THE
HESPERIAN STUDENT.
last word debar all but exceptional students and while
Some of the best men we have are of our own western
type for this department, we as a state have few en
couraging features for the development of such il
sPe(ia knowledge, and few have the thousands to
acquire it elsewhere. We do not mean to be unjsut
to any one, but we wish to say to the Board, look
around for some time, go slow, get the best tutor
possible, and if he shows himself to be of the right
metal encourage him by promotion and advanced
salary, and by harmonious working with the present
professor of chemistry and physics you will soon build
us up a scientific department second only to those
most famous of the east. Recomendatioiis are easily
had and usually mean little, see your man and know
him before you act.
MODERN MAQIO.
Iu the twilight of what is known as the Dark Ago
lived, as now, men who longed for moro light than
Ihero was given to their geuoratiou ud therefore, lacking
facts built observatories on foundations of faucy. Seeing
a solid wall of conclusions rise about them they iorgot
the irailty of the base, proceeding on the theory that
whatever was assumed some hundreds of years back
gained some degree of truth at least from the credulity of
its believers. Experiment, exploration and thought are
vital conditions of our race and that mental activity
which in our day would havo led to great discov
cries and scientific advancement turned to the occult arts
of magic and, what is always the result of false thought,
raised a stumbling block to the progress of truth.
In the theories of those brave men who dared so much
for knowledge and power there is often a strange and
distorted likeness to modern scicuco such as wo see
through imperfect glass or in misshaped mirrors
Those who called down and subjected to themselves the
spirits of the sun, moon and planets find a counterpart in
the inventors of to day who make a slave of the sun
light, causing it to carry our packages aud heat our
houses; as the magicians of old bound the demon Of
the storm to their service, so our magicians shackel the
lightning and send it on our errands.
But the greatest triumph of modern magic is the forc.i
ing of the powers of nature to yield the secrets of their
nativity and of nature. Instead of consulting the spirits
of the rocks and groves, iu order to discover the hidden
mj stories our enquirers go to the ray of light, they dis
sect and anylize it, they concentrato and dll'use it until all
its message is made known. Coming perhaps, from the
great central luminary of our system it tolls how eight
minutes since it trembled in a sheet of fircy vapor whose
fold 8 could hide many an earth like ours, or it speaks of
mighty whirlwinds throwing aside the flames and rend,
ing gaps in whichfa world could lie like a marble in
a well.
From this sunbeam wo find also what elements gave it
birth and what malcriuls composed the vaporous clouds
through which it passed on its journoy. Unlike many
travelers howovor it docs not consider its work dono
when its story is told but falls to work, and appears again
in a loaf of bread on a poor man's table or in a fresh bright
thought from somo fertile brain.
Other and similar visitants havo talos to t', of
and predictions for the future wl, vuJHk(J Qf
tcrreslial prophets, never full n ah,lonU A rfty 0nghl
after traveling for a t'-ltsav,a ycnrfa imgGS mt0 tho ,ele
scope imagirtM0U5 byoi,nii and minds lko Hcrschel
and Laplace see tho pa9t history of our solar system.,
They tire carried back to a tlmewhen an inconceivably
Vast space stretching far beyond tho orbit of the most
distant planet, was tilled with elemental mists. Thoy
sec how gravitation tho force which moves our pondu
lums and swings our earth through its orbit began to
concentrate this cloud of matter in a common centre
how this motion caused an ever increasing revolution
giving rise to anew and opposing force; then followed bo.
tween thcao two forces the generation of planets and of
satellites ouc after an other until the present great syss
tern found a place in tho universe. Not content with tho his
tory of tho past our Instructor now shows us other systems
in various stages of completion illustrating each phase
of our own earth's developemcnt. Concluding the lesson
with a hint of the future it points to our satellite Iu its
airless and silent wastes, its extinct volcanoes, speaking
only of departed life, wo behold an earnest of our own fu
ture condition, WO see in faucy the great glaciers of tho
north and south reaching out to clasp hands until all the
world is held within their embrace.
Shortening now tho gunge of our time telescope wc see
new races of animals appear and decay generations of
men spend their moment of eternity on this spinning
globe and disappear -we know not whither. Wo think of
great labors completed, great discoveries made a con
tinual approximation to the millenium. But beyond all
these things is a horror of great darkuoss; a time when
thinking beings in some far distant globe, peering
through a greater instrument than any of ours, will see a,
faint light disappear, as one beholding a city from aa
elevation sees tho lamps go out one by one; or will note
that a star of tho fourth magnctude suddenly attains, tho
first and after increasing some days gradually returns
to its former lustre, and this will mean that the child of
the sun has rejoined its parent; that the world once bur
dened with our hopes aud sorrows has became an atom,
in our great central str.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW-
The so called "Realistic School" in modern fiction is
suicidal in its tendency. In accepting it we aro porclpi..
tatcd from Shelley's height of "Awful loveliness" to a
depth of awful uglyness. We aro urged to contemplate
tho dark, shallow, hopeless side of life, and then call it
"realism." Is this "realism" nal ? Is all the world a
sham? Aro there no manly men in.cn capable of heroic
daring aud sacrifice sublime courage and patriotism?
Aro there no womenly women women who can bo truo
and strong; and not .falBo and. (rivolus; who can bo kind
und sympathetic and not heartless ?. Tho world presents
two opposite currants of expprjpnce, youth and ago, Ufo
and death, joy and -florrow,.supQess. and failure. Theso
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