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But the direct interest lies in the second chapter, where there is recognition of various life-interests in the portrayal of the organization at Brook Farm in the historic, economic, industrial, social, aesthetic, and educational features. Even here the sketch is rather suggestive throughout of the tenor of the life than of the methods, more indica- tive of a social spirit than of any body of socialism. Indeed, we know that this social spirit is what throve at Brook Farm while an iron method, carrying the name of Fourier with it, signaled its doom. As is said, "the attempt to transform Brook Farm into a modified Fourier- est phalanx proved its ruin ;" and, " indeed, since Fourierism made a ritual of organization only limited minds could accept it for any length of time;" and "it came to lay more stress on the method by which the individual freedom was to become assured than on the fact of personal liberty in itself."
Thus the book has interest for sociological students, since it por- trays with insight and sense the characters who " made a grand success as a college of social students," and since, according to the statement of one of the members, " to Brook Farm are traceable many of the movements which for the past fifty years in America have looked toward the improvement of industrial conditions." The book adds to its value in an exceedingly good bibliography covering ten pages, which refers not only to writings published in book form, but to the newspaper and magazine articles of contemporary and later date.
On the whole, the book witnesses with cheer and emphasis to a fulfill- ment of the mild hope expressed by Hawthorne in that which against plea and pledge remains the accepted epic of Brook Farm " Blithedale Romance" the hope "that between theory and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out ; and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise."
RHO FISK ZUEBLIN.
Discussions in Economics and Statistics. By FRANCIS A. WALKER,
PH.D., LL.D. Edited by Davis R. Dewey, Ph.D. 2 vols.
Henry Holt & Co. Pp. iv+ 454 and 481. $6.
THE impress which General Walker left upon American economic
and sociological thought is still so fresh that it would be impertinent
to analyze it in this connection. Professor Dewey has performed a
