III

But what I have been trying to show by reference to our growing philosophy of power is that the task of these technicians, when they try to move us the first step toward scientific control of our international conduct, will be complicated by our tendency to rationalize our national situation into a working theory. When a physicist inquires into the behavior of iron under the influence of heat, he wisely omits any consideration of purposes or motives in either metal or vibration. The iron submits to experiment; and when the technician takes hold the iron submits to use. But in politics, although the scientist may get at truth with his quantitative methods, the technicians will not find that the human material out of which political machines must be made is so impersonally submissive. The question of values, of what goals are to be arrived at, will enter into the behavior of the material.

The establishment of a school which will make the attempt at scientific control of politics is cheering news. But it is not too much to say that politics, international affairs as well as domestic, will always require an irreducible minimum of art for its

solution. Politics is a matter of conduct; and conduct, even for an omniscient being, would still be a matter of art. Mr. Young cites an apposite example of political ineptitude. He says we learned something of psychology from the Washington Disarmament Conference. But, as he says, 'a few months later, without careful study, without many facts, without restraint, either in act or word, without politeness, the Congress of the United States passes an immigration law under such circumstances as to offend the pride and dignity of a great nation in the Pacific, a nation with which we have every reason to live in peace and friendship.'

But is it to be supposed that any number of facts would have brought the wisdom of tact into that unhappy transaction?

It comes down to this: all that is generously projected is good, but the technicians that the new school turns out, armed with scientific truth, will be compelled to acquire the art of public persuasion. The first great practical results will not be obtained until they have successfully acquired that art and have used it to establish effective machinery without losing thereby the science which justifies their bid for political control.

ANSER MATER

EVEN before those oversexed persons, the Freudians, divested the dreaming of dreams of the last shred of good repute left to that frequent yet flagrant practice, it was the rule of many wellconducted breakfast-tables, our own included, to taboo the recital of visionary adventures, not as damning evidence of depravity, but as unutterably childish twaddle. Why, then, do I wrong my training by publicly reviving a certain slumberous experience of last June, save to show, with our old friend Cicero, that dreams are in general images of things that men in waking hours have known? Listen to the provocation- what the psychoanalytic fellows call the 'stimuli' — of one summer day, and then to the resulting 'dream-stuff' of the ensuing night. Deeproot University'dear old Deeproot' is only a stone's throw from my home. (I know that to be the exact distance, for I sometimes throw stones at its towers.) So on June the sixteenth last, in the stifling company of the many-headed monster, I stewed on the benches of its ancient auditorium, erected in Cleveland's second consulship, and drowsed through the protracted fever of its fortieth Commencement. There is little doubt, however, that I was fully awake during the conferring of honorary degrees, for I remember marking with especial unction the pungent contrast between the ostensible virtues of the candidates, portrayed in pretty cameos, and the traits of the men as I knew them on the street. While they bent their forms under the heavy weight of

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hooded honors, I punctured each with a pointed epithet of my own: 'Oleaginous' Ole Petersen, and 'festering' Festus Skinner, and 'Grab-all' Grimball, all LL. D.'s; and 'holy' Willie Wilkins, D. D.

'For heaven's sake,' asked the man in the next seat, 'why are they giving Willie a degree?'

'For heaven's sake,' I answered.

It is necessary for the understanding of the coming dream to add that, dazed by all this academic moonshine, I tottered home, and regained my wonted poise only after reading 'Mother Goose' aloud to my grandchildren.

Then came night, when 'wicked dreams abuse the curtain'd sleep.' Meseemed that, across vividly green spaces and through shrubbery fragrant with June, I with many others hurried to a hall of collegiate Gothic, in the lofty gable of which were deeply carved the legend 'Anser Mater' and beneath it this couplet, so suggestive of academic relations and reflections:

When the rain raineth, and the goose winketh, Little wotteth the gosling what the goose thinketh.

Squeezing into the crowded auditorium, I crept into a corner where I could both see and hear. The strident syllables issuing from craning necks, and mingling with hoarse cackling and heavy rustling, proclaimed the full flood of the tide of this Anserine Commencement. On the stage suddenly appeared figures at once strange and familiar, creatures remote from my daily round of life, and yet the intimates of my childhood and, only a few hours since, the inmates of my thought. And I knew in a flash that the worthies

of youth's wonderworld were to be honored with the degrees for which they had waited too long.

Madam President, herself the incarnation of Anser Mater, whose features under the peaked cap bespoke a soaring mind at home in those cloudlands through which, in her bestknown portraits, she sails in supreme dominion, advanced to the front of the stage and faced with impressive dignity the candidates that her own muse had made famous. I had expected the dame to speak in wonted verse, but her eulogies were couched in a sonorous prose which possessed the double merit of according perfectly with the name and the character of the goose-goddess and of maintaining fully the traditions of such tributes. Her first compliments were paid to 'the Three Wise Men of Gotham, who went to sea in a bowl': 'Scholarly citizens of no mean city, natives of the world, denizens of the universe, and sons of this University, intrepid adventurers in uncharted seas, following knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bounds of human thought.' For obvious reasons these degrees were conferred in absentia by the University, which was, it seems, the residuary legatee of the Gotham mariners. Deafening applause and shouts in passable imitation of the English accent: 'Well bowled, sirs!'

Significantly enough, another good bowler, Old King Cole, was unanimously rejected by the Anserine trustees on account of notorious features of his home-life that had already been visited with the reprobation of the W. C. T. U. and the Anti-Nicotine Society. Anser Mater is nothing if not moral. Likewise 'the man who had naught,' and who escaped 'the robbers that came to rob him by running fourteen miles in fifteen days' was declared absolutely ineligible to a degree by the

collectors of 'the bigger, better Anserine' fund who had 'followed him up,' though his sprinting-record won for him the sympathetic support of many athletic alumni, who had covered the same distance when paced by the same collectors. The full vote of the Corporation had been unhesitatingly given, however, to another track-hero, 'the Crooked Man who went a crooked mile and found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.' He was glowingly praised not only for 'going' his famous mile under difficulties, but also for his acquisition along the way; and he moreover received due commendation for that curvature of body and of mind which had brought success to him and prestige to Anser Mater. As he arose to receive his honors he deliberately drew from his pocket a strangely shaped coin and placed it in the outstretched palm of the University treasurer.

The next notable was Thomas Piperson. 'Schooled in adversity in his youth (when he was known as "Tom the Piper's son"), indeed frustrated by violent enemies, who called him harsh names, in his early attempt to create a corner in the pork market, he was later eminently successful in leading both the human and porcine world of his day a merry dance and in making his hearers pay the piper.' To this 'joyous herald of jazz and beloved benefactor of the youth of every country' was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa. It was whispered in the audience that the University had generously offered to assist Dr. Piperson in his praiseworthy design 'to die poor.'

Anser Mater then demonstrated her interest in foreign talents, whether one or ten, by her hearty recognition of a Welsh gentleman named Taffy. It appeared from the soaring pœan upon his acquisitive powers that, with greater

success than his friend Piperson, he had made one or two daring ventures in beef and bone. He, also, had suffered wrong, even personal injury, from others. His head was 'bloody but unbowed,' as, stiffly erect, he received the plaudits of the multitude. I was informed that the beef and all the marrow from the bone were in the University larder.

The double degree of B. A. (Ba-a, ba-a) was conferred on Black Sheep, who was hardly distinguishable among the candidates, with the tacit understanding that the 'three bags of wool' be diverted from their present possessors to academic purposes. The double degree of M.A. (Mama) was given to the 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe' with aptly worded commendation of her 'lifelong warfare against race suicide and noteworthy achievements as dietitian and disciplinarian.' High praise was accorded her well-known treatise on "The Child at Close Range.' Shoe Hall, her gift to Anserine, would soon be open to subfreshmen. Three gentlemen of the name of Jack were honored with degrees, and a few minutes later announcements were made of their benefactions: the House that Jack built (to be used as College Commons), the fat and the lean uneaten by Jack Sprat and his Wife (here the degree seems to have been obtained under false pretenses and promises), and the tarts erstwhile in the possession of the Knave (Jack) of Hearts. Delighted cackles of greedy anticipation from all the children of Anser Mater! And then the insubstantial pageant faded, leaving not a quack behind.

THE POWWOW DOCTOR DESPITE the dullness of monotony, some who dwell in quiet places never lose their sense of strangeness in famil

iar things. These are the wise women and seers of their neighborhoods, for whom the unknown lurks just around the corner or under the nearest bush.

In a certain Pennsylvania valley lived, not so many years ago, a woman who saw the world in this fashion. There was no sharp line for her between the seen and the unseen, and by virtue of this second sight she was the 'powwow doctor' of her community. An old man disputed the title with her, but his was an evil magic, invoked only to 'overlook' an enemy's field, or to make eggs cease in his henhouse and milk in his stalls. Old Barbara Kulp had never been known to 'put a hex' on anything, although no one doubted that she could if she so desired. The neighbors came to her to unspell their cattle and lift the blight from their fields. When she passed a thread of scarlet silk about a festering thumb and then burned the thread among the ashes on her hearth, to the accompaniment of muttered words, relief was sure to follow. Blood which flowed stubbornly from a sickle-cut stopped quickly when she charmed.

Yet there was nothing of the visionary about her, despite her reputed powers. The blood of generations of sturdy peasants ran in her veins, and if it bred visions they were kin to the warm earth. Her small white house, perched upon a high bank beside the road, had the marks of centuries of German cottages. The inner sanctum, open only on great days, held the final product of her creative spirit-a curiosity jar. Once it had been a mere fruit jar like any other, holding pears and plums. Then it had taken to itself a coat of putty, on which the flotsam of generations had come to rest. There were square-rimmed spectacles, thimbles open at both ends, candle-snuffers, flattened bullets, acorns, broken scissors, and army buttons from two wars. The

whole was gilded brilliantly and set upon the parlor table, an unconscious symbol, in that room of funerals, of the immortal commonplace.

In the yard the last draw-well of the countryside bubbled under its sheltering roof. About it, and in rows along the narrow path that led to the front door, grew coxcomb, larkspur, petunias, and kings'-crowns. The rose-red tomatoes which glowed in her July garden were her especial pride, for they were direct descendants of the first in the county. She told, with a chuckle, the story of those pioneers.

In her mother's day tomatoes were a wild and forbidden fruit, reputed poisonous to humankind. But the spirit of adventure was strong in Barbara's mother, and she planted a few seedlings of the despised weed in her garden. They flourished for a time, then one morning hung limply on the earth. The cutworm had done his deadly work overnight. Another planting went the same way, despite salt sown thickly on the ground, and a third took its place. Then, looking out to the garden before daybreak one August morning, the planter of tomatoes saw a man kneeling in the half-light, carefully severing each stalk with his penknife, just below the surface of the soil. Her husband was venturing no ventures with unknown fruits.

The neighborhood babies opened their blinking eyes in Barbara's accustomed arms, and she planned their futures according to her seeing. Her favorite belief was that a child would most deeply love whatever it held first. So she filled the hands of hour-old girls with pansies and thyme and feverfew, marigolds and tansy and bridal wreath, or sacrificed a treasured geranium-blossom in the wintertime. To her, perhaps, life was a kitchen garden, and God the Gardener, Who loved His plants.

GENTLEMAN WITH THE BRASS
CANDLESTICKS

IF I may give advice, through the indulgence of the Atlantic, to anybody tempted to carry to town a pair of brass candlesticks unwrapped, I shall feel that my recent ordeal has had value as public service.

To begin with, the cause of this embarrassment was innocence and beauty itself, combined in the gorgeous form and ravishing voice of a Kentucky cardinal. I woke as usual at quarter-past six. It's a heathenish hour to get up. It is impossible to bound energetically out of bed and begin the day conscientiously and methodically with heavenly music floating through the window. I lay enraptured exactly fifteen minutes, but it was enough to upset the first two hours of my daily schedule. I was late and rushed at everything I did. I got no breakfast. I tore out of the house and down the street and into the train, breathless, and bulging with a pair of three-branched brass candlesticks under my arm. There was no time to wrap them and I was to take them to town to be electrified. 'It's very simple to do,' my wife said. 'Your electrician, I know, will do it.'

They were very ceremonial and religious-looking candlesticks. I looked as if I had robbed an altar and was away, breathless, with the loot. Somebody said so. Of course all my friends in the train asked all about the candlesticks. The more imaginative tried little jokes, the witty were very witty, the dull were deadly. I thought, 'I shall be glad when this trip is over.' The brass candlesticks' evil work, however, had not begun! They were an inverted talisman.

When I reached town I decided not to subject myself to the intimacy of a street-car but to walk. The walk made me hungry and I began to want Childs'