LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 207 



years ago by tho master of the State Odd Pellovve. His address was considered 

 a masterpiece, and when asked what college he attended, said he never had had 

 the benefit of any collegiate course, and what education he had was due to 

 reading and hearing good sermons and lectures, Sunday afternoons and 

 'many evenings were spent reading, with a dictionary as a constant aid to 

 become familiar with eacli new word and its use. As a book of reference, a 

 dictionary is indispensable, and should at all times be easy of access, and if 

 satisfied with mere facts, we should want nothing better than Webster or 

 Worcester unabridged. 



Literature has five great divisions, religion, history, science, poetry, and 

 romance. Each has its place, one takes preference with one, another will 

 choose something else, yet no one vocatiou covers all more than ye tillers of 

 the soil. Every where about you, you can see the hand of a wise Providence, 

 sowing and reaping, seed time and harvest. History and science are closely 

 allied; what has been done can be done, and still there are new fields for 

 exploration. Poetry and rotnance, well they give variety and by the pen set 

 forth the beauty everywhere about us and give us ideals that are truly enabl- 

 ing. Holland's Kathrina, and Meredith's Lucille exert an influence over all 

 with whom they come in contact and when we have tho voice of what is the 

 best in humanity speaking to us, we must continue our acquaintance with the 

 poets. Wo must become familiar with the events of tlie day through the 

 medium of the papers and periodicals, while the book to read is not one that 

 thinks for you but one that makes you think. All will not want the same, for 

 there is too much individuality. History is ever advantageous and the events 

 and dates will have new attractions, if some good biography or work of fiction 

 <iau be read with it. Alexandria in the fifth century will seem far more 

 real after reading Kingsley's Hypatia. 



Scott's Ivanhoe will carry one to the third crusade and give an insight ii-ito 

 the character of llichard L Tennyson's Queen Mary throws light on one of 

 the greatest persecutions on record, wliile Dickens' works do not have any 

 direct historical value; hedwells on extremes, making them all the more desir- 

 able. What is richer than his take olr on the American eagle? Amonor other 

 things, he would have it drawn like a Phaniix, for its power of springing from 

 its ashes of faults and vices and soaring anew into the sky. Again he thought 

 the ofiicers in the American militia must command eacli other, if not where 

 did the privates come from for tliere seemed no one without a title. Let us 

 look in our own history and sse where biography assists in the establishment 

 of facts. William Penn's life shows arbitration better than bloodshed, and 

 his treaty with the Lidians the only one never sworn to and never broken. 

 Washington became a father to his country all the more by followiag his 

 career from tlie French and Lidian war till he was in the first presidential 

 chair. Franklin is identified with early printing. The contests for Texas inde- 

 pendence are vividly set forth in the life of Sam Houston, and political life 

 awakens new interest, when prominent factors have become familiar through 

 spoken language without any account of wire pulling. 



The report of the librarian of the public library of Chicago gives some fig- 

 ures that if other cities equal it, no wonder man made the town. He gave the 

 whole number of volumes taken out for home reading during the year as ^53,801, 

 a daily average of 1,1G1. Of these G3 percent were English prose, fiction, and 

 juvenile works; eight and 45-100 history and biography; three and 51-100 

 voyage and travels; six, science and arts; four, poetry and drama; twelve, in 

 continental languages, and three per cent miscellaneous. We have no means 



