Part 395 (1/2)
SCHLOSSNER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH, German historian, born in Oldenburg; was studios of the moral factor in history, and gave especial prominence to it (1776-1861).
SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE, a league of the Protestant States of Germany concluded in 1531 at Schmalkalden, Prussia, in defence of their religious and civil liberties against the Emperor Charles V. and the Catholic States.
SCHNITZER, EDUARD, physician, born in Breslau; went to Turkey, entered the Turkish medical service, adopted the name Emin Pasha, and was appointed by Gordon medical officer of the Equatorial Province of Egypt, and raised to the rank of Pasha; soon after the outbreak of the Mahdist insurrection he was cut off from civilisation, but was discovered by Stanley in 1889 and brought to Zanzibar, after which he was murdered by Arabs (1840-1893).
SCHOLASTICISM, the name given to the philosophy that prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages, particularly in the second half of them, and has been generally characterised as an attempt at conciliation between dogma and thought, between faith and reason, an attempt to form a scientific system on that basis, founded on the pre-supposition that the creed of the Church was absolutely true, and capable of rationalisation.
SCHOLIASTS, name given to a cla.s.s of grammarians who appended annotations to the margins of the MSS. of the cla.s.sics.
SCHOLIUM, a marginal note explanatory of the text of a cla.s.sic author.
SCHOLTEN, HENDRIK, a Dutch theologian of the rationalistic school (1811-1885).
SCHOMBERG, DUKE OF, French marshal, of German origin and the Protestant persuasion; took service under the Prince of Orange, and fell at the battle of the Boyne (1618-1690).
SCHoNBRUNN, imperial palace near Vienna, built by Maria Theresa in 1744.
SCHOOLCRAFT, HENRY ROWE, a noted American ethnologist, born in New York State; at 24 was geologist to an exploring expedition undertaken by General Ca.s.s to Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi; married the educated daughter of an Ojibway chief; founded the Historical Society of Michigan and the Algic Society at Detroit; discovered the sources of the Mississippi in 1832; was an active and friendly agent for the Indians, and in 1847 began, under Government authorisation, his great work of gathering together all possible information regarding the Indian tribes of the United States, an invaluable work embodied in six great volumes; author also of many other works treating of Indian life, exploration, etc. (1793-1864).
SCHOOLMEN, teachers of the SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY (q. v.).
SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR, a bold metaphysical thinker, born in Danzig, of Dutch descent; was early dissatisfied with life, and conceived pessimistic views of it; in 1814 jotted down in a note-book, ”Inward discord is the very bane of human nature so long as a man lives,” and on this fact he brooded for years; at length the problem solved itself, and the solution appears in his great work, ”Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” (”The World as Will and Idea”), which he published in 1718; in it, as in others of his writings, to use the words of the late Professor Wallace of Oxford, Schopenhauer ”draws close to the great heart of life, and tries to see clearly what man's existence and hopes and destiny really are, which recognises the peaceful creations of art as the most adequate representation the sense-world can give of the true inward being of all things, and which holds the best life to be that of one who has pierced, through the illusions dividing one conscious individuality from another, into that great heart of eternal rest where we are each members one of another essentially united in the great ocean of Being, in which, and by which, we alone live.” Goethe gives a similar solution in his ”Wilhelm Meister”; is usually characterised as a pessimist, and so discarded, but such were all the wise men who have contributed anything to the emanc.i.p.ation of the world, which they never would have attempted but for a like sense of the evil at the root of the world's misery; and as for his philosophy, it is a protest against treating it as a science instead of an art which has to do not merely with the reasoning powers, but with the whole inmost nature of man (1788-1860).
SCHOUVALOFF, COUNT PETER, a Russian amba.s.sador, born at St.
Petersburg; became in 1806 head of the secret police; came to England in 1873 on a secret mission to arrange the marriage of the Emperor Alexander II.'s daughter with the Duke of Edinburgh; was one of Russia's representatives at the Congress of Berlin (1827-1889). His brother, Count Paul, fought in the Crimean War, helped to liberate the Russian serfs, fought in the Russo-Turkish War, and was governor of Warsaw during 1895-1897; _b_. 1830.
SCHREINER, OLIVE, auth.o.r.ess, daughter of a Lutheran clergyman at Cape Town; achieved a great success by ”The Story of an African Farm” in 1883, which was followed in 1890 by ”Dreams,” also later ”Dream Life and Real Life”; she is opposed to the South African policy of Mr. Rhodes.
SCHREINER, RIGHT HON. W. P., Premier of the Cape Parliament, brother of preceding; bred to the bar, favours arbitration in the South African difficulty, and is a supporter of the Africander Bond in politics.
SCHUBERT, FRANZ PETER, composer, born, the son of a Moravian schoolmaster, at Vienna; at 11 was one of the leading choristers in the court-chapel, later on became leading violinist in the school band; his talent for composition in all modes soon revealed itself, and by the time he became an a.s.sistant in his father's school (1813) his supreme gift of lyric melody showed itself in the song ”Erl King,” the ”Ma.s.s in F,” etc.; his too brief life, spent chiefly in the drudgery of teaching, was hara.s.sed by pecuniary embarra.s.sment, embittered by the slow recognition his work won, though he was cheered by the friendly encouragement of Beethoven; his output of work was remarkable for its variety and quant.i.ty, embracing some 500 songs, 10 symphonies, 6 ma.s.ses, operas, sonatas, etc.; his abiding fame rests on his songs, which are infused, as none other are, by an intensity of poetic feeling--”divine fire”
Beethoven called it (1797-1828).