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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



operated by private companies. Mr. Baker 

 does not favor the same procedure in the 

 case of monopolies in trade and manufactur- 

 ing. But he would legalize them, and then 

 force them to let daylight in upon their op- 

 erations and agreements, and apply to them 

 the principle of non-discrimination. 



Aryan Sun- My f lis the Origin of Religions 

 (Nims & Knight) is the title of a book de- 

 signed to show that the mythology of this 

 great primitive race is the parent of the 

 chief modern religions, just as the race itself 

 is the parent of the peoples who hold these 

 religions. In the Aryan mythology we have 

 the immaculate conception, from which the 

 son of heaven, the sun, is born, at the time 

 of the December solstice. We have the 

 twelve signs of the zodiac as his disciples ; 

 his temptation, persecution, and execution. 

 There is a descent of the sun into hades, 

 when he enters the sign Capricornus and 

 appears to remain three days at his lowest 

 point. The Aryans observed baptism, sac- 

 rifice, and the eucharist, and the doctrines 

 of original sin and the fallen condition of 

 man were not unknown to them. When we 

 come down to the Hindus, who have written 

 religious records, we find the same features 

 and more. So also among the Persians, the 

 Egyptians, the Chinese, the Greeks, the 

 Scandinavians, and the ancient Mexicans. 

 Some of the same ideas are found among 

 other ancient nations of the Old World, and 

 among the American Indians. " Ancestral 

 and other systems of worship," says Mr. 

 Charles Morris, in the introduction which 

 he contributes to the volume, "have influ- 

 enced religious practice and ceremony to a 

 marked extent, but have had much less to 

 do with the growth of dogma than the in- 

 tricate details of the history of the gods, to 

 which the numerous phenomena of nature 

 gave rise. Over religious belief the sun has 

 exercised a dominant influence, and still 

 faintly yet distinguishably shines through 

 the most opaquely obscure of modern theo- 

 logical dogmas." 



In a paper on Teaching School Children 

 to Think (D. Appleton & Co.), Prof. George B. 

 Newcomb discusses first the question, " What 

 is the capacity and exercise of the mind 

 which is indicated by the terms ' thought ' 



and ' thinking ' ? " He shows that in the 

 reaction from the old mechanical drill we 

 should avoid going to the opposite extreme 

 of taxing the child's mind beyond its pow- 

 ers. The faculty of thinking is a growth, 

 and needs to be dealt with according to the 

 stage of development it has reached. Ca- 

 pacity to form abstract ideas and reason con- 

 secutively does not come at once ; " yet long 

 before reasoning, strictly so called, is devel- 

 oped, there is rationality, the exercise of in- 

 telligence in unifying the scattered particu- 

 lars of sense ; in correlating facts and light- 

 ing up one fact by another " ; and it is all 

 alive in the child's mind, in the curiosity 

 that asks the reason why. While children 

 dislike remote abstractions, they are capable 

 of general thought and rational connecting, 

 and make crude attempts at rational synthe- 

 sis. The manifestations of these faculties 

 may be watched for and taken advantage of 

 and directed as they appear, and the child 

 thus be led gradually up to the habit of ra- 

 tional thought on every subject. This pre- 

 cept partly furnishes the answer to the au- 

 thor's second question, "In what sense or 

 within what limits, if any, should the devel- 

 opment of thought be a prominent aim in 

 the training of school children ? " A third 

 question, involving the consideration of ways 

 and means for developing rational intelli- 

 gence in the pupil, is too large for treatment 

 in a single paper ; and upon it the author 

 aims only to enunciate broad principles or 

 make helpful suggestions without going into 

 details. 



In A Ramblei-'s Lease, Mr. Bradford 

 Torrey, one of the most pleasant of our 

 rural essayists, assumes the position of a 

 leasehold tenant of other people's fields and 

 woods to the extent of the aesthetic enjoy- 

 ment and opportunities for the study of 

 life and nature that they afford. He there- 

 fore makes himself at home in them, and 

 keeps company with the trees and flowers 

 and insects and birds ; with some of which 

 he has enjoyed privileges of rarely close 

 association. The present volume contains 

 some of the fruits which he has gathered 

 in these possessions ; seemly and agreeable 

 fruits in every way, and flavored with occa- 

 sional choice grains of wit. In it he intro- 

 duces us to the wild birds which he has be- 

 come so intimate with as to feed them by 



