Chapter II: Part 2

Against the precedents and preferences of the regular police force for the segregation and regulation of vice, backed by the mayor’s preference for the same policy, what can this lone “second deputy” do to secure “the strict enforcement of these laws and ordinances”? His appointment and helplessness are new arguments for a morals commission to support him both in the enforcement of the law and in publicly placing responsibility for its non-enforcement.

The substitution of this subterfuge in lieu of the morals commission can be explained in the same way that Chief Justice Harry Olson, of the Municipal Court of Chicago, accounts for the unexpected closing of the segregated districts. He traced the sudden change in the attitude of county and city officials toward segregated vice to the decision of the Circuit Court which granted a permanent injunction restraining the use of certain property in the segregated district for immoral purposes. “This order of the Chancery Court was,” he said, “the Appomattox of the war upon openly tolerated vice in Chicago.” For this decision served notice that any citizen, by invoking the aid of the courts, could restrain vice, if the public officials were unable or unwilling to do so. “It was thus the beginning of the end,” he declared.

The morals court, he said, would further act as a check upon the second deputy superintendent of police, because “the records and the statistics of the court will show the names of the owners of such houses, together with their proprietors, inmates and frequenters, and will disclose the business of the promoters of the traffic and others who may profit therefrom.” So if this feature of the reorganized police department was intended by the city administration to effect its escape from the morals commission as one horn of the dilemma presented by the Vice Commission, Justice Olson clearly shows that the morals courts is the other horn. Neither the police of the city administration, nor the state’s attorney of the county, can escape if citizens seek warrants from the morals court or injunctions from the Circuit Court.

The inquiry into the relation of low wages to the demoralization of young girls and women, and the propaganda to correct this tendency by minimum wage laws will bear close watching. It may not only injure the broader movement to secure minimum wage laws based upon just and safe economic grounds, but it may also divert attention from the enactment and enforcement of laws against commercialized vice. For the ensnaring of victims is accomplished through many more devious ways than can be charged up to low wages.

WOMEN POLICE

LOUISE de KOVEN BOWEN

In all our large cities thousands of young people, weary from their monotonous work in shop or factory, seek the streets in the evening imperiously asserting their right to pleasure. Business enterprise has taken advantage of this natural desire for recreation, and commercialized amusements have sprung up on all sides ready to cater to every taste of this childish multitude. Penny arcades, slot machines, moving picture shows, cheap theaters, amusements parks and dance halls are all attempting to lure children with every device known to modern advertising. Young people are thus without protection and exposed to temptation at the very moment when they are least able to withstand it.

Many students of municipal affairs believe that every large city should have morals police, of whom a certain number should be women, if it would properly protect young girls for whose unwary feet so many pitfalls are spread, and if it would deal adequately with prostitution—that grave menace to health and morals.

We need women police in the theaters of every city to watch the girls who attend these entertainments and accept the invitations of young men offered with disreputable intentions. In the majority of cheap theaters the moving pictures are shown in a dim light and the danger to young people has been shifted from the stage to the auditorium. The darkened room affords opportunity for familiarity, and there should be women police to see that conventionalities and decencies are observed.

There should be women police in our dance halls—the happy hunting ground of the white slave trader—to watch the girls and also the boys, to warn the girls when they are seen taking too much liquor and to watch that if intoxicated they are not accompanied from the hall by young men who have plied them with liquor for illicit purposes. They should also see that young unsophisticated boys are not victimized by professional prostitutes who take advantage of inexperienced youths who come to the city for the first time and visit the dance halls to “see the sights.”

Women police should be stationed on pleasure boats and at bathing beaches and should ever be on the alert for conditions which demoralize children. We need women police in our amusement parks to mingle with the crowds at the gates and to save young girls from accepting invitations from men who hope to be repaid later in the evening. We need women police in such places to follow girls who are seen going to lonely parts of the parks accompanied by young men. In fact, we need women police to “mother” the girls in all public places where the danger to young people is great.

In our station houses we should have women police in whose charge girls should be placed. Women police could accompany the girls to trial and be with them when they are subjected to harassing questions so often put to them by attorneys, and women police should accompany girls to the institutions to which they are committed by the court. The work of the woman police officer would not be very different from that of the woman probation officer. The Juvenile Court officers investigate homes and neighborhoods, watch their wards to see that they attend school or are at work, and take charge of children after they have become delinquent. It would be only one more step, but one urgently needed, to have women police who would lessen the work of the probation officers by carefully watching for those causes which lead children into the courts, by reporting these conditions to the proper authorities and by carefully supervising all places of amusement.

Women truant officers attached to the compulsory education department, the women adult probation officers connected with the municipal courts, the women factory inspectors, the women sanitary inspectors of the health department, the women school nurses, the women supplied by the Travelers’ Aid Association, the officers of the Juvenile Protective Association and all other officers paid by private organizations are doing valiant work for the young people of our cities. But we especially need the police power which the city might vest in women trained for the work and which would give them the necessary authority to cope with certain dangerous situations with which private organizations have tried in vain to deal.

Women police are not needed to handle crowds, to regulate street traffic, to arrest drunkards and criminals, but they are sorely needed in order that they may adequately protect the thousands of children and young people who every day are exposed to the dangers of unsupervised and disreputable places of amusement and for whose safety and welfare the city is responsible.

DEMOCRATIZE THE PEACE MOVEMENT

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
Church of the Messiah, New York

“How long, O Lord, how long!” is the cry one is moved to utter when considering the war mania of our time and the ever-growing burden of armaments which this delirium is forcing upon the world. The Balkans swept from end to end with the scourge of “fire and sword,” Italy fattening upon the unholy spoils wrested from effete Turkey, Russia recreating the armies and navies annihilated by Japan, Germany increasing her military forces to hitherto unheard of proportions, France answering her neighbor’s challenge by raising her enlistment period for citizens from two to three years, England insisting on a five-Dreadnoughts-a-year basis, and her colonies building ships for the imperial navy! What a spectacle! And Jesus Christ dead two thousand years ago!

Here in America, there is a cheering sign in the refusal of the Democratic Congress, through two successive terms, to provide for the construction of more than a single battleship. But this was more than counterbalanced by the defeat of ex-President Taft’s arbitration treaties, the fortification of the Panama Canal, and the movement to place the militia of the various states in the pay of the federal government!

In the face of these facts, one is tempted to ask if there is not something the matter with the organized peace movement, that it makes so little headway against the onsweeping flood of frenzied militarism. The movement has ample brains and sufficient money: it is active, intelligent, resourceful. But has it the passion of a great ideal—does it really mean business—has it got “guts,” to use the fine old Anglo-Saxon phrase, as well as “gray-matter?”

It is on this point, the most essential of all, that one begins to have doubts and fears. Why are there so many vice-presidents of peace societies who are supporters of the big navy policy—why so many advocates of peace who are enthusiastic preparers for war—why so many disciples of good will who believe in peace in the abstract but in battleships in the concrete? Above all, if the peace societies are really in earnest, why are they so slow in joining hands and hearts with the vast hosts of labor throughout the world—the unionists, Socialists, syndicalists, and all the rest, who constitute at this moment the one really serious menace to the supremacy of the war lords?

It is here, to my mind, in this last query, that we find the real weakness of the organized peace movement. This movement is too academic, too aristocratic, too exclusive. It is too much confined to earnest scholars who deal in theories, and amiable social leaders who deal in fads. It holds too many dinners at $10 a plate, conducts too many meetings in luxurious parlors and salons, and puts its privileges of membership and co-operation at too high a price of refinement, culture and material wealth. There is too much “function” and not enough “crusade!” Too much library dust, midnight oil, pink tea, after-dinner speaking, and not enough sweat and tears and blood. Bankers, lawyers, clergymen, college professors, club women—these are all right and we need them every one. But they can never in the world accomplish their aim alone.

It is the common people—peasants, artisans, factory workers—who pay the price of war and it is only through the organized revolt of these people that the curse of militarism can be destroyed. Here, in “the multitudes,” whom Jesus sought out with so true an instinct, do we find the hope of future peace upon earth. No movement which ignores this factor in the situation can be regarded either as efficient or genuinely in earnest. Sincere it may be, I grant you, but sincere in that narrow, unsympathetic, petty way which has blasted many a precious hope and destroyed many a noble cause! It is time for the peace movement to democratize itself, to work from the bottom up and not from the top down, to organize, inspire, co-operate with the workers in their rebellion against militarism. This done, something will happen in the world of armies and navies, and happen quick! But not before!

And is it not here that the social worker may count for much? No one hates or should hate war more bitterly. No one sympathizes with the organized peace societies more deeply. No one understands the common people more truly. Is it not time for him to act?

BOOKS

MODERN PROBLEMS

By Sir Oliver Lodge. George H. Doran Co. 348 pp. Price $2.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.13.

Sir Oliver Lodge is a scientist with a worldwide reputation, whose opinions on the structure of atoms, on X-rays or on Hertzian waves command instant attention. But when he expounds such remote and multifarious subjects as “free will and determinism,” “Bergson’s philosophy,” “universal arbitration,” “the production and sale of drink,” “the functions of money,” “charity organization” and a score of others, he rouses the suspicions of the wary. “Nobody could possibly be as wise as Daniel Webster looked,” and nobody could possibly be as wise as an authoritative knowledge of these topics implies.

Yet the learned knight has acquitted himself creditably. The essays are random papers, addresses at commencement exercises and the like, as good as such occasions warranted, though hardly, in some cases, worth the dignity of permanent print.

Sir Oliver Lodge, despite his rise to the presidency of Birmingham University, has escaped the commonest of British diseases—snobbery. His eyes are not blinded, by fatty layers of prosperity, to the misery that stalks about the country. He is not elated at the sight of those piles of iron and slag, those miles of furnaces and factories, those leagues of rabbit-hutch cottages, which stretch, northwest of Birmingham, a “Black Country” that even Satan might disown, the heart of manufacturing England, a blasted region where no blade of grass is green and no life can be clean and elevated.

The author is saturated with the feeling and teaching of Ruskin, in whom these blighted acres, and other fair districts which Mammom had despoiled, raised such righteous tempests of wrath. It is refreshing to find in high places the gospel of Ruskin, that half-forgotten prophet of social righteousness, re-stated with conviction and re-applied to fresh problems.

Sir Oliver is grateful to the organized charity workers who “immerse themselves in this mass of misery and incipient or threatening degradation, in hope that they may raise individuals out of it”; but, with more pleasure, he pleads for that statesmanship which will root out the causes of wretchedness. He must be a whole-hearted supporter of Lloyd-George’s schemes of social insurance, old-age pensions, taxation of land values and better education. With tax-payers’ associations he is surely unpopular, for he actually denounces thrift in government and advocates spending more and ever more on public undertakings. He laments that a surplus in the national revenue is made the excuse for lowering taxes, while there are a thousand good objects on which the surplus could be spent. Perhaps that argument is the easier because, like the great majority, he owns not a foot of soil in what is euphemistically styled “his” country. Were he in America he would appear before boards of estimate and the like and plead for more money for schools, playgrounds, hospitals, and health work.

Sometimes his economics are disputable, as when he asserts that “human labor is the ultimate standard of value, and coins might instructively be inscribed in terms of labor.” Even the Marxian Socialists are shy today about defending their prophet’s theory of labor value. But slips like that are inevitable where so wide a range of topics is attacked. Altogether the volume can be recommended to those numerous casual readers who like a little of everything and not much of anything.

JOHN MARTIN.

THE BURDEN OF POVERTY

By Charles F. Dole. B. W. Huebsch. 124 pp. Price $.50; by mail of THE
SURVEY $.55.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND AMERICAN LIFE

By Chauncey B. Brewster. Thomas Whittaker, Inc. 143 pp. Price $.80; by
mail of THE SURVEY $.87.

THE MINISTER AND THE BOY

By Allen Hoben. University of Chicago Press. 171 pp. Price $1.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.10.

BOY LIFE AND SELF-GOVERNMENT

By George Walter Fiske. Young Men’s Christian Association Press. 310
pp. Price $1.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.06.

THAT BOY OF YOURS

By J. S. Kirtley. Geo. H. Doran Co. 256 pp. Price $1.00; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.10.

THE FAMILY

By Charles Franklin Thwing and Carrie F. Thwing. Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard Co. 258 pp. Price $1.60; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.75.

The distinctive notes in Dr. Charles F. Dole’s The Burden of Poverty are two—the new consciousness of the spiritual nature of man whereby poverty becomes a problem and the spiritual urgency to meet it due to the mighty idealism of religion. Whether conscious of a religious motive or not, or even in conscious reaction from something repellent in some religious concept, all to whom poverty is a problem and who are urged thereby to sacrifice for others are said to be moved at both points by a religious motive.

The extent and causes of poverty are accounted for in largest part by industrial conditions, the economic burdens of land, rent and interest, immigration, drink and war. But to whatever factors the problem is due it can be met only as man becomes more religious, which the author makes equivalent to being more human and more civilized. Socialism rises above its “difficulties”, if at all, only as it becomes so human as to be “a form of the religion of pity and sympathy.” It fails most “in not understanding the spiritual implication of democracy, because a materialistic democracy is impossible.”

Keeping well “this side of socialism” and claiming something better than it, Dr. Dole presents a platform for social progress which he thinks appeals to a larger consensus of judgment and synthesis of action. It summons all to end war, intemperance, tuberculosis, and occupational and vice diseases; to educate for responsibility and efficiency; to redress industrial injury and injustice; to abolish special privileges, double standards and discriminations against sex or class.

Aside from general dependence upon moral and religious forces to bring these things about, the specific means of so doing are suggested under the title, The Control of the Land—A Dream. By the public possession or control of the land and by taxing out of existence all inheritance above $500,000, the way is open for the dream of the endowment of every one at the age of majority with inalienable possession free from tax and rent, the assurance of employment and provision for old age. But all depends, at last as at first, upon our anchor to the “new” question, “Can you convert brains to go in the way of religion?” This is said to be the biggest problem of religion, as it is the newest, for “it is only lately that man has been able even to formulate the true significance of religion in terms at once rational for the intellect and practical for the conduct of the daily life.”

“People will be happy as fast as they learn to face these questions and to say _yes_ to them. Only men of good will really know what they want in this world; can meet and make and control conditions in life; can handle successfully the new and tremendous powers of nature and science. Only they can establish thorough democracy. Only their ideas can preserve the nations from the worst of all poverty—starvation of the soul, from the worst of all tyranny—the fear of man.”

* * * * *

In his Kingdom of God and American Life Bishop Brewster seeks to adjust the Christian ideal and ethic with the earlier idealism and standards of American democracy. He identifies them at the very points at which both are at a crisis—liberty, justice, opportunity, loyalty, law, civic courage, the value of human life and the sanctity of the family. Differentiating between “the kingdom of God” which consists in part of such values, and the church whose witness to these ideals is needed alike by religion and democracy, he denies that Christianity is either individualistic or socialistic. “The social character it is impossible to overestimate, because there the social never gets away from the personal.” From this vantage he repudiates individualism since “Christianity while never individualistic is always personal”; and he disputes socialism since “in nature and purpose that scheme is economic” and “the church is spiritual and personal”, socialism “aims at the economic transformation of environment” and “the church’s aim is the spiritual transformation of the persons that make up society”, “socialism aims at reconstruction through revolution” and “the church at progressive reform through evolution.”

While the author’s readiness to stand for the consequences of democracy leads him to claim that “this diversity in aim and operation does not necessitate antagonism in spirit”, yet his work would have been more positively and practically effective if it had been less of an argumentative special pleading against socialism and more constructively aimed to build up American democratic institutions. Pointing his emphasis upon the essential value of democracy with the most concrete arguments from our industrial and civic life, his reasoning rings true to this fundamental keynote of Christianity all the way through from preface to conclusion.

“If it be true that Christianity in principle means not individualism but solidarity; if Christianity, while not ignoring personality, yet has, as its ideal, personality fulfilled in social relations; then, in a time like this, of transition, from individualistic principles and ideals, the church of Christ has plainly before it a task in the world. It is no time to yield to that old besetting temptation to hold aloof from contact with the world. The sociological trend of thought and life today is a realization of essential characteristics of Christianity and makes rightful demands upon Christians. Certainly the church is to refrain from seeking to allay the restlessness and fever of social discontent by administering any anodynes that superinduce social lethargy. Its plain task is to heal, tone up and invigorate the social system, to quicken and guide those social promptings and aspirations, and make men know assuredly that Democracy means the wider opportunity and the larger obligation with respect to social service. It should be evident beyond question that the church is bringing the spirit of Jesus Christ to the ferment of social discontent and strife. That would require that it be itself thoroughly possessed by that spirit. The problem that immediately confronts the church is not to Christianize socialism, but first to socialize Christians, until their ideal principles shall be real and ruling principles, until they obey the rule of principle and not contentedly rest in sentiment.”

* * * * *

What the boy does for the minister is as well emphasized in Professor Hoben’s suggestive little volume The Minister and the Boy, as what the minister may do for the boy. Basing his whole discussion upon a frank acceptance of the biological order and psychological development of boy life, Professor Hoben in a scholarly, yet very practical way, turns our newest knowledge and experience in dealing with boys to the right and feasible use of the ministers and church workers. Not the least valuable parts of the book are those which account for some of the defects and defaults of the boy, characteristic of certain periods of his development, on grounds which reasonably explain them and suggest ways of counteracting and correcting them. Self-knowledge and control are shown as failing to keep pace with the sense impressions and unorganized experiences of adolescence. The psychological analogy between play and worship is another interesting and original point developed. The instincts rooted in the sense of solidarity are treated as the basis of training for the family and communal relationships and responsibilities.

“Self-centering the experience of the boy short-circuits the religious life.” “Sex instruction should anticipate sex consciousness.” “The normal boy will not deliberately choose to sponge upon the world. He intends to do the fair thing and to amount to something. He dreams of making his life an actual contribution to the welfare and glory of humanity. When it is put before him rightly he will scorn a selfish misappropriation of his life and will enter the crusade for the city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.”

These sentences indicate the author’s abiding faith in boyhood and his epigrammatic, suggestive style. At the end of each chapter that deals with the more fundamental principles their most practical applications are given. Whole chapters are devoted to practical suggestions on such topics as The Boy in Village and Country; The Modern City and the Normal Boy; The Ethical Value of Organized Play; The Boy’s Choice of a Vocation; Training for Citizenship; The Church Boys’ Club. References to readily accessible books also add to the value of the volume.

* * * * *

The best supplement to Professor Hoben’s book is the interesting and useful handbook entitled Boy Life and Self-Government, which Professor George Walter Fiske of Oberlin Theological Seminary prepared for the International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations, for the use of those in charge of their boys’ departments and other boys’ club workers. With these two small volumes in hand and in use, the work of every church and minister for the boys of their parish and community cannot fail to be more effective.

* * * * *

As a fresh, original and well-balanced study of the boy, inspired by unusual insight and large experience, Kirtley’s That Boy of Yours is valuable for teachers, social workers, and above all for parents, to whom by its title it is addressed.

* * * * *

Thwing’s The Family has been for a generation so exclusively the one book combining for the general reader historical and social data, scholarly and practical purpose, that this revised and enlarged edition renders a public service. Unlike the more technical manuals on the family it takes for granted no special acquaintanceship with the history and literature of the subject, though it is introductory to and interpretative of both. The additional material includes the statistical and bibliographical data appearing since the first edition was published, and a new concluding chapter, significantly bearing the title, The Family Under a Socialized Society.

GRAHAM TAYLOR.

THE TEACHER’S HEALTH

By LEWIS M. TERMAN. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 136 pp. Price $.60; by mail
of THE SURVEY $.66.

“Teaching as a Dangerous Trade” might have been the title of this book. Eighty-four per cent of 159 teachers in Springfield, Mass., testified that in their opinion the teacher of average physical constitution suffers distinct impairment of health within five to ten years after beginning service. Between 1906 and 1909 over a quarter of the elementary teachers of Sweden were absent one year or more on account of illness.

But it is not as a matter of mere personal concern to the profession that the teacher’s health is here considered; rather as a factor in school efficiency. Medical inspection of schools is partial so long as it takes no notice of teachers, for “the health of the child is intricately related to that of its teacher.” There is a subtler way in which weak lungs and neurasthenia among the half million teachers who are molding the intellect and character of twenty million children in this country may affect the development of those children. As the editor’s introduction puts it: “If the teacher’s conscious pedagogical method transmits truth, it is the unconscious influence of his personality that gives it that bias of meaning which the fact will forever after have for the pupil.” And nowadays we are coming to know how much personality is shaped by physical and mental health.

WINTHROP D. LANE.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF MENTAL DEFECTIVES

By J. E. WALLACE WALLIN, Ph. D. Warwick and York, Inc., Baltimore. 155
pp. Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.32.

This is one of the educational psychology monographs edited by Guy Montrose Whipple. The book consists of the results of a series of tests made upon the epileptics at Skillman Village, N. J., by the Binet-Simon scale and by some other tests which are designed to supplement the Binet.

The Binet-Simon test is the nearest approach to a scientific and accurate scale for measuring intelligence that has yet been devised. It is now being used extensively in many parts of the world, particularly in the United States. The work of Dr. Wallin with the epileptics at Skillman is of value in several directions, not the least being its value in testing the Binet scale itself, which has been used repeatedly, at intervals of a year, upon the inmates of the Vineland school, with results which show remarkable accuracy.

It will be readily seen that an accurate test of feeble-mindedness which can be applied by a careful and intelligent observer who has not been specially trained in psychology would be of the greatest possible value. Realizing as we do the absolute necessity of segregating, or in some way controlling, the feeble-minded of every class, the question of how to tell who is feeble-minded is one that is continually recurring.

The scale has been tested quite widely both on normal and defective children, the most important test on normals being that of Goddard who tried it on nearly 2,000 public school children.

Dr. Wallin found at Skillman that either the Binet scale was not accurate or else that the conditions surrounding epilepsy make the scale less applicable to that class than to normals or feeble-minded. This observation confirms similar facts disclosed at Vineland and elsewhere in connection with epilepsy and insanity; that is to say, both of these conditions produce eccentricities which the scale does not exactly meet.

While the Binet scale is an extremely useful device and one which will be more used, it is only reasonable to suppose that it will be modified, in the future, as it has been in the past, by Goddard and others. But no matter how carefully modified, it is not claimed to be, and will not be claimed to be, an all-sufficient test on such questions as sterilization, final segregation and other very important things. Physical tests of various kinds will also be used.

Dr. Wallin’s book concludes with a copy of the Binet scale with directions for its use, all of which are very valuable. On the whole the book is a distinct contribution to the literature of the subject and it is to be hoped that the author’s example in testing out large numbers of abnormals of different kinds and then publishing the results will be followed. We know qualitatively a great deal about the feeble-minded and epileptic, but our quantitative knowledge is still far from complete.

ALEXANDER JOHNSON.

PATHFINDERS IN MEDICINE

By VICTOR ROBINSON. Medical Review of Reviews. 317 pp. Price $2.50; by
mail of THE SURVEY $2.67.

This book contains a series of papers most of which have already appeared in the _Medical Review of Reviews_, the _Medical Record_, and other magazines. It is dedicated to Ernst Haeckel. Dr. Abraham Jacobi wrote the preface.

The Pathfinders include famous men whose names are familiar to every one, such as Galen, Paracelsus, Servetus, Paré, Hunter, Jenner and Darwin, and also some who are only vaguely known to most of us. Among these are Aretaeus, Scheele, Laennec, Semmelweiss. We are not told what prompted the selection of these particular Pathfinders, or why such names as Boerhaave, Sydenham, Pasteur and Virchow were omitted, but one cannot demand that such a book be all-inclusive.

Mr. Robinson has lived with the characters of whom he writes until he has formed a vivid picture of the personality of each, a picture he manages to convey to his audience with great success. Naturally it is the earlier Pathfinders who are most interesting to the ordinary reader and the chapter on Galen holds many surprises for those who have been accustomed to think of the medical skill of the ancients very much as we think of Chinese medicine of today. Galen knew that consumption was communicable, and his disquisitions on dietetics and hygiene are almost incredibly modern.

The chapter on Paracelsus is especially vivid and delightful, while the description of Aretaeus, “the forgotten physician” gives us a picture of a man full of insight and sympathy. Of the later chapters the most interesting are the one on the many-sided Hunter and that which tells of the heroic and tragic struggle of Semmelweiss against the blind conservatism of his own profession.

In the course of one chapter Mr. Robinson remarks that “all writing is autobiographical” and that “prejudices ... will become apparent, ... where you least expect.” This is true of his own book. No one can read a chapter without discovering the author’s antipathy to the Christian religion, and the monarchical system of government. This prejudice against what he regards as superstition and sycophancy, leads him into some extreme statements and mars to a certain extent what would otherwise be delightful reading. If Calvin had been nothing more than the man Mr. Robinson describes, he could hardly have held sway over the minds of several generations as he did. Mr. Robinson will also find that the Bretons opposed the French Revolution not from blind devotion to monarchical tyrants, but because it meant the breakdown of a system of local self-government and common lands to which their Celtic natures clung.

ALICE HAMILTON, M.D.

CIVICS FOR FOREIGNERS

By ANNA A. PLASS, Teacher of English to Foreigners. Rochester, N. Y.
D. C. Heath & Company. 186 pp. Price $.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $.57.

To meet the demand for a book of simple lessons for foreigners which, while aiding them to learn English, should at the same time give information concerning the principles of our government, has been the aim of the author. A very limited vocabulary has been used in presenting the subject. Topics have been limited for the most part to a single page, so that each subject may be treated in as concise a manner as possible. This also makes the book more adaptable for pupils whose attendance is likely to be irregular. The volume, which is well illustrated, gives the elementary facts about the different city departments and officials, about the state government and state law makers, the courts and the national government. Occasionally realistic and practical lessons are included such as a telephone call for the doctor and a petition for naturalization.

At the close of the book is a vocabulary in Italian, German, Swedish, Polish, French, Greek and Yiddish.

JAMES P. HEATON.

ANNUAL REPORT ENGLISH PRISON COMMISSION

For the year ending March 31, 1912. Wyman & Sons, 32 Abingdon St., S.
W., London. Price 8d.

Partly because English prison and crime statistics are better and more centralized than ours the annual reports of the English Prison Commission are always well worth reading. In the year ending March 31, 1912, the proportion of persons committed to prisons in England was the lowest within statistical record, 439.2 per 100,000 of the population of England and Wales. The commitments for serious crimes particularly show a decrease. The bane of the English prison system is still the short sentence for misdemeanants, 81 per cent of all prisoners having been sentenced for one month or less. Over 50 per cent of those committed to prison are sent in default of paying a fine. This is considered by the Prison Commission one of the most urgent social problems demanding the attention of Parliament.

The commission still regrets that the committing magistrates do not take advantage of the chance to classify prisoners when sentencing them. The Borstal Institution (the English Elmira) continues to satisfy; it has now a population of over 400. The Borstal Association, a released prisoner’s aid society for Borstal, has placed 250 out of 270 lads received. Of these about seventy-five out of one hundred cases turn out well. The “Borstal girl” from the girl’s reformatory has proved satisfactory in conduct after prison in twenty-nine out of fifty-four cases.

An interesting feature is the development of a modified Borstal (or reformatory) system in the local prisons for the younger prisoners, just as though in New York state we introduced into the county jails and penitentiaries a modified Elmira system. The problem of payment to prisoners is engaging the commission.

The Preventive Detention Prison on the Isle of Wight had been running but a few months when the report was prepared. Little can be said about it as yet. The idea is not novel, but “advanced.” Following the serving of a sentence for a specific crime, the more professional or habitual criminal may be sentenced to from five to ten years of subsequent preventive detention in a prison with privileges of limited association with other prisoners: in short, a custodial treatment of the criminal who is dangerous to society because of his profession or his nature. Many other interesting features are dealt with in this report of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise and his colleagues; much that our American prison boards and wardens cannot afford to miss.

O. F. LEWIS.

ADMISSION TO AMERICAN TRADE UNIONS

By F. WOLFE, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins Press. 181 pp. $1.00 paper, $1.25
cloth; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.08 and $1.33.

SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

By FREDERICK A. OGG. The Macmillan Company. 384 pp. Price $1.50; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.61.

Admission to American Trade Unions is a retrospective study brought up to the present of the methods by which American trade unions control the number and quality of their membership, through their regulations in regard to apprenticeship, competency, admission of women, aliens and Negroes, and the expulsion of members. The conclusions which the writer draws from his study are colorless, but the book presents a wealth of facts, particularly in the footnote references and quotations from primary sources.

* * * * *

Professor Ogg’s review of the movements, which almost within the memory of men now living have transformed the social aspect of Europe, is not profound nor original and does not undertake to interpret these movements. It is, however, a useful reference book of facts, the more so since the author supplements his short accounts of the various movements by bibliographies of the matter covered in each chapter. The subject matter, which is carried practically up-to-date, covers political and industrial changes, the condition of the agricultural population and of the wage-earner, labor organization and politics, and the efforts of governments to improve the condition of the lower classes.

MARY BROWN SUMNER.

BOOKS RECEIVED IN MARCH

PSYCHOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY. By Hugo Munsterberg. Houghton
Mifflin Co. 320 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.62.

COMRADE YETTA. By Albert Edwards. The Macmillan Co. 448 pp. Price
$1.35; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.47.

THE MORAL EDUCATION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. By Charles Keen Taylor, M.A.
Charles K. Taylor, Publ. 77 pp. Price by mail of THE SURVEY $.75.

THE OLD LAW AND THE NEW ORDER. By George W. Alger. Houghton Mifflin
Co. 295 pp. Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.35.

THE ECONOMIC UTILIZATION OF HISTORY. By Henry W. Farnum, M.A., R.P.D.
Yale University Press. 220 pp. Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY
$1.35.

THE CHILDREN IN THE SHADOW. By Ernest K. Coulter. McBride, Nast & Co.
277 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.62.

A CATECHISM OF LIFE. By Alice Mary Buckton. E. P. Dutton & Co. 67 pp.
Price $.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $.54.

THE MAKING OF MODERN ENGLAND. By Gilbert Slater. Houghton Mifflin Co.
308 pp. Price $2.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.64.

BEDROCK: EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT, THE FOUNDATION OF THE REPUBLIC. By
Annie L. Diggs. The Social Center Publishing Co. 70 pp. Price $.25;
by mail of THE SURVEY $.30.

SMITH AND THE CHURCH. By Rev. Harry H. Beattys. Frederick A. Stokes.
118 pp. Price $.60; by mail of THE SURVEY $.66.

THE ETERNAL MAIDEN. By T. Everett Harré. Mitchell Kennerley. 279 pp.
Price $1.20; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.28.

A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD. By Ellen Yale Stevens. Frederick A.
Stokes. 240 pp. Price $1.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.08.

THE UPHOLSTERED CAGE. By Josephine P. Knowles. Hodder and Stoughton.
420 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.60.

THE AMERICAN CHILD. By Elizabeth McCracken. Houghton Mifflin Co. 191
pp. Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.35.

SYNDICALISM AND THE GENERAL STRIKE. By Arthur D. Lewis. Small, Maynard
& Co. 291 pp. Price $2.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.70.

THE IMMIGRANT INVASION. By Frank Julian Warne, Ph.D. Dodd, Mead & Co.
336 pp. Price $2.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.70.

AMERICAN SYNDICALISM. The I. W. W. By John Graham Brooks. The
Macmillan Co. 264 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.60.

SWEDISH SONG GAMES. By Valborg Kastman and Greta Köhler. Ginn and Co.
95 pp. Price $.75; by mail of THE SURVEY $.83.

SCHOOL FEEDING—ITS HISTORY AND PRACTICE AT HOME AND ABROAD. By Louise
Stevens Bryant. J. B. Lippincott Co. 345 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.62.

THE CASE OF OSCAR SLATER. By A. Conan Doyle. Geo. H. Doran Co. 103 pp.
Price $.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $.57.

THE NATURE OF WOMAN. By J. Lionel Taylor. E. P. Dutton & Co. 186 pp.
Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.32.

ESSAYS IN TAXATION. By Edwin Seligman. Macmillan Co. 707 pp. Price
$4.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $4.23.

THE SOCIAL CENTER. By Edw. J. Ward. D. Appleton & Co. 359 pp. Price
$1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.64.

HANDBOOK OF MUNICIPAL ACCOUNTING. By Bureau of Municipal Research. D.
Appleton & Co. 318 pp. Price $2.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.14.

A NEW LOGIC. By Charles Mercier. Open Court Publishing Co. 422 pp.
Price $3.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $3.17.

COMMUNICATIONS

WAGES FIXED BY LAW

TO THE EDITOR:

Your San Pedro correspondent[2] has got his figures on wages wrong and he leaves the expenses of business out of account. The 1910 Census bulletin of manufactures gives the figures thus, stated in thousands of dollars:

Footnote 2:

See THE SURVEY of February 8, 1913, p. 653.

Value of Product 20,767,546
Wages (16¹¹⁄₂₀%) 3,434,734
Salaries (4¹¹⁄₂₀%) 940,900
Cost of Material (58¹⁴⁄₂₀%) 12,194,019
Miscellaneous expenses (9⁸⁄₂₀%) 1,955,773
—————————— 18,525,426
——————————
Balance for manufacturers 2,242,120

This balance is 10¹⁶⁄₂₀ per cent of the value of the product. Out of this interest on capital and wear and tear have to be met. The employees, in wages and salaries, get 21²⁄₂₀ per cent—just about twice what the manufacturers get. If 13 per cent were to be added to wages, as Mr. Deegan proposes, there would be a loss and business would not be done.

He may say charge more for the goods. But he complains of the high cost of living now. To increase it would be an injury—not a benefit.

My advice to all my labor friends would be to reduce the cost of production by making labor more efficient. Avoid strikes, settle differences by arbitration. If existing arbitration tribunals are inadequate, provide better, and remember that the real interests of labor and capital are identical. Labor would be fruitless, without factories and machinery. The men who invent or provide these are entitled to their share.

EVERETT P. WHEELER.

New York.

PLAY CENTERS FOR THE POOR

TO THE EDITOR:

Henry De Peyster’s article on Play Centers for the Poor in THE SURVEY for March 22 is interesting and illuminating. Evidently he has made a profound study of the question. But with regard to France I should like to add a few words to correct a false impression which Mr. De Peyster surely had no intention of giving.

As he says, the problem is different in France and Germany from that in other countries; but he does not mention (except tacitly by the picture on page 856) the admirable provision made by the _Mission Populaire_ (the McAll Mission) to meet the actual condition.

In all the larger stations of that mission both in Paris and in the provinces (Rouen, Nantes, Lille, etc.) the daily _Ecole de Garde_ (supervised study and play hours) is an important feature. The children leave school at four—their parents reach home from work not much before half past six. Therefore the boys and girls within walking distance hasten to the McAll station. After a light lunch they are turned into the play-ground for an hour on the parallel bars and the other apparatus. At five they are collected in the mission rooms, where their preparation for the next day is supervised by volunteer teachers.

Mr. De Peyster evidently uses the word “religious proselytism” in the French, not the English, sense. The French word “proselyte” is nearly equivalent to the English “convert.” That the _Ecoles de Garde_ of the McAll Mission do have a religious motive goes without saying. About ten minutes of religious instruction are given daily, but absolutely without proselyting intent. Most of the parents of these children are free thinkers or violently opposed to religion, a few are Roman Catholics, but never a word is said which could mar the influence of any religiously disposed parent. As for the others, the widely established fact that more children from the McAll _Ecoles de Garde_ pass their examinations than any others makes even anti-religious parents eager to have their children attend them. For in France the whole future of every child depends upon his school examinations.

LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON.

Washington, D. C.

THE NEW PUBLICITY

TO THE EDITOR:

In a recent book review of a modern novel, the writer speaks of “episodes which violate the reserve that is bred in the bone of the English-speaking peoples.”

It is a serious matter, to my mind, that that reserve is being deliberately violated by a number of well-meaning people at this time in the campaign that is being carried on against certain diseases.

“It is necessary,” these people say, “to speak plainly. Great harm has been wrought by ignorance. The innocence of the child has been its weakness. Under plea of modesty fathers and mothers have been foolish and cowardly,” and so on. You hear and see it everywhere, and lectures are being delivered, to mixed audiences, on things which, the apostle said, it was a shame even to speak of.

Now I believe that the necessary information can, and should be, given to children from twelve to fifteen; but it is my positive belief that it should be done by the parents, or else by the use of carefully prepared printed matter. A short, modestly written pamphlet can tell all that is necessary. It can be placed in the hands of the child with instruction that it should be _read and destroyed_; also that the parent will give any further information required. I believe that oral instruction on these matters, _to more than one child present at a time_, is bad and harmful.

I feel deeply in the matter, for I feel that harm is being done when a strong, fine, racial trait is being violated, in attempting a good work that can be _better_ done, in my opinion, when it is done in harmony with our best traditions.

Attempts at allegory, comparisons with plant life, and so on, are all best left aside. The child should be told what is right and what is wrong, and why. But it should not be told in company with others, and especially not in mixed audiences. The inbred reserve spoken of is too precious a possession to be thrown away, even in a good cause.

Something of the same purport may be said of the social evil now so freely discussed in the press and forming so large a part of the subjects written about in your issue of March 8. “Frankness” and “freedom” are excellent, but some things are too fine to be tarnished by careless use, and modesty is one of them.

Where we are getting to in this new movement to tear away the veil that has screened the family life of America can be seen in some of the new fiction. For instance, in Arnold Bennett’s Carlotta the hectic heroine thinks that truth demands that one should follow the dictates of animal instinct!

The logical result will be that morality, either ethical or religious, will be sent to the waste basket.

JOSEPH D. HOLMES.

New York.

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION

TO THE EDITOR:

In the March 8 issue of THE SURVEY there appeared an article by Paul Kennaday, entitled Big Business and Workmen’s Compensation. This article is full of inaccurate statements and should never, in justice to your readers, have been printed.

On page 809, in the first column, it is stated: “Seized upon with alacrity by reformers, fought at first at every step by the casualty insurance companies and employers, ‘elective’ acts are now cherished like a prodigal son,” etc. This statement is unqualifiedly untrue. Employers generally have been notoriously in favor of elective compensation laws. Of course, they have been far from unanimous, and their expert advisers have generally been in favor of compulsory laws, but anyone familiar with the attitude of employers in the movement for compensation can bear witness to the fact that the majority of employers have throughout entertained a preference for elective laws. On the other hand, the casualty insurance companies have not fought such laws, nor have they generally specifically favored them. There has been as much difference of opinion among the insurance men on this question as there has been among all other classes of people. But in general the representatives of the casualty insurance companies have favored any kind of a law which would substitute the liability for compensation in place of the liability for negligence.

Of course, the casualty insurance companies have objected to such elective compensation laws as the Ohio Act of 1911, for the reason that that act gave the state insurance office a monopoly of the compensation insurance. That left the casualty companies to deal with the old negligence liability with all its abuses and consequent unpopularity, while it gave them no opportunity to demonstrate their ability to administer compensation insurance better than the State Office and without the abuses incident to negligence insurance.

The statement on page 809 at the bottom of the first column and the top of the second, that the “club” features of the elective compensation law has a peculiar advantage from the casualty companies’ standpoint is also diametrically the opposite of the truth. What the casualty insurance companies most desire is that the compensation law shall be so framed as to induce all employers, or all large employers, pretty unanimously to adopt one course or the other; that is, en masse to elect the compensation features of the law, or, en masse to reject them. Otherwise the casualty companies have to do business under two different laws, providing for two different kinds of insurance, the consequent of which is to duplicate the work and a large part of the expenses of the insurance companies. They naturally do not want a law which will cause employers to jump back and forth from the compensation features to the negligence features and vice versa, and experiment, but rather one which will induce all to come permanently under the compensation features or to stay out permanently.

On page 809, in the second column, it is stated, referring to casualty companies: “With equal determination they stop, where they can, laws which give the employer no election, but compel him to insure.” That is a purely gratuitous misstatement of the facts. The casualty companies have not—whatever some few exceptional representatives of some companies may have done—tried to stop the enactment of compulsory compensation laws. They have, on the other hand, opposed the enactment of so-called compensation laws which would give a monopoly of the insurance business to political boards. In so doing they have adopted the natural attitude of protecting their own business; and have done no more than would the persons engaged in any other business if it were proposed to transfer their business to politicians.

On page 809 in the same column, it is stated: “Prospective annual profits in enormous amounts are at stake for the casualty insurance companies in this fight.” That statement is a pure figment of the imagination. The writer cannot point out anywhere on this earth where casualty insurance companies have made profits in enormous amounts. What is at stake for the casualty insurance companies is the total value of the machinery and good will of their business, which ill-advised enthusiasts, under the secret guidance of Socialist agitators, are trying to destroy. But more important, the employes of such companies have their bread and butter at stake; it being proposed to transfer their jobs to political appointees and to leave them out in the cold.

Lower down in the column it is stated that “casualty insurance companies are to be found advising, wherever workmen’s compensation is under discussion.” As a matter of fact, the casualty insurance companies have been very reluctant about advising except when called upon; but their actuaries have been in constant demand, and naturally should be, since they are about the only persons except the officials of the state insurance departments, who know anything about the business and the subject matter involved. The further statement that “At meetings of bar associations their attorneys have resolutions passed deprecating state insurance” is a gratuitous insult. No attorney for an insurance company would offer a resolution at a meeting of any bar association affecting the interests of his clients without stating that fact; and thereupon the resolution would be considered on its merits and would express the opinions of the members of the bar unaffected by the interests of the casualty insurance companies.