The Portland daily press., 1881-08-15

erson, Alcott, Thoreau and Hawthorne are
among its famous men in marble looking down
on the silent readers One alcoye is devoted
alone to Concord works. Here one finds col
lection OF manuscripts. Among them is En-
erson's essay ON Couture" a bold. untidv
manuscript with frequent erasures 1t is inter-
esting to read on second thoughts whnt he did
not say. For example is crossed ont. ait is
said that no man can write but one book Ifa
man mas defect 1t is apt to leave its impress
on all its performances"
In one place he writes, 81 delight in the vo.
taries of Plato" but crosses it out and writes
instead, 81 like people who like Plato"
Thoreau writes, 'The seeming necessity of
swinging dumb bells proves man has lost his
way. When he finds it, the bells will no long
er be dumb bells, but will ring melodio1s
peal" And then draws black lines across it.
Better is this, you must walk Pslike the camel.
which is the only beast that ruminates when
walking" which he eliminates in the same
manner
To his essay Emerson adds, in an after
thought, But books are good only as far as a
boy is ready for them. He sometimes gets
ready very slowly" and this wisdom he leaves.
Hawthorne's manuscript is the first chapter Of
the ''Dolliver Romance" written in a fine
hand with scarcely an erasure, and on both
sides of the page
Meanwhile the School of Philosophy goes on
at the rate of two sessions daily, and the wealth.
er grows warmer. paper by Professor Noah
Ort6r has U66u T6du on hant, one DIV Profess
sor Watson on the relation of Kant's philoso-
ply to those of realism and sensationalism in
addition to the other lectures on Kant here
The chief business of the ladies present is to
take down the long words to hunt up in the
dictionaries. The controversaists are the
young men from the universities of Germany,
several OF whom are here, and the dialectc
battle often wakes hot, when the smoke is very
thick and obscuring.
At present the effort is to reconcile Kant
and Hegel. Kant has drawn the universe in
to himself and the Hegelians are trying to get
it out of him to give Hegel chance Kant
has reduced the universal, final cause or what
not to vanishing point and these doctors of
divinity are trying with Hegel to catch it be-
fore it has gone. The ignorant ask, "Why
and be done with it?'' "Oh, that is the weak
part of his philosophy" they answer. The
personnel of the school is peculiar. DIR. Hol-
land and Dr. Kydney are Episcopal ministers
from Wisconsin and Chicago. DR.. Mears is
from Hamilton College, New York With
the exception of Mr.. Alcott, Professor Harris
and Mr. Sanborn all those who take an active
part are clergymen.. This unwontsd clerical
activity as to preserve men from agnostcism
and the dangers OF the materialistic school,
as they call it, and they assert that those who
have followed Spencer as far as the persistence
OF force, at least in England, are coming over
rapidly to the speculative school.
They are wonderfully sensitive to criticism,
these phi ophers. An article in one of the
Boston papers sent Mr.. Snider, philosopher,
back to his native Missouri in disgust and
aroused even Mr.. Alcott to irony. They
charge this complaint of unintelligibility to ig-
norance of philosophical dialect. But moth
ing is more evident than that they do not al
ways understand one another. Mr.. Alcott
himself, who does not use this dialect at all, is
the only one who has yet gwen an answer to
any inquiry which to every one was satsfacto-
ry.
But even were this all milk for babes there
is something mournful in an age whose ten
denotes lie in different and more manly direc-
tions to listen to this juggle of words and
watch these men wrapping themselves in fogs,
and blindly humping against one another in
their bewilderment, thinking all the time
they are interfering with the progress of the
scientific philosophy in its march.