five years of persistent persecution are bearing their ghastly fruit. The Russian literature of to-day is worse than none. New periodicals, new men, have taken the places of the old ones, without having replaced them. The Russian government has nobody to fear: the field is clear, the clarion notes of genius are dumb, autocracy has successfully swept from its path all that was honest, gifted, and mighty. It has only pygmies to fight with, a degenerated, degraded nation of mediocrity and mental poverty. The great minds of thirty years ago are either in their graves or behind iron bars: they cannot trouble the White Czar any more. The young man on the throne can safely say to his people, 'Lay all your senseless illusions aside;' there is no one to oppose him. He rules a nation of slaves: just what his grandfather and his father intended has come to pass."

IN

A GLANCE AT RECENT WESTERN LITERATURE. N that representative magazine of the middle West, the Midland Monthly, Mrs. Mary J. Reid briefly reviews the literary output of Western writers for the past two years.

To the oft recurring question, "Has the West a distinctive literature?" Mrs. Reid replies as follows: "To me it seems that the recent works of Eugene Field, Henry B. Fuller, Mary Hallock Foote, Margaret Collier Graham, Hamlin Garland, Ernest McGaffey and John Vance Cheney have marked the difference in taste beyond repeal.

"If one assumes that Mr. Aldrich is the ideal writer of the East and Eugene Field of the West, it is easy enough to contrast the tastes of the two regions. Four ideas were uppermost in the mind of Eugene Field, the grotesque or fantastic, the simple, the beautiful and the natural. All our Western writers are consciously or unconsciously discovering that the grotesque and the fantastic have a place in art; that a flavor of the crude gives a relish to the intellectual palate; but Field first marked the trend. He had a greater instinct for the grotesque and the fantastic than any other writer of his time. This use of the barbaric is partly the result of climate; color and picturesque effects being essential in order to break up the eternal monotony of the endless prairies, the brown hills and the snowy landscapes; but it is also due to our close contact with more primitive peoples, as the Mexican, the Chinaman, the Japanese and the Indian, not to speak of the Scandinavian and Latin races which form so large a part of our population. This influx from all the peoples of the world forces us to take a profound interest in human nature at large. In fact, there is a feeling in Chicago that no people is too primitive for the modern man to learn from it some essential truth, some lost instinct worn off by the grind of civilization."

CHICAGO CRITICS.

"But the strength of the West does not lie wholly in its newness and originality. There is a strong

conservative element in Chicago, voiced by the Chicago Dial. This periodical was one of the landmarks of that city long before Mr. Fuller, Mr. Garland and Mrs. Catherwood wrote their first books, or the picturesque little Chap-Book raised its bright, audacious head. While it is true that neither of these periodicals fully represents the new Chicago, yet both are potent although antipodean forces in the development of literature in the Lake City. Mr. Johnson's reviews, signed E. G. J., are as scholarly as any papers found in the best Eastern periodicals, and I know of no Eastern literary critic superior to Mr. William Morton Payne."

THE CHARM OF "WILDNESS."

"Such is the literary life which has its home at the West. Such are its stories, its snatches of song, its quaint scholarship and its criticisms. It has the ardent imagination, the intrepidity and the swing of youth. Civilization has not yet deprived it of its picturesqueness, its breeziness nor its simplicity. Whatever its faults, it is a native literature, and it still has an odor of the wilds in it, wilds which have never been fenced into closes. Its unplanted acres could not be more felicitously described than in Mr. Browne's poem of Volunteer Grain :'

"A field of wavering grain 'Wild grown on some unplanned, unplanted space, 'Owning no fostering grace

'Of husbandry save the free air and rain.

'Not the well tended field 'Whose soil, deep mellowed by the ploughinan's share. Full planted, tilled with care,

'Gladdens the heart with its abundant yield.
'But some fortuitous seeds,
'Chance blown, wind scattered, falling by the way,
'Growing as best they may,

THE PLACE OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS.

PROFESSOR WALDO S. PRATT, of the Hart

Pro

ford Theological Seminary, contributes to the June Forum a very well considered essay on "The Isolation of Music." He traces the principle of separateness throughout the history of music, and calls attention to the aversion to this special form of art on the part of men of practical affairs. fessor Pratt can easily make us sympathize with the effect on an enthusiastic and high minded musician, for example, of such notions of the isolation of music as theories of the past have engenderedsuch theories as John Locke's for instance, who classed poetry and gaming together, since they seldom brought "any advantage but to those who have nothing else to live on." Church music Professor Pratt notes as different from other music in that it is a deliberate application of an artistic mission to ends outside itself, and to ends, too, that obviously belong to the highest moral and spiritual category. To a church musician of the highest aims it must be indeed discouraging to find the popular

and practical mind not only incapable of feeling the inspiration of noble songs, but utterly misapprehensive of the musical artist's place in the economy of society.

But while there is much to deplore in the past and the present in this respect, Professor Pratt thinks that we are seeing a reaction from the extreme view which so isolates art and espcially musical art. He says the estrangement of music from other topics of popular interest is surely diminishing. Not only is a striking technical progress of music itself during the present century correcting erroneous conceptions, but there is also a vigorous reaction of thought which is steadily benefiting the status of music in common with all its sister arts.

THE PLACE OF GENERAL EDUCATION IN MUSICIANSHIP.

To aid in the truest development of this better popular theory of music, Professor Pratt urges "that a larger emphasis should be thrown upon general education as a prerequisite for the popular exercise of musicianship."

"There are too many cases in which gifted enthusiasts push their way into prominence in the profession with so little breadth of information, so little discipline of all the mental faculties, so slight a sympathetic sense of the myriad interests and forces in our complex modern life, that they are really unable to see the problem here considered, much less to do anything effectively for its solution. Our age is one of specialism, it is true; but it is also an age of the close interaction and precise co-ordination of specialties. To pursue a specialty successfully is highly honorable, provided that the specialist knows where he is in the universe of thought. Greatness may consist largely in being a master in some one field; but greatness in helpless or ignorant isolation is at least half wasted, if not in danger of being half perverted. I cannot believe that in music, any more than in any other vocation, it is safe to expect the best success without genuine and enthusiastic comprehensiveness of contact with the actual life of humanity, such as is possible only for one whose education has been elaborate and well-rounded."

MUSIC IN ALL SCHOOLS.

Professor Pratt thinks that it is important, too, that musical study should be closely associated with other forms of study. "The main thing is to secure a foothold for musical art in every accessible educational society, from the kindergarten to the university. It would surely be well, also, if our leading musical schools were all in close proximity to institutions of recognized scholastic standing. Proximity provokes comparison, if not affiliation. The spirit of one school reacts helpfully on that of its neighbors. Interchange of students, of instructors, and of books and other appraatus is facilitated. Education in the large sense means learning, dexterity in its use, power in independent mental action, and the development of a healthy per

sonality. In any one institution the balance may be imperfectly struck. The close contact of different institutions tends to correct one-sidedness in all. Music schools have sometimes ignored learning, strict scholarship, and real character building. Other schools have too often ignored all æsthetic subjects, and have underrated the sensitiveness of feeling and the dexterity of action that is indispensable in art. Both classes may be benefited in ways too numerous to specify by being set side by side."

PROY

MUSIC AS A UNIVERSITY COURSE. ROFESSOR HORATIO W. PARKER, of Yale University, writing in Music, very briefly and concretely answers the questions put to him concerning the teaching of music in Yale University, showing that the department under his charge, divided as it is into theoretical and practical courses of study, is engaged in instructing men and women in piano, organ and violin playing, as well as in the history of music and composers. Mr. Parker says:

A man well suited to be an eminent artist or teacher will hardly be withheld from fulfilling his destiny by any mental training to which he may be subjected. Generally speaking, I think a boy ought to study what he likes best. One boy likes astronomy, another Greek, another bugs; none of these things will hurt his music if he loves it well enough. If not let him do something else. Any subject thoroughly mastered will broaden the mind and help to make a better musician. But of course the chief study for the musician should be music. Not history nor the psychology or mathematics of music, nor acoustics. Interesting as these things are, they are, in my judgment, no more useful than other things to the musician.

66

'By real music, I mean notes, when on paper, on the piano or in the orchestra or chorus. After all, notes, written or uttered, give us all that we have of music, therefore I think the serious occupation of the musician, young or old, should be the study of notes."

The Opinions of a Vassar Professor. Prof. George C. Gow, who reports on the system of music study at Vassar College, is more comprehensive in the expression of his general opinions on university and music training. He says:

MUSIC AS A LANGUAGE.

"Education in music must, of course, aim at knowledge and appreciation of this music literature. But it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that in order to understand music as literature it is first necessary to know it as a language. One must have a speaking acquaintance with it as a language in order to have any real sense of its literary qualities. Music is the most alive of all living languages, in that it cannot be disassociated from sound. In this respect it allies itself with that art use of speech which we find in poetry and musical prose, where also the sound ele

ment cannot be lost sight of. To attempt to confine one's study of the language-music to its grammatical and rhetorical structure as it appears in the written form is, therefore, like attempting to reach the charms of French or German poetry by a study of these languages purely through the eye. Indeed it is worse, for no one would ever study poetry without formulating for himself some method of pronouncing it; whereas the speaking of music' is so difficult that to one who has not already gone through a long course of training therein, or who does not take such a course in connection with his grammatical one, it is practically impossible to mentally frame the sounds of the symbols with which he is concerning himself. Indeed, professional musicians who can sit down with a score and read it as one does a newspaper are far too few; which is another way of saying that there are far too many musicians uneducated in their own profession. This is not surprising, perhaps, when we remember that education in one's mother tongue is carried on night and day from infancy, for years, as a spoken language, before the supplementary process of studying it as an eye language is added. Whereas music as a spoken language is but the occasional diversion of most people, and the written form of it is usually learned in such a fashion that the student produces its sounds on an instrument without being aware of what is to result until the tones are actually heard.

THE PROPER ATTITUDE TOWARD MUSIC COURSES.

In view, then, of what has been said, the standpoint of our colleges and universities in regard to music ought to be a simple one. Music is a language with a rich and varied literature, the acquaintance with which must enter into any scheme of liberal culture. The study of music should, therefore, be put on a par with that of any other tongue; and the methods of language-study used and the quality of work required should be in keep ing with college and university standards. Since it is a living tongue the greater stress should be put upon the speaking of it; but, as with other languages, grammatical knowledge of it must be included in any scheme of adequate study. Advanced courses in the literature itself and general course in the history of the language and literature should be afforded to those who first know the language. All of these courses, so far as offered in a college, must be a part of the regular curriculum leading to the usual college degree. What the limit in the number of courses open to undergraduates should be would depend upon the attitude of the college toward specializing in any department. But as distinguished from university courses it should be recognized that college courses in music ought to bear the same relation to those of a music-school proper that college courses in physiology or chemistry do to the work in the same department of a medical school, or that a course in Roman law in college does to law school courses."

THE SCHUMANNS.

Some Reminiscences.

MADAME SCHUMANN, who died last month.

was undoubtedly the most interesting figure among the women musicians of this century, not only for her rare musical gifts, but because of Schumann's romantic attachment to her. The current Musical Times contains a short account of her

career.

Born at Liepzig in 1819, Clara Wieck was the daughter of a professor of music, who gave her her first instruction in his art. At the age of nine she made her début in her native city. Two years later she gave a concert in her own name, but it was not till another two years had passed that the youthful artist made her formal entrance on her future brilliant career as a pianist. This was at Liepzig in 1832. About the same time the child or girl of thirteen made the acquaintance of Robert Schumann, and in 1836 Schumann declared his love and was accepted. But Wieck refused his consent, and the two artists were not united till 1840. The marriage was a singularly happy one, for Clara was not only a devoted wife, but as a fellow artist she helped her husband by her splendid interpretation of his creations. Her first appearance in London was in 1856, just a few months before her husband's tragic death. Since then she has been heard frequently in London, the last time in 1888.

After her husband's death Madame Schumann devoted her life to the work of making known his compositions, and it must be admitted that it was with great success, for the place accorded to Schumann's music is now a very high one indeed. Latterly. when obliged to shun the platform, her efforts were devoted to teaching, and among her most successful pupils Miss Fanny Davies, Mlle. Janotha, Mlle. Eibenschütz, Miss Adeline de Lara, Miss Mathilde Wurm (Verne), and Mr. Leonard Borwick may be named.

The Wieck Family.

A recent number of the Chorgesang gives some interesting reminiscences of Friedrich Wieck and Robert and Clara Schumann, by Marie Wieck of Dresden, half-sister to Madame Schumann. Marie Wieck was also a famous pianist, and when her father settled in Dresden, his two young daughters were practically the only women pianists who gave concerts. Marie Wieck writes:

“As soon as my half-sister Clara had acquired fame as a pianist, my father took me in hand, and at the age of eleven I played at a concert at the Liepzig Gewandhaus. My younger sister Cäcilia also was his pupil, and she began at an early age to play in public. But my father had a horror of prodigies' and we were not driven with our music, in fact we were not required to practice more than two or three hours a day, but we were made to take daily walks in the open air. My father took his art

seriously, but he was not severe.

His greatness as a teacher consisted in the power to wake the hidden talent by word and look, and by patient teaching.

"In 1844, Schumann and his wife settled in Dresden. Here Cäcilia and I were often guests, and we often played dominoes with Schumann. Later, I became a pupil of Schumann's at the Singakademie which he founded, and the Wieck and Schumann families were much together. The marriage differences were forgotten, and Schumann's attitude to his father-in-law became extremely friendly.

"In 1852, I went to Düsseldorf, where the Schumanns were then living. At that time Schumann's condition was very uncertain. Everything worried him and his wife was constantly endeavoring to quiet and comfort him. Gradually he became worse, and it was deemed advisable for us to try Scheveningen. We led rather a monotonous life there, and only very occasionally was there an interesting interruption. One day Jenny Lind rushed in upon us, exclaiming, I eat and drink your songs !' "We did not hire a piano, and Schumann generally sat on the sofa when he was composing. One day he said Clara's playing was always masterly, even when she did not study. He would like to travel with her, but where? My father did not like all Schumann's compositions, but he was always enthusiastic about Schumann's splendid talent."

Madame Schumann.

Of Madame Schumann, Miss Mathilde Wurm has given the following picture:

"Madame Schumann's methods of teaching are individual, and one feels rather than understands them. She insists upon constant practice of one piece till it is mastered. She makes her impres

sions upon the pupils more by what she does not say than through the medium of language. She watches the pupil intently, and often with a naïve apologetic remark plays a passage here and there when she is not fully satisfied. One must caress the piano, not hit it,' she will say. When she is pleased she relaxes a little, but she never praises extravagantly. When she is displeased she agitates her hands nervously and rubs them together.

"Madame Schumann rises at seven o'clock and breakfasts at eight. She gives three lessons a day, and these in the morning only. Then she takes a walk and lunches at one. Tea is served at five, English fashion. On a quiet sunny afternoon she may be found in her garden, plying her knitting needles and listening to the song birds in the branches of the trees near by.

"On one occasion when playing Schumann's F minor sonata, which was written just before her marriage, some early memories must have arisen before her, for tears trickled down her cheeks. The audience understood and appreciated, and the artist at the instrument, seemingly oblivious of her surroundings, gave them such an interpretation of Schumann as they are never likely to hear again."

IN

FEEDING THE METROPOLIS.

N the Ladies' Home Journal for July, Mr. John Gilmer Speed collects some striking figures in his article on "Feeding a City Like New York." He tells us that if New York were reduced to a state of siege the food within its limits could be made to last, used plentifully, for four months, while Gothamites could live in reckless abundance half that time and could manage to get along, without having recourse to the car horses, half a year.

But this is in spite of the fact that it takes an appalling amount of meat and drink to satisfy such a city. The cold storage warehouses have produced great changes in the consumption of fruits, fish, meat, eggs, butter and so on. Instead of selling at ten cents a dozen in the summer time, when the hens are fruitful, and seventy cents a dozen in the winter, eggs are now taken from cold storage at any season at a reasonable outlay, and producers can always keep the market from being uncomfortably glutted. Mr. Speed tells us that more than $100,000,000 a year on eggs and other perishable food is saved by this cold storage device Incidentally he tells us that in 1894 New York consumed 80,000,000 dozen eggs, which the consumers bought at an average price of 18 cents a dozen. New York seems to be especially fond of potatoes, as she eats up 24,000 bushels a day, every day in the year, to supply which demand 90,000 acres of land are needed. This seems like a large quantity, and it costs $13,000,000 a year, but the one item of butter alone exceeds it; 290,000 pounds a day is the amount needed to satisfy New York, and $18,200,000 is the cost annually. Milk is nearly as expensive an item as butter, as New Yorkers drink annually $16,250,000 worth, or 297,000 gallons a day. It gives a striking idea of the importance of the dairy industry to hear that in this one city alone $44,450,000 is spent each year for milk, butter and cheese.

Such an array of statistics prepares us for large things in the way of meat bills, and it is rather surprising that they should in total so little exceed the cost of dairy products; $59,000,000 a year covers the beef, mutton, pork, lamb and veal. The butcher business is rather hazardous, owing to the inability to dispose quickly of what are considered the inferior parts of the beef, and the transactions in meat are going more and more into the hands of men with large capital. A beef which weighs, when dressed, 1,500 pounds, will furnish but 60 pounds of tenderloin and 150 pounds of sirloin, which are not difficult to dispose of; but the remainder of the animal is apt to be a drug on the market.

Live poultry arrives in this city at the rate of 40,000 to 80,000 per week, and the dressed poultry in refrigerator cars amounts to four times as much. In fact, it is only the demand of the Hebrews for live fowl, which can be killed according to their religious regulations, which encourages the shipment of other than dressed poultry. Incidentally

Mr. Speed has found out in his investigations that the popular advertisement, "Philadelphia Spring Chicken," is a pure myth.' About 1 per cent. only of the poultry supply comes from the State of Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia eats nearly all her own chickens. If it will not spoil the reader's appetite to hear further marvels of New York's capacity, it will be interesting to hear that each year 45,000,000 pounds of fish are received; 11,000,000 pounds of codfish, 5,000,000 pounds of bluefish; 4,500,000 pounds of halibut, and 25,000,000 pounds of thirty or forty other different varieties.

Ο

MAKING A METROPOLITAN FIREMAN.

N June 19 there will be held in London an International Firemen's Tournament, which will be attended by representative fire brigades of nearly every American city. Mr. R. R. Wilson writes in the July Godey's about "The Training and Life of a New York Fireman," apropos of this event, and to show that our representatives in London ought to vie in their equipment and skill with the best in the world. The training school for New York firemen is a handsome structure costing half a million dollars, and in it during the past sixteen years more than forty thousand men have been drilled in the essentials of the profession.

TRAINING IN LIFE-SAVING.

The first lesson is the use of the scaling ladder. The men learn how to handle the ladders while standing on the window sills and swinging from window to window-a department of the service most useful in life-saving. Then comes the life-line drill, in which the men are taught to shoot a rope from the street to the roof. When a lighter line has been caught and made fast, it is used to draw a heavy life-rope to the roof, after which a life-belt is given to each man, to be used in sliding down the life-rope. This belt has a large hook attached to it called the snap. One end of the life-rope is fastened to the roof of the building, and when ready to descend the fireman twists the rope twice around the snap in his belt. If he is to take another person down with him, three or four turns are necessary, according to the weight of the second person. The friction of the rope around the snap eases the descent, so that a man has only about five pounds pressure to hold on his hand in lowering himself down the building. A final exercise is in the manipulation of the drop-net, used to save life by breaking the fall of persons jumping from upper windows. In this drill dummies made of elongated bags filled with sand and weighing from 75 to 150 pounds are used. After these various arts are mastered the men are duly enrolled in the service at a salary of $83 per month.

THE PAY OF A FIREMAN.

Three years of service advances a fireman from the first to the third grade, and increases his annual

salary from $1,000 to $1,400. The two deputy chiefs each receive a yearly salary of $4,300, and the six chiefs of battalion each have $3,300 a year. A captain gets $2,160, a lieutenant $1,800, and an engineer $1,600, while the chief of the department is paid $5,000 a year. At the end of twenty years of service a fireman, if he so elects, may be retired on half pay for life, and in case of death by accident or otherwise the widow or nearest of kin receives $1,000 and a pension of $25 a month.

MR.

THE EXPERT ACCOUNTANT.

R. T. H. LEAVITT argues forcibly in the Bankers' Magazine in favor of the more general employment of professional accountants by banks and corporations. He suggests that frequent investigations of the books of such institutions, if scientifically conducted, will have a direct value as insurance against loss from bad or dishonest accounting.

"The custom of instituting investigations of this character prevails to a large extent in England, has been adopted to a limited extent in some cities in this country, and appears to be extending and increasing in favor on its merits, and especially because of its recognized value and importance in the matter of credits in the mercantile community.

As bearing upon this subject the remark of a recent traveler abroad is in point. He writes: 'As regards American securities, while English confidence in ultimate values is undisturbed, the lack of accounting facilities prevents a clear understanding of the situation and to a great extent obstructs business.'

"It may be stated as a fact beyond dispute that in by far the majority of cases of failure and fraud, certainly in the worse class of those cases, it is found that the books were in bad condition, had either been loosely kept or skillfully manipulated, or both. These are the cases where long delay is had in ascertaining the true condition of affairs, assets, liabilities and contingent claims, and where the heaviest losses are sustained and the most unsatisfactory and disastrous results are realized.

"Had the books of such concerns been properly audited at intervals by a skillful and experienced accountant, many of the cases which have resulted in serious and widespread disaster might have been nipped in the bud, the irregularities reported and corrected, or if continued might have been shown to have been willfully overlooked and persisted in, and thus have furnished cause for criminal proceedings in aggravated cases. In many instances subsequent events have shown that occasional careful and thorough investigations would have prevented the disaster or given such warning that the transactions leading to it could not have been consummated.

"It will be seen that such a course contemplates that large and important interests are to be entrusted to the accountant and responsibilities of no