Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/582

566 walk with the child-pupil by the sea-shore and along the road, with easy conversations concerning the nature, habits, life-history, etc., of the living creatures which the pair meet. These living creatures in the present volume are ants, earthworms, flies, beetles, barnacles, jelly-fish, starfish, and dragonflies. The purpose is to lead the child by pleasant steps to the study of nature, and interest him in it. The talks are fitly illustrated.

The Report of the New York State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the year ending August, 1887, has been issued. The view of the condition of public education in the State, given by the Hon. A. S. Draper, the superintendent, is not characterized by that unalloyed complacency which pervades the generality of educational reports, but is a vigorous statement of what the schools of the State need for their further advancement. Among the special work of the year which he reports are the preparation of a new "Code of Public Instruction," the obtaining of a series of designs for schoolhouses, and an investigation in regard to compulsory education in other States and countries, made by Sherman Williams. The report on this investigation is printed with the superintendent's report. The usual statistics are given in the exhibits appended to the report.

The second "Monograph" of the Industrial Education Association (New York) is a brief paper on Education in Bavaria, by Sir Philip Magnus. It describes each kind of school maintained in that kingdom, and gives other general information on the organization of the Bavarian educational system.

No. 2 of The American Journal of Psychology, edited by Prof. G. Stanley Hall (N. Murray, $3 a year) contains an article on "The Relation of Neurology to Psychology," by Henry H. Donaldson, Ph. D., in which he summarizes certain recent advances in neurology, with a view to indicating what the field is and what some of the results are. There is also an article on "Insistent and Fixed Ideas," by Edward Cowles, M. D., which is illustrated by a detailed history of a complicated case of mental derangement. A paper by Joseph Jastrow, Ph. D., entitled "A Critique of Psycho-Physic Methods" deals with the methods and interpretation of such psycho-physic experiments as can be utilized for establishing Weber's law.

The Heart of the Creeds, or Historical Religion in the Light of Modern Thought, by Arthur Wentworth Eaton (G. P. Putnam's Sons), is an attempt to make clear the universal meaning in the rites and symbols of Christian faith, and to aid the believer in discriminating between what is necessary and what is accidental in religion. It is written from the orthodox point of view, and predominantly from that of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In this sense are considered the topics of "God," "Man," "Christ," "The Creeds," "The Bible," "The Church," "The Sacraments," "The Liturgy," and "The Future Life," each article being preceded, as in a sense of foretaste of what is to come, by a selection of terse expressions of thought on the subject by representative Christian writers of all ages,

G. P. Putnam's Sons have added to their series of "English History by Contemporary Writers," of which we have already noticed the first two volumes, Simon of Montfort and his Cause, by the Rev. J. Hutton, and Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland, by Francis Pierrepont Barnard. The former volume is made up chiefly of selections from the writings of Robert of Gloucester, Matthew Paris, and other contemporary chroniclers, and the latter from the works of Gerald of Barri and several other documents, including the Anglo-Norman poem on the conquest known as "Regan." This series is under the general editorial direction of Mr. F. York Powell, and aims at so setting forth the facts of English national history from contemporary documents, letters, and papers of all sorts, as to send the reader to the best original authorities, and at the same time to give a living picture of the effect produced upon each generation by the political, religious, social, and intellectual movements in which it took part, and thus to bring him as close as may be to the mind and feelings of the times he is reading about.

A work on finance, by Dr. Luigi Cossa, has been translated, and appears under the title Taxation: its Principles and Methods (Putnam, $1), with an introduction and notes by Horace White. It is essentially a volume of definitions and classifications, enumerating