in eastern Iraq, the terminus of a railway and motor road from Baghdad. From Kirkuk petroleum is piped to Haditha, on the Euphrates, where the line divides, one branch going to Tripoli in Syria, the other to Haifa in Palestine, where there is a large refinery. After the fall of France in June, 1940, the former line was cut. To the south of Khanaqin there is a small oil field, which extends across the border into Iran. At Khanaqin the motor road from Baghdad runs over the frontier to Kermanshah, whence it continues through Hamadan to Teheran.

Iran is the fourth oil-producing country in the world. The Iranian oil-fields lie in the Karun Valley, whence the crude oil is pumped through pipe lines to an enormous refinery at Abadan. This island-port in the Shatt-el-Arab lies midway between Basra and Bandar Shahpur, the southern terminus of the 866 mile Trans-Iranian Railway, which runs through Teheran to Bandar Shah on the Caspian Sea.

Naturally these supplies of oil are of enormous importance to British and allied forces in the Middle East. Equally so would they be to the Germans, for Caucasia, Iran, and Iraq could provide Hitler with all the oil he needs to feed his war machine.

The Middle East Theatre of War covers 850,000 square miles. One end of this enormous land bridge between the Mediterranean and India rests on Russia. The other rests on Egypt and the Suez Canal, whose control is essential to the allies, for otherwise they could scarcely hope to hold Palestine and Syria, and only with difficulty Iraq and Iran. Even before the German invasion of Russia, the Middle East was of vital importance to the British Empire. For years before the present conflict the Germans were busy undermining British influence in this area. They were not unsuccessful, and with the outbreak of war they redoubled their efforts. In Syria, after the capitulation of France, they were aided by the pro-Nazi Vichy Government; in Iraq by anti-British politicians in Axis pay; in Iran by a host of German Fifth Columnists, whose activities were regarded by the Government with a benevolent eye.

The storm, as we know, broke in Iraq, where, early in April, a pro-German clique overthrew the Government and assumed power. Two weeks later British and Indian troops landed at Basra in accordance with the Anglo-Iraq Treaty of Alliance. Open revolt broke out at the beginning of May, when Iraqi troops unsuccessfully attacked the R.A.F. aerodrome at Habbaniyeh. Meanwhile British troops occupied strategic points in Basra; a column advanced up the Euphrates valley; and air-borne reinforcements were sent to the besieged garrison at Habbaniyeh. The Royal Air Force took the offensive. They bombed a number of Iraqi aerodromes, including that at Rutba, where they forced the garrison to surrender. They also attacked Aleppo, Palmyra, and other Syrian aerodromes, which were being used as bases by the Germans, who were assisting the rebels. The rebellion was quelled on May 31, on which day an armistice was signed in Baghdad. The next day Imperial troops entered the capital, and shortly afterwards occupied Mosul and other strategic centres, including the oil-fields. Retribution followed in Syria. But, partly because of the mountainous terrain and partly for political reasons, the British advance was relatively slow.

At dawn on June 8, Australian, Indian, and Free French forces, with strong air support, crossed the Syrian frontier from Palestine and Transjordan.

One column advanced along the coast road to Tyre, and thence across the gorge of the Litani River to Sidon, which was captured on June 15 by Australian forces, who then continued towards Beirut. Another column entered Syria from a point near Lake Tiberias, and later struck west from the Jordan Valley along the road to Damascus, on which forces from Transjordan were also advancing along the Amman-Damascus Railway. The capture of Damascus on June 21 opened the way through the Syrian Hollow to Homs, where the line from Tripoli joins the DamascusAleppo Railway.

Meanwhile mechanized units began to enter Syria from Iraq. From Mosul one column moved along the BasraBaghdad-Bosporus Railway towards the Turkish frontier. A second followed the road up the Euphrates Valley to Deir-ez-Zor, which was taken by Indian troops, who ther marched on Rakka. Other units took the trans-desert route to Palmyra, which was also the objective of columns advancing across the desert from Damascus. This important aerodrome on the pipe line to Tripoli was captured on July 3.

Hostilities ceased on July 13, when an armistice was signed at Acre (Palestine).

The occupation of Syria, and the crushing of the rebellion in Iraq, somewhat eased the situation in the Middle East, but Iran remained a centre of Axis activities.

The frontiers of Iran adjoin those of British Baluchistan on the east, Turkey and Iraq on the west, and Russia on the north, while its southern shores are washed by the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Thus Iran occupies one of the most important strategic positions in the Middle East, added to which, as we have seen, it is a leading producer of oil.

Under increasing German pressure Iran was rapidly becoming a menace to the security of the British Empire and Russia. In spite of repeated protests by Britain and Russia, the Government of Iran refused to expel the German Fifth Columnists, and on August 25, none too soon, allied forces marched into the country.

Imperial troops entered Iran at three points. Leaving Basra at nightfall Indian contingents moved down the palmfringed Shatt-el-Arab, and, attacking Abadan at dawn, occupied the oil refinery and installations. Others captured Bandar Shahpur, whence they advanced along the TransIranian Railway. Units from Basra, having crossed the Euphrates by pontoon bridges, secured Khoranshah, on the road from Abadan to the Karun Valley oil-field. In the north-east troops advanced from Khanaqin along the motor road to Kermanshah. While these operations were taking place in the south, Russian troops were advancing along a front extending from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish frontier. One column moved along the road and railway to Tabriz, the rail-head, whence the road continues east to Teheran. Another column crossed the north-east frontier of Iran and occupied Meshed.

Iranian resistance to the British and Russian forces was short-lived. Within three days fighting ceased and the allies proceeded to occupy the oil-fields, the Trans-Iranian Railway, the Tabriz-Teheran road, and other vital objectives.

The occupation of Iran has enabled the allied forces in the Middle East to establish a united front. Moreover, it has opened up communications between Russia and the Persian Gulf. With the closing of the Mediterranean-Black Sea route to commercial traffic, the Persian Gulf provides the only sea route by which supplies can reach Russia at all seasons, for Vladivostok, the Pacific terminus of the TransSiberian Railway, is icebound from December to April. By the Cape Route to Basra and Bandar Shahpur, supplies from Britain, British territories east of Suez, and the United States can be dispatched to Russia, and the Middle East Theatre of War.

Allied control of the Persian Gulf route is of great value to Turkey, as too is the removal of a menace from her Syrian and Iranian frontiers. She is now less dependent on the goodwill of the Axis states, and so should be more disposed to exercise a friendly, or at least an impartial neutrality, towards Britain and Russia.

The occupation of Syria, Iraq, and Iran has placed the greater part of the Middle East under Allied control. Much is at stake and this enormous region may yet be the scene of decisive battles, for Hitler will doubtless try to emulate Alexander and drive east to India, and south through Syria to Egypt, and beyond. But the effectiveness of British and Russian military co-operation in the Middle East, where geography plays so great a part, is a good omen.

THE

HERE is one book which might have been written specially for this occasion, though it is nine years since it was published. It is Dr. R. F. Young's Comenius in England. Dr. Young is best known by the historical introductions which he has written for the Consultative Committee's Reports. These place him in the forefront of our writers on the history of education. He is the A. F. Leach of our generation. He is well known among the Czechs. He was a great friend of Masaryk, knew him when he was in London and stayed with him often in Prague. He was a member of the first Diplomatic Legation in the days when the Czech Republic was founded. He is a Doctor of Philosophy of the University at Brno (Brun) founded in honour of President Masaryk.

It was in September, 1641 that Comenius came to England, invited by the newly-elected Parliament of 1641, commonly known as the Long Parliament. Dr. Young has put together in his book all the documents connected with this visit, translated and edited them with introduction and notes. A previous book of his deals with Comenius' plans for the education of native Indians in Virginia and New England-plans which Comenius discussed in London with Hartlib, Robert Boyle, Archbishop Williams, and John Winthrop the younger, son of the Governor of Massachusetts.

The immediate object of his visit, however, was to advise Parliament as to the reform of schools. Only greater matters of immediate urgency intervened. King Charles had already gone to Scotland: then came the massacre in Ireland. Civil war was now inevitable. Comenius was told to wait. While waiting he had time to talk over with his new friends his great scheme of Pansophia, which lay near to his heart. He foresaw the growth of knowledge which would result from the Baconian system of investigation and experiment. He saw the need for central direction and co-ordination of this new activity; how easily there might be overlapping, confusion of terminology and chaos-the need, in effect, of an intellectual G.H.Q. Comenius' mind was above all methodical. There must be a central clearinghouse, as it were, and a directive body. The new Atlantis pictured with lavish imagination the House of Solomon. Comenius thought it out in terms of a world university, in which the professors should be the greatest intellects of all nations, working as one team at the classification and homologation of science, having outposts in all civilized countries and corresponding freely with them. Comenius was anxious that the site of this encyclopaedic university should be London, and Parliament had gone so far as to suggest the College of Chelsea. A model of the projected building is to be found in the British Museum. The real outcome of these conferences is to be found in the Royal Society, chartered in 1662—the first of many similar societies or academies in many other countries, which did, from the first, correspond with our Royal Society and with each other, as they still correspond in war-time as well as in peace.

It was this synoptic universal outlook of Comenius' mind which makes it so difficult in a short article to summarize his work. Though his thinking was in terms of all mankind, it was by no means diffuse. The man took all knowledge for his province. The best way to realize his encyclopaedic outlook is to glance through the titles of all his writings. There are 127 in M. W. Keatinge's edition of the Great Didactic. On the same page we have Seminarium Linguarum et Scientiarum omnium, Schola infantiae -a book for mothers, dealing with the first six years of childhood, A Harmony of the Gospels, A Concordance of the Holy Scriptures, text-books and curricula and timetables for the elementary school (ages 6-12), the Latin

School (12-18), and Orbis pictus, said to be the first illustrated book for children.

It was said of Robertson Smith at Cambridge that he specialized on the universe. It was Comenius who showed him how to do it. The very homelessness of his life made him a wanderer. The outbreak of the Thirty Years' War drove him from his homeland. The Treaty of Westphalia, which brought the war to an end, made it impossible for him to return, for the toleration this Treaty secured to Protestants in general discriminated specially against the Moravians.

He claims the right of education for all children. Schools are to be places where all children are to be taught all subjects with all thoroughness, ubi omnes omnia omnino doceantur. There was to be no bar of class or poverty. With Milton and contemporary writers education, at any rate of a higher type, was not for oi woλoí. Nor were girls to be excluded. The words in which Comenius claims for girls equality of opportunity, he bases on the Divine maxim, "Where God gives capacity, it is man's duty to train it." (The founder of Rugby School left his foundation" for the children of Rugby and Newbold-on-Avon." The question whether girls were legally "children "does not seem to have occurred to the executors of his will). Omnia-Latin was no longer to monopolize the curriculum. Things were more important than words. Children should be taught the truth about themselves and about nature, taught at any rate enough to give them a foothold and enable them to learn more for themselves. Omnino-the knowledge was not to be vague but thorough, so far as it went, and it was to be objective. If the teacher could not show them a giraffe, he was at any rate to show a picture of it. Comenius worked out the text-books himself. They were quickly translated into twelve of the principle languages of Europe and into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Mongolese. They were used in at least half the schools of Europe and in New England.

The spirit of the school was changed. Hitherto the cane or birch had been the tree of knowledge

“Qui, quae, quod

Fetch me the rod."

The schools had been, as he said, " torture houses of youth." It is significant that in Shakespeare every mention of school or school teacher is redolent of hatred. The teaching profession as a whole has not even now recovered from the stigma of those days. The reaction in our country against the rod has come later than in other lands, but it has been more complete. The present-day relations between teachers and taught would satisfy, they would even gratify, Comenius.

Latin still remained. It was the lingua franca of learning and essential to the advancement of learning. But the old method of teaching it wasted as much as ten years without giving scholars any real capacity for understanding Latin or writing it. Comenius halved the school hours-his programme provided four hours a day instead of eight. He found room for mathematics, history, geography, music, and nature study-and yet his pupils did succeed in learning Latin. It was not the Latin of Cicero. Comenius had no special love for the Classics. He did not exclude them. He thought it would be enough if children were given in compendium the substance of their contents. But the Classics were Pagan. He believed in Christian schools. Moreover, Classical Latin had not the vocables necessary for learning in the Baconian sense of the term.

His great function as a reformer of education may best be expressed in his own metaphor. He unbarred the gates. No less than five of his books bear the title Janua Reserata, Janua linguarum, Janua rerum, and so on. His part was to remove the bars of ignorance and narrow

traditions, of sex and class, and darkness, and to open up to all a free and fair chance to be and to do each his best. Education to him was an enlargement, an emancipation. It brings men out from the small roofed-in tenement of self-absorption into the companionship of heaven and the myriad of stars.

We are told he is dull and obvious, his analogies are either obvious or far-fetched. In his endeavour to be systematic and philosophic he will begin everything ab ovo and take

THE SPOKEN WORD

nothing for granted. But we have to remember the people to whom Comenius spoke were still in the dark ages; their ears were heavy, their eyes purblind, their understanding was gross. He could take nothing for

granted.

Not one of his text-books is now in use, but his Grea Didactic still remains as the first book which formulated the universal principles of instruction and puts all education on a scientific basis.

SIR, I should be grateful if you would allow me to reply to the review in your July issue of my Psyche Monograph, Vowel Sounds in Poetry, their Music and Tone-Colour. The investigation described in the monograph, which is the successor of an earlier, more general, examination of the music of poetry, attempted to discover the scientific basis for certain poetic effects which it examined; but it used science only as a means and, as the preface says, analysis succeeded appreciation, it was itself succeeded by a deeper and fuller appreciation after the new knowledge gained had sunk below the surface of the mind, which, no longer conscious of it, was yet enriched by it ".

if

Many, although not all, distinguished students of literature dislike the scientific method, and it is no criticism of your reviewer to suggest that she shares this dislike. What is regrettable is that, having failed from insufficient leisure to grasp the thesis of what is admittedly a difficult book, and unarmed with a thorough knowledge of authoritative recent research on vowel resonances, anyone of your reviewer's dignity and reputation did not refrain from comment.

The comments suffer from lack of precision in thought and expression; but, clearly, objection is taken to the use of 'front' and 'back' in the classification of vowels; the adjectives are condemned as "misleading, since it is the overtones and undertones in resonation which chiefly concern the student of verse and speech". Yet 'front' and 'back' are widely used by professional phoneticians; and they were early abandoned in the investigation for 'high' and 'low'; and pitch is closely related to tongueposition : the progressive rise in pitch was seen to coincide with a progressive movement of the tongue either upwards, as in the articulation of front vowels, or downwards, as in the articulation of back (P. 54). The most astonishing point here is, however, the apparent implication that the investigation minimizes the importance of overtones. Yet overtones or, more correctly, the two main characteristic regions of resonance in the vowels-undertones are comparatively unimportant—are the subject of the scientific section of the investigation, and it is they which in the end offer the explanation of the pleasure derived from the poetic effects under consideration.

Obviously the vowels do not suggest the sense of the words cited in the review-but I nowhere maintained the contrary. The theories actually developed, step by step, as the result of a parallel investigation along two separate lines, are that vowels can be divided into four groups, the high, the low, the deep, and the common' (which take on the colour of either of the first two groups if it is dominant), that throughout good poems or units' of good poems, one of the first three groups is dominant, and that most poets tend, unconsciously, to use dominant high vowels as a natural medium for the expression of some types of subject, dominant low vowels for on the whole contrasting types, and dominant deep vowels for more intense forms of the contrasting types. The reason evolved for the association in poetry of the members of any group with each other is that one of the two main resonances of each falls within a band of frequencies characteristic of the group; and the suggestion is that in high units a high voice-tone is induced,

in low a low voice-tone, and in deep a deep. It is difficult to understand how the reviewer could have failed to grasp these theories. The lines quoted from Hamlet, being an example not of a high but of a deep unit, do not disprove but support them.

A weight of detail, possibly more irritating to the investigator than to the reader, was unavoidable if objectivity was to be achieved; but, if lack of space did not prevent it, it would be easy to deal with the reviewer's dismay at the number of vowels used-under a score of different vowels are used in the analyses (V., p. 102), although, owing to the influence of stress, a number of relative strengths are attributed to each-and it would be easy to disprove, for example, the statement about dramatic verse. For the rest, the scientific section of the book is based on and in line with the research done in this country, in European countries and in America, by the greatest and most recent authorities on the subject, to some of whom the author was personally indebted for generous help.

I must apologize for taking so much of your space, but the subject is complicated and criticisms made without adequate consideration demand refutation point by point. M. M. MACDERMOTT.

SIR, It was with deep regret that I found in your July number that a book from which as a student of poetry I had derived great enjoyment was condemned by so famous ar authority on verse-speaking as Miss Fogerty. Since I have had time to study with concentration a book which she in the press of business dismissed as being in disagreement with the principles on which her own enchanting art is based I can only hope that a great reputation may not be allowed to weigh against an opinion matured in leisure, until that opinion has been heard and has received equal consideration. Indeed, I cannot believe that Miss Fogerty herself would desire to suppress an explanation of the book which shows it, perhaps, to be less out of harmony with her own ideas than had at first seemed to be the case.

Vowel Sounds in Poetry: Their Music and Tone-Colour, attractive though its title sounds, is not a book for general reading, for it is concerned not with the presentation of ideas but with a description of the method of research. For instance, the investigation necessitated the invention of a system for the accurate measurement of the strengths of vowels, and in the second chapter there is a wealth of detail to explain how these are modified by variations in metrical and sentence stress. This makes tedious reading: one is at first torn between admiration at the sight of such thoroughness, and apprehension at the thought of having to bend one's mind to concentrate on so much detail; but the chapter becomes full of interest when one adopts all these regulations in order to test the theories by a parallel investigation of one's own.

The author found that, in what is accepted as good poetry, passages which may be regarded as units because, broadly speaking, they express a single mood, are units also in sound and have their vowel-themes which are dominated by either 'front' (as they were for convenience called) or 'back' vowels; and that this is evidently a condition on which vowel-music depends. The realization that a relation

ship in pitch exists between the members of the 'front' group and also between those of the 'back' led to a study of the characteristic resonances of vowels, and according to the pitch of the main resonances the vowels were placed in a pitch series.

As is usual in the course of research one of the most interesting discoveries came as the result of what appeared to be a contradiction of theory by fact. In spite of the principles just expounded it had been recognized that four lines from The Ancient Mariner beginning A noise like of a hidden brook' were dominated neither by the 'back' nor the front' group but by the vowels in moon, brook, hid, leaf. The study of resonances revealed that these four vowels have a characteristic resonance of almost, if not quite, the same pitch, and the publication of Sir Richard Paget's Human Speech opened the way to the solution of the whole problem of vowel resonances and their significance in the music of poetry. It was observed not only that front' vowels (now termed 'high ') are related because one of the main resonances of each falls within a narrow band of high frequencies and that 'back' vowels (now termed 'low') are related because one of the main resonances of each falls within a band of lower frequencies, but also that the vowels of moon, brook, hid, leaf, and some others, fall within another deep band.

Later, since one of the two main resonances of the vowels in hat, but, bird, the, was seen to be on the fringe of the low and the other on the fringe of the high band, and since the results of experiments conducted through the kindness of Dr. Eccles and other investigators confirmed the impression that the two resonances of each of these vowels are comparatively equal in strength, it was seen that the vowels may be regarded as 'common' and take their places in either a high or low theme, thus raising still higher the percentage by which the main group preponderated in the passages of good poetry analysed, and confirming an impression arrived at by attentive listening. Thus, far from being based on a superstitious classification of vowels according to the articulatory action of the tongue" (indeed, for the purposes of this monograph the physiological processes of sound production need not be discussed) the whole success of this investigation turns upon the pitch of the main resonances of vowels.

By means of this 'band' theory of resonances and the careful analysis of hundreds of examples of what is accepted as good poetry, it was found that this consists of units dominated by vowels of the high, low, or deep band and that the different levels (not, as the reviewer suggests, the separate sounds) are characteristic of subtle shades of feeling. The classification, although wide, is of course tentative, but is sufficient to prove that in a more intricate manner than was hitherto demonstrated sound echoes sense and that poetry is in fact the immortal shorthand of the soul ".

The quotation from Hamlet :

"

'Seems, Madam, nay it is, I know not seems,
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother ",

far from disproving the theory, upholds it, for it is an example of one of those rare themes dominated by vowels belonging to the deep band which, according to the author, are found to express (among other things) deep sorrow.

In the course of these researches the latest results of phonological science were checked and combined in order to form a sound basis for theory, and they are conducted with such minute attention to detail that on re-reading one finds that one's objections have been anticipated and met. They are valuable and exciting because they open the way to a far more intelligent understanding of the music of poetry, and because they turn the light of scientific truth upon the insincerity of bad poets; for they reveal the secret of our discomfort in reading inferior work, showing that, whereas true poets express their ideas in words whose vowels are harmonious among themselves and whose tone fits their meaning, bad poets lack sureness of touch, their

style is not the living incarnation of their mood, and their work tends to show no dominance by high, low, or deep vowels, or to show a ludicrously strong dominance, or the dominance by inappropriate sound which shocks us, not because it is new (for this is often a sign of original work), but because it is inept and nerveless.

Modern art is teaching us that the artist's finest intuitions are incapable of translation into thought, and are transmitted through the senses to the subconsciousness, going deeper than thought itself. Our attention is directed to the need to study that fascinating and mysterious thing, artistic form. Any attempt such as this, therefore, to understand the medium of the poet, and quicken our awareness of the infinitely subtle music of poetry, must claim our sympathetic attention, for the foundations of this part of criticism have hitherto been comparatively neglected. When a fragment quarried out with infinite patience is brought to us it would be folly to reject it without close scrutiny, and this one, if I am not mistaken, has the gleam of truth and must finally be accepted as part of the building.

It is a pity that a work so thorough in detail should be marred by lapses on the part of the proof-reader: the reference to Nod on page 82, note 2, should read p. 110, not 123; the name of W. A. Aikin is twice misspelt on p. 71 (though correct in the bibliography); an acute accent is missing on p. 18, note 1, Académie; and there is a more serious misprint on p. 68, line 6, where the sound in 'all', not the', is obviously meant.

Brigton, near Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire.

J. MCCLURE.

SIR, I think it would be unfortunate if the reference to Vowel Sounds in Poetry by M. M. Macdermott (Psyche Monograph No. 13) in the article on "The Spoken Word " in your July issue should be allowed to pass without

comment.

Research work on the border-line between two specific subjects of study is always difficult, but it is extremely valuable and interesting. It requires special qualifications and it deserves all the encouragement it can be given. Miss Fogerty dismisses the contribution of the Monograph in a way which seems to me unfortunate, and her references to the scientific side of the work suggest a complete absence of any first-hand knowledge of modern scientific methods of investigation or of their results. I am not defending Miss Macdermott's conclusions: they lie outside of my province; but she has, in my judgment, made a praiseworthy attempt to appreciate the scientific method of approach and to apply it to her study.

THE FUTURE OF THE PRIVATE SCHOOL SIR,-With what purpose was the letter on "The Future of the Private School" written by " Artium Magister" in your August number ? He seems to have been unfortunate in his apparently slight acquaintance with independent schools "hopeless teaching, hopeless discipline" and so much that is all wrong". It is quite easy to find a few black sheep in any profession, even in the Church and in Medicine, but from that fact we do not deduce that the whole flock is tainted. Is he in a position to threaten us with extinction, does he want to reform us or is he an inspired prophet issuing a stern warning to an errant tribe? The