that brings a sudden fear. There are moments

when beauty has a terror.

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning,

Fair as the moon,

Clear as the sun,

Terrible as an army with banners?
I went down into the garden of nuts
To see the green plants of the valley,
To see whether the vine budded,
And the pomegranates were in flower.
Or ever I was aware my soul set me
Among the chariots."

What does all this mean? The youthful Puritan does not know. But he is glad that the elders of the church had not been able to take all the poetry out of the Bible.

The modern critic expounds the tenets of the new school of the Imagists. We listen sympathetically to the doctrine that poetry should appeal to the senses in a series of vivid images each one of which is its own excuse for being. Then we ask, Where is a poem more perfect in this kind than the ancient "Song of Songs"? Imagistic poetry is not the only kind, but it is one kind, and it is very good when it is well done. The modern poet in his self-conscious moods may be irritated when he is reminded that the

season's novelties are not so new as he may have imagined. Fashions of the day are reminiscent of days gone by. But on the other hand in those happy moments, when with his singing robes upon him he goes out into the sunshine, it is a delight to find himself one of an ancient and honorable company of those whose newness of spirit is perennial. It is a pleasure to him to think of a reader who, coming for the first time upon his book, says, "That reminds me."

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

I TAKE for granted that we have a mother tongue, and that it is English. It may please us to speak now and then of the American language, but this little pleasantry does not blind us to the nature of our inheritance. The designation "English" has nothing to do with present-day political or racial distinctions. The most fervent Irish Republican speaks English when he wishes to be understood by his fellow countrymen. The fact that the people in Oklahoma or in South Africa may have idioms unknown to Oxford is immaterial. The English language is what the English-speaking peoples of the earth are making it.

I sympathize with the multitude of teachers who are trying to induce young Americans to honor their mother tongue. They have to meet and overcome all sorts of opposition. In the case of a foreign language, the pupil's mind is without prejudice. If the teacher lays down a rule, it' is accepted without question. But in regard to his own language, which he has learned at his

mother's knees, he is conservative. The small boy had been speaking the language as long as he can remember, and he is not in the mood to welcome innovations. He is well aware that, if he were to imitate the teacher's peculiarities of speech outside the classroom, he would become an object of the ridicule of his peers. He therefore becomes bilingual.

Language is singularly free from the autocratic sway of the schoolmaster. The usage of the home and the street has far greater authority. Any aberration from this is always looked upon with suspicion. Any strange or unusual expressions drawn from books are tabooed by the young politician with his ear to the ground. Language to him is a means of communication with his fellows, and not a fine art cultivated for art's sake. He does not wish to dazzle or confound his friends, but only to make himself understood in a way that is agreeable to them.

The small boy is essentially right, and the sooner the teacher of English accepts this point of view and improves upon it the better. Language is simply a means of communication between one mind and another. It is a medium for the exchange of thought and feeling. The es

sential thing is that there should be something to communicate, and that there should be as little waste in the process as possible.

The great difficulty comes when the teacher forgets what language is and treats it as if it were an end in itself. He becomes interested in the vain effort to express accurately and beautifully something that isn't there. Words disconnected with thoughts are like irredeemable paper money.

In pointing out mistakes in popular language, such a teacher does small service if he does not realize that the most correct sentence is a failure if it fails to convey a vivid impression of what was in the speaker's mind. It is not a case where "to be dull is construed to be good."

In an advertisement of a Chiropractors' School I came across this definition of disease:

"Thus you see disease to the chiropractor is not something from the outside that somehow gets inside, but rather it is something (a vibration from the outside) that cannot get inside, or something from the inside (a functional impulse) that is imprisoned and cannot reach the outside to which it was sent."

I am not a chiropractor and do not know how far this formula explains the mysteries of path