duty of every ruler to keep his country out of war as long as he can, and at the same time maintain national honor. And the National honor has not yet been compromised. Notes are very tiring to that section of the people who desire action, but the Administration to-day has the record of having kept the country out of war.

Recently the editor of one of the great New York dailies talked with a high officer of Government in the Department of State. This editor writes thundering editorials against the Wilson Administration and its conduct of foreign affairs. As he was leaving he turned and said to the high officer of Government : "War is a frightful thing. I hope you will keep us out of it." To which the high officer of Government replied: "That remark is very inconsistent with the editorials you are writing."

No matter what step the Administration may take just now, some one finds a political reason for it at once. One critical view is that the recent firm stand of the President has been made necessary by the position of Mr. Root and Mr. Roosevelt. But nobody close to the President has the slightest belief in that. Mr. Wilson knows too well that anybody who thinks of political advantage in such a crisis is only a fool. What is political advantage

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to-day in the world war may be a distinct disadvantage to-morrow. The only thing is to go ahead on the line of what is best for the country. And the best policy is to ignore politics altogether. And this is certainly the method of patriotism, and the method which the President has followed. Deep down beneath the surface the country is convinced that the administration of foreign affairs has been wise and strong. Caution rather than vigor has been demanded in so grave a world situation. A year ago this country was more intensely divided into two camps than now. The controversy with Germany, for example, is easier to handle to-day without war than it was a year ago. A year ago it would have been impossible to obtain concessions. Now we have been patient and dignified, and all the Powers are getting towards the end of the road, are worried about what is going to happen after the war, and are not so belligerent as they were. So they can all be handled better, as the result of America's keeping her head and taking her time.

The foregoing questions and answers furnish a fair and accurate presentation, I believe, of the Administration's views of its foreign policy.

Washington, May 2, 1916

THE BLIND AND THEIR SENSE-CAPACITY

Perhaps a note on the relative sensitiveness of the blind according to accurate measurements would be of interest to your readers in connection with the communications from the blind in recent numbers of The Outlook.

It seems to be generally assumed that when the blind person is forced to use the senses of touch and hearing in place of sight he develops an unusual sensitiveness in these; witness the rather astonishing keenness of touch the blind person shows in reading raised print with his finger tips and accurate orientation in space through hearing.

Through certain experiments in the psychological laboratory and incidental tests upon blind persons it has gradually dawned upon me that a distinction should be made between sensitiveness and ability to use a sense-in other words, between native sensory capacity of the sense organ and the acquired ability to use that capacity. In a preliminary way I found that

blind persons who had gained excellent skill in the reading of raised print and in special adjustments through hearing were no more sensitive to touch or to the hearing of direction of sound than I was.

The tests were, however, so devised that they should be equally fair to the trained and the untrained. For instance, one test of touch consisted in the ability to locate with the fingertip a hair placed under a sheet of paper on a glass plate. The only question put was this: Where is the hair? In the first test I used a human hair two inches long, and the blind person was able to locate it under thirty-two sheets of twenty-pound bond writing paper. That seemed but a natural performance for a blind person. But behold my surprise when I tried it myself and found that I was able to do even better!

To put the matter to further test, one of my students, Mr. T. Ling, made an extremely careful series of measurements upon fifteen pupils in the Iowa School for the Blind, selecting the

most advanced students of high school age who had been trained as pupils in the School for the Blind for more than five years. Fifteen pupils of the Iowa City High School were selected for comparison with these. On these two groups of fifteen each he made six sets of measurements as follows: (1) to locate a hair covered with paper; (2) to determine how far apart two points touched must be to be felt as two (a) on the finger-tip of the first finger of the right hand, and (b) on the forearm just above the wrist; (3) the ability to determine by lifting with the finger-tips which of two weights was the heavier; (4) to tell whether at a given moment a five-gramme pressure upon the fingertips was increased or decreased; (5) to tell which of two successive sounds was the louder; and (6) to tell whether a given sound came from the right or the left of a given standard.

It will be observed that this involves the capacities most used by the blind as distinguished from the seeing-those which are generally assumed to be increased by use.

The result of these measurements may be generalized in the single statement that there is no significant difference in the sensitiveness of the blind and the seeing in the tactual, muscular, and auditory senses.

No seeing person can begin to guide himself by touch and hearing without training, but the point here made is that the training does not increase the sensitiveness of a sense organ. It merely puts this capacity to better use. These experiments also bring into relief the fact that all seeing persons do make constant use of touch, hearing, and the muscle sense.

To sum up, then: the senses of touch and hearing and other senses usually drawn upon by the blind do not have their psycho-physic capacity increased by the use they are put to by the blind. That capacity is set by heredity and very early development, and if any change takes place after infancy it is probably in the direction of deterioration.

CARL E. SEASHORE.

Psychological Laboratory, The State University of Iowa.

IF GERMANY HAD HAD COMMAND OF THE SEA

Germany has complained bitterly of the attempt of England to starve out her civil population in order to bring the war to a close. This suggests a very pertinent question. Suppose that Germany, instead of Great Britain, had had command of the sea at the very beginning of the war. It has been stated many times that the home supply of food for Great Britain would not last over six weeks if her imports of foodstuffs were stopped. Is there anybody so silly as to believe that Germany, in case she had had command of the sea, would not have

cut off Great Britain's supply of food instantly and entirely and brought her to her knees by starvation within two months after the institution of such a blockade?

It must be remembered also, as to Germany's complaint (that the Allies are trying to starve the civilian non-combatant population), that every bushel of American wheat going to Germany releases a bushel of German wheat to feed the army. Any importation of foodstuffs into Germany for the civil population is therefore simply an indirect way of supporting the German army.

BERNHARDI ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE

So much has been said about the military spirit that would be engendered by preparedness, the idea that if we were prepared for war we would insist on getting into trouble, that it might be interesting to note what F. von Bernhardi says on this point in his "Germany and the Next War," page 11. He is deploring the fact that Germany has no more of the war spirit, and one of the reasons for this he states as follows: "Universal military service, too, contributes to the love of peace, for war in these days does not merely affect, as formerly, definite limited circles, but the whole nation suffers alike. All families and all classes have to pay the same toll of human lives." He affirms that universal military service makes war so real and brings it so close to all the people that they are all the more anxious to avoid war. F. C. SCOVILLE. Greenwich, New York.

AN AMERICAN IN MEXICO

[The following extracts from a personal letter lately received by a friend of The Outlook who is interested in a ranch in southwestern Mexico give a vivid idea of conditions in Mexico-all, as he says, lapsing into savagery, and little hope felt by Americans from their own Government.— THE EDITORS.]

I received your letter at, as I was passing through on a quick trip to - from the ranch. I have not space to give you an idea of what such a trip as this referred to is in these times here; it is simply unbelievable, the outrages, discomforts, and dangers. I left the ranch to attend to business at a point five hours from here, intending to return the next day-took a toothbrush and a small towel in my pocket, absolutely nothing else. I spent five days in before a chance offered to get away, and I slept in a filthy room with ditto Mexicans, my clothes on most of the time. From to I journeyed on top of a half-wrecked tank car through half the night and day, and the balance of the journey on the coal heap of the tender, the engine being broken down and unable to draw the two empty tank cars which made up the train. These

details are small, but indicate the condition of everything in the Republic, society includedall lapsing into savagery.

Locally here we are as badly (and worse) off— with less incidental discomfort from day to day, but more danger, being out of reach from everywhere. Since my return we have had a night visit from a brutal set of bandits who demanded $2,000; got about $300, and told us to have the balance when they called again-soon -or there would be trouble. This same party are in the mountains not far from here and have had our administrador on the floor and threatened with rope and pistol several times before I arrived. Last evening I received by messenger a letter from the United States Consul at, saying he had complained to the Governor for me and asked for "protection" (a farce), and had sent a code message to Washington concerning the local situation and our most recent robbery-this is another farce. Does any one suppose Washington will do anything effective at all? Day before yesterday a party of Carranzistas visited us to inquire about the robbery. They fed upon us, animals and men, about thirty; took nine riding animals away, with some saddles and bridles; asked for one of our vaqueros to attend them until they got the right trail. The vaquero came back afoot; they had taken one of our best mules from him, which he was riding. This is enough, and indicates what is going on everywhere, in town and country, and is what the United States is upholding. I probably shall not stay long here-cannot-and from day to day we do not know what may happen to us and the property which has been robbed and robbed by all parties who are now continuing. The situation in Mexico is hopeless, and will so continue until the final collapse. Nothing but anarchy and outrage now-no government nor semblance.

"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER ?"

My attention has been called to a recent article in The Outlook entitled "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" and bearing upon the declination of the Board of Education, upon my recommendation, to give a permanent place to the Dollman painting in the Washington Irving High School. In this article you state that" the circumstances under which this picture was rejected furnish the text for Mr. Seibel's poem," a poem which, by inference, attributes a weak

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and unworthy pedagogy to the teaching in the Washington Irving High School.

It is to be regretted that the editors of The Outlook published an opinion upon a subject without investigating the facts in the case. Certainly "the circumstances under which this picture was rejected" did not furnish a text for the poem presented, nor did the principal of the school give any orders whatsoever concerning the storing of the picture within the building.

A plan for decorating the walls of the Washington Irving High School with scenes from the life and works of Washington Irving, at an expenditure of about thirty thousand dollars, the gift of Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, is in progress; and into this harmonious scheme there was an attempt permanently to place the picture referred to, without any regard or consideration for the plan in force. To the temporary exhibition of the picture, to illustrate a lecture upon "Unemployment," there was no objection; there was, however, decided objection to the introduction of it as a permanent part of the school decoration.

The school has never entered into a discussion upon either the art value or the social value of the picture, and to these irrelevant matters, appearing from time to time in the press, we have given no response. The school has objected to the permanent placement of the picture in the Washington Irving High School, because the painting is inharmonious and incompatible with the scheme of decoration proposed by the Municipal Art Society and approved by the Municipal Art Commission, and because the school desires to emphasize the integrity of its decorative environment as well as of its teachings. There are many great paintings that might provoke discussion concerning either their art or their social value, as this painting has called forth from those without a knowledge of the real situation; but what I desire to emphasize is the complete irrelevancy of such discussion in the present instance, which is concerned only with the subject of location.

You are very cordially invited to inspect the building and to view the progress of its decorative work, as well as to note the character of the instruction herein; you will see a strong institution, and, I believe, one second to none of its kind in its duty and service to the American public.

EDWARD C. ZABRISKIE, Principal Washington Irving High School, New York

"I am sorry to note the passing of 'Harper's Weekly,'" a friend writes. "Probably some of your older readers may remember it with equal affection as a joy of their early years. I myself learned to read, in an unconventional way, by studying the pictures in the "Weekly.' In my boyhood days it consisted of sixteen pages and the edges were not trimmed, so that you could unfold it into one large sheet. When thus unfolded, you found eight pages of delightful pictures on one side. Spreading it open on the floor, I crawled over the sheet, devouring the pictures and then studying the captions. These were my first reading lessons."

Thrifty persons are advised to save the "stubs" of lead pencils to avert a threatened pencil famine owing to diminished supplies used in making these daily necessities. The stubs, which almost every one has been in the habit of throwing away, can be fitted into a holder and used to the extreme end.

Two brothers, the "Golfers' Magazine" reports, who had long been rivals for golfing honors, determined to settle the matter by playing just one hole on the course, in the early morning. George hit a beautiful 200-yard drive. John was "fussed" and got a bad slice, the ball disappearing in high grass. Both searched for the missing ball. After looking five minutes, George said, "Well, time is up. Lost ball, lost hole." John slyly dropped a ball out of his pocket on the grass. "Oh, here's my ball," he said. George turned back with amazement on his face. "That's not your ball," he said, wrathfully. "I have the ball that you drove in my pocket, and it's been there ever since."

Sometimes abbreviations become better known than the words they stand for, as in the case of the universally used formulas "O. K.” and "C. O. D." A rival of these locutions is

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Y. M. C. A.," standing for-everybody knows what-but no! some people seem to think these letters are complete in themselves, as is shown in this anecdote from an exchange: "Is that building the Young Men's Christian Association?' asked a stranger in an Alabama town. 'Oh, no, not at all, sir! It's the Y. M. C. A. Building."

The fatalities due to automobile accidents are distressing enough, but one encouraging fact in connection with them, as stated in a Government report, is that during the last five years the number of fatal accidents has not increased nearly as fast as the number of cars. The cars have increased 775 per cent, while fatalities have increased only 258 per cent. This seems to indicate more careful driving at present.

One of the largest rugs ever woven was sold recently in New York City at auction. It was about thirty-two feet square; and it was originally made for the private temple of the late

Empress Dowager of China. During the Boxer Rebellion half of the carpet was stolen. The other half was offered for sale and was bought by an American firm. They succeeded in locating the stolen part, acquired it, and joined the two together to make again a perfect whole. The rug brought $8,000 at the sale.

All things in the way of opportunity come to the witty headline artist who waits. Here is a sample: Mrs. Belle Metal brought suit against Max Metal for annulment of marriage, claiming that the ceremony was only a “lark” and that she did not regard it seriously. The headline as to this state of affairs reads: "Is Belle Metal Without Ring-Thought it Only a Mock Marriage." A characteristic Chicago story was about a builder who was asked when he could undertake a contract for erecting a church. "I can't do it at once," he answered. "I have a house to build to-day and a market to-morrow; but maybe I could put up your church day after to-morrow." The expedition suggested in this story is matched in reality by the reported feat of contractors in Toledo, Ohio. They put up a five-room house, with bath-room, in twelve hours. More than two hundred workmen were employed. The house was a wedding gift from the Toledo Real Estate Board to one of its employees, and cost $4,000.

The terms "madam" and "sir" are now employed much less than formerly, according to a book called " The A B C of Correct Speech;" though, it says, children “should be taught to use these terms in speaking to ladies and gentlemen of the old school." "Lady" has also passed out of use in circles in which it was formerly current-except, curiously, the author observes, when a hostess talks to "her caterer or her maids." To them she describes her guests as "ladies," while to her friends they are women" or "girls."

Until Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, says John T. Richards in his just published book on "Abraham Lincoln," there were comparatively few who knew that his Christian name was Abraham. Up to that time he habitually signed his name "A. Lincoln,"

and it was not uncommon to see his name in print as "Abram" Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln himself acknowledged the existence of the doubt in the public mind as to his given name, and when he was nominated wrote a letter settling the question in favor of " Abraham.”

In The Outlook of May 3 a slip of the pen made the Civil War begin on April 19, 1865, instead of 1861. April 19, 1865, may be said rather to mark the close of the Civil War, for on that date occurred the funeral services over President Lincoln's body in Washington, with accompanying memorial services throughout the country.