plates, rails, and special shapes required for buildings, bridges, etc. The same company has offices in the larger cities where draftsmen are at work making plans for steel construction and sending in the orders to Pittsburgh. From its own coal mines coal and coke are brought by boat to the furnaces. If one traces the steps in this process through its whole course and sees the relation of all these parts in their orderly progress, one can easily grasp the meaning of this whole industry in its relation to business and to life. Taken as a whole, it is an almost perfect type of the same steel industry at Cleveland, at Gary, at South Chicago, at Birmingham, Ala., in England, and on the Ruhr in Germany. Briefly, this 11lustrates what we mean by a large unit of instruction, organized into a natural whole, duplicating life. But the school is accustomed to handle this topic not as one unit but in fragments. The steel industry at Pittsburgh is discussed in one place in the book, lake shipping in another, iron mines elsewhere, the coal mines somewhere else, Pittsburgh, the city, in still another connection. Our present bulky curriculum has outgrown all reasonable limits. A complete relief can be had from this miscellaneousness and bulkiness by the wise selection of the few centers around which to organize knowledge. A few main topics or types, well mastered, are far better than an endless multitude of bare facts, scattered and disjointed. We must learn to be satisfied with the best possible samples and not try to gobble up everything. Fortunately the vast world of knowledge is simple, because, in its whole structure, it is built on this principle of types. The illustrative case, fully understood, is the interpreter or explainer of a multitude of similar cases. Know one thing well and you will quickly interpret a million. Our children and teachers are now oppressed by the quantitative concep tion of knowledge. They think they must learn a great number of facts about each of a great multiplicity of subjects. This is a serious mistake, because it tends to convert the school into a droning misery instead of a happy hunting ground. For example: An elaborate type study of the early history and later enlargements of the Erie Canal, brought into comparison with other canals and traffic routes, illuminates a hundred years of the marvelous growth of this country in commerce, population and wealth. The graphic story of the life and adventures of Daniel Boone, compared later with several others, will throw into a clear light the whole story of the backwoodsmen who crossed the mountains and took possession of that important domain west of the Alleghanies. A careful study of the vertebrate structure of the horse, followed by a comparison with the like structure of a bird, a fish, a frog, and a few other backbone animals will furnish a comprehensive interpretation of this division of the animal kingdom. The reconstruction of Vienna is a striking type and demonstration of the change that has taken place in the cities of Europe during the last century. These life projects bring to the front the things that children find attractive and have a right to be interested in. The big outside world is always a powerful magnet to children. Compared with this, textbooks and school exercises are quite on a lower plane. Moreover, these life projects are full of action. They are not tame, lifeless data. They have in them the same energy that is pulsing in the minds of children. The schoolmaster should learn that the children are all the time trying to break out from their narrow limits to make connection with this active, on-going world. 8 A Seeing Ourselves in Our Dogs Condensed from The Century Magazine (February, '26) DOG is probably never more hu man than when he insists on keeping other dogs from using what he himself does not want. How often we all do that very thing! Even marriages have resulted from the desire to keep a supposed prize from another. After my sweet-natured Airedale, Jimmy, has exhausted the possibilities of a soup-bone he is deeply distressed to see the bone exciting the interest of a visiting brother. How human! Jimmy is scarcely able to eat if other dogs are fed near-by, so busy is he casting covetous glances at their plates. He is more interested in their food than in his own and is unhappy so long as another dog has a morsel left. Here perhaps is the animal origin of the human disposition not to be content with what we have, even when it is enough, but to worry about what the neighbors are doing. Old Badger has a slightly different philosophy from Jimmy's. He eats contentedly enough and minds his own business so long as there is food on his own plate. But being a rapid eater, he is usually through ahead of other dogs. The instant his own supply is exhausted, he begins to growl, obviously irritated because others still have food when he has not. Many of us are secretly like that, I fear, though less honest about it. Dogs of course have a decidedly noticeable trait of jealousy. Booth Tarkington once told me a story of two dogs, one his own and another belonging to Harry Leon Wilson. The two men and their dogs had been living together in Europe. Tarkington and Wilson made a trip to the United States, bringing along Wilson's dog, but leaving the Tarkington dog behind. The two dogs had always been great friends. But when the two men returned, having the Wilson dog with them, Tarkington's dog seemed to realize that his one-time playmate had enjoyed a long trip with his master while he himself had been compelled to remain in a lonely kennel. He turned on the Wilson dog in jealous rage, and they were friends no longer. In "On One trait which I am sure most dogs possess more than their owners realize is a sense of embarrassment. I recall walking with old Badger one day when he started to chase what he thought was a rabbit but which proved to be only a piece of paper moved by the wind. When he discovered his error he immediately stopped short and looked around with a silly expression to see if I had noticed him. When I laughed at him he went slinking away, a picture of mortification. this connection George John Romanes tells of a terrier that used to be fond of catching flies on a window-pare, and if ridiculed when unsuccessful was evidently much annoyed. one occasion," says Mr. Romanes, "to see what he would do, I purposely laughed immoderately every time he failed. It so happened that he did so several times in succession and eventually became so distressed that he positively pretended to catch the fly, going through all the appropriate actions with his lips and tongue, and afterwards rubbing the ground as if to kill the victim; he then looked up at me with a triumphant air of success. So well was the whole process simulated that I should have been quite deceived, had I not seen that the fly was still upon the window. Accordingly I drew his attention to this fact, as well as to the absence of anything upon the floor; and when he saw that his hypocrisy had been detected he slunk away under some furniture, evidently much ashamed of himself." Badger has long had an absurd habit, or one might almost call it a fetish, which I have never been able to explain except that the old rascal has a streak of get-even spirit. If I go away and leave him alone in the house, ne is certain to go from one bedroom to another, jump up on each bed, and rumple it up. He never under any circumstances jumps on a bed if there is any one in the house, but the moment he is alone he seems to waste no time in carrying out this secret project. He is not prompted by a desire to lie on the bed, because he never remains longer than necessary to place the bed in a state of general disorder. It cannot be that he is doing it to try to find me, thinking I may still be in bed, because he has seen me go out of the front door. Can it be that he does it as a means of revenge for being left alone? He realizes each time that he is doing wrong and will later be scolded. Yet so great is his desire to commit this offense that ne would rather do it even though he must spend the rest of the day with a guilty conscience. Usually when I return from a brief absence, Badger comes bounding to the door in hilarious fashion to greet me. If he fails to do so I know that he has been alone in the house and is ashamed of having been up to his old tricks. I call him, and with great reluctance he finally comes, tail down, utterly dejected. It has been impossible to break up his habit of tearing up beds. never caught him in the act until one time when he and I occupied a small cabin in the Maine woods. I was in the habit of going to a near-by cabin for meals and would leave Badger in our cabin alone. Almost invariably when I returned the bed would be in a state of disorder. One day I went out, and then tiptoed back to where I could peek in the window. Immediately Badger jumped on the bed and began to rumple it up. He happened to glance toward the window and saw Without waiting for a word his me. I B When Lincoln and Beecher Met Condensed from The Independent (February 13, '26) Samuel Scoville, Jr. ACK in the 'nineties, I accompanied my grandmother, Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, across the continent and back. The incident of that trip which stands out most clearly in my memory is a story which Mrs. Beecher told me one day as we watched the prairies slip by. She told me of a strange visitor who had come to the Beecher home in Brooklyn, late one stormy night toward the close of the Civil War. It was a time when the fortunes of the North were at a low ebb. Grant had failed to take Petersburg and had been outmaneuvered by Lee; the meinbers of Lincoln's Cabinet were at odds with one another; Early had raided, unchecked to within sight of the dome of the Capitol, and only chance had prevented him from capturing Washington. She On the night of which she told, Mr. Beecher was in his study and Mrs. Beecher was the only other member of the household who was up, when the bell at the front door rang. found a tall man on the steps, wrapped in one of the great cloaks which men affected in bad weather during the 'sixties. The stranger asked to see my grandfather, apologizing for calling so late, but stating he came on a matter of importance. He refused to give his name, saying that Mr. Beecher knew him, and he also managed to keep his face shaded by his hat and cloak. These curious circumstances made Mrs. Beecher afraid to let him in. As far back as the days when Henry Ward Beecher helped to raise men, money, and arms for Kansas, and boxes of Springfield rifles-known as "Beecher's Bibles"--were shipped to the hardpressed settlers in that border war for freedom, there had been constant threats against his life by fanatical sympathizers with the South. Since those times he had ransomed slaves from Plymouth pulpit and had denounced slavery in the pages of The Independent, of which he was the editor. Finally, he had, against tremendous odds of public sentiment, turned the tide in favor of the North in Great Britain by his speeches there -and the threats increased in violence and in number. With these in mind, Mrs. Beecher locked the stranger out in the rain until she could go upstairs and speak to her husband. As always, Mr. Beecher refused to be frightened. "It's too late for anyone to murder me now; the damage's done," he said jokingly. "Send him up." As the stranger went into the study, Mrs. Beecher, listening below, heard her husband exclaim as at the sight of a friend, and the door was shut. For a long time she could hear the voices of the two men as they talked together. Then she heard Mr. Beecher's voice alone, rising and falling in those long cadences of pleading and communion which, up to his last day on earth, made his prayers as from one who spoke face to face with God. He let his mysterious visitor out of the house himself; and next morning when Mrs. Beecher asked him who he was, her husband declined to answer. The weeks went by, and the tide of the war turned. Finally, after Lincoln had been reelected on Nov. 8 and Lee had surrendered, it was decided to raise the flag at Fort Sumter and to celebrate the ending of the war at the place where it began. Henry Ward Beecher was selected to pronounce the oration at the raising of the flag, Lincoln saying that it was most appropriate that he should be chosen for the honor, since if it had not been for his speeches in England there might have been no flag to raise. My father, his son-in-law, accompanied him on this trip. The ceremonies were most impressive, and the oration pronounced by Beecher was said to have been one of the masterpieces of American eloquence. The next day came the news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and Mr. Beecher expressed the thought of the whole gathering when he said, “All good men should be at home at a time like this," and the party which had come to Charleston so joyfully returned in sorrow and mourning. It was shortly after his arrival at Brooklyn, and when he was preparing the great eulogy which he later pronounced on Abraham Lincoln, that he told my grandmother that the stranger who had come to their home late that stormy night was none other than President Lincoln; and it was not until shortly before his death in 1887 that he told anyone other than Mrs. Beecher. Oppressed by the burden of grief which was on nearly every household in North and South alike, Lincoln had seized an opportunity to see Mr. Beecher personally and have the help and consolation of his prayers. My late father-in-law, Chaplain H. Clay Trumbull, a profound student of Lincoln's life, once told me that it was entirely possible that Lincoln could have been in Brooklyn not only once, but several times, without the knowledge of his secretaries or of his bodyguard. Although Abraham Lincoln was not a member of any church, he often requested the prayers of clergymen with whom he came in contact-which seems indirectly to corroborate Mrs. Beecher's story. To a minister from New York State who told him that the people were praying for him, Lincoln said, "Tell every father and mother you know to keep on praying, and I will keep on fighting, for I am sure that God is on our side." Then Lincoln went on to say that out in his country when a parson made a pastoral call it was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in prayer, and that he would like to have the minister pray with him, that day, that he might have strength and wisdom. The minister did so, and when Lincoln rose from his knees he grasped his visitors hand and remarked, "I feel better." Another time, Bishop Mathew Simpson called to see Mr. Lincoln, and when he rose to go Mr. Lincoln stepped to the door and said, "Bishop, I feel the need of prayer as never before. Please pray with me." John G. Nicolay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries, said: "Many a time I have heard Mr. Lincoln ask ministers and Christian women to pray for him.” Moreover, Lincoln never failed to emphasize his belief in divine guidance and his need of the same. John Bach McMaster, the historian, told me only recently that, as a boy, his first sight of Lincoln was at a reception where the guests were marshaled past the President by watchful ushers and not allowed to come too close. One old chap, much disappointed at not having shaken hands with him, waved his hat and blurted out, "Mr. President, I'm from up in York State where we believe that God Almighty and Abraham Lincoln are going to save this country." "My friend, you're half right," replied Lincoln. Such is the record of the only time, so far as I know, that Lincoln and Beecher ever met. To me the story of their meeting gives a revealing glimpse of the real Lincoln as he was in that bitter year-tired, brokenhearted, despairing, seeking for help where alone it could be found; the same man who once said wistfully, “I have been drivon many times to my knees because I had nowhere else to go." |