himself loomed above them like some huge giant from another world. It was the living man who was thrown out of proportion by the comparison and not the lifeless figures on the stage. The detail of Mr. Sarg's lay figures

is admirably indicated by the illustration which accompanies this editorialan illustration which shows Rip Van Winkle before his departure for the mountains chatting and chumming with his cronies, the innkeeper and the

schoolmaster. Mr. Sarg's performance of Rip Van Winkle conveyed to the spectator a picture of the character and life of that beloved reprobate in which Joe Jefferson himself would have found delight.

DO not suppose that Arthur Whiting will thank me for calling him

really is. And, in spite of the rebellion of revolutionaries like Stravinsky, musicians as well as scientists must, whether they like it or not, stand the consequences of facts.

I do not know any American who believes more profoundly than Arthur Whiting that music is one of the four great fine arts and should be cultivated, understood, and appreciated by every well-balanced and well-educated man, not merely because of its sensuous beauty, but because it is food for the spirit and the imagination.

I have forgotten what the text-books say, but I name the four great fine arts as follows: Painting, Sculpture (including architecture), Poetry, and Music. Every cultivated man enjoys, or pretends to enjoy, the first three. Unfortunately, large numbers of American men who would resent it if they were called barbarian or philistine apparently take some pride in saying that they "cannot tell one tune from another." It is conceivable that a man may enjoy and even appreciate painting and sculpture whose musical sense is wholly atrophied, as Darwin's was. But no man without some musical instinct and appreciation can really enjoy_poetry, unless it be Amy Lowell's. For music is the very basis and soul of all poetry, save that of the hopeless futurists. Even Walt Whitman, the father and apostle of the herd of modern American writers of vers libre, wrote some of the most rhythmical and musical poetry in the English language. Only those who have some capacity for music can take in the whole beauty of "Captain, O My Captain !"

But to get back to Arthur Whiting. Actuated by a creed which I have thus roughly set forth, Arthur Whiting for more than ten years has been going to our American colleges and universities with the purpose of interesting undergraduates in music as one of the fine arts. A committee which has now been formed to give much-needed sup port to this real missionary work says of Whiting's university concerts:

Mr. Whiting has given a course of five monthly concerts preceded by a talk on the character and form of the music. This fixes the attention of the students on important points and assists them to understand and to appre

The response of the undergraduates has been spontaneous and enthusiastic.

While Whiting is a musician in the highest sense of the word, he is not a "highbrow," and his comments on composers and musical compositions as he interprets his programmes to the undergraduates are delightful and sometimes laughter-exciting in their apposite wit and criticism. I append a specimen pro-gramme of this year's series.

Of two of the soloists on the programme it may be said in passing that Miss Wyman is an American singer trained in France, who sings French folk songs with a charm like that of Yvette Guilbert, and Mr. George Barrère is perhaps the greatest living flute player and a member of the New York Symphony Orchestra. So it will be seen that Whiting selects artists of the first rank as his expositors. Those who have heard the Whiting recitals, in which the best kind of talk is combined with the best kind of music, know how delightful they are. Indeed, it is not too much to say that they are sui generis, a Latin phrase which I use because it seems peculiarly applicable to any university undertaking.

As to the missionary himself, he is an American, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts; is a pianist and composer, having written orchestral and chamber music, songs, and pianoforte pieces; and his compositions have been played by the great symphonic orchestras and chamber music organizations.

But, unlike too many professional musicians, he has other interests than music-literature, for example, and even politics. I have had more than one political discussion with him, and they have not been adagio talks either. He has a marked gift for literary expression and a lively but unstinging (if there isn't such a word as unstinging there ought to be) critical sense. If the Fates had set him in the channel of literature instead of music, he could, I

believe, have given Augustine Birrell a run for his money as an essayist. I say Augustine Birrell, because last night I happened to read in bed (a delightful although I am told an unhygienic habit) Birrell's essays on Cowper, Matthew Arnold, and Cardinal Newman. I do not know any English essayist of our time who combines more delightfully a gentle sense of humor, a delicate appreciation of literary values, and an unconventional humanism than this chancery barrister, who has been a university professor of law and head of the Department of Education in a British Cabinet, and who yet says that "book hunting" is his chief recreation, and who has done perhaps more than any other Englishman to reveal the springs of literary life to the ordinary and unsophisticated British reader.

But to get back again to Arthur Whiting. He has, as I have said, a Birrell-like, semi-humorous appreciation of what is genuine and spontaneous in human nature. For example, a few years ago he contributed to these pages an article on the American composer in which I find the following passage:

The American of to-day is unique. He has his own face, his own way of doing and of feeling things. If his emotions have as yet no complete musical representation, it is not because they cannot be represented in tones, for we have one song at least-our beloved "Dixie "-which throbs exactly with the National pulse, and which is of such sterling worth that it has survived fifty years of hard usage, and is to-day as thrilling and impelling as when it led the tired marchers of the Potomac.

The official and ceremonial hymn of a country is usually perfunctory and philistine. It is pious custom more than spontaneous feeling which brings us to our feet when we sing that commonplace tune which we borrowed from England which she borrowed from Germany, the words of which we vaguely remember to begin

"God save our 'tis of thee."

I speak thus disrespectfully of our National anthem because it is not our National anthem; it is not a musical representation of our National feeling or experience. As to the verses, leave them to any American conscience.

If many of the accredited hymns of nations are characterless, there are at least three popular songs which are, in a real sense, national. The "Rákoczy March" of Hungary, the "Marseillaise of France, and "Dixie" of America are intoxicants which stimulate the nerves of their respective races, so that the first two have often been forbidden by the police in times of special excitement. But there is nothing warlike or vengeful in our own song; it has good-natured energy, a certain confident strength; its saucy gait has humor; it is not theatrical, self-conscious, or sentimentalit is American character.

From a bas-relief by Miss Frances Grimes presented to Mr. and Mrs. Whiting by a group of friends in Cornish, New Hampshire, where the Whitings then had their summer home. The inscription in the upper left-hand corner is a French quotation which may be translated: Harmony, Harmony! The language which Genius invented for Love to speak"

I submit that this passage is indicative of good humor, good taste in music, and a good literary style.

If anything can soften the hearts of the average American undergraduates, so that they will not feel ashamed in displaying an interest in æsthetics, which they too often mistakenly think is a sign of effeminacy, it is music. For, as is well known, an English poet, William Congreve, who was certainly not a parlor snake, once made the statement-included in so many books of quotations that it has become tritethat music hath charms, etc., etc." I do not finish the quotation lest some of my undergraduate readers resent an implied personal criticism.

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As a matter of fact, the men at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale who have heard Mr. Whiting and his recitals will confirm all I say about their charm and usefulness. They ought to be extended to other colleges and universities, and for this purpose a committee of amateur music lovers has been organized in New York City which hopes not only to maintain the work as it is now carried on by Mr. Whiting, but to extend it. "The expense," says the committee, "cannot be met by the universities officially, and

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the concerts have been maintained since 1907 by a group of interested friends in the universities themselves and in New York. With the greatly increased cost of arranging for soloists, traveling, printing, etc., the combined funds from these sources no longer suffice, and unless a guarantee of a much wider and more generous support is quickly forthcoming, an important educational factor in the general musical life of our country is in grave danger of being lost."

Perhaps it is true that the expense cannot be met by the university officially, but it ought to be so met. Our universities bring professors of Greek poetry from the other side of the Atlantic. They ought to appropriate at least a small sum of money for the development of an appreciation of the best in music among their students. Nevertheless the committee should be supported in its work by lovers of music in all parts of the country. Contributions may be sent to the treasurer, Mrs. George Montgomery Tuttle, 103 East Seventy-fifth Street, New York City, who will also doubtless send information about this unique movement in American education to any who be interested.

may

LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT.

V

TERILY, the story of Rheims is the story of a resurrection, and the part that this little American Memorial Hospital has taken in it is very, very large. Immediately after the armistice the little band of hospital workers maintained on the front by our Women's Overseas Hospitals came back over the battle-line, establishing, in co-operation with the American Fund for French Wounded, relief stations for returning prisoners and the scattered inhabitants, who at once began flocking back to their shattered towns.

Following along the line, they came to the once rich and beautiful city of Rheims, now only heaps of rubbish and gaping walls. Here the celebrated champagne cellars had afforded not only a headquarters for the French troops but also shelter for a number of the inhabitants, and these, after the armistice, had come out to the light of day worn, half starved, and nerve-shattered, to find homes and possessions gone, families scattered or wiped out, and misery and confusion everywhere.

Dirty, weary, and footsore, they sought their home sites and patiently set about clearing the débris in the hope of finding at least a cellar fit for shelter. You can imagine what happened-the unexploded shells and ammunition that were encountered and

inadvertently exploded, the tottering walls that were undermined and shaken down, and the gas pockets that were opened, allowing their poisonous contents to escape. Hundreds were being killed and injured daily. The city's hospital buildings were so badly wrecked and the staffs so depleted and overworked as to make it impossible for them to meet more than an infinitesimal part of the demands upon them, and our little band decided that here they must stay, where the need was so great-if a building could be improvised for their work! One rubbish heap after another was inspected, until was reached the broken-walled and roofless quadrant of the ancient Monastery and Hospital of St. Marcoul, built in 1645,

and later added to and known as the Hôpital Noël Caque.

It would be difficult to imagine this city without the American Memorial Hospital, and, realizing this, the American Fund for French Wounded has raised a fund to be devoted to the erection of a permanent hospital in Rheims as a memorial to our men who died in France. It will be a very small hospital, out of all proportion to our wealth and greatness as a nation, and to our love and gratitude to those men; but it will be of far more use than a monument, and the city is very grateful. The pity of it is that the fund is not large enough to acquire the land on which to place the hospital. Each hospital bed is to be maintained in perpetuity by an endowment made by a friend or relative of some young American who gave his life in France. How many mothers would be glad to contribute the land by making a thank-offering, according to their means, for the safe return of their sons! If you can imagine a population of nearly 80,000, nine-tenths of whom are living in cellars, corners of shattered buildings, or temporary huts not much larger than those used in our streets for workmen's tools and shelters, you may have some idea of the Rheims of to-day and the staggering proposition this city faces with courage and even cheerfulness,

On June 1, 1920, the doors of the temporary quarters of the American Memorial Hospital at Rheims had been open one year. During that period 922