Thanks to a considerate public, the Atlantic’s circulation is greater than at any time in its history. The edition for this month is 143.000.

Rabbi Joel Blau champions the Modern Pharisee, who ’cries out against the Romans not alone, but also against the Sadducees in his camp. He views the Jewish problem, not merely from the standpoint of the outside world, but also, and chiefly, from that of his own inner world. The spiritual crisis through which his people is passing is his chief concern.’ Rabbi Blau’s synagogue is Temple Peni-El, New York City. It is many years now since Dr. Charles M. Sheldon’s name became a household word, but his tract What Would Jesus Do ? is still vividly remembered. For some years Dr. Sheldon has been editor of the Christian Herald.Chauncey B. Tinker, collector, teacher, and man of letters, has left his chair at Yale for a half-year’s holiday in England. Florence Converse, of the Atlantic staff, records some of her impressions of a recent English holiday.

Albert Kinross, whose papers on Egypt, Islam, and England appeared not long ago, is a British contributor long familiar to Atlantic readers. For years he has been a literary man, but the war taught him proficiency in many other things — the nice art of chaffering with Greek farmers over supplies for the commissary, an adequate understanding of the psychology of camels, and the way to edit an army newspaper for General Allenby’s forces. Regarding his tribute to the grizzly’s nose, Enos R. Mills writes: ’This is the biography of a real bear. Most of the facts were furnished by Julius F. Stone, who assisted in the capture, and by Guide Galloway, who succeeded in trapping the bear. The scene was near Richfield, Utah.’ Moorfield Storey, who began his career as secretary to Charles Sumner, is a leader of the Boston Bar. Frederick L. Allen, a former member of the Atlantic’s staff, has since seen service with the Century Magazine, and is now in charge of the publicity-work of Harvard University. Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Professor of English Literature in the University of London, was amemberof the very important Committeeon British Education, whose revolutionary report she here so ably analyzes. Jean Kenyon Mackenzie and her story, our readers are privileged to know. L. Moresby will, we hope, become a familiar name. The Abandoned Spinster, like the unreconciled bachelor, for delicate reasons of her own, declines to unmask. Theodore Maynard, a poet new to the Atlantic, sends us his sonnet from California. Gamaliel Bradford, seventh of his name and race, has in his analysis of character something of the traditional divination which marks the ‘seventh son.’

S. Miles Bouton, an experienced correspondent of the Associated Press, has, since the Armistice, spent a great deal of time traveling in Germany, making good use of the opportunity offered him for the analysis of German political and social sentiment. Julius Kruttschnitt, one of the most distinguished veterans in the railroad world, is now Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Southern Pacific Company. E. T. H. Shaffer knows what it means to grow cotton — and other things as well. He is President of the Colleton Products Association in South Carolina. Royal R. Keely, an American engineer, went to Russia in 1919 to investigate Russian manufactories and determine upon the possibility of rehabilitating them. Welcomed in the first instance by Lenin, he was given every facility to travel about Russia. Even an automobile was placed at his disposal. Unfortunately, the investigation taught him too much, and the Russian autocrat, thinking that his knowledge might prove inconvenient, arbitrarily had him arrested, without definite charges or accusations. It is only recently that Mr. Keely has attained his freedom, indirectly through Mr. Hoover’s negotiations with the British Government.

The Atlantic gladly calls attention to the proposed Woodrow Wilson Foundation, ‘created in recognition of the public services of Woodrow Wilson, twice President of the United States, who was instrumental in pointing out an effective method for the cooperation of the liberal forces of mankind — the men and women who love liberty and who intend to promote peace by the means of justice.’

Mr.Frank I. Cobb, Chairman of theFund, writes us a letter, from which we quote: —

It is proposed to raise by popular subscription a fund of at least a million dollars, the income from which would be used according to the following terms: The awards shall be made to the individual or group making the most practical contribution to the liberal thought of the world with regard to human rights, or international relationships.

Checks of any size may be sent to the Central Union Trust Co., of New York.

‘Extra-curriculum’ has taken on a new significance in the college dictionary, and such as might have startled professors of an earlier generation. ‘The Guild of Students’ is matter for discussion among undergraduates and administrators as well.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
As a college student, I am very much interested in Professor Abbott’s article in the November Atlantic. I wish it were possible for me to present some strong justification for the action which he believes the students have taken; but the more I read the article, the more convinced I am that he is fair in his estimate of the question.
During the past three and a half years, it has been my privilege to be a student in one of the older, but less famous, colleges for women. When I consider the matter in the fight of Professor Abbott’s paper, I realize that, in every week of my college course, the maximum amount of time expended on academic work has never equaled that spent on ‘outside activities.’ Until a few weeks ago, I would have looked on this as the normal state of affairs; but since one of my instructors attempted to persuade me that this is the only year I can study, I have tried to look at the matter differently. But I have not succeeded in being persuaded, for her argument is not true. Tin’s is the last year that I can participate in the college activities which I love, but it is not the last year that I can devote to study; for I certainly intend to do graduate work.
In our college we have a ‘ point ’ system, whereby each student is allowed only fifteen ‘points’ a semester, and each phase of student activity is graded with a certain number of ‘points.’ In this way, no one is supposed to have too many interests; but even fifteen ‘points’ are too many. My only solution to the problem which Professor Abbott has presented is to limit each student — do I dare suggest it? — to one activity.
With countless other students, I stand meek before Mr. Abbott’s accusations, but I believe that the remedy lies in the hands of the faculty, for the youth of to-day will never retrench as long as it feels that it is master of the situation. I hope that Professor Abbott will some day have the satisfaction of seeing the faculty and students of America working together instead of at odds, for I fear that only then can the ‘guild of students’ give way to the intellectual ideal.
A COLLEGE SENIOR.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Twice have I read Professor Abbott’s article, ‘The Guild of Students,’ wondering how much of it was irony, how much a confession of the futility of education. Perhaps it is both. At any rate, let us look at the comparison of the mediaeval with the modern institution of learning from a different angle. All will agree that the university of the Middle Ages was immensely popular and overcrowded with students; but most of us will also admit that Seldom was ignorance more dense, scholarship more barren and trivial, than at that time. Is the same thing happening to-day, when thousands of students go through our overcrowded institutions with as few intellectual contacts as a swarm of cockroaches passing through a water-pipe? It is true to-day, as always, that the boy with an instinct for learning will attain his object, no matter how much he may be discouraged by college canons of good form, which condemn the ‘ greasy grind.’ But the average student takes his tone from his surroundings and will do those things which give him the present sense of power.
Going to a big game, and watching the picturesque enthusiasm, or laughing at the half-clever, half-ridiculous doings of the dramatic club, one feels like a churl for even suggesting that these and kindred performances are not the sum and substance of college life; and so they are, to all those good fellows who ‘flunk out’ and thereby become the college’s most devoted sons. But in taking these activities seriously, in finding here the key to culture, are we not cheating ourselves, faculty and students alike? Substituting for disciplined training the easy ways of amateurism? ‘Thought is tough,’ says George Meredith. It certainly is; tough for the student who has never tried it; tougher for the instructor, who knows how many have failed to ‘unscrew the inscrutable.’ Unfortunately it is an essential factor in our civilization, not to be avoided unless the watchword is, ‘ Back to the jungle! ’ If the college man is not a thinking man — why the college?
Out of curiosity I asked a well-known man, not long ago, what colleges he felt the most confidence in? He answered without hesitation, ‘West Point, Annapolis, and Boston Tech.’ This was significant. He named three institutions that have never let the side-shows run the circus, as the phrase is; that have never mistaken their purpose; that have never allowed sickly sentiment to color their attitude toward their mission.
A word more about the side-show and the circus. What becomes of an organ that is never exercised? Atrophy, of course. And atrophy is the fate of the faculty that flinches from its duty to teach vigorously, to mark hard, and to make every candidate fight for his degree as hard as he fights for his class letter. It is the fight a man wants. If degrees are handed out like buckwheat cakes at an agricultural fair, they will he just as cheap. Not for one moment should a professor admit that anything is more important than his teaching. If he really feels that his subject is of less importance than dancing and pole-vaulting, for example, he is a fraud and had better seek some honest way to earn his living. Atrophy was, in fact, the fate that overtook more than one famous mediaeval university. Let me mention, for example, the Inns of Court in London, once crowded with students of the Common Law. There teaching became somewhat of a bore — it was so much easier to let the students go their own way. As a consequence, legal education in England was reduced to the farce of eating a certain number of dinners in the great hall of the Inn; and the slackness of legal education in this country is in part due to the inheritance of this poor tradition.
So do not let anyone indulge in the pleasing illusion that he can go on forever drawing a professor’s salary, however modest, and let the students educate themselves in their own jolly, but haphazard way. If what is taught is not worth teaching — why teach?
WM. H. LLOYD.

With the sin of a heinous misprint on our conscience, we offer what reparation we may to the merciful shade of R. L. S.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
It looks as if the proof-reader, or the printer, or the writer of ‘The Mystic’s Experience of God,’ or all three of them, owed an apology to R. L. S. Certainly one cannot suspect that the writer of an article as humanly penetrating as the one I mention would intentionally do what has been done in the November Allantic; and I am quite willing to attribute like humanity to the printer and the proof-reader. Perhaps they simply have not read those feeling lines of R, L. S. to W. H. Low, ‘It [a favorable notice by Mr. Gilder and Mr. Bunnerf pleased me the more, coining from the States, where I have met not much recognition, save from the buccaneers, and above all from pirates who misspell my name. I saw my book advertised in a number of the Critic as the work of one R. L. Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know the name of a man whose book you have stolen: for there it is, at full length, on the title-page of your booty. But no, damn him, not he! He calls me Stephenson ’
M. E. R.

Any battle of the ladies, however mild, is a storm-signal to all good men everywhere. We therefore repair to our editorial seclusion, without rash comments or delay.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
The author of ‘Conversations’ in the October Atlantic complains because clever bachelor girls assume that a girl like themselves, after she is married, no longer has ideas on the subjects of which she was a master before she changed her name. I wish to suggest that unfair assumptions are not made wholly by the unmarried.
Several intelligent matrons of my acquaintance persist in making remarks which imply that any girl still single after she has reached a marriageable age must he quite lacking in charm. The worst offender hesitated a good long while before she decided to accept the man she married; but she seems to have forgotten that. In speaking of one of my friends, she invariably remarks, ‘Is n’t it queer L— is n’t married? I think she is much more attractive than her sister, Mrs. B—.’ It does no good to try to explain that L— could have married six men to Mrs. E—’s one — she is n’t married and that settles it; or that she had preferred to continue to think of art, architecture, or poetry, instead of marrying a man who was not interested in any of those things. Her John has never appeared.
The married sisters must realize that there are pricks in every state of existence, and it would not be fair for all of the advantages to be attributes of the state which they have been fortunate enough to achieve.
EDNA HAYES FROST.

We are still holding the check-book open as we ponder this query.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Can you use a 3000-word article on parades and parading? It will cover the various forms of parading, from the college snake-dance to the solemn funeral procession, and between. The story will be told from the standpoint of the marcher as well as from that of the onlooker. Included are: Liberty Loan parades, football victory dances, graduation processions, firemanic parades, and others.
About how much is this worth?

Certainly Walt Whitman would serenade that prospectus. One can fancy him pouncing upon it with barbaric outcries; —

I celebrate the Parade!
The parade of the graduates, the Elks, the policemen,
The Boy Scouts, the Odd Fellows, and the Knights of Columbus;
The snake-dance on the university campus,
The expert parades of the soldiers and sailors,
The victory dance at the triumph in football.
Parades! Processions!
The funeral procession, solemn, uninterrupted by traffic!
Processions, both Liberty Loan and firemanic —
Parades!

But Walt is in his grave, which makes more or less difference to us.

This vision of tropical insects parading upon a tropical railway-track should capture the imagination even of those who used to share with Stalky, Beetle, and Co., a certain prejudice against all ‘ Buglumters.’

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
My eyes were first opened to the interest of insect-life down here in our Honduras regions by Mr. William Beebe. His articles became intensely alive, because it was always possible to verify his accounts of insect-life and to see the animated evidence in a perfectly good jungle of my own. It took me many a weary hour to finally locate an Attas’ thoroughfare in the mountains, but I did succeed. And of course there was a thrill in seeing for myself how the ‘minims’ rode the bits of leaves and stole an overhead march on their betters.
It was when I found that the Attas had a weakness for the tender, succulent banana leaf, that I chanced upon a discovery that Mr. Beebe, by virtue of his environment, would in all probability never make; namely, that, the leaf-bearing ants found the steel rail of a track very satisfactory for all practical purposes, and might often be found, in all their glory of vaunted vernal pennants and miserable migratory minims, trooping gallantly along the great iron road. Admittedly this was not a discovery calculated to revolutionize the science of entomology; but it was, nevertheless, an original observation that might pave the way for other more pertinent, contributions from Central America.
EDMUND S. WHITMAN.— TELA, HONDURAS,—
CENTRAL AMERICA.

So few morals are taken home by the reader that the following example interests us.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
I am but two years out of college and rather hesitate to express my opinions to you; and yet, after reading the discussions about ‘Our Street’ and ‘Courtship after Marriage,’ in the November issue, it has occurred to me that something might well be said about just our home.
Our home is, I believe, a fairly good exponent of many other homes. In our home, even though we love, honor, and respect one another’s wishes, there has crept in that destructive attitude of, almost uneonciously, being at one’s worst instead of best after the ‘ busy-ness ’ of the day; of letting down tired nerves, of relaxing utterly, and being happy in one’s own thoughtless, even selfish, way. For instance, I like nothing better, after a long day, than curling up in the corner of the big, comfy davenport, and reading to my heart’s content, while all the time I know that mother would rather I would visit with her. Then in comes father — ‘Dad’ we call him. He is tired, too; so, in his own way, he picks up the evening paper, and is soon lost in politics or market-quotations, until dinner is ready.
In the meantime, of course, Sis has also come home. Now, some way or other, Sis has that magic gift of retelling the most commonplace occurrences in such a way that they become unusual, attractive bits of throbbing life.
Herewith I think it is time to point out the connection between what I am saying and a certain quotation from Confucius, which Mr. Bachelor cited in his article, ‘Courtship after Marriage,’ namely. ‘A man and his wife should be as guests to each other.'
Why not apply this to the entire family? What if I should treat mother as I would a guest, and visit with her more, and leave my reading until later on? What if Dad would talk to us during dinner in his capable, entertaining way, just as he does when guests are present? I wonder if American fathers, as a whole, realize that we, their daughters, are interested in hearing them tell about that fine speech Mr. So-and-So made at the weekly Rotary luncheon, or the splendid plans that, are being made for the Shriners’ ball.
So I wish to thank you, Mr. Bachelor, for tinroot of this idea, which I am going to try my best to carry out — that is, to treat those whom I love the best, the members of our family, with the consideration and courtesy I would use toward honored guests.
A DAUGHTER-IN-THE-HOME.

The Atlantic has always believed in the Democracy of Letters.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Your letter anent the Atlantic versus the laundry process prompts me to write you.
A husky, dusky, and amazingly efficient laundress had been summoned from an agency to assist me in excavating and renovating our apart - ment after a summer of solitary occupancy by my husband. As she put the last tool away, after a day spent in the heaviest kind of archaeological labor, she remarked that she was to begin her last term at a night high-school that evening. She explained with pride that she was not taking a business course, but the general English course.
‘No s’nograpy for me,’ she said. ‘Me, Ah like to fool aroun’ the daid! I’se goin’ to be an embalmer! ’
My prejudice against her chosen career was overcome by her enthusiasm for ‘General English’; whereupon I grandly offered her a few recent issues of the Saturday Evening Post to take home.
‘Yas’m, thank you. Ah like to read. Ah ain’t, never read the Post, but Ah noticed you all had a pile of Atlantic Monthlies, and Ah sure does like to read the book-reviews in that magazine.’
Meekly, I placed five salmon-pink copies beside her hard-earned wages for the day.
HELEN POWELL SCHAUFFLER.