beria, whose tone is that of "gentle
melancholy," descanting "upon the country and the people to whom it
belongs as with a pen dipped in sighs." Instead of criticising he has
in most cases merely described. Where criticisms have crept in they
have been given in a spirit of sympathetic friendship. He finds in the
country, therefore, much to admire and praise and an economic
situation "which will assuredly bid fair, when normal conditions shall
have returned to us once more, to attain to a measure of gratifying
expansion and progress." He believes that Liberia will then be in a
position "of having her feet placed firmly upon the ladder which
should bring her in time to great heights. The author concedes that
the rung which Liberia has already reached is not a high one perhaps,
"but the way before her seems plain and unmistakable." He believes
that the present guidance from the outside guarantees these most
sanguine expectations in as much as the foreigners controlling the
financial policy of the little republic are hard-working men who have
already set the house somewhat in order. This, supplemented by a
liberal policy of internal improvements, will result in the prosperity
of the whole land.

In discussing this phase of the administration of Liberian affairs,
the author does not bring out any particular resentment on the part of
the natives as to foreign interference. The native officials welcome
helpful advice and when not given they sometimes seek it. The author
himself came into contact with a number of functionaries who frankly
asked him to tell them what he thought of their methods. Except so far
as such foreign guidance may bring financial relief, however, it is
doubtful that these natives so easily yield to this sort of
domination; for many Liberians are to-day endeavoring to get rid of
the American loan which they fear may lead to conquest like that in
Haiti. On the whole, however, this work comes nearer to the true
portraiture of the Liberian situation than most volumes in this field.

* * * * *

_The United States in Our Own Times, 1865-1920._ By PAUL HAWORTH,
Ph.D. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. Pp. vii, 563.

The publication of this volume is justified by the author on the
ground that in as much as an important object of history study is to
enable one to understand the present, greater emphasis than hitherto
must be laid on the period since the Civil War.