Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-02-16
AN IGNORAMUS.
By TIE NiME OF G. r. QUAcKENBos

BY THE N4iIE OF G. +. QUACKENBOs
The Glaring Historical Defects Of His
Work--A Nice Book fer Minnesota
Children to Study for the Next Fifteen
Years--The kind of Swash the Merrill
Law Grams Upon the People.
To the Editor of The GLOBE.
AMERICAN HISTORY FOR Schools By g. p.
| Quackenbos, l.. L. D., 1871" Extracts from
theslst chapter of this work:
! The fifteenth century, Extending from l4OO
to 1900, AID, was an era of great changes in
Europe; it put an end to the darkness of the
middle ages; it witnessed the revival of learn
ing and science, and the birth of many useful
arts, among which, not the least, was printing.
The invention of the mariners compass in the
preceding century having enabled sailors to go
out of sight Of land, a thirst for exploring un-
known seas was awakened, long voyages were
| undertaken, and important discoveries made"
Columbus was well grounded in geography,
astronomy, and navigation heshape
of the earth and its revolution round the sun had
not at that time been established \ Z The
studies of Columbus has convinced him that
the earth was round" Full of religious en-
thusiam, he regarded this voyage to the twest-
ern seas as his peculiar mission and himself
(as his name Christopher imports) the appoint
ed Christ-bearer.'
Should the State aid in imposing upon
the rising generation these self-evident alb
surdities and oft-exposed fictions?
If Mr.. Quackenbos had told our school
children that the substitution Of paper for
the papyrus of the ancients had popularized
the art of printing, he would have aproxi-
mated much nearer the truth. In China, silk
was used as an equivalent for paper long an
terror to Faust and Guttenburg. Letters
and their use, whether combined or detached,
had long been known, even in the land
of W.. And if that upright man, Job,
may be credited, the art of printing is older
than this s.American history would teach us,
That patient man when sore pressed defined
his position thus:
20, that my words were now written! 0,
that they were printed in book! That they
were craven with an iron pen, and lead in the
rock for ever
This, taken in conjunction with the
silence of his three friends upon the subject,
may be regarded as prin,a facie evidence in
favor of the antiquity of the art.
The polarity of the magnet and the use of
the mariners compass should be carried to
period far anterior to that fixed by Mr..
Quackenbos.
The stone of Hercules had been employed
in the polarization of metals anterior to the
present era. Aristotle says: 1.-THE occult force
by which this stone attracts iron, acts even
through interposed solid bodies as well as
through the air; it has not only an attractive
5nr hp1t ole hot ,v1S<~ H.
angle it flies from the iron, while with the other
face it attracts it, The one face of itself re-
CARDS the North, the opposite one the South.
Now, the magnet has the property of infusing
these forces into an iron bar, which, on being
applied to the load stone, Immediately exer-
assumes precisely the same direction-the one
angle regarding the North, the other the
South"
Much more might be said in this direction,
as the authorities are abundant.
Columbus was not ''well grounded in
geography, astronomy, or navigation Nor
did he discover America. He sailed by the
chart of the 'dead pilot the proper use of
which be was ignorant. No well-informed
man at that time supposed that $50 leagues
west from the Canaries (the latitude and lon
gitude of which had been established for
centurieg would bring him to "India be-
yond the Ganges.' Yet Columbus profess
sed to believe it, Nor did any one we'll
grounded in geography then believe that
six-sevenths of this globe was dry land; yet
Columbus says experience has shown it, and
[ have written it with quotations from the
Holy Scriptures" The shape of the earth
and it's revolution round the sun had at that
time been established.
The studies of Columbus had not convinced
him that the earth was round-he in his ig-
norance of that then well established theory,
combats it thus:
affirm that the globe is not spherical
Again he writes:
I have always read that the world, comprising
the land and the water, was spherical, as is
testified by the Investigations of Ptolemy and
others, who have proved it by the eclipses of
the moon = 4 but l have now seen SO
much irregularity as 1 have already described,
ing the earth, namely, that it is not round, as
they describe, but Of the form Of pear" &C.,
&C.
No man was ''well grounded in naviga-
ton who wrote and spoke of the compass as
did Columbus 81 believe says this learned
navigator, ''the star (pole) has the quality of
the four quarters, as has the needle,
which, if touched to the east side, points to
the east, and so of the west and south; and
therefore, he that makes the compass covers
the loadstone with cloth, all but the north
part of it, viz: that which has the virtue to
make the steel point north
This man Columbus stands before the
world as the falsifer of the history of his
time and the learning of his age, that he
may appear wise even at such cost, yet he
did not succeed in imposing upon the learned
of his own time.
| Lascasas says he was San unlettered adj
miral.'' His charts were worthless, and
their use forbidden by the decree of his SOW
ereign, and the great Humboldt, while
stamping him with the seal of ignorance,
says she made false observations in the
neighborhood of the Azores But why cite
the authority of learned men to prove the
Ignorance of one who has thus recorded him
self?
If. according to Mr.. Quakenbos, Columbus
was ''full of religious enthusiasm" there
was but little of the genuine article that ever
appeared upon the outside. It is true that he
made great pretensions to piety, yet never
practiced the doctrine taught by the ssgolden
rule" His religion did not prompt him to
speak the truth, but enabled him to suborn
perjury, to lead profigate life, to permit
the mother of his illegitimate son
Fernand to live in abject poverty and die
in want, while he was founding seminaries
on paper. Gold was his God. With it he
would purchase the kingdom of heaven. In
July; 1903, he wrote the sovereign thus:
ssGold is the most precious of all commod.
| tiles; gold constitutes treasure, and he who
possesses it has all he needs in this world as
also the means of rescuing souls from purga-
tory and restoring them to the enjoyment OF
paradise"