The question of most consequence in relation to the public support of orphans is, whether it is best, in a moral, physical, and economical point of view, to bring up large numbers of orphans in great establishments where they live together, or to put them out singly in trustworthy families paid by the community (see Brit. Qu. Rev. Oct. 1875, art. v). In Germany this question was long and thoroughly discussed, and for a time the majority favored home-training; the asj-lum advocates have finally got the control, and orphanages are fast multiplying. Most of the governments of Europe now support orphanages. Institutions founded by private charity in many cases receive aid also from the govern- ment if they stand in need of it. In the United States orphans have received great consideration. We here distinguish three classes: (1) those supported by the national government; (2) those supported by single states; and (3) those supported by private (especially Church) charity. One of the most successful of the last named is the Howard Mission of New York City. A model orphanage on British soil is that at Erdington, founded by Josiah Mason at an expense of $1,500,000, and supporting over 300 orphans. (J. H. W.)
Orphans. See Hussites.
Orpheotelists, a set of mystagogues in the early ages of ancient Greece, who were wont to appear at the doors of the wealthy, and promise to release them from their own sins and those of their forefathers by sacri- fices and expiatory songs; and they produced on such occasions a collection of books of Orpheus and Musaeus, on which they formed their promises. See Gardner, Faiths of the World, vol. ii, s. v.
Orpheus (supposed to be the Vedic Rihhit or Arhhv, an epithet both of Indra and the sun), a semi-mythic name of frequent occurrence in ancient Greek lore. The early legends call him a son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, or of Oleagrus and Clio, or Polymnia. His native country is Thrace, where many different local- ities Avere pointed out as his birthplace — such as the mounts of Olympus and Pangipus, the river Enipeus, the promontory of Serrhium, and several cities. Apollo bestows upon him the lyre, which Hermes invented, and by its aid Orpheus moves men and beasts, the birds in the air, the fishes in the deep, the trees, and the rocks. He accompanies the Argonauts in their expe- dition, and the power of his music wards off all mis- haps and disasters, rocking monsters to sleep and stop- ping cliffs in their downward rush. His wife Eurydice (? = Sanscrit Uru, the Dawn) is bitten by a serpent (? = Night), and dies. Orpheus follows her into the infernal regions ; and so powerful are his " golden tones" that even stern Pluto and Proserpina are moved
to pity; while Tantalus forgets his thirst, Ixion's wheel ceases to revolve, and the Danaides stop in their weari- some task. He is allowed to take her back into the " light of heaven," but he must not look around while they ascend. Love or doubt, however, draw his eyes towards her, and she is lost to him forever (? = first raj-s of the sun gleaming at the dawn make it disappear or melt into day). His death is sudden and violent. According to some accounts, it is the thunderbolt of Zeus that cuts him off, because he reveals the divine mysteries; according to others, it is Dionysus, who, angry at his refusing to worship him, causes the Mena- des to tear him to pieces, which pieces are collected and buried by the Jluses in tearful piety at Leibethra, at the foot of Olympus, where a nightingale sings over his grave. Others, again, make the Thracian women divide his limbs between them, either from excessive
Ancient Mosaic representing Orpheus.
madness of unrequited love, or from anger at his draw- ing their husbands away from them. Thus far legend and art, in manifold hues and varieties and shapes, treat of Orpheus theTabulous. The faint glimmer of histor- ical truth hidden beneath these mj'ths becomes clearer in those records which speak of Orpheus as a divine bard or priest in the service of Zagreus, the Thracian Dionysus, and founder of the Mysteries (q. v.) ; as the first musician, the first inaugurator of the rites of expi- ation and of the mantic art, the inventor of let^rs and the heroic metre ; of everj'thing, in fact, that was sup- posed to have contributed to the civilization and initia- tion into a more humane worship of the deity among the primitive inhabitants of Thracia and all Greece (Chambers). Orpheus was one of the Argonauts, of which celebrated expedition he wrote a poetical account still extant. This is doubted by Aristotle, who says, according to Cicero, that there never existed an Or- pheus, but that the poems which pass under his name are the compositions of a Pythagorean philosopher named Cecrops. According to some of the moderns, the Argonautica, and the other poems attributed to Orpheus, are the production of the pen of Onomacritus, a poet who lived in the age of Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens. Pausanias, however, and Diodorus Siculus speak of Orpheus as a great poet and musician, who rendered himself equally celebrated l\v his knowledge of the art of war, by the extent of his understanding, and by the laws which he enacted. He was buried at Pieria in ]Macedonia, according to Apollodorus. The inhabitants of Dion boasted that his tomb was in their city. Orpheus, as some report, after death received di- vine honors, the Muses gave an honorable burial to his remains, and his lyre became one of the constellations in the heavens (Diod. i, etc.; Pausan. i, etc.; ApoUod. i, 9, etc. ; Cicero, De Nat. Deo. i, 38 ; Apollon. i ; Virgil, ^En. vi, 645 ; Genrg. iv, 457, etc. ; Hygin. Fab. xiv, etc. ; Ovid, Metatii. x, 1, etc.; Plato, Polit. x; Horace, Odes, i, 13, 35). The best edition of the Orphic fragments is that of G, Herrmann (Leipsic, 1805). The hymns have repeatedly been translated into English by T. Taylor and others. The chief authority on the Orphic litera-