138 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
sible, and that it is legitimate to place beside them the fresh and origi- nal results of personal study.
CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON.
Chapters in the History of the Arts and Crafts Movement. By
OSCAR LOVELL TRIGGS. Chicago : Published by the
Bohemia Guild of the Industrial Art League, 1902. Pp. 198.
IN sumptuous form comes from the Lakeside Press a plea for the union of daily labor with the happiness of the workman, the beauty of the product, and the satisfaction of the buyer. The treatment is that of a literary critic throughout. Carlyle, Ruskin, and Morris are the heroes of the story, and the author summarizes his social and artistic creed in the closing pages, in a direct statement of the immediate objects of the Industrial Art League.
There is no pretense of offering a complete and final social philosophy. In a general way "socialism" is represented as the goal of modern thinking and striving; but what is "socialism"? It is at this point the student of social science, and especially of economics, feels the contrast between the poetry of the literary man and the requirements of accurate scientific reasoning. Yet, if there seems to be a conflict between the author's praise of guilds and handicraft and his appreciation of machinery, the conflict may after all lie in social experience itself; for the process of adjustment is not yet worked out in life.
In any case it is refreshing to have our American Philistines, adorers of exports of raw products and steam-driven machinery, stung through thick and leathery skins by the satire of the artist ; to hear them told that we may sell watches and engines in Europe and yet fall short of being quite civilized. And it is wholly sane and inspiring to remind us that it is not the material output of a factory or mill which gives glory to a nation ; but that the decisive factor is the kind of men and women who get their living in the factory and mill, and whose blood and flesh are ground up to make "profits."
If the author has left out of sight nearly all the serious economic difficulties of the problem, as the pressure of population, the burden of inheritance, the slowness with which managerial ability is produced, the exact way by which his fine ideals are to be put into effect on a
