381 j -0 0 I I AUTES SC1ENT.A VERITAS "V. . ) o if ■ & d THE DIAL zA Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information VOLUME L1II. July 1 to December 16, 1912 CHICAGO THE DIAL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS "rgTg ■■ 1 ■ Negatincc City LIBRARY '1 Hi INDEX TO VOLUME LIII. PAOE America, Mr. Bennett Visits Edith Kellogg Dunton .... 435 American Publishing House, Founder of a Great . Percy F. Bicknell 237 American Traits, A New Study op Norman Foerster 378 American Tropics, Travels in the T. D. A. Cockerell 44 Anonymity and Pseudonymity 87 Assisi, The Saint of Norman M. Trenholme .... 490 Athens in Decline Josiah Jtenick Smith .... 98 Brauty and Ugliness, The How and Why of . . . . F. B. R. Hellems 335 Books of the Fall Season, 1912 179 Bronte, The House of W. E. Simonds 329 California in the Civil War William E. Dodd 73 Canada's Remote Frontiers Lawrence J. Burpee 95 Cartwright of Labrador Lawrence J. Burpee 17 Cause, The 275 Chaucer in Prose Clark S. Northup 436 Child, The, and Social Reform Alvin S. Johnson 380 Classical Rubbish ■ . . • 229 Confederacy, Last Days of the Charles Leonard Moore .... 486 Convention Musings • 5 Criminality, The Conflict with Charles Richmond Henderson . 195 England and the American Revolution Laurence M. Larson 292 England, The Social Revolution in Charles Richmond Henderson . 71 English Cathedrals, New Memorials of the . . . Josiah Renick Smith .... 492 English Journalism, Modern, Certain Developments in E. H. Lacon Watson .... 124 English Poetry, A Survey of Raymond Macdonald Alden . . 46 English Politics and English Literature . . . . E. H. Lacon Watson .... 234 Evolution, Problems of Raymond Pearl 136 Explorations in the Vasty Deep Charles Atwood Kofoid .... 330 EXTERNALISM, THE PERIL OF 321 Far North, Lure of the Charles Atwood Kofoid .... 70 Federal Convention, Records of the St. George L. Sioussat .... 192 Fiction, Recent William Morton Payne 74, 243, 383 Fort Dearborn and Its Story Milo Milton Quaife 129 Furness, Horace Howard 119 Furniture, History and Romance of Arthur Howard Noll .... 137 Gods, The Return of the Charles Leonard Moore . . . 371 Grant White Shakespeare, The New Alphonso Gerald Newcomer . . 332 Greek and Roman Days, An Album from Fred B. R. Hellems 439 History, The New Carl Becker 19 Holiday Book Flood, Currents and Eddies in the . Percy F. Bicknell 429 Holiday Publications, 1912 446, 495 Humanity, Regenerating Waldo R. Browne 287 Humble-Bee, The, as a Hobby-Horse T. D. A. Cockerell 377 Insects, Domestic Economy of T. D. A. Cockerell 242 Japan, Our Relations with Payson J. Treat 239 Judiciary, Regenerating Our David Y. Thomas 336 Landscape, A Poet in Edward E. Hale 488 Literary Mare's-Nest, Another Charles Leonard Moore . . . . 277 Literature and Thought • 63 Louis Napoleon, Recollections of Roy Temple House 376 Lyric, The, in English Poetry Martha Hale Shackford . . . 131 Man and Civilization Llewellyn Jones 293 Man's Evolution, Controlling Raymond Pearl 49 Massachusetts, One of the Makers of Percy F. Bicknell 93 Mathematicc-Procrustean Art Raymond Pearl 380 iv. INDEX n PACK Meredith, George, Himself George Roy Elliott 284 Moody, William Vaughn William Morton Payne .... 484 Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Younger Life of ... . James Taft Hatfield 127 Nomad, The, in Literature Charles Leonard Moore . . . . 181 Painter, a Great, An Intimate View of Edward E. Hale 42 Pater, A Disciple of Charles H. A. Wager .... 442 "People's Attorney, The" Percy F. Bicknell 11 Poetry, Recent William Morton Payne .... 100 Poetry, The Case of 477 Realm of Faerie, Researches in the Arthur C. L. Brown 194 Scholar in Politics, The 35 Scotchman, A Versatile, The Literary Activities of 64 Shakespeare in Relief Alphonso Gerald Newcomer . . 68 Singapore, Two Merchant Mariners of 0. D. Wannamaker 97 Socialism, Present-Day, Ideals and Tendencies in . Ira B. Cross 190 South America, Aspects of Julian Park 444 Spiritual Health, Our 369 State Government, The "New Idea" in David Y. Thomas 134 Sterne as a Letter-Writer James W. Tupper 51 Teacher of the Spirit, A 427 Tropical America, In the Jungles of Charles A. Kofoid 99 Twain, Mark Percy F. Bicknell 290 War Veteran, Retrospects of a Retired Percy F. Bicknell 188 Whistler the Artist Frederick W. Gookin .... 241 Whitman, Walt Louis I. Bredvold 323 Wilde, Oscar, Critically Studied Lewis Piaget Shanks .... 13 Woman and Economics Alvin S. Johnson 15 World's Peace, A Would-be Disturber of the . . . Edward B. Krehbiel 334 Announcements of Fall Books —1912 202, 263 Season's Books for the Young — 1912 450 Casual Comment 7, 37, 65, 89, 121, 183, 231, 278, 325, 372, 430, 479 Briefs on New Books 22, 52, 77, 105, 139, 197, 246, 295, 339, 386 Briefer Mention 26, 56, 143, 201, 249, 298, 342, 390 Notes 27, 57, 80, 108, 144, 201, 251, 299, 343, 391, 461, 505 Topics in Leading Periodicals 28, 81, 144, 252, 344, 462 Lists of New Books 29, 57, 82, 109, 145, 257, 300, 345, 391, 463, 506 CASUAL COMMENT Academic Honors to Men of Letters 10 Albemarle Street Centenary, An 67 American Fiction, The Cleanness of 92 American Literature, The Flippant Note In... 281 American Pageantry, A Notable Addition to.. 326 Anonymity, Emerging from the Shelter of 66 Appeal, A Moving 38 "Arabian Nights," A Warning from the 186 Artistic Detachment 121 Australia's Literary Likings 282 Author, A Plucky Young 67 Authors, Great—What They Pride Themselves on 431 Baccalaureate, Dwindling of the 39 Bacon, Whitewashing 67 Baroda, A Library Movement in 372 Bibliography, A Notable 231 Biographer to Erratic Genius, The Post of... 327 Book-Buyers, Book-Borrowers, and the Par- cels Post 23S Book-Buying, Co-operative, An Experiment in 39 Book Catalogue, A Sumptuous 373 Bookless People, Bringing Books to 7 Book-Publisher, The Calumniated 37 Book-Swindler, The, in the Tolls 481 Hooks of Moderate Price, Demand for 40 Books. The Gender of 7 Books and the Weather 233 Cervantes Museum, A 432 Chinese Sensational Fiction 233 Chinese Tradesman, Poetry in the Soul of.... 281 "Classical Foundation" as a "Practical Equip- ment for Life's Journey" 123 Colvin, Sir Sidney, Work of. at British Mu- seum 39 Congress of the History of Art, Tenth In- ternational 122 Contemporary Greatness, The Appraisal of.... 90 Country Life, Improving the Conditions of... 232 Culture In the South, The Cause of 8 "Debrett," Our American 40 Dofobs, Latest Publication of the 92 "Education, A Fundamental Paradox of" 234 Education, the Future of. High Hopes for.... 66 Educational Institution, An, Launched with a Warning' English Authors. Foggy Impressions of 430 English Lake District. To Lovers of the 183 Fiction, Machine-Made 183 First Editions, High Quotations on 374 Foreigner, Friendliness to the 234 French Academicians, The Two Latest 433 Friendship, A Memorable 480 Futurist Literature. The Technique of 280 Genius. The Puerilities of 89 Genius and Personality 431 INDEX v. PAOB Goethe Museum at Weimar, Growth of the. ... 374 Goldwln Smith Lectures, The, at Cornell 185 Greek Manuscript, An Important 281 Greek Play, A, in the Open Air 9 Harvard, A New Library Building for 124 Harvard's Promised Library, Details of 231 H&uptmann's Variety in Unity 430 He Who Rides May Read 280 Hero, A, and His Valet 38 Hint, A Tactful 282 Hoe Library, Final Sale of the 184 "Homer of the Insects," The Shy 9 Howe, Mrs., Memorial Portrait of 328 "Ibid," The Amazingly Prolific 123 Index, A Monumental 184 Information, The Desire for 183 Intellectual Life, The 32s Language, Our, "Guide-Post" Reformers of... 37 Letters, The Primrose Path of 38 Librarian, Human Side of the 279 Librarian's Natural Ally, The 281 Librarians, Worn-Out, Pensioning of 90 Librarlanshlp, Mysteries of 8 Librarlanship, Supposed Qualifications for... 232 Library, A, in a Water-Tank 39 Library, A Proposed, of Peculiar Character... 87S Library, A Public, with no Dead Books 185 Library, Discovering the 66 Library, One Way to Advertise a 10 Library, Public, Those Who Know not the... 480 Library, Reorganizing a 233 Library, The, as an Educational Force 37 Library Building, Demolition of a Famous... 432 Library Burglary Extraordinary, A 91 Library Catalogues, The Vigorous Growth of.. 433 Library Growth, A Decade of 326 Library of Congress, A Noteworthy Gift to the 482 Library Planning from the Inside 91 Library Rivalry 92 Library Training, A Normal Course In 10 Library Trustee, The Dormant 184 Library's Growth, Cumulative Rate of a 481 Linguistic Mystery, Possible Solution of a.... 480 PAOB Literary Companionship, A Year's 278 Literary Effort, Incentives to 183 Literary Event, A 8 Literary Property, Respect for 431 Literary Treasure, A Possible Unearthing of.. 326 Literary Weekly, The Appeal of the 232 Literature, The Artistic Attitude toward 91 Loafing, The Economic Value of 374 Lotl's Orientalism 280 "Lucas, Mr., Lambing with" 327 Manuscripts, The Sifting of 66 Meredith and His Muse 122 Muse, The, in Bonds :279 Noise and the Book-Trade 479 Novels—Why They Multiply 327 Philippine Library, The 481 Poetry by Linear Measurement 328 Poet's Emotions in the Face of Impending Death 373 Prints, The First Professorship of 328 Pros and Cons 326 Pseudo-Latin, Spoken and Written 481 Publisher, A, of the Old School 480 Publishers In Petticoats 234 Quintllian, A Hint from 433 Reader, An Enviable 123 Realism, Stevenson's Conception of 373 Sanborn, Mr., at Eighty-One 185 Schleyer, Johann Martin, Death of 124 Scholar's Conscience, The 9 Schoolbooks, A Use for Old 432 Servian Poetry, Ancient 432 Shakespeare Scholar, A Great 121 Shaw's Conquest of Gaul 65 Stationers' Hall in London, Fame of 92 "Tolstoy of Germany, The" 232 Toxins, Inspirational 89 Transcendentalism, The Perennial Appeal of.. 282 Translation, A Problem In 123 "Trifling, An Epoch of Solemn and Insane".. 124 Turkey, A Roseate View of 874 Unproclalmed Achievement, Acknowledging the 328 Vagabondage and the Literary Temperament. 279 Veteran Literary Worker, Last Labors of a. 231 AUTHOKS AND TITLES OF BOOKS KEVIEWED Acorn, George. One of the Multitude 297 Adams, W. Dacres. A Book of Beggars 504 Adcock, Frederick. Famous Houses of Lon- don 200 Addison, Albert C. Story of the Puritan fathers 449 Addison, Julia'de Wolf. Spell of England.!199 Alden, Edward C. Fifty Water-Color Draw- ings of Oxford 497 Alden, Percy. Democratic England 73 Aldrlch, T. B. The Shadow of the Flowers 500 Allen, Percy. Burgundy, the Splendid Duchy. 448 Allen, Phoebe. The Last Legitimate King of France 386 Amsden, Dora, and Happer, J. S. Heritage of Hlroshlge 248 Aspinall, Algernon E. The British West In- dies 54 Atkinson, Thomas D. English and Welsh Cathedrals 492 Bacon, Edwin M., and Wyman, Morrill. Direct Elections and Law-Making by Popular Vote 246 Balch, William M. Christianity and the Labor Movement 143 Bangs, John Kendrick. Echoes of Cheer 106 Barbour, Ralph Henry. Harbor of Love 456 Barclay, Florence L. The Following of the Star, illus. by F. H. Townsend 501 Bashkirtseff, Marie, New Journal of 341 Bates, Llndon, Jr. Path of the Conquistadores 446 Baum, Julius. Romanesque Architecture in France 26 Bax, Ernest B. Last Episode of the French Revolution 142 Beesley, Lawrence. Loss of the SS. Titanic... 77 Bennett, Arnold. Your United States 435 Benson, Arthur C. The Child of the Dawn. ... 22 Bertram. Paul. The Shadow of Power 76 Betham-Edwards, M. In the Heart of the Vosges 26 Betz, Frederik. Deutscher Humor 57 Bibliographical Society of America Papers, Vol. VI 201 BiklS, Lucy L C. The Voice of the Garden.. 504 "Birmingham, G. A." Lighter Side of Irish Life 602 "Birmingham, G. A." Priscllla's Spies 384 Blok, Petrus J. People of the Netherlands, Vol. V 23 Bond, Francis. Cathedrals of England and Wales, fourth revised edition 493 Bowne, Borden Parker. Kant and Spencer... 25 Bradley, A. G. The Gateway of Scotland 448 Breckinridge, Sophonlsba P. The Child In the City 382 Breckinridge, Sophonlsba P., and Abbott, Edith. The Delinquent Child and the Home 381 Brett-Smith, H. F. Poems of the North 102 Brockway, Z. R. Fifty Years of Prison Serv- ice 196 Bronson, Walter C. American Poems 260 Bryan, George S. Poems of Country Life.... 605 Bryant, Edward A. Yuletide Cheer 454 Bryce, James. South America 444 Bullard, F. Laurlston. Historic Summer Haunts 446 "Burlington Library" 463 Burroughs, John. Time and Change 388 Butler, Elizabeth B. Saleswomen in Mercan- tile Stores 17 Cabot, William Brooks. In Northern Labra- dor 96 Caffin, Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Dancing and Dancers of Today 451 Cain, Georges. Byways of Paris 55 "Cambridge Manuals of Science and Litera- ture" 27, 137 Campbell, Douglas H. Plant Life and Evolu- tion 136 "Canuck, Janey." Open Trails 25 Carpenter, Edward. Towards Democracy, American edition 298 Carr, Mrs. Luclen. Harriet Hosmer 106 Cazamlan, Louis. Modern England 71 Chambers, Robert. Traditions of Edinburgh. illus. by James Riddell 495 Chambers, Robert W. Blue-Bird Weather 501 Champney, Elizabeth W. Romance of the French Chateaux, new edition 449 "Chance Medley, A" 79 Chatterton, E. Keble. Through Holland in the Vlvette 448 vi. INDEX PAGE Chautauqua Books for 1912 260 City of Sweet-Do-Nothing 200 Clark, Sue Ainslle, and VVyatt, Edith. Mak- ing Both Ends Meet 17 Clopper, E. N. Child Labor in City Streets... 382 Colman, Samuel. Nature's Harmonic Unity... 380 Conway, John J. Footprints of Famous Amer- icans in Paris 298 Cook, Albert S. Sir Eglamour 27 Corlat, Isador H. Hysteria of Lady Macbeth. 339 Cotterill, H. B. Homer's Odyssey, illus. by Patten Wilson 499 Courthope, W. J. A History of English Poetry 46 Craig, Charles F. Parasitic Amoeba: of Man.. 107 Crawford, Mary C. Romantic Days in the Early Republic 449 Croly, Herbert. Marcus Alonzo Hanna 64 Currier, A. H. Present-Day Problem of Crime 196 Daingerfleld, Elliott George Innes 42 D'Ambes, Baron. Intimate Memoirs of Na- poleon III 376 D'Auvergne, E. B. Switzerland in Sunshine and Snow 448 Davenport, C. B. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics 49 Davey, Richard. Sisters of Lady Jane Grey.. 199 Davis, F. Hadland. Myths and Legends of Japan 466 Davis, William S. The Friar of Wittenberg... 76 Day, Holman. The Red Lane 244 "Dehan, Richard." Between Two Thieves 243 Delage, Yves, and Goldsmith, Marie. Theories of Evolution 137 Denlson, Elsa. Helping School Children 382 Devon, James. The Criminal and the Com- munity 196 Dick, Stewart. Master Painters 499 Dler, J. C. A Book of Winter Sports 601 Dlnan, W. The Celts in Antiquity 342 Doren, Carl van. Life of Thomas Love Pea- cock 139 Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Lost World 384 Du Bose, John W. General Joseph Wheeler... 80 Earle, Ferdinand. The Lyric Year 477 Eberlein, Harold D., and Lippincott, Horace M. Colonial Homes of Philadelphia 602 Edwards, Albert. A Man's World 385 Edwards, George W. Marken and Its People. 447 Egan, Maurice F. Everybody's Saint Francis. 492 Ellis, Havelock. The Task of Social Hygiene. 287 Elmendorf, Dwlght L. A Camera Crusade. 496 Emerson, Edward W., and Harris, William F. Charles Eliot Norton 427 English, Douglas. Tales of the Untamed 602 "English Readings for Schools" 67 Eucken, Rudolf. Main Currents of Modern Thought 293 "Everyman's Library" 66 Fabre, J. H. Social Life in the Insect World.. 242 Falrchild, Arthur. The Making of Poetry.... 140 Farnol, Jeffery. The Broad Highway, illus. by C. E. Brock 453 Farrand, Max. Records of the Federal Con- vention 192 Faxon, Frederick W. Dramatic Index for 1911 27 Ferguson, William S. The Hellenistic Com- monwealth 98 Figgis, Darrell. Shakespeare: A Study 68 Flagg, James M. Adventures of Kitty Cobb... 503 Fleming, W. T. General Sherman as College President 389 Flemwell, G. Flower-Fields of Switzerland... 455 Flitch, J. E. C. Modern Dancing and Dancers 460 Foley, Edwin. Book of Decorative Furniture. 188 Forbush, William B. The Coming Generation. 382 Forrest, A. S., and Koebel, W. H. South Amer- ica 495 Fowler, Henry T. Literature of Ancient Israel 340 France, Anatole. At the Sign of the Relne Pedauque 390 Fraprie, Frank R. The Raphael Book 461 Freeman, A. Martin. Thomas Love Peacock.. 139 Fullerton, G. Stuart. The World We Live In.. 249 Gale, Zona. Christmas 501 Galsworthy, John. Moods, Songs, and Dog- gerels 101 Garner, James W. Government in the United States 143 Gaskell, Mrs. Cranford, Illus. by H. M. Brock 500 Gautier, Theophile, Works of, pocket edition... 463 George, Wm. R., and Stowe, Lyman Beecher. Citizens Made and Remade 382 Goddard, H. H. The Kallikak Family 247 Goldmark, Josephine. Fatigue and Efficiency. 15 Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer," illus. by Hugh Thomson 499 Goodman, Maud Wilder, and Others. Historic New York During Two Centuries 450 Gosse, Edmund. Two Visits to Denmark 249 PAGH Grant, Robert. Convictions of a Grandfather. 108 Grant, W. L. Lescarbot's History of New France, Vol. II 250 Greenlaw, E. A. Syllabus of English Litera- ture 138 Gribble, Francis. Comedy of Catherine the Great 26 Guerber, H. A. Shakespeare's English History Plays 390 Guthrie, Anna L. Library Work 55 Haggard, H. Rider. Red Eve 76 Haines, Jennie D. A Book of Happiness 464 Hale, Mr. and Mrs. Walter. Motor Journeys... 447 Hale, William B. Woodrow Wilson 22 Hall, Eliza Calvert. Hand-woven Coverlets... 460 Hall, G. Stanley. Founders of Modern .Psy- chology 388 Hallock, Ella B. Introduction to Browning... 343 Halsey, Rosalie V. Forgotten Books of the American Nursery 25 "Handasyde." The Four Gardens 503 Hard, William. The Women of To-morrow... 17 Hare, Maurice E. Chatterton's Rowley Poems 260 "Harland, Marlon." Colonial Homesteads, new edition 460 Hay, John. Pike County Ballads, Illus. by N. C. Wyeth 463 Hekler, Anton. Greek and Roman Portraits.. 439 Henderson, Helen. Art Treasures of Wash- ington 499 Herter, C. A. Biological Aspects of Human Problems 49 Heyl, Charles C. Art of the Ufflzi Palace 498 Hilton-Simpson, M. W. Land and Peoples of the Kasal 448 Hinsdale, Mary L. History of the President's Cabinet 107 Holbach, Maude M. In the Footsteps of Rich- ard Coeur de Lion 387 Holme, Charles. Village Homes of England.. 201 Holmes, Arthur. Conservation of the Child.. 380 "Home University Library" 57, 495 Honey, Samuel R. Referendum among the English 246 Hosford, Hester E. Life of Governor Wilson, revised edition 109 Howe, Frederic C. Wisconsin 135 Howell, C. F. Around the Clock in Europe.. 447 Hume, H. W. L. Three Comedies by Holberg.. 27 Hunter, George L. Tapestries 498 Hutchinson, Frances K. Our Country Life.... 454 Hutchison, Percy A. British Poems 250 Hutton, Edward. Cities of Lombardy 497 Hutton, S. K. Among Eskimos of Labrador.. 96 Hyatt, Alfred H. The Charm of London, Illus. by Yoshio Markino 463 Hyatt, Alfred H. The Charm of Venice, illus. by Harald Sund 463 Jackson, Charles Tenney. The Mid land ers.... 246 James, William. On Some of Life's Ideals... 201 Jenkins, Stephens. Story of the Bronx 449 Johnson, Burges. Childhood 455 Johnson, Clifton. Artemus Ward's Best Stories 441 Johnson, Lionel. Post Llminium 442 Jordan, Humfrey. The Joyous Wayfarer 74 Jbrgensen, Johannes. Saint Francis of Asslsl. 490 Jourdaln, M. English Secular Embroidery 63 Judd, John W. The Coming of Evolution 137 Kawakaml, Kiyoshi K. American-Japanese Relations 239 Kelllcott, W. E. Social Direction of Human Evolution 50 Kennedy, Elijah R. Contest for California in 1861 73 Kennedy, J. Wilmer. Newark in the Public Schools of Newark 250 Kennedy, Sidney R, and Noble, Alden C. White Ashes 76 Kenngott, George F. Lowell: The Record of a City 199 Kester, Vaughan. Fortunes of the Landrays. 384 King, Basil. The Street Called Straight 77 Kingsley, J. S. Comparative Anatomy of Ver- tebrates 298 Kipling, Rudyard. Kim, illus. by J. Lockwood Kipling 462 Lacy, Mary E. With Dante in Modern Flor- ence 390 La Farge, John. One Hundred Masterpieces of Painting 24 Lahee, H. C. Grand Opera Singers of To-day. 451 Lang, Andrew. History of English Literature 143 Lang, Andrew. History of Scotland, abridged edition 342 Lange. Algot. In the Amazon Jungle 99 Larned. J. N. William Pryor Letchworth 52 Lawson, W. A. Shakespeare's Wit and Humor 249 Lea, Homer. The Day of the Saxon 334 Learned. Henry B. The President's Cabinet... 107 INDEX PAQE Lee, Charles. Our Little Town 105 Lee, Charles. Paul Carah, Cornlshman 105 Lee, Charles. The Widow Woman 105 Lee, Vernon, and Anstruther-Thomson C. Beauty and Ugliness 335 Le Oalllenne, Richard. Maker of Rainbows... 501 Lincoln, C. H. Correspondence of William Shirley 93 Lincoln, Jennette E. C. The Festival Book.... 143 Lloyd, Caro. Henry Demarest Lloyd 11 London, Jack. Call of the Wild, Ulus. by Paul Bransom 501 Lowe, Percy R. A Naturalist on Desert Islands 45 Lucas, E. V. A Little of Everything 504 Lucas, E. V. A Wanderer in Florence 496 Luchaire, Achllle. Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus 247 "Lyric Tear, The" 477 Maartens, Maarten. Eve 383 McCabe, Joseph. The Story of Evolution 137 McCarthy, Charles. The Wisconsin Idea 134 McCauley, Clarice V. The Garden of Dreams.. 456 McConnell, Ray M. Criminal Responsibility and Social Constraint 196 McCurdy, Edward. Roses of Peestum 505 McCutcheon. John T. Dawson, '11 604 Mcllwaine, H. R. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 56 Mackail, J. W. Life of William Morris, pocket edition 343 Mackellar, C. D. Scented Isles and Coral Gar- dens 142 Mackereth, James. In the Wake of the Phoenix 103 Mackie, Gascolgne. Charmldes 102 McLaughlin, A. C. Courts, Constitution, and Parties 337 McLaughlin, Robert W. Washington and Lin- coln 390 MacMillan, Donald. Short History of the Scot- tish People 54 McSpadden, J. Walker. The Alps as Seen by the Poets 454 Maeterlinck, M. Life of the Bee, Ulus. by E. J. Detmold 452 Makower, Stanley V., and Blackwell, Basil W. A Book of English Essays 201 Mann, Francis O. Works of Thomas Deloney. 26 Marden, Philip S. Egyptian Days 446 Marks, Jeannette. Gallant Little Wales 341 Masefield, John. Multitude and Solitude 76 Masefleld, John. The Everlasting Mercy 100 Mason, A. E. W. The Turnstile 75 Mather. Frank Jewett, Jr. Homer Martin.... 488 May, Thomas E. Constitutional History of England 57 Melville, Lewis. Life and Letters of Sterne... 61 Meneval, Baron de. The Empress Josephine... 296 Meredith, George, Letters of 284 Meredith's Poems, revised one-volume edition 504 Merejkowskl, Dmitri. Leonardo da Vinci, holi- day edition 452 Merwln, Samuel. The Citadel 244 Moir, David M. Mansle Wauch, illus. by C. M. Hardie 452 Moody, William Vaughn. Poems and Plays, collected edition 484 Morgan, C. Lloyd. Instinct and Experience.. 341 Morley, Henry. First Sketch of English Litera- ture, revised edition 343 Morris, Harrison S. William T. Richards. .. 452 Morse, Edwin W. Causes and Effects in Amer- ican History 342 Mortimer, F. G. Photograms for 1912 499 Mosher, Thomas ri. Amphora 503 Munro, W. B. Initiative, Referendum, and Recall 246 Murray, John. The Depths of the Ocean.... 330 Musgrove, Eugene R White Hills in Poetry. 56 Myers, Cortland. Where Heaven Touched the Earth 498 Myers, Gustavus. History of the Supreme Court 337 Nansen, Frldtjof. In Northern Mists 70 Needham, Mary M. Folk Festivals 108 Nelhardt, J. G. The Stranger at the Gate.... 103 Nicholson, Meredith. The Provincial Ameri- can 339 Nicolay, Helen. Personal Traits of Lincoln.. 390 Nietzsche, Frau Fdrster. Life of Nietzsche.. 127 Northend, Mary H. Colonial Homes 451 Norton, Clara, and Others. Modern Dratna and Opera 143 Ogburn, William F. Child-Labor Legislation 381 Osborne, Albert B. Picture Towns of Europe. 497 Packard, Wlnthrop. White Mountain Trails.. 106 Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain 290 Palmer, Frederick. Over the PaBS 76 PAGE Parrish, Randall. Molly McDonald 77 Parry, Hubert. Style in Musical Art 389 Parsons, Albert R Road Map of the Stars.... 27 Patten, William. Evolution of the Vertebrates 136 Patterson, J. G. A Zola Dictionary 250 Pawlowska, Yoi. A Year of Strangers 140 Peabody. R. E. Merchant Venturers of Old Salem 296 Pennell, Elizabeth R. Our House, illus. by Joseph Pennell 456 Pennell, Joseph. The Panama Canal 451 Perry, Bliss. The American Mind 378 Poe's The Bells, illus. by Edmund Dulac 500 Porter. Charlotte, and Clarke, Helen A. Brown- ing's Works, pocket edition 343 Porter, Charlotte, and Clarke, Helen A. "First Folio" Shakespeare 605 Porter, E. C, and Warner, F. L. A Mount Holyoke Book 250 Pugh, Edwin. Charles Dickens Originals 502 Purdy, Helen T. San Francisco 497 Putnam, George Haven. A Prisoner of War in Virginia, 1864-5 198 Putnam, George Haven. George Palmer Put- nam 237 Rabelals's Works, illus, by W. Heath Robin- son 453 Randall, J. Herman. Culture of Personality.. 343 Ransom, W. L Majority Rule and the Ju- diciary 338 Ransome, Arthur. Oscar Wilde 13 "Redfield, Martin." My Love and I 385 Reed, Edward Bliss. English Lyrical Poetry.. 131 Reppller, Agnes. The Cat 604 Rlccl, Corrado. Baroque Architecture and Sculpture in Italy 26 Robertson, J. G. Outlines of German Litera- ture 297 Robinson, James H. The New History 19 Robinson, W. Heath. Bill the Minder 454 Rodin, Augusts. Venus 604 Rodway, James. In the Guiana Forest 44 Roe, Gilbert E. Our Judicial Oligarchy 336 Rogers, John. Sport In Vancouver 95 Rogers, R. W. Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament 142 Root, Jean Christie. Edward Irving 198 Ross, John D. Sixty Years in the Far East... 97 Royce, Joslah. Sources of Religious Insight. 140 Russell, George W. E. One Look Back 106 Sale, Edith T. Old Time Belles and Cavaliers. 501 Sangster, Margaret. The Mother Book 604 Schaft, Morris. Sunset of the Confederacy... 486 Schauffler, Robert H. Scum o' the Earth 104 Scott, Mrs. Maxwell. Marquise de la Roche- jaquelin 200 Scrlbner, Frank K. The Secret of Frontellac. . 386 Scudder, Vlda D. Socialism and Character... 190 Sears, Lorenzo. John Hancock 248 Sermon on the Mount, decorated by Alberto Sangorskl 500 Seton, Ernest Thompson. The Forester's Manual 56 Seymour, Currey J. Story of Old Fort Dear- born 129 Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, illus. by W. Hatherell 600 Sharp, William. Studies and Appreciations... 141 Shaylor, Joseph. The Fascination of Books.. 295 Shuster, W. Morgan. Strangling of Persia 189 Slbree, James. Our English Cathedrals 494 Simpson, Harold. Rambles in Norway 496 Sinclair, May. The Three Brontes 329 Singleton, Esther. Furniture 137 Singleton, Esther. How to Visit the English Cathedrals 26 Sladen, F. W. L The Humble-Bee 377 Smalley, George W. Anglo-American Memo- ries 78 Smith, Adolphe. Monaco and Monte Carlo 497 Smith, C. Alphonso. The Short Story 143 Snaith, J. C. The Principal Girl 244 Sneath, Anna S. C. Poet's Song of Poets 143 Soule, C. C. How to Plan a Library Build- ing 78 Spargo, John. Applied Socialism 192 Spargo John, and Arner, George L Elements of Socialism 191 Squire, Jack Colllngs. William the Silent 63 Steele, Robert. The Revival of Printing 55 Stelner, Rudolf. The Gates of Knowledge 298 Stephens, James. The Hill of Vision 108 Stewart, Martha M. Greyhound Fanny 108 Stratton-Porter, Gene. Moths of the Limber- lost 143 Straus. Ralph. The Prison without a Wall... 74 Swettenham. Frank. Also and Perhaps 340 Swift, Edgar J. Youth and the Race 382 Talbot, L Raymond. Le Francals et Sa Patrle 26 via. INDEX PAQB Talmage, T.. De Witt As I Knew Him 839 Tatlock, J. S. P., and MacKaye, Percy. Mod- ern Reader's Chaucer 436 Temple, Oliver P. Notable Men of Tennessee. 80 "Temple Primers" 57 Thaddeus, H. Jones. Recollections of a Court Painter 24 Thurston, E. Temple. The "Flower of Gloster" 447 Thurston, Edgar. Omens and Superstitions of Southern India 388 Tollemache, Stratford. Reminiscences of the Yukon 95 Townsend, Charles W. Captain Cartwright. . 17 Train. Arthur. "C. Q"; or. In the Wireless House 245 Train, Arthur. Courts, Criminals, and the Camorra 341 Trent, W. P., and Ersklne, John. Great Amer- ican Writers 495 Trent, W. P., Wells, B. W., and Henneman, J. B. The New Grant White Shakespeare.. 332 Trevelyan, George Otto. George the Third and Charles James Fox, Vol. 1 292 Tweedie, Mrs. Alec. Thirteen Tears of a Busy Woman's Life 389 Tyndale, Walter. An Artist in Egypt 496 Urlin, Ethel L. Dancing, Ancient and Mod- ern 450 Van Dyke, Harry W. Through South Amer- ica 446 Van Dyke, Henry. The Unknown Quantity... . 600 Vedder. Henry C. Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus 190 Viereck, G. S. The Candle and the Flame 104 Vizetelly. Ernest A. The Anarchists 141 Voltaire's Toleration and Other Essays, trans- lated by Joseph McCabe 342 Wace, A. J. B., and Thompson, M. S. Pre- historic Thessaly 107 Wallis, Louis. Sociological Study of the Bible. 79 Washington, Booker T. The Man Farthest Down 387 PAOB Watt, Francis. Edinburgh and the Lothlans.. 496 Way. T. R Memories of Whistler the Artist.. 241 Weekley, Ernest. The Romance of Words.... 198 Weitenkampf, Frank. American Graphic Art. 498 Wells, H. G. Marriage 383 Wells. H. G, and Others. Socialism and the Great State 191 Wentz, W. Y. Evans. Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries 194 Westermann, W. L. Story of the Ancient Nations 250 Whibley, Charles. Studies in Frankness 197 White, Arnold. The Views of "Vanoc" 23 White, Bouck. Call of the Carpenter, holi- day edition 503 Whipple, E. P. Dickens: The Man and His Work, Riverside Press edition 56 Whitin, E. Stagg. Penal Servitude 196 Whitman, Walt. Memories of Lincoln, Mosher edition 503 Whitney, Caspar. The Flowing Road 445 Wilcox, Delos F. Government by All the People 246 Williams, Orlo. Life of John Rickman 246 Wilson, James Harrison. Under the Old Flag. 188 Wood, Walter. North Sea Fishers and Fight- ers 55 Wood, Walter. The Battleship 503 Woodruff, C. Eveleigh. Memorials of Canter- bury Cathedral 494 "World's Romances" 504 Wormeley, Katharine P. Illustrious Dames of the Court of the Valols Kings, new edition 455 Wormeley. Katharine P. Ruin of a Princess, new edition 455 Wrench, G. T. The Mastery of Life 296 Wright, C. H. C. History of French Litera- ture 24 Wright, Kate A. Sweet Songs of Many Voices. 605 Wyneken, F. A. Rousseau's Einfluss auf Klin- ger 342 Young. Martha. Behind the Dark Pines 504 MISCELLANEOUS Bagehot. Walter, Proposed Biography of 81 Barr, Robert, Death of 343 "Bedrock." a New English Quarterly 330 Blackwood. William, Death of 462 Boston Public Library, Completion of the 80 Browne, F. G., & Co.. The New Publishing House of 505 Brumbach Library of Van Wert County, Ohio, Annual Report of the 56 Business and Agricultural Research. A Pro- posed Institute of. Akael O. S. Joaephson.. 375 Business and Agricultural Research, Coopera- tion in. Max Batt 483 "Cadillac and Early Detroit" 56 "Classical Rubbish," Uses of. James P. Kelley.. 283 Cleveland Public Library, Work of the, with the Children 28 Collyer. Robert, Death of 505 Contemporary Greatness, The Appraisal of. W. T. Lamed 186 Culture, The Paralysis of. Llewellyn Jones.... 483 Culture and Socialism. B. R. Wilton 434 Detroit Public Library List of Books Dealing with the Industrial Arts 57 "Externalism, The Peril of." An American Pro- fessor 433 "Externalism" in Our Colleges. Joseph Jastrow 482 "Filipino People, The," a New Monthly Journal 251 Fort Dearborn, More about the Story of. J. Sey- mour Currey 282 Fort Dearborn, Some Disputed Points in the Story of. J. Seymour Currey 186 Fort Dearborn, Some Points in the History of. Milo MUton Quaife 236 Goodwin, William Watson, Death of 28 "Hlbbert Journal, The," for October, 1912 344 International Arbitration, Lake Mohonk Prize Essay on 461 Jenkins, Herbert, a New London Publisher... 57 Jollne, Adrian Hoffman, Death of 344 Kuhnemann, Eugen —Carl Schurz Professor at the University of Wisconsin 252 Lea, Homer, Death of 391 Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, Death of 27 Librarians'Pensions—A Librarian's View. J.C.B. 126 Library, A, In a Powder Magazine. Walter L. Fleming 127 Lincoln City Library, Annual Report of the 249 Literature, Great, Early Prejudices against. Gil- more I den 283 Mark Twain Memorial Library, Endowment of the 81 National Council of Teachers of English, Sec- ond Annual Meeting of the 251 Newberry Library, Publications of, No. 2 56 "New York Art." a New Monthly Magazine.... 391 Phi Beta Kappa Address, Professor Alvin S. Johnson's 250 Phrases. Hackneyed. G. Af. G 375 "Poetry." a New Monthly Magazine 300 Poincare, Jules Henri, Death of 81 Research and Intercommunication. Eugene F. McPike 40 San Francisco Public Library, Mr. Carnegie's Gift to the 80 Scott. Frank Hall, Death of 462 Seattle Public Library. Twenty-first Annual Re- port of 66 Shakespeare in Japanese. Ernest W. Clement... 10 Skeat, Walter William. Death of 300 Swett, Sophie. Death of 461 Torrey, Bradford, Death of 299 THE DIAL a Stmt'iWontfjIg 3ournaI of ILitrrarn Criticusm, ©t'ssrassBum, ana Enfotmatton. THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is publithed on the 1st and 16th of each month. Terms op Subscrxttiok, 82. a year in advance, postage prepaid in the United States and Mexico; Foreign and Canadian pottage 50 cents per year extra. Remittances thould be by check, or by exprett or postal order, payable to THE DIAL COMPANY. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub* acription is received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. Aoverttsikq Rates furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered as Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. No. 625. JULY 1, 1912. Vol. LIU. Contents. PAQB CONVENTION MUSINGS « CASUAL COMMENT 7 The gender of books.— Bringing books to bookless people. — A literary event. — The mysteries of libra- rianship. — The cause of culture in the South.—The scholar's conscience.—An educational institution launched with a warning. — The shy "Homer of the Insects." — A Greek play in the open air. — Well- earned academic honors to men of letters.—A normal course in library training. — One way to advertise a public library. COMMUNICATION 10 Shakespeare in Japanese. Ernest W . Clement. "THE PEOPLE'S ATTORNEY." Percy F. BicJcnell 11 OSCAR WILDE CRITICALLY STUDIED. Lewis Piaget Shanks 13 WOMAN AND ECONOMICS. Alvin S. Johnson . . 15 Miss Goldmark's Fatigue and Efficiency.—Mrs. Clark's and Miss Wyatt's Making Both Ends Meet. — Miss Butler's Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores. — Hard's The Women of To-morrow. CARTWRIGHT OF LABRADOR. Lawrence J. Burpee 17 THE NEW HISTORY. Carl Becker 19 BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 22 An American leader of men. — The story of a heavenly pilgrimage. — A history of the people of Holland. — Observations and warnings of a journal- ist. — Masterpieces of art illustrated and described. —The cheerful side of a cheerful artist's experience. —The literary development of France.—Saunterings in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.—Kant and Spencer critically expounded. — The life of an imperial ad- venturess. — Early American story-books for chil- dren.— Two superb architectural picture-books.— How to visit the English cathedrals. BRIEFER MENTION 26 NOTES 27 TOPICS IN JULY PERIODICALS 28 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 29 CONVENTION MUSINGS. The political doings of the past fortnight would seem to provide a suitable occasion for a few reflections upon the relation between lit- erature and life, or upon the revelations of national character which are made during sea- sons of excitement — both of which subjects come within the scope of a journal like ours. From a literary point of view, one of the two opposing chieftains in the factional republican struggle now happily past its first crisis may be regarded as a negligible quantity, whose writings are likely to be preserved only in some future edition of " Messages of the Presidents" —preserved and entombed, as is the fate of such compositions. But with the other the case is different. Not only is he the "contributing editor " to a popular organ of sterilized culture, but he is also an author of respectable rank, whose dozen or more volumes have rightfully earned for him the distinction of election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, making him one of the Fifty whose names are (more or less) household words in circles where intellectual and artistic interests are held to be of importance. He illustrates, among other things, the danger, which ever lurks in the path of the politician, of expressing views in print which it is afterwards most inconvenient to have tactless persons recall for the purpose of refuting his latest set of opinions out of his own mouth. It must be indeed galling to a candidate for popular favor, after he has formulated and ex- pressed the life-long convictions that are clearly demanded by the exigencies of his immediate political situation, to be confronted with quota- tions from his own books, in which diametrically opposite convictions are voiced with the same apparent fervor and sincerity. Mr. Roosevelt has experienced this sort of discomfiture on many occasions, and has be- come an adept in the art of defending his own reversals of judgment, and making the worse appear the better reason when expediency coun- sels such a logical masquerade. A correspon- dent of the New York " Nation " has recently given him a fairly hard nut to crack, shaken from the tree of his earlier writings. The pas- sage is from the life of Gouverneur Morris, who, we are told, "Denounced with a fierce scorn that they richly merit, 6 [July 1, THE DIAL the despicable demagogues and witless fools who teach that in all cases the voice of the majority must be implicitly obeyed, and that public men have only to carry out its will, and thus ' acknowledge themselves the willing instruments of folly and vice. They declare that, in order to please the people, they will, regard- less alike of what conscience may dictate or reason approve, make the profligate sacrifice of public right on the altar of private interest. What more can be asked by the sternest tyrant of the most despicable slave? Creatures of this sort are the tools which usurpers em- ploy in building despotism.' Sounder and truer maxims never were uttered." The appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober which this citation prompts has now, however, to reckon with a conscience so elastic and a sophistry so barefaced that they dare attempt to justify such a shameless act as the rape of Colombia in defiance of every dictate of inter- national good faith. The only plea ever made by the author of that outrage in its extenuation is that it was committed " to please the people." Those who are not satisfied with this plea or with its author's attempts to justify many another in- defensible act or tortuous policy, have no need to echo the wish " that mine adversary had written a book." The books are there, for anyone to read, and they throw a most revealing light upon the workings of the opportunist mind to which principles are but playthings, or pretexts for the exercise of ingenious casuistry. The game is too easy in this case, for their author has himself furnished a running ironical com- mentary upon most of the incidents of his later career. Literature provides many suggestive parallels to the words and acts of the now discomfited leader. The Homeric student will be reminded, here of Achilles sulking in his tent, there of Thersites and his railings. The satire of Juvenal and the indignation of Tacitus find in him a predestined mark. Milton supplies many apt texts, such as "The strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair," and "His form had not yet lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than archangel ruined," which seems to fit the leader's case; or these that might be applied to his frenzied supporters in the Convention: "The universal host upsent A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night," and "When night Darkens the street, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine." In the mouthings of Jack Cade, Shakespeare has limned the demagogue for all times, and Cade's declared purpose to hang all the lawyers is only a blunt way of stating the hatred of legal restraint which has been so ominous a feature of the recent agitation against the constitutional safeguards of order. Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy " yields the following stanza, which is not without its suggestiveness: "And he wore a kingly crown; And in his grasp a sceptre shone; On his brow this mark I saw — 'I am God, and King, and Law!'" Perhaps the most apposite of all these literary parallels is that to be found in Dante's "Para- diso," where the poet is informed by Cacciaguida of the evil company into which he is destined to fall, and is told that he will be well-advised to- become his own political party. "Of its besti- ality, its own procedure will give the proof; so that it will be seemly for thee to have made thyself a party by thyself." Turning from the aggressive personality which has been so conspicuously to the fore of late, and looking at the Convention turbulence as a reve- lation of national character, we are prompted to some grave reflections. After making a liberal allowance for the exuberance of youth and the ebullition of party feeling, after indulgently ac- counting for many distasteful happenings on the ground that a large section of the American public regards politics as a form of sport, and has no inclination to deal with it in a serious and sober fashion, there nevertheless remains a condition which should give pause to our optim- ism and lead us to a searching self-examination. Is it really necessary, even in a presidential year,, that reason should abdicate almost altogether in favor of impulse and emotion? If we let our- selves go in this fashion too often, may we not some time be carried so far that our balance will be regained only at the terrible cost of bloodshed and the overthrow of social order? We got into- that position half a century ago, and the results were appalling. Civilization at best is but a thin crust beneath which the primal forces of human nature—greed and passion—are seeth- ing in the effort to find vent. Whoever seeks to weaken that restraining shell has small appre- ciation of the forces that may be unloosed if it once breaks. We are at all times nearer than we think to "Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws." The Anglo-Saxon peoples have ever prided themselves on their self-restraint upon critical occasions, and in their devotion to the principle 1912.] 7 THE DIAL of "laws, not men" in the ordering of their political life. But the English people were rudely aroused from their pharisaical self- sufficiency by the ugly demonstrations of "mafficking," and who can say that, under a similar excitement, the American people would not lose their heads to even more disastrous effect? That "added drop of nervous fluid" which Colonel Higginson used to talk about as differentiating us from our English cousins may sometime prove a menace to our social stability. We already enjoy the international reputation of being a strikingly lawless community, and our statistics of homicide are so appalling that we cannot comtemplate them without hiding our heads in shame. The frenzied passions, the charges and counter-charges, and the con- tempt for law, that have characterized this Convention period have been deeply humiliating to all sober-minded Americans, who have felt like exclaiming "A plague on both your houses!" to the two political parties and to the two warring factions in each of them. The spectacle has not only been humiliating but ominous, and few can have failed to be reminded of the resemblance to the situation which a quarter of a century ago came near to over- throwing the French Republic in the interests of General Boulanger, and which sixty years ago witnessed its actual overthrow by a self- acclaimed " savior of society." Not a few of us have trembled at the possibility that this chap- ter of French history might be provided with a parallel in the history of our own republic. CASUAL COMMENT. The gender of books is sometimes as marked as the gender of human beings. Some books have a masculine strength, and .some a feminine grace and tenderness. "Daniel Deronda" and "Felix Holt" and "Jane Eyre," though written by women, are marked by virility rather than by femininity. "The Essays of Elia" and "Marius the Epicurean " do not fall in the class of rugged masculine books; no one would place them beside Borrow's "Lavengro," Burton's "Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah," or Scott's Waverley novels. Certain studies, too, have the softness of the gentle sex rather than the hardness of the sterner one. Professor Earl Barnes, discours- ing in the June " Atlantic " on "The Feminization of Culture," finds what seems to him rather disquieting evidence that our system of education is losing its virile qualities and becoming unduly feminine in character. He considers it "taken for granted that, in education, feminization means emphasis on languages, literature, and history, as opposed to mathematics, physics, chemistry, and civics." In general, the abstract presents itself to him in female garb, the concrete in male attire. The fine arts are, of course, feminine, the sciences masculine. Sta- tistics from high schools and seminaries for the last two decades are examined by the writer, and he finds that the study of Latin, for example, has in that time increased fifteen per cent, French four per cent, German thirteen per cent, European history twenty-seven per cent, and English literature (since 1901) seven per cent. Physics, chemistry, physical geography, physiology, and civics have all fallen off at rates varying from three to fifteen per cent "A careful study of these figures," he maintains, "must convince any fair-minded person that our school cur- riculum, even in the secondary field where women's control is least complete, is moving rapidly in the direction of what we have called feminization." Nevertheless, it is probable that not all his readers will allow their slumbers to be disturbed by this demonstration of tendencies in current culture. There is a grain of comfort in the fact that not even the difficulties of Latin have caused a decline in its vogue, nor the easiness of French greatly increased the popularity of Moliere's tongue. Latin has gained fifteen per cent, and the rugged Teutonic tongue has gained thirteen. English literature, the "softest snap" of all, has advanced only four per cent in ten years. And even if the whole statistical showing were much more impressive than it is, can- not the finer qualities of manhood as well as the more admirable qualities of womanhood be nurtured on gentle studies? Must one study bridge-building and mining engineering in order to escape becoming a milksop or a mollycoddle? But perhaps the best reply to the alarmist is now being made by Minnesota, where more than fifty thousand persons are taking university extension courses, in which such mascu- line studies as sociology and economics are enjoying the highest favor. Bringing books to bookless people — to the dwellers in rural communities whose remoteness from public libraries deprives them almost wholly of library advantages—is just now a subject of very lively interest in the library world. It was the dom- inant theme at the Convention of County Librarians held in connection with the June meeting of the California State Library Association at Lake Tahoe. California has recently enacted some very good laws for systematic "library extension" work in that State through the agency of County Free Libraries, under whose direction books are sent to remote commu- nities, very much as letters are sent there by the Rural Free Delivery. This system has now been on trial long enough to make the detailed reports of its practical operation, such as were presented at the Lake Tahoe conference, of special significance. The system is of course still in its experimental stages as to details and methods, but the intelligent and often enthusiastic reports of those who have been engaged in the work leave no room for doubt as to its gen- 8 [July 1, THE DIAL eral success and its future importance as a branch of the general system of popular education in this coun- try. Particularly telling, and often touching, were the instances related of the joy and gratitude of people living in remote mountain regions, to whom the arrival of a dozen books is an event in the life of a community whose hunger for books could hardly be met in any other way than by these periodical dis- pensations from the county library. It was noticeable at the Taboe meeting, as at other recent gatherings of librarians, that problems of library administration received but scant attention, matters relating to the widening of the library's sphere and the extension of its benefits being clearly in the foreground. This was illustrated throughout the reports and discus- sions, and was the key-note of an excellent talk on the influence of museums and art-galleries as auxil- iaries of the public library, by Mr. C. S. Greene, of the Free Public Library at Oakland. • • ■ A literary EVENT of an unusual nature, and, in strict accuracy, more an athletic than a purely liter- ary event, was the spirited contest, on Lincoln Field at Providence, between the forces of "The Brown Herald" and "The Brunonian," in a game of base- ball, umpired by the president-elect of Amherst Col- lege, Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, who with the close of the present academic year relinquishes his office of Dean at Brown University to assume the larger duties awaiting him at the sister institution in the Connecticut valley. His election to the Amherst presidency may itself be regarded as an event in the world of letters, so ardent a zeal has he shown for that form of learning which is something more than a mere vocational training or specialist's grind. Dis- approving the increasing latitude of the elective sys- tem, which, he is said to have declared, has brought with it "educational chaos," he cannot but find him- self heartily in accord with Amherst's spirit of reac- tion and of reversion to the older ideals of liberal culture. It was Dr. Meiklejohn who took the initia- tive in shaping the new course at Brown leading to the degree of bachelor of philosophy, a course which he tersely described as "a vigorous attempt to single out and to require the most significant and funda- mental elements of human culture." Another quo- table utterance from the same source, delivered in an address before the Brown alumni of Boston last year, will here be not out of order. "I have lately beard a correction of an old saying,'You can drive a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.' 'No,' it was added, 'but you can make him thirsty.' Just so you can't force boys into learning, but if your zeal be hot enough you can develop a thirst. To do that is to win." . . . The mysteries of librarianship — let the word "mysteries" be here understood in its Greek sense — are probably mysteries indeed to the great general public, no large fraction of whom ever gets bo far toward an initiation into them as to give them even a passing thought. Library administration, systems of cataloguing, shelf-listing, accessions-lists, charging systems, fixed location, decimal classifica- tion, all these and many other terms familiar to the initiated are vague or meaningless technicalities to those unversed in library science. Consequently a sentence or two from the current "Circular of Infor- mation " issued by the Library Training School of the Carnegie Library of Atlanta — one of our most ac- tive and enterprising institutions of the sort, despite its location in the sultry South — may have for the casual reader the charm at least of novelty. Under "Course of Study" it is announced that "especial attention is given to administrative work, including the study of plans for small buildings and the details of organization of new libraries continually springing up in this section." Also," In addition to the strictly technical subjects the course includes the study of the English novel, tracing its sources; the appraisal of fiction, English and foreign; the survey of the li- brary field, enabling the students to keep pace with the leading movements of the library world; field work, consisting of visits of observation to other libraries; and the history of printing." Almost a liberal education is here outlined, one would say, and not simply a narrow technical training out of touch with the warm and living interests of hu- manity at large. The cause of culture in the South has of late received much encouraging support, both moral and material. Conspicuous among recent gifts of money is the fund of a quarter-million dollars voted by the General Education Board to the George Peabody College for Teachers, at Nashville, in memory of the life and work of the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, the organizer of cooperative demonstra- tion work, the promoter of boys' corn clubs and girls' canning clubs, the successful fighter against the boll weevil, and the advocate of diversified farming, deeper ploughing, and increased stock- raising. This same Teachers' College, which is the successor to the Peabody Normal College, but planned on a larger scale, has lately received one million dollars from the Peabody Educational Fund, and other considerable gifts from the state, the county, and the city in which it is situated. Also, the trustees of the Peabody Fund, who have voted "to close the Trust and to distribute the moneys remaining in their hands," have offered to endow the College with an additional gift of half a million dollars, provided that before November 1,1913, the College raise the further sum of one million dollars. The graduates themselves, teachers earning salaries that average not over four hundred dollars a year, have pledged themselves to raise a fifth part of this required million, but for the remaining four-fifths the wealthier friends of Southern education are asked and expected to open their purses. A "State- ment and Appeal," signed by the Hon. Joseph H. Choate and the Hon. Samuel A. Green for the Trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund, invites subscriptions, and requests that all communications 1912.] 9 THE DIAL be addressed to James C. Bradford, Chairman Executive Committee, George Peabody School for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee. • * • The scholar's conscience ought to be pecul- iarly sensitive, inasmuch as he, far more than the un- thinking, uncritical, carelessly observing person, has abundant opportunity to learn from his studies how futile and foolish in the long run are all evasions of either intellectual or moral truth, all dishonorable sub- terfuges, all attempted short-cuts to the good things of life. And yet we who use public libraries know that we have among us not a few book-thieves who pass in the world as persons of liberal culture. Even the highly-educated and intellectually-accomplished biblioklept is not unknown. On the open shelves near the centre desk in Bates Hall, at the Boston Public Library, are temporarily displayed the more recent accessions in literature of a more serious and scholarly character than the average reader is inter- ested in; and to these shelves resort each day the serious and the bespectacled students whom such a display naturally attracts. But, as is regretfully recorded in the library's latest Report, "the loss of books by theft from these shelves, affecting as it does new books, just published and in active demand, has become so great that, in the public interest, a new arrangement with some limitation upon freedom of access is required. It is proposed to place such books upon guarded shelving in the delivery room, immediately under the control of an attendant, to permit anyone to examine them upon request, but to require the use of a call slip before they can be re- moved to the reading tables." Not even the soothing conjecture that these thefts have been mostly effected by the unscholarly for purposes of pecuniary gain is tenable, since the perforated stamp and other marks of ownership make the books difficult of sale. It must be sadly admitted that a love of good literature is not incompatible with schemes for its unlawful acquisition. . . . An educational institution launched with a warning to the public to think twice before pat- ronizing it would seem destined, according to the theories of our modern promoters, to a short and circumscribed career. Yet Mount Holyoke Col- lege, which plans to celebrate in October next the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding, was first advertised on a strictly look-before-you-leap basis. In a pink-covered pamphlet that bears the imprint of South Hadley, 1835, Mary Lyon wrote: ''It is very desirable that friends of this cause should carefully consider the real design of founding this institution before they use their influence to induce any of their friends and acquaintances to avail themselves of its privileges." "Harmless cumberers of the ground" were notified that they would be persona non grata in the new type of woman's school. It was "to meet public, not private, wants"; to send forth women "to exert power over society which cannot be exerted by mere goodness without intellectual strength." Such a type of school ap- pears to have required a good deal of explanation to make the idea of it intelligible to the public of 1837. So perhaps its hard-headed builder did well to fling out warning rather than inducement. Otherwise the young Mount Holyoke might have been swamped under a rush of utterly unfit students; and the edu- cational world, instead of gathering in October to honor this first small beginning of colleges for women, would pass heedlessly over the grave of another idea born too soon. The shy "Homer of the Insects," as the au- thor of "The Life of the Bee" and "The Blue Bird" has called the nonagenarian French naturalist, M. J. Henri Fabre, whom Mr. Frank Harris has styled "the wisest man and certainly the best read in the books of nature of whom the centuries have left us any record," is likely soon to become better known than at present to the English-reading world through the issue of a complete edition, in our language, of his fascinating "Entomological Memories." A nona- genarian he is not quite yet, to be accurate, for he was born in 1823, but the indications point encour- agingly to his attainment of that and even of a riper age. The story of his lowly birth, of his long strug- gle with poverty before he could devote himself to his beloved insects, of his shyness and his panic-fear of public recognition, and of his warm attachment to his native Provence, rivals in interest anything that his own gifted pen has produced. His life, like all great and noble lives, has had its keen dis- appointments, its crushing sorrows. In his struggle to win the independence that should leave him at liberty to pursue his chosen studies, he was once on the verge of an important invention that promised him a handsome fortune. He had perfected a process for extracting dye from the madder, a fac- tory was being built, and an assured income seemed all but within his grasp, when a heartless chemist discovered a cheap artificial substitute for the nat- ural dye, and all the high hopes of the entomologist fell to the ground—and thus was wrought, it may be, a fortunate deliverance from the clutch of com- merce. ... A Greek play in the open air, after the man- ner of the ancients, was one of the commencement events of the season. The young ladies of Rose- mary Hall, at Greenwich, Connecticut, presented the "Alcestis" of Euripides, in Mr. Arthur S. Way's excellent metrical version, under the trees of the school orchard, and, let us imagine, to the accom- paniment of the feathered musicians there having their abode. Not the least interesting feature of the entertainment was the devotion of the pecuniary proceeds to the newly-planned Connecticut College for Women. The recent exclusion of women from Wesleyan University (at Middletown) has made it necessary for Connecticut girls desiring a college edu- cation to seek it beyond the borders of the Nutmeg State. Agitation for a girls' college within these borders was started by certain Hartford women of light and leading, and ere long the movement spread 10 [July 1, THE DIAL over the commonwealth until New London felt prompted to offer a site for such a college, with a grant of fifty thousand dollars. Acceptance of this generosity was not slow to follow, and then Mr. Morton F. Plant contributed a handsome endowment fund of a million dollars. A commensurate building fund is now the crying need, and it was to help raise this that the Greek play was presented by the stu- dents of Rosemary Hall. • • ■ Well-earned academic honors to men of letters are to be noted as one glances over the sea- son's list of degrees conferred; and no one has more richly deserved the decorative letters indicating such honors than Mr. Howells, who is now entitled to write "L.H.D. (Princeton)" after his name. "The dean of the guild of belles-lettres in America" is Prince- ton's appropriate designation of the distinguished author. No less appropriately it characterizes Dr. James Ford Rhodes as "our first living American political historian," and emphasizes the characteri- zation by making him a doctor of laws. Of course in both these instances this is a betitling of the already much-betitled, and one is reminded of the witty re- joinder of another eminent man of letters (our fore- most Shakespeare scholar, to be more definite) who, on having his attention called to the fact that he was decorated with about all the coveted academic initials in vogue, but was not yet a D.D., instantly replied: "Oh, I am that too; I'm d d deaf"—a rejoinder to which the ear-trumpet, carried now for some weary decades by the speaker, gave manifest point. . . . A normal course in library training is announced as a new departure at the Pratt Institute School of Library Science. The purpose of the course, which will first be offered in 1912-13, is "to prepare students to teach in library schools, to take charge of training classes or school departs ments in public library systems, and for librarianship in normal schools or other educational institutions where courses in library science are given. The experience of those who have had to seek trained library workers who are also qualified to teach library science shows that the required combination of qualifications is extremely difficult to find among the members of the profession. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of positions to be filled due to the development of library schools and the grow- ing demand for trained service in all libraries." A descriptive outline of the course is issued by the school. ... One way to advertise a public library, a way that will not have occurred to all librarians, comes to our attention in turning the interesting pages of the " Minnesota Library Commission Library Notes and News." In the June number a news item from Owatonna reports that "the librarian has been doing some effective work in advertising the library throughout the county. One of the ministers at Deerfield devoted a Sunday sermon to the Library and its work, and distributed the leaflets ' Don't be a quitter.'" The library and the school are becoming every day more closely and usefully affiliated; why, then, may not the library and the church join forces, wherever practicable and as opportunity pre- sents itself, in the work of mental and moral uplift? COMMUNICA TION. SHAKESPEARE IN JAPANESE. (To the Editor of The Dial.) One evidence of the universality of the genius of Shakespeare is to be found in the fact that his dramas are translated into so many different languages all over the world. This is true not only of the Indo-European tongues that are so nearly related to the English, but also of Semitic and Turanian languages that are not thus closely related to our own. It seems to be an axiom that Shakespeare put into expression the common uni- versal human feelings, which can be translated from one language to another without great difficulty. This is not saying that literal translation is possible. It is, of course, necessary to adapt more or less, accord- ing to circumstances,— to cut out, to add, to explain. Absolutely literal word-for-word translations are much less in vogue than formerly; it is not the form, but the spirit, that is important. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." This is the sort of translation of Shakespeare that Dr. Tsubouchi is giving to the Japanese. He is himself a fine Shakespearean scholar, sensitive and appreciative; and he seems to know how to interest others, for his lectures on Shakespeare at Waseda University are so popular that students scarcely have standing room. Dr. Tsubouchi has recently published his fourth trans- lation of a Shakespearean drama. The first three were "Hamlet," " Othello," and "Romeo and Juliet"; and the fourth is " King Lear." He has also translated portions of other plays, such as "The Tempest," " The Merchant of Venice," etc. We have often thought that the Japa- nese would take naturally to " King Lear," because the motive of filial piety is so strong in Japan and other countries, of the Orient. We have doubted whether "Romeo and Juliet" would be successful here, unless the sentimental love-scenes were toned down and modi- fled considerably on the stage. It has been suggested, not without reason, that, "as Japan has so recently emerged from the feudal age," "the modern Japanese can understand the spirit of Elizabeth's time better even than the present-day peo- ple of England." The same writer also says: "That Shakespeare has taken deep root in the dramatic soil of Japan is evidenced by the remarkable interest that has recently been shown in the great English dramatist." The court scene in " The Merchant of Venice " is one in which Japanese actors feel not a little at home, partly on account of the formalities demanded by the occasion. And a man in Portia's part as a lawyer is not out of place 1 It is pleasant to be able to add, in conclusion, that the work of Dr. Tsubouchi meets with suitable recogni- tion. The newly organized Institute of Literature and Arts made its very first award, in the forms of a diploma, a bronze medal, and the sum of 2,200 yen (81,100), to this great Shakespearean scholar. Ernest W. Clement. Tokyo, Japan, June 4,1912. 1912.] 11 THE DIAL Uj Btfo ioohs. "The People's Attorney."* But for the fact that Henry Demarest Lloyd was not yet born when the words were uttered, Emerson might have had him in mind when he said: "The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. I revere the person who has riches; so that I cannot think of bim as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor, and beatified man." In her life of her brother, now, nearly nine years after his too-early death, issued in two handsome volumes, a beautifully appreciative and in every way worthy tribute to his memory, his sister draws with the band of sympathy and affection the noble outlines and the lovable traits of a character such as might well prompt one to exclaim, paraphrasing the old poet, "He had his faults, perhaps; I wish I had them too!" In his biographer's words," his personality was happily so proper an expression of his spirit that men and women loved him at first sight. Some who saw him only once spoke of him ever after with a kind of exaltation. Many loved him who never saw him, as one who said, 'I never had the un- speakable joy of looking upon his face.'" Mr. Lloyd was born May 1, 1847, the first child of Aaron Lloyd, minister of the Dutch Re- formed Church, and Maria Christie Demarest. It was at the home of his mother's father, David Demarest, in Sixth Avenue, New York, that he achieved his entrance into the world, and in that city most of his early life was passed. There he went to school and college, and there he prepared himself for the practice of the law. His father, having no pulpit at the time, had tried to make a living as a bookseller, starting an "Olde Booke Store" in Nassau Street, and afterward remov- ing to busier Broadway. But it was a hard fight, and the boys of the family had to work their own way in large part. The Mercantile Library gave them employment out of school-hours, and at the same time ministered to their love of read- ing. A scholarship at Columbia, with the earn- ings of his hours snatched from study, enabled Henry to finish his academic and his legal edu- cation, after which journalism, book-writing, re- form movements, and other interests of a nature to appeal to one so generously devoted to the * Henry Demakest Lloyd, 1847-1903. A Biography. By Caro Lloyd. With an Introduction by Charles Edward Russell. In two volumes. Illustrated. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. good of humanity, engrossed his attention and left him little time or inclination for the narrower field of the law. In fact, his "first case," as he called it, did not come to him until 1902, when the anthracite coal miners' strike enlisted his sympathies and he took part in the proceedings of the arbitration court at Scran ton. His work as a journalist, largely as a writer of editorials on questions of the day, began in New York, but was continued in Chicago from the autumn of 1872, when he formed a connection with the "Tribune" of thatcity, beginning as a paragraph- writer, then being placed in charge of the liter- ary department, and before many years rising to the dignity of leader-writer. But the things for which he will long be remembered are the unpaid and at the time too little appreciated services rendered to his fellow- men wherever they were seen to be in need of an eloquent and fearless advocate and champion. The Pullman strikers, the Spring Valley miners, the so-called anarchists of the Haymarket trag- edy of 1886, the struggling People's Party of a few years later, the workers for municipal own- ership of public utilities, these and other fighters found in him a valiant leader whose utter disre- gard of his own personal interests is illustrated by his cheerfully risking the loss of fortune and the estrangement of friends which did not fail to follow upon his defense of the unfortunate men who suffered capital punishment because of the explosion of a bomb thrown by an un- known hand. It was impossible for him not to take sides with the under dog; and Mrs. Lloyd was always with him, heart and soul. When the probability of her father's extreme displeas- ure at her husband's course was pointed out to her, she replied: "Do you suppose that any such consideration will stop Henry Lloyd from doing what he believes is right?" The warn- ing, as appeared later, was no idle one. "In conseqence of their course, the Lloyds suffered the loss of fortune. Between Henry Lloyd and his father-in-law there had always existed sincere respect and affection which made this honest difference all the more painful. Mr. Bross declared that Mr. Lloyd had disgraced the family. The ample fortune was entailed to the grandchildren, and Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd were not entrusted with the guardianship nor the care of the property of their children, a sting even more keen than the financial loss." In connection with Mr. Lloyd's early and ardent espousal of the cause of labor, of the right of laborers to organize for mutual defense, it is worth while to quote here a few words defining his position as a peaceful but uncom- promising trades-unionist, or labor-unionist. To 12 [July 1, THE DIAL him, says his biographer, " the labor movement was not a movement of bate, but of love." In his own words: "It pities the man who can stand at the helm of any of the great concerns of modern industrial life, made possible only by the countless efforts, loyalty, and genius of thousands of his fellow men living and dead, and say, 'This is my business.' It says to him,'This is not your business, not my business. It is our business.' ... It pities him as robbing himself of the greatest joys and triumphs of leadership. It seeks to lift him from the low level of selfish and cruel millionairism to that of a gen- eral of great cooperative hosts of industrial brothers." Probably there are many among Mr. Lloyd's warmest admirers who would hesitate to go all the way with him in his enthusiastic champion- ship of the cause of labor. In defending the sympathetic strike he draws illustrations, or analogies, from history, and puts the case thus: "Americans cannot forget that America is free from Great Britain because France ordered a sympathetic strike. The negro is free because of the sympathetic strike of the North. What greater love hath any man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend? The sympathetic strike in a good cause is orthodox Christian- ity in action." Following the successive events in Mr. Lloyd's strenuous advocacy of the people's rights, an advocacy that earned him his self- bestowed title of "the people's attorney," one is likely to receive the impression that he lived in an unusually troubled time. The financial panic of 1873 was followed by distress and unrest among the laboring classes. The year 1877 was so marked by the occurrence of strikes that at one time no fewer than ten governors were calling for national troops to suppress disorder. We are inclined to regard the present period as one of unprecedented dis- content and turmoil, and unquestionably there is reason for grave apprehension unless the growing antagonism between capital and labor can be softened and the selfish greed of million- airedom be made to listen to reason; but even in the "good old days" there were problems of this sort in plenty, as the book under review makes abundantly evident. From a chapter devoted to the late Governor Altgeld, a cordial friend and admirer of Mr. Lloyd, a short passage of the latter's writing calls for insertion here. "I was an eye-witness of Governor Altgeld's conduct during the great Pullman strike of 1894. ... I spent a number of hours with him at the most critical point of those eventful July days. Almost universally the American desires to treat even a political opponent with fairness and trust, however sharply he may criticise his opinions and actions. Not one of those who are so volu- bly joining in the fashionable denunciation of Governor Altgeld on account of what they believe, upon informa- tion at second hand, to have been his attitude and be- havior at that time would indulge in this hue and cry if they knew the facts." The facts which the writer of the foregoing is able to cite in refutation of the familiar charges against Altgeld are nothing short of convincing, and they cannot but leave the reader with a deep sense of the injustice suffered by one placed in a difficult public position, and with a feeling of admiration for the staunch friend who hastened to his defense. Concerning Mr. Lloyd's best-known piece of writing, the fraud-exposing, greed-condemning "Wealth against Commonwealth," there is here but little space to write. The sensation its appearance made is partly described in the fol- lowing: "From all parts of the land there now came to him the warm response from an unknown host whose eyes had never looked into his. Into the study where he had wrestled with his task, there came words of blessing, gratitude, courage from men whose ideals rose to meet his own. He began to feel the beat of the people's hearts. He woke to find his self-controlled method of recital producing the most startling effects. Men read the book with the same absorbing interest which as boys they gave to pirate stories. So exciting was it that they could read only a little at a time. . . . On all sides was echoed Edward Everett Hale's verdict, that it was an epoch-making book, an ' Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the labor movement. ... It startled many Americans out of that comfortable assurance that, having the franchise, their liberties were secure. To lawyers it was partic- ularly convincing. Ministers and writers preached and wrote upon it, thrilled with a sense of the peril before the Republic. Robert Louis Stevenson decided to found a novel upon its disclosures. John Burroughs said that after an hour's reading he was so angry that he «had to go out and kick stumps.' Those indeed were days when good men swore and even a minister confessed that he threw down the book and cried,' Damn those rascals.'" In illustration of the personal charm of this noble champion of the right who wore himself out at the age of fifty-six, and whose full tale of good works cannot here be even epitomized, many passages might be quoted from the biog- raphy; but one must suffice. "He himself, free from the restraint of the public ear, lavishly gave his thought however radical and his hopes however lofty or shy. His talk was brilliant and fasci- nating, full of startling prophecy, firm in its convictions; it was now hard as steel, and now tender. It seethed with indignation. It touched earth, firm-footed, and again it soared, in a creative flight, far off into theory. It was interesting to see him throw out the line of a theory tentatively, so that he might watch its impression on various minds, testing its value, even prankishly see- ing how near he could come to the quick of his hearer's prejudices, tickling the talk,as it were. All was moreover touched with wit and suffused with grace and courtesy. Like Emerson's wise man he went to this game of conver- sation 'to play upon others and to be played upon.'" 1912.] 18 THE DIAL The vehemence and ardor of the man are re- flected, in a curiously interesting way, in certain verbal short-cuts that arrest the attention in reading such passages from his writings as the book contains. The verb "revolute" is expedi- tiously formed by him from the noun "revolu- tion," and he uses the very convenient and self-explanatory "ambiguify." The biographer has done her work well, draw- ing upon many and sometimes not easily acces- sible sources for her rich store of information concerning the varied activities of her gifted brother. The illustrations are numerous and always closely related to the reading matter. Mr. Charles Edward Russell's introductory words help to illuminate the character portrayed in the chapters that follow. Appended matter, includ- ing a chronological list, necessarily incomplete but of surprising length, of Mr. Lloyd's writ- ings, fills nearly forty pages, and is followed by a full index. Percy f Bicknell. Oscar Wilde Ckitically Studied.* Modern literary criticism loves the exception. It delights in types like Wilde and Verlaine; it is fond of flaunting its romantic individualism in a large contempt of prejudice. And being individualistic, it devotes itself all the more willingly to subjects in which a truly impartial attitude is to-day quite beyond our grasp. Thus Mr. Arthur Kansome follows up his work on Poe with "a critical study" of Oscar Wilde. The book is really an essay in biograph- ical interpretation. No man's work, as Mr. Ransome reminds us in his introductory chapter, can be treated as a mere disembodied result; and, in the case of Wilde, "whose books are the by- products of a life more impoitant than they in his own eyes," a biographical criticism is "not only legitimate but necessary." The method is none the less most discreetly employed: a spirit of moderation characterizes, in the main, this study of one who, in spite of his life, has a cer- tain importance in the history of contemporary literature. For the present influence of Wilde is beyond question. "He has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Yiddish, Polish, and Russian." (The statement prob- ably refers to separate works, possibly only to "SalomeV') In his own country, says Mr. Ransome, "he left no form of literature exactly •Oscar Wilde. A Critical Study. By Arthur Kansome. With portrait. New York: Mitchell Kennerley. as he found it. He brought back to the English stage a spirit of comedy that had been for many years in mourning. He showed both in practice and in theory the possibilities of creation open to the critic. He found a new use for dialogue, and brought to England a new variety of the novel." And so the volume takes up, one after the other, Wilde's various phases of literary activity, interpreting them by such reference to his life as the subject demands. The Poems receive a rather extended treat- ment. To be sure they constitute a literary debut, and every critic must take account of origins. Wilde's origins were numerous: his verses echo nearly every poet whose note impressed his ear. Mere lyric exercises these, according to Mr. Ransome,—a parodic imitation which is in itself a form of criticism. But he overlooks the deeper significance of all this open plagiary, which makes Wilde's poetry a summary of the poetic tendencies of his age. Beneath all this epiphytic verse we see no mere literary disci- pline, but a real inability to derive poetic impulse or inspiration from life untouched by art. An unemotional temperament, I believe, we must surely call Wilde, in spite of his sensuous- ness and his sensuality. Possibly the latter was the direct result of his frenzied search for emo- tion, which we may note, even in these early poems, turning him from the delights of the pagan world to the no less sensuous mysticism of his Catholic verses. However that may be, we shall all agree with Mr. Ransome that this "youthful" volume of poems is "too immediate an attempt to turn life into literature." It has suggested to others, as to him, that its author has now and again "tried to make life simply for the purpose of transcribing it." But did he ever quite outlive this characteristic? Those who doubt it may point to his "{es- thetic" period. Shades of John Ruskin! It appears that Wilde was sent to America, not primarily to lecture, but to ensure the success of "Patience" by giving the Americans a speci- men of the genus aesthete to illustrate the satire of the opera. Like Gautier in the thirties, Wilde at this time was already famous for his eccen- tricities of dress — his velveteen knee-breeches and his lace-trimmed shirts. So he came to America, and filled thereby his ever-gaping pockets. That accomplished," tired of prophecy and ready to take a part in a new play," he went to Paris, where he imitated Balzac down to his dressing-gown and jewel-set cane. The result of this visit was that Elizabethan pastiche," The Duchess of Padua," and "The Sphinx," a "rare 14 [July 1, THE DIAL incantation," perhaps, but one which certainly contains a deal of Romantic rigmarole. Was it Flaubert, Here'dia, or Huysmans who inspired this curious production, wherein one can scarcely see the poem for the words? Mr. Ran- some does not tell us. So we must leave "The Sphinx" and follow Wilde back to London — an unintentional expatriate to whom Provi- dence had denied the boon of a Gallic nativity. Brought home by an empty purse, he resumes his lecturing, marries, becomes a book-reviewer, and edits " The Woman's World," gaining from all this journalistic work a lighter touch and a number of good paragraphs for which he will find a further use in his later books. He writes a few rather mediocre stories, imitates Hans Chris- tian Andersen in "The Happy Prince" and "A House of Pomegranates," but imitates him with pen tempered in the far richer diction of Gautier and Flaubert. Decorative prose — that is his new experiment, just as in "The Sphinx" he had anglicized decorative verse. And when, several years later, Wilde wrote "The Picture of Dorian Gray," he calls it frankly "an essay on decorative art," a book which " reacts against the brutality of plain realism." Certainly "Dorian Gray" is not realistic. Yet it is modelled upon a Gallic type, probably "A liebours," and constitutes " the first French novel to be written in the English language." We can allow this, if the phrase be limited to a certain kind of modern novel. Not all of our contemporary French fiction, however, is of the type of " Dorian Gray." But we have outstripped our chronology. We must turn from this curious book, disre- garding, as our critic does, its pathological sig- nificance, and take up Wilde's work in literary criticism, which also derived much from his journalistic period. Half story, half essay, "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." may serve as a transition. And, like " Dorian Gray," the story has its biographical value; in none of his work can Wilde keep from self-portrayal. In another essay he defends Wainewright the murderer, perhaps with a prophetic intuition of his own destiny; and then, in "The Decay of Lying" and "The Critic as Artist," he brings together his decadent Socrates and Alcibiades, the bril- liant sophist and the languid disciple of these essays in dialogue. Here, says Mr. Ransome, we find "the domi- nant mood of his life"; herein best of all may we taste "that elixir of intellectual vitality that he royally spilled over his conversation." This is probably true; at any rate these essays give us his whole aesthetic and literary theory. Criti- cism, for Wilde,, means "the delicate adven- tures of the intellect," precisely the attitude of Monsieur Anatole France, whose charming essays in dilettanteism had already begun to appear in "Le Temps" two years before. The fact might well be added to Mr. Ransome's enumeration of Wilde's French models. Furthermore, not only did Anatole France provide Wilde the critic with a theory, but his "Thai's" gave Wilde the dramatist the plot of "La Sainte Courtisane." For in the drama, as elsewhere, this genius was not " unready to work with bouts-inmes." He knew the favorite characters of the French stage as well as the British, and he used them. Wilde was no respecter of dramatis personce. Of these characters he made mouth-pieces for his epigrams; once more he finds a use for the puns that rose so readily to his Irish lips. Into these stage dialogues go all the paradoxes of his other works; and when one notes the frequency of these repetitions, one is tempted to doubt the vitality of that conversational "elixir." Cer- tainly " The Importance of Being Earnest" has little of the intellectual element in its laughter. Best of the comedies, because of its consistent triviality, across the footlights it produces the aching cheeks of farce. All this makes it hard to place "SalomeV' Mr. Ransome connects the play with the two early tragedies; and reminds us that if Wilde was a jester for love of money and popularity, he always preferred to think of himself as "a person with magnificent dreams." Maeterlinck, too, was dreaming in drama just then, and many of the qualities of that expression passed by some mysterious influence into Wilde's production. That fact may even account for its being written in French, as the most immediate vehicle of its morbid symbolism. In any case, "Salome" was not written in that language for Bernhardt, but only offered to the divine Sarah when she asked Wilde for a play. Three French authors, it appears, had a hand in the revision of the text, the final touches being given by Pierre Louys. But before " Salome " wa3 presented, Wilde's own life-drama had reached its climax, and he was serving a two-year sentence in Reading Gaol. Here he came into contact with physical pain, rebelled, and then yielded to its teaching, casting up accounts with himself in the introspective pages of " De Profundis." Not that the book had any continuous practical relation to his life afterwards. No, it is a pure piece of artistic feeling, vivified by the emotional unity that pain 1912.] 15 THE DIAL alone can give a nature such as Wilde's. "Re- pentance like that in 1 De Profundus,'" observes Mr. Ransome, "is a guarantee of a moment of humility, but not of a life of reform." And once out of prison, he soon became a mere straw in the current of events, having lost once and for- ever "his power of turning life into tapestry." It is a different Wilde that we have now, not a reformed one. The difference appears in the "Ballad of Reading Gaol." Within the prison walls he could still dream, as he did in "De Profundis," of what his life to come might be; now at last he knew what it was. It was a rude awakening, and the violence of the ballad does but reflect it. This delicate artist, this dilettante of emotion, has come into contact with pain, with a reality so harsh as to tear from him the cry of Marsyas. And so the decorative mood gives way to realism, a realism which is only partially obscured by the completion of the ballad in a more " artistic " mood. The result is interesting, because it shows Wilde's art for once deficient in unity. Thoroughly artificial in his conception of literature, a real emotion has almost shattered his lyre. Mr. Ransome, it must be said, does not go so far as this. He is quite impressed with the "Ballad of Reading Gaol," and pursues a long digression on what he calls "kinetic" and "po- tential" literature, which those interested in aes- thetic theory may best peruse in his own words. They may also read his "After Thought," with its discussion of Wilde's prose, of his love of admiration, and his virtuosity. "He leaves three things behind him," says Mr. Ransome, "his legend, his conversation, and his works. . . . Much of his work fails; much of it has already faded, but 'Intentions,' 'The Sphinx,' 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' 'SalomeV 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' one or two of the fairy tales, and ' De Profundis,' are surely enough with which to challenge the attention of posterity." The attention of posterity! Perhaps, if we take the word in its most immediate connotation. But for all but the greatest art there is no pos- terity, unless we consider the handful of scholars and writers of doctors' theses who alone concern themselves with the secondary works of a bygone age. Wilde has his part in literary history as a precursor, but to believe that another century will occupy itself with him requires strong faith. He has no message for which he will be remem- bered, unless it be the one essay which is so ex- ploited by advancing socialism. He has artistic qualities, indeed; he has beauties of style, but no style fades more quickly than one which is inspired by a pure love of decoration. The man, of course, will continue to have his interest for the pathologist, for the student of literary types, for the morbidly romantic person. "Some day it will be possible to write of him," asserts Mr. Ransome,"with the ecstatic acquies- cence that Nietzsche calls Amor Fati, as we write of Caesar Borgia sinning in purple, Cleopatra sinning in gold, and Roberto Greene hastening his end by drab iniquity and gray repentance." The gods preserve us from all such ecstasy, no matter what the color-scheme! Various and changeable as moral codes have been and may be, the virtue of self-control must always remain at least a distinction. Possibly this is a narrow attitude. I have said that it is altogether too soon to claim impar- tiality; one can only state one's personal view. But as a critic of life and an exponent of a new "philosophy " of conduct, we have the right to adopt a personal standpoint toward Wilde. As a representative of the last phase of a decadent Romanticism, its cult of sentiment transformed to a mere worship of sense and sense-impressions in themselves, we have the right to confront his theories with his life. As a socialist, an individualist, an intellectual dilettante without a concept of the social function of art, we have every right to judge him. And however a sen- timental or " aesthetic " liberal may bring him- self to disregard the life of this gifted degener- ate, he cannot obscure the fact that Oscar Wilde, with his poses and his follies, has done more than any other writer to degrade the adjective "artis- tic," and to further the growing contempt of the workaday world for art. Lewis Piaget Shanks. Womax and Economics.* If, by some miracle, we were suddenly to become alive to the fact that ours is an organic society, pervaded by organic needs and common purposes,—if our phrases, " the public interest" and "the social welfare," were suddenly to be- come imbued with real meaning,—an extraordi- •Fatioue and Efficiency. By Josephine Goldmark. Russell Sage Foundation Publications. New York: Char- ities Publication Committee. Making Both Ends Meet. By Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt. Illustrated. New York: The Macmillan Co. Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores. By Elizabeth Beardsley Butler. Russell Sage Foundation Publications. New York: Charities Publication Committee. ■ The Women of To-morrow. By William Hard. Illus- trated. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 16 [July 1, THE DIAL nary shifting would no doubt take place among the objects at the focus of our attention. It is needless to specify the public issues that would be crowded toward the extreme margin of our field of vision; among those that would continue to force themselves upon us insistently and pain- fully is that of the conservation of our human resources. Are we certain that our human re- sources are not going the way of our forests, the native fertility of our soils, our mineral wealth,— exploited in haste and waste? It is obvious enough that our industrial system draws largely upon human energy stored up under different conditions of life. Our own farms and villages, the rural districts of European countries, have provided us with an indispensable part of our industrial labor supply. How are we using this source of our power? We know that among the waste products of our industry — along with tailings, slag, and culm heaps—are great numbers of men, women, and children with warped bodies and shattered nerves, with dulled intelligence and blunted morals, victims of the racking strain of the machine process. We know that great numbers are chronically underfed, wretchedly housed and clad. We know that the overstrain and the un- derpayment rest especially heavily upon women, to whom, we are wont gallantly to assert, is entrusted the destiny of the next generation. These things we all know, but our knowledge is of a vague and abstract character, ill calculated to arouse us to action. Fortunately there is now a group of valiant men and women who have undertaken the gigantic task of making concrete our knowledge of the human aspect of industrialism. Of this group the writers whose books are here under review deserve to rank as honored members. The point upon which Miss Goldmark lays chief emphasis in her work on "Fatigue and Efficiency" is the fatigue from which industrial workers suffer. Everyone who has lived in a factory town has observed that large classes of workers, especially women and girls, appear excessively weary, not merely at the end of the day, but often at its beginning. Observers of optimistic temperament usually assume that this is merely an incident to adjustment to the work, or a result of the strain of seasonal labor, soon to be relaxed by the approach of dull seasons. Miss Goldmark places the facts of overwork and overstrain in a new light through an analysis of laboratory studies in the problem of fatigue. The phenomena of fatigue, the physiologists tell us, are phenomena of poisoning. Long continued exertion produces various toxins that must be re- moved by complete rest, on pain of serious dis- turbance of all organic functions. A working population whose periods of rest are insufficient to remove the toxins of fatigue generated in its working periods is a population suffering under chronic poisoning. The resistance of such a population to general infections is lowered in a marked degree. Such evidence as we have, though fragmentary, indicates pretty clearly that the morbidity rate is higher among indus- trial workers than among other classes of the same age-groups. It also indicates that the morbidity rate is especially high among women engaged in industry. It is no doubt the deterior- ation of the general health of women industrial workers that is largely responsible for the fright- ful infant mortality of some of our textile towns. In Lowell, for example, out of 1000 children born, 231 die under one year of age. New York City, not over-merciful to its children, destroys only 125. We cannot return to the simpler and more . wholesome conditions of an earlier age. Our machines will continue to increase their speed; labor will be further subdivided, and grow still more monotonous. We cannot expel women from industry: our society needs the services of the millions of women and girls in its stores and factories and workshops, and these millions of women and girls need their opportunities for employment. We can, however, reduce the working day to a reasonable length; we can pro- hibit night work and restrict overtime to narrow limits. To judge from past experience in the reduction of working hours, these reforms would not involve even an immediate loss in productive power. They would force a readjustment of work, and more careful planning on the part of employers. They would eliminate a few em- ployers too incompetent to adapt themselves to a new situation. In the long run, without doubt, their influence would be wholly salutary. Miss Goldmark recognizes that fatigue is not the only evil afflicting the working class. But the evil of fatigue is, in her view, fundamental. As long as the worker remains, in effect, a vic- tim of chronic poisoning, better wages, greater security of employment, and improved housing can avail him little. As the purpose of the writer is purely prac- tical, she does not confine herself narrowly to her main theme, but introduces whatever mate- rial she conceives may prove useful to the re- former. Much of the space of the book is given to an analysis of existing labor laws and a criti- 1912.] 17 THE DIAL cism of the methods employed in their enforce- ment. The book contains, in addition to its three hundred pages of text, the substance of the briefs submitted to the courts by Mr. Louis D. Brandeis and Miss Gold mark in defense of the ten-hour laws of Oregon and Illinois and the fifty-four-hour law of Ohio. This material is excellent; it gives ready access to the best expert opinion, both American and foreign, on the physical effects of industrial labor. Miss Goldmark's book may justly be appraised as the most important recent contribution to the litera- ture of the labor problem. "Making Both Ends Meet" also deals with the strain and weariness of women's labor, the waste of women's strength and life in the fac- tories and workshops of the modern city. Chief emphasis, however, is laid upon the question of wages. The method employed by Mrs. Clark and Miss Wyatt differs radically from that of Miss Goldmark. The latter works, by pref- erence, with statistics, laboratory tests, expert opinion; the authors of "Making Both Ends Meet" describe the life of the workers as it has fallen under their direct observation, and narrate the histories, more or less typical, of workers whose confidence they have gained. The au- thors enable us to see exactly what these workers earn and how they spend their earnings; what is their home life,— if we may thus distort the meaning of that phrase; what opportunities they have for recreation and enjoyment; what chances offer of substantial improvement in their lot. At best the story is one of barely making both ends meet; at worst, it is a story no one will read with pleasure. The book gives evi- dence of much patient and courageous work on the part of the authors and their collaborators. Its intensely personal note makes it an excellent complement of the work of Miss Goldmark. Miss Butler's "Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores" is a detailed study of the conditions of work and pay in the mercantile establishments in Baltimore. The author's work is thorough and systematic; and it is to be hoped that similar investigations will be made in other cities. The saleswomen of Baltimore work 56.9 hours a week (70.7 hours the week before Christmas). Half of them earn five dollars a week or less; not one-fifth of them earn above six dollars a week. Overwork and underpay,—these form the com- mon lot of women in "gainful occupations." In " The Women of To-morrow," Mr. William Hard addresses himself to another aspect of the modern industrial situation: the assumption by industry of manifold functions formerly exercised by the household, and the consequent acquisition of leisure by women of the middle class. That this problem is a serious one, Mrs. Schreiner and Mrs. Gilman have already convinced us. Half the women of the middle class do not marry; those who do marry have few children, as a rule, and consequently find difficulties in occupying themselves fully—difficulties possibly somewhat exaggerated by our sociological writers. Mr. Hard sees in present-day educational tendencies the promise of a solution of the problem. The women of to-morrow will be trained for an inde- pendent part in economic life; they will be trained in the art of spending; they will be trained for the assumption of civic duties Mr. Hard is, however, no dealer in solutions; he is an enthusiastic inquirer with an optimistic trend, and his book is so attractively written that the reader himself is almost constrained to assume an attitude of enthusiastic optimism. Who knows? Possibly the well-trained women of to-morrow will solve the problems of industrial labor now so hopelessly bungled by the men of *°-day. Alvin S. Johnson. Cartwrigiit of Labrador.* Toward the close of the eighteenth century there appeared a formidable narrative, in three volumes, bearing in the manner of the period this comprehensive title: "Journal of Transac- tions and Events during a Residence of nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador; con- taining Many Interesting Particulars both of the Country and its Inhabitants not hitherto Known; Illustrated with Proper Charts." The Journal of Captain George Cartwright now ranks among the rare Americana, and is seldom found even in the larger libraries. It has always seemed matter for regret that someone had not under- taken a reprint of this valuable narrative; for it is such from several points of view. Cartwright was a man of untiring energy and wide observa- tion. During his long residence on the Labrador coast he was almost constantly on the move, hunting, trapping, fishing, visiting Indian and Eskimo encampments, exploring the country; wherever he went he found something new to interest him, and whatever he saw he made a note of, for his own sake in the first instance, and ultimately for ours. What he tells us is well worth the telling, and it gains double value •Captain Cabtwkiqht and His Labrador Journal. Edited by Charles Wendell Townsend, M.l). With an Intro- duction by Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell. Boston: Dana Kstes & Co. 18 [July 1, THE DIAL, from the simple and graphic frankness of the author's style. The Journal in its original form is a delightfully entertaining narrative, with only two faults—its inaccessibility and its inordinate length. Thanks to Dr. Townsend, to whom we were already indebted for several books on Lab- rador, both these faults have now been elimi- nated. He has not only given us a reprint of Cartwright's Journal, but he has succeeded in reducing it to the compass of a single volume without destroying any of the charm of the ori- ginal. In his own Preface and Introduction, Dr. Townsend presents an interesting account of Cartwright as he appeared to his contemporaries, and of his life before and after he engaged in the Labrador fur-trade. Southey's picture of this Robinson Crusoe of the north, as he ap- peared in 1791, is too good to pass by. "I was visiting with the Lambs, at Hampstead, in Kent, at the house of Hodges, his brother-in-law; we had nearly finished dinner when he came in. He de- sired the servant to cut him a plate of beef from the sideboard. I thought the footman meant to insult him: the plate was piled to a height which no ploughboy after a hard day's fasting could have levelled; but the moment he took up his knife and fork and arranged the plate, I saw this was no common man. A second and third sup- ply soon vanished. Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, who had never before seen him, glanced at each other; but Tom and I, with schoolboys' privilege, kept our eyes riveted upon him with what Doctor Butt would have called the gaze of admiration. 'I see you have been looking at me,' (said he, when he had done). 'I have a very great appetite. I once fell in with a stranger in the shooting season, and we dined together at an inn. There was a leg of mutton, which he did not touch. I never make more than two cuts off a leg of mutton; the first takes all one side, the second all the other; and when I had done this, I laid the bone across my knife for the mar- row. The stranger could refrain no longer. 'By God, sir,' said he, 'I never saw a man eat like you!'" It is difficult to give an adequate idea of the range of subjects that engaged Cartwright's rest- less curiosity and found a place in his Journal. Nothing was too trivial to escape his notice. He gives many pages to a minute and remarkably accurate account of the beaver; and elsewhere he gravely describes the adventure of the ship's goat with a bucket of rum. She got through nearly a gallon of that insidious beverage, it ap- pears, "and has continued ever since in so com- plete a state of intoxication as to be unable to get upon her legs." His description of a mid- winter camp will appeal to some of us who have tried that sort of thing. "At midnight the frost increased; the wind blew the Are about, and made it smoke most intolerably. The fuel was not of a good kind for burning, and the trees in the wood being small and rather thinly scattered, those parts of us which were not immediately next to the fire were ready to freeze; we were therefore obliged to turn ourselves continually; during which time 1 often wished to be lashed to a spit, and turned like a roasting goose, without the trouble of doing it myself." One gets some idea of the profits of the fur-trade in its palmy days from Cartwright's narrative. "Shuglawina (an Eskimo) made me a present of a very fine silver fox skin; but he insisted on having the same price for the brush of it as I had just paid for an entire skin. However, as he only demanded a small ivory comb, which cost me no more than twopence half- penny, and the skin was worth four guineas, I made no scruple in completing the purchase." After what Southey tells us, it is not sur- prising to find frequent mention of meals in the Journal, and some of them were odd enough. Traders wintering on the Labrador could not afford to be squeamish. "I had a loin of white bear roasted for dinner," he says in one place, "which proved very good ; although, to say the truth, it was much like beef basted with seal oil; however, for want of the beef without the oil, I ate near two pounds of it." On another occasion he and his men were reduced to a fore-quarter of wolf, which proved so hard, dry, tough, and rank, that at first he could not swallow it. A day or two later, he mentions that he had finished the wolf, and adds, with an air of sly triumph, that he has at last got the better of his squeamish stomach. But as a trencherman he has to admit that he is not in the same class with the average Eskimo. He entertained a party of them at his camp. "Nine salmon were boiled for them, and, although the fish were fifteen pounds weight each, on an average, they ate the whole at a meal. I can eat pretty well myself; but my performances in that way are not worth recording in the history of men of such superior talents." In addition to a very complete account of the Eskimo, and the Indians of Labrador, Cart- wright gives from personal knowledge a de- scription of the since extinct Beothuk tribe of Newfoundland. So little is known of this unfor- tunate race that this record, based on personal observation, is exceedingly valuable. He de- scribes them as "the most forlorn of any of the human species which have yet come to my knowl- edge, the Indians of Terra del Fuego excepted." Of his many adventures by land and sea, none is perhaps more exciting than a raid which he suffered in August, 1778, at the hands of a Boston privateer, commanded by one John Grimes. Grimes swooped down on the Labra- dor settlement, took possession of Cartwright's vessels, loaded them with his furs and stores, and sailed away to the south. "May the devil 1912.] 19 THE DIAL go with them!" feelingly exclaims poor Cart- wright. On his last voyage home, Cartwright had as cabin-mate no less a personage than Benedict Arnold, of whom he gives no very flattering ac- count. The voyage was a long one, and before they reached England passengers and crew were on short allowance. Water was particularly scarce, and the passengers were only allowed a pint a day. When the ship came into port, Cartwright examined the lockers in his cabin and found a number of bottles of wine missing. "I was informed by the mate," he says, "that at such times as I was upon deck, General Arnold, through the medium of his servant, had stolen most of the wine, which belonged to us both, and had sold it to the sailors for water, which he kept for his own use." Lawrence J. Burpee. The New History.* Every now and then the omniscient reviewer pronounces some historical work to be "definitive." I confess to an entire lack of interest in all such works, — if they really are definitive. Why study a subject about which nothing more can be learned? It is a desolating thought that a period once impor- tant, such as the Reformation, or a great movement as fascinating as it is elusive, like the French Revo- lution, has been put on the shelf finally: quite fin- ished and done with, and done for; nothing more to be said about it,—henceforth useless except to be conned by rote. Who cares to open a book that is without defect or amiable weakness? The impec- cable thing paralyzes the will and makes pedants of us all. Fortunately, the definitive book in history is never definitive for more than a short while. The appearance of many definitive works, the flourishing of "standard" histories, is most usually an indica- tion, not that history is exhausted, but that a certain method of treating it is about played out. Sooner or later some disturbing genius takes a new point of view, some heretic comes along with a novel method of treatment, and everything has to be done over again. The "new history " is announced before the old has become fairly complacent. "The present," says Professor Robinson in his volume entitled "The New History," "has hitherto been the willing victim of the past; the time has now come when it should turn on the past and exploit it in the interest of advance." In one sense it might be maintained that the present has never been the victim of the past, but that its instinct has always •The New History. Essays Illustrating the Modern Historical Outlook. By James Harvey Robinson, Professor of History in Columbia University. New York: The Mac- millan Co. been to exploit the past for its own purposes. In some periods the interest of the present has seemed to lie in sustaining existing social arrangements, in justifying certain prevailing theories of life; and in such periods history has been a conservative force. At other times the interest of the present has seemed to lie in transforming existing institutions, in de- stroying certain prevailing conceptions; and then men have turned to the past and have found in it arguments suited to revolution. History, when it has not been merely edifying, has usually served primarily either as a justification or as a criticism of the existing rigime. Thus Saint Augustine exploited the past to dis- credit Paganism and to propagate Christian doctrine; and his conception of history, after Christianity almost destroyed Paganism, was for many centuries a powerful conservative force, an instrument for maintaining the supremacy of the Church. But the Protestants appealed to history to justify their revolt from that same Church,—quite definitely and con- sciously they "exploited the past in the interest of advance." Quite as definitely, though perhaps less consciously, the erudite scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contributed an intellectual prop for the absolutist system of that age. But when the main currents of social life in France set in the direction of reform the patient Benedictine engaged in collecting documents for the history of his order, or the learned layman, a FreVet for example, with his twenty volumes of impartial and disinter- ested scholarship, suffered eclipse. It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that the "Phi- losophers" announced a "new history," a history which was to tell the average man, not what actually happened, but what he ought to think about what had happened, and especially about what might happen; and this new history did indeed exploit the past most effectively in the interest of advance, or what was supposed to be advance. But what of the nineteenth century, with its de- tachment and scientific method? Have we not been assured that the writing of history has at last been put on a sound and permanent foundation? Un- doubtedly we have, but that is an old story. Every generation is disposed to think "we are the people and wisdom will die with us." Still one may hope that historical wisdom will survive Leopold von Ranke, and even Mr. Round. The future student of the intellectual life of our day will doubtless see that the historical writing of the nineteenth century, like the historical writing of other times, has been shaped by the pressure of social needs; will point out how it has served a certain social purpose; will perhaps admit, from his superior vantage, that much good work was done in spite of inadequate knowl- edge and an imperfect criticism. Perhaps it will then be seen that the method inaugurated by Savigny, and brought to scmie sort of perfection by Ranke and his disciples, was one of the forms assumed by the intel- lectual reaction from the philosophy of the French Revolution; that the historical school was in the in - 20 [July 1, THE DIAL tellectual life of the century what the Historic Rights party was in political life,—a most effective bulwark against those insurgent principles that were regarded as having played havoc with Europe for a generation. Convinced by sharp experience that conscious at- tempts at radical social reconstruction were danger- ous, the nineteenth century wished to exploit the past to disprove the doctrine of natural rights and to con- demn the methods of the French Revolution. And so, working in such an atmosphere, historians nat- urally enough became interested in historic rights rather than in natural rights; preoccupied with what happened, they were studiously non-commital about what ought to have happened; disposed to make much of changes that came very slowly and little of changes that came suddenly; inclined to belittle con- scious purpose as an influence in shaping institutions; well content if it turned out that some great affair could be traced to an obscure origin,—as, for exam- ple, the expense involved in equipping a cavalry service. And after much patient investigation along the lines of these initial preconceptions, it was discov- ered that in fact there were no natural rights; that what happened was nearly if not quite the thing that had to happen, so that it was useless to inquire what ought to have happened; that change in institutions and ideas was, to be sure, the fundamental thing in history; but that change was most fruitful if it came slowly without anyone's wishing for it, and least fruitful if it came quite suddenly as the result of everybody's wishing for it very much, and working to bring it about. For purposes of illustration, the history of England was found, rather providentially, to be wonderfully well adapted. And so, by a most happy chance, history itself, scientifically conceived and impartially studied, proved that the French Revolution was undoubtedly a necessary mistake,— an historical event which had done a certain amount of good surely, but which, by virtue of having de- parted from the most approved precedents, had done it in a very bad way. But the shadow which the Reign of Terror cast over Europe for a century is passing, while at the same time it is perfectly certain that neither the formulas of the Manchester school, nor the resound- ing phrases of Liberalism, nor reliance upon the Manifest Destiny of Historic Rights, is ushering in any millenium. At present there are signs of a re- turn to earlier ideas, a disposition, in certain quar- ters, to rehabilitate the "rags and tags and paltry blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man." The resplendent vision of Perfectibility, although it has doubtless taken on some neutral litmus paper tints, has never been quite lost; transformed into the idea of Progress—the belief that society can by its own efforts indefinitely increase the happiness and welfare of all men—it is perhaps the one really vital faith of our day. It is not impossible, therefore, that the great task of the present century will centre in a second attempt to bring to fruition those splendid ideals of social justice which the generous minds of the eighteenth century conceived, and which the men of the Revolution, with the courage of their emotions, embodied in "glittering generalities" for the edifica- tion of mankind. As the problem of "social better- ment " becomes more insistent, discontent with the ex- isting riffime gathers force. It is not unreasonable to suppose that in the next half century intellectual inter- ests will be somewhat withdrawn from the past and concentrated somewhat more in the future, less con- cerned about what actually happened and rather more concerned about what ought to happen. That this change of emphasis will profoundly affect the study and writing of history, is a prediction which may be safely ventured. The purpose of Professor Robinson's little volume (which is only a collection of essays and addresses prepared for different occasions during the last ten years, and which, for that reason, lacks something of the definiteness, consistency, and structural coordi- nation which the title might lead one to expect) is to venture just that prediction, to suggest that the time is ripe for historians to ask themselves whether the aims and methods by which so much has been achieved in the last sixty years are precisely those which will serve best for the future. Professor Robinson is con- vinced that they are not; and, without professing to formulate any definite programme, he wishes to em- phasize the fact "that history should not be regarded as a stationary subject which can only progress by refining its methods and accumulating, criticizing, and assimilating new material, but that it is bound to alter its ideals and aims with the general progress of society and of the social sciences, and that it should ultimately play an infinitely more important rdle in our intellectual life than it has hitherto done." Not unnaturally, therefore, one characteristic note of the book is discontent; and in this it voices the feeling of many historical students, especially of the younger generation. What is the use, they are asking them- selves, of so many learned volumes which nobody reads? What is the use of so much erudition that contributes so little to "the instant need of things "? In reading these essays one often wonders if Profes- sor Robinson does not regret that Fate made him an historian at all, and not a real scientist,— an anthro- pologist perhaps, or comparative psychologist. In the end, however, one is convinced that such is not the case; for if he sees the "plight in which history finds itself" just now, he is confident that there is a bril- liant future in store for it; and this note of confidence in the future of history is only less marked than the note of dissatisfaction with its present condition. In both respects Professor Robinson's attitude inevitably recalls the point of view of the eighteenth century PhUosophe. "All the weighty substance of our historians," said Grimm in 1755, "consists in a tedious and pedantic discussion of facts which are ordinarily as indifferent as they are uncertain." Professor Robinson, in like manner, employs his dry humor at the expense of a certain type of historian solemnly engaged in determining " whether Charles the Fat was in Ingelheim or Lustnau on July 1,887," or in pointing out "the spot where Nehemiah 1912.] 21 THE DIAL Abbot's ox met an untimely and suspicions end by choking on a turnip." With the dull chronicle, how- ever adequately "documented," Professor Robinson is dissatisfied, not because it is dull, but because it so often does not help us in the least to understand the present, and so does not help us to deal with its problems intelligently. This was also the point of view of the eighteenth century reformer. "Other historians," Diderot told Voltaire, "relate facts to inform us of facts. You relate them in order to excite in us an intense hatred of lying, ignorance, hypocrisy, superstition, fanaticism, tyranny; and this anger remains, even after the memory of the facts has passed away." Professor Robinson is as far as possible from wishing the historian to relate facts in order to excite hatred and anger. The point of resemblance is that he, like Grimm and Diderot, wishes to exploit the past in the interest of advance. Now, in the eighteenth century the histories which exploited the past in the interest of advance were precisely those which aroused discontent with the existing rigime. It is* perhaps a fair question whether histories written in the twentieth century, if they are consciously to exploit the past in the interest of advance, will do it in the same way,— by arousing discontent with the existing rkgvme. Yes, Professor Robinson would reply; provided it arouses an intelligent discontent, that is precisely the best thing history can possibly do. The business of history is to arouse an intelligent discontent, to foster a fruitful radicalism; but it should do this, not by becoming less scientific than it is now, but by becoming more scientific. And this, again, is the attitude of the eighteenth century philosophers. Diderot and Grimm and their fellows were con- vinced that history could be properly written only "by Philosophers,"—by men, that is, who were thoroughly familiar with the scientific knowledge of the day. Now, the most definite contention in Professor Robinson's book, the one which he would doubtless consider most important, is precisely that historians have hitherto failed to make use of the results of what he calls the newer sciences of man- kind, — " Anthropology, in a comprehensive sense, Prehistoric Archaeology, Social and Animal Psy- chology, and the Comparative Study of Religions." History, professing to deal with man in the past, has concerned itself much with the past but very little with man. In the future, "if history is to reach its highest development, it must confess that it is based on sister sciences, that it can progress only with them, must lean largely on them for support, and in return should repay its debt by the contributions it makes to our understanding of our species." The most vital concern of our day is the progress of the race through conscious effort. Such progress will be permanent and real only if based upon a genuine scientific knowledge of man; and only by assimilating thoroughly this scientific knowl- edge of man can the historian point out to us how real progress has been made in the past and so help us to proceed aright in the future. It is in this way that history will arouse an intelligent discontent and foster a fruitful radicalism. I have insisted, perhaps unduly, upon the analogy between Professor Robinson's point of view and that of the eighteenth century reformers, because it seems to me that his conception of history raises a funda- mental difficulty, a difficulty which also confronted them. This difficulty is in respect to the idea of progress. What, after all, is progress? What is the test, the standard of value, which is to determine the direction of conscious effort towards social recon- struction? Professor Robinson's only reply to this question is that "no one who realizes the relative barbarism of our whole civilization . . . will have the patience to formulate any definition of progress when the most bewildering opportunities for social betterment summon us on every side." This is very well if it is only a matter of doing what our hands find to do: one may venture to feed the starving before formulating a definition of progress. But if one wishes to remove the causes of poverty, a defi- nition of progress might prove most useful. And certainly if the historian is to renounce his present aims and methods, and to set himself the task of "exploiting the past in the interest of advance," he needs a far more definite notion of what advance is than can be found in the statement that "the most bewildering opportunities for betterment summon us on every side"; he needs, in fact, a genuinely scien- tific definition of progress. It need hardly be said that present-day ideas of progress are most intangible. A profound faith in progress, we have; a world of light talk about it,— that we have also; but the truth is we never know what form progress will take until after the event Opposing principles are reconciled by falling into chronological sequence, and socialism, for example, acquires virtue by the mere passing of liberalism into the limbo of yesterday. And this would seem to be the necessary result of a philosophy which identifies man and nature, thus reducing all values to the relative test. The price of not having dogmatic creeds is that the content of our faith is successively unfolded, as it were, only in the daily practice of it. In the eighteenth century the conclusions drawn from the premises of Locke left the reformers facing a similar difficulty: man is an irresponsible product of uniform natural law, said the materialist; in that case, asked the reformer, is not society in all its forms necessary too; this Old Regime, which we have con- demned, is it not a very "state of nature" after all? The dilemma had been succinctly stated by Pascal long before. "Custom," he said, "is a second nature which destroys the first But what is this nature? I fear that nature itself is only a first custom." No French Revolution could issue from a dilemma which brought everything to a stand. It was Rousseau who cut the Gordian knot by giving a new form to the old dualism of man and nature: "Man is naturally good, it is society which corrupts him." The modern social reformer is confronted by much the same di- lemma; and if conscious effort towards social regen- 22 [July 1, THE DIAL eration is to issue in anything more than temporary expedients, the distinction between what is natural and permanent in human society and what is artificial and temporary must be drawn again in some manner or other. But to be in any way effective, the distinc- tion must be based upon genuine scientific knowledge as well as upon an emotional faith. Perhaps it is the task of religion to furnish the latter; it certainly rests with science to furnish the former. Science, rather than history, must discover, as Kant said, "the constant elements in man's nature, in order to under- stand what sort of perfection it is that suits him, alike in a state of rude simplicity, in a state of wise simpli- city, and in a state which transcends both of these." It may be that the "newer sciences of mankind" can achieve this. Who shall say? But until they do, it is infinitely true, as Professor Robinson himself says, that "one may find solace and intellectual re- pose in surrendering all attempts to define history, and in conceding that it is the business of the his- torian to find out anything about mankind in the past which he believes to be interesting or important and about which there are sources of information." This is a franchise which surely includes us all. Meanwhile, by all means let the historian learn all he possibly can about the newer sciences of mankind, and about the older sciences too, and about philoso- phy, about literature, about art, about everything that is under the sun: all this knowledge will serve, "if judiciously practised, greatly to strengthen and deepen the whole range of historical study and render its results far more valuable than they have hitherto been." Carl Becker. Briefs on New Books. An American It is a most attractive personality that leader of men. is set forth in Mr- William Bayard Hale's volume entitled "Woodrow Wilson: The Story of His Life" (Doubleday). Whatever may be the outcome of the present presi- dential campaign, no one who reads this sketch can doubt that our political life has already received a much-needed impetus upward by Dr. Wilson's en- trance from the seclusion of academic labor into the strenuous activities of politics. Dr. Wilson comes naturally by his seriousness of purpose, his strength of conviction, and his devotion to the cause of edu- cation and good government. He is descended from an ancestry that has always stood for what is sturdy and honorable in American history. The Wilsons were Scotch-Irish and the Woodrows (the mother's family) were Scotch. One fancies there must have been village dominies in the line of the mother's descent, and that one of them was reincarnated in the friendly, sane, and vigorous president of Princeton, who fought so faithfully for sincerity in academic life and work and for democracy in the university. Most interesting is the story of this batttle of a president of one of our greatest universities to restore the preeminence of intellectual concerns over the shallow and abnormal social interests and the baneful athletic craze, which together called forth the remark of a cynical observer that Princeton was the finest country club in America. Dr. Wilson was not content to alter radically the system of election of studies, so as to secure better coordination in the studies of each student; but he also introduced the system of preceptors, in order that young and imma- ture minds might have the steady guidance and inspiration of trained intelligence in the pursuit of their university careers. He went yet a step further, and proposed to cut through the artificial stratifica- tion of university society, to house all students in dormitories and to have men from all college classes in the same buildings, and with them young profes- sors. It was just when this plan for making uni- versity life democratic, and his allied plan for the graduate school to be erected on the same campus with the college, had received a serious setback, and seemed doomed to temporary defeat, that Dr. Wilson was summoned into public life. No one who had observed his career at Princeton could fail to foresee that he would be unswerving in his adherence to democracy and honesty in politics; yet the bosses who helped to seat him in the governor's chair seem to have estimated the sincerity of his campaign declar- ations at the same rate as their own. When they learned too late that he meant to keep every promise he had made, there was bitter denunciation. He had proved recalcitrant and ungrateful. In the pic- turesque language of the campaign, Dr. Wilson had warned all concerned that it was plain that Provi- dence had not intended him to be ornamental and that he would be a very busy governor. The record of what he accomplished for the people of New Jersey against the combined ripgs of both the Dem- ocrats and the Republicans is as thrilling as a story of knight-errantry. It is a record that harmonizes with the rare quality of Dr. Wilson's stump oratory — clear, vivid, picturesque, and yet always flavored with the dignity that we associate with scholars whose culture has not killed their humanity. The >torv of In an allegory or fantasy clothed in a heavenly simple and beautiful language that pilgrimage. occasionally reminds one of "The Pilgrim's Progress," Mr. Arthur C. Benson relates, in "The Child of the Dawn " (Putnam), the supposed experiences of a soul privileged to visit heaven and to see God in the timeless interval between two suc- cessive reincarnations. In an interesting preface the author says: "The fact that underlies the book is this: that in the course of a very sad and strange experience — an illness which lasted for some two years, involving me in a dark cloud of dejection— I came to believe practically, instead of merely theo- retically, in the personal immortality of the human soul. I was conscious, during the whole time, that though the physical machinery of the nerves was out of gear, the soul and the mind remained, not only 1912.] 23 THE DIAL intact, but practically unaffected by the disease, im- prisoned, like a bird in a cage, but perfectly free in themselves, and uninjured by the bodily weakness which enveloped them." Nor was that all. He was led to see that his hitherto accepted standards of value were more or less false, and "that what really mat- tered to the soul was the relation in which it stood to other souls; that affection was the native air of the spirit; and that anything which distracted the heart from the duty of love was a kind of bodily delusion, and simply hindered the spirit in its pil- grimage." The picture presented in the succeeding pages of the joys and sorrows of discarnate spirits is admirably drawn, enriched with many a stroke of wit and wisdom, of tenderness and humor, of insight and sympathy. The prospect of an indefinite series of earthly lives for each soul, as conceived by the author, is of course not new or startling, but so for- bidding to most of us that we prefer to dream our own dreams about the tremendous possibilities of the future. What the book teaches most impressively and acceptably is the supreme importance of love, compared with which nothing else matters. To show that the book is not unworthy of mention in the same breath with Bunyan's masterpiece, let us quote, as an example of its style, a paragraph from its closing pages. "Then I took Cynthia's hand and laid it in the hand of Lucius; and I left them there upon the peak, and turned no more. And no more woeful spirit was in the land of heaven that day than mine as I stumbled wearily down the slope, and found the valley. And then, for I did not know the way to de- scend, I commended myself to God; and he took me." A hutory ^n 1892, Professor Petrus Johannes of the people Blok of the University of Leyden of Holland. published the first two volumes of a "History of the People of the Netherlands," and in 1900 these volumes were translated into English by Miss Ruth Putnam. As subsequent instalments ap- peared in Holland, the translation has been continued; until now the fifth and concluding volume, translated (as was the fourth) by Mr. Oscar Bierstadt, is pre- sented to the public. At the outset the author asserted that he desired to present not so much the evolution of Holland as a State, but rather the life of the peo- ple in "civilization, commerce, industry, agriculture, navigation, law, and economic development," and he avowedly modelled his work on that of the English historian, John Richard Green. In the execution of his plan, however, he failed, in the earlier volumes, in the attempt to interweave political events and popu- lar reaction to those events; and in this last volume, covering the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he has largely altered his method. Political events and institutional change are here segregated in separate chapters, as are intellectual, industrial, and cultural topics, the result being a distinct improvement in clarity. The work now completed is an important contribution to historical knowledge, at least for En- glish readers, since it presents a continuous narrative of Dutch history not elsewhere duplicated, while the present volume offers a clear resume* of political conditions in Holland since 1850, by a careful and scholarly observer. The most interesting personality of this period is Thorbecke, professor at the Univer- sity of Leyden, leader of the liberal movement of 1848, and during three terms chief minister of the state. Under his guidance, ministerial responsibility and direct election of the popular branch of the legislature were secured, and without the strain of a revolution, such as swept over Europe in 1848. For over a quarter of a century he exercised a tremen- dous influence. Mr. Blok tells us that "Thorbecke created the forms in which the government was to move for a long time; his strong hand had pointed out the way to progress in constitutional development, in material prosperity, and intellectual emancipation. His name is bound to the history of this important period; his statue on the Thorbecke square in Am-1 sterdam is the memorial of a remarkable phase of Holland's national history." A few good maps and a wholly inadequate index conclude the volume. (Putnam.) Obtervation, Contributed originally to "The Ref- and wamingt eree " of London, the short and timely of ajournaiut. articles now collected by Mr. Arnold White under the title, "The Views of 'Vanoc'" (Dutton), furnish considerable matter of interest to the desultory reader, and not a few pages fraught with advice or warning of an attention-compelling nature to any reader. The reason of the pseu- donym, "Vanoc," is explained, or an explanation is attempted, in a dedicatory note to the Editor of "The Referee." The half-hundred short chapters of the book are grouped in nine sections, and have to do chiefly with political and social questions. Already familiar to Mr. White's readers are his views on the necessity of an invincible navy for England, and he fails not to sound the alarmist note in his book, in an article picturing the supposed eagerness of Germany to make a banquet on the British Empire. "Russia has Siberia," the author points out; "France, a rich soil and a stationary or dwindling population; America, ample room to ex- pand; Japan, the whole Far East; Britain, her own Empire. Germany, the greatest military Power, has no place under her own flag outside her borders where Germans can live and thrive. . . . Germany wants that which England possesses." But does not all the world know by this time, what "The Great Illusion" has so lately been reiterating and redemonstrating, that trade and migration do not necessarily or exclusively follow the flag? Is not the Teutonic portion of New York one of the largest German cities in the world, and are there not countless acres of new land open to and clamoring for German or any other immigrants in the great Northwest of America? Here, to change the subject, is a suggestive passage from the section devoted to eugenics: "The work of the world is mainly done by the gouty; to speak by the card, by the irritable, sanguine, nervy, 24 [July 1, THE DIAL resolute people with great engine-driving power, not by the stolid men and women whose physical ma- chinery is perfect That each of us is among the unfit is known to every soul honest with itself." The book is already in its second edition, or impression, which speaks well for its readable qualities. Ma.te,-Piece, of Af* ^ everything that the late art aiurtrated John La Farge wrote, his comments and deia-ibed. upon lt Qne Hundred Masterpieces of Painting" (Doubleday, Page & Co.), originally published in "McClure's Magazine," and now put together in book form, bear the impress of a thoughtful and well-stored mind. The pictures — one hundred and six in all — selected for repro- duction have been chosen to exemplify the point of view that art is "the mirror of life," and they are arranged accordingly, in subject groups. This classification, though an arbitrary one, serves well enough, especially as care has been exercised to include only works that have enduring charm and are free from what the author stigmatizes as "the bad taste of fashion." His descriptions of the paintings, though engagingly written, sometimes, it must be said, seem to start nowhere and to lead nowhither. In a measure this impression is attrib- utable to the way in which, while advancing in an apparently leisurely manner, he touches lightly upon this thing and that, and passes on to another before the reader quite realizes that the transmigration has taken place; but in larger part it is due to the avoidance of technical explanation. This omission, however, necessarily precludes an adequate expo- sition of the really vital qualities in the works described. Herein lies the futility of so-called "popular" writing about works of art. The nature of art forbids that the essential qualities can be apprehended without some understanding of the laws of aesthetic relationship. Still, the other and more usually considered qualities are not unimport- ant, and it is instructive to note how they impress an artist of such distinction and a man of such broad culture as John La Farge. The volume is illustrated with excellent half-tone reproductions of the famous paintings that he has taken as his text. The range is a wide one, extending from Botticelli and Mending to Puvis de Chavannes, and even in- cluding one picture by an early Japanese master. The cheerful Ja a volume bearing the title " Recol- chJerful anut'i lections of a Court Painter" (Lane), experience. the genial Irish portrait-painter Mr. H. Jones Thaddeus tells how he painted the portraits of Pope Leo XIII. and his successor Pius X.; how he dined with Robert Browning, who looked "like a portly shopkeeper" and "whose whole attention was centered on the good things before him"; how he found it possible to paint Gladstone in peace only by agreeing with everything that the irascible statesman happened to say; and how he played the part of actor or spectator in a hundred other incidents which were quite as amusing, even though the par- ticipants were less celebrated. Now and then he is too much of an artist to be followed patiently by the lay reader. Now and then, also, he is perhaps a little too much of a Bohemian to please the strait-laced and the orthodox; but he is so hearty and genuine through it all that it is not difficult to overlook an occasional instance of unnecessary frankness or indis- creet levity. In his anxiety to make his book attract- ive he drags in by the heels a good many anecdotes which have not the remotest connection either with himself or with his art,— certainly one of the most noticeable of "the many defects of this my maiden effort to wield thatwhich is mightier than the sword." The first few chapters are filled with delightful ac- counts of youthful pranks in the art schools of Cork, London, and Paris. Mr. Thaddeus has been an invet- erate traveller, and his impressions of Algiers, Cey- lon, and Australia are something more than witty. Like some other Britons of even greater celebrity, he has little use for America,—although a number of Americans have sat for him, and contributed gener- ously toward his princely income. Of the seventeen illustrations scattered through his book, the most interesting is a reproduction of a photograph which represents him painting a portrait of Pius X. This photograph, he says, he secured "partly from a his- torical point of view, and partly to disarm calumny, to which I had been exposed while painting his predecessor." The lUerarv ^ convenient yet comprehensive his- deveiopment tory of French literature in English of France. ]las ]ong Deen a desideratum. We have, to be sure, manuals like Professor Dowden's and Mr. Saintsbury's, as well as the somewhat anti- quated longer work of Van Laun, but still no one- volume history to place beside the admirable French production of M. Lanson. So Professor C. H. C. Wright of Harvard has undertaken to give us "A History of French Literature," and his well-printed octavo of 964 pages has just been issued by the Clarendon Press. It is a conscientious piece of work, this account of the literary development of France'; indeed, it yields to none of its American or English predecessors in soundness of scholarship or in range of information. The index, for exam- ple, contains over two thousand names — a signifi- cant number when it is considered that only in his final chapter does the author show that inclination to enumerate minor writers which is so frequent a characteristic of manuals of literature. Professor Wright, be it said, devotes his attention mainly to the great movements and the great names. Admir- able in this respect, the book commends itself to the college student and the general reader by its pro- portion, its judgment, and its recognition of the lat- est discoveries and theories of scholarship. The advanced student and the teacher will be grateful to the author for his bibliographies and bibliogra- phical hints — a closely-printed section of 54 pages. And both graduate and undergraduate will recog- nize in this volume, as in practically all the so-called 1912.] 25 THE DIAL "literary" productions of our Germanized Ameri- can scholarship, the tone of the class-room. Clear as the narrative is, it possesses neither grace of phrasing nor beauty of structure; its diction is in every sense commonplace and undistinguished. There are, to be sure, occasional sentences or epithets borrowed from colloquial or journalistic sources—picturesque expressions such as "tabloid," "swagger," "he has toned down," "high priest of nudity," etc. But defensible as these things may be in lectures to ennui-laden seniors, they hardly seem well-placed in a "literary history of France," especially in one written by an avowed partisan of French classicism and the classic sim- plicity of style. Sauntering, in From the ^""ty of Edmonton in Saskatchewan Alberta to Toronto, twenty-five hun- and eUewhere. dm! miles to the east, the sprightly chronicler who signs herself "Janey Canuck," with an explanatory "Emily Ferguson" added in paren- theses, made her leisurely and observant way with a single companion and by various modes of con- veyance. Her account of this journey she calls "Open Trails" (Cassell), and it is enlivened, if it needs further enlivenment than her own pen has given it, by a gorgeously colored frontispiece and a multitude of well-executed smaller drawings. The story is one that excels rather in the telling of it than in the things told. In other words, it has more manner than matter. So abundant is the literary drapery clothing the body of facts that one can hardly discern the merest outlines of the body. In the matter of proper names alone the heroine of the adventure, the narrator herself, is "Janey," or "dear old girl," as her companion styles her; the travelling companion is for literary purposes "the Padre," but in plain English, as one makes out at last, the husband of the woman with whom he is on so intimate terms and whom he addresses so familiarly; the author's birthplace is "X," and she apparently, near the end of the book, almost falls a victim to "cholecystitis," which to most readers will be about the vaguest thing in the whole narrative. As a specimen of the author's buoyant style, here is what she says of Alberta: "Alberta has no past to speak of, but has a future beyond com- parison. Tut! I bite my thumb at the past. A past may be as great a detriment to a country as to a woman." The writer of "Open Trails" is already known through her previous book entitled "Janey Canuck in the West," and most of her readers will hope for still further books in the same jaunty and spontaneous manner. Kant and Students of the late Professor Borden critically Parker Bowne will welcome the post- expounded. humous work from his pen entitled "Kant and Spencer: A Critical Exposition" (Hough- ton Mifflin Co.) which has been edited from the au- thor's rough notes by a number of friends who were sufficiently familiar with his thought to supply what seemed the necessary corrections. The book deals with Kant and Spencer from the standpoint of Mr. Bowne's own philosophical interpretation of the uni- verse, which was a spiritual and personal one. It is therefore quite natural that Kant, the philosopher who criticised the intellect as a revealer of religious truth only to supplant it by the practical reason, and who therefore placed the religious interpretation of the universe on a stronger basis than ever before, comes in for sympathetic treatment. Kant, however, was not final, and Mr. Bowne criticises incisively his doctrine of the understanding and of time and space. He recognizes, however, Kant's permanent contribu- tions to thought, and points out how pragmatism has its original source in Kant's doctrine of the activity of the mind and the need for an interpretation of the universe which shall satisfy the soul as well as the intellect of man. The exposition of Herbert Spencer is a very thorough piece of destructive criti- cism, dealing especially with the " First Principles" and the "Principles of Psychology." The author's summing up of the matter is that Spencer's philoso- phy, apart from the suggestions thrown out by the way throughout its course, has no value as a system, and that it has passed away with that reliance on physical science which was the intellectual feature of its generation and which gave it so great a vogue. „ , . , All who are interested in children's xtai ly American itory-booki story-books, except the children them- for children. selves, will find pleasure and profit in Miss Rosalie V. Halsey's "Forgotten Books of the American Nursery: A History of the Development of the American Story-Book," published in Boston by Messrs. Charles E. Goodspeed & Co. From John Cotton's "Milk for Babes. Drawn out of the Breast of Both Testaments. Chiefly for the spiritual nour- ishment of Boston Babes in either England: But may be of like use for any children," to Peter Parley's and Jacob Abbott's and Miss Sedgwick's little books of harmless fiction for innocent children, the author traces, in seven carefully-written chapters, the genesis of the American story-book for young people, bring- ing out for the benefit of the philosophical student of the subject the influence exerted by the spirit of each successive age upon the character of its juven- ile literature. It is this constant even though grad- ual change of atmosphere, in the family life and in the nursery as well as in the greater world, that largely accounts for the obsoleteness of most of the children's books of the past; but the author puts it too strongly when she says that "there is nothing more rare in the fiction of any nation than the pop- ular child's story that endures." What, pray, are the favorite collections of fairy-stories and nursery rhymes made up of to-day if not of the good old tales and jingles that, in many cases, have in sub- stance if not in form come down from a more or less remote past? Does our current adult fiction show as many hoary survivals? Miss Halsey's book, besides being well printed in a handsome limited 26 [July 1, THE DTATi edition, is liberally provided with facsimile repro- ductions of carious old title-pages, rude wood-cuts, and other illustrative details. The life of Francis Gribble, clever purveyor an imperial of breezy scandal, gives us in his adventure.,. jategt volume what he calls "The Comedy of Catherine the Great" ( Putnam). His title is a shrewd warning that he intends to deal, not with Russian politics or the serious side of Catherine's life, but solely or principally with her amours. Mr. Gribble does not reprobate his heroine, and hold her up as a horrible warning; he reminds us again and again that she was more sinned against than sinning, that her faults were the faults of her age and position, and that she was at bottom a very capable and very good-hearted woman. The latter quality he proves by abundant anecdote, the former he contents himself with repeating earnestly and frequently. The substance of his book, however, is a sensationally detailed account of the woman's end- less series of love affairs. Such works have not even the merit of historical trustworthiness. Mr. Gribble, who has undeniably put much labor into the making of his compilation and brought together material from a hundred different sources, conscientiously admits that many of the salacious morsels which he dishes up most carefully are only matters of rumor and cannot be verified. His book has little value for the historian, and in spite of the ostentation of a moral attitude it can scarcely be reckoned a treatise on morals. Nevertheless, it is a breathlessly inter- esting story, built of vigorous and rapid sentences and strewn from beginning to end with examples of witty phrase-making. If Mr. Gribble had chosen to study Catherine and her reign from a different and less questionable point of view, he might have produced a permanently valuable book, instead of merely a readable one. Two mperb "^e wno runs may read" might seem architectural to be the best counsel to offer to an picture-book: aspiring student of architecture. Un- doubtedly, the training of the eye before the actual masterpieces of the builder's art is the most valuable apprenticeship. Yet for those who cannot take such a travel-course, good photographs are really not a bad substitute: they afford an easy means of making an art-pilgrimage by proxy. And we are all fond of this sedentary kind of travel, made so enticing recently by the perfecting of reproductive processes and the zeal of the publishers. Such books as Dr. Julius Baum's "Romanesque Architecture in France" and Signor Ricci's "Baroque Architecture and Sculpture in Italy" (Dutton) offer the most alluring opportunities to art-student and arm-chair tourist; they are perfection in their class. Made up respectively of 226 and 274 full-page plates, these splendid folios present their subjects mainly through the range and choice of their illustrations; they are practically art-albums, prepared by experts and pro- vided with brief introductions and full indexes. Our profit from such books is dependent, of course, upon our previous knowledge; but not our pleasure. Even the most indolent arm-chair traveller will not be daunted by a prefatory essay which fills scarcely a dozen pages. He will skip it, pass at once to the plates, and feast his eyes thereon, his pleasure unal- loyed except by a possible consciousness of his ignor- ance. He will learn as the tourist learns, with or without a guide-book. And if he will not run, he need not even read! How to vuu Specialization being as necessary in the Engiuh sight-seeing as in most other mat- cathedrai: terg; tne English Cathedral tour finds much favor with travellers abroad. And since these wonderful buildings make a many-sided appeal — through their history and associations as well as through their architecture—many handbooks more or less satisfactory have been offered from time to time on the subject. The latest of these, "How to Visit the English Cathedrals" (Dodd), by Miss Esther Singleton, is by no means the least welcome. Those who are familiar with the long list of this writer's other works know her method. Frankly compiled from various sources duly acknowledged, the citations are tied together with a thread of original matter which adds greatly both to the value and the interest. The introductory chapter of thirty-one pages deals with "Styles of English Architecture"; the twenty-nine chapters following consider as many different cathedrals, and each is illustrated by several charming photographs. It is a book suitable for the rapid but intelligent traveller who may not have either time or inclination for ex- haustive study. BRIEFER MENTION. The name of Thomas Deloney will not commonly be found in manuals of the history of English literature, yet future compilers of such books will hardly be able to escape giving some attention to this Elizabethan novelist and poet, now that his complete works have been put forth by the Oxford Clarendon Press in a stout volume edited by Mr. Francis Oscar Mann. "Le Francais et Sa Patrie," by Mr. L. Raymond Talbot (Sanborn), is a French reading-book for the first or second year, planned to put the student into posses- sion of much interesting information about French home life, and the history and geography of the country. The matter is partly conversational and partly epistolary. There are also pictures, songs, poems, notes, and a vocab- ulary. It seems to be a particularly praiseworthy text- book. If Miss Betham-Edwards'8 handsomely-illustrated volume, "In the Heart of the Vosges" (McClurg), had been entitled "In Gustave Dora's Country," with the appended "and other sketches," the reviewer would have had little occasion to find fault. One half of the book deals with regions outside the Vosges, while the first half has no eye for anyone but Dore\ The admirer of the Alsatian artist will find much to interest and sat- isfy him in the notes concerning Dora's youth and his world-success; and the testimony regarding the attitude 1912.] 27 THE DIAL of the Alsatians toward the Prussian government is valuable. But it is strange to be led through "the heart of the Vosges " and hear no mention of the fine old Meistersaenger, Johann Georg Wickram, who there presided over the Meistergesangschule. And no less strange is it to meet no reminiscences of Walther und Hildegund, who made their famous flight and fought their valiant battle in these passes. The Boston Book Co. sends us "The Dramatic Index for 1911," being the third volume of an annual biblio- graphy of "articles and illustrations concerning the stage and its players in the periodicals of America and England, with a record of books on the drama and of texts of plays published during 1911." Mr. Frederick Winthrop Faxon is the compiler of this useful book of reference, which makes a stout volume of about two hundred and fifty pages. Messrs. 6. P. Putnam's Sons are the American pub- lishers of "The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature," a useful enterprise not unlike the "Home University Library." New volumes at hand are " Prehis- toric Man," by Mr. W. L. H. Duckworth; "The Nat- ural History of Clay," by Mr. Alfred B. Searle; "The Migration of Birds," by Mr. E. A. Coward; "Earth- worms and Their Allies," by Mr. Frank E. Beddard; and "The Modern Locomotive," by Mr. C. Edgar Allen. "Sir Eglamour" is not one of the most interesting of the Middle English romances; but it is simple and brief, and hence well adapted to use in college classes. A carefully-prepared edition of the poem, intended for college use, has recently been made by Prof. Albert S. Cook and published by Messrs. Holt. The editor dis- penses with glossary and critical and interpretative notes, but explains difficult words and lines on the pages upon which they occur. A brief introduction gives necessary information as to the history of the poem and as to its more important analogues. A clear and convenient chart of the heavens that should find decided favor with amateur star-gazers is Mr. Albert Ross Parsons's "Road Map of the Stars" (Kennerley). It consists of forty-eight star maps, mounted on a strong piece of linen and folded to fit the pocket, showing in separate views (North, South, East, and West) the positions of the stars at any hour of any night in the year. Unfolded, as a single sheet, the entire circle of the constellations visible in the Northern Hemisphere are shown. An accompanying volume contains the same charts on separate pages, with explan- atory matter, tables, etc. It is a singular fact that the greatest of all Scandi- navian authors is no more than a name to English read- ers, and is not even that to the vast majority of them. Ludvig Holberg was not only the creator of Danish literature, but he was one of the most illustrious of the world's writers for the comic stage, making up, with Moliere and Goldoni, the great triad of modern comedy. He was, besides, philosopher, historian, and moralist, and altogether the embodiment of all the thought of his time to a degree in which Voltaire was perhaps his only rival. His comedies have never received any effective translation into English, for which reason we welcome the "Three Comedies by Ludvig Holberg" (Longmans), which Lieut.-Colonel H. W.L. Hume has just published. The translation is a poor one, and the selection is almost the last which we would have thought of making; but it is something to have any part of Hoi-, berg available in our language. Notes. It is announced that the subject of Mr. Bernard Shaw's coming play will be the fable of Androcles and the Lion. Mr. W. J. Henderson, the well-known musical critic, will publish through Messrs. Holt next autumn a novel entitled "The Soul of a Tenor." Mr. Andrew Lang is now engaged upon a history of English literature, from the beginnings to Swinburne. Messrs. Longmans will publish the work next autumn. Professor Bliss Perry of Harvard University is com- pleting a new volume of essays entitled " The American Mind," which Houghton Mifflin Co. will publish next autumn. Prince Kropotkin is revising a new edition of his pow- erful indictment of the English land question, " Fields, Factories and Workshops," which will appear, with many additions, in a few weeks. The two concluding volumes of the late John Bige- low's "Retrospections of an Aotive Life," covering the period from 1866 to 1879, will be published during the autumn by Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. « John Forster and his Friendships " is the title of a. forthcoming book by Mr. R. Renton which is likely to present much new material concerning the famous biographer of Dickens, Goldsmith, Landor, and Sir John Eliot. Mr. E. T. Cook, author of the recently-published Life of Ruskin and joint editor with Mr. Wedderburn of the monumental " Library Edition " of Ruskin's works, has been chosen to write the authorized biography of Florence Nightingale. "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," by Pro- fessor James H. Breasted, is announced for early pub- lication by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. Among the immediately forthcoming importations of this house is a volume on "Social Insurance in Germany," by Mr. W. H. Dawson, author of "The Evolution of Mod- ern Germany." A new biography of William Morris by Mr. Arthur Compton Rickett is announced by Messrs. Dent. It will contain a good deal of unpublished matter, and promises to throw fresh light upon Morris, both as a man and as a poet. We note that Messrs. Longmans announce a new and cheaper edition of Mr. Mackail's authorized biography, which first appeared in 1899. "The Correspondence of William Shirley," to be issued at once by the Macmillan Co., is the third in the series of letters of famous statesmen prominent in the colonial history of America issued under the auspices of the National Society of Colonial Dames, the previous publications being "The Correspondence of William Pitt" and "The Letters of Richard Henry Lee." Among immediately forthcoming Dutton publications are the following: "Posthumous Essays of John Churton Collins," edited by his son, Mr. L. C. Collins; "An In- troduction to the History of Life Insurance," by Mr. A. Fingland Jack, M. Com.; « The Good Girl," a novel by Mr.Vincent O'Sullivan; and "The Roll-CaU of Honour," a collection of inspiring biographies for younger readers by Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, the French writer and pub- licist, died in Paris on June 16. He was the author of a long list of books dealing with the social and political life both of his own country and of Russia. Among his best-known works are the following: "L'Antiprotes- tantisme," "Etudes russes et europe'ennes," "Les Con- 28 [July 1, THE DIAL grdgations religieuses et l'expansion de la France," "Christianisme et Socialisme," and " Les Juifs et I'anti- semitisme." He was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and director of the Institute. Several of his books have appeared in English translation. A full selection from Bjornson's private correspond- ence, edited by Professor Halfdan Koht, a Norwegian writer well known as an authority on Ibsen, will before long be given to the public in probably three languages. The first volume, containing correspondence to the year 1871, is expected to come from the press simultaneously in Copenhagen and Berlin, in the autumn, while an English edition is also under consideration. A third edition is now issued of that interesting and well-illustrated pamphlet, "The Work of the Cleveland Public Library with the Children." Prepared originally at the time of the convention of the National Educational Association in Cleveland, four years ago, it appeared in a second edition two years later. It contains thirty-two pages of descriptive matter, a map of Cleveland, with library districts and branches plainly indicated, and ten pages exhibiting the scheme of administration adopted by the library. William Watson Goodwin, known to thousands of school and college graduates by reason of his widely- used "Greek Grammar," "Greek Moods and Tenses," and an excellent edition of Xenophon's " Anabasis," died June 15, at his home in Cambridge. He was born at Concord, Mass., May 9, 1831. After taking his bachelor's degree at Harvard in 1851, he studied at three German universities, travelled in Italy and Greece, and served four years as tutor in the college that had given him his academic training, and was then, in 1860, appointed to the Greek chair which he held until his resignation in 1901, when he professed to have "taught himself out." That he was no mere grammarian is proved by the fact that he was the first Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and that his lectures at Harvard concerned themselves with broader interests than the niceties of the Greek tongue. His published version of Plutarch's "Morals" also shows him to have been something more than a gerund- grinder. In short, he was a fine example and exponent of academic culture at its best. Topics in Leading Periodicals. July, 1912. Aborigine, The Last. A. L. Kroeber . . World's Work. Actors, Educating. David Belasco . . . World's Work. American Impressions — IV. Arnold Bennett . Harper. Arabian Nights, Coming of the — II. Ameen Rihani Bookman. Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman. Dora Keen. Scribner. Baseball, Business Side of. Edward M. Woolley. McClure. Bench, "Big Business" and the. C. P. Connolly. Everybody's. "Big Business " and the Citizen — II. Holland Thompson Review of Reviews. Caricatures, Living. Ellwood Hendrick . . . Atlantic. Caveman as Artist, The. George G. MacCurdy . Century. Columbia, Dramatic Musenm at. D. H. Miles. Rev. of Revs. Competition, The New —III. A.J.Eddy. World's Work. Confederacy, Sunset of the —V. Morris Schaff . Atlantic. Constitution, The, and Its Makers. H. C. Lodge. No. Amer. Cuba and the Cuban Question. Sydney Brooks. No. Amer. Danish Heath, Children of the. Jacob A. Riis . Century. Dewey, Admiral, Autobiography of Hearst's. Dinner Pail, The " Full." F. I. Anderson . Everybody's. Direct-Primary Experiment, The. Evans Woollen. Atlantic. Divorce versus Democracy. G. K. Chesterton . Hearst's. Efficiency, ^Esthetic Value of. Ethel P. Howes. Atlantic. Fagan, James 0., Autobiography of Atlantic. Faith, The Age of. Robert K. Root Atlantic. Fez, Within the Walls of. Sydney A damson . . Harper. Fools, A Scientific Study of. Edwin T. Brewster. McClure. French Bourgeois Family, Standards of a. Elizabeth S. Sergeant Scribner. Garden Cities of England, The. F. C. Howe . . Scribner. Gardens and Gardens. H. G. Dwight Atlantic. Germany as a Sea Power. W. H. Beehler . . . Century. Gettysburg. Mary Johnston Atlantic. Glasgow and New York City: A Contrast. Frank I. Cohen Hearst's. Government and the Corporations. F. L. Stetson. Atlantic. Gutter-Babies. Dorothea Slade Atlantic. Hichens, Robert. Frederic T. Cooper .... Bookman. Howard, Arthur — His Own Story McClure. India's Social Advance, Woman's Part in. Basanta K.Roy Review of Reviews. Judicial Decisions, Recall of. K. T. Frederick . Atlantic. Knox Mission to Central America, With the — H. W. B. Hale World's Work. Korea, Japan's Task in. David Starr Jordan. Rev. of Revs. Maidstone, A Woman of. Robert Shackleton . Scribner. Methodist Bishops, The New. F. C. Iglehart. Rev. of Revs. Milholland, Inez—The Spokesman for Suffrage in America McClure. Militia, The, not a National Force. W. H. Carter. No. Amer. Mission Pageant, The, at San Gabriel. W. H. Wright Bookman. Monastery, In a. Louise C. Willcox . . North American. Morse, Samuel, Letters of —1812. E. L. Morse. No. Amer. Mountaineering by Motor. Arthur Train . . Everybody's. Museum, The, and the Teaching of Art in the Public Schools. Kenyon Cox Scribner. Naval War College, The. A. T. Mahan . North American. New York, Picturesque. F. Hopkinson Smith. World's Work. Nicaragua, Our Mission in. Charles A. Conant. No. Amer. Ohio, Making a New Constitution for. Henry W. FJson Review of Reviews. Olympic Idea, The. William M. Sloane .... Century. Pacific Coast Suburb, A New. Elmer Grey . . Scribner. Panama, What the West Expects from. Agnes C. Laut Review of Reviews. Fairish, Maxfield: A Master of Make-Believe. Christian Brinton Century. Pommerais Affair, The. Marie B. Lowndes . . McClure. Postal Savings Banks. Frank P. Stockbridge World's Work. Presidential Press Bureaus. George K. Turner . McClure. Public School, Dilemma of the. R. W. Bruere . Harper. Russian Fiction, Recent. W. D. H. and T. S. P. No. Amer. St. Francis, Life of—III. Maurice F. Egan . . Century. Santa Fe Railroad, Work of the. Henry Oyen. World's Work. Sea, Safety at. Charles D. Sigsbee Century. Social-ism, Social Justice and. George Harvey. No. Amer. Socialism in England. Samuel P. Orth . World's Work. Standard Oil Letters, New, and Their Lessons . Hearst's. Sunday Evening Club, The, of Chicago. Jacob Riis World's Work. Syndicalism. Louis Levine ..... North American. Tariff Board, Need of a. A.G.Robinson . Rev. of Revs. Taste, The Crisis in. Wilbur M. Urban . . . Atlantic. Towns, Model, in America. Grosvenor Atterbury. Scribner. Trees, Big, .Secret of the. Ellsworth Huntington. Harper. Twain, Mark — IX. Albert Bigelow Paine . . Harper. Unity Church, Montclair, N. J. Mary and Lewis Theiss World's Work. Valladolid, The Variety of. W. D. Howells . . Harper. Woman—The New and the Old. Guglielmo Ferrero. Hearst's. Woman, The New, of China and Japan. Adachi Kinnosnke Review of Reviews. Women in Industry. Earl Barnes Atlantic. Wood Engraver, Passing of the. William A. Bradley Bookman. Yuan Shi Kai, An Acquaintance with. H. N. Allen North American. 1912.] THE DIAL List of New Books. [The following list, containing 82 titles, includes books received by The Dial since its last issue.] BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. The Memoirs of Francesco CriapL Translated by Mary Prichard-Agnetti, from documents col- lected and edited by Thomas Palamenghl Crlspl. Volumes I. and II., with portraits, 8vo. George H. Doran Co. $7. net. The Life of Nietzsche. By Frau Foerster-Nletzsche; translated from the German by Anthony M. Lu- dovlci. Volume I., The Young Nietzsche. Illus- trated, 8vo, 399 pages. Sturgls & Walton Co. $4. net. The Life. Lectures, and Essays of William Robert- son Smith. By John Sutherland and George Chrystal. In 2 volumes, illustrated, 8vo. Mac- millan Co. $8. net. The World's Leading; Poetsi Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe. By H. W. Boyn- ton. Illustrated, 8vo, 346 pages. "The World's Leaders." Henry Holt & Co. $1.75 net. The World's Leading; Painters! Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, and Rem- brandt. By George B. Rose. Illustrated, 8vo, 371 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $1.75 net. Charles Dlckenst The Man and His Work. By Ed- win Percy Whipple; with Introduction by Arlo Bates. In 2 volumes, 16mo. Houghton Mifflin Co. $7.50 net. Christopher Colnmbns and the New World of His Discovery. By Filson Young. Third edition; illustrated in color, etc., 8vo, 464 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $2.50 net. HISTORY. Mesopotamia:: Archaeologyi An Introduction to the Archaeology of Babylonia and Assyria. By Percy S. P. Handcock, M.A. Illustrated in color, etc., 8vo, 423 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50 net. The History of New France. By Marc Lescarbot; with an English translation, notes, and appen- dices, by W. L. Grant, M.A., and an introduction by H. P. Biggar, B. Litt. Volume II., large 8vo, 584 pages. Toronto: The Champlain Society. Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912. By Paul Le- land Haworth, Ph.D. 12mo, 255 pages. "Home University Library." Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts.net. GENERAL LITERATURE. The Making; of Poetry: A Critical Study of Its Na- ture and Value. By Arthur H. R. Fairchild, Ph.D. 12mo, 263 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net. Henrlk Ibsen: Plays and Problems. By Otto Heller. With photogravure frontispiece, 8vo, 356 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $2. net. Paul the Minstrel, and Other Stories. By Arthur Christopher Benson. 12mo, 443 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.75 net. The Promise of the Christ-Age In Recent Litera- ture. By William Eugene Mosher, Ph.D. 12mo, 175 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.25 net. The Romance of Words. By Ernest Weekley, M.A. 12mo, 210 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.25 net. English Literature: Medieval. By W. P. Ker, M.A. 12mo, 256 pages. "Home University Library." Henry Holt & Co. 50cts.net. The English Language. By Logan Pearsall Smith, M.A. 12mo, 256 pages. "Home University Li- brary." Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts. net. Sulser's Short Speeches. Carefully compiled from the records of Congress, with other official data and a brief biographical sketch, by George W. Blake. With portrait, 12mo, 303 pages. New York: J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Co. $1. net. NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE. The Brothers Karamasov. By Fyodor Dostoevsky; translated from the Russian by Constance Gar- nett. 12mo, 838 pages. Macmlllan Co. $1.50 net. Everyman's Library. Edited by Ernest Rhys. New volumes: The Invisible Playmate and W. V.: Her Book, by William Canton; Arthurian Chronicles, represented by Wace and Layamon; Piers Plow- man, by William Langland: The Life of Mazzlni, by Bolton King. Each 12mo. E. P. Dutton & Co. Per volume, 35 cts. net. DRAMA AND VERSE. The Land of Lost Music, and Other Poems. By Rob- ert Munger, 12mo, 110 pages. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.25 net. A Prairie Prayer, and Other Poems. By Hilton R. Greer. 12mo, 65 pages. Sherman, French & Co. $1. net. "Where It Llsteth." By Mary Norsworthy Shepard. 12mo, 77 pages. Sherman, French & Co. $1. net. The Poets' Song of Poets. By Anna Sheldon Camp Sneath. Illustrated, 12mo, 250 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1.50 net. Lone Star Lyrics. By Will P. Lockhart. 12mo, 90 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1. net. Songs before Birth. By Isabelle Howe Flske. 16mo, 39 pages. Portland: The Mosher Press. $1. net. Poems and Sonnets. By F. C. Goldsborough. 12mo, 89 pages. London: David Nutt. Bells: An Anthology. By Mary J. Taber. 12mo, 199 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1. net. In Cupid's Chains, and Other Poems. By Benjamin F. Woodcox. 12mo, 64 pages. Battle Creek: Woodcox & Fanner. 50 cts. net. Wayside Blossoms. By Mary Matthews Brady. 12mo, 115 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. Poems of the West. By S. Gertsmon. Illustrated, 12mo, 67 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. Mndawaaka. By Thomas G. Devine. 12mo, 56 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. FICTION. The Blue Wall. By Richard Washburn Child. Illus- trated, 12mo, 377 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.25 net. Whispers about Women. By Leonard Merrick. 12mo, 278 pages. Mitchell Kennerley. $1.20 net. The Den-pond. By Charles Marriott. 12mo, 342 pages. John Lane Co. $1.30 net. Mrs. Spring Fragrance. By Sul Sin Far (Edith Eaton). Decorated 12mo, 347 pages. A. C. Mc- Clurg&Co. $1.40 net. A Butterfly on the Wheel. By C. Ranger Gull. Illus- trated, 12mo, 241 pages. New York: William Rickey & Co. $1.25 net. Baby Grand. By John Luther Long. 12mo, 197 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger, $1.25 net. A Plaything of the Gods. By Carl Gray. Illus- trated, 12mo, 260 pages. Sherman, French & Co. $1.25 net. Elisabeth In Retreat. By Margaret Westrup (Mrs. W. Sydney Stacey). 12mo, 428 pages. John Lane Co. $1.25 net. The Sheriff of Badger: A Tale of the Southwest Borderland. By George Pattullo. Illustrated, 12mo. 313 pages. D. Appleton & Co. $1.25 net. Tales of Madlngley. By Col. T. Walter Harding. Illustrated, 8vo, 423 pages. Century Co. 2.50 net. and Bowes. Damosel Croft. By R. Murray Gilchrist. 12mo, 317 pages. London: Stanley Paul & Co. Dauger. 12mo, 198 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1.25 net. Exotic Martha. By Dorothea Gerard. 12mo, 335 pages. London: Stanley Paul & Co. PUBLIC AFFAIRS. The Strangling of Persia. By W. Morgan Shuster. Illustrated, 8vo, 423 pages. Century Co. $2.50 net. Replannlug Small Cities: Six Typical Studies. By John Nolen. Illustrated, large 8vo, 218 pages. B. W. Huebsch. $2.50 net. Waterway* versus Railways. By Harold G. Moul- ton. With maps, 8vo, 468 pages. "Hart, Schaff- ner, and Marx Economics Series." Houghton Mifflin Co. $2. net. 30 [July 1, THE DIAL The Day of the Saxon. By Homer Lea. 12mo, 249 pages. Harper & Brothers. $1.80 net. The Standard Rate In American Trade Unions. By David A. McCabe, Ph.D. 8vo, 251 pages. Balti- more: Johns Hopkins Press. Paper, $1.25 net. "Tin Soldiers"! The Organized Militia and What It Really Is. By Walter Merriam Pratt; with Fore- word by Capt. George E. Thorne. Illustrated, 12mo, 185 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. (1.50 net. Womanhood and Ruee-Regene ration. By Mary Scharlieb, M.D. 12mo, 54 pages. "New Tracts for the Times." Moffat, Yard & Co. 50 cts. net. National Ideals and Race-Regeneration. By Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A. 12mo, 57 pages. "New Tracts for the Times." Moffat. Yard & Co. 50 cts. net. science:. The Story of Evolution. By Joseph McCabe. Illus- trated, 8vo, 340 pages. Small, Maynard & Co. $3.50 net. Astronomy In a Nutshell■ The Chief Facts and Prin- ciples Explained In Popular Language for the General Reader and for Schools. By Garrett P. Servlss. Illustrated, 12mo, 261 pages. G. P. Put- nam's Sons. $1.25 net. Field Ulnar nm of Natural History Publications. New volumes: Antiquities from Boscoreale In Field Museum of Natural History, by Herbert F. DeCou; The Mammals of Illinois and Wisconsin, by Charles B. Cory; Jade, a Study in Chinese Archaeology and Religion, by Berthold Laufer; Mammals from Western Venezuela and Eastern Colombia, by Wilfred H. Osgood; The Oraibl Marau Ceremony, by H. R. Voth; Brief Miscella- neous Hopl Papers, by H. R. Voth; Descriptions of New Fishes from Panama, by S. E. Meek and S. F. Hildebrand. Each 8vo. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History. Paper. Matter and Energy. By Frederick Soddy, F. R. S. 12mo, 255 pages. "Home University Library." Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts. net. NATURE AND OUTDOOR LIFE. Illustrated Key to the Wild and Commonly Culti- vated Trees of the Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. By J. Franklin Collins and Howard W. Preston. Illustrated, 16mo, 184 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $1.35 net. Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America: With Introductory Chapters on the Study of Birds in Nature. By Frank M. Chapman. Revised edi- tion; illustrated In color, etc., 12mo, 530 pages. D. Appleton & Co. $3.50 net. A Farmer's Note Book. By C. E. D. Phelps. 12mo, 300 pages. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1.50 net. PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY. English Philosophers and Schools of Philosophy. By James Seth, M.A. 12mo, 372 pages. "Chan- nels of English Literature." E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.50 net. Psychology: The Study of Behaviour. By William MacDougall. M.B. 12mo, 252 pages. "Home Uni- versity Library." Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts. net. The Philosophy of the Future. By S. S. Hebberd. 12mo. 210 pages. New York: Maspeth Publish- ing House. RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. From Religion to Philosophy: A Study In the Ori- gins of Western Speculation. By Francis Mac- donald Cornford. 8vo, 276 pages. Longmans, Green & Co. $3. net. Revelation and Its Record. By William W. Guth. 12mo, 255 pages. Sherman,French & Co. $1.25 net. The Strenuous Life Spiritual, and The Submissive Life. By A. Van Der Nalllen. With portrait, 12mo, 125 pages. New York: R. F. Fenno & Co. $1. net. Christ anionic the Cattle: A Sermon. By Frederick Rowland Marvin. Sixth edition, revised; with portrait, 12mo, 58 pages. Sherman, French & Co. 50 cts. net. The Culture of Religion t Elements of Religious Education. By Emll Carl Wilm, Ph.D. 12mo, 204 pages. Pilgrim Press. 75 cts. net. Buddhism: A Study of the Buddhist Norm. By Mrs. Rhys David. M.A. 12mo, 255 pages. "Home Uni- versity Library." Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts. net. English Sects: A History of Nonconformity. By W. B. Selble, D.D. 12mo, 256 pages. "Home Uni- versity Library." Henry Holt & Co. 60 cts. net. ART AND ARCHITECTURE. Nature's Harmonic Unity: A Treatise on Its Rela- tion to Proportional Form. By Samuel Colman, N.A.; edited by C. Arthur Coan, LLB. Illus- trated, large 8vo, 327 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50 net. The Cathedral Churches of England: Their Archi- tecture, History, and Antiquities. By Helen Marshall Pratt. Illustrated, 12mo, 593 pages. Duffleld & Co. $2.50 net. Concrete and Stucco Houses. By Oswald C. Herlng. Illustrated In color, etc., 4to, 105 pages. McBrlde, Nast & Co. $2. net. How to Plan a Library Building for Library Work. By Charles C. Soule. 8vo, 403 pages. Boston Book Co. $2.50 net. BOOKS OF REFERENCE. The Statesman'* Yeur-Book: Statistical and Histor- ical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1912. Edited by J.Scott Keltie, LL.D. With maps, 12mo, 1428 pages. Macmillan Co. $3. net. The Americnn Library Annual, 1911-1912: Includ- ing Index to Dates of Current Events, Necrology of Writers, Bibliographies, Statistics of Book Production, Select Lists of Libraries, Directories of Publishers and Booksellers, and List of Pri- vate Collectors of Books. Large 8vo, 325 pages. New York: Publishers' Weekly. $5. net. The China Year Book, 1912. By H. T. Montague Bell, B.A., and H. G. W. Woodhead, M.J.I. 12mo, 463 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $3.50 net. A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts In the Li- braries of the University of Chicago. Prepared by Edgar J. Goodspeed, with the assistance of Martin Sprengling. 8vo, 128 pages. University of Chicago Press. $1. net. A Glossary of Important Symbols In their Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian Forms. Complied by Ade- laide S. Hall. 12mo, 103 pages. Boston: Bates & Guild Co. The New Cuahlng's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Practice, According to Present American Usage, together with a Working Code for Socle- ties. Revised and enlarged by Charles Kelsey Gaines, Ph.D.; authorized revision, 12mo, 263 pages. Boston: Thompson Brown Co. Jacobs' Friend to Friend Cable Code. 18mo, 27 pages. George W. Jacobs Co. 50 cts. net. EDUCATION. Genetic Philosophy of Education: An Epitome of the Published Educational Writings of President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University. By G. E. Partridge, Ph.D.; with an Introductory note by President Hall. 12mo, 401 pages. Sturgls & Walton Co. $1.50 net. Helen Norwood Halsey Publisher and Authors' Agent Maker and Builder of Books Books, Short Stories, and other Manuscripts wanted for publication. Herald Square Hotel NEW YORK CITY Send twenty-five cents in stamp, for Mis* Halwy's Writer's Aid Leaflet THE DIAL a icemt'fflontjjlg JJournal of ILitrrarg Critici»m, QiBCUBafon, ano Knfortnatum. THE DIAL (founded in 1SS0J is pubtUhed on the 1st and 16th of enrh month. Terms of Subscription, 82. a year in advance, pottage prepaid in the United State* and Mexico; Foreign and Canadian pottage 50 cenlt per year extra. Remitta nces should be by check, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL COMPANY. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub- scription is received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. Advertising Rates furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered u Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Poet Offloe at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. No. 6t6. JULY 16, 1912. Contents. PAOB THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 88 CASUAL COMMENT 37 The pnblio library as an educational force.—"Guide- post " reformers of our language. — The calumniated book-publisher. — The primrose path of letters. — A moving appeal.— A hero and his valet.—The dwind- ling of the baccalaureate.—An experiment in cooper- ative book-buying.—Sir Sidney Colvin's work at the British Museum. — A library in a water-tank.—The demand for good books of moderate price.—Our •American "Debrett." COMMUNICATION 40 Research and Intercommunication: A Partial Survey of Ways and Means. Eugene F. McPike. AN INTIMATE VIEW OF A GREAT PAINTER. Edward E. Halt, Jr 42 TRAVELS IN THE AMERICAN TROPICS. T.D.A. Cockerell 44 Rodway's In the Guiana Forest. — Lowe's A Natur- alist on Desert Islands. A SURVEY OF ENGLISH POETRY. Raymond Macdonald Alden 46 CONTROLLING MAN'S EVOLUTION. Raymond Pearl 49 Davenport's Heredity in Relation to Engenics.— Ili-rtit's Biological Aspects of Human Problems.— Kellicott's The Social Direction of Human Evolution. STERNE AS A LETTER-WRITER. Jama W. Tupper 51 BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 52 A minister of public benevolence.—Chapters on the broiderer's art in England. —A new life of "Le Taciturne."—A business man in party politics.—A new outline of Scottish history.—A handbook to the British West Indies.—Index and digest of our period- ical library literature. — Fishers and fighters of the North Sea. — Private presses in England. — Promen- ades through Paris. BRIEFER MENTION 56 NOTES 57 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 57 THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS. Out of the political turmoil of the past month one result has emerged which is peculiarly grat- ifying to all who take a serious interest in our national life and problems. One of the great political parties has chosen as its candidate for the office of chief magistrate a man who embodies that ideal of the scholar in politics which has hitherto seemed to be impossible of realization in a democracy like ours, short-sighted in its vis- ion and deaf to the purely intellectual appeal. It is hard even now to believe that the incredi- ble has become fact, and equally hard to account for it, considering in what contempt the " intel- lectual" and the theorist are held by most of those who think themselves practical politicians. In a truly enlightened community nothing could be more natural than the selection for its leader of a man who had devoted his life to the inves- tigation of the problems of statecraft, and spent his days in teaching young men to understand them. Who should be competent to lead, if not one who for many years had given his attention to the questions for which leadership is expected to find answers, and who could bring to bear upon them a wide knowledge of the art of gov- ernment in all countries, at all times, and under all conditions? Yet, plain as the matter is, there is a surprising number of persons who fail to see in a man of this type the most essential of all qualifications for high administrative office—the wide range of knowledge, the trained analytical faculty, and the habit of forming disinterested judgments upon political issues. Although we have been a working democracy for upwards of a hundred years, we have in all that time acquired only a rudimentary percep- tion of what constitutes fitness for office. We have complacently witnessed the placing of men without scientific equipment in positions whose duties involved the management of observatories and laboratories and museums, we have seen with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, translated into the words "another political ap- pointment," the selection of men without expert knowledge for posts in which such knowledge was imperative, we have seen surgeons trans- formed into generals, and politicians into judges, and sportsmen into civil service commissioners, and illiterates into ministers and consuls, de 36 [July 16, THE DIAL spatched to countries of which they could not even speak the language—we have seen all these grotesque administrative misfits, and, if we have felt anything like adequate indignation, have failed to express it, and all because of our na- tional habit of viewing politics as a form of sport instead of as a business to be dealt with accord- ing to the dictates of reason and in a spirit of high seriousness. When it comes to choosing people for office ourselves, by exercising the sacred privilege of the ballot, we do not, once in a score of times, make a decent effort to find out whether the men for whom we are voting have either the knowledge or the character that the offices require. As far as knowledge goes, we pretend to believe that any American citizen can learn to do anything if he is only given an opportunity, and, as far as character goes, we take our chances, or fall back upon a cynical disbelief in the integrity of any man whose duties are found to conflict with his interests. Aside from the suspicion with which the scholar in politics is widely regarded, taking shape in abstract allegations barbed with such damning epithets as theorist, visionary, Utopian, dreamer, idealist, and reformer, his entrance into the field has to encounter the very serious obstacle presented by the damaged reputations of men who have been supposed to be con- spicuous examples of the principle which he represents. We have undoubtedly had scholars in politics for whom the noblesse oblige of their rank has had no constraining force, and who promptly sold themselves to the devil as soon as they were taken up on the high mountain. Two of these lost souls are particularly prom- inent in our national affairs because their sin against the light has been more than commonly flagrant, but there are many others of lesser stature who, with the scholar's equipment, have not had the character needed to steel them in the hour of temptation, and so have helped to bring into disrepute what is nevertheless the unquestionable truth that high (and to a certain extent specialized) education is above all things else to be desired in a public officer. We must not be disheartened by the cases in which intel- lect has been put to shame by deed, but hold fast to the principle that education ought to count as a very large percentage of the total of what we require in a candidate for high public office. It is amazing that this matter should be even arguable in a country like the United States, which does more lip-service to education, and goes down deeper into its pocket to pay the bills, than any other on earth. But the fact is that along with our devotion to popular educa- tion we cherish as a nation a certain distrust of all education that goes beyond the elementary stages, excepting that which is definitely shaped to practical ends. The absurd notion that the higher education somehow disqualifies a man for the real work of life is entertained by a sur- prisingly large number of people, and urged by them with a zeal worthy of a better cause. It is but a step from this general prejudice to the more specific one that would hold it rather against a candidate for high office that his education had been of a nature to win for him academic honors, even if they were honors in the very field of scholarship that prepares a man to deal with political and economic prob- lems upon a basis of scientific knowledge. We take for granted that expert chemists are needed in the direction of our industrial organizations, and trained electricians and mathematicians in the management of our traction systems and engineering enterprises. But we balk at the idea that our executive and legislative officers need to be trained in the niceties of interna- tional law or the theories of the tariff, and scout the notion that a knowledge of political and economic history can alone supply the examples and the warnings by which a government may learn what is wise and do what is right. We prefer to do what unintelligent impulse directs and interested ignorance counsels, disregarding the accumulated experience of mankind which might so easily save us from mistaken courses and pernicious policies. In the impending pres- idential campaign, when almost for the first time in our history we have the opportunity of placing a mind trained in political science at the head of national affairs, we shall have to contend with a stout opposition whose chief "argument" will be the multiplication of cheap gibes about misguided pedagogues who foolishly aspire to become statesmen. Governor Baldwin, in the last number of "The Yale Review," has some pertinent remarks about placing educated men in public office. "The indirect consequences of any new piece of legislation are far more numerous and far more import- ant than those which are direct. Only well-trained minds can anticipate many of them. And the highest education can never enable a man to forecast them all. In America one is quite sure that well-trained minds, sooner or later, will trace out these consequences. This falls to our judges. They will be quick to see how an alteration in one of the rules of law may affect the working of others, because this will tell in determining whether the new statute does or does not square with the constitutional guaranties of individual right. Often 1912.] 87 THE DIAL its effect will be found such as to produce a benefit to a few at the cost of injustice to the community. He who finds this out first, without waiting for some law- suit to develop the wrong, has won a place among public benefactors. Still more of a benefactor is the member of a legislature who perceives the impractica- bility of some such proposition, before it can take the shape of law, and see to it that it is rejected." All of this illustrates the importance of Bastiat's "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas."' It is what people do not foresee of the consequences of the legislation for which they clamor that makes all the mischief. It is the special func- tion of the trained mind in office, of the scholar in politics, to trace out these ulterior conse- quences, and, perceiving them to be seriously dangerous to prosperity, to justice, and even to liberty, to stand firmly against them, no matter at what cost of immediate public favor. He may suffer for his stand at the time, but he will have his reward in the end, if he only have the patience to wait. "The huge world will come round to him " when the clamor has died away. CASUAL COMMENT. The public library as an educational force was a subject of marked prominence at the thirty- fourth annual conference of the American Library Association, just held at Ottawa, Canada. The con- viction was emphasized that the library constitutes not only a great civic force, but the one educational agency which must be relied upon to reach the citi- zenship of the country, since it is only a small minor- ity who are privileged to give up other occupations in order to attend academic institutions. This feeling was voiced especially in an address by Mr. William H. Hut ton of Wisconsin, who said that "Society is required to educate the man of forty just as much as the boy of five; the training of the school can only be a beginning in learning how to assimilate knowl- edge. The student should be trained to find knowl- edge for himself. There is no place more fitted to accomplish this task thari the library. The public library is the university of the people. It is the dominant factor in civic efficiency." Another dis- tinct impression received was that it is more than ever the thought of the library profession that good librarianship demands a keen sense of society's needs, together with a clear appreciation of literary values; that knowledge of people and books is more import- ant than the technical side of library administration. That this conception was so definitely impressed upon those in attendance was in a large measure due to the preliminary work of the first woman who has ever been president of the A. L. A., Mrs. Theresa West Elmendorf of Buffalo. It was in the main her views upon this subject which were worked out upon the programme, and her personality which dominated the conference. Our Chicago librarian, Mr. Henry E. Legler, won merited recognition in the form of a unanimous election to the presidency of the Asso- ciation for the coming year. The eloquent and progressive head of the University of Minnesota bore to Ottawa the greetings of the National Edu- cation Association, and delivered one of the best addresses of the week. An especially enjoyable session was the fourth, for which a Dominion Day programme had been prepared, in which Sir Wilfrid Laurier and other notables took part. On the whole, this year's conference was one of the most interest- ing and stimulating that have been held. More than 700 members were in attendance, and the bonds uniting library workers in this country with those across the Canadian border were more closely knit. • • • "Guide-post" reformers of our lanouaoe in respect to its spelling—or, in other words, those who cheerfully consent to point the doubtful and difficult road to some imaginary orthographic happy land, but prefer for their own part to stay where they are and bear those ills they have rather than fly to others that they know not of—receive a word of reproof in the June issue of that vivacious organ of a doleful cause, the "Simplified Spelling Bul- letin." In an editorial paragraph we read: "As one of our members has put it, too many reformers are inclined to take the offis of a gide-post, and thus to point bravely the road of reform, while taking no steps themselvs. We need gide-posts, but if the road of reform is not traveld by some more pedes- trians, to say nothing of those who prefer the more rapid rate of vehicular progression, the grass will grow, and the evening sun will throw a tender but fading light upon the faithful gide-post, with its sturdy motto, 'Here I am, here I stay.'" The printed list of the officers and board of the S.S.S. (the official abbreviation for Simplified Spelling Society) contains so many names of writers and others whom the world in general has had no reason to suspect of inoculation with the S. S. virus, that one is inclined to believe there may indeed be not a few of these "gide-post" reformers in the S. S. S. ranks. The general tone of this number of the "Bulletin" conveys a certain sense of some- thing like despondency in the cause. Possibly this is a false impression; certainly it need not be the one given by the following paragraph, frqm the department of facetice, contributed by a correspon- dent: "One man to whom I had the Bulletin sent was suffering from prejuditis and fossilization of the spelling bump. After taking three bottles of your cure he shows markt symptoms [why not simptoms?] of improvement, the foren substances o, g and h in his through having been painlessly re- moved." ... The calumniated book-publisher finds an eloquent advocate in Mr. Filson Young, who writes ably in his defence in the London "Eye-Witness." Much has been said and printed about the sins of publishers, almost nothing about those of authors in 88 [July 16, THE DIAL their dealings with these same wicked publishers; societies have been formed for protecting the author from his hereditary foe, the publisher, but no societies exist for shielding the publisher from the madness or malevolence or unreasonableness of the author. "I have taken considerable interest in this question," says Mr. Young, "and both as an author and a pub- lisher's reader have had opportunities of examining it from both sides. Since my income is derived solely from writing, and not from publishing, I am naturally on the author's side; but I am bound to admit that in most of the cases of discontent and jealousy which exist, the wrong is on the side of the author. It is quite commonly supposed by the world at large that publishers are a dangerous set of criminals, who in reality sell immense editions of every book they pub- lish, but only account for a small number of copies to the author. And it seriously believes also that except for the vigilance of societies and agents, au- thors would all be starving in the gutter and publish- ers would all be millionaires. But I know more rich authors than publishers." Most assuredly one half of the world does not know how the other half has to struggle and contend with all sorts of unimagined and indescribable difficulties. Life is a rough road for most of us, and not for the publisher any more than for anyone else has it been sandpapered down to a polished smoothness. • • • The primrose path of letters — or, rather, what is imagined by the uninitiated to be the flower- carpeted road travelled by those who earn their bread by writing—will doubtless, as a matter of fact, always have more thorns than roses for the feet of the way- farers. But a pleasing fiction will survive. A rather well-known writer of our acquaintance received a letter, such as probably many other prominent writers have received, asking, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, advice that would enable the ingenuous correspondent to become a successful author. Unintentionally diverting as this letter was, an even more amusing one, addressed likewise to a person known in the literary world, is printed in "Public Libraries" for June. "Pardon this intru- sion upon your time," it begim, "but seeing your like- ness in a magazine and reading some of your articles prompts me to ask a favor of you and it is if you will write me a short article on 'The Novels of Maurice Hewlett.' I know you will think me very presump- tuous but it will be no exertion for you and will be granting a great favor." It continues, with a mix- ture of frankness and flattery: "I do n't believe you want to be paid for every article, do you, when you will be conferring such a favor? Your countenance appeals to me and so I write asking this favor. I have access to so few of his books and really do not care for him as a writer, so I find it quite a task to prepare a lengthy article for our literary club on the subject, especially as I am a very busy mother and have had so much sickness and have so short a time to prepare an article. If you can write me a humorous statement or two on the subject please do so, as long dry articles are so tiresome." What a vast amount of benefit that busy mother must get from her literary club! A moving appeal to the citizens of St. Joseph, Missouri, to visit and use more freely and frequently their excellent public library has been made in the past year through the agency of a local moving- picture theatre, which, says Librarian Rush in his unusually attractive and cleverly illustrated Report, "kindly exhibited a specially prepared lantern slide showing at each performance photographic repro- ductions of the Library buildings, together with the following note: 'Your Free Public Library has ar- ranged with this management to select interesting books and magazine articles upon the historical, lit- erary, and industrial subjects treated in these pic- tures. It is a bright idea to see something good and then learn more about it'" Even more moving than this appeal would have been, let us say, a cinemato- graphic representation of some of the library's bene- ficent activities. For instance, a worried club-woman, seeking material for a paper to be read at the next meeting of the St. Joseph Culture Club, might be pictured in the process of applying for and promptly obtaining just the book or books that she needs, and departing with smiles of gratitude on her face and her precious data under her arm. Or the simple ceremony of applying for and receiving a book at the delivery desk might be thrown on the screen, to show how prompt and efficient is the library service. If all the world, or at least all the juvenile world, will endanger its eye-sight by visiting the moving- picture show, why not give it something well worth seeing, and worth thinking about afterward? A hero and his valet are not always pictured in such pleasant relations to each other as in the "Recollections of Guy de Maupassant," by his body- servant, Francois — a French book that has recently achieved the distinction of being translated into En- glish. Not all valets, it is true, are equal to the task of putting their reminiscences of their masters into book-form, else we might have more refutations of the familiar dictum ascribed, with varying weight of authority, to Madame de Sevigne", to Madame Cornuel, to Marshal Catinat, and perhaps to others. Evidently Francois was a faithful servant and a minute observer; and that, with all this minuteness of observation under the somewhat disenchanting conditions of domestic service, he still felt sufficiently moved with admiration to present the world with a portrait of his master in undress, so to say, speaks well for both master and servant. In addition to those intimate personal details about which only a valet would be qualified to write fully and accurately, there are matters touched upon of far greater pith and moment,—questions of literary taste, even, and discussions (somewhat one-sided, naturally) of Zola and his writings. Maupassant, as appears from his 1912.] 39 THE DIAL valet's book, was a veritable steam engine for work when once the creative impulse seized him; he could cover no fewer than thirty-seven foolscap pages in a day. Those who wish to know the real Guy de Maupassant, to become better acquainted with the man behind his writings, will not fail to read these entertaining recollections from the pen of Francois. The dwindling of the baccalaureate, the degree that a few decades ago stood as a symbol for all that was best in college culture — for an intimate and loving acquaintance with the humanities, and an ardent devotion to the highest ideals both of scholar- ship and of conduct, conduct being the very art of arts, and so not to be ignored by the holder of a B. A. diploma — is sadly attested by this year's record of our college and university graduates. In a list of thirty-nine of our leading institutions of higher learn- ing, graduating at the recent commencement nearly thirteen thousand students, there were bestowed not quite four thousand degrees of bachelor of arts, or less than thirty-three per cent of the total number of diplomas awarded. Only one of these colleges and universities is found to confine itself, with commend- able restraint, to the B. A. degree as the official attes- tation that the student has successfully completed its curriculum; and that one is, of course, a New En- gland country college—Williams. The sister insti- tution at Amherst graduated ninety-five students (to Williams's ninety-three), but allowed twenty of these to go forth with some sort of substitute for the time- honored parchmentof our ancestors—probably a B. S. diploma. Lehigh University makes, on the whole, about the poorest showing in this connection, with only four B. A.'s to its credit, out of eighty-five grad- uates; and, sad to relate, the University of Vermont sends forth this year but five bachelors of arts in a graduating class of ninety-six — a falling-off of three from last year's B. A. record. At this rate, the time may come, within our own lifetime, when bachelors of arts will constitute a smaller and more distinguished company of scholars than doctors of philosophy. An experiment in co-operative book-bdting forms the subject of an interesting section in the latest Report of the John Crerar Library, and it seems not unlikely to lead to still further and larger enterprises of the same sort. After a preliminary reference to the matter, the librarian continues: "The purchases of the year were greatly affected in character by the experiment already mentioned. Four libraries, Harvard University, Northwestern University, The University of Chicago, and The John Crerar, sent a joint representative to Europe. They were fortunate in securing, through the cour- tesy of Northwestern University, the services of its Librarian, Dr. Walter Lichtenstein, who had very special qualifications for the task. Dr. Lichtenstein brought together for Harvard its Hohenzollern Collection, and in so doing obtained an exceptional familiarity with the European book trade." It is understood that the results of this venture were satisfactory to all concerned. In the case of the library of which we are now speaking, "the pur- chases cover all the departments of the Library and, indeed, most of the individual subjects. The principal object of the experiment was to obtain books which could not be obtained through the regular channels of trade, but it is pleasant to be able to add that, after allowing for all expenses, the purchases were made at less cost than they could have been made through these channels." Sir Sidney Colvin's work at the British M u- seum, as keeper of prints and drawings since 1884, draws to itself some merited attention just now by reason of his recent retirement from the post. Though best known to the reading public as editor of the Edin- burgh edition of Stevenson's works and of Stevenson's letters, there are other and greater achievements to his credit than the editing of R. L. S. Scholar and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was elected in 1873 Slade professor of fine art at that university, and was also director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge from 1876 until he went to the British Museum in 1884. The pre-Raphaelite movement found in him an eloquent advocate in the days of its unpopularity. His acquaintance with Whistler and his high opinion of that eccentric artist's work are matters of record—as is also Whistler's characteristic treatment of his admirer. In every way equipped for his duties at the British Museum, Sir Sidney acquired a reputation for expert knowledge of the old masters second to that of few or none in En- gland; and his diplomacy and tact in the discharge of those duties secured for his department valuable accessions that another man might not have secured at all, or only at a considerably greater cost in money. The story is current of a dealer who, after making a sale to the keeper of prints and drawings, repented the transaction and grumbled: "Colvin is so [profane adverb] pleasant he gets things for nothing." . . , A library IN A WATER-TANK, occupying some of the space once devoted to water, enjoys a security from fire (the tank being of iron) which not every library can boast. The Chicago Public' Library, as we now know it, has grown from a nucleus of about three thousand volumes given to the city forty years ago, just after the great fire, by the late Thomas Hughes and others, authors and publishers and lit- erary and scientific societies that he had interested in the cause, in order that Chicago might no longer suffer the reproach of having no library in the least degree worthy of so large and enterprising a city; and in the old water-tank on the site of the present Rookery Building the books thus secured through English generosity were first shelved and made accessible to the public. Since then the growing collection, which now numbers nearly half a mil- 40 [July 16, THE DIAL lion volumes, has been four times removed to new and larger quarters, and to-day there are, in addi- tion to the fine central library building at Michigan Avenue and Washington Street, twenty-five branch libraries, one hundred and sixteen delivery stations, nine employees' libraries in industrial and commer- cial establishments, sixty-six classroom libraries in schools, and two travelling libraries. These facts and figures, with others of interest and a classified list of recent accessions, are to be found in the June number of the library's interesting " Book Bulletin." The demand fob good books of moderate price appears rather to grow than to be satiated with the increasing output of such excellent series as "Everyman's Library," the "Temple Classics," and the "Home University Library." "Everyman's" has passed well beyond the half-thousand mark in the number of its titles, and the "Home University Library" of authoritative little manuals devoted to various branches of learning is now circulating to the extent of half a million copies of its various issues. One watcher of the book-market and critic of litera- ture attributes the present social unrest—a discon- tent that is the beginning of progress —largely to the wide circulation of these excellent, thought-provoking textbooks and reprints. No longer, it appears, does the popular novel or the illustrated magazine, or even the many-paged and profusely-pictured Sunday news- paper, quench the public thirst for reading matter. If this is really so, and if the inexpensive reprint and the low-priced scientific or economic or historical treatise are at the same time creating and respond- ing to a more wholesome craving, there is cause for felicitation. . . . Our American "Debrett," instead of being a blue-book of the peerage, is a red-book of men and women of achievement. It lays emphasis rather on the qualities commonly associated with red blood than on those traditionally characteristic of blue. The current issue of "Who's Who in America" (Vol. VII., 1912-1913), fresh from the hands of its enterprising publishers, contains nearly three thou- sand new names; which means that about eight times a day, during the period of the book's compilation, fame has struck some hitherto obscure person and made of him or her a Who. Presumably, too, the rate of mortality among the Whos must in the long run about equal the birth-rate. Contemplating this endless procession of the illustrious from the cradle to the grave, with their achievement of renown marked by admission to " Who's Who," one might be tempted by a sense of the transitoriness of all things mundane, great as well as small, to essay a labored and clumsy parody of certain familiar lines of Ten- nyson, somewhat as follows: Fill the cup and fill the can, Have a rouse before the mom; Each three hours a Who expires, Each three hours a Who is born. COMMUNICA TION. RESEARCH AND INTERCOMMUNICATION: A PARTIAL SURVEY OF WAYS AND MEANS. (To the Editor of The Dial.) Of bibliographical undertakings, large and small, past, present, and future, there are many, and they are of great utility; but it is not the chief purpose of this note to deal therewith. We have in mind rather those publications and organizations which afford assistance in current research, or through the medium of which investigators can be placed in direct communication with each other. It is generally recognized now that the serious student is no longer content with printed literature. He must seek, and, if possible, secure the last word on the subject in point. He may join some one or more of the societies, national or international, devoted to the matters or problems of interest to him, but he will still find that there is a chasm which cannot be bridged over except by some one general clearing- house to which, in certain emergencies, to apply. With this state of affairs, it was not surprising to hear of the creation of such an institution as " Die Brttcke" (The Bridge), under the presidency of Prof. Dr. Wil- helm Ostwald, of Leipsic, and having its headquarters at 30, Schwindstrasse, Munich. The minimum yearly subscription for membership is only six marks (about $1.50). Dr. Ostwald has already, according to report, donated to "Die Briicke " the sum of one hundred thou- sand marks ($24,000) from his private fortune. An active international propaganda will, no doubt, soon be commenced by "Die Briicke," which has so far been giving special attention to the organization of its work in Germany. It will probably establish, in due course, branch organizations in the various countries, and will begin the publication of an official organ of intercom- munication. The scope of "Die Brttcke," unlike that of any other previously existing body, is unlimited as to subject. Its members will be privileged to submit queries on any imaginable topic. It will seek affiliation with all other institutions, societies, etc., throughout the world. Among its first serious tasks, therefore, will be the compilation of a complete list of the almost innumer- able organizations in existence, with some indication of their scope and purpose. True, this was largely accom- plished a few years ago by the Carnegie Institution, in its " Handbook of Learned Societies in America," and in its as yet unedited lists for foreign countries; but there remains nevertheless ample room for the good work undertaken by " Die Briicke." Its ultimately large corps of correspondents throughout the civilized world will form a very strong working organization. We have chosen to present first this international pro- ject in its latest form, before dealing with some of the national undertakings, in order to have the broadest possible ground-work for that ultimate coordination of endeavor which is rapidly becoming so essential. In England, the old London "Notes and Queries," which has appeared weekly since 1849 and is rendered accessible by many excellent indexes, is an exceedingly useful means of research and intercommunication, par- ticularly on subjects of literature, grammar, linguistics, philology, history, biography, heraldry, genealogy, folk- lore, bibliography, and allied matters. There also exist in Great Britain and Ireland numerous local "Notes and Queries" magazines, and many societies of varied 1912.] 41 THE DIAL purposes. Among those whose objects should be of gen- eral interest is the British Institute of Social Service, 4 Tavistock Square, London, W. C, which has an offi- cial organ, " Progress." In seeking a likely candidate for appointment as the British representative of "Die Brilcke," however, we would most naturally turn to such an organization as The Information and Agency Bureau, J. W. Shaw, Director, 24 Hart Street, Holborn, Lon- don, W. C. Among Mr. Shaw's current investigations is one relating to the production of crockery, china, earthenware, etc., in the various countries, in behalf of a company making a patented tunnel oven for firing pottery. This is at least suggestive of the commercial possibilities of such a clearing-house. In France, we have "L'Interme'diaire des Chercheurs et Curieux," appearing in Paris three times a month, since 1864. A general index to its contents to the year 1896 has been printed. A complete set of this periodical may be found in the library of the University of Chicago. Many are the quaint and interesting contributions in its columns, relating to French history and art We must not overlook, in passing, the existence of the Institut International pour la diffusion des Experiences Sociales, under the general direction of Prof. Dr. Rodolphe Broda, 59 Rue Claude Bernard, Paris. Its official organ, "Les Documents du Progres," is inter- esting and useful. The French representation of " Die Brttcke" might, perhaps, be assigned to the Institut du Mois Scientifique et lndustriel, in Paris, or to the Association de Bibliographie et de Documentation Sci- entifique, Industrielle et Comraerciale, of which the Directeur is M. Jules Garcon, 40 bis Rue Fabert, Paris (viie). As to Germany, " Die Briicke " itself, with headquar- ters in Munich, will doubtless provide its own national bureau. It might receive valuable assistance from such an organization as the Institut fiir Internationalen Austausch fortsohrittlicher Erfahrungen (International Institute for the interchange of progressive experi- ences), of which the official organ, "Dokumente des Fortschritts," is becoming more and more widely known. The Secretary is Prof. J. H. Epstein, 22 Hermannstrasse, Frankfurt-am-Main. In the United States, we think first of the Smith- sonian Institution, with its efficient International Ex- change through which, indeed, interrelations with "Die Briicke" were established April 30, 1912, and the interchange of documents begun. The Carnegie Insti- tution, also richly endowed, is, like the Smithsonian, carrying out a liberal policy for the extension of use- ful knowledge. The scope of both those beneficent bodies, however, is restricted, for the most part, to matters of science, pure and applied. "The Scientific American" inaugurated many years ago a column for notes and queries which is much patronized by its readers. "The Publisher and Retailer" (New York) for October, 1911 (pages 17-19), printed a useful list of American societies devoted to child-welfare and other subjects, which are willing to answer questions within their scope. Something of this kind was also attempted by "Special Libraries" for June, 1911 (pages 54-58), but a more nearly complete list appears in the front pages of the current issues of "The Sur- vey." It remained, however, for Boston to establish the first Co-operative Information Bureau of unrestricted scope, and to form a card-index of all its members, with notes of their special knowledge. This brings these scattering remarks, at last, to the concrete proposition that there is great need of an American Co-operative Information Bureau, with branches in all the principal libraries, universities, colleges, and commercial clubs of the country, and with its own official organ of inter- communication to be issued monthly. Such an organi- zation, with headquarters in Chicago as the commercial and railroad centre, and where the library facilities are of the best, could soon become of great practical use- fulness. It might also act as the American representa- tive of " Die' Briicke." The present time seems oppor- tune for serious consideration of such a project. In this connection it is well to call attention to the Special Libraries Association, which is the central organ for a number of scattering and, to some extent, unrelated institutions covering a large field of important work which is in great need of organiza tion and co-operative effort, a fertile field which gives every promise of an abundant harvest. To the support of such a banner might rally the leading commercial and industrial bodies of the country, provided that, at the same time, adequate means are established for the necessary intercommunication as to current investigations. To facilitate discussion and definite action, the follow- ing rough draft of a prospectus is appended: PROSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN CO-OPERATIVE INFORMATION BUREAU. Objects: (a) To furnish a central body or clearing-house for the interchange of authentic information on all subjects of science, technology, history, commerce, transportation, travel, and all other matters without restriction. (b) To encourage co-operation in the interchange of useful information and for that purpose establish branches in all the principal libraries, universities, and other institutions of learn- ing throughout the United States, as well as to seek affiliation with similar institutions and societies in all parts of the world. (c) To place investigators into direct communication with each other when mutually desired. (d) To make special inquiries for the benefit of members. (e) To publish an official organ "Intercommunication," to be issued monthly at a yearly subscription price of about $3.00, of which a small portion, to be determined, may be re- tained by the local branch sending subscriptions. (The con- tents of each issue of the journal will be arranged in order of subject according to the decimal system of classification, thus bringing conveniently together all items of allied inter- est. Each yearly volume will be accompanied by a complete analytical index.) Privileges: All members shall have the privilege of submitting briefly worded queries on any subject without restriction, but each separate query shall be accompanied by an addressed envel- ope duly stamped for return postage. Cost, etc.: There shall be no membership fees beyond the subscription price of the official organ, but the bureau shall not be expected to undertake without charge special researches of an expen- sive character for the benefit of any single member; neither will the bureau assume the responsibility of getting answers to all queries nor guarantee the accuracy of information ob- tained through its medium. Comment and criticism will show needed modifica- tions and improvements, but something of this char- acter is required in our highly specialized and rapidly moving life. Will America lag behind her sister nations in this great work? Will Chicago overlook this excellent opportunity to add to her prestige and to her sphere of usefulness? EuGKJ(E p McPlKE Chicago, July 10,1919. 42 [July 16, THE DIAL, %\it |teto goohs. An Intimate View of a Great Painter.* Mr. Daingerfield's book on George Inness is a great service to all who desire to know the development of American landscape painting. It is not an attempt at a biography, or even at a critical estimate, but a personal record—per- sonal not in the gossippy but in the artistic sense. Mr. Daingerfield had particular opportunities for knowing Inness thoroughly as an artist, and his essay gives us a sketch based on intimate details. The painter's development in power, his effort first for a command of form and com- position, then for color, atmosphere, value; his technical theories of painting or of composition, his eccentric doings-over, his search for obscure laws of color; his personal character, his inten- sity, vigor, impulsiveness, courage,—these things are given us by an authority, and we must always be glad to have them. We are unfortunately lacking in studies like this on the work of our great painters. Whoever would understand their works must either be content with the paintings themselves as he may be able to see them in the public galleries or in occasional exhibitions, or he must rely upon the general histories of American painting which, however excellent, must lack whatever value would come from the authors' being provided with independent studies of the painters with whom they had to deal. Both these methods leave a good deal to be desired. Our galleries, as a rule, do not attach much importance to American landscape, or, if they do, they are unable to carry out in any systematic way such a selection and arrangement as would serve as a guide to the student. The Metropolitan Museum in New York, for instance, and the New York Public Library have a good many pictures by American landscape painters, but their examples are only by accident representative pictures, and their catalogues give very little about them of use to the student. Our histories of American paint- ing are generally based upon the particular knowledge of the authors; and although such is the very best foundation for such works, yet it is a great advantage to be able to correct or modify one's own impression by the studies and opinions of others. Of such discussions there are on this subject very few. "Gbobok Inness: The Man and His Art. By Elliott Daingerfield. Illustrated. New York: Frederic Fail-child Sherman. Of course it may easily be alleged that the his- tory of American landscape has not been, until recently, a matter of great artistic interest or importance. The Hudson River, Lake George, or White Mountain School, it may be pointed out, is hopelessly antiquated, and its pictures may be relegated to the lumber-room without loss. The pictures of George Inness, in like manner, are pushed into obscurity by others who feel that American landscape painting began, for the purposes of the artist, with the followers of Monet. All this may be quite true from the standpoint of the painter or the artstudent commonly so-called. And yet I feel sure that an element of national interest that occupied so large a place in the mind of the people as did American landscape ought not to be allowed to fall into obscurity, if only from the standpoint of American history. It is true that schools and manners have succeeded each other, and that to those who love the present manner that of the past may be absurd. But such things have their ebb and flow. In the matter of subject only, which an amateur may understand more about than of the matter of technique, there have been very great changes. Forty years ago the pupils of Hunt sought out a pair of fence-bars to paint, just as twenty years later the disciples of Monet were satisfied with a haystack done in a dozen different lights. Both spoke scornfully of the "panoramic " views that had delighted the older men. But in the last few years the landscapes which one sees are as likely as not to exhibit wide stretches of country, while the pair of bars and the haystack seem rather dull. Inness himself reacted agaiost the followers of Thomas Cole, who, Mr. Daingerfield thinks, borrowed the worst in the empty classicism of Europe. They painted mountains and lakes: Inness painted a pasture or an apple-orchard. Yet the George Inness medal was awarded this year for a picture of Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, a sub- ject quite as romantic as the " Mount Corcoran" of Bierstadt. There is certainly much in the painting of the earlier men, and of Inness too, that has merely gone out of fashion. Their real character and spirit will generally be found well worth looking into and studying. All of this may seem far too long an introduc- tion to a comment on a book on the painting of George Inness. Indeed, it may be said that Inness is the one great exception to the general view just remarked. I do not think he is. It is true that Inness is at the present day much more highly esteemed by the general picture-lover than any who preceded or many who have followed 1912.] 43 THE DIAL him. Compared with Cole, Durand, Church, Winslow Homer, I presume Inness is to most people a sun among stars. There is a good rep- resentation of his pictures in most large galleries and in the great private collections. Chicago is especially fortunate in this respect, for the Butler collection is the hest to be found anywhere. But there is yet no very thorough or satisfac- tory study of his work, nor is there agreement as to its value. Mr. Daingerfield's book does not precisely try to fill this lack. As has been said, it does not pretend even to be an estimate; it is one of those preliminary studies of so much value to the critic. Mr. Daingerfield tells us things about Inness that no one else knew—things that one would want to be sure to take account of in getting to a true appreciation of his noble and beautiful art. It is a most attractive and interesting pic- ture of his master that he gives us, partly per- sonal though not too much so, partly artistic, with detail of method and ideas that must be of value to the technical student. It will not be a very important matter that I should not agree with Mr. Daingerfield in his view of Inness. I could not, of course, pretend to an opinion of much value in comparison with his in the matter of painting. Just the value of Inness's technique in comparison with all that has come in since his day is something about which I should have but the personal taste of any amateur. But so far as the pictures are concerned, there are certain points remarked by Mr. Daingerfield on which one who is not a painter may fairly, I believe, desire to have an independent opinion. Chief of these matters is the view that Inness really had more love and knowledge of Nature than many a man before him, or indeed beside him or after him, who could not paint so well. Mr. Daingerfield says "the frail, weak and altogether insipid effort of those about him was distasteful; they borrowing the worst in the empty classicism of Europe produced nothing upon which such such a nature could lean, nor from which learn even the rudiments of land- scape art" (p. 10). And he further gives us to understand that the contemporaries of Inness's younger days were apostles of the brown tree in the foreground (p. 9), and that their method was opposed to copying the landscape "he saw with his own eyes " (p. 11). This must have been between 1845 and 1855. The passage presents what is to me quite a new view of the American landscape-painting of that time. Those years saw the last of the paintings of Cole, some of the best of Durand's and the first of those of Church. We cannot say who were the artists around Inness, but snrely it is not a common idea to believe that Cole, Durand, and Church, men fairly representative of the landscape-painting of that time, borrowed the worst in the empty classicism of Europe or did not believe in paint- ing the landscape that they saw. Of Cole some- thing of such an idea might prevail, but even he thought that he was following Nature closely and said so over and over again. Durand was a Pre-Raphaelite before the P.R.B.: Mr. Still- man says that he "first showed American artists what could be done by faithful and unaffected study of Nature in large studies carefully finished on the spot." And as to Church, his chief power was his wonderful eye for seeing the detail of Nature, and his still more remarkable hand for rendering what he saw. Inness, of course, often painted direct from Nature; but he was not the only one to do so, and I should think myself, on the ground of Mr. Daingerfield's accounts of his later methods, that his greatest success was ob- tained when he painted out of his own head. His head, like Gainsborough's, was wonderfully stored with forms, but after his early copyings of Nature he very often depended entirely upon it. I have generally thought of Inness, not as a leader in any return to Nature, but as one who developed a new and very beautiful way of presenting certain aspects of Nature. His con- temporaries were inferior to him there. Cole as early as 1825 tried to paint what he saw. So he says himself, and I see no reason to doubt it, least of all that he often did not do so. He saw, for instance, that Nature in the summer was green rather than brown. His "Mount Washington " (1827) is as green as anything of Constable's, whose pictures he had never'seen at that time. Then Durand, who did not have Cole's passion for the " ideal," developed a kind of landscape painting that was nearly akin to that propounded by Ruskin. Of Church it is said that when Cole, his master, told him to select a subject one morning he chose the valley of the Hudson River. Cole, looking at his work in the afternoon, set him another subject, namely, a mullein stalk. The story, if not true, is signifi- cant; for Church is as remarkable for his accu- racy of detail as for his grasp of range. Now the great thing about Inness was that he did not do anything at all like any of those things, but something quite different — inspired, Mr. Dain- gerfield says, by Barbizon. He did not aim at the particular facts, usu- ally of form and color, that interested most of 44 THE DIAL. [July 16, his contemporaries, he more commonly saw in Nature other facts—facts of light, atmosphere, value. What he saw in Nature is more like what later men have seen than what Cole, Durand, and Church saw. But to represent Inness as one of the first of those to whom truth to Nature, in any ordinary sense, was the main aim seems to me to convey a wrong idea, at least to the non-technical reader. Nor is this a minor point. It is the founda- tion of Inness's greatness, the essence of his peculiar quality, and the reason why he was not greater than he was. It makes clear that Inness, like his predecessors and his successors, was limited to his own field of thought. He saw in Nature something very particular; and to people chiefly interested in that particular kind of thing he is the greatest of American landscape painters. But he failed to see various other things of interest. During the first part of the nineteenth century the typical landscape painter in American opinion was Salvator Rosa; afterward Theodore Rousseau took that position; then Claude Monet. At the present day the first is commonly regarded with contempt, the second with indifference, the third with devotion. But it is a foregone conclusion that the love of Monet will pass, because his view of Nature is as limited as that of Salvator Rosa or Rousseau. We like his pictures better because his view of Nature is limited to things that we have learned to like. But his vogue will certainly pass. In like manner Inness's view of Nature appears to me to be limited. There was a time when his art seemed to me to include the most beautiful aspects of Nature, and from it I learned to admire and love much which might otherwise be still hidden from me. But with a wider acquaintance with the work of others, and of Nature herself, I have thought that there were other aspects quite as beautiful and interesting as those which Inness perceived. So one may not—probably will not—agree with Mr. Daingerfield in his view of George Inness. But this makes little difference in the value of his book. He has put into these few pages something of great value, namely, George Inness's own commentary on his own art, and he has been able to illustrate it by beautiful reproductions of typical pictures. No one will read the book without an increase of admiration for the artist. We need not put aside the work of others to make Inness seem great. His work presents some of the most beautiful aspects of Nature in a very beautiful way. Edward E. Hale, Jr. Travels in the American Tropics.* "Delight itself is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with admiration. A most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so loud, that it may be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore; yet within the recesses of the forest a universal silence appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again."—Charles Darwin. We are gradually waking up to the fact that there is a fairyland to the south of us, readily accessible within a week. The volume of travel to the American tropics accordingly increases, taxing the capacity of vessels running to Central America and the West Indies. With the open- ing of the Panama Canal,"everybody " will visit the Isthmus; and after the excitement has died down, it will probably remain "the thing" to take the tropical route to California. At the same time, now that modern sanitation is able practically to abolish malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases, tropical regions will gradually become sufficiently healthy to be colonized by our countrymen in much greater numbers than heretofore. All this will not be without its dis- advantages, and if it happens (as it has happened in places) that we are chiefly known to the na- tives for our vulgarity and commercial crooked- ness, the discovery of the tropics by the people of the United States will seem to the rest of the world a calamity. Primarily owing to the intel- ligence and untiring energy of a small group of men, we have made an excellent impression by our work at Panama, and this should stand as a model for the future, no matter if it is suggest- ive of State Socialism. Panama, however, illus- trates organization, cooperation, government; it does not closely touch the relation of the indi- vidual, as such, to his environment. The Amer- ican in the tropics, if he is to make the most of his opportunities, must cultivate at least in some degree the faculty of intelligent appreciation; something at least of the feeling so well expressed by Darwin in the quotation above. To do this, he must not be wholly ignorant, either of what is known, or of the vast opportunity still remain- * In the Guiana Forest. Studies of Nature in Relation to the Struggle for Life. By James Rodway. New Edition. Illustrated. Chicago: A. C. MoClurg & Co. A Naturalist on Desert Islands. By Percy R. Lowe. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1912.] 45 THE DIAL ing for increasing knowledge. Without being a professional naturalist, he may nevertheless read books of travel, and get an idea of the coun- tries he is to visit. If, in an amateur way, he aspires to add something to the storehouses of science, so much the better. Beginning thus, he is more than likely presently to find himself in possession of a delightful hobby. A lady of my acquaintance, during the present year, spent a month in Guatemala, and while there discov- ered a large tree with splendid red flowers, more than forty kinds of insects, and half a dozen other small animals, all wholly new to science. With the journey back and forth, she was absent from home just six weeks. It is not our purpose at the present time to enumerate the "best hundred books" on the American tropics. As a matter of fact, good books on tropical Nature are not numerous; Wallace, Darwin, Spruce, and Beebe, on South America, the charming volume of P. H. Gosse on Jamaica, Belt on Nicaragua, are the ones that first come to mind. Belt's famous little work is unfortunately out of print, and may only be obtained with difficulty, at a fancy price. Two new books now before us are the immediate cause of this discussion. James Rodway, long resident in British Guiana, well known as a competent and enthusiastic naturalist, has en- larged and revised his work on the natural history of that country, which now comes to us as a volume of 326 pages, well illustrated. He graphically describes the life of the forest, where the Indian seems part of the general order of things, one of the animals. He explains how the beauty and order of nature comes out of the struggle for existence; and this term, instead of being a vague abstraction, is made to stand for living realities, described in detail. From the account of the Indian we quote a few paragraphs. "The man of the forest is in almost perfect harmony with his surroundings, and if to be so is to be happy, as some have said, then the South American Indian must be one of the happiest of men. . . . Having lived in the forest for ages, the Indian can hardly be looked upon as one of the rulers of creation, but rather as in perfect unison with nature. He is as much a part of the whole as the jaguar, the howling monkey, or the tapir. He does not interfere with the constitution of things — does not clear great tracts of land — builds no cities — erects no monuments — nor does he leave many more traces of his presence than the other inhabitants of the forest. . . . From one point of view he may be consid- ered as having attained perfection. The balance of life has been kept up, and, apart from outside influences, he does not exterminate a single animal. Nowhere per- haps is the fauna of such an ancient type so well pro- tected and so perfectly fitted to its environment, and nowhere can we study man as an animal so well as in the Guiana forest." Here and there, we may find reason to debate or dispute some of Mr. Rodway's opinions,* but we always admire his ability to see and to de- scribe. He tells us that he has studied tropical nature for forty years; his book is not based on the hasty impressions of a visitor, it is the fruit of long and persistent investigation. Perhaps "investigation" is not quite the word to use here, it is too suggestive of technicalities; we may rather say that Mr. Rodway has made himself at home in the forest, has lived the life there, and describes what he has felt and seen. Thus his narrative flows and has no suggestion of a catalogue; there is nothing technical enough to frighten any educated reader, and yet it is clear that the author knows his subject from the technical side as well. Mr. P. R. Lowe's "A Naturalist on Desert Islands" is a quite different book, the author having neither the maturity nor the experience of Mr. Rodway. Nevertheless, it gives a read- able and interesting account of the voyages of Sir Frederic Johnstone and his companions among the islands of the Caribbean Sea. The first part describes Swan Islands, two small and isolated bits of land nearly a hundred miles north of the coast of Honduras. The rest of the book is de- voted to Blanquilla and the Hermanos Islands, north of Venezuela. Although the author and his companions made no long stay at these places, they were able to obtain much interesting infor- mation and a good series of specimens, especially of birds. Either the collections had not all been worked out at the time of writing, or Mr. Lowe did not wish to burden his text with too many dry details, so we are left uncertain as to the total results of the expeditions. We hear, how- ever, of a new bird from Blanquilla Island, and various additions to our knowledge of the distri- bution of birds and other animals. There is also much interesting discussion of the problems con- nected with island life, while the human history of the places visited is well described. The effect upon the reader will be to make him wish to ex- plore some of these fascinating Caribbean islands; and while few have a yacht or other means at their command, one may hope that some, at one time or another, will be found to take up the evidently uncompleted work. T. D. A. COCKERKLL. • Just one statement of faot seems to be wrong. The bee vis- iting the Catasetum is surely Eulaema, and not a humble bee. 46 [July 16, THE DIAL A Survey of English Poetry.* The recent re-issue of Mr. Courthope's " His- tory of English Poetry," which involves, besides the reprinting of the last two volumes, some revision of the text of the earlier ones, makes it fitting to consider the character and value of this monumental work. It is the fulfilment of an idea which in the eighteenth century was dreamed of by Pope and Gray, and brought to measurable achievement by Thomas Warton, but which Mr. Courthope was the first of mod- ern scholars to realize—the survey of the whole course of English poetry at the hands of a single man. Such an undertaking gives rise, first of all, to the query whether any one man can hope to accomplish such a task in accordance with the standards of the scholarship of our time. The characteristic historical work of this generation is of the type represented by the " Cambridge Modern History" and the "Cambridge History of English Literature," works formed by the combined labors of a company of scholars, no one of whom would have been able or willing to do the whole with thoroughness. One might, therefore, feel some misgivings concerning the efforts of a single scholar, whose previous studies have been largely confined to the modern period, to survey a field which has been so thoroughly subdivided by his contemporaries. And the result to some extent justifies the misgivings. The diverse researches of modern philology and literary history, in the English field, are only partially represented by Mr. Courthope's work. From one point of view this deficiency may be expressed by saying that the History has too few footnotes. To some readers this statement will appear a dreadful example of misguided academic pedantry. But if it is recalled that the History does not set out to be merely popular, but to attain genuine scholarliness of method and result, it will perhaps be admitted that, without abundant reference to authorities, to sources, to the discussion of doubtful matters, to incidental issues that constantly arise, queries will often be raised which cannot be answered in the complacent ipse-dixit of a smooth-flowing text. Two books of recent years, which added respectively to the glory of American and British scholarship, and which are far from being pedantic or even merely learned, may be •A History of English Poetry. By William John Courthope. Revised edition. In six volumes. New York: The Macmillan Co. instanced as examples of what footnotes mean: Professor F. B. Gummere's "The Beginnings of Poetry" and Professor A. C. Bradley's "Shakespearean Tragedy."* They mean that at every point the writer has not merely set forth the results of individual study, but has envisaged the problems suggested in all directions by the work of previous scholars. In this regard, then, Mr. Courthope's work, while not wholly negli- gent, leaves very much to be desired. In many a difficult tract of his territory,—the character of epic represented in "Beowulf," for example, the authorship of "Piers Plowman," the mean- ing of Euphuism, the authenticity of certain quasi-Shakespearean plays, — one may trace the dangerous results of what from another stand- point might seem a really noble individualism or self-dependence. But on the other hand, if the detailed results of modern philology are inadequately repre- sented, the processes of that form of study which has come to be called comparative literature are conspicuous for their presence and effectiveness. In his own reading and thought Mr. Courthope has embraced the classical literatures as well as those in other modern languages, thus avoiding the insular standpoint from which the story of English literature has generally been told. Typi- cal results are such chapters as those on allegory in Dante and in mediaeval England (vol. i., chap. 6), on the origin of Poetical Wit (vol. iii., 'chap. 16), and on the blended materials of the poetry of Milton (vol. iii., chap. 14),—chapters which for breadth of background it would be difficult to parallel in any similar work. A second query which naturally arises from the character of the undertaking is that which concerns the possibility of defining the bound- aries of "English Poetry" for such a purpose. Mr. Courthope started out with a conspicuously simple and sensible definition: "By English Poetry I mean metrical compositions written in our language." But as he proceeded he did not remain faithful to this. In the drama he found, as was to be anticipated, a troublesome problem, and courageously met it by including the whole subject of English Drama, at least for the earlier periods. Beaching the Elizabethan age, he allowed himself to include a chapter on Lyly and euphuistic prose, because of the undeniable relationship between these and poetical matters. For less obvious reasons, he later included a chap- * In the second instance, the book being composed of lec- tures published as delivered orally, the notes are relegated to the back of the volume, — a method followed in the case of one or two matters by Mr. Courthope. 1912.] 47 THE DIAL ter (in volume vi.) on the rise of the periodicals, and, still further on, a chapter on the Waverley Novels, on the ground that "a history of En- glish poetry can hardly exclude a consideration of the growth of romantic fiction." It is indeed pretty clear that, if poetry is viewed not as a form of art so much as the expression of national life —always Mr. Courthope's leading idea—its separation from prose literature becomes often difficult if not positively misleading. The thoughtful reader of these volumes will therefore almost inevitably come to the conclusion that the work should either have been expanded to form a History of English Literature, or curtailed to form a History of Modern English Poetry, the drama and other doubtful forms excluded. But, setting aside these perhaps ungenerous queries, what sort of a history is actually in our hand? One, in the first place, of undeniable and impressive unity, such as the work of a com- pany of scholars could never attain. This unity is the outcome of the central purpose of the writer, which is stated repeatedly and consistently main- tained. At the outset he tells us that his aim is "to treat poetry as an expression of the im- agination, not simply of the individual poet, but of the English people." And at the close his hope is that the completed work has enabled the reader to "conceive more distinctly the gradual and majestic growth of the British Empire out of the institutions of the Middle Ages." This method produces a genuine history, as distin- guished from the succession of facts, biograph- ical and bibliographical, which usually go under that name where literature is concerned. The normal writer of " literary history" chiefly asks himself: When did Smith live? What books did he write? What style did he write them in? Are they better or worse than the books of Jones? Mr. Courthope always asks: What did Smith say? Why did he say it? Above all, why was Smith? And the answer to the second and third questions is always found in other people than Smith — commonly in the Whig party or the English nation. This method, at its best profound and illumi- nating, sometimes gives odd results. For when we seek to learn not merely what but why, we are always in some danger of weaving illusory webs of explanation; and certain of Mr. Court- hope's theories tempt the reader to recall the tour de force of DeQuincey's in which he proved that the character of Greek literature was de- termined by the fact that the Greeks wore cot- ton clothing (no linen rags, no paper; no paper, no books; no books, no written style). It may be true that the movement of poetry from sym- bolism to realism was produced by the combined influence of encyclopaedic education, feudal insti- tutions, and the growth of civil order (vol. i., chap, xii.); but it is very difficult to prove it, and would be still more difficult to disprove any conflicting hypothesis. It may be true that Walter Scott is to be explained by the "happy mixture of Law and Liberty that enabled Scotland to play so leading a part in the history of the romantic movement," and that the character of the poetry of the age of Pope is due to the Whig Revolution of 1688;—even if these things are not true, the assertion of them is suggestive and enlightening. But one rubs one's eyes a bit at the assertion that the formal epithets—the dewy meads and conscious bosoms and all the rest—of the neo- classical poetry "reflect the change from the feudal absolutism of the Stuarts to the Parlia- mentary system of the eighteenth century" (v., 42), and is perhaps tempted to think, subse- quently, that Mr. Courthope believes the peace- ful Cumberland country and quiet waters of Wordsworth's childhood home were the result of "the general peace and order which, since the Revolution of 1688, had settled upon the con- stitution of society" (vi., 160), though all that he really says is that they reflected that peace and order. Another difficulty with this historical method is that its followers are in danger of forgetting that, after all, there arises every now and then a man who does and says things not in the least as a representative of national forces and move- ments, but because he happens to want to do and say them. Perhaps in the end we shall be forced to admit that this is an illusion — that in the last resort no poet, however free he may seem, can escape the Zeitgeist. But some of the most interesting phenomena of literature are significant chiefly from their apparent indepen- dence. If ever there was a poet who, entering the firmament of lyrical expression, left on it a track of passionately personal utterance, that poet was John Donne. You may explain the peculiarities of his style by the church fathers in his Catholic home, or the decayed symbolism of Marino, or what you will; the flaming, con- torted individuality of his work remains. Now if we seek for an account of this in Mr. Court- hope, what has he for us? Why, we learn that Donne as an individual poet does not seem to him very important, but that "to those who see in poetry a mirror, of the national life, . . . the work of Donne will always be profoundly inter- esting"! (iii., 168). One might as well say that 48 [July 16, THE DIAL Halley's Comet was truly interesting only to those who had figured its orbit or analyzed its spectrum. A final difficulty with this disregard of indi- vidualism is the slight opportunity it gives for emphasizing the most characteristic phases of romantic art. Here Mr. Courthope, as has long been known, is finely consistent; and when the last volume of his History drew near there was no little curiosity felt as to the treatment he would accord the romantic poets whose doctrines he had often so vigorously opposed. When it was published, he was seen to be able to discuss them with conspicuous fairness of tone. With Keats, to be sure, and his contempt for the eighteenth century, Mr. Courthope finds it diffi- cult to be patient (how inartistic, he tells us, is the " languid trickle " of his couplets when com- pared with those of Goldsmith, whom Keats despised!); but of Wordsworth and Shelley there are more than respectful accounts, and one is tempted to cry Bravo! when the critic permits himself so to warm to the lines "To a Skylark" as to call them "divine." Two notes, notwith- standing, are always audible in Mr. Courthope's story of the romanticists. In the first place, it is inevitably what they say that interests him,— never the mere charm of form, the ravishing gratuitous beauty of detail,—the " mirific mo- ment," as Mr. Saintsbury somewhere has it, — which for true lovers of romantic art is always so large a part of the sum of pleasure. In the second place, the doctrines of the new school of poetry are nowhere approved, but, on the con- trary, the poets are represented as succeeding in spite of them. As in his earlier writings, Mr. Courthope is inexorably set to combat the poetic movement inaugurated by Wordsworth and Coleridge, because of its aim "to exchange the ancient method, consisting in the ideal imi- tation of external objects, for an introspective analysis of the impressions of the individual mind" (vi., 192). And this teaching is further enforced by a new definition of poetry as "the art of expressing imaginative ideas universally existing in any free society" (vi., 444). By reason of this faith, the author of the History — a classicist in an age when classicism seems hopelessly defeated, and a spiritual Tory in a time when self-confessed Tories are no more — views despondently the present state of poetry, and concludes his story by expressly declining to continue it beyond the time of Scott, because the romantic movement has separated poetry "from the organized course of national life." A strange mishap this, to have so defined poetry that in the Victorian age it disappears from sight! On the other hand, for the classical age, the "excellent and indispensable eighteenth cen- tury," Mr. Courthope remains our best au- thority—one may almost say our only authority. For many a day accounts of our eighteenth- century poetry have consisted chiefly of two parts: the explanation of why most of it is unreadable, and the recognition of exceptions in the case of the so-called heralds of romanti- cism. Wherever a writer exhibited any human sympathy, love of beauty, or sense of the eter- nities, or wrote in anything except the heroic couplet, he was a sign of the " romantic revival." The rest was silence. Thanks to Mr. Courthope, we now have the first real account of the most characteristic poetry of that age, — what its numerous half-forgotten representatives really said, and why. He can read and interpret, without contempt, without even the gently deri- sive humor with which Mr. Gosse, for example, has gracefully described them, the poems on cider, on sheep-raising, on the imagination, on morals and politics, of which in general it may be said that none have named them but to jeer. (Nay, did not Mr. Courthope himself, a year or two since, write an extremely interesting poem, reminiscent of the neo-classical manner, on the raising of hops and the mistakes of the Liberal party?) His account of the poetical purposes of Crabbe (vi., 365), of the development of "classic purity" of poetical expression (v., 359), of the style of Cowper (v., 357), one can hardly conceive as being bettered. In other words, where the course of English poetry does run par- allel with that of English thought and society, and can be explained by national rather than individual facts, our historian is not only a safe but an illuminating guide. If some emphasis has been laid, then, on de- fects or idiosyncrasies of method, it is because they seemed to be instructive, not to detract from the value of the whole. They result from the intense unity and singleness of purpose which at the same time give this book its power. They can be corrected by the intelligent reader; and the History is not meant for any other. For some of us the continuous development of its his- torical method seems so suggestive and enlight- ening that we may well prefer it to works (like the Cambridge History, for example) made on the patchwork plan, despite the greater accur- acy of detail which in our time only composite scholarship can hope to give for so large a field. Raymond Macdonald Alden. 1912.J 49 THE DIAL Controlling Man's Evolution.* In respect of material things the progress of the world during the last half century has admit- tedly been almost incomprehensibly rapid. It is sometimes urged, however, that the advance has been only material — that neither ideas nor ideals have even measurably kept pace. The validity of such an assertion is doubtful on many grounds. But certainly one of its neatest refutations is to be found in the eugenics move- ment. Fifty years ago the intellectual world was profoundly concerned in the discussion of whether there was such a process as organic evolution, and whether man was a product of it, through the operation of natural (as opposed to supernatural) causes. To-day the eugenics movement takes as its fundamental aim and pur- pose the conscious and deliberate control and direction of human evolution, physical, mental, and moral. What a change of outlook this im- plies! The aeroplane and the stage-coach are not more widely separated than are the ideas of eugenics from those held by the majority of edu- cated men regarding evolution at the time when the " Origin of Species " appeared. And withal, eugenics is being taken quite as a matter of course; it is "catching on" to an extraordinary degree with radical and conservative alike, as something for which the time is quite ripe. The leader in the study of eugenics in this country is Dr. C. B. Davenport, the versatile Director of the Carnegie Institution's Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, and his new book on "Heredity in Relation to Eugenics" is altogether the best introduction to the new science that has yet"appeared. As the title implies, the chief stress in his treatment of the subject is on the side of inheritance. Following a brief introductory account of the elementary principles of heredity in general, a mass of material is presented to show how human traits are inherited. As some of this material is new, the book makes a real contri- bution to knowledge, — an unusual thing, by the way, for a popular treatise to do even in a small degree. For these hitherto unpublished data the author draws on the Archives of the Eugenics Record Office. This institution, which has been made possible, so the reader is in- * Heredity in Relation to Euobnics. By C. B. Daven- port. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Biological Aspects op Human Problems. By C. A. Herter. New York: The Macniillan Co. The Social Direction of Human Evolution. An Outline of the Science of Eugenics. By W. E. Kellicott. New York: D. Appleton & Co. formed, through the generosity of Mrs. E. H. Harriman, is collecting and preserving in a man- ner to insure permanency, pedigree data regard- ing a wide range of human characteristics and their inheritance. Besides this original material, the biological, medical, and anthropological lit- erature is drawn upon for cases illustrating the inheritance of particular traits. In presenting the subject, free use is made of pedigree charts, which add greatly to the value of the book for the more or less casual reader who is not interested in minor details. These charts enable one almost at a glance to grasp the main features of a particular case of inheritance of a disease, a criminal tendency, or some other characteristic. Data are given respecting the inheritance of forty-one different human char- acters, including such things as eye-color, hair- color, ability, handwriting, pauperism, crimi- nality, feeble-mindedness, insanity, and a series of different diseases which includes one or more representatives of nearly all the different classes of afflictions to which flesh is heir. Whether this is to be regarded as entertaining reading depends a good deal on one's point of view. Bob Sawyer would no doubt have found it entrancing. But whether interesting or not, the array of evidence cannot fail to be impressive to any thoughtful person. It brings home to one with really shock- ing force the tremendous importance of carefully choosing one's grandparents. Since this is not an altogether easy thing for the individual to do, society for its own good must attend to it. Here lies the keynote to the eugenics propaganda. The last quarter of the book deals with some general topics, of which the most important is the eugenic significance of migrations, in their bearing upon the geographical distribution of inheritable human traits. A fairly extensive bibliography and an index complete the volume, which taken as a whole deserves high commen- dation as a vigorous, forceful, and sane presen- tation of a subject which must be given serious attention by everyone interested in the future of his race and his nation. The book is not with- out small faults: it bears plenty of evidence of having been produced under high pressure; and the biologist will find instances where doubtful points are optimistically dodged, and statements made which would scarcely stand searching tech- nical criticism. But these are matters of detail, and will be freely excused by everyone in view of the excellence of the work as a whole. "Biological Aspects of Human Problems" is a posthumous work of the late Dr. C. A. Herter, in whose untimely death scientific medicine 50 [July 16, THE DIAL. suffered severe loss. While not strictly a contri- bution to the eugenics movement, it nevertheless contains much material bearing directly on the problem with which this science is concerned. The standpoint from which the book is written is indicated in the following statement: "Having reached a time of life when I began to feel confidence that the laws of biology might often prove reliable guides to the understanding of puzzling situ- ations in life, I experienced a desire to state my views to my children in a manner more definite than is possi- ble in conversation. I am now led to publish my inter- pretation of biological laws in their bearing on human life in the hope that they may prove of some service to persons who have faith that an understanding of such laws is frequently a help to more intelligent and humane conduct." This hope cannot fail to be realized. Many per- sons have wished that there might be written just such a sane and temperate discussion of the bearing of biological laws on the problems of everyday life as this is. The first section deals with the animal body as a mechanism, showing that everything we now know of biology indi- cates that the functioning of the body, including every sort of mental activity, is determined and regulated by the operation of physical and chemical laws. If one chooses to believe in "vitalism," "free-will," or any form of super- naturalism in respect to matters spiritual, he is of course at liberty to«do so, but he must base his belief on something other than scientific — which is to say, rational—grounds. The evi- dence in favor of fatalism, to which the author's view leads, is presented with quiet temperateness and unfailing optimism. The discussion of this doctrine closes with these words: "It teaches that each human being should have the best obtainable chance for self-development, and be- comes the enemy of social conditions wbich stand in the way of such opportunity. It teaches that an individual should be judged in relation to the chance he has had for self-improvement, and not by an arbitrary standard. But it does not teach that any two human beings are equal in potential for achievement. It expects many failures, but it judges them leniently. It counts on the emergence from time to time of human beings able to point out new relationships between old materials; yet it does not overpraise these successes. It looks hope- fully to the future because it sees in the human germ plasm a tendency to improve in the presence of reason- ably friendly surroundings. It is the enemy of the doctrine of laissez/aire, believing in intelligent interfer- ence and regulation in all directions. And finally, the doctrine of scientific fatalism looks only for results ex- actly proportioned to the factors which determine per- sonality — the forces inherent in the germ plasm and the external forces which have been brought into action upon these primitive materials." The second part of the book deals with the self-preservative instinct. An examination of the facts indicates that there can be no single specific method whereby longevity may be cer- tainly attained. The factors which tend to cur- tail life are multifarious, and not less so must be any intelligent attempt to prolong the span of human life. Belief in personal immortality is regarded as a natural form of egotism grow- ing out of the instinct of self-preservation. The author's discussion of the sex-instinct, which occupies the third part of the book, may be unreservedly commended. The final section discusses the relation of the fundamental in- stincts of self-preservation and of sex to the higher development of man in respect of religion and the fine arts. It is not difficult to show that a combination or fusion of these instincts has had much to do with such spiritual and idealistic activities of the human mind. An extremely fair and candid discussion of the vexed question of the education of the young in regard to matters of sex leads to the conclusion that such education is imperatively demanded, not merely on individualistic grounds, but for the good of the race. A final summarizing of the author's whole philosophy of life brings to a close a not- able book. Professor Kellicott's "The Social Direction of Human Evolution" is an expansion of a series of lectures on eugenics presented to a col- lege audience. The book stands in commend- able contrast to the bulk of popular writing on the subject. Equipped with a thorough tech- nical knowledge of biology, the author discusses the problems of race-betterment with good judg- ment and a keen appreciation of fundamental biological difficulties and opportunities. What has been accomplished in the study of human inheritance is briefly reviewed, with examples of pedigrees. A temperate outline is given of the possibilities of eugenics. Altogether, the book furnishes a useful and trustworthy survey of the eugenics movement, and what it has so far accomplished. The only technical point on which it is possibly open to criticism is in ac- cepting perhaps a little too unreservedly some of the results of the statistical school of eugenists. The book inevitably challenges comparison with that of Dr. Davenport discussed above, and, it must be said, suffers somewhat in the compar- ison. It lacks the spontaneity, and with it the compelling grasp of the reader's attention, which go with immediate personal research activity in the field discussed. Professor Kellicott's book is a compilation of the study, carefully and thoroughly done, but discussing eugenics, after all, as a somewhat academic 1912.] 51 THE DIAL problem; Dr. Davenport's book is the vivid and vigorous marshalling of the data he himself is collecting and studying, in such way as to bring home to you and to me the fact that eugenics is something which deeply concerns us at this very moment. Raymond Peabl. Sterne as a Letter-Writer.* It seems as if the neglect which Sterne suf- fered for nearly a century after his death were being avenged upon the present generation, for within the last fifty years no less than seven considerable treatises more or less biographical and critical have appeared with him as their subject. Professor Cross's "Life and Times of Laurence Sterne" is a scholarly and interesting piece of work, written without pedantry and with a lively sympathy for its very lively subject. As a biography it has assuredly not been surpassed by Mr. Melville's work, now published. More- over, it is confined to one volume of moderate size, and is sold at a reasonable price. Why Mr. Melville or his publishers should spread his work over two volumes, each bulkier than Professor Cross's and both containing only 6»T3 pages in all, and then charge three times as much, passes comprehension. Have book-buyers sud- denly fallen into great wealth, that they choose to pay for thick paper and big type regardless of the matter? Or do they want to fill their shelves with an imposing array of fat octavos? It is this very cost of the book that militates against its chief claim to attention. Sterne's letters are not cheaply and easily accessible, and the "Journal to Eliza" can be had only in Pro- fessor Cross's edition of the works. It would therefore be well worth while to have a "Life and Letters" for a moderate sum, even though the letters were not complete. Mr. Melville has given us the greater part of the letters and all the "Journal," and to these be subordinates very wisely the actual biography. He makes Sterne speak for himself. And Sterne's letters are more interesting as biographical material than as epistolary litera- ture. In his letters we have him as the philan- derer, who is finally smitten himself, as the worldly ecclesiastic, and the boon companion of the notorious Demoniac, John Hall-Stevenson, but very little of him as an author of keen insight or even of deep humor. The numerous objects of his fickle affections pass over the stage of •The Life and Letters of Laurence Sterne. By Lewis Melville. In two volumes. Illustrated. New York: D. Appleton & Co. his life with the words of his undying devotion sounding in their ears, till Eliza came and stayed till death took him. Married, though unhappily, he thus writes to Mile, de Fourmantelle: "My dear Kitty, I beg you will accept of the enclosed Sermon, which I do not make you a present of merely because it was wrote by myself, but because there is a beautiful character in it, of a tender and compassionate mind in the picture given of Elijah. Read it, my dear Kitty, and believe me when I assure you that I see some- thing of the same kind and gentle disposition in your heart which I have painted in the Prophet's, which has attach'd me so much to you and your Interests that I shall Live and dye your affectionate and faithful Laurence Sterne." It was the same Kitty who obligingly wrote to Garrick at Sterne's dictation in the following modest fashion: "There are two Volumes just published here, which have made a great noise, and have had a tremendous run. ... It is the 'Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.' ... If you have not seen it, pray get it and read it, because it has a great character as a witty smart Book, and if you think so, your good word in Town will do the Author, I am sure, great service. His name is Sterne, a gentleman of great Preferment, and a Pre- bendary of the Church of York, and has a great char- acter, in these parts, as a man of Learning and Wit; the graver people, however, say't is not fit for young Ladies to read his Book, so perhaps you '1 think it not fit for a young Lady to recommend it; however the Nobility and Great Folks stand up mightily for it, and some say 'tis a great Book, tho' a little tawdry in some places." This was before Sterne really had become a great man, and even Kitty's services were acceptable towards his realizing his ambitions. And he was wise enough to know that a tang of naughtiness will help mightily to sell a book. Yet when he was actually charged with immorality in his book, see how he defends his spotless reputation: "But for the chaste married, and chaste unmarried part of the sex— they must not read my book I Heaven forbid the stock of chastity should be lessened by the 'Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy'—yes, his opin- ions — it would certainly debauch 'em. God take them under his protection in the fiery trial, and send us plenty of Duennas to watch the workings of their humours, till they have got safely through the whole work." After all, Sterne more truly expressed his intent in writing when he told Bishop Warburton in a somewhat peppery letter, "I will, however, do my best—though laugh, my Lord, I will, and as loud as I can too." The last and greatest "affair" of Sterne's life was with Mrs. Draper, the Eliza of the Letters and the Journal. Of his relation to her he makes a future editor of the " Sentimental Jour- ney" write the following note: "Her name he will tell the world was Draper — a native of India — married there to a gentleman in the 52 [July 16, THE DIAL India Service of that Name — who brought her over to England for the recovery of her health in the year 65 — where she continued to April the year 1767. It was about three Months before her return to India, That our Author's acquaintance and hers began. Mrs. Draper had a thirst for knowledge — was handsome — genteel —-engaging — and of such gentle dispositions and so enlightened an understanding,— That Yorick (whether he made much Opposition is not known) from an ac- quaintance — soon became her Admirer — they caught fire at each other at the same time — and they would often say, without reserve to the world, and without any Idea of saying wrong in it, That their affections for each other were unbounded. — Mr. Draper dying in the year ***** — This Lady returned to England, and Yorick the year after becoming a widower—They were married—and returning to one of his Livings in York- shire, where was a most romantic situation — they lived and died happily and are spoke of with honour in the parish to this day." And the facts are that Sterne died the follow- ing year, that Mrs. Draper ran away from her husband six years later, and that she died in 1778, ten years after Sterne! Sterne knew well enough that his disease was incurable and that he could never marry Mrs. Draper, even if her husband were suddenly and obligingly to die, but it does not follow from his speaking of her as his second wife that all his affection was mere sentimental moonshine. There is a ring of sin- cerity, one must believe, in these words spoken so near the end of his fatal disease: "Thou shalt lye down and rise up with me—about my bed and about my paths, and shalt see out all my Ways—adieu — adieu—and remember one eternal truth, My dear Bramine, wch is not the worse, because I have told it thee a thousand times before — That I am thine . . and thine only and forever." And again three months later he says: "And now, Eliza! Let me talk to thee — But what can I say, what can I write—but the yearnings of heart wasted with looking and wishing for the Return—Return— Return! my dear Eliza! May heaven smooth the Way for thee safely to us, and Joy for Ever." It is not a pleasant picture that we get of Sterne in this Journal. His particulars about his ailments and their treatment by his physi- cians do not exalt him in our eyes, and make us wonder what exactly were his relations to his Eliza. Compared with Swift's Journal to Stella it sinks into pitiable insignificance. Swift pre- served the decencies in writing to Stella; Sterne, improving upon his own advice to Smollett in the well known incident in the "Sentimental Journey," tells his ailments to his physician and then repeats to Eliza what he had said. If he is coarse in the Journal and elsewhere, he is profane in his letters to John Hall- Stevenson. Thus: "Remember me sometimes in your potations—bid Panty pray for me, when he prays for the Holy Catholic Church—pre- sent my compliments to Mrs. Ferguson—and be in peace and charity with all mankind— And the blessing of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be with you. Amen." And this to the author of the " Crazy Tales," as vile a collection of stories as were ever printed in English! The best side of the man is seen in his affec- tion for his daughter Lydia. For her sake he would do anything,—even be kind to his im- possible wife: "But I think, my Lydia, that thy mother will survive me — do not deject her spirits with thy apprehensiveness on my account. I have sent you a necklace, buckles, and the same to your mother.—My girl cannot form a wish that is in the power of her father, that he will not gratify her in — and I cannot in justice be less kind to thy mother." One is almost sorry to have read these letters. They seem like "Tristram"and the " Sentimen- tal Journey" without the humor that makes these works unsurpassed in their kind. Sterne cotfld transmute into art thoughts and feelings that are perilously near the common and the unclean. It is not by the eccentricity of his style, for that would soon pass away into the limbo of freaks and follies, but by his surpassing humor and his knowledge of the human heart that he holds his readers — at any rate his mas- culine readers; but in these letters we have no distinguished style, no real humor, no convin- cingly genuine feeling throughout. James W. Tuppek. Briefs on New Books. . . , Mr. J. N. Larned's long residence A minuter , • o/public in Buffalo, with whose public library benevolence. his name is inseparably associated, brought him into friendly relations with the man whose biography he now presents in "The Life and Work of William Pryor Letchworth, Student and Minister of Public Benevolence " (Houghton). Mr. Letchworth's successful and profitable connection with the Buffalo firm of Pratt and Letchworth, hard- ware dealers, was but preliminary to his far more im- portant labors in the cause of public charity, which he entered upon when, in 1873, at fifty years of age, he found himself pecuniarily able to retire from busi- ness and devote himself to benevolence. It was in that year that he was appointed by Governor Dix to membership on the New York State Board of Charities, a position most honorably and usefully filled by him for twenty-three years, after which he 1912.] 68 THE DIAL continued to the end of his life, in 1910, to concern himself with the causes that had become of such en- grossing interest to him in the preceding decades. His work and his writings for the amelioration of the lot of the unfortunate are widely known and of course form the chief theme of Mr. Larned's carefully- written chapters. But the glimpses afforded of the more intimate and personal side of Mr. Letchworth's character will give the book its chief charm to many readers. Of Letchworth the man we read: "His enjoyments were of the sweeter and gentler sort. The lovelier sides of nature, the finer things of art, the generous exhibitions of humanity, appealed to him most. He was exceptionally fond of poetry, and, with a catholic taste, delighted in reading it and having it read to him, and carried in memory a large store of it, which he had begun to accumulate in his youth. To know him in this character, and to have acquaintance, at the same time, with the strenuous business man that he was for thirty years and the strong state official that he was for twenty-three more,—vigilant, decisive, resolute, practically saga- cious, successful beyond the common, in both exhibi- tions,—was to have a revelation of character that is exceedingly rare in its combination of qualities, and exceedingly fine." Commendation of Mr. Larned's style and workmanship would, of course, be superflu- ous. Illustrations, a list of Mr. Letchworth's writings, and an index, are duly provided. Chapteri on the ^ would seem to the student of the broiderer't art broiderer's art that little could be in England. gained by the division of the history of that art in England into two parts —ecclesiastical and secular. It is not always readily determined to which class an ancient embroidery may be assigned, as in the case of the richly wrought palls or hearse cloths belonging to the old City Companies. There were times, furthermore, when the custom prevailed of converting wearing apparel into ecclesiastical vestments. Even in recent times religious symbols have been freely used in embroideries intended for secular use, and in the history of the development of needlecraft no such distinction as that above referred to appears. The superiority of the English ecclesiastical embroidery, about which much has been written, is universally acknowledged: that a like excellence was attained in the production of embroideries for other purposes than for the enrich- ment of the church and church services, might have been generally taken for granted. M. Jourdain, however, in the eleven chapters of his book on "English Secular Embroidery" (Dutton), finds much to contribute to our knowledge of the history and technique of embroidery in England from a study of the embroideries which were not at all intended for ecclesiastical enrichment, and which were produced in greater quantity than we have been wont to suppose. Aside from this interest to the embroiderer, these chapters throw valuable sidelights upon the domestic and economic life of the peoples of the Saxon, Tudor, and Stuart periods and of later times. The book is full of information regarding the different materials used and the technique em- ployed at different times, and regarding the various styles or fashions having their peculiar vogue at various periods; and the wealth of illustration en- hances the value of this information to those who at the present day are interested in needlecraft. Of especial interest is the final chapter on Samplers. Originally these were patterns of embroidery on strips of linen, hence the name sampler —exemplar or ensampler. Later they came to be used in the instruction of the young women of England, not only in needlecraft but in morals and religion, and even in history and geography—as a number of map samplers still extant attest. There are several good biographies "Le'TacL™." of w\U\*.m the Silent in English, but Mr. Jack Collings Squire, late Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, now gives us a "Life" (Doubleday) which makes use of material that Mr. Frederic Harrison and Miss Putnam, not to speak of Motley, were unable to take advantage of. His volume is thus richer by the inclusion of cer- tain minor details that his predecessors were ignorant of, and is moreover interesting from beginning to end. Mr. Squire's point of view is not a new one, except perhaps in so far as he maintains that the devoted and judicious leader's life was a continuous development, and not a series of separate and incon- sistent phases. Though educated into the Catholic Church in youth, every drop of blood in his body was Protestant, and it was inevitable that he should sooner or later come into his own religiously. Though a loyal subject of Philip, if Philip had given him the slightest hint of a chance to remain so, he was a man who could see far into the future; and whereas Motley asserts that" his treasonable thoughts " began with his discovery, in 1566, that Philip was secretly planning to overthrow his sister's "Accord " and root out every vestige of liberty, Mr. Squire has been able to show that "treasonable thoughts,"—the suspicion, that is, that since the Netherlands were unalterably Protestant and Philip a tyrant whose nature was absolutely incapable of yielding, violent resistance might one day be inevitable,—had been in the back- ground of his mind from his very early manhood. Mr. Squire characterizes his hero happily in the term, "wonderful opportunist genius," and dwells de- lightedly on what may well be the most striking evi- dence of that quality in his history. The Protestant majority in Antwerp, maddened by the disgraceful butchering of their co-religionists in a one-sided struggle which had occurred without the walls, were in imminent danger of wreaking revenge on their Catholic fellow-citizens. Antwerp was prevailingly Calvinist. William "knew and regretted the enmity which subsisted between the Calvinists and the Luth- erans. Since, however, it was there, he determined to make use of it ... he had conversations with the leading Lutherans. . . . His own notions leaning toward the Augsburg Confession served him well 54 [July 16, THE DIAL ... he persuaded the good men that, for the mo- ment, the cause of the Catholics was theirs. . . . The Catholics and the Lutherans were now united on the side of the authorities," and the Catholics were saved. It is this sort of skilful choice of the essential and the strikingly illustrative that makes the book both read- able and useful. Mr. Herbert Croly's faithful and £ '^Me account 0f « Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work" CMac- millan) is especially commendable for its frank acceptance of Mr. Hanna's limitations, its freedom from hero-worship, its truthful presentation of the real Mark Hanna, successful business man and shrewd politician. In the following passage, for instance, briefly characterizing the able worker for his party, there is no attempt at idealization: "In order, consequently, to understand Mark Hanna's point of departure in politics we must bear in mind (1) that he was an industrial pioneer, and instinct- ively took to politics as well as business; (2) that in politics as in business he wanted to accomplish results; (3) that politics meant to him active party service; (4) that successful party service meant the acceptance of prevailing political methods and abuses; and (5) finally that he was bound by the instinctive consistency of his nature to represent in politics, not merely his other dominant interest, but the essential harmony between the interests of busi- ness and those of the whole community." He was not, however, Mr. Croly does his best to prove to us, "unscrupulous, inhumanly selfish, the sweater of his own employees, the relentless enemy of organized labor, the besotted plutocrat, the incarnate dollar- mark," as his enemies were fond of representing him. The best side of the man shows itself in his attach- ment to Mr. McKinley. "He had in the first place a veritable gift for friendship. His personal rela- tions with other men constituted the very core and substance of his life. He had served Mr. McKinley, as he had served so many others, because of disin- terested personal devotion; but in the case of Mr. McKinley the personal devotion was heightened by feelings derived from another source. This partic- ular friendship had awakened his aspirations. His general disposition was such that an ideal could make a peculiarly strong appeal to him only when it was embodied in a human being. Mr. McKinley's finer qualities aroused in him the utmost admira- tion." There was a vast deal of human nature in Mr. Hanna, and his biography, well written and suit- ably illustrated, impresses that fact on the reader. In writing his "Short History of iSSfiEZf. the Sc°tti8h People" (Hodder & Stonghton), Dr. Donald MacMillan has rendered a distinct service to the history of his native land: he has given us a readable and reason- ably accurate account of Scottish development, in a single volume of moderate compass. Except for sketchy compilations of the text-book type, our historical literature has no other treatment of this subject in one volume. To tell the story of ten troubled centuries in fewer than five hundred pages is a difficult undertaking; but, everything consid- ered, the author has achieved a signal success. The annals of Scotland are replete with dramatic inter- est; they are full of thrilling episodes, and teem with striking personalities. Dr. MacMillan appre- ciates this fact: he knows the literary values of certain classes of episodes and writes accordingly. In grouping the events about certain dominant personalities, he has been able to unify his work and to invest it with an interest that an impersonal story cannot have; but at the same time he fails to do justice to the great popular movements, which are, after all, the essential facts in the history of a "people." It would also have been well if the author had broken with the British habit of telling the story by reigns. Almost every chapter is headed by the name of the sovereign; but there are times when the sovereign is of small importance com- pared with certain other chiefs in the kingdom. An attractive feature of the narrative is the liberal spirit in which the author treats the long conflict with the southern kingdom. While truly patriotic, he realizes that the union has been a blessing to Scotchmen as well as to Englishmen. His work is consequently free from such superfluous outbursts as are sometimes found in Mr. Andrew Lang's history. The author practically closes his account with 1745; a concluding chapter carries the story on to 1843, but in the form of a summary only. A Handbook "The British We.St Ind.ie8 " b7 Mr' to the Brituh Algernon E. Aspinall, is the fourth Weit indie: volume in what is known as the "All Red Series" (Little, Brown & Co.) covering the different parts of the British Empire. The volumes already published deal with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As with its predecessors, this book on the West Indies is the work of a competent man, thoroughly in touch with his subject. Mr. Aspinall is the Honorary Secretary to the West India Commit- tee, and has therefore had exceptional opportunities for informing himself as to the political and com- mercial history of the West Indies. Opening with a chapter on the discovery of the islands, he sketches rapidly their history, physical features, flora and fauna, the social and industrial life of the people, religion, education, local government, railways, bank- ing, agriculture, and concludes with several very interesting chapters on the future of this important group of British colonies,—how they may be affected by the opening of the Panama Canal, their relations with Canada and the United States, and the move- ment toward confederation into one strong common- wealth. There are obvious difficulties in the way of bringing into one political union such scattered colonies as Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, British Guiana, the Leeward Islands, Barbados, and British Honduras, not to mention Bermuda; nevertheless the advantages would be enormous, both from an 1912.] 66 THE DIAL international and an inter-imperial point of view. As Mr. Aspinall points out, at the last Imperial Con- ference in London, New Zealand, with a population of 1,000,000, and Newfoundland, with a population of less than 250,000, took an active part in every discussion, while the West Indies, with a population of 2,000,000, were not represented at all, as they were not among the self-governing commonwealths. index and dige.t What "Poole's Index" is to the gen- o/ our periodical eral student searching the files of library literature, miscellaneous periodicals for matter on any given subject, "Library Work" successfully strives to be for the person interested in the maga- zine literature of library economy and library his- tory. In a large octavo of four hundred and nine double-column pages, the H. W. Wilson Company of Minneapolis has brought together "in one alphabet the entire contents of 'Library Work' since its beginning [as a quarterly] in 1905; also new ma- terial bringing it to the close of 1911." Miss Anna Lorraine Guthrie has edited the work, assisted by competent helpers. An important feature of this index is that it is much more than a simple index: digests of the more noteworthy articles cited are generously supplied, especially in the case of foreign and other less-known and less easily accessible periodicals. Thirty-two of these periodical pub- lications devoted to library interests have been con- sulted in preparing the work, and an alphabetical list of them is given, showing that they represent the library activity of this country, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Nor- way, and Sweden; but France, somewhat to one's surprise, is unrepresented, as also is Belgium, two countries that have contributed in later years toward the advancement of library science. The sub-title of this useful work describes it as " a biblio- graphy and digest of library literature," which in the full sense of the words it is not, since that con- siderable and most important store of such literature to be found in book form is disregarded. The addition of the two words "in periodicals" to the sub-title would have made it conform, in genuine- ness and accuracy, to the character of the book it now imperfectly describes. Ft,her, and Grav weather, f°g> winter storms, fighters of and the ceaseless struggle with the the North Sea. elements in their wildest moods, are the lot of the North Sea fisherman. The reader of Mr. Walter Wood's "North Sea Fishers and Fights ers" (Dutton) finds himself at once in this atmos- phere of "hard gray weather that breeds hard Englishmen " and discovers throughout the book that ring of genuineness which comes only from intimate knowledge of these turbulent waters and the hard)' breed of men who by strenuous toil reap a rich har- vest from this sea and feed England's millions. Over twenty-two million hundred-weight of fish (largely from the North Sea) are landed annually in Great Britain, valued at over ten million pounds sterling. Worthy descendants of those whom the Roman poet characterized as "sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world," the modern British sea-rover gleans the fertile waters of the North Sea with powerful machinery, reaping a profit undreamed of a few decades past. The author's account of the deep-sea trawling, of life on ships and shore, of the fishermen and their work, is intimate, accurate, and illuminat- ing. 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When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub- scription it received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. Advbrti.hi nu Rates furnished on application. Alt com- munications thoutd be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arit Building, Chicago. Entered as Second-Clan Matter October 8, 1892, at the Poet Office at Chicago, HUnoia, under Act of March 3,1879. Ho. 6S7. AUGUST 1, 1912. Vol. LIII. Contents. paob LITERATURE AND THOUGHT 83 THE LITERARY ACTIVITIES OF A VERSATILE SCOTCHMAN 84 CASUAL COMMENT 66 Mr. Shaw's conquest of Gaul.—The sifting of manu- scripts.— High hopes for the future of education.— Emerging from the shelter of anonymity.—Discover- ing the public library.—Whitewashing Bacon.—An Albemarle Street centenary.— A plucky young au- thor. SHAKESPEARE IN RELIEF. Alphonso Gerald Newcomer 88 THE LURE OF THE FAR NORTH. Charles Atwood Kqfoid 70 THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. Charles Richmond Henderson 71 CALIFORNIA IN THE CIVIL WAR. William E. Dodd 73 RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne ... 74 Jordan's The Joyous Wayfarer. — Straus's The Prison without a Wall.— Mason's The Turnstile.— Masefield's Multitude and Solitude.— Haggard's Red Eve.— Davis's The Friar of Wittenberg.— Ber- tram's The Shadow of Power.— Palmer's Over the Pass. —The Street Called Straight. — Kennedy- Noble's White Ashes.— Parrish's Molly McDonald, a Tale of the Old Frontier. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 77 A survivor's account of the great shipwreck. — Ex- pert advice about library architecture. — Further memories of a noted journalist. — The social genesis of the Bible. — Humors of the law. — Memories of Gen. Wheeler's Confederate cavalry.—Notable men of East Tennessee. NOTES 80 TOPICS IN AUGUST PERIODICALS 81 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 82 LITERATURE AND THOUGHT. "Taking writers generally throughout the world, what does the literary mind contribute to the world's thought now? Can you point to any one writer, anywhere in the world, whose thoughts about the world are really worth read- ing?" Thus questions one of the characters in Mr. John Masefield's "Multitude and Soli- tude," and, although it is not fair to ascribe to a novelist the random opinions expressed by his characters, there seems to be something of a direct personal element in this utterance, the voicing of at least a temporary mood. Another of the characters thus amplifies the argument: "I feel this about modern artists, that, with a few exceptions, they throw down no roots, either into national or private life. They care no more for the State, in its religious sense, than they care (as, say, an Elizabethan would have cared) for conduct. They seem to me a company of men without any common principle or joint enthusiasm, working, rather blindly and narrowly, at the bidding of personal idiosyncrasy, or some aberration of taste. A few of you, some of the most determined, are interested in social reform. The rest of you are merely photo- graphing what goes on for the amusement of those who cannot photograph." These remarks seem to us to point a fundamental misconception of a function of literature. The novelist, the dramatist, and the poet are the last persons in the world whom we should expect to "contribute to the world's thought." That is the business of the scientific investigator and the philosopher, not of the imaginative shaper of speech into enduring forms. The latter may be a propa- gator of thought, its clarifier and expositor, an extractor of the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, but not an originator of new ideas. He is concerned with expression, and not with revelation, except in the sense that his form of statement may open the eyes to the hitherto unapprehended implications of some truth that has long been in the possession of mankind. To speak plainly, contributions to thought are among the rarest things in human expe- rience. It is a fertile century that can boast of two or three. Copernicus made one, and Adam Smith another, and Kant another, and Darwin still another; but the Greeks did not leave very much for the modern world to do in this direc- 64 [August 1, THE DIAL tion. Refinements and elaborations and special applications of old established principles are our task, and we are amazingly active in its pursuit. We sometimes almost convince ourselves that we are on the track of something that is really new, and call it pragmatism, or theosophy, or social- ism, or give it some other pretentious name, but analysis always shows it to be a thing of shreds and patches, its basic material fetched from remote periods in the history of culture. The roaring loom of time weaves countless new in- tellectual patterns, but the same old fibres are wrought into them; and the poet fashions the fabrics into new living garments of divinity, but they drape the limbs of the same old gods. We frequently hear a poet, a Wordsworth or a Browning, for example, spoken of as a pro- found thinker. But what does it all mean? Who can point to an original thought, a "con- tribution to knowledge," in either of these great poets? The former has for us a serene philo- sophical wisdom, the product of intuition com- bined with ripe reflection upon human conduct, and the prophetic vision—which does not mean, as the foolish fancy, the power of peering into the future, but is the power of seeing beneath the surface of things and illuminating the secret recesses of the mind. The latter is probably one of the shallowest thinkers who ever won fame as a poet, and his helplessness, when he confronts any real intellectual problem, is nothing less than pitiable. He champions with fervor the validity of passion, and blurts out an instinctive but unreasoning optimism. The subtle dra- matic power with which he makes the most diverse types of character express themselves is beyond praise, but this, while it deepens our insight into human nature, does not do much of anything to enlarge the sphere of the rational life. As far as the assimilation of the conquests of human thought is concerned, the making of them a part of the individual intellect, Browning is far inferior to Tennyson, although the latter is frequently disparaged, on the count of intel- lectual grasp, when brought into comparison with Browning, for the sole reason that he obeys the promptings of the artist, and distils from the raw material of thought its purest essence. What "contributions to knowledge" do the famous poets of the older world bring us? They may reflect the form and vitalize the spirit of an age, as Homer and Spenser do; they may write the epic of the heroic life, as do Tasso and Camoens, or of the spiritual life, as do Dante and Milton. But how is abstract thought the gainer from all the tale of Troy or of the Crusades, from the grandiose cosmogonies of the " Divine Com- edy " or of "Paradise Lost"? These men inter- pret the pageant of life and the conflicts of the soul in terms of imperishable beauty, and it is doing them no dishonor to deny them kinship with Aristotle and Kant. Was Shakespeare a thinker? Only in the sense that his plummet went deeper than any other into human character, and that no human motive was too intricate for his an- alysis. Perhaps the only world-poet who was a thinker in the higher sense was Goethe, in whom poetic faculty and intellectual power both reached their highest pitch, and were so fused in the same personality as to work in mutual harmony. If anywhere in literature, we might reason- ably look to the f ramers of Utopias or ideal com- monwealths for an exhibition of original and constructive thought. There is much helpful counsel for the conduct of the State and of the individual life in the imagined communities of Plato and More, of Comenius and Campanella, of Hobbes and Holberg. But they give us no new ethics or politics, but only the old ones inculcated by novel examples. And so with the petty Utopias of the modern writers down to the ingenious Mr. Wells: they may make fruitful ap- plications of accepted moralities, but we should search them in vain for any fundamentally new idea. Those who are looking for genuine novel- ties in thought are most likely to find them in the writings of such champions of the paradox- ical as Messrs. Shaw and Chesterton, or such iconoclastic philosophers as Messrs. James and Bergson; but their ways are those of perplexity, and their methods those of deliberate mystifica- tion, not to be recommended to souls in search of truth. As for the writers who provide us from day to day with the staple of our reading, they will do well to leave the work of making "contributions to knowledge" to the scientist in his laboratory and the university student at work upon his doctoral dissertation. They still have all the material of accumulated human thought to deal with, in its infinite permutations and combinations; and the setting forth of its incidence upon human life, in the everyday world, is a big enough task for any poet or novel- ist or dramatist that we are likely to produce. THE LITERARY ACTIVITIES OF A VERSA TILE SCOTCHMAN. Antisthenes, as we read in Plutarch's life of Pericles, when told that Ismenias was an excellent flute-player, replied that he could not be good for anything else; otherwise he would not play so 1912.] 65 THE DIAL well on the flute. Anyone reading Andrew Lang's fairy tales would be tempted to conclude, unless he had further knowledge of the writer, that Mr. Lang could not amount to much in other walks of litera- ture, so whole-heartedly did he throw himself into the amusement of children with his many-colored series of fairy-books. And on listening to his flow of brilliant conversation, an unguarded stranger would have said to himself that so lavish a spender of good things in talk could not have anything left to put into writing. But the books that have made Andrew Lang famous in two hemispheres number almost as many as the years of that amazingly in- dustrious life now closed at the age of sixty-eight. Born at Selkirk, a short distance from Edin- burgh, on the last day of March, 1844, Lang pre- pared" for the university at the Edinburgh Academy, proceeded thence to St. Andrews, and afterward rounded out his education at Oxford, studying at Balliol College, winning an honorary fellowship at Merton, and especially distinguishing himself in the classics. An assured income seems in his case to have been no bar to early and energetic endeavor to make for himself a name in literature. From the appearance of his " Ballads and Lyrics of Old France," in 1872, his work, both prose and verse, was in constant demand. Succeeding William Black as leader-writer to the London "Daily News," he acquired the knack of expressing himself with fluency and charm on the most varied range of subjects, from cricket and golf to philosophy and religion. In illustration of the astonishing facility he devel- oped as a contributor of miscellaneous articles to the periodicals, it is said of him that he would, when pressed for time, scribble his "copy " for the waiting printer between the courses of a dinner to which he had been invited. He certainly had a larger store of encyclopaedic learning to draw from than almost any other writer of his time. Among his favorite subjects, on which he wrote in masterly fashion, prominent mention must be made of Homer, whom he never tired of defending against the attacks of those critics who would per- suade us of the conglomerate authorship of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey." His book on "Homer and his Age" appeared only six years ago, as the ripe fruit of its author's Homeric studies. His transla- tions of the two epics, in collaboration with Profes- sor Butcher (on the "Odyssey") and Mr. Ernest Myers and Mr. Walter Leaf (on the "Iliad") long ago established his reputation as a Homeric scholar. Another subject that fascinated him was the tragic fate of Mary Queen of Scots, on which he wrote a book, "The Mystery of Mary Stuart," in 1901. His work on "John Knox and the Reformation " and his "History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation" also attest his lively interest in themes near home. Walter Scott, too, he delighted to make the theme of his discourse, whether oral or written. Such books as his "Custom and Myth" and "Myth, Ritual, and Religion " show him in still another light, as a delver in folk-lore and an inquirer into the origin of religion. No more impressive testimony to Mr. Lang's ver- satility and industry can be found than is furnished by the simple list of his published works; and even that list does not include the miscellaneous and uncollected newspaper and magazine articles that dropped from his pen in a continuous shower for many years. In his early prime the number of books put forth by him in a single twelvemonth was re- markable. For instance, in 1884 we And credited to his pen the following: '• Ballads and Verses Vain," "Rhymes a la Mode," "Princess Nobody," and "Cus- tom and Myth.." In 1886 he published "Books and Bookmen," "In the Wrong Paradise," "Letters to Dead Authors," "The Mark of Cain," and "The Politics of Aristotle." At the time of his death, as we learn from a London news item printed only a few days before the tidings of his end reached us, he was about to undertake a "History of English Literature from Beowulf to Swinburne." Possibly some part or the greater part of this may already have been written; for Mr. Lang was so rapid in his work that little time intervened between the con- ception and the execution of a literary project English literature cannot number Andrew Lang among its immortal poets or historians or romancers or essayists; but its roll contains few if any names that stand for so wide-ranging, facile, and often bril- liant work as made this gifted Scotchman a marvel and a delight to those who read him. Of late years his vogue has perhaps suffered some decline, for he seemed to be a little out of sympathy (to his credit be it said) with certain passing tendencies in our litera- ture. All the more hope, therefore, may be cherished of his survival as a writer of varied learning and pecu- liar charm. CASUAL COMMENT. Mr. Shaw's conquest op Gaul has thus far been considerably less complete than Caesar's, though that, everyone now admits, was incomplete enough. Really, however, it was only Paris that the redoubt- able G. B. S. set out to subdue; but Paris is France, as has been maintained from time out of mind. It was with a characteristic letter to his translator, reproduced on yellow posters and placarded all over the French capital, that Mr. Shaw began his recent campaign. "My dear Hamon," ran this noteworthy pronouncement, "Paris is always the last city in the world to discover and accept an author or a composer of international reputation. London is twenty-five years behind the times, and Paris is ten years behind London. Paris is a marvellous city. But Parisians have not yet discovered Paris. It is not surprising, then, that they have not yet discovered me. In ten years Paris will discover me." Following this pro- clamation, hostilities began simultaneously on both banks of the river — "Arms and the Man" at the largest theatre on the rive gauche, and "Mrs. War- ren's Profession " on the most literary stage that the other side can boast, that of the Thidtre de» Arts. The invaded city seems to have held out manfully G6 [August 1, THE DIAL against anything like unconditional surrender, though the Shavian plays and the Shavian philosophy appear to have made a decided impression, and all Paris — all literary and artistic and critical Paris — was set to talking and writing about the many won- derful ideas thrust upon their unprepared minds. Possibly in the ten years so generously allowed them by Mr. Shaw the Parisians will either have digested them, or, which is more likely, abandoned the at- tempt. "Such plays," says one of the friendliest of their French critics, "require the collaboration of the audience, and this takes time to cultivate. He has against him the very novelty and profundity of his ideas." . . . The sifting of manuscripts that goes on day after day and year after year among editors and publishers' readers presents itself to the imagination as a task in comparison with which the twelve labors of Hercules dwindle to insignificant proportions. The great mass of manuscripts submitted must, in mining phrase, assay at only a very few dollars' worth of precious metal to the ton; but there is always the chance of finding a splendid nugget, and hence the need of caution. Few who have the handling of this mountain of written matter would think it wise or businesslike to follow the example of the famous theatrical manager who has recently excited the indignation of would-be playwrights by announcing that he will henceforth consign to the oblivion of the waste-basket all unsolicited manu- scripts thrust upon him. One can imagine the dis- appointments and disgusts that have led up to this decision; for disappointments are not all on the unsuccessful writer's side. If it be true that not a hundredth part of the manuscripts offered for publi- cation actually achieve that desired end, and if the complaint that our busy printing-presses are turning out a deplorable quantity of rubbish be not ill- founded, what incredible degrees of unreadability must be attained by the worst of the ninety-nine rejected hundredths of "unavailable " literary offer- ings! Undoubtedly too many of these manuscript- producers are more fired with zeal than informed with wisdom, are lacking in years what they so abundantly possess in courage and confidence. They desire and expect to arrive before they have fairly started. It is characteristic of the young writer to imagine himself much nearer the goal of ideal excel- lence than he will after he has, as a matter of fact, travelled a considerable distance toward that elusive end of all his striving. • • • High hopes fob the future of education were of course voiced by more than one speaker at the late fiftieth annual convention of the National Education Association, in session at Chicago. The spectacle of a man ardently enthusiastic for and splendidly confident in the cause to which he has devoted his life is surely a refreshing and inspiring one. Mr. Albert E. Winship of Boston attained to something like the sublime in an address on the final day of the conference. "Why should not this meeting," he asked, "in its closing moments here highly resolve that education shall become the lead- ing American profession? New times demand new men and new measures. The new times are surely here. The profession that meets the demands of these times will be the leading American profession, and education can meet these demands better than law, medicine, and the ministry. . . . The coast is clear. Education can be the leading profession of the country. It is the only profession that can devote itself exclusively to childhood and youth, to the making of manly men and womanly women. Education was the first profession. May it not be the greatest? It is the only learned profession whose leaders in scholarship are 'professors,' and the one man who met all the needs of all time was the Great Teacher." And so on, in high-bearted strain and with the impassioned orator's proper disregard of prosaic exactness in statement of facts, but with a magnificent conception of the educator's mission and a fine appeal to his hearers to show themselves worthy of their high calling. The in- spiration of such annual addresses ought to go far toward carrying the hearers bravely through the daily round, the common task, of the ensuing year. Emerging from the shelter of anonymity, the writers for the "Edinburgh Review" will hence- forth, under its new editor, Mr. Harold Cox, sign their names to their weighty pronouncements on the worth of current books and on such other questions of public interest as the "Edinburgh" has so long treated with distinguished ability, and, now and then, in a tone of such magisterial authority. The Macaulayesque style of review and the frequent use of the editorial "we" seemed almost to carry the assumption that no single pen of any single fallible mortal was responsible for the grave utterances marshalled so imposingly in the customary "Edin- burgh" article. The august authority of the mighty quarterly itself was back of every word and sentence. But the atmosphere now enveloping the world of books and writers is unfavorable to the further pros- perous growth of this assumption. Too many of our best and brightest critics and essayists write unblush- ingly in the first person singular, and the august personage behind the editorial "we" is losing those vague and majestic outlines that formerly inspired awe in the timid reader. The change of policy on the part of the ancient quarterly is in harmony with the modernity and versatility of its new editor, whose varied experience as member of Parliament, as writer on economic and political questions, and as a man of affairs rather than of the study and the li- brary, promises well for the revivification of the ven- erable review under his management. Discovering the public library, and learning with surprise that it is free and for the use of the people, is what some persons are doing even now in this advanced era of enlightenment and culture. Hence the need of advertising itself which every wide-awake library has for some time recognized. 1912.] 67 THE DIAL The Dallas Public Library issues an attractive little pamphlet on "How Libraries Advertise; as shown by the library material exhibited as a part of the Display of Advertising at the Eighth Annual Convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America, held at Carnegie Hall of the Dallas Pub- lic Library, Dallas, Texas, May 19-27,1912." In this matter of advertising there is an increasing num- ber of libraries that not only advertise themselves but also spread abroad the fame of their respective cities and agitate for all sorts of municipal improve- ments and reforms. For instance, as the Dallas pamphlet says, "St. Joseph, Mo., a city with a bold front, has an energetic and stentorian branch of li- brary publicity that makes an impression, and they talk right out about the things they are going to have. Among these are public baths, more boulevards, a greater St Jo club, public playgrounds, and other examples of municipal attractiveness." Advertis- ing the helpfulness of the library to the immigrant is made a specialty by certain libraries that minister to the needs of a large alien population. The Provi- dence Public Library does notably good work in its capacity of "melting-pot," and its officials can tell some interesting things about the conduct and the growing popularity of its foreign-literature de- partment. Not much longer, it is to be hoped, will it be possible to assert with truthfulness what the Dallas librarian now makes bold to declare, that "strange as it may seem, there are a lot of folk who do n't realize yet that libraries are free. They think there is a string to it somewhere." • • • Whitewashing Bacon, as Edward FitzGerald expressed it, was the task to which his (FitzGerald's) friend Spedding devoted his best years and energies, when he might better, it was thought, have given the world something of originality and value in some other department of literature. Mr. Balfour has been again applying the whitewash brush to the great English philosopher and statesman in a eulo- gistic speech at the unveiling of the Bacon statue at Gray's Inn, three hundred years after Bacon's admission to the Inn. As a statesman, he had, the orator declared, a breadth of view and a strength of spirit that might have altered the history of his own country and of all Europe, had his advice been heeded. In his personal relations and his private life he was not, if we are to believe his eulogist, nearly so reprehensible as it has been the fashion to represent him. But Mr. Balfour did not feel moved to enlarge on this aspect of the man. More congenial did he find it to dwell on him as a writer and scholar, a historian and a philosopher, the mas- ter of a noble prose style, and endowed with such gifts that his writings may be regarded as marking the beginning of a new epoch. That he has of late been vulgarized and his name made a mockery by some of his too ardent and ill-balanced admirers, few thoughtful persons will dispute. A prophet and a seer, according to Mr. Balfour, he pointed the way to true scientific research, and created the atmos- phere in which alone it could flourish. Surely that is glory enough, without the ascription to him of an impossible authorship of works quite outside of his vein. . . . An Albemarle Street centenary of interest to the English-reading book world has just been celebrated in the quiet and dignified manner befit- ting the celebrants. One hundred years ago the publishing house of Murray, already half a century old and enjoying an enviable repute, took possession of its present quarters — or, more accurately, the building next to its present quarters, number 50 being now used for domiciliary purposes by Mr. John Murray the Fourth and his son, while 50A, next door, is devoted to business. The aristocrat of English publishers, as he is not unaptly called, Mr. Murray by his dignified presence and his con- servative business methods attracts authors who know the value of the Murray imprint. So wedded to the good old ways of doing business is the house of Murray that even so time-saving an appliance as the typewriter was late in effecting an entrance at No. 50A. In the drawing-room of No. 50 are to be seen not a few reminders of the long connection with famous authors enjoyed by the Murrays. To mention but one, there is the silver loving-cup sent a century ago by Lord Byron from Greece to his pub- lisher, and containing some hemlock seeds gathered in Athens by the poet, who thus inscribed the gift: "Hemlock gathered by me for you under the walls of Athens; possibly the same from which the leaves that poisoned Socrates were plucked." Grimly sug- gestive contents for a loving-cup, surely; but there seems to be no reason at present why the descend- ants of the John Murray who received the gift should take the suggestion seriously. • • • A plucky young author of Kansas, a Mitchell County girl of spirit and determination and perse- verance, has achieved at least local fame by pleading and winning, in a court of law, her case against her publishers, who, if report speaks truly, seem not to have borne themselves with the utmost chivalry toward the young lady. Miss Lizzie Wooster, for that is the fair plaintiff's name, fired with a desire to improve on the school primers in general use, prepared one which met with the publishers' ap- proval and appears also, on publication, to have enjoyed a wide acceptance. But when she applied for her just share in the pecuniary proceeds of the venture, a cold refusal, on technical grounds, was the response. Filled with indignation at this in- justice, and laying her plans for revenge on a broad and deep foundation, Miss Wooster entered a law school, pursued the course to the end, was ad- mitted to the bar, and then, with a legal mastery of her own case in its every detail, brought suit against her unkind publishers, appearing in court as her own counsel, and procured a decision in her favor. Little need, now and henceforth, has she of the pro- tection of any Society of Authors. They do some things very well in Kansas.