1883.] Recent Literature. I141 
and its tadpole should be shown; a bird and its egg, and a cat or 
dog, and they should compare the limbs and other parts of a 
quadruped with their own arms, hands, legs and feet. A lesson 
once a week through each year of grammar-school life could be 
well taken from the time given to geography, in which the pupil 
is forced to learn, besides what is valuable and necessary, a mass 
of useless information, two years being given to the study of a 
single book. We are convinced that geography, as usually . 
taught, is a sham and a delusion, the books contain a great deal 
of useless stuff, and at least a quarter of the time devoted to the 
study might be given to natural history. 
Having thus had at least a weekly lesson in zodlogy in the 
three years of grammar-school life, and having learned the 
different parts of a clam shell, and the parts of the animal, with- 
out dissection, and so on with the beetle, butterfly, fish, frog, bird 
and mammal, the pupil enters the high school. Here the boy or 
girl can, with the aid of a competent teacher, take a rather more 
advanced course with the same species of animal he has already 
had. The clam can be in part dissected ; the lobster or crayfish 
and beetle, butterfly and higher animal can be partially dissected. 
In the case of a fish the student can, in connection with the study 
of physiology, dissect the animal and see for himself the heart, 
stomach, intestine and brain, and so with a chicken or bird of any 
Sort. We have with much satisfaction taught a class of boys from a 
high school to dissect a lobster, and they enjoyed the work, By 
sending but a single hour a week, and confining the class to but 
few objects, they can obtain a fair idea of zodlogy, which will be 
à Pleasure and involve a fair share of mental discipline, and have 
taken but little time from other studies, 
rye an = eto course in general zodlogy, involving the ae 
Morphology, reproduction, embryology and zoo-geograpny, 
and by the senior year be able to digest the laws of the geologi- 
cal succession of animals, and of their evolution as well as o 
:0: 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
trove COR AND Horpen’s BRIEFER Astronot, == Mot af 
tomy is now so closely allied in some of its methods, a 
1 ae 
and pian Science Series, Briefer Course. Astronomy. By Pger NEWCOMB 
WARD S, HoLpEN. New York, Holt & Co. 12mo, pp- 338- 
