But there is encouragement in the retrospect which Prof. Maine gives us. Starting with his refutation of the old idea that modern wars indicate progress in human depravity, and his dogma of "the universal belligerency of primitive mankind," there is hope to be derived from every fresh triumph of peaceful conventions, from every year's continued freedom from general European warfare. The Declaration of Paris, even though not yet fully agreed upon; the "Manuals" adopted by various nations for the government of their armies in the field, which contain so many rules common to all; the influence of the church in the introduction of the Truce into warfare; the wellrecognized advance of humanity in captures and treatment of prisoners; the effect of the establishment of powerful empires in keeping at peace with each other the distinctive peoples which make up these empires; all these influences, and their tendencies, are rated by the lecturer with such evident satisfaction as to show him less a pessimist than he pretends.

Prof. Maine seems strangely disposed to stand by the term "International Law," as a suitable name for the usages adopted by the common consent of nations. He fully approves the declaration of Lord Coleridge that International Law is an inexact expression, and is apt to mislead if its inexactness is not kept in mind," as well as the definition of the same learned judge, "the Law of Nations is that collection of usages which civilized states have agreed to use in their dealings with one another." He carefully points out that it is the weakness of this system that "its rules have no sanction." Still, he throughout the lectures speaks of this system and these usages as "International Law." It would seem that a frank admission that the system is not "Law" in the proper and well-understood modern sense would have been an appropriate feature of this new lectureship. It would certainly have relieved the lecturer from all his difficulty of harmonizing Austin's definition of Sovereignty" with that use of the term commonly employed by the international jurists, just as a fuller understanding of the actual division of the powers of Sovereignty among national and local agencies under the American political system would have assisted him in harmonizing the divisibility of Sovereignty under international usage, in the cases of "semi-sovereign" states, with the Austinian definition of the same term under Positive Law.

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It can scarcely be doubted that these lectures, though fragmentary and incomplete, will have some such influence as was desired

His

by Dr. Whewell. Maine's suggestion of "the universal belligerency of primitive mankind" is a thought that may leaven the minds of many jurists and ministers of war. deduction that "the status of the prisoner of war is historically descended from the status of the slave," can scarcely fail to foster, among free peoples, the modern tendency toward humane treatment of captives. Another fertile suggestion is, that at the battle of Agincourt there was but one Englishman present who had any knowledge of medicine or surgery. The desire of Prof. Maine, expressed in these pages, to contribute toward the establishment of a permanent international tribunal for the more complete acceptance and enforcement of these international usages, will doubtless inspire some other jurist like himself to undertake the same work. So, later times may observe some of the influence, in our day, upon this subject, of the mere literary agency of Maine's lectures, even as the great influence of the writings of Grotius is now recognized.

JAMES O. PIERCE.

RECENT EDUCATIONAL BOOKS.* The problem how to reform education, like the problem how to abolish poverty, we have always with us. No sooner have the sages of one generation grasped, compressed, and stowed away this educational problem, once for all, it may seem to them, in the narrow but convenient box of their system, than the next generation raises the box-lid; when, lo like the fisherman's genie in the Arabian Nights, the same gigantic problem looms before

*THE MIND OF THE CHILD; PART II., THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

MEMORY, WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT. By David Kay, author of "Education and Educators," etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION: A History and Criticism of the Principles, Methods, Organization, and Moral Discipline Advocated by Eminent Educationalists. By John Gill, Professor of Education, Normal College, Cheltenham, England. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.

NOTES ON THE EARLY TRAINING OF CHILDREN. By Mrs. Frank Malleson. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.

BUREAU OF EDUCATION. Circulars of Information, Nos. 1, 3, 5, and 6, 1888. Washington: Government Printing Office. TESTA: A BOOK FOR BOYS. By Paolo Mantegazza. Trans

lated from the Italian of the tenth edition by the Italian class in Bangor, Maine, under the supervision of Luigi D. Ventura. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.

the world-vast, hazy, ominous, ill-defined as ever. Never, until the foundations are laid broad and deep in the very nature of the growing brain and in the conditions most favorable to its healthy development, will permanent results be secured. So far, most of our educational doctrine has been merely empirical. Whether we have a science of education, strictly so-called, is as much in doubt as whether we have a science of medicine. In order to prove that any such science exists as a pure science, we must show that certain definitely ascertainable results invariably follow certain conditions. In order to make such a science of practical value to us as an applied science, some of the conditions, at least, must be such that we can modify and adjust them to secure the results we desire.

..

no

Το pave the way for the advent of such a science, much systematic observation of conditions and results is necessary; and a better beginning could hardly be made than that described by Prof. Preyer of Jena in his work on "The Mind of the Child," recently translated into English in the seventh and ninth volumes of the International Education Series." Prof. Preyer has already carefully recorded the facts in the development of the senses and the will, and in the volume now under review treats of "The Development of the Intellect." The topics discussed in this volume are, Thinking Without Words," "Learning to Speak," "Speech in the First Three Years," and "Development of the Feeling of Self." The discussion of these topics, preceded by the translator's useful conspectus of Prof. Preyer's observations, and followed by three appendixes, make up the book. The author's investigations tend to show that thoughts may be independent of words. "Even before the first attempts at speaking, a generalizing and therefore concept-forming combination of memory images regularly takes place." "Without memory intellect is possible. The only material at the disposal of the intellect is received from the senses." The first sensations to leave abiding impressions, and hence memories, in the brain, are apparently those of taste and smell as connected with nursing, and then those of touch. Of the remaining senses, sight is the earlier promoter of memory, and hearing the later. Among sights, faces are the earliest remembered. Sounds in great variety are formed before words. Separate brain centres are successively developed for sounds, syllables, and words. It is possible to study, not only the development of these language centres in the healthy child, but also their gradual breaking down in disease, because we find the same phenomena that are observed in the child occurring in retrograde order in the loss of language by the insane. The spontaneous plays of young children are simply a series of experiments they perform upon themselves to learn what they can do, and are part of the process of developing the feeling of self, and the sense of difference between what is subjective and what is objective.

David Kay's work on "Memory," forming Volume VIII. of the 66 International Education Series," while not like Prof. Preyer's book in embodying a piece of original investigation, resembles it in aiming to secure a substantial scientific basis, and in viewing the subject mainly from the physiological standpoint. In support of each position that he takes, Mr. Kay cites copiously from many wellknown authorities, so copiously, indeed, that fully half of the matter in the volume is quoted; and yet, as is pointed out by Mr. Wm. T. Harris, the editor, in his excellent and discriminating preface, there is no reference to the labors of Wundt, Waitz, Volkman, James Ward, Ebbinghaus, Fechner, Meynert, Spitzka, Flourens, Hartwig, or to Ribot's "Diseases of the Memory." We must bear in mind, however, that the book is not designed as a special treatise for advanced students of physiology and psychology, but as a practical and suggestive manual for all our school-teachers. This partially explains the above-mentioned omissions, as well as Mr. Kay's frequent lengthy explanations of familiar physiological facts somewhat remotely connected with the subject. Mr. Kay's leading doctrine is that the brain is not the exclusive seat of memory, but that the whole body is a storehouse, every nook and corner and cranny of which may be crammed full of rich harvests by this faculty. The book is on the whole well adapted to its purpose as an educational work, and teachers and students alike will find it a desirable accession to their libraries.

Prof. Gill's book, while not a brilliant one, presents a clear and methodical statement of some of the leading aims and doctrines of great educational thinkers mostly English-from Roger Ascham to Dugald Stewart. The ideas of these thinkers, however, are not given in their own words, but in the words of our author; for he found that in the brief time allotted him for these lectures, not one hour weekly, he could better present the salient points of each system without quotation. But, as he says, he has never consciously altered or colored anyone's views. While Prof. Gill shows that he has thoroughly mastered the commonplaces of education, we look in vain through his pages for reforming enthusiasm or for literary charm. As evidence of British insularity, it may be mentioned that in a book of 312 pages professing to treat of "Systems of Education," no account is given of any modern educational reformer outside of England, except Pestalozzi and Froebel; while the name of Rousseau is not once found. The author's system of giving lectures on education without citing the great writers on the subject is questionable, since it ought to be part of the lecturer's aim to lead his auditors to read these writers. The book has a meagre index but no bibliography of its subject.

Mrs. Malleson's unpretentious little book entitled "Notes on the Early Training of Children," is one that no thoughtful parent or teacher can read without increased interest and stimulation in the performance

By no means the least valuable works on educational topics are those to be found in the "Circulars of Information" sent out by our Bureau of Education at Washington. Numbers one and two for 1888 contain contributions to the educational history of Virginia and North Carolina respectively; and this good beginning is to be followed up by the publication of a series of works on the progress of education in the other states of the American Union. The most important contribution to Circular No. 2 is the one by Mr. Herbert B. Adams on 66 Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia," while the subject most fully treated by Mr. C. L. Smith in No. 3 is the University of North Carolina. In No. 5 Rev. A. D. Mayo treats of "Industrial Education in the South," and in No. 6 we have the "Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association at its Meeting in Washington, Feb. 14-16, 1888." Why is it that no report of these proceedings is forthcoming until long after the association has held another annual meeting? Surely there is no sufficient excuse for so much delay.

It may seem somewhat odd to classify “Testa” among educational books, but "Testa " is in every way an oddity. It is oddly named, oddly bound, oddly conceived, oddly dedicated, oddly prefaced, oddly told, oddly translated, and oddly interleaved with blank pages for daily good resolutions. Were the title a proper name or some untranslatable word, there might be some excuse for not rendering it into English; but why not render it "Mind"? And yet why should the author call it "Mind," in the first place? A more appropriate title would be "Tears," for, from the dedication, where Mantegazza informs us that the book is born from his tears over the "Cuore" of De Amicis, to the very end, we find tears constantly recurring. We do not know, however, that De Amicis is at all complimented by Mantegazza's tears, since they flow just as promptly over Ventura. But surely an Italian man of letters ought to weep over a friend who will say, as Ventura does in his preface: "We are wearied and oppressed by the eternal Dante of Italy, when that reverend name is an insulting flag

seems possible that any language teacher before Signor Ventura ever conceived the novel idea of publishing to the world, as a great literary work destined to supersede Dante, a book for boys, translated piecemeal by forty of his lady pupils. But perhaps the oddest thing revealed by this translation is the contrast between American and Italian books for boys. Italian juvenile literature, it would appear, is fully eighty years behind ours. The stories in this book strongly remind one of those published in the "Youth's Companion" at the beginning of the century. The day of the Rollo books has passed; and it is a lesson well learned by American writers for the young that the moral and sentimental reflections of the senile mind are not very interesting to the normal boy. He demands action, animation, excitement; and this, such writers as Oliver Optic and Mayne Reid seek to secure at any cost, even by an unnecessary sacrifice of truth to nature. But Mantegazza's book is neither natural nor sensational; it is garrulously moral and sentimental. American boys would care more for the book if there was only a boy in it; but Enrico, the young hero, is not even a little old man-he is for the most part a mere dummy to serve as a listener to Uncle Baciccia. Enrico had studied so hard, we are told, and so late at night, that his health gave way immediately after the examination at the end of the year. When the physicians "declared him convalescent, he was so thin and pale and weak that he was frightened at his own appearance reflected from the mirror in the salotto." Among other interesting symptoms attending his convalescence, we are informed that "as soon as he had eaten, he was obliged to lie down because he felt faint, and yawned, yawned as if he would put his jaw out of joint." One often wonders if his uncle's long monalogues did not bring on a recurrence of this most distressing symptom. It is certain, at least, that readers have been found on whom they have produced some such effect.

The fact that Platt's "Business" has passed through seventy-five editions in England and has now been reprinted in America is one more bit of evidence to prove that Matthew Arnold was right when, in his address on Milton, he spoke of the rising "flood of Anglo-Saxon commonness" and of the Anglo-Saxon tendency to worship the average man, which is now-a-days so fatal to the development of all high and rare excellence. While "Business contains much that is true, and also much that is false or at least pernicious in its tendency, it contains almost nothing that is either the fruit of personal experience or of original investigation. The aim of the book is ostensibly to teach young men right business principles; but what could be more misleading than to say, as the author does at the very outset :

"Life is a sharp conflict of man with man, a remorseless struggle for existence-an industrial warfare that

has succeeded the old warlike struggle, but a hard hand-to-hand fight all the same, in which men of greatest skill and perseverance still defeat their fellows, as in the olden time."

There are instances of such "remorseless" struggles; there are men who go into business as they would have gone had they lived a few centuries earlier into freebooting or buccaneering; but is this the ideal, are these the models, to hold up before the eyes of young men for imitation? Is it really true that all business life-to say nothing of life in general-consists in the effort to cut the throats of one's rivals? On the contrary, has it not been proved again and again, to the honor of human nature, that so far from "remorselessly" struggling for the trade of some honorable but unfortunate business man lying prostrate on the brink of failure, his fellows have generously stood by him, have made sacrifices in his behalf, and have set him on his feet again? Legitimate success in business does not consist in ruthlessly ruining rivals, but in sagaciously discerning and efficiently supplying the growing and varying needs of the public. The only true basis for the success of one man is the advantage of all.

Books of commonplaces and petty maxims, like "Business," if they affect men at all, must tend to make them commonplace and petty, or else to keep them so; and it is to such persons that the style of this book is adapted. We find everywhere through

the book instances of the commonest rhetorical vices such as are corrected in our elementary schools; and once, at least, on pp. 81-2, we find evidence of a vice that is considered more reprehensible. The writer wants to quote so much from Carlyle that it would not look well to put it all in marks of quotation, and he therefore omits these little indexes of literary morality. Or are we to conceive that our author is old enough and wise enough to have anticipated Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus"? Both Carlyle and he say:

"Produce, produce! were it but the pitifulest, infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it in God's name. 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee? out with it then! Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might.' Work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh wherein no man can work.'”

I give Platt's punctuation, because that is the only point in which he differs from Carlyle. To dovetail this purple patch with one from the next page of the "Sartor Resartus," our author introduces these two brief sentences: Work in welldoing. Do not say you have no tools;" and then he goes on without quotation marks:

"Why, there is not a man or a thing alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the spider itself, has a spinning jenny, and warping mill, and power loom within its head. Every being that can live can do something. This let him do. Tools! Hast thou not a brain, furnished, furnishable with some glimmerings of light, and three fingers to hold a pen withal? Never, since Aaron's rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working tool.

Greater than all recorded miracles have been performed by the pen."

After so much of Carlyle, compare the original remarks that immediately follow:

"In commercial life, also, the pen is very powerful. By advertisement and circular, buyers can be reached in every parish, and in all parts of the world."

EDWARD PLAYFAIR ANDERSON.

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

UNDER the title "Portfolio Papers," the Messrs. Roberts Brothers issue in book form a series of articles contributed at various times by Mr. P. G. Hamerton to the "Portfolio" magazine. The essays have been selected for this volume with reference to their permanent interest; and, while not in Mr. Hamerton's lighter vein, will be, for the most part, acceptable to general readers as well as to art students and amateurs. The volume opens with five short biographical sketches of artists (Constable, Etty, Chintreuil, Guignet, and Goya) which are excellent reading and constitute the best part of the book. The paper on Goya will be a surprise to those who are familiar with the general tone of Mr. Hamerton's writings. While it is thoroughly readable, and contains some good thoughts, it shows a marked departure from the tolerant and liberal spirit which usually informs the author's work. Mr. Hamerton's violent dislike for Goya the man seems to us to unduly influence his estimate of Goya the artist. The paper abounds in such bits of Carlylean invective as,-"Not so, his mind did not rise to any pure or elevating thought, it grovelled in a hideous Inferno of his own-a disgusting region, horrible without sublimity, shapeless as chaos, foul in color and forlorn of light,' peopled by the most violent abortions that ever came from the brain of a sinner. . . Enough has been said to show that Goya had made himself a den of foulness and abomination, and dwelt therein, with satisfaction to his mind, like a hyena amidst carcases." Really, this is very unlike Mr. Hamerton; and the reader will reflect that respectable critics have pronounced Goya a worthy successor of Velasquez. In this paper the author's indignation quite carries him away, even in matters foreign to his obnoxious subject. What is fame?' he asks. "It is nothing but a noise made by talkers and writers; and if other talkers and writers were to be cowed by it into a respectful silence, they would be like watch-dogs afraid to bark because other dogs had barked in the next farm. The opinions of artists may seem at first somewhat more formidable because an artist knows something practical and positive; but a little reflection would convince the most timid that he may live in serene independence of their opinion also if he likes, for whatever one artist paints or says, you can always find another of equal rank to declare in plain terms that he is an idiot or something worse." Bitter

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truths these, and bitterly expressed. Besides the five biographical sketches, there are seven brief essays-two under the head of Notes on Esthetics," four short treatises on the fine arts, and an "Imaginary Conversation" on book-illustration. Mr. Hamerton's style is admirable clear, fluent, unaffected; while his accurate knowledge of the graphic arts, combined with a rare catholicity, and respect for the opinions of others, render him the safest of guides-safer, we would say, than Mr. Ruskin, who, though a man of genius, is inferior to Mr. Hamerton in the ability to rightly appraise the views of an opponent. In his Notes on Esthetics," the author refutes Dr. Leibreich's theory on "the effects of certain faults of vision on painting, with special reference to Turner." Dr. Leibreich, starting from the fact that there is in some people a yellowing of the lens of the eye, a physical defect causing them to see objects yellower than they are, argues that in the work of an artist so affected the prevailing tinge would be yellow. Obviously, the truth of this theory must entail serious consequences in art criticism. Our author, however, observes that the painter views his canvas and the colors on his palette with the same eye with which he viewed nature; and that the yellow will be supplied in the same proportion to both, thus equalizing matters. It is astonishing that Dr. Leibreich himself had not thought of this. It is a pleasing characteristic of Mr. Hamerton that, though himself of the "inner temple" of art, he is on the best of terms with those who are not; a fact that has rendered his writings so important a factor in refining the tastes of his countrymen, and in developing in them that sense for the beautiful in which they are confessedly deficient. We bespeak for Portfolio Papers" a kindly reception.

A RACY little book entitled "Foreign Visitors in England" (Elliott Stock, London) is made up of a curious melange of comments-shrewd and shallow, thoughtful and whimsical, witty and absurd-culled by an Englishman from memoirs of foreigners who have visited his country during the past three centuries. The volume presents an astonishing diversity of opinion as to the English character although it must be confessed the general estimate is not a flattering one. One gentleman (whose personal equation must be regarded as a very serious one) says: "The English are so cunning and faithless that a foreigner would not be sure of his life among them. A Briton is not to be trusted on his bended knees." The French travellers quoted seem to have been deeply interested in what they were pleased to term the "national melancholy,' regarding it as a disease, and holding it responsible for the peculiarities of the people. In consequence of this 66 disease" the English were for a long time thought to be singularly prone to suicide; and a certain Mr. Grosley-undeterred by the fate of Ananias solemnly assured his countrymen that in London "care is taken to block up the avenues to

the river-side in order to remove the temptation which would inevitably assault a Londoner at sight of the water." Another disciple of Sir John Mandeville, commenting upon the national gravity, asserts that "There are families of them who have never laughed for two or three generations." The Abbé Le Blanc, a very shrewd observer, is inclined to look upon the boasted "liberties" of Englishmen as a delusion. They believe they enjoy liberty," he says, "because they have the word for a device; but those who find themselves invested with power, by feeding the rest with chimerical ideas, find means to really enslave them." The matter in this little book is not always fresh, but it is generally worth re-reading. The author, Mr. Edward Smith, has done his work judiciously, and for one thing is to be specially commended: with a thoughtful regard for the shortness of human life, he has compressed into about two hundred tiny pages material that he might easily have inflated into a quarto.

PROFESSOR HENRY MORLEY's resignation of his professorship at University College, London, will result, it is to be hoped, in the more rapid issue of his "English Writers, an Attempt toward a History of English Literature," the fourth volume of which is now before us (Cassell). This volume deals wholly with the fourteenth century, of which it does not complete the survey. It opens with an interesting account of "The Romaunt of the Rose," which Chaucer translated, and of Petrarch and Boccaccio, whose influence over Chaucer was so notable. All roads lead to Rome, and in the fourteenth century all roads lead to Chaucer-or if they do not they are hardly worth travelling. Professor Morley is a little like those adventurous guides who, under a pretense of a short cut, decoy travellers from the trodden paths into trackless and barren regions where no food is. Fortunately, the knowing reader soon learns to make forced marches through Mr. Morley's deserts. It is but fair to add that there But it is beginning to be plain that the work as a whole is tiresome without being scientific. As a repertory of facts, it will always remain valuable; and many will read its careful summaries of famous or forgotten works, who would never read the originals. No one need look to this author, however, for much critical insight, or for the penetrating remarks by which really great critics light up a subject. For example, Mr. Morley will have it that John Gower, to whom he devotes some ninety pages, is a man of genius. The reader of the ninety pages will probably have enough of Gower; possibly he will turn with relief to Mr. Lowell's vigorous damnation of the droning old versifier. On the other hand, the reader will be interested in the chapter on Langland and his "Vision of Piers the Plowman," and will be glad to hear that there is to be more about "Long Will" in the next volume, which is promised speedily. A sixth volume, to be published this year, will bring the his

are numerous oases.