A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been more interested in current events than in his task, offers for sale "Intrigues of the Queen of Spain with McKinley, the Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How Godoy should become McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of Peace, is a problem for psychologists.
Confusion of Knowledge.
The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations of candidates for Library employment, given within the past five years:
"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's sonnets"; "a sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes a long one and generally a reflection, or thoughts upon some inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night thoughts.'" "An epic is a critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an epic is a literary form written in verse, and which teaches us some lesson not necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."
Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical in a grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly colored, as Pope's works"; "allegory is writing of something that never happened, but it is purely imaginary, often a wandering from the main point." A common mistake regarding the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers as "bibliography—a study of the Bible;" or "gives the lives of the people in the Bible." An encyclopaedia was aptly defined as "a storehouse of knowledge for the enlightenment of the public," while another answer reads "Book of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection of works of any author is termed "an anthropology." "Anthology is the study of insects." Folklore is defined as "giving to animals and things human sense"; an elegy means "a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words." Belles-lettres is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the title of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters of French writers," and still another writes "French for prominent literature and light literature." A concordance "is the explication or definition of something told in a simpler form," is the extremely lucid answer to one question, which was answered by another candidate as "a table of reference at back of book."
The titles of books are too seldom associated with their authors' names, resulting in such answers as "Homer is the author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla Rookh" was written by James Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter Besant (while another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange Ribbon," by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding; "Quo Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton (according to another by Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas Reade as the author, while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of Man," by Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on Man," by Francis Bacon.
One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that "Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Brontë is described as an "American—nineteenth century—children's book." Cicero was "known for Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into hell and describes Satan and his angels. He wrote his play for the stage." Another's idea of the Divine Comedy is "a play which could be acted by the priests on the steps of a church for the benefit of the poorer class."
Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service done by the government in a country, domesticly."
A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science." "A limited monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the ruler of another country." Legal tender is "the legal rate of interest"; another considers it "Paper money." In economics, some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term used in socialism, the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is the money gained by selling church properties"; while "a trust is usually a place where a person puts some money where it will be safe to keep it."