 Wild Plants Needing Protection by Elizabeth G. Britton This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Bologna Times. Wild Plants Needing Protection. Reprinted without change of paging from the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, May 1912. Number one. Jack in the Pulpit. Jack in the Pulpit. Erisema. Triphylum. When the trees are unfolding, their fresh green leaves in May and June, and the violets and spring beauties are in bloom, and Jack in the Pulpit may be found in moist woodlands and on shady banks, where the earth is soft and loamy. It is a perennial herb, and if left undisturbed, it sometimes lives many years and attains a height of three feet, with a subterranean quorum as large as an apple. This quorum has given to the plant the name of Indian Turnip, though it is not edible when raw, for it has an acrid taste, irritating to the tongue, on account of the acicular crystals of calcium oxalate, which it contains, known as refeeds. It propagates by forming smaller secondary quorums around the older ones, and in this way new plants are started. It often bears no fruit in the vicinity of New York, not only on account of the depredations of children, but because it is dioecious and the proper insect visitors, on which it is dependent for pollination, seem to be lacking. Usually the leaves turn yellow, and the plant disappears in June and July, though this varies in different portions of its range, which extends throughout the eastern and central states, and as far north as Nova Scotia and Ontario and south to Florida and Louisiana. It bears what would appear to most children to be a single large flower, but it is really a cluster of small, simple flowers, born at the base of a fleshy, club-shaped spadex, which is enclosed by the convoluted base of the spade, the summit of which arches over it, and is either pale green or a dark glossy brown, often striped with white. There are usually two leaves, which are three-parted, graceful in shape, and beautifully veined. The leaf stalks are sheathing at base and enclose that of the flower cluster. The stamina plants are often smaller and paler than the pistolate, and wither as soon as they have discharged their pollen. Their flowers consist of only two to four, almost sessile, white or purple anthers, born on the fleshy, musilaginous base of the spadex. The pistols are crowded together without calyx or corolla, green globus, and tipped with a sessile white stigma. Occasionally, a few stamens may be found above the pistols. The fruit cluster, when ripe, is usually prostrate, from one to three inches long, and the berries are bright scarlet. Plucone appears to have been the first to figure this plant, and he described it in his phytographia in 1691 as arom trifylum minus atrorubente, from plants sent to him by Bannister from Virginia. Linnaeus, in his species planterum, 1753, quoted this description and called it arom trifylum. It resembles some of the European species of arom, and belongs to the Erosae, a family of plants, most of which are tropical in their distribution, and which includes about 105 genera and over 900 species, many of them being large and showy plants, often climbing on trees and rocks. 2. Spring Beauty Reprented from the Journal of New York Botanical Garden, June 1912. Spring Beauty, Claytonia virginica. In wet meadows, on grassy banks, and even shady woodlands, the Spring Beauty covers the ground in May with quantities of white flowers. It blooms consecutively for two or three weeks, opening a new blossom every day, gradually lengthening out its racines, till sometimes they have borne as many as 15 flowers. These measure half an inch or more across, have white or pale pink petals, then with rose color. The stamens are five with pink anthers, and the style is three lobed. There are two fleshy, spreading sepals, and the petals lengthen gradually from one half to an inch in length, and become refluxed as the three-angled capsule matures. Halfway down the stem below the racine, two narrow fleshy leaves, three or four inches long, clasp the stem, and a few basal ones arise from the large tuberous root, which is buried rather deeply in the ground. Usually only the flowering stems are picked, so that the plant survives, but it will make no seed and stand little chance of spreading. The seeds are brown, runny form, slightly roughened, and the embryo is curved. The spring beauty was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in honor of John Clayton, an American botanist and correspondent, who wrote in 1743 a flora of Virginia. It was first figured by Pluconae in his photographia in 1691. There are about 25 species of Claytonia known to grow in northern North America, of which three occur in the eastern United States. One of these with broader leaves, Claytonia caroliniana mitchix, having about the same range as Claytonia virginica from Nova Scotia southward, along the Alleghanes to Georgia and Texas. They belong to the Purcellane family, or Portulaca C.A., with which they agree in their fleshy leaves and flowers that bloom for a short time. The family is a large one, but the plants are usually small. Few of them with showy flowers like Portulaca grandiflora, which occasionally escapes from cultivation. Number three, Wild Pink, reprinted from the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, July 1912. Wild Pink, Celine caroliniana walt. Before the trees cast much shade, while their greens are still so exquisitely fresh and varied, a bright flash of color will attract the eye to the wild pink. Growing in hilly places on rocks are often in their cracks and crevices with the saxofrage. The beautiful rose pink and size of its flowers renders it very conspicuous, for it often makes a large patch or cushion with a number of stems about six to ten inches high, each bearing from three to five showy flowers more than an inch across. Each petal is wedge-shaped with a long pale white basal claw enclosed in the tubular five-notch callix and crowned at the summit of each claw by two erect white appendages. The stamens are immersed in the tube, ten in number, five long and five short, with purple anthers and slender white filaments attached at the base of the ovary, which terminates in three short styles. The pod is stipulate, developing in the upper half of the withered callix, splitting at apex into six recurved segments. The seeds are born on a central column and are small and numerous, kidney-shaped and brown, with a rough surface. The whole plant is viscid with glandular hairs forming a ciliate margin to the leaves, which are opposite, clasping at base, a swollen joint of the stem. Usually each stem has three pairs of leaves, decreasing in size upward. The basal shoots have longer leaves, all gracefully recurved, and forming a crowded cluster at the summit of a long, strong, fibrous taproot, which often penetrates deep down into some crevice and breaks off when uprooted. For this reason, the plant frequently survives in spite of its showy blossoms, though it is not abundant any longer where it is frequently picked. The wild pink was described by Thomas Walter in his Flora of Carolina in 1788, and re-described by André Michel in 1803 as Céline Pennsylvania. It often grows in sandy or rocky soil on the borders of woods from Maine to Georgia in the eastern states, along the Alleghenes, and flowers from April to June. It belongs to the pink family, or cariofilaceae, a large family of about 70 genera and over 1,500 species, which are widely distributed, mostly in temperate regions. The generic name, Céline, was given by Linnaeus in 1753 in reference to the viscid hairs, and about 250 species are known of which many are showy, graceful plants, the showiest perhaps being the fire pink, Céline, virginica, and the most graceful, the story-campion, Céline, stellata. Number four, wild columbine, reprinted from Journal of the New York Botanical Garden August 1912. Wild columbine, acolysia canandensis, knotting in the cool winds of springtime and so lightly poised on its slender stems that it is almost impossible to take its photograph. The wild columbine adorns the rocks and ledges in May with its gay red and yellow blossoms and occasionally is found in fields at middle elevations where it blooms until July. The flowers are pendant, about one to two inches long, bright red, the five short red sepals overlapping five tubular spurs which terminate below in thickened honey sacks and broaden out above into five short yellow petals attached around a long, exerted cluster of slender yellow stamens, about 50 in number. These are attached in five rows to a disc at the base of the ovaries which are five in number and hairy with five long slender styles. They develop into five follicles with long spreading points. Each follicle contains about 15 shining black seeds attached along the ventral suture. The basal leaves are pale green beneath, three-parted, and each leaflet again divided into three toothed lobes. Smaller, short-stocked, simpler leaves also grow on the flower stocks and diminish into bracts above. The stems vary in height from one to two feet and are smooth or slightly hairy above. The root is fibrous and easily uprooted and for this reason the plant largely depends on its seeds for reproduction and is likely to be quickly exterminated on account of its showy flowers. Occasionally plants are found with pale yellow blossoms growing among the normal ones. It ranges from Nova Scotia to Northwest Territory south to Florida and Texas and ascends to high altitudes in the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains. It was first described and figured by Commuty in 1635 and was called Octeligia Canadensis by Linnaeus in 1753. The generic name refers to a fancy resemblance of the spurs to the talons of an eagle. On this account and the wide range of the genus throughout the United States, it has been strenuously advocated for the honor of being called the National Flower. About 15 species of Aquilegia are known from the United States, ranging through the Rocky Mountains into Mexico and the Western States. All have showy flowers varying from white to yellow and blue and are greatly prized in cultivation. This genus belongs to the Crowfoot family, Renanculaceae, of which about 35 genera and 1,050 species are distributed throughout the temperate regions of the world. Number 5. Birdsfoot Violet reprinted from the Journal of the New York Potanical Garden, September 1912. Birdsfoot Violet, Viola Pirata After the spring is well advanced and most of the other violets have been in bloom for nearly two weeks, the birdfoot violet comes to show how lovely a violet can be. Its flowers are larger and more delicate in color than any other of our wild species. The petals spread with a jaunty air, like a pansy, and vary in color from deep violet to pale lavender or white. They stand above the leaves on long, stout pedestals and when growing in masses, as they used to on the Hempstead Plains of Long Island and Taut Hill on Staten Island, are as showy as any of the alpine violets of Europe, comparing favorably with the long spurred pansy of the alps, Viola Calcarata. The leaves give the plant its specific and common name from a fancied resemblance to a bird's foot. They are palmately divided almost to the base into narrow segments which are entire or again divided into three to five wedge-shaped subdivisions. There is greater variability in the shape and size of the leaves, and they also vary from nearly smooth to quite hairy. The rootstocks are erect and stout, scaly above, and bear a large number of leaves and flowers on each, so that the temptation is to pull up the whole plant at once. When growing luxuriously, they sometimes reach a foot in height, with a dozen or more flowers open at once. The leafstocks and pedestals are tinted with purple and vary from two to six inches or more in length. The two upper petals are bent backwards over the short spur. The two lateral ones are spreading, and the lower is broader and keeled, paler and veined with dark purple stripes, the base projecting to form a spur in which a fragrant honey is found. The stamens are five. The two lower ones spurred and all bear an orange-colored prolongation beyond the anthers which project and surround the green club-shaped stigma with a very small central stigmatic surface. The ovary is superior. One called three-angled, three-parted, one ripe, and bears the seeds in three rows on the walls. The five sepals also are unequal, thickened at base and oracled. The peculiar structure of the stamens and the fact that two of them have claws extending down into the honey-bearing spur are evidently aids in the fertilization by insects, and many of the violets are known to hybridize. Viola pirata was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in his species planterum. But it was first described and figured by Plouconnais in 1691 as Viola virginiana tricolor, fulus multifidus couchullo afila. In the vicinity of Washington D.C. and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the form known as tricolor in which the two upper petals are dark purple is more common. About 150 species of violets are known for all the temperate parts of the globe. A few occur at high altitudes in the tropics. The Viola sea comprise 15 genera and 300 species, widely distributed. Some of them are trees. End of Wild Plant's Needing Protection. This recording is in the public domain. The flying machine of the future from Practical Aeronautics by Charles B. Hayward. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bologna Times. Now that flying has become an accomplished fact, speculation as to just what the flying machine of the future will look like is quite as rife as it ever was when mankind generally regarded human flight as one of those long cherished illusions which, like perpetual motion, would endure to torment the inventive mind as long as the race existed. Wondrously impossible contrivances as large as the modern skyscraping hotel are talked of and pictured and the imagination is drawn upon to supply details that will probably never exist elsewhere. But the developments of the past few years have been so marvelous and so rapid that some, even of what now appear to be wholly fanciful machines may actually be built in the future. With all that has been accomplished in the past five years, it is evident that the first steps have scarcely been taken. The only thing that actually has been achieved is the establishment of the principles upon which human flight is based. Those elusive laws of science that had been sought in vain for centuries previous. So far as the machines themselves are concerned, they can be scarcely be said to have advanced very much. They still represent the same crude assemblage of wood, wire, and canvas that the Wright brothers and their numerous predecessors were forced to adopt for their experiments as they represented the only materials available. Before going into this phase of the matter at any length, however, it will be of interest to take up the question as to just what type of machine is likely to survive. Unpromising Types Ornithopter It was only logical that first attempts at flight should be patterned after nature. Many were of the opinion that if man were ever to fly, he must imitate the birds. Strangely enough, some people are still of this opinion. But since flight based upon a scientific study of the law's governing sustentation in the air has become a reality, they are in the minority. Man's weight and proportion to the power he is able to exert is so puny in comparison with that of the birds as to make any possibility of development along this line out of the question. Flying with power-driven wings is likewise extremely problematical, and will be apparent when the weight that must be sustained in the air is taken into consideration. The mechanism necessary to cause huge wings to beat an imitation of the bird would not only be weighty and complicated, but likewise extremely inefficient as compared with the propeller-driven soaring plane which in itself has a great deal of room for improvement. The hope of eventually being able to fly with an ornithopter as this type of machine is termed is not yet dead. A Californian, H. Lovey Twining has carried out an unusually promising series of experiments on a small scale employing man's power exerted through the medium of bicycle pedals and gearing. It is very much to be feared, however, that like the hot-air engine and numerous other inventions that appeared to promise great results from the success achieved with a small model, the ornithopter would be about as cumbersome and hopeless as its name when attempted on a scale large enough to be of any practical use. Helicopter just as there is a certain class that still looks to the ultimate development of the ornithopter, so is there likewise another class which does not appear to be influenced to any great extent by the fact that flight is an established fact. This latter class pens its faith to the helicopter which affords a still further example of how misleading may be the results obtained with a small model as related by the Wright brothers and their experience with toy helicopters. A helicopter consists essentially of a motor and a propeller, the propeller being designed to rotate in a horizontal plane and to carry the machine and the aviator aloft by reason of its downward thrust. This is the simplest type of helicopter next to the toy of the same name, but there are other types which differ only in the elaboration of their detail or in the combinations with other elements such as planes which tend to obscure their true character. Usually two propellers have been employed designed to turn in opposite directions in order that the tendency of one to rotate the whole machine with it could be offset by the other. The fallacy of the helicopter seems very self-evident and yet large sums of money and no little inventive effort have been expended and attempting to evolve something practical out of the principle of instantiation by means of the thrust of a horizontal propeller. If the object of a flying machine were merely to shoot straight up into the air from the ground, like a rocket, it might be worth something to be able to start into the air without the necessity of running along the ground which is the chief advantage claimed by its advocates though but one helicopter has ever done so with an aviator. But the single reason for the existence of the airplane is the same as that of the locomotive. The steamship, the automobile, the bicycle, and the wagon transportation and the ability to ascend straight up into the air does not bring with it any capacity for travelling in a horizontal plane. In addition to being unable to move except in a vertical plane the helicopter likewise has the somewhat serious disadvantage of being totally without any supporting surface in case of failure of the mode of power. And even with the highly developed internal combustion and motor of the present day it would indeed be a full-hardy aviator who would risk his life in a machine in which the failure of the power for even a moment meant certain death. Paul Cornu, a Frenchman, developed this type far beyond any of his contemporaries and he is said to have actually succeeded in getting off the ground thus showing an advance in that highly important particular over other helicopter machines so far built. This machine is likewise an improvement in design as the propellers are so mounted that they can be turned at an angle as was the case with Wellman's dirigible the idea being that once in the air at the desired height the thrust of the propellers or at least one of them could be exerted in a horizontal direction while the other served as a support thus providing for horizontal travel. Coming down from a height of 9,000 feet with a dead motor as has been done in an aeroplane would be a brief and exciting experience in a Cornu helicopter. Another attempt to provide a means of horizontal travel took the form of inclined planes. These were not intended in any way for support but merely to send the machine ahead by reason of the reaction of the thrust of the horizontal propellers upon them. At the present riding it seems highly improbable that anything practical will ever be done with either the ornithopter or the helicopter. Miscellaneous. Apart from the types mentioned there are hundreds that could not be classified except as freaks the majority of which are not worth even passing mention. One of these the chief merit of which appears to be its novelty this is a combination dirigible balloon and aeroplane though just what is to be gained in evolving such a hybrid is difficult to explain it is neither one nor the other and has the disadvantages of both without the merits of either. The gas bag is not of sufficient size to effectually support any weight while on the other hand it is so large as to prove practically an anchor for the aeroplane which could make but a very slow speed with such an encumbrance. End of The Flying Machine of the Future Woman's Suffrage by Bertha Remba from the birth of the new party or Progressive Democracy. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Bologna Times Woman's Suffrage this is not the first time that a party with a national platform has placed in that platform a plank favoring woman's suffrage both the socialists and prohibitionists have in repeated presidential campaigns included it in their program but this is the first time when the adoption or rejection of such plank has had more than an academic interest because for the first time the question comes before the people in the program of a party not of doctrinaries and dreamers but of men and tent to be sure upon principle but also intent upon carrying and capable of carrying such principle to a practical victory. The inclusion of this plank in the platform of the national progressive party is significant and it is gratifying to those of us who have for many years in season and out of season preached woman's suffrage but it is not surprising and it is not unexpected it is the logical and natural development of those impulses and those forces which have made the progressive party that party is in existence as the result of the expression insistent at last of a great and growing demand among the people of the United States that the standards of political morality shall true up to those of private morality that the conscience of the collective whole shall be of the same fiber as the conscience of the majority of the individuals who make up that whole that the American citizen shall be at least as decent as a politician as he is in his home and in his private business. It is natural that in the platform of this party should appear a demand for woman's suffrage for to this awakened moral sense that demand directly appeals and it appeals for various cogent reasons. In the first place the history of the nation has made democracy with us a moral instinct rather than a political doctrine. It is beside the point to discuss the intellectual section of this instinct. It is enough that the instinct is so deeply implanted in the national consciousness that even those persons and combinations of persons who most outrage the principles of democracy and their conduct have not the effrontery to deny it in their speech that with what continental Europe calls our Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy all of us talk respectively of the rights of the people no matter how we violate them. This sense of democracy part of our heritage from our revolutionary forefathers while it has endured throughout our national life has had moments of increased and moments of decreased vitality. The present is one of the moments of increased vitality. Everywhere is the demand that the democracy we profess shall become real and that the people shall in fact be allowed to rule. If the people in fact rule woman's suffrage is inevitable. There can be no true democracy if one half of demos is paralyzed and helpless and unless we stultify ourselves and give the lie to all our history there can be no perfection of American political institutions upon the lines of American development and American moral consciousness until all the American people are part of those political institutions free to function in them directly and powerfully instead of slowly and inefficiently by indirect influence. Furthermore, the moral sense of the nation is increasingly conscious of the inherent abstract injustice of its political attitude towards its women that one half of the population who must bear equally with the other half all the burdens of government its taxes, direct and indirect who must equally conform to its edicts or pay the equal penalty for their violation that this one half of the population who must control or influence upon the creation or management of that government is inherently unjust. Surely, if the philosophers and economists have left us permission to believe in any fundamental and natural rights such rights must be violated by this discrimination. But the most vital, the most compelling because the most concrete reason for the awakened American citizen in women's suffrage lies in the large body of questions before him which have ceased to be entirely or even mainly economic which have now become moral questions and in the presence before him for solution of an even larger number of other questions dealing directly with that personal and individual morality which is the one field where from time immemorial and women's instinct has been held to be as sound and cogent a quality as man's women have been often in the past thought mentally or physically incapable of this or that effort mentally or physically unworthy of this or that privilege they have never been thought inferior when it came to the vision of duty or to its performance now the question of this vision of duty and its performance is increasingly becoming a factor in politics the American people have realized the significance of that pestilence which for lack of some more accurate name we call the white slave traffic and the moral and physical damnation wrought by it every year to thousands of men and women they have begun to realize the cost in human souls as well as bodies of letting little children work out their school time and their playtime and factories they have even begun to realize what happens when women are compelled to work for such hours and under such conditions as make it impossible for them to maintain decent homes and rear normal children they have to realize that when police officials take money for allowing gamblers to break the law and kill or connive at the killing of possible informers to stop their tales something else has happened besides a miscarriage of administrative efficiency they have begun to realize when big business eliminates competition and reduces the cost of production that something else may have happened besides commendable organization they have begun to realize that great simple and personal moral laws have been broken in these cases and that communities as well as persons may be criminals it is no reflection upon the morality of men nor upon their intelligence that they are coming to see the great moral political questions the constructive value of much that they have already done that they are now trying to do upon these lines is admitted neither is it claimed that women will solve these problems at once or that they could, unaided do better at the solution than men have done perhaps alone they might not even do as well least of all is it any accusation that there has been on the part of men intentional injustice toward women or intentional injustice toward the moral questions and issues for which women have cared we are willing to allow as indeed we feel we must allow due credit for all the devotion to the ideals of public morality and decency and efficiency for which great men have times without number splendidly sacrificed themselves for which many men have striven nobly and for which men has with average constancy done his average best we admit moreover that women are politically inexperienced that they have much to learn in the matter of playing the game that they will doubtless make many blunders in the progress of their learning we admit if you like that women have upon many occasions been very silly very hysterical and very impractical so that they will probably be so again we admit that utopia will not come at once when women vote perhaps utopia will never come anyway but we do claim that the men facing these new old problems of public ethics as applied to concrete public facts and conditions cannot afford if they wish to solve these problems intelligently to ignore one half of the people who might assist them in their work a part of the people just now deeply stirred to great endeavor who would bring a new and unfettered moral outlook to the electorate and a new and vital force to the public service in the early days of the movement for women's suffrage it was met by many arguments against its fitness against its possibility and against its inherent righteousness the day of these arguments has gone by and in their place we are met with an almost endless array of more or less practical questions half veiled hostility half real inquiry we are asked whether the undesirable and criminal women will not make more use of the ballot in proportion to their numbers than the respectable women whether the number of the ignorant foreign voters will not be increased out of proportion to the increase of the electorate we are asked what has been the effect of women's suffrage where tried on various economic questions such as equal pay for equal work we are asked whether as a matter of fact the woman voter will not sooner or later find herself because of her inherent temperament in the ranks of the conservatives and stan patterns and so will prove a drag on human progress and not a help to it we are asked whether as a matter of fact nine tenths of the women voters do not eventually find themselves in the ranks of the socialists we are asked innumerable questions some silly some wise all of them answerable we believe to the satisfaction of any fair-minded citizen but to answer them would require space and time not now at my disposal end of Woman's Suffrage by Bertha Remba this recording is in the public domain the autobiography of an X colored man chapter one by James Weldon Johnson this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Bologna Times chapter one the autobiography of an X colored man I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great secret of my life the secret which for some years I have guarded far more carefully than any of my earthly possessions and it is a curious study to me to analyze the motives which prompt me to do it I feel that I am led by the same impulse which forces the unfound out criminal to take somebody into his confidence although he knows that the act is liable even almost certain to lead to his undoing I know that I am playing with fire and I feel the thrill which accompanies that most fascinating pastime and back of it all I think I find a sort of savage and diabolical desire to gather up all the little tragedies of my life and turn them into a practical joke on society and two I suffer a vague feeling of unsatisfaction of regret, of almost remorse from which I am seeking relief and of which I shall speak in the last paragraph of this account I was born in a little town of Georgia a few years after the close of the Civil War I shall not mention the name of the town because there are people still living there who could be connected with this narrative I have only a faint recollection of the place of my birth at times I can close my eyes and call up in a dream-like way things that seem to have happened ages ago in some other world I can see in this half vision a little house I am quite sure it was not a large one I can remember that flowers grew in the front yard and that around each bed of flowers was a hedge of very colored glass bottles stuck in the ground necked down I remember that once, while playing around in the sand, I became curious to know whether or not the bottles grew as the flowers did and I proceeded to dig them up to find out the investigation brought me a terrific spanking which indelibly fixed the incident in my mind I can remember too that behind the house was a shed under which stood two or three wooden wash tubs these tubs were the earliest aversion of my life for regularly on certain evenings I was plunged into one of them and scrubbed until my skin ached I can remember to this day the pain caused by the strong rank-soap getting into my eyes back from the house a vegetable garden ran perhaps 75 or 100 feet but to my childish fancy it was an endless territory I can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement and wonder it gave me to go on an exploring expedition through it to find the blackberries both ripe and green that grew along the edge of the fence I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive at stand before a little enclosure in which stood a patient cow chewing her cud how I would occasionally offer her through the bars a piece of my bread and molasses and how I would jerk back my hand and half-fright if she made an emotion to accept my offer I have a dim recollection of several people who moved in and about this little house but I have a distinct mental image of only two one my mother and the other a tall man with a small dark mustache I remember that his shoes or boots were always shiny and that he wore a gold chain and a great gold watch with which he was always willing to let me play my admiration was almost equally divided between the watch and the shoes he used to come to the house evenings, perhaps two or three times I came, I appointed duty whenever he came to bring him a pair of slippers and to put the shiny shoes in a particular corner he often gave me in return for this service a bright coin which my mother taught me to promptly drop into a little tent bank I remember distinctly the last time this tall man came to the little house in Georgia that evening before I went to bed he took me up in his arms my mother stood behind his chair wiping tears from her eyes I remember how I sat upon his knee and watched him laboriously drill a hole through a ten dollar gold piece and then tie the coin around my neck with a string I have worn that gold piece around my neck the greater part of my life and still possess it but more than once I have wished that some other way had been found of attaching it to me putting a hole through it on the day after the coin was put around my neck my mother and I started on what seemed to be an endless journey I knelt on the seat and watched through the train window the corn and cotton fields pass swiftly by until I fell asleep when I fully awoke we were being driven through the streets of a large city Savannah I sat up and blinked at the bright lights at Savannah we boarded a steamer which finally landed us in New York from New York we went to a town in Connecticut which became the home of my boyhood my mother and I lived together in a little cottage which seemed to me to be fitted up almost luxuriously there were horse hair covered chairs in the parlor and a little square piano there was a stairway with red carpet on it leading to a half second story there were pictures on the walls and a few books in a glass-stored case my mother dressed me very neatly and I developed that pride which well-dressed boys generally have she was careful about my associates and I myself was quite particular as I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat my mother rarely went to anyone's house but she did sewing and there were great many ladies coming to our cottage if I were around they would generally call me and ask me my name and age and tell my mother what a pretty boy it was some of them would pat me on the head and kiss me my mother was kept very busy with her sewing sometimes she would have another woman helping her I think she must have derived a fair income from her work I know too that at least once each month she received a letter I used to watch for the postman get the letter and run to her with it whether she was busy or not she would take it and instantly thrust it into her bosom I never saw her read one of them I knew later that these letters contained money and what was to her more than money as busy as she generally was she, however, found time to teach me my letters and figures and how to spell easy words always on Sunday evening she opened the little square piano and picked out hymns I can recall now that whenever she played hymns from the book her tempos were always decidedly Largo sometimes on other evenings when she was not sewing she would play simple accompaniments to some old southern songs which she sang in these songs she was freer because she played them by ear and on which she opened the little piano were the happiest hours of my childhood whenever she started to word the instrument I used to follow her with all the interest and irrepressible joy that a pampered pet dog shows when a package is opened in which he knows there is a sweet bit for him I used to stand by her side and often interrupt and annoy her by chiming in with strange harmonies which I found on the high keys of the treble or low keys of the bass I remember that I had a particular fondness for the black keys always on such evenings when the music was over my mother would sit with me in her arms often for a very long time she would hold me close softly crooning some old melody without words all the while gently stroking her face against my head many and many a night I fell asleep I can see her now her great dark eyes looking into the fire to where no one knew but she the memory of that picture has more than once kept me from straying too far from the place of purity and safety in which her arms held me at a very early age I began to thump on the piano along and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes when I was seven years old I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my mother knew I had also learned the names of the notes in both clubs but I preferred not to be hampered by notes about this time several ladies for whom my mother sewed heard me play and they persuaded her that I should at once be put under a teacher so arrangements were made for me to study the piano with a lady who was a fairly good musician at the same time arrangements were made for me to study my books with this lady's daughter my music teacher had no small difficulty at first in pinning me down to the notes if she played my lesson over for me I invariably attempted to reproduce the required sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters her daughter my other teacher also had her worries she found that in reading whenever I came to words that were difficult or unfamiliar I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from the picture she has laughingly told me since then that I would sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed she said she sometimes was not only amused at the fresh treatment I would give her subject but that when I gave some new and suddenly turned to the plot of the story she often grew interested and even excited and listening to hear what kind of denouement I would bring about but I am sure this was not due to dullness for I made rapid progress in both my music and my books and so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books music took up the greater part of my time I had no playmates but amused myself with games some of them my own invention which could be played alone I knew a few boys whom I had met at the church which I attended with my mother but I had formed no close friendships with any of them then when I was nine years old my mother decided to enter me in the public school so all at once I found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds some of them seemed to me like savages I shall never forget the bewilderment, the pain the heart-sickness of that first day at school I seemed to be the only stranger in the place every other boy seemed to know every other boy I was fortunate enough however to be assigned to a teacher who knew me my mother made her dresses for the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me she had the tact to address a few words directly to me this gave me a certain sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease within a few days I had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good terms with most of the boys I was shy of the girls and remained so even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a tremble I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way he was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of very red hair he was perhaps 14 years of age that is 4 or 5 years older than any other boy in the class this seniority was due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in several of the preceding classes I had not been at school many hours before I felt that Redhead as I involuntarily called him and I were to be friends I do not doubt that this feeling was strengthened by the fact that I had been quick enough to see that a big strong boy was a friend to be desired at a public school and perhaps in spite of his dullness Redhead had been able to discern that I could be of service to him at any rate there was any as mutual attraction the teacher had strung the class promiscuously round the walls of the room for a sort of trial heat for places of rank when the line was straightened out I found that by skillful maneuvering I had placed myself third and had piloted Redhead to the place next to me the teacher began by giving us to spell the words corresponding to our order in the line spell first spell second spell third I rattled off T H I R D third in a way which said what did you give us something hard as the words went down the line I could see how lucky I had been to get a good place together with an easy word as young as I was I felt impressed with the unfairness when I saw the tail enders going down before 12th and 20th and I felt sorry for those who had to spell such words in order to hold a low position spell fourth Redhead with his hands clutched tightly behind his back began bravely F O R T H like a flash a score of hands went up the teacher began saying no snapping of fingers this was the first word missed and it seemed to me that some of the scholars were about to lose their senses some were dancing up and down on one foot with a hand above their heads the fingers working furiously and joy beaming all over their faces others stood still their hands raised not so high their fingers working less rapidly and their faces expressing much happiness there were still others who did not move nor raise their hands but stood with great wrinkles on their foreheads looking very thoughtful the whole thing was new to me and I did not raise my hand but slightly whispered the letter U to Redhead several times second chance said the teacher the hands went down quietly quiet Redhead his face now red after looking beseechingly at the ceiling then pitiably at the floor began very haltingly F U immediately an impulse to raise hands went through the class but the teacher checked it and poor Redhead though he knew that each letter he added only took him farther out of the way doggedly on and finished R T H the hand raising was now repeated with more hubbub and excitement than at first those who before had not moved a finger were now waving their hands above their heads Redhead felt that he was lost he looked very big and foolish and some of the scholars began to snicker his helpless condition went straight to my heart my sympathies I felt that if he failed it would in some way be my failure I raised my hand and under cover of the excitement and the teacher's attempts to regain order I hurriedly shot up into his ear twice quite distinctly F O U R T H F O U R T H the teacher tapped on her desk and said last chance the hands came down the silence became oppressive Redhead began F since that day I have waited anxiously for many a turn of the Wheel of Fortune but never under greater tension than I watch for the order in which those letters would fall from Red's lips O U R T H a sigh of relief and disappointment went up from the class afterwards through all our school days Redhead shared my wit and quickness and I benefited by his strength and dogged faithfulness there were some black and brown boys and girls in the school and several of them were in my class one of the boys strongly attracted my attention from the first day I saw him his face was as black as night but shown as though he was polished he had sparkling eyes and when he opened his mouth he displayed glistening white teeth it struck me at once as appropriate to call him shiny face or shiny eyes or shiny teeth I spoke of him often by one of these names to the other boys these terms were finally merged into shiny and to that name he answered naturally during the balance of his public school days shiny was considered without question to be the best speller the best reader the best penman in a word the best scholar in the class he was very quick to catch anything but nevertheless studied hard thus he possessed two powers very rarely combined in one boy I saw him year after year on up into the high school when the majority of the prizes were punctuality deportment essay writing and declamation yet it did not take me long to discover that in spite of his standing as a scholar he was in some way looked down upon the other black boys and girls were still more looked down upon some of the boys often spoke of them as niggers sometimes on the way home from school a crowd would walk behind them repeating nigger nigger never die black face and shiny eye on one such occasion one of the black boys turned suddenly on his tormentors and hurled a slate it struck one of the white boys in the mouth cutting a slight gash in his lip at sight of the blood the boy who had thrown the slate ran and his companions quickly followed we ran after them pelting them with stones until they separated in several directions I was very much wrought up over the affair and went home and told my mother how one of the niggers had struck a boy with a slate I shall never forget how she turned on me don't you ever use that word again she said and don't you ever bother the colored children at school you ought to be ashamed of yourself I did hang my head in shame but not because she had convinced me that I had done wrong but because I was hurt by the first sharp word she had ever given me my school days ran along very pleasantly I stood well in my studies not always so well with regard to my behavior I was never guilty of any serious misconduct but my love of fun sometimes got me into trouble I remember however that my sense of humor was so sly that most of the trouble was on the head of the other fellow my ability to play on the piano at school exercises was looked upon as little short of marvelous in a boy of my age I was not chummy with many of my mates but on the whole was about as popular as it is good for a boy to be one day near the end of my second term at school the principal came into her room and after talking to the teacher for some reason said I wish all of the white scholars would know what I meant I rose with the others the teacher looked at me and calling my name said you sit down for the present and rise with the others I did not quite understand her and questioned ma'am she repeated with a softer tone in her voice you sit down now and rise with the others I sat down dazed the students were asked to rise I did not know it when school was dismissed I went out in a kind of stupor a few of the white boys jeered at me saying oh you're a nigger too I heard some black children saying we knew he was colored shiny said to them come along don't tease him and thereby won my undying gratitude I hurried on as fast as I could and had gone some distance before I perceived that redhead was walking by my side after a while he said to me let me carry your books I gave him my strap without being able to answer when we got to my gate he said as he handed me my books say you know my big red agate I can't shoot with it anymore I'm gonna bring it to school for you tomorrow I took my books and ran into the house as I passed through the hallway my mother was busy with one of her customers I rushed up into my own little room shut the door and went quickly to where my looking-glass hung on the wall for an instant I was afraid to look but when I did I looked long and earnestly I had often heard people say to my mother what a pretty boy you have I was accustomed to hear remarks about my beauty but now for the first time I became conscious of it and recognized it I noticed the ivory whiteness of my skin the beauty of my mouth the size and liquid darkness of my eyes and how the long black lashes that fringed and shaded them produced an effect that was strangely fascinating even to me I noticed the softness and glossiness of my dark hair that fell in waves over my temples making my forehead appear whiter than it really was how long I stood there gazing at my image I do not know when I came out and reached the head of the stairs I heard the lady who had been with my mother going out I ran downstairs and rushed to where my mother was sitting with a piece of work in her hands I buried my head in her lap and blurted out mother mother tell me am I a nigger I could not see her face but I knew the piece of work dropped to the floor I held her hands on my head I looked up into her face and repeated tell me mother am I a nigger there were tears in her eyes and I could see that she was suffering for me and then it was that I looked at her critically for the first time I had thought of her in a childish way only as the most beautiful woman in the world now I looked at her searching for defects I could see that her skin was almost brown that her hair was not so soft as mine and that she did differ in some way from the other ladies who came to the house yet even so I could see that she was very beautiful more beautiful than any of them she must have felt that I was examining her for she hit her face in my hair and said with difficulty no my darling you are not a nigger she went on you are as good as anybody if anyone calls you a nigger don't notice them but the more she talked the less was I reassured and I stopped her by asking well mother am I white are you white she answered tremblingly no I am not white but your father is one of the greatest men in the country the best blood of the south is in you this suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving and fear and I almost fiercely demanded who is my father where is he she stroke my hair and said I'll tell you about him some day I sob I want to know now she answered no not now perhaps it had to be done but I have never forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly it may be that she never knew that she gave me a sword thrust that day in school which was years in healing end of chapter one the autobiography of an ex-colored man by James Weldon Johnson a museum of oriental art by Lionel Gust read by Bologna Times this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain a museum of oriental art by Lionel Gust the recent ever memorable visit of the King Emperor of India with Queen Empress to his Indian dominions and their safe and happy return from their mission of goodwill and sympathy with the oriental races under the sway of the British Crown have done much to bring home to the minds of thoughtful people at home the need for better comprehension and acquaintance something more than scholastic and exotic with the habits, customs religious observances and artistic expression of the various races under the British flag it seems to be generally accepted at home as well as in India that the personal visit of the King Emperor has been much towards providing an efficient means of breaking down the intellectual barriers between East and West although India must continue to be a dependency controlled by military force it is not to this form of hegemony that one must look for the desired result even justice administered by vigorous and impartial law cannot be relied upon for supplying the milk of human sympathy in an alien race religion and the fine arts being both in their different ways modes of expression of mankind's craving for the ideal for some knowledge of the unknowable some solution of the mysteries of good and evil some approachment towards the end and object of all things are perhaps the field on which Eastern and Western minds should be able to understand each other best in spite of the intense and perhaps to some minds hopeless antagonism between East and West at the present time that the minds of thinkers and statesmen even of leaders of religion are not adverse from discussion and further intruction upon Oriental literature and teaching has been shown by the renewed demand for an extension of facilities for Oriental studies and the recognition of such studies as essential for the welfare of the British nation as perhaps the greatest Oriental power in the world at this point it should be said that Oriental studies must be held to cover the whole field of Asia in addition to India and its diverse races Persia Tibet China Japan are all emanations of distinct but allied lines of intellectual development and human progress while the whole of the religion of Islam as a working power in the history of the world in more than one continent demands more knowledge and attention than is at present given to it in this country the recent expeditions to Chinese Turkestan German and French though promoted by British enterprise have revealed treasures of artistic and literary knowledge and have thrown much light upon the interdependence of Chinese and Indian art attention has been drawn in the Burlington magazine to the valuable results already obtained from the discoveries of Dr. Orl Stein and M Pellet in Turkestan it is surmised that similar expeditions in the unknown and inhospitable region of Tibet might lead to discoveries of equal worth the writings of Dr. Ananda Kumara Swami of which a valuable example is contributed to this number of the magazine have thrown a new light upon the history of painting in India a subject already illuminated by the patient research and acumen of Mrs. Haringham Mr. Havel and others have contributed to the same cause Mr. Lawrence Binion of the British Museum has taken up this task of expounding British audiences the history and the meaning of the fine arts in the Far East one need only walk down Bond Street and St. James Street to become aware how assertive in the market have become the wearers of the Far East in ceramics and textiles even in painting and sculpture what has been and is still the official attitude towards Oriental art what steps must the student of Oriental art fresh from the wonderful organizations in Berlin, Paris and elsewhere on the continent take to pursue his researches in London he is aware that the British nation possesses treasures of Oriental art of surpassing interest but where is he to find them well he must be told that he must go to the British Museum and on the main staircase who will find the sculptures from the famous Amaravati Tope but he must not expect to find any other examples of Indian or Oriental sculpture in that institution if he wishes to study Chinese and Japanese painting he must go to the department of prints and drawings but if he wishes to study Chinese and Japanese printed books he must go to a special section of the library downstairs if he wishes to study paintings and manuscripts he must go to yet another department in the museum that of manuscripts if he be working on ethnological lines he will find much to interest him connected with Aboriginal and savage races of either hemisphere but little of real use to him relating to the more highly developed civilizations of the Far East in most cases he will be advised to complete his studies by a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum let us follow him there the student will probably make his way first to the Indian Museum or more strictly speaking that section of the Victoria and Albert Museum which is set apart by the Board of Education for the exhibition of certain industries practice at the present day in India in this part of the museum which he will probably have entirely to himself he will find an interesting but quite uninstructive exhibition of certain industrial products of India textiles joinery, ceramics all arranged according to a hide bound system of classification by subject without much reference to the intellectual, racial climatic or any other circumstances which have governed the progress and produce of these industries the products of Send, of Rajputana of Bengal, of Madras of Nepal and even of Tibet are classified together under subject quite regardless of geographical or racial distinctions this unfortunate set of affairs is brought about by our national disease of compromise the middle course whereby the regulations insisted upon by the Board of Education are adhered to on the one hand and the equally insistent demands of the Indian government are met on the other resulting in complete negation of any satisfactory result other than solving the a more proper of each department of the state our student however may wish to pursue the study of ceramics further and will be told that he must cross the road and look for Chinese, Japanese and Persian ceramics in the main collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum bearing always in mind that an important section of national property in the case of oriental ceramics is to be found in the British Museum if he wishes to study embroidery he must hunt for oriental examples other than Indian another department if he wishes to study architecture and the plastic art it will be difficult to instruct him exactly what to do and he may run some risk of being recommended just as doctors recommend a long sieve wedge to attire some patient to try the Imperial Institute and the Bethnal Green Museum if it be once recognized that the arts of the Far East have been still being evolved out of a continuous progression of human thought and intellectual expression derived more directly from primitive civilizations than the arts of the West and rarely influenced at any time by these western arts with advantage to either side it will be understood how necessary it must be to have a museum of oriental art alone in direct connection to the Institute for Oriental Studies if it be also recognized that all our own traditions of religion, our very race history, the foundations of our European languages are traceable by common acceptance and in many cases by actual proof to an Asiatic source we should feel conscious of a greater debt to Asiatic intelligence than we have ever even attempted to pay. There is no need for controversy no need for antagonism between Christianity on the one hand and Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism on the other between the cannons and ideals of western art as derived from the pure intellectual atmosphere of Halas and the more turbid streams of art in Persia, India or China the establishment of a national school of oriental studies and a museum of oriental art attached to it would be proof not only of the importance of the position of the British Empire as an oriental power but of that simple blending of this power with human sympathy and goodwill which was lately symbolized by the figure of the king, emperor and person on his throne at Delhi. End of A Museum of Oriental Art by Lionel Gust and Analogy from New Conscience and an Ancient Evil by Jane Adams Read by Bologna Times This is a LibberVox recording All LibberVox recordings are in the public domain and Analogy In every large city throughout the world thousands of women are so set aside as outcasts from decent society that it is considered an impropriety to speak the very word which designates them Lecky calls this type of woman the most mournful and the most awful figure in history he says that she remains while crids and civilizations rise and fall and the eternal sacrifice of humanity blasted for the sins of the people but evils so old that they are embedded in man's earliest history have been known to sway before enlightened public opinion and in the end to give way to a growing conscience which regards them first as a moral affront and at length as an utter impossibility Thus the generation just before us our own fathers uprooted the enormous opus of slavery the tree that was literally as old as the race of man although slavery doubtless the beginnings and the captives of man's earliest warfare even as this existing evil thus originated those of us who think we discern the beginnings of a new conscience in regard to this twin of slavery as old and outrageous as slavery itself and even more persistent find a possible analogy between certain civic philanthropic and educational efforts directed against the very existence of this social evil and similar organized efforts which preceded the overthrow of slavery in America thus long before slavery was finally declared illegal there were international regulations of its traffic state and federal legislation concerning its extension and many extra legal attempts to control its abuses quite as we have the international regulations concerning the white slave traffic the state and interstate legislation for its repression and an extra legal power in connection with it so universally given to the municipal police that the possession of this power has become one of the great sources of corruption in every American city before society was ready to proceed against the institution of slavery as such groups of men and women by means of the underground railroad established and educated individual slaves it is scarcely necessary to point out the similarity to the rescue homes and preventive associations which every great city contains it is always easy to overwork an analogy and yet the economist who for years insisted that slave labor continually and arbitrarily limited the wages of free labor and was therefore a detriment to national wealth in the context of today who points out the economic basis of the social evil the connection between low wages and despair between over fatigue and the demand for reckless pleasure before the American nation agreed to regard slavery as unjustifiable from the standpoint of public morality an army of reformers lecturers and writers set forth its enormity of appeal and of portrayal concerning the human cruelty to which the system lent itself we can discern the scouts and outposts of a similar army advancing against this existing evil the physicians and sanitarians who are committed to the task of ridding the race from contagious diseases the teachers and lecturers who are appealing to the higher morality of thousands of young people in literature not only biological and didactic but of a popular type more closely approaching Uncle Tom's Cabin throughout the agitation for the abolition of slavery in America there were statesmen who gradually became convinced of the political and moral necessity of giving to the freedmen the protection of the ballot in this current agitation there are at least a few men and women who would extend a greater social and political freedom to all women if only because domestic control has proved so ineffectual we may certainly take courage from the fact that our contemporaries are fired by social compassion and enthusiasm to which even our immediate predecessors were indifferent such compunctions have ever manifested themselves in varying degrees of order of groups in the same community thus among those who are newly aroused to action in regard to the social evil are many who would endeavor to regulate it and believe they can minimize its dangers still larger numbers who would eliminate all trafficking of unwilling victims in connection with it and yet others who believe that as a quasi-legal institution it may be absolutely abolished perhaps the analogy to the abolition of slavery is most striking in that these groups in their varying points of view are like those earlier associations which differed widely in regard to chattel slavery only the so-called extremists in the first instance stood for abolition and they were continually told that what they proposed was clearly impossible the legal and commercial obstacles, bolt large were placed before them and it was confidently asserted that the blame for the historic existence of slavery lay deep within human nature itself yet gradually all of these associations reached the point of view of the abolitionists and before the war was over even the most lukewarm unionists saw no other solution of the nation's difficulty some such gradual conversion to the point of view of abolition is the experience of every society or group of people who seriously face the difficulties and complications of the social evil certainly all the national organizations the national vigilance committee the American purity federation the alliance for the suppression and prevention of the white slave traffic and many others stand for the final abolition of commercialized vice local vice commissions such as the able one recently appointed in Chicago although composed of members of varying beliefs in regard to the possibility of control and regulation united in the end in recommending a law enforcement looking towards final abolition even the most skeptical of Chicago citizens after reading the fearless document shared the hope of the commission that the city when aroused to the truth would instantly rebel against the social evil in all its phases a similar recommendation of ultimate abolition was recently made unanimous by the Minneapolis vice commission after the conversion of many of its members doubtless all of the national societies have before them a task only less gigantic than that faced by those early associations in America for the suppression of slavery although it may be legitimate to remind them that the best known anti-slavery society in America was organized by the New England abolitionists in 1836 and only 36 years later in 1872 was formally disbanded because its object had been accomplished the long struggle ahead of these newer associations will doubtless claim that its martyrs and its heroes has indeed already claimed them during the last 30 years few righteous causes have escaped baptism with blood nevertheless to paraphrase Lincoln's speech if blood were exacted drop by drop and measured to the tears of anguished mothers and enslaved girls the nation would still be obliged to go into the struggle throughout this volume the phrase social evil is used to designate the sexual commerce permitted to exist in every large city usually in a segregated district wherein the chastity of women is bought and sold modifications of legal codes regarding marriage and divorce moral judgments concerning the entire group of questions centering about illicit affection between men and women are quite other questions which are not considered here such problems must always remain distinct from those of commercialized vice as must the treatment of an irreducible minimum of prostitution which will doubtless long exist quite as society still retains an irreducible minimum of murders this volume does not deal with the probable future of prostitution and gives only such historical background as is necessary to understand the present situation it endeavors to present the contributory causes as they have become registered in my consciousness through a long residence in a crowded city quarter and to state the indications as I have seen them of a new conscience with its many and varied manifestations nothing is gained by making the situation better or worse than it is nor in any ways different from what it is ancient evil is indeed social in the sense of community responsibility and can only be understood and at length remedied when we face the fact and measure the resources which may at length be massed against it perhaps the most striking indication that our generation has become the bearer of a new moral consciousness in regard to the existence of commercialized vice is the fact that the mere contemplation of it throws the more sensitive women among our contemporaries into a state of indignant revolt it is doubtless and instinctive shrinking from this emotion and an unconscious dread that this modern sensitiveness will be outraged which justifies to themselves so many moral men and women in their persistent ignorance of the subject yet one of the most obvious resources at our command which might well be utilized at once if it is to be utilized at all is the overwhelming pity and sense of protection which the recent revelations in the white slave traffic have aroused for the thousands of young girls many of them still children who are yearly sacrificed to the quote sense of the people all of this emotion ought to be made of value for quite as a state of emotion is invariably the organic preparation for action so it is certainly true that no profound spiritual transformation can take place without it after all human progress is deeply indebted to a study of imperfections and the counsels of despair if not full of seasoned wisdom are at least fertile in suggestion and a desperate spur to action sympathetic knowledge is the only way of approach to any human problem and the line of least resistance into the jungle of human wretchedness must always be through that region which is most thoroughly explored not only by the information of the statistician but by sympathetic understanding we are daily attaining the latter through such authors as Sutterman and Elsa Jerusalem who have enabled the readers to comprehend the so-called fallen woman through a skillful portrayal of the reaction of experience upon personality their realism has rescued her from the sentimentality surrounding an impossible Camille quite as their fellow craftsmen in realism have replaced the weeping amelias of the Victorian period by reasonable women transcribed from actual life the treatment of the subject in American literature is at present in the pamphleteering stage although an ever-increasing number of short stories and novels deal with it on the other hand the plays through which Bernard Shaw constantly places the truth before the public in England as Brew is doing for the public in France produce in the spectators a disquieting sense that society is involved in commercialized vice and must speedily find a way out such writing is like the roll of the drum which announces the approach of the troops ready for action some of the writers who are performing this valiant service are related to those great artists who in every age enter into a long struggle with existing social conditions until after many years they change the outlook upon life for at least a handful of their contemporaries their readers find themselves no longer bewildered spectators of a given social wrong but have become conscious of their own hypocrisy in regard to it and they realize that a veritable horror simply because it was hidden had come to seem to them inevitable and almost normal many traces of this first uneasy consciousness regarding the social evil are found in contemporary literature for while the business of literature is revelation and not reformation it may yet perform for the men and women now living that purification of the imagination and intellect which the Greeks believed to come through pity and terror secure in the knowledge of evolutionary processes we have learned to talk glibly of the obligations of race progress and of the possibility of racial degeneration in this respect certainly we have a wider outlook than that possessed by our fathers who so valiantly grappled with chattel slavery and secured its overthrow may the new conscience gather force until men and women acting under its sway shall be constrained to eradicate this ancient evil End of an Analogy by Jane Adams The Awakening of Spring by Michael Elliott from the drama magazine a quarterly review issue number 5 February 1912 reading by Bologna Times this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain The Awakening of Spring this play if that can be called a play which does not know the unities has neither plot nor climax which is simply a series of accidental catastrophes this bit of writing then which might better be called a conjuries of calamities the subtitle of which is A Tragedy of Childhood is translated from the German of Frank Wiedekin by Francis J. Ziegler who prepares one more or less for the play with 12 pages written by himself and called a Proem for Prudes this proem is very necessary and very enlightening for besides deprecating in almost every sentence the criticism of said prudes this proem gives an appreciation so to speak of Mr. Wiedekin and his work Mr. Ziegler says of Wiedekin his name is just beginning to be heard in America in Germany he has been recognized for some time as one of the leaders in the new art of the theater naturally enough his plays are too outspoken in the realism to appeal to all his fellow countrymen but if certain Germans reject this mental pablum others become intoxicated by it and waxing enthusiastic with a flow of language almost bachic as a forerunner of a new drama as a power destined to infuse fresh strength into the German stage with this strength in its body writes one admirer the public will never more endure lyrical lemonade nor the dregs of dramatic penury Mr. Ziegler goes on Wiedekin it is true has a habit of using the news of the day as material for his plays which English dramatists did when they wrote domestic tragedies he has a fondness moreover for gruesome situations but of the childlike simplicity which marks much of the Elizabethan drama there is not a particle Mr. Ziegler says further that his author has no trace of the gentle romanticism of Hopman or of even the iconoclast Strenberg Wiedekin departs from pure realism his fancy creates a gothic nightmare of horrors we are then introduced to a synopsis of the work of this author after which one does not feel so to say eager to pursue the study of Mr. Wiedekin say perhaps as a part of the business of keeping up with the procession Mr. Ziegler admits that the playwright has attacked his theme with European frankness which is quite true Mr. Ziegler admits also that Wiedekin has been accused of depicting his adults as too ignorant and too indifferent to the needs of the younger generation Mr. Ziegler might have added that these adults were depicted also as being singularly stupid and the younger generation as being singularly degenerate far more so let us hope than as usual with physically healthy children as the children in this play seem to be of course all understand that the playwright in order to drive home the lesson he seems to think necessary has focused not only all the ills of early youth but all the possible ills and such a method will make an awful picture of any season of life or state of being mercifully for humanity all the ills seldom accumulate on one person or group of persons at one and the same time one is a trifle saddened however when a little further on Mr. Ziegler reports that this play has in Berlin become part of the regular stock of plays acted at Das Neut Theater where it is said to be certain of drawing a crowded audience later Mr. Ziegler comforts us a little as to drum and taste and thought by explaining that in order to estimate the relationship of this play toward modern thought in Germany it must be understood that Wiedeken's tragedy is merely one of the documents in a paper war which has resulted at last in having the physiology of sex taught in many German schools war measures we find in history are usually to be apologized for but not repeated in times of peace however all this may be unnecessary to tell all to children why should not the fathers and mothers undertake this more or less disagreeable task why need the public be dragged in to assist at this function do not fathers remember enough of their boyhood and mothers enough of their girlhood to guard their children either by explanation or by watching if a man or woman has married a degenerate is not he or she capable of watching for the same in the children and training it out of said children in short is there no private method of doing these things not making them private because of any innate wickedness in things natural of any prudery in audience or reader but simply on the ground of the unpleasantness of the subject many physical things are unpleasant and so are kept decently in the background why not the subject discuss so very frankly in the awakening of spring are we not sufficiently afflicted with nauseating horrors in the pages of the daily press the source we are told of mr. weedkins inspiration are not the medical advertisements with the attached pictures of the dreadful looking people who have been cured of various unspeakable diseases people so very ugly that on aesthetic grounds they should have been let die at once are not these things a sufficient punishment has not humanity to endure many of these physical mental and moral horrors in their own persons and is not this enough without having in addition to meet them in literature on the stage and consequently in everyday talk has mr. Ziegler done anything toward the uplift of the country or toward the gaity of nations by this translation does he think that already America has become what it bids fair to become a people so mongrel that degeneracy will be the common inheritance one more word of comfort we find in the pro m2 prudes mr. Ziegler says as a play the awakening of spring stands unique in the annals of dramatic art as the old darkies say glory be end of the awakening of spring serabarnwell eliot the birth of tecumseh from the story of tecumseh by norman s gird this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain reading by balona times the birth of tecumseh by norman s gird in the latter part of the 18th century there stood on the banks of the mad river a tributary of the ohio about 7 miles below the site of the present city of springfield a village of the shawaho indians called piqua this village had been built on the site of an ancient indian town known as chelacothe near the river the banks of which at this point were about 20 feet high stood a rude fort built of logs surrounded by a stockade of cedar pickets outside the stockade were grouped the huts and wigwams of the inhabitants and surrounding the village were the cornfields and orchards looking to the southward there met the eye a stretch of prairie land hemmed in by the forest on this prairie roamed occasional herds of buffalo wanderers from the great plains and antelope were to be seen in great numbers feeding on the rich prairie grass beyond the village to the westward lay the unbroken forest on the north the land was rough and broken rising abruptly into rocky cliffs here and there a dwarfed cedar or pine clung to the face of the precipice with gnarled and twisted roots or a hardy vine hung its green curtain like a rock to the eastward ran the mad river in its impetuous descent to the Ohio amid these scenes the young tecamsa was born in the year 1768 his father pakeshenwa was the chief of the kiskapoke and his mother met by wataski a member of the turtle band both clans of the shawano tribe which was itself a sub-tribe of the great algonquin nature the name tecamsa the primary meaning of which is a panther springing upon its prey also signifies a shooting star the vivid imagination of the indians picturing a falling star as the panther of the sky tecamsa was the fourth child and three other children were born after him chisika the eldest of the family achieved some fame as a warrior lali wasika later known as the prophet was closely associated with tecamsa throughout his life of the other members of the family little is known to save their names according to the indian custom the young tecamsa immediately after his birth was placed in a sack made of soft deer skin laced up the front with leather thongs and decorated with embroidery of colored quills this was strapped to a flat board having a wooden bow extending over the infant's head even though she was the wife of the chief tecamsa's mother had little time to devote to her child she must gather firewood prepare and cook the food brought in by the hunters make and mend the deer skin clothing and moccasins care the skins of deer and other animals and sow and cultivate and reap their little harvest of indian corn for the first year of his life the little tecamsa was carried about by his mother and the odd little cradle strapped to her back when she worked in the fields she would place the cradle against a tree or pass the loop over a branch so that the cradle might swing to and fro in the breeze after the lad was a year old he was fed on soup made of venison or fish thickened with wild rice or corn in the fall the indian women gathered the rice and stored it for food during the long winter months paddling their canoes into the marsh they would pull the rice stalks over the side and thresh out the grain with the paddles into the bottom until the frail crafts were loaded as deep as safely permitted thousands of wild ducks came to feed on the rice disturbed by the canoes they rose their wings sounding like thunder and whirling in the air betook themselves to the deeper solitudes of the marshes passenger pigeons flew northward in the spring and returned southward again in the fall in such vast numbers that the sun was darkened at midday it was a very wonderful and interesting world to the young tecumseh he was soon able to run about the village and to ask countless questions about everything he saw or heard his school days had begun yet he did not study out of books his teachers were his parents from them he learned the names of the plants and trees and how they were useful to man he learned too the names of the animals and their habits walking through the woods his father would tell him what animals had passed and how long since they had gone by it was easy to read the tracks in the snow but hard to decipher the trail in the summer woods he learned how the beavers built their lodges where the squirrels hid their acorns how the red deer ran so swiftly why the rabbit was so timid of the birds he learned their names and all their secrets how they built their nests in summer where they hid themselves in winter like all Indian children tecumseh had to shift more or less by himself in and out through the village he went swimming in the river creeping through the forest in some mimic war play watching the building of canoes greeting the hunters on their return from the chase here, there and everywhere full of the boundless energy which goes with a happy heart and a strong and healthy young body he watched the women stretching the fresh skins of the deer flesh side uppermost by pegs driven in the edges he saw them scrape off the fat and rub in salt to preserve the skin and the brains of the animal to make the leather soft and pliable thus he learned how the animals supplied him with clothing as well as food he joined the other boys in their play shooting his tiny arrows at the birds and squirrels or what he liked best of all playing at war in the winter evenings as he sat by the fire wrapped in warm furs listening to the howling of the north wind through the forest his mother would tell him old Indian tales and legends she told him that long ago the world was covered with water so that not even the highest hills were visible Whiskuteek who was a great magician saved himself from the flood by building a raft the beaver, the otter went down the raft Whiskuteek said to the beaver go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth the beaver dived deep under the water and after a long time came to the surface dead then Whiskuteek said to the otter go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth but the otter too came up and floated dead on the water then Whiskuteek said to the little muskrat go down to the bottom and see if you can bring up a little earth the muskrat remained under the water a very long time and when he came up he too was dead but in his claws was a little mud then Whiskuteek restored the three animals to life making the mud brought up by the muskrat rolled it into a little ball and laid it on the raft he then blew upon it and the ball became very large then Whiskuteek said to the wolf my brother run around the world and see how large it is the wolf ran around the world and after a long time came back and said the world is very large but Whiskuteek thought that the world was still too small so he blew again and made it much larger then he said to the crow fly around the world and see how large it is but the crow never came back so Whiskuteek decided that the world was large enough the little tecumso watched the flashing northern lights in the cold winter sky his mother told him that these were the spirits of the departed dancing the ghost dances as they journeyed to the happy hunting grounds he loved to hear the old old Indian fairy tale of Shingibis the brave little duck Shingibis lived in a tiny wigwam near a northern lake he prepared four logs that he might have fire in his lodge through the four cold wintered months one log for each month every morning Shingihis left his lodge and went out on the frozen lake when he came to the rushes he pulled them out with his strong bill and diving through the hole in the ice caught many fish the north wind watched Shingibis and was angry to see how little he cared for the cold so the north wind blew stronger and stronger and sent the snow to cover the land deeper and deeper yet Shingibis was not frightened by the fish as before then the north wind was still more angry he came himself and stood at the doorway of Shingibis's lodge and the biting air crept in and the wigwam crackled with the cold but Shingibis only laughed and stirred the fire saying Wendy God I know your plan you are but my fellow man blow you may your coldest breeze Shingibis you cannot freeze sweep the strongest wind you can Shingibis is still your man hey for life and ho for bliss whoso free is Shingibis then the north wind came into the wigwam and sat by the fire but little Shingibis did not seem to notice him he only stirred the fire till the flames leapt up in the air and sang more loudly his brave little song presently it was too hot for the north wind so he left the lodge and went away at night when Tecumseh lay sleepless looking up through the smoke-hole in the wigwam at the stars twinkling in the sky he thought of brave little Shingibis even when he was frightened he did not cry at night his mother had told him that bad Indians might hear him and come out of the dark forest the hoot of an owl might be the signal to hidden foes he never heard it at night without a quickened beating of the heart the night breeze laden with the scent of the sleeping woods softly moving the flap of the wigwam startled him but he made no outcry was he not the son of a chief and was he not to be a great warrior himself so he would fall asleep to be awakened by the early rays of the sun and the stir of life about the camp end of The Birth of Tecumseh by Norman Usgard