For fiction can treat of human beings as genuine human beings, can present them to us in intelligible forms with all the concreteness of life itself. Fiction can build up individuals, where an ethical treatise is concerned with "the individual." And fiction, while giving us life itself, can illumine the dark places in life and point out hidden splendors. The eye of the novelist can see beneath the mask of men as the eye of the chemist sees beneath the specific appearance of this or that substance to what he calls a more profound law. It is no greater revelation to have pointed out the law of gravitation in the movement of the earth around the sun than to have pointed out the tragedy of indecision in the career of a prince of Denmark.

It may be, it is true, that the knowledge which is perfectly individualized will be of little value to the human mind. For the human mind moves easily only in generalized knowledge. It may be, to be sure, that the knowledge derived from fiction is quite useless. It may in no sense of the word lead to social reform or commercial advantage. But if we are justified in the mere satisfaction of our intellectual needs, the knowledge in question will not be wholly worthless. It will furnish, to an unprecedented extent, an understanding of men as men, and not as "Man."

The meaning in men's lives is not so obscure a matter that it requires especial notice. We have all in a loose way found our friends "incarnations" of this quality, or "perfect embodiments" of that quality. We have our heroes and our villains in life, as well as in books, and there it does not seem out of place. But only too few of us are fitted to grasp the meaning of our fellows or of ourselves. We take them in sporadic glimpses; at no time are we presented with a coherent and unified picture, well-composed, of their total living. They are often the mere experiences of a minute. They are perhaps in this way contributors to our lives, making it more significant than it was before their presence; but they are not the objects

of our study; they have scarcely any meaning as we see them.

Isolate them, however, construct their whole lives from the fragments they afford, and you have before you what they symbolize. You have the symbol and its content in one presentation. Life with its motives-blinded or fulfilled-comes to you revealed, tragic or comic as the case may be. The revelation is a comment about itself; life reflects upon life; the soul looks into the soul and hymns its discoveries.

To expound properly such a theory of fiction would require a volume in itself. I must be content here merely with indicating the facts, hoping that they will initiate further speculation independently on the part of him who happens upon them. I may, however, say that the personal equation will be as important in the writing of fiction as in the taking of astronomical readings. Since the knowledge is so highly individualized, the liability to "error" is of course very great. Two novelists will invariably present you with two different stories arising from the same situation. But such errors are not uninstructive. They demonstrate much more clearly than general uniformity the important complexity, the almost unpredictability, of human behavior.

The methods of interpreting life's problems through fiction will, nevertheless, be equal in number to the methods of interpreting them in other forms. And it is here that the philosopher enters to bring a greater order into an apparent chaos. There are, after all, but a few pre-eminent points of view from which to regard the universe, and it is the philosopher who knows what they are. And, by correlating the attitudes of novelists with these points of view, he has cleared the field for more complete understanding. Zola, for instance, then is placed where he belongs, with the deterministic students of human nature. He is no longer the melodramatic novelist of a melodramatic society. His idea of fiction is strained of its accidental

impurities. Its essential nature shines forth. It becomes an idea among other ideas of its kind. It can then be understood.

An idea so run to ground is an idea worth possessing. For having so run it to ground, you know the very presuppositions which impelled its formulator to propose it. He may not have known them, it is true. Poe, for instance, may never have heard of Heracleitus when he expressed the tragedy of change in To One in Paradise. But he is no less a "weeping philosopher." The profundity of most of our ideas is unknown to us. How seldom do we know the logical grounds of what we believe! But when we have discovered them a more intelligent and saner life is the inevitable result.

So when reading anything, if you know its logical origin, you know it more thoroughly than you did before. And the only supplement you need is the knowledge of its "logical conclusion." To have exposed the ancestry or posterity of an idea is to have understood the idea, and understanding is complete when this process is carried out. During the process one discovers extraordinary kinships. The reformer is thrown in with the conservative, the mystic with the positivist. One discovers how simple our thoughts are in their beginnings and how diverse they are in their implications.

Thus a student of philosophy would insist that "literature" be treated. Here we have considered only fiction. We could use the lyric for our purposes as successfully. Treating literature so would be treating it seriously. It would be naively assuming that words have meanings-an assumption often unwarranted-and that meanings are worth understanding. And it would be again naively assuming that to understand is self-justified. If understanding is not itself valuable, of course the whole theory crumbles. If the best life is the least speculative life, the life of decadence, the life of Bunthorne, then the theory is utter nonsense.

UNIVERSITY RECORD

VICTOR H. HENDERSON

The faculty has resolved that the students of the University must be compelled to acquire the habit of correct and effective use of English. All departments are to be expected to co-operate in the new plan of procedure proposed by Professor Benjamin P. Kurtz of the Department of English, adopted by the Academic Senate, and ordered put into effect in August, 1916.

If a student's papers are found unsatisfactory in English expression, he will be warned. If a subsequent paper is found unsatisfactory, the instructor will report the student as "delinquent in English.' A new "Committee on Students' English," made up of representatives of various departments, will examine all papers reported faulty in expression. Every student whose English is deemed by this committee below the proper standard will be required to present himself to the Secretary of the committee for instruction in English composition. About once in two weeks the secretary will meet in a body all students who have been intrusted to his care, and give general instruction and criticism. The rest of his time will be devoted to weekly or fortnightly consultations with the students as individuals, for discussion of specially assigned compositions.

There will be no credit for this training. Students may be brought into the course at any time, and must continue until the secretary testifies that their English is satisfactory. In case of relapse, students must return for further instruction.

It is hoped the plan will at once raise the general level of expression among the students, since it will tend to prevent the carelessness frequently responsible for poor English. Moreover, it is believed that through this plan the students will come to respect good English. And it is the belief of the faculty that in the past the student has been affected by "a certain public

prejudice against correctness of expression," besides being "constantly subjected by his environment to the unedifying influence of myriad examples of poor English."

CANDIDACY FOR HONORS

Of recent decades it has been rather an academic fashion to speak disparagingly of prizes, marks, and scholastic honors as an appeal to unworthy motives. But if the faculties were not going to offer honors and rewards, the students saw to it that the lack was supplied, and athletic prominence and the prizes of leadership in "college activities" came to assume an undue relative importance.

Of late the tide has been turning. The Academic Senate has now approved a plan of "Candidacy for Honors" which will not only appeal to the spirit of generous emulation, but which will bring it to pass that students of special excellence may have superior training and special opportunities in their work in the University.

At the end of the Sophomore year announcements will be made of the names of all students who have achieved "Honorable Mention with the Junior Certificate." Students thus distinguished may then enroll as "Candidates for Honors" in whatever department each may choose. Place on this honor list may be retained only by good scholarship, but admission to these ranks may be won by distinguished work in any particular half-year of the work of the Upper Division. At Commencement the names of the "Candidates for Honors' whose record is of the greatest excellence will be announced as recipients of "Honors at Graduation."

But designation as "Candidate for Honors" will mean far more than merely the honor, for a number of departments are planning to offer certain courses planned expressly for students of marked excellence. Moreover, these "Candidates for Honors' will be given special freedom in the use of the libraries, laboratories, and museums of the University and other opportunities that the excellence of their past work has shown them worthy to profit by.

FRATERNITIES VIE IN SCHOLARSHIP

College fraternities nowadays want their members to be good students. For several years past it has been the University's custom, at the request of the fraternities and house-clubs, to announce each half-year the names of those fraternities and house-clubs the members of which excel in scholarship the average for the