قراءة كتاب Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

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Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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sufficiently modest site and design. To the trait of modesty we cannot say that the building has failed to add that of grace. In this respect, however, it does not strike us as coming up to the standard attained by some of its neighbors. The low-arched roofs give it somewhat the appearance of a union railway-depot; and one is apt to look for the emergence from the main entrances rather of locomotives than of ladies. The interior, however is more light and airy in effect than the exterior. But "pretty is that pretty does" was a favorite maxim of the Revolutionary dames; and the remarkable energy shown by their fair descendants, under the presidency of Mrs. E. D. Gillespie, in carrying through this undertaking will impart to it new force. The rule is quite in harmony with it that mere frippery should be avoided within and without, and the purely decorative architect excluded with Miss McFlimsey. The ground-plan is very simple, blending the cross and the square. Nave and transept are identical in dimensions, each being sixty-four by one hundred and ninety-two feet. The four angles formed by their intersection are nearly filled out by as many sheds forty-eight feet square. A cupola springs from the centre to a height of ninety feet. An area of thirty thousand square feet strikes us as a modest allowance for the adequate display of female industry. For the filling of the vast cubic space between floor and roof the managers are fain to invoke the aid of an orchestra of the sterner sex to keep it in a state of chronic saturation with music.

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING.UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING.

Reciprocity, however, obtains here. The votaries of harmony naturally seek the patronage of woman. Her territorial empire has accordingly far overstepped the narrow bounds we have been viewing. The Women's Centennial Music Hall on Broad street is designed for all the musical performances connected with the exposition save those forming part of the opening ceremonies. This is assuming for it a large office, and we should have expected so bold a calculation to be backed by floor-room for more than the forty-five hundred hearers the hall is able to seat. A garden into which it opens will accommodate an additional number, and may suggest souvenirs of al-fresco concerts to European travelers.

Nor does the sex extend traces of its sway in this direction alone. A garden of quite another kind, meant for blossoms other than those of melody, and still more dependent upon woman's nurture, finds a place in the exposition grounds near the Pavilion. Of the divers species of GartenBlumen-, Thier-, Bier-, etc.—rife in Vaterland, the Kinder- is the latest selected for acclimation in America. If the mothers of our land take kindly to it, it will probably become something of an institution among us. But that is an If of portentous size. The mothers aforesaid will have first to fully comprehend the new system. It is not safe to say with any confidence at first sight that we rightly understand any conception of a German philosopher; but, so far as we can make it out, the Kindergarten appears to be based on the idea of formulating the child's physical as thoroughly as his intellectual training, and at the same time closely consulting his idiosyncrasy in the application of both. His natural disposition and endowments are to be sedulously watched, and guided or wholly repressed as the case may demand. The budding artist is supplied with pencil, the nascent musician with trumpet or tuning-fork, the florist with tiny hoe and trowel, and so on. The boy is never loosed, physically or metaphysically, quite out of leading-strings. They are made, however, so elastic as scarce to be felt, and yet so strong as never to break. Moral suasion, perseveringly applied, predominates over Solomon's system. It is a very nice theory, and we may all study here, at the point of the lecture-rod wielded by fair fingers, its merits as a specific for giving tone to the constitution of Young America.

At the side of the Kindergarten springs a more indigenous growth—the Women's School-house. In this reminder of early days we may freshen our jaded memories, and wonder if, escaped from the dame's school, we have been really manumitted from the instructing hand of women, or ever shall be in the world, or ought to be.

Is the "New England Log-house," devoted to the contrasting of the cuisine of this and the Revolutionary period, strictly to be assigned to the women's ward of the great extempore city? Is its proximity to the buildings just noticed purely accidental, or meant to imply that cookery is as much a female art and mystery as it was a century ago? However this may be, the erection of this temple to the viands of other days was a capital idea, and a blessed one should it aid in the banishment of certain popular delicacies which afflict the digestive apparatus of to-day. This kitchen of the forest epoch is naturally of logs, and logs in their natural condition, with the bark on. The planking of that period is represented by clap-boards or slabs. Garnished with ropes of onions, dried apples, linsey-woolsey garments and similar drapery, the aspect of the walls will remind us of Lowell's lines:

Crook-necks above the chimly hung,

While in among 'em rusted

The old Queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young

Brought hack from Concord busted.

The log-house is not by any means an abandoned feature of antiquity. It is still a thriving American "institution" North, West and South, only not so conspicuous in the forefront of our civilization as it once was. It turns out yet fair women and brave men, and more than that—if it be not treason to use terms so unrepublican—the highest product of this world, gentlemen and gentlewomen.

OHIO BUILDING.OHIO BUILDING.

Uncle Sam confronts the ladies from over the way, a ferocious battery of fifty-seven-ton Rodman guns and other monsters of the same family frowning defiance to their smiles and wiles. His traditional dread of masked batteries may have something to do with this demonstration. He need not fear, however. His fair neighbors and nieces have their hands full with their own concerns, and leave him undisturbed in his stately bachelor's hall to "illustrate the functions and administrative faculties of the government in time of peace and its resources as a war-power." To do this properly, he has found two acres of ground none too much. The building, business-like and capable-looking, was erected in a style and with a degree of economy creditable to the officers of the board, selected from the Departments of War, Agriculture, the Treasury, Navy, Interior and Post-Office, and from the Smithsonian Institution. Appended to it are smaller structures for the illustration of hospital and laboratory work—a kill-and-cure association that is but one of the odd contradictions of war.

The sentiments prevalent in this era of perfect peace, harmony and balance of rights forbids the suspicion of any significance in the fact that the lordly palace of the Federal government at once overshadows and turns its back upon the humbler tenements of the States. A line of these, drawn up in close order, shoulder to shoulder, is ranged, hard by, against the tall fence that encloses the grounds. The Keystone State, as beseems her, heads the line by the left

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