by him upon the same subject. Speaking of the inadequacy of modern Christianity, he compares our "mild and manageable form of fever" to that "which consumed St. Paul, and wrung from him the agonized cry, 'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death'" (page 156). It is the very mildness of our religious fever or fervour which Mr. Peile shows to be the whole trouble with "Christian Civilization."

In addition to the filtered and feeble Christianity of the day we are shown still deeper trouble, in that as a result of it the present point of view of the so-called civilized world is utterly subversive to the ideals of Christ. Whereas, the poverty that needs pity is spiritual poverty, we have come to think that the most pitiable condition into which a man can fall is material poverty. Resulting from this, gold has become our criterion of everything, and our bowels of mercy have been infected until a tpyhoid has set in, and our good deeds are no longer good deeds, but rather are mistaken and dangerous. It is with trenchant clearness that Mr. Peile exposes this (see pages 107 ff) ‘devaluation,' and we only hope that the theme will be taken up in similar spirit and preached broadcast.

So far as solutions to the problems are concerned, our author shows great vision in not prophesying. The whole trouble with the social question is that men, the men competent to deal with it, are busied with prophesying for the future, and fail to realize that it is to-day that we need to do something, rather than plan something for to-morrow. A. R. GRAY.

ENGLISH POETRY

ENGLISH POETRY (1170-1892). Selected and edited by John Matthews Manly, Ph.D. Ginn & Company.

Almost every teacher of English finds it difficult to arouse in the average college freshman or college sophomore a genuine and abiding interest in poetry, or to create in him an honest appreciation and enjoyment of the best literature. Most of the textbooks recently edited for classes in English literature are prepared by specialists solely from the scholar's point of view, and

are too often burdened with a mass of critical apparatus enough to spoil the appetite of the most voracious reader at the very outset. It is a pleasure, then, to find a scholar who is sufficiently bold to strike out in a new path, and who publishes a comprehensive collection of English poems from 1170 to 1892, omitting long introductory remarks and learned annotations.

"The idea and plan of the present volume," says the editor in his preface (p. iv), "originated ten years ago, when Professor Bronson, Professor Dodge and I were engaged in giving an introductory course in English literature to a class of one hundred and forty freshmen and sophomores in Brown University. We found that we secured the best results by having the students read as widely as their time permitted and then discussing freely with them such points as seemed vital to the interest or the significance of the literature read. We proceeded on the theory that literary productions are vital, organic wholes, and that they must be treated as such to produce the effects intended by their authors. Special beauties of detail were noted and enjoyed, but were subordinated to the main meaning and beauty, unless, indeed, as sometimes occurred, the significance of the piece we were reading lay in the beauty of its details, in the nature of its ornamentation, rather than in the meaning or form as a whole. Questions of structure and relations of parts were discussed, but with a view primarily to the main theme. Lectures on the authors were given, but the greater part of each lecture was devoted to trying to show what the author meant by his work, what he wished to say, what was significant or interesting in his special way of saying it, and why it was or was not of permanent value. Dates and facts and groups of names were given and required to be learned, but not without an attempt to express their significance in such terms of human experience as had actuality for the students themselves.

"That the interest and intelligent co-operation of every member of the class were gained by this method, I will not pretend; but I can testify that I have never seen better results from any class or a larger proportion of interested and intelligent listeners. in any audience."

Such a plan of teaching required a very large range of reading

material, and so the editor decided to "collect into a single volume all the pieces of non-dramatic poetry that any teacher would likely care to have at hand from which to make his own selections. . . I hope it will be of service to teachers who believe, with me, that the love of reading and the habit of it are best awakened by treating pieces of literature as living, organic wholes and by subordinating all other considerations to this during the student's first introduction to the study of literature. It may also be useful to that large group of teachers who believe, as I do, that however small may be the number of poems that time permits one to read with his class, they should be chosen by the teacher himself with special reference to the taste and mental development of the pupils he actually has to deal with in each class."

With such comprehensive scope, the collection is naturally very large, and the book is rather bulky, covering nearly six hundred pages and measuring 61⁄2 x 8 x 1%. The Introduction, comprising only about twenty pages (pp. xxvii-xxviii), contains brief, critical estimates of the authors and poems. The editing of the different texts is done with care and accuracy. Though the apparently endless mass of material, the necessarily small type, and the double columns of print are not likely to prove altogether attractive to the student at first sight, many teachers should find the volume exceedingly useful on the reference shelf, and those who are ready to adopt or have adopted Professor Manly's excellent method of instruction, will find the collection almost indispensable in the class-room.

JOHN M. MCBRYDE, JR.

NOTES

If the work of historical and patriotic societies has often been open to criticism in respect to emphasis of details and limitation. to local horizons, there are encouraging signs of change. Of most promise, perhaps, is the devotion of funds to the collection and reprinting of documents of real historic importance; of which a very noteworthy example is afforded in the recent enterprise of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, which has resulted in the publication in two handsome volumes of "The Correspondence of William Pitt, when Secretary of State, with Colonial Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America" (The Macmillan Co., 1906). Having appropriated the necessary funds, the Colonial Dames found a wise counsellor in Dr. J. F. Jameson, Director of the Department of Historical Research in the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who suggested the field in which their activity might be employed, and chose for the editorship of the work, Miss Gertrude Selwyn Kimball.

The letters selected for reprinting in these volumes are nearly five hundred in number of which only sixty-eight, the editor informs us, have ever been printed before. One hundred and twenty-seven are written by Pitt, one hundred and seventy are those of Colonial Governors to Pitt, and the remainder are communications to Pitt from military and naval officers. The years covered by the correspondence are those of his secretaryship in the Southern Department, 1756-1761 years of the deepest importance and of the most stirring interest in the history of England as well as that of the American Colonies. In the course of the correspondence one meets familiar names: Loudoun, Pownall, Dinwiddie, Sharpe, Lyttelton, Dobbs, Abercrombie, Amherst, Wolfe, Forbes. The official character of the letters does not obscure the dramatic character of the events that were brought by the passing months, or the personalities of the various writers, and in particular, that of the master mind in whose plans these events and personalities were the mechanism of victory.

The documents are copied from the series "Colonial Papers, America and West Indies," and the Chatham (Pringle) Mss. in the British Public Record Office. The editor's introduction and notes leave, in general, nothing to be desired. We have noted one geographical point as to which the notes seem to indicate some confusion: this is a failure to distinguish adequately the three forts called Fort Loudoun, one of which was in Western Pennsylvania, one at Winchester, Virginia, and one in what is now Tennessee, near the Tellico River. The form of the volume is most pleasing. The only illustrations, besides maps, are photographs of the statue of Pitt erected in 1769 by the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, and of the portrait of Chatham from the Gardiner Hubbard collection. It is to be hoped that this excellent beginning may lead to further efforts of the same kind, and that this and other patriotic societies may continue to co-operate with the States and with the Library of Congress in rendering accessible to the ever-increasing number of students of Colonial history the sources upon which the writing of that history must depend.

Among Crowell's recent publications are new editions of two of Clifton Johnson's books illustrative of New England rural life in the nineteenth century, "The Country School," and "The Farmer's Boy," which are quite worthy of being thus perpetuated. Mr. Johnson is both an author and an illustrator of books, and in these two volumes, it is an open question to which the reader owes the greater debt, for the descriptions of the various phases of rural life depicted-the pen of the writer, or the pencil and camera of the artist. The scenes depicted are as ancient as the beginning of the nineteenth century in some cases, and the moods of New England life are as varied as the seasons. Mr. Johnson's sympathy with the life he describes is apparent on every page, and the books will be valuable in days to come as throwing side-lights upon economic conditions in New England. after those conditions have wholly passed away.