great, so long as the 'Daily Answers' his success was asMail' was found at an early sured, and ever after he talked, hour at every breakfast-table with perfect satisfaction and in the country. This mechan- just a spice of kindly cynicism, ism of distribution may appear about his "yellow journals." to some unimportant. It is, in truth, as all have discovered since Lord Northcliffe, the very beginning and end of journalism. After all, it is useless, as he once said himself, to produce the best journal that ever was seen and to keep it under your bed. Having mastered the craft of swift and multiple printing, having perfected his method of distribution, Lord Northcliffe was like a politician who had collared the machine, and had not made up his mind which policy the machine should be used to support. He did not hesitate long. He was one of those rare men who are born with an instinctive knowledge of what the public wants. He was, so to say, the man in the street raised to the very highest power. He read the psychology of the crowd like an open book. And he made very few mistakes, because what the crowd wanted differed very little from what he wanted himself. Thus we begin to discern the cause of his vast success. He wished to sell as many of his newspapers as possible; all the secrets of swift efficient distribution were revealed to him; and he knew better than any other living man the matters, grave and gay, which the people preferred to read about. How, then, could he have failed? From the first inception of As time went on he grew more and more intent to become not merely a master of the revels but a leader of men. The instant success of the To Daily Mail '-a true romance of industry-gave him, for the first time, a sense of power. He was quick to see what he could do with the largest circulation in the country. compel some millions of persons to read daily what he caused to be written was a means of aggrandisement of which none other had ever dreamed. The wise humdrum journals, which before the coming of Lord Northcliffe had pursued their grave and easy ways, had rarely excited their timid readers, who wished least of all to be surprised at their breakfast-tables. The 'Daily Mail' found readers where they had not previously been found readers who had an unexpected influence upon public opinion. And, to the honour of Lord Northcliffe, it may be said that at the outset he used his power wisely and well. His judgment in domestic politics was often unsound. He had always a wise understanding of foreign affairs; he was unto the end a great patriot and a great Englishman. The strife of parties may have seemed to him less important than it was. He was instantly on the alert when the safety or honour of England was questioned. At ously, not lightly like a tourist, the time of the Boer War he more than any other public man kept up the spirit and the interest of the people. How he foresaw the German menace, how he clamoured for many years that we should put ourselves in a position to meet it, how, when the threat became a deed, he bent all his energies to the defeat of the foe, is mere matter of history. And the best measure of his services to Great Britain is the outburst of fury with which the news of his death has been received in Germany. In foreign affairs he showed himself always the enemy of Germany, always the friend of France. For our neighbours across the Channel he professed an affection, which fell not a jot below his understanding. He was at home in Paris as in London, and his loudly expressed sympathy was the result not merely of sentiment but of knowledge. Nor did France ever stand in closer need of help than she did at the moment of Lord Northcliffe's death. Unless in this matter his policy be carried on with urgency and spirit, France will suffer a loss which cannot easily be made up to her. And his enthusiasm for France was neither a whim nor an accident. He loved her because he knew her, because she had been to him a second home. From the beginning of his career he was profoundly interested in foreign travel. He journeyed often and assidu but with the gravity of one who desired to learn as he went. His liking for America and the Americans was no secret to them or to us, and if an Anglo-American Alliance is preserved, it will be largely due to Lord Northcliffe's tact and energy. Yet, with all his keen purposes, he was a genuine traveller. He liked also to travel for travel's sake, and he proved by a long persistent love of Spain that he could go abroad without keeping in mind the policies of the moment. The good that he did is, or should be, apparent to us all. No man ever made so vast a disturbance in the world without doing much harm. And the worst that he did with his papers, we think, is that he made popular a certain commonness of speech and opinion. If you aim at a vast circulation you level down, and if you level down you cannot avoid vulgarity. The Northcliffe Press, as it came to be called, encouraged a triviality of interest and expression which did not improve the public taste. The new army of readers, untrained to scan the news with intelligence, demanded (and got) the personal paragraphs, the half scandals, the irrelevant follies which they wanted. Obviously it would be better that they should read nothing than that they should read these things; and though time, having taught them the reading habit, may teach them presently the art of discrimination, there is little reason yet to be hopeful. he talk was as good to him as a book. In the same spirit of inquiry he wandered abroad. He must always pick up information as he went, and he delighted in the quickness of his brain as a prize-fighter in the strength of his arm. And, strangely, this champion of new discoveries and untried machines had a genuine respect for age and tradition. When he was confronted with ancient customs, he instantly saw their worth and meaning. A lifelong prejudice against the older Universities was overcome, without argument or trouble, by two or three days spent in Cambridge. In brief, he was not one but several men. That the spark of genius burned within him it would be rash to deny. Above all, there can be no doubt that Lord Northcliffe, the man, was vastly superior to his press. Though in one aspect man of business, eager to distribute his wares as widely as possible, though he seemed to embody all the qualities of modern life in his own self, he was a diligent student of books and a devout lover of the past. The accident of early poverty had made him determined, as he said, to be rich. Yet when once he had made his fortune, he cared less than any other millionaire for wealth as wealth. He was always open-handed and generous. He liked the things which money could bring, and he delighted to share these good It burned dimly. things with others. And among True, he accomplished such the good things he prized books things as none other has acand he prized knowledge. He complished. Some of them read widely and deeply at hours were not worth accomplishwhen most men are asleep, and ment, and others had a result he kept securely in his head the which he had not foreseen. contents of the books which he Yet the good that he did outread. Some one has recorded does the harm, and the harm his persistent habit of asking would have been less if he had questions. Ever apprehensive, not acquired in youth such power he did not like to lose a chance as should not be entrusted of learning something fresh, to the hands of the wisest and and in this business a friend's oldest councillor among us. Printed in Great Britain by Entered as second-class matter, July 3, 1917, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879 $5.00 Per Year Single Copv. 50 Cents For over one hundred years a happy school LEARN LANGUAGES English Private and Class instruction in all modern BERLITZ SCHOOL or In New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, HOME STUDY COURSE for out of town students. Write for particulars to New York Berlitz School, 30 West 34th St. FERRY HALL, LAKE FOREST, ILL. On Lake Michigan, 28 miles from Chicago. Founded 1869. College preparatory, general high school and advanced courses. Special instruction in music, expression, art. domestic science. For catalogue address, MISS ELOISE R. TREMAIN, Principal, ST. 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