Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-16
THE SMATTERERS
Rv DR.. Frank Crane

We are put smatterers For instance "haI
hoes the average man know or the sclehces'
We studied some Of them at school anu 4"
general notion and few technical terlno
stay by u.s. Of botany we recall endogehs
and exogens, and remember analyzlng sonle
plants by the aid Of table or genera; OIL
geology a few shreds of carboniferous era
and troglodytes and the like remain; Oh
mathematics we recall Eucl1d's problem per-
haps and an axiom or two; and OF biology
psychology, history, Latin, Greek and the
rest, what have we left? Twenty years OF
selling dry goods or practicing law or WORK
ing in a railway office have sent these gloDes
of learning to people the distant SKY.
We smatter through life In our neWspa-
ners and magazines and reviews we get
glimpses, and glimpses they must remain ~
most part, since we nave no IAlno " uo0PA
and perfect them.
Think also of the full-orbed life or emma,
of Japan, of India; how rich, crowded ana
multifarious are those nations; we nave Out
vague notion of them. 1t is not the least
curious impression one has In going 10
France, or Germany, or Italy, to find how
intensely interested all the people are In their
own affairs; how their politics, society and
business absorb them, as much as ours 90
u.s. and we are absolutely outside OF them'
strangers, not understanding even the Ian
guage.
HOW small a world, too, is that of the
graphic and plastic arts, painting and sculp-
ture! When you go into an art gallery or
4 museum, how you are bewlldered! Very
small is the number Of inhabitants, compar-
atively speaking, in the realm OF music; for,
how many people do you know who are thor
oughly familiar with Bach and Palestrina,
who know the motifs of Wagner, the man.
ner. of TchakoWsky and the scope OF grand
opera? Art critics write to us as If we knew
all this; but we don't. We like to pretend
we do.
And then in the more near and familiar
things, what worlds for us are unexplored!
There are hundreds who haven't the faintest
notion of the laboring class and their prob
lens. There are thousands to whom society,
or that little circle of the rich and voorhees,
and endowed which we call the smart set
and the French call the beautiful world or
simply the world exclamation point) is as
foreign and unexplored a country as Peru
and Tasmania.
And how little we know, after all, of
weightier things; love, of which we I'M
derstand but the laces and trimmings; of
religion, whose names and terms and orms
we know, but whose towering realities are
telescope stars of blue-hazed mountain
SUBMITS; and of life itself, whose inner
meaning, and essence, and use, and pur-
pose, and proper enjoyment we but guess
Come, brothers, let us be as friendly as
we can and creep near one another in COM
fort and charity, for our souls are truly babes
in the woods; on the branches are strange
birds; among the dark trunks are shining
eyes of animals which we know not to be
friendly or fierce; il the sky are balls of
curious light, mysterious; and in our own
hearts bewildering currents of passion and
bottomless pools of feeling. Let us join
hands. For we know but little. We per-
ceiVe but spooks vanishing, not solid bodies
Copyright, 1920, for Frank Crane.)