have been better; a more detailed and elementary account of Port Royal and of what the name signifies, would have added interest to the book. The extracts are the best of the Port Royal pedagogy, and they show the depth, weight, and seriousness of all that the famous solitaires wrote and did. It is well to read such classics, if for no other purpose than to show how much that is now thought new is really old. Might we not now accept Nicole's definition of the most essential quality in the preceptor of a prince as a good definition of the essential quality in the teacher?

"It cannot be better explained than by saying that it is that quality which makes a man always blame what is blameworthy, praise what is praiseworthy, disparage what is low, impress with a sense of what is great, judge everything wisely and equitably, and express his judgments in an agreeable manner, suitable to those to whom he speaks, and, in fine, makes him direct the mind of his pupils to the truth in everything."

And then, how modern are these paragraphs from the same writer:

“The aim of instruction is to carry our minds to the highest point they are capable of attaining."

"It does not give memory, imagination, nor intelligence, but it cultivates them all. By strengthening them one by another, the judgment is aided by the memory, and the memory is assisted by the imagination and the judgment."

"When some of these parts are absent they should be supplied by others. Thus, the tact of a master is shown in setting his scholars to things for which they have a natural liking. Some children should be instructed almost solely with what depends on memory, because their memories are strong, but their judgment weak; and others should at first be set to things regarding judgment, because they have more judgment than memory."

"It is not properly the teachers nor extraneous instruction that cause things to be understood; at most they only expose them to the interior light of the mind, by which alone they are accompanied; so that when this light is not found, instruction is as useless as wishing to show pictures during the night."

No matter whether they agree or not with the opinion expressed not long ago that President Eliot is the greatest constructive force that has acted upon American education in recent years, the better teachers and educators of the country will heartily welcome the volume of essays and addresses to which he has given the name of "Educational Reform." He explains, in his preface, that the papers contained in the volume have been selected from a much larger number, on the ground that they set forth with clearness and sufficient amplitude the various educational reforms that he has been trying to promote during the last thirty years. The title well expresses the character of the work, as "educational reformer" would well express the character of its author. We notice the absence from the collection of the articles on "The New Education" published in "The Atlantic Monthly," which first drew general attention to Dr. Eliot, and had much to do, as was then understood, with making him President of Harvard University. The arrangement is chrono

logical, and the first paper is the inaugural address, delivered in October, 1869. The author says that almost all the reforms advocated in the later papers are distinctly, though slightly, outlined in this address; possibly, however, some of his readers will not be able to see them all there as distinctly as he sees them. The papers are marked by that breadth of view, virility of thought and expression, and courage which have contributed so much to the success of President Eliot's administration at Harvard, and without which it would have been impossible. We find him saying in the inaugural: "In spite of the familiar picture of the moral dangers which environ the student, there is no place so safe as a good college during the critical passage from boyhood to manhood." If he can persuade the public of this truth, he will at once assuage the anxieties of some breasts that are now troubled, and stimulate attendance upon colleges. The papers are eighteen in number, and they touch the whole range of education, from lowest to highest, professional schools included.

Herbart's "Application of Psychology to the Science of Education" is, so far as we are aware, the fourth of this writer's educational works to be presented in an English dress. Translations of the "Text-book in Psychology," the "Science of Education," and the "Esthetic Revelation of the World," the two last in one volume, came out some years ago. The "Application was a late product of Herbart's pen; it appeared in the form of short letters, was meant to be supplementary to the "Science of Education," and was never completed. Miss Millner has rendered students of pedagogy, and especially Herbartians, a service by her translation and her "Introduction to the Study of Herbart." The frequent translation of Herbart's books, to say nothing of the large secondary literature, shows how much interest the Herbartian pedagogy has awakened. This interest cannot be indefinitely maintained, relatively speaking, and it is not desirable that it should be; but it will not ebb until the more valuable Herbartian ideas have become incorporated into our general stock of pedagogical thought, such as the ethical ideal, apperception, and

interest. We do not remember a better brief characterization of Herbart than the one that Mr. Davidson gives in the work noticed above:

"Ideas are treated as forces which may be compounded, and whose mechanical relations and resultants may be stated in mathematical formulas. With such notions he could, of course, arrive at no conception of a free will or any true morality. To have will is nothing more than the mechanical resultant of his idea-forces. But in spite of these serious drawbacks, which tend to make education a mere mechanical matter, Herbart's contributions to the science of pedagogy were most valuable and lasting."

President Taylor's "Study of the Child" is something quite different from the conventional book on child-study. It is not an inventory of child-actions, child-words, and child-ideas and feelings, nicely ex

pressed in tables and summaries and left with little attempt at interpretation or synthesis-a monument -a monument to their author's interest in facts, but it is just what the secondary title expresses, a brief treatise on the psychology of the child. It is strongly marked by the method and spirit of the objective psychology, and could not have been written without the new insight from that quarter, but it also recognizes the fact that, at bottom, psychology is an introspective science. The matter of the book is well chosen, the plan easy and natural, and the style clear, while the more abstract parts are well set off by concrete examples.

Professor and Mrs. Bryan's "Republic of Plato" has been prepared with a view of bringing the ideas, methods, and spirit of that great master to bear more directly upon the teaching and education of the country. The object is a commendable one. The "Studies for Teachers" consist of careful analyses of the several books of the "Republic "what it was once the fashion to call "arguments." These studies those who use the book will find very helpful. Following them is a general introduction, historical and critical in character. The editors

have taken a hint from the current Sunday School Lesson Leaf: "In the Studies some golden sayings have been quoted in full, in the hope of making them current coin among us."

Dr. Oppenheim's "Development of the Child" is made up of a series of well-considered studies, written solely from the modern objective or strictly scientific point of view. We interpret the book to mean that the author took up for discussion a class of subjects that he thought very important and also very much neglected, and not that it expresses the full range of his pedagogical thought. His method and spirit are well shown by the chapter devoted to the value of the child as a witness in suits at law. After showing that the old writers on evidence placed the stress on the religious element involved in the sanctity of an oath, he proceeds to show that it should rather be placed on the child's ability to understand the facts involved in his testimony and correctly to report them. His argument is perfectly conclusive, but we fear that a majority of jurists and lawyers have not the scientific training to appreciate its force. The subject has obvious practical difficulties, and we are by no means sure that the dictum, "The only safeguard that can effectually preserve the common interest is the withdrawal of such child-evidence from courts of law as a well-informed man must, a priori, doubt," would remove them. Dr. Oppenheim finds in the profession of maternity the highest activity of woman, but he does not find that the new education provided for women in any way fits them the better for the performance of this activity. But this opinion is less discouraging than the old one, which was that it tended directly to unfit them. He holds that a careful and exact preparation for the work in hand has to a certain extent received recognition, that it

is one step of immense importance, one stride in the right direction; still, he contends that the young man enters much more fully into the enjoyment of the new education than the young woman, even if her education is described as "higher." "A young man's training," he tells us, "is designed to further his ability to accomplish definite work in the world; his sister's is still arranged on the plan of making her appear better cared for, more advantageously placed, better apparelled in mental garments than her neighbors." It is quite safe to say that a majority of the young women now in colleges and universities will not take kindly to this view of the

matter.

In her attractive volume, "Child Culture in the Home," Mrs. Mosher addresses to mothers, in a pleasant style, much sound instruction that they need to know and lay to heart. There are sixteen chapters, all bearing such practical titles as "The Emotions," "The Moral Sense," "The Training of the Will," "Manners," "Domestic Economy," and "Civic Duties." We have not discovered fresh or novel ideas in the book, but its old lessons, shaped anew and fitted to new conditions, will never go out of fashion, because they are essential to sound childculture, and, in great degree, to the best interests of human life.

The motif in the preparation of " A Study of a Child," as stated by the author, "is the interest awakened in America and Europe by the child-study movement, the fascination that lies in the sayings and the doings of children, and especially the expressed desire of psychologists, physicians, and teachers for opportunity to study individual child records, both normal and abnormal." The book opens with an argumentative chapter, "Reasons for Child-Study in the Home," and then proceeds with the "record" which "is given exactly as it was originally written, with a few additional explanatory remarks concerning the course taken to produce the results recorded." These "results" are a large collection of facts observed by an intelligent observer in the first eight years of the development of an individual child, that is endorsed as healthy, happy, and intelligent, care being taken to interfere as little as possible with his spontaneity. They have slight connection, or rather none except what is furnished by chronological sequence. The large number of original drawings add to the value of the book.

The foregoing list of books suggest two or three things that are worth noting. One is the activity of the pedagogical mind of the country. These works all bear the date 1898, and are the accumulation of three or four months. It is not so very long ago that, to make up an equal list, one would have been compelled to run over a series of years, and then the books would have been only relatively as good. It is only within a few years that books of as high a character as several of these began to be written in the country. Again, the list shows, very happily, the range that our pedagogical litera

ture is taking. The three great fields are all covered more or less fully-the science, the art, and the history of education. Unless all signs fail, the education of the country must be steadily improving. B. A. HINSDALE.

A model classical text-book.

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

Professor Shorey's edition of the Odes and Epodes of Horace, recently published in "The Students' Series of Latin Classics" (Benj. H. Sanborn & Co.), is a text-book of such unusual value that it must be given more than the perfunctory mention usually accorded to publications of this description. There are annotated editions of Horace without number for college use, and it would seem at first thought that to add another to the number was about as unnecessary a task as a scholar could attempt. But an examination of this new edition not only justifies its existence, but sets a new standard of excellence for works of the class to which it belongs. To put the matter briefly, we doubt if there has ever before been brought to the preparation of a classical text for school use so complete a knowledge of the literature of all ages and so great a wealth of illustrative material as are condensed into the four hundred pages of Dr. Shorey's introduction and notes. There is such a thing, no doubt, as over-annotation, but this criticism does not apply to the apparatus with which the present volume is provided, and an examination of these notes, extensive as they are, reveals the fact that, so far from being padded, or eked out by the admission of pedantic trivialities, they illustrate the extreme of compactness, and that they contain nothing the scholar would willingly miss. The average college student, of course, could get along with much less help than is here offered, but for him the remedy is obvious enough, and the book has the great merit of providing the student (in or out of college) who is not of the average type with a richer treasury of comment, parallel passages, and Horatian echoes in modern poetry, than has previously been brought within the covers of one volume. Let us quote one note, taken almost at random, by way of illustration. The subject is from Ode IV., XIV., 31.

"Metendo: cf. on 4, 11, 30. For image, cf. Il., 11, 67, 19, 223; Catull., 64, 353-355; Verg., En., 10, 513; Eschyl., Suppl., 637; Gray, The Bard, And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way'; Macaulay, Regillus, 23, 'Like corn before the sickle | The stout Lavinians fell'; Swinburne, Erechtheus, 'Sickles of man-slaughtering edge | Ground for no hopeful harvest of ripe grain '; Shaks., Tro. and Cress., 5, 5, And there the strawy Greeks ripe for his edge | Fall down before him like the mower's swath.' 999

When one has hundreds of pages of this sort of thing, it becomes impressive. We may add that We may add that the quotations given in the notes are taken not only from Greek, Latin, and English literature, but also, although somewhat more sparingly, from the classical writers of France, Germany, and Italy. Yet,

in the face of all that has been given, the editor remarks, truthfully enough: "It would not have been difficult to add indefinitely to the quotations from English poetry, and the task of selection was not easy."

Mr. Remington as artist

and author.

Home-keeping folks of steady habits may find Mr. Frederic Remington's bouquet of wild-life sketches, entitled "Crooked Trails" (Harper), rather dangerous reading. Mr. Remington's enthusiasm for the scenes he paints is infectious enough to tempt a sedentary man into exchanging the trusty arm-chair for the plunging bronco or the fickle canoe as did the misguided attorney who figures as a sort of Tartarin in one of the present sketches. With the work of Mr. Remington the artist we are all more or less familiar. He is the delineator par excellence of the Indian, the cavalryman, the cowboy, and the "greaser," and the sharp realism of his pictures will make them of positive historical value to future generations, when the types and phases of American character he chooses to portray have disappeared from the shifting stage of our national life. With Mr. Remington the author we are not so familiar; but the present volume shows that Mr. Remington can write-if not nearly so well as he can draw - still fairly well. His book is not free from expressions of (to put it mildly) questionable taste, such as "Nature had slobbered all over Carter Johnson," and the like. These outbreaks are clearly efforts on Mr. Remington's part to seem "breezy" and off-hand; but they are clumsy and evidently forced. How well he can write when he is content to be himself, the following pretty bit of wordpainting shows: "The colors play upon the senses -the reddish-yellow of the birch-barks, the blue of the water, and the silver sheen as it parts at the bows of the canoes; the dark evergreens, the steely rocks with their lichens, the white trunks of the birches, their fluffy tops so greeny green, and over all the gold of a summer day." All in all, Mr. Remington's book is a delightful one. Of course

the pictures are the best part of it. There are fortynine of them in all, and they are to the text what the gem is to the setting. The volume is a comely one, and it will make a tempting gift-book when the Holiday season comes again.

History of a famous literary endowment.

Miss Harriett Wright Smith's "History of the Lowell Institute" (Lamson, Wolffe, & Co.) describes an educational endowment, simply planned and effectively administered, which stands almost without a parallel. John Lowell, third of the name, was the son of Francis Cabot Lowell, who introduced cotton spinning into New England and for whom the city of Lowell was named, and was cousin to James Russell Lowell, the poet-professor. Dying in Bombay in 1836, while yet a young man, he left $250,000, the half of his fortune, to the care of a single trustee who should have power to name his successor, always to be a member of the Lowell family, if one worthy

of the trust could be found. The income of the fund thus provided, except one-tenth which should be regularly added to the principal, should be expended in providing free public lectures to be given in the city of Boston by distinguished scholars of the highest attainments. The first lecture was delivered on December 31, 1839, by Edward Everett. Since then, more than fifty-four hundred lectures have been given by three hundred and fifty-two lecturers. The list of subjects includes the most important topics known to human philosophy, discussed by the most advanced thinkers of the age, of whom Agassiz, Guyot, Tyndall, Drummond, Rogers, Eliot, and Walker are worthy examples. The beneficial results of this endowment in the development of the culture of Boston cannot be estimated. Many epoch-marking books have been first presented to the public as Lowell Lectures. While the honorariums paid to the lecturers have been generously adequate to the service, the finances have been so skilfully administered that the original endowment

has been about doubled.

Luther, the hero

and man.

A well-balanced history of Martin Luther is certainly one of the most difficult things in the world to write. Himself a man of intense personality, a sort of theological Bismarck, his memory rejoices itself with devoted friends and laughs at impotent enemies; the calm dispassion which should characterize the biographer being a world's length from both. Dr. Henry Eyster Jacobs, author of the life of Luther, which makes the first volume of a series to be known as "Heroes of the Reformation" (Putnam), is Dean of the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia and Professor of Systematic Theology therein-matters which array him among the great innovator's followers and admirers. Yet it is surely more humane to let the friends rather than the adversaries of any given person set forth his qualities, appreciatively and not without reverence, as in the case before us. Dr. Jacobs has been careful to keep on solid ground. The myths which have done much to obscure the real entity behind them are cleared away, and the triumphs and trials of a very human personality disclosed. Some of the more important documents on the other side are given in full, a welcome concession to impartiality. Nor is the book too voluminous, while its interest is heightened by many illustrations. What it has done for its famous subject may be summarized thus: Leaving him still the hero, it affords us a portrait of the man.

of thumb, and without reference to any ascertainable canon of taste. Complaint has also been made by many and many a critic recently, that a book showing some real knowledge of the technique and history of the musical art, "Evelyn Innes " for example, is quite beyond the reach of readers (meaning the critics), and should be reconstructed on more popular grounds. Now comes Miss Hannah Smith to the rescue with "Music, How it Came to Be What It Is" (Scribner), which is a simple, attractive, and wholly comprehensible presentation of precisely what it is that every person of culture should know regarding the fundamental facts of music, serving also to point out to them the Cimmerian darkness of their ignorance in a startling number of cases. Almost everyone sets himself up as a literary or dramatic critic with at least some notion of the laws of construction in literature and the drama; this book will prove that critic upon critic of music assumes for himself a knowledge of musical construction by mere instinct. Miss Smith's work is commendable in every respect save one: she should have gone to anthropology instead of literary tradition for her account of the beginnings of the art she does so much to make comprehensible in its later developments.

Studies of animal intelligence.

Professor Wesley Mills, of McGill University, has collected, in a volume entitled "The Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence" (Macmillan), sundry memoirs, addresses, and discussions on animal psychology. After some general remarks he treats of feigning among squirrels, of hibernation among various animals, of psychic development of young animals, and closes with a discussion on instinct. The most valuable part of the book is the diaries showing the growth, physical and psychical, of dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea-pigs, pigeons, and chickens. While this work cannot be accounted a thoroughgoing connected monograph, it contains much good and suggestive observation, and opens up a fascinating field of study. The candid, cautious, thoughtful spirit of the author is to be greatly commended in this age of rash generalization. Like all who seriously study animals, Professor Mills finds in them an unsuspected mental complexity, a force and amount of psychic life, which is far beyond what the public grant them. He confirms the common belief that the woodchuck is a predicter of storms.