CURRENT ADVOCATE REVIEW

The editorial board of the Advocate seems to have recovered nobly from the draft made upon it by the National Progressive Party, for one seldom finds in our College journals better writing and better judgment than are shown in the first two editorials in the current number. The sound doctrine set forth in the article concerning Freshmen is further insisted on by Mr. D. E. Dunbar in "The Making of a Standard." Both Faculty and students are apt to take it for granted that the standard of scholarship in the College can be raised only by the action of instructors; we are indebted to Mr. Dunbar for his vigorous suggestions as to how the undergraduates might support the office to the advantage of the intellectual tone of our whole, community.

Mr. P. W. Thayer's "Essay on Man" is a courageous attempt to do a difficult and dangerous thing. For the scope of the paper is almost as wide as the title suggests, and it is hard to write something new about "Man" in two columns and a half. When an essayist begins by saying, "There are men who say the commonplace in a commonplace manner," he sets a great temptation before the reviewer--a temptation which the present reviewer with difficulty resists. When Mr. Thayer next classifies men according to their ways of expressing themselves, he ought to find a place for those guilty of the kind of affectation in speech which uses "they are of a soundness" for "they are sound."

Mr. Harold S. Ross contributes an incident of the plains, told with well-indicated landscape and atmosphere, and cleverly sustained suspense. "Russian Impressions" are continued from a previous number, and we are given a vivacious account of Moscow by a writer with an eye for the picturesque.

Prize Poem on "Tripoli."

The chief distinction of an issue which is on the whole above the average is the publication of Mr. F. L. Allen's Lloyd McKim Garrison Prize Poem on "Tripoli." Mr. Allen has wisely limited himself to a single aspect of the Italian Turkish war--the crime of Italy; and in verses of a compelling rhythm and an accent of fine earnestness he prophesies the price that Rome shall pay:

"Along the sea of Barbary

The veiled Senussi's word shall run;

Beyond the wall your men shall fall

Silently, suddenly, one by one;

Grim death shall stand at each right hand

And flaming fever touch your brave;

The desert-sea to you shall be

An indistinguishable grave."

It would have been wise had the editor held back the other poems for a number when they would not have suffered so severely from comparison