»34 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Exposition. A short article is given on 

 mental fatigue in school. The Bertillon sys- 

 tem as a means of suppressing the business 

 of living by crime is explained in a chapter 

 entitled Current Discussions. Several of the 

 papers relate to aesthetic cultivation in con- 

 nection with manual training and to deco- 

 rative art ; another chapter is given to art 

 decorations in schoolrooms ; and another 

 treats as " current questions " of teachers' 

 mutual benevolent associations and pension 

 laws, coeducation, compulsory school attend- 

 ance, transportation of children to school, 

 and temperance instruction ; and there are 

 statistical chapters on agricultural and in- 

 dustrial education in the United States and 

 other countries, education in Alaska, city 

 school systems, commercial and business 

 schools, professional schools, education of 

 the colored race, schools for the defective 

 classes, reform schools, and other schools. 



The sixteenth annual Report of the Bu- 

 reau of American Mfi7ioloff>/, besides Mr. 

 Powell's administrative report giving details 

 of the work of the bureau month by month, 

 and by departments, contains papers on Prim- 

 itive Trepanning in Peru, by M. A. Muniz and 

 W J McGee ; Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chel- 

 ly, Arizona, by Cosmos Mendeleff ; Day Sym- 

 bols of the Maya Year, by Cyrus Thomas ; 

 and Tusayan Snake Ceremonies, by J. Walter 

 Fewkes. We have also Dr. Thomas's Day 

 Symbols of the Maya Year in a separate pub- 

 lication. 



We have the first number, October, 1897, 

 of the American Quarterly Economist, pub- 

 ' lished at 15 East Eleveoth Street, New 

 York, a magazine devoted to the interests 

 of economical science. It advances a for- 

 mula for the conception of the point of equi- 

 librium of the wages of labor which it pro- 

 poses to demonstrate. This initial number 

 has articles on»A New Theory of Value and 

 Price ; Labor, its Price ; and how affected by 

 the Use of Machinery ; Machinery ; and Suc- 

 cess of Nations. Pp. 31. $1 a year. 



Uncle Roberts Visit is the third book in 

 the series Uncle Robert's Geography of Ap- 

 pletons' Home- Reading Books. This series 

 is edited by Colonel Francis W. Parkei', one 

 of the most eminent and successful teachers 

 in the country. He believes in putting life 

 into the schools, and has done it wherever 



he has been, and designs the geography 

 series to help teachers put life into their 

 teaching in the primary classes. Uncle 

 Robert comes to the farm and talks to the 

 children, assisting them at the same time to 

 observe and experiment, about the map of 

 the farm, the thermometer, the animals, flow- 

 ers, sunlight and shadow, barometer, woods, 

 birds, thundershower, railroad, the rainy day, 

 etc., and the things which these suggest 

 and illustrate, always having the geograph- 

 ical bearing well in view. So far as is pos- 

 sible each child is left to discover facts for 

 himself and make original inferences — an 

 example which the teacher may follow to a 

 reasonable extent, taking care that the child's 

 desire for knowledge is in the end satisfied. 

 The name of Nellie Lathrop Helm is asso- 

 ciated with that of Dr. Parker in the author- 

 ship of the book. New York : D. Appleton 

 &Co. 



We have from the Macmillan Company 

 the first four volumes of a series of six Sci- 

 ence Readers for the schoolroom or the house, 

 by Vincent T. Murche, revised and adapted 

 by Mrs. L. L. Wilson (price, 25 and 40 cents 

 each). They are intended to be used as 

 reading books or text-books or as the bases 

 of object lessons in the secondary and gram- 

 mar grades, and the teacher is expected to 

 illustrate them by object exhibitions and 

 experiments before giving them to the chil- 

 dren. The lessons are consecutive in groups 

 of which the members depend severally 

 upon the preceding one, and concern tl;e 

 properties of bodies ; the nature, growth, and 

 structure of plants ; the common types of 

 animals ; minerals and metals ; the phe- 

 nomena of the weather ; and, generally, the 

 conditions around us. 



The Open Court Company, Chicago, pub- 

 lish a second edition of the Popular Sci- 

 entific Lecticres of Dr. Ernst Afach, revised 

 and enlarged. The additions consist of the 

 author's Vienna inaugural lecture on The 

 Part played by Accident in Invention and 

 Discovery, a lecture on the Sensations of 

 Orientation, and two historical articles on 

 Acoustics and Sight. The lectures are of 

 the highest order, as to both matter and 

 manner, thoroughly scientific and adapted to 

 popular understanding. One of the pur- 

 poses which the author seeks to carry out in 



