worth's life, and the last in which she visited London. It was in the early days of March, that with her halfsister, Mrs. Lestock Wilson, her beloved "Fanny," she made a call at a house at the entrance of Kilburn, at that time still a rural looking village with green fields, country lanes, and a little old hunting lodge which had belonged to Charles the Second still standing just off the highroad. The semi-detached villa which they entered had at its back a long garden, which during the three seasons of the year, used to be a blaze of color. The smoke of London did not then cover every geranium and verbena leaf with black; the great city was still far enough away to cause those who went there to speak of "going to town." At the beginning of March, the spring flowers in the gardens were few and far between; but the little drawingroom was never without something pretty to look at and sweet to smell. In one window, on a table, stood a pot of tree-mignonette, which instantly attracted the attention of Miss Edgeworth. She went up to it, and putting her arms round it, exclaimed in her warm-hearted Irish way, "Oh, you darling!" It was during this visit that the anecdote already related was told. It need hardly be added here that her hostess, who was an enthusiastic admirer of her writings and also as great a lover of flowers, insisted on the mignonette accompanying her visitors home. Before leaving the house, however, Miss Edgeworth said she would send to Edgeworthstown for a plant which she trusted would take root in the suburban garden. Some weeks later the following letter was received from her: "1 North Audley Street, "Dear Mrs. H.-My brother, Pakenham Edgeworth, undertakes to carry this little packet to you, as I cannot make time for the pleasure myself. The packet contains a Celestial rose, what its botanical name may be I cannot say, but I suspect that called by any other name would look as fair or as red and smell as sweet. This is from my own garden at Edgeworthstown, from which I flatter myself you will like to have a vegetable love. My sister joins in kind remembrances to you. Your pot of mignonette-I mean the pot without the mignonette-is here at your orders, but I cannot send it by this opportunity, as my brother rides, and rides a mettlesome horse. "Yours sincerely, "MARIA EDGEWORTH. "The rose was packed by Mrs. E. after the good example of a professed florist gardener, so I hope it is all right, and may the Celestial rose live to please you, and long life to it and you! "We go into the country on Monday and stay till Thursday, and then go again to Sir John Herschel's on Saturday, and then return only to pack up and be off for ever, probably. "M. E." This letter is written in fine and delicate, but clear handwriting on a halfsheet of notepaper folded. The postscript has a touching interest, for the prophecy concerning herself was too true. At the end of April she left London, never to return to it. The "Celestial rose" was carefully tended, and it climbed and twined and flourished in luxuriance, taking kindly to its English soil. The present owner of the letter feels strongly inclined, when at rare intervals she passes by the old house, to ring the bell and ask for permission to walk round the garden, even, perhaps, to beg for a slip from the Irish rose should the hand of time and of the stranger have dealt gently with this fragrant memorial of Maria Edgeworth. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE LIVING AGE COMPANY, BOSTON. 258 HOW 258 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR SIX DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Bemittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of the LIVING AGE Co. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 15 cents. A HAUNTING VOICE. The air is sweet with flowers and summer sun, And yet I feel a darkness everywhere, Grim scent from open graves is in the air; About my feet the happy children run, But a voice rings across their play-all fun And frolic cease-that voice was wild despair. The table smiles with guests and dainty fare, The food is sour ere feasting has begun. The picture in your eye; and when time strikes, And the green scene goes on the instant blind The ultimate helpers, where your horse to-day Conveyed you dreaming, bear your body dead. Stevenson's "Songs of Travel." BLINDNESS. In every mountain cleft are withered Darken'd the world! Each day the glory And all the room with heavenly music Thou, Abba, know'st how dear float. REV. T. E. BROWN. AN END OF TRAVEL. Let now your soul in this substantial world My little child's poor playthings are to her; What love and joy She has in every darling doll and precious toy; Yet when she stands between my knees To kiss good-night, she does not sob in sorrow, "Oh, father, do not break or injure these!" She knows that I shall fondly lay them by For happiness to-morrow; Some anchor strike. Be here the body So leaves them trustfully. moored; This spectacle immutably from now And shall not I? W. CANTON. From The Contemporary Review. SHOULD HISTORY BE TAUGHT BACKWARDS? A French traveller1 relates of the Mo Successful Englishmen are happily not prone to address such harsh and ungracious language to the individual teachers who, like this poor old Magul Emperor Aurangzíb, that, after he hommedan, have simply imparted to the had defeated all his competitors and best of their ability the traditional inestablished himself on the throne of struction in the traditional way. But it Delhi, his old tutor hastened to tender is, perhaps, rather the rule than the exhis congratulations, expecting, of ception to find men of the greatest course, a present or a pension; instead light and leading in each generation of which he found himself sternly pronouncing distinctly unfavorable taken to task, somewhat in the follow- judgments on the system which passed ing fashion:in their young days for liberal education; whether they happen to have been subjected to the process themselves, like Bentham, Gibbon, Byron, the late Lord Sherbrooke, and Lord Dufferin, or to have escaped it by some happy accident, like John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. Indeed, I must confess to a faint suspicion that the ingenious Frenchman who tells the story may have had a side-glance at Europe, and may have been thinking of Latin and Greek when he made the Mogul speak of Arabic. And if this is so with the greater men, who have made their way in spite of, or without, the encumbrances corresponding to Aurangzíb's antiquated Arabic theology, how much more is it the case with the host of smaller, more or less unsuccessful individuals, who find the liberal education, which cost themselves so much trouble and their parents so much money, so little conducive to efficiency in the serious business of life! Was it not incumbent upon my preceptor to make me acquainted with the distinguishing features of every nation of the earth, its resources and strength; its mode of warfare, its manners, religion, form of government, and wherein its interests principally consist; and by a regular course of historical reading, to make me familiar with the origin of states, their progress and decline, the events, accidents, or errors, owing to which such great changes and mighty revolutions have been effected? A familiarity with the language of surrounding nations may be indispensable in a king; but you would teach me to read and write Arabic, doubtless conceiving that you placed me under an everlasting obligation for sacrificing so large a portion of time to the study of a language wherein no one can hope to become proficient without ten or twelve years of close application. Forgetting how many important subjects ought to be embraced in the education of a prince, you acted as if it were chiefly necessary that One might preach as many sermons he should possess great skill in grammar, on Aurangzíb's text as there are possiand such knowledge as belongs to a ble branches of instruction. But its: Doctor of Law; and thus did you waste the precious hours of my youth in the dry, most direct bearing is, of course, on unprofitable, and never-ending study of political education. He thought of the words! Ought you not to have instructed training necessary for the business of me on one point at least, so essential to be kingship; we have to think of the trainknown by a king-namely, on the recip- ing necessary to the few for high rocal duties between the sovereign and his statesmanship, to the many for intelllsubjects? . . . Happy for me that I congent citizenship. Now a young Ensulted wiser heads than thine on these sub-glishman imbibes, no doubt, a good jects. Go, withdraw to thy village. Henceforth let no man know either who thou art or what has become of thee. 1 See “Bernier's Travels," Constable's Oriental Miscellany, vol. i., pp. 154-161. The modern editor caps this story with a speech of similar purport delivered in 1890 by the present German emperor. informal channels, but almost the only many political ideas through various formal instruction bearing on the subject, either in elementary or in higher grade schools, takes the shape of history. Hence the importance of the question, what sort of historical teach ing conduces most to the formation of good citizens? 991 According to the late Professor Freeman, "history is the politics of the past; politics are the history of the present.” I know of only two reasons why people should concern themselves with the politics of the past. They may be (1) connected as causes with the contemporary transactions in which we are called upon to play a part; or, (2), if not linked in any definite manner with anything present that specially concerns us, they may be useful or interesting for the sake of their moral lessons, as examples of right or wrong solutions of problems similar to those which we may ourselves any day have to face. Now, it is in the second way only that any one pretends to see any use in the bulk of the history taught in our schools. Historical lessons are thought to be good or bad according as the young pupil learns from them to condemn treachery and cruelty, and to honor loyalty, justice, and patriotism; and according as older pupils gather from them some general notion of the institutions or maxims of policy which tend to the aggrandizement or ruin of states. Some such lessons can, no doubt, be extracted by an ingenious teacher from the doings of ancient Britons and medieval Englishmen, or from the Bible accounts of the judges and kings of Israel; which are the only two portions of history brought under the notice of the bulk of the children in our elementary schools. And it is commonly thought that lessons more directly applicable to modern politics are furnished by those transactions of the Greeks and Romans during the first five centuries before the Christian era, which occupy the chief place in the historical curriculum of our upper-class public schools. The practical question, however, for those who have to map out a course of study, is not whether edifying generalities can be squeezed out of any period in which human nature was not radically different from what it is at present, but 1 Methods of Historical Study, p. 8. whether anything is gained by going so far afield in preference to utilizing periods which are nearer to us in point of time. The strong presumption surely is that the communities most like our own will afford the richest supply of instructive examples, and that conditions similar to our own will be found more abundantly the nearer we approach the present time. It may, indeed, be reasonably argued that for a certain class of problems closer analogies are to be found in the circumstances of republican Athens and republican Rome than in those of any Christian state before the seventeenth century. But if the analogies are not in either case at all comparable in closeness and instructiveness to those supplied in profusion by the last two centuries, is it worth while for a beginner to trouble himself about them? And this is how the matter now presents itself to me. Grote and Thirlwall, Arnold and Mommsen, persuaded me that I was really gathering, from the facts of remote periods, principles which would serve for practical guidance in the political controversies of the present day. I now seem to see that the principles imbibed through this channel, instead of being suggested by the ancient facts, were in truth read into them by those gifted writers, who had previously learned them from the politics of their own day. Grote, for instance, was moved to write his history of Greece, because as an earnest parliamentary reformer he was distressed to observe the influence of Mitford on the young men trained in our public schools and universities: and Mitford's history was written expressly to counteract the modern democratic propaganda by showing up ancient democracy in the most unfavorable light. Both took this roundabout way of disseminating their respective principles, because at the seminaries resorted to by the bulk of our future politicians the Greek and Latin classics were almost the only medium through which any political ideas at all were allowed to filter. Grote had the best of the argument, such as it was. He |