Current Illustrated Merits Praise

The task of reviewing a periodical whose object is professedly not literary, is always difficult, and the result proportionately unsatisfactory. What comments can be passed on a picture of the track squad, however interesting, save that it bears an extraordinary resemblance to the track squad? Articles on undergraduate theatricals or baseball prospects, however interesting, could not be fairly discussed from a literary standpoint, which is after all the only possible standpoint for a critical review. The stock review published in the humorous number of the Illustrated, while justly satirical, points out at the same time the difficulties of the reviewer.

So for the current number of the magazine. The photographs all bear a close resemblance to the subjects they purport to represent, which, incidentally, in athletic pictures is exceptional, when we remember the average newspaper version of "X marks the spot where the ball was passed."

The articles are interesting and pertinent; to quote from their own editorial columns,--"the day when the Illustrated acted as a haven for the thesis type of article, with its dull, monotonous formidable array of facts, has gone by." Those who remember the Illustrated of three and four years ago find it hard to recognize it in its present guise as a lively and diverting pictorial review.

One feature of the new regime deserves particular commendation. Its editorials are remarkable examples of the less "heavy" and more amusing type. The staff has evidently discovered that "readability" is no serious drawback to an editorial. Undergraduates in this department are too often disposed to take themselves too seriously. The Illustrated has succeeded in combining clearness of thought with a certain novelty of expression, qualities which are unusual and refreshing in collegiate editorials.