Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/434

422, by which he means something like the Socratic method, with the use of objects for some studies. Prof. Baldwin's teachings are everywhere positive and emphatic, and he ignores any possible difference of opinion on such subjects as corporal punishment, free text-books, and coeducation. The book is intended to be used for systematic study by classes of teachers, and each chapter is accordingly divided into sections and subdivided into paragraphs, each with a number and a heading. There is also a syllabus to each chapter, and a list of topical questions at the end of the volume.

Prof. Wiley has brought to a close his carefully prepared treatise on Agricultural Analysis with a volume devoted to agricultural products. The first chapter relates to methods of preparing samples by grinding, drying, incineration, and extraction. Twenty-six forms of apparatus for these operations are here figured. The first group of substances for which processes of analysis are given consists of the sugars and starches. The specific gravity, the polariscopic, and the reduction methods for sugar analysis are each represented by a number of processes. The author has not undertaken to select the best practice for dealing with every problem, as he has not been writing solely for students, but more for trained analysts who are competent to select for themselves from several carefully described modes. A variety of miscellaneous processes for sugar analysis are also described. The determination of starch requires less space, and from this the author passes to methods for separating and determining sugar, starch, and other carbohydrates in crude or manufactured agricultural products. The fats and oils form the next large group of substances treated, and considerable attention is given to their physical properties, as well as to their chemical behavior. Methods of estimating nitrogenous bodies follow; dairy products have a section by themselves, and a considerable number of substances are grouped as miscellaneous. These include cereals, fodders, meats, fruits, vegetables, tannins, tobacco, tea, coffee, and fermented beverages. In dealing with meats several methods of artificial digestion and of determining nutritive values are described. The volume is indexed, and is illustrated with one hundred and twenty-five figures of apparatus. A list of authorities cited is given at the end of each division of the work.

In his Laboratory Practice for Beginners in Botany, Prof. William A. Setchell has furnished a guide for the application of the laboratory method to the study of plants (Macmillan, 90 cents). . He takes up the seed first, because "it is not only readily obtained, readily studied, and its meaning clear, but it is also one of the most convenient starting points for a study of the life history." His first directions will indicate his method. "Take the ripened pod of a bean plant and, splitting it open, notice: 1. That the seeds (beans) are attached along one edge of each valve (or half) of the pod. 2. That each bean is attached to the pod by a short stalk, the funiculus. 3. Make a sketch of a valve of the bean pod with its inclosed beans, representing and labeling the parts." Drawing is a constant requirement throughout the course. In the advanced lessons questions are asked which it is not practicable to answer otherwise than from consulting books. There is a brief appendix of suggestions to students and one more extended of suggestions to teachers, in which reading for each chapter is specified and various directions as to material and details of instruction are given. Although the author says that his book is intended for the higher grades of primary schools or for secondary schools, he has apparently made no effort to keep his language within the vocabulary understood by children, hence we doubt that the book would be available below the secondary grade. There are no illustrations.

Robert the Bruce and the Struggle for Scottish Independence, by Sir Herbert MaxwellBart. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1897, $1.50), is one of the scholarly volumes of the Heroes of the Nations Series. It deals with the making of Scotland. The first five chapters give a short survey of the country up to the year 1305, a period of internal discords, and feuds with England because of the latter's