Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/291

Rh any teacher or student who has native vigor to be aroused, the volume can hardly fail to be an inspiration.

Mr. Brown's book is a revision of his practical taxidermy, published some years ago, plus the results of his work at the Leicester Museum, which includes "new methods, most of which are absolutely novel and at present confined to the Leicester Museum." Although many of the processes are somewhat difficult, the aim has been to so arrange the work as to make its practical application by the learner as simple as possible. The introduction treats of the origin and progress of taxidermy, and the founder of taxidermy certainly Pleistocene in age, is shown to have been the man who first appropriated an animal's hide as clothing, the wearing of skins necessitating some sort of preparation, which may be fairly called taxidermy. The tools and methods used in taxidermy and modeling and the collection of specimens occupy the first four chapters. Then follow special chapters, one on mammals, one on birds, and one on reptiles. The remaining three chapters deal with modeling and artistic mounting. A number of excellent illustrations and a bibliography of the subject add value to the volume.

A magazine entitled Public Libraries, devoted to library management and news, was started in May with M. E. Ahern as editor and a strong list of contributing editors. It is to be issued monthly for ten months of the year from the Chicago office of the Library Bureau ($1 a year). Part of the first draft of a Library Primer, to be issued by the American Library Association, is printed in the first number for criticism and suggestions. Other features are news of libraries, library schools, and librarians; notes on reference books for library work; and practical hints.

Prof. McMaster's special qualifications, both as a historian and a writer, make his With the Fathers (Appletons, $1.50) not only very readable but exceedingly instructive. The volume consists of a series of studies in the history of the United States, all of which have appeared separately in the magazines. The topics treated are The Monroe Doctrine, The Third-Term Tradition, The Political Depravity of the Fathers, The Riotous Career of the Know-Nothings, The Framers and the Framing of the Constitution, Washington's Inauguration, A Century of Constitutional Interpretation, A Century's Struggle for Silver, Is Sound Finance possible under Popular Government? Franklin in France, How the British left New York, The Struggle for Territory, and Four Centuries of Progress.

Betrachtungen cines in Deutschland reisenden Deutschen (Reflections of a German traveling in Germany), by P. D. Fisher, is a small book but full. It presents in a succession of brief, terse essays outline descriptions of the various attractions which Germany offers to the traveler and student. These accounts are given under the headings of "How we travel in Germany," "What we can see in Germany" (scenery, people, industries, cities, estates, universities, authors, etc.), "Economical, Moral, and Social Conditions." (Published by Julius Springer, Berlin.)

The thirty-first number of the Standard Teachers' Library contains the Questions and Answers in Drawing given at the uniform examinations of the State of New York since June, 1892 (Bardeen, 50 cents). The large number of sketches to be copied with various modifications that are presented in these questions forms a notable feature of the book. The regulations concerning teachers' certificates in force August 1, 1896, are prefixed to the volume.

Prof. F. Berger claims as an element of superiority of his French Method (1896) over its rivals most in vogue that it takes up the verbs and the grammar at the beginning, introducing the pupil at once to the construction and phrasing of the language, as well as to the use of individual words. It does not, however, make the grammar predominant or teach it in a mechanical way like the old systems that lie unlamented in their graves, but, taking up the idea that inspired the systems that followed these, weaves it in with the life of the language as the pupil learns to use it in informal exercises or the informal turning of well-chosen and familiar