The Times of Monday announces a scheme for providing the
soldiers at the front with suitable reading in the form of broadsheets or flyleaves—books for physical reasons being out of the question. The scheme, which was suggested by Ma•Lionel Curtis, is expounded in an admirable letter from Sir Walter Raleigh, who is lending his valuable aid in the selection of suitable extracts. While not ruling out heroic or stimulating literature, Sir Walter Raleigh rightly insists on the greater value of reading that makes for distraction, entertainment, and peace of mind. An excellent beginning has been made in the first batch of broadsheets. The promoters are rightly casting their net very wide, and have drawn already upon the Bible, Shakespeare, Cobbett, and Dickens. We trust that they will not be prevented by diffi- culties of copyright from trafficking with the living as well as the dead in their patriotic efforts to supply a real need.
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