New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1913-10-22
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS
OF ROBERT BURNS.
A Letter Written BY A. P. Canning q
Chicago 20 an Educator.

Chicago 20 an Educator.
have recently come across, in
textbook for children, an introduc
tory statement to Burns's poems
which must seem to many rs uncall
|ed-for as it is untrue and misleading
I refer to Williams "Choice Litera'
ture," Book No. 2, where he says:
Note to the Pupil: Burns, one Of
the greatest of English poets, was
born in Ayrshire, 1859. His life
was far from being . commendable
one. Had he wished it and bent his
energies to the purpose, he might
have become eminent in almost any
calling; dissipation marred his work
and shortened his life.
It is too bad that Of the many
things that might have been said
introducing pupils to the work Of
Burns, q statement so sure to give q
false perspective and to prejudice
the young mind, was the best Mr..
Williams could discover. However
needful it may have seemed to some
good people in the past, to destroy
the influence Of the poet and his
teaching, surely the advance of de-
mocracy in the last one hundred
years has made such action, at least
in America, unnecessary. Whether
he was more or less blameless than
we, or his judges, will be determined
largely by the point of view we take
and our competence to gather and
weigh the evidence. The facts seem
to be that some biographers of Burns
had little sympathy with principles
which to him were very dear; and
every Tory in Scotland, and especially
in Dumfries. believed that the poet
was dangerous demagogue, who took
great delight in lampooning their pet
theological and political humbugs.
That he did this there is no denying,
and that to many was, and still is,
conclusive proof that he was not re-
spectacle; respectable" people never
do such things:
Prof. Blackie says that there is
in civilization in all its forms a ten,
dency to defect from nature, and
the only cure for this lies in revolt
against everything arbitrary and
To bring about this
restoration of society to its normal
type, the great Architect of the Uni
verse sends forth from time to time
specially authorized messengers to
rouse, to stimulate and to lead into
the right way the erring sons Of
men," -l-~... ~ .- Il,
Whether these messengers appear
IS legislators, prophets or poets,
hey are seldom popular with those
Who control the fonts of public opin-
on. Their path, like that of the |
ransgressor, is hard one, stony
md thorny. The respectable group
n society, who deliver lectures and
write biographies and histories, al
Ways look upon them with suspicion.
'waddle and gossip and calumnious
tatements, to the injury of the re-
ormer, are accepted and passed along
S unquestioned evidence. When in
titutions dedicated to Freedom are
sed for the defense and perpetual
ion Of Privilege, the respectable"
lob drags a Garrison through the
treets of Boston with rope around
is neck. When Lincoln, another
reat messenger from the Architect,
ppears in New York, he is hailed by
he metropolitan press as "the baboon
rom Illinois, and a very dangerous
1an." The grievous sin of Garri-
on, which nearly cost him his life,
yas a vision of four million black
len separated from their chains, en-
Dying the fruit of their toll. The
npardonable offense of Lincoln was
is determination to do all he could
D keep this nation true to the pur-
ose of it's dedication, land where
emocracy, the hope of the world,
hould have a fair trial.
Free America murdered men in the
ineteenth century for holding such
pinions. Is it any wonder that
turns, in the eighteenth century, was
tarved in life and illuminated in
eath-Burns, who was so shocked
t the spectacle of one man asking
mother for job, that he could not
est till he gave expression to his
ceilings in "Man was made to
II
When Burns appeared on the scene,