The Child" Genius

........Agnes Repplier..............Life

Parental concern varies strangely with each succeeding generation. Some form it must assume-Eve doubtless had worries of her own in her Mesopotamia nursery-but a Mothers' Congress which should include representatives from every, century would be a delightful and instructive affair. Not so many years ago but that some of us can very well remember-it was assumed that children were stupid little animals whose dormant intelligence required stimulants of an active and penetrating order. The small "apple-eating creature" known as a boy and his curled and pinafored sister were prodded along the primrose paths of learning, without the smallest regard for their personal disaffection. It never occurred to anxious mothers and fathers then to "hold back" their impetuous little ones from the alluring alphabet and the seductive multiplication table. The holding back was done legitimately by the scholars, to whom that part of the program could-and can still-be safely entrusted. Parents did not then alarm themselves unnecessarily over the precocious development of their offspring. The thing they feared least-and had least cause to fear-was that they had given birth to genius.

But now, if we may believe that which is seriously affirmed, the very babies in their bassinettes must be restrained from undue mental exertion. So keen are the infants of to-day to acquire ideas and information that rattles and rubber dolls are too stimulating, too suggestive for their awakening intellects. Something simple and soundless, like a ball, is the only safe toy -something they can contemplate without any possibility of speculation. Moreover, those fragmentary parts of speech to which they are prone, and which though meaningless to the uninitiated -have hitherto been regarded as their choicest charm, are now hushed upon the babies' lips. The later they learn to talk, the better, we are told. "Da-da-da" is so exciting to their nerves.

The mother of the Wesleys compelled each of her many children to master the whole alphabet on its fifth birthday. We shudder now at the thought of such uncompromising measures, when we hear how all books have to be hidden from Tommy, because he is so keen to study; and how Sylvia's letter-blocks are packed away, lest she should learn to spell; and how stories are banished from Ethelbert's nursery on account of his painful and precocious intelligence. To indifferent eyes, Tommy and Sylvia and Ethelbert are ordinary

In these nervous modern days, when "depression," "prostration," "melancholia," and "restcure" are household words in so many families, this concise bit of advice concerning depression and low spirits will interest many. It is from the letters of Sydney Smith, clergyman, social philosopher, and wit:

"Feston, February 16, 1820. "Dear Lady Georgiana: Nobody has suffered from low spirits more than I have done so I feel for you.

"Ist-Live as well as you dare.

"2nd-Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.

"3rd-Amusing books.

"4th-Short views of human life-not further than dinner or tea.

"5th-Be as busy as you can.

"6th-See as much as you can of those frienus who respect and like you.

"7th-And of those acquaintances who amuse

you.

"8th-Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk to them freely-they are always worse for dignified concealment.

"9th-Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.

"10th-Compare your lot with that of other

people.

"11th-Don't expect too much from human life -a sorry business at the best.

"12th-Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy) music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence.

"13th-Do good, and endeavor to please every body of every degree.

"14-Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.

The Specialist and the Philosopher........Saturday Review (London) It was wittily said of Dr. Whewell of Trinity, that science was his forte, and that omniscience was his foible; and there is a widely spread idea that the man who knows most about one thing is not very likely to know much about most things. Conversely there is an idea that the man who knows something about most things is not very likely to know any one thing thoroughly. Thus writers who take wide views, and enunciate general principles, with regard to historic, scientific, philosophic or religious questions, and then endeavor to unify vast masses of knowledge are constantly denounced by a certain class of critics, as men who have made no original research into anything, and have picked up all that they know carelessly at second hand. And writers of this kind, doubtless, are apt to lay themselves open to charges of inaccuracy with regard to numerous details; and may easily be exhibited by skilful and hostile specialists as persons so ignorant of the subjects on which they touch, as to render their conclusions unworthy of notice. It was in this manner that Freeman attacked Froude. Froude certainly had not the gift of accuracy as regards detail. He was particularly apt to be inaccurate in his quotations from historic documents, and in his use of inverted commas. On errors like these Freeman used to seize merciless

ly, and argue that the man who could deal with his materials thus was little better than an eloquent dunce and a charlatan.

Now Professor Freeman was no doubt perfectly correct in the details of his minute criticisms. The inaccuracies which he detected in his victim were real inaccuracies; and so far as they went were indubitable signs of defective scholarship, a defective historical sense, or a want of thoroughness of some kind or other. But what Professor Freeman could not see was that his criticisms, though true so far as they went, went a very little way only; and in particular failed altogether to justify the precise inference which he desired to draw from them. Froude's inaccuracies, though they blemished his work, were in no sense

representative of it. Though he blundered as to details, whilst Professor Freeman did not, he made history live, he exhibited it to us as a living process, in a manner which was utterly beyond Professor Freeman's reach; and of whatever important errors Froude may have been really guilty, these had nothing to do with the errors on which Freeman concentrated his attention. The truth is that knowledge is of two kinds, which requires to be tested by two distinct standards the knowledge of the specialist, which is confined to numbers of particular facts, and that of the man who generalizes from, and interprets, the facts which specialists discover. In the former what we primarily demand is absolute accuracy of detail. In the latter what we demand is a substantial accuracy of interpretation; and light, which is practically equivalent to a new revelation, may be thrown on the significance of vast masses of knowledge, by men who have only a very slight knowledge of the details of it.

But if it is thus irrelevant to attack such men as these because their knowledge of details is very often inaccurate, still more irrelevant is it to attack them, as is often done, because their knowledge of details is knowledge as second hand, and because they are not what is commonly called men of original research. The truth rather is that, with very few exceptions, original research, instead of being essential to the great and comprehensive thinker, is practically incompatible with great and comprehensive thought. In the intellectual sphere, no less than in the practical, all success and progress is based on a division of labor; and in proportion as the area of human knowledge widens, the importance of this truth becomes greater and more self-evident. The value of all knowledge, so far as the mass of men is concerned, depends on the manner in which it tends to affect their lives, either by ministering to their physical convenience, or by enlarging and illuminating their minds. Knowledge thus practically applied differs from a mere knowledge of facts, very much as a house differs from the materials out of which it is constructed: and the process of generalizing from facts differs from the process of collecting them, very much as the work of the architect or the engineer, differs from that of men who make, or prepare, and cart the bricks, the planks and the girders to the spot on which the house is to be built. If the house to be built is merely a one-roomed cabin, the function of architect, carpenter, and carter can be combined. But if the house is to be a large and elaborate structure, the man who determines how the materials shall be used can take no appreciable part in getting the materials together.

The Burning of the City

When the Emperor Nero conceived the idea of renewing and rebuilding the capital of the empire, the streets were crowded with shrines, altars, and small temples which religious superstition had made inviolable; his plans of improvement were opposed by the priests and by private owners of property, and any attempt to carry them out was clearly destined to lead to endless lawsuits, appraisals, and disputes among the experts. So he seems to have solved the difficulty by having the city set on fire, in the year 64 A.D. Nero was at Antium when the conflagration began, on June 18, the anniversary of the burning of Rome by the Gauls in 390, B. C. The fire started at the east end of the Circus Maximus, at the place now called La Moletta; it spread in a northeasterly direction and swept over three out of the fourteen regions of the city, partially destroying seven others. We do not possess satisfactory information in regard to all the historic monuments that perished in the flames, but we know that among them were the temple of the Moon, the foundation of which was ascribed to Servius Tullius, the Ara Maxima, dedicated to Hercules, tradition said by Evander, the Arcadian; and the temples of Jupiter Stator, of Vesta, and of the Penates, together with the Regia. As these monuments encircled the Balatine hill, we may assume that the imperial residence on its summit was also gutted, but evidence on this point is wanting. Countless masterpieces of Greek art and many ancient relics disappeared, the loss of which the older citizens never ceased to lament, even amidst the splendor of the new city which rose from the ashes.

The charge that Nero had wilfully caused the fire is neither accepted nor rejected by Tacitus, from whom we learn that, after it had once been arrested it burst out again in the Prædia Æmiliana, the garden of Nero's minion, Tigellinus. Dyer suggests that the emperor merely improved the occasion to have the fire already started spread more widely and efface certain parts of the city, which he wished to rebuild. But whether the emperor was wholly or partially responsible for the conflagration, the opportunity thus afforded for rebuilding was at once im

*The Destruction of Ancient Rome. By Rodolfo Lanciani, D.C.L., LL.D., The Macmillan Co., New York. $1.50.

proved, new plans were immediately drawn in accordance with the best engineering and architectural practice of the time. By glancing at the narrow and tortuous streets and lanes in the marble plan of the time of Septimius Severus, now in the Capitoline Museum, one may see that Nero's projects can hardly have been fully carried out; they must have left untouched the lower and more congested quarters of the city. After the Establisnment of Christianity

To what use the temples were put immediately after the expulsion of their gods, we do not know, but it is certain that they were not occupied by Christians, nor turned into places of Christian worship. This change was only to take place two centuries later, when the scruples about the propriety of worshiping the true God in heathen temples had been overcome. . . We must not imagine, however, that the goodwill of the emperors and the guardianship of the prefects of the city saved all the statues from destruction. Far from it! . . . The destruction of marble statuary may well be illustrated by the fate of the "pretiosissima deorum simulacra" (most precious images of the gods), placed by Augustus in the compital shrines at the crossings of the main. thoroughfares of the city, in the years 10-7 B.C. The number of these shrines-about two hundred in the time of Augustus-had been increased to two hundred and sixty-five in 73 A.D., and to three hundred and twenty-four at the beginning of the fourth century. They offered an almost complete chronological series of works of Greek plastic art to the appreciation of the citizens of Rome. What has become of all these "most precious images"? If we consider that only one plinth and four pedestals of that incomparable series have come down to us, we cannot doubt that the three hundred and twenty-four "most precious images" of Greek workmanship belonging to the compital shrines shared the same fate as those from the temples-they were broken to pieces, and the pieces thrown into the lime-kilns, or built into the walls of new buildings, as if they were the cheapest rubble.

Some of the Treasures

Toward the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, a colony of Greek sculptors came to Rome from Aphrodisias, in Caria, and set up a studio on the Esquiline hill. between the Baths of Titus and the gardens of

Mæcenas. They were active artists indeed, and worked harmoniously under the mastership of a leader. One day their workshop and their exhibition rooms came to grief; whether by fire, or by the fall of the building, or by the violence of men, I cannot tell. In the spring of 1886, when the Via Buonarroti was being cut through in the direction of the Baths of Titus, a wall was discovered entirely built with the contents of the studio. There were statues of Jupiter, Juno, Pluto, Aesculapius, Cybele, Minerva Parthenos, Hercules; bacchic vases, fountains, mouths of wells, candelabras, figures of animals, bas-reliefs, and other carvings; and nearly all the works were signed by one of the members of this artistic brotherhood from Aphrodisias-seventeen signatures in all. The fact that no essential portions of each work were missing shows that they were brought entire to the scene of destruction, and then broken up and thrown into a foundation wall.

Two years and a half later, in November, 1888, a discovery of the same kind was made on the site of the temple of Isis, now crossed by the Via Michel-Angelo, the Via Galileo, Via Leopardi, and other streets.

The Sack of the Goths

In these days of terror the Aventine, with its 130 palaces, the most aristocratic quarter of the city, suffered more than all the other regions. I have witnessed excavations made in the Vigna Torlonia, among the remains of the Therma Decianæ and the house of Trajan; in the Vigna Maciocchi, among the ruins of the palace of Annia Cornificia Faustina, younger sister of Marcus Aurelius and wife of Ummidius Quadratus; in the garden of S. Anselmo, where the palace of the Pactumeii was discovered in Geim; and in the garden of S. Sabina, once occupied by the houses of Cosmus, Minister of Finance under Marcus Aurelius, and of Marcella and Principia, the friends of St. Jerome. In watching these excavations, I was struck by the fact that these beautiful palaces must have perished towards the beginning of the fifth century of our era, and all from the same cause. The signs of destruction are everywhere the same: traces of flames which blackened the red ground of the frescoes, and caused the roofs to fall on the mosaic or marble pavements of the ground floor; coins scattered among the ruins, belonging, with rare exceptions, to the fourth century; statues that had been restored over and over again; marbles stolen from pagan buildings, mostly from sepulchral monuments and utilized for hurried restoration; and Christian symbols on lamps and domestic utensils. These indications fix the period and point to the

same historical event-the capture and pillage of Rome by the Goths in August, 410. The Aventine paid dearly for the partiality shown for it by the noble and wealthy. The treasures accumulated in its palaces roused the cupidity of the invaders, and led them to excesses of plunder and destruction such as were spared to more humble districts of the city.

Hiding Places of Bronzes

As a rule, the bronzes discovered in Rome since the renaissance-I speak of this later period because our knowledge of earlier finds is too imperfect and fragmentary to be of value-had been carefully hidden, or even thrown into the Tiber, in times of panic. The secret of the hiding place was lost, either on account of the death of those who knew the spot, or because the great masses of dêbris had made it impossible to reach it again.

Many of these places of concealment have been found in our days; three of them deserve special mention. The first is the treasure trove unearthed in 1849, a few weeks before the storming of Rome by the French army, under General Oudinot, beneath the house at No. 17, Vicolo delle Balme, now Vicolo dell' Atleta. It consisted of a marble copy of the bronze Apoxyomenos of Lysippus; of the bronze horse, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, described by Emil Braun as "an unique work, a masterpiece, and a genuine Grecian antique"; of a bronze foot with a particularly ornamental caliga, which may possibly have belonged to the rider of the horse; of a bronze bull, and many other fragments.

The second discovery was made September 15, 1880, at the corner of the Via del Babuino and Via del Gesu e Maria where the English Church of All Saints was in process of erection. The bronzes lay nineteen feet below the threshold of the main floor. There was a head of more than life size, which was thought to represent Augustus, and to have some connection with the mausoleum of that emperor: head of Nero with the eyes perforated, and several busts.

The third discovery took place about the same time at the corner of the Via Nazionale and Via di S. Eufemia while the Marchesa Capranica del Grillo (Madame Ristori) was laying the foundations of her city house. The treasure consisted of marbles and bronzes. The latter rank among the best specimens of Greco-Roman art, if indeed they are not purely Greek. There is a sitting statue of Cybele, holding a dimutive millstone in the left hand; the mouth of a fountain in the shape of a lion's head, and the head of a youth, the most superb piece of bronze work I have ever

seen.