SONS OF VETERANS 



5441 



SOPHOCLES 



cieties was coordinated. The chief mission of 

 the Sons of Liberty was accomplished when 

 the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, but they 

 still opposed the importation of goods from 

 England and later favored independence. 



Originally they were of necessity secret so- 

 cieties, but later worked openly and had to do 

 with many of the early movements toward 

 separation, such as the calling of the Conti- 

 nental Congress. During the latter part of the 

 War of Secession the Knights of the Golden 

 Circle were sometimes called Sons of Liberty, 

 the earlier name having been discredited. See 

 STAMP ACT; REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN AMERICA. 



SONS OF VET'ERANS, an American patri- 

 otic society, organized on September 29, 1879, 

 in Philadelphia, Pa., for a purpose similar to 

 that of the Grand Army of the Republic 

 (which see). The society is composed of lineal 

 male descendants, over eighteen years of age, 

 of honorably discharged soldiers, sailors, or 

 marines who served in the War of Secession. 

 There are now about 1,215 camps and 56,000 

 members, distributed among twenty-seven state 

 divisions, the national body or general society 

 constituting the commandery-in-chief. A 

 bronze bar, inscribed with the words Filii Vet- 

 eranorum, with a pendant of red, white and 

 blue ribbon, attached to a medallion with the 

 letters "S. V.," is the insignia of the society. 



The Sons of Veterans auxiliary is an associa- 

 tion of women organized to assist needy veter- 

 ans and to give aid in the proper observance 

 of Memorial Day. 



SOOT, a fine, black substance deposited by 

 smoke. It results from the imperfect combus- 

 tion of fuel, such as wood, coal or oil, and con- 

 tains much carbon and ammonium salts. The 

 large amount of nitrogen in the latter makes 

 soot an excellent fertilizer, especially for ce- 

 reals, grasses and carrots. The soot nearest the 

 fire is often a shining brown powder contain- 

 ing dried tar; it is used as a pigment under the 

 name of bistre. The blacker soot farther up 

 the chimney, especially that from oil or resin, 

 is the pigment lampblack. Soot adheres to 

 anything with which it comes in contact; hence 

 smoke blowing through a city deposits its soot 

 upon the buildings in its path and makes them 

 dingy. In London (which see) the damage 

 from soot is estimated at twenty-five million 

 dollars a year. In the worst cases about three 

 per cent of the coal burned is converted into 

 soot. See SMOKE. 



SOPHISTS, soj'ists, meaning men of uris- 

 dom, was the name given to wandering in- 

 341 



structors in Greece in the fifth and fourth cen- 

 turies B. c., previous to the rise of the schools 

 of philosophy under Plato and Aristotle. They 

 taught culture, disputation, rhetoric and poli- 

 tics, taking fees from their pupils, and for a 

 hundred years were almost the only school- 

 masters of the Greeks. They had no uniform 

 philosophy, but were, in general, skeptical and 

 indifferent to truth, emphasizing effect rather 

 than accuracy. Their influence on literature 

 and oratory was beneficial, but their insincere 

 method of reasoning had a mischievous effect 

 on conduct. They were despised by Socrates 

 and his school, who taunted them with "selling 

 wisdom" and with taking pride in "making the 

 worse appear the better." 



Consult Adams' The Religious Teachers of 

 Greece. 



SOPHOCLES, soj'okleez (about 496-406 

 B.C.), a Greek dramatist, born at Colonus, a 

 suburb of Athens. At the age of twenty-eight 

 he submitted his first play, Triptolemus, in 

 competition with Aeschylus and won first prize. 

 He served in po- 

 litical offices as a 

 patriot rather 

 than as a politi- 

 cian, in 440 B. c. 

 was chosen one 

 of the board of 

 generals in the 

 war against the 

 aristocratic party 

 of Sam os, was 

 later general in 

 the Peloponne- 

 sian War, and a 

 member of the 

 committee that 

 reported on the SOPHOCLES 



proposed oligar- From a bust in the Capi- 



i i i ... toline Museum, Rome, 



chichal constitu- 

 tion for the state. In his old age he held a 

 minor priesthood, and at his death was given 

 heroic honors. 



In talents and virtues, he was constantly of- 

 fered as an ideal to the Athenian youth, and 

 his whole life was an unusual combination of 

 grace, versatility and success. He won prizes 

 in youth, manhood and old age; and for a 

 period of thirty-two years earned the first 

 prize about twenty times and never fell to the 

 third place. 



Changes in the Drama. His dramas, of which 

 seven out of the total number of 120 are ex- 

 tant (with fragments of others), represent 



