LITERARY NOTICES, 



371 



and divisions of large schools; and as 

 this was a showy demonstration it was 

 very telling with the public, and was 

 carried in some cases to ridiculous ex- 

 tremes. We once heard a thoughtful 

 teacher remark, after observing a long 

 course of these mechanical exercises, " I 

 begin to think that one thing answers 

 just as well as another for education." 

 The encroachment of the military spirit 

 was also visible in the reaction toward 

 a severer discipline, a more decided ad- 

 vocacy of corporeal punishment, and 

 the substitution of physical for moral 

 forces as motives to conduct. In short, 

 our schools were deeply and in various 

 ways impressed by the new retrogres- 

 sive spirit which carried away the coun- 

 try. But, as it came suddenly, it proves 

 not to be lasting, and things are now 

 beginning to resume their old course. 

 The most striking indication of the 

 disposition to return to the old order 

 has been recently exhibited in Bow- 

 doin College, at Brunswick, Maine. 

 That institution, it seems, was turned 

 into a kind of half-military establish- 

 ment, field-drill being a regular exer- 

 cise. So important was it regarded 

 by Government, that a United States- 

 officer was sent there to take charge 

 of this branch of the collegiate work. 

 But the exercises became irksome, and 

 such a bore to the students that, after 

 long and unavailing protests, they at 

 length revolted and almost unanimous- 

 ly refused to drill. The college au- 

 thorities also refused to yield, and the 

 conflict arrested the operations of the 

 institution. It is a little case of rev- 

 olution, and as revolution is the moth- 

 er of war, the w^ar-faculty of the col- 

 lege should not have condemned it too 

 decisively. There seems to be a dif- 

 ference of opinion as to wliich party 

 was right. The sticklers for discipline 

 and authority of course go with the 

 Faculty, and will no more tolerate the 

 rebellion of the students than they 

 would the mntiny of soldiers against 

 their oflBcers. On the other hand, it is 



maintained that the republican theory 

 should be carried out in college as well 

 as elsewhere ; and that all civil govern- 

 ment " derives its just powers from the 

 consent of the governed." Whatever 

 be the result, it cannot be denied that 

 the students have taught the Faculty a 

 wholesome lesson, which is, that they 

 have rights that the authorities are 

 bound to respect, and, if not respected, 

 to be enforced by a resort to extreme 

 measures, too frequently the only way 

 in which rulers can be made to learn 

 any thing. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Tabular Statements, from 1840 to 1870, 

 OF THE Agricultural Products of the 

 States and Territories of the United 

 States of America. Classified by their 

 Proximity to the Oceans and other Xavi 

 gable Waters, Natural and Artificial. By 

 Samuel B. Ruggles, Member of the New 

 York Chamber of Commerce. Fifty 

 pages. Price, 50 cents. New York : 

 D. Appleton & Co. 



Although this publication takes the 

 form of a pamphlet, and has been made 

 cheap to facilitate its wide circulation, yet 

 we warn our readers not to infer its im- 

 portance from its form. Carbon is carbon, 

 but an ounce of diamond will outweigh 

 cargoes of coal in value ; and so, while 

 knowledge is knowledge, it is possible that 

 a pamphlet may outweigh cart-loads of 

 books in the intrinsic value of what it con- 

 tains. Until we took up this monograph 

 of Mr. Ruggles on the agricultural re- 

 sources of the United States, we did not 

 believe it possible to condense in a clear 

 and classified form such a vast array of 

 valuable facts as he has here presented in 

 the compass of fifty pages. To present the 

 resources of a continent, statical and dynam- 

 ical, the distribution of the elements and 

 the laws of their changes, so as to give us 

 the data for the evolution of a great empire 

 of industry, is an exploit that no man but 

 Samuel B. Ruggles, with his life apprentice- 

 ship at the art and mystery of extracting 

 wisdom from statistics, coxild have per- 

 formed. 



That agriculture is the foundation of 



