126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rational living, and we are persuaded 

 that much good will be done and much 

 social enjoyment obtained. Of course, 

 there is a good deal of this kind of 

 thing going on in different places, but 

 there might be a great deal more. Too 

 many " cultured " people think of their 

 culture mainly, if not wholly, as a 

 valuable personal possession, and an 

 enviable mark of distinction from the 

 crowd. That is a wrong and selfish 

 view to take of it. The world is full of 

 people who are starving for the bread 

 of intellectual life. They may not know 

 they are starving, but they are, all the 

 same. Their lives are poor, empty, 

 frivolous, and wholly unideal. Yet the 

 sources of intellectual wealth are at 

 their doors, and those who could open 

 up these sources to them are among 

 their acquaintance. Such at least is 

 often the case, and what we are anxious 

 to do is to rouse the possessors of cult- 

 ure to a sense of their responsibility in 

 the matter. Freely they have received, 

 why should they not freely give ? Why 

 should they not institute a propaganda of 

 culture, and strive to redeem here and 

 there a mind from the slavery of igno- 

 rance and commonplace? 



"We take this opportunity of making 

 a long-delayed apology to a correspond- 

 ent who wrote to us some four or five 

 years ago, suggesting that a portion 

 of each Sunday should be devoted to 

 purposes of intellectual improvement 

 in a social way. His letter was an in- 

 teresting one, and we had ordered it 

 for publication, when an accident de- 

 stroyed both the manuscript of the let- 

 ter and the writer's name and address, 

 a circumstance which we much regretted 

 at the time and should have referred to 

 in these columns. We are aware of 

 cases in which what our correspondent 

 recommended has been done with very 

 good results. Friends have met on 

 Sunday evenings at one another's houses 

 for profitable discourse, sometimes of a 

 spontaneous and sometimes of a pre- 

 arranged character. In one group with 



which we are acquainted, each person 

 is supposed to read during the week 

 as much as he or she has opportunity for 

 and to bring to the meeting an extract 

 of from one hundred to two hundred 

 words taken from some favorite author. 

 In this way the little society gathers an 

 anthology of its own of more or less 

 memorable passages. Other readings 

 are given in prose or poetry, and the 

 various topics or thoughts presented are 

 freely discussed. In this way a com- 

 mon proprietorship is created in ideas 

 which would else have remained isolated 

 in particular minds, and it is needless to 

 say that much correction of individual 

 errors is at the same time made pos- 

 sible. 



Now, what is wanted for the popu- 

 larization of culture is a great extension 

 of work, if work it can be called where 

 so much pleasure is involved, of pre- 

 cisely this kind. Where university- 

 extension classes are established, small 

 social gatherings such as we have de- 

 scribed would carry on their work 

 admirably, and, where they are not 

 established, would to some extent take 

 their place. The signs are abundant 

 that our people need more culture, and 

 if those who possess culture were only 

 animated with a little of the missionary 

 spirit which very uncultivated people 

 sometimes possess, they might turn 

 their gifts and accomplishments to much 

 better purpose than, speaking generally, 

 they now do. What is wanted to vivi- 

 fy culture is a social aim an aim of 

 social usefulness: give it that, and it 

 will become a power for the regenera- 

 tion of the world. 



An Index to Volumes I to XL of The 

 Popular Science Monthly is well ad- 

 vanced in preparation, and will be pub- 

 lished probably in the course of the com- 

 ing summer. In the new Index the con- 

 tents of the whole forty volumes will be 

 entered both by author and by subject in 

 one alphabetical list. It will possess all 



