means, and that generosity is a National and not a sectional trait.

VIOLIN TEACHING IN
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The experiment of violin instruction to large classes in the public schools is now before the people of the city of New York. Fourteen years ago Mrs. Sheperley, of Liverpool, England, won the consent of the head master of a school in that city to teach the violin to all who wanted it at a fee so small that the poorest might participate.

Messrs. Rushworth & Draepel, dealers in instruments and publishers as well, agreed to furnish instruments, music, and other materials for Mrs. Sheperley at trade cost. These gentlemen took great care to deliver instruments in perfect playing condition, and sent their men with every consignment to remain throughout the first lesson to make repairs. Every teacher who can imagine giving a first lesson to fifty children upon fifty raw violins knows what invaluable aid that would have been could he have had it.

Mrs. Sheperley found that the exercises and melodies practicable for classes of forty or fifty pupils had to be created to meet the needs of an exceptional situation. She prepared and Messrs. Rushworth & Draepel printed these lessons at once as they were needed. With this good equipment and efficient help Mrs. Sheperley secured immediate success with the army of eager children who thronged to her.

The College of Music and the Board of Schools of Liverpool were startled and indignant upon discovering the lusty movement which they had not fathered, and called its founder to account. But when they had carefully examined the new branch of education they lent it their hearty support. College of Music opened its list of violin scholarships to the crowds of public school players, and one or two scholarships are won yearly by children trained in these huge classes.

The

In London the movement has attained such proportions that the figures given are astonishing. Violin fests are held in which the schools contest for prizes, and in June, 1914, a concert was given in which the programme was played by 6,220 children in

concert.

In London, as in Liverpool, one large, responsible firm of dealers in instruments

devotes its entire plant to the needs of the several thousand little violinists. This factor in the success of London's experiment cannot be overestimated. It is of prime importance and is second only to the efficiency of the teacher.

After fourteen years this movement, so full of possibilities, has awakened interest and has secured a footing in New York. Dr. Rix. the Board of Supervisors, and their corps of violin teachers are attacking the experiment with a heartiness which should win success. Once that success is secured, the way will be open to possibilities of considerable magnitude.

TERROR IN THE SUBWAY

The people of New York City, on Wednesday of last week, were dismayed and affrighted at the reports of a subway disaster unparalleled in the history of New York underground railways. At first it was believed that scores of lives had been lost; as we write it seems probable that only one person, a woman, was killed outright, although other victims, overcome by smoke, are in precarious condition in the hospitals.

It would be hard to exaggerate the terror of the hundreds of people in stalled trains close to the point (between the stations at Fiftieth and Fifty-ninth Streets) at which a "blow-out" in a power cable had cut off all power for miles. Fumes from the burned-out cable were mingled with dense smoke, and both combined to overpower the helpless passengers who were suddenly plunged in darkness. By the skill and courage of the Fire Department the passengers were extricated through manholes and places broken through in the street; many scores were taken to the hospitals, to offices, drug-stores, and theaters; pulmotors were brought from all directions to restore respiration; little by little the work of extrication and rescue proceeded; that there was panic, trampling, and struggling is not surprising.

Meanwhile the traffic of the subway was stopped; frightened crowds as far away as Brooklyn and the Bronx were kept back from their work, travel, or homes; disorder. confusion, and distress were everywhere evident.

It is impossible offhand to discuss intelligently the causes of this terror-inspiring disaster, or to say how it might have been averted. It is to be assumed that the Pub

buffeted, perhaps a little of the lion will become us best. That we are to suffer others to be injured, and stand by, is not conceivable, and surely not desirable."

We affirm without hesitation that there is nothing in this teaching nor in any other teaching of Jesus Christ, and nothing in his example, and nothing in the instructions of his Apostles, to justify the assumption that we are to suffer others to be injured and stand by unresisting.

But the assumption that all war is unchristian rests in most minds not on any specific instructions, but on the general teaching and spirit of the Master. It is asked: Is not all anger wrong? And is not war always the expression of anger? To both questions we reply, emphatically, No.

ers.

When Christ

All anger is not wrong. condemns him who is angry with his brother without cause, his language clearly implies the truth that one may have good cause for being angry with his brother. When it is said by his biographer that he looked upon the Pharisees with anger, it is clear that not only was he angry, but so angry that his anger was apparent to the bystandWho can read his invective against the men who devoured widows' houses, and for a pretense made long prayers-an invective unparalleled in its intensity of passion by any literature of invective, ancient or modern -and not perceive the anger of Jesus against these religious oppressors of their brethren? Who can read the story of his attack upon the corruptionists who, by the extortion which they practiced upon the worshipers, turned the temple of God into a den of thieves, and drove them from it, overturning the tables of the money-changers as he went, and not see in this incident the dramatic portrayal of a terrible anger? It is not an unreasonable surmise that it was this scene which suggested to John on the Isle of Patmos the likeness to his Master in the One whom he saw in his vision with a voice as the sound of many waters and with eyes that burned like flaming fire.

"Be ye angry and sin not is the Apostle's summary of Christian teaching. There is an anger which is not sinful, but virtuous. Not all anger, but selfish anger, is wrong; as not all acquisition but selfish acquisition, not all ambition but self-seeking ambition, not all appetite but self-indulgent appetite. We love Washington the more because of his

flaming anger against Lee in the battle of Monmouth; not because this was an exhibition of human sinfulness, but because it was the manifestation of a human virtue.

Nor is fighting always a manifestation of anger; it is sometimes a superb manifestation of self-denying love. This is our answer to the statement, "We should love our enemies instead of preparing to fight them." There are times when the best way to show our love for a man is by fighting him.

If one sees his neighbor attempting suicide, rushes upon him, resists the evil which he is attempting to do himself, and, at the hazard of his own life, wrests the pistol from him, does this act show hate or love?

If he sees his neighbor attempting to commit a murder, rushes in between the assailant and the assailed, and, at the hazard of his life, prevents the perpetration of the crime, does his act indicate hate or love? He has, in the act of saving one man from being murdered, saved another man from committing a murder. His service to the assailant is certainly not less than his service to the assailed. It is easily conceivable that the assailant might be his own son, and that his love for the assailant was his chief motive.

A policeman who, at the hazard of his life, rescues a victim from the mob shows a heroism of love not less than does the fireman who saves a victim from the burning building, or a life-saver who saves a sailor from the surf on a storm-swept coast.

It is as Christian an act to save men from the attack of savages as from the attack of wolves.

When a little nation is threatened with destruction by a stronger nation and puts up a heroic fight to defend its right to exist rather, let us say, its duty to exist-Christian heroism will inspire a strong neighbor to interpose an arm of defense. Whether it is a duty or not to interpose will depend upon circumstances; but it is either unintelligence or carelessness or cowardice which prevents all Christian peoples everywhere sympathizing with the assailed and hoping for the success of its defenders.

Are not these extraordinary exceptions to the general rule? Is not war almost universally the expression of hate? No!

The war which the armies of Cromwell fought for civil liberty in England, the war which the armies of William of Orange fought for religious liberty in Holland, the war which

the armies of George Washington fought for political liberty in America, were wars of love, not of hate; of service, not of selfish

ness.

Abraham Lincoln was the great statesman of the North in the Civil War, General Grant its great soldier, Henry Ward Beecher one of its greatest interpreters. One would look in vain in either the utterances or the acts of Abraham Lincoln, General Grant, or Henry Ward Beecher for any expression of hatred for the South. Expressions of hatred for the South were common in the North, but they did not express the dominant sentiment of the North. Hatred seeks revenge, and not even the assassination of Abraham Lincoln incited the North to take revenge. After the war closed no Southern life was taken, no Southern property was confiscated, in vengeance for the attempted secession. On the contrary, even before it closed, the North began to pour into the South contributions of money, food, and clothing for the succor of the devastated South, and then teachers to aid in laying the foundations of a new prosperity. The millions which it had expended in the campaign of arms it followed with other millions lavished in a campaign of education.

Philosophy does not justify the statement that all anger is wrong.

History does not justify the statement that all war is the expression of anger.

It is not true that we cannot both love our enemies and fight them. Fighting them may render them the highest service. The long wars of the allies against Napoleonic France redeemed France from despotism and enabled her to become a Republic. The war of the American colonists against Great Britain revolutionized Great Britain's colonial policy, and prepared the way for the new type of administration which has given her a colonial empire. The American Civil War rendered a greater service to the South than to the North. The South's prosperity dates from Appomattox Court-House. If the Allies succeed in the present war, they will render an incalculable service to Germany.

the very men who are placed in authority for their protection.

If democracy is to succeed in the United States, it must devise some means of creating in every city a police force that the people of the city will trust. In order to do this democracy must find some means of making sure that those whom it places in command of the police will be obeyed. This means that the Police Commissioner must be more powerful than any of his subordinates or any group of his subordinates.

In New York City the Commissioner is not more powerful than his subordinates. His hold on his office is very precarious, and he can be easily removed for political or any other reasons. The policeman's hold on his office, on the other hand, is very firm. He cannot be removed, even for cause, unless upon evidence that will satisfy a court of law. He may prove to be an unfaithful public servant, unworthy of confidence, disposed to insubordination toward his superiors and tyranny toward his inferiors; but unless he can be convicted by evidence that is admissible in criminal proceedings he can defy his commander. It is not surprising

under such circumstances that the counsel for the four police associations, William B. Ellison, should feel free to give out a statement that contains the following passage:

"Commissioner Woods has his future in his own hands. If he will meet the men fairly, ... he will have the support of the men and his administration will be successful. But the fact is that there is more or less dissatisfaction with his administration. This is already very apparent. It is not a silent or stifled feeling of resentment against him, but it is voiced through committees and publicly talked about. The Commissioner is on trial, and it will take a little time for him to demonstrate his fitness for the job he holds."

Such a statement from an official representative of the subordinates of the man criticised, if issued on behalf of a body of military men and directed against the commander of their army, would be regarded as an exhibition of insolence demanding summary court martial. Mr. Ellison himself, in his own statement, put his finger on the disease of which his statement is a symptom. "In thirteen years," says this counsel for the police associations, (6 we have had ten Commissioners and forty Deputy Commissioners. . . . Each one of these men had his own views, and every one of the eleven thousand men of the force was sup

posed to know what these views were and carry them out." Mr. Ellison might have added that these men knew that if they did not carry them out nothing very serious would happen, because another Commissioner with another set of views would very soon succeed the one in office.

There is only one cure for this state of affairs. It is the simple one of giving to the man in command more authority and more security in office than to his subordinates. That is what the so-called Goethals bills in the New York Legislature last year were designed to do. In some important details The Outlook would have preferred some alterations in these bills, but the general principle incorporated in them was wholly sound. Of course those policemen who profit by present conditions opposed these bills, and, to the shame of the State and the city, police influence was permitted to defeat them. In their defeat Mr. Ellison had a share.

He criticises the temporary character of the Commissionership, but in his statement he calls "outrageous" the only bills which had a fair chance of putting an end to the evils he criticises.

Incidentally it may be worth while to point out another inconsistency in Mr. Ellison's statement. He justly asserts that the order issued by Mayor Gaynor forbidding the policemen to use their night-sticks put the policemen at the mercy of thugs and ruffians, and he makes this an occasion for criticism of Commissioner Woods in face of the fact that since Mr. Woods came into office this order of Mayor Gaynor's has not been in effect.

In all this there is a lesson not only for New York City but for all American cities. The police should be on a military basis. The Commissioner should be a permanent official, removable only for cause established by due procedure, and no more subject to political influences than the general in command of an army division. No policeman should have at legal vested right in his office. He should no more have the right to appeal to the civil courts than has the soldier who is discharged in dishonor from the army. If he asks for trial, his appeal should be solely to a court martial constituted within the police force itself. The decision of such a police court martial should be reviewable by no civil authority except the Mayor or Police Commissioner. Whatever rights to participation in the pension fund of the police a mem

ber of the force secures by service ought to be guarded by some other means than keeping him on the force when his usefulness is ended and when discipline and the good of the service require his discharge.

The great body of policemen in New York, we have reason to believe, deserve the confidence of the people of the city; but they will not have that confidence, and they cannot have it, until the unworthy members of the force are removed, and the Commissioner and the Mayor, who are responsible to the people, are given adequate authority.

IMMIGRATION

Nobody wants to exclude from the United States all aliens; nobody wants to admit all. On one point, then, Americans may be said to be united with reference to an immigration policy-in holding that some aliens should be admitted and some excluded. The whole immigration question thus resolves itself into one of determining how we shall discriminate between the aliens to be accepted and the aliens to be rejected.

On this question of discrimination difference of opinion in America, however, is not superficial; it is radical. The bill that is now before Congress, having last week passed the Senate, has called out an expression of this radical disagreement. It has clearly shown that Americans differ not merely on the question of the expediency of adopting one or another of a multitude of devices proposed, but on their fundamental attitude toward the immigrant.

On the one side there are those who regard immigration as primarily a source of danger. On the other side, there are those who regard immigration as primarily a source of strength. In one category belong those Americans who look upon the immigrant with suspicion, and wonder whether he ought not to have been kept out. In the other category are those Americans who look upon the immigrant with welcome, and are glad that he has proved himself worthy to come in.

A professor of history once said that the bloodiest religious wars had been fought over differences of emphasis. So we may say that this radical cleavage in American public opinion separates those who lay the emphasis on exclusion from those who lay the emphasis on admission.

Those who regard immigration as a source