i 882.1 
Analyses of Books. 
747 
Elementary Mechanics , or First Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 
By W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S. London : T. Nelson 
and Sons. 
This little work is the substance of a series of lessons which 
have been delivered in the schools of the Birmingham School 
Board. The author's method is simplicity itself : he takes some 
common objedt, or some familiar instrument, and contrives to 
illustrate and enforce by its means important lessons in physics. 
For a more formal proceeding the pupils have scarcely the time, 
nor would their attention be so easily arrested. But this method 
is, after all, that of true Science. It has been said by a very 
high authority that — e.g., in teaching botany — we must begin 
with the plants, and then refer to books to co-ordinate the know- 
ledge which has thus been drawn diredt from the fountain. The 
same holds good in every department of Science. 
We are certainly of opinion that what England really needs, 
if her industrial position is to be maintained, is improvement in 
her system of secondary rather than of primary education. 
Nevertheless we believe that such teaching as the work before us 
aims at imparting will have a salutary effedt. 
American journal of Mathematics. Published under the auspices 
of the Johns Hopkins University. Editor-in-Chief : J. J. 
Sylvester. Associate Editor : W. E. Story. Vol. III., 
No. 4. 
This issue contains memoirs by Mr. O. H. Mitchell on “Bino- 
mial Congruences ” ; on “ Linkages for X w ,” by F. T. Freeland ; 
on “ The Strophoids,” by W. Woolsey Johnson ; on the “ Ratio 
between Sedtor and Triangle in the Orbit of a Celestial Body,” 
by Ormond Stone ; on “ Centre of Gravity of Surface and Solid 
of Revolution,” by E. W. Hyde ; on a “ Point in the Theory of 
Vulgar Fradtions,” by J. J. Sylvester ; on an “ Immediate Gene- 
ralisation of Local Theorems in which the Generating Point 
divides a Variable Linear Segment in a Constant Ratio,” by 
Samuel Roberts ; on the “ Expansion of h)f by A. W. 
Whitcom ; on the “ Theory of Rational Derivation in a Cubic 
Curve,” by W. E. Story ; and “ Instantaneous Proof of a Theorem 
of Lagrange on the Divisors of the Form A;r 2 + By 2 + Cz 2 , with 
a Postscript on the Divisors of the Fundtions which Multisedl 
the Primitive Roots of Unity,” by J. J. Sylvester. 
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