Henry van Dyke (1852-), one of the eminent men of letters of to-day, was born at Germantown, near Philadelphia. He prepared for college at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and was graduated from Princeton in 1873. He next took a course in the Theological Seminary, followed by study at the University of Berlin. He entered the Presbyterian ministry, serving as pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City. His work as a literary critic having given him a reputation, he was offered and accepted a position as professor of literature at Princeton. In 1913-17 he served as United States minister to the Netherlands, and during the World War his writings were of great value, both as interpreting Europe to America and America to Europe. He has received degrees from many universities; he is a commander in the Legion of Honor, and has served as president of the National Institute of Arts and Sciences. His published works include a score of volumes, the most important of which are a book of essays on The Poetry of Tennyson; several volumes of poems, published in collected form in 1911; two books of short stories, The Blue Flower and The Ruling Passion, and several volumes of essays and sketches with such attractive titles as Fisherman's Luck, Little Rivers, and Days Off. Another volume, Essays in Application, deals with deeper themes; it is from this that the essay, "Is the World Growing Better?" is taken. His writing is characterized by finish of style, breadth of outlook, and ripe and serene wisdom. HENRY VAN DYKE IS THE WORLD GROWING BETTER? (From Essays in Application) No man knows, of a certainty, the answer to this question. If it were an inquiry into the condition of the world's pocketbook, or farm, or garden, or machine house, or library, or schoolroom, the answer would be easy. Six million more spindles whirling in the world's workshop in 1903 than in 1900; eight hundred million more bushels of wheat in the world's grain-fields than in 1897; an average school attendance gaining 145 per cent between 1840 and 1888, while the population of Europe increased only 33 per cent. So the figures run in every department. No doubt the world is busier, richer, better fed, and probably it knows more, than ever before. I am not one of those highly ethereal and supercilious people who can find nothing in this to please them, and who cry lackadaisically: "What is all this worth?" I am honest enough to confess to a sense of satisfaction when my little vegetable garden rewards my care with an enlarged crop, or when my children bring home a good report from school. Why should not a commonsense philanthropy ead us to feel in the same way about the improved condition and the better reports of the big world to which we belong? Of course our satisfaction is checked and shadowed, often very darkly shadowed, by the remembrance of those who are left behind in the march of civilization-the retarded races, the benighted classes, the poor relations, of the world. But our sympathy with them is much more likely to be helpful if it is hopeful, than if it is despairing. I do not think it necessary to cultivate melancholy or misanthropy as a preparation for beneficence. A generous man ought to find something cheerful and encouraging to his own labors, in the knowledge that the world is growing "better off." But is it growing better? That's another question, and a far more important one. What is happening to the world itself, the owner of all this gear, the prosperous old adventurer whose wealth, according to Mr. Gladstone, increased twice as much during the first seventy years of the nineteenth century as it had done during the eighteen hundred years preceding? Is this marvellous increase of goods beneficial to the character of the race? Or is it injurious? Or has it, perhaps, no deep or definite influence one way or the other? You know how hard it is to come to a clear and just conclusion on such points as these, even in the case of an individual man. Peter Silvergilt's wealth has grown from nothing to three hundred million dollars during the last fifty years; but are you sure that Peter's personality is better, finer, nobler, more admirable than it was when he was a telegraph-boy earning ten dollars a week? William Wiseman has a world-wide fame as a scholar; it is commonly reported that he has forgotten more than most men ever knew; but can you trust William more implicitly to be fair and true and generous than when he was an obscure student just beginning to work for a degree in philosophy? When we try to apply such questions, not to a single person, but to the world at large, positive and mathematical answers are impossible. The field of inquiry is too vast. The facts of racial character are too secret and subtle. But a provisional estimate of the general condition of |