Now I will not repeat the vision which has been so many times reprinted; but will state in plain terms what we proposed to do here. First of all we did not propose to go and join something or get anybody else to come and join something. As minister and wife we felt under certain simple obligations to society which we have modestly striven to fulfill. The Arts and Crafts Society grew out of an earnest and modest desire to help our "Ladies' Aid Society" to nobler usefulness. It became popular on its own apparent merits, not by our promotion, and soon outgrew the church and attracted one or two trained helpers who constituted the nucleus of what we began to call "The Settlement," adopting the phraseology of the college settlements and not to indicate an organization. It is not, however, the settlement idea that we have at any time been interested in promoting. The settlement came providentially to assist in organizing a work that had already outgrown two willing pairs of hands.

Early in the work we set up a printing press in the parsonage kitchen. This too was simply the end of a growth and not an attempt to promote something beyond in the air. It came out of our Sunday school work. We had collected all the children of liberal parents and those left out from the other Sunday school and in our anxiety to have them do well had originated a new series of lessons and had risen from a cheap hectograph to a real printing press in getting them out. Then the Arts and Crafts development so lively amongst us suggested a broader scope of usefulness for the press which was really a fine machine. A neighbor helped us rig up our first water power, a bed-cord belting stretched a hundred feet through the back yards to our woodshed, and kept tucking in suggestions for a shop further down the canal where was a better power. The printing business grew. We hired some help and took in a little home school of apprentices besides the Sunday school children.

Then we found we had to have a farm. In fact it had been a dream of mine for some time to get back to the land, where I originated; and quit preaching for hire, and help out the Arts and Crafts by building a model village handicraft shop. This dream has been realized. We have the farm half paid for, stock, such as it is, a pretty good horse, some machines and tools and have had our entire living from this in connection with caring for boys for the last three years. We have the shell of the shop, (only a small mortgage on it), which is thought by some to be an ornament to the village. When completed it will be deeded in sections to citizens

who are free teachers of their own crafts to a reasonable extent, all previous attempts to incorporate the shop having fallen through on account of the neglect of associates to do their duty promptly.

The Arts and Crafts Society has become a modest financial success and its roots deepen from year to year. Much of my time has been spent in developing a market for the products of the society. The first attempts in this direction made four years ago resulted in practically no sales when we had transported considerable quantities of the goods a great distance. Now it is common when we open the trunks to sell $50 worth and up to a hundred dollars. This done frequently enough in the year, keeps a considerable group of home workers interested and developing their skill and knowledge for the greater work that is ahead for the Arts and Crafts Societies. This is success. The Arts and Crafts movement is doubtless coming to be recognized as the greatest and wisest system of popular education that has ever come into existence. And our Montague group past and present has been a much quoted part of the whole American movement which now permeates every state in the Union.

We estimate now that in three years more we shall have completed the beginning of our work which as we understand it includes the permanent establishment of an Arts and Crafts Society, the completion and equipment of the village shop, the establishment of our own home. That was to be the program of seven years from the beginning of a penniless family with a vision. The larger and harder half of it is already accomplished fact.

It is not lawful for me to speak at this time of the end of our work. But I will suggest a few things we are already planning for the middle. That should be a period of production, of doing things, of making country life interesting, of organizing our firesides and workshops, of establishing our ideals. As our first period has been devoted wholly to getting a simple foot-hold upon the earth, so our middle period will be devoted to getting a new environment for the child of tomorrow, by simply working the plants now in process of development, planned exclusively for carrying out the vision.

The scores of comments and "writeups" on our movement that have been brought to our attention have been remarkably free from harsh criticism. In fact Mr. Packard's article in the January New England is one of only three of its kind that I have seen. This like the others is due partly to a temperament that finds its own fulfilment in things nearly as they are and upon finding in the idealist

a halt, though but an imaginary one, often from the mouth of a jealous enemy who easily pursuades himself of the truth of rumor of damaging circumstances and of it makes seed for more of its kind, our writer cannot resist the temptation to report, conscious as he is of sympathy from the "I-told-you-so's," a large percentage of his readers. This temperament also finds full verification of its rumorings in the poor material showing the idealist often can render. Five cents worth of discolored canvas to one man is another man's $10,000 painting. I do not think this writer was an expert sociologist or idealist from the irreverent language he uses in speaking of the fundamental conceptions of those sciences. Those of us who gradually conceived of New Clairvaux and in five years have made it possible to remain the rest of our lives here to work out the rest think that much has been accomplished, none of which Mr. Packard either reported or looked into. He seems to have made up his mind what to look for and because he did not find that, he concluded it had gone. He conversed with one or two who had come and gone from us in the same error. That verified his conclusions.

I have written the main part of this statement as a guide to those who wish to know what to look for when they come to New Clairvaux-not a manufacturing plant, that is not the idea of the village shop; not a communist settlement, only a work that attracted teachers and helpers, necessarily temporary in most instances because they must needs sacrifice or get down to such common practical labor as farming. A good number had not this teaching spirit or anything to teach when the truth came to be known and sometimes not practical sense to get along at common labor which they had professed. Sometimes such have blamed us when they have failed, though in inviting cooperation we have offered in advance no compensation but loss. And in no instance have we received any personal assistance or money from any co-worker at Montague. We have strictly fulfilled all financial contracts with those engaged in the public work. We have had our difficulties and we have met them and are meeting them. There is nothing to go to We have not pinned pieces or vanish. our faith upon vanishing things. What is done is done and cannot be undone. Amongst it all we know there has been

some good. And it is not less to-day but more, and promises still greater things.

(Signed) EDWARD P. PRESSEY.

* *

Wireless telegraphy is a wonderful invention but it has troubles of its own. Recently a lad at Newport, Rhode Island rigged up a toy apparatus with which he seriously interfered with the established stations, and produced a general mix-up until his enterprise was discovered. Tapping of wires to secure information illicitly is a recognized crime, but who has a monopoly of the circumambient air? Besides, there is a suspicion that the "wireless" has joined the labor unions. It refuses to work overtime. Every day, at about sunrise and sunset the apparatus goes on a strike and much trouble results. It is also determined that damp and foggy weather is best for the perfect operation of the apparatus. As there is more of sunshine than of cloud in this world, this. too, is a bar to the complete success of the new system. Much yet remains to be learned. The lad who interfered with the established stations made good unexpectedly, for his skill and interest in the business attracted attention and he has been appointed as a third class electrician in the navy.

Now we have it! Mr. J. Riggs, a Jerseyman who is a member of the Hygienic Association of Zurich, Switzerland. is out with a proclamation that all diseases in men, animals and plants are due to malnutrition, and to correct this is to insure perpetual health. He says lava, or in fact any igneous rock, contains all necessary food elements, and that just as air is adapted to respiration by its polaric currents, so the polaric nutrition obtainable from the stones of the field is adapted to the maintenance of life. He evidently assumes that because plant life is promoted. by disintegrated mineral substances, they are equally useful in promoting animal life and health. He ignores, however, nature's alchemy in adapting these elements. his plan should prove practicable the food problem would be settled for all time, and "the has hearthstone" which become mainly a poet's dream, will again be, in a material sense, the foundation as well as the symbol of the home.

If

It is to wonder, to laugh aloud, to be disgusted, to pity, when the work of a learned young German, Dr. Otto Weininger, entitled "Sex and Character" comes into the hands of a woman!

This extraordinary and sensational volume has already gone through six editions in German, where the men naturally like it. One of his admirers says, "A great philosophical, biological and social question is here treated by a gifted and learned author with perfect freedom and breadth, yet with a seriousness, a wealth of scientific knowledge, that would ensure the book a place in the front rank, even were the style less excellent, vivacious, and individual than it is."

The German publisher, in a note to the last edition seems to fully endorse the absolutely insane or idiotic statements of this mentally askew degenerate, who having, in his own estimation, upturned and remodelled the whole system of woman's place, power, and progression, blew out his brains at the age of twenty-three. He says, "In the science of Characterology, here formulated for the first time, we have a strenuous scientific achievement of the first importance. All former psychologies have been the psychology of the male, written by men, and more or less applicable only to man, as distinguished from humanity. 'Woman does not betray her secret,' said Kant, and this has been true till now. But now she has revealed it: by the voice of a man. The things women say about themselves have been suggested by men; they repeat the discoveries, more or less real, which men have made about them. Weininger, working out an original system of characterology (psychological typology) rich in prospective possibilities,

undertook the construction of a universal psychology of woman which penetrates to the nethermost depths, and is based not only on a vast systematic mastery of scientific knowledge, but on what can only be described as an appalling comprehension of the feminine soul in its most secret recesses."

Yes, it may well be called appalling if it could be taken seriously, for the author allows woman no character, no mind, no modesty, no sympathy, no brains, no thoughts, save very bad ones, "a woman only thinks in 'henids,"" no soul, no power of loving, no reverence, "a purely male virtue." "No real memory; only an animallike power of recollection." All women are liars." Hysteria is woman's poor attempts to imitate male virtue. "The meaning of woman is to be meaningless." "However degraded a man may be, he is immeasurably above the most superior woman." "It is almost an insoluble riddle that woman, herself incapable of love, should attract the love of man."

And so on and on, more and more

severe.

And the more outrageous and preposterous his asseverations the more I laugh. Just listen to him! "Women have no existence and no essence; they are not; they are nothing." A female genius is a contradiction in terms, for genius is intensified, perfectly developed, universally conscious maleness." "A man may become a genius if he wishes to." "Male liars are not common." "No men who really think deeply about women retain a high opinion of them; men either despise women they have never thought seriously about them." "The prostitute, not as a person, but as a phenomenon, is much more esti

or

woman.

never

un

womanly nor rebellious but keenly aware of the unfairness of their position and longing for the abolition of the necessity for armies and greater opportunities for themselves.

An Austrian woman, the Baroness von Suttner, in her strong and convincing novel, "Ground Arms,' emphasizes the necessity of better training for women, if the highest degree of civilization is to be attained by the world at large. ministers of finance commend this powerGrave ful presentment of facts; its influence in Germany is as profound as "Uncle Tom's Cabin was here; it won the Nobel "Peace Prize" of $40,000, as its perusal helped to bring about the Hague Tribunal. The

wisest men own that its philosophy is profound, its logic strong and unanswerable: she cynically exposes the egotism of man, in ascribing to the Christian God convenient sympathy with conditions which are relics of barbarism.

And a German youth of unusual ability, endeavored to erase woman, and incidentally the human race!

What a pitiful arrogance must have possessed this man to make him believe himself capable of writing an ultimate judg ment, from which he admits of no appeal; condemning one-half of humanity.

a

His mother? what sort of woman was she? Possibly a consumptive, unmarried criminal, of dissolute ancestry: such combination occasionally produces verted genius. What women could he have perknown and where did he, at so early an age gain all his pitiful half knowledge? Do you remember Heine's beautiful appeal to the Venus of Milo; she had no arms with which to lift him up; this unhappy boy could only have known those wrecked creatures who had no spiritual uplift, or

765

else he was essentially vile and soul blind.

He states that "Every man in his own life becomes intimate only with a group of women defined by his own constitution, so naturally he finds them much alike.' Judging by his own dicta on women what must have been his make-up?

He declares that "he who destroys himself, destroys at the same time the whole universe." Living in the "universe" (whatever that means that his must have been) I don't wonder that he wanted to destroy it, even at his own expense.

But why give more attention to an erudite maniac? Yet one footnote I must give to make my opinion of his madness conclusive.

"A male criminal even feels guilty when he has not actually done wrong. always accept the reproaches of others as He can to deception, thieving, and so on, even if he has never committed such acts, because he knows he is capable of them. So also, he always feels himself 'caught' when any other offender is arrested."

Poor Otto! the victim of a false theory which in spite of his learning landed him nowhere. His only solution of the terrible condition he worries over is celibacy: "that the human race should persist is of no in terest whatever." He can allow nothing good to the Jew; hates the Anglo-Saxon, asserts that England has only produced two really great men and so he drivels on.

Pope, the crooked little invalid, embittered by his physical defects, spit and snapped in sparkling couplets at a woman, while Lady Mary Montagu's scornful laughter at his adoration still rang in his ear and rankled in his unsatisfied heart. And there is a modicum of truth in much of the wit expended on women.

Still most men realize with Dryden
"As for the women, though we scorn
and flout 'em,

We

wife it seems plain that they desired to expose the author to deserved ridicule; and possibly make a little money out of his monstrous and crazy conclusions.

I do not know the price: some men may want it at any price. But the man who has reason to love and honor his mother, sister, and wife, would no more care to own the book than he would wish to entertain in his home a loathsome Leper.

Ugh! Pugh! I feel as if I had been trying some of Armour's messes. Let us turn at once to something sane and agreeable. I used the word footnote which suggests that in the Contributor's Club of the July Atlantic there is a most delightful and original chat on "Footnote Persons," those fortunate semi-great ones of their generation who catch on to the robes of their adored friends and masters and hold so hard as to be immortalized with them. "It is all very well for us to sniff and remark that So-and-so lives only in the lines of some poet or in the footnote of some biographer."

Well are we in a position to patronize him? Wouldn't we give our boots and bottom dollar to be sure of as much?" Then several are mentioned; as Johnson's Savage, Lamb's Manning, Carlyle's Sterling, Emerson's Alcott.

The Atlantic Monthly is the only magazine of which I read every word: but I always turn first to the Contributor's Club because there something that comes straight from head or heart can surely be found; a refreshing contrast to articles prepared for pay or fame or both. I have been devoted to this best of Boston's products since old enough to appreciate its rare flavor and I once got a hint from Judge Chase when visiting at his home which makes me smile to-day. We were going to have quite a large dinner company, and when I came down stairs looking no doubt primed to do my level best as a converser, my kindly host said, "Kate, don't quote from the Atlantic Monthly to-night." No doubt I had bored every one unconsciously by repeating its contents nearly in entirety.

Rev. Dr. Hale, our "grand old man," delivered two addresses at the Brooklyn Institute in their courses on government and sociology in 1903 and 1905 and these are now printed by James Pott and Company, New York, with the title, "The Foundation of the Republic." As ever with the writings of this optimistic sage, we are strengthened by encouraging facts and hopeful thoughts. He always makes one more satisfied with the conditions in our own country, more proud of its advantages. But his last words are a warning prophecy.

"Just so far as we do not like to retain

God in our knowledge, so far and so fast do we fall away from the eternal successes. We think we are very grand, we think we are very ingenious. We think we are very rich. Yes. There is no harm in thinking so, if we really know and make our children know from whom comes Our strength, whose law is our law. If we forget that, or if we are too proud to assert it, our sun is gone down, our twilight begins, and after twilight, midnight."

Little, Brown and Company send a new and finely illustrated edition of that uncommonly good novel, "Truth Dexter," the pictures admirably done by Alice Barber Stephens, who is gifted with the power to make sketches of the heroine which satisfy the author as well as the many readers. We are promised the name of the woman who wrote this fascinating story, before long. An anonymous lure never interests me. If a novel is so capital as to be engrossing I don't care to speculate about the name, sex and age, of the one who has achieved it.

With one exception. Before the radiant, lovable and unique Elizabeth of the "Solitary Summer" and "German Garden" had written herself out and was reduced like many another, to producing books, she was a fascinating Anonym. How well her secret has been kept.

Now we know who "Barbara," the Commuter's wife is; Mrs. Mabel Wright of bird lore and out-door books. Her latest "The Garden, You and I," is a series of informal talks on a garden; how to place and start one, not forgetting the two mighty rulers that must be consulted the Sun and the Wind. She writes in poetical prose, of Nature and her ways, and brightens her instruction by amusing criticisms and genuine humor. As "I always tremble for the lowlander, who down in the depth of his nature, has a prenatal hankering for rocks, because he is apt to build an undigested rockery! These sort of rockeries are wholly separate from the rock gardens, often majestic, that nowadays supplement a bit of natural rocky woodland, bringing it within the garden pale. awful rockery of the flat garden is like unto a nest of prehistoric eggs that have been turned into stone, from the interstices of which a few wan vines and ferns protrude somewhat, suggesting the garnishing for an omelet."

The

Personally, I do not need to have a budding romance of two mature friends and the coming of a baby, mingled with my gardening guide. But it makes a pretty story and the whole is well done. And twenty-five illustrations add to the charm and value of the book. Macmillan Company. $1.50.