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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tant subject of dynamics, of which the illus- 

 trations are profuse and varied. At the 

 end of each chapter there are well-planned 

 questions designed to test the originality and 

 thought of the beginner, and throughout the 

 book many problems, carefully selected, add 

 to its value. 



Six Books of the J^neid of Vergil. By 

 William R. Harper, Ph.D., President of 

 the University of Chicago, and Frank J. 

 Miller, Ph. D., Instructor in Latin in the 

 University of Chicago. American Book 

 Company : New York, Cincinnati, Chica- 

 go. Pp. 461. Price, $1.25. 



This is a school edition of the great 

 Hantaan bard, prepared with judicious zeal 

 and with the intention of exciting in the 

 youthful student of Latin poetry a genuine 

 love for the most eminent poet of ancient 

 Rome. The bibliography is a unique but 

 complete feature, and exceedingly well ar- 

 ranged. The extracts from ancient and mod- 

 ern poets are quite extensive for so small a 

 text-book. There are eleven full-page photo- 

 graphic illustrations, all from such historic 

 pictures as The Death of Laocoon, Ceres, 

 The Cumasan Sibyl, etc., with Raphael's por- 

 trait of Vergil, and a map of the scene of the 

 hero's wanderings on land and sea. The 

 Topics for Investigation, the Testimonies to 

 Vergil's Worth as a Poet, and the Inductive 

 Studies, copied and condensed from the best 

 classical commentators, form a particularly 

 interesting feature of the book. 



A copious Vergilian vocabulary, word- 

 list, and concise foot-notes, giving instances 

 of paraphrases of Vergilian lines in modern 

 poets, add to the vivid character of the book 

 and render attractive the lines of the poet, 

 who is ever young because ever studied and 

 always admired. Among the many editions 

 of Vergil, we know of none in size, illustra- 

 tions, type, scholarship, scope and quality of 

 the work done, more suitable to be put 

 into the hands of the young American stu- 

 dent. Those of us who remember the old 

 texts, scant notes (none plain), and who re- 

 call the beauties to be discovered without 

 help or hint, and who were expected to dis- 

 course on grammatical puzzles like German 

 scholiasts, can well understand why the pres- 

 ent generation ought to read more Latin po- 

 etry in less time, understand it better, and 

 enjoy it more than the students of thirty 



years ago. Even Tennyson's stately tribute 

 on the nineteenth centenary of Vergil's death 

 finds here an appropriate place : 

 "Light among the vanished ages ; star that gild- 

 est yet this phantom shore ; 



I salute thee, Jlantovano, I that loved thee since 



my day began, 

 Wielder of the stateliest measure ever molded 



by the lips of man." 



The High-school Algebra. American Book 

 Company. Pp. 360. Price, $1. 



This is a revised and enlarged edition of 

 Prof. Milne's Inductive Algebra, already well 

 known as a clear and widely used work. The 

 present edition is prepared to meet the want 

 of the improved method of teaching, and to 

 keep pace with the advanced work demanded 

 for high schools and advanced standing in 

 colleges. Besides the chapters on Radical 

 Quantities, Radical Equations, and Quadratic 

 Equations, there are a general review and 

 special chapters on Imaginary Quautities, In- 

 determinate Equations, Inequalities, Loga- 

 rithms, the Binomial Theorem, Undetermined 

 Coefficients, and the Theory and Transforma- 

 tion of Equations, which many of our mod- 

 ern algebras for schools seem to have lost 

 sight of or completely ignore. 



Pauperism : A Picture, and the Endowment 

 of Old Age. An Argument by Charles 

 Booth. London and New York: Mac- 

 millan & Co., 1892. 



In studying some records, kept for thir- 

 teen years, of poverty at Stepney in 1880, 

 Mr. Booth came across written records of 

 parochial relief, and from them he draws 

 these pictures of pauperism as seen in cer- 

 tain portions of London, notably at Stepney 

 and St. Pancras, and incidentally discusses 

 one phase of English pauperism, viz., Old 

 Age and its Remedies. The book is one of 

 social science study, filled with statistics, per- 

 sonal data, and an account of the causes usu- 

 ally assigned for pauperism — crime, drink, 

 extravagance, sickness, lack of employment, 

 miserable surroundings, vice and criminality, 

 laziness, early marriages and large families, 

 death of parents, old age. 



Stripped of a mass of unnecessary statis- 

 tics, the pith of the book occupies eight pages, 

 Chapter VII, in which the particular phase 

 of old age pauperism, according to Mr. 

 Booth, is not desirably treated in England. 



