township to maintain a free school, and every town of 100 families
to maintain a grammar school to “fit youths for the university;”
and it is recorded in 1665 that a free school was then supported by
each town in New England. The Connecticut, Plymouth, and New Haven
Colonies soon followed this good example of Massachusetts, either
in whole or in part. The first public school in Pennsylvania was
established in Philadelphia by the Quakers, in 1689, free to those
who could not pay. In 1694 Maryland enacted that every county should
have a public school, and every parish a free library of at least
fifty volumes. A free grammar school was established in New York by
an act passed in 1702, but a system of free common schools was not
inaugurated in this State until after 1795, in which year, on the
recommendation of Governor Clinton, the Legislature appropriated
$50,000 to encourage the establishment of common schools—not wholly
free. It was years after this before the system of schools free
to all (except colored children) went into general operation in
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The
Southern States waited until after the war before adopting the
free-school system even for white children. Their common schools
were free only for the children of confessed paupers. Who was “the
first advocate” of free schools it is now impossible to determine
positively. Several of them came over in the Mayflower, as there
were a few free schools in Massachusetts before the above enactment
of 1649, making it obligatory on every town to have them, the chief
argument then being that “every child must know how to read the
Bible.”
CORDOVA, MEXICO.
UNION CITY, Iowa.
My regiment was stationed at Cordova, Mexico, at the close of the
Mexican war. How old is that city, by whom was it founded, and what
is its present population?
M. W. V.
_Answer._—Cordova, situated about fifty-seven miles inland from
Vera Cruz, Mexico, is now a city of 6,500 to 7,000 inhabitants. The
district around it is very fertile, and the tobacco, sugar, coffee,
and cotton produced here foster an increasing trade. Its streets
are regularly laid out and well paved; most of the houses are built
of stone, and the fine cathedral is much admired for its interior
architecture and decorations. The city was founded by the early
Spanish adventurers and missionaries on the site of an old Aztec
town, and named in honor of the forerunner of Cortez, Francisco
Fernandez de Cordova, the discoverer of Yucatan and the southeastern
extremity of Mexico, in the year 1517. The date of the first Spanish
settlement is uncertain.
MARSHAL KEITH.
FAIRMONT., Neb.
Who was Marshal Keith, “the noble exile,” killed at the battle of
Hochkirchen?
W. P. JACKS.
_Answer._—He was Francis Edward James Keith, a Scotch nobleman,
born at Inverngie Castle, Aberdeenshire, in 1696. He and his elder
brother, the Earl Marischal, espoused the cause of the “Elder
Pretender,” as he is called, James Francis Edward, son of the deposed
James II. of England, in the insurrection of 1715. That affair ended
in speedy disaster, and being attainted of treason, he fled to
France. Here after some two years, spent for the most part in study
at the University of Paris, he took part in the disastrous expedition
of the Pretender to the highlands of Scotland in 1719. Escaping
again to France, he lived in obscurity and want, first at Paris and
then at Madrid, until he received a colonel’s commission in the army
of the King of Spain. Here his Protestantism stood in the way of his
promotion, and he soon took a recommendation from the King to Peter
II. of Russia, in whose service he soon rose to the rank of general.
In 1747 he entered the service of Frederick the Great of Prussia, who
made him a field marshal, accounting him one of his ablest generals.
Quick to discern the military exigencies and opportunities of the
moment, and prompt to avail himself of them, “sagacious, skillful,
imperturbable, without fear and without noise, a man quietly ever
ready,” as Carlyle describes him, he had the full confidence, and
even won the affection, of Frederick, who was wont to place him in
the most responsible positions. He was killed Oct. 14, 1758, in the
battle of Hochkirch, in which Frederick the Great suffered one of the
most terrible defeats of that bloody war at the hands of the combined
Austrian and Prussian armies.
SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN ALL THE WORLD.
SALMON CITY, D. T.
Please give the origin of the Sunday school, where and by whom
first started, and the number of such schools in this country, and,
so far as known, in the whole world.
W. H. ANDREWS.
_Answer._—The following statistics of Sunday schools were reported by
Mr. E. P. Porter to the Robert Raikes Centennial Convention held in
London, England, June 28, to July 3, 1880. They comprise only those
of the “Evangelical denominations,” and are incomplete even for this
class of schools. Full returns, including the enrollment in schools
of denominations not classed by Mr. Porter as Evangelical, probably
would increase the above aggregate by from 20 to 25 per cent.
Countries. Teachers. Scholars. Total.
Europe 550,001 5,332,813 5,882,814
Asia 1,772 38,000 39,772
Africa 300 15,000 15,300
N. America 931,740 6,974,454 7,906,194
S. America 3,000 150,000 153,000
Oceanica 17,800 170,000 187,800
————————— —————————— ——————————
Total 1,504,613 12,680,267 14,184,880
The numbers reported for the United States, at the above convention,
were as follows: Schools, 82,261; teachers, 886,328; scholars,
66,233,124. Your other questions are all answered with great care on
pages 58 and 96 of Our Curiosity Shop, in book form, for 1882; price
per mail, 25 cents.
SCHOOLS OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
MILES, Iowa.
How do the public school privileges of Ireland compare with those
of England?
H. G. BRYANT.
_Answer._—The total population of Ireland in 1881 was 5,159,839. The
total number of national schools in 1880 was 7,590, with 1,083,020
pupils, aided by a parliamentary grant of £722,366, or about
$3,611,830. The population of Great Britain proper—England, Wales and
Scotland—was 29,703,859 in 1881, and the number of public schools
inspected in 1880 was 20,670, with an attendance of 3,155,534 pupils.
The parliamentary grant amounted to £2,468,077, or about $12,340,385,
so that the parliamentary grant in aid of primary education in
Ireland is about 70 cents per capita of the total population,
while for England, Wales and Scotland it is only about 41 cents.
The above figures cover only the national schools for elementary
instruction, in addition to which there are hundreds of parochial,
or denominational and private schools in both countries. In Ireland,
in 1880, there were 158 workhouse schools under the superintendency
of the National Board, with an enrollment of 16,945, and an average
attendance of 8,880. There were fifty-two industrial schools in 1879,
with 4,979 inmates. There were in 1880, ninety-four school farms,
nineteen school gardens, and a large number of agricultural schools
under local management. The total number of pupils who entered the
examination in agriculture in 1880 was 33,648, of whom 15,652 passed.
The statistics of industrial schools in England, Wales, and Scotland
are not conveniently obtainable.
SUNLIGHT OVERFLOWS THE HEMISPHERE.
HAPPY HOLLOW, Ill.
The sun being so much larger than the earth, does not a little more
than one-half of the earth’s surface receive its rays at the same
time?
W. C. COLGROVE.
_Answer._—A little more than half of the earth’s surface is
illuminated by the sun at any given moment. There is a very slight
extension of the area of illumination for the reason you mention,
and beyond that an extension of from thirty-five to forty miles all
around on account of horizontal refraction. If you put a silver coin
into a bowl, then stand back until the edge barely hides the coin,
and while you keep this same position another person fills the bowl
with water, you will see the bottom of it seem to lift until the coin
comes into sight. This is because the rays of light reflected from
the bottom of the bowl are bent out of a straight line in passing
through the water and out into the thinner medium, the air. This is
called refraction. The rays of light from the setting sun are bent
downward in a similar manner as they enter the earth’s atmosphere,
and so the sun appears to be above the horizon a little more than
two minutes after it has actually dropped below the true horizon. A
difference of two minutes in time corresponds to a distance of thirty
miles on the earth’s surface.
THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
SANDUSKY, Iowa,
1. Does Parliament serve the same purposes in Great Britain
as Congress does in the United States? 2. How is Parliament
constituted?
A. C. STARIN.
_Answer._—Like the Congress of the United States, the British
Parliament legislates for the whole nation. But, in addition to
this, it takes the place of the separate legislative bodies that
used to exist in Scotland and Ireland, and makes local laws for
England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, such as in this country can
only be made by State Legislatures. As regards the Dominion of
Canada, the Australian Provinces, and other colonial possessions,
with legislatures of their own, the powers of Parliament are somewhat
analogous to those of Congress over the States. 2. Parliament is
composed of two houses, the Lords and the Commons. The House of
Lords consists of peers who hold their seats either by virtue of
hereditary right; by creation of the sovereign (who is unrestricted
in his power of creating peers); by virtue of office, as the
English bishops; by election for life, as the Irish peers; or by
election for duration of Parliament, as the Scottish peers. This
House, in the session of 1882, consisted of 516 members, of whom 5
were peers of the blood royal, 2 were archbishops, 22 were dukes,
19 marquises, 117 earls, 26 viscounts, 24 bishops, 257 barons,
16 Scottish peers, and 28 Irish representative peers. More than
two-thirds of these hereditary peerages have been created within the
present century—over one-third of them by the present sovereign,
which marks one of the strongest factors of the power of the Crown.
In the same year the Commons consisted of 639 members, classified as
“knights of the shire,” or representatives of counties; “citizens,”
or representatives of cities; and “burgesses,” or representatives of
boroughs—all of whom hold office by election. The qualifications of
electors were given in an article published in Our Curiosity Shop
a few months ago. The total number of these electors in 1882 was
3,134,801.
REMOVAL OF ARTHUR FROM CUSTOM HOUSE.
MILWAUKEE, Wis.
Why did President Hayes remove Chester A. Arthur from the New York
Custom House? Was he charged with dishonesty?
S. J. SMITH.
_Answer._—There was no official charge or imputation of dishonesty
against Chester A. Arthur when in the New York Custom House. His
administration of that office was a great improvement on any
preceding one for many years back. He had effected great reforms
and ousted officers who had fattened on corruption under his
predecessors. President Hayes distinctly disclaimed any want of
faith in Mr. Arthur’s integrity as a cause for replacing him, and
the official reports of Secretary Sherman bore unequivocal testimony
to the efficiency of the Collector’s administration of his difficult
office, and clearly recognized his personal integrity. Mr. Arthur did
not approve certain changes which Secretary Sherman wished to make,
and he was known also to be in sympathy with Mr. Conkling and others
not favorable to Secretary Sherman’s aspirations for the Presidency.
It is generally believed that the above were the chief reasons
for the Secretary’s desire to supersede Mr. Arthur, which finally
prevailed.
ROGER BACON.
MELVIN, Ill.
Please tell us something of the life and works of Roger Bacon.
A. BUCKHOLZ.
_Answer._—Roger Bacon was an English monk of penetrating intellect,
who by his scientific investigations and writings greatly advanced
the cause of science in a time when the study of nature had been
supplanted by the theological disputations and philosophical
speculations of the “schoolmen.” He was born near Ilchester, England,
in the year 1214, of a respectable family. He graduated at Oxford
and Paris, and, entering the order of Franciscan monks, settled
at Oxford, where he devoted himself to the study of physics. His
discoveries were looked upon as wonderful by the ignorant, and
were made the means by his clerical brethren of bringing him into
disfavor with the Pope, who deprived him of his professorship. He was
imprisoned for some years, until the elevation of Clement II. to the
Papal throne. Despite the Franciscan interdiction, Clement requested
Bacon to send him his writings, and, in answer, John of London became
the bearer to the Pope of “Opus Majus” and two other works. For ten
years Bacon was at liberty, but in 1278 he was again imprisoned, and
the reading of his works forbidden. Through the intercession of many
influential English noblemen, his release was granted shortly before
his death, which occurred in 1292 or 1294. He wrote much, but several
of his works have not been printed. Chief among his inventions was
the magnifying glass, and his superior knowledge won for him the
title, “Doctor Mirabilis.” He sought to know nature through the study
of mathematics and by investigation. He pointed out the errors in the
calendar, growing out of the old style of reckoning, long before Pope
Gregory instituted the present calendar. As a Latin writer, his style
was elegant and forcible; as a scientific scholar, he was fully two
centuries in advance of his age; as a man, his character was pure and
noble.
THE SPHINX—GUNPOWDER.
1. Is the Sphinx made of one solid block of stone, or is it built
of mortar and brick? 2. Who invented gunpowder?
A. L.
_Answer._—1. The “great Sphinx” at Gizeh, Egypt, only 300 feet east
of the second pyramid, was hewn out of the natural rock where it
stands. It measures 172 feet 6 inches long by 52 feet high. 2. Nearly
all authorities agree in referring the invention of gunpowder to
China or India, the weight of evidence being in favor of crediting it
to the former.
COUNTIES LARGER THAN STATES.
COLUMBIA, D. T.
Is it true that Brown County, D. T., contains a larger area than
Rhode Island? Please give the exact figures.
R. A.
_Answer._—Brown County, D. T., contains forty-eight Congressional
townships, or, disregarding fractional sections, 1,728 square miles;
whereas the area of Rhode Island is but 1,250 square miles. There
are several counties of Dakota that are larger than Delaware, which
contains but 2,050 square miles; such, for example, as Grand Forks,
Pembina, and Burleigh. Some of the unorganized counties are as large
as Connecticut. It will not be long before, following the practice
in the most thickly settled parts of the Territory, these undergrown
but over-extended counties will be subdivided into smaller ones of
sixteen to twenty townships, the ordinary size of an Iowa county,
each about half the size of “Little Rhody.”
LORD BYRON.
GARNAVILLO, Iowa.
Please give a sketch of Lord Byron.
WILLIAM A. KREGEL.
_Answer._—George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in London in the year
1788, and at the age of 11 succeeded to the title and estate of his
grand uncle, William, Lord Byron, near Nottingham. In 1807, two years
after entering Trinity College, he published his first volume of
poems, entitled “Hours of Idleness.” Stung by the sarcastic criticism
on these poems by Lord Brougham in the Edinburgh _Review_, he soon
after wrote “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” a scathing satire,
and at once sailed for Turkey and Greece. “Childe Harold” and a few
shorter poems were written between the years 1812 and 1818. After a
year of riotous living in Italy he sailed for Greece in 1823, and
took a conspicuous part in the struggle for Greek independence. In
this he succeeded so far as to restore comparative order to the
disorganized army, but his health soon began to fail, and exposure to
a storm induced a fever which terminated his life, April 10, 1824.
His body was interred in the Huckwall church-yard, being denied
admission to Westminster Abbey. Byron undoubtedly possessed great
genius and wrote many beautiful and ennobling poems, but his restless
and passionate temper and the immorality of his life tainted most of
what he wrote and debarred him from the list of really great English
poets. In descriptive power, fervor, imagery, and melody his powers
were marvelous, and many passages in his writings are unsurpassed in
these respects by anything in the English language.
TIN AND TARIFF.
BELOIT, Wis.
What is meant by “tin and terne plates,” and what is the gist
of the demand of the “American Tinned Plate Association” for an
increase of the duty on these plates?
SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—“Tin plates” are plates of sheet-iron or soft steel, coated
with tin, used chiefly for making household and dairy utensils,
and for cans of all sorts. “Terne plates” are iron or soft steel
sheets, coated with mixed lead and tin, used for roofing and similar
purposes. About 95 to 98 per cent of these products are iron or
steel, the tin and lead coating constituting the remaining 2 to
5 per cent. Soft steel is used chiefly now, because the quality
required can be made cheaper than in iron, is more homogeneous and
solid, and less liable to blister in the tinning processes. The
association above named claims that the British plates imported to
this country are “of poor quality, meanly coated, and, if low priced,
are wasteful in the end.” That if home manufacture of such plates
were encouraged by as heavy a tariff as is put upon other forms of
finished iron—say 50 per cent, instead of only 15 to 30 per cent,
as at present—American competition would act in this case as it
has done in other classes of “protected industry,” to improve the
qualities and ultimately to reduce the actual cost of the goods. But
it is not only in these respects that it would benefit the country,
says this association, but in bringing out the buried resources of
our own mines and increasing the home market for American goods and
American labor. The extra cost of American labor is, after all,
accounted for mainly by the better manner of living of American
laborers; their earnings are distributed among the American consumers
of their wares, instead of being sent abroad to pay foreign laborers,
while the native products utilized are so much clear gain. The tin,
a small percentage of the sheets as above shown, would be imported
to this country directly from Australia or the Dutch East Indies
and “Straits Settlements,” but aside from this the materials used
would be American products. In 1882 there were 480,596,480 pounds
of British tin and terne plates sold in the United States, valued
at $18,000,000 at Liverpool, and costing about $2,000,000 more for
transportation. For this tin the American consumers paid about
$30,000,000. To produce this in the United States would cost about as
follows:
Tin (to be Imported), lbs 25,000,000
Tallow, home product, lbs 10,000,000
Sulphuric acid, lbs 30,000,000
Lead, lbs 5,000,000
Iron ore, tons 850,000
Limestone, tons 300,000
Coal, tons 1,500,000
Pig iron, tons 300,000
Charcoal, bu 5,000,000
Labor $12,000,000
Interest on $30,000,000, capital
invested in machinery 1,800,000
Cost of repairs 1,000,000
Oils and lubricants 100,000
Insurance and taxes 1,000,000
The whole of this amount, excepting the cost of the 25,000,000 pounds
of tin ore, or “block tin,” would be produced and the money involved
kept at home. Such is the substance of the arguments used by the
American Tinned Plate Association to induce Congress to increase the
tariff on “tin and terne plates.”
DEATH RATE OF CITIES.
NEW ORLEANS, La.
Will you state the death rate in the principal cities of America
and Europe?
E. C.
_Answer._—The following represents the number of deaths per annum
in the United States out of 1,000 inhabitants, according to the
census of 1879: New York, 25.82; Boston, 19.80; Philadelphia, 17.20;
Chicago, 17.20; St. Louis, 18.19; New Orleans, 21.60. The deaths
per 1,000 in the following European cities were as follows: London,
22.83; Berlin, 27.81; Paris, 22.04.
A STANZA FROM MRS. BROWNING.
PONTOOSUC, Ill.
The lines quoted in the inquiry of “A Reader” in THE WEEKLY INTER
OCEAN of Aug. 30 are from the pen of that grand Christian poetess,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and may be found in the fifth verse of
the beautiful poem, “A Woman’s Shortcomings.” One of the lines is a
little different from what your questioner has it. I will give you
the whole verse:
“Unless you can muse in a crowd all day,
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
Through behooving and unbehooving;
Unless you can die when the dream is past—
Oh, never call it loving!”
Your correspondent has the fourth line, “With the breath of heaven
between you.”
MILLARD E. LITTLE.
CORN IN DAKOTA.
PIERRE, D. T.
I notice that in THE WEEKLY INTER OCEAN of Aug. 23, in answer to
W. K., Chicago, you say that corn is generally conceded to be a
hazardous crop in Southern Dakota. That theory is like the one of
olden time, that Dakota is a vast wilderness where only the sagebrush
and wild buffalo abound. Both theories have been exploded by actual
demonstration, and it is no longer an experiment. Corn ripens in
South Dakota in from 90 to 100 days from date of planting, which
is 10 to 15 days shorter time than it takes in Northern Illinois or
Iowa. It is the soil, the long days and short nights that do it; and
there are numerous farmers here who can testify to the fact.
W. B. STEERE, M. D.
A GULLED ENGLISHMAN.
CAPRON, Ill.
In reply to the inquiry of one of your correspondents, referred to
me, as to whether there is “any truth in the statement made in a book
published by some returned English tourists, to the effect that an
itinerant lecturer advertised to give an entertainment at Capron,
Ill., and at the close of the lecture shoot himself dead; that the
home was crowded at $1 a head; and that, true to the programme,
at the conclusion of his speech, this peripatetic orator actually
committed suicide,” I would say that there was such a story written
by a barber here, which was published in the county paper. It was
false. The lecture never was given; at least the funeral never came
off.
ALEXANDER VANCE, P. M.
SAINT SIMON, THE SOCIALIST.
DANVILLE, Ill.
Who was Saint Simon, and what were his principles?
JOHN SHORT.
_Answer._—Claude Henri, Saint Simon, was a French nobleman, who was
noted as a social philosopher and the founder of the sect named for
him Saint Simonians. He entered the American army in 1778, at 18
years of age, and served therein with distinction and honor. While
returning to his native land he was captured by British seamen and
carried to Jamaica, where he remained until 1783. When at length he
reached France he won many disciples to his socialistic views, and
before his death, in 1823, he wrote several works upon philosophy and
social reform. His greatest work was the ‘Nouveau Christianisme’ (New
Christianity), in which he embodies his final and complete design
for the amelioration of the poor and the preservation of society. He
advocates a social hierarchy, controlling and regulating the choice
of vocations, the fixing of salaries, the division of heritages,
whose chief aim it shall be “to make the labors of each conduce to
the good of all;” and to aid his projects he advised the union of
France and England.
DIXON AND ELGIN BRIDGE DISASTERS.
BLENDON, Kan.
Please state the date and the occasion of the Dixon bridge
disaster, with the number of killed and wounded.
SUBSCRIBER.