323 



Articles, t^c- 



[N.B. — This list does not claim to be in any way exhaustive. The Editor 

 appeals to all authors and publishers of pamphlets, books, or views in any 

 way connected with the county to send him copies of their works, and to 

 editors of papers and members of the Society generally to send him 

 copies of articles, views, or portraits, appearing in the newspapers.] 



A School History of Wiltshire, by W. Francis 



Smith, B.A., Headmaster of the Calne County Secondary School. 

 Calne : R. S. Heath. 1907. 



Cloth, Tg X 4}, pp. xii. + 160. Double-page coloured Political Map, 

 and Geological Map and 55 photo and other illustrations. 



This book was written to supply a need emphasised in the following 

 admirable suggestion by the Board of Education upon its title page: — 

 " In localities rich in historical associations, local history should be the 

 basis of the instruction." 



Mr. Smith begins his preface with the words " When I first came to 

 live in Wiltshire, a few years ago, I was astonished to find that my 

 pupils knew absolutely nothing of the history of their own county or 

 neighbourhood." Mr. Smith might safely have said the same thing of 

 nine-tenths of the adult population of the county. The plan of his book 

 is good, he rightly dwells only on those periods of history when Wiltshire 

 as a county came to the front ; and does not attempt to give any 

 general history of it in the intervening centuries. Thus the pre- 

 historic period, the wars of Alfred, those of Stephen's reign, and 

 the Great Civil War occupy the chief portions of the book, with 

 chapters on " Celebrated Wiltshiremen ; " on " Wiltshire Industries"; on 

 " How Wiltshire is governed at the present day " ; and separate short 

 chapters on each of the principal towns — Bradford, Calne, Chippenham, 

 Devizes, Marlborough, Old Sarum, Salisbury, Swindon, Trowbridge, and 

 Warniiuster. The historical chapters are rather too full of facts, and 

 therefore dry ; it is very difficult in a school book to hit the happy 

 mean in the matter of " facts." The best part of the book, however, and 

 the point perhaps in which it especially excells the usual school history 

 book, is the prominent position given — and very rightly given — to the 

 description of the prehistoric remains of the county — Avebury, Silbury, 

 Stonehenge, the camps, dykes, and barrows, with the objects found 

 therein. This section of the book is most comtaendably free from the 



