Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/873

Rh technical, the author has written a book which is so admirable in style that it presents strong claims to public attention, viewed solely from a literary standpoint. . . . The author's experience of thirty-five years in a bank did not convert him into a machine, nor make him unmindful of everything except money-getting. Out of banking hours he must have read many good books, and thought carefully over their contents. We find everywhere signs of his keen knowledge of human nature. He recognizes and demonstrates the fact that successful bankers must have some, at least, of the cardinal virtues; that they must be courteous, honorable, prudent, and industrious."

volume is part of a report on the subject described in the title made by the author to the United States Commissioner of Education. The report complete will include four volumes. The particular branch of the subject here discussed is "Drawing in Public Schools." The object sought in the preparation of the report, as stated by the author, has been to place in the hands of educators and educational officers "the material not only for forming an intelligent judgment upon the advisability of introducing the study of drawing into the public schools, but also, as well, to furnish the facts needed for a like consideration of the questions arising in regard to establishing special schools of technical industrial art training, high art academies, public art museums, art libraries, and of making occasional public loan exhibitions." The volume is in two parts; the report and the appendices, besides an introductory chapter. The report also is in two parts. The first part consists of fourteen "original preliminary papers," occupying 258 pages, "suggesting the direct and indirect relations of art to education, to industry, and to national prosperity," which are grouped under the general heading of "The Democracy of Art." In the second part, of 411 pages, the subject is considered, historically, with respect to England and America (particularly Massachusetts), to the present position of drawing in several States of the Union, and to concurrent contemporary testimony concerning drawing in the public schools. The appendices contain papers relating to early efforts to introduce drawing as a branch of popular education, in the United States and in England; to the origin, development, and purpose of industrial art education; to the management of the Massachusetts State Normal Art School; to the Industrial Art-training Exhibits in the Centennial Exhibition; to Governmental Aid to Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in Great Britain; to Industrial Education; and to the International Conference on Education, held in London, in August, 1884. The preparation of the report was begun in 1877, or of a part of it, as indicated in one of the statements, as far back as 1874. The work has since been added to several times, but not, apparently, revised; in fact, the author acknowledges that he considered the task of rewriting it a hopeless one, and adopted in preference, as a more feasible plan, "in adding the new matter to leave the history as previously completed, and under the head of 'addenda' to proceed with the subsequent statements." In several instances the "addenda" are far longer than the history to which they are attached. Thus, the report has come to answer, with unusual accuracy, to the author's own description of it as resembling "one of those vast, rambling, mediæval structures to which succeeding ages have builded additions as the needs or tastes of new generations impelled." It contains a great deal of valuable matter, that could have been put, in vastly better shape, in a fraction of the space the present volume occupies. Then we should have had a compact, manageable book, written to the point, which publishers would have competed for the privilege of putting on, the market. As it is, it is a striking re-enforcement of our argument against the Government going into the publishing business.

analysis of commercial fertilizers and work connected with the collection, examination, and valuation of samples have occupied the larger part of the time of the station's working force. One hundred and thirty-nine brands of fertilizers were legally