* * * * *

Among the pacific warriors in the great 1914-18 struggle there is probably none who did better work, often under conditions of the gravest peril, than Mr. G.M.  TREVELYAN for the Red Cross in Italy.  Disqualified both by age and health from joining the army of attack, he threw himself into the task—­a labour of love—­of tending the sick and wounded of that country which he knows so well and of whose greatest modern hero he is the classic biographer.  That the eulogist of GARIBALDI should hasten to the succour of Italian soldiers was fitting, and how well he performed the task the records of the Villa Trenta Hospital, near Udine, and of the ambulance drivers under his command, abundantly tell.  The story of this beneficent campaign and of much besides is told with too much modesty by Mr. TREVELYAN himself, in a book entitled Scenes from Italy’s War (JACK), which gives a series of the vividest impressions of the Italian effort, and is remarkable for the best analysis that I have yet seen of the causes that led to the disaster of Caporetto.  The pages in which Mr. TREVELYAN paints the portrait of a typical Italian soldier, home sick and perplexed, are likely to be borrowed by many more pretentious historians of the War for years to come.

* * * * *

Mr. JOHN HARGRAVE, the author and illustrator of The Great War Brings It Home (CONSTABLE) has already a wide reputation in the world of Scouts, gained not only by his enthusiasm but by his profound knowledge of scout-craft.  Here he tells us very plainly that the War has brought home to us the fact that, if we are to make good our losses in the ranks of the young and the fit, we have got to give our children a better chance of living healthy, wholesome lives.  He urges the need of more outdoor education and as many open-air camps as possible, and shows that, if we are to carry out such a scheme as he lays in detail before us, scoutmasters and still more scoutmasters are wanted.  With reason he complains that none of these good fellows is paid one halfpenny, and that nearly all of them are young men who have to get a living.  “Offer them,” he says, “a living wage and how gladly would they become national scoutmasters in charge of national camps.”  You may, if you are on the look-out for it, find much that will seem fantastic in Mr. HARGRAVE’S ideas; his appeal, however, is not to those of us who, even in a case of great national urgency, cannot get away from the tyranny of convention.  Intrinsically his idea is sound, and I plead with all my heart for a fair consideration of his schemes and for help in their development.

* * * * *