been recognized by a publisher, for
"The Vengeance of James Vansittart," whose title is included in the list
given above, has appeared in a later edition as "James Vansittart's
Vengeance"--a palpable improvement.

I shall not discuss the cause of this change in the use of the possessive,
though it seems to me an evident Gallicism, nor shall I open the question
of whether it is a mere passing fad or the beginning of an actual
alteration in the language. However this may be, it seems undeniable that
there is an actual and considerable difference in the use of the
possessive to-day and its use ten years ago, at least in formal titles and
headings. I have confined myself to book-titles, because that is the
department where the tendency presents itself to me most clearly; but it
may be seen on street signs, in advertisements, and in newspaper headings.
It is not to be found yet in the spoken language, at least it is not
noticeable there, but it would be decidedly unsafe to prophesy that it
will never appear there. Ten years from now we may hear about "the
breaking of the arm of John Smith" and "the hat of Tom," without a thought
that these phrases have not been part of our idiomatic speech since
Shakespeare's time.

SELECTIVE EDUCATION[1]

[1] Read before the Schoolmen of New York.

Since Darwin called attention to the role of what he named "natural
selection" in the genesis and preservation of species, and since his
successors, both followers and opponents, have added to this many other
kinds of selection that are continually operative, it has become
increasingly evident that from one standpoint we may look on the sum of
natural processes, organic and inorganic, as a vast selective system, as
the result of which things are as they are, whether the results are the
positions of celestial bodies or the relative places of human beings in
the intellectual or social scale. The exact constitution of the present
population of New York is the result of a great number of selective acts,
some regular, others more or less haphazard. Selection is no less
selection because it occurs by what we call chance--for chance is only our
name for the totality of trivial and unconsidered causes. When, however,
we count man and man's efforts in the sum of natural objects and forces,
we have to reckon with his intelligence in these selective processes. I
desire to call attention to the place that they play in educative systems
and in