Jan.

21,

19091

laturesaredeluglngthemembers
of
the Reichstag with protests, and popular
massmeetings in allsectionsare
voicing anew the old prayer to St. Florian.
Spare my house, set fire to other peoples homes! Before this popular uprising the proposed taxes on gas and electricity and that on newspaper advertisements have already gone
by the board
The Commercial Dlet opposed theadvertisingtax
because theyield would
be too smallto outweigh thedlsadvantages, arid because the inevitable result
would be the printing of advertisements
asreadingmatter.Theproposals
regardinggasandelectricitywere
shown
to be unworkable;
they
would, it is
believed, not only impede industrial development, but cause the poorer classes
t o return to petroleum for reading Both
taxeswere
declared tobeunscientific
andunworthy
of a far-sightedstatesmanshlp. As forthe new death-duties,
which
radically
interfered
with
the
right of inheritance,theyare
believed
to haveperishedintheRexhstagitself,theConservativeandCentre
parties having together provided coffin and
headstone.
Becker,
the
Centre
leader,
positively asserted, In Cologne recently,
that these sectlons of the blllwould be
promptlyinterred
if theCentreand
the Conservatives only stood firm, and
there IS everyreason
to belleve that
they ~111. Yet Herr Sydow had counted
on an income of no less than $43,750,000
fromthis
source, andfromthe
levies
on electrrcity,gas, andadvertising
As
if this setback were n o t sufficiently serious, well-informed men believe that the
lose his
Minister of Financewillalso
proposed monopoly on spirits, to which
he now looks for $25,000,000. Not a
voice is raised in its behalf; apparently,
each member of a beer-drinking natlon
sees in the plan an attempt to infringe
upon hlsnaturalandinalienableright
t o gethls beer wherehe chooses and
at the lowestpossibleprice.

The Nation..
raised or lowered ascircumstancesrequire In brief,the Sydow scheme nowhere places thenewburdens
upon
those best fitted to bear them.
How Herr Sydow is to fare from -now
on depends, of course, on thestability
of Von Bulows bloc, composed of
Liberals, Radicals, and ConservativesIf
theLiberalsshould
coalesce withthe
still sulky Centre and the
Social Democrats, they would control the Reichstag
and be in a position to dictate to
Von
Bulow
Po1:tlcs have
made
stranger
bedfellows, and in thls case the shocking condition of theTreasury affords
sufficient excuse for the coalition. Then
too, the Prussian trtasury 1s in straits
Herr von Rheinbaben,theMlnister
of
Finance,reported t o thePrussianDiet
last week that the deficit of $17,750,000
in 1907, hadleapedto
$41,250,000 in
1908, and would g o to $44,000,000 in
1909 Unless there 1s a radical financialreform
of the whole business of
theEmpire,the
condition of the separateStates
will soon, saidHerr
von
Rheinbaben, becomo absolutely intolerable Meanwhile, thenation is throwing
away money on armyandnavywith
greaterprodigalitytha6ever,andthe
financial genius so sorely needed is nowhere in sight.
THE

OF POE.

If a magazine edltor were to find on

hisdesk
to-day two shortstoriesby
unknown writers, one signed Nathaniel
Hawthorne and one Edgar Allan Poe, i t
IS easy to guess which would be returned withthanks,andwhich
would be
snapped up on thespot.
And the editors choice would be dlctated n o t sole.
Ly by the fact that his myriad subscrib
x s would prefer a tale of breathless
horror or fascinating mystery to a slmple study in conduct or conscience, but
~y the further fact that the successful
story hadtheessentialquality
of go
!n which this youngmanHawthorne
How isHerr
Sydow to recover this seemsrather deficient. It istruethat
lostground?Heobstinatelypersistsin
Hawthornes failure to impress a magahisrefusaltodraftanyscheme
of dl- zine edltor might be cited as proof t h a t
rectImperialtaxation,
on the. ground hewroterealliterature,butthequesthatthis
would be poaching on pre- tion here is not
of genuine merit, only
serves especially reservedforthetaxof popularity. F o r a writerwhowas
gatherers of the individual States. This
barn- one hundredyearsagoand
died
istheanswer
of his spokesmen every sixtyyears ago, Poe has, t o a remark.
time an Imperial
income
capital-tax able degree, theswiftness,thespare
is suggested. Hence there is in sight no vigor of stylewhich is thegreatrequirement to-day. H ei sa s
careful t o
directandelastictax
which, likethe
English income tax,
may
be
readily
create interest. in his first paragraph as

55

any modern2writer-who has learned the

secret of hittingthereadersquarely
between the eyes. He is eager t o make
his point. Hislanguage is lessarchaic
than that of many men who have wl:ltten since. BYthesequalities
of technique preeminently, he stands nearer to
us of the year 1909 than any of his contemporaries.Againthequestlonisnot
whether h;S technique is of the highest kind, and whether it is expended on
thebestmaterial,butwhetherhehas
power t o attract readers.
Yet t o make Poe merely a popular
writer would be unfair, and would contradict too sharplytheestablished
beliefthathe
is muchmorethanthat.
Thepoint
is thatthereispopularity
andpopularityHallCame
IS popular,
Conan Doyle is popular, and
Dumas
theelderispopular.Thepopularity
of the crowd andthedaysupplies,
of
course, n o standard of merit. But when
popularity meets the test of widely separatedtimesand
places, and of taste
otherthanthat
of the crowd, it becomes In itself animportantfactorin
the determination of literary values In
theableandextremelysevereappraisal of Poe which hehaswritten
for
Scrabners Nogazzne, W Brownell
C
denies Poe a place in literature, because
his worklackssubstanceandslncerity; because he 1s quiteindlfferentto
truth, reality, life, because he was only
zn artist,andliteratureismarethan
zn a r t
was intent merely on proiucing hls desired effects-to rasp our
nerves, chill our marrow,andmystify
)ur understandmg. To do thisheset
limselfdeliberatelytodressthefalse
with the semblance of truth,and
to
nake the truth incredible. He succeed:d in getting his effect, but not in pro;
lucing literature. So runs the Judgment
But, after all, of the making of defini.ions of literature there is no end, and
norethanonegreatliterary
name, as
;he wdrld sees it, is based on n o more
philosophical
definition
thanthat
literatureismanagingwordswithnotable o r supreme
dexterity.
F o r words
oftenseemabletotransmuterather
cheap materialinto a fuelforstrong
anduniversal
emotion. Thestory
of
easy gallantry and sword-play becomes
withDumasTheThree
Musketeers.
The ordinaryfairy-taletakes
on, with
Hans Christian Anderseq wisdom, tr&gsdy, pathos, humor. So the grotesque,
the horrible,^ andtheoutlawed,while

56

ethicallyinferiortotheelementsthat
form the current of healthy, sane, normal life, maynevertheless be uplifted
by sheer artistry to the
level of literature
Fear of the dark, the hidden, the unknown is still a part- of our nature. The
curiosity of primitive man is still
strong
within
us. The
question
becomes, then, whether Poes tales of horor mysterydependfor
their effect
altogether on surprise, on the first
shock, or suddenly
awakened
sensations of disgust, or whether their effect
can be reproduced on a second and third
reading. In other words, istheirappeal temporan and meretricious, or is
it based more permanently on those surviving fears, uncertainties, and cravings
we sharewithour
afterlightwhioh
cave ancestors? Do Poes storiesevaporate?
To
mark
his
superiority,
we
need only compare his tales of ratiocinationandmysterywiththose
of his
successorsin a genre that he is said
to have founded. No one would care to
The
read a story of Gaboriaustwice.
historian of SherlockHolmesgetshis
effects partly from his llterary manner,
yet we doubtwhethereven
Sherloclc
Holmeswillbearrereading.Butone
can turn again and again to The Gold
Bug and The MurdersintheRue
Morgue. Thehorror of TheFall of
t h e House of Usher is notexhausted
at one reading. Compact a s it is, The
Cask of Amontillado contains refreshment for many hours. Poes technique,
then, produces permanency, as wellas
strength of appeal;andfictlonthatis
strong, permanent, and general in interest can hardly be put low
in t h e literary scale.
Somewhat the same reasonsthat have
madePoepopularwith
a generation
more
high-strung,
more
restless,
less
philosophic than his own, willaccount
in large measure for
his popularity in
Europe,and especially i n France. Mr.
Brownellputs
it theother
way. The
high
esteem
in which Poe is held
abroadhasreacted
upon as,though it
ought not to do
so:
T o put the matter crudely, t h e appreciative foreigner has admirable writers of his
own; what he most appreclates in our literature IS the queer, the odd, the qualities
fnom whose associated defects he *feelsan
entire detachment.
But that is not quite the whole truth.
If Europe looks to us for the odd and
t h e queer, it is because shethinks it

The Nation.
naturalthatyouthshouldindulgein
freakishnessand excess. And theidea
of youth is whatEuropealwaysassociates with America, to her own disappointment. It is so with our politics as
well asourliterature.
You are a new
worldand a newrace,Europeargues.
You are free from the ancient traditions
t h a t bindus of the O l d World.
You
should be ardent innovators, pioneers of
progress, radicals by nature, by
definition almost. And when Europe
finds us
conservative instead of radical, inimical
towhat
is revolutionary in politics,
manners, morals, literature,
is puzzled. Sometimes, she calls it Puritanism,sometimescommercialism,
sometimes hypocrisy, Europe,unableto understandwhyourliteratureshould
be
dominated by New England moralizing,
is, therefore, not insincere when she believes that i n t h e wild note of a Poe or
a Whitman,shehascaughtthetrue
voice of the young world beyond the
seas.
PUBLIC BCHOOLS.

Opponents of fad
and
fancy in
moderneducationare
tolump
the new hygiene with scroll-work. plain
sewing, and other objec.ts of their dislike
Old-fashioned people who believethattheteachershould
confine
himseIf toreading, spelIing, and arithmetic, are also i n c h e d t o hold that the
childs mother is theonly properperson tocallthe
doctor in Medical inspectionwhich
has forits
object the
discovery andextirpation of contagious
disease, the fogy can, of course, understand;butheshakeshishead
when
school physicians begin to test eyesight
andhearingwith
a view t o improved
scholarship,andhisdoubtsstrengthen
whensuchmysteriousmattersas
hypertrophiedtonsils,adenoids,and
de.
fective
dentition
are
brought
within
the scope of
same
inquiry
The
fogy, of course, w111 always assume just
this attitude towards any form of prog
less
But
there
people, not precisely doddermg reactionaries, who nev.
ertheless entertain suspicions regarding
whatwehave
called thenewhygiene.
And thatis
because the science, like
mostambitiousyoung
sciences,sometimes tries to prove too much.
If med.
icalinspection
were t o show that 10
per cent. of all school children are phys
ically defective, the figureswould
be
credible;
but
when i t is maintained

[VOI. 88, NO. 2 2 7 3

thatincertaindistricts
of Cleveland
nearly 75 per cent. of the children are
physically abnormal,theplain
man is
staggered.
For thisreason,
we welcome a volume entitled Medlcal Inspection of
Schools, by Dr. Luther H. Gulick and
Leonard P. Ayres, recentlyissued undertheauspices
of theRussell
Sage
Foundation. The value of the book lies
in its sanity of tone as much as in the
positivecontributions
it makestoan
interesting subject. The authors do
not
ride
their
specialty
hard.
The
common impresslon has gone forth t h a t the
connection
between
physicalhealthand
progress in scholarshiphas been absolutely established:
According
to
the
enthuslast,thesurgeonsknifeisthe
longed-for royalroadtolearning.Cut
out a childstonsils, dear him of adenoids, fit him with a pair of eyeglasses,
and the school term will be cut in half,
andthecity
will savemillions of dollars.Butourauthorswarn
u s t o go
slow. The case IS by no means so clear
asallthat.Thevalue
of medical inspectlon they firmly believe in, without
attempting t o exaggerate that value.

First, then, it IS reassuring to discover that the ordinary

figures for dlsease
among school childrenmust be received withcaution.
In so relatively definite a test as that for sight or hearing,
we find thattheratlo
of abnormality
rangesfrom 7.7 per centfor Bayonne.
N. J., t o 71.7 percent In the slums O f
Cleveland Wherethecorrectmeanfor
large d i e s liesmay
be indicatedby
thefactthat
New York and Boston
show a ratio of about 31
cent.
Hence, ourauthorsdeclare:
Such variations asthis a t once suggest,
what is undoubtedly the case, that the
results are largely Influenced by the methodsemployed by the examiners,
variatlons from thls cause are apt tobeeven
more important than those caused by the
actual differences in existing

Again, a detailedcomparisonbetween
New York andMinneapolis
gives, under Bad Nutrition," a percentage of
6.3 and 23.3 for the respective Cities: under Pulmonary Disease, .9 and 4.2 per
cent.;
under
Defective
Hearing,
11
and 7.7
cent. So here, too, we find
a differentstandard,ratherthanany
great diEerence in conditions. But the
question whichstandardisnearerto
thetruthis
a vital one Againstsuch
alarmistreports as SO percent. defective for the
school children. of- Sioux