of the chapters: " The College and the Home," "The Good of Being in College," "The College Forming Character," "Certain College Temptations," "College Government," "Play in College," "Simplicity and Enrichment of Life in College," "The College and the Church," "The College Fitting for Business," "The Preeminence of the Graduate." The ideas of the author seem to be drawn in the main from experience of life in a small Western college, where life is narrower, simpler, more religious, and, superficially at least, more earnest than in the larger Eastern institutions. For this reason he is inclined to take a more favorable view of some things in college life than the condition of life in these larger institutions warrants. There is not as little drinking and vice of various kinds in college as he seems to think. Nor is it true, as far as the ordinary observer can see, that "the intellectual earnestness of students is increasing. Certainly it is not true that poor scholarship, which once would have been regarded with indifference, is now despised, and the man who 'tails' his class, even though he be the crack oarsman or the best 'rusher,' is the object of either pity or ridicule." But notwithstanding these rather restricted views, there is a great deal of sound, straightforward sense all through the book, particularly in the chapters on Simplicity and Enrichment of Life in College, "College Government," and "Play in College." The chapter on "The College and the Church" well emphasizes some facts which are occasionally lost sight of nowadays. And lastly, the statements throughout the book, especially in the last two chapters, about the uses and advantages of college education are most true and timely. Very appropriately chosen is the title of Mr. Crandall's volume of poems,* for they are almost invariedly musical throughout, running on with melodious, free and natural rhythm. And well are they called music of the wayside, too, for they are concerned mainly with the common things of everyday life. There is not much on subjects which are remote from ordinary thought and feeling, and appeal only to a few. Mr. Crandall writes of these familiar things in the main in musical verse, with tender and true feeling, with pretty fancy, occasionally with high imagination. His poetry is all meditative and quiet. His love poems, of which there are a considerable number, are poems more of steady, serene affection than of ardent passion. There are, it is true, sometimes jarring verbal infelicities, sometimes the sentiment is rather commonplace, and sometimes the poet's touch on the feelings is not sure, but these defects do not overbalance the large amount of good poetry in the book. There is about almost all Mr. Crandall's writing the mark of a genuinely poeticmind. Some of his best work is in his sonnets, and one is here given as a specimen of his poetry. * Wayside Music. By Charles H. Crandall. pp. 119. New York: J. P. Putnam's Sons. "WOMAN. Fairer than all the fantasies that dart Adown the dreams of our most favored sleep, The constant pattern of a perfect art! The spirit strong to smile when others weep; Thus, often weary ere my task is done, Tired with my task, my head I fain would lay Another volume* has been added to the "Story of the Nations" series. Mr. Rawlinson's name is so well known that any words of praise seem almost unnecessary. The important rôle played by the Parthians as the "Second Empire of the World" in connection with Rome, the tragic fate of the ill-starred expedition of Crassus, and the equally unsuccessful one of Marc Antony, all go to make the book a particularly interesting and attractive one. The volume is furnished with illustrations and maps. The Christmas stories which were contained in the December number of the Dartmouth Lit., have been reprinted in a small volume entitled X-Mas Sketches. The small pen-and-ink illustrations which appeared in the magazine are presented in the reprint. The binding of the book is tasteful and appropriate to the season, but the contents are hardly what would be expected from the literary magazine of Dartmouth college. RECEIVED. Morceaux Choissis d'Alphonse Daudet. Edited by Frank W. Freeborn. Boston: Ginn & Company. School Management. By Emerson E. White. New York: American Book Company. The Strike at Shane's. A sequel to Black Beauty. Written for and published by the American Humane Education Society, Boston. * The Story of Parthia. By George Rawlinson, M.A., F.R.G.S. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons. London: T. Fisher Unwin. X-Mas Shetches. From the Dartmouth Literary Monthly. Edited by Edwin Osgood Grover. Concord, N. H.: Republican Press Association. EDITORS' TABLE. Misdirected effort is better than no effort at all. This aphorism is coined to order as a text for "a few brief remarks" on certain happenings of the last few weeks in the college world. The January Lit. convincingly set forth the need of aesthetic feeling in Yale life, and the real narrowness of our self-satisfied existence here. We are too practical and cannot seem to soften the national utilitarian traits even in this supposedly cultured atmosphere. But there were still some scattered sparks of romance within the limits of the quadrangle. Aroused at last by a longing to get away from the practical and the prosaic, a band of high spirited youths inaugurated the "wild boar hunt," which is now history. On that memorable afternoon when the bristling maned, wild-eyed blue emblazoned quadruped was loosed upon the campus, Yale burst its utilitarian bonds, and with unparalleled enthusiasm, started in pursuit of the evanescent and unattainable. These are qualities of the ideal rather than the real, and the instigators of this engagement probably comprehended that the first step had been taken toward a popular wave of aesthetic feeling. They are able to make out a strong case, for besides this argument, there is the authority of Marcus Aurelius. In writing of the feeling for what is beautiful in nature, he says: "The lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things-though they are far from being beautiful if a man should examine them severally-still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them and they please the mind." Of course, a lion's eyebrows must of necessity be accompanied by their owner, and to loose this combination would have been impracticable for obvious reasons. The wild boar was a sufficient exposition of this great truth. There is a merited rebuke in this hunt, if it is viewed in a symbolistic light. It will be remembered that the affrighted monster made twice the circuit of the treasury with winged footsteps. Then it coursed swiftly to the library entrance, but did it curve around that structure? No, it turned back at the doors. Is not this to be interpreted that we put two-fold more thought on base money-getting than on the better and higher things. The Jove-directed flight of the animal may have had a strange and solemn meaning. We can trace the same spirit of rovolt from the routine way in the elevation of a massive and dignified canine to the chapel belfry. The new school of symbolists again "showed its hand," to use a vulgar phrase. Here was one of the lowest and most material constituents of the world of "thingness," an ordinary dog, whose very name has been a reproach from the beginning of time. Yet there was no lack of attractiveness in the dog. The power to interpret nature was wanting in those who looked and saw not. At last there came the clear-visioned men who should translate the creature, as it were, and raise him so that all might look up and wonder. No longer was the dog a neglected object. He had risen above those who before had scorned him. Even the leaders of our culture, the Faculty, through their minions, were unable to attain to that height, to grasp him in all the richness of his weighty being. They found themselves on a lower plane, and between were artificial barriers which required much striving to pierce. In this way, then, may sublimity be read into the humblest beings of creation. Seriously speaking, these escapades may seem rather childish to the unsympathetic and neutral observer. Yet in a way they represent a spirit which is rapidly being legislated out of college life. The Faculty has swept away rushes and bonfires, and kindred boisterous amusements, but human nature is more difficult to handle, and an occasional upheaval is not only what might be expected, but that which should be welcomed. Such is the revolutionary opinion of Saint Elihu. FOUR O'CLOCKS. It was that they loved the children, Where the grass grew tall, Under the hedge of the holly-hocks, At the touch of the sun, It was that they loved the children,- And somebody goes When nobody knows, At the same time every day, Where the grass grows tall, At the touch of the sun, Still open the four-o'clocks. -Wellesley Magazine. NASTURTIUMS. The whole little hill-town blazed with them, Of strangest scarlet and oddest pink; If you walked through the street your garment's hem That leaned from the grey fence chink. And every gay little girl one met Had their colors glowing against her hair, And through the open bountiful doors, Down the glimmering dust of ancient halls, WE E have everything to furnish your room comfortably. Our Prices are low. |