The author of this book has made a study of an aspect of American life which will be novel to most English readers. She was fortunate enough to be able to visit representative specimens of every variety of higher educational centre—and in America there are many varieties. Being fresh from the life of Newnham College, she was peculiarly alert to note the points in which they resembled and differed from the corresponding institutions in England; and she has traced with remarkable shrewdness the resulting effects, not only in respect to education in the narrower sense, but on individual character, and in the form of influences, subtle and far-reaching, on social development. She had the advantage of meeting the students on an equal footing, and so gained many opportunities of seeing things as they are which an ‘educational expert’ of higher standing and authority could not have enjoyed. But Miss Bowden Smith is herself an educational expert in a very real sense, and readers of her comprehensive and sympathetic survey will feel that they have gained a quite new insight into the character of the American people.

These lectures differ from others delivered on Pastoral Theology at Cambridge in the extent to which they emphasise the opportunities of social service which are open to the clergy, and the importance of utilizing them—a subject in which their author has had great experience through his intimate connection with industrial life and working-class organizations. That this aspect of clerical life is pre-eminently the one which needs to be brought before candidates for Holy Orders at the present time is the general opinion of those who would see the social re-organization which is now taking place dominated by spiritual rather than by materialistic ideals. There are six lectures, entitled: What is the Church and what are its Duties?—Equipment for the Work—Reading, Preaching and Speaking—Agencies Outside the Church which are Working for Social Redemption—The Church and Charity—The Church as Teacher and Inspirer of Education.

This is the story of a partie carrée, two men and two women (one of each is American, the other English), the threads of whose lives become interwoven, owing to a chance meeting in an hotel. How will they pair off? This is the problem: now one solution seems inevitable, now another. As the plot develops two of the dramatis personæ stand revealed as irredeemably ordinary, weak, egoistic; two as self-reliant, noble, and capable of clear-eyed self-sacrifice. Ultimately the determining factor is character, which proves stronger than the chains of circumstance. It is comedy, but serious comedy, and the situations towards the close have a poignancy of which Miss Sedgwick alone possesses the secret.

Every page of this powerful and original novel is fragrant with the fresh mountain air of the Fells. What Thomas Hardy has done for the people of Wessex, Miss Jenkinson aims with considerable success at doing for the Northern Dalesmen. ‘Silverwool’ is a prize ram, and the action of the story to some extent centres round his fortunes in the show-ground, affording the author scope for some very interesting studies of country life and character. The situations are excellent, the characters well-drawn, and the style literary and charming.

This story deals with life in an English village of the southern counties. It concerns itself chiefly with an old couple in an old cottage, their ‘hidy-holes,’ their relations with each other, and with a runaway waif, who becomes their lodger: also with the fortunes in love and luck of handsome Robert Burn, the Warrener; and with the local wise woman and her ‘lawful arts.’ It is impossible to do justice to the charm and skill of the story in a mere outline. The waif, Phil White, is admirably drawn, so are the old Dallins. There is a delicate strength in the picture of Jane Dallin, which will be appreciated by every reader.