and that there he met Disraeli. Disraeli always made specially prepared speeches in English, which Radowitz took down in French. Then Disraeli would compliment him and say, "Did I really speak in this nice way or did you only write me down so elegantly?" When Radowitz replied, "Yes, this is what you said," Disraeli would say, "So let it stand."

This led me to draw out Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who was also present, regarding Disraeli. He had known Disraeli very well. He told me that at the age of twelve he had met Disraeli and had always had access to him. I asked Sir Henry whether he had not kept a diary. He said he had not, but wished that he had. "Dizzy," he said, was not a compromiser; if he had opponents, he recognized them as such and never sought to placate them. When he first entered Parliament, he was a brilliant, flowery speaker, so much so that his party, the Conservative, was afraid of him. Afterward, when he became a member of the Ministry, he had trained himself down to a rather prosy level, yet now and again his speech would glow with brilliant passages excoriating his opponent. He was quick at repartee and often held up the other side to ridicule in telling metaphor.

I wanted to know whether he recollected when Disraeli's novels first came out. He said he remembered all but "Vivian Grey," which "Dizzy" wrote when he was quite young. He added that Disraeli's writings made him quite a lion among the literary set, but did not help him politically. He wanted to count among the best socially, and ever pointed his political guns toward that target.

When I asked Sir Henry about Disraeli's personal appearance, he said: "Lord Dufferin (Frederick Blackwood) looked very much like him; so much so that he might have been taken for Disraeli's son. Dizzy and Mrs. Blackwood were said to be very good friends. He met her on many of his frequent visits to the home of Lady Blessington, during the period when he was beginning to gain popularity."

Sir Henry had been rather critical of Disraeli, but he ended by saying: "Taking Dizzy all in all, he was the greatest English statesman I have ever known." And to me Disraeli had always been a fascinating subject, so much so, indeed, that at one time I had the intention to write a biography of him.

EVIDENCE OF SPANISH AND JEWISH ORIGIN OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

The expulsion of the Spanish Jews from Spain was of great interest to me, and on this second visit to Madrid I took advantage of the opportunity to see some of the historical relics from that period. I got in touch with Dr. Angel Pulido, life Senator of Spain, and toer with Professor A. S. Yahuda, we the historic city of Toledo, about

David Lloyd George, who, as Chancel..lor of the Exchequer, pleasantly wrote his name on the back of a one-pound treasury note of an early war-time emergency issue held by Mr. Straus. Facsimile of Lloyd George's indorsement is shown above

THE

WORLD WAR

While touring through Normandy in July, 1914, word came to Mr. Straus that war was about to be declared. He and his party hurried to Paris, and then to London. In next week's installment of the Autobiography the distinguished observer gives notable impressions of the derangement of things during the first panic-stricken period of the war. He describes important sessions with Earl Grey and Sir Edward Grey. He recounts his return to America and tell of a dinner at the home of James Speyer, at which Mr. Straus broached the subject of mediation to Count von Bernstorff. He tells of a flying trip to Washington to report Bernstorff's receptive attitude toward mediation. Hurried conferences with Bryan, Jusserand, and Sir Cecil SpringRice are detailed, and Germany's insincerity regarding mediation is clearly exposed. Mr. Straus describes his efforts to persuade President Wilson to advise with ex-Presidents regarding America's impending entry into the war, and closes the noteworthy chapter with an account of his last visit with Roosevelt shortly before the latter's death in 1919.

two and a half hours by rail out of Madrid. Dr. Pulido had for years advocated measures to induce Jews to return to Spain, especially those who still retained the Spanish language, as do many in Turkey and nearly all those in Morocco who are the descendants of those driven out of Spain.

Toledo is one of the most ancient cities of Spain. It was once the residence of the kings of Castile, and under the Moors had a population of some two hundred thousand, of whom seventy-five thousand were estimated to have been Jews. The population now is about twenty thousand, and the city is but the bedraggled remains of its former grandeur. In its ancient glory it was noted for its silk and woolen industries and for the manufacture of the famous Toledo steel from which were made swords and other weapons that rivaled those of Damascus.

By the courtesy of Senator Pulido, I met and had several conferences with the Marqués de Dosfuentes, who several years before, as Fernando de Antón del Olmet, had written an article entitled "La verdadera patrio de Cristóbal Colón," which was published in "La España Moderna," a leading monthly of Spain.

I was very much interested in the data that several of the historians of Spain had unearthed regarding the ancestry and place of origin of Columbus. The article by the Marquis just mentioned was based on the research made by Celso Garcia de la Riega, and both Olmet and Riega came to the conclusion, based upon their examination of records. that Columbus was not an Italian, but a Spaniard, and that he was born in Pontevedra, Galicia, in the northern part of Spain; that his father's name was Colón (the Spanish for Columbus). and his mother's name Fonterosa; and that he was of Jewish ancestry.

In his article Olmet says, after going into detail regarding the nationality of Columbus according to the documents which he was able to examine:

Nothing seems more logical than the preceding reasoning, and, moreover, this is the simplest method of explaining that the Admiral's parents were a Colón and a Fonterosa, which gives us a clue to the mystery of his life. From the document under notice it is to be inferred that the Domingo de Colón named was a modest trader. If the admiral was his son, it would not be absurd to suppose that, given the social prejudices of the times, this should have been a sufficient motive for hiding his origin and country. But there is still another reason that fully justifies his secrecy and clears up all mystery. The patronymic "Fonterosa" appears in the Province of Pontevedra connected with the names of Jacob the elder, another Jacob, and Benjamin; Colón's mother was called Susana. "If the admiral belonged to this family, doubtless Jewish," says Sg. La Riega, "since we may draw this inference from the Biblical names, or if he belonged to a

family of new Christians, should we not forgive his action in the matter and declare him fully justified in his resolution not to reveal such antecedents? We must bear in mind the then existing hatred toward the Hebrew race and the merciless fury let loose against it in the latter half of the fifteenth century."

In another part of the article Olmet says:

Colón never mentioned any relative, paternal or maternal, Even when

Colón was at the zenith of his fame no one in Italy came forward to claim relationship with him, although he was the most famous personage of that time. Thus everything goes to corroborate Don Fernando Colón's affirmation in his "Life of the Admiral" that his father wished his orgin and birthplace to remain unknown.

The research of La Riega was continued to 1914 and published in that year. The author died early in the year,

shortly before I arrived in Madrid. Other Spanish historians also have published conclusions similar to those of La Riega. There was, for instance, a brochure by Enrique de Arribas Y. Turull, entitled "Cristóbal Colón, Natural de Pontevedra," which was originally delivered as a lecture before the Madrid Historical Society. This brochure also sums up, in nineteen points, the reasons for the conclusion that Columbus was a Spaniard, and of Jewish ancestry.

L

AST summer The Outlook published a brief description, prepared by the writer, of a simple system that might aid in understanding some very obvious character types of children. It may be remembered that the analysis was based entirely on behavior.

Since that time quite a number of letters have come, mostly from parents, discussing children of the types mentioned, and possibly it might be interesting to describe a few cases that have come in contact with the Psychological Clinic of the Carteret Academy, of Orange, New Jersey. Unlike most psychological clinics, this one does not accept abnormal children. It was planned to aid normal children who might be having some kind of difficulty, scholastically or in character, or even to aid parents in understanding the characteristics of children that had no real "difficulty" of any kind. Up to this date an immense amount of time has deservedly been given to the clinical study of abnormal children, and perhaps it is now time to use some practical expedients for the benefit of normal children.

And that brings us to Johnnythough, of course, his name wasn't John at all. John was thirteen, but his spelling looked like the painful struggling of a not over-bright child of seven or eight. The word that was correctly spelled was the exception. His compositions were frightful to look at, though if you could catch the sense of the scrawl you found that it indicated anything but immaturity. But one cannot go through school without being able to spell the simplest kind of words. So a special study was made of John.

Very often a child doing very poorly in all school work is not really dull at all. The child may be lacking in visual memory or auditory memory, and this lack in itself may be due to a remedia! physical defect. So the first thing to do was to give Johnny tests for auditory and visual memory. These he passed with a first-rate grade. Also he passed all the other tests for special capacities well, failing only in a test for "simple

association" merely because he could not spell the words that he wanted to write.

So we could eliminate visual and auditory memories as possible causes.

A study was made of his spelling, and it was found that with words of more than one syllable he got the first syllable, and went to pieces on the rest. A reading test showed that he could get the words of one syllable perfectly, but with the larger words he was likely to get the first syllable and mispronounce the rest-though if held to it and made to pronounce a word syllable by syllable, he got it. And he invariably knew the meaning.

For a boy who read with such difficulty his language and general choice of words and expression were excellent. But he could not read under any circumstances, and was not known to have read any book except such as were driven into him by his teacher. Yet, on talking about books to the examiner, he mentioned quite a number of books of first-class caliber, and showed he knew them in detail. No, he had not read them. They had been read to him. And we had the secret. From the beginning he had been read to. And now at thirteen he was still read to, mostly by a mother and a sister. His lessons were read to him when he had them to prepare, and what he heard he remembered. He never had been impelled to read for himself, he did not have a natural aptitude for it, and so was still at the seven-year stage of development in this study. He was thirteen, and so could be appealed to. His handicap was made clear. His relations stopped reading to him. For several months he was drilled in noticing the syllables of words, frequently having to guess the first syllable by seeing the second. So he came to notice all the syllables. Having a natural fondness for books, developed by the long course of first-class reading that had been given him, he began struggling on his own account. And at the end of

a full year his troubles were over. His spelling was up to average, and his les

sons in general made marked improvement. That was Johnny's case. Not a difficult one.

The case of Martin. This was a boy of thirteen. He was temperamental, emotional, making a very high score with his intelligence test-three years over his age, in fact. He has a poor physical development and flat chest, despite which he had a very superior soprano voice, could read almost any music at sight, and was a successful singer in church and concert.

The boy's own idea was that he would go to a commercial high school and then get into some "business." He was so fond of music, however, that he was tested in this respect, and, among other qualities, it was found that he had an unusual capacity for improvisation. In a test a theme was started on the piano, and when the piano would stop the boy would go right on with it, improvising, and so it would be passed back and forth between piano and boy. This with other qualities showed potential musical capacity of high order. On the other hand, American boys do not become first-rate musicians in any great numbers. They utterly refuse to make the real sacrifice required for the amount of practice necessary for a real musical career. I do not believe our native American boys have less musical capacity than those of central and southern European parentage. Not at all. I believe that they have the capacity-only they will not take the pains to develop it—nor will their parents require them to take the pains. The word "must," sturdily lived up to, seems to have died out in our American families!

The boy was promptly started at the piano, though thirteen is late for a beginner, and when he found he was getting a mastery his ambition awoke and gradually more and more time went to practice. He was very temperamental and emotional, as are most musiciansoften to their detriment. So this boy was given thorough physical training. He developed a high athletic capacity. both for football and baseball

learned to box like a machine-and to take and give blows with ready humor. The temperamentalism and emotionalism went down before the steady athletics, and as they went the steadier became his purpose as far as music was concerned, until in three years he was doing four to six hours of it each daywhich is five or six times more than ninety-nine out of a hundred American boys will give to music. At sixteen the boy is an admirable performer. A concert career is not far away, and his ability to compose has increased with his time and training. All of which is much better than the commercial high school career and a possible second-rate clerking in some office.

Those who remember last summer's article in The Outlook may be interested to know that John was of the "activecontrolled" type, and that Martin began as an "active-uncontrolled," but achieved a transformation into the "controlled" classification in about a year and a

half.

Now for David. David was a quiet, rather melancholy type of boy, taking little interest in sports or other activities, satisfied to sit quietly at his school desk and struggle with his lessons, or just to sit without struggling. Yes, he was of the "apathetic" type. When aroused he could display a rather charming manner and expression. But he seemed somewhat weak-physically and in will power. He was rather easily led, and those who led him were not as desirable as might be. In fact, he was on the road to failure of several kinds.

A physical examination showed no defects, but that his muscles were flabby and under-developed. Dr. Arthur Holmes, a very able child psychologist on the staff of the University of Penn sylvania, once told the writer that where you find a "flabby" will you usually find flabby muscles. Said he, "Can you imagine a man with a soft forearm clenching his fist, smiting the table with it and declaring, "I will!" exactly.

Not

The first thing here was systematic physical training. He had little more than an inch chest expansion. At fourteen he could have had about three and a half inches. So he was given breathing exercises and, gradually increasing in distance, hikes. This was in the spring. That summer he was sent to a boys' camp that makes a specialty of individual study and training-for normal boys, of course. There he gradually did more and more swimming, woodcutting, hard hiking, and special exercises. That fall he returned holding his head up instead of letting it hang. He went out for the football team of his age, and though he was not strong as yet, still he did quite well, all considered. The special exercises continued until he had a deep chest and welldeveloped and hard muscles. He became a fine distance hiker and runner as well

own

intelligent appreciation. With this in view, we have asked one of the most distinguished and well-equipped music critics in this country to write four articles which will tell the music amateur in plain language how to form a correct opinion of good piano playing, good violin playing, good orchestra playing, and good singing. These four papers will be printed in early numbers of The Outlook. We can assure our readers that they will find them not only informative, but entertaining, for the author, Mr. W. J. Henderson, has a habit of expressing his views sometimes in a lively fashion.

Mr. Henderson is a graduate of Princeton in the class of 1876, and is now musical critic of the New York "Herald." He has written voluminously on musical subjects, and there are several books of permanent value to his credit in the literature of musical criticism. We do not quite know what is the relation between music and the seven seas, but Mr. Henderson is an expert in navigation and the history of yachting, and his "Elements of Navigation" is a standard work on this scientific subject. The thesis which he maintains in these articles is this: "If music is an art at all, it is the art of beauty in sound. We need not torment ourselves before trying to arrive at a definition of beauty. Let us confess at once that beauty has never been successfully defined, and that it is entirely a matter of opinion; but the fact remains that among the cultivated peoples of the world there is a pretty general consensus of opinion." This he endeavors to arrive at in his papers, illustrated by personal allusions and anecdotes. We believe that every concert-goer under whose eyes they fall will enjoy them.

as swimmer. And, let us add, with this hardening of physique came an immeasurable strengthening of character, a dropping of his undesirable associations, and a developing of a lot of first-class friendships. He was never a brilliant student, and he never will be, but he goes at his work sturdily, and gets it done.

And, finally, here is the case of Donald. And here we failed, because we are not allowed to poison parents or otherwise put their children out of their misery!

Donald was of the "active-uncontrolled" variety. He raised general "hob." He "cussed" like a pirate, and then some. He smoked now and thennot a great deal, because he wanted to be an athlete, but just enough to show that he was a real sport at that. He did miserably in school, seemingly unable to concentrate, even though all his intelligence tests came out well. He had a pale, unhealthy complexion. He was short-winded, having an under-developed chest and a flat one, protruding abdomen, slightly open mouth, pointed upper jaw, with crowded teeth, and every possible sign of adenoid, with frequent colds and bronchitis to suggest something about tonsils. A medical examination showed large adenoids and a throat choked with tonsils. Despite which the boy was a phenomenal athlete for thirteen, almost uncannily good especially in sports that gave him time to get breath. And yet he had the constant discomfort of the mouth-breather, and the handicap of a choked-up throat, and the marvel is that the boy was no worse than he was! It looked like a simple case-removal of adenoids and tonsils, and, with removal of irritation, the gradual disappearance of the boy's less desirable qualities. So the medical report went to the boy's father. The father wrote back promptly and with some asperity. "I don't believe in tonsils and adenoids," said he, with emphasis. Do you remember the story of the old gentleman who said he "disbelieved in India," and of course India was no more. The father's disbelief in tonsils and adenoids did not seem to make them disappear. His believing the matter to be evidence of a "fad" did not straighten the boy's upper jaw, bring out his chest, or make it possible to breathe through his nose. My last sight of him, a short time ago, showed the lad possessing all those unfavorable characteristics. Evidently the father still continues to disbelieve. I wonder what he would think if he was persuaded to look down the boy's throat.

After all, these are all rather simple and not extraordinary cases. But their description is given to illustrate the possibilities of a clinic for the study of normal children and to encourage child psychologists to institute such clinics for the aid of children, parents, and schools wherever these three interesting institu tions exist.

I

-N a previous article 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 reports 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

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

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

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.

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