Chapter XXIV: The Child Fina (4)

Next follows a comment on the poverty of the American medical student. Dr. Wood says: "Even worse than this, however, is the fact that the summer between the winter courses is often not spent in study, but in idleness, or, not rarely, in acquiring in the school-room or harvest-field the pecuniary means of spending the subsequent winter in the city." Alas! this _is_ too true. Providence seems to have ordained that our young _American_ doctors are not always reared in the lap of luxury and wealth as the fittest preparation for the trials, hardships and self-denials of their future lives. It is also true that some _other_ young American professional men have been compelled "in the school-room or harvest-field" to acquire the means to prosecute their professional studies. Daniel Webster, the son of a New England farmer, taught school at Fryeburg, Maine, "upon a salary of about one dollar per diem." "His salary was all saved ... as a fund for his _own professional_ education and to help his brother through college." "During his residence at Fryeburg, Mr. Webster borrowed (he was too poor to buy) Blackstone's _Commentaries_." Mr. Webster's great rival, Henry Clay, also was compelled to resort to the "school-room and harvest-field to obtain the pecuniary means," etc. etc. etc. The son of the poor widow with seven children "applied himself to the labor of the field with alacrity and diligence;" "and there yet live those who remember to have seen him oftentimes riding his sorry horse, with a rope bridle, no saddle, and a bag of grain." "By the familiar name of the Mill-boy of the Slashes do these men ... perpetuate the remembrance of his lowly yet dutiful and unrepining employments." American biography is so filled with similar instances, showing how the great characters of her great men acquired their development and strength in the stern gymnasium of poverty, even in "the school-room and harvest-field," that I could fill volumes with the glowing records. The youngest American school-boy recognizes Abraham Lincoln and Henry Wilson in this _American_ galaxy. Whose heart has not been stirred by the life-story of the great Hugh Miller, the stonecutter's pick earning for him humble means, thereby enabling him to acquire that learning which made his name a household word even in America. Truth, then, as I have remarked, obliges me to admit that we have in our medical colleges some young men who labor "in harvest-fields and school-rooms" in order that they may honorably pay their way, rather than eat the bread or accept the gratuities of pauperism.

Last March there graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania one of these self-supporting young men. He was the son of a missionary clergyman: the father was poor in pocket, but the son was not poor in spirit. During the interval between his winter courses of lectures, rather than be a burden to his father, rather than accept gratuitous instruction from the school, he went into the coal regions of Pennsylvania and worked in a coal-mine, as a common miner, to procure funds to enable him to complete his professional studies; and, _strange_ as it may seem, this young miner passed an excellent examination, and received the unanimous vote of the medical faculty for his degree. I mention this case, but every year there are several similar; and we always find that the school-teachers and miners are by no means at the foot of the graduating class.

Concerning clinical teaching, we have the following statement: "The clinical teaching in an American hospital is comprised in the following routine: Once or twice a week, from one to five hundred men being congregated in an amphitheatre, the professor lectures upon a case brought into the arena, perhaps operates, and when the hour has expired the class is dismissed. Evidently, under such circumstances there cannot be the training of the senses, the acquiring of a knowledge of the hourly play of symptoms of disease and of familiarity with the proper handling of the sick and wounded, which is of such vital importance, and which can be the outcome only of daily contact with patients." What can the writer of this sentence mean? Certainly, no one knows better than he does that such _is not_ the practice in the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, in Bellevue and in many other large hospitals, where clinics and dispensary services are held for _several hours daily_ throughout the year, and where the student has furnished him abundant opportunities four "acquiring a knowledge of the ... symptoms of disease, ... of handling the sick and wounded," etc. etc. That the American medical student profits by these opportunities, and learns his clinic lessons well, is proved by the unexpected and evidently unintended testimony which occurs toward the close of the article, where Dr. Wood says, "The great resources of the medical profession in America were proved during the civil war, when there was created in a _few months_ a service which for _magnitude_ and _efficiency_ has _rarefy if ever been equaled_. Indeed, military medicine was raised by it to a point _never reached before_ that time _in Europe_, and the results achieved have in many points worked a _revolution in science_." The italics in this quotation are mine, as they also are in those which follow.

But (says the article under review) "the largest proportion of our prominent physicians have educated themselves after graduation." As if this were an extraordinary or unusual circumstance! Certainly, they have; and so have all prominent men in all professions and all pursuits of life, in every age and every country, not even excepting the much-lauded men of Great Britain and the continent of Europe. What young lawyer is entrusted with an important cause immediately after admission to the Bar? And as the young doctor (according to the aforesaid showing) "gains his first practical knowledge while serving as a hospital resident, under the supervision of experienced men," so the young lawyer, _even in Great Britain_, must gain _his_ first practical knowledge by constant attention at the courts, and by diligently following the proceedings of his preceptor's and other offices. Even the young clergyman, whose business it is to save _souls_, has to do very much as the young doctor does, and, like him, is often "thrown at once on his own resources, gaining his experience without supervision, and at the _expense_ of the _poorer classes_, who _naturally_ fall to his charge, and whose ignorance precludes them from an even approximately correct estimate of" his fitness. "It is one of the saddest features of our system that the famed skill of our best" _(clergymen)_ "should so often be acquired at such a cost."

What can be more unphilosophical and illogical than to compare the young doctor, or any other young professional man, to a new piece of machinery, fresh from the manufactory, complete and perfect in all its parts? And yet something like this is _attempted_ in the article before us. Even as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove the complete and perfect goddess of learning, so would our Utopian writer have the young doctors to come from the brains of their medical professors complete and perfect; only, if his idea be correct, their medical professors have so little brains that the annual graduating medical classes of the United States would be immediately reduced from the frightful army of three thousand "legalized murderers" to the comparatively small and easily counted number of _one graduate_ (of course, springing from one head). No; the young doctor, at graduation, cannot be compared to a new, complete and perfect machine fresh from the manufactory; rather, let him be compared to the young marsupial creature at birth, extremely rudimentary, whose natural, and hence fittest, place is the parental pouch, but which in due time becomes the vigorous and well-developed specimen. I suppose, if I compare the young doctor to the young marsupial, I should also say that _his_ protecting parental pouch, in which he acquires growth and vigor, is the hospital where he goes after graduation, or the practice which he sees under his preceptor's supervision.

The article continues: "The remarks which follow do not apply to the medical department of Harvard College or to _one or two other schools_" (the italics are mine); and farther on it continues: "In other words, Harvard has copied the European plan of medical teaching in some of its essential features, and as a consequence its medical diploma is the _only one_ issued by _any prominent medical American_ college which is a _guarantee_ that its possessor has been well educated in the science and practice of medicine." Where can we find meekness and modesty like this?--modesty as becoming as it is unexpected and surprising, seeing that the writer fills _two_ professorships in the University of Pennsylvania, Does he hang his head so low in his--I was about to say _singular_--self-abasement (but, considering, the _two_ professorships, I suppose I should say _doubled_ self-abasement) that he cannot see? or are his eyes so blinded by the effulgence of "Harvard" and "European" plans that he fails to recognize and appreciate the immense advantages offered by his own home institutions? I do not propose to make any invidious remarks concerning Harvard, but I maintain that an _honest_ and _just_ comparison of the schools, of their requirements, of the character of their teachings and the facilities they furnish their students, _must_ show that modesty alone prevented Professor "H.C. Wood, Jr., M.D.," also excepting from his sweeping denunciations the two great schools of Philadelphia, though I only speak for and defend the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania from an attack unjust, uncalled-for and untrue.

R.A.F. PENROSE.

The party opposed to any reforms in medical education has, of course, a right to be heard, and Dr. Penrose is well entitled to represent it both by his position and by the evident heartiness with which he is prepared to defend the existing system at every point. In impugning the motives of those who have attacked it he lays himself open to an obvious retort; but it is sufficient to remark that the contest is not of a nature to call for or justify the use of personalities, which could serve only to divert attention from the real issues.

The arguments put forward by Dr. Penrose may be summarized as follows: 1st, that the proposed changes are not demanded either by the public or by the profession; 2d, that the present system is the best possible in a nation constituted like ours; 3d, that the preparatory education of our medical students is equal to that of law or divinity students, or of young men entering upon mercantile or manufacturing pursuits; 4th, that in certain cases obstacles in the way of a regular and thorough training have been overcome and success achieved in spite of them; and 5th, that it is unavoidable and proper that medical men, as well as members of other professions, should educate themselves after graduation.

It will be observed that none of these arguments except the last, which is based on a mere verbal ambiguity, touches the two subjects discussed in Dr. Wood's article--namely, the _need_ of reform and the _methods_ by which, if practicable, it is to be effected. Dr. Penrose does not venture to assert that the existing system is perfect, or to deny that the suggested changes are in the nature of improvements. What he wishes us to believe is that the system, whatever its defects, is as good a one as Americans have a right to demand, and that it is so closely interwoven with our political and social institutions as to admit of no separate handling. Similar arguments are frequently urged against the desire to raise the standard and widen the avenues of the "higher education." We are thus taught to regard ourselves as a poor and struggling nation with no claim to the possession of intellectual luxuries, or as having bound ourselves to forego any aspirations to an equality with other nations in respect of culture when we secured the advantages of popular government and its social concomitants. It would seem, however, to be a sounder, as it is certainly a more gratifying belief, that precisely because we have attained these advantages it will be easier for us to appropriate all the benefits which civilization has to offer--possible for us to make more rapid strides than have been made by other nations, impeded by a diversity of interests and conflicts between the government and the people. No doubt the comparative youthfulness of the nation will account for our backward condition in certain respects; but surely it is time to abandon this and every similar plea as an argument against any attempt at progress.

We have not space, and for the reasons indicated we see no necessity, to discuss Dr. Penrose's positions in detail. It will be sufficient to notice generally what seems to us their inherent weakness. His assertion that no changes are _now_ demanded by the public or the profession is, he thinks, "clearly proved" by the fact that thirty years ago some that were introduced in the University of Pennsylvania at the suggestion of the American Medical Association ended in failure. But what this experience really proves is, that the defects of the system were even then admitted, while the remedies are still to be applied. At Harvard this has been done; and the question for other medical schools is whether they are to follow the example or to be deterred by a bugbear--whether, for example, the University of Pennsylvania, after raising her scientific and art departments to a higher level, shall be content to let her medical school remain stationary. It is the opinion of intelligent physicians who are not parties to this controversy that the experiment which failed in 1846 would succeed now. The new plan adopted at Harvard, which exacts three years of study, and embraces lectures, recitations, clinical conferences and written examinations of the most stringent character, has, we are informed, attracted a class of very superior men. Compared with the effort made here in 1846, this change may be described as a revolution, and it has proved a success.

We are at a loss to understand what Dr. Penrose wishes to prove by his citation of cases in which eminence has been reached--chiefly, it is to be noticed, in politics or the law--by persons who have had insufficient opportunities for study. If the disadvantage was imaginary, where was the merit of overcoming it? If it was real, as most people would admit, what is the objection to insisting on it as such? In the great majority of cases it is _not_ overcome, and the result is, that the country is overstocked with men engaged in the practice of professions for which they are inadequately qualified. As to the skill that is gained by practice, the ripe knowledge that may result from experience, this cannot without a confusion of terms be described as "education." It will in general be most surely and rapidly acquired by those who have received the best training, and the great object of our higher educational institutions should be to provide such training--not, by maintaining a low standard, to facilitate the efforts of those who, from whatever cause, would find it difficult to meet the demands of a higher one. Such persons may have a claim to encouragement and assistance in their endeavors to reach the mark; but they have no right to expect that the distance shall be regulated to suit their convenience.

Dr. Wood's admissions in regard to the excellence of the army medical service during the war are seized upon with natural exultation by his opponent, who draws from them a legitimate inference in favor of the general status of medical skill and knowledge throughout the country. If Dr. Wood really intended to say--what his language, we confess, would seem to imply--that the service attained its high state of efficiency in a few months, we do not well see how he is to resist the conclusion thus pressed upon him. But we conceive the truth to be that either his phraseology or his recollection of the facts was at fault. It is well known that at the beginning of the war it was impossible to find competent surgeons in anything like the number that was needed, and that the examining boards were consequently forced to be ridiculously lenient. We know of an able surgeon who after a battle found that he had not a single assistant in his corps who could be trusted to perform an operation. This state of matters was the direct result of the imperfect education given in the schools. Not one man in ten who leaves them has ever been practically exercised in operations on the cadaver, and the proportion was still smaller before the war. It is easy therefore to understand, while it would be painful to recall, the circumstances under which the great bulk of our army surgeons acquired the requisite proficiency. The ultimate success of our medical service, like the final triumph of our armies, was preceded by many woeful blunders and mishaps, and, like that, was due in great measure to a lavish outlay which would scarcely have been possible in any European war, and to the general devotion and united efforts which drew out all the resources of the country, of whatever kind, and directed them to the furtherance of a single aim.

OUR EARLY NEWSPAPERS.

In looking over the contents of the old newspapers of this country, of which there was a considerable number as early as the year 1730, one is specially struck by the number of advertisements of slave sales and of runaway slaves, apprentices and servants. The following are common examples:

"To be sold, a very likely Negro woman about 30 years of Age, has been in this city about 10. She is a fine Cook, has been brought up to all sorts of House Work, and speaks very good English. She has had the small Pox, and has now a Young Child. Enquire further concerning her and the Conditions of Sale of Mary Kippen, or the Printer hereof."--_New York Weekly Journal_, May 9, 1735.

"Just arrived from _Great Britain_, and are to be Sold on board the Ship Alice and Elizabeth, Capt. _Paine_ Commander several likely _Welch_ and _English_ Servant Men, most of them Tradesmen. Whoever inclines to purchase any of them may agree with said Commander, or Mr. _Thomas Noble_, Merchant, at Mr. Hazard's, in New York; where also is to be Sold several Negro Girls and a Negro Boy, and likewise good _Cheshire_ Cheese."--_New York Gazette_, Sept. 11, 1732.

Here is a notice from the same paper, date 1735, which shows very clearly the position of the apprentice one hundred and forty years ago:

"Run away on the 5th. Instant from John Bell of the city of New York Carpenter, an Apprentice Boy named James Harding, aged about 19 years, being a tall well-set Lad of a Fresh Complexion, he wears a Wig, he is spley-footed and shuffles with his feet as he Walks, has a Copper coloured Kersey Coat with large flat white Mettle Buttons, a grey Duroy Coat lined with Silk, it is pretty much faded by wearing, a broad blue striped Waistcoat and Breeches and a pair of blue striped Tickin Breeches, in warm weather he often bleeds at the nose." Then follows the offer of forty shillings to any one who will give information whereby his master, John Bell, can regain possession of the runaway.

That the women of that time were strong-minded, or at least that they were disposed to assist in the reformation of bad husbands, is shown by the following from the same journal, date December 31, 1733. The subject, or victim, was one William Drinkwater, living near New York, who had proved quarrelsome with his neighbors and abusive to his wife: "The good Women of the Place took the Matter into Consideration and laid hold of an Opportunity, to get him tied to a Cart, and there with Rods belaboured him on his Back, till, in striveing to get away, he pulled one of his Arms out of Joint, and then they unti'd him. Mr. _Drinkwater_ Complained to Sundrie Magistrates of this useage, but all he got by it was to be Laughed at; Whereupon he removed to New Milford where we hear he proves a good Neighhour and a loving Husband. _A Remarkable Reformation ariseing from the Justice of the good Women._"

Another advertisement indicates a toilet article now out of fashion:

"To be Sold by _Peter Lynch_, near Mr. _Rutgers_ Brewhouse, very good Orange Butter, it is excellent for Gentlewomen to comb up their Hair with, it also cures Children's sore Heads."

The next sounds quite as odd:

"_James Munden_ Partner with _Thomas Butwell_ from London, Maketh Gentlewomens Stays and Childrens Coats in the Newest Fashion, that Crooked Women and Children will appear strait," Same paper, date February, 1735.

It is a curious fact that the deaths at that time, both in the New York and New England papers, were announced not by the names of the deceased, but by the churches to which they belonged. For example: "Buried in the city last week, _viz._, Church of England 26, Dutch 24, Lutheran 2, French 1, Presbyterians 3. The number of Blacks we refer till Next Week."--_New England Weekly Journal_, Nov. 1, 1731. Sometimes the number is recorded as four or five, or even less: therefore the record must be very imperfect, and there seems to have been no notice taken of those who were not buried from any church.

M.H.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Dante and his Circle; with the Italian Poets preceding him.
Edited and translated in the original Metres by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. Revised and rearranged edition, Boston: Roberts
Bros.

Dante is so great a figure in Italian literature that he hides from sight the host of minor poets who preceded him, and throws his own contemporaries so into the shade that we are apt to think that Italian poetry began with him, and that its second exponent is Petrarch. Such a view is to be regretted, not only because it overlooks much that is in itself valuable, but because it attributes to a period of slow development a phenomenal character. There were many poets worth listening to before the great Florentine wrote the _New Life_ or the _Divine Comedy_, and many whom he listened to and praised, although his prophetic foresight told him that he would one day bear their glory from them.

It was to make us acquainted with these forgotten singers that Mr. Rossetti wrote some years ago his charming book. _The Early Italian Poets_, which, after being long out of print, he now presents to us in a revised and rearranged edition. The author's wish is not merely to give us a glimpse of the quaint conceits of a school that continued in Italy the waning influence of the Troubadours, but to open to us the intimate social life of the literary men of that period as reflected in their vague Platonic rhapsodies, their friendly letters, their jests and quarrels, their joy and sadness. Interwoven with all this are stately _canzoni_, and dainty sonnets full of quaint conceits, like that wherein Jacopo da Lentino (1250) sings _Of his Lady in Heaven_:

I have it in my heart to serve God so
That into Paradise I shall repair--
The holy place through the which everywhere
I have heard say that joy and solace flow.
Without my lady I were loath to go--
She who has the bright face and the bright hair--
Because if she were absent, I being there,
My pleasure would be less than naught, I know.
Look you, I say not this to such intent
As that I there would deal in any sin:
I only would behold her gracious mien,
And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,
That so it should be my complete content
To see my lady joyful in her place.

We seem, in turning over these pages, to see the brilliant, ever-changing current of Italian thirteenth and fourteenth century life--from Palermo, where Frederick II. held an almost Oriental court, to the communes of Central Italy, the best type of which is the merchant-city of the Arno, whose sons in those days could fight as well as wield the yardstick, and sing in strains that have rarely been equaled. In the first division of the work the great poet and his friends are brought vividly before us from the time when, a sensitive child, his eyes first beheld Beatrice and his new life began, to the painful hours of bereavement and exile. The poet, it is known, made a curious sonnet out of a dream he had after his first meeting with Beatrice, and, in accordance with the fashion of the day, sent it to various well-known poets, asking them to interpret his vision. The answers are all given here; and among those whose attention was thus attracted to the precocious youth was one whom he calls his "first friend," Guido Cavalcanti--after Dante one of the most interesting literary personages of the day. Rash and chivalrous, we can follow him in his poems from the time he made his pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, and fell in love on the way with Mandetta of Toulouse, to the turbulent days of Florentine party strife, when he rides down Messer Corso Donati, "the baron," and wounds him with his javelin, and then goes into exile at Sarzana, where he sings his dying song and sends it to his lady, "who," he says, "of her noble grace shall show thee courtesy." All the poets were not as constant as their own lines would have us believe. Dante reproaches the famous Cino da Pistoja for fickleness, and the latter confesses the charge, and declares he cannot get "free from Love's pitiless aim." Guido Cavalcanti rebukes Dante himself for his way of life after the death of Beatrice; and this valuable sonnet should be read in connection with the beautiful passage in the _Purgatory_ (xxx. 55-75) where Beatrice herself upbraids the tearful poet.

In the second part, comprising _Poets chiefly before Dante_, we have specimens of the Sicilian school--a _canzone_ by the great Frederick, and a sonnet by his luckless son Enzo, who died in prison at Bologna after a confinement of nearly twenty-three years. Of more importance are the poems of Guido Guinicelli, of which the philosophical one entitled "Of the Gentle Heart" was a nine days' wonder, but which, even in Rossetti's elegant version, seems cold and formal. The most natural and pleasing pieces among much that is artificial and conventional are a ballad and two "catches" by Sacchetti, who died just after 1400, and properly does not belong to Dante's circle. Mr. Rossetti's readers will, however, be grateful to him for his delightful versions of the two catches, one "On a Fine Day," the other "On a Wet Day," giving the experiences of a band of young girls who have gone to spend the afternoon in the fields and are overtaken by a shower.

Poems like these, unfortunately, are rare. The range is a limited one--Platonic love in its conventional form, or the still more conventional form of chivalric love, imported bodily from the Troubadours. Scattered here and there are some noble poems; as, for instance, the one attributed to Fazio degli Uberti on his lady's portrait, which begins--

I look at the crisp golden-threaded hair,
Whereof, to thrall my heart, Love twists a net;
Using at times a string of pearls for bait,
And sometimes with a single rose therein.

Mr. Rossetti has performed his task in a way to deserve the warmest praise. The difficulties he has overcome are very great, consisting not merely of intricate rhyme and assonance, which he has faithfully reproduced, but a text often corrupt and meaning often obscure. He says himself in his preface that "The life-blood of rhythmical translation is this commandment--that a good poem shall not be turned into a bad one;" and this commandment, as far as we can see, he has not broken in a single case, while in some instances, we are bold enough to say, the translation is better than the original.

History of the Army of the Cumberland, its Organization,
Campaigns and Battles. Written at the request of Maj.-Gen.
George H. Thomas, chiefly from his private military journal
and other official documents furnished by him. By Thomas B.
Van Horne, U.S. Army. Illustrated with campaign and
battle maps compiled by Edward Ruger, late Superintendent
Topographical Engineer Office, Head quarters Department of the
Cumberland. 2 vols. and atlas. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.

It was natural that General Thomas should make choice of some one to whom he could entrust the task of writing his military history. For that purpose he chose Mr. T.B. Van Home, a chaplain in the regular army, and the work, which was begun in 1865 and finished in 1872, was subject to Thomas's own examination. The result is now, after this long delay, presented to the public in a shape that does great credit to the publishers, whose imprint is almost synonymous with good workmanship. Of the literary skill, or want of it, on the part of the author not much need be said: he is evidently zealous in his anxiety to do honor to the memory of General Thomas, and to do justice to all who served with him; but he is sadly lacking in the art of suitably clothing his ideas with fitting words, and much of his elaborate composition is badly wasted in trying to find extravagant language for the recital of important events. In some cases, where the official reports printed at the close of each chapter recite in simple words the actual occurrences, the text of the book is overlaid with unusual words and involved sentences, in which the statement of the same facts is lost in a cloud of phraseology of a very curious and original kind. "Primal success," "the expression of a stride," "the belligerence of the two armies," "philosophy of the victory," "palpable co-operation," "the expression of an insurrection,"--these are some of the odd inventions of the author; and for instances of passages just as odd, but too long for citation, we refer to the description of the battle of Shiloh--a weak imitation of Kinglake's worst style--where we are told that "change is the prophecy of unexpected conditions." Fortunately, the second volume is much less marred by such faults, and the great event of Thomas's career, the battle of Nashville, is told with clearness and in full detail.

Although Thomas is the hero of the book from the time when he took command at Camp Dick Robinson in August of 1861, it was not till October, 1863, which brings us to page 394 of the first volume, that he succeeded to the command of the Army of the Cumberland, after Rosecrans, who had followed Buell and Sherman and Anderson. Under the other generals Thomas had served with marked ability and fidelity, and his dealing with them is fairly reflected by the author of this work, for he rarely criticises either of Thomas's commanding officers--for the most part merely records the operations of the army, and puts in most prominence Thomas's own services, just as his military journal no doubt supplied the material. Of all that long and dreary marching and countermarching through Kentucky and Tennessee the account is full and clear, and we find Buell and Halleck saying that they know nothing of any plan of campaign in the very midst of their operations. At last with Halleck, and still more with Grant in authority, there were movements ordered that had some relation to each other and a general plan of operations, and then the overwhelming strength of the North began to turn the scale. Thomas was called on by Rosecrans, as he had been by Buell, for advice, but he was obliged to act independently too; and then, as at Stone River, he showed an energy and a capacity that ought to have secured his earlier promotion. At Chickamauga he was actually left in command by Rosecrans, and while the latter was looking for new help elsewhere, Thomas at the front saved the shattered army and led it safely back to Chattanooga, where it underwent its famous long siege. The measures for its relief were planned by Rosecrans, approved by Grant, and executed by Thomas, with large assistance from "Baldy" Smith, whose skill as an engineer was fully attested then. When Thomas did at last succeed to the command of the Army of the Cumberland, he showed his superiority to his predecessors by marked improvement in his method of securing supplies, in his use of cavalry, and in the increased efficiency of his infantry. When Johnston, thanks to Davis's unwise interference with the Confederate armies, gave way to Hood, the latter almost at once gave token of his inferior skill by being defeated by the Army of the Cumberland--by less than half of it, in fact--in an attack intended to destroy three armies of more than five times the number of the Union force actually engaged. Thomas was in command at this battle of Peach-tree Creek, one of the sharpest and most significant actions of the campaign, though no official report is found at the end of the chapter in which it is described. The events that led up to the victory of Nashville are always worth the telling, and the account given in this work may be looked upon as in some respects Thomas's own version of them. A brief chapter by Colonel Merrill of the Engineers gives a very good description of three of the leading features of the work done by that corps in the Army of the Cumberland. To cross great rivers there was need of pontoon-bridges; to protect the long lines of railroads it was necessary to provide block-houses; to go through a country that was often a trackless forest, and always badly provided with real high-roads, it was all-important to have maps, and to reproduce them rapidly and plentifully. Colonel Merrill's chapter is pithy, pointed and to the purpose, showing how well our technical troops did their share of work, and how large and important that share was in securing the general result. The maps are also well done, and therefore useful in enabling a reader to follow out the details of the narrative.

_BOOKS RECEIVED._

Dissertations and Discussions; Political, Philosophical and Historical. By John Stuart Mill. Vol. V. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

From Everglade to Canon with the Second Dragoons, 1836-75, Compiled by Theo. F. Rodenbough. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

Grand'ther Baldwin's Thanksgiving, with other Ballads and Poems. By Horatio Alger, Jr. Boston: Loring.

Shakespeare Hermeneutics; or, The Still Lion. By C.M. Ingleby, M.A., LL.D. London: Trübner & Co.

Minutes of the Ohio State Archæological Convention. Columbus: Printed for the Society by Paul & Thrall.

Strength of Beams under Transverse Loads. By Prof. W. Allan. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for 1876. New York: Catholic Publication Society.

Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1874. Washington: Government Printing-office.

Our Poetical Favorites. Second Series. By Aschel C. Kendrick. New York: Sheldon &Co.

Camp-Life in Florida. By Charles Hallock. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co.

Lectures on Art. Second Series. By H. Taine. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Pretty Miss Bellew. By Theo. Gift. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Drawn from. Life. By Charles Dickens. New York: E.J. Hale & Son.

The Conquest of Europe: A Poem of the Future. By Confucius.

Cartoons. By Margaret J. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers.