566 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



walk with the child-pupil by the sea-shore 

 and along the road, with easy conversations 

 concerning the nature, habits, life-history, 

 etc., of the living creatures which the pair 

 meet. These living creatures in the present 

 volume are ants, earthworms, flies, beetles, 

 barnacles, jelly-fish, starfish, and dragon- 

 flies. The purpose is to lead the child by 

 pleasant steps to the study of nature, and 

 interest him in it. The talks are fitly illus- 

 trated. 



The Report of the New York State Super- 

 intendent of Public Instruction for the year 

 ending August, 1887, has been issued. The 

 view of the condition of public education in 

 the State, given by the Hon. A. S. Draper, 

 the superintendent, is not characterized by 

 that unalloyed complacency which pervades 

 the generality of educational reports, but is 

 a vigorous statement of what the schools of 

 the State need for their further advance- 

 ment. Among the special work of the year 

 which he reports are the preparation of a 

 new " Code of Public Instruction," the ob- 

 taining of a series of designs for school- 

 houses, and an investigation in regard to 

 compulsory education in other States and 

 countries, made by Sherman Williams. The 

 report on this investigation is printed with 

 the superintendent's report. The usual sta- 

 tistics are given in the exhibits appended to 

 the report. 



The second " Monograph " of the Indus- 

 trial Education Association (New York) is a 

 brief paper on Education in Bavaria, by Sir 

 Philip Magnus. It describes each kind of 

 school maintained in that kingdom, and gives 

 other general information on the organiza- 

 tion of the Bavarian educational system. 



No. 2 of Tlie American Journal of Psy- 

 chology, edited by Prof. G. Stanley Hall (N. 

 Murray, $3 a year) contains an article on 

 " The Relation of Neurology to Psychology," 

 by Henry H. Donaldson, Ph. D., in which he 

 summarizes certain recent advances in neu- 

 rology, with a view to indicating what the 

 field is and what some of the results are. 

 There is also an article on " Insistent and 

 Fixed Ideas," by Edward Cowles, M. D., 

 which is illustrated by a detailed history of 

 a complicated case of mental derangement. 

 A paper by Joseph Jastrow, Ph. D., enti- 

 tled " A Critique of Psycho-Physic Methods " 

 deals with the methods and interpretation 



of such psycho-physic experiments as can 

 be utilized for establishirg Weber's law. 



The Heart of the Creeds, or Historical 

 Peligion in the Light of Modern Thought, 

 by Arthur Weniivorth Eaton (G. P. Put- 

 nam's Sons), is an attempt to make clear the 

 universal meaning in the rites and symbols 

 of Christian faith, and to aid the believer in 

 discriminating between what is necessary 

 and what is accidental in religion. It is 

 written from the orthodox point of view, and 

 predominantly from that of the Protestant 

 Episcopal Church. In this sense are consid- 

 ered the topics of " God," " Man," " Christ," 

 " The Creeds," " The Bible," " The Church," 

 "The Sacraments," "The Liturgy," and 

 "The Future Life," each article being pre- 

 ceded, as in a sense of foretaste of what is 

 to come, by a selection of terse expressions 

 of thought on the subject by representative 

 Christian writers of all ages, 



G. P. Putnam's Sons have added to their 

 series of "English History by Contemporary 

 Writers," of which we have already noticed 

 the first two volumes, Simon of Montfort 

 and his Cause, by the Rev. J. Hutton, and 

 SlrongbovPs Conquest of Ireland, by Prancis 

 Pierrepont Barnard. The former volume is 

 made up chiefly of selections from the writ- 

 ings of Robert of Gloucester, Matthew Paris, 

 and other contemporary chroniclers, and the 

 latter from the works of Gerald of Barri and 

 several other documents, including the An- 

 glo-Norman poem on the conquest known as 

 " Regan." This series is under the general 

 editorial direction of Mr. F. York Powell, 

 and aims at so setting forth the facts of 

 English national history from contemporary 

 documents, letters, and papers of all sorts, 

 as to send the reader to the best original au- 

 thorities, and at the same time to give a liv- 

 ing picture of the effect produced upon each 

 generation by the political, religious, social, 

 and intellectual movements in which it took 

 part, and thus to bring him as close as may 

 be to the mind and feelings of the times he 

 is reading about. 



A work on finance, by Dr. Luigi Cossa, 

 has been translated, and appears under the 

 title Taxation : its Principles and Alethods 

 (Putnam, $1), with an introduction and notes 

 by Horace White. It is essentially a volume 

 of definitions and classifications, enumerating 



