... The modern philosopher and historian alike deride and marvel at astrology as the most persistent disease with which the minds of men have ever been afflicted but from which they are now happily freed by the advance of science. I must confess my inability to share this view as to the patent folly of the art. The careful student of astrology cannot fail to be impressed with the logical coherence of its doctrines and their necessary relation to the fundamental postulates from which they spring. While these postulates can no longer be maintained they seem in no way inappropriate as stages in the development of human knowledge and their wide spread acceptance is sufficient evidence of their seeming reasonableness to nascent society. Indeed it is only the upper strata of European civilization that has now outgrown the beliefs above considered. Asia still teems with them, from Seoul to Bagdad, and even in the heart of Europe astrological calendars are current and find enormous circulation among the lower classes. The practicing astrologer who seeks business through advertising in the daily press is with us in America, and to judge by the persistence of his advertisements they bring response. I find upon the shelves of the principal scientific library of Chicago a manual of applied astrology whose dirty and dog's eared leaves, together with recent date upon its title page, are additional testimony that American cultivation of the occult is not limited to Boston. Even nearer home we all know people who will plant or sow, or cut their hair only at the right phase of the moon or who have an abiding faith that the planetary weather predictions of Mr. Hicks are sound, in theory at least. I venture to assert that within range of the reader's acquaintance there is a considerable number of persons who firmly believe that in case of premature birth a seven months baby has a better chance of life than one of eight months--an ancient doctrine, for which excellent reasons were adduced by the Greek astrologers but which seems to find little support in current medical theory.

But assuredly our best memorial of the part astrology has played in human affairs lies not in such paltry superstitions but in its incorporation into the great literatures of Europe. Casual illustrations of this fossilized relationship have been given in this essay, but far more impressive than these instances are those cases in which astrologic doctrine permeates and dominates the whole structure of a great work. Chaucer's treatise on the Astrolabe was avowedly written as an exposition of the astrologic art, and in Dante's Divine Comedy the whole moral structure of the Paradiso, with its successive heavens allotted to beatitudes of varying degrees, finds its key in the astrology that Dante knew and followed. The sequence of these heavens accords with that of the spheres allotted by astrologic doctrine to the several planets, arranged in the order of their increasing distance from the earth, the order of their altitude as Dante would have said. The lowest heaven, that of the moon, is allotted by the poet to virgins because forsooth they best typify those qualities of cold and moist with which astrologic doctrine endows the moon. They who have fought with fire and sword in defence of the Church militant are placed in a higher heaven than are those saints and theologians whose service has been intellectual in its nature; an impropriety in our eyes and doubtless little congenial to Dante's mode of thought. But astrologically it must be so, for Mars, who typified the warrior, is higher, i. e., more distant from the earth, than is the sun whose light and warmth are alike the symbol and the source of intellect and spirituality. But ancient and modern ideas are equally satisfied when the poet placed God and the Redeemer in the empyrean, the region of the fixed stars, alike the most exalted and by reason of its distance, the purest part of the universe.

Although far from extinct, the old faith in the influence of the heavens is waning and it is hard to believe that any mutations of human thought can ever restore it to a status comparable with that it enjoyed in classical and mediaeval times. As a factor in the conduct of life among enlightened people its power is gone, but the marks of its old time influence are dyed in the social fabric, imprinted alike upon language and literature and so long as that literature abides, astrology cannot sink below the horizon of man's intellectual interests.

JAMES FRANCIS AUGUSTINE PYRE

Professor Pyre is another teacher whom Wisconsin can claim as wholly her own. He was born in 1871 in Rock County, and graduated at our University in 1892. While teaching English in his Alma Mater, he continued his graduate study, and was given his Ph. D. in 1897. He continued to serve his University, though for a brief space of time pursuing his study elsewhere, and became associate professor in 1909, which position he now holds.

No former student of the University reading this volume will be content with this sketch of Mr. Pyre without reference to his undergraduate football days, and to the nickname "Sunny,"

which will cling to him as long as he lives. Furthermore, no one who has sat in his classes and been inspired by his reading and his interpretation, and felt the optimism of his philosophy will need to have it explained to him how Mr. Pyre acquired his nickname.

The outstanding feature of his literary criticism, whether in the form of magazine article, or lecture, or informal talk, is clarity. In his class you could always understand what he was getting at. The reader of this brief selection from "Byron in Our Day," will sense that quality readily. The sentences are crisp and well formed. Their structure is not involved. The plan and organization are evident. At the same time there is dignity and distinction in every paragraph.

BYRON IN OUR DAY

By J. F. A. Pyre. From the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XCIX, p.

547.

And with Byron passion was not merely a gift; it was a doctrine. In one of his letters to Miss Milbanke, there is an observation which comes very near to expressing the central principle of his existence.

"The great object of life is sensation--to feel that we exist--even though in pain." To him, one of the chief curses of society was its ennui, the futility of its conventional pursuits, which all recognize, but most endure. He was for fanning the coal of life into a blaze. The vitality of his emotions demanded this. Hence, when friendship stagnated, when love lapsed into the inevitable mediocrity and torpor, he fretted or fled. In ordinary terms, he was fundamentally and abnormally impatient of being bored.

A being thus constituted, and cherishing so dangerous a doctrine, naturally found no peace in this life, but was goaded on from pleasure to pleasure, or from one violence to another. Passionate friendships, savage quarrels, gaming, carousing, travel and adventure, hard reading, hard riding, flirtations, and intrigues of varying intensity and duration, playing the social and literary lion, parliament, marriage, occupied but did not satisfy him. Avid of sensation, avid of power, he threw himself impetuously into his pursuits, lavished his life with the reckless waste of a cataract, and seemed as inexhaustible. He was too clear-sighted not to perceive the triviality of many of his occupations, and though too willful to change his ways, or employ his ample will power in self-restraint, he was not sordid enough to be happy so. Hence, he became a malcontent. Love soothed him, nature appeased him for a time; and in the presence of either, he soared into realms of serene delight and contemplation. But "he could not keep his spirit at that height;" say, perhaps, he was not a dreamer; his passion called for outlet in action, in enterprise; and he became--a writer!

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS

Edward Alsworth Ross is nationally one of the best-known men here represented. He was born at Virden, Illinois, in 1866; was graduated from Coe College, Iowa, in 1886; and then continued his education in Berlin and Johns Hopkins. He has been professor of economy, sociology, and kindred subjects at many universities, including Indiana University, Cornell, Leland Stanford, Junior, the University of Nebraska, and, since 1906, the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of many books and magazine articles, among the most noteworthy of the former, perhaps, being "Sin and Society," "Social Psychology," "Latter Day Sinners and Saints," and "The Changing Chinese."

The selection here chosen is from the last named book. The style is like the man, forceful, trenchant, and abounding in life. Mr. Ross's tall, rugged, muscular figure and forceful gestures are familiar to the lovers of lectures in Wisconsin, and all who have been fortunate enough to hear him, whether in regular classes at the University, or in extension or other lecture work, will recall his striking appearance as they read the clear, clean-cut statements in this selection.

THE CONFLICT OF ORIENTAL AND WESTERN CULTURES IN CHINA

From "THE CHANGING CHINESE." Chapter I. Copyright, 1911, by the Century Co.

China is the European Middle Ages made visible. All the cities are walled and the walls and gates have been kept in repair with an eye to their effectiveness. The mandarin has his headquarters only in a walled fortress-city and to its shelter he retires when a sudden tempest of rebellion vexes the peace of his district.

The streets of the cities are narrow, crooked, poorly-paved, filthy, and malodorous. In North China they admit the circulation of the heavy springless carts by which alone passengers are carried; but, wherever rice is cultivated, the mule is eliminated and the streets are adapted only to the circulation of wheel-barrows and pedestrians. There is little or no assertion of the public interest in the highway, and hence private interests close in upon the street and well-nigh block it. The shopkeeper builds his counter in front of his lot line; the stalls line the streets with their crates and baskets; the artisans overflow into it with their workbenches, and the final result is that the traffic filters painfully through a six-foot passage which would yet be more encroached on but for the fact that the officials insist on there being room left for their sedan chairs to pass each other.

The straightened streets are always crowded and give the traveler the impression of a high density and an enormous population. But the buildings are chiefly one story in height, and, with the exception of Peking, Chinese cities cover no very great area. For literary effect their population has been recklessly exaggerated, and, in the absence of reliable statistics, every traveler has felt at liberty to adopt the highest guess.

Until recently there was no force in the cities to maintain public order. Now, khaki-clad policemen, club in hand, patrol the streets, but their efficiency in time of tumult is by no means vindicated. A slouching, bare-foot, mild-faced _gendarme_ such as you see in Canton is by no means an awe-inspiring embodiment of the majesty of the law.

There is no common supply of water. When a city lies by a river the raw river water is borne about to the house by regular water-carriers, and the livelong day the river-stairs are wet from the drip of buckets. When the water is too thick it is partially clarified by stirring it with a perforated joint of bamboo containing some piece of alum.

There is no public lighting, and after nightfall the streets are dark, forbidding, and little frequented. Until kerosene began to penetrate the Empire the common source of light was a candle in a paper lantern or cotton wick lighted in an open cup of peanut oil. Owing to the lack of a good illuminant the bulk of the people retire with the fowls and rise with the sun. By making the evening of some account for reading or for family intercourse, kerosene has been a great boon to domestic life.

Fuel is scarce and is sold in neat bundles of kindling size. Down the West River ply innumerable boats corded high with firewood floating down to Canton and Hong Kong. Higher and higher the tree destruction extends, and farther and farther does the axman work his way from the waterways. Chaff and straw, twigs and leaves and litter are burned in the big brick bedsteads that warm the sleepers on winter nights, and under the big, shallow copper vessels set in the low brick or mud stoves. Fuel is economized and household economy simplified among the poor by the custom of relying largely on the food cooked and vended in the street. The portable restaurant is in high favor, for our prejudice against food cooked outside the home is a luxury the common people cannot afford to indulge in.

Proper chimneys are wanting and wherever cooking goes on the walls are black with the smoke that is left to escape as it will. Chinese interiors are apt to be dark for, in the absence of window glass, the only means of letting in light without weather is by pasting paper on lattice. The floors are dirt, brick, or tile, the roof tile or thatch.

To the passer-by private ease and luxury are little in evidence. If a man has house and grounds of beauty, a high wall hides them from the gaze of the public. Open lawns and gardens are never seen, and there is no greenery accessible to the public unless it be the grove of an occasional temple.

In the houses of the wealthy, although there is much beauty to be seen, the standard of neatness is not ours. Cobwebs, dust, or incipient dilapidation do not excite the servant or mortify the proprietor. While a mansion may contain priceless porcelains and display embroideries and furniture that would be pronounced beautiful the world over, in general, the interiors wrought by the Chinese artisan do not compare in finish with those of his Western _confrere_....

No memory of China is more haunting than that of the everlasting blue cotton garments. The common people wear coarse, deep-blue "nankeen."

The gala dress is a cotton gown of a delicate bird's-egg blue or a silk jacket of rich hue. In cold weather the poor wear quilted cotton, while the well-to-do keep themselves warm with fur-lined garments of silk. A general adoption of Western dress would bring on an economic crisis, for the Chinese are not ready to rear sheep on a great scale and it will be long before they can supply themselves with wool. The Chinese jacket is fortunate in opening at the side instead of at the front. When the winter winds of Peking gnaw at you with Siberian teeth, you realize how stupid is our Western way of cutting a notch in front right down through overcoat, coat and vest, apparently in order that the cold may do its worst to the tender throat and chest. On seeing the sensible Chinaman bring his coat squarely across his front and fasten it on his shoulder, you feel like an exposed totem-worshipper.

Wherever stone is to be had, along or spanning the main roads are to be seen the memorial arches known as _pailows_ erected by imperial permission to commemorate some deed or life of extraordinary merit. It is significant that when they proclaim achievement, it is that of the scholar, not of the warrior. They enclose a central gateway, flanked by two, and sometimes by four, smaller gateways, and conform closely to a few standard types, all of real beauty. As a well-built _pailow_ lasts for centuries, and as the erection of such a memorial is one of the first forms of outlay that occur to a philanthropic Chinaman, they accumulate, and sometimes the road near cities is lined with those structures until one wearies of so much repetition of the same thing, however beautiful.

GRANT SHOWERMAN

Professor Showerman is another author-teacher whom Wisconsin may claim as her own. He was born at Brookfield in 1870, was graduated from the University in 1896, and took his doctorate in 1900. He had the advantage of two years' study at Rome, where he was Fellow of the Archaeological Institute of America in the American School of Classical Studies. Since returning, he has been Professor of Latin Literature at his Alma Mater. He is member of many learned societies, and is the author of "With the Professor" and "The Indian Stream Republic and Luther Parker," besides many articles which are familiar to readers of the Atlantic Monthly and other leading periodicals.

His style will be noted at once by the careful reader as being different from that of most other prose writers whose works we quote here. It is more leisurely. He brings to the common things about us in Nature the kindly, alert intelligence of one who has seen many things in many lands, but who has the memory to re-create truthfully the days of youth.

A LAD'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS BOYHOOD HAUNTS AND EXPERIENCES IN THE EARLIER DAYS

"IN OCTOBER." From the Sewanee Review.

... On a late October Saturday morning, after a week in school at the village, you take your gun and a favorite play, whistle to already eager Billy, and follow the path to the Brush. You traverse its quiet length by the winding road that is always mysterious and full of charm, however often you tread it, you cross the stubbled barley-field that borders Lovers' Lane, and cross the lane itself and enter the Woods. You feel the friendly book in your pocket, and pat the friendly dog at your side, restfully conscious that you will spend neither profitless nor companionless hours. To be sure, you have in the back of your mind a thought or two about fox squirrels, or even red squirrels, and of a stew-pie--the savor of it is in your sensitive nostrils; but these thoughts are only vague. Your eyes are not greedily watchful--only moderately so; you have already begun to outgrow the barbarous boyhood delight of mere killing. Good will reigns in your breast.

You advance cautiously, the breech-loader resting in the bend of your left arm, every step causing pleasant murmurs among the autumn leaves.

When you pause, the sound of your heart-beats is audible. The genial golden tone of Indian Summer pervades the air.

When you have penetrated to the heart of the Woods, you sit down on a familiar log, the gun caressingly across your knees, and drink in the fine wine of woodland enjoyment! Ah, the silence of the Woods! How deep and how full of mystery! And how deeper whenever some note of life emphasizes the stillness--the knocking of a woodpecker, the cry of a sapsucker, the scream of a jay, the caw of a crow aloft on some decayed topmost branch in the distance!

A distant barking note makes you start. There is a fox squirrel over yonder somewhere, beyond the ruins of the old arch. You strain your attention toward the sound. Billy sits bolt upright, with round eyes, questioning ears, and suspended breath.

But just as you are thinking of getting up, a nut drops with a thump on the log beside you and bounds lightly into the leaves at your feet.

You know what that means! You look up instantly and catch just a glimpse of a sweeping foxy tail as it vanishes along a big branch and around the thick stem of a tree. He goes up forty or fifty feet, and then, far out on the big oak branch, lies close to the bark, out of sight.

Billy whines uneasily; he shivers with excitement. You say: "Sit still, Billy!"

There is only the least bit of the foxy tail visible. You tread softly to one side and another, slowly circle the tree, and all the while the owner of the tail subtly shifts his position so that you always just fail to get a shot.