526

istration, mars
work like the Brltan
nica.
Timothy
Dexter,
soldier
crank, to whom nearly
a column is de
voted,mightlikewisewellhave
beer
spared.Thehistoryandpolitics
of thc
United States are generously dealt with
and the geography of our country leavss
nothingtobedesired
o n thescore 91
fulness The articles
on the very smal:
towns in the United States are even
on
such a scale as todisturbthesym
metry of the
work.
Of course, 11
most
departments
process
the
oj
Americanization
could
by
no meam
bc carried out s o effectually as in those
of biography, history, and geography. In
thecase of
greatmanysubjects,as
f o r example,legal topics, theintroduc.
tion of information regarding the Unit
edStates
scalerequired
in an
Americanpublicationwouldhavemar.
redthearticles
as contributions t o a
Britishencyclopedla.Thatfulljustice
is not always done to the United States
even
where
there was nothing t o
prevent is exemplified in
the
article Aqueduct, in which there is no men.
tion of the new aqueduct that the
city
of New York is constructing, -which will
dwarf every work
of the kind, ancient
or modern, into insignificance; or of the
Lo3 Angeles aqueduct, which will be by
far the longest m the world. This
arti.
cle was contributed by several writers,
ahdthesection
on modernaqueducts
mas assigned to
member of a firm of
civil engmeers in London, who shows 1-7
the amount of attentfon that he bestows
upon iron and wooden conduits his unfitnesstodealwiththebroadaspects
of
his subject-an
illustration of t h e peculiar
need
of caution
that
should
be
exercisedby.theeditor
of an encyclopredia in entrustingtechnologicalarticles Lo practical men. The article Cansi
does notconcernitselfwithcanalsin
theUnitedStates,althoughtheErie
Canal is the longest artiEcia1 waterway
in t h e world
The
article
Irrigation (13 pages)deals
at lengthwith
the
reclamation
work
prosecuted
on
such
vast scale by the United States
gwernment,butgives
no idea of the
extraordinary character of some of the
engineeringachievements.
A -curious feature of t h e old Britannica was its neglect of military history.
There were no articles on such subjects
as the Seven Years War
the Thirty
Years War, and famous
battle-fields
wereforthe
most partomitted if the
place from which the engagement
took
its namewasin
itself unimportant.
There was no such caption as Dettingen
Hohenlinden,Bull Run or Chancellorsville.
The
Londoner
whose
daily
MonuwalktookhimpasttheNelson
ment might look in vain
Trafalgar.
The new Britannica devotes
an amount
of space to wars and battles that would
make in itself a large voluml-. on mihtaryhistory.
We cannothelpfeeling,
indeed,
that
this
feature
is e x a g

The Nation
gerated.
Eighteen
and
a half
quartc
pages devoted to the Great Rebellion iI
England is too much even for
an ency
clopzedia t h a t has almost boundless
space at its command. In t h e variou:
ways
which
we have indicated ant
in
many
other
respects
the
elevent1
edition of the
Britannica
is
21
immense
advance
beyond the
ninth
But
the
new
work
is
cast
in
tht
pattern of t h e old andbreathes
thc
same spirit, even if in some ways
con
cession is made to demands hitherto re
garded as too plebeian to claim recogni
tion.
As the Britannica has always been
strong on t h e scientific side, while main
tainingthetraditions
of old-time CUI
ture,one
does nothavetodiscernir
theneweditionanyparticular
changc
of complexion that would reflect the re
trusion of the cult of letters by that oj
the arts and sciences which has charac
lerizedthe worlds intellectual develop
ment in thecourse of the last genera.
tion. A glance at the list of leading
ticles (with the names of the contribu
tors) prefixed t o each volume will show
that the Brltannlca remains as much az
?ver a scholars encyclopzedia
the fact
3f the innovations required
t o make it
& practical
work
of reference. While
Dulsating with the activities of modern
research, it continues to exhale the
at.
mosphere of theoldscholastichalls.
Many of t h e Ene essays writthn for prenous
editions
have,
as
a matter of
:ourse, been
retained
virtually
un.
:hanged, or butslightlyaltered.The
.mpressive
monograph
o n Descartes,
ior example,
contributed
by Wil.iam Wallace
to
the
ninth edition,
eappears
with
little
change
in
the
3leventh.
So, too, Jebbs Demosihenes. Possessors of t h e newBrltaniica will enjoy reading
Macaulays life
rf Goldsmith, which has done such good
lervice inprevlouseditions
and which
s reproduced slightly revised by Aus:in Dobson.
Dickens, who appear:d for the first time in the ninth edition,
;as his life retold and hls writings subected t o afreshcriticism
by Thomas
3eccombe
LOUISHEILPRIN
NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES

T o the scholar and t o serlous readers gen?rally, the opening, on Tuesday of thls
veek, of the beautiful new builalng of the
dew Yolk Public Library, was a signlficant
event. A study of the floor plans of thc
budding, and a Journey through It, disclost
zt once the cheering fact that much though1
znd care have been spent on the needs of thc

research student
A distlnctye feature of the plan conslstr
3f the close relation of the book stacks tc
the main reading room, whlch 1s here placet
the stacks. Thls arrangePirectly
above
nent n o t only provides better air; and more
Light and quiet in the readmg room, but alsc
:Ives the most direct cornmumcation wlth
ihe stacks. The ordmaryreaderwlll
fin?
11s needs best served in this main reading
-

[Vol. 92, NO. 2395

room, on the thlrd floor, which is easily
reached by passenger elevators. Here, In a
nobleroom nearly 300 feet long by 75 feet
wlde,and wlth a seatmg capaclty of 768,
the reader wlll find twenty-five thousand
volumes of reference books ready to hand.
Here also he may have brought t.0 him any
book inthe bulldlng H e may have generous space in whlch tct use his books st the
well-lighted tables, the servlce bemg as
free from Irksome red tape as is posslble
in a large library. Most readers will find
snch facllltles all they require; but for
the speclalist there are rooms set apart wlth
the Yarlous collectlons
To begm wlth the first floor, beSldEs a
reading room f o r current perlodlcals, there
is a. Serles of rooms devoted to Technology,
including patents and applied sclence generally. O n the second floor are the collections of pure Science, including blology, astronomy, chemlstry. physics, etc. These
rooms are connected by book l l f t wlth the
Technologyroomsbelow,
thus making any
book in the collection quickly avallable on
elther floor. O n the same floor with Science
1s a room devoted t o Ecbnomlcs and Socloland connectlng wlth thls another large
room f o r Publlc Documents O n this floor
also are separate rooms for the Slavonlc,
Jewlsh, and Orlental collectlons. O n the
thlrd floor are special rooms for Amerlcan
History, Genealogy,
and
Local
Hlstory,
Maps, Art and Archltecture, and the 11brarys fine collection of Prints In all these
rooms there are ample facllltles f o r readand to asslst them llbrarians who are
specialists in their particular fields. Whlle
anyonemayuse
freely the faclhtles provided m the main readlng room, admlsslon
to the special rooms 1s by tlcket, which may
be issued t o any responslble person who, to
facilitate hls work, requlres Immediate ac:ess t o books on a partlcular sublect F o r
:he lnvestlgator engaged ln Important work
rhlch requmes the continuous use of a large
lumber of volumes, further facllltles are
Irovlded in six small studles o n the second
loor.

The key to the whole system IS theadnlrably lighted and equlpped publlc cata.Oweroom on the thlrd floor, leading dl?ectlY to the mam readmg-room Here
irethemformatlon
desk, card catalogues
all the collectlons In t h e building, to:ether with t h e catalogues of theBrltlsh
Museum and other llbrarles, and such inllces as are useful in blbllographlcal re:ear& Here also 1s a complete set of the
minted catalogue cards of the Library of
hngress
In the basement, on what 1s reallythe
:round floor, are grouped around the
Forty-second Street entrance a clrculatn g library. a chlldrens room, p d a newslaper room On this ground noor are comnodious quarters for a llbrary school f o r
the training of Ilbrarlans. ANr. Carnegle
has Just given $16,000 a year f o r five years
forthe maintenance of this school, and Its
first term will open In September
To descend t o mere statlstlcs, the new
library building wasopenedto
the publlc
wlth a collectlon of about 1,200,000 volumes,
while it has a shelf capaclty for 3,500,000.
There 1s therefore ample room for growth.
The old Astor and
Lenox
Libraries are
merged here, and theirseparate
existence
has ceased In general it may be s a d that
the plan of the bulldlng was concelved
the mind of the dlrector, Dr. Bllllngs. whlle

527
the
architectural
envelope was
by Messrs. Carrbre and Hastlngs.

deslgned 1polated into the story IS simply a n allegory

within a n allegory-that 1s all.
Who then,was
theLadyMadeline,the
1;win smter whose illnessandevidentlyap1?roaching death filled Roderick Usher wlth
(jeep gloom In the ballad
of TheHauntI?d Palace, Usher
prophesledtheloss
01
1his own mind, but in such a l l f e a s hm the
WAS POE NEVER ETHICAL?
,Secay of reason would be inevltablyprex d e d by another decay-that
of thesoul.
TO
THE
In a va.luable artlcle on Poes Cos- A s themaster of the House of Usherwas
I:onscious of theapproach
of death of the
mopolitan Fame, in the
1mlnd, may he not have
been conscious also
of December, 1910, Prof. Brander Matthews
Io t the
moremlmmentdeath
of thesoul,
says :
us
1personified by the LadyMadelme?Let
Poe
never
preached,
and
there
is no 3 8 8 how f a r thm Idea is borne out by what
moralpurpose,explicitorimpllclt,to
be
Poe (who never wasles words, be it rememdiscovered in h1s poetry or hlsfiction
He had no message
mankind,butonly
1beredl is atpamstotell
of thelady.
melody f o r youthfulmelancholy His poems
In the first-place, she IS the sister, the
andhlsbrieftaleslacknotonlymoral
twm sister In the highly symbollc poem,
purpose, but also spiritual meanmg
Ulalume,Psyche(thesoul)
IS addressed,
Thus, In effect, havesaidmany
of the &s slster There IS a strikingsimllimany POe crltics
Thus
sald
the
critics
tude between
brother
and
smter-sympaof POeSown
day, so persistently that un- 1thies of a scarcely intelligible naturehad
derpretence of satisfying them,butreally
alwaysexisted between them-such as exto have a sulet laugh
a t their expense, he
1st between ones self and ones soul
Wrote, Never Bet the Devil Your Head A arereminded of theresemblancesPoedsStory with a Moral And therein recorded xribes In anotherstory between Wllliam
thehistory of Mr Toby Dammlt. who, like Wilson andhisdouble
who plamlyperof
naughty little boys m old-fashioned Sunday ernlfies Consclence. Afleetinggllmpse
School books, gave indications even in the the lady, as shepassedthroughtheshadcradle of theinherent
viciousness which ows o f aremote
part of theroom,was
afwould bring him t o a bad end
forded t o Roderlck Ushers guest-as UshAllcritlcsagreethat
Poes pen never er
talked
of h e r The
allegory
here
IS
plainAfterthe
ladys deathUsherroamrambled.Heneverwrote
one sentenceor
one wordwithout design-without
meanmg ed fromchamber t o chamber wvlth hurrmd,
somethmgverydefinlte
by I t Even In his unequal,andobJectless step-the luminousdetective stories and In the tales of pseudo- ness of his eye had utterly gone out The
plain-the
soulhad
sciencethelinlrsinthecham
of evldence allegoryagainseems
Even
in the change In
or of reasonmgfolloweachother
In nice zone out of him
andperfectlynaturalorderAre
we. then, his tones this IS mdlcatedTheoccasional
of the volce of
te conclude that in the hlgher
field of the huskmess(characteristic
m e whose emotlons a r e deeply stirred).
imagination his stories had n o meanmg-no
tremulous
quaver-the
obJectsavetomakethe
flesh creep?It 1s gave place t o a
whvmperlng of one capable of n o deeper
hard t o believe
To begm a t the top, take The Fall of the Leelmg than self-love or self-pity.
Thesoul dles hard,and s o I t seemsthe
House of Usher. If in telling this tale,
deadPoe had been seeking slmply to produce a n Lady Madelme-thoughapparently
effect, to make an impressionistic word-pic- was only in a n unusually deep, cataleptic
brother,
tortured
by conture, he would have been as careful as ever slumber. Her
in the selectlon of Just the right word and science, confesseshavingheardherstrupgles to free herself from the
coffin and the
phrase t o producethm
effect, forhlsart
her. At
vault in whichhehadentombed
washismasterandwouldnotsufferhim
theverymoment
of hlsconfession(note
to slouch. But could thm
plcture
have
In burstdrawn with as certam a hand i f there theallegoryagain)shesucceeds
had been behmd that
hand
no definlte ing her bonds and f o r a moment stands beto
thought, no deliberaternezping,
no mes- fore him, lofty andenshrouded,but
totterandfall,sweepinghlm
down with
sage? Would the effect of theword-pxture be s o - v i v i d ~ Would it be so long re- her In a terrlbleembrace t o actualdeath
membered, so strongly
felt
at
each re- and more-complete destruction and extinctlon of him and his house.
reading?
Is there no spiritual meanmg in this dark
I thinknot.
And I offer the following
interpretation of the parable of The Fall allegory?
Poesometimesdeliberately
takesatext
of the House of Usher
andpreaches a sermon,butwithsuchart
The life cloaked. in egoism, turnedin
does hecoverhisdidacticism,withsuch
itself, feeding upon Itself, exlsting f o r
grim and splendid, such wend and barbaric
itself,having
no touchwith
other lives,
colors does he decorate h ~ spages, that the
must come first t o desolatlon, then
to
result seems merely t h e fantastic dream of
despair, finally t o destruction. To my mind
anabnormalbrain.Take,
instance,the
the House of Usherand its master, Rodstory Ligeia-Poes
own favorite of all
erickUsher,werethesymbol
of sucha
his
tales-whxh
has f o r Its text
this
life.
The
peculiar
atmosphere
that
surquotation from Joseph Glanvill
:
rounded them was the egotism
i n whlch a n
And the will therem dieth not. Who knowis sunk. N o
lsolatedandself-centredllfe
eth
the
mysterles of the will,
wlth
ita
detail of the
story
should
be taken as vlgor? For God is butagreatwillpermeaningless,anymorethantheballad
of vading allthings by nature of itaintentThe Haunted Palace, whlch POe Puts into ness. Man does notyieldhimselftothe
angels, nor to
death
utterly,
save
only
the mouth of the master of the house himthrough the weakness of
feeble will.
self, and which is plainly tlE symbol of a
All students of Poe are familiar with
wrecked Intellect, should be taken a s meansermon he preaches from this quaint
textlngless.
Thls
ballad
so effectively
Inter-

Correspondence

asermon upon theexercise of will in the

shape of a wonder-tale, i n whmh he makes
the Lady Llgeia, whom he has presented to
us as a woman of unusual intellectual vigor,
and into whose mouth he has placed
one of
hismoststriking
poems (TheConqueror
Worm),
actually
rise
from
the
dead
through the mere-force of w11l
TakeTheBlackCat,
In whlchhe
for his text the transformation by alcoholism of thecharacter
of a mannaturally
klndandaffectlonate
t o one irrltableand
brutal, until he who beforethechanges
hls nature took place would nothavelaid
Enger on
dumb animal save t o caress
it, destroys, -and In the most atroclous manner, first his pet cat and then his own wife.
Were the conseeuences of intemperance ever
more fearfully,morewarningly,setforth?
Thisbringsus
t o anotherfavorltetheme
of Poes-the mastery of consclence-strikinglyillustrated 1n TheTell-TaleHeart,
In which the murderer hears above a l l other
sounds the beating of the heart of the old
man he has ruthlessly slam Even after he
hassecurelyconcealedthe
body underthe
planks of the floor, he hears it, untll he can
endure it no longer,and,terrified
by the
awfulness of thatfanciedsound,confesses
hlsguilt
The same theme IS presented in the story
of The Man of the Crowd, who, wvlth the
secret of sin committed lying heavy
on his
breast, spends hls days and his nights in
tile effort t o losehlmself In street crowds.
Could there be
found
a morevlvidand
forcKfu1 plcture of a man
convicted
of
wrongdoing by hls own heart?
The mostcompleteandcarefullyworked
out of Poes conscience stones IS William
Wllson. In whlch Wilsons conscience appears as his double, like him
in all thmgs
save in rlgorous conformity tomoralsand
mere whisperduty, and in the voux-a
or seeks to check,
with whlchhechecks.
Wilson wheneverhe
IS temptedtodepart
fromthepath
of vlrtue.Thewhisper
is
becomes moreand
hateful t o Wilson.and
more s o as he deafens his ears t o its warnings. Many timesheseeks
t o hidehlmself
from the double-many tlmes to get beyond
the sound of the hated whisper-but i n vain,
and Enally he decldes to meet the double
in
hand-to-hand combat and slay him outright.
Hesucceeds, a s a l l must who wage a sufficiently
persistent
warfare
against
conscience, butwithdyingbreaththedouble
addresses hlm thus.

You have
conquered,
and
I yield.
Yet
dead-dead
to
henceforward art thoualso
the World, t o Heaven,and t o Hope! (In me
dldstthou exist-and in mydeath,see
by
thls Image whvhlch IS thine own,how utterly
thou hast murdered thyself.
Is there nothmg of th- preacher, no moral
purpose, no lesson dr&wn fromhumanexperlence in this arraignment?

Va , Mny 17.

EDUCATION IN
TO

OF THE

We all know that the present practiceineducation

is t o follow, ratherthan
tothwart,thenaturalbent,andtheprimary interest in Professor Shorey6 article
on American Scholarship
Mgy 11)
lles not so much in hls opmions. w h x h a r e
strlkmgly In accord
with
our familiar