LITERARY NOTICES. 



417 



it represents. We learn from it that the 

 Maimonides Library contains 26,840 vol- 

 umes, the annual circulation of which is 

 47,570 among 4,708 readers. Of the addi- 

 tions of the past year only twenty-eight per 

 cent were fiction. The librarian, Mr. Max 

 Cohen, is collecting for it a body of works 

 on political and social science ; and efforts 

 are making to secure an educational collec- 

 tion, for which books on the methods of in- 

 struction and administration of schools in 

 this country and Europe have been ac- 

 quired. 



The Philosophy of Edccation. By Johann 

 Karl Friedrich Rosenkraxz. Trans- 

 lated from the German by Anna C. 

 Brackett. Second edition, revised, with 

 Commentary and Analysis. New York : 

 D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 236. Price, 

 81.50. 



This is the first volume of the " Inter- 

 national Education Series," to be published 

 by D. Appleton & Co., of which Dr. W. T. 

 Harris is the editor. The original transla- 

 tion, which was made for the "Journal of 

 Speculative Philosophy," was intended for 

 the use of philosophical students, who in 

 general admire precise technical terms. In 

 preparing the present edition, the transla- 

 tion has been revised with a view better to 

 adapt it to the needs of translators not 

 skilled in philosophy. Where it has been 

 thought necessary, phrases, or even entire 

 sentences, have been used to convey the 

 sense of a single word of the original ; so 

 that the editor is able to claim that no ob- 

 scurity remains except such as is due to the 

 philosophic depth and generality of the 

 treatment, and that the translation is now 

 more intelligible than the original. The 

 peculiar merit of Rosenkranz's work is 

 found in the fact that in it everything is 

 brought to the test of the highest principle 

 of philosophy; that one which is the ac- 

 knowledged principle of Christian civiliza- 

 tion, and which, as such, the author makes 

 the foundation of his theory of education, 

 while he demonstrates its validity by an ap- 

 peal to psychology on the one hand, and to 

 the history of civilization on the other ; the 

 principle of promoting the elevation of the 

 human race. Among the points of great val- 

 ue, the author directs attention to the prin- 

 ciple of self-estrangement as lying at the 



vol. xxx. — 27 



foundation of the philosophy of education, 

 and as furnishing a key to many problems 

 discussed by the educational reformers from 

 Comenius to Herbert Spencer. The distinc- 

 tion of corrective and retributive punish- 

 ment, the part of the work devoted to 

 educational psychology, the methods of 

 treating the three grades of capacity — the 

 blockhead, the mediocre talent, and the 

 genius — the care with which the subject 

 of morality is treated, and the clearness 

 with which the importance and functions 

 of religious education are set forth, are 

 particularly commended. An entire divis- 

 ion of the book is taken up with a his- 

 tory of education, based on the philosophy 

 of history. It is rather an outline of the 

 history of human culture than a special 

 history of schools or of pedagogics, and is 

 recommended as highly valuable for teach- 

 ers and parents, and for all who desire to 

 see in a condensed form the essential out- 

 come of human history. 



Topographical Drawing and Sketching, 

 includixg abplications of photogra- 

 PHY. By Lieutenant Henry A. Reed, 

 U. S. Army. ->ew York: John Wiley 

 & Sons. Pp. \2% with Twenty -four 

 Plates. Price, $3.50. 



The amount of literature which is de- 

 voted exclusively to the subject of topo- 

 graphical drawing and sketching, as dis- 

 tinguished from the actual field-practice, is 

 very scarce. When the surveyor has com- 

 pleted the collecting of all the data which 

 are necessary for the obtaining of an exact 

 reproduction on paper of the area which 

 has been surveyed, the question arises, 

 Which are the best methods by which these 

 data can be graphically reproduced in a 

 map, so as to give the reader the best pos- 

 sible idea about the exact formation of the- 

 ground surveyed, whether it be a farm, a 

 county, or a State ? The progress made in 

 topographical drawing has been very great, 

 and although, of course, many conventional 

 signs and colors have to be used, these are- 

 such that even unpraeticed eyes may be- 

 able to read a map and to understand it in- 

 its minutest particulars. 



Lieutenant Reed i3 Assistant Professor 

 of Drawing at the West Point Military 

 Academy. In his preface he states : " The 

 writing of this book was first suggested by 



