Keuka College - Kiondaga Yearbook (Keuka Park, NY)

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THE COLLEGE RECORD. 15 time and attention can be given to mythical interpretation if justice is done to the more important features of linguistic training. If the student has sufficient understanding of the mythical references to make the context clear, he does well. In general, the same may be said of College students in Greek and Latin until they come to a course especially pre- pared for the study of Greek and Roman Mythology. The first purpose of such a course should be to collect and classify mythical material of the Greeks and Romans. Attention should be given to such methods and results of interpretation as are recognized by scholarly men. If the teacher has con- victions of his own they will, unavoidably, give shape and color to his presentation of the subject, but they need not be made prominent. Justice has not been given to the possibili- ties of such a course of study unless students are led to recog- nize in the evolution of human thought a Law that makes for righteousness and progress. This can be done best by laying aside any disposition toward arbitrary instruction, and by leav- ing each individual free to appropriate helpful lessons in accord- ance with his own taste and temperament. NATHANIEL HAWTHORN, THE PURITAN. Abbie E. Weeks. II ISTORY does not often produce a man who, by sheer ■ force of intellect, can dominate the thought of a na- tion for one generation ; less often does she give us a man who can control the thought and, therefore, much of the con- duct of the greatest nations of the world for two and a half centuries. History seldom repeats herself, and the world has yet to see a successor to John Calvin. The doctrines which he formulated and established in the minds of his contemporaries are still the essential teachings of Protestantism, but it is be- cause the Puritan of England and sturdy New England was more rigidly Calvinistic than any other sect that we have a right to speak of Hawthorn, the Puritan. Calvin taught, and the Puritan believed that the individual has direct communication with God, and is directly responsi- ble to God alone ; that since man is responsible to God, he

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14 THE COLLEGE RECORD. twelve months of the solar year, or the twelve hours of day- light. In harmony with this interpretation of the labors of Hercules is the idea that these twelve great tasks represent great cyclic crises in the history of the soul, in which, Her- cules, the Sun god, means the Sun nature of man overcom- ing the elements of darkness in his own character. Even con- servative critics admit that some parts of the myths about Her- cules have a beautiful allegorical significance. Modern scholars are inclined to think that he seeks in vain who seeks to find esoteric meaning in myths. Those who see any such significance in them are willing to admit that they do not seek ; they do not try to find ; they do not hunt ; they find because they cannot help finding ; they see because they cannot help seeing. Therefore, knowing full well that truth reveals itself in accordance with the degree of Soul-develop- ment of the investigator and in accordance with his type of mind, they feel no inclination to consider their interpretation as authoritive or to thrust it upon others. The ground of an article on this subject has not been satis- factorily covered until some attention has been given to the place of mythical interpretation in the educational field. Edu- cators whose province it is to deal with mythical literature may be considered in three classes : First, teachers of children ; this includes parents and all who have any responsibility in re- gard to children's reading, as well as teachers of English in primary and elementary grades ; second, teachers of Latin and Greek in High School grade ; third, teachers of Greek and Latin in Coll ege. Educators, much more than formerly, are selecting for chil- dren's reading a large proportion of mythical material and fairy stories. It is well for the teacher to be in close touch with the spirit of the literature read and to have a noble purpose in teaching it, but, with children, Interpretation may best be left in the background. It is important for the teacher to recog- nize in the child the functioning of the same Law of life which produced tin- literature that is being read, and to have confi- dence in the working of this Law. Therefore, with children, tli' wise teai her will do little allegorizing. In the ancient languages of High School grade almost no

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16 THE COLLEGE RECORD. may insist on liberty of thought, but not on liberty to believe the wrong, and to the Puritan everything opposed to his creed was wrong; that the church is made up of regenerate persons, and only those are regenerate who prove their faith by holy living; and that all believers have equal rights before God. To these great essential principles were added others of lesser value. The hard doctrine of election was emphasized ; church and State were made one, and legislation extended even to the details of private life; pleasure of all kinds was condemned ; it was a sin to laugh, it was wicked to be happy. The spirit life of the Puritan was so real to him that with his vivid imagination he could people the world with ghosts or witches as the time required, but, mo st of all, to him God was a con- stant presence, ever just, but never loving ; ever angry, ever ready to hurl the unrepentant sinner into an eternal and literal lake of fire. Harsh, austere, unattractive, intolerant, superstitious, yet mighty in its compelling power — such was the religion for many generations of the Puritan family that gave us Nathaniel Hawthorne. But Time, in his accustomed leisurely way of doing things, wrought changes in the Calvinism of our New England fore- fathers. The rugged nature of the Puritan gradually yielded to gentler influences. The voice of God came to be heard not only in the individual conscience, but in the songs of birds and in the murmur of the brooks and the breezes ; the Puri- tan imagination learned to see God in the delicate blossom and in the noble mountain, as well as in the terrible calamities that overtake mankind from time to time; the intolerance of the seventeenth century was refined into the beautiful desire to call all men brothers ; the Puritan conscience slowly but sure- ly gave itself over to German philosophy, and the Puritan of the old Colony days stands transformed into the New England idealist of the nineteenth century. Into this somewhat rarified transcendental atmosphere was Hawthorne bom. He was strangely a part of the world into whi h be had come, but more strangely still a part of the Puritan world whence he was descended. He inherited many ot the good traits of his ancestors with few of their failings ; bis rugged characteristics came from his father, his delicate,