“Typical of his argument is an omission of any discussion of the population question, evidently upon the ground that numbers are not, or should not be, subject to human control. In fact, despite elaborate arguments, it is evident that the real questions at issue are all containedin his assumptions. The volume bears thenihil obstatandimprimaturof the church.” W. H. Hamilton
“Not merely the layman, but even more acutely, the student of ethics and moral theology has long desired a competent treatise on the Catholic doctrine of property, applying the traditional principles of our authorities to present day problems and conditions. ... Hence this volume is a very valuable contribution to our ethics library.”
“The author is associate professor of political science at the Catholic university of America.”
“The book is written from a Christian standpoint and makes use of the whole realm of literature bearing on the subject. ... And if it adds but little to the body of economic doctrine, but impregnates economic theory with an ethical ideal, it deserves most hearty commendation.”
“From the author of ‘The living wage’ one has learned to expect scholarship and sincerity, and sympathy for the tribulations of ordinary folks. Dr Ryan’s new book ‘Distributive justice,’ is nevertheless a genuine disappointment. The author has set himself the ungrateful task of demonstrating the justice of an industrial system and at the same time, the injustice of its operation.”
“In the main his views are those held by economists of liberal views. The essential elements of the present system of distribution—private ownership of land and capital—are defended against single taxers and socialists. The novel thing about Professor Ryan’s book is the unusual method by which he reaches his conclusions. Natural rights, chiefly as set forth by the Christian Fathers, form the base from which the argument proceeds, but there is a large admixture of purely economic considerations. The book will be useful as a careful résumé of the chief economic reforms which are at present under consideration. As a piece of philosophical inquiry it is curious rather than interesting.”
“The most comprehensive and dignified existing treatise on the ethics of economic reform.” A. S. J.
“Making use of Father Ryan’s favorite word, ‘justification,’ it may be said that his book affords ample justification to any person who succeeds in amassing property no matter what the human suffering was that the laborers endured.” Frank Macdonald
“His book is solid, learned, well argued. His intent commands sympathy. Only the malicious and uncharitable could condemn or dissent without reserve. But after passing his four hundredth page he surmises that his readers will be ‘disappointed and dissatisfied’ that his labors have produced nothing better. His rules of justice and proposals for reform are confessedly complex, indefinite. ... It may be doubted whether books like these help progress much, for all their good intentions.”
“John A. Ryan is associate professor of political science at the Catholic university of America.”
RYAN, MARAH ELLIS (MARTIN) (MRS S. ERWIN RYAN) (ELLIS MARTIN, pseud.).Druid path.*$1.35 (1c) McClurg 17-4311
Six stories told in the spirit of old Irish legend. Only the last, a story of the recent revolution, is modern and in this also the author has succeeded in suggesting the atmosphere of the old tales of the heroes. The titles are: The druid path; The enchanting of Doirenn; Liadan and Kurithir; Dervail Nan Ciar; Randuff of Cumanac; The dark rose. The book has decorations and endpieces designed by Will Vreeland.
“It is unusual to find in an American writer the quality which distinguishes the work of Fiona Macleod, but the same poetic mysticism which haunts those imaginative tales is to be found in ‘The druid path.’ The author has infused her characters with such reality that they become living men and women, whose passions lay violent hold upon the reader. ... The publishers have produced a book which is typographically worthy of the exceptional literary merit of the stories.”
SABATINI, RAFAEL.Snare.*$1.25 (1½c) Lippincott 17-29537
This novel pictures “an incident of Wellington’s campaign against the French in Portugal. Wellington was out to save Portugal, but there were traitors in high places secretly opposing his methods and playing the spy for the enemy. ... All depended on secrecy and unity of action. Suddenly the drunken blunder of a young English officer gives the plotters their chance to upset the delicate balance. Their influence causes the Portuguese council of regency to demand that the culprit be made a scapegoat. He is at large, and it falls to his brother-in-law, O’Moy, British adjutant-general at Lisbon, to promise that he shall be shot when taken.” (Bookm) The disentangling of the coil of circumstances developing from this situation occupies the remainder of this romantic narrative.
“Mr Sabatini shows his quality by giving his personæ enough characterisation to lift the performance from the early status of the cheap thriller to the celestial plane of romance.” H. W. Boynton
“An absorbing and well-characterized romance.”
“Swift-moving, picturesque, and well told.”
“Mr Sabatini vividly recreates local color and revivifies the distant scene. The characters are broadly sketched, particularly that of the ‘Iron duke.’ It is a story in which fact and fiction are delightfully blended and one that is entertaining in high degree from first to last.”
“We sometimes forget how good a tale he has set forth in reflecting how much better it might become in the hands of a playwright of genius. It has all the essentials of a moving play.”
SABIN, ALVAH MORTON.Industrial and artistic technology of paint and varnish. 2d ed thoroughly rev il*$3.50 Wiley 667 17-115
“The book opens with a section of definitions and brief fundamental descriptions, such as how varnish is made; what linoxyn is; what pigments and paints are. This is followed by a discussion of the history of paints and varnishes, introducing the original quotations, Greek and Latin, about the earliest processes. The author leads up to the technology of varnish by a discussion of linseed oil; after finishing with varnish, he runs off into japans, driers, rosin, shellac and the other spirit varnishes, cellulose and celluloid coatings, etc. There is after this a most informing section on paint. ... The rest of the book is devoted essentiallyto the engineering application of paints and varnishes and materials intended to serve the same purpose of protection or ornamentation.”—Engin N
“The man who reads for entertainment as well as instruction will appreciate this book. It is a technical work in the true sense of the word; but it is written with the rare style of a classical scholar, and humor is not lacking. It is labeled a second edition, but it is virtually a new book—due to the development of the art and the changed affiliations of the author—he is now a paint and not a varnish man.”
SACHER, HARRY, ed. Zionism and the Jewish future. maps*$1 (1c) Macmillan 296 17-95
The purpose of this volume is to “set before English-speaking readers the meaning and achievement of Zionism.” The introduction to the volume is written by Dr Charles Weizmann, who says that the Jewish problem, while it has different aspects in different countries, is essentially the problem of “fitting into the modern world a national group which has survived from ancient times without the ordinary attributes of nationhood.” Among the contributions to the book are: A century of Jewish history, by H. Sacher; Anti-Semitism, by Albert M. Hyamson; The Hebrew revival, by Leon Simon; The history of Zionism, by R. Gottheil; The Jews and the economic development of Palestine, by S. Tolkowsky. The work was prepared in Great Britain but the authors represent several countries, including Palestine.
“A book written from the Zionistic viewpoint and frankly propagandist, but presenting an excellent brief summary of the movement today.”
“Its editor is a distinguished British journalist; among the contributors to its pages are civil servants of the British government, Jewish religious leaders, and American college professors.” H. M. Kallen
Reviewed by the Earl of Cromer
“Weak from the point of view of propaganda, strong as literary efforts.”
SAFRONI-MIDDLETON, A Vagabond’s Odyssey. il*$2.50 (1c) Dodd 910 (Eng ed 17-14533)
“This is another pleasantly written volume of unconventional travel, by the author of ‘Sailor and beachcomber,’ who describes it as the second instalment of his autobiography. The book is filled with variety, and brings before us with vividness and ‘sparkle’ some of the writer’s experiences and adventures in many lands—among them the United States, Samoa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Spain, and the south of France. During an earlier visit to Samoa the author became acquainted with Stevenson, of whom some reminiscences are included.”—Ath
“This ‘Odyssey’ might have been written by a man who never stirred outside his study, so curiously unconvincing is the impression left on the reader’s mind. The moralizings, reflections, and would-be eloquent descriptions are shallow and tawdry.”
“The South Seas made a vivid impression on the author, and the poet continually surges uppermost in him when he swings into one of his frequent descriptions of the land and its beauty. A valuable feature of Mr Safroni-Middleton’s book is found in its picture of Robert Louis Stevenson. It is neither long nor deep in analysis, but it is picturesque.”
“Mr Safroni-Middleton is rich in prejudices and one-sided views as well as good stories; but we can forgive him the former in view of the latter.”
Sainte Séductre; an inner view of the Boche at bay, by Exile X; American ed., rev. and ed., by R: Wilmer Rowan.*$1.25 Liberty pub. assn., 110 W. 40th st. N.Y. 17-16312
Sainte Séductre is a narrative in the form of a drama, with eight scenes or “Dialogues.” The scene is laid “somewhere in Germany,” at the headquarters of certain German commanders and in the huts of the starving Belgian and French exiles. “It revolves about a scheme originated by General von A—— to save Germany, already defeated, by the adoption of a pretended democratic form of government, which shall secure her friends among all the nations composing the final Council of peace.” (Boston Transcript)
“To bring about a better understanding of the internal conditions of Imperial Germany today; to bring especially to public opinion in the United States a warning too little heeded, if at all understood, and to emphasize that ‘at present it is the duty of every true American to acquaint himself thoroughly with each particular element of the “Teutonic peril”’ was this story of ‘Sainte Séductre’ translated, and revised to render it more compelling for American readers.” F. B.
“It offers material which ought to be borne in mind in whatever discussions of peace the future may see. The book was written in the white heat of intellectual conviction, rather than passion.”
SALES SERVICE COMPANY.[2]Selling your services.*$1 (6c) Sales service co., 101 Park av., N.Y. 658 17-11356
Other titles for the book might be “How to secure a position,” or, more colloquially, “How to get a job.” The authors believe that, by following its suggestions, “the average man will improve his chances of getting a hearing and, finally, of securing the job for which he is best suited.” The chapters are very brief and each is devoted to some special item. Many sample letters of application are presented.
“Well worth the reading of anyone seeking a position.”
SALTER, WILLIAM MACKINTIRE.Nietzsche the thinker.*$3.50 (2c) Holt 193 17-25449
This book, by the author of “First steps in philosophy,” “Anarchy or government?” etc., is “a contribution to the understanding of Nietzsche.” Mr Salter limits himself to Nietzsche’s “fundamental points of view—noting only in passing or not at all his thoughts on education, his later views of art and music, his conception of woman, his interpretation of Christianity and attitude to religion.” (Preface) The book was in substance written before the present European war, and the author does not find Nietzsche “touching it in any special way” except as “a diagnostician of the general conditions which appear to have given birth to it.” Three introductory chapters cover Nietzsche’s relation to his time, his life and personal traits,some characteristics of his thinking, etc. The author then divides Nietzsche’s intellectual life into three periods, and considers it by period. Mr Salter believes that Nietzsche, far from reflecting the age, is “a force antagonistic to the dominant forces about us”; that “he has changed nothing, whether in thought or public policy”; and that “even in Germany ... his counsels and ideas have been far more disregarded than followed.” Nevertheless Mr Salter believes Nietzsche to be so important that perhaps in the near future “we shall be speaking of a pre-Nietzschean and a post-Nietzschean period in philosophical, and particularly in ethical and social analysis and speculation—and that those who have not made their reckoning with him will be as hopelessly out of date as those who have failed similarly with Kant.”
“It is evidently the result of wide reading and deep study of his subject; but unfortunately the attempt, not merely to restate Nietzsche’s thoughts, ‘but to rethink them, using more or less my own language,’ is not helped by some clumsy construction and faulty punctuation.”
“Scholarly exposition of Nietzsche’s doctrines.” C. H. P. Thurston
“Interpretations of Nietzsche are many, but usually they are nine parts comment to one of exposition, whereas Mr Salter effaces his own opinions and lets Nietzsche explain himself by placing in logical relation to each other the thoughts which Nietzsche sprinkled at random over his works.”
“Mr Salter has done the English reading public a large service, for he has given them what is easily the best book in English and what will rank well among the best in other languages on a man, who before the war was much misunderstood and misrepresented and since the war has been flagrantly criticized and abused. ... In a way that may be said even to make further study and exposition unnecessary, at least for a long time, he has presented and explained the philosophy itself, but its importance as possibly contributing significantly to the philosophy of an era, and so its place in the history of philosophy, he has not duly considered.” A. H. Lloyd
“Whatever merits the book may have must be dug for by studious readers who are more adept at these mystical numbers than we are. If Mr Salter has really intended a generalization, we can only regretfully say that he has not ‘got it across’ to us, though that may not be his fault, but our own stupidity. But for those who love interminable preaching there is surely here an inexhaustible mine from which to dig problematical nuggets of wisdom, which they can—if able—assort and assay for themselves.” J. W.
“It is—broadly speaking—an altogether new Nietzsche who emerges from the pages of this expository critique.”
SALTYKOV, MICHAEL EVGRAFOVICH (SHCHEDRIN, pseud.).Family of noblemen; tr. by A. Yarmolinsky.*$1.50 (1c) Boni & Liveright
“Saltykov, author of ‘A family of noblemen,’ famous in Europe as a satirist, is one of the very recent [Russian authors] to claim attention. ... This novel was published in 1880. ... It deals with the lives and fates of the members of a family of the small landed gentry of Russia through three generations, beginning before the abolition of serfdom and covering space of time of perhaps twenty-five years. ... Saltykov surveys the disintegration of a family upon which hereditary traits, weak wills, paucity of interests, and vodka work destruction.”—N Y Times
“Russia has produced few books of a greater psychological depth and a more intimate realism. Unless all signs fail Saltykov has come to stay in English literature.” Abraham Yarmolinsky
“In many ways ‘A family of noblemen’ is a masterly piece of work, especially through the first half. In the latter part the author’s method falls below the artistic standard he has set in the first half.”
SAMSON, REBECCA MIDDLETON.Schoolgirl allies. il*$1.35 (1½c) Lothrop 17-23653
The title suggests a war book, but the scene of this story for girls is laid in the Belgium of old days. “Tad” and “Sherry,” two American girls become pupils in thePensionnatVan Pelt in Brussels. Their schoolmates are girls from many countries, including France, Russia and the British Isles. Sherry tells the story of their new experiences, and tells it with all a schoolgirl’s zest and love for exaggeration and dramatic effect.
“It is good to be reminded that there were once happy days in Belgium. ... The few pictures make us wish for more.”
“It is a long and interesting story, telling in detail the life of the girls of thepensionnat, so different from a school of the same class in this country.”
“The two American girls, Adelaide and Sherida, are well portrayed, and the different foreign girls at the school are carefully differentiated.”
SANBORN, FRANKLIN BENJAMIN.Life of Henry David Thoreau; including many essays hitherto unpublished, and some account of his family and friends. il*$4 (3c) Houghton 17-13644
Frank B. Sanborn was the last surviving member of the Concord group. His life of Thoreau was completed but shortly before his death in February, 1917. In his preface the author calls attention to the growing fame of Thoreau. “It now appears,” he says, “that a considerable part of the present fame of Concord in literature grows out of the life and writings of Henry Thoreau, whose writings had little circulation before his death in 1862.” There is more comment of this kind in the last chapter, where the author says, “My purpose in this volume has been to show how he coöperated in his own posthumous fame; how he built himself up in literature from boyhood, and that without becoming a pedant, or trying to form a school, or even a class. Along with this conception of him may go likewise what I personally feel, that there was a religious and a moral element in his nature which awaits the future for its full development.” Among the special chapters are two in which early essays are reprinted and others devoted to: Thoreau as friend, neighbor, and citizen; Thoreau as man of letters and of affairs; Thoreau as author in prose and verse. A catalog of Thoreau’s library is given in one of the appendixes.
“The extent of Mr Sanborn’s personal knowledge of Thoreau, his command of the resources of information about him, his possession of manuscripts and other records, placed ready at his hand a large amount of material for the making of a notable biography. But unfortunately Mr Sanborn possessed none of the skill of the biographer that would enable him to tell a well-ordered and coherent story of the progress of a man’s life. ... The result is, therefore, an excellent Thoreau biography in substance but not in form.” E. F. E.
“Sanborn had the gift that novelists envy, of presenting his hero living and real before the mind’s eye of his reader without blurring the figure by over-emphasis.”
“The volume is not well arranged and coherent, however, and the author’s style is stilted even in his lapses into familiar anecdote.”
“A feature of the book too important to be ignored is the illustrations, mostly reproductions of old family pictures, which to those who can interpret them are far better than pages of letterpress in giving an idea of the Thoreaus and their kin.” W: B. Cairns
“No one else could have done the work in just the easy, familiar, and reminiscent manner that marks it, and that gives it a peculiar value.”
“As compared with earlier memoirs—with Salt’s ‘Life’ of Thoreau, with Channing’s ‘Thoreau, the poet naturalist,’ and even with Mr Sanborn’s first biography of Thoreau, published in 1882—this new ‘Life’ by the late Frank B. Sanborn justifies itself as a needed and definitive work. So thorough has been the search for records and manuscripts that it is unlikely that there will ever be further discoveries of importance. It is a little to be regretted, perhaps, that the ‘life’ as a whole is not more consecutively interesting; yet the materials contained in it, if presented rather dryly and with many digressions, are handled with skill and uniform good taste.”
“Mr Sanborn’s posthumous contribution to the world’s knowledge of his friend will probably furnish his own surest claim to remembrance in the future. It will certainly be indispensable to the student and lover of the rarely individual man of genius whom it seeks to portray.”
“Sanborn’s ‘Life’ is less satisfactory than Henry Salt’s, which has the virtue of proportion, emphasis, focus, definite purpose; is less satisfactory, in some respects, than the earlier book by Sanborn. Yet it is far from superfluous. Of little use to one who does not know Thoreau, it is a treasury of Thoreauisms to those who already know him well.” Norman Foerster
SANBORN, HELEN JOSEPHINE.Anne of Brittany. il*$2 Lothrop 17-25141
“A book which tells the life story of a duchess of Brittany who was twice crowned queen of France. Miss Sanborn, whose untimely death occurred while the book was in press, devoted much of her later life in securing knowledge of Anne of Brittany and her times. The introduction is by Professor Katherine Lee Bates, of Wellesley college. Twenty-seven full-page illustrations show us the Duchess Anne’s country and her famous castles.”—R of Rs
“The reader has a sense of personal intercourse, a quality as rare as it is uncommon in biography, and one whose appeal is irresistible.” F. B.
“The descriptions of her gowns, jewels, and the quaint ceremonies and festivals of court and castle are very interesting, but it is the woman herself who absorbs the reader.”
“Many illuminating glimpses of the age and the country are given in the course of the narrative.”
SANDAY, WILLIAM, and WILLIAMS, NORMAN POWELL.Form and content in the Christian tradition.*$2 Longmans 230 17-14538
“‘Form and content in the Christian tradition’ is ‘a friendly discussion’ between W. Sanday, Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Oxford, and N. P. Williams, chaplain-fellow of Exeter college, Oxford. ... Both men write as members of the Church of England. This will lessen the appeal of the book to many American Protestants, for the reason that the Protestant sects do not accept the ecclesiastical tradition which has developed along with what may be called the religious tradition. Their Christianity is derived from the Bible, not from the church. But on the theological side Mr Williams, who states the traditional view, will have many supporters in the Protestant sects; as, on the other hand, will Dr Sanday, who stands for the liberal interpretation of scripture which has been growing in favor in the past half century.”—Springf’d Republican
Reviewed by E. A. Cook
“It is impossible, however, for an Anglican to defend the infallibility of a church which rests solely on the insecure foundation of private judgment or opinion. We can pardon Mr Williams his fling at ultramontanism and the inquisition in view of his strong though courteous indictment of modernism or rationalism in the Church of England of our day.”
“This will be a most interesting book not only to the student of theology, but to the student of human nature. ... The usefulness does not seem to us to lie in any results arrived at, but in the statement and restatement by each side of their principles; and hardly less in the exhibition of the temper of mind which accompanies those principles respectively.”
SANTAYANA, GEORGE.Egotism in German philosophy.*$1.50 Scribner 193
For descriptive note see Annual for 1916.
“The passages just transcribed and the other passages cited hardly do justice to the brilliancy, the incisiveness, and the cruelty of this remarkable book. ... The work is really too sketchy and too abstract and its tone too biting and passionate to carry the conviction that is due the truths it expresses. ... It should be supplemented with John Dewey’s ‘German philosophy and the war.’ The two together will give a fairly adequate idea of the influence of philosophic thinking on the motives and institutions of men.” H. M. Kallen
“Very suggestive but somewhat irritating book.” A. Fawkes
“The author would have been wiser, if he had depicted the supposed English or French characteristics discovered in German philosophy as well as the supposed German characteristics discoverable in English or French philosophy, as it is really possible to do. ... Sometimes he is virtually passing judgment on non-German philosophy no less or even more severely than on German philosophy. ... For the qualities responsible for the condemnation are common to both, or are outweighing in non-German philosophy.” Kojoro Sugimori
“The argument is obscure, and scarcely convincing. Mr Santayana’s characterization of the German national genius is witty, apt, and irresistibly quotable. In the judgment of the present writer it is substantially true; as true, perhaps, as any such sweeping generalization can hope to be. Nevertheless, there are omissionsand exaggerations in the account that are so obvious as to suggest caricature rather than criticism.” R. B. Perry
“Dr Santayana has long enjoyed the distinction of being the Shaw of the philosophers, supremely skilful as an artificer of phrases and diabolically clever. In this book he surpasses himself. It is fairly dazzling. ... It is true that the author continually yields to the besetting sin of the clever writer in sacrificing accuracy on the altar of wit. ... The reader should study the sketches in the same spirit in which he would examine a volume of sketches by a clever cartoonist. If he reads the book in this fashion, not taking it too seriously, he will be highly entertained, if sometimes irritated. Questions of accuracy, of fidelity, are irrelevant. ... As a discussion of German philosophy, this book must not be taken seriously.”
“The philosophical views of Prof. G. Santayana need to be taken into account in considering his new book. For the work, besides being a trenchant attack on German thought, must be regarded to some extent a polemic in behalf of a particular point of view. Prof. Santayana, like the man in the street, distrusts metaphysical idealism.”
SAPPER, pseud.No Man’s Land. il*$1.25 (1½c) Doran 17-23333
This book is by the author of “Michael Cassidy, sergeant” and “Men, women and guns.” Part 1, “The way to the land,” describes the experiences of an officer bound for the front; Part 2 “The land,” and Part 3 “Seed time,” are made up of seventeen stories and sketches telling us how the men in the trenches live, fight and die; in Part 4, “Harvest,” the author tells how British militarism has taught men the valuable lessons “of playing for the side and unselfishness,” but adds that “there must be some other method of teaching the lessons.” Some of the stories are grave, others gay. “Seed time,” the longest story in the book, describes the evolution of Reginald Simpkins, shopwalker, into an expert sniper. “‘The man trap’ relates how a too ingenious subaltern adapted a disused dug-out as a trap for over-curious Germans and caught in it his own general and colonel. ... ‘Bendigo Jones—his tree’ is a whimsical extravaganza on a post-impressionist sculptor, who, not having been exempted through the united efforts of his misguided friends, finds himself in the trenches.” (Spec)
“Told with restraint and standing out from the average war fiction for their exceptional literary quality.”
“It is grim, coarse, sentimental, beautiful, gay, solemn and trifling by turns, but, as a whole, undeniably convincing. ... You are half through the middle chapters before you realize how steadily all that has seemed careless and overdone is carrying on toward an overwhelming sense of the kind of soldier who is doing the fighting and paying the price. ‘No man’s land’ is a strange, ill-written, confused and vivid book, pulled out of the frightful turmoil of the present. It is not art, but material for art.”
“‘Sapper’ prefers to present what he knows in the guise of fiction, and yet he often seems to come nearer to the truth than the precise reporter with his field-glasses and his notebook. ... As in most war fiction, humour predominates. The soldiers do not treat the war as a joke, but they are incurably light-hearted, and their laughter helps them to face things too deep for tears. ‘Sapper’ as a jester is typical of a very large class of soldier-authors, but his literary quality is exceptional.”
“Will add to the reputation that ‘Sapper’ has already made for himself as a writer of war sketches. ... Unlike Mr Wells, who regards war as an affair primarily of the scientific management of aeroplanes and tanks, ‘Sapper’ teaches that it is upon the craving of the fighting man to kill, no matter what the cost to himself, that the issue depends; and where Mr Wells detects no bright spots but spurs in the officer of the old school, he sees the supreme quality—the power to persuade others to follow him willingly to this killing. ... Without glossing over the horrible, ‘Sapper’ employs the restraint which makes the imagination of the reader its ally. ... His English is crisp without being loose.”
SARGENT, PORTER EDWARD.Handbook of American private schools; an annual publication. (Sargent’s handbook ser.) 3d ed il $2.50 P. E. Sargent, 50 Congress st., Boston 373
“The principal subjects considered are: Boys’ schools (arranged according to geographical position), military schools, girls’ schools, coeducational schools, schools and conservatories of music, schools of art, kindergarten training schools, schools of physical education, schools of expression and dramatic art, schools of the household arts, schools for the deficient, private schools of Canada, boys’ summer camps, girls’ summer camps. The editor supplies a bibliography of works in which principles are discussed. He also adds a list of newspapers and periodicals which treat more or less directly of educational subjects.”—Springf’d Republican
“The 1917 edition shows numerous traces of editorial revision, and, considering the inevitable limitations of such a handbook, will be found full of well-classified information. ... While it is impossible that all the information should be critical, the book is workmanlike in all respects and shows a praiseworthy degree of editorial ability.”
SARKAR, BENOY KUMAR, and RAKSHIT, HEMENDRA KISHOR.Folk-element in Hindu culture.*$5 Longmans 294 17-17531
Professor Sarkar’s “contribution to socio-religious studies in Hindu folk-institutions” “is based on a study of some of the folk-arts, folk-traditions, folk-songs, and folk-festivals of Bengal, and is mainly concerned with the relations between Shaiva-cum-Shâktaism and Buddhism, descriptive and historical, among the Bengali-speaking population of eastern India. Several chapters deal with the Gambhîrâ, Gâjan, and Sâhiyâtrâ festivities; others treat of diverse topics, such as physical austerities practised by the people, folk-dances in religious festivals, the socio-religious life of the people of Bengal under the Pâlas, the tantric lore of mediæval Buddhism, and Islam in popular Hinduism. The author arrives at some interesting conclusions, of which two of the most important are that ‘the masses and the folk have contributed to the making of Hindu culture in all its phases no less than the court and the classes,’ and that the caste-system ‘has never been a disintegrating factor in Hindu communal existence, and is most probably a very recent institution.’” (Ath) The author states that this work is to a certain extent complementary to his “Positive background of Hindu sociology.”
“It is a book for the specialist, and for him has unique value.”
“Some inductions are questionable, but the work is to be commended if only for the mass of first-hand material here collected.”
“This is a very interesting and valuable book, being, so far as we know, the first detailed and accurate description in English of one of the many and varied rural festivities in which ‘gods’ days,’ as it were, take the place in Bengal of saints’ days in rustic Europe. Mr Sarkar treats exhaustively and with much enthusiasm and humour, of the religious festivities known in different parts of Bengal as the Gamphīrā, the Gājan, or the Sāhi-yātrā; ceremonial.”
“The scheme indicated in the title is too pretentious; the materials which give the book its value are not skilfully presented; and, as regards the religious songs, only an artist like Rabindranath Tagore could preserve the poetical fervour of the originals. At the same time it possesses some merits which make it a useful contribution to the study of popular religion in India, and it is provided with good indexes of subjects, names and references. It owes much of its value to a collection of notes contributed by Mr Haridas Palit. It would have been well if this information had been more largely used.”
SAROLEA, CHARLES.French renascence, il*$2 Pott (*5s Unwin & Allen, London) 844 17-12613
“In an introduction flaming with love of liberty and love of France, Dr Sarolea outlines the story ... of the awakening of France, in 1914. ... It is of some of the lives, which woven into the fabric of the nation have become inseparable from it, of whom Dr Sarolea writes in these brief essays. ... The studies he presents are of Montaigne, between whom and Nietzsche the author points a most interesting analogy; Pascal, with whom Cardinal Newman is contrasted—‘the two greatest names perhaps in the religious literature of the modern world’; Madame de Maintenon, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans; ... Rousseau; Marie Antoinette, ‘before the revolution’; Mirabeau, Robespierre, Napoleon—the ‘real Napoleon’ and ‘Napoleon the socialist’; Balzac, Flaubert, Maeterlinck, Bergson and Poincaré.” Boston Transcript
“An agreeable but insubstantial collection of occasional articles and book reviews. ... Dr Sarolea writes a clear and fluent, though quite undistinguished style, but it seems a pity that he should permit himself such oddities as ‘impunately’ and ‘presigeotus.’ ... One is grateful for the plain speech concerning the ‘Germanomania’ of the years before the war. ‘Even estimable mediocrities like Eucken were proclaimed original thinkers’ is a specimen.”
“These essays are exceedingly interesting and marked by genuine critical appreciation and discrimination. There is, for instance, matter of real novelty and value presented in the chapter on the private life of Napoleon I and in the one on Napoleon as a socialist.”
“Decidedly anti-German in tone.” M. J.
“It seems a pity that Dr Sarolea, who wrote an excellent book on the Anglo-German problem, should have chosen to praise France in a volume which has rather a cheap air of paradox.”
SASTRI, K. S. RAMASWAMI.Sir Rabindranath Tagore: his life, personality, and genius. $2.50 Brentano’s (Ganesh & co., Madras, India)
“A comprehensive biography of Rabindranath Tagore by a fellow countryman gives a more complete interpretation of his genius than it is perhaps possible for an English critic or biographer to undertake. Mr Sastri writes of Tagore’s artistic and spiritual ancestry, and of his share in the new Indian renaissance now going on, and observes that if the European renaissance was the release of the human spirit per se, that of India is the liberation of the human spirit that is in harmony with the divine, and that the genius of the great Bengali poet focalizes the gathering of the forces that will give new birth to liberty.”—R of Rs
“In spite of its flowery style, its endless repetition and triple padding of quotation, his book forms a real addition to our knowledge of Tagore and the mental life of India.”
“Without offense to the spirit and the labors of Mr Ernest Rhys, who has written an admirable life of the Hindu poet, Mr Sastri’s work is in several respects a more satisfying exposition of the genius of Tagore and will be of great assistance to the student of his teachings.”
“The enthusiasm of the Madrasi author for the work and teaching of the national poet of Bengal is manifest on every page. ... But the value of the study is marred by diffuseness and frequent repetition. Quotations, relevant and irrelevant, abound, and are often taken from obscure writers.”
SATOW, SIR ERNEST MASON.Guide to diplomatic practice. 2v*$9 Longmans 341.7 (Eng ed 17-14175)
This is the first of a series of Contributions to international law and diplomacy. L. Oppenheim, the general editor, says that the work is unique “with regard to the method of treatment of the subject, as well as the selection of the topics discussed and in the amount of original research which it embodies.” The book is meant to be of service alike to the international lawyer, the diplomatist and the student of history. “For this reason not only the legal side of diplomacy, but also its practical side had constantly to be kept in view, an outline of all the important congresses and conferences had to be included, and the different kinds of international compacts had to be treated in some detail.” Volume 1 consists of two parts, dealing with Diplomacy in general and Diplomatic agents. Volume 2 treats of International meetings and transactions, including chapters on Mediation and Arbitration. Lists of references are given in appendixes.
“A scholarly and exhaustive treatment.”
“It contains chapters which no serious student of international law can afford to neglect. These volumes are marred by many misprints.” L. B. Evans
“There are numerous guidesdiplomatiquesand treatises on diplomatic law and practice in other languages but aside from Foster’s ‘Practice of diplomacy’ there is no other work in English which may be compared with this, either in its scope or purpose. It is packed with documentary and other illustrative material: specimen copies of letters of credence, full powers, instructions, extracts from notes, quotations from diplomatic manuals, etc., most of which are printed in the original language in which they were written, this on the principle that the attempt to translate them into English would in many cases impair their value.” J. W. Garner
“These volumes, filled as they are with information upon subjects in reference to which there is a considerable amount of popular misconception, will not only be very valuable for reference, but also of interest to the general reader.”
“A highly opportune, as well as in many respects remarkably interesting survey. ... The second volume is even more full of interest than the first; but it takes the historicalreader over what is likely to be to him more familiar ground, a large portion of which has already been mapped out by previous writers and editors. I do not know why Sir Ernest Satow has not given a fuller list of collections of treaties, from the standard volumes of Koch and Schoell to the useful selection recently put together by Mr R. B. Mowat.” A. W. Ward