THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE IRRESPONSIBLE

WOODROW WILSON has been dubbed, in some quarters, 'the psychological President.' This is in ironical reference to his belief that the subtle agency called confidence, which is needed to set the wheels of productive industry a-whir after their long rest, is more a matter of the state of the public mind than a fabric built on visible and palpable facts. Nearly every critic seems to have forgotten that the same belief was entertained by the late John Pierpont Morgan, who certainly would not be classified as an unpractical idealist. A modified phase of it came out in his testimony at a Congressional hearing several months before his death, where he stated his conception of the real basis of credit. It surprised a multitude of people to learn, for instance, that a man of his business experience and acumen was ready to set his judgment of human nature far ahead of any mere inventory of negotiable securities, in determining the question whether an applicant for a large loan ought to be accommodated.

Yet not a few of those to whom this conceit appeared so novel are showing every day, by their own conduct, how little they regard the purely material standards of responsibility. The chief difference between them and Mr. Morgan, indeed, is that he put his esteem for the character of a specific individual here and there above any accounting of that individual's resources, whereas they walk through life with a sort of blind faith that, because a majority of the men and women with whom they

come into frequent contact appear to be honestly trying to do right, the presumption of good motives and a sense of duty should extend to all mankind.

If it were not for some such notion lying in the back of his mind, what a terrifying thing would a railway trip or a sea-voyage be to the average traveler. Not once in a thousand times, it is safe to say, does he know personally the man who runs the engine that is drawing him hither and yon. The dispatcher who starts a train, the signal-man in a tower where tracks cross, the captain who commands his vessel, the light-keeper on a dangerous reef, are strangers to him. He does not know their names, or ages, or antecedents. Any dereliction on the part of one of them would imperil, not only immense values in property, but human lives by the hundred. They receive wages out of which they cannot hope to save even a modest fortune; yet if one were open to a bribe, he could make himself rich in a night. Let a capitalist cause damage to your purse or your person, and you can reach him through the courts and compel him to make good to you as much of the injury as can be estimated in dollars and cents; but from the wage-earner who has no assets subject to levy you are unprotected, except by his realization of his duty and his desire to do it.

Even where there is no moral question immediately involved, but bare carelessness might work incalculable harm, we are daily entrusting 'our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor' to the keeping of what, in the familiar parlance of the streets, would be described as the irresponsible class.

Letters which will do as well if they reach their destination next week as tomorrow, we leave in charge of a postman who has at least been subjected to certain civil-service tests as to his good repute and general intelligence; but if time-saving is of great importance, we make use of the special-delivery device or we telegraph. In either event, our communication makes the last stage of its journey in the custody of a boy who follows the calling of a messenger only because, through immaturity, poverty, lack of education, or some kindred handicap, he has been unable to prove his fitness for a better one; while a telegram runs also the initial risk of inaccurate transmission, possibly a complete reversal of its meaning. True, we can hold a telegraph company accountable in damages for a pecuniary loss suffered through such fault of an operator, whether due to his defective skill, or to his being worn out by overwork, or to any other cause, however innocent morally; but a misleading business report, or a garbled item of family news at a critical moment, may inflict a mortal shock on the recipient or dethrone his reason, and no satisfaction for an injury of that magnitude could be obtained from mulcting the offender's employer.

Taken acutely ill in the midst of a long journey, we accept the ministrations of a fellow traveler whom we have never seen before but who says that he is a physician. Even the prescription given us by our family doctor is liable to be filled by an unknown compounding-clerk, yet we swallow unquestioningly whatever he hands us in bottle or box. We hail a passing cab to take us to our destination in the middle of the night, feeling no alarm lest the driver be in league with a gang of foot-pads. We send our cash deposit to the bank by the hand of a messenger concerning whose virtues we have no

guaranty beyond the fact that thus far we have not found him light-fingered. We add our names to this and that petition, on the say-so of some one who may or may not, for all we are aware, have an ulterior and illegitimate interest in swelling his list; and we sign letters and other documents which we have only hurriedly skimmed over in their final draft, and in which our tired copyist may have embalmed an error fatal to our purpose.

Worse yet, we take strangers into our homes as servants, fully conscious that a recommendation by which we lay great store may have been wrung unfairly from a former master who is habitually too easy-going to note or too soft-hearted to disclose the shortcomings of his working people. No matter how well-meaning, the cook may be ignorant enough to poison us twenty times a week without suspecting it; the housemaid may be too scatter-brained to reflect that she must not leave loose papers in front of an open fire which is bombarding the floor with sparks; the children's nurse, though amiable of disposition, may have no more conception of what a baby's spine is like than she has of the differential calculus. Yet the years come and go, and we live on in smug content with ourselves and everything under our roof, as if, because yesterday's sun set in no cloud-bank of disaster, to-morrow's will take its course through a firmament quite as clear of troubles due to over-trustfulness.

Is n't there a lot of 'psychology' in all these commonplace confidences of ours?

AN' HIM WENT HOME TO HIM'S

MUVVER

I AM the happy possessor of a small goddaughter, a little person of some three years, who is insatiably fond of

stories. She prefers to have them told to her, but failing that, she will tell them herself. One of her favorite stories begins, 'Once 'ere was a lil' boy, an' him went out on a bee's tail.' I suppose what the little boy really went out on was a bee's trail; but to go out on its tail would certainly lead one to expect a much more unusual, not to say poignant, adventure.

I am not now concerned, however, with the beginnings of her stories, but rather with their invariable ending, which is always, 'An' him went home to him's muvver.' Bears, lions, tigers, even elephants and crocodiles, pass through the most agitating and unusual adventures, adventures which, as a German acquaintance phrases it, 'make to stand up the hair,' but in the end they all go home to their mothers. Is not this a far more satisfactory conclusion than the old impossible fairy-tale one-'And so they married and lived happily ever after'?

'An' him went home to him's muvver.' What a port, after stormy seas! How restful how soul-restoring how human!

An astonishing bit of wisdom to be evolved by a little person of three! And does it not embody a deep truth which has come down to us from the gray dawn of Time, preserved in many an old myth? One remembers Antæus, for instance, whose strength was always renewed every time he touched his mother Terra, the earth. But my goddaughter's formula is matched by a far more wonderful story. One of the most often recounted adventures of her heroes is, 'An' him ate a lot of can'y an' got very sick, an' ven him went home to him's muvver.'-'I will arise and go to my Father Is not hers an exquisite baby version of the Prodigal Son? And has not her little tongue expressed a deep need felt by us all? Just what I mean by a going-home

to one's mother in this larger sense, is perhaps a little difficult to define. Yet, surely, it must be a very universal experience. Have we not all at some time - often following a period of confusion and stress of circumstances suddenly experienced that deep sense of finding ourselves where we belonged? A sense of restfulness, of home-coming, of general rightness, and well-being? It is a sloughing off of the non-essential and the trivial, and a shifting of the spirit into deeper and simpler channels; a pause, when in the midst of all this mad dance of time and circumstance one gets a sudden, enlarging glimpse of Truth and of Eternity.

I have been home to my mother very many times, and by very many different paths. Sometimes by way of books, when I have stumbled upon a revelation of thought which presses open spiritual doors; sometimes by way of familiar music; again, and perhaps most often of all, led home by Dame Nature, my hand in hers.

Every spring there is a going-home to my mother for me, when as May swings into her perfumed place among the months she finds me returned to a well-loved little corner of the world. There I am faced by the wide sweep of mountains which I have known always. I wander up and down long, familiar paths, dig in old flower-borders, and greet old friends. The trivial and ephemeral accumulations of the city winter melt away in this genial atmosphere of out-of-doors, but what has been gathered of permanence, the spirit takes up and knits into its being. All the spinning confusion of life is tranquilized and for a little while the soul kneels down in obedience to that worldold command, 'Be still and know that I am God, the spirit of Truth within thee.'

Ah! these Heaven-sent periods, when the littlenesses of Time are swept away

Out of the past I recall one such glorified moment. It comes back to me only in fragmentary memories, and yet the essentials are all there. I remember first a confused, hot, somewhat disorganized kitchen. Unexpected visitors had arrived just at supper-time, and there was bustle and haste and some apprehension lest the larder should fall short. I remember hurrying out across the back yard to the store-room, and then, all at once, out there in the wide, soft darkness, I remember I stood still. The heat and confusion of the kitchen were almost in touch of me, and yet were infinitely far away. For an instant, I was removed into an overwhelming peace. I remember whispering through the dark and stillness, childishly enough, no doubt, 'Are you there, little soul?' Afterwards I went swiftly on my errand, and presently was gathered back into the kitchen's confused bustle. But now all was changed. For that glorified instant out there in the dark I had touched bottom. I had been 'home to my mother.' A sordid way of return, the reader may think; and yet, does not much of the best in life flower out of its small, apparently sordid, necessities?

But what was this return? Nothing was apparently changed by it, and yet

There comes a time for all of us when we are met by the need of such revaluation. Surely the world is faced now by as crucial a need as it ever knew. Very terrible situations are starting up before us. In fourteen breathless, poignant months the old comfortable ways of half the world have been trampled into blood and destruction. We stand still, appalled, asking ourselves how we may meet these overwhelming catastrophes. I answer in all seriousness and with a deep conviction that it can be done only by going home to our mother. Only those of us can withstand the awful present who have the ability to enter into spiritual sanctuaries. Only the things of the spirit can shelter us; only our souls the big guns cannot blow to atoms. Health and wealth, ease, prosperity, security, where are they now? Ask Belgium. Ask Poland. Nay, ask half mankind.

'Be still and know that I am God, the spirit of Truth within thee.' Oh, little goddaughter, this is the real going home to one's mother. I can ask no more golden talisman for you to hold fast, through all the years to come and on into eternity, than this magic gift of the spiritual return.

I

INTERCOLLEGIATE athletics provide a costly, injurious, and excessive régime of physical training for a few students, especially those who need it least, instead of inexpensive, healthful, and moderate exercise for all students, especially those who need it most.

Athletics are conducted either for education or for business. The old distinction between amateur and professional athletics is of little use. The real problems of college athletics loom large beside the considerations that define our use of the terms 'professional' and 'amateur.' The aims of athletics reveal the fact that the important distinctions are between athletics conducted for educational purposes and athletics conducted for business purposes.

When athletics are conducted for education the aims are (1) to develop all the students and faculty physically and to maintain health; (2) to promote moderate recreation, in the spirit of joy, as a preparation for study rather than as a substitute for study; and (3) to form habits and inculcate ideals of right living. When athletics are conducted for business, the aims are (1) to win games to defeat another person or group being the chief end; (2) to

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make money - as it is impossible otherwise to carry on athletics as business; (3) to attain individual or group fame and notoriety. These three-which are the controlling aims of intercollegiate athletics are also the aims of horse-racing, prize-fighting, and professional baseball.

These two sets of aims are in sharp and almost complete conflict. Roughly speaking, success in attaining the aims of athletics as education is inversely proportional to success in attaining the aims of athletics as business. Intercollegiate athletics to-day are for business. The question is pertinent whether schools and colleges should promote athletics as business.

Nearly all that may be said on this subject about colleges applies to secondary schools. The lower schools as a rule tend to imitate the worst features of intercollegiate athletics, much as the young people of fraternities, in their 'social functions,' tend to imitate the empty lives of their elders that fill the weary society columns of the newspapers.

If the objection arises that intercollegiate athletics have educational value, there is no one to deny it. 'Athletics for education' and 'athletics for business' are general terms, used throughout this discussion as already