SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



709 



in which he strongly urges that in studying 

 an organism or its tissues the investigator 

 to gam certain knowledge must know the 

 age, health, state of nervous, muscular, and 

 digestive activity ; in fact, all that it is pos- 

 sible to find out about the processes of life 

 that are going on and have gone on when the 

 study is made. 



The Thirteenth Annual Report of the New 

 York State Agricultural Experiment Station 

 contains, as do all these publications, the 

 results of much valuable experimental work. 

 Among the papers of especial interest in the 

 present volume may be mentioned the fol- 

 lowing : The Individuality of the Cow as in- 

 fluencing Offspring ; The Relation of Sex in 

 Thoroughbred Calves; Proximate Constitu- 

 ents of the Dry Matter of Food ; The Relation 

 of Fat in Food to Fat in Milk, and Twin Calves ; 

 Alfalfa Forage for Milch Cows ; and A De- 

 tailed Comparison of the Different Breeds of 

 Dairy Cows with reference to the Production 

 of Cream and Butter. 



The second number in the Section of 

 History and Economics of the Leland Stan- 

 ford Junior publications consists of a mono- 

 graph on the Official Relations between the 

 United States and the Sioux Indians, by Lucy 

 E. Textor. The author begins her history 

 with the formation of the republic, and traces 

 in detail the various forms of legislation and 

 u agencies " by which we have attempted to 

 regulate and protect the Indians. The work 

 seems carefully done, and, as the editor says, 

 each special investigation of this sort is im- 

 portant as an advance toward that " general 

 ideal history of the United States " which 

 we still lack,. 



School Interests and Duties, developed 

 from Page's Mutual Duties of Parents and 

 Teachers, from various Public Reports and 

 Documents, and from the Bulletins of the 

 National Bureau of Education, by Robert M. 

 King (American Book Company, $1), is con- 

 nected with Mr. Page's address by the ad- 

 dress having been a powerful agent in the 

 advancement of the schools to their present 

 position, and having partly laid the founda- 

 tions of that advance. In the meantime new 

 /actors have come into prominence in school 

 affairs chiefly the institution of school 

 boards, directors, trustees, etc., to take the 

 place of citizens at large in the direct man- 



agement of the schools ; and further, the vast 

 extension of the subjects to be dealt with. 

 This book has been prepared with a view to 

 bringing down to date the doctrine of co- 

 operation in school interests, " with all that 

 it implies of enlightened, harmonious, and 

 effective work in the interests of popular 

 education," and the thoughts of numerous 

 recent writers are quoted in connection with 

 the discussion. It deals with such subjects 

 as the duties of parents, of teachers, and of 

 school officers, school architecture, hygiene, 

 libraries, morals, etiquette, celebrations and 

 observances, the use of the dictionary, the 

 teachers' institute, reading circles, and the 

 teacher's relation to public opinion. In con- 

 clusion, a series of outlines of reading- circle 

 work is given. 



The advantages of vertical penmanship 

 have been so widely recognized that every 

 publisher of writing-books now has to have 

 a vertical series. A vertical style of the 

 well-known Spencerian penmanship has been 

 prepared, and in the Shorter Course this 

 style is presented in seven small square 

 books. Directions with cuts showing posi- 

 tions are given on the inside pages of the 

 cover. (American Book Company, 6 cents 

 each.) 



The distinguishing features of a new ele- 

 mentary text-book on Algebra, by Lyman 

 Hall, are stated in the preface as, first, pre- 

 serving the familiar methods of arithmetic 

 as far as possible in the first chapters, in 

 order to convince the student that algebra is 

 merely an extension of the mathematical 

 knowledge he already possesses ; second, re- 

 view examples and questions throughout the 

 book which will help him to master follow- 

 ing chapters and prepare him to pass from 

 this to a higher treatise without a formal re- 

 view. (American Book Company, $1.) 



In his recent text-book on American Lit- 

 erature, Prof. Brander Matthews makes fif- 

 teen authors of the United States stand out 

 prominently by giving each a chapter and 

 providing them a background of colonial 

 and other writers whose works are of lesa 

 general interest. Portraits of most of the 

 authors mentioned are given, together with 

 pictures of the birthplace, and sometimes of 

 the later residence, of the more prominent, 

 and facsimiles of their manuscript Each 



