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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 1901)
,-OL. XVI., NO. XLIII ESTABLISHED IN 1SS6 4 PRICE FIVE CENT r .. Mf a m -a W. L I SJ&d m r P LINCOLN. NEBR., SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2G, 1901. THE COURIER, EKTEKXDIN THK P08T0FFICE AT LINCOLN AS SECOND CLASS MATTES. PDBLI8HED EVERY SATURDAY Bl THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR Barrett Wendell, professor of English men an indignant belief in their op- at Harvard college. For years pro- pression and confidence in the dem- fessors of literature have been en- agogue's power and willingness to deavoring to construct a satisfactory change all that If their votes elect definition of literature. Mr. Wen- him to the place he seeks, dell's definition is explicit and in- It is therefore not idle caviling to elusive: "Literature is the lasting assert the untruth of a part of the Subscription Rates. Per annum., Six months , 1 1 Rebate of fifty cents on cash payments. Single copies 05 expression in words of the meaning of life." Therefore contemporaries cannot tell what is literature and what is not, for the lasting test has not yet been applied to it. The books that the people have handled, worn out and which are edited again and again in every generation, belong to literature. And the books like David Harum, which sell by the hundred thousand at first and are not called for by the children of the purchasers of the first five hundred thousand, are not literature. Mr. Wendell's history is divided into seven periods or books. The prologue to the Declaration. Men are not equally born. Any man who desires can prove the injustice and oppression of society and the institu tions of this country to a company which believes the opening state ments of the Declaration. If all men are created equal by God then it is easy to convince an adult crowd that cruel and rapacious men have made by the Bible. The first scientist, was It Copernicus? who asserted that the earth is round was in danger of his life in this world, and, according to the priests, of hell fire in the next. Not until man began to study the Bible for the truth in it and without a predisposition to accept absurdi ties, was its real value appreciated. The higher criticism has put far away any fear that science can affect the moral truths of the Bible. But when the higher critics' books were first published, even those who ad mitted the truth of their commen taries were shocked and deprecated the wisdou of making them. We them poor and unequal in accomplish- still put forth our hands to steady the Tbx Cointm -will not be responsible for vol nntarj communications unless accompanied by retain pottage. meAW. FtXriSefrf "iSod'huStatfS earliest literary productions of Amer- or creed, however it may comfort or cent and the reward of accomplish meat and that these cruel and rapac ious men should be displaced from power, deprived of their property, etc. I do not believe that any statement publication if adritable. ? OBSERVATIONS. 8 A Literary History of America. Since literature first accumulated there have been various histories written of it. Every period has its historian who sorts the heap over again and rearranges the material, frequently giving places of honor to works which preceding historians have slighted, and disregarding au thors upon whom contemporary re cording secretaries bestowed first rank. Anthony Trollope is an ex ample of the latter, and Edgar Allen I'oe of the former reclassification. Some rearrangements are allowed to remain, others are immediately dis turbed by critics who follow hard upon each other's heels, or by the neglect of an author's author by the people themselves. The acclama tions of a pleased people do not al . ways last through an author's life. Every ten years there is need for a new critic-historian; the large and growing heap of English and Amer ican literature needs frequent class ifying and assorting. They teach ark of truth which will be solid as the Andes when we are dust. The truth about anything can hurt nobody. Its promulgation is for civilization and progress. The peo ple who keep open minds, who are not easily convinced, who know history and have an idea or two about the development of the race, but who more than all respect traditions and their meaning, are the people who are going to arrive first at the goal where all the nations of the earth will ar rive eventually. "Responsibility of the Board." If any harm befall Miss Stone, the American Board of Foreign Missions U responsible. The Board sent her over there and should have been as ready to redeem her as Mr. Cudahy was to ransom his son from the Pat Crowe gang. Instead of asking for contributions the oillcers of the Board should, have sent the money and asked the American people to make up the sum afterwards. If the Board were composed of business men who were in the habit of appealing to the peo ple as customers, the members would be afraid to lose the confidence and respect of the people by refusing to perform a-plain duty and by actually deserting a woman, their agent, who bas been abducted while in the per formance of the mission for which' they sent her to Turkey. It is some times said that governing boards of churches have no business conscience or sense of responsibility, or of the binding force of a contract. The al legation is not without frequent in stances of proof. The American' Board of Foreign Missions has just as much responsibility for Miss Stone as any father has for his son for whom a ransom is demanded by rob bers. In this Instance the members of the board have miserably failed to- p acknowledge their responsibility and wrote his serting conditions which people who fessor3 of reljgion used to believe that p' Mlss Stonc out of robber hand the earth was flat, that somewhere UBI,,re praceeamjr w punisn tne rob there was an end off from which one rs any father TW d0' T5ere m.H..t.ifnnrnnM t. that. t 'ore the Board has demonstrated its .TPnpraliMes" are shining, attractive . .. . ...,..., unntneas to remain in charge of A- Hes A demagogue will to the end MflMBH eu" V J"V merican women sent from this coun- make use of generalizations based on protected by angels who warded travel- ery to heathen countries. The offi- the undemonstrable phrases of the ersoff with a drawn sword, and fur- cers of this board receive several hun- Declaration to awaken in working ther that this doctrine was taught dred thousand dollars every year from ica were directly influenced by the Elizabethan impulse and literature, and Elizabethan literature lasted in America long after English literature had assumed quite another character and was controlled by another inspira tion. I knew of no other literary his tory in which history and literature are so admirably articulated, the con nection between the two so expressly and plainly and convincingly shown. For a student, or any old lover pf literature, long graduated and rustv, for whom titles have lost their charm and to whom old professors, once ven erated, are now pedantic, stilted, little men of not much use in an act ive world, this book brings back the enthusiasms, the worship of litera ture and of the beauty that never was on land or sea. The book has an ex tensive bibliography and a complete index. Mr. Wendell is the author of William Shakespeare, a Study in Elizabethan literature, of a book on English composition, and of a book of essays called Stelligeri. Truth. Some criticism of the undemon strable statements contained in the Declaration of Independence has from time to time appeared in this paper. To impugn a document which, how ever Dhrased. has been a source of students how to do this work more or less satisfactorily in most univer- inspiration to Americans, one should SititS. Yet. nnf.wlt.hstnnrtlnir t.he he sure of his allegations. In 1856 SO thousands who have been taught, great a lawer and so enthusiastic an only a few historians of literature are American as Rufus Choate in a po- confined by the readers of litera- litical letter called the Declaration ture. When the historian Greene "a glittering generality." The phrase wrote a short history of the English "glittering generalities" has passed People it was as If no other history of into popular use and means conspic- Uneland hnH tvar iwon writ.tnn. nnim shininir words and phrases as- when Stopford Brooke l'rimer nf "Eno-Hai. litoMtnw it. w-m dn not analvze or verify statements received with the expectant joy that by the light of experience, accept as proclaimed the Held, until his coniimr. true. Or in other words "glittering empty. There are dozens of histories of American literature but not one vital and convincing history like this "literary History of America" by encourage the mourner, is worth while if it is not true. In the long run a false creed destroys character and transfers to the disciple its own hypocrisy. Any man or woman who believes that the Christian credo is false is within his human duty trying to prove it, no matter whether or not he has a better belief to offer. No man can permanently hinder the truth from being accepted by all man kind. The atheist who honestly is convinced that Christians and all the people of the world, of whatever re ligion, who believe in a beneficent God are mistaken, should not be scoffed at nor reviled because he en deavors to show us what he considers our mistake. His endeavor and the fact that he believes that he is right and that all the rest of the world, living and dead, are wrong, prove the strength of his conviction and the possession of a sort of courage and confidence in himself only possessed by a very few sane men. His anxiety to correct what he believes is a gross misconception should not deceive us as to his motive, which is as unsel fish as a missionary's. He thinks we have taken the wrong path and he want? to show us the one he has found. His path leads nowhere and be does not claim that it does, and the one we have elected to follow is trodden deep by feet of martyrs and feet that were pierced; and leads? But if he can prove that our trail is a false one be does not have to prove his a better. We would better sit down by the side of the road, and be merry with our comrades than fol low a road that has no end, for to morrow we die. But the truth will prevail. if I il EM I a