February 8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



I II 



certain principles of education to which little exception can be . 

 taken. The author holds that education ought to conform to the 

 course of mental development, each study being introduced at the 

 time when the mind is best fitted to pursue it, and hence that 

 studies requiring a high degree of abstraction and close reasoning 

 should not be taken up until after the simpler and more concrete 

 subjects have been mastered. He gives some e.\amples of wrong 

 arrangement of studies, and some suggestions as to the proper 

 mode of teaching certain branches ; and, though there is nothing 

 new in his theories, teachers may find his presentation of them 

 worth examining. 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 

 In the February Wide Awake, "Forty-eight Hours a Day" 

 will interest all astronomically minded young folk, and their elders 

 as well ; " An Old-fashioned Boat " is an interesting chapter in the 

 progress of invention, by Ernest Ingersoll ; Mrs. Sallie Joy White, 

 in her chapter on " The Use of the Oven," tells how potatoes are 

 baked in the Boston public schools ; Mrs. Goddard Orpen gives 

 the history of the famous Spanish crown pearl, the Pelegrina ; and 

 Professor Starr, in his geological series, describes some of the 

 gnawings of "The Tooth of Time." 



— P. Blakiston, Son, & Co., of Philadelphia, have just ready " A 

 Text-Book of Operative Dentistry," by Professor Thomas Fille- 

 brown of the Harvard Dental School, and a second edition of " A 

 Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of Skin Diseases," by Dr. 

 Arthur Van Harlingen. They have nearly ready "A Surgical 

 Handbook," by Professor F. Mitchell Caird and Dr. C. Walker 

 Cathcart, of the University of Edinburgh, thoroughly illustrated, 

 and printed in a convenient shape for carrying about. 



— W. H. Lowdermilk & Co. will publish in the course of a week 

 " Matthew's Guide for Settlers upon Public Lands of the. United 

 States," intended for all -having business before the district land 

 office and the Department of the Interior. It is prefaced by a map 

 of the United States, showing the thirteen original States, with the 

 territory subsequently acquired, giving dates and sources of acqui- 

 sition and the various State and territorial laws regarding real 

 property, and how under LTntited States laws it may be acquired. 

 The author was late assistant chief of the preemption division, 

 General Land Office. 



— G. P. Putnam's Sons announce among their earlier publications 

 for 1889 the following : the first volume of the letter-press edi- 

 tion of "The Writings of Washington," edited by Worthington C. 

 Ford, which will be uniform with the previously published sets of 

 " Hamilton " and " FrankUn," and be completed in fourteen vol- 

 umes, limited to 750 sets ; a second edition, revised and enlarged, 

 of " The Best Books : a Reader's Guide to the Choice of the Best 

 Available Books in All Departments of Literature, down to 1888," 

 compiled by William Swan Sonnenschein ; and " English Wayfar- 

 ing Life in the Middle Ages " (fourteenth century), by J. J. Jusser- 

 and, translated from the French by Lucy Toulmin Smith. The 

 author has supervised the translation, and has added about a 

 third of new matter, so that the volume differs materially from " La 

 Vie Nomade." The original work was published without illustra- 

 tions, while this English edition, which is issued in London by T. 

 Fisher Unwin, will be elaborately illustrated from a number of 

 rare designs that have not previously come into publication. Be- 

 sides these, they announce " A Manual of Oriental Antiquities," 

 including the architecture, sculpture, and industrial arts of Chaldea, 

 Assyria, Persia, Judea, Phoenicia, and Carthage, by Ernest Babe- 

 Ion, librarian of the Department of Medals and Antiquities in the 

 Biblioth^que Nationale of Paris, translated and enlarged by B. T. 

 A. Evetts of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities 

 of the British Museum, with 250 illustrations; "From Japan to 

 Granada : Sketches of Observation and Inquiry in a Tour round the 

 World in 1887-88," by James Henry Chapin, D.D.; "Business," a 

 practical treatise, by James Piatt, reprinted, under arrange- 

 ment with the author, from the 75th English edition ; in the 

 Knickerbocker Nuggets, " Ancient Spanish Ballads," historic and 

 romantic, translated, with notes, by J. G. Lockhart, with sixty 

 illustrations by Allan, Roberts, Harvey, and others, and " The Wit 

 and Wisdom of Sydney Smith ; " and in the Questions of the Day 



Series, "Outlines of a New Science, a Study of Industrial Condi- 

 tions," by E. J. Donnell ; " Politics as a Duty and as a Career," by 

 Moorfield Storey ; " The Plantation Negro as a Freeman," obser- 

 vations upon his character, conditions, and prospects in Virginia, 

 by Philip A.Bruce. 



— D. Lothrop Company will publish shortly a story by a New 

 York lady which is said to be a refutation of much of " Robert 

 Elsmere ; " and a volume of stories by H. H. Boyesen, called 

 " Vagabond Tales." 



— T. Y. Crowell & Co. have in preparation, for the use of 

 schools, an abridged translation of Duruy's admirable " Histoire 

 de France," under the charge of Professor J. F. Jameson of Brown 

 University. They announce for early publication Bourrienne's " Me- 

 moirs of Napoleon Bonaparte " in four volumes. They will be hand- 

 somely illustrated, and will contain all the critical and biographi- 

 cal and historical notes which add so much to the value of the 

 latest English edition. 



— D. Appleton & Co. announce for this week, " Nature and 

 Man," a series of essays, scientific and philosophical, by the late 

 William Benjamin Carpenter, with an introductory memoir by J. 

 Estlin Carpenter, and a pontrait of the writer of the essays. The 

 volume also includes a few passages from Dr. Carpenter's earlier 

 writings, prefixed to illustrate the prior stages of his great labors 

 for physiological psychology. 



— Henry Holt & Co. will publish shortly a book on the Ameri- 

 can Revolution, which will furnish not only novel but highly 

 curious matter. In his researches among the French archives, Mr. 

 John Durand, the translator of M. Taine's "French Revolution," 

 found many documents relating to the United States which were of 

 the greatest interest. These papers have been translated by Mr. 

 Durand for the first time, and are edited by him. The work will 

 throw light on various episodes of the American Revolution as well 

 as on the characters of the men who took part in it. The peculiar 

 role played by Beaumarchais, the cabal against Washington and 

 Franklin, the secret sessions of the Continental Congress, of which 

 no detailed account has come down to us, together with the social 

 aspects of the country while the Revolution was in progress, will 

 all be presented. 



— Harper & Brothers have just published a volume on " The 

 Government of the United States," by W. J. Cocker, A.M., primar- 

 ily intended as a text-book for public schools, but also calculated 

 to serve as a clear and concise reference manual upon the Consti- 

 tution. The author presents the influences and conditions which 

 rendered the Constitution a necessity, and describes the powers and 

 limitations of our form of government. The numerous references to 

 more extensive works on the subject make the book a valuable guide 

 in prosecuting further a study of our institutions. Three other books 

 also just ready are : " Modern Science in Bible Lands," by Sir J. 

 W. Dawson, which presents a study of such points of the geology 

 and physical features of Italy, Egypt, and Syria as might throw 

 light on their, ancient history, and especially upon the history of 

 the sacred scriptures ; "Our English," by Professor Adam S.Hill, 

 which contains novel and sensible suggestions for the proper 

 teaching of the language in schools and colleges, and reviews 

 " Newspaper English," "English in the Novel," "Pulpit English," 

 and " Colloquial English ; " also an edition in book form of Charles 

 Reade's " Bible Characters." 



— The two latest issues of the Forum contain articles by ex- 

 President Andrew D. White of Cornell, on the need of new uni- 

 versities in this country, and particularly on the project for a great 

 central university at Washington. In the January number the 

 writer speaks of the present position of the higher education in 

 America, and of the rapidly increasing demands on the existing 

 universities. He notes the fact that a process of separation is in 

 progress among our institutions of learning, and that a few of them 

 are developing into real universities, while the remainder are tend- 

 ing to become intermediate colleges, holding a position between 

 the universities and the public schools. Real university instruc- 

 tion, he maintains, can only be given in large and liberally endowed 

 institutions, and he believes that we need one or two such institu- 

 tions of a higher order than any we now have. The most suitable 



