Chapter IV.—The Bedroom 461

“Consider the Lilies” 463

A Bird’s Eye View of Forestry 464

Government Employment for Women 467

The Art of Fish Culture

Part II. 470

Honesty in the C. L. S. C. 473

Outline and Programs 474

Local Circles 475

The C. L. S. C. Classes 481

Editor’s Outlook 483

Editor’s Note-Book 486

C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for May 488

Talk About Books 491

Chautauqua, 1885 493

The Florida Chautauqua 496

Special Notes 496

REQUIRED READING FOR MAY.

ENGLISH AS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

BY PRESIDENT D. H. WHEELER, D.D., LL.D.

At the beginning of this study we must determine as clearly as possible

the meaning attached to the word _universal_ when it is applied to a

language. For this purpose, the word is employed in a restricted sense.

It is not meant that men are returning to the conditions of speech which

prevailed before the building of Babel. To that condition men may or may

not return in some far off century; so far as we can judge, that reunion

of mankind is very distant. Max Müller[1] says that 900 languages are

spoken by the human race; and if dialects are added the number may be

three or four times as large. Most of our race speak dialects having no

literature, and it is found to be a very slow task to substitute the

language of a nation for the dialects of its people. Classical Greek

was probably spoken by only a few of the Greeks. We know that the Latin

of Cicero was not, not even in Rome, the speech of the people. At this

day more than a score of dialects are spoken in Italy, and the majority

of the population of that Peninsula can neither speak nor understand

Italian. Public education and other unifying influences make very little

progress against the diversity of speech in the various provinces.

An Italian gentleman is bred in a nurse’s language (the dialect) and

educated in Italian. He speaks two tongues, dialect and Italian; his

servants speak but one, and that is the dialect. To break up the power

of the nurse, and of the local influences which she represents, is a

Herculean task which must be accomplished in every country except the

United States, the Canadas, and a part of Great Britain, before mankind

will speak _only_ 900 tongues; the time required to reduce nine hundred

to one can only be guessed at. If the problem of a universal language

were how to provide a common language to be exclusively used by all men,

this problem would be one for pure speculation, in the solving of which

the imagination would be more active than the reason.

There is another sense in which scholars speak of a universal language.

(1) There has always been in our Aryan[2] tribe a leading literary

language. Once it was Sanskrit;[3] perhaps at a later time it was

Persian; later it was Greek; later it was Latin. This Aryan tribe of ours

has made the greater part of the history of the last 3,000 years; to-day

it is the history-making and literature-making tribe. Great tracts of

older history—Babylonian, Arabian, Egyptian—lie outside of the Aryan

movements; but Persian, Greek, Roman, German, French, Spanish, English

and American history lie in the Aryan line. Now, then, within this line

some one Aryan language has always enjoyed a literary predominance. (2)

For other than literary purposes, some one of our family of languages has

at one time or another had an extended currency. For something like two

centuries French, for example, has been the language of diplomacy. We are

probably passing out of a period which has lasted for half a century,

of the predominance of German as a language of research, especially of

metaphysical and grammatical study. These examples will suffice to show

what is meant by our problem. In trade and practical invention English

is, in this modified sense, a universal language. What I undertake to

measure is this: the probability that, at a not distant time, English

will be universal in more senses (used by people of many countries for

more purposes) than any other Aryan language was ever before used.

Some careful observers believe that this is the present position of

the language—that it is now universal to an extent quite beyond all

precedent. I think that as a literary, political and commercial language,

English has a fair prospect of universal use within the Aryan tribe, and

a better prospect than any other tongue of coming into use for these

purposes all over the globe.

1. The mere arraying of numbers carries with it a kind of presumption

in favor of English. Did 5,000,000 ever at one time use either classic

Greek or the Hellenic form of that speech? I seriously doubt that at any

time 5,000,000 of people could have understood each other in any one form

of that tongue. Did ever at any one time 15,000,000 of people speak the

Latin of our classic authors? I doubt it. Turn to English, and we find

not less than 110,000,000 of people speaking it at the present time. And

this comparison is made much stronger when we remember that, one hundred

years ago, our number did not probably exceed fifteen millions. Our vast

growth is related to forces and conditions still existing, and now giving

us an accelerating progress in numbers. I shall return to these forces

and conditions in a later paragraph. Looking at our competitors, we see

that the Germans come next to us, with probably not more than 45,000,000.

The German empire counts 45,000,000, and there are 5,000,000, perhaps,

of Austrian Germans; but the empire envelops millions of non-Germans.

They sometimes zealously claim the Low Dutch; but we could claim them for

English with better right. Next come the French with 37,000,000, about

one third only of our strength. I think it fair for these purposes to

count the populations under the dominion of the several tongues. French,

English and German are spoken all over the world. Among the three runs

the competition for the first place in the Aryan tribe. I do not commit

the folly of making race lines and speech lines the same; but it is a

convenient mode of describing the field of this competition as that of

the Aryan race, although there have been so many fusions of tribes that

perhaps there is no Aryan race at this late day.

2. Another presumption in favor of our language arises from the history

of the competition for the first place which has gone on since the rise

of the modern European nations. After the Dark Ages,[4] Italian first

came to prominence as a polished literary tongue. Its poets converted a

dialect into a language, and from Italian literature our Chaucer, our

Shakspere, and even our Milton drew inspiration as well as materials for

English poetry. As a literary language, Italian was for two centuries a

universal language. Spain had the next opportunity for the primacy. Her

flag was first planted on the outposts of this continent; the conquests

of her kings at one moment placed Europe and America in her hands. Her

poets and philosophers made her language as honorable in literature as

her sailors and soldiers made it in discovery and conquest. If Spain had

retained her grasp on the Mississippi valley and on Mexico and South

America, she, and not we, would now be supreme on this continent; and

Spanish, not English, would be the dominant speech of North America.

But Spain may be said to have retired voluntarily from the primacy of

the Aryan tribe; a great language and a great literature descended to

generations of Spaniards who had ceased to be great. Next, the French

language took the lead. During the eighteenth century the language of

France was undoubtedly the leading Aryan tongue. Since the beginning of

this century German has come strongly into the competition, and English

has gradually attained a preponderance in numbers over our two great

competitors.

3. A third presumption in our favor arises from the diversity of great

functions which English fills. It is a political, a literary, a common,

and a commercial speech. In this brief space I can dwell only on the

fact that it is, in a peculiar sense, a political language. The English

race has led the way towards modern liberty and towards the political

institutions and habits which are the safeguards of freedom. English

words even are in use among the continental nations to describe political

things which they have borrowed from us. The word _meeting_ is a good

example. But the mere diffusion of political terms means comparatively

little. The only really great universal language of the past was the

language of Rome, and its preëminence grew from its political character.

There are in modern Europe two sets of political ideas and juridical

institutions; one is Roman, and the other is English; and the two face

each other in the modern world, and are really in silent but effective

competition with each other. Outside of England, Europe is Roman except

as it has been made English. The continental nations have parliaments

which are pale copies of the vigorous legislative bodies which cover the

English-speaking world. Rome is mighty yet, for the juridical systems of

the continent of Europe have their foundations in the Roman civil law.

The greatness of Latin did not arise from the genius of the Roman poets

and orators. It laid its vigorous hand on human society, and in some sort

it is still administering civil society. English has a political and a

judicial system of its own, and these systems are conquering mankind.

The adoption of the parliament and the trial by jury by continental

nations prove the high value of the English inventions in government and

law. The French and the German are neither of them political languages.

French is the language of a nation which will long command the respect of

mankind; but its language counts for nothing in its political structure.

German is the language of a great people who make good citizens, but have

until recently shown little capacity for political affairs, and have yet

to make a great national record. The genius of Bismarck has created a

great empire out of a great people; but it remains to be seen whether

any aggressive political ideas are to be born of this German empire. The

English political system is aggressive. Englishmen are nation-builders;

a shipload of them cast upon a desert island would form a government as

instinctively and as easily as they would build themselves houses. In

this respect English is like Latin; it is the language of a distinct,

original political system, whose obvious advantages are enticing men to

copy it all over the world.

4. Another presumption in favor of our speech arises from certain

peculiarities of its grammar and of its enunciation. In its grammar,

it has cast off more of the inflexional burdens than either of its

competitors. Both of them retain the fictitious distinction of genders by

terminations, and they are in other respects weighted with inflexional

incumbrances. English has, unfortunately, a small inheritance of strong

nouns and verbs; but it is far simpler in its grammar than either French

or German. And it is not by any means a small matter that the grammarian

has never obtained the control of the language. In this respect the

Germans enjoy more freedom than the French; but in neither language is

the grammarian so little powerful as he is among us. The reason is that

English is spoken for all purposes by all our people. I do not forget the

English dialects as an exception; but they are a very small exception in

contrast with the fact that neither literary French nor literary German

are used by the mass of either people for all purposes. There is “bad

German” for daily life, and there is dialect French for the mass of

Frenchmen outside of the great towns. In our language many efforts have

been made to fix precise rules which would please the grammarian and

render good English difficult, and therefore not common. These efforts

have not prevented the progress of English toward simplicity, and the

vigor which simplicity imparts; and the result is that children and

foreigners readily learn and use the language which is employed in our

books and periodicals. By flouting the grammarian we have dethroned the

nurse, and have not one language for the home and another for the book.

The enunciation of English is characterized by a simplicity which has not

been enjoyed by any other great language. The English word has but one

vocal qualification, and that is the accent on a single syllable. And

such is the simplicity of this accent that it may be heavy or light, and

still the word is intelligible. The vowels all tend to a nearly common

form in most situations; and if the accent be in the right place the word

is usually understood. There are, of course, many exceptions, such as

an Italian _a_ at the end of many words; but though one says _feyther_,

_faather_, or _fauther_, we still know what he means. The force of this

consideration will best appear by contrast. We do not know how classic

Greek was enunciated; but we have reason to suppose that the vocalization

was as elaborate and artificial as the music of light opera. It was, of

course, easily spoken after one had learned it, but the learning of it

must have been a great task for a foreigner. Latin was less elaborately

artificial, but there was doubtless an intonation of the Latin sentence,

and a marking of the varying lengths of vowels; and these features must

have made good Latin difficult and rare. We know that Italian spreads

slowly throughout Italy under a system of public instruction, and that it

defies the foreigner’s industry and patience, on account of the demand

it makes for well defined vowels and a certain sentence rhythm. French is

hardly less, if at all less difficult, because it makes similar demands

upon the attention and vocal skill of the speaker. A good illustration

of all this is found in the fact that the English ear is pleased, while

the French and Italian ears are displeased by a “brogue,” or a variation

of the position of a word in a sentence. We all like to hear foreigners

speak our tongue, precisely because they set it to a new music and show

us the range of its grammatical simplicity. There is doubtless a _best_

arrangement of the words in any English sentence. If the grammarians had

had their way, this best arrangement would have become the only proper

arrangement. The fact that we allow the foreigner to put our words into

a different order than the best, or even the second best—and are still

pleased with his work—shows, I think, that English has in its vocal and

syntactical systems a simplicity and a flexibility which adapt it to

universal use.

5. There is also a presumption in favor of English which arises from

its history and from certain results of that history. It was originally

Teutonic, and made its first alliance with Scandinavian, and so by

swallowing up the speech of “the Danes” it came to represent the northern

branch of the Aryan race with more breadth than High German shows. Then

came the Norman Conquest, by which other “Danes” who had conquered

Normandy and adopted the French language became the masters of England.

The contest between French and English ended as that between Scandinavian

and English had ended—English swallowed French. This event gave us our

composite English, and gave the world a language in which the northern

and southern streams of Aryan speech mingle their waters and collect

their far-gathered wealth. Ours is a composite and compromise speech.

In the Danish and Norman struggles, our tongue proved its tenacity,

its “holdfast.” In each struggle the conqueror adopted the dialect of

the conquered. But in these conflicts, English showed itself to be not

only stubbornly vital, but also remarkably charitable and catholic.

It remained English, but it gave liberal hospitality to Danish and

French words. And ever since, it has been a great borrower of foreign

words. It is in this respect utterly unlike French, which will hardly

tolerate even a foreign name, but translates these names whenever it

is possible. I have sometimes wondered whether our speech might not

become a world-speech by mere swallowing of the vocabularies of other

languages. It is, of course, not a subject for rational conjecture; but

neither would that great feast of French words have been a rational

forecast in the eleventh century. We have borrowed from all the great

tongues of our tribe, and from many other great and small dialects.

We have always been borrowing; we borrow every year. It would be an

entertaining and not unprofitable task to collect these harvests of the

last fifty years. The readiness with which we naturalize a foreign word

has made many a grammarian sick of his profession; but borrowing words

is an English propensity which nothing can “reform” out of us. And this

catholicity looks in several ways toward universality. Neither of our

competitors has any corresponding merit. French is a grand speech, but

it will not tolerate foreign words. German is a grand speech; but it is

German, and nothing else, except as it has been infiltrated with literary

and judicial Latin. I must pass hurriedly over some other important

presumptions in our favor.

6. The primacy in commerce is freely conceded to our tongue. For such

purposes it is spoken in all the great seaports of the world. In addition

to this trade use, we may note that a great variety of practical

inventions carry their English names and terms around the world.

7. We also have the great reading public of the world. Germans read; but

their 45,000,000 do not consume more than one eighth as much literary

food as England and America, the Canadas and Australia. The English

literature market is not only the greatest in the world—exceeding in one

year all the literary produce of antiquity which has come down to us—but

it is a market which grows rapidly. If a German or a Frenchman wishes to

reach the largest number of minds, he must write in the English language.

We have made more than half the fame of German authors by translating

their works into our tongue. Some of the German authors have been wise

enough to learn and to use our speech in their books.

8. French and German each had a special advantage over English fifty

years ago. Frenchmen have long had a rare power of popularizing

knowledge—a power of which they have made much less use than would have

been expected. French is very rich in the power of accurate and plain

statement of scientific truth. This power Englishmen have been for some

time borrowing, and the fruits of such copying appears in the good fame

and liberal incomes of our Huxleys and Proctors. There is no reason to

doubt that we shall overtake the French in this path of progress; for we

have an inexhaustible demand for popularizations of science. Thirty years

ago Germans had a primacy in research. They made the world come to their

universities to study and master the German _method_ in investigation.

I believe that, though this German primacy still exists, it has nearly

reached its end. English students have not gone in droves to Germany to

come back empty handed. Many of them have conquered the German method and

transferred it to their own home and tongue.

9. France is already out of the race. She has but thirty-seven millions,

and grows only at a snail’s pace. A Frenchman has recently described the

stationary condition of his people in the _Révue des deux Mondes_ in

stronger terms than I could use. German is our only serious rival for

the primacy. Is it a serious rivalry? The Germans are a prolific race.

They lose millions by emigration, and still increase to an extent which

makes all Frenchmen sad. But how shall forty-five millions shut up in

old Europe overtake the one hundred and ten millions who have the great

open fields of the world? If North America were as thickly populated as

Germany we should count our hosts as three or four hundred millions.

They have room at home; but we have vastly more room. In a century our

North American English population will number 250,000,000. The rest of

the English speaking world can hardly fail to grow enough to make our

grand total 400,000,000. The next doubling of our tribe—not more than

one hundred and fifty years from now—would put us so far in front of all

competition that no language would contest the primacy with us. Besides,

we have great possibilities of gains outside of our own tribes. South

America is more and more under the influence of English and American

ideas; the East is being anglicised by the English dominion in India,

and by American and English missionary schools. Africa is an open

question; but a vast English speaking population on the Dark Continent is

a far more probable addition to our numbers than this American-English

population was in 1492, or even in 1700.

Such seems to be the outlook. In a recent letter forecasting the

English-speaking primacy of the world, Mr. Gladstone said: “Mr. Barham

Zincke, no incompetent calculator, reckons that the English-speaking

peoples of the world one hundred years hence will probably count a

thousand millions.… A century back I suppose they were not much, if at

all, beyond fifteen millions.” This primacy, he adds, “would demand no

propaganda, no superlative ingenuity or effort; it ought to be an orderly

and natural growth.… To gain it will need no preterhuman strength; to

miss it will require some portentous degeneracy.” I have made much more

modest estimates than those quoted by Mr. Gladstone. I attach most

importance to the political value of English and the nation-building

instinct of our tribe. The great rush forward from fifteen to one hundred

and ten millions _in a century_ is a result of our political facility.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[_May 3._]

The heart here, the Father yonder, and the universe of man and matter as

the meeting place between them, is the whole scope and the whole poetry

of the Sermon on the Mount. The preacher shears off all the superfluities

and externals of worship and of action, that he may show, in its naked

simplicity, the communion which takes place between the heart as

worshiper and God as hearer. The righteousness he inculcates must exceed

that “of the Scribes and the Pharisees.” The man who hates his brother,

or calls him “Raca,” is a murderer in deed.… Oaths are but big sounds;

the inner feelings are better represented by “yea, yea, nay, nay.” That

love which resides within will walk through the world as men walk through

a gallery of pictures, loving and admiring, and expecting no return. The

giving of alms must be secret. The sweetest prayer will be solitary and

short. One must fast, too, as if he fasted not. The enduring treasures

must be laid up within. Righteousness must be sought before, and as

inclusive of all things; life is more precious than all the means of it.

The examination and correction of faults must begin at home. Prayer,

if issuing from the heart, is all powerful. The essence of the law and

the prophets lies in doing to others as we would have others do to us.

Having neglected the inner life, the majority have gone to ruin, even

while following fully and devotedly external forms of faith and worship.

The heart must, at the same time, be known by its fruits. It is only the

good worker that shall enter the heavenly kingdom. These truths, in fine,

acted upon, these precepts from the Mount, heard and kept—become a rock

of absolute safety, while all beside is sand now, and sea hereafter.

Such is, in substance, this sermon. It includes unconsciously all

theology and all morals, and is invested, besides, with the beauty of

imagery—theology, for what do we know, or can we ever know, of God, but

that he is “our Father in heaven,” that he accepts our heart worship,

forgives our debts, and hears our earnest prayers—morals, for all sin

lies in selfishness, all virtue lies in losing our petty identity in

the great river of the species, which flows into the ocean of God; and

as to imagery, how many natural objects—the salt of the sea, the lilies

of the valley, the thorns of the wilderness, the trees of the field,

the hairs of the head, the rocks of the mountain, and the sand of the

seashore—combine to explain and beautify the deep lessons conveyed!

Here is, verily, the model—long sought elsewhere in vain—of a “perfect

sermon,” which ought to speak of God and of man in words and figures

borrowed from that beautiful creation, which lies between, which

adumbrates the former to the latter, and enables the latter to glorify at

once the works and the author.—_Gilfillan._[1]

[_May 10._]

The Hebrew poet was nothing if not sacred. To him the poetical and

the religious were almost the same. Song was the form instinctively

assumed by all the higher moods of his worship. He was not surprised

into religious emotion and poetry by the influence of circumstances,

nor stung into it by the pressure of remorse.… Religion was with him a

habitual feeling, and from the joy or the agony of that feeling poetry

broke out irrepressibly. To him, the question, “Are you in a religious

mood to-day?” had been as absurd as “Are you alive to-day?” for all his

moods— … whether wretched as the penitence of David, or triumphant as the

rapture of Isaiah—were tinged with the religious element. From God he

sank, or up to him he soared. The grand theocracy around ruled all the

soul and all the song of the bard. Wherever he stood, under the silent

starry canopy, or in the congregation of the faithful—musing in solitary

spots, or smiting, with high, hot, rebounding hand, the loud cymbal—his

feeling was, “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the

house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” In him, surrounded by

sacred influences, haunted by sacred recollections, moving through a holy

land, and overhung by a heavenly presence, religion became a passion, a

patriotism, and a poetry. Hence the sacred song of the Hebrews stands

alone, and hence we may draw the deduction that its equal we shall never

see again, till again religion outshine the earth with an atmosphere as

it then enshrined Palestine—till poets, not only as the organs of their

personal belief, but of the general sentiment around them, have become

the high priests in a vast sanctuary, where all shall be worshipers,

because all is felt to be divine. How this high and solemn reference to

the Supreme Intelligence and Great Whole comes forth in all the varied

forms of Hebrew poetry! Is it the pastoral? The Lord is the shepherd.

Is it elegy? It bewails his absence. Is it ode? It cries aloud for his

return, or shouts his praise. Is it the historical ballad? It recounts

his deeds. Is it the penitential psalm? Its climax is, “Against _thee_

only have I sinned.” Is it the didactic poem? Running down through the

world, like a scythed chariot, and hewing down before it all things as

vanity, it clears the way to the final conclusion, “Fear God, and keep

his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Is it a burden,

“tossed as from a midnight mountain, by the hand of lonely seer, toward

the lands of Egypt and Babylon?” It is the burden of the Lord; his the

handful of devouring fire flung by the fierce prophet. Is it apologue, or

emblem? God’s meaning lies in the hollow of the parable; God’s eye glares

in the “terrible crystal” over the rushing wheels. Even the love-canticle

seems to rise above itself, and behold! a greater than Solomon, and a

fairer than his Egyptian spouse, are here. Thus, from their poetry,

as from a thousand mirrors, flashes back the one awful face of their

God.—_Gilfillan._

[_May 17._]

They say it is an ill mason that refuseth any stone; and there is no

knowledge but in a skillful hand serves, either positively as it is, or

else to illustrate some other knowledge, … because people by what they

understand, are best led to what they understand not.

But the chief and top of his knowledge consists in the Book of books,

the storehouse and magazine of life and comfort, THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.…

In the Scriptures he finds four things: precepts for life, doctrines for

knowledge, examples for illustration, and promises for comfort. These he

hath digested severally.

But for the understanding of these, the means he useth are: First, A HOLY

LIFE; remembering what his Master saith, that _if any do God’s will he

shall know of the doctrine_ (John viii), and assuring himself that wicked

men, however learned, do not know the Scriptures, because they feel them

not, and because they are not understood but with the same spirit that

writ them. The second means is PRAYER; which, if it be necessary even in

temporal things, how much more in things of another world, where _the

well is deep, and we have nothing_ of ourselves _to draw with_! Wherefore

he ever begins the reading of the Scripture with some short ejaculation,

as _Lord, pen mine eyes, that I may see the wondrous things of thy law_.

The third means is A DILIGENT COLLATION of Scripture with Scripture. For,

all truth being consonant to itself, and all being penned by one and the

self-same Spirit, it can not be, but that an industrious and judicious

comparing of place with place must be a singular help for the right

understanding of the Scriptures. To this may be added the consideration

of any text with the coherence thereof, touching what goes before and

what follows after; as also the scope of the Holy Ghost. When the

apostles would have called down fire from heaven, they were reproved as

ignorant of what spirit they were. For the law required one thing and the

gospel another; yet as diverse, not as repugnant; therefore the spirit

of both is to be considered and weighed. The fourth means are COMMENTERS

AND FATHERS, who have handled the places controverted; which the parson

by no means refuseth. As he doth not so study others as to neglect the

grace of God in himself, and what the Holy Spirit teacheth him; so doth

he assure himself, that God in all ages hath had his servants, to whom

he hath revealed his truth, as well as to him; and that as one country

doth not bear all things, that there may be a commerce, so neither hath

God opened, or will open, all to one, that there may be a traffic in

knowledge between the servants of God, for the planting both of love and

humility. Wherefore he hath one comment, at least, upon every book of

Scripture; and, plowing with this and his own meditations, he enters into

the secrets of God treasured in the holy Scripture.—_Herbert._[2]

[_May 24._]

It is exceedingly important, therefore, that all the Christian gifts

and graces should be possessed in purity of spirit, uncontaminated by

any unholy mixtures of an earthly nature. The mere suggestion that they

have merit of themselves and separate from the God who gives them, if

it be received with the least complacency, necessarily inflicts a deep

wound. They are accordingly held in purity of spirit, and with the divine

approbation, only when their tendency is to separate the soul from

everything inward and outward, considered as objects of complacency and

of spiritual rest, and to unite it more closely to God.… We do not find

the parent, who has that degree of affection for his child which may be

called entire or perfect love, making his love a distinct object of his

thoughts, and rejoicing in it as such a distinct object; that would not

be the genuine operation of perfect love. If his love is perfect, he has

no time and no disposition to think of anything but the beloved object

toward which his affections are directed. His love is so deep, so pure,

so fixed and centered upon one point, that the sight of self, and of his

own personal exercises, is lost. It ought to be thus in the feelings

which we exercise toward God; and undoubtedly such will be the result,

when the religious feeling has reached a certain degree of intensity;

that is to say, when the feeling is perfect, the mind is not occupied

with the feeling itself, but with the object of the feeling. The heart,

if we may so express it, seems to recede from us; it certainly does so

as an object of distinct contemplation; and the object of its affections

comes in and takes its place. O, the blessedness of the heart, that, free

from self and its secret and pernicious influences, sees nothing but God;

that recognizes, even in its highest gifts and graces, nothing but God;

that would rather be infinitely miserable with God, if it were possible,

than infinitely happy without him!

In connection with these remarks we are enabled to understand and

appreciate the state of mind which is described in some primitive writers

as a state of cessation from “reflex acts.” By REFLEX ACTS, as we employ

the phrase here, and as it appears to be employed by the writers referred

to, we mean those acts of the mind in which the soul turns inward upon

itself, and, ceasing for a time to regard the mere will of God as the

only good, takes a self-conscious satisfaction in its own exercises.

Such acts, when they are indulged in, stand directly in the way of the

highest results of the religious life. On the other hand, he who has

entirely ceased to put forth acts of this kind, and loves God to the

entire forgetfulness of self, losing sight even of his own exercises, in

consequence of being fully occupied with an infinitely higher object,

has reached the broad and calm position of spiritual rest, the region

of inward and abiding peace—a region where there is no noisy clamor, no

outcries and contests of the passions; no contrivances of prejudice,

interest, and ambition; no rebellious sighing and tears of the natural

spirit; but all is hushed and lost in the one deep conviction that there

is nothing good, nothing permanently true, nothing desirable—no, not

heaven itself—but pure and everlasting union with the will of God.—_Prof.

Upham._[3]

[_May 31._]

All science is simply a perception of the laws of God—a discovery of what

he designed when he spread out the heavens and gemmed the infinity of

space with its myriad of worlds. The laws of light are simply the power

with which the Creator invested it. All we can do is to find what he has

written on its wings. The law of magnetism is the subtle power and the

mode of action with which God has touched the loadstone. The laws of

astronomy, what are they but the thoughts of God, as he projected worlds

into space, and gave to them their orbits and their periods?… Of nature

in all its expanse, of all created powers, visible and invisible, hath

not God said, “All are yours?” Are we not “heirs of God and joint heirs

of Jesus Christ?”

I can accord the scientist nearly all he can claim, without in the

slightest degree affecting the foundations of my faith.… There are many

things which are claimed in evolution, to which I must give the verdict

of the Scotch jury, “Not proven.” Yet were I to admit them all, they

would not affect my faith in the wisdom and skill and power of the great

Father. I admire the skill of the watch-maker who produces an accurate

timepiece; but how much more would I admire his skill if he so made one

watch that it was capable not only of keeping time, but also of evolving

a series of watches, each keeping better time than that which produced

it, so that from the plainest, simplest form of a watch there should be

eventually evolved a magnificent chronometer, with jeweled holes, whose

time would not vary from the true time a second in a million of years!

If the great Creator created but a germ, but in that germ were all

possibilities of form, and motion, and magnitude, of atoms and of worlds,

with their laws of motion so impressed on each that it should take its

place in due time, my admiration for his wonderful skill would be only

enhanced.… These men who talk of evolution claim an infinity of time. I

ask, how long since this protoplasm developed into a turtle, the turtle

into a monkey, the monkey into a man? They admit there is no positive

record anywhere. Since human history began there is no instance of any

animal ascending in the scale of man. If at all, it must have been far

back in the distant ages. Then, I ask, why not give Christianity similar

time? She is changing the face of creation; she is transforming sinners

into saints, savages into enlightened men. She took them naked, rude and

uncultured, and has clothed, taught, and refined them. She has taken man

that bowed down to stocks and stones, and has elevated him until he uses

the world as a workshop, and all elements as his instruments, until he

feels that he is a son of God, and his vicegerent upon earth. Why shall

Christianity be called a failure, because it has not yet reached all the

sons of men, or transformed them into sons of science? Give her at least

as much time to change millions of savages into enlightened humanity,

millions of sinners into saints, as, according to their own asking, it

takes to change one species into another. We promise that the whole world

shall be brought to the foot of the cross before the evolutionist shall

find even a single monkey transformed into a man.—_Bishop Simpson._

HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.

Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.

PHYSICS OF EARTH.

Our earth, as a whole, may be compared to a ship sailing on a smooth

sea. Like the ship, it has its own motions with reference to other

objects, and is affected by forces exterior to itself. The ship feels the

influence of winds, currents and tides.

The earth also yields to forces outside of itself; to such an extent,

indeed, that philosophers have more than once been led to look for an

invisible power, which strangely affected it. For example, Adams[1] and

Leverrier[2] were led to prophesy the existence of the planet Neptune,

because the earth seemed to yield to the touch of some unknown body,

which was afterward discovered at the enormous distance of 2,746,271,000

miles.

The ship, in addition to its motion in regard to distant points and

susceptibility of being moved by outside forces, has its own peculiar

construction, a complex adjustment of planks, timbers, bolts, spars,

sails and ropes. It also has its inhabitants, living beings which move to

and fro, quite independent, for the time being, of all other parts of the

universe, save that on which they reside.

As it glides past some island we look from our cabin window and discover

that the _island_ seems to be moving by us in an opposite direction.

Even so, as our earth sweeps round its axis with a speed of a thousand

miles an hour, it seems motionless, while the starry spheres above appear

gliding westward.

In spite of the impassioned and reiterated exclamation of Galileo,

“It does move!” men would not believe it, until his experiment at the

leaning tower of Pisa; and the beautiful demonstration of Foucault[3]

from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris, proved beyond question the

earth’s rotation. Let us briefly outline these two experiments. If the

world has no motion, a heavy weight dropped from the top of a tall shaft

would strike exactly at its base. But if the earth were rotating, the

top of the tower must move faster than the base. The weight at the top

would have the same motion as the top of the shaft, and would keep it,

in falling, in accordance with a well known law, and consequently would

strike _beyond_ the base. The ball dropped by Galileo did thus strike.

Foucault argued: If the earth does _not_ rotate, a pendulum suspended so

that a needle fastened to its lowest point would trace a line in sand

sprinkled on the surface beneath, would forever move along the same line.

But if the earth is rotating, the needle will trace different lines on

the sand. If the pendulum was suspended at one of the poles, it would, in

twenty-four hours, trace a series of lines like the spokes of a carriage

wheel about the pole. Foucault showed that the needle _did_ trace varying

lines in the sand, therefore the earth moves. This experiment is repeated

annually at Paris, and I have performed it in the Amphitheater at

Chautauqua.

Sir Isaac Newton, as all the world knows, discovered the relation and

mutual dependence of all matter in the universe. The law of gravitation

has been called “Newton’s Darling Child.” It states, in brief, that every

body attracts every other directly as the mass, and inversely as the

square of the distance.

The sun has three hundred thousand times the amount of matter contained

in our earth; its power of attraction is therefore proportional. A man on

its surface would be crushed by his own weight, but even Brobdignag,[4]

or any other giant, could live comfortably on an asteroid. Indeed, he

would weigh so little _there_ that he could leap like the mountain goat.

As an illustration of the second part of the law: one body three times as

far away as another from the attracting power, will be held by a force

but one ninth as great. A body near the surface of the earth, or 4,000

miles from its center, will fall sixteen feet in a second. The moon is

sixty times further from the center of the earth than such a body. Newton

found that the moon fell toward the earth, or varied from a straight

line, 1.36 of sixteen feet in a second. Now, the square of sixty is

3,600, therefore the moon proves that the force of gravity decreases as

the square of the distance increases.

Nothing in nature is more beautiful than the adjustment of forces by

which our earth is kept forever revolving in its appropriate orbit.

In perihelion,[5] or its nearest approach to the sun, it is 3,000,000

miles nearer than in aphelion, when farthest away from it. Of course it

will follow from the law that the attraction of the sun would then be

greater. If there were no counteracting influence, there could be but

one result—the earth would fly into the sun and be consumed. The very

proximity of the earth to the sun, however, increases its speed, and

therefore its tendency to fly off on a tangent. Kepler[6] has expressed

this truth in one of his laws: “The radius vector (a line drawn from the

sun to the earth) passes over equal areas in equal times.” The average

speed of the earth in its orbit is 1,100 miles a minute—3,300 times that

of the fastest steamship—but it varies throughout its course, and how

wonderful that system of breaks by which its motion is regulated! Divine

wisdom alone could invent such a plan.

TERRESTRIAL GRAVITY.

To the ordinary observer, our earth seems, in general, a flat surface,

here and there varied by hills and valleys. In reality it is a sphere,

with a curvature of eight inches to the mile. The equatorial diameter

is twenty-six and five-elevenths miles greater than the polar. The

irregularities of the earth’s surface are relatively far less than

they seem. Very thin letter paper, spread over a globe sixteen inches

in diameter, would by its thickness adequately represent the highest

mountain ranges. The greatest ocean depth is about equal to the height

of the highest mountain; we see by this that the earth is essentially a

smooth, round body.

Its shape is proven in four ways: First, two different navigators may

start from the same point, one sailing east and the other west, and

reach the same destination. Second, navigators have sailed around the

world, Magellan having first performed the task. Third, in moving toward

elevated objects, their upper portion first strikes the eye. Fourth, the

shadow of the earth, when it falls upon the moon, is round.

The enlargement of the equatorial diameter is supposed to be due to the

fact that the earth was once in a plastic state, and the centrifugal

force, which is directly proportioned to the rotating speed of a body,

caused the matter in the equatorial region to bulge. This action can

easily be shown by revolving rapidly a flexible steel hoop, or other

mobile substance. All bodies tend to revolve around their shortest axis.

A great variety of interesting experiments showing this can easily be

performed, some of which are indicated in an accompanying picture.

There is no magical power in the center of our earth, as some have

supposed from the fact that all bodies seek that point. Indeed, that is

the one spot where there is no attraction, and where all substances

would weigh nothing. The path described by a plummet, or any falling

body, is simply a resultant motion produced by _opposite_ particles of

the earth making it pass half way between their lines of attraction.

This will ordinarily be toward the center of the earth. As attraction of

gravity is in proportion to mass, a body suspended near a mountain will

be deflected toward it.

This has been shown by an experiment performed by Dr. Maskelyne,[7] near

Mt. Schehallien, in Wales. Upon suspending a light body on opposite sides

of this mountain, he observed that it swerved from the perpendicular

toward the mountain. The amount of this variation measured the attraction

of the mountain, as compared with the attraction of the earth. As the

geological structure of this eminence was known, it was not difficult to

compute its mass, and a comparison was made between it and the earth.

From this calculation the entire weight of the earth was obtained,

proving its specific gravity to be five times that of an equal bulk of

water. Dr. Cavendish[8] afterward arrived at precisely the same result by

experimenting with a pendulum.

[Illustration: A is a rotating machine; _a_ is a skein of thread; _á_ is

the skein rotated; _b_ is a chain; _c_ is an onion; _d_ is an apple; _e_

is a glass fish aquarium, one tenth full of water, and rotated. A stick,

hoop, shingle, or any such body suspended by a cord, when rapidly rotated

will rise and revolve around its shortest axis.]

Terrestrial gravity is constantly affecting the motion of bodies. Motion

is the act of changing place, and always indicates the presence of some

force; force or energy being that which tends to produce motion or rest.

Motion in curved lines is produced by two or more forces acting upon a

body, one of which must be constant. Example: A cannon ball is acted

upon by the sudden explosion of the powder, the resistance of air, and

the constant downward attraction of gravity. Nature seems to delight in

curved motion; the waves, the flight of birds, the running brooks, the

clouds, even the waving trees and grasses, all furnish illustrations of

this. A little reflection upon any such instances will show that they are

_usually_ produced by the united action of an instantaneous and constant

force.

The center of gravity is that point around which the opposite particles

of a body balance each other. This point does not necessarily coincide

with center of figure or center of motion, the former of which is a point

equally distant from opposite parts of a regular body, while the latter

is a point in a substance around which it revolves.

[Illustration: _Ex._—A lead pencil poised on the finger. This experiment

can be varied in many ways, showing the nature of stable and unstable

equilibrium.]

If the sun and all the planets could be strung on a rod passing through

their centers, with the planets to the east, the center of gravity of

the solar system would be somewhere in the sun, east of its center. As

the planets assume various positions with reference to the sun, it must

follow that the center of gravity in our system must vary accordingly.

The same is true of objects on the earth. The center of gravity may

be elevated or depressed, moved to the right or left. We instinctively

adjust our bodies so that a perpendicular let fall from the center

of gravity will constantly fall within the base. The most surprising

exhibition of this power of automatic adjustment was seen in Blondin, in

his performances on the tight rope.

Stability in structures is usually secured by lowering the center of

gravity in one of two ways: either by broadening the base or by making it

of heavy materials.

_Specific_ gravity is the weight of a substance as compared with an equal

bulk of something taken as a standard; _water_ having been selected as

the standard for solids and liquids, and _air_ for gases.

Gravity furnishes more _units of measure_ of various kinds—weight, work,

heat, tenacity—than any other force of nature.

It will be remembered that _Physics_ is that branch of science that

considers the general properties of matter, and the character of those

forces which affect matter without destroying its molecule. It includes

many subdivisions. In addition to those already mentioned, we find

Molecular Attraction, or the operation of forces that act at insensible

distances; Hydrostatics, which treats of liquids at rest; Hydraulics, of

liquids in motion; Pneumatics, of gases; Machines, of means for applying

force; Acoustics, of the laws of sound; Heat; Light; and Electricity.

As many physical properties have been mentioned in the articles on

Air, Water, and Fire, they will not now be considered. Our discussion

here applies more especially to those substances which, at ordinary

temperatures, are solid.

[Illustration: _Ex._—A body buoyed up in water displaces its own weight

of the liquid. The glass is nicely graded, and as the water rises in the

vessel, the registration at once indicates the amount of water displaced.

This proves the truth of the “Law of Archimedes”[9], ascertained while he

was investigating the problem of the golden crown.]

The most characteristic properties of solid bodies are the following:

Hardness, tenacity, malleability, ductility, and crystalline form.

Hardness is the resistance which a body offers to being scratched.

Tenacity is the resistance offered by a body to a separation of its

parts. Malleability is that property of a body which makes it capable

of being rolled into sheets. Ductility is capacity for being drawn into

wire, and crystalline form is the property which causes it to assume

regular shapes.

As will be observed, these peculiarities are closely dependent upon

cohesion and adhesion. By the former we understand the force which

holds together the similar molecules of a substance; and by the latter,

the force which unites the surfaces of different materials. Familiar

as we are with these two agencies, their nature is not yet understood.

We can easily discover that they are very dependent upon heat, by the

application of which most solids pass from the stable form, to one

in which, instead of cohesive force between the molecules, there is

repulsion; as in the conversion of ice into water, and then into steam.

This movement of molecules is also dependent upon pressure. The most

interesting illustration of this is seen in the action of glaciers. It

has been ascertained that the melting temperature of ice lowers one two

hundred and fiftieth of a degree for every fifteen pounds of pressure to

the square inch.

The immense superincumbent mass of ice must, in many places, set free

so much latent heat that a portion of the ice melts, so that here and

there cells and liquid veins would be opened in the interior of the

glacier. But the particles which separate these thin layers of water

would almost immediately close up. This is the brilliant demonstration

of Prof. Tyndall, who has given the operation the name of “regelation.”

It has been thus described: “This phenomenon takes place at every point

in the thickness of the glacier. Particles of ice approach one another,

and unite across little veins of water, which permeate it in every

direction; fresh liquid films are formed under the pressure from above;

fresh unions take place between the divided morsels of ice; and, by this

continual process of change, the air contained in the mass of that which

once was snow, is gradually expelled. Thus it happens that the whole mass

ultimately assumes an almost perfect transparency and a beautiful azure

color.”

CRYSTALLIZATION.

One of the most beautiful illustrations of cohesive attraction is seen

in crystallization. In every instance in which substances pass into the

form of a solid, they tend to assume regular shapes called crystals. Each

material has its own characteristic form, so that a crystal is a type

of a species in the mineral world, even as a plant or an animal is in

the organic kingdom. A crystal is a substance bounded by plain surfaces

and symmetrically arranged about imaginary lines called axes. The final

form depends upon certain smaller forms in its interior structure. They

possess lines of division, often in three directions, called “cleavage.”

While there are millions of crystals, they have all been classified under

six systems, as follows: 1. Monometric, where the three axes are equal.

2. Dimetric, having one axis unequal to the other two, which are equal to

each other. 3. Trimetric, having no two axes equal. 4. Monoclinic, having

one axis inclined. 5. Triclinic, in which all the three intersections

are oblique and the axes unequal. 6. Hexagonal, which has the form of a

regular hexagonal prism.

[Illustration: _Ex._—Showing change of volume. The upper part of the

figure represents a substance expanded. There are no more molecules here

than below, but they are pushed further apart. This is supposed to be the

way in which all bodies are enlarged by heat.]

While contemplating the thousand beautiful forms in which molecules are

arranged into crystals, whereby many economic purposes are served, as

well as taste manifested, one can not resist the conviction that such

displays of wisdom, benevolence and love of beauty can alone emanate from

the eternal Mind.

Another wide-spread effect of cohesion is seen in

PETRIFACTIONS.

Everywhere in fossiliferous rock may be found organic remains in which

the material of which they were originally composed has been replaced by

some mineral substance. Some have supposed that these plants and animals

have actually been converted into stone by a change of their elements.

This is of course absurd. Carbon can never be anything but carbon, nor

indeed, can any element ever become anything other than itself. This

dream of the alchemist was long since dissipated. No, strange as it may

seem, the molecules of these fossilized organisms must actually pass

out, and silica, lime, clay, or some such matter pass in and take their

places. Beautiful specimens of petrified wood, found especially on the

Pacific coast, are often hard as glass. One very handsome variety,

called “opalized” wood, clearly indicates that petrifaction was either

accompanied or followed by crystallization.

Myriads of shells, bones and plants scattered through the earth’s strata

have been transformed in the manner indicated. Although petrifaction is

usually a long process, there is reason to believe that it sometimes

takes place rapidly. This operation must not be confounded with

incrustation, which is often mistaken for it, and takes place where

substances, like bending twigs, have deposited upon them layer after

layer of lime, salt, sulphur or ice.

The molecules of _solids_, even, are in intense and ceaseless motion.

As has been said, “A continuous and restless, nay, a very complicated

activity is the order of Nature throughout all her individuals, whether

these be living beings or inanimate particles of matter. Existence is, in

truth, one continued fight, and a great battle is always and everywhere

raging, although the field in which it is fought is often completely

shrouded from our view.”

[Illustration: _Ex._—A simple illustration of the convenience of

machinery in applying force and changing direction.]

The motto of the brave Huguenots in the time of Louis XIV. was “Ever

burning, but never consumed.”

Nature’s motto, both for matter and energy is, “Ever changing, but never

destroyed.” Let us next notice some instances of the

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.

Energy is the power to do work or overcome resistance. It is of two

kinds—potential and kinetic. The former is the energy or force due to

position, but it is latent or inactive. The latter is the energy of a

body which is in motion. A stone resting on a mountain top, the water in

a quiet mill pond, a coiled spring, are all examples of potential energy.

The stone, crushing through the cottage of a peasant, the water turning a

factory wheel, the spring turning the wheels of a clock, are examples of

actual or kinetic energy.

[Illustration: _Ex._—Lay a magnet down on iron filings. They will gather

in greatest abundance about the poles, and diminish toward the center,

where there are none; thus showing the nature of polarity.]

Energy often disappears to reappear under a different name. If we lift

our hand to strike the palm of another, our vital energy becomes motion,

and that in turn is changed into heat.

In the Bell telephone the sound-waves in the mouthpiece are converted

into electric vibrations in the wire, and these, in turn, induce

sound-waves in the receiving instrument at the other end of the line.

In dynamo-electric machines we have a chain of transmutations of

force—chemical affinity in the fire-box, expansion in the boiler,

becoming in turn, motion, magnetism, electric currents, until it appears

as resplendent light and intense heat between the carbon points.

Potential energy slumbers in the raindrop, and, anon, as kinetic energy,

flashes in the lightning.

In short, the sum of all the energies of nature is a constant quantity,

although it manifests itself in a thousand different ways. The foregoing

reflections indicate that the researches of modern science all point to

a grand unity in God’s universe. Let us conclude by briefly referring to

some instances of plan or design in the

GROUPING OF LAWS.

The most characteristic feature of all science is that it arranges facts

in an orderly manner, under principles or laws.

Nature seems to delight, likewise, in doing a variety of things under

one general principle. Note a curious _trinity_ in her method: We have

three great departments of nature—animal, vegetable and mineral; three

parts to our being—physical, mental and moral; three divisions of the

mind—intellect, sensibilities and will; three parts to all plants—root,

stem and foliage; there is earth, sea and sky; three great classes in all

mechanism—lever, cord, and inclined plane—and many others that might be

mentioned.

Observe another group of laws in physics: Variation, in accordance with

an exact proportion.

Gravity varies inversely as the square of the distance; heat varies

inversely as the square of the distance; light varies inversely as the

square of the distance, and sound varies also in exactly the same ratio.

Who can contemplate this exact mathematical arrangement, extending

through many departments of matter, without concluding that “Nature is

but the name for an effect whose cause is God?”

THE EYES BUSY ON THINGS ABOUT US.

BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

A distinguished writer has said: “The eyes are of no use without the

observing power,” and surely no faculty we possess is capable of so much

cultivation as the sight. The facility with which the eye can express the

emotions of the soul has been the theme of poets of all ages, who have

not hesitated to confess which style of eyes pleased them the most. Says

one:

“I everywhere am thinking

Of thy blue eye’s sweet smile;

A sea of thoughts is spreading

Over my heart the while.”

And others:

“His eyes are songs without words.”

“A suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes.”

“An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or can insult like

hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can

make the heart dance with joy.”

“Eyes are bold as lions, roving, running, leaping, here and there,

far and near. They speak all languages; wait for no introduction; ask

no leave of age or rank; respect neither poverty nor riches, neither

learning nor power, nor virtue nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and

go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life

and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!”

There are

“True eyes

Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise

The sweet soul shining through them;”

and “eyes that have murder in them, whose flash is the forerunner of

thunder.” One has “an eye like Mars, to threaten and command,” and other

eyes are “the homes of silent prayer.”

But the variety in color and expression of the eye is as nothing compared

to difference in the power of observation. Those ancient companions,

“Eyes and No-Eyes,” the story of whose wanderings conveyed a valuable

lesson to young and old, were but prototypes of people who go through

the world to-day, some of whom see everything, while others see nothing

at all. Poets, who could write so beautifully of the eyes, must first

have trained their own vision to perceive the beauty or baseness they

described, and it is the exercise of this far-seeing, penetrating,

analytical power that is the prerogative of genius.

The specialist devotes himself to the closest examination of details. The

naturalist does not let the smallest insect escape him, and his trained

eye perceives the least peculiarity that denotes the varieties of species.

A person with ordinary eyesight takes up a rose, a lily, or a daisy, and

only admires color, shape, or perfume; while the botanist examines the

flower in every part, and tells who was its grandfather or grandmother,

and feels as tender an interest in it as if it were a human being.

The artist has to train his eye to look for beauty where apparently none

appears. He must have an eye for color, for form, for expression, for

whatever line he proposes to follow, and he will never rise to eminence

if he is satisfied with a hasty, careless, superficial glance.

Turner[1] was one day painting a landscape with the richness of color

that was his specialty, when an English girl who was painting near him

left her easel and came to look over his shoulder. “Why, Mr. Turner,”

said she, “I don’t see any of those colors in the grass or the trees.”

“No?” said Turner. “Don’t you wish you could?”

It is astonishing that with so much of beauty as there is around us, so

many people are found who travel through the world without having used

their eyes to any profit whatever. The training needs to be begun in

early life; children should be taught how to observe; and as some are

duller than others they need to have things pointed out to them, until

the habit of examining closely becomes fixed, and like second nature.

What a wonderful field for study there is in the sky above us! Look at

the clouds; here, in great, heavy masses; there assuming strange shapes,

and taking on an infinite variety of coloring. See the setting sun; never

twice alike; a marvel of beauty and grandeur; a feast for even young eyes.

Let us go down by the seashore and watch the great waves come in. The sea

is broad, and grand, and deep; but is that all? Note how it reflects the

color of the sky; mark the waves that rise afar, and show their white

manes like wild horses of the sea, and dash on the shore like a charge of

cavalry. How they come galloping, galloping on! Watch for the ninth wave,

and look out for yourself! Observe the height that each succeeding wave

obtains when the tide is on the rise, and how the character of the beach

is changed after a severe storm of wind or rain. There is a volume of

interesting study in a handful of sand, a tuft of moss, a small patch of

grass, or a bunch of seaweed.

Ruskin,[2] that exceedingly close observer of art and nature, and

eminently sharp critic of men and things, gives us some excellent

instruction in the art of looking below the surface. “There is no bush,”

he says, “on the face of the globe exactly like another bush; there are

no two trees in the forest whose boughs bend into the same network, nor

two leaves on the same tree which could not be told one from the other,

nor two waves in the sea exactly alike. And out of this mass of various

yet agreeing beauty, it is by long attention only that the conception of

the constant character—the ideal form—hinted at by all, yet assumed by

none, is fixed upon the imagination for its standard of truth. Ask the

connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe, the shape of the leaf

of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he can not tell you,

and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from

Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you whether they are like nature

or not. A man may recognize the portrait of his friend, though he can

not, if you ask him apart, tell you the shape of his nose or the height

of his forehead.

“The color of plants is constantly changing with the season, and that

of everything with the quality of light falling upon it; but the nature

and essence of the thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an

oak, whether green with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia,

whether it be red or crimson; but let one curve of the petals, one groove

of the stamens be wanting, and the flower ceases to be the same. Two

trees of the same kind, at the same season, and of the same age, are

of absolutely the same color; but they are not of the same form, nor

anything like it.”

How few of us observe these things! and how much we miss daily and hourly

through lack of this special training of the eye!

A geologist was with a party of friends in the Yosemite valley and called

their attention to the play of the light from a campfire on the underside

of the leaves of the trees above them. It was a beautiful revelation, and

all wondered that they had never noticed it before.

If you are living in the country you should educate the eye to study

nature in all its phases, and every day add something to your store of

knowledge. Observe the habits of birds, and their haunts; watch the ants

and other insects; familiarize yourself with plant life so that you can

tell a weed from a flower, and a medicinal herb from a poisonous plant.

If a dweller in the town, observe varieties of architecture, the

materials used in the manufacture of houses; compare modern with ancient

styles; and lose no opportunity of obtaining information in regard to

all that is new and strange. Wherever you are, be less intent on reading

novels than in observing wherein you can improve your surroundings. The

slattern, with her nose in a book, is blind to the cobwebs that hang

from the ceiling, and the rags and dirt visible to every one else. She

is cultivating the eyes of her imagination, and reveling in scenes of

fairy-like splendor, and has no eyes for the common things of every day

life. Her powers of observation are exceedingly limited, and her home is

no better for her being in it. She is content to lead an idle life, and

does not see in how many ways she might amuse and improve herself.

The trained housekeeper has made good use of her eyes, and by noticing

trifles has brought her department to a high state of perfection. It is

not enough that she has a natural taste for it; she must be continually

looking after things with the searching gaze of an inspector-general.

Her practised eyes see when the table-cloth is awry, or the dishes not

in their places; when the furniture needs renovating, or the dust has

accumulated, and she feels that her reputation is at stake if the defects

are not speedily remedied.

An expert in precious stones can tell almost at a glance the value and

weight of each gem, and is not easily deceived by counterfeits.

The physician can so train his eye that he has merely to look closely

at the patient to determine the nature of his disease; while the

microscopist, the geologist, and the astronomer acquire such accuracy

from their close and long continued investigations that they can detect

the least change in the appearance of the heavens above or the earth

beneath.

But the astronomer may have his eyes so fixed on the stars that he can

not observe what is going on below; the geologist may be able to analyze

a stone and tell to which stratum it belongs, and yet take no interest in

anything that is above ground; and the devoted student of the microscope

may be so entranced by the wonders continually opening before him, that

he is utterly oblivious to all else surrounding him. Without this habit

of observation, the world would have had no Galileo, no Humboldt, no

Newton, no Agassiz, no Hugh Miller, no Edison,[3] and no progress. But

all are not gifted in the same way; and often the sphere we move in or

the place in which we are born, determines and decides our calling,

and controls our habits to a very great extent. It is natural that one

accustomed to an open country should have his eyes attracted toward the

heavens, which are constantly revealing new wonders; and that one brought

up among the rocks should take to hammering them to bits, boy-like, to

see of what they are made, or how they look inside.

The differences between men consist in a great measure in the

intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says: “He goes

through the forest and sees no firewood.” “The wise man’s eyes are in his

head,” says Solomon, “but the fool walketh in darkness.” It is the mind

that sees as well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe nothing,

men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very fiber of the phenomena

presented to them, attentively noting differences, making comparisons

and recognizing their underlying idea. Many before Galileo had seen a

suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was

the first to detect the value of the fact.

One of the vergers[4] in the cathedral at Pisa,[5] after replenishing

with oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro;

and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively,

conceived the idea of applying to it the measurement of time. Fifty

years of study and labor elapsed before he completed the invention of

his pendulum—the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in

astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overrated. In like manner,

Galileo having heard that a Dutch spectacle-maker had presented to Count

Maurice, of Nassau,[6] an instrument by means of which distant objects

appeared nearer to the beholder, began to inquire into the cause of such

a phenomena, and this led to the invention of the telescope, and proved

the beginning of the modern science of astronomy.

While Captain (afterward Sir Samuel) Brown[7] was occupied in studying

the construction of bridges, with the view of contriving one of a cheap

description to be thrown across the Tweed, near which he lived, he

was walking in his garden one morning when he saw a tiny spider’s web

suspended across his path. The idea immediately occurred to him that a

bridge of iron ropes or chains might be constructed in like manner, and

the result was the invention of his suspension bridge.

So James Watt,[8] when consulted about the mode of carrying water by

pipes under the Clyde, along the unequal bed of the river, turned his

attention one day to the shell of a lobster presented at table, and from

that model he invented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found

effectually to answer the purpose.

Sir Isambard Brunel[9] took his first lessons in forming the Thames

tunnel from the tiny ship-worm; he saw how the little creature perforated

the wood with its well-armed head, first in one direction and then in

another, till the archway was complete, and then daubed over the roof and

sides with a kind of varnish, and by copying this work on a large scale,

Brunel was at length enabled to construct his shield and accomplish his

great engineering work.

It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which gives these

apparently trivial phenomena their value. So trifling a matter as the

sight of seaweed floating past his ship enabled Columbus to quell the

mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to

assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off.

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of

success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life.

When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and

electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, “Of what use is it?” To

which his reply was, “What is the use of a child? It may become a man!”

The great Cuvier[10] was a singularly accurate, careful, and industrious

observer. When a boy he was attracted to the subject of natural history

by the sight of a volume of Buffon,[11] which accidentally fell in his

way. He at once proceeded to copy the drawings, and to color them after

the descriptions given in the text. At eighteen he was offered the

situation of tutor in a family residing near Fécamp, in Normandy. Living

close to the seashore, he was brought face to face with the wonders of

marine life. Strolling along the sands one day he observed a stranded

cuttle-fish.[12] He was attracted by the curious object, took it home

to dissect, and thus began the study of the molluscæ, in the pursuit of

which he achieved so distinguished a reputation. He had no books to refer

to excepting only the great book of nature which lay open before him. The

study of the novel and interesting objects which it daily presented to

his eyes made a much deeper impression on his mind than any written or

engraved descriptions could possibly have done. Three years thus passed,

during which he compared the living specimens of marine animals with

the fossil remains found in the neighborhood, dissected the specimens

of marine life that came under his notice, and, by careful observation,

prepared the way for a complete reform in the classification of the

animal kingdom.

The life of Hugh Miller furnishes another illustration of the advantage

of making a good use of the eyes. While Hugh was but a child, his

father, who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was brought up by

his widowed mother. He had a school training after a sort, but his best

teachers were the boys with whom he played, the men among whom he worked,

the friends and relatives with whom he lived. With a big hammer which had

belonged to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about

chipping the stones and accumulating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet,

and other stones. Sometimes he had a day in the woods, and there, too,

his attention was excited by the peculiar geological curiosities which

came in his way. While searching among the rocks on the beach, he was

sometimes asked, in irony, by the farm-servants who came to load their

carts with seaweed, whether he was getting “siller in the stanes,” but

was so unlucky as never to be able to answer in the affirmative. When

of a suitable age he was apprenticed to the trade of his choice—that

of a working stone cutter—and he began his laboring career in a quarry

looking out upon the Cromarty Firth.[13] This quarry proved one of his

best schools. The remarkable geological formations which it displayed

awakened his curiosity. The bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the bar

of pale-red clay above, were noted by the young quarryman, who even in

such unpromising subjects found matter for observation and reflection.

Where other men saw nothing, he detected analogies, differences, and

peculiarities which set him thinking. He simply kept his eyes and his

mind open; was sober, diligent and persevering, and this was the secret

of his intellectual growth.

His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious organic

remains, principally of old and extinct species of fishes, ferns, and

ammonites,[14] which were revealed along the coast by the washings of

the waves, or were exposed by the stroke of his mason’s hammer. He never

lost sight of the subject, but went on accumulating observations and

comparing formations, until at length, many years afterward, when no

longer a working mason, he gave to the world his highly interesting work

on the “Old Red Sandstone,” which at once established his reputation as

a scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of

patient observation and research.

We learn from these interesting records that, no matter how or where one

is situated, he will always find opportunities for observation if he will

only keep his eyes open and his mind open at the same time. It is the

brain behind the eyes that makes seeing of any value. Every gift may be

perfected by self-culture, and by keeping our eyes busy on things about

us, by observing and comparing, we color our future lives, increase our

intelligence, and are never at a loss for new worlds to conquer.

What the world needs to-day is less _outlook_ and more _insight_; more

careful observance of what is needed in our homes by those we love and

those who love us. We need eyes to see our own duty in every department

of life, to note our own faults, and to observe the beauty rather than

the blemishes of others; to see wherein we can be of service, and in what

way we may enlarge our opportunities, and in order to acquire any skill

or proficiency we need continually to pray, “Lord, open thou the eyes of

our understanding.”

EASY LESSONS IN ANIMAL BIOLOGY.

CHAPTER II.

SUB-KINGDOM VII.—ARTICULATA.

This subdivision of the animal kingdom, containing articulated or jointed

animals and insects, exceeds every other in the number and diversity of

the species. The articulation may belong to their bodies, limbs, or outer

covering. The tough shells of some, formed by a secretion of a hard,

horn-like substance, have numerous segments, or rings, either closely

joined and firmly cemented, as those about the head and thorax, or

loosely cemented, as those which encompass the abdomen. The skeleton of

some is external, and consists of these articulated segments, which serve

the double purpose of framework and covering. The muscles, or elastic

cartilages holding them together, are striated, or furnished with small

grooves in the sheath or shell. If the animal has limbs, they also are

jointed, and hollow.

CLASS I.—_Crustacea_, so called from the crust in which their soft bodies

are encased. They are a very large family, mostly of air breathing

animals, with enough in common to indicate their relationship, yet

distinguished by a great diversity in their forms and modes of life. Some

are very small, and are as numberless as the sands on the shore. Others,

when their members are all extended, can stretch themselves over a circle

several feet in diameter.

The chief orders of the Crustacea are the Barnacles,[1] the Water-flea,

the Fourteen-footed Crustacea,[2] and Ten-footed Crustacea.[3]

The Crayfish may be taken as a type of the structure of the Crustacea.

The body has two principal sections. The anterior, called the

cephalo-thorax,[4] extends to the first distinctly marked ring, and

the shield, thus far, is comparatively smooth, the segments fitting so

closely as to be practically one. In front and between the two pairs of

antennæ, or feelers, is a small pointed process in the place of the nasal

organ, but serving some other purpose. At the base of each of the smaller

antennæ, on the under side, is a minute sac, the mouth of which is

protected with delicate hairs. These are the organs of hearing, and near

them, on the outer side, are the organs of smell. The sense of touch is

in the fine cilia that fringe the mouth and the antennæ.

There are numerous appendages. Of the five pairs of legs, the first two

are provided with claws, or nippers. The fore-legs, or arms, have, in

the place of hands, strong pincers, similar, but not entirely alike; the

one with sharp edge and smaller teeth is used for cutting, the other

for mashing, or grinding the food. The other legs terminate in feathery

points, and are used, in part, for locomotion, and by the female for

carrying her eggs. The posterior pair, called swimmerets, together with

the expansion of the last segment of the abdomen into a kind of caudal

fin, are the main dependence for swimming. The segments are so loosely

jointed that the “tail” can be moved freely, and by flapping it the

animal moves easily. As there is no neck, in order to see objects in

different directions, the eyes are not sunk in the head, but placed at

the extremities of little muscular processes, or “eye stalks,” which

are movable, making even hind-sight practicable when backward motion is

desired.

[Illustration: THE CRAYFISH.]

The crayfish breathes through branchiæ, or gills, situated at the sides

of the thorax, protected by the carapace,[5] or horny covering, under the

edges of which the water and air reach the gills. Here a very curious

appendage is attached, called the “gill bailer,” which moves back and

forth, creating a current of water through the gills that finds its way

out through an opening near the mouth.

Under the welded sheath or cover of the head are the mandibles, or

jaws, between which the mouth opens; a short passage, leading to the

capacious, gizzard-like stomach, is provided with grinders, to still

further masticate the food before it passes into the intestine. The eggs

are small, and attached by glutinous threads to the appendages until they

are hatched; the young are also attached, until sufficiently developed to

live apart from the parent.

This class of animals undergoes periodic changes which are attended

with some degree of violence. The crustaceous covering is a kind of

epidermis,[6] having beneath it the true skin. It is formed by some

process of exudation from the growing body. This sheath, while soft,

expands slowly, but when hardened, the growth is retarded, and in time

it is found too small for convenience, so it is cast off, and a new and

larger one supplied to take its place. In this process of moulting the

animal attempts to put off its outer covering, not in fragments or parts,

but in one piece, though many delicate attachments have to be sundered,

membranes rent, and sometimes even a limb torn off in the resolute

effort to undress. This can not be done at all times, or at any time,

without special preparation. A period of apparent sickness precedes, and

the muscular parts of the limbs become shrunken, so that they are more

easily extricated. The loss of a leg is not so serious a matter, since

the damage is repaired by a new one with the same form and articulations.

As the work of repairing the limb begins at the joint nearest the body,

if the member is torn between that and the extremity, the partially

mutilated animal has the strange power of throwing off all that remains

beyond that joint.

Of other crustaceans, the common lobster is in most respects so similar

to that shown in the first diagram as to need no further description than

to say the cephalo-thorax is comparatively smaller, while the forearms

and claws are larger.

There are also marine crayfish that are very numerous about the

coral reefs off the Florida coasts, and have substantially the same

characteristics, only their claws are considerably less, and their

ciliated antennæ larger.

_Crabs_ are closely allied to lobsters, and belong to the highest orders

of the crustaceans. The lengthened, loose-jointed abdomen of the typical

crayfish is wanting, and there is a general concentration of the parts;

all the most important viscera being included in the thorax, and covered

by a single, closely compacted shield. There are many species of crabs,

differing in other respects as well as in the form of the shell or back,

which in some is nearly orbicular, in others it is oblong, longer than

it is broad, or broader than it is long. They differ in the smoothness

of their shells, and in the length of their legs, which they stretch

out from under their horny covering. Their first pair of limbs is not

fitted for locomotion, but shows a vigorous development of the strong

claws and pincers of other decapod crustaceans. Though found in almost

all seas, they are poor swimmers, their legs being formed for walking or

creeping, rather than as oars to propel them through the water. They are

found in pools, among seaweeds, and particularly in marshy places left by

the receding tides. Most species live in water, some in moist places on

land. Many kinds of crabs are used for food. Its black claws and broad

carapace readily distinguish it from other species. From activity in

seizing, tearing, and devouring their food, and from their pugnacity,

crabs are interesting inmates of the aquarium. They also moult, or cast

off their shells; not at regular seasons, but when the demand for more

room requires it.

CLASS II.—_Arachnida_ are closely related to the crustaceans, having,

like them, the body divided into two sections—cephalo-thorax and abdomen.

To the former are attached four pairs of legs, but the abdomen has no

appendages for locomotion. There are about 5,000 species, produced from

eggs, and undergoing no metamorphoses in their development.

The lowest forms, under the common name of _Acarina_,[7] have the

anterior part in a mass with the abdomen, and short legs near the

head, terminated in little claws suitable for taking hold of hairs and

feathers. They are mostly parasitic, and all birds and animals, even

parasites themselves, are liable to suffer from acarina peculiar to their

own species. _Pedipalpi_[8] (scorpions), and _Araneina_[9] (spiders),

though much larger, belong to this class. The body of the scorpion is

divided into segments, though the anterior of the abdominal part seems

but a continuance of the thorax, and is as large. It, however, soon

tapers off into a long, jointed, tail-like process, in the terminus of

which is its hooked sting, perforated and connected with the poison sac.

In striking, the tail is raised over the back and struck down. Its other

weapons are the crab-like claws on the strong forearms. The _Araneina_,

at least some classes of them, are well known. The soft, unjointed body

is separated from the thorax by a narrow constriction or tie, and at

the posterior end there are little appendages called spinnerets, through

which the silken lines issue that form the web. The hinder feet are

skillfully employed in arranging the gossamer threads after patterns that

are instinctively followed.

CLASS III.—_Myriapoda_, Centipedes,[10] have the thorax merged with

the elongated abdomen, while the head is free. They resemble worms in

form, but the skin is stiffened with chitine,[11] and the many legs are

articulated. There are two orders: the _Chilognatha_,[12] which move

slowly, and are harmless, the “thousand legged worm” is a representative,

and the _Chilopoda_,[13] more active, and having a flattened body of

about twenty segments, each carrying one pair of legs. Their mouths

are armed with formidable fangs connected with poison glands. They are

carnivorous, and may be distinguished by their general appearance,

quicker movements, and by having longer antennæ than the innocent

vegetarians.

[Illustration: THE HEAD OF AN INSECT.

_Ex._—_A_, gula, or throat; _b_, ligula, or tongue; _c_ mandibles; _d_,

maxillæ, or inner jaws.]

CLASS IV.—INSECTA. The distinguishing characteristics of this class are

that the head, thorax, and abdomen are distinct; that they possess three

pairs of jointed legs, one pair of antennæ, and, generally, two pairs

of wings. The skin is hardened, and to it the muscles are attached. The

eyes are usually composed of a number of facets, from fifty in the ant to

many thousands in the winged insects. As the eyes are not movable, these

facets enable them to see in many directions.

The several parts of the head and its appendages are shown in our

illustration. The sensitive palpi, or feelers, with the delicate

hair-brush tips at the ends, may also be noticed. The mouth differs

in different species, and is fitted for biting and masticating,

or puncturing and sucking. The adaptation seems perfect. Of all

animals belonging to the articulate type, the Insecta possess the

highest instincts. To this class belong the following orders: I.

_Neuroptera_,[14] or lace-winged insects, of which the Dragon-fly,

or Devil’s Darning Needle, is a good representative. II. The

_Orthoptera_[15] (straight-winged). They have four wings, the front

pair thick and narrow, overlapping along the back; the hind pair broad,

net-veined and folded upon the abdomen. The representative forms are

Crickets, Grasshoppers, Locusts, and Cockroaches. III. _Hemiptera_[16]

(half winged). To this order belong the wingless Bed-bug, the Squash-bug,

the Seventeen-year Locust, and the Cochineal.

_Coccus-cacti_[17]. The Mexican cochineal insect is of great value as

a dye, and from it the most beautiful scarlet and crimson colors are

obtained. The female is wingless, and, as an uncomely parasite, lives

and feeds on cactus plants, especially those of the nopal[18] species,

native in Mexico and Peru. The male only is represented in the diagram,

and magnified somewhat larger than life. They are comparatively few in

number, and of no commercial value. The plants are cultivated for the

purpose, and the care of the insects, which increase very rapidly, is an

industry giving employment to thousands of laborers, and in some parts of

Mexico the product of the cochineal farms is among the most valuable of

their exports. Cortes[19] in the sixteenth century received instructions

from the Spanish court to obtain cochineal in as large quantities as

possible. The export became very large, both Spaniards and others

becoming skilled in the use of the beautiful dye stuff, nearly a hundred

years before its real nature was known. The dried insect being very

small, and crushed in preparing it for market, it was supposed to be the

seed of some plant; and it was not until in 1703 that its true nature was

discovered by microscopic observations. The industry still flourishes in

Mexico, but both plant and the insect have been taken to other countries,

and do well. The annual export of cochineal from the Canary islands has,

in the present century, amounted to over 6,000 tons, valued at more than

$4,000,000. The manner of collecting the insects is very simple. When of

sufficient age, some already dead, and others yet alive, they are brushed

off into bags, and the living killed by holding them either in boiling

water or heated ovens, and then exposed in the sun till quite dry. The

dried insects have the form and appearance of irregular fluted and

concave grains, of which it is estimated there are 70,000 in a pound.

[Illustration: THE COCHINEAL.]

There are several species of these insects, alike in form and habits,

but not alike useful. Some, as the Scale insect, are a great annoyance

to gardeners, and destructive to our house plants. Others, as the Wax

insect, live on certain tropical trees, and soon entomb themselves in a

mass of glutinous matter that oozes from the small twigs of the tree,

and which furnishes them both food and shelter. As they are marvelously

prolific, a single female, according to the estimates of entomologists,

being succeeded by many millions of descendants in less than a year,

when a colony has possession of a tree, every tender branch is soon

punctured, and the abundant resinous juices that flow out envelop it in

a coating often half an inch thick. These branches, and also what falls

to the ground, are collected, and the wax, melted off, is prepared for

the market. From this source the shellac of commerce, so extensively

used, is obtained. This curious and useful insect, like its congener, the

cochineal, secretes a coloring substance, but of different tints, and

less valuable. The Lac insect is a native of Siam, Assam, Burmah, Bengal,

and Malabar. For some years the average annual imports into Britain have

been a little over 600 tons of the lac dye, and more than a thousand

tons of lac, including the several varieties. This industry also gives

employment to many thousands of people.

[Illustration: METAMORPHOSIS OF A BEETLE.

_Ex._—_A_, larva; _b_, pupa; _c_, beetle.]

IV.—_Coleoptera_[20] (sheath-winged). Beetles are innumerable, about

ninety thousand species being recognized. Their anterior or upper wings,

useless for flight, are composed of a hard, horn-like substance known

as chitine, and meet in a straight line on the top of the back. The

posterior wings are thin, membranous, and, when folded, out of sight.

They have usually two pairs of laterally moving mandibles, or jaws, and

in their development undergo several metamorphoses. We see the egg, the

larva, or grub, in different stages of its growth, the chrysalis, and

the imago,[21] or complete beetle. Entomologists have spent much time

and labor in making collections, and classifying them according to their

peculiarities of form or habits. If many are repulsive, and most plain

in form and color, some are beautiful, and worthy of our admiration.

Beetles, especially in their larva stage of development are very

voracious, and as most of their species live on fruits, leaves, and stems

of plants, they are often destructive of crops, and even of forests.

Millions of vigorous, valuable trees have been assailed, and stripped

of their leaves fast as they appeared, or literally bored to death. All

know the ravages of the potato beetle on our American tuber, that has to

be assiduously defended to prevent the entire destruction of the crop.

Some known as Goliath and Hercules beetles are large, often measuring six

inches in length, exclusive of their long antennæ. The “Diamond beetles”

of Brazil are adorned with the most brilliant colors, showing a beautiful

metallic luster, and the elytra,[22] or chitine sheaths, of this species

are now largely used in the manufacture of personal ornaments.[23]

V. _Diptera_ (two-winged), or Flies, number about 24,000 varieties.

Among these are the Mosquito, Hessian fly, Daddy-long-legs, Flea, and

common House fly. They usually have one pair of fully developed wings,

the second pair being rudimentary, although a few, as the fleas, are

wingless. They pass through a complete metamorphosis, the larvæ being

usually footless maggots, with the breathing holes in the posterior part

of the body; the pupa are either encased in the dry skin of the larvæ or

are naked.

VI. _Lepidoptera_[24] (scaly-winged), or Butterflies and Moths, are

distinguished by four wings, covered on both sides by minute scales.

The butterflies fly by day and have knobbed antennæ, while the moths

fly by night and have feathery antennæ. Among the moths one of the most

interesting is that of the silk worm.[25] The physiology of the insect

and its metamorphoses reveal nothing very peculiar, and its habits need

not be mentioned farther than to say, the larva eats voraciously, with

short intervals of abstinence, until full grown, which stage is reached

in about a month. During the last ten days the silk germ is elaborated,

the eggs laid, and then the spinning and winding soon begin. To complete

the cocoon requires at most only about three days. The larva then becomes

a chrysalis, and in due time the moth emerges from its cell.

VII. _Hymenoptera_ (membrane-winged) comprises the Ichneumon and Gall

fly, Ants, Wasps, Bees, in all about 25,000 species. This order includes

the most social of the insects. They have four wings, which in flying

they fasten together by means of small hooks on the edges. The females

are usually provided with a sting or borer. The Gall fly produces

the gall nuts or oak balls so common on oak trees. The Ichneumon fly

introduces its eggs underneath the skin of the caterpillar.[26]

Ants[27] live in communities. They are divided into fertile females,

males and infertile females. Among the ants, the mining ants, which make

long galleries in the earth, and carpentering ants, which perforate solid

timber, are the best known classes. Some species, like the white ants of

the tropics, the termites, are famous for their ravages.

The bees are divided into queens or females, drones or males, and

workers. Each community or swarm has one queen, which lays the eggs. The

bee is provided with a formidable sting.

This curious weapon of attack and defense is here magnified with the

adjacent parts. It consists of an extensile sheath with two needle shaped

darts that are exceedingly sharp. This spear is furnished with barbs near

the point, and when it pierces the skin, if thrust with violence, it

sometimes remains, not only making the wound more painful, but, having

been wrenched from the bee, frequently causes its death. The sting is

connected with a little sac containing a poisonous liquid which is thrown

into the wound and increases the pain.

[Illustration: STING OF A BEE.]

SUB-KINGDOM VIII.—TUNICATA.

This very small class of animals is distinguished by the leathery

sac-like covering, from which they take their name of Tunicata (having a

tunic). The Ascidian[28] is the best known representative. It is found

fastened to rocks, shells, crabs, and other bodies. These animals are

both simple and compound; the latter are often phosphorescent. They have

neither feet, head nor shell, but a shapeless body with apertures at both

ends.

SUB-KINGDOM IX.—VERTEBRATA.

This division includes the most perfect animals. Their chief

distinguishing characteristics are an internal skeleton; a backbone;

a dorsal nervous cord, separated from the body cavity; a complete

circulation, and limbs not exceeding four. There are about 25,000 living

species, beside the numberless host now extinct.

Lowest of the vertebrates, and closely related to the true fishes, are

the Lancelet and Lamprey.[29] The former is a lance-shaped animal having

no skeleton, but boasting the rudiment of a backbone in a string-like

cartilaginous cord. The organs are very simple, the heart being a long

sac in which colorless blood circulates. It breathes by taking in water

through the mouth and letting it out through the gill-slits. The Lamprey

belongs to the pouch-gilled vertebrates or _Marsipobranchii_.[30] It is

an eel-shaped animal of about three feet in length.

The round, soft mouth is suctorial, the tongue acting as a piston. By

suction it can anchor itself to a rock, and allow the long body to float

freely, without being carried by the current from the place. There are

seven gill openings on each side, and the whole breathing apparatus so

arranged that the animal can live some days out of the water. In some

parts of England it is in demand for the table, and “lamprey pie”[31] is

esteemed a great luxury. The American lamprey is similar, and the flesh

good, but in less demand in our markets. During the breeding season those

about the estuaries go up stream as do the shad, and by rolling stones

together construct large conical nests[32] for the protection of their

young. With apparently little adaptation for such architecture they

accomplish wonders in that line.

[Illustration: THE LAMPREY.]

CLASS I.—_Pisces._ The first clearly defined division of vertebrates is

that of the fishes. They are regarded as, in some respects, the lowest of

vertebrate animals. They are credited with having the least intelligence

and sensibility. Their eyes, though often large, are nearly motionless

in their sockets, are protected by no eye-lids, and are without the

expression usual even in the animal eye. If they have ears the external

parts are wanting. Sounds may reach the auditory nerve and be heard

through the cranium. The other senses, as taste, touch and smell, are

but slightly developed. But they are admirably adapted to the element in

which they live, and the mode of life for which they were created. In

no other organisms is the evidence of design in the adaptation of means

to the ends contemplated, more apparent. In the number of species and

variety of forms they exceed all other vertebrate animals.

The skeleton of a fish is usually divided into four parts: the _head_,

_respiratory organs_, _vertebral column_ and _limbs_.

The head is very suggestive, and of itself presents a profitable study.

It is not hung or poised on a neck, but attached immediately to the

body. In most species it is large, making a large mouth possible, but

pointed, to lessen the resistance met in passing through the water. In

some the eyes are quite near the nasal organ, in others farther back. In

some they face laterally, in others upward. As there is no nictating[33]

membrane there is neither winking nor the shedding of tears. Both jaws

are, to some extent, movable and provided with osseous teeth that are

usually sharp and of a spike-like form.

From the heads here presented the operculum,[34] or gill cover, is

removed to show those delicate respiratory organs. The branchiæ, or

gills, are situated at the sides of the head just back of the eyes, and

consist of numerous and very vascular[35] plates, arranged in double

fringe-like rows, fixed or attached at the base only, and so constructed,

in all respects, as to expose as much surface as possible. These gills

are covered with innumerable small blood vessels, to which blood is

pumped from the heart, there to receive the needed supply of oxygen. The

oxygen is obtained from what air circulates through the water, and not by

a decomposition of the water, as some have supposed. For some species the

modicum of oxygen, thus obtained, seems insufficient, and they come to

the surface for more.

[Illustration: HEADS OF FISHES WITH GILL-COVERING REMOVED.]

Notice another peculiarity. There being no neck or long gullet, the

principal digestive organs are packed in the cavity near the capacious

mouth, and this leaves the whole of the posterior tapering part of the

body for strong muscles, that can vigorously move the caudal extremity

from side to side as a propelling oar. The spine is so jointed as to

allow a free horizontal and but little vertical motion.

The bones of fishes are less compact than those of the higher orders

of animals, but quite elastic; and in some species small bones are

distributed through the flesh, giving additional firmness to portions

that lack muscular strength. As the peculiar breathing apparatus of the

fish is adapted to its element and mode of life, so is every part and

appendage of the whole structure. Adaptation reigns through the whole.

The elongated tapering body, its scaly covering exquisitely adjusted,

the material and position of the fins, all attest the intelligent and

beneficent purpose of the Creator.

The _Elasmobranchii_[36] (strap-gilled) have a cartilaginous skeleton,

rough skin, and uncovered gills. The Shark, the Saw-fish and the Ray are

representatives of this order.

The _Ganoidei_ (enameled scales) formed one of the largest orders in

ancient geological history, but they have now but few representatives,

such as the Sturgeon, Gar-pike and Mud-fish. Their characteristics are a

skeleton not completely ossified, ventral fins placed far back, and the

tail heterocercal, that is, having the upper lobe larger than the lower.

The _Teleosti_[37] (perfect bone) form the largest order, including

nearly all our common fishes. The characteristics of the order are an

osseous or bony skeleton; gills protected by a gill cover or operculum;

and an equally divided tail. Lowest among the Teleosts is the common eel.

It has an elongated, cylindrical, thick-skinned body, and is destitute of

ventral fins. There are many species, and they are widely distributed,

living in both salt and fresh water. One species is electrical.[38] The

cat fishes of this order have long threads hanging from their jaws, and

are noted for their peculiar methods of protecting their young; one

species is electric, having cells arranged in layers over the body.

Other peculiar types are the Blind or Cave fishes,[39] living in the

waters of caves; the Lamp fishes which take their name from the luminous

spots arranged along the sides, and which are supposed to light the

recesses where they live, and the Flying fishes.

There are at least two genera, and more than thirty species of “flying

fish,” a name given to all those which have the pectoral fins so large

that they are sustained in short, seeming flights through the air. They

do not really fly, as they have not muscular power in their fins to beat

the air as birds do. But when extended the fins help bear them up, and

the impulse received at the start, sufficient to give them the elevation

they reach, may be supplemented by the use of the caudal fin as in

swimming. Some naturalists claim to have noticed a movement of the other

fins, but the preponderance of testimony is that these are of service

only as parachutes or the wings of a paper kite. The Herring, Shad,

Salmon, Pike, Perches, Bass, Mackerel and Cod are valuable food fishes,

belonging to the Teleosts. The Sword fishes, in which the upper jaw is

developed into a long, sword-like projection, used as a weapon of defense

and offense, is an interesting member of the order. The Climbing fishes,

noted for being able to live out of water, and the Nest Builders, which

make homes from the weeds of the Sargossa Sea,[40] are peculiar types.

Another curious Teleost is the Sea Horse. This peculiar animal has

its name (_Hippocampus_) from the shape of the head, that has some

resemblance to that of a horse. There is no other resemblance. The short

body, without legs, is covered with angular spinous plates. Its fishy

part is a long prehensile tail, but it has neither dorsal nor caudal fins.

The last order of fishes is the _Dipnoi_, or Lung fishes. They are

characterized by the possession of two lungs, as well as gills. The gills

are used in respiration when the fishes are under water, but when out of

it, and burrowing in the mud as they often do, the lungs are put into

service. They are also known as mud fishes, from their habits of encasing

themselves in the mud.

[Illustration: THE SEA HORSE.]

_End of Required Reading for May._

HOW TO WIN.

BY FRANCES E. WILLARD,

President National W. C. T. U.

CHAPTER III.

But—as I was saying when the stern old gentleman was pleased to interrupt

me—I am to give you reasons why you are to cultivate your specialty. And

I claim, first (as has been implied already), that you should do this

because you have a specialty to cultivate. (This, on the principle of the

old cook book, which begins its “Recipe for Broiling Hares,” with the

straightforward exhortation: “First catch your hare.”) The second reason

is, because you will then work more easily and naturally, with the least

friction, with the greatest pleasure to yourself and the most advantage

to those around you. “Paddle your own canoe,” but paddle it right out

into the swift, sure current of your strongest, noblest inclination.

Thirdly, by this means you will get into your cranium, _in place of

aimless reverie, a resolute aim_. This is where your brother has had his

chief intellectual advantage over you. Quicker of wit than he, far less

unwieldy in your mental processes, swifter in judgment, and every whit as

accurate, you still have felt, when measuring intellectual swords with

him, that yours was in your left hand, that his was in his right; and you

have felt this chiefly, as I believe, because from the dawn of thought in

his sturdy young brain, he has been taught that he must have a definite

aim in life if he ever meant to swell the ranks of the somebodies upon

this planet, while you have been just as sedulously taught that the

handsome prince might whirl past your door “’most any day,” lift you to a

seat beside him in his golden chariot and carry you off to his castle in

Spain.

And of course you dream about all this; why shouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t?

But, my dear friends, dreaming is the poorest of all grindstones on

which to sharpen one’s wits. And to my thinking, the rust of woman’s

intellect, the canker of her heart, the “worm i’ the bud” of her noblest

possibilities has been this aimless reverie; this rambling of the

thoughts; this vagueness, which when it is finished, is vacuity. Let us

turn our gaze inward, those of us who are not thorough-going workers

with brain or hand. What do we find? A wild chaos; a glimmering nebula

of fancies; an insipid brain-soup where a few lumps of thought swim in a

watery gravy of dreams, and, as nothing can come of nothing, what wonder

if no brilliancy of achievement promises to flood our future with its

light? Few women, growing up under the present order of things, can claim

complete exemption from this grave intellectual infirmity.

Somehow one falls so readily into a sort of mental indolence; one’s

thoughts flow onward in a pleasant, gurgling stream, a sort of

intellectual lullaby, coming no-whence, going no-whither. Only one

thing can help you if you are in this extremity, and that is what your

brothers have—the snag of a fixed purpose in this stream of thought.

Around this will soon cluster the dormant ideas, hopes, and possibilities

that have thus far floated at random. The first one in the idle stream

of my life was the purpose, lodged there by my life’s best friend,

my mother, to have an education. Then, later on, Charlotte Bronte’s

“Shirley” was a tremendous snag in the stream to me. Around that brave

and steadfast character clustered a thousand new resolves. I was never

quite so steeped in reveries again, though my temptations were unusual;

my “Forest Home,” by a Wisconsin river, offering few reminders to my

girlish thought, of the wide, wide world and its sore need of workers.

The next jog that I got was from the intellectual attrition of a gifted

and scholarly woman who asked me often to her home and sent me away laden

with volumes of Wordsworth, Niebuhr and the British essayists. Margaret

Fuller Ossoli was another fixed point—shall I not rather say a fixed

star?—in the sky of my thought, while Arnold of Rugby, to one who meant

to make teaching a profession, was chief of all. Well, is it possible

that any word I have here written may set some of you thinking—that’s it,

_set_ you, a fixed purpose rather than a floating one—about a definite

object in life toward which, henceforth, you may bend a steady, earnest

gaze? I am not speaking of a thorough intellectual training only. It is

rather to the life-work, which only a lifetime can fully compass, that I

would direct your thoughts. Rather than that you should fail to have a

fixed purpose concerning it, I would that your mental attitude might be

like the one confided to me by a charming Philadelphia girl, whose letter

of this morning has the following _naïve_ statement:

“I feel such an aching in me to do or be something uncommon, and

yet a kind of awful assurance that I never shall.”

Nor do I here refer to that general knowledge of household arts which

forms the sole acquirement set forth in the regulation “Women’s

Department” of the bygone age newspaper, which in many localities remains

in this like the boulder of a past epoch.

It was once thought to be a high virtue for women, no matter how lofty in

station or how ample of fortune, to do their own work with the needle.

Homer represents Penelope spinning, surrounded by her maids, and classic

art abounds with illustrations of like character. But the virtues of one

age often become the mistakes of the next. When loom, needle and broom

were woman’s only weapons, she did well to handle them deftly, no matter

what her rank, for they were her bread-winning implements, and fortune

has been proverbially fickle in all ages. But men, by their “witty

inventions,” have perpetually encroached on “woman’s sphere.”

Eli Whitney, with his cotton gin, Elias Howe, with his sewing machine,

and a hundred other intricate-brained mechanics who have set steel

fingers to do in an hour what women’s fingers could not accomplish in a

year; all these have combined to revolutionize the daily cares of the

gentler sex. With former occupations gone, and the world’s welcome ready

when they succeed in special vocations new to them, it becomes not only

the privilege but the sacred duty of every woman to cultivate and utilize

her _highest_ gift. There is no more practical form of philanthropy than

this, for every one who makes a place for herself “higher up” leaves one

lower down for some other woman who, but for the vacancy thus afforded

her in the world’s close crowded ranks, might be tempted into paths of

sin. There is an army of poor girls wholly dependent, for a livelihood,

upon the doing of house work. They have no other earthly resource between

them and the poor house or haunt of infamy. There is another class to

whom an honorable support can come only by sewing or millinery work.

Whoever then fits herself for some employment involving better pay and

higher social recognition, graduates out of these lower grades and leaves

them to those who can not so advance, has helped the world along in a

substantial way, because she has added to the sum of humanity’s well

being.

To young women in wealthy homes, these considerations should come with

even greater convincing force. As David Swing has wisely said to his own

rich congregation:

“The rhetoric thrown at women of property for not doing ‘their own work’

could only be useful in an age of fashionable idleness, but in a busy age

it is a part of nature’s law that what are called the ‘better classes’

shall leave for the poorer classes some labor to be done, just as the

Mosaic law left some sheaves in the field for the gleaner. The world’s

work is to be apportioned according to the need and capability of its

workers, and the higher order of power must not encroach upon the task

which nature seems to have set apart for the employment and support of

the less capable.”

Let it not be concluded that I have meant to speak lightly of the

intricate, skilled labor involved in making healthful and attractive

that bright, consummate flower of a Christian civilization—the home. I

have felt that this theme has been so often treated that it needed no

amplification at my hands, but I will add that, having been entertained

in scores of homes belonging to “exceptional women,” “women with a

career,” etc., my testimony is that for wholesomeness, heartsomeness, and

every quality that superadds home-making to housekeeping, I have never

seen their superiors, and seldom, take them all in all, their peers. But

as a rule, these women have earned the “wherewithal” to make a home, by

the exercise of some good gift of brain or hand, and thus having been

enabled to put a proxy in the kitchen, they direct, but do not attend to

the minutiæ of their daily household cares.

Cultivate, then, your specialty, because the independence thus involved

will lift you above the world’s pity to the level of its respect,

perchance its honor. Understand this first, last, and always: _The world

wants the best thing._ It wants your best. It needs you as a significant

figure to give its ciphers value; to designate as an example; to serve

up in a eulogy, perchance to shine in the galaxy by whose light alone

its centuries maintain their places in the firmament of history. I know

this may strike you as contradiction, for the paradox of paradoxes is

this crotchety but kind, narrow-minded but just old world in which you

and I are cast away, like Æneas in the domain of Dido. The effrontery

of “Madame Grundy” passes all comprehension, and would be laughable if

it were not so sad. She tells us women distinctly that we positively

shall not do for society the thing we can do best; she declares that if

we attempt it we shall be frowned down, and practically ostracised, if

not utterly made away with, and then, if we go right on and succeed, she

trumpets our names from sea to shore, showers us with greenbacks, and

nods her conventional old head with a knowing “I told you so.” And _per

contra_, while on one hand this same unreasonable old lady cripples our

attempts to succeed, on the other she snubs us for not doing so. In fact,

she is so poor a mathematician that she has never yet so much as tried to

learn the value of the “unknown quantity.” The mute Milton is, to her,

indeed “inglorious.” Her code of ethics recognizes just one crime (not

mentioned in the Decalogue), and it is Failure. Her law is written on a

single table—it is a table of stone—and it reads thus: “Succeed and live;

make shipwreck of success, and die.”

And so, young friends, fold away your talents in a napkin if you choose;

the world will not openly reprove you. She will never urge you to bring

out your hidden treasure, but she knows right well when you defraud

her, and the relentless old tyrant will punish you, with tireless lash,

because you did not bring all your tithes into the storehouse of the

common good, because you lived “beneath your privilege;” because, for

yourself (which means for _her_), you did not “covet earnestly the best

gifts.” She will cut you on the public street when she would have shown

you all her teeth in smiles. She will send poverty on your track, when

you might have sat down at her banquet an honored guest. Yes, the world

wants the best thing; _your best_, and she will smite you stealthily if

you do not hand over your gift. Now last, but not least (under the head

of reasons for seeking to know your true vocation as a human being), let

me bring forward the _rationale_ of the bread-and-butter argument. In

sooth, no writer or speaker may omit it with impunity, if he would retire

in good order from an American audience. Briefly, then, your specialty,

well trained, is your best bread-winning implement, and she who earliest

grasps this, and who firmest holds it, comes off best in the race. “Be

not simply good, be good for something,” said Henry D. Thoreau. A bright

eyed girl of eighteen used to come to me on Friday evenings to give me

German lessons. To be sure, I have lived in Germany, and she has never

been out of Illinois, but then that language is not my specialty, while

it is hers. “How is it that though so young, you have made yourself

independent?” I inquired of her one day. Listen to the reply: “My mother

was always quoting this saying of Carlyle: ‘The man who has a sixpence

commands the world—to the extent of that sixpence.’ I early laid this

sentiment to heart. Besides, when I was fifteen years old, I heard a

sermon on the text: ‘This one thing I do.’ Being of a practical turn

of mind, I made an application of which the preacher, perhaps, had no

intention. I thought, why not in everyday affairs as well as in religion

do one thing well, rather than many things indifferently, and in that way

secure the magic sixpence of Carlyle! My father was a rich man then, but

I resolved to prepare myself to teach the German language, of which I was

very fond, by way of a profession. When the Chicago fire came we lost our

property, but I discovered that I could not only support myself, but help

my father to many a convenient sixpence, because, in prosperous days I

had forearmed myself with a cultivated specialty.”

As she told me this, I thought how, from widely different premises and

conditions in life young people may reach similar conclusions. For

instance, on the top of the great St. Bernard, I said to the “Hospitable

Father,” a noble young monk, “How is it that you, so gifted and well

taught, are spending your life away up here among eternal snows?” And I

shall never forget his look of exaltation as he simply answered, “’Tis my

vocation.”

After all, this is the vital question: With what sort of a weapon will

you ward off the attacks of the blood-hound Poverty, which Dame Fortune

is pretty sure to let on everybody’s track sooner or later, that she may

try his mettle, and learn what manner of spirit he is of? In times like

these, when men’s hearts are failing them for fear, when riches are saved

the trouble of “taking to themselves wings” by the faithless cashiers

and bookkeepers who are adepts at furnishing these flying implements,

and, above all, when labor is coming to be king, the question “_What_

will _you_ do?” has fresh significance. Remember, going forth from the

uncertain Eden of your dreams, into the satisfying pleasures of honest,

hard work, “the world is all before you, where to choose.” Will you share

some other woman’s home, and help her make it beautiful? No task more

noble or more needed awaits the thoughtful worker of to-day. The world

exists but for the sake of its homes. Will you bestow your hand upon some

fine æsthetic industry, as drawing, designing, engraving, telegraphing,

phonographing, photographing? Will you be an architect? a printer? an

editor? Will you enter one of the three learned professions? Braver

women than you or I have won a foot-hold for us in each of them; as to

the brain-hold, that is our affair. I will not now pursue the question

further. Only the “Cyclopædia of Woman’s Occupations” (a book I recommend

to your attention) can exhaust it, and with it exhaust you and the

world’s work, too, for that matter!

After all, it doesn’t so much signify what you may do as that you do it

well, whatever it may be. For the value of skilled labor is estimated on

a democratic basis, nowadays. President Eliot, of Harvard University,

the cook in the Parker House restaurant, and Mary L. Booth, who edits

_Harper’s Bazar_, each receive $4,000 per year.

Think a moment. Will you be led to say: “The good old ways are good

enough for me,” and so drop into the swollen ranks of teacherdom, or

rattle awhile on a martyrized piano, and then set up for a musician,

though you have not a particle of music in throat or finger-tips? Or will

you stay at home and let papa support you until you grow tired of doing

nothing and expecting nothing, and proceed to marry some man whom you

endure rather than love, just to get decently out of your dilemma?

Nay, I do you injustice. Few girls who breathe the free air of our

western prairies will be so cowardly. I may not construct your horoscope,

but this much I will venture—that when you marry, no matter what you

_find_, you will _seek_ not a name, behind which to cover up the

insignificance of your own; not a “good provider,” to feed and clothe

one who has learned how to feed and clothe herself; not a “natural

protector,” to shield you in his plaidie, the gallant, gallant laddie,

from the cauld, cauld blast; but you will seek (and may heaven grant

that you shall find) that rarest, choicest, most elusive prize of man’s

existence, as of woman’s; one which—mournfully I say it—the modern

marriage is by no means certain to involve, namely, _a mate_. At this

juncture, shrewd _mater familias_ whispers to _pater_: “That’s the first

orthodox word she’s said.” Some youth throws down the magazine and

mutters to himself: “There, I knew it would come to this! Look at the

absurdity of these women! Why, they preach up all sorts of trades and

professions, and then they come back, at last, to the ‘good old way’ they

have forsaken, and advise every young lady to get a situation in a school

of one scholar, and her board thrown in.”

Meanwhile, heroic Hypatia sits near by, and “musing in maiden meditation,

fancy free,” on a “career,” murmurs within herself, “To this complexion

must it come at last!”