ing for passion, exaggeration for wit, tawdry tinsel for beauty. But while many things which seemed to me little better than rubbish have succeeded, I have never known the truly good to fail."

Thus, in more ways than one, America is a good place to live in. Our war experience seems to have had the effect of stimulating men of large experience and practical wisdom to write and speak in a spirit of helpfulness and impartial truthfulness. The book under consideration is an uncommonly good example of what may be accomplished through the working of such a spirit. Upon Mr. Kahn's mastery of the special topics with which he deals, there is no need to enlarge.

PATRIOTISM AND POPULAR EDUCATION. By Henry Arthur Jones. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company.

One's principle feeling, as one begins to read Mr. Jones's vigorous exposition of the Law and the Prophets, is a hope that the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, President of the British Board of Education (to whom the book is addressed in the form of an open letter) has a sense of humor. Without a sense of humor, one could forgive the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher for being somewhat annoyed by Mr. Jones's prophetic discourse for in this book, Mr. Jones appears quite frankly as a prophet in the best Hebrew sense of the word. No one can read the Old Testament attentively without being impressed with the fact that the prophets, right in principle as they always were, did not help the kings of Israel and Judah to solve intricate political problems, and that the kings were in consequence often annoyed by the embarrassing position in which they were placed before the public. Only a sense of humor, not often possessed by a Hebrew potentate, could have saved him from such annoyance. And so one hopes and prays that the Hon. H. A. L. Fisher has a sense of humor at least equal to that of Mr. Jones-which is asking a good deal. Indications that such is the case ought to be welcomed as a sign that the British educational problem is about to be solved as wisely and satisfactorily as is humanly possible.

The American reader, however, has rather little direct interest in the alleged eccentricities of the New British Education Bill-in the extent to which this bill is tainted with loose thinking and demagogic error. The question that interests us primarily as Americans is, How far do Mr. Jones's criticisms apply to us?

Unless one is misled by national egoism, there is not very much in Mr. Jones's analysis of British educational policy that bears directly and helpfully on American problems. Perhaps we do, as Mr. Jones says his countrymen are planning to do, try to educate too much-to teach too much to those who cannot learn or cannot really profit by what they learn. But we cannot be fairly accused of forcing Cicero upon the reluctant or unappreciative pupil-the sin of British educators which seems to Mr. Jones to exemplify all that is wrong in education. We have practically got rid of Greek in our high schools and in our smaller colleges, and we are getting rid of Latin with doubtless praiseworthy celerity. There has been of late a great post-haste and rummage in the land over this and kindred matters, and it has had notable results. In no long time it may be necessary for us to teach English grammar (that pedantic relic of medievalism) in college, if

it is to be taught at all; and it may even be said that the teaching of spelling, so far as this subject is technical and barbarously abstract, is no longer being done with harmful thoroughness: for instance, most pupils have so little knowledge of the Latin roots that "prehaps " seems to them just as good as perhaps as, according to a broad and enlightened theory, it undoubtedly is. And so Mr. Jones cannot accuse us, at any rate, of spoiling good carpenters by teaching them "Quo usque tandem ..." and boring them generally with Cicero's political platitudes and oratorical fireworks. Whether we do or do not spoil potentially good thinkers by teaching them fine sewing and how not to study, is of course another question.

It is somewhat glaringly manifest that here in America we dilute education by the process which Mr. Jones describes as operative, or about to become operative, in Great Britain. When the present writer was a boy, he never could decide how far it paid to dilute lemonade in order to obtain a large quantity of that wholesome and refreshing beverage. You could dilute it to almost any extent, and you could still call it lemonade, and it would still taste somewhat like lemonade. The same holds true of education: you can dilute it a great deal without noticing any great immediate difference in the results-it still tastes like education, so to speak, and satisfies the average thirst for knowledge. But certainly, as the writer found out in his lemonade experiments, you can dilute things too much.

It is too bad that the principle of Hahnemann does not hold good in education. Then, the more you diluted the educational dose the greater would be the effect. That would be an ideal solution; but unfortunately it is not a true one: education does not work that way. And so we have to face the problem of undue dilution. At present we are educating a large number of boys and girls superficially and then giving them commensurately small compensation to educate a greater number of other boys and girls still more superficially. It is a profound and simple truth, too often neglected, that the effort to educate everybody is always liable to break down through lack of teachers.

But we cannot remedy this state of affairs so easily as a careless reader of Mr. Jones's discussion might be led to think. In a democracy we insist upon equality of opportunity as one of our first principles. No doubt, through our insistence upon this, we sacrifice efficiency in education as in other matters; yet we think we are wise. And in America we have found it true in a rough general way that if we teach anybody anything, we must be prepared to teach everybody everything.

That is about what we try to do; we do not try to grind every one through the same educational mill. And so the only way in which Mr. Jones's criticism justly applies to us is that, because of competition among our colleges, our Deans and Presidents do, every year, lead into their institutions rather too many reluctant or unprepared students with the rope of persuasion or propaganda about their necks.

But there is another aspect of the matter. Just what is "general education"? Mr. Jones defines it, in effect, as the teaching of what everybody ought to know in order to be good and happy, and of what each individual needs to know in order to do good work. This is sound

enough, yet it takes us only a very little way towards the solution of our educational problems.

Upon Mr. Jones's working-out of this thesis may be passed the criticism noted in American popular legend that it is "all right so far as it goes, but it goes too far." When you come to inquire what enters into Mr. Jones's idea of popular education, you find that the principal ingredients seem to be good carpentry, and appreciation of Shakespeare, and the Ten Commandments.

Without querying whether a society that produced good carpentry, appreciated Shakespeare, and obeyed the Ten Commandments, would, if drilled systematically in just these things, be sufficiently progressive, one may inquire whether Mr. Jones's idea is, from a purely educational point-of-view, wholly practical.

There is no more hopeless proposition in education than the teaching of the Ten Commandments. In fact the proposal to teach them resolves itself into reasoning in a circle. How shall we educate people? By making them good. How shall we make them good? By educating them.

The Ten Commandments are brief abstracts of life; they are the last things that one gets really to understand. They must be taught not by the school alone (and only incidentally by the school), but by life itself, by the home, by the church, by the government, by the San Francisco earthquake, by the sinking of the Lusitania. If all these things cannot teach us, then we shall simply go to the bad, or to the devil, or what you please. Education as a special interest cannot

save us.

Mr. Jones has an inkling of the fact that the church ought to have something to say about the question he is discussing; but his answer to this thought as an objection to his general point of view is merely satirical.

"It may again be urged," writes Mr. Jones, "that this is a matter for the parsons. But surely it is unfair to put this important educational work upon the shoulders of the parsons, overburdened as they already are with their gigantic task of reconciling their different systems of theology amongst themselves, and of making them credible to our intelligence. When they have accomplished this stupendous work, it will be time to ask for their help in rescuing the Commandments from disuse and neglect."

Mr. Jones's satire, here and elsewhere, is keen and enjoyable, for it is satire of the right sort, satire backed by a Biblical and Shakesperian earnestness of feeling. A true satirist ought to be as serious and as literal as Pope and as humorous as Mark Twain; and Mr. Jones occasionally approaches this unattainable ideal-witness his comments upon Mr. H. G. Wells's internationalism.

Upon the general question of patriotism vs. internationalism, Mr. Jones, be it said, writes like a real prophet. He adopts the Mazzinian conception: that each nation as a separate and very precious living being should work out its own destiny in harmony with and for the benefit of all other nations. With the sincerity of a deep and richly cultivated nature he protests against the weakening of national character in the interests of a loose and unreal internationalism, and defends the

instinct of true patriotism with its full consequences, including universal military training.

Yet when all is said, though the author has expressed his whole nature and his best convictions throughout this book, his penetration and his intellectual contributions are best illustrated by a certain passage that he has written about the Bible:

"There are some people who do not read the Bible. These are, of all men, the most to be pitied. For that bundle of strange old Hebrew books, for all their grotesque, misleading theology, their frequent contradictions, their childish science, their doubtful history, their monstrous fables and miracles, their occasional passages of shocking immorality for all these faults and errors, these strange Hebrew books do yet show the way of life, if we will but plant our feet discerningly upon their precepts. Their rules of conduct make the beaten highway of mankind."

Here is one of those minimal truths that men may live by, a truth carved out of old and intractable material, and now set forth with powerful eloquence, cleared of objections and perplexities. And throughout the book there are passages like this, deserving a praise that cannot be accorded to the whole as a statement of first principles or as a treatise upon education.

A PRISONER OF TROTZKY'S. By Andrew Kalpaschnikoff. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company.

One's general notion that Russia is the home of real-life melodrama appears to be justified by most that one reads about that country. It is, in fact, somewhat difficult at times to realize that Mr. Kalpaschnikoff's narrative is not simply lurid fiction. But the manifest sincerity and truthfulness of the author rapidly dispel any such illusion; though the fascination of reading about events of medieval strangeness and of becoming acquainted with new types of humanity, alternately theatrical and coarsely or finely human, remains. Moreover, the book is not merely a narrative of personal experience, but a cross-section of Bolshevik Russia as well. Better than any amount of general reflection, the author's prison life taught him what the Russian people really are like, and what the Russian revolution means.

Mr. Kalpaschnikoff was, in 1917, in the service of the American Red Cross as the assistant of Colonel Andersen, chairman of the mission to Roumania. An attempt on his part to secure the transportation of motor cars and other supplies to a point designated by the Mission, led to a charge that he was intriguing with the Cossacks with a view to turning over to these enemies of the Bolsheviki the materials in his possession. On this trumped-up accusation he was imprisoned in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, a structure which, as a relic of medievalism, is interesting enough in itself to furnish an excuse for a book.

Mr. Kalpaschnikoff is not simply airing a grievance. At the same time that he is naturally desirous of justifying his own conduct, he is even more anxious to explain the truth about Russia. The whole policy of the Allies toward Russia, he believes, was fundamentally wrong. America did not give the moral aid which, if given in time,

might have done much to prevent anarchy. A conversation the author had with an old Russian soldier is illuminating on this point. Mr. Kalpaschnikoff was curious to know why the other attached so much importance to the presence of American troops on the Russian front. Didn't he know that it was difficult and even impossible for America to bring over any quantity of troops on account of the great distance? "It is not quantity we want," was the reply. "Russia has more men than are needed for such a war, but we want to have among us a few American soldiers in body and soul, fighting shoulder to shoulder with us so that we may be able to tell the millions who discuss and will not obey to look at them and see how these 'Free Citizens' respect discipline and order. They would soon be ashamed, and, as they are so eager to act like real citizens, it is nearly certain that a few hundred Americans would, by their example, bring back discipline and force thousands to fight." Mr. Kalpaschnikoff seems to forget that we did send American soldiers to Russia.

Anarchy, and the shameful peace, were due, believes Mr. Kalpaschnikoff, far more to non-comprehension on the part of the Allies than to treachery on the part of Russia. Anarchy was inevitable after the break up of the old régime, unless Russia were effectively helped and advised. By their failure to grasp the situation the Allies transformed what was merely anarchy, coupled with a desire to.escape from disorder by the nearest way, into a formidable political movement.

The author's general conclusions are impressive, for they are supported at every point by a true and impressive narrative. Bolshevism is not primarily a political theory, but a catastrophic tendency, that has swept into its channel all manner of men, willing and unwilling-those who are attached to the theory and those who hate it; those who understand what they want and those who do not. Its strength is in anarchy. Let the anarchy of affairs subside and the anarchy of thought will cease. It is the confusion of life consequent upon the breakdown of Russia in the war that has to some extent produced in the minds of a great but untaught people a false conception of life. But the Russians are not wedded to error: no perversity of mind brought their misfortunes upon them.

"I sincerely believe," declares Mr. Kalpaschnikoff, "that there never was in Russia a soldier or sailor of the Red Guard belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church, who would not be reasonable if you talked to him and appealed to his common sense and proved to him that many of his beliefs were based upon false statements." This saying touches the very root of the Russian problem,