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Arthur E. Bostwick
these thirty titles. They are:
"The Shadow of Hilton Fernbrook," "The Statement of Stella Maberly,"
"The Shadow of John Wallace," "The Banishment of Jessop Blythe,"
"The Desire of the Moth," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," "The
Damnation of Theron Ware," "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler,"
"The Daughter of a Stoic," "The Lament of Dives," "The Heart of
Princess Osra," "The Death of the Lion," "The Vengeance of James
Vansittart," "The Wife of a Vain Man," "The Crime of Henry Vane,"
"The Son of Old Harry," "The Honour of Savelli," "The Life of
Nancy," "The Story of Lawrence Garthe," "The Marriage of Esther,"
"The House of Martha," "Tales of an Engineer," "Love-letters of a
Worldly Woman," "The Way of a Maid," "The Soul of Pierre," "The
Day of Their Wedding," "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," "The
Hand of Ethelberta," "The Failure of Sibyl Fletcher," "The Love-affairs
of an Old Maid."
Of course, in such a division as this, much must depend on individual
judgment and bias. Probably no two persons would divide the list in
just the same way, but it is my belief that the general result in each case
would be much the same. To me the possessive in every one of the
above-quoted titles would have been more idiomatic, thus:
"Hilton Fernbrook's Shadow," "Stella Maberly's Statement," "John
Wallace's Shadow," "Morrice Buckler's Courtship," "A Stoic's
Daughter," "Henry Vane's Crime," etc., etc.
In one case, at least, this fact has been recognized by a publisher, for

"The Vengeance of James Vansittart," whose title is included in the list
given above, has appeared in a later edition as "James Vansittart's
Vengeance"--a palpable improvement.
I shall not discuss the cause of this change in the use of the possessive,
though it seems to me an evident Gallicism, nor shall I open the
question of whether it is a mere passing fad or the beginning of an
actual alteration in the language. However this may be, it seems
undeniable that there is an actual and considerable difference in the use
of the possessive to-day and its use ten years ago, at least in formal
titles and headings. I have confined myself to book-titles, because that
is the department where the tendency presents itself to me most clearly;
but it may be seen on street signs, in advertisements, and in newspaper
headings. It is not to be found yet in the spoken language, at least it is
not noticeable there, but it would be decidedly unsafe to prophesy that
it will never appear there. Ten years from now we may hear about "the
breaking of the arm of John Smith" and "the hat of Tom," without a
thought that these phrases have not been part of our idiomatic speech
since Shakespeare's time.

SELECTIVE EDUCATION[1]
[1] Read before the Schoolmen of New York.
Since Darwin called attention to the role of what he named "natural
selection" in the genesis and preservation of species, and since his
successors, both followers and opponents, have added to this many
other kinds of selection that are continually operative, it has become
increasingly evident that from one standpoint we may look on the sum
of natural processes, organic and inorganic, as a vast selective system,
as the result of which things are as they are, whether the results are the
positions of celestial bodies or the relative places of human beings in
the intellectual or social scale. The exact constitution of the present
population of New York is the result of a great number of selective acts,
some regular, others more or less haphazard. Selection is no less
selection because it occurs by what we call chance--for chance is only
our name for the totality of trivial and unconsidered causes. When,
however, we count man and man's efforts in the sum of natural objects
and forces, we have to reckon with his intelligence in these selective
processes. I desire to call attention to the place that they play in

educative systems and in particular to the way in which they may be
furthered or made more effective by books, especially by public
collections of books.
When we think of any kind of training as it affects the individual, we
most naturally regard it as changing that individual, as making him
more fit, either for life in general or for some special form of life's
activities. But when we think of it as affecting a whole community or a
whole nation, we may regard it as essentially a selective process. In a
given community it is not only desirable that a certain number of men
should be trained to do a specified kind of work, but it is even more
desirable that these should be the men that are best fitted to do this
work. When Mr. Luther Burbank brings into play
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