Chapter VII: Part 7

It must be borne in mind that the child is in constant contact with its elders, that it is subject to the restraints which they impose, and that it lives more or less in an atmosphere of affection and care. There is excellent reason, therefore, why it should not resemble primitive man in all points. Its daily life is really controlled and guided by a higher power. In some cases there is even too much control and guidance; the conditions are made too artificial, and the development of the child's nature suffers in consequence. When the age of manhood or womanhood is reached there is something lacking, precisely because enough scope was not left for the primitive or, as we may very properly say, the "savage" instincts of childhood. A great French writer, Joseph de Maistre, quotes a popular saying to the effect that "spoilt children always turn out well."[49] So far as there is any truth in it, the explanation is that the spoilt child is one that has a great deal of its own way, and is left to work out the savage and so acquire a sounder foundation for its future life. In how many of us are there not chained savages that might have made their escape in earlier years if they had only been allowed! It is a dangerous thing to try to make little angels of children.

The Rev. Mr. Smith is quite right in what he says as to the predominance of the imagination in children, this being another strong point of resemblance to primitive man. "The beginnings of history and institutions," he truly says, "can only be understood when we remember that races in their early development do not have clearly marked activities of imagination, reason, and memory. They mix the three. So legends, myths, and heroics are earnest efforts of the undeveloped mind to make objective the truth, and are not clumsy lies at all." Applying this to the child, the conclusion is that "he must be fed through his imagination or he will not grow." A very imaginative child is apt to be accused of falsehood, when he simply fails to distinguish between things imagined and things remembered. Neither the child nor the savage can concentrate his attention, and to force either to do so beyond a certain very limited measure is simply to injure and deform such natural powers as he possesses. The amount of mischief which a dogmatic and over-logical teacher, wholly ignorant of the psychology of the child, can do is beyond all calculation.

It is needless, however, to pursue the parallel further, though the Rev. Mr. Smith very properly carries it into the region of morals, where it is no less close than in that of intellectual action. There is another interesting aspect of evolution which the reverend gentleman glances at, and that is its bearing on general courses of study. History and literature, considered as departments of research, it has largely transformed by substituting for conventional categories and abstract notions the perception of a genetic process pervading all the works of the human spirit and linking them into an organic unity. In conclusion, we may observe that, if Superintendent A. J. Smith had not made some foolish remarks in a rather ostentatious manner, it is probable the Rev. S. G. Smith would not have delivered the excellent discourse on which we have commented, and which we feel sure will far outweigh in general effect the performance which called it forth. The conclusions to be drawn are the pleasing ones that good may sometimes come out of evil, and that a free pulpit is admirably adapted to guard the interests of liberty and common sense.

FOOTNOTE:

[49] "Les enfans gâtés réussissent toujours."

_LESSONS OF ANTHROPOLOGY._

The address delivered at the last meeting of the British Association by the president of the Anthropological Section contained nothing that was strikingly novel--it is not every year that striking novelties can be announced--but it dealt in an interesting manner with several phases of a most important subject. The speaker, Professor Brabrook, took the position that the order of the universe is expressed in continuity, not cataclysm, and that this principle will be found illustrated in every branch of anthropological research, in direct proportion to the completeness of the data obtained. He admitted the vastness of the gap which still separates the remains of palaeolithic from those of neolithic man, but expressed the belief that further explorations would bring intermediate relics to light. To quote the speaker's words: "The evidence we want relates to events which took place at so great a distance of time that we may well wait patiently for it, assured that somewhere or other these missing links must have existed, and probably are still to be found."

Reference was made to the labors which are now being usefully expended in gathering what is called the folklore of various communities, and to the result which continually appears with fuller evidence, namely, that the tendency of mankind everywhere is to develop like fancies and ideas at a like stage of intellectual development. Full of detail as these stories are, they are found to contain but a few primitive ideas; and it seems not improbable that to a large extent they are essentially Nature myths. Mr. Brabrook happily quotes Lord Bacon's description of such narratives as "sacred relics, gentle whispers and the breath of better times." The "better times" are a part of the general system of myth; but who will deny that there is a special charm in these early documents of our race? "Let one of our literary exquisites," said a thoughtful French writer, "try to write a fairy tale which shall neither be a pretentious apologue nor a tiresome and transparent allegory, and he will soon feel that mere cleverness does not suffice to create these marvelous narratives, and will conceive a just admiration for those who constructed them, that is to say, everybody and nobody."

The progress of anthropology, according to the president of the section, seems more and more to confirm the theory adopted by Fustel de Coulanges in France and Spencer in England, that the belief in spirits lies at the basis of all religious systems. We thus see, to use his words, "that the group of theories and practices which constitute the great province of man's emotions and mental operations expressed in the term 'religion' has passed through the same stages, and produced itself in the same way, from rude early beginnings, as every other mental exertion." Mr. Brabrook mentions a work lately published by "a distinguished missionary of the Evangelical Society of Paris," the Rev. Mr. Coillard, in which an account is given of the superstitions prevailing among the natives of the upper Zambesi. The reverend gentleman tells of their belief in witchcraft, and gives a story of a young woman who was condemned to penal labor on suspicion of having bewitched, or tried to bewitch, another young woman who had taken her husband from her; the evidence of the crime being found in a dead mouse, which had been discovered in the second young woman's chamber. The missionary says: "She was made a convict. A few years ago she would have been burned alive. Ah, my friends, paganism is an odious and a cruel thing!" On which the president of the Anthropological Section observes: "Ah, Mr. Coillard, is it many years ago that she would have been burned alive or drowned in Christian England or Christian America? Surely the odiousness and the cruelty are not special to paganism any more than to Christianity." This is much to the point. If witchcraft is no longer a recognized crime in England or America, it is not because these lands are Christian, but because science is mixed with their Christianity. Even missionaries ought to know this.

A great many different sciences are grouped under the name "anthropology," but they all have their rallying point in man, whose nature and history they seek to explore. The fact is that all sciences should have the same rallying point; and we trust that the greater interest which is visibly being taken year by year in anthropological studies will tend to humanize in a beneficial degree the whole circle of human knowledge.

_AN EXAMPLE OF SOCIAL DECADENCE._

That the incessant encroachment of the Government upon the rights of the individual will produce social decadence is a truth that most Americans have yet to learn. With a light heart they are constantly approving scheme after scheme for social regeneration that involves some restriction upon freedom, or an increase of taxation, or both. It is not perhaps singular that the history of similar schemes in the past should possess no lesson for them. When President Eliot, of Harvard University, says that the experience of the Italian republics has no value for us, it is not to be expected that persons with less capacity to interpret the records of other times should attach little or no importance to them. But they ought not most certainly to maintain the same attitude toward the experience of the nations of to-day. It is to blind their eyes to what does not rest upon hearsay or upon dubious documents--to what admits of the clearest demonstration at the hands of living witnesses.

For this reason we urge upon all students of social science the study of the condition of the inhabitants of the black-earth region of Russia. In that field, one of the largest and most fruitful in the world for investigation, they will find the amplest evidence of the frightful havoc wrought by the abridgment of individual freedom and the seizure of private property in the form of taxes for public purposes. If it be said that Russia is an autocracy, and can not therefore furnish instruction to a democracy like the United States, the answer is easy, if not obvious. Despotism, like gravitation, is the same all over the world. It makes no difference in the long run whether a law abridging freedom issues from the palace of a czar or from the legislative halls of a popular assembly. The individual objecting to it is obliged to regulate his life, not in accordance with his own notions, but in accordance with the notions of some one else. It makes no difference, either, whether taxation is imposed by an imperial edict or by a legislative vote. The citizens that have to bear it against their will contribute money for purposes that some one else only approves of. The only difference between Russia and the United States is that this kind of despotism has been carried to much greater lengths in one country than in the other. If, therefore, we can find out what the effect has been in Russia, we will be able to predict what the effect will be in the United States.

As every person familiar with Russia knows, the black-earth region is one of the richest and most productive in the world. It ought to be inhabited by one of the wealthiest and happiest of peoples. Yet such is not the case. According to Count Tolstoi, who contributed recently a letter to the London Times on the subject, the inhabitants are among the poorest and most miserable in the world. They are in a state of chronic starvation. They are obliged to content themselves with nearly a third less food than is sufficient to maintain normal health. The physical effect of this insufficiency of food is a decrease in vitality, a diminished stature, and a check to the growth of population. It is proved, first, by the failure of the peasants of the region to meet the requirements for military service, and, second, by the statistics of population, which show that the increase of births over deaths has fallen from the maximum reached twenty years ago to zero.

But the mental effects of the destitution wrought by the robberies of the Government are more distressing even than the physical. It gives birth to a stolidity and despair that tend to paralyze all effort toward betterment. The people subjected to it come to feel that there is no use of making any struggle beyond the maintenance of mere existence. Whatever they get in excess of this requirement will be taken from them. "A peasant," says Tolstoi, illustrating this fact, "feels that his position as an agriculturalist is bad, but he believes that it can not be improved; and, consequently, adapting himself to this hopeless position, he no longer fights against it, but lives and acts only in so far as he is stirred by the instinct of self-preservation. Moreover, the very wretchedness of his condition increases still more his depression of spirit. The lower the economic condition of a population sinks, like a weight on a lever, the more difficult it becomes to raise it again; the peasants feel this, and, as it were, throw away the helve after the hatchet. 'Why should we trouble ourselves?' they say. 'We sha'n't get fat. If we can only keep alive.'"

The fruits of this mental state are as palpable as those of the lack of food. They are to be found in every direction. In manners, habits, and customs the peasants are hopelessly conservative. They belong, not to the nineteenth century, but to the ninth. Instead of adopting new and improved methods of agriculture, they cling to those of the subjects of Rurik. They use the old plow, distribute tillage in three crops, and divide their fields into long, narrow strips. So slowly do they toil with primitive implements and debilitated animals, and so indifferent are they to what they are doing, that it takes them a day to do the work that a well-fed and alert peasant would do in half the time. A more deplorable sign of demoralization is the prevalence of family discord and loss of interest in a higher life. The aggressions of the state have stimulated selfishness, bad temper, and incipient rebellion. The children disobey their parents, the younger brothers reject the primacy of the older, and money earned elsewhere is kept from the family treasury. With the decadence of family life there is a decadence of religious life. Although the peasants are nominally orthodox, they care nothing for religion. Even the clergy confirm the fact that they are becoming more and more indifferent to the church. What they seek is not to penetrate the mysteries of life, but to obliterate consciousness of them. "Under these circumstances," says Tolstoi, alluding to the economic and mental decadence, "the craving for forgetfulness is natural, and accordingly spirits and tobacco are being consumed in ever greater and greater quantities." He adds that "even quite young boys drink and smoke."

Since the loss of freedom due to the seizure of property is the same in the last analysis as that due to an abridgment of the right to think and act, the evils of ecclesiastical and bureaucratic despotism do not differ from those of excessive taxation. Nevertheless, they receive separate attention at the hands of Tolstoi. As a proof of the blight of a church that the peasants have no part in directing, he points to the profound and beneficent change wrought the moment they fall in with a sect of dissenters. "Their spirits at once rise," he says, "and at the same time the foundation of their material prosperity is laid." A blight of the same kind can be traced to the attempt of the state to play the paternal rôle. "Nominally," says Tolstoi again, "there exist for the peasants special laws with regard to the possession and division of land, to inheritance, and to all the duties connected with it, but in reality there is a kind of hodge-podge of regulations, explanation, customary laws, decrees of courts of cassation, and so on, which naturally makes the peasants feel their absolute dependence on the will of innumerable officials." Knowing that they are powerless to resist the Government, which is constantly flogging them for disobedience or stupidity, they comply as best they can with the thousand rules and regulations made for them. Seldom do they think of acting upon their own responsibility. Thus they lose the power of private initiative. What the impoverishment of taxation has not done to ruin them is left to ecclesiastical and bureaucratic despotism to complete.

It is curious to note that Tolstoi's remedy for these evils is the one that Herbert Spencer himself might have suggested. With one stroke he dismisses the prescriptions that the social reformer in the United States as well as in Russia attaches so much importance to. It is not, in his opinion, "the ministry of agriculture, with all its contrivances," that will reclaim the peasants, nor is it "exhibitions nor schools for rural economy," nor that "unfailing" remedy "for all evils," i. e., parish schools. The thing they need is freedom. "It is necessary," says Tolstoi, "to give them religious liberty, to subject them to common instead of special laws--the will of rural officials; it is necessary to give them liberty of education, liberty of reading, liberty of moving about, and, above all, to remove the power to torture brutally by flogging grown-up people simply because they belong to the peasant class." But to give them such freedom means to deliver them not only from excessive taxation but from vexatious rules and regulations. It is to apply to them the same remedy that must be applied in the United States to save the American people, now so heavily taxed and so oppressed by countless laws, from the same social decadence that afflicts Russia.

_THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE._

The paper by Sir J. Norman Lockyer, which we publish in this number, recounts in an interesting manner the steps by which science gained a place for itself in the educational systems of the world. To us, in the latter years of the nineteenth century, it is apt to seem strange that the recognition of science as an essential element in all education should have come so late in the world's history; but reflection shows that it could not well have been otherwise. To view and examine any subject scientifically involves not only a deliberate and prolonged mental effort, but the holding in check of some of the most active propensities of the human mind, such as imagination and what Bagehot has called "the emotion of belief." In a certain sense imagination is the precursor of science; but, in the early stages of human development the precursor is mistaken for the true teacher. The lesson that there is no royal road to truth, nothing but a highway on which much wearisome plodding must be done, is one which human nature in general does not take to kindly. Even in the present day how many there are who chafe at the restraints which Science imposes on belief, whose disposition is to break her bonds asunder and have none of her reproof! When we think, indeed, of what the intellectual condition of the world is to-day, with the wonders which science has wrought raising their testimony on every hand, it is hardly surprising that, a couple of centuries ago, it was difficult to get any systematic provision made for the teaching of science. However, that battle has been fought and won, and Science has long since definitely entered on her career of beneficent conquest. Systems founded on imagination, or on merely abstract reasoning, come and go, wax and wane; but the empire of science once set up can never be subverted. We must hope that some day it will rule in the realm of morals as now it does in that of material things. Not till then will its perfect work be done.

Scientific Literature.

SPECIAL BOOKS.

Prof. _Dean C. Worcester_, of the University of Michigan, spent eleven months, beginning in September, 1887, in the Philippine Islands in connection with the second scientific expedition of Dr. J. B. Steere. He went there again, with an expedition of which he was chief, in July, 1890, and spent two years and eight months. His object in both expeditions was the study of birds. In the course of them he visited twenty-two islands. The first expedition was unofficial and was regarded suspiciously by the authorities of the islands; the second was armed with a special permission from the Spanish Minister of the Colonies and enjoyed every advantage. The scientific results of both were reported to the United States National Museum, and the collections were deposited in its cabinet. The general results, the story of the adventures of the members of the expedition, with their observations on the geographical features of the islands, their peoples, and the social conditions prevailing there, are given in a popular style in the volume before us.[50] The account is preceded by a short sketch of the history of the islands, as an aid to the better comprehension of their present condition and the reasons for it. Of the natives, who form the bulk of the 8,000,000 of the population of the islands, there are more than eighty distinct tribes, each with its own peculiarities, scattered over hundreds of islands. The more important of these islands may be reached by lines of mail and merchant steamers, which afford tolerably frequent communication between them. The difficulties begin when one attempts to make his way into the interior of the large and less explored of them, or desires to reach ports at which vessels do not call. Roads are scarce and to a large extent impracticable, while enemies and dangers are many, and such boats as one can find off the regular routes are precarious. As to climate, if one is well, able to live as he pleases, and most scrupulously observes all sanitary rules, keeping the most healthy spots, he may escape disease; but if he steps a little aside at any point he is in danger. It is very doubtful, in the author's judgment, if many successive generations of European or American children could be reared there. Evidences of the action of earthquakes and volcanoes are seen almost everywhere, and elevation and subsidence are going on with great rapidity at the present time. Hence it is not safe to build substantial houses in Manila. The soil is astonishingly fertile: fruits--in about fifty varieties--are the chief luxury; the value of the forest products is enormous; the mineral wealth is great, but has never been developed. Professor Worcester speaks of five millions of civilized natives of the Philippines. They belong for the most part to three tribes: the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, and Visayans. Without drawing fine distinctions between these, they are regarded as showing sufficient homogeneity to be treated as a class. They have their bad qualities and their good, which are reviewed with an apparent inclination on the part of the author to like them, and the conclusion that, having learned something of their power, they will now be likely to take a hand in shaping their own future. There are also barbarians, of whom the Moros of Sulu are a type--bloodthirsty and faithless, and as careless of human life as one would be of weeds in a field; and savages of all degrees, down to the lowest. The government is various, according to the particular governor and the people he has to deal with, but all of the Spanish or Moro type. The clergy are the dominant class; and of these the friars or brethren of the orders exert an evil influence, while the Jesuits are believed to be a distinctive power for good. Much can be said in favor of the insurgents' demand that the friars be expelled from the colony and their places taken by secular clergymen not belonging to any order. Professor Worcester has made a very lively, interesting, and instructive book, which is marred, however, by occasional evidences that, while begun with serious purpose, it has been hurried to meet a passing demand, and by the too frequent intrusion of trivialities and slang.

* * * * *

We are often surprised at manifestations of individuality and intelligence in domestic animals and pets, and are accustomed to attribute extraordinary qualities to the beasts in which we perceive them; as if each animal could not have its peculiar traits and talents as well as each man. We hardly imagine that there are any special differences in wild animals, and that idiosyncrasies of character and diversities of gifts and powers of adaptation may run through the whole animal kingdom. A closer acquaintance with Nature would teach us better. Certain stories and myths of savages show that they had a fair appreciation of the individual peculiarities of animals, and farmers' boys, who live in natural surroundings, know something of these things. The subject is now presented to us in a fairly clear light by Mr. _Ernest Seton Thompson_, as illustrated in the careers of a number of typical specimens of animals and birds whose characters and acts, as they came under his observation, are related in _Wild Animals I have Known_.[51] The stories, he avers, are true; the animals in the book are all real characters. They lived the lives he has depicted, and showed the stamp of heroism and personality more strongly by far than it has been in the power of his pen to tell. Among them was Lobo, the wolf, of the Corrumpaw Cattle Range, New Mexico, the leader of a gang, who exhibited some of the qualities of an able general, and was a beast of influence, powerful, vigilant, crafty, and the terror of the settlement; and who was only trapped when grief for the loss of a female companion deprived him of the wit by which he had escaped all previous efforts to take him. Silverspot, the crow, was the leader of a large band. He had his calls, which the other crows obeyed, and was always to be seen at the head of his company in their incursions into the fields, and guiding them in their journeys northward and southward. Raggylug, the rabbit, is acknowledged to be a composite, embodying in one the ways of several rabbits, their nesting habits and ways of concealment and devices to baffle pursuers. Bingo, the dog, had associates as well as enemies among the wolves, and different characters by day and by night. In a similar way to these, the traits of the fox, the pacing mustang, other dogs than Bingo, and the partridge are portrayed. In all the stories the real personality of the individual and his view of life are the author's theme, rather than the ways of the race in general, as viewed by a casual and hostile human eye. The moral is suggested by the lives and emphasized by Mr. Thompson, that "we and the beasts are kin. Man has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestige of; the animals have nothing that man does not at least in some degree share. Since, then, the animals are creatures with wants and feelings differing only in degree from our own, they surely have their rights." It would be hard to speak too well of the graphic expressiveness of the illustrations.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] The Philippine Islands and their People. A Record of Personal Observation and Experiences, with a Short Summary of the More Important Facts in the History of the Archipelago. By Dean C. Worcester. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 529. Price, $4.

[51] Wild Animals I have Known, and 200 Drawings. By Ernest Seton Thompson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 358. Price, $2.

GENERAL NOTICES.

"An unscientific account of a scientific expedition" is what Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd happily styles the story of the Amherst Eclipse Expedition, told in _Corona_ and _Coronet_[52]--"Corona" being what the expedition went to see, and "Coronet" the vessel that took it to the observing station. Professor Todd was the astronomer of the party, and Mrs. Todd, who has published a work on astronomy, was his companion. She believes that certain aspects of the trip, covering as it did more than ten thousand miles of sailing for the party, and at least forty-five thousand miles of deep-sea voyaging for the Coronet, were worthy of narration. The astronomical purposes of the expedition, the objects it sought to obtain, the scientific bearings of the observations, and the methods, are intelligibly set forth in the introduction to the book. The rest is devoted mostly to narrative, the social aspects of the voyage, and the incidents. A short sojourn was made at the Sandwich Islands, where the more interesting objects were visited. Mrs. Todd was with Kate Field when she died there, and gives an account of her last hours. A voyage of four weeks carried the party to Yokohama, whence some of the members went to the capital and other interesting points in Japan, while the rest were preparing the observing station at Esashi, eleven hundred miles north of Yokohama--"a village on the shores of the Sea of Okotsk, among the hairy Ainu," in a region so remote that the native steamers had only recently begun to go there at all. Besides the account of the observations, descriptions are given of such Japanese experiences as life in Kioto, cormorant fishing, yachting in the Inland Sea, the tidal wave, and observations among the Ainu, with a visit on the way home to an Arizona copper mine.

The late Prof. _James D. Dana_ had begun a revision of his _Text-Book of Geology_ a short time before his death. Prof. William North Rice was requested by his family to complete the revision, and the result is the present volume.[53] It was intended in the original plan of revision to preserve as far as possible the distinctive characteristics of the book. It was to be brought down to date as regards its facts, but was still to express the well-known opinions of its author, with the general plan of arrangement kept unchanged. It soon became evident, however, that more and greater changes than had been contemplated would be required. The zoölogical and botanical classifications would have to be modified; the theory of evolution must have more recognition than it had received, especially as Professor Dana himself had adopted some of its features before his death; and the treatment of metamorphism was believed to require considerable modification. In the present edition the bearing of various events in geological history upon the theory of evolution is pointed out in the appropriate places, and the general bearing of paleontology upon evolution is discussed in the concluding chapter. All these changes seem to be in the line of continuing the usefulness of Professor Dana's most excellent and standard work, and of keeping his name before students as that of "one of the greatest of geologists and one of the noblest of men."

A true son of Nature is Mr. _F. Schuyler Mathews_, and he shows himself at his best in his _Familiar Life in Field and Forest_.[54] "There are few things," he says, "more gratifying to the lover of Nature than these momentary glimpses of wild life which he obtains while passing through the field or forest. Wild animals do not confine themselves exclusively to the wilderness; quite frequently they venture upon the highway, and we are apt to regard the meeting of one of them there as a rare and fortunate occurrence. The daisy and the wild rose appear in their accustomed places on the return of summer, and the song sparrow sings in the same tree he frequented the year before; but the wood-chuck, the raccoon, and the deer are not so often found exactly where we think they belong. To seek an interview with such folk is like taking a chance in a lottery; there are numerous blanks and but few prizes. But because wild life is not in constant evidence, like the wild flower, is no proof that it is uncommon. To those who keep in touch with Nature, it becomes a very familiar thing, and to live a while where the wild creatures make their homes is to cross their paths continually." Mr. Mathews is in touch with Nature. He does not exactly know where to find the wild and shy, for they do not come at call, but he can put himself where he will meet them if they come around--and "one can never tell at what moment some surprising demonstration of wild life will occur at one's very doorstep." In this book Mr. Mathews records some of his meetings, at home and in his daily walks, offering as his excuse for the record, that he has lived long enough among wild animals to "respect their rights of life, and speak a good word for them when occasion offers."

The _Short Manual of Analytical Chemistry_,[55] prepared by Mr. John Muter, follows the course of instruction given in the South London School of Pharmacy. Encouraged by the continued favor which the book has received in Great Britain, the author offers a special edition of it to American students, a concise and low-priced manual, designed to introduce them to the chief developments of analytical chemistry from the simplest operations upward. It includes many organic questions generally overlooked in initiatory books. By working through it the author claims the student may expect to become familiar with a great variety of processes, and to be in a position to use with satisfaction the more exhaustive treatises dealing with any special branch he may desire to follow. In preparing it for American students, the directions, wherever the British methods differ from the American, have been modified to agree with the latter. The processes given include the qualitative analysis, all the general operations and those relating to detection of the metals, of acid radicals and their separation, of unknown salts, of alkaloids and certain organic bodies used in medicine--with a general sketch of toxicological procedure; and in quantitative analysis, directions on weighing, measuring, and specific gravity; gravimetric analysis of metals and acids, ultimate organic analysis, special processes for the analysis of air, water, and food; analysis of drugs, urine, and calculi; and analysis of gases, polarization, spectrum analysis, etc.

The pure geometry of position is mainly distinguished, according to Professor Reye's definition,[56] from the geometry of ancient times and from analytical geometry, in that it makes no use of the idea of measurement. Nothing is said in it "about the bisection of segments of straight lines, about right angles and perpendiculars, about ratios and proportions, about the computation of areas, and just as little about trigonometric ratios and the algebraic equations of curved lines, since all these subjects of the older geometry assume measurement.... We shall be concerned as little with isosceles and equilateral triangles as with right-angled triangles; the rectangle, the regular polygon, and the circle are likewise excluded from our investigations, except in the case of these applications to metric geometry. We shall treat of the center, the axes, and the foci of so-called curves of the second order, or conic sections, only as incidental to the general theory; but, on the other hand, shall become acquainted with many properties of these curves, more general and more important than those to which most text-books upon analytical geometry are restricted." Of all the other branches of geometry, the descriptive is the most helpful in facilitating the study of the geometry of position; and perspective or central projection plays an important part in it. It stands in a certain antithetical relation to analytical geometry on account of its method, which is synthetic, and whence it is sometimes known as synthetic geometry. Since metric relations are not considered in it, its theorems and problems are very general and comprehensive. As presented in von Standt's complete work, it is regarded by the author as an excellent aid to the exercise and development of the imagination; and the important graphical methods with which Professor Culmann has enriched the science of engineering in his work on graphical statistics, being based for the most part upon it, a knowledge of it has become important for students of that science. In the present work, the outgrowth of his lectures, Professor Reye has attempted to supply the want of a text-book which shall offer to the student the necessary material in a concise form.

Prof. _Cyrus Thomas_ brings the qualification which a lifetime devoted to study of the subject develops, to the preparation of an _Introduction to the Study of North American Archæology_.[57] He is known to all students in this branch as a careful, judicious investigator whose work in the field has been supplemented by valuable contributions to its literature. In this volume he presents a brief summary of the progress that has been made in the investigation of American antiquities--which has been recently great indeed, and well calls for a new synopsis. His chief object has been to present the data and arrange them so as to afford the student some means of bringing his facts and materials into harmony, and of utilizing them. He presents the theories that have been advanced, and mentions opposing views; regarding it, he says, as important to the progress of the student to know which of the questions that arise have been answered, and which hypotheses have been eliminated from the class of possibilities. The materials for the study and the methods are first explained. The relics of ancient men and the mounds are then described as under three divisions--the Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Local as well as regional characteristics and differences are pointed out; as in the mounds as a whole, the special class of animal mounds, the pueblos, the cliff dwellings, and the Mexican and Central American monuments, the peculiar features of each are pointed out, and their territorial limits are defined. All these various kinds of works are ascribed to substantially the same people, who are supposed to have come down from somewhere in the north or northwest (the extreme northwest Pacific coast), although the different immigrations may perhaps have arrived by various routes. The people were the present Indians or their ancestors; the time of the immigration was not extremely remote; and the "mound-building habit" is shown to have persisted and been practiced till since the advent of the Europeans.

In entitling his book _The Art of Taxidermy_,[58] the chief of the Department of Taxidermy in the American Museum of Natural History evidently intends to use the word art in the high sense of a fine art; for he speaks of the enormous strides toward perfection which it has made from the former "trade of most inartistically upholstering a skin"--stuffing it, we used to call it--and of its study having been taken up of late years by a number of men of genius and education. It is largely owing to the exertions of these men that the taxidermy of the present day is so far in advance of what it was a decade since. The proverb says that art is long, and accordingly Mr. Rowley takes for the motto of his book a sentence from Thoreau, that "into a perfect work time does not enter." To the possible objection that some of his methods seem to involve considerable time and expense, the author replies in substance that if the work is not worth this, it is hardly worth while to take it up at all. If it is a proper work, and one has the proper degree of energy and enthusiasm, let him give the specimen all the time it demands. In preparing his treatise, the author has aimed to eliminate all extraneous matter, and to give mainly the results of his own experience, coupled with that of other taxidermists with whom he has come in contact. He begins with instructions about collecting tools and materials, and casting, and treats further of the preparation of birds, of mammals, and of fish, reptiles, and crustaceans; the cleansing and mounting of skeletons, and the reproduction of foliage for groups. The appendix contains addresses of reliable firms from whom tools and materials used in taxidermy may be purchased.

The preparation of this book on _The Storage Battery_ was suggested to Mr. Treadwell[59] by his finding a lack in working on these machines of any compact data concerning their construction, and the paucity of reliable discharge curves; and he concluded that a book containing such data and curves, with rules for the handling and maintenance of cells, would be valuable to all interested in storage batteries as well as to the student and manufacturer. Among the points specially mentioned by the author are the lists of American and foreign patents given as footnotes for the various types, not complete but noticing the principal patents for each cell; the chapter on the chemistry of secondary batteries, which gives the latest and most generally accepted theory concerning the chemical reactions taking place in an accumulator, and which has been approved by Dr. Sewal Matheson; and, in the appendix, tables of data comprising figures of all the batteries, methods for the measurement of the E. M. F. and internal resistance of a storage battery; and data from which the theoretical and practical capacity of an accumulator may be determined.

The _Natural Advanced Geography_[60] is a successful application of modern methods to the teaching of this science, and presents it with the interest undiminished which really appertains to it. While in the elementary book of this, the "natural" series, the pupil starts from his own home and is introduced to the study of man in relation to his environment, in the present work the fact is developed that environment itself is the chief factor in the various activities and economies of man. One of the salient features of the presentation of the subject, marked throughout the work, and one that commands high praise, is the arrangement of the facts into such order that their correlation may be perceived and the unity of Nature recognized. The isolated, barren, curt, unrelated statements that made the study of many of the old geographies hard and tedious are conspicuously absent, and the subject, studied in orderly sequence, "unfolds itself naturally and logically, each lesson preparing the way for those which follow." The first part of the work is devoted to a study of the world as a whole. The second part, comprising about three fourths of the volume, is an application of these laws to the various countries of the globe, beginning with the United States. In the United States, for instance, a general description of the whole is given, which presents a real, comprehensive mental picture of the country; and the process is repeated, in measure according to the conditions, for the several States, so that the pupil is taught what are the factors that give the characteristics and local features to each. A like method is pursued, on a more general scale, with other countries. The colored maps are drawn on a system of uniform scales, with reliefs plainly shown according to the accepted conventions; graphic charts or sketch maps showing the distribution of products and resources are employed; and pedagogical exercises and aids are afforded abundantly.

A text-book on the _Differential and Integral Calculus_,[61] for students who have a working knowledge of elementary geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and analytical geometry, by Prof. _P. A. Lambert_, has the threefold object of inspiring confidence, by a logical presentation of principles, in the methods of infinitesimal analysis; of aiding, through numerous problems, in acquiring facility in the use of these methods; and, by applications to problems in physics, engineering, and other branches of mathematics, to show the practical value of the calculus. By a division of the matter according to classes of functions, it is made possible to introduce these applications from the start, and thereby to arouse the interest of the student. By simultaneous treatment of differentiation and integration and the use of trigonometric substitution to simplify integration it is sought to economize the time and effort of the student.

_The Birds of Indiana_, by _Amos W. Butler_, lately published as part of Willis S. Blatchley's Twenty-second Annual Report on the Geology and Natural Resources of Indiana, is just at hand. It is one of the most accurate, detailed, and satisfactory local catalogues yet published. Three hundred and twenty-one species of birds have been taken in Indiana, and of each of these is given a detailed description, with a general account of its habits, song, migration, and nesting. In the case of the more rare species, full records of the dates and places of capture of the known specimens are appended. Analytical keys to genera and species are also given, so that every facility is furnished for the identification of species. This book is a model of its kind, and is a worthy fruit of Mr. Butler's twenty years of devoted study of the birds of his native State.

_Robert H. Whitten_, in his monograph on _Public Administration in Massachusetts_--the relation of central to local activity--pursues a parallel course with that taken by Mr. John A. Fairlie in a similar essay on the Centralization of Administration in New York State, of this same series of Columbia University studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. Having found the systems and tendencies of administration in the early settlement of Massachusetts all for expansion and decentralization, Mr. Whitten now perceives the course altogether changed, and centralization more and more the rule. The change corresponds with changes in the conditions of life, and keeps track with them step by step. Of great dynamic forces which have been set to work and are bringing about a complete reconstruction of the social structure, improvements in transportation and communication were the most vital--first, turnpikes, then the steamboat, railroad, and telegraph; then the horse railway, cheap postage, the telephone, the electric railway, and the bicycle. The tendency at first was to bring about a concentration which was attended by the congestion of population in cities and the depopulation of the rural towns. "The electric railway, the telephone, and the bicycle came in to counteract these evils; while their tendency is strongly toward the centralization of bureaus, it is also toward the diffusion of habitations. These great socializing forces, going hand in hand with the development of the factory system and improvement of machinery, make possible a vastly higher organization of society than was possible under a stagecoach _régime_."

The first volume of the Final Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey, on Topography, Magnetism, and Climate, was published in 1888. Other volumes embracing other topics have been published since, and in the meantime the supply of the first volume has been exhausted, while the demand has continued. It has been therefore necessary either to reprint the volume or to publish a new work which should include the important statistical matter of it. Accordingly, we have now _The Physical Geography of New Jersey_, prepared by Prof. _Rollin D. Salisbury_, with an appendix embodying "Data pertaining to the Physical Geology of the State," by Mr. C. C. Vermeule, who was formerly in charge of the topographic survey, and is author of the volume on water supply. The two parts of the volume treat of the topography of New Jersey as it now is, and the geological history of the topography. The report is accompanied by a relief map of the State, prepared by Mr. Vermeule on the basis of the topographical survey, and presenting, therefore, an accurate picture of the relief. It shows the great features of the State, its ranges of mountains, hills, tablelands, plains, marsh lands, streams, and water areas in their proper relations to one another; and it is contemplated to put it in every schoolhouse in the State as an aid in the study of geography.

M. _Imbert de Saint-Amand's_ series of books about the Second French Empire furnish very interesting reading, are, so far as our recollection of events goes, historically accurate, and fill a gap which the literary world always has to suffer concerning any period too recently passed for a competent judicial mind to have appeared to tell its story. The second of the series--_Napoleon III and his Court_--takes Louis Napoleon at the height of his success and happiness, just after he had married the beautiful Eugénie, of whom the world has nothing harsh to say, and carries him through the period of his wonderful popularity and brilliant accomplishments to the close of the Crimean War and the birth of the prince whose fate was so unhappy. It deals, in a pleasant manner, and all favorable to Napoleon, but not adulatory, with affairs social, political, and military, in which it is hard to say whether the tact or the good fortune of the subject of the history shone most brilliantly. We are told how Eugénie won the French nation; of Napoleon's good will, especially manifested toward all that could contribute to his exaltation; of his dealings with the sovereigns around him, gradually winning their recognition, including that of Nicholas of Russia; of the darkening of the clouds of war, the Crimean campaigns; of the interchanges of courtesies, gradually rising into close, firm friendship, with the British court; and of the birth of the Prince Imperial. Think what we may of the character of the reign of Louis Napoleon and of its influence, it marked an epoch in nearly every line of development of the world's history, and was as distinctly separated from what came before it and from what followed it as if a broad line were drawn around it; and it left some important results that are not likely to be soon effaced. M. de Saint-Amand writes from personal knowledge, having witnessed or participated in much of what he describes, and has in Elizabeth Gilbert Martin a fully competent and acceptable translator. (Published by Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 407. Price, $1.50.)

The paper of the late Dr. _Theodor Eimer_ on _Orthogenesis and the Impotence of Natural Selection in Species Formation_ is published by the Open Court Company, Chicago, as No. 29 of their Religion of Science Library. Pp. 56. Price, 25 cents.

The second volume of Uncle Robert's Geography, of Appletons' Home-Reading Series--_On a Farm_--Mr. _Francis W. Parker_, the editor, and _Nellie Lathrop Helm_, emphasizes the importance of parents and teachers, giving full and complete recognition of the immense educational value of spontaneous activities as displayed in motive and interest; a recognition which "should be followed by active encouragement and direction of the child's play, work, and observations." The story deals entirely with the interests and life of children in the environment of the country. A little girl is in her playhouse in a Virginia fence corner, with her doll and mimic housekeeping. Her shy, retiring companions are the birds who peep into the playhouse, and, after she has gone away, come into it and pick up the crumbs she has left. This leads to talks about different birds and their nest building. A St. Bernard dog is introduced and furnishes the opportunity for bringing in stories of the Alps, their glaciers and snows, and the Hospice of St. Bernard, and then about other dogs. Susy makes a garden in the woods, and the wild flowers become the subjects of her spontaneous study. So with the rabbits, bread making and the grain that furnishes the material for the bread, and other incidents; with more birds' nests; the nature of bulbs, squirrels, etc.; and finally Uncle Robert sets the child to finding out how the animals in the woods spend the winter, and whether they are doing anything now in preparation for it. (New York: D. Appleton and Company. Price, 42 cents.)

The _Thirty-fifth Annual Report_ of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture of Michigan includes the Ninth Annual Report of the Agricultural College Experiment Station, and is largely taken up with the work of the latter institution, reviewing the records of the college departments and presenting the reports and bulletins of the station. The record of meteorological observations, the Proceedings of the Farmers' Institutes, the Transactions of the Association of Breeders of Improved Live Stock, and the Transactions of the State Agricultural Society are also incorporated in the volume. An interesting feature of the publication is the insertion of a portrait and biographical notice of one of the pioneer farmers of the State, Enos Goodrich, who was also prominent in public life.

The translation by _Eleanor Marx Aveling_ of Lissagaray's _History of the Commune of 1871_ was made many years ago at the request of the author from a contemplated second edition which the French Government would not allow published. The work having been revised and corrected by the translator's father, and for other reasons, no changes have been made to adapt it to the time of its issue from the press. The translator claims that Lissagaray's work is the only reliable and accurate history that has yet been written of the Commune. He has not attempted, she says, to hide the errors of his party, or to gloss over the fatal weakness of the revolution. Of course, a very different view of the movement is given from that presented in the French accounts, as well as that generally held by English and Americans; but the communists have a right to be represented and heard, and it is well that they have so competent a spokesman. (Published by the International Publishing Company, 23 Duane Street, New York.)

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Corona and Coronet: Being the Narrative of the Amherst Eclipse Expedition to Japan, in Mr. James's Schooner Yacht Coronet, to observe the Sun's Total Obscuration, August 9, 1896. By Mabel Loomis Todd. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 383. Price, $2.50.