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ADDRESSES^' 
 
 PRINCE SERGE WOLKONSKY. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 J. C. WiNSHIP & Co. 
 
 1893. 
 
rj^ o 
 
 VI. 
 
 jzifLtji 
 
'^■p ran 
 
 IVERSITT 
 
 I — TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 II — HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMAN 
 
 IN RUSSIA. 
 
 III — GREETING. 
 
 IV — THE POET IN POUSHKIN'S POETRY. 
 
 V — GREETING. 
 
 VI — THE SOCIAL OFFICE OF RELIGIOUS 
 
 FEELING. 
 
 VII — FATHER SMITH. 
 VIII— A REPLY. 
 
To THE American Flag. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE RUSSIAN BANQUET, 
 27th may, 1893. 
 
uisriv. 
 
 ®50r tt^iJr ^ttTJ^^vJjC^n 3IFl^s> 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 We have heard a good many speeches, and 
 though I feel very diffident in the presence of 
 the many distinguished orators I see among the 
 noble guests who have honored us with their 
 company to-night, I nevertheless venture a few 
 words, hoping that the fact of another speech 
 will be excused in regard to the feelings of 
 thankfulness that shall dictate it. Thankful- 
 ness, indeed, thankfulness to our hosts, the 
 Americans ; not merely for the great pleasure 
 we gather from the hospitality they so kindly 
 offer us in their country and under their flag, 
 but far more for the great lessons that can be 
 learned from this country and from this flag. 
 
 When we look at the map of the United 
 States, when we see that big piece of continent 
 between two oceans, all divided in so many 
 
 7 
 
different sections, we think it shows us one of the 
 most eloquent pictures of division with the aim 
 of union ; it gives a marvelous sample of devel- 
 opment of the single unity for the sake of a 
 common and general whole. Now, if we reduce 
 the unity to its simplest expression, and if on 
 the other part we extend the limits of the whole 
 so far as they can he extended on this earth, 
 we will have on one side individuality, and on 
 the other side humanity. Ladies and gentle- 
 men, we of course cannot know what shall be 
 the language which will be spoken in Heaven, 
 but I know that on this Earth, there are no 
 grander words than these two: Individuality 
 and Humanity. They are at the same time 
 both the starting point and the final aim of all 
 human activity. In fact, individuals lead 
 humanity, but humanity is the beacon that 
 shines for individuals ; no individual can pre- 
 tend to be mentioned by posterity, unless he 
 has dona something for at least a portion of 
 humanity, and on the other side, no change or 
 innovation brought into the state of humanity 
 deserves the name of progress, if it does not 
 aim to the happiness of the individual. And 
 
these two words are constantly present to our 
 minds here in this country of America and 
 especially at this Columbian Exposition. 
 
 We, foreign nations, we too may be con- 
 sidered as individuals. All of us before com- 
 ing here intensified our national individu- 
 ality as much as we could in order to be 
 worthily represented at the Fair. But we 
 would not have come here, had we not 
 known that there is a higher aim and a wider 
 horizon beyond our private national interests. 
 Patriotism is a grand motor of a great impul- 
 sive powder, but it is only the soil which feeds 
 our single activities. The universal sun that 
 shines above and gives them the necessary 
 strength and vitality, is — Humanity. 
 
 Christopher Columbus conquered the Isle of 
 Cuba for the crown of Spain ; it is not to that 
 he owes his glory, but he discovered America 
 and gave it to the whole world, and this is 
 what brought him immortality. 
 
 Americans have always followed the traces 
 of the great discoverer; every effort of their 
 inventive genius had a result that was a gift 
 to the whole world, every discovery in the 
 
 OF Tl 
 
10 
 
 domain of science marked as an era in the 
 development of humanity. Such one, I mean an 
 era, undoubtedly shall be the present World's 
 Exposition. We foreign nations are proud 
 of the idea that we take part in one of the 
 grandest events of modern times. We joy- 
 fully bring our collective energies as contribu- 
 tions to your national enterprise with no other 
 pretention of immediate benefit than the pleas- 
 ure of congratulating you upon your success. 
 
 Later on the great results of what we see 
 now will gradually come to light. The day will 
 come, when all the nations, just like the dif- 
 ferent stars of the different states, drop their 
 names and lose their color so as to form a con- 
 stellation on the blue sky of your national flag, 
 so all the nations some day will forget smd/oryive 
 the differences which keep them distant from 
 one another, those unworthy differences which 
 make of one human creature a stranger to 
 another human creature. The day will come, 
 when all nations will join in those blue 
 Heavens where the words humanity, indulg- 
 ence and peace make an eternally resplendent 
 constellation. 
 
11 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot resume my 
 wishes in a better and shorter way than in 
 proposing you to drink to the prosperity and 
 glory of that allegorical sign, " The American 
 Flag." 
 

 Higher Education of Woman 
 IN Russia. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE EDUCATIONAL CONGRESS, 
 23d JULY, 1893, 
 
 AND AT THE 
 
 ASSEMBLY HALL OF THE WOMAN'S BUILDING, 
 9th AUGUST, 1893. 
 
in Mxt^^i^^ 
 
 <* * * woTnan is not undeveloped man, 
 But diverse.'" 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Mks. President, Mr. President, 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 The kindness of a few persons confers on me 
 the honor of entertaining you to-night. An 
 honor that cannot be highly enough appreci- 
 ated, if we consider that the Auxiliary Con- 
 gresses of the World's Columbian Exposition 
 are at this moment an object of universal 
 interest, that from every spot of the earth eyes 
 are turned toward this building, that the whole 
 civilized world is watching the results of the 
 deliberations that take place under this roof, 
 and that a man who speaks from this chair 
 must feel as if he were speaking to the whole 
 world. 
 
16 
 
 But there is no privilege without responsi- 
 bility, and the higher the first the heavier the 
 latter. So in this case I am not unconscious 
 of the weight and the value of that precious 
 thing that for a few moments is made my 
 property — I mean the attention of this impos- 
 ing audience. And still I know there is one 
 thing that will greatly help me in my task — 
 that is, the real, unsimulated interest I find in 
 everybody in America with any question con- 
 cerning my country. There is no doubt that 
 among all questions that can stimulate the 
 interest of one nation in another, the edu- 
 cational is one of the most important ones; 
 there is no doubt, further, that the energy and 
 activity women of all countries displayed at 
 the invitation of their American sisters made 
 female education the question of the day. Thus 
 the subject I am going to treat happens to be 
 popular before it has been spoken of. Trust- 
 ing in that I will try to do my best, so as to 
 present to you as complete and short a picture 
 of the Higher Education of Woman in Kus- 
 sia, as possible. 
 
 We will first give a historical sketch of the 
 
aNIVERS 
 
 17 
 
 question; we will next examine the different 
 statutes and programmes of the educational 
 establishments, and we will conclude with a 
 few general considerations. 
 
 I. 
 
 Educational establishments in Kussia are not 
 all under the surveillance of the same ministry; 
 eleven different departments have schools, col- 
 leges, seminaries, academies, universities under 
 their direction. This of course can appear to 
 many as an unpractical state of things, but it has 
 many advantages and first of all that of bring- 
 ing up a great variety of types of educational 
 establishments. A short insight into the differ- 
 ent types of female schools — at lea^t the most 
 important ones — must be given before we 
 speak of higher instruction. 
 
 Three different departments contain the 
 direction of female educational establishments. 
 These are: The Department of the Institu- 
 tions of the Empress Mary, the Ecclesiastical 
 Department and the Ministry of Public Edu- 
 cation. 
 
18 
 
 I scarcely need speak of the first one here in 
 Chicago. Anybody can get the most complete 
 idea of it by visiting the Department of Liberal 
 Arts at the Columbian Exposition, where the 
 600 educational and charitable establishments 
 of the institutions of the Empress Mary are 
 magnificently represented under the surveil- 
 lance of Madame Semechkin. The most im- 
 portant educational establishments of this 
 department are the so-called institutes: a 
 kind of seminary for girls, very strictly ruled 
 boarding-schools that they are allowed to leave 
 only in summer months if returning to their 
 parents. The education given is a very accom- 
 plished one in so far as preparing the girls for 
 intellectual family life as well as for the 
 laborious life of governess. These establish- 
 ments are under a special patronage of 
 Her Majesty, the Empress; ladies of high 
 rank sometimes are called to direct them, and 
 the greatest dignitaries of the state are mem- 
 bers of the Committee of Trustees which has 
 the chief supervision of all the institutes of 
 the Empire. 
 
 The second type of establishments belonging 
 
19 
 
 to this department are the Gymnasiums and 
 Pro- Gymnasiums, with an intermediate educa- 
 tion what we would call high school for girls, 
 but they interest us because to some of them 
 special higher pedagogical classes are attached. 
 The course in these classes lasts three years, 
 and its object is to prepare the young ladies for 
 the pedagogical career. Here they become ac- 
 quainted with different methods of teaching 
 and of transmitting to others the knowledge 
 they acquire during the seven years of their 
 high school course. The third year is entirely 
 devoted to practicalexercises, where the ladies, 
 assisted by professors, give lessons to the pupils 
 of the Pro- Gymnasium in the following sub- 
 jects : Sacred history, Eussian language, arith- 
 metic, geography, French and German lan- 
 guages. The courses are divided in three dif- 
 ferent groups : The group of Eussian language 
 and literature, the group of foreign languages 
 (French or German optional), and the group 
 of mathematics. Lessons in religion, Eussian, 
 old Slavonic, and arithmetic are on the pro- 
 grammes of each of the three groups. Ladies 
 who have finished these courses receive a 
 
20 
 
 diploma of graduate teacher, conferring upon 
 them the right of occupying the chairs of the 
 above mentioned subjects in the four lower 
 classes and of foreign languages in all classes 
 of Gymnasiums and Pro- Gymnasiums for 
 girls. 
 
 Among the establishments of the Ecclesias- 
 tical Department we must mention the Dio- 
 cesan Female Schools. These establishments, 
 the number of pupils in which amounted last 
 year to 13,000, are assigned to the daughters of 
 priests and clergy and prepare them for 
 the rough career of teachers in village 
 schools. For more than three years I had 
 the opportunity of closely observing some 
 of these girls at their work, and I must say 
 we cannot have too much respect and 
 admiration for the really apostolic mission 
 they fulfill. Buried in some distant village, 
 miles away from railroads, separated from her 
 family, such a young creature undertakes her 
 struggles for life, depending on a poor and 
 illiterate community, which is not always able or 
 willing to pay her the ridiculous salary that is 
 supposed to recompense her for her work and 
 
21 
 
 for her life. For twelve roubles ($6) a month 
 she has to provide for herself. A peasant's 
 hut, where she finds lodging for twenty roubles 
 a* year, becomes her home; the peasant's 
 family her only social resource if there is no 
 priest in the village or no land-owner's house 
 in the neighborhood; the rare visits of the Ed- 
 ucational Inspector or of some other member 
 of the District School Committee, and the 
 annual arrival in the Spring of the Examin- 
 ing Commission are the only events which 
 break the monotony of her life in a ** milieu " 
 that is not hers and where she has in her way 
 a sort of rank to sustain. For she has not to 
 forget that she is not a peasant woman ; she 
 has to dress like a lady, she has to behave her- 
 self like a lady. I knew one of them who in 
 similar conditions had an invalid mother on 
 her hands and a little brother whom she pre- 
 pared for college. Numbers of them are scat- 
 tered over the surface of our vast country; 
 their names are unknown ; they are not repre- 
 sented at the Fair, and probably never will 
 be; but in iliis country, where an ordinary 
 workman in some distant ranch of your 
 
22 
 
 far West is lodged and boarded and gets 
 f 80 a month; in this country, where intellect- 
 ual labor is recompensed as nowhere else ; in 
 this country that knows what "pioneering" 
 means; in this country, ladies, I request — 
 I claim — your respect and your love for these, 
 your distant sisters, who have no other joy in 
 life than to watch the glimpse of life they 
 gradually arouse in the little brains they cul- 
 tivate. 
 
 After having paid our tribute to these two 
 important departments, we may now pass to 
 the establishments of the Ministry of Public 
 Education. We will not stop at the interme- 
 diate education ; we will merely mention that ac- 
 cording to the Eeport for 1891^ the Ministry of 
 Public Education had under its direction 342 
 establishments (Gymnasiums and Pro- Gym- 
 nasiums) with 62,529 pupils in attendance, 
 and we pass over to our subject. 
 
 The history of the higher educational courses 
 for ladies is rather eventful and has passed 
 through various phases. The question first 
 arose in 1869, when permission was given from 
 the Ministry of Public Education to organ- 
 
23 
 
 ize a series of public lectures on history, phi- 
 lology and science at St. Petersburg and Mos- 
 cow. The course had no settled plan nor 
 were any preliminary studies required from 
 the pupils. In the year 1872, Mr. Guerrier, 
 professor of the Moscow University, opened 
 his College of Higher Courses for Girls, where 
 special attention was drawn to the study of 
 universal literature and Eussian history. At 
 this epoch the necessity of a regular university 
 education for woman made itself felt by the 
 great number of girls who went abroad in 
 search of scientific knowledge. 
 
 An Imperial Ukase of the year 1876 author- 
 ized the foundation of high courses for ladies 
 on various subjects at different universities of 
 Eussia, and during this and the following 
 year such colleges were established at Kazan, 
 St. Petersburg and Kiev. They were divided 
 into two faculties: The hist orico -philological 
 and the physico-mathematical. The colleges 
 at St. Petersburg and Kiev and those of Pro- 
 fessor Guerrier in Moscow each have a four 
 years' course, that of Kazan, one of two years. 
 Besides this, special classes of instruction for 
 
24 
 
 girls have been attached to the Third Moscow 
 Gymnasium with a four years' course of 
 natural science and three years in mathe- 
 matics. All these establishments were 
 regarded as private institutions with the obli- 
 gation to be controlled every academical year 
 by the Board of Education ; they had no general 
 regulations, and the whole organization has for 
 a long time been regarded as a temporary one. 
 Only in 1879, preliminary work in preparing 
 General Eegulations for the girls' higher colleges 
 was begun, but it was interrupted by the resig- 
 nation of Count Tolstoi from his post of 
 Minister of Public Education in the year 1880. 
 
 In the year 1884, by order of his Imperial 
 Majesty a Commission was established, presided 
 over by the Under-Secretary of State, Prince 
 Wolkonsky, for the purpose of ascertaining the 
 best means for the organization of superior 
 education for girls in the Empire. But in the 
 meantime the admission of new students to 
 the courses was stopped and remained so for a 
 little over two years. 
 
 In June, 1889, the results elaborated by the 
 above mentioned Commission were put in 
 
25 
 
 action and in September of the same year the 
 admission was renewed. 
 
 After this historical sketch let us now con- 
 sider the scientific side of the institution. 
 
 The course lasts four years and is divided 
 into two sections, the historico -philological 
 and the mathematical. The following are the 
 lists of the subjects on which lectures are held: 
 
 1. In the historico-philological section: Ee- 
 ligion^ psychology^ logic, history of philosophy, 
 Kussian language, old Slavonic, history of 
 Eussian ancient and modern literature, theory 
 of literary forms, Slavonic idioms and liter- 
 ature, universal literature, (this includes 
 Italian, French, German and English liter- 
 ature and their connection with the develop- 
 ment of Eussian literature), Eussian history, 
 history of the peoples of Slavonic race, ancient 
 history, history of middle ages, history of 
 modern times, history of arts, Latin language 
 and literature. 
 
 2. In the mathematical section: Eeligion, 
 general course of mathematics, analytical 
 geometry, algebraical analysis, differential and 
 integral calculus, astronomy, physics, organic 
 
26 
 
 and in -organic chemistry, physical geography, 
 analytic mechanics. 
 
 The extensiveness of these programmes does 
 not prevent, as it might be apprehended, the 
 seriousness nor the conscientiousness of the 
 studies. As you see, the pupils can acquire a 
 very complete knowledge in all branches of the 
 section they select, and at the same time they 
 have the opportunity of going in for any spe- 
 cial question in its least details. In this sense 
 the Higher Courses resume in the limits of 
 their programmes that principle which you 
 formulate so cleverly and so shortly when you 
 say that " a man should know everything of 
 something and something of everything." 
 
 We have at hand the Annual Eeports of 
 the Director of the St. Petersburg Higher 
 Courses for the last three years, and I will take 
 the liberty of communicating to you some 
 details illustrating the scientific level of the 
 young ladies' works. In the year 1891 there 
 were 385 pupils in the four courses, of which 
 298 were in the historico-philological section 
 and 87 in the mathematical. This preference for 
 history and literature has always characterized 
 
27 
 
 our female students, though we have in mathe- 
 matics quite interesting works on most abstract 
 subjects. Director Koolin quotes in his reports 
 such themes as * * On approximate calculus of 
 definite integrals," or " Euler's formulae of 
 quadrations," and others. In 1890 our cele- 
 brated compatriot, Madame Kovalevsky, who 
 was professor of astronomy at the University 
 of Stockholm, honored with her presence the 
 examinations of the physico - mathematical 
 section, and Director Koolin mentions with 
 satisfaction the good impressions she gathered 
 during her visit. We must note here that the 
 only three ladies who lecture in this establish- 
 ment are mathematicians ; these are : Madame 
 Schiff, who directs the practical exercises in 
 mathematics^ Madame Serdobinsky, in physics, 
 and Madame Bogdanovsky, graduate doctor of 
 the Geneva University, in chemistry. 
 
 In the historico-philological section philo- 
 sophical questions seem to have mostly inter- 
 ested the young ladies. Professor Vedensky 
 speaks in best terms of such works as: ''On 
 some internal sensations according to Beaunis," 
 *' On the constitution of our self-conscious- 
 
28 
 
 ness '' according to Taine and Strahoff, ''On 
 the principles of knowledge in John Stuart 
 Mill's Logic," " On the atomic theory of matter 
 according to Professor Strahoff's The Universe 
 as a Whole," *^ On the immortality of the soul 
 according to Plato," and many others. 
 
 National history has been much studied and 
 very minute investigations have been made 
 by the ladies on some original texts of ancient 
 Slavonic chronicles. Such works as " The Fall 
 of Novgorod in Olden Kussian Chronicles " 
 and *' The Conquest of Kazan in 1552 as it 
 appears from annals and traditions," are con- 
 sidered by Professor Platonoff as essays of quite 
 individual and independent value. 
 
 Some ladies are very well acquainted with 
 different Slavonic idioms and gave valuable 
 translations of Servian and Bulgarian popular 
 songs into Eussian. 
 
 I had not the intention of fatiguing you 
 with practical details on the pecuniary means 
 of the establishment, but I cannot forego the 
 question, as I think it is of significant import- 
 ance in showing how much public opinion is 
 favorably disposed toward higher female edu- 
 
29 
 
 cation. The St. Petersburg Higher Courses are 
 pecuniarily supported by the Government and 
 by the Municipality. This sum amounts to 
 six thousand roubles a year, while the whole 
 maintenance of the establishment according to 
 the Director's Report costs ten times as much. 
 Where do these means come from? Except 
 the sums formed by the pupil's payments, all 
 the rest are private voluntary donations. We 
 hardly can give an idea of their extent and 
 variety, not only in great sums of money (such 
 as given by Mesdames Sibiriacoff, Shaniavsky, 
 Vargounin and others), but in active help of all 
 kinds. Beginning with the architect who 
 erected the building and refused all recom- 
 pense; during the two transitory years, when 
 admission to the courses was refused, most of 
 the professors lectured gratis ; the two doctors 
 attached to the establishment, one of whom is 
 a lady, never would accept anything for their 
 daily attendance; professors, writers, scien- 
 tific societies contribute to the enlargement 
 of the library, and the papers have always pub- 
 lished gratis all announcements concerning the 
 courses. 
 
30 
 
 Another thing that characterizes the popu- 
 larity of the courses is the fact of students 
 coming from such distant places as Tiflis, 
 Bakou, in the Caucasus, or Tomsk, Yenisseisk, 
 Irkoutsk, in Siberia. It is to be noted, too, that 
 the most generous donators that contribute to 
 the prosperity of the establishment are two 
 Siberian ladies. 
 
 We must now say a few words on the 
 Higher Medical Courses which were founded 
 in St. Petersburg in the year 1872. Though 
 strange it may appear here in America, 
 these courses for ladies were under the 
 direction of the Ministry of War and attached 
 to military hospitals. Their students were 
 of great help during the last Turkish war, 
 in 1877, where they showed courage and 
 utter abnegation. In time of peace female 
 doctors chiefly practice in villages, where the 
 provincial self-governmental hospitals are often 
 under their direction. In our south-eastern 
 provinces their help is priceless among the Ma- 
 hometans because of the strict religious laws 
 that would forbid to women any masculine med- 
 ical attendance. Unfortunately these Courses 
 
31 
 
 were closed in 1888 for chiefly pecuniary rea- 
 sons, but at the same time other Medical 
 Courses attached to the Nativity Hospital of St. 
 Petersburg were reinforced in order to supply 
 this lapse. During the sixteen years of their 
 existence the Higher Medical Courses let out 
 about a thousand graduates. The first Kussian 
 female doctors were Mesdames Sousloff and 
 Koshevaroff. 
 
 II. 
 
 This is a brief exposition of the present state 
 of woman's higher education in Eussia. I 
 shall consider my task fulfilled, if, noth with- 
 standing this briefness, I have succeeded in 
 giving you a clear picture of it and in demon- 
 strating that the question has always been 
 considered of great importance by our govern- 
 ment, and has in consequence, ever since 
 its first appearance, been an object of careful 
 study. A certain hesitation in the execution 
 must appear from the short historical sketch 
 we started with, but the reasons for this are in 
 connection with many events of our social life, 
 and not so much with special events as with a 
 
32 
 
 general state of mind that prevailed at a cer- 
 tain epoch of our history. We cannot pretend 
 to explain here things that expect the pene- 
 trating judgment of some clever historical 
 writer, but we feel authorized to state that the 
 period from the years 1860 until 1880 in Eussia 
 will remain forever as one of the most com- 
 plicated pages of modern social history. 
 
 I wish I could in a few words characterize 
 for you that, in many ways, remarkable time, a 
 time of an incredible literary movement, of an 
 intense intellectual labor, of important political 
 reforms, of violent revolutionary fermentation, 
 a time when all the resources of the country — 
 alas, the bad ones as well as the good ones — 
 suddenly broke out into such activity, that in 
 the stormy rush and inter-crossing of contra- 
 dictory streams the brain of the younger gen- 
 eration lost its balance . 
 
 After the wonderful literary period of 1830 
 when Poushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol and 
 Jukofsky went ahead of a series of minor 
 poets, there comes thirty years later that other 
 pleiad of glorious prose writers like Count 
 Leo Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Tourgeneff, Gon- 
 
^ OF THS 
 
 f CTNIVERi 
 
 33 
 
 charoff , and of brilliant poets like Count Alexis 
 Tolstoi, Maikoff, Polonsky and Fefc. A roar of 
 enthusiasm greets this second sunrise of na- 
 tional literature, but amidst these cheers of joy 
 sarcastic laughter suddenly breaks out. It 
 makes itself louder and louder, it calls the 
 attention of a rapidly increasing audience, 
 pamphlets begm to circulate, and finally a 
 regular literature of destruction is inaugurated. 
 While L. Tolstoi in "War and Peace" extols 
 family life and motherhood, Chernishevsky in 
 his romance of such an equivocal fame, entitled 
 "What is to be done?"* shakes the basis of 
 the family in proclaiming the uselessness of 
 marriage; an essay of the same '*0n the 
 iEsthetical Kelations of Art to Keality," tend- 
 ing to prove that art has no other meaning but 
 being a poor and imperfect reproduction of life, 
 destroys its fundamental principle in subserv- 
 ing the ideal to the real. Dobroluboff and 
 Pissareff give the tone to a school of critics 
 who begin with declaring that Poushkin is 
 worth nothing and who go on with endless 
 
 ^Translated into English by Benj. Tucker, leader 
 of the American "anarchist-individualists" and direc- 
 tor for many years of '* Liberty." 
 
34 
 
 variations on this sentence, become as popular 
 as a proverb, that " a pair of boots is greater 
 than Shakespeare." Nekrassoff, a poet of 
 irresistible charm^ when writing real poetry, 
 devotes his pen to versificated pamphlets on 
 political subjects intended to inspire sympathy 
 for lower people, but, alas, dictated much more 
 by hate against those who are above, A perfect 
 contrast with his precursor, Koltsoff— loving 
 brother of the peasant, who lives and speaks 
 and weeps with him. 
 
 In politics we see the same. At that period 
 which follows such acts as the emancipation of 
 the serfs, the reform of judicial procedure, the 
 institution of provincial self-government with 
 elective system, at that period the revolu- 
 tionary movement of secret societies was as 
 active as ever; the atrocities of 1881 were 
 gradually prepared, and for their accomplish- 
 ment innocent and inexperienced boys and 
 girls were recruited among scholars, were 
 withdrawn from their families, demoralized 
 and enrolled in the ranks of an army that 
 under the banner of "Progress" brandished the 
 sword of *' Destruction." 
 
35 
 
 At these complicated times we did not know 
 whom to accuse. Minds were floating, opin- 
 ions were uncertain. We could assist at 
 that singular fact of newly arising doctrines 
 that bore at the same time fresh blossoms of 
 hopeful faith and poisonous fruit of violence. 
 We saw generations that were overgrown 
 before they began to grow; we suffered from 
 the defects before we had enjoyed the benefits; 
 in many things — pardon me the rather too 
 audacious paradox — in many things degenera- 
 tion anticipated birth. The sacred word of 
 " emancipation " had scarcely been pronounced 
 when it was blown up to its most monstrous 
 exaggeration: traditions, family, religion were 
 proclaimed synonymous with superstition, 
 and higher education, universities with all the 
 attractions of great- center cities, were pointed 
 out to the younger generation as gates, through 
 which they could escape from the tyranny of 
 those superstitions. These were trying days 
 for all who had children. I do not know 
 whether this epoch has been seriously studied 
 and represented without prejudice, in foreign 
 literature; Tourgeneff's famous novel, "Fathers 
 
36 
 
 and Sons," has been translated, and though it 
 represents but the very beginning of this 
 movement, it shows enough to give us an idea 
 of what the conflict must have become later; 
 but it hardly can be understood, and therefore 
 enjoyed, if notice is not taken of those con- 
 ditions I had the honor to explain. 
 
 Now-a-days it's all over. With a remarka- 
 ble wisdom, soft energy, slowness, and care- 
 fulness, the Ministry of Public Education ac- 
 complished in a few years a total change in the 
 whole body of the rising generation and ob- 
 tained a complete recovery of its ideas and , 
 tendencies. We have good reasons to think 
 that the hesitations that have been pointed out 
 a while ago will not last any longer, and indeed, 
 they should not. The evils of some years ago 
 were but a very transitory state of things — a 
 sudden explosion, a violent paroxysm in a 
 young and turbulent blood — but it is not a 
 chronic illness, and a relapse of it is hardly to 
 be apprehended. 
 
 An exaggerated misunderstanding of the 
 word " emancipation " is not in the nature of 
 Kussian woman. We can observe that in cases 
 
37 
 
 of greatest scientific or artistic cleverness, 
 women have never forgotten their family duties, 
 nor had instruction withdrawn them from the 
 influence of their homes. In an article entitled 
 " Woman Throughout Eussian History," com- 
 posed by my compatriot. Princess Shahovskoy, 
 for the fine volume Mrs. Elliot devotes to the 
 description of the Woman's Building, you will 
 find a good number of names of women who 
 distinguished themselves in different branches 
 of science, art and literature; but a character- 
 istic fact to be noted is that nearly all of them 
 received the impulse to their studies from the 
 traditions of their families, and many of those 
 who were married did marry, so to say, in their 
 specialties ; so that science and art became not 
 only an adornment, but the very basis of mat- 
 rimonial life. 
 
 I will not fatigue you with a nomenclature 
 that would turn too long, but I can certify to 
 you that we never shall forget that we are a 
 single nation composed of two different sexes, 
 and that there is no danger of our ever adopt- 
 ing those theories that prevail in so7?ie countries, 
 where the tendencies seem to be to separate 
 
38 
 
 the two sexes into two different nations. No, 
 hand in hand will Kussian woman and Eussian 
 man pursue their common way toward the ful- 
 fillment of their human mission — not facing 
 each other in provoking attitudes, so as to hin- 
 der their free and natural march with childish 
 matches or ridiculous pretensions of superi- 
 ority — remembering that a humanity of women 
 is as impossible and as inconceivable as a hu- 
 manity of men. 
 
 There is one thing that sounds so very 
 strange to our ears. That is when we hear 
 women say that they work, learn, study because 
 they know that they can do things as well as 
 men. As well as men! Why this ^* as well "? 
 Why should woman voluntarily put a limit to 
 her perfection and narrow her ambition at the 
 point of resemblance with man? To do things 
 simply well, is that not a sufficiently honorable 
 ambition? Does it not open a wider field to 
 their versatilities and does it not show in the 
 distance of a constant improvement the possi- 
 bility^ of doing things even better, not only as 
 well as men? A great mistake, in our opinion, 
 is committed by those who think that woman's 
 
39 
 
 power consists in her similitude and not in her 
 dissimilitude with men. How many have been 
 induced in error by these theories, and have 
 put all their ambition in obtaining a resem- 
 blance that nature has refused them. Well, 
 but in losing the natural charms of her sex, 
 woman does not become a man. What is she, 
 then ? Among human creatures we do not 
 know a third variety of beings. 
 
 I hope ladies will excuse the perhaps too 
 decided terms in which I express my opinions, 
 but I do not think I hurt the feelings of any- 
 body here — here where the lady who is at the 
 head of the Woman's Exhibit, notwithstanding 
 the great energy and what we commonly call 
 " a quite masculine spirit of business" she 
 showed in all her activity — is nevertheless one 
 of the most feminine figures that ever directed 
 a great enterprise. 
 
 Human progress is a co-operative one, and 
 the part assigned to woman in" that co-opera- 
 tion is too great a one, indeed, to be abdicated. 
 The greatest of her privileges, the one she 
 should care the most for, the one that stays 
 above all what man can afford, — is motherhood. 
 
40 
 
 We do not mean the merely physiological 
 motherhood, but motherhood when intended 
 and practiced with full conscience of the sacred- 
 ness and majesty of its moral meaning; then 
 it becomes the greatest among all the means 
 of improvement that humanity possesses. As 
 the basis of family, motherhood is the corner- 
 stone of human fraternity and hence the 
 natural, the most indisputable denial of those 
 differences that divide humanity and without 
 an oblivion of which the fulfillment of civiliza- 
 tion is not possible on earth. Motherhood is 
 the only palpable contact we have with future 
 ages and a constant and unfailing guarantee of 
 our participation with them. 
 
 In his so much applauded opening address 
 to the Auxiliary Congresses President Bon- 
 ney expresses the wish that the time should 
 come when **ages, races, nations, communi- 
 ties, religions and institutions" should no 
 longer stand *'in position of practical hostility 
 toward each other, aiming to be always pre- 
 pared for strife, even in the midst of an appar- 
 ently enduring peace." Who as much as 
 woman can contribute to the realization of 
 
' 41 
 
 that ideal? What are the struggles and fight- 
 ings of man against the powers of nature com- 
 pared to the process of human fraternization 
 woman accomplishes by w^ay of obeying to that 
 same nature ? Can we dream of a more desira- 
 ble future than to see all prejudices of race, 
 all national hostilities, all political mistrusts, 
 religious intolerances, sectarian misunder- 
 standings, — bow their heads, fall down and 
 lie in the dust like things of naught before the 
 sovereign royalty of motherhood and under 
 the universal equality of family? Nay, ladies, 
 these are not things to be abdicated ; the recom- 
 pense is too great a one to be refused. To be 
 graduate professor, to be member correspond- 
 ent of an academy, to be doctor, writer, law- 
 yer, — all these are great satisfactions, but is 
 there anything on earth that can be compared 
 to the peacefulness and oblivion of sorrows 
 that overwhelm us at the sight of two smiling 
 eyes of a child? And this belongs to woman: 
 the purest jewel that nature has produced is 
 hers. No, ladies, this is not a thing to be 
 abdicated. And we, gentlemen, let us ask the 
 ladies not to underrate that treasure that is 
 
 OF TH 
 
42 
 
 childhood ; let us ask our mothers to preserve 
 us our children's eyes as long as possible. 
 Yes, gentlemen, though strange, though un- 
 advanced in our days of rushing life this wish 
 may appear, I repeat : let us ask our mothers 
 to preserve us our children's eyes as long as 
 possible and not to commit a suicide of human- 
 ity in letting go out those lights that once 
 extinguished can never be lighted again. 
 
 And after having done so, gentlemen, let us 
 get accustomed to the idea that the best part 
 in the accomplishment of our civilizing mis- 
 sion belongs to women; but although in this 
 sense the future shall be their work more than 
 ours, let us not become jealous of them, for as 
 the poet says : 
 
 "The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink 
 Together.'' 
 
Greeting. 
 
 TO THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL 
 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 25th JULY, 1893. 
 
Mr. President, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 Two days ago I had the honor of being asked 
 to welcome the present Congress. I have not 
 had the time for preparing anything substan- 
 tial, that should, in some way, justify your 
 kind applauses. This is why I hope you will 
 excuse me if I say but a very few words. 
 
 At the occasion of this solemn session, I 
 wish to greet and to congratulate the Inter- 
 national Educational Congress; but I will 
 address my congratulations to an apparently 
 unimportant thing. I will not congratulate it 
 upon the fact that it has the honor of being 
 presided over by a man of such merits as Dr. 
 Harris; I will not congratulate it upon the 
 brilliant names which constitute the long list of 
 its members ; nor upon the extensiveness of its 
 programmes or the variety of its subjects. I 
 wish to congratulate it simply upon its name : 
 ** International Educational." 
 
 45 
 
46 
 
 May these two words be written in letters of 
 fire on the dark sky of this summer night, so 
 as to shine for every one who will attend the 
 sessions of this Congress ! 
 
 Then he who will treat an '* educational " 
 question will remember that, even in the case 
 when it is arisen from purely national consid- 
 erations, it must have in its results a value 
 from the '* international " point of view; for 
 education, if not aiming to inspire humanita- 
 rian feelings of international brotherhood, is 
 but a dead letter. And he who will preach 
 theories of ** international " equality of men 
 will remember that this equality should be ob- 
 tained by way of "education;" that is, by way 
 of growing, of building up, by way of noble em- 
 ulation in improving, in learning, in accepting 
 and assimilating things which others have dis- 
 covered; in one word, international equality 
 should be obtained by way of acquiring, and 
 not by way of restricting; for tendencies of 
 equality, if not inspired by motives of educa- 
 tion, must bring humanity back to the animal 
 equality of the beast. 
 
 And so may the union of these two words 
 
47 
 
 "international" and "educational" be blessed; 
 may it resound in the hearts of all who will be 
 present here ; may it inspire the words and acts 
 of the Congress with great ideas of universal 
 impartiality ; may it loudly proclaim that every 
 one of us helongs, fir sty to humanity, and second- 
 ly ^ to one or another nation ; may it teach that 
 there is more honor for any one of us in being 
 a man than in being an American, or a Eus- 
 sian, or a German, or an Italian, or a Greek, 
 or a Japanese, or whatever else he may be. 
 
 Now, if we ask ourselves what is the surest 
 way of obtaining universal impartiality, we will 
 answer that it consists in observing this rule : 
 that a smaller thing should not hide a greater 
 one ; that a partial question should not obstruct 
 the view of its whole. In the physical world, 
 the perception of dimensions is relative: a 
 house when we stand near it appears greater 
 than the mountain in the distance; a small 
 button, if held close to our eye, may obstruct 
 the view of the sunshine, and hide the whole 
 universe ; but in the moral and intellectual do- 
 main, we must not allow the same phenomena. 
 We must not allow that discussions between 
 
48 
 
 Methodism and Presbyterianism should ob- 
 struct Christianity; we should not suffer that 
 the interests of a community or of a town 
 should grow bigger than the interests of a 
 state ; we must not permit that rivalry between 
 one nation and another should make us forget 
 humanity. 
 
 These are the wishes I make in congratulat- 
 ing the Congress upon the opening of its ses- 
 sions, and these are the reasons why I repeat 
 once more : May the union of these two words 
 be blessed — " International, ' ' " Educational. ' ' 
 
The Poet in Poushkins 
 Poetry. 
 
 COMPOSED FOR THE CELEBRATION OF POETS' DAY 
 
 AT THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, 
 
 27th august, 1893. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE ASSEMBLY HALL OF 
 
 THE WOMAN'S BUILDING, 
 
 7th SEPTEMBER, 1893. 
 
The Poets' Day. How shall we commemo- 
 rate it? Shall we represent the different poets 
 of different countries separately, or shall we 
 celebrate all poets of all countries? 
 
 This is the question that presented itself to 
 my mind when I was asked to take part in the 
 ceremonies of the present festivity. And I 
 thought both aims so tempting that I wanted 
 to answer to both, and I resolved to find a way 
 of re-uniting the two subjects in one single 
 speech. My national literature gave me the 
 best opportunity of doing so, 
 
 I have the fortune to belong to a nation the 
 first poet of which is at the same time the 
 greatest proclaimer of the sacredness of the 
 poet's mission that ever existed. Never in the 
 whole universal literature has a poet extolled 
 poetical gifts in grander terms than he did; 
 never has a poet represented in more splendid 
 
52 
 
 lines the aim and the beauty of a poet's mis- 
 sion; never did a man use so much of his 
 talent to build up a pedestal for the poetical 
 portion of himself. This is the reason why I 
 resolved to speak of Poushkin to-day, for I 
 think that by the simple fact of relating to you 
 what our poet thought of poets, I will pay the 
 greatest tribute that can be paid to all poets of 
 other countries. 
 
 Three principal points characterize the per- 
 sonality of a poet as it appears from Poushkin' s 
 poetry: a desperate moral solitude amidst the 
 crowd of common mortals ; a supreme indiffer- 
 ence which grows sometimes to terms of supreme 
 contempt as to the judgment of that same 
 crowd; and a profound conviction, a religious 
 faith in the sacredness — I should say, in the 
 divine character — of his poetical mission, that 
 is to work to the improvement and salvation 
 of that same crowd of common mortals among 
 whom he feels so desperately lonely, and the 
 appreciations of which he so much despises. 
 By a gradual selection of quotations I will lead 
 you, if you allow, to the two poems of Poushkin 
 in which these three points are put in evidence 
 
53 
 
 with a highest degree of lyrical emphasis, and 
 with such effects of sonority as the Enssian 
 language seldom has attained, excepting, per- 
 haps, the semi-Byronic, semi- oriental poem of 
 Lermontoff, " The Demon," which offers one of 
 the most remarkable examples of the degree 
 of melodiousness human language can reach 
 on the shores of those indefinite regions where 
 words expire and music begins. 
 
 The poet's solitude on earth appears from a 
 little poem of a few lines, entitled " The Echo." 
 There is not a sound in nature, not an exclama- 
 tion of joy or of sorrow in mankind, that the 
 echo does not repeat in the emptiness of the 
 air, but it never gets an answer. "And so art 
 thou, poet!" exclaims the author, with no 
 anger, no revolt in this case; he accepts the 
 fact with no rebellion. He seems to say: 
 "It is so, and let us not speak of it any more;" 
 but the disproportion between the length of the 
 whole and the shortness of the last sentence, 
 that takes but one line, throws a tragic char- 
 acter of helplessness and hopelessness upon 
 this silence that gives us to divine so many 
 things it does not tell. 
 
54 
 
 Rebellion appears and greatest indignation 
 breaks out in a piece called "The Poet and the 
 Crowd." Never has the rabble been the object 
 of a more violent apostrophe; never have more 
 eloquent words of scorn and contempt separated 
 those who are below from him who is and 
 wants to remain above. A crowd of the lowest 
 average of humanity surrounds the pedestal 
 upon which the poet sings and touches the 
 chords of his lyre ; but his song is not under- 
 stood, the sounds of his lyre go to the wind, 
 and the rabble below break out in laughter, 
 mockeries, and imprecations against the man 
 who troubles them without any profit or utility. 
 At this word of ** utility " the poet cannot re- 
 strain himself, and the tacit tortures of a great 
 soul that is misunderstood and outraged in its 
 holiest beliefs explode with a violence that the 
 fine versification seems hardly to control. 
 * ' Utility ! In everything utility ! In the mar- 
 ble of the Belvedere you would look for utility. 
 And that this marble is a god, that tells you 
 nothing? Of course a kitchen pot is of greater 
 value for you : you make your food in it ! From 
 fche noisy pavements of your cities you wipe the 
 
55 
 
 dust — a useful work, by Jove ! But will your 
 priests forget their altars and their sacrifices 
 to take brooms in their hands ? Away ! What 
 has a peaceful poet to do with you ? . . . We are 
 born for inspiration, for sweet melodies and 
 prayers! " 
 
 This contempt for others' opinion is formu- 
 lated with a somewhat theoretical serenity in 
 a sonnet that begins with the words : **0 ! Poet, 
 do not prize the people's love! " and after hav- 
 ing shown what people's love is worth, the 
 appreciations of the fool, the judgment of the 
 indifferent crowd, he points out to the poet 
 where he has to find his best, his most impar- 
 tial, his unique judgment: *' Thyself thou art 
 thy highest judge. Who better than thyself 
 will appreciate thy work ? And is thy artist's 
 conscience satisfied with it — well, then, let 
 the crowd revile it and spit upon the altar 
 where thy fire burns, and shake in childish 
 playfulness thy tripod." 
 
 Self - consciousness, self - control and self- 
 criticism are the highest qualities that secure 
 to the poet a constant superiority over the 
 crowd and an unfailing masterhood over those 
 
56 
 
 miseries which trouble common mortals. Armed 
 with these qualities the poet can start for his 
 mission, but he cannot hope to fulfill it with- 
 out an aid from above. This will appear from 
 a poem entitled '* The Prophet," but before we 
 examine that wonderful piece let us embrace 
 in a single poem all that appeared from the 
 disjointed phrases we have quoted. 
 
 The poem called <*The Poet" gives one of 
 the most accomplished pictures of that double 
 life that those children of heaven live when 
 they are thrown upon this earth. 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 ^* So long as Apollo does not call the poet to 
 his sacred sacrifice, he is plunged a coward in 
 the troubles and vanities of the world. 
 
 **His holy lyre is silent, his soul sleeps in 
 indifference, and among the poor children of 
 this earth he is perhaps the poorest. 
 
 ' ' But so soon as the Divine word strikes his 
 sensitive ear, the poet's soul springs up and 
 shakes its wings, like an eagle that awakes. 
 
 * * He loathes the pleasures of this earth ; he 
 cares not for his fame with men; before the 
 
OF TH 
 
 57 
 
 idols of the world he does not bow his haughty 
 head. 
 
 ** Wild and stern, full of voices and tumult, 
 he flees to the shore of the desert waves, under 
 the broadly roaring oaks." 
 
 And so, abandoned in the world, alone 
 among mortals, misunderstood and not caring 
 to be understood, the poet spurns mankind; 
 like the prophets of the Bible, he flees into the 
 desert. And now listen to what he tells us : 
 
 THE PROPHET. 
 
 " My soul was tortured with thirst, I dragged 
 myself through a somber desert, and a six- 
 winged seraphim appeared to me in my path. 
 
 "With fingers lighter than a dream he 
 touched my eyes and they opened, — the pro- 
 phetical eyes, as those of a frightened eagle. 
 He touched my ears, — and they were filled 
 with sounds and ringing : and I conceived the 
 heaven's shudder, of angels the celestial flight, 
 the under-water moving of the monsters of the 
 sea^ the germination, in the valley, of the twig. 
 And to my lips he stooped, drew out my 
 tongue, — my babbling, wicked tongue, — and 
 
58 
 
 with his bloody hand a fang of prudent snake 
 he then put in between my frozen lips. And 
 with a sword he then hewed up my bosom and 
 drew away my palpitating heart, and in my 
 yawning breast he thrust a living coal, 
 
 " Like a dead body was I lying in the 
 desert, and the voice of the Lord called to me : 
 Arise, prophet! See and hear! Inspire with 
 my will thyself, and crossing over lands and 
 waters burn with thy word the hearts of men." 
 
 The poefc is ordained. From the depths of 
 the desert he rises up a messenger of God. 
 And now through his work he comes back to 
 us, — to us whom he did not care for, to us 
 whom he did despise, to us whom he has 
 spurned for the desert. And through this 
 work we learn to know him and to love him, — 
 him who did not care for us, him who did 
 despise us, him who has spurned us for the 
 desert. And the poet knew it had to come, 
 he knew it could not be otherwise. In a 
 sonnet where, at the example of Horace, he 
 builds up his own "Monument," with that in- 
 fallible spirit of self-criticism that never 
 abandons him, he says : "The way that leads 
 
59 
 
 to my monument will never be overgrown 
 
 with grass My fame will spread all over 
 
 the globe and through all ages will I be dear 
 to people, for I awoke good feelings with my 
 lyre." 
 
 Yes, he will be known all over the globe, for 
 he belongs to the whole world; a more uni- 
 versal, all - comprehensive soul has rarely 
 spoken to humanity in verse. He is universal 
 not only because he has measured the whole 
 depth and embraced the whole scale of human 
 sentiments, but because there is no form of 
 formulating these sentiments that was not 
 accessible to him. This man, who died not 
 much over thirty years old (he was married to 
 one of the handsomest women of his time and 
 was shot in a duel he had for her), this man 
 who never went abroad, has left poems that 
 might take place on the pages of the National 
 literature of any foreign country, so fully do 
 they resume their character and their way of 
 feeling. He had by intuition that which in 
 another man would require a whole life of 
 study and travel. His Spanish poems and his 
 dramatic scenes of Don Juan; his dramatic 
 
60 
 
 scenes, " The Shabby Knight," that first 
 appeared as a translation from an unknown 
 English author; his fragments of the Koran, 
 his imitations of Dante, the wonderful 
 plasticity and serenity of his hexameter when 
 treating antique subjects, — all that will make 
 that, though being the greatest synthesis of 
 Eussian life, his poetry will belong to all 
 countries. As it was pointed out by Dos- 
 toievsky, the most complete representative 
 of the Eussian character is at the same time 
 the most eloquent example of its greatest 
 quality, — that faculty of finding in itself an 
 echo for the feelings of men independently of 
 national divisions, that talent of understand- 
 ing those words and forms in which other 
 nations' joy and sorrow express themselves. 
 In his book on the Eussian romance, Count 
 Melchior de Vogiie of the Academy of France, 
 after having shown the universal meaning of 
 Poushkin's we just have spoken of, says in a 
 somewhat apologetic way : " Is it discourtesy 
 to a nation, if we take from her her national 
 poet to give him to humanity?" No, cer- 
 tainly it is not discourtesy: it is justice to 
 
61 
 
 the world. Take him from us ! We want him 
 to be yours, for he never shall cease to be 
 ours ! 
 
 Yes, he must and he shall be known all 
 over the globe, for we sincerely hope that 
 times will come when everything that is great 
 and beautiful on earth will be made accessible 
 to every one and that humanity will no longer 
 be deprived of what belongs to humanity for 
 the reason of not understanding a language; 
 times will come when we will find out how to 
 , deliver ourselves from those chains which hold 
 us bound to our nationalities and hinder us 
 from ascending those resplendent altitudes 
 where human genius has founded a fatherland 
 for every man. 
 
 OF 
 
 TJNIV: 
 
G 
 
 REETING. 
 
 TO THE GENERAL WORLD'S RELIGIOUS CONGRESS, 
 lira SEPTEMBER, 1893. 
 
Mr. President: 
 
 Before I speak to this imposing audience, I 
 wish you would allow me to say one word to 
 you personally. I am not an ecclesiastic, hence 
 I cannot pretend to represent a church. I am 
 not an official delegate (at least at the Eeligious 
 Congress I am not), hence I have no right of 
 representing a government. And I am not a 
 man of science. Therefore I appreciate all the 
 more the great honor you do me in calling on 
 me personally and individually in such a 
 splendid gathering as this. It is already an 
 honor for me to be seated among so many 
 distinguished and prominent men, but to see 
 my name on the programme of this solemn 
 session, — that is what I consider the highest 
 individual honor that ever has been conferred 
 on me, and I thank you for this honor. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 Those who during the last week have had 
 
 65 
 
66 
 
 the opportunity of attending not only the con- 
 gresses of one single church, but who could 
 witness different congresses of different 
 churches and congregations, must have been 
 struck with a noticeable fact. They went to 
 the Catholic congress, and heard beautiful 
 words of charity and love; splendid orators 
 invoked the blessings of Heaven upon the 
 children of the Catholic church, and in power- 
 ful, eloquent terms the listeners were entreated 
 to love their human brothers in the name of 
 the Catholic church. They went to the 
 Lutheran congress and heard splendid words 
 of humanity and brotherhood ; orators in- 
 spired with love and indulgence invoked the 
 blessing of God on the children of the 
 Lutheran church, and taught those who were 
 present to love their human brothers in the 
 name of the Lutheran church. They went to 
 other more limited congresses, and everywhere 
 they heard these same great words proclaiming 
 these same great ideas and inspiring these 
 same great feelings. They saw a Catholic arch- 
 bishop go to a Jewish congress, and with his 
 fiery eloquence bring feelings of brotherhood to 
 
67 
 
 bis Hebraic sisters.* Not in one of tbese con- 
 gresses did a speaker forget tbat be belonged 
 to bumanity, and tbat bis own cburcb or con- 
 gregation was but a starting point, a centre 
 for a furtber and illimited radiation. 
 
 Tbis is tbe noticeable fact tbat must bave 
 struck everybody, and everybody must Save 
 asked bimself at tbe end of tbe week: "Wby 
 don't tbey come togetber, all tbese people wbo 
 speak tbe same language ? Wby do not 
 all tbese splendid orators unite tbeir voices in 
 one single cborus? And if tbey preacb tbe 
 same ideas, wby don't tbey proclaim tbem in 
 tbe name of tbat same and single trutb tbat 
 inspires tbem all? " 
 
 To day tbeir wisbes are fulfilled and beyond 
 all expectation. 
 
 Being called to greet tbe present congress 
 on tbe occasion of its opening, I will take tbe 
 liberty of relating to you a popular legend of 
 my native country. Tbe story may appear 
 ratber too bumorous for tbe circumstance, but 
 
 *Ilev. Joliii Ireland, Archbisliop of St. Paul, was 
 asked to speak, and did so, at the Congress of the 
 Jewish Women, 6th September, 1893. 
 
68 
 
 one of our national writers says : ' ' Humor is an 
 invisible tear through a visible smile;" and we 
 think that human tears, human sorrow and 
 pain are sacred enough to be brought even 
 before a religious congress. 
 
 There was an old woman who for many 
 centuries suffered tortures in the flames of hell, 
 for she had been a great sinner during her 
 earthly life. One day she saw far away in the 
 distance an angel taking his flight through the 
 blue skies, and with the whole strength of her 
 voice she called to him. The call must have 
 been desperate, for the angel stopped in his 
 flight and, coming down to her, asked her what 
 she wanted. 
 
 '* When you reach the throne of God," she 
 said, '* tell Him that a miserable creature has 
 suffered more than she can bear, and that she 
 asks the Lord to be delivered from these tor- 
 tures." 
 
 The angel promised to do so, and flew away» 
 When he had transmitted the message, God 
 said : 
 
 '^Ask her whether she has done any good to 
 man during her life." 
 
OF THB 
 
 69 
 
 The old woman strained her memory in 
 search of a good action during her sinful past, 
 and all at once: ** I've got one! " she joyfully 
 exclaimed; »'One day I gave a carrot to a 
 hungry beggar! " 
 
 The angel reported the answer. 
 
 ** Take a carrot," said God to the angel, 
 ** stretch it out to her, let her grasp it, and if 
 the plant is strong enough to draw her out 
 from hell, she shall be saved." 
 
 So the angel did. The poor old woman 
 clung to the carrot. The angel began to pull, 
 and lo ! she began to rise ! But when her body 
 was half out of the flames, she felt a weight at 
 her feet : another sinner was clinging to her. 
 She kicked, but it did not help: the sinner 
 would not let go his hold, and the angel con- 
 tinuing to pull, was lifting them both! But 
 oh, another sinner clung to them, and then a 
 third, and more, and always more — an endless 
 chain of miserable creatures hung at the old 
 woman's feet ! The angel never ceased pulling ; 
 it did not seem to be any heavier than the 
 small carrot could support, and they all were 
 rising in the air ! But the old woman suddenly 
 
70 
 
 took fright: too many people were availing 
 themselves of her only, her last chance of sal- 
 vation ! And kicking and pushing those who 
 were clinging to her, *' Leave me alone," she 
 exclaimed; ''Hands off — the carrot is mine!" 
 
 No sooner had she pronounced this word of 
 **mine" than the tiny stem broke, and they 
 all fell back to hell — and forever 
 
 In its poetic artlessness and popular sim- 
 plicity, this legend is too eloquent to need in- 
 terpretation. If any individual, any commun- 
 ity, any congregation, any church, possesses 
 a portion of truth and of good, let that truth 
 shine for everybody, let that good become the 
 property of everyone. The substitution of the 
 word *' mine " by the word '*ours," and that 
 of *' ours" by the word ** everyone's," this 
 is what will secure a fruitful result to our 
 collective efforts as well as to our individual 
 activities. 
 
 This is why we feel happy to welcome and 
 to greet the opening of this congress, where in 
 a combined effort of the representatives of all 
 churches and religions, all that is great and 
 good and true in each of them is brought 
 
71 
 
 together in the name of the same God, and for 
 the sake of the same Man. 
 
 We congratulate the President, the mem- 
 bers and all the listeners of this congress upon 
 the tendency of union that has gathered them 
 on the soil of the country whose allegorical 
 Eagle, spreading his mighty wings over the 
 *» Stars and Stripes," holds in his powerful 
 talons those splendid words : " E pluribus 
 
The Social Office of 
 Religious Feeling. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 15th SEPTEMBER, 1898. 
 
 Ol 
 
 CTNTV 
 

 Mr. President, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 It is the custom at the congresses that when- 
 ever a speaker appears on the stage he should be 
 introduced as the representative either of some 
 government, or of some nationality, or of some 
 association, or of some institution, or of any kind 
 of collective unity that absorbs his individuality 
 and classifies him at once in one of the great 
 divisions of humanity. 
 
 My name to-night has not been put in con- 
 nection with any of these classifications, and it 
 is quite natural that you should ask : " What 
 does he represent ? Does he represent a gov- 
 ernment?" No, for I think that no govern- 
 
 75 
 
76 
 
 ment as such should have anything to do with 
 the questions that are going to be treated here, 
 nor should it interfere in the discussions. 
 
 Am I representative of a nation? No, I am 
 not. Why not? I'll tell you. Some weeks 
 ago I had the honor of speaking in this same 
 hall on some educational subjects. After I 
 had finished, several persons came to me 
 to express their feelings of sympathy. I 
 recollect with a particular thought of thank- 
 fulness the good faces of three colored men, who 
 came with outstretched hands and said : 
 
 " We want to thank you because we like your 
 ideas of humanity and of internationality, — we 
 like them." 
 
 If I mention the fact it is not because I 
 gather any selfish satisfaction in doing so, 
 but because I feel happy to live at a time 
 when the advancement of inventions and ideas 
 made such a fact possible, as that of a stranger 
 coming from across the ocean to this great 
 country of the New World and being greeted 
 as a brother by children of a race that a few 
 years ago was regarded as not belonging to 
 humanity. I feel proud to live in such times, 
 
77 
 
 and I am glad to owe the experience to 
 America. 
 
 But that same evening a lady came to me 
 with expression of greatest astonishment 
 and said she was so much surprised to hear 
 such ideas from a Eussian. 
 
 ''Why so?" I asked her. 
 
 " Because I always thought these ideas were 
 American. " 
 
 '•American ideas? — No, Madame, these 
 ideas are as little American as they are 
 Eussian. They are lannan ideas, Madame, 
 and if you are a human creature you must 
 not be astonished — you have no right to 
 be astonished — that another human creature 
 spoke to you a language that you would have 
 spoken yourself." 
 
 No, I am representative of no nationality, 
 of no country. I love my country; I would 
 not stand at this very place, I would not speak 
 to you to-night, if I did not; but our individual 
 attachment to our own country is of no good 
 if it does not give us an impulse to some wider 
 expansion, if it does not teach us to respect 
 other people's attachment to their country, and 
 
78 
 
 if it does not fill our heart with an ardent wish 
 that everyone's country should be loved by 
 everyone . 
 
 Now remains a last question : Am I repre- 
 sentative of one particular religion? I am not, 
 for if I were^ I would bring here words of divi- 
 sion, and no other words but words of union 
 should resound in this hall. And so I intro- 
 duce myself with no attributes, considering that 
 after the permission of the President that con- 
 fers on a man the right of appearing on this 
 stage, the mere fact of his being a man — at 
 least at a religious congress — is a sufficient title 
 for deserving your attention. 
 
 Now, we must extend the same restrictions 
 to the subject we are going to treat. First of 
 all, we settle the point that we are not going 
 to speak of any particular religion^ but of relig- 
 ious feeling in general independently of its 
 object. 
 
 Secondly, we will not speak of the origin of 
 the religious feeling; whether it is inspired 
 from heaven, or it is the natural development 
 of our human faculties ; whether it is a special 
 gift of the Creator to man, or the result of a 
 
79 
 
 long process of evolution that has its beginning 
 in the animal instinct of self-preservation. 
 The latter theory that places the beginning of 
 religion in the feeling of fear seems to prevail 
 in modern science, and is regarded as one of 
 its newest conquests, although many centuries 
 ago the Latm poet said that 
 
 " Primus in orbe deos fecit timor." 
 
 A remarkable evolution, indeed, that would 
 place the origin of religion in the trembling 
 body of a frightened mouse and the end of it 
 on the summit of Golgotha. We will not con- 
 test, but we invite those, who were clever 
 enough to discover and to prove this wonderful 
 process of evolution, to pay their respect and 
 gratitude to Him who made such a process of 
 evolution possible. 
 
 Let us forget for once that eternal question 
 of origins. Do you judge the importance of a 
 river by the narrowness of its source? Do you 
 reproach the flowers with the putrified elements 
 which nourish its roots ? Now, you see what a 
 wrong way we may take sometimes in investi- 
 gating origins. No, let us judge the river by 
 
80 
 
 the breadth and strength of its full stream, and 
 the flower by the beauty of its colors and of its 
 odor, and let us not go back nor down to dark- 
 ness when we have the chance of living in light. 
 Eeligious feeling is a thing that exists, it is a 
 reality, and wherever it may come from, it de- 
 serves our attention and our highest respect as 
 the motor of the greatest acts that were accom- 
 plished by humanity in the moral domain. 
 
 Two objections may be urged. 
 
 First, the human sacrifices of ancient times, 
 that were accomplished under prescriptions of 
 religion. To this we must answer that religious 
 feeling, as everything on earth, requires a cer- 
 tain time to become clear and lucid ; and we can 
 observe that the mere fact of its gradual develop- 
 ment brings up by and by a rejection and con- 
 demnation of those violences and abuses that 
 were considered incumbent in those pre-historic 
 times when everything was but confusion and 
 in a state of formation. The same religions 
 that started with human sacrifices led those 
 who followed the development of ideas and did 
 not stick to the elaboration of rituals — to high- 
 est feeling of humanity and charity. Socrates 
 
81 
 
 and Plato wrote the introduction and Seneca 
 the first volume of the humanitarian work that 
 was continued by St. Paul. 
 
 The second objection will be the violences 
 accomplished in the name of Christianity. 
 Eeligious feeling, it will be said, produces such 
 atrocities as the inquisition and other persecu- 
 tigns of modern and even present times. Never, 
 never, never ! Never did Christian religion in- 
 spire a persecution. It did inspire those who 
 were persecuted, but not those who did persecute. 
 What is it that in a persecution is the product 
 of religious feeling? Humility, indulgence, 
 pardon, patience, heroism and martyrdom; 
 all the rest that constitutes the active elements 
 of a persecution is not the work of religion: 
 martyrization, torture, cruelty, intolerance, are 
 the work of politics ; it is authority that chas- 
 tises insubordination, and the fact that author- 
 ities throughout history have been often sin- 
 cerely persuaded that they acted " ad majorem 
 Dei gloriam " is but a poor excuse for them, an 
 excuse that in itself includes a crime. 
 
 But now let us withdraw the question of 
 religious feeling from history and politics, and 
 
82 
 
 let us examine it from the strictly individual 
 point of view. Let us see what it gives to a 
 man in his intercourse with other men, this 
 being the really important point, for we think 
 that only in considering the single individual 
 you really embrace the whole humanity. The 
 moment you consider a collective unity of sev- 
 eral or many individuals, you exclude the rest. 
 It is that very desire to embrace all 
 humanity that determined us in the choice of 
 our theme. In fact, what other feeling on earth 
 but the religious feeling could have the prop- 
 erty of reuniting all men on a common field of 
 discussion and on the same level of competence? 
 No scientific, no artistic, no political, no other 
 religious subject but the subject we selected: 
 that feeling of our common human nothing- 
 ness in presence of that unknown but existing 
 being before whom we are all equal ; who holds 
 us under the control of those laws of nature 
 that we are free to discover and to study, but 
 can not transgress without succumbing to their 
 inexorable changelessness, and who regulates 
 our acts by having impressed upon each of us 
 the reflection of Himself through that sensitive 
 
83 
 
 instrument, the human conscience. If we 
 appeal to one creed or to one religion we will 
 always have either a limited or a divided audi- 
 ence, but if we appeal to the human conscience, 
 no walls will be able to contain our listeners. 
 All limits and divisions must fall if only we 
 listen to our conscience. What are national 
 or political or religious differences? Are they 
 worth being spoken of before an appeal that 
 reunites, not only those who believe differently, 
 but those who believe with those who no not 
 believe ? 
 
 This is the great significance of religious 
 feeling I wish to point out to you. Not the 
 more or less certitude it gives to each individual 
 of his own salvation in the future, but the soft- 
 ening influence it must have on the relations 
 of man to man in the present. 
 
 Let us believe in our equality; let us not be 
 " astonished" when life once in a while gives 
 us the chance of experiencing that one man 
 feels like another man. Let us work for unity 
 and happiness, obeying our conscience and 
 forgetting that such things exist as Catholic, or 
 Buddhist, or Lutheran, or Mahometan. Let 
 
84 
 
 every one keep those divisions each one for 
 himself and not classify the others; and if 
 some one does not classify himself, if he does 
 not care to be classified at all, well then let 
 him alone. You won't be able to erase him 
 from the great class of humanity to which he 
 belongs as well as you. He will fulfill his human 
 duties under the impulse of his conscience as 
 well as you, and perhaps better, and even 
 if he does not think that a future exists, 
 the God in whom he did not or could 
 not believe will give him the portion of happi- 
 ness he has deserved in making others happy. 
 For what is morality after all ? It is to live 
 so that the God who, according to some of us, 
 exists in one way; according to some others, in 
 another way; who, according to some others, 
 does not exist at all, but whom we all desire to 
 exist, that this God should be satisfied with 
 our acts. And after this, as the poet says: 
 
 *' For forms of faith let foolish zealots fight, 
 He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
 
 Some years ago an English preacher said 
 that times had come when we should not any 
 more ask a man: "How do you believe?" but, 
 
85 
 
 "Do you believe?" Now, we think times have 
 come when we must neither ask a man: "Hoiv 
 do you believe?" nor, "Do you believe?" but 
 "Do you want to believe?" And the answer 
 will be the most unanimous cheer that human- 
 ity has ever raised. 
 
 The Spanish writer Count Castelar says 
 somewhere : "Christianity, like light, has many 
 colors." We don't pretend to be broader than 
 Christianity, but if Christianity is broad, it is 
 because every shadowing of the Christian rain- 
 bow teaches us that humanity, like light, has 
 many colors; and, pardon me the joke in seri- 
 our matters, in this country you know, you 
 have proved that humanity had many ^'colors." 
 
 Yes, Christianity is broad because it teaches 
 us to accept and not to exclude. If only all of 
 us would remember this principle, the ridicu- 
 lous word of " religion of the future " would 
 disappear once and forever. Of course, as 
 long as you will consider that religion consists 
 in forms of worshiping that secure to you your 
 individual salvation^ the greatest part of 
 humanity will declare that forms are worn out 
 and that we need a new '* religion of the 
 
86 
 
 future." But if you fill yourself with the idea 
 that religion is the synthesis of your beliefs in 
 those prescriptions that regulate your acts 
 toward other men, you will give up your wan- 
 derings in search of new ways of individual 
 salvation, and you will find vitality and 
 strength in the certitude that we need no other 
 way but the one shown by the religion that 
 teaches us that all men are the same whatever 
 their religion may be. 
 
Father Smith. 
 
 COMPOSED FOR THE CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MEETING 
 
 IN ALL SOUL'S CHURCH, 
 
 ]7th SEPTEMBER, 1893. 
 
1770-1841. 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 The subjects which have been brought be- 
 fore the audience have been so well treated, 
 and so thoroughly exhausted, that, as one of 
 the speakers said, it is almost impossible to 
 add anything. And still I have the presump- 
 tion to think that I can make an addition 
 to one of the interesting papers we have heard 
 last night. It is but a detail, but details take 
 their importance less from their intrinsic value 
 than from the interest we attach to them ; and 
 the detail I am going to communicate to you 
 is of great interest to me because I am a Rus- 
 sian, and will certainly be of greatest interest 
 to you because you are Americans. 
 
 I hope you are not disagreeably impressed 
 in hearing me mention at the very beginning 
 
90 
 
 of my speech the names of two nations: he 
 who has heard me speak once must know that 
 I will never bring either national or political 
 considerations before an audience of universal 
 equality and peace; no, if I start with these 
 two names it is because I know that, though 
 approaching the same subject from two differ- 
 ent points, we will meet at the end on that 
 common field where everybody must meet to 
 find happiness and rest — on the field of 
 humanity. 
 
 Last night you greeted with applause the 
 name of Rev. Mr. Badin, first Catholic priest 
 ordained in the United States. Now, it will 
 perhaps interest you to learn who was the 
 second Catholic priest ordained in this country. 
 This was the well known Vicar - General of 
 the Diocese of Philadelphia, so popular under 
 the name of Father Smith.* His eventful 
 biography is not deprived of interest. 
 
 *This was his name of adoption. When lie came 
 over to America he called himself Schniettau, the 
 name of his mother who was the daughter of Field- 
 Marshal Count von Schmettau, one of the favorite 
 generals of Frederick the Great; but it soon was 
 Americanized into Smith, and before we give his real 
 name, we will continue to call him so. 
 
UN I VI 
 
 91 
 
 He descended from a very old and distin- 
 guished family. His father was ambassador 
 at the Court of The Netherlands, and the young 
 man was brought up in relations of comrade- 
 ship with the heir to the throne of that country, 
 which relations never ceased, even after they 
 became separated. In 1792 he undertook a 
 voyage to America; he sailed from Eotterdam 
 on August 18th, and arrived in Baltimore on 
 28th of October. Here he suddenly became so 
 interested with theological questions, that he 
 decided to become a priest, and for this purpose 
 he entered the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Bal- 
 timore. According to John Gilmary Shea,* he 
 was ** the most eminent person who entered 
 the Seminary, whether we regard his exalted 
 position in the world, or his devoted and self- 
 sacrificing career as a priest." His ordination 
 took place on 18th of March, 1795. He was 
 not only the second priest ordained, but the 
 first who received the holy orders in this coun- 
 try, for Rev. Mr. Badin had been made deacon 
 in France before coming to America. 
 
 * ** Life and Times of tlie Most Rev. John Carroll," 
 New York: J. G. Shea, 1888. 
 
92 
 
 At the beginning of his ecclesiastical career 
 he accomplished several religious missions in 
 remote and wild parts of this country. Bishop 
 Carroll directed him first to Port Tobacco, then 
 to the Conewago mission that resided in Ta- 
 neytown ; all that which is now Maryland and 
 Pennsylvania has been visited by him, and has 
 been the theatre where the energy and rectitude 
 of Father Smith's character displayed itself in 
 correcting abuses and in accomplishing the 
 missions his great Bishop had conferred on 
 him. In 1799 the Eoman Catholics of Captain 
 McGuire's settlement at Clearfield petitioned 
 the Bishop for a priest and expressed the wish 
 to have Father Smith appointed. With his 
 usual energy he went to the work, and on 
 Christmas eve of the same year the first mass 
 was held in the new church. "I have now," 
 he says in his report to Bishop Carroll,** thanks 
 be to God, a little house of my own, for the 
 first time since I came to this country, and 
 God grant that I may be able to keep it." 
 
 His activity in this wild and uncultivated 
 district of the Alleghanies, in what is now 
 Cambria county. Pa., was great and untiring; 
 
he bought more than 20,000 acres, invited 
 settlers and supplied them with homes on easy- 
 terms, although his own pecuniary affairs were 
 very hard at this time because of the death of 
 his father and troubles connected with the in- 
 heritance. His sister supplied him with sums 
 of money for some time, but soon she married 
 the Austrian Prince of Salm, and this last 
 resource was exhausted. Fortunately his old 
 friend and schoolmate, now King of The Nether- 
 lands, bought a very fine collection of Greek 
 and Koman antiquities, left by the late am- 
 bassador, and sent the money over to Father 
 Smith. This and some subscriptions of a few 
 friends enabled him to meet his pecuniary en- 
 gagements and to free his colony from debt 
 after having spent $15,000 in its creation. 
 And he continued his work. Colonies were 
 rising and growing under his patronage. The 
 town of Loretto, situated four miles north-west 
 of Crescent Station on the Pennsylvania Eail- 
 road, was founded by him in 1803. 
 
 His fame grew. For a time he was spoken 
 of for the see of Bardstown, Ky.; then he was 
 actually nominated for that of Detroit, Mich., 
 
94 
 
 but declined the honor; in 1821 he was 
 appointed Vicar- General of the Diocese of 
 Philadelphia; Bishop Conwell offered later to 
 make him his Coadjutor -Bishop, but he de- 
 clined again. The ideas of the Bishop were 
 not in harmony with his own, and after a cer- 
 tain time he resigned his Vicar- Generalship, 
 
 The rest of his life was consecrated to char- 
 ity, to arduous work and continuous self-sacri- 
 fice. One day some friend of his exclaimed : 
 ''He has a heart of gold!" *' No, thanks to 
 God he has not," replied another, "for if he had 
 he would have given it to the unfortunate." 
 He died in Loretto, the town he had founded, 
 on the 6th of May, 1841. He left numerous 
 writings on ecclesiastical subjects, mostly in 
 the form of letters. 
 
 I am glad if I have succeeded in interesting 
 you with these few details of the life of a man 
 who has done so much for your country; now, 
 the fact which interests me in this biography 
 is that this American priest, the second 
 ordained in the United States, and the first 
 who took the holy orders in your country, was 
 a compatriot of mine: he was a Eussian, and 
 
95 
 
 his true name was Prince Galitzin.* His 
 memory is still living in that part of Pennsyl- 
 vania where he has left so much of his work ; 
 and when the constructors of the Pennsylvania 
 Eailway, in search of a famous name to be 
 given to a station, asked the inhabitants who 
 was the most famous man of that country, the 
 inhabitants said: ** Kev. Father Demetrius 
 Augustine Prince Galitzin," and the station 
 was called after him. 
 
 I would do injustice to the name if I did not 
 mention another fact in connection with this 
 one. In 1840 a sister of the Sacred Heart of 
 Metz came over from France to America, on 
 a special religious mission. She was the 
 founder of a woman's convent in New York, of 
 several schools throughout the United States, 
 and of a Christian mission among the Indian 
 tribe of Pottawatomies. This sister of the 
 Sacred Heart was also a compatriot of mine, 
 for she was a cousin of the Vicar General of 
 Philadelphia, and her name was Princess 
 Elizabeth Galitzin. t 
 
 * "Appleton's Cycloposdia of American Biography." 
 fBorn in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1795; died in St. 
 Micliers, La., on ttie 8tli of December, 1843. 
 
 
Now, if anybody can tell ns the name of the 
 third Catholic priest ordained in the United 
 States, we will be glad to learn it. In the 
 meantime I am happy I could bring this 
 small contribution to your great Catholic 
 Congress by accentuating this example of 
 spiritual relation between two nations so 
 distant from one another. I am happy, be- 
 cause I think that when life gives us similar 
 experiences, we ought to remember them, and 
 we ought to forget them just as little as a 
 commandment of the Scripture, for every time 
 nature gives us proof that nationalities do not 
 exist, it fulfills the prescriptions of its Creator. 
 Nationalities are not in the laws of nature; 
 they are but the best mean among the wrong 
 ones to excuse the necessities of life, but they 
 have to hide themselves from the face of 
 Eternity. 
 
 We cannot know what the future shall be, 
 but the world has lasted long enough, that we 
 may turn our eyes backward; and taking the 
 present moment as the result of the evolution 
 of former ages, we can, — on the basis of 
 the changelessness of nature's laws, — draw 
 
97 
 
 conclusions from the present moment as to 
 future ages. The aim is hidden, but the ten- 
 dencies are manifest, and in formulating the 
 tendencies of the world's development we 
 eo ipso indicate its aim. And that is what 
 gives us the right of affirming that the aim 
 nature pursues in its development is to prove 
 that such expressions as ^'American, Eussian, 
 German, Spanish," are words invented by 
 man and not things created by God. 
 
 And if eternities are needed for its practical 
 accomplishment on earth, the earth shall last 
 eternities. 
 
A Reply. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS 
 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 23rd SEPTEMBER, 1893. 
 
^ M^v^ivi- 
 
 Mr. President, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 A few days ago I had the pleasure of receiv- 
 ing the following letter : 
 
 CHICAGO, Sept. 15th, 1893, 
 
 PRINCE SERGE WOLKONSKY, 
 DEAR SIR: 
 
 There will be a meeting next Monday, 
 
 September 18th, at 4 p.m., in Room 23 of the Art 
 
 Palace, to decide, if possible, upon a formula which may 
 
 serve as a bond for universal brotherhood. 
 
 One representative of each faith and order will be 
 
 invited. The invitation is hereby extended to yourself. 
 
 If you cannot be present, will you kindly reply, stating 
 
 whether you regard the enclosed form as suitable for 
 
 the purpose? 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 THEODORE F. SEWARD. 
 
102 ■ 
 
 When I received the above invitation I did 
 not know whether this would be a private 
 gathering for a friendly exchange of ideas, or 
 a public session with regular speeches and 
 addresses, but the appeal touched me too 
 profoundly not to try to prepare myself for 
 both. In the following lines, I take the liberty 
 of setting forth the ideas which have been sug- 
 gested to me by Mr. Seward's kind invitation. 
 
 Much has been spoken of universal brother- 
 hood during these last weeks, many eloquent 
 speakers inspired with the theme elicited 
 enthusiastic applause, thousands of people 
 left the halls of the Congress with softened 
 hearts and with a firm resolution to bring 
 the beautiful theories into their practical 
 life, — and still a kind of doubt prevents us 
 from trusting in any palpable result. For a 
 long time I have been searching for the reason 
 of that doubt, which never ceased trailing 
 clouds upon the pure sky that shines over 
 those brotherly gatherings, and I think — I 
 finally have found the reason. 
 
103 
 
 We speak of brotherhood as of a thing to be 
 founded, we look at it as if it were an institu- 
 tion, a thing that had to be created and organ- 
 ized, a thing which did not exist and which 
 we wanted to exist. People seem to say: 
 "We are not brothers, but let us try to 
 become such; yes, let us try to become 
 brothers — though difficult it may be, — let us 
 try, for we are civilized people, and there is no 
 real civilization without brotherhood : brother- 
 hood is the crown of all civilization ! ' ' Alas, my 
 friends, brotherhood is not the crown — it is the 
 basis, and if a civilization is not built upon 
 that basis, no posterior efforts can remedy the 
 evil. It is not to become brothers we must 
 strive : it is — not to forget that we are brothers. 
 It is not because we are civilized that we speak 
 of instituting a universal brotherhood on. earth, 
 it is because we are not^ or far more, because 
 we are wrongly civilized that we strain our 
 brains to institute a condition that never 
 ceased to exist. Human brotherhood is not a 
 club where membership is needed to enjoy its 
 privileges ; not by instituting societies or 
 associations can we inspire feelings of brother- 
 
104 
 
 hood, but by breaking the exclusiveness of 
 those which do exist. 
 
 We must not forget that associations are 
 not the aim, but only the instrument. If we 
 regard those **rehgious clubs" as an aim in 
 themselves, our membership becomes a seclu- 
 sion from the rest of humanity; it becomes a 
 contraction instead of an expansion, an end 
 instead of a beginning, and it generates death 
 instead of generating life. It is not what we 
 do when we go to the meeting, nor the fact of 
 our going that is important, but what we do 
 when we leave it. When we believe that, we 
 will see that associations and clubs are not the 
 principal thing. We will not breathe with our 
 full lungs until the day we understand that 
 human brotherhood is not a question of badge, 
 and that for introducing it into life we have 
 to turn our eyes elsewhere. Where? This 
 is the great question. I will try to answer it 
 as I understand it. 
 
 Our modern civilization — or rather let us not 
 use this word, for it pre-supposes a perfection, 
 and hence cannot be applied to anything that 
 exists on earth, — no, we will say our ways of 
 
105 
 
 teaching and learning are the evils we must 
 fight against if we wish to deliver the idea of 
 human brotherhood from the dust and smoke 
 and mud which cover it, so that we are able to 
 forget that it exists and speak of it as a new 
 thing to be instituted. Our ways of teaching, 
 there is the evil, so I said and so I repeat ; for our 
 ways of teaching are shameful! From childhood 
 on we are taught that human beings are divided 
 into civilized, enlightened, uncivilized, bar- 
 barians, etc, — I do not know the exact defini- 
 tions used in American school books, nor do 
 I know the exact group to which I have to 
 belong as a Eussian, but the fact is that 
 from our childhood on we are trained to divide 
 those whom we call our brothers into different 
 categories according to their more or less prox- 
 imity to those summits of civilization, the 
 benefits of which we enjoy; and the more 
 learning we want to show the more we accent- 
 uate and underline these divisions of humanity. 
 
 Now, I ask you all, is that the spirit which 
 ought to animate all education ? 
 
 And when in the course of later life a few of 
 us get rid of that habit of classifying our sim- 
 
lOG 
 
 ilars, when under the influence of travel, or 
 through learning foreign languages, or under 
 the influence of some broad-minded representa- 
 tives of our churches, or through works of 
 universal science, or through works of uni- 
 versal art, we at last become aware that all 
 nations are composed of men like ourselves, 
 we consider that conviction as our highest 
 personal merit, and the greatest proof of our 
 enlightenment and culture ! Is it really to our 
 culture we owe these feelings of brotherhood? 
 Is it not far more to the fact of having suc- 
 ceeded in shaking off from our souls the 
 deposits of a wrong education? 
 
 Just allow me to tell you what happened to 
 a Eussian peasant — of course uncivilized. 
 
 A peasant one day undertook a journey 
 through Europe. With a bag on his shoulder, 
 he started and walked through Germany, 
 France, a part of Italy, and Austria without 
 knowing a word of any other language but his 
 own. When he came back his land owner — 
 the civilized man — asked him how it was pos- 
 sible he could make himself understood in for- 
 eign countries among foreign people. And the 
 
107 
 
 peasant — the uncivilized — replied in the most 
 genuine way: ** "Well, why shouldn't they un- 
 derstand me ; are they not human beings like 
 myself?" 
 
 I leave you to decide which of the two 
 was the more civilized, and whether I am 
 wrong in affirming that our modern education 
 does just the contrary of that which it should do. 
 
 To return to our subject, we think that the 
 question of universal brotherhood is an educa- 
 tional question; that it should be put at the 
 very bottom of the primary school and not at 
 the very top of the university. And, by the way, 
 do you know what might become a school for 
 teaching human brotherhood? The Midway 
 Plaisance at the World's Fair, You hardly be- 
 lieve that ; and still it is so ; and when I have 
 told you why, you will agree with me. 
 
 The Midway Plaisance is generally consid- 
 ered as a place of pleasure. For me it is the 
 most sad thing I know^ because it is human 
 life exposed as a show; human beings deprived 
 of their feelings, and reduced to the state of a 
 catalogued exhibit; a moving panorama of 
 human empty forms. And we, civilized people, 
 
108 
 
 who go and pay our entrance to the Cairo 
 Street or to the Arabian Circus, we even do not 
 inquire whether these human brothers of ours 
 have a human soul under their interesting and 
 picturesque costumes. We look at those Arab- 
 ian riders, at their equestrian exercises, the 
 showy colors of their dresses, their movements, 
 their wavings^ their cheering, and we stare at 
 them like at animals we are allowed to ap- 
 proach for our twenty-five cents. ** It is quite 
 safe; don't be afraid!" And the clapping 
 children around us exclaim : *' Oh, Mama, look 
 at those barbarians!" Now, if '* Mama" had 
 been educated on the basis of human brother- 
 hood, do you know what she would have 
 answered ? She would have said : 
 
 "No, my child, they are not barbarians. Why 
 do you think they are? Is it because their 
 dresses are so showy? But don't you see how 
 much prettier they are than ours, how much 
 character they have, — and they are dresses of 
 their country, meanwhile ours are but bad copies 
 of ugly patterns we receive from abroad. Why 
 do you think they are barbarians? Is it 
 because their faces are so brown? They are 
 
109 
 
 children of the morning land, they live in open 
 air, they bathe themselves in sunshine, mean- 
 while we, — we breathe the poisonous atmos- 
 phere of State Street. Is it because they raise 
 such cheers, you think they are barbarians ? My 
 child, my dear child, do not say so; you do 
 not understand them; if you do not under- 
 stand what another man says, it does not 
 mean that the other man is a barbarian. Their 
 language is a beautiful one, it is a jewel set 
 in filigree; their poetry is the finest dream 
 humanity has dreamt. No, my child, do 
 not say they are barbarians. Don't be 
 afraid of them^ step closer, — you will see they 
 are men just as we, only far more better than 
 we are, for they have preserved their human 
 soul in that purity with which it has been 
 given to all of us by the Creator, and which 
 we lost so long ago. They are the embodi- 
 ment of such high ideas of chivalry and duty 
 as we never had. Don't be afraid, my child, 
 step closer, you see his open honest eyes, he 
 does not look at you a bit with the same mis- 
 trust as you. He knows you are a man 
 like him." 
 
no 
 
 So would '*Mama" speak, had "Mama" 
 been brought up with ideas of human brother- 
 hood, and we would congratulate her; but if 
 instead of that she says to her child with a 
 smile of motherly satisfaction because of its 
 precocious development: <*Yes, of course he 
 is a barbarian, but then we are enlightened, 
 we are civilized, and therefore we must grant 
 him our love," then we exclaim: **Away 
 with such a brotherhood! You cannot become 
 the brother of a man if you do not feel that 
 you are his brother!" 
 
 So, if you really wish that humanity should 
 be united in feelings of universal brotherhood, 
 then do not go to the meeting, do not become a 
 member of the congregation, do not waste your 
 dime for a badge, but go home, return to your 
 children, gather them around you and tell them : 
 < 'Children, let us learn, for we must know 
 what other people are, because other people 
 are our brothers, and we must know our 
 brothers, because if we do not know them, we 
 may not recognize them, and it is a crime not 
 to recdgnize one's brother. So, children, come, 
 
Ill 
 
 let us learn, and learn, and learn, for we are 
 not we are too civilized." 
 
 These are my ideas on human brotherhood. 
 I am glad to have had the opportunity of pro- 
 claiming them publicly, for after having writ- 
 ten this paper I did not go to that meeting and 
 I want those who asked me and expected me to 
 go, — I want them to know why I did not go 
 and why I never will : I cannot enroll myself 
 in an army to which I belong by birth. 
 
 OF THP 
 
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 NOV 8 1996 
 
YB 2377; 
 
 7 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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