Elbert Hubbard - A Word about Whitman, 1896-03-19

A WORD ABOUT WHITMAN Author(s): ELBERT HUBBARD Source: The Journal of Education, Vol. 43, No. 12 (1070) (MARCH 19, 1896), p. 191 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44047574 Accessed: 09-03-2020 20:18 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

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Journal of Education.

Vol. YT.m BOSTON AND CHICAGO, MAECH 19, 1896. Number 12.

J ournal of Education.

just six feet high. His plain check cotton shirt was open at the throat to the breast ; and he had an indeA. E. WINSHIP, Editor.

BY ELBERT HUBBARD, pendence, a self-sufficiency, and withal a cleanliness, Weekly, S2.50 a year.

Author of " Forbes of Harvard," " No Enemy," " Little Journeys," etc. a sweetness, a gentleness, that told that, although he CLUB RATES. Max Nordau wrote a book; wrote it with his had a giant's strength, he did not use it like a giant.

In clubs of three or more, .... $2.00 a year.

One renewal and one new subscription, $4.00 " tongue in his cheek, a daslÄź of vitriol in the ink, and Whitman used no tobacco, neither did he apply hot One renewal and two new subscriptions, $5.50 " pen that scratched.

Cash must accompany all orders when sent at club arates. and rebellious liquors to his blood, and with unblushOld subscribers can renew at club rates, provided a club of three or And the first critic who seemed to place a just ing forehead woo the means of debility and disease. more is formed and all names are sent in by one person at one time. estimate on the work was Mr. Zangwill (who has Up noto his fifty-third year he had never known a sick -AMERICAN TEACHER (monthly), . . $1.00 a year.

Christian name) . Mr. Zangwill made an attempt day, to although at thirty his hair was white. He had Both papers to one address, . . $3.00 " swear out a writ de lunatico inquirendo against his the look of age in his youth, and the look of youth NEW ENGLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY,

3

Somerset

A WORD ABOUT WHITMAN.

Jewish brother on the ground that the first symptom in his age, that often marks the manly man.

of insanity is often the delusion that others are in-But at fifty-three his splendid health was crowded sane, and this being so, Dr. Nordau was not a safe to the breaking strain through caring for wounded,

St.

MARCH.

subject to be at large. But the assize of public sick, and dying men ; hour after hour, day after day, opinion denied the petition, and the dear peoplethrough the long silent watches of the night. From

BY Wf W. BAILEY.

bought the book at from three to five dollars per

1864 to the day of his death in 1892, physically, he Despite the windy breath of March, volume. Printed in several languages, its sales was a man in ruins. But he did not wither at the The alders o'er the rivers arch, And shake their golden tresses fair. have mounted to. 100,000 copies, and the author's net top. Through it all he held the healthy optimism of What though the woods are brown and bare, profit is full $40,000. No wonder is it that, with The willows ope their ermine tips, boyhood, carrying with him the perfume of the. mornAnd pink is fair Arbutus' lips. pockets full to bursting, Dr. Nordau goes out behind ing and the lavish heart of youth.

The maple's ruddy blooms unfold, the house and laughs uproariously whenever he thinks The crocus lifts its cup of gold, Doctor Bucke, who was superintendent of a hospiWhile snow-drops, nestling in the breeze, of how he has worked the world ! tal for the insane for fifteen years, and the intimate Now ring their bells for wandering bees.

If Dr. Talmage is the Barnum of theology, surely The snow may linger by some wall ; friend of Whitman all the time, has said: "His The sight does not disturb at all ; we may call Dr. Nordau the Barnum of science. His build, his stature, his exceptional health of mind and For opening buds and greening grass agility in manipulating facts is equal to Hermann's body, the grace of his 'movements and gestures, the Proclaim that winter now must pass.

And hylas, as they joyous sing, now-you-see-it-and-now-you- don't with pocket handkergrandeur, and especially the magnetism, of his presAnnounce the advent of the spring ! chiefs. Yet Hermann's exhibition is worth the ad-

ence; the charm of his Voice, his genial, kindly mittance fee and Nordau' s book (seemingly written humor; the simplicity of his habits and tastes, his INCENTIVES. in collaboration with Jules Verne and Mark freedom Twain) from convention, the largeness and beauty A youth who longed for fame, with readywould pen be cheap for a dollar. But what we object of histo manner; his calmness and maj e sty ; his charity Wrote on grave themes, in manner learned and wise. Hermann's disciples posing as sureis Professor and forbearance; his entire unresentfulness under But no one heeded ; striving for this prize, enough materializing mediums and Professorwhatever Lom- provocation; his liberality; his universal In vain he toiled for love of fame, not men. broso's followers calling themselves scientists, when Then, through defeat, a miracle was wrought ; sympathy, with humanity in all ages and lands ; his For he who had been blind to human need each go forth without scrip or purse with nobroad othertolerance, his catholic friendliness, and his

Received his sight, and when, from self-love freed, He worked for love of men, fame came unsought.

- The Chauiauquan.

WHAT THEY SAY.

purpose than to supply themselves with both.

unexampled faculty of attracting affection, - all prove

Yet it was Barnum himself who said that the hispubperfectly proportioned manliness." lic delights in being humbugged, and strange But it isWhitman differed from the disciple of Lomthat we will not allow ourselves to be thimble-rigged broso in two notable particulars : he had no quarrel

without paying for the privilege.

with the world, and he did not wax rich. " One thing Nordau's success hinged on his audacious assumpthou lackest, O Walt Whitman!" we might have said spot of their own, or if they have but a sand-box in tion that the public know nothing of the law to ofthe Anpoet, "You are not savin'." He died poor. which they play at gardening, or if they have a few tithesis. Yet Plato explained that the opposite of is not proof of degeneracy, save on 'Change.

But this plants in the nursery window, they are learning the things look alike, and sometimes are alike, and thatthe children of Count Tolstoy endeavored to When great wonders of seeding and harvesting, and, at the was quite a while ago. have him adjudged insane, the court denied the applisame time, nature's method of nurture, which trans"The multitude answered: Thou hast a devil." cation, and voiced the wisest decision that ever came forms a brown seed into a radiantly glowing blossom.

"Many of them said: He hath a devil and is mad." out of Russia : A man who gives away his money is Superintendent C. F. Carroll, Worcester : If in a a loud voice: Paul, thou art "'Festus saith notmad." necessarily more foolish than he who saves it. person attains a correct English style, if Nordau he masters And shouts in a voice more heady than Andthat with Mr. Horace L. Trauble, I say : Whitman the elegancies of his mother tongue, of if Pilate, he is able moreto throaty than that of Festuswas : "the Mad - man I ever knew. sanest put into familiar and effective phraseWhitman his commonest was - mad beyond the cavil of a doubt !" thoughts, it is because he has been a great reader, or looking out of a window (before In 1862, Lincoln, A BOSTON VIEW OF DENVER. because he has moved in good society lilacs and listened to last in the dooryard bloomed) on one of the finished conversation. streets of Washington, saw a working man in shirt

BY S. C. STONE, PRINCIPAL OF THE HYDE SCHOOL, BOSTON. sleeves go by. Turning to a friend, the president Austrian Minister of Culture and Education : Denver is divided into school districts after the old said: the "There goes a man!" The exclamation souĂšds The purpose of the kindergarten is to finish singularly like that of Napoleon on meeting Goethe.

New England plan. Important improvements have home-training of such children who have not reached But the Corsican's remark was intended for the poet's been made on that system, as it existed in the hill the age for the elementary schools, and to prepare ear, while Lincoln did not know who his man was, towns of New England fifty years ago. Each district them for the elementary schools by a gradual, methalthough he came to know him afterward. is in all respects independent. It has a board of eduodical training of the senses and the intellect in a Lincoln in his early days was a workingman, an cation of six persons. Two of them are elected each generally adopted system called the Froebel system. athlete, - and he never quite got the idea out of hisyear, for a term of three years, by the legal voters of Western School Journal: At a congress of head (and I am glad) that he was still a hewer of the district, at a special election called for that purteachers held recently at Magdeburg, Germany, the wood. He once told George William Curtis that he pose. They are chosen with great care. The brightfact came out that there are 13,000 teachers in Germore than half expected to yet go back to the farm est minds, the best men and women to be found, have many who receive less than $200 a year (ten months). and earn his daily bread by the work that his hands been called to this high place of service. They have Could not some machinery be set in motion fromfound to do. He dreamed of it nights, and whenever given their time freely, and without stint, to building "Yena" which would give the 13,000 less Herbarhe saw a splendid toiler he felt like hailing the manup a system of free public schools that is at once an tianism and more bread and butter ? as brother, and striking hands with him. When Lin-honor and an untold blessing to the community. In President Charles F. Thwing, Cleveland: Whatcoln saw Whitman strolling majestically past, he took addition to the authority granted by law to school ever may be in store for the American College as the him for a sjbevedore or possibly the foreman of a con-boards in Eastern cities, the school charter, adopted predecessor of the American University, it can never struction gang.

February 3, 1876, " For the support and regulation of cease to be an agency for the training of a man in the Whitman was fifty-one years old then, and his long the public schools of Denver, Colorado," provides that great business of living. It enriches his life ;flowing it beard was snow white, and the shock that" The board of education shall have power to levy a deepens and broadens his view of truth ; it ennobles covered his Jove-like head was iron gray. His form special tax, not to exceed in any one year three mills his aims ; it strengthens his choice of the right ;was it that of an Apollo who had arrived at years of on a dollar of taxable property upon the taxable clarifies his vision of and his love of the beautiful. discretion. He weighed even 200 pounds and was property of the district, for the purpose of building

Amalie Hofer : If children have a little garden

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