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Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887
Volume 1, Number 5
Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887
Volume 1, Number 5
Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887
Volume 1, Number 5
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Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 Volume 1, Number 5

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Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887
Volume 1, Number 5

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    Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 Volume 1, Number 5 - Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes) Buchanan

    Project Gutenberg's Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887, by Various

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    Title: Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887

    Volume 1, Number 5

    Author: Various

    Editor: J. R. Buchanan

    Release Date: August 23, 2008 [EBook #26401]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUCHANAN'S JOURNAL OF MAN ***

    Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online

    Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

    BUCHANAN’S

    JOURNAL OF MAN.

    Vol. I.

    JUNE, 1887.

    No. 5.

    The Most Marvellous Triumph of Educational Science

    The Grand Symposium of the Wise Men

    The Burning Question in Education

    MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE—Bigotry and Liberality; Religious News; Abolishing Slavery; Old Fogy Biography; Legal Responsibility in Hypnotism; Pasteur’s Cure for Hydrophobia; Lulu Hurst; Land Monopoly; Marriage in Mexico; The Grand Symposium; A New Mussulman Empire; Psychometric Imposture; Our Tobacco Bill; Extinct Animals; Education

    Genesis of the Brain (concluded)

    Business Department


    The Most Marvellous Triumph of Educational Science.

    In the dull atmosphere which stagnates between the high walls of colleges and churches wherein play the little eddies of fashionable literature, which considers the authorship of an old play¹ more interesting and important than the questions that involve the welfare of all humanity or the destiny of a nation,—an atmosphere seldom stirred by the strong, pure breezes of the mountain and the ocean,—the best thought and impulse of which humanity is capable is stifled in its birth, or if it comes forth feels the overshadowing influence that chills its life.

    Not there, amid the pedantries of culture, do we find the atmosphere for free and benevolent thought, but rather far away from such influences, in the forests, the mountain and prairie, where man comes more nearly into communion with nature, and forgets the inheritance of ancient error which every corporate institution preserves and perpetuates. It is to this widespread audience that the Journal of Man appeals and offers a new suggestion.

    In sending forth the New Education, hoping for some appreciative response from educational circles in which collegiate influences prevail, I did not deem it prudent to introduce some of the noblest thoughts that belong to the great theme. The book was sent forth limited and incomplete, hoping that, heretical as it was, and quite irreverent toward the ignorance descended from antiquity, it might still receive sufficient approbation and appreciation to justify later introduction of matter that would have hindered its first reception.

    It has reached the third edition, but it has been very apparent that its reception was cordial and enthusiastic only among the most progressive minds, the number of which increases as we travel westward, and San Francisco called for more copies than the leading cities of the East.

    The time has now arrived (when this Journal is hailed cordially throughout the country) that I may venture to announce the most remarkable feature of the art and science of education. There is an additional reason, too, for speaking out at this time, which should mortify the pride of an American citizen. The philanthropic science which I thought it imprudent to mention then in this free country, is beginning to be studied in France, where such themes are not suppressed by the sturdy dogmatism which is so prevalent and so powerful in the Anglo-Saxon race.

    THE NEW METHOD IN FRANCE.

    As the French National Scientific Association, in their meeting at Grenoble, two years ago, recognized in their most startling form the phenomena of human impressibility which are illustrated in the Manual of Psychometry, and reported the most marvellous experiments in medicines,—an act of liberality which has no parallel in English-speaking nations,—so at the late meeting of their Scientific Congress, as I learn from the German magazine, the Sphinx, the new principle of education was broached which I feared to present in the New Education, and was received with general approbation by that learned body.

    Of course there was not a complete presentation of the subject, for that would require a complete knowledge of the brain, which no scientific association claims at present, and which will have its first presentation to the readers of the Journal of Man, but the process of educational development was studied by the French savants from the standpoint of mesmeric science and its leading methods, which are now (freed from the name of an individual) styled hypnotism; or, the sleep-producing process.

    In that passive and impressionable condition which is called hypnotic, mesmeric, somnambulic, or somniloquent, it has long been known that the subject may be absolutely controlled by the operator, or by a simple command or suggestion, or by his own imagination. This has been so often demonstrated before many hundred thousands of spectators, that it is a matter of general knowledge everywhere among intelligent people,—everywhere except, perhaps, in the thick darkness of medical colleges, where ignorance upon such subjects has long been made the criterion of respectability, and perhaps among a few very orthodox congregations, where such things have been associated with the idea of witchcraft, and considered very offensive to the Lord. Such was the doctrine of my old contemporary at Cincinnati, Dr. Wilson, at the head of the leading orthodox congregation; and it was equally offensive to the champion debater of Presbyterian orthodoxy, the Rev. N. L. Rice, whom I arraigned before a vast audience for his antiquated falsehoods. If the church and the college are getting a little more enlightened now, I cannot forget the condition in which I found them, of stubborn hostility to scientific progress, and these things should not be forgotten until they have repented, reformed, and ceased to be a stationary obstruction.

    We are not accustomed to look to a Catholic country like France for advanced thought, yet, in these instances just mentioned, we find French scientists entertaining advanced ideas which the leaders of American science treat with either indifference or hostility. The Popular Science Monthly and medical journals generally treat all such matters with stubborn aversion and injustice. The learned collaborators of Johnson’s Cyclopedia were unwilling even to have the

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