Culture, a Modern Method

Preface

. Behold a clam ! As was its ancient ances tor, so it, is merely a clam, nothing more. All because the morals and dispositions of its long line of ancestors have been too imperturbably good, as that term is defined by teachers in medicine, and hygiene. No act, which brought discomfort to any portion of their nervous systems, has ever been willingly repeated by them so as to become established as a part of their code of ethics. Shut up in their own resistant, shells, they have been serenely contented with their lot. Ideas influencing other forms of life have been of no interest to the clam, unless productive of some forcible disturbance, in which case the clam closed its shell and waited for death, or a return of peace.

PREFACE.

. Eternal life as a clam will be the reward of that kind of morality ; and a clam-bake will never ceage to be among the pogsibilities. Curiosity, the love for investigation, the pleas ures of new sensations, the sublime emotions that spring from noble achievement, all induce exercise of innate functional power; and non resistance opens the way to an increase in power of perception. A young man smoking tobacco for the first time will be sick; but if he persists he will soon acquire the ability to enjoy smoking more than eating an ordinary meal. We all hear and read a great deal about the deplorable habits of our age; of how the use of tobacco, morphine, cocaine, chloral, beer, whisky, coffee, tea, pepper, hot bread, and adulterations of food, are all tending to deterio rate our race. Are the people, who for generations have partaken of only such things as agreed with them, who have never exerted themselves suffi ciently to produce a condition of weariness, are they the foremost people of to-day? An an telope can eat an unlimited amount of tobacco and enjoy it. A pigeon may swallow morphine, which, if taken in one tenth the quantity by us,

PREFACE.

. 5 would cause our death ; and there are thousands of other equally striking facts. What do they signify? They are evidence of our lack in functional, or intuitive power. If it is possible, should it not be the effort of mankind to acquire that and all other power so that, " They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them?" I do not wish to shock, in the least degree, even the most sensitive, but I believe that it is in the cause of truth and its advancement, to say: that those members of society, who acquire ability to drink unlimited amounts of whigky and to commit all gortg of other excesses and survive them, are doing more, indirectly, to elevate the race, than many a worthy person who never committed a physical, so-called, sin. Do not think that 1 wish to encourage a dan gerous excess, for I do not.

I do, however, encourage the indulgence, yes, and more, I urge the use and performance of very many things now hurtful but to do so well within the bounds of endurance. I urge the acquisition of intelligence ; not alone the education of the brain and spinal nerves, but the acquisition of that intelli gence that becomes hereditary. My effort shall

PREFACE.

. be to teach how to acquire this intelligence and, though the new-born infant may not call for a newspaper before its first breakfast, results quite as remarkable, and more desirable, may be at tained. The field for possible pleasure enlarges with every added capability, ag with the youth who learns to smoke. PAGE 13 50 COXTENTS. Preface 3

Chapter I

Mary Radcliffe was twenty years of age at the time this record began. Clarence Princeton, her uncle, was at that time a law student ; his age was a little more than twenty-two. You have known many who re sembled him ; his character was like that of a vowel, which is only significant of vocalization and is without power to change the sense of any company in which it is found ; except for a con ventionalism, any one, of their class, does as well as another. He was very talkative, and told a story well, which made him a favorite of the circle in which he moved. He had received a good education, and knew enough of the natural sciences, to cause him pleasure in all new discov eries ; but his strong point, that is, the one ex crescence on the otherwise smooth sphere of his intellect, was his fondness for discussion.

Not that he believed anything different from his fel lows, nor that he expected ever to arrive at any logical determination, nor develop a perception that might influence himself or any other person, to modify their belief; but as I said before, he was fond of vocalization. You have seen him, or one so like him that it makes no difference. Mr. Edward Vernon was an elderly gentle man who, inheriting a fortune sufficient to allow unrestrained indulgence to his inclinations, occupied his time in travel and scientific gtudy. He and Clarence Princeton were visiting at the house of John Radcliffe, for reagons that will presently appear. John Radcliffe was a resident of Cambridge, Mass. , and did a large business in Boston as an im porter. Mrs. Radcliffe, two daughters, — Mary and Alice, aged respectively twenty and fifteen, — and eight servants, comprised bis family.

A third daughter, a child of seven yearg, had been buried that afternoon. Mrs. Radcliffe and her daughters pleading no appetite, the three gentlemen dined without them. It wag near the close of the meal when Mr. Vernon, addressing Mr. Radcliffe said: " For a long time, I have been wishing to in terest you in a particular study, and now this sad affliction seems to open my way. When a life has extended to eighty years or more, and then stepg out gropingly beyond the familiar age, we expect some accident to soon befall ; but when we meet death on the highway of youth, as you have done, we are shocked. But we are not without consolation. By this spray of water-cress, I will show you some of the possibilities in life and death. Look at its crisp gtem and leaveg, and dainty flower. Do you call it an individual ?

By proper treatment, I can cauge it to take root and grow, thege little flowerg and unexpanded buds to develop, and the seeds to ripen, and from those seeds by repeated cultivation I might cover all the ground on the earth that is favorable to its growth, thus making the individual a multitude; but if I crush it, what will become of the life that made it, that might have expanded, as I said? — The answer is too deep for you. Suppose, however, I do not crush it all, but save this little flower at the end, or crush ing still further, save at last only one pollen grain, from the anther of that tiny flower. Had I tho skill, I could provide conditions favorable to the development of that little grain, so that I might still grow a seed from which, as before, I could cover the available earth. Suppose again, that I cut this spray into a thousand pieces, each fragment and each pollen grain might become a perfect plant in root, and branch, and flower.

What I wish to impress upon you is that any single cell possessing life, under right conditions, ig competent to reproduce its race ; and that to destroy one pollen grain, or any living cell, is as much as to destroy any other individual of its kind. I wish to make you understand that life is so far independent of magnitude, that each and every living cell, from plant or other life, has all its attributes as much in its microscopic body, as when it is more largely expanded into a fully developed plant or human being, and though it has not made for itself a complex dwelling place, with a memory's store-house, in brain and nerv ous system, all the qualities of life are there, though not to our vision manifest. We mourn the loss of a child of a year, or a week or day, should we not mourn the loss of a gingle cell?

The poggibilities of its future are as great if it hag but a chance to build for itself a physical body. Will not God prepare a spiritual body as much for one as for the other? If we mourn because of death, then our mourning should be continual, for we have all been always dying ; even before we were born we began to die. A hundred thousand of our goulg were on the other gide to welcome those of your child; your wife is there, and your other children, I am there, and like the wafted fragrance of a flower, all are going. When the last one of you or me shall go, except for thinking, it wfll be no more terrible, than has already been the departure of our souls, thousands on thousands of times, when only laughter attended their going." " Pray Uncle, is this your consolation? If so, I fail to feel it as you intend.

It shocks me to think that a simple cell is as much to God ag is a beautiful, loving child." "My dear suffering fellow, is not a builder as much entitled to your respectful consideration, even before the foundations of the temple are laid, as after the last adornments have been placed? If a beautiful child develops into an evil minded, ugly old person, at what age, between what points of time, would you have had God esteem it? I tell you, John Radcliffe, it is the qual ity of the life, its intuitions, that make it lovable, and not the stage iu its development. You may admire one part of its work and despise another, as you may admire the butterfly and despise the ■> worm ; but then you show it is the body, and not the spirit, you love or hate." " And so you think it was the body of my child alone, that I loved?"

" No, I don't moan anything so unkind as that. You loved both her body and lifir soul ; but while she had only one fully developed body, every fragment of living matter separated from that body became another individual, as much en dowed with eternal life as was the whole body from which it was severed. The little aching tooth, that was removed two months ago, con tained a living nerve, and had you known that a soul was there, you would have preserved it, or laid it away with becoming ceremonials, as you laid away the remaining body this afternoon." " Uncle, this is not a time for sport. I am too sad to laugh at your efforts to divert my mind. Whether I loved the body or the soul of my daughter, the love I had, caused me to cherish even that tooth as a part of her. There may be some truth in what you say about its living asso ciation, I did preserve it, in a little casket of gold liued with pearl, and, either for the life or the memories associated with it, I shall treasure it as a precious thiug.

It was her first baby tooth. Mrs. Radcliffe has it in her case of jewels." " I am most moved," said Clarence, " by the old, old thought, that our human life, like all other life, can at best only make its own little round from birth to old age, and any obstruction may suddenly throw us headlong out of this merry-go-round; and I am wondering if tho centripetal tie cannot somehow be cut, so our little car may go off on a tangent, on some new line of life that need not end in death." " Yes, Clarence," said Mr. Vernon, " but that centripetal tie is ignorance, and from where shall come the wisdom with which to cut it?" " I see," answered Clarence, " we sadly need a teacher. But let us go now to sister ; the loss of Mabel seems to have nearly broken her heart, and our small appetites are satisfied."

When they reached the sitting-room they found Mrs. Radcliffe seated near a window, gaz ing out into the eastern sky, with an expression so sad, that Mr. Radcliffe was moved once more to tearg. " My darling," he said, "though Mabel has gone, these other daughters are here and I am here;" and taking her in his arms, he kissed her. " Yes, dear. In her spiritual body she has gone with Christ ; He is her pilot and will lead her through eternity; He will come for us also, and we shall go with Him. I will now put away my grief, dear John and though we do not for get, we will show through our smiles that, though tears will come, our faith is undis turbed." Mrs. Radcliffe was a woman who viewed the events of life with attention and sought to learn by her experience how to avoid a sorrow aud repeat a joy.

She was conscious of the in fluence that the control of her own feelings would have over the other members of her fam ily; that they would weep or laugh, as she was to show herself inclined, and so compelled her smiles to drive away the show of grief.

Chapter II

An hour later, Mary and Mr. Vernon, closely followed by Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe, were walk ing beside the hedges and among the flowers. The other two had taken an opposite direction, and were out of sight. Mary, with downcast eyes, seeing an obscure wild flower growing in the grasg under the shading branches of an old oak, stepped aside to pluck it; but the tough stem brought the whole plant with its root. "Although this is not pretty," she said, " and was hateful in resigting me, still I am in terested in it. How cunning was the modesty by which it almost escaped my notice, unlike that of flowers by the gardener cultivated into rhon gtroug double horrors." "Your sight is delightfully keen, to spy so dull a thing as this gprig of the homely night shade by twilight," said Mr. Vernon. " But tell me why you speak go disparagingly of those beautiful cultured flowers.

Culture is a method that leads from barbarism and all that is uncouth and vulgar, to gentleness, by encouraging or curbing innate propensities." "Now, Uncle, I hope you are not wishing to afflict me with a lecture upon culture. I am tired of culture and evolution, and their kindred." " Do 3'ou, a cultured young lady, really com plain of a dislike for that which crowns your beauty with fascination?" "Oh! I didn't wish to be understood as in veighing against cultivation ; but I despise some of its products ; for example, I do not admire blossoms in which all the stamens have been made to develop into showy petals ; nor do I think the strawberries we had in such abundance last month, of enormous dimensions and diluted flavor, were to be favorably compared with the little uncultured berry from which they were developed."

" Still, you recognize that many of our flowers and fruits have been much improved by cultivation?" "No, I don't think I do. I cannot call to mind any that I think have been improved. Have I shocked you? " "Oh, no! and knowing you, I am not even surprised. Nothing existg or seeks by its growth to please us, but to please and perpetuate itself, using to that end guch means as its intelligence permits. If the exercise of the functions of life is made easy or difficult, the exercige of varioug other pre-existing attributes will accordingly be discouraged or encouraged. In either case we call it culture. Thus: your cultured double flowerg did not have . their stamens developed into petals, but their petals were discouraged from developing into stamens. Our term cult ure should have a positive and negative gign, to show in which direction it excites to a change from the habitual; as, Æubiosis, living made easy, and Dysbiosis, difficult living, which op posed methods, respectively call into exercise the benignant or malignant faculties.

For example, if we desire to increase the venomous parts, the efforts of the individual should be resisted. That specimen of night-shade you are commending belongs to a venom bearing family that will serve to illustrate the truth of my assertion. The Atropa Belladonna, growing under adverse conditions, produces the drug valuable as a medicine in a much larger ratio than wheu assisted to a more luxuriant growth ; and each succeed ing generation of plants, under cultivation will produce a smaller ratio ; while the benignant qualities of other varieties of the family, the potato, tomato, etc., are greatly increased by cultivation. The well known Cinchona tree, which furnishes us its venom, quinine, develops greatly increased quantities to a given weight of bark, after each time the tree has been annoyed or resisted in its growth, by gtripping it of its mantle."

" I suppose," said Mr. Radcliffe, who had been silently listening, " you apply your rule to human beings as well as to botanical life, following the same method you did in your conversation at dinner, and if so, I am curious to -know how so much venom is sometimes developed by sons who have been granted every indulgence, assisted in every good undertaking, and daily advised and warned against evil." " I do mean my rule to apply to human beings as well as plants and all animals ; but the con ditions, as you state them, do not exercise the malignant facultieg." "Did you not gay," asked Mrs. Radcliffe, "that to asgigt, would call into exercige the be nignant attributes? and yet John's case is very frequently observed, though it is quite opposite to your rule." " I will try to show that it is not opposed, but that such a case affords still further proof of its correctness.

Please remember that the child is but a continuation of the life of the parent; that every attribute of both parents is possessed bj' the child. Take any case; as of a succeggful businegg man, one who hag secured possession of an enormous fortune through his shrewdness in business trickery. His son or daughter will have the same ambitions, and a like wish to gratify them ; but secret cunning is a faculty not needed by a child of wealthy and indulgent parents ; hence by lack of exercise it is undeveloped, and if from any cause indulgence ceases, the child steals openly, or with little cunning, and you have the kleptomaniac in the daughter, and the thief in the son. Frequently, a little severe training or punishment, which is resistance or antagonism of effort, as mentioned before, stimulates to activity the dwarfed habit of secrecy, and thereafter the}' go on successfully like their parent.

Benign qualities need no secrecy, for secrecy is the quintessence of venom. Example, the case of a spendthrift, in whom the benignant attributes of generosity, grow too luxuriantly under the indulgence of excessive bounty, and overleap the bounds of prudence. The attribute does not become malignant, though it seems to be evil. Is it not plain that one quality may hide some other? and that a benign one may be increased beyond supporting conditions, and thereby cause harm to the individual exercising it?" " Well," said Mary, " we seem to be in a bad way. To punish a wrong-doer develops his wicked disposition, and to indulge him only un covers some hidden vice. Is there no hope for the wicked? Or where is your remedy? I do hope you have no vice, for upon my word /see no relief," she added laughingly.

" The ideas I have expressed," answered Mr. Vernon, " are Dr. Hargadine's, and he is able to support them in a variety of ways, that are of absorbing interest to me; and with him, I be lieve the cure of all vice is not only possible, but easy." " Speaking of Dr. Hargadine, Uncle," said Mrs. Radcliffe, " reminds me of some very pleasant comments, made by our rector, upon the doctor's skill in treating some of the virulent epidemic diseases. I regret we did not call him, instead of the one we did, for Mabel. We used to employ his father until he retired from prac tice. I believe he is still living, and with his son." " Yeg," answered her uncle, " and that son you would find is like the old doctor a very entertaining gentleman in his way, which is a most unusual way, however. He is fond of all sorts of living things, and his instruments and machines are bewildering.

He is now engaged in constructing what he calls a biological ma chine." "Uncle," said Mary, "did you ever know anything about a doctor, except himself, perhaps, that was not uncanny? To look into his office ig to be frightened ; and now do you expect to entertain us, by telling us about some doctor's biological, or diabolical machine? " " Mary," angwered Mr. Vernon, " I will agree to give ten thousand dollars to your order, five years from to-day, if you do not say before that time, you are willing to marry this same doctor." " My!" exclaimed Mary, " where is my note book? Papa, please write out a contract and have Uncle Edward sign it. Ton thousand dollars in five years! Uncle, you are very entertaining. Dr. Hargadine can't compare with you when you exert yourself." " I can give money, but the doctor can give something better than money."

"I don't believe it. Give me money and I can buy whatever I want," said Mary. " Don't be too sure of that," said Mrs. Rad cliffe. " I have been trying for several months to buy, that is, employ, a competent cook, and have offered any reasonable price, but so far with but poor success, as 3-011 know, for you wore the one last complaining." "Well, if you didn't have money," said Mary, laughing, " I don't believe Uncle Edward's doctor would help you, even if he is a good cook." "Slavery," said Mr. Vernon, "is the only solution of the servant question, and the doctor can assist in that." "Why, Uncle!" exclaimed Mary, "are 3-011 losing your mental balance all at once? or are }'ou preparing to repudiate your contract with me? Now pray do continue natural, or rather don't be so irrational. " " Did you not notice," asked Mr. Vernon," how naturally your mother expressed a latent sentirnent, when she said, she had been trying to buy a cook?

If it is right for us to own horses and make them labor for us, is there any form of life inferior to the human over whom we may not claim the game authority? Or would it be wrong in a superior race to assert a similar authority over the human ? " " Uncle, to what political party do you be long? " asked Mary. " Well, I don't belong to any party that believes iu interfering with the individual rights of any one, whether rich or poor. I neither be lieve in making the rich, share their wealth with the poor, nor the poor to labor for the rich, but in giving to every one the entire fruit of their individual effort; whether it be directed towards mental, physical or material gain, or towards indolence, of which poverty is the fruit." At this juncture appeared Alice and Clarence, quite out of breath.

"Why, Alice," said Mr. Radcliffe, " what a run you two must have had, to so exhaust your selves. I am positively afraid your Uncle Clar ence is about to have an attack of asthma, he is not used to such exercise." " Oh, papa," said Alice, " every servant of the place, excepting the coachman, has left. We saw them going with all their baggage towards the station, and ran after them to find out what it all meant. Oh ! I am so out of breath ! The gardener said they had nothing against any one, except the old gentleman ; but Maggie Murphy said she heard him express sentiments at the dinner table concerning people's souls, that were enough to scare Satan himself; so they had called a meeting and decided to quit." "We followed them to near the station," added Clarence, " and as the train was coming the cook waved her umbrella and shouted back: ' Good luck to yees,' and then crossing herself, she said, ' look out for the old man, he is danger ous.' So you see, Mr. Vernon, the serious con dition of affairs precipitated by your multiplicity of souls."

Mrs. Radcliffe, perceiving the mournfully se rious countenance of Edward Vernon, as he lis tened, stepped toward him and laying her hand upon his shoulder, smilingly said: " Dear uncle I entreat you to consider this matter as trivial. I assure you it is not serious to an)r of us, but is only one of a class of occurrenceg, we have learned to look upon as amusing and instructive, rather than serious." " You see," interposed Alice, " Mamma is almost omnipotent, and there is nothing that has ever to be done in the house, she cannot do, or tell so plainly how to do it, that either Mary or lean." "And," added Mary, " Papa will send a new lot of servants from town to-morrow. Won't you, papa? And b}' dinner-time all will be going smoothly again, and then Uncle Edward, please don't let any of those non-thinking people, over hear any more of your fantastic ideas.

My ! if any of the servants had heard your remarks about slaves, the coachman would have gone too." "What is that?" asked Clarence, " has Mr. Vernon been advocating slavery or something of that sort? If he has I agree with him. Think how all this kind of nonsense could be avoided if we might only own our servants. If there is no punishment hereafter, there is no way of getting even with these hired ones." "Well," said Mr. Vernon," I shall have nothing more to say unless you first put a guard over the coachman ; and I will show true penitence for what I have done, by being your gardener until you find a satisfactor}' substitute." " Let us go into the house," said Mrs. Rad cliffe, " and show Uncle, how by a few mechanical contrivances, we can easily bridge these little chasms. This lighting the entire house by twist ing a little thumb piece, is not new, of course, but bow like magic it acts.

The devices that assist us most, however, are in the kitchen ; there we have a modified thermo-pile so arranged that with one end in the oven, and the other iu the refrigerator, a current of electrics does away with both coal and ice. Ice is cheap here, of course, but so is electricity. Connected with the refrigerator, there is an automatic cream freezer, and a place adjoining freezes ice for the table in those pretty little cones you have ad mired so much." " There is no doubting the competency of these things to remove man3r of the inelegancies connected with the process of cooking, etc." " But what about washing windows and scrubbing generally? have 3rou also devised ways for making that an exercise in æstheticism?" asked Mr. Ver non, smiling. " Oh ! we have no difficulty in getting servants enough who are able and willing to scrub ; it is in seeking intelligent service that we grope and make our fruitless reach into empty space."

"Can you not teach a scrub-girl to cook?" asked Mr. Vernon. " Yes," answered Mrs. Radcliffe, " some of them, if your patience holds out, and the girl re mains with you long enough ; but no servant is at all likely to stay more than a year or two at longest, and so it doesn't pay." *' Now," said Mr. Vernon, " that is just why I believe we ought to educate monkeys that we can own." i , Thig, of courge, wag received with laughter, but Mr. Vernon continued, gaying : "I am not joking. I tell you it can be done and done eagily." "Ig that the kind of glavery you were refer ring to awhile ago?" agked Mary. " Exactly," answered Mr. Vernon

Chapter III

The next morning, after Mr. Radcliffe was gone, the young ladies and Mr. Vernon went into the garden, and, after lading themselves with fruits and flowers, were about to return, when Alice laughingly called to Mary : " Will j-ou see? There is Uncle Clarence com ing up the walk with all the old servants. Hurrah! No more service for us!" and drop ping her basket, she bounded away, to carry tbe good news. "Oh, Mamma," she said, "the servants have all come back, even Maggie." To say that Mrs. Radcliffe felt relieved is a mild way of expressing a very intense emotion of delight. " I will go to the telephone and tell papa," continued Alice excitedly. " Tell him I have not talked with them yet," said Mrs. Radcliffe, " You can tell him the result of the conference later." Then going out on the veranda she met Clarence, who with great dignity, saluted her and said: " You here behold the return of your misin formed and misguided, but repentant help.