THE PROBLEM OF CHOICE

THE CRIMSON BOOKSHELF, serving as it does a less variegated public than is served by metropolitan reviews and having at it disposal less space, must meet a unique situation. It has been trying throughout its existence to find a general plan to suit a college public. On its face the task does not appear great. If space is narrow and the public limited, proportions at least remain normal. This would be fundamentally true also if it were evident upon what grounds of limitation, the choice of books should proceed. It is the perplexity of selection that renders the proper solution of the question difficult.

Obvious methods present themselves, but none are entirely adequate although any can be made to serve. One is to distribute reviews evenly among the prominent volumes of the prominent publishing houses. This assures a wide range of books much as a lottery involves a wide range of numbers. It is a method to which business harmony demands a partial but not a rigid conformity. Again, it is possible to select the volumes for review from among the most widely advertised books of the month. A college public, however, would be the first to realize this a specious device. On the other hand, it can be assumed that the student is interested chiefly in a single type of writing, say fiction, verse, or political discussion or that he is of a characteristic turn of mind and will find anything philosophical or else colorful or perhaps sententious, eminently to his taste. It will at once be recognized that each of these suppositions compounds truth and error. Yet one or another of them may be most nearly right. To find such a course and to pursue with some moderate degree of consistency seems the way to make the BOOKSHELF most characteristic and serviceable.

It has been the object of the editors to use the possibilities in the way indicated and often the results have been gratifying. Without, however, a wide knowledge of the reactions of their public, the progress has been somewhat in the dark. It is the purpose of this editorial to invite comment from the readers of the BOOKSHELF. The editors will be grateful for the recommendations of particular books: but they desire suggestions which bear on the general plan of the undertaking. To the extent that responses do this, they will clarify what otherwise must remain very indefinite reasoning on the part of those who select the books.