I8 
LAND & WATER 
November H, 1917 
The Major'Takes Over" 
There is probably no officer, however confident 
of himself, who does not find the task of taking over 
a new company something of an ordeal ; a very 
trying ordeal, too, in many cases. 
It is then that he has to summon up his reserves 
of mental and moral force, for he is, strictly speak- 
ing, "on test." If he muffs things it may take him 
weeks or months to obliterate the bad impression 
created ; and his consciousness of this fact does not 
help him any. 
We have just received a letter from a major with 
the B.E.F. which gives- point to these remarks, and, 
what is more valuable, shows how this particular 
officer took over his new responsibilities without a 
hitch. Writing from France, he says : — 
I have seen the value of the Pelman System since taking 
.over my new company. Confronted with a mass of new 
faces and new names, and with a different system of interior 
working, I have had a golden opportunity to test the value 
of your training, and / know that without it I should never 
have gathered up the threads of things as I have done. 
, Major. 
Once again we have striking proof that Army 
officers are not studying "Pelmanism" just for the 
fun of the thing, but simply and solely because it 
has proved itself so convincingly a potent aicl to 
efficiency and promotion. Testimony to that effect 
is voluminous. The Pelman Institute possess several 
thousands of letters from mihtary and naval officers, 
each giving expression to unfeigned admiration for a 
system which is so directly and unfailingly resultful. 
So strong is the belief in Pelmanism amongst th^ 
higher command that there are numerous instance^ 
where generals have recommended their staff to 
enrol for a Pelman course ; just as, in the commer- 
cial world, a far-seeing firm sometimes pays for the 
enrolment of six or a dozen of its employees. 
Nor is this confidence misplaced. Pelmanism is 
all that is claimed for it — sensational although those 
claims may occasionally appear. The truth is that 
the facts themselves are sensational ; they even 
exceed the published statements. For example, the 
Pelman Institute, in speaking of financial benefits 
resulting from the course, limits itself to examples 
where incomes of business or professional men have 
been doubled or trebled. That seems handsome 
enough ; yet this substantial figure has frequehtly 
been surpassed. We know of at least one case where 
a sixfold increase of income resulted from a Pelman 
training ! 
There are many readers of Land & Water — both 
civilians and officers — who are students of the 
Pelman system,, and these know from personal 
experience the absolute accuracy .of Truth's pro- 
nouncement : "The Pelman system places the 
means of progress within the reach of everybody." 
The Course presents no obstacle to study — even for the 
busiest professional man. It takes up very little time — and 
every minute spent upon it is profitably spent. Equally, it can 
be practised anywhere — nearly 10,000 officers and men, including 
36 Generals and 6 Admirals, are following it in the trenches in 
France and aboard the Grand Fleet. All correspondence is 
necessarily confidential. 
Every reader of Land & Water should at least investigate 
this fascinating subject and its possibiUties. An explanatory 
brochure, entitled Mind and Memory, containing a synopsis 
and full explanation of the Pelman "System, together with a 
copy of Truth's sensational report on the work of the Pelman 
Institute, will be sent, gratis and post free, upon application to 
The Pelman Institute, 39 Wcnham House, Bloomsbury Street, 
London, W.C.i. 
Books of the Week 
A Roumanian Diary, 1915, 1916, 1917. By Lady 
Ki.NN AKD. illustrated. Heinemann. 5s. net. 
Real Russians. By Sonia E. Howe. Illustrated. Sampson, 
Low and Co. 6s. net. 
Inside Constantinople during the Dardanelles 
Expedition. A Diplomatist's Diary, illustrated. By 
Li;wis Einstein. John Murray, (js. pet. 
Nine ' Tales. By Hugh de Selincourt. With an 
Introduction by Harold Child. (Nisbet, 5s.) 
PERUSAL of A Roumanian Diary, Ijy Lady Kcnnard, and 
of Real Russians, bySonia E. Howe, reveals a multitude 
of similarities and also amass of differences between the 
two writers and their work. Lady Kennard was an 
Englishwoman who saw Roumania in the months immediately 
preceding and during the country's share in the war, and her 
diary carries up to May of 1917 ; Mme. Howe, a Russian, 
went to Russia before the Revolution to plead for the liberation 
of pohtical exiles, and met Stiirmer and other notables of the 
last days of the Empire — in the one case an Englishwoman 
writes her impressions of a foreign people, and in the other a 
Russian tells of her own land under the shadow of war, 
^ ^ :^ m * 
There is the root dift'erence : yet these two diaries are 
similar, in that they both portray national characteristics- 
deal with the background against which the great drama is 
being played, more than with the drama itself.. The stolidity 
of the Roumanian peasant, the heroism of Roumania as a 
whole and the awakening of the country to the work that war 
involves, could not have been better shown by a Roumanian 
than in this picturesque and yet concise narrative of Lady 
Kennard's. Similarly, only close knowledge of Russia, and 
actual sight of Russia gripped by the war, could have inspired 
Mme. Howe's pictures of neglected soldiery, unexampled 
devotion, corruption and carelessness, implicit faith and almost 
unbelievable capacity for treachery — the muddle that was 
pre-revolutionary Russia. Lady Kennard's is the finer 
narrative, but Mme. Howe has got nearer to the heart of things 
—she tells more, and writes more from the inside. 
« * * * * 
A third war diary. Inside Constantinople, by Lewis Einstein, 
may well be linked up with these two. The author, a member 
of the American Embassy in the Turkish capital during the 
Gallipoli campaign, was only enabled to publish his diary 
through the American entry to the war— it is a pity that his 
story could not have been made public during the progress 
of the Dardanelles campaign, for many of the observations 
that he makes would have been valuable. Value remains, 
apart from literary interest, in his authentic record "of the 
Armenian massacrefe, and in the — also authentic— paragraph 
in which he adduces proof that Germany decided on war 
immediately after the Serajevo ass'assinations, determined 
to break the peace of Europe in the hope of complete conquest. 
* * * * * 
Although Mr. Hugh de Selincourt has a following of readers, 
yet Iris work is of such an order that it is caviare to the great 
majority, and it is doubtful if any of the contents of his latest 
book. Nine Tales'(Kisbet, 5s. net), would find a place in the 
magazine that usually forms a refuge for an author's short 
stories. Hugh de Selincourt is concerned in picturing life 
as it is ; not with the sordid attention to detail that is often 
called realism, but with consciousness that ,it is a patchwork 
business, containing happiness as well as grief and ugliness, 
and in these nine talcs, greatly varying in subject and quality, 
he displays the patchwork for such as have time to read and 
eyes to see. The first story, " The Sacrifice," is almost a 
novel in itself, and it is a striking commentary on the war 
from the woman's point of view ; again, in " The Passionate 
Time-Server," there is revealed so much of the motives of a 
man as to make the reader know the man intimately, and. 
knowing, to forgive him. These are but two instances of the 
nine ; in them all is the quality which, for want of a more 
comprehensive title, may be called the humanity of the writer. 
***** 
The Ignoble Warrior is the title given to " a collection of 
facts for the study of the origin and conduct of the war," 
prepared in English and Japanese and published in Japan by 
Maruzen and Co., Ltd. Mr. J. W. Robertson Scott is respon- 
sible for this volume ; and he rendered good service to 
humanity by its publication ; for it places in a readily avail- 
able form a convincing though, alas, not yet complete record 
of German lies, dishonour, treachery, and barbarity. It 
was well that the people of our Far-FIastem Ally should be 
instructed in the Teuton character. We should like to see 
the book published also in this country, it might be most 
useful later on. It is illustrated with Raemaekers' cartoons 
and contains reproductions of certain Gennan letters, etc. 
