total effect of that reading we attribute much of the sadness of our life. We entertained no hope of a history of English literature that should evince profound erudition, without somniferous parade thereof; that should be thorough, yet obedient to the Confucian maxim to avoid preoccupation with trifles; independent, without assertiveness; delicate in its judgments, without preciousness; humorous, without invocation of Momus; well-proportioned; free of tiresome hobbies about the Zeitgeist, the milieu, evolution-that sort of thing; in fine, a history of English literature that should run its predecessors off the shelves. But here is such a history; at least in part. Let us pray that M. Louis Cazamian, who is to complete the survey in a second volume, will be as well inspired as M. Legouis. Though, thank Heaven, not Olympian, M. Legouis is sufficiently catholic, his catholicity being charmingly and to good effect qualified by a soupçon (maybe more) of the French esprit. We say, "to good effect," since it stresses the criterion of form, is offended by the unlicked, the inchoate. The work of translation is commendable. Notes on New Books By Lalla MONARCHS AND MILLIONAIRES. The wife of a Belgian Minister of State comments on her experiences in Europe and America. AN ACCOUNT OF THE SCAPA SOCIETY. By Richardson Evans. Constable & Co., Ltd., London. 6s. The Scapa Society is an English organization for checking the abuses of public advertising. DISEASE PREVENTION. By Dr. H. H. Waite. The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. $4.50. By the Professor of Bacteriology and Pathology in the University of Nebraska. THE SHAKESPEARE COUNTRY. By C. Showell. A. & C. Black, Ltd., London. A readable guide-book, well illustrated. SO YOU'RE GOING TO ENGLAND. By Clara E. Laughlin. Houghton Mifflin Company, Bos ton. $3. The PILLARS OF GOLD. By Mitchell Bronk. Judson Press, Philadelphia. $1.50. "Sketches of Christian people, places, and experiences." THE YOUNG FOLKS' BOOK OF INVENTION. By T. C. Bridges. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $2. A well-illustrated book for boys and girls, ten to fifteen. THE YOUNG FOLKS' BOOK OF MYTHS. By Amy Cruse. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $2. Mythology of all nations, well illustrated in color and in black and white. MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA By Archi bald T. Davison. Harper & Brothers, New York. $5. The Associate Professor of Music at Harvard propounds the questions: What is wrong with it? and, What shall we do about it? THE AMERICAN DRAMATIST. By Montrose J. The On the Trail of Life Forces The growing number of the keen-minded to whom scientific discovery is an adventure will find an intellectual treat in A Bipolar Theory of Living Processes A new book by Dr. George W. Crile A FASCINATING picture of the cell and body as stor age batteries and life as an electro-chemical process is presented by the distinguished Cleveland surgeon, after twenty-eight years of search into the nature of life. THE BOOK is not "popular science," but the exposition is clear and stimulating and opens up exciting possibilities in physics, chemistry, biology and psychology. Atlanta Dallas San Francisco TEACHERS' AGENCY The Pratt Teachers Agency 70 Fifth Avenue, New York Recommends teachers to colleges, public and private schools. EXPERT SERVICE SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES Massachusetts HALLOCK SCHOOL A college preparatory school for boys. A splendidly equipped school which offers exceptional advantages, including small classes, individual attention, thorough instruction, outdoor life. Address BOX P, Great Barrington, Mass. New York STAMMERING If the stammerer can talk with ease when alone, and most of them can, but stammers in the presence of others, it must be that in the presence of others he does something that interferes with Nature in the speech process. If then we know what it is that interferes, and the stammerer be taught how to avoid that, it must be that he is getting rid of the thing that makes him stammer. That's the philosophy of our method of cure. Let us tell you about it. SCHOOL FOR STAMMERERS, Tyler, Texas. In writing to the above advertisers please mention The Outlook W HERE is the ultimate West, and when will all things reach it? And, after they reach it, will the earth be stagnant and dead because there will be nothing left to struggle for? Two bits of editorial comment have started me puzzling over an old mystery; taking out of my memory scraps that I have accumulated through a By DIXON MERRITT I have never had either the opportunity or the necessary information to make a similar list for any other neighborhood, but this thing has gone on in my own through the intervening twentyfive years. If I took the time to bring my list up to date, the proportion would be about the same. If there is any local reason why this should be true, I have never been able to the great majority, being free for the first time in their lives, drift westward. That is a thing apart from the general drift of population toward the newer lands of the west, all the way across the continent. What I am speaking of is not mass movement through long distances, but individual movement through distances quite short. quarter-century, turning them over, and, find it. It is an old, slow-changing, AT about the time that I made that somewhat idly, trying to fit them together. I cannot, of course. I am not a scientist, and this is perhaps more deeply scientific than the deepest delvings of our scientific men. One of those bits of comment was printed in The Outlook. It was based on the belief of scientists, now to be checked by radio, that the continents of the earth are slowly drifting westward westward and equatorward, the paragraph said. The other bit was in some newspaper and had to do with the asserted fact that radio waves themselves are easily transmissible westward, but are transmissible eastward only with extreme difficulty, and then with no more than partial success. Here are two westward drifts that I had not known of. Perhaps there are still many-some, almost certainly-that nobody yet suspects. But I started remembering the ones that I had found for myself. Doubtless many other persons knew of them, but that does not change the fact that, so far as I individually am concerned, I found them. IT T was quite a quarter of a century ago that, sitting in the small hours of the morning at the city editor's desk of a little daily newspaper and reading a letter from home which recounted the small doings of the neighborhood, including the removal of a neighbor from one farm to another, it occurred to me to check over the shifting of families from farm to farm within that neighborhood and within my recollection. When I completed the task, I had a list of thirty-seven such moves. Thirty of them were moves westward. Seven were moves eastward, but of these seven three were of men who had first moved westward and then had gone back to their original homes. Only four out of thirty-seven were permanent moves to the east. Of the thirty families that had moved westward, some had moved nearly north or nearly south, but all west of a north-and-south line. colonial-stock neighborhood. A FEW weeks ago I sat, late one afternoon, in my automobile in a corner of the public square of the courthouse town of my county. An old friend, a lawyer there, came and sat with me, and we talked. Time came for closing the stores around the square, and as the salesmen and proprietors came out I realized that I was a stranger in my own town. Only here and there did I see a face that had been familiar to me in the old days. When my friend and I went over the list of the merchants who used to be there, we found that only two were left of those who kept store when I went out into the world from that town. In that fact there is nothing remarkable. The list of merchants in any town is practically made new in twenty-five years. But the way in which their places have been filled, if my friend's information is correct, is remarkable. "As the old ones died or retired or failed," he said, "their places were filled by men from the eastern counties. Seventy-five per cent of the men who own businesses in this town to-day came to us from the east." My friend says that these men closed out their businesses east-from twenty to a hundred miles and came west because of better schools and better roads. I said: "It appears to me that some of the counties to the west of us have no better roads and no better schools than the counties to the east. Haven't we acquired any business men from those counties to the west?" "Well," he admitted, "there are poor roads and poor schools to the west, too; but those people-well, they go somewhere else." West, perhaps? I don't know, and I did not suggest this westward-drift idea to my friend. What I do know is that of both farmers and business men who in that community detach themselves from the soil to which they were born, first check of my neighbors' movements twenty-five years ago I had an interest in twenty-odd acres of land which constituted a part of the most promising suburban section of the little. immediately south of the city, on the city in which I sojourned. The land was best road leading out from it, with to pography much the most attractive to be found around the city, with good houses built squarely up to the property all along the line. Development, everybody knew, was going that way immediately. But it did not. It jumped a mile of slums and sloughs and went west. I did not know then, being young and not worldly wise, that cities ordinarily do grow westward unless some insurmountable obstacle lies that way-and the obstacle must be really insurmountable, not just apparently so. Washington is, perhaps, the most notable example. There was never a doubt in the minds of George Washington and l'Enfant when they planned the capital city that it would grow from the Capitol grounds eastward. That way the land was high, comparatively level, and in every way attractive. To the west was a region of tide-water creeks and marsh-grass hummocks. Did Washington grow to the east? It did not. It went helter-skelter down the hill into those bogs and creeks and stands ten feet above sea-level instead of two hundred feet, as it might have stood. Until the tidal basin was constructed, at great expense and as the result of consummate engineering skill, the brackish water of the Potomac used, when it pleased, to wash through the buildings on the Mali and along Pennsylvania Avenue. The back door of the Capitol is toward the portion of the city where all the principal buildings are, its front door toward a half-deserted region of cheap houses. three years I realized that, while I knew every woods and bush clump and weedy ravine for ten miles west of the city, the region east of the city was practically unexplored country for me. For a thousand days and more I had been tramping out to the west, or more nearly to the west than to any other point of the compass, east only when there was some special reason for doing it. About that time I came by chance upon Thoreau's essay on walking. It was written during his tax-dodging period of playing the hermit at Walden's Pond. Thoreau says in that essay that whenever he came out of his cabin for a walk without having previously fixed upon a destination he invariably and inevitably walked west or southwest"westward and equatorward," as our editorial writer said of the continents. Does every man walk westward when he walks naturally? Perhaps the rest of you know whether you do or not. At least two of us have known that we did. A FEW years ago I became quite enthusiastic over a vigorous kind of grass that grows with wonderful luxuriance in a little bottom in one of our pastures. I thought the world ought to have the benefit of that grass, and I had no doubt that it was native. It has been there ever since I can remember, and, according to tradition, much longer. But Professor Piper, the grass expert of the United States Department of Agriculture, told me that it was a European grass. He went a good deal further and told me that practically all of our grasses were European grasses. He went even further than that. "Our native grasses," he said, "simply cannot hold their own in competition with European grasses. Those brought from Europe exterminate ours, while ours, taken to Europe, struggle for a little while and die." He gave me to understand, in general, that if a species of grass changes or extends its habitat at all, it goes always west, never east. WH HAT else is there? Races, civilizations, empires, religions--all of them, from the dawn of time until this day, have moved westward out of the east, and then on again to a remoter west out of an acquired orient. Men moving from place to place in the same community; men seeking business opportunity near home; cities restless from growing pains-they are drawn to the west. Grass roots and continentswestward! Possibly all of this can be explained. Drawn by the tidal force of the moon; trying to attain the sunset-no end of explanations. David Grayson, you may The Hotel and Travel Bureau is at the service of every Outlook reader; it is a clearing-house of travel information. Here are kept constantly on hand the latest and most authoritative data on railroad and steamship rates, hotel facilities, resort advantages-everything that is needed to assure the success of your trip. By mail and by personal consultation the experts of The If you have any questions about your travel plans, the Hotel Write to Mrs. EVA R. DIXON, Director In writing to the above advertiser please mention The Outlook FIRST MORTGAGE Safety Guaranteed by the House of Issue Approved for Insurance by one of the largest Surety Companies in America YIELDING 6+% LEADING EADING financial authorities are agreed that guaranteed real estate bonds offer a higher return than any other security of equal safety. They point out that the yield of highgrade railroad and industrial bonds. has been steadily declining since 1921; and quote the experience of the great Life Insurance Companies to show that "the first mortgage on real estate has proved the most stable, conservative and best incomepaying investment, yielding year in and year out about 20% higher income than other securities.' 61 Years Without Loss In over 61 years nobody has ever lost a dollar in Adair First Mortgage Securities and nobody ever will!for, in addition to the sound security of conservative first mortgages, both the principal and interest of every Adair Bond is unconditionally guaranteed by us and may be insured against loss on application to an independent Surety Company, with resources over $27,000,000. For those desirous of averaging up both the safety and net yield of their investments we have prépared a comprehensive guide to the safe selection of high-grade mortgage bonds. Mail the coupon today! ADAIR REALTY & TRUST CO. Founded 1883 CAPITAL, SURPLUS AND PROFITS $2,500,000 remember, asked an old botanist, "How does the sap climb to the top of that tree?" The old man, tired of futile questions, no doubt, said that he didn't know. "What," exclaimed his questioner, "you, a scientist, can't explain that?" "Oh, yes," said the old man, "certainly I can explain it but, when I get through explaining, I don't know." I am not trying to explain the west A ern drift. And, when I come to think of it, I do not know why I have written all this unless it is to reassure those Americans who think that we are to be overrun by Orientals. Can they not see that we are east of China, and that even the almond-eyed must, as some of us have been taught, approach the east by way of the west? It is a long way from China to California going west. By LAWRENCE JACOB ABBOTT NOTHER step has been made in recorded music which, if not directly in line with the phonograph, is so nearly so that it should be mentioned here. That is the Vitaphone, commented upon in an earlier issue of The Outlook. It synchronizes music with motion pictures. And in order to do so it plays specially prepared phonograph records on a machine whose motor is timed perfectly with the motor that operates the motion-picture reels. The records play for fifteen minutes without pause. The reproduction is on a more complete scale than I have ever heard before; there is decidedly more bass, more volume. This is "bullish" news for phonograph enthusiasts. Putting symphony orchestra recordings, operas, and instrumental music into movie theaters from coast to coast should accelerate rather than retard the demand for such music in the home. As a result, we shall all have a wider selection of "canned music" to choose from. A short time ago New Yorkers had the pleasure of hearing Frederick Stock, as guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Goldmark's overture "In Springtime." But to those in the audience who were familiar with Stock's recording of it (Victor) his interpretation was no novelty.; Nor, with slight exceptions, was the tonal effect of the full orchestra "in the flesh" a novelty. It was uncanny to realize how close to the original the reproduction had come. A further triumph for "new-style" records and machines! Phonograph Records VALSE TRISTE, “KUOLEMA" (Sibelius); SERENADE (Volkmann) and FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE (Rimsky-Korsakoff). Played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frederick Stock. Victor. This time of year seems to be the low ebb of the musical season, in the minds of our phonograph companies. A month ago Toscanini's interpretation of Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" music (Brunswick) stood out like an oasis in a desert. This month there is nothing outstanding. True, Frederick Stock and the Chicago Orchestra-a conductor who ranks at the very top, and one of the finest ensembles in the country-give us ten minutes of noteworthy performance. But their program is lighter than the orchestra deserves. "Valse Triste" and the "Bumble Bee" are excellent of their kind; Volkmann's "Serenade" is not made of as enduring stuff. In the Sibelius number Stock brings out eloquently the contrast between the slow, plaintive theme and the lighter, more rhythmic waltz figure. He is just as successful in putting fire into Rimsky-Korsakoff's orchestral tour de The recording is consistently good. A united body of strings sings out powerfully and resonantly in "Valse force. Triste"-and it is a pleasure to hear the bows "bite" the strings in the opening of the "Bumble Bee." SEMIRAMIDE (Rossini). Played by the British Broadcasting Company's Wireless Symphony Orchestra. Columbia. The only other orchestral number of the month is this sparkling Rossini overture. We imagine that in its heyday it must have been whistled as frequently as "Valencia" has been the past season. The orchestra that plays it is not at all the perfunctory organization one might expect to hear under such a title. Although it has not the finish of a crack symphony orchestra, it gives an entirely enjoyable performance. The recording, too, is clear and strong. PRELUDE IN A FLAT MAJOR (Chopin); ETUDE IN C MINOR (Chopin) and WALTZ IN A FLAT MAJOR (Brahms). Played by Percy Grainger. Columbia. Grainger is more in his element, and appears to be enjoying himself more, when tackling the broad pianistic figures of the "Etude" than when he restrains himself to the mood of the "Prelude." But he is also able to give, as if for an encore to the "Etude," a simple rendition of the famous Brahms Waltz that exposes it in all its unassuming beauty. In writing to the above advertiser please mention The Outlock September 1, 1926 KERMATH BOAT ENGINES The Kermath Marine Motor has an unusually high standing. Whether in Boston or Bombay you will find Kermath users just as enthusiastic as you will find scores of them in Detroit. There can be but one reason for this. Kermath's reliability. Whether east or west at the ocean or on the lake-in torrid heat or frigid areas-at high altitude or sea level -it makes no difference. Each Kermath is always the same reliable economical-fool-proof —and an all-around joy to own and operate. Write us today for full details. 3 to 150 H. P. $135 to $2150 f. o. b. factory "A Kermath Always Runs" KERMATH MANUFACTURING COMPANY 5887 Commonwealth Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 11 E. Wellington Street, Toronto, Ontario New York Display Rooms-50 West 17th Street, New York City A Kermath Alway's Runs HOTEL PLAZA 300 Baths Invites You to the Alluring City of Havana-the Rose of Tropical Seas The Plaza, situated in Central Park, in close proximity to theaters, shops, and historic Old World sight-seeing trips, offers spacious rooms, with cool Spanish tile floors-the delightful idea of a reception-room on top floor-roof-garden-fine jazz band, vaudeville entertainment, dancing-public rooms, large and inviting-all the luxuries of the tropics. Excellent Cuisine Unusually Thoughtful Service For details, rates, booklets, or bookings write direct or to The Outlook Hotel and Travel Bureau. F. SIMON, Manager. 300 Rooms Havana, Cuba The piano recording is perhaps overresonant. It sounds better in the next room than it does at close range. (This, of course, applies only when played on a new-style phonograph.) GUNGA DIN (Kipling-Spross); BOOTS (KiplingFelman). Sung by Reinald Werrenrath. tor. Vic "Gunga Din" is a disappointment. The music is commonplace. But "Boots" makes up for its partner's shortcomings with an atmosphere and rhythm that are irresistible. You can actually feel the marching motion, hear the shuffling feet as the Tommies swing down the road. Werrenrath sings the ballads as they should be sung--with the accent of a dyed-in-the-wool Cockney, and with more emphasis on the words than on the music. MANON-PLUS DE CHIMERES (Massenet); IL BACIO (Arditi). Sung by Maria Kurenko. Columbia. The Massenet aria is an agreeable slice from French opera. "Il Bacio" is in the form of a whirling Viennese waltz, which This requires accurate voice control. Maria Kurenko has, but at the same time her tone is not altogether pleasing. MESSIAH-HALLELUJAH CHORUS (Handel), sung by the Sheffield Choir; LAND OF HOPE The Sheffield Choir's "Hallelujah Chorus" suffers sadly from comparison with the Trinity Choir recording (Victor), which is, incidentally, the finest chorus record I have heard. Tone, attack, interpretation, are all inferior. The song on the reverse of the disc, which Elgar probably regrets having written by this time, is sung indifferently well, with impressive volume. MELODY (Dawes); ROMANCE (RubinsteinWieniawski). Played by Carl Flesch. Edison: can be played only with Edison reproducer. To Vice-President Dawes's expressive little "Melody" and the melodious and distinctly violinistic "Romance" Carl Flesch has added a confident interpretation. His tone is full and "throaty,' especially in double-stopping. Piano Rolls HOMMAGE À RAMEAU (Debussy). Walter Gieseking. Ampico. Played by In this piece of reproduced music Gieseking has shown himself a pastmaster at interpreting Debussy. Under his touch, Debussy's rich vague harmonies make the sounding-board of the "We'll have more than enough to put him through college" "If we keep on buying Smith Bonds this way, and plowing back our interest to earn more interest, we'll have more than enough to put him through college. Isn't it wonderful that we can get such a good rate of interest with such strong security, and without any bother or worry?" MONEY GROWS surprisingly fast when interest is compounded at a liberal rate. For example, if you invest $50 a month, with interest compounded at 7%, in ten years you will have more than $8,600. This sum invested at 7% will give you an income of more than $50 a month; in other words, a monthly income greater than your monthly investment. [61% -7%] Current offerings of our First Mortgage Bonds pay 62%, 64% and 7%, and give you a choice of maturities from 2 years to 10 years. They are strongly secured by modern, income-producing city property, and protected by safeguards that have resulted in our record of no loss to any investor in 53 years. You may invest in denominations of $1,000, $500 and $100. Send for These Booklets END for our booklet, "Fifty-three years of Proven Safety," which explains the time-tested safeguards that have created world-wide confidence in Smith Bonds, and have made them the choice of thousands of investors in 48 states and in 33 countries and territories abroad. We also will send you our booklet, "How to Build an Independent Income," describing our Investment Savings Plan. Regular monthly payments earn the full rate of bond interest. The booklet also contains several interesting tables which show the results you can accomplish by systematic piano echo like some massive Eolian THE F. H. SMITH Co. harp. In writing to the above advertisers please mention The Outlook |