The Times, commenting on the slovenly composition of the queen’s speeches to Parliament, proposed the cause of the fact as a fit subject for the investigation of our professional thinkers. The phrase suggests a delicate reproof to those who assume for themselves the title of thinker, implying that any person may engage in this occupation just as he might, if he pleased, become a dentist, or a stockbroker, or a civil engineer. The word thinker is very common as a name of respect in the works of a modern distinguished philosopher. I am afraid, however, that it is employed by him principally as synonymous with a Comtist.
The Times, in advocating the claims of a literary man for a pension, said, “He has constructed several useful schoolbooks.” The word construct suggests with great neatness the nature of the process by which schoolbooks are sometimes evolved, implying the presence of the bricklayer and mason rather than of the architect.
[Dr. Todhunter might have added feature to the list of words abusively used by newspaper writers. In one number of a magazine two examples occur: “A feature which had been well taken up by local and other manufacturers was the exhibition of honey in various applied forms.” “A new feature in the social arrangements of the Central Radical Club took place the other evening.”]—Macmillan’s Magazine.
THE CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS.
BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
Beyond the “Inner Circle,” which leads to the “Upper Chautauqua,” we come to the Uppermost Chautauqua—the University proper, with its “School of Liberal Arts,” and its “School of Theology.” Here we find provision made for college training of a thorough sort. Students all over the world may turn their homes into dormitories, refectories, and study rooms, in connection with the great University which has its local habitation at Chautauqua. Thus “hearers” and “recipients” in the Assembly, “readers” in the C. L. S. C., “student readers” in the “inner circle”—the “League of the Round-Table,” may go beyond, even to the School of Liberal Arts, the bona fide College of Chautauqua.