Part 6

Most of the fooling is excellent, but some of it is very childish. It shows Mr. Chesterton at his most characteristic. He dislikes all liberalism, so the efforts of the present British government toward various forms of amelioration of bonds--ecclesiastical, puritanic, and economic--are satirized by the implication that the aristocrats of this story wish to re-establish the Eastern vices of polygamy and abstinence from wine. He dislikes the Ethical Societies, so he represents them as meeting in little tin halls and listening to fakers from the East preaching strange exotic doctrines in return for large fees. He dislikes the Jews, and so a particularly mean and futile character is painted very carefully as a Jew who mixes in British politics--a thing which Mr. Chesterton and his political allies seem to think should be forbidden by statute.

If we discount all this, however, we shall be able to derive a lot of enjoyment from Mr. Chesterton. In particular we shall enjoy his songs against temperance. One of them concerns Noah's views on drinking:

Old Noah, he had an ostrich farm, and fowls on the greatest scale; He ate his egg with a ladle in an egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and the fish he took was Whale; But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail; And Noah, he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink, As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink; The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink, And Noah, he cocked his eye and said: "It looks like rain, I think." The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine, But I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine.

And for other drinks than those of orthodox alcoholic content he has nothing but contempt. Witness the following remarks:

Tea is like the East he grows in, A great yellow Mandarin, With urbanity of manner, And unconsciousness of sin; All the women, like a harem, At his pig-tail troop along, And, like all the East he grows in, He is Poison when he's strong.

Tea, although an Oriental, Is a gentleman at least; Cocoa is a cad and coward, Cocoa is a vulgar beast, Cocoa is a dull, disloyal, Lying, crawling, cad and clown And may very well be grateful To the fool that takes him down.

As for all the windy waters, They were rained like trumpets down, When good drink had been dishonored By the tipplers of the town. When red wine had brought red ruin, And the death-dance of our times, Heaven sent us Soda Water As a torment for our crimes.

To the American cocoa debauchee--if there be any--it should be intimated that in all probability Mr. Chesterton's turn for symbolism is at work in the second of the stanzas quoted above. The English cocoa interests are very powerful and very much interested in the progress of the present liberal government. In England not cocoa drinkers but certain liberal politicians will wince with pained appreciation of that particular stanza.

Such is the method of attack with which Mr. Chesterton goes after liberal Christianity, the Ethical Movement, temperance legislation, futurist art, and--for some insane reason--the Mechnikoff lactic acid bacillus treatment. As we have said, it is, except in spots, most interesting and most amusing, but, except in spots, it is not significant.

LLEWELLYN JONES.

Dr. Flexner on Prostitution

Prostitution in Europe, by Abraham Flexner. [The Century Company, New York.]

There can be no doubt whatever in the mind of any student of the evolution of "civic conscience" that the prominence now being given to the subject of prostitution is one of the most promising signs of our day. It is inevitable in the first uncovering of what has been hidden for many generations that this prominence should be marred by much that is to be regretted, by much wild hysteria, and much morbid dwelling on erstwhile forbidden topics. But in the main the knowledge by the people at large of the cess-pools that lie below our civilization is the only starting-point from which to set about the draining and cleaning up of these cess-pools.

As Dr. Flexner points out repeatedly in this volume, it is public opinion, and in the last analysis, that only, which determines the fate of prostitution in any given city. Even the most stringent laws are of comparatively little service when unsupported by an intelligent and watchful interest on the part of the people at large. And on what can an intelligent interest be founded except on knowledge? The voices raised in protest--the voice of Agnes Repplier, for instance--belong surely to the protected "leisure class"--the class which sees no need for change since they have never known from personal experience that such problems exist. Yet it is safe to say that for the great majority of the world's population the question of prostitution and its attendent train of disease, misery, and degeneration is and has always been one of the most vital questions of life.

A single calm, wise, scientific book, like this of Dr. Flexner's, given into the hands of our boys and girls of eighteen, would do quite as much good, and for many dispositions infinitely more, than a whole battery of moral lectures, warning vaguely against the "wickedness of human nature" and the "allurements of sin." Not that this book was written for boys and girls. Far from it. It was written for the serious student of the social evil by Dr. Flexner as representative of the Bureau of Social Hygiene of New York City. It is an unprejudiced, authoritative statement of the present condition of prostitution in the various countries of Europe, and is the result of an impartial and painstaking personal investigation which required two years of the time of an educational expert.

Dr. Flexner nowhere raises any question as to how far European experience is significant for America, but it is inevitable that the reader should form certain conclusions of his own. Much of the book is devoted to the relative merits of the two systems of handling prostitution now prevalent in Europe: regulation and so-called "abolition." The weight of evidence is overwhelmingly on the side of abolition. Regulation is left without a leg to stand on. This, however, is not a burning issue in America. The New York Committee of Fifteen decided, years ago, that "regulation does not regulate," and such has been the general opinion in the United States. But the remainder of the book and much that is brought out in the discussion of regulation can be of great service.

It is impossible to summarize here a book so rich both in thought and material. But one thing may be said for the encouragement of future readers: There is in this volume absolutely no trace of the hysteria so prevalent today, and on the other hand, no trace of the morbid dwelling on details from which even some of our official investigations have unfortunately not been free. There is in the entire book not a detailed account of an individual case to turn the stomach. Yet the opinion of every prominent expert in Europe is given, and a calm, scientific attitude is maintained throughout. We are, as Jane Addams has so aptly expressed it, "facing an ancient evil with a new conscience," and this book of Dr. Flexner's is the embodied voice of that conscience. This is his last word on the subject:

In so far as prostitution is the outcome of ignorance, laws and police are powerless; only knowledge will aid. In so far as prostitution is the outcome of mental or moral defect, laws and police are powerless; only the intelligent guardianship of the state will avail. In so far as prostitution is the outcome of natural impulses denied a legitimate expression, only a rationalized social life will really forestall it. In so far as prostitution is due to alcohol, to illegitimacy, to broken homes, to bad homes, to low wages, to wretched industrial conditions--to any or all of the particular phenomena respecting which the modern conscience is becoming sensitive,--only a transformation wrought by education, religion, science, sanitation, enlightened and far-reaching statesmanship can effect a cure. Our attitude towards prostitution, in so far as these factors are concerned, cannot embody itself in a special remedial or repressive policy, for in this sense it must be dealt with as a part of the larger social problems with which it is inextricably entangled. Civilization has stripped for a life-and-death wrestle with tuberculosis, alcohol and other plagues. It is on the verge of a similar struggle with the crasser forms of commercialized vice. Sooner or later it must fling down the gauntlet to the whole horrible thing. This will be the real contest,--a contest that will tax the courage, the self-denial, the faith, the resources of humanity to their uttermost.

EUNICE TIETJENS.

The welfare of mankind is as much promoted by the mistakes and vanity of fools and knaves as by the virtuous activity of wise and good men.--The late Professor Churton Collins in The English Review.

The Critics' Critic

MASCULINE AND FEMININE LITERATURE

Somewhere lately I read a review of Home and the reviewer says that it was probably written by a woman, giving I forget what reason as to description of home life, and details of that sort, which "no one but a woman could have written with such fidelity to truth." But I couldn't believe it even before the truth came out the other day. Home is distinctly a man's story, written by a man. The psychology of it is man-psychology (unconscious of course), and its appeal is more strongly to masculine than to feminine taste--much as I hate to think they differ in literature. I have heard several men speak of it as one of the best stories they ever read, and I, myself, though liking it, could never become more than mildly enthusiastic. To be sure, it is a great tale of adventure. But for whom is the great adventure? Alan and Gerry go blithely about the world in pursuit of it. Alix, Gerry's wife, after taking a feeble little step in the direction of what was for her a stirring adventure, returns home, chastened, and is properly punished by years of waiting for her husband to close up his small affairs. Her great adventure was sitting at home rearing Gerry's child. Clem's seems to have been sitting at home waiting for Alan to get through roving and come back to her. And never a comment to the effect that this should not have been perfectly soul-satisfying to both of the women, and never a notion, apparently, but that they were richly rewarded for their waiting by being allowed to spend the rest of their lives caring for the two bold adventurers. I couldn't believe a woman living in the twentieth century could even have imagined such stupidities. I don't mean that Home isn't interesting, as stories go, but it is the crudest kind of man-psychology and will be as out-of-date in a few years as Clarissa Harlowe is now.

I've been wondering a great deal lately whether there is a masculine and feminine literature after one is grown up. I know there was for me as a child. When a story like Camp Mates began in Harper's Young People I regretted that it was not something by Lucy C. Lillie, who wrote of adorably nice little girls. But possibly if I had ever gone out for long walks and camped for the day in the open as my own little lad does now, I too would have read Camp Mates. A man not undistantly related to me by marriage confessed the other day that he was fondest of stories telling of castaways on desert islands. "It's a thing I'd like to do myself--have a try at an island," he said, eagerly. "With your wife?" I asked, tentatively. He nodded, and gulped his dinner, and then immediately repented: "With no woman," he said, firmly; "they bring civilization, and I'd want it wild." Well, I don't blame him. It's appalling to think of how many men would measure up to a desert island test--would procure by hook or crook some manner of sustenance. And I can think of few, very few women (among whom I do not include myself) whom I should select as companions if I were thus stranded. I mean, of course, as far as their resourcefulness is concerned. Perhaps that is why, in stories of adventure, the woman is left behind, inevitably; or, if she is washed up on the shore by the waves, proves an encumbrance, delightful or otherwise. And it is all a matter of training--not, as our novelist would have us believe, a deplorable lack of brains and stamina.

THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

And speaking of training--an interesting thing in March Atlantic about The Education of the Girl has set me thinking. How am I going to bring up my daughter? The education of a boy is, compared to that, a simple matter. Too ridiculous, too, the answers to my query returned to me by different friends and relatives. "Make her a good girl," says one. But surely "Be good, fair maid; let those who will be clever," has been ridiculed to a timely demise. Another said: "I hope I shall be able to bring up my daughter so that when she is grown she can persuade some nice man to take care of her, as her mother did." No mention is made, of course, of what happens if the plan miscarries. It sometimes does. And it is too funny when one realizes that several decades ago, when absolutely no question was raised as to woman's sphere (home and the rearing of children), she received in college a severely classical or scientific training; and now, when it is by no means admitted without argument that home is her one vocation, noted educators are recommending that women's colleges abolish Greek and Latin or treat them and science as purely secondary and take up domestic science, economics, nursing, etc., in their place. How can I tell beforehand which of the two my daughter is going to need? I think of myself, filled to the brim with Greek, Latin, French, and German, producing in my early married life a distinctly leathery and most unpleasant pie, or rushing to the doctor with my baby to have him treat a dreadful sore which turned out to be a mosquito bite, and my tearful struggles with the sewing machine on my first shirtwaist which I christened a "Dance on the Lawn," for obvious reasons ... and I wonder. Never would I willingly give up my classics and the joy they gave me. But a soupçon of domesticity would surely have done me no harm. Miss Harkness, in this article, is inclined to think that it does us all harm. She says:

Would men ever get anywhere, do you think, if they fussed around with as many disconnected things as most women do? And the worst of our case is that we are rather inclined to point with pride to what is really one of the most vicious habits of our sex.

But in the meantime that daughter of mine! Suppose she prefers to run a house and be the mother of six children! Some women do, and are wonderfully fitted for it. Won't she be happier if she knows beforehand how to do it most efficiently? I hope, of course, she will choose, besides, a career of her own; but if she doesn't want to? And to give both does mean a scattering of potentialities! Which brings me back to the statement that the education of the modern girl is a complex--oh, but a very complex problem.

You remember Stevenson's poem to his wife. I speak of it in this connection because it throws light on one facet of the feminist problem which perhaps is not sufficiently illuminated. He says:

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew; Steel-true and blade straight, The great artificer made my mate.

"Steel-true" and "blade straight" are epithets more often applied to men; and indeed Mr. McClure, in speaking of Mrs. Stevenson in his memoirs, says: "She had many of the fine qualities that are usually attributed to men rather than women: a fair-mindedness, a large judgment, a robust, inconsequential philosophy of life."

How then, if in seeking an ideal education for girls, we should dismiss, or at least diminish, the importance of a purely utilitarian aspect and look for something that will eventually ensure such qualities?

If, as the feminists urge, they are trying to raise men to a higher plane, why not apply a little of this passion for uplift to the education of women into nobler, higher attitudes? Steel-true, and blade straight! I like the sound of that.

This education of the girl is getting to be an obsession with me. Everything I read resolves itself into terms of girl-psychology. A ridiculous tale, not long ago, appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, called Letting George Do It. George, in charge of the kitchen for a few weeks or days, immediately revolutionized everything; shortened and lightened labor, invented all sorts of labor-saving devices, etc., etc. Immediately all men say, derisively: "Well, that's exactly what a man would do. You boast that women are as good as men. Why haven't they, years ago, done all these things for themselves?" It seemed unanswerable. I have heard housekeepers, bright women, too, speak with exasperation of the foolish story, while helplessly admitting its truth. But I really think I've stalked the beast to its lair. Granted it is true, but have men spent their lives for centuries in a narrow round of domestic drudgery? Women have, and with very little intellectual diversion, besides, their society limited to other domestic drudges, and to their own husbands, who don't try to broaden them unless they are exceptional men. And if men had lived such lives would they have blithely introduced these reforms just because their masculinity makes them so superior to women that they would develop, even under adverse conditions? They wouldn't stay drudges, they claim. Well, we won't either, so George is not so smart as he thinks he is!

GERMAN-AMERICANS AND AMERICANS

I have been greatly interested in an article in the May Century. It was by Prof. Edward A. Ross, of the University of Wisconsin, the title being The Germans in America. You know why, of course. My father was born in Germany, and came over in 1850. About ten years ago Hugo Münsterberg had an article in the Atlantic on the same subject, in which he tried to explain the antagonism existing between native-born Germans and Americans. His argument summed itself up in the statement that the German considers the American no gentleman, and the American considers the German no gentleman. But why? I was willing enough to believe him because of a curious experience of my childhood. I can remember the incident perfectly, though it is many years since it happened. I was in the fifth grade, and the girl who figured prominently therein--her name was Siddons, by the way, and most appropriately, for she spelled tragedy to me--had called out on the street to a little boy who was carrying my books home for me, "Aw, George, do you like the Dutch? George is going with a Dutchman!"

George was certainly no cavalier, for he dropped my books, mumbled something, and was off, while I continued on my dazed, bewildered way, wondering what it was all about. Children learn so quickly to keep their deepest hurts to themselves that I doubt whether I should ever have mentioned it at home had it not been for this same bewilderment. My mother was indignant, not, it seems, because I had had names flung at me in scorn, but because it was the wrong name! "You are not Dutch. You are German, and proud of it," she said, holding her head a little higher. Pressed for an explanation, she revealed that my father had been born in Germany, "but you must never, never be ashamed of that," she added earnestly. "Your father was an educated, cultured gentleman." I was then taken into our little library with its crowded shelves climbing to the ceiling, and shown volumes of Schiller, Goethe, Lessing in German, Tauchnitz editions of the great English writers, books of philosophy and history, and shelves full of Hayden, Beethoven, and Mozart. "He was a graduate of a German university," said mother, "and you must pay no attention to these foolish children whose parents never even saw an American university." All very well, but had my mother been German herself? No, indeed, so she could hardly realize what it meant to be an alien and an outcast. Many times during that hard year, while the detested Siddons crossed my unwilling path would I have bartered an educated and cultured German forbear for any kind of American, be his lowly occupation what it might. Later that year a little French girl, Dunois by name, came into our grade. Joy! Here was another alien who would be a companion in misery. But to my great surprise she was courted and flattered by this same Siddons and the two became bosom friends. The Dunois père kept a small, unsavory restaurant in a side street, but the glamour of his "Frenchness" was an aureole compared to the stigma of my "Dutchness." That is still something of a mystery to me, but the article in the Century explains in part the cause of this attitude among unthinking Americans. Prof. Ross says:

"Between 1839 and 1845 numerous old Lutherans, resenting the attempt of their king to unite Lutheran and Reformed faiths, migrated hither.... The political reaction in the German states after the revolution of 1830, and again after the revolution of 1848, brought tens of thousands of liberty-lovers." And again he says of these political exiles that they "included many men of unusual attainments and character.... These university professors, physicians, journalists, and even aristocrats aroused many of their fellow-countrymen to feel a pride in German culture, and they left a stamp of political idealism, social radicalism and religious skepticism which is slow to be effaced."

Possibly one reason for American antagonism to these earlier, superior settlers was the fact that they did somewhat despise American culture and hold rather closely to their own German ways of thinking. I remember in my childhood, in my own home, that although we had Harper's Young People and St. Nicholas, we also had English Chatterbox--I rather fancy as a corrective to Americanisms to be found in the other magazines. You know Germans in their own land today do not wish for American governesses to teach their children English; it must be Englishwomen. All our toys were sent for from the beloved Fatherland, and beautiful toys they were, too. We had a system of Froebel with all his methods established in our own home, long before the middle western cities dreamed of a public kindergarten. This deep distrust of American methods and culture could not help but impress Americans unfavorably; they would retaliate with the cry of Dutchman, perhaps. Prof. Ross goes on to say: