THE ROAD TO XANADU

The exact line of demarcation which separates the scholar from the pedant has never been determined to the satisfaction of any one man, much less an academy. One may always accuse a scholar of being pedantical merely, as Professor Kittredge has pointed out, because his work is uninteresting to the reader as an individual; and the fact that others may find the same matter intensely vital and alive does not remove the ignominy of its having failed to attract at least one person. Only occasionally comes there a man who contrives to build up a structure on the basis of carefully gathered data, perhaps arid enough, which immediately catches the fancy of both critics and public, and which is at once informative and a best seller. Such a book is Professor John Livingston Lowes' "The Road to Xanadu".

It is not the CRIMSON's intent to review Mr. Lowes remarkable study at this particular time nor in this place. It does wish, however, to indicate the gratefulness with which "The Road to Xanadu" should be accepted by undergraduates of the university-undergraduates especially because they are the ones who are least likely to commend painstaking research and those who are quickest to dismiss anything scenting of long labor as being pedantical and therefore unworthy of enthuslastic praise. Here is a book which had its origin among dusty shelves but which by virtue of a creative mind, tuned to analysis, has been transformed into something very remote from barren bookishness. The favor it is finding in non-academic circles is indicative of its appeal to those who are not intrinsically interested in its subject matter. Harvard University may well be proud of a man who has made this distinctive contribution to modern criticism.