[Illustration: Professor Huxley. _From a Photograph by the London
Stereoscopic Co_.]
[Illustration: Professor Tyndall. _From a Photograph by Alexander
Bassano, Ltd_.]
The educational progress of the last decade has been very great,
especially as regards the instruction of women; yet the period has
not been noticeably fruitful of literature in the highest sense. In
the world of fiction there is much that looks like degeneration; the
lighter magazines and serials have multiplied past computation, and
form all the reading of not a few persons. To counteract the
unhealthy "modern novel" has arisen the Scottish school, the
"literature of the kailyard," as it has been termed in scorn; yet a
purer air breathes in the pages of J. M. Barrie, "Ian Maclaren," and
Crockett. Their many imitators are in some danger of impairing the
vogue of these masters, but still the tendency of the school is
wholesome. Other artists in fiction assume the part of censors of
society, and write of its doings with a bitterness that may or may
not profit; the unveiling of cancerous sores is of doubtful advantage
to health.
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