Illustrated Treats Varied Fields

The current issue of the Harvard Illustrated, which has waited until a few days before March before distributing its February edition, contains articles and photographs covering a wide field of subjects. The contents are rich in variety but in many places poor in literary workmanship.

By far the most pleasing and successful part of the magazine is its cover an artistic photograph of the facade Widener Library, taken by moonlight by R. H. Norweb '16. Even the diabocal printer, with all his little devils, he failed in his attempt to lure from the skilful piece of photography its beauty and grace. It is an unusual and inspiring view of the great hall of tomes.

The February Illustrated, however does not fulfill the promise which it pledges in its remarkable cover. We turn to a poem by C. H. Jacobs '16, the author of the mooted "Gott Mit Uns." "The Chant of Love" is hardly worth the prominence it receives, and it is to be regretted that the Illustrated makes such an unsuccessful departure from its usual program, venturing into the realm of poetry for no other reason--apparently--than to beat the newspapers representing the sequel to "Gott Mit Uns." "The Chant of Love" may be a journalistic triumph, but it is a literary disaster.

Several articles in this number of the magazine fall below the standard of literary style which the Illustrated has set for itself and frequently upheld. From this fault the editorials are happily free as is also the interesting treatise by Mr. Forest Izard '08. The editorials are vivacious in their treatment of topics which are not dead but robustly alive. The comment on "Sophomore English," for instance, contains a good deal of interesting news as well as some sound thought. Mr. Izard's notes on the D. U. Production of "Henry IV" is learned and perhaps necessarily long. But the article on "Minor Sports--and Sportsmanship," by a native Greek, "the strongest man at the University of Pennsylvania," is awkward in expression. Mr. Dorizas, though the strong man at Penn., is a weak one with the pen; he seems to have something worth saying, but naturally he is not yet a master of English, and his ideas would be more readable were they transcribed and assorted by an interviewer or correspondent. It is too bad that the classics have been so completely abandoned in this day and time as to prevent Mr. Dorizas from writing for us in the original language of Hellas.

Awkward and only ordinary English may be an obstacle to true enjoyment of the Illustrated until that magazine sees the egregious folly of publishing material because of the fame of the writer--not fame as a writer, but fame as an athlete or something else as diametrically opposed to skill with the quill. If the journalistic tendencies of the Illustrated prompt the display of well-known names, then let men who can write well interview the well-known names, but do not force the well-known names to do themselves an injustice by sand-bagging the President's English.

Turning from the reading matter to the illustrations, one finds in the etchings, reproduced by S. M. F. '19, and in drawings by H. F. Weston '16, some of the best work ever printed in the Illustrated. The etching of "Macready as Henry IV" is commendable in every way, as are the other illustrations of the article by Mr. Izard.

The "make-up" of this issue, however, suffers from the ragged composition of pages like that depicting hockey players or that entitled "A Page of Preparedness." Apparently cuts have been gathered from all sorts of publications and thrown together into a photographic hash for the ocular indigestion of Illustrated readers. The page of pictures called "Tumbling Stunts" has as many virtues as the others cited have vices. Every photograph of the "tumblers" is uniform in size, arranged in an artistic group, and reproduced by the same cut. Cannot the Illustrated set this page as a standard!

An omission which one finds in the number is that although most of the con- tents deal with the minor sports, there is no article on the minor sport which has recently excited more enthusiasm than any other, boxing.

Upon perusal, then, it may be said that the February Illustrated disappoints the hopes which it arouses by Mr. Norweb's attractive cover. Although the contents are many and varied, there is often a discomforting abuse of English, and the illustrations, with the exception of the exquisite etchings and drawings and a few photographs, seem to be nothing more than space-fillers. The editors, however, have often been eminently successful--notably so in the editorials--and there is no reason why the Illustrated should not, with a little more practice, elevate every page to the standard which it sometimes attains