THE QUARTERLIES.

IN our last issue we commented at length upon an editorial

article in the new Edinburgh on the effects of National Insurance legislation in Germany. Another political article

of great interest is one by Mr. Cox upon " The Lloyd Georgian

Land Taxes." In this the claims made by the authors of the "People's Budget" are contrasted with its actual working, and the whole question is summed up in the following sentence : " The truth is that the Lloyd Georgian valuation is absolutely useless except for the exclusive purposes of the Lloyd Georgian land taxes ; and they are useless for any purpose whatsoever." —In view of Mr. Pease's speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday, special attention may be drawn to the article by Mr. J. E. G. de Montmorency on " Education and the Future of England." After giving an outline of the history of English education, he lays down as a fundamental principle for future guidance the distinction between primary education —which is intended to prepare the child's mind for the

reception of its later training—and secondary education— which should aim at teaching the child " how to realize

his or her personality in its relation to the world." Mr. de Montmorency proceeds thus:—

" The principle to be dwelt upon with respect to the whole vast problem is this : that all education from the tenth or eleventh year onward to at least the age of seventeen must be, in the sense explained above, secondary education. From the beginning of the eleventh year to at any rate the end of the fourteenth year secondary education must be given in school; from the hour of leaving school to the end of the seventeenth year the State in conjunction with voluntary agencies must supply secondary education to every child, by the stern application of the half-time principle foreshadowed in the Factory Act of 1802 and introduced with such growing success into the Post Office. Higher elementary teaching is useless for the purpose of giving the child an outfit for life. The child must receive a training that teaches it to think and to develop its individuality."

In conclusion, he advocates, in addition to these reforms, the appointment of juvenile advisory committees. — Of the literary articles the best is perhaps by Lord Cromer upon " Translation and Paraphrase," in which the two alterna- tives which lie before a translator are discussed with many illuminating instances. "Is be to adhere rigidly to a literal

rendering of the original text, or is paraphrase permissible, and if permissible, within what limits may it be adopted ? "

In the course of his paper Lord Cromer gives some instances of the way in which writers in different languages have some- times given independent expression to the same thought :—

" A good example of this process may be found in comparing the language in which others have treated Vauvenargues' well- known saying : Pour executer de graudes choses, it fact vivre oomme si on ne devait jamais mourir.' Bacchylides put the same idea in the following words :- `Breast eti&Ta x/h) Sahitioos TrZizat, &re arlaiov 64,eat paialov Cahn; 4xtos, XISTI Irf1/1"41COre Brea Croak, Ane6rAotrrav reAsis'

(` As a mortal, thou must nourish each of two forebodings--that to-morrow's sunlight will be the last that thou shalt see; and that for fifty years thou wilt live out thy life in ample wealth.')"

And the great Arab poet, Abu'l'Ala, who was born in A.D. 977, wrote:—

'If you will do some deed before you die, Remember not this caravan of death, But have belief that every little breath Will stay with you for an eternity.' " —Of the other articles we may mention an account of "The Common People of the Early Roman Empire" by Mr. Stephen Gaselee, who bases his description mainly upon the Pompeian inscriptions and the banquet of Trimalchio in the Satyricon of Petronius, and an essay by Mr. E. S. Roscoe upon "Matthew Prior, Diplomatist and Poet."

The Quarterly contains unsigned articles upon " The Marconi Affair" and " The Eastern Problem and British Interests." In the former of these this conclusion is reached : " That Ministers were guilty of the gravest impropriety is the only verdict that can be passed on the facts as they now stand disclosed." In the latter an attempt is made to analyze the kaleidoscopic changes in the Balkan Peninsula, and a discussion of the future of Turkey and Persia is added.—Among the signed articles is a delightful appreciation by Mr. John Bailey of the new Poet Laureate. The whole essay is an admirable piece of literary criticism, from which we can only find space to quote a few sentences :—

"If it is the business of poetry to give a new life to life itself, then the poetry which arises spontaneously in our minds as we go through the experiences which life brings with it, is poetry that has the real thing in it. Not much stands that test better than the `Shorter Poems' of Mr. Bridges. To everyone who knows them they are for ever recurring, making some sight or sound encountered on our way a thing of more interest and significance than it would have been if we had never read that little volume. For foreigners the poet may suffer, as Wordsworth suffers, by his very English character, and still more by the almost exclusively English limitations of his landscape. But many inhabitants of this island, who have never left it, and for whom the rich Italian landscape of Shelley and Byron and Browning can never give more than that occasional and temporary satisfaction which belongs to the escape from experienced truth, will find it an added source of gratitude to Mr. Bridges that his birds and trees and flowers are familiar and their own. No poet, perhaps not even Wordsworth or Tennyson or Cowper, has done more to fill English fields and lanes with poetry."

—Two appreciations of the late Sir Alfred Lyall have been contributed, one of which is by Mr. Bernard Holland, and the other by Lord Cromer, who speaks of Lyall as "a thinker who thoroughly understood the East, and who probably did more than any of his contemporaries or predecessors to make his countrymen understand and sympathize with the views held by the many millions in India whose destinies are committed to their charge."—Mr. C. L. Graves writes an excellent paper on " The Lighter Side of Irish Life," in which be dis- cusses "The Anglo-Irish humorous noveL" "During the last thirty years," he says, "the alleged decadence of Irish humour has been a frequent theme of pessimistic critics. Various causes have been invoked to account for the phenomenon which, when dispassionately considered, amounted to this, that the rollicking novel of incident and adventure had died

with Lever." This accusation Mr. Graves rebuts by emphasiz- ing the merits of the work recently done on the one hand by " George A. Birmingham," and on the other, and at a higher

level, by Miss Edith Somerville and Miss Violet Martin, whose literary partnership he describes as " the most brilliantly successful example of creative collaboration in our times." —Among the remaining contents are a sketch of the life of Descartes by Miss E. S. Haldane, and a discussion on the Peninsular War by Mr. C. T. Atkinson.