Evening journal., 1902-04-19
BillParSOn'S 'SCOIumn
Published Now and Then.
Some New PhiIosophY

Art ana philosophy are never TO De
found among the attainments of a pio-
neer people. The man who plunges
Into the wilderness to carve out q
state, or develop a gold mine, has little
time to think of poetry or music, and
he leaves his art gallery at home, be
cause he cant take it along, and Tor
the better reason that he has no time
or inclination to enjoy it. His theories
too. are OF the concrete variety, which
concerns his own immediate welfare,
having little care for the abstract
philosophy of life.
When the forests have been cleared,
and the paths through the wilderness
blazed then comes the period of ma
terial prosperity There is elbow room
for everyone, and the natural resources
and opportunities are yet virgin soil.
Il is when we are constantly meeting
the prosperous and newly rich that we
feel the microbes working in our own
system. having yielded to the conta-
gion The etockyards in Chicago.
where fortunes are being made from
the sale and slaughter of animals, do
not invite art to enter, unless this is
seized upon as an element of display
Therefore il has been said that the
humanties do not flourish in an at
mOsphere of boxes and bales, in the
midst of manufacture and commerce.
II is just possible that this theory
may be reversed in America for since
We have acquired unbounded wealth in
material things, we have turned our
attention to those which are aesthetic,
and if money can buy them, they will
be ours. A man with millions sudden
ly acquired is placed in a most un-
fortunate and embarrassing position.
He finds himself hampered at every
turn. and he has come from obscurity
into the lime light of prominence,
and owes something to his position.
To consult his own wishes he had
rather eat in the kitchen, but good
form has imposed on him a butler, and
with the eye of that functionary upon
him. he takes his meals as he would
his medicine. with a wry face, but with
protests that it is good Poor mil
lionairel
His strenuous life battling with re-
luctant fortune. has left him little
time for those tastes which are a part
of the being of those with two gener-
ations of ancestors behind them.
Therefore he must create himself and
his surroundings anew. He buys a IL
brary Of books he cannot read, and an
art collection that does not give him
half the delight as the comic cuts in
the Sunday papers. He is a good thing
for the book binders and the strug-
Cling artists, but he made his millions
in pork, and his dreams are yet of pork
and his last thoughts will be of the
abattoir.
o o o
Perhaps in his desire for fame and
for a plaything he builds and endows
a college, and his ideas of its creationI
are based on the process by which his
own fortunes were made. II requires
buildings and books and apparatus
and professors, then the thing is done
From such an institution ne expects
a new and aggressive education, and a
philosophy which has little concern
for hOary traditions Has not his own
success defed all traditions and prob
abilities? And therefore isn't success
in proportion to our ability to disre-
gard the ancient landmarks?
1t is for this reason that some of the
newly created educational institutions
in the West are giving forth very
strange and novel doctrines. The de-
partments of biology, sociology, peda-
gogy and literature are especially fer
tile in original ideas. By a process Of
evolution which is part fact much the
ory and the balance guess, all our hab-
its and customs are shown to be the
result of a bygone age, when our an
cestors were inhabitants of the bogs
and forests.
Everything is analysed; every emo
ton is brought nnder the white light,
taken apart and put together as though
it were a material object. Even geli-
gion is not exempt from this profane
touch. and it is classed as an emotion
which has become refined from the
crude superstitions of primitive man.
Now every man is, or pretends to be,
a friend of progress, but if some of
these guesses were put to the test of
absolute truth. their weakness would
soon become apparent.
We are not prepared TO accept the
theory that whatever is is right" "
neither are we inclined to go to the
lother extreme and concede that what
ever can have its origin traced to a
lrorfote period is therefore wrong. The
tendency of the age to denounce man
for imposing on woman the conditions
which deny her political equality is to
find comfort in declaring that this is
1.-THE relic of savagery. But any custom
which has been tested by the expert
ence Of humanity in all the centuries,