562 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which has previously appeared in this way. 

 The greatly added interest and pleasure 

 which the merest smattering of natural his- 

 tory gives to out-of-door rambling is not 

 generally appreciated, and if Mr. Ingersoll's 

 book has no other result than that of point- 

 ing the way for some amateur scientists into 

 a field of almost inexhaustible variety and 

 beauty it will amply justify itself. There 

 are nine special animals and their families 

 described, the first place being given to the 

 squirrels. The puma or American panther, 

 under the title of The Father of Game, is 

 given a long chapter. An exceedingly inter- 

 esting but somewhat unusual section in such 

 a book is entitled The Service of Tails, and 

 describes the various useful purposes served 

 by this appendage. Among the forms dis- 

 cussed perhaps the most curious is that of 

 the opossum, which serves both as a " hand 

 rail for the young family " and as a fifth 

 limb for the mother. Another strangely 

 useful tail is that of the king crab or horse- 

 shoe. It is used as a pry or lever, and seems 

 quite essential to the preservation of the life 

 of its owner. The hound of the plains, or 

 American prairie wolf, is described in the 

 fourth chapter. Other animals taken up are 

 the badger, porcupines, the skunk, " calmly 

 considered," woodchucks, and " coons." The 

 sketches consist mainly of descriptions of 

 appearance, habits, and food, with whatever 

 of anecdote or fable the author may have 

 found clustering about the animals among 

 the Indians or elsewhere. The illustrations 

 are fairly good. 



Mrs. Frank's adaptation of Hauschmann's 

 Origin and Development of the Kindergarten 

 System* is not strictly a translation, but 

 rather an account of the contents of the book, 

 with such omissions, curtailings, and trans- 

 positions as seemed necessary to render the 

 material practically useful to kindergarten 

 students and others interested in the training 

 of young children. Her work has been done 

 under the impression that no other book in 

 kindergarten literature presents so complete 



* The Kindergarten System : Its Origin and 

 Development, as seen in the Life of Frledrich 

 Froebel. Translated and adapted from the Works 

 of Alexander Bruno Hauschmann for the Use of 

 English Kindergarten Students. London: Swan, 

 Sonnenschein & Co. ; Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bar- 

 deen. Pp. 253. Price, $2. 



an account of the progress and development 

 of Froebel's educational thought. " It shows 

 what kind of a man Froebel was, and how he 

 came to elaborate his system, and is made 

 the medium for tracing the growth and de- 

 velopment of the Froebel idea from its very 

 beginnings down to the establishment of the 

 first kindergarten." The translation has been 

 made with Mr. Hauschmann's permission, 

 and he has assented to the changes the trans- 

 lator has thought it proper to make. The 

 curtailments consist chiefly in making as short 

 as possible the account of certain periods in 

 Froebel's life already in the hands of the 

 English reader, and in summarizing some of 

 the passages. 



It does not take the serious student of 

 French literature long to learn that it is very 

 large and various. Much of it is also very 

 brilliant. Each of the periods, from the 

 middle ages down, into which criticism classi- 

 fies it offers its store of books, than which 

 no other literature exhibits a fuller one, and 

 is distinct in its characteristics ; while in 

 every department, except poetry, it possesses 

 works which are not excelled. A suitable 

 and well-adapted presentation of the sub- 

 ject, such as Mr. Dowden * gives us, can not 

 fail, therefore, to be a valuable and in every 

 way desirable addition to the library of man- 

 uals. For making such a presentation the 

 author confesses to having the most essen- 

 tial qualification — love of the subject. Thor- 

 ough acquaintance with the whole of it he 

 can not have, for that is beyond the power 

 of any one man, and he especially observes 

 that the latest attempt at its full presenta- 

 tion is the combined work of specialists, of 

 whom there is one for each chapter. He, 

 too, has had his collaborators, " the ablest 

 and most learned students of French litera- 

 ture," who have written each a part of the 

 book ; but he has consulted them, not in the 

 flesh, but on the shelves of his library. 

 Five periods are recognized, with subordinate 

 classifications by forms, etc. — the middle 

 ages, of which the amount of production that 

 has survived is astonishing; the sixteenth 

 century, the seventeenth century, the eight- 

 eenth century, and the period from 1789 to 



* A History of French Literature. By Edward 

 Dowden. New York : D. Appleton and Company. 

 (Literatures of the World Series.) Pp. 444. 



