TOPICS OF THE TIME. 
265 
upon our position, and liis strong sense of equity 
and right, should use the most convenient and tell- 
ing epithets that come to his hand to characterize 
his opponents. Opposition is so unjust, so short- 
sighted, so inconsiderate of the interests of a class 
on v^hich the permanent fame and character of the 
country most depend, that it may well evoke his ire, 
in any terms in which he may see fit to express it. 
Our Government fosters agriculture, fosters rail- 
roads, fosters manufactures, fosters invention, fos- 
ters mining interests, fosters scientific exploration, 
and even fosters the weather, but it does not foster, 
it never has fostered, that great interest of authorship 
on which its moral and intellectual character and 
consideration depend. Anybody can get rich but 
an author. Anybody can realize from his labor his 
daily bread, except an author. If all the receipts 
from the copyright of accepted American authors 
should be put together, and all the authors were 
compelled to live from it, they would not live ; they 
would starve. Is this right ? Is it too much to ask 
of the Government that it place the authorship, not 
only of this country, but of the world, in a position 
where it can have an even chance with other inter- 
ests ? It does not ask for the pensions accorded to 
useful authorship in other countries; it does not 
seek for grace or guerdon ; it simply asks for justice 
and a fair chance to win for itself the return for 
labor which it needs, and for its country the con- 
sideration due to productive genius and culture. 
Winter Amusements. 
One of the most puzzling questions which parents 
have to deal with is that which relates to the amuse- 
ments of their children, and especially to those 
among them who have reached young manhood and 
young womanhood. The most of us are too apt to 
forget that we have once been young, and that, 
while we are tired enough with our daily work to 
enjoy our evenings in quiet by our firesides, the 
young are overflowing with vitality, which must 
have vent somewhere. The girls and young women 
particularly, who cannot join in the rough sports of 
the boys,^ have, as a rule, a pretty slow time of it. 
They go to parties when invited ; but parties are all 
alike, and soon become a bore. A healthy social life 
does not consist in packing five hundred people to- 
gether in a box, feeding them with ices, and sending 
them home with aching limbs, aching eyes, and a first- 
class chance for diphtheria. But the young must 
have social life. They must have it regularly ; and 
how to have it satisfactorily — with freedom, without 
danger to health of body and soul, with intellectual 
stimulus and growth — is really one of the most 
important of social questions. 
It is not generally the boy and the girl who spend 
their days in school that need outside amusement 
or society. They get it, in large measure, among 
their companions, during the day ; and, as their 
evenings are short, they get along very comfortably 
with their little games and their recreative reading. 
It is the young woman who has left school and the 
young man who is preparing for life, in office or 
counting-room, in the shop or on the farm, that 
need social recreation which will give significance 
to their lives, and, at the same time, culture to their 
minds. If they fail to unite culture with their rec- 
reations, they never get it. It is not harsh to say 
that nine young men in every ten go into life with- 
out any culture. The girls do better, because, first, 
they take to it more naturally, and, second, because, 
in the absence of other worthy objects of life, this is 
always before them and always attainable. The 
great point, then, is to unite culture with amusement 
and social enjoyment. Dancing and kindred amuse- 
ments are well enough in their time and way, but 
they are childish. There must be something better ; 
there is something better. 
It is an easy thing to establish, either in country 
or city neighborhoods, the reading club. Twenty- 
five young men and women of congenial tastes, 
habits, and social belonginp can easily meet in one 
another’s houses, once during every week, through 
five or six months of the year. With a small fund 
they can buy good books, and, over these, read aloud 
by one and another of their number, they can spend 
an hour and a half most pleasantly and profitably. 
They will find in these books topics of conversation 
for the remainder of the time they spend together. 
If they can illuminate the evening with music, all 
the better. Whatever accomplishments may be in 
the possession of different members of the club 
may be drawn upon to give variety to the interest 
of the occasion. This is entirely practicable, every- 
where. It is more profitable than amateur theatri- 
cals, and less exhaustive of time and energy. It 
can be united with almost any literary object. The 
“ Shakespeare Club” is nothing but a reading club, 
devoted to the study of a single author ; and Shake- 
speare may well engage a club for a single winter. 
Such a club would cultivate the art of good reading, 
which is one of the best and most useful of all 
accomplishments. It would cultivate thought, 
imagination, taste. In brief, the whole tendency 
of the reading club is toward culture — the one 
thing, notwithstanding all our educational advan- 
tages, the most deplorably lacking in the average 
American man and woman. 
There was a time when the popular lecture was 
a source not only of amusement but of culture — 
when it stimulated thought, developed healthy opin- 
ion, conveyed instruction, and elevated the taste. 
The golden days when Sumner, Everett, and 
Holmes, Starr King, and Professor Mitchell, 
Bishop Huntington and Bishop Clark, Beecher and 
Chapin, Emerson, Curtis, Taylor, and Phillips, were 
all actively in the field, were days of genuine prog- 
ress. Few better things could happen to the 
American people than the return of such days as 
those were; and the “lecture system,” as it has 
been called, is declining in its usefulness and inter- 
est, simply because it has not men like these to 
give it tone and value. A few of the old set linger 
in the field, but death, old age, and absorbing pur- 
suits have withdrawn the most of them. The plat- 
form is not what it was. The literary trifler, the 
theatrical reader, the second or third rate concert. 
