library is to buy a copy of Lamb's "Essays of Elia," or, if Lamb be not for you, begin with Green's "Short History of the English People." "There is a book with roots and branches, if you like." He deplores the "prolonged epidemic of the imitation his torical novel," and bids his readers return to Dumas and Charles Reade. He declares that if Henry James is read in the future he will be read as one reads Darwin on earthworms-for his marvelous observation of minute social phenomena. Howells's style is on the side of his endurance, whereas the style of Mr. James is plainly subject to writer's cramp. However, these sharper criticisms are not the prominent feature of this useful manual, for the spirit of kindliness pervades every chapter. We are warned against the misleading idea that there is much to be read; there is really very little of real reading, and there is time to read it all twice over. A limit of three books to each will give a fair representation of the great novelists, says Mr. Le Gallienne, and one is inclined to agree with him. Upon the whole, common sense and just discrimination characterize these popular suggestions as to the formation and enjoyment of a literary taste. Professional Training of Secondary Teachers in the United States. By G. W. A. Luckey. (Columbia University Contributions to Philosophy, Psychology, and Education.) The Macmillan Co., New York. 6×94 in. 391 pages. $2, net. Quiet Talks on Power. By S. D. Gordon. (New and Revised Edition.) The Fleming_H. Revell Co., New York. 5x7% in. 220 pages. 75c., net. The power here treated of is the power of personality inspired through close personal sympathy with Jesus; it is power for full and strong Christian living with effective influence. Mr. Gordon takes the English Bible in its face meaning to the ordinary reader, and speaks in a simple but searching and stimulating way. Self-Portraiture of Jesus (The). By J. M. E. Ross, M.A. Edwin S. Gorham, New York. 5×8 in. 252 pages. $1, net. Great sayings of Jesus descriptive of traits of his character, or features of his work, furnish themes for the plain and brief discourses, earnestly evangelical, which the author modestly describes as "sermon-studies." Social Diseases and Marriage. By Prince A. Morrow, A.M., M.D. Lea Brothers & Co., New York. 6x9 in. 399 pages. Songs of Southern Scenes. By Louis M. Elshemus. Eastman Lewis, New York. 52X8 in. 157 pages. $1.50. Hundred Years of Warfare, 1689-1789 (A): Spanish Colonial System (The). By Wil How the Nation was Born. By Marguerite Stockman Dickson. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co., New York. 5x7 in. 273) pages. Introduction to Vertebrate Embryology (An). Based on the Study of the Frog and the Chick. By Albert Moore Reese, Ph.D. Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 5x8 in. 291 pages. $1.40, net. Manual of Corporate Management, Containing Forms, Directions, and Information for the Use of Lawyers and Corporation Officials (A). By Thomas Conyngton. (Second Printing.) The Ronald Press, New York. 6x9 in. 352 pages. $2.50, net. (Postage, 20c.) Methods of Social Advance. Edited by C. S. Loch, B.A. The Macmillan Co., New York. 54x8 in. 192 pages. The papers collected in this volume deal with a large variety of practical questions constantly confronting those who are endeavor ing to better the conditions of the poor in the struggle to live and rear their children. Having appeared for the most part in the (British) Charity Organization Review," they deal with some points with which Americans are not much concerned. But the problems of the poor and the methods of social advance are sufficiently alike here and there to commend this volume of expert testimony to all who are interested in the questions it takes up. People's Psalter (The): A Plain Book for lated from the Originals. Edited and Annotated helm Roscher. Translation edited by Edward Gaylord Bourne. Henry Holt & Co., New York. 6x934 in. 48 pages. Spelling by Grades: Words from Baldwin's Readers. The American Book Co., New York. 5x72 in. 128 pages. Steps in English: Book I and II. By A. C. McLean, A.M., Thomas C. Blaisdell, A.M., and John Morroe, M.S. Illustrated. The American Book Co., New York. 5x7 in. Student's Old Testament (The): Vol. I. Nar ratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History. By Charles Foster Kent, Ph.D. (With Maps.) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 6x9 in. 382 pages. $2.75, net. This volume is assured of wide welcome. Professor Kent, well known already by his "History of the Hebrew People," "History of the Jewish People," and "Messages of the Prophets," has compressed into remarkably small compass a full and lucid exhibit of the assured results of Biblical criticism. Following an introductory history of Israel's early records, in which the genesis of traditions and their present literary form is explicated, the Old Testament text is given with its component strands in parallel columns-the Early Judean (Jehovistic), the Early Ephraimite (Elohistic), the Later Prophetic (Deuteronomic), and the Late Priestly. In the present volume this concludes with the conquest of Canaan. The foot-notes amply suffice to give the text its proper historical background, and such critical and other data as the reader requires for a clear understanding of the subject matter. The ordinary Bible-reader's needs have been consulted to the extent of a fresh translation of the text, departing from that fe American Revised Version wherever tthought of the original seemed capable of expression in more clear and idiomatic modern English, without losing the dignity of the current version. The analysis and classification which this first installment of the "Student's Old Testament" presents of the heterogeneous material which the ancient writers and editors habitually threw together is the prime requisite for reaching any intelligent and adequate conception of the development of religion in Israel. Those who look with suspicion on the unraveling process are likely to be reconciled to it in degree as they discover that it leads to surer historical ground for their faith in a divine guidance of the early pupils of the Spirit. Professor Kent's work meets practical needs. It has been tested in university and Bible classes. For the first time, the ordinary Bible student has now a complete manual that puts him in possession of the results of the labors of specialists, and of such an understanding of the processes as is adequate for intelligent confidence in them. A selected bibliography and an ample appendix leave nothing to be desired for complete apparatus. Teaching of the Catechism (The). By Beatrice A. Ward. Illustrated. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. 5x64 in. 171 pages. 90c., net. This manual has been prepared for children of the Church of England. White Servitude in Maryland, 1634-1820. By Eugene Irving McCormac, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Political Science.) Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Md. 6x9 in. 112 pages. Correspondence Letters addressed to the Editors of The Outlook, to receive any attention whatever, must in all cases be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. Names will not be published if a request to that effect is made by the writer, but no attention, either personal or editorial, can be paid to anonymous communications. Singing or Spelling? To the Editors of The Outlook: I have read with much interest an article in The Outlook of March 19 on "Our Public School Music," and would like to respond to the author's request that we all "champion it" by voicing what I know to be the view of many parents. Like Mr. Mason, I had recently the pleasure of seeing a wonderful exhibition of the ability of little children to read music by sight. It was in a class of seven-year-olds in one of our public schools, and after they had finished their music-reading the children went to the blackboard and wrote the notes which their teacher sang, a key of several sharps or flats being selected. I was astonished and delighted, but I was more astonished and not at all delighted to find that the same children could not spell the simplest four-letter words, that those ears so wonderfully drilled musically were utterly unable to hear the difference between tract and track, between shell and shall. The explanation was not far to seek. A question to the teacher revealed the fact that in that class double the time was devoted to singing that was devoted to spelling. Nor was that class exceptional. Throughout that whole school there is no class in which spelling is systematically and thoroughly taught, and reports which come to me from other cities lead me to believe that what is the case in that school is common throughout the schools of our land. If this be true, I, for one, feel inclined to "champion" spelling rather than singing. Let us see to it that our children's hands and faces are clean before we pay much attention to elaborate trimmings on their gar ments. As I read Mr. Mason's figures and ponder on the one item of the more than seven hundred young women graduated from one musical institution and "distributed all over the country, many as supervisors of the musical instruction in State Normal schools," I begin to see why our teachers' salaries are necessarily so low and their classes so large that no one can do justice to them. We pay so much for singing, for drawing, for nature study, that we cannot afford to pay living wages to our regular class teachers and cannot expect to get competent persons to accept this work. Surely it is time to demand that, whatever accomplishments are or are not taught in our public schools, our children shall leave them able to read aloud pleasantly a piece of ordinary prose, able to write easily a letter which they will not need to submit to revision on account of its spelling and diction, and, most important of all, trained to use their minds intelligently and industriously. Those who know the facts know that students are every year being graduated from some of our best public schools who can do none of these things, and some of us would rather that our children should have these acquirements than that they should be able to sing at sight, use water-colors deftly, or be thoroughly conversant with all the symptoms of alcoholism. F. [It is hardly fair to ascribe shortcomings in the teaching of common branches to music, drawing, and nature study. Many observers of public school education believe that wasteful methods of teaching arithmetic, for instance, frequently account for such bad results as these mentioned by our correspondent.-THE EDITORS.] Caring for the Adult Blind To the Editors of The Outlook: May I correct a mistake in Miss McCracken's article of February 13, where she says, in telling about the recently inaugurated organization, the Massachusetts Association for Promoting the Interests of the Adult Blind, "In the State of Massachusetts no public provision for the care and education of persons becoming blind late in life had yet been made." The following facts should be known. In 1898 the graduates of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind took up the work of giving free instruction in reading, writing, and industrial occupations to blind adults in their homes, reaching some fifty cases. An outcome of this work of the alumnæ, and of the persistent agitation of the subject by Mr. J. Newton Breed, himself a blind man, was that the Massachusetts Legislature of 1899 directed the State Board of Education to "inquire into the feasibility of instructing the adult blind at their homes, and to report the result of its investigations, with such recommendations as it may deem proper, to the next General Court." In May, 1900, the report and recommendations were presented to the Legislature, which appropriated $1,000" to make a beginning in carrying out the recommendations of the Board of Education that such instruction should be given.” In 1901 the State appropriated $3,600 for the same purpose, and in 1902 and 1903 $5,000. The use of these appropriations may be found in the printed reports of the State Board of Education for 1902 and 1903, accompanying this communication. Two teachers were at first sent out, and later two more were added. Up to the beginning of this year they have visited regularly in more than half a hundred cities and towns, have taught a total of 313 adults, and have traveled 103,080 miles. The Perkins Institute loans freely its books to those who have learned to read, the State paying postage or expressage. For some nine years the needlework of blind women has been sold at the salesroom of the Perkins Institute, thus enabling some blind adults to earn money. Rhode Island has this year followed Massachusetts in providing instruction for adult blind at their homes. ** The Need of Physicians in Missionary Work Abroad To the Editors of The Outlook: I read with much interest your comments on the value of medical missions in the issue of March 12. The instances you give of the results following the work of Christian physicians might be indefinitely multiplied, not only in Turkey or Korea, but in practically every modern mission field. The service rendered and the good done in China, for instance, by men like the late Dr. Kerr, of the Presbyterian Mission in Canton, and by Dr. Boone, of the Episcopal Mission in Shanghai, are beyond all calculation. They have done a vast amount in opening the way for the Gospel. In some respects they might be called the miners and sappers of the missionary army It is a branch of the service which is sadly undermanned, as the brief account you gave of Dr. Allen's busy life indicates. It offers opportunity for scores of well-equipped young American physicians to make decided contributions to medical science, as well as to relieve human suffering and aid in commending the Christian Gospel. At a meeting of the American Medical Association in New Orleans a few months ago, the statement was made by one of the leading physicians of the country that the United States needs about twentyfive hundred new medical graduates every year; while the medical schools are turning out ten thousand graduates a year. Thus America is over-supplied with physicians, while the non-Christian world is sadly undersupplied. In China to-day there is but one missionary physician for each 1,500,000 of the population. In the missions of the Episcopal Church in China we need additional physicians, both men and women, in Shanghai, Wusih, and Wuchang. In the Philippines we need at least one male physician for interesting pioneer work among the pagan tribes in the northern part of the island of Luzon. I will supply particulars to any who care to have them, simply premising that it is necessary that those who receive appointments in our missions should be communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church or the Church of England. JOHN W. WOOD, Corresponding Secretary. Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Italian Immigration To the Editors of The Outlook: The article by the Hon. Wm. D. Foulke on " Italian Immigration," published in The Outlook for February 20, seems to me to call for comment. While I agree entirely with Mr. Foulke in believing that there is much good in Italian immigrants, I cannot altogether accept his optimistic conclusions. Three points call for comment. First, the fact that "the places to which immigration comes in largest quantities, New York, Boston, Chicago, and some of the agricultural regions of the Northwest, are the most progressive parts of the country" does not appear to me a very strong argument against the further judicious restriction of immigration. It certainly cannot be claimed that the recent large immigration from southern and eastern Europe has been a potent factor in making our large Northern cities progressive. Secondly, Mr. Foulke speaks of there being no difficulty in assimilating all our immigrants if we scatter them on farms and in small communities. Much is being written at the present time regarding “the solution of the immigration problem" by "scattering our immigrants" over the country districts. Many persons seem to believe that this distribution can be accomplished without expense and without difficulty, and that it presents an easy, satisfactory, and complete solution of all the problems which grow out of the one great problem of foreign immigration. On this point I should like to quote from a recent article in "Charities" (February 6): "If these people [i.e., the population in the foreign quarters of our large Northern cities] could be scattered throughout the country, the evil effects of their crowding into particular sections would be diminished, but no one can suggest any practicable scheme for doing this on a sufficiently large scale to be useful, even with enormous expense. . . . What is more, the various States, when asked a few years ago by the Immigration Investigating Commission what nationalities of immigrants they desired, in only two cases expressed any desire for Slav, Latin, Asiatic, or Jewish settlers, and both of these cases related to Italian farmers, with money, intending to become permanent residents. It should be noted that few Italian farmers, with money, intending permanent settlement, come here. In his last annual report the CommissionerGeneral of Immigration strongly recommends the establishment of bureaus of information, through which immigrants may be directed to the States where they are most needed, so that the present congestion may be relieved. There are, however, two sides to this matter of distribution. The easier we make it for every undesirable immigrant to find work-and it is chiefly the undesirable ones that are crowded into our cities-the more we shall induce others to come; and, furthermore, the more we scatter our recent immigrants, the more widely do we spread the evils which result from exposing our own people to competition with the lower classes of foreigners. President Roosevelt, in his Message to Congress last December, noted the need of distributing the desirable immigrants throughout the country, and of keeping out the undesirable ones altogether. Most writers on this question have emphasized the need of scattering the undesirable, who, as President Roosevelt points out, should not be admitted at all." In this connection it may be noted that South Carolina, in which, according to a competent authority, there is "a more general desire for more white men who are willing to work with their hands" than in any other State in the Union, has instructed its Commissioner of Immigration, in securing immigrants, to confine his activities to "white citizens of the United States, citizens of Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, France, and all other foreigners of Saxon origin." Thirdly, Mr. Foulke is distinctly giving a wrong impression when he says of the Italians who are now coming here in such large numbers that they are "industrious, enduring, and constitute the most adventurous part of the population of Italy," It has been shown by an agent of the Treasury Depart ment during the past summer that much of our present immigration is stimulated to leave home by the steamship agents, and is therefore of a very different character from the pioneer immigration of fifty years ago. Still more recently, one who has been studying Italian emigration in Italy tells us that we are receiving large numbers of Italian criminals, because the chiefs of police, who know the history of every man within their jurisdiction, create good records for themselves with their superiors by making it easy for the criminals in their districts to leave home and come to the United States. "Enduring" and" adventurous" these criminals may be, as Mr. Foulke holds, but we do not want that kind of endurance nor that kind of adventurous spirit. All Americans, whether they believe in a further restriction of immigration or not, must heartily approve of such admirable work as is being done by the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants in New York (see The Outlook for April 16) and by the similar society in Boston. This work is carried on wisely, effectively, and along rational lines. It helps to lessen the evils which result from our enormous immigration by distributing some of our Italian immigrants, by helping them to assimilate with us, and by spreading information in Italy which may tend to keep at home some persons who might otherwise be induced to emigrate without a clear understanding of the conditions in this country. But there are many persons who believe that, in spite of all that the immigrant aid societies of whatever nature may be able to do, we cannot properly assimilate so large a body of immigrants as we are now receiving every year. We feel, with the late General F. A. Walker, that "that man must be a sentimentalist and an optimist beyond all bounds of reason who believes that we can take such a load upon the National stomach without a failure of assimilation, and without great danger to the health and life of the Nation." Or, in the words of the last Annual Report of the Associated Charities of Boston, "with an immigration as unrestrained as at present, we can have little hope of permanent gain in the struggle for uplifting the poor people of our cities, since newcomers are always at hand, ignorant of American standards." Hence the general desire for a further judicious restriction of immigration. The Italian Immigrant Aid Society deserves hearty support, but no one can deny that its work and that of all of our philanthropic and charitable societies could be more effectively done if the number of annually arriving immigrants were smaller. The excellent editorial on "The Making of Americans" in The Outlook for August 22, 1903, exactly expresses the present writer's convictions on this subject. ROBERT DE C. WARD. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. |