MY HOME LIFE.

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

It has been suggested to me that an article descriptive of my ways and doings at home might be acceptable to readers of this journal; and it has furthermore been proposed that I should write the said article myself. There is a straightforward simplicity of purpose about this proposition which commends it to me. Also, it has the recommendation of being quite novel.

As a rule, the person whose home life is to be made the subject of an article is "interviewed" by a gentleman of the press, who cross-examines the victim like an old Bailey counsel, and proceeds to take an inventory of his furniture, like a bailiff.

Now, it seems to me that the conditions under which such a visit is paid and received are radically unsatisfactory. The person interviewed must be more or less uncomfortably self-conscious, and one cannot help doubting whether the interviewer ever succeeds in seeing his subject and his subject's surroundings in exactly their normal dishabille. It would ask more than Roman virtue not to make the best of one's self and one's house when both were sitting for a portrait; and difficult as it is to look natural and feel natural in front of a photographer's camera, it is ten times more trying vis-a-vis of a reporter's note-book. As for the temptation to "pose," whether consciously or unconsciously, it must be well-nigh irresistible. For my own part, I am but too certain that, instead of receiving such a visitor in my ordinary working costume, and in a room littered with letters and papers, I should have inevitably put on a more becoming gown, and have "tidied up" the library, when the appointed day and hour arrived. Not, however, being put to this test, I will do my best to present myself literally "At Home," and in my habit as I live.

Westbury-on-Trym is a village in Gloucestershire separated from Clifton by about a mile and a half of open down, and distant about four miles from Bristol terminus. It lies in a hollow at the foot of two steep hills, one of which is crowned with the woods of Blaise Castle, and the other with a group of buildings consisting of the parish church, a charming little Gothic structure known as "The Hall," and the national schoolhouse. The church is a fine perpendicular edifice of considerable antiquity, with a square tower surmounted, in true West of England style, by a small turret, having a tiny Gothic spire at one corner. The parishioners are proud of their church, and with justice. It contains some good stained-glass windows, two interesting mediaeval monuments, and an exceptionally fine organ. "The Hall" is quite modern, having been built and endowed, in 1867, by a generous parishioner. The large room seats three hundred people, and is fitted up with an organ as large and beautiful as that in the church close by. Village concerts, penny readings, Lent lectures, charity bazaars, and the like are held here. The building also contains a reading-room and a small library for the use of the working classes. My own first attempts at public reading were made on this village platform, twenty years ago.

A little river flows through the valley, and is crossed by a single bridge in the lower part of the village. This is the Trym,—an untidy Trym enough, nowadays,—opaque, muddy, and little better than a ditch. Yet it was a navigable river some centuries ago, and, according to tradition, was not unknown to trout. On leaving the village, it takes a southwesterly course through a pleasant bottom of meadow lands, and thence between wooded slopes and a romantic "Coombe," much beloved of artists, till it finally empties itself into the Avon, not far from the mouth of that tidal river.

There are still some remains of a building at the foot of Westbury Hill, which in olden times was second only in age and importance to the church,—namely, "The College." This "College" was a religious house, founded as far back as A.D. 798, and probably rebuilt some five centuries later by that famous merchant and public benefactor, William Canynge, of Bristol, who died there as Dean of the College, and was buried in the church. Twenty-five years ago, when I first made its acquaintance, this "College" (a large modernized building with corner turrets) still presented a stately front to the road. At the back was a square bell-tower covered from top to bottom with ivy, and a spacious garden shut in by high walls. It was then a boy's school, and the big garden used to echo with shouts and laughter on summer evenings. The bell-tower is the most ancient part of the building, and according to local tradition, a subterranean passage leads from the cellarage in the basement to the church on the hillside above. The story is likely enough to be correct; for a passage of some kind there certainly is, and it leads apparently in the direction of the church. A working-man who, with some three or four others, had once tried to explore it, told me several years ago that, beyond the first few yards, the tunnel was completely blocked, and the air so foul that it put the lights out. Whether any subsequent attempt has been made to force a passage, I do not know; but the whole place is sadly changed since the time when I used to cast longing glances at the old green tower from the lane that skirted the garden wall, wishing that I might some day get permission to sit in a corner under a shady tree on the other side of that wall, and sketch the tower. The school has long since broken up for good, and boys and masters have gone their ways. The old house, after standing vacant for years, was bought at last by a little local builder, who ran up a row of smart shops in front of the old turreted facade; let off the house itself in lodgings to poor families; and re-sold the old bell-tower to the village blacksmith. The garden wall being pulled down on that side, the tower now stands at the end of a row of new cottages, forlorn and solitary in the midst of alien surroundings, a forge and anvil in the basement.

As regards the "great houses" of the place, Westbury-on-Trym enjoys a curious monopoly of handsome private mansions. These mansions—spacious, finely built, each standing in its own park-like grounds—were built for the most part by wealthy Bristol merchants during the two last centuries—men of wealth, who needed to reside within an easy drive of the city, and who were content to amass great fortunes without also desiring to become land-owners. The Bristol merchants of the present day no longer care to live so near their business. Railways and steamers enable them to go farther afield; and so the fine old houses of Westbury, Henbury, Redland, Shirehampton, Brislington, and other parishes round about the great commercial centre, have gradually passed into the possession of a class of moneyed gentry who, having neither trade nor land, are attracted by the fine climate and beautiful scenery of this part of England. Some few of these old mansions are renowned for the valuable collections of paintings and other works of art which they contain; as, for instance, at Blaise Castle, there is a fine series of specimens of the old masters purchased at the close of the great war during the first quarter of the present century by Mr. Harford, grandfather of the present owner; a series which comprises a fine Guido, several specimens of the Caracci, Salvator Rosa, etc. At Kings-Weston Park, we find the family portraits of the de Cliffords purchased, together with the very fine old house built by Vanbrugh in the time of Charles II., by the late owner, Philip Miles, Esq. At Leigh Court, the gallery, with its famous Leonardo, is known throughout Europe, while many other art treasures are to be found in the possession of private owners round about the neighborhood.

It is not to be supposed that the writer and subject of this present paper resides in semi-royal state in one of these magnificent old houses. On the contrary, she lives, and has lived for more than a quarter of a century, with a very dear friend, in a small, irregularly built house, which together they have from time to time enlarged and improved, according to their pleasure. That friend—now in her eighty-seventh year—used, in days long gone by, to gather round her table many of the wits and celebrities of fifty years ago; but for her, as for myself, our little country home has been as dear for its seclusion as for the charm of its neighborhood.

The Larches stands, with some few other houses of like dimensions, on a space of high-level ground to the eastward of the village. It is approached by a narrow lane, beyond which lie fields and open country. Having at first been quite a small cottage, it has been added to by successive owners, and is, consequently, quite destitute of external or internal uniformity. My own library, and the bedrooms above it, are, for the present, the latest additions to the structure; though I hope some day to build on a little room which I shall not venture to call a museum, but which shall contain my Egyptian antiquities and other collections.

The little house stands in one acre of ground, closely walled in, and surrounded by high shrubs and lofty larch trees. It is up and down a straight path in the shade of these larch trees that I take my daily exercise; and if I am to enter into such minor particulars as are dear to the writers and readers of "At Home" articles, I may mention that a dial-register is affixed to the wall of a small grape-house at one end of this path, by means of which I measure off my regular half-mile before breakfast, my half mile after breakfast, and the mile or more with which I finish up my pedestrian duties in the late afternoon. To walk these two miles per diem is a Draconian law which I impose upon myself during all seasons of the year. When the snow lies deep in winter, it is our old gardener's first duty in the morning to sweep "Miss Edwards' path," as well as to clear two or three large spaces on the lawn, in which the wild birds may be fed. The wild birds, I should add, are our intimate friends and perennial visitors, for whom we keep an open table d'hote throughout the year. By feeding them in summer we lose less fruit than our neighbors; and by feeding them in winter we preserve the lives of our little summer friends, whose songs are the delight of ourselves and our neighbors in the springtime. There are dozens of nests every summer in the ivy which clusters thickly around my library windows; and we even carry our hospitality so far as to erect small rows of model lodging-houses for our birds high up under the eaves, which they inhabit in winter, and in which many couples of sparrows and starlings rear their young throughout the summer.

We will now leave the garden, and go into the house, which stands high on a grassy platform facing the sunny west. We enter by a wooden porch, which, as I write, is thickly covered with roses. As soon as the front door is opened, the incoming visitor finds himself in the midst of modern Egypt, the walls of the hall being lined with Damascus tiles and Cairene woodwork, the spoils of some of those Meshrabeeyeh windows which are so fast disappearing both in Alexandria and Cairo. In a recess opposite the door stands a fine old chair inlaid with ivory and various colored woods, which some two hundred years ago was the Episcopal chair of a Coptic bishop. The rest of the hall furniture is of Egyptian inlaid work. Every available inch of space on the walls is filled and over-filled with curiosities of all descriptions. On one bracket stand an old Italian ewer and plate in wrought brass work; on another, a Nile "Kulleh" or water bottle, and a pair of cups of unbaked clay; on others again, jars and pots of Indian, Morocco, Japanese, Siut, and Algerian ware. Here also, are a couple of funerary tablets in carved limestone, of ancient Egyptian work; a fragment of limestone cornice from the ruins of Naukratis; and various specimens of Majolica, old Wedgewood, and other ware, as well as framed specimens of Rhodian and Damascus tiles.

If my visitor is admitted at all, which for reasons which I will presently state is extremely doubtful, he passes through the hall, leaving the dining-room to his right and the drawing-room to his left, and is ushered along a passage, also lined with lattice-work, through a little ante-room, and into my library. This is a fair-sized room with a bay of three windows at the upper end facing eastward. My writing-table is placed somewhat near this window; and here I sit with my back to the light facing whomsoever may be shown into the room.

Sitting thus at my desk, the room to me is full of reminiscences of many friends and many places. The walls are lined with glazed bookcases containing the volumes which I have been slowly amassing from the time I was fourteen or fifteen years of age. I cast my eyes round the shelves, and I recognize in their contents the different lines of study which I have pursued at different periods of my life. Like the geological strata in the side of a cliff, they show the deposits of successive periods, and remind me, not only of the changes which my own literary tastes have undergone, but also of the various literary undertakings in which I have been from time to time engaged. The shelves devoted to the British poets carry me back to a time when I read them straight through without a break, from Chaucer to Tennyson. A large number of histories of England and works of British biography are due to a time when I was chiefly occupied in writing the letterpress to "The Photographic Historical Portrait Gallery,"—a very beautiful publication illustrated with photographs of historical miniatures, which never reached a second volume, and is now, I believe, extremely scarce. An equally voluminous series of histories of Greece and Rome, and of translations of the Greek and Latin poets, marks the time when I first became deeply interested in classic antiquity. To this phase also belong the beginnings of those archaeological works which I have of late years accumulated almost to the exclusion of all other books, as well as my collection of volumes upon Homer, which nearly fill one division of a bookcase. When I left London some six and twenty years ago to settle at Westbury-on-Trym, I also added to my library a large number of works on the fine arts, feeling, as every lover of pictures must do, that it is necessary, in some way or another, to make up for the loss of the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, and other delightful places which I was leaving behind. At this time, also, I had a passion for Turner, and eagerly collected his engraved works, of which I believe I possess nearly all. I think I may say the same of Samuel Prout. Of Shakespeare I have almost as many editions as I have translations of Homer; and of European histories, works of reference generally, a writer who lives in the country must, of course, possess a goodly number. Of rare books I do not pretend to have many. A single shelf contains a few good old works, including a fine black-letter Chaucer, the Venetian Dante of 1578, and some fine examples of the Elizabethan period. I soon found, however, that this taste was far too expensive to cultivate. Last of all, in what I may call the upper Egyptological stratum of my books, come those on Egypt and Egyptian archaeology, a class of works deeply interesting to those who make Egyptology their study, but profoundly dull to everybody else.

Such are my books. If, however, I were to show my visitor what I consider my choicest treasures, I should take down volumes which have been given to me by friends, some now far distant, others departed. Here, for instance, is the folio edition of Dore's "Don Quichotte," on the fly-leaf of which he signs himself as my "ami affectueux;" or some of the works of my dear friend of many years, John Addington Symonds, especially "Many Moods," which he has dedicated to myself. Or I would take down the first volume of "The Ring and the Book," containing a delightful inscription from the pen of Robert Browning; or the late Lord Lytton's version of the Odes of Horace, in which is inserted an interesting letter on the method and spirit of his translation, addressed to me at the time of its publication. Next to this stands a presentation copy of Sir Theodore Martin's translation of the same immortal poems. To most persons these would be more interesting than other and later presentation volumes from various foreign savants—Maspero, Naville, Ebers, Wiedemann, and others.

I am often asked how many books I possess, and I can only reply that I have not the least idea, having lost count of them for many years. Those which are in sight are attired in purple and fine linen, beautiful bindings having once upon a time been one of my hobbies; but behind the beautiful bindings, many of which were executed from my own designs, are other books in modest cloth and paper wrappers; so that the volumes are always two rows, and sometimes even three rows deep. If I had not a tolerably good memory, I should certainly be very much perplexed by this arrangement, the more especially as my only catalogue is in my head.

I fear I am allowing myself to say too much about my books; yet, after all, they represent a large part of myself. My life, since I have lived at The Larches, has been one of ever-increasing seclusion, and my books have for many years been my daily companions, teachers, and friends. Merely to lean back in one's chair now and then—merely to lean back and look at them—is a pleasure, a stimulus, and in some sense a gain. For, as it seems to me, there is a virtue which goes out from even the backs of one's books; and though to glance along the shelves without taking down a single volume be but a Barmecide feast, yet the tired brain is consciously refreshed by it.

Although the room is essentially a bookroom, there are other things than books to which one can turn for a momentary change of thought. In yonder corner, for instance, stands an easel, the picture upon which is constantly changed. To-day, it will be a water-color sketch by John Lewis; to-morrow, an etching by Albert Duerer or Seymour Haden; the next day, an oil painting by Elihu Vedder, or perhaps an ancient Egyptian funerary papyrus, with curious pen-and-ink vignettes of gods and genii surmounting the closely written columns of hieroglyphic text.

For, you see, I have no wall space in my library upon which to hang pictures; and yet, I am not happy, and my thoughts are not rightly in tune, unless I have a picture or two in sight, somewhere about the room. In the corners, hidden away behind pedestals and curtains, a quick eye may detect stacks of pictures, ready to be brought out and put on the easel when needed. On the pedestals stand plaster casts of busts from antique originals in the Louvre, the Uffizzi Gallery, and the British Museum; and yonder, beside the arched entrance between the ante-room and the library, stands a small white marble torso of a semi-recumbent river god which I picked up years ago from amid the dusty stores of a little curiosity-shop in one of the small by-streets near Soho Square. It is a splendid fragment, so powerfully and learnedly modelled, that no less a critic than the late Charles Blanc once suggested to me that it might be a trial-sketch by a pupil of Michael Angelo, or even by the master himself. Curiously enough, this little masterpiece, which has lost both arms from below the shoulders and both legs from above the knee, was wrecked before its completion; the face, the beard, the hair and the back being little more than blocked out, whereas, the forepart of the trunk is highly finished. On the opposite side of the archway, in an iron tripod, stands a large terra-cotta amphora found in the cellar of a Roman villa discovered in 1872, close behind the Baths of Caracalla.

As I happened to be spending that winter in Rome, I went, of course, to see the new "scavo," and there were the big jars standing in the cellar, just as in the lifetime of the ancient owner. I need scarcely say that I bought mine on the spot.

It is such associations as these which are the collector's greatest pleasures. Each object recalls the place and circumstances of its purchase, brings back incidents of foreign travel, and opens up long vistas of delightful memories. For me, every bit of old pottery on the tops of the bookcases has its history. That Majolica jar painted with the Medici arms, and those Montelupo plates, were bought in Florence; those brass salvers with heads of Doges in repousse work were picked up in a dark old shop on one of the side canals of Venice. The tall jars, yellow, green, white, and brown, with grotesque dragon mouths and twisted handles, are of Gallipoli make, and I got them at a shop in an out-of-the-way court at the top of a blind alley in Stamboul.

I have said that there are reasons why an intending visitor might, perchance, fail to penetrate as far as this den of books and bric-a-brac, and I might allege a considerable number, but they may all be summed up in the one deplorable fact that there are but twenty-four hours to the day, and seven days to the week. Time is precious to me, and leisure is a thing unknown. If, however, the said visitor is of congenial tastes, has gained admittance, and finds me less busy than usual, he will, perhaps, be let into the secret of certain hidden treasures, the existence of which is unsuspected by the casual caller. For dearer to me than all the rest of my curios are my Egyptian antiquities; and of these, strange to say, though none of them are in sight, I have enough to stock a modest little museum. Stowed away in all kinds of nooks and corners, in upstairs cupboards, in boxes, drawers, and cases innumerable, behind books, and invading the sanctity of glass closets and wardrobes, are hundreds, nay, thousands, of those fascinating objects in bronze and glazed ware, in carved wood and ivory, in glass, and pottery, and sculptured stone, which are the delight of archaeologists and collectors. Here, for instance, behind the "Revue Archeologique" packed side by side as closely as figs in a box, are all the gods of Egypt,—fantastic little porcelain figures plumed and horned, bird-headed, animal-headed, and the like. Their reign, it is true, may be over in the Valley of the Nile, but in me they still have a fervent adorer. Were I inclined to worship them with due antique ceremonial, there are two libation tables in one of the attics ready to my hand, carved with semblances of sacrificial meats and drinks; or here, in a tin box behind the "Retrospective Review," are specimens of actual food offerings deposited three thousand years ago in various tombs at Thebes—shrivelled dates, lentils, nuts, and even a slice of bread. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulets, mirrors, and toilet objects, once the delight of dusky beauties long since embalmed and forgotten; funerary statuettes, scarabs, rolls of mummy cloth, and the like are laid by "in a sacred gloom" from which they are rarely, if ever, brought forth into the light of day. And there are stranger things than these,—fragments of spiced and bituminized humanity to be shown to visitors who are not nervous, nor given to midnight terrors. Here is a baby's foot (some mother cried over it once) in the Japanese cabinet in the ante-room. There are three mummied hands behind "Allibone's Dictionary of English Authors," in the library. There are two arms with hands complete—the one almost black, the other singularly fair,—in a drawer in my dressing-room; and grimmest of all, I have the heads of two ancient Egyptians in a wardrobe in my bedroom, who, perhaps, talk to each other in the watches of the night, when I am sound asleep. As, however, I am not writing a catalogue of my collection, I will only mention that there is a somewhat battered statue of a Prince of Kush standing upright in his packing-case, like a sentry in a sentry-box, in an empty coach-house at the bottom of the garden.

It may, perhaps, be objected to my treatment of this subject that I have described only my "home," and that, being myself, I have not described Miss Edwards. This is a task which I cannot pretend to perform in a manner satisfactory either to myself or the reader. My personal appearance has, however, been so fully depicted in the columns of some hundreds of newspapers, that I have but to draw upon the descriptions given by my brethren of the press, in order to fill what would otherwise be an inevitable gap in the present article. By one, for instance, I am said to have "coal-black hair and flashing black eyes"; by another, that same hair is said to be "snow-white"; while a third describes it as "iron-gray, and rolled back in a large wave." On one occasion, as I am informed, I had "a commanding and Cassandra-like presence"; elsewhere, I was "tall, slender, and engaging"; and occasionally I am merely of "middle height" and, alas! "somewhat inclined to embonpoint." As it is obviously so easy to realize what I am like from the foregoing data, I need say no more on the subject.

With regard to "my manners and customs" and the course of my daily life, there is little or nothing to tell. I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood. When I am asked what are my working hours, I reply:—"All the time when I am not either sitting at meals, taking exercise, or sleeping"; and this is literally true. I live with the pen in my hand, not only from morning till night, but sometimes from night till morning. I have, in fact, been a night bird ever since I came out of the schoolroom, when I habitually sat up reading till long past midnight. Later on, when I adopted literature as a profession, I still found that "To steal a few hours from the night" was to ensure the quietest time, and the pleasantest, for pen and brain work; and, for at least the last twenty-five years, I have rarely put out my lamp before two or three in the morning. Occasionally, when work presses and a manuscript has to be despatched by the earliest morning mail, I remain at my desk the whole night through; and I can with certainty say that the last chapter of every book I have ever written has been finished at early morning. In summertime, it is certainly delightful to draw up the blinds and complete in sunlight a task begun when the lamps were lighted in the evening.

And this reminds me of a little incident—too trivial, perhaps, to be worth recording—which befell me so long ago as 1873. I had visited the Dolomites during the previous summer, not returning to England till close upon Christmastime, and I had been occupied during the greater part of the spring in preparing that account of the journey entitled "Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys." Time ran somewhat short towards the last, as my publishers were anxious to produce the volume early in June; and when it came to the point of finishing off, I sat up all through one beautiful night in May, till the farewell words were written. At the very moment when, with a sigh of satisfaction, I laid down my pen, a wandering nightingale on the pear-tree outside my library window, burst into such a flood of song as I have never heard before or since. The pear-tree was in full blossom; the sky behind it was blue and cloudless; and as I listened to the unwonted music, I could not help thinking that, had I been a pious scribe of the Middle Ages who had just finished a laboriously written life of some departed saint, I should inevitably have believed that the bird was a ghostly messenger sent by the good saint himself to congratulate me upon the completion of my task.



THE TYRANNY OF NATIONALISM.[12]

BY M. J. SAVAGE.

[12] This article is a reply to "The Tyranny of All the People," by the Rev. Francis Bellamy, in July ARENA.

It is a somewhat curious task to which I find myself set. To go on with it may be to lay myself open to censure on the part of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." What would have been thought of the famous Davy Crockett, if he had fired his gun after the coon had said, "Don't shoot, for I will come right down"? But the Rev. Francis Bellamy "comes right down" before anybody is in sight with a gun at all. He argues, indeed, in favor of nationalism; but, before he begins, he whispers to you, confidentially, that he is not much of a nationalist after all. Like Bottom, in "Midsummer Night's Dream," he is anxious not to scare anybody, and so lets out the secret that he is not a "truly" lion, but is only "taking the part." In effect he tells the audience that "I will roar you as gently as a sucking dove."

Let us see, from his own words, how much of a nationalist, and what kind of a one he really is. "It is not without some question, however, that I accept the generous challenge." (That is, to reply to the editor of THE ARENA.) "For I am not sure that I myself believe in the military type of socialism which the editor seems continually to have in mind. The book ('Looking Backward') which, more than all others combined, has brought socialism before American thought, has also furnished to its opponents a splendidly clear target in its military organization. It cannot be repeated too often, however, that the army type is not conceded by socialists to be an essential, even if nationalistic, socialism."

Later on, speaking of "the hostile critics," he says: "They delight to picture the superb riot of corruption, if nationalists could have their way at once. They will never listen, they will never remember, while nationalists declare they would not have their way at once if they could. A catastrophe by which nationalistic socialism might be precipitated would be a deplorable disaster to human progress."

Later still, he brings out the idea that all he seeks is to begin, in a small way, with towns and cities, and see how it works.

And once more he declares, "We certainly want no nationalism that is not an orderly development." ... "Nationalism is only a prophecy. It is too distant to be certainly detailed." ("For this relief, much thanks!") ... "We may be inspired by it as the end towards which present movements are tending. But each age solves its own problems; and the passage into the promised land is the issue for another generation. A nearer view alone can determine where the passage is, and whether the land is truly desirable....

"Meantime, what our people must vote upon in the present year of grace is whether great private corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities of life as light and transit.... The future is in the hands of evolution."

This latter paragraph challenges and receives my most unbounded admiration. It is one of the neatest changes of base I ever witnessed. I have seen remarkable feats performed by the prestidigitateur on the stage; but they were clumsy compared with this. I thought it was nationalism I was looking at. But, "presto, change!" I look again, and the only thing visible is the question as to "whether great private corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities as light and transit." I was looking for the "garden of Eden," the "kingdom of heaven," the "promised land," or, at the very least, the fulfilment of Mr. Edward Bellamy's dream of a Boston with poverty gone and everybody happy, and lo! I am put off with economical electric lights and cheaper street cars! To be sure, these latter are not to be despised; but when one, like More's "Peri at the Gate," has been looking into heaven, even free street lights and street cars are a disappointment!

But however disappointed we may be, let us turn and seriously face the situation. The Rev. Francis Bellamy is not at all sure that he is in favor of his brother's kind of nationalism. And yet, the kind and method were the only peculiar and distinctive things in his brother's book. Dreams are old and common; but when this book appeared, people shouted "Eureka! We have found the way. This is the fulfilment of our dreams!" Now we are told, on authority, that it is not. And we are just where we were before.

People may suffer from a vague discontent for any number of years, while yet they do no more than complain and wish they were more comfortable. So, for example, the farmers have been doing. But, so long as they go no further, there is no definite "cause" either to uphold or oppose. But, when they call a national convention and construct a platform, announcing definite aims and methods, then there is something to talk about. Now, a man is either for or against "The Farmers' Alliance." Of course, he may be profoundly interested in the farmers' welfare, and yet oppose their aims and methods, because he does not believe that real help can come in the way that they, at present, propose. But, until some plan is proposed, there can hardly be said to be any farmers' movement at all.

So of nationalism. It does not consist in an indefinite confession that the industrial condition of the world is not all that one could wish, and an equally indefinite dream, or hope, or trust in evolution. If that be nationalism, then, of course, we are all nationalists. The nationalist clubs have platforms, declarations of principles, statements of aims and methods. The one only value of Mr. Edward Bellamy's book—beyond mere entertainment—was in its clear statement of an end to be reached in certain definite ways. Take this feature away, and there is no nationalism left to even talk about.

As there are many different types of socialism, so, of course, there may be many different kinds of nationalism. But there must be some kind, if the matter is to be intelligently discussed. But the Rev. Francis Bellamy declines to be held to the scheme of Mr. Edward Bellamy; and he does not give us any other in its place. He says he wants nothing "that is not an orderly development"; nationalism is "only a prophecy"; it is "too distant to be certainly detailed"; "we may be inspired by it," but nobody can yet tell whether we shall want it or not; its sudden coming would be "a deplorable disaster," etc., etc.

Now I submit to the candid reader as to whether this sort of thing is not too nebulous and tenuous for the uninitiated mind to discuss. "An orderly development"—but of nobody knows what nor in what direction—"a prophesy," an intangible "inspiration"; these may be very fine, but where are we, and what are we talking about? For all I know, up to the present time, I may be in cordial agreement with the Rev. Francis Bellamy's state of mind—if only I could find out what it is. He does not agree with his brother; nor do I. So far we are in accord. But I cannot tell whether I can take the next step with him, until he tells me what the next step is. But he does not even suggest a definite end, nor hint one definite method. I am heartily with him in being in favor of the millennium; but the practical question is,—which way?

The only definite thing he does suggest is that, as the process of natural evolution goes on, men will be competent to decide what they want; and if they do not want any particular thing, they will not have it. This is all very harmless; but it is so commonplace a truism that it is hardly worth while to get excited over it.

But while he does not define himself, nor tell us what it is, nor how it is to be come at, it is plain, all the way through, that he is a believer in "nationalistic socialism." Now, we cannot indict a man for cherishing hopes, or for encouraging them in others. But, in the case of the negroes, at the close of the war, it was a real evil for them to be expecting "a mule and forty acres of land" from the government; for it stood in the way of real effort in practical directions. So, while a nobler ideal is of incalculable benefit to a people, it is a real evil for them to be indulging in impractical dreams. They waste effort and divert power from practical ends, and result in that kind of disappointment that discourages the heart and unnerves the arm. Those, then, who talk of nationalism as a solution of our troubles, ought to tell us just what they are after, and what methods they propose. Then we can find out whether the plans will work or not. Otherwise time, enthusiasm, and effort may all be wasted.

But the only definite end this article hints at is the destruction of those monopolies that make light and transportation dear. But it is conceivable that this may be done without a resort to nationalistic socialism. And this, which he says is the first step, may be a step in any one of several different directions. And if what he is after is to come only as the result of a natural evolution, when everybody wants it, and not as the result of a social catastrophe, then it would seem to be difficult to tell the difference between it and individualism. "The rounded development of the greatest number of individuals," he himself sets forth as the motive and end of his kind of nationalism. Now if somebody is going to make me take on a "sounder development," that is one thing, but if everybody is only going to let me do it, that is quite another thing. Mark Twain's "Buck Fanshaw" was going to have peace, if he had to "lick every galoot in town" to get it. This may well stand for Edward Bellamy's military nationalism. But if we are only going to have peace when everybody wants it, and will behave himself, why this seems like the Rev. Francis Bellamy's nationalism, with the "military" left out. And this, I say, looks to me very much like the kind of individualism which I believe in.

I pass by, completely, the philosophical discussion as to what constitutes "a nation." This I do, because it does not seem to me relevant to the matter in hand. If my individual liberty is interfered with, I cannot see that it helps me much to reflect that a nation, or "the nation," is not a "sand-heap," but is "an organic being." The oppression is the matter; and I had as lief be oppressed by a sand-heap as by an organic being. What I object to is being oppressed by either of them. And, whatever may be in the future, when men get to be something different from what they are, so far in the history of the world it has been true that all kinds of governments have oppressed the individual. And, so far, the only safety of the individual has been such guarantees of personal rights and liberties as have limited the governmental power. And until some one can give the world assurance that human nature is to be transformed, it will be just as well to maintain the guarantees, instead of putting still more power into the hands of the government—whether it be called one thing or another. While even one wolf is abroad, the wise shepherd will not get rid of his dog.

But, while the Rev. Francis Bellamy has "come down," to the extent of virtually giving up any kind of nationalism definite enough to fight about, he nevertheless goes on with his arguments against the editor's positions just as though nothing at all had happened. He stands up for "nationalistic socialism" as though it were something clearly in mind. And he argues at length that the state of things covered by this term will not be open to such dangers as have been found to exist under all other forms of government. Either human nature is to be changed—though he does not tell us how—or there is to be some charm in "nationalistic socialism" that is to change the nature of "politics," disarm prejudice, make philistinism broad-minded, and turn bigotry into tolerance. Wonderful is the power of my particular panacea!

Neither of the brothers Bellamy expect or propose any sudden change in human nature. "Looking Backward" plainly and positively disclaims any such expectation. So we are not only at liberty to deal with social forces and factors as they have been, and as we know them, but we are even compelled to do so. Let us, then, take up some of Mr. Flower's points against nationalism, and see whether Mr. Bellamy has adequately met them.

Mr. Flower thinks that nationalism would mean governmentalism and paternalism—in the historic sense of those terms—raised to the highest degree; and that these are both bad things. Mr. Bellamy admits that they have been bad things in the past; but claims that something in nationalistic socialism is to change their nature. As, in the millennium, the lion is to "eat straw like the ox," so, in this coming Edenic condition of affairs, the age-long oppressors of the individual are to lose their man-eating proclivities. The world is open to conviction on this point; but it will take more than words to produce the result. When we see a lion eating grass, while the sheep play about his feet, we will believe in his conversion. For—let the reader take earnest heed—it is not the conscious evil in men that has been oftenest the oppressor of their fellows; almost always the plea for it has been the general good. Church and State both have set this propensity down among the great cardinal virtues. As Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing God service when he persecuted the early Church, so the Church herself sang Te Deums over St. Bartholomew, and believed verily that the groans of the Inquisition and the fires of her autos de fe were for the glory of God and the good of man.

The curse of the whole business is just here—that a set of men should fancy that they know better what their brothers ought to think and do than the brothers themselves know. Mr. Bellamy himself lets out, in a most curious way, his own advanced (?) idea of "toleration." By the way, I would like to know how it happens to be any of his business, for example, to "tolerate" me. Who sets him, or anybody else, up on high to look down with "toleration" on other people?

But let us note his idea of "toleration." He says, with great emphasis, "A man may prove to me by inductive data, reaching uninterruptedly over ten thousand years"—I did not know he was so old—"that my own nature is intolerant; he may even corroborate his proof by pointing to my occasional acts of thoughtless disregard for another's opinion; yet all this array does not overwhelm me, for I know [Italics mine] that I am not intolerant." This superlative confidence in his own goodness makes me think of the congressman of whom it was said, "He is the most distinguished man in Washington. I know he is, for he admits it himself."

But a little later on creeps out an indication, in the light of which we have a right to interpret this claim. Mr. Flower, in his editorial, had shown how a Christian Scientist had been arrested in Iowa for this offence. In the words of the indictment, "She had practised a cure on one Mrs. George B. Freeman." After the physicians had pronounced the case hopeless, and had given her up, this criminal woman had actually dared to "cure" her. The heinousness of the offence was admitted. It was not, in the ordinary sense, malpractice; no medicine had been given, no pain was inflicted, no harm done. But she had been presumptuous enough to "cure," and not after the "regular," the orthodox way. Now the Rev. Francis Bellamy shows his "tolerance" in regard to this crucial case, by saying, "But it is certainly true that the State has the right to prevent malpractice—a right none of us would wish renounced." Just what this has to do with an instance where the only malpractice even charged was that she "had practised a cure," after all the physicians had given her up, is not very plain to the worldly minded. But he goes on,—"And as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent (sic) public opinion that the theory, with its perilous repudiation of all medical skill, is not fatal to human life, it will receive an ungrudged status."

"Here's richness," as Mr. Squeers would say. Mr. Bellamy's "tolerance" then is limited carefully to what has an accepted "status" as judged by "public opinion." It begins now to be plain as to what "tolerance" is to be in the millennial era of nationalism.

But there is one more hint in Mr. Bellamy's article, without which this new and improved definition of tolerance would not be complete. He says, "It is hard to discover what individualism is surrendered except bumptiousness." But who is to decide what is "bumptiousness"? Why, "an intelligent public opinion," of course. And who is to settle as to what is "an intelligent public opinion," that has the right to put down "bumptiousness"? Why, the "intelligent" public, of course. So it comes back always to this,—we, the ruling majority, are intelligent, and we have the right to decide as to what shall be and shall not be permitted.

But now to go back a moment to a point that must not be lost sight of; for it involves the whole issue between personal freedom and tyranny, whether of a part of the people or all of them. He says, "as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent public opinion, etc., etc." But just how is this "data" to be accumulated, so long as anybody who dares to have a new idea is to be arrested and imprisoned? The very most fatal objection to this universal supervision and control of all individual action by the governing power, which nationalism contemplates and which is of its very essence, is that it would become the tyranny of mediocrity, and would stand in the way of growth.

Two forces, at work freely, are necessary to evolution: heredity and the tendency to vary. The one conserves all the valuable attainments of the past; and the other, like the new sprouts and twigs on a growing tree, has in it all the promise of the future. Such a control of life as nationalism contemplates would suppress the new twigs as "bumptiousness," or would—while breaking them off as fast as they appeared—ask them to accumulate "sufficient data to convince an intelligent public opinion."

The "intelligent public opinion" of Europe thought Copernicus, and Bruno, and Galileo, and Luther very bumptious sorts of persons. With "an intelligent public opinion," such as existed in England and America thirty years ago, on the subject of the origin of species, what would have become of Darwin—provided that, at that time, the governing power had assumed and exercised the right to put him to some "useful" occupation, or to suppress ideas popularly believed to be dangerous?

The plain fact of the matter is, that all the persecutions of the past have grown out of just this idea, which Mr. Bellamy endorses, that an "intelligent public opinion" has the right to tell certain individuals what they shall believe and teach. And all the growth of human civilization thus far has been in the direction of the rise of the individual as over against the claim of the majority to control. And there is no safety for the individual, and no sure and swift promise of human advance, until "intelligent public opinion" is taught to mind its own business.

While, then, Mr. Bellamy denies that there is any danger of "governmentalism" or "paternalism" under nationalistic control, he himself admits and defends the principle. This he does while loudly claiming to be tolerant. What, then, may we expect on the part of the great mass of the people whose equal (?) tolerance he does not undertake to guarantee? Is it just possible that his nationalism, which is not of the military type even, is already manifesting some symptoms of the incipient disease?

Five cases of the tyranny of the majority, that had been adduced by Mr. Flower, his antagonist claims to deal with. I have already touched on his treatment of Case II., that of the Christian Scientist. His treatment of only one other is significant enough to call for notice on my part. Case V. is that of one Powell of Pennsylvania. This man had put a large sum of money into the business of manufacturing oleomargarine. He had complied with all the conditions of the law. His product was what it claimed to be, and was stamped as such. Nobody was deceived or injured. But a later legislature—as if there were not already crimes enough in existence—declares this manufacture a crime. The "intelligent public" majority calmly robs him of his property and ruins him, and feels no sort of compunction in the matter. One year it encourages him to start a business; the next it ruins him for starting it.

Mr. Bellamy, however, says this "proves too much. It shows a vested money interest controlling a legislature and voting a rival business into outlawry." And he adds, "This is a kind of instance socialists like to get hold of." If socialists like to play with dynamite, then I should think they might like such cases; otherwise, not. For it happens precisely not to illustrate what Mr. Bellamy says it does. Instead of its having been a case of "a vested money interest controlling the legislature and voting a rival into outlawry," it happened to be the "intelligent public opinion" of the farmers, who wanted their butter business protected even though it took robbery to do it. And this is just the kind of justice any new business may expect, under nationalistic control, until it has accumulated "data" enough to satisfy "intelligent public opinion."

Governmentalism and paternalism have always been evils, Mr. Flower asserts. This Mr. Bellamy admits. For this reason, Mr. Flower thinks the power of government should be minimized, and the individual left more and more free. This would seem to be a most logical inference. But, no, says Mr. Bellamy, for there is something peculiar in nationalism that is going to neutralize all these malign tendencies. He does not make it quite plain to the uninitiated as to how this is to be done. The chief point seems to be that, instead of one man doing it, as in a monarchy, or a few men doing it, as in an aristocracy, everybody is going to do, and whatever everybody does is necessarily going to be all right. Those to whom this appears perfectly plain and satisfactory, of course are "not far from the kingdom of heaven," as nationalism views it. I, for one, however, would like a few of the "data," supposed to be so efficacious in other matters.

To sum the matter up, in closing, I wish to state definitely and clearly a few objections to nationalistic socialism that seem to me fatal.

1. The world began in socialism. In the barbaric period the tribe was all and the individual nothing. Every step of human progress has kept pace with the rise of the individual.

2. Military socialism, such as Mr. Edward Bellamy advocates, would be only another name for universal despotism, in which the individual, if not an officer, would only count one in the ranks. It would be the paradise of officialism on the one hand, and helpless subordination on the other.

3. Nobody is ready to talk definitely about any other kind of nationalism; for nobody has outlined any working method. If it is only what everybody freely wishes done—and this seems to be the Rev. Francis Bellamy's idea—then it is hard to distinguish it from individualism. At any rate, it is not yet clear enough to be clearly discussed.

4. Nationalism, as commonly understood, could mean nothing else but the tyranny of the commonplace. Democracy, as we know it, is limited in all sorts of ways. It only looks after certain public affairs, while the main part of the life of the individual is free. But suppose the majority undertook to manage all the business of the country, appoint each man his place and keep him in it, determine what should be known, and taught, and done—it fairly stifles one only to think of it! There has never been a time in the history of the world, when the wisest and best things would not have been voted down. For it is always the few who lead in religion, in morals, in art, in literature, in learning, in all high service. But these few now do it, not by despotic power, but only by influence; so all may be free. And there has never been a time in the world's history when the most important things that were being done were of apparent utility in the eyes of the crowd. Consider Homer and Virgil, Isaiah and Jesus, Dante, Shakespeare, Angelo, Copernicus, Galileo, Goethe, Luther, Servetus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Galvani,—had nationalism been dominant in their days, how long would it have been before the "intelligent public opinion" of the governing board of their departments would have had them up to show cause why they should not "go to work for a living"?

The progress of the world, up to the present hour, has always meant the larger and still larger freedom of the individual. This freedom has always had its evils. So all life has its disadvantages. But only a few people, in any generation, believe in suicide as a cure. Nationalism, freely chosen, would be the murder of liberty and social suicide. When people have thought about it enough to comprehend its meaning, they will choose to bear what ills they must, and seek some more helpful method of cure, rather than adopt such an "heroic" treatment as kills the patient in the hope of getting rid of the disease.



INDIVIDUALITY IN EDUCATION.

BY PROF. MARY L. DICKINSON.

In this day of multiplied facilities for education, a day when training begins with the kindergarten and ends in what is called "higher education" both for men and women, the thoughtful observer is constantly confronted by the question, why are not the people educated? It is quite true that a great many people are; that very many more believe they are; and still more believe the day is coming when they are to be educated in the broad and liberal sense of the word. Our systems, founded upon the old scholastic idea, are generally considered satisfactory, and any failure that may be observed in results is attributed to the fact that, in particular cases, they have not yet had time or opportunity for successful operation. And yet, year after year, we are passing through the mills of our public schools and colleges multitudes of minds that come out like travellers who climb to the top of every high tower in their journey, because they will not come home without being able "to say they have done it."

Apparently, too many of our students go through their course for no better reason than to say they have done it. There are grand and noble exceptions, but these are generally among those who do not care to SAY anything about it. The great majority, however, come forth in the mental condition of the man, who laboriously climbs step by step of the tower, takes his bird's-eye view of the field of learning, accepts the impressions made upon his mind by the vast picture and the vast mixture, and comes down to his own level again with no more real knowledge of that at which he has glanced than has the traveller who has taken a glimpse from the heights which he climbed, because the guide-book said this was "the thing to do."

In every walk of life, among statesmen, men of business, and artisans, exist noble examples of exceptional profundity and reality of knowledge, but in the great average of so-called educated people of our own generation, we find the majority possessing very fragmentary interest in any of the subjects which, as students, were supposed to engage their attention. What they would have been without the so-called education we cannot judge, and it might be unfair to infer, but what they are no discriminating person, with a knowledge of what our systems claim, can fail to see. We cannot ignore the fact that for some reason they have failed to attain their natural and possible development.

Our educational theories, on paper and in text-books, are well-nigh perfect; in actual operation why should they fail? Like a great machine, fed with the material of thought, the crank turns, the wheels go round, and the whole world is a-buzz with the work and the noise, but the creature on whom all this power is expended, is only in rare instances a truly educated man or woman. What, then, is the defect? If the machine is right, then the material with which it is fed must be defective. If the material is right, then the machine has every virtue except that of adaptation to the use for which it was intended.

Since the whole end and aim of education is to develop, not the ideal mental constitution, but the real mind just as we find it, the real creature just as he is; and since we cannot change the human mind to make it fit the machine, the effort should be to adapt the educational process to suit the human mind. To what extent they are doing this is one of the great questions for teachers of the present day. To what extent,—admitting that now in some particulars they fail,—it may be possible to modify and adapt methods to the actual and genuine needs of human nature, is certainly a problem worthy of the earnest thought of the broadest and best cultured minds. In attempts at adaptation we have fallen into a process of analyzing the youthful human creature. Having discovered that he possesses mathematical capacity, we have supplied him with mathematical training, and have in this department thrust upon him all, and sometimes more, hard work than he can bear. Having found he possessed religious faculty, we have emptied upon him the theologies and psychologies, and when we have supplied him in these and other directions we look for the educated man. Judge of our disappointment. We find the faculties, we find the modifications produced by the training, but we look in vain for the man. With all our multiplied facilities for producing a trained and disciplined nature, what we think we have a right to expect,—but what we do not find,—is a creature conscious of his own great heritage, conscious of his kinship with all humanity, of his kingship over the universe, of his power to grapple with the world outside of himself, and of his rightful dominance over both the life without and the grander life within. Instead, we find men weak where they should be most purposeful and brave. We find him the slave of the body who should be able to make the body the servant of his soul. We find hands untrained to practical uses, minds unequal to grasping the common wants of existence, hearts in which the high ideals of character and strong impulses toward true usefulness are over-swept by that consideration for self that makes one's own interests seem the very centre of the universe of God.

The day needs giants; it produces pigmies. It needs men to fight; it produces men to run. It needs women with minds broad enough to think and hearts large enough to love. It needs motherhood that, while it bends protectingly over the cradle of its own child, reaches out a mother-heart to all the suffering childhood of the race. It needs the capacity for heroism; it yields the tendency to cowardice. In the midst of learning, ignorance triumphs, vice rules, and sensualism thrives; and all this, not because of education, but in spite of it. And when we consider that our schools in their lower grades, our kindergartens and our primary and Sunday schools, take the infant mind before the tendency to vice has had any chance for development, and that the next higher grades take them on through successive years, without being able to prevent such results as these mentioned above, we naturally feel that, at the very outset, our educational system must be wrong. However it may be suited to the ideal conditions it cannot be adapted to the average human creature, taken exactly as he is. The lack, which begins at the very basis of our so-called intelligent discipline, runs through the whole, in constantly increasing ratio. Brain is stimulated, and heart and soul are left to starve, and nothing is more neglected than the cunning of the hand. Even where some attempt is made at the training of the whole nature, it is done without recognition of the infinite variety in the human mind. Processes ought to be adapted, not only to the universal but to the individual need. It does not follow that the universal need is necessarily or invariably unlike the individual need, or that individual needs are always identical, but any system of education that gives, for a great variety of minds, precisely the same course of training, is sure to be, for a majority of those minds, a pitiful and conspicuous failure.

What then? Shall we have a separate school for every child? Shall we have a special teacher for each mind? That would probably be impossible, but we certainly should have so small a number of pupils under each teacher that she (and we are taking it for granted that the teachers of little children will largely be women) may be able to study the whole nature of every little one committed to her care. She should be not only in communication, but in real communion with the mother; should know the child's mental and moral inheritance, and, in as far as her own watchful care and the help of the family physician may enable her to do so, she should understand its physical constitution. She should acquaint herself with the temperament, the habits, the degree of affection, and the little germs of spiritual insight and inspiration, all of which go to make up the nature of the little creature in her charge. If she be the true teacher, she should combine the threefold duties of mother, instructor, and physician for the young life unfolding in her care. If she has not the heart to love the child and to let the child love her, and so to lay foundation for the larger loving, that, by and by, shall out-reach and take in the whole humanity of God, then we will not say she has mistaken her calling, but her own process of education has been defective and she has much to learn.

Such threefold development for heart, hand, and brain of the little child makes preparation for the next higher steps of educational work. Whatever form the training may assume, the individuality of the human soul should be kept inviolate. That individuality betrays itself in many ways; by emotion and sentiment, by quickness or dullness of perception, and above all, by preferences and dislikes. These minute indications as to just what elements of spirit and mind have entered into the nature of the child, are the little delicate fibres that show the texture of the human soul with which we have to deal. The child learns too soon to draw in and hide the frail, sensitive tendrils that indicate that the life of the soul-plant is feeling its way toward the light of God.

In the primary school, the teacher (and sometimes in the cradle, the mother, who is, whether she would have it so or not, the child's first teacher) begins the process of training by which the little one is made to do as others do, to say what others say, and to conceal the fact that it has any inward life or impulses that are not the same as those of other children.

Instead of being able to read the God-given signs as to what the infant nature really requires, we give it instead an arbitrary supply, based upon what we think it ought to need, and then marvel that it does not thrive upon its unnatural diet. We have not supplied what it craved but that which, from our preconceived notion, we thought it ought to want.

This process of applying our rule and line to the mind goes farther and bears harder upon the student with every succeeding year, until, long before the so-called education is completed, three quarters of the students have lost the consciousness that they ever cared, or ever could have cared, for anything except that which the class supplied. To be what the class is, to do what the class does, to be satisfied with knowing what the class knows, to have lost the sense of the value of the thing to be gained, and to measure by false standards, comes to be the rule, until the conceit of knowledge takes the place of the modesty of conscious ignorance, and the student becomes a drop in the annual out-pouring stream of so-called teachers, many of whom, in the highest sense, have never been genuine students at all.

Searching for causes of such results, we cannot fail to see that much of this dead sameness of intellectual character is due to our habit of educating in masses. We make an Arab feast of our knowledge. A dish is prepared that contains something that might be strengthening for each partaker. With hands more or less clean, students select their savory morsels from the sop. As in the Arab family, for old and young, for the babe in arms, and the strong man from his field of toil, the provision is the same, so in all our class-work we have the sameness of provision with almost as great disparity of capacity and need. If, out of the whole mental "mess of pottage" that can be taken which builds the student up in true wisdom and knowledge, it is fortunate; but if nothing is assimilated on which the mind could truly thrive, no fault is found with the provision, nor is resultant ignorance considered to be specially worthy of blame.

The evil effects of educating in masses, or in classes, is sufficiently apparent to cause us to consider the question whether there is any possible remedy,—whether there could be a substitution of individual for general training, or a combination of the two that would produce a better result. That student is losing ground as an individual who comes to be considered or to consider himself as simply a factor of a class. If the general teaching must be that which is applicable to the entire class, there should also be provision for instruction that could be adapted to the individual need, and as great effort as is made to adapt class work to the general need should be made in the special direction also. But the objection arises that the modern teacher is not able to work in both directions in the time allotted for student life. We are very well aware that we have not yet passed the stage where the value of the teacher's work is measured by the number of hours in which he is engaged in the classroom. Trustees, as a whole, pay for the professor's full time, and expect it to be fully employed. Neither are the educators many who would know what to do if simply let loose among students and left free to make their best impressions upon the minds of the young.

To many teachers the mind of youth is, in reality, an unexplored region, and until we have a change in this respect, and learn that the knowledge of books is only the beginning of wisdom, and that the true knowledge must include also that of the living book,—the student entrusted to our care,—we have scarcely learned the alphabet of true education.

The day will come, though it may be long in coming, when every institution of learning will have, besides its technical teachers, its lecturers and its conductors of recitations,—one man or one woman, or as many men and women as are needed, whose special province it will be to study the individual temperament, to discover native tendencies, tastes, and capacities of the mind, and whose knowledge will be true wisdom in the sense that they will know not only how to ascertain, but how to supply real needs.

That cramping and stifling of natural tastes, which is now so marked a feature of school training, will be replaced by the cultivation of every good natural ability, and the suppression of only that which in itself is evil. Quite too often, even in this latter day, the restraint is put upon the natural powers, simply because their development calls for extra labor and special trouble, or because these powers indicate training in lines of work not being attempted by the class.

Let the routine work continue to be done, and, if necessary, in the routine fashion, but let every institution have on its Faculty one soul, at least, whose province is not to crush, but to cultivate and develop individual traits of mind and character. Such an instructor must not be ignorant of books, but that intricate book, the human heart, should be his special study, and he should know, not only what human beings are, but should be able to help them to grow into what God meant them to be. Such a man with a large and sympathetic heart that can be hospitable to boyhood as it is, will do more toward the moulding of genuine manhood than can a dozen professors of the ordinary type. One such woman in every institution for the education of girls holds really the future destiny of those girls in her own hand, for her life among them could have but one dominant desire,—that of helping them to be the thing God meant. Practically living out that desire she becomes, not the restraint and destroyer of their natural vitality of thought and feeling, but the guide and director of all their native forces into every beautiful field of learning, and into the highest type of development possible for woman, under present limitations, to attain.

Whether we recognize the fact or not, there is not a phase of our social or national life that is unaffected by the lack of proper development of individuality. The whole tendency of our civilization has been in the direction of making people, as nearly as possible, like other people. Characters of marked individuality are relegated to the class of so-called cranks. To be above the dead level of general sentiment and attainment is to be in decidedly bad form. This work of taking out of people the characteristics placed within them by nature, and making them over into the convenient and conventional types that think as others think, and do what others do, has marked our civilization from its earlier stages, and the more civilized we become the more pronounced are the results. Among these results are great loss of spiritual and mental vitality. It is time to call a halt, to change our methods, or to supplement them by methods of individual training. The beginning of such a work will mark an educational era, the inception of which should not be longer delayed.



THE WORKING-WOMEN OF TO-DAY.

BY HELEN CAMPBELL.

The story of working-women, of those women forced by changes in industrial and social conditions into occupations outside the home, is limited to the last hundred years. The division of labor resulting in the factory system, and the multiplication of trades, has opened many employments hitherto unknown, in which the use of female labor has become almost a necessity. Woman has had her share of work from the beginning, often much more than her share, but it ran usually in the simple lines of household requirements; and if it chanced, here and there, to be of larger scope, this was, after all, mostly tentative. Work with deliberate intent to earn a living is chiefly a fact of the nineteenth century, and any tangible estimate of woman as a competitor of man in the struggle for existence must be based upon the facts of the past hundred years. It is within hardly more than a generation that the importance of the subject has become plain, and now we are all questioning as to what is included in the life of the working-woman; what is her economic and social condition; what are her rights and her wrongs; what bearing have they on society at large, and what concern is it of ours why or how she works, or what wage she receives?

We are well aware that humanity has always had the enforced work of women as an essential part of its development, enforced not by law but by the necessities of life. In any new country, the work of women is a vital factor in its success or failure, in its growth and general prosperity; and in the early days of our own country this was far truer than now. There were then no trades open to women, because the organization of society was much less complex than it now is, and the family represented a union of trades. This had been the case in England and, indeed, in all civilized countries, and is even true of those early days when skins were all that was needed, and thorns were the only needles and pins. But from the day of that disastrous experience in the Garden, clothing, and the necessities involved in it, has been the synonym of sorrow for women, and the needle stands as the visible token of disaster, sorrow, and wrong of every order—"the asp upon the breast of the poor."

Civilization has always in the nature of things meant war. It is only out of the conflict of class with class, interest with interest, that advance comes. "Strife is the father of all things and the king of all things," was the word of Heraclitus the Wise. "It hath brought forth some as gods and others as men, and hath made some bond and others free. When Homer prayed that strife might depart from amongst gods and men, he wist not that he was cursing the birth of all things, for all things have their birth in war and enmity."

It is only in this later day that we begin to realize other possibilities, and to wonder if the world has not had enough of wars and tumults, and cannot bring about the desired end without further expenditure of blood and tears. With war has ever been, and ever will be, the forcing of women left with no breadwinner into the ranks of the earners, and only later centuries have given an opportunity beyond domestic service. It is the last fifty years that has suddenly opened up the myriad possibilities in the more than four hundred trades into which women have thronged.

The field is so enormous that one is tempted aside from the real point at issue. What we have to do is to consider work for women as a whole, with all that it involves for womankind. It is not alone the worker herself, but the woman who uses the product of the worker's labor that should understand what obligation is laid upon her. She is not free from responsibility, for certain conditions which have come to the surface, that form part of the life of the day, and must be dealt with in wiser fashion than heretofore, if we are to attain the "consummation devoutly to be wished."

In the beginning of our history, women were at as high a premium as they are now in the remote West, but this was a temporary state, and as more and more, Fortune smiled on the struggling colonies, many forms of labor were transferred from male to female hands. Limitations were of the sharpest. That they were often unconscious ones, made them no less grinding. To "better one's self" was the effort of all. Long before the Declaration of Independence had formulated the thought that all men possess certain inalienable rights, amongst which are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," this had become the faith of those who, braving the perils of the deep, had settled in an unknown country, that they might enjoy the rights to which they had been born. The largest liberty for the individual consistent with the equal liberty of others was demanded and received, nor did it lessen as time went on. Liberty begat liberty. The ideal was always a growing one. Less limitation, not more, was the order of each fresh day that dawned. To every soul born into the colony, to every descendant of these souls, was a larger hope, a higher ambition. The standard of living altered steadily even in that portion of the country which retained longest the old simplicity, and best knew how to combine "plain living and high thinking," until in course of time the family remained no longer a colony in itself. Clothing and every necessary, which was formerly of home manufacture, could now be obtained from without, and women found outside the family practicable work to do.

The first factory established in New England, early in the present century, ended the old order or rather was the beginning of the end. But long before machinery had made the factory a necessity, there had been the struggle to break the bonds which held all women save the few who had wealth fast to the household. The same spirit that brought the pilgrim over the sea stirred in his descendants. The kitchen had proved itself a prison no less than now, and women and girls flocked into this new haven and worked with an enthusiasm that nothing could dampen.

"Oh, those blessed factories!" said to me one day, a woman, herself an earnest worker for present factory reform, and who began her literary life as contributor to the Lowell Offering. "You people will never know the emancipation they brought. I loathed the kitchen, and life went by in one. So many New England kitchens were built with no outlook, and ours was one. I used to run round the house to see the sunset over the mountain, and I can hear Aunt Nabby now: 'There goes that child again! I'd lock her up if she were mine!' We were all locked up! No chance for more than the commonest education; no money for any other. And then came these blessed factories! You laugh, but that was what they seemed then. We earned in them and saved, and in the end got our education, or gave it to our brothers, who were almost as shut in. They have altered—yes; but they were deliverance in the beginning, I can tell you, and in spite of present knowledge, I never see one of the tall chimneys without remembering and being thankful."

Such has been the story of most of man's inventions. Beginning as blessing they have in the end shown themselves largely as instruments of oppression. But in this case it is not the factory; it is the principle of competition, carried to an extreme, that has brought in its train child labor and many another perplexing problem. So many changes for the better are also involved; the general standard of living is so much higher, that unless brought into direct relation with workers under the worst conditions, it is impossible to know or realize the iniquities that walk hand in hand with betterment.

To one who has watched these conditions, the question arises, does the general advance keep step with the special? Mental and spiritual bonds are broken for the better class. Does this mean a proportionate enlightenment for the one below? Has the average worker time or thought for self-improvement and larger life? Are hours of labor lessening and possibilities increasing? These questions, and many of the same order, can have no definite answer from the private inquirer, whose field of observation is limited, and who can form no trustworthy estimate till facts from many sources have been set in order, such order, that safe deductions are possible for every intelligent reader.

It is to Massachusetts that we owe the first formal, trustworthy examination into the status of the working-woman, and the remarkable reports of that Bureau of Labor, under the management of Mr. C. D. Wright, have been the model for all later work in the same direction. As the result of a steadily growing interest in the subject, we have now under the same admirable management, the first authoritative statement of conditions as a whole. The fourth annual report of the United States Bureau of Labor, entitled, "Working-women in Large Cities," gives us the result of some three years' diligent work in collecting information as to every phase of the working-woman's life, from the trade itself, with its possibilities and abuses, to the personal characteristics of the woman who had chosen it. It is not only the student of social science who needs to study the volume, but the working-women themselves will find here the answer to many questions, and to some of the charges now and then brought against them as a class.

The value of figures like these is seldom at once apparent, since many facts seem isolated and irrelevant. But the fact that they have not been gathered in the interest of a theory but are set down merely as material for deduction, gives them a value, not always attached to figures, and will make them serve as the basis of many a practical reform.

It is women earning a living at manual labor who are meant by working-women, and thus all professional and semi-professional occupations, such as teaching, stenography, typewriting, and telegraphy, with the thousands who are employed in them, are excluded from the report. Outside of these occupations, three hundred and forty-three distinct industries have been investigated. Twenty-two cities have given in returns, all representative as to locality, and ending with San Francisco and San Jose for the Pacific slope. Personal interviews were had by the government agents, with 17,427 women, this being, according to the estimate of the report, from six to seven per cent. of the whole number of women engaged in the class of work coming under observation. I am convinced that this estimate of the United States report is very misleading. The 17,427 women being six per cent. of all those engaged in the three hundred and forty-two industries investigated, the total so employed in the twenty-two cities would be 290,450, which on the face of it appears to be absurd. The New York Commissioner of Labor, in the report of his Bureau for 1885, estimates that there were, in 1884, over 200,000 women employed in the various trades in the city of New York alone. Neither of these reports includes women employed in rougher manual labor, such as scrubbing, washing, and domestic service. If the New York Commissioner's estimate for New York City is correct, and I confess it seems to me to be nearly so, and if Mr. Wright's estimate is as much too low in all the other cities as it seems to be in New York, the actual number employed in trades in the twenty-two cities instead of being only 295,450, cannot be far from 1,200,000. With the exception of certain statistics on prostitution, the entire work of the United States report has been done by women appointed by the Bureau, and Mr. Wright bears cordial testimony to the efficiency of each one in a most difficult and laborious task, adding: "They have stood on an equality in all respects with the male force of the Department, and have been compensated equally with them. It was considered entirely appropriate in an investigation of this kind, that the main facts should be collected by women. The wisdom of this course has been thoroughly established."

Here, then, for the first time since labor questions began to attract the attention of students of social science, is an aid to stating definitely certain facts hitherto unknown to the public at large, and only surmised by those interested in the subject. Save for the Massachusetts reports already mentioned, and the valuable one of the New York Commissioner, Mr. Charles H. Peck, for 1885, with that of the first report of the Colorado Bureau of Labor Statistics, for 1887 and 1888, prepared under the very competent and careful supervision of Mr. E. J. Driscoll, there has been no authoritative word as to numbers employed, ages, conditions, average and comparative earnings, hours of labor, nationalities, and the many points most difficult to determine.[13] Few but students, however, are likely to read these volumes, and thus a resume of their chief points might find place here were I not limited as to space. Having in mind the injunction of the editor of THE ARENA, to be brief, I shall quote only from the United States report. As all three of the Commissioners named agree in the most important details, except as to numbers employed, the United States report will speak for them all.

[13] The Report of the California Bureau of Labor, 1887-8, Commissioner John J. Tobin, should be included, but came after the above had gone to press.

In the twenty-two cities investigated by the agents of the United States Bureau, the average age at which girls begin work is found to be fifteen years and four months. Charleston, S. C., gives the highest average, it being there eighteen years and seven months, and Newark the lowest, fourteen years and seven months. The average period during which all had been engaged in their present occupations, is shown to be four years and nine months, while of the total number interviewed 9,540 were engaged in their first attempt to earn a living.

As against the opinion often expressed that foreign workers are in the majority, we find that of the whole number given, 14,120 were native born. Of the foreign born Ireland is most largely represented, having 926 and Germany next with 775. In the matter of parentage, 12,904 had foreign born fathers, and 12,406 foreign born mothers. The number of single women included in the report is 15,387; 745 were married and 1,038 widowed, from which it is evident that as a rule it is single women who are fighting their industrial fight alone. They are not only supporting themselves, but are giving their earnings largely to the support of others at home. More than half—8,754—do this, and 9,813, besides their occupation, help in the home housekeeping. Of the total number, 14,918 live at home, but only 701 of them receive board from their families. The average number in these families is 525, and each contains 248 workers.

Of those who reported their health condition at the time their work began, 16,360 were in good health, 883 in fair health, and 183 in bad health. A distinct change in health condition is shown by the fact that 14,550 are now in good health, 2,385 in fair health, and 489 in bad health.

Concerning education, church attendance, home and shop conditions, 15,831 reported. Of these, 10,456 were educated in American public schools and 5,375 in other schools; 5,854 attend Protestant churches; 7,769 Catholic, and 367 the Hebrew. A very large percentage, comprehending 2,309 do not attend church at all. In home conditions 12,020 report themselves as comfortable, while 4,693 give the home conditions as poor. "Poor" is, to the ordinary observer, to be interpreted wretched, over-crowding, all the numberless evils of tenement-house life, which is the portion of many. A side light is thrown on personal characteristics of the workers, in the tables of earnings and lost time. Out of 12,822 who reported, 373 earn less than a hundred dollars a year, and this class lost an average of 86.5 for the year covered by the investigation. With the increase of earnings the lost time decreases; the 2,147 who earn from two hundred to two hundred and fifty losing but 37.8, while 398, earning from three hundred to five hundred dollars a year, lost but 18.8 days.

The average weekly earnings by cities is no less suggestive. In Atlanta the wages are the lowest of any of the twenty-two cities, being only $4.05; in San Francisco they are the highest, being $6.91. The wages in the other cities vary between these two extremes. In New York the average wage is $5.85; in Boston, $5.64; in Chicago, $5.74; in St. Paul, $6.02; and in New Orleans, $4.31.

These sums represent the earnings of skilled labor. Many women under this head can earn eight and ten dollars a week, but the general average is only $5.24. The large proportion of unskilled workers whose wage does not exceed one hundred dollars a year, include cash girls and the least intelligent class. It is this class that suffer most from the fine system, since punctuality and thoroughness are the result of educated intelligence. The largest number earn from two to two hundred and fifty dollars, and, as has been said, lose an average of thirty days in the year. The highest average wage, $6.91, is little more than subsistence, and the lowest, $4.05, is far less than decent subsistence requires.

Absolute violation of sanitary laws, overcrowding, and a host of other evils are specified as part of the factory system. Deliberate cruelty and injustice are met only now and then, but competition forces the working in as inexpensive a manner as possible, and so makes cruelty and injustice necessary to continued existence of the employer as an industrial factor. Home conditions are seldom beyond tolerable. For the most part, they must be summed up as intolerable. Inspection, the efficiency of which has greatly increased; the demand, by the organized charities, for women inspectors, and the gradual growth of popular interest, are bringing about a few improvements, but the mass at all points are as stated. Ignorance and the vices that go with ignorance, want of thoroughness, unpunctuality, thriftlessness, and improvidence, are all in the count against the poorer order of worker, but for the most part they are living honest, self-respecting, infinitely dreary lives. This fact is emphasized in every Labor Report in which the subject of women wage-workers is treated, and impersonal as figures are usually counted to be, from each one sounds a warning which, if unheeded, must in the end mean the disaster to which these returns point as inevitable. Even in Colorado, a State not included in the government report, where opportunity is larger, it has been said, than at almost any other point in the Union, Mr. Driscoll's report for that State shows an average wage for women of about six dollars, which, considering the cost of living, is less than the New York rate.

It is a popular belief that the working class forms a large proportion of the numbers who fill the houses of prostitution, and that "night-walkers" are made up largely from the same class. Nothing could be farther from the truth than the last statement, the falsity of which was demonstrated in the fifteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, its testimony being confirmed and repeated in the report we have under consideration. For the first, diligent investigation in fourteen cities showed clearly that a very small proportion among working-women entered this life. The largest number classed by occupations came from the lowest order of workers, those employed in housework and in hotels, and the next largest was found among seamstresses, employees of shirt factories, and cloak makers, both of these industries in which under-pay is proverbial. The great majority receiving not more than five dollars a week, earn it by seldom less than ten hours a day of hard labor, and not only live on this sum, but assist friends, contribute to general household expenses, dress so as to appear fairly well, and have learned every art of doing without. More than this. Since the deepening interest in their lives, and the formation of working-girls' societies and guilds of many orders, they contribute from this scanty sum enough to rent meeting rooms, pay for instruction in many classes, and provide a relief fund for sick and disabled members. Aids, alleviations, growing interest, all are to-day given to the worker. "Homes" of every order open their doors, some so hedged about by rules that self-respect revolts and refuses to live the life demanded by them. In all of these homes, even the best, lurks always the suspicion of charity, and even when this has no active formulation in the worker's mind, there is still the underlying sense of the essential injustice of withholding with one hand just pay, and with the other proffering a substitute in a charity, which is to reflect credit on the giver, and demand gratitude from the receiver. Here and there this is recognized, and within a short time has been emphasized by a woman whose name is associated with the work of charity organizations throughout the country,—Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. I doubt if there is any one better fitted by long experience and almost matchless common sense to speak authoritatively. Within a short time she has written: "So far from assuming that the well-to-do portion of society have discharged all their obligations to man and God by supporting charitable institutions, I regard just this expenditure as one of the prime causes of the suffering and crime that exist in our midst. I am inclined, in general, to look upon what is called charity as the insult which is added to the injury done to the mass of the people by insufficient payment for work."

Disguise this fact as we will; bear testimony to the inefficiency and incompetency of the workers; admit every trial and perplexity of employers, every effort to better conditions, yet there remains in the background always this shadow, in which the woman who elects to earn an honest living must walk. No more heroic battle has ever been fought than this daily one, waged silently and uncomplainingly in our midst by these workers. Their lot is all part of the general evolution from disorder, ignorance, and indifference, into the larger life, opening so slowly that impatient spirits demand dynamite to hasten the process, but as surely as the earth marches forever on its round toward that central sun that draws each smallest star of that system we call our universe.

It is certain that this is a transition period; that material conditions born of a phenomenal material progress have deadened the sense as to what constitutes real progress, and that the working-woman of to-day contends not only with visible but invisible obstacles, the nature of which we are but just beginning to discern. Twenty years ago one of the wisest of modern French thinkers, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, wrote of women wage-earners: "From the economic point of view, woman, who has next to no material force, and whose arms are advantageously replaced by the least machine, can have useful place and obtain fair remuneration only by the development of the best qualities of her intelligence. It is the inexorable law of our civilization—the principle and formula even of social progress, that mechanical engines are to accomplish every operation of human labor which does not proceed directly from the mind. The hand of man is each day deprived of a portion of its original task, but this general gain is a loss for the particular and for the classes whose only instrument of labor is a pair of feeble arms."