Greater Liberty Research Articles

'Moby-Dick' and the Problem of a Democratic Literature

It is no less true for being a commonplace that the American literary artist of the first half of the nineteenth-century suffered from the cultural sterility of his surroundings. Washington Irving achieved the status of America's first internationally recognized man of letters by fastening upon a time and place, seventeenth-century Dutch New York, in which the Americans were but transplanted Europeans with a lore and ways rooted in the misty regions of the folk history of the old continent. His initial task, executed very well indeed, was, as he saw it, to bring a sense of the legendary to the American landscape. Our observation that his Rip Van Winkle or Ichabod Crane descend from German folk tales is slight in the face of his extraordinary success in giving them a complete home in the lower reaches of the Hudson River Valley, and fixing them irrevocably in the imagination as the presiding spirits of their American locales. Fenimore Cooper, who sought to mythologize native materials, was also acutely conscious of the want of conventional fictional paraphernalia in his native land. His lament is a famous document of American literary history: There is scarcely an ore which contributes to the wealth of the author, that is found, here, in veins as rich as in Europe. There are no annals for the historian; no follies (beyond the most vulgar and commonplace) for the satirist; no manners for the dramatist; no obscure fictions for the writer of romance; no gross and hardy offences against decorum for the moralist; nor any of the rich artificial auxiliaries of poetry.... The effect of a promiscuous assemblage anywhere is to create a standard of deportment; and great liberty permits every one to aim at its attainment. I have never seen a nation so much alike in my life, as the people of the United States, and what is more, they are not only like each other, but they are remarkably like that which common sense tells them they ought to resemble .... There is no costume for the peasant (there is scarcely a peasant at all), no wig for the judge, no baton for the general, no diadem for the chief magistrate. The darkest ages of their history are illuminated by the light of truth; the utmost efforts of their chivalry are limited by the laws of God; and even the deeds of their sages and heroes are to be sung in a language that would differ but little from a version of the ten commandments. However useful and respectable all this may be in actual life, it indicates but one direction to the man of genius.'

Sea Harrier — the first of the new wave

This much is certain: that he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.Francis Bacon: EssaysI was both honoured and pleased to be invited to give this Mitchell Memorial Lecture. Aside from the personal gratification there were, and still are, two other substantial reasons for my satisfaction:(i) Mitchell, and his distinguished contemporary, Camm, are without doubt still the best-known names in British aircraft design. Both were heroes of my boyhood—I had not yet taken my eleven plus at the time of R. J. Mitchell’s death. Later, I worked for 16 years for and with Sir Sydney.This lecture therefore provides me with an opportunity formally to express the lifelong respect I have always had, in absentia, for R. J. Mitchell and his achievements.(ii) The Southampton Branch Committee were tolerably firm in their invitation: ‘Sea Harrier’, they said. Since at the time Sea Harrier was occupying —and still fills—over 75% of my professional lot, I was specially pleased with the choice of subjects offered.

Spectroscopie de vibration des dihydrates des acides complexes HSbCl 6, HGaCl 4, HGaBr 4 étude d'ions H 5O 2+ peu engagés

These dihydrates are halogenometallates of dioxonium. Their infrared and Raman spectra show that the central hydrogen bond is short and centered with a single minimum (isotopic effect). δ and γ OH vibration of that bond are very close, showing a very weak interaction with terminal H 2O groups. Furthermore, terminal vOH show that H 5O 2 + is quite free, with a greater liberty in the hexachloroantimonate.

American Indian Verse Translations

A STRANGE CULTURE is precious; its strangeness gives us distance from ourselves. The translator, then, begins with certain problems: he must keep the strangeness of the culture while he makes its language familiar. And as he makes the language familiar he may take other liberties-with idioms, images, allusions, genre, tone-all justified in the name of easier access to the work. Yet when access becomes too easy, strangeness is lost. At the moment our bookstores are filled with accessible Poetry. Translators of American Indian verse, trying to change an oral multi-media original (often a combination of song, drama, and dance) into printed English poetry, have frequently adopted two related practices that produce unusually free translations: they write into the text hidden meanings (Natalie Curtis) known to the Indians but not explicitly expressed in the original words, and they take great liberties with the language and form of the original in an attempt to express its in what Rothenberg calls a total translation. This liberating quest for the spirit of the original may loosen up a translation long after its first printing; recently a number of editors with little or no knowledge of Indian languages have rewritten older

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE ON THE ADOLESCENT AMERICAN GIRL

In May 1831, the 26-year-old French nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville (1803-1859), arrived in the United States, and departed its shores in February 1832, only nine months late. His analysis of the American way of life which he wrote in 1835 as a result of his visit, remains, even today, one of the great classics in political literature. Tocqueville had this to say about the freedom of the adolescent American girl: In the United States, the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with great political liberty and a most democratic state of society; and nowhere are young women surrendered so early so completely to their own guidance. Long before an American girl arrives at the marriageable age, her emancipation from maternal control begins: she has scarcely ceased to be a child, when she already thinks for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse. The great scene of the world is constantly open to her view: far from seeking to conceal it from her, it is every day disclosed more completely, and she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees them clearly, she views them without illusion, and braves them without fear; for she is full of reliance on her own strength, and her confidence seems to be shared by all around her. An American girl scarcely ever displays that virginal softness in the midst of young desires, or that innocent and ingenuous grace, which usually attend the European woman in the transistion from girlhood to youth.

The Franchise of Return of Writs

Return of writs has been considered an essential privilege of the greater liberties in medieval England, because it entitled liberty-holders to exclude the sheriff and hence to execute royal writs through their own bailiffs. Maitland construed it thus when discussing borough privileges, and again when he included it among the powers of lords exercising ‘the highest justice’. Although return of writs had acquired this meaning by the time Edward I died, neither the king's lawyers nor liberty-holders understood it in this way in the thirteenth century. Each side interpreted it differently. The conflict which ensued has attracted little attention hitherto, yet return of writs can only be understood in its context. This struggle has also a wider significance, as it illuminates the attempts of Henry III and Edward I to impose a new definition of royal sovereignty on libertyholders. The present paper will argue that the franchise of return of writs was the product of conflict between king and magnates.

The Constitutional Position of the Great Lordships of South Wales

THE great lordships of the Welsh marches constituted a phenomenon not found elsewhere in the area subject to the kings of mediaeval England, and a comparison with the English palatinates and the great liberties of Norman Ireland reveals some very remarkable features. Many of the powers which the marchers exercised were no doubt taken over from the Welsh princes whom they displaced, but this does not in itself explain why they were able to retain such powers. In Ireland at the end of the twelfth century another Norman conquest produced another series of great liberties in which Norman lords displaced Celtic kings who had exercised the powers of independent rulers, but the lords of the liberties of Leinster, Meath or Ulster were subject to the control of the royal government at Dublin in the same way as the greater English liberties were subject to royal control, and never attained a degree of independence comparable with the position held by the marchers. The difference seems most easily explained as being due to the simple fact that the marcher position was in essentials established in the reign of Henry I, while the Norman conquest of Ireland occurred two generations later, at the time when Henry II was extending the control of the crown in so many directions.

Church and State in The Maryland Ordinance Of 1639

With justification American historians emphasize the rise of democratic government during the Colonial Period. The will of the colonists to determine their own affairs grew with greater force after their departure from the mother country. Within the colonies themselves they successfully demanded greater liberty in their political institutions.1 Free representation was strengthened by the plea for free conscience in a common effort to transform the outward political forms which they had left behind in seventeenth century England. In this process new understanding of the State was developing.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

problem of human rights and fundamental freedoms has exercised philosophers, politicians, jurists, and common ordinary men since the very dawn of history. The proper delimitation of the sphere of activities of the individual and of the collectivity, the relationship of the citizen to the State, the protection of the human being, the definition and establishment of essential human dignity are questions that have been discussed since man first began to enquire into his relationship to his environment. Civilization may be defined as a steady progress towards the achievement of greater and greater liberty. The great French philosopher, the late Professor Henri Bergson, has said that creative evolution consists in all its manifestations, of a movement towards greater and greater freedom and the emancipation of the human mind and will. But while history shows that there has been a constant evolution in the direction

The Thirty Years' War (1900–1930)

The Thirty Years' War <i>(1900–1930)</i>

Sociological Factors in Absence from School

This article relates to such, factors as age, sex, sibling position, re tardation, death of parent, and place of residence of children in relation to absence from the four upper grades (4-7) of white elementary schools in South Georgia. Data were supplied on questionnaires by teachers of the respective grades in nineteen schools. The data relate to approxi mately 3,000 different children ; pertain to both county and city schools ; and were collected when the school year was roughly half over. Age, sex, and residence in relation to absence.?Data on this relation ship appear in Table I. The table shows a considerably larger percentage of absence among country children, both sexes, than among town children, particularly if country children attend a county rather than a city school. Ordinarily girls are absent less than boys, whether living in town or country, al though sex differences are less for town than for country children. Among town children there seems to be no consistent relationship be tween pupil age and amount of absence. However in the case of country boys, those thirteen years old or over are consistently absent more than younger boys. A comparable situation among country girls is not so clear. Distance from school buildings, and difficulty in getting to bus routes if transportation is provided, are perhaps factors affecting absence among country children. Non-school work seems a likely factor, even though the data relate to elementary-school pupils. The greater amount of absence among boys than girls may suggest that boys engage in gainful employ ment more than girls, particularly if the family lives in a town in a region in which colored domestic servants are commonly employed. Since servants are less common in country than in town homes, and since much of the agriculture of the region is modified hoeculture in which many or all members of the family engage as soon as large enough, non-school work is probably a greater cause of absence among country than among town girls. It seems however conceivable that data which merely report absences without indicating cause of absence, might mean that country children, especially boys, have greater liberty to play hookey and to engage in 282

How Shall We View Elementary Education as Regards

In the consideration of the three topics listed for discussion I shall give practically all of the time at my disposal to the second topic, Subject-matter, because at the present time the chief problems of educational theory and practice seem to be centered here. My own remarks concerning the present status of discipline and of psychology will consequently be very brief. I shall deal first with these and for the sake of brevity I shall take the very great liberty of being somewhat dogmatic.

AN UNUSUAL EFFECT OF A CARBOHYDRATE-RICH, FAT-POOR DIABETIC DIET. REPORT OF A CASE.

Ever since the days of von Noorden’s famous oatmeal cure, the tendency in diabetic diets has been toward greater liberty with carbohydrate-containing food. The beneficial effect of the oatmeal cure and that of its many modifications was variously ascribed to the low protein, the mineral, and the carbohydrate content. After its initial success, interest lagged in rich carbohydrate days until after the discovery of insulin. Sansum (2) in California and Adlersberg and Porges (1) in Vienna independently revived interest in the possibility of allowing diabetic patients increased amounts of carbohydrate-containing foods. When the carbohydrates were increased, the total calories were maintained constant by a corresponding reduction in the fats. Whether the beneficial clinical results which have been obtained by using these diets are due to the increase in the carbohydrates or to the decrease in the fats is still debatable.

The Choriambus in English Verse

A foot in English verse is that portion which is spoken as an undivided unit. It may comprise a whole line with many words or it may consist of a single vowel spoken alone. In measuring and analyzing graphic records of English verse I find that it contains many feet on the same rhythmic plan as those in Greek verse. This is what should be expected. Greek verse probably developed from an ancient form—the enoplios—which had four long vowels while the number of weak vowels before, between, and after the strong ones might vary from 0 to 2 at each spot. This is practically the same as the rhythmical structure of most lines of Beowulf except that this latter has greater liberty in the number of weak vowels. The later forms that have developed in each language are much alike. One of the commonest of these is the choriambus.

American Democracy and the Modern Church. II

Previous articleNext article FreeAmerican Democracy and the Modern Church. IIAllan HobenAllan Hoben Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 22, Number 4Jan., 1917 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/212648 Views: 83Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Neurosis of the End of the Century [Il Nervosismo di questa Fine di Secolo], (Conferenza 1899. Nel Circolo Filologico di Napoli-Estratto da Flegrea.) Bianchi, L.

This address was delivered at the conference of the Philological Club at Naples, in 1899. The author points out that the neuroses are as old as man. He passes in review the different phases of these neuroses through which races have come as knowledge advanced. In the early ages as the result of a belief in a vindictive God, the neuroses assumed a melancholic form with religious ideas. The neuroses of the Greeks and Romans were coloured by the realism of the period. There followed an era in which all power was given to Satan, and in consequence an ascetic mysticism resulted, with the foundation of many religious orders, which spread all over Europe. Epidemics of hysterical and demoniacal possession were common. A new era dawned with greater liberty of thought and action. The author then gave statistics pointing to the great advances made in language and education, in our knowledge of the human body, and the laws governing it. From these have followed the neuroses of the present time—the weariness of life, the diffidence, the excitability, the unrest that needs always new and more powerful stimuli, the intolerance of restriction and of discipline that denotes a great hypertrophy of egoism which, in its most marked development, gives us the anarchist epidemic.

UNNECESSARY RESTRICTIONS IN SURGERY.Read in the Section of Surgery and Anatomy at the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association.

While I fully appreciate the need for caution and care in all departments of medicine, I have of late years come to believe that patients are often subjected to restrictions which add to their discomfort, without bringing any commensurate advantage in shortening the time of recovery or guaranteeing the permanency of cure. The inaccuracy of our former knowledge of the causes of surgical complications and a college teaching, which gives little opportunity for the exercise of individual judgment, have tended to make the timid or inexperienced practitioner follow with blind zeal the dogmatic assertions of writers and teachers of recognized authority. It is true that it is better to err on the side of caution than to expose a patient to unwarranted risk in a desire to give him greater liberty. On the other hand, the establishment of a nervous dread in the mind of an invalid is one of

Judith and Holofernes

Among the books of the Apocrypha two portions stand out in strong relief as bearing the marks of genius. One is the Book of Wisdom, with its sustained moral fervour and luxuriant yet devout fancy; the other, the noble tragedy of the Book of Judith. The latter work has the further interest of presenting a curious literary problem. Is ‘Judith’ in any sense history, or even based on history, or is it mere romance ? Certainly the writer takes great liberties with facts. Time and place have to yield to the requirements of the narrative. Famous names are mingled together in extraordinary combinations. Nebuchadnezzar reigns over the Assyrians at Nineveh; and he reigns soon after the Jewish return from Captivity. An Arphaxad rules at Ecbatane as king of the Medes. An unknown high priest Joachim is supreme at Jerusalem. The book opens moreover with a catalogue of nations brought under this Nebuchadnezzar's sway; and the list teems with contradictions of history and even of probability.Learned opinion since the time of Grotius has been almost unanimous in pronouncing the book to be an historical romance, of the time of the Maccabees or later, wherein the writer sets forth in parable the hopes and fears of his nation, and stirs up his countrymen to heroic resistance to the oppressor.