THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

which are helping to swell the rising tide of New York's progress should give much attention in a specific way to the machinery of municipal government, the machinery of church organizations, or the machinery of the standard charitable and philanthropic societies. The readers of The Outlook are not in need of such information. It is enough, then, for me to remark that under the new administration, with such officials as Mr. Roosevelt, the municipal life has received a great uplift. The recent history of some of the municipal departments is teaching New York what a wealth of unanticipated blessing lies in the mere fact of an honest and disinterested city government. The influence upon public and private morals of the new order of things at police headquarters is exhibiting itself in unexpected ways. It is penetrating to the very foundations of the community's life. As for the churches, it may suffice to remark that they are concerning themselves with the study of the actual conditions of New York life as never before, and that their social usefulness and their influence for good citizenship are plainly increasing rather than diminishing. Dr. Parkhurst's stirring work has counted for much toward this end.

The great charitable societies, moreover, show themselves capable of a considerable degree of adaptation. I have already alluded to several of these. The Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, with Mr. Cutting at its head and Dr. Tolman as its executive officer, is engaged in a varied social work of uncommon interest and value, which includes public baths, summer outings, vacation schools on a large scale, an admirable free labor bureau, and a dozen other things out of the ordinary lines and of timely significance. Its central offices are in the attractive new United Charities Building-which, by the way, constitutes another of New York's social centers of first importance. Here one finds the offices of the Charity Organization Society, which, besides the well-understood

THE WASHINGTON ARCH AND THE JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH

primary functions of such an association, is also carrying on other interesting branches of work. One of its most important lines is its Penny Provident Fund. Several hundred receiving places are maintained for its savings system, and it thus supplies an important incentive to thrift.

In distinctive relief work along established lines of charitable aid the Organization Society holds the guiding place, and the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor works in immediate harmony with it. The really significant fact about the charity work of New York is the practical manner in which it has adopted the broad modern view that charity must not pauperize; that the individual family may be greatly benefited by an improvement in the general social conditions and facilities of the town.

It is the policy of the charitable societies to favor such movements for self-culture as Miss Grace Dodge's WorkingGirls' Clubs, to promote forethought and co-operation in such forms as mutual benefit funds for insurance against accident or illness, and in a hundred ways to help people to help themselves.

I have long been strongly of the opinion that the savingsbank system, on some plan or other, needs a tremendous amplification in New York. We have in the Bowery Savings Bank, the Bank for Savings, the Emigrant Industrial, and several other well-known institutions, a group of savings-banks doing an enormous business in the aggregate. There would be no advantage in endeavoring to establish a municipal savings bank system in competition with these existing institutions. But it has seemed to me that, through some sort of federation among the existing banks, with the countenance of State and municipality, the help of leading financiers, and the support of the principal charitable organizations, it might be possible to invade all the tenementhouse districts and all the suburban neighborhoods with a great number of branch savings-banks. And together with these there should be provided the branches of a great pawnbroking shop, or mont-de-piété, which ought also to be under the management of a society of financiers and philanthropists, with the Mayor and certain other municipal representatives as ex-officio members of the board. Happily, the Provident Loan Association, with its office. in the new Church Missions Building, was formed last year under Dr. Greer's direction, and it has entered with cau

but with the energizing influences of the West about his boyhood, Dr. Shaw graduated at Iowa College, the oldest institution of its class west of the Mississippi. During his college life the future journalist and writer devoted a great deal of time to the study of literature and of literary style, disclosing very early two qualities which are pre-eminently characteristic of him to-day, lucidity and directness. After graduation Dr. Shaw began his professional life as editor of the Grinnell "Herald," a position which enabled him to master all the mechanical and routine work of journalism. His aims were not the aims of the ordinary journalist. He saw with unusual clearness the possibilities of his profession, and he saw also that he needed a wider educational basis. His interest in social and political topics was the interest of a man of philosophic mind, eager to learn the principles and not simply to record the varying aspects from day to day. In order the better to secure the equipment of which he felt the need, he entered the Johns Hopkins University and took a graduate course. It was during his residence in Baltimore that he met Professor Bryce, who rec

ognized his rare ability and intelligence, and who used his unusually large knowledge of social and political conditions in the country. While carrying on his special studies at the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Shaw joined the editorial staff of the Minneapolis daily "Tribune." After receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1884, he removed permanently to Minneapolis, and took his place at the head of the staff of the "Tribune." His work almost at once attracted attention. Its breadth, its thoroughness, its candor, and its ability were of a kind which made themselves recognized on the instant. Four years later Dr. Shaw spent a year and a half studying social and political conditions in Europe, traveling extensively and devoting much time to the examination of the condition of municipalities. It was this study which has borne fruit in the two volumes on Municipal Government which have come from the press of the Century Company, and which have given Dr. Shaw the first rank as an authority on these matters. When the "Review of Reviews" was established in this country in 1891, Dr. Shaw became its editor, and his success in the management of this very important periodical has justified the earlier expectations entertained by his friends, for he has given the "Review of Reviews a commanding position. He is one of the very few journalists in this country who treat their work from the professional standpoint, who are thoroughly equipped for it, and who regard themselves as standing in a responsible relation to a great and intelligent public. Dr. Shaw's presentation of news is pre-eminently full, candid, and unpartisan; his discussion of principles is broad-minded, rational, and persuasive. He is entirely free from the short-sighted partisanship of the great majority of newspaper editors, and he appreciates to the full the power of intelligent, judicial statement. His opinions, for this reason, carry great weight, and it is not too much to say that he has not his superior in the field of American journalism.