A Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information. THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of each month. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 82.00 a year in advance, postage prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; in other countries comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. REMITTANCES should be by check, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL. SPECIAL RATES TO CLUBS and for subscriptions with other publications will be sent on application; and SAMPLE COPY on receipt of 10 cents. ADVERTISING RATES furnished on application. All communications should be addressed to THE DIAL, 315 Wabash Ave., Chicago. Picturesque views of Paris life.-The women of Colonial and Revolutionary times.- Popular legends of Florence.-Echoes of the English playhouse.- Memories of some notable New Englanders.- Mr. Shearman on the Single Tax. - The game of Whist up to date. A hero - worshipping biography of Oliver Cromwell.-Lectures on political obligations.- Continuation of Professor Freeman's History of Sicily.Louis XIV. as a Hero. A poet's sketches of England.-Stage studies of Shakespeare's heroines.— Books recommended for a High School classical library. A NEWSPAPER MYTH. A few months ago it was reported that a certain instructor in the University of Chicago was about to sever his connection with that institution. Such incidents are a part of the normal life of every university, and this particular incident did not seem to call for any comment on the part of the public. But a section of the newspaper press, that stern guardian of public morality, found in the matter the germ of a possible sensation, and by its familiar methods of innuendo, baseless assertion, and reckless reasoning, proceeded to exploit the case. It so happened that the instructor in question had been at work in the departments of economic and social science, and had in various ways brought himself before the public, outside of his university teaching, as a student of trusts, monopolies, and industrial combinations, and was credited with pronounced opinions upon those subjects. But sinister reflection - the founder and chief benefactor of the University of Chicago was a man firmly associated in public opinion with one of the most gigantic of industrial monopolies. Obviously, here were all the materials for a first-class sensation. To the limited sort of intelligence that presides over the average newspaper, a theory of the facts presented itself ready-made. Nothing could be clearer. The founder of the University was also the head of a well-known trust; others of its benefactors were wealthy men and consequently in close sympathy with the plutocratic view of society; here was an instructor, supported by their endowments, and expressing opinions that they must regard as peculiarly obnoxious; it was a plain case of an attempt to throttle free thought and shape the teaching of a great public institution in accordance with the unholy views of those whose wealth had created it. This theory of the situation, reckless as it was, got considerable currency through the efforts of the newspapers that had given it the sanction of their prejudice. To an impartial outsider, knowing nothing of the spirit and organization of the university thus brought to the bar of journalistic opinion, it may have presented itself as one of the many possible reasoning. Many of our leading newspapers, East and West, taking for granted the suppression of free discussion by the authorities of the University of Chicago, have been moralizing all summer long upon the awful consequences. of a higher education controlled by class influences, and indulging in dismal vaticinations of a time when our university faculties shall have become mere hirelings of an unscrupulous plutocracy. The peculiarly impudent feature of the whole discussion has been the frequentlyreiterated assertion that the University authorities had made no reply to the charges brought against them. This assertion, which we have seen in a good many reputable newspapers during the past three months, must be accounted for in one of two ways. If made in actual ignorance of the explicit denial of last July, it must be taken as a fresh illustration of the disgraceful recklessness characteristic of the editorial management of too many of our newspapers. If, on the other hand, it has been made with knowledge of the facts, it merely illustrates that cardinal maxim of journalistic ethics in accordance with which a newspaper, having once made itself responsible for a state reasons why an educational institution should seek to dispense with the services of one of its instructors. To anyone at all familiar with the attitude of the University of Chicago toward the general question of Lehrfreiheit, it was of all possible reasons the one least likely to be supported by the facts. Upon that great principle, the position of the University has from the start been absolutely unequivocal. The character of its faculty, its courses, and its methods has been such as to preclude the notion that it aimed in its teaching at anything less than the fullest freedom of discussion and investigation. Bigotry, partisanship, and sectarianism have in vain sought to obtain a foothold within its quadrangles. Its theological school, indeed, teaches a particular form of theological dogmatism, frankly enough proclaimed, and it is difficult to see how a theological school could do otherwise. Even in Germany, Lehrfreiheit does not go so far as to say that the theological faculties of the universities shall not be distinctly Catholic or Protestant. But even the theological students at the University of Chicago get their Semitics, their classics, and their philosophy, for the most part, from the regular university department of any sort, is in self-respect bound to ments concerned with these subjects, departments so liberally organized that it would be ridiculous to charge them with the least sectarian bias. All these facts, familiar as they are to those who have studied the organization and observed the workings of this newest of our great universities, are not sufficiently well known to the public intelligence to fortify it against such an appeal to prejudice as has recently been made. The newspaper myth which is the subject of these remarks was given such currency, and found so wide an acceptance among people who are willing to let the newspapers do their thinking for them, that the President of the University, at the July Convocation, thought it best to recognize the myth in question to the extent of making a very distinct public statement that the University had never sought to influence the teaching of its instructors or to abridge in any way their intellectual freedom. A statement of this sort should, of course, have put an end to the discussion of the matter; but newspaper myths are not so easily discredited. The growth of such a myth offers an interesting subject for psychological study. Put forth at first as a plausible hypothesis, it speedily assumes the shape of an incontrovertible fact, and is taken as a new fixed basis for further insist upon its truth, even if it be demonstrably false, unless there is too great a risk of being detected in the lie. Neither of these explanations, judged by other than journalistic standards, is very creditable; but no third explanation is under the circumstances possible. It is always a serious question to determine to what extent popular clamor of this sort, directed against a public man or a public institution, should be recognized by its object. Most of the anonymous scribbling upon such subjects in the public press is obviously undeserving of the slightest attention. Dignity and self-respect nearly always prompt one to ignore such attacks altogether. But there are cases in which, when all the circumstances are considered, it seems that some notice ought to be taken, even of a foolish popular opinion. At all events, the President of the University of Chicago deemed it advisable, when the University came to Convocation the first of the present month, to reiterate, with greater emphasis and amplitude, his declaration of three months before. He said: "In view of the many incorrect and misleading utterances which have recently been published in reference to the policy of the University of Chicago in its relation to its teaching staff, it seems wise to make the following statement: "1. From the beginning the University has believed in the policy of appointing to positions in the same department men who represent different points of view. It is evident, therefore, that no instructor in the university has been or will be asked to separate himself from the university because his views upon a particular question differ from those of another member of the same department. "2. From the beginning of the university there has never been an occasion for condemning the utterance of any professor upon any subject, nor has any objection been taken in any case to the teachings of a professor. "3. The university has been, in a conspicuous way, the recipient of large gifts of money from wealthy men. In absolutely no single case has any man, who has given as much as one dollar to the university, sought by word or act, either directly or indirectly, to control or even to influence the policy of the university in reference to the teachings of its professors in the departments of political economy, history, political science or sociology. "This public statement is made because the counter statement has been published far and wide, and because it is clear that a serious injury will be done the cause of higher education if the impression should prevail that in a university, as distinguished from a college, there is not the largest possible freedom of expression —a freedom entirely unhampered by either theological or monetary considerations." This is, we should think, explicit enough, and may even be said to mark a noteworthy epoch in the history of American higher education. Does it dispose of the newspaper myth that we have been talking about? Probably not; people of intelligence did not believe in the myth anyhow, and most of those who did believe in it will never see the disclaimer. As for the newspapers, they may continue to assert that no denial of the charge has been made; or they may change their tactics, and demand all the facts in the case, be they of public concern or not. Some of them, in fact, have already taken the latter course. Since the publication of the declaration above mentioned, the instructor about whom all this pother has been raised has supplied the newspapers with a statement of his position. We cannot but regard this as an unwise proceeding, for the statement is not wholly ingenuous, and does not contravene in any essential respect the utterances of the President of the University upon the principle of freedom in teaching. The public is nowise concerned with the reasons for which the retirement under discussion was made, as long as those reasons have nothing to do with Lehrfreiheit. We are assured that this is the case by an emphatic and authoritative pronouncement, and there the question ends for all reasonable persons. To demand, as some newspapers still seem inclined to do, a statement of the specific reasons for which the retirement was made, is the sheerest impudence, and even to recognize such a demand would be a derogation from dignity with which the University is not likely to become chargeable. Readers of THE DIAL do not need to be reminded that we have always stood steadfast in defense of the freedom of University teaching. That fact alone, to say nothing of the further fact that the instructor whose case has just been under discussion is a valued contributor to our review columns, would preclude any defense on our part of the university, were we not convinced that the principle of Lehrfreiheit is fully recognized by that institution, and that it has not, in this case or in any other, been put in jeopardy. For the newspapers that have hatched and fed the mythical monster now so desperately wounded, no condemnation can be too strong. They have given a fresh illustration of the apostolic apostrophe, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" and as far as they have injured the University of Chicago in the eyes of those who should wish it well, they have no reason to be proud of their work. In the case of some of the Eastern papers, it has been only too evident that jealousy of a Western institution was the papers nearer home, a spirit of reckless senthe prime motive of the attack; in the case of sationalism has mainly prompted the attitude assumed by them. In either case, the motive least pleasant to think that the attack has been has been anything but creditable, and it is at so obviously prejudiced, if not malicious, that it cannot have had any serious influence upon public opinion, but has rather strengthened than weakened the University with all judicious minds. RECENT DEATHS. His Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen died on the fourth of this month, at his residence in New York. death was entirely unexpected, and came from an attack of acute rheumatism of the cardiac muscles. He was born September 23, 1848, in Frederiksvaern, Southern Norway, and was educated at Leipzig and Christiania. Graduating from the latter university in 1868, he came to America the year after, and settled for a while in Chicago, where he edited the Scandinavian paper "Fremad." He later occupied academic posts at Urbana and Cornell Universities, and at Columbia College, with which latter institution he has been connected since 1880. He early acquired a surprising knowledge of the considerable pleasure to another generation or two of readers. Victor Rydberg, who died last month, was probably foremost among recent Swedish men of letters, with the possible exception of Herr Topelius. He was born December 18, 1829, in Jonköping. He was educated at Wexio and Lund, and at the former place enjoyed the teaching and friendship of Tegnér. His first important work was the historical novel "The Pirate of the Baltic" (" Fribytaren paa Oestersjön "), published in 1858. The following year produced the still more important work "The Last Athenian" ("Den Siste Athenienser"). This work, with its liberal tendencies and its almost polemical attitude towards church authority, evoked much criticism, and led to the composition of "Christ in the Bible" (" Bibelns Lära om Kristus "), "The Hebrew Worship of Jehovah" ("Jehovatjensten hos Hebreerna"), and "The Magicians of the Middle Ages" ("Medeltidens Magi"). A sojourn in Rome in 1873-74 was the inspiration of several thoughtful works. He also wrote lyrics, and made a highly successful translation of "Faust." He was one of the eighteen members of the Swedish Academy, and a professor in the Superior School of Stockholm. THE RETROGRESSION IN ENGLISH. "The restoration of English to much of its oldtime valiency" is ably, instructively, and entertain in English," in the October issue of "The Forum." But while the writer, Mr. Richard Burton, does not ignore the debt which English owes to other languages for a large portion of its vocabulary, and acknowledges that "the return to Old English expression" must always be "within limits of common sense and controlled by custom and convenience," yet it may well seem to some of his readers that he looks for too great an enrichment of our speech through a return to native English words and turns of expression which have long ago demonstrated their inferiority to foreign importations, and perhaps even their uncouth and unmanageable nature, by allowing themselves to be crowded out of the language by substitutes of greater flexibility or euphony. William Wetmore Story, who was born in Salem, Mass., February 12, 1819, and who died in Vallombrosa, Italy, on the seventh of this month, was almost, if not quite, the dean of our American lit-ingly discussed in an article on "The Renascence erary guild. He was antedated only by Mrs. Stowe (1812), Mr. Parke Godwin (1816), and Mr. William Ellery Channing the second (1818), among those still living. The son of a distinguished lawyer, he was himself admitted to the bar, and worked at the law for ten years. Several volumes of legal writings remain to attest his industry in this field. But a passionate devotion to art led him, after this apprenticeship to an inartistic profession, to leave America for Italy in 1848, and to devote his life thenceforth mainly to sculpture, in which field he achieved the most distinct of his successes. His literary work, which served him as a form of recreation in his career as an artist, was varied and indicative of talent and the broadly-cultured mind hardly more than that. It comprises "Nero," a play; three collections of poems; "Roba di Roma," a series of "walks and talks about Rome"; "Graffiti d'Italia"; "He and She," a "poet's portfolio"; "Fiametta," a graceful Italian idyl; "Conversations in a Studio"; a series of "Excursions in Art and Letters"; and the “Life and Letters of Joseph Story," his father. All of this work is pleasing in form, although it shows little critical penetration, and often displays an unsoundness of judgment that would have been impossible to a rigorously-trained intellect. But it gives to its author an honorable place in our literature, and will probably afford We are told by the writer that the German language, the historic cousin of the English, "owing to its different history has kept its native powers in relative purity; while English, subjected to more disturbing influences in the Norman Conquest and the classic Renascence, has diverged far wider from its normal physiognomy and its original tendencies." As a result of these disturbing influences, we are subjected to the necessity of saying preface instead of foreword, unless we are willing to seem odd and affected, and we have domesticated "such a repulsive foreign importation as massacre," instead of enjoying the privilege of using the German compound, blood-bath (blutbad). We are assured that "had our tongue encountered a happier linguistic experience," we might now be using such expressive and self-explanatory, though uncouth and homely, words as the above. But let us look, in passing, at this "repulsive foreign importation," massacre. To be sure, its present form is French, and it points back to the mediaval Latin mazacrium; but its real origin is Teutonic, and not Latin, into which latter language it is an importation from northern Europe. It appears in the German metzger, the provincial German metzgern and metzgen, the Old High German meizan, and the Gothic máitan. With a slightly altered spelling it would become an excellent English word of purest lineage. Let us rather paraphrase the passage quoted above, and say that German, owing to its less fortunate history, has retained all its provincialisms, while English, wrought upon by more wide-reaching influences in the Norman Conquest and the classic Renascence, has freed itself of the purely insular and local in its vocabulary and structure, and become, in a sense true of no other tongue, a worldlanguage. The Norman element in the English language gives it that power of precision which is so characteristic of the French, and which explains why the latter is so peculiarly fitted for the use of mathematicians and scientists, while, on the other hand, and as a necessary consequence, it is never less at home than in the flights of poetry or the profoundness of philosophy. From northern Europe we gain-to use the words of Professor C. C. Everett, in his "Science of Thought "the richness and fulness which spring from the vital presence of roots whose meaning is not yet exhausted but which are ever ready for new uses, and suggest more than they strictly express. Such language is fitted for poetry and philosophy and all the higher uses of the imagination."* This very opulence unfits the German language and the Germanic element in our own language for the strictness of science. Vague and sometimes ridiculous are the scientific terms of the Teuton: coal-stuff, sour-stuff, water-stuff, and stifle-stuff sound queerly enough to any but a German chemist, however much poetry and philosophy may delight in such word-formation from within. The English language, occupying as it does, with respect to this power of word-formation, an intermediate position between the French, all of whose roots are as dead as so many dry sticks and as unable to grow together, and the German, whose roots are still pulsating with life, possesses many of the advantages, while it avoids many of the defects, of each. The peculiar excellence and distinctive characteristic of our tongue is its wealth of vocabulary and the variety of its phraseology, its ability to assume at will the light graceful flow of the Romance lan"The Science of Thought," p. 71. guages, or the slower and heavier measure of the north-European tongues. It is a language most admirably adapted, from the very nature and history of its formation, to voice our joyful moods and to express our more serious thoughts. In it the sunny South and the cloudy Northland meet and unite. By all means cultivate the Old English element in our speech, and hold fast to what northern Europe has contributed to it; but do not despise and allow to become obsolete all that lighter, more flexible and more musical element which the southern races have given for our use. The writer of the article under discussion claims, and not without reason, that native English words and formations are more "virile." (Why, then, not use the good Old English word manly?) He also maintains that they open to the poet "larger possibilities for melody and harmony." Without dwelling on the curious fact that he has expressed these poetic possibilities in a string of Latin and Greek derivatives, we may yet question whether any language, or element of a language, of north-European origin and growth, will prove its superiority, in point of melody and harmony, to the south-European languages and the Romance element of our own English as spoken to-day. To turn to the modern developments of science, and the increasingly prominent part which scientific terms play, not only in our daily conversation and in our technical literature, but also in the imagery of our poetry and fiction, what could we do without the French and Latin and Greek words which we have made our own, and which have become almost as familiar and necessary as mother, father, hearth, and home? Why, then, deplore the combination of these Romance with the older Teutonic elements in our language,—a union which makes it superior to either French or German taken alone, and gives it no small degree of the power and usefulness of both taken together? One might as reasonably advocate the uprooting of those Old English radicals which, however admirably fitted for purposes of poetry and philosophy, are worse than useless when we turn our conversation to the telautograph, the kinetoscope, alternating currents, and electric mo tors. The genius of a people portrays itself in the language spoken by that people; and, conversely, a language tends to mould the character of those who speak it. As our tongue has drawn abundantly from all that northern and all that southern Europe has to offer, so it is spoken by a many-sided race, as able to conquer and colonize the habitable globe as its speech is to spread over large areas of both hemispheres. If in-breeding be injurious to animals and plants, and sure to result at last in the extinction of the in-bred species, why may it not be equally harmful for languages to depend, to any considerable extent, on growth from within? Instead of hoping for a renascence of a pure unmixed Old English, let us continue to engraft on the par |