Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/721

Rh book recognizes the need of adopting such a standard in the study of English; and, what is more important, it adopts the right plan to secure this as a practicable thing. The author's principle is that example is better than precept, and instead of working up a lot of rules to be learned and applied, his book consists of examples of the erroneous use of language, from many and reputable sources. He points out errors, faults, and blunders in composition, but he shows that all writers—even the best—have their lapses. The book is very interesting and teaches in the best manner by concrete illustrations of the errors to be avoided. Dr. Hodgson was a man of fine literary taste, very widely read, and methodical in his observations; he has accordingly enriched his book with a host of examples of incorrect language, commonly overlooked, which will be of invaluable service to the critical students of English.

Mrs. Hodgson appends the following note to the preface: "The materials of this little volume were selected by my husband from his notes of many years' extensive and varied reading, and they were arranged for publication in their present form before his death. In now conducting the book through the press I have had the assistance of kind friends to whom his memory is dear. But, deprived of his own revisal, there may be errors and imperfections that have escaped our notice, and for such I must ask the reader's considerate indulgence."

This incompleteness or lack of finish in the volume on the part of the author made desirable a critical revision of the American edition; this has been done by Mr. Francis A. Teall, with excellent judgment and discrimination.

Directory contains descriptions of more than 3,600 institutions of every kind, from the Kindergarten to the university, throughout the United States, with lists of State, city, and county school-officers and educational periodicals; a synopsis of the public-school system; a sketch of education in foreign countries; and much other valuable matter. The present volume is the fourth in annual series; it has been prepared under such advantages as it is believed make it more full and accurate than its predecessors, and is enriched with four new departments—those of "College Y. M. C. A.," city superintendents, county superintendents, and the foreign department, which embraces the comparative statistics of elementary education in fifty different countries.

author maintains that the view of Bright's disease as a local disease and its treatment under that view are mistaken. He advances the idea that the primary cause of the disease lies in the organic nervous system, which controls the nutrition and growth of the entire organism, as well as the elimination of the products of disintegration; that it may exist for many months, if not years, before albumen is detected in the urine; and that then other organs are involved, not from sympathy with the kidneys, but from innervation of the nervo-vital energy. He has found it curable when treated in the light of his theory, provided the disorganization has not proceeded too far.

present volume is the first of a series of "German Philosophical Classics for English Readers and Students," to be issued by the publishers under the general editorial supervision of Professor Morris, each volume of which will be devoted to the critical exposition of some one masterpiece of German philosophical thought. The editors will seek in each case to furnish a clear and attractive statement of the special substance and purport of the original author's argument, with interpretations and elucidations in the light of the historic and acknowledged results of philosophic inquiry, and independent estimates of the merits and deficiencies of his work, and they will have especial