On the whole this work is one which may do extensive good,-a higher praise than could have been merited by a work of more distinguished intellectual rank, but of a less decidedly religious character.

The Juvenile Philosopher; or Youth's Manual of Philosophy. In four parts: Part I. Natural Philosophy. Part II. Astronomy. Part III. Chemistry. Part IV. Physiology. Second revised edition. Enlarged, and adapted to the use of Schools and Juvenile Readers. Ge neva, N. Y. 1826. 18mo. pp. 372.

'As a school book the Juvenile Philosopher was not intended to supersede any work of real merit, but rather to supply a supposed deficiency; to furnish schools with a convenient and cheap manual relating to the elements of natural science— subjects too much neglected in the education of youth. That these subjects ought to be more generally studied, must be evident to all who consider the pe culiar aptitude of most children and youth to examine the objects of nature, and investigate her operations; who consider the importance of early habituating youth, not only to be accurate observers of facts, but also to reflect on what they observe; to reason and judge correctly; to draw useful conclusions and derive salutary impressions from their observations: when it is also considered how many, for want of seasonable instruction, grow to manhood ignorant of the names, properties and uses of some of the most familiar and useful objects in creation-ignorant of the structure of minerals, plants, animals, and of their own persons; and remain through life incapable of discoursing, in appropriate terms, of these subjects."

The object of this school book is an excellent one; and its execution is very creditable both to the compiler and the publishers. A dictionary embracing the scientific terms used in the work, and the addition of marginal questions, would, we think, be serviceable in a future edition. In the meantime, the pupil's dependence for these advantages must be on his teacher; who should furnish, as far as practicable, the illustrations which such a text-book requires, not merely in the way of oral explanation, but by performing as many as possible of the experiments, or by aiding the pupils in their attempts at the same thing. The lat ter method will be found more entertaining to the pupils, and not less useful;

whilst it will save time to the instructer.

The Juvenile Philosopher is entitled, we think, to a place in every school; as it furnishes an uncommon quantity of that kind of knowledge which is useful in all

situations in life.

Geography for Beginners: or the Instructer's Assistant in giving First Lessons from Maps, in the style of Familiar Conversation. Accompanied with an Atlas. Being intended as the first, or Introductory Book, to a series of Geographical Works, by William C. Woodbridge, and Emma Willard; of which, the second book is entitled The Rudiments of Geography,' the third book, Universal Geography.' By Emma Willard, Principal of Troy Female Seminary. Hartford, 1826. 18mo. pp. 110.

·

This is a fair attempt at rational, intelligible, and practical instruction. Very young children may here acquire some just and accurate notions-not of the magnitude or distance of the sun or of Herschel, but of the more remarkable and interesting features of the topography of their vicinity, and the geography of their own country; from which they proceed to that of foreign regions, comparing, as they go on, every object that is laid before them in the book, with something within the range of their own observation.

This little work, in the hands of an intelligent mother or primary teacher, may put a child in possession of more useful information than is to be found in most of the larger geographies ;-not that it offers such a multitude of facts, but that it

selects the familiar, the intelligible, the important,-those which will make practical readers, practical thinkers, and useful agents on the stage of actual life. But we would rather have the writer speak for herself.

'Authors have heretofore appeared to think that if they wrote a geography, they must make out an entire system. A book for children must be small, and hence they have stated more and more in generals, as they have gone downwards in the scale of age. This course appears to me the reverse of that which the structure of the mind requires. The author here only begins to teach the science. She has been desirous that the child should understand as he goes, rather than that he should go far. To accomplish the object of making the pupils understand the subject, the author has here entirely departed from the common arrangement. Instead of commencing the study of maps with the map of the world, which is much the most difficult for a child to understand, the pupil here begins, in the most simple manner imaginable, to draw the map of his own town. From this he goes to a map of the United States, merely containing the boundaries of the states, then to one on the common plan, and last in the course he takes the map of the world; omitting till this time the subject of latitude and longitude. The author having found the subject of latitude the most difficult part of her task, has devoted a considerable portion of her work to it; but no more than in her opin ion is required by the difficulty and importance of this ground work of the whole science. She has left the subjects of religion, government, &c. entirely untouched. This work is large enough to begin with. A child of good abilities, with the opportunities of instruction afforded by a common school, will do well to learn it thoroughly in a year; and by this time his book will be worn out, and one of a new kind, like the second part of this system, will please him better. A few pages might be added, giving a short general view of these subjects. These pages, a child might, indeed, commit to memory, but, conveying no adequate ideas to his mind, they would, in the estimation of the author, be much worse than nothing. They would give to the child the bad habit of using without inquiry, words of whose import he is ignorant. The general tendency of these passages would be to give him a disgust for study; the particular effect, as regards the subjects thus treated, would be to make him suppose that he had gained what he still needed to acquire, while it took away the zest of novelty.

The author has here adopted a method of comparing and classifying, which, so far as her knowledge extends, is new and original. In this work, no principle, stated as important in a former one, is abandoned; but the system is supposed to be simplified, and therefore improved. Taking from our own country a standard by which to measure objects belonging to other countries, is, as the author beReves, the order in which the mind naturally proceeds. We always reckon the unknown from the known.

Another advantage in the classifications on this plan is, that one single number is the key to a whole subject, and this key can give the absolute as well as the comparative size. For example, the number 4 placed near a river, indicates that the river is 4 times the length of Connecticut river. The length of that river being reckoned at 400 miles, we have at once the real as well as the comparative length of the river. On this plan, the numbers on the map express a direct, but on our former plan, an inverse, ratio. That is, in the case of rivers, on the plan here adopted, the larger the river, the larger the number placed ucar it; on the other system, the larger the rivers the smaller the number.'

Mrs. Willard is, we presume, extensively known to our readers as a lady of distinguished ability and uncommon experience in this department of instruction. She has labored successfully in the higher branches of education; but her present effort possesses an originality of plan, and philosophic justness of conception regarding the objects of education, and the culture of the infant mind, which will neither be found less acceptable nor less useful, that they have been devoted to an elementary department of common instruction.

The editor of this Journal has, in common with others, been deemed sanguine in the persuasion that geography and history can be taught in the matter of fact

way he has so often inculcated. Here is a fair opportunity of bringing his me thod to the test. Let attentive parents try the use of this little work with their children, at home, and ascertain whether geography can be taught in a purely practical and popular way in the very first stages of education.

In one point of view, the Geography for Beginners must be useful to all instructers of young children: it gives full and simple and pleasing explanations of maps; and whatever may be the merits of the theory of education on which it is founded, it cannot fail to be very serviceable to the class of learners it is meant to in

struct.

An Epitome of Geography, with an Atlas. By J. E. Worcester. Boston, 1826. 18mo.

Instructers who have made use of this author's Elements of Geography, have hitherto taught their younger scholars from a compendium written by a different author and on a different plan. This jarring in the stages of instruction is a serious disadvantage to the young as their minds are neither sufficiently comprehensive nor well furnished to make due allowances or reconcile apparent contradictions.

That the Epitome will be found thoroughly accurate in details the character of Mr. Worcester is a sufficient pledge: it is likely to prove highly interesting as well as instructive to young learners; and we hope that it will be speedily introduced in all common schools. Many of the current abridgements of geography are finely adapted, in many respects, to intelligible and practical instruction; but do not contain the quantity nor the accuracy of information, which might reasonably be expected, even in common schools. Mr. Worcester's little book will be found valuable in this respect from its comprehensiveness, and the judgement exercised in selection.

We would mention as particularly entitled to commendation the neat and systematic Tables contained in the Atlas. The author's views and plan in this work, however, will be rendered more distinct by his own statements in the preface.

"The work entitled Elements of Geography, Ancient and Modern, by the au thor of this Epitome, is adapted to the use of academies and the higher schools, and to pupils somewhat advanced in their education, and it has accordingly been adopted by several colleges among the books which are required to be studied before entering on a collegiate course.

The object of the author in preparing this Epitome has been to furnish a manual adapted to the use of pupils of an early age, who may afterwards study the larger work, and also to a numerous class of young persons of both sexes, whose means of education are too limited to admit of their studying thoroughly, while at school, a more extended treatise.'

The Epitome it will be perceived therefore is intended for a different class of learners from that for which Mrs. Willard's is prepared. The former is designed for young learners of the common age for commencing the study of geography, but the latter may be used with children just leaving the stage of infancy.

The Franklin Primer, or Lessons in Spelling and Reading, adapted to the understanding of Children; composed and published by a Committee, appointed for the purpose by the School Convention of Franklin county, May 25, 1826. Greenfield, Massachusetts. 18mo, pp. 36.

Amidst the indications of approaching legislative measures for elevating the standard of instruction in common schools, it is gratifying to observe the spirit of improvement at work in narrower spheres, and a county convention of school committees taking the business of practical reformation into their own hands. This result is the more pleasing that it is in the instance under notice peculiarly successful. The method adopted in the Franklin Primer is simple and natural. We have here no useless columns of rare and hard words, which the scholar will hardly meet again in the course of a life time's reading. The book is arranged in lessons so as to present an analysis of every portion of reading exercise: this analysis con

sists of all the words in a lesson placed over it in columns for spelling. The little reader thus enjoys the advantage of entering on his task with the previous preparation of having spelled and syllabled every word in his lesson; and should his memory fail in any word, he has only to revert to it, and recognise it in the spelling columns.

This little book is one of the most ingenious improvements in this branch of instruction, that has hitherto been recorded in our Journal.

One step farther we would suggest to the able author of this Primer; (and it would, we must confess, be a wide deviation from the beaten track ;) but from the ingenuity and skill displayed in his present production, we gather assurance that the suggestion will not be slighted by him.

May not the order of nature be followed a little farther; and the composition' be made to precede the analysis'; so as to enable the child to commence with reading and descend to spelling? The infant does not learn to recognise a tree as such by studying first the roots, then the trunk, then the twigs, then the bark, then the leaves. His eye and his mind grasp the whole object, and do not descend to particulars till afterwards; he does not analyse till compelled to do so. To apply the principle involved in this illustration to the business of teaching the art of reading, is no new thing in some countries; and in these this method has been found invariably successful. A fondness for system is now fast displa cing it; but the more modern plan neither teaches faster nor more thoroughly. We would not leave this highly meritorious production, without adverting to its excellent adaptation to the minds of very young children. All the reading lessons are simple, easy, intelligible and natural in their style; and they will prepare the little learner to read with an unassuming and lively manner, in works of a higher order.

A Just Standard for pronouncing the English Language; containing the Rudiments of the English Language, arranged in Catechetical Order; an Organisation of the Alphabet; an easy Scheme of Spelling and Pronunciation intermixed with easy Reading Lessons: to which are added, some useful tables, with the names of cities, counties, towns, rivers, lakes, &c. in the United States; and a list of the proper names contained in the New Testament, and pronounced according to the best authorities. Designed to teach the Orthography and Orthoepy of J. Walker. By Lyrman Cobb. Revised Edition. Ithaca: 1825 18mo. pp. 168.

This Spelling Book has peculiar claims to attention. The appellation of a "Just Standard' some teachers will hardly think due to a work which follows Walker so rigidly, in most words; while the advocates of Walker may point out inconsistent deviations from that orthoepist, such as e before r being represented as having the sound of u short, whilst i before r takes the sound of e in met. In orthography the upholding of antiquated final k, in spite of the decision of prevailing usage, may justly be objected to.

Mr. Cobb, might, we think, have done a signal service to education, by publishing a corrected Walker's dictionary, or a vocabulary of doubtful and disputed words. He has evidently bestowed much attention on such subjects; and even his spelling book wears a formidable air of authority from the labor and research by which it is characterised. The Tables, annexed to this volume, are uncommonly full and accurate. The whole work indeed is highly creditable to the author's intelligence and industry.

For our own part, however, we confess we have no great partiality to spelling books, and think very favorably of the more recent plan of using only a primer and then an easy reading book of a simple and intelligible character; the little scholar making his own spelling book, by spelling every lesson he reads; and taking his pronouncing lessons from the Dictionary. Under the management of a

careful teacher, this will be found a much more efficacious course, than endless drilling on the dull unmeaning columns of a spelling book.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN.

The Juvenile Miscellany, for the instruction and amusement of youth. Boston: September, 1826. 18mo. pp. 107.

The prospectus of this publication was copied in our last; and a slight and cursory perusal of the first number as our own sheets were correcting was all the attention which it was then in our power to devote to it. A more deliberate reading, if it has enabled us to detect what seem to be some slight faults, has by no means diminished the pleasure derived from the leading features of the work. For the Miscellany will be found to bear reperusing, and to be worthy of it.

The first question which naturally arises respecting a Juvenile book—Is it intelligible?-may be very safely put in this case. Though we cannot help thinking that the work would be greatly aided in this respect by assuming a given age within which its readers should be supposed to be. A subdivision in the arrangement would then enable every young reader to find something adapted to his capacity. This point is the more deserving of attention from the importance of forming very early in life a taste for reading-without which, whatever talent there may be, there can be no intelligence.

The Miscellany has one very valuable recommendation: it is always interesting and often amusing. Books which must be laboriously perused under a sense of duty, are not likely to be useful to Juvenile readers. Let pedagogues and scholastics declaim as they may; if children are to receive instruction to advantage, it must be given in a pleasing form. There is throughout the work more of a happy blending of pleasure with profit than can be found in most books of the kind.

The taste which pervades the pages of the Miscellany is generally of such a character as cannot but have a powerful though tacit influence on the minds and style of its readers. A few improprieties in phraseology, however, and errors in the typography seem to have escaped in the unavoidable confusion of a first number.

But it is the moral influence of this publication about which parents will feel most anxious. In this respect there is, we think, very little to which even a rigid critic could object, and certainly much that has a tendency to cherish what is 'honorable and lovely and of good report.'

On the whole, the editor of the Miscellany and her contributors have already stamped on this work a character for useful, entertaining, and elevated thought, which creates high expectations for the future numbers, and which lays a wellfounded claim on the gratitude and the support of the community.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Received since our last:

Emerson's Primary Lessons in Arithmetic, Willey's First Spelling Book, Bos sut's Phrase Book, and Word Book, in one volume, Cook's Student's Companion, Kelley's American Instructer, Boston Prize Book No. VI., Blake's Historical Reader, Report of the Ohio Committee of Common Schools.

Proposed Society of Education.

This subject, we are gratified to find, is attracting the earnest attention of the friends of improvement in various quarters. Many interesting and valuable letters have been received, containing suggestions of great moment. When a few more shall have come to hand, we shall transcribe the substance of them, so as to give the more important views of all, in one connected form.

In the meantime, more communications might be serviceable to this great object, and enable whoever may take the lead in such an undertaking, to conduct the business with greater certainty of success.