this process, it is believed, will take some two months.

It is obvious that the National Register is only a piece of machinery. It is a means and not an end in itself. In our opinion, it will ultimately be used to provide that compulsion without which the nation will find it impossible to get through the war with a due respect to justice and efficiency, just as did the United States in the Civil War. The voluntary system has no doubt certain advantages, but under a great strain it becomes the refuge of the slacker-of the lazy man, the selfish man, and the cowardly man. It is a system which reserves all the blows for the willing horse, and allows the unwilling to trot along in cynical security. But though this is our view, and we should not be candid if we did not set it forth, there is no reason per se why the advocate of the voluntary system should be against a National Register. Indeed, if he really believes that the voluntary method will get us all we want, as he professes to do, and that it is really the most just and efficient plan, then the National Register will greatly help him to adjust the system, and to make sure that the men who are best adapted for fighting go into the firing line, and the men whose talent lies in making munitions remain at home. The National Register, as we said some months ago, will "make the voluntary system last out as long as possible," will, in effect, give it the best chance of seeing us through the war. For example, it is conceivable that the National Register will show that so large a number of men have already gone to the war, and so many are wanted at home, that the number available for military service is not large enough to justify recourse to compulsion. It may, in a word, show that we are already doing our best. Again, the effect of it may conceivably be so greatly to stimulate

voluntary effort that it would be unreasonable to alter our system, even though that system may from many points of view be an imperfect one. There is undoubtedly a good deal of feeling amongst many men that they would rather go voluntarily than be compelled, and when they see the foundations laid upon which a system of compulsion can be based they will get just the push over the line which they require. Further, they have begun to realize, if they are wise, that if compulsion should come it will come in the nature of a tax. Those who are compelled cannot possibly expect, either for themselves or their dependants, the same pecuniary terms which are rightly given to volunteers. No one, of course, suggests that if we have recourse to compulsion our soldiers will not be thoroughly well clothed, housed, and equipped, or, again, that their dependants will be left to starve. What, however, is certain is that if we have compulsion, the man thus taken will be in the position of the French soldier, who, though well fed, is not given the generous pocket-money of 1s. 2d., or very of ten 1s. 6d., a day, as is the British soldier.

We have now a suggestion to make for increasing the utility of the Register. As soon as it is established we would issue to all men who are engaged in what the Government deem to be essential home work-that is, the manufacture of munitions, railway work, Imperial and local administration work, and so forth-notices stating that the men to whom they are given are not eligible for enlistment without obtaining the special leave of the authorities. Again, a similar paper should be given to all men who have already attempted to enlist and been rejected on medical grounds, or because they do not come up to the standard. The recipients of these

notices, and also all men over forty years of age and under nineteen, should be ticked off on the Register as non-eligibles. The result of this would be to show us exactly how many men there are in each registered area-i.e., the borough or urban or rural district - who are in a position to join the colors. The next step would be for the military authorities to make an estimate as to how many more men they require. Say they calculate that they want another million men, and say that it is found that when all deductions are made there are three million men of military age availablethat is, who are not being used for other necessary purposes. In that case, a third of the eligible men in each area would be the quota for that area. If the quota could be obtained voluntarily in, say, three months, then that area would be marked off as having done its duty and be free from further drafting. On the other hand, if at the end of the three months it were found that the particular district was short of its quota by, say, ten thousand or twenty thousand men, or whatever it might be, then it would be necessary to hold a ballot in order to obtain that extra number of men. If this suggestion is thought out, it will be seen that it does, as we have said above, give every chance to the voluntary system. If the quotas are made up voluntarily, well and good. If they are not, then the men must draw lots to decide who is to go, it being understood, however, that the men thus The Spectator.

taken by lot will not be given the generous terms now given to volunteers.

Before we leave the subject of the Register we should like once more to point out that in this registering, arraying, or mustering of the nation we are doing nothing new. We are only reverting to the system of our ancestors. People sometimes talk as if the great arraying of the nation, say, for example, before the Armada, was merely a military system of impressment of men for the fighting line. That is a complete mistake. Tudor and Elizabethan Commissioners of Array when compiling their Registers made minute inquiries as to the men capable of producing munitions of war. In the later musters especially we find munition-makers fully represented under the headings of smiths, laborers and pioneers, wheelwrights and carpenters. Again, in a set of memoranda or instructions issued by one of the Commissions of Array, we find almost as much attention paid to the armor and furniture as to the men. The Commissions, we may note, were not without a very modern side to their work. For example, the Commission of Array in 1588, just before the Armada, show that a panicky Press, then as now, was a cause of trouble. They were obliged to set up a kind of primitive Press Bureau. They laid it down "that a Provost Marshal be appointed for the puny shinge of Roges vacabondes and Spreders of Newes and to be assisted by the Justices of peace and their officers."

To trace the course of philosophic thought from Plato and his predecessors to Kant and his successors in a volume of 250 modest pages is a task

of no small magnitude, yet Clement C. J. Webb, who contributes "A History of Philosophy" to the Home University Library (Henry Holt & Co.) has

achieved it; and that with such clearness that readers who do not ordinarily greatly concern themselves with philosophy will find its perusal a delight, if they will undertake it. The book is a valuable addition to a varied and valuable series.

Under the title "Prescriptions: To be taken immediately-To be taken for life" -a title not without flavor,

Edith Motter Lamb has selected and grouped some of the wisest and most pungent bits of counsel contained in Dr. Richard C. Cabot's "What Men Live By." They are arranged appropriately under the four headingsWork, Play, Love and Worship-which Dr. Cabot describes as the forces which men live by; and it is needless to say that they are wise, suggestive and stimulating. Houghton Mifflin Co.

So far as the difficult art of public speaking is capable of being acquired through manuals of instruction, it should be greatly assisted, at least, by such a work as Grenville Kleiser's "A Complete Guide to Public Speaking" (Funk & Wagnalls Co.) which brings together, in a single volume, the teaching and experience of the world's greatest orators, from Cicero and Demosthenes to Beecher and Gladstone and Spurgeon and Phillips Brooks. The book is accurately de scribed as encyclopedic, for it contains more than six hundred large octavo pages, and its selections are presented in true encyclopedic form, numbered and alphabetically arranged. It represents the fruit of long experience and wide study and observation, and should be of use to every sort of public speaker, from the pulpit orator to the political campaign hustler or afterdinner speaker.

Boy readers who enjoy stories of adventure, and there are few who do

not, will follow with keen interest Harrison Adams's story of "The Pioneer Boys of the Yellowstone," the latest volume in the Young Pioneer Series. This takes up the tale of the two pioneer lads who, in the preceding volume of the series, were left in the winter camp of the Lewis and Clark exploring party, after their adventures in the country of the Sioux along the Missouri, and describes the unexpected and exciting things which befell them among the Indians of the Northwest, in what is now the Yellowstone Park, through which tourists speed in automobiles, but which then was a littleknown region, full of perils. There are a half dozen full page illustrations by Walter S. Rogers. The Page Co., who publish Mr. Adams's story, add to their Little Cousins of Long Ago series "Our Little Macedonian Cousin of Long Ago" by Julia Darrow Cowles, with illustrations by John Goss, a slender book which essays to portray the life of a boy attached to the court of Philip of Macedon.

Dr. Francis Greenwood Peabody, author of "The Christian Life in the Modern World" (The Macmillan Co.) is no pessimist. and he is equally far from being an unthinking optimist. He fully realizes the perils which menace the modern family, the unscrupulousness of present-day business methods, the corruption of politics, and the difficulty which attends the maintenance of any kind of ideals amid conditions so selfish and so sordid; but, so far from conceding that it is impracticable to live the Christian life in such a world, he has a clear vision of the means which make it possible. With keen insight and a sympathetic purpose, and in words earnest and eloquent but carefully-measured, he shows how the Christian life may relate itself to the family, to the business world, to the making and use of

money, to the modern State, and to the organized Christian church. He has a rare gift in the exact use of words, and there are passages in the book-notably the closing pages of the chapter on the Modern Family-which are singularly beautiful, but construction and expression, perfect as these are, are secondary to the controlling purpose the defining, inspiring and strengthening true Christian living under modern conditions.

Fenton Johnson's "Visions of the Dusk," published by the author at 130 West 134th Street, New York, deserves attention as the verse of a young negro poet who, whether he writes in conventional English or in negro dialect, combines simplicity and genuineness with unusual lyric gifts. Of the sixty or more bits of verse which make up the slender volume, the best and most characteristic are those in negro dialect, of which "Kin you tell me?" which follows, is a good example: Sukey Jane, you sho' is gittin' wise, Gwine tuh school, an' usin' bofe yo' eyes,

You know mo' dan Brudder Gabrul knows,

You kin tell de whyness ob de rose, You kin figger out de gleamin' stahs, An' go talkin' 'bout yo' flamin' Mahs. But, mah honey, listen!--listen close! Kin you tell me whaih de ol' moon

goes

W'en de daytahm thoo' de valley glows?

Sukey Jane, you knows mos' evahthing, Jes' why robin sings his bes' in Spring, You kin tell de why ob day an' night, An' jes' why de bu'ds dey mak' daih flight,

You kin read de books ob long ago, But, mah honey, listen!-listen close! Kin you tell me whaih dey keeps de

rose

W'en de wintuh thoo' de valley blows?

The Statesman's Year-Book for 1915 makes its appearance with very little

delay, in spite of all the confusion and changes incident to the great war. The editor, Dr. J. Scott Keltie, and his assistant, Mr. M. Epstein have made every possible effort to secure fulness and accuracy of information regarding all the countries of the world; and, although circumstances have made it impossible to obtain the usual official revision of the chapters relating to Germany and Austria-Hungary, and Belgium and Serbia have both been completely disorganized, these difficulties have been so far surmounted that the volume takes its place with its predecessors in the series as at once the fullest, most up-to-date, and most authoritative statistical and historical Annual of the states of the world. The pages devoted to Turkey have been enlarged and improved; and those relating to China, Greece, Spain and the Panama Canal Zone have been revised and largely rewritten. The Introductory Tables present a large amount of statistical information regarding British resources, products and trade, the world's ship-building, navies, finance and commerce, the text of various treaties, a summary of the principal events of the present great war and a list of books in different languages relating to it; and fifteen or twenty pages of "Additions and Corrections" bring the record down to the very date of publication. In this volume, as in several of its predecessors, the United States is given the leading place next to Great Britain, and the facts and statistics relating to this country, covering not only national interests but each State in detail, fill more than two hundred pages. There are four maps of more than ordinary interest: one an ethnographical sketch map of Central Europe, another showing the expansion of Prussia, a third which presents the history of Poland, and a fourth exhibiting the status of the World Colonial Powers. The Macmillan Co.