This is not a time for chauvinism or for highfalutin. Rather is it for serious thought and solemn reflection; more even than in the dread crisis of a declaration of war. Yet with a devout mingling of subjective humility and objective exultation it may be permitted to Americans to echo the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury when, speaking in the House of Lords, he said of this same proposal for the outlawry of war:

I believe it will stand out in history as one of the most remarkable that have been made in the story of civilization and the world.

It was America that led, in 1794, for arbitration as a substitute for war in composing international controversies. It was America that, in 1823, adopted the Golden Rule as a principle of international policy. It was America that, in 1899 and in 1907, led the world in the establishment for the first time in history of a permanent international tribunal, not only of arbitration but also of adjudication, before which all the disputes of all the nations might be taken for pacific settlement. And now, in 1928, it is this same America that leads the world in making an international enactment for the outlawry of war. It is enough. With that record we are content.

Bandit against Bolshevist

Chang Tso-lin, Chinese Marshal and dictator, began his career as a bandit and ended it as a tower of conservatism. Ruthless in his ways and means, he was for years the protector of foreigners at Pekin, and the indomitable defender of China against the intrigues and aggressions of Bolshevist Russia. His seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway may have been arbitrary and high-handed, but it was effective in saving the country from the unclean ravages of the Bear. Remembrance of him may well be marked with gratitude.

Our War Senator

America will be ungrateful and history will be unjust if the name of George Earle Chamberlain is not emblazoned upon our annals as that of our great War Senator. Even before the World War began, he was one of the foremost protagonists of national defense. In the early part of the war, when the Pres

ident was preaching that preparedness would be sinful, he roused the spirit of the Senate and of the nation to the enactment of the measures needed for victory, and with an outburst of righteous vehemence not often rivalled since the Philippics themselves, goaded a reluctant Administration into war-winning activity. Among the civilian heroes of the war, he stood in the foremost rank, and made the nation and the world his debtor.

The Arctic Inferno

Norse mythology appropriately made its infernal regions a realm of ice and storm and darkness, fittingly typified by the great lone lands and raging seas about the Arctic Pole. Generations ago Willoughby and Bering and Hudson sought to invade that place of doom, followed later by Parry and Scoresby and Franklin. In our own time the resources of advancing science were more and more brought to bear, by Hall and Hayes and DeLong and Greely and Nansen, often with no better results than those of the primitive voyagers. Finally Peary and Byrd and Amundsen attained the goal of adventurous desire. But Nobile and Amundsen himself have since discovered that the latest words of science fall silent and futile in that inhospitable air. The spirit of man will not yield, but will continue to strive against even the most hostile elements; but not yet has it won the mastery of the mysterious and malignant North.

Preparation That Does Not Prepare

Complaint is renewed, probably with some reason, of the unsatisfactory preparation for college which is provided by many secondary schools. For this state of affairs there are doubtless various causes, ranging from Gradgrindish standardization in some public schools to lack of adequate endowment in some private institutions. Conspicuous among them, in the opinion of many authorities, is the somewhat paradoxical one that too many schools devote themselves too much to college preparatory work. Some of them, indeed, call themselves "preparatory' schools, as though their chief if not sole aim were to enable boys and girls to pass college entrance examinations. It ought to be obvious, to all who know their Froebel, that students who are

thus specifically "prepared" for college, while they may pass the technical examinations successfully, are quite likely to be found ill prepared to pursue the courses of the colleges which they have entered; and that those best prepared for college work are likelier to be those who have pursued high school courses designed to give them the best possible education as a finality and without any thought of their going on to higher institutions. We were most favorably impressed by the recent words of Dr. Boynton, an officer of the National Education Association, to the effect that "the preparing of boys and girls for college is a mere detail in the broad programme of a great high school;" and that the true objective of high schools is not to train students for higher education but to prepare them for American conditions of life. If students thus educated in the secondary schools are not found to be well prepared for college courses, why, so much the worse for the colleges.

"Reading and Writing Dangerous"

It is easy to sympathize with Mr. Gandhi's desire to see the rehabilitation of cottage industries throughout India, even though we are compelled to consider it quite impossible of realization-as impossible as was John Ruskin's like desire for England. We may also understand his preference for Indian rather than English schools for Indians. But we must regard with amazement and with impregnable dissent the proposition that "reading and writing are dangerous things" which should not be taught to Indian children. We do not know that Mr. Gandhi holds such a notion. But it has recently been put forward publicly by an eminent Indian publicist, Mr. Mukerji, while visiting this country to give Americans a true account of India and to contradict some writings which he thinks have done that land grave injustice. He is reported to have said that India does not teach her children to read and write, because "reading and writing are such dangerous things that no one should learn them until his character is formed". That seems to us scarcely less illogical than to say that nobody should go into the water until he has learned to swim. It also seems like a purpose to keep the masses of the Indian people in a state of subjection to an aristo

cratic minority caste, very much as they were in the times of the Mogul emperors; with which it is impossible to agree.

"Conversion" out of Fashion?

We should think that the Evangelical churches of this country would take very much to heart, for serious consideration and, if possible, action, the presumably authentic statements which were recently made at a meeting of the Men's Church League in this city. These were to the effect that in approximately one-third of the churches the making of converts to Christianity had ceased. Explicitly: Of 9,299 Presbyterian churches, 3,269 last year reported not a single convert or member received on newly-made profession of faith. Of 8,765 Baptist churches, 3,474 made a like report; and of 16,581 Methodist Episcopal churches, 4,651 did the same. The special significance of these figures is in the fact that they refer to the three great denominations which have traditionally been foremost in "evangelical" work; that is, in converting unbelievers to Christianity. In former years, and for very many years, it was the rule in practically all those churches to hold for a few weeks every year special services variously known as "evangelistic", "revivals", and "protracted meetings". Such things are now comparatively little known; in thousands of churches entirely unknown; and even the ordinary church "prayer-meetings" have been largely discontinued, even in some Methodist Episcopal churches of which they were once the most essential characteristic. It would be interesting to know if the churches have come to regard such "means of grace" as obsolete; and if so, what they purpose to substitute for them as agencies for the Christianization of the world.

THE CRACKER BARREL PHILOSOPHER

BY BURGES JOHNSON

A CORRESPONDENT who criticizes a recent issue of THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW objects especially to this bucolic Barrel, and adds the admonishing comment, "Deacons do not swear."

Now I do not feel in the least obliged to defend the Deacon. He is as God made him, with lineaments somewhat blurred in transmission by my poor pen. But in the name of all Cracker Barrel philosophy I do protest a generalization so absurd. How many deacons has the gentleman known? What proportion are they of the total number of living deacons, not to mention those that have gone to their several rewards? I have an ingrained respect for deacons as a class, just as I have for the patient order of Sunday School superintendents. But if, for instance, he had written, "Sunday School superintendents do not embezzle," I could answer that I know personally of two who did, and I have heard of another who fell with the Tweed Ring.

No, I suspect that deacons and Sunday School superintendents and vestrymen and church trustees are but weak human vessels like the rest of us; and perhaps some of them deserve their sacerdotal honors the more because they are humbly conscious of frailty. I have heard of deacons who eagerly attended tax sales, and delighted in foreclosures, with no consideration for the poor, and yet they never, never, used profanity. And I know of at least one whose tongue slips at times into the habits of unregenerate youth, but with so much of simple kindliness in him and such an overflowing goodwill that you know his informalities of speech are only tongue-deep.

So much for the deacon part of that reproving generality; and I have still to ask our correspondent what he means by swearing. To the best of my recollection "damn" is the worst charge he can bring against the old gentleman; and what, pray, does that mean nowadays? Granted that once upon a time it was an