Central High School - EN EM Yearbook (North Manchester, IN)

Page 20 text:

14 MAPLE LEAVES. of the pine woods, in exactly the same condition as it was fifty years ago. Why it is called the Margaret Fuller cottage is still something of a mystery, as Margaret Fuller was never a member of the community, and never lived in it. She was only a visitor. Then, to sum up, we find that comparatively few of the old buildings yet remain. Notwithstanding the fact that these people did all in their power to make the Brook Farm movement prosper, it lacked the real and true business principles and the vital elements of the simple and normal home life, which alone could have made Brook Farm a living reality today. THE FLORA OF CHESTER TOWNSHIP. BLANCHE G. IIINKLE. Numbering approximately nine hundred Phanerogams and six hundred Cryptogams, it has but little to distinguish it from the flora of other localities that do not possess limestone beds or extensive marsh land. Fifty years ago the forests of Chester township were thickly planted with specimens of those two great monarchs of the temperate zone, the white oak and the tulip or white poplar. The study of botany fifty years ago was surely a source of pleasure to such scientists as D. Condoll, Ehrhart, Hooker, Linnaens, Muhlenberg, Rafinesque and Torrey. When the ravages of civilization had not destroyed the sacred wilds of the floral world. How strange is the fact that all these great scientists visited this country in advance of that great destroyer of the natural, and the upbuilder of the artificial, civilized man. But with all the changes in the topographical appearances of Chester township, fully eighty of its plants found here then, can be found here now. In considering the subject matter of this paper, we deem it unnecessary to list this flora in detail, but to consider it in groups, and to form connection as far as possible with the plants under domestication. The first group of any importance in the Polypeta-lous Exogens is the Ranunculus or Crowfoot To it belong the larkspur, columbine, clematis, anemone and buttercup. The Crucifcra, or Mustard Family, can be identified with the cresses, mustard, turnip and the cabbage group, and several early spring flowers, as the tooth wart and cardamine. To the Geraniums belong the oxalis, which contains the common wood-sorrel, having petals white with reddish veins, often notched. The geraniums and touch-me-not, or balsam, are also species of this group that are found here. In the Rose family you will find our fruit-bearing trees, the apple, peach, pear, cherry and plum, the strawberry, blackberry and raspberry, which need no explanation to a “Hoosier.” The Onagra family contains the evening primrose, loosestrife and willow-herb. The Umbel group contains the parsley and parsnip of cultivation, and the poison hemlock of Demosthenes. About ten other indigenous plants can be found in Chester township. Of the Aralia family, ginseng, sarsaparilla and spikenard are found here. The Honeysuckle family, the first in the Gamopeta-lous Exogens, has for some of its members the common elder, the blackhaw and the woodbine or honeysuckle. The next large group is the Madder. Besides the use of some of its members in the coloring art, we derive from this family the coffee of commerce, Peruvian bark and quinine. Chester township is represented by the button bush of our swamps and about ten species of the galium or bed straw. The largest family division in botany is the Composite group, containing, as it does, a majority of our common weeds, such as the iron weed, golden rod, asters, dandelion, sunflower, daisy, ragweed and thistle There are about seventy distinct species in Chester township. Of the Lobelia we have five species. In this family most of the flowers are deep red and very large, growing on a single stem. The Heather family contains a great deal of our domestic shrubbery, for instance, the azalia, trailing arbutus and bay laurel, also the huckleberry, cranberry and wintergreen of the marshes. We find here five members of the Primrose family. Of the Olive family we have here only the ash in the wild form, with the fringe-tree, the lilac and the jessamine in cultivation. We have of the Gentian family six species, of the Phlox seven, and of the Waterleaf four. Boraginaceae, a large family of innocent plants contains the heliotrope, gomfrey, stickweed and the myosotis, or forget-me-not. Of the Convolvulus group we have the morning glory, the cypress vine and sweet potato of cultivation. The wild forms are the dodder and bind weed. The Nightshade family, although a large group in the tropics, has but few indigenous members in Ches ter township. To it belong the bitter sweet, Jamestown weed, tobacco, potato, egg plant and tomato. The Figwort family is represented by the fox glove, mullein and about twenty-four others. Some of them are very common and noxious weeds. Of the Mint family we have about twenty-two indigenous and eleven introduced species. The Buckwheat family is well represented in both the wild and cultivated forms. To it belong the

Page 19 text:

MAPLE LEAVES. 13 emotions, and lifted very ordinary amusement out of the sphere of the common place. Even the uncom mendable habit of punning, by which the entire community was at times infected, may, perhaps, be explained as one of the forms of effervescence induced by superabundant oxygen. After meals in the evening, and when it was possible to be in the open air, the associates made happiness a duty, and their high courage held them to harmless fun when their fainter souls would have dropped at the whisperings of evil days ahead. Except in the dead of winter, the varied acres of the domain itself, as wrell as the surrounding country, served as a setting for the animation which the finished labors of the day had set free, and the younger members of the family, especially, walked and held picnics through the outlying regions. Although there would be now and then during the winter a “fancy party,” the true revels of this sort were reserved for warm weather, and were held in the still beautiful grove. Dancing was much in vogue, and was enjoyed by all who knew the art. Their Sundays were not ordinarily kept with such rigid observance as might have befitted the descendants of the Pilgrims, wrhose high enterprise, as they sometimes flattered themselves, they had taken up and had carried onward and aloft, to a point which they never had dreamed of attaining. Hawthorne, in his “Blithedale Romance,” says, “Some went devoutly to the village church. Others, it may be, ascended a city or country pulpit, wearing the clerical robe writh so much dignity that you would scarcely have suspected the yeoman’s frock to have been flung off only since milking time. Others took long rambles among the rustic lanes and by-paths. Some betook themselves into the wide, dusky barn and lay there for hours together on the odorous hay. And others went a little way into the woods and threw' themselves on mother earth, pillowing their heads on a heap of moss, and there whiled away the afternoon hours.” When about their work, the women wore a short skirt with knickerbockers of the same material; but when the daily tasks were ended, they attired themselves after the simplest of the prevailing fashions. It is said that the motive of economy was responsible for the adoption by the men of the tunic in place of the “old w'orld coat.” This favorite garment was sometimes of brown Holland, but often blue, and was held in place by a black belt. Economy of labor may have been accountable for the unshorn face, but the beard was certainly in high favor at Brook Farm, and a predilection for long hair was also current. The most immediate and at times the only source income was the school, the establishment and maintenance of which alw'ays held a conspicuous place in this scheme. The transcendental philosophy could not well avoid laying stress on intellectual development and culture, and the student life of the farm was animated by a pervasive enthusiasm and held to an unvarying standard. In certain particulars the educational policy was ideally good, proceeding as it did on the theory that perfect freedom of intercourse between the students and a teaching body of men and women whose moral attainments wrere not distanced by their mental accomplishments, could not fail to justify itself. The farm was ahvays short of “hands,” but there were never any lack of heads in the Department of Instruction. There was an infant school for children under six; a primary school for those under ten; and children whose purpose it was to take the regular course of study laid down by the institution were placed in the preparatory school, which fitted youths for college in six years. Otherwise the studies were elective. The Brook Farm failed in 1847. Since that time the place has undergone many changes. It is now the Martin Luther home for German orphans, supported by the German churches and the Lutheran societies of New England and, in some cases, the West. One object that remains, and, in all likelihood, will probably remain the longest of any is the Eliot’s pulpit, which Hawthorne speaks of in his “Blithedale Romance.” It is a mammoth rock of conglomerate or Roxbury “pudding-stone,” standing some twenty-five feet high in the pine woods, a few mnutes walk back of the farm. It was on the top of this rock that tradition says the apostle Eliot used to preach to the Indians two centuries ago, and upon which in the Brook Farm time, Hollingsworth used to lecture on the Sabbath afternoons to Zenobia. Priscilla and Cov-erdale. Instead of the birch that used to canopy its top, there now stands a large pine, straight and overshadowing. While beneath the rock is the cave with the twro entrances, one at the base of the rock, and one at the top through which the children crawl in their pastimes. The shady pine grove wiiere the masqueraders sounded in Haw'thorne’s ear as if “Connis and his crew w'ere holding their revels in one of its lonesome glades,” is still used for the same purpose, but instead of the picturesquely attired masqueraders of the “Blithedale Romance,” a chance wrayfarer on the road would now catch gimpses in the summer time of dirty, ragged German children, brought from the slums of Boston to enjoy the rare privilege of a picnic in the country. Another relic of the time when the pioneer of the new social regime worked so hard to bring about their cherished millenium is the Margaret Fuller cottage, a little picturesque, four-gabled structure, standing on the farther slope of the hill, nestled in front

Page 21 text:

MAPLE LEAVES. 15 buckwheat, rhubarb, dock, sorrel and various species of the smart weed group. None of these are unfamiliar to the inhabitants of Chester township. The Nettle family can claim four species of the elm, four of the nettle and one each of the mulberry and hop. The Jugland group can be identified with two species of the walnut and four of the hickory. To the Oak family belongs the birch, hazel nut, iron weed, oak, beech and chestnut. Of the Orchid family seventeen species have been identified by Jenkins in Chester township. This family consists mostly of terestrial plants. It is different from the rest of the families and deserves special notice. It is not capable of self-fertilization. Most species of this family are fertilized by insects. The flower is so constructed that the insect may reach the nectar and wax his wings well with the same and as he weaves about through the flower and leaves, he drags the waxy pollen from place to place and by so doing unconsciously fertilizes the plant. The different species are found in the swamps and marshes, especially huckleberry marshes in the sphagnum moss, which serves as a carpet for the marsh. The different species are herbs, clearly distinguished by their perfect irregular flowers, with six-merous perianth adnate to the one-celled ovary, with innumerable ovules on three parietal placentae, and with either one or two gynandrous stamens, the pollen cohering in masses. The fruit is a one-celled, three-valved capsule, with innumerable minute seeds, appearing like fine sawdust. The perianth is of six divisions and in two sets; the three outer sepals are mostly of the same petal-like texture and have the same appearance as the three inner petals. One of the inner set differs more or less in figure, and direction from the rest and is called the lip; only the other two taking the name of petals. The lip is really the upper petal, the one next to the axis, but by a twist of the ovary of half a turn it is more commonly directed forward and brought next the bract. Before the lip, in the axis of the flower, is the column, composed of a single stamen, or in Cypripedium of two stamens and a rudiment of a third, variously coherent with or borne on the style or thick, fleshy stigma; a two-celled anther; each cell contains one or more masses of pollen or the pollen granular. They have tube-shaped roots. The leaves are parallel, all alternate. The flowers are very showy. One of the most distinguished species of this family found here is the Cypripedium, or lady’s slipper. It has a root of many tufted fibres, has large, many-nerved and plaited leaves, sheathing at the base. Its flowers are solitary or few, but very large and showy. Besides the families above mentioned, two others are important and deserve notice here. To the Lily group belong the smilax, onion, hyacinth, asparagus and various lilies. The Sedge and Grass families are well represented with over one hundred species each. In conclusion there have been seven hundred and thirty species collected and classified from Chester township and its immediate environments. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. KERNE E. FRAME. Perhaps in no other place in the world will we see such magnificent and far-famed buildings as those of the English cathedrals. Among these cathedrals, and one of the most famed, is the mother church of England. In the midst of the town of Canterbury, standing on a slight elevation and backed by higher hills, we see a great solitary church, which was first known as “Christ Church,” afterward called Canterbury Cathedral. The church was founded by Archbishop Laufranc, enlarged and completed by Anslem, and consecrated by Archbishop Corbel, in 1130, in the presence of Henry I of England, David, King of Scotland, and all the English bishops of the realm. “The ceremony was the most famous that had been heard of on earth since that of the temple of Solomon.” The metropolitan cathedral owes its enthralling interest to its vastness of scale, its wealth of monuments, its treasures of early glass, and the great historical scenes that have been enacted within its walls —above all, to that greatest of all historical tragedies, the murder of Thomas a’Becket. It does not owe its distinction to architecture. Whole building periods were unrepresented; for the century and a half when England’s design was at its best the Canterbury authorities slept. What we have is the result of two periods only, with some scraps incorporated from earlier Norman work. What is there is not of the best. Canterbury scornfully declines any attempt at composition. Transepts and turrets are plumped down anyhow and anywhere; to the east it finishes abruptly in the ruined crags of a vast round tower; to the west the towers of its facade were, till lately, as incongruous in character as in date. Externally it is an assemblage of distinct and discordant buildings. The entire length of the structure is five hundred seventy-six feet, and the extreme breadth one hundred fifty-nine feet. The main entrance is in a great porch projecting from the southern side of the southwestern tower. Passing through this entrance into the interior we first enter the great bare nave, as it stood when Chaucer’s Pilgrims saw it clothed. Here we have the perpendicular style. It had been changed in the fourteenth century from transitional