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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.

HE Contemporary Review for September, con

THE practice of English reviews,

publishes a translation of the article which General de Negrier contributed anonymously to the Revue des Deux Mondes on "The Lessons of the South African War." Sir A. E. Miller writes upon "The Proposed Suspension of the Cape Constitution," an article which might have been useful once, but is somewhat out of date to-day. Hannah Lynch writes a sprightly and somewhat spiteful article on "Paul Bourget, Preacher." Mr. A. C. Seward defends the doctrine of natural selection against J. B. Johnston, who attacked it in the July number of the Contemporary. Dr. Dillon confines his survey of foreign affairs to a discussion of the future of Italian expansion, a glance at the stagnation of British enterprises in China, and a lamentation over the refusal of the colonial conference to federate the empire.

WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY? Professor Orr, in an article entitled "Dr. Fairbairn on the Philosophy of Christianity,” says that the permanent value of his book is that it compels us to face the solemn alternative of what the essence of Christianity is. This alternative, he says, is as follows:

"On the one hand, a universal Father-God, whose presence fills the world and all human spirits; Jesus, the soul of the race, in whom the consciousness of the Father, and the corresponding spirit of filial love, first came to full realization; the spirit of divine sonship learned from Jesus as the essence of religion and salvation-here, in sum, is the Christianity of the 'modern' spirit. All else is dressing, disguise, Aberglaube, religious symbolism, inheritance of effete dogmatisms. Will this suffice for Christianity? Or is the Apostolic confession still to be held fast, that Christ is Lord: the Incarnate, the Living, the Exalted, the Redeemer and Saviour, the Head of all things for his Church and for the world?"

IMMORTALITY, BEFORE AND AFTER.

Miss Caillard concludes her three papers upon "Immortality" by declaring herself in favor of the preexistence of the soul, and inferentially at least of the doctrine of re-incarnation. She says:

"If the supreme worth of that human individuality be allowed, if it bears a unique and consequently eternal ethical significance to God, we must also grant that it neither began with birth nor ends at death."

THE FUTURE LANGUAGE OF SOUTH AFRICA. Mr. Alfred A. MacCullagh writes a somewhat inconsequent article on this subject. His conclusion is somewhat startling:

"After all, the people of the British Islands need not concern themselves seriously as to the future of the language question in South Africa. South Africans will settle that for themselves. There may be a republic again in South Africa before many years, but it will be an English-speaking one, or there will be no rest in the land till the blood of the last British South African has stained the soil."

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made for peace because it was a coalition of the "Haves." The new Triple Alliance of Russia, Italy, and France will be a combination of the "Have-Nots." Italy and France are contemplating partition in North Africa, the revanche idea is reviving in France, and we must be prepared in the near future, if not for an actual catastrophe, at any rate for an era of excitability and unrest. The "Have-Nots" are no longer deterred from war by the certainty of defeat. Hence they will be less consistently conciliatory in the future, less prudent, less averse to dangerous intrigues and adventures of the Fashoda type.

THE TEST OF EFFICIENCY.

"Calchas" reviews in a very hostile spirit the changes which Mr. Balfour has made in his ministry. Apart from the appointment of Mr. Austen Chamberlain, his readjustments are commonplace, pointless, and inept. The present opposition, even without Mr. Morley, Sir William Harcourt, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, would supply a ministry with a larger number of efficients than are to be found in Mr. Balfour's cabinet. "Calchas" deals faithfully with Lord Rosebery's absurdly inadequate speech on the North Leeds election, which "Calchas" says was a stupefying surprise to the victors hardly less than to the vanquished. After long immobility in national conviction there can be little doubt that the nation is now prepared as it has never been before to change, and to change constantly, until it gets a ministry to its mind. A new political world has come into existence since 1900. The war has destroyed much which was in the national repute, the prestige of British shipping has been almost extinguished, and on the diplomatic side England has discovered that the German empire as the bedrock of her external relations is a rotten foundation. Great Britain has completely lost the reputation of technical preeminence in industry and commerce. For the first time perhaps for two or three centuries there is no longer a department of national life in which anything like the old leadership of English intellect is recognized by the world.

HERMANN SUDERMANN.

Mr. W. S. Lilly, writing upon Hermann Sudermann's new play "Es Lebe das Leben," exhausts his resources of eulogy. The play marks the high-water mark of the author's genius. He says that his inspiration is essentially spiritual, like that of Nature herself. He has far more in common with Euripides than any dramatist of our time. Through his work is that deep underlying thought of the Greek drama that in the moral worla law rules, law fenced about as all law is by penalties. This is the deep verity which informs his pages.

AN APPEAL TO WORKMEN.

Mr. J. Holt Schooling writes a letter to the workmer of the United Kingdom, which he invites London and provincial papers to reprint. His object is to ask them one or two straight questions, the first being, "Is there not a tendency in too many of you to take your work easily?" Secondly, "Do you need so many strikes?" Thirdly, "Why should you drink twice as much as the American workingman?"

PAARDEBERG.

Mr. Perceval Landon writes a picturesque, briet paper describing the first crushing blow which overtook the Boer forces. Apart from his description of French's ride and Cronje's retreat, the most interesting

part of his paper, although probably not in the least accurate, is the passage in which he says that Paardeberg was hardly less than the scotching of the Christianity of an entire nation. When Cronje lost the race to the river it was to the Boers as if God's arm had broken. He notes that February 11, the day set apart in England for prayer

stock companies, and he insists that these directors should be obliged to give financial guarantees for their responsibility and independence.

66

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

and intercession, was the day "BLACKW

upon which French started upon his march, and the effect upon the Boers was overwhelming. They felt without the least affectation that this day of intercession was the most terrible, as well as the least expected, weapon that the English would use, and even among the most irreligious ran a sudden foreboding of ill.

C

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

on

APTAIN MAHAN contributes to the National Review for September a twenty-page arti the Persian Gulf and international relations. He seems to believe in the antagonism between England and Russia in Persia, and therefore advocates the construction of a German railway line through Asia Minor which would have as its outlet on the Persian Gulf a British port. It may be noted that Captain Mahan in the course of his article makes the following remark : "There is certainly in America a belief, which I share, that Great Britain has been tending to lose ground in international economical matters. Should it prove permanent, and Germany at the same time gain upon her continuously, the relative positions of the two as seapowers would be seriously modified."

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

)LACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE" for September contains a good short travel paper by Reginald Wyon, entitled "Montenegrin Sketches." "Linesman" continues his interesting series of papers describing the adventures of his brigade on the heels of De Wet.

An anonymous writer, signing "L," discourses concerning the Boers in an article in which he warns Englishmen that all the living Boers are irreconcilable. They live in the past, and the past holds nothing for them but anger and distrust. "No single one of our transactions with them has been of a joyful or friendly nature, not one but has seemed to them dishonest, oppressive, or cowardly. . . . To the beaten Boer there is no future worth winning." The English tell him he will become great and famous. But all his life long he has prayed for obscurity. What is progress to a man whose earnest wish was to stand still? Or riches to one who dreads and despises them? Or imperial citizenship to an anchorite whose share even in the primitive government of his republic was oppressive to him? The writer says there is no doubt that when for the first time England governed the Boer nation she misgoverned it. She promised, and did not perform; she threatened and did not punish; she went to war and did not win. She invoked the sun and the rivers to attest her immovability, and moved; and to the Boer mind ever since she has been a nation of unjust, impotent braggarts.

There is a little dithyrambic article by Edward Hutton upon Venice after the fall of the Campanile; and a characteristic Blackwoodian article about the new ball with a core in it, which the Americans have invented, which bids fair to supersede the ball with which all golfers at present play. The feather-stuffed ball of the olden days cost $1.25, till the gutta-percha ball at 25 cents took its place. At present the new core ball costs 62%1⁄2 cents, and compared with the solid gutta-percha ball the new American ball covers one-third more distance. Judged, however, by the championship results, the core ball is only better than the gutta-percha by one stroke in three hundred and eight.

Dr. H. E. Armstrong, professor of chemistry at the Central Technical College, writes upon the need for general culture at Oxford and Cambridge. He declares that it is difficult not to believe that British educational authorities have been engaged in a silent conspiracy to undo the nation and deprive the Briton of individuality by a system of examinations and scholarships which encourage cram, and stifle both the spirit of inquiry and the development of character. Whatever elements of good may be discovered in England's educational system, it is impossible to deny that there is a total absence of organization. To secure success there must be reform at the same time both above and below. The establishment of an efficient system of technical instruction is dependent upon the upgrowth of an efficient system of general instruction. At present the control of the educational system rests almost entirely in the hands of politicians and benevolent amateurs. Half a dozen strong, sympathetic men at the Education Depart-publishes the first of a most useful series of papers ment, with power to act and supported by government, could solve the problem in a very few years.

ENGLISH "COMPANY DIRECTORS."

Mr. W. R. Lawson maintains that English jointstock finance is threatened with as bad a breakdown as the British War Office sustained at the outset of the South African War. He says that nine-tenths of the company directors have had no education whatever for duties demanding the highest skill and judgment. He draws up a table showing that of 1,143 companies occupying the broad zone between banks, insurance, home railways, and mining companies, 980 at present have their stock quoted below par. These 1,100 companies have 6,000 directors, most of whom are either incompetent or inefficient. He thinks that something might be done to get practical, trained directors for industrial joint

THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

N the Cornhill Magazine for September, the editor

on "Prospects in the Professions," written by carefully selected experts, who not unnaturally prefer to remain anonymous. The purpose of these papers,-the first of which is on the royal navy,-is to give parents some of the many "wrinkles" which they could, perhaps, not pick up otherwise, and which might save them much expense and disappointment. The question of the advantages and disadvantages of the professions, the essential qualities for success, the deficiencies which must cause failure, the amount of outlay actually (not nominally) to be incurred,-enlightenment on all these points should provoke gratitude from many a father with sons to place in the world. On the whole, the navy apparently offers very good average prospects.

Viscount St. Ayres says in an amusing literary paper on Martin Tupper:

"Tupper's claim to immortality rests on his vanity alone. No man ever thought as well of himself with scantier reasons for so doing; no man ever soiled more paper in telling the world why it ought to admire him. And the curious thing is that the world took him at his own valuation; few books commanded a larger sale than Martin's during the

WE

middle years of the nineteenth century. That he should ever have been popular,-that any one, even an American, should have read 'Proverbial Philosophy' sixty times,-might well drive Matthew Arnold to despair."

Lady Grove has a chatty article on "Hotels as Homes," which they never can be in her view.

THE CONTINENTAL REVIEWS.

REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.

E have noticed elsewhere M. Fouillée's curious and interesting article on "The Conduct of Life Among Animals," and Madame Bentzon's "Interview with Tolstoy." As usual, the Revue devotes a great deal of space to historical papers, and in each of the August numbers the place of honor is given to M. Sorel's elaborate account of the Peace or Treaty of Amiens, which ended the Wars of the Revolution, and which was hailed, especially in London, as the commencement of a new era of peace and prosperity. Before the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte was still unrealized by Europe at large, but the conduct of the negotiations (the treaty was only signed on March 26, 1802) showed the world that the brilliant Corsican soldier was a statesman as well as a general, and caused the more observant of his contemporaries to regard him with fear.

Those taking a practical or merely an intelligent interest in naval matters will find it worth their while to glance over the diary kept by a French naval officer who prefers to remain anonymous. The first chapter is entitled "In Port," and the writer gives a lively account of Cherbourg, the great maritime town whose strength and warlike footing so unpleasantly impressed Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the occasion of their second visit to France. The French Portsmouth owed its being in the first instance to the ill-fated Louis XIV., who was passionately interested in his navy; but each successive French ruler, including Napoleon, Charles X., and Napoleon III., added something to Cherbourg and its defences, and even now the government is spending twenty-seven million francs in making improvements to the harbor. The writer manages to convey a great sense of activity and power, and gives some choice word-pictures of the various types of seamen with which he was brought in contact.

WORK IN THE FRENCH COAL MINES.

M. Benoist continues his most interesting account of the organization of work in the French coal mines, and he gives much information of a curious character. Of the five thousand miners employed in one north of France mine, close on four hundred of the workers are children, that is, from thirteen to fourteen years of age. In most cases a man spends his whole life, from childhood to old age, in this kind of work; for though in the life of every Frenchman there comes one great break, that caused by the conscription, even after having spent some years in the army, the young miner drifts back to his old way of life. It should be added that the miner rarely remains faithful to the same neighborhood; he drifts from mine to mine, and this in spite of the fact that the various companies do all they can to encourage their men to stay with them year after year. M. Benoist has much to say concern

ing the long hours of hard, constant labor, which, he says, makes the French miner old before his time, and causes him to appear a worn-out old man when he has reached his forty-fifth year. He admits, however, that no French worker enjoys so many holidays as does the miner,-one and all, even the more sober workers, constantly take days off. The usual expression concerning these unlicensed holidays is "doing Sunday." "What were you doing yesterday?" one miner will ask the other. "Oh, I was Sundaying," comes the ready an

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Liard's curious paper on the foundation of French universities in the Revue de Paris for August. A great effort is being made at the present moment to reorganize, and, as it were, resuscitate, the ancient centers of French learning-once so justly famed in medieval Europe. Since the Revolution there has been, from the practical point of view, but one French universitythat of Paris. Various Frenchmen who have lived for short or long periods in England have been struck by the great part played in the national life, not only by Oxford and by Cambridge, but by the ancient and honored Scottish universities; and these acute observers have longed ardently to see the same kind of institution flourish on their own soil. M. Waddington took an immense interest in the matter, and as long ago as 1876 made a determined effort to interest the government in the project. Various Republican statesmen followed suit, and at last-in the July of 1896-the dream of Renan, of Berthelot, of Lavisse, of Monod, and of Jules Simon became more or less a substantial reality.

CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN CHINAMAN.

In the same number of the Revue M. Donnet analyzes the fundamental characteristics of the Chinese "man in the street." According to the French writer, the most remarkable natural trait of John Chinaman is his good sense, and this in spite of the fact that he is full of superstitions. The Chinaman, as is so often the case with those who pride themselves on their good sense, is an utter materialist; the ideal side of life does not appeal to him at all. He is so sure that he knows every

part of his paper, although probably not in the least accurate, is the passage in which he says that Paardeberg was hardly less than the scotching of the Christianity of an entire nation. When Cronje lost the race to the river it was to the Boers as if God's arm had broken. He notes that February 11, the day set apart in England for prayer and intercession, was the day upon which French started upon his march, and the effect upon the Boers was overwhelming. They felt without the least affectation that this day of intercession was the most terrible, as well as the least expected, weapon that the English would use, and even among the most irreligious ran a sudden foreboding of ill.

CA

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

on

APTAIN MAHAN contributes to the National Review for September a twenty-page arti the Persian Gulf and international relations. He seems to believe in the antagonism between England and Russia in Persia, and therefore advocates the construction of a German railway line through Asia Minor which would have as its outlet on the Persian Gulf a British port. It may be noted that Captain Mahan in the course of his article makes the following remark: "There is certainly in America a belief, which I share, that Great Britain has been tending to lose ground in international economical matters. Should it prove permanent, and Germany at the same time gain upon her continuously, the relative positions of the two as seapowers would be seriously modified."

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dr. H. E. Armstrong, professor of chemistry at the Central Technical College, writes upon the need for general culture at Oxford and Cambridge. He declares that it is difficult not to believe that British educational authorities have been engaged in a silent conspiracy to undo the nation and deprive the Briton of individuality by a system of examinations and scholarships which encourage cram, and stifle both the spirit of inquiry and the development of character. Whatever elements of good may be discovered in England's educational system, it is impossible to deny that there is a total absence of organization. To secure success there must be reform at the same time both above and below. The establishment of an efficient system of technical instruction is dependent upon the upgrowth of an efficient system of general instruction. At present the control of the educational system rests almost entirely in the hands of politicians and benevolent amateurs. Half a dozen strong, sympathetic men at the Education Department, with power to act and supported by government, could solve the problem in a very few years.

ENGLISH "COMPANY DIRECTORS."

Mr. W. R. Lawson maintains that English jointstock finance is threatened with as bad a breakdown as the British War Office sustained at the outset of the South African War. He says that nine-tenths of the company directors have had no education whatever for duties demanding the highest skill and judgment. He draws up a table showing that of 1,143 companies occupying the broad zone between banks, insurance, home railways, and mining companies, 980 at present have their stock quoted below par. These 1,100 companies have 6,000 directors, most of whom are either incompetent or inefficient. He thinks that something might be done to get practical, trained directors for industrial joint

stock companies, and he insists that these directors should be obliged to give financial guarantees for their responsibility and independence.

"BL

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

LACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE" for September contains a good short travel paper by Reginald Wyon, entitled "Montenegrin Sketches." "Linesman" continues his interesting series of papers describing the adventures of his brigade on the heels of De Wet.

An anonymous writer, signing "L," discourses concerning the Boers in an article in which he warns Englishmen that all the living Boers are irreconcilable. They live in the past, and the past holds nothing for them but anger and distrust. "No single one of our transactions with them has been of a joyful or friendly nature, not one but has seemed to them dishonest, oppressive, or cowardly. . . . To the beaten Boer there is no future worth winning." The English tell him he will become great and famous. But all his life long he has prayed for obscurity. What is progress to a man whose earnest wish was to stand still? Or riches to one who dreads and despises them? Or imperial citizenship to an anchorite whose share even in the primitive government of his republic was oppressive to him? The writer says there is no doubt that when for the first time England governed the Boer nation she misgoverned it. She promised, and did not perform; she threatened and did not punish; she went to war and did not win. She invoked the sun and the rivers to attest her immovability, and moved; and to the Boer mind ever since she has been a nation of unjust, impotent braggarts.

There is a little dithyrambic article by Edward Hutton upon Venice after the fall of the Campanile; and a characteristic Blackwoodian article about the new ball with a core in it, which the Americans have invented, which bids fair to supersede the ball with which all golfers at present play. The feather-stuffed ball of the olden days cost $1.25, till the gutta-percha ball at 25 cents took its place. At present the new core ball costs 62% cents, and compared with the solid gutta-percha ball the new American ball covers one-third more distance. Judged, however, by the championship results, the core ball is only better than the gutta-percha by one stroke in three hundred and eight.

THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

N the Cornhill Magazine for September, the editor

In the Copy the rest of a most useful series of papers

on "Prospects in the Professions," written by carefully selected experts, who not unnaturally prefer to remain anonymous. The purpose of these papers,-the first of which is on the royal navy,-is to give parents some of the many "wrinkles" which they could, perhaps, not pick up otherwise, and which might save them much expense and disappointment. The question of the advantages and disadvantages of the professions, the essential qualities for success, the deficiencies which must cause failure, the amount of outlay actually (not nominally) to be incurred,-enlightenment on all these points should provoke gratitude from many a father with sons to place in the world. On the whole, the navy apparently offers very good average prospects.

Viscount St. Ayres says in an amusing literary paper on Martin Tupper:

"Tupper's claim to immortality rests on his vanity alone. No man ever thought as well of himself with scantier reasons for so doing; no man ever soiled more paper in telling the world why it ought to admire him. And the curious thing is that the world took him at his own valuation; few books commanded a larger sale than Martin's during the

WE

middle years of the nineteenth century. That he should ever have been popular,-that any one, even an American, should have read 'Proverbial Philosophy' sixty times,-might well drive Matthew Arnold to despair."

Lady Grove has a chatty article on "Hotels as Homes," which they never can be in her view.

THE CONTINENTAL REVIEWS.

REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.

WE have noticed elsewhere M. Fouillée's curious and interesting article on "The Conduct of Life Among Animals," and Madame Bentzon's "Interview with Tolstoy." As usual, the Revue devotes a great deal of space to historical papers, and in each of the August numbers the place of honor is given to M. Sorel's elaborate account of the Peace or Treaty of Amiens, which ended the Wars of the Revolution, and which was hailed, especially in London, as the commencement of a new era of peace and prosperity. Before the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte was still unrealized by Europe at large, but the conduct of the negotiations (the treaty was only signed on March 26, 1802) showed the world that the brilliant Corsican soldier was a statesman as well as a general, and caused the more observant of his contemporaries to regard him with fear.

Those taking a practical or merely an intelligent interest in naval matters will find it worth their while to glance over the diary kept by a French naval officer who prefers to remain anonymous. The first chapter is entitled "In Port," and the writer gives a lively account of Cherbourg, the great maritime town whose strength and warlike footing so unpleasantly impressed Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the occasion of their second visit to France. The French Portsmouth owed its being in the first instance to the ill-fated Louis XIV., who was passionately interested in his navy; but each successive French ruler, including Napoleon, Charles X., and Napoleon III., added something to Cherbourg and its defences, and even now the government is spending twenty-seven million francs in making improvements to the harbor. The writer manages to convey a great sense of activity and power, and gives some choice word-pictures of the various types of seamen with which he was brought in contact.

WORK IN THE FRENCH COAL MINES.

M. Benoist continues his most interesting account of the organization of work in the French coal mines, and he gives much information of a curious character. Of the five thousand miners employed in one north of France mine, close on four hundred of the workers are children, that is, from thirteen to fourteen years of age. In most cases a man spends his whole life, from childhood to old age, in this kind of work; for though in the life of every Frenchman there comes one great break, that caused by the conscription, even after having spent some years in the army, the young miner drifts back to his old way of life. It should be added that the miner rarely remains faithful to the same neighborhood; he drifts from mine to mine, and this in spite of the fact that the various companies do all they can to encourage their men to stay with them year after year. M. Benoist has much to say concern

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ing the long hours of hard, constant labor, which, he says, makes the French miner old before his time, and causes him to appear a worn-out old man when he has reached his forty-fifth year. He admits, however, that no French worker enjoys so many holidays as does the miner,-one and all, even the more sober workers, constantly take days off. The usual expression concerning these unlicensed holidays is "doing Sunday." "What were you doing yesterday?" one miner will ask the other. "Oh, I was Sundaying," comes the ready an

swer.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Other articles consist of an attempt to analyze the personal character of Frederick the Great, as seen in his political correspondence; of an account of two great musical epochs, that of the cantata and that of the oratorio; of a subtle analysis of the mistakes made by those eighteenth-century philosophers who believed that the world could be rendered virtuous by act of Parliament; and of a political paper dealing with the practical effects of the recent French legislative elections.

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REVUE DE PARIS.

HOSE interested in and concerned with the management of universities will turn at once to M. Liard's curious paper on the foundation of French universities in the Revue de Paris for August. A great effort is being made at the present moment to reorganize, and, as it were, resuscitate, the ancient centers of French learning-once so justly famed in medieval Europe. Since the Revolution there has been, from the practical point of view, but one French universitythat of Paris. Various Frenchmen who have lived for short or long periods in England have been struck by the great part played in the national life, not only by Oxford and by Cambridge, but by the ancient and honored Scottish universities; and these acute observers have longed ardently to see the same kind of institution flourish on their own soil. M. Waddington took an immense interest in the matter, and as long ago as 1876 made a determined effort to interest the government in the project. Various Republican statesmen followed suit, and at last-in the July of 1896-the dream of Renan, of Berthelot, of Lavisse, of Monod, and of Jules Simon became more or less a substantial reality.

CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN CHINAMAN.

In the same number of the Revue M. Donnet analyzes the fundamental characteristics of the Chinese " man in the street." According to the French writer, the most remarkable natural trait of John Chinaman is his good sense, and this in spite of the fact that he is full of superstitions. The Chinaman, as is so often the case with those who pride themselves on their good sense, is an utter materialist; the ideal side of life does not appeal to him at all. He is so sure that he knows every

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