S CIENTIFIC LIT ERA T URE. 



855 



of a mingling of chemistry, geology, bot- 

 any, entomology, physiology, bacteriol- 

 ogy, and other sciences in so far as they 

 have any bearing upon agriculture. He 

 has aimed in this book to include only 

 the first principles of these various sci- 

 ences, and to show their application to 

 the art of agriculture. The subject is 

 treated as it relates, consecutively, to 

 the plant, the soil, the crops of the field; 

 the garden, orchard, and vineyard; live 

 stock and dairying; and, under the head- 

 ing of "other subjects," bees and birds, 

 forestry, roads, and the rural home. The 

 appendix contains lists of trees and of 

 weeds, and an article on spraying mix- 

 tures. Questions to be answered by the 

 reader are attached to most of the chap- 

 ters. The illustrations are well chosen 

 and good. 



Considerable information about the 

 Philippine Islands and their inhabitants 

 is given by Dr. D. G. Brinton in a pam- 

 phlet entitled The Peoples of the Philip- 

 pines. Dr. Brinton's point of view is the 

 anthropologist's, and accordingly, after 

 a few paragraphs about the geography, 

 geology, and history of the islands, he 

 takes up their ethnology and describes 

 their various peoples as they have been 

 studied by the masters of the science and 

 by travelers. Much valuable as well as 

 interesting information is given respect- 

 ing their manners and customs, lan- 

 guages, and literature, for the Tagals 

 have had a written language from the 

 earliest known times, and though their 

 old literature does not amount to much 

 they are to-day exceedingly facile ver- 

 sifiers. 



The Open Court Publishing Compa- 

 ny (Chicago) publishes The Lectures on 

 Elementary Mathematics (Leqons ^le- 

 mentaires sur les mathematiques) of 

 Joseph Lovis Lagrange, " the greatest of 

 modern analysts," in a translation from 

 the new edition of the author's collected 

 works by Thomas J. McCormack. These 

 lectures, which were delivered in 1765 at 

 the Ecole Normale, have never before 

 been published in separate form, except 

 in the first printing in the Journal of 

 the Polytechnic School and in the Ger- 

 man. " The originality, elegance, and 

 symmetrical character of these lectures 

 have been pointed out by De Morgan, 

 and notably by Diihring, who places 

 them in the front rank of elementary 



expositions as an example of their kind. 

 They possess, we might say, a unique 

 character as a reading book in mathe- 

 matics, and are interwoven with helpful 

 historical and philosophical remarks." 

 They present with great clearness the 

 subjects of arithmetic and its operations, 

 algebra, equations of the third and 

 fourth degrees, the evolution of numer- 

 ical equations, and the employment of 

 curves in the solution of problems. The 

 translator has prefixed a short biograph- 

 ical sketch of Lapouge, and an excellent 

 portrait is given. 



A book of Observation Blanks for 

 Beginners in Mineralogy has been pre- 

 pared by Herbert E. Austin, as an aid 

 to the laboratory course, and is published 

 by D. C. Heath & Co. (Boston, 30 cents). 

 The laboratory course is intended to 

 make the pupil familiar with the char- 

 acteristics of minerals and the terms 

 used in describing them by directing him 

 to observe typical specimens and describe 

 what he sees, and to develop his facul- 

 ties of observation, conception, reasoning, 

 judgment, comparison, and memory. A 

 description is given of apparatus that 

 may be home-made. The blanks follow, 

 containing spaces for the insertion of 

 notes under the heads of Experiment, 

 Observation, Statement, and Conclusion. 



In Volume No. XXX of the Inter- 

 national Education Series — Pedagogics 

 of the Kindergarten — a number of Froe- 

 bel's essays relating more especially 

 to the plays and games were printed 

 from the collection made by Wichard 

 Lange. A new volume of the series, 

 Friedrich FroebeVs Education by Devel- 

 opment, includes another selection from 

 Lange's publication, in which the gifts 

 are more thoroughly discussed. " Again 

 and again, in the various essays," the 

 editor of the series says, " Froebel goes 

 over his theory of the meaning of the 

 ball, the sphere, the. cube, and its various 

 subdivisions. The student of Froebel 

 has great advantage, therefore, in read- 

 ing this volume, inasmuch as Froebel has 

 east new light on his thought in each 

 separate exposition that he has made. 

 . . . The essays on the training school 

 for kindergartners and the method of in- 

 troducing children's gardens into the 

 kindergarten are very suggestive and 

 useful. In fact, there is no other kinder- 

 garten literature that is quite equal in 



