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set to music by several other composers, most of whom probably supposed that it was Bryant's. I find in a stray newspaper cutting an account of Lincoln's coming down to the Red Room of the White House one morning in the summer of 1864, to listen with bowed head and patient pensive eyes while one of a party of visitors sang

of the war tunes which have survived the welter and turmoil of the actual strife; but the occasion was not improved. Little more has been done than a chance arrangement of airs in the clap-trap manner of Jullien's "British Army Quadrilles." The "Centennial March" which Richard Wagner wrote for us was the work of a master, no doubt, but it was perfunctory, and hopelessly inferior to his resplen

"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred dent "Kaiser March." The German composer thousand more.'

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A rattling good war song which has kept its hold on the ears of the people is "When Johnny comes Marching Home," written in 1863 by "Louis Lambert." Behind this pseudonym was hidden Mr. P. S. Gilmore, the projector of the Boston "Peace Jubilee," and the composer afterward of a more ambitious national hymn, which has hitherto failed to attain the popularity of its unpretending predecessor with the rousing refrain. It is related that after the performance of "Glory to God on High," from Mozart's Twelfth Mass, on the first day of the Jubilee, an old soldier of the Webster regiment took occasion to shake hands with Mr. Gilmore and to proffer his congratulations on the success of the undertaking, adding that for his part what he had liked best was the piece called the "Twelfth

Massachusetts."

At the Boston Peace Jubilee, and again at the Centennial Exhibition, there was opportunity for the adequate and serious treatment

had not touch of the American people, and as he did not know what was in our hearts, we had no right to hope that he should give it expression. The time is now ripe for the musician who shall richly and amply develop, with sustained and sonorous dignity, the few simple airs which represent and recall to the people of these United States the emotions, the doubts, the dangers, the joys, the sorrows, the harassing anxieties, and the final triumph of the four long years of bitter strife. The composer who will take "John Brown's Body" and "Marching through Georgia," and such other of our war tunes as may be found worthy, and who shall do unto them as the still living Hungarian and Scandinavian composers have done to the folk-songs of their native land, need not hesitate from poverty of material or from fear of the lack of a responsive audience. The first American composer who shall turn these war tunes into mighty music to commemorate the events which called them forth, will of a certainty have his reward. Brander Matthews.

NOTE ON THE "BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC."

[At the request of the Editor, Mrs. Howe has prepared the subjoined account of the circumstances attending the origin of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."]

IN December, 1861, the first year of our Civil War, I made a journey to Washington in company with Dr. Howe, Governor and Mrs. John A. Andrew, and other friends. I remember well the aspect of things within what might then have been termed "the debatable land." As our train sped on through the darkness, we saw in vivid contrast the fires of the pickets set to guard the line of the railroad. The troops lay encamped around the city, their cantonments extending to a considerable distance. At the hotel, officers and their orderlies were conspicuous, and army ambulances were constantly arriving and departing. The gallop of horsemen, the tramp of footsoldiers, the noise of drum, fife, and bugle, were heard continually. The two great powers were holding each other in check, and the very air seemed tense with expectancy. Bull Run had shown the North that any victory it might hope to achieve would be neither swift nor easy. The Southern leaders, on the other hand, had already learned something of the determined temper and persistent resolve of those with whom they had to cope.

The one absorbing thought in Washington was the army, and the time of visitors like ourselves was VOL. XXXIV.—87.

mostly employed in visits to the camps and hospitals. Such preaching as we heard was either to the soldiers or about them and the issues of the war. Such prayers as were made were uttered in stress and agony of spirit, for the war itself was a dread sorrow to us.

It happened one day that, in company with some friends, among whom was the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, I attended a review of our troops, at a distance of several miles from the city. The manœuvres were interrupted by a sudden attack of the enemy, and instead of the spectacle promised us, we saw some reënforcements gallop hastily to the aid of a small force of our own, which had been surprised and surrounded.

Our return to the city was impeded by the homeward marching of the troops, who nearly filled the highway. Our progress was therefore very slow and to beguile the time, we began to sing army songs, among which the John Brown song soon came to mind. Some one remarked upon the excellence of the tune, and I said that I had often wished to write some words which might be sung to it. We sang, however, the words which were already well known as belonging to it, and our singing seemed to please the soldiers, who surrounded us like a river, and who themselves took up the strain, in the intervals crying to us: "Good for you."

I slept as usual that night, but awoke before dawn the next morning, and soon found myself trying to

weave together certain lines which, though not entirely suited to the John Brown music, were yet capable of being sung to it. I lay still in the dark room, line after line shaping itself in my mind, and verse after verse. When I had thought out the last of these, I felt that I must make an effort to place them beyond the danger of being effaced by a morning nap. I sprang out of bed and groped about in the dim twilight to find a bit of paper and the stump of a pen which I remembered to have had the evening before. Having found these articles, and having long been accustomed to scribble with scarcely any sight of what I might write in a room made dark for the repose of my infant children, I began to write the lines of my poem in like manner. (I was always careful to decipher these lines within twenty-four hours, as I had found them perfectly illegible after a longer period.) On the occasion now spoken of, I completed my writing, went back to bed, and fell fast asleep.

A day or two later, I repeated my verses to Mr. Clarke, who was much pleased with them. Soon after my return to Boston, I carried the lines to James T. Fields, at that time Editor of the "Atlantic Monthly." The title, "Battle Hymn of the Republic," was of his devising. The poem was published soon after in the magazine, and did not at first receive any especial mention. We were all too much absorbed in watching the progress of the war to give much heed to a copy of verses more or less. I think it may have been a year later that my lines, in some shape, found their way into a Southern prison in which a number of our soldiers were confined. An army chaplain who had been imprisoned with them came to Washington soon after

his release, and in a speech or lecture of some sort, described the singing of the hymn by himself and his companions in that dismal place of confinement. People now began to ask who had written the hymn, and the author's name was easily established by a reference to the magazine. The battle hymn was often sung in the course of the war, and under a great variety of circumstances. Among other anecdotes, I have heard of its having once led a "forlorn hope" through a desperate encounter to a successful issue. The wild echoes of the fearful struggle have long since died away, and with them all memories of unkindness between ourselves and our Southern brethren. But those who once loved my hymn still sing it. In many a distant Northern town where I have stood to speak, the song has been sung by the choir of some one of the churches before or after my lecture. I could hardly believe my ears when, at an entertainment at Baton Rouge which I shared with other officers of the New Orleans Exposition, the band broke bravely into the John Brown tune. It was scarcely less surprising for me to hear my verses sung at the exposition by the colored people who had invited me to speak to them in their own department. A printed copy of the words and music was once sent me from Constantinople, by whom, I never knew. But when I visited Koberts College, in the neighborhood of that city, the good professors and their ladies at parting asked me to lis ten well to what I might hear on my way down the steep declivity. I did so, and heard, in sweet, full cadence, the lines which scarcely seem mine, so much are they the breath of that heroic time, and of the feeling with which it was filled. Julia Ward Howe.

A

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

An Urgent Measure of National Defense. SIDE from the construction of ships and fortifications, to which there is reason to believe that the next Congress will give serious attention, the most pressing question of national defense relates to the naval personnel. Not that our officers and blue-jackets are of inferior quality: far from it. Given the materials necessary for training in modern war, and our naval force, as far as it goes, will challenge comparison with any of its rivals. The difficulty is not that it is inefficient, but that it is insufficient. It is a mere nucleus, a navy on a peace footing. Alike in the Revolution, when our enemy had a powerful navy, and in the Civil War, when he had no navy at all, the Government felt from the outset to the close the urgent want of a large body of trained man-o'-war's-men. Men were gradually enlisted, but the absence of a previous enrollment made it difficult and expensive to get them, and the absence of a previous training deferred the period of their efficiency until long after they were got.

In accordance with that sound maxim of American policy which forbids the maintenance of a large stand

ing force, our regular army will probably never exceed twenty or thirty thousand men, and our regular navy ten or twelve thousand. But the army makes up for its small size by an ample reserve, composed of a wellorganized, well-equipped, and well-trained militia. If a war should break out to-morrow, it would be easy to put into the field, in the course of a fortnight, from fifty to one hundred thousand men, officered, armed, and, to some extent, trained for war. They would be raw troops, no doubt, but they would still be troops: all the preliminary work- the enrollment, by which the Government could lay hands on them immediately, the ar rangement in working organizations, the elementary training - would have been provided for beforehand, and when the crisis came, would be an accomplished fact.

The navy, on the other hand, upon which the country must place its first reliance for defence, whose forces are always scattered, and whose statutory number, of seven thousand five hundred seamen, falls short of actual peace requirements, is absolutely without a provision for enlargement. In our population of sixty millions there is not a single individual known to the

Navy Department by name, residence, or occupation, and much less is there any organization,-upon whom or upon which it could call in an emergency to perform duty in ships of war. Plenty of men there doubtless are who would be glad to offer their services, and who might in the course of time be enlisted, assigned to duties, and made available for purposes of training; but the enlistment and assignment of any large number would take two months at least, and the training would require a month or two more. During the four months thus consumed, a properly prepared enemy would have destroyed all our construction-yards and naval stations, to say nothing of our commerce and our commercial cities.

the establishment of the Niagara Reservation. No question involving simply the public's chances of future pleasure can have a greater interest than the question, What now is to be done with this property which the people of the State of New-York hold in trust for the people of all the world?

Entrance-fees have already been abolished, and many eyesores and incumbrances in the shape of mills and fences and vulgar places of amusement have already been removed. But it will easily be understood that a great deal of further work-and of a constructive as well as of a destructive characterwill be required if the Reservation is to show that its owners appreciate its value and the responsibility To remedy this glaring defect, a plan must be pre- which its possession lays upon them. We are sorry pared which shall receive the substantial approval of the to say that there is no immediate prospect of this mercantile and maritime community on the one hand, work being undertaken. That is, no money has yet and of the Government on the other; for these are the been appropriated by the Legislature to begin it. But two forces whose coöperation is necessary to insure the Board which has the Reservation in charge has success. Its two underlying features are the enrollment accepted the plan of improvement suggested by the of volunteers from the merchant service, the fishing landscape artists to whose consideration the matter fleet, and the yacht squadrons, as officers, petty officers, was submitted;* and we think it only needs that the and seamen of the United States Naval Reserve; and outlines of this plan should be laid before the public secondly, their training from time to time, for short to excite a strong wish that it shall as soon as possiperiods three weeks or a month at the most -in ble be put in execution. Seldom, we think, has a task regularly commissioned ships of war, organized, if pos- of the kind been approached in a spirit which so sible, as a squadron of evolutions. The volunteers unites common sense with artistic feeling, and so should receive compensation while actually in service, carefully holds the balance true between what is due and, the period of training finished, they should be to the property itself and what is due to the persons free to return to their vocations, retaining their con- who will visit it. nection with the service by a permanent registration. The details of the plan require careful deliberation, but they present no serious difficulties, and call for no great outlay. Registers opened at the commercial seaports should be inscribed with the names of those desiring to associate themselves with the naval reserve. The Navy Department should devote to the work some of the modern ships of which its home squadron will shortly be composed, with selected officers in sufficient numbers to provide for the instruction of the volunteers. The latter, wearing the uniform of the service, and subject to its regulations, would perform their tour of duty at periods that would cause the least possible interruption of their ordinary occupations.

The plan would not make sailors out of landsmen, but that would not be its object. The volunteers, being seafaring men, already know half their business, and they would be given an opportunity to learn the other half, the handling of weapons, the routine and discipline of a ship of war, and the intelligent use of its manifold mechanical appliances. The adoption of such a plan would enable the Government, at the first sign of war, to fit out at once all the ships laid up at its yards, instead of marking time while its squadrons returned from distant stations, or, worse still, while Congress deliberated upon the best method of mobilizing a force that was not yet organized, trained, or even recruited. Certainly no measure of national defence is more reasonable or practical than this, and there is none that calls more urgently for immediate action.

The Niagara Reservation.

FEW public measures, based upon considerations other than those of economic benefit, have met with such wide-spread and hearty approval as has greeted

The problem was by no means an easy one to master. Its very first theoretic stages were, indeed, simple enough. Of course, as Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux begin by saying, it is desirable "that whatever is done shall tell toward a general result that shall be lastingly satisfactory, nothing being wasted on matters of temporary expediency"; and of course this means that preparation must be made for the presence of even greater crowds of visitors than have been in the habit of assembling in the past. Again, it is obvious that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the one aim to be kept in view. The rights of local property-owners have already been made to yield to it; and to it must be subordinated also the privileges of individual tourists in so far as they seem likely to conflict with general enjoyment.

Up to this point no great difficulty presented itself. But then to decide what really is the greatest good in such a case, and, this having been settled, so to elaborate a plan of improvement that it might be thoroughly well secured, but that individual privileges might be interfered with no more than strict necessity compelled, and in such a manner as to excite the least possible feeling of constraint in the most selfish of tourists-these were matters which demanded the exercise of patient thought, clear judg ment, wise foresight, and that practical knowledge which could only have grown from long experience with similar problems.

As revealed in their lucid, full, and logical statement,

*"General Plan for the Improvement of the Niagara Reservation." New York: Martin B. Brown, 49 & 51 Park Place. 1887. (A pamphlet containing the report addressed to the Hon. William Dorsheimer, President of the Board of Commissioners and Calvert Vaux, Landscape-architects; and a large map of the of the State Reservation at Niagara, by Frederick Law Olmsted property as it will appear if remodeled in accordance.)

Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux's primary idea is that the greatest good which they can secure to their clients is the enjoyment of natural scenery in as pure and unadulterated an aspect as the decent, safe, and comfortable accommodation of great throngs of visitors will permit. That is to say, people will in future be expected to come to Niagara to look at Niagara, not to picnic or to play, and not to gaze at mountebanks, or peep-shows, or "galleries of art," or collections of natural curiosities. And they will be shown it as nearly as possible as nature made it, neither desecrated nor, in the cant sense," improved," and under the beams of the sun and moon, but never again of colored calcium-lights. Its beauty and its wonderfulness are to be given the freest chance to speak to our emotions, while the petty and discordant tones of humanity's creations are as much as possible to be suppressed. And, with keen artistic taste, this rule is so extended as to war against all artificial accentuation of natural charms, all deliberate emphasizing of natural impressions. Every opportunity will be given the visitor to see all there is to see, but no effort will be made to enhance astonishment, to excite amazement, or to stimulate mere curiosity.

Surely these decisions are wise. So, also, is the cognate decision that, as "the more artificial features fill the eye the less will be the effect of natural features," no object or arrangement "of an artificial character should be allowed a place on the property, no matter how valuable it might be under other circumstances, and no matter at how little cost it may be had, the presence of which can be avoided consistently with the provision of necessary conditions for making the enjoyment of the natural scenery available." Those objects and arrangements which, in the pursuance of this end, cannot be avoided will be only too numerous, and will be only too conspicuous despite the care that will be taken to make them unobtrusive in both form and color. Roads and walks must be constructed in greater numbers than they exist to-day, if all other portions of the surface are to be guarded as carefully as they should be — much more carefully, that is, than they have been in the past. Standing and turning places for carriages must be laid out. Abundant seats and various bridges and stairways are of course a necessity. Shelters must be built containing ample accommodations for the guardians of the place and for the comfort of the greatest possible crowds of visitors. Especially when the narrowness of the long belt which forms the Reservation is considered, do we feel how wise, therefore, is the judgment which would exclude all other objects save those which nature in tended the ground to bear; not only all appliances for "amusement," but all works of art, all exotic ornamental trees and shrubs, all "decorative" flower-beds, everything that could further interfere with the natural aspect of the place or (quite as important a point) could attract the eye to details when it should be contemplating broad general effects.

Another thing which this precept obliges (and which the comfort of the great body of visitors also necessitates) is that there shall be no places of entertainment, or of more than temporary shelter except at the very entrance of the Reservation, and that stringent care shall be taken to prevent the monopolizing of attractive spots by picnic parties and the littering of the ground with sandwich-papers, soda-water bottles, and

tomato-cans. Vast numbers of people—sometimes as many as ten thousand a day- come every summer for a brief look at the Falls, who neither would nor could come were they obliged to refresh and rest themselves at the village hotels. For these, and their babies and baskets, ample and even luxurious accommodation will be provided in a large (but low) recep tion-building at the entrance to the Reservation in the Upper Grove, and in adjacent half-open pavilions. But beyond these buildings no carrying of food will be permitted, and nowhere else will it be supplied. The hardship resulting from this rule will be very small, for the distance from the site of the old eatinghouse on Goat Island to the new reception-rooms or to the village hotels is scarcely greater than a ten minutes' walk will cover. In truth, it will be no hardship but a positive benefit to the average unthinking tourist if he is thus persuaded to rest and refresh himself before he does his sight-seeing.

The good sense shown by another decision is perhaps less immediately obvious, but is quite as evident when the reasons for it are studied in the report and by the aid of the map. Involving as they do calculations with regard to the numbers who are likely to visit the Reservation in future years, statements as to the insecurity of certain portions of the water-front, descriptions of the lay of the ground in various directions, and a balancing of the relative claims of accommodation and of natural beauty, these reasons are far too long and complicated to be quoted here. But they clearly show, we repeat, the wisdom of the decision that the carriage-drives and halting-places, both on the mainland and on Goat Island, shall be kept a little away from the shore, and that the best points of view shall be approachable only on foot. Nor is the hardship which this decision may seem to involve much more than an apparent one. To make some thirty paces on foot is but a small exertion for the able-bod ied, and wheeled chairs are to be supplied for the use of invalids. The greatest good of the greatest number will be promoted by this arrangement almost more than by any other that is proposed.

One or two additional intentions may be noted. All hazardous points along the brink will be rendered as safe as possible, and carefully guarded against overcrowding. All plantings will be made with native trees in desirable variety, more regard being paid to permanent than to speedily effective results; and they will be so arranged as to screen off the vil lage from the Reservation, while allowing constant views or glimpses of the water from all the roads and paths. The shore line above the falls will be restored to naturalness of aspect and protected against the encroachment of the water in inconspicuous ways. The present staircase to the Cave of the Winds will be retained for immediate use; but as the recession of the cliff will eventually necessitate its removal, it is advised that at some future day a shaft and tunnel containing an elevator should be built, the entrance to be placed some fifty feet from the edge of the bank. Further to reduce the inconveniences and expenses which hitherto have afflicted the tourist, a cheap omnibus-service will be established, and modest guideposts will direct pedestrians.

This then, in its main outlines, is the scheme for the execution of which we hope the next Legislature will

be asked to vote sufficient funds. Of course not everything which it suggests need be done at once; but with regard to some things there is the greatest necessity for immediate action. It is especially desirable, for instance, that the new drives on Goat Island should be at once constructed, for those which exist are so insufficient that visitors are seriously inconvenienced, and many intervening stretches of ground are month by month more seriously injured by trampling feet. But the truth is that there is scarcely a yard of the entire Reservation which does not need treatment of some sort - - either for alteration or for conservation; and as all the work requires much time for its completion, none of it can be begun too

soon.

Even after it is, so to say, completed, much additional time must elapse before its full results will be apparent, for a landscape-artist must wait years for his labors to finish themselves after he has finished upon the soil the plan he had sketched on paper. The main thing, therefore, is, to begin. But when once we have begun, the main thing will be to remember through all coming years that the property must not only be made, but kept, what its wisely chosen name implies,- a piece of nature defended as strictly as possible against all

intrusion of artificiality. As such it will have no more room for certain kinds of beauty to display themselves than for any kind of ugliness. To try to prettify it with fountains and statues, and exotic shrubs and brilliant flower-beds, would be as unwise, as inartistic, and as vulgar almost, as to try to add to its attractions by merry-go-rounds and menageries, and illuminations, and ice-cream stalls. One feels sure that the Reservation will never again wear that disgraceful resemblance to a country fair-ground which it has worn so long. But we wish one could feel just as sure that it will never be made into a park or a garden or a pleasure-ground of any kind, even the most sumptuously "aristocratic."

We wish too that it were entirely certain, that if the year of Queen Victoria's jubilee is indeed to be signalized by the forming of a Government Reservation on the Canada shore, this too will be planned and managed in accordance with this general idea. The views from the Canada bank are much more extensive and imposing than those from our own. There is all the greater reason, therefore, why their effect should not be lessened by " ornamental" park-like foregrounds, or forced into unworthy rivalry with the attractions of places of amusement and bodily refreshment.

Education of the Blind.

NO. I. AS CHILDREN.

OPEN LETTERS.

The chief difficulty in the past, and perhaps an unavoidable one in the way of more satisfactory results in OTWITHSTANDING the attention given to this the education of the blind as a class, has been that most

able and philanthropic persons, and the excellent work in certain directions and within certain limits now done in many of our State institutions, the matter is still but very imperfectly understood, even by those who make it a specialty, and scarcely at all by the general public. Yet it is one of almost universal interest. There are, comparatively speaking, but few families in this or any other country which are not sooner or later, directly or indirectly, called upon to exercise their thoughts and sympathies in behalf of some afflicted member, friend, or acquaintance, for whom, in their ignorance of possibilities and precedents, they entertain the most exaggerated compassion, the most needlessly doleful and hopeless ideas.

The experience and observation of many years enable me to speak with definite, vivid, personal knowledge upon this theme; and though I have by no means the intention, nor perhaps the ability, to formulate a complete system of study and training for those deprived of sight, I may possibly, by a few practical suggestions, throw a little light into some darkened existences, render less appalling the roar of life's battle to some about entering it under fearful disadvantages, or show a gleam of hope to the heavy heart of some discouraged mother, who sees her child, in all the glad bright promise of the future which her fond maternal pride has pictured in advance, entombed alive in midnight blackness, blighted with the curse of useless, joyless dependence for such its fate appears to her. If I can succeed in giving aid or comfort to any of these, my labor will be repaid tenfold.

the theorizing experimenting,

practical work in this direction, has been done by seeing persons, who are never wholly able to divest their minds of certain prejudices and misapprehensions with regard to those under their charge, nor to enter fully into their real condition and actual needs. Many of them have been intelligent and earnestly devoted to their task, and a few have really hit upon some very rational projects and ingenious contrivances to ameliorate the condition and add to the comfort of their pupils and protégés; but the majority have been led astray by erroneous conceptions of the state with which they had to deal, which rendered their best-meant endeavors fruitless; while no small number have been fantastic dreamers or pig-headed hobbyists, erratic cranks of every description, who have either used this form of philanthropy as an easy means of gaining a livelihood, or have regarded the unfortunates under their charge as only important in the light of suitable and legitimate subjects for every variety of experiment, psychological and physical, from fanatical, monomaniac piety, to hydropathy.

Some of the theories put in practice, in defiance of common sense, by men whom the state supports and the public applauds, would be boundlessly ludicrous, if their results were not pitifully sad. For instance, the superintendent of a large and richly endowed institution for the blind at Naples maintains that all sightless persons should be kept in utter ignorance of sight; that in justice and mercy they should never be allowed to know what they miss,— that is, should never be permitted to meet, either in their specially prepared

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