LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1878. 



483 



thing Polly," by Ella Farman, and "Bunch 

 and Joker, and other Stories," by Mrs. E. T. 

 Corbett and Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, deserve 

 like honorable mention. " Overhead : what 

 Harry and Nelly discovered in the Heavens," 

 agreeably mingles work and play, recreation 

 and astronomy. Some translations deserve 

 mention : " Story of a Cat," by T. B. Aldrich, 

 from the French of Emile de la Bedolliere ; 

 Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy 

 tales, newly translated by Mrs. H. B. Paull, 

 with the original illustrations; and "Little 

 Miss Mischief and her Happy Thoughts," by 

 Ella Farman, from the French of P. J. Stahl. 



TEXT-BOOKS. In higher education there is 

 manifest an increasing tendency to diversify 

 instruction, in more precise adaptation to the 

 mental predispositions or purposes in life of 

 the pupils. Optional courses are multiplied in 

 colleges. Fewer general scholars trained on a 

 fixed curriculum, and more specialists aiming 

 at mastery of particular branches of study, are 

 the product of this tendency. Whatever may 

 be the balance of advantage or disadvantage to 

 the cause of education, it is one good result 

 that the quality of text-books is improved. 

 When a science was studied as a mental gym- 

 nastic merely, it was not material that it should 

 have entire justice done it in the text-book 

 used. But if .a student desire to become thor- 

 oughly proficient in mathematics or physics, 

 for their own sake and for their future uses, 

 his text -books must be both accurate and 

 thorough. This need is recognized, and a 

 comparison of the books for schools recently 

 published with those in use not very long 

 since, will show that a higher standard of 

 adaptedness has been set up. If fewer per- 

 sons give their minds to the Greek and Latin 

 classics than formerly, or to the pure mathe- 

 matics, or to the problems of the higher phi- 

 losophy, it may be a compensating fact that 

 those who do pursue those studies respectively 

 will do so from such a partiality for them as to 

 make their proficiency proportionally greater. 

 The classical text-books indicate a purpose on 

 the part of their authors and of those who 

 use them to insure the possession of means 

 adequate to the production of solid, well- 

 nourished classical erudition. 



It is a coincidence worth remarking that 

 three college text-books on rhetoric appeared 

 almost abreast of each other ; and, what is still 

 more significant, each was on an independent, 

 original plan, no two of them setting the same 

 limits to the subject, and each offering to do 

 for the pupil something that the others did 

 not. These peculiarities, indeed, are not of 

 verv great importance in themselves, but they 

 are signs of a tendency, and of a movement on 

 the part of instructors to shape their work 

 with reference to the tendency. 



MISCELLANEOUS. In connection with the sub- 

 ject of the last preceding paragraph, three 

 books on our colleges and the means of educa- 

 tion they furnish deserve mention. Dr. Noah 



Porter, President of Yale College, published 

 several years ago a volume entitled " The Amer- 

 ican Colleges and the American Public," in 

 which questions respecting the organization, 

 courses of study, and discipline of our colleges 

 were reexamined in the light of recent criti- 

 cisms upon them. The position which was ably 

 and intelligently argued was that, while there 

 is room for valuable improvements in our col- 

 legiate system, yet in its essential characteris- 

 tics^ is a legitimate outgrowth of American 

 society, and is adapted to our circumstances 

 and wants. A new edition is now issued, with 

 considerable additions, treating questions that 

 have risen into prominence in recent years. 

 " American Colleges, their Students and their 

 W T ork," by C. F. Thwing, embodies a large 

 amount of information respecting the methods, 

 incidents, and cost of a college course of study. 

 A more elaborate and sumptuous volume 'is 

 " The College Book," edited by Charles F. Rich- 

 ardson and Henry A. Clark, in which a group 

 of colleges representing different types and lo- 

 calities are severally described, their history 

 sketched, and their inner life and character 

 exhibited, by alumni who have shown a be- 

 coming filial pride in them. 



Some books on specialties in education may 

 be here mentioned. " What our Girls ought to 

 Know," by Mrs. Mary J. Studley, is a title that 

 should cover a large work or many of them. 

 It treats of physiology, and the rules of health- 

 ful living suggested by that science. "Hand- 

 book of Nursing, for Family and General Use," 

 published under the auspices of the Connecticut 

 Training School for Nurses, New Haven, is a 

 book of a kind that needs to be widely circu- 

 lated and read. " The Necessity and Advan- 

 tage of Popular Education in Church Music," 

 by Rev. C. 0. Hall, is a title expressing a thesis 

 that can not well be denied as long as the larger 

 part of the population sustain the relation to 

 the churches they do in our older States. 

 "The Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society," 

 by H. O. Ward, bears an assuming title, but 

 which does not very much exaggerate; the 

 rules and suggestions of the book do perhaps 

 all that written rules can to exhibit the canons 

 of good breeding, but that is not much. The 

 good manners that are not bred in, and made 

 by habit spontaneous, are in danger of being 

 forgotten when most required. A deeper strain 

 is touched, for the behoof of college graduates, 

 in "What Career? Essays on the Choice of a 

 Vocation," by Edward Everett Hale essays 

 marked by sound sense and right feeling. 



Some useful works not easily classified may 

 be here named: "The Waverley Dictionary," 

 modeled on "The Dickens Dictionary," and 

 furnishing the reader with a valuable reference 

 guide to the characters and contents of Scott's 

 novels; "American Navigation," by Henry 

 Hall ; " The Witchery of Archery," by Maurice 

 Thompson, introducing the young to a health- 

 ful and inspiriting pastime ; an " Encyclopedia, 

 Dictionary, Gazetteer, and Atlas of the World," 



