ency. Also, whatever item of any menu may be the pièce de résistance, let there be no shortage in it, no narrowness of calculation. There let the waiters serve with generous hand, without visible stint, let the club's hospitality be expansive, baronial, without let or limit, as though some Mæcenas were "paying the freight." But though the supper is the indispensable foundation of the club's success, it is only the beginning. It must be for the most part a subordinate, not too insistently noticed, element in the club's inventory of achievement. As befits a club in a community priding itself on its intellectual standards and attain ments, the club must be conspicuous for the quality of the artistic and literary diversions which it offers, the truly æsthetic and cultural emotions which it excites. The entertainments given by the club-musical and dramatic recitals, addresses, travelogues, authors' readings-must be of an order to give high satisfaction and stimulus to the membership and distinction and luster to the life and tradition of the village. But how can this be accomplished without a war chest by a club whose membership dues are barely sufficient to buy the supplies for provisioning its tables? But that, as Kipling says, is another story. than a supper, a virtuous consciousness, The first anxious duty of the chief infrequented poter varying the bait, finding cloudy days good, trusting a bit HE of the club our strange and mysterious pools, visiting prime ministers of pleasure have, with one exception, been men of fortunate endowment. They have included college professors, bankers, a clergyman, a man who graduated from a New Hampshire farm and a New Hampshire college, and a man of many. faceted genius who combines in one per sonality a play-actor, a preacher, a humorist, and a past-master of the art of salesmanship. Under their leadership, although we have never paid any coin of the realm to our lecturers or our musical or dramatic entertainers, many delightful evenings have been brought to pass. Our by-laws provide that no per son can be president for more than one year. Perhaps this is on the theory that any man of good attainment is likely to have enough relatives and acquaintances who have gained distinction in fields of useful and interesting endeavor to occupy the five or six winter evenings that make up a cycle of our club life, but that one man's resources of this kind are likely to be exhausted at the end of one year, so that another should take his place. Our town has repute and glory from the presence of a college for young ladies. Members of its faculty occasionally appear on our platform. We have also been indebted to our college neighbors for many pleasant musical programmes. Thus we have heard violinists, pianists, a harpist, readers, and singers to whom youth has given freshness of voice and animation of style as well as comeliness of person. Perhaps we have taken advantage of youth and innocence in asking these budding artists to appear before our assembly without other compensation Some principles apply equally to catching and landing trout and catching and landing speakers. I venture this claim, however: that the art of hooking and netting a speaker is more complex than the art of the real, unfigurative fisherman. Patience is essential to both arts not to abandon the sport on initial discouragement. Don't let your shadow be thrown across the pool. Don't let your speaker to be forewarned and have time to think of reasons why he cannot accept. Fish up the stream. Don't let your intended catch suspect the number of fine fat fish that have already declined your bait. Have your hook well concealed by worm or moth. Appeal to your speaker's vanity. Play upon his clan sense. If he is a Brahmin, remind him that his audience will include a few of his own intellectual kin. Intimate, not too clumsily, that this is an opportunity for a man of eminence to do a real, though not specially conspicuous, public service. Do your own fishing; don't send the hired man. Don't trust the securing of a coveted speaker to messenger or deputy. Play him yourself. As you will be the one to guide him through the preliminaries of the club meeting and set his stage and give him and his audience their respective cues in your introductory remarks, deal with him yourself in limine. Let him feel the warmth of your palm, let him learn from you at first hand that the prosperity and happiness of this club are your meat and drink, your first and only concern in life. Let him feel that everything possible will be done for his comfort, that the details of programme will be accommodated to his slightest desire. Create in him the belief that he is approaching a resplendent event, of which he will be the central figure. I once without introduction visited, with the predatory purpose of such a fisherman, the mansion of a man of eminence in his metropolis. The door was opened by a Scotswoman of strong character and the defensive attribute of a liege. She did not fan my hope of an audience with her master. "He doesn't usually see any one unless by appointment." I opined that he would be willing to chat with me for a few minutes. "Won't you tell him that the President of the Supper Club of Briardale would like to see him briefly?" The official designation impressed her, and proved adequate to entice the great man from his desk. He at once descended to his reception-room and greeted me as politely and pleasantly as he would a captain of industry. Circumstances beyond his control stifled his amiable impulse to address the Supper Club, but my cast over his pool was rewarded with ten minutes of very agreeable conversation with one of the great and fascinating characters of the city. He gave me a bit of worldly wisdom from the lecture world-said if I wished to interest a certain lecturer in my request it would be well to offer him something, the amount was not important, perhaps ten dollars. The principle, if not the quantum, of compensation was important. So in fly-casting, if the color be rightly chosen, great size of the simulacrum is not essential. At another time, still acting on Disraeli's principle of "L'audace, toujours l'audace," I bearded another Douglas, inspired not so much by faith or hope as by courage, accompanied with a somewhat adventurous desire to meet this man of far-flung fame under honorable auspices. An inexperienced fisherman sometimes, by hook or crook, makes a fine catch. So, without any introduction to this scholarly and distinguished gentleman, with no claim upon him either in person or by proxy, my simplicity (my success proves it was not audacity) was rewarded by his prompt assent to my request. Not choosing to make a parade of candor, I concealed my surprise and elation, giving full expression to them later, however, in my punetilious solicitude to make his appearance before the club and the travel incide ing were in fortunate partnership. I tal thereto most comfortable and agree- going to be a merry entertainer if he finds his audience is of the right sort, and then, as they detect a gleam of wit, there is an experimental ripple of hesitant amusement. This breaks the ice of suspended judgment. The speaker sees that he is in the presence of kindred spirits, eager and sympathetic. Soon he and his audience are in the fullness of mutual understanding, launched on a career of enjoyment of each other and of the subject-matter of the address-the gifted speaker knowing that his audience are hanging on his words and losing nothing of what he says or of the way he says it; the audience knowing they are listening to a man worth going miles to hear, a man of red blood, sane faculties, and a prodigious capacity for finding zestful interest and delight in human beings and the human drama, and for sharing that interest and delight with his hearers, speaker and audience now being sworn friends and allies, for the hour-and long afterwards. More of the experiences of this prime minister of pleasure will be recounted in a later issue PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN the March 15 issue of The Outlook there came a deluge of nearly seven hundred letters. Most of these were from superintendents of schools, medical inspectors, physical directors, and school nurses, many of whom wanted to know how such a system could be applied in any general way in public schools. It seems that there are two problems to be solved. One concerns the large numbers involved, and the other the prejudice of many parents, especially in cities of large foreign populations, against any Find of physical examination. This fall the writer has had the pleasure of demonstrating the practical side of the method for the heads of a number of public school systems, their medical inspectors and physical directors. And along with a very frank approval there arose these same two questions: How can we manage with such numbers, and what can be done with the many who have prejudice against physical examinations and measurements? Fortunately, these are problems that the private academies and privately managed gymnasia do not have to bother about. So it is that the height-weight system is spreading in the private schools and in Y. M. C. A.'s like the Central Y. M. C. A. of Philadelphia. At first glance, however, it does seem as though the public schools have actually those two problems to solve if they are really going to do anything effective by way of physical training. BY CHARLES K. TAYLOR And, in fact, a great number of medical inspectors and physical directors have come to feel that there should be much more emphasis on health and on physical development, two important factors that have been almost obliterated by a great excess of attention to mere weight. After all, no mere weight comparison can possibly provide a safe judgment as to the condition of a child's health. Too many of us are normally, healthily, and hereditarily slender to make mere slenderness a reason for saying a child is "under-weight" and most likely, therefore, has malnutrition! A child actually is under-weight when that child's weight is below what it should be for that particular child-a matter to be found by medical examination only, and never by mere weighing. Let us examine these two serious problems in detail, and see if there may not be some simple solution. The first concerns the large number of children involved, and the great burden that would be thrown on the medical inspectors and physical directors if every child were to be given even a brief examination and a brief measurement. Several heads of departments of medical inspection claim that their staffs are so undermanned that even a brief examination of each individual would be almost impossible especially when some physical measurements are also desired. And all this is true. Many such departments are sadly undermanned. But, on the other hand, some cities and towns are equipped with thoroughly efficient and complete staffs, which, if so desired, could in a reasonable amount of time examine and measure every child in their schools. And when staffs are undermanned it is not difficult to bring popular support to a reasonable demand for an increase. The values of medical inspection can be given such effective publicity that it would be a short-sighted community indeed that would refuse to make provision so that each child can come, even for a brief period, before a competent medical inspector. After all, signs of ill health, malnutrition, and so on are usually quite obvious to trained observers, and even a brief observation is a far safer foundation for a judgment than can be merely the taking of a child's weight. Frankly, this is one vital matter for which we are fighting-a medical examination for every school child, and proper steps to correct improper conditions. So this problem, after all, is not so difficult to solve. Many cities and towns already have staffs large enough to do such a work, and if some are so proIvided there is no real reason why such provision cannot be gained elsewherewith the aid of a little intelligent campaigning and publicity. And that brings us to the really hard problem. When children are healthy, we should see to it that they are given a proper amount of muscular development. In the March 15 issue I described a simple method for obtaining a fair judgment of a boy's or a girl's development compared with an attainable and satisfactory standard for the same type of build, and for distinguishing actual improvement from mere growth gains. All this implies taking physical measurements-a performance that is a part of the regular routine of most private academies and colleges. Taking measurements of public school children, however, is not so simple a matter as one would think. First of all, to many it is a new idea, and therefore to be received with suspicion; and with the more suspicion because it concerns a physical examination-something to which all parents are not educated. Now it is true that in all public schools there is a large proportion of intelligent patronage that would fully approve such measures, or any other measures that would make for the physical benefit of their children. In some localities this would include an overwhelming proportion of the parents involved. The opposition would come largely from the foreign quarters of large cities or from sections where parents are not acquainted with the possibilities or methods of physical training. And yet this objection, and even violent prejudice, can be done away with and effective support gained if one or two simple expedients are used. There is nothing mysterious about them. They are merely privilege and competition. The first step is to interest the boys in physical measurements. This is only too easy. Boys are primitive creatures much interested in their muscles. It has been well said that if you measure a boy's biceps he is your friend for life! But how are you to open the subject so that you will not only make an enthusiast of the boy but send him home with an enthusiasm fit to combat parental opposition and prejudice? Well, the interest is aroused easily by showing a class of boys a well-developed boy of the same age, and taking his measurements on the spot. If this cannot be done, large photographs of obviously well developed boys arouse a very certain interest. Then announce two competitions, for suitably attractive awards-one for the boy improving the most (and this gives the best chance to the poor developments) and one for the boy attaining the highest score (which gives the strong boys a chance). The mere fact that there is to be a competition in a matter of natural interest to boys achieves a large part of the victory at once. The boys will be keen to be measured. They will swing many parents too-with the aid of that prospective prize; but you can get still more boys and parents if it is put on a basis of "privilege." That is, it might be an nounced that boys will not be admitted to the competition just because they want to, and that only those boys will be measured whose parents request it. By making entrance a little difficult, a little "exclusive," boys and parents, being human beings, will be apt to put in requests with great promptness, and this they will do more readily when they are given a mimeographed request blank to be signed. ⚫ Now suppose some do not sign-and some will not, though the writer's experience is that this group will not be large. Very well, leave them out. Plan not on getting such a system going in one school term. Be glad if you can accomplish it in a year. The measuring can now begin. When you have the boys' scores, they can be posted on some conspicuous bulletinboard, the high scores being given special prominence, and with the low ones notes as to which underdeveloped muscles brought the score down. Two things will happen. Those who were not measured will wish the more strongly that they were. And those with poor scores, with great indignation, will demand exercises to aid in bringing their scores up. And if a boy exercises faithfully on an assigned exercise-say for breathing, for arms, for shoulders, or the like he may be measured again in five or six weeks, and if he has gained the correction can be noted on the bulletin. And all this is very worth while, even if at first the boys will no more than strip to the waist. It is a start, and even the backward and dubious ones will be demanding head-to-foot measurements before many months have gone by. And then the final spike is driven at the end of the school year, when the prizes are awarded for the highest scores and for the greatest percentage of improvement. You have no idea of the tremendous excitement and interest boys will take in such matters-and very properly, too. For it is an important matter, after all, whether one is well developed or not. And the interest in all these things is redoubled when you institute competitions between schools. The writer remembers a wildly enthusi astic one of this character between four grammar schools, the best five from each school being selected, and all twenty appearing before the judge in a Y. M. C. A. gymnasium. The judge, an expert of international reputation, first picked the best boy of each school, explaining why when each boy was turned aside, until he had four boys before him, each the best of his school-four fine specimens too. And out of this fine four he picked the best. In this judging, the physical score-the relation of the boy's measurements to satisfactory ones for his height and weight-counted two-thirds, and the remaining one-third was divided between symmetry and freedom from defect. The thirteen-year-older who won was as perfect as a young Greek god, and a first-class all-around boy, too. This competition brought the interest in such proceedings in the four schools to such a pitch that the following year every boy was measured, and again came a similar competition, won by a beautifully developed boy of fourteen. After that there was no question of objection or prejudice. They all demanded measurements. And it might be said that the newspaper publicity given these proceedings, with the published photograph of the winner, did not do any harm at all. It is not difficult to see how such a procedure would create an effective interest as far as boys are concerned. In fact, the results of such work have been proved most effective, not only for physical betterment, but in character development and in the class-room work itself. "But how about the girls?" you may well ask. Well, does one really have to answer? What will a school full of modern girls do if they find the boys having some tremendous interest out of which they have been distinctly left? The first thing you know they will demand simi lar competitions, and, though the performance will be of slower spread, it will spread nevertheless, and be as effective with girls, almost, as with boys. After all, you see it isn't so hard a problem, and surely if we are going to have medical inspections at all and physical training that really is physical training, it may just as well be so arranged that every individual child receives the full benefit. T LADY BATHURST, THE WORLD'S GREATEST HE late Lord Northcliffe in his book on "English Newspapers and their Millionaire Owners," which he published shortly before his death, referred to Lady Bathurst, director of the "Morning Post," of London, as "the most powerful woman in England, without exception other than royalty." This high tribute to the fearless owner of the "Morning Post" is shared by a big newspaper-reading public of England. I have often heard English people commenting on this conservative member of the English press. "I would rather go without my breakfast than be deprived of the 'Morning Post."" Every one admires courage, and this quality, so pronounced in the brilliant director of the "Morning Post," has made her a dominant figure, not only in journalistic circles, but in the political life of England as well. The "Morning Post" has often taken issue with Lloyd George and other political leaders of the country, and when any Parliamentary action has been taken which it believed was not for the best interests of the country it has editorially said so in no soft terms. This titled and brilliant newspaper owner, like Lady Rhondda, represents in her success undoubted proof of the ability of daughters of genius to safeguard and direct the great interests handed down to them by illustrious parents. Lady Rhondda, the world's greatest business woman, a director in more than thirty corporations and companies, inherited these vast interests from her father, the late D. A. Thomas, the Welsh coal operator. Lady Bathurst took over the control of the "Morning Post" at the death of her father, the late Lord Glenesk. Lord Northcliffe, in further commenting upon her genius, said: "You may not always agree with her methods and policy, you may not always agree with the enormous headlines, but you will admit that, right or wrong, the 'Morning Post' is bright, consistent, and always English." "Knowing," he said, "the internal organization of the 'Morning Post' for every newspaper knows the with which he backed them, I felt a great desire to meet this titled and brilliant owner of the "Morning Post." I wrote to Lady Bathurst, conveying my desire and outlining the questions I was tempted to ask her regarding her ideas of what a great daily newspaper should represent. A few days later I received her reply by letter, as she had been called away from London at the time. In brief, she wrote: "My ideas about journalism are so simple and crude that they would be of no interest in this complicated world. They are merely to stand by the right and expose what is wrong. I think papers have much power, but there is much I should like to see corrected. I should like all sensational divorce and other criminal cases cut out and the mere facts that so and so are divorced printed, and the result mentioned as a matter for regret and shame by the guilty party, and no unwholesome details." (A committee of distinguished men are now conferring together in London for the purpose of obtaining this end-that sensational divorce cases shall not be exploited in the newspapers.) "I should like," Lady Bathurst further wrote, "to see more literature, more wit, more information of a really interesting character, such as scientific matters, garden, farm, painting, music, etc.-less sensationalism. In fact, the ideal would be that a paper should contribute to people's happiness and sanity and not to excite all their worst feelings. "As for politics, the paper must of necessity reflect the bias of its owner's and editor's minds, but if it is perfectly truthful and sincere it matters not whether it is Conservative, Liberal, or Labor, Republican or Democrat. We all like an opponent we can respect. "It is the man or the paper that suppresses the truth to serve his own ends and who lies glibly that we cannot tolerate. These are my simple views, and, simple as they are, I believe in them; and, what is more, I know that if you go straight ahead and fear not, on what you believe to be the straight road, it's wonderful what you can achieve." A WELL-PREPARED ABOUT GOOD imagination is one of the true luxuries of the music lover's existence. The preparation consists largely in the easy adoption of certain indeterminate formulæ, phrased in the lubricated language of the unscientific observer. "The piano is incapable of such expression as the violin attains. The violin is the most expressive of all instruments." Now to one seeking to enjoy violin playing for its own sake it is of no importance to know whether it is more expressive than some other instrument to which one does not happen to be listening at that moment. And long observation of concert-goers has convinced me that a large proportion of them discover the most soul-melting expression in the melancholy wailing caused by the use of the sliding finger on the left hand, a method of heart-breaking singularly neglected by Kreisler and Heifetz. The sliding of the fingers in passing from one note to another produces a mournful sound much like the crying of a baby, but it destroys the outline of a melody and usually leads to playing out of tune. Therefore let us begin at the beginning. A violin, as almost every one knows, has four strings, tuned to G, D, A, and E, the first tone being below the treble clef and the last in the uppermost space of it. Those four tones are the only ones which can be produced from a violin by simply drawing the bow across the strings. When a player desires to call forth some other note, he must press down some one of those strings with a finger of his left hand, thereby shortening the vibrating part of the string, causing the number of vibrations per second to increase, and thus raising the pitch. When a violinist holds the instrument with his left hand near the head (the outer extremity where the nuts for tuning are located) and presses down the first finger of the left hand on the E string, he gets an F. The second finger gives G, and the third A, and the fourth B. This group of notes belongs to the "first position," as it is called. If he wishes to go higher than the B, he must shift the first finger to the place previously occupied by the second. The first finger now gives G, the second A, the third B, and the fourth C. This fingering is called the second position. There are other higher positions on each of the four strings. The violin and other bowed instruments such as the violoncello, therefore, differ radically from the piano in that the justness of the intonation of a melody is dependent "Long observation of concert-goers has convinced me that a large proportion of them discover the most soul-melting expression in the melancholy wailing caused by the use of the sliding finger on the left hand, a method of heart-breaking singularly neglected by Kreisler" or cello playing is that the instrument shall be in tune. This includes two elements. First, as the violin is usually accompanied by a piano or orchestra, it should play at precisely the same pitch as the accompaniment. Secondly, it should be in tune with itself, which is to say that, even if it were unaccompanied, as in the case of certain works of Bach every interval must be exact. Playing in a pitch foreign to the piano or orchestra is infrequent. When it occurs, it is probably because the violin itself has not had its four strings properly tuned before the playing began. But playing inaccurate, and therefore discordant, intervals is very common and leads to that kind of sound which caused the famous Mr. Weber (of Weber and Fields) to demand, "Who sang that sour note?" Unfortunately, bad intonation, as it is called, seems to escape the ear of the general public. Violinists and cellists play out of tune, singers sing out of tune, and whole orchestras are out of tune in their different choirs without disturbing the pleasure of audiences. I have heard celebrated opera artists sing a whole act without more than two or three times being on the same pitch as the orchestra and yet receive as much applause as if they had delivered their music without a flaw. Almost every human being brought up in the conditions surrounding Western life is fond of music, but not one in a thousand has a musical ear. So perhaps, after all, it signifies nothing that a few who hear accurately are annoyed by what the majority of mankind does not hear. Erika Morini's occasional false intonation and Mischa Elman's tendency to lachrymose utterance are rewarded with abundant applause. Since this is a statement of what constitutes good stringed instrument playing, it was the duty of the writer to declare that playing in tune was its fundamental requirement. We may now pass to more subtle matters. The expressive power of the violin and its kind rests in the management of the bow. The use of the bow corresponds to the touch of the pianist. There is telegraphic directness in the communications of the musician's brain to the strings of his instrument. A pianist has to overcome the mechanical intervention of the hammer action, but every shade of the violinist's pressure on the bow is reproduced immediately by the strings. If he stroked them with a gloved hand, he could not be in more direct command of their sensitiveness. Because of this subtle transference of 1 Long experience with sensitive readers leads us to explain that Mr. Henderson is referring not to the Western States of the Union but to the whole western world, the Occident, includ ing Europe, Boston, and upper Fifth Avenue.The Editors. |
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