and unquestioningly controls. And the precarious margin of work still left outside the sweep of a rigorously consistent machine technology grows visibly narrower from day to day. Therefore, any movement for the reform of industrial art or for the inculcation of æsthetic ideals must fall into line with the technological exigencies of the machine process, unless it choose to hang as an anæmic fad upon the fringe of modern industry. Men's, particularly workmen's, habits of thought in industrial matters are machine made, in a progressively more unmitigated degree; and if these habits of thought are to be shaped by any propaganda of ideals, they must be sought out and laid hold on in the field where they grow. The machine process has come, not so much to stay merely, but to go forward and root out of the workmen's scheme of thought whatever elements are alien to its own technological requirements and discipline. It ubiquitously and unremittingly disciplines the workman into its way of doing, and therefore into its way of apprehending and appreciating things. "Industrial art," therefore, which does not work through and in the spirit of the machine technology is, at the best, an exotic. It will not grow into a dandelion-like “weed of cultivation," for it has no chance of life beyond the hothouse shelter of decadent æstheticism. But however impracticable, within the frontiers of a democratic culture, may be the (substantially aristocratic) ideals and proposals of the "Dreamer of dreams, born out of his due time," it does not follow from all this that the movement initiated by the Dreamer need be without salutary effect upon the working life of the workmen or the artistic value of their output of goods. Indirectly these ideals, romantic or otherwise, have already had a large effect, and there is every reason to hope that the propaganda of taste carried on by organizations like the Industrial Art League and its congeners will count for much in checking the current ugliness of the apparatus of life. At its inception the movement was a romanticism, with a smear of lackadaisical æstheticism across its face. But that was not its whole meaning, nor is it the more enduring trait. Archaism and sophistication came of a revulsion against the besetting ugliness of what was present before the eyes of the leaders. The absolute dearth of beauty in the philistine present forced them to hark back to the past. The enduring characteristic is rather an insistence on sensuous beauty of line and color and on visible serviceability in all objects which it touches. And these results can be attained in fuller measure through the technological expedients of which the machine process disposes than by any means within the reach of the industry of a past age. Now, the particular line of arts and crafts endeavor for which Mr. Triggs speaks, the Industrial Art League, recognizes the force of this historical necessity more freely than the arts and crafts adepts of the stricter observance. Indeed, this aspiration after contemporaneity on the part of Mr. Triggs and his following is something of a stone of offense to the faithful, this apparently being the substantial reason why the Chicago Society of Arts and Crafts is not on speaking terms with the Industrial Art League. What has been said above, therefore, of the precarious outlook for industrial art under the régime of the machine process applies with less breadth to Mr. Triggs's line of endeavor than to many others. V. BOOK REVIEWS. Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte in den letzten Jahrhunderten des Mittelalters. By DR. KARL THEODOR VON INAMA-STERN : EGG. Leipzig Duncker. & Humblot; Part I, 1899, Part DR. VON INAMA-STERNEGG'S monumental history of the economic life of the German race is now complete to the close of the Middle Ages. The third volume, consisting of two parts, one published in 1899 and the other in 1901, is practically an independent work, but it supplements and rounds out the story told in the first two volumes. The first volume of this great work, published in 1879, covered the period from the first appearance of the German race in the history of Europe down to the time of Charlemagne. The second, appearing in 1891, brought the narrative down to the twelfth century, at which point it is taken up by the third volume now before us. In the concluding words of the preface to the second part of this volume, the author expresses his earnest hope that he may be granted time and strength to follow these three with still another volume outlining the principal features of modern Germanic economic history. In this wish all his readers will devoutly join. For well-nigh thirty years Dr. von Inama has devoted his labor incessantly, although, as he unnecessarily reminds us, not exclusively, to this investigation. Of the result as a whole he says, with a fine burst of patriotic enthusiasm: "More than a thousand years have been traversed, a period long enough and surely significant enough to enable us to understand what strenuous effort it cost to evolve from a heterogeneous collection of peoples with crude, rough wants and an equally crude equipment of means for their satisfaction, one of the leading civilized nations; and to develop from the weakest beginnings of political unity a true body politic so richly endowed with wealth." This citation well illustrates von Inama's point of view and method of study. He does not isolate the economic forces from the social and political. Social growth is conceived as the result of the interaction of all three. Possibly no period better illustrates the constant play of these forces one upon the other than that which is treated in the present work. The "last centuries of the Middle Ages" were marked by great progress in the material well-being of the various branches of the German race. The great Teutonic colonization movement, the history of which was told us in the earlier volumes, came to an end in this period. East and west, north and south, the twelfth century found the German people settling down in their new homes. Everywhere population which had been in a state of flux was gradually forming. itself into orderly ranks and classes. Even the primary institutions of society were being reorganized. During the next three centuries the distribution and the administration of landed property- the entire agrarian constitution underwent far-reaching changes. The methods. of agriculture were improved, new products sought and introduced, and a new meaning was given to the status of him who tilled the soil. At the same time, and possibly most significant of all, manufactures and commerce sprang up where they had never existed before and contributed in mighty fashion to the progress of the Germanic race. The treatment of the history of this period is necessarily different from that accorded the earlier centuries. While the earlier history is genetic and pragmatic, the latter is descriptive and analytic, a faithful picturing of the economic life of the people. The number and the nature of the historical sources rendered this possible. So large an amount of labor has already been expended by German scholars upon the unearthing and editing of these sources that no one person can even survey the whole field, let alone master it. The economic historian is therefore forced to depend upon the skill with which he can select the typical facts or incidents from the multitude he has to study. The migration of the Germans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took on a different form from that which marked the preceding periods. Instead of occupying large areas with scattered peasant settlements in small villages, they now built cities. All of the cities of what is now Saxony arose during or after the twelfth century, and no less than one hundred cities were founded in Brandenburg during the thirteenth. The greater personal liberties and the new opportunities for industry and commerce which the cities afforded were the attractions which drew the people to them. The natural consequence- new industries and expanding markets were, however, slow to reveal themselves. Until well into the thirteenth century each city with its contiguous rural population formed a practically self-sufficing eco nomic unit. There was no sharp sundering of the city from the country, either economically or administratively. Meager as are the sources of information concerning the population and its density, yet there is sufficient evidence to show that the rise of the cities affected large numbers of people. The first evidence of the coming changes is in the new significance which class distinctions acquired. The determination of status, the crystallization of society into ranks, which took place in the earlier period, was completed by the end of the twelfth century. The fixed categories of status relationships which are mirrored in the laws of the thirteenth century are evidence that the forces which created them were spent. Although these ranks were not formally disturbed during the remainder of the Middle Ages, yet they gained an economic meaning probably lacking before, and there arose among them new classes based wholly upon callings. Thus the distinction between a peasant class and a burgher class began to be mentioned in the twelfth century and was generally recognized in the thirteenth. Even the status of the exclusive noble, that of the official, and that of the priest came to be regarded as in a measure determined by calling or profession. Similarity of occupation, and hence similarity of condition, in life gave to the older distinctions much of the significance they continued to posThe peasant was kept in his humble social status mainly by force of his poverty, which in turn arose from his inability to fully control his land. Although agriculture rose absolutely with the improvement in the agrarian constitution and in methods, yet the agricultural population fell back relatively, not making as much advance as did the other classes. Land and its ownership as a source of revenue lost its earlier relative importance. sess. The economic significance of the control of land at the beginning of this epoch is well illustrated by the ceaseless strivings of the Germanic kings to increase the estates of their realms and of their houses. This was the foundation of their financial and political power as sovereigns. The ground rents and feudal dues had become primarily real burdens and afforded revenues which were independent of all changes in the personal relations of the contributants. Those revenues, though modest, were certain. In contrast with them, the personal taxes afforded but a limited and uncertain source of revenue. The poverty and weakness of the same kings toward the end of the period, as compared with the relative opulence of the cities, illustrate in turn the extent of the economic changes. |