Part 2 — EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

THE GREAT GREEK DRAMATISTS.

The Greek drama, which is now before our C. L. S. C. students in its English rendering, presents many interesting aspects to the modern mind. We are well aware that this statement will surprise some readers; but let them consider a few facts. Is it not a remarkable thing that the Greek drama, which the world will not suffer to be forgotten, was all produced in the space of about half a century? And compare the fact with our own history, noting that English drama of the imperishable type is all gathered into a single brilliant period, of which Shakspere is the central light in dramatic poetry. Æschylus was born in 525 B. C., Sophocles in 495, and Euripides in 480. The three are nearly on a level in merit, Æschylus having the more force, and his compeers in dramatic fame more of the refinements of art. They are not three Shaksperes in one constellation, but three orbs whose combined light is less than that of our English poet. No one has satisfactorily explained why the tragic drama should so isolate itself in the centuries of a people; but it may be said to be a rule that if a people produce a great drama at all, this choice fruit will appear only in a single period. But since Greece and England are the only nations having a great tragic stage—for we do not reckon the French drama as in the first rank—the rule has no well-defined value. It is remarkable, too, that the great epic poets are more numerous than the great masters of tragedy. Greece, indeed, is known to us for one epic and three tragic poets; but every great people before ours has had a respectable epic poem, whereas in most nations tragic poetry is rare or inferior. The great tragedies are so few that one may easily know them and prize them. No other form of literature presents us with so few masterpieces.

Another good aspect of the drama in Greece is that it came in the period of the full-flowering of Greek egotism, or if the phrase is happier, of Greek patriotism. Here, too, we may find an analogy in the England of Shakspere. The age of Elizabeth is easily fixed upon as that of self-satisfied British patriotism. It is also true that alike in the Athens of the dramatists and the London of Shakspere there was the stir and bustle and heroic energy of national life. It is not to be overlooked that the dramatists of Greece, like the literary statesmen of England were in public life. They sought and held office; and, indeed, they, like Socrates, were soldiers besides. Æschylus fought at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, the three great battles of his country. Shakspere did not do his work on the Avon, but in the din of London, and many a thing which surprises us in his plays may be explained by the close and uninterrupted contact of the dramatist with the active men of his time. He learned, for example, all his law phrases in convivial association with lawyers, much as he learned scripture by hearing the prayer-book read in the churches. (He always quotes the prayer-book, never the Bible.) So in Athens, our statesmen-dramatists lived in the full press of life, and their drama reflects the opinions and proverbs of their day. Men of the lamp could not have caught the spirit and attitude of the Athenian mind toward the problems of life which underlie the Greek plays. The just-enough and not too much or too little of philosophy—the mean between dogmatic theology and crude irreligion—the man of the world, and he alone, can hit. We may safely reason that while many forms of literature can be best wrought by men out of the world, some forms seem to require their producers to be in the world and of the world; and among these, the drama is especially reserved to men who combine practical experience with erudition, and also possess the indescribable mystery of genius. The student will be well repaid for his pains who struggles to understand the spirit—a strange one to us—which is peculiar to the Greek drama, the singular aspects and functions of religion, and the mode in which it is apparently held fast by the tragic poet, who is also a man of the world. There are also profitable studies to be made of those glimpses of unchanging human nature which the tragedies afford us. One theory is that we study old classics in order to know an older and extinct type of mankind: a truer view is that the virtues and vices of the elder man are simple and undisguised by social varnish. In any case, the student who understands, for example, the woman Medea, has a useful lesson in “the proper study of mankind.”

CHAUTAUQUA AT NEW ORLEANS.

Almost every interest of the country is represented at New Orleans this winter. Every prominent manufactory, all leading trades, the great branches of commerce, and particularly educational institutions have exhibits of more or less importance. The eye of the country is turned southward. Whatever is worthy our civilization has been collected there for study. In educational matters many departments have been given position, that they may be studied by the eager learner; for people are eager to know the world’s work. You see it in their keen observation of the displays made throughout the long galleries, and their quick notice of the comparative merits of the exhibits. To them the work from the Indian schools, from the colored people, from the far away territories, and from foreign lands are studies in comparative civilization. Every sign of advancement is quickly seized upon; and in no department is more eagerness to know manifested by visitors than in the “Chautauqua Alcove.”

Chautauqua and the C. L. S. C. have a very good representation in the south gallery of the government building, under the general supervision of Prof. E. A. Spring, a member of the faculty at Chautauqua. This exhibit is attracting a great deal of attention. All members and friends of the C. L. S. C. who may visit the Exposition are earnestly and cordially invited to visit the Chautauqua exhibit. An idea of Prof. Spring’s work may be obtained from a few extracts from a letter received from him in the holidays:

Chautauqua Alcove, New Orleans, La., Dec. 26, ’84.

There is a large placard up in this exhibit, as follows:

U. S. BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

CHAUTAUQUA ALCOVE.

Any one of the sixty thousand of the members of the C. L. S. C. who may be here is requested to register.

I give everybody one of a little handful of Spare Minute Course circulars that I brought with me. I have given out about a hundred—and had conversations, some of them with evident conviction—in German, French, English, and the language of signs. By help of my Italian, I have tried to talk to some of the many Mexicans here, but did not get deep enough to broach the C. L. S. C.

I had yesterday and to-day considerable talk with the intelligent gentlemen representing the French Republic school system—M. Buisson and his assistant. General Eaton says that the brother of this Mons. Buisson is the genius of education in France. They expressed themselves as much interested in the scope of the noble Chautauqua plans.

The principal and seven lady teachers from Normal, Ill., just left me. They will come again, to learn more of Chautauqua. Some Texas gentlemen, one of whom, Prof. Hogg, I have long known as a fellow member of the National Educational Association, have been here again to-day, to say that they would be here to see me with about two hundred teachers from Texas at noon to-morrow.

Dr. Mitchell was here this afternoon.

On Saturday, the 27th, I was all ready for the two hundred teachers, who advanced in a body with a banner, and I gave them a regular lecture on Chautauqua and its out-reachings.

Then I said my friend, Prof. Hogg, had seen me model in Philadelphia, in 1879, at convention of the National Educational Association, where he read a paper on “The Education of the Hand, the Head, and the Heart,” and he had asked me to show this company of teachers some clay modeling, so I would occupy a few minutes in that, as it was one of the methods in the Chautauqua plan to train the hand by clay, and through that educate the head; and if the hand and the head were truly educated, as they ought to be, the heart should be developed too. So, laying out a colossal head in relief, I made a few remarks as to the value of a little easy practice of clay modeling in schools; and then, turning to the board with clay on it, I worked eighteen minutes, and made a head of “an American Teacher.”

General Eaton came to me after their vote of thanks, and as soon as they had gone—in the most congratulatory frame. “Chautauqua could afford to pay you two months’ work for that!” he said, shaking me by the hand. Two of the class of ’86 C. L. S. C., from Lockport, Dr. Mitchell, Mons. Buisson and a few others expressed themselves as much interested.

I was glad to find I had so many “Spare-minute” circulars—and I must have given out seventy-five or one hundred yesterday, beside one hundred to the Texans, generally accompanied with a conversation of more or less length.

All this in the midst of busy work and good progress in the mechanical embellishment of our alcove. It will be very attractive when completed, and I have so planned that I can work at it all along, adding new features from day to day.

It is very interesting, how near to people’s hearts and inner lives I sometimes get in these little talks. It is a plan that touches the aspirations and longings of many a true soul. I wish sometimes that words could be instantaneously photographed. It is impossible for me to write as fully as I should like.

Our only Chautauquan (November) with one copy of the C. L. S. C. circular, with its cut of the Hall, has done good service.

I very much hoped that Dr. Vincent could manage to come here. Many people have asked, the first thing, if Dr. Vincent is to be here. Every state should have a Chautauqua headquarters—this alcove will get them all ready for it.

Monday morning.—Damp, muddy, discouraging to many people. The car drivers have struck and the hour’s ride, long and tiresome at best, is now cut off. Hundreds of teachers who have been pouring into New Orleans these last days of their holiday, are prevented from seeing and learning by this four or five miles of mud before they reach the Exposition. There have been great hindrances all along to the completion of the Exposition, and many grumblers. But I have never been discouraged! Everything from the first start has been delightful. When the roof leaked, I moved some things away, told the roofer, and it was at once mended. When it came on a hard storm night before last, I laid down on the floor, rolled in my Kansas blanket, and liked it so well that I shall camp out here in the Chautauqua precincts; at any rate, till there is some comfortable conveyance away.

More anon.

Ever yours faithfully,

Edward A. Spring.

WINTER SPORTS IN CANADA.

Winter undoubtedly has its hygienic value; and a part of this value we get without effort. It is not only a comfort to be freed from the annoyances of insect life, but it is also a gain for health that many of the atmospheric impurities are removed by frost. But to get the largest value from winter as a frost cure, we need to avail ourselves of the system of healthful and invigorating amusements which prevail in Canada, and have made that country famous. That portion of our population which is employed out-doors in winter is, pro tanto, undoubtedly the most healthy. For the rest of us the only possible equivalent is winter sports. It is unfortunately true that the variable character of our weather precludes us from exact imitation; but our inventive genius ought to be equal to the task of bridging over the soft places in our winters. In Canada, the long and comparatively equable winter makes it a simple thing to provide healthy and innocent amusements which may be enjoyed as regularly as any business is carried on. It is not to be forgotten, however, that the Canadians are the only people in the world who know how to keep warm out-doors as well as in-doors. They have learned to perfection this art, for lack of which our out-door employments are more or less dangerous. Our laborer does not keep warm in winter, and his “colds” become consumption. In Canada, young girls accomplish in this respect what stout men fail to do among us; they keep warm whether they are flying in sleighs or on toboggans. These forms of enjoyment are well organized; there are toboggan clubs, and “society” means some form of winter sport. The miserable imitation called “roller-skating,” which is alarming thoughtful people in many of our villages, is only a craze, a temporary insanity; the winter sports of Canada are a national institution. The physical and moral wholesomeness of the roller-skating rink is more than doubtful. The moral and physical healthfulness of the sports by which Canadians make winter a season of joy, can not be questioned.

On the average, our winter in the United States is not a healthful and invigorating season to us. We lose the greater values and expose ourselves to special dangers. We live in-doors, with a temperature ten degrees too high. We shut in with us invisible plagues which breed diphtheria and other diseases. We are enfeebled by refraining from exercise and breathing unwholesome air in our houses. We come to the spring weaker than we were when winter began. We have moped by hot fires and breathed vitiated air, when we ought to have been out in the winter blast, using our muscles and filling our lungs with the clean winds. Two or three conditions seem wanting for a reform of these habits. One is the art of keeping warm in the cold air; another is a keener sense of the value of winter exercise, and a third is some devices by which the “soft spells” of weather shall not arrest our sports nearly every week.

THE RELATIVE PRONOUN “THAT.”

This word is a demonstrative pronoun and a conjunction; and in some idiomatic phrases it is also a relative pronoun. By idiomatic phrases, we mean that use has constructed certain forms of expression which are wholes, though consisting of several words. All that we know is an idiomatic phrase; use and habit have welded the words together. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there grew a habit of using that very freely as a relative pronoun. The Bible of 1611 is full of illustrations of this habit. During the present century this use of that has been by the best writers gradually restricted, and at present the rule for that as a relative pronoun, probably, is about as stated above—the word is used, as a relative, only in idiomatic expressions. The history of this word would make a very interesting chapter. We have in the foregoing statement merely suggested one line of change in its use, and we call attention to this change for a particular reason. Among the excellent books published by Appleton & Co. is a reprint Cobbett’s English Grammar, and in this reprint Mr. Ayres, the editor of it for this republication, lays down in his introduction, and illustrates by significant bracketing in Cobbett’s text, a new rule for the use of the relative that. This new rule is, in substance, that the restrictive relative is that—who and which being coördinating relatives. This proposed reform is unfortunately timed. By a progress in use which has been unobtrusive, and unaided by dogmatism, the number of thats on a printed page has been reduced to tolerable proportion. If we accept the new rule we shall not only go back to excessive use of that, but we may even increase the evil of too much thating. The word fills two important functions in present good use; to add the office of expressing all the restrictive uses of the relative pronouns, would probably increase thating so as to render an English page unsightly. Take a sentence: “He said that that man that that boy said that he saw was not that man that that boy thought that he saw.” Mr. Ayres tries to show that certain sentences which contain who and which as relatives are ambiguous in meaning, and that the substitution of that would make the meaning clear. As to such sentences, we may say that if they are really ambiguous in sense, the remedy is to reconstruct them. It is not necessary to use that to pull them out of their obscurity. It is easy, however, to show that a detached sentence might mean something which it does not mean. The meaning of a text is helped out by the context. Aphorisms usually have not context auxiliaries, and usually are ambiguous; but the ordinary use of language is to express our meaning by paragraphs rather than by single sentences. Every ellipsis furnishes an opening for the entrance of small criticism; and ellipsis is one of the large facts of English writing.

In short, the critic of ambiguous sentences will have abundant employment on the best writers, if he is allowed to break off any sentence from its yoke-fellows in the paragraph. We advise our readers not to make haste to adopt the rule of Mr. Ayres. The important question is: How do good writers employ the word that in their books? The answer is that good English writers employ the word as a conjunction and as a demonstrative; and as a relative only when phrase idiom compels such use. In this country, the practice is to use that a good deal as a relative; but there has been a great decline in this use of it, especially during the last thirty years. At the present time our best writers seem to be following the English practice. We hope that Mr. Ayres will not succeed in turning reform backward. With who and which to employ as relative pronouns—and occasional help from that, what, and as, in idioms—the English language is not poor. We need not recall the restrictive that from its honorable retirement.

EDMUND ABOUT.

The death of this versatile French writer removes from modern literature another of the few French literary men who are known all over the world. About was born in 1828, and has enjoyed a cosmopolitan fame since 1860. His literary work had the charm of contemporary interest, and at the same time the merit of philosophical breadth and insight. He gained fame at home in a way our men of letters would not travel, by writing a Dictionary of Railroads. He was equally interesting and instructive whether he wrote a novel or a political pamphlet; for in both, Edmund About’s personality was in the foreground. He was not an egotist, however, in his books, but his I was a modest one which rather relieved others of responsibility for his opinions, than obtrusively forced the author upon our admiration. He had a keen zest for current thought and fact; and, though our sensationalist newspaper men would not fellowship him, he was one of the best editors of his age. He was always an editor—even when he wrote the railroad dictionary—and his political pamphlets are among the best presentations of questions and situations. He saw the heart of a current issue, and with easy grace and perfect poise he described it from the point of view of a modern cosmopolitan gentleman. His “Roman Question” was, in its day, equally intelligible, interesting, amusing and illuminating in Paris, London, Vienna or New York. He described the situation under the Pope as King of Rome, setting out in full relief those peculiarities of the Roman situation which were picturesquely illogical for all men of the world. He had a marvelous power of suggestion. The first sentence of the “Roman Question” is like this—we do not attempt to recall the exact words or figures: “There are in the States of the Church 1,366,328 souls, not counting the little Mortara boy.” The last clause referred to a charge that priests at Rome had stolen a Jewish boy and were making a good Catholic of him against the will of his family. The incident made a great uproar at the time, and About recalled to the mind of the reader the whole story, and, without expressing an opinion, attracted the sympathy of his Protestant readers by the mere allusion. Probably his books contain more examples of strong, suggestive allusions to recent or contemporary events, than those of any other writer; and it was always his special art to allude only, leaving his reader to his own opinion. The delicacy of his touch and the fine flavor of his criticism were remarkable, even in this age of keen and witty French writers. He became editor of the XIX. Siecle (century), after the war with Germany; but he had always been a journalist in some form, and more than one paper had its editions suppressed by Napoleon III. because they contained the fine but biting satire of About. Some years ago (in 1870, we believe) he was blackballed in the French Academy, but he was recently elected to that august body. He died before he was installed in his academic chair.