The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 14
Left to myself, I strolled slowly along the path that led down the midst of this strange park, or garden. I inhaled with delight the sea-breeze, which blew steadily and with a delicious coolness at this elevation. I was only surprised to see comparatively so few enjoying what, if now available, would prove a constant attraction. The reason, after all, was not far to seek. The city-dwellers, who tended and enjoyed these gardens, were now in the busy part of their day. They resorted hither, either to enjoy the bracing morning air or the evening breeze. The few I saw scattered here and there, at wide intervals, were probably strangers, like myself, to the city. Yet to none could the scene be so strangely novel as to me, seeing that similar roof-gardens were a constant element in urban scenery.
About half-way to the tower, I approached one of the seats placed near the parapet, and, leaning over, looked down into the busy street. I hastily drew back. The parapet, though in reality abundantly strong, seemed to my imagination perilously frail, so frightful was the down-look.
On reaching the tower, I found it pierced by an archway affording passage to a spacious balcony. Standing on this, near where the Battery is now situated, I saw before me the bay, studded with craft of strange appearance. Near at hand I recognized Governor's, Bedloe's, and Ellis's Islands. But how altered their aspect! Governor's Island no longer presented a trace of any thing resembling a fort, or any sign of man's distrust or defiance of man. On the site of Brooklyn stood a city, statelier and more turret-crowned even than her predecessor of the present. In the foreground were granite docks fringed with shipping. From the edge of the docks extended a broad, open space unencumbered with buildings of any kind. Massive warehouses lined the farther edge of the esplanade, on which could be distinguished the locomotive wagons, sometimes singly, sometimes in long lines, carrying to and fro the cargoes that constituted the material of commerce between different hemispheres.
Farther back from the water, the city, though abounding in stately edifices, was no longer so closely built, but displayed among its masonry a large amount of foliage. This arose, as I afterwards discovered, from the city being throughout arranged in squares, each enclosing an expanse of verdure.
Brooklyn had become a great university city, where, during six months of the year, some fifty thousand students, of both sexes, attended the prelections of celebrated teachers. My first thought, upon hearing this, was, By what possible means do the authorities manage to preserve order among such a concourse? How are explosions prevented among such a mass of inflammable material? The solution of this seeming riddle was, after all, sufficiently simple. A brief sojourn at a university was the climax of a long course of culture, not the enforced duty of thoughtless and immature youth.
Some account has already been given of the earlier education of the youth of the period. The fundamental training imparted in the schools and academies within easy reach of every home was so thorough, that upon it any superstructure could be raised. Years of effort were not wasted upon the acquisition of the language of a dead and buried civilization, in gaining more or less insight—usually less—into a system of thought, that, upon most matters of vital interest, is soon found, notwithstanding its charm of expression, to be crude to the verge of childishness.
Here each study had a well-defined purpose, as part of a carefully devised system of mental culture, in which the balance was nicely adjusted between the desirable and the attainable. Education was not looked upon as merely the special business of a few years, a task to be hurried over during the period of immature mental development. It was rather regarded as the main business of life, to which all else was merely accessory. All accomplished during childhood and youth was but laying the foundation of a higher culture, by securing the healthy unfolding of the mental faculties, while acquiring the stock of sound elementary knowledge needful as the instrument of further acquisition.
Boys, as we have seen, began at fifteen the study of their special handicraft; at sixteen that of their professional, or artistic, pursuit. Yet, meantime, their mental training was by no means neglected. Without leaving his native village, a young man could, by means of the phonograph, be brought in contact with the master-minds of the age.
I was once present when, in the lecture-hall of the village academy, a lecture was delivered on a certain point of physics. The scene was to me novel and instructive. On a table near the upper end of the hall stood the wonderful instrument that was to reproduce the utterances of the great scientist, a Tyndall of the period. Beside the instrument stood the expositor, pointer in hand, in order to indicate, at the appropriate moment, the points referred to in the diagram displayed close by. Even this diagram had been transmitted by electricity, an exact reproduction of that described by the lecturer on his prepared plane two thousand miles away.
When the audience was duly seated, the expositor had only to move a small lever on the table before him in order to open the lecture. The hall was admirably adapted in acoustic properties to the purpose for which it was intended. The utterance from the phonograph was so natural and distinct, that I had difficulty in realizing that it was not the voice of the expositor. The lecture was first listened to without interruption. Then the expositor invited questions from the audience. Having made a note of these, he again set the instrument going, till he caused it to cease at the point on which some question bore. This satisfactorily elucidated, he again set it going, and so on to the end.
From the nature of their questions, I could perceive that the girls, who occupied one side of the auditorium, were as intelligently appreciative of the lecture as were the youths, their fellow-students. All were expected to take notes of each lecture. This was effected by their repeating to their private phonograph, as soon as convenient, what they recollected of the lecture.
At my request Reva favored me with a sight, or, rather, hearing, of her phonographic notes on the lecture above referred to. I was amazed at the accuracy with which she had reproduced the substance of what had been said, though, of course, with somewhat altered diction. parents, by this means, became the examiners of the students,—examiners the more efficient since they could bring unwearied attention to a task in which enlightened affection prompted vigilant care. As will afterwards be seen, parental authority and parental responsibility were supreme social forces, not antiquated abstractions to be flouted at by silly, would-be reformers, and weakened by unwise legislation.
That Hulmar Edial was no mere passive or reluctant listener to his daughter's summary of the lecture was evident enough from the questions and remarks interpolated by him. The questions were brief but searching. Reva, too, occasionally interrupted her summary by remarks that showed both a thorough knowledge of and interest in the subject.
I cannot truthfully say, that I had been wonderfully interested in the lecture at the time of its delivery. A discourse of which one comprehends only enough to appreciate the depths of one's ignorance is not apt, as a usual thing, to rouse enthusiastic attention on the part of the listener. But this summary in the words of Reva, with the remarks interspersed, seemed to throw a new light upon the subject.
It was in Utis's parlor that I first heard the phonographic notes. I asked, and obtained, permission to keep for a few days the thin metallic sheet on which the sounds were recorded. In the retirement of my study I placed the sheet in my phonograph, and was thus enabled, as often as I pleased,—and I was often pleased,—to listen to Reva's summary of the lecture. The voice with its melodious inflections conversing, as it were, on a subject of interest, in the softest, yet most expressive, of languages ever uttered by human tongue, had the effect of the sweetest music. At intervals would come in the deeper tones of her father's voice. The effect was so startlingly natural, that, at times, I could not help looking in the direction whence the sounds seemed to proceed. For such was the perfection of the instrument, that it not only reproduced each voice with all the fidelity of a photograph, but also indicated the distance and direction of the speaker. It was, naturally, not an uncommon practice for the people of this age to hold converse, in this way, with loved ones separated by distance or death.
With this explanation, it will readily be perceived how potent a means of education had become the telephone and phonograph. There was no need to gather, far from home influences, crowds of callow youths into assemblages whose numbers rather embolden to mischief and folly than incite to a noble emulation. Nor were the undeniable advantages of association with those of similar age lost. Curricles rendered distances of twenty miles, or so, a trifle; and, as we have seen, the population was dense. Each district had, accordingly, an institution for higher education, resorted to by some five hundred young people, for about four hours, on six days in the week.
In these institutions, whether by local teachers, or by lectures delivered by the highest accepted authorities on special subjects, the young continued their education, concurrently with other duties, till marriage. The earliest legal age for this was twenty-five for men, and twenty-three for women. The young couple usually started on a two-months' wedding journey,—either a rapid tour of the world, or, more commonly, the young wife visited, in company with her husband, the places where he had resided, and of which she had heard so much from him during the period of enforced expatriation, of which we shall afterwards hear. On their return, it was usual for both to spend six months, at least, at some great university, to receive the finishing touches to their education.
The universities were open only during the winter season, from the beginning of November till May. For that reason, almost all marriages took place about the beginning of September, that and the following month being also regarded as the most pleasant for travelling, This wedding journey was performed, for the most part, in curricle, the railway being employed only for long distances.
The journey was all the more delightful from the fact, that, on the one hand, the ride now, for the first time, tasted the delights of distant travel and unrestrained locomotion, the one privilege denied to girls; on the other, the young husband had the long-anticipated delight of initiating his second self to this new and freer life, and introducing her to the homage of the friends of his wander-jahre. If she took special delight in travelling, their return might be delayed as long as a year; but usually her domestic instincts would render her glad to return by the end of the second month.
There was, besides, the required residence of six months at the university before they could settle down to entire domesticity. They were at liberty to select a foreign university; but, for many reasons, that nearest their native place was usually preferred. The advanced study of certain subjects, medicine for example, could not be entered upon till after marriage, a great majority of physicians being women. The latter, to whom certain branches of the medical profession were exclusively confined, studied in their own halls, under professors of their own sex.
Those, of course, that intended to make medicine a specialty, went through a more extended course. But, whatever else might be studied during the six-months' residence, every woman was expected to go through a prescribed course, adapted to render her, on ordinary occasions, the physician of her own household. This was the more feasible, because, while medicine had really become a science, the simple, regular course of life led by all had long banished the complicated ailments that now tax the skill of the physician. In like manner every man was required to go through such a course of law as rendered him capable of holding the official positions that all, in rotation, were obliged to accept. For, strange to say, office was no longer sought after as a boon worthy the sacrifice of every vestige of truth, honor, and self-respect, but was merely accepted with resignation, yet without repugnance, as an unavoidable duty to the community.