By Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D. D., Superintendent of Instruction.
To a correspondent who forwards some poetry for personal examination and criticism, and who wants to know how she can get her production before the public. Answer:
One of the most difficult things in literature is to give a fair judgment of poetry. There is one invaluable test by which a writer may know concerning the estimate of competent critics, and that is by sending poems or other contributions to such magazines as The Century, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, etc., or to such weekly papers as the New York Independent, the Christian Advocate, The Christian Union, the Evangelist, etc. If the editors of these publications approve sufficiently to publish and pay for a poem, the writer may congratulate herself. The commendations of friends who hear a thing read, or who have a bias in favor of the author, or who, as in my case, have sympathy with young persons who are attempting to make fame and financial compensation for themselves, are not always entirely trustworthy, and I therefore commend you to one of the most invaluable tests of real poetic ability: Submit your productions to the severest critics.
Phœbe S. Parker, of Roscoe, Ill., has recently joined the C. L. S. C. She will be 89 years old May 30, 1884. She joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in the year 1810, is a great reader, and has no difficulty in keeping up with the class, and she enjoys the work heartily. May she live to graduate.
A lady from the West, residing in a city where there is “a public library, in which is an excellent collection of standard works of all kinds, the current literature of the day and all the leading periodicals, reviews,” etc., finds it difficult “to read all the other good things she would like to read and, at the same time, keep up the C. L. S. C. course.” For example, she “cares nothing about ‘Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology,’ and would rather spend her time reading something she enjoys, such as Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ,’ Mackenzie’s ‘Nineteenth Century,’ Kingsley’s ‘Life and Letters.’” She says: “Having begun this work, I do not want to turn back, yet I am very much inclined sometimes to drop a book I am reading, and take up one I would much rather read, not in the course.”
In answer to this devoted friend of the C. L. S. C., a member of the class of 1887, I desire to say: