Current Advocate a Varied Number

The proper co-ordination of culture with specialization being the most difficult problem at present confronting American colleges, it is scarcely surprising that Mr. Burke's well-written essay in the Advocate for May 5 should not be exhaustive. A conclusive reply to Mr. Cutler's recent attack on the distribution system was on account of the subject's complexity, not to be expected, but the present attempt can only be described as perfunctory.

If we would not be diletanti we are thus of necessity specialists. No modern system of distribution denies this. It attempts instead of counteract the consequent but inevitable danger of narrowness (which Mr. Burke quite properly emphasizes) by insuring the student against intolerant ignorance of other fields than his own, and by insisting on breadth of culture as the best basis for concentration. But if Mr. Burke's hypothetical undergraduate, with his atrophied power of choice, necessitates nothing less than a complete retraction of elective ideals, rather than the retention of their best elements in a synthetic reform, the whole problem of American higher education will best be solved by the frank adoption of the Montessori System!

Mr. Lamont's descriptive essay on Pekin leaves the reader with vivid impressions, of swarming Oriental crowds, of a blue-tiled temple roof, of the distant throbbing of a great drum. So well rendered is its portrayal of the city's Kaleidoscopic charm and immemorial antiquity, that one wishes the narrative strain of its opening had been more consistently sustained.

In "The Scoop," shorter of the number's two stories, Mr. Babcock's hero becomes a cub reporter because the journalistic conversation of his fellow-under graduates "had lit the glowing fires beneath my dreamy soul." The pathos of an ending whose somewhat enigmatic nature may be due to striving after up-to-date fictional methods is not effective after the apparent burlesque of the pursuit of a mysterious looking individual.

"A College Education," by Mr. Amory, deals with the promising theme of a Maine boy's over-hasty entrance into Harvard, his pathetic attempts to conceal his failure from his father, and his heroism when he takes refuge in the ancestral sailor's life. Sluggish oceans of local color, however, have swamped the hero whom the Atlantic surges could not harm. Condensation is sadly needed. Mr. Putnam would voice the emotions of a Nietzschean Superman trying to behave like an Elizabethan gallant, with disastrous results. His Sonnet (the form should not be divided like a Petrarcan sonnet, into octet and sestet) is a rash venture into archaic realms. Mr. Sanger's "Children's Land," faintly reminiscent of the song that thrilled the Brushwood Boy, is mildly pleasing though not distinguished. An occasional awkward line mars the smoothness of its metre. "Awakening," by Mr. Cram, wherein

"The velvet mask of bending night Sparkles with the sky's pale bloom," (!) is characterized by indeterminate Swinburnian sensousness with nothing of Swinburn's euphony. Mr. Norris easily surpasses the other poets. His "My Memories" is a charming trifle, while "Life" has pleasing metrical treatment and genuine simplicity of phrase