The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-04-02

suis WobtoIs OOtu WiaA W OeSs suoSSAvSO
BY the issuing Of bonds. Any other plan
10 not deserving Of serious consideration.
THE ExPURGATIoNO OF TEMPTATION
A Boston clergyman has placed on the
market . new version of Burns "Auld
Lang Syne," and explains that he has
done the work in the interest Of temper.
ance. This clergyman 10 the most recent
imitator OF the Rev. Thomas Bowdler, an
Englishman, who once published an edi-
ton of Gibbons Rome from which all
Gibbons criticism Of the early Christians
was expurgated. This was followed up BY
sxpurgsted editions Of nearly all the great
books of ancient and modern literature,
until finally Thomas Carlyle in his con-
tempt for this kind Of prurient prudery
sarcastically said that he hoped the great
expurgator would spare the Bible; he
hoped that an expurgated edition of the
Bible would not be thought necessary by
Mr.. Bowdler, whose theory Of making
people good was to furnish them with an
expurgated literature from Homer to
Burns.
There was protest fled few years ago
against Longfellow's Building OF the
Ship" on the ground that there were lines
in it which were calculated to start blush
on the cheek Of innocence. God help such
Innocence; its cheek would be found exceed.
ingly hard We suspect. The virtue that
has to be coddled by reading expurgated
classics, sxpurgated Shakspeares, ETC..
that can be undermined and overthrown
BY such knowledge il not worth saving, is
but . fair-weather garment at best, for
virtue and morality do not turn upon not
reading this or reading that. The fellow
who can't be trusted with the worlds
literature. from the Bible and Homer
down to Burns. until it has all
been expurgated is . creature whose de-
rooted and fesbly developed that he is not
worth saving, for he has already parted
with his salvation. II . man old enough
to read the worlds literature cannot be
trusted to read il without expurgatiou
he certainly will need all human society
completely expurgated of all sin before he
can behave himself, and this 10 impossi.
BILE.
Men and women are not educated to vir.
tue by keeping them in total ignorance of
the existence Of vice: it is knowledge OF
both good and evil; the choice between
good and evil; between right and wrong,
between holy living and sin, that makes
men and women Of character that stands
for conquest. and not for negative, color
less. clustered virtue. We can teach our
children the right. but we can not, if We
would. expurgate the world, in which they
must live and move and have their being.
OF all evil; OF all vice and temptation.
This whole philosophy Of education
is absurd which expects to ere.
ate . great civilization out of men
and women who cannot be trusted with
books until they have been expurgated,
deodorised and fumigated, who cannot be
trusted to walk the streets until all tho
worlds life has been expurgated Of all its
evils, its temptations and its vice. The
world 10 willing to pay for inebriate asy-
lums, for hospitals for the insane. for
prisons. for almshouses as places of refuge
for boys who cannot wander about safely
without guardian. for "dear fathers" who
will never come home until all the saloons
are extinct, and not sure to como home
then: but the world is not willing, never
was willing. never will be willing, never
ought TO be willing, TO make all its life
subordinate to the idea that the chief
soiiciiude OF society is for its "iams
ducks" that IL is the chief business Of the
government TO legisiate chiefly for the
dying and the dead rather that the living:
for the sick in body or In mind rather than
the well. A healthy mind does not need
an exrurgated literature 20 keep il clean
healthy man lit to be OF service to the
world does not need the world expurga,ed
of temptation before lie can hope TO be.
have himself.
We have tried often this experiment of
seeking to expurgate the world OF all evil
and temptation by legislation for the
benefit Of civilizations lame ducks"
who cannot keep with the procession. We
have always failed and We shall always
Utopia Is crowned the worlds benignan,
queen. When that day comes all society
that can walk and work without q guar
dian will get out; all the ducks save the
lame ducks will take TO flight Society
that lives and moves will never cousen,
10 surrender its heslthy right of choice to
the discipline and diet of a state SOM
house, asmshouse, prison or hospital.
The philosophy Of education that would
expurgaie the worlds literature is tho
same false and fantastic philosophy tina,
in government attempts to expursate III.
world Of al evil and temptation bv lep;.-
iation; attempts to make men sober nv
statute; attempts to make men vir;uop,
not by teaching them the free choice he.
tween good and evil. between wisdom and
folly. but by Theoretically hoislins I'd the
possible sinner. by keeping him in isnor.
ance of ev.l. instead OF warning him O.:
the consequences Of sin.
The CAuFca Tines Of England. says Of
a =