EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

The C. L. S. C. on the Pacific Coast.

The following is a report of C. L. S. C. work on the Pacific coast, sent us by Miss Norton, the Secretary of the Pacific Branch. It contains so much information and inspiration that we publish it as an editorial. The growth of which it tells is marvelous; the enthusiasm it breathes is as sunny, vigorous, and fruitful as the fair land from which it comes. It is such broad views and high endeavor that are accomplishing the great results in our work. To know that far away ranches and lonely camps are finding growth, life, happiness in this work, ought to inspire every earnest heart to work, as our friends of the Pacific coast are doing, that “its influence may go out to needy sections where even school and church have failed.”

At the reunion held recently at the University of the Pacific, the following report was read by Miss Norton:

As San Jose contains the largest local circle on this coast, with a membership of about seventy-five, it seems fitting that our members should be made acquainted with a few facts respecting the general work of the society.

The Pacific Branch of the C. L. S. C. was organized under the name of the California Branch, four years ago, while Dr. Vincent was on this coast, and during these years about 1,500 members have been enrolled. We have representatives of this branch in Oregon, Washington Territory, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Mexico and the Island of Jamaica, and hope soon for a local circle on the Hawaiian Islands. During the present year 290 new members have been received thus far, and it is hoped that the number will exceed 300 before the close of the year. This is an excess of 100 over those received last year. The active local circles have also increased, and now number twenty-six, with two or three more to be heard from. Of these circles fifteen have been formed the present year. The progress of the work in the southern part of the State has been unusual, the largest circle of the State except that of San Jose, being at Riverside, with an enrollment of sixty members. The president of this circle, Dr. Whittier, is a graduate of the C. L. S. C., and a nephew of John G. Whittier, the poet. The secretary, Miss Alfaretta Wood, is an enthusiastic worker, and Riverside proposes to have the “largest circle in the United States,” so that San Jose will have to look well to her laurels.

Oakland sustains three active local circles with an aggregate membership of about sixty, and under the leadership of Dr. J. H. Wythe is doing excellent work.

Sacramento stands next in numbers, and has a most energetic and enthusiastic circle; Rev. I. H. Dwinell, D. D., Mrs. L. J. Nusbaum and Mrs. Brewer being the officers.

The largest of three circles in San Francisco is the “More Circle,” numbering twenty members and composed of young people.

In its beautiful work as well as its name it does honor to its first leader, Mrs Prof. More.

Ukiah has two local circles doing enthusiastic work.

In our smaller towns the C. L. S. C. often becomes the center of literary interest, representing a large proportion of the population, taking deeper root, and bearing better fruits than in our cities. But the richest rewards of the Secretary and other officers for much unrecognized toil, come from mining camps and lonely ranches, from mountain tops and deserts, and sick-rooms, where solitary students are cheered and uplifted by our C. L. S. C. To such it goes with benedictions, inspiring new hopes and noble aspirations. If, amid our crowding duties and interests, we of the San Jose Circle find but little room for individual work, or for the rich, intellectual feasts which are often spread for us at our monthly meetings, may we not gather courage to persevere, from the thought that this influence has gone forth to needy sections of our coast, where, in some instances, even the church and the school have not been organized. During the first year of its existence, the parent society received 8,000 members, and of this number 1,700 graduated last summer. During the first year of the Pacific Branch, under the wise and efficient leadership of its secretary, Miss L. M. Washburn, ably seconded by President Stratton and the executive committee, the first class numbered 700. Of this number about 100 are active members, or have paid their annual fees and ought to graduate the coming summer, if they have not fallen behind in their studies. All who hope to graduate should promptly report to Miss L. M. Washburn, Chairman of the Committee on Graduation. In closing, I would earnestly invite the ex-members to once more join hands with us, and help forward the work of the Pacific Branch, as it reaches out its helping hand to so many earnest students. Especially let us urge upon the citizens of San Jose, the duty of sustaining the work of this local circle, a work which we believe would be an honor to the literary centers of our Eastern States, or even to the “Hub of the Universe.” We hope that the coming assembly at Monterey will be the most interesting and largely attended of any yet held upon this coast, and that San Jose will be worthily represented on the occasion of the graduation of our first C. L. S. C. Class of 1883.

Trial by Jury.

The constitution of the United States guarantees that every American citizen shall have the privilege of having his cause tried and decided before a jury of twelve of his peers. For centuries this jury system has prevailed among the English. The framers of our constitution modeling their laws on the basis of English jurisprudence, incorporated it into our judicial system. Its purpose is to secure in every case a just and impartial verdict, and one that is in accordance with the evidence adduced in the progress of the trial.

It is the duty of every government to see that justice is meted out to all its citizens, that their rights are duly respected, and that the poor and weak among them are placed on at least civil equality with the rich and the powerful. Many centuries of trial has proven it to be the best means of securing these desirable results. The juror is supposed to take his place in the jury-box with his mind wholly unbiased with reference to the case to be tried. In many instances the jurors have never heard of the case which they are summoned to try. The parties in the suit are entire strangers to them, or at least are usually persons in whom they have no especial interest. Under such circumstances a jury of fair intelligence is pretty sure to bring in a righteous verdict.

But the matter of ignorance in reference to the case to be heard by the jurors may be, and of late in many instances has been, carried to an unreasonable extent. In many cases which are of public interest, and which are of sufficient importance to be discussed by the press, familiarity with what has been said is deemed sufficient to bar an individual from sitting as a juror during their trial. As a result of this it is often difficult to secure a jury in a case which has excited much comment, and which has been the subject of discussion by the press. The mere fact that a man has read newspaper accounts of events that have transpired, or even editorial comments upon them, does not necessarily disqualify him for being an impartial juror.

All intelligent men are to a greater or less extent readers of newspapers, and to hold that knowledge thus obtained disqualifies one for sitting as juror when the case is brought to trial, virtually excludes men of even ordinary intelligence from the jury-box, and, too, in those very cases where they are most needed in order to secure just and righteous verdicts. The legitimate fruits of the exclusion of the reading classes from sitting as jurors are such verdicts as that rendered recently by a Fayette County (Pa.) jury, in the Dukes trial, where, disregarding the charge of the judge,—the evidence set forth,—the opinion of an entire community,—the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The whole country was horrified and disheartened, that a man clearly guilty could under this system be cleared. Such outrages on right and justice are sure to result whenever ignorance takes the place of intelligence in the jury-box, and will sooner or later bring the whole matter of trial by jury into disrepute. It is not intelligence, but ignorance, prejudice, and partiality that should be excluded. The only question in this regard which a jury when impaneled should be expected to answer is whether, under their oaths, they can take their place on the jury and render an honest and impartial verdict.

There is another grave danger in this custom. Not only are the non-reading and ignorant classes disqualified for rendering a fair and intelligent verdict, but they are for the most part sadly deficient in principle and integrity, and hence are more readily corrupted, more easily bribed, and more likely to be influenced by designing lawyers than men of average intelligence and general information. The numerous acquittals of individuals adjudged guilty by the popular verdict, and in the very face of the evidence adduced, is proof positive that in such instances the twelve men in the jury-box are in no sense the custodians of the law or the mouthpiece of justice. If, for any reason, intelligence is ruled out of the jury-box, the jury system will cease to be regarded as a reliable instrument for the administration of justice.

Stevens’s Madame De Staël.

This book, the American edition of which was published in two handsome volumes by the Harpers, some little time ago, will perpetuate the fame of a woman of regal intellect and immense influence upon her times. In Byron’s judgment she was “the greatest woman in literature;” Macaulay called her “the greatest woman of her times;” and many others, whose opinions carry weight, could be quoted as giving her a foremost place among the worlds gifted women. The biography fills a want; for, while numerous pens have written of this woman, there has been before no adequate portrayal of her career. The author, Dr. Abel Stevens, whose reputation as a writer in history and biography is high and secure, has for some years been living in Switzerland, where he has enjoyed excellent facilities for the preparation of the work, “Madame De Staël, a Study of her Life and Times, the first Revolution and the first Empire.” The work is called, and in its completeness it will probably remain, the standard biography of this illustrious woman, and will need no successor. It shows great research and pains-taking, as well as a skilled literary hand. A complete, much-needed biography, it is more than this, it is a valuable history of that marvelous epoch in the annals of France. It is of great value for its sketches of other eminent persons, contemporaries of its subject, and for its intelligent narration of events as sensational as any ever witnessed upon the theater of Europe.

Madame De Staël lived from 1766 to 1817. Her full maiden name was Anne Louise Germaine Necker. Her father was the great Necker, for a time Minister from Geneva at the French court, and afterward the powerful French Minister of Finance. Her mother was the daughter of a Swiss pastor, and a woman of beautiful person and fine accomplishments, with whom, while Mademoiselle Curchod, the historian Gibbon fell in love, and for whom he always cherished a tender regard. The love of Madame De Staël for her father approached idolatry, but for her mother was much less ardent. She was an only child, and received a careful training and the highest advantages. She was born and died in Paris, and this was the place always where she loved best to live, though for many years, through the persecutions of Napoleon, she was an exile from France. As a child she was very precocious; a girl in her mother’s salon, she astonished the people by the brilliancy of her conversation; she very early tried her hand at writing, and showed marked literary gifts; when fifteen years old, she had the maturity which might be looked for in a young woman of twenty-five. At the age of twenty she became the wife of Baron De Staël. The baron was thirty-seven. It was a marriage of convenance, such as in France were customary, and on her part, at least, there was no love. For a number of years they lived apart, but she went to the baron in his last illness and remained with him until his death. When she was forty-five years old, she made a second marriage, with a young French officer, Rocca by name, twenty-two years her junior. Strange as it may seem, this was a true love-match, and the two, notwithstanding the disparity of age, lived together in great devotion and happiness until her death. The marriage was secret, and was known to but few persons in the life-time of Madame De Staël. Of three children, offspring of the first marriage, one was killed in a duel while the mother lived, and the others survived her and did her honor. A son was also born from the second marriage.

What eventful years were those for France in which this woman lived. If one with such a theme as our author can not make an interesting story, the fault surely is not with his subject-matter. Madame De Staël saw her father, whom she idolized, the idol of the French people; she saw him—and it was a proud time in her life—after the jealousy of rival ministers had brought about his retirement from the office of finance minister, recalled by the king, and welcomed back to his old position by such demonstrations of popular homage and devotion as have been accorded to but few; and later she saw him again seeking the retirement of his Swiss home execrated by the same fickle populace of France. She saw the downfall of Louis XVI. and deplored this ill-starred monarch’s fate, whose head was one of the trophies of the guillotine. She saw the First Revolution with its horrors, and ardent champion as she was for human freedom and popular rights, her heart was sickened at the spectacle. She saw the hero of Corsica arise from nothingness to be the terror of all Europe; the strides of his ambition she witnessed until he stood the first monarch of the world, with crowns in his hands as baubles to give away. She saw his “vaulting ambition o’erleap itself” at last, and the tide of his fortunes reversed; the exile of Elba and that of St. Helena passed before her view, and while she rejoiced to see Napoleon crushed, she sorrowed as a true French woman over the humiliation of France. She saw another Louis upon the French throne, and was his trusted adviser and friend. Napoleon she hated with all her soul. Acknowledging his consummate military genius, she loathed him as a monster of selfishness—a tyrant whose god was self. The emperor feared her pen in the cause of popular freedom, and after trying in vain to gain her support he showed in various ways his malice toward her. He banished her from France at length, and the story of her years of exile—bravely borne with all its hardships, though she could have escaped it by writing in praise of Napoleon—is very affecting. Dr. Stevens uses as the appropriate motto of his book the saying of Lamartine: “This woman was the last of the Romans under this Cæsar, who dared not destroy her, and could not abase her.”

And mighty was the influence of Madame De Staël upon her age. To say that it was equaled by that of no other woman is not to say enough. Kings and queens were her personal friends. With chief men and women in different lands—statesmen and warriors, persons distinguished in science and letters—her relations were intimate. They admired her, and bowed to her genius. In political affairs her influence was great, and in the world of letters she made an impression deep and abiding. As a writer, perhaps no woman of any time will be accorded equal rank with her, unless some would concede it to George Eliot and Mrs. Browning. Her best known works are “Delphine,” “Allemagne,” and “Corinne,” though others have had a wide reading and been much admired. The “Allemagne” produced a profound impression. Great as this woman was as a writer, some have freely said she was greater as a conversationalist. With wonderful brilliancy she shone in the salon. Her own salon in Paris would be thronged by distinguished men and women, and the great attraction was herself. She would dazzle with her eloquence, as she discussed various questions, some of them deep questions of philosophy and religion. Her love of society was a passion. Her power of affection was mighty, and her attachment to her friends most strong. When the light of her life was quenched at the comparatively early age of fifty-one, the number was large who mourned, not simply for a rare woman of genius lost to the world, but for a friend, true, sympathetic, loving, whose place could not be filled. More than one have said of her that she was a man in intellect—though we do not make the remark our own—but it is certain she was a woman in heart. Let our readers turn to the new and best record of her life, which Dr. Stevens has given us, and find delight from its perusal.

The Educational Problem.

One of the gravest matters claiming the attention of the American people to-day is indicated by the above heading. It is a truism that popular education is a prerequisite to the success of popular government. We may be said, as a nation, to have done grand things already in the way of the education of the people. Nearly fifty years ago there was a wonderful awakening to the importance of this matter. The people must be educated, was the thought which took possession of the soul of Horace Mann, and his beneficent work has lived and grown. Our common school system was set in operation. It has become our pride and boast. In a way very gratifying we have seen the cause of education advancing in our land. Compulsory education in late years has been introduced to some extent.

At the present time, however, we are confronted with facts of a nature to excite alarm. The late census shows a condition of things in popular education in America over which it is impossible for citizens to feel self-complacent. These facts have been set forth in a most impressive manner by General Eaton, National Commissioner of Education, and by Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, whose speech in the United States Senate last summer on “Aid to Common Schools” has attracted much attention. Some of the things we have to consider are as follows: In a population of fifty millions in the United States, five millions of people over ten years of age can neither read nor write; six and a quarter millions can not write. There are two million of illiterate voters here, in a total of ten millions. The number of illiterate voters in the last presidential election was large enough to reverse the result in all of the States but five. In illiteracy the North of course does not approach the States of the South. In the latter there are, in round numbers, five and a half millions of persons over ten years of age unable to write, the number of white illiterates being to the colored in the proportion of two to three. Nearly one-third of all the voters in the South are illiterate, and more than two-thirds of the colored voters. But with regard to the States of the North, the showing is far from being what we could desire. From a recent report to the Massachusetts Legislature, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, it appears that in this State even—the State of Horace Mann, and the vanguard always in the cause of education—there are nearly seventy-five thousand persons more than ten years of age, in an entire population of less than two millions, who can not read. These are startling facts, and the alarming truth is, that illiteracy in our land, instead of diminishing, is on the increase. Ex-President Hayes, in his address at Cleveland in October last, made this statement: “In more than one-third of the Union the ignorant voters are almost one-third of the total number of voters.” And the number of the illiterate voters is growing larger. It was swelled in the South, in the decade from 1870 to 1880, by nearly two hundred thousand. In the country at large the number of children not attending school is increasing at a rate which, it is affirmed, if it continues, will in ten years make the aggregate of children of school age outside of school larger than of those within.

Surely, in view of these things, one of the greatest problems before this nation is the educational problem. As a national safeguard the people must be educated. If this mass of ignorance continues an element of our population, and if it goes on increasing, how can we hope for the perpetuity and prosperity of this “government of the people, for the people, and by the people?” There must be compulsory education. The different States must adopt the principle, and enforce it. It is not strange that our statesmen are turning their thoughts to the great question of national aid to education. Hitherto the national government has done but little in providing ways and means for the education of the people. It has been left for the several States to look to the educating of their citizens. But it can hardly be doubted that the time has fully come when the nation on a grand scale should provide for this cause of such vital moment—popular education. We are very ready to agree with General Eaton, when we consider the astounding statistics he adduces, in the judgment that none of the measures proposed by statesmen thus far are sufficiently large and liberal in their devising. Enormous is the work to be done, and vast is the expenditure of money needed. But whatever the nation expends to elevate her people and fit them for citizenship is an investment for her own safety, and is well expended. Joseph Cook, in the prelude to one of his lectures, dwells upon such facts as we have cited. He affirms that America is doing less for the education of her people, in proportion to her wealth, than certain European nations. We fear that what he says is true: “Instead of being, as a whole, at the front of the educational advance of civilization, our proud nation is gradually dropping into a laggard place.” Let us trust the time will come in the near future when this can not be truthfully said; and while we may regret the delay of needful national action, let us honor individuals who are giving so nobly to make ignorance less in our land. If the generous scheme of Mr. Slater for the good of the benighted millions of the South were to be duplicated by other millionaires, how grand the results might be.