There is going on in the newspapers just now a very suggestive contest over the spelling of a word. Shall it be dynamiteur or ter? Both forms have reliable followings, though no reasons have been advanced for either termination. The word is a good example of several interesting features of word-making. It illustrates how each new development in history requires a vocabulary, and how the vocabulary is formed from the facts involved. Further, the difference in the termination shows how each word must have its period of instability before usage selects the form which shall be permanent. This Irish agitation has, by the way, introduced several new words into the language.
We Americans believe very firmly in ourselves. But sometimes we can not help wondering if this vigorous, athletic government of ours, and these growing institutions, seem to others a success. It will be gratifying to read Mr. Matthew Arnold’s opinion of us: “A people homogeneous, a people which had to constitute itself in a modern age, an epoch of expansion, and which has given to itself institutions entirely fitted for such an age and epoch, and which suit it perfectly—a people not in danger of war from without, not in danger of revolution from within—such is the people of the United States. The political and social problem we must surely allow that they solve successfully.”
Last year women were for the first time admitted to the Oxford University examinations. Since they have been allowed to hear certain college lectures, and are now finally admitted to the classes. It is a surprising concession, but it is the course of the future. Women in England have proven conclusively their ability to cope with university studies. They have zealously and quietly improved each added liberty. This last recognition comes as the inevitable effect of a law which works through all human affairs, viz.: a demand creates a supply.
President Arthur closed his term of service with the confidence and respect of the American people. He performed the difficult task of filling the highest office in the government with prudence and ability, when, in fact, he was not the choice of the people for the place, but it fell to his lot in the order of a mysterious providence. Among the Vice Presidents who have succeeded to the presidency Chester A. Arthur will be honored in history as a wise statesman, faithful to the people whom he served. President Cleveland’s administration is the dawn of a new political era in the country, but we believe that he will make a safe President.
There has been recently organized in New York State a State Forestry Association. President White, of Cornell University, has accepted the presidency. The society proposes to make a vigorous effort to arouse the people to the necessity of laws which shall preserve their forests from the lawless destruction which has robbed thousands upon thousands of acres in the Adirondacks of their wealth of timber. Such a society is, without doubt, the only means by which a proper sentiment can be aroused. The cause of the wholesale depredations has been lack of thought. As one of the lumbermen put it: “It all comes to this—it was because there was nobody to think about it, or do anything about it. We were all busy, and all to blame. But I could do nothing alone, and my neighbor could do nothing alone, and there was nobody to set us to work together on a plan to have things better; nobody to represent the common object. Why did not you come along to talk to us about it years and years ago?”