delightful whimsicality. Thomas Wentworth Higginson says of it:

His humor was singularly spontaneous, and took oftenest the form of a droll picture culminating in a little dramatic scene in which he enacted all the parts. A grave discussion, for instance, as to the fact, often noticed, that men are apt to shorten in size as they grow older, suggested to him the probable working of this process in some vast period of time like the longevity of the Old Testament patriarchs. His busy fancy at once conjured up a picture of Methuselah in his literally declining years, when he had shrunk to be less than knee-high compared with an ordinary man. The patriarch is running about the room, his eyes streaming with tears. "What's the matter, Thuse?" says a benevolent stranger. "Why are you crying?" "I ain't crying," responds the aged patriarch, brushing away the drops. "It's these plaguey shoestrings that keep getting into my eyes." Again, in answer to an inquiry about a child, I made some commonplace remark on the tormenting rapidity with which one's friends' children grow up, and he said eagerly: "That's it! That's it! It is always the way! You meet an old friend and say to her in a friendly manner, 'By the way, how is that little girl of yours?' and she answers, 'Very well, I thank you. She is out in Kansas visiting her granddaughter.'

the works of Carlyle, just as few people now read the works of Dr. Johnson. If Johnson's style, as Goldsmith said it was, is whale-ish, Carlyle's is taurine. But, like Johnson, Carlyle is still a great and interesting figure in the history of English culture. He has to his credit. this, that he introduced into England, and so into the United States, a knowledge of German letters and philosophy. So far as I am concerned, I feel no special sense of gratitude to him on this account, since I have never derived any great solace from German poetry or metaphysics. The German language affects me much as it did Voltaire. When that erratic but gifted Frenchman was living at the Court of Frederick the Great, he "avoided the state dinners," says Dr. Will Durant in his brilliant "Story of Philosophy;" "he could not bear to be surrounded with bristling generals; he reserved himself for the private suppers to which Frederick, later in the evening, would invite a small inner circle. of literary friends; for this greatest prince of his age yearned to be a poet and a philosopher. The conversation at these suppers was always in French; Voltaire tried to learn German, but gave it up after nearly choking; and wished that the Germans had more wit and fewer consonants."

As Carlyle was always choking with impatience or downright anger, a few extra consonants were no obstacle to his

Puritan has no sense of humor!

But to return to Carlyle, whose latest biography really started me on these discursive notes. Few people now read

erature as an art than as a vehicle for the conveyance of moral ideas and reforms. This assertion is justified even in the light thrown upon him by his latest and most sympathetic biographer, David

A. Wilson, whose "Carlyle at His Zenith" has just come from the press of Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co., being the fourth volume of a work which is to be completed in six. Six volumes seems rather a disproportionate amount to devote to an author whose really readable work could be easily compressed into the same compass. Carlyle had little or none of the clubability of Johnson. Darwin in his autobiographical notes gives a telling snap-shot of him: "I remember a funny dinner at my brother's where, amongst a few others, were Babbage [the mathematician] and Lyell [the geologist], both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence."

We shall perhaps be less shocked at Carlyle's contemptuous contemptuous estimate of Keats as "a dead dog" and his boast that he never went to galleries or exhibitions of pictures when we recall that John Adams-graduate of Harvard, second President of the United States, trained in the law, familiar with the culture of his time, himself no mean author

boasted to a French correspondent towards the end of his long life, "I would not give sixpence for a picture of Raphael or a statue of Phidias."

But if Carlyle was not a great artist he was a great thinker, and to associate with him on any terms is stimulating. His life is a demonstration of the soundness of his defense of biography: "Great men, taken up in any way, are profitable company."

B

EFORE this correspondence can appear in print the air race to Hawaii, which has developed from a prize of $35,000 offered by James D. Dole, "the pineapple king," to the first two aviators who should fly from the North American mainland to Honolulu, any time within one year after noon August 12, 1927, Pacific coast time, will have been either abandoned or decided. While the newspapers, here, are filled with little else, and confidence is ostensibly everywhere, there are a very considerable number of people, and they are among those best qualified to speak, who view the whole enterprise with undisguised misgiving.

I cannot lay claim to any special knowledge of aviation and its stupendous difficulties beyond that which any moderately interested and observant layman may acquire. But it is impossible to live in San Francisco, so rapidly becoming one of the great aerial termini of the world, without realizing something of the great problems which still confront the aviator, and the urgent demand which at all times exists for tried experience, meticulous care, and unhurried preparation if success is to be achieved and disaster avoided.

These prerequisites to success seem to be strangely absent in the case of the Dole air race. After two aviators had been killed in attempting to fly from

Los Angeles to the starting-place of the race at the Oakland Air Port and a third had plunged his plane into the waters of the bay, the statement by Captain C. W. Saunders, Governor of the California. National Aeronautical Association, to the effect that the take-off scheduled for the 12th would be "nothing short of suicide" was widely held as fully justified. "With the little navigating ability displayed by the navigators in this race," Captain Saunders declared, "it would be suicide to allow them to fly to Honolulu. A three-degree error in the flight would mean disaster."

The supreme art of aerial navigation is not something that can be acquired overnight. If the standard of efficiency

of these navigators on August 11 was such as to render their participation in the air race to Hawaii virtually a suicidal act, it is hard to see how it can be much better than that on August 16, when the race, in spite of all protests, is scheduled to start.

An air race overseas is quite unlike any other contest of the kind in that the

only dropping out possible is that which must result, all too often, in disaster. It is to be feared that the remarkable degree of success which has attended recent efforts has tended to blind many to the difficulties of the task. There is all the difference in the world between the foolhardiness of some of these Dole aviators and the cool, calculating cour

age of a Lindbergh or a Byrd. The young "eagle" who plans to take his "girl friend" for a flying trip to Hawaii may provide a good newspaper story, but most people will be of opinion that the progress of aviation has not yet reached the point where joy riding across the Pacific can be indulged in with safety.

NO-DAY, after forty-five hectic

T

days since its opening on June 20, the Three-Power Naval Conference has ended in failure. Obviously, its greatest significance lies in the bitterness with which the American. and British delegations fought for their respective proposals. The Conference, as soon as it sat, virtually resolved itself into a duel between America and Great Britain, with Japan an anxious but helpless third party. To us who have always taken it for granted that "blood is thicker than water" the recriminating, almost vindictive, spirit which has developed between the representatives of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations has been a revelation-a sad and distressing spectacle.

When two giants measure swords, the innocent third party is often made the victim of their fury. This is, in a sense, what has happened at this Conference. Japan came here with a sincere desire to see a real naval limitation. But the dispute between the two bigger Powers has waxed so hot and so vitriolic that the

Conference has ended in rupture, the ugliness of which has been but thinly veiled by the diplomatic language used at the final session by the American and British delegations. If, as the result of this rupture, England and America should embark upon a competition of naval building, Japan, the innocent third party, comparatively poor, and therefore most anxious to restrict naval building, would be dragged into the contest. The

only consoling thought is that in or before January, 1931, the four signatories to the Washington Treaty are to hold another conference, and that in the meantime England and America might desist from embarking upon building competition of a ruinous nature.

THE issue between America and Eng

land at this Conference is not the tonnage of individual cruisers nor the caliber of guns nor the replacement age, though sharp verbal battles have been fought about them. These are but visible symbols of an intangible idea which is really at issue. That idea is maritime supremacy. Great Britain is determined to perpetuate her traditional "rule of the waves," while the United States, con

scious of her growing influence in world affairs, is equally resolved to wrest it from England, or at least attain equality with her. That, I am sure, accounts for

vantage, though this is a matter on which opinion is divided.

HAVE observed not a few interna

parley from the beginning.

That Great Britain came to Geneva with the fixed intention of retaining in some way a certain degree of superiority in auxiliary craft, especially in cruisers, no one can deny who has carefully examined her various proposals, from the one presented at the first plenary session to the final one which the British delegation brought back from London after consultation with the Cabinet, as well as various confidential explanations and suggestions offered in the meantime behind closed doors. "It would be," said Mr. Walter C. Bridgeman, Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, about a year ago, "a very dangerous thing for Great Britain to allow it to be thought that we could be satisfied with a onepower standard in cruisers." It happens that this First Lord heads the British delegation to this Conference. Certainly he has crossed the "t's" in the proposals he has submitted to the Conference.

Confronted by America's dogged opposition, England has recanted and has taken pains to explain that it has never been her thought to deny parity to the American navy. And, indeed, she has by degrees scaled down her "necessary minimum" of cruiser tonnage to come nearer the American and Japanese standards, but in every one of the shifting proposals there has been found a provision apparently designed to give the British navy a certain advantage. Take, for instance, the final proposal submitted to the Executive Committee on July 28 upon the British delegation's return from London. Apparently, it recognizes the principle of parity as between the American and British navies. But it has a provision which permits each Power to retain ships above the replacement age to the extent of twenty-five per cent of the total tonnage allocated. Under this device, England will be able to retain something like 125,000 tons of cruisers above the age limit but comparatively new, and therefore still efficient. On the other hand, the United States, under the same provision, will retain only such ships as are practically useless, because most of her second-line cruisers were built between 1890 and 1908, and are therefore much older than the British ships above the replacement age. The United States also believes that the limitation of the displacement of cruisers and the restriction of gun caliber, as proposed by the British, will in effect accord the British navy a decided ad

call any parley where two Great Powers of the same race confronted each other in such resentful mood as has been displayed at this Conference. On more than one occasion, at secret meetings held at various places to avoid public attention, the British and American delegates are said to have employed words too vigorous to be civil. On such occasions it has been the rôle of the bewildered Japanese to propose a tea party or something of that nature. Even to the outsider this antagonism has furnished food for reflection. Is it a revelation of the innate and latent feeling between the two English-speaking peoples

-an indication of their real attitude towards each other? The interrogation may sound fanatic, but that it is perplexing many a mind cannot be denied.

It is quite possible that this Conference will have more far-reaching influence upon world politics than is at present apparent. For one thing, it will relegate into the realm of the impossible any suggestion for an Anglo-Japanese rapprochement which has of late been so much talked about in British quarters. Before the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was abrogated at the Washington Conference it was the British who feared that they might be called upon to help Japan in a war against America. For this reason England was glad to see the alliance terminated. But the tables have been turned. Now England, apprehensive of her declining prestige in China, is desirous of reviving the defunct pact; but Japan, conscious of her growing security in the East, has been disinclined to lend ear to such suggestions. What she has witnessed at this Naval Conference may entirely wean her from any idea of rapprochement with her former ally. Certainly Japan would not enter into a relationship under which she might be called upon to aid England in the not entirely inconceivable event of war between the two Atlantic Powers. Perhaps the apprehension is exaggerated. Perhaps the Englishmen and the Americans will get along well enough. But in diplomacy we must take a long view, and must weigh international relations with the utmost care. If Great Britain and the United States are to make of maritime supremacy the bone of contention, who can say that they will never fail out?

in harmony with the American plan than with the British. Stated in a sentence, Japan proposes a naval holiday on the basis of status quo, stopping all naval construction after all ships now building and projected will have been completed. Apply this to the cruiser, the crux of the whole naval problem of to-day.

Roughly speaking, England has 330,000 tons of first-line cruisers built, building, and projected; Japan, 190,000 tons; and the United States, 150,000 tons. Now the original American plan allocates 250,000 to 300,000 tons of cruisers each to England and the United States, and 150,000 to 180,000 tons to Japan. Therefore it would not be difficult to scale down the British and Japanese cruiser fleet to the maximum or even the minimum tonnage proposed by America if the two nations curtail a few ships projected but not building. America's cruiser problem is different. Since she has only 155,000 tons of cruisers, even counting six appropriated for but not building, she would have to build 145,000 tons to attain parity with Great Britain. This, the Japanese explain, may be done by allowing the United States to scrap her superfluous destroyers, for the Japanese plan uses the "global" method of estimation, combining the tonnage of cruisers and destroyers.

Japan's stand, in so far as she has consistently advocated real limitation, has been commendable. More than once she has reminded her associates, politely but unmistakably, that she has come to this Conference for naval limitation, not for naval increase. Nevertheless her armor has a weak spot in that she is reluctant to accept the 5-3 ratio as proposed by America. For the United States and Great Britain she would accept the American-proposed minimum of 450,000 tons in surface auxiliary craft (cruisers plus destroyers), but for herself she wants something like 310,000 tons, which is 40,000 tons more than the American-proposed minimum for Japan. The petty notion that Japan must have a fraction above 3 as against America's and Britain's 5 has vitiated the whole Japanese proposal, which is otherwise essentially sound.

Japan's position would have been irreproachable had she at the beginning of the Conference offered to abandon two or three 10,000-ton cruisers projected but not building, thus bringing down her cruiser allotment to conform to the ratio proposed by America. Had she done this, she could have placed herself upon a high moral plane, and could have spoken forcefully and convincingly, entirely

free from any suspicion as to her motives. She could indeed have exercised great influence in the delicate and critical situation created by the rivalry be

A

tween the United States and Great Britain. Such a desirable rôle Japan has not been privileged to play, for she has not been high-minded enough and self-deny

ing enough to command the respect of her associates. Japan has missed a golden opportunity.

Geneva, August 4, 1927.

N hour ago the Tri-Power Naval
Conference blew up.

It seemed hardly possible that this could be. America, England, Japan, the three mightiest naval Powers, and perhaps the three strongest mentally that they should meet, only to find that they could not unite, why, the thing appeared absurd,

Well, so it was apparently absurd, and why?

Some weightier and realer reasons will have already appeared in the press, but I venture to add two of my own.

Over-Admiraled

'IRST of all, because the Conference was over-admiraled.

The Outlook's Editor in Europe France, and Italy, signatories to the Washington Treaty, to meet in Geneva. to agree upon the principles of that Treaty to auxiliary craft. Britain and Japan accepted; France and Italy declined, save as being represented by unofficial observers.

There is no apparent reason for the delay in calling the Conference, because, on February 11, 1925, an act of Congress set forth that armaments should be reduced in the interest of unnecessary taxation. Then was the time to have issued the call for the Conference instead of sacrificing a year's precious preparation.

FIRST
Who else but specialists could under- UN

stand the naval problems in hand?
Therefore the necessity of admirals as
delegates. In this Conference, however,
as compared with that in Washington,
there seemed an over-emphasis on the
admiral side, and a consequent lack of
training on the diplomatic side.

Let no one assume, notwithstanding, that the Geneva affair has been without a constructive side. Indeed, each time that the nations get together, no matter what the result, they instinctively draw closer for future success.

Though there had been, especially from the admirals, some decidedly brash and bumptious talk during these past weeks, the door was closed gently to-day and with oiled hinges ready for reopening.

Wholesale or Retail

NDER any circumstances, armaments should be reduced. But how? By wholesale or retail. By wholesale, says America. Very well, replies England, for capital ships, but not for others. At the Washington Conference we reduced the battleship proportion to five for America, five for Britain, and three for Japan. "Let us now reduce auxiliary craft in the same way," we propose. As, because of frequent fueling stations, Britain needs many small cruisers instead of fewer larger ones, Sir Austen Chamberlain, British Foreign Secretary,

states:

Two nations, each possessing, say, 100,000 tons of battleships, may be regarded, without serious error, as being so far equal in fighting power. No such statement can reasonably be made about two nations, one of which has ten cruisers of 10,000 tons, while the other has twenty cruisers of 5,000 tons. . . . If it came to fighting, the more numerous but smaller vessels would stand but a poor chance against the more powerful but less numerous opponent.

In developing this theme and in showing England's absolute necessities for open ocean lanes, since she has but a seven weeks' supply of food, Mr. W. C. Bridgeman, the ample and portly First Lord of the Admiralty, made a decided impression upon his auditors, speaking in a spirit of "sweet reasonableness," in showing how the British had tried to live

up to the American demands, making the British case both comprehensible and plausible, and particularly in paying a deserved compliment to Mr. Gibson, as presiding officer, in remarking that it was harder to keep three teams in order than two. But Mr. Bridgeman's cleverest move was in getting admittance to-day to speak for Mr. MacWhite, the Irish delegate, whose three lines, delivered in delightful brogue, produced the one high light of the proceedings. The Irish will never get over that honor.

MR.

The Last Day

R. GIBSON'S was the hardest task of all. As the representative of the ruler who had summoned the Conference, not only had he been chosen presiding officer, but he was regarded by many as only the mouthpiece of the Secretary of State at Washington, when his own mouth would have been the apter. Throughout the Conference, and especially to-day, his auditors seemed to realize that he wished to impress on them the desirability of not being too discouraged. Though the Conference had nothing to do with the League of Nations save to hold most of its sessions

there, well merited were Mr. Gibson's references in his speech of to-day to Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General of the League, and to Mr. Howard Huston, Chief of the League's Interior Services. Mr. Gibson's defense of the American position was able and well put.

Of to-day's speeches, the most remarkable in some respects was delivered by the Japanese delegate. Some of his countrymen (like Dr. Inazo Nitobe, who has, to the regret of all, resigned his position here as Under-Secretary of the League) have an apparently perfect command of our language. Not so all of the Japanese at Geneva. The attempted English of to-day's delegate was so lame as actually to miss one line of his text. I know, because I was favored with a copy.

Let this be no indication of the accomplishment of the Japanese at Geneva. It has been brilliant.

Geneva, August 4, 1927.

B

EFORE we go further in discuss

ing eugenics, divorce, birth con

trol, and all the problems connected with marriage, we need more actual facts. There is a widely spread idea that the greater a person's ability and success, the less likely he is to marry. Is this supported by the facts? Not at all!

Among the men in "Who's Who," about eighty-nine per cent report themselves as married. If we allow for a few who are married but fail to report the fact, and for a few of the younger men who will marry in the future, it appears that by the time they reach the age of fifty-five years at least ninety-one per cent of the men in "Who's Who" will be married. This is a slightly higher percentage than the United States Census shows for men of the same age among either native whites of native parentage, foreign-born whites, or those of mixed parentage. Only the Negroes rival the native whites in this respect, but even they are scarcely as much married as the leaders. So much for one good old idea. The most successful men of America are a trifle more likely to be married than almost any other great group of our population.

"THAT may be conclusive," says the

objector, "but, anyhow, it is well known that the leaders are less likely to be married now than a few generations ago." Such was our own belief until we compared leaders of different ages. Here are the percentages who report themselves as married:

This looks as if the leaders born since 1860 were marrying half a year later than those born earlier. Even this slight difference may be deceptive, because the most vigorous men tend not only to marry young but to live long, so that they form the larger proportion of our "Who's Who" men born before 1860. Thus it is doubtful whether the most successful Americans marry any later now than formerly. Even if they do marry half a year later, that cannot be an appreciable cause of the recent decline in the size of their families. So much, then, for another widely held idea.

Number

of men

Kind of education

College and professional

2.4

College and Ph.D......

2.3

College

2.3

Normal, business, trade,

The men's part of this table is astonishing because of the order in which the types of education arrange themselves; the women's part, because of the extremely small number of children.

College men who study in professional schools or take a doctor's degree usually study three or four years longer than do those who merely go to college. Yet their families are at least as large. College men in turn study about two years longer than normal school men, but have slightly more children. Normal school men require two years more than high school graduates, but have ten per cent more children. High school graduates similarly surpass those who have had merely an elementary education. Except for the professional schools at the bottom of the list, the types of education are arranged exactly in the order of the length of the time that they require. The longer the period of education, the greater the number of descendants. Is not this astounding? What does it mean?

The first thing that it means is that the better educated the leaders, the more likely they are to be married, and the more likely the married ones are to have children. Thus while 79 per cent of all the doctors of philosophy in our table are married and have children, this is true of only 67 per cent of the leaders with merely an elementary education.

A second and deeper meaning is that the upper classes are mainly recruited from their own numbers, and not from below. One of the most curious features of our whole study of "Who's Who" is that the men who attend professional schools without a college education fall below every other educational group in the number of their children. This suggests that a successful self-made man without a college education is out of his normal position in society. Such men generally come from families with relatively little culture. In early years they often work with their hands, get their education piecemeal, and have few opportunities. In other cases the desire to "get ahead" as fast as possible convinces them that a college education and its attendant culture involve a waste of time. In the end such men generally regret their mistake and frequently make a special effort to conform to the social standards set by college graduates of