The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-04-26
AN uNcoMPREHENDED MAN.

The penalty genius has now and then
to pay for existence is the inability of the
mass to comprehend 1t. 1t pours forth
Its choicest thought. and forthwith men
begin to quarrel as to its meaning. 1t is
accused of saying that which 1t had no
conception of, and denied having said
what it really did say. If the genius is Of
sufficient force and persistency to COM
mand wide attention, there follows cult
that makes 1t and It's outpourings the
subject of special study, while the great
mass of persons, convinced that the ge-
MUS is utterly incomprehensible, give up
the effort and go plodding along their
ways on the lower planes of thought.
Genius, however. always comprehends it
self. Its meaning is never obscure to it.
self, however misty it may be to the
commonalty.
Browning knew what he meant, though
a generation of Browning clubs have not
yet ascertained his meaning Emerson
remains a mystic to thousands who study
him. This is the fault of neither Brown
ing nor Emerson. 1t is due to q con-
formation of mind in those unable to ap-
prehend that may be likened to the i'm
projections in window glass that make
the object looked at quite a different
thing from what it is.
All of which is by way of preface to
the curious fact that a somewhat lesser
genius Sin our midst" is so misunder-
stood 1t is needless to say, perhaps, that
we refer to the gentleman at the
head of our school system. Had mis-
understanding come in one or two in
stances, it might have been accounted for
on some other hypothesis, but when 1t
follows every attempt of his to shed light
upon the community, 1t is clear that it is
case of the Browning type where the
trouble comes from the incapacity of the
mass to sense the thought of the speaker
Last year one of his addresses to teach
ers was supposed to treat of the Darwin
ian theory of evolution, and there were
those of dull perception who thought that
what he said was a denial of the sound
ness of that theory, whereupon they sub
jected him to some very severe and who'll
ly unmerited criticism, as he took occa-
sion to demonstrate at a later oppor-
tunity. Some expressions that appeared
to give warrant to his critics were used
merely in a Pickwickian sense Then
some oracular utterance gave rise to the
misrepresentation that he was opposed to
kindergartens and manual training as
parts of the school curricula, and stirred
the ire of those who think them essen
tails of modern education; but later and
less ambiguous statements have or should
have removed that Misrepresentation.
If the processes of thought reception of
the mass render extremely liable to dis
tortion the thoughts given out by men of
genius. one can hardly put forward the
same explanation where the recipients
are men who have had the mental drill
and continuous intellectual activity that
falls to the lot of gentlemen of the cloth
1t is somewhat surprising and confus-
Ing, therefore, to find the coterie of min
isterial gentlemen to whom Mr. Smith
expounded his views on "Pantheism and
Materialism." and the dangerous tenden-
cies of modern thought, at sea as to the
drift of his exegesis. After a close peru
sal of the paper we confess that the
clergymen who took 1t for an attack upon
the Darwinian theory Of evolution
seemed to have ground for their criti-
cism. but we accept as conclusive the
subsequent denial OF Mr.. Smith that such