One of the most romantic spots of American history is that of the Florida Chautauqua. Ponce de Leon’s famous quest for the Fountain of Youth lay through this region, and Lake de Funiak itself is fabled to be one of the springs by which the old knight encamped. Perhaps here he plunged into the clear waters and vainly waited to see himself changed to vigorous youth again. However that may be, the road he laid out is a thoroughfare for Florida travelers to-day, and about the clear lake still hangs the tradition that it is the fabled Fountain of Youth. Ten miles from Lake de Funiak is a second spring which still bears the gallant Spaniard’s name. It will be a rare opportunity for dreaming over those early adventures that visitors to Lake de Funiak will have.
The proposed new word, “Thon,” which was suggested in the program in The Chautauquan for January as a suitable subject for an essay, seems to have caused our readers some trouble. A word of explanation may help them. We have no pronoun of the singular number and common gender in English. The absence of such a word leads to many awkward circumlocutions. To obviate this trouble Mr. C. C. Converse, a lawyer, has compounded the word thon, from that and one—declined: nominative thon, possessive thons, objective thon. Its use is evident. In this sentence is an example: If George or Anna will meet me I will go with thon. The word has been much discussed and much amusement is caused by using it—a practice which, however, demonstrates the need we have for such a word. Prof. March, of Lafayette College, writes: “I do not know that any other vocable would have so good a chance for this vacancy.” Prof. Norton, of Harvard, says: “Such a pronoun would undoubtedly be a convenience, did it exist. The difficulty lies in it being yours. All forms of speech have grown, and I do not recall an instance of the use by a civilized race of any word, not a noun or a verb, deliberately invented by a philologer, however ingenious.”
C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR MARCH.
COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.
Articles on Euripides may be found in the following works: Mahaffy’s “Classical Greek Literature;” Blackwell’s “Introduction to the Classics;” “Studies of the Greek Poets,” by J. A. Symonds; Encyclopædia Britannica; “Phœton,” Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xlv, p. 488; “Sea Studies” (J. A. Froude), Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xci, p. 541; “Vindication of Euripides,” National Quarterly, vol. xix, p. 1.