GEORGETOWN HOUSES OF THE FEDERAL PERIOD,

, 1780-1830, by DeeringDavis, Stephen P. Dorsey '35, if RalphCole Hall. Architectural Book PublishingCos. 1944, 130 pp., $5.00.

Georgetown has been called the "parent city of Washington." Founded in 1751, it had grown to a thriving and well-built town of some 5,000 souls by 1800. Across the valley of Rock Creek it looked at the raw ugliness and empty lots of the new Federal city brought into being by Washington and L'Enfant in 1791. As late as 1800, Claude Bowers describes the prospect: "From the steps of the Capitol, one could count seven or eight boarding houses (Jefferson lived in one of them) one tailor's shop, one shoemaker's, one printing establishment, the home of a washwoman and a grocer's shop; a stationery store, a drygoods house and an oyster market. And this was all." For a generation the quiet streets and gracious brick houses of Georgetown formed the milieu of Washington's social life, and many of the foreign envoys preferred it as a place of residence.

This book presents beautifully, in pictures and a brief text, the fine, simple and truly distinguished houses of the Federal Period. Though the show-places such as Tudor Place and Dumbarton House are included, one prefers, with the authors, the unpretentious two-story houses of warm, salmon-colored brick and white wood trim that come close to the street, with charming entrance steps and iron hand-rails. Chaste interiors of classic mien, with plain plaster walls painted white, or Adam green, or light blue, with cream-colored trim, form an effective setting for the fine furniture of the period.

Though swallowed up by Washingtonand even its quaint old street names altered in favor of the alphabet Georgetown retains today a fine heritage in these beautiful houses of one of the best periods of American architecture.

A Little Book of College Prayers, by David E. Adams '13, has been published by the United Press Holyoke, Mass., in an edition of 300 copies. According to the preface "The prayers in this book, with the exception of the closing Litany, were prepared for use in the Mount Holyoke College Chapel in the years 1932-1944. They have been collected in the present form in the hope that they may be of interest to those who have worshipped in Mount Holyoke and of service to those who may find them useful.

A second edition of Ernest R. Groves' '03 Preparation for Marriage has been published by Emerson Books, New York.