and heritage, and
Governor Coolidge's address at Holy Cross--remind the reader of the high
significance of our national past and indicate the promise of a rightly
apprehended future. There follow two articles--"Our Future Immigration
Policy," by Commissioner Frederic C. Howe, and "A New Relationship between
Capital and Labor," by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.--on subjects that press
for earnest consideration on the part of all who are intent upon the
solution of our problems. Mr. Alvin Johnson's playful yet serious essay on
"the biggest, kindliest, most honest and honorable tribal head that ever
lived" completes the group of what may be termed "Americanization" Papers.
Perhaps the best of the many magazine articles that President Wilson has
written is that which serves as a link--for those to whom links, even in a
miscellany, are a satisfaction--between the earlier selections and those
that follow. "When a Man Comes to Himself," expressing as it does in
English of distinction the best thought of the best Americans concerning
the individual's relation to society and to the state, will probably be
widely read, with attention and gratitude, for many years to come.
Associated with Mr. Wilson's article are three selections presenting
various aspects of self-realization in education. One of them, "The
Fallow," deals in signally happy manner with the insistent and vital
question of the study of the Classics.
That scholarly and competent literary criticism need not be dull or
deficient in charm is obvious from an examination of Mr. Bliss Perry's
masterly study of James Russell Lowell and Mr. Carl Becker's subtle and
discriminating analysis of _The Education of Henry Adams_. Both writers
attack subjects of considerable complexity and difficulty, and both succeed
in clarifying the thought of the discerning reader and inducing in him an
exhilarating sense of mental and spiritual enlargement.
From the many notable autobiographies that have appeared during recent
years the editor has chosen two from which to reprint brief passages. The
first is Booker T. Washington's _Up from Slavery_, the simple and
straightforward personal narrative of one whom all must now concede to have
been a very great man; the other is that human and poignant epic of the
stranger from Denmark who became one of us and of whom we as a people are
tenderly proud. _The Making of an American_ is in some ways a unique book;
concrete, specific, self-revealing an
|