THE ELON COLLEGE WEEKLY.
reii. He sent his two older boys to £st-
TllK KLON CULLEj;E WEKKLV.
Published every Wednesday during the
College year by
The Weekly Publishing Company.
E. A. Campbell, Editui.
B. T. Hines, Affie Griffin, Associate Edi
tors.
W. C. Wicker, Ciieulatiou Manager.
W. P. Lawrence, Business Manager.
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WEDNKSDAY, MARCH 1, 1911-
PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER.
Wear Fellow Lalioiei ;
We aro sending you a copy of tli* Elon
College Weekly in which is conducted a
special d.pai'tiueiLt for the benefit of
teachers. 'I'his will appeal to you be
cause it is conduct'eil by a piactical teacit-
cr^ who is giving instruction in ail branch
es. of methods, means, and manners of
teaching.
Tliis dei>arlnient will be open for ques
tions, quiries and (luotations for all teacli-
ers who will contribute to its success.
Professor T. C. Amick, Ph. I)., who
has charge of this section of the paper,
will gladly cor espond with teachers
about any question that may arise in their
woiil;. Please subscribe for the We; kly.
W. c;. Wicker, Business Mgr.
JOHN DRYDEN.
John Diyden, the foremost man of let
ters of the Jieriod following the Restora
tion, was boi'u at Aldwinkle, a village of
Northamptonshire, on August 0th, 10.31.
His grandfather was a baronet, Sir Eras-
Httus Dryden, whose third son, bearing
the same- name, married Mary, the daugh
ter of the Rev. Henry I’icking. His fam
ily, both on bis father’s and bis mother’s
.side, was in full sympathy with the party
opposed to the PuritaiV! and the court.
We know little about his boyhood, al
though the traditions remains that he
was always very fond of fishing. He had
a scholarship at Westminster School in
London, under Hi. Husby; and again se
cured a scholarship at Trinity College,
Cambridge, which institution he enter,d
in 16.)0, at the age of nineteen. He- se
cured his bachelor's degree in January,
1054. Soon afterwards he took up his
residence m London, and there ho almost
entirely spent the lest of his life.
In 1003, Hryden married Lady Eliza
beth, sister of his friend. Sir Robert How
ard. and daughter of the Earl of Berk
shire. It was by no means an ideal mar
riage. The wife was neither beautiful
nor intelligent, and her conduct may not
have been all that’was desired. Dryden,
to' make matters worse, was hardly a mod
el husband. They were fond of their child-
minster Scliool, under his old teacher. Dr.
Busby.
With the restoration of Charles, Eng
lish drama came out of its long seclusion,
due to the closing of the theatres by Pur
itan command. Drydt-n’s first play, ‘‘The
Wild Gallant,” in 1003, was successful;
but “Th’ Rival Ladies” was not well re
ceived. In 100/ he w’rote his tirst and
last long poem, which was entitled “An
nus Mirabilis.” In the same year he
wrote his prose “Essay on Dramatic
Poesy,” defending his use of rhyme in
tragic plays. Meanwhile his dramatic
work went on triumphantly. In 1070, he
was made Poet Laur.ate, and also His-
toriograpiier. He continued his dramatic
work until lG71)i when fortunately foi
liim and for English literature, it was ^
1 udely interrupted and brought to an ernd,
by a quarrel between the Earl of Roches
ter and Lord Muls;ra\e. Dryden was as
saulted by rutliana in Rochester’s pay;
that night he was “s«ver&ly beaten as
he passed through Rose Street, Covent
Garden, returning fiom Will’s CofEee-
House to his own house on Gerard Street.”
Ho was ridiculed and threatened, but it
ail ended in UiSl, when he wrote his great
political satire, “Absalom and Aehito-
pliel. ”
Tliis was the time when he found liis
real xocation as a poet. Large editions
of it were sold. The king appieciated
Dryd. n’s merits and commanded him to
write other poems. In 1082, he published
“Tile Medal, a Satire against Sedition.”
In October, the same year, “Mac Flc-ck-
nol.”
His relatives were Puritans and he had
!)een early trained in the strict tenet of
:he Puritan pa ty. But in 10S5, he went
over to the Roman Catholic Church. No
act of his life has met with s,ver«?r cen-
.iure. Nor can there he any doubt that
the time lie took to cliauge his religion
alTorded ground for distrusting the sin
cerity of his motives. A king was now
on the throne who was stiaining every
nerve to l>ring tlie church of England
once more under the sway of the church
of Rome.
The flight of Janies and the accession
of William and Mary, however, threw
Dryden at once out of favor of the court,
upon which to a large extent he had long
depended for suppoit. (Uit off from all
hope of assistance from the court he gave
himself entirely to authorship.
Dryden is, in fact, an example of that
.somewhat rare class of writers, w’ho stead
ily improved with advancing years. Mo.st
poets wiite their b;st verse befo'.e middle
life and they go through a period of dd-
cline. This general truth is untrue to
Dryden; the older he grew the better he
wrote; and the volume published a few
months before his death contains some of
the best poetry he wrote. His poetry is
not of the highest class, but is of the very
highest kind in its class. Still his excel
lence were those of intellect rather than
of spirit.
In the spring of 1700 he had a fatal at
tack of gout, and died on the first of
May at his London home. His body sleeps
in Westminster Abbey by the side of
Chaucer and Cowley.
His writings constitute in themselves a
literature. They treat of a vast variety
of topics in many different departments
of intellectual activity. The complete
edition of his work was first published in
1808, under the editorship of Walter
Scott. It fills twenty-one volumes.
I studied Dryden’s “Essay on Dramatic
Poesy.” Here I find him to be an advo
cate of rhyme, and he here laid down al
so his critical doctrine on some points.
He endeavors to prove that rhyme is
natural, expressing his views in a very
charming manner. It is written in the
dialogue form, and he makes Eugenius,
Crites, Lisideius and Neander the speak
ers. Eugenius and Neander spoke in fa
vor of rhyme, and Crites and Ijisideius op
posed it. Whether we agree with his
\ iews or not we can not help being chann-
ed with the manuei' in which they are
expressed.
Viola E. Frazier.
DEATH.
To-night as 1 sit with my hook open be
fore me my mind many miles away, very
slowly, almost mysteriously a huge freight
comes down the switch in front of my
liouse. I can’t study: My head drops in
my hands. Suddenly the engine makes
a noise louder than usual—the late even
ing passenger train go.s by quicken than
this freight ever goes. I hear the fi'eight
mii\e ((uietly, yel Jiathly to me, down the
switch. I can almost see the brakemen lock
the switch and swing carelessly on the
calroose. .Inst now I feel like I hear the
sound of the waggingly, wobbly wheels
dying away.
1 don't ask myself why a train, an
almost hourly happening sliould bother
me, my lesson long neglected and my
teachsr won’t understand—I know; I
know' only t^)0 well. Last evening the
wheels of the same old freight crushed
out the life of a mothir’s dear child. No,
don’t blame tl'.e old frdght, don’t blame
even the boy. The hoy, if his heart were
true is to he envi d now, he no longer has
the wilrl. rough paths of life^ to trod. But
the rnf)tlier, one cart less act of the boj’, a
little :ide on the freight, has cost her,
her son, to this poor woman her life, her
all. I have wondered many times this
day, if 1 have always been kind to this
youth as I might. I wonder, d nuuiy
things I might have done. I wondered
too late.
All this day incidents of the boy’s life
and tragic death have reached my tar.
His recent jnofession in Christ, his bright
mind, his patient suffering till early
dawn. Like many oth, rs I walked out
to his home late this afternoon, with a
friend. The wind wilder tharr for many
a day. scninded death itself. We made
ouv way on to the tiny cottage, thinking
we might be of stnrre assistance. The
mother, unable to I'ise was surrounded by
peo)de of her circle, her friends, most of
whom I kirew not. We did irot bother
her. hut stepjred quietly into the second
room, a lovely floral off ring, the gift of
his school males upon the casket first
cairght my attention. We waited at the
door quite five mirrutes, his school mates
and their teachers were around him. My
heart seemed to turn to stone, th; teachers
first gave vent to their feelings, then the
children, 1 thought how sweet death was.
I wondered if this boy, high up in the
heavens was not at that mom: nt looking
down at his mates, how joyous it would
be, how sweet to think that one’s teachers
and mates loved you so well as to wish
you back. Wish him back. No surely they
did not do that. I watched the school
gi-oup pass slowly on to the boy’s mother.
March 1, 1911.
how I longed for the power of tears just
once, teais that refused to come.
We stepped up to the casket—therein
lay the boy. We did not know that one
Arm and one leg were severed from the
body. How peacefully he slept. I stood
there longer than I am wont, the woman
nearby cried louder, 1 wondered once more.
I suppose they pitied my hard heart. My
hard heart! is it hard after all, when I
can no longer study, no longer rest? I
feel that in the years to come tire noise of
this late evening freight will fake me
back, wherever 1 may be, to the casket
of this boy, to his heart-broken mother, in
the little house not far from my own.
Liba Newman.
Speak the truth in love.
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