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time-serving people afraid of him, and to keep up his power with them, but he is not, and never was, anything better or bigger than a political boss. ideas of himself and of the people were well illustrated in the resignation of his office as senator. He had never been in the habit of leading: he was a boss-a driver. He undertook, at Chicago, to compel the Republican party to take General Grant for their candidate. The party would not be driven, and he was defeated. It was a question at first whether he would support the nominee, for the people were entirely uncertain whether he cared more for his own personal will than for his party. Then, when the newly elected President nominated a man very offensive to him to an office that formed an important part of his machinery as a political boss, he undertook to coerce the Senate into rejecting the nomination. When he found that he could not do this, and that the President could not be coerced into withdrawing it, he threw up his hand and resigned, leaving the Senate in the power of his political enemies, and compelled his colleague to do the same, thereby ruining himself politically forever, and came home to dragoon his followers into reëlecting him. Events have proved what most people apprehended at the first, that no political man ever made a more stupid blunder. He is not only out of office, but out of power as a political boss. A man who cannot manage his own affairs will no more be trusted by his party. The event shows, also, that the days of "bossism are closing. It is an institution that can hardly survive an intelligent agitation of the subject of Civil Service Reform. The people are becoming tired of being used simply as machinery for the elevation of a pack of selfish and mercenary office-holders.

It is equally astonishing and instructive to see how hard bossism dies, and to witness the hold that in its dying moments it managed to maintain upon its serfs and slaves. When Robertson was nominated for collector of the port of New York, the legislature of the State, of which he was a muchesteemed member, immediately indorsed the nomination as one most fit to be made. Mr. Conkling came back to this legislature to be reëlected, on this very issue between himself and the administration. The President made the appointment, the legislature immediately indorsed it; Mr. Conkling opposed it, got angry with the Senate, resigned, and came back to the legislature to be returned, as an indorsement of his fight with the President and the Senate. he could find thirty men who were ready, at his bidding, to swallow their own words, and humiliate themselves before the State and the nation by voting for his reëlection, shows how great his power was. Nay, more than this: that he could coerce the VicePresident of the United States into leaving his high seat, and ignoring the decencies and proprieties of his position, and going to Albany to assist in sending back to Washington a couple of renegades to fight the head of an administration of which himself was an important member-the alternate of the President himself-demonstrates the mischievous hold which bossism had given Mr. Conkling upon

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all whom he held to be his debtors. We suppose it is true that Mr. Arthur was nominated to the VicePresidency at Chicago in order to conciliate Mr. Conkling. It is probably true that, in consequence of this concession, Mr. Conkling assisted in the campaign, and that, directly and indirectly, Mr. Arthur owes his election to the boss. But how malign must be the power that would compel a man of ordinary sensibilities in the Vice-President's position to turn his back on the President, offend the public sentiment of his own State, trample upon the good-will of the body over which he presides, still stinging with the insult offered it by the retiring senators, and mingle in the canvass instituted to save his boss from political death! Nothing more indecent than this performance stains the annals of party warfare in the United States. Let us hope that any institution which is capable of producing so foul a birth as this is forever dead. With Conkling, his resignation was a case of actual political suicide. With Arthur, it is a case of indecency, for which it will take years of honest service to atone. For one it is defeat; for the other, shame and voluntary humiliation.

Purchasable Health.

IT is often said, when a rich man dies, that all the money in the world cannot purchase the prolongation of life. It is often said, too, when a rich man's health breaks down, that money will not purchase health. As general propositions, however, both these statements are unsound. When expended at the right time and in the right way, money will purchase health and the prolongation of life. Money will not purchase peaches out of season, but money will purchase peaches when they are in the market. Money will not purchase health out of season, but health is to be had for money, under the proper conditions. When a machine is actually worn-out, it is beyond the reach of repairs. Nothing will do but complete renewal. So, when a man is worn-out, money will not renew him, but there are always times in his life when, by the proper expenditure of money and of time, which is its equivalent, he can buy health and the prolongation of life.

There are thousands of men in New York City, and in every great city, who are perfectly aware that they are bankrupting themselves in health-that they are selling their health for money. The time will surely come, at last, when they will be willing to pay all this money back for the health they have parted with, but it will be too late. The object of this article is to induce these men, if possible, to buy health while it is in the market, and not to sell it under any consideration. Col. Thomas Scott carried his burden so long that the four millions he had won had no power to bring back the health he had parted with; but there were undoubtedly times in his life when, by the proper expenditure of money and of time, he could have bought health enough to last him a brace of decades longer, and to enable him to double the number of his millions for his heirs. A man crowds his powers through a series of years of excessive labor, and, some day, he drops

with paralysis, and from that day forward he becomes a powerless child, to be led kindly and carefully to the grave. The increase of this disease is undoubtedly the result of the increase of unwisely conducted labor. Money can do nothing for it when it befalls a man, but it can do everything to prevent it. "Nervous prostration" has become a too familiar phrase in these latter years. Money cannot restore a shattered nervous system, but, properly expended, at the proper time, it will prevent it, which is a great deal better.

There are two plans of life, by either of which money will buy health and prolong a comfortable existence. The first is, the setting aside of a part of every day for recreation. So far as this can be done, it ought to be done, but there seem to be some peculiarities in our American life that forbid it. Competition in business is cruelly sharp, and most men feel obliged to devote themselves to it, when they are in it at all, from morning until night. The sleeping hours are the only ones which give them release from active care. Now business, followed in this way, from year's end to year's end, is just as certain to ruin health and shorten life as the recurrence of seed-time and harvest is sure. The alternative of daily recreation is a yearly period of rest. There are always slack seasons in business, and these every business man should avail himself of, for rest and recreation. It is in these seasons that there is health in the market, to be bought for money. Two weeks of leisure are not enough for a man who works like a dog all the rest of the year. Two months are never too much, and there is not a slave of Wall street who would not only win health and save life by taking these two months of leisure every year, and enjoying them, but he would, in the end, make money by it. Suppose, however, he loses money by it; he wins that for which he will some time be willing to give money, when money will not buy it. When a man gives health for money, he makes the poorest investment of his life. When he

gives money for health, he makes, from every worldly point of view, the best.

There is a hallucination, cherished by a great multitude, that they must be constantly in their own business, or it cannot possibly go on prosperously. Some of these men are so unfortunately organized that they cannot believe that anybody living can do their work as well as they can do it. It takes an enormous self-conceit to come to such a conclusion as this, and there is a great misfortune in it. Of course, these men are never able to leave their work for a moment in other hands, and so they become the bond slaves of their own mistake. Now there is nothing in which a great business man shows his greatness so signally as in his ability to find men to do his work-to find competent instruments to execute his purposes. The greatest business man is always a man of comparative leisure. His own work is always deliberately done. It is, as a rule, the small man who never gets a moment, and who never can find a pair of hands as good as his own. If a man cannot leave his business, or thinks he cannot, he shows that he lacks the highest grade of business capacity.

The leisure of Newport and Long Branch and Saratoga, with its social excitements and attractions, is not that certainly which buys health in the cheapest market. Stillness, rest, freedom of action and of dress in the open air, distance from the marts of trade these pay best; and, when these are properly and regularly enjoyed, the money that they cost buys health and the prolongation of life. Health and a reasonably long life can, as a rule, be bought by time and money, if men will take them in their season. Money avails nothing to a worn-out man, but to a man slowly wearing out it avails everything, when properly used. Time and money will buy health. Let every business man mark our words, and avail himself of the merchandise when it is in the market.

COMMUNICATIONS.

Mr. Theodore Thomas and Music in American Public Schools.

TO THE EDITOR of Scribner.

SIR: In the March number of SCRIBNER, Mr. Theodore Thomas makes some very positive and sweeping statements with regard to our system of teaching singing by relative pitch in our public schools, when he says:

"So faulty is that system that it would be better to abolish singing entirely from the schools than to retain it under the present method; it does more harm than good. I consider the system at present fol lowed in this elementary instruction, called the movable do system, fundamentally wrong, and experience has confirmed me in this opinion."

Upon this one point Mr. Thomas is in error, and,

from his position and influence, will be likely to do much harm if allowed to go uncorrected.

I can readily understand why he and all other musicians educated by like training should see no reason, certainly no necessity, for ever giving the pitch of C, for instance, more than one name.

I think all good musicians will agree with me in the following statement: that the end to be desired is that the singer should be able, on looking at any musical composition, to hear mentally how it would sound if correctly sung or played upon an instrument. To be able to do this, is to be a musician, so far as singing at sight is concerned.

Now I wish to analyze the process by which, in all probability, Mr. Thomas (who will correct me if I am wrong) has gained this ability. If he played

the violin, for instance, the placing of a finger upon the G string at a certain place gave him the pitch of C, at another place gave him D, and so on all over the finger-board, and every time the bow was applied and those sounds produced, that violin said to Mr. Thomas's ear C, D, and so on with all sounds possible to be produced upon the instrument. The same process of training the ear holds good in the playing of all keyed instruments; the player knows the letter, touches the right key, and the instrument reveals to the ear how it sounds.

Now, when we consider the amount of practice necessary to become a first-class performer upon any instrument, when we realize the thousands, even millions of times that those sounds have been presented to the ear by these instruments, is it at all strange that a person so trained should gain the ability, on looking at the notes, to hear these sounds mentally without the instrument? All this knowledge of pitch is relative, as the pitch of the instrument may vary a semitone from the true standard. The practice with stringed instruments such as are used in orchestral music furnishes the best possible training of the ear, and I think I am safe in saying that no other man in the country has had greater advantages for such training than Mr. Thomas. That he has made the most of his opportunities there can be no doubt. At the same time, though he possess the most accurately trained ear to be found in America, nevertheless, should his orchestra ever be thrown out of tune, no positively accurate pitch being in possession of any of the players, would not even he prefer to use his tuning-fork with which to set the A string of the first violin, rather than to depend upon his memory for the pitch of the sound, providing he wished to use the English instead of the French standard? Until the members of Mr. Thomas's orchestra are able to tune their instruments on the principle of positive pitch; until some one can be produced who can tune a piano on that principle, which is to set the pitch of every note correctly without comparing it with any other note (for this is what positive pitch really means, as applied to singing), let us have no more nonsense about teaching singing by positive pitch.

If the principle of teaching singing by relative pitch is correct, then it follows that anything which tends to break up and destroy the relative association of sounds in the mind is a great hindrance to the learner, and this is just what the fixed do does.

Since the introduction of musical instruments has become so general, the number of good readers in singing is diminishing. Vocal music should be taught without an instrument; it should not even be used to "support the voices in pitch." If the singing is not in tune, the vocalization is faulty, and should be corrected. We shall never attain perfection in vocal training and chorus singing until the use of the instrument is dispensed with entirely in practice, except as a test; when the singing is perfect, the instrument as an accompani ment is a great addition.

In England, where the fixed do or positive pitch

system prevailed, there has grown up a relative pitch notation called the Tonic Sol Fa, which is gaining ground very rapidly. It originated outside of the musical profession as a necessity, and was only intended to be used in elementary singing, and as preliminary to the staff notation. The people could not learn to sing by the positive pitch system. The result has been that nearly all of the oratorios and popular musical works have been published in the relative pitch notation, and this simply because musicians were ignorant of the fundamental principles of teaching singing without instruments.

There is no more need of a relative pitch notation in representing music, than there is of a new alphabet with which to represent the English language. Mr. Curwin told Mr. Mason (now in Japan) that had he known of the American system before he began to work with Miss Glover's Modulator, the Tonic Sol Fa notation would never have been known in connection with him. The success of that system is not due to their notation, but to their method of teaching and organization. Mr. Curwin knew not only how to teach but how to organize, hence the influence of the movement.

If there be any lack of results in the teaching of music in the public schools of this country when it is taught by the relative pitch system, it is not due to the system, but to the ignorance of those who have it in charge as to the fundamental principles of teaching singing without instruments. What results can be expected when teachers of music spend the most of the time the first half of the year in teaching notation, theory, transposition of the scales, etc., preparatory to singing the latter half of the year? when little children in the primary schools, before they have learned to read, are given all the different kinds of notes and their corresponding rests, with the staff clef, and letters on the staff to learn for their first music-lesson? So long as musicians think they are teaching music when they are teaching notation, so long as they think they are teaching time when they are teaching the relative length of notes, so long as the proficiency in singing is to be judged by a written examination and the children are supposed 1 to understand what measure in music means when they say "a measure is the space between two bars," so long will the teaching of music in our public schools be unsatisfactory, let whatever system be used.

Mr. Thomas says the movable do system "shuts the door to a knowledge of absolute pitch." I will show him pupils taught by this system who, after hearing the pitch of E, for instance, will tell him readily any pitch within two octaves found in that scale, and will represent the same upon the staff, and he may test it on the piano or violin, or with his voice.

The objective method of teaching singing is the only true, natural method. Sounds can be properly taught only as relative mental objects. This method cannot be illustrated in a printed article; it must be learned by observation. I have no hope of convincing Mr. Thomas by any written argument, but if he will spend a day with me in my schools, I will endeavor to convince him that he is, to use his phrase,

"fundamentally wrong" in the position he has taken. He owes it to himself and to the cause of music in this country to inform himself, and if convinced of his error, I know he will put himself right. This is a matter of too great importance at the present time to be lightly treated. If we are to become a musical people, it must be through the instruction of the masses in our public schools. And it means just this: if the methods of teaching singing in the public schools of America are to be influenced, as they have been in England, by such musicians as Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hullah, great as they may be, who have learned to think music through the playing of instruments, and who seem to know comparatively nothing of the mental process by which children are to gain command of their musical powers without instruments,

it will not be ten years before the field will be occupied by the Tonic Sol Fa notation.

We must not only retain our American system of teaching through relative pitch, but music teachers must know better how to teach it. Children who are not well established in three-part singing in all of the keys at twelve years of age are not making the progress in music that they should in our public. schools, and graduates from our high schools should be able to sing oratorios with as much facility as the average member of our singing societies. This is not too high a standard, but it can never be accomplished with the fixed do or positive pitch system. Truly yours, H. E. HOLT,

A Director of Music in the Boston Public Schools.

Outdoor Parlors.

HOME AND SOCIETY.

WHEN I see a house in process of building without a liberal allowance of piazzas, I resent it almost as a personal injury, although there may be no reasonable probability that I shall ever sit under that man's vine or fig-tree. The vine, especially, would be altogether figurative without the material support of a veranda. As good a rule would be, in building first make your piazza, then attach a house to it.

The in-door parlor is sure to be provided for with the usual amount of sofas and draperies; but the outdoor is too often like a rent-the accident of a day. "Shall we run out a railing here and a few steps, and have a veranda?" asks Paterfa. milias, in a dubious sort of a way, and his wife usually assents, for she does not dislike the idea; although she would sooner part with this appendage than give up the valuable inclosure at the back of the kitchen, which is so particularly handy as a sort of store-house and a place for the doing of odd jobs. The enthusiasm comes from the girls, who know the value of a front piazza with a thick green curtain of honeysuckle and wistaria, making a shady retreat through the long June days, and the torrid August noons,-fragrant, like carefully kept linen, with delicious country smells,-clover and fresh hay, in place of lavender and rose-leaves,strong distilled sweetness of woodbine, faint whiffs of clematis, and roses.

half-visitors who could scarcely nerve themselves up to the formula of a regular call. How charming is its twilight darkness to a class of people who do most of their conversation in whispers, and who are seldom characterized as great talkers,-who look upon the brightness of the in-door parlor and its animated groups without any feelings of envy, assured that whatever good times there are in the world they are having them! What would lovers do if there

were no piazzas ?

Some piazzas are simply an exasperation : so narrow that the steps rudely crowd the front door, instead of keeping their distance, as they should do, and only crossing the front of the house. This is a great mistake; there should be at least two sides to a veranda, to allow of one corner, and three if possible; while it should certainly measure four yards in width. We are speaking now of the piazza for a moderate house-moderate in every way. Hudson River castles, and similar mansions elsewhere, have their full complement of generous verandas; it is the middleclass houses that suffer.

We recall one of these mansions, with its magnifi. cent piazza, on which many happy hours have been spent; the delicate trellis-work forming Moorish arches each of which framed an exquisite picture in living green. When flooded with moonlight, the place took on a tone of superhuman beauty. There were many accessories, too, on that piazza -things out of the common way; and selected with an artistic idea of coloring. Hanging-baskets were suspended from every point of the arches, and their tangled vines were masses of verdure and blossoms; while rustic stands filled with plants stood, not in the way of promenaders, but well back against the house. Scarlet cushions on backs and seats made the outdoor parlor is in its glory. It is the most the bamboo chairs luxurious, and a pile of Moorish delightful, dreamy lounging-place, where the odor cushions in one corner arrested the eye and fasci. of fragrant Havanas is apt to mingle with the honey-nated the sense. They must have been stuffed with suckle, and the steps are frequently occupied by poppies to account for their sleep-charming powers;

And when the moonlight comes and traces a lattice-work of leaves on the piazza floor, and touches with lambent light each spray and corner,

"Making earth's commonest things appear
All romantic, poetic, and tender,'

while the arabesque embroidery on a scarlet ground | is either not picturesque, or it is uncomfortable. A which adorned them, and the rug spread out below, were a most successful imitation of Moorish splendor.

This curious couch, on which one half sat and half reclined, was quite in demand among the inmates and visitors on those intolerable nights, which are not at all like angels' visits, between the 20th of June and the 20th of August; and the hostess would amiably wish that she had six Moorish beds instead of one. But a single duplicate of the novelty would have spoiled the effect, so far as appearances went.

As a general thing, the furniture of our outdoor parlors does not receive sufficient consideration; it

rustic chair, uncushioned, is, to a certain extent, picturesque on a piazza, but it is not comfortable; while a bamboo settee is neither one nor the other. Camp-chairs with gay-colored seats are very desir able, if the color and design are good; and two or three cushions in a corner will make a very good substitute for the Moorish pile. A bright-colored afghan thrown over the pile, or on the end of the settee, adds much to the effect. In fact, anything that makes a good contrast with green is desirable on the piazza. Prettiest of all is it to see a child asleep on a gay-colored rug, watched by a New. foundland dog. ELLA RODMAN CHURCH.

CULTURE AND PROGRESS.

Robertson Smith's "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church."*

THE twelve popular lectures on the Old Testament, delivered during the first three months of the present year in Edinburgh and Glasgow by Professor W. Robertson Smith, and now published, form an important contribution to Biblical criticism. The friends of Professor Smith in the two cities named, to the number of six hundred, joined in a request for the delivery of these lectures, for which an opportunity was afforded in the enforced leisure of the Professor, caused by his temporary suspension from his work in Aberdeen. If, as the preface declares, the average attendance upon the course in the two cities was not less than eighteen hundred, the results of the newer criticism must have been pretty effectually spread abroad in Scotland.

The appearance of such a volume in this quarter of the world is a notable sign of the times. Coming from Germany or from Holland it would have occasioned much less remark; but when a professor in the divinity school of the most conservative religious body in the land of John Knox dares to utter theories like these, the significance of the fact is more than local.

Not that any destructive purpose can be discovered in this volume. The spirit of the writer is reverent and even devout; he handles these ancient writings with no profane or careless touch; his theory of their origin differs from the one that is generally received, but he still believes that they are sacred, and that they contain the germs out of which the doctrines and the institutions of Christianity have been developed. With his method it is equally hard to find fault. He has not evolved his theories from his own consciousness; they are the product of a purely inductive criticism; they rest wholly upon exegesis.

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It is by a careful study of the Old Testament, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, by rejecting traditional theories of authorship and date, and by letting the books tell their own story, that he has come to his present conclusions.

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These lectures of Professor Smith are at once more popular in form and more full in treatment than the Biblical articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica," out of which his fame and his misfortunes have arisen. Doubtless the article on the Pentateuch, yet to be written by his hand for that encyclopedia, will cover much of the ground of this volume; but the articles which he has already contributed, including those on The Bible, and on The Hebrew Language and Literature, are more cautious and less opposed to the common view than these lectures.

After indicating in his first lecture the method of a sound criticism, Professor Smith proceeds in the second and third lectures to show that the early Protestants, in their determination of the canon and of the authentic text, leaned wholly on Jewish tradition, and that this tradition is not trustworthy. The chapter on the Scribes makes it plain that the rules on which these great matters were settled in Palestine at about the beginning of our era were altogether arbitrary; while the chapters on the Septuagint and the other ancient versions show that there were many variations in the Hebrew text in the early days. The claim for the Hebrew writings of an almost miraculous uniformity and accuracy is thus shown to be ill founded. Before the time of the Scribes, the Scriptures of the Old Testament, like the Scriptures of the New Testament in later times, exhibited a multitude of various readings. The statement "that many of the Hebrew books have gone through successive redactions; or, in other words, have been edited and reëdited in different ages, receiving some addition or modification at the hands of each editor," is supported by a wide induction of passages.

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