Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/580

 Reynolds, A. R. Report of the Department of Public Health of the City of Chicago. Pp. 268.

Ribot, Th. The Diseases of Personality. Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 163. 75 cents.

Seidel, Heinrich. Der Lindenbaum. American Book Company. Pp. 71. 25 cents.—Die Monate. American Book Company. Pp. 72. 25 cents.

Shearman, Thomas G. Natural Taxation. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 239.

Smith, H. M. Notes on a Reconnaissance of the Fisheries of the Pacific Coast. Pp. 65.—A Statistical Report on the Fisheries of the Middle Atlantic States. Pp. 130. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.

Smithsonian Publications. Bureau of Ethnology: Chinook Texts. Pp. 278; The Siouan Tribes of the East. Pp. 100; Archæological Investigations in James and Potomac Valleys. Pp. 80.—National Museum: Directions for Collecting Plant Specimens, etc.; Directions for Collecting Rocks, etc.; Directions for Collecting Minerals, etc.; Scientific Results of Explorations by United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross; Directions for Collecting and Preparing Fossils.

Stifter, Adalbert. Das Heidrdorf. American Book Company. Pp. 80. 25 cents.

Tracy, Roger S. Handbook of Sanitary Information. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 114. 50 cents.

Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuyler. Should we Ask for the Suffrage? Pp. 57.

White, Horace. Coins Financial Fool. J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company. Pp. 112.



A Child's Thoughts about Providence.—A very instructive account of the mental aspects of childhood is given by Miss Isabel Fry, in a book called Uninitiated, one of the purposes of which is to show that it takes much longer for children to learn the real drift and meaning of the habits and expressions and feelings of their grown-up friends and attendants than it does to master the language in which those feelings are conveyed. She thus pictures the process gone through by a child in conceiving the meaning of God's constant observation and care of his creatures: "I was thinking dreamily about heaven, and how wonderful it was that God could always see me. Could he see, for instance, and did he notice that I had a button off my boot, or did he overlook some things and only trouble himself about that which was actually either good or naughty? I did not know. And then nurse said that he was always taking care of me every minute. Didn't he ever leave me alone at all? I supposed not. But surely if he saw that I was sitting on this chair, and knew that nurse had made up her mind not to come in for, say, twenty minutes, he might leave me at any rate for a little while. But no; I hardly thought he would. Then I went on to try to imagine what would happen. Supposing, for any reason, he did leave me. I should probably fall down through some vast open space and die. No, not exactly die, for then God would have to decide whether I was to go to heaven or hell, and I should be once more in his keeping, and in that case I should be just sitting here in the night nursery again for all the world, as I was doing at this moment. I could not make up my mind what would happen, and I felt it would be almost worth while to try the experiment." But if she should ask God to leave off taking care of her she might go so fast that she would not be able to pray him to take her back. But she would pray him to let her go for just one single second, and then take care of her again. After a long struggle with herself and much trembling, she did so—and nothing happened. "Breathless and motionless as I sat with eyes staring and ears strained, I could perceive no change whatever in myself or in my surroundings. The sewing machine in the nursery still purred on; little Samuel still knelt in the picture on the wall opposite me, with the yellow light still fiercely streaming upon him, and the bluebottle who had been keeping up a continual "fizzle" was still fighting on the window pane. I set myself rigidly, and tried again to feel the sort of falling or collapse which I had imagined. Still I felt nothing, and I had at last to give up the effort, and believe that for some reason, which perhaps I was not quite old enough to understand, God would not let go of my still sobbing body."

Science in Finland.—Besides the National University at Helsingfors, which had nineteen hundred and twenty-nine students in 1894, with the number increasing regularly, Finland has several scientific and other learned societies. The Finnish Society of Sciences, founded in 1838, has published, besides its regular volumes of transactions, a series of works on the nature, ethnography, and statistics of the country. Among its later achievements is the foundation of a central meteorological institute, which is assisted by the Government. It has, besides, taken part in a number of international polar 