The times., 1899-12-12
~ nnh NInrnIifr.

One of the most sane and WholeSOIne
writer's Of the first half of the present
century was DIR. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
His sunny and weu-balanced nature did
not succumb to the oversTained tran
scendentaIism and extreme emotional ten
sion which affected some other writer's
Of his time and place, and he, perhaps,
more than most Of his contemporaries,
helped the American Of his day to
normal. healthy way Of looking at ku-
manity. As Emerson was an embodied
reaction from the strict theology Of the
Pilgrims. so was Holmes a living protest
against their too great severity of thought
and feeling, and his Elsie Yenner' prob
ably did as much to awaken the thinking
public to the real causes Of human wrong
doing as any other work of its time. For
hundreds of years the faulty human being
had been held strictly accountable for all
his sins. small and great, and much Phar-
iseeism on the part Of the narrow and
untempted had resulted from that view.
Holmes tactful presentation Of the doe
trine Of heredity set people thinking along
straight lines instead Of the tortuous
paths Of theological speculation, or the
uncertain meanderings Of their own in
tuition. 1t was founded on a logical plot
and that is its claim to place in Iitera-
ture.
In these days the fact that man is rot
wholly responsible for his own wrong
doing. and that it is. therefore, wrong to
set ones self up as a judge, has come
to be pretty well recognized; but there is
another thing which Dr. Holmes said in
that same novel of free viii and fate
which needs attention even now. II was
on the subject Of the relation between art
and morals. He said that art, imperfect
though it might be. often served as a
safety-valye for emotions which would
otherwise prove dangerous, and that
although the sound Of Maria James piano
might not be very musical. she might give
, expression, through it, to gusts Of feel
ing which would otherwise drive her 10
an outburst Of action which would be
considerably worse than the music.
We hear a great deal, nowadays, about
the need OF specialists. and the propriety
Of educating each person to do his own
.
10 anything beyond his particular task.
This is due partly to a natural change in
public sentiment. After one has grasped
the idea that human events go by action
and reaction-that after going to one ex-
treme popular opinion must always go
to the other. and so on TO all eternity
many things become easy to understand.
The theory two or three generations ago
was that every man was just as good as
every other man, and rather absurd expert
meuts were made by those who believed
in absolute equality. Nowadays we are in
some danger Of going to the other extreme
and saying that some men can never. by
any possibility, be as good as other men:
and generalizations in that direction are
dangerous. To the sixteenth century aris-
tocrat nothing would have seemed crazier
than that the descendants OF the hoi poIlol
Of his day should be governing themselves,
I seyeuty-three millions OF them, in a coun-
try almost as large as Europe,
without daily highway robberies. feuds,
and disorder Of all kinds But the America
Of today is considerably more orderly than
! the Europe Of three hundred years ago.
/ So it is not safe to decree that the children
OF laboring men shall have one kind OF
/ education and the children of the rich
another, and that what is not good for the
poor Is good for the rich, and Vice versa.
If It is well for the rich girl or boy to be-
come acquainted with the reinements OF