566 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Reynolds, A. R. Report of the Department of 

 Public Health of the City of Chicago. Pp. 268. 



Ribot, Th. The Diseases of Personality. 

 Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 163. 75 

 cents. 



Seidel, Heinrich. Der Lindenbaum. Ameri- 

 can Book Company. Pp. 71. 25 cents. Die 

 Monate. American Book Company. Pp. 72. 25 

 cents. 



Shearman, Thomas G. Natural Taxation. G. 

 P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 239. 



Smith, H. M. Notes on a Reconnaissance of 

 the Fisheries of the Pacific Coast. Pp. 65. A 

 Statistical Report on the Fisheries of the Middle 

 Atlantic States. Pp. 130. Government Printing 

 Office, Washington, D. C. 



Smithsonian Publications. Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy : Chinook Texts. Pp. 278 ; The Siouan 

 Tribes of the East. Pp. 100 ; Archaeological In- 

 vestigations in James and Potomac Valleys. Pp. 

 80. National Museum : Directions for Collecting 

 Plant Specimens, etc.; Directions for Collecting 

 Rocks, etc.; Directions for Collecting Minerals, 

 etc.; Scientific Results of Explorations by United 

 States Pish Commission Steamer Albatross ; Di- 

 rections for Collecting and Preparing Fossils. 



Stifter, Adalbert. Das Heidrdorf. American 

 Book Company. Pp. 80. 25 cents. 



Tracy, Roger S. Handbook of Sanitary Infor- 

 mation. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 114. 50 cents. 



Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuyler. Should we 

 Ask for the Suffrage ? Pp. 57. 



White, Horace. Coins Financial Fool. J. S. 

 Ogilvie Publishing Company. Pp. 112. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



A Child's Thoughts about Providence. 



A very instructive account of the mental 

 aspects of childhood is given by Miss Isabel 

 Fry, in a book called Uninitiated, one of the 

 purposes of which is to show that it takes 

 much longer for children to learn the real 

 drift and meaning of the habits and expres- 

 sions and feelings of their grown-up friends 

 and attendants than it does to master the 

 language in which those feelings are con- 

 veyed. She thus pictures the process gone 

 through by a child in conceiving the mean- 

 ing of God's constant observation and care 

 of his creatures : " I was thinking dreamily 

 about heaven, and how wonderful it was 

 that God could always see me. Could he see, 

 for instance, and did he notice that I had a 

 button off my boot, or did he overlook some 

 things and only trouble himself about that 

 which was actually either good or naughty ? 

 I did not know. And then nurse said that 

 he was always taking care of me every min- 

 ute. Didn't he ever leave me alone at all ? 

 I supposed not. But surely if he saw that 

 I was sitting on this chair, and knew that 

 nurse had made up her mind not to come in 

 for, say, twenty minutes, he might leave me 



at any rate for a little while. But no; I 

 hardly thought he would. Then I went on 

 to try to imagine what would happen. Sup- 

 posing, for any reason, he did leave me. I 

 should probably fall down through some vast 

 open space and die. No, not exactly die, for 

 then God would have to decide whether I 

 was to go to heaven or hell, and I should be 

 once more in his keeping, and in that case I 

 should be just sitting here in the night nur- 

 sery again for all the world, as I was doing 

 at this moment. I could not make up my 

 mind what would happen, and I felt it would 

 be almost worth while to try the experi- 

 ment." But if she should ask God to leave 

 off taking care of her she might go so fast 

 that she would not be able to pray him to 

 take her back. But she would pray him to 

 let her go for just one single second, and 

 then take care of her again. After a long 

 struggle with herself and much trembling, 

 she did so and nothing happened. " Breath- 

 less and motionless as I sat with eyes staring 

 and ears strained, I could perceive no change 

 whatever in myself or in my surroundings. 

 The sewing machine in the nursery still 

 purred on ; little Samuel still knelt in the 

 picture on the wall opposite me, with the 

 yellow light still fiercely streaming upon him, 

 and the bluebottle who had been keeping 

 up a continual " fizzle " was still fighting on 

 the window pane. I set myself rigidly, and 

 tried again to feel the sort of falling or col- 

 lapse which I had imagined. Still I felt 

 nothing, and I had at last to give up the ef- 

 fort, and believe that for some reason, which 

 perhaps I was not quite old enough to un- 

 derstand, God would not let go of my still 

 sobbing body." 



Science in Finland. Besides the Na- 

 tional University at Helsingfors, which had 

 nineteen hundred and twenty-nine students 

 in 1894, with the number increasing regu- 

 larly, Finland has several scientific and 

 other learned societies. The Finnish Society 

 of Sciences, founded in 1838, has published, 

 besides its regular volumes of transactions, a 

 series of works on the nature, ethnography, 

 and statistics of the country. Among its 

 later achievements is the foundation of a 

 central meteorological institute, which is as- 

 sisted by the Government. It has, besides, 

 taken part in a number of international polar 



