with our constitutional history awakened so hearty an interest that we departed from our previously arranged plan and devoted two meetings to a consideration of his early life, his political career, his power as an author, and to the study of his speeches. A fine portrait of Webster, painted near the end of his life by Jane Stuart, looked down upon us from the wall, and gave an additional intensity to his stirring words. For the next two months the poet William Cullen Bryant, the novelist James Fennimore Cooper, and the historian William T. Prescott claimed our attention. Biographical accounts, essays upon their style, character sketches, representative readings and recitations, and reviews of contemporary history, occupied the time devoted to the public meetings. The Pathfinder and The Spy, Bryant's poems, and The Conquest of Mexico were the works of these authors designated for home reading. The writings of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson were selected as a fitting close to our winter's work, her recent death, the numerous newspaper and magazine articles lately published, and her long residence in Newport rendering the topic both timely and suitable. Space will not permit me to speak of the social element in our meetings, which has been most delightful. Our club, beginning with thirty-six teachers, soon reached a membership of one hundred persons. There the limited capacity of our room compelled us to stop. Realizing how much the success of such meetings depends upon the tact of the presiding officer, we considered ourselves most fortunate in securing a president combining the cordiality and the executive ability of our genial superintendent, Mr. Littlefield. Some of the best musical talent in the city has contributed a charming variety to the more solid work of the public meetings, and the chorus singing and social chat which followed the formal programmes will remain among the pleasant memories of the first season of the Half-Hour Club. The accompanying circular, containing suggestions for the home reading, and the programme based upon that study, will convey an idea of the details of our plan of working: HALF-HOUR CLUB CIRCULAR, NO. 7. The Writings of William Cullen Bryant will be the topic for home study during the fortnight ending February 9th. The committee would suggest the following poems as illustrating Bryant's skill in certain classes of poetry: Poems Descriptive of Nature: A Forest Hymn; A Winter Piece; To a Water Fowl; The Prairies; A Hymn of the Sea; The Death of the Flowers; The Hurri cane. Poems of Patriotism and Freedom: The Antiquity of Freedom; The Death of Slavery; Our Country's Call; The Winds; The African Chief. Poems of Humanity: Thanatopsis; The Ages; The Crowded Street, The Flood of Years; The Night Journey of a River; Hymn to Death; The Old Man's Funeral. Poems of Fancy: Sella; The Little People of the Snow. Accounts of Bryant's life, as a poet and a journalist, and reviews of his poems may be found in the following articles : "Life, Character and Writings," by George W. Curtis (P. L.). Scribner's, XVI., 479. Appleton's Journal, VI., 479: Sketch by Stoddard (P. L.). Lakeside Magazine, VIII., 133: Bryant as a Man. "Poets of America," By E. C. Stedman. Atlantic Monthly, XIII., article by Hilliard (P. L). Biographical Sketch in Household Edition of Bryant's poems (P. L). "Letters of a Traveler," two series (P. L.). Living Age, LXXXIII.: Seventieth Birthday (P. L.). Harper's, LIII.: The Bryant Vase (P. L.). Atlantic, XLII., 747: Death of Bryant, by Stedman. Scribner's XVII., 527 and 334: Poems by R. H. Stoddard and Bayard Taylor (P. L). "Pen Pictures of Modern Authors" (P. L.). Appleton's Journal, IX, 193: Cummington (P. L.). Appleton's Journal, XV., : Roslyn (P. L.). Harper's, XXIV., 508 (P. L.). Living Age, XXXII., 249: Reminiscences of the New York Evening Post (P. L.). Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Authors" (P. L.). Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors" (P. L.). "American Cyclopedia," Annual, III. Reviews: Harper's, II., 581; Living Age, XXXIX., 658; Eclectic, 1870, p. 371 ; Foreign Review, X., 121; Scribner's, XIII., 868 (P. L.). PROGRAMME FOR FEBRUARY 9, 1886. 1. Reports of Secretary and Treasurer. 2. Business. 3. Essay: Gatherings from Here and There Concerning William Cullen Bryant. 4. Reading: The Yellow Violet. 5. Bryant as a Journalist. 6. Reading: The Description of the Shield. A translation. 7. Music. 8. Intermission. 9. Address: Bryant as a Poet of Nature; with copious quotations. 10. Recitation: Thanatopsis. II. Music. 12. Reading: "A Corn-shucking in South Carolina"; from the Letters of a Traveler. 13. A Bryant Calendar of the Month. PROGRAMME FOR MARCH 9, 1886. 1. Reports of Secretary and Treasurer. 2. Business. 3. Biographical Sketch of William T. Prescott. 4. Review of the Aztec Civilization, as presented by Prescott. 5. Music. 6. Address: The Career of Cortes. 7. Essay: Montezuma II. Intermission (ten minutes). 8. Reading from "The Conquest of Mexico": The Retreat from the Capital; Prescott's review of the Conquest. Sir John Lubbock's wonder, as expressed in his lecture of last Saturday (January 9) at the Workingmen's College, that so little care is given to the selection of books to read, is certainly quite well justified, if one is to regard them only as subjects of genuine study, and not also as equivalents for experience—a sort of imperfect reflection of the world as it was or is. But in the latter light it is by no means essential that a book should be exactly good, so long as it reflects pretty accurately the ignorance, and prejudices, and errors of the world which it delineates. We want to know something not only of the best men and women living, but of a fair assortment of commonplace men, narrow-minded men, bad men, and even wicked men, so far as we can know what they are like without contagion to ourselves. And so, too, with the same limitations, we want to know not only a good deal of the best books, but something substantial of very second-class or third-class books, if without knowing these we should be in danger of living in an unreal world, and not amongst the often blundering, prejudiced, angry, superstitious, and feeble creatures who people the actual earth. It will be said, of course, that it takes a good book to give a true conception of very inferior people; that without Dickens's genius we should never have known what Fagin and his young thieves were like, and that without Cobbett we should never have known adequately the prepossessions of a shrewd, thorough-going John Bull of the early part of this century, with little reverence, and no power of entering into characters higher than his own; in other words, that it takes a good book to give a faithful picture even of vice, ignorance, and prejudice. To a certain extent that may be granted. We should certainly never know as we do the commonplace people in the country houses of the English gentry of our Southern counties, as they existed at the opening of this century, without Miss Austen. We should not know the meeting-ground of middle class and aristocratic society during the later years of the last century as we do, without Miss Burney. But it is a mistake to suppose that people who cannot travel far for themselves-and however far we may travel for ourselves, there are none of us who can for ourselves travel back into the past-gain no experience from reading inferior books which they could not gain in a better form from reading books of the highest genius. If you have the gift for it, and do not spend too much time on it, you gain from a hasty perusal of many inferior books a far better impression of what the average man feels and thinks, than you can gain from the study of the most brilliant pictures of inferior persons. It is delightful to know the Dodger and Charley Bates. It is not delightful to know the ordinary young thief. You gain from Dickens a good deal of misleading impression as to the life of the actual young thief, which experience would not confirm. And so, too, a large knowledge of the second-rate books of any period, the books which are forgotten as soon as they are read, probably furnishes a better equivalent for a wide experience of the world than a thorough knowledge of the first-rate books. No book-knowledge will give an adequate equivalent for experience; but certainly you learn more of the dusty levels of life from a wide superficial knowledge of the books which are destined to be forgotten, than from a thorough mastery of the books destined to be immortal. Of course, the real advantage of these latter books is, that beside experience, and experience of a valuable kind, they give you what is above your own experience-flashes of imagination, of insight, of vision, which no experience of your own would give you, which you could get only by real access to the minds of great men, to very few of which any one man can possibly have the chance of access half as easy as the access he has to the best books. That is matter of course. All we want to insist on is that one gains less, as well as more, by knowing a few great books, than one gains by knowing a great many inferior ones. One does gain a very great deal more by great books than one could ever gain by knowing all the inferior books that were ever written; but one gains less, too. By the commonplace books we gain real experience of common humanity as it was and is; by the great books we gain a very much more taking and brilliant experience of common humanity than ordinary life would verify. Doubtless, to the man who can roam far and wide, actual experience of men is much better than the wearisome experience gained through second and third-rate books. But in the absence of direct experience, a large superficial knowledge of second-rate literature is a much better substitute for experience than could be obtained without it. If you gaze at the world only through works of genius, even if they be such works as Thackeray's, the world will seem much more interesting, much more clearly outlined, much more intelligible, in short, than it really is. To know the opaque mass of humanity, you must see it not only through works of genius, but also through either a wide experience of men and manners, or a wide survey of works of no genius. For example, people who do not read the daily papers are often greatly to be envied. They may read what is much more calculated to impress their minds with ennobling hopes and enduring trusts; but they hardly know the common round of English life, with its dingy uniformity of color, only broken here and there by an influx of grander forces, as it really is. So much by way of protest against Sir John Lubbock's rather onesided view of the mischief of miscellaneous reading. Still, what he says in his interesting lecture is absolutely true, so far as the aim of reading is not merely to gain experience, but to open intercourse with minds of the largest and most piercing vision; so far as we seek books to inspire us, and not merely tools to help us to a better knowledge of the world. But on Sir John Lubbock's list of books, approved by the consent of a considerable number of readers' experience, we are inclined to put this question: How can an average experience be of much use as a guide to individual experience? Average experience only gives us, what Mr. Galton's photographic camera gave, when made to receive in succession a considerable number of individual faces-a sort of average of humanity. Now, no one man can be properly educated by conformity to a standard gathered from the average taste of others. We wish Sir John Lubbock had told us exactly, so far as he really could, what his own favorite books to the number of a hundred, or even fifty, are. That |