Fiction.

The Judgment of Helen. By Thomas Cobb.
(John Lane. 6s.)

MR. COBB is making progress. Of his three books, this is the best. It is considerably better than Carpet Courtship, and somewhat better than Mr. Passingham. He ought, however, to produce work on a much higher plane in the near future. The present novel, like its predecessors, is thin, scraggy. Mr. Cobb, if we may use the simile, should cultivate a tendency to embonpoint. In literature embonpoint means plot-plot which some clever writers have affected to despise, but which the greatest have always utilised for the furtherance of their greatest effects. Mr. Cobb is scarcely fertile in the invention of incident. He begins with a good situation (though by no means a new one), but he does not carry it definitely forward until the conclusion of the book is reached. That Helen should be cajoled into an engagement with the plutocratic and admirable Mr. Josiah Barbrook was quite probable, and that within three weeks she should convey to her mother her absolute refusal to marry the man was also quite probable; for Helen is well drawn. And the predilection of Helen's stolid cousin Patty for the stolid Mr. Barbrook is fully justified by their respective characters. Thirdly, it is obvious that young Maurice Vaughan is exactly the male creature for Helen. Indeed, all the signs point to a felicitous sorting-out of couples. Yet that sorting-out is postponed and postponed while interviews and petty intrigues occur in haphazard succession-in fact, while Mr. Cobb writes his novel. The fault of the book is that the initial situation is capable of an immediate solution. Helen's mother, Mrs. Christopherson, is only a sham obstacle, especially after she in turn is wooed and won by a well-preserved widower.

Still, the tale is uniformly agreeable-light and bright in its winding attenuation. Some of the scenes have wit. Thus, after the engagement between Helen and Barbrook, and before the former has decided to acquaint the latter of her intention to jilt, the country clergyman calls:

How extremely provincial!" cried Mrs. Christopherson. "What did Josiah say to that?" she asked.

"He only looked at me. Of course, it was very embarrassing. But I didn't like to object, so we kneeled down and Mr. Hodgson prayed."

"What a mercy no one entered the room!" exclaimed her mother.

"I didn't think of that," said Helen. "Mr. Hodgson seemed very earnest. I shouldn't very much have objected if-but, mother," she cried with a good deal of feeling, "he prayed that we might live happily together." "What execrable taste!"

Mr. Cobb is a man of good promise. In future we hope that he will give the rein to his imagination and the spur to his invention.

The Infatuation of the Countess. By Percy White.
(Sands & Co. 6s.)

THE object of the Countess's infatuation was Arthur Gammellyn, a young and handsome fencing instructor at a Brompton gymnasium. The young wife of an elderly husband, Lady Reedsdale was one of those women who play with the emotions as gracefully as Mr. Percy White plays with women such as Lady Reedsdale; and it was only because Arthur Gammellyn was in love with Connie Adair, a new species of new woman, and because he was possessed of an innocence rather surprising in a man who has served Her Majesty in the ranks, that the Countess did not come to terrible grief

The comedy plays itself lightly out in the fencing school, in Connie Adair's studio, and in the boarding-house "situate in the neighbourhood of the park, the gardens, and the museums," where Arthur Gammellyn lives, and tries to keep his father the major in the paths of sobriety and financial rectitude. The major, with his magniloquence and his surreptitious borrowings, is the most amusing character in a very amusing book. Curiously enough the only unconvincing character in the story is the hero, Arthur Gammellyn himself. We can be interested in the women; but it would perhaps be impossible to interest us in a rather priggish young athlete whom countesses adore for his beaux yeux and young lady artists yearn to model in clay for his magnificent neck.

A tale of 1758-59, mainly concerned with the wars with the Indians and the French, in which the English fought under Abercrombie and Howe. The assault on Ticonderoga is an incident, and the tale closes just before the War of Independence. (Macmillan. 6s.)

We have also received Edgar's Ransom, by C. Rysbridge (Digby, Long. 6s.), a beginner's novel, on novelette lines; A Comedy of the Cloth, by Thomas A. Lewis (Digby, Long), a better novel, showing how a farmer's coquettish daughter played on the hearts of two curates; Narcissus, by John Bede (Elliot Stock. 5s.), a short novel written to expose Ritualism; Father Fox, by Dorothy Martin (Elliot Stock. 5s.), a story written with the same end in view; Drake and His Yeomen, a romance founded on the achievements of Drake. (Macmillan. 6s.)

Books.

Views of Schoolmasters.

Of the making of school text-books there is no end. A catalogue which came under our notice the other day contained no fewer than twelve school editions of "Julius Cæsar and "Richard II." Every conceivable subject has its range of text-books. The stream never ceases. So the question arises, How is one to decide which are the best? Experience is the only real guide; but for the sake of those who are still buying their experience we asked three schoolmasters-men keenly interested in their profession, and of wide experience-to draw up independent lists of thirty books suitable for use in a modern secondary school. We print List A in full without criticism, adding a note on the points that have struck us in comparing it with Lists B and C.

LIST A.

This list is based on the principle of what may be called stock text-books. The common idea of a schoolbook is realised by a little blue-backed volume, used for a term, wearily embellished with rude portraiture, and most gladly cast away when its service is over. But there is no reason why a boy should not be trained to preserve his school books, if not to love them; and he will learn more, and at less cost to his parents, by being soaked, so to speak, in a few good books rather than dipred in a sequence of bad ones. Whether the saturating process pleasant or not will depend on the teacher who presides over it. Leaving, however, argument aside, and suppressing a few obvious assumptions, here is my list of thirty stock text-books, grouped according to their subjects:

A. ENGLISH (in a school sense).

3s. 6d. 53.

is

3. 6d. & A K.

1. English Grammar. By Mason. Bell & Sons. 2. English History. By Oman. Edward Arnold. 3. Geography. By G. G. Chisholm. Longmans. 4. School Atlas. By A. Keith Johnston. W. Johnston. 12s. 6d. 5. Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. By Palgrave. Macmillan. 2s. 6d.

Many repetition books have been compiled in the faith that boys have no imagination and can grasp nothing beyond John Gilpin. Why not bring into the schoolroom the best anthology that we have, and trust the teacher to make his own choice of the flowers?

B.--MATHEMATICS.

6. Arithmetic. By C. Pendlebury. Bell & Sons. 4s. 6d. 7. Elementary Algebra. By Hall and Knight. Macmillan. 3s. 6d.

8. Elements of Euclid. By Deighton. Bell & Sons. 4s. 6d. 9. Elementary Trigonometry. By C. Pendlebury. Bell & Sons. 4s. 6d.

10. Elementary Mechanics. By Briggs. Clive. 3s. 6d. The text-book last mentioned by no means holds the field against all rivals; but it has much to recommend its use where candidates are sent in for the examinations of London University, and, indeed, elsewhere.

C.-SCIENCE.

11. Elementary Science. By Jones and Simmons. Macmillan. 3s. 6d.

12. Lessons in Elementary Chemistry. By Roscoe. Macmillan. 48. 6d.

13. Chemical Arithmetic. By Sidney Lupton. Macmillan. 4s. 6d.

D.-MISCELLANEOUS.

14. First Lessons in Political Economy. By F. A. Walker. Macmillan. 58.

15. Geometrical Drawing. By A. J. Pressland. Rivingtons. 2s. 6d. E. LATIN.

16. Revised Latin Primer. By Kennedy. Longmans. 2s. 6d. 17. Bradley's Arnold. Rivingtons. 5s.

18. Latin Elegiac Verse. By Gepp. Rivingtons. 3s. 6d. 19. School Atlas of Classical Geography. By A. Keith Johnston. W. & A. K. Johnston. 12s. 6d.

20. Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary. Murray. 7s. 6d. 21. Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. By Seyffert. Sonnenschein. 10s. 6d.

22. History of Rome. By Smith (and Greenidge). Murray. 3s. 6d.

23. School Latin Dictionary. By Lewis. Clarendon Press. 18s.

History of Rome is classed here as being a commentary on the texts studied. The mention of a Latin Dictionary (23) raises the vexed question of its merits in comparison with separate vocabularies for each author read. Suffice it now to say that most teachers prefer the vocabulary system for younger boys, but grieve to see the effort of older ones reduced to a minimum. English-Latin and English-Greek Dictionaries are alike taboo for constant use, but occasional access to desk copies may be allowed. F.-FRENCH.

24. French Grammar. By Fasnacht. Macmillan. 3s. 6d. 25. Class book of French Composition. By Blouët. Hachette. 2s. 6d.

27. Greek Grammar. By Goodwin. Macmillan. 6s. 28. Introduction to Greek Prose Composition. By Sidgwick. Rivingtons.___5s.

29. Elementary History of Greece. By Oman. Rivingtors. 4s. 6d.

30. Greek Lexicon abridged from Liddell and Scott. Clarendon Press. 78. 6d.

H.-GERMAN (as alternative t› Greek; whence the double numbering).

27a. German Conversation Grammar. By Otto. Nutt. 5s. 28a. Materials for German Composition. By Buchheim. Bell & Sons. 4s. 6d.

2s. 6d.

294. Buchheim's Deutsche Lyrik. Macmillan. 30a. Flügel's German Dictionary. Whittaker & Co. 6s. The limit imposed (thirty books) has prevented the whole school domain from being covered. And of the text-books named many are unsuitable for beginners; but most of these (e.g., Nos. 1, 7, 12, 16, 24, 27a) have elementary introductions by the same authors, so that uniformity of treatment and terminology is secured."

Of these books only two appear in all threelists (Nos. 6 and 7); ten in lists A and B (Nos. 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 23, 25, 27, 30, 30a); two in lists A and C (Nos. 5 and 14); and two in lists B and C (Abbott's How to Parse, and Gow's Method of English). The average price in A-and price has to be reckoned with-is something over 5s., in B something under 3s., and in C something over 2s. B gives Ransome for history, Meiklejohn for geography, Gill for chemistry, and a choice of "Literature Manuals" for the dry bones of literature. C is more progressive, inclining to the "Parallel Grammar Series," Dent's "French and German Books," and Meiklejohn's How to Write English, omitting exercise books altogether, and substituting, wherever possible, for annotated editions of authors such plain texts-printed, in the case of modern languages, in the foreign country-as would attract the boy in the street. To-day," he concludes, "your British boy's idol is Henty. Saturate him with a French Henty, then, in French, throwing grammar and exercise to the dogs.'

66

Reviews.

The Theory of Education.

The Logical Bases of Education. By J. Welton, M.A., Professor of Education in the Yorkshire College. (Macmillan.)

THE teacher desiring to know the raison d'être of this book should first read through the last two chapters. The most cursory glance through that dealing with Definition, Classification, and Explanation will show the necessity for going a step further back than the ordinary text-books on special subjects. Prof. Welton selects those on grammar for examples of confused thought and consequent blundering; but thoughtful reading of the chapter will well repay teachers of subjects other than language. The last chapter is in a double sense the conclusion of the whole matter. The gist of the book is here admirably put; here and elsewhere there is a discriminating criticism of educational reformers, and of some of their past and present watchwords. The various points made must give pause to the reader. How far should the educational development of the child follow that of the race? What part must authority play in education? Is it mere learning of facts from books, or development of the power to think and initiate, that is of prime importance? What are the best methods of education? These are some of the questions raised and answered. The author states in his preface that "but little of the traditional formal logic will be found in the book." This is a definite gain, and a careful reading of the book justifies the statement. There is a sane treatment of the syllogism; and the various forms of it and their uses are worked out in a most interesting manner. The modern mind can well dispense with the mnemonic Barbara, Celareut, Darii, Ferio, &c., although Dante has put its ingenious author into Paradise. The test of inference should be mental, not mnemonic. It is well to note, too, that logic is not so much a thing apart from ordinary talk and reasoning as once it was, and that no longer does it reject, as the traditional logic did, all inferences which do not give a certain and definite conclusion, the reason being, as Prof. Welton points out, that we are not so sure of our starting-point now as in the time when the axioms were "Nature abhors a vacuum,' "" All men are equal," "All children are born wholly inclined to evil," and the like. Indeed, the modern treatment of the subject is much more interesting and far more profitable than the study of the traditional logic. There is a fascinating chapter on the value of evidence. Apt illustrations and quotations abound throughout the book. One here given of the value of Froude's testimony is amusing: "He had visited the city of Adelaide in Australia. 'We saw,' says he, below us, in a basin with a river winding through it, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, none of whom has ever known, or will ever know, one moment's anxiety as to the recurring regularity of his three meals a day.' Thus Froude; now for the facts. Adelaide is built on an eminence; no river runs through it; when Froude visited it the population did not exceed 75,000, and it was suffering from famine at the time.' No wonder the writers here quoted come to the conclusion that Froude suffered from "chronic inaccuracy." "" But the book should be read as a whole; it is an excellent example of logical exposition.

Educational R form. By Fabian Ware. (Methuen.)

In these short essays, some of which have already appeared, Mr. Ware discusses the educational organisation of our country, indicating, very roughly, where it is weak, and where strong: in particular, he concerns himself with the reforms which the Board of Education may effect in Secondary Education. Of course, the Board of Education Act commits the Government to nothing tangible, but many educationists hope, now that the first step has been taken-the formation of a Central Educational Authority-that very soon we shall have a register of efficient Secondary Schools, a Secondary School inspectorate, registration of teachers, and the formation of local authorities. The discussion of these and kindred subjects make up the material of this book. Mr. Ware does not address his appeal so much to the expert as to the general reader, although one soon discovers that the author is not only thoroughly within his province when tackling questions of organisation, but also when he is criticising educational theories and ideas. He is opposed to all regulations which will destroy initiative on the part of the teacher by "hedging him in with too

many restrictions," and although "the nation must insist on the attainment by all secondary teachers of a certain standard of scholarship, of a knowledge of the principles which underlie their art, and of skill in its practice before they can be recognised as fully qualified," yet this must be secured without

crushing personality and reducing all teachers to one dead mechanical level." We have not space at our disposal to do more than notice one point. On page 131 Mr. Ware writes that "France, owing to an incalculable extent to the subordination of the ethical to the intellectual aim in her education, has, it is true, so immeasurably weakened the moral foundations of her former greatness, that little short of national regeneration will restore her to the position of a rival to be feared." This is assuredly an entirely misleading statement. As M. Gustave Le Bon has shown repeatedly, education in France is not properly intellectual at all: what passes there for education is an atrophying of faculty by an oppressive and severe discipline. The result is a loss of initiation and real individual freedom, a consequence of which is an excessive love of bureaucracy and militarism. If the French would only change their educational system, and make it genuinely intellectual, then they would soon rise again, not to be feared as rivals but to be loved as friends. On the whole, then, this is a very readable and useful book; it is a popular exposition of the questions thrust into notice by the Board of Education Act, and we are therefore somewhat at a loss to know why Mr. Ware should anticipate severe criticism. He has stated his views with clearness and evident sincerity, and we cannot think that any critic could seriously differ from the great body of his conclusions.

Careers from the Inside.

Unwritten Laws and Ideals. Edited by E. H. Pitcairn. (Smith, Elder.)

THIS is a collection of essays, by "expert" writers, on the unwritten laws and ideals of the professions in which they bave attained eminence. The successful student will find on reading the volume that much that makes for effectiveness in an active career has, naturally enough, not got into the examination syllabus. A barrister must know some law; but his real work is, says Mr. Augustine Birrell, "to get his client out of a hole" (and, we presume, the other man into one). Learning becomes a schoolmaster, as roses a garden, but to win the confidence of boys and to get them to do their best with their gifts, or, in Dr. Welldon's words, "so to train boys that they can after a time dispense with his training," is, for all Bacon's saying, a rare possession. Not many youths lookand it is well-to the embassy as a profession. If Sir Edward Malet speaks truth, the ambassador should be more sensitive than the most delicate chemical balance. He must take his hostess in to dinner, and sit at her right hand, or "his dinner will be as ashes in his mouth." He must not betray any sign of boredom when complaints are being poured into his ear. Nor is this all. He cannot, poor man! marry whom he would. Listen! "The ambassadress should be British-born, and of equal or higher rank than her husband; she should know French as well as she does her own language; and be not without such a grounding in other languages as would enable her to attain proficiency in them if necessary, &c., &c." Who ever was so compact of virtue as to satisfy these-there are many more-demands? At the other pole shall we place the Navy? Even here the "unwritten law" is sterner than the written. 66 Any lie," it says, "is justified to screen a shipmate who has got into trouble,' as the expression goes. More particularly is this the case if the trouble has arisen through smuggling liquor into the ship." And the Army? Disobedience may sometimes be necessary. "Suppose that under given circumstances I know that if I exercise my judgment in a matter entrusted to me and am wrong, I may be professionally ruined or shot, but have positive evidence under my eyes that if I do not vary my instructions the lives of thousands of men under me will be lost. . . nothing can morally excuse me if I set up the plea of discipline-the means against the end." And so we might go through all the professions; but each demands qualities of heart and brain known only to the initiated and experienced: hence his collection of essays by "expert" writers will reveal to the uninitiated some of the stern realities of life; and therein lies their use. There is another

side to the shield, and we should have read the book with greater pleasure if the "amenities" had been more emphasised.