l humility--it is
these whom the society seeks in vain in St. Peter's Parish.

Still another problem of the most vital consequence Kielland has
attacked in his two novels, _Poison_ and _Fortuna_ (1884). It is,
broadly stated, the problem of education. The hero in both books is
Abraham Loevdahl, a well-endowed, healthy, and altogether promising boy
who, by the approved modern educational process, is mentally and
morally crippled, and the germs of what is great and good in him are
systematically smothered by that disrespect for individuality and
insistence upon uniformity, which are the curses of a small society.
The revolutionary discontent which vibrates in the deepest depth of
Kielland's nature; the profound and uncompromising radicalism which
smoulders under his polished exterior; the philosophical pessimism
which relentlessly condemns all the flimsy and superficial reformatory
movements of the day, have found expression in the history of the
childhood, youth, and manhood of Abraham Lvdahl. In the first place, it
is worthy of note that to Kielland the knowledge which is offered in
the guise of intellectual nourishment is poison. It is the dry and dusty
accumulation of antiquarian lore, which has little or no application
to modern life--it is this which the young man of the higher classes is
required to assimilate. Apropos of this, let me quote Dr. G. Brandes,
who has summed up the tendency of these two novels with great felicity:

"The author has surveyed the generation to which he himself belongs, and
after having scanned these wide domains of emasculation, these prairies
of spiritual sterility, these vast plains of servility and irresolution,
he has addressed to himself the questions: How does a whole generation
become such? How was it possible to nip in the bud all that was
fertile and eminent? And he has painted a picture of the history of the
development of the present generation in the home-life and school-life
of Abraham Loevdahl, in order to show from what kind of parentage those
most fortunately situated and best endowed have sprung, and what kind
of education they received at home and in the school. This is, indeed, a
simple and an excellent theme.

"We first see the child led about upon the wide and withered common
of knowledge, with the same sort of meagre fodder for all; we see it
trained in mechanical memorizing, in barren knowledge concerning things
and forms that are dead and gone; in ignorance conce