The Normal Record. February 1898

              THE NORMAL RECORD.
On other shoulders.    'Tis not  an age for song,
The harp is an anachronism today.
If, when we say this is an age of prose,
We only mean no minstrel has arisen
To voice the unsung meanings of the time,
It were a minor evil.    We can wait
Till in God's hour the prophet shall appear.
But if our meaning be that in this time
Of search for solid gain, material good,
We've lost the longing for the ideal best,
Forgotten how to take the upward look,
Our sleek prosperities are poor exchange
For what we've lost.     A  world  given  over  to
prose
Is but a pauper world, though all its streets
With gold and gems are paved.    Our heaped up
gains
Give us poor recompense, if in our skies
No radient forms of ideal beauty shine—
No haunting ideal visions lure us on.
This was the richest gift, the choicest lore
Our mother taught us, in those days of old,
When we were gathered 'bout  her  knees, this
skill
To look beyond the now, the actual
To the ideal and from these visions blest
Draw inspiration for the present task.
Far be the day when this vocation high
Shall yield its place to any lower aim,
And schools shall cease to be the shrines
Upon whose altars, sacrifice ascends
To the ideal good, and shall instead
Become mere training  grounds for what we are
wont
To call the utilities.    The grindstones where
The tools are whetted for life's handicrafts.
Happy the few who pushing on for Spain,
Reaching their goal see ever just beyond
A Spain more beautiful: each ideal gained
Being the vantage-height from which they view
In prophet's  dream-rapt  vision  grander scenes
Of loftier summits not yet won and so,
Though walking in the dusty ways of earth
Sunlight from dreamland streams upon the face
Transfigures their poor makeshift facts of life
With splendors from supernal sphere- afar.
A TERRIBLE MISCALCULATION.
By Luther Parker.
HE year 4400 reckoned as A. D., or 1000
reckoned as N. E., had opened auspiciously and continued as a year of undoubted prosperity and progress. Especially
notable was this in the number and value of
scientific discoveries that had been made. The
dreams of enthusiastic scientists were seemingly
turning to reality, and the great problem of
celestial navigation appeared to be within the
realm of possibility This achievement would
then give utility to the already possible celestial
communication.
The celebrated scientist, Wiseman, had just
issued a startling message to the world, giving
as the result of a long series of experiments, the
assertion that he. had been able to create a
vacuum, entirely free from air, ether, and celestial essence, the latter, as the reader doubtless
knows, being a more subtile material than ether.
The process was given in detail, and consisted
in general terms, of a chemical combination between the material constituents of certain space,
and a newly discovered chemical element called
adultima. This combination was effected inside
a huge globe that was guyed to tho earth to pro-
vent its unceremonious departure when the vacuum was obtained. One such sphere had disappeared, owing to the lack of proper precautions, taking with it the guy ropes with the
attendant guy poles, the whole forming a curious
spectacle as it shot forth to eternity without
other guidance than that of resistless gravitation that stood at the helm and hurried it on in
its wild attempt to gain equilibrium.
Scientists came from the remotest parts of the
earth to view and discuss this latest achievement, and while they were gathered at the
laboratory of Wiseman another discovery
was made, this time in the field of astronomy.
This discovery was a startling  affirmation, sub-