Chapter 108

20–8295

“A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativity.” (Sub-title) Dr Slosson, literary editor of the Independent, has attempted a simple explanation of the Einstein theories, making use of “such crude and absurd analogies as trains and elevators and projectiles flying through space and Coney island mirrors.” A paper by Dr Einstein on Time, space, and gravitation is reprinted from the London Times, and there is a bibliography of eight pages and an index. Parts of the book have appeared in the Independent.

“He is to be congratulated on the enthusiasm he has brought to what must have been a difficult and fatiguing performance.”

“The main points of the Einstein theory and the experiments leading to it are explained in an interesting, informal way so that those not trained in mathematical physics can grasp them.”

“Slosson’s ‘Easy lessons in Einstein’ is a good attempt written in an easy style far above the breezy smartness of the Sunday supplements; it is trustworthy and throughout entertaining, if not always instructive. There is perhaps too much about the fourth dimension and somewhat too much striving ‘to loosen up,’ as he puts it, ‘our conventional ideas of the fixity of time and space.’” R: F. Deimel

“A book with which the absolute layman may amuse himself for a few hours.”

“If the reader will take the time to read this little book only as fast as he can really understand it—say a few pages at a time, with intervals of a day or more to let the ideas soak in, or to think them over—he will find this both stimulating and informing.” B. C. G.

SMALLWOOD, WILLIAM MARTIN, and others.Biology for high schools, il *$1.40 Allyn 570

20–17589

“Specifically the book aims to do six things: (1) To teach the pupil to see accurately what he looks at and describe exactly what he sees. (2) To teach him to think clearly and to base his conclusions upon his facts. (3) To broaden his knowledge of his own body through the study of the structure and functions of other animals and plants. (4) To show him by the adaptations of plants and animals how he can adapt himself to the varying conditions of life. (5) To make him a good citizen through his knowledge of good food, good health and good living conditions. (6) To teach him how biology has helped human progress and welfare.” (Preface) The contents are in four parts: Animal biology; Plant biology; Human biology; General biology. There are numerous illustrations and an index.

SMITH, CHARLES HENRY.[2]Mennonites. $2.25 Mennonite bk. concern, Berne, Ind.

289.7

“The volume falls into two parts: the Mennonites in Europe, and in America. Beginning with the Anabaptists in Switzerland, and the indigenous movements of a similar character in Germany and the Netherlands, and their unjust and unwarranted identification by the authorities with the tragedy at Münster, the book leads to the systematizing of Anabaptist views by the Dutch ex-priest, Menno Simons, after whom the religion is named. The early scattered congregations in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Cleves-Julich, East and West Prussia, East Friesland, Hamburg, Holstein, Bavaria, Württemberg, Alsace-Lorraine and France, Moravia and Galicia, and their leaders all find their place. The story is one of martyrdom, division, confiscation, dispersion, but of abounding willingness to die for faith. The source for much of this is Thielman von Bracht’s ‘Martyr’s mirror,’ one of the monuments of Mennonite literature. The section devoted to the Mennonites in America is a reworking of Dr Smith’s earlier treatise on the ‘Mennonites in America.’ The final chapters of Dr Smith’s study are given over to special topics.”—Am Hist R

“Dr Smith is to be complimented on the patience and skill which has enabled him to produce what is undoubtedly the most authoritative work on the Mennonites in our language. His impartiality in dealing with the present-day rival branches of the sect is also worthy of commendation.” E: Krehbiel

SMITH, CHARLTON LYMAN.Gus Harvey, the boy skipper of Cape Ann. il *$1.65 (6c) Jones, Marshall

20–14706

A story for boys. Gus Harvey is a New York boy adopted by the captain of a fishing vessel from Gloucester. In spite of his New York bringing up Gus is familiar with boats and he readily adapts himself to the life of Cape Ann, his new home. He wins a yacht race, learns to build a boat and with his chum salvages a wreck and captures a band of burglars. There is a glossary of marine terms.

“Only for the boy who understands sailing and nautical terms. Nicely printed and illustrated.”

“The story has the quality of an old skipper’s talk.” A. C. Moore

SMITH, CORINNA HAVEN (PUTNAM) (MRS JOSEPH LINDON SMITH), and HILL, CAROLINE R. (MRS WILLIAM HILL).Rising above the ruins in France. il *$3.50 Putnam 914.4

20–13141

“Observations in the devastated regions of France, made since the armistice, by two American women who have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the work for ‘the children of the frontier.’ By the use of pen and camera these women undertake to show us in America something of the destruction that the north of France has undergone and something of the brave spirit with which the population has sought to rebuild its devastated homes.”—R of Rs

“The authors’ pictures of the re-awakening of life are simply and impressively sketched.”

“When they speak of conditions actually witnessed they speak with the natural authority of sincerity and lucidity. The book takes a particular value from the large number of photographs with which it is enriched.”

“There is little of deliberate description, there are few adjectives, no one incident or visualization is dwelt on long. But the book is a glimpse of life and indomitable achievement—and that is an epic thing.”

“It is no small praise of the narrative to say that, while by no means purely descriptive, it matches the pictures in striking or appealing presentation of fact.”

“This incessant use of the historical present time gives their style an air of pretentious artifice; their frequent use of direct discourse gives it an air of fiction. So, except for the pictures and the appendix, they have succeeded in producing only an effect of make-believe in confusion.”

“It would be misleading to say that this record of wonderful accomplishment is interesting throughout. Literary interest can hardly be achieved unless the principle of progression and climax be adhered to. Mrs Haven Smith, gives us a good many of those human touches which one always looks for in such a book.”

SMITH, DAVID.Life and letters of St Paul. *$6 Doran 220.92

20–9032

“The author’s point of view in this book is well expressed in the preface: ‘Controversy is a foolish and futile employment; and I have endeavored to portray St Paul simply as I have perceived him during long years of loving and delightful study of the sacred memorials of his life and labor, mentioning the views of others only as they served to illustrate and confirm my own. And I would fain hope that I have written nothing discourteous, nothing hurtful.’ One of the most attractive parts of this volume is the translation of the epistles into modern English. The text is accompanied by a running exposition which takes note of the thought and purpose of these rich writings, and sets them in their historical context in a way that the average mind can understand. On the other hand, the scholar will find a great deal of suggestion from the extensive footnotes, which discuss the deeper questions of Biblical learning on subjects that are not always familiar even to the general run of scholars.”—Bookm

“The warmth of its style is likely to make it more acceptable as an aid to devotion than as a contribution to historical research.”

“This detailed, voluminous, and interesting life of Paul is by the author of ‘In the days of his flesh,’ and bears all the marks of unwearied scholarship, sympathetic interpretation, and exegetical insight that we have learned to associate with the name of Dr Smith.”

“Dr Smith has produced a work of genuine literature. He has a lucid style, a finely poised imagination, deep historical insight, a rich understanding of religious values, and a full grasp of the profoundest scholarship. He has thus written a volume that unquestionably takes rank with the great biographies of recent times. There is not a dull page.” O. L. Joseph

“This book is disappointing. The notes indicate that the author possesses minute scholarship, but the text does not indicate that he possesses spiritual insight.”

“It is designed for the general reader rather than for the scholar, and throughout it maintains an allusiveness to general literature and history which will make it specially attractive to a wide circle of readers.”

SMITH, GEORGE GREGORY.Ben Jonson. *$1.25 Macmillan

20–4866

“After many years Ben Jonson has been admitted to the sacred circle of English men of letters, that series of little critical biographies now numbering more than sixty names. In Mr Smith’s belated biography we have in his two opening chapters a recital of about all that is known of the circumstances of Jonson’s life, the rest of the book being given to a study of his literary work, with chapters on ‘literary conscience,’ the comedies, masques, tragedies and poems, and a final survey of his influence.”—Boston Transcript

“Mr Smith, in his entirely laudable anxiety to write unlike Swinburne, has written the greater part of his book with too much caution. The biography is all crowded into the first fifty pages and the remaining two hundred and fifty are left wholly free for criticism: the easiest arrangement, perhaps, but in this case not the best. It is only in the last two chapters, those on Jonson’s literary criticism and influence, that Professor Smith, himself an authority on sixteenth and seventeenth century poetical theory, comes into his own and does his author the fullest justice.” Mark Van Doren

“The new ‘Ben Jonson’ is generously written, but Mr Gregory Smith has kept Ben’s secret. It was, of course, impossible to quote much in the limits of space set by the conditions of the series; the more’s the pity that it came out in a series at all. The book is too big for it; it is so rich a harvest that one could wish the master of it had pulled down his barns and built greater; cancelled his contract, and made ‘Ben Jonson’ his magnum opus.”

“Mr Smith is constantly on the defensive; he is often arrogant and peevish in his attitude towards other critics. Under his handling Jonson becomes not only dull but a source of dullness in other men, to wit in Mr Smith himself.” S. C. C.

“Professor Smith has done full justice to Ben’s robust character without minimizing [his] grave faults. His plays are analysed with much ability, and their peculiar qualities are admirably explained and illustrated with reference to the theory upon which they were constructed. Insight and accuracy are the chief essentials in a short account of Ben Jonson, and Professor Smith possesses both.”

“For the critical study in the Men of letters series which Mr Gregory Smith has just produced there is a place; it satisfies curiosity, it supplies many just observations, it provides valuable matter on the neglected masques; it only fails to remodel the image of Jonson which is settled in our minds.”

SMITH, GORDON ARTHUR.Pagan. *$1.75 Scribner

20–5580

“This is a collection of twelve short stories. In ‘The pagan,’ from which the book takes its title, there are three outstanding characters: Ferdinand Taillandy, son of Maxime Taillandy, a wealthy Parisian; his sister Marthe, and Peter Mason, a young American lawyer whose firm practiced on both sides of the Atlantic. In the ‘Feet of gold’ and ‘The end of the road’ the author draws further entertaining pictures of the same Ferdinand Taillandy—‘poet, pagan and wanderer on the face of the earth.’ The ‘City of light’ and ‘The bottom of the cup’ are pathetic tales of two young sisters, daughters of a widow of Evremont-sur-Seine, who, dazzled by the attractions of Paris, leaves home, only to return broken and disillusioned. ‘Tropic madness’ is decidedly humorous.”—N Y Times

SMITH, HENRY LOUIS.[2]Your biggest job, school or business. *$1 Appleton 174

20–21351

These heart-to-heart talks with boys contain “Some words of counsel for red-blooded young Americans who are getting tired of school.” (Sub-title) The author’s object is to give the boy the necessary incentive to develop the will-power that will enable him to go thru with an irksome task for the sake of his future. The essays are: The American freight train; Quitting school for business; Grindstones: A study in tool-sharpening; A neglected art; The key to success in study; A widespread fallacy disproved; On getting rich; The cash value of book-learning; First lesson of the world war: Value of morale; A square deal for the home folks; College and university training; The home half of college preparation.

SMITH, HERBERT ARTHUR.[2]American Supreme court as an international tribunal. *$3.50 Oxford 341.6

20–16853

“This small volume essays to draw an analogy between the Supreme court of the United States, when sitting as a tribunal to try cases involving sovereign states, and any international court that may hereafter be established for such purpose. The author reviews the various cases before the Supreme court in which one or both of the litigants have been states of the union, stressing those cases in which the jurisdiction of the court has been challenged, either successfully or otherwise.”—N Y Evening Post

“Professor Herbert Smith has compiled a very useful book, deserving close study at the present time.”

SMITH, JUSTIN HARVEY.War with Mexico. 2v *$10 Macmillan 973.6

19–19605

“This exhaustive historical work may be regarded—although the author does not so claim—as a sequel to his previous work, ‘The annexation of Texas.’ Professor Smith devotes two opening chapters to the consideration of the social, economic and political condition of Mexico and the Mexicans, both before and since the revolt from Spanish rule, which made it an independent state under the rule of Iturbide. Next are considered the relations between Mexico and the United States prior to the beginning of the war and the attitude of both powers on the eve of war. The second volume is devoted chiefly to a description of the war itself, the siege of Chapultepec, the capture of the capital city, the naval operations and the final victory and the signing of a treaty. Professor Smith has sought his material for this exhaustive history in public documents and records of the two governments, in collections of historical societies, and public and private libraries, in manuscripts public and private ... and in personal recollections of men still living, who took part in the conflict.”—Boston Transcript

“The reviewer is disappointed, because it seems to him that Dr Smith has not accomplished once for all the results that his immense labor and impressive grasp of the subject would have enabled him to do had he written with more regard to the necessary limitations of his readers. It would be a grievous error, however, to infer that he has not produced a notable book. One may not always agree with the author, but very few will be rash enough to neglect him.” E. C. Barker

“This book must be regarded as the definitive work on this important episode in the history of the expansion of our country.” E. J. C.

“A thoroughgoing and accurate narrative.”

“Elaborate, but not very plausible.”

“The many engagements before final victory are described with a particularity which proves the author to have acquired a general understanding of military matters, with an appreciative grasp of the technique of the battlefield that make his narrative markedly convincing.”

“Professor Smith has labored with a keen eye for the human and picturesque qualities in his material. At the same time this is fundamentally the work of a painstaking scholar.”

“Mr Smith has made a thorough examination of the available material, and has built it into a monumental work which supersedes all previous histories of the subject. His treatment of the military part is admirable. His book is fully documented, and in every way a credit to the American school of history.”

“The public is deeply indebted to Prof. Smith, who after years of patient delving in the vaults of historical societies, in local archives, in private collections, etc., has produced a scholarly and well thought-out history.”

“The episodes are sufficiently distant to have enabled the passions and excitements to grow cold and for their comparative importance to be weighed and allocated in a just position in the history of the construction of the United States. The materials are adequate, even abundant, and the author with commendable industry has fortified his narrative with a wealth of corroborative annotation, and a formidable bibliography of his subject. He has, moreover, compiled a really useful index.”

SMITH, LAURA ROUNTREE.Like-to-do stories. il 55c Beckley-Cardy co.

A book of stories for boys and girls who are just beginning to read for themselves. Each story has its moral, as some of the titles will show: The little girl who liked to wash dishes; The little boy who liked to bring in wood and water; The little girl who couldn’t tell time; The little boy who was afraid of the dark; The little boy who liked to hang up his coat and hat; The little girl who did a kindness every-day.

SMITH, LEWIS WORTHINGTON, and HATHAWAY, ESSE VIRGINIA.[2]Skyline in English literature. il *$2 Appleton 820.9

20–20033

The object of the book is to present the story of English literature in continuity by eliminating minor details and minor writers and keeping the attention on the skyline. The authors hold that territorial expansion and intellectual expansion go together and that while English-speaking peoples hold the forefront of the world their literature is the greatest in the world. The book is intended for high school use and its contents are: The English language and the English people; The Anglo-Saxon beginning; The Norman-French expansion; The Englishman’s house in order; The Greco-Italian expansion; The world expansion; Spiritual and social idealism: the overthrowing of masters; Spiritual decadence: the return of the masters; The intellectual expansion; the age of enlightenment; The spiritual expansion; idealism and the rebirth of song; The beauty and fullness of life; The industrial expansion; artists, workers, thinkers; Recent and contemporary writers. There is a list of literary places in England with map; a chronology, a glossary, an index and illustrations.

SMITH, LOGAN PEARSALL, ed. Treasury of English prose. *$1.75 (3c) Houghton 820.8

20–5686

This collection of extracts from English prose begins with Chaucer in the fourteenth century. From the sixteenth century there are extracts from the “Book of common prayer,” from Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare. Beginning in the seventeenth century with quotations from authorized versions of the Bible, there are, moreover, such names as Izaak Walton, Sir Thomas Browne, John Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and on through the eighteenth century, Swift, Addison, Johnson, Burke and Gibbon. Some of the more modern writers presented are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, Emerson, Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and George Santayana.

“Not absolutely representative but includes some charming and little-known prose gems by several famous poets.”

“Mr Smith has let his ear preside at every choosing, so that his volume is as rigorously cadenced as a collection of sonnets would be. Here with some omissions is the most perfect music which English prose has made.”

“What Mr Pearsall Smith holds to be good prose is to us only a kind of good prose; the kind that is alembicated and, as we say, poetical. It is the prose of conceit, imagery, and eloquence which stands over against the prose of narration, argument, or satire. So that it would strike even one who had no critical opinion of English prose and very little reading in it as somewhat strange that there is not one single piece of narrative in all this book.”

“The contents are charmingly arranged and delightfully savory and brief.”

“His treasury is a book of beauty, a book to keep at one’s bed’s head, a book to dip into, to travel with, to reread.” P. L.

“The anthology as it stands is now anything but representative.... The selections from the Bible are entirely admirable. The passages from Jeremy Taylor and Dr Donne are excellently chosen, and Mr Pearsall Smith is to be congratulated upon his phrase from Traherne and upon having recollected that Chaucer was not only the first English poet. Indeed, much of the prose written by poets in this book will delight and surprise most of Mr Pearsall Smith’s readers.”

SMITH, MABELL SHIPPIE (CLARKE) (MRS JAMES RAVENEL SMITH).[2]Maid of Orleans. *$1.25 Crowell

19–15636

“M. S. C. Smith has published a new volume of the old story of ‘The maid of Orleans,’ written particularly for girls, but by no means confined to such a constituency. To the length of nearly 300 pages the author relates the story of the girl and the voices that guided her in her efforts to free France from a foreign foe and set her rightful sovereign upon the throne.”—Springf’d Republican

“A commendable piece of work.”

SMITH, NORA ARCHIBALD.Christmas child, and other verse for children. il *$1.75 Houghton 811

20–19659

Verses for children reprinted from the Ladies’ Home Journal, Outlook, Youth’s Companion and other periodicals, including school and educational journals. There are about twenty poems on Christmas themes followed by others, with such titles as The fairy ring; Everybody’s baby; The answer of the flag; Learning to knit; Easter blossoms; The doll’s calendar.

“Miss Smith has the gift of sprightly versification, and her experience as a kindergartner leads her to a knowledge of the theme and the treatment that will please boys and girls.”

SMITH, ONNIE WARREN.Casting tackle and methods. il *$3 (4½c) Stewart & Kidd 799

20–16779

Part 1, which is devoted to tackle, has chapters on The bait casting rod; The casting reel; Terminal tackle; Casting lures; Housing the tackle; Repair kits and methods. Part 2, on Methods, has nine chapters: A first lesson in casting; Landing tools and how to use them; Fishing a wadeable stream; Fishing a river from a boat; Shore casting; Casting after dark; Lake casting from a boat; Spoons and how to cast them; Trolling for bass. There are fourteen illustrations. The author is angling editor of Outdoor Life, in the pages of which the chapters of the book originally appeared. He is also author of “Trout lore.”

“A free and easy book full of authentic information given with the jocular assurance of the long-experienced angler.” Margaret Ashmun

“It is good reading; but it is meant primarily to be a guide to catching bass by casting, and such it excellently is. That it is well and heartily written is an added virtue.”

SMITH, WILLIAM WESLEY.Pork-production. il *$3 Macmillan 636.4

20–12385

This volume of the Rural science series has been prepared by an associate professor of animal husbandry in Purdue university. “The material in the book has been drawn from three sources: from practical experience; experimental studies, particularly of feeding questions; and the results of research in the field of chemistry and biology.” (Preface) Subjects covered include handling and feeding of the herd, size of litters, forage crops, cereals, corn substitutes, cost of producing pork, marketing, judging, breeds and breeding. A chapter on The prevention of hog diseases is contributed by R. A. Craig. The volume is illustrated with eight plates and is indexed.

SMYTH, ETHEL MARY.Impressions that remained. 2v il *$10.50 Longmans

20–3070

Miss Ethel Smyth is an English musician and composer. In this book of memories she writes of her childhood and girlhood in a typical Victorian household and of her musical life in Germany, more particularly in Leipsig where she went as a student in 1877. The story of her friendship with Elisabeth von Herzogenberg adds a dramatic element to the book.

“Relentlessly truthful about herself, she refuses to say anything that could hurt others who still live. Her autobiography ends almost before her artistic career began; but even so it is a wonderfully fascinating record of a fierce, passionate and courageous life, told from the point of view of a woman who has reached a plane of rare serenity and detachment.” E: J. Dent

“This book is a rich and irresistibly vivid panorama. The reader has the pleasure of it that he has of a portrait gallery whose subjects, interesting in themselves, are delineated with comprehension and an unerring instinct of reproduction.” Pitts Sanborn

“No one can fail to be drawn by the record of that vanished Germany. The psychologist will study these fascinating pages for data of the artistic temperament, its force, its egotism, its limitations, of which it is not itself aware. But no one who begins the book can lay it aside until he reaches the end.”

“Of the earlier part we can say little. Despite the fact that the author has a nice turn for observation, an easy style, and a good memory, we feel that much of the material is of too private a nature. It is when the author goes to Germany that the chief interest in the book begins.”

“She writes of herself for the most part as if she were writing of another person, with a detachment that is almost uncanny. And although music naturally plays a large part in the narrative, these memoirs can be read with the keenest interest by those to whom music is a sealed book.”

“This is one of the most remarkable books of memoirs that has appeared in recent times. The intensity of the private life which she discloses, with something of Rousseau’s sensitiveness yet with a mixture of lively humour quite beyond his capacity, carries the reader away from the very outset. Without the descent into the abyss of the second volume there would have been matter enough for admiration in these witty pages; but it is that descent which gives the book a power of appeal which raises it far above the merely amusing and interesting.”

SMYTHE, J. A.[2]Lead, including lead pigments and the desilverisation of lead. il $1 Pitman 669.4

The author of this booklet in the Pitman’s common commodities and industries series assumes very little knowledge of chemistry and physics on the part of the reader and tells the story of lead from the time the ore is dug from the earth to its finished products. Contents: History of lead; Lead ores: their method of occurrence and mineral associates; The finding and mining of lead ore and the preparation of the ore for smelting; The chemical changes involved in smelting; Smelting in the ore-hearth; Smelting in the reverberatory furnace; Smelting in the blast furnace; Condensation of lead fume; Softening and desilverisation of work lead; Cupellation of alloys of silver and lead; Properties and uses of lead and its alloys; Compounds of lead—litharge and red lead; White lead and other lead pigments; Lead in medicine and lead poisoning; Index, map and illustrations.

SNAITH, JOHN COLLIS.Adventurous lady. *$2 (2c) Appleton

20–15066

Lady Elfreda Catkin was something of an imperious young lady. Her parents, owing to Lord Carabbas’, the father’s, impecuniosity, had decided on a wealthy marriage for her with the newly rich, new nobility. Lady Elfreda had decided on frustrating their plans. On the spur of a moment opportunity offers for an exchange of rôles between her and a poor shy little nursery governess. After a true comedy of errors the hoax comes to light with the result that little Miss Cass marries Lord Duckingfield and the now thoroughly emancipated Elfreda marries George Norris, grandson of the former butler of her ladyship’s grandfather and of a former ladies’ maid.

“The adventures are very little adventures and dreadfully dull.” K. M.

“Gay, crisp comedy shot through with a thread of genial satire.”

“The adventures of Girlie Cass may not be morally significant to a universe in the throes of parturition, but they surely are jolly good fun, as Elfreda would say.”

“‘The adventurous lady’ is perhaps more nearly akin to the history of the delectable Araminta than to any other of Mr Snaith’s books—a social comedy, witty and amusing, light and sparkling as sunflecked foam. All this it is, and yet more—an admirable illustration of what a really good writer can do with a well-worn and somewhat trite plot.”

“The tale is mildly amusing, but it is a pity that the author of ‘The sailor’ should think it worth while to write such a trifling farce.”

Reviewed by Katharine Perry

“The story is obviously at variance with the class of work Mr Snaith has done heretofore. It is a sprightly tale, written to amuse.”

SNOWDEN, JAMES HENRY.Truth about Christian science; the founder and the faith. $2.40 Presbyterian bd. 289.5

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