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and lectures awaken curiosity, arouse the questioning spirit, and create a local demand for libraries. and reading-rooms. The Settlement may provide a collection of books; but its best work is done when it brings the public library into touch with the people, and shows them how to use it to the best advantage. Catalogues and annotated lists of choice books have been found useful; and the residents are frequently consulted about the choice of reading.

DISCUSSIONS.-There is much unprofitable discussion in all classes of society. Where there is much talk folly is sure to find a tongue. Mr. C. S. Loch very truly said: "There is an audience that all would desire to bring together; but there is another audience often headed by the mere prattlers and praters of the local community. It is a question whether men of this kind want further opportunities for the exercise of their eloquence. They have not learned much, and are careless about learning. They are content to coin their ignorance into phrases. They are generally dominated by some particular theory in its crude state, and give vent to their feelings in regard to it, whatever the subject of discussion may be." Personal conversation, in friendly hours of informal intercourse, is sometimes the most efficient method of curing such persons of their vagaries and prejudices, unless they are incurable.

But with all their perils, discussions are indispensable in the education of men. Reading books and hearing lectures is reception, not creation.

Discussion develops faculty. The crudest attempt to formulate a thought for a debate gives it distinctness. Study for a debate is a powerful incentive to reading.

It may readily be confessed that many of the speeches are incendiary in matter and phrase; that all kinds of economic, political and religious heresies find expression on the free platform of the Settlement hall. But there is another side. Extremists correct each other. Error makes itself ridiculous. There is always some one present who is shrewd enough to detect a fallacy, and pugnacious enough to reply. The final result of a radical debate is likely to be conservative. The quiet, well-bred, self-possessed, but sympathetic resident, with a wide outlook upon history, social development, science and philosophy, has an opportunity to hint at wiser methods and better sources of information. Dogmatism is diluted, and rational consideration grows in favor. Men of wealth have occasionally refused assistance to Settlements on the ground that socialists, anarchists and atheists were permitted to vent their venom. But a more sober and instructed view is that the suppression of some diseases is more dangerous than their breaking out. It relieves mental tension in a wronged spirit to abuse somebody roundly, and then have it quietly suggested that the abused millionaire might have a word of defense if he were present. In fact, if the millionaire knows enough, and can keep his temper, he is perfectly safe in a Settlement hall, if he will only stay down off his pedestal and be just

a man. The modern working man will respect any friendly person of superior mould; but he dislikes to take his hat off to a self-canonized demi-god.

TRAVEL.-Among the most important educational influences in the lives of people of wealth is travel, especially in foreign countries. There is no reason why this privilege should be confined to the well-to-do classes. Many poor people have the mental qualities which fit them to receive valuable impressions from visits to Europe, and such missionaries of taste and good government are sadly needed in our cities. By coöperation and saving, and by securing prizes for attainments in the school work, trips to Europe are not outside the reach of a large number of the poor. Of course this is somewhat easier in England than it is in America, but it is not impossible for us in these days of cheap ocean transportation. The Bermondsey Setlement in 1895 announced an excursion party from London, July 31st to August 14th, to visit the wonderful Swiss scenery by way of Bale, Lucerne, the Rigi, Meiningen, Interlaken and Berne. The entire cost was to be £7 10s. Toynbee Hall Travellers' Club arranges for excursions in continental Europe. One excursion of twenty-four days, to Greece, cost £19 13s. 3d. each. The club had ninety-eight members. Saturday and holiday excursions in and about London, conducted by an intelligent guide, afford means of pointing out places of historic interest, revealing accessible art treasures, and making the citizen at home in his own country.

D. Esthetic culture. In a sordid, squalid street of an American city there is little to attract the eye of a person of refined taste. Poverty leaves streets and alleys in sad plight. Poverty discourages housewives. Space is too small for gardens. In tenement flats there is scant room even for the essential functions of animal existence. "It is not only indifference which keeps the public living in the far East away from the West End art treasures. The expense of transit; the ignorance of ways of getting about; the shortness of daylight beyond working hours during the greater part of the year; the impression that the day when they could go is sure to be the day when the museum is closed to the public;—all these little discouragements become difficulties, especially to the large numbers who have not yet had enough opportunities of knowing the joy which art gives." (Mrs. S. A. Barnett.)

Yet even under such discouraging conditions the joy in beauty and the æsthetic hunger become manifest. There may be a devotional picture, an ugly colored print on the wall, a cheap, machinemade lace curtain at the window; a sickly flowering plant begging for light through a pane against which dirt, has been splashed from the side walk. Baby is playing with a red ribbon, and catching with unwashed hands at stray sunbeams. The adolescent girl will leave school to work for two dollars a week in a huge and merciless department. store, in order to get money for a smart bonnet or a bright gown. When starved and city-depressed children are taken to a place where flowers bloom,

birds sing, and clear waters murmur over pebbles, it is pitiful to see their outbursts of happiness, which must soon be damped and quenched in the mephitic air of the cells miscalled homes.

Completeness of life demands beauty. A complete person is beautiful. Beauty is not bought for an end beyond itself, but to rest in and live upon. It is necessary to a true human life, and the poor have a right to it. Because they have no access to that "sweet living land of art," they grow morose and revengeful. They feel robbed, even when they know not what it is that belongs to their soul's rights and is not enjoyed. The gnawing of æsthetic craving makes them miserable, unsatisfied. Into the chamber left empty of pictures and music seven demons came and made their hell of orgies there. Vacated mansions are haunted by ghosts. Now that we have discovered the power of municipal governments, art will be more and more a right of all, and museums will be made accessible to the poor as well as to the rich.

Settlements are not always provided with æsthetic leaders; but when lovers of beauty are in control the life of the neighborhood has a new element of hope. With the entrance of this factor of duty it is literally true:

"Flowers laugh before her in their beds,
And fragrance in her footing treads."

The function of the Settlement is to cultivate appreciation, set up standards of criticism, open laws of interpretation, and to discover and develop

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