Week by Week

...In his Australian address, as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he declared that except for his collection of facts, one would no more go to Darwin than to Lucretius or Lamarck for philosophical theory, thus cutting himself off from both neo-Darwinians and neo-Lamarckians...

...1 HE recent death of Professor William Bateson, F.R.S., deprives the world of a man of science whose Toronto speech of four years ago is...

...WHAT is not yet exactly a crisis in the nursing profession, but might easily become so, is revealed in an article, by Mary Ross, published in the last number of The Survey of New York...

...We sometimes have the feeling that narrative of real life is necessarily too gross to incorporate what is basically fine in the vision of beauty...

...and in its entirety the series ought to provoke healthy discussion...

...Her supreme opportunity is the status quo...

...and it was said by one wit that, on Mendelian lines, Adam was only a modified amoeba, and by another that the process from the amoeba to Adam was merely that of taking out one safety-pin after another...

...1 HERE is, perhaps, no single group of workers to whom the public's good will is secured as solidly and on such good grounds as the women whose gentle offices make pain and sickness bearable and upon whose intelligence and faithfulness life and death so often depend in an emergency...

...It outlines the scope and studies the limitations of religious fiction with much common sense and insight...

...Any suspicion that removable hardships press upon them should be taken account of, not only by the faculty under whose orders they work, but by the general public as well...

...described in the current number of Science as the "fateful" utterance, "the Serajevo shot," which stirred up all the trouble there has since been over the matter of evolution...

...Therefore, the value of the series of articles written by Catholic novelists, now appearing in the Jesuit review, America, are of unusual interest...

...And so Mr...

...From his aristocratic pulpit, Pierre Lafue thunders a dictum which will stir many to wrathful protest: uOne may declare with perfect safety that there is in all art one thing of permanence—a kind of irreducible residue which is present in the Iliad as well as in the Divine Comedy...

...They are even accused of being spurious conceptions imported into Christianity from the paganism it overcame...

...Skulls, and crossbones, tear-drops and coffin lids—all the horrific, dismal paraphernalia of the sexton and undertaker, are not for Mr...

...In the three cases the rentals range from $9.00 to $14.00 a month per room...

...If the English can win, their victory will have an importance far beyond anything so far achieved by their statesmen...

...His colleagues saw as clearly as he did that this led to a position difficult to hold...

...Jenner, "I have not been able to find one single instance of death portrayed as an entity...

...that one offense constitutes a nuisance...

...The fact is duly noted that there is less dissatisfaction among women engaged in public health nursing, industrial clinics and similar corporate work with definite hours and duties—indeed, many of those canvassed gave the hours of enforced idleness that must be endured in private cases as far more of a grievance than overwork...

...One suggested remedy, which comes from a group of doctors in Erie County, New York, one hopes will never be found necessary— and that is, the lowering of the educational standard for probationers...

...We all have a right to view the situation in accordance with our moral and intellectual principles...

...But not even the most optimistic can ignore the gravity of the present crisis...

...and through the Visitation convent of Georgetown, Washington, D. C, they invite Americans to help the undertaking...

...His chief book, Materials for the Study of Variation, a work of immense research, surprised the scientific world by bearing at the head of its first chapter the words—"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds...

...The article reviews a number of findings unearthed by questionnaires sent out by medical societies in New York City, Brooklyn, and New York State, requesting groups of nurses whether in hospitals or private practice to state their opinion of present conditions of work and pay, and their general contentment with their lot in life...

...The British Premier apparently hoped that a wave of idealism would sweep Germany into the Council and that all would be well...

...There is simply art, though the form of expression may be different...

...Positivism—the coldness and timidity that rests like a blight even upon professing Christians—will be quite sure to furnish objections that have all the air of finality...

...Heinemann, a veteran of the great struggle...

...Admirers of the work already done at Geneva feel that the effort of France and Poland to offset the entry of Germany into the Council will be settled, one way or another, without impairing the future of the organization...

...It was regarded simply as a state which led to eternal life...

...He was the son of a president of Saint John's College, Cambridge, and there will be many who will remember his mother as one of the foremost and most ardent supporters of Parnell in his home-rule campaigns...

...M. Georges Desvallieres, the well-known French sacred artist, will be satisfied with nothing less, and makes, his point with that courage and indifference to criticism which is one of the most hopeful features of an age full of hope—if one considers it sanely...

...In that country, perhaps only one man is sorrowful over his parting hence...

...In homely phrase, the more numerous the hands that pass the buck, the heavier the buck is likely to prove to the ultimate victim...

...No matter how statistics may bear upon this law, all of us realize very well that there is a difference of opinion—of that same opinion which, theoretically at least, is supposed to control the civic character of the United States...

...and the sacrifice of this right indicates not heroism or superior morality, but simply a timid shrinking into comfortable conformity...

...Gamp and Mrs...

...In either case, it is clear that Sir Austen will be hard pressed to satisfy public opinion in his own country, not to mention conflicting points of view on the continent...

...Two churchmen crossed the aisle and whispered something in Latin...

...If Mussolini has succeeded in forming a treaty with Jugoslavia with the object of preventing Germane Austrian confederation, he has responded to the soft harp music of Locarno with a stirring trumpet blast...

...The burdening of such enterprises with a second profit to the benefit of inert capital is responsible for much of the wage-earner's hardships...

...1 HREE practical suggestions are made by Miss Mary Ross at the conclusion of her article...

...AMONG the many tributes called forth by the death of Cardinal Mercier, possibly none is more touching than the story contributed to the Berliner Tageblatt by Dr...

...The work has progressed slowly during and since the years of war, so that a portion of the basilica which had been planned to house the sacred memories of the two saints is at last completed...

...They grow in number every year...

...Although the financial group does not approve of Governor Smith's proposal to use state funds or credit as a substitute, it is understood to be in favor of a state guarantee for private lenders, amounting to much the same thing...

...1 HE pendulum swings as artists talk of their theories, and sometimes a sudden voice asks: "What is art...

...Germany is the corner-stone upon which the Locarno compact rests, and this compact is, up to date, the greatest bulwark of the League...

...Much of it certainly is...

...Jenner, who refuses to assign them a parentage that goes back much beyond the late middle-ages...

...N EITHER the invigorating calm of the counsel of Saint Francis de Sales, as preserved for us in books which bless the heart, nor the immaculately beautiful letters of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal have failed to win the approval of modernity...

...A third is for the same system applied to private cases in hospitals where the cost of individual nursing presses so hardly upon patients of slender means...

...The figures quoted upon three groups of apartment buildings where apartments are to be rented at moderate figures that include heat and water, throw a good deal of light upon the inevitable complaint made by gougers and profiteers that property properly built and kept up cannot earn a "fair return...

...If, as M. Lafue declares further, the novel has been unable historically to capture this irreducible residue, the conclusion would be that novel-writing is a deluded attempt to be artistic...

...But this shrine is also the result of heroic endeavor: when during 1911 the old Visitation convent was surrendered to the municipality, the nuns moved to the other side of the mountain, braving both the Alps and modern building costs...

...The complaint is often heard that religious art, which once presented its saving symbols by every roadside and at every street corner, has been driven into churches and chapels where only those who seek it can find it...

...Harris into a group of intelligent and devoted women of whom every community is proud, and any leveling down with a view to produce quantity at the expense of quality would be regrettable in the extreme...

...V-INE thing stands out very clearly from the report made by the Times of the opinions held by these practical capitalists...

...that more than one-half of 1 percent alcohol is intoxicating," says Mr...

...We offer no enforcement of Mr...

...It is enforced, as war is waged, by lying propaganda, by stool-pigeons and spies, by John Doe search-warrants, by unlawful breaking into homes, by putting poison in spirits that those who will not conform may drink—and die...

...Most of us, however, concede that if what is abidingly radiant in actual living could be set forth dramatically, the result would be transfiguring and permanently valuable...

...He relates that he stood in the Malines cathedral, wearing the German uniform and feeling disconsolately alone...

...Many of these are commented upon by the Survey article...

...But unless a satisfactory compromise is effected, the gateway to the inroads of nationalism will have been broken down, with results potentially disastrous...

...Two at least of the articles in the issue for November and December are of so suggestive a nature that they deserve comment all their own...

...The erection of apartment buildings for salaried workers, carried out on the old principle of private enterprise and borrowed capital, is antiquated and must be changed if the problem is to be solved in satisfactory shape...

...Martin...

...But very few artists have the courage or enthusiasm to envisage a movement which might restore it to the familiar places of every-day life it once occupied...

...They observe that the League has assumed an importance so great that the very presence of desire to control it is an argument for its permanence...

...1 HE statute is founded on a lie...

...1 HE important thing to do with a subject like the Volstead Act is to think...

...It was he, too, who maintained that no new thing can ever be added to the living organism and that the changes which occur in the process of evolution are due to the loss of factors which for a time inhibited the operation of others...

...Thus he emphasized the discontinuity of nature...

...People who argue for quietism on the plea that "the government must be supported" seem to forget momentarily what government is...

...We have noted especially the paper on Nature and Grace in the Novel, by Montgomery Carmichael...

...Bateson never feared to utter his opinions on any subject, even in the day when scientific boycott was the fate of those who did not utter the fashionable shibboleths of the time...

...They believe that sooner or later Russia will be attracted to these two, with economic and political consequences too enormous to foresee...

...Truly they have put a sword in the hand of a child...

...Once again he makes it apparent that the virus of European nationalism cannot be overwhelmed with one dose of moral antitoxin...

...He was Germany's relentless but honorable foe...

...In commenting upon these at the time they were first made, The Commonweal took due note of the difficulty caused by the attraction to builders and investors of more grandiose schemes promising higher returns...

...A large minority, varying from 39 percent in Buffalo to 33 percent in New York City, replied that they would be glad to leave the nursing profession, and even among those who expressed a determination to re-> main, a considerable proportion gave as their reason that they were "too old to do anything else...

...IT is not quite clear why such a portentous anonymity should be maintained round the names of the "many wealthy New Yorkers" who, as announced recently by the New York Times, are prepared to do their share in financing a sweeping scheme of housing betterment, along the lines of Governor Smith's proposals...

...Martin's summary...

...Will Germany get what it was understood she should receive—equality in the direction of European affairs...

...He himself was a "herald of revolt," as he proved when visiting America...

...Meanwhile, the Sisters of the Visitation feel that all the world is coming to be interested in the task...

...In early Christian art," declares Mr...

...It is absurd to speak, in this sense, of modern art...

...And so the shrine at Annecy, where their relics remain side by side, is the goal of a benignant pilgrimage which will grow with every year, bringing together from all parts of the world those who can understand and cherish spiritual nobility...

...and his work on Mendel's theory is the leading exposition of the subject in English...

...The effect would be to kindle the spirit of nationalism to a point of fury it has not known since the war...

...But happily one objection of which M. Desvallieres takes note, can be disposed of quite as summarily in America as in Europe: "Don't talk to me of a lack of Christian artists...

...At present such theories seem far from tenable...

...Of three groups in Queens, Bayonne, and the one in the improved section of the East side of Manhattan at Fifty-seventh Street, the return on investment is 9, 6, and 6 percent...

...1 HE Catholic Art Review, a new periodical to be published six times a year in London, promises to be a significant publication...

...One sees at a glance that the reason for giving so much optimistic publicity to the Locarno agreement was precisely to offset, spiritually at least, a situation like the one which has just arisen...

...ANOTHER article in this new review, The Symbolism of Death in Art, by K. L. Jenner, deals rather roughly with what might be called the "macabre" aspect of death which has infiltrated itself into popular art and religion...

...It has taken the nursing profession less than a hundred years to work itself up from the night-light and mobcap of Mrs...

...Obviously there is need of a skilful arbitrator, and it is to be hoped that this arbitrator will be Sir Austen Chamberlain...

...Long hours (averaging twelve a day) the fact that the profession runs quite early into an impasse so far as earning powe/- is concerned, the insecurity of private nursing, a short and unpensioned working life, are all items in the situation which is creating a shortage of alert women of good education, willing to adopt the nursing profession...

...Dr...

...I T was in the preface to this work that he denounced the attitude of those who preach certainty in science where there is no certainty, and as he said, "have taken on themselves the responsibility of giving to the ignorant, as a gospel, in the name of science, the rough guesses of yesterday that tomorrow should forget...

...This is denied in turn by the friends of the Premier, who assert that he did nothing more than promise to submit the controversy to the fullest discussion...

...It tortures the ancient equity practice into police-court procedure solely in order that those accused may be deprived of a jury trial, that palladium of our civil rights, by the previous instance of an injunction, while it impresses the unwilling landlord into the police force by threats of padlocks...

...One of the suggestions is for a central registry, jointly supervised by doctors and nurses, that might grade work according to ability and experience...

...Death is swallowed up in victory...

...If not, nothing short of the cordon of hostile nationalities will induce the Reich to abide by the spirit of Locarno, or to abandon aggressive ambitions to unify German Central Europe...

...George Martin's article in the Groton School Quarterly—an article to which unusual publicity has already been given—is valuable because it places the 480 THE COMMONWEAL March 10, 1926 whole matter of Volsteadism where it belongs...

...a man of thirty, whom a bitter life has made old before his time...

...Heinemann concludes his memento—"The old man is dead now, at five-and-seventy...

...Perhaps the same may be said of his invitation to architects, to incorporate once more in their ornate f agades, niches for statues of the Virgin or of patronal saints...

...Further papers are promised...

...Perhaps everything would actually have proceeded according to schedule, were it not for the indubitable rise of Italy to a position of crucial diplomatic importance...

...May God watch over your young life...

...1 HOSE who have held out against the attractions of Geneva idealism point to what they consider a realignment of power, with England and Germany joining hands against the rest of Europe...

...1 F we are to credit one portion of the British press, Sir Austen actually committed himself to the support of the French and Polish view...

...It makes it a topic for conversation, for repartee, for disagreement—but not for enforcement...

...It is enforced by a lie...

...But those who grant its substantial accuracy and still swear by Volsteadism ought to concede, at least, that in order to make their cherished point they have turned the orderly process of United States government into something that it never previously was— and by the grace of heaven, never shall be again...

...Possibly the artist's suggestion that uin certain quarters" of big cities, chapels might well be kept open all night, and the old custom of reciting the full office from darkness to dawn be resumed, is one rather for meditation than immediate action...

...We feel a great deal of sympathy with those writers who are struggling to be real rather than merely realistic...

...It is enforced against the weak, but not against a person like the Cunard Line, which has the British government back of it...

...But, as is the case with nearly all the classes graded as "vocational," the cheerfulness and alertness that they carry as bravely as a soldier carries a flag is taken too often for granted...

...An invitation to dinner followed, with more Latin and a blessing from the venerable host who said—"An old man who has always tried to do his duty, blesses a young man who is going to do the same...

...He and De Vries and another were the co-discoverers of Mendel's long forgotten papers in the proceedings of the Brunn Natural History Society...

...Therefore, it will be exceptionally interesting to observe the effort to be made in the near future for the amicable adjustment of League difficulties...

...The fortune of Britain lies, not in forming a new alliance, but in developing the League to a point where it can at least relatively guarantee the peace of the continent...

...Are Poland and the Latin nations to be summarily pushed into diplomatic defeat...

...who was once a little subaltern bidden to a birthday feast by an old man, in years of blood and hate...

...March 10, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 481 Another is for a scheme of hourly nursing for cases that do not demand a whole day's work, to be paid for at rates somewhat better than those reigning at present, which, in New York City at least, are about what is paid a competent laundress...

...In the Catacombs, those valleys of martyrs whose whole raison d'etre is a resting place for the dead, death is treated only as a passing state of no consequence compared to the glory of its conqueror...

...The soldier turned promptly and answered in the same language^—to Cardinal Mercier...

...The story of the lofty affection which they shared is treasured by very many of those who do not, as yet, care for the dogmatic certainties upon which their lives were built...

...Bateson himself was frankly and fully a Mendelian, and more...