Thus far I have been trying to impress upon you the reasons why you
should cultivate individuality and independence in word and deed. I
have claimed that each one of you has a “call” to some specific work,
indicated by God’s gifts to you of brain, or heart, or hand. But I would
not have you only, or indeed chiefly, concerned with the evolution of
your powers for your own sake. If you acquire, let it be that you may
dispense; if you achieve, that others may sun themselves in the kind glow
of your prosperity. The people who spend all their strength in absorbing
are failures and parasites. It is alike the business of the sun and of
the soul to radiate every particle of light that they can muster. There
is reason to believe that this is precisely what they are for. And so,
having made sure of your light, strength and discipline, strike out from
the warm and radiant center of a self-poised brain and heart, into the
lives about you, and you will find that “What is good for the hive is
also good for the bee.” The luminous characters of history have done
this, always. Losing their lives in those of other men, they have found
them in the crest of the world’s gratitude and fame. What they have done
on a grand scale, we, from identical motives, may do on a small one.
Such natures are as different from those who cultivate their strongest
gift simply for their own sake, as a _lighthouse_ is different from a
_dark lantern_. “Self-culture” is much in vogue nowadays, and has for
its high priests some of the most incisive minds of this or any age.
But self-culture stops in the middle of the sentence I would fain help
you to utter. It says: “Make the most of your powers;” it does not say
“_for others’ sake_ as well as your own.” It claims that if we set the
candle of our gifts upon the candlestick of modern society, its light
will inevitably radiate according to its power of shining, and thus while
brightening ourselves we shall have done our utmost toward lighting up
the general gloom. But self-culture forgets that a candle is no type of
you and me. We are human spirit-lamps, whose rays should be directed and
intensified by the blow-pipe of an unceasing purpose; for we are all so
made that unless we _will_ to light up other lives, we can never do so to
the limit of our power. Self-culture is never base; it is often noble,
but it can never be the noblest aim of all.
Why is the memory of Mrs. Browning loved beyond that of almost any
poet who has sung? Because “the cry of the human” is so strong in that
wondrous voice of hers. Why is the name carved deepest on the republic’s
heart that of its martyr President? Because he gave their manhood back
to four millions of slaves, and lived and toiled for his people’s sake,
“with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Why was the lamentation
well nigh universal when under the sea flashed the telegraphic message,
“John Stuart Mill is dead?” Because this quiet thinker lived for other
men; because he “struck out from the center,” from himself, that pitiful
pivot on which so many human wind-mills turn, and measured, in the swift
flight of its benignant thought, the long radius between him and the
remotest circle of human need; because, more than any other philosopher
of his day, he labored for the time when “all men’s weal shall be each
man’s care.”
Nay, while I mourn, as I have seldom mourned for an historic character,
the cloud that early dimmed, for Stuart Mill, the Star of Bethlehem, I
will not, as a woman, withhold from his memory the tribute of my humble
gratitude. But while I speak of all these lives, shining like beacon
lights of our own day, I would not fail to point you in conclusion toward
a wide-armed cross upon a lonely hillside, while I repeat his words who
said, “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Dear girls,
CHRIST is the magnet of humanity, and she has found the best vocation,
and the highest, who brings most souls diseased within the healing
power of his immortal gospel. This is a work for which women have gifts
preëminent. The Saxon word for lady means “a giver of bread,” and is full
of beautiful significance, but America’s new century shall evolve another
meaning, freighted with greater blessing for humanity: lady, giver of the
bread of life! In later years we have had a revelation of our duty to
the ungospeled masses, the “elbow heathen,” as an evangelist has called
them, to the intemperate (who, as a rule, are quite beyond the hearing
of the pulpit’s voice), and to the dusky dwellers in the Zenana, whose
faces are misty with the unshed tears of generations passed in misery
and shame. Two thirds of the Church of Christ are women. By the freer
life and richer opportunity which you and I enjoy; by society’s growing
tolerance, not to say its kindly appreciation, of our activities; by the
heart transformed and the peace imparted through the gospel, the voice of
our Redeemer pleads for our consecrated service. I would not undervalue
the culture of the intellect, but would exalt the culture of the heart.
In all that has been written until now, I have simply tried to outline
the new horizon opened up to the gentler sex as the supreme outgrowth
of that civilization which He introduced, of whom history records the
significant fact that women were “last at his cross, first at his
sepulchre.” To attempt some delineation of the landscape enclosed by
that far-reaching horizon is my more difficult task in the chapters now
to follow. Many letters have come to me as a result of the articles thus
far; they bristle with questions and are eloquent with aspiration. Later
on I may ask space for a “symposium” with these “inquiring friends” in
the genial pages of our tolerant CHAUTAUQUAN. One speaking with authority
exhorts me to “Be practical—that’s what we want!” As if I hadn’t been!
But every mind is the prisoner of its own material and method. I can
but give of such things as I have; can only tell what life has told to
me. According to my own habits of thought, the sequence seems logical,
when I turn for a while from the presentation of the modern outlook for
women, with its opportunity and hope, to the _rationale_ of this new
horizon stretching so far away. Let us note the pathway that has led
up to this more hopeful point of view, asking the inevitable question,
“Why does that seem natural and fitting for a young woman to do and to
aspire to now, which would have been no less improper than impossible, a
hundred years ago?” Sweet friends, it is because _the ideal of woman’s
place in the world is changing in the average mind_. For as the artist’s
ideal precedes his picture, so the ideal woman must be transformed
before the actual one can be. In an age of brute force, the warrior
galloping away to his adventures waved his mailed hand to the lady
fair who was enclosed for safe keeping in a grim castle with moat and
drawbridge. But to-day, when spirit force grows regnant, a woman can
circumnavigate the globe alone, without danger of an uncivil word, much
less of violence. We shall never span a wider chasm than this change
implies. All our inventions have led up to it, and have in nothing else
wrought out beneficence so great as they have accomplished here, purely
by indirection. In brief, the barriers that have hedged women into one
pathway and men into another, altogether different, are growing thin, as
physical strength plays a less determining part in our life drama. All
through the vegetable and animal kingdoms the fact of sex does not widely
differentiate the broader fact of life, its environment and its pursuits.
Hence, the immense separateness which sex is called in to explain when
we reach the plane of humanity, is to be accounted for largely on other
purely artificial grounds. In Eden it did not exist, nor in the original
plan of creation, as stated in these just and fatherly words: “And God
said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness. Let
them have dominion.’ … So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him, male and female created he them, and God blessed
them, and said unto them, ‘ … replenish the earth and subdue it … and
have dominion over every living thing.’” After the fall came the curse,
which was no part of the original design, and from which the gospel’s
triumph is releasing us, for there is “neither male nor female in Christ
Jesus.” I believe that the origin of evil came in with man’s supremacy
over one who was meant to be his comrade, and that Paradise regained will
come only when the laureate’s prophecy is realized:
“Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the noisy business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life;
Two plummets dropped to sound the abyss of science
And the secrets of the mind.”
The times when a new ideal is moulded, in church, state, or society, mark
the epochs of history. Amid what throes did Europe pass from that of
supreme authority in the church to the incomparably higher one of supreme
liberty in conscience; from the divine right of kings to the divine right
of the people. But there was to come a wider evolution of the same ideal,
namely, the coequal power of the copartners, man and woman, in working
out the problem of human destiny. This newest and noblest of ideals marks
the transition from physical force ruling, to spiritual force recognized.
The gradual adjustment of everyday occupation, custom and law, to this
new ideal, marks ours as a transition period. Those who have the most
enlargement of opportunity to hope from the change, will, in the nature
of the case, move on most rapidly into the new conditions, and this helps
to explain, I think, why women seem to be climbing more rapidly than
men, to-day, the heights of spiritual power, with souls more open to the
“skyey influences” of the oncoming age.
More women study to-day than men; a greater proportion travel abroad
for purposes of culture; a larger share are moral and religious. Half
of the world’s wisdom, three fourths of its purity, and nearly all its
gentleness, are to-day to be set down on woman’s credit side. Weighted
with the alcohol and tobacco habits, Brother Jonathan will have to make
better time than he is doing now, if he keeps step with Sister Deborah
across the threshold of the twentieth century. For the law of survival
of the fittest will inevitably choose that member of the firm who is
cleanliest, most wholesome, most accordant with God’s laws of nature
and of grace, to survive. To the blindness or fatuity which renders him
oblivious of the fact that the coming woman is already here, our current
writer of the W. D. Howells and Henry James school owes the dreary
monotony of his “society novel.” Not more “conventional” was the style
of art known as “Byzantine,” which repeated with barren iteration its
placid and colorless “type,” than are the dudesque pages of this pair
of literary martinets. The “American novel” will not be written until
the American woman, a type now to be found in Michigan, Madison, Boston,
Cornell, and other universities, shall have taken her place, twentieth
century product that she is, beside the best survivals of young men in
similar institutions, and wrought out the Home, the Church, the State
that are to be. Measuring each other on all planes, these life partners
will know each other’s value, and no appeal to the divorce court will be
made to relieve them, a few years after marriage, from an incompatibility
that has ripened into open war. Happy homes will dot the country from
shore to shore, in which both the man and the woman will do their best to
lift the world toward God.
“Self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-control; these three alone lead
life to a sovereign power,” and these are fast becoming essential to any
ideal of womanly character which the modern age will recognize as the
product of its institutions. Of self-knowledge, these talks have said
much. Self-reverence I would fain help you to develop in your character
as a woman. If my dear mother did me one crowning kindness it was in
making me believe that next to being an angel, the greatest bestowment
of God is to make one a woman. With what contempt she referred to the
old Jewish formula in which the less refined sex rolled out the words,
“I thank thee, O God, that thou hast not made me a woman,” and with what
pathos she repeated the gentle prayer of the other, “I thank thee, O God,
that thou hast made me as it pleased thee,” with the pithy comment, “What
could have pleased Him better, I should like to know, than to make one
so rare, so choice, so spiritual as woman is?” Perhaps some of you may
have thought you wanted to be a boy, but I seriously doubt it. You may
have wanted a boy’s freedom, his independence, his healthful, unimpeding
style of dress, but I do not believe any true girl could ever have been
coaxed to be a boy. Reverence yourself, then, if you would learn one of
the first elements of “How to Win” in this great world race, with its
“go-as-you-please” terms, but its “Lucifer-may-take-the-hindmost” penalty
for failure.
What will the new ideal of woman _not_ be? She will never be written
down in the hotel register by her husband after this fashion: “John
Smith and Wife.” He would as soon think of her writing “Mrs. John Smith
and Husband.” Why does it not occur to any one to designate him thus?
Simply because he is so much more than that. He is a leading force in
the affairs of the church; he helps decide who shall be pastor. (So will
she.) He is perhaps the village physician, or merchant (so she will be,
perhaps—indeed, they are oftentimes in partnership, nowadays, and I
have found their home a blessed one). He is the village editor. (Very
likely she will be associate.) He is a voter. (She will be, beyond a
peradventure.) For the same reason you will never read of her marriage
that “the minister pronounced them _man_ and _wife_” for that functionary
would have been just as likely to pronounce them “husband and woman,” a
form of expression into which the regulation reporter will be likely to
fall one of these days, it being, really, not one whit more ridiculous
than the time-worn phrase, “man and wife.” The ideal woman of the future
will never be designated as “the Widow Jones,” because she will be so
much more than that—“a provider” for her children, “a power” in the
church, “a felt force” in the state. I think George Eliot is the first
woman to attain the post-mortem honor of having her husband called “her
widower,” John W. Cross having been thus indicated in English papers of
the period. A turn about is fair play, and the phrase is really quite
refreshing to one’s sense of justice. The ideal woman will not write upon
her visiting card, nor insist on having her letters addressed, to Mrs.
John Smith, or Mrs. Gen. Smith, as the case may be, but will, if her
maiden name was Jones, fling her banner to the breeze as “Mrs. Mary Jones
Smith,” and will be sure to make it honorable. She will not be the lay
figure made and provided to illustrate the fashions of Monsieur Worth and
lesser lights of the same guild, but will insist that the goddess Hygiea
is the only true modiste, and will dutifully obey her orders. As the
Louvre gallery proves that when men were but the parasites of the court
they too decked themselves with ear-rings, high heels, powdered hair and
gaudy garments, so the distorted figures in the detestable fashion plates
of to-day are the irrefutable proofs of woman’s fractional estate; but
this will not be so to-morrow, when she finds her kingdom—which is her
own true self. The ideal woman will cease to heed the cruel “Thus far and
no farther,” which has issued from the pinched lips of old Dame Custom,
checking her ardent steps throughout all the ages past, and will be
studious only to hear the kindly “Thus far and no farther” of God.
The ideal woman will play Beatrice to man’s Dante in the Inferno of his
passions. She will give him the clue out of materialism’s Labyrinth. She
will be civilization’s Una, taming the Lion of disease and misery. The
State shall no longer go limping on one foot through the years, but shall
march off with steps firm and equipoised. The keen eye and deft hand of
the housekeeper shall help to make its everyday walks wholesome; the
skill in detail, trustworthiness in finance, motherliness in sympathy,
so long extolled in private life, shall exalt public station. Indeed,
if I were asked the mission of the ideal woman, I would reply: IT IS TO
MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD HOMELIKE. Some one has said that “Temperament is
the climate of the individual,” but home is woman’s climate, her vital
breath, her native air. A true woman carries home with her everywhere.
Its atmosphere surrounds her; its mirror is her face; its music attunes
her gentle voice; its longitude may be reckoned from wherever you happen
to find her. But
“Home’s not merely four square walls.”
Some people once thought it was, and they thought, also, that you might
as well throw down its Lares and Penates as to carry away its weaving
loom and spinning wheel. But it survived this spoliation; and when
women ceased to pick their own geese and do their own dyeing, it still
serenely smiled. The sewing machine took away much of its occupation;
the French and Chinese laundries have intruded upon its domain; indeed,
men, by their “witty inventions,” are perpetually encroaching on “woman’s
sphere,” so that the next generation will no doubt turn the cook stove
out of doors, and the housekeeper, standing at the telephone, will
order better cooked meals than almost any one has nowadays, sent from
scientific caterers by pneumatic tubes, and the debris thereof returned
to a general cleaning-up establishment; while houses will be heated, as
they are now lighted and supplied with water, from general reservoirs.
Women are fortunate in belonging to the less tainted half of the race.
Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson says that but for this conserving fact it
would deteriorate to the point of failure. A bright old lady said, after
viewing a brewery, distillery and tobacco factory: “Ain’t I thankful that
the women folks hain’t got all that stuff to chew and smoke and swallow
down!” It behooves us to offset force of muscle by force of heart, that
what our strong brothers have done to subdue the material world for us,
who are not their equals in physical strength, may be offset by what we
shall achieve for them in bringing in the reign of “Sweeter manners,
purer laws.” For the world is slowly making the immense discovery that
not what woman does, but what she is, makes home a possible creation.
It is the Lord’s ark, and does not need steadying; it will survive the
wreck of systems and the crash of theories, for the home is but the
efflorescence of woman’s nature under the nurture of Christ’s gospel. She
came into the college and elevated it, into literature and hallowed it,
into the business world and ennobled it. She will come into government
and purify it, into politics and cleanse that Stygian pool as the
waters of Marah were cleansed; for woman will make homelike every place
she enters, and she will enter every place on this round earth. Any
custom, or traffic, or party, on which a woman can not look with favor
is irrevocably doomed. Its welcome of her presence and her power is to
be the final test of its fitness to survive. All Gospel civilization is
radiant with the demonstration of this truth:
“It is not good for man to be alone.”
The most vivid object lesson on history’s page is the fact that his
deterioration is in exact proportion to his isolation from the home of
woman’s pure companionship. To my own grateful thought, the most sacred
significance of woman’s work to-day lies in the fact that she occupies
the outer circle in this tremendous evolution of the Christian idea of
home. Ours is a high and sacred calling. Out of pure hearts, fervently
let us love God and humanity; so shall we be Christ’s disciples, and so
shall we safely follow on to know the work whereunto we have been called.
“’Tis home where’er the heart is,”
and no true mother, sister, daughter or wife, can fail to go in spirit
after her beloved and tempted ones, as their adventurous steps enter the
labyrinth of the world’s temptations. We can not call them back.
“All before them lies the way.”
There is but one remedy; we must bring the home to them, for they will
not return to it. Still must their mothers walk beside them, sweet and
serious, and clad in the garments of power. The occupations, pleasures
and ambitions of men and women must not diverge so widely from each
other. Potent beyond all other facts of everyday experience is the
rapidly increasing similarity between the pursuits of these two factions
that make up the human integer. When brute force reigned, this rapport
was at zero. “Impediments to the rear,” was the command of Cæsar and the
rule of every warrior—women and children being the hindrances referred
to. But to-day there is not a motto more popular than that of the
inspired old German, “Come, let us live for our children;” and as for
women, “the world is all before them where to choose.”
No greater good can come to the manhood of the world than is prophesied
in the increasing community of thought and works between it and the
world’s womanhood. The growing individuality, independence and prestige
of the gentler sex steadily require from the stronger a higher standard
of character and purer habits of life. This blessed consummation, so
devoutly to be wished, is hastened, dear girlish hearts, by every prayer
you offer, by every hymn you sing, by every loving errand of your willing
feet and gentle hands. You are the true friends of tempted manhood,
bewildered youth and every little child. The steadfast faith and loyal,
patient work you are to do, will be the mightiest factor in woman’s
contribution to the solution of this Republic’s greatest problem, and
will have their final significance in the thought and purpose, not that
the world shall come into the home, but that the home, embodied and
impersonated in its womanhood, shall go forth into the world.
I have no fears for the women of America. They will never content
themselves remaining stationary in methods or in policy, much less sound
a retreat in their splendid warfare against the saloon in law and in
politics. The tides of the mother’s heart do not change; we can count
upon them always. The voice of Miriam still cheers the brave advance, and
all along the line we hear the battle cry: “Speak unto the children of
Israel, that they go forward.”
THE CATLIN PAINTINGS.
BY O. T. MASON.
If you will enter the National Museum at Washington, and give your cane
or umbrella to the venerable gentleman at the stand, you will see some
wonderful old pictures. Turn abruptly to your right, cast a patriotic
glance at the clothing and camp furniture of the Father of his Country,
and a few steps will bring you into the museum lecture room, whose east,
south, and west walls are covered with quaint sketches of American
aboriginal life, mounted in the dingiest possible black frames. This is
the Catlin Collection, by far the most celebrated Indian paintings in the
world, since the dreadful fire in the Smithsonian Institution burned up
the Stanley portraits in 1864. A few words about this wonderful painter
would certainly interest you before you begin to look at his pictures.
George Catlin was born in Wilkesbarre, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania,
in 1796. His father was a lawyer, and, naturally, took every pains to
educate his son for that profession, sending him at last to Yale College
to finish his course. But that which has often happened to boys was
true in George’s case—he loved fishing and painting more than he loved
the bar. His law practice lasted two years, after which he established
himself in New York and Philadelphia as a portrait painter. In the year
1832 he saw a delegation of Indians from St. Louis, a town of 25,000
inhabitants, then headquarters for the Central Superintendency (see
painting 311), and was so overwhelmed by their appearance that nothing
could overcome his desire to visit them in their homes. Convinced
that the noble savage would rapidly decline before the advance of
civilization, and realizing as if by inspiration the value which a
pictorial history of the dying race would possess to future students of
primitive history, he set out alone for St. Louis, with pen and brush,
to accomplish this noble design. Here he became acquainted with Mr.
Chouteau, a gentleman thoroughly conversant with the Indian country and
character, who secured for the painter a free ride to the mouth of the
Yellowstone in a little, rude steamer called the “Yellowstone.”
He devoted eight years, from 1832 to 1840, to his enterprise, visiting
forty-eight tribes of Indians residing within British America, the United
States and Mexico. Speaking of these years in after life he says: “I
have seen them in their own villages, have carried my canvas and colors
the whole way, and painted my portraits from life as they now stand in
the gallery. Some of them have been taken while I have been paddling my
canoe, or leading my pack-horse through trackless wilds, even at the
hazard of my life.”
On his return to the East from this remarkable Odyssey, Mr. Catlin
exhibited his sketches, together with such a collection of weapons,
dress, ornaments and implements as it will never be possible to procure
again, in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, to great crowds of visitors.
The papers were filled with praises respecting it. The _United States
Gazette_ says: “There can be no mistake or exaggeration in pronouncing
the exhibition of these views of the scenery and natural history of the
western country the most important and interesting object for public
attention which has ever been offered to the eastern division of the
United States.”
Many of Mr. Catlin’s friends were anxious for the government or some well
founded institution to buy the collection, but nothing was accomplished.
In 1840 Mr. Catlin took his pictures abroad, prospects having been held
out to him of getting a handsome price for them. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer admitted the packages free of duty, and the whole was set up in
a room 106 feet long, in Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London.
Numerous assemblages, comprising many of the distinguished members of
the fashionable and the literary world visited the entertainments and
listened to the lectures of Mr. Catlin.
It is just a little to be feared that the painter added to the genius of
the artist a modicum of the showman’s vanity, in support of which theory
the following is quoted from the London _Morning Post_: “This valuable
collection of portraits, landscapes, scenes from savage life, weapons,
costumes, and an endless variety of illustrations of Indian life, real
as well as pictorial, continues to attract crowds of spectators. We are
happy to find our prediction fully borne out by fact, that the exhibition
only required to be made known to the public to be fully appreciated.
The most pleasing attention is paid by Mr. Catlin and his assistants to
gratify the curiosity of visitors, to point out the peculiarities of the
various subjects through which they wander, and to explain everything
which strikes the eye and attracts the observer to inquire into its use
or meaning. During our visit on Saturday the company were startled by
a yell, and shortly afterward by the appearance of a stately chief of
the Crow Indians stalking silently through the hall, armed to the teeth
and painted to the temples, wrapped in a buffalo robe, on which all his
battles were depicted, and wearing a tasteful coronet of war eagle’s
quills. This personation was volunteered by a nephew of Mr. Catlin, who
has seen the red man in his native wilds, and presents the most proud
and picturesque similitude of the savage warrior that can be conceived.
His war-whoop, his warlike appearance and dignified movements seem to
impress the assemblage more strikingly with a feeling of the character
of the North American Indian than all the other evidences which crowded
the walls. Subsequently he appeared in another splendid costume worn
by the braves of the Mandan tribe, also remarkable for its costly and
magnificent head-dress, in which we see the ‘horns of power’ assume a
conspicuous place. The crowds that gathered around him on each occasion
were so dense that Mr. Catlin could scarcely find space to explain in
full detail all the costumes; but we are glad to find he is preparing a
central stage where all may enjoy a full and fair sight of ‘the Red Man,’
as he issues from his wigwam, clad in the peculiar robes and ornaments of
his tribe, to fight, hunt, smoke, or join in the dances, festivals, and
amusements of each nation.”
This, of course, smacks a little of Buffalo Bill, but it pleased the
Europeans amazingly. Mr. Catlin gave exhibitions in Waterloo rooms,
Edinburgh; in the Louvre, at Paris, where Louis Philippe gave him ample
space; and in many other European cities, occupying in all about eight
years. During this time he published “Manners and Customs,” etc.; “The
North American Portfolio;” “Eight Years’ Travels.” In 1861 he published a
little work on “The Breath of Life,” certainly the funniest serious book
we have ever read. In 1862 appeared “Last Rambles Among the Indians,” etc.
As many other people have done concerning their own handiwork, Mr.
Catlin overestimated the intrinsic value of his paintings and specimens,
and made the mistake of thinking that everybody would surely be as
enthusiastic as himself. The British government did not buy the
gallery. Even the platform and Mr. Catlin’s nephew could not save the
ship. In Belgium financial embarrassment overtook the painter and his
works. The whole material was likely to go under the hammer, when Mr.
Thomas Harrison, a wealthy Philadelphian, advanced the money and took
the collection as security, with the understanding that it could be
redeemed. This proving beyond Mr. Catlin’s means, all of the paintings
and specimens were transferred to Philadelphia and stored until Mr.
Harrison’s death, when his widow presented the entire gallery to the
National Museum, together with such dresses, etc., as time and moths had
spared.
Perhaps you have heard that the Washington pictures are not the
originals. The facts are these: After transferring his material in
Belgium to Mr. Harrison, Mr. Catlin traveled throughout North America,
and even in South America, making aboriginal sketches. This second
collection was exhibited for a time in the west corridor of the
Smithsonian. On his death, in 1872, the pictures were packed up and
stored in the Smithsonian building until 1876, when they were transferred
to the Philadelphia Exposition. They are now to be seen in the permanent
exhibition there.
Now for the pictures. A great American ethnologist says “Catlin is the
great American Indian liar;” another, quite as eminent, says that when he
showed one of these pictures to a Sioux Indian, the latter was affected
to tears at the recognition of a dear friend long deceased. Both were
right. Recently M. Achille Collin, a French sculptor, was employed
to produce several busts of celebrated Indians, from photographs and
portraits, for the New Orleans Exposition. Among them was Osceola,
whose portrait is in the Catlin gallery. Fortunately, the Museum has
also Osceola’s death mask. M. Collin found that Catlin had placed the
eyes too far apart, and had perpetrated several other little artistic
outrages, yet the sculptor was able to rectify these and to produce a
wonderful bust of the wily Seminole. In one sense everything is wrong in
these paintings, in another sense they are teeming with life and spirit.
A French critic said in the Paris _Constitutionnel_: “A professional
painter is perfectly lost in the presence of a nature new to him, in such
singular lands, such original colors of sky, foliage and men.” You must
know a language in order to appreciate its beauties, you must know Indian
life to appreciate Catlin. His images do not pose, they fly across the
canvas. M. Schindler, whose lifelike portraiture of fishes has given him
a world-wide reputation, and who has lived among the Sioux and painted
them, has the same admiration of these savage portraitures, whose shadowy
looks are ominous of their fast fading originals. A workman in the Museum
whose business it is to arrange Indian costumes says that in those things
which anybody can do, Catlin was careless; but in the arrangement of
dress, ornaments and weapons, which nobody now knows how to fix, he is an
invaluable guide. It may not be known to all that the numberless tribes
formerly living within our domain belonged to a few well defined stocks,
recognizable by language, institutions, and customs. East of the Rocky
Mountains, where most of these pictures were painted, were the Athapascan
of the north, the Algonquin and Iroquois of the east, the Cherokee and
Muskokee of the south, and the Dakotan of the west. In the great interior
basin were the Shoshones, and west of the Sierras the Flatheads, Chinuks,
and many other little known stocks.
The Algonkin stock is represented in Mr. Catlin’s gallery by portraits
and groups of Sacs and Foxes, Sheyennes, Blackfeet, Chippewas and
Ottawas, Crees, Menomonees, Pottawatomies, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Weeahs,
Peorias, Piankeshaws, Mohegans, Delawares and Shawnees.
The celebrated league of the Iroquois by representatives from the
following tribes looks down upon us as Oneidas, Tuscaroras and Senecas.
John Ross, a civilized and well educated chief, with four other
celebrated faces, represents the Cherokee stock. The great Muskogee or
Creek confederacy includes paintings of distinguished Creeks, Choktas,
Seminoles, and Yuchees. Most of the last two stocks were well instructed
by Protestant missionaries, previously to their transfer into the Indian
Territory. It is this fact alone which explains their steady increase
while so many other tribes have melted away. It was among the Dakotas,
however, that Catlin’s enthusiasm first took fire and increased most
fervently. In addition to the many landscape and hunting pictures, whose
scenes are laid in this romantic country, you will see staring at you
from these dingy frames, men and women of many Dakotan tribes, Kansas,
Osages, Ponkas, Omahas, Otoes, Missourias, Iowas, Mandans, Blackfeet
Sioux, Crows, Assiniboins, Winnebagos, and Sioux proper. A few Comanches,
Pawnee Picts, Weecos, Pawnees and Arikarees, Flatheads and Chinuks
complete the list.
Of all the tribes visited by Mr. Catlin, the Mandans awaken the most
lively interest, not only by their impressive ceremonies, but because the
whole tribe were extinguished by smallpox and suicide in 1837, excepting
about forty who afterward fell victims to their enemies.
Look along on the wall until you find the pictures numbered 504, 505,
506 and 507. In these, by a series of tableaux, the painter presents
to us the annual ceremony of initiation, called the Sun dance by the
modern Dakotas, and witnessed two years ago by Miss Alice Fletcher. This
ceremony continues four days and nights in succession, in commemoration
of the subsiding of the flood, and also for the purpose of conducting
all the young men, as they arrive at manhood, through an ordeal of
voluntary torture, which when endured entitles them to the respect of
the chiefs, to the privileges of going on war-parties, and of taking
a wife. The floor and sides of the medicine lodge are ornamented with
green willow boughs. The young men who are to do penance by torture lie
along the sides of the lodge, their bodies covered with clay of different
colors, their respective shields and weapons hanging over their heads.
In the middle of the lodge the medicine man prays to the Great Spirit
and watches the young men through their four days’ fast, preparatory to
the torture. Near the medicine man lies a scalping knife, and a bunch
of splints which are to be passed through the flesh of the novitiates
like belaying pins. The Buffalo dance takes place several times each day
outside the lodge in which the young men lie. The principal actors in
this dance are eight men with the skins of buffaloes around them and a
bunch of green willows on their backs. The evil spirit, Okeehedee, enters
the village from the prairie, alarming the women, who cry for assistance
and are relieved by the old medicine man. Okeehedee is at length disarmed
of his lance, which is broken by the women, and he is driven by them in
disgrace out of the village. On the fourth day of the festival the young
men are subjected to the torture, which in many forms amounts essentially
to this: Two gashes, parallel and near together, are cut quite through
the skin, either on the breast, back or arms, looking for all the world
like those on the sides of a sheep dressed for market. A wooden pin is
thrust from gash to gash, under the intervening strip of skin. One end
of a long and strong rawhide line is wrapped or belayed around this peg
securely. Now comes the tug of war, the problem always being either to
tear this peg out by breaking the strip of flesh or to see how much
pain the sufferer can stand. He is hauled up to the roof of the lodge,
suspended from an elastic sapling, or dragged around the camp; finally
having fastened the end of the line farthest from him to a post, he tugs
away with might and main until his flesh is torn loose.
Turn now away from this dreadful scene and take a look at the funny side
of Indian life. Here is a fellow whose eager haste after a buffalo ends
in being thrown on the monster’s back and taking a bison ride over the
prairie. There the clans contend nip and tuck for mastery in the ball
play. On this canvas a celebrated archer is showing how many arrows he
can shoot before the first one falls. Perhaps your delicate sensibility
will not enjoy the dog dance, where the Sioux braves are dancing up
grotesquely and biting off pieces of a heart taken raw and bleeding
from a dog. Well, here is a sham battle of Mandan boys, their school of
practice every morning at sunrise, and just there a prairie-dog village.
This picture, No. 337, is the celebrated Pipestone quarry on the Couteau
des Prairies, 300 miles northwest of the Falls of St. Anthony, on the
divide between the St. Peters and the Missouri. Here is where from time
immemorial the Indians have obtained for making pipes that beautiful red
steatite, which the mineralogists now call _catlinite_, after our hero.
There are many more just as strange and interesting stories hanging about
this dear old Smithsonian, and some day THE CHAUTAUQUAN may let you into
the secret. You notice here and there that the fatal pointer has gone
quite through the noble brave, and that accounts for solicitude about
your cane and umbrella at the beginning. You will find them at the door,
and don’t fail to reclaim them with your check.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
BY PROF. W. W. GIST.
George Bancroft is the Nestor of American men of letters. Born October
3, 1800, he received his early training at Exeter Academy, and graduated
at Harvard in 1817. He is now eighty-four years old, and his life
has touched every administration in the history of our nation except
Washington’s. What mighty changes have been wrought in the land since
George Bancroft, a manly youth, stepped forth from his _alma mater_ a
full-fledged graduate! Two generations have passed away and a third
is now on the stage of action. Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Benton had
not yet reached the zenith of their power. These men have passed
away, and another group, equally great, of whom Abraham Lincoln was
the central figure, became conspicuous leaders in the most thrilling
period of our history, and have passed away likewise. Indeed, there are
thousands of voters to-day who were born during the exciting events of
Lincoln’s administration. At the time George Bancroft graduated which,
in the general acceptation of the term, marked the commencement of his
life’s work, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Blaine, Cleveland, and
Generals Sherman and Sheridan had not been born. Some of these have won
never-fading honors in events that have attracted the attention of the
whole world, and are numbered among our heroes. At that time Harvard was
a very different institution from what it is now; American literature was
in its infancy; Washington Irving had scarcely gained a recognition on
the other side of the waters.
Forty-five years ago Bancroft held a government office and secured for
Nathaniel Hawthorne an appointment in the Boston Custom House. Hawthorne
was then a literary man with some reputation, but his pen did not afford
him a livelihood. His great masterpieces were written during the next
quarter of a century, and twenty years have passed since the announcement
of his death cast a gloom over the literary world, while his friend and
benefactor still survives in the full vigor of his intellectual powers.
Macaulay and Bancroft were born in the same year; the former has been
dead nearly twenty-five years; the latter is giving finishing touches to
his great history, which merits a place with Macaulay’s and Gibbon’s.
George Bancroft’s father was the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, D.D., who as a
young man participated in the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and
who in later years won an honorable name as a theologian and man of
letters, his “Life of Washington” attracting considerable attention in
Europe. The son inherited many of the admirable characteristics of the
father.
After his graduation at Harvard, George Bancroft spent five years in
Europe, receiving a degree from the University of Göttingen, mastering
the principal modern languages, giving special attention to the study of
history, visiting the most important nations of the continent, and above
all communing with some of the greatest minds of the age. It was his rare
privilege to meet, and to enjoy the friendship of, such men as Wolf, the
distinguished classic scholar, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Goethe, Cousin,
Alexander von Humboldt, Chevalier Bunsen, Niebuhr, and others scarcely
less distinguished.
Returning to his native land in 1822, he spent one year as tutor of Greek
in Harvard, and afterward assisted in establishing a preparatory school
at Northampton. The subject of United States history already absorbed his
mind, and the next few years were spent in special study for his great
work.
Bancroft has held a number of offices. In 1838 President Van Buren
appointed him collector at the port of Boston, and he discharged the
duties of the office with marked ability. In 1845 he entered President
Polk’s cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. A number of important events
of this administration are linked with his name. Through his influence
the naval academy at Annapolis was established, and he introduced many
needed reforms into the naval service. He ordered the United States fleet
to assist Captain Fremont in taking possession of California, and as
Acting Secretary of War he issued orders for the United States army to
march into Texas at the commencement of the Mexican war. In 1846 he was
appointed minister to England, and held the position for three years.
While in England unusual courtesies were extended to him, and every
facility was granted for carrying on his historical researches, official
state papers and many valuable private libraries being accessible. He
also visited Paris for the purpose of study, and received valuable
assistance from Guizot and Lamartine. In 1867 he was appointed minister
to Berlin and remained abroad a number of years, calling forth a special
commendation from President Grant for his wise diplomatic services.
Mr. Bancroft has done considerable literary work in addition to writing
his “History of the United States.” When a young man he published a
volume of poems; he has contributed a great many articles to magazines,
and has delivered a number of memorial addresses on prominent Americans.
In 1859 he prepared a paper on “Prescott” for the New York Historical
Society; also one on “Washington Irving.” In 1860 he delivered an address
in Cleveland at the unveiling of the statue of Commodore Oliver H. Perry,
and February 12, 1866, he delivered before the two houses of Congress a
memorial address on President Lincoln.
Bancroft is known most widely, however, as an historian, and his noble
history is a monument more durable than granite. He brought to his task
a mind philosophic in character, broad in grasp, impartial in judgment,
believing firmly in God’s superintending care, rich in scholarship, and
with enough of the imaginative and poetical to quicken and vivify all his
intellectual powers. He has bestowed nearly sixty years of conscientious
labor on this great historical work, the first volume of which appeared
in 1834, fifty years ago.
The historian requires peculiar talent for his work. He must have such
patience and energy as will enable him to carry on any research that
will throw light on the subject he is investigating; he must weigh all
evidence as coolly as the most unprejudiced judge; he must not assume
the part of an advocate until he has examined the subject from every
standpoint and reached an unbiased conclusion; he must grasp the real
ideas and principles that underlie the events and are hastening the
progress of civilization; he must have sufficient imagination to see the
events as real, and to make his readers see them as such; in addition, he
must have a copiousness of illustration and a fluency of language that
will enable him to present his subject in an attractive form. In short,
he must be a scholar, an explorer, a philosopher, and a rhetorician. Few,
if any, have possessed all these qualifications in a preëminent degree;
Bancroft certainly possesses them all in no small degree.
Gibbon will doubtless ever hold an honorable place as an historical
writer; and yet he attempts to account for the rapid spread of
Christianity entirely on human grounds, and refuses to recognize the
greatest force then at work in effecting changes among the nations of
the world. Macaulay well says of Gibbon: “He writes like a man who had
received some personal injury from Christianity and wished to be revenged
on it and all its possessors.” No such charge can be made against George
Bancroft. He is a firm believer in God, recognizes Christianity as the
most powerful factor in the progress of civilization, and continually
evinces his unfaltering belief in God’s superintending care over human
affairs. The opening paragraph of his address on President Lincoln may be
taken as his creed on God in history. Notice how clear his statement and
triumphant his faith:
“That God rules in the affairs of men is as certain as any truth of
physical science. On the great moving power which is from the beginning
hangs the world of the senses and the world of thought and action.
Eternal wisdom marshals the great procession of the nations, working in
patient continuity through the ages, never halting and never abrupt,
encompassing all events in its oversight, and ever effecting its will,
though mortals may slumber in apathy or oppose with madness. Kings are
lifted up or thrown down, nations come and go, republics flourish and
wither, dynasties pass away as a tale that is told; but nothing is by
chance, though men, in their ignorance of causes, may think so. The deeds
of time are governed, as well as judged, by the decrees of eternity.”
A quotation from his history will show his estimate of Christianity:
“To have asserted clearly the unity of mankind was the distinctive
character of the Christian religion. No more were the nations to be
severed by the worship of exclusive deities. The world was instructed
that all men are of one blood; that for all there is but one divine
nature and but one moral law; and the renovating faith taught the
singleness of the race, of which it embodied the aspirations and guided
the advancement.”[E]
Notice also this noble tribute to Christianity in his history:
“The colonists, including their philosophy in their religion, as the
people up to that time had always done, were neither skeptics nor
sensualists, but Christians. The school that bows to the senses as the
sole interpreter of truth had little share in colonizing our America. The
colonists from Maine to Carolina, the adventurous companions of Smith,
the proscribed Puritans that freighted the fleet of Winthrop, the Quaker
outlaws that fled from jails with a Newgate prisoner as the sovereign—all
had faith in God and in the soul. The system which had been revealed
in Judea—the system which combines and perfects the symbolic wisdom of
the Orient and the reflective genius of Greece—the system, conforming
to reason, yet kindling enthusiasm; always hastening reform, yet always
conservative; proclaiming absolute equality among men, yet not suddenly
abolishing the unequal institutions of society; guaranteeing absolute
freedom, yet invoking the inexorable restrictions of duty; in the highest
degree theoretical, yet in the highest degree practical; awakening the
inner man to a consciousness of his destiny, and yet adapted with exact
harmony to the outward world; at once divine and human—this system was
professed in every part of our widely extended country, and cradled
our freedom. Our fathers were not only Christians; they were, even in
Maryland by a vast majority, elsewhere almost unanimously, protestants.
Now the Protestant Reformation, considered in its largest influence on
politics, was the awakening of the common people to freedom of mind.”[F]
In a recent private letter to Dr. Buckley, of the _Christian Advocate_,
Bancroft uses these words quoted in that paper:
“Certainly our great united commonwealth is the child of Christianity;
it may with equal truth be asserted that modern civilization sprung into
life with our religion; and faith in its principles is the life-boat on
which humanity has at divers times escaped the most threatening perils.”
And again:
“The principles that govern human affairs, extending like a path of
light from century to century, become the highest demonstration of the
superintending providence of God.”[G]
But it is not necessary to multiply quotations illustrative of his faith
in the Deity. Throughout the whole of his writings he manifests a devout,
reverential state of mind, and keeps constantly before the reader the
idea that God is the great power back of those mighty movements that stir
the nations of the world.
The philosophic cast of his mind is clearly revealed in all his
discussions of causes and results. He firmly believes that “the problems
of politics can not be solved without passing behind transient forms to
efficient causes,” and he ever seeks to find the real origin of an event.
He dates the American Revolution back to the Reformation under Luther
and Calvin, and in relating the events that led to a separation from
the mother country he discusses with great clearness and elaborateness
three points essential to the proper understanding of the subject: In the
first place he speaks of the emancipation of the mind at the Reformation,
and the consequent birth of the idea of freedom. In the second place he
discusses the growth of this idea of freedom in the nations of Europe
and on this continent. In the third place he describes with wonderful
fairness the violent discussions that arose in England and in this
country when the colonists raised a protest against the tyrannies of the
mother country. Referring to the origin of our present liberty, he says
explicitly:
“The Reformation was an expression of the right of the human intellect to
freedom.”[H]
He thus speaks of the influence of Luther and the Reformation: “At his
bidding truth leaped over the cloister walls and challenged every man
to make her his guest; aroused every intelligence to acts of private
judgment, changed a dependent, recipient people into a reflecting,
inquiring people; lifted each human being out of the castes of the middle
age, to endow him with individuality, and summoned man to stand forth as
man. The world heaved with the fervent conflict of opinion. The people
and their guides recognized the dignity of labor; the oppressed peasantry
took up arms for liberty; men reverenced and exercised the freedom of
the soul. The breath of the new spirit moved over the earth; it revived
Poland, animated Germany, swayed the north; and the inquisition of Spain
could not silence its whispers among the mountains of the Peninsula. It
invaded France; and, though bonfires of heretics, by way of warning,
were lighted at the gates of Paris, it infused itself into the French
mind, and led to unwonted free discussions. Exile could not quench it.
On the banks of the Lake of Geneva, Calvin stood forth the boldest
reformer of his day; not personally engaged in political intrigues,
yet, by promulgating great ideas, forming the seed-plot of revolution.…
Calvinism was revolutionary; wherever it came it created division.… By
the side of the eternal mountains and perennial snows and arrowy rivers
of Switzerland, it established a religion without a prelate, a government
without a king.… It entered Holland, inspiring an industrious nation
with heroic enthusiasm; enfranchising and uniting provinces; and making
burghers, and weavers, and artisans, victors over the highest orders
of Spanish chivalry, the power of the inquisition, and the pretended
majesty of kings. It penetrated Scotland, and while its whirlwind bore
along persuasion among glens and mountains, it shrunk from no danger,
and hesitated at no ambition; it nerved its rugged but hearty envoy
to resist the flatteries of the beautiful Queen Mary; it assumed the
education of her only son; it divided the nobility; it penetrated the
masses, overturned the ancient ecclesiastic establishment, planted free
parochial schools, and gave a living energy to the principle of liberty
in a people. It infused itself into England, and placed its plebeian
sympathies in daring resistance to the courtly hierarchy; dissenting
from dissent, longing to introduce the reign of righteousness, it invited
every man to read the Bible, and made itself dear to the common mind, by
teaching, as a divine revelation, the unity of the race and the natural
equality of man.”[I]
It is evident that Bancroft has studied the Reformation, not simply in
its outward political aspect, but so as to understand the different
shades of theological belief that influenced the minds of the great
reformers. His parallel between Luther and Calvin is a fine specimen
of composition, noted for its vigorous English, clear, discriminating
judgments, and polished style: “Both Luther and Calvin brought the
individual immediate relation with God; but Calvin, under a more stern
and militant form of doctrine, lifted the individual above pope and
prelate, and priest and presbyter, above Catholic church and national
church and general synod, above indulgencies, remissions and absolutions
from fellow-mortals, and brought him into immediate dependence on
God, whose eternal, irreversible choice is made by himself alone, not
arbitrarily, but according to his own highest wisdom and justice. Luther
spared the altar, and hesitated to deny totally the real presence;
Calvin, with superior dialectics, accepted as a commemoration and a seal
the rite which the Catholics revered as a sacrifice. Luther favored
magnificence in public worship, as an aid to devotion; Calvin, the
guide of republics, avoided in their churches all appeals to the senses
as a peril to pure religion. Luther condemned the Roman Church for
its immorality; Calvin for its idolatry. Luther exposed the folly of
superstition, ridiculed the hair shirt and the scourge, the purchased
indulgence, and dearly bought, worthless masses for the dead; Calvin
shrunk from their criminality with impatient horror. Luther permitted
the cross and the taper, pictures and images, as things of indifference;
Calvin demanded a spiritual worship in its utmost purity. Luther left
the organization of the church to princes and governments; Calvin
reformed doctrine, ritual, and practice; and, by establishing ruling
elders in each church, and an elective synod, he secured to his policy a
representative character, which combined authority with popular rights.
Both Luther and Calvin insisted that, for each one, there is and can be
no other priest than himself; and, as a consequence, both agreed in the
purity of the clergy.”[J]
While the rhetoric of Bancroft is not faultless, it certainly deserves a
place in our classic English. In the discussion of grave historical and
philosophical questions, his stateliness of expression and his dignity
of style challenge our admiration. His descriptions are very fine, and
suggest a mind keenly alive to the beautiful and the poetical; but
they do not reveal that spontaneity so characteristic of Irving, nor
that indefinable symmetry so noticeable in Hawthorne. If his style is
sometimes declamatory, I think it is generally in a connection such that
the cultivated taste will pronounce it admissible.
Thoroughly versed in the historic lore of this and other countries,
broad in his general scholarship, remarkably free from prejudice, an
uncompromising American, and yet not an American in a narrow and bigoted
sense, careful and systematic in his methods of labor and recreation,
unswerving in his belief in the superintending providence of God, George
Bancroft justly merits the high place of honor and esteem so willingly
accorded to him, and his noble example should be a never-failing source
of inspiration.
[E] Vol. III., p. 6.
[F] Vol. II., p. 177.
[G] Hist., Vol. II., p. 545.
[H] Hist., Vol. III., p. 183.
[I] Hist., Vol. III., p. 99.
[J] Hist., Vol. I., p. 212.
* * * * *
GOING TO THE BOTTOM THE ONLY WAY TO REACH THE TOP.—First go to the bottom
of everything which you have to do. Know all its principles. If it be
a trade, know not only its rules, but the reasons for them. If it be
merchandise in raw materials, or in one or more manufactured articles,
be sure to learn the whole process, from the planting of the seed, or
the digging of the ore, to the completed fabric. Do this by observation,
conversation with the heads of departments, and with workmen in different
specialties. This was the plan of the late William E. Dodge.—_From Dr. J.
M. Buckley’s “Oats or Wild Oats.”_
HOW PERSEUS BEGAN TO BE GREAT.
BY ELIZABETH P. ALLAN.
Fair Perseus slept upon enchanted ground,
And to him came, but with no stir or sound,
The goddess Pallas, whose clear, shining eyes
Read all men’s hearts that are beneath the skies.
“Many there be,” she cried, “who dwell at ease,
Who neither do nor dare—art thou of these?
Or dost thou to some glorious deed aspire?
Hast thou a heart of clay, or soul of fire?”
Then answered Perseus, vehement, “But I
Would do great deeds, though for them I should die.
Point me, O goddess, to the monster’s lair,
And give me leave to show what I can dare!”
“Nay,” said the voice divine, “thy stripling arm
Must first set free from danger’s fierce alarm
_Thy mother’s life!_” With this young Perseus woke,
Nor knew the peril whereof Pallas spoke.
But straight to Seriphus he hied with speed,
To find his Mother Danæ in sore need,
And rescuing her from danger and from dread,
_Then_ went he forth to win the Gorgon’s head.
O, sons and daughters of our happy land,
Whose waking dreams are filled with actions grand,
Ere yet in search of these afar you roam,
Free every burdened heart that sighs at home!
CANADA OF TO-DAY.
BY M. VICTOR DU BLED.
An Abridged Translation for THE CHAUTAUQUAN, from the _Révue des deux
Mondes_.
Canada, for so long a time apparently forgotten by her mother country,
came out from her isolation and again called back to herself the
attention of France by sending to the Exposition of 1855 specimens of
her products. In 1856 M. de Belveze, commander of the French frigate
“Capricieuse,” was sent into Canadian waters. His mission resulted in
the establishment of a French consulate, and the reduction of the tariff
which permitted the two countries to enter upon commercial relations.
From 1854 to 1862 material and intellectual progress here marched by the
side of great political progress. Public works, canals, and interior
colonization, all, during this time received a vigorous impulse.
There is no such thing as spontaneous generation in politics any more
than in natural history. Questions give rise to other questions, and the
philosophy of history shows them springing up, one after another, from
some mysterious source, obeying a sort of atavism, and producing often a
most unexpected result. Excitement over representation, fixed according
to the population of the country, gave birth to the confederacy. On
October 1, 1864, a conference assembled at Quebec, composed of delegates
from the maritime provinces, and from the Canadian government. After
a long and stormy session, during which threats of resorting to arms
were now and then heard, the cause of the confederation triumphed by a
large majority. A basis of federal union was submitted to the several
legislatures for ratification, and on July 1, 1867, the confederacy was
established in the midst of public rejoicings. They gave to the united
provinces the name of the Dominion of Canada. Lower Canada was called
Quebec, and Upper Canada Ontario.
The Legislature is composed of a Governor-general, a sort of a
constitutional viceroy, named by the crown; of a Senate, and a House
of Commons. The Senate consists of seventy-six members, appointed for
life by the crown, of whom twenty-four each are from Quebec and Ontario.
The House of Commons is representative, its members being elected for
five years. The Dominion now includes Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Prince Edward’s Island, British Columbia, Manitoba, and
the territory of the North-West, or Hudson’s Bay Territory. Thus it is
fulfilling the prediction of the great American statesman, William H.
Seward: “Canada is destined to become the seat of a great empire, the
Russia of North America, but a Russia with civilization more advanced
than the Russia of Europe.” An illustrated paper of the Dominion has
published a patriotic caricature representing the Canadian Gulliver
with a debonair and placid figure, without any implements save his own
gigantic arms and hands, seizing and swallowing the greater part of the
American continent, while a crowd of Lilliputians, armed to the teeth,
Turks, Yankees, Germans and Italians, survey him with an envious and
astonished air.
In order to develop her resources, and to open the way for immigration,
that her immense tracts of unused land may more rapidly become the
granary of the world, Canada is furrowing her domains with canals and
interlacing them with lines of railroads. The Grand Trunk railway,
traversing the country from Portland, Me., to Detroit, has been built,
with its Victoria bridge (one of the most noted structures in the world)
crossing the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Immense sums of money have
been spent in order to convert the St. Lawrence into a canal. And now she
is constructing a transcontinental road, which, binding the two oceans
from Port Moody to Halifax, will cross the entire confederation. They
expect to finish this route in 1886, and it is estimated that the journey
from Liverpool or Havre to Japan will be a thousand miles shorter by this
road than by the transcontinental routes of the United States.
Almost in the middle of the Dominion, at an equal distance from the pole
to the equator, lies the territory of Manitoba. There lived in 1869, a
population half nomadic, called the half-breeds, sprung from marriages
between the French Canadians and the Indians. They spoke the French
language, and professed the Catholic religion. After the delivery of
this country by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Dominion, the government
determined to direct toward it a stream of English emigration. They sent
a governor and some surveyors to reside at Winnipeg, the capital. But
the natives warned them they might look for trouble if they attempted
to place, without consulting them, new inhabitants upon the land which
they and their ancestors, from time immemorial, had held and enjoyed.
The government was not to be frightened, and so the conflict came.
The half-breeds obliged the governor to leave, and constituted a
provisional government, with a president at its head. They then drew up
a declaration, of which the following is the preamble:
“We, the representatives of the people, assembled in council at
Fort Garry, November 24, 1869, after having invoked the God of
nations, … solemnly declare, in the name of our constitution and
in our own name, before God and men, that we refuse to recognize
the authority of Canada, which pretends to have the right to
command us and impose upon us a despotic form of government.”
Later, however, they changed their opinion, and entered into negotiations
with the federal government. But at the moment when all things had been
arranged without bloodshed, the English colonists, who were very numerous
around Lake Winnipeg, rose in insurrection against the half-breeds. The
president of the latter, Louis Riel, who took upon himself the _rôle_ of
dictator, had the leading mutineers seized, and their chief, named Scott,
was tried, condemned and shot. Far from establishing his authority, this
execution discouraged the natives themselves, and when two battalions
of militia under Col. Wolseley arrived on the ground, they were
welcomed as liberators by the half-breeds, and Riel, with his leading
accomplices, fled to the United States. A compromise was then effected,
and Manitoba was annexed to the Dominion as an autonomous province. It
sends to Parliament two senators and five representatives. Winnipeg
contains 30,000 inhabitants, and property has increased its value to an
extraordinary degree, as the following anecdote will show: A parishioner
of Archbishop Taché, obliged to leave the country, sought the archbishop,
and excusing himself for not being able to pay the rent of his church
pew, offered as part payment a small piece of land; “scarcely what would
pay for a low mass,” timidly said the poor man. Ten years later that land
brought $14,000.
In spite of the expenses occasioned by her canals and railroads, the
people of the Dominion are, perhaps, among all the tax-payers of the
civilized world, those upon whom the smallest rates are levied. There is
no standing army, only a simple militia of about 50,000 men. The total
expenses of government in 1884 amounted to $28,730,157. The receipts
for the same year were $36,800,000. The minister of finances, in making
out his estimates for the year 1885 placed them as follows: Expenses,
$29,811,639; receipts, $31,000,000, which were to be raised as follows:
Duties, $20,000,000; excises, $5,500,000; postoffice returns, $1,900,000;
public works, $3,000,000; interest on investments, $750,000; other
sources, $800,900. Duties on goods supply the source of two thirds of
all the receipts. In 1880 they adopted a very strict system, which,
without any distinction, exacts duties from English goods as from any
other nation. On the other hand, England has granted to them the right of
concluding treaties of commerce with foreign nations.
The only difference of opinion in regard to the question of tariff
existing between the two parties is that the liberals wish the laws of
entrance to be more moderate than the conservatives have made them, but
neither of them will adopt the cosmopolitan theories of European free
trade. The English compare protection to a bullet, Canadian tariff to
a museum of instruments of torture, and declare that in following the
example of the United States, the Dominion has forgotten the fable of the
frog which wished to become as large as an ox. The Canadians hold that
they shall do what they think best for their country, and that duties are
the taxes least inconvenient to raise; that they save national work; and
that they not only have made up the deficits of the past, but have put
into the treasury an excess, so they have been able to reduce them to the
amount of two and one-fourth millions dollars. The tariff for protection
has become a tariff for revenue.
Since 1853 especially, public instruction has made great progress.
These people who, under the patronage of the crown of England, have
realized the ideal conception of a conservative and Christian republic,
hold that public schools are among the luxuries of a young nation, and
do not hesitate to impose upon themselves heavy sacrifices, as they
believe they will result in good to their children. In the province of
Quebec alone, government expended during the year 1882-83, $350,000
for school buildings, while the contributions paid directly by the
people amounted to more than $2,000,000. In a population of 1,359,027
inhabitants, statistics show that there are 5,039 schools of different
grades; 7,211 professors and teachers, and 245,225 scholars, making an
average of one scholar for every six inhabitants. As to universities
and colleges, they do not come under the school regulations, but are
independent institutions, which, however, may receive appropriations
from the government on condition of making a report each year to the
superintendent. When in a school district there live a number of families
who profess a different religion from that of the majority, they have
the right to have for their children separate schools, under the care
of three officials, chosen by them. Thus Catholics and Protestants have
equal privileges, and everything is done to secure respect for religion,
independence to the citizen, and his active and constant interest in
educational matters. The circulars of the present superintendent, M.
Ouimet, define in clear terms the spirit of the school laws in Quebec:
“In our system of primary instruction we first teach the children the
catechism of true religion, in order that they may know how to serve
God; then the manuals of agriculture and of design, in order to put them
in condition to serve their country. _For God and country!_ Behold the
words which the Canadian legislature has inscribed on the walls of her
educational institutions. The state unites itself to the two systems of
religion in the matter of education, and does not authorize any school to
be atheistical, but demands of it to be Christian before it accords help.
It does not provide that one church shall be helped rather than another.
Full and entire liberty it demands, and from this comes perfect harmony
among the people.”
Religious liberty marches by the side of educational liberty. Each church
supports itself; the state no longer takes cognizance of clergy or
congregations, to protect them, to annoy them, or to persecute. They can,
as the citizens, found a university, a college, or a school.
Men such as Labelle and Racine have accomplished wonderful results in
planting in the most barren regions, at the peril of their lives, strong
and flourishing colonies. “Go west,” incessantly repeated Horace Greeley
to young Americans. “Go north, French Canadians and Catholics,” said
Father Labelle, with a prophetic foresight.
Canadian literature only dates back to 1840. Before that time it was made
up of songs. Such a literature was absolutely essential to the gay and
sociable race who consoled itself, in all its troubles, with stanzas.
There was a time when France held the government under control by her
songs. Did any Canadian patriot attract attention by some great deed?
At once a song was written. Was the question that of elections? They
addressed themselves to some crude poet, and sharp, malign couplets soon
overran the country. The festival of St. Jean Baptiste has furnished many
a contribution to this list, and Sir George Cartier owes in great part
his popularity to the fact that he composed one for the first banquet, in
1834. Often among the remote rural districts are found people possessing
magnificent tenor voices, which would make the fortune of an impressario
who would come from the other side of the water to look them up.
“We are yet amateurs,” said one of their writers to me. Without endorsing
this very modest judgment, one can but admit that up to the present time
our American cousins have been more occupied with making history than
with writing it. Action has absorbed thought. They have run, closely
pressed on all sides, to the conquest of political liberties. The books
which they published during their unsettled national history partook of
the character of the times, as the great work of Garneau will show, which
was a revelation to his countrymen, and was of more value to them than
an army, since it assured them of a nation’s faith and the certainty of
success. The greater part of the writers have been obliged to tax their
ingenuity for a livelihood, and too often politics, that deceptive siren,
keeps them from those severe studies which alone will bring talent to
maturity.
In poetry, MM. Crémazie and Louis Fréchette have left behind them all
rivals. High inspiration, poetic fervor, appreciation of nature, and
love of country have made them true poets. One can not read without
emotion some of the productions of M. Crémazie. His patriotic songs,
which seem to have been breathed from the very heart of the country
itself, in a language harmonious and vibrating, do not for an instant
decline in interest or power. The verses of M. Fréchette are written in a
graceful style, and possess a youthful freshness. In history, MM. l’Abbé
Casgrain, Benjamin Sulte and Joseph Tassé have become distinguished. M.
Tassé, in his book “Canadians of the West,” tells of the pioneers of the
American continent, those who penetrated into the icy regions of the
pole, who crossed the Rocky Mountains, and spread over the fertile plains
of Mexico; and has shown that of them all the French in the Canadian
settlements were the only ones who treated the Indians honorably and
kindly, and who succeeded in winning their respect and affection.
The group of prose writers and romancers is increasing every day. One of
the best, without doubt, is M. J. C. Taché, the author of three legends,
each of which characterizes an epoch in the history of the Indians. M.
de Gaspé, with his “Ancient Canadians,” and M. Joseph Marmette, with his
historic romances have acquired a well merited reputation.
What, then, shall be the aim in the future of Canadian literature? To
acquire new strength and vigor without ceasing the study of the past;
to revive the glorious annals; to gather with a pious care its legends;
to identify itself also with the present; to paint the manners and the
contemporaneous social life; to note and to report the majestic symphony
of their land; never to lose sight of the thought of Carlyle, that the
universe is a temple as well as a workshop. Such will be the duty of
Canadian writers.
The Canadians through all the years since their country passed out of
the hands and the control of the French, have clung to them with great
affection, drawn by some profound and mystic instinct, by the lines of
heredity, the power of traditions, the religion of memory. They are not
ignorant of the fact that if they had remained united to France, they
would not now have, in all probability, their free social and religious
institutions; they would likely have formed an administrative colony
such as Algeria. They know that it was England who sent them, under hard
circumstances, perhaps, to the school of liberty, and to her they are
indebted for their prosperity, but they look to France still as their
mother country. Why should not that country give them some more solid
proof of its affection? While with South America the annual exchanges of
France are counted by the hundred million, and great numbers of French
people emigrate there, her total commerce with Canada does not exceed
$15,000,000, and it is with great difficulty that she has commenced to
send thither a few of her citizens. Why should not French emigration
direct itself toward a country where wages are good, the soil fertile,
where property offers itself to all, and where a welcome is awaiting
them? Why should not the French go to visit the Canadians and learn of
them how a people became and remain free?
SOME AMERICAN MUSEUMS.
BY CLARENCE COOK.
Under this heading it is intended to give in successive numbers of THE
CHAUTAUQUAN descriptions of the principal Art Museums of our country:
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the
Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington. We begin in the present number with
the Boston Museum.
In the year 1870 the trustees of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were
organized under a charter from the Massachusetts legislature. It was not,
however, until 1876 that a building was erected in which the pictures,
casts, antiquities, engravings and objects of curiosity which formed the
nucleus of its present extensive collections could be exhibited to the
public.
Up to the time when the first portion of the present building was
erected, the amateur or the student of the fine arts in Boston or its
neighborhood had been obliged to take a good deal of trouble, and to
spend much time, if he would see the few objects that existed there—in
public institutions or in private houses—in the domain of painting,
sculpture, antiquities, or in that of the minor arts—now classed together
in popular speech under the incorrect title of bric-a-brac.
Beside the permanent exhibition of the pictures which belonged to it, the
Athenæum Library had generously devoted some of its rooms every season
for several successive years to the exhibition of pictures painted by
American artists, an exhibition answering to those held yearly by the
National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Beside these regular exhibitions, there had been many occasional ones of
importance, such as that of the Spanish pictures belonging to the Duc de
Montpensier, which gave to those of us who had not visited Europe, the
opportunity of seeing respectable specimens of the works of Zurbaran,
Herrera, Morales, Murillo, Ribalta and Velasquez. There was also in the
Athenæum a small but well selected collection of plaster-casts of antique
sculpture, so that for a long time this institution was an art center of
no little value and importance. The Athenæum was not, however, an art
institution, but a library, and the time came when the increase of the
library made it necessary to give up its art collections and devote all
its space to books.
The collections of the Athenæum were the most important, both in number
and in value, to be found in Boston, but there were many interesting
objects scattered about which it was felt would be of much greater
service to the community if they could be brought together under
one roof, and made to work in common for the education of the whole
community. The late Francis C. Gray had bequeathed to Harvard College his
large and valuable collection of engravings together with a fund for its
maintenance, and it was found that its usefulness, whether for purposes
of enjoyment or as a means of education was very much restricted by its
being so far away from the capital. Yet it had been impossible to find
a proper place for it in Boston, and it therefore remained shut up in
Cambridge. The Institute of Technology had formed, under the direction
of Prof. William R. Ware, a collection of architectural ornament, but
as this was lodged in the Institute building it could only be seen and
studied at such times as suited the convenience of the professors and
their pupils. The Social Science Association had called the attention of
the public to the need that existed of a large and complete collection of
casts of antique sculpture. But—what to do with such a collection, could
it be brought together?
In a city like Boston, a want so deeply felt could not long remain
unsatisfied, and the matter having been widely discussed, and a general
interest created in the public mind, the first steps were taken with
generous unanimity, and as has been stated, a charter was procured from
the legislature, the Museum was organized by the naming of trustees, and
the city having given a site, no difficulty was met with in raising a
subscription of $261,000 toward a building. The plans of Messrs. Sturgis
and Brigham, submitted in competition, were selected, and on the 3d of
July, 1876, one wing of the front of the building was opened to the
public. This was filled by the collections of the Athenæum, and by the
Gray collection of engravings, both permanently loaned to the Museum,
by the casts of antique sculptures purchased with funds bequeathed by
the late Charles Sumner, the Egyptian collections presented by Mr. C.
Granville Way, and valuable gifts from Mr. Lawrence and other persons.
The space at the disposal of the trustees was soon overcrowded, and in
1878 a fresh subscription of $126,000 having been raised, the front
was completed and opened to the public in 1879. At the present time
of writing the need is seriously felt for more room, and it is hoped
that the means may soon be provided for taking a third step toward the
completion of the original plan of the building.
The building containing the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Art
is constructed of red brick and terra cotta on a basement of granite.
It stands in the new quarter of the city, and is built like all other
structures in that part of the city, on piles. It is rather ornate in its
character, and compared with its massive neighbor, Trinity Church, has
a somewhat effeminate look, but it is solidly built, and planned with
great good sense, and with a steady view to convenience. On entering,
the visitor finds himself in a large hall, in the center of which rises
an ample staircase conducting to the second floor. At the right and left
are doorways leading to the rooms containing the casts from antique
sculpture. By taking either of these doorways we can make the circuit
of the whole series of apartments, but as the present arrangement is
only temporary, awaiting the completion of the building for a logical
disposition of the material, it may be better to pass at once to the rear
of the hall, and taking the door at the left hand, enter
THE EGYPTIAN ROOM.
The contents of this room were chiefly collected between the years 1828
and 1833, by a Scotch gentleman, Mr. Robert Hay. After his death they
were purchased by Mr. C. Granville Way, of Boston, and presented to the
Museum in 1872. Several fine pieces of sculpture, collected in Egypt in
1835 by the late Mr. John Lowell, the founder of the Lowell Institute,
have been added to this room by the gift of Mr. Lowell’s heirs. The
valuable and interesting casts from bas-reliefs and statues are the gift
of General Charles G. Loring, the director of the Museum, to whose zeal
and efficiency the institution owes so much of its usefulness.
The room is finely lighted by large windows, and General Loring, who is
much interested in botany, generally keeps here a few fine specimens
of tropical plants, especially such as belong to Egypt. Thus, on the
occasion of my last visit, I had the pleasure of seeing there a fine
specimen of the papyrus plant waving its graceful fans in salute to
Pasht and Amenophis, hard by. The giant figure of Amenophis III., the
Memnon of the Greeks (1500 B. C.) is a cast from the granite original
in the British Museum. Near it is the statue of Pasht, the Cat-headed,
in black granite, with the cartouch of Amenophis III., and there are
also several blocks of red granite, probably portions of a throne, with
a few fragments of sculpture—the colossal head of a king, pieces of
the lid of a sarcophagus in green basalt, and two capitals cut out of
sandstone, showing the lotos and papyrus forms. In the center of the room
are several mummy cases, and in glass cases are disposed mummied heads,
skulls, hands and feet, with mummies of animals, the cat, the dog, the
dog-faced ape, the hawk and the ibis. In one of these cases is a hand
still bearing a ring on the fourth finger. The remaining cases contain
very interesting specimens of mummy-cloth of various dates and quality,
one of the most important being a robe of justification supposed to be
worn in the trial of the deceased before Osiris. It is sixteen feet in
length by six feet nine inches in width, and has a fringe. The remaining
contents of this room consist of various objects gathered from the
tombs and from the mummy cases in such number and variety as to make it
impossible to describe them in the narrow space at my command. But while
there can be no doubt as to the value of the collection as a means of
study in a field of wide interest and importance, it may be said, so far
as art is concerned, the Way collection is of less value than the Abbott
collection in the Historical Society of New York City. Each collection,
however, supplements the other in a most interesting way, and taken
together, they enable a student to make a fair beginning in the study of
Egyptian antiquity.
THE FIRST GREEK ROOM
Opens directly from the Egyptian Room, and contains casts of archaic and
early Greek sculpture. Here will be found the Lions from the gate of
Mycenæ, the funeral slabs of Orchomenos, of Aristion, and of the soldier
of Marathon, the Dresden Pallas, the relief of Demeter, Persephone, and
Triptolemus, from Athens, and the so-called Leucothea, and the infant
Bacchus from the Villa Albani, with several interesting archaic reliefs
from the same collection. There have lately been added to the Museum a
number of the funeral slabs or _stele_ discovered at Athens and preserved
in the museum there, objects of great beauty and interest, properly
belonging, either in this room or in immediate connection with it, but
placed for temporary convenience, in the Roman and Renaissance Room. The
most important objects in this First Greek Room are the casts from the
sculptures of the eastern and western Pediments of the Temple of Minerva
at Egina, consisting of five figures from the eastern pediment and ten
from the western, arranged as they are believed to have been originally.
Passing from this room to
THE SECOND GREEK ROOM
We find ourselves in the midst of a group of statues, most of them of
the Praxitelean type and making too sharp a contrast by their grace and
sensuous refinement to the hardness and severity of the contents of the
room just left. It must be remembered, however, that owing to the small
space at the command of the Museum authorities it has not been possible
to follow a strict chronological order, and we must therefore be content
for the present to follow the arrangement of the separate rooms. We have,
therefore, here, the casts from the Parthenon frieze, the Theseus and
the Fates from the eastern and the Ilissus from the western Pediment of
the same building, with the Torso of the Victory, also from the eastern
Pediment, together with several figures from the temple of the Wingless
Victory (Nikè Apteros) on the acropolis. But space fails us to enumerate
all the casts contained in the rooms devoted to antique sculpture; and
why attempt a mere catalogue? The Venus of Milo is here, and the lately
discovered Hermes with the infant Dionysus, the Niobe and her daughter,
the Ludovisi Mars, the Diana of the Louvre, the Apollo Belvidere, the
Eirene and Plutus, the Faun of Praxiteles, and the glorious mask of the
Ludovisi Juno. Indeed, we miss few works of prime importance, and there
are many casts here that can not be found elsewhere in America, and which
are yet essential to even a superficial study of the rise and progress
of Greek sculpture. Passing on, we come to the other rooms where are the
Laocoön, the Dying Gladiator, the younger Agrippina, the Sophocles, the
Demosthenes, the Menander, the Æsculapius, the Discobulus, the Silenus
and the infant Bacchus, and the Boy taking a Thorn from his Foot (the
Spinario), with many another famous and less famous work, enabling us to
carry on the study until the stream dies away to rise again in new beauty
in the art of the early Italian Renaissance. While no capital piece can
be said to be wanting to this collection there remain many pieces to be
added which are needed for fullness of knowledge, but every year sees
important acquisitions, and there can be no doubt, judging from the past
history of the Museum, that if the wished for addition to the building
could be made, the missing gaps in the sculpture would speedily be filled
up by gift. But before leaving the antique rooms we must mention the
two sarcophagi from Vulci, now deposited in the Museum, and which, it
is earnestly to be hoped, will become its property, since they are not
only deeply interesting in themselves, but have an added value from their
great rarity. They represent the bodies of two married pair reposing upon
the lids of the two sarcophagi, as on the marriage-bed. The finer of the
two groups is carved in alabaster, the other is in travertine; the one
in alabaster has a monumental beauty and sweet dignity that is surpassed
by nothing of the kind that exists, and considering its great beauty and
rarity it is said there is only one other example of this treatment of
the subject, and that is in the Vatican.
Crossing the Hall of Entrance, to which we have returned, we find
ourselves in the last of the antique sculpture rooms, where are placed
some of the most interesting of the Roman works just enumerated. Nothing
would be gained by an attempt to catalogue the rooms at present, as
their contents are likely to be changed at any time when the projected
enlargement of the Museum is carried out. The space in this portion of
the building, the addition built in 1879, answering to that occupied in
the older portion by the first and second Greek Rooms, is here thrown
into one large apartment filled with the
CASTS OF ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENTS.
The principal object here is the cast of the Caryatid Portico of the
Pandroseion, one of the portions of the complex structure generally
called the Erechtheium, from the name of one of its parts dedicated to
the worship of Erechtheus. The Portico with its Caryatids is given here
of the full size of the original, and is so placed (until the great
court can be built in which these large objects are to be shown) that a
good view of it can be obtained from a considerable distance, while it
is well lighted by a large window at one side. The remaining objects in
this room are casts in great numbers from Greek and Roman architectural
ornament, from the ornament of the Italian Renaissance, from the
Alhambra, from the Gothic buildings of France, Germany and England,
the specimens from England including twelve out of the thirty angels
composing the so-called angel choir of Lincoln Cathedral. These figures
of angels playing on musical instruments are of the thirteenth century,
and are among the most beautiful works of their time. In this room again
we find it impossible to do justice to our subject; the variety is too
great and the range of artistic development covered by the example too
extensive to be dismissed in less than an entire article, and even that
would be insufficient. Turning to the right at the end of this room we
come to
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE,
Where the works of Michelangelo, Donatello, Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia,
and a few other such names meet us in some of their best works. Here is
the Lorenzo of Michelangelo with the statues of Day and Night, the David
of Donatello, the Cupid of Michelangelo with his unfinished bas-relief
of the Virgin and Child, the Mercury of John of Bologna, and various
bas-reliefs of the time with the singing boys of Donatello and those
of Luca della Robbia. Here, too, is the cast of the trial plate, “The
Sacrifice of Isaac,” made by Ghiberti in competition with Brunelleschi
and Donatello for the Florence Baptistery Gates, interesting in itself,
and in connection with that most important event in the history of modern
art.
The last room on this floor is filled with specimens of Greek, Roman,
and Asia Minor pottery, with a sufficient number of examples of the
sculpture, pottery, and glass of Cyprus, a small but well-chosen group of
figurines from Tanagra, and the results of the late researches at Assos
by the members of the American Society of Archæology. This room is full
of interesting objects, but it is uncomfortably crowded and necessarily
ill-arranged. In the next article we shall describe the contents of the
second floor of the Museum.
NATURAL HISTORY AND PEOPLE OF BORNEO.
Report of a lecture delivered March 7th in the National Museum of
Washington, D. C., by Mr. Wm. T. Hornaday, Chief Taxidermist of the
Museum.
The island of Borneo is the home of the Head-hunter, the land of the
orang-utan, the Garden of the Sun, and perhaps even the sepulchre of the
missing link. There is a possibility of its being the cradle of a great
empire which shall be at the zenith of its glory when the greatness
of the United States shall have passed away, like that of Greece and
Rome, and Washington have become the Athens of America. The center of
human progress will probably eventually move into regions now peopled
by savages only, and the Kaffir or Dyak of the thirtieth century will
perhaps study the archæology of the Yankee with the same interest that we
now bestow upon the ruins of Carthage and Mycenæ.
Borneo is situated nearly in the middle of the Malay Archipelago. Its
greatest length is 850 miles, greatest width 630 miles, and its area is
192,000 square miles. The whole of New England, the Middle States and
Virginia could be set down in the evergreen forests, which everywhere
cover its surface, and still be surrounded by a wide belt of jungle.
The whole interior is very mountainous. The rivers and creeks are the
highways of Borneo, and other roads are practically unknown. Nothing
could be more arduous, and full of risk to life and limb, than overland
travel through such dense forests and over such rugged mountains as
confront the explorer at every step. The interior is practically an
uninhabitable wilderness. Even in this age of daring and persevering
travelers, no white man has ever crossed the island from one side to the
other. The interior is still a land of mystery, whence come marvelous
accounts of a race of men with tails, with detailed descriptions of their
appearance and habits, stories implicitly believed by many natives.
The climate of Borneo is what one would least expect, considering its
equatorial position. The temperature is very agreeable all the year
round. The mercury usually stands at 80° Fahrenheit in the morning, 88°
at midday, seldom reaching 90°, and never exceeding 93°. The annual
variation of temperature is only 24°—from 69° to 93°. Usually there are
about 200 rainy days in the year, and from 158 to 178 inches of rain.
The vegetation of Borneo is probably unsurpassed by that of any other
country in the world, either in luxuriance, economic value, or, the
possession of wonderful forms. On the spurs of Mount Kina Balu are found
four species of pitcher plants (Nepenthes), of marvelous size and form
and gorgeous colors. The largest pitchers of _Nepenthes rajah_ measure
thirteen inches in length, twenty in circumference, and hold five pints
of water. Among the curiosities of vegetation is the tapang tree, which,
in lieu of spur roots, throws out enormous slab-like buttresses. The
_cocoa_ palm bears a bountiful crop of nuts, which in turn yield oil and
a coarse kind of sugar. The _sago_ palm yields the valuable pearl sago
of commerce. The _areca_ palm produces the betel-nut, which, together
with a fresh pepper-leaf and a bit of moist lime, is in the mouth of
nearly every East Indian native in lieu of tobacco. The _nipa_ palm
yields salt, toddy, excellent syrup and sugar, and the leaves are made
into kadjangs for boat awnings and roofing material for houses. The
_gomouti_ palm produces the best toddy, and the cabbage is esteemed by
the natives as food. The _nibong_ palm is valuable for its timber. The
primeval forests are rich in timber trees, one of which, the _bilian_,
furnishes wood which seemingly never decays. Bamboo grows abundantly in
the interior, and is of great use to the natives.
Of the many fruits of the forest we can only refer to the durian. In size
and shape it resembles a roundish pineapple, and is set all over with
sharp conical spines, three fourths of an inch long, and stout enough to
pierce the hide of a rhinoceros. When the fruit is ripe, the pod opens of
its own accord. Although the smell of the pod is most offensive, we find
inside four or five large cells, in each of which are from three to five
horse-chestnuts, coated thickly with the most delicious paste that ever
tickled the palate of man.
The agricultural products consist of sago, gambier, rice, sugar-cane and
cotton, which is grown to a limited extent by the Dyaks. The cultivation
of coffee is now engaging the attention of enterprising English planters,
and may eventually become the most important industry of the island.
The whole island teems with animal life in great variety of forms. It
would appear, judging from the success of Mr. A. R. Wallace, to be a
paradise for the entomologist. This gentleman once collected seventy-six
species of beetles in one day, many of which were new and of remarkable
form, and during his stay of fifteen months in Sarawak he took over 500
species. There are a number of handsome species of butterflies, including
the magnificent _Ornithoptera Brookana_. This butterfly is eight inches
in width, and of a rich, velvety black color, on which is a broad band
of metallic green scales, resembling a humming-bird’s feathers. Of all
insects Borneo is richest in moths. At one place, on a mountain top, Mr.
Wallace took 200 specimens in a single night, representing 130 species.
In the same place he took in twenty-six nights 1,300 specimens of moths.
The fishes include quite a variety of fresh-water species, among which
may be mentioned the curious tree-climbing perch, the thread-fish, the
celebrated _gourami_, the jumping-fish, or _Periophthalmus_, which hops
about on land in search of small crustaceans stranded by the receding
tide; and the very rare and curious little fish known to icthyologists as
_Luciocephalus pulcher_. The Malays capture a great many fish in small
streams by poisoning the water with an extract made from the pounded
roots of the tuba plant, and either spearing or netting the fish when
they rise to the surface to breathe.
Among the reptiles, the most important is the crocodile, which attains
a maximum length of seventeen feet, and is very destructive to human
life. It seldom happens that a person escapes or is rescued, after
being seized in this burly reptile’s powerful jaws. Some years ago the
Sarawak government began a war of extermination against the crocodiles,
by offering a reward of 35 cents a foot for all killed in the Territory.
In 1878, 266 crocodiles were killed, and $738 paid out in rewards. I
discovered a crocodile’s nest containing fifty-five eggs. The native
crocodile hunters use hook and line. The hook, or _alir_, as it is called
by the Malays, is a simple contrivance made of wood, tied at the end
of a tough bark rope. Another saurian, the gavial, is found in Borneo.
It is not unlike that of the Ganges, called by Dr. Gray, _Tomistoma
schlegelli_. This species inhabits the headwaters of some of the rivers,
and is rarely seen. In the swampy forest near the coast, small reptiles
are very abundant. There are pythons in Borneo twenty-four feet long. Two
twelve-foot specimens were brought to me, and a monster python twenty
feet six inches long, I purchased alive in a cage, and put to death for
its skin and skeleton.
Notwithstanding the contrary opinion of many observers, I think it can
not be said with truth that Borneo is rich in bird-life. There are 392
species on the island. The finest bird is the argus pheasant. In life
its plumage has a soft, velvety richness which is never seen in a dry
specimen. These birds are extremely shy, and are taken by the natives
in snares. Hornbills of several varieties are numerous. A bird of great
commercial value is the swallow which builds the edible nest, so dear to
the palate of the Chinese mandarin. These nests are built in caves, and
are of a gelatinous substance resembling white glue. Their shape is like
a small soup ladle with a broad, flat handle about an inch long. There
are two kinds of nests, the white and the black, the former being most
prized. A picul (133 pounds) of these is worth from two to three thousand
dollars.
Borneo is favored with a great variety of very interesting mammals. So
far as is at present known, there are ninety-six species, thirty-three
of which are not found elsewhere. In apes and monkeys the island is
especially rich. At the head of the list is the huge, red-haired
orang-utan, of which we will speak presently. Then comes the long-nosed
monkey, with its immense flabby proboscis. The _Nasalis_ is a large
species of monkey, found in the same localities as the orang, always
over the water, and usually in large troops. It is something marvelous
to watch a troop of monkeys, when terrified by an attack with firearms.
They head directly away from the danger, and gallop madly through the
tree-tops along the larger branches. Another interesting mammal is the
long-armed ape, _Hylobates concolor_. This animal is extremely wary, and
so rapid in its flight as to render pursuit exceedingly difficult. The
flying lemur is also found here. Another curious monkey is the tarsier,
a small, nocturnal animal. The krah, _Macacus cynomolgus_, actually
swarms in the low trees along the river banks. The clouded leopard, the
otter-cat, and civet cats of two species occur, and also several other
small members of the cat tribe. Two species of bear are found, the
smallest known. The Indian elephant occurs in the extreme northeastern
part of the island; also the rhinoceros and tapir. These three are very
rare. The thin-haired deer is very common in Sarawak Territory, and is
frequently noosed by the natives. The muntjac, or rib-faced deer, is
occasionally met. Wild hogs are very abundant and destructive. They
sometimes measure forty inches at the shoulder, and are good swimmers.
Many beautiful squirrels are found here, and also, remarkable bats, the
bear cat, otter, porcupines, and other small mammals which fall an easy
prey to the hunter-naturalist.