LITERARY NOTICES. 



277 



sun for every day in the year is accurately 

 marked. These maps, which show every 

 star in these constellations to the fifth mag- 

 nitude, we understand are the first ever 

 published based on the admirable photo- 

 metric observations of Professor Pickering, 

 the Director of Harvard Observatory. We 

 regard the idea on which the plan is based 

 as a sound one, and the execution of the 

 work as conformed to it. The arrangement 

 is simple, and the directions, in the table, in 

 the charts, and in the text, are clear and 

 accurate. 



The " Quincy Methods " illustrated. Pen- 

 Photographs from the Quincy Schools. 

 By Lelia E. Partridge, New York : 

 E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 660. Price, 

 $1.50. 



The educational world was startled a few 

 years ago by the report of the great things 

 that were going on in the schools of Quincy, 

 Massachusetts. A new superintendent had 

 been placed over them Colonel Francis W. 

 Parker who had dared to break through the 

 shell of formalism and routine within which 

 they were being fossilized, and to infuse into 

 them life, spontaneity, and real progress. 

 The fame of the schools and of the new sys- 

 tem which was not new, however, to many, 

 but too few, teachers of rare genius for their 

 work spread widely, and Quincy became a 

 place of frequent resort for persons having 

 at heart the interests of real instruction. 

 Among those who went there was Miss 

 Partridge, who recorded what she saw, and 

 now publishes her record. She takes the 

 reader into the school-room and its different 

 classes, day after day, and exhibits, in her 

 printed account, a transcript, exact as it 

 may be, of what occurred there illustrating 

 how the teacher started, now this subject, 

 now that, and patiently, and with tact, drew 

 out whatever suggested itself to each of the 

 pupils upon it. As the lessons are advanced, 

 they shape themselves into a kind of sys- 

 tem, the operation of which is to awaken 

 the minds of the pupils to self-action and 

 independent thinking. The manner in which 

 these accounts are rendered justifies the 

 secondary title of " Pen-Photographs" which 

 the book bears. The author is careful to 

 remind her fellow-teachers that the example- 

 lessons she gives are not to be copied from 

 but are to serve as types, after which teach- 



ers must form their own methods according 

 to the bent of their minds and the kind of 

 children they have in charge. The essential 

 features of the Quincy method are flexibili- 

 ty and spontaneity. What is called by that 

 name might, in the hands of a humdrum 

 teacher, become as dead and worthless as 

 any of the stereotyped forms it is intended 

 to supplant. It is its spirit that must be 

 caught, not any of its particular models fol- 

 lowed ; and the success of its execution will 

 depend most largely upon the power of the 

 teacher to strike out a way of his own. 



Mortality Experience of the Connecticut 

 Mutual Life Insurance Company, of 

 Uartford, Connecticut, from 1846 to 

 1878. Hartford, Conn. Pp. 91. 



A series of thirty-seven tables, showing 

 the mortality results of as many kinds of 

 policies or classes of insured, accompanied 

 by a text explaining the taole, and calling 

 attention to the more important of the re- 

 sults. 



The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Forma- 

 tions of the West. By Edward D. 

 Cope. Washington : Government Print- 

 ing-Office. Pp. 1,009, with 135 Plates. 



This bulky quarto is " Book I " of the 

 fourth volume of the final reports of the 

 Haydcn Geological Survey. Its import in 

 paleontological science is of much signifi- 

 cance, for it contains a great number of 

 species and genera of vertebrate animals 

 from the fertile tertiary beds of the West, 

 which had not been previously discovered. 

 Some of these fill gaps in the chain of spe- 

 cies, and make the connection and the course 

 of development more plain than they were 

 before. The whole collection represents a 

 part only of the results of the researches 

 which the author prosecuted either person- 

 ally or with the aid of his trained assistants 

 during the exploring seasons of 1872, 1873, 

 1S77, 1878, 1879, 1880 and 1881, and to a 

 lesser extent in some of the intervening 

 years not recorded in this list. The regions 

 in which the explorations were conducted 

 cover portions of the States and Territories 

 included between British America on the 

 north, the western boundaries of Minnesota 

 and Missouri on the east, the northern bor- 

 ders of the Indian Territory and Arizona and 

 the middle of New Mexico on the south, 



