The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-03-30


day of Dickens promises to have long
afternoon.
Mr.. Grant Allen complains that
there is an orthodoxy in science "just as
much interested in keeping up it's dog
mas as hierarchy is interested in keep
ing up the dogmas of it's particular
church or sect or faction" Outsiders
have often suspected as much. 1t takes
time and effort and often costs trials and
tears to get new fashion in science in
troduced and adopted. But once it has
become the fashion, nothing under the
sun is more tyrannical or less amenable
to reason. Mr.. Allen does not hold in
the highest esteem the regularly
trained" men of science. He thinks
they make dogmatists most readily.
Darwin and Spencer, he points out. we're
neither university men ner professors.
His rather strained inference is. that
science is most indebted to unframed
men who take up the search for truth
without the bias of the schools.
The proposal from America to pur-
chase ard preserve the house in which
Carlyle lived and died, naturally irrita-
tes the true Briton. What interest have
we in Carlyle? And why should we
meddle in matter which is England's
concern, il anybody's? The Saturday
Review. never too amiabls in its manner
toward this country. is moved to give it's
eye brows additional elevation, and
speak in strain which it suspects we
may think "supercilious." Oh, no! dear
oracle, that is not our word for you. We
think you amusing merely. II you tried
to be funny you might be distressing;
but when you would be severe you show
that you possess resources of infinite
JEST
General Booth gives us his full mind
about our American life. manners and
civilization. He does not think highly
of us. either as to the foundations of our
State or of our society; and he predicts
that ere long our national house will be
falling in upon US. No doubt it seems 30
to the casual European observer Pre-
dictions like this of General Booths
have been made by trans "A tlantic obser-
vers for half century and more. On
the other hand, Europeans who study
our institutions and get the clue to our
complex and apparently contradictory
system are less sanguine of an early dis
aster for the American republic. De
Tocqueville. Mill. Bryce. give different
and we must believe more trustworthy
account of our constitution, character
and prospects.
The scheme outlined by General
Booth for the redemption of our sub
merged classes is eminently British and
provincial. He imagines that the poor in
the crowded districts in some American
cities are where they are because they
cannot get lands to live upon and till in
the country, and he proposes charity
syndicate to rent or perhaps purchase
lands for them to occupy. Two things he
does not know: l. That land in every part
of this country is still abundant and
cheap. and that nearly all the families in
the cities might become occupants and
at length owners of land if they desired.
2. He has no conception of the vast
numbers. mostly foreigners, of poor peo-
pie who every year come to this country
and go out to live upon farms. which
many of them come at length to own. 1t
is not lack of opportunity but lack of
knowledge and desire that keeps our
denizens of the slums in their cramped,
unwholesome quarters.
Two genial critics have been de-
tected in the act of mutual praise, and
it is said to be due not to mutual admi-
ration but to mutual understanding.
Klick praised Klack's sonnets, on the
arranged agreement that Klack should
return the compliment to Kicks novel
cite. 1t is generally agreed that this is
not fair to the public, which is entitled
to an unpurchased opinion on the merits
OF both Klick and Klack. Excitement
and alarm are hardly warranted, how
ever; for when the public concentrates
its gaze on the two KS they will shrink
or swell. not according to their verdict
on each other, but according to their
ability to bear scrutiny.