ing each of the tragedies individually, after a preliminary inquiry into such questions germane to all four as Shakespeare's conception of tragedy and the form in which he expressed that conception. Into these as into all phases of his task he throws himself with enthusiasm. If he is not always convincing, he is always helpful, the sum total of his efforts being to produce a work which is really a welcome and distinctly useful addition to the already voluminous literature on the subject.

Thoughts for the Occasion, Fraternal and Benevolent. Compiled by Franklin Noble, D.D. E. B. Treat & Co., New York. 5x7 in. 576 pages. $2.

Tuscan and Venetian Artists (The): Their Thought and Work. By Hope Rea. (New and Enlarged Edition.) Illustrated. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 5x74 in. 182 pages. $1.50, net. Many fairly good illustrations reinforce this volume's interesting text, and the text itself has received admirable treatment from the printer. The book may be recommended to those whose sympathy has not yet been aroused as it should be for the art of Tuscany and Venetia. In Tuscan art the author takes Fra Angelico as a typical idealist, Signorelli as a typical realist, in considering the relation between imagination and reality in art. From this it is a natural step to the fusion of the two influences as seen in certain aspects of Raphael's work and also in the art of Venice. Another chapter has to do with the artists considered as story-tellers, Giotto, Duccio, Carpaccio, and Raphael having special mention. Even more interesting

is the chapter which informs us that originality of subject was not considered by Italian artists, that the only originality lay in treatment, the subject being determined by tradition. The most important of all traditional subjects was of course the Crucifixion, and in representations of this scene our critic puts two questions: (1) Was the artist intending to depict a theological aspect of what he considered the culminating point in the scheme of the universe? or (2) Was he trying to draw a dramatic picture of a historical event? Just here is where the Tuscan school is peculiarly distinct from the Venetian. The theological representation was the favorite among the Tuscan artists-we remember the Crucifixions of Fra Angelico and Perugino, for instance. For the dramatic representations, on the other hand, we must go to Venice, recalling especially Tintoretto's masterpiece, certainly also one of the world's masterpieces. Such a little book of criticism as this is always needed, not only for the unthinking tourist or student, but sometimes also for the thinking.

Walter Pieterse: A Story of Holland.

By

Multatuli. Translated by Hubert Evans, Ph.D. Friderici & Gareis, New York. 4% x71⁄2 in. 303 pages.

Walter is in a way a Dutch "Sentimental Tommy," and the growth of his vivid imagination and literary aspiration among rather sordid surroundings and stolid people is told with minuteness and perhaps a little overelaborated humor. "Multatuli is not exactly a Dutch Dickens, but he has some Dickensy qualities.

Railway Rates and the Government

To the Editors of The Outlook:

The weakness of Mr. Morton's "Railway Rate proposition, in his article in The Outlook of January 14, lies in his assumption that if the right sort of law was passed the railroads would obey it. The trouble isn't in the laws, but in the roads. They break the laws we do have; why suppose that they will obey laws we may have?

Discriminations have been expressly forbidden for twenty years; they have never ceased; they are still going on. The stubbornest unbeliever can see it for himself on any passenger train, except a few limited trains When on which passes are not accepted. the conductor makes a notation in his book instead of taking up a ticket or cash fare, he is discriminating. The conditions are intolerable. A "way out" is imperative. The only sure way that presents itself is absolute control by the United States Government

and, if necessary to such control, Government ownership.

Mr. Morton thinks the political results of this would be bad, "the beginning of political chaos." But what about the "political chaos" that railroads make? What Judge or Senator did they not help to elect, or try to defeat? Our Kansas Burton would never have reached

the Senate if the Kansas railroads had not put him there. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by changing from railroad control of Government to Government control of railroads. EDWIN TAYLOR. Edwardsville, Kansas.

Public Lands and Forests in the Philippines To the Editors of The Outlook:

Since the government of the Philippines is in our hands, we have to face problems of taxation and revenue quite out of our previous experience and differing widely_from those we have dealt with at home. Every

right-thinking American knows that we have to consider first in governing Filipinos what is best for them, not what will enrich a few Americans. There is an active party in this country desirous of securing concessions of land under the plea of "developing the country," but really with the view of putting money in their own pockets. Nearly all the unoccupied lands and all the forests are today Government property.

We must remember that the Filipinos are very poor and that the islands cannot bear any great amount of taxation. Another fact to be kept in mind is that direct taxes collected through native tax-gatherers are always oppressive, owing to the dishonesty of these petty officials. We are therefore obliged, as far as possible, to collect all needed revenue by means which do not call for the employment of native tax-gatherers.

In view of these facts, would it not be the best thing for the Philippines and the Filipinos if this great amount of public lands in the islands should be kept unsold? but let, only to actual occupiers, on improving leases for thirty years, renewable then to the holders at revised rates settled by the Government, all improvements being allowed for.

This plan would secure a perpetual income to the Government without directly taxing the people. And it has this great advantage, that as the population increases and the prosperity of the islands augments, the Government revenue will grow steadily. What John Stuart Mill called the "unearned increment of the land" would accrue to the Government and not to the few lucky individuals who might be enriched if they were the absolute possessors of the soil. Moreover, it may well be contended that inasmuch as the existing generation of men have only a life interest in this planet, they should not be allowed to obtain the ownership and thus the control of its wealth after they have passed away.

Are we not all trustees, who have inherited the use of the earth? and are we not in honor and justice bound to hand over to our successors of the next generation our trust unimpaired and if possible improved?

Almost everything we have comes from the labors of our predecessors; should we not, therefore, try to provide for those who follow us? Especially is this true in regard to the forests. Only in America are men allowed to destroy them. For the Philippines we have a chance by wise legislation to preserve and improve the forests, keeping up the supply and growth of the trees; granting permits for tree-cutting only when those asking for this privilege are prepared to plant four trees for each one cut down, as is the law in Germany, which we should do well to establish in the Philippines.

OGDEN E. EDWARDS.

Postal Service Inequities To the Editors of The Outlook:

I read with unusually keen interest three things in your pages of last week. I began,

as I find many readers do, at the close of the number, and read first the last article in the Correspondence Department, "A Comparison of Postal Rates," by my friend Mr. Cowles, Secretary of the Postal Progress League. Then, turning back, the sharp title "Swindling Through the Post-Office," caught my eye. I found, I need not say, this contribution of Mr. Lawrence, Assistant Attorney of the Post-Office Department, extremely interesting. But the reading of these two things together in that way, I must tell you, though late in the evening, near the small hours of the day succeeding, caused a ferment in my thoughts. Really there was something in the mixture which then seemed to work toward an explosion, and has been so working ever since.

Just at this moment I have read also your editorial article, "Postal Fraud Laws." Well, the ferment goes on, and it may be helpful, not to me only, but to others, to let it pop a little-in a thoroughly restrained, amiable sort of fashion. It may conduce to general well-being to do so innocent, so "childlike and bland" a thing as that-all that appears readily available to a mere citizen, however warm, even hot, his interest in matters of public concern. What I aim to do in this note is simply to call the attention of readers of The Outlook to what one must be fairly blind not to be able to read between the lines here, as these three articles named (January 14) are brought close together. The significance of what is so indicated one can scarcely fail in perceiving to be very great, of the highest moment (I say this fermentingly) to all our countrymen. It does not minister to our wholesome pride to know how widespread is the eagerness of the American people to gamble, how ready they are to fall into the trap of lottery schemers, and all that; and it is also a profound satisfaction to know, through Mr. Lawrence's paper and the well-judged comments of the editor, how the petty scoundrels who, by appealing to the small weaknesses and often sore needs of their victims, would through the Post-Office enrich themselves at their expense, are circumvented in their tricks, despite their amazing cunning.

"Let

But while it is interesting and instructive to read of that, yet, after all, do we there read the whole of the postal fraud business, or anything like the worst of it? Great as that may be in the aggregate, still, not only in that way but in every other way, is there not something appallingly more fraudulent besetting the entire postal service of the land? Some may be ready to say, the 'suckers' be caught" (vide Mr. Lawrence's paper), who yet are more ready to ask, even explosively, "Why should we all be caught, not merely weaklings tricked by sharpers, but the whole people who use the mails? Why, as the Postal Progress League is ready to show, should it, for example, cost in the United States to carry letters and sealed packets, merchandise parcels, and even foreign parcels to the outside world, so

many times more than it costs in Great Britain, Germany, and other countries? Why, again, should the free delivery rate on a letter eight ounces in weight be to-day sixteen times as great in republican New York as it is in imperial Berlin?" A host of like questions shoot out. A burden is laid upon the whole American people in its mail service (so it appears), compared with which that laid upon themselves by the crowds ready to "take a chance," greedy to get something for nothing, though it were multiplied over and over, were yet a trifle, a mere bagatelle. Why is this? It is a thing to be thought over, and more than mere thought should be given it. WILLIAM J. SKILLMAN.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Schools in the Far East To the Editors of The Outlook:

In his valuable paper, published in your issue of December 31, on "American Administration in the Philippine Islands," Mr. Ireland discusses the establishing of common schools there, and the results of what we have done on educational lines in those new possessions. Entertaining the belief that his discussion, however painstaking, is in some respects misleading, I submit the following:

He asserts that "so far from the extent of educational work in the Philippines being extraordinary or unique, as Mr. Taft leaves his readers to infer, there are several British colonies in which the proportion of school enrollment to the total population is higher than it is in the Philippines." He says about 2.3 per cent. of the total population of the islands are attending school, while the percentage of attendance in certain specified British colonies ranges from seven per cent. in Barbados to two per cent. in British Guiana. Without discussing what, at the present rate of progress in the Philippines, the percentage is likely to be after a period of control as prolonged as that of the British on the islands and the mainland of the East, and without now speculating on the results of certain divergences in the systems of administration, I venture to raise the question here whether certain of Mr. Ireland's inferences do not require qualification.

The massacre of the English at Amboyna by the Dutch in 1623 drove the remaining British settlers in the Spice Islands to the Indian mainland, where they founded Madras, and also founded factories at and near Bombay, on the opposite (western) coast, though Bombay was not ceded to the English by the Portuguese, as part of the dowry of Catharine of Braganza, queen of Charles II., until 1661, and was not actually delivered over until 1665. Since that time the extension of British sway in India has gone on, with varying rapidity, down to 1849, when the Punjab, at the extreme northwest, was annexed, and 1886, when Upper Burma, in the extreme northeast, was brought under the same rule; since which time acquisitions have practically ceased. Excluding Upper Burma, her territory, since 1849, has been

substantially what it is now; so that she has had a fair opportunity to institute reforms and give improved educational opportunities to the natives for at least fifty-five years. The contrast is obvious: the President's proclamation declaring that peace prevailed in the Christianized parts of the Philippines was promulgated two years ago last July; so that our opportunity has been limited to less than three years, as against fifty-five at least for the British in India-not to insist on the fact, at the moment, that in many parts of that great domain the opportunity had existed for many years before that. Though the Americans are hazarding more, in a liberal extension of political rights in the East, than the British have ever ventured to accord in India, there is, nevertheless, a closer analogy between Philippine conditions and East Indian than between the former and those of the British possessions named by Mr. Ireland. There is a semblance of local self-government in India, in connection with certain municipalities. Mr. Ireland's view concerning the policy of according self-government to tropical peoples suggests a remark of Sir Henry Maine's made in a speech in the Council of the Governor-General on March 11, 1868, expressing surprise that the natives of India should be prepared for municipal government at all; but he did not strongly controvert those members of the Council who claimed to have more intimate knowledge of the subject. As a matter of fact, local self-government has been accorded, in some degree: it is said that in most of the districts in British India local district boards exist, partly representative, for managing local interests; hence the analogy is not very remote between Indian and Philippine conditions in this respect. In 1901-2 the number of such boards is said to have been 764approximating very closely to the number of municipalities stated by President Schurman to have existed in the Philippines (see his speech delivered early in 1902). There would, therefore, seem to be strong ground for comparing East Indian and Philippine conditions on educational matters, if comparison is to be made at all with any British possession.

And the material for such a comparison must have been as easily accessible to Mr. Ireland as were the data concerning conditions in any of the countries he referred to. Educational conditions in India have been officially declared very recently. A governmental document of March last, a copy of which, printed in Calcutta, lies before me as I write this, gives the total number of pupils in the 105,306 colleges and schools for public instruction in India as 3,887,493; and it is estimated that those in private institutions that do not conform to departmental standards bring the total up to about 4,500,000; while the attendant annual expenses are stated to be £1,300,000-approximately $6, 500,000 (pupils and expenditure in the Native States excluded). The population, not including that of the Native States, was in

1902 about 232,000,000-29 times the population of the Philippines; so that the percentage of school attendance to population in India was approximately 1.9 per cent., as against the 2.3 per cent. with which Mr. Ireland credits the Philippines; and our expenditure of $3,000,000 on less than 8,000,000 population, six-thirteenths as much as that of India on a population twenty-nine times as numerous-twelve to thirteen times as much per capita. So possibly the extent of our educational work in the Philippines may be quite as "extraordinary and unique," notwithstanding Mr. Ireland, as Mr. Taft "leaves his readers to infer."

The Secretary of Public Instruction in the Philippines, in his annual report dated November 15 last, says:

"The number enrolled in proportion to the whole school population is small; yet when it is considered that an average of less than 700 American teachers has brought about this result in two years' time, during part of which cholera ravaged the islands, causing the death of more than 150,000 of the inhabitants, the achievement is not disappointing."

Official documents of the East Indian Government also show a most commendable and anxious solicitude to cope with the serious problem of general education in India; the obstacles they encounter; the means they are taking to surmount them; and I have not written the above with any purpose of criticising that Government; knowing something of its efforts, from its own official documents, I am bound to praise, not criticise. In one important respect the conditions have been different from those with which we were confronted in the Philippines; that is, in India there were vernaculars Bengali, Urdu, Hindustani, etc.-each the common language of millions; and there was a fine vernacular literature, quite sufficient to afford inspiration for the study of those native tongues and to induce the training of the young in them, as the Government of India insists on doing in the case of pupils who are under the age of thirteen. The existence of so great a work as Elliot's eight volumes of translations, "India as Told by its own Historians," will give an idea of this. But in the Philippines there is no native literature of consequence to inspire study or to make it worth while to teach the vernaculars; while as to Spanish, knowledge of it except by a very few was crude and imperfect when we took possession. This condition would seem to justify our effort to give instruction in English, especially as the islanders seem eager to learn it; while the Government of India feel that conditions in that great dependency are such that it is their duty to supply, to pupils under a certain age, instruction in and by means of the East Indian vernaculars.

The construction of improved highways in India was begun energetically under Sir James Thomason in the Northwest Provinces, and under the rule of Dalhousie, between 1840

and 1850. Much has since been done in the construction of what are called in India "metaled" roads-that is, macadamizedthough the great rainfall in certain parts, as up toward Darjeeling, as well as in some parts of the Philippines, renders it difficult to keep the highways in repair. Mr. Ireland comments on a certain lack of enterprise, as he thinks, in road-construction in the Philippines; but, as in the case of education, only a beginning has been possible during the less than three years since a condition of peace in certain parts has been declared. New York. GEORGE R. BISHOP.

Possum Trot School-House
By Martha Berry

[The Outlook has said before that the pronounced movement in the South in behalf of industrial education is one of the most significant and hopeful things in the remarkable development of the Southern States. Such institutions as Tuskegee, Hampton, Berea, are widely known all over the United States, but there are a number of smaller and more modest schools which nevertheless are doing a useful work themselves in training individual boys and girls, and are exercising a profitable influence in their communities, in the direction of educating the people at large in an appreciation of the dignity and honor of labor. Such a school is the Boys' Industrial School of Rome, Georgia, of which some account was given in the Annual Educational Number of The Outlook last August. This school was started in a very small and modest way by Miss Martha Berry, of Rome, and has grown and is growing steadily and promisingly. Miss Berry is a Georgian, and feels that the Georgian 'cracker," so called-a term applied to the white man, woman, boy, and girl of poverty -needs special educational work done for him. The following sketch by Miss Berry gives a vivid picture of the kind of people made some investigation of Miss Berry's among whom she is working. We have work, and commend it at this season of the year to those who wish to share their good fortune with others less fortunate. The school has a board of trustees, and contributions may be sent to the treasurer of the school, who is Mr. John H. Reynolds, President of the First National Bank, Rome, Georgia. Miss Berry will send to anybody interested a copy of a readable illustrated pamphlet which describes the development of the entitled "A School that Teaches by Doing," Possum Trot School-House into the Boys' Industrial School of Rome.-THE EDITORS.]

66

In the midst of the piny woods, away from railroads and civilization, was an old shell of a house built long before the war. To get to this house you had to cross a small creek called Possum Trot Creek, and it was said that it was so named because the possums were so plentiful in the neighboring woods. I opened a Sunday-school in this house,

but it really could not be called a house, because the roof leaked so that it was almost impossible on rainy days to hold any kind of school.

One Sunday at Sunday-school we had a lesson upon peacemakers and upon forgive ness. Knowing that the people had a great many feuds among themselves, and for little things would fall out and live for years without speaking to their neighbors, I tried to make the lesson as impressive as possible, and talked with all the enthusiasm that I could put into it. The next morning I saw a poor woman and a little child coming up our avenue with a large bundle in her arms. I was rather disturbed to have one of the Sunday-school pupils call when I was so busy with my morning's work, but I put everything down to find out what she wanted and let her go. My first question was, "What can I do for you, Mrs. Duncan ?" She said, "Wal, I 'lowed that, being as you talked so much and so good about forgiveness, that I'd better forgive Virgil, my husband, and get him to come back and live with me. Ma 'lowed that if I was going to make up with Virgil that I must take my things and leave her house and never come back no more; an' so I jes' put on my best clothes, and then put all of Mary Jane's clothes and the rest of mine in that bag thar, and come along down here to your house to get you to find Virgil for me." As I looked down into this young, girlish facefor she was only seventeen-with pleading brown eyes and a pathetic droop to her thin stooped shoulders, and realized that she had walked seven miles through the piny woods, lugging her baby and her bag of clothing, to reach my home, and saw what faith she had that I would find her husband for her, and in the meantime care for her and her baby, I was rather taken aback, and wondered how I would manage this problem. Upon inquiry I found that her husband was working about ten miles from where we lived, and that I would have to try and get him to come to us by sending a message to him immediately. I was afraid to say that his wife wanted to see him for fear he would not come, so I hired a boy and told him to go and find Virgil and tell him that Miss Berry wanted to see him on very important business as soon as possible, and that she would pay him if he would come immediately. In the meantime Mrs. Duncan and her fretful baby had to sit in my room for the remainder of the day. Our house was crowded with company, and our cook was very busy preparing an especially nice luncheon for the guests. When dinner-time arrived, I went down and asked her to please let me have some dinner to carry upstairs to

my uninvited guests. She is an old negro

woman who has been with us for thirty years, and feels as if we all belong to her. She immediately said that she could not fix any meals for poor white folks, and that they could take themselves to some other place if they wanted to be fed. Then, looking at me in the most pitying way, she said, "Law, child, honey, I don't know what to make of you; seems like I raised you up with the balance to associate with quality and let poor white folks alone. If you don't look out, you'll be a-disgracing of yourself and all the res' of our family, which have been notable folks ever since long befo' de war." I did not stop to argue the question with her, but bided my time, and when she was busy in the pantry I immediately filled a plate with bread, potatoes, and some chicken, and slipped upstairs with it to my company.

As the afternoon began to lengthen we both watched anxiously for the coming of Virgil. I was wondering what I could do with this poor young woman, who did not know how to do anything, if he should decide not to come and if he would not take her back.

Just at sundown I saw Virgil coming. He was a very large, tall man, with rather a stupid face, but not an unkind one. As soon as I saw him I had Mrs. Duncan pick up the baby, grab her sack of clothes, and start to meet him. She insisted that I should go with her, but I told her that I could not; that all depended upon her now. She met him about half-way down the lane, and they stood and talked for quite a long time. It was almost dark now, and once he started off as if he were going to leave her, and then my heart sank within me, because I felt that she would be without a home, and without a husband also. But at last he took his baby in one arm and the sack in the other, and Virgil and his wife passed down the lane and out of sight.

The next Sunday, on the way to Possum Trot, some one called to me from a small cabin on the roadside; and who should come down to meet me but Virgil and his wife and the little baby. Virgil looked very happy with the baby in his arms, and said: "Wal, Miss Berry, we-uns jes' fell out 'bout this young un's name. My wife, she wanted to name it Mary Jane, and I wanted to name it Sary Jane, and now we jes' calls it plain Jane; an' if it had not 'a' bin for that thar Sunday-school talk you give at old Possum Trot School-House, I don't b'lieve me and my wife and Jane would ever have come together agin in this 'ere world."

Such was the beginning of the Boys' Industrial School, which has now eighty boy scholars on its rolls, while one hundred applicants have recently been turned away for lack of room.