Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/262

250 listlessness with which we were familiar under the old ways. We do not generalize from this single instance, but we gather from an examination of Miss Peabody's tracts that there has been not a little rough and crude work in the attempt to carry out Froebel's plan. But the merit of this reformer is independent of the perfection of his method. He has done the world incalculable service by fixing its attention, first and clearly, upon a subject of the greatest importance, and the attempts to carry out his method can hardly fail to lead to something better. Miss Peabody is among the pioneers of the movement in this country, and she has worked like a saint in the cause. Her little periodical deserves to be liberally sustained. Kindergarten schools are springing up in various places, and their managers will need all the enlightenment they can get. But, whether schools be established or not, the literature of the subject abounds in valuable suggestions that may be made available in home education. For it is here after all that the main interest must centre, and to us the highest value of the movement is its possible result in giving us more competent and better-instructed mothers. We note not without apprehension the growing disposition to invoke State agency in the establishment of this new order of educational institutions. Should this plan succeed, and the new schools be, moreover, subjected to the principle of "compulsory education," as by the logic of the case they must, the situation will become interesting. To the extent in which the Kindergarten idea becomes the rival of family nurture and is resorted to by mothers to escape their responsibilities, it will be injurious; but, in so far as it has the contrary effect and educates mothers as well as children, it will prove a boon to society.

little book treats of the chemical composition of food; the effect on the human body of the different substances used as such; of the modes of preparing certain kinds of food in conformity with their action; and of the principles of diet. In the first part is shown what elements are necessary to make animal or vegetable substances fit for food, and what substances possess those elements in the highest degree. The second part explains easy and economical methods of making bread, cooking vegetables, meats, etc., and building and keeping up kitchen-fires. The third part enforces the truth that the body is benefited not by the quantity of food eaten, but by the quantity digested, and goes on to show what kinds of diet are best adapted to the digestive organs of persons in different occupations. The book contains much information that is valuable to the housekeeper.

work comprises two addresses delivered before the Council of the British Association. The first part discusses the nature of fuel, the source whence it is derived, the best methods of using it economically, the coal question of the day, and solar heat. Fuel is defined as any substance capable of entering into combination with another substance and giving rise to heat in the act, and it is shown to be derived from solar energy acting upon the surface of our earth. The subject is handled in a scientific manner, and has a direct practical bearing on economy of the use of fuel in manufactures, transportation, and the household. The second part ostensibly compares the value of artificial fuels with coal, but is little more than an enumeration of the various attempts that have been made within the past hundred years to produce an artificial fuel.

are informed by the Boston Globe that the forthcoming work of Mr. John Fiske, to be simultaneously published in England and this country, is nearly completed, and will be issued early next autumn. Those who have been interested in his lectures will be gratified to learn that these are to be reproduced in a carefully-revised form, with much new matter which will give his work a comprehensive character. It will be in two volumes, comprising nearly a thousand pages, under the title of "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy based on the