SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 419 



of a form bounded by unequal faces, etc. The various modes of using the 

 gifts, which are depicted in illustrations, suggest many movement plays, 

 and these Froebel describes, giving also the words of songs to accompany 

 them. He also describes a pleasant way of learning to write and read. 

 Froebel was a pioneer in child study, and in his description of kindergarten 

 plays he is constantly calling attention to the development of the child's 

 faculties which the attentive kindergartner may observe. 



In the other two volumes we have Froebel's Mutterspiel and Koselieder 

 reproduced in English. Froebel indicated how each of the mother-plays 

 should be played by means of a group of pictures surmounted by a 

 u motto r consisting of eight or ten lines of verse. These quaint pictures 

 and the mottoes in the original language are reproduced in each volume. 

 The first, which may be called the mother's volume, contains also free ren- 

 derings of the mottoes in English verse, by Mrs. H. E. Eliot, together with 

 prose translations, by Miss Blow, of the commentaries that accompanied 

 the plays. Miss Blow has also furnished an introductory essay on the phi- 

 losophy of Froebel, and, that nothing of the master's thought may be lost 

 through rendering his homely lines into English verse, she has given prose 

 translations of the mottoes in an appendix. The companion or children's 

 book contains the same pictures with short pieces of verse on their subjects 

 by Emily H. Miller, Emilie Poulsson, Laura E. Eichards, and other writ- 

 ers. Following these is music for them and for some others to the num- 

 ber of eighty-three in all. In this volume many of the pictures in the 

 groups are repeated on a larger scale, so as to bring out their details more 

 clearly. Many of the melodies originally used in the mother-play having 

 been pronounced unsuitable by competent judges, other music is here sup- 

 plied from sources of recognized merit. In every part of these two vol- 

 umes the directing hand of that able kindergartner. Miss Susan E. Blow, 

 is apparent. Kindergarten teaching can be conducted by those who have 

 a genius for it without such helps as these books afford, but it is hard to 

 imagine that a teacher who had once used them would be willing to give 

 them up. 



In his work on Money and Banking * the editor of the New York Even- 

 ing Post gives connected form to the principles of finance which he has 

 studied and discussed for many years past. His method is that of the his- 

 torian who accounts for an event by circumstance, pressure, ignorance 

 occasionally by knowledge fortunately joined to courage. His book is a 

 mine of sifted fact, with clear and convincing deductions wherever these 

 are warranted, with a judicial presentation of both sides of a case where a 

 decision is as yet to be found. 



Stripped of its entanglements the money question is simple enough. 

 Mankind has chosen precious metals among commodities as means of ex- 

 changing all the rest and as standards of value. Eeal money, then, is 

 metallic coin, authenticated by the stamp of a mint as to quantity and fine- 

 ness. For generations down to 1873, both gold and silver circulated to- 

 gether in civilized countries at a ratio of about one to fifteen, the fluctua- 

 tions from that ratio being too inconsiderable to cause serious difficulty. 

 With the discovery in 1873, and since, of new and rich deposits of silver, 



* Money and Banking illustrated by American History. By Horace White. Pp. 488, 12mo. Bos- 

 ton and London : Qinn & Co. Price, $1.50. 



