N a previous article1 I told of my experience in giving boys their heads with regard to books, showing how, if they can be brought to discuss books among themselves, pass on their judgments from one to another, and combine their group judgments for the benefit of all, the resulting list of books is pretty sure to be of a surprisingly high quality. Moreover, if boys are given this chance to weigh values, their own power to judge values increases, andwhat is more important becomes an actively functioning power. They actually begin to choose better books for their voluntary reading.

During the past year the group of boys that I was working with finished its job of making up a composite list earlier in the year than usual, and there began to be signs of restlessness at the prospect of going on with more book re ports and book discussions. Too much of one thing was about to prove good for nothing. Getting wind of this, I forestalled discontent by asking the boys if they wouldn't like a change. There was a vigorous nodding of their heads and an eager gleam of expectancy in their eyes. They wondered what I was going to offer them instead of book reports. But I had no intention of offering them anything. My best results had come from leaving the initiative to them. So I said, "Well, what else would you like to do?"

They looked from one to another in surprise. Then one boy held up his hand.

"Make a list of authors," he said.
"Publishers," amended another.
"Illustrators," said a third.

A fourth boy suggested that we study up on authors and make reports on them just as we had been making reports on books. As he made his suggestion I remembered that he was the very boy who, two years before, when his class first began to study books with me, had declared that he "didn't see any sense in bothering to say anything about the author of a book when you're talking about the book." To see what would happen, I took his own stand and presented his former attitude to him and the class.

"Are we really concerned with authors enough to make it pay to make reports on them?" I asked. "Does it really matter who wrote a book, if we like it?"

Before the boy himself could answer another caught me up and made reply: "Oh, sure it does. You might want to read another book by the same author." "Yes," said another boy, "and, besides, if you find out something about an author's life maybe you'll know whether

Published in The Outlook for August 16, 1922-The Editors.

he's telling the truth about the places he talks about."

Again the nodding of heads. So I put it to a vote what we should do for the next two months. The verdict was that each boy should begin making up a list of his favorite authors on cards, and that later we should combine the lists as we had with the books; also that shortly we should begin to have reports on authors. Then we began to saw

THE BOY AND

THE BOOK

It seems a natural thing for boys to be interested in good stories and hence in those who write them.

Can boys be led to take an equal interest in poetry? Mr. C. Harlow Raymond, of the famous Lawrenceville School, answers this question with an enthusiastic yes! He tells of the solution which he has found for this problem in a forthcoming Outlook article. It is simple and can be applied by any one who loves poetry.

wood. It soon became apparent that the cards alone were not going to make class discussions of any stimulating nature; so we turned to the reports on authors. Each boy was told to prepare himself for oral or written report on a favorite. A week later the reports were in full swing, and popular.

I made no more attempt to guide boys in their choice of authors to report on than I had in their choice of books. For to me the vital thing is to keep off the deadening hands of pedagogy and let the boys follow their own impulses, let them become interested in finding out things about their own favorite author friends. It matters little whether a boy reports, as one did, that "it is certain that Shakespeare was none too wise a youth, for he was not quite nineteen when he married Anne Hathaway ... eight years older than himself," or whether he reports, as another did, that "Louisa May Alcott's family was very poor and Mr. Alcott was a failure as far as money was concerned." The vital thing is that the boy should delight in delving into the personal life of an author that he cares for.

Information came in so thick and fast and in so unorganized a manner that at times I wondered what my reputation would be worth if it should become known how helter-skelter was our study plan. But gradually, by a process of natural selection, a few authors began to come to the front, and about them all members of the class began to get a few clean-cut ideas. We learned of Samuel Clemens that he had been a printer's apprentice and a Mississippi River pilot before he made a success of writing. We discovered that Cooper grew up in the woods about Otsego Lake, where he often saw real Indians, that he was expelled from Yale for not doing his work, that he went to sea, came back, and did not start writing for several years. We learned that Dickens had pasted labels on blacking boxes, while the family lived in a debtors' prison, and that his rise to fame had been through his own efforts always; also that he had made a great fortune for himself and had lived as few authors have in the time of his own great fame. We learned of Poe's extreme brilliance and of the curse of alcoholism that broke his life. We learned of Scott's lameness from childhood, of his finding the forgotten manuscript of "Waverley" stowed away in an old drawer and starting his career as a novelist with this first effort, and, lastly, of his heroic labors to pay off the debt of the publishing house to which he had belonged after its failure. We learned of Kipling's early life in India, of Jules Verne's passion for things geographic which was at the base of most of his stories, of Thackeray's natural indolence to match his great genius and of the terrible cloud cast over his later years by the giving way of his wife's mind. We learned of Stevenson's struggle for health, his romantic journey across the United States as an emigrant on hearing that the woman he cared for was ill, of the great love which grew in the hearts of the natives of the South Seas for him whom they called Tusitala (Teller of Tales), and, lastly, of his royal burial at the top of the great mountain which he had loved to look at.

Scattered, broken, totally unsystematic, these bits of information came to the class from its members. But, if the information lacked unity, the effect of the experience was just the opposite. For each boy had come to see how the knowledge of an author's life enriched the pleasure of reading the author's books. At the end of the year, when called upon to give honest opinions as to what they had found worth while in the course and what they wished to see eliminated, the boys voted the highest value to have been found in the biographical sketches of authors.

That is their answer to the question: "Does the author count?" And I believe that we can help them to find out just how much the author counts if we

T

HE question of our wool supply is one of the least understood, and at the same time one of most vital concern to American industry and welfare.

For clothing and household uses where warmth is a consideration there is no substitute for wool. Other fibers, including reworked wools (shoddy), have been utilized to the limit of economy and serviceability, and yet the United States needs annually to import about 300,000,000 pounds of grease wool -slightly more than the domestic production reported for recent years. These imports come chiefly from the Southern Hemisphere-Australasia, South America, and South Africa. Coarser wools from more primitive types of sheep come from China, India, and South America for use in the making of carpets.

A MILITARY NECESSITY

From a military standpoint, there is no other indispensable material for which the United States is so largely dependent upon foreign countries. In 1917 and 1918 it was our good fortune to have access to the British-controlled supply in the countries having a surplus of wools suitable for clothing. Only the South American supply of wool was available to those nations that could transport it. Writing in 1916, Professor Paul T. Cherington, of Harvard University, said:

The present situation makes more conspicuous than ever before the military strategic value of an American wool-growing industry. It emphasizes the desirability from a military standpoint of independence for the United States in its manufacture of woolens and worsteds.

The following statement was made recently by Senator Lodge, of Massachu

NATIONAL POLICY ON WOOL SUPPLY

Desirability of independence of foreign-made fabrics and the increase of home manufacturing of woolen goods has been recognized continuously since 1789 by the placing of import duties upon materials manufactured from wool. At no time since that year have woolen goods been admitted to the United States without payment of duty.

Consideration of both civilian and military needs emphasized by Civil War experiences caused President Lincoln's Administration to put into effect a policy of levying an import duty upon wools for the purpose of according to the home producers the benefit of preference in home markets, and thereby developing a larger wool-growing industry. American wool production as compared with National requirements at that time was an infant industry. It has not expanded as was hoped for, although the production in 1919 was about twice that of 1867. The main hindrance to a continued expansion of domestic woolgrowing has been the great uncertainty

attached to the business as a result of changes in tariff laws and frequent extreme depression of prices.

The act of 1867 prescribed a new basis of wool duties. In the succeeding fiftyfour years there have been nine changes of rates, and two of these changes en

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eleven years. At each of fourteen National elections in that period' the question of the wool tariff was under debate and extreme uncertainty created as to the National policy, and therefore to safety of production.

The longest continued period of protection was from 1897 to 1913, though during that period complete removal of the duty was seriously threatened at three different times. During that period also the industrial development in the United States caused a strong agricultural trend toward the production of foodstuffs for an increasing population. The cheaply grown wools of frontier areas in the Southern Hemisphere could be secured, duty paid, at values not then attractive to most American farmers.

Prior to 1914 it was becoming apparent that wool-growing had reached the limit of expansion in frontier parts. If it must be through expansion of sheepsupplies were to continue or to increase, raising under the more intensified agricultural methods of older farming sections. The war demand and the difficulties of foreign transportation acted to replace the effect of the wool duty that had been removed in 1913. Production was rapidly increasing in 1918 and 1919. The collapse of 1920 brought foreign wools into our markets under a virtual bounty arising from the superior value of dollar exchange. American producers were not only discouraged, but in many instances bankrupt. Our future supply is more largely than ever dependent upon the establishment of new flocks, which can be brought about only under fairly stable conditions.

THE TARIFF OF 1922

Fair rates of duty upon imported wools have been established by the

Sixty-seventh Congress. The President, through the Tariff Commission, may raise or lower such rates by fifty per cent, according to the occurrence of changes in the relation of home-production costs to those found to obtain in exporting countries.

The Fordney-McCumber Act provides that duties shall be collected only on the "scoured content," or actual weight of wool in condition for manufacture. Former duties were levied upon grease weights, which included from twenty to seventy-five per cent of dirt and oil in the fleeces as they were removed from the sheep and received at ports of entry. The duty in effect prior to 1913 provided that 33 cents per pound should be paid upon wool imported in the clean or scoured condition. The rates set for wools not scoured allowed imports to enter at less than the equivalent of 33 cents. The new law requires that all duties shall be collected upon the basis of scoured wool and at the rate of 31 cents per pound.

These fair and impartial provisions of the wool duty form a part of the enlightened new policy expressed by the Congress just adjourned toward the agricultural industry, giving the rural citizenship the same consideration in commercial policies as was previously accorded only to the manufacturing industries.

FICTION ABOUT CLOTHING COSTS

Prior to the passage of the recent legislation members of some branches of the clothing industry widely advertised the statement that the wool duties as proposed in the Senate bill would increase the cost of men's clothes by as much as $4 per suit.

The absurdity of such a statement and the unfairness and insincerity associated with its circulation are readily revealed by the facts. Unfortunately, these facts could not be adequately presented or

circulated by the poorly organized growers of wool.

These opponents of a National policy of insuring home producers an equal opportunity in home markets have represented that 33 cents paid at the customs on a pound of scoured wool amounts to 101.4 cents to be paid by the ultimate consumer. It was claimed that the rates of profits secured by wool dealers, spinners, weavers, manufacturing clothiers, and retailers, as calculated upon costs, are, respectively, 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 171⁄2 per cent, 222 per cent, and 33% per cent.

The true effect of such a tariff was set forth by a competent and impartial publication, "The Manufacturer," in the issue of July 25. "The Manufacturer" stated that the only increase above 33 cents (the final rate was set at 31 cents) that legitimately could be added to the consumer's price was the extra amount required for interest on an additional 33 cents from the time a pound of wool entered the cloth mill until it was sold by the retailer, plus an allowance for increased cost of insurance arising from the addition of 33 cents to the original cost of a pound of material. "The Manufacturer" allows 32 yards of cloth for an average suit and 14 ounces as the weight of a yard of goods for winter wear. On this basis, it is shown that the maximum additional cost of a suit resulting from a 33-cent wool duty is not $4, but $1.62. (With the lower rate of duty now in effect, the figure would be $1.52.)

The advertising opponents of the wool tariff, according to their own data, would have used a possible increased cost of $1.62 as a means of exacting an extra profit of $2.38. Commenting upon this revelation of a plan to utilize the wool duty as a pretext for increasing profits, "The Manufacturer" said:

If clothing manufacturers and retailers can make these increased costs of respectively $1.14, $1.62, and $2.78

the basis for increasing prices, not by those sums, but by $4 for suits and $7.50 for overcoats, the difference being clear profit over and above present profits, the public should be so informed. But in justice to the wool growers and the wool manufacturers, the public should not be permitted to be misled into the belief that such arbitrary price increases are attributable to the raw wool duty.

In considering clothing costs as affected by wool values, the following important facts should be kept in mind: (1) The average amount of cloth used in making a man's suit is 3% yards. (2) One and one-half pounds of wool is used in making a pound of cloth of the best quality. (3) Using cloth weighing 14 ounces to the yard, the total requirement of scoured wool for a man's suit is 4.4 pounds. (4) For a lighter suit of 10 ounces per yard, 3.3 pounds of scoured wool are needed. The average price of all clothing wools quoted for the Boston market of October 21, 1922, was $1.076 cents per scoured pound (duty paid). The present average value of wool in a man's suit is therefore $4.14. Wools used in making carpets are exempt from duty.

The real effect of the duties upon raw wool as prescribed by the FordneyMcCumber Law should be to reduce, and not to raise, the prices charged the consumer for woolen goods. The Emergency Tariff Act that was in effect from May 27, 1921, until September 22, 1922, set much higher duties upon wool than are now in effect under the provisions of the new act. Wool can now be imported under duties considerably lower than were collected for sixteen months prior to September 22. So far as raw wool duties are to be considered as a factor in costs of clothing, the only result that can come through enforcement of the act that became effective on September 22, 1922, is a lowering of clothing prices.

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Verotchka's Tales. By Mamin Siberiak. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $2.50.

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Twin Travelers in India. By Mary H. Wade.
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A Princeton Boy in the Revolution. By Paul G. Tomlinson. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.73.

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Other Books in the Rick and Ruddy Series

RICK AND
RUDDY

By Howard R. Garis

Illustrated by John A. Goss

Price $1.75

A tale of a boy and a dog. Rick, the boy, befriends Ruddy, the shipwrecked dog, and is well repaid by the animal's devotion. A book your boy is sure to like.

RICK AND
RUDDY IN
CAMP

By Howard R. Garis Illustrated by Milo K. Winter Price $1.75

Rick Dalton and Ruddy, the dog, go camping with a troop of Boy Scouts. Their adventures, afloat on a nearby lake and blazing trails through dense woods, are further enlivened by the discovery of a mysterious cave and by encounters with unfriendly neighbors in an adjacent camp.

It seemed like certain disaster yet neither Rick nor Ruddy faltered

DOWN whirling, dangerous rapids—

through placid streams, go these two-boy and dog-best of friends—on a mission of grave importance. How they reach their destination, foiling those who would thwart them, how they lose their bearings and thru Ruddy's unusual intelligence find their way again, makes a story that will thrill all children-especially those to whom Rick and Ruddy are old, old friends.

RICK AND RUDDY
AFLOAT

By HOWARD R. GARIS
Price $1.75. Illustrated by W. B. King. (Red Book)

Children love dogs-they know what true friends they make. And was there ever a dog like Ruddy, the companion of the boy hero of Howard Garis' series of Rick and Ruddy stories?

THE SKIPPER OF THE
CYNTHIA B.

By Charles Pendexter Durell Illustrated by Harold Brett. Cloth. Price $1.50 A city boy, Samuel Hotchkiss, becomes acquainted with Uncle Seth, a retired sea captain, owner of a cat-boat called the "Cynthia B." From that day forth Sam's vacation is filled with more adventures than he had ever hoped to experience. Interwoven with the main story are many stirring tales of old Nantucket whaling days, all founded on facts.

Ask your bookseller for these books. If he cannot supply you
we will ship direct on receipt of price. Complete catalog free.

Milton Bradley Company, Springfield, Mass.

Bradley Quality Books