New-York tribune., 1901-11-24
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER ri, 1901.


that it is especially agreeable to call attention
10 the recent achievement of of the most
romantic of the guild. Mr.. Rider Haggard
founded his great popularity upon a series OF
novels as fantastic any in the literature OF
the day. But several years ago he put the
practical agricuIturistS of England taS well as
lovers of good Writing) under heavy obligation
by his book called A Farmers Year More
recently he has visited twenty five EngllSh
counties and studied the agricultural depression
and the consequent depopulation affecting them
all. The results of his Investigations, cominunl-
Gated to a London newspaper, have aroused
widespread discussion. This in Itself is inter
csting enough But Mr.. Haggards efforts have
been even more tangibly rewarded. In season
and out of season he has urged the government
to stimulate agricultural enterprise by encour-
aging the splitting up of estates into holdings
of from twenty to fifty acres He has very
cogently argued that such policy would put
an incentive now lacking before the farmer
who has not the capital to engage in larger
ventures, and cannot pay rent enough to justify
the owners of the land in supplying him with
the buildings and implements necessary when
more than fifty acres are to be farmeu
Hitherto the government has refused to take
any steps in the support of Mr.. HagGard
policy but now the various chambers OF agrl-
culture have been putting their heads together,
and Mr. Long, behalf of the government
has astonished everybody by agreeing to give
some, at least, of the noveiists ideas "A triaI
The latest innovation in the publishing busi-
ness, with reference to English speaking read
ers consists in the adoption of a practice hit
upon by Leipsc firm more than thirty years
ago This is what is called "the unit system
and it implies the fixing Of the price OF u book
by the number of pages it contains, Mr.. How
ard Wilford Bell of London, informs us that
be will soon be placing on the market, in Amer
ica well in England. books which he Is
preparing on this system of Phillip RECLAIM S
The unit is twenty five pages, and the price
per unit is halfpenny. The price of the
volumes in the series will, of course, vary with
the number Of units that each contains, but, If
we take two hundred and fifty pages as max
ing an average volume, it appears from the
figures in hand that it ought to be offered to
the public at something like sixpence in a paper
cover tenpence in cloth and a little over
shilling in leather. \ uniform size has been
decided upon The books will be 4 little more
than four by six inches in measurement, and,
whether in paper, cloth or leather, will wear
what is described as "a cheerful crimson"
A writer in The Edinburgh Review" survey
ing school Room Classics in Fiction, beGS
especially that it should be remembered that
the chambers of child'S mind and memory
are not infinitely capacous. that fiction belong
ing to later periods of life cannot enter i'll
without dsplacng barring the entrance to
the rightful occupants of childS Imagination
and fancy-a remembrance, moreover that
knowledge proper TO maturity, lodged in ii
child's BRAIN anticipates the action of the years,
bringing age where age is not, suggesting emo
tons, teaching facts for whose learning life
is yet unripe, and developing that tendency to
display, fostered by the vanity of parents,
which is the hall mark of what has been, in late
years, designated the show child 1t is all
undeniably true bet there is another point
which it is quite desirable to remember, and
that is that for many child it is infinitely
better to be turned loose in library of classics,
there to browse unguided, than to be restricted
to what deliberately classified 'chdrenS
books The latter often OF admirable quail
ity; indeed, of late years the composition of
them has been en- the whole upon very
encouraging plane. But the child of obvious !
Intelligence that is allowed to pore over Shake |
speare, Ccrvantes, Wordsworth Lamb and a
hundred other masters is in no danger Of
acquiring undesirable knowledge, of having |
age brought where age is not On the con |
trary, has been proved innumerable times, |