goods for cooler weather, to the intense indignation of all the youthful inhabitants. The only result of the protest had been that the officious stranger had been serenaded the whole night long by concerts of horns interspersed with interludes of fireworks. Nervous housewives had sat up all night, in the hope of detecting the first faint odor of burning wood, and giving the alarm in time. The select-men had gathered round the step of the store the State was "prohibition," and there was no more convivial meeting-place-to discuss the general situation, and be ready to deal with any features of it that seemed to call for interference. The sheriff got out his dark-lantern and patrolled the boarded side-walks, outwardly, a terror to youthful mischief-makers, inwardly, a prey to wild apprehensions as to what "the boys" might perpetrate if they caught him in a lonely block. In the end, however, it had all gone off peacefully enough. The bell of the old academy-no longer the centre of higher education since the high school was built in the town on the main line -had rung out as cheerily as when it called the boys and girls of two generations ago to their studies. The horns had made night hideous, and the squibs and torpedoes had scared the bats and the night-birds without doing any more damage. In the morning the village green had been the scene of a fiercely contested game of baseball-"Married v. Single." The play was vigorous rather than scientific, but no spectators could have been more enthusiastic than the wives and sweethearts who gathered under a shady maple on the grass-grown platform round the only stone building in the village. Its tiny, heavily barred windows and great iron door survived to recall its original use as county gaol, when in the old days the wide coachingroad had run through the county town on its way along the bread upland ridge. To-day all the traffic moves down in the valley where the long trains of cars go rambling north to Montreal and south to Boston. Prisoners are no longer kept in the old county town. Gay vines drape the uncompromising squareness of the stone walls, the shingled roof has been gaily painted, a gilded dome gives it an air of jaunty distinction, and the interior has been turned into a public library. It had made a charming background for the groups of women in their light summer dresses, and the solid walls were a good sounding-board for the alternate outbursts of "toots" from matrons and maidens, as they hailed the triumphs of their respective champions. As the day grew warmer and warmer, interest in the game had seemed to flag, and by twos and threes the spectators had sauntered home for "noon." By four o'clock the green was once more filling up. Wagons were driving in from the neighboring farms and being hitched to surrounding trees and palings. The audience, for the most part displaying a flag or the colors, took their seats on the benches which had been set under the maples in front of the old church. The four slender wooden pillars of the portico, the graceful lines of the pediment and the airy belfry, are said to have been designed by one of Wren's pupils. At the corner of the opposite block was one of the earliest mansions of the settlement, and beside it the low shanty which had been the office of its first lawyer. To the side of the church, another old house faced the green, and its display of American and Spanish flags betokened the residence of the local hero -one who had fought his country's battles and was well qualified to take a prominent part in the day's proceedings. The band had driven up in a haywagon, decorated with boughs of birch and fir, and, using it as their band stand, played patriotic selections be tween the addresses which were delivered by the editor of the local paper, the Baptist minister, the local hero-an admiral-the Universalist minister, and that Episcopal visitor who had incurred the resentment of "the boys" by "butting in" to interfere with their fireworks. The proceedings were opened with the solemn reading of the Declaration of Independence-a document it would do the British no harm to listen to now and again. It is enlightening to hear the epithets used to describe the conduct and character of "our Most Gracious Sovereign Lord, King George III.," and to realize how the English of the eighteenth century-men, too, who prided themselves on being sons and upholders of freedom and lovers of justice struck their contemporaries on the Atlantic seaboard. One has a lurking suspicion that the British character, as drawn in the vigorous language of the famous Declaration, read as it is in every American community on every recurring Independence Day, underlies the American view of Great Britain even to this day. Power the future lay, to some extent at least, on the great waters. He had ended with a capital description of "the Fourth" on board a war-ship, the discipline and executive control of which seemed to grate on the nerves of the Universalist minister, whose really fierce oration had been a masterly exposition of the text, "It is better for a man to misrule himself than to be well governed by any one else." The speeches on the Fourth of July are a valuable opportunity for airing political views, which the near approach of a Presidential Election does not render any the less acute. The speakers vied with one another, not only in singing the virtues and glories of their native land, but in expressing that horror of "Socialism"-i.e., central control of corporations-that dread of the overweening influence of any one individual-President Roosevelt has been publicly alluded to as "Theodore Rex"that anxiety lest more centralization should mean the encroachment upon jealously guarded State-rights which seem to constitute the most cherished convictions of the good Democrat. After the whole assembly had joined in singing "The Star Spangled Banner," it adjourned to the side of the church. where public-spirited ladies had provided lemonade to refresh patriotic throats. As the horses were hitched to and the children packed into the wagons, some kindly spirits sought out the one Britisher present, evidently fearing she might be feeling a bit badly. "I was just tickled to death.” the Admiral's wife had remarked, "to see you sitting here listening to the old Declaration. English After this historic opening the audience had settled down to consider more modern aspects of the national life. The Admiral, smart and dapper in his white uniform, gave a bright little sketch of the progress of the Navy in his own times. When he had joined, the crews had been almost entirely recruited from foreign-born men. It was so rare to find a really Englishspeaking sailor, that a bo'sun, who was a bit of a wag, had once nailed on the mainmast the notice, "No spoken aft of this." This was all changed now; the Navy had grown, and was taking a more prominent part in the public eye; the Glo'ster fishermen were coming in to the Service, and the American people were beginning to realize that even for a Continental You just mustn't take it to heart, you know. We like the British all right now, I guess." "You mustn't think we bear you any ill-will," another friend added. "What that Declaration really means is that our two countries are at peace now and they're going to remain so." The afternoon had closed with one last, more intimate act of celebration. In the old home of the family that had given its name to the town, hangs, amongst other old-time relics, a musket which has been fired with much ceremony, and some trepidation, every Fourth of July since 1775. That memorable year it was not used. When the levies were called out its owner had shouldered it, only to have it refused by the colonel as too old-fashioned and dangerous to be carried against the enemy. The valuable old flint-lock, had, indeed, been imported in 1689. At the present day, every "Fourth," as it recurs, is expected to be its last. It is given a very small charge, and the trigger is pulled by a string from a safe distance; but year by year it flashes out its defiance of British tyranny, consoling itself may-be for the forced inactivity of the actual war years. natural to Jonathan to seize the psychological significance of a commemoration, and to run its social and ethical opportunities for all they are worth; nor does he feel ashamed to express his emotions, or to call upon his fellows to share them. In his vast country, where the enormous distances and new conditions, make for untrammelled individualism, he delights in association of all sorts and for all purposes. He rejoices in objectifying latent forces and inspirations. Students are initiated into "Fraternities" with secret rites, and hold high festival at stated intervals. Aristocratic tendencies embody themselves in the Society of Colonial Dames; Democratic, in that of the Sons and Daughters of the Revolution. The Civil War works out its inner meaning through the League of the Grand Army of the Republic. The birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, the Father and the Saviour of their country, keep before the whole school population the things those heroes stood for. With John the case is very different. If he does happen really to experience an emotion, he is very unwilling to express it in public, and he is very apt to pretend that he does not see anything to make a fuss about. When this formidable weapon had been duly discharged the last "stunt" of the day was over, and the firingparty retired to the meadow to cool off. The stars sparkled in the clear sky, and the fireflies flashed about the bushes, when one of the group embarrassed the Britisher by asking, "What are your national holidays?" It was terribly humiliating to have to confess that we had none; that Bank Holidays had no patriotic associations; that the King's Birthday was purely a matter for "the Services," and that well-meant efforts to introduce Empire Day celebrations met with callous indifference even where they did not encounter active opposition. The faint expression of astonished incredulity on the face of the inquirer, coming after the varied impressions of the day, brought home once more, to the Britisher, the conviction that John Bull and Cousin Jonathan have grown very far apart from each other during their two-and-a-half cen- stinct which preserved the Hebrew turies of independent life. It is so Perhaps, forced to live at such close quarters, the individual finds his only safeguard in resenting all attempts at close social action. Perhaps, again, the past has been too full to admit of the selection of national heroes or national events which should really sway the sentiment of the whole people. There are enthusiasts who place wreaths on certain monuments on special days, but the crowd takes no notice, or passes with a grin. On the whole the balance of advantage seems to lie on the side of the festival. It was a true and deep in Passover and set the Hebrew children asking generation after generation, "What mean ye by this service?" Reserve and economy of emotional expression is good, but emotions which never find expression are not likely to become strong sentiments, the motive power of heroic action. To American thought the festival lends a desirable charm and significance to life, and is specially valuable in its educational influence upon the young. In the public schools, Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays, Arbor Day, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving are widely commemorated. Their gaiety and associations are not excluded even from the reformatories. "It is by these commemorations," says Mr. Percival Chubb. of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, "as by nothing else, that we can feel in the young those emotions of admiration, reverence, and love which are the fundamental forces in education as in life. It is thus that we can develop-unconsciously, of course that underlying consciousness of kind, of human solidarity, of co-operative unity, which may offset the crude and narrow individualism that everywhere menaces us." Of all national holidays none is more distinctively and delightfully American than Thanksgiving Day. It was the first spontaneous social expression of the feeling of the whole community, and such to a great extent it still remains. Christmas Day was one of the Popish superstitions put down by Puritanism and has only taken its place once more in Protestant Churches as the old fear and hatred of Rome have subsided. The associations of the English Harvest Home were not such as the Pilgrims would wish to preserve. In the middle of November, when the crops have been gathered in, a national commemoration combines the home and family note, characteristic of the Old-World Christmas, with the religious aspect of the Harvest Festival; raised now, by the President's message, from a merely local and agricultural to a national significance. In the third week of November, a Proclamation is issued jointly by the President and the State Governor, calling on all citizens to return thanks for the mercies vouchsafed to the nation during the past year. The Roman Church alone, it is said, holds aloof from any public recognition by some form of Divine Service, and in every home, absent members and lonely neighbors gather round the festive board. Even the "stranger within the gates" will surely find some hospitable acquaintance who will not suffer him to be all alone on Thanksgiving. The continuous celebration since that first terrible autumn, when only the discovery of an abandoned Indian store of grain had saved the community from starvation. renders it instinct with historical association. The roast turkey and cranberry sauce speak of the freshly exploited resources of the new home. The pies-mince, apple and pumpkinrecall the festal fare of the old country. Conversation flows naturally in the direction of the past. Some one in the party is sure to have had a Pilgrim ancestor or to be descended from the last survivor of an Indian massacre. Local legends and history carry thought back to the first days of farm or township. Stories of the Civil War and the Colored People and the Immigrant raise national problems and surmisings as to what may take place before next Thanksgiving. In church the preacher will base his discourse on the Presidential Proclamation. To American ears it may read as a "noble and modest utterance." but the "stranger within the gates" may perchance smile at this description when he gets hold of the day's paper, and finds that the nation is represented by the man in the parable to whom ten talents were entrusted. The President might have his misgivings on some points, but on that, at least, he would lay his bottom dollar. On second thoughts even the stranger may come to the conclusion that simple downright recognition of facts is better than a false modesty which blushes to state the convictions it cherishes most firmly. There is, after all, something very striking and attractive about these truly national holidays, bringing the same message to the smallest shanty as to the White House itself, initiating the child and the newly arrived immigrant into the fuller knowledge and appreciation of their glorious heritage. It may be impossible to evolve, to order, fit occasions for the expression and deepening of the national self-consciousness. Christmas and Good Friday, where still observed, have lost their religious significance for those for whom they are merely holidays, and it would seem undesirable to most of those for whom they are still "holy-days" to confuse them with anything extraneous, even if of a national character. The The National Review. Bank Holidays are mere cessations in the constant weary round of toil, They bring no message beyond that of rest and enjoyment. The associations they accumulate are purely individual. Perhaps an arbitrary and artificial selection of suitable turning-points in the nation's history, of certain of its noblest heroes, would have defeated its own object. But unquestionably the people are the losers. The saints in the old calendar led lives too remote to be the inspiration of the masses of the modern world. The great figures of our own nation remain unknown, and no national holidays keep in the public view the lessons of the great historical anniversaries which mark turning-points in man's advance along the centuries. In the glare of local interests and the clash of party strife there is little opportunity for rousing the thought of the nation as a whole, whilst those who speak of that wider nationalism, which must include overseas Britain if the Empire is ever to rise to its high destiny, remain voices crying in the wilderness. A. Georgette Bowden-Smith. THE ART OF LIVING IN THE COUNTRY. If "life requires an art," it requires it much more in the country than in towns. We do not mean the art, which may certainly be acquired by any one, of understanding the ways of birds and beasts and flowers, but the art, infinitely more difficult, of getting on with one's fellow-men. We are thinking in particular of the relations of well-to-do newcomers in a district with the established population of poorer people. The newcomers have arrived, as it were, by right of conquest-the conquest of a longer purse but they have to placate the affections of the people over whom they hope in a sense to rule, every bit as much as he who conquers a country by force of arms has to win the consent of its inhabitants to his administration. The villagers, even though several of them may have been settled there but a short time, have an employment which explains and justifies their presence, and actually associates them with all the past history-in a word, with the genius of the place. They are there for an obvious reason, and consequently enjoy a rational membership in the community. But the newcomers who have taken the "Hall," the "Manor," or the "Lodge," have no clear |