N THE WORLD'S WORK for January Clayton Hamilton will discuss the Shakespearean revival that has recently swept the American stage. Skeptics have murmured, not without some small reason perhaps, that the pulmotor of art must be in the last stages of disrepair, such has been its continual and violent usage at the hands of Shakespearean revivalists every two years or so. He is, the skeptics aver, constantly in a state of revival. Booth, Mansfield, and Irving, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree-whom his youthful and brilliant brother Max failed to recognize in his beard, the time-honored hairiness of Shylock-and many others of less fortune and repute played the great parts in the closing decades of the Nineteenth Century. Stock companies for the last twenty years have been playing Shakespeare sporadically from coast to coast, earning now and again brief notices from dramatic critics and occasionally such thrusts as that which was levelled at the actor who in "Hamlet" played the King to an apparently appreciative audience. Mr. wrote a sufficiently wellknown critic, played the King all evening as though he was afraid some one else was going to play the ace.

Quite recently in New York, however, distinguished actresses whose successes were made in parts other than Shakespeare's, have given notable performances. Miss Cowl's Juliet was exquisite and curiously enough Miss Barrymore also

chose Juliet as a vehicle for her distinguished talent. And there was David Warfield's "Merchant of Venice" and Jack Barrymore's very wonderful “Hamlet." And Walter Hampden. To him is due this last and most brilliant revival, for Mr. Hampden has been playing Shakespearean parts for many years and has won in the face of indifference and non-appreciation a great name through the sheer merit of his performances. It has become impossible to be skeptical about Walter Hampden.

Rollin Lynde Hartt, whose two series on "When the Negro Comes North" and "The Habit of Getting Divorces" have appeared in the WORLD'S WORK during recent months, writes in the WORLD'S WORK for January the first article of a series on prohibition. We are apt to look upon the fanatic with a pensive eye and if possible tip our hats and move away. We are tired of rhetoric dealing with the rights of free-born Americans or the salvage of congenital drunkards. But we are interested in the actual facts of how the Eighteenth Amendment functions; whether it is doing so successfully or unsuccessfully and if so, why. We can do without the theory but we want the reality, and Mr. Hartt, who has been investigating this reality all over the country, will be well prepared to give us what we want.

Less than ten years ago bankers and brokers and the other people were picking up their newspapers and, after some minutes of perusing the war news, were asking in those well-known accents of command "Who is this chap Gibbs?" Not that he had not been in the public eye before 1915, this chap Gibbs, but it was when his were the despatches that were stirring people into the realization that after all something of terrific import was afoot, that his name became familiar to the many. Now Sir Philip Gibbs as an observer of world conditions and a writer needs no introduction whatever. In a coming issue of the WORLD'S WORK he will write of the problems of Europe, its conditions and developments, as his experienced eye and practiced pen have conceived them to be.

Certainly the bequests of the magnificent libraries of J. P. Morgan and of Henry E. Huntington to the nation were of the highest possible value in furthering throughout the country the cause of the liberal arts. Both libraries possess treasures that might otherwise have remained inviolate behind the locked doors of private ownership. Now these treasures are at the service of education and intelligent observation. The WORLD'S WORK has been fortunate enough to secure photographs hitherto unpublished of the Huntington Library at San Marino, California, among them facsimilies of some of its priceless manuscripts. They will appear in the January issue.

How clean is sport? But there are sports and sports. There are professional sports and amateur sports and, in a class by themselves, college sports. Very recently in a professional sport two mem

bers of a prominent baseball club were accused of corruption and deprived of their share in the World's Series money. And four years ago occurred the lamentable and ever to be regretted scandal that left another World's Series as mudbespattered as the principals of a recent Cabinet exposé.

Jack Dempsey once told us that, while boxing was usually honest, wrestling might often be practiced with an eye to illegal gain; but yet another and older pugilist admitted to having "taken one on the jaw" more times than once and collected to his profit. Amateur sports seem far more antiseptic, but there have been college teams accused of paying young men to play with them and colleges here and there whose athletes, it has been hinted, were drawn to them by offers of free tutelage and board. So who can tell? If any one, Walter Camp, who might well be called the dean of American athletics, is able to do so. He has his finger pretty well on the pulse of sport in general in this country. His article, How Clean is Sport," will appear in an early issue.

"Men Who Tithe," by William G. Shepherd, appeared in the WORLD'S WORK for July. Many people have written asking either for the names of those who have tithed to the generous development of their material and spiritual lives, or for a fuller exposition of the theory. The article has proved itself of genuine significance in a day when only a fortunate few are able to find in their beliefs sustenance for the spirit and courage for the direction of their lives. Mr. Connell contributes a valuable bit of appreciation and the points he makes are of real interest.

To the Editor, WORLD'S WORK.

Sir: I wish to express great appreciation

of the recent article in WORLD'S WORK ON "Men Who Tithe." Just now it is a wholesome sign of the times to observe a so-called

secular magazine turning attention to such a subject as tithing.

A few years since, inspired by the Centenary Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church and kindred enterprises in other denominaChristian Stewardship in the Church papers. tions, much space was given to the subject of At the present time the religious press is almost silent on that topic, with consequent woeful loss in income and greatly imperiled benevolent enterprises. I am wondering whether this is to prove another case in which the Church through neglect is to surrender a good thing to outside influences. This, as you know, has been characteristic of the Christian Church. Pre-occupation with theological controversy has resulted in neglect of duty and privilege in one direction after another, until outside movements of necessity have arisen to fill the

Why the many fraternal societies? The opening chapters of the Book of Acts make clear that the early Church was a perfectly satisfying brotherhood. William Booth was the truest son of John Wesley of the past hundred years, but found it necessary to organize the Salvation Army because Wesley's followers had lost their founder's passion for

the down-and-out classes.

The rise of the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. testify to the neglectful attitude of the denominational bodies toward the physical and social requirements of young men and women.

Christian Science is here because mentally sick folks were not taught by the organized Church to realize the physical benefits that belong to a robust Christian faith.

Philanthropic foundations spring up outside the Church because a philanthropically visionless Church offers no medium through which to carry on such humanitarian work on a great scale.

"Partnership with God" is a doctrine that of right belongs to the Church. I am wondering if history is about to repeat itself and this good thing to be so neglected by organized Christianity that men must needs learn its practice elsewhere. Verily "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."

I assure you that such articles as "Men Who Tithe" and WORLD'S WORK editorial comments are appreciated more than religious editors are aware.

GEO. S. CONNELL.