and has not only enjoyed prosperity, but has given some of the noblest examples to the world. In America large numbers of volunteers have been raised among the Czechs, Jugoslavs, and Poles who had emigrated, and now go to fight against their old rulers in the name of American freedom, which they have enjoyed. (I myself saw the departure of one thousand Serbians, still subjects of the Emperor, who left the State of Pennsylvania to fight in the ranks of the Allies.) There is a strange comparison to draw between Austria-Hungary and the United States of America. Both are a mixture of races. But opposite principles have brought opposite results. One nation was formed with the free consent of its people, the other is a feudal construction imposed by force. One is clean and prosperous, the other corrupt and decaying. One is strong and growing, the other self-disintegrating. I shall not quote the many liberal writers who have tried to reveal what the Austro-Hungarian Empire is made of and made for. Let me only say that I am surprised that a larger publicity was not given to the following statements, which are to be found in "Die Freie Zeitung," organ of the German democrats who emigrated to Switzerland (October 30, 1917): "The interior composition of Austria-Hungary was the source of all European troubles, and will continue to be if the monarchy subsists in one form or another. . . . Austria's dissolution is the only way of making its democratization possible. . . . To let Austria persist after this war, through some petty political 'opportunism' which only the Governments know and not the peoples, would be to betray the future peace." To-day the whole world, which was almost unanimously indifferent about it in 1912, is awakened. Every one knows that "there is something rotten" in the Empire of Austria. In fact, the whole thing is rapidly crumbling into something else. The question now is this: Will that "something else" be established by us, without us, or against us? BOY CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE BY ARTHUR D. CHANDLER This is the last of three stories about the boy problem and the attempt to solve some phases of it at a Boys' Farm in New Jersey. The first, "The Little Red Farm-House," appeared in The Outlook for December 19, and the second, "A Derelict from Norway," December 26. THE EDITORS. III-THE STORY OF HARRY CAMPBELL, A BOY WHO CAME THROUGH "A RE you part Scotch ?" I asked. "No, sir," said Harry; Harry Campbell was serving his third term in an institution for the reformation of delinquent boys. But reformation didn't seem to take with Harry. Every time he was paroled, back he came again in a short time, a little "harder" than before. A third term was too much for a boy" all Scotch." He chafed under institutional restraint, longing for his old "pals " and the lawless freedom of the street, Three times and out-out with a clean getaway. The idea took entire possession of his mind-all through the day, in school, at work, in bed at night. For six weeks Harry planned and plotted to escape. He had known many other boys who had tried to get away, only to be brought back ignominiously by the neighboring farmers, always on the lookout for the five-dollar bills offered as a standing reward for the return of runaways. But Harry was "all Scotch," and he had thought it through to the end. He must get some money somehow and some clothes not recognized by the alert farmers as institution uniforms. A natural-born leader, Harry had let into the plot three other inmates and had sworn them to secrecy. The plot had failed-completely failed-and Harry was in a peck of trouble, marooned in a big dormitory, securely fastened to a steam-pipe with a bracelet and chain. Here it was that I first met Harry Campbell. "I'm Scotch-all Scotch," was his reply to my first question. Bit by bit he told me the truth-the whole truth-about the plot, taking all the blame to himself; how for about six weeks he and three other "guys" had been planning to make a getaway planting a hatchet in one place and an iron in another to have them handy when the best time came; how they had been on the point of "knocking out" the house master several times, but something interfered. Harry denied that they ever thought a blow with such a weapon might kill. They planned only to stun him, then steal his money and his keys, and with his keys unlock the closet where the clothes of the incoming boys were stored, change from their uniforms, and make a break for liberty. One Sunday morning as the boys were dressing, an Italian boy, egged on by Harry, approached the house master from behind while seated and struck the blow. At the sight of the blood which spurted from a scalp wound Tony dropped his weapon and rushed to the wash-room for a wet towel to stop the bleeding. Did you say, "Hit him again, Tony?" I asked. "Yes," said Harry," but the guy was so scared at the sight of blood he wouldn't do it." I was stumped. Here was a boy of sixteen with a face as hard as any crook's at forty. For half an hour he had promptly answered every question I had asked, without so much as the flicker of an eyelash; no regret, no whimpering, no show of feeling of any kind. But the plot was so elaborate, so unusual, and so bold that I knew I had before me the mak ing of a first-class crook or a fine and forceful man. How could I crack that Scotch shell? Turning to leave him, I said, " Harry, do you think I am your friend?" When the answer came, quickly, "Yes, sir," I knew that sooner or later I would get him-but how? At the meeting of the trustees to-night," I said, "they will probably vote to send you to the reformatory, because they think your influence over the other boys here is bad. I will see you again after supper before the meeting of the trustees." And then I left him. A Scotch boy can do a lot of thinking in two hours; but when Harry Campbell stood before me again I could see no change whatever in his appearance. His jaws were set and his face was as hard and expressionless as before. "Harry," I said, " tell me about yourself. Where does your father live?" "In, with a woman who isn't my mother." " In —, with a man who isn't her husband." 66 go to my father's and he kicks me out, then I go to my mother's and she kicks me out." At a loss to know just what to say next, I ventured, "Do you love your mother, Harry?" 66 "I hate her," he said, with surprising emphasis. Here was an opening, and I was not slow to take advantage of it. Harry, you told me this afternoon that I was a friend of yours, and so I am. You tell me now that you hate Let me tell you something. I am three times as good a friend of yours now as I was before told me hated you Harry seened just a little puzzled, and for the first time showed the slightest interest. I went on, looking him straight in the eye along my extended finger. you your "I once had a mother. Every good thing that ever came to me has been on account of that mother." His Scotch shell cracked-just a little, but enough; my hand touched his elbow-only slightly he was Scotch, you know. The unfamiliar, sympathetic, human touch reached the hidden spring of Harry's soul-his eyes filled with tears. "You're always getting in bad and you're up against it now just because you never had the kind of a mother mine was. in At those words the fountain of his Scotch soul gave way tears; unconscious and unaccustomed tears ran in streams down 1918 THE OUTLOOK Harry's impassive face-not a whimper or a motion of his hand to brush them away. "Do you want the trustees at the meeting to-night to send you to the reformatory?" "Yes, sir," came the unexpected reply. "Why is that?" said I. "'Cause everybody here's got it in for me." What makes you think that's so?" 'Cause some of the guys say I'm a ‘stinker' and Mr. Stanton called me a cur. "Well, what do you think about it yourself? You might have been a murderer; can you blame them much?” 66 No, sir." "Do you think you have been punished enough, Harry?" I asked, expecting the usual reply. "No, sir," came the nervy answer through his tears. Why do you say, 'No, sir,' to that?" 'Cause of the thing I done." "Then you think it was pretty bad yourself, do you?" Yes, sir." "Now, Harry, listen to me. If the trustees vote to-night to send you to the reform school because they think you're too hard' for this place, you will be one of the youngest boys there among five hundred pretty tough guys-you'll be put wise to a lot of crooked things. You'll be a real crook when you get out, and stay a crook all your life, probably land in State's prison later on. Do you want to be a crook, Harry?" "No, sir," came the emphatic reply. 66 66 Honest now, do you want to be a man?" With no less emphasis he replied, "Yes, sir." 'Well, Harry, I'm going to try to-night to get the trustees to give you another chance. Before I go away to-morrow morning I will send for you again. I'll have just one more question to ask you." It was decided that night to postpone action for thirty days and give Harry another chance. The next morning a changed boy stood before me. The hard, haunted, desperate look, as of some wild animal at bay, had vanished. The tears began to flow down his softened face before I had spoken a word. "The question I want to ask you is this: If no one will have it in for you,' do you want to stay here and get another chance to make a man of yourself?” That Scotch lad-all Scotch-who told the truth, the whole truth, took all the blame, and then took his punishment like a man, without a whimper, and wanted more because he thought he deserved it, the hardest guy among six hundred, stood before me, the tears again streaming down his face, and in a voice scarcely audible replied, "Yes, sir." At the time Harry was given another chance a duck pond was just being made into a large swimming pool. He was put to work with other boys building a cement wall around the pool and laying the bottom of the pool with cement. Our Scotch lad was a husky boy; he loved to work, and very soon assumed the leadership of his working gang. A little later on, to the surprise of all, the gang did not knock off at four o'clock when play time came, but willingly worked on till supper-time, at six o'clock. A week or so went by; bedtime came; the house master was astonished to discover his flock was "shy" about a dozen boys. A hasty search located them at the swimming pool hard at work under the leadership of Harry Campbell. Gradually the smiles broke through Harry's mask as the work rapidly progressed. Now and then he talked a little. The swimming pool was finished by the end of June, filled with clear water, and the boys-three hundred of them-shouting and laughing, Harry Campbell in the lead, plunged in. As a "means of grace" for all the boys the swimming pool was a huge success, but for Harry Campbell it was indeed a new birth. At their first meeting after the pool was finished the trustees sent for the boys to whom belonged the chief credit for the rapid and excellent work they had done. Into the board room marched a dozen or more boys behind their leader, the justly proud and happy Harry Campbell, his upright bearing and cheerful countenance in strange, almost amazing, contrast to his dejected and sorrowful appearance in The same room only three months before. In a short time Harry was paroled for good behavior and went, at his own request, to a place where no one would know him. Harry looked me up soon after the first pay-day came around, proud in a new cap and radiant over a brilliant new necktie, paid for with the first money he had ever earned. Conscious of a new-born self-respect, he said: "Don't let the parole officer come to see me ever. I can make good faster if he never comes around.” "Some fine day, Harry," I said, "you'll wake up and find you've made a real man of yourself." 66 "A Scotchman-that's the kind of a man you mean, I suppose." Say, Harry, how would you like to have me tell you a real 'honest to God' Scotch story?" "All right,” said Harry. He seemed eager to hear it. There was a reason why I told it to him. Perhaps there is as good a reason why I should tell it here. "It is something that happened to me in Edinburgh when I was just a few years older than you are now-how I came to have a Scotch mother. You see, I have had two mothers of the right kind, so of course it has always been easy for me to be good. "When a kid's three thousand miles from home in a big city like Edinburgh, as I was once upon a time, day after day seeing only strange faces, by and by you get sort of lonesome and you want to have somebody smile at you and say, Good-morning.' For more than a week nobody smiled at me except the collie dogs. Every little while one would come along and find out with his nose what kind of a guy I was, then let me smooth his head while he smiled back at me by wagging his tail. It's lots of comfort to have a dog smile at you with his tail when you're lonesome. "One day in Grey Friars-that's an old burying-ground in Edinburgh I met a Scotch woman. Her hair was gray. She seemed to be about the same age as my own mother in America. Perhaps she knew I was a little homesick, and she just wanted to be kindly. Anyway, we got to talking as we walked along with her little party. "What the guide said about the dukes and the lords who were buried there I have forgotten. The place was full of themmust have planted one on top of the other sometimes, I guess. "But there's one little grave there, Harry. People come a long way to see that little grave, hardly more than a foot long. They leave more tears on that little grave than on all the other graves put together." "Baby's grave?" "No. Just a dog's grave. Bobby-Grey Friars Bobby-they call him. Some one wrote a whole book about that dog. One kind lady built a monument to Bobby just outside the gate. "It's funny, isn't it," said I, "that people should have forgotten all those swell guys who were buried there and only remember and weep over the grave of that little Scotch dog? Believe me, Harry, that dog had a heart! When his master died, he just came and lay down on the grave and moaned. He didn't sleep. He wouldn't eat a thing the children brought to him; he was just skin and bones when he died of a broken heart." Gee! but that was some dog! Good night!" said Harry. "Sure that was some dog, but let me go on about the old Scotch lady-she was some mother, too! 66 After I had lived with my good old Scotch mother nearly a month the time came to say good-by.' As I was going away I said, 'How can I ever pay you back for all the kind things you've done for me?' 'You don't need to; just pass them along to some one else,' she said. "Sometime you may meet a Scotch laddie who's in trouble. Help him out-that's the way you can pay me back.'" "Then that's why?" said Harry. "Yes," said I. "That's why.' As for the story of Harry himself, let me add that promotions and better jobs for him came along in quick succession. One day Harry appeared in a brand-new soldier's uniform. To-day he is "Somewhere in France." 30 WEEKLY OUTLINE STUDY OF CURRENT HISTORY BY J. MADISON GATHANY, A.M. HOPE STREET HIGH SCHOOL, PROVIDENCE, R. I. Based on The Outlook of December 26, 1917 Each week an Outline Study of Current History based on the preceding number of The Outlook will be printed for the benefit of current events classes, debating clubs, teachers of history and of English, and the like, and for use in the home and by such individual readers as may desire suggestions in the serious study of current history.-THE EDITORS. [Those who are using the weekly outline should not attempt to cover the whole of an outline in any one lesson or study. Assign for one lesson selected questions, one or two propositions for discussion, and only such words as are found in the material assigned. Or distribute selected questions among different members of the class or group and have them report their findings to all when assembled. Then have all discuss the questions together.] I-NATIONAL AFFAIRS A. Topic: The Outlook and the War; A 1. How do you account for the fact that Questions: 66 1. Explain fully how the Federal Constitution is amended. 2. What are the provisions of the Prohibition Amendment to the Federal Constitution? 3. Give several reasons why the United States is not now a bone dry" Nation? 4. What information has The Outlook given as to the present status of prohibition in America? Add a number of other facts. 5. According to The Outlook, what causes have led Congress to submit this Amendment to the States? 6. The Outlook is not sure that Congress has done wisely in submitting. this Amendment at the present time. For what reasons? 7. Can you construct an argument showing The Outlook that Congress has acted wisely in this matter? 8. What does The Outlook believe that Congress ought now to do about National prohibition? Discuss. 9. Can you present one or more reasons why both boys and girls and men and women should drink intoxicating liquors? Tell what this question suggests to you. 10. Just what are you going to do to arouse public opinion either for or against the ratification of the Prohi bition Amendment? Your reasons. C. Topic: The Government and the Rail ways. Reference: Editorial, pages 674, 675; 678, 679. Questions: 1. What are the facts of the railway D. Topic: Universal Military Training. 1. For what reasons does the Secretary of II-PROPOSITIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. It is impossible to negotiate a lasting III-VOCABULARY BUILDING (All of the following words and expressions are found in The Outlook for December 26, 1917. Both before and after looking them up in the dictionary or elsewhere, give their meaning in your own words. The figures in parentheses refer to pages on which the words may be found.) Amendment, notification (668), majority, opportunism, local option, vodka, absinthe, beer, liquor, "patent medicines," public opinion (673,674), mergers, pooling, laissez faire, rebates, exigencies (674, 675), rolling stock, equitable system (678, 679). A booklet suggesting methods of using the Weekly Outline of Current History will be sent on application A News Service The Christian Science Monitor through its worldwide news gathering service records daily the constructive development of the human race. It publishes in detail the most significant happenings of world politics. It analyzes, classifies, and interprets world events editorially from an international view point. Its governing purpose in this. period is to establish a better understanding between the progressive elements in human affairs, not only in America, but throughout the world. The Christian Science Monitor is on general sale throughout the world at news stands, hotels and Christian Science reading-rooms at 3c a copy. A monthly trial subscription by mail anywhere in the world for 75c, a sample copy on request. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOSTON THE NEW BOOKS This department will include descriptive notes, with or without brief comments, about books received by The Outlook. Many of the important books will have more extended and critical treatment later FICTION Wander-Ships. Folk-Stories of the Sea. By Wilbur Bassett. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago. Sailors' legends of uncanny ships-"reward ships, punishment ships, specter ships, ships of the death voyage, and devil ships' -are here told, with copious notes which, to our thinking, have more of the real nautical flavor than the stories themselves as here presented. The telling of folk-lore stories effectively requires either verbatim reporting from an original "source or the fine art of an Uncle Remus. BIOGRAPHY Audubon the Naturalist. A History of His This book supplements the admirable work prepared by Mrs. Audubon and edited by Dr. Elliott Coues called " Audubon and His Journals." It does more, because it is a formal and complete biography and because it includes many letters and facts not heretofore published. Audubon was one of the most interesting of persons, whether as a naturalist or as a talker and thinker. Happy the collector who possesses his great work on the birds of America, with its individually painted plates! Mark Twain's Letters. Arranged, with Comment, by Albert Bigelow Paine. 2 vols. Illustrated. Harper & Brothers, New York. $4. If any one is inclined to think that Mark Twain was a professional humorist who made fun in order that he might make money (and this opinion has been entertained in some quarters), we think that these letters should suffice to correct the error, for they are characterized by the same exuberant exaggeration and the same rollicking humor which characterizes his published writings. Those characteristics are evidently the spontaneous expression of himself. In reading these letters one sits down at the fireside or the table or in the camp or on the steamboat with Mark Twain and hears him in the untutored and unstudied expression of his own unique personality. Mr. Andrew Lang says in his introduction to "Chuzzlewit" that Mark Tapley is "unconvincing." If he had read Mark Twain's letters, he would have perhaps entertained a different opinion, for the Mark Twain of history is quite as jolly as the Mark Tapley of fiction, and the greater the difficulties which either confronts the greater is his jollity. The letters are well edited, with such historical comment as is needed to make them understandable and no more. Master of the Hill (The). A Biography of John Meigs. By Walter Russell Bowie. Illustrated. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $3. At the time of his death The Outlook published its estimate of John Meigs as master of his school and architect and builder of men, "a sculptor working on live clay." It is enough for us to say here that this book, written by one who was first his pupil and afterwards a teacher in his school, is pervaded by his spirit of absolute sincerity. It is appreciative, warmly affectionate, even at times eloquently enthusiastic, but it is not indiscriminating; it recognizes the master's faults as well as his virtues with a frankness which would delight him and which bears the impress |