reproduced photographs, several of which are printed in color. Both in pictorial and readable qualities this is an exceptionally well done piece of work of its class.

Ægean Days. By J. Irving Manatt. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $3.

This volume has atmosphere of a kind very satisfactory to the classical scholar and instructive to the man in the street. For instance:

The dismal daybreak cooled even the youngest ardor and gave me what I coveted-an almost unbroken day at home with Homer. Over the best fire mine host could provide-alas! it was no ten-foot-through Homeric hearth. piled high with blazing logs, but only a battered tin bathtub filled with hot ashes and embers-I bent me to the delightful task of reading all the Ithacan story on Ithacan soil. The task was done when at five o'clock the masters of the Hellenic School dropped in to afternoon coffee. Over the cups we discussed the South African War to please them, and to please us they took turns at rhapsodizing snatches of their own poet.

The day's reading had rounded to its proper close my Ithacan pilgrimage. I had lived over the whole great story from Athene-Mentes' first appearance to the final brush with the suitors' friends. I had followed Odysseus' every step from his landing here, fast asleep, until the gray-eyed goddess stayed his red right hand. And, taking due note of dawns and sunsets, I found the Poet had given him just five days for the whole business-ere he need fare forth again where landlubbers should mistake his oar for a winnowing fan. We, too, had done Ithaca in five days, and were content to re-embark on the prompt little Pylaros as the sun went down and launch out again on the wet ways. The particular value, of the present volume over other books on Greece is twofold. First of all, as is shown by the above extract, the Homeric thread runs through the text, and gives to it a certain backbone and fiber. In the second place, however, to jump from the most ancient to the most modern time, we find the author apparently as much saturated by the political and literary and artistic present condition of Greece as he was by the conditions of the Homeric age. Hence his references to the present development of Greece are of special interest and worth. Professor Manatt is the friend of the Greeks. He is fascinated by the ancient and heroic period of their history, but he is intensely interested in modern Greece. His book is, in large degree, a defense of the Greece of to-day, and one strong reason for his defense is that he believes in the continuity of the old and the new culture. It is a pity that his text has not had the advantage, as it should have had, of adequate illustration. There are illustrations in the book, it is true, but their reproduction leaves much to be desired.

Russia of the Russians. By Harold Whitmore Williams, Ph.D. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.50.

One of the most informative books in an excellent series instructs us concerning Russia, especially its trade, peasants, press, bureaucracy, Church, literature, art, and, in particular, its "intelligentsia." The explanation of the intelligentsia forms what to us is the book's chief feature. An "intelligent," or member of the intelligentsia, says Dr. Williams, is not merely

an "intellectual." The "intellectuals" of other countries enter more or less completely into the life of their environment and conform to its customs. But the life of the Russian intelligentsia has been a protest against the existing order. Thus the distinguishing quality of the intelligentsia was not that its members wrote books. For instance, Tolstoy was not an "intelligent," because the intelligentsia habit of mind, according to Dr. Williams, was repugnant to him. The author continues:

Turgenev, again, was not an intelligent. He was keenly interested in the intelligentsia, associated with, and frequently described in his novels, its members. But Turgeniev described them as an outsider, as a highly cultivated country gentleman who would never quite consent to identify himself with the intelligentsia class. Dostoievsky, again, was and was not an intelligent. He was a townsman, and lived, like a typical intelligent, a restless, hand-to-mouth, irregular life.

The qualities necessary to the intelligentsia were fervor to an ideal of political and social redemption and contempt for the goods of this world. While the result was, in many instances, a dogmatic, narrow, censorious, and intolerant spirit, the effect of any lofty and disinterested thinking must be of value in the remaking of Russia:

meant.

Passing of Empire (The). By H. FieldingHall. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $2.50. The title of the present volume seems unfortunate, for one is not sure what Empire is But the subject of the volume is quickly revealed-India. The book differs from other books on that country because it is not a description of the characteristics of its people as contrasted with those of other peoples so much as a discussion of the destiny of India. In order to understand this, the author spends a good deal of time in filling in a proper historic background. He then projects a foreground into the picture very different in character from that already sketched. He shows us how different the new civilian in India is from the old, how different his training, how different the laws, whether criminal or civil, and what changes are taking place in village and municipal government and in education. The author's aim in writing this book has evidently been to show that England's duty is not to make of India a subject but a daughter. He admits that it has required great courage and ability and selfsacrifice to conquer India, but he shows that the freedom of the people needs the yet greater application of courage and self-sacrifice. As to the natives, race, caste, and creed, as the author says, have ruined India, and are still ruining her. If a new India is to arise, these things must be sacrificed. The question is, Will they be sacrificed? Mr. Fielding-Hall indicates the reforms necessary to transform the country's politics, economics, and society. His book is timely both on the ideal and on the practical side. It unfortunately lacks an index.

The second anniversary of the loss of the Titanic was commemorated by the unveiling in the Palace of Peace, at the Hague, of a bust of William T. Stead, the distinguished English journalist and worker for international peace, who was one of the victims of the disaster.

A fine oak tree near Philadelphia, having associations with Washington, Lafayette, and the Continental Army, was recently saved from destruction by fire through the efforts of patriotic school boys and girls, who rallied to its rescue. The same agricultural paper which records this praiseworthy action tells of the cutting down of another ancient oak, 125 feet high and nearly nine feet in diameter at the base, by its owners. Children with ideals, as in the other case, were apparently needed to save this latter landmark.

Mr. Arthur Briesen, President of the Legal Aid Society of New York City, writes, in correction of a statement that the average cost of its cases to its clients is $1.19, that that sum is the cost to the Society, while to the client the cost is only 30 cents. Thus the poor of New York are deeply indebted to this philanthropic Society. During the thirty-eight years of its existence the Society has spent for their protection $2,036,550 more than it has charged for its services.

Discussing American and English humor in "Life," G. K. Chesterton finds greater consistency and continuity in the American humorist's product. "Huckleberry Finn,'" he says, " goes straight to its end in a way in which Pickwick' does not go straight to its end. . . . American laughter. . . goes ahead; it does not go astray. By this it misses much; for the adventures of Gil Blas or Pickwick are found by going astray. But it also gains something: it gains its object."

The North Dakota Agricultural College, located at Fargo, has built a theater for the production of "such plays as can be easily staged in a country school, the basement of a country church, the village hall," etc. This "Little Country Theater " is well adapted for the presentation, especially, of one-act plays, and the College hopes to make it a medium for the production of original plays dealing with the life of North Dakota's varied population,

the telephone: "What! ye can't hear what I'm sayin'? Well, thin, repeat what ye didn't hear and I'll tell it ye again."

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Mme. Calvé, the famous operatic singer, announces that she will not appear again on the stage. "I shall also," she says, never be photographed again. I have sworn it." There is a time, she thinks, when one ought no longer to be photographed. This may possibly be true of actresses; but the world would not willingly lose its photographic portraits of Walt Whitman, John Burroughs, John Muir, Tolstoy, and other "grand old men."

Orange, New Jersey, has decided to have government by commission. Three years ago it rejected this form of city government.

According to M. Bergoine, a French scientist, the meal hours in a system of rational hygiene would be: the principal meal at 7:30 A.M.; a second meal at 4:30 P.M., and a light repast at 8:30 or 9 P.M. The general reversal of this regimen, in urban populations at least, by hav ing the principal meal at 6 or 7 P.M. seems to be due to the fact that that is the leisure time of the day, when both mind and body are at rest. Strenuous work after a hearty meal is certainly not promotive of health.

A Yorkshire M. P., noted for love of punctuality and lack of humor, says "Christian Life," is superintendent of a local Sunday-school. A few Sundays back he had the pleasure of making the following announcement: "Dear fellowworkers and children, out of the entire school only one person is abse t to-day-little Maggie. Let us hope that she is

Sir Charles Wyndham, the English actor, was told as a young man that he would not live long. The other day, at the age of seventy seven, he was occupied in learning a new part for a play he is going to produce. "I don't contemplate retiring yet," he said, "and when I do I shall simply go out. There will be no farewell per

formance for me." Other members of the theatrical profession who are still young are: Sarah Bernhardt, age 69; Ellen Terry, 66; Sir John Hare, 70.

An American who lived three years in London and then returned to his native country gives his "impressions of America" in "The Trimmed Lamp." He says: "I confess to being agreeably surprised in the American people themselves. They do not appear to advantage in a less flamboyant setting than that which their native land provides. . . . The men are genuine products of a competitive society. They are workers and fighters. . . . They are what they are, they do not pretend to be anything else, and they must command respect and admiration within their limits.”