procession of members of the Merchants' Association, who marched from the Chamber of Commerce to the beautiful old State House, on Beacon Hill, led by Mr. Storrow, who is now one of the candidates for Mayor. The remarkable thing about the Legislature's part in framing the Charter was that it yielded to this public opinion and granted the citizens of Boston an opportunity to determine certain salient features of the Charter in a general referendum. There were placed before the voters of Boston, for an expression of their choice in this referendum, two plans.

Plan Number One provided for a Mayor and a large number of Councilmen to be elected by districts. Under this plan all the elective municipal officials were to be nominated by the old-fashioned political convention system. Plan Number Two provided for a Mayor and a small city Council of nine members to be elected at large, all elective officers to be nominated by petition. Thus in municipal elections the party primary and convention are practically abolished, although there is nothing to prevent the Republicans or Democrats from holding conventions in a purely extra-legal way, choosing their candidates, and requesting their adherents to sign the necessary petitions. Plan Number Two was carried by a handsome majority at the referendum which formed a part of the regular election in November, and a municipal election will be held on January 11 to choose a Mayor, nine Councilmen-atLarge, and one School Commissioner, all of whom have been nominated by petition.

of

The issue of paramount importance is in the Mayoralty contest. Boston is the first of the great cities of the country, although the way has been paved by smaller communities, to attempt the non-partisan, non-convention, non-boss method electing a chief executive. If she succeeds by the use of this method in getting a Mayor who is a first-class administrator and who regards public office as a public trust, she will not only have helped her self but have helped the cause of good municipal government throughout the country. If, on the other hand, she chooses a Mayor who, like Richard Croker, is "in politics for his own pocket," the associate of corrupt contractors, and the accom

modating agent of unscrupulous corporations, she might perhaps be allowed to suffer her own misfortunes without any comment from outsiders, except for the fact that she will thus give every partisan boss in the United States the opportunity of saying, "I told you so; the only way to obtain good government of cities is to have party machines and party conventions managed by party leaders."

Has Boston a candidate for Mayor who may be elected on the platform, Public office is a public trust? In the judgment of The Outlook, she has a candidate who is conspicuously of this type. There are four candidates for Mayor. One is Mr. Nathaniel Taylor (a relative of the proprietor of the Boston "Globe "), who stands for nothing in particular, has little following, and may be ignored. Another is Mayor Hibbard, a strict Republican, formerly Postmaster of Boston, an honest man of mediocre ability, who seeks reelection, but whose candidacy, if it has any effect at all, can have only the effect of insuring the success of Mr. Fitzgerald, the representative of the worst methods of the Democratic city machine. The third is ex-Mayor Fitzgerald, a politician of the Tammany type, who is openly championed by the vulgar political moneymakers and secretly supported by gentlemen of eminent respectability who want special political privileges for their "public service" and "public utility" corporations and similar enterprises.

The fourth candidate is Mr. James J. Storrow, an overseer of Harvard, a partner of the influential banking firm of Lee, Higginson & Co., a member of the aristocratic Somerset Club, and yet proved by his record to be a civic Democrat of the best type. He is an executive of experience and distinguished ability, and as Chairman of the Boston School Board has consistently practiced the doctrine that public office is a public trust. He has been a leader in the movement which has culminated in the new Charter, unswerved by the fact that some of his associates, business and social, have denounced him as a demagogue and traitor to his own class. It is asserted that some of the great corporate interests are opposed to him because they know that special privileges for corporations will be a thing

of the past if he becomes Mayor, although in private they will not question the fact that for absolute fitness he is head and shoulders above any other candidate.

We urge Mr. Storrow's election on the simple ground of general patriotism, for it will give an immense impetus to the general movement for good municipal government throughout the whole country.

In the time of the Civil War Boston's desire for a good National Government finally triumphed over her love for cotton. Next Tuesday we hope and believe that her desire for first-rate municipal government will triumph over the love of some Bostonians for dividends.

THE CONVENTION HABIT It used to be said that the characteristic of the Middle Ages was that everybody belonged to some definite corporation or calling; that a man was born, lived, and died a peasant, a member of a guild, or a burgher in a city; and that the difference of modern life is the force of the individuality acting for himself. The pendulum is, however, now swinging back the other way. Laborers, capitalists, churchmen, manufacturers, and scholars are united in a thousand different societies, founded on the principle that the individual sacrifices part of his independence for the sake of the influence of his mass. This is especially true of the great fields of learning. In the last twenty-five years nearly all the separate arts and sciences have organized themselves into national societies, holding periodical meetings. There is in the United States a recently organized Academy of Arts and Letters, of which The Outlook has given its readers an account, and which is likely to acquire great influence; but under our system there is and can be no central academy or group of academies like those in France, recognized throughout the country as an official body; there are not forty immortals in this country, but nearer forty thousand, to judge from the membership lists of the learned societies. Of these, none are more active than the group of organizations which have been meeting in New York during the past week.

The parent of them is the American

Historical Association, organized in 1884 by a small group of historical scholars under the impetus of the late Professor Herbert B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins University. The very next year Aaron's rod budded, and out of the original association sprang the American Economic Association. A few years later appeared two younger sisters in this family of societies, the American Political Science Association and the American Sociological Society; and in connection with these four organizations five other kindred societies have joined in a kind of general convention. New York is accustomed to such meetings, which commonly are little regarded outside the number of those in attendance and their friends; but this

meeting made an unusual impression because of the large gathering on the opening night at Carnegie Hall, which would have been addressed by the President of the United States had Providence and the Pennsylvania Railroad cooperated; and was addressed by Mayor McClellan, Governor Hughes, and President Butler, of Columbia.

Outside of this meeting the sessions came more closely than commonly to the attention of New Yorkers, because it is the practice of these associations to hold sessions on current questions of various kinds. The old idea that history concerned itself only with the distant past, that economics was a dismal science of abstract reasoning, and that the study of government was the study of the texts of constitutions, has long gone by. In the various meetings of the extraordinarily full programme were discussed such topics as "The Control of Corporations,' ""Ballot Reform,' ""The Political Union of South Africa," Africa," "Problems of Country Life," "Valuation of Public Service Corporations," "The Situation in the Balkan Peninsula," "The Ethnic Elements in the History of the United States," and "The Effects of Reconstruction." Alongside of papers more or less formal was lively discussion, and in the assembly room of the Waldorf-Astoria representatives of the white race and of the negro race courteously set forth their points of view on the race question. This feeling of the responsibility of men of learning-professors, investigators, professional men—

toward the community is the keynote of the great National societies which united in this remarkable meeting.

They discussed their own special topics, and it is an interesting fact that three of the four Presidents of the main societies warned their fellow-members against careless investigations and rash deductions; but the societies also put the results of their special studies at the service of the country at large. Throughout the meetings ran the note of obligation, of the interrelation of the universities, of State and local historical societies, of National organizations of every kind; and their duty to state ascertained facts and to make only measured generalizations.

Another characteristic of these meetings has been the good fellowship among the members. The main reason for the joint meetings of these various associations is in the ties of personal friendship which have been built up in the last quarter-century, and which are independent of the membership rolls of any society. Professors and students of economics are bound to know some history and to affiliate with those primarily interested in history; and the American Historical and American Political Science Associations are so near akin that even the officers are almost interchangeable, and the same man has sometimes been vice-president of both. The votaries of the historical societies in particular are, in the United States, singularly harmonious. Every economist has his own ideas on the general principles of his science, with which none of his brethren precisely agree; but the historians, while alike in their training, have many specialties, and even in the same fields are remarkably harmonious. In none of the scientific bodies of the world is there a more cordial interworking of large numbers of people.

One noteworthy result of these organizations is the considerable effect upon the public of the work of the allied societies. The annual meetings can, of course, be attended by only a fraction of the six thousand or more members of the various societies. In New York nearly twenty-five per cent were registered, but they all have a large influence which lasts throughout the year. Two of them, the Historical and Political Science Associa

tions, keep up quarterly journals in their fields; all of them make an annual report; several have gone into the question of the teaching of their subjects in secondary and elementary schools, and three elaborate reports upon that question have been issued or are in preparation by the American Historical Association. They have established also a variety of committees and commissions, especially the American Historical Association, which has in active operation a Historical Manuscripts Commission, a Public Archives Committee, a Committee on Bibliography, and at the recent session appointed a committee to consider the question of a permanent Commission on Historical Sites and Memorials. In a word, these affiliated societies conceive that they are not only National in name, but that they have a duty to and a service for the Nation.

THE SPECTATOR

The Spectator has a vital contribution to make to the Bacon-Shakespeare unpleasantness. He flatters himself that he approaches the subject from an entirely original angle. Sweeping aside for the moment all nice and fussy points of scholarship, he puts to himself the practical question, "Is there enough left of Bacon to make a Shakespeare?" For manifestly it comes down to this. After centuries of neglect it would be poor fun for Bacon to wrest from the critics a frigid justice were it not followed up by fervid popular acclaim. And it is clear that to set up a popular literary deity you must have visible remains to worship, a liberal outfit of homes and haunts, of accessible and picturesque shrines. For a man whose life is so meagerly known, Shakespeare is in this particular singularly well furnished, starting with the birthplace, christeningfont, grammar school, Shottery, and the grave. Can Bacon match him? The Spectator set himself last summer to find out. Truth to tell, he was materially strengthened in the resolution by Mrs. Spectator, at whom the Bacon bacillus has lately been nibbling. Certain from past experience that it matters little what you do in England so long as you go leisurely enough about it, he amiably consented to be

It began in London. Mrs. Spectator's brow clouded when she looked up the question of a birthplace. "What a pity !" she exclaimed. "If only Bacon had been discovered a trifle sooner! Some of York House was standing as late as 1863, and now there's not so much left as would

support a tablet. However, there's the grand old water gate designed by Inigo Jones. We'll go see that." An obliging bus rumbled the Spectators down Tottenham Court Road, dropping them at Charing Cross, the first of the consecrated sites lying near the mouth of the Strand. Passing the unlovely front of the Charing Cross Station, they came to Villiers Street, where they stood a while in thought. In view of the excessive modernity of the business buildings stolidly occupying the site of York House, they found it difficult to get up much thrill. Mrs. Spectator hurriedly led the way toward the river,

where there was more room to dilate with the right emotions; and there, its feet embedded in the gardens of the Thames Embankment, they found York Stairs-a picturesque futility, a water gate on land. There was no denying the effectiveness of the rusticated columns, the ancient pediment flanked by couchant lions. Mrs. Spectator's loyalty flamed high. She bade the lukewarm Spectator reconstruct in imagination behind it the turreted old mansion in which Francis St. Albans first saw the light, the house where later on, as Lord Chancellor, he was wont to feast poets and scholars. She was sailing on famously. Despite the paucity of architectural detail, she had developed a whole spirit palace, aviary and all, with the Lord Chancellor leaning out of the window surveying the gay river life that swept past his lawn. Was not that Elizabeth herself shooting by in the state barge, on her way from the Tower to Whitehall Stairs?—and all grown out of a gate !when the Spectator happened to take a peep into Baedeker on his own account. Pop went the palace !

2

"My dear," said he, "have you any tender affection for the first Duke of Buck

know anything about him."

"Don't "Perhaps

that?" Now St. Martin's is a weakness "Pure London," Lucas calls it, "with its whiteness emerging from its grime." So it was hard to

"Have

tell which was the more zealous of the two as they passed under the tall columns done into startling chiaroscuro by centuries of fog. The Spectator was dislocating his intellect in an attempt to picture Francis Bacon an infant, "mewling and puking in its nurse's arms," this being the more difficult in that, try as he would, he could not succeed in divorcing the infant philosopher from his ruff! It was Mrs. Spectator who broke his reverie. you any particular tenderness for the memory of Nell Gwynne? Because this is her church. It appears the church in which little Francis was baptized merely stood on this site. I don't like sites," she went on plaintively. "He used to leave his play to listen to echoes in a conduit in St. James's Fields. Doubtless that was a forerunner of St. James's Park, but that would be only another site, so don't let's go there."

However, the day being one of magical London mist, the park was a dreaming miracle of green and silver. The Spectators could not keep away. Manfully did they strive to image the boyhood of their hero. But surely Francis Bacon never was a human boy. They soon gave over trying to force him into the uncon

genial rôle, turning instead to watch the sea-gulls swooping over the dim reaches of park waters. Somehow the reincarnation of Bacon didn't seem to be getting on.

"Never mind," said the Spectator, "tomorrow we'll run up to Cambridge and see if the scent doesn't lie thicker there." Accordingly, next day the pursuit was advanced to the crooked Great Court of Trinity College. Taken trustfully, Trinity made a glorious setting for young Bacon; but a somewhat particular inquiry into dates wiped out from the picture the Hall, the bridge across the mirroring Cam, the limes and chestnuts along its brink. And the chapel was so done over that every association had fled. And Bacon himself, Bacon at thirteen ! If it had been Eton, now, or Harrow, one might have conceived the embryo philosopher being birched in good old English style. But this unconscionable little prig, this fledgling critic of universities, this intellectual snob in pinafores! how wake his image from the bloodless past? The stone Bacon in the chapel, the painted Bacon in the Hall, did but deepen the suspicion that the Lord Chancellor was born at least middle-aged.

"My dear," observed the Spectator, perhaps we should get this elusive fellow better into range if we took him at a more humanly interesting period. I don't seem to recall his romanceMrs. Spectator looked doubtful. "He was forty-five," said she, "when he married an alderman's daughter." "No," she admitted hastily, for the Spectator's smile* was derisive, "I don't think Alice Barnham is any match for Anne Hathaway. And the church where the banns were published is gone."

Why lengthen the tale? Bacon's Whitehall, where is it? Or Bacon's House of Lords? Or the house where his mature sweetheart lived? Or the house where he died? They do not so much as know where that latter stood, nor did a better fate befall the cottage of the old woman at Highgate who sold him the fatal fowl. Westminster Hall indeed might fill with crowding memories of

Chancery and the Lord Chancellor only one never sees it without the mob of sightseers doing the Houses of Parliament. "But there's Gray's Inn," pleaded Mrs. Spectator. Gray's Inn sounded enticing. Was it not Bacon himself who planted the elms that shade that antique backwater of London ? Were there not ancient rooks, descendants of those wise old birds who helped young Francis to pen his fragrant thoughts on gardens ? Alas! the public is not admitted to Gray's Inn Gardens ! Subsequently, having made strenuous representations, the Spectators got in. But, lo! of the trees the Lord Keeper planted not one remains. Fire has wiped out his lodgings in No. 1 Coney Court. Gone is his summer-house, gone the very mound on which it stood. Gone, too, are the rooks, driven out by benchers without souls. And the public not admitted! "There seems to be a conspiracy against Bacon," said the Spectator to his disappointed spouse. For though the noble old Gray's Inn Hall was as picturesque a shrine as man could wish, it was a blow to lose the softer, humaner relic of the garden. For here, if anywhere, in his love of growing things, Francis Bacon comes warmly within the ken of the plain man of to-day. If he might have left us some trace of his hobbies, those famous fish-ponds he paved so cunningly with colored pebbles "in figures as of fishes " seen through the clear water; or that fantastic pleasure-house at the Pondyards; or the noble old mansion at Gorhamsbury into which he built so much of himself—who knows? we might have forgiven all and loved the man. But flags and rushes choke the ponds, the pleasure-house is blotted out, Gorhamsbury House reduced to one ruinous entrance porch, and, worse, supplanted by the mansion of those modern Grimstones, Lords Verulam, not by blood, but by wealth and the whim of George III. No "Bacon's Walk" under the glorious old trees in the park! No treasured memories of favorite views and nooks. Spectator," the writer found himself saying, sententiously, "acrostics or no acrostics, and not forgetting the church, where Roman specters elbow Lord Verulam into a corner, it is simply too late for Bacon, anyhow."

"Mrs.