The Portland daily press., 1874-01-22
The Lost Arts.


Last evening Wendell Phillips delivered the
closing lecture of the Army and Navy courses
at City Hail. The hall was comfortably filled,
though not crowded, the storm keeping many
away. The lecture was the well-known one of
''The Lost Arts" and was an exempliication
extending through an hour and half, of the
French proverb that "nothing is new but what
is forgotten" The records of dead civilizations,
the tales of ancient historians the gossip of
old-time travellers were explored, and great
number of facts relating to the industrial arts
collected. These were bound by strong cords
of illustration ard argument and the huge
mass flung into the face of the nineteenth Gen.
tury. TIE exquisite diction of the lecturer, far
from ornate and at times simple as that Of an
old chronicle, clothed prosaic facts with an in
terest that came not oe themselves. People
who went expecting to listen to sustained
flights of magnificent eloquence or to rounded
periods of matclfess invective remained to hear
the plain story of the Phenician navigators who
stumbled upon the art of making glass while
repairing their boats on the shores of Spain, or
the simple account of the ventilation of the
tombs of Egyptian Kings.
Mr.. Phillips began by saying that his lecture
was first delivered thirty years ago. at the very
beginning of the system eff winter lectures. 1t
was never written lecture, and has undergone
some notifications since then. Indeed it
seems as elastic as those Damascus blades to
which Mr.. Phillips is so fond of comparing the
representatiye American politician. At the
time it was first delivered the newspaper edi-
tors, the men who knew everything, disputed
4 a.. ,,,far INIT tn,o
and late discoveries have substantiated these.
Several instances were given in illustration.
The speaker said the lecture system Yves intro
duced by Horace Mann and his compeers 1t
was designed as means of popular education.
Seventeen years later John P Hale overstepped
the bounds and converted the lyceum platform
into a rostrum for the agitator. This was It's
true mission. A glowing tribute was here paid
to Charles Bradlaugh the ideal platform ora
tor, who was spoken of as one whose lips had
been touched with fire from the altar of true pa
triotism.
Mr. Phillips said his lecture was designed in
part as a medicine, as a corrective to the over
weening vaniety of our Hpeople We Ameri-
cans are too much like Coleridge's man, who
never spoke of himself without raising his hat
We seem to think that all knowledge began
with us. He proposed to show that the peoples
whom we call barbarians knew nearly all we
know, and much iof which we are total ig-
norant In the fine arts We are willing TO con-
fess that we have fallen back, but in the indus
trial arts we fatter ourselves that we have
made any and grand discoveries. In both we
have been dstanced. Even the plots of our
novels are taken from the ancients. There are
but three hundred distinct stories in the five
languages of Europe and two hundred of these
came from Asia. Our nursery tales were told
in the childhood of the world. Cinderella and
her glass slipper are older than recorded his
tory, and Mother Goose and Joe Miller were
uusted in the streets of Athens. Our news
naper Jokes came to birth a thousand wears
before Christ Imagine Josh Billings in the
,.sudals and tunic of Greek!l
Tho lecture proper was then taken up, and
the marveIs of ancient art expahated upon.
The lecture has be- delivered here before and
the majority of our readers are toieraoiy Ia
miliar with it. Mr.. Phillips CLOSED WIN No
BILE apostrophe to the sninete @n'n osn'u-'
Though we know but little that was nv Ano"
to the Ancients we have multiplied and t'esei
oped their discoveries, and have found the
science of them. We have developed the in
telligent mechanic, and scattered learning
broadcast. knowledge is no longer 1.-THE exclu-
sive property of a privileged class; it is no
longer shut up in the breasts of Priests and
Kings. 1t no longer skulks in monasteries and
palaces, but it has become the hand-maid of
the people. This is due in great measure to
the printing press. The printing press was
known to the ancients, they just missed its
crowning power. The invention of movable
types revolutionized the world.