Vol. X.

No. 5

DUSK.

Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress,
Earth sleepeth in her snow-white cover;
No sound disturbs the dreamy quietness,
O'er which pale Winter's form doth hover.
The trees are broidered with a frosty rime,
O'er them the moon glides softly beaming;
And 'neath the light of those cold stars that shine,
Of gentle airs the flowers are dreaming.

1

-EVA MCNALLY.

From Old Friends.

OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN, January 24, 1898. PRESIDENT A. R. TAYLOR, Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your very polite note requesting me to write something for publication in the next issue of the NORMAL MONTHLY, setting forth some personal reminiscences and professional comments that may be deduced from the experiences of the years that have intervened since I laid down my work at the State Normal.

My first acquaintance with the Normal School was in the capacity of a student in 1873. I took my examination for entrance under the direction of President G. W. Hoss, assisted by Professor H. B. Norton, Mr. J. P. Carmichael and Mrs. A. P. Morse. At this examination I met as a fellow student, my friend, A. W. Stubbs, and about this time Joseph Hill, now Professor Hill. The examination was held in the assembly room of the then styled "New Building", which was afterward burned to the ground.

My further association with the institution has become a matter of record in the archives of the school. It was in the capacity of both student and teacher and was more or less continuous for a period of eleven years, terminating in '84.

The succeeding years have been associated with an experience of two years as founder and editor of a county newspaper, five years superintendent of schools in Kansas, five years in similar work in Minnesota, and the last two years, including the year 1898, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which I find a pleasant field of labor and a very pleasant and delightful home. It is a remarkable coincidence in connection with my sixteen years as superintendent of schools that my work should have been chiefly at Emporia, Winona, and Oshkosh, all prominent normal school cities.

Mrs. Davis and myself are doing what we can to educate and train up in the way they should go, a little flock of five, three boys and two girls. The oldest, Buel, a lad of fourteen, is now a junior in the high school. Josephine, the youngest, four years, is enrolled in the kindergarten. Merton, Mildred, and Jay are respectively in the first, fourth, and seventh grades.

The experiences of these years have only more thoroughly established some of the convictions set forth in the principles laid down in the work at the Kansas State Normal years ago. Physical training and kindergarten education, the importance of which was emphasized at Emporia, have since found expression in results secured at Winona, Minnesota, in the establishment of a most thorough and complete system of kindergartens. These same ideas are finding expression at Oshkosh, first, in the completion of the kindergarten system, and, second, in the establishment of a most thorough and complete system

of manual training which recognizes the manual side of education in the kindergarten and is working out through the grades a course of manual and physical exercises alike for both sexes as far as the fourth grade, where the work divides, providing a course of sewing and cooking for girls through the grades into the high school, and a thorough course in Sloyd, whittling, benchwork, etc., for boys, throughout the same grades. The idea as yet is not fully worked out, but is built thoroughly from the beginning, and while yet primary and elementary in kind, it will, in due time, as a regular course of development requires, evolve the higher forms of work which will bring to our schools that variety and system which will enable us to educate more fully and completely the children under our tuition.

The later years are presenting opportunities for the more complete unfolding of earlier conceived ideals, and we may yet live to see systems of schools which not only train pupils to know, but, at the same time, to do and to be. There was a time, perhaps, in the history of the world when the thing most to be desired was knowledge and learning. This was during the Dark Ages; but in these latter days of the printing press, the daily newspaper and abundance of excellent and cheap books, with ready means of distribution and dissemination, it is even more important that our attention should be turned toward teaching our children to do and to be. The doing involves not only skill, but a more thorough knowledge; the being involves character. Our schools are becoming more a part of life and not so much a place to prepare for living.

Having just completed the installation of six hundred fifty girls in sewing, one hundred twenty others in cooking, five hundred boys in Sloyd and two hundred others in benchwork, I find that with these and the oversight of nearly four thousand pupils associated with one hundred twenty teachers, to say nothing of social and family duties, my time is quite thoroughly employed, and I fear that I have not, under the circumstances, been able to do justice to the subject of your request; but hoping that you will be able to glean from this letter what you desire, and that it is at least sufficiently personal to fulfill your demand, I remain, with kindest regards to all mutual friends, Yours very truly,

BUEL T. DAVIS.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, LINCOLN, JAN. 20, 1898. Dear Friends:

A request from President Taylor that I send a letter to the STATE NORMAL MONTHLY has been received. Although very busy, a feeling of loyalty to the dear old Normal and especially to its honored head, urges me to send you all a word of greeting.

Nearly a decade has passed since the writer left that charmed circle of the faculty, where were spent so many happy years, filled to overflowing with all that tends to uplift and ennoble. The memory of those years comes over me with all the freshness and fragrance of Easter lilies.

It would take too long to recount my varied experiences since my departure from the Normal. I am reminded of what William Dean Howells said after he returned from the World's Fair: "I never saw anything like it and I never expect to see anything like it again; it is indescribably beautiful. I enjoyed every moment that I spent there. And yet the sight of so

much beauty was saddening, too. It made me realize how much finer our lives might be-how much more we could put into them, if we only walked in the right direction. But we are too absorbed in our terrible struggle for money to give any suitable thought to making our surroundings beautiful." During two years spent at the University of Chicago, I had an opportunity to "walk in the right direction," and perhaps some of the beautiful things that came into my life are worthy of being "passed on."

For many years my heart had been going to the poetry of Lanier, charmed by its beauty and inspired by its power, hence it was indeed a red-letter day in my life when I enjoyed the pleasure of hearing the dead poet's wife read his poems. Mary Day Lanier, in her graciousness and refinement, is a typical poet's wife. Her large gray eyes are very expressive and their tenderness recalls the beautiful tribute of her husband in the poem, "My Springs":

"My springs, from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet, celestial streams

That feed my

life's bright Lake of Dreams. Oval and large and passion-pure And gray and wise and honor sure; Soft as a dying violet breath,

Yet calmly unafraid of death."

One of her Baltimore friends once wrote me: "Her manners are those of the most refined Southern lady, and I can imagine nothing to surpass them in grace and delicacy." Her tastes are what one expects-a love of the best books, flowers, and music. When I asked about her assistance to her husband she replied, after referring to her family affection and the love of the beautiful: "My one gift was to recognize that beauty supremely in the soul of Sidney Lanier, and always, from girlhood, to believe in him implicitly and without limitation. It was this that strengthened his arm and constituted my help to him. ***** Music was ever dearest and highest with me, and this was the meeting ground where Mr. Lanier and I quickly knew each other." All who know Lanier's poetry know what his indebtedness to his musical wife amounts to and how great was her inspiration.

To hear Mrs. Lanier, in her soft, Southern accents, read such melodious poems as "The Marshes of Glynn" and "The Song of the Chattahoochee" was a revelation of sweetness and power rarely experienced. Apparently her deep love for the departed poet had so imbued her spirit that she was capable of expressing, without effort, every shade of emotion and of rendering most impressively this poetic tenderness and beauty. I think I never heard a voice so admirably adapted to bringing out the melody, and so imaginative as to reveal, in its exquisite intonations, all the marvelous beauty that Lanier's poetry possesses.

Among the incidents in Lanier's life told by Mrs. Lanier was one showing the power music had over him. Often when awaking in the night he would find himself composing musical strains. He used to tell his wife how difficult it was for him to abstract himself to force the melody into the background. In his playing he improvised a great deal. His entire spirit seemed keyed to the harmonies of heaven.

Mrs. Lanier's warm-hearted hand-clasp is typical of Southern life, and to meet her is to exalt one's ideal of true womanhood. Truly of such women may it be said: “Gazing deep into their eyes, we are reminded of the light of dim churches; hearing their voices, we dream of some minstrel whose murmurs reach us imperfectly through his fortress wall; beholding the sweetness of their faces, we are touched as by the appeal of the mute flowers; merely meeting them in the street, we recall the long-vanished image of the Divine good

ness."

Mrs. Eugene Field is another poet's wife whom to know is to love. It was my good fortune to be invited to accompany Dr. Flugel, of Leland Stanford University, on a visit to Eugene Field's library of rare books. His beautiful wife warmly welcomed us as pilgrims to a shrine. We were at once attracted by her charming personality and the evident note of sincerity in all she says or does. The most beautiful feature of her face is her rich brown eyes. At the time of the poet's death, Ripley paid her this tribute: "It would be most fitting to say that his wife is as remarkable as a woman as he is as a man. She is a strikingly handsome woman, and yet with a face of force and strength of character suggesting to me that Mr. Field was in no small degree indebted to her for the inspiration that led him on to success." The very fact that Eugene Field could write but at the home fireside, surrounded by his prattling babes, and cheered by his sympathetic wife, speaks volumes for her influence. For a revelation of the depths of his affection and the degree of inspiration, the following poems should be studied: "A Little Bit of a Woman," "Sweetheart, Be My Sweetheart," "The Tea Gown," "Child and Mother," "The Little Boy," and "To a Usurper." The dedication to The Second Book of Verse also tells of the power of this love. On this point, Mrs. Field said, in her accustomed humble way: "If I did no more, I do feel this, that I kept Mr. Field's ideal of womanhood to a high standard, and never permitted any And this thought of impurity to come into his presence." lovely character will take her place in literature alongside of such saintly personages as Mrs. Tennyson and Mrs. Lowell, glorified by wearing the crown of a husband's faith, that motherhood is the most sacred thing on earth.

Walking through Eugene Fieid's library one is reminded, on every hand, that here dwelt the one who wrote "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." All the kindness and loveliness of his great, warm heart is poured out freely on those pages. Many passages came to mind, as with tender touch we opened autograph volumes of books he loved so dearly, or looked at the many autograph letters, framed as pleased the poet's fancy. Such rare ones as those growing out of the correspondence about securing Gladstone's ax; letters from Andrew Lang, in the happiest vein; warm-hearted words from Henry Irving; and many more, from his numerous literary friends, all spoke of the high esteem in which this poet was held abroad, as well as in his own country.

Hushed were our voices as the poet's wife guided us into the sacred death-chamber and tenderly spoke of her husband's habits and tastes. Here in the study is to be found the best Horace library in the country. Surely there do not exist more artistic and beautiful manuscript books than those of Mr. Field's poetry. Mrs. Field compared one of his immaculate pages with a manuscript of Dicken's Christmas stories. The latter was scratched up so as to be almost illegible, while the former was artistically perfect. She told us that the manuscript of "The Touch in the Heart" was the most perfect, for in it she could find only one word changed: the word "relic" had been erased and "vestige" written above it. This is remarkable when it is known that the story covers many pages.

During the time that Mrs. Field was showing us these treasures, she was pleased to give us many interesting reminiscenses of the poet's daily communion with his books, and we found that the afternoon had passed all too quickly. We came away hoping that this shrine might ever remain as a memorial to one whose life was so ennobled by his love for books.

The Twentieth Century Club has brought to Chicago many illustrious authors and artists. On two occasions it was my

happiness to be a guest of this club;-once, when Mrs. George Pullman entertained the club, and Prof. Gildersleeve, of Johns Hopkins, was the lecturer; and the other time, when it was entertained by Mrs. Fernando Jones, and James Lane Allen was the lecturer. Of the latter I will speak. His theme was "The Seven Waves of Literature," which were designated as: the carved cherry stone, the boulder, the sex, the provincial, the commonplace, the romantic, and the historic. He traced the effects of these movements upon American fiction, and then closed by stating that until the beauty wave came along and swept all others into its circle, our fiction could not attain to the highest ideal. The plea for the needed supremacy of the beautiful in art was most earnest and eloquent.

This gifted author then pleasantly surprised the guests by reading two chapters from his forthcoming novel, "The Choir Invisible." The first was chapter twelve, containing that incomparable conversation between John Gray and the parson, about women, and closing with the parson's beautiful rhapsody, in which he shows how all life can be expressed in terms of music. Mr. Allen's melodious voice, as he interpreted the beautiful thought with so much sweetness and charm, reminded me of the pleasure Edinund Gosse received from hearing Rossetti read his "Rose-Mary." And when the author came to the close, where the parson's flute playing is described so beautifully, all our hearts were stirred. "Out upon the stillness of the night floated the parson's passion— silver clear, but in an undertone of such peace, of such immortal gentleness! It was as though the very beams of the far-off, serenest moon falling upon the flute and dropping down into its interior through its little round openings, were by his touch shorn of all their lustre, their softness, their celestial energy, and made to reissue as music. It was as though his flute had been stuffed with frozen Alpine blossoms, and these had been melted away by the passionate breath of his soul into the coldest invisible flowers of sound." And the sublime tenderness in the tones of the author's voice filled our souls with solemn beauty and elevated our spirits to heights before unknown.

"The Choir Invisible" well illustrates the author's principle that every other art is of value in helping one to become an artist in fiction. In this book can be found many proofs of his statement: "From painting I learned the grouping of form and the use of color in landscape; and music taught me how to manage major and minor motives, and the treatment of spiritual discords and harmonies." The description of Amy Falconer, as she returns home through the woods on "that morning of mid-May," in its beauty and harmony, its exquisite blending of human life with nature, cannot be surpassed even by the art of a Corot.

The charm of Mr. Allen's conversation is as delightful as is the pleasure of reading his prose pastorals. Looking at his serene countenance, one feels that he, too, with John Gray, has won his crown, and dwells in that Country of the Spirit, victorious and peaceful.

Beautiful also are the memories of an afternoon with Harriet Monroe, of Lilian Bell's inimitable personality, of lectures on Russian literature by Prince Wolskonky, and of Lady Aberdeen's convocation address.

My "educational suggestion" is in harmony with the yearning expressed by Mr. Howells, that more of the beautiful be permited to come into our lives. The æsthetic should play an important part in all educational advancement. Believing that the students of the Normal will receive into their lives a large portion of immortal beauty, I must now say, "Hail and farewell!"

VIOLA PRICE FRANKLIN.

PHILADELPHIA, PA., JAN. 20, 1898.

There are milestones passed in life's journey which seem always to remain in sight. The short time I spent in working with the busy Kansas Normal people marked one of those milestones in my life always to be remembered with pleasure. It seems "but yesterday," but 'twas really half a dozen years ago.

Kansas friends have visited me in my Eastern home and many items of interest and notes of the marvelous growth and progress of the Normal have come to me. The wonder is, that but two wings serve to keep the Normal steadily traveling onward and upward.

In this ancient Quaker city brotherly love is shown in many ways-one in providing for its boys and girls the finest facilities for industrial art education of any city in our country. Kansas teachers, see to it that the teaching of art in the West is what it should be. You have earnest, anxious pupils, capable of learning the many applications of art-pupils who need the mental training which art-study must furnish, and pupils hungry for ideas and glimpses of the beautiful which true art will bring to them. Should you not love the study yourself, learn to do so; then teach it earnestly, patiently, and rightly, until, Kansas shall be proud of her art products, her art buildings, and the refinement of an art-loving people.

One of my own kindergartners said last evening: "Let us play the guessing game. I am thinking of something as far away as the moon. It has five points to it. I think it must be made of gold. Can you guess it?" And before I could answer, the question came: "But why are not the stars circles like the moon. Aren't they the moon's children?"

I hardly know why, but Kansas, the Normal, and a pointed request from there for a good word from me, received a week ago, all came at once to my mind. So I write you, Normal friends, today, to bid you Godspeed and a happy new year. MAY CLIFFORD COLLINS.

OLIVET COLLEGE, OLIVET, MICHIGAN, January 17, '98. Dear Friends:

It gives me pleasure to respond to Doctor Taylor's request for a letter and short article for the NORMAL MONTHLY, because Scenes in it seems to bring Kansas friends a little nearer. which I see many familiar faces, often appear before my mind's eye. And sometimes, in my dreams I see again the magnificent prairies, and the gorgeousness of the Kansas sunflowers. Only kindly thoughts turn Kansasward.

Of myself? Not much to tell. In brief, shut in by stately forest trees in a tiny, beautiful college town, four terms' work in English literature, one term in oratory, all of the college rhetoricals (including manuscript and drill work), office hours from one to three o'clock daily; care sometimes more, sometimes less; books; some friends-and these wonderful trees.

I have attended four conventions in the state, twice reading a paper before the Michigan Elocutionists' Association. I will send you brief extracts from one on "Gesture as a Means of Expression," December 17, 1897.

It always gives me pleasure to hear of or from the friends I knew in the K. S. N. S. With many cordial wishes, Your friend,

CORA MARSLAND.

Long before the hand has become skillful to do, the young being, conscious only of existence, expresses its abundant life in activity of the limbs. The first gesture: With increasing intelligence the hand grasps at objects. Use in gesture: As the little life journeys on into the months, imagination suc(Continued on page 76.)

Oregon and the Louisiana Purchase.

The government map of the United States, published in 1897, has given such bounds to the Louisiana Purchase as to raise a question in the minds of those comparatively familiar with the circumstances of the purchase. A resume of the facts in hand may throw some needed light upon this subject.

The Mississippi River was discovered by the Spaniard, De Soto, in 1541. Certain Frenchmen-La Salle, Father Hennepin, and others- explored the river 1679-1682. Iberville founded Mobile 1701, and Bienville founded New Orleans, 1718. Thus, according to the recognized law of nations-by right of exploration and permanent settlement-were the French able to lay just claim to all territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, and east to the Appalachian Mountains and to the Perdido River. The Mississippi River does not drain territory west of the Rockies; hence the original Louisiana territory could include only territory east of the Rocky Mountains. Sir Francis Drake had discovered and entered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1579 and so gave England priority rights in the Oregon country. Unless there are records of French discoveries, explorations and settlements, or an English-French treaty with respect to the same, France had not a shadow of a claim to the Oregon country before 1762. In place of such records, being found, there is a map in existence which disproves all such claim. A Frenchman by the name of Du Pratz resided in Louisiana from 1718 to 1734 and held office under the Crown. In 1758 he published a large work on the civil and natural history of Louisiana and accompanied it with a map which runs the northwest boundary from the Mexican Mountains in Texas, north to the 46° north latitude. All of the French and even some of the Spanish geographers of that time delineate the same boundary.

In 1753

the atlas published by the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences represented the same boundary. Hence the Louisiana territory which France transferred to Spain in 1762, could not have included the Oregon territory.

Later the Oregon country was claimed by Russia as it was contiguous to Alaska. It was also claimed by Spain because of pretended discovery and settlement. In 1790 England and Spain attempted to adjust their conflicting claims by the Nootka Convention. When the Spaniard, Balboa, discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513, he took possession of all lands washed by this ocean. In 1579 Spain claimed that the Englishman Drake had intruded upon what was already Spanish territory, and so plundered all English vessels claiming rights on these shores. In the Nootka Convention, Spain granted certain fishing and trading rights to England, but still maintained her sovereignty over the Oregon country. This treaty was abrogated in 1796 by the English-Spanish war. In 1800 the "ancient Louisiana, which was assumed to embrace the Oregon territory," was retroceded to France, and in 1803 was ceded to the United States, "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain"-east of the Rockies to the Iberville River,-"and that it had when France possessed it" -east of the Rockies to the Perdido River,-"and such as it should be according to treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States,"-which gave the basis for the assumed transfer of the Oregon territory as well. Jefferson himself said that the territory purchased in 1803 "extended to the main chain of the mountains (Rockies), dividing the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic." It should be carefully noted that the addition of the Oregon territory to the "ancient Louisiana" is merely an assumed fact as Spanish ownership therein, and so right to transfer was not then an assured fact. It was not until 1814

twelve years after Louisiana had passed out of Spanish hands-that England renewed the provisions of the Nootka Convention of 1796, and again surrendered her claims in Oregon to Spain. In 1818 England and the United States adjusted the northern boundary "from the Lake of the Woods west to the Stony Mountains" (Rockies). In 1819 Spain surrendered to the United States her claim to Oregon. In 1824 Russia made a treaty with the United States, and in 1825, with England in which treaties she relinquished all her claims to Oregon. England and the United States now being the only claimants, they agreed in 1818 to occupy it together. In 1843 Marcus Whitman led one thousand settlers to the country and, although England was found to be getting the better of the United States in the bargain of joint occupation, a treaty was agreed upon in 1846, which gave the United States undisputed ownership in the Oregon territory. Had we really acquired this country in 1803, as the government map indicates, there would have been no need of the boundary treaties of 1824, 1825, 1842, and 1846. The United States ownership of Texas by the treaty of 1803 is capable of proof, while all claim to Oregon rests in generalities and pretensions.

To summarize the foregoing facts, we note: (1) Since 1513 Spain claimed the Pacific coast to 54° north latitude. (2) In 1762, Spain acquired the ancient French Louisiana-land west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies, France having no claim to land west of the Rockies. (3) In 1800 Spain retroceded to France the "ancient Louisiana" she had received from France in 1762, to which it is assumed Spain added Oregon. (4) In 1803 this same Louisiana, with the assumed possession of Oregon, was conveyed to the United States. (5) Spanish ownership of, and right of transfer in, the Oregon country was not a certainty in 1800 and was the subject of treaty negotiations with England as late as 1814. (6) It was not until 1819 that Spain renounced all rights, in 1825 that Russia withdrew her claims, and in 1846 that England acknowledged United States the owner. (7) It is an error to assert the acquisition of Oregon or even our first claim to it in 1803. The only positive proof which can substantiate such assertions must be either treaty rights or exploration and permanent settlement by France between 1758 and 1763, or by Spain between 1763 and 1800, or by France between 1800 and 1803, and some definite statement as to its being attached to the said original Louisiana territory in the different transfers. Until such proofs are produced, United States ownership rests alone on the discovery by Captain Robert Gray in 1792, explorations of Lewis and Clarke 1804-6, settlements at Astoria in 1811, by Marcus Whitman and others 1843-46, and treaty with England in 1846. Thus, such title to this country was guaranteed by nearly all the means known to international law-discovery, exploration, settlement, and treaty,-and not at all by the treaty of 1803.

What the government map should indicate as the result of the treaty of 1803, is the positive possession of the territory east of the Rockies to the Iberville river; the well-grounded, although disputed, possession of Texas; and the assumed, yet thoroughly untenable, claim to the Oregon territory.

A few writers of texts on American history support this claim Willson (1853), Swinton (1880), Sheldon-Barnes (1892), and Ridpath (1895). Other equally eminent, among them, Scudder, Eggleston, Barnes, Anderson, Montgomery, Mowry, Johnston, Fiske, Thomas, McMaster, Woodrow Wilson, and Albert Bushnell Hart, either recognize the claim as very doubtful or deny it altogether.

The above conclusions have been reached after a careful investigation of treaties and other original sources found in the libraries of the Kansas State Normal School and of Michigan University. MARY A. WHITNEY.