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bergen, to Point Barrow, Alaska, and

thence six hundred miles farther to Nome. Amundsen, asked if he were bound for the Pole, said: "I don't know. I can be in the air a month with the Norge, and can fly anywhere."

While Byrd saw no land and no sign of life in his flight (part of which was over unexplored fields), it is considered quite probable that Amundsen's expedition may add materially to our geographical knowledge, for it is planned to pass directly over the center of the great unexplored area lying northeast of Alaska. It is pleasant to note that Byrd and

Amundsen are warm friends and that their rivalry is one of achievement and not of envy.

If the Norge should reach Alaska within the week in which Byrd took his one-day jaunt to the Pole and back, that week will be the most eventful in the history of Arctic exploration.

The Britannica's New Editor

A

GREAT work of reference and repository of useful knowledge requires a permanent editor-in-chief as much as does a great newspaper. In some ways, too, the qualifications are the same. A capable editor, whether of journal or encyclopædia, does not, as simple people used to suppose, know everything; but in both cases he must know how to find the writers and specialists who do, how to give harmonious tone to their combined efforts, how to judge the relative importance of topics and adjust proportion and space.

It is quite suitable, therefore, that the new editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica, James Louis Garvin, should be a practiced journalist and magazinist. He is best known as editor of the London "Observer," which under his control has in eighteen years grown from weakness to recognized vigor, with large influence. in foreign and domestic affairs. It is a journal which has challenged public attention, criticism, and debate, and certainly has received all in large measure. Before he went to the "Observer" Mr. Garvin was editor of the London "Outlook;" still earlier he was a contributor of articles to the "Fortnightly Review." He is a thorough student of history, economics, and politics, and has a wide knowledge of current affairs.

The Britannica is always in process of being revised. Its system of supplementary volumes is admirable, and the gath

ering and preparation of material for future complete editions are continuous and elaborate. The work demands and receives scholarship, editorial judgment, and extreme care in verifying and comparing authorities. It has been in existence for over a hundred and fifty years. Its value is recognized the world over. The choice of a new editor-in-chief is a matter of public interest. Mr. Garvin may be congratulated on his appointment as the head of this important work.

Great Britain Not Seeing" Red"

THE millions of strikers in Great Brit

ain do not want a civil war. That has been abundantly proved in the first week of the general action of the trade unions in sympathy with the miners. Probably in no other country in the world could so huge an industrial struggle be carried on with so little violence.

The unionists, in responding to the strike call, have given a demonstration of solidarity that cannot but impress even those who condemn the decision of their

Wide World

Commander Richard E. Byrd

leaders. But, despite sporadic rioting in London, Glasgow, and smaller cities, there has been no direct threat to the authority of the Government. The issue has been shown to concern fundamentally wage scales and hours of laborthat is to say, the maintenance of a standard of living.

The precipitation of such a conflict was far easier in Great Britain, with its rigid and long-established division of classes, than it would be in America. No one likes to draw comfort from such spectacles. But it is indubitably true that one of the lessons of the British crisis is the immense advantage of a system like that of the United States, where the desirability of a high standard of living for all workers is coming to be more and more generally recognized in liberal wage scales and where freedom of movement from one class to another still is preserved. The best "open door" policy we have is the open door of economic and social opportunity.

Signs are appearing in Great Britain that a way out of the deadlock may be found. The emergency organization of the authorities has begun to function with a success which hardly could have been expected. Rail and bus transport is increasing. The vital supply of food is being maintained, with Hyde Park in London under guard as a huge commissary center for the metropolis. The cooperation of citizen volunteers is growing steadily. Many strikers, their own interests not directly involved in the coalmine dispute, are reported to be drifting back to work. Unless the unions take more extreme measures or some outbreak of violence provokes a use of repressive force involving loss of life, which would harden the feeling on both sides into an obstinate fighting mood, a reasonably early solution seems possible.

Informal attempts to find a formula which would permit of a return to social peace are reported to be under way on the part of intermediaries between the unions and the Government. Lloyd George also has taken the lead in the House of Commons in calling on both the Government and the Labor Party leaders to take steps toward a settlement based on principles which have been advanced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leading churchmen. This would provide for a temporary guaranty of existing wage scales in the coal industry, pending a new agreement to be

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reached by arbitration. Any move de

signed to get discussion off the plane of the general strike and back to the plane of consideration of conditions in the coal industry is to be welcomed as a return to the real causes of the present trouble. Three special articles on the present situation in Great Britain are published elsewhere in this issue.

War Again in North Africa

W

ORDS have been responsible for more than one war. The fact that there is only one word in the language of the Riff tribesmen of North Africa for "autonomy" and "independence" appears to have contributed to the breakdown of the long-drawn-out negotiations for peace between them and France and Spain. Abd-el-Krim, the indomitable Riffian leader, demanded through his emissaries what amounted to virtual independence; the spokesmen of France and Spain promised in reply what amounted to a large degree of autonomy. A deadlock developed out of the difference in understanding as to what the one Riffian word for these two conceptions meant. The result is the resumption of the warfare between the allied French and Spanish forces in Morocco and the rebellious tribesmen, which for two years past has smoldered and from time to time broken out into flame.

No observer could fail to have been impressed by the appeal for peace, couched in quaint ceremonious terms, which Abd-el-Krim published in March through the London "Times." There There followed the parleys in Oudjda, which now have ended in failure and the renewal of attacks by the French troops. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the French and Spanish representatives have been playing, to some extent, with Abd-el-Krim. When the peace conference was under discussion in April, they demanded as a preliminary condition that their forces be allowed to advance unresisted at certain points which would strengthen their lines. While the negotiations were proceeding they took advantage of the lull in hostilities to make the very advances they had sought. Thus when the fighting began again they started from improved positions.

The advantage on the Riffian side appears to lie in the fact that the base of

strong enough to penetrate to this base and dislodge him; and at the same time the Spanish authorities, fearing a possible extension of the territory France holds, have been reluctant to permit French troops to enter the Spanish zone and do it for them. Whether this difficulty will be worked out diplomatically in the present year remains to be seen.

Another Side of the War Debt Question

M

ANY years ago, in the days before the war, a representative of this paper was discussing with a foreign diplomat in London the probability of Turkey-then, as now, the enfant terrible of southeastern Europe going to war with her neighbors. The near bankruptcy of the Sublime Porte was held in some quarters to be an invincible deterrent. The diplomat in question, who knew his Turkey well by hard experience, only smiled grimly when he was reminded of this fact. "Bankruptcy," he said, "never prevented a nation from going to war. It certainly has never prevented Turkey. When she cannot raise money for anything else, she can raise money for war."

There is a great deal of truth in this statement; and yet there can be no doubt that, among civilized nations today, with the appalling cost of the Great War daily brought home to them, the financial disaster involved in any fresh outbreak must act as a deterrent. This at least is the position on the whole debt question taken, recently, by Sir William Goode, the British economist, who played such an important part in the salvaging of Austria after the war.

"Another deterrent to war," writes Sir William, "may perhaps also be found in the unpopular policy of the United States in compelling the payment of war debts. It is annoying to us to have to pay so much to America, and it is not pleasant to have to follow the American lead and harry our former allies into 'settling up,' but there is much to be said for the practice as a moral factor against making war. When you know that you will indubitably have to pay back any money you borrow, whatever you may lose in life or in other ways, you are not so quick to borrow."

Heirs of the Boxers

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haps, likely to indulge the too fond hope that it has succumbed to modern, Occidentalized education. Read a young man's account of what he saw-or thinks he saw, which is the same thing so far as feeding the flame of fanaticism is concerned- —a few weeks ago. He is a college student, and is said to be above the average in intelligence.

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One of my cousins called for me to go to see the members of the Red Spear Club exercising. In the center of an open place there was a square table on which a sharp sword was laid, eight pounds or more in weight, Thirty-two young men standing beside the table. They all faced to the north, where their god was supposed to be, knelt and prayed for a few minutes. After a while each of them took out a small parcel of paper ashes which was given to each of them by their teacher. They swallowed the ashes with water. As soon as they were ready to exercise one of the members got up without saying a single word, went to the table and took the sword. My cousin told me that this man was the one who was commanded by their god to do the exercise this time.

As that man got hold of the sword he went to the members, who were now kneeling with their upper bodies bare and hands folded before their faces, motionless and breathless. He lifted the sword high in the air and struck hard on the back of one of the members. I... thought that this man might be hurt if not killed, but I was relieved very soon, for I saw that he was not wounded at all. Every member there was struck several times, and no one was hurt. I wondered if I was dreaming, but I found out that I was not. So now I believe that the members of the Red Spear Club are sword proof.

They are reputed to be also bullet proof, but the young student has not yet accepted that as a fact, "because," he writes, "I have not seen it with my own eyes, as I did see that they were sword proof."

The East yields to the West but slowly. Its superstition counts centuries where our science counts years. If this thing is so real to an intellectual young Chinese in college, what may it not be to the common run of Chinese?

The Red Spear Club might be a dangerous weapon in the hands of an unscrupulous leader. Thus far it appears to have served a useful purpose in de

Abd-el-Krim's operations is in a part of DOES the fanaticism in China which fending communities against the ravages

the Spanish zone in Morocco. The Spanish forces so far have not been

made the Boxer movement possible still exist? We in America are, per

of the soldier-bandit, a character all too common in China, and one not likely to

90

humor the hallucination of Red Spear invulnerability. When such a superstition comes unscathed through bandit battles, it must be deep-seated.

Nonagenarians

CH

HAUNCEY M. DEPEW, the perennial, has recently celebrated his ninetysecond birthday, and now comes Uncle Joe Cannon, the sage of Danville, Illinois, passing his ninetieth mile-post. Both gentlemen are Republicans, and so disprove the adage that the good die young. Both men have led active lives, have undergone great strain, and cannot be said to have obeyed any rules. One of their contemporaries, Henry Dayton, of Greenwich, Connecticut, who will reach ninety-two in September, travels to New York every day and carries on a considerable business as an insurance. broker. Dr. Charles W. Eliot is still with us as mentor and guide. All these stout specimens look with scorn upon the weaklings who succumb at threescore and ten.

Some one should move that this dead-line be expunged from the Bible as a malignant suggestion-to quote Christian Science. The example set by the sturdy quartet noted ought to be more generally followed.

The Church Press

T

HE religious press of this country, so powerful a half-century ago, is now having a hard struggle for existence, and, unfortunately, some of the best of the church papers find it a losing battle.

"Christian Work," an influential religious magazine since 1850, has suspended publication. "The Continent," leading Presbyterian weekly and founded Their in 1870, has come to an end. readers are being served, respectively, by the "Christian Century" and the "Presbyterian Advance." But the powerful organ, "Christian Work," so ably edited, first by Dr. T. De Witt Talmage and then by Dr. William M. Taylor, Dr. Joseph Newton Hallock, and Dr. Frederick Lynch, and the Presbyterian weekly made so strong by Dr. William C. Gray, Dr. Nolan R. Best, and Oliver R. Williamson, no longer exist.

The several journals representing the Methodist Episcopal Church recently reported a loss of $767,346 for the past quadrennium. The "Churchman," the liberal weekly of the Protestant Episco

pal Church, is now engaged in a drive for a $250,000 fund for working capital in order that it may continue publication. Other church papers are in similar predicaments.

Less than one hundred years ago the religious journals had more influence than any other papers in this country. In 1830 the circulation of church papers in New York City exceeded the circulation of all secular periodicals. The church press maintained its position of importance all through the nineteenth century. Writing in 1888, Bryce mentions the immense influence of the religious weeklies in the United States. With the turn of the new century, church papers began to lose their hold upon the general reader. Ever since then they have encountered financial difficulties and have been fighting for their lives. Dr. William E. Gilroy, editor of the "Congregationalist," telling of a recent group meeting of church editors, writes:

Very seriously and unanimously they were agreed that the outlook for religious journalism is exceedingly dark unless the Church can be roused to see the need of grappling with the problem. . . . All were agreed that the conditions under which religious journalism must be carried on have changed as irrevocably as the conditions attending educational and other activities of the Church, and that if journalism is to continue as an effective agency in the service of the Church, there must be a revaluation. of its place and purpose and provision. for more adequate support, and possibly a different basis of support.

What are the reasons why these publications which were once so strong are now so weak?

The condi

A comparison of the religious and secular press of the early nineteenth century shows them to be almost identical in typography and content. They both devoted considerable space to educational articles and the like. Their fields of discussion were the same. tions of competition, therefore, were nearly equal, with a possible advantage on the side of the church papers. During the greater part of the nineteenth century it was the custom to read the religious papers from cover to cover after the Sunday afternoon nap. For a considerable period there were no secular Sunday papers, and for a long time after their appearance it was not considered respectable to buy or read one. To-day, according to the "Western Christian Advocate," only one in seventeen of the

Presbyterians reads a religious paper. Members of the Lutheran Church have exactly the same record. The Methodist readers of a religious paper are only one in thirteen, and the Disciples of Christ, one in nine. Least loyal of all to their press are the Episcopalians, only one in forty-four of whom read a church paper.

As the art of printing developed, secular journals steadily improved their typographical make-up, used more illustrations, popularized their style, and developed a great news interest. While the secular papers were making these advances and adapting not only their editorial content to the interests of the day, but also adopting the most modern salesmanship methods in building up circulations, the religious press remained stationary-in fact, it narrowed its fields of discussion. Periodical production costs have increased far beyond subscription returns. The secular press was well able to meet this added expense by virtue of the enormous rise in revenue from the rapidly increasing advertising business. The time came when large amounts of money were appropriated for National advertising, but on account of the old-fashioned appearance of Church papers, their diminishing influence, and their lack of proper capital to compete with the sales organizations of the secular press, they fell behind in advertising. Though the religious papers still circulate among about twelve million people, their subscription prices, in the main, remain about the same as they were fifty years ago. Naturally enough, they have been unable to make ends meet. Some have been kept alive by large donations from wealthy church folk, but as the younger generation succeed to the fortunes of these benefactors they find other uses for their money. Thus cut adrift, church papers find it most difficult, if not impossible, to carry on.

The religious press is a great influence for good in this country. We strongly urge church members to support their denominational organs. As long as denominations exist there must be denominational papers. Few of them, however, are narrow and sectarian in spirit. In the main they are far in advance of the rank and file of the denomination they serve. Keen-minded and competent editors of some of the leading religious journals, in spite of annual deficits and lack of proper working capital, have con stantly improved their publications.

Writing on this subject, Dr. Guy

Emery Shipler, editor of the "Churchman," says:

I know the editors of the leading religious publications in America. Nowhere in the churches can one find a more consecrated or more able group of men. They are determined to bring home to their various communions a consciousness of the value of the contribution they are making to religious life. Every one of them knows full well the degree to which he fails to attain the ideals he harbors for his publication. On every side he sees writers with great messages, whose work he longs to incorporate in the pages of his journal; but along every foot of his daily pathway he comes face to face with the specter of poverty; and it haunts his dreams at night. Each mail of each day brings to his desk advice and criticism, commendation and denunciation. All this he values and will continue to value; but he looks forward to the time when, in addition to such counsel, he will have available the funds necessary for an approach to his ideals.

Most people greatly underestimate the influence of these journals. Their abandonment would be a great loss to the cause of religious education, the promotion of ethical truths, and the maintenance of honest and fearless journalism.

Our best colleges need endowment. If the church press cannot be maintained by income from its subscribers and advertisers, why should it not be endowed? There are few better ways in which funds for church purposes can be used.

Prizes and Principles

I

N declining the Pulitzer award to his "Arrowsmith" as the best novel of 1925 Mr. Sinclair Lewis embraced eagerly the opportunity to present his dislike and disapproval of all prize-giving in literature and art and of the Pulitzer definitions of merit in particular.

There is point in both these criticisms, although they are too sweeping and too vehement. It is absurd to say that because of the existing offers of prizes and literary honors "every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile" or that in time to come the administrators of the Pulitzer awards may become "a supreme court, a college of cardinals, so rooted and so sacred that to challenge them will be to commit blasphemy.". It is true, however, that there is some danger that contestants may be led by prize offers to follow to excess the literary fashion of the

Wide World Sinclair Lewis

startling effects rather than for sound art and literary value.

But is there any novelists' prize equal in money value, publicity, or fame to that which comes from a "best seller"? If Mr. Lewis feels that he is tempted by a $1,000 prize from the Pulitzer committee, what must be the temptation to which he is hourly subjected from the sale of his own works? Should he not, therefore, repudiate and reject the royalties from his publisher or at least devote them all to some charity like a home for indigent but proud novelists? To the ordinary writer, who can only imagine experiencing the luxury which Mr. Lewis experiencing the luxury which Mr. Lewis enjoys, this waving aside of a crown must seem vainglorious.

ist, or even an exceptionally skilled craftsman, there might be more disposition on the part of literary people to take his suggestion more seriously. But Mr. Lewis's achievement has not been that of an artist, or craftsman, so much as that of a slogan maker. He has equaled in ingenuity and in a sense of what the public wants in the way of phrases the unknown inventor of the word "kodak." In the phrase "Main Street" and in the name "Babbitt" he has created additions It to the vocabulary of modern man. can hardly be said that he has certainly added otherwise to permanent literature.

A generation ago it was an accepted belief that prize-winning novels were almost invariably wretched specimens of the art of fiction. This is not true of recent years. Awards for excellence have recognized such works as Miss Ferber's "So Big," Margaret Wilson's "The Able McLaughlins," Zona Gale's play based on "Miss Lulu Bett," and Willa Cather's "One of Ours." Among the Nobel prize winners in literature are such names as Tagore, Sienkiewicz, and Romain Rolland. A prize novel is no longer a joke, whatever else it may be. And the same holds true of other departments of literary production. There is always a difference of opinion as to what is the best, but the general level of worth has been reasonably high.

We agree with Mr. Lewis that the Pulitzer requirement as to fiction that should represent "the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood" lays too much stress on purpose and not enough on art; but wide critical liberty is left to the judges, and nowadays critics are not likely to lean unduly toward a novel because it is purposeful.

Mr. Lewis seems to make no distinction between prize competitions and awards for works already published. Certainly he did not write or publish "Arrowsmith" with a view to any possible prize, any more than Senator Beveridge wrote for that purpose his great book on John Marshall, which is also honored in this year's Pulitzer awards. There is a wide difference between sitting down anxiously and feverishly in order to compete for a prize offered by a publisher and receiving recognition for a published work which has already been judged by the reading public. It is the prize contest which in the past was not a benefit to true creative genius.

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miss Mr. Lewis's protest as a bid for "publicity, going as well as coming." He might retort that he was not in need of

I

publicity. The better view is that he
has started a proper discussion of an in-
teresting and debatable question.

Pedagogics

By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT
Contributing Editor of The Outlook

But this is unfair

to him. He had logic, wisdom, and a
knowledge of the human mind and heart,
but he'was the least methodical of all the
but he was the least methodical of all the
great teachers of whom we have any
record.

1

T is a little singular that one of the the Socratic Method. most important scientific terms in the history of civilization is extremely unpopular. I refer to the word "pedagogy" or "pedagogics." It comes from a Greek word meaning the training of children, and I suppose there can be no science, certainly no social science, more important than that. Yet the average man would probably be less offended if called a bootlegger than if he were accused of being a pedagogue. Lexicographers, men of letters, and teachers unite in defining a pedagogue as a conceited, narrow-minded person. This unpopularity of the term cannot be because it is derived from the Greek. I suspect that the unpopularity of the pedagogue comes, not from his purposes, or philological ancestry, but from his methods. This suspicion is confirmed by what has happened in the case of two other representatives of modern social science whose designations have a classic origin. We regard the electrician with respect, although his name is Greek. But the Latin name of the plumber does not protect him from gibes and jokes. The plumber is really a scientist. He must know something about hydrostatics and the effects of ferric hydroxid. A modern household can get on much better with broken-down electric wires than it can with burst water pipes. Nevertheless we go on jeering at the plumber and touching our hats to the electrician. Just as I began to write this article I ran across a joke in the local paper of the country town where I am spending the present month:

Two books have recently come into my hands, one by gift, one by chance, which bear out the contention that personality and not method makes the great teacher. Both are by pedagogues, using that term in its best sense. The first is by Dr. Charles F. Thwing, President Emeritus of Western Reserve University, and is entitled "The College President." The book is concerned with the office, functions, and personality of that important educational executive, and it treats of his relations with the student body, with the public, and with his official and professional colleagues. Without being didactic it is extremely suggestive. In it I find a quotation from an address by Senator Elihu Root on his own Alma Mater, Hamilton College. Mr. Root names half a dozen professors of Hamilton in his youth, among them his father and brother, and then says:

She-I think these slow motion pictures are tiresome.

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Their students doubtless soon forgot
the most of what they learned from
book and lecture; but their students
never could escape the deep and last-
ing impressions upon their characters,
their tastes, and their intellectual
methods. These professors were poor
as the world goes, but they had a
wealth that money cannot create.
They loved their subjects and were
happy in their work. They rejoiced in
the exercise of their powers. They
were content with simple pleasures.
They filled the atmosphere about them
with an enthusiasm for learning and
literature. They sought for truth as
one who strives in a game. They never
talked or thought about money or in-
vestments or profits. They took little
heed of all those things for which men
are striving and wearing out their lives
in the market-places of a materialistic
civilization.

For a boy to live with such men, to
be close to them during four of the
most impressionable years of youth, to
1 The College President. By Charles F.
Thwing, LL.D. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

A Book of Modern Essays. Edited by
John M. Avent. Allyn & Bacon, Boston.

observe and become accustomed to their simple and sincere lives, without money, made happy by the pleasures of the intellect and taste, to get their standards and become impressed by their estimates of the values of life, and to learn enough out of books in the meantime to understand it allthat is an education beyond price.

This is a beautiful interpretation of true pedagogics and deserves to be put alongside of Huxley's definition of education, which, although I have quoted it before, is certainly good enough to repeat

more than once:

That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in his youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear cold logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to any kind. of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.

The other of the two books which I mentioned above is also pedagogicalthat is to say, it is a text-book prepared for high school students by Mr. John M. Avent, Principal of the Curtis High School, on Staten Island. It is entitled "A Book of Modern Essays." The first essay of the little handy volume-its leading position indicating the value which Principal Avent places upon it— is by William James. William James is the philosopher who "wrote like a novelist" and stands high among the great teachers that America has produced. Being a philosopher and a teacher, William James, in discussing, as he does in this essay, "The Social Value of the College Bred," might have been expected to say something about the methods of pedagogics as a technical science. But no. He dwells, as Mr. Root does, upon the paramount importance of personality. He advocates, to be sure, the teaching of the "humanities," including Greek and Latin, but they are to be taught in order to make us familiar with not merely the best that has been thought and said in the world-to use Matthew Arnold's fa

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