Dec. 15, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



465 



He will have learned something too besides the meaning of 

 so much Latin or Greek ; he will liave read and enjoyed a 

 noble passage (I care not where he has been reading). Can 

 any schoolboy, or man who has been a schoolboy, and even 

 a successful one, say truthfully that he ever enjoyed the 

 thirty or forty lines over which he had plodded with 

 grammar and dictionary 1 



But as this sort of work continues, the student finds that 

 the language itself has an interest for him. He feels that 

 it is worth while to learn something about the grammar and 

 structure of the language, — not the absurd things taught 

 in schoolbooks, or not in the same absurd way, but intelli- 

 gently. Of course, he will early have learned the rules for 

 declining and conjugating — not feebly getting up declen- 

 sions and conjugations by rote — but noting how the diffe- 

 rent forms of declensions and conjugations compare with 

 each other, and with those in his own language, where such 

 forms exist. This should at first be rather reading up 

 than learning. Tlien the rules of syntax come to be con- 

 sidered. The schoolboy gains nothing by learning syntax 

 rules by rote, whether they are like or unlike those in his 

 own language ; but one who has noticed or been told 

 that as in English, so in Latin, the verb must agree 

 in number and person with its nominative, or that 

 the same holds in Greek except in the case of neuter 

 plurals, has learned what is useful and interesting to him ; 

 while he is equally interested when he notes divergencies, 

 as for instance the way in which particular cases are 

 "ruled "in Latin or in Greek. The more he reads in 

 either language, the readier he will be to note, and noting, 

 to be interested by, the rules of grammar and construction. 

 Of course, if he wants to v:rite Latin or Greek, he must 

 pay more particular attention to such matters ; but not 

 one man in ten thousand wants to write in a dead language 

 — except to obtain marks in a competitive examination, 

 and I am not writing for these (they must work according 

 to the conditions of such examinations, conditions devised 

 by those who have devised the utterly ineffective and time- 

 wasting methods I have dealt with). 



We come next to the Hamiltonian method. 

 {To he contiyiued.) 



The Electeic Light. — A list of towns for which 

 application to the Board of Trade for Provisional Orders 

 empowering the applicants to provide electric light instal- 

 lations, has been prepared by the manager of the South- 

 Eastem Brush Electric Light Company ; 152 applications 

 have been made, of which 51 are by the various Brush 

 companies, 38 by other companies, and 63 by local 

 authorities. 



" The heart is a wonderful piece of mechanism," says 

 JDr. Kronecker, " not merely because of the great force 

 which it displays, or on account of the very perfect system 

 of valves that it possesses, V)Ut also because it is able to 

 go to work almost instantly as soon as it is fed, and because 

 it utilises to the fullest extent, in the most economical 

 manner, the force at its disposal. As soon as the liquid 

 that it is expected to pump is withdrawn, it stops work 

 entirely, and does not consume itself doing useless work, 

 but keeps in good condition for a long time. When the 

 heart works, it always works with its full strength and 

 with suitable velocity ; it is not at all affected by changes 

 in the amount of stimulation it receives, and this is essen- 

 tial to its power of moving comparatively heavy burdens 

 with constant uniformity. Under conditions that hasten 

 the decomposition of food (such as heat), the mobility of 

 its parts increases ; under external conditions which retard 

 the change (as cold), it moves more slowly." 



THE CORSET AS AN AID TO BEAUTY. 



By Eichaed A. Proctob. 



(Continued from page 430.) 



I APPROACH a difficult question, though not a doubt- 

 ful one. Who shall by argument depose false tastes 1 

 And who can deny what "An Observer" has told us, that 

 the recognition of something beautiful (Heaven knows 

 what) in a pinched waist, has prevailed very widely and 

 very long t " 'Tis true 'tis pity ; pity 'tis 'tis true." Tliere 

 can be no manner of doubt as to the just proportions (with 

 a certain limited range of variation) of the human frame, 

 masculine or feminine. Not Art has settled that, though 

 Art assents, but Nature. I do not say that .■. hen wild in 

 woods the noble (but generally lieastly) savage runs, he or his 

 " squaw," or " gin," or whatever he pleases to call the 

 woman of his race, presents the perfect type of human 

 beauty. The savage manner of life prevents this, save in a 

 few very exceptional cases. Your average savage is apt 

 to be lank and ill-shaped— especially about the calves ; his 

 body is as coarse in type as his face. Still, even among 

 savages of certain races the typical form of human beauty 

 is occasionally approached. You see the man with well- 

 knit and fully-developed muscles, moderately-sized hands 

 and feet, narrow flanks, chest deep and broad, the surface of 

 the abdomen nearly straight from the chest downwards, but 

 with that slightly greater curve from side to side (leaving 

 depressions along either side of it) which the corset 

 ruthlessly squeezes into the ridiculous circular waist of 

 the stayed ones. Savage women, even of the families of 

 the chiefs, are usually, for at least the greater part of 

 their lives, still less shapely than their generally brutal 

 lords (so a^toundingly remote — are they not ?— from any of 

 the animals to which Darwin says they are akin). Treated 

 in many cases as cattle, they do not develop into the 

 graceful, lissome forms which the artist adrnires. Yet, 

 even in their case, among some races and in special instances, 

 we find the artistic idea of feminine beauty approached 

 during the short— usually the very short— time that the 

 women of savage races are in fully developed womanhood, 

 but as yet not mothers of baby savages. 



But it is not among savages, any more than it is among 

 highly-civilised races, that we must look for beautiful and 

 shapely forms ; — observe, nof for ideal beauty, which is not 

 what we are inquiring about, but for those proportions 

 which are developed in the healthiest, and strongest, and 

 best representatives of a race, under the most favourable 

 conditions, and during the stage of life at which the kind 

 of beauty we are considering can alone be looked for ; from 

 early youth (boyhood past) to the prime of manhood in 

 men ; from the end of girlhood to a few years only beyond 

 the time of first motherhood in women. There is an inter- 

 mediate stage in the development of a race as there js 

 in the lifetime of each member of the race, when the 

 greatest physical V)eauty and grace are attained. This 

 stage is that period of early civilisation, when as yet 

 the natural has not been wholly absorbed in the ar- 

 tificial. Taking that stag<> of the development of the 

 race which stands first for beauty of form as well as 

 feature— the ancient tJreek race— we find the type which 

 the o-rcatest sculptors the world has kno\\n— CJroek, 

 Roman, and modern— have delighted to represent The 

 Greeks in particular selected as their models (though not 

 in our modern sense) men and women, youths and maidens, 

 whos.> beauty of form was the result of adcjuate exercise 

 (with little encumbrance of clothing), modelling forms 

 belonging already to the best types. They show us, first, 

 what Nature has selected as shapeliest, and next what the 



