the first absorbed the greater attention, owing to the greater divergence in the standards and facilities for history teaching in the schools. The extremely tentative general conclusions on which

the committee agreed regarding this question were as follows. It was suggested that a course of four years of five hours a week should be the goal of teachers of history. It was further suggested that the first year be devoted to Greek and Roman history to the downfall of the Empire, studied not as entirely isolated subjects, but as related, together with some consideration of the history of the more ancient nations; the second year, to general European history from perhaps the fall of Rome to modern times, a period of equal weight and importance, though the question of the line of division between the first and second year's courses was left open for the present. It is possible the committee may recommend later some such arrangement as will include general European history to 800 or to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire in the first year's work. The third block or period includes English history, which, although in itself possibly undeserving of so much attention as its predecessors, may be given greater weight by dwelling upon its broader aspects of continental relations and imperial development, and be studied in part as an amplification of European history, with England as the central and illustrative figure. The fourth year, it was agreed, should be devoted to American history, with special reference to the preceding work, having civil government as a collateral study, and regarding present conditions, institutions, government, and law in the light of evolution.

As to methods, it was suggested that a narrative text-book should be used, aided by collateral reading largely in secondary material, written work, reviews, and recitations, topical work, maps; and, as far as possible, sources should be used by the teacher for illustration, to add reality and concreteness to the instruction. In its final printed report the committee hopes to indicate what sources it considers suitable, and in other respects to be as helpful and suggestive as possible. The question of training in history in grades below the high school was postponed until further light could be shed upon that subject by an examination of the present status of history teaching in the schools in this country and abroad. The committee's report was approved by the Association, and the committee continued.

The paper of Superintendent Nightingale of the Chicago public schools on the same subject followed almost exactly the same lines and reached practically the same conclusions as that of the Committee of Seven, which, by the way, will meet again next April in Ann Arbor. The discussion as to the extent to which sources may profitably be used in the teaching of history below the Graduate School was led by Prof. A. B. Hart of Harvard, E. P. Cheyney of Pennsylvania, and J. A. Woodburn of Indiana, and extremely animated. The general weight of opinion inclined on the whole towards a judicious use of sources and so-called "source books" by the teacher, and to some extent by the student, whenever practicable, as a vivifying adjunct to text-book, lecture, and class-room work, and this view was borne out later in the discussion on the report of the Committee of Seven.

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By far the most important question on the administrative side which came up for consideration was that of the identification of the American Historical Review with the American Historical Association. Certain plans were discussed and certain steps taken to this end, and the result will at some further meeting. In the way of other business the Association was shown to be on a sound and satisfactory financial basis by the report of the Treasurer, Dr. C. W. Bowen of New York. The next meeting will be held in New Haven, December 27, 28, and 29, 1898; and it is greatly to be hoped, for both social and financial reasons, that the Economic Association may, as this year, convene at the same place at the same time. The officers of the Historical Association for the ensuing year are: President, Prof. George P. Fisher of Yale; First VicePresident, James F. Rhodes; Second VicePresident, Edward Eggleston. The other officers are continued with a few changes. Ex-President James Schouler is added to the Executive Council, ex-officio; Prof. George B. Adams and President E. M. Gallaudet retire from the Council, and Chief Justice Fuller and Prof. A. B. Hart were chosen to fill the places thus left vacant. of the Manuscripts Committee of the Association by Prof. J. Franklin Jameson consisted mainly of an announcement of the forthcoming volume of the Association report. This will include five valuable sources for American history, the letters of Phineas Bond, English agent in Philadelphia, 17871789; a monograph on Canadian history; a collection of letters of the High Federalist, Stephen Higginson; the diary of Edward Hooker about 1805; and Prof. F. J. Turner's valuable collection of correspondence of the intrigues between Genet and George Rogers Clarke regarding the contemplated expedition to attack New Orleans. To these, among other material, will be added a bib

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Among the most pleasant and profitable liographical descriptive list of archives.

Succeeding volumes, it is expected, will contain among other things a bibliography of Colonial and State Legislatures to 1800, and accounts of material in the various State archives.

No report of the meeting of the Historical Association which omitted all notice of the social side of its activities could pretend to completeness. The various receptions by hospitable Cleveland citizens and clubs, the great luncheon of the combined Economic and Historical Associations, together with the luncheon given them by the Western Reserve University at Adelbert College, and the usual Historical Association reunion, added much to the pleasure of the meeting.

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSO

CIATION.

NEW YORK, January 3, 1898. The American Psychological Association met in Christmas week at Ithaca with the American Naturalists and Affiliated Societies, which included this year for the first time the newly formed Botanical Society and Section H of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Anthropology). It will probably have a regular winter meeting hereafter with these societies. The Psychological Association commanded a good attendance, and the same is true of most of the other societies-the physiologists and anthropologists being exceptions.

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The programme of the Psychologists was full and interesting, and for the first time it extended over part of the third day. The first day was devoted largely to experimental papers and reports. Much research work already done and awaiting publication was reported from the laboratories at Columbia, Yale, and Princeton, by their respective directors, Cattell, Scripture, and Baldwin, with interesting details of new apparatus. In the afternoon the abundance of material required the operation of two sections, one of which was occupied with a further report of the committee on mental tests, which, it may be remembered, made a preli report last year. Prof. Jastrow of sin, a member of the committee, main paper on the subject, laying dow he considered the requisites of a sche tests which could be made generally available in colleges and normal and high schools. Following him, Prof. Cattell analyzed last year's report with a view to indicating the amount of agreement which existed in regard to the tests proposed; and Prof. Baldwin reported further researches carried on in his laboratory on the methods of investigating and testing memory. On the whole, the afternoon's discussion brought out many interesting aspects of the matter of physical and mental tests. The interest in it may be judged from the facts that the committee was continued, and the Association appropriated $100 to aid the committee in carrying on its investigations. This appropriation is the first in the history of the Association, and indicates both its flourishing financial condition, and the beginning of a policy of lending its aid and encouragement to scientific projects which seem to be for the general good.

The morning of Wednesday was devoted to the address of the President, Prof. Baldwin, and a well-planned discussion on the psychology and anthropology of Invention.

The President's address was on "Selective Thinking," which he defines as "the determination of the stream of thought." His general point of view may be described as a continuation into the sphere of selective thought of the principles of motor accommodation and organic selection worked out in his recent book on 'Mental Development.' The address, which appears in the January issue of the Psychological Review, was distributed the day before, and so came into the discussion on Invention. The discussion proper was opened by Prof. Royce of Harvard with an elaborate paper. He first laid out the topic, indicating its main problems and bearings, and then reported some interesting experiments carried out by him to determine the actual working of the mind in the invention of new varieties of simple hand-drawn figures. This is the first attempt to bring the inventive processes to the test of experiment, and it was generally acknowledged that the speaker made a distinct "lead" which psychologists could take up with profit. The second speaker was Prof. Jastrow, who emphasized the phenomena of variation, and gave hints toward the statistical treatment of the facts of invention. Dr. W. M. Urban of Princeton followed with a special examination of the "Utility-Selection Theory of Mental Development," devoting attention to the recent theory of Dr. Simmel of Berlin and to the President's address. In the general discussion which followed, the anthropological side of invention was well presented by Dr. F. Boas of Columbia and Dr. Magee of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington. Abstracts of the discussion may be found in the Proceedings, to be published in the March number of the Psychological Review, and the principal papers will appear in full in that or a later issue of the same journal. On Wednesday afternoon the Psychologists met with the Affiliated Societies to hear the discussion of the Naturalists on the "Biological Problems of To-day," in which each of the subjects Palæontology, Botany, Anatomy, Psychology, Physiology, Developmental Mechanics, Morphogenesis,

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main problems stated by an expert, e platform of the most recent adThe general result was good, devery uneven character of the adThey varied from the admirable résumés by Morgan and Davenport to the inadequate report by Prof. Wilder of Cornell, who represented the problems of anatomy by presenting his own views of the morphogenesis of the olfactory lobe! Psychology was represented by Prof. Cattell, who hardly took the occasion seriously enough.

On the third day the time-only the forenoon-was given to more philosophical papers which do not lend themselves to brief reporting. The social features were pleasant, including a reception to all the societies, tendered by President Schurman. As to reception and entertainment, the University authorities made admirable arrangements, and much gratitude was felt to the lo al committee, officered by Profs. Gage and Rowlee. The next meeting of the Psychologists is to be with the Naturalists, probably in New York, barring the possibility of a one-day session in Boston in connection with the American Association next summer. The newly elected officers of the Psychological Association are: President, Prof. Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard: Councillors, Profs. Creighton of

Cornell and Delabarre of Brown, and Dr. Kirschmann of Toronto.

Correspondence.

THE SPECIE CIRCULAR.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION

SIR: I am certainly grateful, as I doubt not others will be, to Mr. Catterall for his communication, in No. 1696 of the Nation, in regard to the "alleged specie circular of 1827." I beg to say, however, in reply to Mr. Catterall's remark that if I had looked a little further," I should "have found that the instructions of Rush did not stand alone, but were supported by like instructions, both before and after Rush's incumbency of the Treasury," that I did "look a little further," and had before me the various circulars from which he quotes, and the speeches of Benton and others to which he refers; and that I did not introduce them because they did not appear indispensable to the elucidation of the small point to which my attention had been attracted, namely, the alleged "similarity" of the two circulars of 1827 and 1836. Now that Mr. Catterall has made such interesting and instructive use of this additional material, I am disposed to regret even less that I did not try to use it myself.

WILLIAM MACDONALD. BOWDOIN COLLEGE, December 31, 1897.

PLATO SHELVED.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: There has recently come into my hands an interesting specimen of modern academic eloquence. It is entitled "The Passing of Plato," and purports to be an address delivered at the sixth annual commencement of the Leland Stanford Junior University. The ingenuous youth of that institution of learning are herein given to know that, during the last hundred years, physical science has completely transformed the world and shown mankind that all previous history has been a mistake. This beneficent consummation might have been realized far sooner had not the development of the good genius of humanity been arrested at its birth in Greece some four hundred years before Christ. It was Socrates and Plato who stayed the progress of civilization by introducing the vain distinction between mind and body, and accustoming mankind to the pernicious exercise of "pure thought." To Platonism, the incarnate antithesis of the scientific spirit, is chiefly due the long night of the Middle Ages, broken by a few stray gleams at the Renaissance, but completely dispelled only by the new dawn of physical science in the present century. Pauca tamen suberunt priscae restigia fraudis. Ahriman still lingers in those "Plato-ridden institutions, our elementary and secondary schools. But he will soon be expelled from his last stronghold, and then happiness and science will dawn, though late, upon the earth. Then

shall we abandon the idle distinction of mind and boly: philosophy will give up that solemn bluff, the old education will no longer be defended by "mystic pictures of its fancied relation to an imaginary soul"; the graduate will discard the foolish

millinery of caps and gowns, the undergraduate will study, not for a degree, but from pure love of science, and all will be well in the most scientific of all possible worlds and universities.

All this would be merely funny were it not that it is typical of a style of eloquence and a conception of human progress that threaten to be very potent in moulding opinions and shaping policies. There seems to be no tribunal of educated opinion of which our popular teachers stand in awe when they mount the platform. No peal of Homeric laughter greeted President Andrews's statement that Virgil is an indecent writer, that Plato is a Hobbist, and that John Stuart Mill owed nothing to the classics. And the scientific reputation of the author of this pamphlet will not suffer at all from the unscientific character of the philosophy of history which he has taken at second-hand from Lewes's 'Biographical History of Philosophy' and Lange's 'History of Materialism.' Of what avail is it to tell him and his readers that Plato advocated the endowment of mathematical research, demanded and predicted the application of mathematics to physics and astronomy, and insisted that all leaders of public opinion ought to be trained in the severest science of the age? What heed will they pay to the observation that the Middle Age was not so narrow because it studied Aristotle, but was unable to get beyond an imperfectly understood Aristotle because it was so narrow? How can he feel the absurdity of identifying progress with the "Passing of Plato" if he is not aware of the simple and verifiable fact that the inluence of Plato on the world's best thought and literature during the last fifty years has been greater than at any time except the Renaissance and the age of NeoPlatonism?

The eloquence of this discourse is wasted on a dead issue. Science is anything but a Cinderella or a persecuted martyr at the American university. No humanist now attacks science or, except in casual controversial petulance, says a word in disparagement of "her." One might as well speak disrespectfully of the Equator or run a tilt against the law of gravitation. The question of the next twenty years is not whether physical science shall be cultivated at the university and continue to receive the lion's share of buildings and appropriations. It is, rather, Shall the humanities be cast out altogether as obsolete rubbish in order to secure what our writer calls "the cleanest action" of the educational system? When disheartened as to the issue of this controversy, I sometimes encourage myself with the reflection that the instinct of self-preservation in humanity will never tolerate, as the dominant or exclusive type of modern education, a discipline the final flower and outcome of which is such a rhetoric and such a philosophy of history as we find in this pamphlet. PAUL SHOREY. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, December 29, 1897.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR BY WAY OF LATIN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: May I speak of "the time-problem" in preparation for college, in connection with the ordinary public schools?

In the spring of 1888 a book called a "Language-Book" was in use in our grammarschools, employing a nomenclature in part

translated from the German. A noun was a name-word; an adjective, a quality-word; a verb, an action-word; an adverb, a how, when, or where-word. After one year and two terms spent on this book, a class took up an ordinary grammar, when this clumsy nomenclature, so needlessly sown in their hapless minds, had to be uprooted, and an unusually bright boy said he had not expected to find parsing so difficult. Much of bis trouble undoubtedly came from finding himself obliged to call everything by a new name. Although the book is discarded, the case is still in point, for the boy is now halfway through Harvard College, and I can say definitely where some of his time was wasted. The moral is, that text-books require college supervision from the outset. When scholars arrive in the high school, it is already too late to think of saving time; the time is lost in the grammar school.

Why spend five years in studying English grammar to gain results confessed to be so unsatisfactory? One reason why they are so is, that the work is too advanced for the minds of the children, which would be more fitly employed in acquiring the jingle-jingle of the Latin inflections, leaving the parsing for a later day. When the time for that arrives, the principles of grammar are the same in all languages; while, owing to the lack of inflection in English, it is actually easier in Latin to see how the various parts of speech agree, and to grasp the relations of case.

When the boy of the Middle Ages sat down to study grammar in the monastery schools, he did not study English grammar or German grammar; he went directly to work on Latin. Why cannot the boy of the present day do the same? It would be killing two birds with one stone. He would get no less than he gets now of the English (which is evidently so much dead matter; he does not assimilate it and cannot use it), and he would be laying his Latin foundation instead of leaving that for the high school and an age when he will acquire it less easily, and will be fit for more advanced work. As it is, he has almost nothing to show for five years' work. If he began with Latin, he could not avoid having his inflections, while the age from eight to ten years is of all others the age for learning them-the age at which a jingle-jingle is so readily acquired and so indelibly retained. Five years is the age set for learning to read. Eight should be set for beginning Latin. I have heard complaints from children whose parents' anxiety had not allowed them to learn to read until the age of seven.

The hardpressed boy of the period might with equal reason complain, "Oh, why did you not give me Latin sooner?"

If he spent two years on the inflections, he would be using two years to advantage which are now all but wasted. He should not be expected to parse, as the graduate from the "Language-Book" was. He should learn only the inflections, and he should repeat them orally and write them on the board; for one child takes things in more easily at the ear, and another at the eye. Both should be considered, and the former has been too much disregarded of late with all the mischievous individual writing on paper, which isolates children instead of letting their minds rub one on other. It is the same with spelling. Oral spelling was long forbidden in our schools,

which is one-sided, for the reason above mentioned. Such a fad, going hand in hand with the phonetic system of spelling (that stupendous failure), has produced a generation that cannot spell. Their letters, written in my young days, would have reflected great discredit on the individual; now they simply expose the system.

Educators have yet to learn the currents of that unknown sea, the child's mind. They might very well take a lesson from the great Nansen, the apostle of fitness, and, seeking out those currents, patiently float with them-not impatiently strain athwart them. The grouping of cases in the modern arrangement of the inflection of Latin nouns, for instance, is a snag which interrupts the flow without leaving any permanent trace, for it is a distinct, conscious effort of the mind, and the child will forget it when he would not forget the jingle of the cases in their natural sequence.

HELEN MANSFIELD. GLOUCESTER, MASS., December 27, 1897.

Notes.

"The Sacrament in Song,' a collection of extracts from poems bearing on the Communion, fitted for a Christian daily year-book, with a preface by the Archbishop of York, will shortly be issued by Henry Frowde.

A Genealogy of the Sanborn Family, compiled by V. C. Sanborn of La Grange, Ill., is nearly ready for the printer. It will embrace a chapter, by Mr. Frank B. Sanborn of Concord, on the mode of life and general character of the New Hampshire people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; together with numerous portraits of prominent bearers of the name, and other illustrations.

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'Literary Statesmen and Others,' by Norman Hapgood (Chicago: Herbert S. Stone & Co.), is a collection of essays in literary criticism. The book has nothing to with statesmanship, although there is some allusion to it in the essay on John Morley, and Lord Rosebery and Arthur Balfour are subjected to examination. But this examination relates only to their writings, and in the case of Lord Rosebery it is slight enough. Mr. Balfour is more carefully estimated, and Mr. Morley receives even more critical study. In fact, the essay on Morley is a very clever piece of criticism; discriminating, appreciative, and, on the whole, just. The papers on Stendhal, Mérimée, American Art Criticism, and American Cosmopolitanism, do not impress us; that on Henry James is more substantial. Mr. Hapgood possesses both critical insight and literary skill; but his criticism seems to us to lack unity and continuity. In dealing with particular aspects of style, however, it is often suggestive.

In a privately printed pamphlet, Mr. J. C. Schwab has told in great detail the 'Revolutionary History of Fort Number Eight.' Naturally the attention is concentrated on the military movement, and no attempt has been made to place the fort in its relations with the general plan of campaign, if, indeed, there could be such a plan when Washington could not tell where the next blow would be struck on his force, demoralized by the ill-advised Long Island occupation and subsequent retreat. Fort No. 8 was a redoubt hastily thrown up by the British on what is now the Schwab property to cover

the attack on Fort Washington. It is to be feared that few will agree with the writer's military opinions. To speak of the British army as the best organized and "officered military body ever seen up to that time" is too favorable a judgment; while to "epitomize" Washington's skill as a general by his "ability to run away from the English troops and to escape being drawn into battle except under circumstances more favorable to their side," is too unfavorable to American generals. With a changing and untrained army, or often with only the shadow of an army, it required true generalship to A well-drawn keep any front to the enemy. map accompanies this praiseworthy essay in Revolutionary incident.

'Historic Letters,' from the Wayne and Persifer Smith collections in the State Normal School at Westchester, Pa., opens with a letter from Arnold to Wayne on this capture of Fort Washington, and closes with a letter from Jefferson Davis to General Smith. So long an interval covered in less than forty pages of large type implies that the letters are few in number; the material, however, is good, and well deserves preservation in this neat form. Gates, Irvine, Sullivan, Wayne, and Schuyler are the more important writers. The letter of Irvine tells a gruesome story of the treatment of deserters and those who tempted them. It would form a good text for an Anti-War Society. A portrait of Washington (one of Peale's) and two minor illustrations are given. Mr. G. M. Philips is the editor, and the pamphlet is privately printed.

'Figures Contemporaines,' by Bernard Lazare (Paris: Perrin & Cie.), is one of those collections of newspaper articles to which journalists are becoming decidedly too partial. Newspaper writing seldom has the polish and the literary finish one expects to meet with in critical studies presented to us in book form. But it is not even studies that M. Lazare gives here; it is the sketchiest kind of talk about a number of writers, fifty altogether, who belong to the past and the present, the immediate past and present. He is apparently desirous of distinguishing himself as a frondeur; and while some of the things he says are no doubt true, the general tone of the articles smacks too much of their origin-the columns of a lively newspaper whose business it is above all to be entertaining. Nothing is added to our knowledge of the authors treated of, and something is taken from our enjoyment of them.

The second series of René Doumic's Études sur la Littérature Française' is published by Perrin & Cie. The reproach addressed to Lazare's bookful of emptiness cannot be transferred to M. Doumic's, which offers substantial reading and information well put in literary form. The influence of the great critic who now presides over the fortunes of the Revue des Deux Mondes is visible in the ideas expressed and also in the style, though in neither case does the originality of M. Doumic suffer from the fact. He, too, speaks fearlessly what is in his mind, even if he lacks the force and the authority of M. Brunetière. His articles on Madame Geoffrin and Madame Roland, on Zola, Goncourt, and France, appear to us to merit the praise of outspokenness and justice. He is not blinded by the great reputation of any one of the quintet, and seeks evidently to give what to him is the true view of their merits and demerits. M. Doumic is writing better than he did, and gain

ing something of a charm of manner in his appreciations which considerably heightens their value from the literary point of view.

The perplexing task of critically grouping the productions of recent and contemporary German writers has been remarkably well performed by Adolf Bartels in 'Die Deutsche Dichtung der Gegenwart; die Alten und die Jungen' (Leipzig: Avenarius). The author, himself one of the younger members of the craft, gives evidence of very extensive reading and great independence, originality, and soundness of judgment. It is only by means of such a survey as this that one can realize not only the great literary activity in Germany during the last two generations, but also the goodly proportion of truly superior talents among the large number, not to speak of the two or three geniuses or "partial" geniuses. It should be said that the author's standard is high, notwithstanding the large number of names in the index, and that the 114 octavo pages of text are not an annotated catalogue of names and titles, but a noteworthy essay in literary history and criticism, quite as interesting and valuable as the recent publications of Litzmann, Wolff, and others, which do not cover as wide a field as the present work.

Naturwissen

A rather pragmatical article by Karl Pearson, on the decadence of German science, which appeared some time ago in Nature, and was subsequently the occasion of a sharp polemic, was ostensibly a review of two recent German books, Dreyer's 'Metho denlehre und Erkenntnisskritik,' and Volkmann's 'Grundzüge der schaften,' but the real thesis was "the departing glory of German science." Now it may well be that Dr. Pearson's extended reading justifies his general contention, but it is very unfair to these two books to assume that they would alone justify or even suggest it. Volkmann's at least is a brief, wholly popular, suggestive, and useful book. Written in a minor key, evidently a byproduct of more important work, expressly disclaiming the attempt to make a rigid final system, and in no way characteristic of the ordinary German scientific treatise, it was a very unfortunate selection for so weighty a thesis.

Nansen's fine Norse physiognomy in a vigorous etching forms the frontispiece ornament of the new Minerva, that invaluable bond between the learned institutions of the world (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner; New York: Lemcke & Buechner). The scope is ever expanding, and the present volume takes in for the first time a number of scientific, archæologic, collegiate and bibliothecal institutions in France, Italy, Greece, and India. The precious index of names has been prepared by Dr. F. Mentz, who will hereafter be a regular member of the staff of Minerva.

From Lemcke & Buechner also we receive the handy pocket 'Geschichts-Atlas,' a companion to the 'Atlas Antiquus' issued four years ago by the Gotha firm of Justus Perthes. What is now offered is a chronology of historical events from the Christian era to date, under the respective countries of Europe, with a section allotted to America, not brought down beyond 1865. These tables are followed by maps clearly colored and not too crowded, of which the only American one is of Mexico and the United States. Small as these maps are, every space is utilized for side-maps on a larger

scale, so that the series is pretty rich in geographical information.

Finally, the same German and New York firms bring us the issue for 1898 of the venerable Almanach de Gotha, in which there are many changes and some wholly new features, such as the articles on Abyssinia and the Grand Republic of Central America, and the sections descriptive of those factors of human brotherhood, the international bureaus and unions for various scientific, humane, and statistical objects. Some stress is laid on the extra trouble imposed on the editors by the diplomatic changes attendant upon President McKinley's accession to office; and that potentate might well feel a pang of remorse when he witnesses the magnanimity displayed in coupling his portrait with that of Queen Victoria and of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland.

The Musenalmanach for 1898, edited by Dr. Otto Braun, and published by Cotta in Stuttgart, contains three pieces of prose fiction: "Scharka," by Max Haushofer, "Eigenes Leben," by Ernst Muellenbach, and a most ingenious and entertaining Märchen, entitled "Ben Saccaria's Wunderhorn," by J. R. Haarhans. The contributions in verse are by the best of contemporary German poets, among whom W. Jensen, H. Lingg, Max Jordan, G. Scherer, F. Dahn, G. Ebers, H. Vierordt, A. Matthael, and Agricola von Hörmann may be especially mentioned. There are excellent sonnets by the editor, Otto Braun, and several pungent epigrams by Ludwig Fulda. The volume is neatly printed, and is rendered additionally attractive by six full-page engravings.

Students who are fortunate enough to be familiar with Flemish will welcome the second volume of Dr. Paul Fredericq's 'Geschiedenis der Inquisitie in de Nederlanden,' in which he follows the fortunes of the Netherlandish Inquisition and its victims during the fourteenth century. The period here treated is, perhaps, the most interesting one in the Low Countries, prior to the rise of Protestantism, as it comprises the overthrow of the Templars, the persecution of the Beguines and Begghards, the remarkable developments of the Flagellants and the Dancing Mania, and the various forms of mysticism, more or less moral, in which the boundary line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy was so nebulous that a man like Gerard Groot might either be persecuted himself or be an inquisitor persecuting others. The history is further varied by the competition between the Episcopal and the Papal Inquisitions, and the intervention of the secular power, either to use the Holy Office as its tool or to limit its field of action, as the politics of the moment might suggest. Professor Fredericq's familiarity with the sources, and skill in exposition, are too thoroughly recognized to render it necessary for us to do more than express the regret that he has not chosen to render his labors accessible to a wider circle of readers than will be able to derive benefit from them in the idiom in which they are presented.

The Programme of the Royal Statistical Society, London, for the current session, which opened so strikingly on the 14th of December with President Courtney's inaugural address, is to be followed on the 18th of January by a paper from Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P., who has taken the Colonial Empire under his special care, and will discourse upon the Foreign Trade of the British Colonies. Other subjects to be dealt

with are: "Old Age Pensions," by Sir Henry C. Burdett; "Female Employment in Factories, with special reference to its effects on the health of the employed and of their children," by Miss Clara E. Collet, M.A.; "Further Notes on the Utility of Common Statistics," by Sir Robert Giffen, recently Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trade, now retired on pension; "Local Taxation in London," by G. Laurence Gomme; "Poor Relief in Scotland; its Statistics and Development, 1791 to 1891," by C. S. Loch; and "Life Tables, and the Registrar-General's Mortality Statistics," by A. C. Waters. Contrary to the usual custom of London societies, the statisticians have their meetings first and their dinners afterwards, and very good the latter are, as those who have joined them know.

I. Zangwill, Professor Dowden, Edouard Rod, and Karl Frenzel pay tribute to the memory of Heinrich Heine in Cosmopolis for December. The personality of the poet, the pathos of his life and long agony, the complexity of his character, have proved the most tempting side of the subject to the English and French writers. The veteran writer Karl Frenzel discusses the worth and influence of Heine's poetry, which he is disposed, in a measure, to rank among world literature.

The Scottish Geographical Magazine for December contains a summary of recent investigations of the surface currents of the North Sea, made in order to ascertain their part "in transporting the floating or pelagic eggs and larvæ of marine fishes." Two kinds of floats-bottles and strips of wood-were used, and "the results showed that the bottles were much more reliable than the wooden slips." Among the conclusions reached were, that the circulation was from the north of Scotland southerly to the Wash, and thence northeast along the Danish and Norwegian coasts; that the average daily speed of the movement was about two or three geographical miles, and that the principal cause of the circulation is "probably the influence of the prevailing winds." There is also an account of the climate, products, and industries of Queensland, and a slight sketch of the antiquities and legends of Anaga, a district of the island of Teneriffe.

The latest Bulletin de la Société de Géographie opens with an account of an exploration of the river Kota in the French Congo. One of the greatest obstacles to the progress of the expedition was the frequency of tornadoes, of which there were often two in the course of a day. This is followed by a description of a tour in Cyprus, made for the purpose of observing the traces of the French colonists who followed the Crusaders. Incidentally the author, M. C. Enlart, praises the British rule as a model of administration, and refers especially to the efforts being made to reforest certain districts, by prohibiting the pasturage of goats and the planting of the eucalyptus. In some notes upon districts of the French Ivory Coast, there is an interesting account of the native methods of gold-mining. Shafts are sunk to the depth of from sixty to a hundred and fifty feet, in groups of six or eight, which are joined by tunnels. The blocks of quartz, when detached, are drawn to the surface by ropes made of vines, and are carried to the village. Here they are crushed and washed. In one of the districts a native can, by three or four months of hard labor, make, above his expenses, an ounce

The or an ounce and a half of gold dust. only currency is gold dust, which is valued at three francs the gramme.

The climate of eastern Siberia is the subject of the first article in the Annales de Géographie for November, of which the special purpose is to show its resemblances to and differences from the climate of the North American regions in the same latitude. This is followed by a sketch of Russian explorations in Central Asia from those of Przhevalsky, in 1871, to the present time. Upon an admirable map are traced the routes of thirty-two different expeditions. Among the most interesting of these is that of the Kalmuck lama Baza-Baksha, who, during a three-years' pilgrimage to the Buddhist sanctuaries, visited Lhassa. An account of his travels in Kalmuck, with a Russian translation, has just been published in St. Petersburg, the first book of the kind in that language. There is also a description of the little known district of CaoBang, on the northeastern frontier of Tonkin, which is apparently rich in undeveloped resources. The soil is capable of yielding all tropical productions; valuable trees (as the paper mulberry), bamboo, and aromatic plants grow in great profusion; and on the accompanying map are noted numerous gold and iron mines. The inhabitants consist principally of three native races, differing fundamentally from the Annamese and Chinese, whose attempts at subjugation and assimilation they have successfully resisted. This district is traversed by three great trade routes, leading to important Chinese cities.

The Maryland Geological Survey, recently instituted, and now in charge of Prof. W. B. Clark of Johns Hopkins University, has lately issued its first report, in liberally handsome form and with an abundant supply of useful material. General sketches of the physical and geological features of the State and of their exploration occupy nearly 200 pages; a bibliography covers seventy pages; and a first report upon a magnetic survey, by Prof. Bauer of Chicago University, fills 120 pages. The volume is well illustrated with maps and plates. The appropriateness of an association between geological and magnetic surveys is illustrated in a recent article in the Journal of the Franklin Institution by B. S. Lyman of Philadelphia, who discovers a surprising correspondence between certain slight deflections of the magnetic lines in the eastern part of Pennsylvania and the course of a profound fracture or fault by which the deep underground structures are dislocated. The dislocation occurred so long ago in the earth's history that the surface inequality on its two sides has been obliterated by denudation; the line of the fracture is practically invisible, under the soil, but it is nevertheless located by the discordance of the adjacent rock formations. The fault line and the magnetic deflections were determined independently, and yet present a remarkable accordance. Delicate magnetic observations may therefore come to be applied in future to tracing concealed geological structures.

On retiring from the rectorship of the University of Vienna, October 28, 1897, the distinguished Oriental scholar Prof. Leo Reinisch delivered an address, in which he expressed his warm approval of the lightened policy of that institution in admitting students to its privileges without

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Gustav Kobbé contributes an article on "Every-Day Heroism" which is well worth reading. It is a collection of stories from actual life of heroic self-sacrifice in the performance sometimes of ordinary duty, and sometimes of something very much out of the range of ordinary duty. Heroism from the earliest times has meant a great variety of things, and the heroes of blood and war have had so much space devoted to them that it is no more than fair that the magazines should give some attention now to the heroes of peace, as the Century is doing. Hero-worship is a good cult if the heroes are well chosen; but for an industrial people they ought not to be selected from the annals of rapine and slaughter. In passing, we may suggest as a hint towards the production of another paper in this series, that one of the supreme tests of heroism is endurance not the capacity, fine though it be, to "hold her nozzle agin' the bank" while others look on, nor to perform a single act of glorious self-devotion, but to undergo cheerfully. Christian heroism this used to be called, but the pagans knew something of it, too. Mr. Kobbé is evidently on the right track.

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-The Atlantic for January has a curious article on The Present Scope of Government," by Eugene Wambaugh, in which an attempt is made once more to restate an old problem, that of the true sphere of government." Prof. Wambaugh enumerates what he calls the "enlarged " functions of government, and gives about three pages of them, beginning with the promotion of morality, and ending with the ownership and care of cemeteries. His list might been longer, for there is hardly any department of life into which the government of civilized societies does not introduce regulations of some sort, but the writer seems to be on a false scent. He thinks as soon as government becomes popular, it is immediately guided by an intention to promote the common welfare, and there ceases be any visible reason for "emphasizing the old formula"; the old formula being "the philosophical theory as to the benefits of natural liberty." This is an idea which has been fostered in the past by American politicians and enthusiasts; but we have never seen it seriously advanced before by a serious writer on government, that watchfulness against invasions of liberty ceases to be of importance when the institutions of a country become democratic. When we think of the new Tammany slate, it is amusing to read that "an intention to promote the common welfare is almost invariably the rule with us. A much more accurate proposition is that "the actual scope of government must continue to be the resultant of the interplay of a natural desire for enlargement of governmental functions and an equally natural repugnance to unnecessary enlargement." How much further, however, does this advance us in the inquiry? The essay is clever but vague, owing, as we shrewdly suspect, to a want of clearness on the writer's part as to the true method and limits of political inquiry. Mr. E. M. Shepard has an elaborate article on what might be called Greater Tammany ("Political Inauguration of the Greater New York "), in which he takes a cheerful view of our future. Every one will be glad to know that he is undismayed, but the foundation of his hope is simply the undeniable

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fact that, as we have improved