Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/872

850 by Porphyry is preceded by a notice of that writer,

Mr. Andrew J. Rickoff in preparing the First Lessons in Arithmetic (American Book Company, price, 36 cents), has endeavored to promote clear, accurate, and thorough work in the four fundamental rules and the training of the judgment in the proper application of those powers. It is divided into three parts, of which the first is devoted to exercises—each number being studied in all combinations—in numbers not greater than ten. All the processes are graphically illustrated with diagrams arranged so as to resemble the dots on dominoes. Part II deals with units and tens, with the graphic method continued. After the study of the number fifty, equal parts—halves, fourths, and eighths—are considered. Familiar measures are introduced. In Part III the treatment of numbers up to one hundred is completed, the pupil is carried through the four fundamental rules in the higher orders, and is familiarized with their application to simple business transactions. No abstract reasoning or intricate problems are introduced. Training to reckon rapidly and accurately is mainly sought, and the book is intended to systematize and facilitate rather than to supersede oral instruction.

A useful manual of Cookery for the Diabetic has been prepared by W. H. and Mrs. Poole, and is published by Longmans, Green & Co. (price, $1). In explanation of its purpose Dr. F. W. Pavy says, in a preface which he has written for it, that it is necessary to frame the dietary in diabetes so as to exclude as far as practicable certain principles of food which enter considerably into the dietary of ordinary persons. The basis or material part of a dish placed upon the table may be permissible, but accessories introduced in the cooking of it may render it objectionable. Diabetics are often in this way deprived of many of the properties which render food palatable and attractive, and reduced to a monotony of a few dishes of the plainest character, Mr. and Mrs, Poole seek to relieve them from this inconvenience by furnishing them with recipes by which their food may be given pleasant seasoning and at the same time harmless to them, and its variety may be increased.

The distinctive features of the Inductive Latin Primer (American Book Company) of William R. Harper and Isaac B. Burgess are that the lessons are shorter than those of the Inductive Method of the same authors} formal grammar is reduced to a minimum, and is introduced more slowly; no reference is made to the grammar during the early lessons; the exercises are easy and copious; prominence is given to conversation upon the text; maps, plans, and pictures are introduced; and a treatment of English grammar, inductive in character and adapted to these who never studied English grammar before and to the needs of those studying Latin, is bound with the Latin lessons. The work is based upon the connected text of Cæsar.

Russian Traits and Terrors are vividly portrayed in a book of that name, which professes to be a faithful picture of the Russia of to-day; published by B. R. Tucker, Boston (85 cents). The author's name, if it can be called that, is E. B. Lanin, which we are told, however, is the collective signature of several writers in the Fortnightly Review. An unpleasant picture enough is given of lying, fatalism, sloth, and dishonesty as Russian characteristics; of the condition of Russian prisons; of a low stage of sexual morality; of the miserable situation of the Jews; of Russian finance, which is represented as a "racking of the peasantry." To all this is added an ode by Swinburne, written after reading the account of the prisons.

Homilies of Science (Open Court Company, Chicago) is a collection of papers on subjects related to religion, which were first contributed by the author, Dr. Paul Carus, as editorial articles in The Open Court. The principle that pervades the papers is to preach an ethics that is based upon truth and upon truth alone. The homilies are declared not hostile toward the established religions of traditional growth, but toward the dogmatic conception only of those religions. They are also not hostile toward free thought, but, standing upon the principle of avowing such truths alone as can be proved by science, they reject that kind of free thought only which refuses to recognize the authority of the moral law. The author accounts for his position on these matters by relating that in childhood he was a devout and pious Christian; on growing up, he