LITERARY NOTICES. 



559 



race who have preserved of the Jews chiefly 

 their language and the form of their religion. 

 We agree with him in his " last word," which 

 is simply this : " Treat the Jew, if he is 

 brought to you, as an ordinary man ; grant 

 him no advantages you would not give his 

 Austrian, Polish, or German fellow-country- 

 men, no matter what his religion is. Make 

 him an Englishman or an American, break 

 up his old customs, his clannishness, his dirt, 

 and his filth, or he will break you." 



Outlines of Theoretical Chemistry. By 

 Lothar Meyer. Translated by P. P. 

 Bedson and W. C. Williams. London 

 and New York : Longmans, Green & Co. 

 Pp. 232. Price, $2.50. 



The present volume differs from the au- 

 thor's Modern Theories of Chemistry in be- 

 ing a smaller and less technical treatise. 

 Being addressed not only to the student but 

 also to the friend of science who wishes to 

 keep informed as to the progress of chemical 

 investigation, the book does not contain any 

 great number of the numerical results of ob- 

 servations and measurements, nor any de- 

 tailed descriptions of experimental methods. 

 It is, therefore, a general review of the sub- 

 ject of chemical philosophy in which details 

 have not been allowed to rise into prominence. 

 The author, of course, needs no introduction 

 or commendation to any one who is acquaint- 

 ed with modern chemistry. 



In the Report of the Commissioner of 

 Education for 1888-89, the commissioner, 

 Dr. William T. Harris, presents first a gen- 

 eral statistical exhibit of education in the 

 United States. From these statistics it ap- 

 pears that the enrollment is about ninety per 

 cent of the number of children between six 

 and sixteen years of age in the whole coun- 

 try, which is as large as could be expected. 

 The South is manifesting a great and increas- 

 ing interest in public schools, and in the past 

 nineteen years has more than doubled its 

 expenditure per capita for education. A 

 prominent feature of this report are the ac- 

 counts of education in various foreign coun- 

 tries, prepared by specialists of the bureau, 

 and the comparisons with education in the 

 United States for which these accounts fur- 

 nish material. Dr. Harris calls attention to 

 the fact that the French and German chil- 



dren devote much less time than the Ameri- 

 can to memorizing the spelling of words. 

 " Mechanical memorizing," he continues, " is 

 the much-lamented characteristic of our com- 

 mon schools. It is evident that such must 

 remain their characteristic so long as English- 

 speaking children memorize, like the Chinese, 

 the arbitrary spelling of more than ten thou- 

 sand words before they can write the language 

 with readiness." The training of teachers is 

 another subject to which much attention is 

 given, the report embracing papers on The 

 Inception and Progress of the Normal-school 

 Curriculum, The Teaching Force of New 

 England from 1866 to 1888, and Professional 

 Work in the Normal Schools of the United 

 States. Chapters on courses of study in city 

 schools, manual and industrial training, com- 

 pulsory attendance laws, State text-book laws, 

 and miscellaneous educational questions are 

 included in the first volume of the report. 

 The second volume contains the usual statis- 

 tics of schools and colleges, and of the edu- 

 cation of special classes, and an alphabetical 

 list of the publications of the Bureau of Edu- 

 cation from 1867 to 1890. 



The Report of the Smithsonian Institution 

 for 1889-90 contains an account of the prog- 

 ress that has been made in establishing the 

 National Zoological Park at Washington, to- 

 gether with the usual information about the 

 work of the Institution for the year. Ap- 

 pended to the report are some thirty papers 

 on a wide variety of scientific subjects, a 

 number of them being illustrated. 



The Journal of Proceedings and Addresses 

 of the National Educational Association, for 

 1891, makes a handsome octavo volume of 

 about nine hundred pages. Besides an ac- 

 count of the proceedings of the Association 

 and reports of committees at the Toronto 

 session, the Journal contains the papers read, 

 together with abstracts of the discussions 

 which they called forth. A wide variety of 

 topics in all departments of educational work 

 is treated in these papers. 



A booklet which has attracted much at- 

 tention and been read with interest in reli- 

 gious circles is entitled Not on Calvary : A 

 Layman's Plea for Mediation in the Tempta- 

 tion in the Wilderness, and is published by 

 Charles T. Dillingham, New York. It pre- 

 sents a new view of the life and office of 

 Christ while on the earth, which the author 



