BY GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN,
U. S. Senator from Illinois.
Having ascertained the extraordinary fact, from a close analysis of
tabulations of authoritative statistics furnished by the Census and
Education Bureaus, that, assuming the cost of educating a child in
Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia to be equal to such cost in the
New England states, every one hundred adults in the former pay more to
educate the children in those states than is paid by the same number of
adults in any one of the latter, let us explore a little further for the
reasons underlying that fact.
It might naturally be asked: How can these calculations be correct, when,
for example, we learn from the report of the Commissioner of Education
that Massachusetts pays annually for each child enrolled in her schools
$15.44, while Mississippi pays but $3.38?
There are several factors which aid in bringing about this result.
Some of these can be exactly ascertained; others of them, for want of
statistics, can not.
In the first place, the $15.44 per scholar which Massachusetts pays
amounts to but $4.98 per capita of her adult population, while the $3.38
per scholar that Mississippi pays amounts to $2.12 per capita of her
adult population. Hence the real difference, so far as the payers of the
cost are concerned, is only $2.86 per capita.
Another cause of this difference or inequality is the fact that
Massachusetts pays her teachers, on an average, about $49.06 per month,
while Mississippi pays hers only $30.07. While this doubtless affects
the efficiency and equality of the education, it does not necessarily
indicate a less number of pupils.
Still another cause lies in the fact that while the length of the
school year is in Massachusetts one hundred and seventy-seven days, in
Mississippi it is but seventy-seven days.
And still another may grow out of the larger proportion of teachers
employed in Massachusetts than in Mississippi, for we find that while in
the former, one teacher is employed for every 35.7 enrolled scholars, in
the latter, one is employed for every 42.5.
These items enable us to understand why there are differences between the
amounts paid in the two states, and what those differences are that exist
under the present order of things.
We perceive, therefore, that while a strict scrutiny may bring to
light the facts that the education in the one state or section is more
efficient, the terms of school attendance longer, and the amount paid for
school purposes more liberal than in the other, yet this in no wise tends
to invalidate the statistics heretofore presented, nor to affect the
argument based thereon. Although it may be true that Massachusetts spends
more than $15.00 per scholar while Mississippi spends less than $3.50, it
is also true that the latter has forty-eight pupils enrolled in school
to every one hundred adults, while the Bay State has but thirty-three;
and that while it costs the adults of the Northern state but $4.98 each
to pay this $15.44, a similar service, similarly compensated, for its
enrolled scholars would cost the adults of the Southern one $9.70 each.
The fact, then, that this remarkable inequality in the cost of educating
the children of the different localities in the Union does exist, can not
be successfully controverted; and that there is no method of equalizing
the burden save by government aid can not be truthfully denied.
The time has gone by when it could be said that Mr. A., who is poor in
this world’s goods, but surrounded by a full household of ruddy youths,
must provide for their education from his own depleted pocket, just
as Mr. B., who is rich, and has but a single child, provides for its
instruction out of his plethoric pocket.
The principle is now fully acknowledged that it is the duty of the state
or government—of the people, as a body-politic—to bear this burden, and
thus to equalize it. This is the principle upon which our common school
system is founded, which, notwithstanding the tax it imposes, is even
now looked upon by the people as one of our most important institutions,
second only to the republican basis on which our government is founded.
To bring this vital institution as near to perfection as is possible,
to distribute its benefits as equally as possible, to render the tax as
light as is consistent with efficiency, and to bring the burden to bear
as equally as is practicable on all sections and localities, should be
one great aim of our Federal legislation.
All the great nations of Europe are beginning to throb with the divine
impulse which is first seen in the great, questioning eyes of the
speechless babe. Some of them have lain for long centuries encrusted
in the densest ignorance, and awake but sluggishly to a realization of
the tremendous national power, which others have long since discovered,
embedded in the education of the masses. Thus Russia, with her
population of 78,500,000, although almost exhausting herself with
wars for territorial aggrandizement, has awakened to the necessity of
granting to her schools $9,000,000 annually—a mere pittance for such
a nation, yet containing the germ of higher promise. So also Austria,
with her population of 22,144,244, is slowly stirring. Education there
is now made obligatory, and in 1881 she supplemented prior national aid
to it by a grant of $6,500,000. Italy, in 1882, with a population of
28,000,000, gave like aid to the extent of $6,200,000, beside providing
school buildings and other necessary desiderata—previous aid having
borne good fruit in a marked decrease of illiteracy. Prussia, with a
population of 27,251,067, is fortunate in the possession of endowed
schools with regular incomes. Yet she gave national aid to education
to the extent of $10,000,000 in 1881, and $11,458,856 in 1882. France,
with a population of some 37,000,000—independent of the millions of
dollars expended for a like purpose annually by her departments and
communes—gave in 1881-2 to the extent of $22,717,880 for the education
of her masses. Little Belgium, with a population of but 5,403,006—about
one twelfth of ours—in 1882 gave national aid to education to the extent
of about $4,000,000; for she perceives, as a direct consequence of
periodical aid of this character, that Belgian illiteracy is surely and
rapidly decreasing, while in like ratio her prosperity is increasing.
Great Britain is similarly alive to the necessity for government aid to
elementary schools. Such aid was given by her in 1882 to those in England
and Wales, whose united population is 25,968,286—less than half the
number we boast—to the extent of £2,749,863, or—roughly calculating at
five dollars to the pound—nearly $14,000,000. This, too, in a land that
is also rich in well endowed universities, colleges, grammar schools,
and other institutions of learning. Such aid was also given in 1882-3
to elementary schools in Scotland, whose population is but 3,734,370,
to the extent of £468,512, or, say $2,342,560; and to Ireland, with a
population of 5,159,839, to the extent of £729,868, or, say $3,648,340.
Thus, in addition to the great educational advantages arising from
the numerous well founded and amply endowed educational institutions
for the various grades and classes of the British people that have
long existed in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, we find the
government of the United Kingdom aiding elementary instruction to the
extent of about $20,000,000 in one year—the combined population being
but 34,862,495 souls; the United States, with a larger population, is
without the advantages either of such national aid or such endowed
schools as those countries possess. Even the colonies of Great Britain
are equally impressed with the importance and essential necessity of
general public education. Taking as an example that one of her colonies
with which our relations are most intimate—the province of Ontario. Its
population comprises but 1,913,460 souls, yet the amount expended there
upon education in 1880 reached $3,414,267. A similar ratio of expenditure
to the total population—counting the latter at 55,000,000—would call for
nearly $100,000,000 in the United States.
But while it may be of interest to note what other peoples and other
governments are doing toward the advancement of general education within
their borders, and while the contrast with that which is done, or fails
to be done, in the same direction in the United States, furnishes food
for instruction and ultimate benefit, yet it by no means follows that
this nation, destined, as every one of its citizens proudly believes,
to march in the van of the world’s civilization, is to limit its aims,
its labors, its appropriations in the furtherance of education—the
prime factor in all civilization—by the standards of other nations. The
rather should the comparison, while it may for the moment bring to our
cheeks the blush of shame, act as a stimulus to higher effort and larger
expenditure, if necessary on our part to reach that preëminent position
of prosperity, power, and enlightenment, of which the intellectual
alertness of our people and the genius of our institutions give abundant
promise.
In considering this subject we must not fail to remember that among the
nations of the world ours stands alone in this: that here the sovereignty
is in the people. An ignorant sovereignty is a tyrannical sovereignty,
whether held by the many or the few. Its capabilities for good can
alone be drawn out by education. That Liberty sits enthroned in this
land is due solely to education and that proper spirit of freedom and
independence in thought and action which is begotten of education. As has
been well said by another: “We have gained all that we possess by reason
of the education of the individual, and we hold it upon the same tenure.
What we hold for ourselves we hold for mankind, and we hold it for both
upon the same condition by which it was gained, and that is the continued
and universal education and development of the people.”
Every child born in this great republic is born with the inherent right
to be educated. He is born heir to that popular sovereignty which, upon
coming of age, he is entitled to exercise. The coming responsibilities
rest upon him from his very cradle up. He has an absolute right to such
an education as will enable him to properly meet them. His parents who
brought him into the world weighted with such responsibility, did it
with the implied obligation on their part to give him that education
without which his birth would be either a mockery or a crime. As with the
parents, so with the state-local, and so with the state-national. If the
parents fail in meeting this obligation it becomes a binding obligation
upon the state-local, and if the state-local fails the obligation
devolves upon the nation.
Again, the obligation of every parent in this republic to educate his
children so as to enable them in due time to intelligently and wisely
exercise the great power of the franchise, implies the obligation on his
part to give them, up to that point, _equal_ educational advantages.
By a parity of reasoning it logically follows that in case of failure
by parent or state-local—whether from inability or other cause—the
obligation to secure to all children within its domain not only
facilities, but equal facilities, for the attainment of a sufficient
education to enable them to cast an intelligent ballot, rests upon the
nation. Nor does this obligation cease when such equal facilities are
provided. It goes further. It extends, if necessary, to the compulsion
of those children to avail themselves of the facilities which the nation
provides for their education.
That it is the right, then, of every American child to have a rudimentary
education, and that it should be equal to that of every other American
child, seems clear; and that where, through any cause, that child fails
to get such education, it is the duty of the national government to
enable him to gain it, seems equally manifest.
To what extent, and from what resources, the nation should grant this
educational aid to its children, and through what channels and upon what
basis the distribution of that aid should be made, are subjects that will
now command our attention.
The burden of educating the children of the nation is a heavy one—a fact
perhaps not as fully realized by our rulers and legislators as it ought
to be. From the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1882-3, it
appears that the estimated real value of sites, buildings, and all other
school property in all the states and territories, is $216,562,197. That
of course is the existing “school plant” as it may be termed; but to get
such a “school plant”—utterly insufficient as it may be—has been more
or less burdensome. From the same authority it appears that the amount
imposed and expended for common school purposes, in all the states and
territories for 1880, was $91,158,039; a large sum, yet after all but
little more than half the amount absolutely needed in order to provide
adequate school facilities for all entitled thereto.
A careful and conservative estimate founded upon all attainable data
will show that not less than $160,000,000 annually must be provided to
secure the education of all the children of our country of lawful age. Of
this amount, provision, as we have seen, is already made in the various
states and territories to the extent of over $90,000,000 annually. Of the
various measures relating to the subject of national aid to education
that have been urged upon the attention of Congress, none has ventured to
appropriate a larger annual sum[J] than $50,000,000. Should Congress at
any time make an appropriation of that amount, there would still be an
annual deficiency of some $20,000,000.
It is not at all certain that our national legislators have considered
the magnitude of the subject with which they are to deal, nor that they
have all investigated it with that degree of care and seriousness which
it plainly deserves and even demands at their hands.
Every one, without controversy, admits the importance of educating
our children; and without doubt, every one of our legislators has not
only a warm and friendly feeling for this work, but also a willingness
to do something to afford it national aid. But with how many of them
is this a willingness without a formed and definite purpose? It were
almost better that the importance of such education should be a disputed
point—that a storm of controversy should arise and shake them in its
throes, forcing them to lay hold of the very horns of the sacred altar
of education—rather than that the dead, arid level of inert concession
should bring forth nothing save a deceptive mirage. It is time to wake up
to the fact that government aid in the line of education means nothing
unless it be in the form of an annual appropriation of sufficient amount
to produce tangible results.
Do our legislators appreciate the significant fact that of the
$91,158,039 expended on the public schools in the thirty-eight states
and nine territories and the District of Columbia during 1882, more than
one quarter of that entire expense was borne by the three states of
Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa? That nearly one third of that great expense was
borne by and expended in the four states of New York, Ohio, Illinois and
Pennsylvania? That more than one half of it was borne by and expended
in the six states of New York, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Iowa and
California? That nearly two thirds of it all was borne by and expended in
the nine states of California, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New York?
Of what practical avail, then, is the bill[K] which passed the United
States Senate on the 7th of April last, so far, at least, as the amount
to be appropriated is concerned? It proposes to appropriate a total
amount of $77,000,000. That amount certainly sounds well and looks
generous at first sight. But how is it appropriated? Let us see.
This $77,000,000 that looks so large and adequate, is to be scattered
over the whole country, and over a period of eight years, thus:
The first year, $7,000,000—which is much less than Illinois alone gives
in one year for her own children; the second year, $10,000,000—which
is much less than Massachusetts and Iowa together give in one year for
their own children; the third year, $15,000,000—which is much less than
Ohio and Pennsylvania together give for one year’s schooling of their
own children; the fourth year, $13,000,000—or about what Massachusetts,
Indiana, and Wisconsin together give a year for such purposes; the
fifth year, $11,000,000—or less than New York alone gives in one year;
the sixth year, $9,000,000—very little more than Ohio alone gives;
the seventh year, $7,000,000—or only a trifle more than Missouri and
California together give in a year; and the eighth year, $5,000,000—or a
trifle over what Indiana gives, and less than Iowa gives, in one year!
Now, if such appropriations as these are not absurdly inadequate, what
are they?
They are limited to eight years, and during those eight years the mean
average annual appropriation is less than $10,000,000. Think of it for
a moment. An amount ($9,625,000) appropriated by Congress to cure the
illiteracy of the whole nation—only $1,057,325 more than Illinois now
spends in a year for educational purposes; only $1,361,755 more than
Pennsylvania spends, and only $804,086 more than is spent by Ohio; while
it is $1,797,593 less than the state of New York expends in a single year
within her borders for like purposes!
Take the exact figures of the census returns, and the amount actually
needed is easily ascertained for that year—though it must be remarked
that the amount needed is not remaining the same, nor diminishing, but
increasing every succeeding year. The school population in 1880 was
16,243,822. To educate that population required an assumed average
annual expenditure of not less than $10 each, or $162,438,220. The real
expenditure was but $91,158,039. Hence there was in that year a necessity
for an expenditure of at least $72,085,783 more than was actually
expended.
But let us examine the statistical facts a little more closely. It is
true that the school population then was 16,243,822, but it is also
true that of that number only 10,013,826 were enrolled in the public
schools, and of these again only 6,118,331 took advantage of their
opportunities for instruction by daily attendance at those schools.
Here, then, we find that the $91,158,039 was expended in educating the
6,118,331 children who daily attended school, and that the actual average
cost per scholar, therefore, was $14.90, and not $10. We discover also,
that while 6,118,331 children were in daily attendance at the public
schools, 3,895,495 children on the rolls of such schools were not in
daily attendance, and that 6,229,996 other children of school age had
not even the opportunity or facilities for any such education! It is
plain, therefore, that had the 10,125,491 children of school age in the
two latter classes—those who failed to take advantage of the school
opportunities offered them, and those who had no such opportunities
at all—been compelled, as they should be (except in case of sickness
or other very sufficient cause), to daily attend public schools, then
instead of the $91,158,039 actually expended in such schools that year,
there should have been expended $242,027,855 that year, in order to give
all children of school age an equal educational chance. In other words,
the expenditure, as compared with the necessities of the case, left a
deficit for that one year of $150,869,816.
Now it is to make up for the deficiencies in the school facilities
already provided in the states and territories, that Congressional
legislation and national aid is proposed. But it would puzzle the
combined mathematicians of all countries and ages to demonstrate that
an annual deficiency of $150,000,000, or more, can be made up by an
expenditure of $77,000,000, dribbled out in annual sums varying from
$5,000,000 to $15,000,000, during eight successive years.
While, however, to meet the necessities of the case fully and absolutely
would call for enormous annual appropriations, yet as the utmost
conservatism and moderation should govern all experimental legislation
involving large appropriations, so in legislating upon this subject
it were safer to adopt the basis and estimate of least requirement
heretofore given, and adopt $50,000,000 as the amount that should be
annually appropriated for this important purpose.
It is to be kept in mind, also, that an annual appropriation to this
extent need not add one dollar to the burden of taxation now borne by the
people.
In this connection it is not necessary to discuss any of the questions
relating to the methods of raising our national revenue. Whatever
differences of opinion there may be touching those methods or means,
it must be conceded that our nation, under the present system and
laws, holds a high and even commanding position among the civilized
governments of the world, and that our people are enjoying more than
an average degree of prosperity. It is our duty to use every effort to
advance to still higher prosperity. In the meantime, however, any bill
appropriating national aid to education should be based upon our present
condition. Our revenue now exceeds our expenditures per annum by fully
the amount ($50,000,000) sought to be appropriated by the bill referred
to. Hence its enactment would not add one dollar to the taxes already
imposed. It follows, then, that should Congress be asked to support a
measure making annual appropriation of $50,000,000, derived from the
internal revenue taxes and the sale of public lands, for school purposes,
opposition to such a measure on the pretext that it would impose
additional burdens upon the people would be flimsy and without force,
and only transparently veil an opposition to increased facilities for
educating our children.
If our children are to be provided with adequate facilities for proper
and necessary instruction, the burden must be imposed in some form; and
none can be devised that will bear more equally upon all, and be felt as
little as this.
It is an old truism that “every rose hath its thorn.” The advance of
civilization and knowledge has its drawbacks as well as its advantages.
This is manifested very distinctly in one direction in our own country.
The rapid invention and introduction of labor-saving machinery has had
a very marked tendency to draw the laboring population from the rural
districts, and congregate it at the manufacturing centers. This, although
it may be attended with many important advantages, has some very serious
disadvantages, and is, perhaps, in part the cause of the serious contests
we have seen of late years between capital and labor. It increases the
population of the cities, and proportionately decreases that of the rural
districts, and, as a consequence, increases the cost of living, as it
advances the price of property in the cities. It also tends very largely
to increase the power and influence of corporations, monopolies, and
other associations of this kind. The single item of transportation is
vastly enlarged by this fact, and thus is increased the necessity for,
and the power of, the railroads of our country. The effect of bringing
together at these manufacturing centers large bodies of employés is, that
for self-protection, combinations of labor, as against the encroachments
of capital, are formed. Irritation and contests follow.
It is from these facts that we are confronted with one of the most
difficult problems forced upon any nation for solution—a problem which
thus far seems to be beyond the reach of legislation.
To check the advance of scientific and inventive genius, or to stop the
progress of knowledge, is neither desirable, practicable, nor possible.
The only possible solution of this perplexing problem would seem to
lie in the education of the masses, and thus elevating the laboring
population as nearly as may be to the educational level of the
capitalists—the rural districts to the educational level of the cities.
By adequate national and state legislation, very marked and important
progress in this respect may be secured. Should the government adopt
the policy of adequate national aid to education, its distribution
according to the number of persons under twenty-one years of age would
perhaps be the best basis for such distribution at the start, but future
experience and more exact knowledge would, no doubt, enable the remedy
to be applied, in due time, more exactly to our needs. At present the
statistics of illiteracy are not sufficiently definite and thorough
to take them as a reliable guide in determining the basis for the
distribution of so large an amount of funds.
One means, however, of meeting the difficulty named—one possible step
toward the solution of this puzzling problem—is certainly within our
reach. Educate the masses, elevate the laboring and producing population,
and bring them up as nearly as possible to the educational plane already
reached by those who hold and wield the moneyed power.
Education increases our wants and demands; increase in demand brings
increase in supply; and this of necessity increases the demand for labor.
Economy on the part of the nation as well as the individual is a correct
principle, and holds good in all states and conditions of life, but we
must not forget that it is a relative term. For the individual who can
neither read nor write to expend money for books and writing materials
is a useless expenditure; but would you count that an extravagance on
the part of him who can do both, so long as he keeps within his wants
and means? What constitutes the difference in the application of the
principle to the two cases? _Education._
The pioneer farmer may have spent a life of patient toil on his farm,
satisfied to live in his log cabin, with possibly a single room, a
puncheon floor, and a clapboard door, unable to read or write—an
upright, honest man, and probably as nearly contented as it falls to the
lot of mortals to be. But mark the change! His sons and daughters are
growing up toward manhood and womanhood; the free school has invaded
his neighborhood; and they attend it. How soon it affects the household
arrangements, manners, dress, and everything about the family! What
has wrought the change? Education. Their wants, and what are now their
necessities, are greatly increased. What follows? The desire to meet and
supply these wants brings increased effort and industry for the purpose.
And every family thus advanced in its views of what is necessary to
comfort and happiness increases to the same extent the demand upon the
producer and manufacturer, and thus widens the field of labor. Hence the
solution of this great and knotty problem is to be reached chiefly by the
education of the masses—by raising them toward educational equality with
the wealthy.
There are many who delight in picturing the days of primitive simplicity,
when wants were few and easily supplied; but is there one of these
moralizers who would willingly go back to them? “Strict economy as
gauged by our means” is a correct maxim everywhere and at all times.
But civilization and enlightenment are progressive, and no laws save
such as would trample under foot the inalienable rights of the people to
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” can check that progress.
We must therefore either foster the comparatively few more fortunate
and energetic of our people, or we must endeavor by appropriate and
legitimate and adequate legislation to link together and advance
the entire mass. The noblest work of man is the elevation of his
fellowman, and the grandest work in which a government can engage is the
enlightenment of its people. But these can alone be accomplished by the
aid of the great lever: Education.
FOOTNOTES
[J] And that bill was introduced by myself.
[K] S. 398, 1st Session XLVIIIth Congress.
A TRIP TO THE LAND OF DREAMS.
BY ROBERT R. DOHERTY.
It is strange how soon we all turn into redoubtable adventurers, after
the “soft dews of kindly sleep” have fallen. Not Marco Polo, fresh from
the glories of the Cathayan court; nor Orellana, with his glittering
lies about Dorado; nor Hans Pfaali, big-mouthed with the wonders of his
voyage to the moon; not even Baron Munchausen himself, could tell more
astonishing tales, than can the prosiest among us on his return from
Dreamland.
Dreams were believed by the ancients to be vehicles of supernatural
communication with mortals. Homer says that they come from Jove; Mohammed
tells us that Allah sends them; and according to Job, “God speaketh in
dreams.” Milton, on the other hand, pictures Satan, “squat like a toad
close at the ear of Eve,” assaying by his devilish art to reach the
organs of her fancy, and with them to forge phantoms and dreams. So
deep-seated was the belief in the supernatural origin of night visions,
that the law of ancient Rome required those who dreamed of public affairs
to report to the augurs, so that an authoritative interpretation might be
promptly given to the rulers. There was hardly a governor or general of
antiquity, but had a number of professional augurs in his retinue; and
the course of events was often modified by the meanings they attached to
their patrons’ dreams. Professor Creasy has written a unique volume on
the “Fifteen Decisive Battles of History,” and has suggested another, on
the dozen or more “Decisive Love Affairs.” As many fateful dreams could
easily be selected, around which, as on a pivot, the destiny of the
world has seemed to turn. The most ludicrous, and in many cases wicked
interpretations were given to dreams; and Cato—himself an augur—said it
was strange how two augurs could meet without laughing in each other’s
face.
Even at the present day belief in the prophetic character of dreams is
widely prevalent, and many lists of “interpretations” are in circulation
among the credulous. When Rory O’More assured us that dreams go by
contraries, he followed current superstition. Tears are supposed
to indicate joy, and laughter, woe. Dream of the dead, and you may
expect tidings of the living; dream of the living, and unlooked for
danger—perhaps death—is imminent. Many of the interpretations printed in
the “guide books” are, however, exceedingly natural, as, for instance,
that visions of gold foretoken wealth, and orange blossoms, marriage.
Let us place in contrast with such fanciful absurdities a tabulation
of some of the veritable indications of dreams, as made by a modern
scientist. Lively dreams, according to Dr. Winslow, are a sign of the
excitement of nervous action; soft dreams, of slight irritation of the
brain, often in nervous fever announcing the approach of a favorable
crisis; frightful dreams, of determination of blood to the head; dreams
of blood and red objects, of inflammatory conditions. Visions of rain and
water are often signs of diseased mucous membranes and dropsy; distorted
forms frequently point to disorder of the liver. Dreams in which the
patient sees any part especially suffering indicate diseases of that
part. Dreams about death often precede apoplexy, which is so connected
with determination of blood to the head. The nightmare, with great
sensitiveness, is an indication of determination of blood to the chest.
To adequately define dreaming must ever be a difficult, if not an
impossible task. Professor Wilson, of Edinburgh, has graphically outlined
peculiarities which distinguish dreams from the imaginings of wakeful
hours and from the hallucinations of madness. The current of thought
that rushes through the sleeper’s mind is quite free from the control of
his will. Dr. Rush has called a dream a transient paroxysm of delirium,
and delirium a permanent dream; but the dreamer’s intellect is withdrawn
from almost all relation to external objects; while the lunatic holds
communication by all his senses with the world about him. But while
sleep has thus closed “the five gateways of knowledge” to the dreamer,
he still hears and sees and feels and smells and tastes. An imaginative
person, on visiting Niagara Falls, can afterward reproduce it graphically
in memory; but his most vivid mental picture seems pale and hopelessly
inaccurate when the scene is revisited. The visions of our sleep, on the
contrary, are among the most vivid of our life, and where the objects
have been seen before, the most accurate. “The main difference,” says Dr.
Smith, “between our sleeping and waking thoughts appears to lie in this,
that in the former case the perceptive faculties of the mind are active,
while the reflective powers are generally asleep. Thus it is that the
impressions of dreams are in themselves vivid, natural, and picturesque,
occasionally gifted with an intuition beyond our ordinary powers, but
strangely incongruous and often grotesque; the emotion of surprise or
incredulity, or of unlikeness to the ordinary course of events, being in
dreams a thing unknown.”
Of the vividness of impressions made in dreams, illustrations are
plentiful. Dr. Abercrombie first told the often quoted story of the
English army officer whose susceptibility was so remarkable that “his
friends could produce any kind of dream they pleased by softly whispering
in his ear.” On one occasion they led him, in this way, through a long
quarrel, which threatened to end in bloodshed. Just as the dreamer was to
meet his enemy a pistol was handed to him; he fired it off in his sleep,
was awakened by the report, and repeated to his laughing friends the
fancies they had whispered to him a moment before. A well authenticated
case is on record of a young Englishman who, at the age of twenty-eight,
through disease, lost the power of speech for four years. He dreamed
that he fell into a cauldron of boiling beer, and in his agony and
fright shrieked for help. Of course, he at once awoke, and from that
moment the use of his tongue was fully recovered. A bottle filled with
warm water, which touched the feet of Dr. James Gregory after he had
fallen asleep, produced an awful vision of a bare-footed tramp over the
hot crater of Mount Ætna, through clouds of sulphurous vapors, and amid
spurtings of scalding lava. Because of a blister on the head of Dr. Reid,
he “positively endured all the physical torture of being scalped, while
dreaming that he had fallen into the hands of a party of red Indians.” A
lady dreamed that a man entered her chamber, and tightly clasped her left
hand in his without offering her further violence or uttering a word of
explanation. She remonstrated with him in vain; she shrieked for help,
but could not make herself heard; then began a desperate struggle with
the imaginary stranger, which culminated in awaking the sleeper—but not
in releasing her hand, which, to her great alarm, was still held as in a
vise. Summoning all her will-power, she rose from her couch and crossed
the room, and it was only when she attempted to light a lamp that she
discovered that she was holding her own hand with the other, which had
become numb by the tightness of the grasp.
Indefinite expansion of time—or, rather, a total ignoring of the
limitations of time—is another peculiarity in dreaming. It has been
demonstrated that a man can dream in detail the events of years, and
consume in the act of dreaming only a small fraction of one minute.
“I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in
one night,” says De Quincy, the prince of dreamers: “nay, I sometimes
had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time.” Dr.
Macnish, from whose delightful essays several of these illustrations have
been taken, within an hour dreamed that he made a voyage, remained some
days in Calcutta, returned home, then took ship for Egypt, visited the
cataracts of the Nile, Cairo, and the Pyramids; “and, to crown the whole,
had the honor of an interview with Mehemet Ali, Cleopatra, and Alexander
the Great!” A gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted as a soldier,
performed many military duties, deserted, been apprehended, carried back,
tried, condemned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. His eyes
were blindfolded; after an interval of awful agony he heard the rattle
of the fatal musketry, and awoke—to find that “a noise in the adjoining
room had at the same moment produced the dream and awakened him.” We
have, perhaps, all, though in less degree, had similar experience of the
rapidity of thought in dreaming.
There is hardly any limitation to the fancy of the dreamer; he may even
lose his identity, and for the nonce personate Cæsar, or Cromwell, or
the King of the Cannibal Islands. It is said, however, that no man or
woman ever dreamed that he or she belonged to the other sex; although
the strange notion that the dreamer is a fish, or beast, or bird, is not
infrequent. Usually, however, “we are somewhat more than ourselves in our
dreams.” The tired school girl cries herself to sleep over some difficult
arithmetical task, dreams, perhaps, that her teacher assists her, and
wakens with the correct “answer” in her mind. So Condorcet successfully
pursued his most intricate calculations in his dreams; and Benjamin
Franklin has acknowledged his indebtedness to his midnight visions for
the solution of many grave political problems which had hopelessly
taxed his reason during his waking hours. An austere philosopher, who
ordinarily seemed to be destitute of risibility, tells us that in one
dream he could compose a whole comedy, witness its performance, relish
its jests, and laugh himself awake.
But to the marvels of Dreamland there is no end. “Strange it is,” says
the poetical essayist, “when regal Mab rides forth, drawn by a team of
little atomies across men’s noses as they lie asleep, galloping through
lovers’ brains, and over courtiers’ knees, and lawyers’ fingers, and
soldiers’ necks, and ladies’ lips!” Strange, indeed, and blessed as
strange. Let us thank God for our dreams. They are the great levelers of
life. The cruel distinctions of wealth and blood are forgotten, and our
personal disadvantages are set aside. The bashful stutterer talks with
the grace and fire of Demosthenes, and the wasted invalid regains his
pristine vigor. In dreams
“The child has found its mother,
And the mother finds her child,
And dear families are gathered,
That were scattered o’er the wild.”
The poor drudge who toils wearily through twelve long hours for the mere
necessities of life, can at night sit on a golden throne and dispense
royal favors. The ambitious soldier can fight bloodless contests, and win
empires, without staining his soul with the crimes of a Napoleon.
And if the dreams of the mass of mankind be so full of wonders, what must
be those of the giants of intellect and passion? What exquisite sensuous
delight must have thrilled the poet Coleridge during his vision of Xanadu
of Kubla Khan, when the mere fragmentary strains that he then heard sung
are so beautiful! How wild and spectral, how awfully magnificent, were
the dreams of Albrecht Dürer, judged by the allegorical pictures in which
he has attempted to reproduce them! If to read of the visions of a Bunyan
or a De Quincy thrills us, what must it have been to experience them—to
have floundered with Pliable in the Slough of Despond, and stood with
Christian on the Delectable Mountains—to have been “grinned at, stared
at, chattered at,” by thousands of alligators such as the “Opium-eater”
describes, or to have with him “sunk fathoms deep in Nilotic mud.”
Physiologists have made many curious and valuable observations bearing on
our subject. They have found that when a sleeper dreams, the brain swells
greatly, and becomes red in color, while the brain of the dreamless
sleeper is “pale, shrunken, and bloodless;” they have shown that, from
physical causes, he that sleeps on his left side will have visions of
fantastic incongruities, while the dreams of the slumberer who reclines
on his right side will at least be logical and self-consistent; they
have divided “the exciting causes of dream-images into peripheral and
central stimulations”—that is, into those caused by muscular movements
or positions, and by the hygienic condition of the various organs of
the body, and those which originate somewhat mysteriously, in the
nerve-centers.
After all, however, very little is known of the true philosophy of
dreaming; and perhaps the quaint fancy of Sir Thomas Browne may not be as
utterly absurd as at first it seems—that this life is but a dream, and
that death will be an agreeable awaking to our real life, whose past is
now forgotten only because we are now asleep.
THE HOMELIKE HOUSE.
BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.