SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subeequent rechne.]
Rescue Work : an Inqu;ry and Criticism. (Social Investigation Committee, 19 Tothill Street, S.W. ls.)—The Committee of Social Investigation and Reform have dealt in this pamphlet with the difficult questions of rescue and preventive work by means of a series of articles—each by an expert—on the principal aspects and branches of the work. To those who have no personal experience of such undertakings, who are not racking their brains over some difficult individual case which has got to be dealt with here and now, the preventive side of. the work is the most interesting. The writers seem agreed that we want constructive not repressive measures. The chief cause of vice
is a lack of opportunity for healthy recreation and for normal emotional outlets :— " There are at present no adequate opportunities, except in quite mall groups, fcr the youth of either sex to meet, each other under pleasant, name]; and healthy conditions. Therefore the opp-ortunities have to to made by the youth itself, untaught and unguided. Can cne Wender that the consequences are anti-social r "
Municipal facilities should, the Committee advise, be given for physical training, gymnastics, dancing, part-singing, swimming and water sports, and amateur theatricals. Aesthetics and athletics are the proper outlets for an emotionalism which is natural and which is only toxic in excess. After the lack of reasonable play facilities, they put lack of instruction, the double moral standard, and lastly the lamentable lack of public opinion. We are, in effect, tolerating prostitution by a complete apathy and an incredibly easy acceptance of a low moral standard for men. The chapter on the management of Rescue Homes and the remarks upon the place of religious instruction in the work are extremely rational and interesting. Indeed, the whole pamphlet, though not altogether a document for the general reader, is one that should be read by every social worker who is in touch with young people of either sex.
The Book of the Lews. By W. C. Mackenzie. (Paisley : A. Gardner. 12s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Mackenzie's essays on the history and antiquities of Lewis, with illustrations from photographs, are distinctly interesting. The island was too poor and remote to play any considerable part in Scottish affairs, after it had been taken from Norse rule, but from time to time its ambitious chiefs like the Jacobite Seaforth or the possibilities of its fisheries attracted some attention. Mr. Mackenzie recalls, in connexion with Cromwell Street in Stornoway, the Cromwellian occupation of Lewis, and he is inclined to credit the sober and pious men of the English garrison with having prepared the way for the Presbyterian ministers who civilized the islanders a century later. The Lewis men were not, he thinks, as enthusiastic for the Pretenders as Seaforth was. Mr. Macpherson in his Preface reminds us that Lewis, with a population of only thirty thousand, sent five thousand Volunteers to the Great War. As a nursery of men the island is incomparable. The problem of providing suitable employment for the people of Lewis must not be neglected.
Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. Vol. VII. (Jarrold, and Allen and Unwin. 15s.)—The translators are to be congratulated on the completion of their very readable version of Treitschke's most important work. The historian's object was to foster German national pride and to glorify the first Hohenzollern Emperor and his servant Bismarck by describing in detail Prussia's collapse at' Jena, and her recovery and the dreary period of reaction that followed while Germany was controlled from Vienna by Metternich. He did not live to complete his work by showing how Bismarck humiliated Austria and united Gdinany under the Prussian yoke. The book ends, on the eve of the Berlin Revolution of 1848, with the abolition of the Prussian rule over Neuchatel, which Treitschke naturally regarded as a crime on the part of the Swiss Republicans. But the history, though incomplete, has served to persuade more than one generation of Germans that Prussian despotism was good for them. The war has perhaps supplied educated Germany with an antidote to Treitschke, whose learning and literary gifts were perverted in the service of an evil dynasty.
Catalogue of the John Carter Brown Library. Vol. I. (The Library, Providence, Rhode Island. $5.)—This fine volume, printed in beautiful type on such paper as we have not seen since the war began, is the first of the ten parts of a new catalogue of the famous library in Brown University, which is specially concerned with books relating to the history of America. The founder of the library and his children had been collecting for over half-a-century before the library was bequeathed to Brown University in 1900, with an endowment of £100,000 and funds for a building. The books are catalogued in the order of their dates of publication, so that a cursory glance through the first twenty or thirty pages will reveal the exceptional number of rare " Americana " which the library contains. The early editions of Ptolemy, the Columbus and Vespucci tracts, Waldsee. muller's Cosmographia of 1507 with the suggestion of America as the name for the newly discovered lands, and other bibliographical treasures of the first order abound in this remarkable collection. Books that cannot be bought are represented by facsimiles. This volume of the catalogue thus serves the student who cannot go to Providence as a handy list of the printed works relating to the discovery and colonization of America up to the year 1569. The library possesses also some of the earliest printed books, such as the Mainz Catholicon of 1460, Caxton's Royal Book, and De Worde's Golden Legend of 1493. The catalogue has been compiled in a scholarly fashion, and we shall look for the succeeding parts with interest.
Charousek's Games of Chess. With Annotations by P. W. Sergeant. (Bell. 7s. 6d. net.)—The editor compares Charousek with the famous Merphy. Charousek was born near Prague in 1873 and died in 1899. He learnt chess when he was sixteen, and at twenty-three was recognized as a master. Mr. Sergeant has collected and annotated 146 games played by Charousek. They are worth studying.
The Story of the Rainbow Division. By Raymond S. Tompkins. (New York : Boni and Liveright. $1.60.)—The American " Rainbow " Division was so called because it included National Guard troops from twenty-six States and from the District of Columbia. This spirited record of its experiences is worth reading. The division arrived in France in October, 1917, and went into the line in February, 1918. It took part in. General Gouraud's successful defensive before Reims on July 15th, 1918 ; the author's description of this critical but little-known battle is most interesting. The division fought hard and well on the Ourcq later in the same month, shared in the St. Mihiel action, and led the final advance on Sedan. After the Armistice the division marched to the Rhine. Its casualties, out of a total strength of about 27,000, were 12,713. The figures testify to the severity of the fighting in which these gallant troops were engaged.
The new Syllabus of Cadet Training adopted by the New Zealand Military Forces, and published at the Headquarters, Wellington, is admirably planned. It aims, as the Director says, at character-building and physical development, at producing good and healthy citizens and not only good soldiers. The four years' course is planned on modest lines; the cadets are not asked to devote more than an hour and a half weekly, on the average, to drill, instruction, and musketry. But those who attend regularly will learn much that every boy ought to know, quite apart from the mechanical exercises that fit a man to defend his country if the need arise.
Our Debt to Great Britain. By Paul Revere Frothingham. (Boston, Mass. : the Beacon Press. 10 cents.)—It is a pleasure to mention this eloquent address by a well-known Boston minister, which was delivered on " Britain's Day," and has, we believe, been widely circulated as a pamphlet in America. Mr. Frothingham suggests that our part in the war has been underrated because " the British themselves have seemed to make light of what they have achieved " ; the expression "doing one's bit " evidently puzzles him and many other Americans. He is grateful to Great Britain for frying to avert the war, for insisting without a moment's hesitation on her pledge to Belgium, for " the calm forbearance that she exercised all through our own long period of waiting," for the British Navy and Merchant Service—" Where should we have been without it ? "—and for the British troops, dead and living. " Those whom God in war has joined together," he cries, " let not man in peace hereafter put asunder."
The Hispanic Society of America sends six new catalogues of portions of its famous collections in New York. Dr. E. A. Barber, the Director of the Philadelphia Museum, has prepared the catalogues of the Hispano-Moresque pottery, the Spanish majolica, the porcelain of Buen Retiro and Capo di Monte, and of Mrs. R. W. De Forest's curious collection of eighteenthcentury Mexican majolica which was exhibited by the Society , last spring. Mr. J. Pijoan has written a full account of a few important antique marbles found in Spain, including a small Greek copy of the " Artemis " in the Louvre. Finally, Mr. W. E. B. Starkweather describes very fully the Society's collection of paintings and drawings by Goya, the chief of which is the portrait of the Duchess of Alba in a black mantilla. These scholarly catalogues, with their introductory essays and their numerous photographs, will be of great interest to collectors and students. The National Sea Fisheries Protection Association has issued proposals for encouraging scientific research and the training of experts and fishermen in order to increase the prosperity of our fisheries. The proposals are interesting, but they would, we think, attract more favourable attention if 'the authors had taken account of what is being done by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and by the Universities, and had shown how the existing institutions at Plymouth and elsewhere need to •be supplemented. Co-ordination is required, to begin with, rather than any elaborate and expensive new scheme. " Research associations in the fishery industries," we are told, " have not as yet been formed, and there is no apparent tendency in the industry to form them." Yet there are many wealthy men in the trade, and there is 'no reason why this industry should not, like many other industries, form a research association under the wing of the new Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Without the active co-operation of the leading owners of trawlers, indeed, we do not -see how new research schemes can fulfil a useful purpose.
Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk. By Judah L. Magnes. ,(New York : Rand School of Social Science. $1.)This dispassionate compilation is a record of the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, and of the views expressed in regard to them by the Allies, the enemy, and the Bolshevik chiefs. It was worth making as a revelation of the nature of the German system which the Allies had to destroy, and as an exposure of the futility of the Bolshevik tactics. Trotsky was outmanoeuvred on every point. Russia would now be a German protectorate if the Allies had not continued and won the war, instead of making peace as the Bolsheviks proposed. • Messrs. Edward Stanford have published an excellent new map of India and Ceylon in their " London Atlas " series (4s. net), on a scale of about 118 miles to an inch. It is coloured in " layers " to show the relief, so that the natural mountain frontiers stand out in bold relief;, emphasizing the difficulties that any would-be invader would have to face. The map contains a considerable amount of detail. The railways are marked, but the new military line westward from Nushki to the Persian frontier •is omitted.
Messrs. Bartholomew publish a Political Map of the New States of Europe in 1919 (2s. 6d. net), which is printed in colours and shows the effect of the German Peace Treaty and the probable limits of the new States whose fate is not yet definitely settled by the Peace Conference. The boundaries of the new States in the west of what was Russia are, of course, highly speculative, but it is convenient to have them indicated clearly on such a map as this, even though they are changing daily—as in the case of Eastern Galicia, which the map-maker assigns to the Ukraine, while Poland seems now to be in possession of it.
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