Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA; Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Vol 



VIII 



SEPTEMBER. 



Number 4 



A Naturalist Who Considers Many Subjects 



By EDWARD F. BIGELOW, ARCADIA: Sound Beach, Connecticut 



OUR readers know him as a natural- 

 ist, the medical profession and 

 many patients as a skillful sur- 

 geon, hundreds of students as "Profes- 

 sor," and all Stamford as a suburbanite 

 — a real "back to nature" resident on a 

 nut farm. But we now have the surpris- 

 ing pleasure of knowing him ?.s Robert 

 T. \ [orris, the Philosopher. 



I say advisedly "'su.rprising." since 

 even he must be surprised, because it all 

 came about in so sudden and yet so nat- 

 ural a way. Like Europe in the present 

 war, he exploded because he was loaded, 

 but with what effect perhaps even this 

 firer of philosophical broadsides did not 

 even himself anticipate. That came as 

 the Deacon's one boss shay went — all 

 at once and nothing first. He has billed 

 three books with many good things by 

 saying much in few words. 



His three large volumes of philosophy 

 have been published by Doubleday, Page 

 & Company under the general title of 

 "To-morrow's Topics." They are "A 

 Surgeon's Philosophy," "Microbes and 

 Men"' and "Doctors Versus Folks."' 



It seems hardly possible that these are 

 by he author of Dr. Morris's medical 

 boo.<s, and they are far, far aw^ay from 



the charming retrospect of his boyhood 

 at "Hopkins's Pond." They are totally 

 unlike him as previously known and to- 

 tally unlike the books of any one else. 

 They begin a new era in literature. In 

 these days we seek new things and here 

 we find them. The public is getting tired 

 of the short story which represents 

 "your thinking done by some one else." 



According" to the old regime we asso- 

 ciated the idea of science with Tyndall, 

 the idea of humor with Dickens, the idea 

 of beauty with Stevenson. xAn author 

 whose leitmotif is new science, and who 

 presents it in an atmosphere of humor 

 and of beauty, is unquestionably opening 

 as original a line of cleavage in literature 

 as Thompson Seton found with his addi- 

 tion of the human element to the sub- 

 ject of wild life. 



The publishers tell us that they be- 

 lieve the time is ripe for a return to the 

 short essay wdiich stimulates controversy 

 and activity of thought. These books 

 are the right kind published at the right 

 time to turn the mind of the reading 

 public toward a new field. 



The hack reviewer will not like them. 

 They are for the critic who is looking 

 for something new in literature and com- 



Copyright 1915 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



