Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Volume 26 December, 1880. - Various None (e book reader android txt) 📗
- Author: Various None
Book online «Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Volume 26 December, 1880. - Various None (e book reader android txt) 📗». Author Various None
Associations In Its Churches, And Few Of Its Temples Have Been Permitted
To Record The Names Of Famous Occupants During A Series Of Years. Our
Whole Country, Indeed, Is A Land Of Many Denominations And A Somewhat
Wandering Population; And Older Cities Than Washington Have Found One
Church Famous For One Event In Its History, And Another For Another,
Rather Than, In any Single Building, A Series Of Notable Occurrences
Running Through The Centuries. The Nearest Approach To The Record Of A
Succession Of Worthies Occupying The Same Church-Seats Year After Year
Is To Be Found In The Chronicles Of Our Oldest College-Chapels, As, For
Instance, At Dartmouth, Where The Building Containing The Still-Used
Chapel Dates From 1786. But Though Poverty And Custom Unite In Making
Our Colleges Conservative, Their Growth In Numbers Demands, From Time To
Time, New And More Generous Accommodations For Public Worship; And So
The Little Buildings Of An Earlier Day Are Either Torn Down Or Kept For
Other And More Ignoble Uses, Like Holden Chapel At Harvard. This Quaint
Little Structure Was Built In 1744, And Is Now Used For
Recitation-Rooms, But At One Period In Its Career It Served As The
Workshop Of The College Carpenter.
[Illustration: Ruins Of The Old Church-Tower, Jamestown, Virginia.]
In The Years Since Our Grandfathers Built Their Places Of Worship We
Have Seen Strange Changes In american Church Buildings--Changes In
Material, Location And Adaptation To Ritual Uses. We Have Had A Revival
Of Pagan Temple-Building In Wood And Stucco; We Have Seen Gothic
Cathedrals Copied For The Simplest Protestant Uses, Until Humorists Have
Suggested That Congregations Might Find It Cheaper To Change Their
Religion Than Their Unsuitable New Churches; We Have Ranged From Four
Plain Brick Walls To Vast And Costly Piles Of Marble Or Greenstone; We
Have Constructed Great Audience-Rooms For Sunday School Uses Alone, And
Have Equipped The Sanctuary With All Culinary Attachments; We Have Built
Parish-Houses Whose Comfort The Best-Kept Mediaeval Monk Might Envy, And
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 41We Have Put Up Evangelistic Tabernacles Only To Find The Most Noted
Evangelists Preferring To Work In Regular Church Edifices Rather Than In
Places Of Easy Resort By The Thoughtless Crowd Of Wonder-Seekers. But
Not All These Doings Have Been Foolish Or Mistaken: Some Of Them Have
Been Most Hopeful Signs, And The Next Century Will Find Excellent Work
In The Church-Building Of Our Day. The Gothic And Queen Anne Revivals,
At Their Best, Have Promoted Even More Than The Old-Time Honesty In The
Use Of Sound And Sincere Building-Material; And Not A Few Of Our Newer
Churches Prove That Our Ecclesiastical Architects Have Something More To
Show Than Experiments In Fanciful "Revivals" That Are Such Only In Name.
We Shall Continue To Do Well So Long As We Worthily Perpetuate The Best
Material Lesson Taught By Our Grandfathers' Temples--The Lesson Of
Downright Honesty Of Construction And Of A Union Between The Spirit Of
Worship And Its Local Habitation.
Charles F. Richardson.
Will Democracy Tolerate A Permanent Class Of National Office-Holders?
It Is No Doubt A Public Misfortune That So Much Of That Thoughtful
Patriotism Which, Both On Account Of Its Culture And Its Independence,
Must Always Be Valuable To The Country, Should Have Been Wasted, For
Some Time Past, Upon What Are Apparently Narrow And Unpractical, If Not
Radically Unsound, Propositions Of Reform In The Civil Service. There Is
Unquestionably Need Of Reform In That Direction: It Would Be Too Much To
Presume That In The Generally Imperfect State Of Man His Methods Of
Civil Government Would Attain Perfection; But It Must Be Questioned
Whether The Subject Has Been Approached From The Right Direction And
Upon The Side Of The Popular Sympathy And Understanding. At This Time
Propositions Of Civil-Service Reform Have Not Even The Recognition, Much
Less The Comprehension, Of The Mass Of The People. Their Importance,
Their Limitations, Their Possibilities, Have Never Been Demonstrated: No
Commanding Intellectual Authority Has Ever Taken Up The Subject And
Worked It Out Before The Eyes Of The People As A Problem Of Our National
Politics. It Remains A Question Of The Closet, A Merely Speculative
Proposition As To The Science Of Government.
What, Then, Are The Metes And Bounds Of This Reform? How Much Is
Demanded? How Much Is Practicable?
Not Attempting A Full Answer To All Of These Questions, And Intending No
Dogmatic Treatment Of Any, Let Us Give Them A Brief Consideration From
The Point Of View Afforded By The Democratic System Upon Which The Whole
Political Fabric Of The United States Is Established. We Are To Look At
_Our_ Civil-Service Reform From That Side. Whatever In It May Be
Feasible, That Much Must Be A Work In accord With The Popular Feeling.
It May Be Set Down At The Outset, As The First Principle Of The Problem,
That Any Practicable Plan Of Organizing The Public Service Of The United
States Must Not Only Be Founded Upon The General Consent Of The People,
But Must Also Have, In Its Actual Operation, Their Continual, Easy And
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 42Direct Participation. Any Scheme, No Matter By What Thoughtful Patriot
Suggested, No Matter Upon What Model Shaped, No Matter From What
Experience Of Other Countries Deduced, Which Does Not Possess These
Essential Features Can Never Be Worth The Serious Attention Of Any One
Who Expects To Accomplish Practical And Enduring Results.
(Possibly This May Seem Dogmatic, To Begin With; But If We Agree To
Treat The Question As One In democratic Politics, The Principle Stated
Becomes Perfectly Apparent.)
It Must Be Fair, Then, And For The Purposes Of This Article Not
Premature, To Point Out That The Measure Which Is Especially Known As
"Civil-Service Reform," And Which Has Been Occasionally Recognized In
The Party Platforms Along With Other Generalities, Is One Whose Essence
Is _The Creation Of A Permanent Office-Holding Class_. Substantially,
This Is What It Amounts To. A Man Looking Forward To A Place In The
Public Service Is To Regard It As A Life Occupation, The Same As If He
Should Study For A Professional Career Or Learn A Mechanical Trade. Once
In Office, After A "Competitive Examination" Or Otherwise, He Will
Expect To Stay In: He Will Hold, As The Federal Judges Do, By A
Life-Tenure, "During Good Behavior." This Is Now Substantially The
System Of Great Britain, Which, In The Judgment Of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton,
Is So Much Better Than Our Own As To Actually Reduce The Rate Of
Criminality In That Country, And Which, He Declares, Only Political
Baseness Can Prevent Us From Imitating. A Change Of Administration
There, Mr. Eaton Adds, Only Affects A Few Scores Of Persons Occupying
The Highest Positions: The Great Mass Of The Officials Live And Die In
Their Places, Indifferent To The Fluctuation Of Parliamentary
Majorities Or The Rise And Fall Of Ministries.
We Must Ask Ourselves Does This System Accord With American Democracy?
A Little More Than Half A Century Has Passed Since John Quincy Adams,
Unquestionably The Best Trained And Most Experienced American
Administrator Who Ever Sat In The Presidency, Undertook To Establish In
The United States Almost Precisely The Same System As That Which Great
Britain Now Has. Admission To The Places Was Not, It Is True, By Means
Of Competitive Examination, But The Feature--The Essential Feature--Of
Permanent Tenure Was Present In His Plan. Mr. Adams Took The Government
From Mr. Monroe Without Considering Any Change Needful: His Cabinet
Advisers Even Included Three Of Those Who Had Been In The Cabinet Of His
Predecessor, And These He Retained To The End, Though At Least One Of
The Three, He Thought, Had Ceased To Be Either Friendly Or Faithful To
Him. Retaining The Old Officers, And Reappointing Them If Their
Commissions Expired, Selecting New Ones, In The Comparatively Rare Cases
Of Death, Resignation Or Ascertained Delinquency, Upon Considerations
Chiefly Relating To Their Personal Capabilities For The Vacant Places,
Mr. Adams Was Patiently And Faithfully Engaged During The Four Years Of
His Presidency In establishing Almost The Precise Reform Of The National
Service Which Has Been In Recent Times So Strenuously Urged Upon Us As
The One Great Need Of The Nation--The Administrative Purification Which,
If Effectually Performed, Would Prove That Our System Of Government Was
Fit To Continue In existence. Mr. Adams'S Plan Did, Indeed, Seem
Excellent. It Commanded The Respect Of Honest But Busy Citizens Absorbed
In Their Private Affairs And Desirous That The Government Might Be
Fixed, Once For All, In Settled Grooves, So That Its Functions Would
Proceed Like The Steady Progress Of The Seasons. It Was An Attempt To
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 43Run The Government, As Has Been Sometimes Said, "On Business
Principles." The President Was To Proceed, And Did Proceed, As If He Had
In Charge Some Great Estate Which He Was To Manage And Direct As A
Faithful And Exact Trustee. This, No One Can Deny, Had The Superficial
Look Of Most Admirable Administration.
But President Adams Had Left Out Of Account Largely What We Are
Compelled To Sedulously Consider--Public Opinion. He Had Acquired Most
Of His Experience Abroad, And His Principal Service At Home, As
Secretary Of State, Had Been In a Remarkably Quiet Time, When Party
Movements Were Neither Ebbing Nor Flowing, So That He Had Forgotten How
Strong And Vigorous The Democratic Feeling Was Amongst The Population Of
These States. This Is A Forgetfulness To Which All Men Are Liable Who
Long Occupy Official Position, And Who Seldom Have To Submit Themselves
To That Severe And Rude Competitive Examination Which The Plan Of
Popular Elections Establishes. Unfortunately For Him, He Was Not
Responsible To A Court Of Chancery For The Management Of His Trust, But
To A Tribunal Composed Of A Multitude Of Judges. His Accounts Were To Be
Passed Upon Not By One Learned And Conservative Auditor Guided By
Familiar Precedents And Rules Of Law, But A Great, Tumultuous Popular
Assembly, Which Would Approve Or Disapprove By A Majority Vote. When,
Therefore, It Appeared To The People That He Was Forming A Body Of
Permanent Office-Holders--Was Recruiting A Civil Army To Occupy In
Perpetuity The Offices Which They, The Mass, Had Created And Were Taxed
To Pay For--The Fierce, And In Many Respects Scandalous, Partisan
Assault Which Jackson Represented, If He Did Not Direct, Gathered
Overwhelming Force. It Seemed To The Popular View That A Narrow, An
Exclusive, An Aristocratic System Was Being Formed. The President
Appeared To Be, While Honestly And Carefully Preserving Their Trust From
Waste
Comments (0)