an amount of critical and original material that clearly belongs to the constructive rather than to the pedagogical aspect of the science. One is led to suspect an over-devotion to immediate utilities in this mingling of pure science and pedagogy, but there can be no serious quarrel with a theory which has led to so valuable a result.

In the contents of the volume at hand are chapters on Preliminary Experiments, comprising experiments in tone and pressure discrimination, leading up to demonstrations of Weber's Law; on the Metric Methods-historical notes accompanying the experiments; on the Reaction Experiment, the Psychology of Time and the Range of Quantitative Psychology. The Instructor's Manual contains, in addition, appendices giving examination questions, bibliographies and a list of important instruments for psychophysical research with prices and names of makers.

It is noteworthy that more than half the space devoted to experiments is given up to the chapter on Metric Methods. Taken in connection with the introduction (Instructor's Manual) of over a hundred and fifty pages treating the Rise and Progress of Quantitative Psychology, this treatment of method gives the book decided distinction as an original and timely contribution.

Experimental Psychology has reached a stage where it may fairly be expected to begin to take stock of its progress. If it has not achieved all that was expected of it a generation ago, it has at least attained self-confidence and a coolness of judgment due to the surety and value of its established facts. It has ceased to be propaganda; it has become a science; but it is a science yet too immature for vainglory. Its pressing problems are still those of methodology, and its need is much more self-criticism than aggressive zeal.

BOTANY*

Professor Coulter is one of the foremost teachers of botany in America, and his several text-books, between some of which there is not

In his careful history and cautious analysis of psychophysical method Professor Titchener shows himself keenly alive to the true perspective and present need of his science. The amount of material brought together, the fairness of his comparisons, and the acumen of his criticisms make his work an invaluable summing up of the all-important present issue of quantitative psychology.

The author's general thesis is that the whole range of mental phenomena may be brought within the range of experiment, either qualitative or quantitative. Whether the qualitative range may eventually be reduced to quantitative treatment he is not ready to say, but he points to the advances in that direction. As to the interpretation of quantitative method, he accepts a reconstructed Fechnerism, taking as cardinal points of the theory of mental measurement “(1) the bracketing of the two limens as facts of friction in the mental machine, and (2) the substitution of sense distance for absolute sense magnitude. The limens thus become irrelevant to Weber's Law, excepting in so far as the DL [difference limen] is an instrument of analysis at large; and Weber's Law itself becomes a law not of sensation intensity, but of our estimation of sense separateness within the intensive continuum."

*A Text Book of Botany for Secondary Schools, by John M. Coulter, Professor of Botany, The University of Chicago. (New York, D. Appleton and Company 1905.)

It should be noted that Professor Titchener himself recognises the element of idiosyncrasy which any individual selection of experiments for laboratory courses must entail, and he plainly intends that his manual shall be freely supplemented by judicious choice from other sources. This, of course, does not impair the value of a guide from a laboratory chief of his experience. If there is anything to regret in the work it is nothing more serious than the sometime bizarre minglings with the English of French and German. But the book is meant as a manual, not as an essay.

H. B. Alexander.

a little similarity of scope, have been well received, and have afforded a healthful and invigorating stimulus to the teaching of a subject, which in the minds of many has very much needed it. The ground in the present work covers. in discursive manner, the ground which would normally be the extent of the high-school course, and the book must, in the author's view, be regarded as supplementary

to the regular laboratory and field work. The modifications in the text are due in large part to the many suggestions which have been received from secondary teachers, and thus the value of the matter to high-school pupils will be assured. The treatment is in restricted parts rather less illuminating than it might well have been. Thus the interesting observations on the peculiarities of sexual reproduction in Mucor and its congeners should, we think, have been included. The illustrations are good, many are excellent, and a number are new. We regret that some of those in the latter part of the book should have

been taken at second hand from the work of Schimper, for the reason that there are so many better ones available nearer home. They have, moreover, lost pungency of detail in the reproduction.

CIVICS

Civics, by S. E. Foreman, Ph.D., is an advanced text for high schools and colleges, which aims to impress the spirit of our institutions upon the student as well as to give him an idea of their form. Hence the real workings of all important political institutions is discussed as well as their legal structure. The conception of the subject held by the authorthe only true conception to adopt for college and high-school students-is that the ultimate purpose of the study is to develop political and civic morality. For this purpose a knowledge of our political institutions is necessary, but even more so a knowledge of how they work and of the responsibility of the citizen for their functioning.

ENGLISH: AIDS TO TEACHING.

The inductive or laboratory method of teaching presents no more remarkable instance of its value and of its conquest over other methods than in the study of the vernacular. Almost innumerable texts have appeared to assist in making the study of English practical and to give to the student both appreciation of literary products and power to use.language effectively. Three such volumes have recently been added to the long list already issued by the publishers.

Professor George R. Carpenter's Model English Proset is designed for students in the upper classes in high school, who have already had an elementary course in composition and rhetoric. The purpose of the selection is to furnish models for analysis and for imitations. The selections are rather more complex than those frequently included in such volumes. The types represented are ample: types of the narrative include autobiography, biography, history, travel and fiction. The section on "Style,' including examples from Bacon, Milton, Bunyan, Newman, Ruskin and others, is especially noteworthy.

Specimens of Discourse. by Dr. Arthur L. Andrews of Cornell, is a similar aid for college students beginning the study of English. More

The Century Company, New York.
The Macmillan Company, New York.
Henry Holt and Company, New York.

specifically it presents types of discourse relating to the environment and the activities of every day life through the study of which the student may acquire some skill in expressing his own ideas or experiences rather than merely summarizing ideas expressed by others. In a lengthy introduction the author gives a variety of themes, analyses them, and gives specific advice for the elaboration of the various types of description, narration, exposition,

etc.

English Essays,* by Professor W. C. Bronson of Yale, has a more limited purpose-that of presenting selections that will cultivate in the student a liking for good English prose, of the essay type. Since the selections are determined by the intrinsic interest of thought and style, a more attractive volume than the former ones results, but at the same time one more of the traditional character. The chief exponents of English style from Bacon to Pater and Stevenson find representation. An appendix adds examples of early English style from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. Brief biographical and critical notes are also appended. While the volume is in no way designed as a text in the history of English literature, it would prove a most excellent companion piece to such a course.

ENGLISH CLASSICS

Longman's Series of Classics include the recommendations for preparation for the college entrance examinations from 1906 to 1911. To this series have been added Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, edited by Professor Baldwin of Yale, Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, edited by Doctor Flint of the University of Chicago, and Webster's Bunker Hill Orations, and Washington's Farewell Address, edited by Professor Scott of the University of Michigan. The entire series is a most attractive one and the three volumes mentioned conform to the general plan. A distinctive feature of the plan is that the volumes are not overloaded with comments, notes and introductions. The suggestions for teachers also included in each volume are excellent; while the introduction emphasizes for the student the important points in life and character of the author as well as the type value of the selections to be studied. The notes are good and not of the obtrusive and extreme pedantic type.

ESSAYS IN EDUCATION.

Great Pedagogical Essays from Plato to Spencer, by Professor F. V. N. Painter, consists of selections from the most noted educational treatises of all ages. Necessarily in a work of four hundred pages the selections must be brief, and the writers represented comparatively few. Seven selections represent the classical age, four the middle ages, six the renaissance and reformation period, and nine the more recent centuries. The chief objec

*Henry Holt and Company, New York. †The American Book Company, New York.

tion to these selcetions is that there is no unified basis of selection. Some of the essays deal with educational ideals that are remote from any practical bearing, some relate to educational reform, some to institutional organisation, and some to methods of teaching. As a matter of fact, any volume of this size is inadequate for the presentation of any one of these phases of educational literature, and consequently no good conception of any one of them can be given. The title would seem to indicate that it was an exposition of educational ideals that was to be presented through these essays; but selections from the Capitularies of Charlemagne or the Ratio Studiorum of the Jesuits do not give the conception of education held at the respective periods, though selections could have been made that would. Nevertheless, the volume gives a good survey in a brief compass, the introductory biographical sketches are helpful, and every volume that will assist in broadening the interests, clarifying the ideas and determining the ideals of teachers is to be commended.

FRENCH TEXTS

Waterloo,* par Erckmann-Chatrian, abbreviated and edited with introduction, notes, vocabulary and composition exercises, by Victor E. François, Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Conscrit de 1813 and Waterloo, hardly need any introduction to the teachers of French. Such stories are the envy of teachers of German, who have difficulty in finding easy material full of life and incident. The notes of this edition, though few in number, are to the point. An especially commendable feature of the book is the plan of the composition exercises. Grammatical points of review are suggested, followed by short illustrative sentences connected in thought to be translated into French. The sentences are, on the whole, exceedingly well done, and ought to produce good results if properly used.

Choses de France, Leçons de Conversation,† by C. Fontaine. This is an attempt to give in brief compass sufficient material for conversation, and at the same time increase the American boy's knowledge of the country and customs. The questions that follow each lesson are meant to be suggestive. The field covered in the hundred and odd pages is an extremely comprehensive one. In the first part there are lessons dealing with the geography and commerce of France; in the second, brief sketches of its rich history and constitutions. Of course, the chapters are meant to be developed by the teacher; still the impression left upon the reader is over-emphasis of dates, figures and facts. Conversation to be successful must be based on interesting and adaptable material. A well-written account of contemporary France told in as many pages, with less cramming of facts, would seem to meet the demands of the present day better.

*Henry Holt and Company, New York. William R. Jenkins, New York.

*

Histoirettes et Poésis Chosies pour les Enfants, by Marie M. Robique. This is a rather attractively bound and printed book, containing in the first part bright stories and letters suitable for young children from eight to twelve The second part consists of fables and poems for committing to memory that require considerable knowledge of vocabulary and idiom for adequate understanding. The vocabulary used in the text is fairly extensive, but is only meagerly represented in a loose sort of way at the end of the book. The questions and answers on the various texts in the first part might well give way to some definite grounding in the language. The class of teacher who would select the book and could use it successfully, would not need any such help.

La Fille de Thuiskon-Teuton ideals in French prose, arranged and edited with notes and vocabulary by Kate Thecla Conley. The selections are designed for school and home use. They consist of a large number of wellknown German poems by Goethe, Bürger, Heine, Klopstock, Schiller and others done into prose by Labrunie. However good the French prose version may be, it seems strange that they should be edited here in America to replace the German originals. Surely there is no lack of French prose expressive of wholesome French ideals. The book is uncalled for here in America.

GERMAN TEXTS

Die Blinden, Novelle von Paul Heyse, with introduction, notes, exercises and vocabulary by W. H. Carruth and E. F. Engel. Although this may be regarded as one of the best of Heyse's short stories, yet its appropriateness as a class-text is open to grave question. There is too much that is harrowing either in the story or suggested by it for a class to spend several weeks reading it. At any rate, the text is suitable for high-school classes. Is it not time to call a halt editing such stories as this and Der Letzte, by Wildenbruch? The work of editing is well done. The notes are carefully chosen, and the translations of phrases in them are happily rendered. Placed before the seemingly adequate vocabulary, there are connected passages set for translation into German. The English reads very smoothly on the whole.

Herodes und Mariamnet eine Tragödie in fünf Arten, von Fr. Hebbel, edited with introduction and notes by Edward Stockton Meyer. This edition of Hebbel's first great tragedy of the second period ought to be warmly welcomed for the use of advanced students of German literature. Prof. Meyer gives in the introduction (p. XXXVI.) an exceedingly well-written brief life of Friedrich Hebbel and appreciative critical estimate of his position in German literature, with particular emphasis upon the drama in question, its source and treatment. A selected bibliography

*William R. Jenkins, New York.

†The American Book Company, New York. Henry Holt and Company, New York.

follows. The notes are very brief (too brief, perhaps, for any but advanced students) and are almost entirely restricted to the literary interpretation of the text. They are prefaced by an analysis of the structure of the plot in which Prof. Meyer thinks we have "an almost perfect example of dramatic art."

ITALY'S HISTORY.

A Short History of Italy,* by Henry Dwight Sedgwick, gives in the brief compass of four hundred pages, a sketch of the period from the close of the classical period to the present time. For the reading public rather than the scholarly world, the volume combines brevity, conciseness and a grasp of essentials with accuracy of fact and a pleasing narrative style. The method of analysis of periods is dramatic, but the account is so brief as to lack the living quality that can only be gained by a fuller account of men and motives, or of motives as seen through the details of action. The author has accentuated, rather than minimised, as detailed study is most apt to do, the cataclysmic character of the renaissance period. "Italy suddenly leaped forward, as if she had drained a beaker of champagne," is not the sort of introduction to the classical revival that will commend the volume to the student. And it is to be regretted that the book, which undoubtedly will, as it should, find a ready welcome by many desiring a brief sketch of the country where history has been most in the making, should lend itself to the view so out of sympathy with the present point of view, and so destructive of the idea of unity where amidst the greatest diversity it finds some of the most dramatic evidences.

MATHEMATICAL TEXTS

First Year in Algebra,† by Frederick H. Somerville. This text presents an introductory

*Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston. †The American Book Company, New York.

course in algebra adapted to the grammar grades. It is written for beginners, with full explanations at points where difficulty is usually met. The exercises are carefully graded. The chapter on factoring is particularly thorough and systematic, while that on substittution contains good applications to mensuration and physics.

From the pedagogical standpoint, the book contains nothing new. The transition from arithmetic to algebra is not good, the uses of algebra are not in general brought out, the problems are the usual mediæval ones, with little application to the life of to-day, and the arrangement of topics is the time-honoured

It is particularly encouraging to the student of typography to consider some of the recent publications from a mechanical standpoint. These are from plants that survived the private press epidemic of a few years past, a condition, however, that had its use in stimulating and increasing the interest of the reading public in the mechanical makeup of books in general. The present examples fairly represent the "survival of the fittest," and now that a reaction

one.

Advanced Arithmetic,* by Elmer A. Lyman. This is a usable advanced arithmetic, intended for pupils who have completed the grammar grades. The foundation principles are emphasised, approved methods of computation are presented, including short processes, and the essentials of modern business arithmetic and practice are considered. Interesting facts from the history of mathematics, showing the development of the particular subjects under consideration, are inserted, and add interest to the work. The book is a good one and deerves an examination.

Elements of Descriptive Geometry,t by Charles E. Ferris. For a number of years it has been the practice of draughtsmen to work in the third quadrant, while the texts on descriptive geometry have been almost uniformly teaching the subject in the first quadrant. The modern spirit in the teaching of mathematics demands that a subject be taught as it is used in practice. In this work Professor Ferris has successfully presented the elements of descriptive geometry in the third quadrant, and has added a large number of practical examples which will fully illustrate the principles of the subject.

*The American Book Company, New York. †The American Book Company, New York.

has taken place and the conditions have become normal, we may expect an increasing improvement in all lines of book-making; indeed, there are decided evidences of it already.

A new organisation, which promises excellent practical results in the development of the printing craft, is "The Society of Printers," which was recently started in Boston with the definite purpose of increasing the interest of the reading public in printing and book-making

as an art. The Society now has in the press a first text book, which will be used in this new branch of instruction in the Public Schools of the State of Massachusetts. It is intended to assist the children in properly arranging, in book form, regular school work, such as essays, etc. Other immediate plans of the Society include an exhibition of printed books representing the progress of the art of printing from its discovery to the present time. This will be held in the Boston Public Library some time in the month of January.

The productions of the Merrymount Press of D. B. Updike always appeal on account of their unfailing good taste and simplicity. A good example of this is the edition of Thackeray's Letters to an American Family.*

This is a book which retails for $1.50, and yet has all the care in its design and production of a high-priced limited edition. Its makeup throughout, from the nicely balanced type page to the binding with its old-style embossed cloth sides and leather label, is simple and dignified, and thoroughly in keeping with the subject. The charm of the contents of this book, giving as it does such an unusual insight into the attractive personality of Thackeray, together with the successful make-up, combine to make a volume that is to be doubly valued.

Another good example of the work of this press is Arcady in Troy, a thin, tall 12mo, in an edition of seventy-five copies privately printed. The title-page bears a decorative arbour effect in Italian style, printed in a gray-green. The binding is modest, but appropriate, in brown paper boards with a linen back. The matter of this book consists of a description of a private garden in Troy, N. Y., which was the subject to two local newspaper articles. The book contains two photogravure insets showing different views of the garden but these we would rather not have seen used, since they tend to destroy the illusion which is so pleasantly produced by the subject matter.

A Book of Beverages is a delightful example of old-style composition. It is a thin volume of forty pages, bound in boards, covered with an old-style blue barred paper. This little book was sold for fifty cents at a church fair with good profit. It is in the production of such moderate-priced books that Mr. Updike justly takes some pride.

*The Letters of William M. Thackeray to an American Family. With an Introduction by Lucy D. Baxter. New York: The Century Company, 1904.

Brown Letters.* Aside from its curious contents and attractive typographical style, which is thoroughly in keeping with the period during which the letters were written, this book has the added attraction for the bibliophile of being limited to only twenty-five copies. It was privately printed, and for private distribution. With such material as this, Mr. Updike is manifestly in his element, and the result is a volume that is thoroughly acceptable.

By the way, Mr. Updike announces the establishment of a bindery at the Merrymount Press, under the charge of Mr. Peter Verburg, whose work is already favourably known in Chicago and New York. Mr. Verburg, who studied some time ago under Mr. Douglass Cockerell, was at one time an associate of Miss Starr in her bindery at Hull House, Chicago, and later on was employed by Mr. Ralph Randolph Adams at his bindery in New York, both as a designer and binder.

A new volume, to be valued for its particular historical interest, as well as for its typographical excellence, is Manhattan in 1628.† This is a quarto in a limited edition printed at the Marion Press of Frank Hopkins. The style is simple and in keeping with the period covered, the type being a 12-point Caslon, liberally leaded, and printed on a Van Gelder paper, with wellproportioned margins. The book contains numerous gelatin facsimiles of primitive prints of Manhattan, perfectly reproduced, and an attractive feature is the forty-six spellings of the word "Manhattan" as compiled from various early records. The binding is in old-blue paper boards, relieved by small corner tips and narrow strips of orange cloth at the joints, representing the official colours of "Old Manhattan." The book, as a whole, is representative of the workmanlike productions of Mr. Hopkins.

The limited editions which are being published periodically by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, under the supervision of Mr. Bruce Rogers, have been uniformly attractive, and the

*The Letters of Three Dutiful and Affectionate Rhode Island Children to their Honoured Parents. Boston: D. B. Updike, 1905.

Manhattan in 1628, as described in the recently discovered autograph letter of Jonas Michaelius written from the Settlement on the 8th of August of that year, and now first published. With a review of the letter and an historical sketch of New Netherland to 1628. By Dingman Versteed. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1904.