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ALUMNI
WEEKLY
been so numerous or seductive as they
are to-day, and surely never so well
taken advantage of. There are men in
New Haven who will send out anything
which papers will print, and there are
students in Yale who will furnish to any
correspondent who will send it out any
amount of libelous matter about their
University. But the young men of Yale
are doing their work and doing it well.
Debating has seen its hardest days and
Yale’s platform work is better than be-
fore and gaining. The track games
were lost, but track athletics are de-
cidedly improving and Yale’s prestige is .
to be regained here. The crew is very
much improved and will row a good
race. Never did a finer set of young
men put on Yale baseball clothes than
those now on the diamond, under an
excellent captain. They are full of base-
ball and learning to bat. Let us be done
with all-condemning criticism and each
work for the Blue.
SN REPU, Sag OOS LAE
NEED FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION
IN THE SOCIETY MATTERS.
As this form of the WEEKLY goes to
press, there is no news of Sophomore
societies on which to comment. We
wish, however, to express again our hope
that the matter will be pushed through
to a quick conclusion. It is not fair to
Yale to leave it open longer. There is
too much needing attention to allow the
situation to be longer cumbered with
this embarrassing problem. We believe
that both the societies and the Faculty
appreciate this point.
<p><a
a at
The withdrawal of Dr. Gallaudet and
Mr. Rodgers from their positions as
graduate advisers in Yale athletics
means the loss of two men who have
done splendid work for Yale and who
have, above all things else, held up a
very high standard of the gentleman in
athletics,
eect eke os aes
YALE LITERATURE.
Professor Sneath’s Tennyson.
The Mind of Tennyson, His Thoughts
on God, Freedom and Immorialty.
By Professor E. Hershey Sneath.
New York, Charles Scribner’s Son,
1QOO.
But for the subtitle, the name of this
book would he misleading. Surely any
attempted treatise not so qualified on the
mind of ‘Tennyson, which omits a
study of Maud, e. g., the analysis of
motive, the subtle change, action and
reaction of moods, the deepening of
character by experience, would be in-
adequate and incomplete. Similarly the
interpretation of character in Becket,
e. g., the study of Henry Second, so
warmly praised by J. R. Green, hardly
should be omitted from a comprehen-
sive psychology of Tennyson. This
phase of his contribution in which he
touches Browning most closely, is much
in need of a champion nowadays, but
the scope of Professor Sneath’s book
excludes him from this arena.
The purpose of our critic, then, is to
present to us Tennyson, the philosopher,
and-that too in the form of a system,
deduced, or rather extracted, from the
poems and arranged under the cate-
gories of God, Freedom, Immortality.
The poet’s conclusions as to these three
ultimates, if we include duty under the
second, are traced with reference to con-
crete experience, biographically in part,
but mainly as voicing the spirit of the
age, its doubts, its struggles, its hopes.
Unquestionably Tennyson was of his
time. To him, therefore, we look for
a picture in little of the Victorian age
and for a foreshadowing of its final
triumph over the forces which vex it.
The common reader, though earnest,
will hardly appreciate the range and
depth of Tennyson’s philosophic experi- .
ence without such a presentation. We
may totch this experience at points—
doubtless there are passages of Tenny-
son which out of all the poetry of our
day each one cherishes, leaves as it
were, from his own life—but its entire
scope does not come home to us. We
do not read In Memoriam from end to
end, but piecemeal. Further, the poet's
most ardent admirers, in any case, have
something to regret for an art so ex-
quisite that it conceals the very vigor
of its impulse. Reduced to uncom-
promising prose as in Prof. Sneath’s
volume the great abstractions are, it
must fairly be confessed, more tangible
and ponderable. Very important, e. g.,
is the reduction of Tennyson’s conclu-
sions on Immortality to a set of four-
teen propositions (p. 175 ff). The
method then is not only sympathetic and
interpretive, but systematic and even
constructive criticism.
It is much the fashion in some quar-
ters to cry up the intellect of Brown-
ing at the expense of Tennyson; it 1s
asserted that Tennyson was*a man of
commonplace mind, lacking the origi-
nality and fire of Browning. If Pro-
fessor Sneath’s volume, by viewing the
results of Tennyson’s intellectual achieve-
ments in the light of their true import-
ance, serves to correct this wrong ten-
dency, he can ask for no better success.
An Authority on Hawait.
A book that has been longer than we
intended to have it on our reviewing
table is ‘The Making of Hawaii; A’
Study in Social Evolution,” by Profes-
sor William Fremont Blackman, of Yale.
The work does not purport to be a his-
tory of the Hawaiian people, but a study
of their social, political and moral de-
velopment. For that purpose the author
has “omitted some facts which would
be indispensable in a history, and in-
cluded some inquiries which would per-
haps. have had no proper. place in a
work of that. character.” Professor
Blackman considers the Hawaiian Isl-
ands as furnishing better facilities than
any other field for the study of some
important social problems. This fact
he considers “due to the blending there
of the temperate and tropical climates;
the admixture of divers and widely dif-
ferent races; the contact of civilized
and nature peoples under unique con-
ditions, and with results in some re-
spects unexampled, and in all respects
instructive; the collision of the Chris-
tian, the secular, and the pagan, each in
very vital forms; the rapid evolution
from a primitive to a highly developed
condition of the four fundamental and
enduring social institutions, the family,
the church, the state, and property; the
control of industries by corporations, to
an unusual degree; the close juxtaposi-
tion in recent years of a wealthy few
and a poor multitude,—and all this with-
in narrow and manageable limits of time,
of area, and of population.”
The last paragraph of the preface is
also of interest to Yale men. It reads
as follows: “The remark is reported to
have been made at a dinner party in
Honolulu, several years ago, that ‘Yale
College runs the government,’ in allu-
sion to the number of her graduates
who held conspicuous office under the
Hawaiian monarchy, or were otherwise
greatly influential. I venture to felici-
tate the University—and the Hawaiian
people also—upon the notable and noble
part taken by her sons in the establish-
ment and the maintenance of civilization
in “The Paradise of the Pacific.’ ”
For his study, Professor Blackman
divides the story into three periods,—
the middle, early and later. In the early
period he considers such questions as
“Environment,” “Political Organiza-
tion,’ “Religion,” “Marriage and the
“Family,” “Festivals and Games.” In
the later period he has chapters on
“Religion and Morals,” “Land Tenure,”
“Decay of Native Population,” and “The
White Man in the Tropics.” The work
has already reached the position of an
authority. It is characterized by sane-
ness and thoroughness, at which those
who know its author are not surprised.
It is a most important addition to a
literature in which American citizens
are bound to become increasingly inter-
ested in these days. It may serve as a
text-book in many matters, although its
style gives it more the interest of the
story than of a technical work. Among
the many cordial endorsements of Pro-
fessor Blackman’s book is one from the
Pacific Commercial Advertiser of Hono-
lulu, in which this expression is used:
“While Professor Brice, an Englishman,
has published the best and most scholarly ©
treatise on the American Common-
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