gestions to young men on how to meet liberally and manfully the problems and temptations likely to assail them during the first years of their high-school life. STUDIES OF NATURE. A very thorough and painstaking account, in the form of a text-book, of the life, behavior, and influence of the bacteria that concern American country life has been prepared for the Rural Science series (edited by Prof. L. H. Bailey) by Dr. Jacob G. Lipman. This volume, which appears under the title "Bacteria in Relation to Country Life" (Macmillan), is really a discussion of the problem of health and comfort in the country as affected by these minute organisms which float in the air we breathe and in the water we drink and perform an important work in the soil from which our food is extracted. Dr. Lipman is soil chemist and bacteriologist for the New Jersey Agricultural Ex ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK, THE DISCOVERER OF BACTERIOLOGY. (From an old print.) periment Station and associate professor of agriculture in Rutgers College. The volume is illustrated, having for a frontispiece a portrait of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutch discoverer of bacteriology, a portrait we herewith reproduce. Another book on the subject of soil composition and potentiality, a little larger in purview than Dr. Lipman's work, is a new revised and enlarged edition of Mr. A. D. Hall's work "The Soil" (Dutton). Mr. Hall, who is a director of the Rothamsted Station, subtitles his book: "An Introduction to the Scientific Study of the Growth of Crops." Mr. Frank M. Chapman, the curator of birds in the American Museum of Natural History, at New York, is known not only as an expert in all matters relating to birds, but especially as a successful photographer from nature. The latest volume from Mr. Chapman's pen is entitled 66 Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist (Appleton's), and is embellished by 250 photographs made by the author. Mr. Chapman's special work during the past seven years has been the collecting of specimens during the nesting season of birds, and making field studies and photographs on which to base a series of "habitat groups" of North American birds, designed to illustrate not only the habits and haunts of the birds shown, but also the country in which they live. These points are well brought out in the text and illustrations of the volume before us. It is understood that Mr. Chapman has furnished much assistance to President Roosevelt in his preparations for the forthcoming African trip. THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH. One of the most readable and entertaining, if not always convincing, books on the philosophy of health we have ever had the pleasure of reading is Dr. Woods Hutchinson's Instinct and Health" (Dodd, Mead). Dr. Hutchinson, who is lecturer on clinical medicine at the New York Polyclinic and has already written extensively for the periodical press of the country on health topics, addresses this book not to invalids but to the ordinary, normal individual. In vivid style he explodes many popular fallacies regarding eating, drinking, breathing, and so forth. "It isn't so very dangerous to be alive," he says, "only we must know how to live, and so many of us do not." Two other books of this same general character are "Mind and Work," by Luther H. Gulick (Doubleday, Page & Co.), and "Mind, Religion, and Health" (Funk & Wagnalls), by Robert MacDonald. Dr. Gulick's little volume aims to point out clearly the effect of mental condition on physical efficiency,-"the vital relation between one's mind and the daily work." The sprightly style and vigorous thought is indicated by such chapter headings as The Habit of Success," "The Mental Effects of a Flattop Desk," and "The Time to Quit." Dr. MacDonald, who is in charge of a prominent Brooklyn church, attempts in this volume to give an appreciation of the Emmanuel movement and to show how its principles can be applied in promoting actual physical health and adding to our mental contentment. 66 A FEW BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. "A Treasury of Verse for Little Children" is a square octavo containing a goodly number of remarkably well-chosen selections made by M. G. Edgar (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.), with profuse illustrations, both in color and black and white, by Willy Pogany, that are most decorative and effective. G. P. Dutton & Co. are the importers of a number of children's books by English authors, printed in Germany, that are perhaps sometimes lacking in spontaneity, but are certainly put together with a knowledge of nursery requirements, for they are overflowing with pictures, and each book treats of a variety of episodes, so that the childish mind finds ample satisfaction in their pages. Among these is a long octavo, "The Nursery Picture Book," "The Motor Car Model Book," full of "cut-outs;" a box of four little volumes called "The Old Farm Story Book;" a thick volume with picture, prose, and verse, in "Chatter Box" style, 66 One of the most delightful picture books of the year is Dream Blocks," by Aileen Cleveland Higgins (Duffield & Co.), with pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith, that are full of the true essence of childhood, and delicate in their colThe verses, written a la Stevenson, are sometimes without point, but the author coins some happy phrases, as when she speaks of a "New Dress," "When It's So Sunday Clean," and of "My nicest, clean-faced kiss." It's a pity the book is not better bound. ors. "Persis Putnam's Treasure" (Little, Brown & Co.), is a story of Nan's camp and many happenings in outdoor life, appropriate for girls of fourteen to sixteen. A book for smaller children, say, eight to ten, is "Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times," by Amy Brooks (Lothrop; Lee & Shepard Company). rop, Lee & Shepard Company come "The Boat Club Boys of Lakeport," "A Full-Back Afloat," "All Among the Loggers," and "Four Boys on the Mississippi." "Irma in Italy," by Helen Leah Reed, illustrated (Little, Brown & Co.), is a story of a girl's adventures and travels in sunny Italy. From Henry Holt & Co. comes "Pete, CowPuncher;" from W. A. Wilde Company comes "Six Girls Growing Older," and from Loth OTHER BOOKS OF THE SEASON. It It might not be easy to adequately characterize the latest book of Mr. Austin Dobson. is a collection of literary thoughts upon literature, particularly upon eighteenth century books and associations. This volume, which the Macmillans have brought out under the title "De Libris," is permeated with Mr. Dobson's quaint, erudite literary lore, both prose and verse, and is interlarded with a number of charming pen sketches, some by himself and some by wellknown artists. The one we reproduce here is from a hitherto unpublished sketch by the late Kate Greenaway. In "The Memoirs of the Comte de Rambuteau" (Putnam), edited by his grandson and translated from the French by J. C. Brogan, we have a record of the experiences of the Chamberlain of Napoleon I. This admirable master of ceremonies saw the Emperor in his familiar and every-day relations, and gives in this volume an animated account of the way the court entertained officially and publicly, as well as the way it informally amused itself. In "How to Understand Electrical Work" (Harpers), William J. Onken, associate editor of the Electrical World, and Joseph B. Baker, technical editor of the United States Geological Survey, give simple explanations of the philosophy and mechanical application of electric light, heat, power, and traction in daily life. The book, which is very copiously illustrated, tells 'round." the boy all about how and why "the wheels go A finely illustrated volume in color, "Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan" (Macmillan), by Richard Gordon Smith, retells in story form of the land of the chrysanthemum. most of the picturesque traditions and legends EDITED BY ALBERT SHAW. CONTENTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1909. The Water-Front of Messina... Frontispiece The Rockefeller Institute for Medical The Dignity of a Senator. 131 131 W.C. Brown, of the New York Central 204 143 Queen Helena, Italy's Heroine........ 205 66 144 With illustration. TERMS: Issued monthly, 25 cents a number, $3.00 a year in advance in the United States, Porto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Mexico and Philippines. Canada, $3.50 a year; other foreign countries, $4.00. Subscribers may remit to us by post-office or express money orders, or by bank checks, drafts, or registered letters. Money in letters is at sender's risk. Renew as early as possible, in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Bookdealers, Postmasters, and Newsdealers receive subscriptions. (Subscriptions to the English REVIEW OF REVIEWS, which is edited and published by Mr. W. T. Stead in London, may be sent to this office, and orders for single copies can also be filled, at the price of $2.50 for the yearly subscription, including postage, or 25 cents for single copies.) THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO., 18 Astor Place, New York City. 214 By Jean Masson. 228 .... 229 Photograph by Brown Bros., New York. THE WATER-FRONT OF MESSINA, SICILY, DEVASTATED BY EARTHQUAKE, TIDAL WAVE, AND FIRE. SEE PAGES 150—153. THE AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS VOL. XXXIX. The Lincoln NEW YORK, FEBRUARY, 1909. THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. No. 2. Abraham Lincoln was born on modern civilization. But he could also see February 12 in the year 1809. that in the hot-headed and foolish strife Centenary. The one-hundredth anniversary about slavery the nation might be divided. of his birth will be very generally celebrated and wrecked beyond recovery, with consethis month. Centenaries of great events, quences of incalculable harm through long such as the American Declaration of Inde- centuries to come. There were many people pendence and the Fall of the Bastille, have in this country so fanatical and so little been observed as notable public occasions, gifted with a sense for the real movements but never before in the history of the world of political, or social, or economic history, has the one-hundredth anniversary of the that they would willingly have smashed forbirthday of any man been celebrated with ever the American Union in order that slavsuch depth of feeling and such widespread ery might be abolished on Monday rather concurrence of opinion and sentiment as will than on Tuesday or Wednesday. Gradualmark the tributes paid to the memory and ly, some of the descendants of those impaachievements of Lincoln at this time. Lin- tient idealists have begun to see that the coln, more than any other man, typifies the things in Lincoln's creeds and programs for American nation as it developed in the last which they have been accustomed to apolocentury. The growth of the States beyond gize as of the compromising sort were the the Alleghanies, with their blended Ameri- very things that will establish his majestic can stock and their national spirit, was what place in history. Slowly and painfully they availed to hold the Union together in the have been learning that the question of slavtime of its crisis, and Lincoln was the prod- ery was only part of the larger question of uct of that growth. If we can even now see race, and that the exact moment of emanciwith some clearness that Lincoln's work was pation was not more important than the to preserve the Union, and to enable this method and the circumstances. nation to work out its destinies as one great political and social entity, that paramount fact will become ever more conspicuous as time moves on and the great landmarks of history loom up in true perspective above the smaller things. Lincoln's The Union Lincoln made it his business to save the Union for the benefit of all peoples and all races then living and afterward to live within its boundaries. To have kept slavery out of the Territories and to have held it strictly within Lincoln saw that slavery was a the lines of the slave States would have led bad and obsolete business, mak- inevitably to some orderly mode of emanciing the South peculiar, and tend- pation at no distant period. Southern hising to divide the country. He could see that torians and statesmen will yet arise who will to be reasonably uniform in see how truly Mr. Lincoln stood for policies its racial character and in its social and that would have been best for the Southern domestic institutions in order to have a solid States. The unity of the country being conand prosperous future. He knew that slav- ceded as a sine qua non, Mr. Lincoln would ery would have to go in any case, because its have been ready to favor any reasonable retention was in the face of the laws of method of emancipation, whether immediate Foresight. this country had Copyright, 1909, by THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS Company |