which
prevents
the son of a small farmer
va- it
nessa had paid Swift visits.
va- it
nessa had paid Swift visits.
Athenaeum - London - 1912a
Dr.
came to naught. The cost of living masters and others, but there are no Montessori's original system we notice in
cannot be controlled in this way by any ruler's deposition was once coloured by
Bastilles in the history of education. A the next article.
But there is no need to analyze more
paternal despots. The whole process, the plea that he hath broken the social fully what can be read with pleasure by
deavouring to violate a great natural law. compact,” but “educands” seldom rise any one who takes a little trouble. We
If the poor, whether deserving or not, up against the tyranny of their elders, may mention an interesting discussion of
specific education, as in our English
if the idle, if the incompetent, are all to be crying, “ Pedagogues to the lantern! ”
made comfortable, it can only be at the
Having struck our blow against the in- public schools, where the aim is definitely
truder in the domain of philosophy, we
to produce a Christian gentleman, and
cost of the labour of the better citizen, and, admit that Prof. Adams does not fail to its relation to specialization, though
when this labour is so misemployed, it soon
special-
show in concrete cases the intimate relation between specific education and
begins to diminish, and national poverty of educational theory to other kinds of ization at long range. ”. the
distinction
necessarily supervenes. This was the great
seems to wear a little thin. These philo-
financial crisis from which the Roman speculation. Not forgetting the
which Kant committed, after himself sophic refinements do, in fact, become
Empire could not recover.
warning others against it, we do not depressing, and we weary of a world where
This is only one of the many topics expect an actual scheme of values to be only the rules of the game restrain us
which Mr. Abbott has handled with insight deduced from the voivaì ápxai of thought from knocking down the house of cards in
and care, making the life of the Roman But it is interesting to see how free-disgust. Even the distinction between
people, especially the common people, dom of the will is usually implied, education and life is in one aspect merely
live for us with great freshness. We
how original sin appears in the notion
a concession to utility. We feel that
seldom find anything in his clear and that it is easy to educate for evil, as though while we are capable of learning, educa-
lively exposition to criticize. But we
any one could be made a villain, and a tion is going on, and the educator and
will remind him that it is a mistranslation weakling could rise to high altitudes educand may be one.
This is the nega--
of Quintilian to make him say that of misbehaviour. Environment and con- tion of the pedagogic spirit. Goethe, as
satire was the only purely Roman form sciousness concern education, as well as
Prof. Adams says, had as little of that
of literature. . . Quintilian knew as well as being the battle-fields of philosophy, and spirit as falls to the lot of man,” though
Horace that the Greeks had written satire
we postulate progress, saying perhaps he used many of the ordinary relation-
from Archilochus down. What
Quin- with Kant that we should educate to a ships of life with a deliberate educa-
tilian did say was that the medley of prose standard a little in advance of actual tional bias. ” Here, at any rate, the
and verse
which the Romans called needs, so that the “educand ” shall not be criticism of categories seems to fail us.
(lanx) satura was a purely Roman form, left behind. Or the notion of heredity Education for once is only an ardent and
and that is true. In thinking the real steps in, and we invest with an eye to penetrating desire to be in the fullest
istic novel Roman, surely Mr. Abbott has compound interest, until the transmission relation to experience. Anything short
not taken proper account of Lucius of of acquired characteristics is questioned ; of this seems almost inevitably tainted
Patræ, who wrote the original form of The then we become only life-tenants of this with the notion quoted by Prof. Adams
Golden Ass' (of Lucian and Apuleius), world on a lease which has no clause from a Bishop of London, who said that,
probably in Nero's days, and probably giving compensation for unexhausted im- whatever else it might mean, education
also in Greek. Nor does he know that
provements.
always implied in the last resort inter-
now have evidence of Greek prose
novels of adventure besides the Romance analogies and comparisons and
There can hardly be a limit to the communication between an inferior and
a superior mind. We must always be
of Ninus. ' A papyrus brought from the nexions which diligence could trace. Prof. judging and valuing, but the distinction
Fayyum some years ago, and printed first Adams finds even “ categories
categories ” of edu- of benefactor and beneficiary is not so
by the Academy of the Lincei, Rome, then cation—polarity (which covers subject precise as that. We should, indeed, be
in a more accurate form by Prof. Smyly and object), the organon (which covers out of patience with the whole business,
(Hermathena No. xxvii. , 1901), is of about matter and form), others concerned with if there were not a potent reason for
veloped. In discussing the history of the artificial as against natural, and many be only the
old faculty psychology in a new
the same time, and shows the genre fully de- specific as against general education, keeping it within the bounds of human
Roman alphabet Mr. Abbott should have
considered that such a letter as Q, coming most valuable in its historical chapters.
dress
s; nevertheless, we can quiet our
from the koph in the old Greek alphabet. The author's narrative is clear and pene- consciences a little by the reflection that
was also being used in current Greek trating; behind the exposition a pleasant the desire to educate must be in some
accounts as the symbol for 90, and in a form humour is only half concealed, and a
way connected with parenthood. There
closely resembling our q. Indeed, the Greek power of crisp phrasing gives the necessary is the spur of an innate desire; so we take
signs for numbers would have given him relief. We learn that Humanism natur- the defenceless young, and work out our
light on many points. It is worth while to ally used childhood as a time for learning energy on that material. Even then we
make suggestions to so able and learned
must remember that the child may be
a writer, and one who has mastered his The Evolution of Educational Theory. By unable to escape, but it can pray with
authorities so well.
John Adams. (Macmillan & Co. ) some effect to be delivered from its friends.
*
we
con-
more.
## p. 645 (#483) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
645
THE ATHENÆUM
66
ance.
,
gogy as applied to Child Education
in tidy, little brooms sweep, dusters perform The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift,
D. D.
* The Children's Houses. ” By Maria children act, instead of seeing their
their duty: the great point is that the
Edited by F. Elrington Ball.
With an Introduction by the Right
Montessori
. With Additions and Re- elders acting on their behalf. There is
Rev. J. H. Bernard. Vol. III. (Bell
visions by the Author. Translated by practice in sitting, standing, moving
& Sons).
Anne E. George, with an Introduction about, taking up and setting down objects, DR. ELRINGTON BALL must be wearied of
by Prof. H. W. Holmes. (Heinemann. )
or passing them to one another. There
the monotonous chorus of eulogy which
The manner in which this volume is are conversations, the “ directress” inquir- greets each successive instalment of his
translated will, it is to be feared, some-ing about little failures and successes
monumental edition of Swift's Corre-
what retard that wide dissemination whether, for example, a child has managed spondence, and to please him we would
which is its due. Not that the version is to go upstairs without muddying the steps. willingly sing out of tune, if only he would
unfaithful ; its defect is that, in holding Exercises to develope co-ordinated move oblige us with a reasonable pretext. But
close to the Italian, it has not always got ments of the fingers. . . . prepare the chil- a careful examination of his third volume
so far as to be English. That, for instance, dren for the exercises of practical life, compels us to echo the note we have
which Miss George calls“ didactic ma- such as dressing and undressing them- twice sounded before. His editing, mas-
terial” is known to British teachers as selves. " The apparatus for this purpose terly from the first, only gains in its sure
“educational apparatus. " Pedagogic,” consists of wooden frames, each mounted and easy command of the immense store
again, is, in these islands, a word which with two pieces of cloth, or leather, to be of biographical and historical materials
has a highly specialized usage ; in her fastened or unfastened by means of the which he has collected from all available
pages, however, it appears with great buttons and buttonholes, hooks and sources, and his notes form an encyclo-
frequency, and in two cases out of three eyes, eyelets and lacings, or automatic pædia of accurate information on all
the correct equivalent would be “educa- fasteners. ” Graduated cubes, cylinders, persons and subjects connected with the
tional. ”
&c. , all so arranged that the child tests letters. It would need a microscopic eye
The book itself is of pregnant signific- its own achievement, lead the fingers, the to detect even trivial slips.
It brings into the most vital of eye, and the mind to distinguish size and
The present volume includes, from a
human callings a new and a truer vision : weight. The children learn to sort into literary point of view, the most brilliant
Dr. Maria Montessori entered upon the gradations cards wound with coloured period of Swift's correspondence. The
education of children with the training, silk; and to touch and recognize surfaces letters range from the beginning of 1718
not of a teacher, but of a physician; she and shapes. All these processes are in
came to the schoolroom from another the nature of games ; the aim of the years Swift was writing the Drapier's
province, and saw it as a traveller sees a teacher is to interfere as little as possible Letters' and `Gulliver's Travels,' and
foreign country. Her first pupils were and to speak no unnecessary word. Her had not yet given up visiting his friends
defective children, and instead of making function is to give pupils the names as they in London. His chief correspondents
need them ; but to avoid anything that were still Bolingbroke, Oxford and his son,
keep their education as close as possible may distract attention or confuse remem- Prior, and Arbuthnot; and he had begun
to normal life. For two years she spent brance. Power of discrimination is ac- that delightful intercourse with Pope and
eleven hours a day with these children, quired very early. “Children of three Gay which forms one of the happiest
and her great instrument in dealing with years are able to put all the tints (sixty- memories of a life not yet quite soured.
them was the absence of restraint. Under four] in gradation. '
He had begun, too, the interchange of
her guidance children from idiot asylums Writing and reading are taught by letters with a new friend, Dr. Sheridan,
learnt to
means of letters cut out in wood or card. in which irresponsible levity contrasted
“ read and write so well that I was able to
These the child applies to painted letters oddly with the sombre tone of his con-
present them at a public school for an of the same size ; he follows their shapes temporary publications. Stella was still
examination together with normal children. with his finger, and later with a little alive, near and dear, and the volume
And they passed the examination success- stick, acquiring the power, and even the includes the only letter from the Dean to
fully. ”
habit, of writing before he is aware that Miss Hester Johnson that has been
Onlookers marvelled how they came to do he can write. When, in a surprisingly preserved, after the unapproachable
80 well ; Dr. Montessori marvelled how short time, he begins to set down words Journal to Stella. ' Vanessa also was
the normal children did no better; and and sentences, he does so with unusual near, too near, till her death in 1723,
from that time she began to work out a ease and precision. Reading advances at and the twenty-one letters between her
scheme for the reasonable education of the same time and by the same methods, and Cadenus printed in this volume
the ordinary child.
the exercises being undertaken as the reveal a relation which is, pathetically
Her opportunity arrived when an Italian pupils grow ready for them. There is human.
society for the better housing of work- no debarring of children from the great These letters to and from Vanessa were
people asked her to organize the schools educational tool of reading. The pupils read all printed by Sir Walter Scott; and,
which they were establishing in their quickly and easily at an early age; most though Dr. Ball has not been able to add
buildings for the younger children of other children, not allowed to learn then, anything of great importance towards the
their tenants. She carried into her task do so at a later age slowly and painfully. solution of the problem which has baffled
that freshly beholding eye which is the Thus it is not surprising that pupils who so many students of Swift's character,
mark of genius. She perceived that to pass, at five years old, from ** The Chil- his admirably judicial examination of the
give lessons to children sitting fixed in dren's House” to the elementary school whole question in Appendix III. will be
rows at desks—“ like butterflies mounted are found ready to enter, not the first, but scanned with absorbing interest.
on pins ”—was not to educate them for the third, division. In school studies they sents a full account of the Vanhomrigh
a world of activities and actualities ; that are ahead, and have, in addition, learnt family, and many
details about that
such children were, in fact, prisoned and to speak properly, to be clean, orderly, worthy alderman to whom, as Lord
enslaved. In “ The Children's Houses and gentle, to know the names of shapes, Mayor of Dublin, the civic authority owes
there are no desks, no fixed seats, no en colours, and qualities, to observe, to draw, its famous SS gold chain and medal
forced attitudes. When the little creatures to mould in clay, and, above all, to be adorned by Roettier with the bust of
come in the morning, they are first independent agents—more, to be civilized William III. , still, we believe, worn by
inspected as to their cleanliness (that they citizens. For, in its essence, what Dr. the holder of the office without detriment
must be sent clean is one of the very few Montessori teaches is civilization. Two to his political views. Alderman Van-
rules); hands, faces, and teeth that fall generations of such training might create homrighwas a friend of Schomberg, and
below the standard must be washed by a new society formed of persons who had as Commissary-General of Ireland at-
their owners, under friendly guidance if developed their capacities of body and tended his camp at Lisburn. He did his
required. They themselves“ visit” the of mind easily and happily.
work so well that he was specially com-
>>
It pre-
## p. 646 (#484) ############################################
646
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
as
was
66
cer-
66
mended by Government, and became not a discovery could not fail to arouse in Stella
only M. P. for Londonderry, but also one is a strong argument for the theory of the THE ROADS OF IRELAND.
of the chief commissioners of Irish revenue. marriage ceremony with her, but the tone
of Swift's later letters to Vanessa is an
He was a member of the Dublin Philo-
IN 'My Irish Year' Mr. Pádraic Colum
sophical Society and a friend of Arch- equally strong one against it. ”
has produced a book full of interest and
bishop King, and Vanessa's intellectual To the mind of the present reviewer it charm. Written with the sympathy and
abilities were clearly inherited. That is a conclusive argument against it. It insight born of long familiarity with the
brilliant young lady was born at the close is unnecessary to say that Dr. Ball, who, phases of peasant life the story is
of 1687 or the beginning of 1688, as Dr. a rule, sternly eschews guesswork, told with a swing and a fluency which
Ball proves, though Swift was given to lends no countenance to the legend of seem to suggest that the author found a
understand that she two years Vanessa's letter to Stella, Swift's ride to pleasure in the telling of it. From the
younger; and she was enrolled a free- Celbridge, the “awful look,” &c. But first chapter to the last he is “ going the
woman of the City of Dublin in April, he seems to us to attach too much import- roads,” and as he goes he talks, using
the
1688, whilst still in long-clothes. The ance to a statement of Delany's, which Kiltartan” idiom, which Lady
course of her relations with Swift is previous writers have in our opinion Gregory was the first to make known
minutely chronicled and discussed in this rightly slurred over, that Vanessa
to the reader of books. The story is that
valuable Appendix. About their corre- tainly gave herself up, as Ariadne did, to of rural Ireland : Mr. Colum's wanderings
spondence, which began in May, 1709, Bacchus from the day that she was never lead him to any of the larger
Dr. Ball makes this shrewd comment :- deserted. ” It may have been true, but towns.
The
one can scarcely argue from the conduct
With the close of the year 1711 a further
strong” farmer, his smaller
development in the friendship between Swift of a desperate woman in the last few rival, the day labourer, 'the “ shuler,"
and Vanessa is observable in a resolution on months of her life that she “would not the balladmonger, the parish priest, the
her part to preserve his letters. The ordinary have done so " if she “ had not previously country shopkeeper, the schoolmaster,
motive may have been the primary reason, displayed some tendency towards habits the constabulary man—all these well-
but inasmuch as she appears soon to have of intemperance"; and when Dr. Ball known figures of the Irish country-side
begun to keep copies of her own letters to asks, “ May not Swift's conduct, at least of to-day are brought vividly before us.
him, an idea that this correspondence might in some degree, have been due to an effort Mr. Colum does not do all the talking him-
be useful if Swift proved recalcitrant was
probably latent. Swift intended possibly
to save her from them ? one can only self: he has the instinct of the dramatist,
the letter covering the one to Miss Long as reply that the whole tenor of Vanessa's and he lets his characters explain them-
a joke, but it is not a matter for wonder that earlier life and the whole tone of their selves. It is this, no less than his profound
Vanessa regarded it seriously, since Swift letters are against any such hypothesis. sympathy with the life of the people, that
took the trouble to send with it a 'starched
lotter' for the eyes of others. As Swift was
In another Appendix the editor dis- gives vitality and verisimilitude to his
generally lodging in London near the Van-
cusses the important question how far pictures.
homrighs there was little opportunity (neces-
we possess the bulk of Swift's letters.
Many recent writers on Ireland have
sity ? ) for written communications, and the It is clear that those elect people to whom unfolded theories more or less convincing,
next letters of a compromising character he chiefly wrote (the letters to the Earls and imagined Utopias more
or less
which Vanessa received from Swift were of Oxford, father and son, Bolingbroke, attractive; but none of these, with the
doubtless those written from Windsor in the Prior, Pope, Arbuthnot, Sheridan, Chet- exception of J. M. Synge, has succeeded
following summer. With these have been
wode, Tickell, Lord Carteret, Mrs. Howard,
preserved two letters from her, but two
in bringing before his readers so vivid an
others which preceded them and failed to
Stopford, with Vanessa's, form two-thirds impression of the human element that lies
draw from Swift a reply no longer exist. of the whole correspondence in this behind all theories and Utopias.
This fact tends to confirm the opinion volume) preserved his letters carefully,
The Irish peasant farmer, as we see
expressed by me. . . . that Vanessa's letters and Swift himself was not less tenacious him in Mr. Colum's pages, is a man emerg-
are printed from copies kept by her, and of theirs ; though Pope, for reasons of ing from an old order of things, and not
not from the originals. In almost every his own, destroyed some letters, and yet at home in the new.
case such letters of hers as are forthcoming Arbuthnot and Bolingbroke evidently exhausting land war is at an end : he
The long and
were sent at times when there was tension lost others. There were also a considerable has got what he hungered and fought for
between her and Swift, while letters written
to
to him when the prospect seemed to her number of political letters from and
-the land ; but he still has almost every-
brighter are lost.
Dr. Ball preserves an ominous silence prudence, perhaps exaggerated, condemned thing to learn about the value of his
on the visit to Windsor, and Swift's
to the fire. But, on the whole, Dr. Ball possession and the possibilities latent
in it. Mr. Colum has much to say
taking Vanessa to Oxford and lying to Swift's correspondence, and this being so, initiative, the absurd social prejudice
believes that we do possess the bulk of about the evils of emigration, the lack of
Lady Orkney to cover his absence ; but
it is remarkable how few letters he wrote.
which prevents the son of a small farmer
va- it
nessa had paid Swift visits. . . . at Chelsea It is true that his friends were constantly from learning his business practically
. . . . and at Kensington,” that the editor reproaching him for long silences, and he
a labourer. The student of Irish
is often found excusing himself; but it is social conditions is familiar with these
accepts the fact that she was often with
him in his lodgings, and therefore might astonishing that the
total number of difficulties, which stand in the way of any
him in his lodgings, and therefore might letters written and received during the real and permanent improvement in
equally well have stayed with him at an
inn. Though he nowhere pronounces a
ten years covered by this volume only Irish rural life. They are not to be
distinct opinion on their precise relations,
amounts to 280, or little more than one a
removed by any outside organization,
because the evidence does not in his view fortnight. Frequent illness, and impa- however powerful. Even the co-operative
because the evidence does not in his view tience of corresponding with dull people, movement, which has done excellent
attempt to minimize the damaging im- will account for much; but the conclu: work, has only touched the fringe of the
pression produced by Swift's letters to love letter-writing-possibly because he land, if the best is to be got out of the
sion is inevitable that Swift did not problem. What is really needed in Ire-
Vanessa, or the frequency of their meet- held so high a standard of what a letter farmer and the land, is a radical reform
ings both in Dublin and at the neigh- should be.
bouring Celbridge, which could hardly
in the system of primary education.
have been kept secret. Stella must have
The illustrations to this volume include There is no nature study in Irish national
known of them, for
excellent photographs of Vanessa's house schools. The adventure and charm of
" the two ladies were residing within a very of its grounds and “ Vanessa's Bridge”
at Celbridge by Miss Irene Falkiner, and nature lore are a sealed book to the Irish
short distance of each other, Swift's figure by Mr. T. J. Westropp; and others, no points out, the “ agriculture” taught in
national - school teacher. As Mr. Colum
was conspicuous, and the place in which
they were was according to him one where less admirable, of Gaulstown House and
everything is known in a week and magnified Loughgall Manor by Messrs. Shaw and My Irish Year. By Pádraic Colum.
. (Mills
a hundred degrees. ' The jealousy that such | Allison.
& Boon. )
66
as
## p. 647 (#485) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
647
-
GG
>>
wears
Irish schools from a textbook is as remote look entailed by the spread of ideas among Warwick, who writes on "The Country-
from real life as political economy or those who think at all, classification will, side,' advocates State farms, and in her
higher mathematics. What wonder, then, we believe,
become
more and more denunciation of individual allotments
that the children grow up with their faces difficult—and useless. The most that overlooks their utility, if used for intensive
turned not towards the land, but away it may be possible to say in the future will cultivation.
from it; and that when they are old be that a certain person has a tendency Mr. Chiozza Money on Work in the
enough they seek a way of escape ? to over-emphasize a certain aspect. For Great State
For Great State' writes the most helpful
But it is not alone on these gloomy instance, Mr. Wells over-emphasizes what article, at any rate, viewed from the
pictures that the author dwells. "As he he calls the failure of Fabianism. His standpoint of democracy a larger
journeys up and down the roads he sees
attack on the Fabians should be recalled public than, we fear, this book will reach.
much to rejoice over : well-built houses
when later one reads Mr. Stirling Taylor's His article should have terrible poignancy
instead of the mud cabins of former days, words on the subject of “non-arrival” :- for the private employer. Until that
flowers in the gardens, a higher standard
of comfort. Above all
, he is keenly enough to hope that he will never arrive ; less for him to gain even
“The serious social reformer is wise individual's conscience makes it profit-
a modicum
alive to the highly developed social sense he is optimistic enough to believe that there of luxury at the expense of the workers'
of the Irish people, that most priceless of will always be something better beyond. souls, we fear there will be little curtail-
their possessions, of which no poverty, He does not visualise himself as one of a ment of the waste of energy, some
no oppression, and no disaster seem
party of excursionists who will be dis- forms of which Mr. Money so cogently
able to deprive them.
embarked at the Millennium, as it might be
The abundant
indicates.
at the end of his favourite sea-side pier.
and vivid speech of Synge's peasants, The conception of continual travelling is
Mr. Money's statistics concerning the
with its picturesque extravagance, its innate in the ideal. "
number of non - producers there is
passionate invective, its scathing irony,
one retailer to every six families, and
is only a reproduction of what may be So increasingly prevalent is the latter idea the cost of distribution exceeds that
heard in almost any Irish village on a
that we believe that many people, when of supply, a fact on which we ourselves
fair day. Satire, humorous or pungent, they pray for immortality, do not so much commented in reviewing Mr. Brougham
is part of the ordinary stock-in-trade of desire a resurrection of the body as
Villiers's recent book are but too cred-
Irish conversation. It is perhaps this the power of continuing their working ible. Only on one point do we think
which has given rise to the saying quoted identity.
Mr. Money can be proved wrong-his
by Mr. Colum“ as loveless as an Irish- We owe it to Mr. Wells to quote his assertion that it is safe to say that
man”; but we cannot agree with him definition of “ The Great State, the
no poor man ever
a garment
in thinking that “ love, as the English term he uses to express an ideal
wholly made of honest woollen material. ”
and Continental writers think of it, has
On that point we surmise that Mr. Stephen
little place in Irish life. " Under the longer immediately tied to and conditioned Reynolds's first-hand knowledge of fisher-
of a social system no longer localised, no
mocking speech there is often a reserve by the cultivation of the land, world-wide
men's dress will prove more trustworthy.
of passion; and surely . The Love Songs in its interests and outlook and catholic in With Mr. Money's brief constructive policy
of Connacht,' some of which Mr. Colum its tolerance and sympathy, a system of for work in the coming State we find our-
quotes, are supreme in their poignant great individual freedom with a universal selves generally in agreement, notably
simplicity.
understanding among its citizens of a cold where he is at issue with Mr. Wells in
lective thought and purpose. ? ?
seeing the necessity for enforcing some
It is his optimistic belief that,
modicum of honourable work on every
The Great State : Essays in Construction.
person. We purposely use the word
" just as nearly every man at work upon
By H. G. Wells, the Countess of War- Voltaic electricity in 1850 knew that he was although he speaks of coal - mines, we
“work,” rather than his word “toil," for
wick, and others. (Harper & Brothers. ) preparing for electric traction, so do we
know that we are, with a whole row of un-
believe that modern invention, either
Even the best of these essays cannot be solved problems before us, working towards along the lines prognosticated recently
counted more than rough sketches of a
the Great State,"
by Sir William Ramsay or some other, will
presentment only adumbrated here. Mr. when an agricultural population would
render the toilsome processes of such
Wells's colleagues have apparently been be able to
occupations obsolete.
allowed a sight of his Introduction, but for
Sir Ray Lankester in 'The Making of New
what
purpose
it is difficult to surmise, as
move out of town into an open-air life as Knowledge' airs two special grievances.
there is no attempt at co-ordination. In the spring approached, and return for spend- One is the lack of adequate provision for
the few instances of cross-reference there ing, pleasure, and education as the days
shortened. ”
creating new knowledge, knowledge pure
is more contradiction than agreement; but
and simple, not as the so-called 'handmaid'
we state the fact in no depreciatory spirit. In addition,
of commerce, industry, and the arts of war,
What cause
we have of complaint lies
but knowledge as the greatest and best thing
elsewhere: some of the authors have
“ a fully developed civilisation employing that man can create-knowledge as the
been so anxious to seize an opportunity will minimise toil to the very utmost; no
machines in the hands of highly skilled men Master who must be obeyed. ”
for their own animadversions on the man will shove where a machine can shove, a sentence which might be interpreted as
existing order, that many of the essays or carry where a machine can carry; but divorcing knowledge from life. We think
are iconoclastic rather than constructive. there will remain, more particularly in the that side by side with the mention of the
If our notice partakes too much of the summer, a vast amount of hand operations, German Emperor's gift to learning the
same character, we can but plead the invigorating and even attractive to the
recent English donations might have been
force of example.
urban population. ”
mentioned. Sir Ray Lankester's other
Mr. Wells seeks, in the interests of Much else does Mr. Wells prognosticate grievance concerns the uses to which our
greater clearness, to coin fresh designa- for such a State. The majority of the Universities are put. His carping reference
tions, such as conservators
ideas set out can be found in his own to the Oxford working-class movement
like Messrs. Chesterton and Belloc, who, writings and those of Prof. William James, is softened by the knowledge that he
according to him, represent a concep-
whom he names, Edward Bellamy, and has done as much as any man to popu-
tion of " vinous, loudly singing, earthy, other idealists.
larize the branch of knowledge which he
toiling, custom-ruled, wholesome, and The most noticeable difference between has made his own.
insanitary men. ” He does not, in Mr. Wells and the other writers is to Dr. Bond's essay on · Health and Healing
our opinion, attain his end, though be found in his rejection of the idea in the Great State' is worth its place
his attempt to pigeon-hole others does of State Socialism, and their prac- in the book, if only as setting clearly
not lead to quite such outrageous tical adhesion to it, if only before the reader the danger to health
classification. With the broadened out-transitional episode. The Countess of of the monotony of our present specialized
2
" for men
as
a
## p. 648 (#486) ############################################
648
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
ever-
man
con-
factory system. Truly we might as the fact that its strong and weak points boastful and dissipated, but of a lion-like
well hope for the smooth running of are more or less the opposite of the strong bravery, is Richard's superior in all obvious
machinery into which grit was intro- and weak points of the ordinary good
and weak points of the ordinary good bodily and mental faculties, and also in
duced instead of oil as expect content-novel. In the first place, though it is out-of-the-way endowments—the dowser's
ment from toilers whom we insist on hardly necessary for the unravelling of gift, and the power to attract and do what
educating before we relegate them to the story to read every line of it, we found he chooses with animals. He is captain
tasks for which intelligence is almost ourselves compelled to do so by the force of a copper mine on the Hollinsclough
a disqualification.
and colour and cunning of the writing. land, and in his struggle with Richard has
In ‘Democracy and the Great State,' This is choice, but not too choice, in the miners at his back. Richard, sensi-
by Mr. Cecil Chesterton, the tendency of the use of words, and unusually simple in tive and irritable, nourishing an
an undemocratic collectivism to end in the structure of sentences, whereby the
the structure of sentences, whereby the increasing hate - which is besides, for
the servile state was well worth insisting whole work is made to the ear, indeed, reasons of her own, sedulously inflamed by
upon, as was also the need for recalling rather monotonous—with a rugged, not a old Hannah, his nurse—is more often
to our politicians Moltke’s notable saying smooth monotony—but to the eye rich than not in the right, but almost in-
that the greater a man is the less he needs and lively. If North Staffordshire, in variably acts amiss and puts himself in
Mr. Chesterton's advocacy of the Refer- Mrs. Garnett's pages, is “ desolate rather the wrong. It is well and subtly brought
endum brings to mind a plausible method than beautiful," it is not “wild, without out : how his brooding renders him
we have heard advocated, viz. , that in a grandeur,", and certainly not “hilly, incapable of judging what is the right
democratic state with our tax papers we
without charm. ” The character of the moment and of rectifying himself by
might receive a ballot paper for recording landscape, in all seasons and under all any general, external standard. Again
our votes for or against Bills on which sorts of skies, and the spell belonging to and again he belies his real goodness and
politicians had been debating during the it are admirably rendered.
honesty by doings which are base, just
past six months.
To match this setting the human figures as, through alternating supineness and
Miss Cicely Hamilton demands indi- must needs be austere, even grim, their
must needs be austere, even grim, their precipitancy, he commits follies that belie
ħis real intelligence.
viduality for women as well as men, but gaiety fitful and stormy, their loves and
allows her sense of justice to outstrip The love which conquers is that of
hates imbued with a certain savagery.
The struggle lasts for years, and the
her sense of the logical. In the following Ellen Brindley. It is first, and at its out of doors, are finely imagined. In
conquers is that of incidents of it, which nearly all take place
quotation an opponent might falsely
claim that she advocated a transference of centre, love for Richard Hollinsclough, particular, the necessarily oft-repeated
domination to the other sex, for that
but it has about it a vast circumference anticlimax-the time which follows some
marked event—is so skilfully treated that
would, in fact, represent the reverse of the of“ divine charity ” which embraces im-
one gets something of the savour which
partially all the living creatures-human
present position
or animal, good or bad—within her reach. belongs to actual life, the sense of being
Marriage, as it affects one party to the Ellen never blames, still less resents Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
contract
has existed for a wrongs merely done to herself. There
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
siderable period of time as a purely volun-are numberless works in which a presenti- Closely and strongly too are imagined
tary institution, and. . . . it does not appear ment of tragedy is infused into the atmo-
the relations between the characters,
to be any less popular with him on that sphere. Before the personage who is to
which seem all to have, though in a less
account. I fail to see, therefore, why the
modification of the compulsory character of precipitate it is brought on the scene, degree than Ellen, some subtle symbolic
the institution, as it affects the other party
or has revealed himself, his influence is reference to the details of the earth they
to the contract-woman-should make it perceived : there is hatred or folly or
spring from. They are grouped with
any less popular with her. ”
jealousy about, and ruin is foreknown. well-contrived balance, and by their
Mr. Roger Fry's essay, coming from that the like is here effected in regard to
One of the great charms of this book is divers juxtapositions are made to enhance
one another. This indeed, structurally,
one who declares himself no Socialist, love and wisdom. Ellen is scarcely seen till is the best part of the book.
pleasingly emphasizes our contention of nearly half way through, yet her presence
Its weaknesses, curiously enough, lie
the waning utility of classification. He is felt, and felt as the permanent unifying in the characterization. There is some-
follows. Mr. Money in plunging for non- element, presaging final happiness. To thing lacking some last touch that would
professionalism in art, and besides other the wild scene of the tale she is what have brought these figures into full life.
good things gives us a capital dissection glimpses of blue sky are through shifting They would, probably, seem alive in any
of the contents of an average refresh- black clouds ;
black clouds; her triumph may be work in which the lines of relation
ment-room as viewed by an artist.
delayed-by the nature of things it is between them, also the background, were
The interest of the subject rather than inevitable.
less strong. The actual defect is plainly
the intrinsic merits of the book has Richard Hollinsclough, the hero, is the connected with the book being exclu-
already led us to take up more space than last of a long-descended family, in this sively addressed to the eye, and so
we intended, and an adamantine editor generation sufficiently wealthy, but fallen
monotonous to the ear; and we can trace
will only permit us to name interesting in older days from the position of gentry which seems to move by some sort of
it in two ways: first, in the dialogue,
articles by Mr. E. S. P. Haynes on to that of yeomanry, and not having in
' Law and the Great State,' the Rev. this respect retrieved itself. He has been
convention, and, as it has few of the
Conrad Noel on ‘A Picture of the Church harshly reared ; and at his side, in the rhythms, so also has not, for all its clever-
in the Great State,' Mr. Herbert Trench on woman who is his old nurse and house-
ness, the true effect of speech; and,
The Growth of the Great State,' and Mr. keeper, he has continually one who is a
secondly, in the too great evenness of
Hugh P. Vowles on ‘The Tradition of the focus of hatred, as Ellen Brindley is the method in narration, which hardly differ-
Great State. '
focus of love. He marries perversely a
entiates between mere connecting pas-
pretty, fragile girl, knowing that what she sages and the account of the most exciting
has of a heart is set on Jack Beresford,
events. The subordinate persons in the
Amor Vincit : a Romance of the Stafford - Ellen's half-brother. His management of story, the pithy sayings and descrip-
shire Moorlands. By Mrs. R. S. Garnett. her-who, after all, might have been tions of scenery which have delighted us,
It is, how.
(Duckworth & Co. )
managed—is all astray. She falls ill. will be much commented on.
lingers for months in a decline, and dies
ever, an evidence of the artistic strength
Most readers of novels must have a at last overcome by a visit from Beresford,
of the book that, in spite of its wealth of
lively recollection of Mrs. Garnett's “The whom Richard himself has brought to her detail, it yet interests predominantly as
Infamous John Friend. ' Her new book side. There follows and it is the main a whole.
will not disappoint them. It is refreshing, thread of the story-a long and bitter
not merely by reason of its excellences, warfare between these two men. Beres-
which are many, but by reason also of 1 ford, a huge, immensely strong man,
6
## p. 649 (#487) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
649
THE ATHENÆUM
is
To claim us for their own.
an
? ?
Law.
Patterson (J. E. ), THE LURE OF THE SEA,
5/ net.
Heinemann
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS,
Annesley Case (The), edited by Andrew Lang, seeker after poetry, and his nautical verses
Mr. Patterson is not a poet, though long a
(Notico in those columns does not precludo longer 5/ net.
review. )
The Annesley case, which was curious
and lack the intimate maritime touch that he can
Tbeology.
romantic_enough to bear revival in the give to his prose narratives.
The longest
Allison (Sir R. A. ), A LECTURE ON HYMNS example of how flatly two
groups of witnesses; pursued by revengeful Pluto, to whom they
Notable English Trials Series, is a striking piece in this book is the least undistinguished
-a story of how certain Greek pirates were
AND THEIR WRITERS, delivered to the sworn to tell the truth, may contradict each
Holy Trinity Men's Mutual Improve-
had refused to sacrifice. Even this
other. The question was whether James
ment Society on December 12th, 1911, Annesley, who had as a boy been fraudulently bald in places ; but 'The Ship’ and Ocean
6d. net.
came to naught. The cost of living masters and others, but there are no Montessori's original system we notice in
cannot be controlled in this way by any ruler's deposition was once coloured by
Bastilles in the history of education. A the next article.
But there is no need to analyze more
paternal despots. The whole process, the plea that he hath broken the social fully what can be read with pleasure by
deavouring to violate a great natural law. compact,” but “educands” seldom rise any one who takes a little trouble. We
If the poor, whether deserving or not, up against the tyranny of their elders, may mention an interesting discussion of
specific education, as in our English
if the idle, if the incompetent, are all to be crying, “ Pedagogues to the lantern! ”
made comfortable, it can only be at the
Having struck our blow against the in- public schools, where the aim is definitely
truder in the domain of philosophy, we
to produce a Christian gentleman, and
cost of the labour of the better citizen, and, admit that Prof. Adams does not fail to its relation to specialization, though
when this labour is so misemployed, it soon
special-
show in concrete cases the intimate relation between specific education and
begins to diminish, and national poverty of educational theory to other kinds of ization at long range. ”. the
distinction
necessarily supervenes. This was the great
seems to wear a little thin. These philo-
financial crisis from which the Roman speculation. Not forgetting the
which Kant committed, after himself sophic refinements do, in fact, become
Empire could not recover.
warning others against it, we do not depressing, and we weary of a world where
This is only one of the many topics expect an actual scheme of values to be only the rules of the game restrain us
which Mr. Abbott has handled with insight deduced from the voivaì ápxai of thought from knocking down the house of cards in
and care, making the life of the Roman But it is interesting to see how free-disgust. Even the distinction between
people, especially the common people, dom of the will is usually implied, education and life is in one aspect merely
live for us with great freshness. We
how original sin appears in the notion
a concession to utility. We feel that
seldom find anything in his clear and that it is easy to educate for evil, as though while we are capable of learning, educa-
lively exposition to criticize. But we
any one could be made a villain, and a tion is going on, and the educator and
will remind him that it is a mistranslation weakling could rise to high altitudes educand may be one.
This is the nega--
of Quintilian to make him say that of misbehaviour. Environment and con- tion of the pedagogic spirit. Goethe, as
satire was the only purely Roman form sciousness concern education, as well as
Prof. Adams says, had as little of that
of literature. . . Quintilian knew as well as being the battle-fields of philosophy, and spirit as falls to the lot of man,” though
Horace that the Greeks had written satire
we postulate progress, saying perhaps he used many of the ordinary relation-
from Archilochus down. What
Quin- with Kant that we should educate to a ships of life with a deliberate educa-
tilian did say was that the medley of prose standard a little in advance of actual tional bias. ” Here, at any rate, the
and verse
which the Romans called needs, so that the “educand ” shall not be criticism of categories seems to fail us.
(lanx) satura was a purely Roman form, left behind. Or the notion of heredity Education for once is only an ardent and
and that is true. In thinking the real steps in, and we invest with an eye to penetrating desire to be in the fullest
istic novel Roman, surely Mr. Abbott has compound interest, until the transmission relation to experience. Anything short
not taken proper account of Lucius of of acquired characteristics is questioned ; of this seems almost inevitably tainted
Patræ, who wrote the original form of The then we become only life-tenants of this with the notion quoted by Prof. Adams
Golden Ass' (of Lucian and Apuleius), world on a lease which has no clause from a Bishop of London, who said that,
probably in Nero's days, and probably giving compensation for unexhausted im- whatever else it might mean, education
also in Greek. Nor does he know that
provements.
always implied in the last resort inter-
now have evidence of Greek prose
novels of adventure besides the Romance analogies and comparisons and
There can hardly be a limit to the communication between an inferior and
a superior mind. We must always be
of Ninus. ' A papyrus brought from the nexions which diligence could trace. Prof. judging and valuing, but the distinction
Fayyum some years ago, and printed first Adams finds even “ categories
categories ” of edu- of benefactor and beneficiary is not so
by the Academy of the Lincei, Rome, then cation—polarity (which covers subject precise as that. We should, indeed, be
in a more accurate form by Prof. Smyly and object), the organon (which covers out of patience with the whole business,
(Hermathena No. xxvii. , 1901), is of about matter and form), others concerned with if there were not a potent reason for
veloped. In discussing the history of the artificial as against natural, and many be only the
old faculty psychology in a new
the same time, and shows the genre fully de- specific as against general education, keeping it within the bounds of human
Roman alphabet Mr. Abbott should have
considered that such a letter as Q, coming most valuable in its historical chapters.
dress
s; nevertheless, we can quiet our
from the koph in the old Greek alphabet. The author's narrative is clear and pene- consciences a little by the reflection that
was also being used in current Greek trating; behind the exposition a pleasant the desire to educate must be in some
accounts as the symbol for 90, and in a form humour is only half concealed, and a
way connected with parenthood. There
closely resembling our q. Indeed, the Greek power of crisp phrasing gives the necessary is the spur of an innate desire; so we take
signs for numbers would have given him relief. We learn that Humanism natur- the defenceless young, and work out our
light on many points. It is worth while to ally used childhood as a time for learning energy on that material. Even then we
make suggestions to so able and learned
must remember that the child may be
a writer, and one who has mastered his The Evolution of Educational Theory. By unable to escape, but it can pray with
authorities so well.
John Adams. (Macmillan & Co. ) some effect to be delivered from its friends.
*
we
con-
more.
## p. 645 (#483) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
645
THE ATHENÆUM
66
ance.
,
gogy as applied to Child Education
in tidy, little brooms sweep, dusters perform The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift,
D. D.
* The Children's Houses. ” By Maria children act, instead of seeing their
their duty: the great point is that the
Edited by F. Elrington Ball.
With an Introduction by the Right
Montessori
. With Additions and Re- elders acting on their behalf. There is
Rev. J. H. Bernard. Vol. III. (Bell
visions by the Author. Translated by practice in sitting, standing, moving
& Sons).
Anne E. George, with an Introduction about, taking up and setting down objects, DR. ELRINGTON BALL must be wearied of
by Prof. H. W. Holmes. (Heinemann. )
or passing them to one another. There
the monotonous chorus of eulogy which
The manner in which this volume is are conversations, the “ directress” inquir- greets each successive instalment of his
translated will, it is to be feared, some-ing about little failures and successes
monumental edition of Swift's Corre-
what retard that wide dissemination whether, for example, a child has managed spondence, and to please him we would
which is its due. Not that the version is to go upstairs without muddying the steps. willingly sing out of tune, if only he would
unfaithful ; its defect is that, in holding Exercises to develope co-ordinated move oblige us with a reasonable pretext. But
close to the Italian, it has not always got ments of the fingers. . . . prepare the chil- a careful examination of his third volume
so far as to be English. That, for instance, dren for the exercises of practical life, compels us to echo the note we have
which Miss George calls“ didactic ma- such as dressing and undressing them- twice sounded before. His editing, mas-
terial” is known to British teachers as selves. " The apparatus for this purpose terly from the first, only gains in its sure
“educational apparatus. " Pedagogic,” consists of wooden frames, each mounted and easy command of the immense store
again, is, in these islands, a word which with two pieces of cloth, or leather, to be of biographical and historical materials
has a highly specialized usage ; in her fastened or unfastened by means of the which he has collected from all available
pages, however, it appears with great buttons and buttonholes, hooks and sources, and his notes form an encyclo-
frequency, and in two cases out of three eyes, eyelets and lacings, or automatic pædia of accurate information on all
the correct equivalent would be “educa- fasteners. ” Graduated cubes, cylinders, persons and subjects connected with the
tional. ”
&c. , all so arranged that the child tests letters. It would need a microscopic eye
The book itself is of pregnant signific- its own achievement, lead the fingers, the to detect even trivial slips.
It brings into the most vital of eye, and the mind to distinguish size and
The present volume includes, from a
human callings a new and a truer vision : weight. The children learn to sort into literary point of view, the most brilliant
Dr. Maria Montessori entered upon the gradations cards wound with coloured period of Swift's correspondence. The
education of children with the training, silk; and to touch and recognize surfaces letters range from the beginning of 1718
not of a teacher, but of a physician; she and shapes. All these processes are in
came to the schoolroom from another the nature of games ; the aim of the years Swift was writing the Drapier's
province, and saw it as a traveller sees a teacher is to interfere as little as possible Letters' and `Gulliver's Travels,' and
foreign country. Her first pupils were and to speak no unnecessary word. Her had not yet given up visiting his friends
defective children, and instead of making function is to give pupils the names as they in London. His chief correspondents
need them ; but to avoid anything that were still Bolingbroke, Oxford and his son,
keep their education as close as possible may distract attention or confuse remem- Prior, and Arbuthnot; and he had begun
to normal life. For two years she spent brance. Power of discrimination is ac- that delightful intercourse with Pope and
eleven hours a day with these children, quired very early. “Children of three Gay which forms one of the happiest
and her great instrument in dealing with years are able to put all the tints (sixty- memories of a life not yet quite soured.
them was the absence of restraint. Under four] in gradation. '
He had begun, too, the interchange of
her guidance children from idiot asylums Writing and reading are taught by letters with a new friend, Dr. Sheridan,
learnt to
means of letters cut out in wood or card. in which irresponsible levity contrasted
“ read and write so well that I was able to
These the child applies to painted letters oddly with the sombre tone of his con-
present them at a public school for an of the same size ; he follows their shapes temporary publications. Stella was still
examination together with normal children. with his finger, and later with a little alive, near and dear, and the volume
And they passed the examination success- stick, acquiring the power, and even the includes the only letter from the Dean to
fully. ”
habit, of writing before he is aware that Miss Hester Johnson that has been
Onlookers marvelled how they came to do he can write. When, in a surprisingly preserved, after the unapproachable
80 well ; Dr. Montessori marvelled how short time, he begins to set down words Journal to Stella. ' Vanessa also was
the normal children did no better; and and sentences, he does so with unusual near, too near, till her death in 1723,
from that time she began to work out a ease and precision. Reading advances at and the twenty-one letters between her
scheme for the reasonable education of the same time and by the same methods, and Cadenus printed in this volume
the ordinary child.
the exercises being undertaken as the reveal a relation which is, pathetically
Her opportunity arrived when an Italian pupils grow ready for them. There is human.
society for the better housing of work- no debarring of children from the great These letters to and from Vanessa were
people asked her to organize the schools educational tool of reading. The pupils read all printed by Sir Walter Scott; and,
which they were establishing in their quickly and easily at an early age; most though Dr. Ball has not been able to add
buildings for the younger children of other children, not allowed to learn then, anything of great importance towards the
their tenants. She carried into her task do so at a later age slowly and painfully. solution of the problem which has baffled
that freshly beholding eye which is the Thus it is not surprising that pupils who so many students of Swift's character,
mark of genius. She perceived that to pass, at five years old, from ** The Chil- his admirably judicial examination of the
give lessons to children sitting fixed in dren's House” to the elementary school whole question in Appendix III. will be
rows at desks—“ like butterflies mounted are found ready to enter, not the first, but scanned with absorbing interest.
on pins ”—was not to educate them for the third, division. In school studies they sents a full account of the Vanhomrigh
a world of activities and actualities ; that are ahead, and have, in addition, learnt family, and many
details about that
such children were, in fact, prisoned and to speak properly, to be clean, orderly, worthy alderman to whom, as Lord
enslaved. In “ The Children's Houses and gentle, to know the names of shapes, Mayor of Dublin, the civic authority owes
there are no desks, no fixed seats, no en colours, and qualities, to observe, to draw, its famous SS gold chain and medal
forced attitudes. When the little creatures to mould in clay, and, above all, to be adorned by Roettier with the bust of
come in the morning, they are first independent agents—more, to be civilized William III. , still, we believe, worn by
inspected as to their cleanliness (that they citizens. For, in its essence, what Dr. the holder of the office without detriment
must be sent clean is one of the very few Montessori teaches is civilization. Two to his political views. Alderman Van-
rules); hands, faces, and teeth that fall generations of such training might create homrighwas a friend of Schomberg, and
below the standard must be washed by a new society formed of persons who had as Commissary-General of Ireland at-
their owners, under friendly guidance if developed their capacities of body and tended his camp at Lisburn. He did his
required. They themselves“ visit” the of mind easily and happily.
work so well that he was specially com-
>>
It pre-
## p. 646 (#484) ############################################
646
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
as
was
66
cer-
66
mended by Government, and became not a discovery could not fail to arouse in Stella
only M. P. for Londonderry, but also one is a strong argument for the theory of the THE ROADS OF IRELAND.
of the chief commissioners of Irish revenue. marriage ceremony with her, but the tone
of Swift's later letters to Vanessa is an
He was a member of the Dublin Philo-
IN 'My Irish Year' Mr. Pádraic Colum
sophical Society and a friend of Arch- equally strong one against it. ”
has produced a book full of interest and
bishop King, and Vanessa's intellectual To the mind of the present reviewer it charm. Written with the sympathy and
abilities were clearly inherited. That is a conclusive argument against it. It insight born of long familiarity with the
brilliant young lady was born at the close is unnecessary to say that Dr. Ball, who, phases of peasant life the story is
of 1687 or the beginning of 1688, as Dr. a rule, sternly eschews guesswork, told with a swing and a fluency which
Ball proves, though Swift was given to lends no countenance to the legend of seem to suggest that the author found a
understand that she two years Vanessa's letter to Stella, Swift's ride to pleasure in the telling of it. From the
younger; and she was enrolled a free- Celbridge, the “awful look,” &c. But first chapter to the last he is “ going the
woman of the City of Dublin in April, he seems to us to attach too much import- roads,” and as he goes he talks, using
the
1688, whilst still in long-clothes. The ance to a statement of Delany's, which Kiltartan” idiom, which Lady
course of her relations with Swift is previous writers have in our opinion Gregory was the first to make known
minutely chronicled and discussed in this rightly slurred over, that Vanessa
to the reader of books. The story is that
valuable Appendix. About their corre- tainly gave herself up, as Ariadne did, to of rural Ireland : Mr. Colum's wanderings
spondence, which began in May, 1709, Bacchus from the day that she was never lead him to any of the larger
Dr. Ball makes this shrewd comment :- deserted. ” It may have been true, but towns.
The
one can scarcely argue from the conduct
With the close of the year 1711 a further
strong” farmer, his smaller
development in the friendship between Swift of a desperate woman in the last few rival, the day labourer, 'the “ shuler,"
and Vanessa is observable in a resolution on months of her life that she “would not the balladmonger, the parish priest, the
her part to preserve his letters. The ordinary have done so " if she “ had not previously country shopkeeper, the schoolmaster,
motive may have been the primary reason, displayed some tendency towards habits the constabulary man—all these well-
but inasmuch as she appears soon to have of intemperance"; and when Dr. Ball known figures of the Irish country-side
begun to keep copies of her own letters to asks, “ May not Swift's conduct, at least of to-day are brought vividly before us.
him, an idea that this correspondence might in some degree, have been due to an effort Mr. Colum does not do all the talking him-
be useful if Swift proved recalcitrant was
probably latent. Swift intended possibly
to save her from them ? one can only self: he has the instinct of the dramatist,
the letter covering the one to Miss Long as reply that the whole tenor of Vanessa's and he lets his characters explain them-
a joke, but it is not a matter for wonder that earlier life and the whole tone of their selves. It is this, no less than his profound
Vanessa regarded it seriously, since Swift letters are against any such hypothesis. sympathy with the life of the people, that
took the trouble to send with it a 'starched
lotter' for the eyes of others. As Swift was
In another Appendix the editor dis- gives vitality and verisimilitude to his
generally lodging in London near the Van-
cusses the important question how far pictures.
homrighs there was little opportunity (neces-
we possess the bulk of Swift's letters.
Many recent writers on Ireland have
sity ? ) for written communications, and the It is clear that those elect people to whom unfolded theories more or less convincing,
next letters of a compromising character he chiefly wrote (the letters to the Earls and imagined Utopias more
or less
which Vanessa received from Swift were of Oxford, father and son, Bolingbroke, attractive; but none of these, with the
doubtless those written from Windsor in the Prior, Pope, Arbuthnot, Sheridan, Chet- exception of J. M. Synge, has succeeded
following summer. With these have been
wode, Tickell, Lord Carteret, Mrs. Howard,
preserved two letters from her, but two
in bringing before his readers so vivid an
others which preceded them and failed to
Stopford, with Vanessa's, form two-thirds impression of the human element that lies
draw from Swift a reply no longer exist. of the whole correspondence in this behind all theories and Utopias.
This fact tends to confirm the opinion volume) preserved his letters carefully,
The Irish peasant farmer, as we see
expressed by me. . . . that Vanessa's letters and Swift himself was not less tenacious him in Mr. Colum's pages, is a man emerg-
are printed from copies kept by her, and of theirs ; though Pope, for reasons of ing from an old order of things, and not
not from the originals. In almost every his own, destroyed some letters, and yet at home in the new.
case such letters of hers as are forthcoming Arbuthnot and Bolingbroke evidently exhausting land war is at an end : he
The long and
were sent at times when there was tension lost others. There were also a considerable has got what he hungered and fought for
between her and Swift, while letters written
to
to him when the prospect seemed to her number of political letters from and
-the land ; but he still has almost every-
brighter are lost.
Dr. Ball preserves an ominous silence prudence, perhaps exaggerated, condemned thing to learn about the value of his
on the visit to Windsor, and Swift's
to the fire. But, on the whole, Dr. Ball possession and the possibilities latent
in it. Mr. Colum has much to say
taking Vanessa to Oxford and lying to Swift's correspondence, and this being so, initiative, the absurd social prejudice
believes that we do possess the bulk of about the evils of emigration, the lack of
Lady Orkney to cover his absence ; but
it is remarkable how few letters he wrote.
which prevents the son of a small farmer
va- it
nessa had paid Swift visits. . . . at Chelsea It is true that his friends were constantly from learning his business practically
. . . . and at Kensington,” that the editor reproaching him for long silences, and he
a labourer. The student of Irish
is often found excusing himself; but it is social conditions is familiar with these
accepts the fact that she was often with
him in his lodgings, and therefore might astonishing that the
total number of difficulties, which stand in the way of any
him in his lodgings, and therefore might letters written and received during the real and permanent improvement in
equally well have stayed with him at an
inn. Though he nowhere pronounces a
ten years covered by this volume only Irish rural life. They are not to be
distinct opinion on their precise relations,
amounts to 280, or little more than one a
removed by any outside organization,
because the evidence does not in his view fortnight. Frequent illness, and impa- however powerful. Even the co-operative
because the evidence does not in his view tience of corresponding with dull people, movement, which has done excellent
attempt to minimize the damaging im- will account for much; but the conclu: work, has only touched the fringe of the
pression produced by Swift's letters to love letter-writing-possibly because he land, if the best is to be got out of the
sion is inevitable that Swift did not problem. What is really needed in Ire-
Vanessa, or the frequency of their meet- held so high a standard of what a letter farmer and the land, is a radical reform
ings both in Dublin and at the neigh- should be.
bouring Celbridge, which could hardly
in the system of primary education.
have been kept secret. Stella must have
The illustrations to this volume include There is no nature study in Irish national
known of them, for
excellent photographs of Vanessa's house schools. The adventure and charm of
" the two ladies were residing within a very of its grounds and “ Vanessa's Bridge”
at Celbridge by Miss Irene Falkiner, and nature lore are a sealed book to the Irish
short distance of each other, Swift's figure by Mr. T. J. Westropp; and others, no points out, the “ agriculture” taught in
national - school teacher. As Mr. Colum
was conspicuous, and the place in which
they were was according to him one where less admirable, of Gaulstown House and
everything is known in a week and magnified Loughgall Manor by Messrs. Shaw and My Irish Year. By Pádraic Colum.
. (Mills
a hundred degrees. ' The jealousy that such | Allison.
& Boon. )
66
as
## p. 647 (#485) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
647
-
GG
>>
wears
Irish schools from a textbook is as remote look entailed by the spread of ideas among Warwick, who writes on "The Country-
from real life as political economy or those who think at all, classification will, side,' advocates State farms, and in her
higher mathematics. What wonder, then, we believe,
become
more and more denunciation of individual allotments
that the children grow up with their faces difficult—and useless. The most that overlooks their utility, if used for intensive
turned not towards the land, but away it may be possible to say in the future will cultivation.
from it; and that when they are old be that a certain person has a tendency Mr. Chiozza Money on Work in the
enough they seek a way of escape ? to over-emphasize a certain aspect. For Great State
For Great State' writes the most helpful
But it is not alone on these gloomy instance, Mr. Wells over-emphasizes what article, at any rate, viewed from the
pictures that the author dwells. "As he he calls the failure of Fabianism. His standpoint of democracy a larger
journeys up and down the roads he sees
attack on the Fabians should be recalled public than, we fear, this book will reach.
much to rejoice over : well-built houses
when later one reads Mr. Stirling Taylor's His article should have terrible poignancy
instead of the mud cabins of former days, words on the subject of “non-arrival” :- for the private employer. Until that
flowers in the gardens, a higher standard
of comfort. Above all
, he is keenly enough to hope that he will never arrive ; less for him to gain even
“The serious social reformer is wise individual's conscience makes it profit-
a modicum
alive to the highly developed social sense he is optimistic enough to believe that there of luxury at the expense of the workers'
of the Irish people, that most priceless of will always be something better beyond. souls, we fear there will be little curtail-
their possessions, of which no poverty, He does not visualise himself as one of a ment of the waste of energy, some
no oppression, and no disaster seem
party of excursionists who will be dis- forms of which Mr. Money so cogently
able to deprive them.
embarked at the Millennium, as it might be
The abundant
indicates.
at the end of his favourite sea-side pier.
and vivid speech of Synge's peasants, The conception of continual travelling is
Mr. Money's statistics concerning the
with its picturesque extravagance, its innate in the ideal. "
number of non - producers there is
passionate invective, its scathing irony,
one retailer to every six families, and
is only a reproduction of what may be So increasingly prevalent is the latter idea the cost of distribution exceeds that
heard in almost any Irish village on a
that we believe that many people, when of supply, a fact on which we ourselves
fair day. Satire, humorous or pungent, they pray for immortality, do not so much commented in reviewing Mr. Brougham
is part of the ordinary stock-in-trade of desire a resurrection of the body as
Villiers's recent book are but too cred-
Irish conversation. It is perhaps this the power of continuing their working ible. Only on one point do we think
which has given rise to the saying quoted identity.
Mr. Money can be proved wrong-his
by Mr. Colum“ as loveless as an Irish- We owe it to Mr. Wells to quote his assertion that it is safe to say that
man”; but we cannot agree with him definition of “ The Great State, the
no poor man ever
a garment
in thinking that “ love, as the English term he uses to express an ideal
wholly made of honest woollen material. ”
and Continental writers think of it, has
On that point we surmise that Mr. Stephen
little place in Irish life. " Under the longer immediately tied to and conditioned Reynolds's first-hand knowledge of fisher-
of a social system no longer localised, no
mocking speech there is often a reserve by the cultivation of the land, world-wide
men's dress will prove more trustworthy.
of passion; and surely . The Love Songs in its interests and outlook and catholic in With Mr. Money's brief constructive policy
of Connacht,' some of which Mr. Colum its tolerance and sympathy, a system of for work in the coming State we find our-
quotes, are supreme in their poignant great individual freedom with a universal selves generally in agreement, notably
simplicity.
understanding among its citizens of a cold where he is at issue with Mr. Wells in
lective thought and purpose. ? ?
seeing the necessity for enforcing some
It is his optimistic belief that,
modicum of honourable work on every
The Great State : Essays in Construction.
person. We purposely use the word
" just as nearly every man at work upon
By H. G. Wells, the Countess of War- Voltaic electricity in 1850 knew that he was although he speaks of coal - mines, we
“work,” rather than his word “toil," for
wick, and others. (Harper & Brothers. ) preparing for electric traction, so do we
know that we are, with a whole row of un-
believe that modern invention, either
Even the best of these essays cannot be solved problems before us, working towards along the lines prognosticated recently
counted more than rough sketches of a
the Great State,"
by Sir William Ramsay or some other, will
presentment only adumbrated here. Mr. when an agricultural population would
render the toilsome processes of such
Wells's colleagues have apparently been be able to
occupations obsolete.
allowed a sight of his Introduction, but for
Sir Ray Lankester in 'The Making of New
what
purpose
it is difficult to surmise, as
move out of town into an open-air life as Knowledge' airs two special grievances.
there is no attempt at co-ordination. In the spring approached, and return for spend- One is the lack of adequate provision for
the few instances of cross-reference there ing, pleasure, and education as the days
shortened. ”
creating new knowledge, knowledge pure
is more contradiction than agreement; but
and simple, not as the so-called 'handmaid'
we state the fact in no depreciatory spirit. In addition,
of commerce, industry, and the arts of war,
What cause
we have of complaint lies
but knowledge as the greatest and best thing
elsewhere: some of the authors have
“ a fully developed civilisation employing that man can create-knowledge as the
been so anxious to seize an opportunity will minimise toil to the very utmost; no
machines in the hands of highly skilled men Master who must be obeyed. ”
for their own animadversions on the man will shove where a machine can shove, a sentence which might be interpreted as
existing order, that many of the essays or carry where a machine can carry; but divorcing knowledge from life. We think
are iconoclastic rather than constructive. there will remain, more particularly in the that side by side with the mention of the
If our notice partakes too much of the summer, a vast amount of hand operations, German Emperor's gift to learning the
same character, we can but plead the invigorating and even attractive to the
recent English donations might have been
force of example.
urban population. ”
mentioned. Sir Ray Lankester's other
Mr. Wells seeks, in the interests of Much else does Mr. Wells prognosticate grievance concerns the uses to which our
greater clearness, to coin fresh designa- for such a State. The majority of the Universities are put. His carping reference
tions, such as conservators
ideas set out can be found in his own to the Oxford working-class movement
like Messrs. Chesterton and Belloc, who, writings and those of Prof. William James, is softened by the knowledge that he
according to him, represent a concep-
whom he names, Edward Bellamy, and has done as much as any man to popu-
tion of " vinous, loudly singing, earthy, other idealists.
larize the branch of knowledge which he
toiling, custom-ruled, wholesome, and The most noticeable difference between has made his own.
insanitary men. ” He does not, in Mr. Wells and the other writers is to Dr. Bond's essay on · Health and Healing
our opinion, attain his end, though be found in his rejection of the idea in the Great State' is worth its place
his attempt to pigeon-hole others does of State Socialism, and their prac- in the book, if only as setting clearly
not lead to quite such outrageous tical adhesion to it, if only before the reader the danger to health
classification. With the broadened out-transitional episode. The Countess of of the monotony of our present specialized
2
" for men
as
a
## p. 648 (#486) ############################################
648
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
ever-
man
con-
factory system. Truly we might as the fact that its strong and weak points boastful and dissipated, but of a lion-like
well hope for the smooth running of are more or less the opposite of the strong bravery, is Richard's superior in all obvious
machinery into which grit was intro- and weak points of the ordinary good
and weak points of the ordinary good bodily and mental faculties, and also in
duced instead of oil as expect content-novel. In the first place, though it is out-of-the-way endowments—the dowser's
ment from toilers whom we insist on hardly necessary for the unravelling of gift, and the power to attract and do what
educating before we relegate them to the story to read every line of it, we found he chooses with animals. He is captain
tasks for which intelligence is almost ourselves compelled to do so by the force of a copper mine on the Hollinsclough
a disqualification.
and colour and cunning of the writing. land, and in his struggle with Richard has
In ‘Democracy and the Great State,' This is choice, but not too choice, in the miners at his back. Richard, sensi-
by Mr. Cecil Chesterton, the tendency of the use of words, and unusually simple in tive and irritable, nourishing an
an undemocratic collectivism to end in the structure of sentences, whereby the
the structure of sentences, whereby the increasing hate - which is besides, for
the servile state was well worth insisting whole work is made to the ear, indeed, reasons of her own, sedulously inflamed by
upon, as was also the need for recalling rather monotonous—with a rugged, not a old Hannah, his nurse—is more often
to our politicians Moltke’s notable saying smooth monotony—but to the eye rich than not in the right, but almost in-
that the greater a man is the less he needs and lively. If North Staffordshire, in variably acts amiss and puts himself in
Mr. Chesterton's advocacy of the Refer- Mrs. Garnett's pages, is “ desolate rather the wrong. It is well and subtly brought
endum brings to mind a plausible method than beautiful," it is not “wild, without out : how his brooding renders him
we have heard advocated, viz. , that in a grandeur,", and certainly not “hilly, incapable of judging what is the right
democratic state with our tax papers we
without charm. ” The character of the moment and of rectifying himself by
might receive a ballot paper for recording landscape, in all seasons and under all any general, external standard. Again
our votes for or against Bills on which sorts of skies, and the spell belonging to and again he belies his real goodness and
politicians had been debating during the it are admirably rendered.
honesty by doings which are base, just
past six months.
To match this setting the human figures as, through alternating supineness and
Miss Cicely Hamilton demands indi- must needs be austere, even grim, their
must needs be austere, even grim, their precipitancy, he commits follies that belie
ħis real intelligence.
viduality for women as well as men, but gaiety fitful and stormy, their loves and
allows her sense of justice to outstrip The love which conquers is that of
hates imbued with a certain savagery.
The struggle lasts for years, and the
her sense of the logical. In the following Ellen Brindley. It is first, and at its out of doors, are finely imagined. In
conquers is that of incidents of it, which nearly all take place
quotation an opponent might falsely
claim that she advocated a transference of centre, love for Richard Hollinsclough, particular, the necessarily oft-repeated
domination to the other sex, for that
but it has about it a vast circumference anticlimax-the time which follows some
marked event—is so skilfully treated that
would, in fact, represent the reverse of the of“ divine charity ” which embraces im-
one gets something of the savour which
partially all the living creatures-human
present position
or animal, good or bad—within her reach. belongs to actual life, the sense of being
Marriage, as it affects one party to the Ellen never blames, still less resents Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
contract
has existed for a wrongs merely done to herself. There
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
siderable period of time as a purely volun-are numberless works in which a presenti- Closely and strongly too are imagined
tary institution, and. . . . it does not appear ment of tragedy is infused into the atmo-
the relations between the characters,
to be any less popular with him on that sphere. Before the personage who is to
which seem all to have, though in a less
account. I fail to see, therefore, why the
modification of the compulsory character of precipitate it is brought on the scene, degree than Ellen, some subtle symbolic
the institution, as it affects the other party
or has revealed himself, his influence is reference to the details of the earth they
to the contract-woman-should make it perceived : there is hatred or folly or
spring from. They are grouped with
any less popular with her. ”
jealousy about, and ruin is foreknown. well-contrived balance, and by their
Mr. Roger Fry's essay, coming from that the like is here effected in regard to
One of the great charms of this book is divers juxtapositions are made to enhance
one another. This indeed, structurally,
one who declares himself no Socialist, love and wisdom. Ellen is scarcely seen till is the best part of the book.
pleasingly emphasizes our contention of nearly half way through, yet her presence
Its weaknesses, curiously enough, lie
the waning utility of classification. He is felt, and felt as the permanent unifying in the characterization. There is some-
follows. Mr. Money in plunging for non- element, presaging final happiness. To thing lacking some last touch that would
professionalism in art, and besides other the wild scene of the tale she is what have brought these figures into full life.
good things gives us a capital dissection glimpses of blue sky are through shifting They would, probably, seem alive in any
of the contents of an average refresh- black clouds ;
black clouds; her triumph may be work in which the lines of relation
ment-room as viewed by an artist.
delayed-by the nature of things it is between them, also the background, were
The interest of the subject rather than inevitable.
less strong. The actual defect is plainly
the intrinsic merits of the book has Richard Hollinsclough, the hero, is the connected with the book being exclu-
already led us to take up more space than last of a long-descended family, in this sively addressed to the eye, and so
we intended, and an adamantine editor generation sufficiently wealthy, but fallen
monotonous to the ear; and we can trace
will only permit us to name interesting in older days from the position of gentry which seems to move by some sort of
it in two ways: first, in the dialogue,
articles by Mr. E. S. P. Haynes on to that of yeomanry, and not having in
' Law and the Great State,' the Rev. this respect retrieved itself. He has been
convention, and, as it has few of the
Conrad Noel on ‘A Picture of the Church harshly reared ; and at his side, in the rhythms, so also has not, for all its clever-
in the Great State,' Mr. Herbert Trench on woman who is his old nurse and house-
ness, the true effect of speech; and,
The Growth of the Great State,' and Mr. keeper, he has continually one who is a
secondly, in the too great evenness of
Hugh P. Vowles on ‘The Tradition of the focus of hatred, as Ellen Brindley is the method in narration, which hardly differ-
Great State. '
focus of love. He marries perversely a
entiates between mere connecting pas-
pretty, fragile girl, knowing that what she sages and the account of the most exciting
has of a heart is set on Jack Beresford,
events. The subordinate persons in the
Amor Vincit : a Romance of the Stafford - Ellen's half-brother. His management of story, the pithy sayings and descrip-
shire Moorlands. By Mrs. R. S. Garnett. her-who, after all, might have been tions of scenery which have delighted us,
It is, how.
(Duckworth & Co. )
managed—is all astray. She falls ill. will be much commented on.
lingers for months in a decline, and dies
ever, an evidence of the artistic strength
Most readers of novels must have a at last overcome by a visit from Beresford,
of the book that, in spite of its wealth of
lively recollection of Mrs. Garnett's “The whom Richard himself has brought to her detail, it yet interests predominantly as
Infamous John Friend. ' Her new book side. There follows and it is the main a whole.
will not disappoint them. It is refreshing, thread of the story-a long and bitter
not merely by reason of its excellences, warfare between these two men. Beres-
which are many, but by reason also of 1 ford, a huge, immensely strong man,
6
## p. 649 (#487) ############################################
No. 4415, JUNE 8, 1912
649
THE ATHENÆUM
is
To claim us for their own.
an
? ?
Law.
Patterson (J. E. ), THE LURE OF THE SEA,
5/ net.
Heinemann
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS,
Annesley Case (The), edited by Andrew Lang, seeker after poetry, and his nautical verses
Mr. Patterson is not a poet, though long a
(Notico in those columns does not precludo longer 5/ net.
review. )
The Annesley case, which was curious
and lack the intimate maritime touch that he can
Tbeology.
romantic_enough to bear revival in the give to his prose narratives.
The longest
Allison (Sir R. A. ), A LECTURE ON HYMNS example of how flatly two
groups of witnesses; pursued by revengeful Pluto, to whom they
Notable English Trials Series, is a striking piece in this book is the least undistinguished
-a story of how certain Greek pirates were
AND THEIR WRITERS, delivered to the sworn to tell the truth, may contradict each
Holy Trinity Men's Mutual Improve-
had refused to sacrifice. Even this
other. The question was whether James
ment Society on December 12th, 1911, Annesley, who had as a boy been fraudulently bald in places ; but 'The Ship’ and Ocean
6d. net.
