I. I coat and I vest=1} coats; 32 hr. ÷ 14= 24 hrs. in which A makes a coat. I c. +2 v. = 1 coats; 36 hr. ÷ 13=1=21 hrs. in which B makes a coat. 2x+18=21% fraction of a coat made by both in one hour. 4 c.+5 v. 53 coats; and (5÷÷10)=( '17 × 21® × yo)=613 days. Ans.

2. Taking the work done by a man in an hour as the unit, we have,-10 x 15 × 40=6,000 units to be done, and (9 × 12 × 20=) 2160+(10 × 8 × 30=) 2520=4680 units done by first two sets of men. Then 6000-4680=1320 units yet to be done; 12 x 18=216 units done in one day; hence 1320÷216=63 days. Ans.

3. £12,500 × 425 = £5312 10s. Ist payment.

£12,500 £5312'5=47187.5 the rem. after the above. £7187585 = £6109 75. 6d. 2nd payment. £12,500 (£5312 103. +6109 7s. 6d. =)41078 2s. 6d. Ans.

STANDARD VII.

1. The working expenses being 60 per cent., the net earnings must be 40 per cent. (1,731,250 × 40)÷ 100= = £692,500. Debenture interest of £2,000,000 £80,000; preference interest (£2,500,000 × 4)÷ 100= £112,500. Then £692,500

=

=

=

-(80,000+ £112,500)=500,000 dividend on the (12,500,000 -£4,500,000) 8 million ordinary stock. Hence £500,000÷ 80,000 (the number of hundreds)=6 per cent. Ans.

2. As the P. W. if invested will yield as much interest as has been deducted for discount, £860 × ×=£32 5s. the discount that has been taken off, hence £860+£32 5s.=£892 55. Ans.

3. £250+(20 p.c. of £250=) £50=300 total selling price. £125+ (35 p.c. of £125=) £43.75 £168.75 received for half the cloth; 250÷5450, cost of the fifth; 15 p.c. (£7 10s.) from which=42 10s. received for the fifth or 160 yds. £300 -(168·75+42 10s.)=88 15s. selling price of the remaining (800-560=)240 yards, which gives 7. 43d, a yard. Ans.

The Practical Teacher.

A MONTHLY EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL.

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Publications Reviewed.

Lectures on Teaching. By J. G. Fitch, M.A. London: Cambridge University Press.

We have received from the Cambridge University Press Warehouse this new and cheaper edition of Mr. Fitch's Lectures on Teaching.' When the book was first issued it was fully noticed in our columns. We need now only add, that in our opinion, it is a work so excellent that every teacher should study it.

The Dictionary of Education and Instruction. New York: E. Steiger and Co.

This is an admirable 'reference' volume, worthy of our warmest praise, and which we wish we could see on the shelves of every pupil-teacher's library in the kingdom. Its chief aim is to supply a brief compendium of the theory and practice of education in a series of clear and definite articles, alphabetically arranged so as to be easily referred to, or systematically studied; to encourage in this way the study by teachers of the principles and practice of their profession, thus giving to the work of education a greater degree of intelligence and efficiency; and to afford a convenient class manual of pedagogy for use in normal schools and teachers' institutes as the basis of a course of instruction in principles and methods, not necessarily superseding other valuable manuals differently arranged, but accompanying and strengthening them. The articles are from the pens of the best writers, both on this and the other side of the water.

Halfpenny Maps. London and Belfast: Marcus Ward and Co.

For want of a better title we thus refer to a series of excellent maps clearly printed in colours and highly finished. Those before us comprise Europe, India, Germany, Canada, Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, and Central America. Doubtless, England and other portions of the British Isles will be added, if not already forming part of the series, and also France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Norway and Sweden, and Russja. But

VOL II.

from the examples before us, nothing more can be desired in the way of a correct, clear, and beautiful map on a small quarto scale. The printing, or rather engraving, is very clear and distinct, and the colouring most carefully finished.

The Simple Outline of English History. For Standard IV. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.

This book answers to its title of being an outline of English History, and in this displays considerable skill in the way of condensation and arrangement. The outline is also drawn with remarkable evenness of style and general freedom and fairness. But the introductory part has the usual commonplace errors about the Britons, who, according to the compiler, were 'naked savages when invaded by the Romans. The Saxons, we are told, 'were cruel and bloodthirsty in their fighting, and when they won a battle they slew all their enemies who fell into their hands, except a few whom they kept to be their slaves.' Now, the theowes or servi among the AngloSaxons were persons taken in war and criminals irrespective of race. No competent historian identifies them with the Ancient Britons. Even these theowes were not hopelessly shut up in perpetual bondage. But the Britons were to be found largely among the classes of freemen and even Thanes. 'As a race, the Britons were not merely allowed to continue on the conquered territory, but tempted to do so by various advantages.'* They continued to reside in towns of their own, though in many cases these towns were subiugated by the Teutonic tribes. In these towns the Britons continued to live under laws and magistrates of their own and within the bounds, too, of the victors' jurisdiction, as was the case with the Wealas of Wessex (at Exeter) until the time of Athelstan's extension of the West Saxon dominions. Doubtless, many British captives taken in battle were put in the rank of servi, but only as Saxons, Angles, or Danes were also put under similar circumstances. Unless taken as prisoners of war or convicted of great crimes, the Britons generally belonged to the different classes of

Dr. Nicholas.

2 G

ceorls. Doubtless, also, much, though certainly not all, of the land was taken from the Britons by the successful Angles and Saxons. In the laws of King Ina, compiled at the close of the 7th century, we have the Wealas proprietors of various degrees, and chargeable with wergild on a 'hide' of land or more. Further, it is provided that the Wyliscman who should possess five 'hides' of land should enjoy the rank of Thane, the same qualification for the Saxon's advance. Many other proofs might be adduced to show that the Britons and Saxons were on the whole treated alike, and that the servile or exterminatory theory is unsupported by anything like proof. The printing of this book of Outlines is clear and good, and the illustrations ample and appropriate. Among them is the upper part of the figure of Henry VIII. from the fine portrait at Petworth. Altogether the book is most readable and free from masses of dates and names, which in such a compendium would be quite out of place. The maps are clear, good, and instructive.

Cassell's Book of Sports and Pastimes. London: Cassell and Co.

This is a capital interesting serial, whose contents are aptly described in the title.

Friar Hildebrand's Cross; or, the Monk of Tavystoke Abbaye. By M. A. Paull. Hodder and Stoughton.

This is a fairly well-written story, in the way of a fragmentary autobiographical record concerning a sixteenthcentury monk, who had quite mistaken his vocation, which therefore became a cross to him. For Hildebrand is not only inclined in a distinctly sensuous, albeit innocent, way to all the intellectual pleasures of this life, as painting, and music, and flowers, and scenery, and so forth, but also he falls violently in love with one Cicely, his own scholar, a very charming Queen of the May, who, however, honestly marries a handsome young miller, and has as her firstborn a namesake Hildebrand, as her second a Cicely all which are manifestly nails in the cross of our stricken and yet pious friar. The end of the story is that Martin Luther's Reformation comes on about that time, and King Harry destroys the monastery, dispersing its inmates, after their 600 years of monkery, and our now semi-Protestant friar emigrates to Compoella in Mexico, dying some years after in the arms of his young namesake who accompanied him. The story is of good humane interest, as illustrative of a heart almost literally crucified by a compelled celibacy, that old normal tyranny of the monastic system.

:

The volume (well printed and tastefully bound) is swelled into a larger bulk than the biography, by some so-called MSS. 'found' in a chest of 'ye Abbaye' by our monk, detailing sundry not very interesting historical events from time to time, in an imitated archaic phraseology, which consists chiefly in the transmutation of the letter i into y, and in adding an e at 'ye ende ofe manye a worde,' which does not deceive the modern reader nor improve the antique style. An extract or two from the book may serve to illustrate our fair criticism, as thus: Hildebrand's Romish idolatry is shown in the carved image he has made of St. Cecilia, which he avouches (p. 335) to be that of Cicely herself 'Cannot Cicely trace her own fair image in that lovely form? will she never guess of all my tenderness, my faith, my sacrifices, my cross? alas, never!'

His sensuous love of Nature is frequently shown, as thus: 'What glory and beauty exist in men alone; what infinite pleasure I have experienced many a time in the rich carmine, and amber, and azure, and emerald hues with which I illuminate; I have rendered a devout thanksgiving upon bended knees for the tints of a sunset,' etc., Again: 'We monks, who shut out the common passions of humanity from the heart, do not therefore necessarily become pure; but, alas! very often give only the more place to the gluttony, the avarice, the

etc.

pride, the superstitions, that are abhorrent to our Master Christ.'

On the whole, the author, or authoress, is to be commended for a wholesome and interesting story which, it is to be hoped, will find a welcome among many readers.

The History of a Lump of Coal. By Alexander Watt. London: A. Johnston, Paternoster Buildings.

....

We opened this book with interest from having read with pleasure other scientific brochures by Mr. Watt. On the whole we are not disappointed, though we fail to follow Mr. Watt in attributing the formation of coal to the Noachian Deluge. Mr. Watt supposes 'that while this terrible effect of Divine wrath was being consummated, countless millions of trees'. . . were uprooted, floated on the waters, became deposited in the valleys on the subsidence of the waters, and 'in process of time' would undergo those slow changes so as to become converted into beds of petrified or fossilized organic matter, which we now call coal. Though we have condensed, we have not misrepresented Mr. Watt, and leave geologists to smile at this novel way of accounting for the coal formation, which lies far beneath the Tertiary strata, and for the top of which, the alluvial beds of clay and Bagshot sands, they require a period of several millions of years!

Leaving as it had better be left-this fanciful dragging in of the Biblical Deluge, we proceed on safer ground to question Mr. Watt's fears for the not very distant exhaustion of our coal beds. Certainly the consumption is enormous, notwithstanding a great strike or two now and then, but we have lately had satisfactory assurances of the probable existence of fields upon fields, which may lessen anxiety for some 50,000 years at least.

Mr. Watt traces the history of gas and other products of coal interestingly and succinctly. Gas, we learn, after being successfully used by Mr. Murdoch in his house at Redruth was used in public at Birmingham on the occasion of the National Illumination for the Peace of Amiens in 1802. In less than twenty years after this its adoption was general. William Murdoch has, however, as Mr. Watt remarks, been almost forgotten.

The discovery, however, of the wondrous wealth of colouring matter in the once despised and worthless coal-tar forms as may be supposed the most interesting portion of Mr. Watt's book. The brilliant colours of which mauve and magenta had the first run have almost revolutionized the art of dyeing, by acting on the fabrics directly and without the intermediate process of 'mordanting,' or dyeing with a preliminary colour. The preparation of the intense and brilliant colours, of which the aniline group is the principal, Mr. Watt well describes, and believes there are yet more discoveries to be made in addition to those by which immense fortunes have been obtained.

Altogether Mr. Watt has given us a most readable collection of the information connected with our 'black diamonds.'

Blackie's Sixth Geographical Reader. By W. G. Baker. London: Blackie and Sons. This book, taking up Asia, Africa, and America, is certain to take a leading position among the most useful of school books. It differs favourably from most geographies, which, however meritorious as compilations, seldom contain a touch of lively description or animated colouring. The book before us, while giving all needful facts and figures, comprises attractive and readable sketches of people, scenery, and other features that make up the best books of travels. In addition to these lively and always appropriate selections, Messrs. Blackie have given a series of physical maps of unusual excellence. By skilful and artistic touches the engraver gives us a clear picture by way of a map of mountain valley, river,

and plain. From these maps alone clear notions of physical features are obtained at a glance. Further, we have a liberal supply of other illustrations, all appropriate and helping much to ensure the retention of the knowledge conveyed by the letterpress. In China, for example, we have a capital picture of a 'Tea Plantation,' in which the natives are gathering the leaves from the small shrubs, while being overlooked by a fan-bearing proprietor. Beyond is a river on which junks are sailing, and in the distance a pagoda. In the descriptive sketches Colonel Burnaby is largely quoted, and the best writers on several other countries. A summary is appended, in which a vast number of facts are epitomized in about half-a-dozen pages. The book is worthy of the highest praise.

General Biology. By E. B. Aveling, D.Sc. London: Stonecutter Street.

This work is stated to be specially adapted for the Elementary Examination in General Biology of the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. We cannot think, however, that the author has been happy in his attempt at producing a text-book for this Examination. The book presents a large mass of information, much beyond the requirements of Elementary Biology; and this information is presented in an extremely condensed form, reminding one of lecture-notes requiring further elaboration and explanation.

The whole treatment of the subject is suitable rather to the requirements of the advanced student and teacher, than of the boy beginning the study of science. The technical words used are generally explained, and their derivation given; but occasionally we meet, with difficult words unexplained: such as homology,' 'analogy,' 'excrementitious.'

We would specially recommend the book to the favourable notice of those studying Biology for the intermediate B.Sc. examination. It would also be useful to teachers requiring an accurate and complete resumé of the Science Department syllabus.

To be of use for young pupils, however, it will require much simplification, and, what is more important still, the addition of illustrations.

It is true that the methods of observing the things themselves are here described; but pupils too commonly do not know what they are to see, and whether they see the right thing, unless some illustration is given to guide them.

The book is clearly printed, and on the whole singularly free from printers' and other errors.

On page 81 we note that chara and the fern are described as flowering plants. Doubtless this is an accidental mis

take.

On page 12 degrees of temperature are mentioned without stating what scale is used; as the centigrade scale is mentioned on page 18, we presume this is intended throughout.

In a book intended for young students, it would have been better to mention the English equivalents of millimetres, though we quite agree as to the desirability of stating all measurements in the metric system.

The author's tendency to introduce debateable matter is on the whole kept well in the background, though it creeps out occasionally. Thus we have a comparison instituted between the Bronnian movements in inorganic particles suspended in water, and the oscillatory movements in the still-stage' of Bacteria.

A'cell' is defined on page 35 (after considerable use of the name without a definition) as 'a mass of protoplasm surrounded by a definite wall, and enclosing a more solid portion known as nucleus.'

The term 'plastid' is used to imply a mass of protoplasm without an enveloping cell; and 'cytod,' a mass of protoplasm enveloped by a distinct wall, without a nucleus Such a limitation of the meaning of 'cell' is extremely unsatisfactory, especially as it obliges us to banish the term from Animal Physiology, and so creates confusion

in our terminology. Prantl and Thomé do not recognise such a definition of cell, but regard the presence of protoplasm as the only necessary element; the presence of nucleus and cell wall, or their absence, constituting important varieties of cell.

The description of each organism is placed under fixed divisions, which are valuable as ensuring a systematic study.

In the description of Bacteria we have the following:(d) Circulation. In this connection nothing is to be said.' This very ambiguous statement evidently assumes the acquaintance of the student with the fact that Bacteria have no circulatory apparatus, an assumption which no good elementary teacher would make.

We are told that if a white corpuscle is carefully watched under the microscope, it will be observed to undergo slow alterations of form. This statement, unaccompanied as it is by any further explanation, would certainly lead to disappointment on the part of a student who thus watched a corpuscle. The fact that a warm stage is required (temp. of 50 °C.) ought to be insisted on, as well as that even then the movements are extremely slow and difficult to trace.

There are some very useful tables throughout the book, as of the differences between a fern and a flowering plant, the classification of vegetabilia, etc.

At the end of the book is a useful glossary.

Animal Physiology. By A. Willis. Adapted to the Requirements of the Education Code. Stage I. R. J. Derfel, Manchester.

We are sorry to have nothing good to say concerning this pamphlet-like book. A first glance through it shows that it bristles everywhere with technical words, and these are used to such a superfluous extent that we are bound to say, that if we wished children to imbibe a dislike for the study of physiology, the first step we should take would be to place this book in their hands.

These technical terms are much more numerous than the requirements of an elementary text-book necessitate. What need, for instance, to talk of 'sarcolemma,' 'orbicular ligaments,' 'gastrocnemius and soleus muscles,' 'foramen magnum,' etc., etc., in a book intended for boys and girls of a tender age? Surely none of her Majesty's inspectors could require a knowledge of such words as these! So anxious is the author to give everything a technical name, and so impressed is he with the importance of not calling a spade a spade, that even ribs are dignified with the name of 'costa. Surely this is going too far! In Gray's Anatomy,' the standard work for medical students and others who have to study the structure of the body in great detail, 'costa' are not so much as mentioned.

Looking through this book more carefully, we find it not only bristling with technicalities, but full of inaccuracies and misstatements. Here are a few specimens.

On the first page the ligaments are described as being elastic fibres. This is true of one or two sets of ligaments, as the ligamenta subflavi of the spinal column, where they are elastic for a special object. But in all other cases the ligaments are pliable but almost perfectly inextensible; so much so that the fibres in cases of injury will rather rupture than stretch. If it were not so, dislocations would be much more frequent than they