the volume, and is a vindication of the study of nature and the rightful supremacy of science in education. A memorable passage illustrates the change that must take place in the study of history when social phenomena come to be dealt with by the method of development. Now, while, as we have already said, there is no formula of evolution in the book, and even the word occurs in it but rarely, yet Spencer's “Education" so entirely conforms to the doctrine, that, if it were rewritten to-day, it would hardly require revision in this respect. Mr. Spencer was, in fact, master of the new method at that time. If the reader will refer to the prospectus of Spencer's "System of Philosophy," which is prefixed to the volume, he will see how completely its author's views were matured, both in respect to the conditions, laws, and causes of evolution-the fundamental principles of the subject and also of that detailed reconstruction of biological, psychological, sociological, and ethical science which evolutionary doctrine necessitates. The whole logical plan was traced out in its steps of dependence, and even in its proportions, with such singular accuracy, that he has hardly deviated from it in the twenty years subsequently devoted to its execution. The work on education was written while these views were taking definite shape in Mr. Spencer's mind, and half of it was written after his philosophical scheme was perfected. It was, of course, in advance of its time, and belonged to a stage of thought not yet reached either by the public mind generally, nor even in the enlightened circles of science. There was, as yet, but little talk of evolution, and when referred to it was generally derided by everybody as a vagary. Yet to Mr. Spencer's mind at this time evolution was not only a great truth, overwhelmingly demonstrated by concurring evidence from many sources, but it had become a principle of reorganization in large spheres of knowledge, and a new guide in the practical affairs of life. How thoroughly he had made the field his own, and how far in advance he was of even advanced thinkers, are sufficiently shown by the fact that, when Mr. Spencer tacitly based his treatment of education upon evolution doctrines which he had already wrought into an explicit and complete system, Mr. Dar win had, as yet, published nothing upon the subject. We have here, unquestionably, one of the main causes of the success of this book. It anticipated and conformed to ideas that have since become widely popular. It has been increasingly appreciated because it has been found to harmonize with the striking results of advancing thought within the last twenty years. It has afforded trustworthy help in a time of transition when help is most urgently needed. Though a book of principles, it proved to be the most prac tical of educational manuals, because its principles were applicable to all circumstances, and it has become an authority because its indications have been attested by common sense, and verified as true by experience. It is well, then, that we are to have a cheap edition of this instructive book, and all the better that it is in good print and in an attractive form. It ought to be extensively circulated among teachers and educational officials in this country, because, with our favorite system of State instruction, we are strongly inclining to the evils against which this book so powerfully protests. The machine-education of great school establishments is a system of external coercion which everywhere tends to thwart spontaneous natural development, and to hinder instead of facilitating self-education. It is the small minority of thinking persons in each country that has called for and commended Mr. Spencer's work; the great multitude of teachers know little of it. And, while as victims of a great mechanical system they are left but small liberty in the application of principles, and none at all of principles that contravene the official mechanics of the schoolroom, it is, nevertheless, desirable that they should be made to understand, as clearly as possible, the drawbacks of the system under which they work. The extensive circulation of this book, both among teachers and parents, would be highly promotive of rational education ; and liberally disposed people would do an effective philanthropic work by purchasing it at wholesale and donating it to those who are not familiar with its views. It may not be improper to add, in these times of wholesale piracy of the valuable | litter for some years, he will get wonderful works of foreign authors, that Mr. Spencer vigor for other forms of exercise. will continue to be paid by the publishers on this cheap edition of his "Education just as he has been paid by them from the beginning on all his other publications. NEW DEPARTURES IN COLLEGIATE CONTROL AND CULTURE. By Rev. CALEB MILLS. THE REV. Caleb Mills, a graduate of Dartmouth College and of Andover Theological Seminary, was for forty years Professor of Greek at Wabash College, Indiana. He became the first Superintendent of Schools in that State, and so impressed his views upon its people as to earn the flattering title of "Father" of the Indiana common-school system. He died last October, and left this essay on the higher education as a last message to scholars and the people, and his friend Henry B. Carrington has seen it through the press in a very careless way. The paper is mainly an argument on college methods with reference to alleged modern improvements in the studies and the management of these institutions. Mr. Mills clings tenaciously to the traditions, and strenuously resists all the new-fangled notions about optional studies and the introduction of modern languages, scientific branches, and practical knowledge into the collegiate curriculum. Only classics and the dead languages, he maintains, can give a liberal education, or that mental discipline which is the real object to be gained in all higher study. Mr. Mills appears to think that it is the duty of colleges to go on to the end of time threshing the old Latin and Greek straw, although it has long since ceased to yield the grain that is commonly supposed to be the object of threshing. He seems, in fact, to think it a great point gained that the old dead straw no longer furnishes anything that can be utilized. Grain and bread and nourishment are sordid and vulgar things, which the thresher should no longer think of, and so the more empty and useless the husks the better. The real thing is the muscular exercise in the use of the flail, the noble discipline of his arms; for, when he has vigorously pounded the Greek and Latin Mr. Mills has various animated passages in denunciation of college reforms, but we can not see that he contributes anything important to the argument. The coolness with which he throws aside all modern knowledge, as of little or no account in higher education, is something surprising, and shows the havoc that forty years of Greek may make with a man's common sense. Mr. Mills is greatly concerned about the use of the Bible as a college text-book; and the question of its more general employment in this way he declares to be "a live issue," which involves little less than the destinies of the nation. One of the bad signs of collegiate degeneracy is a neglect to use the Bible as a text-book. He informs us that reliable statistics show that "of forty-six colleges reporting, eighteen use it in a proper sense as a text-book and twentyeight do not. Of twelve New England colleges, three use it and nine do not. Of twenty-two Western institutions, nine use it and thirteen do not give it a place in their curriculum." Among the reasons for making the Bible a text-book in our colleges, Mr. Mills thinks that it would raise us in the estimation of the pagans, whose example in this respect he thinks it scandalous that we have failed to follow. He says: "Were an American Christian to go into the Mohammedan university at Cairo, with its ten thousand students, nothing there witnessed would impress him so deeply as the fact that so much time is occupied and so much attention given to the study of the Koran; and a like impression would be created were he to make a similar visit to a corresponding institution in the sacred city of Benares, and witness the exercises of that Brahmanical college, and listen to the lectures of its learned pundits on the Shasta literature and religion; if, then, returning to his native shores, he should make a corresponding exploration of some of our colleges, proud of their number of students and the spread of their curricula, and ask the venerable presidents thereof, Why has not the Bible place, if not a prominent one, at least a position, in your course of study? what reply would he receive?” THE MORALS OF EVOLUTION. By M. J. SAVAGE, author of "The Religion of Evolution." Boston: George H. Ellis. Pp. 191. Price, $1. and a claim that the phrenological system In this little work Dr. Beard has made a careful study of this distressing malady, and advances a theory of its nature, which, be claims, harmonizes with all the facts, and a mode of treatment which is effective. He holds that it is a "functional disease of the central nervous system, mainly of the brain, but in some cases of the spinal cord also." The symptoms, which he says have never been before clearly described, he gives as headache, backache, nausea without vomit. ing, vomiting, pain in the eyes, constipation and diarrhoea, menstrual suppression, hopelessness and mental depression, tem WE congratulate Mr. Savage, first of all, on his standpoint in the treatment of moral questions. He has at once taken the advanced and unassailable ground that ethics is properly a branch of science to be inves. tigated like all other kinds of knowledge, and that it forms no anomaly or sacred exception in relation to that common method by which truth of all kinds is sought and established. He is hampered by no restraints of authority in inquiring into the grounds and sanctions of right conduct, but discusses problems in the full freedom of reason and under the profound conviction that only in this way can an authoritative and well-based moral system ever be attained by man. And Mr. Savage uses his freedom with the best effect. He throws much light upon the practical aspects of the subject from the new point of view, and shows the adequacy of the canons of natural morality for guidance in the conduct of life. He makes no claim to work out a rigorous ethical scheme, but contents himself with a popular exposition of the principles of right and wrong action as they are affected by the progress of knowl-porary abnormal appetite, neuralgic pains, edge and those new views of the nature of man which evolution has forced upon the attention of the world. His style is familiar, his illustrations apposite, and his reasoning clear and forcible. His book will be found helpful and instructive to many minds, and the same thing may be said of the course of liberal sermons which he has delivered from the Unity pulpit in Boston, and which are printed as a series of neat tracts. The contents of the present volume at first took this form of pulpit discourses; and it is encouraging that at least one large congregation has been found sufficiently intelligent and liberal not only to tolerate, but to accept and appreciate them. BRAIN AND MIND; OR, MENTAL SCIENCE MCNEILL. New York: S. R. Wells & Co. THE authors here give a restatement of phrenology, with a great many cuts of heads, chilliness with flashes of heat, sleeplessness, and nervous exhaustion. These symptoms are all due to the agitation of the nervous system by the motion of the ship. This view of the disease is quite at variance with the popular and even professional one, which has regarded it as an affection of the stomach and digestive apparatus. Among the considerations brought forward by Dr. Beard in support of his view is the fact that the very young and the very old are seldom or never troubled with it. "It is," he says, "the discase of active cerebral life, between fifteen and sixty-five," being in this respect like sick-headache, which we now know to be a nervous affection. In further support of this theory, observation shows the delicate, finely-organized, and nervous to be more liable to sea-sickness than the strong and phlegmatic. The treatment advocated by Dr. Beard is based upon this view of the nervous character of the disease. It consists in giving such remedies before and during the attack as will reduce the sensi tiveness of the central nervous system. He THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN, IN SICKNESS cents. has given his treatment extensive trial, and, ley, bean, pea, corn, rice, oat, buckwheat, avers that it has rarely failed. The remedy sago, tapioca, turmeric, and ginger. he has found best of any is the bromide of sodium in doses of thirty to sixty grains, three times a day for several days before starting, and during the voyage, until all danger is past. The remedy should at first be administered by a physician, and can afterward be intrusted to the patient. Dr. Beard especially warns against the use of purgatives, spirituous liquors, and morphine or opium. With the bromine-treatment he states that the patient may remain on deck or in his state-room indifferently, and may eat such things as he may desire. He is also much less liable to take cold at sea or just after landing. THE THROAT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. BY LOUIS ELSBERG, A. M., M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1880. Pp. 60. Price, $1. THIS is one of the popular scientific lectures given under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, and the subject, as befits such a course, is treated in a manner to make it clear to the unscientific. Dr. Elsberg describes the various parts of the throat and their function in speaking, and No better fifty cents' worth of a book for mothers have we seen in a long time. It is full of just the kind of information that all mothers require to possess, and this information is imparted in a simple and sensible manner, so that it may be perfectly understood. The points of most importance are given emphatic prominence, and the subjects are treated throughout with excellent judgment. It is one of the little manuals that can not be too strongly commended. PROBLEMS IN RELATION TO THE PREVENTION THIS is the address of the President of the Indiana State Medical Society at its session of this year. Dr. Weist points out the great losses, commercial and other, that result from an ignorance and disregard of sanitary conditions, and insists upon the with a description of Edison's phonograph, contends that the aim of physicians must necessity of legislation in the matter. He some of the instruments used in examinations of the throat, and closes his lecture which he exhibited to his audience. be more and more to prevent rather than cure disease, and urges the consideration by By them of such problems as have direct bearing upon public hygiene, a number of which he briefly indicates. ALVA VINE; OR, ART VERSUS DUTY. HENRI GORDON. American News Company. Pp. 233. THIS is a sketch, a fancy sketch, of what the author calls "a suggestive woman of the republic-a girl with a good physique, a cultivated mind, a large heart, capable of taking an interest in all that appertains to the welfare of the whole human family." It is a very fancy sketch. THE PROBLEMS OF INSANITY. A Paper read before the New York Medico-Legal Society, March 3, 1880. By GEORGE M. BEARD, A. M., M. D. DR. BEARD declares, probably with much truth, that psychology is to be the great absorbing study of the future, and, in the study A STUDY OF SOME OF THE STARCHES. By Mrs. of the human mind, a thorough understandLOU REED STOWELL, M. S., Microscopi-ing of insanity will not only be of the greatcal Laboratory, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Courier Steam Printing-House. 1880. Pp. 17. Price, 15 cents. est help, but indispensable. Among the problems he indicates as demanding attention are the proper definition of the disease, THIS is a brief description of the appear- the general causes of it and of its increase ance under the microscope of some of the in modern life, its real or apparent increase more common starches, with instructions among the poorer classes, its diagnosis, and how to study them. The starches considered the proper system of treating it. In conare those of potato, arrowroot, wheat, bar-sidering its increase Dr. Beard points out as fruitful in results the increased friction of modern life, especially in the sphere of emotion, reaching the conclusion that the increase is "not so much among the most intellectual as among the least intellectual and highly emotional classes of civilization." The essay is throughout suggestive and well worth perusal by those interested in one of the most important fields of scientific investigation. NEW CHARACTERS OF MOSASAUROID REPTILES. By Professor 0. C. MARSH. Reprint from "The American Journal of Science." Illustrated. THE remains of mosasauroid reptiles, though first discovered in Europe, were of such rare occurrence as to offer only limited opportunities for study; but they have been found in abundance in this country, and the Museum of Yale College alone has a collection containing some fourteen hundred distinct individuals, representing several families and numerous genera and species. This profusion has enabled Professor Marsh to make a very thorough examination of the group, and he has been rewarded by the discovery of several new characters, the more prominent among them being the presence of a sternum probably common to all the forms, the possession of posterior limbs, and of hyoid bones. BULLETINS 1, 2, 3 (Vol. V.), of the UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1879. THESE numbers make a volume of five hundred and twenty pages, comprising twenty-five articles, giving results of original work in the natural history, geography, physical features and resources of a portion of our Western Territories. Among others, Professors Riley, Cope, and White, Dr. Coues, Dr. Le Conte, and Mr. Henry Gannett, have each contributed to the volume. A GUIDE TO MODERN ENGLISH HISTORY. By WILLIAM CORY. Part I., 1815-1830. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 269. Price, $2. THIS book, the author says, has grown out of an attempt made a few years ago to give some account of English politics to a foreign guest, who was not a Christian or a European, but who at the time was reading English history for examination. Without attempting to adhere to the plan of adapt. ing statements to so remote a mind, the author has thought it good to explain many terms which in ordinary books are assumed to be understood; and he has done it very successfully, in a plain, pleasant style, under the form of a running review of the principal events and political movements of the period embraced. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SIGN-LANGUAGES AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, as illustrating the Gesture-Speech of Mankind. By GARRICK MALLERY, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel United States Army. Issued by the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1880. THIS is the second of an important series of papers on American ethnology; the first, issued some time since, being an "Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages," by Professor J. W. Powell. A third is to follow on " Mortuary Observances and Beliefs concerning the Dead," by Dr. H. C. Yarrow, of the United States Army. The study of anthropology is growing rapidly in importance and interest in this illustrate it are being made, and these thorcountry. Vast collections of whatever may oughly scientific papers will facilitate and direct the work. They are among the most valuable issued by the Smithsonian Institu tion. CAMPS AND TRAMPS IN THE ADIRONDACKS, AND GRAYLING FISHING IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN: A RECORD OF SUMMER VACATIONS IN THE WILDERNESS. By A. JUDD NORTHRUP, Syracuse, New York: Davis, Bardeen & Co.; New York: Baker, Pratt & Co. 1880. Pp. 302. Price, $1.25. THE author has undertaken in this little volume to describe his life in the woods, his adventures and talks, exactly as they occurred, without invention or exaggeration, and to give truthful pictures of actual summer life in the Adirondacks. By introducing the companions of his journeys, actual men of education and refinement, but who left the shop and the school behind them for a holiday, he has made his story an entertaining one. |