In the series of Eclectic English Classics the American Book Company has published a HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, by Daniel Defoe. We have received in three ample volumes the reports of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1891 and 1892, and the Fifty-Eighth Annual Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. In these volumes the student of educational subjects will find not only a complete record of the educational progress of the years covered in the reports, but also a great deal that is helpful and inspiring in the way of suggestion and demonstration from the experience of others. We do not see how the state or the general government could better subserve the interests of the great cause of education than by the publication of such exhaustive reports. No educator can afford to be without them, and the fact that they can be had for the asking should not and will not lead any thoughtful student of these subjects to despise them. They represent the best work of many of our country's ablest experts. A work that will be highly appreciated by students of chemistry and mineralogy is the recently published volume entitled Elements of Mineralogy, Crystallography and Blowpipe Analysis from a Practical Standpoint, by Alfred J. Moses and Charles Lathrop Parsons, issued from the press of D. Van Nostrand Company, New York City. It is a book equally valuable to the student and to the practical mining engineer, metallurgist, geologist and chemist and will find a place in the libraries of each. A MANUAL FOR THE STUDY OF INSECTS, by John Henry Comstock, professor of entomology in Cornell University and in Leland Stanford Jr. University, and Anna Botsford Comstock, member of Society of American Wood Engravers. Ithaca, N. Y.: Comstock Publishing Co., 1895. $3.75. This work has been prepared to meet the need for an elementary, systematic text-book for the use of students in high schools and colleges, and teachers in primary and secondary schools. Its most distinctive feature is a series of analytical keys by means of which the family may be determined to which belongs any insect in North America. The structure, habits and characteristics of the more common species are carefully described without any waste of time over unimportant particulars. The illustrations are excellent and life-like, most of them being engraved from nature by the author's wife. It has been gotten up in an elaborate and expensive way as a labor of love rather than as a financial venture, and the price fixed sufficiently low to put it within the reach of all who desire to learn something of insects and their ways. To such we cordially recommend this volume as the best up to date manual of this interesting branch of scientific study. The bound volume of the CENTURY MAGAZINE, from November, 1894 to April, 1895, is a well-stocked literary repository and a faithful mirror of the leading thought of the times on a large variety of subjects. Among other articles are several touching on art and music. These volumes, handsomely bound and richly illustrated, are admirably suited for center tables and reception rooms, for the temporary entertainment of callers as well as for more permanent users. New York: The Century Company. A very handy little volume for scientific students is a MANUAL OF HOMEMADE APPARATUS with reference to Chemistry, Physics and Physiology, by Professor John F. Woodhull, published by E. L. Kellogg & Co., New York and Chicago. Price to teachers, 45 cents. JOHN DALTON AND THE RISE OF MODERN CHEMISTRY is a very interesting account of the life and labors of the distinguished author of the Atomic theory, by Sir Henry E. Roscoe. Dalton was born of Quaker parentage, in 1766, and died in 1844, full of honors and renown for his many great and exacting labors, especially in the field of chemistry, at Manchester, England. He was also a most successful teacher of mathematics. New York: Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.25. The directors of the Old South Studies, in Boston, have added to the series of Old South Leaflets President Monroe's message of December 2, 1823, in which the famous "Monroe doctrine" was stated. It is fortunate that, at this time, when there are such frequent appeals, and often such ignorant appeals to the Monroe doctrine, the original document is thus made available for everybody. Ignorance, at any rate, is unnecessary when Monroe's message, in its entirety, may be had for five cents. A few brief paragraphs in the message formulate the doctrine itself, but it is interesting and useful to read these in their setting, to get an idea of our political conditions and relations at the time. The message is supplemented here by historical notes and references to the literature of the subject; and the leaflet should be in the hands of every politician and editor and student of history in the country. The number of this leaflet (56) is a reminder of the great mass of valuable historical documents already published in the series of Old South Leaflets. The leaflets are a boon to our schools and our people.— Directors of the Old South Studies, Old South Meeting House, Boston. PERIODICALS. - Messrs. Frederick Warne & Co., New York, commenced in May their new "Library of Natural History," to be published fortnightly in 50-cent numbers. The first issues of this series will comprise "The Royal Natural History," edited by Richard Lydekker, and will consist of 36 numbers, embellished with about 50 full-page and smaller illustrations, and two colored plates to each part. This new 50-cent periodical is a capital thing in its line. Special attention is called to the article in the May Forum, on "The Criminal Crowding of the Public Schools," a subject of the gravest importance, effectively presented.-Much interest is felt in the return of Rudyard Kipling to India, where he will write critically during the coming year for the Cosmopolitan Magazine. His letters will command wide attention here and in England. Among other interesting features Lippincott's Magazine for June contains an article, by John Gilmer Speed, on "Improving the Common Roads," one on Theorem, by Charles C. Abbott, and one on the "Referendum of the Senate," by W. D. McCracken. The story of Lincoln's secret night journey from Harrisburg to Washington, in 1861, to escape the possibility of assassination at Baltimore, is told in the June number of McClure's Magazine, by Col. A. K. McClure, editor of the Philadelphia Times, who himself took part in all the conferences preparatory to the journey, and saw Lincoln aboard the train at Harrisburg.Herbert Spencer has a second article of his series on Professional Institutions in The Popular Science Monthly for June, in which he traces the evolution of the professions of the Physician and Surgeon. These professions, which have been now united and again separate, have a common origin in the function of the primitive medicine-man, who is generally identical with the priest. We acknowledge the receipt of Handbook 7 of the University of the State of New York, being an outline of the scope and work of the New York Library School at Albany; the List of the twenty-five Best Books of 1894, by W. R. Eastman, Secretary New York Library Association; Examination Bulletin, No. 6, of University of the State of New York; Announcement of Courses of Instruction in the Leland Stanford Junior University Summer School; Courses of Instruction in the Sage School of Philosophy, of Cornell University and the Bulletin of The Educational Club of Philadelphia, Pa. ANNOUNCEMENT OF SOME NEW TEXT-BOOKS OF INCOMPARABLE SUPER IORITY WHICH WILL BE READY JULY 1, 1895, OR SOON THEREAFTER. The American Government. 464 pp. By B. A. HINSDALE, Ph. D., LL. D., University of Michigan. (For High Schools, Preparatory Schools and Colleges.) This standard work has been re-written, rearranged and brought down to date. It will appear in new type and dress. Arithmetical Problems. For Supplementary Work. (With answers.) 144 pp. By MCHENRY & DAVIDSON, Decatur, Ill. Pub. Schs. (Grammar Grades.) It contains suitable problems, correctly graded and attractively presented. State Government Series. Under the General Editorship of DR. B. A. HINSDALE, University of Michigan. History and Civil Government of Missouri. 175 pp. By J. U. Barnard, Professor of Pedagogy, University of Mississippi. (For all Grades.) We are fully equipped and abundantly prepared to issue publications of recognized merit, which will be added rapidly to our already extensive list of STANDARD SCHOOL BOOKS. Send for New Descriptive Catalogue, Circulars and Specimen Pages. Send for Illustrated Catalogue THE NUMBER 6 STANDARD. TYPEWRITER WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT ENEMENETKEKEREYE TEACHING TO THINK The value of Mathematical Study, as every judicious teacher knows, is not so much the acquirement of practical information, as the development of the reasoning powers and the cultivation of mental acumen. With this point in mind, it is important, at the very beginning of school work in arithmetic, to give prominence to methods in which analytical and synthetical processes shall be constantly employed, so that the pupil shall not only reach correct conclusions, but shall reach them by his own logical deductions. The general recognition of the true value of arithmetic as a training study, and of the methods by which it most fully becomes such, has led to increased prominence of oral analysis in connection with arithmetical study. All modern school arithmetics have embraced this idea more or less fully, and the days of teaching arithmetic by Rule and by Rote are happily of the past. One of the leaders-it may truthfully be said, the leader-in the development of these normal methods in arithmetic is the famous educator, Dr. Edward Brooks, Superintendent of the Philadelphia Public Schools, who prepared as an accompaniment to his well known Arithmetical Series, the New Normal Mental Arithmetic, a carefully graded little book in which the pupil is lead from the simplest primary problems, to problems of considerable intricacy, all solved by oral analytical methods. Besides its value as a drill-book of the analytical, reasoning, and weighing faculties of the mind, the method it employs calls upon the pupil for mental alertness and coolness. It requires him to think, at call, upon his feet, before the class, and gives him valuable discipline in self-confidence and readiness of speech. That Dr. Brooks' Mental Arithmetic is appreciated by wide-awake teachers is shown by its extended and growing use throughout the United States. Have you seen the book in question? Have you ever tried it in your school-room? If you have, you are using it still. If you have not, you should write at once for a sample copy to the publishers. Examination price, 25 cents per copy. CHRISTOPHER SOWER COMPANY, 614 Arch Street, PHILADELPHIA. Please mention "Education" in corresponding with advertisers. |