Patriarch Revised

THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA: Fourteenth Edition. A New Survey of Universal Knowledge--The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. ($129.50-$325)

When the directors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., Ltd., obtained as their compendium's editor-in-chief able James Louis Garvin, longtime editor of the London Observer and in the late Lord Northcliffe's opinion "the greatest living journalist" (TIME, April 26, 1926), the publishing world knew that something striking might happen to the Patriarch of the Library. Editor Garvin's selection was encouraged by U. S. representatives and the American Advisory Board, with Franklin Henry Hooper of New York as American Editor, was given new freedom.

Now the Patriarch is out again, in 24 revised, amplified, revivified volumes. From "A to Anno" to "Vase to Zygo" a new, humanizing, journalistic touch is felt. To whom does a good journalist turn for the best account of the big prizefight? To the champion, of course. In choosing the author of the article on Boxing the U. S. advisors were doubtless less impressed by James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney's reputation for reading Shakespeare and hob nobbing with George Bernard Shaw, than in Retired Champion Tunney's undoubted knowledge of the fight game and the appropriateness of having a boxer write on Boxing. Whether or not they would have asked William Harrison ("Jack") Dempsey to write the section if Dempsey had knocked out Tunney when last they met, the editors do not say. But from their choices of new authors in other fields, it seems safe to say that the policy throughout was: "The name-of-the-moment, come what may."

Thus it is that august Britannica's list of contributors for the 14th Edition includes, besides Tunney, and besides the greatest scholars on scholarly subjects, such arresting names as Lon Chaney, Edward F. Albee, Alice Foote MacDougall; Henry Ford, President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, Samuel R. ("Roxy") Rothafel, Lincoln Clark Andrews (U. S. Prohibition Chief, 1925-27), George Jean Nathan, Jesse L. Lasky, George Eastman, etc., etc., etc. (Contributors are discoverable in a list printed with the introduction. Articles are only initialed.)

Some subjects and authors:

War. The articles on World War Guilt consist almost of a debate with P. Renou-vin writing from the French side, Hermann Lutz from the German, and Editor James Louis Garvin presiding to keep order and present the English case. Marshal Foch on the World War itself says: "Among belligerent nations, war affects a great number of people and does so with methods of increasing violence." On morale in modern war he reminisces: 'Tf, from a group here and there, came a song or a noisy demonstration, it was from young soldiers going out to the front for the first time. The others remained impassive, silent, gloomy and their eyes gave token of the cold energy, and the spirit of savage resolve on which they had fallen back." Frank Billings Kellogg writes about outlawing war: "In the future political leaders in any participating country who advocate a warlike policy must face a determined opposition on the part of large sections of their people."

Erich Brandenburg, German philosopher and historian, gives well the history of his country's part in the World War, and her subsequent Revolution.

Sociology. A sociological eye discovers that strikes are not new in the U. S. The first strike occurred in 1786 when Philadelphia printers walked out for $6 a week.

Cornell's Walter Francis Willcox reveals that New England has the most divorces per marriage, that foreign-born U. S. citizens divorce less often than natives.

Eric Walrond, onetime (1925-27) manager of Opportunity, calls New York's Harlem a Negro metropolis with white businessmen.

The "modern woman" will find new articles on feminine athletics, clubs, education, suffrage. It is set forth that cosmetics, not natural aids, come first in beauty culture. In the article on modern dress, Designer Remain de Tirtoff-Erte notes the tendency for clothes masculine and feminine to harmonize rather than contrast.

Theatre. "The native [U. S.] play- wright," announces Critic George Jean Nathan, "however unskilled he may be in the deeper delvings into human motives and in the capturing of dramatic-literary graces, has nevertheless achieved no mean measure of vitality and raciness, and has shaken off the last of the European shackles."

Grotesque and exotic are the masks of Wladyslaw Theodore Benda et al. in the "Mary to Mus" volume. Writes Artist Benda: "The moment a person puts on a mask he changes into another being; his whole body seems to change its appearance . . . and this is most convincing when the figure is nude."

Actor Otis Skinner on theatrical make-up is more conservative: "The deadly white skin, the over-rouged cheek, the flaming mouth and the heavily lined eyelid, all make for unappealing grotesquerie." E. F. Albee, vaudevillian, relates how one of the earliest (circa 1884) Keith circuit acts was a chicken with a human face.

Cinema. Lon Chaney, master of makeup, says: "To broaden the nose, negro style, cut three-eighth-inch ends of two rubber cigar holders and insert into nostrils. . . . Polished brass bronze powder, sold by paint stores, will blonde a brunette."

Cecil Blount De Mille: "In the last analysis the director is a story-teller."

When Producer Jesse L. Lasky writes "it is estimated that 130,000,000 individuals attend the cinema each week in the U. S." he means, of course, there are that many admissions. Total estimated U. S. population is only 120,000,000.

Actor Milton Sills is the describer of leading cinemactors and cinemactresses. He calls Pola Negri "frank, tempestuous"; Janet Gaynor "radiant"; Ernest Torrence "rugged"; John Gilbert "young, reckless." He says that Adolphe Menjou has "fascinating wickedness," that Emil Jannings is the "master craftsman." He admits that the screen still awaits "its Duse and its Booth."

Prophet. If Elijah prophesied today, would it be News? The 14th Edition contains the words of a modern prophet. Senator Reed Smoot of Utah. Writing on the Mormons, of which he is one, he says: "Here [in Jackson County, Mo.] a holy city is yet to be built by the Church, a new Jerusalem, into which will be gathered those of all nations."

Science. The science articles are so written as to be of value to layman and scientist alike. William Beebe, for instance, reveals that the wild animals on the Galapagos Islands are tame. L. H. Dudley Buxton, Anthropological reader at Oxford, recalls that Jenghiz Khan was born "with a piece of clotted blood in his hand."

James Harvey Robinson, himself a famed knowledge-humanizer, significantly observes that "the word 'mind' was originally a verb, not a noun." That is, actions are older than words. Sunlight as curative, one finds elsewhere, has been used by Chinese, Egyptians, South American Indians.

Germany's Hans Vogt invented the "speaking film" (Britannican for "talkie").

Darwinism, says Julian Huxley, is not dead, as "irresponsible persons" think. Evolution-evidence "by now is overwhelming. Although we are very far from under-standing [how] . . . hens do develop from eggs. . . . The idea of Evolution is as important a biological tool as ... the microscope."

Behaviorism believes that "behaviour of man from infancy to death is the subject-matter of [human] psychology." Behaviorism's chief exponent, John Broadus Watson, says: "Thinking is merely talking . . . with concealed musculature."

Sigmund Freud, now 73, suggests how his psychoanalysis is affecting anthropology, study of religion, literary history, education. He also announces: "The belief that in man sexual life begins only at, puberty is incorrect."

George ("Kodak") Eastman waxes intricate over "preparation of the base," "emulsions," "coating and packing."

In the chapter by Albert Einstein occurs the following sentence: "The measurement of time is effected by means of clocks." Definition: "A clock is a thing which automatically passes in succession through a (practically) equal series of events (period)." Dr. Einstein advises readers to scan Sir James Jeans' article on Relativity before reading his own seven columns on Space-Time.

Orville Wright, writing on his late brother Wilbur, says that the Brothers Wright turned their eyes skyward and invented the first motored airplane after reading about gliders in Germany.

There is a heading for "Robots," the word adopted from Karel Capek's play R. U. R. for any machine functioning almost humanly.

Domestic Scientist Alice Foote MacDougall says: "Remember that cleanliness is next to godliness and invest everything that you use in connection with coffee with a god-like cleanliness."

Art. Sculpture, drawing, painting and other arts have a how-to-do section with each.

Of U. S. architecture, Vienna's Josef Hofmann declares: "Skyscrapers are un- luckily marred by unharmonious architecture; on the other hand, a granary of the Washburn-Crosby Co., built in Minneapolis in 1920, is an absolute model" [of the "modern intention" of "letting a construction speak for itself"].

Cartoonist Art Young writes about cartoons with illustrations from his own work. Says he: "If a public man is fat and his nose is long, good caricature in the opinion of some caricaturists is to magnify these characteristics very much--to pile Pelion on Ossa. To others the natural is almost funny enough. . . ."

Scholar Abbe Niles definitely fixes the father of "blues" and therefore grand- father of all jazz as William Christopher Handy, colored, first (1910) composer in the national idiom.

Irene Castle MacLaughlin, writing mostly on ballroom dancing, says: "The Fox-trot ... is typically American in rhythm."

Are Americanisms to be despised? Henry Louis Mencken, defining them, says "The English seldom devise anything as pungent as rubberneck, ticket-scalper, lameduck, pork-barrel, bootlegger, steamroller (in its political sense). Such exhilarating novelties are produced in the U. S. every day, and large numbers of them come into universal use, and gradually take on literary dignity. They are opposed violently, but they prevail."

Sports. Football Coach Fielding H. Yost tells how deaf-mutes use sign-signals where others shout. In the "Jere to Libe" volume Helen Wills relates how lawn tennis was introduced to the U. S.--via Bermuda, in 1874. "There was some difficulty in getting the [first tennis] outfit through the custom house, as no one knew what it was."

The Tunney chapter says: ". . . Boxing up to this time [circa World War] had a most dreadful inheritance in the way of reputation. ... As a rule, they [prize-fighters, managers et al.] were sinister people with few scruples, vulgar and brutal to a marked degree . . . branded as outcasts . . . until the government, in 1917 . . . adopted it [boxing] as an important means for quickly fitting untrained men for rigorous soldier-life. . . . The modern boxer realizes that unless he is mentally equipped his chances for success are very slim."

The 14th Edition. The ninth edition (1889) took 14 years to publish. The tenth edition combined the ninth edition and 11 supplementary volumes, took four more years. The 11th edition (1909) took six years. The 12th and 13th editions were only supplementary ones. The 14th edition took two and one-half years, but most of the articles were written within the last eight months. On the average the up-to-dateness of this edition is as of January 1929, but late news was admitted up to two months ago.

This edition contains 37 million words by 2,500 contributors; also a complete atlas of the world, a newly-cross-referenced and foolproof index with half-million entries, new cross-references in the text, new short articles in the text such as "Cost of Living." Editorial cost: $2,000,000. Critics may say that this edition's pages, large-thin, sometimes buckle up. Other critics may answer that the largeness of the type is compensation for this slight unwieldiness.

The illustrations are a feature. There is Manhattan's Roxy Theatre, world's largest and most ornate, side by side with Berlin's archy Titania Palace. There are Cezanne, Degas and Gauguin paintings in color. There are airplane photographs of cities.

To read this edition would take one man six years of twelve-hour days.