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she became at once the friend nearest to my heart, the dearest and most understanding. It was her disinterested love for everything that enriched my life and filled me with that unconquerable strength of which I had so much need, to endure these trying times. The sudden reappearance of his mother, and her marriage to a nobleman younger than herself, did not improve matters. Soon wearying of his wife, the step-father covered her with blows and one day kicked her on the breast in the presence of her son, who, in a frenzy of anger, tried to kill him. Such was the family life which Gorky knew during the first ten years of his life, a sordid medley of drink and blows, relieved by periods of repentance, beatings of the breast, and frantic invocations of Heaven.

I seem to myself during my childhood [Gorky writes], to have been like one of those beehives in which rough and uncultivated people store the honey of their experience and their knowledge of life, generously enriching my soul according to their means. Often the honey was bitter and impure, but none the less, knowledge is always a prize.

One summer he built himself a little shelter in the garden, where he spent the nights and where he was wakened by the birds in the morning. Of this period he writes:

All the nuances, the sounds, filtered like dew into my breast, such a great and peaceful joy, that the desire filled me to rise at once, to work and live in harmony with the beings who surrounded me. That summer was the calmest and most contemplative period of my life; it was at this time that the feeling of confidence in my own powers was born in me and grew stronger in me.

Further on in his book Gorky ventures some penetrating criticism on the mind of the Russian, and sets forth his reasons for describing his early miseries:

Long afterward I learned that Russians, compelled to live a life of poverty, seek for

sorrow as a distraction. They amuse themselves that way; like children, they take pleasure in it, and it is a very rare thing for them to have any shame about being unhappy. . . .

In recalling these unthinkable abominations, which are so characteristic of Russian life, I ask myself sometimes whether it would be better to speak no, further of them. But I reply to myself with the new assurance that it is necessary, for it is the truth, living though vile, which even to-day is not realized. The truth must be known, down to its very bases, that we may uproot from the memories of men even the memory of the horrors which soil all Russian life. . . . It is not only because bestial mud is so rich and productive among us that our life is remarkable, but also because pure and wholesome and fertile things are beginning to burst their way through these obstacles. In spite of everything, generous sentiments are growing, and there is unquenchable hope for our arrival in a life of humanity and light.

MORE OF MRS. ASQUITH'S DIARY SPEAKING at a dinner in his honor just after he had received his baronetcy on the last honors list, Sir William Berry announced that the Sunday Times next year will publish another installment of Mrs. Asquith's diary. Sir William referred to the publication of the now famous first part of the diary as an example of the necessity of extreme caution on the part of the journalist.

By the vast majority [said he], the memoirs are read with interest, but they meet with severe condemnation by those who would apparently have us believe that dullness is an essential part of respectability and responsibility.

For myself, I am quite unrepentant, and I gladly seize this opportunity of announcing that we hope to make life more interesting in these Isles next year by publishing the second volume of Mrs. Asquith's Memoirs. Further and more detailed particulars will, of course, appear later.

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THE LIVING AGE

NUMBER 4027

SEPTEMBER 10, 1921

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

BRITISH COMMERCIAL OPTIMISM THE London Saturday Review congratulates its readers that America's visions of commercial world-conquest and the despondency of British commercial circles a year ago have proved equally unfounded.

Neither in international finance, nor on the oceans, nor in the sphere of foreign trade has the United States displaced Great Britain. A bill on London is to-day, as it was before the war, the foremost instrument of world-commerce. The American merchant navy is little more than an illimitable wreck. . . . The truth probably is that it would be exceedingly difficult to point to any American group or section or industry that is to-day better off because of the war; while many of its most formidable reactions here pressed upon the United States with a severity unknown to any of the European belligerents.

Nowhere else, while the war lasted, was the mechanism of agricultural and industrial production geared to so high a pitch or with such absolute disregard of costs. Nowhere else, accordingly, has the jolt of peace been felt with such disintegrating sharpness. Moreover, as the supreme producer of the staple foodstuffs and raw materials, America has been peculiarly hit by the fall in the price of commodities and the collapse of the European purchasing power.

This journal contrasts with its picture of conditions in the United States

the following summary of the situation in Great Britain:

What has enabled us in Great Britain to meet the competition of Americans in international finance, in the carrying trade, and in foreign commerce, at a time when the superficial advantages seemed to favor them and to be against us, has been above all things the commercial experience of our financial and industrial leaders, their familiarity with the worn channels of trade, their character, prestige, and cosmopolitan outlook. These are assets that nothing can take away from us, and so long as we retain them and do not by foolish legislation deny them a free range of action, the national recovery is assured. It is only in money that we are poorer by the war. Otherwise we are not nearly so exhausted as it is fashionable to make out. Every week that passes adds something indeed to the conviction that our salvation lies in our own hands, and that failure or success depends on what we do ourselves, and not on what is done to us by others.

The London Outlook also takes a fling at our ponderous and unprofitable merchant marine. It observes:

Our American friends, who appreciate a joke against themselves, will not be too much annoyed at the smiles that appear on the faces of British shipping magnates when the United States Shipping Board is mentioned.

The Statist likewise believes that the United States is in no sounder business

Copyright 1921, by The Living Age Co.

condition than the thriftier European nations. We have not yet learned to obey the economic laws which it is compulsory for a powerful creditor nation to observe.

There are two ways only which a great creditor nation, as our experience has shown, can build up a great foreign trade. We adopted first one and then the other, and found it finally more prudent to combine both. The one is, to invest upon an enormous scale in new and backward countries, and thus create a market for certain products of the investing country. Has the United States the mobilizable capital available, which she can spare from her own country for such a purpose? The other is, to admit imports with the utmost freedom from her creditors. She need not fear the killing of any of her own industries that have real stability. The gradual recovery of her creditors will itself create a great market for American products.

ITALY'S SCHOOL PROBLEMS ITALY, like the United States, finds a school crisis added to the innumerable other crises for which she holds the war responsible. Teachers' salaries are no longer sufficient to support them. Educational standards for teachers and pupils alike were lowered during the war. Children ran wild to some extent during that period, with serious effects upon school discipline. Pupils' strikes have become the vogue.

On the other hand, intellectual interests, in both the teaching profession and the student body, have been stimulated and broadened by the war and the succeeding crisis.

All this has strengthened the demand for school reform. The appointment of Benedetto Croce as Minister of Public Instruction under Giolitti was largely a concession to this demand. The Church, which has been practically excluded from a voice in school matters for years, is reasserting its

claim to participate in this field of the State's activities. There are already many Catholic schools in Italy, taught for the most part by ecclesiastics who receive little or no salary.

On the other hand, the state teachers are solidly opposed to any encroachment by the Church upon the exclusively lay character of the schools, and their organizations have passed resolutions opposing any change in that direction.

Croce, while not popular with politicians or Parliament, was able to carry out several reforms. He established 2000 new primary schools, increased the powers of the local school authorities, lengthened the school year, raised the standards of the teaching profession by enlisting the services of educated people, previously otherwise employed, simplified courses of study, increased the strictness of supervision, and sought to economize on unnecessary and largely ornamental expenditures. He was not a partisan of the so-called religious schools.

A NEGRO CONGRESS

SOON after the armistice a Negro Congress was held at Paris, where many matters of importance to the black race were discussed, and a set of resolutions was adopted. A second congress is about to be held at Brussels. Negro members of the French Chamber of Deputies are taking the initiative in this meeting. M. Diagne represents Senegal, and M. Candace is a member from Guadeloupe. In fact, under the French flag, black men possess and exercise precisely the same political rights as white men. Consequently, it is anticipated that the congress, which promises to be largely under French influence, will devote its attention to the political status of the black race in other countries, the United States

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