Armed to the teeth,"
ready to hold his own alike against traitors at home and envious
despotisms abroad, we do not forget with what a world of self-sacrifice
and patient toil our forbears laid the foundations of this great, free
government; nor should we deem it a light thing to have been born
citizens of a Republic a thousand times grander, nobler, and, God grant!
far more enduring, than those of heathen Greece and Rome, that have long
since fallen to decay, and now lie buried beneath the melancholy dust of
centuries.
Let the words of the great poet whose name stands at the head of this
paper speak like a word of warning to every heart within their reach:--
"And they who founded in our land
The power that rules from sea to sea,
Bled they in vain, or vainly planned,
To leave their country great and free?
Their sleeping ashes from below
Send up the thrilling murmur, No!"
TRUST.
BY ARTHUR ELWELL JENKS.
Once let us feel the trust a child bestows
Upon the guardian of its life, each day
Would set serenely on our troubled souls!
To help but one of these, or bring again
To lip and eye the smile so full of peace,--
Reflection of some tender mother's love,--
Ah, such were service, that, in future years,
Shall shine upon our devious pathway, as
The evening star lights up the western sky!
O ye who labor for the children's sake,--
Setting these jewels for immortal life,--
The "Well-done!" of the Master shall be yours!
NEW ENGLAND CHARACTERISTICS.
BY LIZZIE M. WHITTLESEY.
"We constantly," as Ruskin affirms, "recognize things by their least
important attributes, and by help of very few of these. We recognize our
books by their bindings, our friends by the mere accidents of the body,
the sport of climate, and food, and time."
Applying this principle to New England, we unconsciously recognize her
first by her mere outward, incidental properties.
By the waving of her hair in the "Pine-Tree State," by the frown of her
massive brows in the "Granite" and "Green Mountain," by the glancing
brightness of her smile in the "Old Bay," by her lithe grace of limb in
"Little Rhoda," and her firm step and erect carriage in the "Land of
Steady Habits;" while to all alike belong--
"Her clear, warm heaven at noon, the mist that shrouds
Her twilight hills, her cool and starry eves,
The glorious splendor of her sunset clouds,
The rainbow beauty of her forest leaves."
Next to the physical traits of a friend we are attracted by those of a
social nature; and, still keeping the analogy, the same is true of a
people, and preeminently so of New England.
The characteristics of our four Northern cities have been thus
distinctively classified and labelled:--
Washington stops between the polka and the waltz to ask, "Can you
dance?" New York shows us her silks and laces, and politely whispers,
"What are you worth?"
Philadelphia traces back our genealogy, and questions, "Who was your
grandfather?" While Boston lifts her eye-glass, and, surveying our
mental cranium, inquires, "What do you know?"
The social traits of New England proper are so combined with her
business character that they are with difficulty separated, and both are
best defined by foreign visitors.
It was an Englishman who said, "Go ahead is the grand doctrine of New
England;" and we see that this principle, plainly enforced and
practically carried out, builds her cities, founds her public libraries,
carries on her immense commerce, and increases public traffic.
Without this quality, coupled with her independence and disregard for
romantic associations, the Yankee would never make pilgrimages to the
Old World for the sole and evident purpose of placarding the pyramids,
and introducing his invention for removing stains at some half-ruined
cathedral whose famous "spot of blood" is cherished with reverent care.
"New England excels," according to an English cousin, "in an openness to
ideas, an aptness for intuitions, and sometimes a seemingly positive
preference for the bird in the bush," which latter may account for that
skilful Yankee versatility so perfectly exemplified in the chaplain,
poet, editor, merchant, speculator, politician, historian, and minister,
Barlow.
It is this quiet independence, indomitable will, and never-ceasing
purpose to "get on," which is a characteristic of the New England women,
and which may be summed up in the expressive adjective "capable." Armed
with this power, she cheerfully teaches school, makes dresses, binds
books, or "keeps house," considering no honest work degrading, and
proving herself equally efficient in each.
Here is found that shrewd, stirring common-sense which is New England's
strong point. Here is hinted, also, that philosophic humor which is the
one ray lightening her intense realism.
As indefinable as it is delightful, it comes with a lightning flash of
wit into the dry, theological conversation of the preacher, relieves
with its sharp hits the spread-eagle speech of the country orator,
brightens with its apt allusions the more refined periods of the
lecturer, flits charmingly in and out of the sympathetic essays of
Holmes, keeps us in a perpetual chuckle over the mirthful pages of
Irving, and embodies itself in the quaint good-nature of an indolent,
contemplative Sam Lawson.
For nowhere is this genial quality found in such purity as among the
true, rustic Yankees, whose clear-cut, homely phrases and sharp
localisms are not as entirely extinct as is supposed. Country life has a
way all its own of preserving the best traits of a people, and in more
than one old-fashioned farm-house, and among the haymakers in more than
one sunny meadow, may be heard the witty expressions and strong
metaphors which led Dickens to say, "In shrewdness of remark and a
certain cast-iron quaintness the Yankee people unquestionably take the
lead."
In the country, too, as if growing and blossoming under the influence
of the warm, unobstructed sunshine, is the sturdy growth of genuineness,
hearty, cooperative sympathy, and cheery hospitality, the latter having
its highest exponent in New England's distinctive festival,
Thanksgiving. The dear old holiday may well be called the cradle of New
England graces, for it bears much the same relation to the development
of her social traits that the old Greek and Roman games bore in
developing characteristics of strength and bravery.
To return to the criticism of foreigners. The absence of historic
records and relics in New England has often been a matter of contempt,
and an amusing story is told by J. T. Fields of a stiff, conventional
Englishman who called on the poet Longfellow at one of his busiest
hours, and scanning him closely, gravely remarked: "We were doing the
sights, sir, and as there are no ruins in New England, we decided to
come and see you!"
We smile at the strange idea, but is there not in it a tacit admission
that New England's men and women of letters are her best
characteristics? Is it not to her glory that hers is _not_ a country of
ruins but one of noble, earnest, _living_ men and women?--men like Dr.
Hale, instilling by the quiet weapon of the pen strong, true lessons of
benevolence and truth; men like Longfellow, singing, pure, earnest songs
of high endeavor and noble attainment; men like Whittier, whose simple,
touching strains move so grandly on the side of right and justice.
Women like Mrs. Stowe, who, in her great strength of mind and character,
wrote that wonderful book, which, inspired by zeal, and fired by a
terrible earnestness, filled New England once with something of her own
noble enthusiasm. She could do the grand work then, because her country
needed it, thus illustrating that strong New England trait, latent
power, a power of which we know nothing till it is called out by some
mighty need. There have been earnest purpose, determined will, pure
motive, and unselfish heroism in New England; but their depth and
strength have never been "guessed" till manifested in some great crisis.
Her contests are those of heart and intellect; and her weapons, hard
study and earnest thought.
In spite of popular philippics her traits do not change much from the
summary of them made fifty years ago, "Impatience with wrong, quarrel
with precedent, love of education, and faith in God."
Ah! now we touch the true characteristics of New England, lying in the
deep ocean of her history, unmoved by the lighter traits sparkling upon
the surface.
That is a true boast of Jonathan to John:--
"We aint so weak and poor, John,
With twenty million people,
And close to every door, John,
A school-house and a steeple."
And this is but the outgrowth of that short formula of the brave
founders of school and church: "Faith in God, faith in man, faith in
work;" so that New England's present traits are directly traceable to
Puritan influence.
Our educational institutions had substantial foundation-stones of
self-sacrifice and far-seeing purpose, nobly laid by that score of
sturdy men, dedicating, for the first academy, a peck of corn, or a
shilling in cash, or a few treasured volumes.
The Sabbath has been called the "poem of New England," and it is that
always, whether rung out by the city's chiming bells or whispered in the
sacred repose of the country church. But it was never so truly a poem as
on that first New England Sabbath, when the church was a weather-beaten
ship, its support the lashing waves, and the worshippers "a handful of
sad, stern men and women kneeling in their spray-stiffened garments to
thank God for freedom to worship him."
New England's best traits, then, are but her rightful inheritance;
traits "lineally descended" from her founders, softened and purified in
the transmitting many times, as in the case of their sectional loyalty.
"They seemed to shrink from trying to get to heaven by any other road
than that which their fathers travelled, lest they should miss them at
their journey's end."
And in these days, thank God! religious toleration is creeping over the
forbidding rock of New England theology, much as the delicate vines of
the May-flower crept over and beautified the hard, unyielding soil.
Thus New England stands, in her freedom, love of education, and all
those homely domestic traits which make her the comfortable, clever,
strong, and tender mother she is, while under and through and over all
her traits runs, like a strain of restful music, her great, all
powerful, far-reaching faith.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
A great stride of advancement has been taken in the cultivation of that
rarest of supernal graces, Christian charity, since the ancient
patriarchs of New England fell asleep. Occasionally opportunity is given
us of measuring "with the eye" the distance which has been travelled.
More than a hundred and fifty years ago Dr. Cotton Mather spoke of Rhode
Island as "the Gerizzim of New England, the common receptacle of the
convicts of Jerusalem and the outcasts of the land." The island itself,
as a portion of God's creation, he was willing to think worthy of all
praise. He seems to have felt regarding it as Bishop Heber felt about
India when he wrote his immortal missionary hymn:--
"And every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile."
"The island is, indeed, for the fertility of its soil, the temperateness
of its air, etc., the best garden of all the colony, and were it free
from serpents I would call it the Paradise of New England." As things
were, however, the good old man could only say regretfully, "_Bona
terra, mala gens_." He evidently fancied that the serpent was not a
native of the original home of human innocence, or else his special
affection for the people of Rhode Island led him to wish for them an
exemption from exposures which God had not thought necessary to the
safety and happiness of Adam. The serpent was an honorable member of the
animal community in Paradise before Ithuriel's "spear of heaven-tempered
steel" discovered Satan, in the shape of a toad, breathing into the ear
of the sleeping "Mother of Mankind" deadly insinuations of disobedience
and rebellion, just as freedom in religion--the serpent so unworthily
abhorred by New England Puritanism--was a divinely chartered and
precious privilege of mankind long before the founding of Rhode Island
colonies or the birth of Roger Williams. The vagaries and fantasies of
freedom, its excesses, outrages, and crimes, are something fearful to
contemplate, but freedom is, has been, and must ever continue to be, the
essential condition of human power and excellence. It has ever been the
madness of men--and madness that could not claim the poor excuse of
method--to think of cutting down the tree of liberty, and still hope to
retain the benefits and blessings of its shade.
The statistics of marriages, as compared with those of population, would
seem to indicate that there is an increasing unwillingness on the part
of men or women, or both, to take upon themselves the responsibilities
of wedded life. Whether because of the increased expense of living due
to the development of luxurious tastes, and the selfishness which
results; or the difficulties in the way of securing remunerative and
constant employment; or because of other reasons, the sly god seems to
have lost something of his former power. Perhaps the chief cause lies
with the young men, who dare neither to face the cares of matrimony
themselves, nor to ask others to do so. Whatever there is of cowardice
in this matter, we do not believe that it can, as a rule, be charged
upon the women of America, without regard to their station in life. It
is claimed that in Massachusetts, of every 1,000 inhabitants in
1850-1860, 21 married, now only 17; that in Connecticut, while the
population has increased 56 per cent during the last decade, marriages
have increased but 34 per cent; that in Providence, R.I., while the
number capable of marrying was in the last decade 115 percent greater
than in the decade preceding the war, the number who married was only 77
per cent greater; and that in Ohio, while, in 1850-1880, the inhabitants
had increased 37 per cent, the number of marriages had advanced only 26
per cent.
* * * * *
Mistakes go in pairs. It was a mistake for a body of Protestant
ministers to meddle in the matter of the succession to a generalship in
the army, and it is a mistake for the _Catholic Standard_ to make this
the occasion for invidious statements in reference to the service of
Catholics in the late war. "Never," it says, "was any company or any
regiment or brigade that entwined on its colors emblems of the Catholic
faith, and on the eve of a battle knelt to receive absolution from a
Catholic priest, recorded but as first to advance and last to retreat.
And since then, whether in barracks or in camp, ... you look in vain for
any disgraceful record of Catholic privates and officers." We submit
that neither caste nor class nor sect has any place in determining the
relative merits of the brave soldiers who fought in the Civil War. In
camp, and upon the field of battle, they stood side by side, not as New
Yorkers, Vermonters, Germans, Irishmen, Catholics, or Protestants, but
as patriotic Americans. Some of these, perhaps, were better soldiers
because they were devout Catholics, and others because they were earnest
Presbyterians or Methodists, and this for the reason that those who fear
God are the readier to face duty, brave danger, and die for country. No:
our army is not an army of Catholics, Baptists, etc., but an army of
Americans.
* * * * *
Is it true that "a very large part of our free education system is
devoted to teaching the principles of Nihilism, the absurdities of
evolution, the crudities of the nineteenth-century philosophy, weakest
and most watery of all the philosophies of the ages"? Dr. William C.
Prime makes this claim in the New-York _Journal of Commerce_, and then
says, "Of what use it is to read the Bible in the morning, and teach in
the afternoon that the Bible is a poor fiction, perhaps some one can
explain. That this is precisely what many common schools and free
educational institutions are doing, may be discovered with little
difficulty." With due deference to the opinion of our genial _confrere_,
we cannot accept his conclusions. We have yet to learn of any public
school in which flouting at the Bible or religion enters into the matter
of instruction, and we apprehend that the number of teachers who thus
misuse their office really constitutes so small a fraction of the
teaching community as to be hardly worthy the learned doctor's
attention. As a matter of fact, by far the greater number of American
teachers in public schools and private schools, whatever their faults
otherwise, are men and women who are either Christians, or filled with a
reverent regard for the Bible and its teachings.
* * * * *
When Daniel Webster was a youth of eighteen, in college, he wrote to a
friend these suggestive words: "I am fully persuaded that our happiness
is much at our regulation, and that the 'Know thyself' of the Greek
philosopher meant no more than rightly to attune and soften our
appetites and passions till they should symphonize like the harp of
David."
* * * * *
Perhaps no one ever paid a finer tribute to conscience than John Adams,
when, after advising his son John Quincy to preserve above all things
his innocence, he said, "Your conscience is the minister plenipotentiary
of God Almighty in your heart. See to it that this minister never
negotiates in vain."
EDUCATION.
When in any of the chief activities of human life it becomes necessary
to adopt new methods, or to make some new application of old and
well-tried principles, it is always best that change should be
discriminating, gradual, and slow; and perhaps nowhere does this maxim
demand recognition and respect more imperatively than in educational
reform. We are not disposed to find fault with those who contend for the
authority and sway of the progressive spirit of the present as against
the spirit of the past. In science, art, literature, education; in
religion, morals, philosophy, theology, every genuine gain in depth,
breadth, and fulness is to be hailed with a thousand welcomes. It would
be a pity if an unenlightened veneration for the traditions and
principles of a superannuated conservatism were allowed to rob the world
even of the smallest portion of the benefit of a single new and useful
idea.
The needs and duties of each age require that intelligence should
steadily advance, and in the field of truth there is always something
valuable left for the latest gleaner. No one is fitted for the duties of
to-day who dreads the spirit of free inquiry that breathes around him,
and fearlessly addresses its questions in every direction. Especially
should new and better hints be welcomed as to the true science and
method of instructing the youthful mind. Patience, delicacy,
intelligence, and skill are nowhere required more than in this.
But while it is true that each generation must have liberty to do its
work in its own way, no generation can afford to despise or disparage
the wisdom and experience of previous ages, or to institute reforms
which revolutionize the methods and the principles of the past. The
intellectual triumphs and achievements which are the goal of one age are
indeed no more than the starting-point of the next; but the links of
connection must be preserved unbroken. The conditions of a successful
and symmetrical development of the mental powers are substantially the
same in every land and time, and there are great principles which,
however variously we may apply them, can never in themselves be violated
or discarded with impunity. So far as the new education so strenuously
advocated in our day honors and observes the eternal laws of the mind,
we can afford to contemplate the new ventures with equanimity, if not
with hope; but there is reason to fear that the almost unlimited freedom
of individual choice as to subjects of study accorded to young and
inexperienced minds in colleges where new departures have been taken is
scarcely compatible with the compliance those laws rigidly require.
HISTORICAL RECORD.
[_By sending to the editor brief contributions suitable for use in this
department, readers will greatly add to its completeness and value._]
Jan. 25.--About one hundred and fifty members of the Old Colony
Historical Society were present at the society rooms in the State House,
and listened to the concluding portion of Hon. Colin M. Ingersoll's
paper entitled "Leaves from the Diary of a Young Man in St. Petersburg,
1848-49." Among those present were ex-Gov. English, Hon. C. B. Bowers,
ex-Mayor Robertson, Rev. Mr. Leonard, Dr. Ayers, Judge L. E. Munson,
Capt. C. H. Townshend, and many other well-known gentlemen, besides a
party of friends of Mr. Ingersoll from New York. The paper was a rare
treat. A vote of thanks was tendered the speaker, on motion of ex-Mayor
Robertson, and interesting remarks were made by Prof. Baldwin.
* * * * *
Feb. 10.--The annual dinner of the Washington Association of the Bowdoin
Alumni took place at Welcker's. Some thirty-five persons sat down, among
them Hon. Hugh McCulloch, Hon. L. D. M. Sweet, Senator Frye, Hon. W. W.
Rice, Judge W. B. Snell, Gen. Ellis Spear, Col. J. H. Gilman, U.S.A.,
Rev. J. S. Sewall, D.D., Gen. John Marshal Brown, Mr. Israel Kimball,
and Rev. S. M. Newman. The following officers were elected: President,
Commodore Horatio Bridge; Vice-Presidents, Israel Kimball and Judge
William B. Snell; treasurer, I. N. Whitney; Corresponding Secretary,
Prof. J. W. Chickering, and Recording Secretary, James C. Strout.
The Bowdoin Alumni Association of New York also ate their annual dinner,
and elected officers as follows: E. B. Merrill, president; Francis R.
Upton, secretary; D. F. H. Dillingham, treasurer.
* * * * *
Feb. 10.--About one hundred sons of the Granite State, the majority of
whom belong to the New Hampshire Club, assembled at the Quincy House,
Boston, under the presidency of Hon. J. C. Moore, of Manchester. Among
the company were many distinguished gentlemen, invited because they were
natives of the State, and among these were: Senator J. Gault of Hookset,
Naval Officer A. O. Kent, Gen. J. L. Stevenson, Speaker J. Q. A.
Brackett, Mr. Charles F. Morrill of Manchester, Mr. George B. Clifford
of Grand Forks, Dak., Gen. Charles H. Burns of Wilton, Landlord Crufts
of the Maplewood House, Bethlehem, Mr. A. A. Folsom of the Boston &
Providence Railroad, Mr. A. A. Copp of Nashua, Dr. A. H. Hayes of Alton,
Gen. F. S. Nickerson, and Mr. Charles Pattee of Boston, Mr. Walter C.
Taft, superintendent of the New York & Boston Dispatch Express Company,
and Mr. H. B. Dwight, superintendent of the Adams Express Company.
* * * * *
Feb. 15.--At an adjourned meeting of the Maiden Historical and
Genealogical Society the following gentlemen were unanimously elected
permanent officers of the society for the ensuing year: President, Hon.
E. S. Converse; Vice-Presidents, Hon. J. K. C. Sleeper, Hon. L. L.
Fuller, Hon. Marcellus Coggan; Corresponding Secretary and Librarian,
George D. B. Blanchard; Recording Secretary, George D. Ayers; Treasurer,
Thomas Lang. These officers are constituted a Board of Directors of the
society.
* * * * *
Feb. 22.--The annual meeting of the Cape Cod Historical Society convened
in Lyceum Hall, Yarmouthport, Hon. Charles F. Swift in the chair. The
treasurer's report showed the society to be in good financial condition.
Steps were taken to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the
formation of Barnstable County, which occurs some time in June. These
officers were chosen: President, Hon. Charles F. Swift, Yarmouthport;
Vice-Presidents, Thomas P. Howes, Dennis, S. B. Phinney, Barnstable,
Alonzo Tripp, Boston, E. S. Whittemore, Boston, James Gifford,
Provincetown; Treasurer, Samuel Snow, Barnstable; Secretary, Josiah
Paine, Harwich; Executive Committee, J. C. Howes, Dennis, Eben B.
Crocker, Barnstable.
* * * * *