DURING the last four years a vast change has come over New England. Four years ago the snow fell, crusted and melted on many an excellent hill near Boston without a single ski having broken its surface. Skiing was a sport for fools or experts. There evidently was no way in which a man in the first category could progress to the second. A few of us kept persistently at it, but learning came slowly. The few skiing manuals on hand were written in French of Norwegian and the latter technique is next to impossible to master without personal instruction.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the news of Hannes Schnieder and his great Ski School at Arlberg. Here was somebody who had dared to throw tradition to the winds. He was developing a new technique; a sort of mongrel breed, half Swiss, half Norwegian. Schnieder declared, "I don't care how I get down a hill, so long as I reach the bottom standing up!" With the spread of this Arlberg method New England has become Ski-conscious. The interest and necessary nerve have been with us now for two winters, but, till just recently, there has been no American book describing any skiing method. Charley Proctor, formerly of Dartmouth, Intercollegiate Champion of 1927 and of the American Olympic Ski Team of 1928 has filled this crying need with his recent booklet entitled "Skiing".

To make a turn is one thing. To tell somebody else how to do it is another. Mr. Proctor has handled his wording in remarkably clear fashion and supplemented with a number of line sketches, illustrating the essential features of all the well-known stops and turns. He has taken the same stand as Schnieder in declaring that he defends no particular technique. The little book was written to teach the fundamentals of practical skiing, and, in the way that Mr. Proctor describes the various styles, it is clear that he is a master-hand at all of them. His book should come as a boon to all ski-runners who still think that they have room for improvement.