Week by Week
THE COMMONWEAL Published weekly and copyrighted 1925, in the United States by the Calvert Publishing Corporation, 25 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City, N. Y. Mm~A~. WILLIAMS, Editor Assistant...
...The number of those who now reckon with scholasticism as one of the "vigorous" systems of thought, is constantly growing...
...and although the authori- ties in Washington are willing to give such assistance as is permissible to historical writers, the opportuni-ties of referring to the documents are inevitably lim- ited to such as have been inventoried and indexed...
...It is informed by a spirit of fairness which is admirable, and contributes to the value of the book as a standard reference vol- ume for all interested in the subject of religious edu- cation as a basis for the better and fuller civic life of which America is in dire need...
...One must hope, of course, that coming numbers of the periodical will modify a little the emphasis upon ethics which seems to be all-pervading just now...
...These pretty Gallic artificialities are considerably more entrandngmand after all, quite as necessarymas the heavyish humors and ghastly seriousness of so much contemporary Anglo-Saxon produce...
...At any rate, the point is serious enough to merit the consideration of a cer- tain eminent authority who recently predicted the downfall of society unless energetic steps were taken to prevent "marriage of the unfit...
...Simply this: "We publish this letter because many British people have feelings of gratitude and admiration for Dr...
...We shall await with interest the address of that statesman who first declares that the time is ripe for an Ameri- can association of nations--and for the ending of a condition which, while making the United States re-sponsible for the maintenance of order, showers it with temptations and accusations relative to a very dangerous imperialism...
...But to return for the nonce to Mr...
...Ches-terton is that he grew out of and taller than the 189o's: the significant thing about Mr...
...As for the more irregular aspects of the sport, a review of what has been accomplished during the past decade to control them, is a fine tribute to campus opinion...
...THE COMMONWEAL Published weekly and copyrighted 1925, in the United States by the Calvert Publishing Corporation, 25 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City, N. Y. Mm~A...
...Fear of Yankee dominion is always a big drawing-card when there is question of starting an attractive little junta...
...But after all, the truth of the matter may lie in a decent community respect for individual free- dom...
...Cuthbert Wright reviewing a book by Mr...
...Apart from citizens anxious to improve a diction the origins of which are academic, the audiences in attendance are critically in- terested in the French manner...
...Sacha Guitry is more venturesome, but still keeps close to the boulevards...
...A proper use of matrimonial selection would, it was thought, develop nobler mental "types...
...Plato, in particular, practically ex- cluded from the profession of wisdom all those who had succumbed to the lure of heading a family...
...he went to class when he felt like it...
...The view of His Majesty's government is that there are the gravest objections to the grant of any form of audience by an advisory commission of the League to petitioners who either are themselves inhabitants of a territory administered by His Majesty's government under man- date, or are petitioners on behalf of inhabitants of such territories...
...A similar stu- diousness and vitality is evidenced by the initial num- ber of the New Scholasticism, a quarterly publication which to some extent reflects the interests of the asso- clarion...
...Wright is merely myopic here, he is wholly blind when he deals with conversion...
...At present, only about two and one-half percent of the amount of the claims is being paid...
...and he meets a lovely young lady whose ability to inspire and depress is reminiscent of Cleopatra's powers, though not of her sins...
...If we are not mistaken, this journal will have a bril- liant future...
...It records the views of Great Britain and her now autonomous colo- nies upon any interference with the administration of their mandated territories, in language that offers no excuse for misinterpretation...
...HUGE flagons of critical shandygaf[ are on display in so many places that it is scarcely worth while to stop and wrangle about a single instance...
...Perhaps the average undergraduate b.ody of today would sleep even more soundly, and do even less work, if it were not for the pulmotor stimulus of gridiron frenzy...
...American military dictatorship might send three dozen restless "statesmen"mevery reformer south of the Rio Grande is a statesman--scurrying, and give the rest of the population a chance to develop industrial and agricul- tural resources out of which community prosperity might bloom...
...Several papers dealt earnestly with important themes, linking the problems of the present with the solutions pro- pounded by tradition...
...He is one," declares the corre-spondent, "of the many innocent sufferers through our government's having seized the property in this coun- try of Germans, whose own government (though it agreed to compensate all its citizens whose goods had been seized abroad as alien property) is not in a posi- tion to give them adequate compensation...
...Wright is that he still dwells in them...
...The admirer of the Chestertonian style has never ap- plauded the mannerisms, and need not usually be told that a great deal of the alliteration is out of place...
...In short, it was physiology which accepted inconstancy, and sociology which held to constancy...
...What would be worth examining, however, is the rapt seriousness with which audiences galore gaze deep into this alluring concoction...
...One might recommend to them the recent legislation propounded by I1 Duce, imposing a tax upon the single and carefree...
...There is no co-ordination of interests...
...Her repertory the world had learned by heart a long time since...
...Meanwhile, 5I percent of Nicaraguan banking capital is held by New York interests...
...And what did the Spectator venture to say by way of com- ment...
...If situations like the disturbance now manifest in Nica- ragua existed in Europe, they would be turned over to the League of Nations...
...though just what functions would be left to this commission as time rolled on was the subject, at the time, of a good deal of cynical conjecture...
...Bitterness is always ultimately bile...
...A CORRESPONDENT, in the London Spectator, outlines the pitiable old age of Professor Pagenstecher, a famous German oculist whose skill was placed at the service of many prominent English people, including Queen Victoria...
...Instead, we shall per- force gaze upon a rather dubious gesture of "protec- tive intervention," the beneficiary of which is a little official who has lost out in the desperate game of Nica- raguan politics, and who will shrivel from sight the moment he is left alone...
...No authoritative study, either of American participa- tion as a whole, or any phase of it, can be made with- out access to these records...
...And there, during the past year, offenses committed by bachelors outnumbered by more than two to one, the misdemeanors of which married men--and widowers--proved guilty...
...Physiology used to laugh at popular talk about "types," or what an older poet like Chaucer used to call "humors," and tried to find a decidedly different explanation for problems like immunity...
...Small wonder that the authorities have begun to ponder the situation...
...Chesterton for the New York Sun, that one can hardly restrain a wondering look...
...the financial difficulties of the government are still, as in the past, relieved by United States loans, repayment of which is made possible through a joint supervision of customs...
...College presidents are always characterized by optimism, and so their pronouncements on such matters as player sub- sidies ought properly to be taken with the usual sea-soning...
...The manifold questions, apparently arising from the objectionable petitions, to which the ingenuous commission thought they might expect an answer from the group of British mandatories, totaled 230...
...And what is the lesson...
...He commented: 'It is always a satisfaction if, in one's old age, one can still be of use to fellow-men.' " The correspondent added that a subscription was being taken up on behalf of the professor...
...When you come down to it, the well-known Don and his Dulcinea have been rather hopelessly out- dassedmin an age that is usually identified with prose...
...Perhaps--who knows...
...BIRTH AND BREEDING T HE complete upset of several notions of human nature which seemed scientific a few years ago is a curious contemporary fact...
...At present, the college athlete is generally a satisfactory student...
...The point is, there is always one handy...
...Caught between the de- sire to get out altogether and the attempt to protect both American capital and the peace, the Washington government continues to look like a solitary constable on a frenzied college campus...
...To some extent, of course, he necessarily defines himself in holding it...
...If one is to judge by a recent film, the manufacture of which was aided by a famous "mentor," grim-looking backs and tackles inoculate themselves and others with a most alarming sugariness of mentality...
...W HAT seems to have become far more alarming, is the growing sentimental influence of football upon the public, inside and out of college...
...A leading German physician goes so far as to say that determin- ing the "constitution" of a patient is an important part of diagnosis and an essential requisite of preventive...
...What he really does marvel at is the gift of metaphor which illuminates...
...Thus there is revealed that poverty of the theatre which seems almost universal, and which is largely due to the fact that the public itself is poverty-stricken, both spiritually and mentally...
...and a hetero- geneous population of Indians, Negroes, and mestizos can think of nothing more salutary than a new election...
...The proposal made by Representative Andrew will be endorsed by every loyal American...
...THOUGHthe endorsement of football by the aca- demic mind, as reported in the publications of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, was by no means universal, the g~.me seems to have survived rather well a great deal of severe scrutiny...
...Sorel, during her brief engagement, carefully avoided illus- trating the contemporary dramatists...
...Though in externals he can be termed reminiscent of Moli6re, the opportunity for comparison stops with that...
...It is not quite the same thing as the analogies of mystical poetry, but it comes a good deal nearer being the same thing than is usual these days...
...REPRESENTATIVE A. P. ANDREW, of Massa- chusetts, has introduced in the House a joint resolu- tion providing for the publication of the official rec- ords of the world war, in a manner similar to the publication of the Civil War records...
...and her emphasis upon it was, perhaps, a sad commentary upon the sterility of the boards as they now are...
...T HE situation is complicated by the usual attitude of Latin-American opinion...
...it is simply that he does not even look...
...But if Mr...
...Though eighty-two, he still operates and was able re- cently to save the sight of a man only four years his junior...
...It isn't that he cannot see...
...This cynicism (as too often happens) seems to be justified in an amazing docu- ment issued by the secretariat of the League in the middle of last month, and made public through the industry of the Manchester Guardian...
...The problem itself is defined excellently in two sentences of Dr...
...But ap-parently the whole lumbering wave could not, as the saying goes, hold a candle to what is being dreamed of about boys in 'varsity sweaters and their delightful darlings...
...Not so many years ago, a good athlete played four or five years of his favorite game...
...Gilson's account of the r61e of philosophy in history) is memorable...
...CURIOUSLY enough, New York is witnessing the largest ottering of French drama in its history at the very moment when critics are almost unanimous in de- daring the Paris theatre woefully anaemic...
...Now we grant that any man who feels that Mr...
...Contemporary conceptions of religion, ethics, and realism were outlined and exam-ined in a manner which proved that their authors had taken the trouble to inform themselves thoroughly of what is going on in the world outside...
...It is not worth while going further into this most affecting but altogether triumphant romance...
...Today the first has apparently gone back to the doc- trine that there is definitely something like a "constitu- tion," which may guarantee immunity from specific diseases or reveal a disposition to succumb...
...It remained for modern ethical statistics, compiled in the most approved form, to call attention to a very signifi- cant fact...
...It would be a sorry state of affairs if the theory so wisely propounded by Mussolini should clash squarely with another ac-tually advocating single blessedness, and therefore en-couraging the hardened to persist in their lawless tendencies...
...Years ago, the works were those of Voltaire...
...The hero possesses a father who has tramped up and down the good old college paths for twenty-seven years, in fulfilment of a promise made to the wife of his youtb ~3ince dead) that he would abide in the dear old school until it had de-feated its bitterest rival...
...Rather characteristically he puts the works of Coulton between himself and the shrine at which the convert kneels...
...and often, at least, not a drain uport the tightly cramped academic income...
...The work is painstak- ing and thorough...
...Not only ought these rec- ords to be preserved for posterity," he says, "but they ought to be available to historians and students who were participants in, or contemporaries of, the war...
...In the enlightened western hemi- sphere no such solution is possible...
...the bibliography of sources filling seventeen closely printed pages...
...It would be regrettable if a splendid opportunity were missed to discuss some of those psychological problems which are so engross- ing to present-day students...
...Wright's yawl at Chestertonianism, the matter can be accounted for very simply: the meaning of Mr...
...But there is something so curious and instructive in the spectacle of Mr...
...At best, it could be approved of only as the index finger pointing to the arrival of Paul Claudel, whose great plays few people, either in France or America, care to witness...
...Nor can the state monopolize the schools and exclude all religion from them without trampling on the rights of minorities to its own detriment...
...This the visitors dis- play with great 6dat...
...And to comment on that, in turn, would be to spoil its inimitable effect l THE moral superiority of married men has not always received due recognition at the hands of poets and philosophers...
...In view of the fact that this is merely one year's harvest, no very high average of contentment seems to be indicated on the part of the populations which were, in naked language, handed over as spoils of war, no matter how disguised by clever phrases the process was made...
...What is so alarming and so engrossing in our time as crime ? The question can be asked with- out fear of negative response even in a region so tran- quil as Staten Island...
...But the rest of the faculty discovered really excellent reasons why the game ought to su_rvive, and stated these reasons convincingly...
...WILLIAMS, Editor Assistant Editors THOMAS W.~SH I-I'~t.EN WALK~ HENRY LONGAN STUART GEORGE N. SHUSTER Joker F. McCoRMIcl~, Business Manager Editorial Council T. LAWRASON RIGGS JAMES J. WALSH CAaLTON J. H. HAYES R. DANA SKINNER BmrmM C. A. Wmm.s Subscription Rates Yearly: $10.00 Single Copies: $020 WEEK BY WEEK T HE rifles commanded by Admiral Latimer in Nicaragua could, by firing a few effective volleys, restore order in a country which is still suffering from old-fashioned revolutionary convulsions...
...Pagenstecher...
...But the drama ? Mme...
...Using as a type a state in which progress in educa- tional methods has been made with recognition of in- herited religious affiliation and for the benefit of a population for many years distinctly cosmopolitan, the author traces this progress from its early European backgrounds to the present, making clear the current attitude of religious groups in Massachusetts on church and state co6peration...
...he has the most charming ignorance of gridiron tactics, but develops into a scintillant star instantly...
...In any case, the inglorious muddle would be talked about un- til it disappeared...
...It is really terribly tradi- tional and banal...
...THE second meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, recently attended by dele- gations from forty educational institutions, is one hope- ful sign of the vitality of scholastic doctrine...
...Excellent work has been done by this bureau, which already is able to furnish the record of every man who served in the great conflict from several dioceses...
...Most of us will agree that light opera, as the Paris company interprets it, is a much more intelligent, airy and graceful matter than we have been accustomed to think...
...Finally, it will become apparent that the same old gusts of intrigue and sham political science still whizz round Managua, and there will be tribulation among the righteous...
...His work has no genuine originality, no poetry, andmvery nearly~no real charm...
...Such an action is understandable even if not very convincing...
...Smith's preface: "A cosmopolitan people of many shades of religious belief cannot practically agree on the teaching of one religious faith by the authority of the state...
...but it must not be thought that we endorse any strictures upon His Majesty's government . which may be expressed or implied...
...Two famous actors, and a scarcely less famous opera com-pany, have been bidding for the favor of the American public, with considerable success...
...A Permanent Mandates Commission was created, which no doubt really intended to look after the interests of the populations who had been mandated without their permission being asked...
...Self-determination being in the air, however, and a temporary disrepute having fallen upon land-grabbing too crudely evinced, the happy phrase "mandate" was invented to cover the operatton...
...A settlement might be effected, or a mandate might be established...
...Later they were various things more or less hazily connected with Renan...
...It is a beautiful arrangement...
...This resents the suprem- acy of the dollar...
...Wright, it will be re- membered, is the author of a promising if anaemic pamphlet dealing with the Catholic Church...
...Anyhow, what property the famous oculist held in Germany had almost vanished with the collapse of the mark, and he was counting on his old age being eased a little by what he possessed elsewhere...
...The same tendency to generalize hastily and with unfortunate crudity, while professing (and making no bones at all about it) to be "thinking" on a lofty level, character- izes both book and review...
...The artides are signed by distinguished names, and at least one of them (Dr...
...Chesterton adopted the worst mannerisms of "Macaulay," that he writes "a sort of bilge," and that he is "still the man of camps and spe- cial causes," has a perfect right to his opinion...
...Such records as are available, he points out, were prepared eight or more years ago, on cheap pulp paper, and in spite of the care shown by their custodians, are subject to mutilation, deterioration from exposure and handling, and the ravages of time...
...It will be recalled by the most casual memory that, at the Peace of Ver- sailles, certain tracts of territory, large and small, late the property of the defeated nations, were allotted to those among the victors whose appetite for territory was unimpaired, and prominent among these, as might be expected, was Great Britain...
...and since football is about the only spark left, is deserves recognition and conservation...
...tt"l"HE theory that petitioners should have a means of making their grievances known is perfectly correct," but the commission's suggestion that a hearing should be given to the petitioners is, they submit, an incorrect and dangerous application of the theory...
...But, of course, no such dictatorship is possible, or ethically desirable...
...He now finds that he has been deprived of practically all of this because it was invested in England--a country many of whose citizens and several of whose statesmen were treated by him...
...Its poverty of ideas was evident...
...it has often been offended by the rather high-handed cupidity of United States repre-sentatives...
...and he was so obviously the recipe which had produced alma mater's greatness, that you couldn't, in all decency, refuse to give him a share of the gross profits...
...In view of the proposal of the congressman from Massachusetts, it is of the utmost importance that every parish in the country should aid in a work which has been undertaken to show that Catholics did as much, if not more, proportionately, than any other denomination when the call of service for country was sounded in an hour of great need...
...UNDER the title, Relation of the State to Religious Education in Massachusetts, a careful study of an important and daily more pressing problem in a com- monwealth which has been a pioneer in educational progress has been made by Sherman M. Smith, asso- ciate professor of history in Colgate University...
...It is, as somebody remarked, salutary that emotions should be kindled by something...
...the motive for this decree was not to awaken the slumbering from their lethargy, but indeed to safe-guard Italy against the surge of criminality which has all but deluged Staten Island...
...WHOEVER is responsible for keeping the press and people of this country informed upon the peri- patetics of the League of Nations, either missed a golden opportunity a few weeks ago, or decided that silence was more golden still...
...On the other hand, sociologists were con-vinced that the mental and moral structure of the in- dividual was largely an inheritance, which might be exploited by "careful breeding" to the advantage of the race...
...The necessity of such a complete record in so far as Catholic soldiers and sailors are concerned, was long since recognized by the hierarchy of the United States, which several years ago established a bureau of historical records as part of the National Catholic Welfare Conference...
...Most of the literary text-books--some of which are occasionally read in college--report that a wave of distorted romar~ce-writing swept over the world during the era of chivalry's decline...
...It may be that this was what Plato's emphasis upon wisdom meant to imply...
...There is no machinery of government suited to the ugly tangles which, though probably not in the least Russian in origin, ape the mongrel liberalism out of which Sovietism came...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 10
