Welsh Journals

Outlines of Sociology." By F. W. Blackmar and J. L. Gillin. Macmillan. Pp. 586. 8s. 6d. net. This is a new volume in the series of Social Science text books written by two American pro- fessors. It is a type of book much more often produced in the States than in this country. The authors map out the region to be examined, they survey it methodically with the aid of clear cut sections, they put up finger-posts at the cross-roads in the shape of references and post sentries at every few miles of the road armed with questions and exercises to test the traveller's knowledge of the route which he has covered and the goal he is making for. Our topographical metaphor is speci- ally appropriate in the case of Sociology as its boundaries are only in process of exploration, and its pioneers are engaged in enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words." The elusive idea is the sense of universal forces at work shaping the structure and growth of society. Other sciences study aspects of these forces anthropology, econo- mics, political science, ethics. But Sociology is an attempt to co-ordinate these sciences and to discover the general laws of society, For example, all the efforts now being made to define and compare the essential features of the nations at war-their personalities are sociological efforts. That is enough to indicate how urgent a study of Sociology is, whatever difficulty we may find in marking its boundaries. The origins of European peoples, their economic organization, their ideals of justice, and government, and progress, their methods of dealing with poverty and crime and divorce, their attitude to freedom within and without their borders -all these are subjects which should occupy a far larger place in our Universities. In not one of our Welsh colleges do they command anything like the attention commensurate with their importance. Professors Blackmar and Gillin make no claim to originality in their book. They have admirably summed up the results of the ablest work done to date in various fields of research relevant to their purpose. Part V. (Social Pathology) seems to us least satisfactory twenty-two pages to Poverty and twenty-one to Charities is hardly the right proportion. In the latter the striking work of Chalmers in Glasgow might have found a place. We see no reference to the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission. nor to the writings of Hobhouse, Urwick and Wells. There are some misprints: Wallis for Wallas (pp. 412, 573) bands for hands (p. 477). Charles Booth is given only two volumes. REVIEWS "Poets and Puritans." By T. R. Glover. Methuen. In this his latest volume, Mr. Glover has under- taken what was clearly a congenial task. He has been" wandering among books and enjoying them and returning laden with spoil he seeks to communi- cate his pleasure to others-a task in which, it may at once be said, he has been eminently successful. Then, too, he has wandered well his journeyings have taken him into some pleasant places. The Poets and Puritans of whom he writes form a notable band-Spencer, Milton and Bunyan, as a matter of course, besides Cowper and Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle-they are men of assured position in the literary firmament, men to whom we are wont to turn as to old and well-tried friends. Nor need we demur to his inclusion of Boswell and Evelyn among the select throng indeed, to our thinking, the chapters on these two worthies are among the best in the book, so that still greater liberties with the title would have been readily condoned in the author he would doubtless have written bravely on, say, Pepys and Burns. Here, then, we have a welcome addition to those books which aim at an appreciation of literature and the nature of the treatment may to some extent be gathered from the views put forward as to the true objects of criticism. The real business of the critic he maintains, is to find out what is right with a great work of art and not what is wrong to learn what it is that makes it live and throughout his several chapters Mr. Glover has kept this object in view, and has brought to our notice those elements which have made the various works live for him. It is with literature as a criti- cism of life that he would seem to be mainly con- cerned and, indeed, the interpretation of life as seen through the temperament of Milton, of Words- worth, or of Carlyle, will always form a large part of their permanent appeal. Then, too, since a sympathetic understanding of the respective authors is also needed for grasping their reading of life, Mr. Glover has in every case brought us vividly into their presence and has mingled biography and criticism in the most pleasant fashion imaginable. On the other hand, the artistic side of their works receives, to our thinking, somewhat less than their proper due. In spite of illuminating passages here and there, we are not always let into the secrets of those formal and literary excellences upon which the ultimate appeal must in a large measure depend. In this sense. Mr. Glover has, no doubt purposely, limited his treatment he would hold that in this