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JULIA FILLMORE HARRIS, Principal 1049 Brickell Avenue, Miami, Florida

For pipe smokers there is a new ashtray with a large cork button in the center to prevent injury to either pipe or tray in knocking out ashes.

There is an answer to the school problem-the K SKIPLAN.

Write for some real information. Dr. A. W. WILSON, President, Box 934, Saltsburg, Pa. Second Semester opens February 1, 1928. KISKIMINETAS SCHOOL for BOYS

For the pipe smoker who always burns his tongue on a new pipe at least one manufacturer is breaking pipes in artificially. They are smoked by machinery until the bowls have sufficient cake to be mellow.

Nothing will make a room look more untidy than to have the pictures hanging askew upon the walls. Some ingenious soul, driven to distraction by the endless task of straightening pictures, invented the Staput, a double

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

You must be a very ignorant person, or you would know how New England got her wealth, and how she

Miss Harris' Florida School "produced the brains that upbuilt the

Nation." James Truslow Adams, in his "New England in the Republic," says that if New England had had her way the United States would be a little strip of territory along the Atlantic Ocean dominated by herself. Thark God she didn't have her way! And the time will come when she won't have her way in writing and telling history to suit herself.

Today, since the South is getting on her feet and keeping her cotton and other resources and manufacturing them herself, old New England is going backward, and has to resort to anything she can to make a living, and thank God for that. New Englanders complain that the South shouldered them out of the textile industry, and the West shouldered them out of the boot and shoe industry. I suppose those brainless New Englanders think the South and West were born to serve them. The pendulum swings as far one way as it does the other, and nothing lasts, not even in politics, and some day old New England is going to get what is coming to her, and I hope to live to see that day come. When it does, I shall rejoice and say, "At last New England is getting her reward, and thank God she is."

pointed pin, and there is no longer an excuse for crooked pictures. You fix one point of the pin into the back of the frame at the bottom, push it into the wall, and there you are.

A recent development of the vacuumcleaner is the vacuum-brush, which will do nearly everything that a large cleaner will do, and many things that it won't. Some of these brushes are simply small vacuum-cleaners; others have a rotary brush like that in a carpet-sweeper, which loosens the dust. They are made to be held in one hand, but have also a long handle, so that they can be used on floors.

However justified my correspondent's excitement about New England may be, I do not think he needed to have become so excited about me. I have never sold rum to benighted Africans or slaves to innocent Southerners. I am not even a graduate of Yale or Harvard, nor was I

born in the sink of iniquity described by my correspondent. The vices of Brooklyn, New York, are all I have to answer for. But I will stand by my assertion, which had nothing to do with Yankee vice or virtue, that New England has furnished more brains to the Nation in proportion to its population than any other section of its size in the United States.

In substantiation of my statement, I venture to refer to a statistical work compiled and published, not in unscrupulous Boston, but in his own virtuous city of Chicago. I allude to "Who's Who in America." According to the figures in the latest edition of that carefully edited and useful compendium its editor has selected the names 24,112 native Americans who have some claim to distinguished achievement. O these persons 4,042, or about 17 p cent, were born in New England. B New England has only about 7 per cent of the population of the continental Na tion. Thus something has given 7 pe cent of the population 17 per cent of the leadership, and this calculation takes no account of men and women of New Eng land ancestry born outside of New Eng land territory.

Here is a phenomenon that deserve attention. In the article to which my correspondent takes exception I mod estly asked the question, "What is that has given New England such a influence on the rest of the country? He thinks it was vice; I think it was vi tue the virtue of well-cultivated and well-used brains. A careful perusal d my correspondent's letter leads me to infer that he was not born in New Eng land.

THE OUTLOOK, November 16, 1927. Volume 147, Number 11. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1927, by The Outlook Company.

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ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief

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Volume 147

A

S I entered the great room which is the center of Fascist power in the Chigi Palace, Rome, it seemed to me like a commodious business office rather than a seat of political authority.

Il Duce "the Chief"-Signor Benito Mussolini, rose from his seat behind a large desk burdened with many papers and books. He did not wait for me to approach, but with quick, vigorous steps he strode around the desk and met me midway with a cordial hand-shake. Then he indicated a chair before the desk, while he quickly returned to his own seat, to plunge instantly into the center of his subject in response to the question:

"Your Excellency, what are the outstanding problems confronting Italy today?"

November 16, 1927

"Economical! Entirely economical. We must develop our industries, our agriculture, and our-what is the word? -our marine."

Just for a moment did he hesitate on that word "marine," as he turned to my volunteer interpreter-an AmericanRoman-for prompting. How has this busy man acquired English? No biography indicates that he has ever been in England, certainly not in America. Yet he spoke with hardly any trace of foreign accent. He talked "American" rather than "insular" English. Recall that young Benito Mussolini, the son of 2 Milan blacksmith, became a tramp in Switzerland, seeking employment and finding a prison. But recall, too, that he holds now an honestly achieved degree from a college-that he has been an editor and an essayist, writing a

notable essay in English on Milton's "Paradise Lost." He was a poet, a connoisseur of art, and a linguist before he became the political dictator and national leader of 44,000,000 Italianssuccessor to the Cæsars.

"The problems are economical!" He was again out of his seat, stirred by enthusiasm, leaning both hands on his desk and peering into my face. "Economic? In developing Italy's agriculture, do you believe the increased yields will keep pace with her augmenting population?"

"Yes; we have already doubled the production of food since Fascism came into control, and we can go on increasing production and keep up with our yearly increase of half a million population."

"Then, since the United States limits immigration and allows Italy a quota of less than 4,000 a year, where Italy formerly sent more than 100,000 emigrants to America annually, there is yet no fear of over-population?"

"No; we are sending many emigrants to Buenos Aires who would have gone to the United States. But we do not send them without knowing in advance that they will prosper. They must have assured employment before we grant visas."

Number II

Italy counts upon an average income of about $2,000 from every emigrant she sends out. This is from the revenue of passage in Government-owned vessels (and they must voyage only in such vessels), from subsequent visits to relatives in Italy, and from remittances while abroad.

"You will keep pace with your in

crease of population in food production? Or, in view of the closing of America's doors to unlimited immigration and the lack of Italian colonial possessions, do you advocate birth control?"

"Certainly not birth control," answered the Chief, emphatically.

"Fascism's conception of moral and religious problems is rooted in a profound sense of spirituality. My Government desires to prevent the diffusion of those deplorable tendencies toward limitation of offspring which are having such grave consequences in other nations. The traditional fecundity of the Italians must not be checked by such insidious propaganda, disguised under a pseudoscientific cloak, as has made progress in North America, England, and Holland."

He omitted mention of France with her falling birth rate. Then came to mind the stand of our late President Roosevelt on birth control; the parallel of the two great leaders was striking in more than one respect.

"The danger of voluntary birth control," continued Mussolini, "is not grave in Italy. Nevertheless, the Government, considering it wisest to attack before being attacked by such a peril, has arranged for means of crushing the first serious traces of any such propaganda.

"The great wealth of the nation is the vigorous florescence of the Italian family, which recognizes that in the multiplication of its sons lies the strongest instrument for Italy's uncheckable world expansion."

I asked, "Can Italians afford large families?"

"It is significant," he answered, "that the provinces in which birth control has