THIRD PAPER.
Perhaps you have never given a thought to the fact that, because you were born into a nation using an alphabet that came down from the Phœnicians, you are saved a world of trouble. But consider the Chinese. If a Chinese boy and an American boy begin to learn their letters at the same time, each studying his own writing, then by the time the American is ten years old he has advanced as far in the use of letters as the Chinese boy will have advanced in the use of his when he is twenty years old. That is the same as saying that Chinese writing is three or four times as hard to learn as English. Think of spending the years between ten and twenty in learning to read! On the other hand, the long apprenticeship of Chinese and Japanese boys to their letters does them good in one way. They paint their letters with a brush on soft paper. By this means they learn very early to be skillful with the brush, which is one reason why Chinese and Japanese artists are so very dexterous with their brushes.
All writing, let it be remembered, must have begun with pictures. It is largely Chinese writing which has explained how all sorts of letters were gradually changed from pictures to an alphabet, in which hardly a single letter tells from what picture it started. The Japanese tongue is quite different from the Chinese. But the use by the Japanese of signs employed ages before by the Chinese explains another step in the progress of language. The writing of the Mexican Indians also helps us to understand the growth of alphabets. When, ages ago, the Chinese began to write, they drew little pictures of the things they wished to represent, as did the Egyptians before them in their picture-writing; and from picture-writing they made some advance in the direction of sound-writing, or rebuses. Then the little rebus-pictures were so much altered that it became very difficult to see what they once meant.
Now Chinese is a queer language. All its words are only one syllable long. But the sounds in the Chinese language are not very many, some four hundred and sixty-five at most, and their written language contains about eighty thousand pictures, each picture representing a thing or idea. And these pictures must be committed to memory. This is hard work, and not even the wisest Chinese professor can learn them all. But now comes a difficulty. For, of course, where there are so many words and so few sounds, many different words have to be called by the same sound. How then are they to tell, when several different things have exactly the same name which of them is meant?
REBUS-PICTURES FROM THE OLD CHINESE, SHOWING THE BEGINNINGS OF PICTURE-WRITING.
1. A Month. (From a picture of the moon.) 2. The Eye. 3. A Horse. 4. An Ax. 5. Rain. 6. Face. 7. A Dragon. 8. Bamboo. 9. Rhinoceros. 10. Dawn. (From the rising sun.)
We have such words. For instance, there is Bill, the name of a boy; and bill, the beak of a bird; there is bill, an old weapon, and bill, a piece of money; there is bill, an article over which legislatures debate, and bill, a claim for payment of money; besides bills of exchange, bills of lading, and so forth. But Chinese is full of such words of a single syllable, yen, for instance, which, like bill, means many very different things. So they chose a number of little pictures, and agreed that these should be used as "keys." The Chinese "keys" were used like the Egyptian "determinative signs," of which I told you. Each "key" meant that the sign or signs near which it stood belonged to some large general set of things, like things of the vegetable, mineral, or animal kingdom, forests, mines, or seas, air, or water, or of persons, like gods or men. It was like the game called Throwing Light, in which you guess the article by narrowing down the field until certain what it is.
But there Chinese writing stopped short, thousands of years ago. There it is to-day. There are now two hundred and fourteen of these "keys," and, by intense application, Chinamen learn to use their method with surprising quickness and success.
The Japanese acted toward Chinese writing much as the Phœnicians did toward Egyptian writing. The Japanese, a very intelligent people, made what you have learned to know as a syllabary, out of signs taken from the Chinese symbols. It is called a syllabary, you remember, because each sign stood in their language for a syllable. They had to do this, because, while Chinese is all short syllables, Japanese is a language of much longer words even than ours. They cut down and simplified the Chinese signs, giving them names of their own. In this way they manage to write very swiftly. And, while not so clumsy as the Chinese fashion, the Japanese method is clumsier than is the use of an alphabet. In late years, a society has been started in Japan to do away altogether with their old-time writing, and adopt our alphabet.
FIG. 1.
FIG. 2.
Perhaps, by this time, you are beginning to see how very slowly alphabets have grown, and how hard it has been for human beings to perfect them. Knowing this, will you not look now with more interest on written and printed words? When you see letters, will you not reflect what a history each one has, reaching far back into the remotest past, where at first all seems dark, and where, when light does come, the very number and variety of materials perplex the student of alphabets? Moreover, will you not feel ashamed of people who laugh or sneer at savage nations who have no sound-writing, no syllabary, no alphabet? It does not mean that in such races all men are stupid. As a rule it means simply that the race has not had a fair chance. It has been racked by wars. Or it has never come in contact peacefully with some nation that used a method of writing a trifle better than its own, so that the brighter minds could establish schools of learning. When one nation conquers another, the higher and cleverer minds among the conquered are often the first to be destroyed. The best of our Indians of North and South America seem to have been the first to fall in battle with the whites, or to have died off because of their cruelty. The reason why the others, who lived with or near the white settlers, did not readily borrow our way of writing in their turn, as we had borrowed from the Romans, the Romans from the Greeks and Phœnicians, and the latter from the Egyptians, seems to be that our system was too far advanced for them. But if the first white settlers in Central and South America had been kind and wise men, instead of coarse and greedy people, they could have found tribes and nations almost as advanced in their mode of writing as the Japanese, though not the equals of the Japanese in architecture and the fine arts. These tribes could have learned our alphabet if care had been taken to instruct their superior men. It is certain that the Aztecs, or Mexican Indians, had advanced very far on the road to a true alphabet. When the cruel Spaniards arrived and upset their governments, destroyed their temples, massacred, enslaved and then shamefully neglected them, they had already reached the art of rebus-writing. The name of the Mexican King, Knife-Snake, or, Itz-Coatl was written in this way: Itzli means knives, and Coatl, snake. There, in Fig. 1, is the snake, and on his back are knives made of flint. They even went farther. The same name, Itz-Coatl, was also written as in Fig. 2. The flint-headed arrow means Itz; the jar, called Comitl, stands for Co; and the branch, a picture of water in drops, stands for atl, water. And it has been asserted that certain neighbors of the Aztecs or Mexicans, known as the Maya Indians of Yucatan, who were ancient people of Central America, left ruins of cities covering square miles of forest and plain, and had reached nearly if not quite to the invention of an alphabet of vowels and consonants. But the latest authorities agree that such a Maya alphabet as the Spaniards reported may have been invented after the whites arrived. Specimens of Maya writing may be seen in Washington, at the Smithsonian Institute, on slabs and on paper casts taken from their idols or statues of kings and priests. It was not by the Maya system, but by one of rebuses, that the old missionaries wrote what few books they composed for their unhappy Indian congregations. Only lately a book composed in picture-writing throughout, was printed for the Mikmak Indians of Newfoundland.
In the next paper we will endeavor to trace the road by which our English alphabet came down from the Phœnicians, that ancient folk of the palm-tree and the Red Sea, whose alphabet you saw in the first paper of this series.
The illustrations of this article are reproduced, by permission, from a notable French work on ancient Hieroglyphics by Prof. L. De Rosny, of Paris.
By Adelia B. Beard.
"Nothing new in bubbles! Every one knows how to blow bubbles!" Of course they do, and yet, the game I am about to describe is an entirely new and a very interesting one.
When the game of Bubble Bowling was played for the first time, it furnished an evening's entertainment, not only for the children, but for grown people also; even a well known General and his staff, who graced the occasion with their presence, joined in the sport, and seemed to enjoy it equally with their youthful competitors. Loud was the chorus of "Bravo!" and merry the laugh of exultation when the pretty crystal ball passed safely through its goal; and sympathy was freely expressed in many an "Oh!" and "Too bad!" as the wayward bubble rolled gayly off toward the floor, or, reaching the goal, dashed itself against one of the stakes and instantly vanished into thin air.
Bubble parties are delightful, as most children know from experience, and it is unnecessary, therefore, to give a description of them here. I propose merely to introduce bubble bowling as a feature in these entertainments, which will furnish no end of amusement and jollity, and add increased enjoyment and variety to the programme.
The game should be played upon a long, narrow table, made simply of a board five feet long and eighteen inches wide, resting upon ordinary wooden "horses." On top of the table, and at a distance of twelve inches from one end, should be fastened in an upright position, two stakes twelve inches high; the space between the stakes should be eight inches, which will make each stand four inches from the nearest edge of the table. When finished, the table must be covered with some sort of woolen cloth; an old shawl or a breadth of colored flannel will answer the purpose excellently. Small holes must be cut at the right distance for the stakes to pass through. The cloth should be allowed to fall over the edge of the table, and must not be fastened down, as it will sometimes be necessary to remove it in order to let it dry. It will be found more convenient, therefore, to use two covers, if they can be provided, as there can then always be a dry cloth ready to replace the one that has become too damp. The bubbles are apt to stick when they come upon wet spots, and the bowling can be carried on in a much more lively manner if the course is kept dry. Each of the stakes forming the goal should be wound with bright ribbons of contrasting colors, entwined from the bottom up, and ending in a bow at the top. This bow can be secured in place by driving a small, or brass-headed tack through the ribbon into the top of the stake. If the rough pine legs of the table seem too unsightly, they can easily be painted. Or a curtain may be made of bright-colored cretonne,—any other material will do as well, provided the colors are pleasing,—and tucked around the edge of the table, so as to fall in folds to the floor. The illustration on this page shows the top of the table, when ready for the game.
For an impromptu affair, a table can be made by placing a leaf of a dining-table across the backs of two chairs, and covering it with a shawl. The stakes can be held in an upright position by sticking them in the tubes of large spools. This sort of table the children can arrange themselves, and it answers the purpose very nicely. The other things to be provided for the game are a large bowl of strong soapsuds, made with common brown soap, and as many pipes as there are players.
The prizes for the winners of the game may consist of any trinkets or small articles that the fancy or taste of the hostess may suggest. Bubble Bowling can be played in two ways. The first method requires an even number of players, and these must be divided into two equal parties. This is easily accomplished by selecting two children for captains, and allowing each captain to choose, alternately, a recruit for his party until the ranks are filled, or in other words, until all the children have been chosen; then, ranked by age, or in any other manner preferred, they form in line on either side of the table. A pipe is given to each child by the hostess, and they stand prepared for the contest. One of the captains first takes his place at the foot of the table, where he must remain while he is bowling, as a bubble passing between the stakes is not counted unless blown through the goal from the end of the table.
The bowl of soapsuds is placed upon a small stand by the side of the bowling-table, and the next in rank to the captain, belonging to same party, dips his pipe into the suds and blows a bubble, not too large, which he then tosses upon the table in front of the captain, who as first bowler, stands ready to blow the bubble on its course down through the goal. Three successive trials are allowed each player; the bubbles which break before the bowler has started them, are not counted.
The names of all the players, divided as they are into two parties, are written down on a slate or paper, and whenever a bubble is sent through the goal, a mark is set down opposite the name of the successful bowler.
When the captain has had his three trials, the captain on the other side becomes bowler, and the next in rank of his own party blows the bubbles for him. When this captain retires, the member of the opposite party, ranking next to the captain, takes the bowler's place and is assisted by the one whose name is next on the list of his own side; after him the player next to the captain on the other side; and so on until the last on the list has his turn, when the captain then becomes assistant and blows the bubbles.
The number of marks required for either side to win the game, must be decided by the number of players; if there are twenty,—ten players on each side,—thirty marks would be a good limit for the winning score.
When the game has been decided, a prize is given to that member of each party who has the greatest number of marks against his or her name showing that he or she has sent the bubble through the goal oftener than any player on the same side. Or, if preferred, prizes maybe given to every child belonging to the winning party.
The other way in which Bubble Bowling may be played is much simpler, and does not require an even number of players, as no sides are formed. Each bowler plays for himself, and is allowed five successive trials; if three bubbles out of the five be blown through the goal, the player is entitled to a prize. The child acting as assistant becomes the next bowler, and so on until the last in turn becomes bowler, when the one who began the game takes the place of assistant.
