable honesty was\nassured. I have noticed that certain Continental banking institutions,\nwith branches in various cities, keep their cashiers rotating. The idea\nwas gotten from Rome. Rome was very wise--her policies were the\ncrystallizations of the world-wisdom of centuries. The church-militant\nbattle-cry, \"The world for Christ,\" simply means man's lust for\nownership, with Christ as an excuse. If ever there was a man-made\ninstitution, it is the Church. To control mankind has been her desire,\nand the miracle is that, with a promise of heaven, a threat of hell, and\na firm grip on temporal power--social and military--she was ever induced\npartially to loosen her grip. To such men as Savonarola, Luther and\nErasmus, do we owe our freedom. These men cared more for truth than for\npower, and their influence was to disintegrate the ankylosis of custom\nand make men think. And a thought is mental dynamite. No wonder the\nChurch has always feared and hated a thinker!\n\nThe Bishop of Cambray was not a thinker. Fenelon, who was later to\noccupy his office, was to make the bishopric of Cambray immortal.\nConformists die, but heretics live on forever. They are men who have\nredeemed the cross and rendered the gallows glorious.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so the Bishop of Cambray and his little light-haired secretary fared\nforth to fame and fortune--the Bishop to be remembered because he had a\nsecretary, and the secretary to be remembered because he grew into a\ngreat teacher.\n\nAt each stopping-place the Bishop said mass--the workers, students and\nnovitiates quitting their tasks to hear the words of encouragement from\nthe lips of the great man. Occasionally Erasmus was pushed forward to\nsay a few words, by the Bishop, who had to look after his own personal\ndevotions. The assembled friends liked the young man--he was so bright\nand witty and free from cant. They even laughed out loud, and so, often\ntwo smiles were made to grow where there were no smiles before.\n\nLeisurely they rode--stopping at times for several days at places where\nthe food and drink were at their best, and the society sulphide. At\nnunneries and monasteries were always guest-chambers for the great, and\nthey were usually occupied.\n\nThus it was that every church-house was a sort of university, depending\nof course on the soul-size of the Superior or Abbe. These constant\njourneyings and pilgrimages served in lieu of the daily paper, the\nWestern Union Telegraph, and the telephone. Things have slipped back, I\nfear me, for now Mercury merely calls up his party on the long-distance,\ninstead of making a personal visit--the Angel Gabriel as well. We save\ntime, but we miss the personal contact.\n\nThe monastic impulse was founded on a human need. Like most good things,\nit has been sadly perverted; but the idea of a sanctuary for stricken\nsouls--a place of refuge, where simplicity, service and useful endeavor\nrule--will never die from out the human heart. The hospice stands for\nhospitality, but we have now only a hotel and a hospital.\n\nThe latter stands for iodoform, carbolic acid and formaldehyde; the\nformer often means gold, glitter, gluttony and concrete selfishness,\nwith gout on one end, paresis at the other and Bright's Disease between.\n\nThe hospice was a part of the monastery. It was a home for the homeless.\nThere met men of learning--men of wit--men of brains and brawn. You\nentered and were at home. There was no charge--you merely left something\nfor the poor.\n\nAny man who has the courage, and sufficient faith in humanity to install\nthe hospice system in America will reap a rich reward. If he has the\nsame faith in his guests that Judge Lindsey has in his bad boys, he will\nsucceed; but if he hesitates, defers, doubts, and begins to plot and\nplan, the Referee in Bankruptcy will beckon.\n\nThe early universities grew out of the monastic impulse. Students came\nand went, and the teachers were a part of a great itinerancy. Man is a\nmigratory animal. His evolution has come about through change of\nenvironment. Transplantation changes weeds into roses, and the\nforebears of all the products of our greenhouses and gardens once grew\nin hedgerows or open fields, choked by unkind competition or trampled\nbeneath the feet of the heedless.\n\nThe advantage of university life is in the transplantation. Get the boy\nout of his home environment; sever the cord that holds him to his\n\"folks\"; let him meet new faces, see new sights, hear new sermons, meet\nnew teachers, and his efforts at adjustment will work for growth.\nAlexander Humboldt was right--one year at college is safer than four.\nOne year inspires you--four may get you pot-bound with pedant prejudice.\n\nThe university of the future will be industrial--all may come and go.\nAll men will be university men, and thus the pride in an imaginary\nproficiency will be diluted to a healthful attenuation. To work and to\nbe useful--not merely to memorize and recite--will be the only\ninitiation.\n\nThe professors will be interchangeable, and the rotation of intellectual\ncrops will work for health, harmony and effectiveness.\n\nThe group, or college, will be the unit, not the family. The college was\nonce a collection of men and women grouped for a mutual intellectual,\nreligious or economic good.\n\nTo this group or college idea will we return.\n\nMan is a gregarious animal, and the Christ-thought of giving all, and\nreceiving all, some day in the near future will be found practical. The\ndesire for exclusive ownership must be sloughed.\n\nUniversities devoted to useful work--art in its highest sense: head,\nhand and heart--will yet dot the civilized world. The hospice will\nreturn higher up the scale, and the present use of the word\n\"hospitality\" will be drowned in its pink tea, choked with\ncheese-wafers, rescued from the nervous clutch of the managing mama, and\nthe machinations of the chaperone. A society built on the sands of\nsilliness must give way to the universal university, and the strong,\nhealthful, helpful, honest companionship and comradeship of men and\nwomen prevail.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe objective point of the Bishop was the University of Paris.\n\nHere in due time, after their lingering ride from Holland, the Bishop\nand his secretary arrived. They settled down to literary work; and in\nodd hours the beauty and wonder of Paris became familiar to Erasmus. The\nimmediate task completed, the Bishop proposed going home, and thought,\nof course, his secretary was a fixture and would go with him. But\nErasmus had evolved ideas concerning his own worth. He had already\ncollected quite a little circle of pupils about him, and these he held\nby his glowing personality. At this time the vow of poverty was looked\nupon lightly. And anyway, poverty is a comparative term. There were\nmonks who always trudged afoot with staff and bag, but not so our\nErasmus. He was Bishop of the Exterior.\n\nThe Bishop of Cambray, on parting with Erasmus, thought so much of him\nthat he presented him with the horse he rode.\n\nErasmus used to take short excursions about Paris, taking with him a\nstudent and often two, as servants or attendants. Teaching then was\nmostly on an independent basis, each pupil picking his tutors and paying\nthem direct.\n\nAmong other pupils whom Erasmus had at Paris was a young Englishman by\nthe name of Lord Mountjoy. A great affection arose between these two,\nand when Lord Mountjoy returned to England he was accompanied by\nErasmus.\n\nAt London, Erasmus met on absolute equality many of the learned men of\nEngland. We hear of his dining at the house of the Lord Mayor of London,\nand there meeting Sir Thomas More and crossing swords with that worthy\nin wordy debate.\n\nErasmus seems to have carried the \"New Humanism\" into England. It has\nbeen said that the world was discovered in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two,\nbut Man was not discovered until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six. This is\nhardly literal truth, since in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two, there was a\ntheologico-scientific party of young men in all of the European\nUniversities who were reviving the Greek culture, and with it arose the\nidea of the dignity and worth of Man. To this movement Erasmus brought\nthe enthusiasm of his nature. Perhaps he did as much as any other to fan\nthe embers which grew into a flame called \"The Reformation.\"\n\nHe constantly ridiculed the austerities, pedantry, priggishness and\nsciolism of the old-time Churchmen, and when a new question came up, he\nasked, \"What good is there in it?\"\n\nEverything was tested by him in the light of commonsense. What end does\nit serve and how is humanity to be served or benefited by it?\n\nThus the good of humanity, not the glory of God, was the shibboleth of\nthis rising party.\n\nErasmus gave lectures and taught at Cambridge, Oxford and London.\n\nItaly had been the objective point of his travels, but England had, for\na time, turned him aside. In the year Fifteen Hundred, Erasmus landed at\nCalais, saddled his horse, and started southward, visiting, writing,\nteaching, lecturing, as he went. The stimulus of meeting new people and\nseeing new scenes, all tended toward intellectual growth.\n\nThe genius monk made mendicancy a fine art, and Erasmus was heir to most\nof the instincts of the order. His associations with the laity were\nmostly with the nobility or those with money. He was not slow in asking\nfor what he wanted, whether it was a fur-lined cloak, a saddle, top\nriding-boots, a horse, or a prayer-book. He made no apologies--but took\nas his divine right all that he needed. And he justified himself in\ntaking what he needed by the thought that he gave all he had. He\nsupplied Sir Thomas More the germ of \"Utopia,\" for Erasmus pictured\nagain and again an ideal society where all would have enough, and none\nsuffer from either want or surfeit--a society in which all would be at\nhome wherever they went.\n\nHad Erasmus seen fit to make England his home, his head, too, would have\npaid the forfeit, as did the head that wrote \"Utopia.\" What an absurd\nuse to make of a head--to separate it from the man's body!\n\nItaly received Erasmus with the same royal welcome that England had\nsupplied. Scholars who knew the Greek and Roman classics were none too\ncommon. Most monks stopped with the writings of the saints, as South\nAmericans balk at long division.\n\nErasmus could illumine an initial, bind a book, give advice to printers,\nlecture to teachers, give lessons on rhetoric and oratory, or entertain\nthe ladies with recitations from the Iliad and the Odyssey.\n\nSo he went riding back and forth, stopping at cities and towns,\nnunneries and monasteries, until his name became a familiar one to every\nscholar of England, Germany and Italy. Scholarly, always a learner,\nalways a teacher, gracious, direct, witty, men began to divide on an\nErasmus basis. There were two parties: those for Erasmus and those\nagainst him.\n\nIn Fifteen Hundred Seventeen, came Luther with his bombshells of\ndefiance. This fighting attitude was far from Erasmus--his weapons were\nwords. Between bouts with prelates, Luther sent a few thunderbolts at\nErasmus, accusing him of vacillation and cowardice. Erasmus replied with\ndignity, and entered into a lengthy dispute with Melanchthon, Luther's\nfriend, on the New Humanism which was finding form in revolution.\n\nErasmus prophesied that by an easy process of evolution, through\neducation, the monasteries would all become schools and workshops. He\nwould not destroy them, but convert them into something different. He\nfell into disfavor with the Catholics, and was invited by Henry the\nEighth to come to England and join the new religious regime. But this\nEnglish Catholicism was not to the liking of Erasmus. What he desired\nwas to reform the Church, not to destroy it or divide it.\n\nHis affairs were becoming critical: monasteries where he had once been\nwelcomed now feared to have him come near, lest they should be\ncontaminated and entangled. It was rumored that warrants of arrest were\nout. He was invited to go to Rome and explain his position.\n\nErasmus knew better than to acknowledge receipt of the letter. He headed\nhis horse for Switzerland, the land of liberty. At Basel he stopped at\nthe house of Froben, the great printer and publisher. He put his horse\nin the barn, unsaddled him, and said, \"Froben, I've come to stay.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI was mousing around the other day in a book that is somewhat disjointed\nand disconnected, and yet interesting--\"The Standard Dictionary\"--when I\ncame across the word \"scamp.\" It is a handy word to fling, and I am not\nsure but that it has been gently tossed once or twice in my direction.\nCondemnation is usually a sort of subtle flattery, so I'm not sad. To\nscamp means to cut short, to be superficial, slipshod, careless,\nindifferent--to say, \"Let 'er go, who cares--this is good enough!\" If\nanybody ever was a stickler for honest work, I am that bucolic party. I\noften make things so fine that only one man out of ten thousand can buy\nthem, and I have to keep 'em myself.\n\nYou know that, when you get an idea in your head, how everything you\nread contains allusions to the same thing. Knowledge is mucilaginous.\nWell, next day after I was looking up that pleasant word \"scamp,\" I was\nreading in the Amusing Works of Erasmus, when I ran across the word\nagain, but spelled in Dutch, thus, \"schamp.\" Now Erasmus was a\nsuccessful author, and he was also the best authority on paper, inks,\nbindings, and general bookmaking in Italy, Holland or Germany. Being a\nlover of learning, and listening to the lure of words, he never wallowed\nin wealth. But in his hunt for ideas he had a lot of fun. Kipling says,\n\"There is no hunt equal to a man hunt.\" But Kip is wrong--to chase a\nthought is twice the sport. Erasmus chased ideas, and very naturally\nthe preachers chased Erasmus--out of England, through France, down to\nItaly and then he found refuge at Basel with Froben, the great Printer\nand Publisher.\n\nUp in Frankfort was a writer-printer, who, not being able to answer the\narguments of Erasmus, called him bad names. But this gentle pen-pusher\nin Frankfort, who passed his vocabulary at Froben's proofreader, Erasmus\nin time calls a \"schamp,\" because he used cheap paper, cheap ink and\nclose margins. Soon after, the word was carried to England and spelled\n\"scamp\"--a man who cheats in quality, weight, size and count. But the\nfirst use merely meant a printer who scamps his margins and so cheats on\npaper. I am sorry to see that Erasmus imitated his enemies and at\ntimes was ambidextrous in the use of the literary stinkpot. His\nvocabulary was equal to that of Muldoon. Erasmus refers to one of\nhis critics as a \"scenophylax-stikken,\" and another he calls a \"schnide\nenchologion-schistosomus.\" And perhaps they may have been--I really do\nnot know.\n\nBut as an authority on books Erasmus can still be read. He it was who\nfixed the classic page margin--twice as wide at the top as on the\ninside; twice as wide at the outside as the top; twice as wide at the\nbottom as at the side. And any printer who varies from this displays his\nignorance of proportion. Erasmus says, \"To use poor paper marks the\ndecline of taste, both in printer and in patron.\" After the death of\nErasmus, Froben's firm failed because they got to making things cheap.\n\"Compete in quality, not in price,\" was the working motto of Erasmus.\n\nAll of the great bookmaking centers languished when they began to scamp.\nThat worthy wordissimus at Frankfort who called Erasmus names gave up\nbusiness and then the ghost, and Erasmus wrote his epitaph, and thus\nsupplied Benjamin Franklin an idea--\"Here lies an old book, its cover\ngone, its leaves torn, the worms at work on its vitals.\"\n\nThe wisdom of doing good work still applies, just as it did in the days\nof Erasmus.\n\nErasmus proved a very valuable acquisition to Froben. He became general\neditor and literary adviser of this great publishing-house, which was\nthen the most important in the world.\n\nBesides his work as editor, Erasmus also stood sponsor for numerous\nvolumes which we now know were written by literary nobodies, his name\nbeing placed on the title-page for commercial reasons.\n\nAt that time and for two hundred years later, the matter of attributing\na book to this man or that was considered a trivial affair. Piracies\nwere prevalent. All printers revised the work of classic authors if they\nsaw fit, and often they were specially rewarded for it by the Church. It\nwas about this time that some one slipped that paragraph into the works\nof Josephus about Jesus. The \"Annals\" of Tacitus were similarly\ndoctored, if in fact they were not written entire, during the Sixteenth\nCentury. It will be remembered that the only two references in\ncontemporary literature to Jesus are those in Josephus and Tacitus, and\nthese the Church proudly points to yet.\n\nDuring the last few years of his life Erasmus accumulated considerable\nproperty. By his will he devised that this money should go to educate\ncertain young men and women, grandchildren and nephews and nieces of his\nold friend, Johann Froben. He left no money for masses, after the usual\ncustom of Churchmen, and during his last illness was not attended by a\npriest. For several years before his death he made no confessions and\nvery seldom attended church service. He said, \"I am much more proud of\nbeing a printer than a priest.\"\n\nA statue of Erasmus in bronze adorns one of the public squares in\nRotterdam, and Basel and Freiburg have honored themselves, and him also,\nin like manner.\n\nAs a sample of the subtle and keen literary style of Erasmus, I append\nthe following from \"In Praise of Folly:\"\n\n     The happiest times of life are youth and old age, and this for no\n     reason but that they are the times most completely under the rule\n     of folly, and least controlled by wisdom. It is the child's freedom\n     from wisdom that makes it so charming to us; we hate a precocious\n     child. So women owe their charm, and hence their power, to their\n     \"folley,\" that is, to their obedience to the impulse. But if,\n     perchance, a woman wants to be thought wise, she only succeeds in\n     being doubly a fool, as if one should train a cow for the\n     prize-ring, a thing wholly against Nature. A woman will be a woman,\n     no matter what mask she wear, and she ought to be proud of her\n     folly and make the most of it.\n\n     Is not Cupid, that first father of all religion, is not he stark\n     blind, that he can not himself distinguish of colors, so he would\n     make us as mope-eyed in judging falsely of all love concerns, and\n     wheedle us into a thinking that we are always in the right? Thus\n     every Jack sticks to his own Jill; every tinker esteems his own\n     trull; and the hobnailed suitor prefers Joan the milkmaid before\n     any of milady's daughters. These things are true, and are\n     ordinarily laughed at, and yet, however ridiculous they seem, it is\n     hence only that all societies receive their cement and\n     consolidation.\n\n     Fortune we still find favoring the blunt, and flushing the forward;\n     strokes smooth up fools, crowning all their undertakings with\n     success; but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneaking and\n     timorous, and therefore you commonly see that they are reduced to\n     hard shifts; must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger; must lie\n     recluse, despised, and unregarded; while fools roll in money, are\n     advanced to dignities and offices, and in a word have the whole\n     world at command. If any one thinks it happy to be a favorite at\n     court, and to manage the disposal of places and preferments, alas,\n     this happiness is so far from being attainable by wisdom, that the\n     very suspicion of it would put a stop to advancement. Has any man a\n     mind to raise himself a good estate? Alas, what dealer in the world\n     would ever get a farthing, if he be so wise as to scruple at\n     perjury, blush at a lie, or stick at a fraud and overreaching?\n\n     It is the public charter of all divines, to mold and bend the\n     sacred oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading\n     them (as Heaven by its Creator) like a curtain, closing together,\n     or drawing them back, as they please. Thus, indeed, Saint Paul\n     himself minces and mangles some citations he makes use of, and\n     seems to wrest them to a different sense from what they were first\n     intended for, as is confessed by the great linguist, Saint Hieron.\n     Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of the altar,\n     he draws from it an argument for the proof of the Christian\n     religion; but leaving out great parts of the sentence, which\n     perhaps if fully recited might have prejudiced his cause, he\n     mentions only the last two words, namely, \"To the Unknown God\"; and\n     this, too, not without alteration, for the whole inscription runs\n     thus: \"To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to all Foreign and\n     Unknown Gods.\"\n\n     'T is an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that\n     our young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place and\n     putting a false construction on the rest, can make any passage\n     serviceable to their own purpose; though from the coherence of what\n     went before, or follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be\n     either wide enough, or perhaps quite contradictory to what they\n     would thrust and impose upon it. In which knack the divines are\n     grown now so expert that the lawyers themselves begin to be jealous\n     of an encroachment on what was formerly their sole privilege and\n     practise. And indeed what can they despair of proving, since the\n     forementioned commentator did upon a text of Saint Luke put an\n     interpretation no more agreeable to the meaning or the place than\n     one contrary quality is to another.\n\n     But because it seemed expedient that man, who was born for the\n     transaction of business, should have so much wisdom as should fit\n     and capacitate him for the discharge of his duty herein, and yet\n     lest such a measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove\n     too dangerous and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, and\n     prescribed this infallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature so\n     harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might\n     mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humor of man. Now\n     that which made Plato doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether\n     among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the\n     extreme stupidness and Folly of that sex, a sex so unalterably\n     simple that for any one of them to thrust forward and reach at the\n     name of wise, is but to make themselves the more remarkable fools,\n     such an endeavor being but a swimming against the stream, nay, the\n     turning the course of Nature, the bare attempting whereof is as\n     extravagant as the effecting of it is impossible: for as it is a\n     trite proverb, that an ape will be an ape, though clad in purple,\n     so a woman will be a woman, that is, a fool, whatever disguise she\n     takes up. And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss to\n     be thus charged, for if they do but rightly consider, they will\n     find to Folly they are beholden for those endowments wherein they\n     so far surpass and excel Man; as first for their unparalleled\n     beauty, by the charm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest of\n     tyrants; for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes\n     men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like\n     an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty,\n     smooth cheeks, such a low, gentle voice, and so pure a complexion,\n     as if Nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry\n     and comeliness? Besides, what greater or juster aim and ambition\n     have they than to please their husbands? In order whereunto they\n     garnish themselves with paint, washes, curls, perfumes, and all\n     other mysteries of ornament; yet, after all, they become acceptable\n     to them only for their Folly. Wives are always allowed their humor,\n     yet it is only in exchange for titillation and pleasure, which\n     indeed are but other names for Folly; as none can deny, who\n     consider how a man must dandle, and kittle, and play a hundred\n     little tricks for his helpmate.\n\n     But now some blood-chilled old men, that are more for wine than\n     wenching, will pretend that in their opinion the greatest happiness\n     consists in feasting and drinking. Grant it be so; yet certainly in\n     the most luxurious entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce\n     and relish to the daintiest delicacies; so that if there be no one\n     of the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by the rest,\n     they must procure some comical buffoon, that by his jokes and\n     flouts and blunders shall make the whole company split themselves\n     with laughing; for to what purpose were it to be stuffed and\n     crammed with so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome\n     rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ears, and the\n     whole mind of man, were not so well foisted and relieved with\n     laughing, jesting, and such like divertisements, which, like second\n     courses, serve for the promoting of digestion? And as to all those\n     shoeing-horns of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the\n     throwing high jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a\n     hand, the beginning of mistresses' healths; and then the roaring\n     out of drunken catches, the calling in a fiddler, the leading out\n     every one his lady to dance, and such like riotous pastimes--these\n     were not taught or dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but\n     of Gotham rather, being my invention, and by me prescribed as the\n     best preservative of health: each of which, the more ridiculous it\n     is, the more welcome it finds. And indeed, to jog sleepingly\n     through the world, in a dumpish, melancholy posture, can not\n     properly be said to live.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON]\n\nBOOKER T. WASHINGTON\n\n\n     There is something in human nature which always makes people reward\n     merit, no matter under what color of skin merit is found. I have\n     found, too, that it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long\n     way in softening prejudices. The actual sight of a good house that\n     a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion\n     about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build. The\n     individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in\n     the end, make his way regardless of his race.\n\n     --_Booker T. Washington_\n\n\nBOOKER T. WASHINGTON\n\nThis is a story about a Negro. The story has the peculiarity of being\ntrue. The man was born a slave in Virginia. His mother was a slave, and\nwas thrice sold in the market-place. This man is Booker T. Washington.\n\nThe name Booker was a fanciful one given to the lad by playmates on\naccount of his love for a certain chance dog-eared spelling-book. Before\nthis he was only Mammy's Pet. The T. stood for nothing, but later a\nhappy thought made it Taliaferro.\n\nMost Negroes, fresh from slavery, stood sponsor to themselves, and chose\nthe name Washington; if not this, then Lincoln, Clay or Webster.\n\nThis lad when but a child, being suddenly asked for his name, exclaimed,\n\"Washington,\" and stuck to it.\n\nThe father of this boy was a white man; but children always take the\nstatus of the mother, so Booker T. Washington is a Negro, and proud of\nit, as he should be, for he is standard by performance, even if not by\npedigree.\n\nThis Negro's father is represented by the sign _x_. By remaining in\nobscurity the fond father threw away his one chance for immortality. We\ndo not even know his name, his social position, or his previous\ncondition of turpitude. We assume he was happily married and\nrespectable. Concerning him legend is silent and fable dumb. As for the\nchild, we are not certain whether he was born in Eighteen Hundred\nFifty-eight or Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, and we know not the day or\nthe month. There were no signs in the East.\n\nThe mother lived in a log cabin of one room, say ten by twelve. This\nroom was also a kitchen, for the mother was cook to the farmhands of her\nowner. There were no windows and no floor in the cabin save the\nhard-trodden clay. There were a table, a bench and a big fireplace.\nThere were no beds, and the children at night simply huddled and cuddled\nin a pile of straw and rags in the corner. Doubtless they had enough\nfood, for they ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table--who,\nby the way, wasn't so very rich.\n\nOne of the earliest recollections of Black Baby Booker was of being\nawakened in the middle of the night by his mother to eat fried chicken.\nImagine the picture--it is past midnight. No light in the room save the\nlong, flickering streaks that dance on the rafters. Outside the wind\nmakes mournful, sighing melody. In the corner huddled the children,\ncreeping close together with intertwining arms to get the warmth of each\nlittle half-naked body.\n\nThe dusky mother moves swiftly, deftly, half-frightened at her task.\n\nShe has come in from the night with a chicken! Where did she get it?\nHush! Where do you suppose oppressed colored people get chickens?\n\nShe picks the bird--prepares it for the skillet--fries it over the\ncoals. And then when it is done just right, Maryland style, this mother\nfull of mother-love, an ingredient which God never omits, shakes each\nlittle piccaninny into wakefulness, and gives him the forbidden\ndainty--drumstick, wishbone, gizzard, white meat, or the part that went\nthrough the fence last--anything but the neck.\n\nFeathers, bones, waste are thrown into the fireplace, and what the\nvillage editor calls the \"devouring element\" hides all trace of the\ncrime. Then all lie down to sleep, until the faint flush of pink comes\ninto the East, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the mountain-tops.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis ex-slave remembers a strange and trying time, when all of the\ncolored folk on the plantation were notified to assemble at the \"big\nhouse.\" They arrived and stood around in groups, waiting and wondering,\ntalking in whispers. The master came out, and standing on the veranda\nread from a paper in a tremulous voice. Then he told them that they were\nall free, and shook hands with each. Everybody cried. However, they were\nvery happy in spite of the tears, for freedom to them meant heaven--a\nheaven of rest. Yet they bore only love towards their former owners.\n\nMost of them began to wander--they thought they had to leave their old\nquarters. In a few days the wisest came back and went to work just as\nusual. Booker T.'s mother quit work for just half a day.\n\nBut in a little while her husband arrived--a colored man to whom she had\nbeen married years before, and who had been sold and sent away. Now he\ncame and took her and the little monochrome brood, and they all started\naway for West Virginia, where they heard that colored men were hired to\nwork in coalmines and were paid wages in real money.\n\nIt took months and months to make the journey. They carried all their\nbelongings in bundles. They had no horses--no cows--no wagon--they\nwalked. If the weather was pleasant they slept out of doors; if it\nrained they sought a tobacco-shed, a barn, or the friendly side of a\nstraw-stack. For food they depended on a little cornmeal they carried,\nwith which the mother made pone-cakes in the ashes of a campfire. Kind\ncolored people on the way replenished the meal-bag, for colored people\nare always generous to the hungry and needy if they have anything to be\ngenerous with. Then Providence sent stray, ownerless chickens their way,\nat times, just as the Children of Israel were fed on quails in the\nwilderness. Once they caught a 'possum--and there was a genuine banquet,\nwhere the children ate until they were as tight as drums.\n\nFinally they reached the promised land of West Virginia, and at the\nlittle village of Maiden, near Charleston, they stopped, for here were\nthe coal mine and the salt-works where colored men were hired and paid\nin real money.\n\nBooker's stepfather found a job, and he also found a job for little\nBooker. They had nothing to live on until pay-day, so the kind man who\nowned the mine allowed them to get things at the store on credit. This\nwas a brand-new experience--and no doubt they bought a few things they\ndid not need, for prices and values were absolutely out of their realm.\nBesides, they did not know how much wages they were to get, neither\ncould they figure the prices of the things they bought. At any rate,\nwhen pay-day came they were still in debt, so they saw no real\nmoney--certainly little Booker at this time of his life never did.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeneral Lewis Ruffner owned the salt-works and the coalmine where little\nBooker worked. He was stern, severe, strict. But he believed Negroes\nwere human beings, and there were those then who disputed the\nproposition.\n\nRuffner organized a night-school for his helpers, and let a couple of\nhis bookkeepers teach it. At this time there was not a colored person in\nthe neighborhood who could spell cat, much less write his name. A few\ncould count five. Booker must have been about ten years old when one day\nhe boasted a bit of his skill in mathematics. The foreman told him to\ncount the loads of coal as they came out of the mine. The boy started in\nbravely, \"One--two--three--four--dere goes one, dere goes anoder,\nanoder, anoder, anoder, anoder!\"\n\nThe foreman laughed.\n\nThe boy was abashed, then chagrined. \"Send me to the night-school and in\na month I'll show you how to count!\"\n\nThe foreman wrote the lad an order which admitted him to the\nnight-school.\n\nBut now there was another difficulty--the boy worked until nine o'clock\nat night, the last hour's work being to sweep out the office. The\nnight-school began at nine o'clock and it was two miles away.\n\nThe lad scratched his head and thought and thought. A great idea came to\nhim--he would turn the office clock ahead half an hour. He could then\nleave at nine o'clock, and by running part of the way could get to\nschool at exactly nine o'clock.\n\nThe scheme worked for two days, when one of the clerks in the office\nsaid that a spook was monkeying with the clock. They tried the plan of\nlocking the case, and all was well.\n\nBooker must have been about twelve years old, goin' on thirteen, when\none day as he lay on his back in the coalmine, pushing out the broken\ncoal with his feet, he overheard two men telling of a very wonderful\nschool where colored people were taught to read, write and cipher--also,\nhow to speak in public. The scholars were allowed to work part of the\ntime to pay for their board.\n\nThe lad crawled close in the darkness and listened to the conversation.\nHe caught the names \"Hampton\" and \"Armstrong.\" Whether Armstrong was the\nplace and Hampton was the name of the man, he could not make out, but he\nclung to the names.\n\nHere was a school for colored people--he would go there! That night he\ntold his mother about it. She laughed, patted his kinky head, and\nindulged him in his dream.\n\nShe was only a poor black woman; she could not spell ab, nor count to\nten, but she had a plan for her boy--he would some day be a preacher.\n\nThis was the very height of her imagination--a preacher! Beyond this\nthere was nothing in human achievement. The night-school came after a\nday of fourteen hours' work. Little Booker sat on a bench, his feet\ndangling about a foot from the floor. As he sat there one night trying\nhard to drink in knowledge, he went to sleep. He nodded, braced up,\nnodded again, and then pitched over in a heap on the floor, to the great\namusement of the class, and his own eternal shame.\n\nThe next day, however, as he was feeling very sorrowful over his sad\nexperience, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner wanted a boy for general work at\nthe big house.\n\nHere was a chance. Mrs. Ruffner was a Vermont Yankee, which meant that\nshe had a great nose for dirt, and would not stand for a \"sassy nigger.\"\nHer reputation had gone abroad, and of how she pinched the ears of her\n\"help,\" and got them up at exactly a certain hour, and made them use\nsoap and water at least once a day, and even compelled them to use a\ntoothbrush; all this was history, well defined.\n\nBooker said he could please her, even if she was a Yankee. He applied\nfor the job and got it, with wages fixed at a dollar a week, with a\npromise of twenty-five cents extra every week, if he did his work\nwithout talking back and breaking a tray of dishes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Genius! No hovel is safe from it!\" says Whistler.\n\nGenius consists in doing the right thing without being told more than\nthree times.\n\nBooker silently studied the awful Yankee woman to see what she really\nwanted. He finally decided that she desired her servants to have clean\nskins, fairly neat clothing, do things promptly, finish the job and keep\nstill when they had nothing to say.\n\nHe set himself to please her--and he did.\n\nShe loaned him books, gave him a lead-pencil, and showed him how to\nwrite with a pen without smearing his hands and face with ink.\n\nHe told her of his dream and asked about Armstrong and Hampton. She told\nhim that Armstrong was the man and Hampton the place.\n\nAt last he got her consent to leave and go to Hampton.\n\nWhen he started she gave him a comb, a toothbrush, two handkerchiefs and\na pair of shoes. He had been working for her for a year, and she\nthought, of course, he saved his wages. He never told her that his money\nhad gone to keep the family, because his stepfather had been on a strike\nand therefore out of work.\n\nSo the boy started away for Hampton. It was five hundred miles away. He\ndidn't know how far five hundred miles is--nobody does unless he has\nwalked it.\n\nHe had three dollars, so he gaily paid for a seat in the stage. At the\nend of the first day he was forty miles from home and out of money. He\nslept in a barn, and a colored woman handed him a ham-bone and a chunk\nof bread out of the kitchen-window, and looked the other way.\n\nHe trudged on east--always and forever east--towards the rising sun.\n\nHe walked weeks--months--years, he thought. He kept no track of the\ndays. He carried his shoes as a matter of economy.\n\nFinally he sold the shoes for four dollars to a man who paid him ten\ncents cash down, and promised to pay the rest when they should meet at\nHampton. Nearly forty years have passed and they have never met.\n\nOn he walked--on and on--east, and always forever east.\n\nHe reached the city of Richmond, the first big city he had ever seen.\nThe wide streets--the sidewalks--the street-lamps entranced him. It was\njust like heaven. But he was hungry and penniless, and when he looked\nwistfully at a pile of cold fried chicken on a street-stand and asked\nthe price of a drumstick, at the same time telling he had no money, he\ndiscovered he was not in heaven at all. He was called a lazy nigger and\ntold to move on.\n\nLater he made the discovery that a \"nigger\" is a colored person who has\nno money.\n\nHe pulled the piece of rope that served him for a belt a little tighter,\nand when no one was looking, crawled under a sidewalk and went to\nsleep, disturbed only by the trampling overhead.\n\nWhen he awoke he saw he was near the dock, where a big ship pushed its\nbowsprit out over the street. Men were unloading bags and boxes from the\nboat. He ran down and asked the mate if he could help. \"Yes!\" was the\ngruff answer.\n\nHe got in line and went staggering under the heavy loads.\n\nHe was little, but strong, and best of all, willing, yet he reeled at\nthe work.\n\n\"Have you had any breakfast? Yes, you liver-colored boy--you, I say,\nhave you had your breakfast?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" said the boy; \"and no supper last night nor dinner\nyesterday!\"\n\n\"Well, I reckoned as much. Now you take this quarter and go over to that\nstand and buy you a drumstick, a cup of coffee and two fried cakes!\"\n\nThe lad didn't need urging. He took the money in his palm, went over to\nthe man who the night before had called him a lazy nigger, and showing\nthe silver, picked out his piece of chicken.\n\nThe man hastened to wait on him, and said it was a fine day and hoped he\nwas well.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nArriving at Hampton, this colored boy, who had tramped the long, weary\nmiles, stood abashed before the big brick building which he knew was\nHampton Institute.\n\nHe was so little--the place was so big--by what right could he ask to be\nadmitted?\n\nFinally he boldly entered, and in a voice meant to be firm, but which\nwas very shaky, said, \"I am here!\" and pointed to the bosom of his\nhickory shirt.\n\nThe Yankee woman motioned him to a chair. Negroes coming there were\nplentiful. Usually they wanted to live the Ideal Life. They had a call\nto preach--and the girls wanted to be music-teachers.\n\nThe test was simple and severe: would they and could they do one useful\npiece of work well?\n\nBooker sat and waited, not knowing that his patience was being put to\nthe test.\n\nThen Miss Priscilla, in a hard, Neill Burgess voice, \"guessed\" that the\nadjoining recitation-room needed sweeping and dusting. She handed Booker\na broom and dust-cloth, motioned to the room, and went away.\n\nOho! Little did she know her lad. The colored boy smiled to\nhimself--sweeping and dusting were his specialties--he had learned the\ntrade from a Yankee woman from Vermont! He smiled.\n\nThen he swept that room--moved every chair, the table, the desk. He\ndusted each piece of furniture four times. He polished each rung and\nfollowed around the baseboard on hands and knees.\n\nMiss Priscilla came back--pushed the table around and saw at once that\nthe dirt had not been concealed beneath it. She took out her\nhandkerchief and wiped the table top, then the desk.\n\nShe turned, looked at the boy, and her smile met his half-suppressed\ntriumphant grin.\n\n\"You'll do,\" she said.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeneral Samuel C. Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, and the\ngrandfather of Tuskegee, was a white man who fought the South valiantly\nand well.\n\nHe seems about the only man in the North who, at the close of the war,\nclearly realized that the war had just begun--that the real enemies were\nnot subdued, and that these enemies were ignorance, superstition and\nincompetence.\n\nThe pitiable condition of four million human beings, flung from slavery\ninto freedom, thrown upon their own resources, with no thought of\nresponsibility, and with no preparation for the change, meant for them\nonly another kind of slavery.\n\nGeneral Armstrong's heart went out to them--he desired to show them how\nto be useful, helpful, self-reliant, healthy. For the whites of the\nSouth he had only high regard and friendship. He, of all men, knew how\nthey had suffered from the war--and he realized also that they had\nfought for what they believed was right. In his heart there was no hate.\nHe resolved to give himself--his life--his fortune--his intellect--his\nlove--his all, for the upbuilding of the South. He saw with the vision\nof a prophet that indolence and pride were the actual enemies of white\nand black alike. The blacks must be taught to work--to know the dignity\nof human labor--to serve society--to help themselves by helping others.\nHe realized that there are no menial tasks--that all which serves is\nsacred.\n\nAnd this is the man who sowed the seeds of truth in the heart of the\nnameless black boy--Booker Washington. Armstrong's shibboleth, too, was,\n\"With malice toward none, but with charity for all, let us finish the\nwork God has given us to do.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI do not know very much about this subject of education, yet I believe I\nknow as much about what others know about it as most people. I have\nvisited the principal colleges of America and Europe, and the methods of\nPreparatory and High Schools are to me familiar. I know the\nnight-schools of the cities, the \"Ungraded Rooms,\" the Schools for\nDefectives, the educational schemes in prisons, the Manual-Training\nSchools, the New Education (first suggested by Socrates) as carried out\nby G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, and dozens of other good men and women\nin America. I am familiar with the School for the Deaf at Malone, New\nYork, and the School for the Blind at Batavia, where even the sorely\nstricken are taught to be self-sufficient, self-supporting and happy. I\nhave tumbled down the circular fire-escape at Lapeer with the inmates of\nthe Home of Epileptics, and heard the shouts of laughter from lips that\nnever laughed before. I have seen the Jewish Manual Training School of\nChicago transform Russian refugees into useful citizens--capable,\nearnest and excellent. I know a little about Swarthmore, Wellesley,\nVassar, Radcliffe, and have put my head into West Point and Annapolis,\nand had nobody cry, \"Genius!\"\n\nOf Harvard, Yale and Princeton I know something, having done time in\neach. I have also given jobs to graduates of Oxford, Cambridge and\nHeidelberg, to my sorrow and their chagrin. This does not prove that\ngraduates of the great universities are, as a rule, out of work, or that\nthey are incompetent. It simply means that it is possible for a man to\ngraduate at these institutions and secure his diploma and yet be a man\nwho has nothing the world really wants, either in way of ideas or\nservices.\n\nThe reason that my \"cum laude\" friends did not like me, and the cause of\nmy having to part with them--getting them a little free transportation\nfrom your Uncle George--was not because they lacked intelligence, but\nbecause they wanted to secure a position, while I simply offered them a\njob.\n\nThey were like Cave-of-the-Winds of Oshkosh, who is an ice-cutter in\nAugust, and in winter is an out-of-door horticulturist--a hired man is\nsomething else.\n\nAs a general proposition, I believe this will not now be disputed: the\nobject of education is that a man may benefit himself by serving\nsociety.\n\nTo benefit others, you must be reasonably happy: there must be animation\nthrough useful activity, good-cheer, kindness and health--health of mind\nand health of body. And to benefit society you must also have patience,\npersistency, and a firm determination to do the right thing, and to mind\nyour own business so that others, too, may mind theirs. Then all should\nbe tinctured with a dash of discontent with past achievements, so you\nwill constantly put forth an effort to do more and better work.\n\nWhen what you have done in the past looks large to you, you haven't done\nmuch today.\n\nSo there you get the formula of Education: health and happiness through\nuseful activity--animation, kindness, good-cheer, patience, persistency,\nwillingness to give and take, seasoned with enough discontent to prevent\nsmugness, which is the scum that grows over every stagnant pond.\n\nOf course no college can fill this prescription--no institution can\nsupply the ingredients--all that the college can do is to supply the\nconditions so that these things can spring into being. Plants need the\nsunlight--mushrooms are different.\n\nThe question is, then, what teaching concern in America supplies the\nbest quality of actinic ray?\n\nAnd I answer, Tuskegee is the place, and Booker Washington is the man.\n\n\"What!\" you exclaim. \"The Ideal School a school for Negroes, instituted\nby a Negro, where only Negroes teach, and only Negroes are allowed to\nenter as students?\"\n\nAnd the answer is, \"Exactly so.\"\n\nAt Tuskegee there are nearly two thousand students, and over one hundred\nfifty teachers. There are two classes of students--\"day-school\" and\n\"night-school\" students. The night-school students work all day at any\nkind of task they are called upon to do. They receive their board,\nclothing and a home--they pay no tuition, but are paid for their labor,\nthe amount being placed to their credit, so when fifty dollars is\naccumulated they can enter as \"day students.\"\n\nThe \"day students\" make up the bulk of the scholars. Each pays fifty\ndollars a year. These all work every other day at manual labor or some\nuseful trade.\n\nTuskegee has fully twice as many applicants as it can accommodate; but\nthere is one kind of applicant who never receives any favor. This is the\nman who says he has the money to pay his way, and wishes to take the\nacademic course only. The answer always is: \"Please go elsewhere--there\nare plenty of schools that want your money. The fact that you have money\nwill not exempt you here from useful labor.\"\n\nThis is exactly what every college in the world should say.\n\nThe Tuskegee farm consists of about three thousand acres. There are four\nhundred head of cattle, about five hundred hogs, two hundred horses,\ngreat flocks of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, and many swarms of\nbees. It is the intention to raise all the food that is consumed on the\nplace, and to manufacture all supplies. There are wagon-shops, a\nsawmill, a harness-shop, a shoe-shop, a tailor-shop, a printing-plant, a\nmodel laundry, a canning establishment. Finer fruit and vegetables I\nhave never seen, and the thousands of peach, plum and apple trees, and\nthe vast acreage of berries that have been planted, will surely some day\nbe a goodly source of revenue.\n\nThe place is religious, but not dogmatically so--the religion being\nmerely the natural safety-valve for emotion. At Tuskegee there is no\nlacrimose appeal to confess your sins--they do better--they forget them.\n\nI never heard more inspiring congregational singing, and the use of the\npiano, organ, orchestra and brass band are important factors in the\ncurriculum. In the chapel I spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert,\nso receptive, so filled with animation, that the whole place looked like\na vast advertisement for Sozodont.\n\nNo prohibitive signs are seen at Tuskegee. All is affirmative, yet it is\nunderstood that some things are tabu--tobacco, for instance, and strong\ndrink, of course.\n\nWe have all heard of Harvard Beer and Yale Mixture, but be it said in\nsober justice, Harvard runs no brewery, and Yale has no official brand\nof tobacco. Yet Harvard men consume much beer, and many men at Yale\nsmoke. And if you want to see the cigarette-fiend on his native heath,\nyou'll find him like the locust on the campus at Cambridge and New\nHaven. But if you want to see the acme of all cigarette-bazaars, just\nride out of Boylston Street, Boston, any day at noon, and watch the boys\ncoming out of the Institute of Technology.\n\nI once asked a Tech Professor if cigarette-smoking was compulsory in his\ninstitution. \"Yes,\" he replied; \"but the rule is not strictly enforced,\nas I know three students who do not smoke.\"\n\nTuskegee stands for order, system, cleanliness, industry, courtesy and\nusefulness. There are no sink-holes around the place, no \"back yards.\"\nEverything is beautiful, wholesome and sanitary. All trades are\nrepresented. The day is crammed so full of work from sunrise to sunset\nthat there is no time for complaining, misery or faultfinding--three\nthings that are usually born of idleness. At Tuskegee there are\nno servants. All of the work is done by the students and\nteachers--everybody works--everybody is a student, and all are teachers.\n\nWe are all teachers, whether we will it or not--we teach by example, and\nall students who do good work are good teachers.\n\nWhen the Negro is able to do skilled work, he ceases to be a problem--he\nis a man. The fact that Alexandre Dumas was a Negro does not count\nagainst him in the world's assize.\n\nThe old-time academic college, that cultivated the cerebrum and gave a\nman his exercise in an indoor gymnasium, or not at all, has ruined its\ntens of thousands. To have top--head and no lungs--is not wholly\ndesirable. The student was made exempt from every useful thing, just as\nthe freshly freed slave hoped and expected to be, and after four years\nit was often impossible for him to take up the practical lessons of\nlife. He had gotten used to the idea of one set of men doing all the\nwork and another set of men having the culture. To a large degree he\ncame to regard culture as the aim of life. And when a man begins to\npride himself upon his culture, he hasn't any to speak of. Culture must\nbe merely incidental, and to clutch it is like capturing a butterfly:\nyou do not secure the butterfly at all--you get only a grub.\n\nLet us say right here that there is only one way in which a Negro, or a\nwhite man, can ever make himself respected. Statute law will not do it;\nrights voted him by the State are of small avail; making demands will\nnot secure the desired sesame. If we ever gain the paradise of freedom\nit will be because we have earned it--because we deserve it. A\nmake-believe education may suffice for a white man--especially if he has\na rich father, but a Negro who has to carve out his own destiny must be\ntaught order, system, and quiet, persistent, useful effort.\n\nA college that has its students devote one-half their time to actual,\nuseful work is so in line with commonsense that we are amazed that the\nidea had to be put into execution by the ex-slave as a life-saver for\nhis disenfranchised race. Our great discoveries are always accidents: we\nwork for one thing and get another. I expect that the day will come, and\nerelong, when the great universities of the world will have to put the\nTuskegee Idea into execution in order to save themselves from being\ndistanced by the Colored Race.\n\nIf life were one thing and education another, it might be all right to\nseparate them. Culture of the head over a desk, and indoor gymnastics\nfor the body, are not the ideal, and that many succeed in spite of the\nhandicap is no proof of the excellence of the plan. Ships that go around\nthe world accumulate many barnacles, but barnacles as a help to the\nnavigator are an iridescent dream.\n\nA little regular manual labor, rightly mixed with the mental, eliminates\ndraw-poker, highballs, brawls, broils, Harvard Beer, Yale Mixture,\nPrinceton Pinochle, Chippee dances, hazing, roistering, rowdyism and the\nbulldog propensity. The Heidelberg article of cocked hat and insolent\nways is not produced at Tuskegee. At Tuskegee there is no place for\nthose who lie in wait for insults and regard scrapping as a fine art. As\nfor college athletics at the Orthodox Universities, only one man out of\nten ever does anything at it anyway--the college man who needs the\ngymnasium most is practically debarred from everything in it and serves\nas a laughing-stock whenever he strips. Coffee, cocaine, bromide,\ntobacco and strong drink often serve in lieu of exercise and ozone, and\nPrinceton winks her woozy eye in innocency.\n\nFreedom can not be bestowed--it must be achieved. Education can not be\ngiven--it must be earned. Lincoln did not free the slaves--he only freed\nhimself. The Negroes did not know they were slaves, and so they had no\nidea of what freedom meant. Until a man wants to be free, each kind of\nfreedom is only another form of slavery. Booker Washington is showing\nthe colored man how to secure a genuine freedom through useful\nactivity. To get freedom you must shoulder responsibility.\n\nIf college education were made compulsory by the State, and one-half of\nthe curriculum consisted of actual, useful manual labor, most of our\nsocial ills would be solved, and we would be well out on the highway\ntowards the Ideal City.\n\nWithout animation, man is naught--nothing is accomplished, nothing done.\nPeople who inspire other people have animation plus.\n\nAnd animation plus is ecstasy. In ecstasy the spirit rushes out, runs\nover and saturates all. Oratory is an ecstasy that inundates the hearer\nand makes him ride upon the crest of another's ideas.\n\nArt is born of ecstasy--art is ecstasy in the concrete. Beautiful music\nis ecstasy expressed in sound, regulated into rhythm, cadence and form.\n\"Statuary is frozen music,\" said Heine.\n\nA man who is not moved into ecstasy by ecstasy is hopeless. A people\nthat has not the surging, uplifting, onward power that ecstasy gives, is\ndecadent--dead.\n\nThe Negro is easily moved to ecstasy. Very little musical training makes\nhim a power in song. At Tuskegee the congregational singing is a feature\nthat, once heard, is never to be forgotten. Fifteen hundred people\nlifting up their hearts in an outburst of emotion--song! Fifteen hundred\npeople of one mind, doing anything in unison--do you know what it means?\nEcstasy is essentially a matter of sex. In art and religion sex can not\nbe left out of the equation. The simple fact that in forty years the\nNegro race in America has increased from four million to ten million\ntells of their ecstasy as a people. \"Only happy beings reproduce\nthemselves,\" says Darwin. Depress your animal and it ceases to breed; so\nthere are a whole round of animals that do not reproduce in captivity.\nBut in slavery or freedom the Negro sings, and reproduces--he is not\ndoomed nor depressed--his soul arises superior to circumstance.\n\nWithout animation, education is impossible. And the problem of the\neducator is to direct this singing, flowing, moving spirit of the hive\ninto useful channels.\n\nEducation is simply the encouragement of right habits--the fixing of\ngood habits until they become a part of one's nature, and are exercised\nautomatically.\n\nThe man who is industrious by habit is the only man who wins. The man\nwho is not industrious except when driven to it, or when it occurs to\nhim, accomplishes little.\n\nMan gets his happiness by doing: and work to a slave is always\ndistasteful. The power of mimicry and imitation is omitted--the owner\ndoes not work--the strong man does not work. Ergo--to grow strong means\nto cease work. To be strong means to be free--to be free means no work!\n\nIt has been a frightfully bad education that the Negro has had--work\ndistasteful, and work disgraceful! And the slave-owner suffered most of\nall, for he came to regard work as debasing.\n\nAnd now a Negro is teaching the Negro that work is beautiful--that work\nis a privilege--that only through willing service can he ever win his\nfreedom. Architecture is fixed ecstasy, inspired always by a strong man\nwho gives a feeling of security. Athens was an ecstasy in marble.\n\nTuskegee is an ecstasy in brick and mortar.\n\nDon't talk about the education of the Negro! The experiment has really\nnever been tried, except spasmodically, of educating either the whites\nor the blacks in the South--or elsewhere.\n\nA Negro is laying hold upon the natural ecstasy of the Negro, and\ndirecting it into channels of usefulness and excellence. Can you\nforetell where this will end--this formation of habits of industry,\nsobriety and continued, persistent effort towards the right?\n\nBooker Washington, child of a despised race, has done and is doing what\nthe combined pedagogic and priestly wisdom of ages has failed to do. He\nis the Moses who by his example is leading the children of his former\noppressors out into the light of social, mental, moral and economic\nfreedom.\n\nI am familiar in detail with every criticism brought against Tuskegee.\nOn examination these criticisms all reduce themselves down to three:\n\n1. A vast sum of money has been collected by Booker Washington for his\nown aggrandizement and benefit.\n\n2. Tuskegee is a show-place where all the really good work is done by\npicked men from the North.\n\n3. Booker Washington is a tyrant, a dictator and an egotist.\n\nIf I were counsel for Tuskegee--as I am not--I would follow the example\nof the worthy accusers, and submit the matter without argument. Booker\nWashington can afford to plead guilty to every charge; and he has never\nbelittled himself by answering his accusers.\n\nBut let the facts be known, that this man has collected upward of six\nmillion dollars, mostly from the people of the North, and has built up\nthe nearest perfect educational institution in the world.\n\nIt is probably true that many of his teachers and best workers are\npicked people--but they are Negroes, and were selected by a Negro. The\ngreat general reveals his greatness in the selection of his generals: it\nwas the marshals whom Napoleon appointed who won for him his victories;\nbut his spirit animated theirs, and he chose them for this one\nreason--he could dominate them. He infused into their souls a goodly\ndash of his own enthusiasm.\n\nBooker Washington is a greater general than Napoleon. For the Tuskegee\nidea no Waterloo awaits. And as near as I can judge, Booker Washington's\nmost noisy critics are merely camp-followers.\n\nThat the man is a tyrant and a dictator there is no doubt. He is a\nbeneficent tyrant, but a tyrant still, for he always, invariably, has\nhis own way in weighty matters--in trivialities others can have theirs.\nAnd as for dictatorship, the man who advances on chaos and transforms it\ninto cosmos is perforce a dictator and an egotist.\n\nBooker Washington believes he is in the right, and he makes no effort to\nconceal the fact that he is on earth. In him there is no disposition to\nrun and peep about, and find himself a dishonorable grave. All live men\nare egotists, and they are egotists just in proportion as they have\nlife. Dead men are not egotists. Booker Washington has life in\nabundance, and through him I truly believe runs the spirit of Divinity,\nif ever a living man had it. A man like this is the instrument of Deity.\n\nTuskegee Institute has applications ahead all the time, from all over\nAmerica, for competent colored men and women who can take charge of\nimportant work and do it. Dressmakers, housekeepers, cooks, farmers,\nstockmen, builders, gardeners, are in demand. The world has never yet\nhad enough people to bear its burdens.\n\nRecently we have heard much of the unemployed, but a very little search\nwill show that the people out of work are those of bad habits, which\nmake them unreliable and untrustworthy. The South, especially, needs the\nwilling worker and the practical man. And best of all the South knows\nit, and stands ready to pay for the service.\n\nA few years ago there was a fine storm of protest from Northern Negroes\nto the effect that Booker Washington was endeavoring to limit the Negro\nto menial service--that is, thrust him back into servility. The first\nambition of the Negro was to get an education so that he might become a\nBaptist preacher. To him, education meant freedom from toil, and of\ncourse we do not have to look far to see where he got the idea. Then\nwhen Tuskegee came forward and wanted to make blacksmiths, carpenters\nand brick-masons out of black men, there was a cry, \"If this means\neducation, we will none of it--treason, treason!\" It was assumed that\nthe Negro who set other Negroes to work was not their friend. This phase\nof the matter requires neither denial nor apology. We smile and pass on.\n\nIn Eighteen Hundred Seventy-seven, the Negro was practically\ndisenfranchised throughout the South, by being excluded from the\nprimaries. He had no recognized ticket in the field. For both the blacks\nand the whites this has been well. To most of the blacks freedom meant\nsimply exemption from work. So there quickly grew up a roistering,\nturbulent, idle and dangerous class of black men who were used by the\nmost ambitious of their kind for political ends. To preserve the peace\nof the community, the whites were forced to adopt heroic measures, with\nthe result that we now have the disenfranchised Negro.\n\nEarly in the Eighties, Booker Washington realized that, politically,\nthere was no hope for his race. He saw, however, that commerce\nrecognized no color line. We would buy, sell and trade with the black\nman on absolute equality. Life-insurance companies would insure him,\nbanks would receive his deposits, and if honest and competent, would\nloan him money. If he could shoe a horse, we waived his complexion; and\nin every sort and kind of craftsmanship he stood on absolute equality\nwith the whites. The only question ever asked was, \"Can you do the\nwork?\"\n\nAnd Booker Washington set out to help the Negro win success for himself\nby serving society through becoming skilled in doing useful things. And\nso it became Head, Hand and Heart. The manual was played off against the\nintellectual.\n\nBut over and beyond the great achievement of Booker Washington in\nfounding and carrying to a successful issue the most complete\neducational scheme of this age, or any other, stands the man himself. He\nis one without hate, heat or prejudice. No one can write on the lintels\nof his doorpost the word, \"Whim.\" He is half-white, but calls himself a\nNegro. He sides with the disgraced and outcast black woman who gave him\nbirth, rather than with the respectable white man who was his sire.\n\nHe rides in the Jim Crow cars, and on long trips, if it is deemed\nexpedient to use a sleeping-car, he hires the stateroom, so that he may\nnot trespass or presume upon those who would be troubled by the presence\nof a colored man. Often in traveling he goes for food and shelter to the\nhumble home of one of his own people. At hotels he receives and\naccepts, without protest or resentment, the occasional contumely of the\ninferior whites--whites too ignorant to appreciate that one of God's\nnoblemen stands before them. For the whites of the South he has only\nwords of kindness and respect; the worst he says about them is that they\ndo not understand. His modesty, his patience, his forbearance, are\nsublime. He is a true Fabian--he does what he can, like the royal\nRoycroft opportunist that he is. Every petty annoyance is passed over;\nthe gibes and jeers and the ingratitude of his own race are forgotten.\n\"They do not understand,\" he calmly says. He does his work. He is\nrespected by the best people of North and South. He has the confidence\nof the men of affairs--he is a safe man.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THOMAS ARNOLD]\n\nTHOMAS ARNOLD\n\n\n     Let me mind my own personal work; keep myself pure and zealous and\n     believing; laboring to do God's will in this fruitful vineyard of\n     young lives committed to my charge, as my allotted field, until my\n     work be done.\n\n     --_Thomas Arnold_\n\n\nTHOMAS ARNOLD\n\nThomas Arnold was born in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, and died in\nEighteen Hundred Forty-two. His life was short, as men count time, but\nhe lived long enough to make for himself a name and a fame that are both\nlasting and luminous. Though he was neither a great writer nor a great\npreacher, yet there were times when he thought he was both. He was only\na schoolteacher. However, he was an artist in schoolteaching, and art is\nnot a thing--it is a way. It is the beautiful way--the effective way.\n\nSchoolteachers have no means of proving their prowess by conspicuous\nwaste, and no time to convince the world of their excellence through\nconspicuous leisure; consequently, for histrionic purposes, a\nschoolteacher's cosmos is a plain, slaty gray. Schoolteachers do not\nwallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No one ever accuses\nthem of belonging to the class known as the predatory rich, nor of being\nmillionaire malefactors. They have to do their work every day at certain\nhours and dedicate its results to time.\n\nFor many years Thomas Arnold has been known as the father of his son.\nSeveral great men have been thus overshadowed. The father of Disraeli,\nfor instance, was favored by fame and fortune, until his gifted son\nmoved into the limelight, and after that Pater shone mostly in a\nreflected glory. Jacopo Bellini was the greatest painter in Venice until\nhis two sons, Gian and Gentile, surpassed him, and history writes him\ndown as the father of the Bellinis. Lyman Beecher was regarded as\nAmerica's greatest preacher until Henry Ward moved the mark up a few\nnotches. The elder Pitt was looked upon as a genuine statesman until his\nson graduated into the Cabinet, and then \"the terrible cornet of horse\"\nbecame known as the father of Pitt. Now that both are dust, and we are\ngetting the proper perspective, we see that \"the great commoner\" was\nindeed a great man, and so they move down the corridors of time\ntogether, arm in arm, this father and son. That excellent person who\ncarried the gripsacks of greatness so long that he thought the luggage\nwas his own, Major James B. Pond, launched at least one good thing. It\nwas this: \"Matthew Arnold gave fifty lectures in America, and nobody\never heard one of them; those in his audience who could no longer endure\nthe silence slipped quietly out.\"\n\nMatthew Arnold was a critic and writer who, having secured a tuppence\nworth of success through being the son of his father, and thus securing\nthe speaker's eye, finally got an oratorical bee in his bonnet and went\na-barnstorming. He cultivated reserve and indifference, both of which he\nwas told were necessary factors of success in a public speaker.\n\nAnd this is true. But they will not make an orator, any more than long\nhair, a peculiar necktie, and a queer hat will float a poet on the tide\nof time safely into the Hall of Fame.\n\nMatthew Arnold cultivated repose, but instead of convincing the audience\nthat he had power, he only made them think he was sleepy. Major Pond,\nhaving lived much with orators, and thinking the trick easy, tried\noratory on his own account, and succeeded as well as did Matthew Arnold.\nNo one ever heard Major Pond: his voice fell over the footlights, dead,\ninto the orchestra; only those with opera-glasses knew he was talking.\n\nBut to be unintelligible is not a special recommendation. Men may be\nmoderate for two reasons--through excess of feeling and because they are\nactually dull.\n\nMatthew Arnold has slipped back into his true position--that of a man of\nletters. The genius is a man of affairs. Humanity is the theme, not\nbooks. Books are usually written about the thoughts of men who wrote\nbooks. Books die and disintegrate, but humanity is an endless\nprocession, and the souls that go marching on are those who fought for\nfreedom, not those who speculate on abstrusities.\n\nThe credential of Thomas Arnold to immortality is not that he was the\nfather of Matthew and eight other little Arnolds, but it lies in the\nfact that he fought for a wider horizon in life through education. He\nlifted his voice for liberty. He believed in the divinity of the child,\nnot in its depravity. Arnold of Rugby was a teacher of teachers, as\nevery great teacher is. The pedagogic world is now going back to his\nphilosophy, just as in statesmanship we are reverting to Thomas\nJefferson. These men who spoke classic truth, not transient--truth that\nfits in spite of fashion, time and place--are the true prophets of\nmankind. Such was Thomas Arnold!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf Thomas Arnold had been just a little bigger, the world probably would\nnever have heard of him, for an interdict would have been placed upon\nhis work. The miracle is that, as it was, the Church and the State did\nnot snuff him out.\n\nHe stood for sweet reasonableness, but unintentionally created much\nopposition. His life was a warfare. Yet he managed to make himself\nacceptable to a few; so for fourteen years this head master of a\npreparatory school for boys lived his life and did his work. He sent out\nhis radiating gleams, and grew straight in the strength of his spirit,\nand lived out his life in the light.\n\nHis sudden death sanctified and sealed his work before he was subdued\nand ironed out by the conventions.\n\nHappy Arnold! If he had lived, he might have met the fate of Arnold of\nBrescia, who was also a great teacher. Arnold of Brescia was a pupil of\nAbelard, and was condemned by the Church as a disturber of the peace for\nspeaking in eulogy of his master. Later, he attacked the profligacy of\nthe idle prelates, as did Luther, Savonarola and all the other great\nchurch-reformers. When ordered into exile and silence, he still\nprotested his right to speak. He was strangled on order of the Pope, his\nbody burned, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. The Baptists, I\nbelieve, claim Arnold of Brescia as the forerunner of their sect, and\ncertain it is that he was of the true Roger Williams type.\n\nThomas Arnold, too, was filled with a passion for righteousness. His\nzeal for the upright, manly life constituted his strength. Of course he\nwould not have been executed, as was Arnold of Brescia--the times had\nchanged--he would simply have been shelved, pooh-poohed, deprived of his\nliving and socially Crapseyized. Death saved him--aged forty-seven--and\nhis soul goes marching on!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe parents of Thomas Arnold belonged to the great Middle Class--that\nclass which Disraeli said never did any thinking on its own account, but\nto the best of its ability deferred to and imitated the idle rich in\nmatters of religion, education and politics.\n\nDoctor Johnson maintained that if members of the Middle Class worked\nhard and economized, it was in the hope that they might leave money and\nname for their children and make them exempt from all useful effort.\n\n\"To indict a class,\" said Burke, \"is neither reasonable nor right.\" But\ncertain it is that a vast number of fairly intelligent people in England\nand elsewhere regard the life of the \"aristocracy\" as very desirable and\nbeautiful.\n\nTo this end they want their boys to become clergymen, lawyers, doctors\nor army officers.\n\n\"Only two avenues of honor are open to aspiring youth in England,\" said\nGladstone--\"the Army and the Church.\"\n\nThe father of Thomas Arnold was Collector of Customs at Cowes, Isle of\nWight. Holding this petty office under the Government, with a half-dozen\nmen at his command, we can easily guess his caliber, habits, belief and\nmode of life. He was respectable; and to be respectable, a Collector of\nCustoms must be punctilious in Church matters, in order to be acceptable\nto Church people, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The parents of\nThomas Arnold very naturally centered their ambitions for him on the\nChurch, as he was not very strong.\n\nWhen the child was only six years old, the father died from \"spasm of\nthe heart.\" At this time the boy had begun to take Latin, and his\neducation was being looked after by a worthy governess, who daily\ndrilled his mental processes and took him walking, leading him by the\nhand. On Sundays he wore a wide, white collar, shiny boots and a stiff\nhat. The governess cautioned him not to soil his collar, nor to get mud\non his boots.\n\nIn later years he told how he looked covetously at the boys who wore\nneither hats nor boots, and who did not have a governess.\n\nHis mother had a fair income, and so this prim, precise, exact and\ncrystallized mode of education was continued. Out of her great love for\nher child, the mother sent him away from home when he was eight years\nold. Of course there were tears on both sides; but now a male man must\neducate him, and women were to be dropped out of the equation--this that\nthe evil in the child should be curbed, his spirit chastened, and his\nmind disciplined.\n\nThe fact that a child rather liked to be fondled by his mother, or that\nhis mother cared to fondle him, was proof of total depravity on the part\nof both.\n\nThe Reverend Doctor Griffiths, who took charge of the boy for two years,\nwas certainly not cruel, but at the same time he was not exactly human.\nIn Nature we never hear of a she-lion sending her cubs away to be looked\nafter by a denatured lion. It is really doubtful whether you could ever\nraise a lion to lionhood by this method. Some goat would come along and\nbutt the life out of him, even after he had evolved whiskers and a mane.\n\nAfter two years with Doctor Griffiths, young Arnold was sent to\nManchester, where he remained in a boys' boarding-house from his tenth\nto his fourteenth year. To the teachers here--all men--he often paid\ntribute, but uttered a few heretical doubts as to whether discipline as\na substitute for mother-love was not an error of pious but overzealous\neducators.\n\nAt sixteen years of age he was transferred to Corpus Christi College at\nOxford. In Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, being then twenty years of age, he\nwas elected a Fellow of Oriel College, and there he resided until he was\ntwenty-four.\n\nHe was a prizeman in Latin, Greek and English, and was considered a star\nscholar--both by himself and by others. Ten years afterwards he took a\nbackward glance, and said: \"At twenty-two I was proud, precise, stiff,\nformal, uncomfortable, unhappy, and unintentionally made everybody else\nunhappy with whom I came in contact. The only people I really mixed with\nwere those whose lives were dedicated to the ablative.\"\n\nWhen twenty-four he was made a deacon and used to read prayers at\nneighboring chapels, for which service he was paid five shillings. Being\nnow thrown on his own resources, he did the thing a prizeman always\ndoes: he showed others how. As a tutor he was a success: more scholars\ncame to him than he could really take care of. But he did not like the\nwork, since all the pupil desired, and all the parents desired, was that\nhe should help the backward one get his marks, and glide through the eye\nof a needle into pedagogic paradise.\n\nAt twenty-six he was preaching, teaching and writing learned essays\nabout things he did not understand.\n\nFrom this brief sketch it will be seen that the early education of\nThomas Arnold was of the kind and type that any fond parent of the\nwell-to-do Middle Class would most desire. He had been shielded from all\ntemptations of the world; he could do no useful thing with his hands;\nhis knowledge of economics--ways and means--was that of a child; of the\nliving present he knew little, but of the dead past he assumed and\nbelieved he knew much.\n\nIt was purely priestly, institutional education. It was the kind of\neducation that every well-to-do Briton would like to have his sons\nreceive. It was, in short, England's Ideal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRugby Grammar School was endowed in Sixteen Hundred Fifty-three by one\nLaurence Sherif, a worthy grocer. The original gift was comparatively\nsmall, but the investment being in London real estate, has increased in\nvalue until it yields now an income of about thirty-five thousand\ndollars a year.\n\nIn the time of Arnold there were about three hundred pupils. It is not a\nlarge school now; there are high schools in a hundred cities of America\nthat surpass it in many ways.\n\nRugby's claim to special notice lies in its traditions--the great men\nwho were once Rugby boys, and the great men who were Rugby teachers.\nAlso, in the fact that Thomas Hughes wrote a famous story called, \"Tom\nBrown at Rugby.\"\n\nRugby Grammar School was one hundred twenty-five years old when Sir\nJoshua Reynolds commissioned Lord Cornwallis to go to America and fetch\nGeorge Washington to England, that Sir Joshua might paint his portrait.\n\nFor a hundred years prior to the time of Arnold, there had not been a\nperceptible change in the methods of teaching. The boys were herded\ntogether. They fought, quarreled, divided into cliques; the big boys\nbullied the little ones. Fagging was the law; so the upper forms\nenslaved the lower ones. There was no home life, and the studies were\nmade irksome and severe, purposely, as it was thought that pleasant\nthings were sinful.\n\nIf any better plan could have been devised to make study absolutely\nrepulsive, so the student would shun it as soon as he was out of school,\nwe can not guess it.\n\nThe system was probably born of inertia on the part of the teachers. The\npastor who pushes through his prescribed services, with mind on other\nthings, and thus absolves his conscience for letting his congregation go\ndrifting straight to Gehenna, was duplicated in the teacher. He did his\nduty--and nothing more.\n\nSelfishness, heartlessness and brutality manipulated the birch. Head was\nall; heart and hand nothing. This was schoolteaching. As a punishment\nfor failure to memorize lessons, there were various plans to disgrace\nand discourage the luckless ones. Standing in the corner with face to\nthe wall, and the dunce-cap, had given place to a system of fines,\nwhereby \"ten lines of Vergil for failure to attend prayers,\" and ten\nmore for failure to get the first, often placed the boy in hopeless\nbankruptcy. If he was a fag, or slave of a higher-form boy, cleaning the\nother's boots, scrubbing stairs, running on foolish and needless\nerrands, getting cuffs and kicks by way of encouragement, he saw his\nfines piling up and no way ever to clear them off and gain freedom by\npromotion.\n\nViewed from our standpoint, the thing has a ludicrous bouffe air that\nmakes us smile. But to the boy caught in the toils it was tragic. To\nwork and evolve in an environment of such brutality was impossible to\ncertain temperaments. Success lay in becoming calloused and indifferent.\nIf the boy of gentle habits and slight physical force did not sink into\nmental nothingness, he was in danger of being bowled over by disease and\ndeath.\n\nIndeed, the physical condition of the pupils was very bad: smallpox,\nfevers, consumption, and breaking out with sores and boils, were common.\n\nThomas Arnold was thirty-three years old when he was called as head\nmaster to Rugby. He was married, and babies were coming along with\nastonishing regularity. He had taken priestly orders and was passing\nrich on one hundred pounds a year. Poverty and responsibility had given\nhim ballast, and love for his own little brood had softened his heart\nand vitalized his soul.\n\nAs a writer and speaker he had made his presence felt at various college\ncommencements and clergymen's meetings. He had challenged the brutal,\nindifferent, lazy and so-called disciplinary methods of teaching.\n\nAnd so far as we know, he is the first man in England to declare that\nthe teacher should be the foster-parent of the child, and that all\nsuccessful teaching must be born of love.\n\nThe well-upholstered conservatives twiddled their thumbs, coughed, and\nasked: \"How about the doctrine of total depravity? Do you mean to say\nthat the child should not be disciplined? What does Solomon say about\nthe use of the rod? Does the Bible say that the child is good by\nnature?\"\n\nBut Thomas Arnold could not explain all he knew. Moreover, he did not\nwish to fight the Church--he believed in the Church--to him it was a\ndivine institution. But there were methods and practises in the Church\nthat he would have liked to forget.\n\n\"My sympathies go out to inferiority,\" he said. The weakling often\nneeded encouragement, not discipline. The bad boy must be won, not\nsuppressed.\n\nIn one of these conferences of clergymen, Arnold said:\n\n\"I once chided a pupil, a little, pale, stupid boy--undersized and\nseemingly half-sick--for not being able to recite his very simple\nlesson. He looked up at me and said with a touch of spirit: 'Sir, why do\nyou get angry with me? Do you not know I am doing the best I can?'\"\n\nOne of the clergymen present asked Arnold how he punished the boy for\nhis impudence.\n\nAnd Arnold replied: \"I did not punish him--he had properly punished me.\nI begged his pardon.\"\n\nThe idea of a teacher begging the pardon of a pupil was a brand-new\nthing.\n\nSeveral clergymen present laughed--one scowled--two sneezed. But a\nBishop, shortly after this, urged the name of Thomas Arnold as master of\nRugby, and added to his recommendation this line: \"If elected to the\noffice he will change the methods of schoolteaching in every public\nschool in England.\"\n\nThe ayes had it, and Arnold was called to Rugby. The salary was so-so,\nthe pupils between two and three hundred in number--many were home on\nsick-leave--the Sixth Form was in charge.\n\n\nThe genius of Arnold was made manifest, almost as soon as he went to\nRugby, by the way in which he managed the boys who bullied the whole\nschool, and what is worse, did it legally.\n\nFagging was official.\n\nThe Sixth Form was composed of thirty boys who stood at the top, and\nthese boys ran the school. They were boys who, by reason of their size,\nstrength, aggressiveness and mental ability, got the markings that gave\nthem this autocratic power. They were now immune from authority--they\nwere free. In a year they would gravitate to the University.\n\nWe can hardly understand now how a bully could get markings through his\nbullying propensities; but a rudimentary survival of the idea may yet be\nseen in big football-players, who are given good marks, and very gentle\nmental massage in class. If the same scholars were small and skinny,\nthey would certainly be plucked.\n\nThe faculty found freedom in shifting responsibility for discipline to\nthe Sixth Form.\n\nRead the diary of Arnold, and you will be amazed on seeing how he fought\nagainst taking from the Sixth Form the right to bodily chastise any\nscholar in the school that the king of the Sixth Form declared deserved\nit.\n\nIf a teacher thought a pupil needed punishment, he turned the luckless\none over to the Sixth Form. Can we now conceive of a system where the\nduty of certain scholars was to whip other scholars? Not only to whip\nthem, but to beat them into insensibility if they fought back?\n\nSuch was schoolteaching in the public schools of England in Eighteen\nHundred Thirty.\n\nAgainst this brutality there was now a growing sentiment--a piping voice\nbidding the tide to stay!\n\nBut now that Arnold was in charge of Rugby, he got the ill-will of his\ndirectors by declaring that he did not intend to curtail the powers of\nthe Sixth Form--he proposed to civilize it. To try out the new master,\nthe Sixth Form, proud in their prowess, sent him word that if he\ninterfered with them in any way, they would first \"bust up the school,\"\nand then resign in a body. Moreover, they gave it out that if any pupil\ncomplained to the master concerning the Sixth Form, the one so\ncomplaining would be taken out by night and drowned in the classic Avon.\n\nThere were legends among the younger boys of strange disappearances, and\nthese were attributed to the swift vengeance of \"The Bloody Sixth.\"\n\nAbove the Sixth Form there was no law.\n\nEvery scholar took off his hat to a \"Sixth.\" A Sixth uncovered to\nnobody, and touched his cap only to a teacher.\n\nAnd custom had become so rooted that the Sixth Form was regarded as a\nsort of police necessity--a caste which served the school just as the\nArmy served the Church. To reach the Sixth Form were paradise--it meant\nliberty and power--liberty to do as you pleased, and power to punish all\nwho questioned your authority.\n\nTo uproot the power of the Sixth Form was the intent of a few reformers\nin pedagogics.\n\nThere were two ways to deal with the boys of the Sixth--fight them or\neducate them.\n\nArnold called the Rugby Sixth together and assured them that he could\nnot do without their help. He needed them: he wanted to make Rugby a\nmodel school, a school that would influence all England--would they help\nhim?\n\nThe dogged faces before him showed signs of interest. He continued,\nwithout waiting for their reply, to set before them his ideal of an\nEnglish Gentleman. He persuaded them, melted them by his glowing\npersonality, shook hands with each, and sent them away.\n\nThe next day he again met them in the same intimate way, and one of the\nboys made bold to assure him that if he wanted anybody licked--pupils or\nteachers--they stood ready to do his bidding.\n\nHe thanked the boy, but assured him that he was of the opinion that it\nwould not be necessary to do violence to any one; he was going to unfold\nto them another way--a new way, which was very old, but which as yet\nEngland had not tried.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great teacher is not the one who imparts the most facts--he is the\none who inspires by supplying a nobler ideal.\n\nMen are superior or inferior just in the ratio that they possess certain\nqualities. Truth, honor, frankness, health, system, industry,\nkindliness, good-cheer and a spirit of helpfulness are so far beyond any\nmental acquisition that comparisons are not only odious, but absurd.\n\nArnold inspired qualities, and in this respect his work at Rugby forms a\nwhite milestone on the path of progress in pedagogy.\n\nTo an applicant for a position as teacher, Arnold wrote:\n\n     What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentleman, an active\n     man, and one who has commonsense, and understands boys. I do not so\n     much care about scholarship, as he will have immediately under him\n     the lowest forms in the school, but yet, on second thought, I do\n     care about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest\n     forms; and besides, I think that even the elements are best taught\n     by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if\n     one must give way, I prefer activity of mind and an interest in his\n     work to high scholarship; for the one may be acquired far more\n     easily than the other. I should wish it also to be understood that\n     the new master may be called upon to take boarders in his house, it\n     being my intention for the future to require this of all masters as\n     I see occasion, that so in time the school-barracks may die a\n     natural death. With this to offer, I think I have a right to look\n     rather high for the man whom I fix upon, and it is my great object\n     to get here a society of intelligent, gentlemanly and active men,\n     who may permanently keep up the character of the school, and if I\n     were to break my neck tomorrow, carry it on.\n\nIdeas are in the air, and great inventions are worked out in different\nparts of the world at the same time. Rousseau had written his \"Emile,\"\nbut we are not aware that Arnold ever read it.\n\nAnd if he had, he probably would have been shocked, not inspired, by its\nalmost brutal frankness. The French might read it--the English could\nnot.\n\nPestalozzi was working out his ideas in Switzerland, and Froebel, an\nawkward farmer lad in Germany, was dreaming dreams that were to come\ntrue. But Thomas Arnold caught up the threads of feeling in England and\nexpressed them in the fabric of his life.\n\nHis plans were scientific, but his reasons, unlike those of Pestalozzi,\nwill not always stand the test of close analysis. Arnold was true to the\nChurch, but he found it convenient to forget much for which the Church\nstood. He went back to a source nearer the fountainhead. All reforms in\norganized religion lie in returning to the primitive type. The religion\nof Jesus was very simple; that of a modern church dignitary is very\ncomplex. One can be understood; the other has to be explained and\nexpounded, and usually several languages are required.\n\nArnold would have his boys evolve into Christian gentlemen. And his\ntype of English gentleman he did not get out of books on theology--it\nwas his own composite idea. But having once evolved it, he cast around\nto justify it by passages of Scripture. This was beautiful, too, but\nfrom our standpoint it wasn't necessary.\n\nFrom his it was.\n\nA gentleman to him was a man who looked for the best in other people,\nand not for their faults; who overlooked slights; who forgot the good he\nhad done; who was courteous, kind, cheerful, industrious and clean\ninside and out; who was slow to wrath, fervent in spirit, serving the\nLord. And the \"Lord\" to Arnold was embodied in Church and State.\n\nArnold used to say that schoolteaching should not be based upon\nreligion, but it should be religion. And to him religion and conduct\nwere one.\n\nThat he reformed Rugby through the Sixth Form is a fact. He infused into\nthe big boys the thought that they must help the little ones; that for a\nfirst offense a lad must never be punished; that he should have the\nmatter fully explained to him, and be shown that he should do right\nbecause it is right, and not for fear of punishment.\n\nThe Sixth Form was taught to unbend its dignity and enter into\nfellowship with its so-called inferiors. To this end Arnold set the\nexample of playing cricket with the \"scrubs.\"\n\nHe never laughed at a poor player nor at a poor scholar. He took dull\npupils into his own house, and insisted that his helpers, the other\nteachers, should do the same. He showed the Sixth Form how much better\nit was to take the part of the weak, and stop bullying the lower forms,\nthan to set the example of it in the highest. Before Arnold had been at\nRugby a year, the Sixth Form had resolved itself into a Reception\nCommittee that greeted all newcomers, got them located, introduced them\nto the other boys, showed them the sights, and looked after their wants\nlike big brothers or foster-fathers.\n\nChristianity to Arnold was human service. In his zeal to serve, to\nbenefit, to bless, to inspire, he never tired.\n\nSuch a disposition as this is contagious. In every big business or\nschool, there is one man's mental attitude that animates the whole\ninstitution. Everybody partakes of it. When the leader gets melancholia,\nthe shop has it--the whole place becomes tinted with ultra-marine. The\nbest helpers begin to get out, and the honeycombing process of\ndissolution is on.\n\nA school must have a soul, just as surely as a shop, a bank, a hotel, a\nstore, a home, or a church has to have. When an institution grows so\ngreat that it has no soul--simply a financial head and a board of\ndirectors--dry-rot sets in and disintegration in a loose wrapper is at\nthe door.\n\nThis explains why the small colleges are the best, when they are: there\nis a personality about them, an animating spirit that is pervasive and\npreservative.\n\nThomas Arnold was not a man of vast learning, nor could one truthfully\nsay he had a surplus of intellect; but he had soul, plus. He never\nsought to save himself. He gave himself to the boys of Rugby. His heart\nwent out to them, he believed in them--and he believed them even when\nthey lied, and he knew they lied. He knew that humanity was sound at\nheart; he believed in the divinity of mankind, and tried hard to forget\nthe foolish theology that taught otherwise.\n\nLike Thomas Jefferson, who installed the honor system in the University\nof Virginia, he trusted young men. He made his appeal to that germ of\ngoodness which is in every human soul. In some ways he anticipated Ben\nLindsey in his love for the boy, and might have conjured forth from his\nteeming brain the Juvenile Court, and thus stopped the creation of\ncriminals, had his life not been consumed in a struggle with stupidity\nand pedantry gone to seed that cried to him, \"Oh, who ever heard of such\na thing as that!\"\n\nThe Kindergarten utilizes the propensity to play; and Arnold utilizes\nthe thirst for authority. Altruism is flavored with a desire for\napprobation.\n\nThe plan of self-government by means of utilizing the Sixth Form was\nquite on the order of our own \"George Junior Republic.\" \"A school,\" he\nsaid, \"should be self-governing and cleanse itself from that which is\nharmful.\" And again he says: \"If a pupil can gratify his natural desire\nfor approbation by doing that which is right, proper and best, he will\nwork to this end instead of being a hero by playing the rowdy. It is for\nthe scholars to set the seal of their approval on character, and they\nwill do so if we as teachers speak the word. If I find a room in a\ntumult, I blame myself, not the scholars. It is I who have failed, not\nthey. Were I what I should be, every one of my pupils would reflect my\nworth. I key the situation, I set the pace, and if my soul is in\ndisorder, the school will be in confusion.\"\n\nNothing is done without enthusiasm. It is heart that wins, not head, the\nround world over. And yet head must systematize the promptings of the\nheart. Arnold had a way of putting soul into a hand-clasp. His pupils\nnever forgot him. Wherever they went, no matter how long they lived,\nthey proclaimed the praises of Arnold of Rugby. How much this earnest,\nenthusiastic, loving and sincere teacher has influenced civilization, no\nman can say. But this we know, that since his day there has come about a\nnew science of teaching. The birch has gone with the dunce-cap. The\nparticular cat-o'-nine-tails that was burned in the house of Thomas\nArnold as a solemn ceremony, when the declaration was made, \"Henceforth\nI know my children will do right!\" has found its example in every home\nof Christendom.\n\nWe no longer whip children. Schools are no longer places of dread, pain\nand suffering, and we as teachers are repeating with Friedrich Froebel\nthe words of the Nazarene, \"Suffer little children to come unto me, and\nforbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.\"\n\nAlso, we say with Thomas Arnold: \"The boy is father to the man. A race\nof gentlemen can only be produced by fostering in the boy the qualities\nthat make for health, strength and a manly desire to bless, benefit and\nserve the race.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: FRIEDRICH FROEBEL]\n\nFRIEDRICH FROEBEL\n\n\n     The purpose of the Kindergarten is to provide the necessary and\n     natural help which poor mothers require who have to be about their\n     work all day, and must leave their children to themselves. The\n     occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free\n     play of a child by itself; free play of several children by\n     themselves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher;\n     gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited to little\n     children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental and\n     vocal; learning the repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at\n     really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening.\n\n     --_Froebel_\n\n\nFRIEDRICH FROEBEL\n\nFriedrich Froebel was born in a Thuringian village, April Twenty-first,\nSeventeen Hundred Eighty-two. His father was pastor of the Lutheran\nChurch. When scarcely a year old his mother died. Erelong a stepmother\ncame to fill her place--but didn't. This stepmother was the kind we read\nabout in the \"Six Best Sellers.\"\n\nHer severity, lack of love, and needlessly religious zeal served the\nfuture Kindergartner a dark background on which to paint a joyous\npicture. Froebel was educated by antithesis. His home was the type\netched so unforgetably by Colonel Ed. Howe in his \"Story of a Country\nTown,\" which isn't bad enough to be one of the Six Best Sellers.\n\nAt the age of ten, out of pure pity, young Friedrich was rescued from\nthe cuckoo's nest by an uncle who had a big family of his own and love\nwithout limit. There was a goodly brood left, so little Friedrich, slim,\nslender, yellow, pensive and sad, was really never missed.\n\nThe uncle brought the boy up to work, but treated him like a human\nbeing, answering his questions, even allowing him to have stick horses\nand little log houses and a garden of his own.\n\nAt fifteen his nature had begun to awaken, and the uncle, harkening to\nthe boy's wish, apprenticed him for two years to a forester. The young\nman's first work was to make a list of the trees in a certain tract and\napproximate their respective ages. The night before his work began he\nlay awake thinking of the fun he was going to have at the job. In\nafter-years he told of this incident in showing that it was absurd to\ntry to divorce work from play.\n\nThe two years as forester's apprentice, from fifteen to seventeen, were\nreally better for him than any university could have been. His\nstepmother's instructions had mostly been in the line of prohibition.\nFrom earliest babyhood he had been warned to \"look out.\" When he went on\nthe street it was with a prophecy that he would get run over by a cart,\nor stolen by the gypsies, or fall off the bridge and be drowned. The\nidea of danger had been dinged into his ears so that fear had become a\npart of the fabric of his nature. Even at fifteen, he took pains to get\nout of the woods before sundown to avoid the bears. At the same time his\nintellect told him there were no bears there. But the shudder habit was\nupon him.\n\nYet by degrees the work in the woods built up his body and he grew to be\nat home in the forest, both day and night. His duties taught him to\nobserve, to describe, to draw, to investigate, to decide. Then it was\ntransplantation, and perhaps the best of college life consists in taking\nthe youth out of the home environment and supplying him new\nsurroundings.\n\nForestry in America is a brand-new science. To clear the ground has been\nour desire, and so to strip, burn and destroy, saving only such logs as\nappealed to us for \"lumber,\" was the desideratum. But now we are\nseriously considering the matter of tree-planting and tree-preservation,\nand perhaps it would be well to ask ourselves if two years at forestry,\nright out of doors, in contact with Nature, wrestling with the world of\nwood, rock, plant and living things, wouldn't be better for the boy than\ndouble the time in stuffy dormitories and still more stuffy\nrecitation-rooms--listening to stuffy lectures about things that are\nforeign to life.\n\nI would say that a boy is a savage, but I do not care to give offense to\nfond mammas. To educate him in the line of his likes, as the race has\nbeen educated, seems sensible and right. How would Yellowstone Park\nanswer for a National University, with Captain Jack Crawford, William\nMuldoon, John Burroughs, John Dewey, Stanley Hall and a mixture of men\nof these types, for a faculty?\n\nFroebel thought his two years in the forest saved him from consumption,\nand perhaps from insanity, for it taught him to look out, not in, and to\nlend a hand. At times he was a little too sentimental, as it was, and a\ntrifle more of morbidity and sensitiveness would have ruined his life,\nabsolutely.\n\nThe woods and God's great out-of-doors gave him balance and ballast,\ngood digestion and sweet sleep o' nights.\n\nThe two years past, he went to Jena, where he had an elder brother. This\nbrother was a star scholar, and Friedrich looked up to him as a pleiad\nof pedagogy. He became a professor in a Jena preparatory school and then\npractised medicine; but he never had the misfortune to affront public\nopinion, and so oblivion lured and won him, and took him as her own.\n\nAt Jena poor Froebel did not make head. His preparatory work hadn't\nprepared him. He floundered in studies too deep for one of his age, then\nfollowed some foolish advice and hired a tutor to help him along. Then\nhe fell down, was plucked, got into debt, and also into the \"carcer,\"\nwhere he boarded for nine weeks at the expense of the State.\n\nIn the carcer he didn't catch up with his studies, quite naturally, and\nthe imprisonment almost broke his health. Had he been in the carcer for\ndueling, he would have emerged a hero. But debt meant that he had\nneither money nor friends. When he was given his release, as an economic\nmove, he slipped away between two days and made his way to the Forestry\nOffice, where he applied for a job as laborer. He got it. In a few days\nhe was promoted to chief of apprentices.\n\nForestry meant a certain knowledge of surveying, and this Froebel soon\nacquired. Then came map-making, and that was only fun. From map-making\nto architecture is but a step, and Froebel quit the woods to work as\nassistant to an architect at ten pounds a year and found, it was\nconfining work, and a trifle more exacting than he had expected--it\nrequired a deal of mathematics, and mathematics was Froebel's short\nsuit. Froebel was disappointed and so was his employer--when something\nhappened. It usually does in books, and in life, always.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGenius has its prototype. Before Froebel comes Pestalozzi, the Swiss,\nwho studied theology and law, and then abandoned them both as futile to\nhuman evolution, and turned his attention to teaching. Pestalozzi was\ninspired by Jean Jacques Rousseau, and read his \"Emile\" religiously. To\nteach by natural methods and mix work and study, and make both play, was\nhis theme. Pestalozzi believed in teaching out of doors, because\nchildren are both barbaric and nomadic--they want to go somewhere. His\nwas the Aristotle method, as opposed to those of the closet and the\ncloister. But he made the mistake of saying that teaching should be\ntaken out of the hands and homes of the clergy, and then the clergy said\na few things about him.\n\nPestalozzi at first met with very meager encouragement. Only poor and\nignorant people entrusted their children to his care, and some of the\nparents were actually paid in money for the services of the children.\nThe thought that the children were getting an education and being useful\nat the same time was quite beyond their comprehension.\n\nPestalozzi educated by stealth. At first he took several boys and girls\nof eight, ten or twelve years of age, and had them work with him in his\ngarden. They cared for fowls, looked after the sheep, milked the cows.\nThe master worked with them, and as they worked they talked. Going to\nand from their duties, Pestalozzi would call their attention to the\nwild birds, and to the flowers, plants and weeds. They would draw\npictures of things, make collections of leaves and flowers, and keep a\nrecord of their observations and discoveries. Through keeping these\nrecords they learned to read and write and acquired the use of simple\nmathematics. Things they did not understand they would read about in the\nbooks found in the teacher's library. But books were secondary and quite\nincidental in the scheme of study. When work seemed to become irksome\nthey would all stop and play games. At other times they would sit and\njust talk about what their work happened to suggest. If the weather was\nunpleasant, there was a shop where they made hoes and rakes and other\ntools they needed. They also built bird-houses, and made simple pieces\nof furniture, so all the pupils, girls and boys, became more or less\nfamiliar with carpenter's and blacksmith's tools. They patched their\nshoes, mended their clothing, and at times prepared their own food.\n\nPestalozzi found that the number of pupils he could look after in this\nway was not more than ten. But to his own satisfaction, at least, he\nproved that children taught by his method surpassed those who were given\nthe regular set courses of instruction. His chief difficulties lay in\nthe fact that the home did not co-operate with the school, and that\nthere was always a tendency to \"return to the blanket.\"\n\nPestalozzi wrote accounts of his experiments and emphasized his belief\nthat we should educate through the child's natural activities; also that\nall growth should be pleasurable. His shibboleth was, \"From within,\nout.\" He thought education was a development and not an acquirement.\n\nOne of Pestalozzi's little pamphlets fell into the hands of Friedrich\nFroebel, architect's assistant, at Frankfort.\n\nFroebel was twenty-two years old, and Fate had tossed him around from\none thing to another since babyhood. All of his experiences had been of\na kind that prepared his mind for the theories that Pestalozzi\nexpressed.\n\nBesides that, architecture had begun to pall upon him. \"Those who can,\ndo; those who can't, teach.\" This was said in derision, but it holds a\ngrain of truth.\n\nFroebel had a great desire to teach. Now, in Frankfort there was a Model\nSchool or a school for teachers, of which one Herr Gruner was master.\nThis school was actually carrying out some of the practical methods\nsuggested by Pestalozzi. Quite by accident Gruner and Froebel met.\nGruner wanted a teacher who could teach by the Pestalozzi methods.\nFroebel straightway applied to Herr Gruner for the position. He was\naccepted as a combination janitor and instructor and worked for his\nboard and ten marks, or two and a half dollars a week.\n\nThe good-cheer and enthusiasm of Froebel won Gruner's heart. Together\nthey discussed Pestalozzi and his works, read all that he had written,\nand opened up a correspondence with the great man. This led to an\ninvitation that Froebel should visit him at his farm-school, near\nYverdon, in Switzerland.\n\nGruner supplied Froebel the necessary money to replace his very seedy\nclothes for something better, and the young man started away. It was a\nwalk of more than two hundred miles, but youth and enthusiasm count such\na tramp as an enjoyable trifle. Froebel wore his seedy clothes and\ncarried his good ones, and so he appeared before the master spick and\nspan.\n\nPestalozzi was sixty years old at this time, and his hopes for the \"new\nmethod\" were still high. He had met opposition, ridicule and\nindifference, and had spent most of his little fortune in the fight, but\nhe was still at it and resolved to die in the harness.\n\nFroebel was not disappointed in Pestalozzi, and certainly Pestalozzi was\ndelighted and a bit amused at the earnestness of the young man.\nPestalozzi was working in a very economical way, but all the place\nlacked Froebel, in his exuberant imagination, made good.\n\nFroebel found much, for he had brought much with him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFroebel returned to Frankfort from his visit to Pestalozzi, full of\nenthusiasm, and that is the commodity without which no teacher succeeds.\nGruner allowed him to gravitate. And soon Froebel's room was the central\npoint of interest for the whole school. But trouble was ahead for\nFroebel.\n\nHe had no college degrees. His pedagogic pedigree was very short. He\nhoped to live down his university record, but it followed him. Gruner's\nschool was under government inspection, and the gentlemen with double\nchins, who came from time to time to look the place over, asked who this\nenthusiastic young person was, and why had the worthy janitor and\nex-forester been so honored by promotion.\n\nIn truth, during his life, Froebel never quite escaped the taunt that he\nwas not an educated man. That is to say, no college had ever supplied\nhim an alphabetic appendage. He had been a forester, a farmer, an\narchitect, a guardian for boys and a teacher of women, but no\ninstitution had ever said officially he was fit to teach men.\n\nGruner tried to explain that there are two kinds of teachers: people who\nare teachers by nature, and those who have acquired the methods by long\nstudy. The first, having little to learn, and a love for the child, with\na spontaneous quality of giving their all, succeed best.\n\nBut poor Gruner's explanation did not explain.\n\nThen the matter was gently explained to Froebel, and he saw that in\norder to hold a place as teacher he must acquire a past. \"Time will\nadjust it,\" he said, and started away on a second visit to Pestalozzi.\nHis plan was to remain with the master long enough so he could secure a\ncertificate of proficiency.\n\nAgain Pestalozzi welcomed the young man, and he slipped easily into the\nhousehold and became both pupil and teacher. His willingness to work--to\ndo the task that lay nearest him--his good-nature, his gratitude, won\nall hearts.\n\nAt this time the plan of sending boys to college with a tutor who was\nboth a companion and a teacher, was in vogue with those who could afford\nit. It will be remembered that William and Alexander von Humboldt\nreceived their early education in this way--going with their tutor from\nuniversity to university, teacher and pupils entering as special\nstudents, getting into the atmosphere of the place, soaking themselves\nfull of it, and then going on.\n\nAnd now behold, through Gruner or Pestalozzi or both, a woman of wealth\nwith three boys to educate applied to Froebel to come over into\nMacedonia and help her.\n\nIt was in Eighteen Hundred Seven that Froebel became tutor in the Von\nHolzhausen family. He was twenty-five years old, and this was his first\ninterview with wealth and leisure. That he was hungry enough to\nappreciate it need not be emphasized.\n\nHe got goodly glimpses of Gottingen, Berlin, and was long enough at\nJena to rub the blot off the 'scutcheon. A stay at Weimar, in the Goethe\ncountry, completed the four years' course.\n\nThe boys had grown to men, and proved their worth in after-years; but\nwhether they had gotten as much from the migrations as their teacher is\nvery doubtful. He was ripe for opportunity--they had had a surfeit of\nit.\n\nThen came war. The order to arms and the rush of students to obey their\ncountry's call caught Froebel in the patriotic vortex, and he enlisted\nwith his pupils.\n\nHis service was honorable, even if not brilliant, and it had this\nadvantage: the making of two friends, companions in arms, who caught the\nPestalozzian fever, and lived out their lives preaching and teaching\n\"the new method.\"\n\nThese men were William Middendorf and Henry Langenthal. This trinity of\nbrothers evolved a bond as beautiful as it is rare in the realm of\nfriendship. Forty years after their first meeting, Middendorf gave an\noration over the dead body of Froebel that lives as a classic, breathing\nthe love and faith that endure.\n\nAnd then Middendorf turned to his work, and dared prison and disgrace by\nupholding the Kindergarten System and the life and example of his dear,\ndead friend. The Kindergarten Idea would probably have been buried in\nthe grave with Froebel--interred with his bones--were it not for\nMiddendorf and Langenthal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe first Kindergarten was established in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six,\nat Blankenburg, a little village near Keilhau. Froebel was then\nfifty-four years old, happily married to a worthy woman who certainly\ndid not hamper his work, even if she did not inspire it. He was\nchildless, that all children might call him father.\n\nThe years had gone in struggles to found Normal Schools in Germany after\nthe Pestalozzian and Gruner methods. But disappointment,\nmisunderstanding and stupidity had followed Froebel. The set methods of\nthe clergy, accusations of revolution and heresy, tilts with pious\npedants as to the value of dead languages, all combined with his own\nlack of business shrewdness, had wrecked his various ventures.\n\nFroebel's argument that women were better natural teachers than men on\naccount of the mother-instinct, brought forth a retort from a learned\nmonk to the effect that it was indelicate if not sinful for an unmarried\nfemale, who was not a nun, to study the natures of children.\n\nParents with children old enough to go to school would not entrust their\ndarlings with the teaching experimenter--this on the advice of their\npastors.\n\nMiddendorf and Langenthal were still with him, partners in the disgrace\nor failure, for none was willing to give up the fight for education by\nthe natural methods.\n\nA great thought and a great word came to them, all at once--out on the\nmountain-side!\n\nBegin with the children before the school age, and call it the\nKindergarten!\n\nHurrah! They shouted for joy, and ran down the hill to tell Frau\nFroebel.\n\nThe schools they had started before had been called, \"The Institution\nfor Teaching According to the Pestalozzi Method and the Natural\nActivities of the Child,\" \"Institution for the Encouragement and\nDevelopment of the Spontaneous Activities of the Pupil,\" and \"Friedrich\nFroebel's School for the Growth of the Creative Instinct Which Makes for\na Useful Character.\"\n\nA school with such names, of course, failed. No one could remember it\nlong enough to send his child there--it meant nothing to the mind not\nprepared for it.\n\nWhat's in a name? Everything. Books sell or become dead stock on the\nname. Commodities the same. Railroads must have a name people are not\nafraid to pronounce.\n\nThe officers of the law came and asked to see Froebel's license for\nmanufacturing. Others asked as to the nature of his wares, and one\ndignitary called and asked, \"Is Herr Pestalozzi in?\"\n\nThe Kindergarten! The new name took. The children remembered it.\nOverworked mothers liked the word and were glad to let the little\nother-mothers take the children to the Kindergarten, certainly.\n\nFroebel had grown used to disappointments--he was an optimist by nature.\nHe saw the good side of everything, including failure.\n\nHe made the best of necessity. And now it was very clear to him that\neducation must begin \"a hundred years before the child is born.\" He\nwould reach the home and the mother through the children. \"It will take\nthree generations to prove the truth of the Kindergarten Idea,\" he said.\n\nAnd so the songs, the gifts, the games--all had to be invented,\ndefended, tried and tried again. Pestalozzi had a plan for teaching the\nyouth; now a plan had to be devised for teaching the child. Love was the\nkeystone, and joy, unselfishness and unswerving faith in the Natural or\nDivine impulses of humanity crowned the structure.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFroebel invented the schoolma'am. That is, he discovered the raw product\nand adapted it. He even coined the word, and it struck the world as\nbeing so very funny that we forthwith adopted it as a term of provincial\npleasantry and quasi-reproach. The original term used was \"school\nmother,\" but when it reached these friendly shores we translated it\n\"schoolmarm.\" Then we tittered, also sneezed.\n\nFroebel died in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. His first Kindergarten was\nnot a success until he was nearly sixty years old, but the idea had been\nperfecting itself in his mind more or less unconsciously for over thirty\nyears.\n\nHe had been thinking, writing, working, experimenting all these years on\nthe subject of education, and he had become well-nigh discouraged. He\nhad observed that six was the \"school age.\" That is, no child could go\nto school until he was six years old--then his education began.\n\nBut Froebel had been teaching in a country school and boarding 'round,\nand he had discovered that long before this the child had been learning\nby observing and playing, and that these were formative influences,\nquite as potent as actual school.\n\nIn the big families where Froebel boarded, he noticed that the older\ngirls took charge of the younger ones. So, often a girl of ten, with\ndresses to her knees, carried one baby in her arms and two toddled\nbehind her, and this child of ten was really the other-mother. The true\nmother worked in the fields or toiled at her housework, and the little\nother-mother took the children out to play and thus amused them while\nthe mother worked.\n\nThe desire of Froebel was to educate the race, but what are a few hours\na day in a schoolroom with a totally unsympathetic home environment!\n\nTo reach and interest the mother in the problem of education was\nwell-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation, poverty, had killed all the\nromance and enthusiasm in her heart. She was the victim of arrested\ndevelopment; but the little other-mother was a child, impressionable,\nimmature, and she could be taught. The home must co-operate with the\nschool, otherwise all the school can teach will be forgotten in the\nhome. Froebel saw, too, that often the little other-mother was so\noverworked in the care of her charges that she was taken from school.\nBesides, the idea was abroad that education was mostly for boys, anyway.\n\nAnd here Froebel stepped in and proved himself a law-breaker, just as\nBen Lindsey was when he inaugurated the juvenile court and waived the\nentire established legal procedure, even to the omission of swearing his\nwitnesses, and believed in the little truant even though he lied.\nFroebel told the little other-mothers to come to school anyway and bring\nthe babies with them.\n\nAnd then he set to work showing these girls how to amuse, divert and\nteach the babies. And he used to say the babies taught him.\n\nSome of these half-grown girls showed a rare adaptability as teachers.\nThey combined mother-love and the teaching instinct.\n\nFroebel utilized their services in teaching others in order that he\nmight teach them.\n\nHe saw that the teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons,\nand that the true teacher is a learner. These girl teachers he called\nschool-mothers, and thus was evolved the word and the person.\n\nFroebel founded the first normal and model school for the education of\nwomen as teachers, and this was less than a hundred years ago.\n\nThe years went by and the little mothers had children of their own, and\nthese children were the ones that formed the first actual, genuine\nkindergarten.\n\nAlso, these were the mothers who formed the first mothers' clubs.\n\nAnd it was the success of these clubs that attracted the attention of\nthe authorities, who could not imagine any other purpose for a club than\nto hatch a plot against the government.\n\nAnyway, a system which taught that women were just as wise, just as good\nand just as capable as men--just as well fitted by nature to\nteach--would upset the clergy. If women can break into the school, they\nwill also break into the church. Moreover, the encouragement of play was\natrocious. Mein Gott, or words to that effect, play in a schoolroom!\nWhy, even a fool would know that that is the one thing that stood in\nthe way of education, the one fly in the pedagogic ointment. If Mynheer\nFroebel would please invent a way to do away with play in schoolrooms,\nhe would be given a pension.\n\nThe idea that children were good by nature was rank heresy. Where does\nthe doctrine of regeneration come in, and how about being born again!\nThe natural man is at enmity toward God. We are conceived in sin and\nborn in iniquity. The Bible says it again and again.\n\nAnd here comes a man who thinks he knows more than all the priests and\nscholars who have ever lived, and fills the heads of fool women with the\nidea that they are born to teach instead of to work in the fields and\nkeep house and wait on men.\n\nMein Gott in Himmel, the women know too much, already! If this thing\nkeeps on, men will have to get off the earth, and women and children\nwill run the world, and do it by means of play. Aha! What does Solomon\nsay? Spare the rod and spoil the child. Aber nicht, say these girls.\n\nThis thing has got to stop before Germany becomes the joke of\nmankind--the cat-o'-nine-tails for anybody who uses the word\nkindergarten!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of\nsuch is the Kingdom of Heaven.\" Had the man who uttered these words been\ngiven a little encouragement, he probably would have inaugurated a\nchild-garden and provided a place and environment where little souls\ncould have bloomed and blossomed. He was by nature a teacher, and his\nbest pupils were women and children. Male men are apt to think they\nalready know and so are immune from ideas.\n\nJerusalem, nineteen hundred years ago, was about where Berlin was in\nEighteen Hundred Fifty. In both instances the proud priest and the\naristocrat-soldier were supreme. And both were quite satisfied with\ntheir own mental attainments and educational methods. They were sincere.\nIt was a very similar combination that crucified Jesus to that which\nplaced an interdict on Friedrich Froebel, making the Kindergarten a\ncrime, and causing the speedy death of one of the gentlest, noblest,\npurest men who have ever blessed this earth.\n\nFroebel was just seventy when he passed out. \"His eye was not dimmed nor\nhis natural force abated\"--he was filled with enthusiasm and hope as\nnever before. His ideas were spreading--success, at last, was at the\ndoor, he had interested the women and proved the fitness of women to\nteach--his mothers' clubs were numerous--love was the watchword. And in\nthe midst of this flowering time, the official order came, without\nwarning, apology or explanation, and from which there was no appeal. The\nsame savagery, chilled with fear, that sent Richard Wagner into exile,\ncrushed the life and broke the heart of Friedrich Froebel. But these\nnames now are the pride and glory of the land that once scorned them.\nMen who govern should be those with a reasonable doubt concerning their\nown infallibility, and an earnest faith in men, women and children. To\nteach is better than to rule. We are all children in the Kindergarten of\nGod.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: HYPATIA]\n\nHYPATIA\n\n\n     Neo-Platonism is a progressive philosophy, and does not expect to\n     state final conditions to men whose minds are finite. Life is an\n     unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can\n     comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the\n     best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.\n\n     --_Hypatia_\n\n\nHYPATIA\n\nThe father of Hypatia was Theon, a noted mathematician and astronomer of\nAlexandria. He would have been regarded as a very great man had he not\nbeen cast into the shadow by his daughter. Let male parents beware.\n\nAt that time, astronomy and astrology were one. Mathematics was useful,\nnot for purposes of civil engineering, but principally in figuring out\nwhere a certain soul, born under a given planet, would be at a certain\ntime in the future.\n\nNo information comes to us about the mother of Hypatia--she was so busy\nwith housework that her existence is a matter of assumption or a priori\nreasoning; thus, given a daughter, we assume the existence of a mother.\n\nHypatia was certainly the daughter of her father. He was her tutor,\nteacher, playmate. All he knew he taught to her, and before she was\ntwenty she had been informed by him of a fact which she had previously\nguessed--that considerable of his so-called knowledge was conjecture.\n\nTheon taught his daughter that all systems of religion that pretend to\nteach the whole truth were to a great degree false and fraudulent. He\nexplained to her that his own profession of astronomy and astrology was\nonly for other people. By instructing her in all religions she grew to\nknow them comparatively, and so none took possession of her to the\nexclusion of new truth. To have a religion thrust upon you, and be\ncompelled to believe in it or suffer social ostracism, is to be cheated\nof the right to make your own. In degree it is letting another live your\nlife. A child does not need a religion until he is old enough to evolve\nit, and then he must not be robbed of the right of independent thinking\nby having a fully-prepared plan of salvation handed out to him. The\nbrain needs exercise as much as the body, and vicarious thinking is as\nerroneous as vicarious exercise. Strength comes from personal effort. To\nthink is natural, and if not intimidated or coerced the man will evolve\na philosophy of life that is useful and beneficent.\n\nReligious mania is a result of dwelling on a borrowed religion. If let\nalone no man would become insane on religious topics, for the religion\nhe would evolve would be one of joy, laughter and love, not one of\nmisery or horror. The religion that contemplates misery and woe is one\ndevised by priestcraft for a purpose, and that purpose is to rule and\nrob. From the blunt ways of the road we get a polite system of\nintimidation which makes the man pay. It is robbery reduced to a system,\nand finally piously believed in by the robbers, who are hypnotized into\nthe belief that they are doing God's service.\n\n\"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted\nby self-respecting persons as final,\" said Theon to Hypatia. \"Reserve\nyour right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to\nthink at all.\"\n\nTheon gave lectures, and had private classes in esoterics, wherein the\ninnermost secrets of divinity were imparted. Also, he had a plan for the\ntransmutation of metals and a recipe for perpetual youth. When he had\nnothing else to do, he played games with his daughter.\n\nAt twenty-one Hypatia had mastered the so-called art of Rhetoric, or the\nart of expression by vocal speech.\n\nIt will be remembered that the Romans considered rhetoric, or the art of\nthe rhetor, or orator, as first in importance. To impress people by your\npersonal presence they regarded as the gift of gifts.\n\nThis idea seems to have been held by the polite world up to the Italian\nRenaissance, when the art of printing was invented and the written word\ncame to be regarded as more important than the spoken. One lives, and\nthe other dies on the air, existing only in memory, growing attenuated\nand diluted as it is transferred. The revival of sculpture and painting\nalso helped oratory to take its proper place as one of the polite arts,\nand not a thing to be centered upon to the exclusion of all else.\n\nTheon set out to produce a perfect human being; and whether his charts,\ntheorems and formulas made up a complete law of eugenics, or whether it\nwas dumb luck, this we know: he nearly succeeded. Hypatia was five feet\nnine, and weighed one hundred thirty-five pounds. This when she was\ntwenty. She could walk ten miles without fatigue; swim, row, ride\nhorseback and climb mountains. Through a series of gentle calisthenics\ninvented by her father, combined with breathing exercises, she had\ndeveloped a body of rarest grace. Her head had corners, as once\nProfessor O. S. Fowler told us that a woman's head must have, if she is\nto think and act with purpose and precision.\n\nSo having evolved this rare beauty of face, feature and bodily grace,\ncombined with superior strength and vitality, Hypatia took up her\nfather's work and gave lectures on astronomy, mathematics, astrology and\nrhetoric, while he completed his scheme for the transmutation of metals.\nHypatia's voice was flute-like, and used always well within its compass,\nso as never to rasp or tire the organs. Theon knew the proper care of\nnose and throat, a knowledge which with us moderns is all too rare.\nHypatia told of and practised the vocal ellipse, the pause, the glide,\nthe slide and the gentle, deliberate tones that please and impress. That\nthe law of suggestion was known to her was very evident, and certain it\nis that she practised hypnotism in her classes, and seemed to know as\nmuch about the origin of the mysterious agent as we do now, even though\nshe never tagged or labeled it.\n\nOne very vital thought she worked out was, that the young mind is\nplastic, impressionable and accepts without question all that it is\ntold. The young receive their ideas from their elders, and ideas once\nimpressed upon this plastic plate of the mind can not be removed.\n\nSaid Hypatia: \"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and\nmiracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most\nterrible thing. The child-mind accepts and believes them, and only\nthrough great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after-years relieved\nof them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as\nfor a living truth--often more so, since a superstition is so intangible\nyou can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so\nis changeable.\"\n\nGradually, over the mind of the beautiful and gifted Hypatia, there came\nstealing a doubt concerning the value of her own acquirements, since\nthese were \"acquirements,\" and not evolutions or convictions gathered\nfrom experience, but things implanted upon her plastic mind by her\nfather.\n\nIn this train of thought Hypatia had taken a step in advance of her\nfather, for he seems to have had a dogmatic belief in a few things\nincapable of demonstration; but these things he taught to the plastic\nmind, just the same as the things he knew. Theon was a dogmatic liberal.\nPossibly the difference between an illiberal Unitarian and a liberal\nCatholic is microscopic.\n\nHypatia clearly saw that knowledge is the distilled essence of our\nintuitions, corroborated by experience. But belief is the impress made\nupon our minds when we are under the spell of or in subjection to\nanother.\n\nThese things caused the poor girl many unhappy hours, which fact, in\nitself, is proof of her greatness. Only superior people have a capacity\nfor doubting.\n\nProbably not one person in a million ever gets away far enough from his\nmind to take a look at it, and see the wheels go round. Opinions become\nossified and the man goes through life hypnotizing others, never\nrealizing for an instant that in youth he was hypnotized and that he has\nnever been able to cast off the hypnosis.\n\nThis is what our pious friends mean when they say, \"Give me the child\nuntil he is ten years old and you may have him afterward.\" That is, they\ncan take the child in his plastic age and make impressions on his mind\nthat are indelible. Reared in an orthodox Jewish family a child will\ngrow up a dogmatic Jew, and argue you on the Talmud six nights and days\ntogether.\n\nCatholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, the same. I once knew an Arapahoe\nIndian who was taken to Massachusetts when four years old. He grew up\nnot only with New England prejudices, but with a New England accent, and\nsaved his pennies to give to missionaries that they might \"convert\" the\nRed Men.\n\nWhen the suspicion seized upon the soul of Hypatia that her mind was but\na wax impression taken from her father's, she began to make plans to get\naway from him. Her efforts at explanations were futile, but when placed\nupon the general ground that she wished to travel, see the world and\nmeet people of learning and worth, her father acquiesced and she started\naway on her journeyings. He wanted to go, too, but this was the one\nthing she did not desire, and he never knew nor could know why.\n\nShe spent several months at Athens, where her youth, beauty and learning\nwon her entry into the houses of the most eminent. It was the same at\nRome and in various other cities of Italy. Money may give you access to\ngood society, but talent is always an open sesame. She traveled like a\nprincess and was received as one, yet she had no title nor claim to\nnobility nor station. Beauty of itself is not a credential--rather it is\nan object of suspicion, unless it goes with intellect.\n\nHypatia gave lectures on mathematics; and there was a fallacy abroad\nthen as there is now that the feminine mind is not mathematical. That\nthe great men whom Hypatia met in each city were first amazed and then\nabashed by her proficiency in mathematics is quite probable. Some few\nmale professors being in that peculiar baldheaded hypnotic state when\nfeminine charms dazzle and lure, listened in rapture as Hypatia\ndissolved logarithms and melted calculi, and not understanding a word\nshe said, declared that she was the goddess Minerva, reincarnated. Her\ncoldness on near approach confirmed their suspicions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJust how long a time Hypatia spent upon her pilgrimage, visiting all of\nthe great living philosophers, we do not know. Some accounts have it one\nyear, others ten.\n\nProbably the pilgrimages were extended over a good many years, and were\nnot continuous. Several philosophers proved their humanity by offering\nto marry her, and a prince or two did likewise, we are credibly\ninformed. To these persistent suitors, however, Hypatia gently broke the\nnews that she was wedded to truth, which is certainly a pretty speech,\neven if it is poor logic. The fact was, however, that Hypatia never met\na man whose mind matched her own, otherwise logic would have bolstered\nlove, instead of discarding it.\n\nTravel, public speaking and meeting people of note form a strong trinity\nof good things. The active mind is the young mind, and it is more than\nthe dream of a poet which declares that Hypatia was always young and\nalways beautiful, and that even Father Time was so in love with her that\nhe refused to take toll from her, as he passed with his hourglass and\nscythe.\n\nIn degree she had followed the example of her great prototype, Plotinus,\nand had made herself master of all religions. She knew too much of all\nphilosophies to believe implicitly in any. Alexandria was then the\nintellectual center of the world. People who resided there called it the\nhub of the universe. It was the meeting-place of the East and the West.\n\nAnd Hypatia, with her Thursday lectures, was the chief intellectual\nfactor of Alexandria.\n\nHer philosophy she called Neo-Platonism. It was Plato distilled through\nthe psychic alembic of Hypatia. Just why the human mind harks back and\nlikes to confirm itself by building on another, it would be interesting\nto inquire. To explain Moses; to supply a key to the Scriptures; to\nfound a new School of Philosophy on the assumption that Plato was right,\nbut was not understood until the Then and There, is alluring.\n\nAnd now the pilgrims came from Athens, and Rome, and the Islands of the\nSea to sit at the feet of Hypatia.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHypatia was born in the year Three Hundred Seventy, and died in Four\nHundred Thirty. She exerted an influence in Alexandria not unlike that\nwhich Mrs. Eddy exerted in Boston. She was a person who divided society\ninto two parts: those who regarded her as an oracle of light, and those\nwho looked upon her as an emissary of darkness.\n\nStrong men paid her the compliment of using immoderate language\nconcerning her teaching. But whether they spoke ill or well of her\nmatters little now. The point is this: they screeched, sneezed, or\nsmiled on those who refused to acknowledge the power of Hypatia. Some\nprofessors of learning tried to waive her; priests gently pooh-poohed\nher; and some elevated an eyebrow and asked how the name was spelled.\nOthers, still, inquired, \"Is she sincere?\"\n\nShe was the Ralph Waldo Emerson of her day. Her philosophy was\nTranscendentalism. In fact, she might be spoken of as the original\ncharter member of the Concord School of Philosophy. Her theme was the\nNew Thought, for New Thought is the oldest form of thought of which we\nknow. Its distinguishing feature is its antiquity. Socrates was really\nthe first to express the New Thought, and he got his cue from\nPythagoras.\n\nThe ambition of Hypatia was to revive the flowering-time of Greece, when\nSocrates and Plato walked arm in arm through the streets of Athens,\nfollowed by the greatest group of intellectuals the world has ever\nseen.\n\nIt was charged against Hypatia that Aspasia was her ideal, and that her\nambition was to follow in the footsteps of the woman who was beloved by\nPericles. If so, it was an ambition worthy of a very great soul.\nHypatia, however, did not have her Pericles, and never married. That she\nshould have had love experiences was quite natural, and that various\nimaginary romances should have been credited to her was also to be\nexpected.\n\nHypatia was nearly a thousand years removed from the time of Pericles\nand Aspasia, but to bridge the gulf of time with imagination was easy.\nYet Hypatia thought that the New Platonism should surpass the old, for\nthe world had had the Age of Augustus to build upon.\n\nHypatia's immediate prototype was Plotinus, who was born two hundred\nfour years after Christ, and lived to be seventy. Plotinus was the first\nperson to use the phrase \"Neo-Platonism,\" and so the philosophy of\nHypatia might be called \"The New Neo-Platonism.\"\n\nTo know but one religion is not to know that one.\n\nIn fact, superstition consists in this one thing--faith in one religion,\nto the exclusion of all others.\n\nTo know one philosophy is to know none. They are all comparative, and\neach serves as a small arc of the circle. A man living in a certain\nenvironment, with a certain outlook, describes the things he sees; and\nout of these, plus what he imagines, is shaped his philosophy of life.\nIf he is repressed, suppressed, frightened, he will not see very much,\nand what he does see will be out of focus. Spiritual strabismus and\nmental myopia are the results of vicarious peeps at the universe. All\nformal religions have taught that to look for yourself was bad. The\npeephole through the roof of his garret cost Copernicus his liberty, but\nit was worth the price.\n\nPlotinus made a study of all philosophies--all religions. He traveled\nthrough Egypt, Greece, Assyria, India. He became an \"adept\", and\ndiscovered how easily the priest drifts into priestcraft, and fraud\nsteps in with legerdemain and miracle to amend the truth. As if to love\nhumanity were not enough to recommend the man, they have him turn water\ninto wine and walk on the water.\n\nOut of the labyrinth of history and speculation Plotinus returned to\nPlato as a basis or starting-point for all of the truth which man can\ncomprehend. Plotinus believed in all religions, but had absolute faith\nin none. It will be remembered that Aristotle and Plato parted as to the\nrelative value of poetry and science--science being the systematized\nfacts of Nature. Plotinus comes in and says that both were right, and\neach was like every good man who exaggerates the importance of his own\ncalling. In his ability to see the good in all things, Hypatia placed\nPlotinus ahead of Plato, but even then she says: \"Had there been no\nPlato, there would have been no Plotinus; although Plotinus surpassed\nPlato, yet it is plain that Plato, the inspirer of Plotinus and so many\nmore, is the one man whom philosophy can not spare. Hail, Plato!!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe writings of Hypatia have all disappeared, save as her words come to\nus, quoted by her contemporaries. If the Essays of Emerson should all be\nswept away, the man would still live in the quotations from his pen,\ngiven to us by every writer of worth who has put pencil to paper during\nthe last fifty years. So lives Sappho, and thus did Charles Kingsley\nsecure the composite of the great woman who lives and throbs through his\nbook. Legend pictures her as rarely beautiful, with grace, poise and\npower, plus.\n\nShe was sixty when she died. History kindly records it forty-five--and\nall picture her as a beautiful and attractive woman to the last. The\npsychic effects of a gracefully-gowned first reader, with sonorous\nvoice, using gesture with economy, and packing the pauses with feeling,\nhave never been fully formulated, analyzed and explained. Throngs came\nto hear Hypatia lecture--came from long distances, and listened\nhungrily, and probably all they took away was what they brought, except\na great feeling of exhilaration and enthusiasm. To send the hearer away\nstepping light, and his heart beating fast--this is oratory--which isn't\nso much to bestow facts, as it is to impart a feeling. This Hypatia\nsurely did. Her theme was Neo-Platonism. \"Neo\" means new, and all New\nThought harks back to Plato, who was the mouthpiece of Socrates. \"Say\nwhat you will, you'll find it all in Plato.\" Neo-Platonism is our New\nThought, and New Thought is Neo-Platonism.\n\nThere are two kinds of thought: New Thought and Secondhand Thought. New\nThought is made up of thoughts you, yourself, think. The other kind is\nsupplied to you by jobbers. The distinguishing feature of New Thought is\nits antiquity. Of necessity it is older than Secondhand Thought. All\ngenuine New Thought is true for the person who thinks it. It only turns\nsour and becomes error when not used, and when the owner forces another\nto accept it. It then becomes a secondhand revelation. All New Thought\nis revelation, and secondhand revelations are errors half-soled with\nstupidity and heeled with greed.\n\nVery often we are inspired to think by others, but in our hearts we have\nthe New Thought; and the person, the book, the incident, merely remind\nus that it is already ours. New Thought is always simple; Secondhand\nThought is abstruse, complex, patched, peculiar, costly, and is passed\nout to be accepted, not understood. That no one comprehends it is often\nregarded as a recommendation.\n\nFor instance, \"Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image,\" is\nSecondhand Thought. The first man who said it may have known what it\nmeant, but surely it is nothing to us. However, that does not keep us\nfrom piously repeating it, and having our children memorize it.\n\nWe model in clay or wax, and carve if we can, and give honors to those\nwho do, and this is well. This commandment is founded on the fallacy\nthat graven images are gods, whatever that is. The command adds nothing\nto our happiness, nor does it shape our conduct, nor influence our\nhabits. Everybody knows and admits its futility, yet we are unable to\neliminate it from our theological system. It is strictly\nsecondhand--worse, it is junk.\n\nConversely, the admonition, \"Be gentle and keep your voice low,\" is New\nThought, since all but savages know its truth, comprehend its import,\nand appreciate its excellence.\n\nDealers in Secondhand Thought always declare that theirs is the only\ngenuine, and that all other is spurious and dangerous.\n\nDealers in New Thought say, \"Take this only as it appeals to you as your\nown--accept it all, or in part, or reject it all--and in any event, do\nnot believe it merely because I say so.\"\n\nNew Thought is founded on the laws of your own nature, and its\nshibboleth is, \"Know Thyself.\"\n\nSecondhand Thought is founded on authority, and its war-cry is, \"Pay and\nObey.\"\n\nNew Thought offers you no promise of paradise or eternal bliss if you\naccept it; nor does it threaten you with everlasting hell, if you don't.\nAll it offers is unending work, constant effort, new difficulties;\nbeyond each success is a new trial. Its only satisfactions are that you\nare allowing your life to unfold itself according to the laws of its\nnature. And these laws are divine, therefore you yourself are divine,\njust as you allow the divine to possess your being. New Thought allows\nthe currents of divinity to flow through you unobstructed.\n\nSecondhand Thought affords no plan of elimination; it tends to\ncongestion, inflammation, disease and disintegration.\n\nNew Thought holds all things lightly, gently, easily--even thought. It\nworks for a healthy circulation, and tends to health, happiness and\nwell-being now and hereafter. It does not believe in violence, force,\ncoercion or resentment, because all these things react on the doer. It\nhas faith that all men, if not interfered with by other men, will\neventually evolve New Thought, and do for themselves what is best and\nright, beautiful and true.\n\nSecondhand Thought has always had first in its mind the welfare of the\ndealer. The rights of the consumer, beyond keeping him in subjection,\nwere not considered. Indeed, its chief recommendation has been that \"it\nis a good police system.\"\n\nNew Thought considers only the user. To \"Know Thyself\" is all there is\nof it.\n\nWhen a creator of New Thought goes into the business of retailing his\nproduct, he often forgets to live it, and soon is transformed into a\ndealer in Secondhand Thought.\n\nThat is the way all purveyors in secondhand revelation begin. In their\nanxiety to succeed, they call in the police. The blessing that is\ncompulsory is not wholly good, and any system of morals which has to be\nforced on us is immoral. New Thought is free thought. Its penalty is\nresponsibility. You either have to live it, or else lose it. Its reward\nis Freedom.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was only a little more than a hundred years before the time of\nHypatia that the Roman Empire became Christian. When Constantine\nembraced Christianity, all of his loyal subjects were from that moment\nChristians--Christians by edict, but Pagans by character, for the\nnatures of men can not be changed by the passing of a resolution. From\nthat time every Pagan temple became a Christian church, and every Pagan\npriest a Christian preacher.\n\nAlexandria was under the rule of a Roman Prefect, or Governor. It had\nbeen the policy of Rome to exercise great tolerance in religious\nmatters. There was a State Religion, to be sure, but it was for the\nnobility or those who helped make the State possible. To look after the\nthinking of the plain people was quite superfluous--they were allowed\ntheir vagaries.\n\nThe Empire had been bold, brazen, cruel, coercive in its lust for power,\nbut people who paid were reasonably safe. And now the Church was coming\ninto competition with the State and endeavoring to reduce spoliation to\na system.\n\nTo keep the people down and under by mental suppression--by the engine\nof superstition--were cheaper and more effective than to employ force or\nresort to the old-time methods of shows, spectacles, pensions and costly\ndiversions. When the Church took on the functions of the State, and\nsought to substitute the gentle Christ for Caesar, she had to recast the\nteachings of Christ. Then for the first time coercion and love dwelt\nside by side. \"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared\nfor the devil and his angels,\" and like passages were slipped into the\nScriptures as matters of wise expediency. This was continued for many\nhundred years, and was considered quite proper and legitimate. It was\nslavery under a more subtle form.\n\nThe Bishop of Alexandria clashed with Orestes the Prefect. To hold the\npeople under by psychologic methods was better than the old plans of\nalternate bribery and force--so argued the Bishop.\n\nOrestes had come under the spell of Hypatia, and the Republic of Plato\nwas saturating his mind.\n\n\"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another\nworld is just as base as to use force,\" said Hypatia in one of her\nlectures. Orestes sat in the audience and as she spoke the words he\nclapped his hands. The news was carried to the Bishop, who gently\ndeclared that he would excommunicate him.\n\nOrestes sent word back that the Emperor should be informed of how this\nBishop was misusing his office by making threats of where he could land\npeople he did not like, in another world. Neither the Bishop nor the\nPrefect could unseat each other--both derived their power from the\nEmperor. For Orestes to grow interested in the teachings of Hypatia,\ninstead of siding with the Bishop, was looked upon by the loyalists as\nlittle short of treason.\n\nOrestes tried to defend himself by declaring that the policy of the\nCaesars had always been one of great leniency toward all schools of\nphilosophy. Then he quoted Hypatia to the effect that a fixed, formal\nand dogmatic religion would paralyze the minds of men and make the race,\nin time, incapable of thought.\n\nTherefore, the Bishop should keep his place, and not try to usurp the\nfunctions of the police. In fact, it was better to think wrongly than\nnot to think at all. We learn to think by thinking, and if the threats\nof the Bishop were believed at all, it would mean the death of science\nand philosophy.\n\nThe Bishop made answer by declaring that Hypatia was endeavoring to\nfound a Church of her own, with Pagan Greece as a basis. He intimated,\ntoo, that the relationship of Orestes with Hypatia was very much the\nsame as that which once existed between Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He\ncalled her \"that daughter of Ptolemy,\" and by hints and suggestions made\nit appear that she would, if she could, set up an Egyptian Empire in\nthis same city of Alexandria where Cleopatra once so proudly reigned.\n\nThe excitement increased. The followers of Hypatia were necessarily few\nin numbers. They were thinkers--and to think is a task. To believe is\neasy. The Bishop promised his followers a paradise of ease and rest. He\nalso threatened disbelievers with the pains of hell. A promise on this\nside--a threat on that! Is it not a wonder that a man ever lived who\nput his honest thought against such teaching when launched by men\nclothed in almost absolute authority!\n\nHypatia might have lived yesterday, and her death at the hands of a mob\nwas an accident that might have occurred in Boston, where a respectable\ncompany once threw a rope around the neck of a good man and ran him\nthrough streets supposed to be sacred to liberty and free speech.\n\nA mob is made up of cotton waste, saturated with oil, and a focused idea\ncauses spontaneous combustion. Let a fire occur in almost any New York\nState village, and the town turns wrecker, and loot looms large in the\nlimited brain of the villager. Civilization is a veneer.\n\nWhen one sees emotionalism run riot at an evangelistic revival, and five\nthousand people are trooping through an undesirable district at\nmidnight, how long, think you, would a strong voice of opposition be\ntolerated?\n\nHypatia was set upon by a religious mob as she was going in her carriage\nfrom her lecture-hall to her home. She was dragged to a near-by church\nwith the intent of making her publicly recant, but the embers became a\nblaze, and the blaze became a conflagration, and the leaders lost\ncontrol. The woman's clothes were torn from her back, her hair torn from\nher head, her body beaten to a pulp, dismembered, and then to hide all\ntraces of the crime and distribute the guilt so no one person could be\nblamed, a funeral-pyre quickly consumed the remains of what but an hour\nbefore had been a human being. Daylight came, and the sun's rays could\nnot locate the guilty ones.\n\nOrestes made a report of the affair, resigned his office, asked the\nGovernment at Rome to investigate, and fled from the city. Had Orestes\nendeavored to use his soldiery against the Bishop, the men in the ranks\nwould have revolted. The investigation was postponed from time to time\nfor lack of witnesses, and finally it was given out by the Bishop that\nHypatia had gone to Athens, and there had been no mob and no tragedy.\n\nThe Bishop nominated a successor to Orestes, and the new official was\nconfirmed.\n\nDogmatism as a police system was supreme.\n\nIt continued until the time of Dante, or the Italian Renaissance. The\nreign of Religious Dogmatism was supreme for well-nigh a thousand\nyears--we call it the Dark Ages.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: SAINT BENEDICT]\n\nSAINT BENEDICT\n\n\n     If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, if with wish as a\n     guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be content with the\n     customs which he finds in the place, and do not perchance by his\n     lavishness disturb the monastery, but is simply content with what\n     he finds: he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires.\n     If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably,\n     and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it\n     prudently, lest perchance God had sent for this very thing. But, if\n     he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his\n     sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of\n     the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he\n     must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of\n     God, explain the matter to him.\n\n     --_St. Benedict_\n\n\nSAINT BENEDICT\n\nAs the traveler journeys through Southern Italy, Sicily and certain\nparts of what was Ancient Greece, he will see broken arches, parts of\nviaducts, and now and again a single, beautiful column pointing to the\nsky. All about is the desert or solitary pastures, and only this white\nmilestone, marking the path of the centuries and telling in its own\nsilent, solemn and impressive way of a day that is dead.\n\nIn the Fifth Century a monk called Simeon the Syrian, and known to us as\nSimeon Stylites, having taken the vow of chastity, poverty and\nobedience, began to fear greatly lest he might not be true to his\npledge. And that he might live absolutely beyond reproach, always in\npublic view, free from temptation, and free from the tongue of scandal,\nhe decided to live in the world, and still not be of it. To this end he\nclimbed to the top of a marble column, sixty feet high, and there on the\ncapstone he lived a life beyond reproach.\n\nSimeon was then twenty-four years old.\n\nThe environment was circumscribed, but there was outlook, sunshine,\nventilation--three good things. But beyond these the place had certain\ndisadvantages. The capstone was a little less than three feet square,\nso Simeon could not lie down. He slept sitting, with his head bowed\nbetween his knees, and indeed, in this posture he passed most of his\ntime. Any recklessness in movement, and he would have slipped from his\nperilous position and been dashed to death upon the stones beneath.\n\nAs the sun arose he stood up, just for a few moments, and held his arms\nout in greeting, blessing and prayer. Three times during the day did he\nthus stretch his cramped limbs, and pray with his face to the East. At\nsuch times those who stood near shared in his prayers, and went away\nblessed and refreshed.\n\nHow did Simeon get to the top of the column?\n\nWell, his companions at the monastery, a mile away, said he was carried\nthere in the night by a miraculous power; that he went to sleep in his\nstone cell and awoke on the pillar. Other monks said that Simeon had\ngone to pay his respects to a fair lady, and in wrath God had caught him\nand placed him on high. The probabilities are, however, Terese, as\nviewed by an unbeliever, that he shot a line over the column with a bow\nand arrow and then drew up a rope ladder and ascended with ease.\n\nHowever, in the morning the simple people of the scattered village saw\nthe man on the column. All day he stayed there. The next day he was\nstill there.\n\nThe days passed, with the scorching heat of the midday sun, and the cool\nwinds of the night.\n\nStill Simeon kept his place.\n\nThe rainy season came on. When the nights were cold and dark, Simeon sat\nthere with bowed head, and drew the folds of his single garment, a black\nrobe, over his face.\n\nAnother season passed; the sun again grew warm, then hot, and the\nsand-storms raged and blew, when the people below almost lost sight of\nthe man on the column. Some prophesied he would be blown off, but the\nmorning light revealed his form, naked from the waist up, standing with\nhands outstretched to greet the rising sun.\n\nOnce each day, as darkness gathered, a monk came with a basket\ncontaining a bottle of goat's milk and a little loaf of black bread, and\nSimeon dropped down a rope and drew up the basket.\n\nSimeon never spoke, for words are folly, and to the calls of saint or\nsinner he made no reply. He lived in a perpetual attitude of adoration.\n\nDid he suffer? During those first weeks he must have suffered terribly\nand horribly. There was no respite nor rest from the hard surface of the\nrock, and aching muscles could find no change from the cramped and\nperilous position. If he fell, it was damnation for his soul--all were\nagreed as to this.\n\nBut man's body and mind accommodate themselves to almost any condition.\nOne thing at least, Simeon was free from economic responsibilities, free\nfrom social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappreciated\nlives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in upon his peace. He was\nnot pressed for time. No frivolous dame of tarnished fame sought to\nshare with him his perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten\nminutes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence never got\nin a heap.\n\nSimeon kept no track of the days, having no engagements to meet, or\noffices to perform, beyond the prayers at morn, midday and night.\n\nMemory died in him, the hurts became calluses, the world-pain died out\nof his heart, to cling became a habit. Language was lost in disuse. The\nfood he ate was minimum in quantity; sensation ceased, and the dry, hot\nwinds reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something called a\nsaint--loved, feared and reverenced for his fortitude.\n\nThis pillar, which had once graced the portal of a pagan temple, again\nbecame a place of pious pilgrimage, and people flocked to Simeon's rock,\nso that they might be near when he stretched out his black, bony hands\nto the East, and the spirit of Almighty God, for a space, hovered close\naround.\n\nSo much attention did the abnegation of Simeon attract that various\nother pillars, marking the ruins of art and greatness gone, in that\nvicinity, were crowned by pious monks. Their thought was to show how\nChristianity had triumphed over heathenism. Imitators were numerous.\nAbout that time the Bishops in assembly asked, \"Is Simeon sincere?\" To\ntest the matter of Simeon's pride, he was ordered to come down from his\nretreat.\n\nAs to his chastity, there was little doubt, and his poverty was beyond\nquestion; but how about obedience to his superiors?\n\nThe order was shouted up to him in a Bishop's voice--he must let down\nhis rope, draw up a ladder, and descend.\n\nStraightway Simeon made preparation to obey. And then the Bishops\nrelented and cried, \"We have changed our minds, and now order you to\nremain!\"\n\nSimeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness and renewed his\nlease.\n\nAnd so he lived on and on and on--he lived on the top of that pillar,\nnever once descending, for thirty years.\n\nAll of his former companions grew a-weary; one by one they died, and the\nmonastery-bells tolled their requiem as they were laid to rest. Did\nSimeon hear the bells and say, \"Soon it will be my turn\"?\n\nProbably not. His senses had flown, for what good were they! The young\nmonk who now at eventide brought the basket with the bottle of goat's\nmilk and the loaf of dry bread was born since Simeon had taken his place\non the pillar. \"He has always been there,\" the people said, and crossed\nthemselves hurriedly.\n\nBut one evening when the young monk came with his basket, no line was\ndropped from above. He waited and then called aloud, but all in vain.\n\nWhen sunrise came, there sat the monk, his face between his knees, the\nfolds of his black robe drawn over his head. But he did not rise and\nlift his hands in prayer.\n\nAll day he sat there, motionless.\n\nThe people watched in whispered silence. Would he arise at sundown and\npray, and with outstretched hands bless the assembled pilgrims?\n\nBut as they watched a vulture came sailing slowly through the blue\nether, and circled nearer and nearer; and off on the horizon was\nanother--and still another, circling nearer and nearer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn humanity's march of progress there are a vanguard and a rearguard.\nThe rearguard dwindles away into a mob of camp-followers, who follow for\ndiversion and to escape starvation. Both the vanguard and the rearguard\nare out of step with the main body, and therefore both are despised by\nthe many who make up the rank and file.\n\nAnd yet, out of pity, the main body supplies ambulances and\n\"slum-workers,\" who aim to do \"good\"--but this good is always for the\nrearguard and the camp-followers, never for those who lead the line of\nmarch, and take the risk of ambush and massacre.\n\nBut this scorn of the vanguard has its recompense--often delayed, no\ndoubt--but those who compose it are the only ones whom history honors\nand Clio crowns. If they get recognition in life, it is wrung tardily\nfrom an ungrateful and ungracious world. And this is the most natural\nthing in the world, and it would be a miracle if it were otherwise, for\nthe very virtue of the vanguard consists in that their acts outrun human\nsympathy.\n\nBenedict was a scout of civilization. In his day he led the vanguard. He\nfound the prosperous part of the world given over to greed and gluttony.\nThe so-called religious element was in partnership with fraud,\nsuperstition, ignorance, incompetence, and an asceticism like that of\nSimeon Stylites, leading to nothing.\n\nMen know the good and grow through experience. To realize the\nworthlessness of place and position and of riches, you must have been at\nsome time in possession of these. Benedict was born into a rich Roman\nfamily, in the year Four Hundred Eighty. His parents wished to educate\nhim for the law, so he would occupy a position of honor in the State.\n\nBut at sixteen years of age, at that critical time when nerves are\nvibrating between manhood and youth, Benedict cut the umbilical domestic\ncord, and leaving his robes of purple and silken finery, suddenly\ndisappeared, leaving behind a note which was doubtless meant to be\nreassuring and which was quite the reverse, for it failed to tell where\nhis mail should be forwarded. He had gone to live with a hermit in the\nfastnesses of the mountains. He had desired to do something peculiar,\nstrange, unusual, unique and individual, and now he had done it.\n\nBack of it all was the Cosmic Urge, with a fair slip of a girl, and\nmeetings by stealth in the moonlight; and then those orders from his\nfather to give up the girl, which he obeyed with a vengeance.\n\nMonasticism is a reversal or a misdirection of the Cosmic Urge. The will\nbrought to bear in fighting temptation might be a power for good, if\nused in co-operation with Nature. But Nature to the priestly mind has\nalways been bad. The worldly mind was one that led to ruin. To be good\nby doing good was an idea the monkish mind had not grasped. His way of\nbeing good was to be nothing, do nothing--just resist. Successfully to\nfight temptation, the Oriental Monk regarded as an achievement.\n\nOne day, out on that perilous and slippery rock on the mountain-side,\nBenedict ceased saluting the Holy Virgin long enough to conceive a\nthought. It was this: To be acceptable to God, we must do something in\nthe way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to wander, to\nsuffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and\nbring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too\nmuch suffering would destroy the race.\n\nOnly one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who put forth this\nargument, and that was Saint Jerome; and many good men in the Church\nregarded Saint Jerome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was\na student of the literature of Greece and Rome--\"Pagan Books,\" they were\ncalled, \"rivals of the Bible.\" Saint Anthony had renounced and denounced\nthese books and all of the learning of Paganism. Saint Anthony, the\nfather of Christian Monasticism, dwelt on the terrible evils of\nintellectual pride, and had declared that the joys of the mind were of a\nmore subtle and devilish character than those of the flesh.\n\nAnthony, assisted by inertia, had won the ear of the Church; and dirt,\nrags and idleness had come to be regarded as sacred things.\n\nBenedict took issue with Anthony.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Monastic Impulse is a protest against the Cosmic Urge, or\nreproductive desire.\n\nNecessarily, the Cosmic Urge is older than the Monastic Impulse; and\nbeyond a doubt it will live to dance on the grave of its rival.\n\nThe Cosmic Urge is the creative instinct. It includes all planning,\npurpose, desire, hope, unrest, lust and ambition. In its general sense,\nit is Unfulfilled Desire. It is the voice constantly crying in the ears\nof success, \"Arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest.\" It is\nthe dissatisfaction with all things done--it is our Noble Discontent. In\nits first manifestation it is sex. In its last refinement it means the\nlove of man and woman, with the love of children, the home-making sense,\nand an appreciation of art, music and science--which is love with seeing\neyes--as natural results.\n\nDeity creates through its creatures, of which man is the highest type.\nBut man, evolving a small spark of intellect, sits in judgment on his\nCreator, and finds the work bad. Of all the animals, man is the only one\nso far known that criticizes his environment, instead of accepting it.\nAnd we do this because, in degree, we have abandoned intuition before we\nhave gotten control of intellect.\n\nThe Monastic Instinct is the disposition ever to look outside of\nourselves for help. We expect the Strong Man to come and give us\ndeliverance from our woes. All nations have legends of saviors and\nheroes who came and set the captives free, and who will come again in\ngreater glory and mightier power and even release the dead from their\ngraves.\n\nThe Monastic Impulse is based on world-weariness, with disappointed\nlove, or sex surfeit, which is a phase of the same thing, as a basis.\nIts simplest phase is a desire for solitude.\n\n\"Mon\" means one, and monasticism is simply living alone, apart from the\nworld. Gradually it came to mean living alone with others of a like mind\nor disposition.\n\nThe clan is an extension of the family, and so is originally a monastic\nimpulse. The Group Idea is a variant of monasticism, but if it includes\nmen and women, it always disintegrates with the second generation, if\nnot before, because the Cosmic Urge catches the members, and they mate,\nmarry and swing the circle.\n\nErnst Haeckel has recently intimated his belief that monogamy, with its\nexclusive life, is a diluted form of monasticism. And his opinion seems\nto be that, in order to produce the noblest race possible, we must have\na free society, with a State that reverences and respects maternity and\npensions any mother who personally cares for her child.\n\nMonasticism and enforced monogamy often carry a disrespect, if not a\npositive contempt, for motherhood, especially free motherhood. We breed\nfrom the worst, under the worst conditions, and as punishment God has\nmade us a race of scrubs. If we had deliberately set about to produce\nthe worst, we could not do better.\n\nIt will at once be seen that a penalized free motherhood is exactly like\nthe Monastic Impulse--a protest and a revolt from the Cosmic Urge. Hence\nErnst Haeckel, harking back to Schopenhauer, declares that we must place\na premium upon parenthood, and the State must subsidize all mothers,\nvisiting them with tenderness, gentleness, sanctity and respect, before\nwe shall be able to produce a race of demigods.\n\nThe Church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have\nsuccessfully fought the Cosmic Urge. Emerson says, \"We are strong as we\nally ourselves with Nature, and weak as we fight against her or\ndisregard her.\" Thus does Emerson place himself squarely in opposition\nto the Church, for the Church has ever looked upon Nature as a lure and\na menace to holy living.\n\nNow, is it not possible that the prevalency of the Monastic Impulse is\nproof that it is in itself a movement in the direction of Nature?\nPossibly its error lies in swinging out beyond the norm. A few great\nChurchmen have thought so. And the greatest and best of them, so far as\nI know, was Benedict. Through his efforts, monasticism was made a power\nfor good, and for a time, at least, it served society and helped\nhumanity on its way.\n\nThat the flagellants, anchorites, or monks with iron collars, and Simeon\nStylites living his life perched on a pillar, benefited the human\nrace--no one would now argue. Simeon was simply trying to please God--to\nsecure salvation for his soul. His assumption was that the world was\nbase and bad. To be pure in heart you must live apart from it. His\npersistence was the only commendable thing about him, and this was the\npersistence of a diseased mind. It was beautiful just as the persistence\nof cancer is beautiful.\n\nBenedict, while agreeing that the world was bad, yet said that our\nbusiness was to make it better, and that everything we did which was\ndone merely to save our own souls, was selfish and unworthy. He\nadvocated that, in order to save our own souls, we should make it our\nbusiness to save others. Also, to think too much about your own soul was\nto have a soul not worth saving. If this life is a preparation for\nanother, as Simeon thought, he was not preparing himself for a world\nwhere we would care to go. The only heaven in which any sane man or\nwoman, be he saint or sinner, would care to live, would be one whose\ninhabitants would be at liberty to obey the Cosmic Urge just as freely\nas the Monastic Impulse, and where one would be regarded as holy as the\nother. So thought Saint Benedict.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a natural law, well recognized and defined by men who think,\ncalled the Law of Diminishing Returns, sometimes referred to as the Law\nof Pivotal Points.\n\nA man starts in to take systematic exercise, and he finds that his\nstrength increases. He takes more exercise and keeps on until he gets\n\"stale\"--that is, he becomes sore and lame. He has passed the Pivotal\nPoint and is getting a Diminishing Return.\n\nIn running a railroad-engine a certain amount of coal is required to\npull a train of given weight a mile, say at the rate of fifty miles an\nhour. You double the amount of your coal, and simple folks might say you\ndouble your speed, but railroad men know better. The double amount of\ncoal will give you only about sixty miles instead of fifty. Increase\nyour coal and from this on you get a Diminishing Return. If you insist\non eighty miles an hour, you get your speed at a terrific cost and a\nterrible risk.\n\nAnother case: Your body requires a certain amount of food--the body is\nan engine; food is fuel; life is combustion. Better the quality and\nquantity of your food, and up to a certain point you increase your\nstrength. Go on increasing your food and you get death. Loan money at\nfive per cent and your investment is reasonably secure and safe. Loan\nmoney at ten per cent and you do not double the returns; on the\ncontrary, you have taken on so much risk. Loan money at twenty per cent\nand you will probably lose it; for the man who borrows at twenty per\ncent does not intend to pay if he can help it.\n\nThe Law of Diminishing Returns was what Oliver Wendell Holmes had in\nmind when he said, \"Because I like a pinch of salt in my soup is no\nreason I wish to be immersed in brine.\"\n\nChurches, preachers and religious denominations are good things in their\ntime and place, and up to a certain point. Whether for you the church\nhas passed the Pivotal Point is for you yourself to decide. But remember\nthis, because a thing is good up to a certain point, or has been good,\nis no reason why it should be perpetuated. The Law of Diminishing\nReturns is the natural refutation of the popular fallacy that because a\nthing is good you can not get too much of it.\n\nIt is this law that Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he said, \"I object\nto that logic which seeks to imply that because I wish to make the negro\nfree, I desire a black woman for a wife.\"\n\nBenedict had spent five years in resistance before it dawned upon him\nthat Monasticism carried to a certain point was excellent and fraught\nwith good results, but beyond that it rapidly degenerated.\n\nTo carry the plan of simplicity and asceticism to its summit and not go\nbeyond was now his desire.\n\nTo withdraw from society he felt was a necessity, for the petty and\nselfish ambitions of Rome were revolting. But the religious life did\nnot for him preclude the joys of the intellect. In his unshaven and\nunshorn condition, wearing a single garment of goatskin, he dared not go\nback to his home. So he proceeded to make himself acceptable to decent\npeople. He made a white robe, bathed, shaved off his beard, had his hair\ncut, and putting on his garments, went back to his family. The life in\nthe wilderness had improved his health. He had grown in size and\nstrength and he now, in his own person, proved that a religious recluse\nwas not necessarily unkempt and repulsive.\n\nHis people greeted him as one raised from the dead. Crowds followed him\nwherever he went. He began to preach to them and to explain his\nposition.\n\nSome of his old school associates came to him.\n\nAs he explained his position, it began more and more to justify itself\nin his mind. Things grow plain as we analyze them to others--by\nexplaining to another the matter becomes luminous to ourselves.\n\nTo purify the monasteries and carry to them all that was good and\nbeautiful in the classics, was the desire of Benedict. His wish was to\nreconcile the learning of the past with Christianity, which up to that\ntime had been simply ascetic. It had consisted largely of repression,\nsuppression and a killing-out of all spontaneous, happy, natural\nimpulses.\n\nVery naturally, he was harshly criticized, and when he went back to the\ncave where he had dwelt and tried to teach some of his old companions\nhow to read and write, they flew first at him, and then from him. They\ndeclared that he was the devil in the guise of a monk; that he wished to\nlive both as a monk and as a man of the world--that he wanted to eat his\ncake and still keep it. By a sort of divine right he took control of\naffairs, and insisted that his companions should go to work with him,\nand plant a garden and raise vegetables and fruits, instead of depending\nupon charity or going without.\n\nThe man who insists that all folks shall work, be they holy or secular,\nlearned or illiterate, always has a hard road to travel. Benedict's\ncompanions declared that he was trying to enslave them, and one of them\nbrewed a poison and substituted it for the simple herb tea that Benedict\ndrank. Being discovered, the man and his conspirators escaped, although\nBenedict offered to forgive and forget if they would go to work.\n\nBenedict adhered to his new inspiration with a persistency that never\nrelaxed--the voice of God had called to him that he must clear the soil\nof the brambles and plant gardens.\n\nThe thorn-bush through which he had once rolled his naked body, he now\ncut down and burned. He relaxed the vigils and limited the prayers and\nadorations to a few short exercises just before eating, sleeping and\ngoing to work. He divided the day into three parts--eight hours for\nwork, eight hours for study, eight hours for sleep. Then he took\none-half hour from each of these divisions for silent prayer and\nadoration. He argued that good work was a prayer, and that one could\npray with his heart and lips, even as his hands swung the ax, the sickle\nor the grub-hoe. All that Benedict required of others, he did himself,\nand through the daily work he evolved a very strong and sturdy physique.\nFrom the accounts that have come to us he was rather small in stature,\nbut in strength he surpassed any man in his vicinity.\n\nMiraculous accounts of his physical strength were related, and in the\nminds of his simple followers he was regarded as more than a man, which\nshows us that the ideals of what a man should be, or might be, were not\nhigh. We are told that near Benedict's first monastery there was a very\ndeep lake, made in the time of Nero by damming up a mountain stream.\nAlong this lake the brambles and vines had grown in great confusion.\nBenedict set to work to clear the ground from this lake to his\nmonastery, half a mile up the hillside. One day a workman dropped an ax\ninto the lake. Benedict smiled, his lips moved in prayer and the ax came\nto the surface. The story does not say that Benedict dived to the bottom\nand brought up the ax, which he probably did. The next day the owner of\nthe ax fell into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked out\non the water and brought the man in on his shoulders. We who do not\nbelieve that the age of miracles has passed, can well understand how\nBenedict was an active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through the\nnatural powers which he evolved by living a sane and simple life, he was\nable to perform many feats which peasants round about considered\nmiraculous. Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch. He\nfound great joy in planning, creating and constructing. He had an eye\nfor architecture and landscape-gardening. He utilized the materials of\nold Roman temples to construct Christian churches, and from the same\nquarry he took stone and built a monastery. A Roman ruin had a lure for\nhim. It meant building possibilities. He stocked the lake with fish, and\nthen made catches that rivaled the parable of the loaves and fishes.\nOnly the loaves of Benedict were made from the wheat he himself raised,\nand the people he fed were the crowds who came to hear him preach the\ngospel he himself practised--the gospel of work, moderation and the\ncommonsense exercise of head, hand and heart.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo Benedict came twelve disciples. But further applications becoming\nnumerous, to meet the pressure Benedict kept organizing them into groups\nof twelve, appointing a superior over each group. In order to prove his\nsense of equality, he had but eleven besides himself in the monastery.\nHe recognized that leadership was a necessity; but the clothes he wore\nwere no better than, and the food he ate no different from, what the\nothers had. Yet to enforce discipline, rules were made and instant\nobedience was exacted. Benedict took his turn at waiting on the table\nand doing the coarsest tasks.\n\nWere it not for the commonsense methods of life, and the element of\nhuman service, the Christian monastery and probably Christianity itself\nwould not have survived. The dogma of religion was made acceptable by\nblending it with a service for humanity. And even to this day the\npopular plan of proving the miracles of the Old Testament to have been\nactual occurrences is to point to the schools, hospitals and orphan\nasylums that Christian people have provided.\n\nIn the efforts of Benedict to combine the life of unselfish service with\nintellectual appreciation of classic literature, he naturally was\nmisunderstood. Several times he came near having serious collisions with\nthe authorities of the Church at Rome.\n\nHis preaching attracted the jealous attention of certain churchmen, but\nas he was not a priest, the Pope refused to take notice of his supposed\nheresies.\n\nAn effort was made to compel him to become a priest, but Benedict\nrefused on the plea that he was not worthy. The fact was, however, that\nhe did not wish to be bound by the rules of the Church.\n\nIn one sense, his was a religion inside a religion, and a slight\naccident might have precipitated an opposition denomination, just as the\nProtestant issue of Luther was an accident, and the Methodism of the\nWesleys, another.\n\nSeveral times the opposition, in the belief that Benedict was an enemy\nof the Church, went so far as to try to kill him. And once a few pious\npersons in Rome induced a company of wanton women to go out to\nBenedict's monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful\ngrounds. This was done with two purposes in view; one was to work the\ndirect downfall of the Benedictines, with the aid of the trulls, and the\nother was to create a scandal among the visitors, who would carry the\nunsavory news back to Rome and supply the gossips raw stock.\n\nBenedict was so deeply grieved by the despicable trick that he retired\nto his former home, the cave in the hillside, and there remained without\nfood for a month.\n\nBut during this time of solitude his mind was busy with new plans. He\nnow founded Monte Cassino. The site is halfway between Rome and Naples,\nand the white, classic lines of the buildings can be seen from the\nrailroad. There on the crags, from out of a mass of green, has been\nplayed out for more than a thousand years the drama of religious life.\nDeath by fire and sword has been the fate of many of the occupants. But\nthe years went by, new men came, the ruins were repaired, and again the\ncloisters were trodden by pious feet of holy men. Goths, Lombards,\nSaracens, Normans, Spaniards, Teutons, and finally came Napoleon\nBonaparte, who confiscated the property, making the place his home for a\nbrief space. Later he relented and took it from the favorite upon whom\nhe had bestowed it and gave it back to the Church. It then remained a\nBenedictine monastery until the edict of Eighteen Hundred Sixty-six,\nwhich, with the help of Massini and Garibaldi, made the monastery in\nItaly a thing of the past. The place is now a school--a school with a\nco-ed proviso. Thus passes away the glory of the world, in order that a\ngreater glory shall appear.\n\nSix hundred years before Benedict's day, on the site of the cloister of\nMonte Cassino stood a temple to Apollo, and just below was a grove\nsacred to Venus.\n\nTwo hundred years before Benedict's time the Goths had done their work\nso well that even the walls of the temple to Apollo were razed, and the\nsacred grove became the home of wild beasts.\n\nTo this deserted place came Benedict and eleven men, filled with a holy\nzeal to erect on this very spot an edifice worthy of the living God.\nHere the practical builder and the religious dreamer combined. If you\nare going to build a building, why not build upon the walls already laid\nand with blocks ready hewn and fashioned!\n\nThe Monte Cassino monastery of Benedict rivaled in artistic beauty the\ntemple that it replaced.\n\nMan is a building animal, and the same Creative Energy that impelled the\nGreeks and later the Romans to plan, devise, toil and build, now played\nthrough the good monk Benedict. His desire to create was a form of the\ngreat Cosmic Urge, that lives eternally and is building in America a\nfiner, better and nobler religion than the world has ever seen--a\nReligion of Humanity--a religion of which at times Benedict caught vivid\npassing glimpses, as one sees at night the landscape brilliantly\nillumined by the lightning's flash.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe motto of Benedict was \"Ecce Labora.\" These words were carved on the\nentrance to every Benedictine Monastery.\n\nThe monastic idea originated in the Orient, where Nature placed no\nspecial penalty on idleness. Indeed, labor may have been a curse in\nAsia. Morality is crystallized expediency, and both, as we are told, are\nmatters of geography, as well as time.\n\nAnd truth it is, that north of the Mediterranean idleness is the curse,\nnot labor.\n\nThe rule of Benedict was not unlike that of the Shakers, for near every\nmonastery was a nunnery. The association of men and women, although\nquite limited, was better for both than their absolute separation, as\nwith the Trappists, who regard it as a sin even to look upon the face of\na woman.\n\nThe thrift and industry of the Benedictines was worthy of Ann Lee and\nour friends at Lebanon. A man who works eight hours, with fair\nintelligence, and does not set out to make consumption and waste the\nbusiness of his life, grows rich. Thoreau was right--an hour a day will\nsupport you. But Thoreau was wrong in supposing men work only to get\nfood, clothing and shelter. To work only an hour a day is to evolve into\na loafer. We work not to acquire, but to become.\n\nThe group idea, cemented by able leadership and a religious concept, is\nalways successful. The Mormons, Quakers, Harmonyites, Economites, and\nthe Oneida Community, all grew very rich, and surpassed their neighbors\nnot only in point of money, but in health, happiness, intelligence and\ngeneral mental grasp.\n\nBrook Farm failed for lack of a leader with business instinct; but as it\nwas, it divided up among its members a rich legacy of spiritual and\nmental assets. In family life, or what is called \"Society,\" there is a\nconstant danger through rivalry, not in well-doing or in human service,\nbut in conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure. The religious rite of\nfeet-washing is absolutely lost, both as a rite and as an idea. In\ntruth, \"good society\" is essentially predatory in its instincts. In\ncommunal life, or the life of a group, service and not waste is the\nwatchword. This must be so, since every group, at its beginning, is held\ntogether through the thought of service. To meet and unite on a basis of\njealous rivalry and sharp practise is unthinkable, for these are the\nthings that disintegrate the group.\n\nIt is an economic law that a group founded upon and practising the idea\nof each member giving all, wins all. Benedict's idea of \"Ecce labora\"\nmade every Benedictine monastery a center of wealth. Work stops\nbickering, strife and undue waste. It makes for health and strength. The\nreward of work is not immunity from toil, but more work--an increased\ncapacity for effort.\n\nDe Tocqueville gave this recipe for success: Subdue yourself--Devote\nyourself.\n\nThat is to say, subdue the ego to a point where it gets its\ngratification in concentrating on unselfish service. He who does this\nalways succeeds, for not only is he engaged upon a plan of life in which\nthere is little competition, but he is working in line with a divine\nlaw, the law of mutuality, which provides that all the good you do to\nothers, you do for yourself.\n\nBenedictine monasticism leads straight to wealth and great power. The\nAbbot of the group became a Baron. \"I took the vow of poverty, and it\nled to an income of twenty thousand pounds a year. I took the vow of\nobedience and find myself ruler of fifty towns and villages.\" These are\nthe words which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of an Abbot, who\nbecame a Baron through the simple law of which I have hinted. And in his\nnovel of \"The Abbot,\" Sir Walter gives a tragic picture of how power and\nwealth can be lost as well as won. Feudalism began with the rule of the\nmonastery.\n\nBenedict was one of the world's great Captains of Industry. And like all\ngreat entrepreneurs, he won through utilizing the efforts of others. In\npicking his Abbots, or the men to be \"father\" of each particular group,\nhe showed rare skill. These men learned from him and he learned from\nthem. One of his best men was Cassiodorus, the man who evolved the\nscheme of the scriptorium. \"To study eight hours a day was not enough,\"\nsaid Cassiodorus. \"We should copy the great works of literature so that\nevery monastery shall have a library as good as that which we have at\nMonte Cassino.\" He himself was an expert penman, and he set himself the\ntask of teaching the monks how to write as well as how to read. \"To\nwrite beautifully is a great joy to our God,\" he said.\n\nBenedict liked the idea, and at once put it into execution. Cassiodorus\nis the patron saint of every maker of books who loves his craft.\n\nThe systematic work of the scriptorium originated in the brain of\nCassiodorus, and he was appointed by Benedict to go from one monastery\nto another and inform the Abbot that a voice had come from God to\nBenedict saying that these precious books must be copied, and presented\nto those who would prize them.\n\nCassiodorus had been a secretary of state under the Emperor Theodoric,\nand he had also been a soldier. He was seventy years of age when he came\nunder the influence of Benedict, through a chance visit to Monte\nCassino. Benedict at first ordered him to take an ax and work with the\nservants at grubbing out underbrush and preparing a field for planting.\nCassiodorus obeyed, and soon discovered that there was a joy in\nobedience he had before never guessed. His name was Brebantus Varus, but\non his declaring he was going to remain and work with Benedict, he was\ncomplimented by being given the name of Cassiodorus, suggested by the\nword Cassinum or Cassino. Cassiodorus lived to be ninety-two, and was\none of the chief factors, after Benedict himself, in introducing the\nlove of art and beauty among the Benedictines.\n\nNear Monte Cassino was a nunnery presided over by Scholastica, the twin\nsister of Benedict.\n\nRenan says that the kinship of Scholastica and Benedict was a spiritual\ntie, not one of blood. If so, we respect it none the less. Saint Gregory\ntells of the death of Benedict thus:\n\n     Benedict was at the end of his career. His interview with Totila\n     took place in Five Hundred Forty-two, in the year which preceded\n     his death; and from his earliest days of the following year, God\n     prepared him for his last struggle, by requiring from him the\n     sacrifice of the most tender affection he had retained on earth.\n     The beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of Benedict\n     and his twin sister, Scholastica, is a picture long to remember. At\n     the window of his cell, three days after her death, Benedict had a\n     vision of his dear sister's soul entering heaven in the form of a\n     snowy dove. He immediately sent for the body and placed it in a\n     sepulcher which he had already prepared for himself, that death\n     might not separate those whose souls had always been united in God.\n\n     The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He\n     survived her forty days. He announced his death to several of his\n     monks, then far from Monte Cassino. A violent fever having seized\n     him, he caused himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be\n     carried to the chapel of Saint John the Baptist; he had before\n     ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be opened.\n\n     There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the holy\n     Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of the open grave, but\n     at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards\n     heaven, he died, standing, muttering a last prayer. Such a\n     victorious death became that great soldier of God. He was buried by\n     the side of his beloved Scholastica, in a sepulcher made on the\n     spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which had been replaced by\n     another to our beloved Savior.\n\n\nIn the very year, and at the same time, that Justinian and Theodora were\npreparing the Justinian Code, Benedict was busy devising \"The Monastic\nRules.\" Benedict did not put his rules forth as final, but explained\nthat they were merely expedient for their time and place. In this he was\nsingularly modest. If one can divest himself of the thought that there\nwas anything \"holy\" or \"sacred\" about these communal groups called\n\"monasteries,\" and then read these rules, he will see that they were\nfounded on a good knowledge of economics and a very stern commonsense.\n\nHumanity was the same a thousand years ago that it is now. Benedict had\nto fight inertia, selfishness and incipient paranoia, just as does the\nman who tries to introduce practical socialism today. A few extracts\nfrom this very remarkable Book of Rules will show the shrewd Connecticut\nwisdom of Benedict. To hold the dowdy, indifferent, slipshod and\nunderdone in their proper places, so they could not disturb or destroy\nthe peace, policy and prosperity of the efficient, was the task of\nBenedict.\n\nBenedict says: \"Written and formal rules are necessary only because we\nare all faulty men, with a tendency towards selfishness and disorder.\nWhen men become wise, and also unselfish, there will be no need of rules\nand laws.\"\n\nThe Book of Rules by Benedict is a volume of more than twenty thousand\nwords. Its scope reveals an insight that will appeal to all who have had\nto do with socialistic experiments, not to mention the management of\nlabor-unions. Benedict was one of the industrial leaders of the world.\nHis life was an epoch, and his influence still abides.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: MARY BAKER EDDY]\n\nMARY BAKER EDDY\n\n\n     The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are to be found\n     in the following postulates: that Life is God, good and not evil;\n     that Soul is sinless, not to be found in the body; that Spirit is\n     not and can not be materialized; that Life is not subject to death;\n     that the spiritual real man has no consciousness of material life\n     or death.\n\n     --_Mary Baker Eddy_\n\n\nMARY BAKER EDDY\n\nLet the fact be here stated that Mary Baker Eddy was the founder of\nChristian Science. This woman lived long and well.\n\nShe was alert, earnest, highly intelligent, receptive. She was ever\ndiscovering. We know this because she put out a new message every little\nwhile, or modified an old one, having come in the meantime into a\nposition to get a nearer and clearer view of the fact. The last edition\nof \"Science and Health\" is a different book from the first one.\n\nChristian Science is not a fixed, formed, fossilized, ossified\nstructure. Possibly it may become so. But the probabilities are it will\ngrow, expand, advance. Life and growth consist in eliminating dead\nmatter and evolving new tissue. The institution, commercial, artistic,\nsocial, political, religious, that has ceased to grow has begun to\ndisintegrate.\n\nChristian Scientists do not flee the world, renouncing and denouncing\nit. As a people they are well, happy, hopeful, enthusiastic and\nsuccessful. I am fairly well informed on the history of all great\nreligions. In degree I know the character of intellect possessed by the\nfolks who make or made up their membership. And my opinion is, that no\nreligion that has ever existed contained so large a percentage of\nintelligent people, competent, safe and sane, as does Christian Science.\nThere is an adage to the effect that a prophet is not without honor save\nin his own country.\n\nIn the case of Mary Baker Eddy, the adage just quoted goes awry. Mrs.\nEddy as long as she lived, retained the good-will of Concord, Boston and\nBrookline, where she chose to make her home. Very many of the leading\nmen and women of each of these cities are Christian Scientists.\n\nThe Christian Science Church at Concord cost upwards of two hundred\nthousand dollars, and was the gift of Mrs. Eddy. Over the entrance, cut\ndeep in granite, are the words, \"Presented by Mary Baker Eddy,\nDiscoverer and Founder of Christian Science.\" As to the argument that\nthe truths of Christian Science have always been known and practised by\na few, Mrs. Eddy issued her direct challenge. In all of her literature\nshe set out the unqualified statement that she was \"The Discoverer and\nthe Founder.\" She was never apologetic; she assumed no modesty she did\nnot feel; she spoke as one having authority, as did Moses of old, \"Thus\nsaith the Lord!\"\n\nShe entered into no joint debates; she did not answer back. This intense\nconviction which admits of no parley was one of the secrets of her\npower. For many years the Billingsgate Calendar was directed at her upon\nevery possible occasion.\n\nBut Mrs. Eddy won out, and legislation and courts were compelled to\nwhistle in their hounds. Your right to keep well in your own way is now\nfully recognized. Doctors are not liable when they give innocent\nsweetened water and call it medicine, nor do we place Christian\nScientists on trial if their patients die, any more than we do the M.\nD.'s.\n\nIn fact, Mrs. Eddy influenced both of the so-called sciences of medicine\nand theology. Even those who are perfectly willing to deny her, and\nnoisily discard her tenets, are debtors to her.\n\nHomeopathy modified the dose of all the Allopaths; and Christian Science\nhas attenuated the Hahnemannian theory of attenuations, it having been\nfound that the blank tablet often cures quite as effectively as the one\nthat is medicated. Christian Science does not shout, rant, defy nor\npreach. It is poised, silent, sure, and the flagellants, like the\ndervishes, are noticeable by their absence.\n\nThe Reverend Billy Sunday is not a Christian Scientist. The Christian\nScientist does not cut into the grape; specialize on the elevated\nspheroid; devote his energies to bridge whist; cultivate the scandal\nmicrobe; join the anvil chorus, nor shake the red rag of wordy warfare.\nHe is diligent in business, fervent in spirit, and accepts what comes\nwithout protest, finding it good.\n\nMary Baker Eddy lived a human life. Through her manifold experiences she\ngathered gear--she was a very great and wise woman. She was so great\nthat she kept her own counsel, received no visitors, made no calls, had\nno Thursday, wrote no letters, and even never went to the church that\nshe presented to her native town. Mrs. Eddy's step was ever light, her\nform erect--a slender, handsome, queenly woman. When she passed on, in\nDecember, Nineteen Hundred Ten, in her ninetieth year, she looked scarce\nmore than sixty. Her face showed experience, but not extreme age. The\nday I saw her, a few years before her death, she was dressed all in\nwhite satin and looked like a girl going to a ball.\n\nHer eyes were not dimmed nor her face wrinkled.\n\nHer hat was a milliner's dream; her gloves came to the elbow and were\nbecomingly wrinkled; her form was the form of Bernhardt. Her secretary\nstood by the carriage-door, his head bared. He did not offer his hand to\nthe lady nor seek to assist her into the carriage. He knew his\nbusiness--a sober, silent, muscular, bronzed, farmer-like man, who\nevidently saw everything and nothing.\n\nHe closed the carriage-door and took his seat by the side of the driver,\nwho wore no livery. The men looked like brothers. The big, brown horses\nstarted slowly away; they wore no blinders nor check-reins--they, too,\nhad banished fear. The coachman drove with a loose rein. The next day I\nwaited in Concord to see Mrs. Eddy again. At exactly two-fifteen the\nbig, brown, slow-going horses turned into Main Street. Drays pulled in\nto the curb, automobiles stopped, people stood on the street corners,\nand some--the pilgrims--uncovered.\n\nMrs. Eddy sat back in the carriage, holding in her white-gloved hands a\nbig spray of apple-blossoms, the same half-smile of satisfaction on her\nface--the smile of Pope Leo the Thirteenth. The woman was a veritable\nqueen, and some of her devotees, not without reason, called her the\nQueen of the World.\n\nSome doubtless prayed to her--and may yet, for that matter. Mrs. Eddy\nwas married three times. First, to Colonel George W. Glover, an\nexcellent and worthy man, who was the father of her only child, a son.\nOn the death of Glover, the child was taken by Glover's mother and\nsecreted so effectually that his mother did not see him until he was\nthirty-four years old, and the father of a family.\n\nHer second husband was Daniel Patterson, who was not only a rogue but\nalso a fool--a flashy one, who turned the head of a lone, lorn young\nwidow, who certainly was not infallible in judgment. In two years the\nwife got a divorce from him, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion, at\nSalem, Massachusetts. Her third marital venture was Doctor Asa G. Eddy,\na practising physician--a man of much intelligence and worth. From him\nMrs. Eddy learned that the Science of Medicine was not much of a science\nafter all. Mrs. Eddy used to say that her husband was her first convert;\ncertain it is that Dr. Eddy gave up his practise to assist his wife in\nputting before the world the unreality of disease. That he did not fully\ngrasp the idea is shown by the fact that he died of pneumonia. This,\nhowever, did not shake the faith of Mrs. Eddy in the doctrine that\nsickness was an error of mortal mind. For a good many years Mrs. Eddy\ndrove the memory of her two good husbands tandem, hitched by a hyphen,\nthus: Mary Baker Glover-Eddy. Many a woman has joined her own name to\nthat of her husband, but what woman ever before so honored the two men\nshe had loved by coupling their names! Getting married is a bad habit,\nMrs. Eddy would probably have said, but you have to get married to find\nit out.\n\nIn Eighteen Hundred Seventy-nine, Mrs. Eddy organized the First Church\nof Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and became its pastor. In Eighteen\nHundred Eighty-one, being then sixty years of age, she founded the\nMassachusetts Metaphysical College, in Boston. For fifteen years she had\nbeen speaking in public, affirming that health was our normal condition\nand that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. From her forty-fifth\nto her sixtieth year she was glad to speak for what was offered,\nalthough I believe that even then she had discarded the good old\npriestly plan of taking up a collection. The Metaphysical College was\nstarted to prepare students for teaching Mrs. Eddy's doctrines.\n\nThe business ability of the woman was shown in thus organizing and\nallowing no one to teach who was not duly prepared. These students were\nobliged to pay a good stiff tuition, which fact made them appreciative.\nIn turn they went out and taught; all students paid the tidy sum of one\nhundred dollars for the lessons, which fee was later cut to fifty.\nSalvation may be free, but Christian Science costs money. The\ntheological genus piker, with his long, wrinkled, black coat, his collar\nbuttoned behind, and his high hat, has been eliminated.\n\nMrs. Eddy was manager of the best-methodized institution in the world,\nsave only the Roman Catholic Church and the Standard Oil Company. How\nmany million copies of \"Science and Health\" have been sold, no man can\nsay. What percentage of the money from the lessons went to Mrs. Eddy,\nonly an Armstrong Committee could ascertain, and really it was nobody's\nbusiness but hers.\n\nThat Mrs. Eddy had some very skilful helpers goes without saying. But\nhere is the point--she selected them, and reigned supreme. That the\nstudent who paid fifty dollars got his money's worth, I have no doubt.\nNot that he understood the lessons, but he received a feeling of courage\nand a oneness with the whole which caused health to flow through his\nveins and his heart to beat with joy. The lesson might have been to him\na jumble of words, but he lived in hopes that he would soon grow to a\npoint where the lines were luminous.\n\nIn the meantime, all he knew was that whereas he was once lame he could\nnow walk. Even the most bigoted and prejudiced now agree that the cures\nof Christian Science are genuine. People who think they have trouble\nhave it, and it is the same with pain. Imagination is the only\nsure-enough thing in the world. Mrs. Eddy's doctrines abolish pain and\ntherefore abolish poverty, for poverty, in America at least, is a\ndisease. Mrs. Eddy's chief characteristics were:\n\nFirst, Love of Beauty as manifest in bodily form, dress and\nsurroundings.\n\nSecond, A zeal for system, order and concentrated effort on the\nparticular business she undertakes.\n\nThird, A dignity, courage, self-sufficiency and self-respect that comes\nfrom a belief in her own divinity.\n\nFourth, An economy of time, money, materials, energy and emotion that\nwastes nothing, but which continually conserves and accumulates.\n\nFifth, A liberality, when advisable, which is only possible to those who\nalso economize.\n\nSixth, Yankee shrewdness, great commonsense, all flavored with a dash of\nmysticism and indifference to physical scientific accuracy.\n\nIn other words, Christian Science is a woman's science--she knows! And\nit is good because it is good--this is a science sound enough for\nanybody--I guess so! Christian Science is scientific, but not for the\nreasons that its promoters maintain. Male Christian Scientists do not\ngrowl and kick the cat.\n\nWomen Christian Scientists do not nag. Christian Scientists do not have\neither the grouch or the meddler's itch. Among them there are no\ndolorosos, grumperinos or beggars. They respect all other denominations,\nhaving a serene faith that all will yet see the light--that is to say,\nadopt their doctrines. The most radical among old-school doctors could\nnot deny that Mrs. Eddy's own life was conducted on absolutely\nscientific lines. She never answered the telephone, never fussed nor\nfumed.\n\nShe hired big, safe people and paid them a big wage. She gave her\ncoachman fifty dollars a week, and her cook in proportion, and thus\nsecured people who gave her peace. She went to bed with the birds and\nawoke with the dawn. At seven o'clock she was at her desk, dictating\nanswers to the very few letters her secretary deemed it advisable she\nshould see. She had breakfast at nine o'clock--ate anything she liked,\ntaking her time and fletcherizing. After breakfast she worked upon her\nmanuscripts until it was time for the daily ride.\n\nAt four o'clock she dined--two meals a day being the rule. If, however,\nshe cared to dissipate a little and eat three meals a day, she was not\nafraid to do so.\n\nShe knew her horses and cows and sheep by name, and gave requests as to\ntheir care, holding that the laws of mind obtain as to dumb animals the\nsame as man. Dogs she did not care for, and if she ever had an aversion\nit would have been cats. Her servants she called \"My helpers.\"\nChristian Scientists very naturally believe in the equality of the\nsexes. When girl babies are born to them they bless God, just the same\nas when boy babies are born. In truth they bless God for everything, for\nto them all is beautiful and all is good. Paid preachers they do not\nhave; they do not believe in priests or certain men who are nearer to\nGod than others. All have access to Eternal Truth, and thus is the\necclesiastic excluded. To eliminate the theological middleman is well,\nand as for the Church itself, surely Mrs. Eddy eliminated it also; for\nshe never entered a church, or at least not more than once a year, and\nthen it was only in deference to the architect. A Church! Is it\nnecessary? For herself Mrs. Eddy said, No.\n\nBut as for others, she said, Yes, a church is good for those who need\nit. Mrs. Eddy was the most successful author in the world, or, indeed,\nthat the world has ever seen. No other writer ever made so much money as\nshe, none is more devoutly read.\n\nShakespeare, with his fortune of a quarter of a million dollars, fades\ninto comparative failure; and Arthur Brisbane, with his salary of\nseventy-five thousand a year, is an office-boy compared with this regal\nwoman, who gave fifty thousand dollars a year for good roads.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe valuable truths and distinguishing features of Christian Science are\nnot to be found in Mrs. Eddy's books, but in Mrs. Eddy's life. She was a\nmuch bigger woman than she was a writer. Emerson says that every great\ninstitution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. Every great\nbusiness enterprise has a soul--one man's spirit animates, pervades and\ntints the whole. You can go into any hotel or store, and behold! the\nnature or character of the owner or manager is everywhere proclaimed.\n\nYou do not have to see the man, and the bigger the institution the less\nneed is there for the man to show himself. His work proclaims him, just\nas a farmer's livestock all moo, whinny and squeal his virtues--or lack\nof them. As a boy of ten I learned to know all of our neighbors by their\nhorses. The horses of a drunkard, blanketless, hungry, shivering,\noutside of the village tavern, do they not proclaim the poor, despised\nowner within?\n\nYou can walk through the passenger-coaches of a train made up at a\nterminal and read the character unmistakably of the general\npassenger-agent. The soul of John Wesley ran through Methodism and made\nit what it was. The Lutheranism of Luther yet lives; Calvinism the same;\nand the soul of John Knox still goes marching on, carrying the\nPresbyterian banner.\n\nEvery religion partakes of the nature of its founder, until this\nreligion is mixed with that of another and its character lost, as\nhappened to the religion of Christ when it was launched by Paul and was\nfinally fused with Paganism by the Roman Emperor, Constantine.\n\nChristian Science is as yet the lengthened shadow of Mary Baker Eddy.\nHer own immediate, personal pupils are still teaching, and her life and\ncharacteristics impressed upon them are given out to each and all. Every\nphase of life is solved by answering the question, \"What would Mrs. Eddy\ndo?\" Mrs. Eddy's ideas about dress, housekeeping, business, food,\nhealth, the management of servants, the care of children--all are\nblended into a composite, and this composite is the Christian Scientist\nas we see and know him.\n\nThe fact that Mrs. Eddy was methodical, industrious, economical,\npersevering, courageous, hopeful, helpful, neat in her attire and\nsmiling, makes all Christian Scientists exactly so. She did not play\ncards and indulge in the manifold silliness of so-called good society,\nand neither do they. Indeed, that one thing which has been referred to\nas \"the plaster-of-Paris smile,\" the one feature in Christian Science to\nwhich many good people object, is the direct legacy of Mrs. Eddy to her\npupils. \"Science and Health\" says nothing about it; no edict has been\nput forth recommending it; but all good Christian Scientists take it\non--the smile that refuses to vacate the premises. And to some it is\ncertainly very becoming. Mrs. Eddy's self-reliant, silent, smiling\npersonality has given the key to conduct for the hundreds of thousands\nof people who love her and revere her memory.\n\nMrs. Eddy was a rare good listener. She did not argue. Once upon a time,\nindeed, she was guilty of waving the red flag of wordy warfare; but the\npassing of the years brought her wisdom, and then her only answer to\nimpatience was the quiet smile. As for eating, her table always had\nenough, but it stopped short of surfeit; the service was dainty, and all\nthese things are now seen in the homes of Christian Scientists. Always\nin the home of a good Christian Scientist the bathroom is as complete as\nthe library, and both are models of good housekeeping, seemingly always\nin order for the inspection committee.\n\nMrs. Eddy did not say much about hot water, soap and clean towels; but\nthe idea, regardless of the non-existence of matter, is fixed in the\nconsciousness of every Christian Scientist that absolute bodily\ncleanliness, fresh linen and fresh air are not only next to godliness,\nbut elements of it. All of which you could never work out of \"Science\nand Health with Key to the Scriptures\" in a lifetime of study, any more\nthan you could mine and smelt the Westminster Catechism out of the\nBible.\n\nThe vital truths of right living come to us as a precious heritage from\nthe character of this great woman. She, herself, perhaps may not have\nknown this; but before she wrote her book and formulated her religion,\nshe lived her life. Her book was an endeavor to explain her life, and\nas her life grew better, stronger and more refined, she changed her\nbook. Her book reacted on her life, and the person who got the most good\nout of \"Science and Health\" was Mary Baker Eddy herself.\n\n\"Science and Health\" is mystical and beautifully human. The author's oar\noften fails to catch the water. For instance, she tries to show that\nanimal magnetism, spiritualism, mental science, theosophy, agnosticism,\npantheism and infidelity are all bad things and opposed to the science\nof \"true being.\"\n\nThis statement presupposes that animal magnetism, infidelity, theosophy\nand agnosticism are specific entities or things, whereas they are only\nlabels that are clapped quite indiscriminately on empty casks or full\nones; and the contents of the casks may be sea-water or wine, and are\nreally unknown to both mortal and divine mind, whatever these things\nare. Theosophists like Annie Besant, Spiritualists like Alfred Russel\nWallace, Agnostics like Huxley and Ingersoll, are very noble and\nbeautiful people. They are good neighbors and useful citizens.\n\n\"Science and Health\" is an attempt to catch and hold in words the\nsecrets of an active, honest, healthful, seeking, restless, earnest\nlife, and as such is more or less of a failure.\n\nOur actions are right, but our reasons seldom are.\n\nChristian Science as a plan of life, embodying the great yet simple\nvirtues, is beautiful. \"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures\"\ndoes not explain the Scriptures. The book, as an attempt to explain and\ncrystallize truth, is a failure. It ranks with that great mass of\nliterature, written and copied at such vast pains and expense, bearing\nthe high-sounding title, \"Writings of the Saints.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll publishers are familiar with inspired manuscripts. Such work always\nhas one thing in common--unintelligibility. Good literature is lucid to\nthe average mind. In fact, that is its distinguishing feature. We\nunderstand what the man means. No able writer uses the same word over\nand over with varying sense. Alfred Henry Lewis and William Marion Reedy\nuse the mortal mind, and their work is understandable. You can sit in\njudgment on their conclusions and weigh, sift and decide for yourself.\nThey make an appeal to your intellect.\n\nBut you can not sit in judgment on \"Science and Health,\" because its\nlanguage is not the language we use in our common, every-day intercourse\nwith one another. It speaks of Christ as a person, a principle, a\nspirit, a motive; as \"Truth\"; as one who was born of one parent or no\nparents; who lived, died, or never lived, never was born, and can not\ndie.\n\nMetaphysics is an attempt to explain a thing and thereby evade the\ntrouble of understanding it. You throw the burden of proof on the other\nfellow--and make him believe he does not comprehend because he is too\nstupid. This is not fair!\n\nLanguage is simply an agreement between people that certain vocal\nsounds, or written symbols, shall stand for certain ideas, thoughts or\nthings. Inspired writers string intelligent words together in an\nunintelligent manner, and thereby give the reader an opportunity to\nread anything into them that his preconceived thoughts may dictate.\nMetaphysical gibberish is a rudimentary survival of the practise of\nreading to the people in a dead language. The doctors continue the plan\nby writing prescriptions in Latin.\n\nI once worked in a studio where the boys scraped their palette-knives on\na convenient board. One day we took the board out and had it framed\nunder glass, with a double, deep-shadow box. We gave it the best place\nin the studio and labeled it, \"A Sunset at Sea--an Impression in\nMonochrome.\"\n\nThe picture attracted much attention and great admiration from certain\nsymbolists. It also created so much controversy that we were obliged to\ntake it down in the interests of amity.\n\nTo assume that God inspired the Scriptures, and did the work so ill\nthat, after more than two thousand years, it was necessary to inspire\nanother person to make a \"Key\" to them, is hardly worthy of our serious\nattention. If God, being all-wise, all-powerful and all-loving, turns\nauthor, why does He produce work so muddy that it requires a \"Key\"?\n\nIndividuals may use a code that requires a \"Key,\" because they wish to\nkeep their matter secret from others. There may be for them a penalty on\ntruth, but why Deity should write in a secret language, and then wait\ntwo thousand years before making the matter plain, and then to one\nsingle woman in Boston, is incomprehensible. What the world wants now\nis a Key to \"Science and Health.\" In reading a book, the question that\ninterests us is not, \"Is it inspired?\" but, \"Is it true?\"\n\nMrs. Eddy's ranks are recruited almost entirely from Orthodox\nChristianity. On page six hundred eight of \"Science and Health,\" pocket\nedition of Nineteen Hundred Six, a lawyer gives testimony to the good he\nhas gotten from Christian Science, and explains that he has long been a\nmember of the Episcopal Church. He is delighted to know that he has not\nhad to relinquish any of his old faith, but has simply kept the old and\nadded to it the new.\n\nThis explains, in great degree, the popularity of Christian Science.\nPeople cling to the religious superstitions into which they were born.\nMrs. Eddy's recruits were not from theosophy, spiritualism, agnosticism,\nunitarianism, universalism or infidelity. You can't give a freethinker a\nbook with a statement of what he must find in it.\n\nHe has acquired the habit of thinking for himself.\n\nMrs. Eddy had no faith in Darwin, Spencer or Haeckel. She quoted Moses,\nJesus and Paul to disprove the evolutionists, sat back and smiled\ncontent, innocently unaware that citations from Scriptures are in no\nsense proof to free minds. All of the Bible she wished to waive, she\ndid. The cruelty and bestiality of Jehovah were nothing to her. Her\n\"Key\" does not unlock the secrets of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, nor\ndoes it shed light on the doctrines of eternal punishment, the vicarious\natonement, or the efficacy of baptism as a saving ordinance.\n\nExplanations about mortal mind, divine mind and human mind, citing\nspecific errors of the human mind, with a calm codicil to the effect\nthat the human mind has no existence, are not what you might call\nilluminating literature. The stuff is simply \"inspired.\" Mrs. Eddy was\nvery wise in not allowing her \"readers\" or followers to sermonize or\nexplain her writings. These writings are simply to be read. And so the\nhearers sit steeped in mist and wrapped in placidity, returning to their\nwork rested and refreshed, without being influenced in any way, save by\nthe soothing calm of forceful fog and mental vacuity.\n\nThe rest and relief from all thought is good. The related experiences of\nChristian Scientists are the things that convince and carry weight, not\n\"Science and Health.\" \"Science and Health\" was made to sell. It was not\ngiven to you to be understood: it was to be bought and believed. If you\ndoubt any portion of it, at once you are told that this is the work of\nyour mortal mind, which is filled with error. Good Christian Scientists\ndo not try to understand \"Science and Health\"--they just accept and\nbelieve it. \"It is inspired,\" they say, \"so it must be true--you will\nknow when you are worthy to know.\"\n\nAnd so we see our old friend Intellectual Tyranny come back in another\nform, not with cowl and cape, but tricked out with feminine finery and\njewelry and gems that lure and dazzle. There is one thing quite as\nvaluable as health, and that is intellectual integrity. To say, \"Oh,\n'Science and Health' is certainly inspired--just see how old Mrs.\nJohnson was cured of the rheumatism!\" is not reasoning.\n\nAnd it has given the scoffers excuse for calling it woman's logic. Such\nreasoning is on the plane of, \"Why, Jesus must have been the only\nbegotten son of God, born of a virgin, for if you don't believe it, just\nsee the hospitals, orphan asylums and homes for the aged that\nChristianity has built!\" Mrs. Johnson was surely cured of the rheumatism\nall right, but that does not prove that Mrs. Eddy is correct in her\nclaim that Eve was made from Adam's rib; that agamogenesis is a fact in\nNature; that to till the soil will not always be necessary; that human\nlife in these bodies will have no end; and that an absent person can\npoison your health and happiness through malicious animal magnetism; or\nthat a good person can give you absent treatment and cure your\nindigestion.\n\nI agree with Mrs. Eddy as to the necessity of eliminating a medical\nfetish, but I disagree with her about religiously preserving a\ntheological one. I have read \"Science and Health with Key to the\nScriptures\" for twenty years, and I have also read the Scriptures for a\nmuch longer period. Also, I have lived in the same house for many\nmonths with very intelligent Christian Scientists.\n\nAnd after mature consideration I regard both the Scriptures and \"Science\nand Health\" as largely made up of the errors of mortal mind. My\nintuitions are just as valuable to me as Mrs. Eddy's were to her.\n\nMy conscience is quite as sacred to me as hers was to her. And in being\nan agnostic I object to being classed as blind, stubborn, wilful,\nmalicious and degenerate.\n\nWe should honor our Creator by cleaving to the things that seem to us to\nbe true, and not abandon the rudder of our minds to any man or any\nwoman, be they living or dead. Let us not be dishonest with ourselves,\neven to rid us of our physical diseases. As for health, I have all of it\nthat Christian Science ever gave or can give. I have no \"testimony\" of\nhealing to relate, for I have never been sick an hour. And I think I\nknow how I have kept well. I make no secret of it. It is all very\nsimple--nothing miraculous.\n\nMy knowledge of how to keep well is not inspired knowledge, save as all\nmen are inspired who study and know the Laws of Nature. Health, after\nall, is largely a matter of habit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBack of the reading-desks, in the \"Mother Church,\" at Boston, are\nquotations from Paul and Mrs. Eddy, side by side. But the quotation from\nPaul, which is behind the desk of the woman reader, is not this: \"Let\nwomen keep silence in the churches.\"\n\nMrs. Eddy believed the Scriptures are all true, word for word. Yet when\nshe quoted Paul she picked the thing she wanted and avoided all that did\nnot apply to her case. Personally, I like the plan. I do it myself. But\nI do not believe the Scriptures are inspired by an all-wise Deity. So\nfar as I know, all books were written by men, and very often by faulty,\nhuman men at that. Mrs. Eddy's \"Key\" does not unlock anything; and she\ndid not try to unlock any passages except the passages that seemingly\nhad a bearing on her belief. That is, Mrs. Eddy believed things first,\nand then skirmished for proof. This is a very old plan. Says\nShakespeare: \"In religion what damned error but some somber brow will\nbless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness thereof with\nfair ornament.\" Let no one read \"Science and Health\" in the hope of\nfinding in it simple and sensible statements concerning life and its\nduties. They are not there.\n\nI append a few quotations, and in mentioning the page I refer to the\npocket or \"Oxford\" edition of Nineteen Hundred Six. On page one hundred\neighty-three of \"Science and Health\" I find, \"The Scriptures inform us\nthat sin, or error, first caused the condemnation of man to till the\nground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity.\"\n\nMrs. Eddy evidently believed that work is a punishment, and that the day\nwill come when God will remove the necessity of farming and making\ngarden. Can a sane person reply to such lack of logic?\n\nOn page five hundred forty-seven is this: \"If one of the statements in\nthis book is true, every one must be true, for not one departs from its\nsystem and rule. You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of\nhealing, and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct\ninterpretation of Scripture.\"\n\nThis is evidently inspired by Paul's quibble, \"If the dead rise not from\nthe grave, then is our religion vain.\" Lincoln once referred to this\nkind of reasoning by saying, \"I object to the assumption that my\nambition is to have my son marry a negress, simply because I am\nstruggling for emancipation.\" Mrs. Eddy may heal you, but that does not\nprove that her interpretation of Scripture is true. Because this\nhappens, that does not necessarily follow. Neither, because a thing\nprecedes a thing or goes with a thing, is the thing the cause of the\nthing. On page five hundred fifty-three is this: \"Adam was created\nbefore Eve. Herein it is seen that the maternal egg never brought forth\nAdam. Eve was formed from Adam's rib, not from a fetal ovum.\"\n\nIn reading things like this in \"Science and Health,\" let us not be too\nsevere on Mrs. Eddy, but just bear in mind that such silly superstitions\nand barbaric folklore are yet officially believed by all orthodox\nclergymen and members of orthodox churches. You can accept a belief in\nAdam's fall and the vicarious atonement and still make money and have\ngood health.\n\nPage one hundred two: \"The mild forms of animal magnetism are\ndisappearing, and its aggressive features are coming to the front. The\nlooms of crime, hidden in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every\nhour weaving webs more complicated and subtle. So secret are its present\nmethods that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very\napathy on this subject which the criminal desires.\"\n\nThis passage reveals the one actually dangerous thing in Christian\nScience--the fallacy that one mind can weave a web that will work the\nundoing of another. This is the basis of a belief in witchcraft, and\njustifies the hangings at Salem. On page one hundred three I find this:\n\"As used in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the\nspecific term for error, or mortal mind.\"\n\n\"It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and both evil and good;\nthat evil is as real as goodness, and more powerful. This belief has not\none quality of truth or good. It is either ignorant or malicious. The\nmalicious form of animal magnetism ultimates in moral idiocy. The\ntruths of immortal mind sustain man; and they annihilate the fables and\nmortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe\ntheir own wings and fall into dust. In reality there is no mortal mind,\nand consequently no transference of mortal thought and will-power.\" Page\nfive hundred two: \"Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the\nhistory of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal. This\ndeflection of being, rightly viewed, serves the spiritual actuality of\nman, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. When the crude forms of\nhuman thought take on higher symbols and significations, the\nscientifically Christian views of the universe will appear, illuminating\ntime with the glory of eternity.\"\n\nI append these two passages simply as samples of \"inspired literature.\"\n\nAny one who tries to understand such printed matter is headed for\nBloomingdale. You must leave it alone absolutely or else accept it and\nread it with your mental eyes closed, mumbling it with your lips, and\nlet your mind roam like a priest reading his breviary in the\nsmoking-apartment of a Pullman car. The question then arises, \"Was Mrs.\nEddy sincere in putting forth such writings?\"\n\nAnd the answer is, she was most certainly sincere, and she was certainly\nsane. She was an honest woman. But she was not a clear or logical\nthinker, except on matters of finance and business, and consequently she\ndid not give forth a clear expression when she essayed philosophy. In\norder to write lucidly you must think lucidly. Mrs. Eddy had no sense of\nliterary values. She was absolutely devoid of humor, and humor is only\nthe ability to detect a little thing from a big one--to perceive a wrong\nadjustment from a right one.\n\nStyle in literature is taste. But the lack of style, taste and humor is\ngeneral in mankind. The world has produced only a few great thinkers,\nand one of them was Darwin, a name which Mrs. Eddy mentioned in \"Science\nand Health\" with reproach. Great writers are even more rare than great\nthinkers, because to write one must have the ability not only to think\nclearly, but the knack or technical skill to use the right word, the\nluminous word, and so arrange, paragraph and punctuate them that your\nmeaning will be clear to average minds. To say that Mrs. Eddy was not a\nthinker nor a writer, is not an indictment of the woman, although it may\nbe a reflection on the mental processes of the people who think she was.\n\nTo say that there are two million people reading Mrs. Eddy, also proves\nnothing, since numbers are no vindication. Over a hundred million people\nhave kissed the big toe of Saint Peter in Rome.\n\nAnd surely the Roman Catholic Church contains a vast number of highly\neducated people. The things you do not know, you do not know. And Mrs.\nEddy, knowing nothing of literary style, knew nothing of literary art.\nHer prose and her poetry are worse than ordinary. All inspirational\npoetry I ever read is rot, and all inspired paintings I ever saw are\ndaubs. Mrs. Eddy should not be blamed for her limitations.\n\nMany people who are great in certain lines labor under the hallucination\nthat they are also great in others. Matthew Arnold was a great writer,\nand he also thought he was a great orator.\n\nBut when he spoke, his words simply fell over the footlights into the\norchestra and died there. He could not reach the front row. Most\ncomedians want to play Hamlet, and all of us have heard girls attempt to\nsing who thought they could sing, and who were encouraged in the\nhallucination by their immediate kinsfolk.\n\nMrs. Eddy thought she could write, and unfortunately she was\ncorroborated in her error by the applause of people who, not being able\nto read her book, kindly attributed the inability to their own\nlimitations and not to hers, being prompted in this by the suggestion\noft repeated by Mrs. Eddy, herself. The resemblance of Mrs. Eddy's\nthought to that of Jesus was never noticed until Mrs. Eddy first\nexplained the matter. Mrs. Eddy was by no means insane. Swedenborg was a\ncivil engineer and a mathematician. He wrote forty books that are nearly\nas opaque as \"Science and Health.\" If you write stupidly enough, some\none will surely throw up his cap and cry \"Great!\" And others will follow\nthe example and take up the shout, because it is much easier, as Doctor\nJohnson affirmed, to praise a book than to read and understand it. The\ncustom of reading to a congregation in a dead or foreign language, which\nthe listeners do not understand, has never caused any general protest\nfrom the listeners. The scoffers are the only ones who have ever noticed\nthe incongruity, and they do not count, since they probably would not\nattend, anyway.\n\nNext to reading from a book written in the dead language, is to read\nfrom a book that is unintelligible. To listen to such makes no tax upon\nthe intellect, and with the right accessories is soporific, restful,\npleasing and to be commended. If it does not supply an idea, it at least\nimparts a feeling. Mrs. Eddy's success in literature arose from the\nextreme muddiness of her thinking and her opacity in expression.\n\nIf she had written fairly well, her mediocrity would have been apparent\nto every one; but writing absolutely without rhyme or reason, we bow\nbefore her supreme assurance. The strongest element in men is\ninertia--we agree rather than fight about it. We want health--and health\nis what Mrs. Eddy gives to us--therefore, \"Science and Health with Key\nto the Scriptures\" is the greatest book in the whole world. Sancta\nsimplicitas! Why not, indeed!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPeople turn to Mrs. Eddy's book for relief just exactly as they formerly\nwent to the doctor for the same reason.\n\nIn addition to bodily health, Mrs. Eddy gives joy, hope, worldly\nsuccess; and even superior minds, seeing these practical results of\nChristian Science, move in the line of least resistance and are quite\nwilling to accept the book, not troubled at all about its medieval\nreasoning. In Ungania is a very great merchant who, not content with\nhaving the biggest store in the Kingdom, aspires to the biggest\nUniversity. The fact that the higher criticism is to him only a trivial\nmatter, and really unworthy of the serious attention of a busy man,\nsimply reveals human limitation.\n\nThe specialist is created at a terrific cost, and that a person will be\npractical, shrewd, diplomatic and wise in managing the buying public and\nan army of employees, and yet know and love Walt Whitman, is too much to\nexpect. This keen and successful merchant, an absolute tyrant in certain\nways, has his soft side and many pleasant qualities. Why any one should\never question the literal truth of the Bible is beyond his\ncomprehension.\n\nHe is convinced that \"Leaves of Grass\" is an obscene book, never having\nread it; yet he knows nothing about the third, eleventh and thirteenth\nchapters of Second Samuel, having read the Book all his life. He has a\npitying, patronizing smile for any one who suggests that David was a\nvery faulty man, and that possibly Solomon was not the wisest person\nthat ever lived. \"What difference does it make, anyway?\" he testily\nasks. If you work for him you have to agree with him, or else be very\nsilent as to what you actually believe. We often find an avowed and\nreiterated love for Jesus, the non-resistant, going hand in hand with a\npassion for war, a miser's greed, a lust for power and a thirst for\nrevenge.\n\nThere may be a prating about righteousness while the hand of the man is\nfeeling for his sword-hilt, and his eye is locating your jugular. The\nTen Commandments are all rescinded in war time. The New York \"Evening\nPost\" noted the peculiar fact that nine out of ten of the delegates at\nThe Hague International Peace Conference were theological heretics. As a\nrule, Orthodox Christians stand for war, and also for capital\npunishment. How do we explain these inconsistencies?\n\nWe do not try to: they are simply facts in the partial development of\nthe race. Why millionaires should patronize the memory of Jesus is\nsomething no one can understand, save that things work by antithesis.\nMrs. Eddy was of the same shrewd, practical type as the merchant prince\njust mentioned. She was the greatest woman-general of her day and\ngeneration. She possessed all the qualities that go to make successful\nleadership.\n\nShe was self-reliant, proud, arrogant, implacable in temper, rapid in\ndecision, unbending, shrewd, diplomatic--and a good hater.\n\nAt times she dismissed her critics with simply a look. No man could\ndictate to her, and few dared make suggestions in her presence. To move\nher, the matter had to be brought to her attention in a way that led her\nto believe that she had discovered it herself. And of course all the\ncredit went to her. In all Christian Science churches are various\nselections from her writings, and beneath every one is her name. \"Thou\nshalt have no other gods before me!\" is the one controlling edict\nbreathed forth by her life and words. One of her orders was that\nwhenever one of her hymns was announced, always and forever it must be\nstated that it was written by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. Always and forever,\nthe \"student\" giving testimony refers, in terms of lavish praise and\nfulsome adulation, to \"Our Blessed Teacher, Guide and Exemplar, Mary\nBaker Eddy.\" God Almighty and Jesus occupy secondary positions in all\nChristian Science meetings.\n\nMrs. Eddy is mentioned five times to where they are once. And I would\nnot criticize this if Mrs. Eddy had but regarded Jesus as simply a great\nman in history and \"God\" as an abstract term referring to the Supreme\nIntelligence in Nature. But to her, God and Jesus were persons who\ndictated books, and very frequently she was careful to explain that her\nmethod of healing was exactly the same as that practised by Jesus. Side\nby side with His words are hers. Passages from the Bible are read\nalternately with passages from \"Science and Health.\" If both were\nregarded as mere literature, this would be pardonable, but when we are\ntold that both are \"sacred\" writ, and \"damned be he who dares deny or\ndoubt,\" we are simply lost in admiration for the supreme egotism of the\nlady. To get mad about it were vain--let us all smile. Surely the\nimagination that can trace points of resemblance between Mrs. Mary Baker\nEddy and Jesus, the lowly peasant of Nazareth, is admirable. Jesus was a\ncommunist in principle, having nothing, giving everything. He carried\nneither scrip nor purse. He wrote nothing. His indifference to place,\npelf and power is His distinguishing characteristic. Mrs. Eddy's love of\npower was the leading motive of her life; her ability to bargain was\nbeautiful; her resorts to law and the subtleties of legal aid were all\nstrictly modern; and the way she tied up the title to her writings by\nlead-pipe-cinched copyrights reveals the true instincts of Connecticut.\n\nThis jealousy of her rights and the safeguarding of her interests were\namong the emphatic features of her life, and set her apart as the\nantithesis of Jesus.\n\nThere is one character in history, however, to whom Mrs. Eddy bore a\nclose resemblance--and that is Julius Caesar, who was educated for the\npriesthood, became a priest, and was Pope of Rome before he ventured\ninto fighting and politics as a business. Mrs. Eddy's faith in herself,\nher ability to decide, her quick intuitions, the method and simplicity\nof her life, her passion for power, her pleasure in authorship--all\nthese were the traits which exalted the name and fame of Caesar.\n\nThe inventor of the calendar ordered that it should be known as the\n\"Julian Calendar,\" and it is so called, even unto this day. Once Carlyle\nsat smoking with Milburn, the blind preacher. They had been discussing\nthe historicity of Jesus. Then they sat smoking in silence. Finally,\nTammas the Techy knocked the ashes out of his long clay t. d. and\nmuttered, half to himself and half to Milburn, \"Ah, a great mon, a great\nmon--but he had his limitations!\" The same remark can truthfully be\napplied to Mrs. Eddy. And about the only point that Jesus and Mrs. Eddy\nhave in common is this matter mentioned by Carlyle.\n\nThe superior shrewdness and the keen business instinct of Mrs. Eddy are\nseen in the use of the words \"Christian\" and \"Science.\" The sub-title,\n\"With Key to the Scriptures,\" is particularly alluring. And the use of\nthe Oxford binding was the crowning stroke of commercial insight. Surely\nMrs. Eddy must command our profound respect. She was undoubtedly a very\ngreat business genius, to say the very least.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen John Henry Newman became a Catholic, he gave as a reason for his\ndecision that he had found no place in literature or art to rest his\nhead. His reward for not finding a place in literature or art for his\nhead was the red hat.\n\nLet the followers of Mrs. Eddy take comfort in that their great teacher\nhad plenty of high precedent for believing that Adam was created by\nfiat, and Eve was made from his rib, all the fiat being used; that\nJoshua commanded the sun to stand still and it obeyed, even when the\norder should have been given to the earth; that Lazarus was raised from\nthe dead after his body had become putrid; that witchcraft is a fact in\nNature; and that children can be born with the aid of one parent a\nlittle better than in the old-fashioned way--parthenogenesis, I think\nthey call it.\n\nThese inconsistencies of absolute absurdity, existing side by side with\ngreat competence and sanity, are to be found everywhere in history.\n\nMrs. Eddy excited the envy of the medical world in her demonstration\nthat good health and happiness are the sure results of getting rid of\nthe doctor habit; but they got even with her when she said that virgin\nmotherhood would yet become the rule, and tilling of the soil would\ncease to be a necessity.\n\nSaint Augustine thought, as did most of the early Churchmen, that to do\nevil that good might follow was not only justifiable, but highly\nmeritorious. So they preached hagiology to scare people into the narrow\npath of rectitude.\n\nChapman, Alexander, Torrey, Billy Sunday and most other professional\nevangelists believe in and practise the same doctrine.\n\nThe literary conscience was a thing known in Greece, but only recently,\nsay within two hundred years, has it been again manifest, and as yet it\nis rare. It consists in the scorn and absolute refusal to write a line\nexcept that which stands for truth.\n\nThe artistic conscience that refuses to paint for hire or model on order\nis the same. Wagner, Millet, Rembrandt, William Morris and Ruskin are\nexamples of men who were incapable of anything but their highest and\nbest creative work, and refused to truckle to the mercenary horde. Such\nmen may be without conscience in a business way. And a person may be\nabsolutely moral in all his acts of life, except in writing and talking,\nand here he may be slipshod and uncertain.\n\nMrs. Eddy was beautifully lacking in the literary conscience, just as\nmuch so as was Gladstone when he attempted to reply to Ingersoll in \"The\nNorth American Review,\" and resorted to sophistry and evasion in\nlieu of logic. Absolute truth to Gladstone was a matter of\nindifference--expediency was his shibboleth. Truth to Mrs. Eddy was also\na secondary matter; the only things that really mattered were Health and\nSuccess. Health and Success are undoubtedly great things and well\nworthy of possession, but I wish to secure them only through the\nexpression of truth. If you gag my tongue, chain my pen and cry,\n\"Believe and you will have Health,\" I would say, \"Give me liberty or\ngive me death!\" Christian Scientists ask you to buy Mrs. Eddy's book,\n\"Science and Health.\"\n\nWhen the volume is handed you, you are promised health and success if\nyou believe its every word; and if you don't, you are threatened with\n\"moral idiocy.\"\n\nIt is the old promise of Paradise and the threat of Hell in a new guise.\nAs for me, I decline the book.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nStephen Girard was a great merchant who had a great love of truth; but\nif he had been in a retail business, his zeal for truth might have been\nslightly modified.\n\nAs a rule, the world of humanity can be divided into two parts: the\npractical men and the searchers for truth. Usually the latter have\nnothing to lose but their head. Spinoza, Galileo, Bruno, Thomas Paine,\nWalt Whitman, Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, are the pure type. Then\ncome Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson, crowded out of their\npulpits, scorned by their Alma Mater, pitied by the public--yet holding\ntrue to their course.\n\nAnd lo! they grew rich; whereas, if they had stuck close to the shore\nand safety, they would have been drowned in the shallows of oblivion.\n\nOn the other hand, we find in, say, the directorate of the Standard Oil\nCompany, many men who are zealous members of the orthodox churches,\ngiving large sums in support of the \"gospel,\" and taking an active\ninterest in its promulgation. All of them say, with the late Mr. Morgan,\n\"My mother's religion is good enough for me.\" So here we get practical\nshrewdness combined with minds that, so far as abstract truth is\nconcerned, are simply prairie-dog towns.\n\nThese men belong to a type that will cling to error as long as it is\nsoft, easy and popular. Most certainly these men are not fools--they are\nhighly competent and useful in their way. But as for superstition, they\nfind it soothing; it saves the trouble of thinking, and all their\nenergies are needed in business.\n\nReligion, to them, is a social diversion, with a chance of salvation on\nthe side. Inertia does not grip them when it comes to commerce--but in\nreligion it does. Lincoln once said that there was just one thing, and\nonly one thing, that God Almighty could not understand: and that was the\nworkings of the mind of an intelligent American juror.\n\nHerbert Spencer says that Sir Isaac Newton was one of the six best\neducated men the world has seen. He was the first man to resolve light\ninto its constituent elements. Voltaire says that when Newton discovered\nthe Law of Gravitation he excited the envy of the scientific world.\n\n\"But,\" adds Voltaire, \"when he wrote a book on the Bible prophecies, the\nmen of science got even with him.\" Sir Isaac Newton defended the literal\ninspiration of the Scriptures and was a consistent member of the Church\nof England. Doctor Johnson was unhappy all day if he didn't touch every\ntenth picket of the fence with his cane as he walked downtown.\n\nBlackstone, the great legal commentator, believed in witchcraft, and\nbolstered his belief by citing the Scriptural text, \"Thou shalt not\nsuffer a witch to live\"--thus proving Moses a party to the superstition.\nSir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of England, did the same.\n\nGladstone was a great statesman, and yet he believed in the Mosaic\naccount of Creation, just as did Mary Baker Eddy.\n\nJohn Adams was a rebel from political slavery, but lived and died a\nworthy Churchman, subsisting on canned theology--and canned in England,\nat that.\n\nFranklin and Jefferson were rebels from both political and theological\ndespotism, but looked leniently on leeches and apothecaries. Herbert\nSpencer had a free mind as regards religion, politics, economics and\nsociology; yet he was a bachelor, lived in the city, belonged to a club,\nplayed billiards and smoked cigars. Physical health was out of his\nreach, and with all his vast knowledge, he never knew why. All through\nhistory we find violence and gentleness, ignorance and wisdom, folly and\nshrewdness side by side in the same person.\n\nThe one common thing in humanity is inconsistency. To account for it\nwere vain. We know only that it is.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe very boldness of Mrs. Eddy's claims created an impetus that carried\nconviction.\n\nThe woman certainly believed in herself, and she also believed in the\nPower, of which she was a necessary part, that works for righteousness.\nShe repudiated the supernatural, not by denying \"miracles,\" but by\nholding that the so-called miracles of the Bible really occurred and\nwere perfectly natural--all according to Natural Law, which is the\nDivine Law.\n\nAnd the explanation of this Divine Law was her particular business. Thus\ndid she win to her side those who were too timid in constitution to\nforsake forms and ceremonies and stand alone on the broad ground of\nRationalism.\n\nChristian Science is not a religion of fight, stress and struggle. Isn't\nit better to relax and rest and allow Divinity to flow through us, than\nto sit on a sharp rail and call the passer-by names in falsetto? May\nIrwin's motto, \"Don't Argufy,\" isn't so bad as a working maxim, after\nall.\n\nAll Christian denominations are very much alike. Their differences are\nmicroscopic, and recognized only by those who are immersed in them.\nMartin Luther only softened the expression of the Roman Catholic\nChurch--he did not change its essence.\n\nBenjamin Franklin declared that he could not tell the difference between\na Catholic and an Episcopalian. But Christian Science is a complete\ndeparture from all other denominations, and while professing to be\nChristian, is really something else, or if it is Christian, then\northodoxy is not.\n\nChristian Science strikes right at the root of orthodoxy, since it\ndivides the power of Jesus with Mary Baker Eddy and affirms that Jesus\nwas not \"The Savior,\" but A Savior.\n\nThis is the position of Thomas Paine, and all other good radicals.\nChristian Science places Mrs. Eddy's work right alongside of the Bible.\nNo denomination has ever put out a volume stating that the book was\nrequired in order to make the Bible intelligible. No denomination has\never put forth a person as the equal of Jesus. This has only been done\nby unbelievers, atheists and free-thinkers.\n\nChristianity is at last attacked in its own house and by its own\nhousehold. It is thoroughly understood and admitted everywhere that\nthere are two kinds of Christianity. One is the kind taught by the\nNazarene; and the other is the institutional variety, made up of\ndenominations which hold millions upon millions of dollars' worth of\nproperty without taxation, and parade their ritual with rich and costly\nmillinery.\n\nThe one was lived by a Man who had not where to lay His head; and the\nother is an acquirement taken over from pagan Rome, and continued\nlargely in its pagan form even unto this day. Christian Science is\nneither one nor the other, and the obvious pleasantry that it is\nneither Christian nor scientific is a jest in earnest. Christian Science\nis a modern adaptation of all that is best in the simplicity and\nasceticism of Jesus, the commonsense philosophy of Benjamin Franklin,\nthe mysticism of Swedenborg, and the bold pronunciamento of Robert\nIngersoll. It is a religion of affirmation with a denial-of-matter\nattachment.\n\nIt is a religion of this world. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows but Mary\nBaker Eddy was a Daughter of Joy.\n\nAnd as the universal good sense of mankind holds that the best\npreparation for a life to come, if there is one, is to make the best of\nthis, Christian Science is meeting with a fast-growing popular\nacceptance.\n\nThe decline of the old orthodoxy is owing to its clinging to the fallacy\nthat the world's work is base, and Nature is a trickster luring us to\nour doom. Mrs. Eddy reconciled the old idea with the new and made it\nmentally palatable. And this is the reason why Christian Science is\ngoing to sweep the earth and in twenty years will have but one\ncompetitor, the Roman Catholic faith.\n\nOrthodoxy, blind, blundering, stubborn, senile, is tottering--the\nundertaker is at the door. Indeed, the old idea of our orthodox friends\nthat they were preparing to die, was literally true.\n\nThe undertaker's name and business address attached to the front of many\na city church is a sign too subtle to overlook. Not only was the\nundertaker a partner of the priest, but he is now foreclosing his claim.\nChristian Science is not final. After it has lived its day, another\nreligion will follow, and that is the Religion of Commonsense, the\nesoteric religion which Mrs. Eddy herself lived and practised.\n\nAs for her believers, she gave them the religion of a Book--two Books,\nthe Bible and \"Science and Health.\" They want form and ritual and\ntemples.\n\nShe gave them these things, just as doctors give sweetened water to\npeople who still demand medicine; and as if to supply the zealous\nconverts, just out of orthodoxy, their fill of ecclesiastic husks, she\nbuilt fine churches--churches rivaling the far-famed San Salute of\nVenice. Let them have their wish! Paganism is in their blood--they are\neven trying to worship her!\n\nLet them go on and eventually they will pray not in temples nor on this\nor that mountain, but in spirit and in truth, just as did Mrs. Eddy, one\nof the world's most successful women.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nChristian Science is orthodox Christianity, minus medical fetish and the\nfear that a belief in sin, sickness, death and eternal punishment\nnaturally lends, plus the joy of a natural, healthy, human life. The\nso-called rational Christian sects preserve their Devil in the form of a\nDoctor, and Hell in the shape of a Hospital.\n\nMy hope and expectation is that Christian Science will become a Rational\nReligion instead of a one-man institution, or a religion of authority,\nsuch as it now is. Its superstitious features have doubtless been strong\nfactors in its rapid growth--serving as stays or stocks to aid in the\nlaunching.\n\nBut now, the sooner the ship floats free the better. Christian\nScientists, being men and women, can not continue to grow if fettered\nwith an Index Expurgatorius and mandatory edicts and encyclicals. That\nwhich binds and manacles must go--the good will remain.\n\nChristian Science brings good news, and good news is always curative.\nMrs. Eddy animated her patients with a new thought--the thought of\nharmony, the denial of disease, and the affirmation that God is good and\nlife is beautiful. The animation thus produced is in itself the most\npowerful healing principle known to science. Life is born of love. Joy\nis a prophylactic. Christian Science comes to the \"student\" as a great\nflood of light. His circulation becomes normal, his muscles relax, the\nnerves rest, digestion acts, elimination takes place--and the person is\nwell.\n\nFear has congested the organs--love, hope and faith place them in an\nattitude so Nature plays through them. The patient is healed. In it\nthere is neither mystery nor miracle. It is all very simple.\n\nLet us rid ourselves of a belief in the strange and occult! The\nChristian Science organization is an expediency. It is an intellectual\ncrutch. The book is a necessity. It is a scaffolding. Yet he who\nmistakes the scaffolding for the edifice is a specialist in scaffolding.\n\nTruth can never be caught and crystallized in a formula. Also this:\ntruth can never be monopolized by an \"ite\" or an \"ist.\" Eventually the\nlabel will be eliminated with the scaffolding, and the lumber of ritual\nand rite will have to go.\n\nWe will live truth instead of talking about it. Among Christian\nScientists there are no drunkards, paupers or gamblers. Also, there are\nno sick people. To them sickness is a disgrace.\n\nOrthodox Christians get sick and gratify their sense of approbation by\nreceiving pastoral calls and visits from the doctor and neighbors. The\nbiblical injunction to visit the sick was never followed by Mrs.\nEddy--she always decided for herself just what injunctions should be\nwaived and what followed.\n\nThose which she did not like she interpreted spiritually or else glided\nover. The biblical statement that man's days are few and full of\ntrouble, and also the assertion that man is prone to wickedness as the\nsparks fly upwards, are both very conveniently glossed.\n\nChristian Scientists know the rules of health, just as most people do;\nbut what is more, they follow them, thus avoiding the disgrace of being\npointed out. They have made sickness not only tabu, but invalidism\nridiculous.\n\nWhen things become absurd and preposterous, we abandon them.\nUnpopularity can do what logic is helpless to bring about. The reasoning\nof Christian Scientists is bad, but their intuitions are right.\n\nWhile denying the existence of matter, no people on earth are as canny,\nsave possibly the Quakers. A bank-balance to a Christian Scientist is no\nbarren ideality. It is like falsehood to a Jesuit--a very present help\nin time of trouble. Sin, to them, consists in making too much fuss about\nlife and talking about death. Do what you want and forget it. Quit\ntalking about the weather, night air, miasma.\n\nKnowingly or unknowingly Christian Scientists cultivate resiliency. They\nare proof against drafts and microbes. Eat what you like, but not too\nmuch of it. Be moderate. Christian Scientists get their joy out of their\nwork. This is essentially hygienic. They breathe deeply, eat moderately,\nbathe plentifully, work industriously--and smile. This is all sternly\nscientific. It can never be argued down.\n\nNo school of medicine has ever offered a prophylactic equal to work and\ngood-cheer, and no system of religion has ever offered a working formula\nfor health, happiness and success equal to that launched by Mrs. Eddy.\nThe science of medicine is a science of palliation.\n\nChristian Scientists avoid the cause of sickness, and thus keep well.\n\nThere is no vitality in drugs. Nature cures--obey her. In this matter of\nbodily health just a few plain rules suffice. And these rules, fairly\nfollowed, soon grow into a pleasurable habit. Fortunately, we do not\nhave to oversee our digestion, our circulation, the work of the millions\nof pores that form the skin, or the action of the nerves. Folks who get\nfussy about their digestion and assume personal charge of their nerves\nhave \"nerves\" and are apt to have no digestion.\n\n\"I have a pain in my side,\" said the woman who had no money to the busy\ndoctor. \"Forget it,\" was the curt advice. Get the Health Habit, and\nforget it.\n\nThis is the quintessence of Christian Science. Your mental attitude\ncontrols your body. Happiness is your health. There is no devil but\nfear. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSO HERE ENDETH \"LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT TEACHERS,\" BEING\nVOLUME TEN OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD; EDITED AND\nARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS, AND\nPRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA,\nERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII","title":"Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 10: Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":76504}