vacant air. An illustration of the awkwardness appears in a recent reference to "the confession of a Dutch theologian, to whom Harnack refers without naming him, that he had been compelled to believe in the supernatural origin of Christianity.'" Turning to p. x. of the preface (most of our reviewers appear to have confined their reading to the preface and the Chronological Table at the end), we read of this Dutch theologian. He may have belonged to either of the extreme schools for which Holland is peculiar the ultra-orthodox, or the insane clique of Loman, Pierson, Steck, and others who have out-Baured Baur by attributing all New Testament literature to the second century. In either case his attitude is intelligible. His words, according to Harnack's own statement, were as follows: "Whoever admits the framework into which tradition has set the ancient Christian documents gives up the attempt to trace a natural history of primitive Christianity, and is compelled to believe in one which is supernatural." The attempt to find here the "confession" of a converted critic is ludicrous; quite as much so the tender of the ring, the robe, and the fatted calf to Harnack. Instead of humbly submitting to impalement on the horns of this dilemma, as a true penitent should have done, Harnack's answer was to deny in toto its validity, and to use it as an illustration of the change of base which modern criticism has wisely effected.

Here is the heart and substance of Harnack's candid acknowledgment of the "retrogressive" movement of New Testament criticism during the last twenty-five years. Harnack has brought the conclusive demonstration, from his comprehensive, unprejudiced, laborious study of early Christian literature as a whole, of that which to nearly all critics has during this time been steadily growing clearer and clearer-viz., that the emphasis of criticism upon literary dissection has been misplaced. The problem is to be solved, not by documentary analysis, although the sources of Luke and Acts and the Pastoral Epistles still leave ample room the use of the critical scalpel; still less can it be solved by the imputation of insincerity, forgery, or tendens, which have practically no place in the century

succeeding the Apostles. It must be solved by the methods of historical interpretation critically applied, on the basis of a tradition substantially vindicated. Emphatically he repudiates the alternative of Baur und die Holländer. It is not true that either larger room must be found for development than what a substantial acceptance of early tradition can admit, or else we are forced to the supranaturalistic ground as commonly understood. "Why should not thirty to forty years be sufficient,' he exclaims, "to produce the historical precipitate regarding the words and deeds of Jesus? What need is there to this end of sixty to seventy years? Why should the height on which the fourth Evangelist stands be inaccessible until seventy to eighty years after Paul? Why are not thirty to forty years sufficient?. As soon as one perceives that from the outset in the circle of Christ's disciples the powers of a pneumatic enthusiasm were as unfettered as was the impulse to unearth the treasures of the deepest knowledge, and that these powers and impulses became effective in an age to whose historically unparalleled wealth of religious and moral perceptions, views of history and mysteries, nothing was lacking save the gospel and the emancipation of the will, that it should will then one will no longer marvel at the abundant output of contemporaneous religious ideas and forms, nor, again, at the rapidity of their development.'

The pendulum has swung from analytical to historical criticism, from destructive to constructive, from skepticism to interpretation. Let us mark the date at which the transition is now both completed and acknowledged, and let us rejoice at it, for it is a change of blessed portent. But we shall be far wiser to keep aloof from the multitude of the partly informed, tossing up their caps at the victory for "our side." Far better to heed the double warning of an English scholar, unsurpassed in any land for learning and orthodoxy, independence of judgment, and scholarly conservatism combined. Dr. Sanday, in his review of this work in The Guardian" for January 20, 1897, warns first against "a rapid assumption that in respect of the historical contents of the books of the New Testament Harnack is already

on our side;" and, secondly, against the error of "those who have already leaped to the conclusion: If the criticism of the New Testament has returned to the place where it left tradition, may not the criticism of the Old do likewise? It does not follow. For, in the first place, the best New Testament scholars in England never left the traditional standpoint, . . . but

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we have scarce an Old Testament scholar left in our midst who is not a Higher Critic." And, further, "the two traditions are very different; and the arguments on which in each case the critical view is based are different. It is far better that the two questions should be worked out independently."

Yale Divinity School.

By E. R.

HE city of Brooklyn has for some time felt the need of a reformatory institution to which young offenders could be committed. In 1896 a law passed the Legislature permitting the establishment of the Brooklyn Disciplinary School for Boys. The ins'itution admits boys between the ages of seven and fourteen years, who have been arrested and committed by a magistrate for some petty offense. Among our first boys was one whose personal history is somewhat typical. To outline his case, and our methods of dealing with him, and plans for his future, will be to disclose the aims and ambitions of the institution and its management.

The boy is but ten years of age, and is committed to us nominally under the charge of vagrancy. He was out on the streets night and day; could not be induced to attend school with any regularity; and had come to be a confirmed thief, having been arrested, tried, and convicted three times within the last month and a half.

It is only boys who thus reveal themselves as being possessed of strong immoral tendencies, acquired or hereditary, that are committed here. It is customary to turn the boy over to his parents, to reprimand him and them; to send to some less severe institution, or to commit to the Truant Home for a term of a few weeks, before sending a boy to the Training School. It is only when other means fail that he is committed

to us.

The boy in question apparently comes from a home that at best is not very exceptional; his parents are laboring pecple, Germans by birth; the mother and

Downing

father fight, as the boy puts it, "effry time dey gets a chance," while the boy himself has been accustomed to severe whippings; the father is out of work, and drinks; the mother must consequently leave home and the children's training, to go out washing. Deprived of a mother's care, the atmosphere of the street soon inoculates the boy with the germs of viciousness, and the early stages of criminality develop.

The boy's reception at the institution was marked by a close hair-clip, a thorough bath, and a change of clothing throughout. This is frequently, although not always, a necessity. For it is not from the homes of the lower classes alone that the boys come to us. After his bath the boy undergoes a thorough medical and physical examination. He is carefully measured and photographed, with the object of detecting in this way any physical defects or deformities. He is also, as soon as he grows accustomed to our ways and gets over the excitement attending the first few days of his experience, given a thorough psychological test.

Physically this particular boy seems perfectly sound, well developed, and symmetrical. Occasionally the boys are undersized; and in one or two cases it is especially noticeable that the cranial development is quite different on opposite sides of the skull. Whether these irregu larities are collated with individual peculiarities, and are indications of criminal tendencies, remains yet to be seen. Until quite a mass of data have been accumulated by measurements and photographs, and until comparisons can be made with boys who are known to be normal, we cannot predicate any facts regarding the

presence of typical criminals among young offenders.

Mentally the boy seems undeveloped, if not defective. He has been in this country, however, for only about four years. He can read some, can write a little, but has never liked to go to school, yet he has quite a good English vocabulary; bis memory, however, seems very deficient; he remembers almost nothing; when a story is read to him, he is unable to tell anything about it, and even fails to repeat ten words after they have been read to him several times. While he seems to understand perfectly well what is right and what is wrong, yet he lies without any apparent compunction. Two weeks of instruction and firm control were enough to make a marked improvement, however. One cannot inquire into a case of this character without realizing the baneful influence of the home from which such boys come. Only this morning a boy came to the institution whose father drinks constantly, gets drunk at least every other day, and never sees the boy without hitting him. The boy bears a dozen or more scars on his head, impresses of the hammer in the hands of his father, who is a shoemaker by trade. From such a home the boy had many times run away, until, exasperated, the father had driven a nail through the palm of his hand and fastened him to the floor, in order to restrain him. Contrast the case outlined above, where the boy is strong, robust, but dull, phlegmatic, obstinate, with another case coming to us two days later. This boy's mother had died of consumption. The boy's chest and glands indicate a tendency in the same direction; he is undersized and weak, of a nervous temperament, from immature parents, themselves descendants of several generations of city dwellers.

In many cases of this character the boy's criminal tendencies are evidently the outcome of vicious environment, with more or less hereditary tendency. The institution aims to supply what the boy has never had a home. We strive to avoid whatever may make the boy realize that he is but one of a number of inmates. The clothing, while uniform in style, is of different pattern. Each boy, as far as possible, has his own room. The table is set as nearly like that of a good home as

can be, and no bars or wall suggest the idea of prison; but constant supervision by the help, in so far as possible, takes the place of the care a parent ought to exercise. The boys are never alone, and all misdemeanors are kindly, though firmly, dealt with. The boys do the bulk of the work of the institution. The course of training includes school work, manual training, and gymnasium work.

It is with the hope that constant and long-continued kindness yet firm control will produce a change that the management intends patiently to apply the idea of home life to the reformation of these deformed characters. Young, plastic, yet frequently strongly criminal, and with lax morality, these boys, in a majority of cases, respond to kindness and good counsel as frequently and fully as most boys.

Like other progressive institutions, we believe in a minimum of corporal punishment, and hope that minimum will be nil.

The student who addresses himself to the problem of the criminal youth finds that it is the same problem that any parent has to meet, but in a peculiarly aggravated form. For he knows and can find out very little of the surroundings, antecedents, and previous history of the lad in his care. In so far as it is possible, it is our aim to so thoroughly quiz the boy, and his parents or guardians, that we shall be in possession of those facts regarding parentage, early training, physical and mental peculiarities, which a parent uses so constantly in determining how his child shall be dealt with. There are so many things that must be taken into consideration in order to understand the boy's disposition and temperament. The history of the case obtained from the court records, and the detailed physical measurement and psychological test, supplement the information which the child or parent can give.

The problem gains its interest not entirely from the treatment of individual cases, but from the study of the whole problem with its bearing on the prevention of crime. The successive stages in the treatment of a criminal have been quite marked. Vengeance, repression, reformation, and prevention have been the successive aims. The reformatory must be considered a necessary evil, and the managers of a reform School who do not

address themselves to the problem of prevention are shirking the most important part of their task. And yet the student finds that it is not easy to make suggestions as to the next step in the line of progress already attained. That preformation is better than reformation is undoubtedly true, but how to compass this end is the problem. It is without doubt true that the modern reform schools, both here and abroad, do succeed in reclaiming a large percentage of their inmates. not make this as a general statement; it applies to few schools in this country, for I am convinced that many of the institutions are sources of crime rather than checks on crime. Schools modeled, how

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ever, on the modern plan and managed in the spirit of love, are undoubtedly largely successful; but there is no marked difference, I think, between the boy who is in the reform school and the boy who is not, except a matter of unfortunate circumstances. The inmate committed some offense and was caught, and no one took pains to release him. The ordinary parent realizes that his boy is liable to get into scrapes which would be sufficient to send him to the reform school if did he not have his parents to look after him and to bring influence to bear to prevent an exposure of the petty mischief done by the boy. Our aim, consequently, is to be that unfortunate bad boy's parent.

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F you are ambitious to make a collection of insects, you must learn to do three things: first, to catch the insect; second, to mount him; third, to preserve him. Each part of the work has its difficulties, each requires its own tools and materials, but the tools and materials need not be expensive. A boy who has an average amount of "gumption" and of patience

may make most of his own outfit at very small expense; and when I say boys I include girls, because the pursuit is quite as easy, as proper, and as profitable for a girl as for a boy. Indeed, the handsomest collection of insects I ever saw outside of a professional exhibit was made by a girl of twelve.

For collecting you will need a net and a chloroform bottle for butterflies and moths, and a poison bottle for bugs and beetles. The net may be of mosquitobar, made into a bag and hemmed at the mouth around a ring which is fastened to a handle. The bag must not be too long, or it will catch and tear; it must not be too short, or the insect may find a way out before you can secure him. Make it long enough so that as it settles over the prisoner you can give the net a twist and confine him in the lower part. The length

of the net will, therefore, depend somewhat upon the size of the ring.

For the ring use wire as light as possible and yet not in the least flexible. A ring that bends and wavers is a nuisance. Make it in the shape of a circular fan with a short, straight handle, represented by the two straight ends of the wire, like

very

this, firmly to the handle, or, better still, inserted in the end of the handle, if you can find one that is hollow. The lashings, secure them as you will, are apt to work loose and bring vexation of spirit.

These ends must be lashed

The handle, like the ring, must be light and yet rigid. A stout section of a bamboo rod is an excellent thing. Its length is a matter of choice. Sometimes you will wish it were longer, and some. times you will wish it were shorter. The net and ring can be used without a handle, but not satisfactorily. In the butterflynets sold at stores the depth of the net is about twenty-two inches, the diameter of the ring twelve inches, and the length of the handle between three and three and a half feet. These nets are strong, handsome, and light, some of them weighing complete only a trifle over half a pound, but they cost about a dollar. If you can

afford it, it is a good thing to buy your net instead of making it, because the home-made article, I am bound to confess, will sometimes drop off or collapse at a critical moment. But if it does, hold on to your temper and your courage, repair the damage the best you can, and take a new start. Besides, I am writing especially to boys and girls who cannot spend money for everything they want, or who enjoy exercising their own skill and patience. There is a satisfaction in that such as comes in no other way.

With the net you will need a small bottle of chloroform. An ounce bottle is large enough, costing ten cents. Chloroform is poison. The druggist will mark it, and you must be very careful to keep it in the marked bottle and out of reach of any one who does not know its nature. It is a colorless liquid, like water, and has a strange, pungent odor. It will burn you spill it on your skin. A little boy of my acquaintance had a very unpleasant experience from his chloroform bottle becoming uncorked in his trousers pocket. The poison bottle for beetles should be a small clear glass bottle, with straight sides, a large mouth, and not too much shoulder. A horseradish bottle will do very well. Get the druggist to put into the bottom of this a little cyanide of potassium, and over it a thin sheet of well-perforated cork, fitted tightly. The corks holds the cyanide in place, and the perforations allow the fumes of the cyanide to escape into the bottle, for it is the fumes that kill the insect. Cyanide of potassium is a white solid or powder, with a peculiar disagreeable smell which you are not likely to forget if you once enjoy a good whiff of it. But remember, it is a deadly poison, and must be guarded with great care from little folks. The druggist will paste on the bottle a label marked "Poison," perhaps also a skull and crossbones to show you what you will come to look like if you are careless in its use. You will need but little. Probably ten cents would cover the cost of the whole thing, bottle and all. Those who wish may purchase cyanide bottles all ready for use, at about twenty-five cents.

So, with net, chloroform and cyanide bottles, a small pasteboard box, and a little soft tissue-paper to wrap about your specimens until you can get them safely

home, your collecting outfit is complete. Here, again, you can buy, if you wish, a collecting-case with strap for one dollar and seventy-five cents.

Next, for mounting your insects you will need pins and blocks. The pins I strongly advise you to buy. Common pins are too short, and the heads are too large. Insect pins are slender, of various sizes, and of uniform length. They cost fifteen cents a hundred, twenty-five cents for two hundred; in original packages one dollar for a thousand. The sizes run from 000 to 8, the size increasing with the number. No. 7 or 8 you will need most, No. 3 or 4 comes next. No. 7 is a good all-round size, and will do very well alone for a beginner; but you can buy one hundred, assorted sizes, for fifteen cents, and that is best to begin with.

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For blocks there are beautiful white plaster blocks made by Mr. Denton, of Wellesley, Mass., on which butterflies are mounted under a transparent cover and preserved in perfection. There are also spreading-boards" six and twelve inches long, at twelve and twenty-five cents respectively. But we are now on what a friend of mine calls "the economical warpath," so we will not buy what we can make. Take a block of soft wood an inch thick or more, and perhaps two inches square. Make a pencil-mark or a scratch across the middle, at right angles to the grain of the wood, and, with this for a guide, cut out, with a gouge or a jackknife, a furrow or slot a quarter of an inch in depth and less in width. In this slot, at about the center, bore a small hole through to the under side of the block, and into this hole wedge a piece of cork. The cork need not fit the hole as to shape, but it must be wedged in tight, for a reason which you would soon discover if it did not. Smooth the surface of the block lightly with fine sandpaper.

You will need a good many of these blocks, and of different sizes; how many and of what sizes you will learn by experience. Make more large ones than small, because a large block may do for mounting a small insect, but a small block will never do for a large insect. If the wings are not supported even to the tip, they will curl in drying.

The matter of preserving your specimens is a simple one. A pasteboard box