The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great
Teachers, by Elbert Hubbard
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers
Author: Elbert Hubbard
Release Date: July 29, 2006 [EBook #18936]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Little
Journeys
To the Homes of Great Teachers
Elbert Hubbard
Memorial Edition
Printed and made into a Book by
The Roycrofters, who are in East
Huron, Erie County, New York
Wm. H. Wise & Co.
New York
Copyright, 1916,
By The Roycrofters
CONTENTS
MOSES 9
CONFUCIUS 41
PYTHAGORAS 69
PLATO 97
KING ALFRED 123
ERASMUS 149
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 183
THOMAS ARNOLD 217
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL 245
HYPATIA 269
SAINT BENEDICT 293
MARY BAKER EDDY 327
[Illustration: MOSES]
MOSES
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
And God said, moreover, unto Moses: Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, The Lord God of your Fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto
you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all
generations.
--_Exodus iii: 14, 15_
MOSES
Moses was the world's first great teacher. He is still one of the
world's great teachers. Seven million people yet look to his laws for
special daily guidance, and more than two hundred millions read his
books and regard them as Holy Writ. And these people as a class are of
the best and most enlightened who live now or who have ever lived.
Moses did not teach of a life after this--he gives no hint of
immortality--all of his rewards and punishments refer to the present. If
there is a heaven for the good and a hell for the bad, he did not know
of them.
The laws of Moses were designed for the Now and the Here. Many of them
ring true and correct even today, after all this interval of more than
three thousand years. Moses had a good knowledge of physiology, hygiene,
sanitation. He knew the advantages of cleanliness, order, harmony,
industry and good habits. He also knew psychology, or the science of the
mind: he knew the things that influence humanity, the limits of the
average intellect, the plans and methods of government that will work
and those which will not.
He was practical. He did what was expedient. He considered the material
with which he had to deal, and he did what he could and taught that
which his people would and could believe. The Book of Genesis was
plainly written for the child-mind.
The problem that confronted Moses was one of practical politics, not a
question of philosophy or of absolute or final truth. The laws he put
forth were for the guidance of the people to whom he gave them, and his
precepts were such as they could assimilate.
It were easy to take the writings of Moses as they have come down to us,
translated, re-translated, colored and tinted with the innocence,
ignorance and superstition of the nations who have kept them alive for
thirty-three centuries, and then compile a list of the mistakes of the
original writer. The writer of these records of dreams and hopes and
guesses, all cemented with stern commonsense, has our profound reverence
and regard. The "mistakes" lie in the minds of the people who, in the
face of the accumulated knowledge of the centuries, have persisted that
things once written were eternally sufficient.
In point of time there is no teacher within many hundred years following
him who can be compared with him in originality and insight.
Moses lived fourteen hundred years before Christ.
The next man after him to devise a complete code of conduct was Solon,
who lived seven hundred years after. A little later came Zoroaster, then
Confucius, Buddha, Lao-tsze, Pericles, Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle--contemporaries, or closely following each other, their
philosophy woven and interwoven by all and each and each by all.
Moses, however, stands out alone. That he did not know natural history
as did Aristotle, who lived a thousand years later, is not to his
discredit, and to emphasize the fact were irrelevant.
Back of it all lies the undisputed fact that Moses led a barbaric people
out of captivity and so impressed his ideals and personality upon them
that they endure as a distinct and peculiar people, even unto this day.
He founded a nation. And chronologically he is the civilized world's
first author.
Moses was a soldier, a diplomat, an executive, a writer, a teacher, a
leader, a prophet, a stonecutter. Beside all these he was a farmer--a
workingman, one who when forty years of age tended flocks and herds for
a livelihood. Every phase of the outdoor life of the range was familiar
to him. And the greatness of the man is revealed in the fact that his
plans and aspirations were so far beyond his achievements that at last
he thought he had failed. Exultant success seems to go with that which
is cheap and transient. All great teachers have, in their own minds,
been failures--they saw so much further than they were able to travel.
* * * * *
All ancient chronology falls easily into three general divisions: the
fabulous, the legendary, and the probable or natural.
In the understanding of history, psychology is quite as necessary as
philology.
To reject anything that has a flaw in it is quite as bad as to have that
excess of credulity which swallows everything presented.
It is not necessary to throw away the fabulous nor deny the legendary.
But it is certainly not wise to construe the fabulous as the actual and
maintain the legendary as literally true. Things may be true
allegorically and false literally, and to be able to distinguish the one
from the other, and prize each in its proper place, is the mark of
wisdom.
If, however, we were asked to describe the man Moses to a jury of sane,
sensible, intelligent and unprejudiced men and women, and show why he is
worthy of the remembrance of mankind, we would have to eliminate the
fabulous, carefully weigh the traditional, and rest our argument upon
records that are fair, sensible and reasonably free from dispute.
The conclusions of professional retainers, committed before they begin
their so-called investigations to a literal belief in the fabulous,
should be accepted with great caution. For them to come to conclusions
outside of that which they have been taught, is not only to forfeit
their social position, but to lose their actual means of livelihood.
Perhaps the truth in the final summing up can best be gotten from those
who have made no vows that they will not change their opinions, and have
nothing to lose if they fail occasionally to gibe with the popular.
On a certain occasion after Colonel Ingersoll had delivered his famous
lecture entitled, "Some Mistakes of Moses," he was entertained by a
local club. At the meeting, which was of the usual informal kind known
as "A Dutch Feed," a young lawyer made bold to address the great orator
thus: "Colonel Ingersoll, you are a lover of freedom--with you the word
liberty looms large. All great men love liberty, and no man lives in
history, respected and revered, save as he has sought to make men free.
Moses was a lover of liberty. Now, wouldn't it be gracious and generous
in you to give Moses, who in some ways was in the same business as
yourself, due credit as a liberator and law-giver and not emphasize his
mistakes to the total exclusion of his virtues?"
Colonel Ingersoll listened--he was impressed by the fairness of the
question. He listened, paused and replied: "Young man, you have asked a
reasonable question, and all you suggest about the greatness of Moses,
in spite of his mistakes, is well taken. The trouble in your logic lies
in the fact that you do not understand my status in this case. You seem
to forget that I am not the attorney for Moses. He has more than two
million men looking after his interests. I am retained on the other
side!"
Like unto Colonel Ingersoll, I am not an attorney for Moses. I desire,
however, to give a fair, clear and judicial account of the man. I will
attempt to present a brief for the people, and neither prosecute nor
defend. I will simply try to picture the man as he once existed, nothing
extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. As the original office of
the State's Attorney was rather to protect the person at the bar than to
indict him, so will I try to bring out the best in Moses, rather than
hold up his mistakes and raise a laugh by revealing his ignorance.
Modesty, which is often egotism turned wrong side out, might here say,
"Oh, Moses requires no defense at this late day!" But Moses, like all
great men, has suffered at the hands of his friends. To this man has
been attributed powers which no human being ever possessed.
Moses lived thirty-three hundred years ago. In one sense thirty-three
centuries is a very long time. All is comparative--children regard a man
of fifty as "awful old." I have seen several persons who have lived a
hundred years, and they didn't consider a century long, "and thirty-five
isn't anything," said one of them to me.
Geologically, thirty-three centuries is only an hour ago. It does not
nearly take us back to the time when men of the Stone Age hunted the
hairy mammoth in what is now Nebraska, nor does thirty-three centuries
give us any glimpse of the time when tropical animals, plants and
probably men lived and flourished at the North Pole.
Egyptian civilization, at the time of Moses, was more than three
thousand years old. Egypt was then in the first stage of senility,
entering upon her decline, for her best people had settled in the
cities, and this completes the cycle and spells deterioration. She had
passed through the savage, barbaric, nomadic and agricultural stages and
was living on her unearned increment, a part of which was Israelitish
labor. Moses looked at the Pyramids, which were built more than a
thousand years before his birth, and asked in wonder about who built
them, very much as we do today. He listened for the Sphinx to answer,
but she was silent, then as now. The date of the exodus has been fixed
as having probably occurred during the reign of the Great Pharaoh,
Mineptah, or the nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The date is, say, fourteen
hundred years before Christ. An inscription has recently been found
which seems to show that Joseph settled in Egypt during the reign of
Mineptah, but the best scholars now have gone back to the conclusions I
have stated.
At the time of the Pharaohs, Egypt was the highest civilized country on
earth. It had a vast system of canals, an organized army, a goodly
degree of art, and there were engineers and builders of much ability.
Philosophy, poetry and ethics were recognized, prized and discussed.
The storage of grain by the government to bank against famine had been
practised for several hundred years. There were also treasure-cities
built to guard against fire, thieves or destruction by the elements. It
will thus be seen that foresight, thrift, caution, wisdom, played their
parts. The Egyptians were not savages.
* * * * *
About five hundred years before the birth of Moses there lived in Arabia
a powerful Sheik or Chief, known as Abraham. This man had a familiar
spirit, or guide, or guardian-angel known as Yaveh or Jehovah. All of
the desert tribes had such tutelary gods; and all of these gods were
once men of power who lived on earth. The belief in special gods has
often been held by very great men: Socrates looked to his "demon" for
guidance; Themistocles consulted his oracle; a President of the United
States visited a clairvoyant, who consented to act as a medium and
interpret the supernatural. This idea, which is a variant of ancestor
worship, still survives, and very many good people do not take journeys
or make investments until they believe they are being dictated to by
Shakespeare, Emerson, Beecher or Phillips Brooks. These people also
believe that there are bad spirits to which we must not harken.
Abraham was led by Jehovah; what Jehovah told him to do he did; when
Jehovah told him to desist or change his plans, he obeyed. Jehovah
promised him many things, and some of these promises were fulfilled.
Whether these tutelary gods or controlling spirits had any actual
existence outside of the imagination of the people who believed in
them--whether they were merely pictures thrown upon the screen by a
subconscious spiritual stereopticon--is not the question now under
discussion. Something must be left for a later time: the fact remains
that special providences are yet relied upon by sincere and intelligent
people.
Abraham had a son named Isaac. And Isaac was the father of Jacob, or
Israel, "the Soldier of God," so called on account of his successful
wrestling with the angel. And Jacob was the father of twelve sons. All
of these people believed in Jehovah, the god of their tribe; and while
they did not disbelieve in the gods of the neighboring tribes, they yet
doubted their power and had grave misgivings as to their honesty.
Therefore, they had nothing to do with them, praying to their own god
only and looking to him for support. They were the chosen people of
Jehovah, just as the Babylonians were the chosen people of Baal; the
Canaanites the chosen people of Ishitar; the Moabites the chosen people
of Chemos; the Ammonites the chosen people of Rimmon.
Now Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, and his brethren were
naturally jealous of him. So one day out on the range they sold him into
slavery to a passing caravan, and went home and told their father the
boy was dead, having been killed by a wild beast. To make the matter
plausible they took the coat of Joseph and smeared it with the blood of
a goat which they had killed. Nowadays, the coat would have been sent to
a chemist's laboratory and the blood-spots tested to see whether it was
the blood of beast or human. But Jacob believed the story and mourned
his son as dead.
Now Joseph was taken to Egypt and there arose to a position of influence
and power through his intelligence and diligence. How eventually his
brethren, starving, came to him for food, there being a famine in their
own land, is one of the most natural and beautiful stories in all
literature. It is a folklore legend, free from the fabulous, and has all
the corroborating marks of the actual.
For us it is history undisputed, unrefuted, because it is so natural. It
could all easily happen in various parts of the world even now. It shows
the identical traits of human nature that are alive and pulsing today.
Joseph having made himself known to his brethren induced some of them
and their neighbors to come down into Egypt, where the pasturage was
better and the water more sure, and settle there. The Bible tells us
that there were seventy of these settlers and gives us their names.
These emigrants, called Israelites, or Children of Israel, account for
the presence of the enslaved people whom Moses led out of captivity
three hundred years later.
One thing seems quite sure, and that is that they were a peculiar people
then, with the pride of the desert in their veins, for they stood
socially aloof and did not mix with the Egyptians. They still had their
own god and clung to their own ways and customs.
That very naive account in the first chapter of Exodus of how they had
two midwives, "and the name of one was Shiphrah and the other Puah," is
as fine in its elusive exactitude as an Uncle Remus story. Children
always want to know the names of people. These two Hebrew midwives were
bribed by the King of Egypt--ruler over twenty million people--in
person, to kill all the Hebrew boy babies. Then the account states that
Jehovah was pleased with these Hebrew women who proved false to their
master, and Jehovah rewarded them by giving them houses.
This order to kill the Hebrew children must have gone into execution, if
at all, about the time of the birth of Moses, because Aaron, the brother
of Moses, and three years older, certainly was not killed.
Whether Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, his father an
Israelite, or both of his parents were Israelites, is problematic. Royal
families are not apt to adopt an unknown waif into the royal household
and bring him up as their royal own, especially if this waif belongs to
what is regarded as an inferior race. The tie of motherhood is the only
one that could over-rule caste and override prejudice. If the daughter
of Pharaoh, or more properly "the Pharaoh," were the mother of Moses,
she had a better reason for hiding him in the bulrushes than did the
daughter of a Levite, for the order to kill these profitable workers is
extremely doubtful. The strength, skill and ability of the Israelites
formed a valuable acquisition to the Egyptians, and what they wanted was
more Israelites, not fewer.
Judging from the statement that there were only two midwives, there were
only a few hundred Israelites--perhaps between one and two thousand, at
most.
So leaving the legend of the childhood of Moses with just enough mystery
mixed in it to give it a perpetual piquancy, we learn that he was
brought up an Egyptian, as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and that it
was she who gave him his name.
Philo and Josephus give various sidelights on the life and character of
Moses. The Midrash or Commentaries on the History of the Jews, composed,
added to or modified by many men, extending over a period of twenty
centuries, also add their weight, even though the value of these
Commentaries is conjectural.
Egyptian accounts of Moses and the Israelites come to us through
Hellenic sources, and very naturally are not complimentary. These
picture Moses, or Osarsiph, as they call him, as an agitator, an
undesirable citizen, who sought to overturn the government, and failing
in this, fled to the desert with a few hundred outlaws. They managed to
hold out against the forces sent to capture them, were gradually added
to by other refugees, and through the organizing genius of Moses were
rounded into a strong tribe.
That Moses was their supreme ruler, and that to better hold his people
in check he devised a religious ritual for them, and impressed his god,
Jehovah, upon them, almost to the exclusion of all other gods, and thus
formed them into a religious whole, is beyond question. No matter what
the cause of the uprising, or who was to blame for it, the fact is
undisputed that Moses led a revolt in Egypt, and the people he carried
with him in this exodus formed the nucleus of the Hebrew Nation. And
further, the fact is beyond dispute that the personality of Moses was
the prime cementing factor in the making of the nation. The power,
poise, patience and unwavering self-reliance of the man, through his
faith in the god Jehovah, are all beyond dispute. Things happen because
the man makes them happen.
* * * * *
The position of the Israelites in Egypt was one of voluntary vassalage.
The government was a feudal monarchy. The Israelites had come into Egypt
of their own accord, but had never been admitted into the full rights of
citizenship. This exclusion by the Egyptians had no doubt tended to fix
the Children of Israel in their religious beliefs, and on the other
hand, their proud and exclusive nature had tended to keep them from a
full fellowship with the actual owners of the land.
The Egyptians never attempted to traffic in them as they did in slaves
of war, being quite content to use them as clerks, laborers and
servants, paying them a certain wage, and also demanding an excess of
labor in lieu of taxation. In other words, they worked out their
"road-tax," which no doubt was excessive. Many years later, Athens and
also Rome had similar "slaves," some of whom were men of great intellect
and worth. If one reads the works of modern economic prophets, it will
be seen that wage-workers in America are often referred to as "slaves"
or "bondmen," terms which will probably give rise to confusion among
historians to come.
Moses was brought up in the court of the king, and became versed in all
the lore of the Egyptians. We are led to suppose that he also looked
like an Egyptian, as we are told that people seeing him for the first
time, he being a stranger to them, went away and referred to him as
"that Egyptian." He was handsome, commanding, silent by habit and slow
of speech, strong as a counselor, a safe man. That he was a most
valuable man in the conduct of Egyptian official affairs, there is no
doubt. And although he was nominally an Egyptian, living with the
Egyptians, adopting their manners and customs, yet his heart was with
"his brethren," the Israelites, who he saw were sore oppressed through
governmental exploitation.
Moses knew that a government which does not exist for the purpose of
adding to human happiness has no excuse for being. And once when he was
down among his own people he saw an Egyptian taskmaster or foreman
striking an Israelitish workman, and in wrath he arose and killed the
oppressor. The only persons who were witnesses to this affair were two
Hebrews. The second day after the fight, when Moses was attempting to
separate two Hebrews who had gotten into an altercation with each other,
they taunted him by saying, "Who gavest thee to be a ruler over
us?--wilt thou also kill us as thou didst the Egyptian?"
This gives us a little light upon the quality and character of the
people with whom Moses had to deal. It also shows that the ways of the
reformer and peacemaker are not flower-strewn. The worst enemies of a
reformer are not the Egyptians--he has also to deal with the Israelites.
I once heard Terence V. Powderly, who organized the Knights of
Labor--the most successful labor organization ever formed--say, "Any man
who devotes his life to helping laboring men will be destroyed by them."
And then he added, "But this should not deter us from the effort to
benefit."
As the Hebrew account plainly states that the killing of all the male
Hebrew children was carried out with the connivance of Hebrew women who
pretended to be ministering to the Hebrew mothers, so was the flight of
Moses from Egypt caused by the Hebrews, who turned informants and
brought him into disgrace with Pharaoh, who sought his life.
Very naturally, the Egyptians deny and have always denied that the order
to kill children was ever issued by a Pharaoh. They also point to the
fact that the Israelites were a source of profit--a valuable asset to
the Egyptians. And moreover, the proposition that the Egyptians killed
the children to avoid trouble is preposterous, since no possible act
that man can commit would so arouse sudden rebellion and fan into flame
the embers of hate as the murder of the young. If the Egyptians had
attempted to carry out any such savage cruelty, they would not only have
had to fight the Israelitish men, but the outraged mothers as well. The
Egyptians were far too wise to invite the fury of frenzied motherhood.
To have done this would have destroyed the efficiency of the entire
Hebrew population. An outraged and heartbroken people do not work.
When one person becomes angry with another, his mental processes work
overtime making up a list of the other's faults and failings.
When a people arise in revolt they straightway prepare an indictment
against the government against which they revolted, giving a schedule of
outrages, insults, plunderings and oppressions. This is what is politely
called partisan history. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a literary indictment
of the South by featuring its supposed brutalities. And the attitude of
the South is mirrored in a pretty parable concerning a Southern girl who
came North on a visit, and seeing in print the words "damned Yankee,"
innocently remarked that she always thought they were one word. A
description of the enemy, made by a person or a people, must be taken
cum grano Syracuse.
* * * * *
When Moses fled, after killing the Egyptian, he went northward and east
into the land of the Midianites, who were also descendants of Abraham.
At this time he was forty years of age, and still unmarried, his work in
the Egyptian Court having evidently fully absorbed his time.
It is a pretty little romance, all too brief in its details, of how the
tired man stopped at a well, and the seven daughters of Jethro came to
draw water for their flocks. Certain shepherds came also and drove the
girls away, when Moses, true to his nature, took the part of the young
ladies, to the chagrin and embarrassment of the male rustics who had
left their manners at home. The story forms a melodramatic stage-setting
which the mummers have not been slow to use, representing the seven
daughters as a ballet, the shepherds as a male chorus, and Moses as
basso-profundo and hero. We are told that the girls went home and told
their father of the chivalrous stranger they had met, and he, with all
the deference of the desert, sent for him "that he might eat bread."
Very naturally Moses married one of the girls.
And Moses tended the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law, taking the
herds a long distance, living with them and sleeping out under the
stars.
Now Jethro was the chief of his tribe. Moses calls him a "priest," but
he was a priest only incidentally, as all the Arab chiefs were.
The clergy originated in Egypt. Before the Israelites were in Goshen,
the "sacra," or sacred utensils, belonged to the family; and the head of
the tribe performed the religious rites, propitiating the family deity,
or else delegated some one else to do so. This head of the tribe, or
chief, was called a "Cohen"; and the man who assisted him, or whom he
delegated, was called a "Levi." The plan of making a business of being a
"Levi" was borrowed from the Egyptians, who had men set apart,
exclusively, to deal in the mysterious. Moses calls himself a Levi, or
Levite.
After the busy life he had led, Moses could not settle down to the
monotonous existence of a shepherd. It is probable that then he wrote
the Book of Job, the world's first drama and the oldest book of the
Bible. Moses was full of plans. Very naturally he prayed to the
Israelitish god, and the god harkened unto his prayer and talked to him.
The silence, the loneliness, the majesty of the mountains, the great
stretches of shining sand, the long peaceful nights, all tend to
hallucinations. Sheepmen are in constant danger of mental aberration.
Society is needed quite as much as solitude.
From talking with God, Moses desired to see Him. One day, from the
burning red of an acacia-tree, the Lord called to him, "Moses, Moses!"
And Moses answered, "Here am I!"
Moses was a man born to rule--he was a leader of men--and here at
middle life the habits of twenty-five years were suddenly snapped and
his occupation gone. He yearned for his people, and knowing their
unhappy lot, his desire was to lead them out of captivity. He knew the
wrongs the Egyptian government was visiting upon the Israelites. Rameses
the Second was a ruler with the builder's eczema: always and forever he
made gardens, dug canals, paved roadways, constructed model tenements,
planned palaces, erected colossi. He was a worker, and he made everybody
else work. It was in this management of infinite detail that Moses had
been engaged; and while he entered into it with zest, he knew that the
hustling habit can be overdone and its votaries may become its
victims--not only that, but this strenuous life may turn freemen into
serfs, and serfs into slaves.
And now Rameses was dead, and the proud, vain, fretful and selfish
Mineptah ruled in his place. It was worse with the Israelites than ever!
The more Moses thought of it the more he was convinced that it was his
duty to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage. He himself,
having been driven out, made the matter a burning one with him: he had
lost his place in the Egyptian Court, but he would get it back and hold
it under better conditions than ever before!
He heard the "Voice"! All strong people hear the Voice calling them. And
harkening to the Inner Voice is simply doing what you want to do.
"Moses, Moses!"
And Moses answered, "Lord, here am I."
The laws of Moses still influence the world, but not even the orthodox
Jews follow them literally. We bring our reason to bear upon the
precepts of Moses, and those which are not for us we gently pass over.
In fact, the civil laws of most countries prohibit many of the things
which Moses commanded. For instance, the eighteenth verse of the
twenty-second chapter of Exodus says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live." Certainly no Jewish lawyer nor Rabbi, in any part of the world,
advocates the killing of persons supposed to be witches. We explain that
in this instance the inspired writer lapsed and merely mirrored the
ignorance of his time. Or else we fall back upon the undoubted fact that
various writers and translators have tampered with the original
text--this must be so, since the book written by Moses makes record of
his death.
But when we find passages in Moses requiring us to benefit our enemies,
we say with truth that this was the first literature to express for us
the brotherhood of man.
"Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth
the words of the righteous." Here we get Twentieth-Century Wisdom. And
very many passages as fine and true can be found, which prove for us
beyond cavil that Moses was right a part of the time, and to say this
of any man, living or dead, is a very great compliment.
In times of doubt the Jewish people turn to the Torah, or Book of the
Law. This book has been interpreted by the Rabbis, or the learned men,
and to meet the exigencies of living under many conditions, it has been
changed, enlarged and augmented. In these changes the people were not
consulted. Very naturally it was done secretly, for inspired men must be
well dead before the many accept their edict. To be alive is always more
or less of an offense, especially if you be a person and not a
personage.
The murmurings against Moses during his lifetime often broke into a
rumble and a roar. The mob accused him of taking them out into the
wilderness to perish. To get away from the constant bickering and
criticisms of the little minds, Moses used to go up into the mountains
alone to find rest, and there he communicated with his god. It was
surely a great step in advance when all the Elohims were combined into
one Supreme Elohim that was everywhere present and ruled the world.
Instead of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful,
fussy, boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or doing other
things quite as useless, it was a great advance to have one Supreme
Being, dispassionate, a God of Love and Justice, "with whom can be no
variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning." This gradual
ennobling of the conception of Divinity reveals the extent to which man
is ennobling his own nature.
Up to within a very few years God had a rival in the Devil, but now the
Devil lives only as a pleasantry. Until the time of Moses, the God of
Sinai was only the God of the Hebrew people, and this accounts for His
violence, wrath, jealousy, and all of those qualities which went to make
up a barbaric chief, including the tendency of His sons and servants to
make love to the daughters of earth.
It is probable that the idea of God--in opposition to a god, one of many
gods--was a thought that grew up very gradually in the mind of Moses.
The ideal grew, and Moses grew with the ideal.
Then from God being a Spirit, to being Spirit, is a natural, easy and
beautiful evolution.
The thought of angels, devils, heavenly messengers, like Gabriel and the
Holy Ghost, constantly surrounding the Throne, is a suggestion that
comes from the court of the absolute monarch. The Trinity is the
oligarchy refined, and the one son who gives himself as a sacrifice for
all the people who have offended the monarch is the retreating vision of
that night of ignorance when all nations sought to appease the wrath of
their god by the death of human beings.
God to us is Spirit, realized everywhere in unfolding Nature. We are a
part of Nature--we, too, are Spirit. When Moses commands his people that
they must return the stray animal of their enemy to its rightful owner,
we behold a great man struggling to benefit humanity by making them
recognize the laws of Spirit. We are all one family--we can not afford
to wrong or harm even an enemy.
Instead of thousands of warring, jarring families or tribes, we have now
a few strong federations of States, or countries, which, if they would
make war on one another, would today quickly face a larger foe. Already
the idea of one government for all the world is taking form--there must
be one Supreme Arbiter, and all this monstrous expense of money and
flesh and blood and throbbing hearts for purposes of war, must go, just
as we have sent to limbo the jangling, jarring, jealous gods. Also, the
better sentiment of the world will send the czars, emperors, kings,
grand dukes, and the greedy grafters of so-called democracy, into the
dust-heap of oblivion, with all the priestly phantoms that have obscured
the sun and blackened the sky. The gods have gone, but MAN IS HERE.
* * * * *
The plagues that befell the Egyptians were the natural ones to which
Egypt was liable: drought, flood, flies, lice, frogs, disease. The
Israelites very naturally declared that these things were sent as a
punishment by the Israelitish god. I remember a farmer, in my childhood
days, who was accounted by his neighbors as an infidel. He was struck by
lightning and instantly killed, while standing in his doorway. The
Sunday before, this man had worked in the fields, and just before he was
killed he had said, "dammit," or something quite as bad. Our preacher
explained at length that this man's death was a "judgment." Afterward,
when our church was struck by lightning, it was regarded as an accident.
Ignorant and superstitious people always attribute special things to
special causes. When the grasshoppers overran Kansas in Eighteen Hundred
Eighty-five, I heard a good man from the South say it was a punishment
on the Kansans for encouraging Old John Brown. The next year the
boll-weevil ruined the cotton crop, and certain preachers in the North,
who thought they knew, declared it was the lingering wrath of God on
account of slavery.
Three nations unite to form our present civilization. These are the
Greek, the Roman and the Judaic. The lives of Perseus, Romulus and Moses
all teem with the miraculous, but if we accept the supernatural in one
we must in all. Which of these three great nations has contributed most
to our well-being is a question largely decided by temperament; but
just now the star of Greece seems to be in the ascendant. We look to art
for solace. Greece stands for art; Rome for conquest; Judea for
religion.
And yet Moses was a lover of beauty, and the hold he had upon his people
was quite as much through training them to work as through his moral
teaching. Indeed, his morality was expediency--which is reason enough
according to modern science. When he wants them to work, he says, "Thus
saith the Lord," just the same as when he wishes to impress upon them a
thought.
No one can read the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth
chapters of Exodus without being impressed with the fact that the man
who wrote them had in him the spirit of the Master Workman--a King's
Craftsman. His carving the ten commandments on tablets of stone also
shows his skill with mallet and chisel, a talent he had acquired in
Egypt, where Rameses the Second had thousands of men engaged in
sculpture and in making inscriptions in stone.
Several chapters in Exodus might have been penned by Albrecht Durer or
William Morris. The commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any
graven image," was unmistakably made merely to correct a local evil: the
tendency to worship the image instead of the thing it symbolized. People
who do not contribute to the creation of an object fall easy victims to
this error. With all the stern good sense that Moses revealed, it is
but fair to assume that he did not mean the command to be perpetual. It
was only through so much moving about that the Jews seemed to lose their
art spirit.
And certainly the flame of art in the Jewish heart has never died out,
even though at times it has smoldered, for wherever there has been peace
and security for the Jews, they have not been slow to evolve the talent
which creates. History teems with the names of Jews who, in music,
painting, poetry and sculpture, have devoted their days to beauty. And
the germ of genius is seen in many of the Jewish children who attend the
manual-training and art schools of America.
Art has its rise in the sense of sublimity. It seems at times to be a
fulfilment of the religious impulse. The religion which balks at work,
stopping at prayer and contemplation, is a form of arrested development.
The number of people in the exodus was probably two or three thousand.
Renan says that one century only elapsed between the advent of Joseph
into Egypt and the revolt. Very certain it was not a great number that
went forth into the desert. A half-million women could not have borrowed
jewelry of their neighbors--the secret could not have been kept. And in
the negotiations between Moses and the King, it will be remembered that
Moses asked only for the privilege of going three days' journey into the
wilderness to make sacrifices. It was a kind of picnic or religious
campmeeting. A vast multitude could not have taken part in any such
exercise. We also hear of their singing their gratitude on account of
reaching Elim, where there were "twelve springs and seventy palm-trees."
Had there been several million people, as we have been told, the
insignificant shade of seventy trees would have meant nothing to them.
The distance from Goshen in Egypt to Canaan in Palestine was about one
hundred seventy-five miles. But by the circuitous route they traveled it
was nearly a thousand miles. It took forty years to make the passage,
for the way had to be fought through the country of foes who very
naturally sought to block the way. Quick transportation was out of the
question. The rate of speed was about twenty-five miles a year.
Here was a people without homes, or fixed habitation, beset on every
side with the natural dangers of the desert, and compelled to face the
fury of the inhabitants whose lands they overran, fearful,
superstitious, haunted by hunger, danger and doubt. By night a man sent
ahead with a lantern on a pole led the way; by day a cavalcade that
raised a cloud of dust. One was later sung by the poets as a pillar of
fire, and the other a cloud. Chance flocks of quail blown by a storm
into their midst were regarded as a miracle; the white exuding wax of
the manna-plant was told of as "bread"--or more literally food.
Those who had taken part in the original exodus were nearly all
dead--their children and grandchildren survived, desert born and savage
bred. Canaan was not the land flowing with milk and honey that had been
described. Milk and honey are the results of labor applied to land.
Moses knew this and tried to teach this great truth. He was true to his
divine trust. Through doubt, hardship, poverty, misunderstanding, he
held high the ideal--they were going to a better place.
At last, worn by his constant struggle, aged one hundred twenty, "his
eye not dim nor his natural force abated"--for only those live long who
live well--Moses went up into the mountain to find solace in solitude as
was his custom. His people waited for him in vain--he did not return.
Alone there with his God he slept and forgot to awaken. His pilgrimage
was done. "And no man knoweth his grave even unto this day."
History is very seldom recorded on the spot--certainly it was not then.
Centuries followed before fact, tradition, song, legend and folklore
were fused into the form we call Scripture. But out of the fog and mist
of that far-off past there looms in heroic outline the form and features
of a man--a man of will, untiring activity, great hope, deep love, a
faith which at times faltered, but which never died. Moses was the first
man in history who fought for human rights and sought to make men free,
even from their own limitations. "And there arose not a prophet since
Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."
[Illustration: CONFUCIUS]
CONFUCIUS
The highest study of all is that which teaches us to develop those
principles of purity and perfect virtue which Heaven bestowed upon
us at our birth, in order that we may acquire the power of
influencing for good those amongst whom we are placed, by our
precepts and example; a study without an end--for our labors cease
only when we have become perfect--an unattainable goal, but one
that we must not the less set before us from the very first. It is
true that we shall not be able to reach it, but in our struggle
toward it we shall strengthen our characters and give stability to
our ideas, so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same
direction, we shall be rendered capable of applying the faculties
with which we have been gifted to the best possible account.
--_"The Annals" of Confucius_
CONFUCIUS
The Chinese comprise one-fourth of the inhabitants of the earth. There
are four hundred millions of them.
They can do many things which we can not do, and we can do a few things
which they have not yet been able to do; but they are learning from us,
and possibly we would do well to learn from them. In China there are now
trolley-cars, telephone-lines, typewriters, cash-registers and American
plumbing. China is a giant awaking from sleep. He who thinks that China
is a country crumbling into ruins has failed to leave a call at the
office and has overslept.
The West can not longer afford to ignore China. And not being able to
waive her, perhaps the next best thing is to try to understand her.
The one name that looms large above any other name in China is
Confucius. He of all men has influenced China most. One-third of the
human race love and cherish his memory, and repeat his words as sacred
writ.
Confucius was born at a time when one of those tidal waves of reason
swept the world--when the nations were full of unrest, and the mountains
of thought were shaken with discontent.
It was just previous to the blossoming of Greece.
Pericles was seventeen years old when Confucius died. Themistocles was
preparing the way for Pericles; for then was being collected the
treasure of Delos, which made Phidias and the Parthenon possible. During
the life of Confucius lived Leonidas, Miltiades, Cyrus the Great,
Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes. And then quite naturally occurred the battles
of Marathon, Salamis and Thermopylæ. Then lived Buddha-Gautama,
Lao-tsze, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Pythagoras, Pindar,
Æschylus and Anacreon.
The Chinese are linked to the past by ties of language and custom beyond
all other nations. They are a peculiar people, a chosen people, a people
set apart. Just when they withdrew from the rest of mankind and
abandoned their nomadic habits, making themselves secure against
invasion by building a wall one hundred feet high, and settled down to
lay the foundations of a vast empire, we do not know. Some historians
have fixed the date about ten thousand years before Christ--let it go at
that. There is a reasonably well-authenticated history of China that
runs back twenty-five hundred years before Christ, while our history
merges into mist seven hundred fifty years before the Christian era.
The Israelites wandered; the Chinese remained at home. Walls have this
disadvantage: they keep people in as well as shut the barbarians out.
But now there are vast breaches in the wall, through which the
inhabitants ooze, causing men from thousands of miles away to cry in
alarm, "the Yellow Peril!" And also through these breaches, Israelites,
Englishmen and Yankees enter fearlessly, settle down in heathen China,
and do business.
It surely is an epoch, and what the end will be few there are who dare
forecast.
* * * * *
This then is from the pen of Edward Carpenter, the Church of England
curate who was so great a friend and admirer of our own Walt Whitman
that he made a trip across the sea to join hands with him in preaching
the doctrine of democracy and the religion of humanity.
In the interior of China, along low-lying plains and great
river-valleys, and by lake-sides, and far away up into hilly and
even mountainous regions,
Behold! an immense population, rooted in the land, rooted in the
clan and the family,
The most productive and stable on the whole Earth. A garden one
might say--a land of rich and recherche crops, of rice and tea and
silk and sugar and cotton and oranges;
Do you see it?--stretching away endlessly over river-lines and
lakes, and the gentle undulations of the low-lands, and up the
escarpments of the higher hills;
The innumerable patchwork of civilization--the poignant verdure of
the young rice; the somber green of orange-groves; the lines of
tea-shrubs, well hoed, and showing the bare earth beneath; the
pollard mulberries; the plots of cotton and maize and wheat and yam
and clover; the little brown and green tiled cottages with
spreading recurbed eaves, the clumps of feathery bamboo, or of
sugar-canes;
The endless silver threads of irrigation canals and ditches,
skirting the hills for scores and hundreds of miles, tier above
tier, and serpentining down to the lower slopes and plains--
The accumulated result, these, of centuries upon centuries of
ingenious industry, and innumerable public and private
benefactions, continued from age to age;
The grand canal of the Delta plain extending, a thronged waterway,
for seven hundred miles, with sails of junks and bankside villages
innumerable;
The chain-pumps, worked by buffaloes or men, for throwing the water
up slopes and hillsides, from tier to tier, from channel to
channel;
The endless rills and cascades flowing down again into pockets and
hollows of verdure, and on fields of steep and plain;
The bits of rock and wildwood left here and there, with the angles
of Buddhist or Jain temples projecting from among the trees;
The azalea and rhododendron bushes, and the wild deer and pheasants
unharmed;
The sounds of music and the gong--the Sin-fa sung at eventide--and
the air of contentment and peace pervading;
A garden you might call the land, for its wealth of crops and
flowers,
A town almost for its population.
A population denser, on a large scale, than anywhere else on
earth--
Five or six acre holdings, elbowing each other, with lesser and
larger, continuously over immense tracts, and running to plentiful
market centers;
A country of few roads, but of innumerable footpaths and waterways.
Here, rooted in the land, and rooted in the family, each family
clinging to its portion of ancestral earth, each offshoot of the
family desiring nothing so much as to secure its own patrimonial
field,
Each member of the family answerable primarily to the family
assembly for his misdeeds or defalcations,
All bound together in the common worship of ancestors, and in
reverence for the past and its sanctioned beliefs and accumulated
prejudices and superstitions;
With many ancient, wise, simple customs and ordinances, coming down
from remote centuries, and the time of Confucius,
This vast population abides--the most stable and the most
productive in the world.
* * * * *
And Government touches it but lightly--can touch it but lightly.
With its few officials (only some twenty-five thousand for the
whole of its four hundred millions), and its scanty taxation (about
one dollar per head), and with the extensive administration of
justice and affairs by the clan and the family--little scope is
left for government.
The great equalized mass population pursues its even and accustomed
way, nor pays attention to edicts and foreign treaties, unless
these commend themselves independently;
Pays readier respect, in such matters, to the edicts and utterances
of its literary men, and the deliberations of the Academy.
* * * * *
And religious theorizing touches it but lightly--can touch it but
lightly.
Established on the bedrock of actual life, and on the living unity
and community of present, past and future generations.
Each man stands bound already, and by the most powerful ties, to
the social body--nor needs the dreams and promises of Heaven to
reassure him.
And all are bound to the Earth.
Rendering back to it as a sacred duty every atom that the Earth
supplies to them (not insensately sending it in sewers to the sea),
By the way of abject commonsense they have sought the gates of
Paradise--and to found on human soil their City Celestial!
The first general knowledge of Confucius came to the Western world in
the latter part of the Sixteenth Century from Jesuit missionaries.
Indeed, it was they who gave him the Latinized name of "Confucius," the
Chinese name being Kung-Fu-tsze.
So impressed were these missionaries by the greatness of Confucius that
they urged upon the Vatican the expediency of placing his name upon the
calendar of Saints. They began by combating his teachings, but this they
soon ceased to do, and the modicum of success which they obtained was
through beginning each Christian service by the hymn which may properly
be called the National Anthem of China. Its opening stanza is as
follows:
Confucius! Confucius!
Great was our Confucius!
Before him there was no Confucius,
Since him there was no other.
Confucius! Confucius!
Great was our Confucius!
The praise given by these early Jesuits to Confucius was at first
regarded at Rome as apology for the meager success of their
ministrations. But later scientific study of Chinese literature
corroborated all that the Jesuit Fathers proclaimed for Confucius, and
he stands today in a class with Socrates and the scant half-dozen whom
we call the saviors of the world.
Yet Confucius claimed no "divine revelation," nor did he seek to found a
religion. He was simply a teacher, and what he taught was the science of
living--living in the present, with the plain and simple men and women
who make up the world, and bettering our condition by bettering theirs.
Of a future life he said he knew nothing, and concerning the
supernatural he was silent, even rebuking his disciples for trying to
pry into the secrets of Heaven. The word "God" he does not use, but his
recognition of a Supreme Intelligence is limited to the use of a word
which can best be translated "Heaven," since it tokens a place more than
it does a person. Constantly he speaks of "doing the will of Heaven."
And then he goes on to say that "Heaven is speaking through you," "Duty
lies in mirroring Heaven in our acts," and many other such New-Thought
aphorisms or epigrams.
That the man was a consummate literary stylist is beyond doubt. He spoke
in parables and maxims, short, brief and musical. He wrote for his ear,
and always his desire, it seems, was to convey the greatest truth in the
fewest words. The Chinese, even the lowly and uneducated, know hundreds
of Confucian epigrams, and still repeat them in their daily conversation
or in writing, just as educated Englishmen use the Bible and Shakespeare
for symbol.
Minister Wu, in a lecture delivered in various American cities, compared
Confucius with Emerson, showing how in many ways these two great
prophets paralleled each other. Emerson, of all Americans, seems the
only man worthy of being so compared.
The writer who lives is the man who supplies the world with portable
wisdom--short, sharp, pithy maxims which it can remember, or, better
still, which it can not forget.
Confucius said, "Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you
one corner, and it is for you to find the other three."
The true artist in words or things is always more or less
impressionistic--he talks in parables, and it is for the hearer to
discover the meaning for himself.
An epigram is truth in a capsule. The disadvantage of the epigram is the
temptation it affords to good people to explain it to the others who are
assumed to be too obtuse to comprehend it alone. And since explanations
seldom explain, the result is a mixture or compound that has to be
spewed utterly or taken on faith. Confucius is simple enough until he is
explained. Then we evolve sects, denominations and men who make it their
profession to render moral calculi opaque. China, being peopled by human
beings, has suffered from this tendency to make truth concrete, just as
all the rest of the world has suffered. Truth is fluid and should be
allowed to flow. Ankylosis of a fact is superstition. Confucius was a
free-trader.
* * * * *
China has always been essentially feudal in her form of government.
China is made up of a large number of States, each presided over by a
prince or governor, and these States are held together by a rather loose
federal government, the Emperor being the supreme ruler. State rights
prevail. State may fight with State, or States may secede--it isn't of
much moment. They are glad enough, after a few years, to get back, like
boys who run away from home, or farmhands who quit work in a tantrum.
The Chinese are very patient--they know that time cures all things, a
truth the West has not yet learned. States that rebel, like individuals
who place themselves beyond the protection of all, assume grave
responsibilities.
The local prince usually realizes the bearing of the Social
Contract--that he holds his office only during good behavior, and that
his welfare and the welfare of his people are one.
Heih, the father of Confucius, was governor of one of these little
States, and had impoverished himself in an effort to help his people.
Heih was a man of seventy, wedded to a girl of seventeen, when their
gifted son was born. When the boy was three years old the father died,
and the lad's care and education depended entirely on the mother. This
mother seems to have been a woman of rare mental and spiritual worth.
She deliberately chose a life of poverty and honest toil for herself
and child, rather than allow herself to be cared for by rich kinsmen.
The boy was brought up in a village, and he was not allowed to think
himself any better than the other village children, save as he proved
himself so. He worked in the garden, tended the cattle and goats, mended
the pathways, brought wood and water, and waited on his elders. Every
evening his mother used to tell him of the feats of strength of his
father, of his heroic qualities in friendship, of deeds of valor, of
fidelity to trusts, of his absolute truthfulness, and his desire for
knowledge in order that he might better serve his people.
The coarse, plain fare, the long walks across the fields, the climbing
of trees, the stooping to pull the weeds in the garden, the daily bath
in the brook, all combined to develop the boy's body to a splendid
degree. He went to bed at sundown, and at the first flush of dawn was up
that he might see the sunrise. There were devotional rites performed by
the mother and son, morning and evening, which consisted in the playing
upon a lute and singing or chanting the beauty and beneficence of
creation.
Confucius, at fifteen, was regarded as a phenomenal musician, and the
neighbors used to gather to hear him perform. At nineteen he was larger,
stronger, comelier, more skilled, than any other youth of his age in all
the country round.
The simple quality of his duties as a prince can be guessed when we are
told that his work as keeper of the herds required him to ride long
distances on horseback to settle difficulties between rival herders. The
range belonged to the State, and the owners of goats, sheep and cattle
were in continual controversies. Montana and Colorado will understand
this matter. Confucius summoned the disputants and talked to them long
about the absurdity of quarreling and the necessity of getting together
in complete understanding. Then it was that he first put forth his
best-known maxim: "You should not do to others that which you would not
have others do to you."
This negative statement of the Golden Rule is found expressed in various
ways in the writings of Confucius. A literal interpretation of the
Chinese language is quite impossible, as the Chinese have single signs
or symbols that express a complete idea. To state the same matter, we
often use a whole page.
Confucius had a single word which expressed the Golden Rule in such a
poetic way that it is almost useless to try to convey it to people of
the West. This word, which has been written into English as "Shu,"
means: My heart responds to yours, or my heart's desire is to meet your
heart's desire, or I wish to do to you even as I would be done by. This
sign, symbol or word Confucius used to carve in the bark of trees by the
roadside. The French were filled with a like impulse when they cut the
words Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, over the entrances to all public
buildings.
Confucius had his symbol of love and friendship painted on a board,
which he stuck into the ground before the tent where he lodged; and
finally it was worked upon a flag by some friends and presented to him,
and became his flag of peace.
His success in keeping down strife among the herders, and making peace
among his people, soon gave him a fame beyond the borders of his own
State. As a judge he had the power to show both parties where they were
wrong, and arranged for them a common meeting-ground.
His qualifications as an arbiter were not, however, limited to his
powers of persuasion--he could shoot an arrow farther and hurl a spear
with more accuracy than any man he ever met. Very naturally there are a
great number of folklore stories concerning his prowess, some of which
make him out a sort of combination Saint George and William Tell, with
the added kingly graces of Alfred the Great. Omitting the incredible, we
are willing to believe that this man had a giant's strength, but was
great enough not to use it like a giant.
We are willing to believe that when attacked by robbers, he engaged them
in conversation and that, seated on the grass, he convinced them they
were in a bad business. Also, he did not later hang them, as did our old
friend Julius Cæsar under like conditions.
When twenty-seven he ceased going abroad to hold court and settle
quarrels, but sending for the disputants, they came, and he gave them a
course of lectures in ethics. In a week, by a daily lesson of an hour's
length, they were usually convinced that to quarrel is very foolish,
since it reduces bodily vigor, scatters the mind, and disturbs the
secretions, so the man is the loser in many ways.
This seems to us like a very queer way to hold court, but Confucius
maintained that men should learn to govern their tempers, do equity, and
thus be able to settle their own disputes, and this without violence.
"To fight decides who is the stronger, the younger and the more skilful
in the use of arms, but it does not decide who is right. That is to be
settled by the Heaven in your own heart."
To let the Heaven into your heart, to cultivate a conscience so
sensitive that it can conceive the rights of the other man, is to know
wisdom.
To decide specific cases for others he thought was to cause them to lose
the power of deciding for themselves. When asked what a just man should
do when he was dealing with one absolutely unjust, he said, "He who
wrongs himself sows in his own heart nettles."
And when some of his disciples, after the Socratic method, asked him how
this helped the injured man, he replied, "To be robbed or wronged is
nothing unless you continue to remember it." When pushed still further,
he said, "A man should fight, only when he does so to protect himself
or his family from bodily harm."
Here a questioner asked, "If we are to protect our persons, must we not
learn to fight?"
And the answer comes, "The just man, he who partakes moderately of all
good things, is the only man to fear in a quarrel, for he is without
fear."
Over and over is the injunction in varying phrase, "Abolish
fear--abolish fear!" When pressed to give in one word the secret of a
happy life, he gives a word which we translate, "Equanimity."
The mother of Confucius died during his early manhood. For her he ever
retained the most devout memories.
Before going on a journey he always visited her grave, and on returning,
before he spoke to any one, he did the same. On each anniversary of her
death he ate no food and was not to be seen by his pupils. This filial
piety, which is sometimes crudely and coarsely called "ancestor
worship," is something which for the Western world is rather difficult
to appreciate. But in it there is a subtle, spiritual significance,
suggesting that it is only through our parents that we are able to
realize consciousness or personal contact with Heaven. These parents
loved us into being, cared for us with infinite patience in infancy,
taught us in youth, watched with high hope our budding manhood; and as
reward and recognition for the service rendered us, the least we can do
is to remember them in all our prayers and devotions. The will of Heaven
used these parents for us, therefore parenthood is divine.
That this ancestor worship is beautiful and beneficial is quite
apparent, and rightly understood no one could think of it as
"heathendom." Confucius used to chant the praises of his mother, who
brought him up in poverty, thus giving a close and intimate knowledge of
a thousand things from which princes, used to ease and luxury, are
barred.
So close was he to nature and the plain people that he ordered that all
skilful charioteers in his employ should belong to the nobility. This
giving a title or degree to men of skill--men who can do things--we
regard as essentially a modern idea.
China, I believe, is the first country in the world to use the threads
of a moth or worm for fabrics. The patience and care and inventive skill
required in first making silk were very great. But it gives us an index
to invention when we hear that Confucius regarded the making of linen,
using the fiber of a plant, as a greater feat than utilizing the strands
made by the silkworm. Confucius had a sort of tender sentiment toward
the moth, similar to the sentiments which our vegetarian friends have
toward killing animals for food. Confucius wore linen in preference to
silk, for sentimental reasons. The silkworm dies at his task of making
himself a cocoon, so to evolve in a winged joy, but falls a victim of
man's cupidity. Likewise, Confucius would not drink milk from a cow
until her calf was weaned, because to do so were taking an unfair
advantage of the maternal instincts of the cow. It will thus be seen
that Confucius had a very fair hold on the modern idea which we call
"Monism," or "The One." He, too, said, "All is one." In his attitude
toward all living things he was ever gentle and considerate.
No other prophet so much resembles Confucius in doctrine as Socrates.
But Confucius does not suffer from the comparison. He had a beauty,
dignity and grace of person which the great Athenian did not possess.
Socrates was more or less of a buffoon, and to many in Athens he was a
huge joke--a town fool. Confucius combined the learning and graces of
Plato with the sturdy, practical commonsense of Socrates. No one ever
affronted or insulted him; many did not understand him, but he met
prince or pauper on terms of equality.
In his travels Confucius used often to meet recluses or monks--men who
had fled the world in order to become saints. For these men Confucius
had more pity than respect. "The world's work is difficult, and to live
in a world of living, striving and dying men and women requires great
courage and great love. Now we can not all run away, and for some to
flee from humanity and to find solace in solitude is only another name
for weakness."
This sounds singularly like our Ralph Waldo who says, "It is easy in the
world to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live
after our own; but the Great Man is he who in the midst of the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
Confucius is the first man in point of time to proclaim the divinity of
service, the brotherhood of man, and the truth that in useful work there
is no high nor low degree. In talking to a group of young men he says:
"When I was keeper of the herds I always saw to it that all of my cattle
were strong, healthy and growing, that there was water in abundance and
plenty of feed. When I had charge of the public granaries I never slept
until I knew that all was secure and cared for against the weather, and
my accounts as true and correct as if I were going on my long journey to
return no more. My advice is to slight nothing, forget nothing, never
leave things to chance, nor say, 'Nobody will know--this is good
enough.'"
In all of his injunctions Confucius never has anything in mind beyond
the present life. Of a future existence he knows nothing, and he seems
to regard it as a waste of energy and a sign of weakness to live in two
worlds at a time. "Heaven provides us means of knowing all about what is
best here, and supplies us in abundance every material thing for present
happiness, and it is our business to realize, to know, to enjoy."
He taught rhetoric, mathematics, economics, the science of government
and natural history. And always and forever running through the fabric
of his teaching was the silken thread of ethics--man's duty to man,
man's duty to Heaven. Music was to him a necessity, since "it brings the
mind in right accord with the will of Heaven." Before he began to speak
he played softly on a stringed instrument which perhaps would compare
best with our guitar, but it was much smaller, and this instrument he
always carried with him, suspended from his shoulder by a silken sash.
Yet with all of his passion for music, he cautioned his disciples
against using it as an end. It was merely valuable as an introduction to
be used in attuning the mind and heart to an understanding of great
truth.
Confucius was seventy-two years old at his death. During his life his
popularity was not great. When he passed away his followers numbered
only about three thousand persons, and his "disciples," or the teachers
who taught his philosophy, were seventy in number.
There is no reason to suppose that Confucius assumed that a vast number
of people would ever ponder his words or regard him as a prophet.
At the time that Confucius lived, also lived Lao-tsze. As a youth
Confucius visited Lao-tsze, who was then an old man. Confucius often
quotes his great contemporary and calls himself a follower of Lao-tsze.
The difference, however, between the men is marked. Lao-tsze's teachings
are full of metaphysics and strange and mystical curiosities, while
Confucius is always simple, lucid and practical.
* * * * *
Confucius has been revered for twenty centuries, revered simply as a
man, not as a god or as a divinely appointed savior. He offered no
reward of heaven, nor did he threaten non-believers with hell. He
claimed no special influence nor relationship to the Unseen. In all his
teachings he was singularly open, frank and free from all mystery or
concealment. In reference to the supernatural he was an agnostic. He
often said, "I do not know." He was always an inquirer, always a
student, always open to conviction. History affords no instance of
another individual who has been so well and so long loved, who still
holds his place, and who, so far as his reasoning went, is unassailed
and unassailable. Even the two other great religions in China that rival
Confucianism--Buddhism and Taoism (the religion of Lao-tsze)--do not
renounce Confucius: they merely seek to amend and augment him.
During his lifetime Confucius made many enemies by his habit of frankly
pointing out the foibles of society and the wrongs visited upon the
people by officials who pretended to serve them. Of hypocrisy,
selfishness, vanity, pretense, he was severe in his denunciation.
Politicians at that time had the very modern habit of securing the
office and then leaving all the details of the work to menials, they
themselves pocketing the perquisites. As Minister of State, Confucius
made himself both feared and detested on account of his habit of
summoning the head of the office before him and questioning him
concerning his duties. In fact, this insistence that those paid by the
State should work for the State caused a combination to be formed
against him, which finally brought about his deposition and exile, two
things which troubled him but little, since one gave him leisure and the
other opportunity for travel.
The personal followers of Confucius did not belong to the best society;
but immediately after his death, many who during his life had scorned
the man made haste to profess his philosophy and decorate their houses
with his maxims. Humanity is about the same, whether white or yellow,
the round world over, and time modifies it but little. It will be
recalled how John P. Altgeld was feared and hated by both press and
pulpit, especially in the State and city he served. But rigor mortis had
scarcely seized upon that slight and tired body before the newspapers
that had disparaged the man worst were vying with one another in glowing
eulogies and warm testimonials to his honesty, sincerity, purity of
motive and deep insight. A personality which can neither be bribed,
bought, coerced, flattered nor cajoled is always regarded by the
many--especially by the party in power--as "dangerous." Vice, masked as
virtue, breathes easier when the honest man is safely under the sod.
The plain and simple style of Confucius' teaching can be gathered by the
following sayings, selected at random from the canonical books of
Confucianism, consisting of the teachings of the great master which were
gathered together and grouped by his disciples and followers after his
death:
The men of old spoke little. It would be well to imitate them, for
those who talk much are sure to say something it would be better to
have left unsaid.
Let a man's labor be proportioned to his needs. For he who works
beyond his strength does but add to his cares and disappointments.
A man should be moderate even in his efforts.
Be not over-anxious to obtain relaxation or repose. For he who is
so, will get neither.
Beware of ever doing that which you are likely, sooner or later, to
repent of having done.
Do not neglect to rectify an evil because it may seem small, for,
though small at first, it may continue to grow until it overwhelms
you.
As riches adorn a house, so does an expanded mind adorn and
tranquillize the body. Hence it is that the superior man will seek
to establish his motives on correct principles.
The cultivator of the soil may have his fill of good things, but
the cultivator of the mind will enjoy a continual feast.
It is because men are prone to be partial toward those they love,
unjust toward those they hate, servile toward those above them,
arrogant to those below them, and either harsh or over-indulgent to
those in poverty and distress, that it is so difficult to find any
one capable of exercising a sound judgment with respect to the
qualities of others.
He who is incapable of regulating his own family can not be capable
of ruling a nation. The superior man will find within the limits of
his own home, a sufficient sphere for the exercise of all those
principles upon which good government depends. How, indeed, can it
be otherwise, when filial piety is that which should regulate the
conduct of a people toward their prince; fraternal affection, that
which should regulate the relations which should exist between
equals, and the conduct of inferiors toward those above them; and
paternal kindness, that which should regulate the bearing of those
in authority toward those over whom they are placed?
Be slow in speech, but prompt in action.
He whose principles are thoroughly established will not be easily
led from the right path.
The cautious are generally to be found on the right side.
By speaking when we ought to keep silence, we waste our words.
If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally and others
sparingly.
There is no use attempting to help those who can not help
themselves.
Make friends with the upright, intelligent and wise; avoid the
licentious, talkative and vain.
Disputation often breeds hatred.
Nourish good principles with the same care that a mother would
bestow on her newborn babe. You may not be able to bring them to
maturity, but you will nevertheless be not far from doing so.
The decrees of Heaven are not immutable, for though a throne may be
gained by virtue, it may be lost by vice.
There are five good principles of action to be adopted: To benefit
others without being lavish; to encourage labor without being
harsh; to add to your resources without being covetous; to be
dignified without being supercilious; and to inspire awe without
being austere. Also, we should not search for love or demand it,
but so live that it will flow to us.
Personal character can only be established on fixed principles, for
if the mind be allowed to be agitated by violent emotions, to be
excited by fear, or unduly moved by the love of pleasure, it will
be impossible for it to be made perfect. A man must reason calmly,
for without reason he would look and not see, listen and not hear.
When a man has been helped around one corner of a square, and can
not manage by himself to get around the other three, he is unworthy
of further assistance.
[Illustration: PYTHAGORAS]
PYTHAGORAS
Consult and deliberate before you act, that thou mayest not commit
foolish actions. For 't is the part of a miserable man to speak and
to act without reflection. But do that which will not afflict thee
afterwards, nor oblige thee to repentance.
--_Pythagoras_
PYTHAGORAS
With no desire to deprive Mr. Bok of his bread, I wish to call attention
to Pythagoras, who lived a little more than five hundred years before
Christ.
Even at that time the world was old. Memphis, which was built four
thousand years ago, had begun to crumble into ruins. Troy was buried
deep in the dust which an American citizen of German birth was to
remove. Nineveh and Babylon were dying the death that success always
brings, and the star of empire was preparing to westward wend its way.
Pythagoras ushered in the Golden Age of Greece. All the great writers
whom he immediately preceded, quote him and refer to him. Some admire
him; others are loftily critical; most of them are a little jealous; and
a few use him as a horrible example, calling him a poseur, a pedant, a
learned sleight-of-hand man, a bag of books.
Trial by newspaper was not invented in the time of Pythagoras; but
personal vilification has been popular since Balaam talked gossip with
his vis-a-vis.
Anaxagoras, who gave up his wealth to the State that he might be free,
and who was the teacher of Pericles, was a pupil of Pythagoras, and used
often to mention him.
In this way Pericles was impressed by the Pythagorean philosophy, and
very often quotes it in his speeches. Socrates gave Pythagoras as an
authority on the simple life, and stated that he was willing to follow
him in anything save his injunction to keep silence. Socrates wanted
silence optional; whereas Pythagoras required each of his pupils to live
for a year without once asking a question or making an explanation. In
aggravated cases he made the limit five years.
In many ways Pythagoras reminds us of our friend Muldoon, both being
beneficent autocrats, and both proving their sincerity by taking their
own medicine. Pythagoras said, "I will never ask another to do what I
have not done, and am not willing to do myself."
To this end he was once challenged by his three hundred pupils to remain
silent for a year. He accepted the defi, not once defending himself from
the criticisms and accusations that were rained upon him, not once
complaining, nor issuing an order. Tradition has it, however, that he
made averages good later on, when the year of expiation was ended.
There are two reasonably complete lives of Pythagoras, one by Diogenes
Laertius, and another by Iamblichus. Personally, I prefer the latter, as
Iamblichus, as might be inferred from his name, makes Pythagoras a
descendant of Æneas, who was a son of Neptune. This is surely better
than the abrupt and somewhat sensational statement to the effect that
his father was Apollo.
* * * * *
The birthplace of Pythagoras was Samos, an isle of Greece. He was born
of wealthy but honest parents, who were much in love with each other--a
requisite, says Pythagoras, for parentage on its highest plane. It is
probable that Pythagoras was absolutely correct in his hypothesis.
That he was a very noble specimen of manhood--physically and
mentally--there is no doubt. He was tall, lithe, dignified, commanding
and silent by nature, realizing fully that a handsome man can never talk
as well as he looks.
He was quite aware of his physical graces, and in following up the facts
of his early life, he makes the statement that his father was a
sea-captain and trader. He then incidentally adds that the best results
are obtained for posterity where a man is absent from his family eleven
months in the year. This is an axiom agreed upon by many modern
philosophers, few of whom, however, live up to their ideals.
Aristophanes, who was on friendly terms with some of the disciples of
Pythagoras, suggested in one of his plays that the Pythagorean domestic
time-limit should be increased at least a month for the good of all
concerned.
Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle make frequent references to Pythagoras. In
order to impress men like these, the man must have taught a very exalted
philosophy. In truth, Pythagoras was a teacher of teachers. And like all
men who make a business of wisdom he sometimes came tardy off, and
indulged in a welter of words that wrecked the original idea--if there
were one.
There are these three: Knowledge, Learning, Wisdom. And the world has
until very recent times assumed that they were practically one and the
same thing.
Knowledge consists of the things we know, not the things we believe or
the things we assume. Knowledge is a personal matter of intuition,
confirmed by experience. Learning consists largely of the things we
memorize and are told by persons or books. Tomlinson of Berkeley Square
was a learned man. When we think of a learned man, we picture him as one
seated in a library surrounded by tomes that top the shelves.
Wisdom is the distilled essence of what we have learned from experience.
It is that which helps us to live, work, love and make life worth living
for all we meet. Men may be very learned, and still be far from wise.
Pythagoras was one of those strange beings who are born with a desire to
know, and who finally comprehending the secret of the Sphinx, that there
is really nothing to say, insist on saying it. That is, vast learning is
augmented by a structure of words, and on this is built a theogony.
Practically he was a priest.
Worked into all priestly philosophies are nuggets of wisdom that shine
like stars in the darkness and lead men on and on.
All great religions have these periods of sanity, otherwise they would
have no followers at all. The followers, understanding little bits of
this and that, hope finally to understand it all. Inwardly the initiates
at the shrine of their own conscience know that they know nothing. When
they teach others they are obliged to pretend that they, themselves,
fully comprehend the import of what they are saying. The novitiate
attributes his lack of perception to his own stupidity, and many great
teachers encourage this view.
"Be patient, and you shall some day know," they say, and smile frigidly.
And when credulity threatens to balk and go no further, magic comes to
the rescue and the domain of Hermann and Kellar is poached upon.
Mystery and miracle were born in Egypt. It was there that a system was
evolved, backed up by the ruler, of religious fraud so colossal that
modern deception looks like the bungling efforts of an amateur. The
government, the army, the taxing power of the State, were sworn to
protect gigantic safes in which was hoarded--nothing. That is to say,
nothing but the pretense upon which cupidity and self-hypnotized
credulity battened and fattened.
All institutions which through mummery, strange acts, dress and ritual,
affect to know and impart the inmost secrets of creation and ultimate
destiny, had their rise in Egypt. In Egypt now are only graves, tombs,
necropolises and silence. The priests there need no soldiery to keep
their secrets safe. Ammon-Ra, who once ruled the universe, being finally
exorcised by Yaveh, is now as dead as the mummies who once were men and
upheld his undisputed sway.
* * * * *
The Egyptians guarded their mysteries with jealous dread.
We know their secret now. It is this--there are no mysteries.
That is the only secret upon which any secret society holds a caveat.
Wisdom can not be corraled with gibberish and fettered in jargon.
Knowledge is one thing--palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of
our callow days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come the
Elks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke,
save that brotherhood and good-fellowship are actually a saving salt
which excuses much that would otherwise be simply silly.
All this mystery and mysticism was once official, and later, on being
discarded by the authorities, was continued by the students as a kind of
prank.
Greek-letter societies are the rudimentary survivals of what was once an
integral part of every college. Making dead languages optional was the
last convulsive kick of the cadaver.
And now a good many colleges are placing the seal of their disapproval
on secret societies among the students; and the day is near when the
secret society will not be tolerated, either directly or indirectly, as
a part of the education of youth. All this because the sophomoric mind
is prone to take its Greek-letter mysteries seriously, and regard the
college curriculum as a joke of the faculty.
If knowledge were to be gained by riding a goat, any petty crossroads,
with its lodge-room over the grocery, would contain a Herbert Spencer;
and the agrarian mossbacks would have wisdom by the scruff and detain
knowledge with a tail-hold.
There can be no secrets in life and morals, because Nature has so
provided that every beautiful thought you know and every precious
sentiment you feel, shall shine out of your face so that all who are
great enough may see, know, understand, appreciate and appropriate. You
can keep things only by giving them away.
When Pythagoras was only four or five years old, his mother taught him
to take his morning bath in the cold stream, and dry his baby skin by
running in the wind. As he ran, she ran with him, and together they sang
a hymn to the rising sun, that for them represented the god Apollo.
This mother taught him to be indifferent to cold, heat, hunger, to exult
in endurance, and to take a joy in the glow of the body.
So the boy grew strong and handsome, and proud; and perhaps it was in
those early years, from the mother herself, that he gathered the idea,
afterward developed, that Apollo had appeared to his mother, and so
great was the beauty of the god that the woman was actually overcome, it
being the first god at which she had ever had a good look.
The ambition of a great mother centers on her son. Pythagoras was filled
with the thought that he was different, peculiar, set apart to teach the
human race.
Having compassed all there was to learn in his native place, and, as he
thought, being ill appreciated, he started for Egypt, the land of
learning. The fallacy that knowledge was a secret to be gained by word
of mouth and to be gotten from books existed then as now. The mother of
Pythagoras wanted her son to comprehend the innermost secrets of the
Egyptian mysteries. He would then know all. To this end she sold her
jewels, in order that her son might have the advantages of an Egyptian
education.
Women were not allowed to know the divine secrets--only just a few
little ones. This woman wanted to know, and she said her son would
learn, and tell her.
The family had become fairly rich by this time, and influential. Letters
were gotten from the great ones of Samos to the Secretary of State in
Egypt. And so Pythagoras, aged twenty, "the youth with the beautiful
hair," went on his journey to Egypt and knocked boldly at the doors of
the temples at Memphis, where knowledge was supposed to be in stock.
Religion then monopolized all schools and continued to do so for quite
some time after Pythagoras was dead.
He was turned away with the explanation that no foreigner could enter
the sacred portals--that the initiates must be those born in the shadows
of the temples and nurtured in the faith from infancy by holy virgins.
Pythagoras still insisted, and it was probably then that he found a
sponsor who made for him the claim that he was a son of Apollo. And the
holy men peeped out of their peep-holes in holy admiration for any one
who could concoct as big a lie as they themselves had ever invented.
The boy surely looked the part. Perhaps, at last, here was one who was
what they pretended to be! Frauds believe in frauds, and rogues are more
easily captured by roguery than are honest men.
His admittance to the university became a matter of international
diplomacy. At last, being too hard-pressed, the wise ones who ran the
mystery monopoly gave in, and Pythagoras was informed that at midnight
of a certain night, he should present himself, naked, at the door of a
certain temple and he would be admitted.
On the stroke of the hour, at the appointed time, Pythagoras, the youth
with the beautiful hair, was there, clothed only in his beautiful hair.
He knocked on the great, bronze doors, but the only answer was a faint,
hollow echo.
Then he got a stone and pounded, but still no answer.
The wind sprang up fresh and cold. The young man was chilled to the
bone, but still he pounded and then called aloud demanding admittance.
His answer now was the growling and barking of dogs, within. Still he
pounded! After an interval a hoarse voice called out through a little
slide, ordering him to be gone or the dogs would be turned loose upon
him.
He demanded admittance.
"Fool, do you not know that the law says these doors shall admit no one
except at sunrise?"
"I only know that I was told to be here at midnight and I would be
admitted."
"All that may be true, but you were not told when you would be
admitted--wait, it is the will of the gods." So Pythagoras waited,
numbed and nearly dead.
The dogs which he had heard had, in some way, gotten out, and came
tearing around the corner of the great stone building. He fought them
with desperate strength. The effort seemed to warm his blood, and
whereas before he was about to retreat to his lodgings he now remained.
The day broke in the east, and gangs of slaves went by to work. They
jeered at him and pelted him with pebbles.
Suddenly across the desert sands he saw the faint pink rim of the rising
sun. On the instant the big bronze doors against which he was leaning
swung suddenly in. He fell with them, and coarse, rough hands seized his
hair and pulled him into the hall.
The doors swung to and closed with a clang. Pythagoras was in dense
darkness, lying on the stone floor.
A voice, seemingly coming from afar, demanded, "Do you still wish to go
on?"
And his answer was, "I desire to go on."
A black-robed figure, wearing a mask, then appeared with a flickering
light, and Pythagoras was led into a stone cell.
His head was shaved, and he was given a coarse robe and then left alone.
Toward the end of the day he was given a piece of black bread and a bowl
of water. This he was told was to fortify him for the ordeal to come.
What that ordeal was we can only guess, save that it consisted partially
in running over hot sands where he sank to his waist. At a point where
he seemed about to perish a voice called loudly, "Do you yet desire to
go on?"
And his answer was, "I desire to go on."
Returning to the inmost temple he was told to enter a certain door and
wait therein. He was then blindfolded and when he opened the door to
enter, he walked off into space and fell into a pool of ice-cold water.
While floundering there the voice again called, "Do you yet desire to go
on?"
And his answer was, "I desire to go on."
At another time he was tied upon the back of a donkey and the donkey was
led along a rocky precipice, where lights danced and flickered a
thousand feet below.
"Do you yet want to go on?" called the voice.
And Pythagoras answered, "I desire to go on."
The priests here pushed the donkey off the precipice, which proved to be
only about two feet high, the gulf below being an illusion arranged with
the aid of lights that shone through apertures in the wall.
These pleasing little diversions Pythagoras afterward introduced into
the college which he founded, so to teach the merry freshmen that
nothing, at the last, was as bad as it seemed, and that most dangers are
simply illusions.
The Egyptians grew to have such regard for Pythagoras that he was given
every opportunity to know the inmost secrets of the mysteries. He said
he encompassed them all, save those alone which were incomprehensible.
This was probably true.
The years spent in Egypt were not wasted--he learned astronomy,
mathematics, and psychology, a thing then not named, but pretty well
understood--the management of men.
It was twenty years before Pythagoras returned to Samos. His mother was
dead, so she passed away in ignorance of the secrets of the gods--which
perhaps was just as well.
Samos now treated Pythagoras with great honor.
Crowds flocked to his lectures, presents were given him, royalty paid
him profound obeisance.
But Samos soon tired of Pythagoras. He was too austere, too severe; and
when he began to rebuke the officials for their sloth and indifference,
he was invited to go elsewhere and teach his science of life. And so he
journeyed into Southern Italy, and at Crotona built his Temple to the
Muses and founded the Pythagorean School. He was the wisest as well as
the most learned man of his time.
* * * * *
Some unkind person has said that Pythagoras was the original charter
member of the Jesuits Society. The maxim that the end justifies the
means was the cornerstone of Egyptian theology. When Pythagoras left
Egypt he took with him this cornerstone as a souvenir. That the priests
could hold their power over the masses only through magic and miracle
was fully believed, and as a good police system the value of organized
religion was highly appreciated. In fact, no ruler could hold his place,
unsupported by the priest. Both were divine propositions. One searches
in vain for simple truth among the sages, solons, philosophers, poets
and prophets that existed down to the time of Socrates. Truth for
truth's sake was absolutely unimagined; freethought was unguessed.
Expediency was always placed before truth.
Truth was furnished with frills--the people otherwise would not be
impressed. Chants, robes, ritual, processions, banging of bells, burning
of incense, strange sounds, sights and smells: these were considered
necessary factors in teaching divine truth.
To worship with a noise seems to us a little like making love with a
brass band.
Pythagoras was a very great man, but for him to eliminate theological
chaff entirely was impossible. So we find that when he was about to
speak, red fire filled the building as soon as he arose. It was all a
little like the alleged plan of the late Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage,
who used to have an Irishman let loose a white pigeon from the
organ-loft at an opportune time.
When Pythagoras burned the red fire, of course the audience thought a
miracle was taking place, unable to understand a simple stage-trick
which all the boys in the gallery who delight in "Faust" now understand.
However, the Pythagorean School had much virtue on its side, and made a
sincere and earnest effort to solve certain problems that yet are vexing
us.
The Temple of the Muses, built by Pythagoras at Crotona, is described by
Iamblichus as a stone structure with walls twenty feet thick, the light
being admitted only from the top. It was evidently constructed after the
Egyptian pattern, and the intent was to teach there the esoteric
doctrine. But Pythagoras improved upon the Egyptian methods and opened
his temple on certain days to all and any who desired to come. Then at
times he gave lectures to women only, and then to men only, and also to
children, thus showing that modern revival methods are not wholly
modern.
These lectures contain the very essence of Pythagorean philosophy, and
include so much practical commonsense that they are still quoted. These
are some of the sayings that impressed Socrates, Pericles, Aristotle and
Pliny. What the Egyptians actually taught we really do not know--it was
too gaseous to last. Only the good endures. Says Pythagoras:
Cut not into the grape. Exaltation coming from wine is not good.
You hope too much in this condition, so are afterwards depressed.
Wise men are neither cast down in defeat nor exalted by success.
Eat moderately, bathe plentifully, exercise much in the open air,
walk far, and climb the hills alone.
Above all things, learn to keep silence--hear all and speak little.
If you are defamed, answer not back. Talk convinces no one. Your
life and character proclaim you more than any argument you can put
forth. Lies return to plague those who repeat them.
The secret of power is to keep an even temper, and remember that no
one thing that can happen is of much moment. The course of justice,
industry, courage, moderation, silence, means that you shall
receive your due of every good thing. The gods may be slow, but
they never forget.
It is not for us to punish men nor avenge ourselves for slights,
wrongs and insults--wait, and you will see that Nemesis unhorses
the man intent on calumny.
A woman's ornaments should be modesty, simplicity, truth,
obedience. If a woman would hold a man captive she can only do it
by obeying him. Violent women are even more displeasing to the gods
than violent men--both are destroying themselves. Strife is always
defeat.
Debauchery, riot, splendor, luxury, are attempts to get a pleasure
out of life that is not our due, and so Nemesis provides her
penalty for the idle and gluttonous.
Fear and honor the gods. They guide our ways and watch over us in
our sleep. After the gods, a man's first thought should be of his
father and mother. Next to these his wife, then his children.
So great was this power of Pythagoras over the people that many of the
women who came, hearing his discourse on the folly of pride and
splendor, threw off their cloaks, and left them with their rings,
anklets and necklaces on the altar.
With these and other offerings Pythagoras built another temple, this
time to Apollo, and the Temple to the Muses was left open all the time
for the people.
His power over the multitude alarmed the magistrates, so they sent for
him to examine him as to his influence and intents. He explained to them
that as the Muses were never at variance among themselves, always living
in subjection to Apollo, so should magistrates agree among themselves
and think only of being loyal to the king. All royal edicts and laws are
reflections of divine law, and therefore must be obeyed without
question. And as the Muses never interrupt the harmony of Heaven, but in
fact add to it, so should men ever keep harmony among themselves.
All officers of the government should consider themselves as runners in
the Olympian games, and never seek to trip, jostle, harass or annoy a
rival, but run the race squarely and fairly, satisfied to be beaten if
the other is the stronger and better man. An unfair victory gains only
the anger of the gods.
All disorders in the State come from ill education of the young.
Children not brought up to be patient, to endure, to work, to be
considerate of their elders and respectful to all, grow diseased minds
that find relief at last in anarchy and rebellion. So to take great care
of children in their infancy, and then leave them at puberty to follow
their own inclinations, is to sow disorder. Children well loved and kept
close to their parents grow up into men and women who are an ornament to
the State and a joy to the gods. Lawless, complaining, restless, idle
children grieve the gods and bring trouble upon their parents and
society.
The magistrates were here so pleased, and satisfied in their own minds
that Pythagoras meant the State no harm, that they issued an order that
all citizens should attend upon his lectures at least once a week, and
take their wives and children with them.
They also offered to pay Pythagoras--that is, put him on the payroll as
a public teacher--but he declined to accept money for his services. In
this, Iamblichus says, he was very wise, since by declining a fixed fee,
ten times as much was laid upon the altar of the Temple of the Muses,
and not knowing to whom to return it, Pythagoras was obliged to keep it
for himself and the poor.
* * * * *
Churchmen of the Middle Ages worked the memory of Pythagoras great
injustice by quoting him literally in order to prove how much they were
beyond him. Symbols and epigrams require a sympathetic hearer, otherwise
they are as naught.
For instance, Pythagoras remarks, "Sit thou not down upon a bushel
measure." What he probably meant was, get busy and fill the measure with
grain rather than use it for a seat.
"Eat not the heart"--do not act so as to harrow the feelings of your
friends, and do not be morbid.
"Never stir the fire with a sword"--do not inflame people who are
wrathful.
"Wear not the image of God upon your jewelry"--do not make religion a
proud or boastful thing.
"Help men to a burden, but never unburden them." This saying was used by
Saint Francis to prove that the pagan philosophers had no tenderness,
and that the humanities came at a later date. We can now easily
understand that to relieve men of responsibilities is no help; rather do
we grow strong by carrying burdens.
"Leave not the mark of the pot upon the ashes"--wipe out the past,
forget it, look to the future.
"Feed no animal that has crooked claws"--do not encourage rogues by
supplying them a living.
"Eat no fish whose fins are black"--have nothing to do with men whose
deeds are dark.
"Always have salt upon your table"--this seems the original of "cum
grano salis" of the Romans.
"Leave the vinegar at a distance"--keep sweet.
"Speak not in the face of the sun"--even Erasmus thought this referred
to magic. To us it is quite reasonable to suppose that it meant, "do not
talk too much in public places."
"Pick not up what falls from the table"--Plutarch calls this
superstition, but we can just as easily suppose it was out of
consideration for cats, dogs or hungry men. The Bible has a command
against gleaning too closely, and leaving nothing for the traveler.
"When making sacrifice, never pare your nails"--that is to say, do one
thing at a time: wind not the clock at an inopportune time.
"Eat not in the chariot"--when you travel, travel.
"Feed not yourself with your left hand"--get your living openly and
avoid all left-handed dealings.
And so there are hundreds of these Pythagorean sayings that have vexed
our classic friends for over two thousand years. All Greek scholars who
really pride themselves on their scholarship have taken a hand at them,
and agitated the ether just as the members of the Kokomo Woman's Club
discuss obscure passages in Bliss Carman or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Learned
people are apt to comprehend anything but the obvious.
* * * * *
The School of Pythagoras grew until it became the chief attraction of
Crotona. The size of the town was doubled through the pilgrims who came
to study music, mathematics, medicine, ethics and the science of
government.
The Pythagorean plan of treating the sick by music was long considered
as mere incantation, but there is a suspicion now that it was actual
science. Once there was a man who rode a hobby all his life; and long
after he was dead, folks discovered it was a real live horse and had
carried the man long miles.
Pythagoras reduced the musical scale to a mathematical science. In
astronomy he anticipated Copernicus, and indeed, it was cited as the
chief offense of Copernicus that he had borrowed from a pagan.
Copernicus, it seems, set the merry churchmen digging into Greek
literature to find out just how bad Pythagoras was. This did the
churchmen good, but did not help the cause of Copernicus.
Pythagoras for a time sought to popularize his work, but he soon found
to his dismay that he was attracting cheap and unworthy people, who came
not so much out of a love of learning as to satisfy a morbid curiosity
and gain a short cut to wisdom. They wanted secrets, and knowing that
Pythagoras had spent twenty years in Egypt, they came to him, hoping to
get them.
Said Pythagoras, "He who digs, always finds." At another time, he put
the same idea reversely, thus, "He who digs not, never finds."
Pythagoras was well past forty when he married a daughter of one of the
chief citizens of Crotona. It seems that, inspired by his wife, who was
first one of his pupils and then a disciple, he conceived a new mode of
life, which he thought would soon overthrow the old manner of living.
Pythagoras himself wrote nothing, but all his pupils kept tablets, and
Athens in the century following Pythagoras was full of these Pythagorean
notebooks, and these supply us the scattered data from which his life
was written.
Pythagoras, like so many other great men, had his dream of Utopia: it
was a college or, literally, "a collection of people," where all were on
an equality. Everybody worked, everybody studied, everybody helped
everybody, and all refrained from disturbing or distressing any one. It
was the Oneida Community taken over by Brook Farm and fused into a
religious and scientific New Harmony by the Shakers.
One smiles to see the minute rules that were made for the guidance of
the members. They look like a transcript from a sermon by John Alexander
Dowie, revised by the shade of Robert Owen.
This Pythagorean Community was organized out of a necessity in order to
escape the blow-ins who sailed across from Greece intent on some new
thing, but principally to get knowledge and a living without work.
And so Pythagoras and his wife formed a close corporation. For each
member there was an initiation, strict and severe, the intent of which
was absolutely to bar the transient triflers. Each member was to turn
over to the Common Treasury all the money and goods he had of every kind
and quality. They started naked, just as did Pythagoras when he stood at
the door of the temple in Egypt.
Simplicity, truth, honesty and mutual service were to govern. It was an
outcrop of the monastic impulse, save that women were admitted, also.
Unlike the Egyptians, Pythagoras believed now in the equality of the
sexes, and his wife daily led the women's chorus, and she also gave
lectures. The children were especially cared for by women set apart as
nurses and teachers. By rearing perfect children, it was hoped and
expected to produce in turn a perfect race.
The whole idea was a phase of totemism and tabu.
That it flourished for about thirty years is very certain. Two sons and
a daughter of Pythagoras grew to maturity in the college, and this
daughter was tried by the Order on the criminal charge of selling the
secret doctrines of her father to outsiders.
One of the sons it seems made trouble, also, in an attempt to usurp his
father's place and take charge of affairs, as "next friend." One
generation is about the limit of a Utopian Community. When those who
have organized the community weaken and one by one pass away, and the
young assume authority, the old ideas of austerity are forgotten and
dissipation and disintegration enter. So do we move in circles.
The final blow to the Pythagorean College came through jealousy and
misunderstanding of the citizens outside. It was the old question of
Town versus Gown. The Pythagoreans numbered nearly three hundred people.
They held themselves aloof, and no doubt had an exasperating pride. No
strangers were ever allowed inside the walls--they were a law unto
themselves.
Internal strife and tales told by dissenters excited the curiosity, and
then the prejudice, of the townspeople.
Then the report got abroad that the Pythagoreans were collecting arms
and were about to overthrow the local government and enslave the
officials.
On a certain night, led by a band of drunken soldiers, a mob made an
assault upon the college. The buildings were fired, and the members were
either destroyed in the flames or killed as they rushed forth to escape.
Tradition has it that Pythagoras was later seen by a shepherd on the
mountains, but the probabilities are that he perished with his people.
But you can not dispose of a great man by killing him. Here we are
reading, writing and talking yet of Pythagoras.
[Illustration: PLATO]
PLATO
How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the
question, "How does love suit with age, Sophocles--are you still
the man you were?"
"Peace," he replied; "most gladly have I escaped that, and I feel
as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master."
That saying of his has often come into my mind since, and seems to
me still as good as at the time when I heard him. For certainly old
age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax
their hold, then, as Sophocles says, you have escaped from the
control not of one master only, but of many. And of these regrets,
as well as of the complaint about relations, Socrates, the cause is
to be sought, not in men's ages, but in their characters and
tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel
the pressure of age, but he who is of an opposite disposition will
find youth and age equally a burden.
--_The Republic_
PLATO
A thinking man is one of the most recent productions evolved from
Nature's laboratory. The first man of brains to express himself about
the world in an honest, simple and natural way, just as if nothing had
been said about it before, was Socrates.
Twenty-four centuries have passed since Socrates was put to death on the
charge of speaking disrespectfully of the gods and polluting the minds
of the youths of Athens. During ten of these centuries that have passed
since then, the race lost the capacity to think, through the successful
combination of the priest and the soldier. These men blocked human
evolution. The penalty for making slaves is that you become one.
To suppress humanity is to suppress yourself.
The race is one. So the priests and the soldiers who in the Third
Century had a modicum of worth themselves, sank and were submerged in
the general slough of superstition and ignorance. It was a panic that
continued for a thousand years, all through the endeavor of faulty men
to make people good by force. At all times, up to within our own decade,
frank expression on religious, economic and social topics has been
fraught with great peril. Even yet any man who hopes for popularity as
a writer, orator, merchant or politician, would do well to conceal
studiously his inmost beliefs. On such simple themes as the taxation of
real estate, regardless of the business of the owner, and a payment
of a like wage for a like service without consideration of sex, the
statesman who has the temerity to speak out will be quickly relegated
to private life. Successful merchants depending on a local constituency
find it expedient to cater to popular superstitions by heading
subscription-lists for the support of things in which they do not
believe. No avowed independent thinker would be tolerated as chief ruler
of any of the so-called civilized countries.
The fact, however, that the penalty for frank expression is limited now
to social and commercial ostracism is very hopeful--a few years ago it
meant the scaffold.
We have been heirs to a leaden legacy of fear that has well-nigh
banished joy and made of life a long nightmare.
In very truth, the race has been insane.
Hallucinations, fallacies, fears, have gnawed at our hearts, and men
have fought men with deadly frenzy. The people who interfered, trying to
save us, we have killed. Truly did we say, "There is no health in us,"
which repetition did not tend to mend the malady.
We are now getting convalescent. We are hobbling out into the sunshine
on crutches. We have discharged most of our old advisers, heaved the
dulling and deadly bottles out of the windows, and are intent on
studying and understanding our own case. Our motto is twenty-four
centuries old--it is simply this: KNOW THYSELF.
* * * * *
Socrates was a street preacher, with a beautiful indifference as to
whether people liked him or not. To most Athenians he was the town fool.
Athens was a little city (only about one hundred fifty thousand), and
everybody knew Socrates. The popular plays caricatured him; the topical
songs misquoted him; the funny artists on the street-corners who modeled
things in clay, while you waited, made figures of him.
Everybody knew Socrates--I guess so!
Plato, the handsome youth of nineteen, wearing a purple robe, which
marked him as one of the nobility, paused to listen to this uncouth man
who gave everything and wanted nothing.
Ye gods! But it is no wonder they caricatured him--he was a temptation
too great to resist.
Plato smiled--he never laughed, being too well-bred for that. Then he
sighed, and moved a little nearer in.
"Individuals are nothing. The State is all. To offend the State is to
die. The State is an organization and we are members of it. The State is
only as rich as its poorest citizen. We are all given a little sample of
divinity to study, model and marvel at. To understand the State you must
KNOW THYSELF."
Plato lingered until the little crowd had dispersed, and when the old
man with the goggle-eyes and full-moon face went shuffling slowly down
the street, he approached and asked him a question.
This man Socrates was no fool--the populace was wrong--he was a man so
natural and free from cant that he appeared to the triflers and
pretenders like a pretender, and they asked, "Is he sincere?"
What Plato was by birth, breeding and inheritance, Socrates was by
nature--a noble man.
Up to this time the ambition of Plato had been for place and power--to
make the right impression on the people in order to gain political
preferment. He had been educated in the school of the Sophists, and his
principal studies were poetry, rhetoric and deportment.
And now straightway he destroyed the manuscript of his poems, for in
their writing he had suddenly discovered that he had not written what he
inwardly believed was true, but simply that which he thought was proper
and nice to say. In other words, his literature had been a form of
pretense.
Daily thereafter, where went Socrates there went Plato. Side by side
they sat on the curb--Socrates talking, questioning the bystanders,
accosting the passers-by; Plato talking little, but listening much.
Socrates was short, stout and miles around. Plato was tall, athletic and
broad-shouldered. In fact, the word, "plato," or "platon," means broad,
and it was given him as a nickname by his comrades. His correct name was
Aristocles, but "Plato" suited him better, since it symbols that he was
not only broad of shoulder, but likewise in mind. He was not only noble
by birth, but noble in appearance.
Emerson calls him the universal man. He absorbed all the science, all
the art, all the philosophy of his day. He was handsome, kindly,
graceful, gracious, generous, and lived and died a bachelor. He never
collided with either poverty or matrimony.
* * * * *
Plato was twenty-eight years old when Socrates died. For eight years
they had been together daily. After the death of Socrates, Plato lived
for forty-six years, just to keep alive the name and fame of the great
philosopher.
Socrates comes to us through Plato. Various other contemporaries mention
Socrates and quote him, some to his disadvantage, but it was left for
Plato to give us the heart of his philosophy, and limn his character for
all time in unforgetable outline.
Plato is called the "Pride of Greece." His contribution to the wealth of
the world consists in the fact that he taught the joys of the
intellect--the supreme satisfaction that comes through thinking. This is
the pure Platonic philosophy: to find our gratifications in exalted
thought and not in bodily indulgence. Plato's theory that five years
should be given in early manhood to abstract thought, abstaining from
all practical affairs, so as to acquire a love for learning, has been
grafted upon a theological stalk and comes down to our present time. It
has, however, now been discarded by the world's best thinkers as a
fallacy. The unit of man's life is the day, not the month or year, much
less a period of five years. Each day we must exercise the mind, just as
each day we must exercise the body. We can not store up health and draw
upon it at will over long-deferred periods. The account must be kept
active. To keep physical energy we must expend physical energy every
day. The opinion of Herbert Spencer that thought is a physical
function--a vibration set up in a certain area of brain-cells--is an
idea never preached by Plato. The brain, being an organ, must be used,
not merely in one part for five years to the exclusion of all other
parts, but all parts should be used daily. To this end the practical
things of life should daily engage our attention, no less than the
contemplation of beauty as manifest in music, poetry, art or dialectics.
The thought that every day we should look upon a beautiful picture, read
a beautiful poem, or listen for a little while to beautiful music, is
highly scientific, for this contemplation and appreciation of harmony is
a physical exercise as well as a spiritual one, and through it we grow,
develop, evolve.
That we could not devote five years of our time to purely esthetic
exercises, to the exclusion of practical things, without very great
risk, is now well known. And when I refer to practical affairs, I mean
the effort which Nature demands we should put forth to get a living.
Every man should live like a poor man, regardless of the fact that he
may have money. Nature knows nothing of bank-balances. In order to have
an appetite for dinner, you must first earn your dinner. If you would
sleep at night, you must first pay for sweet sleep by physical labor.
* * * * *
Plato was born on the Island of Ægina, where his father owned an estate.
His mother was a direct descendant of Solon, and his father, not to be
outdone, traced to Codrus.
The father of Socrates was a stonecutter and his mother a midwife, so
very naturally the son had a beautiful contempt for pedigree. Socrates
once said to Plato, "Anybody can trace to Codrus--by paying enough to
the man who makes the family-tree." This seems to show that genealogy
was a matter of business then as now, and that nothing is new under the
sun. Yet with all his contempt for heredity, we find Socrates often
expressing pride in the fact that he was a "native son," whereas Plato,
Aspasia, the mother of Themistocles, and various other fairly good
people, were Athenian importations.
Socrates belonged to the leisure class and had plenty of time for
extended conversazione, so just how much seriousness we should mix in
his dialogues is still a problem. Each palate has to season to suit.
Also, we can never know how much is Socrates and how much essence of
Plato. Socrates wrote nothing, and Plato ascribes all of his wisdom to
his master. Whether this was simple prudence or magnanimity is still a
question.
The death of Socrates must have been a severe blow to Plato. He at once
left Athens. It was his first intention never to return. He traveled
through the cities of Greece, Southern Italy and down to Egypt, and
everywhere was treated with royal courtesies.
After many solicitations from Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, he went to
visit that worthy, who had a case of philosophic and literary scabies.
Dionysius prided himself on being a Beneficent Autocrat, with a literary
and artistic attachment. He ruled his people, educated them, cared for
them, disciplined them.
Some people call this slavery; others term it applied socialism.
Dionysius wanted Syracuse to be the philosophic center of the world, and
to this end Plato was importuned to make Syracuse his home and dispense
his specialty--truth.
This he consented to do.
It was all very much like the arrangement between Mæcenas and Horace, or
Voltaire and Frederick the Great. The patron is a man who patronizes--he
wants something, and the particular thing that Dionysius wanted was to
have Plato hold a colored light upon the performances of His Altruistic,
Beneficent, Royal Jackanapes. But Plato was a simple, honest and direct
man: he had caught the habit from Socrates.
Charles Ferguson says that the simple life does not consist in living in
the woods and wearing overalls and sandals, but in getting the cant out
of one's cosmos and eliminating the hypocrisy from one's soul.
Plato lived the simple life. When he spoke he stated what he thought. He
discussed exploitation, war, taxation, and the Divine Right of Kings.
Kings are very unfortunate--they are shut off and shielded from truth
on every side. They get their facts at second hand and are lied to all
day long. Consequently they become in time incapable of digesting truth.
A court, being an artificial fabric, requires constant bracing. Next to
capital, nothing is so timid as a king. Heine says that kings have to
draw their nightcaps on over their crowns when they go to bed, in order
to keep them from being stolen, and that they are subject to insomnia.
Walt Whitman, with nothing to lose--not even a reputation or a hat--was
much more kingly walking bareheaded past the White House than Nicholas
of Russia or Alfonso of Spain can ever possibly be.
Dionysius thought that he wanted a philosophic court, but all he wanted
was to make folks think he had a philosophic court. Plato supplied him
the genuine article, and very naturally Plato was soon invited to
vacate.
After he had gone, Dionysius, fearful that Plato would give him a bad
reputation in Athens--somewhat after the manner and habit of the
"escaped nun"--sent a fast-rowing galley after him. Plato was arrested
and sold into slavery on his own isle of Ægina.
This all sounds very tragic, but the real fact is it was a sort of
comedy of errors--as a king's doings are when viewed from a safe and
convenient distance. De Wolf Hopper's kings are the real thing.
Dionysius claimed that Plato owed him money, and so he got out a
body-attachment, and sold the philosopher to the highest bidder.
This was a perfectly legal proceeding, being simply peonage, a thing
which exists in some parts of the United States today. I state the fact
without prejudice, merely to show how hard custom dies.
Plato was too big a man conveniently either to secrete or kill. Certain
people in Athens plagiarized Doctor Johnson who, on hearing that
Goldsmith had debts of several thousand pounds, in admiration exclaimed,
"Was ever poet so trusted before!" Other good friends ascertained the
amount of the claim and paid it, just as Colonel H. H. Rogers graciously
cleared up the liabilities of Mark Twain, after the author of
"Huckleberry Finn" had landed his business craft on a sandbar.
And so Plato went free, arriving back in Athens, aged forty, a wiser and
a better man than when he left.
* * * * *
Nothing absolves a reputation like silence and absence, or what the
village editors call "the grim reaper." To live is always more or less
of an offense, especially if you have thoughts and express them. Athens
exists, in degree, because she killed Socrates, just as Jerusalem is
unforgetable for a similar reason. The South did not realize that
Lincoln was her best friend until the assassin's bullet had found his
brain. Many good men in Chicago did not cease to revile their chiefest
citizen, until the ears of Altgeld were stopped and his hands stiffened
by death. The lips of the dead are eloquent.
Plato's ten years of absence had given him prestige. He was honored
because he had been the near and dear friend of Socrates, a great and
good man who was killed through mistake.
Most murders and killings of men, judicial and otherwise, are matters of
misunderstandings.
Plato had been driven out of Syracuse for the very reasons that Socrates
had been killed at Athens. And now behold, when Dionysius saw how Athens
was honoring Plato, he discovered that it was all a mistake of his
bookkeeper, so he wrote to Plato to come back and all would be
forgiven.
* * * * *
Those who set out to live the Ideal Life have a hard trail to travel.
The road to Jericho is a rocky one--especially if we are a little in
doubt as to whether it really is the road to Jericho or not. Perhaps if
we ever find the man who lives the Ideal Life he will be quite unaware
of it, so occupied will he be in his work--so forgetful of self.
Time had taught Plato diplomacy. He now saw that to teach people who did
not want to be taught was an error in judgment for which one might
forfeit his head.
Socrates was the first Democrat: he stood for the demos--the people.
Plato would have done the same, but he saw that the business was extra
hazardous, to use the phrase of our insurance friends. He who works for
the people will be destroyed by the people. Hemlock is such a rare and
precious commodity that few can afford it; the cross is a privilege so
costly that few care to pay the price.
The genius is a man who first states truths; and all truths are
unpleasant on their first presentation. That which is uncommon is
offensive. "Who ever heard anything like that before?" ask the literary
and philosophic hill tribes in fierce indignation. Says James Russell
Lowell, "I blab unpleasant truths, you see, that none may need to state
them after me."
Plato was a teacher by nature: this was his business, his pastime, and
the only thing in life that gave him joy. But he dropped back to the
good old ways of making truth esoteric as did the priests of Egypt,
instead of exoteric as did Socrates. He founded his college in the grove
of his old friend Academus, a mile out of Athens on the road to Eleusis.
In honor of Academus the school was called "The Academy." It was
secluded, safe, beautiful for situation. In time Plato bought a tract of
land adjoining that of Academus, and this was set apart as the permanent
school. All the teaching was done out of doors, master and pupils seated
on the marble benches, by the fountain-side, or strolling through the
grounds, rich with shrubs and flowers and enlivened by the song of
birds. The climate of Athens was about like that of Southern California,
where the sun shines three hundred days in the year.
Plato emphasized the value of the spoken word over the written, a thing
he could well afford to do, since he was a remarkably good writer. This
for the same reason that the only man who can afford to go ragged is the
man with a goodly bank-balance. The shibboleth of the modern schools of
oratory is, "We grow through expression." And Plato was the man who
first said it. Plato's teaching was all in the form of the "quiz,"
because he believed that truth was not a thing to be acquired from
another--it is self-discovery.
Indeed, we can imagine it was very delightful--this walking, strolling,
lying on the grass, or seated in semicircles, indulging in endless talk,
easy banter, with now and then a formal essay read to start the
vibrations.
Here it was that Aristotle came from his wild home in the mountains of
Macedonia, to remain for twenty years and to evolve into a rival of the
master.
We can well imagine how Aristotle, the mountain-climber and horseman, at
times grew heartily tired of the faultily faultless garden with its high
wall and graveled walks and delicate shrubbery, and shouted aloud in
protest, "The whole world of mountain, valley and plain should be our
Academy, not this pent-up Utica that contracts our powers."
Then followed an argument as to the relative value of talking about
things or doing them, or Poetry versus Science.
Poetry, philosophy and religion are very old themes, and they were old
even in Plato's day; but natural science came in with Aristotle. And
science is only the classification of the common knowledge of the common
people. It was Aristotle who named things, not Adam. He contended that
the classification and naming of plants, rocks and animals was quite as
important as to classify ideas about human happiness and make guesses at
the state of the soul after death.
Of course he got himself beautifully misunderstood, because he was
advocating something which had never been advocated before. In this lay
his virtue, that he outran human sympathy, even the sympathy of the
great Plato.
Yet for a while the unfolding genius of this young barbarian was a
great joy to Plato, as the earnest, eager intellect of an ambitious
pupil always is to his teacher. Plato was great in speculation;
Aristotle was great in observation. Well has it been said that it was
Aristotle who discovered the world. And Aristotle in his old age said,
"My attempts to classify the objects of Nature all came through Plato's
teaching me first how to classify ideas." And forty years before this
Plato had said, "It was Socrates who taught me this game of the
correlation and classification of thoughts."
* * * * *
The writings of Plato consist of thirty-five dialogues, and one essay
which is not cast in the dramatic form--"The Apology." These dialogues
vary in length from twenty pages, of, say, four hundred words each, to
three hundred pages. In addition to these books are many quotations from
Plato and references to him by contemporary writers. Plato's work is as
impersonal as that of Shakespeare. All human ideas, shades of belief,
emotions and desires pass through the colander of his mind. He allows
everybody to have his say.
What Plato himself thought can only be inferred, and this each reader
does for himself. We construct our man Plato in our own image. A
critic's highest conception of Plato's philosophy is the highest
conception of the critic's own. We, however, are reasonably safe in
assuming that Plato's own ideas were put into the mouth of Socrates, for
the one intent of Plato's life was to redeem Socrates from the charges
that had been made against him. The characters Shakespeare loved are the
ones that represent the master, not the hated and handmade rogues.
Plato's position in life was that of a spectator rather than that of an
actor. He stood and saw the procession pass by, and as it passed,
commented on it. He charged his pupils no tuition and accepted no fees,
claiming that to sell one's influence or ideas was immoral.
It will be remembered that Byron held a similar position at the
beginning of his literary career, and declared i' faith, he "would not
prostitute his genius for hire." He gave his poems to the world. Later,
when his income was pinched, he began to make bargains with Barabbas and
became an artist in per centum, collecting close, refusing to rhyme
without collateral.
Byron's humanity is not seriously disputed. Plato also was human. He had
a fixed income and so knew the worthlessness of riches. He issued no
tariff, but the goodly honorarium left mysteriously on a marble bench by
a rich pupil he accepted, and for it gave thanks to the gods. He said
many great things, but he never said this: "I would have every man poor
that he might know the value of money."
"The Republic" is the best known and best read of any of Plato's
dialogues. It outlines an ideal form of government where everybody would
be healthy, happy and prosperous. It has served as inspiration to Sir
Thomas More, Erasmus, Jean Jacques Rousseau, William Morris, Edward
Bellamy, Brigham Young, John Humphrey Noyes and Eugene Debs. The
sub-division of labor, by setting apart certain persons to do certain
things--for instance, to care for the children--has made its appeal to
Upton Sinclair, who jumped from his Utopian woodshed into a rubber-plant
and bounced off into oblivion.
Plato's plan was intended to relieve marriage from the danger of
becoming a form of slavery. The rulers, teachers and artists especially
were to be free, and the State was to assume all responsibilities. The
reason is plain: he wanted them to reproduce themselves. But whether
genius is an acquirement or a natural endowment he touches on but
lightly. Also, he seemingly did not realize "that no hovel is safe from
it."
If all marriage-laws were done away with, Plato thought that the men and
women who were mated would still be true to each other, and that the
less the police interfered in love-relations, the better.
In one respect at least, Plato was certainly right: he advocated the
equality of the sexes, and declared that no woman should be owned by a
man nor forced into a mode of life, either by economic exigency or
marriage, that was repulsive to her. Also, that her right to bear
children or not should be strictly her own affair, and to dictate to a
mother as to who should father her children tended to the production of
a slavish race.
The eugenics of "The Republic" were tried for thirty years by the Oneida
Community with really good results, but one generation of communal
marriages was proved to be the limit, a thing Plato now knows from his
heights in Elysium, but which he in his bachelor dreams on earth did not
realize.
In his division of labor each was to do the thing he was best fitted to
do, and which he liked to do. It was assumed that each person had a
gift, and that to use this gift all that was necessary was to give him
an opportunity. That very modern cry of "equality of opportunity" harks
back to Plato.
The monastic impulse was a very old thing, even in the time of Plato.
The monastic impulse is simply cutting for sanctuary when the pressure
of society gets intense--a getting rid of the world by running away from
it. This usually occurs when the novitiate has exhausted his capacity
for sin, and so tries saintship in the hope of getting a new thrill.
Plato had been much impressed by the experiments of Pythagoras, who had
actually done the thing of which Plato only talked. Plato now picked the
weak points in the Pythagorean philosophy and sought, in imagination, to
construct a fabric that would stand the test of time.
However, all Utopias, like all monasteries and penitentiaries, are made
up of picked people. The Oneida Community was not composed of average
individuals, but of people who were selected with great care, and only
admitted after severe tests. And great as was Plato, he could not
outline an ideal plan of life except for an ideal people.
To remain in the world of work and share the burdens of all--to ask for
nothing which other people can not have on like terms--not to consider
yourself peculiar, unique and therefore immune and exempt--is now the
ideal of the best minds. We have small faith in monasticism or
monotheism, but we do have great faith in monism. We believe in the
Solidarity of the Race. We must all progress together. Whether
Pythagoras, John Humphrey Noyes and Brigham Young were ahead of the
world or behind it is really not to the point--the many would not
tolerate them. So their idealism was diluted with danger until it became
as somber, sober and slaty-gray as the average existence, and fades as
well as shrinks in the wash.
A private good is no more possible for a community than it is for an
individual. We help ourselves only as we advance the race--we are happy
only as we minister to the whole. The race is one, and this is monism.
And here Socrates and Plato seemingly separate, for Socrates in his life
wanted nothing, not even joy, and Plato's desire was for peace and
happiness. Yet the ideal of justice in Plato's philosophy is very
exalted.
No writer in that flowering time of beauty and reason which we call "The
Age of Pericles" exerted so profound an influence as Plato. All the
philosophers that follow him were largely inspired by him. Those who
berated him most were, very naturally, the ones he had most benefited.
Teach a boy to write, and the probabilities are that his first essay,
when he has cut loose from his teacher's apron-strings and starts a
brownie bibliomag, will be in denunciation of the man who taught him to
push the pen and wield the Faber.
Xenophon was more indebted, intellectually, to Plato than to any other
living man, yet he speaks scathingly of his master. Plutarch, Cicero,
Iamblichus, Pliny, Horace and all the other Roman writers read Plato
religiously. The Christian Fathers kept his work alive, and passed it on
to Dante, Petrarch and the early writers of the Renaissance, so all of
their thought is well flavored with essence of Plato. Well does Addison
put into the mouth of Cato those well-known words:
It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'T is the divinity that stirs within us;
'T is heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
All of that English group of writers in Addison's day knew their Plato,
exactly as did Cato and the other great Romans of near two thousand
years before. From Plato you can prove that there is a life after this
for each individual soul, as Francis of Assisi proved, or you can take
your Plato, as did Hume, and show that man lives only in his influence,
his individual life returning to the mass and becoming a part of all the
great pulsing existence that ebbs and flows through plant and tree and
flower and flying bird. And today we turn to Plato and find the
corroboration of our thought that to live now and here, up to our
highest and best, is the acme of wisdom. We prepare to live by living.
If there is another world we better be getting ready for it. If heaven
is an Ideal Republic it is founded on unselfishness, truth, reciprocity,
equanimity and co-operation, and only those will be at home there who
have practised these virtues here. Man was made for mutual service. This
way lies Elysium.
Plato was a teacher of teachers, and like every other great teacher who
has ever lived, his soul goes marching on, for to teach is to influence,
and influence never dies. Hail, Plato!
[Illustration: KING ALFRED]
KING ALFRED
A saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a
warrior who fought only in defense of his country, a conqueror
whose laurels were never stained with cruelty, a prince never cast
down by adversity, nor lifted up to insolence in the hour of
triumph--there is no other name in English history to compare with
his.
--_Freeman_
KING ALFRED
Julius Cæsar, the greatest man of initiative the world has ever seen,
had a nephew known as Cæsar Augustus.
The grandeur that was Rome occurred in the reign of Augustus. It was
Augustus who said, "I found your city mud and I left it marble!" The
impetus given to the times by Julius Cæsar was conserved by Augustus. He
continued the work his uncle had planned, but before he had completed
it, he grew very weary, and the weariness he expressed was also the old
age of the nation. There was lime in the bones of the boss.
When Cæsar Augustus said, "Rome is great enough--here we rest," he
merely meant that he had reached his limit, and had had enough of
road-building. At the boundaries of the Empire and the end of each Roman
road he set up a statue of the god Terminus. This god gave his blessing
to those going beyond, and a welcome to those returning, just as the
Stars and Stripes welcome the traveler coming to America from across the
sea. This god Terminus also supplied the world, especially the railroad
world, a word.
Julius Cæsar reached his terminus and died, aged fifty-six, from
compulsory vaccination. Augustus, aged seventy-seven, died peacefully
in bed.
The reign of Augustus marks the crest of the power of Rome, and a crest
is a place where no man nor nation stays--when you reach it, you go over
and down on the other side.
When Augustus set up his Termini, announcing to all mankind that this
was the limit, the enemies of Rome took courage and became active. The
Goths and Vandals, hanging on the skirts of Rome, had learned many
things, and one of the things was that, for getting rich quick, conquest
is better than production. The barbarians, some of whom evidently had a
sense of humor, had a way of picking up the Termini and carrying them
inward, and finally they smashed them entirely, somewhat as country
boys, out hunting, shoot railroad-signs full of holes.
* * * * *
In the Middle Ages the soldier was supreme, and in the name of
protecting the people he robbed the people, a tradition much respected,
but not in the breach.
To escape the scourge of war, certain families and tribes moved
northward. It was fight and turmoil in Southern Europe that settled
Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and produced the Norsemen. And in making for
themselves a home in the wilderness, battling with the climate and
unkind conditions, there was evolved a very strong and sturdy type of
man.
On the north shore of the Baltic dwelt the Norsemen. Along the southern
shore were scattered several small tribes or families who were not
strong enough in numbers to fight the Goths, and so sought peace with
them, and were taxed--or pillaged--often to the point of starvation.
They were so poor and insignificant that the Romans really never heard
of them, and they never heard of the Romans, save in myth and legend.
They lived in caves and rude stone huts. They fished, hunted, raised
goats and farmed, and finally, about the year Three Hundred, they
secured horses, which they bought from the Goths, who stole them from
the Romans.
Their Government was the Folkmoot, the germ of the New England Town
Meeting. All the laws were passed by all the people, and in the making
of these laws, the women had an equal voice with the men.
When important steps were to be taken where the interests of the whole
tribe were at stake, great deference was paid to the opinions of the
mothers. For the mother spoke not only for herself, but for her
children. The mother was the home-maker. The word "wife" means weaver;
and this deference to the one member of the family who invented,
created, preparing both the food and the clothing, is a marked Teutonic
instinct. Its survival is seen yet in the sturdy German of the middle
class, who takes his wife and children with him when he goes to the
concert or to the beer-garden. So has he always taken his family with
him on his migrations; whereas the Greeks and the Romans left their
women behind.
South America was colonized by Spanish men. And the Indians and the
Negroes absorbed the haughty grandee, yet preserved the faults and
failings of both.
The German who moves to America comes to stay--his family is a part of
himself. The Italian comes alone, and his intent is to make what he can
and return. This is a modified form of conquest.
The Romans who came to Brittany in Cæsar's time were men. Those who
remained "took to themselves wives among the daughters of Philistia," as
strong men ever are wont to do when they seek to govern savage tribes.
And note this--instead of raising the savages or barbarians to their
level, they sink to theirs. The child takes the status of the mother.
The white man who marries an Indian woman becomes an Indian and their
children are Indians. With the Negro race the same law holds.
The Teutonic races have conquered the world because they took their
women with them on their migrations, mental and physical. And the moral
seems to be this, that the men who progress financially, morally and
spiritually are those who do not leave their women-folk behind.
* * * * *
When we think of the English, we usually have in mind the British Isles.
But the original England was situated along the southern shore of the
Baltic Sea. This was the true Eng-Land, the land of the Engles or
Angles. To one side lay Jute-Land, the home of the Jutes. On the other
was Saxony, where dwelt the Saxons.
Jute-Land still lives in Jutland; the land of the Saxons is yet so
indicated on the map; but Eng-Land was transported bodily a thousand
miles, and her original territory became an abandoned farm where
barbarians battled.
And now behold how England has diffused herself all over the world, with
the British Isles as a base of supplies, or a radiating center. Behind
this twenty miles of water that separates Calais and Dover she found
safety and security, and there her brain and brawn evolved and expanded.
So there are now Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Africans, Anglo-Indians,
Anglo-Australians, and Anglo-New-Zealanders. As the native Indians of
America and the Maoris of New Zealand have given way before the onward
push and persistence of the English, so likewise did the ancient Britons
give way and were absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons; and then the Saxons,
being a little too fine for the stern competitor, allowed the Engles to
take charge. And as Dutch, Germans, Slavs and Swedes are transformed
with the second generation into English-Americans when they come to
America, so did the people from Eng-Land fuse Saxons, Norsemen, Jutes,
Celts and Britons into one people and fix upon them the indelible stamp
of Eng-Land.
Yet it is obvious that the characters of the people of England have been
strengthened, modified and refined by contact with the various races she
has met, mixed with and absorbed. To influence others is to grow. Had
England been satisfied to people and hold the British Isles, she would
ere this have been outrun and absorbed by Spain or France. To stand
still is to retreat. It is the same with men as it is with races.
England's Colonies have been her strength. They have given her poise,
reserve, ballast--and enough trouble to prevent either revolution,
stagnation or introspection.
Nations have their periods of youth, manhood and old age. Whether
England is now passing into decline, living her life in her children,
the Colonies, might be indelicate to ask. Perhaps as Briton, Celt, Jute
and Saxon were fused to make that hardy, courageous, restless and sinewy
man known as the Englishman, so are the English, the Dutch, the Swede,
the German, the Slav, transplanted into America, being fused into a
composite man who shall surpass any type that the world has ever seen.
In the British Isles, just as in the great cities, mankind gets
pot-bound. In the newer lands, the roots strike deep into the soil, and
find the sustenance the human plant requires.
Walls keep folks in as well as shut other folks out. The British Isles,
rock-faced and sea-girted, shut out the enemies of England without
shutting the English in. A country surrounded by the sea produces
sailors, and England's position bred a type of man that made her
mistress of the seas. As her drum-taps, greeting the rising sun, girdle
the world, so do her lighthouses flash protection to the mariner
wherever the hungry sea lies in wait along rocky coasts, the round world
over. England has sounded the shallows, marked the rocks and reefs, and
mapped the coasts.
The first settlement of Saxons in Britain occurred in the year Four
Hundred Forty-nine. They did not come as invaders, as did the Romans
five hundred years before; their numbers were too few, and their arms
too crude to mean menace to the swarthy, black-haired Britons. These
fair stranger-folk were welcomed as curiosities and were allowed to
settle and make themselves homes. Word was sent back to Saxony and
Jute-Land and more settlers came. In a few years came a shipload of
Engles, with their women and children, red-haired, freckled, tawny. They
tilled the soil with a faith and an intelligence such as the Britons
never brought to bear: very much as the German settlers follow the
pioneers and grow rich where the Mudsock fails. Naturally the
fair-haired girls found favor in the sight of the swarthy Britons.
Marriages occurred, and a new type of man-child appeared as the months
went by. More Engles came. A century passed, and the coast, from Kent
to the Firth of Forth, was dotted with the farms and homes of the people
from the Baltic. There were now occasional protests from the original
holders, and fights followed, when the Britons retreated before the
strangers, or else were very glad to make terms. Victory is a matter of
staying-power. The Engles had come to stay.
But a new enemy had appeared--the Norsemen or Danes. These were
sea-nomads who acknowledged no man as master. Rough, bold, laughing at
disaster, with no patience to build or dig or plow, they landed but to
ravish, steal and lay waste, and then boarded their craft, sailing away,
joying in the ruin they had wrought.
The next year they came back. The industry and the thrift of the Engles
made Britain a land of promise, a storehouse where the good things of
life could be secured much more easily than by creating or producing
them. And so now, before this common foe, the Britons, Jutes, Celts,
Saxons and Engles united to punish and expel the invaders.
The calamity was a blessing--as most calamities are. From being a dozen
little kingdoms, Britain now became one. A "Cyng," or captain, was
chosen--an Engle, strong of arm, clear of brain, blue of eye, with long
yellow hair. He was a man who commanded respect by his person and by his
deeds. His name was Egbert.
King Alfred, or Elfred, was born at Wantage, Berkshire, in the year
Eight Hundred Forty-nine. He was the grandson of Egbert, a great man,
and the son of Ethelwulf, a man of mediocre qualities. Alfred was shrewd
enough to inherit the courage and persistence of his grandfather. Our D.
A. R. friends are right and Mark Twain is wrong--it is really more
necessary to have a grandfather than a father.
English civilization begins with Alfred. If you will refer to the
dictionary you will find that the word "civilization" simply means to be
civil. That is, if you are civilized you are gentle instead of
violent--gaining your ends by kindly and persuasive means, instead of
through coercion, intimidation and force.
Alfred was the first English gentleman, and let no joker add "and the
last." Yet it is needless and quite irrelevant to say that civilized
people are not always civil; nor are gentlemen always gentle--so little
do words count. Many gentlemen are only gents.
Alfred was civil and gentle. He had been sent to Rome in his boyhood,
and this transplantation had done him a world of good. Superior men are
always transplanted men: people who do not travel have no perspective.
To stay at home means getting pot-bound. You neither search down in the
soil for color and perfume nor reach out strong toward the sunshine.
It was only a few years before the time of Alfred that a Christian monk
appeared at Edin-Borough, and told the astonished Engles and Saxons of
the gentle Jesus, who had been sent to earth by the All-Father to tell
men they should love their enemies and be gentle and civil and not
violent, and should do unto others as they would be done by. The natural
religion of the Great Spirit which the ancient Teutonic people held had
much in it that was good, but now they were prepared for something
better--they had the hope of a heaven of rest and happiness after death.
Christianity flourishes best among a downtrodden, poor, subdued and
persecuted people. Renan says it is a religion of sorrow. And primitive
Christianity--the religion of conduct--is a beautiful and pure doctrine
that no sane person ever flouted or scoffed.
The parents of Alfred, filled with holy zeal, allowed one of the
missionary monks to take the boy to Rome. The idea was that he should
become a bishop in the Church.
Ethelred, the elder brother of Alfred, had succeeded Ethelwulf, his
father, as King. The Danes had overrun and ravished the country. For
many years these marauding usurpers had fed their armies on the products
of the land. And now they had more than two-thirds of the country under
their control, and the fear that they would absolutely subjugate the
Anglo-Saxons was imminent. Ethelwulf gave up the struggle in despair and
died. Ethelred fell in battle. And as the Greeks of old in their terror
cast around for the strongest man they could find to repel the Persian
invaders, and picked on the boy Alexander, so did the Anglo-Saxons turn
to Alfred, the gentle and silent. He was only twenty-three years old. In
build he was slight and slender, but he had given token of his courage
for four years, fighting with his brother. He had qualities that were
closely akin to those of both Alexander and Cæsar. He had a cool, clear
and vivid intellect and he had invincible courage. But he surpassed both
of the men just named in that he had a tender, sympathetic heart.
The Danes were overconfident, and had allowed their discipline to relax.
Alfred had at first evidently encouraged them in their idea that they
had won, for he struck feebly and then withdrew his army to the marshes,
where the Danish horsemen could not follow.
The Danes went into winter quarters, fat and feasting. Alfred made a
definite plan for a campaign, drilled his men, prayed with them, and
filled their hearts with the one idea that they were going forth to
certain victory. And to victory they went. They fell upon the Danes with
an impetuosity as unexpected as it was invincible, and before they could
get into their armor, or secure their horses, they were in a rout. Every
timid Engle and Saxon now took heart--it was the Lord's victory--they
were fighting for home--the Danes gave way. This was not all
accomplished quite as easily as I am writing it, but difficulties,
deprivations and disaster only brought out new resources in Alfred. He
was as serenely hopeful as was Washington at Valley Forge, and his
soldiers were just as ragged. He, too, like Thomas Paine, cried, "These
are the times that try men's souls--be grateful for this crisis, for it
will give us opportunity to show that we are men." He had aroused his
people to a pitch where the Danes would have had to kill them all, or
else give way. As they could not kill them they gave way. Napoleon at
twenty-six was master of France and had Italy under his heel, and so was
Alfred at the same age supreme in Southern Britain--including Wessex and
Mercia. He rounded up the enemy, took away their weapons, and then held
a revival-meeting, asking everybody to come forward to the
mourners'-bench. There is no proof that he coerced them into
Christianity. They were glad to accept it. Alfred seemed to have the
persuasive power of the Reverend Doctor Torrey. Guthrum, the Danish
King, who had come over to take a personal hand in the looting, was
captured, baptized, and then Alfred stood sponsor for him and gave him
the name of Ethelstan. He was made a bishop.
This acceptance of Christianity by the leaders of the Danes broke their
fierce spirit, and peace followed. Alfred told the soldiers to use their
horses to plow the fields. The two armies that had fought each other now
worked together at road-making and draining the marshes. Some of the
Danes fled in their ships, but very many remained and became citizens of
the country. The Danish names are still recognizable. Names beginning
with the aspirate, say Herbert, Hulett, Hubbard, Hubbs, Harold, Hancock,
are Danish, and are the cause of that beautiful muddling of the "H" that
still perplexes the British tongue, the rule governing which is to put
it on where it is not needed and leave it off where it is. The Danes
called the Engles, "Hengles," and the Engles called a man by the name of
Henry, "Enry."
In saving Wessex, Alfred saved England for the English people; for it
was from Wessex, as a center, that his successors began the task of
reconquering England from the Danes.
* * * * *
With the rule of Alfred begins the England that we know. As we call
Herodotus the father of history, so could we, with equal propriety, call
Asser, who wrote in the time of Alfred, the father of English history.
The oldest English book is the "Life of Alfred" by Asser the monk.
That Asser was a dependent on his subject and very much in love with
him, doubtless gave a very strong bias to the book. That it is right in
the main, although occasionally wrong as to details, is proved by
various corroborating records.
The king's word in Alfred's time was law, and Alfred proved his modesty
by publicly proclaiming that a king was not divine, but only a man, and
therefore a king's edicts should be endorsed by the people in Folkmoot.
Here we get the genesis of popular government, and about the only
instance that I can recall where a very strong man acting as chief ruler
renounced a part of his power to the people, of his own accord. Kings
usually have to be trimmed, and it is revolution that does the shearing.
It is the rule that men do not relinquish power of their own
accord--they have to be disannexed from it.
Alfred, however, knew the popular heart--he was very close to the common
people. He had slept on the ground with his soldiers, fared at table
with the swineherd's family, tilled the soil with the farmer folk. His
heart went out to humanity. He did not overrate the average mind, nor
did he underrate it. He had faith in mankind, and knew that at the last
power was with the people. He did not say, "Vox populi, vox Dei," but he
thought it. Therefore he set himself to educating the plain people. He
prophesied a day when all grown men would be able to read and write, and
when all would have an intelligent, personal interest in the government.
There have been periods in English history when Britain lagged woefully
behind, for England has had kings who forgot the rights of mankind, and
instead of seeking to serve their people, have battened and fattened
upon them. They governed. George the Third thought that Alfred was a
barbarian, and spoke of him with patronizing pity.
Alfred introduced the system of trial by jury, although the fact has
been pointed out that he did not originate it. It goes back to the hardy
Norseman who acknowledged no man as master, harking back to a time when
there was no law, and to a people whose collective desire was supreme.
In fact, it has its origin in "Lynch Law," or the rule of the
Vigilantes. From a village turning loose on an offender and pulling him
limb from limb, a degree of deliberation comes in and a committee of
twelve are selected to investigate the deed and report their verdict.
The jury system began with pirates and robbers, but it is no less
excellent on that account, and we might add that freedom also began with
pirates and robbers, for they were the people who cried, "We
acknowledge no man as master."
The early Greeks had trials by jury--Socrates was tried by a jury of
five hundred citizens.
But let the fact stand that Alfred was the man who first introduced the
jury system into England. He had absolute power. He was the sole judge
and ruler, but on various occasions he abdicated the throne and said: "I
do not feel able to try this man, for as I look into my heart I see that
I am prejudiced. Neither will I name men to try him, for in their
selection I might also be prejudiced. Therefore let one hundred men be
called, and from these let twelve be selected by lot, and they shall
listen to the charges and weigh the defense, and their verdict shall be
mine."
We sometimes say that English Common Law is built on the Roman Law, but
I can not find that Alfred ever studied the Roman Law, or ever heard of
the Justinian Code, or thought it worth while to establish a system of
jurisprudence. His government was of the simplest sort. He respected the
habits, ways and customs of the common people, and these were the Common
Law. If the people had a footpath that was used by their children and
their parents and their grandparents, then this path belonged to the
people, and Alfred said that even the King could not take it from them.
This deference to the innocent ways, habits and natural rights of the
people mark Alfred as supremely great, because a great man is one great
in his sympathies. Alfred had the imagination to put himself in the
place of the lowly and obscure.
The English love of law, system and order dates from Alfred. The
patience, kindliness, good-cheer and desire for fair play were his,
plus. He had poise, equanimity, unfaltering faith and a courage that
never grew faint. He was as religious as Cromwell, as firm as
Washington, as stubborn as Gladstone. In him were combined the virtues
of the scholar and patriot, the efficiency of the man of affairs with
the wisdom of the philosopher. His character, both public and private,
is stainless, and his whole life was one of enlightened and magnanimous
service to his country.
* * * * *
In the age of Augustus there was one study that was regarded as more
important than all others, and this was rhetoric, or the art of the
rhetor. The rhetor was a man whose business it was to persuade or
convince.
The public forum has its use in the very natural town-meeting, or the
powwow of savages. But in Rome it had developed and been refined to a
point where the public had no voice, although the boasted forum still
existed. The forum was monopolized by the professional orators hired by
this political clique or that.
It was about like the political "forum" in America today.
The greatest man in Rome was the man who could put up the greatest talk.
So all Roman mammas and matrons had their boys study rhetoric. The
father of Seneca had a school of oratory where rich Roman youths were
taught to mouth in orotund and gesticulate in curves. He must have been
a pretty good teacher, for he had two extraordinary sons, one of whom is
mentioned in the Bible, and a most exemplary daughter.
Oratory as an end we now regard as an unworthy art. The first requisite
is to feel deeply--to have a message--and then if you are a person of
fair intelligence and in good health, you'll impress your hearers. But
to hire out to impress people with another's theme is to be a
pettifogger, and the genus pettifogger has nearly had his day.
History moves in circles. The Chicago Common Council, weary of rhetoric,
has recently declined to listen to paid attorneys; but any citizen who
speaks for himself and his neighbors can come before the Council and
state his case.
Chief Justice Fuller has given it as his opinion that there will come a
day in America when damage-cases will be taken care of by an automatic
tribunal, without the help of lawyers. And as a man fills out a request
for a money-order at the Post-Office, so will he file his claim for
damages, and it will have attention. The contingent fee will yet be a
misdemeanor. Also, it will be possible for plain citizens to be able to
go before a Court of Equity and be heard without regard to law and
precedent and attorney's quillets and quibbles, which so often hamper
justice. Justice should be cheap and easy, instead of costly and
complex.
Evidently the Chief Justice had in mind the usages in the time of King
Alfred, when the barrister was an employee of the court, and his
business was to get the facts and then explain them to the King in the
fewest possible words.
Alfred considered a paid advocate, or even a counselor, as without the
pale, and such men were never allowed at court. If the barrister
accepted a fee from a man suing for justice, he was disbarred.
Finally, however, the practise of feeing in order to renew the zeal of a
barrister grew so that it had to be tolerated, because things we can't
suppress we license, and a pocket was placed on each barrister's back
between his shoulders where he could not reach it without taking off his
gown, and into this pocket clients were allowed slyly to slip such
gratuities as they could afford.
But the general practise of the client paying the barrister, instead of
the court, was not adopted for several hundred years later, and then it
was regarded as an expeditious move to keep down litigation and punish
the client for being fool enough not to settle his own troubles.
In England the rudimentary pocket still survives, like the buttons on
the back of a coat, which were once used to support the sword-belt.
In America we have done away with wigs and gowns for attorneys, but
attorneys are still regarded as attaches of the court, even though
one-half of them, according to Judge DeCourcy of Boston, are engaged
most of the time in attempts to bamboozle and befog the judge and jury
and defeat the ends of justice. Likewise, we still use the word "Court,"
signifying the place where lives royalty, even for the dingy office of a
country J. P., where sawdust spittoons are the bric-a-brac and
patent-office reports loom large, and justice is dispensed with. We now
also commonly call the man "the Court."
* * * * *
Alfred was filled with a desire to educate, and to this end organized a
school at the Ox Ford, where his friend Asser taught. This school was
the germ of the University of Oxford. Attached to this school was a
farm, where the boys were taught how to sow and plant and reap to the
best advantage. Here they also bred and raised horses and cattle, and
the care of livestock was a part of the curriculum. It was the first
College of Agriculture.
It comes to us as somewhat of a surprise to see how we are now going
back to simplicity, and the agricultural college is being given the due
and thoughtful consideration which it deserves. Twenty years ago our
agricultural college was considered more or less of a joke, but now that
which adds greatly to the wealth of the nation, and the happiness and
well-being of the people, is looked upon as worthy of our support and
highest respect.
Up to the time of Alfred, England had no navy. For the government to own
ships seemed quite preposterous, since the people had come to England to
stay, and were not marauders intent on exploitation and conquest, like
the Norsemen.
But after Alfred had vanquished the Danes and they had settled down as
citizens, he took their ships, refitted them, built more and said: "No
more marauders shall land on these shores. If we are threatened we will
meet the enemy on the sea."
In a few years along came a fleet of marauding Norse. The English ships
on the lookout gave the alarm, and England's navy put out to meet them.
The enemy were taken by surprise, and the fate that five hundred years
later was to overtake the Spanish Armada, was theirs.
From that time to this, England has had a navy that has gradually grown
in power.
Let no one imagine that peace and rest came to Alfred. His life was a
battle, for not only did he have to fight the Danes, but he had to
struggle with ignorance, stupidity and superstition at home. To lead men
out of captivity is a thankless task. They always ask when you take away
their superstition, "What are you going to give us in return?" They do
not realize that superstition is a disease, and that to give another
disease in return is not nice, necessary or polite.
Alfred died, at the age of fifty-two, worn out with his ceaseless labors
of teaching, building, planning, inventing and devising methods and
means for the betterment and benefit of his people.
After his death, the Danes were successful, and Canute became King of
England. But he was proud to be called an Englishman, and declared he
was no longer a Dane.
And so England captured him.
Then came the Norman William, claiming the throne by right of
succession, and successfully battling for it; but the English people
reckoned the Conqueror as of their own blood--their kith and kin--and so
he was. He issued an edict forbidding any one to call him or his
followers "Norman," "Norse" or "Norsemen," and declared there was a
United England. And so he lived and died an Englishman; and after him no
ruler, these nine hundred years, has ever sat on the throne of the
Engles by right of conquest.
Both Canute and William recognized and prized the worth of Alfred's
rule. The virtues of Alfred are the virtues that have made it possible
for the Teutonic tribes to girdle the globe. It was Alfred who taught
the nobility of industry, service, education, patience, loyalty,
persistence, and the faith and hope that abide. By pen, tongue, and best
of all by his life, Alfred taught the truths which we yet hold dear. And
by this sign shall ye conquer!
[Illustration: ERASMUS]
ERASMUS
We see not a few mortals who, striving to emulate this divine
virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a feeble and
disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject and burdening the
wretched ears of their hearers with a vacant mass of words and
sentences crowded together beyond all possibility of enjoyment. And
writers who have tried to lay down the principles of this art have
gained no other result than to display their own poverty while
expounding abundance.
--_Erasmus on "Preaching"_
ERASMUS
Erasmus was born in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-six, and died in Fifteen
Hundred Thirty-six. No thinker of his time influenced the world more. He
stood at a pivotal point, and some say he himself was the intellectual
pivot of the Renaissance.
The critics of the times were unanimous in denouncing him--which fact
recommends him to us.
Several Churchmen, high in power, live in letters for no other reason
than because they coupled their names with that of Erasmus by reviling
him. Let the critics take courage--they may outwit oblivion yet, even
though they do nothing but carp. Only let them be wise, and carp, croak,
cough, cat-call and sneeze at some one who is hitching his wagon to a
star. This way immortality lies. Erasmus was a monk who flocked by
himself, and found diversion in ridiculing monkery. Also, he was the
wisest man of his day. Wisdom is the distilled essence of intuition,
corroborated by experience. Learning is something else. Usually, the
learned man is he who has delved deep and soared high. But few there be
who dive, that fish the murex up. Among those who soar, the ones who
come back and tell us of what they have seen, are few. Like Lazarus,
they say nothing.
Erasmus had a sense of humor. Humor is a life-preserver and saves you
from drowning when you jump off into a sea of sermons. A theologian who
can not laugh is apt to explode--he is very dangerous. Erasmus, Luther,
Beecher, Theodore Parker, Roger Williams, Joseph Parker--all could
laugh. Calvin, Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards never gurgled in glee,
nor chortled softly at their own witticisms--or those of others.
Erasmus smiled. He has been called the Voltaire of his day. What
Rousseau was to Voltaire, Luther was to Erasmus. Well did Diderot say
that Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched. Erasmus wrote for the
educated, the refined, the learned--Luther made his appeal to the plain
and common mind.
Luther split the power of the Pope. Erasmus thought it a calamity to do
so, because he believed that strife of sects tended to make men lose
sight of the one essential in religion--harmony--and cause them simply
to struggle for victory. Erasmus wanted to trim the wings of the papal
office and file its claws--Luther would have destroyed it. Erasmus
considered the Church a very useful and needful organization--for social
reasons. It tended to regulate life and conduct and made men
"decentable." It should be a school of ethics, and take a leading part
in every human betterment. Man being a gregarious animal, the
congregation is in the line of natural desire. The excuse for gathering
together is religion--let them gather. The Catholic Church is not two
thousand years old--it is ten thousand years old and goes back to Egypt.
The birth of Jesus formed merely a psychosis in the Church's existence.
Here he parted company with Luther, who was a dogmatist and wanted to
debate his ninety-five theses. Erasmus laughed at all religious
disputations and called them mazes that led to cloudland. Very
naturally, people said he was not sincere, since the mediocre mind never
knows that only the paradox is true. Hence Erasmus was hated by
Catholics and denounced by Protestants.
The marvel is that the men with fetters and fagots did not follow him
with a purpose. Fifty years later he would have been snuffed out. But at
that time Rome was so astonished to think that any one should criticize
her that she lost breath. Besides, it was an age of laughter, of revolt,
of contests of wit, of love-bouts and love-scrapes, and the monks who
lapsed were too many to discipline. Everybody was busy with his own
affairs. Happy time!
Erasmus was part and parcel of the Italian Renaissance. Over his head
blazes, in letters that burn, the unforgetable date, Fourteen Hundred
Ninety-two. He was a part of the great unrest, and he helped cause the
great unrest. Every great awakening, every renaissance, is an age of
doubt. An age of conservatism is an age of moss, of lichen, of rest,
rust and ruin. We grow only as we question. As long as we are sure that
the present order is perfect, we button our collars behind, a thing
which Columbus, Luther, Melanchthon, Erasmus, Michelangelo, Leonardo and
Gutenberg, who all lived at this one time, never did. The year of
Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two, like the year Seventeen Hundred
Seventy-six, was essentially "infidelic," just as the present age is
constructively iconoclastic. We are tearing down our barns to build
greater. The railroadman who said, "I throw an engine on the scrap-heap
every morning before breakfast," expressed a great truth. We are
discarding bad things for good ones, and good things for better ones.
* * * * *
Rotterdam has the honor of being the birthplace of Erasmus. A storm of
calumny was directed at him during his life concerning the irregularity
of his birth. "He had no business to be born at all," said a proud
prelate, as he gathered his robes close around his prebendal form. But
souls knock at the gates of life for admittance, and the fact that a man
exists is proof of his right to live. The word "illegitimate" is not in
the vocabulary of God. If you do not know that, you have not read His
instructive and amusing works.
The critics variously declared the mother of Erasmus was a royal lady, a
physician's only daughter, a kitchen-wench, a Mother Superior--all
according to the prejudices preconceived. In one sense she was surely a
Mother Superior--let the lies neutralize one another.
The fact is, we do not know who the mother of Erasmus was. All we know
is that she was the mother of Erasmus. Here history halts. Her son once
told Sir Thomas More that she was married to a luckless nobody a few
months after the birth of her first baby, and amid the cares of raising
a goodly brood of nobodies on a scant allowance of love and rye-bread,
she was glad to forget her early indiscretions. Not so the father. The
debated question of whether a man really has any parental love is
answered here.
The father of Erasmus was Gerhard von Praet, and the child was called
Gerhard Gerhards--or the son of Gerhard. The father was a man of
property and held office under the State. At the time of the birth of
the illustrious baby, Gerhard von Praet was not married, and it is
reasonable to suppose that the reason he did not wed the mother of his
child was because she belonged to a different social station. In any
event the baby was given the father's name, and every care and attention
was paid the tiny voyager. This father was as foolish as most fond
mothers, for he dreamed out a great career for the motherless one, and
made sundry prophecies.
At six years of age the child was studying Latin, when he should have
been digging in a sand-pile. At eight he spoke Dutch and French, and
argued with his nurse in Greek as to the value of buttermilk.
In the meantime the father had married and settled down in honorable
obscurity as a respectable squire. Another account has it that he became
a priest. Anyway, the little maverick was now making head alone in a
private school.
When the lad was thirteen the father died, leaving a will in which he
provided well for the child. The amount of property which by this will
would have belonged to our hero when he became of age would have
approximated forty thousand dollars.
Happily, the trustees of the fund were law-wolves. They managed to break
the will, and then they showed the court that the child was a waif, and
absolutely devoid of legal rights of any and every kind. He was then
committed to an orphan asylum to be given "a right religious education."
It's a queer old world, Terese, and what would have become of Gerhard
Gerhards had he fallen heir to his father's titles and estate, no man
can say. He might have accumulated girth and become an honored
burgomaster. As it was he became powder-monkey to a monk, and scrubbed
stone floors and rushed the growler for cowled and pious prelates.
Then he did copying for the Abbe, and proved himself a boy from Missouri
Valley.
He was small, blue-eyed, fair-haired, slender, slight, with a long nose
and sharp features. "With this nose," said Albrecht Durer, many years
later, "he successfully hunted down everything but heresy."
At eighteen he became a monk and proudly had his flaxen poll tonsured.
His superior was fond of him, and prophesied that he would become a
bishop or something.
Children do not suffer much, nor long. God is good to them. They slide
into an environment and accept it. This child learned to dodge the big
bare feet of the monks--got his lessons, played a little, worked his wit
against their stupidity, and actually won their admiration--or as much
of it as men who are alternately ascetics and libertines can give.
It was about this time that the lad was taunted with having no name.
"Then I'll make one for myself," was his proud answer.
Having entered now upon his novitiate, he was allowed to take a new
name, and being dead to the world, the old one was forgotten.
They called him Brother Desiderius, or the Desired One. He then amended
this Latin name with its Greek equivalent, Erasmus, which means
literally the Well-Beloved. As to his pedigree, or lack of it, he was
needlessly proud. It set him apart as different. He had half-brothers
and half-sisters, and these he looked upon as strangers. When they came
to see him, he said, "There is no relationship between souls save that
of the spirit."
His sense of wit came in when he writes to a friend: "Two parents are
the rule; no parents the exception; a mother but no father is not
uncommon; but I had a father and never had a mother. I was nursed by a
man, and educated by monks, all of which shows that women are more or
less of a superfluity in creation. God Himself is a man. He had one son,
but no daughters. The cherubim are boys. All of the angels are
masculine, and so far as Holy Writ informs us, there are no women in
heaven."
That it was a woman, however, to whom Erasmus wrote this, lets him out
on the severity of the argument. He was a joker. And while women did not
absorb much of his time, we find that on his travels he often turned
aside to visit with intellectual women--no other kind interested him, at
all.
* * * * *
To belong to a religious order is to be owned by it. You trade freedom
for protection. The soul of Erasmus revolted at life in a monastery. He
hated the typical monks--their food, their ways of life, their
sophistry, their stupidity. To turn glutton and welcome folly as a
relief from religion, he said, was the most natural thing in the world,
when men had once started in to lead an unnatural life. Good food,
daintily served, only goes with a co-ed mental regimen. Men eat with
their hands, out of a pot, unless women are present to enforce the
decencies. Women alone are a little more to be pitied than men alone, if
't were possible.
Through emulation does the race grow. Sex puts men and women on their
good behavior.
Man's desire for power has caused him to enslave himself. Writes
Erasmus, "In a monastery, no one is on his good behavior, except when
there are visitors, but I am told that this is so in families."
The greasy, coarse cooking brought on a nice case of dyspepsia for poor
Erasmus--a complaint from which he was never free as long as he lived.
His system was too fine for any monastic general trough, but he found a
compensation in having his say at odd times and sundry. At one time we
hear of his printing on a card this legend, "If I owned hell and a
monastery, I would sell the monastery and reside in hell." Thereby did
Erasmus supply General Tecumseh Sherman the germ of a famous orphic.
Sherman was a professor in a college at Baton Rouge before the War, and
evidently had moused in the Latin classics to a purpose.
Connected with the monastery where Erasmus lived was a printing-outfit.
Our versatile young monk learned the case, worked the ink-balls,
manipulated the lever, and evidently dispelled, in degree, the monotony
of the place by his ready pen and eloquent tongue. When he wrote, he
wrote for his ear. All was tested by reading the matter aloud. At that
time great authors were not so wise or so clever as printers, and it
fell to the lot of Erasmus to improve upon the text of much of the copy
that was presented.
Erasmus learned to write by writing; and among modern prose-writers he
is the very first who had a distinct literary style. His language is
easy, fluid, suggestive. His paragraphs throw a shadow, and are pregnant
with meaning beyond what the lexicon supplies. This is genius--to be
bigger than your words.
If Erasmus had been possessed of a bit more patience and a jigger of
diplomacy, he would have been in line for a bishopric. That thing which
he praised so lavishly, Folly, was his cause of failure and also his
friend.
At twenty-six he was the best teacher and the most clever scholar in the
place. Also, he was regarded as a thorn in the side of the monkery,
since he refused to take it seriously. He protested that no man ever
became a monk of his own accord--he was either thrust into a religious
order by unkind kinsmen or kicked into it by Fate.
And then comes the Bishop of Cambray, with an attack of literary
scabies, looking for a young religieux who could correct his manuscript.
The Bishop was going to Paris after important historical facts, and must
have a competent secretary. Only a proficient Latin and Greek scholar
would do. The head of the monastery recommended Erasmus, very much as
Artemus Ward volunteered all of his wife's relatives for purposes of
war.
Andrew Carnegie once, when about to start for Europe, said to his
ironmaster, Bill Jones, "I am never so happy or care-free, Bill, as when
on board ship, headed for Europe, and the shores of Sandy Hook fade from
sight."
And Bill solemnly replied, "Mr. Carnegie, I can truthfully say for
myself and fellow-workers, that we are never so happy and care-free as
when you are on board ship, headed for Europe."
Very properly Mr. Carnegie at once raised Bill's salary five thousand a
year.
The Carthusian Brothers parted with Erasmus in pretended tears, but the
fact was they were more relieved than bereaved.
And then began the travels of Erasmus.
The Bishop was of middle age, with a dash of the cavalier in his blood,
which made him prefer a saddle to the cushions of a carriage. And so
they started away on horseback, the Bishop ahead, followed at a
discreet distance by Erasmus, his secretary; and ten paces behind with
well-loaded panniers, rode a servant as rearguard.
To be free and face the world and on a horse! Erasmus lifted up his
heart in a prayer of gratitude. He said that it was the first feeling of
thankfulness he had ever experienced, and it was the first thing which
had ever come to him worth gratitude.
And so they started for Paris.
Erasmus looked back and saw the monastery, where he had spent ten
arduous years, fade from view.
It was the happiest moment he had ever known. The world lay beyond.
* * * * *
The Bishop of Cambray introduced Erasmus to a mode of life for which he
was eminently fitted. It consisted in traveling, receiving honors,
hospitality and all good things in a material way, and giving his
gracious society in return. Doors flew open on the approach of the good
Bishop. Everywhere he went a greeting was assured. He was a
Churchman--that was enough. Erasmus shared in the welcomes, for he was
handsome in face and figure, had a ready tongue, and could hold his own
with the best.
Europe was then dotted with monasteries, nunneries and other church
institutions. Their remains are seen there yet--one is really never out
of sight of a steeple. But the exclusive power of the Church is gone,
and in many places there are only ruins where once were cloisters,
corridors, chapels, halls and gardens teeming with life and industry.
The "missions" of California were founded on the general plan of the
monasteries of Europe. They afforded a lodging for the night--a
resting-place for travelers--and were a radiatory center of
education--at least all of the education that then existed.
In California these "missions" were forty miles apart--one day's
journey. In France, Italy and Germany they were, say, ten miles apart.
Between them, trudged or rode on horseback or in carriages, a
picturesque array of pilgrims, young and old, male and female. To go
anywhere and be at home everywhere, this was the happy lot of a church
dignitary.
The parts in church institutions were interchangeable; and by a system
of migration, life was made agreeable, and reasonable honesty was
assured. I have noticed that certain Continental banking institutions,
with branches in various cities, keep their cashiers rotating. The idea
was gotten from Rome. Rome was very wise--her policies were the
crystallizations of the world-wisdom of centuries. The church-militant
battle-cry, "The world for Christ," simply means man's lust for
ownership, with Christ as an excuse. If ever there was a man-made
institution, it is the Church. To control mankind has been her desire,
and the miracle is that, with a promise of heaven, a threat of hell, and
a firm grip on temporal power--social and military--she was ever induced
partially to loosen her grip. To such men as Savonarola, Luther and
Erasmus, do we owe our freedom. These men cared more for truth than for
power, and their influence was to disintegrate the ankylosis of custom
and make men think. And a thought is mental dynamite. No wonder the
Church has always feared and hated a thinker!
The Bishop of Cambray was not a thinker. Fenelon, who was later to
occupy his office, was to make the bishopric of Cambray immortal.
Conformists die, but heretics live on forever. They are men who have
redeemed the cross and rendered the gallows glorious.
* * * * *
And so the Bishop of Cambray and his little light-haired secretary fared
forth to fame and fortune--the Bishop to be remembered because he had a
secretary, and the secretary to be remembered because he grew into a
great teacher.
At each stopping-place the Bishop said mass--the workers, students and
novitiates quitting their tasks to hear the words of encouragement from
the lips of the great man. Occasionally Erasmus was pushed forward to
say a few words, by the Bishop, who had to look after his own personal
devotions. The assembled friends liked the young man--he was so bright
and witty and free from cant. They even laughed out loud, and so, often
two smiles were made to grow where there were no smiles before.
Leisurely they rode--stopping at times for several days at places where
the food and drink were at their best, and the society sulphide. At
nunneries and monasteries were always guest-chambers for the great, and
they were usually occupied.
Thus it was that every church-house was a sort of university, depending
of course on the soul-size of the Superior or Abbe. These constant
journeyings and pilgrimages served in lieu of the daily paper, the
Western Union Telegraph, and the telephone. Things have slipped back, I
fear me, for now Mercury merely calls up his party on the long-distance,
instead of making a personal visit--the Angel Gabriel as well. We save
time, but we miss the personal contact.
The monastic impulse was founded on a human need. Like most good things,
it has been sadly perverted; but the idea of a sanctuary for stricken
souls--a place of refuge, where simplicity, service and useful endeavor
rule--will never die from out the human heart. The hospice stands for
hospitality, but we have now only a hotel and a hospital.
The latter stands for iodoform, carbolic acid and formaldehyde; the
former often means gold, glitter, gluttony and concrete selfishness,
with gout on one end, paresis at the other and Bright's Disease between.
The hospice was a part of the monastery. It was a home for the homeless.
There met men of learning--men of wit--men of brains and brawn. You
entered and were at home. There was no charge--you merely left something
for the poor.
Any man who has the courage, and sufficient faith in humanity to install
the hospice system in America will reap a rich reward. If he has the
same faith in his guests that Judge Lindsey has in his bad boys, he will
succeed; but if he hesitates, defers, doubts, and begins to plot and
plan, the Referee in Bankruptcy will beckon.
The early universities grew out of the monastic impulse. Students came
and went, and the teachers were a part of a great itinerancy. Man is a
migratory animal. His evolution has come about through change of
environment. Transplantation changes weeds into roses, and the
forebears of all the products of our greenhouses and gardens once grew
in hedgerows or open fields, choked by unkind competition or trampled
beneath the feet of the heedless.
The advantage of university life is in the transplantation. Get the boy
out of his home environment; sever the cord that holds him to his
"folks"; let him meet new faces, see new sights, hear new sermons, meet
new teachers, and his efforts at adjustment will work for growth.
Alexander Humboldt was right--one year at college is safer than four.
One year inspires you--four may get you pot-bound with pedant prejudice.
The university of the future will be industrial--all may come and go.
All men will be university men, and thus the pride in an imaginary
proficiency will be diluted to a healthful attenuation. To work and to
be useful--not merely to memorize and recite--will be the only
initiation.
The professors will be interchangeable, and the rotation of intellectual
crops will work for health, harmony and effectiveness.
The group, or college, will be the unit, not the family. The college was
once a collection of men and women grouped for a mutual intellectual,
religious or economic good.
To this group or college idea will we return.
Man is a gregarious animal, and the Christ-thought of giving all, and
receiving all, some day in the near future will be found practical. The
desire for exclusive ownership must be sloughed.
Universities devoted to useful work--art in its highest sense: head,
hand and heart--will yet dot the civilized world. The hospice will
return higher up the scale, and the present use of the word
"hospitality" will be drowned in its pink tea, choked with
cheese-wafers, rescued from the nervous clutch of the managing mama, and
the machinations of the chaperone. A society built on the sands of
silliness must give way to the universal university, and the strong,
healthful, helpful, honest companionship and comradeship of men and
women prevail.
* * * * *
The objective point of the Bishop was the University of Paris.
Here in due time, after their lingering ride from Holland, the Bishop
and his secretary arrived. They settled down to literary work; and in
odd hours the beauty and wonder of Paris became familiar to Erasmus. The
immediate task completed, the Bishop proposed going home, and thought,
of course, his secretary was a fixture and would go with him. But
Erasmus had evolved ideas concerning his own worth. He had already
collected quite a little circle of pupils about him, and these he held
by his glowing personality. At this time the vow of poverty was looked
upon lightly. And anyway, poverty is a comparative term. There were
monks who always trudged afoot with staff and bag, but not so our
Erasmus. He was Bishop of the Exterior.
The Bishop of Cambray, on parting with Erasmus, thought so much of him
that he presented him with the horse he rode.
Erasmus used to take short excursions about Paris, taking with him a
student and often two, as servants or attendants. Teaching then was
mostly on an independent basis, each pupil picking his tutors and paying
them direct.
Among other pupils whom Erasmus had at Paris was a young Englishman by
the name of Lord Mountjoy. A great affection arose between these two,
and when Lord Mountjoy returned to England he was accompanied by
Erasmus.
At London, Erasmus met on absolute equality many of the learned men of
England. We hear of his dining at the house of the Lord Mayor of London,
and there meeting Sir Thomas More and crossing swords with that worthy
in wordy debate.
Erasmus seems to have carried the "New Humanism" into England. It has
been said that the world was discovered in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two,
but Man was not discovered until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six. This is
hardly literal truth, since in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two, there was a
theologico-scientific party of young men in all of the European
Universities who were reviving the Greek culture, and with it arose the
idea of the dignity and worth of Man. To this movement Erasmus brought
the enthusiasm of his nature. Perhaps he did as much as any other to fan
the embers which grew into a flame called "The Reformation."
He constantly ridiculed the austerities, pedantry, priggishness and
sciolism of the old-time Churchmen, and when a new question came up, he
asked, "What good is there in it?"
Everything was tested by him in the light of commonsense. What end does
it serve and how is humanity to be served or benefited by it?
Thus the good of humanity, not the glory of God, was the shibboleth of
this rising party.
Erasmus gave lectures and taught at Cambridge, Oxford and London.
Italy had been the objective point of his travels, but England had, for
a time, turned him aside. In the year Fifteen Hundred, Erasmus landed at
Calais, saddled his horse, and started southward, visiting, writing,
teaching, lecturing, as he went. The stimulus of meeting new people and
seeing new scenes, all tended toward intellectual growth.
The genius monk made mendicancy a fine art, and Erasmus was heir to most
of the instincts of the order. His associations with the laity were
mostly with the nobility or those with money. He was not slow in asking
for what he wanted, whether it was a fur-lined cloak, a saddle, top
riding-boots, a horse, or a prayer-book. He made no apologies--but took
as his divine right all that he needed. And he justified himself in
taking what he needed by the thought that he gave all he had. He
supplied Sir Thomas More the germ of "Utopia," for Erasmus pictured
again and again an ideal society where all would have enough, and none
suffer from either want or surfeit--a society in which all would be at
home wherever they went.
Had Erasmus seen fit to make England his home, his head, too, would have
paid the forfeit, as did the head that wrote "Utopia." What an absurd
use to make of a head--to separate it from the man's body!
Italy received Erasmus with the same royal welcome that England had
supplied. Scholars who knew the Greek and Roman classics were none too
common. Most monks stopped with the writings of the saints, as South
Americans balk at long division.
Erasmus could illumine an initial, bind a book, give advice to printers,
lecture to teachers, give lessons on rhetoric and oratory, or entertain
the ladies with recitations from the Iliad and the Odyssey.
So he went riding back and forth, stopping at cities and towns,
nunneries and monasteries, until his name became a familiar one to every
scholar of England, Germany and Italy. Scholarly, always a learner,
always a teacher, gracious, direct, witty, men began to divide on an
Erasmus basis. There were two parties: those for Erasmus and those
against him.
In Fifteen Hundred Seventeen, came Luther with his bombshells of
defiance. This fighting attitude was far from Erasmus--his weapons were
words. Between bouts with prelates, Luther sent a few thunderbolts at
Erasmus, accusing him of vacillation and cowardice. Erasmus replied with
dignity, and entered into a lengthy dispute with Melanchthon, Luther's
friend, on the New Humanism which was finding form in revolution.
Erasmus prophesied that by an easy process of evolution, through
education, the monasteries would all become schools and workshops. He
would not destroy them, but convert them into something different. He
fell into disfavor with the Catholics, and was invited by Henry the
Eighth to come to England and join the new religious regime. But this
English Catholicism was not to the liking of Erasmus. What he desired
was to reform the Church, not to destroy it or divide it.
His affairs were becoming critical: monasteries where he had once been
welcomed now feared to have him come near, lest they should be
contaminated and entangled. It was rumored that warrants of arrest were
out. He was invited to go to Rome and explain his position.
Erasmus knew better than to acknowledge receipt of the letter. He headed
his horse for Switzerland, the land of liberty. At Basel he stopped at
the house of Froben, the great printer and publisher. He put his horse
in the barn, unsaddled him, and said, "Froben, I've come to stay."
* * * * *
I was mousing around the other day in a book that is somewhat disjointed
and disconnected, and yet interesting--"The Standard Dictionary"--when I
came across the word "scamp." It is a handy word to fling, and I am not
sure but that it has been gently tossed once or twice in my direction.
Condemnation is usually a sort of subtle flattery, so I'm not sad. To
scamp means to cut short, to be superficial, slipshod, careless,
indifferent--to say, "Let 'er go, who cares--this is good enough!" If
anybody ever was a stickler for honest work, I am that bucolic party. I
often make things so fine that only one man out of ten thousand can buy
them, and I have to keep 'em myself.
You know that, when you get an idea in your head, how everything you
read contains allusions to the same thing. Knowledge is mucilaginous.
Well, next day after I was looking up that pleasant word "scamp," I was
reading in the Amusing Works of Erasmus, when I ran across the word
again, but spelled in Dutch, thus, "schamp." Now Erasmus was a
successful author, and he was also the best authority on paper, inks,
bindings, and general bookmaking in Italy, Holland or Germany. Being a
lover of learning, and listening to the lure of words, he never wallowed
in wealth. But in his hunt for ideas he had a lot of fun. Kipling says,
"There is no hunt equal to a man hunt." But Kip is wrong--to chase a
thought is twice the sport. Erasmus chased ideas, and very naturally
the preachers chased Erasmus--out of England, through France, down to
Italy and then he found refuge at Basel with Froben, the great Printer
and Publisher.
Up in Frankfort was a writer-printer, who, not being able to answer the
arguments of Erasmus, called him bad names. But this gentle pen-pusher
in Frankfort, who passed his vocabulary at Froben's proofreader, Erasmus
in time calls a "schamp," because he used cheap paper, cheap ink and
close margins. Soon after, the word was carried to England and spelled
"scamp"--a man who cheats in quality, weight, size and count. But the
first use merely meant a printer who scamps his margins and so cheats on
paper. I am sorry to see that Erasmus imitated his enemies and at
times was ambidextrous in the use of the literary stinkpot. His
vocabulary was equal to that of Muldoon. Erasmus refers to one of
his critics as a "scenophylax-stikken," and another he calls a "schnide
enchologion-schistosomus." And perhaps they may have been--I really do
not know.
But as an authority on books Erasmus can still be read. He it was who
fixed the classic page margin--twice as wide at the top as on the
inside; twice as wide at the outside as the top; twice as wide at the
bottom as at the side. And any printer who varies from this displays his
ignorance of proportion. Erasmus says, "To use poor paper marks the
decline of taste, both in printer and in patron." After the death of
Erasmus, Froben's firm failed because they got to making things cheap.
"Compete in quality, not in price," was the working motto of Erasmus.
All of the great bookmaking centers languished when they began to scamp.
That worthy wordissimus at Frankfort who called Erasmus names gave up
business and then the ghost, and Erasmus wrote his epitaph, and thus
supplied Benjamin Franklin an idea--"Here lies an old book, its cover
gone, its leaves torn, the worms at work on its vitals."
The wisdom of doing good work still applies, just as it did in the days
of Erasmus.
Erasmus proved a very valuable acquisition to Froben. He became general
editor and literary adviser of this great publishing-house, which was
then the most important in the world.
Besides his work as editor, Erasmus also stood sponsor for numerous
volumes which we now know were written by literary nobodies, his name
being placed on the title-page for commercial reasons.
At that time and for two hundred years later, the matter of attributing
a book to this man or that was considered a trivial affair. Piracies
were prevalent. All printers revised the work of classic authors if they
saw fit, and often they were specially rewarded for it by the Church. It
was about this time that some one slipped that paragraph into the works
of Josephus about Jesus. The "Annals" of Tacitus were similarly
doctored, if in fact they were not written entire, during the Sixteenth
Century. It will be remembered that the only two references in
contemporary literature to Jesus are those in Josephus and Tacitus, and
these the Church proudly points to yet.
During the last few years of his life Erasmus accumulated considerable
property. By his will he devised that this money should go to educate
certain young men and women, grandchildren and nephews and nieces of his
old friend, Johann Froben. He left no money for masses, after the usual
custom of Churchmen, and during his last illness was not attended by a
priest. For several years before his death he made no confessions and
very seldom attended church service. He said, "I am much more proud of
being a printer than a priest."
A statue of Erasmus in bronze adorns one of the public squares in
Rotterdam, and Basel and Freiburg have honored themselves, and him also,
in like manner.
As a sample of the subtle and keen literary style of Erasmus, I append
the following from "In Praise of Folly:"
The happiest times of life are youth and old age, and this for no
reason but that they are the times most completely under the rule
of folly, and least controlled by wisdom. It is the child's freedom
from wisdom that makes it so charming to us; we hate a precocious
child. So women owe their charm, and hence their power, to their
"folley," that is, to their obedience to the impulse. But if,
perchance, a woman wants to be thought wise, she only succeeds in
being doubly a fool, as if one should train a cow for the
prize-ring, a thing wholly against Nature. A woman will be a woman,
no matter what mask she wear, and she ought to be proud of her
folly and make the most of it.
Is not Cupid, that first father of all religion, is not he stark
blind, that he can not himself distinguish of colors, so he would
make us as mope-eyed in judging falsely of all love concerns, and
wheedle us into a thinking that we are always in the right? Thus
every Jack sticks to his own Jill; every tinker esteems his own
trull; and the hobnailed suitor prefers Joan the milkmaid before
any of milady's daughters. These things are true, and are
ordinarily laughed at, and yet, however ridiculous they seem, it is
hence only that all societies receive their cement and
consolidation.
Fortune we still find favoring the blunt, and flushing the forward;
strokes smooth up fools, crowning all their undertakings with
success; but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneaking and
timorous, and therefore you commonly see that they are reduced to
hard shifts; must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger; must lie
recluse, despised, and unregarded; while fools roll in money, are
advanced to dignities and offices, and in a word have the whole
world at command. If any one thinks it happy to be a favorite at
court, and to manage the disposal of places and preferments, alas,
this happiness is so far from being attainable by wisdom, that the
very suspicion of it would put a stop to advancement. Has any man a
mind to raise himself a good estate? Alas, what dealer in the world
would ever get a farthing, if he be so wise as to scruple at
perjury, blush at a lie, or stick at a fraud and overreaching?
It is the public charter of all divines, to mold and bend the
sacred oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading
them (as Heaven by its Creator) like a curtain, closing together,
or drawing them back, as they please. Thus, indeed, Saint Paul
himself minces and mangles some citations he makes use of, and
seems to wrest them to a different sense from what they were first
intended for, as is confessed by the great linguist, Saint Hieron.
Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of the altar,
he draws from it an argument for the proof of the Christian
religion; but leaving out great parts of the sentence, which
perhaps if fully recited might have prejudiced his cause, he
mentions only the last two words, namely, "To the Unknown God"; and
this, too, not without alteration, for the whole inscription runs
thus: "To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to all Foreign and
Unknown Gods."
'T is an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that
our young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place and
putting a false construction on the rest, can make any passage
serviceable to their own purpose; though from the coherence of what
went before, or follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be
either wide enough, or perhaps quite contradictory to what they
would thrust and impose upon it. In which knack the divines are
grown now so expert that the lawyers themselves begin to be jealous
of an encroachment on what was formerly their sole privilege and
practise. And indeed what can they despair of proving, since the
forementioned commentator did upon a text of Saint Luke put an
interpretation no more agreeable to the meaning or the place than
one contrary quality is to another.
But because it seemed expedient that man, who was born for the
transaction of business, should have so much wisdom as should fit
and capacitate him for the discharge of his duty herein, and yet
lest such a measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove
too dangerous and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, and
prescribed this infallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature so
harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might
mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humor of man. Now
that which made Plato doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether
among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the
extreme stupidness and Folly of that sex, a sex so unalterably
simple that for any one of them to thrust forward and reach at the
name of wise, is but to make themselves the more remarkable fools,
such an endeavor being but a swimming against the stream, nay, the
turning the course of Nature, the bare attempting whereof is as
extravagant as the effecting of it is impossible: for as it is a
trite proverb, that an ape will be an ape, though clad in purple,
so a woman will be a woman, that is, a fool, whatever disguise she
takes up. And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss to
be thus charged, for if they do but rightly consider, they will
find to Folly they are beholden for those endowments wherein they
so far surpass and excel Man; as first for their unparalleled
beauty, by the charm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest of
tyrants; for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes
men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like
an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty,
smooth cheeks, such a low, gentle voice, and so pure a complexion,
as if Nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry
and comeliness? Besides, what greater or juster aim and ambition
have they than to please their husbands? In order whereunto they
garnish themselves with paint, washes, curls, perfumes, and all
other mysteries of ornament; yet, after all, they become acceptable
to them only for their Folly. Wives are always allowed their humor,
yet it is only in exchange for titillation and pleasure, which
indeed are but other names for Folly; as none can deny, who
consider how a man must dandle, and kittle, and play a hundred
little tricks for his helpmate.
But now some blood-chilled old men, that are more for wine than
wenching, will pretend that in their opinion the greatest happiness
consists in feasting and drinking. Grant it be so; yet certainly in
the most luxurious entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce
and relish to the daintiest delicacies; so that if there be no one
of the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by the rest,
they must procure some comical buffoon, that by his jokes and
flouts and blunders shall make the whole company split themselves
with laughing; for to what purpose were it to be stuffed and
crammed with so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome
rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ears, and the
whole mind of man, were not so well foisted and relieved with
laughing, jesting, and such like divertisements, which, like second
courses, serve for the promoting of digestion? And as to all those
shoeing-horns of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the
throwing high jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a
hand, the beginning of mistresses' healths; and then the roaring
out of drunken catches, the calling in a fiddler, the leading out
every one his lady to dance, and such like riotous pastimes--these
were not taught or dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but
of Gotham rather, being my invention, and by me prescribed as the
best preservative of health: each of which, the more ridiculous it
is, the more welcome it finds. And indeed, to jog sleepingly
through the world, in a dumpish, melancholy posture, can not
properly be said to live.
[Illustration: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON]
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
There is something in human nature which always makes people reward
merit, no matter under what color of skin merit is found. I have
found, too, that it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long
way in softening prejudices. The actual sight of a good house that
a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion
about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build. The
individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in
the end, make his way regardless of his race.
--_Booker T. Washington_
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
This is a story about a Negro. The story has the peculiarity of being
true. The man was born a slave in Virginia. His mother was a slave, and
was thrice sold in the market-place. This man is Booker T. Washington.
The name Booker was a fanciful one given to the lad by playmates on
account of his love for a certain chance dog-eared spelling-book. Before
this he was only Mammy's Pet. The T. stood for nothing, but later a
happy thought made it Taliaferro.
Most Negroes, fresh from slavery, stood sponsor to themselves, and chose
the name Washington; if not this, then Lincoln, Clay or Webster.
This lad when but a child, being suddenly asked for his name, exclaimed,
"Washington," and stuck to it.
The father of this boy was a white man; but children always take the
status of the mother, so Booker T. Washington is a Negro, and proud of
it, as he should be, for he is standard by performance, even if not by
pedigree.
This Negro's father is represented by the sign _x_. By remaining in
obscurity the fond father threw away his one chance for immortality. We
do not even know his name, his social position, or his previous
condition of turpitude. We assume he was happily married and
respectable. Concerning him legend is silent and fable dumb. As for the
child, we are not certain whether he was born in Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-eight or Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, and we know not the day or
the month. There were no signs in the East.
The mother lived in a log cabin of one room, say ten by twelve. This
room was also a kitchen, for the mother was cook to the farmhands of her
owner. There were no windows and no floor in the cabin save the
hard-trodden clay. There were a table, a bench and a big fireplace.
There were no beds, and the children at night simply huddled and cuddled
in a pile of straw and rags in the corner. Doubtless they had enough
food, for they ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table--who,
by the way, wasn't so very rich.
One of the earliest recollections of Black Baby Booker was of being
awakened in the middle of the night by his mother to eat fried chicken.
Imagine the picture--it is past midnight. No light in the room save the
long, flickering streaks that dance on the rafters. Outside the wind
makes mournful, sighing melody. In the corner huddled the children,
creeping close together with intertwining arms to get the warmth of each
little half-naked body.
The dusky mother moves swiftly, deftly, half-frightened at her task.
She has come in from the night with a chicken! Where did she get it?
Hush! Where do you suppose oppressed colored people get chickens?
She picks the bird--prepares it for the skillet--fries it over the
coals. And then when it is done just right, Maryland style, this mother
full of mother-love, an ingredient which God never omits, shakes each
little piccaninny into wakefulness, and gives him the forbidden
dainty--drumstick, wishbone, gizzard, white meat, or the part that went
through the fence last--anything but the neck.
Feathers, bones, waste are thrown into the fireplace, and what the
village editor calls the "devouring element" hides all trace of the
crime. Then all lie down to sleep, until the faint flush of pink comes
into the East, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the mountain-tops.
* * * * *
This ex-slave remembers a strange and trying time, when all of the
colored folk on the plantation were notified to assemble at the "big
house." They arrived and stood around in groups, waiting and wondering,
talking in whispers. The master came out, and standing on the veranda
read from a paper in a tremulous voice. Then he told them that they were
all free, and shook hands with each. Everybody cried. However, they were
very happy in spite of the tears, for freedom to them meant heaven--a
heaven of rest. Yet they bore only love towards their former owners.
Most of them began to wander--they thought they had to leave their old
quarters. In a few days the wisest came back and went to work just as
usual. Booker T.'s mother quit work for just half a day.
But in a little while her husband arrived--a colored man to whom she had
been married years before, and who had been sold and sent away. Now he
came and took her and the little monochrome brood, and they all started
away for West Virginia, where they heard that colored men were hired to
work in coalmines and were paid wages in real money.
It took months and months to make the journey. They carried all their
belongings in bundles. They had no horses--no cows--no wagon--they
walked. If the weather was pleasant they slept out of doors; if it
rained they sought a tobacco-shed, a barn, or the friendly side of a
straw-stack. For food they depended on a little cornmeal they carried,
with which the mother made pone-cakes in the ashes of a campfire. Kind
colored people on the way replenished the meal-bag, for colored people
are always generous to the hungry and needy if they have anything to be
generous with. Then Providence sent stray, ownerless chickens their way,
at times, just as the Children of Israel were fed on quails in the
wilderness. Once they caught a 'possum--and there was a genuine banquet,
where the children ate until they were as tight as drums.
Finally they reached the promised land of West Virginia, and at the
little village of Maiden, near Charleston, they stopped, for here were
the coal mine and the salt-works where colored men were hired and paid
in real money.
Booker's stepfather found a job, and he also found a job for little
Booker. They had nothing to live on until pay-day, so the kind man who
owned the mine allowed them to get things at the store on credit. This
was a brand-new experience--and no doubt they bought a few things they
did not need, for prices and values were absolutely out of their realm.
Besides, they did not know how much wages they were to get, neither
could they figure the prices of the things they bought. At any rate,
when pay-day came they were still in debt, so they saw no real
money--certainly little Booker at this time of his life never did.
* * * * *
General Lewis Ruffner owned the salt-works and the coalmine where little
Booker worked. He was stern, severe, strict. But he believed Negroes
were human beings, and there were those then who disputed the
proposition.
Ruffner organized a night-school for his helpers, and let a couple of
his bookkeepers teach it. At this time there was not a colored person in
the neighborhood who could spell cat, much less write his name. A few
could count five. Booker must have been about ten years old when one day
he boasted a bit of his skill in mathematics. The foreman told him to
count the loads of coal as they came out of the mine. The boy started in
bravely, "One--two--three--four--dere goes one, dere goes anoder,
anoder, anoder, anoder, anoder!"
The foreman laughed.
The boy was abashed, then chagrined. "Send me to the night-school and in
a month I'll show you how to count!"
The foreman wrote the lad an order which admitted him to the
night-school.
But now there was another difficulty--the boy worked until nine o'clock
at night, the last hour's work being to sweep out the office. The
night-school began at nine o'clock and it was two miles away.
The lad scratched his head and thought and thought. A great idea came to
him--he would turn the office clock ahead half an hour. He could then
leave at nine o'clock, and by running part of the way could get to
school at exactly nine o'clock.
The scheme worked for two days, when one of the clerks in the office
said that a spook was monkeying with the clock. They tried the plan of
locking the case, and all was well.
Booker must have been about twelve years old, goin' on thirteen, when
one day as he lay on his back in the coalmine, pushing out the broken
coal with his feet, he overheard two men telling of a very wonderful
school where colored people were taught to read, write and cipher--also,
how to speak in public. The scholars were allowed to work part of the
time to pay for their board.
The lad crawled close in the darkness and listened to the conversation.
He caught the names "Hampton" and "Armstrong." Whether Armstrong was the
place and Hampton was the name of the man, he could not make out, but he
clung to the names.
Here was a school for colored people--he would go there! That night he
told his mother about it. She laughed, patted his kinky head, and
indulged him in his dream.
She was only a poor black woman; she could not spell ab, nor count to
ten, but she had a plan for her boy--he would some day be a preacher.
This was the very height of her imagination--a preacher! Beyond this
there was nothing in human achievement. The night-school came after a
day of fourteen hours' work. Little Booker sat on a bench, his feet
dangling about a foot from the floor. As he sat there one night trying
hard to drink in knowledge, he went to sleep. He nodded, braced up,
nodded again, and then pitched over in a heap on the floor, to the great
amusement of the class, and his own eternal shame.
The next day, however, as he was feeling very sorrowful over his sad
experience, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner wanted a boy for general work at
the big house.
Here was a chance. Mrs. Ruffner was a Vermont Yankee, which meant that
she had a great nose for dirt, and would not stand for a "sassy nigger."
Her reputation had gone abroad, and of how she pinched the ears of her
"help," and got them up at exactly a certain hour, and made them use
soap and water at least once a day, and even compelled them to use a
toothbrush; all this was history, well defined.
Booker said he could please her, even if she was a Yankee. He applied
for the job and got it, with wages fixed at a dollar a week, with a
promise of twenty-five cents extra every week, if he did his work
without talking back and breaking a tray of dishes.
* * * * *
"Genius! No hovel is safe from it!" says Whistler.
Genius consists in doing the right thing without being told more than
three times.
Booker silently studied the awful Yankee woman to see what she really
wanted. He finally decided that she desired her servants to have clean
skins, fairly neat clothing, do things promptly, finish the job and keep
still when they had nothing to say.
He set himself to please her--and he did.
She loaned him books, gave him a lead-pencil, and showed him how to
write with a pen without smearing his hands and face with ink.
He told her of his dream and asked about Armstrong and Hampton. She told
him that Armstrong was the man and Hampton the place.
At last he got her consent to leave and go to Hampton.
When he started she gave him a comb, a toothbrush, two handkerchiefs and
a pair of shoes. He had been working for her for a year, and she
thought, of course, he saved his wages. He never told her that his money
had gone to keep the family, because his stepfather had been on a strike
and therefore out of work.
So the boy started away for Hampton. It was five hundred miles away. He
didn't know how far five hundred miles is--nobody does unless he has
walked it.
He had three dollars, so he gaily paid for a seat in the stage. At the
end of the first day he was forty miles from home and out of money. He
slept in a barn, and a colored woman handed him a ham-bone and a chunk
of bread out of the kitchen-window, and looked the other way.
He trudged on east--always and forever east--towards the rising sun.
He walked weeks--months--years, he thought. He kept no track of the
days. He carried his shoes as a matter of economy.
Finally he sold the shoes for four dollars to a man who paid him ten
cents cash down, and promised to pay the rest when they should meet at
Hampton. Nearly forty years have passed and they have never met.
On he walked--on and on--east, and always forever east.
He reached the city of Richmond, the first big city he had ever seen.
The wide streets--the sidewalks--the street-lamps entranced him. It was
just like heaven. But he was hungry and penniless, and when he looked
wistfully at a pile of cold fried chicken on a street-stand and asked
the price of a drumstick, at the same time telling he had no money, he
discovered he was not in heaven at all. He was called a lazy nigger and
told to move on.
Later he made the discovery that a "nigger" is a colored person who has
no money.
He pulled the piece of rope that served him for a belt a little tighter,
and when no one was looking, crawled under a sidewalk and went to
sleep, disturbed only by the trampling overhead.
When he awoke he saw he was near the dock, where a big ship pushed its
bowsprit out over the street. Men were unloading bags and boxes from the
boat. He ran down and asked the mate if he could help. "Yes!" was the
gruff answer.
He got in line and went staggering under the heavy loads.
He was little, but strong, and best of all, willing, yet he reeled at
the work.
"Have you had any breakfast? Yes, you liver-colored boy--you, I say,
have you had your breakfast?"
"No, sir," said the boy; "and no supper last night nor dinner
yesterday!"
"Well, I reckoned as much. Now you take this quarter and go over to that
stand and buy you a drumstick, a cup of coffee and two fried cakes!"
The lad didn't need urging. He took the money in his palm, went over to
the man who the night before had called him a lazy nigger, and showing
the silver, picked out his piece of chicken.
The man hastened to wait on him, and said it was a fine day and hoped he
was well.
* * * * *
Arriving at Hampton, this colored boy, who had tramped the long, weary
miles, stood abashed before the big brick building which he knew was
Hampton Institute.
He was so little--the place was so big--by what right could he ask to be
admitted?
Finally he boldly entered, and in a voice meant to be firm, but which
was very shaky, said, "I am here!" and pointed to the bosom of his
hickory shirt.
The Yankee woman motioned him to a chair. Negroes coming there were
plentiful. Usually they wanted to live the Ideal Life. They had a call
to preach--and the girls wanted to be music-teachers.
The test was simple and severe: would they and could they do one useful
piece of work well?
Booker sat and waited, not knowing that his patience was being put to
the test.
Then Miss Priscilla, in a hard, Neill Burgess voice, "guessed" that the
adjoining recitation-room needed sweeping and dusting. She handed Booker
a broom and dust-cloth, motioned to the room, and went away.
Oho! Little did she know her lad. The colored boy smiled to
himself--sweeping and dusting were his specialties--he had learned the
trade from a Yankee woman from Vermont! He smiled.
Then he swept that room--moved every chair, the table, the desk. He
dusted each piece of furniture four times. He polished each rung and
followed around the baseboard on hands and knees.
Miss Priscilla came back--pushed the table around and saw at once that
the dirt had not been concealed beneath it. She took out her
handkerchief and wiped the table top, then the desk.
She turned, looked at the boy, and her smile met his half-suppressed
triumphant grin.
"You'll do," she said.
* * * * *
General Samuel C. Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, and the
grandfather of Tuskegee, was a white man who fought the South valiantly
and well.
He seems about the only man in the North who, at the close of the war,
clearly realized that the war had just begun--that the real enemies were
not subdued, and that these enemies were ignorance, superstition and
incompetence.
The pitiable condition of four million human beings, flung from slavery
into freedom, thrown upon their own resources, with no thought of
responsibility, and with no preparation for the change, meant for them
only another kind of slavery.
General Armstrong's heart went out to them--he desired to show them how
to be useful, helpful, self-reliant, healthy. For the whites of the
South he had only high regard and friendship. He, of all men, knew how
they had suffered from the war--and he realized also that they had
fought for what they believed was right. In his heart there was no hate.
He resolved to give himself--his life--his fortune--his intellect--his
love--his all, for the upbuilding of the South. He saw with the vision
of a prophet that indolence and pride were the actual enemies of white
and black alike. The blacks must be taught to work--to know the dignity
of human labor--to serve society--to help themselves by helping others.
He realized that there are no menial tasks--that all which serves is
sacred.
And this is the man who sowed the seeds of truth in the heart of the
nameless black boy--Booker Washington. Armstrong's shibboleth, too, was,
"With malice toward none, but with charity for all, let us finish the
work God has given us to do."
* * * * *
I do not know very much about this subject of education, yet I believe I
know as much about what others know about it as most people. I have
visited the principal colleges of America and Europe, and the methods of
Preparatory and High Schools are to me familiar. I know the
night-schools of the cities, the "Ungraded Rooms," the Schools for
Defectives, the educational schemes in prisons, the Manual-Training
Schools, the New Education (first suggested by Socrates) as carried out
by G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, and dozens of other good men and women
in America. I am familiar with the School for the Deaf at Malone, New
York, and the School for the Blind at Batavia, where even the sorely
stricken are taught to be self-sufficient, self-supporting and happy. I
have tumbled down the circular fire-escape at Lapeer with the inmates of
the Home of Epileptics, and heard the shouts of laughter from lips that
never laughed before. I have seen the Jewish Manual Training School of
Chicago transform Russian refugees into useful citizens--capable,
earnest and excellent. I know a little about Swarthmore, Wellesley,
Vassar, Radcliffe, and have put my head into West Point and Annapolis,
and had nobody cry, "Genius!"
Of Harvard, Yale and Princeton I know something, having done time in
each. I have also given jobs to graduates of Oxford, Cambridge and
Heidelberg, to my sorrow and their chagrin. This does not prove that
graduates of the great universities are, as a rule, out of work, or that
they are incompetent. It simply means that it is possible for a man to
graduate at these institutions and secure his diploma and yet be a man
who has nothing the world really wants, either in way of ideas or
services.
The reason that my "cum laude" friends did not like me, and the cause of
my having to part with them--getting them a little free transportation
from your Uncle George--was not because they lacked intelligence, but
because they wanted to secure a position, while I simply offered them a
job.
They were like Cave-of-the-Winds of Oshkosh, who is an ice-cutter in
August, and in winter is an out-of-door horticulturist--a hired man is
something else.
As a general proposition, I believe this will not now be disputed: the
object of education is that a man may benefit himself by serving
society.
To benefit others, you must be reasonably happy: there must be animation
through useful activity, good-cheer, kindness and health--health of mind
and health of body. And to benefit society you must also have patience,
persistency, and a firm determination to do the right thing, and to mind
your own business so that others, too, may mind theirs. Then all should
be tinctured with a dash of discontent with past achievements, so you
will constantly put forth an effort to do more and better work.
When what you have done in the past looks large to you, you haven't done
much today.
So there you get the formula of Education: health and happiness through
useful activity--animation, kindness, good-cheer, patience, persistency,
willingness to give and take, seasoned with enough discontent to prevent
smugness, which is the scum that grows over every stagnant pond.
Of course no college can fill this prescription--no institution can
supply the ingredients--all that the college can do is to supply the
conditions so that these things can spring into being. Plants need the
sunlight--mushrooms are different.
The question is, then, what teaching concern in America supplies the
best quality of actinic ray?
And I answer, Tuskegee is the place, and Booker Washington is the man.
"What!" you exclaim. "The Ideal School a school for Negroes, instituted
by a Negro, where only Negroes teach, and only Negroes are allowed to
enter as students?"
And the answer is, "Exactly so."
At Tuskegee there are nearly two thousand students, and over one hundred
fifty teachers. There are two classes of students--"day-school" and
"night-school" students. The night-school students work all day at any
kind of task they are called upon to do. They receive their board,
clothing and a home--they pay no tuition, but are paid for their labor,
the amount being placed to their credit, so when fifty dollars is
accumulated they can enter as "day students."
The "day students" make up the bulk of the scholars. Each pays fifty
dollars a year. These all work every other day at manual labor or some
useful trade.
Tuskegee has fully twice as many applicants as it can accommodate; but
there is one kind of applicant who never receives any favor. This is the
man who says he has the money to pay his way, and wishes to take the
academic course only. The answer always is: "Please go elsewhere--there
are plenty of schools that want your money. The fact that you have money
will not exempt you here from useful labor."
This is exactly what every college in the world should say.
The Tuskegee farm consists of about three thousand acres. There are four
hundred head of cattle, about five hundred hogs, two hundred horses,
great flocks of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, and many swarms of
bees. It is the intention to raise all the food that is consumed on the
place, and to manufacture all supplies. There are wagon-shops, a
sawmill, a harness-shop, a shoe-shop, a tailor-shop, a printing-plant, a
model laundry, a canning establishment. Finer fruit and vegetables I
have never seen, and the thousands of peach, plum and apple trees, and
the vast acreage of berries that have been planted, will surely some day
be a goodly source of revenue.
The place is religious, but not dogmatically so--the religion being
merely the natural safety-valve for emotion. At Tuskegee there is no
lacrimose appeal to confess your sins--they do better--they forget them.
I never heard more inspiring congregational singing, and the use of the
piano, organ, orchestra and brass band are important factors in the
curriculum. In the chapel I spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert,
so receptive, so filled with animation, that the whole place looked like
a vast advertisement for Sozodont.
No prohibitive signs are seen at Tuskegee. All is affirmative, yet it is
understood that some things are tabu--tobacco, for instance, and strong
drink, of course.
We have all heard of Harvard Beer and Yale Mixture, but be it said in
sober justice, Harvard runs no brewery, and Yale has no official brand
of tobacco. Yet Harvard men consume much beer, and many men at Yale
smoke. And if you want to see the cigarette-fiend on his native heath,
you'll find him like the locust on the campus at Cambridge and New
Haven. But if you want to see the acme of all cigarette-bazaars, just
ride out of Boylston Street, Boston, any day at noon, and watch the boys
coming out of the Institute of Technology.
I once asked a Tech Professor if cigarette-smoking was compulsory in his
institution. "Yes," he replied; "but the rule is not strictly enforced,
as I know three students who do not smoke."
Tuskegee stands for order, system, cleanliness, industry, courtesy and
usefulness. There are no sink-holes around the place, no "back yards."
Everything is beautiful, wholesome and sanitary. All trades are
represented. The day is crammed so full of work from sunrise to sunset
that there is no time for complaining, misery or faultfinding--three
things that are usually born of idleness. At Tuskegee there are
no servants. All of the work is done by the students and
teachers--everybody works--everybody is a student, and all are teachers.
We are all teachers, whether we will it or not--we teach by example, and
all students who do good work are good teachers.
When the Negro is able to do skilled work, he ceases to be a problem--he
is a man. The fact that Alexandre Dumas was a Negro does not count
against him in the world's assize.
The old-time academic college, that cultivated the cerebrum and gave a
man his exercise in an indoor gymnasium, or not at all, has ruined its
tens of thousands. To have top--head and no lungs--is not wholly
desirable. The student was made exempt from every useful thing, just as
the freshly freed slave hoped and expected to be, and after four years
it was often impossible for him to take up the practical lessons of
life. He had gotten used to the idea of one set of men doing all the
work and another set of men having the culture. To a large degree he
came to regard culture as the aim of life. And when a man begins to
pride himself upon his culture, he hasn't any to speak of. Culture must
be merely incidental, and to clutch it is like capturing a butterfly:
you do not secure the butterfly at all--you get only a grub.
Let us say right here that there is only one way in which a Negro, or a
white man, can ever make himself respected. Statute law will not do it;
rights voted him by the State are of small avail; making demands will
not secure the desired sesame. If we ever gain the paradise of freedom
it will be because we have earned it--because we deserve it. A
make-believe education may suffice for a white man--especially if he has
a rich father, but a Negro who has to carve out his own destiny must be
taught order, system, and quiet, persistent, useful effort.
A college that has its students devote one-half their time to actual,
useful work is so in line with commonsense that we are amazed that the
idea had to be put into execution by the ex-slave as a life-saver for
his disenfranchised race. Our great discoveries are always accidents: we
work for one thing and get another. I expect that the day will come, and
erelong, when the great universities of the world will have to put the
Tuskegee Idea into execution in order to save themselves from being
distanced by the Colored Race.
If life were one thing and education another, it might be all right to
separate them. Culture of the head over a desk, and indoor gymnastics
for the body, are not the ideal, and that many succeed in spite of the
handicap is no proof of the excellence of the plan. Ships that go around
the world accumulate many barnacles, but barnacles as a help to the
navigator are an iridescent dream.
A little regular manual labor, rightly mixed with the mental, eliminates
draw-poker, highballs, brawls, broils, Harvard Beer, Yale Mixture,
Princeton Pinochle, Chippee dances, hazing, roistering, rowdyism and the
bulldog propensity. The Heidelberg article of cocked hat and insolent
ways is not produced at Tuskegee. At Tuskegee there is no place for
those who lie in wait for insults and regard scrapping as a fine art. As
for college athletics at the Orthodox Universities, only one man out of
ten ever does anything at it anyway--the college man who needs the
gymnasium most is practically debarred from everything in it and serves
as a laughing-stock whenever he strips. Coffee, cocaine, bromide,
tobacco and strong drink often serve in lieu of exercise and ozone, and
Princeton winks her woozy eye in innocency.
Freedom can not be bestowed--it must be achieved. Education can not be
given--it must be earned. Lincoln did not free the slaves--he only freed
himself. The Negroes did not know they were slaves, and so they had no
idea of what freedom meant. Until a man wants to be free, each kind of
freedom is only another form of slavery. Booker Washington is showing
the colored man how to secure a genuine freedom through useful
activity. To get freedom you must shoulder responsibility.
If college education were made compulsory by the State, and one-half of
the curriculum consisted of actual, useful manual labor, most of our
social ills would be solved, and we would be well out on the highway
towards the Ideal City.
Without animation, man is naught--nothing is accomplished, nothing done.
People who inspire other people have animation plus.
And animation plus is ecstasy. In ecstasy the spirit rushes out, runs
over and saturates all. Oratory is an ecstasy that inundates the hearer
and makes him ride upon the crest of another's ideas.
Art is born of ecstasy--art is ecstasy in the concrete. Beautiful music
is ecstasy expressed in sound, regulated into rhythm, cadence and form.
"Statuary is frozen music," said Heine.
A man who is not moved into ecstasy by ecstasy is hopeless. A people
that has not the surging, uplifting, onward power that ecstasy gives, is
decadent--dead.
The Negro is easily moved to ecstasy. Very little musical training makes
him a power in song. At Tuskegee the congregational singing is a feature
that, once heard, is never to be forgotten. Fifteen hundred people
lifting up their hearts in an outburst of emotion--song! Fifteen hundred
people of one mind, doing anything in unison--do you know what it means?
Ecstasy is essentially a matter of sex. In art and religion sex can not
be left out of the equation. The simple fact that in forty years the
Negro race in America has increased from four million to ten million
tells of their ecstasy as a people. "Only happy beings reproduce
themselves," says Darwin. Depress your animal and it ceases to breed; so
there are a whole round of animals that do not reproduce in captivity.
But in slavery or freedom the Negro sings, and reproduces--he is not
doomed nor depressed--his soul arises superior to circumstance.
Without animation, education is impossible. And the problem of the
educator is to direct this singing, flowing, moving spirit of the hive
into useful channels.
Education is simply the encouragement of right habits--the fixing of
good habits until they become a part of one's nature, and are exercised
automatically.
The man who is industrious by habit is the only man who wins. The man
who is not industrious except when driven to it, or when it occurs to
him, accomplishes little.
Man gets his happiness by doing: and work to a slave is always
distasteful. The power of mimicry and imitation is omitted--the owner
does not work--the strong man does not work. Ergo--to grow strong means
to cease work. To be strong means to be free--to be free means no work!
It has been a frightfully bad education that the Negro has had--work
distasteful, and work disgraceful! And the slave-owner suffered most of
all, for he came to regard work as debasing.
And now a Negro is teaching the Negro that work is beautiful--that work
is a privilege--that only through willing service can he ever win his
freedom. Architecture is fixed ecstasy, inspired always by a strong man
who gives a feeling of security. Athens was an ecstasy in marble.
Tuskegee is an ecstasy in brick and mortar.
Don't talk about the education of the Negro! The experiment has really
never been tried, except spasmodically, of educating either the whites
or the blacks in the South--or elsewhere.
A Negro is laying hold upon the natural ecstasy of the Negro, and
directing it into channels of usefulness and excellence. Can you
foretell where this will end--this formation of habits of industry,
sobriety and continued, persistent effort towards the right?
Booker Washington, child of a despised race, has done and is doing what
the combined pedagogic and priestly wisdom of ages has failed to do. He
is the Moses who by his example is leading the children of his former
oppressors out into the light of social, mental, moral and economic
freedom.
I am familiar in detail with every criticism brought against Tuskegee.
On examination these criticisms all reduce themselves down to three:
1. A vast sum of money has been collected by Booker Washington for his
own aggrandizement and benefit.
2. Tuskegee is a show-place where all the really good work is done by
picked men from the North.
3. Booker Washington is a tyrant, a dictator and an egotist.
If I were counsel for Tuskegee--as I am not--I would follow the example
of the worthy accusers, and submit the matter without argument. Booker
Washington can afford to plead guilty to every charge; and he has never
belittled himself by answering his accusers.
But let the facts be known, that this man has collected upward of six
million dollars, mostly from the people of the North, and has built up
the nearest perfect educational institution in the world.
It is probably true that many of his teachers and best workers are
picked people--but they are Negroes, and were selected by a Negro. The
great general reveals his greatness in the selection of his generals: it
was the marshals whom Napoleon appointed who won for him his victories;
but his spirit animated theirs, and he chose them for this one
reason--he could dominate them. He infused into their souls a goodly
dash of his own enthusiasm.
Booker Washington is a greater general than Napoleon. For the Tuskegee
idea no Waterloo awaits. And as near as I can judge, Booker Washington's
most noisy critics are merely camp-followers.
That the man is a tyrant and a dictator there is no doubt. He is a
beneficent tyrant, but a tyrant still, for he always, invariably, has
his own way in weighty matters--in trivialities others can have theirs.
And as for dictatorship, the man who advances on chaos and transforms it
into cosmos is perforce a dictator and an egotist.
Booker Washington believes he is in the right, and he makes no effort to
conceal the fact that he is on earth. In him there is no disposition to
run and peep about, and find himself a dishonorable grave. All live men
are egotists, and they are egotists just in proportion as they have
life. Dead men are not egotists. Booker Washington has life in
abundance, and through him I truly believe runs the spirit of Divinity,
if ever a living man had it. A man like this is the instrument of Deity.
Tuskegee Institute has applications ahead all the time, from all over
America, for competent colored men and women who can take charge of
important work and do it. Dressmakers, housekeepers, cooks, farmers,
stockmen, builders, gardeners, are in demand. The world has never yet
had enough people to bear its burdens.
Recently we have heard much of the unemployed, but a very little search
will show that the people out of work are those of bad habits, which
make them unreliable and untrustworthy. The South, especially, needs the
willing worker and the practical man. And best of all the South knows
it, and stands ready to pay for the service.
A few years ago there was a fine storm of protest from Northern Negroes
to the effect that Booker Washington was endeavoring to limit the Negro
to menial service--that is, thrust him back into servility. The first
ambition of the Negro was to get an education so that he might become a
Baptist preacher. To him, education meant freedom from toil, and of
course we do not have to look far to see where he got the idea. Then
when Tuskegee came forward and wanted to make blacksmiths, carpenters
and brick-masons out of black men, there was a cry, "If this means
education, we will none of it--treason, treason!" It was assumed that
the Negro who set other Negroes to work was not their friend. This phase
of the matter requires neither denial nor apology. We smile and pass on.
In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-seven, the Negro was practically
disenfranchised throughout the South, by being excluded from the
primaries. He had no recognized ticket in the field. For both the blacks
and the whites this has been well. To most of the blacks freedom meant
simply exemption from work. So there quickly grew up a roistering,
turbulent, idle and dangerous class of black men who were used by the
most ambitious of their kind for political ends. To preserve the peace
of the community, the whites were forced to adopt heroic measures, with
the result that we now have the disenfranchised Negro.
Early in the Eighties, Booker Washington realized that, politically,
there was no hope for his race. He saw, however, that commerce
recognized no color line. We would buy, sell and trade with the black
man on absolute equality. Life-insurance companies would insure him,
banks would receive his deposits, and if honest and competent, would
loan him money. If he could shoe a horse, we waived his complexion; and
in every sort and kind of craftsmanship he stood on absolute equality
with the whites. The only question ever asked was, "Can you do the
work?"
And Booker Washington set out to help the Negro win success for himself
by serving society through becoming skilled in doing useful things. And
so it became Head, Hand and Heart. The manual was played off against the
intellectual.
But over and beyond the great achievement of Booker Washington in
founding and carrying to a successful issue the most complete
educational scheme of this age, or any other, stands the man himself. He
is one without hate, heat or prejudice. No one can write on the lintels
of his doorpost the word, "Whim." He is half-white, but calls himself a
Negro. He sides with the disgraced and outcast black woman who gave him
birth, rather than with the respectable white man who was his sire.
He rides in the Jim Crow cars, and on long trips, if it is deemed
expedient to use a sleeping-car, he hires the stateroom, so that he may
not trespass or presume upon those who would be troubled by the presence
of a colored man. Often in traveling he goes for food and shelter to the
humble home of one of his own people. At hotels he receives and
accepts, without protest or resentment, the occasional contumely of the
inferior whites--whites too ignorant to appreciate that one of God's
noblemen stands before them. For the whites of the South he has only
words of kindness and respect; the worst he says about them is that they
do not understand. His modesty, his patience, his forbearance, are
sublime. He is a true Fabian--he does what he can, like the royal
Roycroft opportunist that he is. Every petty annoyance is passed over;
the gibes and jeers and the ingratitude of his own race are forgotten.
"They do not understand," he calmly says. He does his work. He is
respected by the best people of North and South. He has the confidence
of the men of affairs--he is a safe man.
[Illustration: THOMAS ARNOLD]
THOMAS ARNOLD
Let me mind my own personal work; keep myself pure and zealous and
believing; laboring to do God's will in this fruitful vineyard of
young lives committed to my charge, as my allotted field, until my
work be done.
--_Thomas Arnold_
THOMAS ARNOLD
Thomas Arnold was born in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, and died in
Eighteen Hundred Forty-two. His life was short, as men count time, but
he lived long enough to make for himself a name and a fame that are both
lasting and luminous. Though he was neither a great writer nor a great
preacher, yet there were times when he thought he was both. He was only
a schoolteacher. However, he was an artist in schoolteaching, and art is
not a thing--it is a way. It is the beautiful way--the effective way.
Schoolteachers have no means of proving their prowess by conspicuous
waste, and no time to convince the world of their excellence through
conspicuous leisure; consequently, for histrionic purposes, a
schoolteacher's cosmos is a plain, slaty gray. Schoolteachers do not
wallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No one ever accuses
them of belonging to the class known as the predatory rich, nor of being
millionaire malefactors. They have to do their work every day at certain
hours and dedicate its results to time.
For many years Thomas Arnold has been known as the father of his son.
Several great men have been thus overshadowed. The father of Disraeli,
for instance, was favored by fame and fortune, until his gifted son
moved into the limelight, and after that Pater shone mostly in a
reflected glory. Jacopo Bellini was the greatest painter in Venice until
his two sons, Gian and Gentile, surpassed him, and history writes him
down as the father of the Bellinis. Lyman Beecher was regarded as
America's greatest preacher until Henry Ward moved the mark up a few
notches. The elder Pitt was looked upon as a genuine statesman until his
son graduated into the Cabinet, and then "the terrible cornet of horse"
became known as the father of Pitt. Now that both are dust, and we are
getting the proper perspective, we see that "the great commoner" was
indeed a great man, and so they move down the corridors of time
together, arm in arm, this father and son. That excellent person who
carried the gripsacks of greatness so long that he thought the luggage
was his own, Major James B. Pond, launched at least one good thing. It
was this: "Matthew Arnold gave fifty lectures in America, and nobody
ever heard one of them; those in his audience who could no longer endure
the silence slipped quietly out."
Matthew Arnold was a critic and writer who, having secured a tuppence
worth of success through being the son of his father, and thus securing
the speaker's eye, finally got an oratorical bee in his bonnet and went
a-barnstorming. He cultivated reserve and indifference, both of which he
was told were necessary factors of success in a public speaker.
And this is true. But they will not make an orator, any more than long
hair, a peculiar necktie, and a queer hat will float a poet on the tide
of time safely into the Hall of Fame.
Matthew Arnold cultivated repose, but instead of convincing the audience
that he had power, he only made them think he was sleepy. Major Pond,
having lived much with orators, and thinking the trick easy, tried
oratory on his own account, and succeeded as well as did Matthew Arnold.
No one ever heard Major Pond: his voice fell over the footlights, dead,
into the orchestra; only those with opera-glasses knew he was talking.
But to be unintelligible is not a special recommendation. Men may be
moderate for two reasons--through excess of feeling and because they are
actually dull.
Matthew Arnold has slipped back into his true position--that of a man of
letters. The genius is a man of affairs. Humanity is the theme, not
books. Books are usually written about the thoughts of men who wrote
books. Books die and disintegrate, but humanity is an endless
procession, and the souls that go marching on are those who fought for
freedom, not those who speculate on abstrusities.
The credential of Thomas Arnold to immortality is not that he was the
father of Matthew and eight other little Arnolds, but it lies in the
fact that he fought for a wider horizon in life through education. He
lifted his voice for liberty. He believed in the divinity of the child,
not in its depravity. Arnold of Rugby was a teacher of teachers, as
every great teacher is. The pedagogic world is now going back to his
philosophy, just as in statesmanship we are reverting to Thomas
Jefferson. These men who spoke classic truth, not transient--truth that
fits in spite of fashion, time and place--are the true prophets of
mankind. Such was Thomas Arnold!
* * * * *
If Thomas Arnold had been just a little bigger, the world probably would
never have heard of him, for an interdict would have been placed upon
his work. The miracle is that, as it was, the Church and the State did
not snuff him out.
He stood for sweet reasonableness, but unintentionally created much
opposition. His life was a warfare. Yet he managed to make himself
acceptable to a few; so for fourteen years this head master of a
preparatory school for boys lived his life and did his work. He sent out
his radiating gleams, and grew straight in the strength of his spirit,
and lived out his life in the light.
His sudden death sanctified and sealed his work before he was subdued
and ironed out by the conventions.
Happy Arnold! If he had lived, he might have met the fate of Arnold of
Brescia, who was also a great teacher. Arnold of Brescia was a pupil of
Abelard, and was condemned by the Church as a disturber of the peace for
speaking in eulogy of his master. Later, he attacked the profligacy of
the idle prelates, as did Luther, Savonarola and all the other great
church-reformers. When ordered into exile and silence, he still
protested his right to speak. He was strangled on order of the Pope, his
body burned, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. The Baptists, I
believe, claim Arnold of Brescia as the forerunner of their sect, and
certain it is that he was of the true Roger Williams type.
Thomas Arnold, too, was filled with a passion for righteousness. His
zeal for the upright, manly life constituted his strength. Of course he
would not have been executed, as was Arnold of Brescia--the times had
changed--he would simply have been shelved, pooh-poohed, deprived of his
living and socially Crapseyized. Death saved him--aged forty-seven--and
his soul goes marching on!
* * * * *
The parents of Thomas Arnold belonged to the great Middle Class--that
class which Disraeli said never did any thinking on its own account, but
to the best of its ability deferred to and imitated the idle rich in
matters of religion, education and politics.
Doctor Johnson maintained that if members of the Middle Class worked
hard and economized, it was in the hope that they might leave money and
name for their children and make them exempt from all useful effort.
"To indict a class," said Burke, "is neither reasonable nor right." But
certain it is that a vast number of fairly intelligent people in England
and elsewhere regard the life of the "aristocracy" as very desirable and
beautiful.
To this end they want their boys to become clergymen, lawyers, doctors
or army officers.
"Only two avenues of honor are open to aspiring youth in England," said
Gladstone--"the Army and the Church."
The father of Thomas Arnold was Collector of Customs at Cowes, Isle of
Wight. Holding this petty office under the Government, with a half-dozen
men at his command, we can easily guess his caliber, habits, belief and
mode of life. He was respectable; and to be respectable, a Collector of
Customs must be punctilious in Church matters, in order to be acceptable
to Church people, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The parents of
Thomas Arnold very naturally centered their ambitions for him on the
Church, as he was not very strong.
When the child was only six years old, the father died from "spasm of
the heart." At this time the boy had begun to take Latin, and his
education was being looked after by a worthy governess, who daily
drilled his mental processes and took him walking, leading him by the
hand. On Sundays he wore a wide, white collar, shiny boots and a stiff
hat. The governess cautioned him not to soil his collar, nor to get mud
on his boots.
In later years he told how he looked covetously at the boys who wore
neither hats nor boots, and who did not have a governess.
His mother had a fair income, and so this prim, precise, exact and
crystallized mode of education was continued. Out of her great love for
her child, the mother sent him away from home when he was eight years
old. Of course there were tears on both sides; but now a male man must
educate him, and women were to be dropped out of the equation--this that
the evil in the child should be curbed, his spirit chastened, and his
mind disciplined.
The fact that a child rather liked to be fondled by his mother, or that
his mother cared to fondle him, was proof of total depravity on the part
of both.
The Reverend Doctor Griffiths, who took charge of the boy for two years,
was certainly not cruel, but at the same time he was not exactly human.
In Nature we never hear of a she-lion sending her cubs away to be looked
after by a denatured lion. It is really doubtful whether you could ever
raise a lion to lionhood by this method. Some goat would come along and
butt the life out of him, even after he had evolved whiskers and a mane.
After two years with Doctor Griffiths, young Arnold was sent to
Manchester, where he remained in a boys' boarding-house from his tenth
to his fourteenth year. To the teachers here--all men--he often paid
tribute, but uttered a few heretical doubts as to whether discipline as
a substitute for mother-love was not an error of pious but overzealous
educators.
At sixteen years of age he was transferred to Corpus Christi College at
Oxford. In Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, being then twenty years of age, he
was elected a Fellow of Oriel College, and there he resided until he was
twenty-four.
He was a prizeman in Latin, Greek and English, and was considered a star
scholar--both by himself and by others. Ten years afterwards he took a
backward glance, and said: "At twenty-two I was proud, precise, stiff,
formal, uncomfortable, unhappy, and unintentionally made everybody else
unhappy with whom I came in contact. The only people I really mixed with
were those whose lives were dedicated to the ablative."
When twenty-four he was made a deacon and used to read prayers at
neighboring chapels, for which service he was paid five shillings. Being
now thrown on his own resources, he did the thing a prizeman always
does: he showed others how. As a tutor he was a success: more scholars
came to him than he could really take care of. But he did not like the
work, since all the pupil desired, and all the parents desired, was that
he should help the backward one get his marks, and glide through the eye
of a needle into pedagogic paradise.
At twenty-six he was preaching, teaching and writing learned essays
about things he did not understand.
From this brief sketch it will be seen that the early education of
Thomas Arnold was of the kind and type that any fond parent of the
well-to-do Middle Class would most desire. He had been shielded from all
temptations of the world; he could do no useful thing with his hands;
his knowledge of economics--ways and means--was that of a child; of the
living present he knew little, but of the dead past he assumed and
believed he knew much.
It was purely priestly, institutional education. It was the kind of
education that every well-to-do Briton would like to have his sons
receive. It was, in short, England's Ideal.
* * * * *
Rugby Grammar School was endowed in Sixteen Hundred Fifty-three by one
Laurence Sherif, a worthy grocer. The original gift was comparatively
small, but the investment being in London real estate, has increased in
value until it yields now an income of about thirty-five thousand
dollars a year.
In the time of Arnold there were about three hundred pupils. It is not a
large school now; there are high schools in a hundred cities of America
that surpass it in many ways.
Rugby's claim to special notice lies in its traditions--the great men
who were once Rugby boys, and the great men who were Rugby teachers.
Also, in the fact that Thomas Hughes wrote a famous story called, "Tom
Brown at Rugby."
Rugby Grammar School was one hundred twenty-five years old when Sir
Joshua Reynolds commissioned Lord Cornwallis to go to America and fetch
George Washington to England, that Sir Joshua might paint his portrait.
For a hundred years prior to the time of Arnold, there had not been a
perceptible change in the methods of teaching. The boys were herded
together. They fought, quarreled, divided into cliques; the big boys
bullied the little ones. Fagging was the law; so the upper forms
enslaved the lower ones. There was no home life, and the studies were
made irksome and severe, purposely, as it was thought that pleasant
things were sinful.
If any better plan could have been devised to make study absolutely
repulsive, so the student would shun it as soon as he was out of school,
we can not guess it.
The system was probably born of inertia on the part of the teachers. The
pastor who pushes through his prescribed services, with mind on other
things, and thus absolves his conscience for letting his congregation go
drifting straight to Gehenna, was duplicated in the teacher. He did his
duty--and nothing more.
Selfishness, heartlessness and brutality manipulated the birch. Head was
all; heart and hand nothing. This was schoolteaching. As a punishment
for failure to memorize lessons, there were various plans to disgrace
and discourage the luckless ones. Standing in the corner with face to
the wall, and the dunce-cap, had given place to a system of fines,
whereby "ten lines of Vergil for failure to attend prayers," and ten
more for failure to get the first, often placed the boy in hopeless
bankruptcy. If he was a fag, or slave of a higher-form boy, cleaning the
other's boots, scrubbing stairs, running on foolish and needless
errands, getting cuffs and kicks by way of encouragement, he saw his
fines piling up and no way ever to clear them off and gain freedom by
promotion.
Viewed from our standpoint, the thing has a ludicrous bouffe air that
makes us smile. But to the boy caught in the toils it was tragic. To
work and evolve in an environment of such brutality was impossible to
certain temperaments. Success lay in becoming calloused and indifferent.
If the boy of gentle habits and slight physical force did not sink into
mental nothingness, he was in danger of being bowled over by disease and
death.
Indeed, the physical condition of the pupils was very bad: smallpox,
fevers, consumption, and breaking out with sores and boils, were common.
Thomas Arnold was thirty-three years old when he was called as head
master to Rugby. He was married, and babies were coming along with
astonishing regularity. He had taken priestly orders and was passing
rich on one hundred pounds a year. Poverty and responsibility had given
him ballast, and love for his own little brood had softened his heart
and vitalized his soul.
As a writer and speaker he had made his presence felt at various college
commencements and clergymen's meetings. He had challenged the brutal,
indifferent, lazy and so-called disciplinary methods of teaching.
And so far as we know, he is the first man in England to declare that
the teacher should be the foster-parent of the child, and that all
successful teaching must be born of love.
The well-upholstered conservatives twiddled their thumbs, coughed, and
asked: "How about the doctrine of total depravity? Do you mean to say
that the child should not be disciplined? What does Solomon say about
the use of the rod? Does the Bible say that the child is good by
nature?"
But Thomas Arnold could not explain all he knew. Moreover, he did not
wish to fight the Church--he believed in the Church--to him it was a
divine institution. But there were methods and practises in the Church
that he would have liked to forget.
"My sympathies go out to inferiority," he said. The weakling often
needed encouragement, not discipline. The bad boy must be won, not
suppressed.
In one of these conferences of clergymen, Arnold said:
"I once chided a pupil, a little, pale, stupid boy--undersized and
seemingly half-sick--for not being able to recite his very simple
lesson. He looked up at me and said with a touch of spirit: 'Sir, why do
you get angry with me? Do you not know I am doing the best I can?'"
One of the clergymen present asked Arnold how he punished the boy for
his impudence.
And Arnold replied: "I did not punish him--he had properly punished me.
I begged his pardon."
The idea of a teacher begging the pardon of a pupil was a brand-new
thing.
Several clergymen present laughed--one scowled--two sneezed. But a
Bishop, shortly after this, urged the name of Thomas Arnold as master of
Rugby, and added to his recommendation this line: "If elected to the
office he will change the methods of schoolteaching in every public
school in England."
The ayes had it, and Arnold was called to Rugby. The salary was so-so,
the pupils between two and three hundred in number--many were home on
sick-leave--the Sixth Form was in charge.
The genius of Arnold was made manifest, almost as soon as he went to
Rugby, by the way in which he managed the boys who bullied the whole
school, and what is worse, did it legally.
Fagging was official.
The Sixth Form was composed of thirty boys who stood at the top, and
these boys ran the school. They were boys who, by reason of their size,
strength, aggressiveness and mental ability, got the markings that gave
them this autocratic power. They were now immune from authority--they
were free. In a year they would gravitate to the University.
We can hardly understand now how a bully could get markings through his
bullying propensities; but a rudimentary survival of the idea may yet be
seen in big football-players, who are given good marks, and very gentle
mental massage in class. If the same scholars were small and skinny,
they would certainly be plucked.
The faculty found freedom in shifting responsibility for discipline to
the Sixth Form.
Read the diary of Arnold, and you will be amazed on seeing how he fought
against taking from the Sixth Form the right to bodily chastise any
scholar in the school that the king of the Sixth Form declared deserved
it.
If a teacher thought a pupil needed punishment, he turned the luckless
one over to the Sixth Form. Can we now conceive of a system where the
duty of certain scholars was to whip other scholars? Not only to whip
them, but to beat them into insensibility if they fought back?
Such was schoolteaching in the public schools of England in Eighteen
Hundred Thirty.
Against this brutality there was now a growing sentiment--a piping voice
bidding the tide to stay!
But now that Arnold was in charge of Rugby, he got the ill-will of his
directors by declaring that he did not intend to curtail the powers of
the Sixth Form--he proposed to civilize it. To try out the new master,
the Sixth Form, proud in their prowess, sent him word that if he
interfered with them in any way, they would first "bust up the school,"
and then resign in a body. Moreover, they gave it out that if any pupil
complained to the master concerning the Sixth Form, the one so
complaining would be taken out by night and drowned in the classic Avon.
There were legends among the younger boys of strange disappearances, and
these were attributed to the swift vengeance of "The Bloody Sixth."
Above the Sixth Form there was no law.
Every scholar took off his hat to a "Sixth." A Sixth uncovered to
nobody, and touched his cap only to a teacher.
And custom had become so rooted that the Sixth Form was regarded as a
sort of police necessity--a caste which served the school just as the
Army served the Church. To reach the Sixth Form were paradise--it meant
liberty and power--liberty to do as you pleased, and power to punish all
who questioned your authority.
To uproot the power of the Sixth Form was the intent of a few reformers
in pedagogics.
There were two ways to deal with the boys of the Sixth--fight them or
educate them.
Arnold called the Rugby Sixth together and assured them that he could
not do without their help. He needed them: he wanted to make Rugby a
model school, a school that would influence all England--would they help
him?
The dogged faces before him showed signs of interest. He continued,
without waiting for their reply, to set before them his ideal of an
English Gentleman. He persuaded them, melted them by his glowing
personality, shook hands with each, and sent them away.
The next day he again met them in the same intimate way, and one of the
boys made bold to assure him that if he wanted anybody licked--pupils or
teachers--they stood ready to do his bidding.
He thanked the boy, but assured him that he was of the opinion that it
would not be necessary to do violence to any one; he was going to unfold
to them another way--a new way, which was very old, but which as yet
England had not tried.
* * * * *
The great teacher is not the one who imparts the most facts--he is the
one who inspires by supplying a nobler ideal.
Men are superior or inferior just in the ratio that they possess certain
qualities. Truth, honor, frankness, health, system, industry,
kindliness, good-cheer and a spirit of helpfulness are so far beyond any
mental acquisition that comparisons are not only odious, but absurd.
Arnold inspired qualities, and in this respect his work at Rugby forms a
white milestone on the path of progress in pedagogy.
To an applicant for a position as teacher, Arnold wrote:
What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentleman, an active
man, and one who has commonsense, and understands boys. I do not so
much care about scholarship, as he will have immediately under him
the lowest forms in the school, but yet, on second thought, I do
care about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest
forms; and besides, I think that even the elements are best taught
by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if
one must give way, I prefer activity of mind and an interest in his
work to high scholarship; for the one may be acquired far more
easily than the other. I should wish it also to be understood that
the new master may be called upon to take boarders in his house, it
being my intention for the future to require this of all masters as
I see occasion, that so in time the school-barracks may die a
natural death. With this to offer, I think I have a right to look
rather high for the man whom I fix upon, and it is my great object
to get here a society of intelligent, gentlemanly and active men,
who may permanently keep up the character of the school, and if I
were to break my neck tomorrow, carry it on.
Ideas are in the air, and great inventions are worked out in different
parts of the world at the same time. Rousseau had written his "Emile,"
but we are not aware that Arnold ever read it.
And if he had, he probably would have been shocked, not inspired, by its
almost brutal frankness. The French might read it--the English could
not.
Pestalozzi was working out his ideas in Switzerland, and Froebel, an
awkward farmer lad in Germany, was dreaming dreams that were to come
true. But Thomas Arnold caught up the threads of feeling in England and
expressed them in the fabric of his life.
His plans were scientific, but his reasons, unlike those of Pestalozzi,
will not always stand the test of close analysis. Arnold was true to the
Church, but he found it convenient to forget much for which the Church
stood. He went back to a source nearer the fountainhead. All reforms in
organized religion lie in returning to the primitive type. The religion
of Jesus was very simple; that of a modern church dignitary is very
complex. One can be understood; the other has to be explained and
expounded, and usually several languages are required.
Arnold would have his boys evolve into Christian gentlemen. And his
type of English gentleman he did not get out of books on theology--it
was his own composite idea. But having once evolved it, he cast around
to justify it by passages of Scripture. This was beautiful, too, but
from our standpoint it wasn't necessary.
From his it was.
A gentleman to him was a man who looked for the best in other people,
and not for their faults; who overlooked slights; who forgot the good he
had done; who was courteous, kind, cheerful, industrious and clean
inside and out; who was slow to wrath, fervent in spirit, serving the
Lord. And the "Lord" to Arnold was embodied in Church and State.
Arnold used to say that schoolteaching should not be based upon
religion, but it should be religion. And to him religion and conduct
were one.
That he reformed Rugby through the Sixth Form is a fact. He infused into
the big boys the thought that they must help the little ones; that for a
first offense a lad must never be punished; that he should have the
matter fully explained to him, and be shown that he should do right
because it is right, and not for fear of punishment.
The Sixth Form was taught to unbend its dignity and enter into
fellowship with its so-called inferiors. To this end Arnold set the
example of playing cricket with the "scrubs."
He never laughed at a poor player nor at a poor scholar. He took dull
pupils into his own house, and insisted that his helpers, the other
teachers, should do the same. He showed the Sixth Form how much better
it was to take the part of the weak, and stop bullying the lower forms,
than to set the example of it in the highest. Before Arnold had been at
Rugby a year, the Sixth Form had resolved itself into a Reception
Committee that greeted all newcomers, got them located, introduced them
to the other boys, showed them the sights, and looked after their wants
like big brothers or foster-fathers.
Christianity to Arnold was human service. In his zeal to serve, to
benefit, to bless, to inspire, he never tired.
Such a disposition as this is contagious. In every big business or
school, there is one man's mental attitude that animates the whole
institution. Everybody partakes of it. When the leader gets melancholia,
the shop has it--the whole place becomes tinted with ultra-marine. The
best helpers begin to get out, and the honeycombing process of
dissolution is on.
A school must have a soul, just as surely as a shop, a bank, a hotel, a
store, a home, or a church has to have. When an institution grows so
great that it has no soul--simply a financial head and a board of
directors--dry-rot sets in and disintegration in a loose wrapper is at
the door.
This explains why the small colleges are the best, when they are: there
is a personality about them, an animating spirit that is pervasive and
preservative.
Thomas Arnold was not a man of vast learning, nor could one truthfully
say he had a surplus of intellect; but he had soul, plus. He never
sought to save himself. He gave himself to the boys of Rugby. His heart
went out to them, he believed in them--and he believed them even when
they lied, and he knew they lied. He knew that humanity was sound at
heart; he believed in the divinity of mankind, and tried hard to forget
the foolish theology that taught otherwise.
Like Thomas Jefferson, who installed the honor system in the University
of Virginia, he trusted young men. He made his appeal to that germ of
goodness which is in every human soul. In some ways he anticipated Ben
Lindsey in his love for the boy, and might have conjured forth from his
teeming brain the Juvenile Court, and thus stopped the creation of
criminals, had his life not been consumed in a struggle with stupidity
and pedantry gone to seed that cried to him, "Oh, who ever heard of such
a thing as that!"
The Kindergarten utilizes the propensity to play; and Arnold utilizes
the thirst for authority. Altruism is flavored with a desire for
approbation.
The plan of self-government by means of utilizing the Sixth Form was
quite on the order of our own "George Junior Republic." "A school," he
said, "should be self-governing and cleanse itself from that which is
harmful." And again he says: "If a pupil can gratify his natural desire
for approbation by doing that which is right, proper and best, he will
work to this end instead of being a hero by playing the rowdy. It is for
the scholars to set the seal of their approval on character, and they
will do so if we as teachers speak the word. If I find a room in a
tumult, I blame myself, not the scholars. It is I who have failed, not
they. Were I what I should be, every one of my pupils would reflect my
worth. I key the situation, I set the pace, and if my soul is in
disorder, the school will be in confusion."
Nothing is done without enthusiasm. It is heart that wins, not head, the
round world over. And yet head must systematize the promptings of the
heart. Arnold had a way of putting soul into a hand-clasp. His pupils
never forgot him. Wherever they went, no matter how long they lived,
they proclaimed the praises of Arnold of Rugby. How much this earnest,
enthusiastic, loving and sincere teacher has influenced civilization, no
man can say. But this we know, that since his day there has come about a
new science of teaching. The birch has gone with the dunce-cap. The
particular cat-o'-nine-tails that was burned in the house of Thomas
Arnold as a solemn ceremony, when the declaration was made, "Henceforth
I know my children will do right!" has found its example in every home
of Christendom.
We no longer whip children. Schools are no longer places of dread, pain
and suffering, and we as teachers are repeating with Friedrich Froebel
the words of the Nazarene, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and
forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."
Also, we say with Thomas Arnold: "The boy is father to the man. A race
of gentlemen can only be produced by fostering in the boy the qualities
that make for health, strength and a manly desire to bless, benefit and
serve the race."
[Illustration: FRIEDRICH FROEBEL]
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
The purpose of the Kindergarten is to provide the necessary and
natural help which poor mothers require who have to be about their
work all day, and must leave their children to themselves. The
occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free
play of a child by itself; free play of several children by
themselves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher;
gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited to little
children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental and
vocal; learning the repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at
really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening.
--_Froebel_
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
Friedrich Froebel was born in a Thuringian village, April Twenty-first,
Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two. His father was pastor of the Lutheran
Church. When scarcely a year old his mother died. Erelong a stepmother
came to fill her place--but didn't. This stepmother was the kind we read
about in the "Six Best Sellers."
Her severity, lack of love, and needlessly religious zeal served the
future Kindergartner a dark background on which to paint a joyous
picture. Froebel was educated by antithesis. His home was the type
etched so unforgetably by Colonel Ed. Howe in his "Story of a Country
Town," which isn't bad enough to be one of the Six Best Sellers.
At the age of ten, out of pure pity, young Friedrich was rescued from
the cuckoo's nest by an uncle who had a big family of his own and love
without limit. There was a goodly brood left, so little Friedrich, slim,
slender, yellow, pensive and sad, was really never missed.
The uncle brought the boy up to work, but treated him like a human
being, answering his questions, even allowing him to have stick horses
and little log houses and a garden of his own.
At fifteen his nature had begun to awaken, and the uncle, harkening to
the boy's wish, apprenticed him for two years to a forester. The young
man's first work was to make a list of the trees in a certain tract and
approximate their respective ages. The night before his work began he
lay awake thinking of the fun he was going to have at the job. In
after-years he told of this incident in showing that it was absurd to
try to divorce work from play.
The two years as forester's apprentice, from fifteen to seventeen, were
really better for him than any university could have been. His
stepmother's instructions had mostly been in the line of prohibition.
From earliest babyhood he had been warned to "look out." When he went on
the street it was with a prophecy that he would get run over by a cart,
or stolen by the gypsies, or fall off the bridge and be drowned. The
idea of danger had been dinged into his ears so that fear had become a
part of the fabric of his nature. Even at fifteen, he took pains to get
out of the woods before sundown to avoid the bears. At the same time his
intellect told him there were no bears there. But the shudder habit was
upon him.
Yet by degrees the work in the woods built up his body and he grew to be
at home in the forest, both day and night. His duties taught him to
observe, to describe, to draw, to investigate, to decide. Then it was
transplantation, and perhaps the best of college life consists in taking
the youth out of the home environment and supplying him new
surroundings.
Forestry in America is a brand-new science. To clear the ground has been
our desire, and so to strip, burn and destroy, saving only such logs as
appealed to us for "lumber," was the desideratum. But now we are
seriously considering the matter of tree-planting and tree-preservation,
and perhaps it would be well to ask ourselves if two years at forestry,
right out of doors, in contact with Nature, wrestling with the world of
wood, rock, plant and living things, wouldn't be better for the boy than
double the time in stuffy dormitories and still more stuffy
recitation-rooms--listening to stuffy lectures about things that are
foreign to life.
I would say that a boy is a savage, but I do not care to give offense to
fond mammas. To educate him in the line of his likes, as the race has
been educated, seems sensible and right. How would Yellowstone Park
answer for a National University, with Captain Jack Crawford, William
Muldoon, John Burroughs, John Dewey, Stanley Hall and a mixture of men
of these types, for a faculty?
Froebel thought his two years in the forest saved him from consumption,
and perhaps from insanity, for it taught him to look out, not in, and to
lend a hand. At times he was a little too sentimental, as it was, and a
trifle more of morbidity and sensitiveness would have ruined his life,
absolutely.
The woods and God's great out-of-doors gave him balance and ballast,
good digestion and sweet sleep o' nights.
The two years past, he went to Jena, where he had an elder brother. This
brother was a star scholar, and Friedrich looked up to him as a pleiad
of pedagogy. He became a professor in a Jena preparatory school and then
practised medicine; but he never had the misfortune to affront public
opinion, and so oblivion lured and won him, and took him as her own.
At Jena poor Froebel did not make head. His preparatory work hadn't
prepared him. He floundered in studies too deep for one of his age, then
followed some foolish advice and hired a tutor to help him along. Then
he fell down, was plucked, got into debt, and also into the "carcer,"
where he boarded for nine weeks at the expense of the State.
In the carcer he didn't catch up with his studies, quite naturally, and
the imprisonment almost broke his health. Had he been in the carcer for
dueling, he would have emerged a hero. But debt meant that he had
neither money nor friends. When he was given his release, as an economic
move, he slipped away between two days and made his way to the Forestry
Office, where he applied for a job as laborer. He got it. In a few days
he was promoted to chief of apprentices.
Forestry meant a certain knowledge of surveying, and this Froebel soon
acquired. Then came map-making, and that was only fun. From map-making
to architecture is but a step, and Froebel quit the woods to work as
assistant to an architect at ten pounds a year and found, it was
confining work, and a trifle more exacting than he had expected--it
required a deal of mathematics, and mathematics was Froebel's short
suit. Froebel was disappointed and so was his employer--when something
happened. It usually does in books, and in life, always.
* * * * *
Genius has its prototype. Before Froebel comes Pestalozzi, the Swiss,
who studied theology and law, and then abandoned them both as futile to
human evolution, and turned his attention to teaching. Pestalozzi was
inspired by Jean Jacques Rousseau, and read his "Emile" religiously. To
teach by natural methods and mix work and study, and make both play, was
his theme. Pestalozzi believed in teaching out of doors, because
children are both barbaric and nomadic--they want to go somewhere. His
was the Aristotle method, as opposed to those of the closet and the
cloister. But he made the mistake of saying that teaching should be
taken out of the hands and homes of the clergy, and then the clergy said
a few things about him.
Pestalozzi at first met with very meager encouragement. Only poor and
ignorant people entrusted their children to his care, and some of the
parents were actually paid in money for the services of the children.
The thought that the children were getting an education and being useful
at the same time was quite beyond their comprehension.
Pestalozzi educated by stealth. At first he took several boys and girls
of eight, ten or twelve years of age, and had them work with him in his
garden. They cared for fowls, looked after the sheep, milked the cows.
The master worked with them, and as they worked they talked. Going to
and from their duties, Pestalozzi would call their attention to the
wild birds, and to the flowers, plants and weeds. They would draw
pictures of things, make collections of leaves and flowers, and keep a
record of their observations and discoveries. Through keeping these
records they learned to read and write and acquired the use of simple
mathematics. Things they did not understand they would read about in the
books found in the teacher's library. But books were secondary and quite
incidental in the scheme of study. When work seemed to become irksome
they would all stop and play games. At other times they would sit and
just talk about what their work happened to suggest. If the weather was
unpleasant, there was a shop where they made hoes and rakes and other
tools they needed. They also built bird-houses, and made simple pieces
of furniture, so all the pupils, girls and boys, became more or less
familiar with carpenter's and blacksmith's tools. They patched their
shoes, mended their clothing, and at times prepared their own food.
Pestalozzi found that the number of pupils he could look after in this
way was not more than ten. But to his own satisfaction, at least, he
proved that children taught by his method surpassed those who were given
the regular set courses of instruction. His chief difficulties lay in
the fact that the home did not co-operate with the school, and that
there was always a tendency to "return to the blanket."
Pestalozzi wrote accounts of his experiments and emphasized his belief
that we should educate through the child's natural activities; also that
all growth should be pleasurable. His shibboleth was, "From within,
out." He thought education was a development and not an acquirement.
One of Pestalozzi's little pamphlets fell into the hands of Friedrich
Froebel, architect's assistant, at Frankfort.
Froebel was twenty-two years old, and Fate had tossed him around from
one thing to another since babyhood. All of his experiences had been of
a kind that prepared his mind for the theories that Pestalozzi
expressed.
Besides that, architecture had begun to pall upon him. "Those who can,
do; those who can't, teach." This was said in derision, but it holds a
grain of truth.
Froebel had a great desire to teach. Now, in Frankfort there was a Model
School or a school for teachers, of which one Herr Gruner was master.
This school was actually carrying out some of the practical methods
suggested by Pestalozzi. Quite by accident Gruner and Froebel met.
Gruner wanted a teacher who could teach by the Pestalozzi methods.
Froebel straightway applied to Herr Gruner for the position. He was
accepted as a combination janitor and instructor and worked for his
board and ten marks, or two and a half dollars a week.
The good-cheer and enthusiasm of Froebel won Gruner's heart. Together
they discussed Pestalozzi and his works, read all that he had written,
and opened up a correspondence with the great man. This led to an
invitation that Froebel should visit him at his farm-school, near
Yverdon, in Switzerland.
Gruner supplied Froebel the necessary money to replace his very seedy
clothes for something better, and the young man started away. It was a
walk of more than two hundred miles, but youth and enthusiasm count such
a tramp as an enjoyable trifle. Froebel wore his seedy clothes and
carried his good ones, and so he appeared before the master spick and
span.
Pestalozzi was sixty years old at this time, and his hopes for the "new
method" were still high. He had met opposition, ridicule and
indifference, and had spent most of his little fortune in the fight, but
he was still at it and resolved to die in the harness.
Froebel was not disappointed in Pestalozzi, and certainly Pestalozzi was
delighted and a bit amused at the earnestness of the young man.
Pestalozzi was working in a very economical way, but all the place
lacked Froebel, in his exuberant imagination, made good.
Froebel found much, for he had brought much with him.
* * * * *
Froebel returned to Frankfort from his visit to Pestalozzi, full of
enthusiasm, and that is the commodity without which no teacher succeeds.
Gruner allowed him to gravitate. And soon Froebel's room was the central
point of interest for the whole school. But trouble was ahead for
Froebel.
He had no college degrees. His pedagogic pedigree was very short. He
hoped to live down his university record, but it followed him. Gruner's
school was under government inspection, and the gentlemen with double
chins, who came from time to time to look the place over, asked who this
enthusiastic young person was, and why had the worthy janitor and
ex-forester been so honored by promotion.
In truth, during his life, Froebel never quite escaped the taunt that he
was not an educated man. That is to say, no college had ever supplied
him an alphabetic appendage. He had been a forester, a farmer, an
architect, a guardian for boys and a teacher of women, but no
institution had ever said officially he was fit to teach men.
Gruner tried to explain that there are two kinds of teachers: people who
are teachers by nature, and those who have acquired the methods by long
study. The first, having little to learn, and a love for the child, with
a spontaneous quality of giving their all, succeed best.
But poor Gruner's explanation did not explain.
Then the matter was gently explained to Froebel, and he saw that in
order to hold a place as teacher he must acquire a past. "Time will
adjust it," he said, and started away on a second visit to Pestalozzi.
His plan was to remain with the master long enough so he could secure a
certificate of proficiency.
Again Pestalozzi welcomed the young man, and he slipped easily into the
household and became both pupil and teacher. His willingness to work--to
do the task that lay nearest him--his good-nature, his gratitude, won
all hearts.
At this time the plan of sending boys to college with a tutor who was
both a companion and a teacher, was in vogue with those who could afford
it. It will be remembered that William and Alexander von Humboldt
received their early education in this way--going with their tutor from
university to university, teacher and pupils entering as special
students, getting into the atmosphere of the place, soaking themselves
full of it, and then going on.
And now behold, through Gruner or Pestalozzi or both, a woman of wealth
with three boys to educate applied to Froebel to come over into
Macedonia and help her.
It was in Eighteen Hundred Seven that Froebel became tutor in the Von
Holzhausen family. He was twenty-five years old, and this was his first
interview with wealth and leisure. That he was hungry enough to
appreciate it need not be emphasized.
He got goodly glimpses of Gottingen, Berlin, and was long enough at
Jena to rub the blot off the 'scutcheon. A stay at Weimar, in the Goethe
country, completed the four years' course.
The boys had grown to men, and proved their worth in after-years; but
whether they had gotten as much from the migrations as their teacher is
very doubtful. He was ripe for opportunity--they had had a surfeit of
it.
Then came war. The order to arms and the rush of students to obey their
country's call caught Froebel in the patriotic vortex, and he enlisted
with his pupils.
His service was honorable, even if not brilliant, and it had this
advantage: the making of two friends, companions in arms, who caught the
Pestalozzian fever, and lived out their lives preaching and teaching
"the new method."
These men were William Middendorf and Henry Langenthal. This trinity of
brothers evolved a bond as beautiful as it is rare in the realm of
friendship. Forty years after their first meeting, Middendorf gave an
oration over the dead body of Froebel that lives as a classic, breathing
the love and faith that endure.
And then Middendorf turned to his work, and dared prison and disgrace by
upholding the Kindergarten System and the life and example of his dear,
dead friend. The Kindergarten Idea would probably have been buried in
the grave with Froebel--interred with his bones--were it not for
Middendorf and Langenthal.
* * * * *
The first Kindergarten was established in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six,
at Blankenburg, a little village near Keilhau. Froebel was then
fifty-four years old, happily married to a worthy woman who certainly
did not hamper his work, even if she did not inspire it. He was
childless, that all children might call him father.
The years had gone in struggles to found Normal Schools in Germany after
the Pestalozzian and Gruner methods. But disappointment,
misunderstanding and stupidity had followed Froebel. The set methods of
the clergy, accusations of revolution and heresy, tilts with pious
pedants as to the value of dead languages, all combined with his own
lack of business shrewdness, had wrecked his various ventures.
Froebel's argument that women were better natural teachers than men on
account of the mother-instinct, brought forth a retort from a learned
monk to the effect that it was indelicate if not sinful for an unmarried
female, who was not a nun, to study the natures of children.
Parents with children old enough to go to school would not entrust their
darlings with the teaching experimenter--this on the advice of their
pastors.
Middendorf and Langenthal were still with him, partners in the disgrace
or failure, for none was willing to give up the fight for education by
the natural methods.
A great thought and a great word came to them, all at once--out on the
mountain-side!
Begin with the children before the school age, and call it the
Kindergarten!
Hurrah! They shouted for joy, and ran down the hill to tell Frau
Froebel.
The schools they had started before had been called, "The Institution
for Teaching According to the Pestalozzi Method and the Natural
Activities of the Child," "Institution for the Encouragement and
Development of the Spontaneous Activities of the Pupil," and "Friedrich
Froebel's School for the Growth of the Creative Instinct Which Makes for
a Useful Character."
A school with such names, of course, failed. No one could remember it
long enough to send his child there--it meant nothing to the mind not
prepared for it.
What's in a name? Everything. Books sell or become dead stock on the
name. Commodities the same. Railroads must have a name people are not
afraid to pronounce.
The officers of the law came and asked to see Froebel's license for
manufacturing. Others asked as to the nature of his wares, and one
dignitary called and asked, "Is Herr Pestalozzi in?"
The Kindergarten! The new name took. The children remembered it.
Overworked mothers liked the word and were glad to let the little
other-mothers take the children to the Kindergarten, certainly.
Froebel had grown used to disappointments--he was an optimist by nature.
He saw the good side of everything, including failure.
He made the best of necessity. And now it was very clear to him that
education must begin "a hundred years before the child is born." He
would reach the home and the mother through the children. "It will take
three generations to prove the truth of the Kindergarten Idea," he said.
And so the songs, the gifts, the games--all had to be invented,
defended, tried and tried again. Pestalozzi had a plan for teaching the
youth; now a plan had to be devised for teaching the child. Love was the
keystone, and joy, unselfishness and unswerving faith in the Natural or
Divine impulses of humanity crowned the structure.
* * * * *
Froebel invented the schoolma'am. That is, he discovered the raw product
and adapted it. He even coined the word, and it struck the world as
being so very funny that we forthwith adopted it as a term of provincial
pleasantry and quasi-reproach. The original term used was "school
mother," but when it reached these friendly shores we translated it
"schoolmarm." Then we tittered, also sneezed.
Froebel died in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. His first Kindergarten was
not a success until he was nearly sixty years old, but the idea had been
perfecting itself in his mind more or less unconsciously for over thirty
years.
He had been thinking, writing, working, experimenting all these years on
the subject of education, and he had become well-nigh discouraged. He
had observed that six was the "school age." That is, no child could go
to school until he was six years old--then his education began.
But Froebel had been teaching in a country school and boarding 'round,
and he had discovered that long before this the child had been learning
by observing and playing, and that these were formative influences,
quite as potent as actual school.
In the big families where Froebel boarded, he noticed that the older
girls took charge of the younger ones. So, often a girl of ten, with
dresses to her knees, carried one baby in her arms and two toddled
behind her, and this child of ten was really the other-mother. The true
mother worked in the fields or toiled at her housework, and the little
other-mother took the children out to play and thus amused them while
the mother worked.
The desire of Froebel was to educate the race, but what are a few hours
a day in a schoolroom with a totally unsympathetic home environment!
To reach and interest the mother in the problem of education was
well-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation, poverty, had killed all the
romance and enthusiasm in her heart. She was the victim of arrested
development; but the little other-mother was a child, impressionable,
immature, and she could be taught. The home must co-operate with the
school, otherwise all the school can teach will be forgotten in the
home. Froebel saw, too, that often the little other-mother was so
overworked in the care of her charges that she was taken from school.
Besides, the idea was abroad that education was mostly for boys, anyway.
And here Froebel stepped in and proved himself a law-breaker, just as
Ben Lindsey was when he inaugurated the juvenile court and waived the
entire established legal procedure, even to the omission of swearing his
witnesses, and believed in the little truant even though he lied.
Froebel told the little other-mothers to come to school anyway and bring
the babies with them.
And then he set to work showing these girls how to amuse, divert and
teach the babies. And he used to say the babies taught him.
Some of these half-grown girls showed a rare adaptability as teachers.
They combined mother-love and the teaching instinct.
Froebel utilized their services in teaching others in order that he
might teach them.
He saw that the teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons,
and that the true teacher is a learner. These girl teachers he called
school-mothers, and thus was evolved the word and the person.
Froebel founded the first normal and model school for the education of
women as teachers, and this was less than a hundred years ago.
The years went by and the little mothers had children of their own, and
these children were the ones that formed the first actual, genuine
kindergarten.
Also, these were the mothers who formed the first mothers' clubs.
And it was the success of these clubs that attracted the attention of
the authorities, who could not imagine any other purpose for a club than
to hatch a plot against the government.
Anyway, a system which taught that women were just as wise, just as good
and just as capable as men--just as well fitted by nature to
teach--would upset the clergy. If women can break into the school, they
will also break into the church. Moreover, the encouragement of play was
atrocious. Mein Gott, or words to that effect, play in a schoolroom!
Why, even a fool would know that that is the one thing that stood in
the way of education, the one fly in the pedagogic ointment. If Mynheer
Froebel would please invent a way to do away with play in schoolrooms,
he would be given a pension.
The idea that children were good by nature was rank heresy. Where does
the doctrine of regeneration come in, and how about being born again!
The natural man is at enmity toward God. We are conceived in sin and
born in iniquity. The Bible says it again and again.
And here comes a man who thinks he knows more than all the priests and
scholars who have ever lived, and fills the heads of fool women with the
idea that they are born to teach instead of to work in the fields and
keep house and wait on men.
Mein Gott in Himmel, the women know too much, already! If this thing
keeps on, men will have to get off the earth, and women and children
will run the world, and do it by means of play. Aha! What does Solomon
say? Spare the rod and spoil the child. Aber nicht, say these girls.
This thing has got to stop before Germany becomes the joke of
mankind--the cat-o'-nine-tails for anybody who uses the word
kindergarten!
* * * * *
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Had the man who uttered these words been
given a little encouragement, he probably would have inaugurated a
child-garden and provided a place and environment where little souls
could have bloomed and blossomed. He was by nature a teacher, and his
best pupils were women and children. Male men are apt to think they
already know and so are immune from ideas.
Jerusalem, nineteen hundred years ago, was about where Berlin was in
Eighteen Hundred Fifty. In both instances the proud priest and the
aristocrat-soldier were supreme. And both were quite satisfied with
their own mental attainments and educational methods. They were sincere.
It was a very similar combination that crucified Jesus to that which
placed an interdict on Friedrich Froebel, making the Kindergarten a
crime, and causing the speedy death of one of the gentlest, noblest,
purest men who have ever blessed this earth.
Froebel was just seventy when he passed out. "His eye was not dimmed nor
his natural force abated"--he was filled with enthusiasm and hope as
never before. His ideas were spreading--success, at last, was at the
door, he had interested the women and proved the fitness of women to
teach--his mothers' clubs were numerous--love was the watchword. And in
the midst of this flowering time, the official order came, without
warning, apology or explanation, and from which there was no appeal. The
same savagery, chilled with fear, that sent Richard Wagner into exile,
crushed the life and broke the heart of Friedrich Froebel. But these
names now are the pride and glory of the land that once scorned them.
Men who govern should be those with a reasonable doubt concerning their
own infallibility, and an earnest faith in men, women and children. To
teach is better than to rule. We are all children in the Kindergarten of
God.
[Illustration: HYPATIA]
HYPATIA
Neo-Platonism is a progressive philosophy, and does not expect to
state final conditions to men whose minds are finite. Life is an
unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can
comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the
best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.
--_Hypatia_
HYPATIA
The father of Hypatia was Theon, a noted mathematician and astronomer of
Alexandria. He would have been regarded as a very great man had he not
been cast into the shadow by his daughter. Let male parents beware.
At that time, astronomy and astrology were one. Mathematics was useful,
not for purposes of civil engineering, but principally in figuring out
where a certain soul, born under a given planet, would be at a certain
time in the future.
No information comes to us about the mother of Hypatia--she was so busy
with housework that her existence is a matter of assumption or a priori
reasoning; thus, given a daughter, we assume the existence of a mother.
Hypatia was certainly the daughter of her father. He was her tutor,
teacher, playmate. All he knew he taught to her, and before she was
twenty she had been informed by him of a fact which she had previously
guessed--that considerable of his so-called knowledge was conjecture.
Theon taught his daughter that all systems of religion that pretend to
teach the whole truth were to a great degree false and fraudulent. He
explained to her that his own profession of astronomy and astrology was
only for other people. By instructing her in all religions she grew to
know them comparatively, and so none took possession of her to the
exclusion of new truth. To have a religion thrust upon you, and be
compelled to believe in it or suffer social ostracism, is to be cheated
of the right to make your own. In degree it is letting another live your
life. A child does not need a religion until he is old enough to evolve
it, and then he must not be robbed of the right of independent thinking
by having a fully-prepared plan of salvation handed out to him. The
brain needs exercise as much as the body, and vicarious thinking is as
erroneous as vicarious exercise. Strength comes from personal effort. To
think is natural, and if not intimidated or coerced the man will evolve
a philosophy of life that is useful and beneficent.
Religious mania is a result of dwelling on a borrowed religion. If let
alone no man would become insane on religious topics, for the religion
he would evolve would be one of joy, laughter and love, not one of
misery or horror. The religion that contemplates misery and woe is one
devised by priestcraft for a purpose, and that purpose is to rule and
rob. From the blunt ways of the road we get a polite system of
intimidation which makes the man pay. It is robbery reduced to a system,
and finally piously believed in by the robbers, who are hypnotized into
the belief that they are doing God's service.
"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted
by self-respecting persons as final," said Theon to Hypatia. "Reserve
your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to
think at all."
Theon gave lectures, and had private classes in esoterics, wherein the
innermost secrets of divinity were imparted. Also, he had a plan for the
transmutation of metals and a recipe for perpetual youth. When he had
nothing else to do, he played games with his daughter.
At twenty-one Hypatia had mastered the so-called art of Rhetoric, or the
art of expression by vocal speech.
It will be remembered that the Romans considered rhetoric, or the art of
the rhetor, or orator, as first in importance. To impress people by your
personal presence they regarded as the gift of gifts.
This idea seems to have been held by the polite world up to the Italian
Renaissance, when the art of printing was invented and the written word
came to be regarded as more important than the spoken. One lives, and
the other dies on the air, existing only in memory, growing attenuated
and diluted as it is transferred. The revival of sculpture and painting
also helped oratory to take its proper place as one of the polite arts,
and not a thing to be centered upon to the exclusion of all else.
Theon set out to produce a perfect human being; and whether his charts,
theorems and formulas made up a complete law of eugenics, or whether it
was dumb luck, this we know: he nearly succeeded. Hypatia was five feet
nine, and weighed one hundred thirty-five pounds. This when she was
twenty. She could walk ten miles without fatigue; swim, row, ride
horseback and climb mountains. Through a series of gentle calisthenics
invented by her father, combined with breathing exercises, she had
developed a body of rarest grace. Her head had corners, as once
Professor O. S. Fowler told us that a woman's head must have, if she is
to think and act with purpose and precision.
So having evolved this rare beauty of face, feature and bodily grace,
combined with superior strength and vitality, Hypatia took up her
father's work and gave lectures on astronomy, mathematics, astrology and
rhetoric, while he completed his scheme for the transmutation of metals.
Hypatia's voice was flute-like, and used always well within its compass,
so as never to rasp or tire the organs. Theon knew the proper care of
nose and throat, a knowledge which with us moderns is all too rare.
Hypatia told of and practised the vocal ellipse, the pause, the glide,
the slide and the gentle, deliberate tones that please and impress. That
the law of suggestion was known to her was very evident, and certain it
is that she practised hypnotism in her classes, and seemed to know as
much about the origin of the mysterious agent as we do now, even though
she never tagged or labeled it.
One very vital thought she worked out was, that the young mind is
plastic, impressionable and accepts without question all that it is
told. The young receive their ideas from their elders, and ideas once
impressed upon this plastic plate of the mind can not be removed.
Said Hypatia: "Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and
miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most
terrible thing. The child-mind accepts and believes them, and only
through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after-years relieved
of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as
for a living truth--often more so, since a superstition is so intangible
you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so
is changeable."
Gradually, over the mind of the beautiful and gifted Hypatia, there came
stealing a doubt concerning the value of her own acquirements, since
these were "acquirements," and not evolutions or convictions gathered
from experience, but things implanted upon her plastic mind by her
father.
In this train of thought Hypatia had taken a step in advance of her
father, for he seems to have had a dogmatic belief in a few things
incapable of demonstration; but these things he taught to the plastic
mind, just the same as the things he knew. Theon was a dogmatic liberal.
Possibly the difference between an illiberal Unitarian and a liberal
Catholic is microscopic.
Hypatia clearly saw that knowledge is the distilled essence of our
intuitions, corroborated by experience. But belief is the impress made
upon our minds when we are under the spell of or in subjection to
another.
These things caused the poor girl many unhappy hours, which fact, in
itself, is proof of her greatness. Only superior people have a capacity
for doubting.
Probably not one person in a million ever gets away far enough from his
mind to take a look at it, and see the wheels go round. Opinions become
ossified and the man goes through life hypnotizing others, never
realizing for an instant that in youth he was hypnotized and that he has
never been able to cast off the hypnosis.
This is what our pious friends mean when they say, "Give me the child
until he is ten years old and you may have him afterward." That is, they
can take the child in his plastic age and make impressions on his mind
that are indelible. Reared in an orthodox Jewish family a child will
grow up a dogmatic Jew, and argue you on the Talmud six nights and days
together.
Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, the same. I once knew an Arapahoe
Indian who was taken to Massachusetts when four years old. He grew up
not only with New England prejudices, but with a New England accent, and
saved his pennies to give to missionaries that they might "convert" the
Red Men.
When the suspicion seized upon the soul of Hypatia that her mind was but
a wax impression taken from her father's, she began to make plans to get
away from him. Her efforts at explanations were futile, but when placed
upon the general ground that she wished to travel, see the world and
meet people of learning and worth, her father acquiesced and she started
away on her journeyings. He wanted to go, too, but this was the one
thing she did not desire, and he never knew nor could know why.
She spent several months at Athens, where her youth, beauty and learning
won her entry into the houses of the most eminent. It was the same at
Rome and in various other cities of Italy. Money may give you access to
good society, but talent is always an open sesame. She traveled like a
princess and was received as one, yet she had no title nor claim to
nobility nor station. Beauty of itself is not a credential--rather it is
an object of suspicion, unless it goes with intellect.
Hypatia gave lectures on mathematics; and there was a fallacy abroad
then as there is now that the feminine mind is not mathematical. That
the great men whom Hypatia met in each city were first amazed and then
abashed by her proficiency in mathematics is quite probable. Some few
male professors being in that peculiar baldheaded hypnotic state when
feminine charms dazzle and lure, listened in rapture as Hypatia
dissolved logarithms and melted calculi, and not understanding a word
she said, declared that she was the goddess Minerva, reincarnated. Her
coldness on near approach confirmed their suspicions.
* * * * *
Just how long a time Hypatia spent upon her pilgrimage, visiting all of
the great living philosophers, we do not know. Some accounts have it one
year, others ten.
Probably the pilgrimages were extended over a good many years, and were
not continuous. Several philosophers proved their humanity by offering
to marry her, and a prince or two did likewise, we are credibly
informed. To these persistent suitors, however, Hypatia gently broke the
news that she was wedded to truth, which is certainly a pretty speech,
even if it is poor logic. The fact was, however, that Hypatia never met
a man whose mind matched her own, otherwise logic would have bolstered
love, instead of discarding it.
Travel, public speaking and meeting people of note form a strong trinity
of good things. The active mind is the young mind, and it is more than
the dream of a poet which declares that Hypatia was always young and
always beautiful, and that even Father Time was so in love with her that
he refused to take toll from her, as he passed with his hourglass and
scythe.
In degree she had followed the example of her great prototype, Plotinus,
and had made herself master of all religions. She knew too much of all
philosophies to believe implicitly in any. Alexandria was then the
intellectual center of the world. People who resided there called it the
hub of the universe. It was the meeting-place of the East and the West.
And Hypatia, with her Thursday lectures, was the chief intellectual
factor of Alexandria.
Her philosophy she called Neo-Platonism. It was Plato distilled through
the psychic alembic of Hypatia. Just why the human mind harks back and
likes to confirm itself by building on another, it would be interesting
to inquire. To explain Moses; to supply a key to the Scriptures; to
found a new School of Philosophy on the assumption that Plato was right,
but was not understood until the Then and There, is alluring.
And now the pilgrims came from Athens, and Rome, and the Islands of the
Sea to sit at the feet of Hypatia.
* * * * *
Hypatia was born in the year Three Hundred Seventy, and died in Four
Hundred Thirty. She exerted an influence in Alexandria not unlike that
which Mrs. Eddy exerted in Boston. She was a person who divided society
into two parts: those who regarded her as an oracle of light, and those
who looked upon her as an emissary of darkness.
Strong men paid her the compliment of using immoderate language
concerning her teaching. But whether they spoke ill or well of her
matters little now. The point is this: they screeched, sneezed, or
smiled on those who refused to acknowledge the power of Hypatia. Some
professors of learning tried to waive her; priests gently pooh-poohed
her; and some elevated an eyebrow and asked how the name was spelled.
Others, still, inquired, "Is she sincere?"
She was the Ralph Waldo Emerson of her day. Her philosophy was
Transcendentalism. In fact, she might be spoken of as the original
charter member of the Concord School of Philosophy. Her theme was the
New Thought, for New Thought is the oldest form of thought of which we
know. Its distinguishing feature is its antiquity. Socrates was really
the first to express the New Thought, and he got his cue from
Pythagoras.
The ambition of Hypatia was to revive the flowering-time of Greece, when
Socrates and Plato walked arm in arm through the streets of Athens,
followed by the greatest group of intellectuals the world has ever
seen.
It was charged against Hypatia that Aspasia was her ideal, and that her
ambition was to follow in the footsteps of the woman who was beloved by
Pericles. If so, it was an ambition worthy of a very great soul.
Hypatia, however, did not have her Pericles, and never married. That she
should have had love experiences was quite natural, and that various
imaginary romances should have been credited to her was also to be
expected.
Hypatia was nearly a thousand years removed from the time of Pericles
and Aspasia, but to bridge the gulf of time with imagination was easy.
Yet Hypatia thought that the New Platonism should surpass the old, for
the world had had the Age of Augustus to build upon.
Hypatia's immediate prototype was Plotinus, who was born two hundred
four years after Christ, and lived to be seventy. Plotinus was the first
person to use the phrase "Neo-Platonism," and so the philosophy of
Hypatia might be called "The New Neo-Platonism."
To know but one religion is not to know that one.
In fact, superstition consists in this one thing--faith in one religion,
to the exclusion of all others.
To know one philosophy is to know none. They are all comparative, and
each serves as a small arc of the circle. A man living in a certain
environment, with a certain outlook, describes the things he sees; and
out of these, plus what he imagines, is shaped his philosophy of life.
If he is repressed, suppressed, frightened, he will not see very much,
and what he does see will be out of focus. Spiritual strabismus and
mental myopia are the results of vicarious peeps at the universe. All
formal religions have taught that to look for yourself was bad. The
peephole through the roof of his garret cost Copernicus his liberty, but
it was worth the price.
Plotinus made a study of all philosophies--all religions. He traveled
through Egypt, Greece, Assyria, India. He became an "adept", and
discovered how easily the priest drifts into priestcraft, and fraud
steps in with legerdemain and miracle to amend the truth. As if to love
humanity were not enough to recommend the man, they have him turn water
into wine and walk on the water.
Out of the labyrinth of history and speculation Plotinus returned to
Plato as a basis or starting-point for all of the truth which man can
comprehend. Plotinus believed in all religions, but had absolute faith
in none. It will be remembered that Aristotle and Plato parted as to the
relative value of poetry and science--science being the systematized
facts of Nature. Plotinus comes in and says that both were right, and
each was like every good man who exaggerates the importance of his own
calling. In his ability to see the good in all things, Hypatia placed
Plotinus ahead of Plato, but even then she says: "Had there been no
Plato, there would have been no Plotinus; although Plotinus surpassed
Plato, yet it is plain that Plato, the inspirer of Plotinus and so many
more, is the one man whom philosophy can not spare. Hail, Plato!!"
* * * * *
The writings of Hypatia have all disappeared, save as her words come to
us, quoted by her contemporaries. If the Essays of Emerson should all be
swept away, the man would still live in the quotations from his pen,
given to us by every writer of worth who has put pencil to paper during
the last fifty years. So lives Sappho, and thus did Charles Kingsley
secure the composite of the great woman who lives and throbs through his
book. Legend pictures her as rarely beautiful, with grace, poise and
power, plus.
She was sixty when she died. History kindly records it forty-five--and
all picture her as a beautiful and attractive woman to the last. The
psychic effects of a gracefully-gowned first reader, with sonorous
voice, using gesture with economy, and packing the pauses with feeling,
have never been fully formulated, analyzed and explained. Throngs came
to hear Hypatia lecture--came from long distances, and listened
hungrily, and probably all they took away was what they brought, except
a great feeling of exhilaration and enthusiasm. To send the hearer away
stepping light, and his heart beating fast--this is oratory--which isn't
so much to bestow facts, as it is to impart a feeling. This Hypatia
surely did. Her theme was Neo-Platonism. "Neo" means new, and all New
Thought harks back to Plato, who was the mouthpiece of Socrates. "Say
what you will, you'll find it all in Plato." Neo-Platonism is our New
Thought, and New Thought is Neo-Platonism.
There are two kinds of thought: New Thought and Secondhand Thought. New
Thought is made up of thoughts you, yourself, think. The other kind is
supplied to you by jobbers. The distinguishing feature of New Thought is
its antiquity. Of necessity it is older than Secondhand Thought. All
genuine New Thought is true for the person who thinks it. It only turns
sour and becomes error when not used, and when the owner forces another
to accept it. It then becomes a secondhand revelation. All New Thought
is revelation, and secondhand revelations are errors half-soled with
stupidity and heeled with greed.
Very often we are inspired to think by others, but in our hearts we have
the New Thought; and the person, the book, the incident, merely remind
us that it is already ours. New Thought is always simple; Secondhand
Thought is abstruse, complex, patched, peculiar, costly, and is passed
out to be accepted, not understood. That no one comprehends it is often
regarded as a recommendation.
For instance, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image," is
Secondhand Thought. The first man who said it may have known what it
meant, but surely it is nothing to us. However, that does not keep us
from piously repeating it, and having our children memorize it.
We model in clay or wax, and carve if we can, and give honors to those
who do, and this is well. This commandment is founded on the fallacy
that graven images are gods, whatever that is. The command adds nothing
to our happiness, nor does it shape our conduct, nor influence our
habits. Everybody knows and admits its futility, yet we are unable to
eliminate it from our theological system. It is strictly
secondhand--worse, it is junk.
Conversely, the admonition, "Be gentle and keep your voice low," is New
Thought, since all but savages know its truth, comprehend its import,
and appreciate its excellence.
Dealers in Secondhand Thought always declare that theirs is the only
genuine, and that all other is spurious and dangerous.
Dealers in New Thought say, "Take this only as it appeals to you as your
own--accept it all, or in part, or reject it all--and in any event, do
not believe it merely because I say so."
New Thought is founded on the laws of your own nature, and its
shibboleth is, "Know Thyself."
Secondhand Thought is founded on authority, and its war-cry is, "Pay and
Obey."
New Thought offers you no promise of paradise or eternal bliss if you
accept it; nor does it threaten you with everlasting hell, if you don't.
All it offers is unending work, constant effort, new difficulties;
beyond each success is a new trial. Its only satisfactions are that you
are allowing your life to unfold itself according to the laws of its
nature. And these laws are divine, therefore you yourself are divine,
just as you allow the divine to possess your being. New Thought allows
the currents of divinity to flow through you unobstructed.
Secondhand Thought affords no plan of elimination; it tends to
congestion, inflammation, disease and disintegration.
New Thought holds all things lightly, gently, easily--even thought. It
works for a healthy circulation, and tends to health, happiness and
well-being now and hereafter. It does not believe in violence, force,
coercion or resentment, because all these things react on the doer. It
has faith that all men, if not interfered with by other men, will
eventually evolve New Thought, and do for themselves what is best and
right, beautiful and true.
Secondhand Thought has always had first in its mind the welfare of the
dealer. The rights of the consumer, beyond keeping him in subjection,
were not considered. Indeed, its chief recommendation has been that "it
is a good police system."
New Thought considers only the user. To "Know Thyself" is all there is
of it.
When a creator of New Thought goes into the business of retailing his
product, he often forgets to live it, and soon is transformed into a
dealer in Secondhand Thought.
That is the way all purveyors in secondhand revelation begin. In their
anxiety to succeed, they call in the police. The blessing that is
compulsory is not wholly good, and any system of morals which has to be
forced on us is immoral. New Thought is free thought. Its penalty is
responsibility. You either have to live it, or else lose it. Its reward
is Freedom.
* * * * *
It was only a little more than a hundred years before the time of
Hypatia that the Roman Empire became Christian. When Constantine
embraced Christianity, all of his loyal subjects were from that moment
Christians--Christians by edict, but Pagans by character, for the
natures of men can not be changed by the passing of a resolution. From
that time every Pagan temple became a Christian church, and every Pagan
priest a Christian preacher.
Alexandria was under the rule of a Roman Prefect, or Governor. It had
been the policy of Rome to exercise great tolerance in religious
matters. There was a State Religion, to be sure, but it was for the
nobility or those who helped make the State possible. To look after the
thinking of the plain people was quite superfluous--they were allowed
their vagaries.
The Empire had been bold, brazen, cruel, coercive in its lust for power,
but people who paid were reasonably safe. And now the Church was coming
into competition with the State and endeavoring to reduce spoliation to
a system.
To keep the people down and under by mental suppression--by the engine
of superstition--were cheaper and more effective than to employ force or
resort to the old-time methods of shows, spectacles, pensions and costly
diversions. When the Church took on the functions of the State, and
sought to substitute the gentle Christ for Cæsar, she had to recast the
teachings of Christ. Then for the first time coercion and love dwelt
side by side. "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared
for the devil and his angels," and like passages were slipped into the
Scriptures as matters of wise expediency. This was continued for many
hundred years, and was considered quite proper and legitimate. It was
slavery under a more subtle form.
The Bishop of Alexandria clashed with Orestes the Prefect. To hold the
people under by psychologic methods was better than the old plans of
alternate bribery and force--so argued the Bishop.
Orestes had come under the spell of Hypatia, and the Republic of Plato
was saturating his mind.
"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another
world is just as base as to use force," said Hypatia in one of her
lectures. Orestes sat in the audience and as she spoke the words he
clapped his hands. The news was carried to the Bishop, who gently
declared that he would excommunicate him.
Orestes sent word back that the Emperor should be informed of how this
Bishop was misusing his office by making threats of where he could land
people he did not like, in another world. Neither the Bishop nor the
Prefect could unseat each other--both derived their power from the
Emperor. For Orestes to grow interested in the teachings of Hypatia,
instead of siding with the Bishop, was looked upon by the loyalists as
little short of treason.
Orestes tried to defend himself by declaring that the policy of the
Cæsars had always been one of great leniency toward all schools of
philosophy. Then he quoted Hypatia to the effect that a fixed, formal
and dogmatic religion would paralyze the minds of men and make the race,
in time, incapable of thought.
Therefore, the Bishop should keep his place, and not try to usurp the
functions of the police. In fact, it was better to think wrongly than
not to think at all. We learn to think by thinking, and if the threats
of the Bishop were believed at all, it would mean the death of science
and philosophy.
The Bishop made answer by declaring that Hypatia was endeavoring to
found a Church of her own, with Pagan Greece as a basis. He intimated,
too, that the relationship of Orestes with Hypatia was very much the
same as that which once existed between Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He
called her "that daughter of Ptolemy," and by hints and suggestions made
it appear that she would, if she could, set up an Egyptian Empire in
this same city of Alexandria where Cleopatra once so proudly reigned.
The excitement increased. The followers of Hypatia were necessarily few
in numbers. They were thinkers--and to think is a task. To believe is
easy. The Bishop promised his followers a paradise of ease and rest. He
also threatened disbelievers with the pains of hell. A promise on this
side--a threat on that! Is it not a wonder that a man ever lived who
put his honest thought against such teaching when launched by men
clothed in almost absolute authority!
Hypatia might have lived yesterday, and her death at the hands of a mob
was an accident that might have occurred in Boston, where a respectable
company once threw a rope around the neck of a good man and ran him
through streets supposed to be sacred to liberty and free speech.
A mob is made up of cotton waste, saturated with oil, and a focused idea
causes spontaneous combustion. Let a fire occur in almost any New York
State village, and the town turns wrecker, and loot looms large in the
limited brain of the villager. Civilization is a veneer.
When one sees emotionalism run riot at an evangelistic revival, and five
thousand people are trooping through an undesirable district at
midnight, how long, think you, would a strong voice of opposition be
tolerated?
Hypatia was set upon by a religious mob as she was going in her carriage
from her lecture-hall to her home. She was dragged to a near-by church
with the intent of making her publicly recant, but the embers became a
blaze, and the blaze became a conflagration, and the leaders lost
control. The woman's clothes were torn from her back, her hair torn from
her head, her body beaten to a pulp, dismembered, and then to hide all
traces of the crime and distribute the guilt so no one person could be
blamed, a funeral-pyre quickly consumed the remains of what but an hour
before had been a human being. Daylight came, and the sun's rays could
not locate the guilty ones.
Orestes made a report of the affair, resigned his office, asked the
Government at Rome to investigate, and fled from the city. Had Orestes
endeavored to use his soldiery against the Bishop, the men in the ranks
would have revolted. The investigation was postponed from time to time
for lack of witnesses, and finally it was given out by the Bishop that
Hypatia had gone to Athens, and there had been no mob and no tragedy.
The Bishop nominated a successor to Orestes, and the new official was
confirmed.
Dogmatism as a police system was supreme.
It continued until the time of Dante, or the Italian Renaissance. The
reign of Religious Dogmatism was supreme for well-nigh a thousand
years--we call it the Dark Ages.
[Illustration: SAINT BENEDICT]
SAINT BENEDICT
If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, if with wish as a
guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be content with the
customs which he finds in the place, and do not perchance by his
lavishness disturb the monastery, but is simply content with what
he finds: he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires.
If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably,
and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it
prudently, lest perchance God had sent for this very thing. But, if
he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his
sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of
the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he
must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of
God, explain the matter to him.
--_St. Benedict_
SAINT BENEDICT
As the traveler journeys through Southern Italy, Sicily and certain
parts of what was Ancient Greece, he will see broken arches, parts of
viaducts, and now and again a single, beautiful column pointing to the
sky. All about is the desert or solitary pastures, and only this white
milestone, marking the path of the centuries and telling in its own
silent, solemn and impressive way of a day that is dead.
In the Fifth Century a monk called Simeon the Syrian, and known to us as
Simeon Stylites, having taken the vow of chastity, poverty and
obedience, began to fear greatly lest he might not be true to his
pledge. And that he might live absolutely beyond reproach, always in
public view, free from temptation, and free from the tongue of scandal,
he decided to live in the world, and still not be of it. To this end he
climbed to the top of a marble column, sixty feet high, and there on the
capstone he lived a life beyond reproach.
Simeon was then twenty-four years old.
The environment was circumscribed, but there was outlook, sunshine,
ventilation--three good things. But beyond these the place had certain
disadvantages. The capstone was a little less than three feet square,
so Simeon could not lie down. He slept sitting, with his head bowed
between his knees, and indeed, in this posture he passed most of his
time. Any recklessness in movement, and he would have slipped from his
perilous position and been dashed to death upon the stones beneath.
As the sun arose he stood up, just for a few moments, and held his arms
out in greeting, blessing and prayer. Three times during the day did he
thus stretch his cramped limbs, and pray with his face to the East. At
such times those who stood near shared in his prayers, and went away
blessed and refreshed.
How did Simeon get to the top of the column?
Well, his companions at the monastery, a mile away, said he was carried
there in the night by a miraculous power; that he went to sleep in his
stone cell and awoke on the pillar. Other monks said that Simeon had
gone to pay his respects to a fair lady, and in wrath God had caught him
and placed him on high. The probabilities are, however, Terese, as
viewed by an unbeliever, that he shot a line over the column with a bow
and arrow and then drew up a rope ladder and ascended with ease.
However, in the morning the simple people of the scattered village saw
the man on the column. All day he stayed there. The next day he was
still there.
The days passed, with the scorching heat of the midday sun, and the cool
winds of the night.
Still Simeon kept his place.
The rainy season came on. When the nights were cold and dark, Simeon sat
there with bowed head, and drew the folds of his single garment, a black
robe, over his face.
Another season passed; the sun again grew warm, then hot, and the
sand-storms raged and blew, when the people below almost lost sight of
the man on the column. Some prophesied he would be blown off, but the
morning light revealed his form, naked from the waist up, standing with
hands outstretched to greet the rising sun.
Once each day, as darkness gathered, a monk came with a basket
containing a bottle of goat's milk and a little loaf of black bread, and
Simeon dropped down a rope and drew up the basket.
Simeon never spoke, for words are folly, and to the calls of saint or
sinner he made no reply. He lived in a perpetual attitude of adoration.
Did he suffer? During those first weeks he must have suffered terribly
and horribly. There was no respite nor rest from the hard surface of the
rock, and aching muscles could find no change from the cramped and
perilous position. If he fell, it was damnation for his soul--all were
agreed as to this.
But man's body and mind accommodate themselves to almost any condition.
One thing at least, Simeon was free from economic responsibilities, free
from social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappreciated
lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in upon his peace. He was
not pressed for time. No frivolous dame of tarnished fame sought to
share with him his perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten
minutes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence never got
in a heap.
Simeon kept no track of the days, having no engagements to meet, or
offices to perform, beyond the prayers at morn, midday and night.
Memory died in him, the hurts became calluses, the world-pain died out
of his heart, to cling became a habit. Language was lost in disuse. The
food he ate was minimum in quantity; sensation ceased, and the dry, hot
winds reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something called a
saint--loved, feared and reverenced for his fortitude.
This pillar, which had once graced the portal of a pagan temple, again
became a place of pious pilgrimage, and people flocked to Simeon's rock,
so that they might be near when he stretched out his black, bony hands
to the East, and the spirit of Almighty God, for a space, hovered close
around.
So much attention did the abnegation of Simeon attract that various
other pillars, marking the ruins of art and greatness gone, in that
vicinity, were crowned by pious monks. Their thought was to show how
Christianity had triumphed over heathenism. Imitators were numerous.
About that time the Bishops in assembly asked, "Is Simeon sincere?" To
test the matter of Simeon's pride, he was ordered to come down from his
retreat.
As to his chastity, there was little doubt, and his poverty was beyond
question; but how about obedience to his superiors?
The order was shouted up to him in a Bishop's voice--he must let down
his rope, draw up a ladder, and descend.
Straightway Simeon made preparation to obey. And then the Bishops
relented and cried, "We have changed our minds, and now order you to
remain!"
Simeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness and renewed his
lease.
And so he lived on and on and on--he lived on the top of that pillar,
never once descending, for thirty years.
All of his former companions grew a-weary; one by one they died, and the
monastery-bells tolled their requiem as they were laid to rest. Did
Simeon hear the bells and say, "Soon it will be my turn"?
Probably not. His senses had flown, for what good were they! The young
monk who now at eventide brought the basket with the bottle of goat's
milk and the loaf of dry bread was born since Simeon had taken his place
on the pillar. "He has always been there," the people said, and crossed
themselves hurriedly.
But one evening when the young monk came with his basket, no line was
dropped from above. He waited and then called aloud, but all in vain.
When sunrise came, there sat the monk, his face between his knees, the
folds of his black robe drawn over his head. But he did not rise and
lift his hands in prayer.
All day he sat there, motionless.
The people watched in whispered silence. Would he arise at sundown and
pray, and with outstretched hands bless the assembled pilgrims?
But as they watched a vulture came sailing slowly through the blue
ether, and circled nearer and nearer; and off on the horizon was
another--and still another, circling nearer and nearer.
* * * * *
In humanity's march of progress there are a vanguard and a rearguard.
The rearguard dwindles away into a mob of camp-followers, who follow for
diversion and to escape starvation. Both the vanguard and the rearguard
are out of step with the main body, and therefore both are despised by
the many who make up the rank and file.
And yet, out of pity, the main body supplies ambulances and
"slum-workers," who aim to do "good"--but this good is always for the
rearguard and the camp-followers, never for those who lead the line of
march, and take the risk of ambush and massacre.
But this scorn of the vanguard has its recompense--often delayed, no
doubt--but those who compose it are the only ones whom history honors
and Clio crowns. If they get recognition in life, it is wrung tardily
from an ungrateful and ungracious world. And this is the most natural
thing in the world, and it would be a miracle if it were otherwise, for
the very virtue of the vanguard consists in that their acts outrun human
sympathy.
Benedict was a scout of civilization. In his day he led the vanguard. He
found the prosperous part of the world given over to greed and gluttony.
The so-called religious element was in partnership with fraud,
superstition, ignorance, incompetence, and an asceticism like that of
Simeon Stylites, leading to nothing.
Men know the good and grow through experience. To realize the
worthlessness of place and position and of riches, you must have been at
some time in possession of these. Benedict was born into a rich Roman
family, in the year Four Hundred Eighty. His parents wished to educate
him for the law, so he would occupy a position of honor in the State.
But at sixteen years of age, at that critical time when nerves are
vibrating between manhood and youth, Benedict cut the umbilical domestic
cord, and leaving his robes of purple and silken finery, suddenly
disappeared, leaving behind a note which was doubtless meant to be
reassuring and which was quite the reverse, for it failed to tell where
his mail should be forwarded. He had gone to live with a hermit in the
fastnesses of the mountains. He had desired to do something peculiar,
strange, unusual, unique and individual, and now he had done it.
Back of it all was the Cosmic Urge, with a fair slip of a girl, and
meetings by stealth in the moonlight; and then those orders from his
father to give up the girl, which he obeyed with a vengeance.
Monasticism is a reversal or a misdirection of the Cosmic Urge. The will
brought to bear in fighting temptation might be a power for good, if
used in co-operation with Nature. But Nature to the priestly mind has
always been bad. The worldly mind was one that led to ruin. To be good
by doing good was an idea the monkish mind had not grasped. His way of
being good was to be nothing, do nothing--just resist. Successfully to
fight temptation, the Oriental Monk regarded as an achievement.
One day, out on that perilous and slippery rock on the mountain-side,
Benedict ceased saluting the Holy Virgin long enough to conceive a
thought. It was this: To be acceptable to God, we must do something in
the way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to wander, to
suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and
bring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too
much suffering would destroy the race.
Only one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who put forth this
argument, and that was Saint Jerome; and many good men in the Church
regarded Saint Jerome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was
a student of the literature of Greece and Rome--"Pagan Books," they were
called, "rivals of the Bible." Saint Anthony had renounced and denounced
these books and all of the learning of Paganism. Saint Anthony, the
father of Christian Monasticism, dwelt on the terrible evils of
intellectual pride, and had declared that the joys of the mind were of a
more subtle and devilish character than those of the flesh.
Anthony, assisted by inertia, had won the ear of the Church; and dirt,
rags and idleness had come to be regarded as sacred things.
Benedict took issue with Anthony.
* * * * *
The Monastic Impulse is a protest against the Cosmic Urge, or
reproductive desire.
Necessarily, the Cosmic Urge is older than the Monastic Impulse; and
beyond a doubt it will live to dance on the grave of its rival.
The Cosmic Urge is the creative instinct. It includes all planning,
purpose, desire, hope, unrest, lust and ambition. In its general sense,
it is Unfulfilled Desire. It is the voice constantly crying in the ears
of success, "Arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." It is
the dissatisfaction with all things done--it is our Noble Discontent. In
its first manifestation it is sex. In its last refinement it means the
love of man and woman, with the love of children, the home-making sense,
and an appreciation of art, music and science--which is love with seeing
eyes--as natural results.
Deity creates through its creatures, of which man is the highest type.
But man, evolving a small spark of intellect, sits in judgment on his
Creator, and finds the work bad. Of all the animals, man is the only one
so far known that criticizes his environment, instead of accepting it.
And we do this because, in degree, we have abandoned intuition before we
have gotten control of intellect.
The Monastic Instinct is the disposition ever to look outside of
ourselves for help. We expect the Strong Man to come and give us
deliverance from our woes. All nations have legends of saviors and
heroes who came and set the captives free, and who will come again in
greater glory and mightier power and even release the dead from their
graves.
The Monastic Impulse is based on world-weariness, with disappointed
love, or sex surfeit, which is a phase of the same thing, as a basis.
Its simplest phase is a desire for solitude.
"Mon" means one, and monasticism is simply living alone, apart from the
world. Gradually it came to mean living alone with others of a like mind
or disposition.
The clan is an extension of the family, and so is originally a monastic
impulse. The Group Idea is a variant of monasticism, but if it includes
men and women, it always disintegrates with the second generation, if
not before, because the Cosmic Urge catches the members, and they mate,
marry and swing the circle.
Ernst Haeckel has recently intimated his belief that monogamy, with its
exclusive life, is a diluted form of monasticism. And his opinion seems
to be that, in order to produce the noblest race possible, we must have
a free society, with a State that reverences and respects maternity and
pensions any mother who personally cares for her child.
Monasticism and enforced monogamy often carry a disrespect, if not a
positive contempt, for motherhood, especially free motherhood. We breed
from the worst, under the worst conditions, and as punishment God has
made us a race of scrubs. If we had deliberately set about to produce
the worst, we could not do better.
It will at once be seen that a penalized free motherhood is exactly like
the Monastic Impulse--a protest and a revolt from the Cosmic Urge. Hence
Ernst Haeckel, harking back to Schopenhauer, declares that we must place
a premium upon parenthood, and the State must subsidize all mothers,
visiting them with tenderness, gentleness, sanctity and respect, before
we shall be able to produce a race of demigods.
The Church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have
successfully fought the Cosmic Urge. Emerson says, "We are strong as we
ally ourselves with Nature, and weak as we fight against her or
disregard her." Thus does Emerson place himself squarely in opposition
to the Church, for the Church has ever looked upon Nature as a lure and
a menace to holy living.
Now, is it not possible that the prevalency of the Monastic Impulse is
proof that it is in itself a movement in the direction of Nature?
Possibly its error lies in swinging out beyond the norm. A few great
Churchmen have thought so. And the greatest and best of them, so far as
I know, was Benedict. Through his efforts, monasticism was made a power
for good, and for a time, at least, it served society and helped
humanity on its way.
That the flagellants, anchorites, or monks with iron collars, and Simeon
Stylites living his life perched on a pillar, benefited the human
race--no one would now argue. Simeon was simply trying to please God--to
secure salvation for his soul. His assumption was that the world was
base and bad. To be pure in heart you must live apart from it. His
persistence was the only commendable thing about him, and this was the
persistence of a diseased mind. It was beautiful just as the persistence
of cancer is beautiful.
Benedict, while agreeing that the world was bad, yet said that our
business was to make it better, and that everything we did which was
done merely to save our own souls, was selfish and unworthy. He
advocated that, in order to save our own souls, we should make it our
business to save others. Also, to think too much about your own soul was
to have a soul not worth saving. If this life is a preparation for
another, as Simeon thought, he was not preparing himself for a world
where we would care to go. The only heaven in which any sane man or
woman, be he saint or sinner, would care to live, would be one whose
inhabitants would be at liberty to obey the Cosmic Urge just as freely
as the Monastic Impulse, and where one would be regarded as holy as the
other. So thought Saint Benedict.
* * * * *
There is a natural law, well recognized and defined by men who think,
called the Law of Diminishing Returns, sometimes referred to as the Law
of Pivotal Points.
A man starts in to take systematic exercise, and he finds that his
strength increases. He takes more exercise and keeps on until he gets
"stale"--that is, he becomes sore and lame. He has passed the Pivotal
Point and is getting a Diminishing Return.
In running a railroad-engine a certain amount of coal is required to
pull a train of given weight a mile, say at the rate of fifty miles an
hour. You double the amount of your coal, and simple folks might say you
double your speed, but railroad men know better. The double amount of
coal will give you only about sixty miles instead of fifty. Increase
your coal and from this on you get a Diminishing Return. If you insist
on eighty miles an hour, you get your speed at a terrific cost and a
terrible risk.
Another case: Your body requires a certain amount of food--the body is
an engine; food is fuel; life is combustion. Better the quality and
quantity of your food, and up to a certain point you increase your
strength. Go on increasing your food and you get death. Loan money at
five per cent and your investment is reasonably secure and safe. Loan
money at ten per cent and you do not double the returns; on the
contrary, you have taken on so much risk. Loan money at twenty per cent
and you will probably lose it; for the man who borrows at twenty per
cent does not intend to pay if he can help it.
The Law of Diminishing Returns was what Oliver Wendell Holmes had in
mind when he said, "Because I like a pinch of salt in my soup is no
reason I wish to be immersed in brine."
Churches, preachers and religious denominations are good things in their
time and place, and up to a certain point. Whether for you the church
has passed the Pivotal Point is for you yourself to decide. But remember
this, because a thing is good up to a certain point, or has been good,
is no reason why it should be perpetuated. The Law of Diminishing
Returns is the natural refutation of the popular fallacy that because a
thing is good you can not get too much of it.
It is this law that Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he said, "I object
to that logic which seeks to imply that because I wish to make the negro
free, I desire a black woman for a wife."
Benedict had spent five years in resistance before it dawned upon him
that Monasticism carried to a certain point was excellent and fraught
with good results, but beyond that it rapidly degenerated.
To carry the plan of simplicity and asceticism to its summit and not go
beyond was now his desire.
To withdraw from society he felt was a necessity, for the petty and
selfish ambitions of Rome were revolting. But the religious life did
not for him preclude the joys of the intellect. In his unshaven and
unshorn condition, wearing a single garment of goatskin, he dared not go
back to his home. So he proceeded to make himself acceptable to decent
people. He made a white robe, bathed, shaved off his beard, had his hair
cut, and putting on his garments, went back to his family. The life in
the wilderness had improved his health. He had grown in size and
strength and he now, in his own person, proved that a religious recluse
was not necessarily unkempt and repulsive.
His people greeted him as one raised from the dead. Crowds followed him
wherever he went. He began to preach to them and to explain his
position.
Some of his old school associates came to him.
As he explained his position, it began more and more to justify itself
in his mind. Things grow plain as we analyze them to others--by
explaining to another the matter becomes luminous to ourselves.
To purify the monasteries and carry to them all that was good and
beautiful in the classics, was the desire of Benedict. His wish was to
reconcile the learning of the past with Christianity, which up to that
time had been simply ascetic. It had consisted largely of repression,
suppression and a killing-out of all spontaneous, happy, natural
impulses.
Very naturally, he was harshly criticized, and when he went back to the
cave where he had dwelt and tried to teach some of his old companions
how to read and write, they flew first at him, and then from him. They
declared that he was the devil in the guise of a monk; that he wished to
live both as a monk and as a man of the world--that he wanted to eat his
cake and still keep it. By a sort of divine right he took control of
affairs, and insisted that his companions should go to work with him,
and plant a garden and raise vegetables and fruits, instead of depending
upon charity or going without.
The man who insists that all folks shall work, be they holy or secular,
learned or illiterate, always has a hard road to travel. Benedict's
companions declared that he was trying to enslave them, and one of them
brewed a poison and substituted it for the simple herb tea that Benedict
drank. Being discovered, the man and his conspirators escaped, although
Benedict offered to forgive and forget if they would go to work.
Benedict adhered to his new inspiration with a persistency that never
relaxed--the voice of God had called to him that he must clear the soil
of the brambles and plant gardens.
The thorn-bush through which he had once rolled his naked body, he now
cut down and burned. He relaxed the vigils and limited the prayers and
adorations to a few short exercises just before eating, sleeping and
going to work. He divided the day into three parts--eight hours for
work, eight hours for study, eight hours for sleep. Then he took
one-half hour from each of these divisions for silent prayer and
adoration. He argued that good work was a prayer, and that one could
pray with his heart and lips, even as his hands swung the ax, the sickle
or the grub-hoe. All that Benedict required of others, he did himself,
and through the daily work he evolved a very strong and sturdy physique.
From the accounts that have come to us he was rather small in stature,
but in strength he surpassed any man in his vicinity.
Miraculous accounts of his physical strength were related, and in the
minds of his simple followers he was regarded as more than a man, which
shows us that the ideals of what a man should be, or might be, were not
high. We are told that near Benedict's first monastery there was a very
deep lake, made in the time of Nero by damming up a mountain stream.
Along this lake the brambles and vines had grown in great confusion.
Benedict set to work to clear the ground from this lake to his
monastery, half a mile up the hillside. One day a workman dropped an ax
into the lake. Benedict smiled, his lips moved in prayer and the ax came
to the surface. The story does not say that Benedict dived to the bottom
and brought up the ax, which he probably did. The next day the owner of
the ax fell into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked out
on the water and brought the man in on his shoulders. We who do not
believe that the age of miracles has passed, can well understand how
Benedict was an active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through the
natural powers which he evolved by living a sane and simple life, he was
able to perform many feats which peasants round about considered
miraculous. Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch. He
found great joy in planning, creating and constructing. He had an eye
for architecture and landscape-gardening. He utilized the materials of
old Roman temples to construct Christian churches, and from the same
quarry he took stone and built a monastery. A Roman ruin had a lure for
him. It meant building possibilities. He stocked the lake with fish, and
then made catches that rivaled the parable of the loaves and fishes.
Only the loaves of Benedict were made from the wheat he himself raised,
and the people he fed were the crowds who came to hear him preach the
gospel he himself practised--the gospel of work, moderation and the
commonsense exercise of head, hand and heart.
* * * * *
To Benedict came twelve disciples. But further applications becoming
numerous, to meet the pressure Benedict kept organizing them into groups
of twelve, appointing a superior over each group. In order to prove his
sense of equality, he had but eleven besides himself in the monastery.
He recognized that leadership was a necessity; but the clothes he wore
were no better than, and the food he ate no different from, what the
others had. Yet to enforce discipline, rules were made and instant
obedience was exacted. Benedict took his turn at waiting on the table
and doing the coarsest tasks.
Were it not for the commonsense methods of life, and the element of
human service, the Christian monastery and probably Christianity itself
would not have survived. The dogma of religion was made acceptable by
blending it with a service for humanity. And even to this day the
popular plan of proving the miracles of the Old Testament to have been
actual occurrences is to point to the schools, hospitals and orphan
asylums that Christian people have provided.
In the efforts of Benedict to combine the life of unselfish service with
intellectual appreciation of classic literature, he naturally was
misunderstood. Several times he came near having serious collisions with
the authorities of the Church at Rome.
His preaching attracted the jealous attention of certain churchmen, but
as he was not a priest, the Pope refused to take notice of his supposed
heresies.
An effort was made to compel him to become a priest, but Benedict
refused on the plea that he was not worthy. The fact was, however, that
he did not wish to be bound by the rules of the Church.
In one sense, his was a religion inside a religion, and a slight
accident might have precipitated an opposition denomination, just as the
Protestant issue of Luther was an accident, and the Methodism of the
Wesleys, another.
Several times the opposition, in the belief that Benedict was an enemy
of the Church, went so far as to try to kill him. And once a few pious
persons in Rome induced a company of wanton women to go out to
Benedict's monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful
grounds. This was done with two purposes in view; one was to work the
direct downfall of the Benedictines, with the aid of the trulls, and the
other was to create a scandal among the visitors, who would carry the
unsavory news back to Rome and supply the gossips raw stock.
Benedict was so deeply grieved by the despicable trick that he retired
to his former home, the cave in the hillside, and there remained without
food for a month.
But during this time of solitude his mind was busy with new plans. He
now founded Monte Cassino. The site is halfway between Rome and Naples,
and the white, classic lines of the buildings can be seen from the
railroad. There on the crags, from out of a mass of green, has been
played out for more than a thousand years the drama of religious life.
Death by fire and sword has been the fate of many of the occupants. But
the years went by, new men came, the ruins were repaired, and again the
cloisters were trodden by pious feet of holy men. Goths, Lombards,
Saracens, Normans, Spaniards, Teutons, and finally came Napoleon
Bonaparte, who confiscated the property, making the place his home for a
brief space. Later he relented and took it from the favorite upon whom
he had bestowed it and gave it back to the Church. It then remained a
Benedictine monastery until the edict of Eighteen Hundred Sixty-six,
which, with the help of Massini and Garibaldi, made the monastery in
Italy a thing of the past. The place is now a school--a school with a
co-ed proviso. Thus passes away the glory of the world, in order that a
greater glory shall appear.
Six hundred years before Benedict's day, on the site of the cloister of
Monte Cassino stood a temple to Apollo, and just below was a grove
sacred to Venus.
Two hundred years before Benedict's time the Goths had done their work
so well that even the walls of the temple to Apollo were razed, and the
sacred grove became the home of wild beasts.
To this deserted place came Benedict and eleven men, filled with a holy
zeal to erect on this very spot an edifice worthy of the living God.
Here the practical builder and the religious dreamer combined. If you
are going to build a building, why not build upon the walls already laid
and with blocks ready hewn and fashioned!
The Monte Cassino monastery of Benedict rivaled in artistic beauty the
temple that it replaced.
Man is a building animal, and the same Creative Energy that impelled the
Greeks and later the Romans to plan, devise, toil and build, now played
through the good monk Benedict. His desire to create was a form of the
great Cosmic Urge, that lives eternally and is building in America a
finer, better and nobler religion than the world has ever seen--a
Religion of Humanity--a religion of which at times Benedict caught vivid
passing glimpses, as one sees at night the landscape brilliantly
illumined by the lightning's flash.
* * * * *
The motto of Benedict was "Ecce Labora." These words were carved on the
entrance to every Benedictine Monastery.
The monastic idea originated in the Orient, where Nature placed no
special penalty on idleness. Indeed, labor may have been a curse in
Asia. Morality is crystallized expediency, and both, as we are told, are
matters of geography, as well as time.
And truth it is, that north of the Mediterranean idleness is the curse,
not labor.
The rule of Benedict was not unlike that of the Shakers, for near every
monastery was a nunnery. The association of men and women, although
quite limited, was better for both than their absolute separation, as
with the Trappists, who regard it as a sin even to look upon the face of
a woman.
The thrift and industry of the Benedictines was worthy of Ann Lee and
our friends at Lebanon. A man who works eight hours, with fair
intelligence, and does not set out to make consumption and waste the
business of his life, grows rich. Thoreau was right--an hour a day will
support you. But Thoreau was wrong in supposing men work only to get
food, clothing and shelter. To work only an hour a day is to evolve into
a loafer. We work not to acquire, but to become.
The group idea, cemented by able leadership and a religious concept, is
always successful. The Mormons, Quakers, Harmonyites, Economites, and
the Oneida Community, all grew very rich, and surpassed their neighbors
not only in point of money, but in health, happiness, intelligence and
general mental grasp.
Brook Farm failed for lack of a leader with business instinct; but as it
was, it divided up among its members a rich legacy of spiritual and
mental assets. In family life, or what is called "Society," there is a
constant danger through rivalry, not in well-doing or in human service,
but in conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure. The religious rite of
feet-washing is absolutely lost, both as a rite and as an idea. In
truth, "good society" is essentially predatory in its instincts. In
communal life, or the life of a group, service and not waste is the
watchword. This must be so, since every group, at its beginning, is held
together through the thought of service. To meet and unite on a basis of
jealous rivalry and sharp practise is unthinkable, for these are the
things that disintegrate the group.
It is an economic law that a group founded upon and practising the idea
of each member giving all, wins all. Benedict's idea of "Ecce labora"
made every Benedictine monastery a center of wealth. Work stops
bickering, strife and undue waste. It makes for health and strength. The
reward of work is not immunity from toil, but more work--an increased
capacity for effort.
De Tocqueville gave this recipe for success: Subdue yourself--Devote
yourself.
That is to say, subdue the ego to a point where it gets its
gratification in concentrating on unselfish service. He who does this
always succeeds, for not only is he engaged upon a plan of life in which
there is little competition, but he is working in line with a divine
law, the law of mutuality, which provides that all the good you do to
others, you do for yourself.
Benedictine monasticism leads straight to wealth and great power. The
Abbot of the group became a Baron. "I took the vow of poverty, and it
led to an income of twenty thousand pounds a year. I took the vow of
obedience and find myself ruler of fifty towns and villages." These are
the words which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of an Abbot, who
became a Baron through the simple law of which I have hinted. And in his
novel of "The Abbot," Sir Walter gives a tragic picture of how power and
wealth can be lost as well as won. Feudalism began with the rule of the
monastery.
Benedict was one of the world's great Captains of Industry. And like all
great entrepreneurs, he won through utilizing the efforts of others. In
picking his Abbots, or the men to be "father" of each particular group,
he showed rare skill. These men learned from him and he learned from
them. One of his best men was Cassiodorus, the man who evolved the
scheme of the scriptorium. "To study eight hours a day was not enough,"
said Cassiodorus. "We should copy the great works of literature so that
every monastery shall have a library as good as that which we have at
Monte Cassino." He himself was an expert penman, and he set himself the
task of teaching the monks how to write as well as how to read. "To
write beautifully is a great joy to our God," he said.
Benedict liked the idea, and at once put it into execution. Cassiodorus
is the patron saint of every maker of books who loves his craft.
The systematic work of the scriptorium originated in the brain of
Cassiodorus, and he was appointed by Benedict to go from one monastery
to another and inform the Abbot that a voice had come from God to
Benedict saying that these precious books must be copied, and presented
to those who would prize them.
Cassiodorus had been a secretary of state under the Emperor Theodoric,
and he had also been a soldier. He was seventy years of age when he came
under the influence of Benedict, through a chance visit to Monte
Cassino. Benedict at first ordered him to take an ax and work with the
servants at grubbing out underbrush and preparing a field for planting.
Cassiodorus obeyed, and soon discovered that there was a joy in
obedience he had before never guessed. His name was Brebantus Varus, but
on his declaring he was going to remain and work with Benedict, he was
complimented by being given the name of Cassiodorus, suggested by the
word Cassinum or Cassino. Cassiodorus lived to be ninety-two, and was
one of the chief factors, after Benedict himself, in introducing the
love of art and beauty among the Benedictines.
Near Monte Cassino was a nunnery presided over by Scholastica, the twin
sister of Benedict.
Renan says that the kinship of Scholastica and Benedict was a spiritual
tie, not one of blood. If so, we respect it none the less. Saint Gregory
tells of the death of Benedict thus:
Benedict was at the end of his career. His interview with Totila
took place in Five Hundred Forty-two, in the year which preceded
his death; and from his earliest days of the following year, God
prepared him for his last struggle, by requiring from him the
sacrifice of the most tender affection he had retained on earth.
The beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of Benedict
and his twin sister, Scholastica, is a picture long to remember. At
the window of his cell, three days after her death, Benedict had a
vision of his dear sister's soul entering heaven in the form of a
snowy dove. He immediately sent for the body and placed it in a
sepulcher which he had already prepared for himself, that death
might not separate those whose souls had always been united in God.
The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He
survived her forty days. He announced his death to several of his
monks, then far from Monte Cassino. A violent fever having seized
him, he caused himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be
carried to the chapel of Saint John the Baptist; he had before
ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be opened.
There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the holy
Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of the open grave, but
at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards
heaven, he died, standing, muttering a last prayer. Such a
victorious death became that great soldier of God. He was buried by
the side of his beloved Scholastica, in a sepulcher made on the
spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which had been replaced by
another to our beloved Savior.
In the very year, and at the same time, that Justinian and Theodora were
preparing the Justinian Code, Benedict was busy devising "The Monastic
Rules." Benedict did not put his rules forth as final, but explained
that they were merely expedient for their time and place. In this he was
singularly modest. If one can divest himself of the thought that there
was anything "holy" or "sacred" about these communal groups called
"monasteries," and then read these rules, he will see that they were
founded on a good knowledge of economics and a very stern commonsense.
Humanity was the same a thousand years ago that it is now. Benedict had
to fight inertia, selfishness and incipient paranoia, just as does the
man who tries to introduce practical socialism today. A few extracts
from this very remarkable Book of Rules will show the shrewd Connecticut
wisdom of Benedict. To hold the dowdy, indifferent, slipshod and
underdone in their proper places, so they could not disturb or destroy
the peace, policy and prosperity of the efficient, was the task of
Benedict.
Benedict says: "Written and formal rules are necessary only because we
are all faulty men, with a tendency towards selfishness and disorder.
When men become wise, and also unselfish, there will be no need of rules
and laws."
The Book of Rules by Benedict is a volume of more than twenty thousand
words. Its scope reveals an insight that will appeal to all who have had
to do with socialistic experiments, not to mention the management of
labor-unions. Benedict was one of the industrial leaders of the world.
His life was an epoch, and his influence still abides.
[Illustration: MARY BAKER EDDY]
MARY BAKER EDDY
The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are to be found
in the following postulates: that Life is God, good and not evil;
that Soul is sinless, not to be found in the body; that Spirit is
not and can not be materialized; that Life is not subject to death;
that the spiritual real man has no consciousness of material life
or death.
--_Mary Baker Eddy_
MARY BAKER EDDY
Let the fact be here stated that Mary Baker Eddy was the founder of
Christian Science. This woman lived long and well.
She was alert, earnest, highly intelligent, receptive. She was ever
discovering. We know this because she put out a new message every little
while, or modified an old one, having come in the meantime into a
position to get a nearer and clearer view of the fact. The last edition
of "Science and Health" is a different book from the first one.
Christian Science is not a fixed, formed, fossilized, ossified
structure. Possibly it may become so. But the probabilities are it will
grow, expand, advance. Life and growth consist in eliminating dead
matter and evolving new tissue. The institution, commercial, artistic,
social, political, religious, that has ceased to grow has begun to
disintegrate.
Christian Scientists do not flee the world, renouncing and denouncing
it. As a people they are well, happy, hopeful, enthusiastic and
successful. I am fairly well informed on the history of all great
religions. In degree I know the character of intellect possessed by the
folks who make or made up their membership. And my opinion is, that no
religion that has ever existed contained so large a percentage of
intelligent people, competent, safe and sane, as does Christian Science.
There is an adage to the effect that a prophet is not without honor save
in his own country.
In the case of Mary Baker Eddy, the adage just quoted goes awry. Mrs.
Eddy as long as she lived, retained the good-will of Concord, Boston and
Brookline, where she chose to make her home. Very many of the leading
men and women of each of these cities are Christian Scientists.
The Christian Science Church at Concord cost upwards of two hundred
thousand dollars, and was the gift of Mrs. Eddy. Over the entrance, cut
deep in granite, are the words, "Presented by Mary Baker Eddy,
Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science." As to the argument that
the truths of Christian Science have always been known and practised by
a few, Mrs. Eddy issued her direct challenge. In all of her literature
she set out the unqualified statement that she was "The Discoverer and
the Founder." She was never apologetic; she assumed no modesty she did
not feel; she spoke as one having authority, as did Moses of old, "Thus
saith the Lord!"
She entered into no joint debates; she did not answer back. This intense
conviction which admits of no parley was one of the secrets of her
power. For many years the Billingsgate Calendar was directed at her upon
every possible occasion.
But Mrs. Eddy won out, and legislation and courts were compelled to
whistle in their hounds. Your right to keep well in your own way is now
fully recognized. Doctors are not liable when they give innocent
sweetened water and call it medicine, nor do we place Christian
Scientists on trial if their patients die, any more than we do the M.
D.'s.
In fact, Mrs. Eddy influenced both of the so-called sciences of medicine
and theology. Even those who are perfectly willing to deny her, and
noisily discard her tenets, are debtors to her.
Homeopathy modified the dose of all the Allopaths; and Christian Science
has attenuated the Hahnemannian theory of attenuations, it having been
found that the blank tablet often cures quite as effectively as the one
that is medicated. Christian Science does not shout, rant, defy nor
preach. It is poised, silent, sure, and the flagellants, like the
dervishes, are noticeable by their absence.
The Reverend Billy Sunday is not a Christian Scientist. The Christian
Scientist does not cut into the grape; specialize on the elevated
spheroid; devote his energies to bridge whist; cultivate the scandal
microbe; join the anvil chorus, nor shake the red rag of wordy warfare.
He is diligent in business, fervent in spirit, and accepts what comes
without protest, finding it good.
Mary Baker Eddy lived a human life. Through her manifold experiences she
gathered gear--she was a very great and wise woman. She was so great
that she kept her own counsel, received no visitors, made no calls, had
no Thursday, wrote no letters, and even never went to the church that
she presented to her native town. Mrs. Eddy's step was ever light, her
form erect--a slender, handsome, queenly woman. When she passed on, in
December, Nineteen Hundred Ten, in her ninetieth year, she looked scarce
more than sixty. Her face showed experience, but not extreme age. The
day I saw her, a few years before her death, she was dressed all in
white satin and looked like a girl going to a ball.
Her eyes were not dimmed nor her face wrinkled.
Her hat was a milliner's dream; her gloves came to the elbow and were
becomingly wrinkled; her form was the form of Bernhardt. Her secretary
stood by the carriage-door, his head bared. He did not offer his hand to
the lady nor seek to assist her into the carriage. He knew his
business--a sober, silent, muscular, bronzed, farmer-like man, who
evidently saw everything and nothing.
He closed the carriage-door and took his seat by the side of the driver,
who wore no livery. The men looked like brothers. The big, brown horses
started slowly away; they wore no blinders nor check-reins--they, too,
had banished fear. The coachman drove with a loose rein. The next day I
waited in Concord to see Mrs. Eddy again. At exactly two-fifteen the
big, brown, slow-going horses turned into Main Street. Drays pulled in
to the curb, automobiles stopped, people stood on the street corners,
and some--the pilgrims--uncovered.
Mrs. Eddy sat back in the carriage, holding in her white-gloved hands a
big spray of apple-blossoms, the same half-smile of satisfaction on her
face--the smile of Pope Leo the Thirteenth. The woman was a veritable
queen, and some of her devotees, not without reason, called her the
Queen of the World.
Some doubtless prayed to her--and may yet, for that matter. Mrs. Eddy
was married three times. First, to Colonel George W. Glover, an
excellent and worthy man, who was the father of her only child, a son.
On the death of Glover, the child was taken by Glover's mother and
secreted so effectually that his mother did not see him until he was
thirty-four years old, and the father of a family.
Her second husband was Daniel Patterson, who was not only a rogue but
also a fool--a flashy one, who turned the head of a lone, lorn young
widow, who certainly was not infallible in judgment. In two years the
wife got a divorce from him, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion, at
Salem, Massachusetts. Her third marital venture was Doctor Asa G. Eddy,
a practising physician--a man of much intelligence and worth. From him
Mrs. Eddy learned that the Science of Medicine was not much of a science
after all. Mrs. Eddy used to say that her husband was her first convert;
certain it is that Dr. Eddy gave up his practise to assist his wife in
putting before the world the unreality of disease. That he did not fully
grasp the idea is shown by the fact that he died of pneumonia. This,
however, did not shake the faith of Mrs. Eddy in the doctrine that
sickness was an error of mortal mind. For a good many years Mrs. Eddy
drove the memory of her two good husbands tandem, hitched by a hyphen,
thus: Mary Baker Glover-Eddy. Many a woman has joined her own name to
that of her husband, but what woman ever before so honored the two men
she had loved by coupling their names! Getting married is a bad habit,
Mrs. Eddy would probably have said, but you have to get married to find
it out.
In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-nine, Mrs. Eddy organized the First Church
of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and became its pastor. In Eighteen
Hundred Eighty-one, being then sixty years of age, she founded the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, in Boston. For fifteen years she had
been speaking in public, affirming that health was our normal condition
and that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. From her forty-fifth
to her sixtieth year she was glad to speak for what was offered,
although I believe that even then she had discarded the good old
priestly plan of taking up a collection. The Metaphysical College was
started to prepare students for teaching Mrs. Eddy's doctrines.
The business ability of the woman was shown in thus organizing and
allowing no one to teach who was not duly prepared. These students were
obliged to pay a good stiff tuition, which fact made them appreciative.
In turn they went out and taught; all students paid the tidy sum of one
hundred dollars for the lessons, which fee was later cut to fifty.
Salvation may be free, but Christian Science costs money. The
theological genus piker, with his long, wrinkled, black coat, his collar
buttoned behind, and his high hat, has been eliminated.
Mrs. Eddy was manager of the best-methodized institution in the world,
save only the Roman Catholic Church and the Standard Oil Company. How
many million copies of "Science and Health" have been sold, no man can
say. What percentage of the money from the lessons went to Mrs. Eddy,
only an Armstrong Committee could ascertain, and really it was nobody's
business but hers.
That Mrs. Eddy had some very skilful helpers goes without saying. But
here is the point--she selected them, and reigned supreme. That the
student who paid fifty dollars got his money's worth, I have no doubt.
Not that he understood the lessons, but he received a feeling of courage
and a oneness with the whole which caused health to flow through his
veins and his heart to beat with joy. The lesson might have been to him
a jumble of words, but he lived in hopes that he would soon grow to a
point where the lines were luminous.
In the meantime, all he knew was that whereas he was once lame he could
now walk. Even the most bigoted and prejudiced now agree that the cures
of Christian Science are genuine. People who think they have trouble
have it, and it is the same with pain. Imagination is the only
sure-enough thing in the world. Mrs. Eddy's doctrines abolish pain and
therefore abolish poverty, for poverty, in America at least, is a
disease. Mrs. Eddy's chief characteristics were:
First, Love of Beauty as manifest in bodily form, dress and
surroundings.
Second, A zeal for system, order and concentrated effort on the
particular business she undertakes.
Third, A dignity, courage, self-sufficiency and self-respect that comes
from a belief in her own divinity.
Fourth, An economy of time, money, materials, energy and emotion that
wastes nothing, but which continually conserves and accumulates.
Fifth, A liberality, when advisable, which is only possible to those who
also economize.
Sixth, Yankee shrewdness, great commonsense, all flavored with a dash of
mysticism and indifference to physical scientific accuracy.
In other words, Christian Science is a woman's science--she knows! And
it is good because it is good--this is a science sound enough for
anybody--I guess so! Christian Science is scientific, but not for the
reasons that its promoters maintain. Male Christian Scientists do not
growl and kick the cat.
Women Christian Scientists do not nag. Christian Scientists do not have
either the grouch or the meddler's itch. Among them there are no
dolorosos, grumperinos or beggars. They respect all other denominations,
having a serene faith that all will yet see the light--that is to say,
adopt their doctrines. The most radical among old-school doctors could
not deny that Mrs. Eddy's own life was conducted on absolutely
scientific lines. She never answered the telephone, never fussed nor
fumed.
She hired big, safe people and paid them a big wage. She gave her
coachman fifty dollars a week, and her cook in proportion, and thus
secured people who gave her peace. She went to bed with the birds and
awoke with the dawn. At seven o'clock she was at her desk, dictating
answers to the very few letters her secretary deemed it advisable she
should see. She had breakfast at nine o'clock--ate anything she liked,
taking her time and fletcherizing. After breakfast she worked upon her
manuscripts until it was time for the daily ride.
At four o'clock she dined--two meals a day being the rule. If, however,
she cared to dissipate a little and eat three meals a day, she was not
afraid to do so.
She knew her horses and cows and sheep by name, and gave requests as to
their care, holding that the laws of mind obtain as to dumb animals the
same as man. Dogs she did not care for, and if she ever had an aversion
it would have been cats. Her servants she called "My helpers."
Christian Scientists very naturally believe in the equality of the
sexes. When girl babies are born to them they bless God, just the same
as when boy babies are born. In truth they bless God for everything, for
to them all is beautiful and all is good. Paid preachers they do not
have; they do not believe in priests or certain men who are nearer to
God than others. All have access to Eternal Truth, and thus is the
ecclesiastic excluded. To eliminate the theological middleman is well,
and as for the Church itself, surely Mrs. Eddy eliminated it also; for
she never entered a church, or at least not more than once a year, and
then it was only in deference to the architect. A Church! Is it
necessary? For herself Mrs. Eddy said, No.
But as for others, she said, Yes, a church is good for those who need
it. Mrs. Eddy was the most successful author in the world, or, indeed,
that the world has ever seen. No other writer ever made so much money as
she, none is more devoutly read.
Shakespeare, with his fortune of a quarter of a million dollars, fades
into comparative failure; and Arthur Brisbane, with his salary of
seventy-five thousand a year, is an office-boy compared with this regal
woman, who gave fifty thousand dollars a year for good roads.
* * * * *
The valuable truths and distinguishing features of Christian Science are
not to be found in Mrs. Eddy's books, but in Mrs. Eddy's life. She was a
much bigger woman than she was a writer. Emerson says that every great
institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. Every great
business enterprise has a soul--one man's spirit animates, pervades and
tints the whole. You can go into any hotel or store, and behold! the
nature or character of the owner or manager is everywhere proclaimed.
You do not have to see the man, and the bigger the institution the less
need is there for the man to show himself. His work proclaims him, just
as a farmer's livestock all moo, whinny and squeal his virtues--or lack
of them. As a boy of ten I learned to know all of our neighbors by their
horses. The horses of a drunkard, blanketless, hungry, shivering,
outside of the village tavern, do they not proclaim the poor, despised
owner within?
You can walk through the passenger-coaches of a train made up at a
terminal and read the character unmistakably of the general
passenger-agent. The soul of John Wesley ran through Methodism and made
it what it was. The Lutheranism of Luther yet lives; Calvinism the same;
and the soul of John Knox still goes marching on, carrying the
Presbyterian banner.
Every religion partakes of the nature of its founder, until this
religion is mixed with that of another and its character lost, as
happened to the religion of Christ when it was launched by Paul and was
finally fused with Paganism by the Roman Emperor, Constantine.
Christian Science is as yet the lengthened shadow of Mary Baker Eddy.
Her own immediate, personal pupils are still teaching, and her life and
characteristics impressed upon them are given out to each and all. Every
phase of life is solved by answering the question, "What would Mrs. Eddy
do?" Mrs. Eddy's ideas about dress, housekeeping, business, food,
health, the management of servants, the care of children--all are
blended into a composite, and this composite is the Christian Scientist
as we see and know him.
The fact that Mrs. Eddy was methodical, industrious, economical,
persevering, courageous, hopeful, helpful, neat in her attire and
smiling, makes all Christian Scientists exactly so. She did not play
cards and indulge in the manifold silliness of so-called good society,
and neither do they. Indeed, that one thing which has been referred to
as "the plaster-of-Paris smile," the one feature in Christian Science to
which many good people object, is the direct legacy of Mrs. Eddy to her
pupils. "Science and Health" says nothing about it; no edict has been
put forth recommending it; but all good Christian Scientists take it
on--the smile that refuses to vacate the premises. And to some it is
certainly very becoming. Mrs. Eddy's self-reliant, silent, smiling
personality has given the key to conduct for the hundreds of thousands
of people who love her and revere her memory.
Mrs. Eddy was a rare good listener. She did not argue. Once upon a time,
indeed, she was guilty of waving the red flag of wordy warfare; but the
passing of the years brought her wisdom, and then her only answer to
impatience was the quiet smile. As for eating, her table always had
enough, but it stopped short of surfeit; the service was dainty, and all
these things are now seen in the homes of Christian Scientists. Always
in the home of a good Christian Scientist the bathroom is as complete as
the library, and both are models of good housekeeping, seemingly always
in order for the inspection committee.
Mrs. Eddy did not say much about hot water, soap and clean towels; but
the idea, regardless of the non-existence of matter, is fixed in the
consciousness of every Christian Scientist that absolute bodily
cleanliness, fresh linen and fresh air are not only next to godliness,
but elements of it. All of which you could never work out of "Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in a lifetime of study, any more
than you could mine and smelt the Westminster Catechism out of the
Bible.
The vital truths of right living come to us as a precious heritage from
the character of this great woman. She, herself, perhaps may not have
known this; but before she wrote her book and formulated her religion,
she lived her life. Her book was an endeavor to explain her life, and
as her life grew better, stronger and more refined, she changed her
book. Her book reacted on her life, and the person who got the most good
out of "Science and Health" was Mary Baker Eddy herself.
"Science and Health" is mystical and beautifully human. The author's oar
often fails to catch the water. For instance, she tries to show that
animal magnetism, spiritualism, mental science, theosophy, agnosticism,
pantheism and infidelity are all bad things and opposed to the science
of "true being."
This statement presupposes that animal magnetism, infidelity, theosophy
and agnosticism are specific entities or things, whereas they are only
labels that are clapped quite indiscriminately on empty casks or full
ones; and the contents of the casks may be sea-water or wine, and are
really unknown to both mortal and divine mind, whatever these things
are. Theosophists like Annie Besant, Spiritualists like Alfred Russel
Wallace, Agnostics like Huxley and Ingersoll, are very noble and
beautiful people. They are good neighbors and useful citizens.
"Science and Health" is an attempt to catch and hold in words the
secrets of an active, honest, healthful, seeking, restless, earnest
life, and as such is more or less of a failure.
Our actions are right, but our reasons seldom are.
Christian Science as a plan of life, embodying the great yet simple
virtues, is beautiful. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"
does not explain the Scriptures. The book, as an attempt to explain and
crystallize truth, is a failure. It ranks with that great mass of
literature, written and copied at such vast pains and expense, bearing
the high-sounding title, "Writings of the Saints."
* * * * *
All publishers are familiar with inspired manuscripts. Such work always
has one thing in common--unintelligibility. Good literature is lucid to
the average mind. In fact, that is its distinguishing feature. We
understand what the man means. No able writer uses the same word over
and over with varying sense. Alfred Henry Lewis and William Marion Reedy
use the mortal mind, and their work is understandable. You can sit in
judgment on their conclusions and weigh, sift and decide for yourself.
They make an appeal to your intellect.
But you can not sit in judgment on "Science and Health," because its
language is not the language we use in our common, every-day intercourse
with one another. It speaks of Christ as a person, a principle, a
spirit, a motive; as "Truth"; as one who was born of one parent or no
parents; who lived, died, or never lived, never was born, and can not
die.
Metaphysics is an attempt to explain a thing and thereby evade the
trouble of understanding it. You throw the burden of proof on the other
fellow--and make him believe he does not comprehend because he is too
stupid. This is not fair!
Language is simply an agreement between people that certain vocal
sounds, or written symbols, shall stand for certain ideas, thoughts or
things. Inspired writers string intelligent words together in an
unintelligent manner, and thereby give the reader an opportunity to
read anything into them that his preconceived thoughts may dictate.
Metaphysical gibberish is a rudimentary survival of the practise of
reading to the people in a dead language. The doctors continue the plan
by writing prescriptions in Latin.
I once worked in a studio where the boys scraped their palette-knives on
a convenient board. One day we took the board out and had it framed
under glass, with a double, deep-shadow box. We gave it the best place
in the studio and labeled it, "A Sunset at Sea--an Impression in
Monochrome."
The picture attracted much attention and great admiration from certain
symbolists. It also created so much controversy that we were obliged to
take it down in the interests of amity.
To assume that God inspired the Scriptures, and did the work so ill
that, after more than two thousand years, it was necessary to inspire
another person to make a "Key" to them, is hardly worthy of our serious
attention. If God, being all-wise, all-powerful and all-loving, turns
author, why does He produce work so muddy that it requires a "Key"?
Individuals may use a code that requires a "Key," because they wish to
keep their matter secret from others. There may be for them a penalty on
truth, but why Deity should write in a secret language, and then wait
two thousand years before making the matter plain, and then to one
single woman in Boston, is incomprehensible. What the world wants now
is a Key to "Science and Health." In reading a book, the question that
interests us is not, "Is it inspired?" but, "Is it true?"
Mrs. Eddy's ranks are recruited almost entirely from Orthodox
Christianity. On page six hundred eight of "Science and Health," pocket
edition of Nineteen Hundred Six, a lawyer gives testimony to the good he
has gotten from Christian Science, and explains that he has long been a
member of the Episcopal Church. He is delighted to know that he has not
had to relinquish any of his old faith, but has simply kept the old and
added to it the new.
This explains, in great degree, the popularity of Christian Science.
People cling to the religious superstitions into which they were born.
Mrs. Eddy's recruits were not from theosophy, spiritualism, agnosticism,
unitarianism, universalism or infidelity. You can't give a freethinker a
book with a statement of what he must find in it.
He has acquired the habit of thinking for himself.
Mrs. Eddy had no faith in Darwin, Spencer or Haeckel. She quoted Moses,
Jesus and Paul to disprove the evolutionists, sat back and smiled
content, innocently unaware that citations from Scriptures are in no
sense proof to free minds. All of the Bible she wished to waive, she
did. The cruelty and bestiality of Jehovah were nothing to her. Her
"Key" does not unlock the secrets of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, nor
does it shed light on the doctrines of eternal punishment, the vicarious
atonement, or the efficacy of baptism as a saving ordinance.
Explanations about mortal mind, divine mind and human mind, citing
specific errors of the human mind, with a calm codicil to the effect
that the human mind has no existence, are not what you might call
illuminating literature. The stuff is simply "inspired." Mrs. Eddy was
very wise in not allowing her "readers" or followers to sermonize or
explain her writings. These writings are simply to be read. And so the
hearers sit steeped in mist and wrapped in placidity, returning to their
work rested and refreshed, without being influenced in any way, save by
the soothing calm of forceful fog and mental vacuity.
The rest and relief from all thought is good. The related experiences of
Christian Scientists are the things that convince and carry weight, not
"Science and Health." "Science and Health" was made to sell. It was not
given to you to be understood: it was to be bought and believed. If you
doubt any portion of it, at once you are told that this is the work of
your mortal mind, which is filled with error. Good Christian Scientists
do not try to understand "Science and Health"--they just accept and
believe it. "It is inspired," they say, "so it must be true--you will
know when you are worthy to know."
And so we see our old friend Intellectual Tyranny come back in another
form, not with cowl and cape, but tricked out with feminine finery and
jewelry and gems that lure and dazzle. There is one thing quite as
valuable as health, and that is intellectual integrity. To say, "Oh,
'Science and Health' is certainly inspired--just see how old Mrs.
Johnson was cured of the rheumatism!" is not reasoning.
And it has given the scoffers excuse for calling it woman's logic. Such
reasoning is on the plane of, "Why, Jesus must have been the only
begotten son of God, born of a virgin, for if you don't believe it, just
see the hospitals, orphan asylums and homes for the aged that
Christianity has built!" Mrs. Johnson was surely cured of the rheumatism
all right, but that does not prove that Mrs. Eddy is correct in her
claim that Eve was made from Adam's rib; that agamogenesis is a fact in
Nature; that to till the soil will not always be necessary; that human
life in these bodies will have no end; and that an absent person can
poison your health and happiness through malicious animal magnetism; or
that a good person can give you absent treatment and cure your
indigestion.
I agree with Mrs. Eddy as to the necessity of eliminating a medical
fetish, but I disagree with her about religiously preserving a
theological one. I have read "Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures" for twenty years, and I have also read the Scriptures for a
much longer period. Also, I have lived in the same house for many
months with very intelligent Christian Scientists.
And after mature consideration I regard both the Scriptures and "Science
and Health" as largely made up of the errors of mortal mind. My
intuitions are just as valuable to me as Mrs. Eddy's were to her.
My conscience is quite as sacred to me as hers was to her. And in being
an agnostic I object to being classed as blind, stubborn, wilful,
malicious and degenerate.
We should honor our Creator by cleaving to the things that seem to us to
be true, and not abandon the rudder of our minds to any man or any
woman, be they living or dead. Let us not be dishonest with ourselves,
even to rid us of our physical diseases. As for health, I have all of it
that Christian Science ever gave or can give. I have no "testimony" of
healing to relate, for I have never been sick an hour. And I think I
know how I have kept well. I make no secret of it. It is all very
simple--nothing miraculous.
My knowledge of how to keep well is not inspired knowledge, save as all
men are inspired who study and know the Laws of Nature. Health, after
all, is largely a matter of habit.
* * * * *
Back of the reading-desks, in the "Mother Church," at Boston, are
quotations from Paul and Mrs. Eddy, side by side. But the quotation from
Paul, which is behind the desk of the woman reader, is not this: "Let
women keep silence in the churches."
Mrs. Eddy believed the Scriptures are all true, word for word. Yet when
she quoted Paul she picked the thing she wanted and avoided all that did
not apply to her case. Personally, I like the plan. I do it myself. But
I do not believe the Scriptures are inspired by an all-wise Deity. So
far as I know, all books were written by men, and very often by faulty,
human men at that. Mrs. Eddy's "Key" does not unlock anything; and she
did not try to unlock any passages except the passages that seemingly
had a bearing on her belief. That is, Mrs. Eddy believed things first,
and then skirmished for proof. This is a very old plan. Says
Shakespeare: "In religion what damned error but some somber brow will
bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness thereof with
fair ornament." Let no one read "Science and Health" in the hope of
finding in it simple and sensible statements concerning life and its
duties. They are not there.
I append a few quotations, and in mentioning the page I refer to the
pocket or "Oxford" edition of Nineteen Hundred Six. On page one hundred
eighty-three of "Science and Health" I find, "The Scriptures inform us
that sin, or error, first caused the condemnation of man to till the
ground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity."
Mrs. Eddy evidently believed that work is a punishment, and that the day
will come when God will remove the necessity of farming and making
garden. Can a sane person reply to such lack of logic?
On page five hundred forty-seven is this: "If one of the statements in
this book is true, every one must be true, for not one departs from its
system and rule. You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of
healing, and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct
interpretation of Scripture."
This is evidently inspired by Paul's quibble, "If the dead rise not from
the grave, then is our religion vain." Lincoln once referred to this
kind of reasoning by saying, "I object to the assumption that my
ambition is to have my son marry a negress, simply because I am
struggling for emancipation." Mrs. Eddy may heal you, but that does not
prove that her interpretation of Scripture is true. Because this
happens, that does not necessarily follow. Neither, because a thing
precedes a thing or goes with a thing, is the thing the cause of the
thing. On page five hundred fifty-three is this: "Adam was created
before Eve. Herein it is seen that the maternal egg never brought forth
Adam. Eve was formed from Adam's rib, not from a fetal ovum."
In reading things like this in "Science and Health," let us not be too
severe on Mrs. Eddy, but just bear in mind that such silly superstitions
and barbaric folklore are yet officially believed by all orthodox
clergymen and members of orthodox churches. You can accept a belief in
Adam's fall and the vicarious atonement and still make money and have
good health.
Page one hundred two: "The mild forms of animal magnetism are
disappearing, and its aggressive features are coming to the front. The
looms of crime, hidden in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every
hour weaving webs more complicated and subtle. So secret are its present
methods that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very
apathy on this subject which the criminal desires."
This passage reveals the one actually dangerous thing in Christian
Science--the fallacy that one mind can weave a web that will work the
undoing of another. This is the basis of a belief in witchcraft, and
justifies the hangings at Salem. On page one hundred three I find this:
"As used in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the
specific term for error, or mortal mind."
"It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and both evil and good;
that evil is as real as goodness, and more powerful. This belief has not
one quality of truth or good. It is either ignorant or malicious. The
malicious form of animal magnetism ultimates in moral idiocy. The
truths of immortal mind sustain man; and they annihilate the fables and
mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe
their own wings and fall into dust. In reality there is no mortal mind,
and consequently no transference of mortal thought and will-power." Page
five hundred two: "Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the
history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal. This
deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves the spiritual actuality of
man, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. When the crude forms of
human thought take on higher symbols and significations, the
scientifically Christian views of the universe will appear, illuminating
time with the glory of eternity."
I append these two passages simply as samples of "inspired literature."
Any one who tries to understand such printed matter is headed for
Bloomingdale. You must leave it alone absolutely or else accept it and
read it with your mental eyes closed, mumbling it with your lips, and
let your mind roam like a priest reading his breviary in the
smoking-apartment of a Pullman car. The question then arises, "Was Mrs.
Eddy sincere in putting forth such writings?"
And the answer is, she was most certainly sincere, and she was certainly
sane. She was an honest woman. But she was not a clear or logical
thinker, except on matters of finance and business, and consequently she
did not give forth a clear expression when she essayed philosophy. In
order to write lucidly you must think lucidly. Mrs. Eddy had no sense of
literary values. She was absolutely devoid of humor, and humor is only
the ability to detect a little thing from a big one--to perceive a wrong
adjustment from a right one.
Style in literature is taste. But the lack of style, taste and humor is
general in mankind. The world has produced only a few great thinkers,
and one of them was Darwin, a name which Mrs. Eddy mentioned in "Science
and Health" with reproach. Great writers are even more rare than great
thinkers, because to write one must have the ability not only to think
clearly, but the knack or technical skill to use the right word, the
luminous word, and so arrange, paragraph and punctuate them that your
meaning will be clear to average minds. To say that Mrs. Eddy was not a
thinker nor a writer, is not an indictment of the woman, although it may
be a reflection on the mental processes of the people who think she was.
To say that there are two million people reading Mrs. Eddy, also proves
nothing, since numbers are no vindication. Over a hundred million people
have kissed the big toe of Saint Peter in Rome.
And surely the Roman Catholic Church contains a vast number of highly
educated people. The things you do not know, you do not know. And Mrs.
Eddy, knowing nothing of literary style, knew nothing of literary art.
Her prose and her poetry are worse than ordinary. All inspirational
poetry I ever read is rot, and all inspired paintings I ever saw are
daubs. Mrs. Eddy should not be blamed for her limitations.
Many people who are great in certain lines labor under the hallucination
that they are also great in others. Matthew Arnold was a great writer,
and he also thought he was a great orator.
But when he spoke, his words simply fell over the footlights into the
orchestra and died there. He could not reach the front row. Most
comedians want to play Hamlet, and all of us have heard girls attempt to
sing who thought they could sing, and who were encouraged in the
hallucination by their immediate kinsfolk.
Mrs. Eddy thought she could write, and unfortunately she was
corroborated in her error by the applause of people who, not being able
to read her book, kindly attributed the inability to their own
limitations and not to hers, being prompted in this by the suggestion
oft repeated by Mrs. Eddy, herself. The resemblance of Mrs. Eddy's
thought to that of Jesus was never noticed until Mrs. Eddy first
explained the matter. Mrs. Eddy was by no means insane. Swedenborg was a
civil engineer and a mathematician. He wrote forty books that are nearly
as opaque as "Science and Health." If you write stupidly enough, some
one will surely throw up his cap and cry "Great!" And others will follow
the example and take up the shout, because it is much easier, as Doctor
Johnson affirmed, to praise a book than to read and understand it. The
custom of reading to a congregation in a dead or foreign language, which
the listeners do not understand, has never caused any general protest
from the listeners. The scoffers are the only ones who have ever noticed
the incongruity, and they do not count, since they probably would not
attend, anyway.
Next to reading from a book written in the dead language, is to read
from a book that is unintelligible. To listen to such makes no tax upon
the intellect, and with the right accessories is soporific, restful,
pleasing and to be commended. If it does not supply an idea, it at least
imparts a feeling. Mrs. Eddy's success in literature arose from the
extreme muddiness of her thinking and her opacity in expression.
If she had written fairly well, her mediocrity would have been apparent
to every one; but writing absolutely without rhyme or reason, we bow
before her supreme assurance. The strongest element in men is
inertia--we agree rather than fight about it. We want health--and health
is what Mrs. Eddy gives to us--therefore, "Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures" is the greatest book in the whole world. Sancta
simplicitas! Why not, indeed!
* * * * *
People turn to Mrs. Eddy's book for relief just exactly as they formerly
went to the doctor for the same reason.
In addition to bodily health, Mrs. Eddy gives joy, hope, worldly
success; and even superior minds, seeing these practical results of
Christian Science, move in the line of least resistance and are quite
willing to accept the book, not troubled at all about its medieval
reasoning. In Ungania is a very great merchant who, not content with
having the biggest store in the Kingdom, aspires to the biggest
University. The fact that the higher criticism is to him only a trivial
matter, and really unworthy of the serious attention of a busy man,
simply reveals human limitation.
The specialist is created at a terrific cost, and that a person will be
practical, shrewd, diplomatic and wise in managing the buying public and
an army of employees, and yet know and love Walt Whitman, is too much to
expect. This keen and successful merchant, an absolute tyrant in certain
ways, has his soft side and many pleasant qualities. Why any one should
ever question the literal truth of the Bible is beyond his
comprehension.
He is convinced that "Leaves of Grass" is an obscene book, never having
read it; yet he knows nothing about the third, eleventh and thirteenth
chapters of Second Samuel, having read the Book all his life. He has a
pitying, patronizing smile for any one who suggests that David was a
very faulty man, and that possibly Solomon was not the wisest person
that ever lived. "What difference does it make, anyway?" he testily
asks. If you work for him you have to agree with him, or else be very
silent as to what you actually believe. We often find an avowed and
reiterated love for Jesus, the non-resistant, going hand in hand with a
passion for war, a miser's greed, a lust for power and a thirst for
revenge.
There may be a prating about righteousness while the hand of the man is
feeling for his sword-hilt, and his eye is locating your jugular. The
Ten Commandments are all rescinded in war time. The New York "Evening
Post" noted the peculiar fact that nine out of ten of the delegates at
The Hague International Peace Conference were theological heretics. As a
rule, Orthodox Christians stand for war, and also for capital
punishment. How do we explain these inconsistencies?
We do not try to: they are simply facts in the partial development of
the race. Why millionaires should patronize the memory of Jesus is
something no one can understand, save that things work by antithesis.
Mrs. Eddy was of the same shrewd, practical type as the merchant prince
just mentioned. She was the greatest woman-general of her day and
generation. She possessed all the qualities that go to make successful
leadership.
She was self-reliant, proud, arrogant, implacable in temper, rapid in
decision, unbending, shrewd, diplomatic--and a good hater.
At times she dismissed her critics with simply a look. No man could
dictate to her, and few dared make suggestions in her presence. To move
her, the matter had to be brought to her attention in a way that led her
to believe that she had discovered it herself. And of course all the
credit went to her. In all Christian Science churches are various
selections from her writings, and beneath every one is her name. "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me!" is the one controlling edict
breathed forth by her life and words. One of her orders was that
whenever one of her hymns was announced, always and forever it must be
stated that it was written by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. Always and forever,
the "student" giving testimony refers, in terms of lavish praise and
fulsome adulation, to "Our Blessed Teacher, Guide and Exemplar, Mary
Baker Eddy." God Almighty and Jesus occupy secondary positions in all
Christian Science meetings.
Mrs. Eddy is mentioned five times to where they are once. And I would
not criticize this if Mrs. Eddy had but regarded Jesus as simply a great
man in history and "God" as an abstract term referring to the Supreme
Intelligence in Nature. But to her, God and Jesus were persons who
dictated books, and very frequently she was careful to explain that her
method of healing was exactly the same as that practised by Jesus. Side
by side with His words are hers. Passages from the Bible are read
alternately with passages from "Science and Health." If both were
regarded as mere literature, this would be pardonable, but when we are
told that both are "sacred" writ, and "damned be he who dares deny or
doubt," we are simply lost in admiration for the supreme egotism of the
lady. To get mad about it were vain--let us all smile. Surely the
imagination that can trace points of resemblance between Mrs. Mary Baker
Eddy and Jesus, the lowly peasant of Nazareth, is admirable. Jesus was a
communist in principle, having nothing, giving everything. He carried
neither scrip nor purse. He wrote nothing. His indifference to place,
pelf and power is His distinguishing characteristic. Mrs. Eddy's love of
power was the leading motive of her life; her ability to bargain was
beautiful; her resorts to law and the subtleties of legal aid were all
strictly modern; and the way she tied up the title to her writings by
lead-pipe-cinched copyrights reveals the true instincts of Connecticut.
This jealousy of her rights and the safeguarding of her interests were
among the emphatic features of her life, and set her apart as the
antithesis of Jesus.
There is one character in history, however, to whom Mrs. Eddy bore a
close resemblance--and that is Julius Cæsar, who was educated for the
priesthood, became a priest, and was Pope of Rome before he ventured
into fighting and politics as a business. Mrs. Eddy's faith in herself,
her ability to decide, her quick intuitions, the method and simplicity
of her life, her passion for power, her pleasure in authorship--all
these were the traits which exalted the name and fame of Cæsar.
The inventor of the calendar ordered that it should be known as the
"Julian Calendar," and it is so called, even unto this day. Once Carlyle
sat smoking with Milburn, the blind preacher. They had been discussing
the historicity of Jesus. Then they sat smoking in silence. Finally,
Tammas the Techy knocked the ashes out of his long clay t. d. and
muttered, half to himself and half to Milburn, "Ah, a great mon, a great
mon--but he had his limitations!" The same remark can truthfully be
applied to Mrs. Eddy. And about the only point that Jesus and Mrs. Eddy
have in common is this matter mentioned by Carlyle.
The superior shrewdness and the keen business instinct of Mrs. Eddy are
seen in the use of the words "Christian" and "Science." The sub-title,
"With Key to the Scriptures," is particularly alluring. And the use of
the Oxford binding was the crowning stroke of commercial insight. Surely
Mrs. Eddy must command our profound respect. She was undoubtedly a very
great business genius, to say the very least.
* * * * *
When John Henry Newman became a Catholic, he gave as a reason for his
decision that he had found no place in literature or art to rest his
head. His reward for not finding a place in literature or art for his
head was the red hat.
Let the followers of Mrs. Eddy take comfort in that their great teacher
had plenty of high precedent for believing that Adam was created by
fiat, and Eve was made from his rib, all the fiat being used; that
Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and it obeyed, even when the
order should have been given to the earth; that Lazarus was raised from
the dead after his body had become putrid; that witchcraft is a fact in
Nature; and that children can be born with the aid of one parent a
little better than in the old-fashioned way--parthenogenesis, I think
they call it.
These inconsistencies of absolute absurdity, existing side by side with
great competence and sanity, are to be found everywhere in history.
Mrs. Eddy excited the envy of the medical world in her demonstration
that good health and happiness are the sure results of getting rid of
the doctor habit; but they got even with her when she said that virgin
motherhood would yet become the rule, and tilling of the soil would
cease to be a necessity.
Saint Augustine thought, as did most of the early Churchmen, that to do
evil that good might follow was not only justifiable, but highly
meritorious. So they preached hagiology to scare people into the narrow
path of rectitude.
Chapman, Alexander, Torrey, Billy Sunday and most other professional
evangelists believe in and practise the same doctrine.
The literary conscience was a thing known in Greece, but only recently,
say within two hundred years, has it been again manifest, and as yet it
is rare. It consists in the scorn and absolute refusal to write a line
except that which stands for truth.
The artistic conscience that refuses to paint for hire or model on order
is the same. Wagner, Millet, Rembrandt, William Morris and Ruskin are
examples of men who were incapable of anything but their highest and
best creative work, and refused to truckle to the mercenary horde. Such
men may be without conscience in a business way. And a person may be
absolutely moral in all his acts of life, except in writing and talking,
and here he may be slipshod and uncertain.
Mrs. Eddy was beautifully lacking in the literary conscience, just as
much so as was Gladstone when he attempted to reply to Ingersoll in "The
North American Review," and resorted to sophistry and evasion in
lieu of logic. Absolute truth to Gladstone was a matter of
indifference--expediency was his shibboleth. Truth to Mrs. Eddy was also
a secondary matter; the only things that really mattered were Health and
Success. Health and Success are undoubtedly great things and well
worthy of possession, but I wish to secure them only through the
expression of truth. If you gag my tongue, chain my pen and cry,
"Believe and you will have Health," I would say, "Give me liberty or
give me death!" Christian Scientists ask you to buy Mrs. Eddy's book,
"Science and Health."
When the volume is handed you, you are promised health and success if
you believe its every word; and if you don't, you are threatened with
"moral idiocy."
It is the old promise of Paradise and the threat of Hell in a new guise.
As for me, I decline the book.
* * * * *
Stephen Girard was a great merchant who had a great love of truth; but
if he had been in a retail business, his zeal for truth might have been
slightly modified.
As a rule, the world of humanity can be divided into two parts: the
practical men and the searchers for truth. Usually the latter have
nothing to lose but their head. Spinoza, Galileo, Bruno, Thomas Paine,
Walt Whitman, Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, are the pure type. Then
come Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson, crowded out of their
pulpits, scorned by their Alma Mater, pitied by the public--yet holding
true to their course.
And lo! they grew rich; whereas, if they had stuck close to the shore
and safety, they would have been drowned in the shallows of oblivion.
On the other hand, we find in, say, the directorate of the Standard Oil
Company, many men who are zealous members of the orthodox churches,
giving large sums in support of the "gospel," and taking an active
interest in its promulgation. All of them say, with the late Mr. Morgan,
"My mother's religion is good enough for me." So here we get practical
shrewdness combined with minds that, so far as abstract truth is
concerned, are simply prairie-dog towns.
These men belong to a type that will cling to error as long as it is
soft, easy and popular. Most certainly these men are not fools--they are
highly competent and useful in their way. But as for superstition, they
find it soothing; it saves the trouble of thinking, and all their
energies are needed in business.
Religion, to them, is a social diversion, with a chance of salvation on
the side. Inertia does not grip them when it comes to commerce--but in
religion it does. Lincoln once said that there was just one thing, and
only one thing, that God Almighty could not understand: and that was the
workings of the mind of an intelligent American juror.
Herbert Spencer says that Sir Isaac Newton was one of the six best
educated men the world has seen. He was the first man to resolve light
into its constituent elements. Voltaire says that when Newton discovered
the Law of Gravitation he excited the envy of the scientific world.
"But," adds Voltaire, "when he wrote a book on the Bible prophecies, the
men of science got even with him." Sir Isaac Newton defended the literal
inspiration of the Scriptures and was a consistent member of the Church
of England. Doctor Johnson was unhappy all day if he didn't touch every
tenth picket of the fence with his cane as he walked downtown.
Blackstone, the great legal commentator, believed in witchcraft, and
bolstered his belief by citing the Scriptural text, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live"--thus proving Moses a party to the superstition.
Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of England, did the same.
Gladstone was a great statesman, and yet he believed in the Mosaic
account of Creation, just as did Mary Baker Eddy.
John Adams was a rebel from political slavery, but lived and died a
worthy Churchman, subsisting on canned theology--and canned in England,
at that.
Franklin and Jefferson were rebels from both political and theological
despotism, but looked leniently on leeches and apothecaries. Herbert
Spencer had a free mind as regards religion, politics, economics and
sociology; yet he was a bachelor, lived in the city, belonged to a club,
played billiards and smoked cigars. Physical health was out of his
reach, and with all his vast knowledge, he never knew why. All through
history we find violence and gentleness, ignorance and wisdom, folly and
shrewdness side by side in the same person.
The one common thing in humanity is inconsistency. To account for it
were vain. We know only that it is.
* * * * *
The very boldness of Mrs. Eddy's claims created an impetus that carried
conviction.
The woman certainly believed in herself, and she also believed in the
Power, of which she was a necessary part, that works for righteousness.
She repudiated the supernatural, not by denying "miracles," but by
holding that the so-called miracles of the Bible really occurred and
were perfectly natural--all according to Natural Law, which is the
Divine Law.
And the explanation of this Divine Law was her particular business. Thus
did she win to her side those who were too timid in constitution to
forsake forms and ceremonies and stand alone on the broad ground of
Rationalism.
Christian Science is not a religion of fight, stress and struggle. Isn't
it better to relax and rest and allow Divinity to flow through us, than
to sit on a sharp rail and call the passer-by names in falsetto? May
Irwin's motto, "Don't Argufy," isn't so bad as a working maxim, after
all.
All Christian denominations are very much alike. Their differences are
microscopic, and recognized only by those who are immersed in them.
Martin Luther only softened the expression of the Roman Catholic
Church--he did not change its essence.
Benjamin Franklin declared that he could not tell the difference between
a Catholic and an Episcopalian. But Christian Science is a complete
departure from all other denominations, and while professing to be
Christian, is really something else, or if it is Christian, then
orthodoxy is not.
Christian Science strikes right at the root of orthodoxy, since it
divides the power of Jesus with Mary Baker Eddy and affirms that Jesus
was not "The Savior," but A Savior.
This is the position of Thomas Paine, and all other good radicals.
Christian Science places Mrs. Eddy's work right alongside of the Bible.
No denomination has ever put out a volume stating that the book was
required in order to make the Bible intelligible. No denomination has
ever put forth a person as the equal of Jesus. This has only been done
by unbelievers, atheists and free-thinkers.
Christianity is at last attacked in its own house and by its own
household. It is thoroughly understood and admitted everywhere that
there are two kinds of Christianity. One is the kind taught by the
Nazarene; and the other is the institutional variety, made up of
denominations which hold millions upon millions of dollars' worth of
property without taxation, and parade their ritual with rich and costly
millinery.
The one was lived by a Man who had not where to lay His head; and the
other is an acquirement taken over from pagan Rome, and continued
largely in its pagan form even unto this day. Christian Science is
neither one nor the other, and the obvious pleasantry that it is
neither Christian nor scientific is a jest in earnest. Christian Science
is a modern adaptation of all that is best in the simplicity and
asceticism of Jesus, the commonsense philosophy of Benjamin Franklin,
the mysticism of Swedenborg, and the bold pronunciamento of Robert
Ingersoll. It is a religion of affirmation with a denial-of-matter
attachment.
It is a religion of this world. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows but Mary
Baker Eddy was a Daughter of Joy.
And as the universal good sense of mankind holds that the best
preparation for a life to come, if there is one, is to make the best of
this, Christian Science is meeting with a fast-growing popular
acceptance.
The decline of the old orthodoxy is owing to its clinging to the fallacy
that the world's work is base, and Nature is a trickster luring us to
our doom. Mrs. Eddy reconciled the old idea with the new and made it
mentally palatable. And this is the reason why Christian Science is
going to sweep the earth and in twenty years will have but one
competitor, the Roman Catholic faith.
Orthodoxy, blind, blundering, stubborn, senile, is tottering--the
undertaker is at the door. Indeed, the old idea of our orthodox friends
that they were preparing to die, was literally true.
The undertaker's name and business address attached to the front of many
a city church is a sign too subtle to overlook. Not only was the
undertaker a partner of the priest, but he is now foreclosing his claim.
Christian Science is not final. After it has lived its day, another
religion will follow, and that is the Religion of Commonsense, the
esoteric religion which Mrs. Eddy herself lived and practised.
As for her believers, she gave them the religion of a Book--two Books,
the Bible and "Science and Health." They want form and ritual and
temples.
She gave them these things, just as doctors give sweetened water to
people who still demand medicine; and as if to supply the zealous
converts, just out of orthodoxy, their fill of ecclesiastic husks, she
built fine churches--churches rivaling the far-famed San Salute of
Venice. Let them have their wish! Paganism is in their blood--they are
even trying to worship her!
Let them go on and eventually they will pray not in temples nor on this
or that mountain, but in spirit and in truth, just as did Mrs. Eddy, one
of the world's most successful women.
* * * * *
Christian Science is orthodox Christianity, minus medical fetish and the
fear that a belief in sin, sickness, death and eternal punishment
naturally lends, plus the joy of a natural, healthy, human life. The
so-called rational Christian sects preserve their Devil in the form of a
Doctor, and Hell in the shape of a Hospital.
My hope and expectation is that Christian Science will become a Rational
Religion instead of a one-man institution, or a religion of authority,
such as it now is. Its superstitious features have doubtless been strong
factors in its rapid growth--serving as stays or stocks to aid in the
launching.
But now, the sooner the ship floats free the better. Christian
Scientists, being men and women, can not continue to grow if fettered
with an Index Expurgatorius and mandatory edicts and encyclicals. That
which binds and manacles must go--the good will remain.
Christian Science brings good news, and good news is always curative.
Mrs. Eddy animated her patients with a new thought--the thought of
harmony, the denial of disease, and the affirmation that God is good and
life is beautiful. The animation thus produced is in itself the most
powerful healing principle known to science. Life is born of love. Joy
is a prophylactic. Christian Science comes to the "student" as a great
flood of light. His circulation becomes normal, his muscles relax, the
nerves rest, digestion acts, elimination takes place--and the person is
well.
Fear has congested the organs--love, hope and faith place them in an
attitude so Nature plays through them. The patient is healed. In it
there is neither mystery nor miracle. It is all very simple.
Let us rid ourselves of a belief in the strange and occult! The
Christian Science organization is an expediency. It is an intellectual
crutch. The book is a necessity. It is a scaffolding. Yet he who
mistakes the scaffolding for the edifice is a specialist in scaffolding.
Truth can never be caught and crystallized in a formula. Also this:
truth can never be monopolized by an "ite" or an "ist." Eventually the
label will be eliminated with the scaffolding, and the lumber of ritual
and rite will have to go.
We will live truth instead of talking about it. Among Christian
Scientists there are no drunkards, paupers or gamblers. Also, there are
no sick people. To them sickness is a disgrace.
Orthodox Christians get sick and gratify their sense of approbation by
receiving pastoral calls and visits from the doctor and neighbors. The
biblical injunction to visit the sick was never followed by Mrs.
Eddy--she always decided for herself just what injunctions should be
waived and what followed.
Those which she did not like she interpreted spiritually or else glided
over. The biblical statement that man's days are few and full of
trouble, and also the assertion that man is prone to wickedness as the
sparks fly upwards, are both very conveniently glossed.
Christian Scientists know the rules of health, just as most people do;
but what is more, they follow them, thus avoiding the disgrace of being
pointed out. They have made sickness not only tabu, but invalidism
ridiculous.
When things become absurd and preposterous, we abandon them.
Unpopularity can do what logic is helpless to bring about. The reasoning
of Christian Scientists is bad, but their intuitions are right.
While denying the existence of matter, no people on earth are as canny,
save possibly the Quakers. A bank-balance to a Christian Scientist is no
barren ideality. It is like falsehood to a Jesuit--a very present help
in time of trouble. Sin, to them, consists in making too much fuss about
life and talking about death. Do what you want and forget it. Quit
talking about the weather, night air, miasma.
Knowingly or unknowingly Christian Scientists cultivate resiliency. They
are proof against drafts and microbes. Eat what you like, but not too
much of it. Be moderate. Christian Scientists get their joy out of their
work. This is essentially hygienic. They breathe deeply, eat moderately,
bathe plentifully, work industriously--and smile. This is all sternly
scientific. It can never be argued down.
No school of medicine has ever offered a prophylactic equal to work and
good-cheer, and no system of religion has ever offered a working formula
for health, happiness and success equal to that launched by Mrs. Eddy.
The science of medicine is a science of palliation.
Christian Scientists avoid the cause of sickness, and thus keep well.
There is no vitality in drugs. Nature cures--obey her. In this matter of
bodily health just a few plain rules suffice. And these rules, fairly
followed, soon grow into a pleasurable habit. Fortunately, we do not
have to oversee our digestion, our circulation, the work of the millions
of pores that form the skin, or the action of the nerves. Folks who get
fussy about their digestion and assume personal charge of their nerves
have "nerves" and are apt to have no digestion.
"I have a pain in my side," said the woman who had no money to the busy
doctor. "Forget it," was the curt advice. Get the Health Habit, and
forget it.
This is the quintessence of Christian Science. Your mental attitude
controls your body. Happiness is your health. There is no devil but
fear. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
* * * * *
SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT TEACHERS," BEING
VOLUME TEN OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD; EDITED AND
ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS, AND
PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA,
ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great
Teachers, by Elbert Hubbard
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS ***
***** This file should be named 18936-8.txt or 18936-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/3/18936/
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
