Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1900-03-01
LECTURE AT NEW-CENTURY CLUB.

Saturday evening a lecture was de.
livered before the club by Miss Jane
Adams Of Hull House, Chicago, on
"The Social Theories OF Count Toll
stoi." In introducing her Mrs. How
land said, miss Addams lives rich
life; she set herself high and noble
them made realities; she has not
stopped to the poor and unfortunate,
| but shares with them her life and her
all with loving self-depial. " Miss
Adams manner of speaking is char
8cteristically simple, earnest gentle
and sincere. OF Count Tolstoi she said:
"He has frankly faced the great ques-
tion of life. 1t is easy to be indi-
vidualy good; the practice of ordinary
| virtues becomes almost automatic, for
| we have been trained to it; no one ia
tempted to pick the pocket Of his next
neighbor we are kindly considerable of
those about US, for We have for ten
centuries been taught to be good, but
it demands courage to face the problem
of our relation to the social question,
to the great moral movements of the
age, to the labor question, to attempt
to give to the poor some share In the
intellectual life of the age. Tolstoi has
tired to adjust his personal life to that
of the people. The views of this man
who has done nothing remarkable save
to face the social question of his time
have been much discussed in all lands,
but we must take him personally, not
his own conduct of life and says to
those who question HIM; If what l
say appeals to you, why do not you
change your way Of life.
He was of noble descent and was
born II years ago in town 126 miles
from Moscow. For the first 30 years of
his life he lived as other young Rus
sian mobiles live; he entered the army,
travelled much. visiting St Petersburg,
Vienna, Paris; he wrote novels OF such
power and promise that he achieved q
European reputation and had the world
at his feet. He now thinks those yenrs
selfishly spent and that he fell into the
same snare that is still set for tina steps
of young people, that Of the prepara-
tion for life by enlarging its interests.
polishing the manners, &c. He regretted
his life In the army when he was 30 no
went to live on his estates. From child
hood he bad been impressed with the
life of the serfs and they were never
really absent from his consciousness
lie emancipated them and taught them
to read and tried to attract them to q
broader life and out of their narrowness
and depression. 1t is not easy to teach
grown people to read; they did their
best, but it was hard to change the
habits Of generations. When the day g
work was done they would rather go to
bed or drink vodka.
When Tolstoi was "a he went into the
D. IL IL L i IL. Il
did not feel it right to allow his SER
wants to toll to feed him; he meant to
provide his own food. He did not
write any more novels and gave UP his
property; he stepped aside and the law
divided it between his wife and eight
children, as though he had died. The
world said he was insane-that is
, always the easiest thing for it to say
, OF those who leave the beaten path,
but we must respect the intellect of
such man who has been willing to keep
to such a course of life for 16 years, as
he has done. 1t is hard to get ut the
life of Russian peasant, but he says
he has learned its philosophy. The
! Slav peasant has great fondness for
, the soil. an earth hunger, a holding on
, to o piece of soil when he has once
j possessed 1t. Russia has gained her
territory by process Of moving on and
, Occupying it and then holding it fast.
The peasants attachment to the soil is
deep; they hold that no two persons
can really care for each other without
i they have done simple land labor
together. They believe that only he
who has worked with the soil till his
, hands are callous is really a man. All
: others are but simulacrum.
} Up to So years ago, when the serfs
were emanoipated the idea of private
ownership of land never entered the
: head of the peasant: he worked GER
tain portion of it awhile then handed
D it back to tho community, as the
Hebrews did every seven years. No one
ever got "a corner in land" in the
Promised Land. In Russia when an
/ estate changed landlords all the people
, living on it changed masters. If the
) new owner beat them they consoled
, themselves by saying, 1--WE belong to
, you but the land belongs to u.s." The
peasants devotion to the land is almost
, religious. The relations between noble
and peasant are different from those in
t other countries. In Germany the peas
t ants gave part of their crops to the
} baron and be gave them protection in
return; il an enemy threatened they
; came with, their cattle within the
: castle walls. In Russia the social con
ditions were changed by Peter the
: Great as arbitrarily as he turned the
course of rivers He created the class
of mobiles, inviting people from Germany
aud giving them grants of land and with
1t, the serfs. When the latter were eman.
cipated they believed the land would
: be given back to them, and where they
i, found only part of it was returned
i they adopted the legend that the real
n zcar never issued the decree, but that
some day a true GEAR would come back
= and give the land to thuse who worked
it between their hands.
Tolstoi, beyond any man since Shake.
. speare has the power of projecting his
mind into the minds of others and re-
vealing the springs Of their actions.
J and he thoroughly understands the
A serfs. We are all influenced by the
thoughts of those about us and he
lived among those who did not con
: slider the writing of books the first
duty of man. The Russian peasant
2 houses are one-story high and contain
two rooms, the outer one stable
, through which you pass to the ono
occupied by the family in which is n
b stove built from floor to ceiling IN the
oven of which the babies, the old and
1 the sick of the family are allowed to
sleep while the rest sleep on bench
e covered with their sheopskIn coats.
II 4. Al 10,