Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-05
OLD WORLD
IS OUT OF JOINT
And IL Is II. g.. WeHs's De-
light to DO His Lerel Best
to Pm IL Right

The last person to be displeased by
the description of II. q. Wells as a prop
agandist would he II. q. Wells himself
He Is confessedly that. In his intro
ducti0n to Frank Swinnertons realistic
novel, "Nocturne," Mr.. Wells says:
Personally, I have no use at all for
life as II Is except as raw material II
bores me to look at things unless there
Is the idea OF doing something with
them. ] should find a holiday, doing
nothing amidst beautiful scenery, not
holiday but torture. The contem-
p'ative ecstacy of the saints would be
nell To me In the forget exactly
how many-books I have written. n
Ia always aboIt life being altered |
write, or about people developing
schemes for altering life And | have
never once presented" my life MY
apparently most objective books are
criticisms and indictments to change
SO when one says that Mr.. wells's
latest novel "Joan and Feter," Is an
indictment of education in Great Britain
for the last fifty years and a plan for
a system of education which would really
educate. Mr.. Wells would say that Is
what the book was meant to be. There
fore. to criticize the book as novel ac-
cordlng TO the accepted fctional stand
ards would be like critlcizing Westmin-
ster Abbey according to the standards
OF the Parthenon. The novel part of II
Is merely the bolus which this one-tme
pharmacists clerk has used to- contain
The medcament IN his social pill. But
II 10 skillfully done Nobody could do II
better He has given n series of illumi
rating sketches Of English society for
the last twenty-five years, as Peter and
Joan grew mp from infancy to maturity.
Peter is the great grandson of sue
- 20, ,,h,, 1aft n
fortune which provided n competence for
his descendants when IT was divided. The
suppressed artistic instincts Of the
Ouakers assert themselves In Peters
father and he devotes himself to archl-
lecture, hammered brass and such like
things Joan Is the lone child of Peters
mothers brother. and has been adopted
ms his foster sister. The children do
rot discover their real kinship until they
are well grown. After getting them
born and getting the boy five years old,
Mr. Wells has the father and mother
drowned so that some aunts and a
cousin may take charge of their educa-
ton. The cousin, Oswald. finally has s~le
charge of them and he has sad time
trying to find n school that will give the
training which he thinks a British en-
pire-builder should be trained in. He
mas 10 put up with Wnal ne can Hnu
and to accept Cambridge and Newnham
as the colleges best fitted to continue
their education. What Mr.. Wells has to
say about the defects of the schools and
colleges will be more interesting in
England than in the United States. for
we have done better than the old coun-
try in the matter of creating citizens
with an appreciation of their social ana
political duties though heaven knows
wa have done poorly enough.
The message OF the book is that II
Englishmen had been properly educated
the war would not have come about, and
that II future wars are to be prevented
so tina: there may be an orderly progress
something must be done to improve the
schools and colleges and to bring them
into closer contact with modern life and
it's problems. The book ends with April
OF this year when the March drive Of
the Germans had succeeded and every
one in England was Respondent Peter
and Joan have married after Peter has
served In the infantry and in the avia-
ton corps and has been wounded so that
he must work behind the lines in
London
These who read fiction for the story