SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



851 



young doctor to one of his school-fellows 

 who has emigrated to America. The central 

 figure in the tale is a man named Culling- 

 worth, who was a schoolmate of the two cor- 

 respondents, and whose career is followed to 

 the end of the book, at which point he is on 

 the eve of departing for South America with 

 a shipload of spectacles for the natives. His 

 strange, almost paradoxical character makes 

 a curious picture, and leads to some surpris- 

 ing performances, both in connection with his 

 private life and in his profession of medi- 

 cine, where he comes to be considered by his 

 associates a mere charlatan. 



Under the title The Forces of Nature, 

 brief popular accounts of the solar system, 

 the air, sound, light, heat, and electricity 

 have been brought together in a volume by 

 H. B. Harrop and Louis A. Wallis (the 

 authors, Columbus, 0., $1.25). It is not a 

 book for study, but is intended rather to give 

 an understanding of the chief laws and phe- 

 nomena of science to persons who have been 

 occupied with their respective callings to the 

 exclusion of scientific reading. 



Something widely different from the or- 

 dinary text-book is the Working ifanual of 

 American History, by William H. Mace (Bar- 

 deen). It consists, first, of a Hst of topics, 

 extending in time from the opening up of 

 America to Europe down to the reconstruc- 

 tion of the South, with references to stand- 

 ard historical works. This matter, which 

 occupies about one third of the volume, is 

 followed by extracts from documents cover- 

 ing about the same period, accompanied by 

 questions. 



A text-book for normal schools, under the 

 title Psychology in Education, has been pre- 

 pared by Prof. Ruric N. Roark (American 

 Book Company, $1). The author arranges 

 the mental faculties in classes and sub- 

 classes, and bases his descriptions on this 

 classification. In accordance with the pur- 

 pose of the ,book he points out the impor- 

 tance of training each of the faculties, and 

 shows how knowledge of the operations of 

 the mind can be applied in education. Prof. 

 Roark is not one of those instructors who 

 leaves his students to balance conflicting 

 views, even in so young a science as psychol- 

 ogy. All his statements are definite and de- 

 cided. He does not hesitate even to set bounds 



to the further progress of knowledge, nor to 

 state his view in certain controverted mat- 

 ters as if there were no other. Thus, in the 

 chapter which he gives to the " physical 

 basis " of mind he says : " All that is knovm 

 regarding the subject may be stated fully in 

 one paragraph : Mind, as we know it, rests 

 upon a physical basis, which acts upon mind, 

 and upon which mind acts. What the con- 

 nection is between mind and that physical 

 basis, or how this connection is made and 

 maintained, is not known, and most prob- 

 ably never will be known." Here and else- 

 where he shows that he expects little from 

 the " new school " of physiological psycholo- 

 gists. He has much more sympathy for 

 child-study, and points out methods of pur- 

 suing it. His views as to the comparative 

 worth of many of the usual school studies 

 are also freely expressed. 



The recently published account of the 

 Myths of Greece and Rome, by H. A. Gucr- 

 ber, has been followed by Myths of Northern 

 Lands, by the same author (American Book 

 Company, $1.60). The ancient tales which 

 are the common heritage of the English and 

 other branches of the Germanic stock are 

 here simply told, with the embellishment of 

 poetical quotations and of engravings from 

 paintings representing the personages and 

 scenes of the myths. 



The several Webster's School Diction- 

 aries have been revised to conform to the 

 International. The largest of the four, Web- 

 ster''s Academic Dictionary (American Book 

 Company, $1.50), now contains 736 pages, 

 being 150 more than in the last edition, 

 while the illustrations have been increased 

 from 350 to over 800. The body of the 

 book is now arranged in two columns, in- 

 stead of three, and the supplementary mat- 

 ter comprises a guide to pronunciation, rules 

 for spelling, lists of afiixes, abbreviations, 

 proper names, words and phrases from for- 

 eign languages, and arbitrary signs, a classifi- 

 cation of languages, and a brief mythological 

 dictionary. 



The University of Chicago Press has un- 

 dertaken the issue of The American Journal 

 of Sociology, a bimonthly magazine, to be 

 edited by Prof. Albion W. Small and his 

 associates in the department of sociology 

 in the University of Chicago. The journal 



