62
THE FORTNIGHT.
The other day, when we asked the Prof. of English Literature how many were taking Anglo-Saxon, we were surprised to hear that not one of our ambitious Juniors had attempted its intricacies. Of course, Anglo-Saxon is of no "practical" value whatever, but we did think that at least two or three Juniors would have courage or curiosity enough to spend the insignificant time of ten weeks upon it. This is only another example of the worst trait of our American college-students, of the anxiety to "get through," somehow or anyhow; of the wish to acquire only such knowledge as shall be "practical," then to rush out into the world. It is this feeling that makes the classes in Greek, one of the two great literatures, so miserably small. Sciences are compulsory; German and a little Latin are taken instead of better work; mathematics have an exactness very satisfactory to that man of affairs, the young American. But in all this there is an effort for knowledge rather than wisdom, for expertness rather than culture.
And yet another new magazine has appeared to try its fortune in what would seem an already overcrowded field. The English Illustrated Magazine is, in some respects, a new idea. It makes illustration a prominent feature, and backs up its pictures with articles by the best writers. In the first number we have a beautiful wood engraving of Alma Tadema's "Shy" for the frontispiece. F. W. Maitland writes very entertainingly of the old English law-courts and of Westminster, where judges sat for more than six hundred years. Mr. Swinburne contributes a somewhat spun-out poem on those famous rocks near the Channel Islands, the Casquettes. "The Dormouse at Home" is shown up by Grant Allen, who is an enthusiastic evolutionist, writing in the manner of John Burroughs. Our aesthetes will read Comyns Carr's article on Rosetti;
our scientist, Prof. Huxley on oysters. The curious in folk-tales will find an Irish story by William Black,and the novel-readers Mrs. Young's serial, "The Amourer's 'Prentices.'" The excellence of its articles, the number and quality of its illustrations, the beauty of its typography, and its low price all combine to recommend the English Illustrated Magazine.
The monthly magazine seems to be rapidly becoming the chief vehicle of literature. Commencing with the staid and sober review, it has absorbed the original material which the review undertook to analyse and condense for its readers. We have now in this country at least four first-class general monthlies, besides a number of special publications. Two of these four add the attractions of illustration to their literary merit, one of the others gains a hold upon our politics-loving people by giving prominence to such subjects, while the fourth maintains its reputation as the best purely literary monthly. Below these four are others of all degrees of goodness or badness. But the Century, Harper's, the North American and the Atlantic are easily chief. Every student should endeavor to read every month, at least one article in each of the four.
Now we are on the subject, why would not this be a good time to revive the Kansas Magazine. The quality of work done before, in face of all financial discouragements, was a surprise to the outside world. It was a shame that the people of this state permitted so good a periodical to die of neglect. Kansas should be prouder of those four volumes than of her corn-crops. If this ever reaches the eye of Henry King, whose pen first elevated the literature of Kansas to the dignity of the Atlantic and Scribner, let him consider that he had a better occupation before than grinding on a daily paper. Let us have the Kansas Magazine once more.