Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-14
THINGS IN GENERAL.
The Usefulness of Vacation Discussed by
One Now Watching the Preachers Roll
Some University Improvements-An
- T1-i

some university improvement
Inspiration and a Privilege.
After all, is it not at least remotely
| possible that this whole vacation business
| is a humbugP
The Professor propounds this question to
himselfsitting on the sand, looking out at
the wide uninterrupted ocean, listening to
the booming of the surf. And for himself,
| just here and now, he answers, No. Blessed
be vacation. But for a good many people
whom he has met on his travels, and indeed
at some times and some places for every
| body, it would seem that there must &C
curately be another answer than that.
Is it worth while, this dusty journeying
in noisy cars, this brief tarrying here for
| day and there for a night, sleeping in stuffy
and narrow chambers, eating unsatisfactory
dinners with a knife and fork and
pocketbook, living on the European plan?"
Isn't home better? Isn't it even generally
true that the best part of vacation is the
beat1tude of getting home again? And, II
SO, why go away at all?
The Professor conceives that this matter
OF vacation-taking is pretty often overdone,
and that it would be better for most of us to
take life somewhat easier all the year and
stay at home
Perhaps one trouble is that q good many
of us don't know how to make good use of
on Labor Day, and a more weary, discon-
tented-looking lot of people never saw.
The poor men who were celebrating the
cause of labor (by stopping work) were oo-
cupied more than half the day tramping
over muddy streets behind dreadful brass
bands, in the most dismal and 1ninteresting
of professions The rest Of us sought our
enjoyment by standing on the curbstones
watching them. The only people saw who
nnd fn !, horv ina
very much intoxicated. And they paid for
it afterward.
An Employers Opinion.
During the carpenters strike I was
talking with an employer about the advan-
tages of shorter day, and he said that nine
tenths of the carpenters wouldn't know
whatto do with their time if they gotit. am
afraid that this is true. 1t needs quite lit
tie education TO know what to do with a hol-
iday. Probably the vacation depends upon
the vacator.
Why is it that the item Of vacations
makes such a large and obtrusive figure on
the programme of the college? One is re-
minded of the small boys idea Of the pur-
pose of the sermon in the church service
he thought that the sermon was put in to
give the choir a rest. The terms seem to be
alternated with the holidays to give the
students and teachers a change 1 was at
Harvard the other day. The quadrangle
was as deserted as the ruins of Babylon.
The only books in use were guide books.
The whole great plant was lying as idle
as great mill in a strike. Everything else
was going on. The shops were all open.
Only the schoolrooms we're closed. Educa-
tors are asking each other nowadays about
the real value of the long vacation. And
the chances are that things will be so ar
k1rrx x1,oA ~,
health who want to learn all they can and
get out and beseige the world as soon as
they can will be enabled to keep at their
studies and hear lectures straight along. In
the new Chicago University, l unders tand,
there will be no vacations.
The University Extension.
AT present vacations are made profit
able 90 students by means of summer
schools. Nothing in the way of education
is attracting more attention just now than
university extension" And university
extension" means the bringing of the ad-
vantages of the university within reach of
everybody by means of lectures given in
convenient places and at convenient times
and open to all comers. The most notable
illustration is Chautauqua. And everybody
knows that Chautauqua is open in the
summer.
1 was interested to see at Concord the
other day, the schoolroom of the School of
Philosophy. 1t is small building, looking
somewhat like barn and somewhat like q
chapel, unpainted, and adorned on the out
side only by the green leaves and purple
fruit of great grape vine. Of course the
grape is the Concord, which was invented,
if one may SO say, and first tasted in this
interesting little village, The school house
stands on the grounds which Mr. Alcott
owned, next to his house. One looks with
interest at the house, not only as the meet
ing place of so many famous people, but as
the home of the author of Little Women"
and a score more of delightful and uplifting
stories.
Ii one were to go to school in vacation
time, what place more interesting, more in
spring, than Concord. Next to the Alcott
House is sThe Wayside" where Hawthorne
lived for many years, and wrote "Tanglewood
Tales" and much else. Down the road little
way on side street, in big white house,
Emerson had his home. This wide highway
honored by such distinguished neighbor-
hood, leads to Lexington. Here rode Paul
Revere, that black night in 1775 waking up
the country, setting all the lanterns blazing
and getting all the guns ready. Here
marched the British the next morning, leav-
ing Lexington behind them, thinking to
stamp ont the American rebellion in q day
and here later they marched back on the run
shot at all the way from behind the trees by
the stout farmers, and the war was really
opened. The battle which began at Lexing-
ton and ended at Concord was not much of
a battle so far as numbers go. More men
are killed somewhere in railway accident
every week of the year. But that is not a
good way to measure battles. 1t was only
one mans head that they cut off one day in
front of Whitehall Palace. But the one man
was the King of England. That makes some
difference. You stand there on the bridge
at Concord, and trace out the position of the
opposing forces, and remember that on one
side stood monarchy and on the other lib
erty, and many other battlefields seem in
significant beside this. You realize the
truth of the phrase of Emerson which is in
scribed here on the noble statue of the
minuteman, that here was fired "the shot
heard round the world"
A Privilege and an Inspiration.
SO one can learn something in Concord
when even the school of philosophy is tax
ing q vacation. Prof. Felix Adler made a
wise choice when he located his Summer
School of Applied Ethics in Plymouth To
spend month beside the sea is privilege
anywhere To spend it in the neighborhood
of Plymouth Rock is an inspiration and an
unfit to any thoughtful mind. And then, in
addition, to spend it with Prof. Adler and
his company of lecturers is to have triple |
beatitude beyond anybody's real deserts.
When l was in Plymouth a dozen years |
ago Plymouth Rock WAS in the middle of the |
town in front of Pilgrim Hall. The position |
D,.ia to- cut;