casual and careless reader. There was never a hint of condescension in his manner of explaining the principles he was advocating, and he combined candor and clarity. I did not appreciate the full merit of these editorials of his until once he summoned me suddenly to write a page of them for him when he had to prepare some verses to accompany the pictorial tribute to be paid to Grant, who had just been vanquished in his brave fight with death. I did my best to recapture the appealing directness of Bunner's manner, but I could not help feeling that I had not succeeded to my own satisfaction. Munkittrick had shared with Bunner and me a deep admiration for the delicate art of Austin Dobson, yet his allegiance weakened a little when he came later under the spell of Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses." As was customary with him, he expressed in verse his change of heart. I doubt whether he As I look back over those early years of " Puck," I can ever published this brief metrical criticism, and, as it has tenacall a host of clever articles from its various contributors, but ciously clung to my memory, I make bold to preserve here his none of them so clever as Bunner's own series in which he pro- invocation to the poet whose banner he was deserting: jected the grotesque and yet very human personality of the professional poet, V. Hugo Dusenbury. Prose and verse of very varying value, but always touched with the quaintness of his own personality, were provided incessantly by R. K. Munkittrick, whose signature was often supposed to be a pen-name derived from "monkey-trick." His comic copy was often mirthprovoking, but it lacked a little of the flavor of his talk. "You know that house of mine in the country?" he said to Bunner Austin, Austin, Austin, With Messrs. Gosse and Lang T VICTOR CHAPMAN'S LETTERS THIS is an appealing volume. It is prefaced by a memoir written by Mr. John Jay Chapman, Victor's father, in which the tribute to Victor Chapman's mother should interest every reader. Victor's generous, friendly, noble nature shines in these pages. We get a glimpse of it, for instance, in that letter home in which he asks for $500, saying: "I still have enough, but every one else's has given out." And how evident is his friendliness in M. Chevrillon's description: He used to come to us quite simply, dropping in like an old friend; and the fact is that, from his first visit, we felt as if we had known him for years. He learned to feel more at home in our St. Cloud house, which is almost country. My wife felt with him as if he were one of her big nephews, and the children had a shout of joy when they heard his voice downstairs. We loved him for his simplicity, his gentleness, his modesty, his perfect tact, and what we guessed of his courage. Of all the men whom Victor Chapman met in the Aviation Corps, Kiffin Rockwell, we learn, was dearest to him. Victor worshiped Kiffin's courage and romantic spirit, and Rock 1 Victor Chapman's Letters from France. With Memoir by John Jay Chapman. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25. well's opinion of Victor's nobility of character is revealed in this excerpt from a letter to Mrs. Chapman : I think we all have our ideals when we begin, but unfortunately there are so very few of us that retain them; and sometimes we lose them at a very early age, and, after that, life seems to be spoiled. But Victor was one of the very few who had the strongest of ideals, and then had the character to withstand anything that tried to come into his life and kill them. He was just a large, healthy man, full of life and goodness toward life, and could only see the fine, true points in life and in other people. And he was not of the kind that absorbs from other people, but of the kind that gives out. We all had felt his influence, and seeing in him a man made us feel a little more like trying to be men ourselves. Soon after writing the above Kiffin himself fell, and Mr. Chapman says: "I felt as if Victor's soul was but a little way above Kiffin's head, and stayed for his to keep him company.'" 6 If Victor Chapman had been no soldier, but just a plain narrator, he would still have made his mark. Listen to this description of a place near Caix: No stone in the countryside to speak of, so every building here is either built of red brick or of torchis, the peaks or gables of which are picturesquely steepled and the tile roofs green with moss. We hear the distant roll of cannon almost all day long, but so low and soft, like the distant rumbling of thunder, that unless there is some one to nudge one it is scarcely perceptible. The beginning of the daily itinerary is thus described : At night we each mount guard for two hours-that is, stand about in the neighborhood of the pièce (machine gun). Sometime between 5:30 and seven the jus (coffee) arrives. This is the occasion of waking the sergeant, who suggests that we sweep up a little round the pièce and donner un coup de balayage au boyau. The water should have been brought on the previous evening in a large demijohn. If so inclined, one washes superficially, or even shaves. Après avoir cassé la croûte, a slice of bread, with butter, if we have any. I indulge in scrambled eggs when I have them. Some time between 9:30 and 11 two muleteers arrive with the soupe, consisting of the wine (pinar), boiled beef (bidoche), and a greasy, warm liquid, usually containing disintegrated boiled potatoes, the soup proper, and the bread. Sometimes we have canned meat (singe), and once in a while macaroni (nouilles). Another superficial sweep, then a relapse until some time after five o'clock, when another two muleteers bring the soupe (only vegetables and meat this time) same as before in appearance and taste. The events of the day are the arrival of letters and the newspapers. A corvée d'eau is sent off-two men with the bon bon strung between them on a stick-to the village. At night the companies send out patrouilles of eight to fifteen men, bayonettes on their guns, a few cartridges in their pockets, but no cartouchière or cintinor. They crawl about in the beets and clover for a couple of hours and return. Now he tells us about a change of garrison when he was with the Foreign Legion : All the wagons are requisitioned. One still bears the title "Violet Parfumerie," and the horses are of all sorts. Only one captain has a horse worthy of the name. We halted every forty minutes and mounted the hill. The view was superb. I looked back as we descended the other side and enjoyed our winding column among the tilled fields, with the many-colored little flags sticking from the guns, the blue couvre capet, and the tawny tent covers mingling with the shining gamelles. Here he describes actual fighting: The tap, tap of Boches' bullets on the face of my abri in the evening affects me about as much as the lap, lap of little waves against the side of my sailboat. When out walking, corvée de charbon, one expects to hear the mi-eu (descending the scale) of spent bullets and the pistol crack of others. The rumble of distant artillery passes unnoticed, and but mild curiosity is aroused by the chug-chug-chug of a machine gun as of a steam motor-boat rounding a bend. The bursting of shells near by, of course, attracts comment-more because it varies the mononony than anything else. While I write a soldier beside the canal hides behind a tree from German bullets. Drss-ss-ss Chung! A bomb. And we have just been shoved into the abri. Latest news has it the fellow is wounded in the leg. Some one has gone to help him. Your loving VICTOR. P. S.-I did have a bullet go through my arm. But I would not know it now, save for the scar. And again: Well, yesterday afternoon when we were enjoying the quietude of these almost unreal trenches a put-put-crik-crik-crrrrrr with harsh accompaniment of cannon, and a lively fusillade broke upon our left. The Commandant ordered every one out of the boyaux: one killed and two wounded. After twenty minutes the shooting lessened and we turned to other things-I to reading Lamb, whom I found tedious till I hit the "Dissertation on Roast Pig." Bianchi to continuing the elaborate process of shaving so abruptly cut short. And there were interesting interchanges between the enemy. For instance: I just saw a little American chap who tells me of the petite poste where he watches from time to time. The trenches of his company are eight hundred meters from the enemy, but each side has long boyaux which lead out to little advance forts where a section at a time watch for half a day. Thirty-odd meters off there is a similar German post. Of course they interchange expressions of disgust. One Boche spoke up in French, "Don't shoot! What's the use?" A Légionnaire thereupon fired off a gun, whereupon the other responded, " Bunde de salauds!" Oh, some of these Germans speak excellent French and better Parisian slang. Victor Chapman's name will always be associated with the great venture of flying. That he enjoyed it, that he felt its import, but that he wished to save domestic anxiety and hated "fuss," is evident in the following, dated Hallowe'en, 1915: I get the idea that you are wearing yourselves out worrying and praying about the danger I am in. It's all very parental and I appreciate it, but I wish you would not because it rather takes the edge off, and principally because it does not benefit me or any one. This is the first thing I have ever done that has been worth while, or may ever do, and you might just as well get the benefit of it without the heart-wringing worry. Then follows this description of actual flying: The machine left the ground almost immediately, and I had to hold it down to keep headway. Then it began to buck, squirm, and wriggle. It slid off to the right, to the left, took a short plunge downward, and then attempted to rear.. The earth, a scrawny tree or two, looked near and menacing, but the gauchissement responded very well. As I gained a little height (75-100 meters) I felt more at home. "My! what a pleasure to see the mountains again after that monotonous plain." For, from a little height, already the slightly variegated horizon stood out a deep, rich blue. It added the necessary contrast to bring out the soft silver grays and hazy browns of the land with the baby blues and faint pinks of the sky and clouds. My thoughts were interrupted by a ratté or two of the engine, and I gave a casual glance at the field under me-in case the engine should stop and I must come down. Heading toward the artificial village of artillery, I was skirting the edge of the camp without advancing at all. Slowly it seemed I was moving sidewise, always facing the sinking sun. "I never saw that before," thought I. In the valley before me the little stream had flooded the low ground, and there, depicted in the little patches of water were the pinkypale-blue clouds. I turned and swooped along with the wind. The buffeting was much less now, merely a rise and fall like a ground swell, and the land was racing by underneath. Here were big areas of hardwood forests-gray individual trees sticking up all over out of rich copper-colored foliage. The foolish little winding creek with poplars like spear heads stick along its course. A funny little house with yellow gravel and lawn about it. Then, a pasture and patchwork of cultivated fields. These looked like handsome, well-worn carpets with the warp shown in places, green against gray. Now I leaned hard to the right and came back into the wind, heading to the ten little matchboxes (the M. F. hangars) where bits of white paper were ranged about. When I seemed about near enough I shut off the engine and pointed down, and but for the strap would have been lifted out of the seat by the sharpness of my descent. I pulled it over to the right, then eased it, and in my intentness actually stopped humming some innocent air. The ground, the shrubs, and the grass came up, up, for I was just above the ground. The machine lost its momentum and sank down. up Only a few days before his death he wrote of flying as follows: Clouds are not thin pieces of blotting paper; but liquid, ceaselessly changing steam. I played hide-and-seek in and out them yesterday; sometimes flat blankets like melting snow on either side below me; or again, like great ice floes with distant bergs looming up, and “ open water near at hand, blue as a moonstone cloud, floating full, for all the world like a gigantic jellyfish (those that have red trailers and a sting). In the nearer pools the mottled earth, piebald with sun and shadow, showed through; and it was thanks to these I knew my whereabouts. Exuberant with the present, Victor Chapman seemed in some way to belong to the past. As we read, it is as if some Prince Rupert of history was reappearing with marvelous courage and power. Like Rupert's, so Victor's name will, we believe, become legendary. Such a youth went fitly to France, for its people, as Mr. Chapman says, "were living in a state of sacrificial enthusiasm for which history shows no parallel." But by fighting for France Victor Chapman did not do more, we are sure, for her fiber than for that of his own country. Indeed, all Americans who have been or who are fighting for France are in our minds when we think of any one of them; in Mr. Chapman's phrase, "they form a single soul and spirit. WEEKLY OUTLINE STUDY OF CURRENT HISTORY BY J. MADISON GATHANY, A.M. HOPE STREET HIGH SCHOOL, PROVIDENCE, R. I. Based on The Outlook of September 5, 1917 Each week an Outline Study of Current History based on the preceding number of The Outlook will be printed for the benefit of current events classes, debating clubs, teachers of history and of English, and the like, and for use in the home and by such individual readers as may desire suggestions in the serious study of current history.-THE EDITORS. [Those who are using the weekly outline should not attempt to cover the whole of an outline in any one lesson or study. Assign for one lesson selected questions, one or two propositions for discussion, and only such words as are found in the material assigned. Or distribute selected questions among different members of the class or group and have them report their findings to all when assembled. Then have all discuss the questions together.] I-INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Topic: President Wilson's Reply to the Pope. Reference: Editorial, pages 9, 10; also 13, 14. Questions: one 1. Read with great care every word of the President's reply to the Pope-it is worthy careful study. 2. Name four things The Outlook claims President Wilson has done by his reply to the Pope. How does The Outlook explain each one of these? 3. Do you think the President has done less, as much as, or more than The Outlook says he has? Give reasons. 4. The Outlook says the enemies of Germany have " common. object." What is it? Do you think The Outlook right in this particular? 5. The Outlook and the President think it a waste of time to talk about the status quo ante-bellum. Why so? Do or do you not agree with them? 6. Are The Outlook and the President anti-peace agencies? Give several reasons. 7. From reading President Wilson's reply do you gather that he thinks the Pope imputes equality of responsibility and condemnation to all the belligerents alike? What facts can you produce on this important question? 8. Give your opinion of the following: "Germany having appealed to the sword must abide by the decision of the sword." 9. According to the President, the test of every peace plan is what? What is your opinion of this? What does he believe enduring peace must be based upon? 10. The Outlook considers Germany morally bankrupt. If this is so, what would you think of continuing this war until the Allied Governments overpower Germany, and then administer all her international relations and much of her national life, somewhat as receivers admin ister bankrupt organizations? 11. What are the purposes (plural, notice) of America in this war? How are they to be accomplished? Does President Wilson point a way out? Does The Outlook? 12. From reading the President's reply do you think he has concluded that William II must be dethroned before an enduring peace can be established? 13. Compare in several respects the President's reply to the Pope with Washington's farewell address and Lincoln's address at Gettysburg. 14. What is the real root of the trouble between Germany and the Allied Governments? Is it Germany's inability to understand that other nations have not the kind of ideals and aims that Germany has? II-FOREIGN AFFAIRS Topic: Steering Russia Without a Rudder. Reference: Pages 15-17; also page 8. Questions: 1. After reading this article (and Mr. Mason's previous articles on Russia) present a discussion on "The Fruits of Autocracy in Russia.' ." 2. Look over the histories of autocracies as they have come and gone. Do the same for the history of democracies. Which has been more efficient, autocracy or democracy? What can be said of the intelligence of the average man in each? Of his prosperity and happiness? In these matters is Germany as an autocracy an exception? 3. What has Mr. Mason said in defense of his statement: "The Russian Minister who keeps his ear towards the people receives only a babel of conflicting exhortations"? 4. Make comparisons between Tereschenko (Outlook, August 29, 1917, pages 649-651) and Paul Milyukov. How do you account for the ability and leadership of these men (they lived under Russian autocracy)? 5. What are the most significant points made by Milyukov to Mr. Mason? 6. Were you given complete charge of Russia, just what are the things you would do? 7. What has The Outlook said about "Russia's national conference" (page 8)? III-NATIONAL AFFAIRS A. Topic: Wise Minneapolis. 1. The Outlook says that "free speech is fundamental in democracy." Why so? Would absence of free speech mean absence of democracy? Define "free speech." 2. Discuss The Outlook's position as to the use of public streets, highways, and parks. Is it sound? Is it democratic? 3. Is or is not The Outlook against free speech? Illustrate. B. Topic: A Levy on Intelligence. 1. Do you think it would be right to take by taxation all profits caused by this war to pay the cost of this war? What results would follow such taxation? 2. Why is the service of the Government rendered in second-class matter rendered primarily to the people? 3. Illustrate how the zone system (if agreed to) would affect National opinion, localism, and sectionalism. 4. 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