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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Let us not permit our children, or those whom we can influence, to waste time in committing for declamation selections of no literary value; but let the recitation, essay, and oration exert an elevating influence. Our boys will imbibe the spirit of patriotism while their hearts are thrilled with the fervid oratory of such men as Fox, Chatham and Everett. The thought has been thus forcibly expressed: “The boy who feels the greatness of Burke and of Webster is more apt to acknowledge the power of the ‘Oration on the Crown.’ He who has been thrilled by the sublimity of Milton will grow enthusiastic over the pages of Virgil and Dante; and when the vast world of Shakespeare’s thought has been opened before his vision, he will see more clearly what is immortal in the Iliad and the Odyssey.”
History should be impressed through historical and biographical literature, rather than by memorizing dates and facts, which robs the narrative of vitality and creates a distaste for historical works. Biography has been called the soul of history, and is a powerful force in character culture.
Generalities are, for practical purposes, dead things, but particulars contain the germs of life, and stimulate to action. The biographies of distinguished men record the important history of their times, and are interesting to the young. The works of Cooper, Parkman, Irving, Longfellow, Whittier and Choate, the “ Statesmen Series,” and Coffin’s books will make United States history attractive. What better introduction to Roman history than Macaulay’s “ Lays of Ancient Rome,” or Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and “ Coriolanus? ” Walter Scott’s novels should be to our youth a continual source of pleasure and profit. They have “ lvanhoe,” “The Talisman” and “Quentin Durward ” for Louis XI., Charles the Bold and the Wars of the Roses; “ Kenilworth ” and the “ Abbott ” for Ldizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots; “Wood- stock,” “Old Mortality” and “ Peveril of the Peak” for the Stuarts. Bulwer’s “ Harold,” his “ Last of the Barons,” and Thackeray’s “ Henry Esmond,” will also instruct and delight them. Why not have them read Kingsley’s “Hypatia” for a knowledge of the fifth century, and Victor Hugo for the battle of Waterloo? Why not Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot for the age of Victoria?
What historian has given us a more faithful picture of New England than Hawthorne in the “ Scarlet Letter,” Holland in “ Bay Path,” Longfellow in “ Miles Standish,” or Whittier in “Snow Bound?” “ Evangeline ” will impress the pathetic story of religious persecution in Acadia.
There seems now to be a general awakening to the importance of Bible knowledge for the young. The worthy president of John Hopkins’ University deplores the ignorance of Scripture history among college students, and urges the movement to place the study of the Bible in the university or college curriculum.
Our American colleges are beginning to put the Bible into its “ rightful place of honor as the center of the highest culture.”
If the secular world thus realizes the importance of the Bible, what a stimulus to us, who see in it not only “ the greatest of all classics and the foremost book in the world’s literature,” but infinitely more, the revelation of God to men. Shall we plan a course of reading for the young and exclude the only guide to true wisdom?
Shall they not learn that we may enjoy a communion with God which is as “ real as ever communion was with friend? ” That here we find our “ proof of God, of duty, and of destiny.” “We may enter in, may shut the door; let the outer darkness gather; but all is light. The invisible becomes visible, and we adore, treading where »science never trod, in realms, the door of which no science can unlock.”
Would you impress youth with the ruin that crime brings to him who commits it? Persuade them to read “ Macbeth,” Hawthorne’s “ Marble PMun,” or Mrs. Browning’s “ Drama of Plxile.” Would you inspire them wfith ideals of manhood and womanhood? Let them study the lives of David Copperfield and the gentle Agnes.
Fiction, through the presentation of beautiful character, awakens sympathy; refines and ennobles.
“ Ben Hur” and the “Mill on the Floss” are types of the novel which we cannot commend too highly.