Books of the Month

Education and Text-Books. Alpha, a Greek Primer, introductory to Xenophon, by William G. Frost, (Allyn & Bacon.) A very attractive and ingenious little manual, in which the editor has gone, apparently, as far as he dared in makingthe ancient Greek a living language. The dialogues are clever, and the vocabulary has an interesting feature in the addition to the words, whenever it is possible, of English words which are descended from the Greek. — Gradation, an easy Latin translation book for beginners, by H. R. Heatley and H. N. Kingdon; revised by J. W. Scudder. (Allyn & Bacon.) A well-known English primer, prepared for the American market. A feature of the revision is the introduction of Latin stories leading up to the Latin of Nepos and Caesar. The same use has been made of the vocabulary as in the preceding volume, to interest the student in derivation. — Principles of Plane Geometry, by J. W. Macdonald. (Allyn & Bacon.) An interesting manual, for the use of teachers who, understanding elementary geometry, have the patience and courage to lead their pupils into a development of the science, instead of employing the easier method of teaching rules and examples. — C. W. Bardeen (Syracuse, X. Y.) has begun the issue of a series of pamphlets entitled Papers on School Issues of the Day, which so far Consist of reports of discussions and papers which first saw the light at the meeting of the National Association at Nashville in July last. Some of the titles are, Denominational Schools, The Educational Value of Manual Training, Art Education, The True Industrial Education, Methods of Instruction and Courses of Study in Normal Schools, Pedagogical Chairs in Colleges and Universities, Honorary Degrees as Conferred in American Colleges. The papers are for the most part of more than ordinary interest. — Crusader Programs for the Loyal Temperance Legion, Sunday - Schools, etc. (Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, Chicago.) There is no uncertainty about the sentiment conveyed in this little book, which is intended to furnish programmes for the celebration of Christian and patriotic festivals, and to inculcate total abstinence. For those who believe that total abstinence and Christianity are one and inseparable, it will present no difficulties,—Studies in Pedagogy, by Thomas J. Morgan. (Silver, Burdett & Co., Boston.) The work of a man of wide experience in the prevailing systems. We think his estimate of the actual value of Normal Schools and of chairs of pedagogy is unduly high, but he believes plainly in an ideal excellence, and is willing to believe that the schools are working out the problem, not that they have already achieved a full result. The book has some good practical suggestions, but what a world of talk the professional view of pedagogy seems to give rise to! — Thomas Jefferson s Views on Public Education, by John C. Henderson. (Putnams.) Mr. Henderson has taken a great deal of trouble which we fear will not receive sufficient recognition. He has not. simply printed from Jefferson’s writings such portions as relate to education. Under the several heads, An Admonition to Friends of Civil Liberty, A State should have a University, Jefferson’s Ideal University, Our Colored Brethren, and A Jeffersonian Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, he has drawn upon Jefferson’s public and private writings for expression of his views, and has set these forth with comments of his own, so as to make continuous papers. The plan assumes an importance attaching to Jefferson’s obiter dicta which we fear will not be shared by many men; but, curiously enough, the author has used some of Jefferson’s vague generalities as texts for admirable practical comment. — A German Reader for Beginners in School or College, with Notes and Vocabulary, by Edward S. Joyces. (Heath.) The plan requires that the exercises should he introductory to an intelligent reading of German, not to an acquaintance with German literature; but the editor has, after all, accomplished both objects in a degree. There is an ingenious series of interlinear introductory exercises. — Laboratory Manual of Experimental Physics ; a Brief Course of Quantitative Experiments intended for Beginners. By Albert L. Arey. (Bardeen.) The book is cleverly made up by having a blank or tabular page Opposite each set of experiments, upon which to record results.— In Heath’s Modern Language Series, recent, numbers are Aus dem Staat. Friedrichs des Grossen, by Gustav Freytag, edited by Herman Hager; Alexis Piron’s La Métromanie, edited by Léon Delbos; and Lamartine’s Jeanne d’Arc, edited by Albert Barrère. They are reprints from English publications. The French numbers have the notes conveniently at the foot of the page. Freytag’s essay, being annotated chiefly on the historical side, has its notes in an appendix. — Under the title of Public School Music Course, Charles E. Whiting has prepared a series of six music readers. (Heath.) They form a complete course, both of study and of exercise, up to the High School. The later numbers review the work of the earlier ones, and the higher one goes in the series, the more songs and hymns he has. It strikes us that the plan is almost too elaborately graded for general use, but we are glad of anything which emphasizes the importance of thorough training in vocal music in our public schools. We may yet awake fully to the immense help of both music and drawing in our elementary education. — Luther on Education, including a [sic] Historical Introduction and a Translation of the Reformer’s two most Important Educational Treatises, by F. V. N. Painter. (Lutheran Publication Society, Philadelphia.) Mr. Painter points out the important work done for schools by Luther, and insists that he deserves to be recognized as the greatest, not only of religious, but of educational reformers. There is much that is interesting in this book as to the history of education, but the treatises which are reproduced do not have a very immediate bearing upon current questions in school and state. — The New Arithmetic, edited by Seymour Eaton, with preface by T. H. Safford. (Heath.) A convenient collection of examples and problems arranged in a natural order. The preface is suggestive, and ought to be helpful to teachers, whether they use this particular book or not.—Æschines against Ctesiplion, edited ou the Basis of Weidner’s Edition, by R. B. Richardson. (Ginn.) The notes enable the student to keep in mind the natural comparison with Demosthenes’ oration; and the apparatus generally is such as will both stimulate the student and increase his interest in the theme treated. The text is admirably printed. — State and Federal Government of the United States (Heath) is a chapter from Mr. Woodrow Wilson’s longer work on The State, to which we have already referred. It is excerpted so as to serve as a brief manual for schools and colleges desiring to take up the central questions of our administration. — The Elements of Astronomy, with a Uranography, by Charles A. Young. (Ginn.) There is hard work before any High School pupil who grapples with this book, but it is work which will quicken the pulse of the student, and lead him into realms where the imagination, under the guidance of mathematics, will have a fine field.

Biography. The Life-Work of the Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Florine Thayer McCray. (Funk & Wagnalls.) Mrs. McCray follows Mrs. Stowe through her life, making the several books written by her stepping-stones with which to keep along the current of her career. She gives a notion of their contents and comments on them, and as Mrs. Stowe’s life, after she became famous, was in a measure a public one, it was easy to find material without having recourse to any private sources of information. It, should be added that many of Mrs. Stowe’s writings are of a half-autobiographical character. —In Saint Teresa of Avila Mrs. Bradley Gilman has found a comparatively fresh subject. At any rate, the point of view is fresh, for the author approaches a saint in the Roman calendar as if she really were a woman, and an interesting woman she finds her. There is a downright, unaffected treatment of the subject which suggests the experiment of translating other mediæval haloed people into persons seen near at hand. — Wilbur Fisk, by George Prentice. (Houghton.) A volume in the series of American Religious Leaders. The interesting manner in which Mr. Prentice starts off leads us to look for more than we get, or perhaps for something different. If Dr. Allen’s Jonathan Edwards was lacking in the biographical element, this volume suffers from an excess of this element. No doubt, the co religionists of Wilbur Fisk will read with full minds, but those outside of the Methodist Church would have been glad if the author had made clearer both the leadership of Fisk arid the characteristics of the body in which he was a leader. — A third volume in the same series is W. W. Newton’s Muhlenberg. Dr. Muhlenberg stood in an exceptional position. He was at the parting of the ways in the Episcopal Church. In his day it was ceasing to be a parasite of the Anglican Church, and asserting its individuality. No men, perhaps, more than Bishop Alonzo Potter and Dr. Muhlenberg, did more, each in his own way, to emphasize the new departure. About each centred the activities of an aggressive church, but Muhlenberg had a special gift in a sort of prophetic insight, and he was the herald of new movements which found in him both a prophet and an administrator. Mr. Newton’s book is a vivid portraiture of a notable man, and it is a study, as well, in the phases of church life of which Muhlenberg was an exponent. — Thiers, by Paul de Rémusat; translated by Melville B. Anderson. (MeClurg.) One of the new series of The Great French Writers. Thiers was so distinctly a statesman that the author of this volume has spent himself almost wholly on the historical background of his subject’s life, and the book thus affords a capital sketch of the interior history of France; the history, that is, of ideas as expounded in a great political and literary figure. — A Woman’s War Record, by Septima M. Collis. (Putnams.) A lively little reminiscence, unpretentious and readable, by the Southern wife of a Union officer. Mrs. Collis preserves, we are glad to see, an interesting, well-told little anecdote of Lincoln, originally contributed by her husband to a newspaper.— The journal of Marie Baslikirtseff, translated by Mrs. M. ,J. Serrano, has been issued in paper. (Cassell.) — The Boyhood and Youth of Goethe, translated from the German by John Oxenford (Putnam’s Sons), makes two exquisite little volumes in the Knickerbocker Nuggets Series.

Fiction. Theresa at San Domingo, a Tale of the Negro Insurrection of 1791, by Madame A. Fresneau; translated from the French by Emma Geiger Magrath. (MoGlurg.) A somewhat old-fashioned story, with a little the air of having been constructed at second hand, though it is not at all certain that the writer was not familiar with San Domingo. The primness of the narrative removes if a little from the region of reality.— In Thoughtland and in Dreamland, by Elsa D’Estene-Keeling. (T. Fisher Unwin, London.) A volume of scraps, some of them, like Laddie and Lassie, really clever, others rather affected, but all characterized by a little straining after effect. The effect, to he sure, is sometimes gained, and there are several masterly hits of condensed narrative.— Rothermal, a Story of Lost Identity, by Louis Reeves Harrison. (American News Company.) A good deal of pains has been taken with this rather preposterous story, but we wish the author had not been drawn into the wearisome use of the historic present. It is singular how much this device adds to the unreality of the performance. — The Catholic Man, a Study, by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull. (Lothrop.) All involved, semi-psychological, semi-sentimental novel, moderately well written, and appealing to a somewhat antiquated state. —.Six to One, by Edward Bellamy. (Putnams.) This Nantucket idyl, issued a dozen years ago, is revived under the stimulus of Mr. Bellamy’s later fame. — Taken Alive, and Other Stories, by Edward P. Roe. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) A collection of short stories, which is prefaced by a kindly written autobiographic sketch. — The History of a Slave, by H. H. Johnston. (Appleton.) Mr. Johnston, the well-known African traveler and geographer, has gathered into an assumed autobiography of an African slave a great number of bits of experience which have come to his knowledge. The form adopted enables him to give a force to the narrative, but it is far from being realistic in the sense of art. That is to say, it is the skin of a black man, but the voice of a white. He has taken on all the external form of a slave, but it is the geographer and traveler who really tells the story. — Sylvie and Bruno, by Lewis Carroll (Macmillan), is a. charmingly ingenious story for young folks. It is not quite equal to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but it is not given to mortals to write two books as delightful as that.

Sociology and Economics. The Industrial Progress of the Nation: Consumption Limited, Production Unlimited, is the cheerful title of Mr. Edward Atkinson’s volume containing articles contributed to The Century and The Forum. (Putnams.) The value of the volume, apart from the results of individual investigations pursued by Mr. Atkinson, is in Ihe comprehensive manner in which he has formulated his belief in what may he called the social morality of true business laws. Statistics take on a most interesting form as treated by him, and it is hard to resist the kindly optimism which runs through the many lines of thought and study pursued in this agreeable book.—Nationalism, by C. S. Griffin (The Author, Boston), is a small paper-covered book, in which the rapid organization of all society into an industrial army is urged as a cure-all for existing evils. Why so hot, my little man ? exclaimed Emerson once, on a less urgent occasion, and our friends the nationalists evidently want the mills of the gods to be run by an electro-motor. — Frances Raymond’s Investment, or The Cost of a Boy, by Mrs. S. M. T. Henry. (Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, Chicago.) A little story intended to show how a mother kept an exact account of what she expended on the care and education of her boy, charging the account with the expense entailed by the saloon. — Problems of Greater Britain, by Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (Macmillan), is an exhaustive survey of England’s possessions in North America, Australia, South Africa, and India. The work is the result of two long journeys, but is in no sense a book of travels; it is a painstaking and elaborate account of the political, social, and material condition of the English colonies, somewhat on the plan of Mr. Bryce’s American Commonwealth, though not so well done as that. The reader will find a vast, amount of information in these seven hundred closely printed pages ; as to its accuracy and the soundness of Sir Charles Dilke’s deductions, we are not able to pronounce. — Money, by James Platt. (Putnams.) Mr. Platt discourses of money in its economic aspect, but his mind is always ready to recur to the ethical side of the questions which arise under the consideration of wealth and prosperity.