Mr. McWhorter"s new theory made no great stir in the United States, though some, doubtless, took comfort in it; but it found one very eminent convert across the ocean, and in a place where we might least have expected him. Some ten years after the events above sketched while residing at Berlin as minister of the United States, I one day received from an American student at the University of Halle a letter stating that he had been requested by no less a personage than the eminent Dr Schlottmann, instructor in Hebrew in the theological school of that university,--the successor of Gesenius in that branch of instruction,--to write me for information regarding the Phenician statue described by the Rev Alexander McWhorter.
In reply, I detailed to him the main points in the history of the case, as it has been given in this chapter, adding, as against the Phenician theory, that nothing in the nature of Phenician remains had ever been found within the borders of the United States, and that if they had been found, this remote valley, three hundred miles from the sea, barred from the coast by mountain-ranges, forests, and savage tribes, could never have been the place chosen by Phenician navigators for such a deposit; that the figure itself was clearly not a work of early art, but a crude development by an uncultured stone-cutter out of his remembrance of things in modern sculpture; and that the inscription was purely the creation of Mr. McWhorter"s imagination.
In his acknowledgment, my correspondent said that I had left no doubt in his mind as to the fact that the giant was a swindle; but that he had communicated my letter to the eminent Dr.
Schlottmann, that the latter avowed that I had not convinced him, and that he still believed the Cardiff figure to be a Phenician statue bearing a most important inscription.
One man emerged from this chapter in the history of human folly supremely happy: this was Hull, the inventor of the "giant." He had at last made some money, had gained a reputation for "smartness," and, what probably pleased him best of all, had revenged himself upon the Rev. Mr. Turk of Ackley, Iowa, who by lung-power had worsted him in the argument as to the giants mentioned in Scripture.
So elate was he that he shortly set about devising another "petrified man" which would defy the world. It was of clay baked in a furnace, contained human bones, and was provided with "a tail and legs of the ape type"; and this he caused to be buried and discovered in Colorado. This time he claimed to have the aid of one of his former foes--the great Barnum; and all went well until his old enemy, Professor Marsh of Yale, appeared and blasted the whole enterprise by a few minutes of scientific observation and common-sense discourse.
Others tried to imitate Hull, and in 1876 one--William Buddock of Thornton, St. Clair County, Michigan--manufactured a small effigy in cement, and in due time brought about the discovery of it.
But, though several country clergymen used it to strengthen their arguments as to the literal, prosaic correctness of Genesis, it proved a failure. Finally, in 1889, twenty years after "the Cardiff Giant" was devised, a "petrified man" was found near Bathurst in Australia, brought to Sydney, and exhibited. The result was, in some measure, the same as in the case of the American fraud. Excellent people found comfort in believing, and sundry pseudo-scientific men of a cheap sort thought it best to pander to this sentiment; but a well-trained geologist pointed out the absurdity of the popular theory, and finally the police finished the matter by securing evidences of fraud.[34]
[34] For the Ruddock discovery see Dr. G.A. Stockwell in the "Popular Science Monthly" for June, 1878. For the Australian fraud see the London "Times" of August 2, 1889.
To close these annals, I may add that recently the inventor of "the Cardiff Giant," Hull, being at the age of seventy-six years, apparently in his last illness, and anxious for the glory in history which comes from successful achievement, again gave to the press a full account of his part in the affair, confirming what he had previously stated, showing how he planned it, executed it and realized a goodly sum for it; how Barnum wished to purchase it from him; and how, above all, he had his joke at the expense of those who, though they had managed to overcome him in argument, had finally been rendered ridiculous in the sight of the whole country.[35]
[35] For Hull"s "Final Statement" see the "Ithaca Daily Journal,"
January 4, 1898.
CHAPTER LVII
PLANS AND PROJECTS, EXECUTED AND UNEXECUTED--1838-1905
Among those who especially attracted my youthful admiration were authors, whether of books or of articles in the magazines. When one of these personages was pointed out to me, he seemed of far greater stature than the men about him. This feeling was especially developed in the atmosphere of our household, where scholars and writers were held in especial reverence, and was afterward increased by my studies. This led me at Yale to take, at first, much interest in general literature, and, as a result, I had some youthful successes as a writer of essays and as one of the editors of the "Yale Literary Magazine"; but although it was an era of great writers,--the culmination of the Victorian epoch,--my love for literature as literature gradually diminished, and in place of it came in my young manhood a love of historical and other studies to which literature was, to my mind, merely subsidiary. With this, no doubt, the prevailing atmosphere of Yale had much to do. There was between Yale and Harvard, at that time, a great difference as regarded literary culture.
Living immediately about Harvard were most of the leading American authors, and this fact greatly influenced that university; at Yale less was made of literature as such, and more was made of it as a means to an end--as ancillary in the discussion of various militant political questions. Yale had writers strong, vigorous, and acute: of such were Woolsey, Porter, Bacon, and Bushnell, some of whom,--and, above all, the last,--had they devoted themselves to pure literature, would have gained lasting fame; but their interest in the questions of the day was controlling, and literature, in its ordinary sense, was secondary.
Harvard undoubtedly had the greater influence on leading American thinkers throughout the nation, but much less direct influence on the people at large outside of Ma.s.sachusetts. The direct influence of Yale on affairs throughout the United States was far greater; it was felt in all parts of the country and in every sort of enterprise. Many years after my graduation I attended a meeting of the Yale alumni at Washington, where a Western senator, on taking the chair, gave an offhand statement of the difference between the two universities. "Gentlemen," said the senator, "we all know what Harvard does. She fits men admirably for life in Boston and its immediate neighborhood; they see little outside of eastern Ma.s.sachusetts and nothing outside of New England; in Boston clubs they are delightful; elsewhere they are intolerable. And we also know what Yale does: she sends her graduates out into all parts of the land, for every sort of good work, in town and country, even to the remotest borders of the nation. Wherever you find a Yale man you find a man who is in touch with his fellow-citizens; who appreciates them and is appreciated by them; who is doing a man"s work and is honored for doing it."
This humorous overstatement indicates to some extent the real difference between the spirit of the two universities: the influence of Harvard being greater through the men it trained to lead American thought from Boston as a center; the influence of Yale being greater through its graduates who were joining in the world"s work in all its varied forms. Yet, curiously enough, it was the utterance of a Harvard man which perhaps did most in my young manhood to make me unduly depreciate literary work. I was in deep sympathy with Theodore Parker, both in politics and religion, and when he poured contempt over a certain cla.s.s of ineffective people as "weak and literary," something of his feeling took possession of me. Then, too, I was much under the influence of Thomas Carlyle: his preachments, hortatory and objurgatory, witty and querulous, that men should defer work in literature until they really have some worthy message to deliver, had a strong effect upon me. While I greatly admired men like Lowell and Whittier, who brought exquisite literary gifts to bear powerfully on the struggle against slavery, persons devoted wholly to literary work seemed to me akin to sugar-bakers and confectionery-makers. I now know that this view was very inadequate; but it was then in full force. It seemed to me more and more absurd that a man with an alleged immortal soul, at such a time as the middle of the nineteenth century, should devote himself, as I then thought, to amusing weakish young men and women by the balancing of phrases or the jingling of verses.
Therefore it was that, after leaving Yale, whatever I wrote had some distinct purpose, with little, if any, care as to form. I was greatly stirred against the encroachments of slavery in the Territories, had also become deeply interested in university education, and most of my thinking and writing was devoted to these subjects; though, at times, I took up the cudgels in behalf of various militant ideas that seemed to need support. The lecture on "Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors," given in the Yale chapel after my return from Europe, often repeated afterward in various parts of the country, and widely circulated by extracts in newspapers, though apparently an exception to the rule, was not really so. It aimed to show the educational value of an ethical element in art. So, too, my article in the "New Englander" on "Glimpses of Universal History" had as its object the better development of historical studies in our universities.
My articles in the "Atlantic Monthly"--on "Jefferson and Slavery," on "The Statesmanship of Richelieu," and on "The Development and Overthrow of Serfdom in Russia"--all had a bearing on the dominant question of slavery, and the same was true of my Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale on "The Greatest Foe of Modern States." Whatever I wrote during the Civil War, and especially my pamphlet published in London as a reply to the "American Diary" of the London "Times" correspondent, Dr.
Russell, had a similar character. The feeling grew upon me that life in the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century was altogether too earnest for devotion to pure literature. The same feeling pervaded my lectures at the University of Michigan, my effort being by means of the lessons of history to set young men at thinking upon the great political problems of our time. The first course of these lectures was upon the French Revolution. Work with reference to it had been a labor of love. During my student life in Paris, and at various other times, I had devoted much time to the study of this subject, had visited nearly all the places most closely connected with it not only in Paris but throughout France, had meditated upon the n.o.ble beginnings of the Revolution in the Palace and Tennis-court and Church of St. Louis at Versailles; at Lyons, upon the fusillades; at Nantes, upon the noyades; at the Abbaye, the Carmelite monastery, the Barriere du Trone, and the cemetery of the Rue Picpus in Paris, upon the Red Terror; at Nimes and Avignon and in La Vendee, upon the White Terror; had collected, in all parts of France, ma.s.ses of books, ma.n.u.scripts, public doc.u.ments and ill.u.s.trated material on the whole struggle: full sets of the leading newspapers of the Revolutionary period, more than seven thousand pamphlets, reports, speeches, and other fugitive publications, with ma.s.ses of paper money, caricatures, broadsides, and the like, thus forming my library on the Revolution, which has since been added to that of Cornell University. Based upon these doc.u.ments and books were my lectures on the general history of France and on the Revolution and Empire. Out of this came finally a shorter series of lectures upon which I took especial pains--namely, the "History of the Causes of the French Revolution." This part of the whole course interested me most as revealing the strength and weakness of democracies and throwing light upon many problems which our own republic must endeavor to solve; and I gave it not only at Cornell, but at Johns Hopkins, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Tulane, and Washington. It still remains in ma.n.u.script: whether it will ever be published is uncertain. Should my life be somewhat extended, I hope to throw it into the form of a small volume; but, at my present age and with the work now upon me, the realization of this plan is doubtful. Still, in any case, there is to me one great consolation: my collection of books aided the former professor of modern history at Cornell, Mr. Morse Stevens, in preparing what is unquestionably the best history of the French Revolution in the English language. Nor has the collection been without other uses. Upon it was based my pamphlet on "Paper Money Inflation in France: How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended," and this, being circulated widely as a campaign doc.u.ment during two different periods of financial delusion, did, I hope, something to set some controlling men into fruitful trains of thought on one of the most important issues ever presented to the American people.
Another course of lectures also paved the way possibly for a book. I have already told how, during my college life and even previously, I became fascinated with the history of the Protestant Reformation. This led to further studies, and among the first courses in history prepared during my professorship at the University of Michigan was one upon the "Revival of Learning"
and the "Reformation in Germany." This course was developed later until it was brought down to our own times; its continuance being especially favored by my stay in Germany, first as a student and later as minister of the United States. Most of my spare time at these periods was given to this subject, and in the preparation of these lectures I conceived the plan of a book bearing some such name as "The Building of the German Empire," or "The Evolution of Modern Germany." As to method, I proposed to make it almost entirely biographical, and the reason for this is very simple. Of all histories that I have known, those relating to Germany have been the most difficult to read. Events in German history are complicated and interwoven, to a greater degree than those of any other nation, by struggles between races, between three great branches of the Christian Church, between scores of territorial divisions between greater and lesser monarchs, between states and cities, between families, between individuals.
Then, to increase the complication, the center of interest is constantly changing,--being during one period at Vienna, during another at Frankfort-on-the-Main, during another at Berlin, and during others at other places. Therefore it is that narrative histories of Germany become to most foreign readers wretchedly confusing: indeed, they might well be cla.s.sed in Father Bouhours"s famous catalogue of "Books Impossible to be Read."
This obstacle to historical treatment, especially as regards the needs of American readers, led me to group events about the lives of various German leaders in thought and action--the real builders of Germany; and this plan was perhaps confirmed by Carlyle"s famous dictum that the history of any nation is the history of the great men who have made it. Impressed by such considerations, I threw my lectures almost entirely into biographical form, with here and there a few historical lectures to bind the whole together. Beginning with Erasmus, Luther, Ulrich von Hutten, and Charles V, I continued with Comenius, Canisius, Grotius, Thomasius, and others who, whether born on German soil or not, exercised their main influence in Germany. Then came the work of the Great Elector, the administration of Frederick the Great, the moral philosophy of Kant, the influence of the French Revolution and Napoleon in Germany, the reforms of Stein, the hopeless efforts of Joseph II and Metternich to win the hegemony for Austria, and the successful efforts of Bismarck and the Emperor William to give it to Prussia. My own direct knowledge of Germany at different dates during more than forty-five years, and perhaps also my official and personal relations to the two personages last mentioned, enabled me to see some things which a man drawing his material from books alone would not have seen. I have given much of my spare time to this subject during several years, and still hope, almost against hope, to bring it into book form.
Though thus interested in the work of a professor of modern history, I could not refrain from taking part in the discussion of practical questions pressing on thinking men from all sides and earnestly demanding attention.
During my State senatorship I had been obliged more than once to confess a lack, both in myself and in my colleagues, of much fundamental knowledge especially important to men intrusted with the legislation of a great commonwealth. Besides this, even as far back as my Russian attacheship, I had observed a similar want of proper equipment in our diplomatic and consular service. It was clear to me that such subjects as international law, political economy, modern history bearing on legislation, the fundamental principles of law and administration, and especially studies bearing on the prevention and cure of pauperism, inebriety, and crime, and on the imposition of taxation, had been always inadequately provided for by our universities, and in most cases utterly neglected. In France and Germany I had observed a better system, and, especially at the College de France, had been interested in the courses of Laboulaye on "Comparative Legislation." The latter subject, above all, seemed likely to prove fruitful in the United States, where not only the national Congress but over forty State legislatures are trying in various ways, year after year, to solve the manifold problems presented to them. Therefore it was that, while discharging my duties as a commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1878, I took pains to secure information regarding instruction, in various European countries, having as its object the preparation of young men for the civil and diplomatic service. Especially was I struck by the thorough equipment for the diplomatic and consular services given at the newly established ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques at Paris; consequently my report as commissioner was devoted to this general subject. On my return this was published under the t.i.tle of "The Provision for Higher Instruction in Subjects bearing directly on Public Affairs," and a portion of my material was thrown, at a later day, into an appeal for the establishment of proper courses in history and political science, which took the final form of a commencement address at Johns Hopkins University.
It is a great satisfaction to me that this publication, acting with other forces in the same direction, has been evidently useful Nothing in the great development of our universities during the last quarter of a century has been more gratifying and full of promise for the country than the increased provision for instruction bearing on public questions, and the increased interest in such instruction shown by students, and, indeed, by the community at large I may add that of all the kindnesses shown me by the trustees of Cornell University at my resignation of its presidency, there was none which pleased me more than the attachment of my name to their newly established College of History and Political Science.
During this same period another immediately practical subject which interested me was the reform of the civil service; and, having spoken upon this at various public meetings as well as written private letters to various public men in order to keep them thinking upon it, I published in 1882, in the "North American Review," an article giving historical facts regarding the origin, evolution, and results of the spoils system, ent.i.tled, "Do the Spoils Belong to the Victor?" This brought upon me a bitter personal attack from my old friend Mr. Thurlow Weed, who, far-sighted and shrewd as he was, could never see how republican inst.i.tutions could be made to work without the antic.i.p.ation of spoils; but for this I was more than compensated by the friendship of younger men who are likely to have far more to do with our future political development than will the old race of politicians, and, chief among these young men, Mr.
Theodore Roosevelt. I was also drawn off to other subjects, making addresses at various universities on points which seemed to me of importance, the most successful of all being one given at Yale, upon the thirtieth anniversary of my cla.s.s, ent.i.tled, "The Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth." It was an endeavor to strengthen the hands of those who were laboring to maintain the proper balance between the humanities and technical studies. To the latter I had indeed devoted many years of my life, but the time had arrived when the other side seemed to demand attention. This address, though the result of much preliminary meditation, was dictated in all the hurry and worry of a Cornell commencement week and given in the Yale chapel the week following. Probably nothing which I have ever done, save perhaps the tractate on "Paper Money Inflation in France,"
received such immediate and wide-spread recognition: it was circulated very extensively in the New York "Independent," then in the form of a pamphlet, for which there was large demand, and finally, still more widely, in a cheap form.
Elsewhere in these reminiscences I have given an account of the evolution of my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology." It was growing in my mind for about twenty years, and my main reading, even for my different courses of lectures, had more or less connection with it. First given as a lecture, it was then extended into a little book which grew, in the shape of new chapters, into much larger final form. It was written mainly at Cornell University, but several of its chapters in other parts of the world, one being almost wholly prepared on the Nile, at Athens, and at Munich; another at St. Petersburg and during a journey in the Scandinavian countries; and other chapters in England and France. At last, in the spare hours of my official life at St. Petersburg I made an end of the work; and in Italy, during the winter and spring of 1894-1895, gave it final revision.
For valuable aid in collecting materials and making notes in public libraries, I was indebted to various friends whose names are mentioned in its preface; and above all, to my dear friend and former student, Professor George Lincoln Burr, who not only aided me greatly during the latter part of my task by wise suggestions and cautions, but who read the proofs and made the index.
Perhaps I may be allowed to repeat here that my purpose in preparing this book was to strengthen not only science but religion. I have never had any tendency to scoffing, nor have I liked scoffers. Many of my closest a.s.sociations and dearest friendships have been, and still are, with clergymen. Clergymen are generally, in our cities and villages, among the best and most intelligent men that one finds, and, as a rule, with thoughtful and tolerant old lawyers and doctors, the people best worth knowing. My aim in writing was not only to aid in freeing science from trammels which for centuries had been vexatious and cruel, but also to strengthen religious teachers by enabling them to see some of the evils in the past which, for the sake of religion itself, they ought to guard against in the future.
During vacation journeys in Europe I was led, at various historical centers, to take up special subjects akin to those developed in my lectures. Thus, during my third visit to Florence, having read Manzoni"s "Promessi Sposi," which still seems to me the most beautiful historical romance ever written, I was greatly impressed by that part of it which depicts the superst.i.tions and legal cruelties engendered by the plague at Milan. This story, with Manzoni"s "Colonna Infame" and Cantu"s "Vita di Beccaria," led me to take up the history of criminal law, and especially the development of torture in procedure and punishment. Much time during two or three years was given to this subject, and a winter at Stuttgart in 1877-1878 was entirely devoted to it. In the course of these studies I realized as never before how much dogmatic theology and ecclesiasticism have done to develop and maintain the most frightful features in penal law.
I found that in Greece and Rome, before the coming in of Christianity, torture had been reduced to a minimum and, indeed, had been mainly abolished; but that the doctrine in the mediaeval church as to "Excepted Cases"--namely, cases of heresy and witchcraft, regarding which the theological dogma was developed that Satan would exercise his powers to help his votaries--had led to the reestablishment of a system of torture, in order to baffle and overcome Satan, far more cruel than any which prevailed under paganism.
I also found that, while under the later Roman emperors and, in fact, down to the complete supremacy of Christianity, criminal procedure grew steadily more and more merciful, as soon as the church was established in full power yet another theological doctrine came in with such force that it extended the use of torture from the "Excepted Cases" named above to all criminal procedure, and maintained it, in its most frightful form, for more than a thousand years. This new doctrine was that since the Almighty punishes his erring children by tortures infinite in cruelty and eternal in duration, earthly authorities may justly imitate this divine example so far as their finite powers enable them to do so. I found this doctrine not only especially effective in the mediaeval church, but taking on even more hideous characteristics in the Protestant Church, especially in Germany. On this subject I collected much material, some of it very interesting and little known even to historical scholars. Of this were original editions of the old criminal codes of Europe and later criminal codes in France and Germany down to the French Revolution, nearly all of which were enriched with engravings ill.u.s.trating instruments and processes of torture. So, too, a ghastly light was thrown into the whole subject by the executioners" tariffs in the various German states, especially those under ecclesiastical rule. One of several in my possession, which was published by the Elector Archbishop of Cologne in 1757 and stamped with the archbishop"s seal, specifies and sanctions every form of ingenious cruelty which one human being can exercise upon another, and, opposite each of these cruelties, the price which the executioner was authorized to receive for administering it. Thus, for cutting off the right hand so much; for tearing out the tongue, so much; for tearing the flesh with hot pincers, so much; for burning a criminal alive, so much; and so on through two folio pages. Moreover, I had collected details of witchcraft condemnations, which, during more than a century, went on at the rate of more than a thousand a year in Germany alone, and not only printed books but the original ma.n.u.script depositions taken from the victims in the torture-chamber. Of these were the trial papers of Dietrich Flade, who had been, toward the end of the sixteenth century, one of the most eminent men in eastern Germany, chief justice of the province and rector of the University of Treves. Having ventured to think witchcraft a delusion, he was put on trial by the archbishop, tortured until in his agony he acknowledged every impossible thing suggested to him, and finally strangled and burned. In his case, as in various others, I have the ipsissima verba of the accusers and accused: the original report in the handwriting of the scribe who was present at the torture and wrote down the questions of the judges and the answers of the prisoner.
On this material I based a short course of lectures on "The Evolution of Humanity in Criminal Law," and have often thought of throwing these into the form of a small book to be called "The Warfare of Humanity with Unreason"; but this will probably remain a mere project. I mention it here, hoping that some other person, with more leisure, will some day properly present these facts as bearing on the claims of theologians and ecclesiastics to direct education and control thought.
Of this period, too, were sundry projects for special monographs.
Thus, during various visits to Florence, I planned a history of that city. It had interested me in my student days during my reading of Sismondi"s "History of the Italian Republics," and on resuming my studies in that field it seemed to me that a history of Florence might be made, most varied, interesting, and instructive. It would embrace, of course, a most remarkable period of political development--the growth of a mediaeval republic out of early anarchy and tyranny; some of the most curious experiments in government ever made; the most wonderful, perhaps, of all growths in art, literature, and science; and the final supremacy of a monarchy, bringing many interesting results, yet giving some terrible warnings. But the more I read the more I saw that to write such a history a man must relinquish everything else, and so it was given up. So, too, during various sojourns at Venice my old interest in Father Paul Sarpi, which had been aroused during my early professorial life while reading his pithy and brilliant history of the Council of Trent, was greatly increased, and I collected a considerable library with the idea of writing a short biography of him for American readers. This, of all projects not executed, has been perhaps the most difficult for me to relinquish. My last three visits to Venice have especially revived my interest in him and increased my collection of books regarding him. The desire to spread his fame has come over me very strongly as I have stood in the council-rooms of the Venetian Republic, which he served so long and so well; as I have looked upon his statue on the spot where he was left for dead by the emissaries of Pope Paul V; and as I have mused over his grave, so long desecrated and hidden by monks, but in these latter days honored with an inscription. But other work has claimed me, and others must write upon this subject. It is well worthy of attention, not only for the interest of its details, but for the light it throws upon great forces still at work in the world. Strong men have discussed it for European readers, but it deserves to be especially presented to Americans.
I think an eminent European publicist entirely right in saying that Father Paul is one of the three men, since the middle ages, who have exercised the most profound influence on Italy; the other two being Galileo and Machiavelli. The reason a.s.signed by this historian for this judgment is not merely the fact that Father Paul was one of the most eminent men in science whom Italy has produced, nor the equally incontestable fact that he taught the Venetian Republic--and finally the world--how to withstand papal usurpation of civil power, but that by his history of the Council of Trent he showed "how the Holy Spirit conducts the councils of the church" ("comme quoi le Saint Esprit dirige les conciles").[36]
[36] Since writing the above, I have published in the "Atlantic Monthly" two historical essays upon Sarpi.
Yet another subject which I would have been glad to present was the life of St. Francis Xavier--partly on account of my veneration for the great Apostle to the Indies, and partly because a collation of his successive biographies so strikingly reveals the origin and growth of myth and legend in the warm atmosphere of devotion. The project of writing such a book was formed in my Cornell lecture-room at the close of a short course of lectures on the "Jesuit Reaction which followed the Reformation." In the last of these I had pointed out the beauty of Xavier"s work, and had shown how natural had been the immense growth of myth and legend in connection with it. Among my hearers was Goldwin Smith, and as we came out he said: "I have often thought that if any one were to take a series of the published lives of one of the great Jesuit saints, beginning at the beginning and comparing the successive biographies as they have appeared, century after century, down to our own time much light would be thrown upon the evolution of the miraculous in religion." I was struck by this idea, and it occurred to me that, of all such examples, that of Francis Xavier would be the most fruitful and interesting. For we have, to begin with, his own letters written from the scene of his great missionary labors in the East, in which no miracles appear. We have the letters of his a.s.sociates at that period, in which there is also no knowledge shown of any miracles performed by him. We also have the great speeches of Laynez, one of Xavier"s a.s.sociates, who, at the Council of Trent, did his best to promote Jesuit interests, and who yet showed no knowledge of any miracles performed by Xavier.
We have the very important work by Joseph Acosta, the eminent provincial of the Jesuits, written at a later period, largely on the conversion of the Indies, and especially on Xavier"s part in it, which, while accepting, in a perfunctory way, the attribution of miracles to Xavier, gives us reasoning which seems entirely to discredit them. Then we have biographies of Xavier, published soon after his death, in which very slight traces of miracles begin to be found; then other biographies later and later, century after century, in which more and more miracles appear, and earlier miracles of very simple character grow more and more complex and astounding, until finally we see him credited with a vast number of the most striking miracles ever conceived of. In order to develop the subject I have collected books and doc.u.ments of every sort bearing upon it from his time to ours, and have given a brief summary of the results in my "History of the Warfare of Science." But the full development of this subject, which throws intense light upon the growth of miracles in the biographies of so many benefactors of our race, must probably be left to others.
It should be treated with judicial fairness. There should not be a trace of prejudice against the church Xavier served. The infallibility of the Pope who canonized him was indeed committed to the reality of miracles which Xavier certainly never performed; but the church at large cannot justly be blamed for this: it was indeed made the more ill.u.s.trious by Xavier"s great example. The evil, if evil there was, lay in human nature, and a proper history of this evolution of myth and legend, by throwing light into one of the strongest propensities of devout minds, would give a most valuable warning against basing religious systems on miraculous claims which are constantly becoming more and more discredited and therefore more and more dangerous to any system which persists in using them.
Still another project interested me; effort connected with it was a kind of recreation; this project was formed during my attache days at St. Petersburg with Governor Seymour. It was a brief biography of Thomas Jefferson. I made some headway in it, but was at last painfully convinced that I should never have time to finish it worthily. Besides this, after the Civil War, Jefferson, though still interesting to me, was by no means so great a man in my eyes as he had been. Perhaps no doctrine ever cost any other country so dear as Jefferson"s pet theory of State rights cost the United States: nearly a million of lives lost on battle-fields, in prisons, and in hospitals; nearly ten thousand millions of dollars poured into gulfs of hatred.
With another project I was more fortunate. In 1875 I was asked to prepare a bibliographical introduction to Mr. O"Connor Morris"s short history of the French Revolution. This I did with much care, for it seemed to me that this period in history, giving most interesting material for study and thought, had been much obscured by ideas drawn from trashy books instead of from the really good authorities.
Having finished this short bibliography, it occurred to me that a much more extensive work, giving a selection of the best authorities on all the main periods of modern history, might be useful. This I began, and was deeply interested in it; but here, as in various other projects, the fates were against me. Being appointed a commissioner to the French Exposition, and seeing in this an opportunity to do other work which I had at heart, I asked my successor in the professorship of history at the University of Michigan, who at a later period became my successor as president of Cornell, Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, to take the work off my hands. This he did, and produced a book far better than any which I could have written. The kind remarks in his preface regarding my suggestions I greatly prize, and feel that this project, at least, though I could not accomplish it, had a most happy issue.
Another project which I have long cherished is of a very different sort; and though it may not be possible for me to carry it out, my hope is that some other person will do so. For many years I have noted with pride the munificent gifts made for educational and charitable purposes in the United States. It is a n.o.ble history,--one which does honor not only to our own country, but to human nature. No other country has seen any munificence which approaches that so familiar to Americans. The records show that during the year 1903 nearly, if not quite, eighty millions of dollars were given by private parties for these public purposes. It has long seemed to me that a little book based on the history of such gifts, pointing out the lines in which they have been most successful, might be of much use, and more than once I have talked over with my dear friend Gilman, at present president of the Carnegie Inst.i.tution at Washington, the idea of our working together in the production of a pamphlet or volume with some such t.i.tle as, "What Rich Americans have Done and can Do with their Money." But my friend has been busy in his great work of founding and developing the university at Baltimore, I have been of late years occupied in other parts of the world, and so this project remains unfulfilled. There are many reasons for the publication of such a book. Most of the gifts above referred to have been wisely made; but some have not, and a considerable number have caused confusion in American education rather than aided its healthful development. Many good things have resulted from these gifts, but some vastly important matters have been utterly neglected. We have seen excellent small colleges transformed by gifts into pretentious and inadequate shams called "universities"; we have seen great telescopes given without any accompanying instruments, and with no provision for an observatory; magnificent collections in geology given to inst.i.tutions which had no professor in that science; beautiful herbariums added to inst.i.tutions where there is no instruction in botany; professorships of no use established where others of the utmost importance should have been founded; inst.i.tutions founded where they were not needed, and nothing done where they were needed. He who will write a thoughtful book on this subject, based upon a careful study of late educational history, may render a great service. As I revise this chapter I may say that in an address at Yale in 1903, ent.i.tled, "A Patriotic Investment," I sought to point out one of the many ways in which rich men may meet a pressing need of our universities with great good to the country at large.[37]
[37] See "A Patriotic Investment," New Haven, 1903.
Yet another project has occupied much time and thought, and may, I hope, be yet fully carried out. For many years I have thought much on our wretched legislation against crime and on the imperfect administration of such criminal law as we have. Years ago, after comparing the criminal statistics of our own country with those of other nations, I came to the conclusion that, with the possible exception of the lower parts of the Italian kingdom, there is more unpunished murder in our own country than in any other in the civilized world. This condition of things I found to be not unknown to others; but there seemed to prevail a sort of listless hopelessness regarding any remedy for it. Dining in Philadelphia with my cla.s.smate and dear friend Wayne MacVeagh, I found beside me one of the most eminent judges in Pennsylvania, and this question of high crime having been broached and the causes of it discussed, the judge quietly remarked, "The taking of life, after a full and fair trial, as a penalty for murder, seems to be the only form of taking life to which the average American has any objection." Many of our dealings with murder and other high crimes would seem to show that the judge was, on the whole, right. My main study on the subject was made in 1892, during a journey of more than twelve thousand miles with Mr.
Andrew Carnegie and his party through the Middle, Southern, Southwestern, Pacific, and Northwestern States. We stopped at all the important places on our route, and at vast numbers of unimportant places; at every one of these I bought all the newspapers obtainable, examined them with reference to this subject, and found that the long daily record of murders in our metropolitan journals is far from giving us the full reality. I constantly found in the local papers, at these out-of-the-way places, numerous accounts of murders which never reached the metropolitan journals. Most striking testimony was also given me by individuals,--in one case by a United States senator, who gave me the history of a country merchant, in one of the Southwestern States, who had at different times killed eight persons, and who at his last venture, endeavoring to kill a man who had vexed him in a mere verbal quarrel, had fired into a lumber-wagon containing a party coming from church, and killed three persons, one of them a little girl. And my informant added that this murderer had never been punished. In California I saw walking jauntily along the streets, and afterward discoursing in a drawing-room, a man who, on being cautioned by a policeman while disturbing the public peace a year or two before, had simply shot the policeman dead, and had been tried twice, but each time with a disagreement of the jury. Mult.i.tudes of other cases I found equally bad. I collected a ma.s.s of material ill.u.s.trating the subject, and on this based an address given for the first time in San Francisco, and afterward at Boston, New York, New Haven, Cornell University, and the State universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. My aim was to arouse thinking men to the importance of the subject, and I now hope to prepare a discussion of "The Problem of High Crime," to be divided into three parts, the first on the present condition of the problem, the second on its origin, and the third on possible and probable remedies.
Of all my projects for historical treatises, there are two which I have dreamed of for many years, hoping against hope for their realization. I have tried to induce some of our younger historical professors to undertake them or to train up students to undertake them; and, as the time has gone by when I can devote myself to them, I now mention them in the hope that some one will arise to do honor to himself and to our country by developing them.
The first of these is a history of the middle ages in the general style of Robertson"s "Introduction to the Life of Charles V."