The authors of the “Plattsburg manual,” captains in the United States infantry who were instructors in the Plattsburg training camp in 1916, have prepared this textbook on physical and military training for the use of the preparatory, public, and high schools of the United States. “Its further purpose is to assist in developing all young men of this country into good, efficient and patriotic citizens.” (Preface) Major-general John F. O’Ryan, chairman of the military training commission of the State of New York, draws attention in a foreword to the military and physical drill now legally required in the New York state schools and especially commends the clear style of the authors in setting forth the schools of the soldier, squads, and company, and the arrangement of the 250 illustrations by which it is shown how to do and how not to do the essential things. The chapter on Physical development can be of use to all. The chapters on Marching and camping and First aid to the injured with their practical directions will be widely read. The large type and clear printing are to be especially commended.
“Well illustrated.”
“Many excellent illustrations and diagrams make the directions in the text easy to follow.”
GARIS, HOWARD ROGER.Venture boys afloat; or, The wreck of the Fausta. il*$1.25 (2c) Harper 17-28657
Tom Ware, Dick Parker and Harry Nolan, three boys who live in a Hudson river town, are saving money to buy a motor boat. Their plan is to cruise up and down the river. But an invitation from Tom’s uncle, a seaman, takes them on a much more ambitious voyage, down the Atlantic coast. This trip is taken for pleasure, but in Tom’s heart is the hope that they may overtake his father’s wrecked schooner, the “Fausta,” now derelict somewhere in southern waters, and his hope is rewarded after an exciting race with a government derelict destroyer. Incidentally the boys learn something of American history. The book is the first of a series.
Reviewed by J: Walcott
GARLAND, HAMLIN.Son of the middle border.il*$1.60 Macmillan 17-22272
“‘A son of the middle border’ is Mr Garland’s view of himself and of the life he encountered along a vista that has seen one era after another of American progress give place to its successor. It is, moreover, a story of the advance of an American boy which is none the less miraculous because it has been repeated so often in our history. ... He was born in 1860 and his infancy and early childhood coincided with the most critical period in American history. His father, who had come to Wisconsin from Maine, after three years of work in Boston, enlisted in the Union army in 1863, and among the boy’s earliest recollections is the memory of his return. ... Scene after scene of his childhood, face after face out of a past rich in recollections, Mr Garland brings before us, as his father restlessly moved westward from Wisconsin to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Iowa, and from Iowa to Dakota. ... With his brother Franklin he went on his adventure into the east. ... This was in 1883, when Mr Garland was twenty-three years of age. His real invasion of Boston came a little later. ... For nearly ten years he was a Bostonian, winning his way against obstacles that would have daunted many a less ambitious young man. ... Finally he became a professional man of letters.”—Boston Transcript
“So understanding and skilful a portrayal of characteristic spiritual values gives the book added importance, makes it a contribution to our social history that is well worth while. As autobiography, it is an original and distinctive piece of work and illustrates the possibilities of varied and unique treatment to be found in the writing of American biography.” F. F. Kelly
“‘A son of the middle border’ has all the charm of the novels and short stories by Mr Garland and other writers which have depicted the valiant struggles of the ambitious boy who is able to look beyond the border of the world of his upbringing. ... Valuable and encouraging is his story, but it is more than that. It is a contribution to American autobiographical literature,” E. F. E.
“Mr Garland is unusually successful in his portraits of his father and mother. A notable memorial of a bygone phase of American life.”
“A biography must necessarily be a life seen thru a temperament and experiences that would have been a matter of course or even interesting to a ‘born farmer,’ or a biologist revolted the bookish lad whose tastes were cultural and never agricultural. And the man with a real love for the farm does not write books about it. With this reservation ‘A son of the middle border’ seems to us a great and a true book; a contribution to our annals of the settlement of our country.”
“There are hardly enough life and inspiration in the narrative to warrant its being so long, but its directness and honest purpose deserve a reading, altho it is a life much like many other lives.”
“The autobiographer is a rarer bird than the novelist; and we believe that this record may take its place among the handful of American classics of its kind.”
“Mr Garland’s best work, like ‘Main-travelled roads,’ was built directly out of the stones of his autobiographical quarry. But how much more vivid and alluring is the quarry than the constructed short stories and novels. The inventive writer, after long struggling with stiff fictional forms, suddenly discovers himself as his own best artistic form and material and bursts out into the freshest of self-revelations, without self-consciousness and yet with an insight that makes silly the legend that the American has no talent for introspection and resents its expression.” R. B.
“In all the region of autobiography, so far as I know it, I do not know quite the like of Mr Garland’s story of his life, and I should rank it with the very greatest of that kind in literature. ... As you read it you realize it the memorial of a generation, of a whole order of American experience; as you review it you perceive it an epic of such mood and make as has not been imagined before.” W: D. Howells
“Nothing could be more American than the mingling of practicality and idealism that is felt everywhere in the story. Nothing could be more wholesome in these times than the lesson of intellectual honesty and large sympathy which is implicit in it.”
“An autobiography with the fascination of romance, and in a measure the form of fiction. ... It is a book well worth reading and rereading.”
“Those who lived in rural Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas during those days will remark the striking fidelity of the picture. There were so many Garland families in the border movement of the ‘60’s, ‘70’s, and ‘80’s of the last century!”
“Mr Garland has written a book deserving of a wide reading, and likely to get it by virtue of the style in which it is written. The narrative flows easily—a little diffusely, in fact—with a great fund of incidents, keen observations and incisive, albeit idealized portraits of character. Perhaps the best work in the last of those categories is the picture of his mother. She represents a memorable type of American womanhood—tender mother, brave, uncomplaining pioneer woman and splendid wife.”
GARRISON, MRS THEODOSIA (PICKERING).Dreamers, and other poems.*$1.25 Doran 811 17-28183
This is a collection of lyrical poems previously printed in seventeen different periodicals. Seven Irish poems are given at the end of the book, under the title “Songs of himself.”
“The verse of Theodosia Garrison is restful; it is a retreat, a haven from the tumult of today’s singing. She invites you to partake of her quiet dreams and unpretentious fancies, much as a friend invites you to the hearthside to pass a tranquil evening. If one is not thrilled, one is at least soothed by her hospitality. Little by little you become aware of something in the experience that has a fineness and distinction of its own.” W. S. B.
Reviewed by Conrad Aiken
“In her ‘Dreamers, and other poems’ Theodosia Garrison has given us some of her best work.”
GARVIN, JOHN WILLIAM, ed. Canadian poets and poetry. il*$3 Stokes 811.08 17-10982
An anthology of Canadian verse with brief biographical sketches of the fifty-one authors represented. The editor says of these authors: “Many of their poems are indigenous to the soil,—vitally, healthfully Canadian; others are tinged with the legendary and mythical lore of older lands; but all are of Canada, inasmuch as the writers have lived in this country, and have been influenced by its history and atmosphere at a formative period of their lives.” Among those whose names are somewhat widely known outside their own country are: Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, William Henry Drummond, Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, Marjorie L. C. Pickthall, Arthur Stringer and Robert W. Service.
“About twenty of these poets are not included in the ‘Oxford book of Canadian verse’ (Booklist 10:385 Je ‘14), which includes the work of one hundred poets from earliest colonial days down to the present. Libraries having the ‘Oxford book’ will not need this unless there is special interest.”
GATES, ELEANOR (MRS FREDERICK FERDINAND MOORE).Apron-strings.*$1.35 (2c) Sully & Kleinteich 17-29731
The two central figures in this story are Mrs Milo and her daughter Sue. Mrs Milo is the type of mother described by the author in a prefatory note: “The kind that does not plan for, or want, a child, but, having borne one, invariably takes the high air of martyrdom feeling that she has rendered the supreme service, and that, henceforth, nothing is too good for her.” Her demands on her daughter have kept the girl from marriage, and as a woman of forty-five, Sue is finding what satisfaction she can in mothering an orphanage. In the end she finds a more intimate happiness in adopting one of the children for her own.
“As a character study, built around the leading character, the book presents reasonable claim to favorable notice. Mrs Milo, the managing and domineering mother, is a real literary creation.”
“Miss Gates’s theme is an interesting one, but she treats it sentimentally and thereby fails to give it the effectiveness which is its due.”
GATES, HERBERT WRIGHT.[2]Recreation and the church. (Principles and methods of religious education) il*$1 (3c) Univ. of Chicago press 261 17-15665
There has been started a strong movement in the direction of making churches social centers. The experiments enlarged upon in this volume show the value of the wider use of churches. The writer who is director of religious education in the Brick church institute, Rochester, N.Y., contends that there is no more potent influence or favorable approach to the inner life of childhood and youth than is found in recreational interests and activities. He shows the religious educational value of play, shows how to go about studying the recreational needs of a community, offers a constructive recreational program, gives some typical church programs and devotes a chapter to equipment and organization.
“A bibliography of play and recreation enhances the value of this very useful handbook, which cannot fail to increase the efficiency of educational and recreational workers in the church and elsewhere.” G. T.
GAUTIER, JUDITH.Memoirs of a white elephant; tr. from the French by S. A. B. Harvey. il*$1.50 (3½c) Duffield 16-23442
Judith Gautier, who was joint author with Pierre Loti of “The daughter of heaven,” is an authority on oriental lore. She has written this book for children, allowing “Iravata,” the white elephant, to tell his own story.
“Well told and unaffected.”
“The excellent illustrations are the work of L. H. Smith and S. B. Kite.”
GAYLEY, CHARLES MILLS.[2]Shakespeare and the founders of liberty in America.*$1.50 (2c) Macmillan 822.3 18-3
The writer says: “In this period of conflict, the sternest that the world has known, when we have joined heart and hand with Great Britain, it may profit Americans to recall how essentially at one with Englishmen we have always been in everything that counts. That the speech, the poetry, of the race are ours and theirs in common, we know—they are Shakespeare. But that the institutions, the law and the liberty, the democracy administered by the fittest, are not only theirs and ours in common, but are derived from Shakespeare’s England, and are Shakespeare, too, we do not generally know or, if we have known, we do not always remember.” The chapter headings suggest how the writer has pursued his novel idea: The foundations of liberty in America; Shakespeare and the liberals of the Virginia company; The tempest and an unpublished letter from Virginia; The leader of the liberal movement—Sir Edwin Sandys; Richard Hooker and the principles of American liberty; Shakespeare’s views of the individual in relation to the state; Shakespeare and Hooker; The heritage in common: England, America, France; The meaning for us today.
“His association of Shakspeare with these ideas [suggested by chapter headings] of course takes it for granted that whenever any of his characters speak in the plays, there speak also the inmost thoughts and beliefs of the dramatist. This is a supposition too often made to prove that a dramatist or a poet is first of all a propagandist or a preacher when as a matter of fact he is neither. It overlooks the first principles of imaginative writing—that a poem, a play or a novel is a work written to present a certain phase of life in artistic form and not to promulgate a theory. If Shakspeare was preaching democracy in his plays then so much the less Shakspeare he. Despite the undoubted ingenuity and historical interest of Professor Gayley’s arguments there are many of us who will remain perfectly willing to look upon Shakspeare as a man who wrote his plays with no other thought than to have them receive the approval and applause of the Elizabethan public.” E. F. E.
GEARY, BLANCHE.Handbook of the association cafeteria. il pa 50c Y.W.C.A. 642 17-20661
This handbook gives the purpose of a Y.W.C.A. cafeteria and outlines its organization, including committees, selection of premises, general equipment, staff and employees, menu, service and cleaning. It treats of business administration and under the heading Points in policy advises on such subjects as Emergency fund, Eight hour day, Outside business, etc. The book is compiled by those who know the needs of the workers whom the cafeteria is to serve and can detail clearly methods for meeting them.
GEHRS, JOHN HENRY.Productive agriculture. il*$1 Macmillan 630 17-14154
“The purpose of this book is to meet the need and the demand for a text that will standardize seventh- and eighth-grade agriculture. ...Topics relating to productive agriculture and not topics about agriculture are given chief consideration. ... The book contains a section of from four to eight chapters in length on each of the following big topics: ‘Farm crops,’ ‘Animal husbandry,’ ‘Soils,’ ‘Horticulture,’ and ‘Farm management.’ There is also a brief bibliography of material relating to each of these large topics. The laboratory exercises at the end of each chapter ... can be done with a minimum amount of schoolroom equipment, the farm itself furnishing the requisite laboratory.” (School R) The author is associate professor of agriculture of the Warrensburg State normal school, Warrensburg, Mo.
“Anyone interested in texts in agriculture adapted to grades seven and eight or to the junior high school will be well paid for the time and effort required to give this book a careful consideration.”
GEIKIE, SIR ARCHIBALD.Birds of Shakespeare. il*$1.25 Macmillan 822.3 (Eng ed 17-13372)
“In this charming essay the veteran geologist collects Shakespeare’s references to birds, of which he names at least fifty species, and shows once more how intimate a knowledge of wild nature he had acquired in the woods and lanes of leafy Warwickshire.”—Spec
“It is all that it claims to be, and will fill a vacant place on the shelves of those who do not possess Mr J. E. Harting’s standard work.”
“Twenty excellent woodcuts from Saunders’s ‘Manual of British birds’ illustrate the book.”
“This little book is enticing; one to be read by all who love either birds or Shakespeare or both.”
GEIL, WILLIAM EDGAR.Adventures in the African jungle hunting pigmies. il*$1.35 (2c) Doubleday 17-8202
This book for boys is one of the volumes of “The true adventure series.” The author is an explorer of note and the story is based on first-hand acquaintance with Africa. Billy Benson, a boy of about sixteen, accompanies his uncle on an exploring expedition into the heart of Africa. Their object is to discover a band of pigmies, supposed to inhabit a part of the jungle. Lions, leopards, elephants and other natives of the African forest play a part in their adventures. The young hero is refreshingly boyish. No feats of impossible prowess are attributed to him, and never does he outdo his uncle, the noted explorer, in sagacity or achievement.
GENEVOIX, MAURICE.‘Neath Verdun; tr. by H. Grahame Richards.*$1.60 (2½c) Stokes 940.91 (Eng ed 17-26253)
The author of this book was a second-year student at theÉcole normale, Paris, in 1914. His book is a day-by-day account of the first months of the war, from August to October, 1914. Ernest Lavisse says in his introduction: “He supplies us with an invaluable picture of the war. In the first place, the writer is endowed with astonishing powers of observation; he sees all in a glance, he hears everything. The intense power of concentration he possesses enables him instantly to seize upon all essentials of a particular incident or scene, and so to harmonize them as to produce a picture true to life.”
“His book is one of the real contributions of the war’s writing. For here, for us to read and learn from, is something of the war itself.”
“Perhaps it is well that the ghastly side of the war should not be tucked away as though it did not exist. Horror is treated here with a French power of rhetoric and insistence.”
GEORGE, HEREFORD BROOKE.Genealogical tables illustrative of modern history. 5th ed, rev and enl*$2.50 Oxford 929.7 16-22139
“The ‘Genealogical tables illustrative of modern history’ first published by the late Rev. Hereford B. George more than forty years ago have long acquired and deserved an established position as a work of reference. They now appear in a fifth edition, revised and enlarged by Mr J. R. H. Weaver. The enlargement consists mainly in the continuation of the reigning houses down to their last changes and the insertion of their younger members; there is also added a list of the presidents of the United States of America.”—Eng Hist R
“The size of the print and the general openness of the tables make them easy to consult and the book should enter upon a further career of usefulness.”
“The work of correction has been carefully done: we have looked for facts omitted in the earlier editions and have found them duly inserted. ... In the first three editions the tables were folded and mounted on guards, and the book was easy to handle; now that the tables are bound up flat and the book requires 2 ft. 8 in. of space to open out, it cannot be described as convenient for practical use.” R. L. P.
GEPHART, WILLIAM FRANKLIN.Principles of insurance. 2v ea*$1.50 (1½c) Macmillan 368 17-2500
“A discussion of life and fire insurance offered for classroom use in schools and colleges. ... The author has had experience in the insurance business and in association with insurance organizations, as well as in teaching.” (R of Rs) “There are two volumes, devoted, respectively, to Life insurance and Fire insurance, the former replacing the author’s well-known earlier work, devoted mainly to life insurance, which has now been thoroughly revised, amplified, and brought down to date. The volume on fire insurance contains twelve chapters in which are treated such pertinent topics as the economics and business organization of fire insurance, hazards, rates and rating problems, the nature of the contract, adjustment of losses, fire protection, and the relation of the state to insurance.” (Nation)
“Mr Gephart has well met the problem. His book is simple and readable and yet broad, and adequate to give not only an understanding of the fundamental principles but a great deal of the practical business side. The book avoids a difficulty which sometimes occurs when those outside of the business attempt to write about it: namely, the difficulty of supporting theories which, for practical reasons, are unworkable. The arrangement is a little unfortunate.” W. M. Strong
“It would be too much to claim that the author has entirely mastered a subject of which the depths have by no means been sounded by those who spend their lives in the work or that all of his statements would pass without challenge from underwriters, but it is certain that he has written a clear, interesting, and admirably balanced study of the principles of fire insurance.” W. E. Mallalieu
“The volume on life insurance is on the whole a contribution to the subject, the various topics being carefully arranged and the expositionclear. One may seriously object, however, to the issuance of a revised edition which does not follow the progress in the business in certain directions. The volume on fire insurance appears to possess certain serious defects as well as commendable features. The strongest criticism which can be advanced, viewing it in the light of a text, is its seeming lack of plan and arrangement of chapters. Prior to his work no adequate description of some of the more recent developments of the business was available. He has therefore rendered a service in producing a relatively up-to-date textbook. Secondly, he has incorporated to a greater degree than any other writer a discussion of fire insurance from the social viewpoint.” Robert Riegel
“Though adapted to the purposes of the general reader, the business man, and the student, the volumes will, in all probability, find their chief use as textbooks, for which they seem excellently adapted. At the close of the various chapters are lists of references covering the main topics treated, and each volume contains a carefully selected general bibliography, including the standard works on both life and fire insurance.”
“Those seeking and those selling insurance would profit by this conservative statement of principles which fit the reader for his individual decision of moot points, which are frankly indicated and argued fairly.”
“Heretofore it has been difficult to obtain material on this subject in convenient form for educational purposes. Most of it has been confined to government documents, official reports of insurance companies, published addresses, and pamphlets.”
“The author is professor of economics in Washington university.”
“There are interesting chapters on the economics, business organization and, last but not least, the immense historic development of the insurance business.”
GÉRALDY, PAUL.The war, Madame ...; tr. by Barton Blake.*75c (5c) Scribner 17-8886
This little story is merely an account of one day in the life of a French soldier who, after thirteen months of service, returns to Paris. His sensations on again finding himself in his loved city are described, and in conversations with two of his women friends scenes from the front are pictured.
“A lively, graceful, quite irresponsible and unreflecting narrative of a young soldier’s last day of leave in Paris before returning to the front to be killed.” C. M. Francis
“As we read his pages, we understand more clearly than ever before how it is possible for men to go through the ghastly struggle and not come out thoroughly embittered. ... This account seems to approach nearer to the probable mean of reality than any of the many war books that have already been written.”
“So different is it from the France and the Paris of which correspondents and returning war-workers of one sort or another have told us that, since it is written by a Frenchman, one marvels and wonders whether he is a better observer and a truer reporter than they.”
GERARD, JAMES WATSON.My four years in Germany.il*$2 (2c) Doran 940.91 17-25143
The late ambassador to the German imperial court has written this account of his four years experience to prove to America that “we are in this war because we were forced into it,” and that “unless Germany is beaten the whole world will be compelled to turn itself into an armed camp, until the German autocracy either brings every nation under its dominion or is forever wiped out as a form of government.” (Foreword) Mr Gerard tells us about the political system in Germany, German militarism, German commerce, the Kaiser, the Crown prince, and various high officials of the government, and about his own diplomatic work, though he is necessarily silent on many things connected with this work. Some of the chapters are: Psychology and causes which prepared the nation for war; At Kiel just before the war; Prisoners of war; War charities; and The German people in war. There are a number of illustrations and several facsimile reproductions of documents, among them one of the much discussed telegram which the Kaiser gave Ambassador Gerard for transmission to President Wilson. The material of the book has appeared in the Philadelphia Ledger and the New York American.
“One must remember that the author has written for a large audience. From this point of view, Mr Gerard’s light treatment is quite justified, as are also the journalistic, popular style, the frequent use of the personal pronoun, and perhaps even the reproductions of court invitations. For such a presentation will appeal to millions who would ignore a more formidable treatise. Unfortunately the mechanics of the book are poorly handled.” B. E. Schmitt
“His book is a candid, unadorned, and convincing account of what has been going on in Germany during the war. His record is welcome in this permanent form.”
Reviewed by C. H. P. Thurston
“From a literary point of view the book is a queer mixture, much of it the sort of thing that ordinary tourists turn out by the volume, part of diplomatic secrets of the highest importance which nobody else could have known. The book is poorly composed and carelessly revised, but that does not detract from its importance as a historical document of the first order.”
“It is in every respect an important historical document, despite the chatty and easy style in which it is written, and throws an illuminating light upon many dark places in European diplomacy and modes of thought. His book will furnish convincing proof, if any American still feels the need of proof, of the sinister intentions of the ruling powers in Germany, and of their utter disregard of all recognized conventions, ethical or political, in an effort to attain their ambitions.”
“We think the telling of this story was a service to the American people; and at a time when there is so much to be read that this is distinctly one of the books to be chosen. The description of German government and institutions is excellent; it would be difficult for the ordinary reader to find anywhere a better popular account. The most important chapters relate to diplomatic affairs, and to the attitude of Germany towards the American people.”
“In Mr Gerard’s remarkable book there is an enlightening chapter which reveals, to some extent, how organised capital in Germany, aided by the state, is still seeking to dominate the world.” T. E. Thorpe
“All this variety gives the book, inevitably, a certain scrappiness of effect, but vastly increases its interest and value as a report upon another nation. Its report, by necessity, is oneof superficial observation. Mr Gerard nowhere makes pretense of profound study of the German people or their affairs.”
“Considering its source and timeliness, such a book would in any event have real significance, but there is a danger that the general reading public will seek that significance in the wrong place. The real value of what Mr Gerard has to tell us lies entirely aside from the personal equation. ... Spicy as this book is, it leaves a somewhat tantalizing impression that the author has reserved a good deal of his most piquant matter for publication some time in the dim future.” F: T. Cooper
“The volume carries with it its own justification. ... There is a straightforward sincerity about this book that must impress all readers. While it condemns Germany, it does not appeal to the spirit of hatred.” A. S.
“The book is of more value from a historical viewpoint than as mere literature. The author has something to tell that the public wants to know and in such case substance takes precedence of form.”
“To English readers the most interesting pages in the book will probably be those in which the ambassador relates his efforts to alleviate the lot of British prisoners.”
German deserter’s war experience; tr. by J. Koettgen.*$1 (1½c) Huebsch 940.91 17-13674
The author is a German Socialist and anti-militarist, who after fourteen months of fighting in Belgium and France escaped into Holland and came to America. His story was first published in the New Yorker Volkszeitung. He describes the entry into Belgium, the advance and retreat at the Marne, the beginning of trench warfare, the famous Christmas truce, etc. The translator says, “The chief value of this soldier’s narrative lies in his destructive, annihilating criticism of the romance and fabled virtues of war.” The author, in concluding, says, “Today I have recovered sufficiently to take up again in the ranks of the American Socialists the fight against capitalism. ... A relentless struggle to the bitter end is necessary to show the ruling war-provoking caste who is the stronger, so that it no longer may be in the power of that class to provoke such a murderous war as that in which the working-class of Europe is now bleeding to death.”
“Written with a strong anti-militarist and socialist bias.”
“The writer’s deep hatred of war and all its works, not only the actual bloodshed and cruelty, but also the unnatural and humiliating relations of men to officers in the German army itself, speaks in every page. The whole story is told with the vividness that comes of recent deep and indelible impressions of soul-stirring experiences.”
“He accuses his officers of both deliberate cruelty and cowardice, giving instances in the advance on the Marne, and flight from it, to sustain his charges. This part of his book is an astounding revelation. He asserts on several occasions the men refused to obey orders to shoot wounded enemy soldiers and helpless civilians, and were more tortured than punished for such insubordination.”
“It will rekindle our determination not to become swamped in the war to the point where we forget our chief purpose—not defeat of Germany so much as defeat of war as an institution. ... ‘A German deserter’s war experience,’ with its directness and almost clumsy sincerity, is a chastening and thrilling book for all of us, but it is as a symbol of revolt that one will not wish to forget it.” H. S.
“The volume is the output of a very keen observer, a man who kept his wits about him in every possible situation and was able to recount what he saw afterwards. ... The volume is one of the best descriptive works that we have yet seen on this subject. ... Much praise is due the translator, Comrade J. Koettgen, for a careful and yet spirited account of war as seen through the eyes of a Socialist participant.” J. W.
“The writer is a man of the people, a foreman miner, and tells his story straightforwardly, intelligently and without conscious art. ... Of widest interest are the detailed descriptions of the advance thru Belgium, the battle of the Marne and the retreat. There have been numerous accounts of these events by French witnesses and by newspaper men who have repeated the tales of participants, but, except for the official German account, this book is the first to come from that side.”
“Whether true or not—and the balance swings in favor of the affirmative, it is an absorbing story.”
GEROULD, GORDON HALL.Peter Sanders, retired.*$1.50 (1½c) Scribner 17-11709
When his gambling house in New York was closed down, Peter Sanders became a wanderer. He was a gentleman of quiet tastes, and a lover of books, with a leaning toward the classics. He meets adventures in various parts of Europe, but his inclinations call him back to America, even tho his return means the hiding of his identity under a false name. Accompanied by his faithful servant, Henry, he becomes familiar with corners of his native land before unknown to him. He makes new friends too and comes to think better of his fellow men than he had in the old days when he saw them only thru a gambler’s eyes. Finally when he is reinstated in New York, it is to find that he has become a new man and that the old ways no longer hold any charm for him.
“A leisurely tale ‘gay without vapidity and adventurous without sensationalism.’”
“What we assist at is a gradual change in point of view and emphasis rather than a radical change of character.” H. W. Boynton
“This Mr Silcox is a very credible old gentleman. ... The thing that is not quite believable is Peter Sanders. ... We feel sure that, although many a novelist has done worse, Mr Gerould could have done far better.”
“Thoroughly to enjoy it, one should know that Mr Gerould is a college professor; his interest in ex-gamblers gains piquancy from this fact.”
“The story (which is not, we suspect, without its foundation in fact) is in its way a romance, and long before we are done with him we have formed a proper romantic affection for its stout and aging hero.”
“The novel is written with a sense of irony which gives it a certain pungency.”
“The story is well written and gently humorous. The resemblance of Mr Sanders to a noted New York gambler lately deceased is striking.”
GEROULD, KATHARINE (FULLERTON) (MRS GORDON HALL GEROULD).Change of air. il*$1.25 Scribner 17-25861
“The book opens with a scene in the drawing rooms of Miss Cordelia Wheaton. Miss Wheaton, a rich woman, had a very large number of poor friends, and she had sent for them all to come to her house on a certain day. There they sit at the beginning of the first chapter; ‘and they waited, unprotesting; for they were all poor.’ At last, when the rooms are full, Miss Wheaton appears and makes the surprising announcement that she has decided to divide the greater part of her fortune among them at once, instead of doing it in her will. Each is to receive a certain sum—how much no one of the others will ever know. She carries out her plan, and the effect of this ‘windfall’ upon the lives and characters of some few of her beneficiaries, and ultimately upon Miss Wheaton herself, form the theme—or perhaps it would be better to say the themes—of the book.”—N Y Times
“To Walter Leaven we owe the story’s rescue from bitter comedy to a finale of exquisite romance. It is his figure, treading devotedly towards its goal of self-realisation through self-devotion, that makes a story out of what might otherwise have been a mere group of satirical episodes.” H. W. Boynton
“Though there are frequent fine penetrations in her account of people, and a sharp wit to clinch the penetration, she has a constant tendency to substitute the values of polite society for the values that a genuine artist would discern. Her bristling smartness, her complaisance, her snobbishness, are difficult traits to tolerate in a novelist of manners.”
“The book is very short, very clever, very cynical.”
“A good story idea only moderately well carried out.”
Reviewed by Doris Webb
“It is all very brilliant, but one shudders to see life chiseled with such delicate scalpels and with so sure and unashamed a pagan touch.”
GERRISH, FREDERIC HENRY.Sex-hygiene; a talk to college boys. (Present day problems ser.)*60c (8c) Badger, R: G. 612.6 17-13326
“In 1911 there was given to Bowdoin college a fund the income of which was to be devoted to the instruction of the students in the proper relations of the sexes. As a part of this instruction the following lecture has been given to the freshman class of each succeeding year. It has been given, also, in a number of other institutions for the education of young men and boys.” (Preface) The lecturer is professor emeritus of surgery at Bowdoin college, and author of several standard medical books.
“One of the most useful books of its kind. ... It is plain and direct and is without an excess of detail. ... Bowdoin college has announced that it is going to give a copy to every member of each freshman class from now on.”
GERSTENBERG, CHARLES W., and JOHNSON, WALTER SEELY.Organization and control. (Modern business, v. 3) il Alexander Hamilton inst. 658 17-1816
“‘Organization and control’ deals not with the internal management and control of business units, but rather with the external organization and ownership of industrial enterprises and the control of their business policies. In other words, this is not a work on business management, but on the structure of the business unit. ... The book approaches the subject largely from the legal standpoint, although there is nothing of a technical legal nature in the content. ... The closing chapters deal with the questions growing out of concentration and combination in business. In them the author examines the causes that have led up to the present high degree of centralized control, traces the evolution of the ‘trust’ through the various forms which it has taken and outlines the advantages resulting from industrial consolidation. Illegal combinations are discussed and the book closes with a history of the law of monopolies and an analysis of recent legislation on the trust question.”—Am Econ R
“It presents the subject in a remarkably clear and readable manner, illuminates the material with a number of well-selected business forms, and arouses interest by suggestive questions on hypothetical corporate problems.” F. E. Armstrong
GERSTER, ARPAD GEYZA CHARLES.[2]Recollections of a New York surgeon. il $3.50 Hoeber 17-29633
“Born in Hungary in 1848, Dr Gerster came to this country in 1873 and settled for practice in New York city. His family origin was Swiss and his forebears were sturdy peasants or burghers, who did not fail to do their part in freeing Europe from the feudal subjection to the Hapsburg and Burgundian overlords. ... He writes of the public service of his ancestors—of John Gerster of Kaufbeuren who held various offices in the Basel city government prior to 1532, when he was pensioned, of Ottmar Gerster, who commanded the peasant army in the war waged against Abbot Ulrich VIII of Sankt Gallen to gain liberation from the overlordship of the monastery. ... In 1866 Gerster entered the University of Vienna as a medical student. There he remained seven years and went through all the experiences of student life, including the duel requirements. ... His surgical practice in New York began in a very humble way, and for some years was confined to work among the very poor. Later he won renown and wealth. The closing section of his book is devoted to ‘diversions.’”—Boston Transcript
“And he writes delightfully of music, sketching, wood-carving and etching.” H. S. K.