“The chief criticism has been that he forgets the ideals of the masters and preaches ‘popularity and financial success at all hazards.’”
“Its author’s qualifications for his task are set forth after his name in these words: ‘Instructor in English in the University of Illinois, formerly special reader of fiction manuscripts, International magazine company, publishers of Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazar, etc.’ ... It is obvious again and again, as we turn the pages of Mr Baker’s book, that his knowledge of what sort of short story will be profitable runs far in advance of his critical faculty.” E. F. E.
“Mr Baker’s drawback is that he has only one market in mind—the market represented by the American magazines that pay highest. ‘It pays, therefore,’ he writes ‘to find out in advance what American editors dislike’ ... But what is required is another standard altogether, not the raising of the commercial standard. A few editors might be induced to consider what discriminating minds approve of.” M. M. Colum
“Brief and ‘snappy’ book on manuscript salesmanship. ... If the author had only refrained from occasional references to art and artistry his little volume would have been wholly justifiable. For there is no reason in the world why short-story writers should not ply their trade for money. ... Only, when they do so, they should stop talking about art.”
“There is a really illuminating chapter on ‘How magazines differ,’ followed by a description of a magazine office from the inside.”
“A commonsense little volume that should find an audience despite the fact that it is an addition to a long list of books whose excellence varies with their number.”
BAKER, ORIN CLARKSON.Travelers’ aid society in America; principles and methods.*$1 (6½c) Funk 910.2 17-14808
This little book, published under the auspices of the Travelers’ aid society of New York city at the close of the thirtieth anniversary of active travelers’ aid work there, deals with the “protection from danger and prevention of crime for travelers, especially young women, girls and boys traveling alone.” (Sub-title) The appendix gives Instructions to agents.
BAKER, RAY STANNARD (DAVID GRAYSON, pseud.).Great possessions.il*$1.30 (3c) Doubleday 17-28078
A slender volume which nevertheless can lure one for a brief respite away from the strident noises of a care-troubled world into a realm where loafing with one’s soul is encouraged. It is another adventure in contentment, Grayson leading the way this time to the country where he points out the well-flavored things of garden and field—the smells, sights, sounds, touches and tastes, two of which, the sense of taste and the sense of smell, having been shabbily treated, he thinks, in the amiable rivalry of the senses. Other essays in the group delve down to the wealth of love to be found in the hearts of humble men.
“Pleasant essays in the author’s familiar vein.”
Reviewed by A. M. Chase
“A fitting successor to ‘The friendly road’ and ‘Adventures in contentment.’ A word should be said for Thomas Fogarty’s delightful drawings, which are entirely in harmony with the text.”
“What we dislike chiefly, perhaps, is the complacency of his mellow hieratic chant, with its double appeal to those who incline to go ‘back to the land,’ and to those who are determined to be ‘glad,’ according to the current fashion (in fiction).”
“It is a privilege to come in contact with the type of mind here represented. He is eminently restful, and his attitude promotes a readjustment of values.” F: T. Cooper
“It is a delightful book; rich in its wisdom, redolent of nature, and bespeaking a love for humble things and men of gentle will.”
BAKSHY, ALEKSANDR.Path of the modern Russian stage, and other essays. il*7s 6d Palmer & Hayward, London 792 (Eng ed 17-17074)
“In these essays the author is largely concerned with the problem of representational versus presentational stage performances. Should illusion be carried to its furthest limits? Should the play be represented, as at the Moscow art theatre, as ‘an independent entity existing side by side with’ the observing audience? Or should it be presented through the medium of the stage? Other matters dealt with are the advantages and disadvantages of ensemble-acting, and long-run plays. The concluding essay treats of ‘The kinematograph as art.’”—Ath
“Valuable is the author’s essay on living space and the theatre, and his criticism of Mr Gordon Craig’s theories. But abstraction seems pushed to the point where words become abstracted from meaning in the essay on a poet-philosopher of modern Russia, the whole sustained in the Nietzschean jargon of the mythic opposition between Dionysus and Apollo. In more than one sentence the old opposition of the classic and romantic spirit is all that is implied.”
“The impression left by Mr Bakshy’s very interesting book, which is full of suggestive remarks and illuminating criticism, is that there is very little future for naturalism.”
BANCROFT, GRIFFING.Interlopers. il*$1.50 Bancroft co., 156 5th av., N.Y. 17-20421
“A study of the ‘yellow peril,’ as the subtle and irresistible absorption of California by the Japanese, whom the law has excluded from citizenship, but has failed to keep off the land. ... The central figure of the story is that of a young eastern-bred doctor, who makes himself an outcast among the ranchers in Eden valley by being friendly with the Japanese. In the event, he wins his lady and reëstablishes himself in the world by discovering a serum for Asiatic cholera. But he does not solve, or even help to solve, the problem of the Californian and his Japanese rival. Not all the white man’s law and gospel can dislodge the yellow man when he has once set foot in Eden valley—an interloper destined in no long time to be acknowledged as master of the premises. The Jap, in fact, is the lustier pioneer, and with a backing of oriental gold and oriental cunning more than a match for the western-born.”—Nation
“Though as a novelist Mr Bancroft still has something to acquire in coördinating the scenes of a story and in making his characters appealing, the book takes on a certain reality from the author’s extensive and affectionate knowledge of the country, and from his not altogether unsuccessful attempt to weave an interesting tale around his comment on the conditions introduced by the Japanese settlements. It is this last element that will make the book worth reading as evidence in a problem that is not without its possibilities as an international question.” F. I.
“The matter of the story is better than its manner: the characters have an air of struggling against the language the author puts into their mouths; for he makes them all talk like a book. The action is impeded by various dissertations on fruit-ranching, Japanese customs, or Asiatic cholera—very interesting in themselves.”
“The plot is merely a thread on which the author has hung a rather interesting essay on the Japanese in California.”
BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE.In these latter days. $2 Blakely-Oswald co., 124 Polk st., Chicago 304 17-25254
Mr Bancroft is a historian with a long list of volumes to his credit. He has for some time made his home in California, so it is natural that many of the papers in this new book should deal with the problems of the Pacific coast, notably with questions of Asiatic immigration. “Contents: A problem in evolution; Apocalyptic; Infelicities of possession; Germany and Japan; The still small voice; Life’s complex ways; The psychology of lying; Chinaand the United States; The autocracy of labor; Municipal rule and misrule; The declination of law; Fallacies and fantasies; The economics of education; The mysterious history of the spirit creation; Spiritual and rational development; Ab ovo; As others see us; Spirit worship of today; The new religion; The war in Europe; Crystallized civilization; Why a world industrial centre at San Francisco bay? Revival of citizenship; The initiative; Assurances for the future.” (Pittsburgh)
“This work of Mr Bancroft’s reveals the author’s pungency and individuality of mind, but reveals also signs of age. Mr Bancroft is eighty-five. Considering this fact, it is easy to understand his overwrought denunciations of current American life.”
BANG, JACOB PETER.Hurrah and hallelujah; a documentation; from the Danish by Jessie Bröchner; with an introd. by Ralph Connor.*$1 (2c) Doran 940.91 17-10428
Dr Bang, of the University of Copenhagen, has collected excerpts from German poems, sermons, etc. His title is taken from a book of poems issued by a German pastor. His purpose is “to show, on the one hand, to what a pitch the contempt and hatred for things foreign has been carried, and, on the other hand, how widely the overestimation, not to say the worship, of things German has spread in Germany.” There are chapters on German prophets, German war poetry, The war in sermons, Speeches by German professors, etc. The book was prepared for publication in 1915.
Reviewed by H. M. Kallen
“We do not know among modern books any one volume which will give to the English reader in so brief a form so clear a reflection of the militaristic spirit which seems to possess, not only the military leaders, but the teachers of every description in Germany.”
“Those who have any lingering doubts as to the wisdom of the present course taken by the government will find in ‘Hurrah and hallelujah,’ a collection of documents edited by Dr J. P. Bang, of the University of Copenhagen, a terrific arraignment of Germany out of the mouths of her own poets, prophets, professors, and teachers.”
“Prof. Bang, in his chapter on ‘The trend of German thought,’ makes the absurd mistake—or else the translation does—of classifying Nietzsche with Treitschke and Bernhardi as prophets of German world-power. Otherwise his observations are apparently correct. ... The numerous examples cited give the book its value.”
“Dr Bang, who is a professor of the University of Copenhagen, and himself a distinguished theologian, has done well to publish this book. ... It is a valuable supplement to Professor Nippold’s book on German Chauvinism, which appeared shortly before the war, and to the similar collections made by Mr Alexander Gray in his three pamphlets, ‘The new leviathan,’ ‘The upright sheaf,’ and ‘The true pastime.’”
BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK.Half hours with the Idiot.*$1.25 (5c) Little 817 17-14182
“Readers of Bangs are familiar with the boarding house of Mrs Pedagog for single gentlemen, where the Idiot, the Doctor, the Poet, the Bibliomaniac, and Mr Brief, the lawyer, assemble daily for refreshments. Over the waffles each morning the Idiot discourses of some theme of timely interest, like Christmas shopping, the income tax, medical conservation, etc.”—Springf’d Republican
“Not quite so spontaneous in their humor as the breakfast-table talks in ‘Coffee and repartee.’”
“Mr Bangs gives no intimation in this volume that his humor is in danger of going stale or ceasing. It is in his usual style, only more so, which is good enough for most of us.”
BARBEE, LINDSEY.Let’s pretend. il. 75c Denison 812 17-19694
A book of fairy plays for children, provided with notes on costume and properties, stage directions, etc. Contents: The little pink lady; The ever-ever land; When the toys awake; The forest of every day; A Christmas tree joke; “If don’t-believe is changed into believe.” In some of the plays the number of characters is large, making them suitable for school entertainments where many children take part.
“A book of delightful children’s plays. ... They are merry and whimsical and carry their little sermons unobtrusively.”
“The value of these plays is increased by practical directions for costuming, by stage directions and by other helps to production.”
BARBER, CHARLES H.Besieged in Kut and after.*5s Blackwood, London 940.91
“Major Barber records his journey from Basra up to Kut, then the return of the army from Ctesiphon, the long-drawn siege, the hopes and disappointments, the surrender, life as a prisoner in Baghdad, his exchange, and the passage down the river again to the familiar lower reaches—familiar, but already transformed by the preparations for the new advance—and then the farewell to ‘the desert land where we had left only two good years of our life, measured by the standard of time, but a good ten by those of our feelings.’ What those feelings were it is easy to guess, though the author wraps them all in their wonderful natural cover of the soldier’s courage and hopefulness and kindness.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“Major Barber’s book is a little epic. ... And it is none the less an epic for being in form an impersonal and matter-of-fact record of daily events. The sub-title might be ‘Endurance.’”
BARBER, FREDERIC DELOS, and others.First course in general science. il*$1.25 Holt 502 16-17507
“This book is written for the American school child. It opens with the statement that ‘the primary function of first-year general science is to give, as far as possible, a rational, orderly, scientific understanding of the pupil’s environment to the end that he may, to some extent, correctly interpret that environment and be master of it. It must be justified by its own intrinsic value as a training for life’s work.’ Setting out with this idea, the authors take the various phenomena with which the child is likely to be confronted, and deal with them in a manner calculated to arouse his interest.”—Nature
“It covers somewhat the same field as Caldwell and Eikenberry (Booklist 11:299 Mr ‘15), but is, perhaps, more technical, fuller on physical science, heat, light, ventilation, and refrigeration, and contains less on biology and physical geography, has problems and exercises as wellas more illustrations. ... A revision and enlargement of the author’s ‘Elements of physical science,’ published in 1906.”
“Its facts in regard to physics and vital phenomena are carefully stated, and the many applications of elementary principles to human welfare are ingeniously and clearly presented.”
“Probably the best use of the book is as a teacher’s guide to give him ‘copy’ which he can work up and adapt to his own class.”
BARBER, HERBERT LEE.Story of the automobile; its history and development from 1760 to 1917; with an analysis of the standing and prospects of the automobile industry. il*$1.50 (2½c) Munson 629.2 17-16907
As one reads the sub-title of this book he wonders what Franklin had to do with the automobile. Specifically, the author accords Franklin, as the discoverer of electricity, the credit for the electrical automobile, and, in a more general way, shows that in his teachings of frugality and thrift he laid the cornerstone, 150 years ago, on which the superstructure of the automobile business has been erected. The 250 pages tell a concise story of the mechanical and commercial evolution of the automobile, its popularity and its democratization by Henry Ford. What will particularly interest makers and dealers is the analysis of the industry from a financial and investment standpoint, contributed by the Business Bourse International, Inc.
BARBUSSE, HENRI.Under fire; the story of a squad; tr. by Fitzwater Wray.*$1.50 (1½c) Dutton 940.91 17-23984
This book was first published in France, December, 1916, under the title, “Le feu,” and received the prize offered by the Académie Goncourt of Paris for the best book of the year. It has had a wide sale in France. The author is a French soldier who does not hesitate to relate the grim and sickening details of life at the front. He quotes a fellow-soldier as saying: “If you make the common soldiers talk in your book, are you going to make them talk like they do talk, or shall you put it all straight—into pretty talk?” And Mr Barbusse answers that he will not “put it all into pretty talk.” He has kept his word. The book is “not a chronicle, still less a diary, but combines pictures of men in masses, and of individual types, moralisings, impressions, observations, episodes, into a sort of epic of army life from the point of view of a private soldier.” (Bookm) And the soldier’s point of view on the war seems to be that while war has turned him and his fellows into “incredibly pitiful wretches, and savages as well, brutes, robbers, and dirty devils,” that, because they are fighting “for progress, not for a country; against error, not against a country” they must fight on until the spirit of war is slain, and, “there’ll no longer be the things done in the face of heaven by thirty millions of men who don’t want to do them.”
“Its realism is carried to the extent that some passages are more than merely painful to the reader: they are repellent. There is so much insistence upon the dirt, the vermin, the stench, and the sordidness in the battle zones, and so wrapped in a charnel-house atmosphere are many pages, that we think the artistry of the book has suffered in consequence. However, it is, we repeat, a remarkable production: and it must be admitted that this tale of soldiering in its grimmest and grimiest aspects is well worth reading.”
“The sub-title, the ‘Life of a squad,’ is somewhat misleading. There is much more than the life of a squad in this brilliant and varied narrative, which records or divines wide areas of experience.” F. M. Colby
“In contrast to his book, the others seem like documents, or pious memorial volumes, or collections of extracts from the average war articles in the magazines. Whether this difference will appear to those who read it only in the present English version it is hard to say, for the translator has come down upon it rather heavily.” C. M. Francis
“But a short time ago it would have been thought impossible that the war’s abominations could be restated with such force and vividness as to make them appear almost new to us, yet this is what has been accomplished here by a master hand exercising extraordinary gifts of expression with unrestricted freedom. The book is an achievement that will endure. If it reaches the huge sales here that are recorded of it in France, much credit will be due to the translator, who has done his work extremely well.”
“He is magnificently indifferent to the curious editorial taboo which results in the frigid brevity of the war dispatch and the inhuman abstractions of Mr Frank H. Simonds. To a man tremendously in earnest who wanted to make those at home see and feel the war—yes and smell it too—any squeamishness would naturally be a simple irrelevance. It would not be thought of, and M. Barbusse hasn’t thought of it. The result is a book of terrific impact, a horrible and fascinating document that brings one nearer to the desolation and despair of No Man’s Land than anything else I have read.” G: B. Donlin
“Barbusse has the essentially French ability of creating atmosphere. The action moves in vivid patches and flashes of color against a gray background of mud and drizzling rain.”
“It is unnecessary to have been at the front to judge of M. Barbusse’s veracity. It is a book that is no more to be questioned than the diary of Captain Scott or the deathless pages of Tolstoy.” F. H.
“‘Under fire’ is an example of genre art, crude often, as Rodin’s casts are crude, as Millet’s paintings are crude. ... The greatest chapter in the book is the last called ‘The dawn.’” B. H.
“M. Barbusse has succeeded in giving an unforgettable impression of the war as it exists, and in offering us a new point of view from which to consider it and its fighters.”
“Makes most other war books—barring perhaps Hugh’s letters from the trenches in ‘Mr Britling’ and Donald Hankey’s ‘Student in arms,’ first series—seem flat and soulless—merely pictorial, a kind of motion picture. We laugh with Empey in ‘Over the top,’ but here one doesn’t read to laugh.” Robert Lynd
BARCLAY, FLORENCE LOUISA (CHARLESWORTH) (MRS CHARLES W. BARCLAY).White ladies of Worcester.*$1.50 (1½c) Putnam 17-29023
A novel which views such mediaeval matters as cloisters, feudal pomp and chivalry in the light of our twentieth century breadth of view. The hero possesses all the qualities of the knight of chivalry, its heroine is a cloistered maiden who humbly relinquishes her religious vows for love. But here is the modern note. The Bishop of Worcester not only brings the lovers together but in so doing voices the following sentiment: “Methinks these nunneries would serve a better purpose were they schools from which to send women forth into the world to be good wives and mothers, rather than storehouses filled with sad samples of nature’s great purposes deliberately unfulfilled.” The setting and atmosphere are true to the twelfth century.
“The book, which is overloaded with sentiment, does not carry conviction.”
“Except for an occasional ‘methinks,’ and incidental allusions to palfreys and battlements, the cumbersome trappings of mediaevalism, the battles, the conclaves, the obsolete language, are absent from the book. It is rather in the substance of the story that the spirit of an earlier day is felt.” Joseph Mosher
“The story has an excellent plot, and is told with commendable restraint, and without the cloying sentimentality and wearisome artificialities characterizing so many of the author’s stories heretofore.”
“A pleasing, sentimental romance. ... The whole is too obviously conceived in a modern spirit: we feel the medievalism is but stage scenery and the sentiments those of the twentieth century.”
BARKER, ERNEST.Ireland in the last fifty years (1866-1916). pa*1s 6d Oxford 941.5 (Eng ed 17-14126)
“The author begins with a survey of the period to which his book relates, and proceeds to discuss the Irish church and education, the agrarian question, and the government of Ireland. The latter part of the book deals with Ireland to-day. Mr Barker regards the rebellion of 1916 as ‘a rebellion of those extremists who have, during the last fifty years, found their enemies no less in the Home rule party of Ireland than in the British government.’”—Ath
“This well-written pamphlet gives a dispassionate account of Irish affairs during the last half-century. ... We must demur to Mr Barker’s suggestion that the Unionist party has accepted Home rule. He should have explained more clearly the position of protestant Ulster, which is imperfectly appreciated by those who do not know Ireland and her history.”
“Nor does he stop with the Church and Land acts—he goes on to discuss in some detail the whole agrarian problem in Ireland as the long series of Land acts has left it, with a peasantry relieved of ‘landlordism’ and turning to a variety of boards, departments, and associations for help and guidance in the new problems that confront them. This is the really valuable part of Mr Barker’s book, and it can be heartily recommended to all who wish to understand the present economic situation in Ireland.”
BARKER, GRANVILLE.[2]Three short plays.*$1 Little 822 17-30424
“Rococo,” the first of the three plays, written in 1912, is a farce-comedy with scene laid in an English vicarage. “Vote by ballot,” dated 1914, is a comedy of English politics. The third “Farewell to the theatre,” written in 1916, is a conversation between two persons, a man and a woman, the second of whom is leaving the stage after a long career.
“These plays are tempered with the thin, keen edge of Barker’s fastidious intellectualism. ... In this trifle [’Farewell to the theatre’], hardly a play, Barker is more the poet, or the symbolist, of ‘Souls on Fifth’ than the dramatist.”
BARKER, HARRY.Public utility rates.*$4 McGraw 658 17-10566
“A discussion of the principles and practice underlying charges for water, gas, electricity, communication and transportation services.” (Sub-title) “After eight years of collection, comparative analysis and study the author has brought to fruition his effort to present “a comprehensive discussion of (1) such corporation and municipal activities as affect service and rates, (2) the trend of public opinion and court and commission decisions, and (3) the most important engineering and economic problems involved.” This he has done ‘in the hope’ that the mere presentation, in one volume, of the diverse phases of rate making may be of service in provoking thought—‘in spite of the inherent shortcomings of the text.’” (Engin News-Rec)
“Perhaps the most orderly and generally comprehensive of the many engineering treatises on valuation and rate making. ... The discussion is carefully balanced, and it offers many excellent criticisms and suggestions. The author appears public-spirited, with possibly an over-confidence that his own state of mind is that of public service corporation officials. If space permitted, many minor points might be profitably discussed or criticized.” J: Bauer
“In its good style and thoroughly readable quality, the book reflects the author’s experience as an editor of one of the most successful technical weeklies (Engineering News). Though it treats a highly technical subject, it does so in a manner to command the interest of the reader, introducing him with a brief and pertinent historic sketch to a logical presentation of the subject, adding breadth and perspective by a discriminating analysis of the essential differences in the rate-making problem of different utilities. Its chief value lies in the comparison of the differences in the nature and past solutions of the problem. ... It should be particularly helpful to the young student.”
“‘What is needed to save the observer from being swamped with facts in decisions and froth in partisan theories is just such a clear and unbiased analysis as Mr Barker’s work. ... The volume is the result of painstaking editorial observation over a period of eight years. ... Where there are two sides to a question each is given a fair statement.’”
BARKER, W. H., and SINCLAIR, CECILIA, eds. West African folk-tales. il*7s 6d Harrap & co., London 398.2
These thirty-six tales are “based upon the folk-lore of the natives of the Gold coast.” (Ath) “The subject-matter has been obtained largely from native school teachers. ... Different versions of the same story have been collated, spurious additions discovered and discarded, and the common framework isolated and established. We are told that all the material thus collected will be available eventually for the use of the student of folk-lore; but in the meantime the authors have contented themselves with trying to interest a different and wider public in the subject by retelling the original basic stories as simply and directly as possible. ... [The book includes] the primitive version of a classic story which the negro slaves took with them across the Atlantic, and which emerged from the mouth of ‘Uncle Remus’ ... as the immortal adventure of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.” (Spec)
“A curious feature of the Gold coast folk-stories is the number of Anánsi or spider tales.”
“The tales are mostly of the explanatory ‘Just-So’ type which Kipling popularized, and although they have none of Kipling’s wonderful power of personification or triumph of linguistic invention in the telling, they are quite as ingenious and convincing in substance. ... The illustrations are delicately and imaginatively drawn, and exactly right to convey the spirit of the letterpress and to stimulate the curiosity of a child.”
“These West African stories do not ‘grip’ as some others of their kind succeed in doing. ... They are not as dramatic as some, nor are they so surprising. ... The human element is lacking to them also; they throw little light on the manners and customs of the story-teller and his friends. ... A word may be said in appreciation of the illustrations. Their white outline on black ground is most effective.”
BARNARD’SLincoln, the gift of Mr and Mrs Charles P. Taft to the city of Cincinnati. il*50c (6½c) Stewart & Kidd 17-21909
The most interesting contribution to this little volume is that of the sculptor, George Grey Barnard, who tells what the statue means to him and what he tried to make it express to others,—“Lincoln, the song of democracy written by God.” In addition the book presents various documents connected with the unveiling of the statue in Cincinnati: a poem by Dr Lyman Whitney Allen, the presentation address of William Howard Taft, and the speech of acceptance by George Puchta, mayor of the city. There are five illustrations from photographs, and one from an etching by E. T. Hurley.
“Mr Taft’s address is a broad and true appreciation of Lincoln’s character.”
BARNES, JOHN BRYSON (O. N. E., pseud.).Elements of military sketching and map reading. 3d ed rev il*75c (5c) Van Nostrand 623.71 17-14002
“The publication of this book was undertaken with a view of providing a textbook suitable for beginners in the subject of military sketching. To the original book has been added chapters on map reading and landscape sketching.” (Preface) The book is illustrated with diagrams and sketches accompanying the text and folding maps are provided in a pocket at the end.
BARNETT, GEORGE ERNEST, and MCCABE, DAVID ALOYSIUS.Mediation, investigation, and arbitration in industrial disputes.*$1.25 (6c) Appleton 331.1 16-23810
“The book is based on a study of the activities of the American national and state agencies of mediation and arbitration. The elements of weakness in the present system are analyzed, and the necessary conditions for the successful working of such systems are set forth. After giving due consideration to the experience of other countries in dealing with the problem of industrial disputes, particularly to the Canadian experience under the law for the compulsory investigation of such disputes, the authors present a plan for the reorganization of the existing systems.”—N Y Call
Reviewed by E. L. Earp
“Authoritative study. Useful for debates.”
“The attitude of the authors is impartial and practical, and the treatment of the subject is scholarly. It might be wished that the results of the last three years be included in the book. The appendices contain the Newlands act and the recommendations of the Industrial commission on mediation, arbitration, etc.” J. T. Y.
“This volume is one of rather more than ordinary value. ... As a historical study and book of reference, trade unionists and Socialists should find this book a valuable addition to their material on the highly important and timely subjects of which it treats.” C. M. W.
“The book is timely and useful, particularly in its tendency to convince the unions that they are too successful for their own interests in some respects. Partisanship may win a battle or two, but fairness is needed to win the campaign for public sympathy and support.”
“The authors of this book, who hold chairs, respectively, at Johns Hopkins and Princeton, submitted a report in June, 1915, to the United States Commission on industrial relations. The present volume is based on that report but illustrated material has been added and the statements have been brought down to date. In this form it is the best available discussion of the subject in English.”
“The classifications in the book are admirably arranged, and its conclusions and recommendations are clearly set forth. It is somewhat unfortunate, however, that a book dealing with such an important problem does not contain more vitality. On the whole, the monograph is to be heartily recommended to everyone interested in social readjustments for its careful analysis and its timely suggestions.” H. W. Laidler
BARR, MRS AMELIA EDITH (HUDDLESTON).Christine, a Fife fisher girl.il*$1.50 (1½c) Appleton 17-22293
The scene is laid in the little fishing village of Culraine, Scotland, some seventy years ago. Christine’s parents are hard-working, upright, shrewd, deeply religious fisher-folk, whose great ambition is to educate their son, Neil, as a dominie. With the help of Christine, who is intellectually the abler of the two, Neil prepares for the university, but chooses the law instead of the church, and while taking from his parents and Christine all that they can give, grows more and more forgetful and neglectful of them. The tragedy of the ungrateful son is balanced by the love story of the dutiful daughter, whose chief admirers are Angus Ballister, a gentleman, and Cluny Macpherson, a fisherman. The end of the story leaves her not only a happy wife, but a successful authoress.
“A love story of characteristic sweetness and charm.” H. W. Boynton
“Age can not wither nor custom stale Mrs Barr’s infinite variety. Her writing days have spanned many generations yet no more vigorous character has been given novel readers this year than her Christine.”
“One carries away from this story a pleasant impression of fresh breezes, of a people strong and upright and generally goodhearted. ‘Christine: a Fife fisher girl,’ is a novel which will be warmly welcomed by Mrs Barr’s many admirers.”
“As heretofore, the story betrays a high moral tone, which makes her novels well-nigh unique among the light fiction of the present day.”
BARR, MRS AMELIA EDITH (HUDDLESTON).Joan. il*$1.50 Appleton 17-3151
“Mrs Barr has gone to the mining region of Yorkshire for her latest novel, and has drawn a clear and convincing picture of the mining folk and the industry. A very different affair is Yorkshire mining from mining here in America, and in a foreword Mrs Barr explains the root of this difference. It lies chiefly in the fact that the miners in England are sons of the soil, men who have grown to maturity in the neighborhoodin which they work, and who have followed their fathers ‘down pit.’ ... There is plenty of romance in the new story by a born writer of love stories, Joan being a winsome lass, with spirit and courage and beauty. Her fate is a man some years older than herself, and there is wealth and splendor, too, and many happy occurrences. Each character is well visualized; there is a human directness in Mrs Barr’s writing that becomes more pronounced as time passes.”—N Y Times
“Pleasing in its freshness and sincerity and especially interesting as the work of an author in her eighty-sixth year, who in this book is depicting the scenes with which she was familiar in her girlhood.”
BARRETT, SIR WILLIAM FLETCHER.On the threshold of the unseen. 2d rev ed*$2.50 Dutton (*6s 6d Kegan Paul, London) 134 17-29365
“Sir William Barrett, who was for many years professor of experimental physics in the Royal college of science for Ireland, was one of the principal founders of the Psychical research society in 1882, and his interest in and close attention to the subject has been continuous for over forty years. In 1908 he published a book (written many years previously) containing his critical investigations under the title ‘On the threshold of a new world of thought.’ His present publication is in the nature of a new edition of that work, including fresh evidence (obtained independently of any professional mediums) as to survival after death. The book is in six parts. It opens with general matter on psychical research and the objections of science and of religion. Part 2 discusses ‘the physical phenomena’—rappings, levitations, &c. ... Canons of evidence, mediumship, the subliminal self, &c., are then discussed. Part 4 collects particulars of apparitions, automatic writing, and other evidence of survival. Part 5 deals with clairvoyance, trance phenomena; considers difficulties; and advances various corrections and suggestions; and in Part 6 the deeper aspects of the matter are explored—the lesson of philosophy in the interpretation of nature; the mystery of personality; reincarnation; the implications of telepathy.” (The Times [London] Lit Sup) Sir William Barrett is also the author of the volume on “Psychical research” in the Home university library.
“It seems impossible for any reasonable man to dispute the case for further study, philosophic and scientific, of the evidence so far collected, and admirably presented in the volume here reviewed.” T. W. Rolleston
“The author has passed the psalmist’s warning milepost of threescore and ten, but his handling of evidential matter and his discussions in this volume show that his mind is still keen and fresh and has lost none of its habitual scientific method and temper. ... He discusses most interestingly his idea of an unseen world evolving in harmony with our own. This idea, it is apparent, is closely akin to that of a finite, evolving God which has been developed by philosophical writers from Kant down to William James and has just had forceful presentation by H. G. Wells. But Sir William nowhere intimates perception of the kinship of the two ideas.”
“What is of most immediate interest at the present moment is his account of certain very recent personal experiments conducted with well-known amateurs.”
“The present short volume presents evidence and considerations on the spiritualist side with a welcome absence alike of credulity and of rhetoric.”
“The chief interest of this book, primarily a clear and temperate presentation of the case for scientific spiritualism, is its suggestion that there is such a thing as a scientific spirituality. ... It is another matter when we can feel that the slow patient gropings of science are inspired by a spiritual aim. ... It is this that Sir William Barrett, like Sir Oliver Lodge, does not neglect. He keeps the reader aware that psychical research is the beginning of an attempt to test an intuition of reality. This is a real meeting ground for discussion.”
BARRIE, ROBERT.My log. il*$2 Franklin press 17-22077
“Robert Barrie was fortunate in having a father able to give him advantages in youth that many never attain to. When he was nearing the age of twenty-one he had his heart set on a bigger boat than those he had been sailing, and ‘the governor’ had the $2000 ready for it, but asked the boy to go around the world instead. He accepted on condition that his brother of seventeen should go with him, and that trip, which lasted well past a year, is the main part of ‘My log,’ written thirty years later for a birthday gift to ‘the governor.’ ... Paris bulks large in the later chapters, the Paris of the studios.”—Springf’d Republican
“He brings back a life, seemingly as far removed from us today as that of the moyen age. A life whose freedom from wars and rumors of wars seems now well-nigh incredible. Of those moyen days Mr Barrie is delightfully reminiscent, rambling along from one subject to another, in the friendliest of ways which renders negligible any ‘barrier of limit,’ and makes the reader a ‘comrade of the road.’”
“The book has its entertaining aspects, but as a whole belongs to the class of autobiographies which are more interesting to the author’s own personal friends and to himself than to the public at large.”
“Mr Barrie is a good raconteur and while his father and friends will appreciate the book more than anyone else, it has merit and style; and its make-up is such as one might expect in a gift from one maker of fine books to another.”
BARRON, CLARENCE WALKER.Mexican problem. il*$1 (4c) Houghton 917.2 17-20844
Mr Barron, for ten years reporter on the Boston Transcript, is now manager of the Wall Street Journal, Boston News Bureau and Philadelphia News Bureau. He is also the author of “The audacious war” and “Twenty-eight essays on the Federal reserve act.” He went to Mexico to study the oil situation and found in that situation the solution of the Mexican problem, which he had “failed to find in railroad, agricultural or mining development.” The result of his observations is embodied in this book, the greater part of which “is devoted to an account of the development of the oil industry in Mexico, to its various conflicting interests, and to the influence and work of Edward Doheny, the man who ‘has always stood by’ and who is as much concerned with the social as with the commercial problem of Mexico.” (Boston Transcript) There are a number of illustrations from photographs, and, at the end, a map showing the lands of the Mexican petroleum company. The preface is by Talcott Williams.