Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/385

 ii 8.x. NOV. 7, MM.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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to dispute about the Professor's lesser bards and novelists. A good deal of this eighteenth- century stuff is only read by specialists who can- not get a hearing for their views, even if they wanted one.

Of articles somewhat outside the usual range, t hose by Mr. H. G. Aldis on ' Book Production and Distribution, 1625-1806,' and Mr. F. J. Harvey Darton on ' Children's Books,' are excellent reading, full of information, yet not heavy. Mr. Darton's sketch extends from the horn-book to Lewis Carroll, and notes the gradual advance of the fairy-tale instead of the " improving " story. The best of fairy-tales, however, have, besides the element of sheer wonder, a moral which is all the more effective because it is not obtruded. In the latest development of juvenile books we come upon many which are simply frauds upon the nursery, and only fit to be read by adults.

Prehistoric London, its Mounds and Circles. By E. O. Gordon. (Elliot Stock, 10s. Qd. net.)

WHEN* the present writer, in order to corroborate his own opinion of this ingenious volume, sub- mitted it to the judgment of an antiquarian friend who probably possesses as intimate a know- ledge of the city of London as any writer living, he received the epigrammatic verdict that, while it exhibited a considerable amount of " pre- historic " information, which as such was exempt from criticism, it exhibited no acquaintance with London as known to man in historic times.. The millennium B.C. is far more familiar to Mr. Gordon than that which succeeded it. In that misty period when the Druids held sway Mr. Gordon is able to move about with a freedom and exemption from commonplace tests of chapter and verse denied to other men. If the reader chooses to accept his irresponsible ipse dixits, he must do so at his own risk. Frankly we decline to do so. We cannot contradict them, but as little can we accept them. There are occasions, indeed, when the peep afforded us through the prehistoric fog reveals glimpses startlingly modern and painfully incredible. An instance may be given. One of the original five mounds of London, we are informed, bore the name of Pen-ton, which meant " the holy hill." Its site is marked by the New River reservoir. This prehistoric sanctuary must, in fact, be identical with the cockney Pentonville. But here we have to find room for the prosaic fact that the " holy hill " received its name in quite recent times from that very modern Druid Mr. Henry Penton, member of the Gorsedd at Westminster, and a Lord of the Admiralty, who died in 1812, and on whose estate the first buildings in Penton Street were erected, according to Mr. Pinks, about the yea r 1773. We are in some measure prepared, then, to hear that College Street, near Cannon Street Station, preserves the memory of a Druidic priest hood which naturally bore that name, though historic writers have hitherto supposed that the street in question got its name from the college which was founded there by the will of Lord Mayor Whittington.

We can honestly say that we have learnt in this bonk many things that we never knew before. One thing, for instance, far from generally known, i- that Oxford probably got its name from Caer . and thai I'mm the Greek Bpsphorus, " a name possibly bestowed upon the city when the

Greek philosophers, brought by Brutus to Britain, migrated from their original college at Cricklade (Greek-lade) further up the Tain " (p. 34). Many crimes can be committed under the name of " prehistoric."

The Library Journal: September. (New York, 241, West 37th Street; London, A. F. Bird, 1*. 6d.)

THIS "School" Number contains information about the working of the school libraries of the United States and Canada, and is full of sugges- tions worth consideration. Harriet A. Wood, Supervisor of High School Branches, Library Association, Portland, Oregon, contributes a paper advocating the co-operation of librarians with councils of education, and an exchange of ideas, upon educational movements and upon book- values, so that " the stream of influence might flow from the school into the library just as steadily as from the library into the school," and thus make educational isolation a thing of the past. The young people are to be led " from the textbooks and selected libraries of the school to the larger resources of the local, branch, and central libraries," and inspired to accumulate for themselves those books that represent their own tastes and personal developments. The writer commends the co-operation of the school boards and library boards in the support and mange- ment of school libraries.

Mr. Orrin G. Cocks discusses the educational value of " motion pictures." Mr. Le Roy Jeffers, of the New York Public Library, deals with the question of the selection and cost of editions. He is of opinion that, " in order to purchase books intelligently for a library, it is necessary to build up a card record file of popular titles that are published in different editions," and gives ten points as a guide by which poor edition* may be eliminated. He advises that only latest editions of all books should be purchased, except fiction. " In purchasing editions of standard poets," he says, "beware of 'Poems of,' ' Poems by,' and ' Poems,' as they are usually only such portion of the complete poetical works as the publisher was able to secure legitimately, or which he could safely steal on account of the expiration of copyright. It is always wise to- consider the general reputation and standing of the publisher when selecting editions."

Among other contents is a statement on the Postal Library in Canada, prepared by Mr. Joseph P. Tracy, president or Canada's Postal Library League. In Canada there are about 16,000 post offices, and Mr. Tracy states that " it is now proposed to provide an adequate library service for the people through the Post Office Department. It is conceived that by this means the circulation of books among the people should be as easy and inexpensive as to receive or send ordinary mail."

There is an obituary notice of Thomas J. Kiernan, Superintendent of Circulation in tin- Harvard College Library. He died at Arlington, Massachusetts, on the 31st of July, after fifty-nine years of uninterrupted service. He entered the library in IH~>~> at t he age of seventeen, succeeding his father, who had been janitor since 182H. Harvard students, and hundreds of scholar- fn.m other institutions, have been greatly indebted to Kiernan. His familiarity with the library was