however, proves ethics to be not only a profitable study but a pleasant one as well.

What one might judge from the title to be another treatise on ethics is Matthew Hale Wilson's An Inductive Study of Standards of Right, which considers the practical codes of honor operative in the different occupations as well as acting as a valuable aid in the matter of vocational guidance. After an extended consideration of this very broad subject, the author says in summary:

"In the preceding chapters it has become evident that when engaged in a special task some one virtue is more necessary for its accomplishment than are others. The child owes obedience to its parents; the banker should be scrupulously honest in dealing with his customers; the editor should be truthful; the minister should be pure and sincere; the sacred confidence given in friendship should be loyally guarded; the attorney should persevere until he has ascertained the law in a case; the physician should be sympathetic; the judge should be just; and the athlete should be temperate in physical matters. Not that each person does not need many virtues common to others, but when life is largely spent in accomplishing some work the virtue naturally developed in connection with the work is thrust into the foreground. Without the particular virtue which the calling demands, there is no possibility of efficient service. The unjust judge cannot promote the interests of society; the soldier who is a coward cannot guard his country's honor; and the dishonest banker is a menace. Our study has brought us to see that the

moral life does not make exactly the same appeal to each person, but when engaged in certain tasks virtues become necessary which otherwise might have lain dormant or have required little exercise.

"Yet all the virtues are needed in each life. We have not need to be as brave as the soldier, yet many times we must be courageous. We need not realize physical suffering as does the physician, but it is often necessary for us to sympathize with those who are in pain. The whole day may not be spent in business transactions, yet many times it is required of us to be honest in business matters. There are times when we should deal justly, yet our profession may not be that of a judge. All virtues need to be found in each life, yet not in the same proportion. There are some virtues which seem to be more common to all than others. Three of the fundamental virtues necessary to the moral life are honesty, perseverance, and sympathy.'

At the end the author makes an excellent classification of morality:

"The good man is the one who imposes upon himself those laws which aid him in self-realization. There are laws of nature, customs of society, individual ideals and religious beliefs which if accepted as standards of life lead to liberty and blessing. People pass through three stages in gaining moral freedom. First, they live naturally and recognize no restraints. Then they come to a consciousness of law and often rebel against it for a while. Then they see that law is a means of self-realization and claim it as their own. When there is free conformity to selfimposed law there is the highest type of morality."

Another book which should serve to snatch brands from the burning is Boris Sidis's Philistine and Genius ($1.00 net, Badger), a scathing commentary on our present system of education. It is easy enough to find arraignments of our schools, all of us know something is the matter, but Dr. Sidis writes on the subject with the eloquence and insight of an Old Testament prophet. He says:

"The purpose of education, of a liberal education, is not to live in a fool's paradise, or go through the world in a post-hypnotic state of negative hallucinations. The true aim of a liberal education is, as the Scriptures put it, to have the eyes opened, to be free from all delusions, illusions, from the fata morgana of life. We prize a liberal education because it liberates us from subjection to superstitious fears, delivers us from the narrow bonds of prejudice, from the exalted or depressing delusions of moral paresis, intellectual dementia-praecox, and religious paranoia. A liberal education liberates us from the enslavement to the degrading influence of all idol-worship.

In the education of man, do not play on his subconscious sense by deluding him by means of hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestions of positive and negative hallucinations, with misty and mystic, beatific visions. Open his eyes to undisguised reality. Teach him, show him how to strip the real from its unessential wrappings and adornments and see things in their nakedness. Open the eyes of your children so that they shall see, understand, and face courageously the evils of life. Then will you do your duty as parents, then will you give your children

the proper education." "Being in a barbaric stage, we are afraid of thought."

"For, according to the character of the training and education given to the young, they may be made a sickly host of nervous wretches; or they may be formed into a narrow-minded, bigoted, mediocre crowd of self-contented 'cultured' philistines, bat-blind to evil; or they may be made a great race of genius with powers of rational control of their latent, potential, reserve energy.

Dr. Sidis does not limit himself to criticizing the present methods, but shows the way to an enlightened system of education.

Charles E. Beals, Jr.'s parents must have had ideas on education similar to those of Dr. Sidis. Although as a child Beals loved the mountains, his parents never told him that mountains were well enough but would never help him to get ahead in the world and earn his own living, so he kept on marveling at them, then reading about them, and finally writing about them. Now he has given the world Passaconaway in the White Mountains ($1.50, Badger) a beautifully illustrated volume which will appeal to all lovers of nature.

The books considered before are largely for the people of genius; there is one, however, that is frankly for philistines who are good fellows, or, perhaps we had better say, those who are men of genius at the game, that book is The Autocrat of the Poker Table, (($.50, Badger). It is written in a Mark Twain vein by Garrett Brown and will not fail to appeal to those who like poker or those who like fun. It is dedicated to

"The Losers at Poker. If I can earn their gratitude by shifting their burdens, I ask no greater reward nor do I crave nor desire a larger or more intelligent constituency of patrons and admirers."

A Biblical drama which doubtless will interest readers of POET LORE is Jeptha's Daughter, by James M. Cromer ($1.00 net, published by Badger). New additions to their American Dramatists Series are: Weighed in the Balance, by May F. James; The Play of Life, by Alta F. Armstrong; Captain of

the Host, by Florence E. Hyde; Gerry's Awakening, by Francis P. Gooch, and Two Masques, by Julia Hall Bartholomew.

Badger's new volumes of verse are: Idyls of the Dane, by Irene E. Morton; Songs of Inexperience, by Beatrice Daw; Harp Strings, Arthur W. Spooner; The Widowed Earth, by Harry A. Brandt; La Venus de la Habana, by Earl L. Brownson; Nothing But a Soldier Boy, by C. E. Booty; Riddles in Rhyme, by Marion L. Clarke, and Songs of Colorado, by Agnes K. Gibbs.