Book Review: The Clarendon Edition of Scenes of Clerical Life

The editor\u27s Introduction to an author\u27s first work of fiction published in a new edition is of very special interest, since it is concerned with the foundations of a writer\u27s art. The story of the transformation of Marian Lewes, nee Mary Ann Evans, into George Eliot is well known, and she has never appeared more charming than in her own account of how she came to write fiction. Thomas A. Noble\u27s Introduction quotes freely from George Eliot\u27s Autograph Journal and from letters, bringing vividly to life the new author of fiction and her generous publisher, John Blackwood. She was already an established writer and thinker, and her defence of her art as \u27real and concrete\u27, in response to BIackwood\u27s comments, foretells the stature she was to achieve later. The editor gives full recognition to the part played by George Henry Lewes in launching George Eliot on her career as a novelist. After serial publication of the stories in Blackwood\u27s Edinburgh Magazine (Maga) in 1857, the first edition in book form came out in January 1858, and this text has been chosen for the Clarendon Edition. The editor considers the text of the first edition to be superior since it includes corrections made by George Eliot to the manuscript, and it retains speech in dialect. The editor makes a number of emendations to the copy-text, most of which were made by George Eliot in Iater editions

Review of Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

I read Middlemarch for the first time in the Everyman\u27s Library edition of 1930, a trim book in two volumes with a note by Leslie Stephen by way of Introduction. The note was taken from the Essay on George Eliot in Hours in a Library, and is less than helpful to the reader. Stephen notices the high moral ideal George Eliot sets before us, but laments the absence of charm, or magic, which he found in her earlier works. The new Middlemarch from Everyman\u27s Library is an elegant book in one volume, convenient in size and moderately priced. There are no notes on the text, but there is a Select Biography and a useful Chronology. The Introduction is by E. S. Shaffer, Reader in English and Comparative Literature in the School of Modem Languages, University of East Anglia. The new Introduction differs widely from that of Leslie Stephen, reflecting the changes in George Eliot criticism since Stephen\u27 s day. Dr. Shaffer sets the tone in her opening paragraph, where she places George Eliot with the best nineteenth-century European writers of both sexes. There is no seeking after charm or magic; the study of provincial life, in fiction, was a serious and grand theme which spread across Europe in George Eliot\u27s lifetime. Comparisons are made with Balzac\u27s Human Comedy where the melodrama is more marked, and set against a background of extreme social unrest which did not accompany the political changes in England, except in outbursts here and there

Book Review: The Clarendon Edition of Middlemarch

We welcome the Clarendon edition of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which is generally considered to be her greatest novel. It took her about three years to write, and it seems to have caused a good deal of trouble to all concerned. David Carroll\u27s splendid Introduction, although not intended to be biographical, offers the reader a glimpse of the working life of the Leweses. As the Editor tells us, George Eliot left no detailed account of the \u27germ\u27 of Middlemarch, but her letters to John Blackwood gave hints that an \u27English novel\u27 was in her mind as early as 1867. Then, after The Spanish Gypsy was published in 1868, she seems to have got stuck, in the manner of Mr. Casaubon, in historical research for another work of poetry. Eventually, the scholar began to give way to the creative writer and George Eliot made a New Year resolution in 1869 to write \u27a Novel called Middlemarch\u27, However, the delaying difficulties multiplied. She felt languid, a holiday in Italy intervened and Thornton Lewes returned home seriously ill and died six months later, During Thornton\u27s illness, she wrote her poem, The Legend of Jubal, and work on the novel proceeded at intervals. By September 1869 she had written three chapters of Middlemarch, and at this stage it contained the Vincy and Featherstone parts, with a hero concerned with provincial hospitals

Book Review: Silas Marner- Not Quite a Common Ol\u27 Workin\u27 Man

To compile a programme of Readings about \u27the curse of the drinking classes\u27 (Oscar Wilde) which is both· satisfying and moving, requires some diligence and industry. This belies Gabriel Woo If\u27s statement, as he introduced himself to his audience, that, apart from two whole weeks in an office, he had spent his life not doing a day\u27s work, in Mr. Lawrence senior\u27s sense of the word. As a matter of fact, we were moved, in a most satisfying way, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears, by passages read with such feeling that it was hard to believe that our reader had not himself sustained a callous or two, in the course of applying his hands in the garden, or by climbing on to a chair with hammer at the ready, emulating Uncle Podger. The consistent theme of work imparted a Pleasing unity to the programme, and gave the regular attender at the Annual Readings the distinct impression that something was different this year. The performance was as delightful as ever, and after Silas Marner had demonstrated the solitariness of a nineteenth century weaver\u27s life, and introduced that corollary of work, money, we were carried along, dipping into the minds of authors as various as John Davidson (not known to me), Arthur Hugh Clough, Thomas Hood and Thomas Hardy, and getting a glimpse of women\u27s work at home with Silas Marner and Dolly Winthrop, until we were lacerated by that painful episode in English History, children at work in the mines and factories. Henry Mayhew, whose pathetic little Watercress Girl\u27s story was sensitively and movingly told, brought the first half to an end with what seemed to be a rousing song-and-dance performed, pas-de-deux, by A Photographic Man and A Cesspool Sewerman. These two lusty labourers gave the lie to the saying that \u27if you enjoy it, it ain\u27t work\u27, for, clearly, the workers enjoyed it, the performer enjoyed it and the audience was quite overcome with mirth

The Common Core and the Future of Student Assessment in Ohio

Ohio committed itself to embracing higher standards that cross state lines when it joined 45 other states and the District of Columbia in adopting the Common Core standards in math and English language arts (ELA) in June 2010

Bringing Nutrition Education Programs From Outside Sources into the Classroom: The Experience of New York City Public Elementary Schools

This study explored the initiation, implementation, and institutionalization of nutrition programs from outside organizations or sources (NEPOS) in New York City public elementary schools. Having NEPOS in schools may augment the nutrition education that is taught in health, science or other classes, and thus help to alleviate public health issues associated with poor eating habits, such as obesity and diabetes. However, very little is known about the design and distribution of NEPOS as well as school personnel's beliefs and actions that facilitate NEPOS initiation, implementation, and institutionalization in schools. The study employed mixed-methods to investigate how many and what types of these programs from outside organizations are available in New York City public schools; how these programs are distributed among schools; and why and how schools make these NEPOS "work." These phenomena were explored with data from: organizations with NEPOS that had been implemented in New York City public schools (n=20); elementary schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens (n=614); and school community members from a subset of schools with NEPOS (n=21). The primary data sources were surveys, publically available school and community-level data, and interviews. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics as well as inductive and deductive coding. Findings suggest that during the 2011-2012 School Year, overall NEPOS were in only 39% of all schools; in 40% (n=163) of schools with greater than 75% students eligible for free and reduced price lunch (highest economic need) and in 45% (n=58) of neighborhoods where over 23.1% of children were obese (highest health needs). NEPOS that had in their mission to reach "high needs schools" did reach proportionally more schools in areas of highest economic and health need than schools in areas with less need. While the distribution of NEPOS varied by some school-based factors, e.g., student attendance and average state test score, need-based factors were overall more important in determining the distribution of NEPOS. Analysis of interviews with key school community members from a subset of the sample indicate that schools in New York City experienced the same barriers to having NEPOS as those in other parts of the country. Schools identified eating/health, academic/learning, and community benefits to having NEPOS. A major contribution of this study is that it provides in-depth insight into how school community members shared common, specific, and transferable actions as they initiate, implement, and institutionalize NEPOS in their schools. These are that: schools have to have one or more driving motivations for NEPOS, schools go through a process to choose appropriate NEPOS, schools build their own capacity for effectively implementing NEPOS, and once schools have NEPOS for a while they find way to legitimize the NEPOS by integrating them into the fabric of the school. Taken together these four domains may be thought of as parts of a "Progressive Model for Integrating NEPOS into Schools." This model can inform school practices and policy and serve as a starting point for future research

Book Review: Forms of Feeling in Victorian Fiction

The art of representing feeling within a fictional character, and of eliciting response from the reader, was well understood by the great Victorian novelists. Their methods were so successful that the characters they created and the emotional experiences they described affect today\u27s readers as powerfully as the readers of their own time. In this study, Professor Barbara Hardy examines the forms and languages used by various authors to represent feeling, to analyse it, and to manipulate readers\u27 responses. She begins by considering the techniques of some earlier writers from which developed the more \u27realistic\u27 Victorian forms of fiction. She chooses quotations which invite the reader to return to the novels with a mind sharpened by her acute observations. Professor Hardy shows Dickens presenting passionate feelings in fairly crude theatrical form. He is better on jealousy, pride, revulsion, fury, fear, gluttony and sloth, than on love. When the mature Dickens applies control and restraint, he is more successful, and more analytical, in his representation of the emotions

Review of The World\u27s Classics Series: Middlemarch

It is a curious fact that when a writer has attained to a certain eminence, we English cease to bother ourselves about him. There he is, recognised, accepted, labelled. I recalled these words, from the conversation of Katherine Mansfield in 1920, and recorded in her journal, when I opened the World\u27s Classics paperback edition of Middlemarch edited by David Carron, Professor of English literature at the University of Lancaster. Katherine Mansfield\u27s opinion may have been well-grounded in 1920, but it would certainly not be valid today, especially in relation to George Eliot and her work. A glance at the Select Bibliography shows that in recent years many people have \u27bothered\u27 themselves about her. It will be seen that a significant number of them are American, but some are English. With regard to Middlemarch, David Carron points out that it is seen as the archetypal Victorian novel , and it is much studied and written about His own excellent introduction to this edition amounts to a comprehensive, yet succinct, critical study. He begins by quoting the tribute of the historian Lord Acton, who wrote: \u27No writer ever lived who had anything like her power of manifold, but disinterested and impartially observant sympathy.\u27 Added to this, after showing her readers the world through the eyes of her characters, she was able to step back, become the narrator, and expose their souls to scientific and independent scrutiny. Throughout her writing career, George Eliot was intent on showing the reality of human nature, not \u27vague forms\u27, thus heightening the awareness and understanding of her Victorian readers as she does ours today. David Carron emphasises that the central question asked in the novels is: \u27how do people make sense of the world?\u27 Middlemarch is particularly concerned with the relationship between the individual and society, the broad medium in which people live is essential to their development. George Eliot\u27s view is complex; subtle changes in society react on individuals, so that changes in each are seen to be interdependent, and society and culture grow and develop from within

Book Review: George Eliot: The Jewish Connection

George Eliot: The Jewish Connection, published in Israel in 1975, has recently come to our attention for review. Ruth Levitt, who lives in Israel, had read and admired Daniel Deronda, and was encouraged by George Eliot\u27s sympathetic treatment of the Jewish characters in the novel, to attempt to show that Theodore Herzl, one of the founders of modern Zionism, was himself inspired by the fictional Daniel Deronda. As Mrs. Levitt tells us in her Preface, the attempt failed, and for this reason the effect of her book is diminished. Undaunted, the author persevered with a modified theme, convinced that George Eliot\u27s powers of generating feeling among her readers had a particular effect on the furthering of political Zionism. Mrs. Levitt recognises that Daniel Derond a is a complex novel, with the \u27Jewish element\u27 only part of the whole, but she concentrates her attention on those chapters dealing with Mordecai\u27s vision of the return of the Jews to Zion and Daniel\u27s assumption of his \u27mission\u27. There is no doubt that George Eliot felt sympathy with the Jewish people in their enforced \u27separateness\u27. In \u27The Modern Help! Help! Help! from Impressions of Theophrastus Such. she analysed the historical reasons for this \u27separateness\u27, and approved the Jewish people\u27s sense of a corporate existence which she considered was the basis for the formation of a nation. With piercing irony, George Eliot denounced persecution and the results of conquest which degraded and corrupted a proud people. At the current state of man\u27s development, she thought that national feeling, a sense of belonging somewhere as part of a group, was a source of goodness. If I understand her correctly, she thought that man might eventually be capable of something better, but not yet. She wrote, A common humanity is not yet enough to feed the rich blood of various activity which makes a complete man. The Modern Help! Help! Help!, used by Mrs. Levitt to support her theme, contains generalities as well as particularities

The relationship of ambient temperature and humidity with mortality on the Maltese Islands 1992-2005

Key messages -Daily mortality rates during winter are higher than during the remaining seasons - this difference is more conspicuous in persons aged 65 years and over;-The optimum average apparent temperature during which mortality rate was at a minimum was found to be around 27°C;-Mean average apparent temperature during winter during the period 1992-2005 was 11.57oC and average daily mortality rate during this season was 18.07/100000 in persons over 65 years and 0.64/100000 in persons under 65 years. During the summer the mean average apparent temperature was 29.93oC and the average daily mortality rate during this season was 12.46/100000 in persons over 65 years and 0.57/100000 in persons under 65 years.-At temperatures above 27oC the daily mortality rate increases more rapidly per degree compared to when it drops below 27oC;peer-reviewe