A Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information. THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of each month. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 82.00 a year in advance, postage prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; in other countries comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. REMITTANCES should be by draft, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL. SPECIAL RATES TO CLUES and for subscriptions with other publications will be sent on application; and SAMPLE COPY on receipt of 10 cents. ADVERTISING Rates furnished on application. All communications should be addressed to James's Talks to Teachers on Psychology.-Ladd's Essays on the Higher Education. - Boyer's Principles and Methods of Teaching.-Salmon's The Art of Teaching. Josephine Jarvis's Froebel's Education by Development. -Susan E. Blow's Letters to a Mother on Froebel's Philosophy. - Dutton's Social Phases of Education. - Dexter's Psychology in the School Room. - Rector's Montaigne's Education of Children. - Barnett's Common Sense in Education and Teaching. — Hanus's Educational Aims and Values.-Rowe's The Physical Nature of the Child. -Storr's Life and Remains of the Reverend R. H. Quick. 272 275 279 282 283 283 THE NEW PATRIOTIC IMPULSE. A great deal has been said, during the past year, about the rekindling of American patriotism that has resulted from the war with Spain and its sequelae. We are once more a united people, and we stand together in the defence of the national honor, and new glories have been won for the American flag, and we have taken our proper place among the great powers, and our manifest destiny has again declared itself in the impressive deeds by which the triumph of our arms has been accomplished. The changes have been rung upon all the familiar phrases of political oratory, gold and pinchbeck alike, and flamboyant boastings from every quarter of the land have convinced men only too willing to be persuaded that our feet were indeed planted upon "glory-crowned heights." The emotions to which explosive vent has been given are, no doubt, sincere enough to deserve a certain measure of respect, even from those who know how hollow in reality the most resonant phrases may be, and how recklessly the political rhetorician will indulge in sentiments to which the whole tenor of his career gives the lie. But thinking men have never been content, in America or elsewhere, to accept at their face value the counters of the politician. As was recently said in "The Nation," "in the case of such men, the proposed sentiments of humanity and morality really count for nothing at all. They regard them merely as mouth-filling phrases, which sound well and please their constituents; and never dream that they will one day return to plague them, or that anybody will think of holding them to their own professions." And whether such sentiments come from some high official like the war-lord of Albany, or from the most servile henchman of a political party having at bottom no nobler motive than party advantage and no higher aim than plunder, their ring is false, and will deceive only those who wish to be deceived. The new patriotic impulse to which we here wish to call attention finds no illustrations in the noisy plaudits of those who din daily into our ears the catchwords of duty and destinythe duty of advancing civilization by fire and sword, the destiny which may only be asserted by denying to alien peoples the fundamental upon which its true grandeur has been based whether our ship of state reach its haven or suffer shipwreck the honor of these men is secure. They have fought the good fight, and history will set them high among the heroes of our race. In a certain sense, the judgment of history is already pronounced. What history says of any age is determined largely by what the most forceful minds of that age have said of its issues. The men who are to-day speak ripened political wisdom are the men to whom the historian of the future will turn for light, just as we now turn for light upon the history of our Revolutionary struggle to the living words of Burke and Chatham, of Washington and Jefferson. rights of man. Rather do we hear through all glory. Whatever may be the outcome of the this din the accents of a still small voice recall-struggle to preserve for this nation the ideals ing to us that our true duties lie close at hand, and that the national destinies wrought out for us by Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln are absolutely incompatible with our newfangled dreams of empire. And because this voice, which is no other than the voice of the national conscience, has not breathed out its protest unheeded, but has found so many fearless spokesmen, filled with passion for the ideals that all true Americans have cherished hitherto, and thrilling with indignation at the presenting to us with the authority of experience and desecration of those ideals, it has seemed to us that this new manifestation of the spirit of the finer patriotism is a most noteworthy phenomenon, not to be paralleled more than two or three times in the whole course of our history. In behalf of this protest against the abandonment of the principles by which our moral stature as a nation has hitherto been determined, there has been enlisted, in the words of ex-Governor George S. Boutwell," an array of names such as has not been brought together in support of a common cause since the signing of the Declaration of Independence." So many are these names, and so great is their influence as leaders of both thought and action, that we shall not attempt the invidious task of singling out a few for special mention. A score or more of them will occur at once to the mind of any well-informed reader, and every fair critic must admit that they represent an overwhelmning preponderance of the intelligence and morality of our fellow-citizens. These considerations bring us to the more special subject of the present discussion. We Americans have a great wealth of political literature, for our bent toward the discussion of problems of statecraft is as marked as was that of the Athenians. Much of this literature is mere volubility, and whatever heat it once had has long since become dissipated. But the best of this literature is still a living force, for it deals with the most vital features of our polity, and its interest remains perennial. When we survey the cherished masterpieces of our political writing its eloquent oratory and its calm intellectual appeal - we find that they centre about two great themes-the struggle for independence and a national union, and the struggle to preserve that union and make it stand for freedom in the largest meaning, for the equality of all men in the sight of the law. It is this latter aspect of the secular conflict which now again confronts us, and the cause at issue makes upon us a demand no less im The attempt of a time-serving press to attach to these names the stigma of treason is one that falls with the weight of its own absurdity. This position is exactly that of Chatham and Burke in opposing another war of subjugation over a hundred years ago. It is for the courage of their attitude in resisting a perverse and short-perious than the demand that was made upon sighted colonial policy that those men are held in the highest honor by Englishmen and Americans alike. The verdict of history metes out even justice to the men who in any age withstand the outbursts of popular folly; and who can doubt that, in our own present case, when "the tumult and the shouting dies," the leaders who now, at no small cost of temporary popularity, stand for the principles of the In this serious condition of affairs, our writers Fathers of our Government, and speak for have not been found wanting, and it is with the "the mighty hopes that make us men" in a "in a deepest satisfaction that we call attention to sense unknown to European history, will be the way in which they have risen to the high adjudged by no remote posterity to have won occasion offered them. There is growing up for themselves a crown of exceeding great about the present subject of contention a mass an earlier generation by the harsh pretensions of the English crown, and upon a later one by the arrogant pretensions of the slave-owning oligarchy. He must be blind indeed who does not see that the same essential principles are now again at stake, and that the outcome of the present deplorable situation is fraught with the same enormous possibilities for good or for evil. Eliot Norton at the Ashfield Dinner. There are such fugitive writings as the "Open Letter" from ex-Senator Henderson, and "The Philippine Piracy," by Professor William James. There are innumerable other contributions to this literature of protest and warn of literature which is conceived in accordance with the noblest traditions of American thought. Even in mere bulk it is already almost comparable with the literature inspired by opposition to the institution of slavery, and in quality it is no whit inferior, either in its impassioned earnestness or in its deep resolve to maintaining, offered by such men as President Eliot, to the death those standards of justice and human right that so many seem now to be weakly forsaking. The thought which infuses all this writing is indeed that which "Bade our fathers' souls to live, And bids the dying century bloom anew." It is the thought of men too sturdy in their Americanism to be swept away from their moorings by the gusts of partisan folly, and too sure that they are right to be influenced by any array of hostile numbers. It is the thought stand with serene conscience an Athanasius contra mundum, each one of whom would reecho the "Ultima Verba" of Victor Hugo, of men each one of whom would be content to "Sans chercherà savoir et sans considérer Si quelqu'un a plié qu'on aurait cru plus ferme, Et si plusieurs s'en vont qui devraient demeurer." The defenders of our latter-day imperialism have not yet come to understand the temper of this opposition to their reckless course. They treat it as a difference of opinion, but it is nothing of the sort. Men may have opinions about such matters as the tariff and the currency, but the proposition to cast aside the doctrines of the Constitution and the Declaration, the counsels of Washington and Lincoln, the sanctions of free government that have been inculcated upon Americans from their earliest childhood-this proposition runs counter to the most sacred convictions of all men to whom Americanism is more than an empty name. Let us enumerate a few-a very few of the writings that have responded to this wild onslaught upon the principles that make the American name dear to us. There are the lectures and addresses contained in President Jordan's "Imperial Democracy," a volume which is a complete arsenal of fact and argument. There are such papers as "The Present Crisis," by Edwin D. Mead; "Our Nation's Peril," by Dr. Lewis G. Janes; "Imperialism, and the Tracks of Our Forefathers," by Mr. Charles Francis Adams; "England in 1776: America in 1899," by Mr. William M. Salter; and "The Conquest of the United States by Spain," by Professor William G. Sumner. There are such speeches as that of Senator Hoar in Congress, of Mr. Carl Schurz before the University of Chicago, of Professor Charles Professor von Holst, Bishop Henry C. Potter, Bishop John L. Spaulding, Professor Felix Adler, and the Rev. Henry Van Dyke. Now, of all this literature it is not enough to say that it cannot be ignored. Much of it is so admirable in form, besides being suffused with the lasting qualities of fine intelligence and exalted emotion, that it is sure of preservation among the most noteworthy examples of American patriotic eloquence. The future student and compiler of such literature will be justified in placing Senator Hoar's speech of last February beside Webster's reply to Hayne, and Professor Sumner's Phi Beta Kappa address beside the finest efforts of his great namesake. One reads these masterly productions with the same glow of feeling that is inspired by the traditional models of our eloquence, and the youth of the future will take from them the same contagion of enthusiasm which our generation has caught from their old-time prototypes. Their present value is that they strengthen our faith in the potency of our cherished ideals, and bid us take heart for our country however dark the present outlook. What to the faint-hearted may seem one sweeping dégringolade of principles and institutions cannot, after all, be a reality as long as such voices as these are raised to recall us to the old paths of national virtue and sobriety. "This spasm of folly and delusion also, in my judg ment, will surely pass by," are among the closing words of Senator Hoar's memorable speech. And what true American should not be proud to echo the words that follow: "Whether it passes by or not, I thank God I have done my duty, and that I have adhered to the great doctrines of righteousness and freedom, which I learned from my fathers, and in whose service my life has been spent." Such a literature as this makes us almost glad that the occasion for it has arisen. The awakening from our fancied security has been rude, and the perils to which we are exposed have become imminent; but we now know, at least, that the voices that were raised in past crises of our national life have found worthy successors, and that the torch has been handed on still aflame. The poets, indeed, we sadly became a Goettingen professor in 1805, and shares with Lachmann the honor of having made Germany acquainted with the poets of the first golden age of German literature. Although professor of German, his lectures on Spenser and Shakespeare and his critical work in Middle English show him to have been well informed in both English literature and English philology. His students were so eager to learn En miss, for we know with what prophetic fire our Whittier, were he now alive, would arouse our sluggish conscience, and our Lowell scourge with the scorpion whip of his indignation the traducers of our national character. But the words of the poets have this advantage over all common words, that they apply to other times and places than those by which they are immediately occasioned, and neither "Ichabod "glish that they did not object to meet their professor nor the "Biglow Papers" could in reality be bettered for our present needs. What, in fact, could a Lowell now say that would be more exactly to the point than these familiar stanzas, and the note by which they are supplemented: "We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. "The side of our country must ollers be took, An' President Polk, you know, he is our country. Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T." "Our country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair'sbreadth, she ceases to be our mother, and chooses to be looked upon quasi noverca. That is a hard choice when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her." THE STUDY OF ENGLISH IN Germany has done more to promote the critical study of English than the whole Anglo-Saxon race besides. Hanover, by reason of her political relations with England, and of the rich literary gifts that Goettingen received from London, made the start. The first German professor to take an interest in English was Hofrath Reuss, the Goettingen University librarian, who in 1770 published a book on the living writers of the British Isles and America. Somewhat later Boutewek, a Goettingen professor of philosophy, wrote a work on Middle and Modern English literature. But greater than the influence of these two professors was that of the celebrated scholar C. Heyne, perhaps the most distinguished philologist of his day. His influence, however, was not direct, but indirect. pared the way by applying the methods which have made modern philology so important a factor in university work. Heyne's successor was Benecke, who as early as six o'clock in the morning. The next important German scholar of English was W. A. von Schlegel, whose translation of Shakespeare is one of the best in any language. Since his day, neither the German Goethe nor Schiller heads the long list of dramatists whose works constitute the repertoire of the royal theatres of Germany, but the English Shakespeare. Schlegel's epoch-making lectures on dramatic art, which brought him a call to the newly founded university of Bonn, were directly translated into English, and were made by Coleridge, sometime student of Goettingen, the basis of a new Shakespearian criticism. From the time of Schlegel to 1872, which may be considered the beginning of the present important period of the study of English in Germany, most of the professors who worked particularly with literature gave their time to Shakespeare. The first of this long list of critics is Huber, well known as author of " English Universities." In the thirties he lectured in Marburg on Shakespeare; and in the forties he delivered in Berlin, to which University he had been called, the first course of German lectures ever delivered on Chaucer. Near the close of the first half of this century there appeared Gervinus's great work on Shakespeare, a work which first applied the methods that characterize German critical contributions to English literature. Other names worthy of mention here are Hattner, Herrig, Keller, Vischer, Rapp, Wolf, Ulrici, and Flathe, all of whom gave more attention to Shakespeare than to any other English author. The father of German as well as of English philology was Jacob Grimm. His grammar, which appeared in 1819, may be regarded as one of the greatest contributions to modern philology. Although the first important contribution to Teutonic philology, its fourth volume, "Teutonic Syntax," remains to-day the only comprehensive work on the subject, and will hold its place until the appearance of Roethe's new edition of the same and the completion of Wilmann's German grammar. Professor Schmid of Jena studied Grimm's grammar five years, and then published, in 1832, the "Old English Laws." The long list of professors who based their investigations on the results of Grimm worked with Old English in general and “Beowulf” in particular. The most important of this list are Leo and Ettmueller, well known to scholars of English philology. Somewhat later, we have Grein, Muellenhoff, Delius, Maetzner, Koch, and Heyne. Of these six celebrated philologists, all of whose works are indispensable to-day, Dr. Heyne, pro fessor of Teutonic philology at Gottingen, is the only one living. His valuable text-books in several of the Teutonic languages have made him as familiar to the American and English student of modern philology as he is to the German student. Until 1872, English literature and English philology were separate. A professor gave his time either to the one or the other. It would be difficult to find a man who made valuable contributions to both. Then, too, English philology and literature were combined either with Teutonic philology and literature or with Romance philology and literature. In 1872 Strassburg was opened and the first chair of English was endowed. The other larger universities followed, and to-day nearly all the German academic institutions have chairs of English. In 1873 Ten Brink was called from Marburg to Strassburg, where he filled the chair of English until his death, five years ago. Ten Brink and his great contemporary Zupitza (who began as classical philologist and "Germanist," and held the chair of English in Berlin from 1876 to 1895, the year of his death) did more to advance the study of English than any other German scholars. Many well-known philologists in Germany, as well as in England and America, owe the inspiration they received to these two men. Ten Brink did the Anglo-Saxon race a great service by his important contributions to English criticism, and Zupitza will be remembered as one of the great scholars in Old and Middle English. Zupitza was the first German to assist the Early English Text Society. Important contemporaries of these two men were Barnay, Elze, Mall, and Schipper. The past decade marks a great period in the German study of English. German scholars are applying to English, more assiduously than ever, the methods that have made German what it is. The men who are doing the English work to-day are Wuelker and Sievers of Leipsic, Brandl of Berlin, Schipper of Vienna, Morsbach of Goettingen, Koeppel of Strassburg, Trautmann of Bonn, Koelbing of Breslau, Sarrazin of Kiel, and Vietor of Marburg. Of these scholars, Sievers and Morsbach are the greatest philologists. The former's Old English grammar and the latter's Middle English grammar, have revolutionized the study of the first two periods of English philology. Trautmann and Vietor are particularly known because of their work in phonetics. Sarrazin, Koeppel, and Brandl have made very important contributions to English criticism. Schipper is the greatest authority on English metre. Wuelker as editor of "Anglia " and Koelbing as editor of "Englische Studien have worked in both English philology and English literature. " Both England and America learned from Germany how to study scientifically their mother tongue, and it is a pleasing fact that Germany is making such rapid progress in her investigations in the greatest of modern languages and richest of modern literatures. E. I. ANTRIM. The New Books. MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.* The name of John Murray Forbes is not so familiar to his countrymen at large as it ought to be, or as it would be had his great public services been coupled with official position. The part played by Mr. Forbes in public affairs, especially during the period of the Civil War, was an important and effective one; but he never held, nor sought, political office. What he did for his country he did as a private citizen, and in the most private way possible; his maxim being, "Never mind who does it or gets the credit for it, so long as the thing is done." Political ambition can hardly, in a republic, be accounted an alloy in the motives that impel theless, always refreshing to meet the rarer, or a man to serve his country; but it is, neverat least seemingly rarer, brand of patriotism that neither voter nor tax-payer is ever expected to requite or pay for. It was as a pioneer and manager of Western or Middle-Western railroads that Mr. Forbes was best known to the American public. He was one of the founders of each of those great lines, the Michigan Central and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. Of the latter company he was president from 1878 to 1881, and he was one of its directors from 1857 until his death, in October, 1898. The earlier years of Mr. Forbes's business career were spent in China. In 1887 he returned finally to America, and established himself at Boston as a merchant in the China trade. In view of his subsequent field of commercial operations, a letter of his (1836) as to railway investments is amusing. "The principal object of the present is to request that you will by no means invest any funds of mine in railway stocks, and to advise you to keep clear of them. I have good reasons to believe, from all I can learn of the English railways, that ours will prove a failure after the first few years; the wear and tear proves ruinous. At any rate, keep clear of them." Ten years later we find Mr. Forbes embarking cautiously on his first railway venture—the purchase, with several copartners, among them Erastus Corning, from the State of Michigan of its quarter-built road (the germ of the future Michigan Central) at seventy-five cents on the dollar. Writing in 1884 of these early operations, Mr. Forbes says: *LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF JOHN MURRAY FORBES. Edited by his daughter, Sarah F. Hughes. In two volumes, with portraits. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. |