The herald., 1898-03-13
edited by Enoch Knight)


DULCIS MEMORIA
There was a window. high In Bronx, that
gave
Monitions Of the spring, ere yet spring
came;
There rose the violet and windfower brave.
The blood-root and the cowslips sunny
flame.
And one above them bent. who knew their
soul,
And oftentimes that soul. to song would
. set.
How changed is all, as the swift seasons
roll
Now bend to her, thou early violet!
Did we not go, we two, but yesterday,
BY umbered thicket and by forest aisle?
The sleeping life of flowers she bore away
Did wake. to find the spring beneath her
smile.
Let now that window, high in Bronx, be
dim,
Nor dream of melting clod, of budding
wood!
sometimes think to sing the vesper hymn,
Thou gracious friend and flower of wo-
manhood!
1.-THE Lounger" has something to say
about the rumors concerning Anthony
Hopes alleged bad manners in speaking
of his American friends and readers, con-
cluding with these sensible words:
II think that we are inclined to be too
gushing over foreign authors who visit
this country. We know that they come here
only for what they can make out of us,
and yet we feast and fete them as though
they had visited our shores for the sake
of becoming better acquainted with us.
They get no such attention at home as
they receive from us, and it must surprise,
as we'll as delight, some of them to see
how enthusiastically and seriously we
take them. l have often wondered If it
was not as much for the sake of having
q good time ourselves as for any wild ad-
miration of the British author, that we
overload his stomach and enlarge his
head"
BY the way, we are glad to see that the
Critic has taken our hint and discon-
tinued its unfortunate practice of printing
magazine names in quotation marks. The
Critic is an apt and promising scholar.
ARNOLD AND RUGBY
Mr.. ]. j. Finday has written an interest
ing book on Master Arnold and His
Famous Rugby School" That Arnold had
the true spirit of a teacher is shown in a
letter written in 1886:
"I am sure that the more active my own
mind is and the more it works upon great
moral and political points, the better for
the school not. of course for the folly of
proselytizing the boys, but because edu-
cation is dynamical not a mechanical
process, and the more powerful and vigor-
Gus the mind of the teacher the more
clearly and readily he can grasp things,
the better fitted he is to cultivate the
mind of another. And to this 1 find my
self coming more and more. care less and
less for information, more and more for
the pure exercise Of the mind: for ans
wering o question concisely and compre-
hensively, for showing a command of lam
guage, delicacy of taste and compre-
hensiveness of thought and power of COM
bination.'
The spirit in which Arnold did his Of
fetal work is made clear by such state
ment as this
"If he saw little children looking good
and happy, and under the care of kind
ly and sympathetic teacher, he would give
favorable report, without inquiring too
curiously into the percentage of scholars
who could pass the standard examina-
tion. He valued the elementary schools
rather as centers Of civilization and re-
fining influence than as places for enabling
the maximum number of scholars to spell
and write and to do a given number of
sums without a mistake"
OF peculiar interest is Arnold's reported
opinion concerning the Tom Brown" view
of school life at Rugby:
LAS Matthew Arnold once said to me- the
story has been praised quite enough. for it
gives only one side, and that not the best
side, Of Rugby school life or of Arnold's
character. 1t gives the reader the impress
sion that 1T is the chief business
of a public school to produce a healthy
animal to supply him with pleasant COM
panions and faithful friends, to foster in
him courage and truthfulness, and for the
n fean he Ia
of the school enforce but no more. 1t is
to be feared that Hughes own boyhood
was not spent with the best set at Rugby.
His typical school boy is seen
delighting in wanton mischief, in sport,
In fight and even in theft from farm
yard, distinguished frequently by insol-
ence to interiors, and even by coarseness
and brutality, but not by love of work or
by any strong interest in intellectual pur-
suits. . This picture of public
school. In spite of its attractive features
and of its unquestionable power and real
ity, will probably be quoted in future years
as illustrating the low standard of civili-
cation, the false ideal of maniness, and
the deep-seated indifference to learning
for its own sake, which characterized the
upper classes of our youth in the early
half of the nineteenth century,"
WIN. L. ALDEN'S CAT CRITIC
Mr.. w. L. Alden, who for so many years
was one of the Tighter vein" editors of the
New York Times, has lattery become the
London correspondent of that paper. In
last weeks issue of its literary supple
ment Mr.. Alden has the following rather
neat hit at some of the literary celebrities
of London, which is quite as whimsical as
the part Mr.. Dana's office cat used 10 play
in the treatment of writer's manuscripts:
Il have a cat who has very decidedly lit
erary tastes. When a novel is read aloud
In the family circle he is always present
and listens with evident interest. He likes
Bret Harte and Hardy and Meredith
he will not have Crockett at any price. Not
long ago Mr.. Crockett's 'Cleg Kelly was
selected for reading, but after listening to
the first three pages Tommy rose up and
remarking, Excuse me-, left the room,
and refused to return on that or any other
occasion so long as any one of
Mr.. Crockett's stories furnished the enter
tainment of the evening. / wish very
much that Tommy would write critical ar
ticles for the Edinburgh Review. Unfor-
tunately he cannot hold a pen, and though
he has tried to manipulate the typewrit-
ing machine, his ignorance of the alpha
bet has prevented him from writing any
thing more Ineligible than the average
lecture This is pity for
his critical abilities are of a high order.
and l have learned 10 pay great Difference
to them"
SOME PHILOSOPHY OF TIE HER
METICS. Il. r, Baumgardt e. Co.. Los
Angeles.
Here is little volume which we want
to say at the outset is fine bit of book