the mightiest facts in recent history. It is still in its infancy, and it has been abused both by films that tend to degeneracy and by films that irritate by their didactic propagandism. The future of the movingpicture theatre is in the hands of the public. Exhibitors of films unite in declaring that they have no wish to present films associated with crime and immorality, and are indeed anxious to raise the standard of moving-picture programs. The higher tastes of their patrons have, however, to be cultivated, and the responsibility for this culture rests with educationists and even with the Christian Church. Music is an amusement, but it is much more than an amusement. It is an educational and spiritualizing art which, in one form or another, a young man should cultivate in his own highest interests. A wit has said that music is the most expensive form of noise, and another humorist has observed that classical music is that form of music which is so much better than it sounds. However economical of his leisure a young man may be, time should be found to master the elements of music, to learn to sing, or play a musical instrument, and to hear good music rendered. Ears and tastes differ, and in music one man's joy is another's anathema. A devotee of Sullivan may squirm under Bach, and a votary of Beethoven's sonatas may yawn even over the honeyed sweetness of Handel's Messiah. Avoid affectation and follow your bent is the best advice as to music that I can offer a young man. Do not praise Debussy if you really prefer Balfe, nor pretend to be ecstatic over Tschaikovsky's " 1812" if "There's a long long trail a-winding" is more to your fancy. Be honest in your tastes, but cultivate them. Your joy in jazztunes may end in appreciation of the "Moorlight Sonata." The literature of music is rich in romance and human interest, and I commend Grove's Dictionary of Music to a young man with any musical interests. Great musicians are curiously interesting personalities. Their life-stories abound in unexpectedness. In his way Beethoven was a sort of Dr. Johnson, another rough-hewn struggler, brusque, peevish, even harsh, but likeable, for all his foibles. In all biography there are few episodes more melting than the splendid courage with which old Beethoven faced the tragedy of his deafness; and his last moments, when he whispered with grim humor, "Comedia finita est" (the comedy is played out), rang down the curtain on a human drama of entrancing interest. Schubert, the inspired vagabond who wrote immortal song-tunes on restaurant menu-cards and other odd scraps of paper, and did not recognize one week the music he had composed a week before, is a titanic figure in a real Bohemia. Mozart-immortalized by Don Giovannithe boy genius who died of starvation in early manhood just as he had finished his deathless "Requiem"; Handel, pompous and egotistical, staggering us by his amazing fecundity as he captivates us by the majesty of his mighty chorals; the gentle, effeminate Schumann, supreme in writing lieder, dying in a madhouse from insanity caused by a false chord of music that wounded and obsessed his brain; Mendelssohn, rightly named Felix, lovely in countenance, lofty in soul, smiled upon by the gods, and tripping happily through life-all these and many more fascinatingly varied characters flit across the stage of musical history and offer a reader of musical biography “A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns." Other arts offer fair fields of amusement. Pictures, statues, miniatures, even beautiful furniture, minister to our highest instincts, and to neglect them is to rob life of its embellishing graces. Travel is itself a liberal education and, par excellence, the surest means of acquiring that polish of mind and manners distinctive of a man of broad culture. It furnishes, as Dr. Johnson puts it, "variety to the eye and amplitude to the mind." T XXI WRITING AND SPEAKING HE arts of writing and speaking are an invaluable accomplishment for any young man. They are at once sources of joy and springs of power. While it may be quite true that a great writer, like a poet, is born and not made, the capacity to give written expression in pleasant and effective form to one's thoughts and ideas can be cultivated by any one of moderate education. With a little assiduity and some patience a young man will find that writing grows easier, and that with practice thoughts which seemed inarticulate take shape on paper. Later in life he will discover a thousand uses for the art of writing, and he will never lament as misspent any hours he may have devoted to its acquirement. As a concise text-book to writing, I advise Nichol's English Composition (Macmillan), which is lucid and compact, and excellently arranged, as a guide and counsellor. Then certain models of composition should be read. The Authorized Version of the Bible has no equal. The late W. T. Stead caught his flexible English style from constant study of the Bible. Read carefully the latter half of Isaiah, the Psalms, the Book of Job, the Gospels of St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John, and the Book of the Revelation; note the unaffected simplicity of the Saxon English and the unerring fitness of every word. Another great model of English pure and undefiled is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan's English all came from the Authorized Bible, but his own genius gave it a character of his own. For chaste beauty and delicacy of expression, go to John Ruskin; for the study of glow and color in language, read Macaulay's Essays and also his History. Swinburne's poetry reveals the majesty and music of words, even though, sometimes, the thoughts they clothe seem scarcely worthy of their gorgeous robes. But the best practice in writing is to write. And one of the best methods of learning to write is to practice the short essay. Begin with familiar subjects. Describe in 500 words your daily walk to business. In the same number of words say which is your favorite newspaper, and explain why it is your favorite. Put on record in a short essay your recollections of a holiday, or describe a football match you have watched or played in. Then, exercising a little more ambition, attempt a description of your favorite view, or describe what arrested your attention in a wood in spring. This is an excellent test of observation, memory, and literary ability. You may find yourself in one of two difficulties. Nature may cast no cunning spell over you-for as Mrs. Browning says "Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries." Should you belong to the Philistines who "sit round |