midst of these harmonious surroundings not a "dwarfed statue" but a noble and commanding monument to liberty-that ideal State for which mankind has watched and prayed, and of whose certain coming Mr. Wells and other authors in their creative writings have given prophetic utterance.

It will be difficult indeed for the American people to discharge the distinct debt of gratitude they owe to Mr. Wells.

ENGLISH STYLE1

"Well do they play the careful critic's part,
Instructing doubly by their matchless art;

Rules for good verse they first with pains indite,
Then show us what are bad, by what they write."

T is idle to ignore the deep, far-reaching significance of the fact, that to-day even many well-educated persons indicate by their speech and writing an increasing indifference to anything approaching a due regard for English style. Such indifference is by no means a trivial matter; for, as a rule, a feeble, faulty style is associated not only with platitude but frequently with intellectual error, as well as with a disregard if not contempt for true culture. Perhaps, after all, Mr. Benson is correct when he says:

Very few people are on the lookout for style nowadays. The ordinary reader is quite indifferent to it, and the ordinary critic is quite unaware of what it is. The public are on the lookout for amusement; they want a thrill of some kind, an emotional thrill

1 Published in The North American Review of June, 1907.

by preference; and the critic who has been reared mostly on fiction, and who has very little acquaintance with classical literature, is really on the lookout for effectiveness. The mistake is to think that there is much intellectual or artistic feeling abroad. There have been nations by whom, and periods when these things were valued; there have even been periods in our own national history, but this is not one. Indeed, the appreciation of intellectual and artistic excellence has distinctly decreased in the last fifty years; and probably the reason why there is a lack of great writers is that we do not at present want them. We want a sparkling heady beverage, not an old fragrant mellow vintage. It is an age of cigarettes, champagne, golf, motorsbrisk, active, lively, brief things-not an age of reflection or repose.

In speaking of our intolerance of any supervisory body like the French Academy, Matthew Arnold says:

We like to be suffered to lie comfortably in the old straw of our habits, particularly of intellectual habits, even though the straw may not be very clean and fine.

If mindful of our duty and even of our interest, we must not be content until we have done what lies in our power to correct such deplorable conditions; and especially in America are we charged with this responsibility. We promote many publications which provide entertainment, along with their pages of advertisements

of wares and nostrums, but we give adequate support to only few periodicals of a high order of literary excellence; and articles of distinct merit even in these are not by any means the rule. We can measure the extent of such a loss when we consider that volumes and volumes on our library shelves, constituting a priceless part of our literature, represent merely contributions to magazines of the authors' day. It is a long catalogue of splendid names, among which are to be numbered those of Carlyle, Macaulay, Addison, Arnold, Stevens and Johnson.

It is at best doubtful whether our universities are doing their share of the work of correction. From the curriculums of some, the ancient classics-with all their qualifications for intellectual training and for the inculcation of an understanding and love of what is true style -have to a great extent been omitted. Our universities are teaching many things; but just how much of what they are teaching can be fairly regarded as a substitute, even if there be any substitute for that which has thus been omitted, is quite another question.

Apparently, a special department for the

teaching of English will not suffice. President Thwing of the Western Reserve University says, in a late number of The North American Review:

Oxford has no special chair devoted to the training of students in the art of English composition. For thirty years and more, the American College has been emphasizing this department and form of instruction. The Oxford system presupposes that the writing of English is an art and a science in which it is a duty of every instructor to give tuition. The department is not a department. It does not represent segregations. It must be confessed that the results of the two systems seem to favor the Oxford interpretation and method. One comprehensive deficiency of the American system is found in the lack of a sense of style which most of the writing done by American students shows.

So keen an observer as Mr. Howells, in one of his recent books, contrasts the "slovenliness" of speech of the best type of the American undergraduate with "the beauty of utterance" of the Oxford student.

It is doubtless true that to our over-devotion to the exacting demands of trade and commerce, and to neglect in the home circle and preparatory school, is to be traced much of our indifference to English style, and therefore to culture. Yet, in the opinion of those qualified