Leading Articles in" the Reviews. 



487 



LEARNED LADIES IN TUDOR TIMES. 

 I\ Harper s for (October .Miss Helen Hay Wilson 

 writes on the education of daughters, and calls to 

 mind that the higher education for women was 

 realised to a much greater extent than is often 

 supposed in the time of the Tudors. She says : — 



The eliqiiette and service of the age were veiy elaborate, the 

 books of courtesy, of carving, and the numerous works on matters 

 that fill the period seem to contain directions to occupy a life- 

 time, .^nd though the slate of society and manners was crude 

 in many ways and the standard of household comfort and clean- 

 liness very low (as witness the household books of Heniy N'lII), 

 still the conditions of life do not seem to have been actually 

 much harder on women than on men. The education of 

 women was in proportion as good as that of men, and carried 

 on in much the same way. .\nd as men improved, women 

 improved with them. \\h(n the moral force came, the 

 standard of women's education was raised at once. The 

 Princess Elizabeth was well skilled in Greek and Latin, and 

 Lady Jane Grey a devoted student of I'lato. This is Harrison's 

 description of Elizabeth's Court ; and Harrison, let us remem- 

 ber, was a contemporary of Knox. " There are very few," he 

 sa)-s, "of our courtiers (of both sexes) who have not the use 

 and skill of sundry speeches, besides an excellent vein of writing 

 bcforetime not regarded . . . .Truly it is a rare thing with us now 

 to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language .... NLany 

 gentlewomen and ladies there are that besides sound knowledge 

 of the Greek and Latin tongues are thereto no less skilful in the 

 Spanish, Italian and French. I am persuaded that as the noble- 

 men and gentlemen do surmount in this behalf, so these come 

 very little or nothing behind them for their parts : which 

 industry," adds the worthy parson, " God continue, and accom- 

 plish that which otherwise is wanting." 



ARE THE JEWS WORTH PRESERVING? 

 I.N the October Eugi/ncs Dr. R. N. Salaman, writing 

 on heredity and the Jew, explodes a common impres- 

 sion of the persistence of the Jewish type. We have 

 seen it stated, for example, that the inter-marriage of 

 a single Jewess with a Gentile stock will cause the 

 reappearance of the Jewish type generation after 

 generation. The writer has, however, got together a 

 large number of facts from people whose bias was as 

 stated above. They find, to their great surprise : — 



In fifty families, where the father was Gentile and the mother 

 a Jewess, there were eighty-eight Gentile-looking children, 

 fifteen Jewish, and four intermediate in type. In eighty-six 

 families where the father was Jewish and the mother Gentile, 

 there were 240 Gentile-looking children, eleven Jewish, and 

 four intermediate. In both cases the intermediates are, prac- 

 tically Gentile-looking Adding the two classes together we 

 find that there are 336 Gentile children to twenty-six Jewish, 

 i.e., thirteen Gentile to one Jewish. The result is a surprise to 

 both the anthropologist and, to the Mendelian. To the former, 

 who looks for blending, we 1 av.; the fact that, so far from 

 blending, we have no less than 93 per cent of the mixed bred 

 offspring resembling one parental type only. To the Mendelian 

 some surprise must occur that the dominance is not absolute. 



From these and other investigations he concludes 

 that the absorption of the Jew into the general 

 population would make very little difference to the 

 general poimlalion, but to the Jews themselves 

 " assimilation must spell elimination." Taken for 

 granted that the Jewish people as a whole (josscss 

 some qualities which it is desirable should be pre- 

 served, the writer concludes it is absolutely essential 

 that a pure stock possessing such qualities should bo 

 kc[)l in existence. 



SCOTTISH CURLING AND SWISS. 



In the IVinter Sports Ruvieui for October Bertram 

 Smith discusses Alpine curling from the Scotch point 

 of view. He says that golf and curling stand as a 

 lasting monutnent to the inventive faculty of the Scot. 

 But while Scotland is still the undisputed headtjuarters 

 of golf, Scotland has been surpassed in curling by 

 other lands, notably Canada : — 



There is, I think, something rather tragic in this course of 

 events. For Scotland is slill by far the greatest curling country 

 in the world, if one is to judge by the number of curlers in pro- 

 portion 10 the population, and the fact that it is being left behind 

 in the race is due to no lack of enthusi.-ism and native skill. It 

 is to be ascribed solely to the behaviour of an incorrigible 

 climate, which has only admitted of some thirty or forty days' 

 curling on deep water in the course of the last ten years. By 

 dint of " Tarmac" rinks — which can turn the lightest of frosts 

 to account — by taking full advantage of the artificial ice-rink in 

 Glasgow, and by frequent visits to Switzerland, Scotchmen are 

 still able to hold their own against all comers — except the 

 victorious Canadians — but in the heart of the true Scot artificial 

 rinks and Tarmac ponds are, at best, but a makeshift and a 

 substitute. The real Scotch curling, which has counted for so 

 much in the social life of the land, and which claims adherents 

 in almost every village, is the game as played on the " floating '' 

 ice of an open loch. It is seen at its best only in a lasting frost,, 

 when parish spiels, province matches and the great bonspiels, 

 sometimes numbering their players by the thousand, are brought 

 to an issue. — 



Mr. Smith objects to the luxurious, not to say 

 finicking developments of curling in Switzerland. 



"NOTHING THAT MORGAN CANNOT BUY." 



The following extract from Mr. \\'illiain Salisbury's 

 interview with Madame ^Nlichaelis, whom he describes 

 as a new Northern literary star, in the Twentieth 

 Century Magazine for October, shows how deeply 

 the belief, at any rate, has sunk into the heart of the 

 .American people that the best intellect of the nation 

 is enmeshed in the toils of the multi-millionaire 

 octopus. Mr. Salisbury says of Mr. William Dean 

 Howells, whose earlier work and youthful courage 

 gave promise of better things : — 



" Now he is on Mr. Morgan's pay-roll, and, like others who 

 are there, or who are ambitious to be put there, he remains 

 silent on the vital questions of the day." 



" How is he on Mr. Morgan's pay-roll !" 



" He is under contract to write only for the Harper company, 

 and Mr. Morgan holds the bonds of that concern. By con- 

 trolling that and other publishing houses which print the leading 

 magazines and books by our best-known authors, Mr. Morgan 

 is in possession of the strategic centre of current literature. 

 Frefjucntly, loo, he or his allies reach out and seize upon a 

 reform magazine. He is also believed to have his grip on the 

 strategic centre of iournolism, which -to him is just an industiy 

 to be used to aid his other industries, such as steel, railways, 

 banks, coal, telegraphs, telephones, insurance companief, 

 political machi;;es, and so on. There seems to be nothing in 

 .\merica that he cannot bnv." 



In East and Westai October, " Bacillus," makes the 

 suggestion that a newspaper should be founded in 

 London in order to maintain and commend the 

 prestige of the Government in India in dealing with 

 those problems which, originally purely Indian, have 

 now become inextricably woven into larger Imperial 

 issues. 





