Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

prophetic saying, "I wish to be interred under the eaves of the school building, and to have only my name inscribed upon the stone that shall serve as my covering. When the action of the water shall have effaced it, the world will perhaps be more just toward my memory than it has been toward me during life." It seems that the unhappy man did have visions of a far-off time when his labors would be appreciated, for after his death, among his effects were found drafts of two epitaphs for his grave, of which the following is a translation:

Epitaph for Pestalozzi.

Upon his grave a rose will bloom, which will
cause eyes to weep that long beheld his
misery, and yet remained dry.

Upon his grave a rose will bloom, the sight of
which will cause eyes to weep which remained
dry on beholding his sorrows.

Five minutes' walk from the castle brought us to the cemetery, where we visited the grave of Mme. Pestalozzi. The spot is marked with a tablet dedicated to her memory by the municipality of Yverdon. As in the case of her husband, her grave is covered with the creeping ivy so common in Switzerland.

When Mme. Pestalozzi died, the institution at Yverdon received its death blow. Pestalozzi, who had no executive ability and no idea of the value of money, was compelled to entrust the economic management of the school entirely to strangers, and his own integrity and purity of mind caused him to become a victim of misplaced confidence. In 1825, the world-renowned institution of Yverdon was dissolved, and Pestalozzi, after a lifetime of the most strenuous and unselfish labors, was doomed to drain to the very dregs the cup of human thanklessness. Overwhelmed with mortification and defeat, he retired to Neuhof, "ein armer Muedling," as he called himself, and there remained until the curtain mercifully descended upon the tragedy of his sad life.

The house in which Pestalozzi died in the ancient city of Brugg is a stone structure in perfect preservation, and bears the usual memorial tablet. The identical room is now the office of a dentist, who, himself an ardent admirer of Pestalozzi, cordially welcomes any of the good man's friends.

It is customary in Switzerland to name all schools for neglected children Pestalozzi schools, and nearly every canton has such an

institution. On returning from Brugg to Zürich we visited one of these schools at Schlieren, and were fortunate in being able to attend part of a morning session, at which we took the following notes:

Teacher: Tell me a flower that is now blooming, or just about ceasing to bloom.

A pupil: The rose.

Another pupil: The rose balsam blooms yet; white, red, and blue colors and violet. Third pupil: The Wuchern flower is still in bloom.

Teacher: Where did you see it?
Pupil By the mill this morning.

Teacher: The Alpine ensians are nicest of all, and greatly prized by the people in the Alps.

Pupil: Yes, you showed us one once; it was pressed.

Sixth pupil: Maidenface and aster are still in bloom, and oleander.

Teacher: Why do they bloom so well this year?

Pupil: Because they have had so much sun. Teacher: It is because they have what they want. In the Nile river, where the crocodiles are, the oleanders abound like willows along our streams, and there they have so much sun.

Fourth pupil: Wind clover; I saw some have the most beautiful life because they yesterday.

Teacher: Are you sure you saw it yester

day?

Pupil: Yes.

Teacher: How do you know it was wind clover?

Pupil: It was yellow.

Teacher: There are other yellow flowers. What is the characteristic of wind clover? Pupil: It is more fuzzy than hop clover, and it has butterfly blossoms.

Teacher: All clovers have those blossoms. Fifth pupil: Ensian is still in bloom; I found some in the marsh, and it was blue. Teacher: Which is the nicest of the ensians?

Pupil: The spring ensian.

Here our time was up, and we left teacher and pupils talking about the flowers, a fitting finale to our Pestalozzian pilgrimage.

And as we sped along on our homeward journey the thought that seemed paramount, as the result of our observations, was that all fulness and completeness of life must proceed from the idea of more for others, less for self; that the broken and incomplete life of Father Pestalozzi, and his final and seemingly irretrievable failure was like the bursting of a chrysalis, and that from the apparent ruin and desolation of his career proceeded that new life which has since burst into bloom to bless and to beautify the earth.

INDIAN BASKETRY IN HOUSE DECORATION.

BY GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.

N the pottery and baskets of the Amerind, as well as in the blankets, the house decorator of the future will be compelled to deal. It is no fad that makes us seek to know something of the art-life and expression of the people whom we are thrusting to the wall after dispossessing them of the home of their forefathers. So far as we know they are the native-born, true Americans - the blue bloods of this continent and just as the antique furniture, architecture, and records of our own nation's past are interesting and instructive to us, so should be the art manifestations of these aboriginal peoples. And when, added to the antiquarian interest, there is presented in

This is a new word coined by Maj. J. W. Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, from the two

words American and Indian.

[blocks in formation]

pose. The host or hostess delights in pleasing the intelligent guest, for a house is made beautiful not only for its immediate occupants, but also for its transient visitors and occasional guests.

Decorations and furnishings, also, are, in a measure, indexes to the mind of their possessor. The parvenu shows a want of artistic perception and a lack of innate refinement in

the gorgeous ostentation with which he decorates his home. A man of wide sympathies, broad culture, and refined mind, unconsciously reveals himself in the chaste, appropriate, and yet widely differing articles of decoration and art with which he surrounds himself in his home. Surely, then, the use of those articles with which the intimate and inner life of our predecessors in the possession of the soil we now call our Own is inseparably connected,

[merged small][ocr errors]

with which he should approach God; the statues of apostles, prophets, and martyrs, acting as historic reminders of grand and godlike lives in the past; the figures of demons reminding him of the constant warfare of the soul to overcome evil; the more beautiful figures of angels and saints keeping him in remembrance that the powers of good were watching over him and were ever ready to

INDIAN CORNER IN LIBRARY OF GEORGE WHARTON JAMES, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA.

will appeal to the man of culture, refinement, and fine sensibilities. And basketry is widespread; it is interesting evidence of the earliest development of the useful faculties and gave the first opportunities for the exercise of the dawning esthetic senses; in its late development it became to the aborigine what the cathedral was to Europe in the middle ages: the book of record of aspirations, ideals, fears, emotions, poetry, and religion. Victor Hugo strikingly exclaimed, "the book has killed the building!" and thus aroused in all minds a desire to preserve the original significance attached to the cathedrals - the lofty spires speaking of man's aspirations heavenward; the solemn and silent aisles of the solemnity

give him help; the crook reminding him of the Good Shepherd who longed to lead His flocks into green pastures; and the cross, of the sacrifice of Himself that the Savior made that the world might be saved - all these and a thousand other things which the bookless middle ages read into their sacred structures, we now see and remember with veneration and delight. And so, though of course in a less measure, do these more modest memorials of a simpler and less devel

[graphic]

oped people appeal to our sympathies and ask us to preserve their original significance. It would be a misfortune to our advancing civilization to lose sight of that which meant so much to those of a dying civilization. We know ourselves better when we know what stirred the hearts, moved the emotions, and quickened the higher faculties of the races of the past. These baskets, thus looked at, become the embalmed mummies of the mentality and spirituality of ages that are past-of a civilization that would soon otherwise be lost.

Every well-appointed house might appropriately arrange an Indian corner. Here baskets, pottery, blankets, arrow-points, spear-heads, beads, wampum, belts, kilts,

mocassins, head-dresses, masks, pictures, ask the meaning of the design. The human spears, bows and arrows, drums, prayer- figures, the terraced steps, from which quail sticks, boomerangs, katcina dolls, fetishes, plumes protrude on the sides where the and beadwork might be displayed with figures are, the diamond-back rattlesnake artistic and pleasing effect. design forming a beautiful border around

Such a corner is shown in Fig. 1. This is in the library of the author in Pasadena, California, and while by no means a model, it will serve to illustrate, and perhaps will stimulate to higher endeavor those who are open to the suggestion.

Those who were privileged to see it, will remember the great charm of the library of Mrs. T. S. C. Lowe in Pasadena, California. Mrs. Lowe possesses the largest and finest collection of Indian baskets in the world. Her collection numbers over a thousand specimens, many of them exceedingly rare and precious. In this library many choice baskets were tastefully displayed on and around the book cases; Indian blankets adorned the floors, chairs and tables; Indian baskets were used as receptacles for waste paper, newspapers, photographs, cards, etc.; and other trinkets were displayed that made this room a most unique and highly pleasing one, with a marked individuality that impressed and stimulated effort in like direction.

Without attempting to make a large collection, a dozen or a score of well-selected baskets could be so artistically arranged as to give a very pleasing effect to any room where they were displayed.

Take such a basket as that in Fig. 2, which is in the Plimpton collection, San Diego, California. It is mellow in color and striking in

[graphic]
[merged small][ocr errors]

FIG. 3. HAVASUPAI BASKET IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. WILLIAM WHITING, HOLYOKE, MASSACHUSETTS.

the top of the basket, all demand explanation. For, gradually, the world is learning that the Indian woman has poetry and mythology and symbolism and imagination in her soul, and that she uses these powers in the making of her baskets, incorporating into her designs ideas of every conceivable character.

TULARE BASKET IN THE PLIMPTON COLLECTION.

Fig. 3 shows a Havasupai basket which holds an honored place in the drawing-room of Mrs. William Whiting of Holyoke, Massachusetts. While the weave of the Havasupais is not nearly as fine as that of the Monos, Kerns, Pomos, or Yokuts, this is a beautiful basket of bold, pleasing, and effective design. I happened to be in Havasu canyon when this basket was in process of manufacture, and knew its maker well. She was a most devout woman, and, as her father owned (for a Havasupai) a large number of horses and cattle, she was making this basket as a propitiation of the powers that controlled the rain, so that her father's stock would have an abundance of water and feed. The central figure is the sun, and the radiating figures with steps are the rain clouds. In this basket she, accompanied by her mother and other female relatives, carried the sacred meal, which she sprinkled before the shrine shown in engraving No. 4. Then, with prayers and dancing, "Those Above" were pleaded with to send the rain. Without the sprinkling of the sacred meal all prayers would be ineffective, but when sprinkled

[graphic]

design. Suspended on the wall as a plaque, or hung in some corner, it would produce an artistic and agreeable effect. The observer would note the pattern, and if curious would

from a basket made with special prayers of propitiation, and with designs symbolic of the powers propitiated, both prayers and dancing were made efficacious and of great power.

form of which is represented in the basket to the right. The row of human figures in this basket shows it to be a dance basket, and it was undoubtedly used by the woman who made

FIG. 5. TULARE BASKETS IN THE PLIMPTON COLLECTION.

Any one or all of the so-called Tulare baskets in Fig. 5, in the Plimpton collection, could be used to good advantage. Even to the tyro they are interesting and beautiful. They are of fine weave, smooth and even in texture, and are the highest art expression of this fast dying race. The large basket in the center of the bottom row shows water and the ripples upon it, in a highly conventionalized zigzag design. Reaching out from the zigzags are the plumes of the quail. These inform the hunters, four of whom are seen, that on the left side of the stream there is good quail hunting.

The simple but beautiful design of the smaller basket to the left, on the bottom,

FIG. 4.

it to hold ceremonial water or food during the performance. When one remembers that every dance was a religious rite to the Indian that he never danced for pleasure this memorial is regarded with a reverence that would otherwise not attach to it.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

In the basket above it a beautiful illustration is offered of the changes designs are subject to, whereby their original appearance is lost, and they become no longer imitative in character, but symbolic. The two center rings are of imperfect double St. Andrew's crosses. Few ordinary observers looking at this design would see any resemblance to the diamond-back rattlesnake design below, and yet this is but the development of that. The diamond is divided into segments, and thus affords pleasing variety. But its original significance is not lost. The early weavers incorporated the rattlesnake design into their weave for two

reasons: the first was undoubtedly in obedience to the imitative faculty, which suggested that here was a simple and easily copied design, ready at hand,

[graphic]

HAVASUPAI SHRINE, WHERE THE INDIANS DANCE AND SPRINKLE
MEAL DURING THEIR PRAYERS FOR RAIN.

is a highly conventionalized form of the dia- one that would be pleasing to the eye; mond-back rattlesnake pattern, the regular the other was a religious motive. The

« PreviousContinue »