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winism and Human Life, by J. Arthur Thomson,
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Book of Home and School Gardening, by Kary C. New Edition of The Stories of H. C. Bunner, 2 new
Davis, illus., $1.20.-Productive Plant Husbandry, vols.: Short Sixes and The Suburban Sage,-More
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book, by F. W. Woll, 60 cts. (J. B. Lippincott (Charles Scribner's Sons.)
Co.)
The Second Odd Number, by Guy de Maupassant,
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Benson and George Herbert Betts, illus., $3.50. Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Rudolph Wiss,
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illus., $1.35. (Rand McNally & Co.)
The Cow and Milk Book, by Hon. Mrs. Lionel Guest, The Day-Hours of the Church of England, revised,
75 cts. (John Lane Co.)
$1.75. (Longmans, Green, & Co.)
Commercial Egg Farming, by S. G. Hanson, illus.-
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TURE
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vol., $30. per set.—The Oxford Dickens, 17 vols., - When I Was a Boy in Roumania, by J. S. Van
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Oxford Scott, 24 vols., illus., maroon cloth, 75 cts. Hyde, illus., 50 cts. (Rand McNally & Co.)
per vol., $18. per set; brown cloth, 90 cts. per
First Aid for Boys, by Dr. Norman B. Cole and
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dark red Rutland, $65. per set. (Oxford Univer-
of the Woods, by Joseph A. Altsheler, illus., $1.35.
sity Press.)
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$1.50.—Sister Theresa, by George Moore, with a Gregor, illus., $1.35.—The Trail of Tecumseh, by
new preface, $1.50.-Emerson's Essays, 2 vols., Paul G. Tomlinson, illus., $1.35.-Scott Burton,
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leather, $2.—Candide, by Voltaire, full leather, Appleton & Co.)
$1.-A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne, Lucile, Bringer of Joy, by Elizabeth M. Duffield,
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illus., $1.—The Magic Stone, by Blanche Elizabeth
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by Francis Hackett, $1.50.—The Way of All Flesh, by Edward Shirley, illus., $1.50.—The Jolly Book,
by Samuel Butler, $1.50.—The Humor of Homer, by Edward Shirley, illus., $1.50.-Practical Things
by Samuel Butler, $1.50.—The Fair Haven, by with Simple Tools, by Milton Goldsmith, illus., $1.
Samuel Butler, $1.50.—The Street of Today, by (Sully & Kleinteich.)
John Masefield, $1.50.—When Love Flies Out of The Boy Scouts on Crusade, by Leslie W. Quirk,
the Window, by Leonard Merrick, $1.50.—The illus., $1.25.—Bedtime Story-Books, by Thornton
Actor Manager, by Leonard Merrick, $1.50.-
W. Burgess: XV, The Adventures of Paddy the
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rick, $1.50.-One Man's View, by Leonard Mer illus., each 50 cts. (Little, Brown & Co.)
rick, $1.50.-Whispers About Women, by Leonard
Miss Li'l Tweetty, by Louise Clarke Pyrnelle, illus.,
Merrick, $1.50.—The Position of Peggy, by Leonard
$1.20.–Strange Stories of the Great Valley, by
Merrick, $1.50.—This Stage of Fools, by Leonard
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of a Bee, by Walter F. McCaleb, illus., 75 cts.-
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löf: The Emperor of Portugallia, The Story of volume of Stories for Bed Time, illus., 50 cts.-
Gösta Berling, Jerusalem, The Wonderful Adven The Sandman's Hour, a third volume of Stories
tures of Nils, The Further Adventures of Nils, for Bed Time, illus., 50 cts. (Harper & Brothers.)


1917]
269
THE DIAL
The Tale of Tom Rabbit, by Mary Covert, $1.50.-
A Boy on the Plains and in the Rockies, by Wil-
liam A. Greer, $1.25. (Richard G. Badger.)
The Fairy Revels, by Edmund Mitchell, illus. (Men-
zies Pub. Co.)
Little Folks in History, by Dorothy Donnell Cal-
houn, illus., paper, 25 cts. (The Abingdon Press.)
Plays for Children, by S. W. Cauldwell, $1.50.— The
Cambridge Book of Poetry for Young People,
edited by Kenneth Grahame, Reading Circle edi-
tion, $1.50.-Betty Trevor, by Mrs. George de
Horne Vaizey, illus., $1.25.—East o' the Sun and
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coln, by W. F. Gordy, illus. (Charles Scribner's
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ond Base Sloan, by Christy Mathewson, illus., $1.35.
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Dick Judson, Boy Scout Ranger, by George Fred-
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cts. (Geo. W. Jacobs & Co.)
Peasant and the Prince, by Harriet Martineau, ed-
ited by Sara Cone Bryant, illus., 48 cents. (Ginn
& Co.)
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A Desk-Book of Twenty-five Thousand Words Fre-
quently Mispronounced, by Frank H. Vizetelly,
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ing, edited by Bernard E. Jones, illus., 75 cts.
(Funk & Wagnalls Co.).
The American Year Book, 1917, edited by Francis
G. Wickware, $3.—Handbook of Ship Calcula-
tions, Construction and Operation, by Charles H.
Hughes, $5.—The Home Medical Adviser, by Ken-
elm Winslow, $5.-Keeping Up with Your Motor,
by A. Frederick Collins, $1.10. (D. Appleton
& Co.
The Mythology of All Races, vol. VI, Indo-Iranian,
Indian section by A. Berriedale Keith; Iranian
section by Albert J. Carnoy, illus., $6. in buckram,
$10. in morocco. (Marshall Jones Co.)
Encyclopedia Medica, new second edition, edited by
J. W. Ballantyne, illus., 3 vols., each $6. (The
Macmillan Co.)
The Handbook of Briquetting, Vol. I, by G. Franke,
$9.-State Board Questions and Answers for
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The Horse: His Breeding, Care and Treatment in
Health and Disease, by Henry C. Merwin, illus.,
$1.50. (A. C. McClurg & Co.)
The Plattsburg Manual, by 0. 0. Ellis, illus., $2.
(The Century Co.)
A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Russian
Languages, by J. M. Freese, $2.-A Concise Gram-
mar of the Russian Language, by Leonard A.
Magnus, $1.50. (E. P. Dutton & Co.)
English Synonyms, by George Crabbe, $1.25.
(Harper & Brothers.)
The New Peerless School and Office Dictionary, ed-
ited by George J. Hagar, illus., $2. (Britton Pub-
lishing Company.)
A Plan of Organization for Small Libraries, by Mrs.
Minnie Clarke Budlong, $1. (The Boston Book
Company.)
One Thousand Literary Questions and Answers, by
Mary E. Kramer, $1. (Sully & Kleinteich.)
The New Hazell Annual and Almanack for the year
1917, by T. A. Ingram, $1.50. (Oxford Univer-
sity Press.)
A Bibliography of Thomas Gray, compiled by Clark
Sutherland Northrup, $3. (Yale University Press.)
Therapeutic Index and Prescription Writing Prac-
tice, by W. M. Barton, $2. (Richard G. Badger.)
BOOKS FOR SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.
English Composition, by Chester Noyes Greenough
and Frank W. C. Hersey.-A Manual of Good
English, by Henry Noble MacCracken and Helen
E. Sanderson.-Facts, Thought, and Imagination:
a Book on Writing, by Henry Seidel Canby, Fred-


270
[March 22
THE DIAL
TALKED-OF AUTHORS
AND THEIR NEW BOOKS
Kipling
Graphic descriptions of submarines, destroyers and
men, as Kipling alone can picture them, are found
in SEA WARFARE. In three sections : "Fringes of
the Fleet," "Tales of 'The Trade,' "Destroyers at
Jutland."
Net, $1.25
Ian Hay
In GETTING TOGETHER the author of "The First
Hundred Thousand" discusses many delicate ques-
tions concerning our relations with England. Better
mutual understanding and good will are sure to re-
sult. Published jointly by Houghton Mifflin Co. and
Doubleday, Page & Company.
Net, 50 cents
The Allies' Statesmen
Men like Viscount Bryce, David Lloyd George,
Balfour, Asquith, and many others are the authors of
THE WAR OF DEMOCRACY. An authoritative
statement of the aims and ideals for which the Allies
are fighting
Net, $2.00
Sergeant-Pilot
James R. McConnell
A most stirring account of aerial warfare is FLY-
ING FOR FRANCE by James R. McConnell, of the
American Escadrille at Verdun. The descriptions of
his own and other Americans' experiences at the
front are vivid and unforgettable.
Illustrated. Net, $1.00
“X”
erick Erastus Pierce, and Willard Higley Durham.-
Verse Writing, by William Herbert Carruth.-The
Method and Practice of Exposition: A Text-Book
for Advanced Students in Colleges and Universi-
ties, by T. E. Rankin.—French of Today, selected
by Pierre de Bacourt and John W. Cunliffe.-The
value of Money, by B. M. Anderson, Jr.—Economic
Development of Modern Europe, by Frederic Aus-
tin Ogg.-The History of European Philosophy, by
Walter P. Marvin.-A Text-Book of Sanitary and
Applied Chemistry, by E. H. S. Bailey, Fourth
edition, revised.—The Chemistry of Plant and
Animal Life, by Harry Snyder, Fourth Revised
edition.—Organic Evolution, by Richard Swann
Lull.—The Theory of Evolution, by W. B. Scott.-
The Animal Mind, by Margaret Floy Washburn,
Second edition.--Text-Book of Botany for Colleges,
by W. F. Ganong, Part II, The Kinds and Rela-
tionship of Plants.-History of Elementary Math-
ematics, by Florian Cajori, Second edition, revised.
--Electrical and Magnetic Measurements, by C. M.
Smith.-Elementary Mathematical Analysis, by
John Wesley Young and Frank M. Morgan.-A
First Course in Higher Algebra, by Helen A. Mer.
rill and Clara Smith.-Domestic Architecture, by
Lawrence E. Robinson.-Interior Decoration for the
Small Home, by Amy L. Rolfe.--The Nutrition of
Farm Animals, by Henry Prentiss Armsby.--Intro-
duction to Farm Concrete, by K. J. T. Ekblaw.-
The New Civics, by Roscoe L. Ashley.-Office Prac-
tice, by Mary F. Cahill.--Elementary Principles of
Economics, by Richard T. Ely.-Macmillan German
Series: Hillern's Höher als die Kirche, edited by
Stephen L. Pitcher.-Von Wildenbruch 's Das Edle
Blut, edited by John C. Weigel.-German Scien-
tific Reader, edited by Frederick W. Scholz.--His-
tory of Commerce and Industry, by Cheesman A.
Herrick. Elementary Social Science, by Frank C.
Leavitt.—Everyday Classics, by Franklin T. Baker
and Ashley H. Thorndike.—Third Reader, by Willy
Pogany, illus., Fourth Reader, by Willy Pogany,
illus.—Fifth Reader, by Boyd Smith, illus.--Sixth
Reader, by Alexander Popini, illus.—Everyday
Bookkeeping, by Artemus M. Bogle.-Constructive-
Play Problems, by William S. Marten, illus.— The
Home and the Family, by Helen Kinne.-Supple-
mentary Reading: Jim and Peggy at Meadowbrook
Farm, by Walter Collins O'Kane, illus.-Fil and
Philippa, by John Stuart Thomson.--A Child's
Book of Verse, Book I, Book II, Book III, by Ada
M. Skinner and Frances Gillespy Wickes.- World
Famous Stories in Historic Setting, 4 volumes,
illus.-Egypt and her Neighbors,—Greece and
Rome,--Teutonic Europe,-England,--New Eng-
land, by Clifton Johnson, illus.—A Reader of
Humorous Selections, by Mary R. Thomas. (The
Macmillan Co.)
Breese: Psychology, illus., $1.60.-Byers: Chemistry,
illus., $2.25.—Chickering: First Latin Reader, illus.,
$1.-Roberts and Rolfe: Cicero's Orations and
Letters, illus., $1.50.-Natural Method Fourth
Reader, illus. in color, 56 cts.—Howe Readers by
Grades-Books I, II, III, IV, and V.--Stevenson:
Child's Garden of Verses, 45 cts.-Stevenson:
Country Life Reader, illus., 60 cts.-Farnsworth:
Grammar School Songs, 75 cts.-Rapeer: Teach-
ing Elementary School Subjects, illus., $2.-Hänns-
sler: Beginners' Spanish, $1.–Ballard and Tilly:
WAR POEMS by "X" are the songs, not of the
young man who goes to the trenches, but of the
father who stays behind. "X" is well-known
English writer, who has sacrificed two sons to the
war.
Net, 75 cents
a
Ernesta Drinker Bullitt
This American who has visited Germany, Belgium
and Austria, and talked with their leading statesman
has recorded her impressions and experiences in AN
UNCENSORED DIARY From the Central Empires.
Told in refreshing, unconventional, conversational
style.
Net, $1.26
Dr. G. Stanley Hall
The first competent attempt to consider the "Great
Theme" purely in its relation to psychology is made
by Dr. Hall in JESUS, THE CHRIST, IN THE
LIGHT OF PSYCHOLOGY. The author is President
of Clark University and Editor of a number of
Journals of Psychology. 2 volumes boxed. Net, $7.50
James Elroy Flecker
“He pressed on into the virgin region of fantasy ;
he laboured to make the singular unique, the ro-
mantic magical, and the rare unparalleled.”—The
London Times.
COLLECTED POEMS OF JAMES ELROY
FLECKER, with an introduction by J. C. Squire and
photogravure portrait. Terra cotta boards, vellum
back, deckle edges.
Net, $2.00
At AU Bookstores
Doubleday, Page & Company
Garden City
New York


1917]
271
THE DIAL
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
AMERICAN BRANCH
35 West 32d Street
New York
Phonetic French Reader, 60 cts.—Harvitt: Contes
Divers, 50 cts.-Krause: Direct Method in Mod-
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International Cases, Volume II, War and Neutrality,
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- International Cases, Vol. I, Peace, $2.50.—The
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ster, $2.-The Essentials of Logic, by R. W. Sel-
lars, $1.60.-An Introduction to the History of
Science, by Walter Libby, illus., $1.50.-An
Elementary Laboratory Course in Psychology, by
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poration Finance, by Hastings Lyon, $3.—The
Riverside Literature: Boswell's Life of Johnson,
edited by Gerard E. Jensen, 44 cts. Sheridan's
School for Scandal, edited by Hanson Hart Web-
ster, 55 cts.—Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
and Piers the Ploughman, translated and edited
by K. G. T. Webster and W. A. Nielson, 60 cts.
(Houghton Mifflin Co.)
Russian Grammar, by Nevill Forbes, $2.-First Rus-
sian Book, by Nevill Forbes, 85 cts.-Second Rus-
sian Book, by Nevill Forbes, $1.15.--Third Rus-
sian Book, by Nevill Forbes,-Fourth Russian
Book, by Nevill Forbes.-A First Russian Reader,
from L. N. Tolstoy, with English notes and a
vocabulary by Percy Dearmer and Vyacheslav A.
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Sigel, $2. (Oxford University Press.)
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History for Children, by Hester McLean Pollock.
(E. P. Dutton & Co.)
South America, by Nellie B. Allen.—The Poems of
Poe, edited by Killis Campbell.—Beginnings of
Modern Europe, by Ephraim Emerton.—Outlines
of English and American Literature, by William
J. Long, illus.-Goldsmith's She Stoops to Con-
quer, edited by Dudley Miles.--Eastern Nations
and Greece, by P. N. Myers.--History of Rome,
by P. N. Myers.--Equipment for the Farm and
the Farmstead, by H. C. Ramsower. (Ginn & Co.)
Handy Polish-English and English-Polish Diction-
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lish Composition, Chemistry, and Drawing, each
75 cts. (David McKay.)
A Handbook of English Literature, by Edwin L.
Miller, illus., $1.80.-Standard Methods of Testing
Juvenile Mentality, by Norbet Melville, $2.-A
Textbook of Home and School Gardening, by Kary
C. Davis, illus., $1.20. (J. B. Lippincott Co.)
Source Problems in American History, by Andrew
McLaughlin, $1.30. (Harper & Brothers.)
Macbeth, by Daniel Homer Rich, illus., 35 cts.
(Harper & Brothers.)
The Provocation of France
Fifty Years of German Aggression
By JEAN CHARLEMAGNE BRACQ.
Crown 8vo, cloth, pp. vii+202.
net $1.25
It contains the text of Bismarck's confession of
mutilating the Ems Dispatch, a new treatment of
the Alsatian question, and a vivid account of the
real attitude of France toward Germany.
Progress and History
Essays arranged and edited by F. S. MARVIN.
8vo, cloth, pp. 314.
net $3.75
“What we have to consider is, when and how
this idea of progress first appeared in the world,
how far it has been realized in history, and how far
it gives any guidance and hope for the future. In
the midst of a catastrophe which appears at first
sight to be a deadly blow to the ideal, such an
inquiry has a special interest and may have some
permanent value."-From the Preface.
An Historical Atlas of Modern Europe
from 1789 to 1914
By C. GRANT ROBERTSON and J. G. BARTHOL-
OMEW. Twenty-nine full colored plates and four-
teen half-plates-forty-three maps in all, with an
historical and explanatory text.
Imperial 4to, cloth.
net $1.50
"A remarkably low-priced book. The maps, apart
from their educational value, explain the European
problems that led to the war and show many of the
difficulties that will have to be arranged in the set-
tlement."-N. Y. Sun.
The Oxford Book of English
Mystical Verse
Chosen by D. H. S. NICHOLSON and A. H, F.
LEE.
Crown 8vo, cloth, pp. xvi +644.
net $2.50
Oxford India Paper, fcap. 8vo, cloth. net $3.50
Includes 417 poems and extracts from the work of
163 poets, with much copyright work. The com-
pilers have included "only such poems and extracts
from poems as contain intimations of a conscious-
ness wider and deeper than the normal," excluding
uninspired piety on the one hand and mere intellec-
tual speculation on the other.
Shakespeare's Handwriting
A Study by SIR E. MAUNDE THOMPSON. With
facsimiles in collotype of three folios of the Sir
Thomas More MS. and reproductions in half-
tone of the six Shakespeare signatures.
Crown 4to, pp. xii+64.
net $4.00
"In this monograph I have set out my reasons for
concluding that at length we have found what so
many generations have desired to behold-a holograph
MS. of our great English poet."--From the Preface.
The New Hazell Annual and
Almanack for 1917
By T. A. INGRAM
Crown 8vo, cloth, pp. liv +851.
$1.50
The Thirty-Second Year of Issue. Gives the most
recent and authoritative information concerning the
British Empire, the Nations of the World, and all
the important topics of the day, together with much
astronomical and other useful information.
The Johnson Calendar
Or Samuel Johnson for every day in the year.
Being a series of sayings and tales, collected from
his life and writings by ALEXANDER MONT-
GOMERIE BELL. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, pp. 234. 85c
Also in marble paper cover, uncut edges. 85c
It may be easy to conceive of Johnson as an un-
reasonable and malignant person, but this volume
will go far toward revealing his true character, which
in public life sincere and constant, and in
private, of inexhaustible kindness.
Complete catalogue upon request
was


272
[March 22
THE DIAL
The Call of the Bells
Food Study: A Textbook in Home Economics for
High Schools, by Mabel Thacher Wellman, illus.,
$1. (Little, Brown & Co.)
Descriptive Mineralogy, by William Shirley Bayley,
$3.50. (D. Appleton & Co.)
A Novel by EDMUND MITCHELL
Has received high commendation from the following
and many other daily newspapers : The New York
Herald, World, Times, Evening Post, Telegraph and
The Evening Sun; Boston Daily Advertiser and The
Post; Philadelphia Evening Telegraph; Brooklyn
Eagle, Citizen and The Standard Union; Akron (O.)
Beacon-Journal; St. Louis Star; Salt Lake (City)
Tribune; Denver Mining and Financial News; Spo-
kane Chronicle and The Spokesman-Review; Portland
Oregonian; Sacramento Bee; San Francisco Chronicle
and The Bulletin, from which the following short
extracts from their notices and reviews are culled :
"The story from start to finish is red-blooded and
virile, seizing the reader's attention at the outset,
advancing through situations of almost breathless in-
terest to a climax of great dramatic strength.
A novel of ideas, woven into a gripping story.
A sterling novel that pictures idleness, dissipation, re-
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276
[March 22
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THE DIAL
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[March 22
THE DIAL
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THE DIAL
A Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information.
Vol. LXII.
APRIL 5, 1917
No. 739.
CURRENT TENDENCIES IN
EDUCATION.
CONTENTS.
.
• 298
CURRENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION.
John Dewey
287
COMMERCIAL SCHOLARSHIP. William Wis-
tar Comfort
290
LITERARY AFFAIRS IN FRANCE. (Special
Correspondence.) Theodore Stanton 292
CASUAL COMMENT
. 295
A French poet's protest.--The drama freed
from the fetters of convention.—Ancient
Babylonian parcel-post service. --Adolescent
authors.-In support of the new theatre.-
The free mailing list.—Horace Hart, printer
and bibliophile.—The pros and cons of paper
covers.—Exemplary library economy.—The
omniscient bookseller.
COMMUNICATIONS
An Unrepentant Victorian. Leslie N. Jen-
nings.
Mr. Powys Again. J. W. Abernethy.
DRAB LIVES. Robert M. Lovett
300
LABELLING THE HISTORIANS. Carl Becker 301
A STRONGHOLD OF OBSCURANTISM. Ran-
dolph Bourne
303
GLIMPSES OF WAR. Percy F. Bicknell . 305
A JOURNEY OF THE IMAGINATION. Nellie
Poorman
307
THE WILL-TO-POWER. George Bernard Don-
lin
309
DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. Edith
Wyatt
310
THE ARTFUL MR. HICHENS. Alice Bishop . 313
NOTES ON NEW FICTION
. 313
The Job.—The Yeoman Adventurer.-Mag
Pye.—The Hiding-Places.-Our Natupski
Neighbors.—The White People.—Those Fitz-
enbergers.-Confessions of a Social Secre-
tary.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS
315
China Inside Out.—Great Companions.—How
to Read.-A Daughter of the Puritans.-
The French Renascence.—Military and Naval
America.—English Composition as a Social
Problem.—Essai l'Histoire du Vers
Français.--Germany, from 1815 to 1852.-
Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth, Queen
of England.-Mechanisms of Character
Formation.—The Fight for the Republic.
NOTES FOR BIBLIOPHILES
318
NOTES AND NEWS.
322
LIST OF NEW BOOKS
324
It sometimes seems as if educational ten-
dencies might be compared to those of the
changes in clothes. Styles and patterns alter;
the essential garments remain the same; and
even these superficial alterations appear af-
ter all to work around in cycles. The more
they change, the more they are the same.
In one aspect, education is plastic and easily
divertible; in another, it is the hardest of all
things to change. For to change it, means
to change men's minds, not their conscious
beliefs nor their professed ideals but those
mental sets which limit and control all con-
scious thinking and desire. It would be a
comparatively easy thing to educate children
in an ideal way—if the parents and elders
did not have to be educated first. And, really,
the old illustration of complete physical dis-
ability-lifting one's self over the fence
seems inadequate to set forth the impossi-
bility of deliberate effort at radical alteration
of mental habitudes.
Nevertheless in the long run, clothes are
changed in more than fashion or style, though
the run may have to be long enough to take
in centuries. The knights and ladies of the
obsolete courts of a bygone world were garbed
in other mode than the commuter and shop
girl of to-day. For those courts are obsolete,
and with their passing went the ways of liv.
ing of which the court was but a symbol.
And so it is in some wise with education.
The educational reformer has little more in-
fluence than the dress reformer. A few per-
sons do something “queer,” and thus make it
a little easier for others to do something
which is slightly more sensible, somewhat
further removed from convention, than what
they were doing before. Meanwhile the active
habitudes of life are changing in ways which
are not willed and from these changes in
conditions which underlie education follow
inevitably transformations in its purposes and
methods. A prolonged and insistent inspec-
tion of the contemporary scene will not tell
what is mere change in temporary fashion
sur
.


288
[April 5
THE DIAL
and what is sign and evidence of enduring ing's poem had seen, but educational revolu-
transfiguration. But a glance along a longer tions occur about once a year, and overlap
stretch of time shows tremendous dislocations. each other during about half that time. And
In speaking of current tendencies in edu this sense of the uncertain nature of the
cation, then, one may mean either currents enterprise of observing and recording them
which are but the eddies of the day, no mat is really significant if it but impresses the
ter how much they may be wearing away the fact that the place in which to look for sig.
banks which bound one's own property, or nificant educational changes, those which are
one may refer to certain irresistible flows most likely to endure and fructify, is not
which are to determine the stream in years education at all, but is important social
to come. If anyone tries to talk about the changes which go on irrespective of education.
latter tendencies, he is betting on an un For alterations of the former sort come and
known future, or, if you prefer a more dig. go; the latter shape the aims and agencies
nified language, he is indulging in that of education. In my wagering as to the future
liberty of prophesying which is man's chief which follows in the guise of a report upon
prerogative. If he is talking about the for-
the present, I am guided not so much by what
mer, he is discussing the technique of a pro I seem to see going on in the schools as by
fession, a matter of interest to those engaged what I believe concerning the connection of
in it, but of no more interest to the general these school events with larger currents of
public than are the routine procedures of our social life.
any other art—save that they directly af I attach very considerable importance, then,
fect all who have children (and most do) and to the movement for introducing scales, stan-
thus easily excite interest and engage con dards, and methods of measurement into
troversy.
teaching and administration, not so much be-
Rival systems of handwriting, the phonic cause of the amount of attention they are now
versus the phonetic method, both versus the receiving, as because they represent, I think,
word method, of teaching reading, are on the a seeping into education of "efficiency" con-
same level of elevation as most of our dis cepts and methods which modern life is mak-
cussions of ancient versus modern language ing inevitable. It is not a matter of liking or
and both versus natural science. They are not liking them; probably the first reaction
primarily concerned with increasing shop effi of those of us who have developed their own
ciency, refining and enlarging the output, highly individualized modes of efficiency and
while reducing overhead expense and lower- inefficiency is one of aversion. The signifi-
ing the “turn over.” That, I take it, is why cant thing is that modern industry has forced
we do not find educational periodicals vying the recognition of the large part played by
with daily newspapers, and weekly or monthly the factor of mechanism in any undertaking,
magazines, for the attention of even the most and thus the recognition of the need that this
conscientious parent. To find fault is the mechanical factor be frankly acknowledged
only sure way of getting attention to the for just what it is and be made as accurate,
schools, unless it is to promote, by our modern as smooth-running, as is possible.
That a
advanced publicity methods, a brand new school is a less mechanical thing than a factory
remedy for the teaching pains of all the ages. goes without saying. But it has its mechan-
However, I fear I am taking more space ical side and base; every study taught from
for my introduction than I am going to be the first grade on has its mechanical features.
able to give to the body of my comment.
A movement toward standardization, toward
But the introduction will, in any case, be
the instituting of scales of measurement and
more important than the body of my article applying them, is but the honest perception
if it leaves in the mind of the reader a due
of this fact. To suppose that the movement
sense of the precarious nature of any effort is one of introducing and fostering the me-
to interpret current educational tendencies chanical element is to ignore the fact that
in any but their casual and transitory sense. nothing is already more deeply entrenched in
I have forgotten just how many revolutions the schools than the mechanical. To invest-
it was which the cynical character in Brown- | igate it is the first step in the attempt to dis-


1917]
289
THE DIAL
cover whether it is within or beyond its due ured by established standards. They often,
bounds, and whether it is actually accomplish- perhaps most often, represent on their face
ing what it is supposed to effect. It will take simply a desire of some group of parents that
time for the movement to clear itself up; it their children have a happier and more whole-
is easy to detect much that is ridiculously like some school life than they have been enjoying,
a caricature in all phases of the “efficiency” plus the reaction of some wearied and dis-
movement. But the movement itself is an gusted teacher. Even so, they lay hold on
expression of that scientific realism which deep connections. The mobility and flexibil-
notes the working of mechanism wherever ity, the freshness and variety, of modern life
results are accomplished, and, noting it, asks stand in increasingly startling contrast with
whether the mechanism is as effective as it the wooden routine, the deadly conventional-
may be. It was, I believe, Dean Swift who ity, of the average traditional school. The
said that he had no idea of economy save as same forces which have wrought the change
a servant of freedom. In the end, this must in the larger social life, and which cause one
also be said of efficiency.
to choke and stifle when one happens to be
The danger in the introduction of stan forced back into the rigid circumstances which
dardizing methods in teaching and adminis still persist here and there, are surely making
tration is not in the tools themselves. It is their way also into the schools.
in those who use them, lest they forget that it Nor is this tendency to flexibility and fresh-
is only existing methods which can be meas ness (which is a large part of what goes
ured and standardized. Efficiency methods popularly by the name of democracy) the
might have been applied to various methods only force operating to produce the exper-
of using human muscle power before the imental movement in education. Sometimes
advent of steam. Until after the advent of the experimental schools, judged by their prac-
latter, they could not have been used to tice, seem to be only escapes from routine
measure the comparative efficiency of hand I had almost written escapades. They have
and leg power over against steam power. emancipated themselves not only from tradi-
Doubtless many of the methods which are now tion from also from directive ideas. This
in process of attempted standardization are sort of experimentation represents, however,
not worth the attention they receive. Too
only the caricaturing shadow which accom-
often we are deciding upon which is best panies all vital motion in the sun. In truth,
among three or four ways of doing things, no experimentation is the fruit of science in the
one of which is good. In short the limits of field of creative endeavor, of controlled con-
the efficiency movement are the limits of what
structive invention. It is based upon ideas
is already achieved in the way of school tech-
and is a method for a continuous carrying of
nique. The movement may succeed in ascer-
ideas on to maturity. That mechanical
taining which is the best, relatively speaking, efficiency is a fruit of the modern scientific
among them. It cannot tell whether any one
spirit is no truer than that this spirit has
of them has, relatively to some future inven-
also awakened in man a sense of creative
tion, any claim to existence. The counterpart,
power and has equipped him with agencies
the balance wheel, of any such movement,
for realizing the inventive ideas which the
must accordingly be one of creation, of inven-
enlarged spectacle of the continuity of things
tion. This is represented, I think, in current
breeds in his soul.
education by the tendency to develop exper-
I have not exhausted a list of the signifi-
imental schools.
I do not mean of course that these are devel-
cant current tendencies in education. But the
two which I have mentioned stand out to my
oping just as a counterweight to the efficiency
and measurement movement. They too draw
vision at the present moment as I try to
upon forces working widely and deeply out-
survey the flux and reflux of the infinite detail
side the schools. Their immediate cause is
of school tendencies in their connections with
generally dissatisfaction with the results at the moving tides from which they draw all
tained in schools of the prevailing type, no their enduring energies.
matter what their efficiency may be as meas-
JOHN DEWEY.


290
[April 5
THE DIAL
COMMERCIAL SCHOLARSHIP.
easy to relieve. Each of the leading univer-
sities which grant advanced degrees (and
there are not more than a dozen that need be
It is a matter of common knowledge in
academic circles that the intrinsic value of the
seriously considered) is desirous of turning
degree of Doctor of Philosophy is in danger
out as many Doctors of Philosophy as possible
of becoming seriously impaired. The exact
from its graduate school. Its local and na-
significance of other academic degrees, such as
tional prestige as a seed-plot of scholarship
that of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and
is thereby greatly enhanced. Mediocre stu-
Bachelor of Philosophy, has become quite lost dents are incited to study for the advanced
within the last half-century. But now the degree, when they ought never to go beyond
stamp of ripe scholarship and of productive the master's degree. Why? Because the suc-
research which was connoted by the most ad cess of graduate schools and of individual de-
vanced of our academic degrees is similarly partments is rated by the number of doctors
threatened. The pressure that is being they turn out. Quantity is to the fore just
exerted upon it from three quarters may
where it ought to be subordinated to quality.
eventually reduce it to banality, unless it be To the few universities with adequate staffs,
speedily rescued from commercialism.
educators look and write for prospective in-
In the first place, pressure is exerted by structors.
structors. Heads of departments in such
the candidate himself. More and more he is universities keep a dignified employment
coming to feel that he has a vested right in bureau, with card catalogue containing the
the degree, if he spends a given length of names, addresses, positions, salaries, and past
time in preparing for it. The registrar's add-
records of their protégés. This system is no
ing-machine totals his graduate courses and
secret. It is at the public service, it is prac-
his terms of residence; dogged persistence tical, efficient, and perfectly honorable. But
in the collection of matter for his thesis re it exerts pressure upon the universities. If it
places in his own mind any philosophical con is known that some good position is vacant,
ception of scholarship as a search for vital it is a temptation at the employment bureau
truth or any conspicuous ability as an original to skimp the requirements of the candidate.
investigator and expounder of truth. It must If his deficiencies are complacently overlooked
be owned, the candidate has had some reason in June, the candidate may be placed in Sep-
for making such an assumption; but it is tember. Everyone appears happy and con-
a most unfortunate assumption, and one that gratulates himself. It is a triumph of
must be firmly, if cruelly, dispelled, before any American acumen and of practical business
steps can be taken to redeem the degree. methods. But the degree is cheapened; schol-
Pressure is also exerted by the prospective arship has become mercantile.
employer of academically trained men. Most Now is the degree worth saving! There
of our universities and better colleges want may be two opinions upon that subject. Per-
only Doctors of Philosophy upon their per- haps America is incapable of maintaining a
manent faculty lists. If accepted temporarily scholar's degree at its highest point of sig-
without the conventional badge of scholarship, nificance; perhaps those who feel as the writer
the appointee is warned that he can expect no does are behind the times. But there are
promotion until he has secured the doctorate. many men on university faculties who deplore
“We want only. productive scholars," says the pressure which is forcing down the value
the President; and with this club over him, of the doctorate. Some remedy may be found
the young man scuttles for the degree in for existing conditions by reducing the pres-
neighboring university, or in the one where sure along the three lines referred to above.
he is located for the time, displaying more Any thorough discussion of the doctor's
alacrity than thoroughness in his pursuit of degree would involve us in the history of the
knowledge. Wives and babies serve to speed meaning of all degrees in this country; in our
up the process, and his graduate committee historical relations with England and Ger-
is hard-hearted indeed if it allows foolish many; and in the relation of the universities
standards of superior attainment to stand in to the conception and administration of edu-
the way of a degree whose bestowal is con cation in the different states. For all this
tingent upon its mercy.
there is no space here. But of all the shifting
Finally, there is pressure exerted upon the standards of attainment required here and
candidate by the very department in which there for the different academic degrees, upon
he is doing his graduate work. This is the none should educators strive to agree more
most inexcusable pressure of all, and the most nearly than upon those for the doctor's de-
-


1917]
291
THE DIAL
gree. It has long been the ne plus ultra in distinguished by its originality: that it should
American scholarship, the "great beyond” preferably treat of that which eye hath not
upon which the universities launch with hope seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into
and confidence the flower of their intellectual the mind of man. A number of theses in
aristocracy. We are all a little jealous of America and in Germany, whence this tradi-
our most precious products, and by taking tion is reputed to have reached our shores,
thought we may yet reserve for the doctor-
have served to hold high this requirement
ate some of the “rights and privileges” which
among us. That he can select, unaided, such
properly pertain thereto.
There are other minor considerations in-
a recondite subject, or still more a suitable
volved in what has been said, and to which subject possessing broad human interest, is
too much to expect from the average gradu-
reference should be made in this attempt to
ate student. Several suitable subjects for a
arouse coöperation in common academic prob-
doctoral dissertation are therefore submitted
lems. Upon these topics there is space only
to touch with a few queries. Can graduate for his consideration, and he makes a choice.
work for the doctorate be profitably prose-
It is worth while to point out that the per-
cuted during the summer session maintained
sonal initiative in finding for oneself a point
by many of our universities? There is a dif to argue or a field to treat is by this method
ference of opinion and of practice in this lost to the scholarly character; just as, fur-
matter. What evidence of general informa- ther, the graduate student who is subsidized
tion is to be insisted upon by examiners, such is not likely to be possessed of a devouring
as knowledge of foreign languages, history, passion for his subject. He is in the act of
English literature, and general science? May being supported; he has not left all to follow
the general oral examination be held separ a scholar's life. He may have a family, he
ately, thus to precede that upon the accepted must live, and he will drive bargains.
thesis? Is the oral examination held before
After three to five years of residence in a
the academic public, or is it held before a
graduate school, where he has been usually
small committee of insiders? Are any stand-
ards of English composition required in the teaching elementary classes the while, the
candidate submits his thesis for a first reading
thesis? Is the thesis to be printed and de-
posited before or after the degree is granted ?
to his committee of professors. Sooner or
Need it be printed at all? If the thesis is later, the thesis is accepted, either in form
printed, who pays the bill for printing? What
or in principle, or in both, and the imprima-
proportion of graduate students hold univer tur is placed upon it by the committee. When
sity subsidies as fellows or instructors? In
doctoral dissertations are printed, they reach
all these matters there is no accepted usage.
a point where they come within the range of
In institutions where the bars are down there THE DIAL's interest.
is always danger that doctors will run through A dissertation may be printed at the ex-
and disport themselves in the open pastures pense of the author, or it may be accepted for
beyond the possibility of recovery. As affairs free publication by a learned society, or it
are, the insistent interrogator wishes to know may be printed by a subsidized university
where a given doctor obtained his degree; press, or it may not be printed at all. Fol.
then he draws his own inferences.
lowing the European practice, if it is printed,
By proceeding from the general to the par a hundred copies or more must be deposited
ticular, we have been brought to the thesis with the university library to use for ex-
as the foundation stone upon which the de- change. It is instructive to note that Harvard
gree is commonly held to rest. It is at any does not require the printing of dissertations,
rate the requirement upon which most in and that the Harvard doctorate does not
sistence is everywhere laid. Yet here, too, appear to have lost prestige by the fact.
the practice is most varied. It may be of Harvard is, however, a law unto herself. So
interest to outline briefly what happens to a are Oxford and Cambridge. Most other uni-
thesis between its conception and its public ap versities feel that the printing of the thesis
pearance in the nursery of university scholar- is a guarantee of the vital scholarship of the
ship, and to query what its magic properties candidate, and that as an advertisement it
may be. Possessing no competency to speak has definite value. It is possible that the sec-
for the sciences, the writer will confine his ond is sometimes the dominating sentiment;
remarks to literary theses, or, as they more
for it is certain that many dissertations escape
properly may be called, literary dissertations. from captivity too soon. So long as disser-
There is an ancient tradition held by some tations are relegated to privately printed
that the doctor's thesis should be primarily pamphlets or to dry "Proceedings,” there is


292
[April 5
THE DIAL
no great cause for the public to cry out. Such
LITERARY AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
dissertations are written by specialists for
specialists: similis simili gaudet! But when
(Special Correspondence of THE DIAL.)
handsomely bound volumes selling for $1.25
Professor Jean Psichari, Greek man of let-
or $1.50 are put on the book market by a
ters and scholar of the University of Paris,
university press, the public is entitled to ex-
has just given his important collection of
pect something of more general importance, books to the library of the French Senate,
written in a scholarly English style. There where they will be beautifully housed in one
have been some notable contributions to lit of the grand saloons of the spacious Luxem-
erary history by fledgling doctors, and there bourg Palace. But I prefer to associate these
have been others which are paltry, ill-written, volumes with their former home in the plain
and immature. In the case of the latter, it but historic studio of the Scheffers, where I
seems a deplorable waste of money to spread first saw the books covering the space from
over three hundred pages of well-set type such
floor to ceiling and encircling the whole room
ill-digested and ill-treated material. Men of where so many well-known canvases grew into
twenty-five to thirty are able to compile a
being. Here, for instance, Lafayette sat for
technical pamphlet consisting of plots, ré the full-length portrait by Ary Scheffer which
sumés, and enumerations, but they are not hangs on the Speaker's left in the House of
likely to write a scholarly book.
Representatives at Washington; and in the
Those who read dissertations have more villa a rod or two away, Henry Scheffer's
often cause to curse than to sing praises. The daughter married Renan, whose daughter
thèses for the French Doctorat are, indeed, married Jean Psichari. Along with this
an æsthetic delight to the reader; but they, scholar's books are many souvenirs of the
being written by mature scholars for a dif stormy days of the Restoration. I have seen
ferent end, are in a class by themselves. Per there the little red leather portfolio which
haps we might do well to look upon our doc- Lafayette carried with him every day to the
torate with the jealous eyes of the French, Chamber of Deputies, and on one occasion
and give our master's degree to those who | M. Psichari showed me one or two of the let-
simply wish a teaching degree. As a matter ters of George Washington Lafayette, written
of fact, a teacher's efficiency is seldom in- from America when the latter accompanied
creased when he receives a doctorate. But
his father on the famous tour of 1824. These
for the present American needs, there is one and other historic relics and documents will
suggestion we would make in the interests of go with the books to the Senate, where a tablet
the candidate, of his committee, of the unsus-
will state that they are given in memory of
pecting public, and of academic uniformity. the son of the donor and the grandson of
It is this: let us confine the printed matter Renan, Lieutenant Ernest Psichari, who was
required by the university to its lowest terms; rapidly coming to the fore as a figure in
let this minimum be as technical and dry and French literature when he was killed in
ill-written as the committee can conscien- August, during the first year of the war.
tiously allow it to be; it will be consigned to The name of Ernest Psichari is prominent
oblivion in libraries and in private gift- in the list which stands and grows from month
shelves, and the slim resources of the candi to month in the “Bulletin des Ecrivains"
date will not be seriously depleted. Later, (Paris: 16 rue Bertin-Poirée), a little period-
if the subject is worthy of presentation to a ical which gives one the best idea of how the
larger public, let a book be written and pre- young writers of France are suffering at the
pared for the press with that consideration for front. The February number of this interest-
the reader which is his due.
ing but rather depressing monthly publishes
There is no body which can handle a subject the names of over 300 dead authors. Any
like this, where so many interests are involved, Americans who may wish to aid this pub-
except the American Association of Univer- lication, which a group of journalists in Paris
sity Professors. Into the hands of this cap sends free to the writers at the front, will be
able Association we commend the spirit of the helping in an excellent work.
doctorate and the vexed thesis requirements I have spoken more than once of how the
attached thereto. It is to be hoped that it literary bodies of France are awarding their
will act speedily to save it from the clutches prizes to these young writers killed in battle.
of commercialism, and fix its meaning in our But so far as I know, these prizes have always
academic nomenclature.
been given to those who have printed some-
WILLIAM WISTAR COMFORT. thing. The Paris Society of Men of Letters,


1917]
293
THE DIAL
however, recently bestowed a prize on a col- (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1 fr. 50). It covers the
lection of poems still in manuscript—“Les period from the opening of the war to the end
Sons Graves et Doux,” by a young poet of 1915 and records the death of nearly 200
named Joseph de Joannis-Pagan. M. Jean
M. Jean painters, sculptors, musicians, and architects.
Jullien, the distinguished Paris music critic, To the name of most of these dead young men
writes me that these verses are remarkable. is attached a short biographical notice, one
Their author, an infantry sergeant, was killed of these being that of Paul Nelson, an Amer-
on September 20, 1914 in the battles around ican graduate of the School of Fine Arts, who
Lirouville.
naturalized himself in France when the war
The war awards of this society are mainly broke out, was wounded at the battle of the
known as the Barrès Prizes, so named in honor Marne, but returned to the front and was
of Maurice Barrès. The medal was made by killed on May 30, 1915.
Henri Nocq, a pupil of Chapu. The figure Some weeks ago the Academy of Fine Arts
on one side was inspired by Rude's famous invited to a reception the representatives of
group on the front of the Arch of Triumph at the various American military charities in
Paris, and the equally famous "seventy-five” France, the purpose being to thank them for
is represented underneath. The female figure all the United States has done for France in
with bowed head, on the reverse, is taken from the present crisis. Sixty different organiza-
a Greek medal struck 450 B. C. The motto tions responded. I have just received from
reads, "Credidi propter quod locutus sum et M. Charles Waltner, the talented engraver
mortuus,” which may be translated, perhaps, who is president of the Academy of Fine Arts,
“Because I believed, I therefore spoke and the text of the little speech which he deliv-
died.” M. Barrès in the third volume of ered on that occasion and which he has written
“L'Ame Française et la Guerre” (Paris : out especially for its place here. It is an ex-
Emile Paul, 3 fr. 50 each volume), gives the cellent proof of the friendly spirit toward
history of the foundation of these medals. us that exists in the intellectual centres of
This series of volumes, by the way, is a col France.
lection of the articles contributed daily since Being much moved by the great kindness which
the beginning of the war to "L'Echo de we have received from Americans, I seize this occasion
Paris." They are excellent examples of what
to send a few words of thanks for the generous aid
war literature should be and show M. Barrès
given to our poor wounded of the Conservatory and
the School of Fine Arts — given, in a word, to all
at his best. But the latest writing of M.
our artists who have fought to defend our sacred
Barrès should be read by all who would catch rights and, at the same time, the civilization of the
the true spirit of the French army of to-day.
world. But these inadequate words of mine are far
I know of no more soul-stirring picture of
from repaying the debt we owe you and we shall
keep at the bottom of our hearts as long as we live
military glory than that given in "Le Blason
a feeling of profound gratitude.
de la France" (London: Oxford University
At the end of his letter, M. Waltner adds
Press, 1s.), an address read recently by M.
these lines on the effect which he thinks the
Barrès before the British Academy.
war will have on the fine arts in France:
Speaking of these war prizes leads me to
It is not easy to form a correct idea on this point;
mention one of a somewhat different sort.
but it seems to me that the least that can happen
A retired artillery officer, Major Levylier, of will be to bring about forever the abandonment in
Décauville, Calvados, writes me this touching architecture, painting, engraving, and even in liter-
letter:
ature, of that heavy and presumptuous bad taste,
which is without tradition, knowledge, refinement-
My son, Lieutenant Paul Levylier, of the 25th
in a word, without respect for any truth whatsoever.
regiment of dragoons, was doing his second year in
Bad taste was beginning, through pure snobbishness,
architecture at the Paris School of Fine Arts when
to infiltrate all classes of society to the great det-
the war broke out. At the moment of mobilization,
riment of the joy of possessing really beautiful works
he wrote to his elder sister and asked her in case of
of art.
his death to request me to give the necessary capital
to found a prize at the school; which I have done.
Perhaps the best example of American aid
His letter ended with these words for the rest of the to French artists is that offered by the Com-
family: “Tell them to close their eyes; then you mittee of the American Students of the Paris
kiss them and they will think it is I.” He died
Fine Arts School, 17 quai Malaquais, which
bravely in Champagne on October 6, 1915, crushed,
at the head of his platoon, by a shell. His last words
issues an illustrated gazette. Mr. Francis
to his captain were: “Tell father that I died for Jaques, in sending me a copy of this very
France."
original periodical, writes: “We get out 24
In this connection one might read M. Paul numbers a month one for each studio of the
Ginisty's "Les Artistes Morts pour la Patrie” school — and we have been doing this for over
..


294
[April 5
THE DIAL
two years.”
Each number contains 24 pages, talent for writing almost equal to that of M.
made up largely of illustrated letters from Vallotton.
young French artists at the front, which are Maurice Maeterlinck has also published a
full of French wit and artistic feeling. volume of miscellanies on the war, as, in fact,
Another and very different “Gazette des has almost every European writer of any rep-
Beaux Arts” is the one founded in 1859 and utation. “It is a real obsession,” M. Alcide
still being issued. I call attention to it be Ebray has said to me, very truly. Books of
cause of the index to the whole collection this kind still sell well and publishers push
down to 1908, which has just been brought their authors in this direction, if there are
out by M. Charles du Bus, of the National any who hold back. Thus the first venture of
Library, who is now at the front. This M. Maeterlinck in this field—“Les Débris de
“Table” consists of two imperial octavo vol- la Guerre” (Paris: Fasquelle, 3 fr. 50)—has
umes of about 850 pages and lists 4500 already sold over 12,000 copies and has been
articles and 18,000 engravings, a mass of art translated into English, though it is made
information for the period to be found per up of material which has already appeared
haps nowhere else. Copies—25 francs for
in print. One of the chapters, “Le Mas-
the two volumes—may be had at 106 Boule sacre des Innocents,” first came out in the
vard Saint-Germain.
now famous and very rare little ephemeral
The most reliable art work done at the front periodical of the Latin Quarter, “La Pléiade,"
is that known as the “Documents of the Pho-
of which Maeterlinck was one of the founders
tographic Section of the French Army,” the and which died with the sixth issue. Though
best of whose negatives are now being repro all this happened over thirty years ago, “Le
duced most artistically in a series of ten Massacre des Innocents” reads as if it were
albums under the title "Patrie" (Paris: Ser written to-day, and is a very severe arraign-
ment, 20 fr. each). Three have already ment of Germany, as is the whole book, in
come out, quartos, each containing 24 helio fact.
gravures in two colors.
There is a chapter entitled “Les Prophé-
If they escape death, what the artist-sol ties," in which Maeterlinck examines the ques-
diers dread most is to be so wounded as to tion of foretelling the future and expresses
lose the use of their right arm. All the surprise that nobody_"not even Mme. de
French military hospitals contain young men Thèbes” -seems to have had an inkling of
learning to employ the left hand. In fact,
the dreadful calamity hanging over the world
so common is this that M. Albert Charleux, a three years ago. This Mme. de Thèbes, whose
young, public school teacher who lost his right real name was Savigny, was one of the most
arm at the age of 14, has published a useful fashionable soothsayers of Paris. She died
and curious little book entitled, "Pour Ecrire a few weeks ago just as her fifteenth “Alman-
de la Main Gauche” (Paris: Armand Colin, ach” (Paris: Flammarion, 1 fr. 25) ap-
1 fr.), which explains, with the aid of dia- peared. Her "astral year,” as she called it,
grams, “how to educate the left arm.'
runs from March 1 of the present year to
But of course blindness is the saddest calam-
March 20, 1918. And what does she think
ity which can afflict the victims of this dread-
is going to happen to us during this coming
ful war, and this is well brought out by the
She has an answer.
She said of
talented Swiss novelist, M. Benjamin Vallot England just before 1914: “There are signs
ton in his pamphlet, “Fonds Suisse Romand of dead and wounded”; and, referring to this
en faveur des Soldats Aveugles en France" prediction, she says now of us: “The signs
(Paris: Fischbacher, 1 fr.), which contains
are quite as alarming.” A witty Frenchman
many touching anecdotes and instructive
said of Mme. de Thèbes that her motto
facts, all told in the admirable style of this should be:
clever writer. We have here, too, a good
In manus meas, Domine,
instance of Swiss war charity, which has been
Commendo spiritum tuum.
much more extensive than is generally known. Perhaps more useful, if less sensational, is
Many other things about these military hos the "Almanach Hachette" (Paris: Hachette,
pitals and the war in general are to be found 2 fr. 50), which, since the war, has become
in "En Marge de la Grande Guerre” (Paris : more modest in size but is full of all kinds
Flammarion, 3 fr. 50), by Professor Gaston of information bearing on the conflict, and
Bonnier, of the Institute and the Sorbonne, is consequently an excellent mirror of France
one of the best known naturalists of France, at the present moment.
who adds to a wide scientific knowledge a March 14, 1917. THEODORE STANTON.
year?


1917]
295
THE DIAL
CASUAL COMMENT.
act plays to-day as contrasted with the old
conditions." The one-act play used to be
A FRENCH POET'S PROTEST against the war
relegated to the vaudeville performance or
comes to hand in Mr. P. J. Jouve's “Poème at most tucked in as a curtain-raiser, an
contre le Grand Crime.' The little book
accommodation for late-comers and other
really contains four poems,- one addressed stragglers, at the better-class theatre. Now
to a slain soldier, another to unfortunate
thanks to the increasing number of "little"
Belgium, a third called a hospital song, and,
theatres and their demand for short plays,
finally, an impassioned outpouring to Tolstoy, the one-act piece is gaining in dignity and
whose prevision of the present horrors is
worth. It remains, however, for some Amer-
effectively worked into the poet's verses. As
ican playwright, or genius, to produce the
in his earlier sheaf of poems entitled “Men
play, long or short, so true to American life
of Europe," so here he allows himself the
that it will retain its interest for us unim-
utmost freedom in the construction of his paired through more than two or three or even
verse, gaining thereby in rude energy what he
half a dozen seasons. This desideratum is
loses in grace and harmony. A thorough-
A thorough pointed out by Professor Baker. But, after
going pacifist, with an intense admiration for all, is the great American drama any more
his pacific fellow-countryman, Romain Rol- likely to be forthcoming, any more possible,
land, for Tolstoy, and for Walt Whitman, M.
in fact, than the long-awaited great American
Jouve pictures the waste and the wantonness
novel ?
of war, and foresees the day when love shall
ANCIENT BABYLONIAN PARCEL-POST SERVICE,
prevail over hate. For his own part, he even
now forgives the “criminal ruler” who has
if there really ever was such a service, as
precipitated the present conflict. As a sample recent excavations tend to prove, will serve as
of his style, let this reproachful utterance of
an added illustration of the truth that there is
his slain soldier be quoted here, in a rather
nothing new under the sun. Dr. Stephen H.
literal rendering:
Langdon, curator of the University of Penn-
Why have you killed me
sylvania Museum of Arts and Sciences, Baby-
Wherefore my death, and not the fair fruit I alone
lonian section, and also the world's leading
could have given you?
Sumerian scholar, is busy deciphering the
To what purpose my death By what right my death? museum's collection of clay tablets unearthed
For what work of human endeavor in the world, or
for what new happiness?
at Nippur under the university's auspices in
To defend what? No land, no money were worth my
a series of excavations that began as long ago
slaying and being slain.
as 1889 under the leadership of Dr. John P.
And did one ever accomplish aught useful and good Peters, and are still continuing. Nippur's
with death?
possession of a great public library, all in
baked clay, has by this time become a matter
THE DRAMA FREED FROM THE FETTERS OF
of common knowledge. That this institution
CONVENTION is accomplishing notable things
sent out by parcel post what might be called
in this country. It has been discovered that travelling libraries, or possibly inter-library
the stage was made for man, not man for the
loans of books, is probably less widely known.
stage. Professor Baker of Harvard, in a Dr. Langdon, it appears, has deciphered cer-
recent lecture before the Drama League, en-
tain clay tablets indicating the existence not
larged upon this lately achieved emancipation.
only of a circulating library at Nippur, but
“Somehow the stage of the 1890-1900 and
1900-1910 period was too rigid,” he remarked.
also of a parcel-post system such as we in
this twentieth century have lately succeeded
“Playwrights were bound down by conven-
tions which prescribed that you must act a
in establishing. Two tags have been found
thing this way and say a thing that way. Con-
with inscriptions proving that they were at-
tached to a basket of books (in clay-tablet
temporary playwrights have been insistent
that after all the stage is merely a means to
form) sent from the Nippur library to Shu-
an end.” Furthermore, our playwrights have ruppek, sixty miles distant, where, by the
become convinced "that they ought to exper-
way, Noah lived and built the Ark, as local
iment as much as they liked in developing tradition avers. Whether this reading matter
material into the play-form, whether it event went to some book hungry individual in Shu-
uated into one, three, or five acts. To-day ruppek, or was set up in the town hall or
we are using one-act plays as we never used village schoolhouse as a travelling library for
them ten years ago, and we are recognizing the entertainment and instruction of all and
that we can do something satisfactory in the sundry, has not yet transpired. Let us hope
one-act play. And look at the perfect free it was designed for the greatest good of the
dom with which we are using three or four greatest number.


296
[April 5
THE DIAL
:
ADOLESCENT AUTHORS exhibit one almost American theatre; to provide a permanent
invariable and inevitable prime defect: they record of American dramatic art in its for-
have little or nothing to say that is worth the mative period; to hasten the day when the
saying. Last summer one of our popular speculators will step out of the established
magazines invited college girls to submit short playhouse and let the artists come in."
stories for publication, offering $150 for each Finally, it is determined "not to be swallowed
manuscript accepted, and bonuses of $100, by the movies." All communications should
$75, and $50 for the three best stories. More be addressed to the Editor, Arts and Crafts
than eight hundred compositions from nearly Theatre, 25 Watson Street, Detroit, Michigan.
as many pens poured into the editorial office
as a result of this generous offer, and the
judges have been hard at work trying to sift
THE FREE MAILING LIST has to answer for
out the wheat from the chaff; but, alas, it was
a yearly waste of tons of printed matter;
found to be all chaff, not a single story showed and as this class of mail is handled by the
enough experience of life and originality of government at a loss, the free list entails a
treatment to deserve publication, and the fond | large annual expenditure of public money,
hope of discovering even one embryonic genius with no corresponding public benefit. Even
was disappointed. Command of English and the humblest private person of any standing
graces of rhetoric were not lacking in this
at all in his community receives every day
mass of written matter, but the one indis- enough undesired printed paper to kindle his
pensable quality - insight, creative ability, kitchen fire the next morning; and that is
interpretation of life, or whatever its name about all the good it accomplishes. And yet
was conspicuously absent. Nor is this to be some persons have a passion for getting them-
wondered at; the real wonder is that such an
selves enrolled on the free mailing list. The
offer should ever have been seriously made to
current "Bulletin" of the Russell Sage
so immature a body of would-be writers. As Foundation Library has this to say: “A free
Walter Bagehot lamented long ago, those who mailing list is of doubtful value because of
have a ready flow of language too often have
the large number of people who will take
nothing of value to say, while those who have advantage of such a list whether or not the
experiences most worthy of publication com-
publication received will be of any use to the
monly shrink from making them known.
recipient. The Russell Sage Foundation
Library is desirous of building up a mailing
list of individuals and institutions interested
IN SUPPORT OF THE NEW THEATRE, the play- in its bibliographies on social subjects. Such
house not controlled by a syndicate, not form-
a list is hard to make and is of corresponding
ing one of a string of theatres managed by a value when made. Believing that a nominal
well-nourished financier with a love of art charge to cover the cost of printing would
inversely proportional to his regard for box- eliminate at least those names representing
office receipts, a quarterly publication called persons having no interest in the publications
“Theatre Arts Magazine” has been started by
of the library, revision of the mailing list was
a few nobly courageous persons, with head- made in January, 1916, and a charge of 25
quarters at Detroit. In fact, it is "under the cents made for a year's subscription.” The
auspices of the Theatre Committee of the new plan brought about the elimination of
Society of Arts and Crafts,” of Detroit, that
half the names, with benefit to all concerned.
the magazine makes its appearance. Mr.
Sheldon Cheney is editor, with an able staff of
contributing editors including Mr. Percy head of the Oxford University Press from
HORACE HART, PRINTER AND BIBLIOPHILE,
Mackaye, Mr. Walter Prichard Eaton, Mr.
Clayton Hamilton, Miss Ruth St. Denis, and
1883 to his recent death, and author of two
notable books that grew out of his lifelong
others to the number of eleven in all. Inter-
esting articles and theatrical notes, with illus- experience as printer, was one of those who
ought to have written their memoirs but have
trations of recent achievements in theatre
architecture and equipment and decoration, ings from their rich stores of personal
chosen instead to make occasional oral offer-
fill the first number. The magazine, as editor reminiscence and to let the greater part perish
ially announced, “is designed for the artist with them. He worked his way up from ap-
who approaches the theatre in the spirit of the prenticeship to a position second to none in
arts and crafts movement, and for the theatre- his calling. Many stories, the best of them
goer who is awake artistically and intellect- true, are current concerning the extraordinary
ually.” Further, it is intended “to help pains he took to have the Oxford Bibles, as
conserve and develop creative impulse in the well as other works, typographically perfect.


1917]
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Large rewards were offered for the detection (continental) books might be possible. De-
of misprints, but they were seldom earned, pendence upon public libraries for standard
such was the vigilance exercised by his and serious works of the day would diminish,
printers. His “Rules for Compositors and and the new novel of unquestioned worth,
Readers" and "A Century of Typography" offered in paper at a temptingly low price
are authoritative and highly esteemed con (recall, for instance, the enormous sales of
tributions to the literature of printing. "The “Robert Elsmere” at fifty cents, twenty-eight
Periodical,” issued by the press so long under years ago), would attain a wider circulation
his management, says of him, in a short re- than under the present system. After all,
view of his life and work: “He had lived 'why should a book-buyer be almost invariably
long: he could tell stories of his own early obliged to invest so large a proportion of his
volunteering when the City apprentices were money in mere cloth or leather?
drilling to resist the aggression of Louis
Napoleon, and in his last month at the Press
he, in the first week of the war, sent out sixty
EXEMPLARY LIBRARY ECONOMY arrests the
men in khaki whose training he had fur attention in glancing over the record of
thered during the years that followed the things, done in the past year at the Bancroft
Boer War. He made upon every one he met
Memorial Library of Hopedale, Mass. But
the impression of a man devoted indeed to his
could anything except the exemplary be ex-
business, but able to interest himself and pass
pected from a town bearing the name of Hope-
dale?
shrewd judgment upon other affairs.
It suggests comparison with Gold-
Mr. Hart seems to have held among English smith's “sweet Auburn”-“loveliest village of
printers much the same position as the late
the plain, where health and plenty cheered
Theodore De Vinne among American printers. the labouring swain.” And it brings up
To both printing was a fine art, both wrote
memories of Adin Ballou, rather amusingly
of it as such, and both did much in practical
esteemed by Tolstoy as America's greatest
ways to make it such.
writer. Appropriately enough, too, the Hope-
dale library is especially rich in books and
pamphlets and other relics and memorials
THE PROS AND CONS OF PAPER COVERS have of this New England sage. But to return to
been argued to the point of weariness; never our muttons: the yearly financial statement
theless there is not yet any general agreement of the institution shows an equipoise of re-
as to where the undress of paper should cease
ceipts and expenditures such as will not be
and the stiff formality of a more rigid and found, it is safe to say, in an examination of
durable binding begin. From time immemo a thousand library reports throughout the
rial the continental countries of Europe have country. Money received from all sources
contented themselves with paper covers as at
amounted to $3,533.78; money spent for all
least a preliminary exterior for most of their purposes amounted to $3,533.78. There is no
current literature, the individual buyer being balance left over, nor indeed does there appear
left to suit his own taste (and purse) in the to be any balance brought forward from last
matter of permanent binding. In England year. Is it possible that the Hopedale library
now there is at least the beginning of a ten-
officials are able every year to trim their sails
dency toward the paper cover. Mr. Heine-
so as to sail thus close to the wind? An
mann declares his intention to issue his 1917
annual deficit is not a bad thing as a spur to
books in paper editions as well as in cloth,
increased appropriations; but, on the other
hand, “out of debt, out of danger.”
except that library novels and gift books are
to appear only in the more durable form, for
obvious reasons. Yet even library books of
THE OMNISCIENT BOOKSELLER must in these
all kinds might be left to the libraries to
days of almost infinitely ramified research
bind, and indeed some libraries prefer to pro-
carry a much heavier load of learning than
vide their own bindings rather than trust to
in the comparatively primitive times of Ed-
the often inadequate provision in this par ward Cave and Robert Dodsley and Andrew
ticular made by the publisher. It is by no Millar. Consequently a very small propor-
means unlikely that, as soon as our public tion of booksellers can now claim that so-
had become used to the paper cover, as called omniscience in the domain of literature
European countries have become used to it, which formerly it was no extraordinarily
book-sales would increase, by reason of the difficult thing to acquire. What the mental
considerable reduction in price at which the equipment of a modern vender of literature
books could be offered, even though nothing ought to be, in an ideal condition of bib-
like the surprisingly low prices of European | liopoly, is made clear by a set of examination


298
[April 5
THE DIAL
..
97
papers prepared by the head of the booksel "My dear man,” he said,
lers' school now doing such notably good work
"You have been poisoned!”
in Philadelphia. Here, for example, are some
He probed and pumped
“I prescribe for you a Tennysonian Tonic."
of the questions in the paper on reference
work: “What and where is the Lion of And when he left I heard him say in passing:
Lucerne? Who was the original of Rebecca
“No wonder! He had gorged himself on-
Toadstools!"
in Ivanhoe? What is a Mace and why is it
LESLIE N. JENNINGS.
on our new ten-cent coins? What were Scylla
and Charybdis ? Who was the original of
Rutherford, Cal., March 15, 1917.
Mona Lisa? How many children had Shake-
speare? Why is England called John Bull
MR. POWYS AGAIN.
and the U. S. Uncle Sam? What is the con-
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
nection between the god Pan and the word
Upon one of the few occasions in recent years
panic! What is meant by pin money? Who
when John Burroughs has been induced to give
wrote the Laocoön? What was the real name a public lecture, it was my pleasure to present him
of the inventor of printing! Place Lochinvar to his audience with introductory remarks."
in literature.” One may be tempted to ask After the lecture he said: “I liked your talk about
what most of these questions have to do with me because you did not slobber me all over with
the everyday business of bookselling; but it is
praise.” The incident was recalled to mind while
making itself clear that the pupils taking the
I was reading, in a recent number of THE DIAL,
courses prescribed by Miss Graham, who con-
the article in which Mr. Bragdon slobbered the
ducts the school, are increasing their sales at
renowned Mr. Powys with praise. Mr. Powys
the book-counter. Two of these pupils, em-
surely has one faithful disciple, converted and sub-
dued to his own qualities by “the devouring flame
ployed as “extras” in a local bookshop for the
of his eloquence. Mr. Bragdon did not need to
Christmas season, outsold two regular clerks
tell us that he “loves the man and adores the
in the same department who had been with the
artist,” for his own incontinence is too like his
firm six years. Apparently the bookseller
master's to be mistaken as to its source.
cannot, for the good of his business, know too
It was my official duty, a few years ago, to
much about books and everything thereto attend Mr. Powys's lectures for the purpose of
appertaining
reporting on their character and influence to the
trustees of the institution for which he was lec-
turing. I found a clever, literary vaudeville
COMMUNICATIONS.
performer, entertaining a gaping and tittering
audience with irreverent balderdash and “stunts"
AN UNREPENTANT VICTORIAN.
of every conceivable sort — bodily contortions,
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
rushings up and down the stage with a bedraggled
I am convalescing from a rather serious illness academic gown flying from his shoulders like a
- a complaint which seems to have been epidemic black pirate flag, violences of speech, slang and
in many communities, particularly among the shady stories, startling paradoxes, and sensational
groups of “serious thinkers. My own experience,
thrills. The main object of the performance
while unpleasant, was instructive: maladies may appeared to be to produce laughter, which he
have morals. May I present my own as a case
accomplished about every five minutes. Instruc-
in point? Perhaps there will be other sufferers
tion, or interpretation of literature, was entirely
who will find virtue in a like
subordinated to entertainment. A lecture on
Shelley, in which the poet's weaknesses were
I had been inoculated with the “New."
paraded in a limelight of hilarious jest and ridi-
Everything must have a strong, acrid, unfamiliar cule to the exclusion of his poetry, was the worst
taste
exhibition of bad taste and vulgar impudence
“Reality," " I called it.
I have ever witnessed on the lecture platform.
Kreymborg, you became an apostle
To anyone who really loves the poets and poetry
Of the Emancipate!
it was a sacrilege. Manifestly such literary char-
I absorbed you, sure that I had dropped
latanry could be regarded only as a menace to the
My servility and my shackles.
literary culture of popular audiences, since it
“Mushrooms” were my diet exclusively-
would degrade the taste to a point where the
Pearly and pink!
lectures of a legitimate and instructive lecturer
I turned gourmet,
would not be appreciated or attended.
Saucing the most impossible things
I purposely use the past tense in speaking of
With “Others."
Mr. Powys's lectures, for conceivably he may have
changed his spots as a lecturer in five years. But
One day I was taken ill.
My physician, who is a learned, if old-fashioned,
his "brilliant book of essays," which Mr. Bragdon
Gentleman of the Victorian tradition,
commends as something exceptionally "fine and
Examined me carefully.
rare," reveals no essential change of method. In
CORRECTIVE.


1917]
299
THE DIAL
79
23
to
“Suspended Judgments" the essayist is still the this weight about with him. “Our humor," he
vaudeville lecturer, minus the physical contortions. says, “is content to remain vulgar, stopping short
There is the same cacophonous and chaotic style so timorously of stripping the world to the smock.”
of expression; the same incoherent and irrelevant Here we have the bottom principle of art: stark
chatter, punctuated with paradoxes and inflated nakedness is what we must have in literature,
egoisms; the same “large free ravishment” of the humanity stripped to the smock and exhibited in
great minds of the ages, as Mr. Bragdon calls it, lectures, essays, and novels.
which tears genius to tatters and serves it up to Mr. Powys's application of this principle to
the reader in shreds and patches, resplendent in fiction is illuminating: “I love it when a novel is
barbaric colors; the same dashing and splashing thick with the solid mass of earth-life, and when
literary criticism, producing that “authentic thrill its passions spring up volcano-like from flaming
of genius” which has so prickled the cuticle of pits and bleeding craters of torn and convulsed
Mr. Bragdon's literary taste.
materials." The “Three Devils of Bloody Gulch”
It is worth while to quote a few of the “Delphic would seem to be about Mr. Powys's ideal of a
utterances” of these essays, embodied in Mr. classic novel.
Powys's "most golden prose. For example, “All Mr. Powys has two choice detestations and one
literature is created out of the vices of men of dangerous obsession. He detests puritanism, the
letters.' One of his chief admirations is Oscar “thrice accursed” and “the most odious and in-
Wilde, whom he classifies with Shelley, Poe, and human of all the perverted superstitions that have
Verlaine as “these great poets," and he thinks it darkened man's history," which has imposed upon
a “tremendous triumph," the manner in which this literature the restraints of a “degraded mob-ridden
“modern Antinous has taken captive our imagina conscience." This terrible spectre is forever dog-
tion. His influence is everywhere, like an odor, ging his literary footsteps, so persistently persecut-
like an atmosphere, like a diffused flame. “To ing him as to suggest the possibility that he has
have seen Oscar Wilde and talked with him gives bartered his conscience for an emancipated intel-
to such persons a strange significance, an almost ligence, and does not find the trade entirely satis-
religious value." Another of his admirations is factory. Certainly puritanism is his particular
Voltaire, whose very name is “a call to sanity and black beast, from which he seems never to be able
sweetness and clarity and noble commonsense. to escape.
Moreover, Voltaire symbolizes the beautiful ideal He detests middle-class humanity, the “mob-
of enfranchised humanity for which Mr. Powys stupidity and middle class philistinism." The
yearns. “He is the prophet of the age to come, smell of “the common herd” is offensive to his
when the execrable superstitions of narrow minds delicate nostrils, and he never tires of railing at
shall no longer darken the sunlight, and the in this enemy of his superior soul. Such rank in-
famous compulsion of human manners, human in gratitude in Mr. Powys is shocking, since it is this
tellects, human tastes, into the petty mold of very class that supports his lectures and reads his
oppressive public opinion shall be ended forever." books. But all is not hate with Mr. Powys. One
Indeed, throughout these essays, it is painful to thing he loves, with a passionate, philosophic,
observe the suffering of Mr. Powys under the unintermittent love. He loves woman, or more
“compulsion of human manners. He loves Vol properly, the feminine principle in nature. Sex
taire's “Candide,” even though it is “outrageously is his obsession, or as Mr. Bragdon calls it, “the
indecent." And“Why not?” he cries. “Who put great ground rhythm of all his various music.'
fig leaves upon the sweet flesh of the immortals ? His mind is saturated with sex; it is as impossible
Decency after all is a mere modern barbarism; the for him to keep Priapus and Aphrodite out of
evocation of morbid vulgarity and a perverted his essays as it was for Dr. Dick to keep King
heart.”
George out of his Memorial. He longs for the
Naturally Mr. Powys has a feeling of kinship “easy magnanimity” of De Maupassant, in regard
for Byron, for his "sweet devilry of reckless
to sex matters. He admires the beautiful ruffian-
He
youth. Of course Byron is a brute, as he admits,
ism of Byron, full of normal sex instincts.”
but “not to relish the gay brutality of Byron is comprehends, as no other critic ever has, the
an indication of something degenerate in our-
"inspiration" of Walt Whitman and Emily Brontë,
drawn “straight from the uttermost spiritual
Mr. Powys loves freedom and hates re-
depths of the sex instincts." Indeed, Mr. Powys
straint. He groans under the “dead weight of
may be fairly regarded as already the prophet of
cultivated opinion." He abhors the necessity of
a new literary cult — the cult of the angelic sex
being respectable; his soul yearns for the happy instinct.
liberty of the hairy savage and the dancing satyrs.
In one of his moments of “debouching" comment,
The beast in literature he is always taking to his
Mr. Powys remarks in regard to charlatanism:
bosom with a brotherly hug. The true sources of
“I am almost scared to look up the word in the
literature and art he finds in the primordial in dictionary for fear of discovering that I am my-
stincts, subject only to the restraints of the pro self no better than that opprobrious thing. In
toplasmic conscience. Literature must get back to his “Suspended Judgments," as in his lectures,
first principles, must get free from the "puritan- he has furnished ample justification for that fear,
ical censorship which now hangs like a leaden which is certain to be shared by many of his
weight round the neck of every writer of original readers.
power.” As a writer himself of original power,
J. W. ABERNETHY.
it is pitiful to think how he must suffer as he drags Burlington, Vt., March 26, 1917.
97
99
selves.”


300
[April 5
THE DIAL
DRAB LIVES.
with his tongue in his cheek—when he plumes
himself,
LONG LINES AND SHORT. By Henry B. Fuller.
No scansion whatsoever there;
(Houghton Mifflin Co.; $1.25.)
or when he chides himself,
Mr. Fuller has given his view of the tech-
A bit' / too much' / like blank' / verse here' /abouts'
nique and use of free verse in a recent number
He seems to toy dangerously with the secret.
of THE DIAL. He proposes it as a reënforce One is afraid that at any moment he may let
ment of the short-story, which he calls “Amer-
it out - and that, supposing the public should
ica's best contribution to the general body of be brought by Mr. Fuller's example to insist
art,” and which, he laments, has degenerated that short-stories be written in Mr. Fuller's
into “a hollow sapless affair," "a spectre of form, the universities, correspondence schools,
incipient decay,” “punk.” The reason for high schools, night schools, and business col-
this degeneration Mr. Fuller finds in the sub- leges would teach it along with the rest of the
jection of the short-story to a trivial formula, art of the short story — and that this youngest
the application of which is fatally easy to daughter of literature would continue to walk
learn. It has often been pointed out that the streets, unsheltered and unprotected, the
prose literature suffers in comparison with the object of promiscuous solicitation into com-
other fine arts — with music, painting, poetry mercial bondage by the cadets of literature
from the lack of a technique which requires who sally forth from the aforenamed resorts.
formal initiation and mastery on the part of It is to be said, however, that in the present
the aspirant. Anybody, so far as the public volume Mr. Fuller has set the short-story
knows, can write prose, and, given the stereo before us soberly and decently clad, and with-
typed formula of description, characteriza out any of the stereotyped antics and attitudes
tion, “punch," and climax (to quote Mr. of the wanton. He has given us characters and
Fuller's analysis), anybody can turn out that local types much as Mr. Edgar Lee Masters
staple article, the short story of commerce. has done in “The Spoon River Anthology,"
Indeed, the application of the formula is but instead of restricting himself to the brief
taught in all modern universities, correspon- monologue or epitaph, he has allowed himself
dence schools, high schools, and night schools, the license of the writer of fiction in descrip-
and in such business colleges as have depart- tion, narrative, and author's comment. The
ments of literature. Mr. Fuller would save story of each character is told extensively, but
the short-story by giving it a new medium compactly - a life summary of each. Most
and manner; he would make it once more, a of his subjects round out their careers by the
form of artistic endeavor by endowing it with grave,-
grave,- with the immortal exception in "The
style.
Death of Aunt Juliana”-
In the first place, it is permitted to question
And when she died? you ask?
whether free verse will supply the short story
Died I Died nothing!
with that technical barrier which is necessary
She's living yet.
to keep out the interloper. The difficulty with
All (at least, I have no exception in mind)
prose literature is not that the art of prose lead the dull lives of the American bour-
is easy, but that it appears so; and that in geoisie, without heroism in their loyalty –
consequence the public will never take the see Benjamin C. Hill who
trouble to distinguish between good and bad.
lived by and died for
The Merchants National Tax-Title and Trust Co.;
No one, at least in America, knows this better
than Mr. Fuller, for no one has written finer
without consolation in their virtue
see John
prose than he, no one has measured more truly M. Hart, who thrice married and thrice en-
the difficulties and triumphs of the art, or
dured
wakeful nights,
has seen more clearly how little these things
Perambulators on the porch,
affect the enjoyment and appreciation of the
More little tempers,
reading public. Certainly, he would not main-
More unfolding minds,
tain that free verse is more of a fine art than
Bills;
prose, - only that, in borrowing part of the without imagination in their triumphs - see
technique of poetry, it is more obviously a
Melvina Woode-Shedd, who reaches the pin-
fine art. Indeed, one suspects him of offering nacle of social glory when
his present fiction in a spirit of mild cynicism After a while a great big yellow hall
to a public that plays the swine to his “With
Put a new row of boxes at the back:
the Procession,” and “The Chevalier of Pen-
Our own, own op'ra in full bloom at last!
Melvina, old but strong,
sieri-Vani.” He certainly writes free verse Seized on the middle box,


1917]
301
THE DIAL
As by a right none could gainsay,
LABELLING THE HISTORIANS..
And there she sat;
A Faith who had endured through all;
THE MIDDLE GROUP OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS.
without dignity in their defeat. - see Alonzo By John Spencer Bassett. (Macmillan Co.; $2.)
Grout, who
By the middle group of American histo-
If he might no longer wield poet's pen
rians, we are to understand those whose work
He could at least proof-read
was done within the period from "let us say
Verse writ by others
about 1826, when Sparks began to give himself
And do it well.
to history," to a certain not precisely deter-
Enough has been quoted to show that Mr. mined date (sometime after the Civil War it
Fuller is not in complete sympathy with the was) when “the scientific spirit secures dom-
ideals of well-being and well-doing which make
ination over the patriotic school that had ruled
for several decades." Professor Bassett does
American life, to the rest of us, so simple,
healthy, and honest. His titles sometimes sug; during this period, but has preferred to deal
not bring into the story all who wrote history
gest an unfavorable attitude — "Aridity,"
rather fully with the most eminent men, let-
“Rigmarole,” “Postponement” — or his com-
ting them serve as representative of the group
ment:
as a whole. Therefore, apart from a pre-
Well, do you ask an end?
liminary chapter on historical writing in
Must every life have that?
colonial and revolutionary times, in which one
Consider the existences—so many
Rueful and frustrate.
regrets to note that Cotton Mather is not men-
tioned, the volume takes the form of four
But in a subtler way his form is a reflection biographical essays — three rather long ones
of his philosophy. There used to be a question devoted to Sparks, Bancroft, and Peter Force,
between Henry James and Stevenson as to and one rather short one devoted to the “two
whether art could compete with life or must literary historians,” Prescott and Motley.
forever lag behind it, in a race for the A distinguishing characteristic of the work
consolation prize. Mr. Fuller would accept is that it has to do with historians rather than
neither creed — he would make art run in with history: the author is far more interested
double harness with life, keeping its pace foot in the men themselves and in their activities
to foot. This artistic philosophy is possibly than he is in the books they wrote. Of the
behind Mr. Fuller's practice of free verse. To seventy-three pages given to Bancroft, very
quote again from the article already referred
few would include all that could be called an
to: “First and foremost the writer must feel analysis or a criticism of his history. Prescott
and Motley, whose lives were relatively un-
his theme. He must sense it, if but
eventful, who at least did little for history
unconsciously
as a matter of flow
except to write histories, are dispatched in
and cadence.” Mr. Fuller's theme is life, and short space; whereas the chapter devoted to
he senses it as slow. His art, indeed, con Peter Force falls only three pages short of
stantly is tempted to outrun its team-mate, being the longest in the book. And, on the
in those "lines of iambics, dactyls, and other whole, I should say the chapter on Peter Force
recognized measures of the older prosody,”
is the best one of all, and next to that, the one
at which "the thorough-going verslibrist looks
on Sparks; the reason being that these men
askant” — and has to be slowed down by “the
were primarily collectors of documents, and
their work appeals to Professor Bassett (who
more subtle rhythms and cadences of prose.
There is a sustained passage in “Victory” in
has no high opinion of the literary or patriotic
histories) as having a higher value than the
which the masterful heroine beats up the
works of such men as Bancroft and Motley,
rhythm into long lines of rampant anapæsts
as being, in fact, a kind of "permanent con-
- only to be checked by relentless prose and
tribution to knowledge,” such as “The Rise of
the abrupt short line, which bring us again the Dutch Republic” can lay no claim to be-
abreast of life and into step with its move-
ing. Professor Bassett is therefore at his best
ment. There is a recurrent irony in the way - and his best is very good -- in relating, for
in which Mr. Fuller's art, which becomes example, the efforts of Sparks to obtain pos-
almost blank verse, aspiring and swift, is hob session of the Washington letters, or in tracing
bled into conformity with its pedestrian com out for us the somewhat intricate history of
panion, life, which sets the theme and the the enterprise which resulted in the publica-
pace. And yet - truth to life may be false tion of the “American Archives." The book
to Life.
is itself a piece of careful research rather than
ROBERT M. LOVETT. a contribution to historical criticism or the
1


302
[April 5
THE DIAL
history of ideas; and taken for what it is, it respects, it would be a good thing if we could
will be found, by professional historians at bring forward their best qualities into our
least, and one would think by a rather wide own group of scholarly and conscientious
reading public as well, a very useful book and workers.” Excellent in general and in the
an extremely interesting one.
abstract, in particular cases style seems never-
If Professor Bassett had been primarily theless to impress Professor Bassett as some-
interested in criticism or the history of ideas, thing likely to cover hidden sins. “Men who
his selection of eminent men would necessarily write with the hastening fingers of imagina-
have been different. It would be difficult to tion,” he says, “sometimes drop into obscurity
find principle of classification which would details which more literally minded persons
include under one category men so different would consider very important, or they use
as Prescott and Peter Force. Prescott might expressions meaning more or less than they
be described as a literary, but hardly as a intend them to mean. In theory Professor
patriotic, historian, since he was not con Bassett is far from maintaining any irrecon-
cerned with the history of his own country; cilable antithesis between the scientific and the
but Peter Force, certainly not literary and literary genres, but in practice his scientific
scarcely a historian, does not easily come conscience makes it difficult for him to admit
under either category. Bancroft, of course, is a literary historian to all the privileges of
the one representative who meets both require the modern guild. Thus it happens that Park-
ments: he was both literary and patriotic. man, on account of his excellent writing,
Professor Bassett does not indeed stress these barely escapes being put with the middle
principles of classification, his middle group group. “While he wrote with that full appre-
being mainly a chronological affair. But at
But at ciation of style which was characteristic of
least the implication is that the middle group Bancroft and the literary historians, his in-
may be more or less conveniently labelled with dustry, his research among documents, and
either one or both of these tags, and that the especially his detachment seem to place him
middle period, in this sense, closes when “the among the men of to-day.” If Parkman had
scientific spirit secures domination over the only written badly, no one could question his
patriotic school that had ruled for several scientific standing.
decades.”
All these conventional labels, having little
Perhaps it is this latter distinction which to do with ideas or the quality of a man's
enables the author to dispense with any special work, seem to me quite useless for purposes
attention to criticism, since it is clearly a of historical criticism. To say of any his-
distinction which reduces the business of torian, ancient or modern, that he is scientific,
estimating earlier writers to relatively small or literary, or patriotic, tells me little that I
proportions. The scientific method and its care to know; and, particularly, to regard the
accompanying attitude of detachment having term "scientific” as an adequate characteriza-
been at last discovered and applied, criticism tion of any group of historians is but to dis-
becomes mainly a question of how far, and pense with distinctions, and with that discrim-
in what respects, any historian of the old ination which is essential to genuine criticism.
school, whether literary or patriotic, falls Many accurate, unprejudiced, and dull his-
short of measuring up to the modern ideal. tories were written before the Civil War. H.
With these simple fundamentals in hand, A. L. Fisher writes better than Bancroft, and
Bancroft, for example, can be readily dis so do George Otto and George Macaulay
missed by saying that, while he was an in- | Trevelyan; and I should think them ail
dustrious student of the sources and is gen- scientific, although I speak with some misgiv-
erally accurate so far as the facts go, he too ing, not knowing very well what is meant by
often sacrificed exact statement to literary scientific. Meanwhile, if I understand what
effect, and, on account of his militant patriot- others mean by the term, Germany is full of
ism and enthusiasm for democracy, inter-
scientific historians - all patriotic, a few,
preted the facts in a glaringly prejudiced
perhaps, literary.
The inadequacy of such conventional labels
way. When this is said, what else is there
to say? Nothing really, except that Bancroft illustrated than in the case of Bancroft, who
for purposes of criticism is nowhere better
is now read only for his style.
has suffered rather more than he has gained
Style, even in historical writing, is some-
in the process. What one should say about
thing for which modern scientific historians Bancroft seems well understood among pres-
profess admiration. To possess literary excel-ent-day professional historians. It is that his
lence is certainly a merit; and while it would history is interesting to read, but unsafe to
be "retrogressing," as Professor Bassett says, follow; he was a literary, but a prejudiced,
to go back to the literary school in other | historian. The case is one which calls for a


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little, not after all so very subtle, discrimina- It is true, this is not good verse.
But
tion. If "style” is anything more than a kind neither is the original good prose. And it is
of metaphorical embroidery covering literal not because the author, "with the hastening
and commonplace statement of fact, it should fingers of imagination,” says more or less
be clear that the chief merit of Bancroft is than he means. It is because no imagination
not his style but his scholarship, that careful is present, and no meaning - at least none
investigation and exceptional accuracy which worth mentioning.
make his book, in the original editions, still
CARL BECKER.
a useful one for the student at least for the
student of the Revolution. On the other hand,
his chief defect is not his bias. Gibbon had A STRONGHOLD OF OBSCURANTISM.
bias, and so had Henry Adams, although his
was not a patriotic bias. Next to his scholar PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. By David
ship, the thing most worth noting about Ban-
Snedden. (Houghton Mifflin Co.; $1.50.)
croft is his lack of ideas, the lack at all events Make vivid before your imagination the in-
of any but the most rudimentary discrimina terests and impulses of American middle-class
tion in the handling of such ideas as came to
boys and girls between the ages of fourteen
him. And it is for this reason precisely, be and eighteen, the quality of their lives, the
cause he has no ideas, that his patriotism is loose disorganization of their social environ-
so obtrusive and so irritating; and it is for ment. Picture to yourself their flirtations,
this reason precisely that his style, since he their little snobberies, their queer, jumbled
was bound to have a style, is extremely bad. impressions of life, the craving in the best of
I very much question if any one reads Ban them for expression, the craving in most of
croft for his style. His style is highly artifi-
them to be understood, the craving in all of
cial, mechanical, sophomoric — the style of a them for activity. Think of their preoccupa-
man with information and a vocabulary who tion with sex and with “a good time.” Think
says to himself: “I must do these facts in a of the thoughtless and feverish business and
literary way for literary people; I must make domestic life into which they are shortly to be
a composition.” Bancroft made a composi- swept. Think of the popular magazine and
tion, a long one, in which he seems always the popular song and the “movies” and the
struggling consciously, not indeed always suc religious meeting which form the cultural
cessfully, to maintain a certain elevation, and
orientation of their lives. Think of the vague
to be always going on with the measured sentimentality and cheapness in which they
rhythm suited to the majestic march of his must necessarily be bathed in our flauntingly
tory. But having few ideas to work upon,
ugly American towns. Think of the insistent
and no real imagination, he impresses one with
ideal of success which our society holds before
the hollowness of mere verbal eloquence.
them, and which divides them into the ambi-
tious and the listless. But think also of the
An excellent example of this verbal elo-
quence resulting from absence of imagina- and the restlessness for understandings and
faint stirrings of idealism that come to them
tion and ideas is the description of King adventures which dogs the elect among them.
James, in volume one, page 293. (3d. 1846)
When you have thought of all this, look in
By changing or transposing perhaps a dozen
at that American institution which pretends
words, the paragraph readily falls into the
to “train,” to “educate" these pre-adolescent
following lines.
and adolescent boys and girls. Ask yourself
Dissimulation is the vice of those
what the public high school does to connect
Who have not judgment or true courage.
with these interests and impulses. Ask your-
King James, from imbecility, was false,
And sometimes did his falseness vindicate
self what the school does to bring all these
As though deception had been worthy of a king. nascent impulses to fruition, to counteract the
He was an awkward liar, rather than crafty evils of cheapness, to bring to focus these im-
In dissembling. He could, before the Parliament,
mature ideals. How does the school adjust
Call God to witness his sincerity, the while
He was resolved to be wholly insincere.
itself to the work of making the crooked
He feigned, such cowardice was his,
straight and the rough places plain! Recall
A fondness for that Robert Carr,
that in the majority of high schools the subject-
Whose arrest, for murder, he had secretly decreed.
matter of education still consists of algebra
He was afrighted of his wife, could be governed
By being overawed, or with ease intimidated and geometry; Latin, French, and German
By the vulgar insolence of Buckingham.
grammar, with stilted exercises in writing
In Scotland, he solemnly declared attachment
the language and a few innocuous and unre-
To Puritan practice and belief; but 'twas for fear
lated classics thrown in; an assorted collec-
Of open resistance. The pusillanimous man
Assents from cowardice, and recovers boldness
tion of some of the canonized masterpieces of
With the assurance of impunity.
English literature, chosen without the least


304
[April 5
THE DIAL
reference to adolescent interests and tastes; with him gives him a strategic position. Noth-
a little ancient history, taught as a succession ing could exceed the tact and caution with
of incidents and dates; and some epitomized which he goes over the problems that confront
and formalized science, accompanied by a few the public high school. But his challenge is
half-hearted laboratory experiments. Con very clear: Ask yourselves what you are do-
sider that “physical education” consists of ing, examine your aims and purposes.
two or three hours a week of formal exercise There is no educational agency so much under
in a dusty gymnasium, and that the rough the spell of tradition as the public secondary school.
athletics of the field are reserved for the
Almost all its aims and standards, as well as many
healthiest boys and the brawniest girls. And
of its methods, are purely the product of selection
in the past, conserved by adherence to quite artificial
lastly, remember that dramatic or artistic ex psychological standards in more recent years.
pression is of the most impoverished kind -
He disposes of the bogy of college entrance
occasional amateur theatricals, a club concert,
examinations, under the tyranny of which
a school bazaar. Consider how the school, the high school has excused its formal, bookish
knowing the youthful life it must stimulate
work. He suggests that the college itself will
and train, actually goes about doing it. Ask materially modify its requirements, and sub-
yourself what single one of all the high school's stitute, for the ridiculous mechanistic "units”
activities and interests really has meaning for of so much material swallowed, some genuine
the majority of the children who are in it.
tests of intellectual ability. He urges a two
Was there ever a more farcical adaptation to years' high-school course which shall meet the ·
youthful life?
needs of the many whose education will finish
Schoolmen rarely get the full irony of the
at sixteen,- a course which should be rich in
secondary school situation, for they think of
English expression, popular science, and social
children as something to be moulded to the studies, adapted to the curiosity of the student
school, rather than the school as something about the world he lives in. And always the
that has to be artfully constructed for the demand that teachers and principals ask a
children. The elementary school has gone
reason and a genuine social end for everything
much further in a studied adaptation to the they are teaching and doing.
life of its children. The secondary school re-
Where Dr. Snedden is critical, one follows
mains the last stronghold of educational ob him in hearty agreement. He touches, with a
scurantism. And high-school teachers and
gentle pertinence that even high-school
principals are usually the least concerned of
teachers should understand, these sterile atti-
all about this maladjustment. They are tudes and outworn notions that must be made
usually extremely young and timid men and
over. It is only when he becomes dogmatic
women who have just come from an academic
that one finds fault. Dr. Snedden's convic-
college course. Studious themselves, they tion of the necessity of separating cultural
understand only the studious, and, without and vocational education will certainly be
any particular philosophy of life or emotional
shared by few educational progressives. He
drive, their chief anxiety is to master the
thinks, apparently, of "culture” as a "des-
technique of routine teaching. They soon sert” for life, to be indulged in only when
acquire a curious priestly aroma, an air of heavier toil is over. But what democratic
spiritual aristocracy in the school system.
education is seeking to discover is how good
They think of their school as the custodian of taste and imaginative appreciation may be
“cultural values” which the lower schools are worked into the life of all intelligent children.
discarding. Pedagogic discussion in the high The “dessert” theory has worked very badly
school usually takes for granted the founda in this country, producing an anxious pseudo-
tions of faith. It concerns itself with methods culture and artistic cant which could not
of teaching the traditional subjects, or of im fertilize the national soul. The roots of
provements in administration, just as a original taste must be sunk very deep and
priest's activities might buzz about the repair very early in the elementary school. The
of the church but never about the presupposi- high school gets the child too late, and can
tions of his dogmas.
then only impose upon him the traditional
Dr. Snedden's book should give this com classical tastes of others. Consequently our
placency a hard jolt. It is true that he by cultural appreciation reeks with hypocrisy.
no means senses the irony which I have sug The cultural and the vocational must go hand
gested. But his criticism is all the more in hand from the earliest years of education.
telling because he is so conservatively pro You will only be justified in separating them
gressive an educational leader. His air of in the secondary school when you have an
feeling his way ahead and looking back over elementary school that is a real education in
his shoulder to see whether the crowd is still taste.


1917]
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THE DIAL
tions.”
Even more disturbing is Dr. Snedden's
GLIMPSES OF WAR.
ideal of rigidly specialized vocational educa-
tion. It certainly is not true in any progres MY SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR. By Frederick
sive educational circles that “the industrial Palmer. (Dodd, Mead & Co.; $1.50.)
school is now being conceived as a strictly BULLETS AND BILLETS. By Bruce Bairns-
vocational school, that its primary and con-
father. (G. P. Putnam's Sons; $1.50.)
THE ORDEAL BY FIRE. By Marcel Berger.
trolling purpose is to fit properly selected
(G. P. Putnam's Sons; $1.50.)
groups of young people for definite profi-
FROM MONS TO YPRES WITH GENERAL FRENCH.
ciency in clearly defined industrial occupa By Frederic Coleman. (Dodd, Mead & Co.;
This may be true for a very small $1.50.)
number of occupations, but for the majority it "THE RED WATCH." By Colonel J. A. Currie,
is an ideal as undesirable as it is impossible.
M.P. (E. P. Dutton & Co.; $1.50.)
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE. By Stanley Washburn.
The public could not, and should not, afford
(Doubleday, Page & Co.; $1.25.)
the kind of vocational education Dr. Snedden
THE ADVENTURES OF THE U-202. By Baron von
suggests. The solution that we are rapidly und zu Peckelsheim. (The Century Co.; $1.)
coming to see is the “part-time,” the “co WITH THE FRENCH FLYING CORPS. By Carroll
Dana Winslow.
operative," the “continuation” course. It is
(Charles Scribner's Sons;
$1.25.)
the function of education not so much to
prepare for work as to accompany work. It
Battle's magnificently stern array, as pic-
is not the duty of the public school to provide
tured in such personal narratives as the above-
miniature factories and workshops except as
named, loses indeed much of its Byronic
they contribute to the life of the school com-
magnificence (if it ever had any) in the cling-
munity. The industry itself must be the ing mud of Flanders, the dreary desolation of
arena for the practical work, and the young
Poland, the cramped and stifling interior of
worker must divide his time between shop or
the submarine, and the ghastly horror and
store and school. The school can furnish the heart-breaking misery piling themselves up
intellectual background for the work and sup-
on every side; yet one reads on, chapter after
plement its practicality with theory and inter-
chapter, book after book, thrilled by such
pretation. Vocations are entirely too numer-
examples of fortitude and heroism as have
been revealed in no former war and can
ous for the school to provide anything but
this supplementary education. The training hardly be surpassed in any future one. “I've
in the specific technique should be a burden
never kept up my interest so long in any-
on the industry, not on the school. Employers thing as in this war,” was the rather flippant
have no right to shirk the organization of and even cruelly heartless remark made to the
apprenticeship. The school has no right to war correspondent, Mr. Frederick Palmer, by
shirk this accompanying education which shall a woman sitting beside him at dinner. Yet it
give meaning and imagination to every calling
is true of us all that our interest, our painful
in life. Dr. Snedden's scheme of a highly interest, in the frightful struggle cannot abate
organized secondary industrial school, prepar-
until the end, so momentous to all the world
ing for local industry, and sharply cut off
are the issues involved. Hence the eagerness
from the “cultural” school, is an obsolete idea.
with which we turn to any new campaign or
It has no place in a democratic system. For battle record that may help us to some notion,
it would mean only the giving of a technical
however mistaken, of the way the conflict is
education at public expense to a small, priv- going.
ileged class of skilled labor. The majority of
Mr. Palmer's second volume of intimate
“blind-alley” boys and girls would be denied experience with things at the western front
the stimulation and assistance which they,
shows no slackening of journalistic enterprise
above all others, need.
and energy, of “push” and perseverance in
Dr. Snedden, like so many of the respon-
securing as nearly as possible a front seat for
sible educators of the day, fails in imagina-
each successive performance in the great con-
tinuous drama. Announced to his readers as
tion. And this defect is perhaps the most
"the only accredited American correspondent
alarming that an educator can have. He
who had freedom of the field in the battles of
knows there is something wrong with the
the Somme,” he describes in vivid detail his
secondary school. He knows that it needs to crossing from England to France by "the
become far more self-conscious and purpose aerial ferry," the breathless incidents of a
ful. But it will take more imagination and spirited and successful attack, under protec-
daring to get it into that state where it stim-
tion of a "patent curtain of fire,” against the
ulates and strengthens for the world we live German trenches, the clumsy and comical but
in, our disintegrated body of modern youth. very businesslike behavior of the "tank" in
RANDOLPH BOURNE. action, and divers other novelties in up-to-


306
[April 5
THE DIAL
date military procedure. He is deservedly to have had a succession of more or less ex-
popular as a chronicler of the war from the citing and perilous experiences, his car being
vantage-ground of an eye-witness.
on one occasion badly battered by an explod-
In “Bullets and Billets” Mr. Bruce Bairns- ing shell, and other stirring events taking
father shows himself to be a lively raconteur, place with sufficient frequency to make things
a clever hand with the pencil, something of interesting. Although he names his book
a poet when the temptation to rhyme and “From Mons to Ypres with General French,”
metre is too strong for him, the very reverse he came into contact with many other high
of a quitter when it comes to dogged persis- officers besides General French; and two of
tence through the thick and thin of Belgian these, Generals Smith-Dorrien and de Lisle,
mud in an endurance contest between en have written him letters of appreciation,
trenched armies, and through it all a humor which he reproduces in facsimile. His nar-
ist expert in the vocabulary of whimsical rative is packed with incident and is well
over-statement and equally whimsical under illustrated.
statement. As a machine-gun officer early sent Another account of the earlier months of
to the front, he saw service under trying con the war comes from the pen of Colonel J. A.
ditions, and he knows how to bring those con Currie, M.P., an officer in the gallant Canad-
ditions rather vividly before the reader's eye.
ian “Red Watch," which performed aston-
His participation in the spontaneous inter- ishing deeds of valor at a fearful cost and
change of courtesies between embattled foe- checked the German onrush at a critical
men on that notable Christmas day of 1914 moment. After the battle of St. Julien only
gives material for an unusually interesting 212 out of 1034 were left to answer the roll-
chapter. His drawings are of the same
call. Colonel Currie is an enthusiastic Empire
humorous character as his narrative, though man and an ardent advocate of national serv-
the grim seriousness underlying it all is ap ice as distinguished from the old-fashioned
parent enough. The book ends with the
The book ends with the conscription with its unequal pressure upon
writer's being “blown up by a shell," as he
the different classes. His book is much more
briefly describes the painful event; hence, than a narrative of battles : its topics cover a
we infer, the leisure to write his story.
wider range and indicate a good deal of inde-
Love and war, romance and hard campaign- pendent observation and reflection. The men
ing, go to the making of “The Ordeal by under his command were certainly a band
Fire,” which is offered as the work of “a of heroes, and the story of their heroism stirs
sergeant in the French Army.” M. Marcel the blood. The pictorial feature is prominent.
Berger, the author, has unmistakably seen Mr. Stanley Washburn, correspondent of
service in the defence of his country against the London "Times” with the Russian armies,
the invading host, and the events he makes having already given us his account of the
his "sergeant” describe are not lacking in ver great Russian retreat that might so easily
isimilitude. From the sudden outbreak of the have ended in a rout, but did not, now tells
war, through the anxious days of threaten the story of General Brussilov's famous offen-
ing disaster, to the splendid triumph of the sive movement of last summer, in which ade-
Marne, the story is told in the first person
quacy of equipment enabled the Russians to
with all the characteristic incident and make a splendid showing and to retrieve the
spirited dialogue to be expected from a French misfortunes resulting from an earlier lack in
writer handling such a theme. The heroine,
The heroine, this respect. A strict censorship has made it
Jeannine, plays as important a part, in her impossible for the writer to give names and
way, as the hero, Michel, the supposed nar details and explanations that would have
rator, who ends his tale, after the loss of a leg added much to the interest of his narrative.
in battle, with some bitter comment on the
But it is full enough for the general reader,
war and its makers, and with finding his
and it also has the merit of handling topics
sweetheart true to him despite a harrowing not already written to death by dozens of
misunderstanding that had for a time ren other war-chroniclers. Mr. Washburn is said
dered the issue doubtful. And so all's well to have been the only foreign correspondent
that ends well — except that the war still accompanying the Russian forces throughout
goes on.
the operations described.
Mr. Frederic Coleman, who takes pains to Cool courage worthy of a better cause com-
declare himself an American, was one of the pels our admiration in following the fortunes
twenty-five members of the Royal Automobile of the German submarine known as the U-202,
Club who in the first month of the war placed
as related by its commander, Baron Spiegel
themselves and their motor-cars at the service von und zu Peckelsheim. More than a dozen
of Sir John French; and from that time until fine ships were done to death in the operations
the summer of the following year, he seems
he describes, with a loss of life that can only
the


1917]
307
THE DIAL
be conjectured, as the exigencies of the serv though, in truth, the facts and dates that he
ice do not admit of very strict attention to so valiantly and so ingeniously rescued for us
this detail. Nevertheless, the baron shows from the vast charnel-house of mediæval his-
himself to be a humane man, within limits,tory are scanty enough. He rendered the
and he professes his satisfaction whenever he poet visible for the first time; he led the way
is able to combine humanity with efficiency. | in delving into the documents of archives to
An encounter with a steel net, from which obtain material for a commentary on the liter-
extrication was with difficulty effected, adds ary text; he first brought proof of the reality
a thrill to one of these stirring chapters, and of the Villon world. All Villonists should
there are other hair-breadth escapes in plenty. render him this tribute. Marcel Schwob fol-
References to the hated English are some lowed with countless hours of research, and
times unnecessarily vituperative, as was only then, in 1901, M. Gaston Paris brought out his
natural. The book is decidedly out of the excellent book.
ordinary, and will arouse even the jaded We leave this topic momentarily to speak of
reader of war narratives.
the history of the poet's vogue. There can
Almost equally novel is Mr. Carroll Dana be no doubt that Villon was appreciated at
Winslow's rehearsal of his training and serv something like his real literary value by the
ice as an aviator with the French flying people of his time. Little as we know of his
corps. Though an American and as such life, everything points to the conclusion that
offered certain exemptions and privileges, he his writings were highly popular during his
preferred to enroll himself with the young lifetime, not only among those princes whom
Frenchmen just beginning their course in he made his friends, but among that Parisian
aviation, and he worked up to the honored public of the lower orders with whom he was
position of fighting pilot, soon after which identified. The twenty-seven editions, still
he was granted a leave of absence to return extant, that were published before 1542 are
to this country, with the prospect of more
sufficient evidence of the demand that existed
dangerous service on his resumption of aerial for his poems during the seventy or eighty
activities. In terms easily understood by a years that followed his death. Then his repu-
layman he conveys much interesting informa tation waned. For nearly three hundred years
tion on the art and science of aviation in war. it remained under a cloud, the mass of the
His pictures, especially those from photo French nation knowing nothing and caring
graphs taken at various heights, form a wel- nothing about him. Then in 1844 the cloud
come accompaniment to the reading matter. began to part, for Théophile Gautier became
The final impression left by these several his excellent interpreter. This brought a host
accounts of personal experience in fighting or
of other admirers, but surely the most aston-
in watching the fight is one of high-hearted ishing of the posthumous fortunes of our
intentness upon the given task and unbounded François was to have been adopted by the
confidence in ultimate victory for “our side." English school grouped around Rossetti. A
But on one side or the other it must necessa Villon Society was founded
sponsor often
rily, unless a stalemate is declared, be the enough for ideas more or less liable to sus-
victory of the vanquished.
picion; John Payne translated with a re-
PERCY F. BICKNELL.
markable talent the entire work of the Pari-
sian; and Rossetti himself, Swinburne, and
others put some ballads into English verse and
A. JOURNEY OF THE IMAGINATION. imitated more than once the inspiration and
the manner. The appreciation of the poet was
FRANÇOIS VILLON-HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By
overdone and Stevenson wrote his somewhat
H. De Vere Stacpoole. (G. P. Putnam's Sons; vinegary article in which he turned Villon's
$2.)
poor rags inside out.
There are few names in the history of lit But to return to the biographers. In 1913
erature over which the shadow lay so long and was published an excellent two-volume study
so persistently as over that of the father of of the poet and his times by Pierre Champion.
modern French poetry. Up to no more dis Here for the first time are plates showing old
tant period than the early part of the year maps of Paris, old woodcuts, and title-pages
1877, it was not even known what was his real of early Villon editions. But M. Champion
name, nor were the admirers of his genius brings another novelty. He has searched the
in possession of any other facts relative to archives and libraries for information regard-
his personal history than could be gleaned ing the people mentioned in the poet's test-
by a painful process of inference from his aments.
works. Then M. Auguste Longnon discov. Finally, there is this study of Villon and
ered what we know of the biography of Villon, I his times by Mr. Stacpoole, which is the only


308
[April 5
THE DIAL
extensive one in the English language, for much better the Great Testament is than
none of the French biographies has been trans “Les Lais" and he ascribes this to the poet's
lated to our knowledge, though Payne and bitter experiences during his exile, especially
others referred constantly to them. Here Mr. the three months of torture and starvation
Stacpoole follows the plan of the French in the pit of Meung. Without this, he would
authors, who all try to meet the condition ex doubtless have given us works no more worthy
pressed by Clément Marot in his edition of than “Les Lais”; he would not have pierced
Villon published in 1533: "In order to under our hearts with the thorn that had torn his;
stand Villon's poetry, the reader should have he would not have become the first modern
lived in his time at Paris and have known the poet. His faults, as Gautier wittily says, lost
persons, the places, and the customs. Our us an honest man in the past, and gave us
author takes us to this Paris of the fifteenth a grand poet for all time, and good poets are
century; we see how it looked then; we fol still more rare than honest folk
though the
low the poet to his chosen haunts; we learn latter are hardly common. Mr. Stacpoole
to understand his irresistible longings, his shows as good critical taste in his estimate of
passionate envy, his short-lived joys, his heart the worth of the various ballads, and he
burnings over a lewd and squandered life. includes good poetic translations of most of
In short, we make a journey of the imagina- them, as well as free prose renderings of the
tion, but all justified by documents.
legacies.
The author makes no mention anywhere Read this book and you will learn to appre-
of burying his own nose in musty manuscripts, ciate the perfection of Villon's art - for such
so we infer that he used the French studies as is the verbal power that, despite the obscur-
books of reference. Indeed he seems to have ities, one yields to the charm of the music and
rendered the Champion study freely into Eng one knows not what to admire most, the choice
lish, though on a somewhat reduced scale. He, and position of the word, the perfection of the
too, gives in an appendix, as Champion does, verb, or the plaint of a heart at once good and
a report of discoveries regarding persons men bad. How personal the poetry is, and what
tioned by Villon in his legacies. These dis a strength of genius this implies when one con-
coveries bring to light the fact that Villon's siders the commonplace contemporary work!
pleasantries ought always to be understood How Villon makes himself the subject of his
by antiphrasis: if he depicts someone as a poetry, where all the marionettes whose
child, he means an old man; if he says pov- strings he holds dance only around him and
erty-stricken, he means rich. For example, are in intimate rapport with him who moves
the poet leaves a share of his goods, or four them! We see that he is a great poet in his
blancs (one of the smallest coins of the day), facility in passing from one tone to another,
to three poor children, whom he names. Doc- constantly mingling the pleasant and the
uments show that these waifs were three serious, laughing among his tears, with an art
usurers, whom Villon had probably every both instinctive and conscious — an art
reason to dislike. Here too is explained the equalled only by Heine. These abrupt
“Pet-au-Diable," a romance dictated by Villon changes have the effect of sharp dissonances
to Tabary and willed to his patron Guillaume when, for example, a melancholy revery is
Villon. The romance was lost, but R. L. S. terminated by an ironic remark, or a facetious
makes a great to do about it, insisting that
ballad serves as an introduction to a verse or
the work was "plainly neither decent nor
two of real emotion. But these dissonances
devout.” As a matter of fact, the “Pet-au-
render more acute the impression the poet
Diable” was the popular name of a rock which
wishes to give. One feels that truly the device
lay before the dwelling of Mme. de Bruyères. of our poet is “Je ris en pleurs.” Again, Mr.
The students rolled this rock into their
domain and the prank was the cause of a
Stacpoole makes us conscious of Villon's gifts
lively battle between them and the town
of observation and delineation - especially of
the comic or picturesque
guards.
- his gifts of poetic
Like most of the preceding commentators,
observation and artistic delineation of the old,
our author is possessed by enthusiasm for the
crouched over their little fire of rotten wood;
poetry and a feeling of friendliness for the
of women seated in church on a fold of their
poet, and so great is his power in creating skirts; of students with thumbs in their
atmosphere that we feel Villon to be a brother girdles; of skulls strewn in the Cemetery of
man with a living voice, a fellow-sinner the Innocents; and of the skeletons of the
nearer to our hearts than any dead saint. hanged swaying in the wind on the gibbets
However much Mr. Stacpoole may take from of Montfaucon.
the French biographers in facts, the able In short, we see that the genius of François
criticisms are his own. He points out how | Villon was (like that of many other geniuses)


1917]
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of such a high order that he won an imme the two strands are kept going back and forth
diate celebrity among his contemporaries and and wrought firmly into a unified design. I
that he remains the only French poet of the except the last volume, and it is curious to see
Middle Ages whom we read to-day. All of how the pressure of social fact squeezes out
which goes, in turn, to say that Mr. Stac there much of the reality. In the last volume
poole's study is decidedly worth reading. there is a suggestion of externality — the
NELLIE POORMAN.
kind of externality that comes from erecting
even a wholly reasonable Utopia into the
actual. There is, too, a diagrammatic rigidity,
THE WILL-TO-POWER.
with impatient telescopings of the nar-
rative here and there as if the writer had
PELLE THE CONQUEROR. By Martin Andersen wearied of too long a task. Let us take it as
Nexö. (Henry Holt & Co. 4 volumes, each an appendix to a fine and moving achieve-
$1.50.)
ment.
There is a proletarian journalist in Martin
To be sure, the third volume also shows a
Andersen Nexö's novel who represents the shift in emphasis from the personal to the
intellectuals of the labor movement and reads social, but the shift there is inevitable and
“Les Misérables.” He is authentic except for right, and it gives rise to one of the most con-
“Les Misérables." I found it really impos-
I found it really impos- vincing episodes of the novel as a whole.
sible to believe that he cared deeply for that Pelle has reached the climax of his career; he
book. The whole emphasis of thinking has is engaged in directing the struggle with the
shifted since Hugo lived and wrote from forces of organized capital, and the respon-
faith in a naïve emotionalism and vague good sibility of defeating the lockout rests largely
will to the constructive organization of force, upon him. He is like a soldier regimented for
and to place “Pelle” beside "Les Misérables"
a campaign; he lives largely in the life of his
is to realize the great spiritual gulf that comrades, and much of his personal life falls
divides two generations.
away. In a society organized like ours a great
“Pelle” is a study of the labor movement part of the tragedy may lie precisely in such
as a whole. The life of this energetic son of conflicting demands in the guilty conscience
a Bornholm peasant sweeps in the great drama they impose on the individual. How much of
of the modern world from its origins in iso himself does a man owe to the community?
lated revolt and savage reprisal, through the It is a question Pelle has no time to debate.
struggle for organization, up to the present, Neither does he stop to consider how his
and traces the gradual substitution of the dedication of himself to the cause may involve
will-to-power for a hopeless fatalism in the the virtual repudiation of his obligations to
workers. The instrument of change was, of his wife and child — may indeed wreck his
course, the machine, which revealed the mon-
family life altogether. To his men he is the
strous barbarism underlying the romantic invincible leader, the radiating focus of hope
private idealism of the last century. In ap and courage; to Ellen, his wife, whose ambi-
proaching a subject so vast, Mr. Nexö had
tions and loyalties and devotions are centred
undoubtedly the same advantage over a novel- unalterably if quite unselfishly in the home,
ist born in Chicago or New York that the he is only a visionary and a skulker who is
novelist born in a sinall town has over the allowing his child to starve. As the struggle
product of a metropolis. In Denmark it is
goes on, and even crusts become scarce, the
still possible, I suppose, to escape the confu fierce and narrow maternal instinct is more
sion that comes from a mere multiplicity of and more outraged by the abstracter passion
detail and to discern more clearly the main of the man, which draws a circle far beyond
lines of advance of any social movement. Mr. the family or even the group life and dreams
Nexö had to think in a crowd, to be sure, but of remote ends. There are no recriminations,
it is easy to imagine that it might make a dif. but the atmosphere is surcharged. Pelle slinks
ference in the accuracy and ease of a man's at last from the silent accusation of his wife's
thinking whether the crowd was to be num eyes; his home is made impossible for him
bered by millions or only by thousands. At by the bad conscience imposed upon him by
all events, there is a simplicity and a steady the necessity he feels of living so exclusively
focusing of the main issues in “Pelle” that on another plane — that of his public obliga-
it would be extremely difficult for a Chicago tions. Nor does Pelle pay with a bad con-
novelist, even of equal powers, to achieve science only. Ellen, in order to get bread for
There is also — and this is one of the most their child, sells herself at the moment when
admirable qualities of the book -- a right pro the men are all but triumphant, and Pelle
portion between the personal and the social; at the highest point of his public career finds


310
[April 5
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and only later seeking to rationalize itself in a real
his private life in ruins. It is a part of the In a novel crowded with living figures there
adequacy of Mr. Nexö's art, in indicating the are still a few that stand out from the rest.
gradual widening of the rift, to present this Of these I should put above the figure of
fact of common experience with such justice Pelle himself that of Father Lasse surely
as to hold the reader's sympathy in perfect a masterpiece of loving portraiture. There
balance as between the man and the woman. are few characters in current fiction that touch
The impulses of both are needed in the build the heart so simply and profoundly by their
ing up of society — the woman's instinctive authentic humanity. As for Pelle, he does
conservatism in fundamental relations no less not precisely become official as the novel
than the man's will to experiment.
progresses, but he undoubtedly suffers from
In presenting the growing firmness of a process of social absorption. He is, after
Pelle's intellectual grip on his world, Mr.
all, a public man; and what public man es-
Nexö projects nothing less than the history of capes entirely the blight of institutions. The
the labor movement itself. The will is for young Pelle is better to my sense, and the
him the primary fact; he shows it asserting
earlier volumes seem more steeped in the
itself blindly and gropingly, in the savagery
actual. It seems to me that Mr. Nexö's mem-
of undirected revolt against the intolerable,
ories gain in adequacy as they recede; at
least his mind seems to be more energized and
released by a little distance, so that one feels
coherent philosophy. “The Great Power,"
in the Bornholm peasants a greater variety
that Titanic figure of the earlier volumes who
and fulness of experience than in the world
appals his fellow-workers as much as his ex-
of workers. But here our literary habits of
ploiters, is the natural precursor of Pelle and thought play us tricks and it is hard to be
his kind; he becomes a sort of symbol in the certain. We are prepared to accept the little
book, but the kind of symbol which the actual struggles of the ego with its urgent appetites
world may offer us now and then. He finds and needs, while the struggle for social ends
the workers unready for his message of revolt, still has for us something of the grandiose
and Pelle moves through his youth and ap- unreality of an epic. Taken all in all, “Pelle"
prenticeship untouched by the passion for is a fine achievement in democratic art, the
justice to which "The Great Power” sacrificed most satisfying novel of the labor movement
himself.
When he comes to Copenhagen, that I have read.
Pelle is still full of the joyousness and hope
GEORGE BERNARD DONLIN.
of youth, and over him the metropolis casts
its familiar spell as over any other rustic.
It stimulates his desire for wealth and ease;
DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION.
he fancies that with energy and good will he
TRUANCY AND NON-ATTENDANCE IN THE CHI-
can make his way. It is by no independent CAGO SCHOOLS. A study of the social aspects
activity of the mind that he parts with his of the compulsory education and child labor
illusions; it is the impact of brutal fact, of
legislation of Illinois. By Edith Abbott and
Sophonisba P. Breckinridge. (University of
exploitation and hunger, that stimulates his
Chicago Press; $2.)
thinking - and even so, his thinking is con-
In 1834 when Abraham Lincoln was a mem-
fused and fragmentary. He revolts against ber of the Illinois legislature, he wrote in the
no abstract injustice but against concrete Sangamon “Journal”: “Upon the subject of
wrongs; he fights for concrete gains and for education, not presuming to dictate any plans
those that lie immediately within his grasp. or systems respecting it, I can only say that
It is this sharp and narrow realism that ex I view it as the most important subject that
plains his power over the workers, for they we as a people can be engaged in."
too want concrete things. During the whole According to the interesting narrative of
period of his greatest ascendency, it is the “Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago
will of the workers that Pelle embodies - Schools” Lincoln made these remarks and a
will that has behind it the irresistible drive of succeeding plea for the extension of free
necessity. Whether Mr. Nexö was aware of education, as a public statement of his posi-
it or not, his novel illustrates beautifully the tion in the great struggle for a free school
educative power of fact. From the moulding system which preceded the establishment of
influence of facts Pelle never escapes; his phil our Illinois common schools.
osophy is shaped by them; and out of them In the same year, in the same cause, Stephen
emerges by a logical necessity his final pro- | A. Douglas was exclaiming at a state educa-
gramme — the coöperative organization of in- tional convention: “Shall it be said that
dustry.
Illinois is too poor to educate her sons and her


1917]
311
THE DIAL
daughters? To hesitate upon this subject is Compulsory Education Department. She says
to charge the people with a want of spirit and in her report on a great suburban factory, in
an ignorance of the character of the age in 1894:
which they live.”
Through all the heat of last summer, little boys
“Truancy and Non-Attendance in the worked among unguarded shafting and belting,
Chicago Schools” carries the tale of public
in the fumes of the soldering, or crowded on a
shelf in every crooked and unwholesome posture,
education --“the most important subject that
poking sharp-edged circles of tin through the holes
we as a people can be engaged in”— through of the shelf; or were seated at stamp and die ma-
its vivid history in the second city in the chines where every fall of the stamp is a menace to
United States, from the establishment of our
the fingers and hands. Some of these children,
Italians, Bohemians and Poles, speak no English, and
free schools to the present day, indeed it may
cannot understand the warnings given them as to
be said, to the last authentic news on the topic the dangers which surround them; some of them
in the present day.
cannot read or write in any language.
For the increasing audience of readers in It was Mrs. Kelley, certainly one of the
terested in the multitudinous story of dem staunchest and most fearless friends working-
ocracy as it is told in special investigations children have ever possessed, who was respon-
and public reports, this synthetic account will sible for the advances of 1893 and of 1897 in
have the value of a distinguished social study. the Child Labor and Compulsory Education
It will have also another value — an original Laws; and for the initiation of the better
value closely connected with its power of giv- provisions of 1903.
ing the last authentic news of its subject in Fascinating as the reader will find the
the present day, and to be described later. book's picture of the furtherance in the last
Beginning with a picturesque survey of the quarter of a century of the meliorative work
struggle for the “free-school” principle (1818 for Chicago's future citizens, undertaken in
-55), the chronicle continues with a relation connection with the fight for their education
of the main events of the struggle for the - the Juvenile Court laws, the School Chil-
compulsory principle (1855-83) “when the dren's Aid Society, the Factory Inspection
first compulsory law was passed,” and closes Department, the Parental School — his inter-
with a record of the various activities char-
est will focus naturally on the contemporary
acterizing the period, still continuing, “of history of the present condition of compulsory
struggle for the perfection of the compulsory
education which occupies the main part of the
law."
book.
The value of every law depends on the real-
With a shock one finds or rather one is
ization of its principle in terms of life. Miss
Abbott and Miss Breckinridge's account of
unable to avoid the conclusion from the in-
the supplementary laws and the administra- vestigators' careful figures
vestigators' careful figures -- that the system
tive provisions which developed in Chicago in
of recording attendances now used in the
the course of the effort to make the compulsory Chicago public schools is so imperfect, and
education law effective in the daily existence kept in a manner so slovenly, that it is not
of the children of the poor and the ignorant possible for the Department to know accur-
is of especial interest for two reasons. The ately the number of children of school age
account is of interest because it forms a strik- in the city, the number of absences of those
ing comment on a characteristic American enrolled, or the causes of these absences.
weakness our failure to realize - our in Many long and unregarded interruptions
ability to follow up with sustained attention in the short, seven years' schooling of the
or even with intelligent curiosity the vital children of the poorer neighborhoods occur
social experiments made, perhaps one because of the inadequacy of the "transfer
should say the vital social experiments men system.” In our migratory city these chil-
tioned as mandatory, by our statute-books. dren in the change from school to school at-
It is of interest also because of its description tendant upon "moving,” or on their entrance
of our inability to correlate juvenile laws into parochial schools from public schools, or
whose joint efficiency should guarantee a child vice versa, pass into a species of limbo where
a fair opportunity for education.
apparently all the protection of the Depart-
What excellent civic end is served by keep-ment is withdrawn.
ing children out of work, if the compulsory Akin to the inefficiency of the recording
education department will not compel their system and of the transfer system is the slack-
education! Mrs. Florence Kelley, our first ness of the Department, both in ascertaining
Chief Factory Inspector, pointed out nearly causes of the children's failures in attendance,
twenty-five years ago the miserable results in and in removing these causes by the use of
the child-labor situation of the failures of the coöperative agencies. Eleven hundred visits
or


312
[April 5
THE DIAL
were paid by the investigators to absent Immigrants' Protective League made inquiry,
scholars. For the misfortunes of these strug one such agent wrote, “we have a good many
gling little absentees a generous, unused pub- | Italians tending our school they tend regular
lic provision had been made in many cases. the 3 you have wrote to us about are not in
From the visitor's specific accounts the faces
our school.”
of innumerable needlessly neglected and irre Another of these governmental protectors
sponsibly treated children look out sadly at of public learning replied, “we are Looking
the reader.
after all Foren Born Children Very Clost So
One little boy whose absence was investigated had that they are in School all the time.”
been out of school 62 half days during 24 school Besides its value as a social study this book
weeks. He was found at home sick, lying on the floor
has the power which is lacking in many social
by the stove. His mother was away working and
there was no one to look after the child, or the three
studies of well-focussed indictment, and an
smaller children who were at home.
admirable method of indictment.
Another child Josie D.- a motherless little Impersonally, without mentioning a name,
Italian girl of thirteen, whose father earned without raising its voice, it yet says very
good wages, was found by a social worker clearly "Iste! Iste Catalina !” to a situation
at home, cooking and trying to iron and to look after shameful to Chicago.
little Nick at the same time. She had just finished One of the most serious charges of this
washing and was weary enough to say that she would
indictment refers to the state of our law itself.
much rather go to school, but there was no one at
home to do the work. She explained that the baby Chicago does not require of working-children
had died during the past year and so there was only an ability to read and write simple sentences
little Nick to look after. Another visit was made
in the English language. She permits them
when the father was at home, and it was explained
to him that Josie must go to school, that little Nick
to enter into industry without a knowledge of
would be much better off in a nursery, and that with the tongue in which the laws of the country
a good salary such as he was earning, he ought to
are written.
pay a woman to wash and iron. It seems that Josie
had not been to school for a year. Comment on this In this matter of establishing a minimum standard
case is scarcely necessary. Josie had lost a whole
of education that must be attained before a child is
year of schooling, and the baby had died, a double permitted to leave school Illinois is shockingly behind
other states.
catastrophe which could probably have been avoided
if the school authorities had known that co-operation An exposure of the Compulsory Education
with the social agencies only a few blocks away might Department of the city, "Truancy and Non-
have worked out a plan that would have released
Josie from the burdens she was trying to carry.
Attendance in the Chicago Schools,” is also
It is interesting to observe that after the
a constructive criticism. It offers an able ad-
baby had died, and Josie had lost a year's ministrative plan which would reorganize the
education, “The Superintendent of Compul-' | present system by a standardized, state control
sory Education
immediately took of local authorities; and by improved state
steps to have the child placed in school.” laws.
This instance is mentioned in connection Pending the adoption of this larger and
with the need of Visiting Teachers in the more distant programme, the authors suggest
schools, to develop the coöperation of various to the Board of Education a number of imme-
meliorative agencies with the Compulsory diate practical improvements in the present
Education Department.
methods of compulsory education in the city.
Among other such agencies which would greatly The mere mention of some of these suggestions
profit by the development of such co-operation within serves to indicate the slovenly and unscholarly
the school would be the medical inspection and school
nursing service of the Department of Health. The
standards of compulsory education now dis-
City expends nearly $350,000 annually on the Child gracing Chicago. For instance, the first rec-
Hygiene Division of the health service, and the devel ommendation is “That the system of record-
opment of any machinery that will enable it more
completely to fulfil its purpose for which it is estab-
ing attendance be so re-organized that the
lished can be regarded only as sound economy.
facts with reference to non-attendance may be
Broad in the range of its historical and
ascertained.”
municipal reference the study is excellent in Will the Board of Education adopt these
its presentation of detail, especially in these suggestions? Will Chicago adopt them! The
chronicles of the children who fall into the reader closes the book with the memory of
crevasses where Juvenile agencies do not meet;
the words of Stephen A. Douglas echoing in
and in its story of the Dogberries empowered
his consciousness. “Shall it be said that
to be “Compulsory Education” agents in Chicago is too poor to educate her sons and
some of the suburban districts.
her daughters? To hesitate upon the subject
With regard to a family of three Italian is to charge the people with a want of spirit.”
children about whom the Director of the
EDITH WYATT.


1917]
313
THE DIAL
re-
THE ARTFUL MR. HICHENS.
The first part of the book is charming, and
may induce lovers to spend their honeymoon
IN THE WILDERNESS. By Robert Hichens. in Greece. Rosamund attracts and repels by
(Frederick A. Stokes Co.; $1.50.)
turns, but even while you dislike her, you
Some years ago everybody read or intended can't resist the spell of her way with chil-
to read “The Garden of Allah.” Seeking to
Seeking to dren:
shock a stolid Englishman, a young person What did she do?
He could never
who had devoured the story surreptitiously member very much. But he knew that Rosamund
declared that it was a “lovely book.” Astute
showed him new aspects of tenderness and fun. What
beneath his calm, the Englishman replied that
do women who love and understand little boys do to
put them at their ease, to break down their small
Hichens was a “bon-bon-box writer.' The shynesses? Rosamund did absurd things with deep
young person retired in confusion: a mascu earnestness and complete concentration.
line mind had summed up and disposed of her After the tragedy which falls suddenly
favorite author.
upon them, Cynthia Clarke comes subtly for-
“The Garden of Allah” was a distinct sur ward, an unusual type of siren who values the
prise to those who had enjoyed that delightful friendship of her sex and guards it as a useful
satire, "The Green Carnation." They over commodity. Step by step we follow the prog-
looked, or knew nothing of, “Flames” and ress of this passionate cérébrale. Suspicion
“The Slave,” which preceded it — the first a of her innocence in regard to other men
fantastic novel, prosy on reperusal, the second awakens in Dion's mind during one of her
à haunting study of a jewel-worshipping stealthy visits to him:
woman. Here were the beginnings of a series There had been in her movement a sort of per-
of feminine portraits of which "In the Wilder fection of surreptitiousness that was animal. He
ness" is the culmination. Vivid, romantic,
noticed it, and thought that she must surely be ac-
customed to moving with precaution lest she should
mystic, often witty and sometimes wise, elab-
be seen or heard. Rosamund could not move like that.
orately analytic, packed with descriptions of A life story seemed to him to be faintly traced in
an unseemly lusciousness, Mr. Hichens's work Mrs. Clarke's manner of entering the pavilion and of
has won and held a place of its own.
sitting down on the divan.
“But you must not judge any woman with One may prefer the realism of Mr. Wells
out knowing what is in her heart,” says
or Mr. Bennett to morbid symptoms of the
Rosamund Leith to her husband. Mr. Hichens soul; one may be bored by an art that fails
has acted on the hint. Carefully and minutely
to conceal artificiality. Such, however, is the
he dissects, weighs, probes, deducts, compares.
artfulness of Mr. Hichens that one reads his
His good women are human angels, a little book to the end and lays it down satisfied to
hard in their religious devotion but winning have witnessed an achievement fine of its
in their love for children. Frailer sisters, ob- kind.
ALICE BISHOP.
sessed by a fixed idea, dedicate themselves to
possessing their desire. There are no repent-
ant Magdalens, no ladies weeping over a past.
NOTES ON NEW FICTION.
Avoiding pity and Puritan wrath, Mr.
Hichens refuses to uphold or to condemn. The woman with a job who does not sail ma-
Now and again one has a sense of surfeit. jestically and irrepressibly to a salary of four
The relentless analysis confuses and fatigues. figures, who does not possess a striking personal-
No action relating to the characters escapes
ity but is, on the contrary, as undramatic as a
comment; no symptom is overlooked; this or
field daisy," who does not fail to make mistakes in
love as well as in business—such is the rather
that is done for such and such a reason, etc., refreshing heroine of Sinclair Lewis's new book,
etc., until one longs to repeat the advice of the
“The Job” (Harper's; $1.35). Una Golden is an
Great Pym to Sentimental Tommy embarking
average young woman, whom circumstances and
on the seas of literature:
not inherent character force through the mill of
Analyze your characters and their motives at the office routine and matrimonial misery to the posi-
prodigious length in which you revel, and then, my
tion of dignity and independence she finally occu-
sonny, cut your analysis out.
It is for your own
guidance not the reader's.
pies. Most young heroines of the business world
Dion Leith, the hero of “In the Wilder- great multitude that fill New York's offices and
of fiction are convinced feminists. Una, like the
ness,” resembles many another of Mr.
shops, is an unintentional one. The story of her
Hichens's heroes. He is interesting but
life, filled though it is with degradation and
hardly forceful. Two women dominate him,
disillusionment and vulgarity, is yet a fairly true
Rosamund his wife, a religious egoist, who reflection of the career of the workers—not the
“longs for freshness and for peace"; and drones—in the feminist ranks.
Cynthia Clarke, the “wild soul in an innocent
The times and the cause of Bonnie Prince
body," whose face has a "punished" look. Charlie are a source of fiction that is apparently


314
[April 5
THE DIAL
career.
never-ending. We have them once again in “The The mood of the “Atlantic Monthly's” famous
Yeoman Adventurer," by George W. Gough “Twenty Minutes of Reality” is inherent in the
(Putnam's; $1.40), a rather commonplace tale in new short novel of Frances Hodgson Burnett,
which youth and beauty play the leading parts. entitled “The White People” (Harper's; $1.20).
The yeoman Oliver Wheatman by a lucky chance It is to extend new hope to her readers, and to
rescues Margaret from the attentions of Brocton, obliterate the omnipresent “fear to die” that
who, as an enemy of the Stuarts, is pursuing her Jean, the Scottish chieftainess of Muircarrie Castle,
father. It is a yarn filled with captures and relates the story of her experiences with the White
escapes, spies and incendiaries, giving us a glimpse People—with Wee Brown Elspeth and Dark
of Prince Charlie at the turning-point of his Malcom of the Glen, with the pale-faced child
As a narrative it is neither better nor of the weeping woman, and finally with Hector
worse than most of its sort.
MacNairn, one of the few people in the world who
The Baroness von Hutton, in the guise of a
had understood the strange vision-seeing girl.
kindly London bachelor, gives the history of a
Mrs. Burnett's transcendentalism will probably ap-
romance or two in her new novel, “Mag Pye” peal more to “New Thinkers” and the like than
(Appleton's; $1.50). Her chattiness, her senti to those whose fancies range less freely. In any
mentality, and her talent for weaving a plot serve case one may enjoy its consistent setting, in the
well her latest theme. Margaret Pye is a child purple Scotch Highlands, and the manner of the
of uncertain antecedents, rather an ugly duck-
author's narration.
ling, but possessed of an indefinable charm.. The Pennsylvania Dutch form a community as
Joined to her story is the narrator's own--a quiet concentrated in its self-complacency, as “set” in
tale of love at least ten times rejected, in which its customs of restraint broken by periodic aban-
an heiress and a lost artist figure. The novel donment, as may be found among the remoter
stands in that host of good, but uninspired, middle strongholds of New England tradition or in the
class English fiction.
innerfastnesses of the Kentucky mountains.
The subject of hidden treasure has almost as
Mrs. Helen R. Martin has made its life her special
great a fascination for the novelist as has treasure
study and she shows her mastery once more in
itself for the adventurer. It is unusual for this “Those Fitzenbergers” (Doubleday, Page; $1.35).
time-honored theme to yield so genuine a find as
She has been in the habit of placing against the
“The Hiding-Places,” Allen French's recent addi- background of stolid Dutch cruelty and narrow-
tion to buccaneer bibliography. The treasure in ness, a protagonist who has gained a higher level
this case consisted of gems contained in lead boxes from which revolt is possible. In "Erstwhile
and concealed by a wily old sea-captain about a Susan" it was the girl Barnabetta; and in the
New England farm. This farm has been divided story of the Fitzenbergers it is Liddy, the child
between two cousins before the story opens with of tragedy, who with the friendly help of the
the discovery of one of the precious boxes. While “Reverend Armstrong" and his “missus” reaches
the discovery of treasure and the lust for more a height that is unattainable by the equally am-
inspire what follows, it would be a mistake to bitious Elmer Wagenhorst. The author exhibits
suppose that this is no more than a melodramatic more than a little sex prejudice in her treatment
tale. It is true that violent passions are engen-
of Elmer; we are vastly sorrier for him when
dered, both those of love and hate, but the develop-
his castle of inherited, conscious male superiority
ing action carries far beyond the quest of hidden comes tumbling about his ears than is Mrs. Martin.
gems. To say that the tale is exciting is to pay In fact this apparent prejudice, which makes the
slight tribute to a novel containing so clever a plot boy a creature of almost incredible egotism, is
and such excellent characterizations as those of the
the only serious fault in an otherwise excellent
hero, his mother, and his cousin. Mr. Allen has novel of character. The scheming stepmother, the
set out to write a story, but in accomplishing his
sodden father whose crime has driven his family
end he has shown respect for his public and him into social ostracism, Mr. Wagenhorst, from whom
self. (Scribner's; $1.35.)
Elmer inherited in part his cruel assumption of
“They say," observed Abner, “that you have to infallibility, Liddy herself, and lastly the Arm-
summer and winter folks to know 'em. Done strongs, whose point of view throws into stronger
both twice and a half to Natupski and by Godfrey
relief the strangeness of the narrow little Dutch
Mighty he gets harder to guess right along.'
community-all these are very real people. There
Of such enigmatic stuff in very truth was the
is, however, a trace of bitterness in the author's
constantly increasing family that had found its characterization that the book would be better
way from Poland to West Holly, New England.
without. There must be more than a little humor
It is the subject of “Our Natupski Neighbors," by
in such a settlement as Virginsburg. There always
Edith Miniter (Holt; $1.35), a story of immi-
is. Mrs. Martin too rarely shows her ability to
grant life which leads one to the conclusion that .catch its gleam.
fiction may be quite as enlightening on the score The English butler in “Confessions of a Social
of that “problem” as either textbooks or sta Secretary," by Corinne Lowe (Harper's; $1.25),
tistics. The Natupskis, with all the old-world cus after listening to a typical dinner-table conversa-
toms of the first generation and the emerging tion, makes a remark in which the reader of this
Americanism of the second, are drawn from life, narrative is likely to concur. He says: “These
and the author has given them the illuminating people don't have many conversational powers:
touch that leads to understanding, and to sym now in England, madam, it 's a treat to stand
pathy-in moderation.
behind the master's chair and listen to the talk


1917]
315
THE DIAL
that goes on.
The English novelist certainly values does not keep her from appreciating an
succeeds in casting a glamour over his aristocracy amazing variety of tonics. Apart from a fondness
and he frequently endows them with more than for the back to the land” movement she is appar-
ordinary intelligence; Mrs. Wharton, with all her ently without prejudices, without even that prej-
sophistication and disillusionment in writing of udice which most thinking American critics seem
a corresponding class in our own country, re to have against the literature of their own country.
lieves the dulness of the situation by fine irony She does, indeed, become mildly ironical over our
or by an alluring heroine; Mr. Robert Chambers, slovenly, wholesale methods of writing, reading,
somewhat against our better judgment, keeps our and cataloguing; but on the whole her taste, while
attention by such devices as a dramatic meeting discriminating, is less fastidiously aristocratic than
of hero and heroine at the depths of their host's Miss Repplier's or Mrs. Emily Putnam's, and she
swimming-pool. Miss Corinne Lowe attempts only sees much to admire in Stephen Crane, Frank
to present a grim chronicle of the activities of a Norris, and other American authors like Mr.
certain rich and fashionable set living in New Howells, who happen just now to be more gen-
York and Newport. She presents without illu erally celebrated but will probably go out of fash-
sions the life of these modern Romans, to whom ion shortly. As a “tonic,” “Great Companions”
(quoting a phrase of the author used in another can certainly be recommended, for it contains
connection) motion, not destination, is the goal; something sufficiently rare: independent and, at
a restless discontent and expensive gloom con-
the same time, cheerful thought about what we have
sistently pervade the atmosphere in which they done in literature and what we are likely to do. At
live. One must be curious indeed about the doings a period when so many national authorities are
of this set to be diverted by the details of their being quoted, urging us to fall in line and sur-
domestic arrangements; these details Miss Lowe render any remaining intelligence to the tender
presents with photographic candor.
mercies of group consciousness, it is encouraging
to have Miss Wyatt's assurance that such an in-
dividual as Thoreau really existed in America.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
How to READ. By J. B. Kerfoot. Hough-
CHINA INSIDE OUT. By George A. Miller. ton Mifflin; $1.25.
Abingdon Press; $1.
There may have been a more fascinating exposi-
The “heathen Chinee” shows himself as a very
tion written in some language, at some time, on
human, interesting, often admirable and even lov some subject, than Mr. Kerfoot's book; but one is
able creature in the Rev. George A. Miller's nar permitted to doubt it. The title, however, carries
rative of missionary experiences among the people only partial truth. Three of the chapters do throw
of the Flowery Kingdom. It is no China from a some light on how to read, but much of that mys-
car-window that he pictures in his pages, but a terious art remains mysterious. The main interest
workaday, toiling, and suffering China, a China is in how we actually do read, not in the psychology
needing and responding to the appeal which hun of eye movements, but, to quote one of the chapter
dreds of devoted men and women are now making heads, “Watching the Wheels go Round.” It is
to the higher nature of the lowly Mongolian. The on this subject that Mr. Kerfoot has achieved a
versatility and resource of those engaged in the masterpiece of popular exposition. His compar-
arduous labors of a missionary among China's ison of reading to the production of a moving-
countless millions are truly surprising and admir- picture show, in which the reader collaborates with
able, described in “China Inside Out.” the author, furnishing all the “property" of his
"Straightforward reports of laboratory expe memory and imagination to aid in reproducing the
riments in spiritual life”- thus, in brief, the book story, is, in its way, perfect. Unlike most anal-
is not inaptly characterized in an introduction by ogies, this gets better as you examine it. The
another pen than Dr. Miller's. Excellent line “movies" give their lifelike impression by virtue of
drawings and a frontispiece photogravure illus a succession of ten pictures a second; a story re-
trate the book.
produces itself by the successive images of words
flashed on the retina of the eye three hundred to
GREAT COMPANIONS. By Edith Wyatt. Apple-
the minute or five a second. These words are not
ton; $1.50.
perceived as distinct symbols and analyzed con-
In this collection from various periodicals of sciously for their distinct meanings; there is no
special articles on more or less literary topics,
time for that. They merge in a perfect synthesis
ranging from Fiona Macleod's poetry to The
to awaken ideas and call up pictures. The words
Department of the Interior's Guide-Book to the
are not the story any more than the notes of a
Western United States (a literary topic, surely,
score are the music; both story and music await
if you define literature as “work of the imagina-
the performing artist. Of course, Mr. Kerfoot
tion"), Miss Wyatt imparts enthusiastic informa-
points out the unlikeness between the "movie" and
tion, unaccompanied by what she finds so common
the written word: the "movie" tells the story
in our critical writing, “the rapid blight of the without appeal to the creative mind of the
explanatory touch." She treats her audience as audience, while the word depends upon the author
equals, and they ought to be sufficiently grateful and the reader. But this essential difference only
to overlook her habit of praising books for their stresses the mechanical, though superficial like-
“tonic" value, as though they were so much med ness. Let us turn to the positive side of the art
icine; the more so as this unusual standard of of reading, the core of the book. Our reasons for
as


316
[April 5
THE DIAL
of an
reading are thus summed up: “Some urge toward has witnessed since 1914. To this subject the
wanting to know, and some urge toward wanting introduction and conclusion are devoted. The ar-
to play; both being forms of the desire to 'find ticle entitled “The New France," written in 1912,
ourselves'; and some urge toward wanting to for contains this sentence: “English statesmanship
get, the same being an impulse to escape from the realizes that France is the key-stone of Continen-
consciousness of a side of ourselves that is weary, tal Europe, that she holds the balance of power,
or baffled, or discouraged.” The first rule in read that any serious blow aimed at France would be
ing is that we must learn to look upon our curios- indirectly aimed at England and at European
ity as “the prompting of our mental hunger"; civilization, and that if it ever came to a Euro-
the second, that we must “learn to evaluate our pean conflict, the decisive battles of England would
subsidiary curiosities"; the third, that we must have to be fought, not against France, as in the
'never neglect any prompting of subsidiary curios past, but in alliance with France and on French
ity that is, of itself, sharp enough to shift, though battlefields." Dr. Sarolea writes a clear and fluent,
only for a few seconds, the conscious focus of our though quite undistinguished style, but it seems
reading attention.” This third rule presents the a pity that he should permit himself such oddities
very heart of the author's advice on reading. as “impunately” and “presigeotus"—can the
Properly appreciated and applied there is little word be prestigious ?-and such a hybrid as
doubt that it would help a host of word-and-line "Constituant Assembly." One is grateful for the
readers to discover an unsuspected glimmering of plain speech concerning the “Germanomania” of
originality in books which mere worshipful study the years before the war. “Even estimable medi-
of authorities would only serve to bury deeper ocrities like Eucken were proclaimed original
“than did ever plummet sound.”
thinkers" is a specimen.
A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS. By Caro MILITARY AND NAVAL AMERICA. By Cap-
line A. Stickney Creevey. Putnam's; $1.50.
tain Harrison S. Kerrick, U. S. A. Double-
Mrs. Creevey is not only a botanist and a writer day, Page; $2.
on botany, with several handy and useful books
Captain Kerrick deals exclusively with the pres-
to her credit on our native flora and the pleasures
ent state of our military establishment. He has
of its study, but also an agreeable chronicler
written a book packed with information and details
of events in the animate world of human beings. about the Army and the Navy, the Coast Artillery,
Her autobiography is simply and straightfor the Red Cross, the submarine defence of harbors;
wardly written, revealing much of the inner life
he also has introduced a useful glossary of tech-
earnest and conscientious young New nical terms. There is no doubt of his compre-
England woman up to the time of her happy hensiveness; in the index, “Wood, Major-General
marriage to the man of her choice. Natural Leonard, work in organizing training camps” is
enough in one of her serious disposition, acted immediately followed by "Woods, Corporal Wes-
upon as she was by the religious influences of her
ley H., record national rifle competition.” Captain
puritanical environment, was the excess of piety Kerrick is true to his service; honor wherever
that caused her to cherish the early ambition, if honor is due. In a book of this scope there are
she should die young, “to be made into a Sunday of course bound to be occasional omissions; for
school book, like 'Little Jane,” which she tells us instance, there seems to be no list either of the
she read many times with great relish. So I number of ships authorized in recent years nor
often said and wrote words,” she adds, "to see even a forecast of the scope of the new five-year
how they would sound in a book which might be building programme, although its general features
read by thoughtless children and which might must have become fairly clear by the time the
lead them into ways of piety.” Mrs. Howe has book went to press. And an intelligent comparison
made similar confessions of childhood religiosity, of American warship designs with contemporary
but both soon worked their way out of the mor foreign ones would have been easily obtainable
bid mood and lived to laugh at it in the retro from one or other of the Naval Annals and per-
spect. Mrs. Creevey's account of her education
haps more illuminating than some of the other
and her school-teaching is good reading-truthful minutiæ which Captain Kerrick has included.
and richly human, with a spice of humor. But he includes infinitely more than he leaves out,
and anyone who chooses to inform himself upon
THE FRENCH RENASCENCE. By Charles
our actual military situation can well begin with
Sarolea. Pott; $2.
his book.
Dr. Sarolea's book is an agreeable but insub-
stantial collection of occasional articles and book
ENGLISH COMPOSITION AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM.
reviews dealing with Montaigne, Pascal, Madame By Sterling Andrus Leonard. (Riverside
de Maintenon, Rousseau, Marie Antoinette, Mira Educational Monographs) Houghton Mifflin;
beau, Robespierre, Napoleon, Balzac, Flaubert, 70 cts.
Maeterlinck, Bergson, and President Poincaré. The classes of the old school were social in spite
The “Mirabeau” reads like a fragment of an ad of pedagogical discouragement. But now profes-
dress, and the “Pascal and Newman” is reprinted sors of education advocate the social group as the
from Dr. Sarolea's book on Newman. The title ideal unit of organization in the systematized
of the volume refers to the new birth of French process of adapting children to the environment
idealism after the humiliations of 1870, culminat of modern civilization. Here, for instance, is Mr.
ing in the marvellous spectacle that all the world Leonard offering arguments for allowing even the


1917]
317
THE DIAL
youngest students of English composition to work a deep American interest, for French versification
out their own salvation by finding and correcting has yielded to a Poe and to a Whitman influence,
one another's faults and errors with the aid of and an American in reading the essay wishes that
only a small number of ex machina suggestions Professor Thieme were more than locally American,
from teachers. Although he uses the cold vocab so that he might triumphantly show how French
ulary of pedagogy, he urges in common sense poets came, through this influence, to face about in
fashion that the pupils' social instincts and inter their conception of poetry. But Remy de Gour-
ests should provide them with motives and subjects mont has done this and his fine essay is indexed
for their practice in composition, and manifests in its due place. The essay is now published as
the belief that, except for definitely few conven part of the volume "Le Problème du Style,” in
tions such as those of grammatical form, matters a recent edition of de Gourmont's works.
of rhetoric can best be learned by ordinary school-
children through communal discussion and solution GERMANY, FROM 1815 TO 1852. By Sir
of their own actual problems of expression. This Adolphus William Ward. Cambridge Univer-
theory provides for a complete, slow, and orderly sity Press; $3.
natural training quite opposed to the cramming The author traverses here a period compara-
which was encouraged not many years ago. Per tively unfamiliar to most American readers; but,
haps Mr. Leonard's modest little brown book is
as he has pointed out in his preface, an under-
a sign that at least in the field of education the standing of the half-century of struggles and
American mania for speed is becoming less violent. humiliations which followed the War of Liber-
Certainly the children of the United States might ation is a necessary preliminary to the proper
with profit spend many leisurely hours in acquir- appreciation of Germany's upward swing and
ing a mastery of the English tongue.
expanding ambitions in recent years. It is grat-
ifying to observe that the author's point of view
ESSAI SUR L'HISTOIRE DU VERS FRANÇAIS. By has not been affected by prejudices or passions
Hugo P. Thieme. Paris: Honoré Champion; engendered by the war. In this respect it con-
$2.75.
trasts most pleasantly with the diatribes under the
This is what is called in university parlance a guise of history which Professor Eduard Meyer
piece of work. And it is a work which only a of Berlin University has been publishing. The
scholar has the patience and disinterestedness to difficulty of writing the history of a country which
do. Professor Thieme, of the University of Mich was once a geographical term rather than a nation
igan, deserves all possible praise for what is will be readily perceived. The author in his 550
bound to be of invaluable service in all future pages of fairly detailed treatment has managed to
research into French versification. Professor preserve the proper perspective and focus the
Thieme calls this abundant storehouse an essay;
interest where it belongs. The revolution of 1848
but the essay will be passed over by the research (Germany's only revolution, and that an abortive
student, not that he may not read it with profit, one) is naturally given the greatest prominence.
but that he will be more eager to examine so rich
The author's sympathies are inferentially on the
and so methodical an index. For this is an liberal, democratic side, though his procedure is
out and out bibliography, and it is not the first
throughout objective. Literary and philosophical
one Professor Thieme has organized. Any student
movements receive a fair share of attention; less
of modern French will agree with Professor Gus space is given to material progress. The continu-
tave Lanson, whose introduction must not be left
ation of the work will be awaited with interest.
unread, that there is “not a student of twenty nor
a student of sixty whom one calls a professor,” who
INTOLERANCE IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH,
has not found the “Guide Bibliographique de la QUEEN OF ENGLAND. By Arthur Jay Klein.
Littérature française de 1800 a 1906" authoritative Houghton Mifflin; $2.
This bibliography guides one over an enormous In this volume Professor Klein sketches the re-
field and not one route but several are provided. organization of the English church in the early
It classifies and edits all that has been written years of the reign of Elizabeth and tells the story
on French versification, first as to centuries, again of its great conflict a generation later with its
specifically as to the year, with each entry duly Catholic, Presbyterian, and Congregational oppo-
annotated. Then to be more helpful there are nents. Of these three dissenting groups, the most
analytic tables in which all matter relative to important for the author's purpose is the Roman
French versification from Accent to Vers Libres Catholic; and Professor Klein recounts in some
is accounted for. Chronological and alphabetical detail the efforts that Elizabethan statesmen made
indexes further clear the way through this vast to win the devotees of the old church to the new
subject. Surely only the student of sixty, in forms of worship or at least to secure their loy-
tensely intimate with the whole of French poetics alty to the sovereign. The story of the Elizabethan
from 1332 to 1913, is able to test these elaborate Establishment is one that has been told many times
tables. They are a scholar's work for a scholar's and from many points of view, and the author
judgment. For the general reader the essay por has contributed very little to the total of significant
tion of this great summary is worth close study. data; he has, however, studied his facts from a
Professor Thieme remains the scholar in this as somewhat novel viewpoint, as is indicated in the
in the analytical index; his attitude is detached title of his work. Students of church history will
and wholly formal. The American reader wishes find Professor Klein's narrative and conclusions of
that he were less so. There lurks in this subject considerable interest and value, but as a study of


318
[April 5
THE DIAL
intolerance his account is distinctly disappointing. The author's patriotism is as distinctly marked as
The author concludes that Elizabethan statesmen it would have been twenty-five years ago, and con-
were, after all, a rather tolerant set: their aim servatism is evident in his attitude toward new
was to exact a minimum of conformity only, and views and in his failure to make use of recent
to make it as easy as possible for tender con available historical material. It is hardly possible
sciences to adapt themselves to the new forms. to write, in this day, a valuable history of the
Real intolerance is found chiefly among the groups Civil War without devoting some attention to the
that are commonly thought to have stood for lib non-military aspects of the period, but for Mr.
erty and democracy: the Presbyterians and, to a Johnson these matters evidently have little interest.
lesser degree, the Congregationalists. It is, indeed, For one who wishes to get a brief description of a
true that the persecution of the time was carried battle or a campaign as seen from the Union side,
on in the name of the national church; but it seems this work will serve well; but he who wishes to
clear that if the Catholics or the Puritans had read understandingly of the fight for the Union
gained control of the state during the years of must go elsewhere-for example, to Mr. Rhodes-
conflict there would have been less toleration of for a more comprehensive account.
dissenting opinion than there was under the
Anglican régime.
NOTES FOR BIBLIOPHILES.
MECHANISMS OF CHARACTER FORMATION. By
William A. White. Macmillan; $1.75.
[Inquiries or contributions to this department should be ad-
dressed to John E. Robinson, the Editor, who will be
In giving the sub-title, “An Introduction to pleased to render to readers such services as are possible.]
Psychoanalysis” to his volume, Dr. White indi-
cates its trend. The volume presents in conven A total of $27,435.60 was realized by the sale of
ient form a survey of the Freudian principles. rare books and autographs from various consign-
It does not make an original contribution, nor is ors at the Anderson Galleries on March 19, 20, and
the presentation distinctive; it is adequate with 21. The highest price of the five sessions was
out being notable. There is a good deal of cita $1155 paid by Gabriel Weis for a presentation
tion and of rather unsystematic assembling of data copy of “The Traveller” by Oliver Goldsmith,
from various sources. The book is addressed to London 1770, with autograph inscription in Gold-
the average reader and in its scope is well suited smith's handwriting on the half-title. It was a
to his needs. But the time has come when more big sum to pay, but presentation copies by Gold-
may reasonably be demanded of a fresh contribu smith are scarce.
tion. To the mentally ripe reader the story of the George D. Smith gave $1025 for a collection of
Freudian theories thus presented, with their affil original portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte, members
iations to neurotic cases and their abrupt assump of his family, his generals and statesmen and
tions and erotic implications, is unconvincing. It scenes from his life, executed by noted contempo-
will be made less so only by a critical readjust rary artists in sepia, india ink, and pen and pencil.
ment of the component principles of the system, “The Comic History of Rome” and “The Comic
and by an interpretation that does some of the History of England," first editions by Gilbert A.
work of assimilation for the reader. To many the A'Beckett, extra-illustrated, the original parts with
Freudian territory is rather a forbidden country; the printed wrappers preserved, in binding by
the expert traveller who can bring back a well Riviere, went to Mr. Weis for $115.
Cent
sustained interpretation of what may be observed Pseaumes de David," Paris 1598, bound by Clovis
in these foreign parts will find a genial reception. Eve for Marguerite de Valois, from the Robert
Hoe library, was also bought by Mr. Weis for
THE FIGHT FOR THE REPUBLIC. By Rossiter $200. Henry Malkan paid $140 for James Bos-
Johnson. Putnam; $2.50.
well's "Life of Samuel Johnson, 1884, extra-illus-
Rossiter Johnson's is a well-written book and
trated with 183 portraits and views.
one of considerable interest, although it adds
"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," first
practically nothing to our knowledge of the Civil edition, London 1809, a presentation copy from
War. Of the thirty-three chapters all except three Lord Byron to his intimate friend, Scroope Beard-
relate solely to military and naval matters. In more Davies went to J. F. Marlow for $420. As
the three non-military chapters brief mention is the presentation inscription is dated March 1, it
made of Lincoln's inauguration, of the emancipa controverts the statement published in the Bio-
tion, and of the federal finances of the war period. graphical Dictionary that the book was issued
Taking up first the good points of the book, one in the middle of March. Davies lent Lord Byron
may say that the military descriptions are vivid £4800. The repayment of this loan was celebrated
and accurate, the maps and plans are clear and in a drinking bout at the Cocoa Tree Tavern,
very useful, and the frequent quotations from first March 27, 1814. Byron entertained Davies at
hand accounts are well selected and are properly Newstead, when the guests dressed as monks and
fitted into the narrative. The limitations of the drank Burgundy out of human skulls.
work are, however, considerable. As the title in Mr. Weis paid $225 for the original autograph
dicates, it is a view of one side of the Civil War; manuscript of the thirty-ninth chapter of “Mark
consequently little attention is given to the other Twain's” “A Tramp Abroad,” written in purple
side, which exists merely to furnish opposition now ink on thirty-four octavo pages, and $725 for the
and then to the forces fighting for the Union. original manuscript, typewritten, of "Following


1917]
319
THE DIAL
the Equator," original illustrations, three auto Oscar Wilde." A letter from Wilde to Mrs.
graph letters referring to the publication and the Bernard-Beere, dated Kansas City, Mo., and de-
first edition of the book. The 781 quarto sheets scribing his reading to the Mormons at Salt Lake
contain a large number of additions and correc City, went to Mr. Drake for $175. Mr. Weis gåve
tions and remarks and instructions to the pub $147.50 for the original autograph manuscript of
lisher and the compositor in the handwriting of Wilde's famous poem, entitled “Requiescat.'
the author. Mr. Weis also obtained for $310 a A fine political letter from Abraham Lincoln,
first edition of “The English Spy” by C. M. Springfield, Ill., May 1, 1860, to C. M. Allen
Westmacott, with colored plates by Robert Cruik fetched the high price of $655 at a sale of rare
shank, Thomas Rowlandson, and others.
autographs from the collections of Mrs. B. A.
“The Humourist”. by George Cruikshank, four Brown of New York City, J. L. Clawson of
volumes, London 1819-20, the rare first edition Buffalo, N. Y., and other consignors at the Ander-
of the most important of all Cruikshank's works, son Galleries on March 26. George D. Smith ob-
was bought by Mr. Smith for $152.50. A com tained it. It was written two weeks before Lin-
plete set of first editions of “The Comic Alman coln's nomination for the Presidency, and refers
ack,” with illustrations by George Cruikshank, in to the probable nomination of Stephen A. Douglas
binding by Root, went to Charles Scribner's Sons for President by the Democrats. “This puts the
for $100. A first edition of Defoe's “Robinson case in the hardest shape for us," Lincoln writes.
Crusoe,” in binding by F. Bedford, and from the “But fight we must and conquer we shall, in the
famous Huth library, was knocked down to Mr. end." Thomas F. Madigan paid $285 for another
Weis for $500. He also bought for $500 a set of Lincoln letter, dated Springfield, Feb. 2, 1861, and
the first edition of the “Pickwick Club” in the addressed to George D. Prentice, replying to a
original parts and wrappers, London 1836.
request for a copy of the Inaugural Address.
Walter M. Hill of Chicago paid $700 for a first Gabriel Weis gave $162.50 for a letter by Lord
edition of “A Tale of Two Cities,” a presentation Byron, dated Genoa, Oct. 31, 1822, and addressed
copy from Charles Dickens to Edmund Yates, to John Hunt, referring to the impending sever-
who was the direct cause of the famous quarrel be ance of business relations with John Murray,
tween Dickens and William M. Thackeray. Mr. Byron's publisher. Mr. Smith obtained for $68
Smith paid $450 for an extra-illustrated set of a letter by Benjamin Franklin, dated Dec. 6,
the "Tableaux historiques de la Revolution Fran- 1750, and making arrangements for his son William
çaise” from the collection of the Comte de Bearn, to study law in England. He also paid $55 for a
and E. F. Bonaventure $365 for another set. Both letter by David Garrick, dated June 25, 1776, to
were in binding by David.
Tom King, the actor, to whom as a mark of esteem
The rare first folio edition of “The Collected he presents the sword he had worn in many of his
Works of Ben Jonson” went to Mr. Smith for notable characters, observing that as the sword
$300. Mr. Weis paid $325 for “John Woodvil, was a theatrical one "it will not cut love between
a Tragedy,” presentation copy from Charles Lamb,
the author. He also gave $200 for the original Walter M. Hill of Chicago bought for $410
autograph manuscript of George Meredith's poem a letter by Alexander Hamilton, Oct. 10, 1803, to
“The South-wester.' The manuscript of another Aaron Burr about a realty transaction. Less than
poem by Meredith, entitled “Hard Weather,” went
a year later Hamilton fought the fatal duel with
to Mr. Smith for $270. Mr. Smith also obtained Burr. A fine specimen of John Paul Jones, dated
for $157.50 the scarce first edition of the “Kit-Cat Paris, Feb. 28, 1786, went to Mr. Smith for $310.
Club," done from the original paintings of Sir The letter is addressed to Thomas Jefferson, then
Godfrey Kneller by Mr. Faber, in binding by Minister to France, and relates to his acceptance
Canape. Mr. Sargent gave $310 for the original of Houdon's bust of Jones. Mr. Weis paid $42.50
edition of “Portraits des Grands Hommes, Femmes for a letter by Rudyard Kipling, dated Brattle-
Illustres et Sujets Memorables de France,” Paris boro, Vt., Jan. 8, 1895, in which he says: “The
1786-92.
man in the Cosmopolitan, who collected autographs,
W. J. Hawley obtained for $475 an extra-illus will come to a bad end, and don't you follow his
trated copy of “The Presidents of the United example. He went about setting traps for men
States," 1789-1914, by John Fiske and others, in order to get their autographs — pretending to
edited by James G. Wilson, with twenty-seven
be interested in things he wasn't and asking ques-
original autographs of all the Presidents. The tions that he didn't want answered, instead of
first issues of the complete “Faerie Queene” by saying right out what he needed. An autograph is
Edmund Spenser, with the first edition of Volume not the least use unless it is given freely." Mr.
II, in binding by Riviere, went to Mr. Smith for Smith gave the high price of $95 for another Kip-
$185. E. P. Dutton & Co. paid $312.50 for “The ling letter dated Burwood, May 16, 1905. It
Etched Work of James A. McNeill Whistler, relates to "Puck of Pook's Hill," his volume of
by Edward G. Kennedy, a high price. James F. stories published in 1906. “Puck," he says:
Drake gave $147.50 for a first edition of "A “couldn't show them any fairies because the fairies
Woman of No Importance," presentation copy have left England, but he gave them the freedom
from Oscar Wilde to Mrs. Bernard-Beere, the of old England with rather curious results."
actress. The autograph inscription reads: “Mrs. A letter by Charles Lamb, dated July 5, 1825,
Bernard-Beere from her friend, the author, as a in which he mentions “Rosamund Gray,"
slight recognition of her beautiful performance of knocked down to Mr. Weis for $100, who also
my play and my admiration of her dramatic genius. obtained for $245 a letter from Edgar Allan Poe,
27
us.
was


320
[April 5
THE DIAL
May 10, 1849, to John R. Thompson, editor of the Driving by Charles E. Harper, Stanley Harris, and
“Southern Literary Messenger," in which he speaks James J. Hissey, 41 volumes, all first editions, in
of “The Raven." "Mr. Hill paid $250 for a letter binding by Riviere. “The English Spy," by C. M.
by Robert Louis Stevenson, Saranac Lake, Adiron Westmacott, first edition, original boards, went
dacks, October, 1887, to his cousin Robert A. M. to Gabriel Weis for $425. The same amount was
Stevenson describing his voyage to America and paid by H. S. Collins for an extra-illustrated edi-
his quarters at Saranac Lake. Two interesting tion de luxe of “The Writings of Charles
letters by William M. Thackeray, in one of which Dickens," London 1881. Mr. Weis obtained for
he compares himself with Charles Dickens, went $1550 the original signed drawings by F. W. Pail-
to Mr. Smith for $382.50. A war letter by George thorpe for the “Pickwick Club” and for “Great
Washington, Aug. 28, 1779, to Major Benjamin Expectations."
Tallmadge was bought for $222.50 by Mr. Weis. Miniature Paintings British and Foreign," by
Mr. Smith paid $355 for a letter by Martha Wash J. J. Foster, edition de luxe, was knocked down to
ington, March 9, 1794, to Mrs. Fanny Washington, Mr. Harkness for $630. “The Complete Works of
in which she speaks of the adjournment of Con 0. Henry," manuscript edition, printed for Charles
gress and of the President being too busy to return F. Ettla, went to A. Swann, agent, for $215. Mr.
to Mount Vernon.
Harkness paid $500 for Baron J. J. von Gerning's
The original autograph manuscript of the poem "Picturesque Tour Along the Rhine," in binding
“Yu-y-tot," consisting of thirty stanzas of four | by Riviere. Twenty-four original drawings by
lines each, signed in full by Eugene Field, was Thomas Rowlandson, bound in one volume, were
knocked down to Mr. Weis for $410. It belonged bought by Rosenbach & Co. of Philadelphia for
to a sister of Field. Mr. Smith paid $60 for a $900, who also gave $230 for "A Compendious
letter signed but not written by William Hooper, Treatise on Modern Education," illustrated by
signer of the Declaration of Independence, dated Rowlandson. Mr. Weis paid $465 for a complete
Nov. 7, 1786, and addressed to John Witherspoon, set of Scott's “Waverly Novels," all first editions.
another of the Signers. Mr. Smith also gave the “Sporting Novels," by Robert S. Surtees, all first
high price of $305 for a letter by Zachary Taylor, editions, went to A. Swann, agent, for $660.
Feb. 16, 1848, addressed to his son-in-law, Jeffer- Ackermann's “Picturesque Tour of the River
son Davis. It refers to the Presidential election Thames," was bought by Mr. Weis for $460.
and to the war with Mexico. Mr. Weis obtained
Rare books, broadsides, pamphlets, etc., relating
for $120, documents signed by Ferdinand and
to the American Revolution and other Americana
Isabella. Mr. Hill paid $100 for a Robert Fulton
fetched $3178.30 at Charles F. Heartman's, 36
letter, dated Nov. 6, 1813, and Mr. Weis gave $145 Lexington Avenue, on March 28. "An Elogy on
for a document signed by William Hogarth.
Francis Barber, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second
The total of the sale was $9910.20.
New Jersey Regiment by Ebenezer Elmer, surgeon
Library sets from notable presses, rare first
editions, colored plate books and autographs from
of the Regiment," Chatham 1783, went to F.
the collections of Charles F. Ettla of Swarthmore, Koppel for $137.50. “Petition to the Senate and
Pa., and other consignors, brought a total of
House of Representatives of the United States with
$39,647.50 at the American Art Galleries in a sale regard to the Connecticut Land Claims" signed by
of three sessions on March 26 and 27. Charles Whipple, Arnold and others, eight pages, 1799, was
Scribner's Sons paid $1350 for an unusually fine knocked down to Lathrop C. Harper for $122.
copy of the first issue of the first edition of Robert Dodd paid $107 for the rare New York edi-
William M. Thackeray's “Vanity Fair," complete tion of the spurious “Letters of General Washing-
in the original parts as issued with all the original ton to several of his friends, 1776.” F. Koppel
wrappers.
gave $225.50 for the “Proceedings of the Grand
Rudolph Ackermann's “Repository of Arts," Committee of Vermont" from Oct. 16 to 19, 1781.
etc., forty volumes went to C. E. Ronne for $380. Curtis Walters obtained for $351 J. G. Simcoe's
Charles Scribner's Sons paid $320 for “The Annals “Journal of the Operations of the Queen's Rangers
of Sporting and Fancy Gazette,” illustrated by from the End of 1777 to the conclusion of the late
Henry Alken. H. F. Harkness gave $360 for å American War," Exeter 1787, the original edition
complete set of Edward Bulwer's “Novels and in the original binding. F. Koppel paid $280 for
Romances,” Boston 1896-98.
the original manuscript orderly book kept by John
George D. Smith obtained for $575 an original Whiting during the American Revolution.
Washington Irving manuscript, containing addi Part I of Napoleonic autographs, formed by the
tional notes of conversations with William P. late Frederick S. Parker of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Duval, Governor of Florida, relative to his expe- brought $3880.25 at the Anderson Galleries on
riences in Kentucky and Florida, including notes March 27 and 28. Gabriel Weis paid $910 for the
of “the origin of the white, the red and the black autograph manuscript of five folio pages, written
man” from “Wolfert's Roost.” It came from the by Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Helena. The sub-
library of Pierre M. Irving, nephew and biog- ject of the manuscript is the concordat and affairs
rapher of Washington Irving. Mr. Harkness paid of worship. James F. Drake paid $235 for the
$470 for the Illustrated Catalogue by J. L. Propert printed proclamation by Napoleon, issued by him
of the Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, printed on his landing at Juan Gulf, near Cannes, on
for the Burlington Fine Arts Club and in binding March 1, 1815, after his escape from Elba. Mr.
by Riviere. He also gave $430 for Coasting and Drake also gave $205 for the original printed


1917]
321
THE DIAL
An Opportunity for Booklovers
In Commemoration of the One Hundred and
Fiftieth Anniversary of the original production
of the first play by an American produced in
America by professional players, we offer a
limited edition of
THE PRINCE OF
PARTHIA
proclamations issued by Napoleon to the army in
1815, bound in one volume.
Manuscripts of Lord Byron's works are exces-
sively rare, the latest to come into the market being
that of “The Siege of Corinth,” in 1910. That
manuscript was incomplete, wanting forty-five
lines. Gabriel Weis of New York City has just
purchased from Walter M. Hill of Chicago the
complete autograph manuscript of Byron's “Sar-
danapalus." It consists of twelve quarto pages
and 144 half folio pages. The first page is dated
Ravenna, January 13, 1821, and on the last page,
which bears his initial signature three times, and
is dated Ravenna, May 27, 1821, is the following
note:
Mem.-I began this drama on the 13th January,
1821, and continued the first two acts very slowly
and at long intervals — the three last acts were
written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present
month) that is to say in a fortnight.
“Sardanapalus” is the second of the tragedies
written by Byron in 1820-21, the first “Marino
Faliero” to his great annoyance having been pro-
duced at Drury Lane in the Spring of 1821. This
production was the cause of the opening words of
the Preface, namely: “that they were not composed
with the most remote view of the stage. The
first twelve pages are the manuscript of the Preface
and the second Appendix to “The Two Foscari” in
which Byron defends himself against the charges
of plagiarism and of revolutionism. A paragraph
in the Appendix to “The Two Foscari” was sup-
pressed in the printed edition of 1821. The last.
page and a half are notes to “Sardanapalus” taken
from Mitford's “History of Greece.”
By THOMAS GODFREY
With an extended introduction, historical,
biographical and critical
By ARCHIBALD HENDERSON, M.A., Ph.D.
of the University of North Carolina
Author of “European Dramatists,” “The
Changing Drama,” 'George Bernard Shaw:
His Life and Work,” “Interpreters of Life,
and the Modern Spirit,” etc., etc.
The edition to be printed from type and
limited to advance subscriptions.
Crown
octavo, with numerous illustrations. Half
boards.
Gilt top.
Price, $2.50 net. To be published in April
LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY
Publishers 34 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
GYMNASTIC
PROBLEMS
By JAKOB BOLIN
With an Introduction by EARL BARNES
A practical book for teachers and students of
physical training, containing a complete and lucid
description of Prof. Bolin's methods of teaching,
with the various steps amply illustrated. The
text is built on the author's belief that healthful
efficiency is based on carefully selected exercises,
variety of exercises and sequence of exercises.
36 illustrations. Cloth, 8vo, net $1.50
FIRST EDITIONS.
A Subscriber,I am a book lover, but not an
accomplished collector. Will you please enlighten
me as to the delight that some people experience
in obtaining first editions, 1st: What is a "first
edition ?" 2nd: Why is it any more to be desired
than any other edition?
Is the delight in a first edition purely sentimen-
tal, or is there likely to be some change in text so
that it is different from subsequent editions?
I suspect that such an inquiry will shock some
of your readers, but further understand that knowl-
edge is the beginning of progress.
A first edition is the first publication of a book.
It is more desirable than other editions because it is
printed under the author's supervision. The de-
light in its possession is not purely sentimental.
Often it is different from subsequent editions.
Some first editions have been suppressed, for one
or another, by the author. Hawthorne,
Byron, and Shelley are among those who did not
like certain things in some of their first editions.
The highest price ever paid for a book was $50,000,
which Henry E. Huntington gave for his copy of
the first edition of the Bible, which he obtained
at the Robert Hoe sale. Typographically and
otherwise it is a beautiful work.
In Preparation
THE ADVANCED MONTESSORI METHOD
By MARIA MONTESSORI
Two Volumes
Vol. 1, Spontaneous Activity in Education.
Vol. 2, The Montessori Elementary Material.
Illustrated. Cloth, 8vo, net $8.80
Separately, net $2.00 per volume
OUR HIDDEN FORCES (La Psychologie
Inconnue)
By EMIL BOIRAC
Translated with a Preface by Dr. W. de Kerlor
The mysteries of hypnotism, animo-magnetism
and spiritism explained and described by the lead-
ing psychologist of France.
Cloth, 8vo, net $2.00
reason
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY


322
[April 5
THE DIAL
NOTES AND NEWS.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
The Rhythm of Prose
An experimental investigation of individual dif-
ference in the sense of rhythm. By William
Morrison Patterson, Ph.D. 12mo, cloth, pp.
xvii+193.
Illustrated, $1.50 net
What is prose and what is verse What is vers
libre? This book offers a new theory based on
experimental data.
The Gloria d’Amor of Fra Rocabertí
A Catalan Vision-poem of the 15th century.
Edited by H. C. Heaton, Ph.D. 12mo, cloth, pp.
ix+167.
$1.50 net
The first critical edition of this interesting Cat-
alan poem.
The book contains, in addition to the
text, a detailed analysis of the poem, an intro-
duction, notes and glossary.
Prolegomena to an Edition of the Works
of Decimus Magnus Ausonius
By Sister Marie Jose Byrne, Ph.D.
8vo, cloth, pp. viii+101.
$1.25 net
Although Ausonius was strikingly typical
figure in the literary activity of the fourth cen-
tury A. D., no complete edition of his works has
yet been published. The present volume gives
the introductory matter requisite for such an
edition.
Our Analytical Cbemistry and Its Future
By William Francis Hillebrand, Ph.D. Chief of
the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.
8vo, paper, pp. 36.
$0.25 net
An interesting review of the present condition of
this increasingly important branch of chemistry
and its outlook for the future. The Chandler
Lecture, 1916.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
LEMCKE & BUECHNER, AGENTS
30-32 Wost 27th Stroot
New York City
a
“The Divine Art of Living," a series of success-
ful talks to young people by Kathleen M. H. Besly,
is a recent publication of Messrs. Rand McNally
& Co.
Messrs. Robert M. McBride & Co. announce the
reduction in price of C. R. W. Nevinson's volume
of paintings entitled “Modern War," from $3.50
to $3.
"Progress and History," arranged and edited
by F. S. Marvin, is to be published as a sequel to
“The Unity of Western Civilization,” by the
Oxford University Press.
Harriet Martineau's little book for children,
“The Peasant and the Prince," edited by Miss Sara
Cone Bryant, is the latest addition to Messrs. Ginn
& Co.'s “Classics for Children" series.
Small, Maynard & Co. announce that they have
just sold Australian editions of “The House of
Luck," by Harris Dickson and "The Stranger at
the Hearth," by Katharine Metcalf Roof.
Through an error on the part of the publishers
the price of “Mary-Gusta," by Joseph C. Lincoln
(Appleton), was given as $1.35 in the Spring An-
nouncement Number. · It should have been $1.40.
The New York University Press has just pre-
pared a catalogue of select business books intended
to be of service to the business man or woman as
well as to students. It will be sent free on request.
Among the spring publications of the American
Book Co. are #Essentials in American History,"
by Albert Bushnell Hart; “Ancient Peoples," by
William C. Morey; “Plant Life and Plant Uses,
by John G. Coulter.
One of the latest important publications of
Messrs. P. Blackiston's Son Co. is “The Amer-
ican Red Cross Text-Book on Home Dietetics.
Miss Ada Z. Fish prepared the volume for the
American Red Cross.
“Unfair Competition,” by an unnamed author
who is said to have been professor of business ad-
ministration at Tulane University and later at
Columbia University, has just been published by
the University of Chicago Press.
Messrs. Frederick A. Stokes Co. announce for
April publication : "Our Hidden Forces," by Emil
Boirac, translated by W. de Kerlor;"I, Mary
MacLane," by Mary MacLane; “The Russians:
an Interpretation," by Richardson Wright.
The William Harvey Miner Co. of St. Louis is
preparing for publication a new and revised edi-
tion of the Prideaux "Bibliography of R. L.
Stevenson," originally published in 1903. Mrs.
Luther S. Livingston is the editor of the new
edition.
“Flame and the Shadow Eater," by Henrietta
Weaver; “Poems of Earth's Meaning,” by Richard
Burton, and the eighth printing of Romain Rol-
land's “Jean-Christophe: Journey's End," are an-
nounced for early publication by Messrs. Henry
Holt & Co.
“An Uncensored Diary," by Ernesta Drinker
Bullitt, and “War Poems by 'X,'” are among the
latest publications of Messrs. Doubleday, Page &
Co. Mr. Walter A. Dyer's "Pierrot, Dog of
"A BOOK THAT COUNTS”
Learn to Figure Faster
The demands of the day require it
This book presents a new time-saving system
which eliminates the drudgery of cumbersome cal.
culations. The methods comprising the Prewett
System, which is fully explained and illustrated in
“Learn to Figure Fast" are not experimental but
the result of many years of practical work along
mathematical lines.
“Learn to Figure Fast” will be invaluable to
everyone who uses figures in business or private
life.
“The author is to be complimented on the clear.
ness of his short cut methods. The book will be
very valuable to accountants, teachers, and business
men, enabling them to reach conclusions by the
shortest methods."-The Educational Monthly.
"I find that it contains many new and valuable
short methods for handling numbers. I can cheer.
fully recommend the book to anyone whose business
calls upon him to use figures in any way that calls
for decided rapidity of operation.”—P. W. Horn,
Sup't, Houston Public Schools.
Sent post free on receipt of $1.00 or C. 0. D. for
$1.10. Circular free.
Address:
E. C. ROBERTSON
General Salesman
1408 Prairie Avenue, Houston, Texas


1917]
323
THE DIAL
"Mademoiselle Miss'
Letters from an American girl serving with
the rank of Lieutenant in a French Army
Hospital at the front.
Dr. Richard C. Cabot says in his preface
to this little book:
“The record is one of the most intimate
and holy things which have been saved for
our comfort out of the whirlpool of embattled
Europe. I find in these letters some frag-
ment of true atonement for the huge sin
and blunder of the war.
“This brief record of some of those lights and darks
shows not only what she does for her wounded and
what her loving care of the wounded has done for
her; it shows, too, the operation in a crisis of typical
American resourcefulness and enthusiasm."-BOSTON
TRANSCRIPT.
“These letters are not conscious literature but quiv-
ering life, They are flung from the ends of her
tingling nerves on to bits of paper, in the burning
bloody midst of most tragic and heroic scenes. Noth-
ing equal to them in brilliancy, poignancy and power
has come from the European War region to any
periodicals."-METHODIST REVIEW.
Published for the benefit of the
American Fund for French Wounded
PRICE 50 CENTS
On sale at leading booksellers or at the publishers.
W. A. BUTTERFIELD
59 BROMFIELD STREET
BOSTON
67
Belgium,” is to be translated into the Dutch lan-
guage by Miss Margaret von Riemsdjik, of The
Hague.
Recent publications of the Lippincott Co. include
Theodore Duret's “Whistler,” translated by Frank
Rutter; Joseph Pennell's “Pictures of War Work
in England"; Sonia E. Howe's “Some Russian
Heroes, Saints and Sinners”; and Rhea C. Scott's
“Home Labor Saving Devices and How to Make
Them.'
An important spring publication of Messrs.
Little, Brown & Co. is “The Menace of Japan,'
by Frederick McCormick. The author has been a
journalist and war correspondent in the far East
since the Boxer Revolution in China, and is thor-
oughly familiar with the situation across the
Pacific.
Recent fiction publications of Messrs. Charles
Scribner's Sons include “Jan and Her Job,” a
romance of India and England, by Mrs. L. Allen
Harker; “Bringing Out Barbara," by Ethel Train,
a satire of the Newport-and-New York combina-
tion; and “The Hiding-Places,” a novel of mystery
by Allen French.
Early spring publications of Mr. B. W. Huebsch
include Second Wind," by Freeman Tilden;
“Howells," by Alexander Harvey; “A German
Deserter's War Experience"; "Municipal Owner-
ship," by Carl D. Thompson; “Misinforming a
Nation," by Willard Huntington Wright, and
“Jean Jaurès," by Margaret Pease.
Last-of-March publications of Messrs. Dodd,
Mead & Co. are: “The Girls at His Billet," by
Berta Ruck; "Shadows," by Grahame Richards;
“The Life of the Grasshopper," by J. Henri
Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos;
“Man's Unconscious Conflict," by Wilfrid Lay,
and “Across Asia Minor on Foot,” by W. J. Childs.
Mr. Alfred A. Knopf announces that he has in
press a translation of “The Shield," a volume
published originally by a Russian society for the
study of Jewish_life, and strongly pro-Semitic,
but to which no Jews were admitted. The volume
contains contributions by Gorky, Andreyev, Solo-
gub, Artzibashef, Korolenko, Tolstoy, and others.
Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons announce for imme-
diate publication the following books: “The Man
in Evening Clothes," by John Reed Scott; “Choc-
olate Cake and Black Sand and Other Plays," by
Samuel Milbank Cauldwell; “The Government of
England,-National, Local, and Imperial," by D.
D. Wallace; “The Man in Court," by F. D. Wells,
and “The Fragrant Note Book," by C. Arthur
Coan.
Messrs. Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. announce the
publication of their “Hispanic Series” of school
and college textbooks. The series is divided into
four general heads: Spanish — the Language;
Spanish--the Literature; Latin America; Portu-
guese-Grammar, Language, Literature. It in-
cludes works on the grammar, composition, and
methods of Spanish and Portuguese, readers,
elementary and advanced texts, and selections from
the literature of the several Latin American coun-
tries, as well as of Spain and Portugal. Dr. John
D. Fitz-Gerald, of the University of Illinois, is
the editor.
Of Importance to
Librarians
A work generally acknowledged to be of the
highest importance, written by the world's
greatest scholars, is now in course of publica-
tion under the title
Mythology of All Races
Under the General Editorship of Louis Herbert
Gray, Ph.D., late Associate Editor of Hast-
ings's Encyclopaedia, and Prof. George F.
Moore, LL.D., of Harvard University. Four of
the 13 volumes which this monumental work
comprises are now ready, each complete in it-
self, and the remaining volumes will be issued
at short intervals. It is a work which every
library needs on its shelves, and will have
eventually. It will be of the greatest help if
librarians will support the Publishers in this
important undertaking by placing their orders
immediately, and before an increase in the
subscription price of the set may be made
necessary by increasing costs of manufacture.
Prospectus on Request
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
212 Summer St., BOSTON


324
[April 5
THE DIAL
THE DIAL

TULIS RESS
BOUKSELLERS
MECLURG
BOOKSELLERS
UROLO
2 AVIONER
a Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism,
Discussion, and Information
GEORGE BERNARD DONLIN
TRAVIS HOKE
Editor
Associate
Contributing Editors
PERCY F. BICKNELL
HENRY B. FULLER
RANDOLPH BOURNE
H. M. KALLEN
WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY J. E. ROBINSON
PADRAIC COLUM
J. C. SQUIRE
THEODORE STANTON
Published by
THE DIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
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See the chapter on Chicago, page 43, “Your
United States," by Arnold Bennett
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have on hand at all times a more complete
assortment of the books of all publishers than
can be found on the shelves of any other book-
dealer in the entire United States. It is of
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in this magazine can be procured from us with
the least possible delay. We invite you to
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self of the opportunity of looking over the
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sonal check, 10 cents should be added for cost of
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Entered as Second-class matter Oct. 8, 1892, at the
Post Office at Chicago, under Act of March 3, 1879.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
[The following list, containing 108 titles, includes
books received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
Special Library Service
We conduct a department devoted entirely
to the interests of Public Libraries, Schools,
Colleges and Universities. Our Library De-
partment has made a careful study of library
requirements, and is equipped to handle all
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in this special branch of the book business,
combined with our unsurpassed book stock,
enable us to offer a library service not excelled
elsewhere. We solicit correspondence from
Librarians unacquainted with our facilities.
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. By William
H. Davies. 8vo, 345 pages.
Alfred A. Knopf.
$2.50.
Frederick the Great. The Memoirs of his reader
Henri de Catt. (1758-1760). Translated by F. S.
Flint. With portrait, 2 vols., 8vo, 312-334 pages.
Houghton Mifflin Co. $7.50.
A Soldier-Doctor of Our Army, James P. Kimball.
By Maria B. Kimball. Illustrated, 12mo, 192
pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50.
The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch.
By Leonora Cranch Scott. Illustrated, 8vo, 395
pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $3.50.
The Hanmers of Marton and Montford Salop. Com-
piled by Calvert Hanmer. Illustrated, 4to, 67
pages. John Lane Co.
The Mexican War Diary of George B. McClellan.
Edited by William Starr Myers. With frontis-
piece, 12mo, 94
pages. Princeton University
Press. $1.
Leonard Wood. Prophet of Preparedness. By
Isaac F. Marcosson. With frontispiece, 12mo,
92 pages.
John Lane Co. 75 cts.
ESSAYS AND GENERAL LITERATURE.
The Life of the Grasshopper. By J. Henri Fabre.
Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
12mo, 453 pages. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50.
Dunsany The Dramatist. By Edward Hale Bier-
stadt. Illustrated, 12mo, 184 pages. Little,
Brown & Co. $1.50.
A. C. McCLURG & CO. Leonard Wood
Retail Store, 218 to 224 South Wabash Avenue
Library Department and Wholesale Offices:
330 to 352 East Ohio Street
Chicago


1917]
325
THE DIAL
R.
Speaking about Russia
TU
Here are two Borzoi Books necessary for the
intelligent understanding of what is now hap.
pening in Russia. One is RUSSIA'S MESSAGE:
The People Against the Czar ($1.50), by
William English Walling, which is the true
story of the struggle which brought on the
recent revolution. The other book is MODERN
RUSSIAN HISTORY (2 vols. $5.00 net), by
Kornilov, which contains a remarkable proph-
esy of the revolution and is a complete history
of Russia from about 1800 to the end of 1916.
It is the only work of the sort in English.
These are for sale at all bookstores where you
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[April 5, 1917
THE DIAL

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THE DIAL
A Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information.
Vol. LXII.
APRIL 19, 1917
No. 740.
THE WAR FOR DEMOCRACY.
CONTENTS.
THE WAR FOR DEMOCRACY
. 335
ROMANTICISM AND THE LITTLE THE-
ATRES. Williams Haynes
337
LITERARY AFFAIRS IN LONDON (Special
Correspondence.) J. C. Squire
339
CASUAL COMMENT
341
.
The William Vaughn Moody lectures.-An
English tribute to an American author.-
Bancroft the poet.—Two uses of book-re-
views.—The spread of culture.
343
.
COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Dreiser. M. H. Hedges
ANOTHER GERMAN APOLOGIST. Thorstein
Veblen
344
.
Liberty has her compensations, even if, at
times, she suffers a temporary eclipse. Cer-
tainly not since the days of 1848 have her
prospects seemed so bright or so assured as
in the present hour. The Russian Revolution,
even if its full splendor take a half-century
for its complete revelation, is
yet des-
tined to mark a great epoch in the history
of government. For whatever its dangers
and its defects, it is still a challenge to the
forces of compulsion; it is still evidence that
the mind of man retains, even amid the ero-
sion of despotism, the great impulse to be
free. The entrance of America into the war
is not otherwise to be interpreted. The in-
terruption of her commercial intercourse with
Europe is less the cause than the occasion of
her challenge. That which she demands is
essentially that no bounds be set to the prog-
ress of democratic government save the in-
evitable limitation of human organization.
She has refused to accept as final that yearn-
ing after domination which was the char-
acteristic of a meaner age.
She stands
four-square against the power which, mistak-
ing comfort for happiness, has proclaimed its
right to turn its back upon the guarantees
that three centuries of political advance have
painfully evolved. Slowly and not exult-
ingly, almost obstinately but yet with deci.
sion, America has taken this path. It is one
from which inevitably there can be no return-
ing.
History, it is very clear, will justify this
determination. The motives which have un-
derlain this policy are in full accord with the
ethos of American institutions. The world
cannot fight for its enfranchisement unless
America bears her due share of the conflict;
for that is the condition of her political exis-
tence. She came into being as a challenge to a
country which had forgotten, or did not
choose to remember, the watchwords of lib-
erty, and posterity has justified her splendid
defiance. She did not shrink from the horrors
of civil war, that she might register her con-
tinued faith in freedom. Once more a call
THE AMERICAN SHORT-STORY. Mary M.
Colum
345
.
PRAGMATISM. M. C. Otto
348
SOME MODERN SINGERS. William Aspenwall
Bradley
352
IRISH POLITICS. Laurence M. Larson
354
REAL JEWS AND UNREAL GENTILES. John
Macy
356
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS
358
Sea Warfare.—Lyrics from the Chinese.-
Our First War in Mexico.-Bernard Shaw:
The Man and the Mask.
NOTES AND NEWS
360
LIST OF NEW BOOKS
• 362


336
[April 19
THE DIAL
has been sounded. She could not do other-
wise than make answer to that call.
But there is laid upon her, as there is laid
upon every nation arrayed in the conflict
against German ambition, a duty from which
no more justified to-day because it produced
Lincoln and Mr. Roosevelt than the Demo-
cratic party because General Jackson and Mr.
Wilson have given effective expression to its
ultimate ideals.
there can be no shrinking? That the war will The supreme need of the nation is thought,
as
eventually be won, no one can now doubt. and thought does not mean tabulation. We
What essentially we need is a vigorous self may multiply to infinity our committees; we
criticism the basis of reconstruction. may make new ministries; we may draft new
Politically, industrially, socially, intellect constitutions. But none of these things will
ually, we must set our house in order. We live answer the one question which is behind our
in an age of readjustment. We have to secure hopes and our fears. What do we mean to
the translation of the old watchwords into make of America ? Can we be content with
the language of a new time. Liberty, equality, her until she means in form and in substance
fraternity—these are barren things unless to the humblest of her citizens what she meant
they are given the richness of a content in to those who brought her into being! We
economic life. They can mean nothing save realize America the more, the more we love
a vague aspiration unless we secure beyond her; but the basis of patriotism is economic
peradventure for each American citizen a
justice.
minimum condition of civilized existence. Nor is this less true of our intellectual life.
This, after all, is the greatest gift America can Turn where we will, there is in no profession
bring to the world, for history is the record
in America to-day, with the single exception
of the influence of compelling analogies. We of the law, a man whose work is destined to
have in theory a political democracy. But it permanent importance. We have authorities
is an academic commonplace that political on the innumerable minutiæ of tariffs, taxa-
power is the handmaid of economic power, tion, municipal trading, labor unions, and
and an industrial democracy of a certainty upon them all we can write our well-equipped
we do not possess.
monographs. That however does not conceal
America, in truth, has been too often a con the fact that economics has lost its hold on
tradiction in terms. If she has remained true the life we live. It is the same with history;
in spirit to her origins, she has often failed it is the same with sociology, with fiction, and
to give them an adequate physical expression with criticism. Our scholars and our men
We cannot be contented so long as the greater of letters have failed to realize that there is a
part of our citizens are engaged, day by day new spirit abroad, and that the worth of our
and year by year, in fighting, not the problems efforts depends upon their appreciation of it.
of the mind, but the problems of the body. What answer have they to the challenge of
The only guarantee of democracy is educa- the new time?
tion, and the penumbra of education is In the grim perspective of life this issue has
thought. It is a hard and terrible fact that
now been set. We are still searching, as the
the economic conditions of American civiliza-
men of Athens searched in the time of
tion give to only few of us the leisure which Pericles, the secret of happiness. We know
alone makes thought possible. It is even more now, as it was then so keenly grasped, that
pitiable that those to whom, for the most part, the secret of happiness is freedom. But free-
we turn for leadership have devoted them- dom means a fearless confidence in inquiry,
selves less to this fundamental problem than an estimate of fundamental right and fun-
to the innumerable and detailed episodes of
damental wrong.
It is to this choice that
those more dramatic events which are rarely America has been called. Two thousand five
of permanent consequence to the body politic. hundred years ago the greatest of all histor-
Our political life has become divorced from
ians wrote down in imperishable words the
our national life simply because its content
secret of national strength. “The bravest,"
has failed to strike home to the root of na-
he said, “are surely those who have the clear-
tional discontent. We cannot live on est vision of what is before them, glory and
traditions. The centre of political impor- danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go
tance is neither in the past nor in the present, forth to meet it.” That, in truth, can alone
but in the future. The Republican party is be the watchword of our effort.
our


1917]
337
THE DIAL
ROMANTICISM AND THE LITTLE
ferences are matters more of form than of
THEATRES.
spirit.
Among modern dramatists there is no
Edwin Björkman has expressed most con-
greater romanticist than Lord Dunsany, and
veniently the essential difference between real during the past season the Little Theatres
ism and romanticism. “Observation and have produced more plays by him than by
imagination,” he says in his introduction to any other single author. Seven of his highly
Lord Dunsany's Plays, "are the basic prin- imaginative dramas have been produced-
ciples of all poetry. It is impossible to con-
three by the Neighborhood Players in New
ceive a poetical work from which one of them
York, three by the travelling Portmanteau
is wholly absent. But as a rule we find Theatre, and one by the Arts and Crafters
one of them predominating, and from this of Detroit; while the American rights to an
one-sided emphasis the poetry of a period
eighth Dunsany play are joyfully announced
derives its character as realistic or idealistic." by the Vagabond Players of Baltimore. Not
This furnishes a handy test which may be only is this great romanticist the Little The-
applied to all creative arts.
atres' most popular playwright, but Oliphant
If we take it with us into the theatre, we
Down's pure fantasy,“The Maker of Dreams,"
find realism rampant. Not only are a vast
has been their most popular play. To my
majority of the best modern plays highly knowledge it has been produced by five dif-
realistic in theme and treatment, but most of ferent companies, and I am certain my rec-
the stage settings and all of the acting also
ord is not complete.
are inspired more by observation than by The most popular dramatist and the most
imagination. This is no new condition. It popular play might, of course, be the excep-
has obtained in the drama since Ibsen's in tions proving a very different rule, but they
fluence was first felt; in stagecraft, since are not. Just as nearly as possible half of
Antoine opened his Théâtre Libre in 1887; in the offerings of the Little Theatres have been
acting, since the passing away of the genera-
romantic plays and half, realistic. Directors
tion of the elder Booth. The causes of this of the intimate playhouses think a great deal
age of realism have often been analyzed, and about a “well-balanced programme” (one
forward-looking critics have long foretold its hopes that it will not become their fetish),
obvious result—a strong romantic revival. for a balanced programme is their one great
And yet, that romantic revival merely re-
concession to the box-office. But—and this
mains "overdue.”
is significant—they make this concession by
Such a revival, at a time when the most
means of the slice-of-life playlets. They are
vigorous literary artists are expressing them as romantic as they dare to be, and then,
selves in the drama, would have far-reaching for the sake of their patrons, they become
effects. It would reach not only all litera- super-realistic for a little while.
ture, but also all art and all philosophy. Any
From the first those successful pioneers, the
important influence for romanticism in the Washington Square Players, adopted this pol-
drama must therefore be significant.
icy of sandwiching romantic and realistic
If, however, we take Mr. Björkman's con plays. They have produced such splendid
venient test with us into any of the Little realistic pieces as “The Sugar House,”
Theatres that are springing up in most un “Trifles,” and “The Clod," and also such
expected places all over the country, there purely romantic plays as “The Magical City,”
we find romanticism in the ascendancy. “The Death of Tintagiles,” and “Bushido.”
Granting at the very outset that the imag Their best and most successful bill consisted
ination that inspires them is sometimes very of Susan Glaspell's “Trifles"; Lawrence
childish, still there is no doubt that it pre Langner's pseudo-realistic skit, “Another
dominates over their observation. Romanti-
Romanti- Way
Way Out”; the Japanese masterpiece,
cism is a salient characteristic of the Little “Bushido," and the whimsical satire “Altru-
Theatres. It is, in fact, the one vital, fun- ism," from the German of Karl Ettlinger.
damental distinction between them and the No bill could be a better example of a thor-
commercial playhouses, for, from an artistic oughly well-balanced programme. The dedi-
point of view, the other, more obvious dif catory bill at the new Arts and Crafts Theatre


338
[April 19
THE DIAL
in Detroit consisted of Lord Dunsany's “The drama in America ; but, in the fine first mean-
Tents of the Arabs," and "The Wonder Hat” | ing of the word, the more popular they be-
by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman and Ben Hecht, come, the more potent their influence will be.
while “two re istic plays gave variety and It is just because they are beginning to com-
balance to the bill." So confessed their own pete successfully with the commercial the-
historian in "The Theatre Arts Magazine.” atres that we may be hopeful of their ability
The opening bill given in Mr. George B. to make their influence felt.
McCallum's Little Theatre, Northampton, What that influence will be seems fairly
Mass., by the amateur division of the famous obvious. Their daring experiments with new
municipal players, was Rupert Brooke's grim dramatic forms, new effects of stagecraft,
tragedy “Lithuania," followed by “The new conceptions of acting would never be at-
Maker of Dreams." Because it travels, Stuart tempted upon a commercial stage. The very
Walker's Portmanteau Theatre has a wider production of such a play as Cloyd Head's
influence than any local organization, and, "Grotesques,” given as it was given in the
as one might expect from a director who is Chicago Little Theatre last season, is a rev-
also the author of “Six Who Pass while the olutionary event. No practical stage man-
Lentils Boil” and “The Lady of the Weep- ager would have dreamed of such a produc-
ing Willow Tree,” Mr. Walker's offerings are tion, but managers of the commercial theatre
mainly of romantic plays. On the first page are watching these brave experiments. Al-
of his programme he says frankly that “the ready half convinced that there are after all
audience is not witnessing a spectacle which certain stage conventions that make their
matches pennies with nature”; nevertheless, boasted room with the fourth wall removed
even he, writing to Lord Dunsany about “The quite ridiculous beside the facile realism of
Tents of the Arabs," acknowledged, “I have the moving pictures, the more astute of the
several plays of the type in preparation and managers are rather inclined to be receptive
I have to be careful not to attempt too many." of the new ideas. Echoes of the popular suc-
The desire here is plainly to produce roman cess of productions by such directors as Rein-
tic plays, but the desire is tempered by a hardt, Bakst, William Poel, Granville Barker,
belief in the public's desire for realism. and Gordon Craig have reached them, and
Stuart Walker here speaks for the producers the box-office success of plays of the sugar-
of many Little Theatres. Those who know
coated romantic type of “Rebecca of Sunny-
them, know that they are almost without ex brook Farm” and “Daddy Long Legs" is a
ception strong romanticists.
humbler and more comprehensible sign of
If an increasing number of the Little The-
popular appreciation of romanticism. At
atres were not paying their own way out of first, they pooh-poohed at the Little Theatres ;
their box-office receipts, we should be very then, they tried to damn them as "highbrow";
skeptical of their ability to influence the recently, their dean, David Belasco, has writ-
drama in any way.
Much as the dramatic ten scathingly "to defend the stage and to
artist may deplore a box-office standard, suc protest against those desecrators of its best
cess on the stage, before an audience gathered traditions.” He says that "the toy play-
up from out of the general public, is the houses have multiplied alarmingly”—a tacit
final, inevitable test of any dramatic work. admission that they are charming audiences
However glorious the conception, however away from Mr. Belasco's own theatres.
fine the execution, the “play-that-does-not Upon these audiences the influence of the
act” is a literary mongrel. Sheer beauty or Little Theatres is exerted in creating that
startling novelty cannot justify any stage ef- plasticity of mind necessary for the reception
fect of scenery or lighting. No charm of of new artistic forms. The public is a splen-
body or of voice, no imagination, no sympathy did conservative in art and a creature of
can make great that acting which does not habit in its amusements. Accordingly, the
convince the groundlings. If, forsaking their only stage uplift work that counts is to give
ideals, the Little Theatres become commer the greatest possible number of people a
cial ventures, they will throw away the bet- kindly acquaintance with the new plays and
ter part of their possible influence upon the the new stagecraft. In doing this very work,


1917]
339
THE DIAL
and doing it well, the Little Theatres are pre LITERARY AFFAIRS IN LONDON.
paring the way for a revival of romanticism.
Already a score of new playwrights have (Special Correspondence of THE DIAL.)
made their bow before the curtains of the The event of the last few weeks has been the
intimate playhouses. Few of them are to be appearance of the two final volumes (XII,
found in "Who's Who”; but most of them XIII) of the “Cambridge History of English
are young, and several of them hold forth Literature.” They cover the Victorian Age.
real promise for the future. The best of Living writers are excluded from considera-
them are boldly romantic; some of them may
tion, but all but the most recent of the dead
become leaders in the revolt against the sa-
come in. There is even a page (not sym-
tiety of realism in modern drama. Signs that pathetic, it is true) about Richard Middleton,
a minor poet of whom, I suppose, America has
foretell this revolt are not lacking. Having not heard much. He had a disappointing life
sliced all life with a microtome the older and killed himself; but the pathos of his
dramatists tire of such dissection. The career does not make his poems worth much
younger men, since good realistic themes are attention. They are fluent, pretty jingles
not so numerous as one might think, have about stars, roses, and dreams. All the same
difficulty in discovering new specimens, and
the chapter on "Lesser Poets,” in which he
the more robust of them refuse to hack over
is mentioned, is one of the best in the volumes.
old material. Following Rostand and Mae-
It is by Mr. Saintsbury. That vivacious and
indefatigable old man has read everything,
terlinck, continental dramatists, especially in
remembers everything, doesn't care a snap for
Germany, have been displaying strong roman-
anyone's opinion but his own, and writes an
tic tendencies. So vigorous a realist as
English which, if often slipshod, is at least
Hauptmann has returned in his two latest amusing and personal. Most of the other
plays to his earlier romantic vein, and many professors do not write at all. They have a
young poets are avowed disciples of Hugo common style: a soporific flow of dull, abstract
von Hofmannsthal. When the Irish dramatic words, journalistic clichés, and dead met-
movement burst upon us in all the glory of aphors, the deadness of which is not disguised
Yeats and Synge, it seemed that the long-
by "literary” attempts to elaborate them.
expected romantic revival had come; but the
These men nearly all talk sense. They do not
make wild, irresponsible judgments (though
Irish dramatists, save only Lord Dunsany,
they are mostly unsafe and hesitating about
have become Irish melodramatists. There
very modern authors), and occasionally-Pro-
have been, however, flashes of romanticism
fessor Grierson's excellent analysis of Tenny-
from other English-writing dramatists. Bar son's art is an example they are quite acute.
rie, a most practical playwright, is always But two chapters at a time are quite enough,
an out-and-out romanticist. Even Shaw, has unless one has just risen from a long and re-
written "Androcles and the Lion,” and Gals freshing sleep.
worthy, “The Little Man.” Such plays as The plan of allocating the various chapters
Knoblauch's "Kismet,” Laurence House.
to different scholars was perhaps the only
man's “Prunella,” Edward Sheldon's “The possible one for a work of this size. It leads,
however, to some deplorable unevenness of
Garden of Paradise," Charles Rann Ken-
quality, and occasionally to comic divergences
nedy's “The Servant in the House," and of opinion. Professor Saintsbury, for in-
Parker's “Pomander Walk” are decidedly ro stance, as good as calls two of his colleagues
mantic in subject and treatment.
fools-quite unconsciously. It leads also to
Modern dramatists are bold and expectant.
accidental omissions where authors fall be-
They do not know what the future holds for
tween two stools. The authority who deals
their art, but, confident in their strong posi- Wilde,--thinking that somebody else is doing
with Irish writers does not mention Oscar
tion, they are not afraid to experiment.
so. Nor does the expert on the drama. The
Judging from the past, the Great War will result is that, though a few lines are given to
stimulate their feeling for the romantic. In Wilde's essays, his comedies are never men-
Europe and America, the Little Theatres are
tioned. “Box and Cox,” “The Colleen
laboratories of dramatic experiment. There
Bawn," and a hundred less important produc-
we may look most confidently for further and
tions of our gruesome Victorian stage are dis-
cussed and labelled ; “The Importance of Be-
more virile expressions of romanticism.
ing Earnest," the best light comedy since
WILLIAMS HAYNES. Sheridan, escapes notice altogether.
Omis-


340
[April 19
THE DIAL
sions like these might have been rectified by become almost as popular as Jack London.
more vigilant editing,—but nothing could Fruit importers, motor-car merchants, and
have made all the contributors attach the same captains of tramp steamers are reading him.
importance to dates, and biographical and Now his "Life" has been published, and an
bibliographical details. In other words, the author of whom until recently half the lit-
“History” is only intermittently good as erary critics in London had never heard is a
“reading matter” and imperfect as a work of stock subject of dinner-table conversation.
reference. Still, it remains the best thing Mr. Edmund Gosse has finished his life of
of the kind that has been done; and however Swinburne, which will appear shortly. Opin-
one may grumble about its deficiencies, one ions have differed about Mr. Gosse's equip-
would see oneself hanged before giving away ment, but even a hostile critic would scarcely
one's copy as a wedding-present.
dare to deny his exceptional gift for describ-
Mr. Arnold Bennett is shortly to publish ing what he has seen. You have only to look
through Chatto and Windus a volume en at his collected essays and compare the papers
titled “Books and Persons—Being Comments on old authors with those on modern ones,
on a Past Epoch, 1908-11.” The books will to see where his greatest power lies. The
contain a selection from the causeries Mr. former are interesting, amusing, informative;
Bennett contributed in those years to the the latter are unique. He has a genius for
“New Age," a weekly Socialist journal which portraiture, and anyone who wants to know
had, and has, the merit of allowing its con what various nineteenth century writers-
tributors completely free speech.
The ar-
Christina Rossetti and Lord de Tabley, for
ticles appeared over the signature of Jacob instance—were like in the flesh, can get no-
Tonson—the name, I need scarcely say, was where so good an idea of them as from Mr.
that of the biggest seventeenth-eighteenth cen Gosse's books. His most elaborate portrait
tury publisher, Dryden's publisher and I do was that of his father in "Father and Son,"
not think that their authorship has ever been one of the best books of our generation; but
formally admitted until now. Until the secret there is the same subtlety of analysis, the same
leaked out all the publishers, journalists, and
refusal to shirk the truth, the same eye for
novelists were going about with mysterious facial and mental expression in them all. His
smirks, ostensibly disclaiming, but in fact sug previous short study of Swinburne's person-
gesting, that they knew the wanted man. He ality gave one a foretaste of the “life,” and
was obviously a professional author with con it could not have been bettered in its kind.
siderable sales; he obviously knew everybody The limits of Mr. Gosse's art are indicated
and overheard everything; and his chief when one says that he usually fails to con-
pleasures were to prick large bubbles and to vince when he feels called upon to be en-
belabor inviting backs. One never knew who thusiastic. It is impossible, if I may say so,
was going to get it next.
to imagine him in a state of intoxication. He
The candor with which Mr. Bennett dis-
knew Swinburne for over thirty years, con-
cussed the production of literature was the
sorted with him in the days before the poet
candor of the writer of “The Truth about an retreated into the suburban respectability of
Author.” But, addicted as he was to “frank
The Pines, Putney, and the protecting
exposures," he was equally preoccupied with
clutches of Watts-Dunton, and has collected
booming unrecognized authors. Not all his
from various octogenarians reminiscences of
Swinburne's childhood and school days at
campaigns succeeded. For instance his at-
Eton. The papers in his possession include a
tempts to induce England to read Ambrose
number of posthumous poems, on which he
Bierce had little observable effect. But he did
more for Joseph Conrad's reputation than
is to read a paper this month before the Bib-
any other English critic, though Conrad had
liographical Society.
his faithful few from the start. Jacob Tonson
In what state these unpublished MSS. are,
started by saying Conrad was a great novel-
I do not know. But the conception of Swin-
ist; went on saying it; and ended by hearing
burne as a person who poured poetry out
without revising it is unfounded. It is true
everyone else repeat it. He also, at a time
when the "American Maupassant” (q. v.
that he could write anywhere and that he was
known to scribble dithyrambics in a room
press) had never been heard of here, did his
best for 0. Henry. The boom did not come
full of voluble people; but, like every other
at once; but Mr. Bennett was right in think poet worth anything, he did systematically
ing it would come; and now, six years after-
tinker with his work. Shelley is another per-
ward, O. Henry is flooding the bookstalls. son about whom this delusion of absolute
What the sales of 0. Henry in the past six spontaneity is cherished-in spite of the gaps
months have been I do not know, but he has and asterisks in his unfinished works. But


1917]
341
THE DIAL
.
.
Shelley was one of the most painstaking ar that working on Thompson does lead one to
tists that ever lived and became more and beautiful discoveries, while the upshot of a
more laborious with time. Mr. Roger Ing. perusal of cuneiform is usually something like
pen's new volume, "Shelley in England,” this: "Hookinosor the Great King Set me Up
which contains many new Shelley letters and in the Year when he
commanded
some new biographical “facts” (for example, his Satraps
to
Tribute of
that Ariel once wore the buskin at the Wind Gold, Camels and
from all the In-
sor Theatre), contains also facsimile reproduc- habitants of the City of the Sun.”
tions of pages from the notebook which, with
J. C. SQUIRE.
a Sophocles, was in his pocket when he was
London, March 20, 1917.
drowned. The volume, water-stained and
sprinkled still with Mediterranean sand, is in
the possession of the poet's family; it contains
CASUAL COMMENT.
a draft of “Adonais" so complex with its dele-
tions and substitutions that it is in places THE WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY LECTURES at
impossible to make it out. Mr. Ingpen, by
Mr. Ingpen, by the University of Chicago began on April
the way, gives a summary of the life of Shel- 5th, when Alfred Noyes spoke on Shake-
ley's son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley, whom speare's fools and then, in the course of some
many people still living remember, since he supplementary proceedings, read a few of his
did not die until 1889. His was a blameless
own poems and commented on them. A large
career. He went to Harrow and Cambridge, audience listened with interest and docility
studied for the law, succeeded to the estates to a set essay on “The Spirit of Touchstone
and title, shone in private theatricals, and in Shakespeare," applauding well-known lines
was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, spoken by Touchstone himself, by Feste, by
showing his devotion to his father's memory the Fool in “Lear,” and by Hamlet in the
by christening his yacht “Queen Mab.” He matter of Yorick. It then listened with still
ended his days as a constant attendant at the
more interest and no less docility to Mr.
Bournemouth Baptist Chapel. This was the
This was the Noyes's own verses and to his extemporized
son of Shelley and the grandson of Godwin
comments both on these and on some later
and Mary Wollstonecraft; his step-nephew, poetical developments. He pointed out that
the grandson of Shelley and Harriet, became
his own product had rhyme, rhythm, “mys-
an Anglican clergyman. This is what Nemesis
tery,” and other qualities not always con-
does when she really gets going.
Other interesting relics which have recently Monroe, he thought, might range him among
spicuous in the newer poetry. Miss Harriet
been made public are a number of extracts the Victorians. Well, he was a Victorian.
from Francis Thompson's notebooks, which
And he appeared well enough satisfied to be
an anonymous but easily identifiable writer
so. His declaration, however, seemed super-
contributes to the “Dublin Review.” Thomp- fluous, for Miss Monroe has already classified
son's piles of penny exercise-books were al-
him in print; besides, there was his verse to
most his only personal property. He wrote
speak for itself. But a friendly audience ap-
all his poems in them, and if any more puz plauded his Victorian rhymes and measures
zling manuscripts exist I should like to see
and derided an extreme bit of free verse which
them. May I be preserved, however, from
he quoted to exhibit the more modern
having to edit them. Thompson would begin
manner. His successors in the course will
one poem at the end of a book and another
bring a different tone and manner: after an
at the beginning, and let them cross in the
middle; he would sprinkle twenty variants of University, will speak on “The Mutability of
interval, Mr. Stephen Leacock, of McGill
the same stanza, line, or word over several
the Forms of Literature," and Paul Elmer
pages; and he simply hated writing things in
More, of the “Nation," on “Standards of
their correct order. I spent a day over one
Taste."
of these books recently. In the end I dug
out a poem.
It had twenty stanzas or so, AN ENGLISH TRIBUTE TO AN AMERICAN
and only two, the first two, were in their AUTHOR (for we must still claim Henry James
right places. The others were not only hig as an American, since he remained such, in a
gledy-piggledy, but included several du- | legal sense at least, almost to the end of his
plicates and failed to include one or two pas- | life) has taken the form of a noble and life-
sages necessary to the sequence. One admires like bust from the hand of the gifted English
his editor more than ever. Disentangling his sculptor, Mr. Derwent Wood. Commissioned
script must have been like deciphering masses originally by the novelist's friend, compa-
of imperfect cuneiform inscriptions ; except | triot, and fellow-artist in another field, Mr.


342
[April 19
THE DIAL
John Sargent, the bust, in marble, was pur ing to a before-breakfast condition of mind
chased by the Chantry trustees for the Na and body as the reading of an ancient Greek
tional Gallery of British Art. In bronze it tragedy, a performance to which few classical
was presented to the author himself, and in scholars of our time are equal; but it was
bronze too it is in Mr. Sargent's possession. sufficiently formidable to elicit from Bancroft
And now, finally, through the liberality of one a request to be excused. This entire collec-
hundred and fifty English admirers of our tion of letters is good reading, with a wide
great stylist, a bronze replica has been placed range of literary and biographic interest.
in the Chelsea Public Library. Chelsea had
been Mr. James's home of late years, and
there he had died; there, accordingly, among
Two USES OF BOOK-REVIEWS are interesting
so many other memorials of Chelsea celebrities because of their contrast. In many sales-
in literature and art, his lasting monument
catalogues and other lists of books there may
in bronze, by a Chelsea sculptor, has been
be found brief critical and usually commend-
erected. Supported by an onyx column, the atory notices of some or all of the books
bust confronts all who enter the large refer named. Librarians are fond of placing these
ence and reading room of the library. A short extracts from current reviews under the
suitable inscription outlines his life and work titles in their monthly or yearly lists of ac-
and indicates that the memorial is the offer-
cessions, both as an aid to the reader and as
ing of "150 Chelsea Folk in 1917." One a justification of the purchase of the works
cannot drop the subject without at least refer-
in question. In the latest number of the
ring to Mr. Wood's splendid work in remodel. “Monthly Bulletin” of the Carnegie Library
ling and restoring the shattered features of of Pittsburgh, an extension of this practice
soldiers disfigured in battle. With the in is found in the generous extracts printed by
spiration of an artist and the zeal of a lover themselves in the first part of the issue. To
of his fellow-man, he has wrought wonders in one of Mr. Trevelyan's books are devoted
modelling human clay, in addition to his seven fine-print pages from a leading review;
achievements in shaping inanimate dust.
and other works are honored with consider-
able selections from similar articles. But it
seems to have been left to the newly appointed
BANCROFT THE POET has long been forgot- head of the Newton (Mass.) Free Library to
ten, and Bancroft the historian will some day find another use for such quotations from
be but a name, as indeed to many intelligent expert criticism. He reports that “criticisms
persons he is already. A late number of of rejected books are now kept on cards so
“Smith College Studies in History” contains that the reasons why a new volume was ex-
the letters exchanged between Bancroft and cluded may be ascertained at any time.
Sparks in the years 1823-32, edited by Pro Reference to this list has already proved its
fessor John Spencer Bassett. A few prefa- value.” If, following the analogy of a
tory pages give an outline of both Bancroft's familiar legal maxim, we accept the principle
and Sparks's literary and other activities up that all books are good until they are proved
to the time of Bancroft's first contributions to bad, this preservation of condemnatory tes-
“The North American Review,” of which his timony might prove more useful than the fil-
friend became owner and editor in 1823. A ing of eulogistic estimates.
year earlier Bancroft had published a thin
volume of verse, and soon after that he had
sent to Edward Everett, then editor of the
THE SPREAD OF CULTURE, of the Teutonic
“Review,” an article on Schiller's minor
brand now known the world over as Kultur,
poems, with original translations of some of
has led to the anomalous result of curtailing
them. It have been these modest essays
may
the diffusion of knowledge. Paper for print-
in metre and rhyme that prompted Jared
ing becomes scarcer every day, entailing a
Sparks, when he became editor, to solicit fur-
lessened output of reading matter, at that at
ther similar exercises from the young writer.
a higher price. Great Britain, in order to
economize ship tonnage and reserve its use
We find him writing to Bancroft in 1829 :
for the material necessities of life, reduces the
"I enclose a modern Greek ode, which I shall
permissible importation of paper to one-half
be much obliged if you will amuse yourself its previous annual amount, while books and
with translating into English verse.
periodicals are shut out altogether. Our bet-
is intended to come into an article on mod-
ter magazines, which enjoy a considerable
ern Greek literature. It will be a good exer circulation in England, will suffer sadly from
cise for you some morning before breakfast." this ruling, and many of our publishers and
The task assigned may not have been so try- | authors, who profit by the English demand
It
.


1917]
THE DIAL
343
Brother, don't believe in birth control. »VU, Little
for their books, will find their revenue ap I found myself, as Little Brother, in accord with
preciably diminished. Nor will the embargo nearly all he said, but I somehow could not accept
on unrestricted paper-importation into Eng.
its spirit. There are two underlying delusions in
land profit us in America to any perceptible
Mr. Dreiser's condemnation.
Mr. Dreiser has been called an elemental force.
extent, since already the domestic demand is
in excess of the domestic supply.
He accepts the epithet. If there is any one belief
shadowed in his works, it is the pagan belief in a
“vast compulsion which has nothing to do with the
individual desires or tastes or impulses of indi-
COMMUNICATIONS.
viduals." He reduces life to this force and to
unguided inner desire. He desires to tear away
MR. DREISER.
illusions and make America see these elements
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
only. Would he have society reorganized about.
The winsome, elephantine condemnation of these elements ? Does he mean society to be
America, her life and art, by Mr. Theodore pagan by imitating the ruthless force; should so-
Dreiser in the “Seven Arts” was almost amusing. ciety be amorphous; should the prostitute be hon-
It was for all the world like the effervescent talk ored, made a public benefactor? Would art ad-
of an elder brother, now returned to Warsaw, his vance more rapidly under these than under pres-
native village, after a generation of exile in the ent conditions ?
city. Imagine him on a hoosier holiday accosting And again, is it more natural to be polygamous
Little Brother, whom he left years before in the than monogamous ? Were the greatest artists
straitened precincts of a Catholic home in the polygamous? Is it elemental to regard the vast
heart of Puritan-ridden America. He, Big Brother, compulsion as a ruthless force?
has breathed the freer airs of the metropolis. He
The first delusion that I wish Mr. Dreiser had
is possessed with the idea that, while he has been destroyed for us is the delusion that he is elemen-
breaking moulds of custom, Little Brother and tal, therefore simple, therefore clear. As a mat-
Warsaw are still set in the frigid forms of Puri ter of fact, he is not elemental, but unutterably
tanism. We may conceive Theodore discoursing in complex. He is so complex that he has been
this wise:
unable to guide his impulses into some clear, un-
"Alas, alas for art in America, since you, Little derstandable, workable scheme of action; which is
the office of genius, I take it. He blasts away
“But I do, Theodore, I do, and all Warsaw (while all of us stand by and applaud) the old
practises it.
conventions, customs, and illusions which no longer
“And American colleges are defunct."
need blasting, and he offers in their place what?
“Even a few professors are beginning to sus A fancied belief that he has found the elements of
life in vast compulsion and unguided inner desire.
“And there are no houses of prostitution in I assert that the provincial masses of America,
Warsaw."
whom Mr. Dreiser derides, have come as near to
“No, but the Ancient Woman plies her trade." | finding the naked truths of life as he himself.
"And Anthony Comstockism thrives.”
The other delusion which is everywhere implied
“Only in little old New York. Even I have in Mr. Dreiser's paper is that American art-in
read 'Homo Sapiens,' and your "Genius' is dis particular American literature is inferior to
cussed by Ethel and Grace at the high school.” European because it is different. I regret that
“And the nude, the nude."
Mr. Dreiser falls into this too-common error. He
"Is never so alluring as when properly covered.” does well to rage against England's intellectual
"Women are too much respected.
colonization of America-Emerson and Lowell did
“But not always too respectable.'
that before him. But would he substitute Russian
“The constitution of the United States is an and German colonization? He seems to think
idealistic fiasco, framed to line the pockets of Emerson inferior to his disciple Nietzsche. He
privilege."
seems to think William James inferior to Schopen-
“Why, so Beard remarked, I believe, before I hauer. By what standard can Dreiser place
kicked myself out of college.
Nietzsche and Schopenhauer above Emerson and
By this time Theodore is frothy.
James? By no standard but the European. Does
“Men still believe in God."
Dreiser, in his ardent Americanism, try America
“It's an ancient failing. Do they serve Him?" and find her wanting according to European
Thereupon Big Brother turns away in disgust standards alone? There is no greater fallacy than
at the puerile complacency of his provincial to judge one race's art by standards created from
brother. Theodore has forgotten that, in this age
another race's art. America's art is too English?
of intercommunication, our lives and communities
Yes. But can America's art become American by
are inseparably tangled, and that the spirit of
change is pervasive. Warsaw, too, has her broken adhering to German standards? Art is a race's
moulds, and vibrates to the same iron string of
unfolding from within, not a grafting of adventi-
tious growths from without. Suppose America's
revolution as New York.
And so I was almost amused at the confidence genius were moral, and suppose the greatest art
with which Mr. Dreiser made himself the spokes-
should be the art of morality, would Mr. Dreiser
man of his provincial constituents, and announced
have the good grace to be chagrined?
his anti-Victorianism with the unction of novelty. Beloit, Wis., April 9, 1917. M. H. HEDGES.
pect that.”
66


344
[April 19
THE DIAL
ANOTHER GERMAN APOLOGIST.
facts only in a haze of somewhat stale com-
placency.
ENGLAND: Its Political Organisation and De There is very much, substantially the whole,
velopment and the War against Germany. By of Part 1—“The Character of the English
Eduard Meyer. Translated by Helene S. White. State”—that British subjects as well as
(Boston: Ritter & Co.; $1.50.)
students of British institutions would do well
This book on England was written two
to take to heart without material abatement,
years ago, during the first half-year of the
however tartly, not to say spitefully, it is
great war, but none the less it runs true to
presented. The author has a quick eye for the
form as an exposition of the current German
infirmities as well as for the foibles of the
views on all those topics with which it deals. British administrative machinery and its
It was written during that season of immod-
quasi-aristocratic personnel, even though he
erate exasperation that followed on the defeat
does at times make too much of the formal
at the Marne, and that has lasted since that
data bearing on any given point and is apt
time. That such a volume of unstinted dis-
to undervalue the part played by legal fiction
praise, growing out of that preposterous dis and dead letter. The analysis and presenta-
appointment, should still continue to reflect
tion is unsparing, but all the more veracious,
the national sentiment to-day is significant in what it has to say of biased upper-class
of the fact that the great war was, in effect, mismanagement and sordid muddling of all
brought to a decision in the fall of 1914, and
those affairs that touch the interest of under-
that nothing has occurred since that time to
lying, outlying, and dependent classes and
alter or offset the miscarriage then suffered
communities under British jurisdiction, and
by the warlike enterprise on which the Ger-
the author does not hesitate to speak openly
man hopes converged. The closing months of
of that management of national affairs for
1914 probably mark the largest and most
pecuniary gain which the gentlemen-investors
shocking disappointment known to the history
who guide the ship of state are wont to cover
of mankind. So also the volume is significant with a decent make-believe of serving the com-
of that distemper of the intellect which over-
mon good.
took the intellectual classes of Germany at
Tacit or explicit, there runs through all the
that juncture, and which has lasted since that
discussion a contrasting of these British phe-
time. The book is unbalanced and intemper-
nomena with the corresponding German ways
ate in all its appraisal of England and the
and means of doing things, and always the
English, as well as of Germany and the Ger-
comparison falls out in favor of the German
There speaks through it an animus of
case. That it does so is due to a tacit assump-
uncontrolled ferocity, as of a trapped animal ; tion which serves as major premise to the
and yet it is to be noted that in all this it
argument at all points; with a naïveté char-
runs true to form.
acteristic of his kind, the author goes on an
What has just been noted in characteriza-
axiomatic assumption that dynastic aggran-
tion of Professor Meyer's book marks a serious
dizement is more commendable and more to
blemish, of course, but when all this is said,
the public advantage than the pecuniary gain
it still remains true that it is a book of ex of such a class of gentlemen-investors as con-
ceptional value as a presentation of the trols the fortunes of the United Kingdom. In
material which it handles. Professor Meyer the apprehension of any outsider, of course,
commands a large and highly significant range there is not much to choose, as touches the
of information and he controls his material common good, between the warlike aggran-
with all that swift and sure touch that marks dizement of an imperial dynasty and the un-
the master of his craft. He knows, or perhaps earned increase of pecuniary benefits that
rather he is informed about, the United King accrues to a ruling class of gentlemen-in-
dom and its people and circumstances so in-
vestors. The nearest approach to serving the
timately and comprehensively that what he
common good that is made by either of these
has to say about it all is charged with in-
contrasted national establishments and na-
formation and suggestion even when the
tional policies is a make-believe backed with
just so much of concession to the public needs
animus of the argument departs farthest from
the conventions of well-bred scholarship. The
as will serve to keep popular discontent from
rising to the point of revolt; the material
author's exuberant bias of antipathy is to be
difference being that the committee of gentle-
deprecated, of course, but its effects are not
men-investors who rule the commonwealth
altogether unfortunate. It serves to throw up under parliamentary auspices are habitually
into a needed light many infirmities of the constrained to concede something more, being
case which commonly escape notice at the more readily accountable to their underlying
hands of those writers who see the pertinent' community.
mans.


1917]
345
THE DIAL
.
This paramount ideal of dynastic aggran there is no room for all the several warring
dizement that hallows all German politics and peoples; there is, in fact, increasingly easy
throws it into contrast with the corresponding room for all of them to find a livelihood by
British phenomena, is set forth to this effect: help of the increasingly efficient modern in-
The most important and most deeply rooted differ-
dustrial arts. But there is no room for Im-
ence lies in the Continental idea of the state as it has perial Germany and its subservient allies in
been developed in its relation to the central author the same world with the democratic common-
ity, the sovereign; of this the English, or we will say,
wealths of the French and English-speaking
the people of Great Britain have no conception. To
us the state is the most indispensable as well as the peoples, and the war is to decide between
highest requisite to our earthly existence, not with them. It is a conflict of institutions rather
regard to our political welfare alone, but to the daily than of peoples, and it involves the fortunes
life and activity of the individual as well, uniting,
of these peoples only as they contend for the
as it does, the entire population dwelling within the
limits of its jurisdiction in wholesome activity for
one or the other institutional scheme—the
the general good; we therefore believe it to be dynastic monarchy or the democratic common-
worthy of, as well as entitled to, the entire devotion wealth.
of every citizen, in honorable effort to further its
Professor Meyer's book includes a Fore-
purposes. All individualistic endeavor, of which there
is no lack with us too, as well as the aspirations of
word in which he speaks of the position taken
those shattered foreign nationalities that are included by the American administration toward the
within the boundaries of our state, must be unre belligerents. Here, again, the argument,
servedly subordinated to this, lofty claim. The
which runs on the now historical “Lusitania
state is of much higher importance than anyone of
these individualistic groups, and eventually is of in-
Episode,” runs true to form. It embodies the
finitely more value than the sum of all the individ singular hallucination which appears to beset
uals within its jurisdiction. (pp. 29-30) This all apologists for the German case, that be-
conception of the state
is quite foreign to
cause both are disallowed by law and custom,
English thought, and to that of America as well
therefore interference with neutral trade is
(p. 31).
as heinous an offence as the unprovoked kill-
Quite logically, what has happened to the
ing of neutral citizens. It is true, of course,
English constitution and to English sentiment
since the Stuarts forfeited the despotic rights illegal, but in all English-speaking countries
that trespass and manslaughter both are
of the crown is viewed by Professor Meyer as
the latter is held to be much the more shock-
a record of national decay. (pp. 7-15.)
The purpose of all this analysis and exposi- this kind—between illegal detention and
ing crime of the two. It is a distinction of
tion is to be found in its bearing on the merits
of the present conflict between the German
search on the one hand and piracy with man-
coalition and the rest of Europe. Here, again, able for the different attitude of the American
slaughter on the other hand that is account-
the argument runs true to form. There is the
administration toward the British as con-
customary apparatus of innuendo and devout
falsification, familiar enough in the dip-
trasted with the German irregularities; and it
lomatic arguments on both sides; and there
is this difference that has finally thrown the
is the old familiar Pharisaical whine that forces of the American republic into the scale
“this war has been forced upon us,”-also against German imperialism. And it is this
shared equally by the two parties in con-
difference that still continues to be invisible
troversy. But all that belongs in the domain to the patriotic German historians.
of diplomacy rather than in historical inquiry.
THORSTEIN VEBLEN.
To anyone who can see the lie of the land in
some degree of detachment, it should be suffi-
ciently patent that both parties to the conflict
THE AMERICAN SHORT-STORY.
are on the defensive and that the war has been
THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1916 AND THE
“forced upon” both alike by the circumstances YEAR BOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY.
of the case. Both are on the defensive, very Edited by Edward J. O'Brien. (Small, May.
much after the fashion of the legendary two
nard & Co.; $1.50.)
cats of Kilkenny, who were moved by the
THE CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORY, a Practical
Manual. By Harry T. Baker. (D. C. Heath
obsession that there was one too many. The
& Co.)
situation is simple enough, in its elements, if
Those of us who take an interest in literary
one will only take a dispassionate view of it. history will remember how particular literary
There is no longer room in the modern world forms at times seize hold of a country: in
for both parties; because the two parties em Elizabethan England, it was the verse drama;
body two incompatible variants of the modern in the eighteenth century, it was the essay;
civilization, and the world is rapidly becoming in Scandinavia of a generation ago, it was
too narrow for more than one. It is not that the drama again. At present America is in


346
(April 19
THE DIAL
the grip of the short-story—so thoroughly in political liberty, which encourages people to
its grip indeed that, in addition to all the stake everything on the happiness of the pass-
important writers, nearly all the literate pop- ing day and nothing at all on the chance of
ulation who are not writing movie scenarios immortality. Many of the great personalities
are writing or are about to write short stories. that in other countries naturally go into the
One reason for this is the general belief that arts or into intellectual pursuits, here plunge
this highly sophisticated and subtle art is a into business, for they vaguely feel that their
means for making money in spare time, and energies would only be dissipated in the
so one finds everybody, from the man who struggle for intellectual freedom. Some, of
solicits insurance to the barber who sells hair course, valiantly take the road and fight their
tonics, engaged in writing, or in taking fight. Others desert their country altogether,
courses in the writing of short-stories. Judg- and show the curious spectacle of Americans
ing from what appears in the magazines, one honored among the greatest of the English
imagines that they get their efforts accepted. novelists, and the greatest of the European
There is no doubt that the butcher, the baker, painters.
and the candlestick-maker are easily capable To return to the book of American short-
of producing the current short-stories with stories. Perhaps Mr. O'Brien took upon him-
the aids now afforded-night-school courses in self a task beyond the power of any single
“How to Write Stories" and such manuals as human being, and perhaps he did it as well as
the one listed above.
anyone could.
The stories may indeed be
In the work of the real writers of to-day the the best published during the year, but the
short-story as often as not shows itself in the
result is not much to the credit of America.
disguise of free verse or polyphonic prose, in A nation's literature is not judged by mod-
which attire it has perhaps made the greatest erately good writing; it is judged by the
appeal of all.
Witness the success of Edgar best; and the most that one can say of these
Lee Masters, Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, and
stories, with one exception, is that they are
others who, in addition to giving their read-
up to a fair standard.
ers poetry, present a story, a character, or a
Of the stories included, Mr. O'Brien picks
piece of life with brevity and intensity, which
out three as the best of the year. Of two
after all is what a short-story really does.
of these, “Ma's Pretties," by Francis Buz-
Apart from these interesting experiments, zell, and “The Lost Phoebe," by Theodore
the short story in America is at a low ebb. Dreiser, he says: “If an Englishman sought
Magazine editors will probably say the blame for what is most characteristically American
rests with their readers. This
may
be
So,
but
in the fiction of the year I would point with
do people really read the long, dreary stories
considerable pride to these two stories." One
of from five to nine thousand words which
can only take it that Mr. O'Brien is either
the average American magazine editor pub- unacquainted with England or with a type of
lishes? Why a vivid people like the Amer English writing that has been extant for fifty
ican should be so dusty and dull in their
or sixty years. Of all the stories in the book
short-stories is a lasting puzzle to the Euro “Ma's Pretties” is probably the one that
pean, who knows that America has produced a would seem least American to an Englishman,
large proportion of the great short-stories of
for not only does it deal with a people and
the world. I am not sure that Mr. Edward a life that have their exact prototypes in any
O'Brien's “Best Short Stories of the Year”
part of Great Britain, but the treatment of
will not contribute their own share to the the story is essentially English in manner.
progressive decline of the short-story in Amer It is of the method that was made successful
ica, for he is creating standards which a real by George Eliot, the characters arriving at an
criticism should resolutely reject.
experience through the management
Most of all the short-story suffers from that homely incidents in themselves somewhat in-
blight which affects all creative art in Amer- significant. _ It has become a very common
ica—the want of intellectual freedom-a want method in England and Mr. Buzzell does not
which saps the energy and withers up all but use it with any distinctive success, one reason
the most valiant and violent of creative spir- being possibly that the talent he displays is
its. In general the result of this want is a obviously a novel-writing talent and not a
low self-esteem, combined with angry opposi- short-story talent at all. It is a mistake to
tion to any kind of criticism. The truth ap suppose that the short-story has much rela-
pears to be that the sum of human freedom tion to the novel ; its place is somewhere be-
is the same in all countries, leaving out those tween the drama and the essay. Mr. Buzzell's
under foreign oppression. Freedom takes dif. story shows that he has the potentiality of writ-
ferent forms. In America it is a riotous | ing a novel unusual in American literature.
of


1917)
347
THE DIAL
The story by Theodore Dreiser has some of college, how to write stories that shall be
resemblance in content to “Ma's Pretties." marketable as well as artistic. There is no
Its end deals with an old man recalling his harm in telling writers about the system of
wife as she was in her girlhood. Do old men weights and measures that obtains in their
really ever sentimentalize over their lost markets. But Mr. Baker's drawback is that
youth? Or is it one of the compensations of he has only one market in mind—the market
living that they do not look back at all? represented by the American magazines that
Whether Mr. Dreiser's psychology is wrong pay highest. “It pays, therefore,” he writes,
or right, however, his style is execrable. The to find out in advance what American ed-
form is poor; the story is as verbose as if the itors dislike. Based upon years of experience,
author were anxious to get in as many words this dislike will generally be found to rep-
as possible; but it gives the reader the thrill resent accurately the feeling of the average
of real literature, for there went into the mak subscriber." It may pay in terms of cash to
ing of it that combination of heart and brain know what the average subscriber dislikes,
which makes the total experience part of the but any knowledge that makes for timidity
reader's consciousness. Frankly, it is the of invention is a calamity for the short-story
only story in the book of which one can say
writer, And when Mr. Baker shows the
this. “Making Port,” the story which Mr. promising student that editors dislike “mor-
O'Brien selects as the best of the year, and bidity” and “unpleasant features,” and dis-
which he compares with the work of Conrad, counts Poe's “Ligeia" and Kipling's “With-
has little to commend it. The author is not out Benefit of Clergy," he is trying to cramp
even a skilful follower of Conrad—he does the student's invention. “The Contemporary
not give the atmosphere of the sea, nor does Short Story" might help to raise the level
he realize his characters with certainty or of work appearing in the cheaper popular
completeness.
magazines but it would still leave the standard
Another highly praised writer, Fannie the one fixed by the average for magazines
Hurst, really has an odd distinction. Read having huge circulations—that is to say, it
ing her stories is like looking at an example would leave it a commercial standard. But
of savage art in a museum. It is inarticulate, what is required is another standard alto-
but it has a queer life. The story given here gether, not the raising of the commercial
is in a form that is not the oldest, but the standard. A few editors might be induced
most primitive form in literature. In its to consider what discriminating minds ap-
garrulous talk and its rambling dialogue, it prove of. And America still has two or three
recalls the comic relief of the ancient dram- magazines that would give a chance to
atists.
“Ligeia,” although it is morbid, and to "With-
Mr. O'Brien praises these and other writers out Benefit of Clergy," although it deals with
in the book in terms of the utmost extrava- the "unpleasant feature” of an Aryan man of
gance and in language that is often utterly Europe marrying an Aryan maid of India.
meaningless. We cannot lay the blame for A few magazine editors could do a great
the stories at his door, but he alone is to deal to raise the level of the American short-
blame for the Introduction and the Critical story. They could at once eradicate two of
Summary. He scoffs at what he calls formal the things that cause a part of the evil—the
criticism” and then proceeds to deliver him wordiness and the commercial standarization
self of the copy-book maxims of the criticism of the story. By declining short-stories over
of the last hundred years. What does he mean three thousand words long and by refusing to
by a sentence such as this? “No substance is pay more than a hundred dollars for any
of importance in fiction unless it is organic short-story, they could create a new standard
substance." What is "organic substance" and raise both the prestige of the short-story
anyway? He writes: “I have set myself the and of their magazines. They would then
task of disengaging the essential human qual get the imaginative writers, and not the ex-
ities in our contemporary fiction which may ploiters of a commercial article. There is no
be called a criticism of life. He is a reason why short-story writers in their style
passionate observer of human nature and has of living should go into competition with
given realism a new method of characteriza- colored boxers and movie-actors. The com-
tion whereby suggestion and dialogue are sub piler of the “Best Short Stories” could help.
stituted for descriptive statement." Could By including in each yearly volume one of
not Mr. O'Brien have spared us these tag. the great American short-stories-one by Poe,
ends of criticism?
by Hawthorne, by Bret Harte, or by Henry
“The Contemporary Short Story” was writ James-he would give a revelation that would
ten, as the author frankly owns, to teach be worth much criticism.
promising young writers, whether in or out
MARY M. COLUM.


348
[April 19
THE DIAL
ance."
PRAGMATISM.
Properly chastened, the novice is
ready for the next step.
CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE. By John Dewey and
The second act is given over to the dram-
Others. (Henry Holt & Co.; $2.)
atic rescue of the prisoner. The professor
“Philosophy tempted into a little flirtation and a few accomplices know of a subterranean
with intellectual indolence,” is the way Prag- passage! Through this they lead the way out
matism was defined a few years ago by one
of the cave. But, alas, there is no joy in the
of the foremost professors at Heidelberg.
new freedom, for the world into which the
“But don't be uneasy,” he added, "philos. student is released is not a living, appealing
ophy is not going to break up housekeeping. world. It is to the green earth whence he
The infatuation is neither deep nor per-
was snatched as paper flowers are to the rose.
manent. Presently her innate love of reality Hereupon follows the third act, in which
will triumph, and this momentary aberration the student gradually awakes. He discovers
will be forgiven and forgotten.”
that there has been no real kidnapping and
The good professor misread the signs of the consequently no rescue; that nothing indeed
times. Had he lived to see the publication of
has happened, excepting that his credulity has
“Creative Intelligence,”-a joint attack by
a joint attack by been imposed upon. The conclusion of the
eight pragmatists upon the received phil. drama depends upon the individual student's
osophical tradition, and a coöperative venture
sense of humor, but, at all events, there comes
in the articulation of a new philosophy,-he to be a hollow sound to the phrase, “Philos-
might have admitted his mistake. He might ophy, the guide of life.”
even have begun to fear for the Kantian
Against philosophy thus conceived as devo-
dynasty, and have conceded at least the pos-
tion to problems which no longer represent
sibility of philosophic rule crossing the seas
genuine and vital issues, this volume is a vig-
and becoming democratic. For I take it for orous and sustained protest. By precept and
granted that he could not have dismissed by example, it proposes the recovery of phil-
“Creative Intelligence," as he had other prag.
osophy from “chewing a historic cud long
matic literature, with an indulgent smile and
since reduced to woody fibre, or an apologetics
a sally of wit.
for lost causes (lost to natural science), or a
The assumption may be quite unwarranted. scholastic, schematic formalism," and the
Possibly it is merely a reflection from the
transference of attention to questions which
militant spirit of the eight authors. A phil. agitate contemporary life.
osophy of the saddle, galloping to solutions in
Such a challenge is certain to receive wide
daredevil fashion, waving its sombrero de endorsement and more especially from think-
fiantly at traditional landmarks, is infectious. ing youth, which in unusually large numbers
I shall, however, make no effort to establish has been turning to philosophy for the light
the validity of the assumption. Nor would it
that has failed elsewhere. Living in an age
be in place to attempt à defence of Prag- which is obviously one of profound trans-
matism; to undertake to show that it is more formation, self-conscious as perhaps never be-
than a passing craze in the history of thought. fore, aspiring to take a worthy part in the
It would not be difficult to show that this inevitable readjustment of values, serious-
latest expression of the pragmatic movement minded men and women seek to know,
is not just another book, or at best a volume as Mr. Dewey says, “what modifications and
which concerns a small professional group, abandonments of intellectual inheritance are
but is, on the contrary, a document of vital required by the newer industrial, political,
interest to intelligent men and women gen-
and scientific movements. They want to know
erally.
what these newer' movements mean when
The orthodox course in philosophy is a translated into general ideas.” If philosophy
drama in three acts. In the first act the refuses to speak at this vital juncture, so much
student is kidnapped by the professor and the worse for philosophy. “Unless philosophy
imprisoned in a cave. Communication with can mobilize itself sufficiently in this clarifica-
anything or anybody outside is demonstrated tion and reduction of men's thoughts, it is
by the captor to be quite impossible. Between likely to get more and more sidetracked from
the student and the world he lately occupied the main currents of contemporary life.”
obtrudes the impassable wall of subjectivity. But also so much the worse for life. “Philos-
With the aid of the bull's eye supplied by the ophy is vision, imagination, and reflection."
professor, every recess of the den is searched, And while “these functions apart from action,
but absolutely no way of escape is found. | modify nothing and hence resolve nothing,"
All this so-solid earth turns out to be “appear still "in a complicated and perverse world,


1917]
349
THE DIAL
says Mr. Dewey, "action which is not in- “unity in attitude” amounted to before they
formed with vision, imagination, and reflec endeavored “to embody the common attitude
tion, is more likely to increase confusion and in application to specific fields of inquiry
conflict than to straighten things out." We which have been historically associated with
need then a recovery of philosophy. And philosophy,” the book would not have ap-
philosophy recovers itself “when it ceases to peared as it stands.
be a device for dealing with the problems of It is, nevertheless, as a coöperative endeavor
philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated in the interest of a common conviction that
by philosophers, for dealing with the problems the volume is significant. And this common
of men."
conviction is that the "courageously inventive
The words have the right ring, but what individual as the bearer of a creatively em-
do they mean? What is meant by defining ployed mind,” does in a genuine sense deter-
philosophy as “a method, cultivated by phi- mine the quality of future experience. The
losophers, for dealing with the problems of various chapters of the book are intended as
men”? Is the philosopher in possession of a demonstrations of this truth in the fields of
unique and superior method (in the everyday philosophy, logic, mathematics, science, psy-
sense of the word) of solving problems al- chology, economics, morality, æsthetics, and
ready dealt with by scientists, politicians, edu- religion. Everywhere the fixed, static, me-
cators, plumbers, dressmakers, and whom not? chanical conception of the subject is chal-
Or does the term "method” rather have refer- lenged and a developing, evolving, enlarging
ence to the working presuppositions adopted, conception substituted for it. The goal of
the questions ruled out as dead issues and the life is not mechanical efficiency but "the use
problems thought worthy of consideration? If of intelligence to liberate and liberalize ac-
so, is the task of philosophy limited merely to
tion.” Thus, philosophy is not the art of
the translation of contemporary problems into solving puzzles once and for all given as the
the form of general ideas, or is it the aim of philosophical problems. It is mind function-
the philosopher to arrive at a solution, and
ing comprehensively but characteristically,
one not obtainable under the limitations of spe-
projecting new and more complex ends—thus
cialized investigation ? If the latter, is the test
freeing man at once from routine and from
caprice. (Chapter One, Mr. Dewey.) So
of correctness of method found in the nature
of the conclusion ?—that is to say, in so far as
too, man's striving for “economic goods” is
not a search for the greatest total of what
"philosophy
becomes a method, cul-
is eternally satisfactory, but a pushing on to
tivated by philosophers, for dealing with the
new forms of satisfaction. “It is not a desire ·
problems of men," do philosophical idealism
for recurrent satisfactions of a determinate
and realism disappear? I confess that I
type, but an interest in the active develop-
found myself saying “yes” and “no” to all
ment of inexperienced and indeterminate pos-
these questions.
sibilities." (Chapter Six, Mr. Stuart.) In
The point is not of slight importance, espe the same way, the moral life does not consist
cially in the case of a philosophy like Pragma- in conforming to unalterable standards some-
tism, which is in perpetual danger of vitiation how established. “The process of moral de-
through adoption as a popular intellect- liberation, evaluation, judgment, and choice
ual fad. If the rumor is correct that the
is itself essential. In this process are born
joint authors were unable to agree on a plat- the concepts and standards good and right,
form of principles, we cannot blame them for and likewise the moral self which utters the
declining to proffer such a platform, but one judgment.” Both the objects considered and
may, with good grace, refuse to accept as a the moral self are enlarged when conflicting
substitute such indefinite and ambiguous values are weighed against one another in the
statements as the following:
moral situation. It is literally a new self in
The consensus presented lies primarily in outlook,
a new world that delivers the moral judgment.
in conviction of what is most likely to be fruitful in
method of approach. As the title page suggests,
(Chapter Seven, Mr. Tufts.) Space permit-
the volume presents a unity in attitude rather than ting, the remaining chapters would yield sim-
an uniformity in results.
ilar results.
For such statements veil the fact that "unity A timely message, this. There is much in
in attitude” is agreement in certain beliefs; these days to encourage the belief that man
that there is no unity in attitude überhaupt. is helpless in the fell grip of circumstance
I may be wrong, but at all events, I am con-
or at the mercy of a blind will to live. The
vinced that if the eight authors had not de doctrine of predestination did not die; it
liberately refused to decide what exactly the changed its skin ; it became godless. Here is a


350
[April 19
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philosophy that dares to attack mechanism, pression in inventive life and likewise in the
dares to assert that mind is not a helpless readiness with which the individual meets a
spectator of events but a creator of them. new commodity half way and gives it op-
All the more one must regret that the mean portunity to become for him, if it can, a new
ing of this important term is not made more necessity and the source of a new type of
clear. In the first chapter, creative intelli- satisfaction." For Mr. Dewey, the exercise
gence is the function of forecasting “what is of creative intelligence means, "to imagine a
desirable and undesirable in future possibil-future which is the projection of the desirable
ities, and contriving ingeniously in behalf of in the present, and to invent the instrumental-
imagined good.” Man does not act in a ities of its realization"; for Mr. Stuart, it
vacuum, but in an environment of auspicious means being urged into an unknown future,
and menacing changes. Participate he must, albeit excited and hopeful, and in retrospect
and to his weal or woe. “ The secret of suc to pronounce the new state on the whole better
cess” says Mr. Dewey, “—that is, of the great than the old.
est attainable success—is for the organic It would be interesting to compare the cre-
response to cast in its lot with present auspic- ative intelligences just considered with others
ious changes to strengthen them and thus to to be found in the book-for example, with
avert the consequences flowing from occur the creative intelligence Mr. Brown finds at
rences of ill-omen." And this “use of the work in the field of mathematics, which ap-
given or finished to anticipate the consequence pears to be of a third species. But for fear
of processes going on," is what is meant by that the criticism may be interpreted as a
creative intelligence.
desire for mere verbal consistency, I return to
I do not understand creative intelligence Mr. Stuart for a moment. In my judgment,
to mean the same thing in the sixth chapter. he completely fails to cross swords with the
There Mr. Stuart undertakes to show that the economic theory he combats, and he fails just
generally accepted economic theory, namely, because his use of creative intelligence is not
that the desire for economic goods is a search Mr. Dewey's. His whole discussion of changes
for the largest sum of pleasure, is not true. in labor conditions is individualistic. In a
The acceptance of new commodities, commod-given labor market, the least capable pro-
ities the satisfaction-value of which is un ducers
known, proves that men do actually move could make both ends meet at the prevailing price
from one level of satisfaction to another. only by ignoring all but the severely impersonal
“For the egoism of man,” he pertinently says,
aspects of the process. Taking these costs as a
base, other more capable or more fortunate producers
“is no fixed and unalterable fact." Life is
may have been able to make additional expenditures
not a matter of accounting, of balancing the of the sort in question, charging these perhaps to
known satisfaction of the new commodity
“welfare” account. The law then intervenes, mak-
ing labor in effect more expensive for all. The
against the known satisfaction to be replaced
old basic labor cost thus becomes obsolete.
by it. The comparison is constructive, cre-
Granting that such a procedure illustrates
ative,-resulting in a changed level of interest
creative intelligence, what economist would
and experience. The novelty of things ap-
agree to recognize it as a typical example!
peals as novelty, and a "spontaneous con Even the plain man has heard too much of
structive interest stands more or less con collective bargaining, of collective coercion, to
stantly ready in us to go out to meet it and accept such an interpretation of a change in
conditions of labor. The “economic interpre-
Perhaps all this sounds much like the cre tation" does not hold that the individual life
ative intelligence of the first chapter. But of So and So is determined by economic in-
when read with other passages the identity terests, but that the mass of men is so moved,
is far from certain, for the progress from and Mr. Stuart nowhere attempts to show
one standard of life to another appears then that collective coercion is constructive com-
to be the result of a half-blind push or pull parison. I think he would have tried to do
from without. “From some source beyond so, and perhaps have succeeded in doing so,
the scope and nature of the earlier function had he defined creative intelligence as it is
a suggestion or an impulsion has come by found in the first chapter. The very attempt
which the agent has endeavored to move for would have added to the value of a very sug.
ward." There is a certain original bent or gestive chapter.
constitutive character of human nature—a That the meaning of intelligence is a living
predisposition, an élan vital perhaps, which philosophical problem is shown by Mr. Bode's
we must recognize as nothing less than per- chapter on the nature of consciousness. In
fectly general and comprehensive-finding ex the light of the wide interest in psychology,
possess it.”


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the layman will be surprised to learn that they differ in what they propose to do about
psychology is in danger of going into bank it. In philosophy and religion,
ruptcy. The discussion is of too technical a the mind confronts the experiences of death and
character for. consideration here, but the gist obstruction, of manifoldness, change and materiality,
of it is that, unless the study of behavior is
and denies them, as Peter denied Jesus. The visible
substituted for introspection, psychology must
world, being not as we want it, we imagine an unseen
one that satisfies our want, declaring the visible one
give up all claim to being a science. But an illusion by its side. So we work radical sub-
when consciousness is regarded as a form of stitution of desiderates for actualities, of ideals for
behavior, it differs from other forms in that facts, of values for existences.
it is essentially experimental. All conscious In art, on the other hand, and only in art,
situations are situations in which “the pos we have the acknowledgment of an actual re-
sibilities of a subsequent moment are em-
lation between these contrasting pairs, such
bodied in them as a positive quality.” I am that values get themselves realized in exis-
compelled to leave this tempting chapter with tence.
out saying more because I cannot say enough. Art alone operates as in fact to convert their
But those who seek an argument for the be-
oppugnance into identity. Intrinsically, its whole
purpose and technique consists of transmutation of
havioristic concept of creative intelligence,
values into existences, in the incarnation, the realiza-
presented with an honest recognition of diffi tion of values.
culties to be met and an appreciation of the Or, in a word, "philosophy imaginatively
snares of language, will find it in this thought- abolishes existence in behalf of value, art
ful study.
realizes value in existence, religion tends to
If other chapters must be even more briefly
control and to escape the environment which
noticed, this is to carry no implications re-
exists by means of the environment which is
garding their value. Mr. Moore's “Reforma- postulated.”
tion of Logic” is a difficult polemic addressed
These citations, however, represent an over-
to the profession, while the intelligent reader simplification of the chapter, and there's the
will find Mr. Brown's “Intelligence and Math-
rub. Through the recognition that compen-
ematics” an interesting treatment of a sub-
satory ideals grow out of concrete life and
ject which in most hands would have turned
react upon it, the author blurs the distinc-
out far otherwise. I regret most of all the
tion carefully set up between art on the one
necessity of omitting a criticism of Mr. Mead's
hand and philosophy and religion on the
illuminating paper on scientific method. The
other. The roots of philosophy as of religion
privilege of reading a philosophical discussion
“reach deep in the soil of events,” and its
based on breadth of information and at once issues have "fruitage in events made over by
profound and original in thought, catholic in its being.” Moreover, under a careful read-
spirit, and clear in presentation is rare indeed. ing of the various definitions found in the
It should serve as an antidote to the muddle- chapter, philosophy and religion tend to fuse,
headed obscurantism which of late has shown and the illustrations offered testify to the
more and more of a tendency to call science union.
union. On one page, for example, Christian
to account, and it should serve likewise to Science is a religion, on another it is a philos-
check the arrogance of those whom a little ophy; while Christianity is “philosophy oper-
science has rendered blind to the unknown ating as a religion.”
vast.
I don't know why Mr. Kallen should hold
Imagine a rocket shot into the night, there to his meanings if he does not want to, and I
bursting into a tapestry of rich, scintillating am not saying that he should want to. But
color. Imagine the sparkling fabric to as long as he finds it fun to play hide and seek
vibrate, showing now one charming pictorial in the manner of this chapter, he makes it
form and now another, illuminating the face easy for the reader to carry off a phrase and
of the beholder and lifting up his soul. Im leave the message. Mr. Kallen has a message
agine the spectacle suddenly to go out, leaving to deliver a message indicative of insight,
you with a beautiful memory and a new sense originality, and courage. Why should we not
of darkness. You have my experience in have it? And so it becomes difficult, once
reading the last chapter of “Creative Intel more, to discover just what the pragmatic
ligence.”
movement implies. Possibly the difference
Mr. Kallen's intention is to distinguish be between philosophy, religion, and art is to
tween philosophy, art, and religion as regards be found not in the espousal or rejection of
the relation of value and existence. There is compensatory ideals, nor in the presence or
a resemblance and a difference: they agree in absence of an ambition to see life transformed,
being dissatisfied with things as they are; but rather in the nature of the compensatory


352
[April 19
THE DIAL
ideals believed in and the proposed method of
SOME MODERN SINGERS.
their realization. In that case the difference
between Plato and Pragmatism would be just GREEN BRANCHES. By James Stephens. (The
that kind of difference. By neglecting any Macmillan Co.; $1.75.)
such possibility, by arguing on the assumption WILD EARTH AND OTHER POEMS. By Padraic
that compensatory ideals
Colum.
are necessarily
(Henry Holt & Co.; $1.25.)
transcendental, by thinking of the relation of
AMORES. By D. H. Lawrence. (B. W. Huebsch;
$1.50.)
life and compensatory ideals as static, by SWORDS FOR LIFE. By Irene Rutherford McLeod.
speaking for and against them as forces trans (B. W. Huebsch; $1.)
formative of life, the real issue namely, what There is no other poet writing in English
he conceives to be the bearing of philosophy, to-day who can compare with James Stephens,
religion, and art upon contemporary living at his best, for sheer power and purity of
problems—is clouded and confused.
lyric speech. He is a born singer, gifted with
In the light of the widespread appeal which the voice, as well as with the vision, of the
religion has been making to the "pragmatic essential poet, singing as the lark sings, or
attitude,” ambiguity at this point is regret the linnet, spontaneously, impulsively; and,
table. Mr. Dewey refers to the fact that in his longer, more sustained flights, like “A
pragmatic philosophy has been "thought to Prelude and a Song," he soars skyward in
provide a new species of sanctions, a new ascending circles, drenching the air with his
mode of apologetics, for certain religious ideas delicious music. Add to this strictly phys-
whose standing has been threatened.” But ical endowment-for how does the poet's
we are left to guess whether the hope was a voice differ in mechanism from that of any
vain hope. In the chapter on the moral life, other singer ?—the richness and range of his
Mr. Tufts bows politely to religion, but the imaginative expression, enabling him to pass
thing happens so suddenly that one is uncer from the grandiose to the grotesque and back
tain whether the greeting was purely formal again-often, indeed, to combine the two in
or a sign of friendliness. I am not, of course, happy strokes of naïve audacity that bring
insisting that Mr. Dewey and Mr. Tufts
Deity itself into intimate, familiar contact
should have expressed themselves on the ques with the homeliest aspects of life, the humblest
tion of religion; they had other things to do. powers of human conception. Add also an
I am recording the fact that the rest of the extraordinary variety of philosophic mood
book does not remove the uncertainty with and temper, turning with lightning thrust
which I leave Mr. Kallen's discussion. And from tenderness to indignation, from pity and
if the apostles of clearness are willing to be commiseration to harsh, biting wit, and sav-
unclear, where shall we turn in our confu age, sardonic humor—to childish cruelty,
sion!
even, when his deep-seated demand for beauty
The last pages of the book return to its
is thwarted by some spectacle of ugliness.
opening thought: the recovery of philosophy.
Add, finally, his profound Celtic sensitive-
The plea for philosophy as "a program to
ness to the fresh spiritual charm and glamour
execute rather than a metaphysic to rest in"
of nature-his fondness, amounting to adora-
is the right word, unless it is merely another
tion, for trees, brooks, rivers, birds, hedges,
flowers, clouds, hills, sky, the green earth-
expression of the prevalent nervousness to
and one will begin to have some perception
"make good.” Philosophy may bake no bread
of the significance of James Stephens-poet,
and escape just criticism, but we have a right
to demand the assistance of her vision in our
seer, rhapsode, cosmic humorist. Blake, Shel-
effort to refashion the ordinary weeds of life and all have their share in him as lover of
ley, the Elizabethans—he is akin to all these,
into a dress more becoming to life's dignity
man, lover of the soul, lover of liberty, lover
and worth. Keeping this demand before us,
of love and loveliness.
the study of the philosophers will cease to be
It would be too much to expect to find in
a trip through a menagerie of intellectual
poems of the precise character of those that
freaks, and will become instead an adventure
compose Mr. Stephens's latest book, “Green
in discovery—the discovery of the rise and
Branches,” —commemorative poems
of
an
evolution of the dominant concepts and pre- elegiac rather than of a pure lyric cast or
suppositions of our time. So used, philosophy, inspiration—all the qualities we have enu-
as William James said, "rouses us from our merated, a complete display of his poetic
native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our range and power. No poet depends more
caked prejudices.” A new vision then be upon utter freedom of impulse and inspira-
comes possible.
tion; and even in such a poem as “Spring in
M. C. OTTO. Ireland : 1916,” where his sympathy is so
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clearly stirred to its depths by the fate of Colum, and he is of a very different cast and
the young leaders of the Dublin insurrec calibre from these two. Mr. Yeats, at his best,
tion, there is felt the constraint imposed upon is or was a heroic poet, the heroic poet of
him by the formal requirements of the sub Ireland in our day, reviving the legendary
ject—the pattern set for one whose gift is material of the past and extracting new sym-
essentially that of improvisation. But if we bolic significance from it for the present. Mr.
miss much that we are in the habit of look Stephens, through all the fibre of his lyric
ing for in his work—the humor, the whim- spirit, is a philosophical poet, and Irish, on
sicality, the vision that visualizes the most the whole, only in the externals of his style.
remote tracts of time and space, and, above Mr. Colum, on the other hand, is preëminently
all, the amazing quality of his mind—we a popular poet, deriving his surest inspiration
find, on the other hand, in high degree, cer from the life of the Irish people to-day, but
tain other traits that we have come to regard frequently lifting this local material to a level
as characteristic, such as his passionate love of general human significance, through his
and observation of nature, and the peculiar ability to invest it with a note of ideal beauty
fluting timbre of his voice. The voice, here, and tenderness. There are numerous exam-
in particular, is of a purity and perfection ples of this power in his recent book, "Wild
that has seldom, if ever, been surpassed in Earth and Other Poems," but nowhere else,
any earlier work: and those who found in "A perhaps, is it seen quite so successfully dis-
Prelude and a Song”-that prothalamion of played, as in “A Cradle Song,” which has
the poet soul in its nuptial flight toward the already begun to find its predestined way into
upper regions of innocent joy and ecstasy, anthologies. Mr. Colum is very happy, too,
with the meditative music of its sylvan re in his adaptations from the Irish, as in the
frain:
piece entitled "I Shall Not Die for Thee"-a
Arouse, arouse,
curiously close Celtic equivalent of Wither's
Among the leaves I sing my pleasant song famous "Shall I Wasting in Despair?” It
a haunting memory of Spenser and the begins :
Golden Age, will recover this once more in O woman, shapely as the swan,
such lines as the following, whose mood and On your account shall I not die:
mode surely no other English lyrist of our
The men you've claimed-a trivial clan-
Were less than I.
day could compass, with equal power of ten-
der and magical suggestion :
I ask me shall I die for these
Fragrance and beauty come in with the green,
For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips?
The ragged bushes put on sweet attire,
And shall that delicate swan shape
The birds forget how chill the airs have been,
Bring my eclipse ?
The clouds bloom out again and move in fire;
Blue is the dawn of day, calm is the lake,
Well-shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,
And merry sounds are fitful in the morn;
The cheeks are fair, the tresses free
In covert deep the young blackbirds awake,
And yet I shall not suffer death-
They shake their wings and sing upon the morn.
God over me.
By nature much more highly gifted than I also like the neatly turned portrait of “A
Mr. Yeats who, only through the subtlest Poor Scholar of the Forties" :
sophistications of his profoundly refined and My eyelids red and heavy are,
sophisticated art, could, even in his youth,
With bending o'er the smould 'ring peat.
I know the Æneid now by heart,
achieve the fine, careless effect of complete
My Virgil read in cold and heat,
lyric abandonment, Mr. Stephens must now
In loneliness and hunger smart.
stand unchallenged as the leading poetic
And I know Homer, too, I ween,
representative of Ireland to-day. This is par-
As other poets know Ossian.
ticularly true since Mr. Yeats has assumed Not at all neat—on the contrary, quite
new “responsibilities" in his verse, which has ostentatiously careless and dishevelled in a
become the vehicle, of his dreams no longer, manner that borrows much from the old
but of his reflections. MacDonagh, Plunkett, Byronic mood of the past—is the portrait
and Pearse, whose tragic deaths have given that Mr. D. H. Lawrence, poet and novelist,
them a poetic prestige that their work itself, paints of himself, nearly full-length, in his
subjected to any serious critical test, would new book, “Amores." Here the objective
scarcely warrant, could hardly have hoped artist's trained powers of analysis are brought
to rival, had they lived, the author of “Songs sharply to bear upon his own subjective ex-
from the Clay” and “The Hill of Vision." periences, in what tends at times to become
Indeed, we can think of no other contempo almost an agony of scrupulous self-revela-
rary Irish poet who may, for a moment, be tion. The title of the book may prove some-
mentioned with either Mr. Yeats or Mr. Ste what misleading, so I hasten to say that it is
phens, unless possibly it be Mr. Padraic not of women alone that this poet is “amor-


354
[April 19
THE DIAL
ous,” but of life itself, and of every sensa mould with an almost ostentatious abstention
tion it can afford him—even such a sensation from any attempt to finish and refine it.
as sheer physical contact with the outside of This is the more to be regretted since he has
books:
a natural feeling for musical form and the
I can always linger over the huddled books on the most successful pieces in the present volume
stalls,
are those in which he has most subdued the
Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch
of their leaves,
initial rugosities of his expression. One can-
Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the door.
not help feeling that much of this modern
ways, where falls
mistrust of beauty in verse is merely another
The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress, manifestation of Puritanism, and that in Mr.
who always receives.
Lawrence's case it is one with the general atti-
At the same time there is, as it were, a cer tude of rebellion against the allure of the
tain protest on the poet's part against this senses, so strongly felt yet so profoundly re-
sensuousness of appeal—the precipitation on pudiated, which we have already noted.
nearly every page of sombre spiritual con The strain of impassioned spiritual pro-
flict as the poet seeks to wrench his soul free test which sounds, with a difference, in the
from earth to range a purer ether, rigorously poetry of both Mr. Stephens and Mr. Law-
recording his failures at every step, in the rence -as indeed it does in nearly all recent
exalted mood of a mediæval mystic.
English verse—finds its feminine counterpart
With the novelist's analytical insight, in in the expression of Miss Irene Rutherford
this poet, go also his dramatic feeling and McLeod. The author of “Swords for Life"
that faculty of vivid visualization, either by lacks, however, like most women poets, -
the image or by the epithet—rarely by the though we get a touch of it in Anna Wick-
phrase—which has been carried over into ham and Frances Cornford—the robust
poetry to-day under the name of “Imagism."
sensuous temperament of her masculine con-
Mr. Lawrence is an Imagist—one of the reg temporaries, which enables them, in their de-
ular contributors to the Imagist anthology gree, and with varying responsiveness, to find
and he has, without question, a high degree of compensation for the conditions of mortal
verbal evocative power. In him, however, as existence in the beauty of nature, the joy of
in his fellows, we are conscious at times of the
sensation, the temporary intoxication of the
intellect-that is, fancy-striving to under moment that
passes.
She either feels and sees
take the work of the imagination, and of an less, or else is less attentive to things seen
effect missed through the very effort to render and felt. Hence results a certain thinness
it more completely effective. Compare, for in her verse, which only at rare moments
example, the following picture of spring, with achieves complete imaginative expression.
that already quoted from Mr. Stephens, and
For the rest, it rises mainly by sheer force
see which it is that most perfectly realizes of rhetoric and moral seriousness, and though
the special mood of the moment—the one that
it is often eloquent and always singularly
is content merely to suggest, with selected de-
noble, generous, thoughtful, and high-spirited,
tail and lightest touch, or that which crowds
the line in the effort to compass all:
it fails in the main to become effective as art.
WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY.
This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled
bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
IRISH POLITICS.
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flicker-
ing rushes.
IRELAND UNDER THE STUARTS AND DURING THE
I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
INTERREGNUM. Vol. III. By Richard Bagwell.
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
(Longmans, Green, & Co.; $5.)
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, In the days of Henry II, when the English
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.
were laying the foundation of their control in
And I, what fountain of fire am I among
Ireland, Gerald the Welshman, an ecclesiastic
This leaping combustion of spring My spirit is with the instincts of the modern reporter, ac-
tossed
companied one of the expeditions to the Green
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is
Isle. Among the many interesting things that
lost.-
he had to report on his return was this, that
Like all Imagists, Mr. Lawrence underesti-
four Irish prophets had assured their people
mates the fundamental importance of music as
that Ireland would not be conquered before
an imaginative element in poetry. There is, the eve of Judgment Day. More than seven
it would seem, a voluntary harshness in much hundred years have passed since this prophecy
of his verse, which comes rough-cast from the was uttered, and thus far very little has hap-
:


1917]
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THE DIAL
pened to discredit the prophets. Ireland is, Tudor period with chapters on the early his-
indeed, governed to a large extent by alien tory of his native land; in his six volumes he
officials, but the Irish people remain uncon-
has, therefore, given us a detailed account
quered.
of the life and growth and struggles and
There have been many attempts on the part heroic deeds of the Irish people from the com-
of the Irish to cast off what they regard as ing of the Northmen in the eighth or ninth
the English yoke, but most of these have been century to the battle of the Boyne in 1690.
local uprisings or the vain efforts of ambitious There still remains the long story of two cen-
leaders who miscalculated the chances of suc turies to study and write; but as Mr. Bagwell
cess. Three times, however, there have been has already completed his seventy-sixth year,
rebellions which have been almost national in it is likely that he may prefer to close his
extent: in 1641, 1689, and 1798. If we count career as a historian with the present volume.
the Sinn Fein revolt of last year, the number Though Irish by birth, Mr. Bagwell is
will be four; but it is not likely that the events probably of Anglo-Irish stock. In politics he
of Easter, 1916 will bulk very large in Irish is a Unionist of the more positive type. This
history.
fact is, of course, sufficient to render his work
The story of Ireland's struggle against the unacceptable to a large part of the reading
predominant partner in the United Kingdom public in Ireland; for in spite of his almost
has been told many times and by many painful effort to do justice to both sides in the
writers. And yet no one has thus far pro controversies of Britain, it is quite clear that
duced a truly reliable and satisfactory history Mr. Bagwell regards the union of Ireland with
of Ireland. Most excellent work has been done England as one that is necessary to both coun-
for some of the periods of Irish history, but tries. Critics generally have, however, found
the general accounts, while often very enter much to praise in Mr. Bagwell's histories.
taining, are invariably disappointing. Among His evident fairness, his judicial attitude, his
the many virtues that a historian must possess restraint in drawing conclusions and in fram-
is the ability to study and present his evidence ing statements have been remarked upon by
in a sane, dispassionate manner; his emotions many reviewers. For his literary style there
must not be allowed to becloud his judgment is very little to be said: it is clear but prosy
A German historian once said that history and bald. After having detailed the mis-
should be written in anger, and his advice government of Berkeley's administration he
appears to have found wide acceptance among remarks: “The corrupt administration of
Irish writers. A student of history who comes Berkeley and Leighton could not be called a
to his task with the conviction that all that success"; the statement is clear but scarcely
the English have done in Ireland has been vivid. Occasionally he allows himself the use
evil will find it difficult to sift truth from of an exclamation point, but only when the
error and to give the proper emphasis to facts need of emphasis seems very great.
and events. On the other hand, English The present volume begins with the restora-
writers too often have failed to appreciate the tion of Charles II and closes with the defeat
fact that the English methods of government of the Stuart forces by William III at the
in Ireland have usually been unintelligent battle of the Boyne. The story of the restora-
and frequently unjust. And with such widely tion in its Irish phase is told in some detail,
differing view-points, the results will inevit and an effort is made to show what its prob-
ably show great difference.
lems were and who contributed most to their
I am glad to say, however, that in recent
solution. In the background lies the rebellion
years a historian has appeared in Ireland to of 1641 with its direful consequences in the
whom these criticisms do not apply. For confiscation of Irish lands; perhaps in no
more than thirty years Mr. Richard Bagwell, other work can be found a more satisfactory
an Irish barrister and politician of ability and statement of the great difficulties that the
influence, has made the study of Irish his- | king's representatives had to contend with in
torical sources his chief occupation. In 1885
the matter of these lands. Great injustice
he published the first two volumes of his
was done to the native population in the
“Ireland under the Tudors,” which a later
process of settlement, but the author shows
volume carried to completion. Mr. Bagwell clearly that it was difficult, perhaps impos-
next proceeded to write the history of Ire- sible, at the time to devise any plan of settle-
land under the Stuarts,” two volumes of ment that would not lead to injustice.
which appeared in 1909. Now a third volume During the thirty years covered by Mr.
has come from the press, which apparently Bagwell's narrative, five men governed Ire-
completes the work that the author set out land as Lord-Lieutenants; but of these only
to do. Mr. Bagwell prefaced his study of the two, Ormonde and Tyrconnel, are of any


356
[April 19
THE DIAL
particular importance. Ormonde was loyal to they passed the notorious penal laws, which
the English crown; Tyrconnel was not. In reduced the native population to the state
his dealings with the Catholic hierarchy Or of helots. It is often difficult to determine
monde appears to have aimed at justice and where to place the blame for the evils that
leniency. Tyrconnel, on the other hand, made have befallen the Irish people, but in most
use of his power to further Catholic interests, cases the impartial historian is likely to find
with the result that the Protestant minority that all the various elements that have found
was panic stricken. It is evident that Tyr- homes on Irish soil have had their share in the
connel's policy was in a large degree respon- undoing of Ireland.
sible for the sorrows that came upon the Irish
LAURENCE M. LARSON.
people in the following century.
Nearly one-half of the volume is devoted to
the revolution of 1689 in its Irish aspects. REAL JEWS AND UNREAL GENTILES.
The story of the siege of Londonderry is told
with all the necessary fulness of detail, but
BRIAN BANAKER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY up to the
without any attempt to bring out the dramatic
Age of Twenty-four, Faithfully set down by
W. B. Trites. (Alfred A. Knopf; $1.50.)
possibilities of the episode. Earlier writers
MENDEL: A Story of Youth. By Gilbert Can-
have emphasized the heroism of the defense ; nan. (George H. Doran; $1.50.)
Mr. Bagwell calls attention to the weakness THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. By Sidney L. Nyburg.
of the attack. At one time, he tells us, “the
(J. B. Lippincott Co.; $1.50.)
besieging army was then under 3000 men, and If a competent novelist portrays a boy of
not one musket in ten was serviceable, so that another race than yours in a country you
they had to entrench themselves against the have never seen, you will recognize your own
attacks of the garrison.” At the same time boyhood and find in the fictitious adventures
he gladly admits that the men of Derry the counterpart of the scenes which you and
showed wonderful heroism, but it was shown your fellows enacted or dreamed of enacting.
in fighting want and famine, and not on the The commonplace that human nature is alike
field against the half-armed forces of King the world over is a commonplace because it is
James.
true; another truth which cannot be worn
Perhaps the most important chapter in the thin by repetition is that the skilful story-
volume is that which deals with the Irish teller makes everything that his characters
parliament of 1689. This body has fre do seem as real, as natural as if the reader
quently been characterized as a liberal assem had done it or witnessed it himself. These
bly with a most tolerant spirit, which was generalities apply to stories of adults, Robin-
shown in the effort to find some means by son Crusoe, Henry Esmond, or Ulysses. Be-
which all the three churches in Ireland might tween children in stories and in life there is
be given freedom of worship. But Mr. Bag a much closer resemblance; they have not de-
well's account shows clearly that the question veloped into the diversities of experience and
of the land was far more interesting than that
character which divide grown people. You,
of religion. "The members were squabbling madam, may be puzzled or offended by the
for estates instead of preparing to resist the mature thoughts and actions of Emma Bo-
Prince of Orange, dividing the bear's skin vary or Diana of the Crossways; as little girls
before they had killed the bear.” Further you would have played together with your
more, the attainder of 2400 Protestants did dolls in alternations of strife and affection,
not promise very much for religious tolera- just like other little girls, and the wisest stu-
tion. The parliament was a failure; it had dent of child psychology could not have
met in the hopes of being able to cut all guessed how each of you would develop or
connection with England except the bond of a what special form of educational modified
common king; and an attempt was made to milk your unfolding natures required. I do
repeal Poynings's law, but King James would not understand immediately Richard Fever-
hear of no independent Ireland and inter-el's father or the aristocratic egoist, Sir
posed his veto.
Willoughby Patterne; I have to take on faith
The act of attainder may be justified as Meredith's expositions of the men and his
proper revenge for what the Irish Catholics descriptions of a kind of society in which I
had suffered earlier at the hands of the have never lived. But I understand at once
Protestants, but it was impolitic to say the the incendiary exploit of the boy Richard
least. For when the Protestants returned to and the devotion of Crossjay to Clara Middle-
power after the downfall of the Stuart cause, ton. I have been there and I know.
it was with fear in their hearts; and to secure So that every author who draws a boy lays
their position, their lives, and their property, | himself open to a world full of critics, all of


1917]
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THE DIAL
whom, except the unhappy few who never had “John Cave," I retain a favorable though
a childhood or have forgotten it, are qualified hazy impression. Mr. Trites's literary hero
to judge the veracity of his portrait. I am
I am is, or was, Dostoevsky, about whom he wrote
sure that Mr. Briggs's two series of "car an emotional article. He went to England in
toons,” “When a ler Needs a Friend” and a state of defiant despair of current American
“The Days of Real Sport,” those humanely literature. I do not know what he has done
humorous pictures of the kids we were between that challenging flight and the ap-
brought up with, would appeal instantly, even pearance of the present volume.
I hoped
without a translation of the American boy that he would smash through the weak reti-
talk, to Nexö, the Danish novelist. For Nexö's cences of the American novel and join with
beautiful story of the boyhood of “Pelle the some of the younger Englishmen in giving
Conqueror” shows that he remembers what to our fiction that tingling, naked sense of
boys do and that he knows how to remind us life which informs the best novels of con-
of what we too remember but have not the tinental Europe. The fulfilment of that hope
selective imagination to recall and revivify. is not to be found in work so false as “Brian
We are confident of our response to the boy- Banaker's Autobiography."
hood of Pelle, though we have no first-hand To justify the foregoing condemnation I
knowledge of Danish peasant life. And if the submit one episode. At the age of twelve
first part of “Pelle the Conqueror” seems even Brian resolves to get drunk. “All afternoon
finer than the other parts of that masterpiece, I was silent and grave, thinking of the strange
one reason may be that Pelle's struggles in experience that lay before me, and that even-
manhood are in a world which is in many re ing, with a corkscrew in my hand and
spects alien from ours, whereas the boy never 'Frankenstein' under my arm, I mounted to
for a moment steps out of the light of our my rooms to begin my orgy. Filling a
familiar dawn.
glass with red wine, I asked myself if ever
It is, therefore, not as a literary critic fret before a boy like me had embarked in this
ting over details of technique and style, nor deliberate manner on so great a deed as get-
as a world-worn cosmopolite who has lived ting drunk ?” The answer is that there never
among all sorts and conditions of men, but
was a boy like you. There have no doubt
as a simple provincial American reader that
been boys who in secret imitation of their
I pronounce judgment on two boys in recent
bibulous elders tasted alcohol and made them-
fiction. One is Mr. Gilbert Cannan's “Men-
selves ingloriously sick; but betchaboots they
del"; the other is “Brian Banaker,” whose
never indulged in any such solemn self-ques-
autobiography is "faithfully set down” by tioning about the deliberation with which they
Mr. W. B. Trites. Let us dispose of the bad embarked upon the thrilling adventure.
boy first.
It may be that such a boy as Brian would
The Juvenile Delinquency Court has to deal have been if he had ever been born and had
not with Brian Banaker but with his recorder, lived to his present hypothetical age, forty-
Mr. Trites. The only thing boyish about this four, might have written, or dictated to Mr.
alleged autobiography of a boy is the imma-
Trites, such a fatuous autobiography; that
turity of the author. Brian Banaker never therefore the book is true to character. But
existed. He is represented as the son of a wise literary adviser would have recom-
Philadelphia millionaires, born in 1873 and mended a psychopathic examination out of
married on the last page at the age of twenty-consideration for his friend and would have
four. The marriage must have been happy, suppressed the record out of consideration
because the girl, Marcelle, never existed, for his own literary ambitions.
either, and so no harm was done. Perhaps a Our good boy is Mr. Cannan's “Mendel."
real woman might appear to a real boy of His parents are Jews from Austrian Poland
twenty-four as the author says Marcelle ap who live in the harsh poverty of the London
peared to Brian, "like an exquisite moon slums. Mendel has genius and becomes a suc-
light dream." But it takes a human being to cessful painter. He is not the greatest painter
see a dream. In this contact of unrealities in England, pushed to the summit by a too
moonshine embraces moonlight.
facile biographer; he is moderately, humanly
A few years ago Mr. Trites announced him- successful, and that is one reason you be-
self as in revolt against the timidities of lieve in him. He struggles, fails, loses here,
American fiction. His circular about him- gains there. He has wilful forward-reaching
self was young and swaggering, but its direct intelligence and at the same times baffling lim-
promises sounded sincere and were in part itations of circumstance and temperament.
substantiated by the promising qualities of You need have no first-hand knowledge of
two novels, of one of which, called, I think, the intimate life of Jewish proletarians; you


358
(April 19
THE DIAL
de en
need never have seen a London studio; you hasten to pull Mr. Nyburg's story out of the
are simply sure that Mendel is true, that so shadow of its greater contemporary.
and no otherwise he was born, endowed with For it deserves the light. And it can stand
talent, burdened with failings, that his en it. I have seen few modern American stories
counters with living persons and actual things so earnest, direct, free from palaver and sen-
must have fallen out as they did.
timentality. The popular rabbi of a fash-
Pictures by modern Jews of their own ionable synagogue in Baltimore is involved in
people, such as Zangwill's tales of the Ghetto two contests, one between his loyalty to Juda-
and some excellent stories of the East Side ism and his love for a Gentile woman, the
of New York, by Abraham Cahan and others, other between the rich Jews of his congrega-
often have the effect of special pleading in tion, the employing class, and the poor Jews
behalf of the race. They not only appeal to of the wage-earning class. Both contests are
your sympathies by their pathos and ro human and dramatic, and the fine young fel-
mance and humor but seem to urge a little low who was caught in them is worth know-
argumentatively the theme: "Hath not a Jew ing. The problems of the Jew in America
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, are presented but not expounded. There is
passions ?” This is not always an artistic de no trace of a desire on the author's part to
fect, because without swerving from fealty justify the Jew to the Gentile reader. Here
to nature, fiction may be legitimately reën he is, in his strength and his weakness, with
forced by any high emotional purpose. his fine idealism, with his commercial vul-
Scott's local and racial patriotism, his eager-garity, neither adorable nor detestable, but
ness to celebrate the virtues of Scottish noble intensely interesting. I hope Mr. Nyburg
and commoner, did not detract from his nar will give us more stories of a race that has
rative power, but on the contrary was a always offered rich dramatic material.
source of added vitality, an enthusiasm which
JOHN MACY.
inspired and redeemed stories that were slug-
gishly composed. Some of the great Russian
stories are all the more poignant because they
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
contentiously expose the wounds of the peas-
ant. Nevertheless Mendel's character is the
SEA WARFARE. By Rudyard Kipling. Double-
more convincing because it is not drawn from
day, Page; $1.25.
a pro-Hebraic point of view and because the
So much unmitigated nonsense has been written
Gentile characters are drawn with impartial about Rudyard Kipling in recent years that his
fidelity. Logan the Scotsman moves through latest collection comes almost like a challenge. It
the story, as free, independent, and self-as is fashionable to-day to speak of “when Kipling
sertive as Mendel himself. The English girl,
was at his best,” with the implication that his
Morrison, over whose reluctant passion Men-
later work is sheer senility, and Mulvaney,
del's hot nature blunders to conquest, is as
Ortheris, and Learoyd are scoffed at as impossible
strongly conceived as Mendel's mother, who,
creatures, neither types nor individuals, by those
who nevertheless cannot think of Kipling without
with century-old wisdom in her eyes, watches
those Soldiers Three of his. The fact is that as
uncomprehendingly the growth of her modern
he created in fiction characters that, whether or
not they ever existed in the British army, have
Mendel is interesting as a person, as an ar-
lived and do live in the hearts of men, so now in
tist, as a Jew—in that order. A more highly journalism he has pictured the Jutland Fight so
specialized study of the Jew as Jew is “The
well that those who read may never forget it. If
Chosen People," by Mr. Sidney L. Nyburg.
a youngster had written “Sea Warfare," he would
already be a made man. It is better than “Sealed
The grouping of these two books together is
Orders." With access to men and records that is
a matter of the reviewer's convenience, and his by right of merit, he has described the men
it is perhaps unfair to compare them. But of the modern navy “because of the love that he
since they lie together let us be odious for a bore them, scriving them clearly," and no other
moment. Mendel is an artist; the hero of
account, either of the men or the battles, has
“The Chosen People” is a rabbi. To me an
proached his in clarity or value. Only one Amer-
ican writer has so far laid his finger on the secret
artist and art talk are more interesting than
by which Kipling may be understood. In a recent
a minister and religious talk. Moreover, Mr.
article Mr. Will Irwin discussed the cleavage in
Cannan is a master of phrasing; he has the the British race between Norman blood and Saxon
poetic sense of words, the sense of beauty.
a cleavage that very few understand but that
Mr. Nyburg often falls into flat phrases; he
is very illuminating. Rudyard Kipling is clear
tolerates the continued union of old verbal
Saxon, of the old sweet-smelling Saxon earth.
associates that ought to be weary of each He sees and writes from the Saxon point of view.
other. With that much of dispraise, let me His Norman-blooded officers are seen from be-
son.
ap-


1917]
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THE DIAL
neath; we are never allowed to be on terms with “simplicity” is the main note of these lyrics. They
them; those characters of his that we know at all only show themselves extremely unsensitive to those
intimately are Saxon to a man, and his rare her very subtleties of thought which are so much
oines are Saxon. He shows us England and the prized to-day in criticism. It isn't that the verses
English from the point of view of the conquered of Miss Waddell say one thing and mean another,
who absorbed their conquerors, and India through only that they mean a great deal more than they
his kindly spectacles frets a little beneath the Nor ever say in so many words. Here is a very simple
man heel. His Gadsbys and officers of that stamp example; almost any reader would be able to elab-
are true Norman; his Saxons mingle much more orate the idea further in his own mind :
with the natives. That is why the covenanted class
How say they that the Ho is wide,
in India quite candidly doesn't like him. In his
When I could ford it if I tried ?
most recent book he has given us again the purely
How say they Sung is far away,
Saxon viewpoint, writing as a brother when he
When I can see it every day?
writes of Grimsby fishermen. On the other hand,
his officers (and the Navy with its rigorous caste
Yet must indeed the Ho be deep,
When I have never dared to leap;
rule is practically all Norman on the upper deck)
And since I am content to stay,
are admirable at a little distance. If we study
Sung must indeed be far away.
them as our own officers, to be obeyed and allowed
It is far easier for the critic to attribute simple-
full elbow-room even in submarines, we get them
mindedness to an author than to himself. But the
in true perspective at once. It is not that Kip-
ling does not understand the officers, for he knows
easy way is not always the true way. One doesn't
mean by this that the verses in this book hold
them better than most of them know themselves;
but that he sees them with the eyes of the lower
great messages or present to us portentous riddles,
only that it becomes tiresome to hear them naïvely
deck, as surely and consistently as he writes of
them with the pen of a master.
described as pleasant fancies unaffectedly set down.
They are far more than that. They give a splen-
LYRICS FROM THE CHINESE. By Helen Wad-
did impression of color and action, not by em-
dell. Houghton Mifflin; $1.
ploying any mystic or impressionistic methods,
but by virtue of direct, terse, and vivid descrip-
To our recent importations of ancient poetry
tion. They have in them the spark of truth, the
from distant lands, we are now adding several
volumes of Chinese verse.
attractiveness of reality.
One of the first of
these, and by far the best that the reviewer has
OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO. By Farnham
seen, is “Lyrics from the Chinese,” by Helen
Waddell; she claims to be little more than a trans-
Bishop. Scribner; $1.25.
lator, but in reality has considerably greater abil-
Some seventy years ago, Henderson Yoakum
ity than that unpoetical term might indicate. In
produced a “History of Texas” that has formed
attempting to give a correct impression of these un-
the basis of every subsequent account of that inter-
usual lyrics one is tempted to