R

SOME PROPOSITIONS OF NATIONALISM

EDWARD ARDEN.

Chautauquan, Meadville, January.

EAL Nationalism and its propositions are more generally misunderstood than anything else. An English business man once remarked: " Where combination is possible, competition is impossible," and it is in line with this assertion that the Nationalists have constructed a code of theories for industrial and social reform. Nationalism contemplates one perfect public organization for the administration of government and industry, wherein the individual is a mere nothing except as he may form a part of the whole, and to whose interests will accrue the benefit of concentrated action, the result being that whatever contributes to the general good is also of benefit to the individual. Individual interests will be fostered and promoted in the same degree that the interests of all are fostered and promoted.

The difference, therefore, between Nationalism and Socialism is that Socialism is sought by the universal upheaval of existing conditions; Nationalism is sought by means which are entirely rational and peaceful. It is believed that, the reform once begun, the assumption of industries by the State will gradually ensue until the combined industries of the country will be under national control.

These industrial changes for which the country appears to be quite ready, Mr. Bellamy indicates as follows:

The nationalization of the railroads, whether by constituting the United States perpetual receiver and manager of all lines, paying reasonable dividends to security-holders, or by some other practicable method not involving hardships to individuals, pending the complete establishment of Nationalism.

The nationalization of the telegraph and telephone services, and their addition to the post-office. The assumption of the express business of the country by the post-office.

The nationalization of the coal-mining business of the country to the end that the mines may be continually worked, coal furnished consumers at cost, and the miners humanely dealt with. All mines hereafter discovered or opened to be regarded as public property, subject to just compensation for land.

The municipal undertaking of lighting, heating, running of street-cars, and such other municipal services as are now discharged by corporations. As fast as industries are nationalized or municipalized, the condition of workers employed upon them should be put upon a humane basis; the hours of labor being made reasonable, the compensation adequate, the conditions safe and healthful, while support in sickness and pensions for disabled and superannuated workers are guaranteed.

The ultimate end is the extension of public functions in such a degree that the industries of the country shall be controlled and operated by the nation itself. France, in 1881, assumed control of the tobacco business and has since operated it with considerable profit. The match business, a small part of the railroads, and the manufacture of tapestry are also under State control. The telephone business was taken under Government control in the fall of 1889. The price paid for the business, as represented in the working capital, was 8,000,ooo francs. From all her monopolies, France receives a net revenue of $80,000,000 per annum. The Russian Government has an immense monopoly in the manufacture of sheet iron, the revenues of which defray a large part of the Government expenses. In Great Britain, the Government manages the postal service, express, and telegraph business. The post-office does the express business, carrying parcels at an average of eleven cents each, and making thereon an annual profit of $2,000,000. The manufacture of Dresden china is a State monopoly in Saxony, from which comes a yearly revenue of $80,The railroads of Europe, since 1870, have been fast passing into Government hands. Belgium owns about three

000,000.

fourths of her total mileage, and in Prussia, out of a total of 15,000 miles, only a very small percentage remains in private hands.

In the United States only the post-office and public schools have thus far been taken in charge by the Government. In the municipal control of certain monopolies, particularly gas and electric lighting, the United States is wonderfnlly behind European countries, especially Germany, where nearly threefourths of the gas plants are owned by municipalities.

In this country the average annual charge for water for dwellings, under municipal ownership is $11.53. In cities where private capital furnishes the water, the average charge is $17.70. By comparing the rates charged by municipalities and private corporations for gas and electric lighting, it is found that under public management the cost to the consumer is from 20 to 60 per cent. lower than for the same service under private management.

From the foregoing it will be seen that the management of some industries by the State is entirely beneficial to the individual. Nationalism now advocates public control of only those branches of business which are monopolistic in their natures, believing that it will be but a step to the nationalization of other industries. The railroad, telegraph, and express services are created by the necessities of the people. They are to the nation what gas andwater-works are to the municipality At present the charges, while purporting to be regulated so as to give a fair return for capital invested, are really made as high as the public will bear without protest. They should be controlled by the Government for the benefit of the people.

THE JEWS IN NEW YORK.
RICHARD WHEATLEY.

Century Magazine, New York, January.

THE Jewish population of New York is estimated by the

best authorities at from 225,000 to 250,000.

In the Jew..

ish quarter of the city the population averages 330,000 to the square mile. The English hive cannot exhibit a single cell like the seven-story house in New York, which lodges, or did lodge 36 families including 58 babies.

Nearly all countries, civilized and semi-civilized, have contributed to this startling exhibit, Brazil, Holland, Portugal, Spain, England, Germany, Poland, Roumania, and latterly Russia and other Slavic lands. The immigration from Russia is of hordes barbarous in speech, alien in habits, and in many cases broken by tyrannical and foul treatment.

In 1890, the trustees of the Baron de Hirsch fund, were empowered to disburse $10,000 a month in the establishment of schools, purchase of tools, transportation of persons, and relief of pressing need. The entire fund is now under the control of trustees, who may not only expend the interest, but also part of the principal if need be. There is, however, but little probability of great impairment. A surprisingly small sum is sufficient to give each borrower a start. Within a few weeks, or years, at the most, all loans are repaid by the more thrifty. Many of the Slavonic Jews enter into the old-clothes traffic, and fill the classic Baxter street with quaint and busy shops. All through the eastern Jewry of New York, foreigners under uncouth skull-caps with flowing beards, and clad in long-skirted caftans jostle feminine compatriots who, at sixteen are houris, and, at thirty, hags-charming brides at the former age, careworn matrons at the latter. In the noisome tenements that they crowd to overflowing every inmate is a tireless worker. Thrift is the prevailing characteristic, and too often hardens into avarice and greed.

Such people will not always reside in tenements. Accumulations are invested in real estate. The tenant becomes a proprietor. Change of residence to better sections of the city, and even to costly mansions on Fifth Avenue and Riverside Park, is the sequence of forethought, acquisitiveness,, and shrewd investment on the part of many Semitic citizens and

vating forces of modern civilization.

The conditions of life in New York Jewry are foul and pestilential, and would be worse but for the Friday afternoon cleaning up for the Sabbath, the thorough cleansing in the spring for the Passover, and the hardly less thorough renovations for the summer and autumn festivals. As it is, the seeds of disease too often enter their sickening bodies, and may pass thence to the buyers of ready-made clothes. The mysterious invasion of the homes of the wealthy by deadly disease often originates in East-side tenements where Irish, Italians, and Hebrews perspire in the worse than Egyptian bondage of grinding taskmasters. Mr. Jacob A. Riis writes: "I have found in three rooms, father, mother, twelve children, and six boarders. They sleep on the half-made clothing for beds." Competition among the workers is combative and pernicious to all parties. Excellent trade-schools do something to mitigate causative incitements thereto. Trades-unionism also interferes, but with such lack of judgment as often to aggravate the misery. Nowhere is litigation more irritable or comic than in the Jewish quarter. To the police its quarrels are a constant grievance.

As a people, the Hebrews succeed in all the walks of the world's business-in the fine arts, in journalism, and the learned professions. In mercantile pursuits their eminence is attested by the names that cover civic signboards. Dry and fancy goods absorb the energies of 514 firms, the aggregate rating of whose capital is $58,000,000. In no city have the Jews been more successful than in New York. Of the 400 buildings on Broadway, from Canal Street to Union Square, the occupants of almost all are Hebrews, over a thousand wholesale firms, out of a total of twelve hundred, being of that race. Nowhere else have they been more successful on the whole as bankers and financiers. Holdings of real estate by the Jews in New York are estimated at from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000, and five-eighths of the transfers are said to be for their account; and, judging by police reports, there has been less of the deceitfulness, chicanery, and fraud, that are popularly, and often unjustly held to be distinctive of the poorer Jews, in the acquisition of this amazing wealth and influence, than among an equal number of nominal Christians of similar class.

The number of orthodox Jews in New York is estimated at from 175,000 to 200,000 and of liberal Jews, from 40,000 to 50,000. Traditional Judaism as exemplified in the first-class is exactly what it was in the days of Christ and his apostles. Some of the reformers repudiate circumcision, intermarry with Gentiles, set aside the difficulties in regard to proselytes to Judaism, institute Sunday services, keep none of the food laws, reject much of the Bible, more of Judaism, all of Christianity, save its spirit and ethics, and occupy the position of polished rationalism. They revere the Old Testament as the divine source of law and doctrine, but decline to acknowledge the supremacy, if not the authority of the Talmud.

Radical reformers, like Felix Adler, Lasalle, and Bebel are by some denied the right to the title of Jew or Christian, and are consigned to a mystical limbo whence they may or may not eventually emerge into everlasting light, love, and liberty. For anarchists a warmer future is probably in waiting.

The organization, laws, doctrines, and customs of the Jewish congregations are as diversified as those of the Congregationalists. Visionaries, enthusiasts, fanatics even, relicts of the bad time in which diabolism rioted, and in which cabala and mysticism won many and close disciples, are common among the Jews as among the Christians. Both are Adamic.

The face of the Jew is toward the future, but whether that future will bring repatriation is a matter of indifference to the reformer. "New York is my Jerusalem," he says, "I don't want to go to Canaan, and would not if I could. My Jerusalem is wherever I am doing well."

SOME OF THE NEXT STEPS FORWARD IN EDUCATION.

E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS.

School and College, Boston. January.

T must not be inferred from the title of this article that the

IT

author supposes the educational movement which he is to discuss, to be all in the future. Many steps have already been taken in this direction, but the writer's conception of the nature and ends of education will be new to some by the omission of certain elements, to others in introducing elements, to others in relative emphasis of the elements recognized by all. Speaking succinctly, the constituents of a sound education are first, character; second, culture; third, critical power, including accuracy and sympathy with all the various ages, nationalities and moods of men; and fourth, power to work hard under rule and under pressure.

We see here that knowledge is left out of the account. It is quite incidental and relatively insignificant. Yet this is what most people have been wont to regard as the sum and substance of education. We see, too, that the question, what studies are to be pursued, is not mentioned. It would be pleasant to go into the subject, but if we were to do so, we should neither enter the lists for the classics on the one hand, nor for the sciences of nature on the other, but should urge rather the propriety of giving a much larger place in the curriculum to the political sciences, than has hitherto been given. But the structure and material of the curriculum is not to-day the most pressing educational question.

The definition gives character the first place in education. All reflecting persons are coming to feel that unless schooling makes pupils morally better, purer within, and sweeter, kinder, stronger in outward conduct, it is unworthy the name.

Culture comes next, and by this is meant the power to apprehend and relish the beautiful in conduct, in art, and literature, and in nature. Education must enrich life, not enlighten it merely. Culture stands in importance close to character, and it is far more to be sought than mere mental ability.

Third comes critical power, and mainly in the two great elements of accuracy and sympathy. That one's mind is full signifies nothing unless the contents are definite and analyzed. A little knowledge, well grouped and ordered, comes much nearer the ideal education than infinite kinds lying unassorted in the mind like so much raw ore.

Accuracy must be accompanied by sympathy, the power to draw near to men of all the different ages, civilizations, and temperaments, knowledge of the race, of the world, and of God. Here is where the importance of historical study comes in. "There is one mind," says Emerson, "common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason, is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought he may think, what a saint has felt he may feel, what at any time has befallen any man he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent."

An important element of sympathy is freedom from prejudice; the power not to dismiss unstudied or contemned a view which at first sight strikes you as strange, or even false. This power is one of the very best tests of a truly educated man. If you cannot, to a good extent, feel with your opponent, you cannot duly weigh his argument; and, without this, your disputing with him will but saw the air.

With all these qualities, must go self-mastery for each important purpose of life-the power to put and hold one's self to work, and to turn off large relays of intellectual or other work in a short time.

Another reform introduced, but only begun to be carried.

out, is the establishment of right relations between teacher and pupil. They need to come nearer to one another. We meed, more than we have yet done, to get upon a level of friendship with our pupils, not standing off from them, not looking down upon them. Kindness to pupils is never exercised in vain. Strive by unselfishness and perfect uprightness to make your pupils regard you as the finest man on earth.

Quite as important as this ethical approach is to breed in the student the living conviction that he is essentially your peer intellectually; that he, too, was made to be a thinker, and that it is his high calling in his turn also to teach his fellows something. Your slow boy, shy, a bad speller, mayhap he, too, is a product of the Divine Spirit, with some originality, at any rate, possibly cut out for a Laplace or an Edison. Make him feel that, and you have done a great deal towards educating him.

We are coming to see the terrible and needless loss sustained by neglecting studies like botany, mineralogy, physiology, and the elements of physics till the pupil has passed the age of observational power. The best schools now treat these so early as ten or twelve. In this way only can pupils enter college properly prepared to learn something. Not only the times but the methods of teaching these branches are changing for the better. The pupil is taught to investigate and acquire knowledge at first hand. This splendid reform must be carried through.

It is hardly less important to begin the study of foreign languages at ten or twelve, than to begin learning observational science then. With good teaching, boys and girls will acquire a foreign tongue more rapidly at that age than ever after.

As regards those who enter college with no aptitude for the classics, they should be put through a very thorough classical course in English. They might get through this course in their freshman year, yet not a few would have a clearer grasp of classical life, history, and ways than our very best students can now boast on graduation. At the same time, provision should be made so that those who wished might spend their whole four years mainly on the classics.

Let us not fear progress. Nowhere more appropriate than in respect to educational work, are Lowell's lines:

"New occasions teach new duties,

Time makes ancient good uncouth."

THE ART OF TO-MORROW.
GEORG NORDENSVAN.

Nordisk Tidskrift för Vetenskape, Konst, och Industri, Stockholm, Sjunde Häftet.

T°

be sure, we know nothing about the art of the future, but we do know its tendencies of to-day and may reasonably speak of their bearings upon the art of to-morrow.

Realism that much misused word—is the expression of the character of art and literature in our day. Longing for truth was a natural reaction against classicism and romanticism, but became the art of the studio, rather than of nature and actuality. The reaction meant a vigorous study of nature, close observation, and technique. It was "the painting of free nature." The leaders demanded that a painting should be painted with its motives and sujets in view, not from memory or in any other way. If a person was to be painted upon a landscape, that person was to be painted in the color of that landscape and not in the color of the studio.

It was, of course, the French who led the way. Here, as in so many other directions, the words of Jules Lemaitre are true: Nous faisons, depuis un siècle, des expériences pour les autres. Development of technique was never before known as it is in our day. The opponents have decried it, but in spite of all clamor, it has gone on. Whatever mistakes have been made in the direction of mere handicraft and mechanical execution, whatever can be said against l'art vulgaire et l'art facile, the

main object of technical realism has been attained, and art has not been degraded by realism.

Realism and the development of technique is nothing but a transition stage. It is very curious that so much restlessness has been shown in developing an opposite to all photographic technicality and that by means of the very power of technique, acquired only so recently.

"Photographic painting" copies the real in all its details and pays excessive attention to minutiæ. Its opposite is that technique, which first of all looks for total effect, which directs the attention to the main subject of the art-product, and leaves out all immaterial details-the technique of impressionism. Impressionism is the transition to the lyrical, color, fantastic, and emotional painting. It is the newest new in the art of color-painting.

The aim of the impressionists was to reproduce as vigorously as possible the first and fresh impression made by the realimpression vierge. All details were subordinated to the central in the painting. Manet said, that it was immaterial that all tones were false, if, together, they produced a true effect. The impressionists aimed particularly to reproduce the influence of light upon the objects of nature. They sought to attain their object by a new method. They did not mix their colors on the pallet, but they laid them, pure and unmixed, on the canvas in daubs or streaks. They sought intensity, airiness, and "vibrating life" in the tone. The painters could not express that by the old means, but did it by color contrasts and color play, which looked upon from a distance from the painting would produce one impression. The most original and consistent advocate of the system was Georges Seurat. It was he who first produced "a complete and systematic paradigm of the new art of painting." In the beginning, these artists were regarded as a lot of charlatans. Henry Houssay, for instance, speaks of naturalism and impressionism as "deux termes du charlatanism."

Impressionism has not been accepted in totality, but the majority of painters have adopted the ideas and much of its methods. The principle of impressionism is to-day ruling all the modern and younger painters. The progressive painters luminists," painters of light, and to-morrow's art lies in that direction.

are "

Impressionism has had its day—about 1880. Those artists who have descended deeper than Seurat and others into the mystery of light and color, speak the language of personality. They are Claude Manet, Pizarro, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Forain, Raffaelli, Besnard, Cazin, Whistler, and Carrière. Among them are many psychologists. Raffaelli's workmen, Degas's danseuses, and Forain's Parisian ladies are so strongly individualistic that they are typical for the classes of society to which they belong. Besnard, Whistler, and Carrière are seeking to discover a new ideal art, the nervous, the dreaming art, the lyrical, musical, fantastic art. To these artists the critics apply such terms as la vision personelle-l'emotion spéciale-un observateur cruel—coloristes enragés—lumière vibrante.

Impressionism has made way for a new personal tone in art; a direction which gives full play to man's image-making powers; it has introduced the lyrical painting with its bold coloring. All this will be developed in the future.

Subjectivity is the underlying tendency of modern art and that of the future. It demands of the artist a personal, intense, . and deep-going study of the real: Analyse délicate, étude passioné et personel. It demands of the artist that he shall discover a new individual content, and find a new and original expression for that which he, and he alone, has seen, known, felt, or dreamt. It wills that he shall represent les sensations vivantes, that which lives and breathes in a certain moment. It is not beauty of form which is demanded, but personal life. That which is cold and correct, but soulless, is abominated; so is that which is borrowed from others or seen through the everyday eye, or made by commonplace hands. The young

French school has written upon its banner Edward Rod's exclamation: Sortir de la banalité.

Berlin has, in the last two years, had exhibitions which from first to last were characterized by banalité. Germany is far behind in forward art. Its younger artists and litterateurs have only lately come to what they call Sachen naturalismus. The French and the Scandinavians and Danes are far ahead of them.

It must not be supposed that the Parisians have dropped the demand for correctness of form. They still demand correct drawing, but they are tired of mere technical skill devoid of idea. Their enthusiasm for impressionism is combined with a determined call for exactness.

Most people agree that our day has grown tired of realism. We want, however, no bloodless romanticism as substitute, nor any abstract idealism without root in real life. A new onesidedness will be no better than an old one. We want a true and personal art, and such a one is coming.

GE

MOLTKE'S LETTERS.

N. NEERGAARA.

Tilskueren, Copenhagen, December.

ERMAN hero-worship is rather nauseating. Max Bewer's visit to Bismarck is a specimen of its worst form; but also as regards Moltke have the Germans shown it in a remarkable degree. Col. v. Leszczynski, the editor of his letters, is its representative. In Moltke's familiar and plain letters, he reads the greatest wisdom the world has yet heard. He writes that every reader of the letters ought to feel the greatest reverence when they enter "the mental workshop of this great man,” and see how his soul “rises to the most glorious heights of humanity." Even his first letter to his mother is illuminated by that "fire of genius" which even then "burned with the same energy" as when he, half a century later, brought France down in the dust. What is the real content of that letter? It tells how the twenty and three years old lieutenant drills and amuses himself, how he eats potcheese and cherries in the company of his fellow comrades! In other places in the Colonel's Introduction to the letters, he folds his hands with reverence when Moltke speaks about such trivial and common-place matters, and exclaims: "See, he was a man, like we, with a warm heart, beating with joy and sorrow. like ours, and full of hopes and fears, likes and dislikes." All this is so ridiculous because the great general was a very plain and simple personality. As lieutenant and young captain he does not entertain his relatives with ideas of his own greatness drawn from his own "mental workshop," nay, he writes how hard it is to make both ends meet by a small salary, how he runs into debt, and how he writes small papers for the magazines, to pay his debts and save up a little to buy a horse. Interwoven with these notes are filial devotions for his mother, brotherly tenderness for his sisters, and small sketches from nature. These latter bear witness to an open eye for nature's beauty. All this may be very charming and testify to the man's good nature, but one must put on a pair of very far-seeing spectacles to find in it promises of future greatness. About the political events of his day, he writes no wiser than any other Prussian officer might have done. He shows neither sympathy for, nor aversion to, all that which takes place in France and Poland in 1830-31, but utters the common wish of all young officers: may the year bring war to me and peace to you, he writes to his mother on New Year's eve, 1830. It is not till after his journey and stay in Turkey and Rome that he becomes the Moltke of history. The events of 1848-50 reveal him as a man of action and precision in expression. Very naturally he was much concerned. in the Schleswig-Holstein insurrection. His family was closely related to Denmark. His father had been advanced to Lieutenant-General in Danish service and his three brothers were all Danish officials and con

sidered Denmark their fatherland. He, himself, had received his military training in the Danish army. But his personal attitude was not one of friendship; rather the contrary. He speaks ironically about his former home and tries to belittle it in the estimation of his brothers. He is unwilling to give Denmark the credit for being in the right as regards the insurrection of 1848-50, and advocates the union of the duchies Schleswig and Holstein with Germany, yea even a union of Denmark with Germany, its arch fiend. When the battle of Fredericia was fought, he praises the Danish strategy and tactics, and thinks it a great deed of arms for 20,000 men to drive 14,000 out of their intrenchments.

The year 1864 was the critical one in Moltke's life. It brought the Prussian army to the test, and thereby him, who largely was its maker. The same year brought also Moltke again into a direct inimical relation to that country, which had given him his life and education. He approved entirely the conduct of the Great Powers, and not till after the signing of the peace preliminaries does he soften in his feelings. A few days before the fatal attack upon Dybböl he expresses his admiration of the Danish endurance and courage, in holding a position so bravely against superior forces and arms, and under so trying conditions. The Danes cannot praise Moltke for his affected sympathy, when he writes: "The poor King! To think of a founder of a dynasty, who begins his reign by losing half of his kingdom. Is it not doubtful if such a kingdom can subsist any longer as an independent Power?" Is there no concealed contempt here? Does not this sympathy stand in strong conflict with his words just before the war, when he feared that the Danes, leaving all their war materials behind and burning them, might retreat to the islands, thus rendering it impossible for him to crush the opponent? Both as a soldier and as a politician, he desired the destruction of Denmark. Moltke expresses himself with great bitterness against the Danish press. He call it "abominable." 'Were it really an expression of the Danish mind and will, one could have no respect for it." He feels very mnch hurt about the contempt the Danish press had for Prussian soldiers, who "could only be driven into battle with hard words and beatings."

Moltke's last letter is sad and full of anxiety for the future of his country. Did he begin to feel that justice will prevail and that revenge is coming for all the blood he has helped to shed for the aggrandizment of an earthly kingdom?

MORE

THE MIMIAMBICS OF HERONDAS.
Grenzboten, Leipzig, December.

́ORE treasures out of Egypt! Elegant and truly popular poems, lost and forgotten over a thousand years, have again been brought to light; a poet with sharply defined original characteristics is, in Herondas, arisen from the dead. Grecian literature is again indebted to the British Museum for this addition to its treasures, and this contribution was obtained in the same place as Aristotle's Athenian Constitution, and may be regarded as of equal worth. For the decipherment and first publication of these poems we are indebted to F. G. Kenyon of the British Museum, whose famous editio princeps of Aristotle has already been noticed in our columns.

Until six months ago, all that was known of the works of Herondas was ten small fragments, and an appreciative judgment of the younger Pliny over the poet, whom, in a letter to M. Arrius Antoninus, he characterizes as a master of iambic verse. Through the fortunate discovery of seven poems of Herondas, over seven hundred verses in all, we are placed in a position to test Pliny's judgment—and confirm it.

Herondas's mimiambics present themselves as dramas in choliambic form. Mime is the title given to a little dramatic scene from everyday life, ordinarily presented in the market for the delight of the populace, and also by buffoons in the countryhouses of the upper classes. The mimes were lively, and not infrequently obscene. The Doric Greeks appreciated them

highly, and in the Doric towns of Sicily, they developed into a special branch of art, and were introduced into literature by Sophronius of Syracuse. Herondas's mimiambics in their contents and style, are poetic reproductions of the prose dramas of Sophronius. The same subjects were sometimes chosen; and indeed in all his poems the materials are simple and the mimes characteristic and typical: An old go-between comes to a young lady, whose husband is on his travels, and strives to tempt her into just one little sin, but her arts are lost on the faithful wife. A pimp presents himself in court and complains with all the characteristic shamelessness and coarse humor of his profession, that a sailor broke into his house at night and took away one of his "soiled doves." A mother brings her truant boys to the schoolmaster for castigation, a procedure which is carried out with much howling and appeals for mercy on the part of the youngsters. A woman charges her favorite slave with making love to other women, and threatens to send him to the slave whipping-house, and have him branded, but is restrained partly by the petition of one of her maids, and partly by consideration that it was just the time of the Feast of the Dead. Like the prose mimes, too, some of his subjects are obscene.

What Herondas really contributed to the already existing typical material is, primarily, the form of the verses. He selected the choliambic, but gave it a freer form than the iambic writers Hippomax, Ananios, and others, in respect that he employed the anapest not only in the first foot but in all the feet except the last. The language and tone is characteristic; the discourse is popular-in fact, tinged with a certain coarse naturalism, but is not without elegance and ability. Herondas may with propriety be put forward as a representative of simple and unaffected style. He surpasses Theocritus in this respect, as the latter surpasses him in imagination and poetic flight. Finally, Herondas embellished his scenes with such a profusion of individual traits and incidents as to awaken a very high measure of interest. We hear the poet's voice; his age presents itself to us, living, breathing.

It is very difficult to render the choliambics into modern English or German ; and, as it is for the most part the versifi、 cation only which Herondas contributed, a just appreciation of the new discovery will be confined mainly to Greek scholars.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

FOR

SPECTRO-PHOTOGRAPHY.

HENRI DE Parville.

Le Correspondant, Paris, December 10.

OR some years past physical astronomy has made considerable progress. It has been within a short time enriched by a method of exploring the depths of space which is truly admirable. Spectro-photography provides a means of discovering stars which cannot be seen, and which doubtless never will be seen, of measuring their speed of movement, their mass and other things. It is an exploration of the invisible. The method is one which excites astonishment. No telescope can reach so far into space. Moreover, by a telescope the distance from the earth of stars very far away cannot be measured, and it is impossible to say at any given moment whether such stars are moving towards or away from the earth. By spectro-photography not only can their movements be determined, but there have been discovered stars the existence of which quite recently was not even suspected.

Everyone knows what is meant by the spectrum of light. The luminous rays which have passed through a glass prism are refracted and expand into a band or ribbon, which exhibits all the colors of the rainbow: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, red. This colored ribbon is crossed transversely by numerous lines. In 1862, Messrs. Kirchoff and Bunsen, profiting by the numerous researches of their predecessors, pointed out,

under the name of “spectral analysis,” a method which has proved extraordinarily fecund in great results, It marks, in fact, a new era in the evolution of physical astronomy.

Kirchoff and Bunsen demonstrated that, by the aid of the transverse lines of the spectrum, the chemical composition of the source of light could be shown. Certain lines must be produced by certain substances. By examining the spectrum, it became easy to tell what was the luminous body of which that spectrum appeared. The characteristic lines of each substance are written like a signature upon the spectrum. In this way we can know that the sun contains the same materials as the earth; we can learn that everywhere the stars are composed of substances known to us. The unity of the composition of the earth and stars has thus been determined, at least for the regions within our horizon of sight. Spectral analysis, however, has considerably enlarged our horizon.

Spectro-photography is the child of spectral analysis, but is founded on another discovery originally made by the physicist Dopper, of Salzburg. in 1842. In observing certain stars, it was observed that the transverse lines in the spectrum of these stars were not always straight, but were bent in the middle of the spectrum, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other. How can this difference in the ines be explained? When you are traveling on a railway, you often hear the sharp whistle of an engine which crosses the train in which you are. The whistle becomes more strident as the other train approaches and less so as you are separated from that train. It was hown by Mr. Fizeau that in this case, the waves of sound are crowded closer together when the two trains are approaching each other; a greater number of these waves strike the ear at the same moment, and the greater the number of vibrations perceived by the ear, the more piercing is the note. The same phenomena take place in waves of light. If the luminous focus is approaching us, the waves of light crowd together, and each of them is shortened; they increase in length if the focus is going away from us. Now, the position of the transverse lines in the spectrum depends precisely on the length of the waves of light. Consequently, the displacement of a transverse line on this side or that of its normal direction reveals the fact, that the body which sends its light to us is in movement, and the diversion of a part of the line enables us to know the speed with which the luminous source changes its place. Then, by tracing minutely the displacement of a transverse line, we can, in our study, ascertain with what speed a star, of which the movement is in the direction of our visual ray, approaches or recedes from the earth.

So

Now, nothing prevents the photographing a spectrum. that we can afterwards at our leisure study on the photograph the successive displacements of the lines of the spectrum. This was the origin of spectro-photography.

How, it will be asked, can you know that such or such a separation of the spectral lines corresponds to such or such a speed of movement of the stars? By calculation, and, as corrective or guarantee of that, by comparison with known rates of movement in celestial bodies. It was the regretted Mr. Thollon, of the observatory of Nice, who made this verification with most precision, by following a well-defined point on the solar surface. The sun turns at a rate of speed which is wellknown; and with it the luminous point. You can then calculate the displacement of the lines of the solar spectrum, and, by comparing that displacement with the known rate of speed of the sun, can tell what speed is indicated by the displacement of a spectral line of any celestial body.

For several years past, this method has been employed everywhere in the great observatories, at Greenwich, at Paris, at Potsdam, but especially at Harvard College in the United States. Nowhere have more surprising results been obtained than at Harvard. There the labors of Mr. Draper have been continued by Mr. Edward Pickering, who photographs regularly the spectrums of the stars. The examination of the pho