LITERARY NOTICES. 



705 



and assimilations should be as exact as possible, 

 and this exactness should be rooted into habit. 



1. Sense-observation. Great attention should 

 be given to educating learners to gain exact sense- 

 ideas through each sense. The power and ac- 

 curacy of memory, imagination, and thought de- 

 pend largely upon the extent and exactness of our 

 sense-knowledge. Merchants must be able to test 

 the quality of their goods by their senses. Me- 

 chanics, cooks, artists, poets, need to have the 

 power of exact sense-observation well developed. 

 Habits of exact observation should be cultivated 

 early in life, and maintained persistently. Gazing 

 around at everything, and listening to every sound, 

 are not meant by this, but a careful attention to 

 details, plans, and purposes. 



Large use is made of tabular statements, 

 diagrams, and different styles of type in pre- 

 senting the author's meaning. The closing 

 portion of the work, on The Art of Teaching, 

 consists of seven short chapters. In the 

 second of these Prof. Baldwin states and 

 comments upon the following "Nine Laws 

 of Teaching": "1. Be what you would have 

 your children become. 2. Know thoroughly 

 the children and the subject. 3. Use easy 

 words and apt illustrations. 4. Secure at- 

 tention through interest. 5. By easy steps 

 lead through the known to the unknown. 6. 

 Lead learners to find out, to tell, and to do 

 for themselves. *7. Train learners to assimi- 

 late into unity their acquisitions. 8. Train 

 pupils to habitually do their best, in the best 

 ways. 9. Lead the pupil through right ideas 

 to right conduct." He then proceeds to de- 

 fine the fundamental teaching processes, and 

 to state which are to be most largely em- 

 ployed in the several periods of education. 

 This work, with the author's two earlier 

 books, on the Art of School Management, 

 and Elementary Psychology, form a series in 

 elementary pedagogy. During the past forty 

 years the chapters of the present volume 

 have been given as lessons to many classes 

 of teachers, and they are now fixed in the 

 form in which the author believes they will 

 be most helpful. 



A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. 

 By James Clerk Maxwell. Third edi- 

 tion. In two volumes. New York : Mac- 

 millan & Co. Price, $8. 



That a work on electricity in this genera- 

 tion of electrical progress should still con- 

 tinue to be printed twenty years after it was 

 written, and ten years after the death of its 

 author, is an indication of sterling worth. 

 tol. xli. 51 



Although a treatise like this, dealing only 

 with the mathematics of electricity, is not so 

 liable to become antiquated as one treating 

 of the theories and applications of the sci- 

 ence, yet Maxwell's book had a distinct for- 

 ward trend which has contributed much to 

 its longevity. The editor of the present edi- 

 tion, Prof. J. J. Thomson, says in his pref- 

 ace that the advances made by electricity 

 and magnetism in the last twenty years are 

 " in no small degree due to the views intro- 

 duced into these sciences by this book ; many 

 of its paragraphs have served as the starting- 

 points of important investigations " ; and 

 further, that " all recent investigations have 

 tended to confirm in the most remarkable 

 way the views advanced by Maxwell." In 

 revising this work Prof. Thomson has added 

 foot-notes relating to isolated points which 

 could be dealt with briefly, but the chief ad- 

 vances in electricity that have been made 

 since the publication of the first edition are 

 to be treated more consecutively in a sup- 

 plementary volume. He has added some ex- 

 planations to the argument in passages where 

 he has found that students meet with diffi- 

 culties. He has also attempted to verify the 

 results that Maxwell gives without proof, and 

 where he arrives at different results has in- 

 dicated the difference in a foot-note. 



Longmans' New School Atlas. Edited by 

 George G. Chisholm and C. H. Leete. 

 New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 

 Price, $1.50. 



There are thirty-eight maps in this atlas, 

 most of them being on double-page sheets, 

 measuring about fourteen by eleven inches, 

 and a few being on longer folded sheets. Col- 

 oring and a variety of markings are used so as 

 make to each give a remarkably full descrip- 

 tion of the lands and waters that it represents. 

 There are seven maps of the world : the first 

 showing the height of land and depth of sea 

 in contours ; the second showing ocean cur- 

 rents, periodical rains, and drainage; the 

 third, in four parts, giving isotherms; the 

 fourth showing the mean atmospheric press- 

 ure and prevailing winds in January and in 

 July ; the fifth, magnetic variation ; the sixth, 

 vegetation; and the seventh, in two parts, 

 density of population, races, and religions. 

 The maps of the several countries show po- 

 litical divisions (historical boundaries being 



