1871.] Notices of Books. 375 



classes are left without the excitement of discussion or the 

 assistance of external provision to seek the education required 

 as much for their sons as for those of the other classes of society. 

 It is not surprising, therefore, if in their natural ignorance of 

 the essential qualifications of teachers and teaching they should 

 have suffered unduly from what, being put forward as education, 

 has turned out to be an unreal imitation of mental training 

 and a useless accumulation of disjointed facts. We hail, there- 

 fore, as a harbinger of better things such a work as the one 

 under review. Written by a schoolmaster, it is intended not only 

 for his boys whilst under instruction in school, but the infor- 

 mation collected is especially designed to be carried away with 

 them into their after work, and to be consulted and referred 

 to when the schooling is over, but whilst the education is still 

 going on. It is one of the main faults of much that is called 

 education or instruction that it has no reference to the future 

 pursuits of the learner, and, in consequence, the child which has 

 an unreceptive brain loses that learning from never employing it. 

 Whilst strongly deprecating a mere technical education, we still 

 hold that the only way in which to make a liberal education act 

 upon the whole character of the individual is to connect the 

 general with the particular pursuits of the individual. We hope 

 to seethe new School Boards bearing this in mind, and providing 

 that the children of the poor shall not only be taught those 

 subjects which would fit them for a higher station in society than 

 their fathers held, but that they shall also learn the principles of 

 those labours to which their future life will be devoted. The 

 present work brings before us this connection. It shows the 

 application of geography, geology, meteorology, as well as the 

 various branches of natural history, to the work of the counting- 

 house and of the shop. Whilst, therefore, interesting the mind 

 of the lad whose work is concentrated upon the supply of a 

 certain class of productions, it leads him on to the circumstances 

 attendant upon the growth and supply of these and similar 

 substances, to the noting of differences, and to accounting for 

 their causes ; and whilst not distracting him from the work that 

 is to furnish his bread, it enlarges his mind to the embracing 

 of new facts, which will enable him to recognise and provide for 

 new wants and new productions. 



The plan of Dr. Yeats's book, of which the idea has been taken 

 from the school books in use in the commercial schools of Holland, 

 Belgium, and Germany, is as follows : — After showing the diversity 

 of our own land and of its productions, he points out what countries 

 are analogous to it in various points of temperature, soil, &c, 

 thus leading on to the question, Whence are our raw materials 

 imported ? Then taking in turn the various classes of raw 

 materials derived from the Vegetable, the Animal, and the 

 Mineral Kingdoms, the locality of each, and the means adopted 

 for its production, with an outline of the process of manufacture 



