Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-05-11
BOOK REVIEWS.

THE CIVIL WAR By Frederick L.
Paxson. professor of American his
tory in the University of Wisconsin,
author of THE Last American
Frontier" etc. The Home Univer-
sity Library of Modern knowledge
New York: Henry Holt & Co.
eHE new learner. whatever his
years may chance to be, meets,
as a rule. beggarely response
from the usual puryeyors OF
knowledge. Dilution appears
10 be the theory of early intellectual feed
ing And dilution, with the majority OF
writer's, is, in effect. the giving of a stone
for bread. bones. for blood and muscle
Take, for example. the subject of history
American history-the civil war. Out
os the hands of canny, or limited. text
book writer's. and cannier textbook pub
fishers what comes across to the young
and susceptible reader about this I'M
paralleled onrush toward universal
human liberty? Only long and monot-
onous list of battles-north balanced, cir
cumspectly, against south-honors evenly
divided-the issue, even. granted with
apologetic front toward complex OF
fortuitous circumstances" Almost moth
ing here of massed and fronted heroism,
of personal eourage-in1aming and inspir-
ing Almost nothing of the rage for
death in behalf of freedom and an I'M
even the personality of leaders leaks
away, leaving them dry. mechanic I'M
human. Neither their mistakes nor sue
cesses, equal sources of understanding,
stand rooted in human reasons for acton.
To sum it all. the common textbook his
tory is a long. commercial slavering of
the externalS of events.
In sharp contrast comes this compact
and brilliant history of the civil war.
Here the supreme experience of our ma
tional life spreads in definite pattern and
design out of its economic roots Plans
and movements leap from specific causes
toward equally objectified ends. Achiev
ments in turn become causes, or the first
cause. augmented and fortified And so
the war advances, big and sentient-a
gigantic personality and power. Here
the way. Why. for example. certain lead
ers settled to followers and why certain
followers rose to leadership. Why the
issue was what it was. and why it could
have been no other than 1t was. In a
word the point of this fine concentrate
of the civil war lies in the fact that its
author has held fast to the human vision,
and has at no urgency sacrff1ced 1t to
the dissertations Of mere scholarship.
A NEW CONSCIENCE: and an Ancient
EVIL. BY Jane Adams. Hull House.
Chicago. author of Democracy and
Social Ethics" etc. New York: The
Macmillan Company.
The succoring movement was instan-
taneous. whole-hearted. and effectual.
from all quarters and ranks, when Chi
cago, in behalf of its unprotected girls
and young women, uncovered its organ
lied agencies of the Illicit life.
io;t iy, aitx
tions that produced so rankly. so horri-
bly,, in Chicago. Implicit In every city.
too, Is the human instinct for rescue and
reform. Jane Adams has written out
the poignant story OF white slavery as 1t
was discovered and attacked in Chicago,
in order that other Chicagos may open up
their subways to the eager agents of hui
man decency and fair play. Miss Adams
spreads out the ancient evil with perfect
frankness and in the sympathy of COM
prehension that many years at Hull
House has lowered Hundreds of anthem
tic records find place in this volume.
Many of these miserable stories OF seduc-
ton come straight from the lips of the
victimiZed girls themselves. The most of
them. however, are the reports of author
ICED and practiced investigators of social
conditions. Together. they bring readers
within eye and ear range Of the workings
of a city's underground mechanism Of al
lurement and destruction. This explicit
exposure takes point from what is known
as the new conscience" that projection
OF individual responsibility into the life
around. into the social entirety. that ac-
countability OF the one for the soundness
of the whole
THE JONATHAN PAPERS. BY Eliza
beth Woodbridge. Boston: Hough-
ton Miffiin Company.
Within its first half dozen pages the
homespun comforts of this delightful
book settle snugly into the hooks and
crannies of ones summer enjoyments
Here the out-of-door aksorptions of
farm. and of it's encircling countryside
bubble over into an intimacy of talk that
one rarely hears, save when, busy with
work or play. he himself talks aloud
about it. III himself, rambling along In the
trail of It's fascinating suggestions. A
farm of the right sort, this, stocked with
garden and orchard stuff, with hens,
COW, sober horse and a roomy wagon,
hospitable to trunk and camping-kit. not
one of the modern. make-believe farms.
with automobiles. tennis courts and golf
links for its foreign furnishings.
These clever, fun-loving. play-making
soliloquies shy far away from the
common. stiff jointed. sharp-elbowed bod
les Of writing known ESSAYS" that
they deserve some new name to indicate
their fresh vitality and sturdy hold on
common things, their easy grace of ap-
proach and appeal. A new name to ward
off the involuntary suspicion that springs
TO meet the average volume of essays
THE SQUIRREL CAGE. BY Dorothy
Garfield. illustrated by John
Alonzo Williams New York: Henry
Holt & Co. Washington: Brentano's.
Any neighborhood might safely adopt
this story as the authentic record of it's
neighborhood life. 1t is a photograph
caily true story of every community's
subsection to the tyranny of mere things
Houses. furniture, clothes, automobiles,
social rivalries. what people will think.
what they will say. are the sawdust gods
that ruthlessly and consumingly turn
these ver-get-anywhere squirrel cages
that inclose us. Used-up lives, estranged
families. neglected children. impoverished
souls and broken hearts are the toll paid
NEW PUBLICATIONS.