LITERARY NOTICES. 



239 



may print an author's work, by paying 

 him a small percentage, to be deter- 

 mined by the politicians. That depart- 

 ment of Government in England which 

 is specially charged with the adminis- 

 tration of copyrights is the Board of 

 Trade, and its secretary, Mr. T. H. Far- 

 rer, was a member of the commission, 

 and came forward as the chief cham- 

 pion of the royalty scheme. lie took 

 the ground that the existing copyright 

 is a monopoly which it is for the inter- 

 est of society to destroy, and that the 

 royalty system is called for by the 

 principles of free trade. His main co- 

 adjutors in managing the case were 

 Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and Sir 

 Louis Mallet, whose position on the 

 subject of copyright was commented 

 upon in the September Monthly. It 

 is a credit to the authorities by whom 

 the commission was constituted, that 

 it was made so broad as to bring out 

 the opponents of copyright in all their 

 strength, and give them every chance 

 to make the best case possible; and 

 that their report embodied sound and 

 conservative recommendations is no 

 doubt largely owing to the ability of 

 such testimony as that herewith pub- 

 lished from Prof. Huxley. We shall 

 next month give the interesting evi- 

 dence of Herbert Spencer before the 

 commission. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



All akouxd the House ; or, How to make 



Homes happy. By Mrs. H. W. Beecher. 



New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp.461. 



Price, $1.50. 



Mp.s. Beecher's new book, as its title 

 happily imports, is devoted to the general 

 interests of the household, and not to any 

 one of its specialties. It is a result of the 

 writer's observation and experience, which 

 have beea very considerable, and it may be 

 said to correspond to those important books 

 put forth by physicians of large opportuni- 

 ties under the title of " Practice ; " so that, as 

 we have Fergusson's " Practice of Surgery," 



we may bo also said to have Mrs. Beech- 

 er's " Domestic Practice." She speaks as a 

 working housekeeper who has had varied 

 trial in the administration of home affairs, 

 and her book is full of useful instruction 

 and wise common-sense, which cannot fail 

 to be valuable to those of her sex who are 

 entering upon the duties and responsibilities 

 of family management, and who have any 

 solicitude about doing their work well. We 

 are glad to see that Mrs. Beecher is thor- 

 oughly unbued with the true spirit of her 

 subject. She has an elevated ideal of what 

 a home should be ; she understands that it 

 cannot be realized without effort, capacity, 

 and preparation, and keenly realizes how 

 httle there is done in any thorough or com- 

 prehensive way to qualify woman for intel- 

 ligent or eflficient activity in the domestic 

 sphere. 



It is certainly a painful reflection that 

 of all the vocations which human beings 

 pursue, in these times of abounding educa- 

 tion, none are entered upon so lightly, so 

 carelessly, and with such an utter absence 

 of all adequate qualification, as that of 

 housekeeping, or, as Mrs. Beecher signifi- 

 cantly puts it, of " home-makinrj ; " while, of 

 all the sources of human misery, there is 

 none that yields a more copious measure of 

 wretchedness than the incapacity of woman 

 to take judicious and inteUigent charge of 

 household affairs. Everything else must be 

 prepared for, but " home-making " is thought 

 to need no serious preparation. Yet the in- 

 terests involved are to the last degree varied, 

 complex, and delicate, requiring knowledge, 

 tact, judgment, patience, in fact the highest 

 accomplishments of character. The mter- 

 ests of the office, the counting-house, the 

 school, are simplicity itself compared with 

 those of the household, where diet, cloth- 

 ing, health, the management of children, 

 the control of servants, the duties of hos- 

 pitality, and the direction of many stubborn 

 elements, demand intellectual and moral 

 attributes of the highest order on the part 

 of the heads of the house, and in a sphere 

 which mainly belongs to woman. And yet 

 this is the one and almost the only depart- 

 ment of our social activity for which no 

 preliminary training is provided in any sys- 

 tematic way. The doctor, the lawyer, the 

 clergyman, the miner, the farmer, and even 



