"One, two, three, four,--this makes the fifth accident on the Fourth
of July, in the two papers I have just read," said Jenny.
"A very moderate allowance," said Theophilus Thoro, "if you consider
the Fourth as a great national saturnalia, in which every boy in the
land has the privilege of doing whatever is right in his own eyes."
"The poor boys!" said Mrs. Crowfield. "All the troubles of the world
are laid at their door."
"Well," said Jenny, "they did burn the city of Portland, it appears.
The fire arose from firecrackers, thrown by boys among the shavings of
a carpenter's shop,--so says the paper."
"And," said Rudolph, "we surgeons expect a harvest of business from
the Fourth, as surely as from a battle. Certain to be woundings,
fractures, possibly amputations, following the proceedings of our
glorious festival."
"Why cannot we Americans learn to amuse ourselves peaceably like other
nations?" said Bob Stephens. "In France and Italy, the greatest
national festivals pass off without fatal accident, or danger to any
one. The fact is, in our country we have not learned _how to be
amused_. Amusement has been made of so small account in our philosophy
of life, that we are raw and unpracticed in being amused. Our
diversions, compared with those of the politer nations of Europe, are
coarse and savage,--and consist mainly in making disagreeable noises
and disturbing the peace of the community by rude uproar. The only
idea an American boy associates with the Fourth of July is that of
gunpowder in some form, and a wild liberty to fire off pistols in all
miscellaneous directions, and to throw firecrackers under the heels of
horses, and into crowds of women and children, for the fun of seeing
the stir and commotion thus produced. Now take a young Parisian boy
and give him a fete, and he conducts himself with greater gentleness
and good breeding, because he is part of a community in which the art
of amusement has been refined and perfected, so that he has a thousand
resources beyond the very obvious one of making a great banging and
disturbance.
"Yes," continued Bob Stephens, "the fact is, that our grim old Puritan
fathers set their feet down resolutely on all forms of amusement; they
would have stopped the lambs from wagging their tails, and shot the
birds for singing, if they could have had their way; and in
consequence of it, what a barren, cold, flowerless life is our New
England existence! Life is all, as Mantalini said, one 'demd horrid
grind.' 'Nothing here but working and going to church,' said the
German emigrants,--and they were about right. A French traveler, in
the year 1837, says that attending the Thursday-evening lectures and
church prayer-meetings was the only recreation of the young people of
Boston; and we can remember the time when this really was no
exaggeration. Think of that, with all the seriousness of our Boston
east winds to give it force, and fancy the provision for amusement in
our society! The consequence is, that boys who have the longing for
amusement strongest within them, and plenty of combativeness to back
it, are the standing terror of good society, and our Fourth of July is
a day of fear to all invalids and persons of delicate nervous
organization, and of real, appreciable danger of life and limb to
every one."
"Well, Robert," said my wife, "though I agree with you as to the
actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest
against your slur on the memory of our Pilgrim fathers."
"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro, "the New Englanders are the only people,
I believe, who take delight in vilifying their ancestry. Every young
hopeful in our day makes a target of his grandfather's gravestone, and
fires away, with great self-applause. People in general seem to like
to show that they are well-born, and come of good stock; but the young
New Englanders, many of them, appear to take pleasure in insisting
that they came of a race of narrow-minded, persecuting bigots.
"It is true, that our Puritan fathers saw not everything. They made a
state where there were no amusements, but where people could go to bed
and leave their house doors wide open all night, without a shadow of
fear or danger, as was for years the custom in all our country
villages. The fact is, that the simple early New England life, before
we began to import foreigners, realized a state of society in whose
possibility Europe would scarcely believe. If our fathers had few
amusements, they needed few. Life was too really and solidly
comfortable and happy to need much amusement.
"Look over the countries where people are most sedulously amused by
their rulers and governors. Are they not the countries where the
people are most oppressed, most unhappy in their circumstances, and
therefore in greatest need of amusement? It is the slave who dances
and sings, and why? Because he owns nothing, and can own nothing, and
may as well dance and forget the fact. But give the slave a farm of
his own, a wife of his own, and children of his own, with a
schoolhouse and a vote, and ten to one he dances no more. He needs no
amusement, because he is happy.
"The legislators of Europe wished nothing more than to bring up a
people who would be content with amusements, and not ask after their
rights or think too closely how they were governed. 'Gild the dome of
the Invalides,' was Napoleon's scornful prescription, when he heard
the Parisian population were discontented. They gilded it, and the
people forgot to talk about anything else. They were a childish race,
educated from the cradle on spectacle and show, and by the sight of
their eyes could they be governed. The people of Boston, in 1776,
could not have been managed in this way, chiefly because they were
brought up in the strict schools of the fathers."
"But don't you think," said Jenny, "that something might be added and
amended in the state of society our fathers established here in New
England? Without becoming frivolous, there might be more attention
paid to rational amusement."
"Certainly," said my wife, "the State and the Church both might take a
lesson from the providence of foreign governments, and make liberty,
to say the least, as attractive as despotism. It is a very unwise
mother that does not provide her children with playthings."
"And yet," said Bob, "the only thing that the Church has yet done is
to forbid and to frown. We have abundance of tracts against dancing,
whist-playing, ninepins, billiards, operas, theatres,--in short,
anything that young people would be apt to like. The General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church refused to testify against slavery, because
of political diffidence, but made up for it by ordering a more
stringent crusade against dancing. The theatre and opera grow up and
exist among us like plants on the windy side of a hill, blown all awry
by a constant blast of conscientious rebuke. There is really no
amusement young people are fond of, which they do not pursue, in a
sort of defiance of the frown of the peculiarly religious world. With
all the telling of what the young shall _not_ do, there has been very
little telling what they shall do.
"The whole department of amusements--certainly one of the most
important in education--has been by the Church made a sort of outlaws'
ground, to be taken possession of and held by all sorts of spiritual
ragamuffins; and then the faults and shortcomings resulting from this
arrangement have been held up and insisted on as reasons why no
Christian should ever venture into it.
"If the Church would set herself to amuse her young folks, instead of
discussing doctrines and metaphysical hair-splitting, she would prove
herself a true mother, and not a hard-visaged stepdame. Let her keep
this department, so powerful and so difficult to manage, in what are
morally the strongest hands, instead of giving it up to the weakest.
"I think, if the different churches of a city, for example, would rent
a building where there should be a billiard-table, one or two
ninepin-alleys, a reading-room, a garden and grounds for ball playing
or innocent lounging, that they would do more to keep their young
people from the ways of sin than a Sunday-school could. Nay, more: I
would go further. I would have a portion of the building fitted up
with scenery and a stage, for the getting up of tableaux or dramatic
performances, and thus give scope for the exercise of that histrionic
talent of which there is so much lying unemployed in society.
"Young people do not like amusements any better for the wickedness
connected with them. The spectacle of a sweet little child singing
hymns, and repeating prayers, of a pious old Uncle Tom dying for his
religion, has filled theatres night after night, and proved that there
really is no need of indecent or improper plays to draw full houses.
"The things that draw young people to places of amusement are not at
first gross things. Take the most notorious public place in
Paris,--the Jardin Mabille, for instance,--and the things which give
it its first charm are all innocent and artistic. Exquisite beds of
lilies, roses, gillyflowers, lighted with jets of gas so artfully as
to make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where the
gaslight streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and
calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragrant
honeysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; a
dancing-ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage of
many-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all these
there is not only no sin, but they are really beautiful and desirable;
and if they were only used on the side and in the service of virtue
and religion, if they were contrived and kept up by the guardians and
instructors of youth, instead of by those whose interest it is to
demoralize and destroy, young people would have no temptation to stray
into the haunts of vice.
"In Prussia, under the reign of Frederick William II., when one
good, hard-handed man governed the whole country like a strict
schoolmaster, the public amusements for the people were made such
as to present a model for all states. The theatres were strictly
supervised, and actors obliged to conform to the rules of decorum
and morality. The plays and performances were under the immediate
supervision of men of grave morals, who allowed nothing corrupting
to appear; and the effect of this administration and restraint is to
be seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full of
charming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderate
sum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fair
dramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seen
enjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,--the
mother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of all
ages, and the father,--their faces radiant with that mild German light
of contentment and good will which one feels to be characteristic of
the nation. When I saw these things, and thought of our own outcast,
unprovided boys and young men, haunting the streets and alleys of
cities, in places far from the companionship of mothers and
sisters, I felt as if it would be better for a nation to be brought
up by a good strict schoolmaster king than to try to be a republic."
"Yes," said I, "but the difficulty is to get the good schoolmaster
king. For one good shepherd, there are twenty who use the sheep only
for their flesh and their wool. Republics can do all that kings
can,--witness our late army and sanitary commission. Once fix the idea
thoroughly in the public mind that there ought to be as regular and
careful provision for public amusement as there is for going to church
and Sunday-school, and it will be done. Central Park in New York is a
beginning in the right direction, and Brooklyn is following the
example of her sister city. There is, moreover, an indication of the
proper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautify
Sunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to have
Sunday-school fetes and picnics,--the most harmless and commendable
way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons and
bar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers,
and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There are
churches whose broad aisles represent ten and twenty millions of
dollars, and whose sons and daughters are daily drawn to circuses,
operas, theatres, because they have tastes and feelings, in themselves
perfectly laudable and innocent, for the gratification of which no
provision is made in any other place."
"I know one church," said Rudolph, "whose Sunday-school room is as
beautifully adorned as any haunt of sin. There is a fountain in the
centre, which plays into a basin surrounded with shells and flowers;
it has a small organ to lead the children's voices, and the walls are
hung with oil paintings and engravings from the best masters. The
festivals of the Sabbath school, which are from time to time held in
this place, educate the taste of the children, as well as amuse them;
and, above all, they have through life the advantage of associating
with their early religious education all those ideas of taste,
elegance, and artistic culture which too often come through polluted
channels.
"When the amusement of the young shall become the care of the
experienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are now
rolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into the
form of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of
the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, and
not dreaded.
"On the Fourth of July, our city fathers do in a certain dim wise
perceive that the public owes some attempt at amusement to its
children, and they vote large sums, principally expended in
bell-ringing, cannon, and fireworks. The sidewalks are witness to the
number who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops and
saloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts of
accidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure,
places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but which
excel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, would
greatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particular
day, and would refine and prepare our people to keep holidays and
festivals appropriately."
"For my part," said Mrs. Crowfield, "I am grieved at the opprobrium
which falls on the race of _boys_. Why should the most critical era in
the life of those who are to be men, and to govern society, be passed
in a sort of outlawry,--a rude warfare with all existing institutions?
The years between ten and twenty are full of the nervous excitability
which marks the growth and maturing of the manly nature. The boy feels
wild impulses, which ought to be vented in legitimate and healthful
exercise. He wants to run, shout, wrestle, ride, row, skate; and all
these together are often not sufficient to relieve the need he feels
of throwing off the excitability that burns within.
"For the wants of this period what safe provision is made by the
church, or by the state, or any of the boy's lawful educators? In all
the Prussian schools amusements are as much a part of the regular
school system as grammar or geography. The teacher is with the boys on
the playground, and plays as heartily as any of them. The boy has his
physical wants anticipated. He is not left to fight his way, blindly
stumbling against society, but goes forward in a safe path, which his
elders and betters have marked out for him.
"In our country, the boy's career is often a series of skirmishes with
society. He wants to skate, and contrives ingeniously to dam the
course of a brook and flood a meadow which makes a splendid
skating-ground. Great is the joy for a season, and great the skating.
But the water floods the neighboring cellars. The boys are cursed
through all the moods and tenses,--boys are such a plague! The dam is
torn down with emphasis and execration. The boys, however, lie in wait
some cold night, between twelve and one, and build it up again; and
thus goes on the battle. The boys care not whose cellar they flood,
because nobody cares for their amusement. They understand themselves
to be outlaws, and take an outlaw's advantage.
"Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendid
fun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder.
What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, where
boys _may_ slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edict
forbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine.
"Boys want to swim: it is best they should swim; and if city fathers,
foreseeing and caring for this want, should think it worth while to
mark off some good place, and have it under such police surveillance
as to enforce decency of language and demeanor, they would prevent a
great deal that now is disagreeable in the unguided efforts of boys to
enjoy this luxury.
"It would be cheaper in the end, even if one had to build sliding-piles,
as they do in Russia, or to build skating-rinks, as they do in
Montreal,--it would be cheaper for every city, town, and village to
provide legitimate amusement for boys, under proper superintendence,
than to leave them, as they are now left, to fight their way against
society.
"In the boys' academies of our country, what provision is made for
amusement? There are stringent rules, and any number of them, to
prevent boys making any noise that may disturb the neighbors; and
generally the teacher thinks that, if he keeps the boys _still_, and
sees that they get their lessons, his duty is done. But a hundred boys
ought not to be kept still. There ought to be noise and motion among
them, in order that they may healthily survive the great changes which
nature is working within them. If they become silent, averse to
movement, fond of indoor lounging and warm rooms, they are going in
far worse ways than any amount of outward lawlessness could bring them
to.
"Smoking and yellow-covered novels are worse than any amount of
hullabaloo; and the quietest boy is often a poor, ignorant victim,
whose life is being drained out of him before it is well begun. If
mothers could only see the series of books that are sold behind
counters to boarding-school boys, whom nobody warns and nobody cares
for,--if they could see the poison, going from pillow to pillow, in
books pretending to make clear the great, sacred mysteries of our
nature, but trailing them over with the filth of utter corruption!
These horrible works are the inward and secret channel of hell, into
which a boy is thrust by the pressure of strict outward rules,
forbidding that physical and out-of-door exercise and motion to which
he ought rather to be encouraged, and even driven.
"It is melancholy to see that, while parents, teachers, and churches
make no provision for boys in the way of amusement, the world, the
flesh, and the devil are incessantly busy and active in giving it to
them. There are ninepin-alleys, with cigars and a bar. There are
billiard-saloons, with a bar, and, alas! with the occasional company
of girls who are still beautiful, but who have lost the innocence of
womanhood, while yet retaining many of its charms. There are theatres,
with a bar, and with the society of lost women. The boy comes to one
and all of these places, seeking only what is natural and proper he
should have,--what should be given him under the eye and by the care
of the Church, the school. He comes for exercise and amusement,--he
gets these, and a ticket to destruction besides,--and whose fault is
it?"
"These are the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feel
that we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear rule
equally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any
housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and knowledge of man
alone.
"If women had an equal voice in the management of our public money, I
have faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in mere
political charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of the
children of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for the
boys; I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physical
development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic
performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded
parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the
laboring lungs,--these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent
of croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it
generally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental
provision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,--not
even the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warm
her numb fingers and put on her skates when she arrives on the ground,
and to which she may retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catches
cold, and perhaps sows the seed which with air-tight stoves and other
appliances of hot-house culture may ripen into consumption.
"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls,
seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the
thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a
respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl
was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,--a
young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and
parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to
shame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are never
counted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandons
as irreclaimable.
"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life pass
agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively
young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated
room. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusement
and three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. And
where can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man as
thoughtless as herself, and more depraved; then to the bar for a glass
of wine, and another; and then, with a head swimming and turning, who
shall say where else she may be led? Past midnight and no one to look
after her,--and one night ruins her utterly and for life, and she as
yet only a child!
"John Newton had a very wise saying: 'Here is a man trying to fill a
bushel with chaff. Now if I fill it with wheat first, it is better
than to fight him.' This apothegm contains in it the whole of what I
would say on the subject of amusements."