annually to the principal, the remainder being expended for books and improvements. Other reversionary legacies, and the increase of the original legacy, will eventually swell the gift to $100,000, after which three-fourths of the income is to be applied to the circulating department of the library. The bequest is so made as to relieve the city from all expense relative to the library. Worcester Spy. From the Annual Catalogue of Amherst College, which we have just received, we find that it has the present year a total of 203 undergraduates. The "First Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students and Programme of the Course of Instruction of the School of the Mass. Institute of Technology, 1865-6," contains the names of seventy-two students. We propose in a future number, to take advantage of our own connection with this new scientific school, to give some account of its organization and objects. The following is a list of its Officers of Instruction, so far as they have been appointed: Wm. B. Rogers, L. L. D., President; John D. Runkle, A. M., Professor of Mathematics and Analytic Mechanics; Wm. B. Rogers, Professor of Physics and Geology; Frank H. Storer, S. B., Professor of General and Industrial Chemistry; Charles W. Eliot, A. M., Professor of Analytical Chemistry and Metallurgy ; Wm. P. Atkinson, A. M., Professor of the English Language and Literature; Ferdinand Bocher, Professor of Modern Languages; John B. Henck, A. M., Professor of Civil and Topographical Engineering; Wm. Watson, Ph. D., Professor of Descriptive Geometry and Mechanical Engineering; Wm. R. Ware, S. B., Professor of Architecture; James D. Hague, Professor of Mining Engineering. We shall be happy to send the catalogue to ony one desiring further informa tion. BOOK NOTICES. A Handbook of Latin Poetry, containing selections from Ovid, Virgil, and Horace; with Notes and Grammatical References. By J. H. HANSON, Principal of the Classical Institute, Waterville, Me., and W. J. ROLFE, Master of the High School, Cambridge, Mass. Boston: Crosby & Ainsworth, 1865. 12mo. pp. vi. and 776. This is a very handsome school-book, and one which we should think would be sure to be as popular with our classical teachers as we believe the companion volume of Latin prose has already become. We are glad to see in it the wearisome last six books of the Eneid omitted, and selections from Ovid and Horace substituted in their stead. We trust that no difficulty will be encountered in making this change in our classical schools, from the fact that IIorace is an author read in college, and not at present in the list of those required for admission. It seems to us an excellent plan to introduce the student to some of his difficulties and peculiarities by careful school instruction. No teacher is fully qualified to criticise such a book as this without having first gone over it with a class of pupils; but we can say this after a cursory examination, that both in the formation of their text, and in the selection of their notes, the editors have followed the very best and latest authorities, and seem to have done their work with discretion and good judgment. We are glad to see the excellence of Prof. Harkness' admirable Latin Grammar recognized by its being referred to first by the letters Gr., as emphatically the grammar to be consulted. The quantity of verse contained in the volume has been measured by the requisites laid down for admission to Harvard and our other principal colleges. We cannot help saying in this connection, that we think the quantity, both of verse and prose, altogether too large, and expressing our very decided opinion, the result of not a little experience, that a higher standard of scholarship would be reached if this quantity were diminished and a higher standard of accuracy demanded in regard to what remains. We are glad to find ourselves supported in this view by so eminent an authority as Dr. Taylor of Andover. We entirely agree with the following extract from his remarks at the late meeting of the American Institute of Instruction, except so far as regards an actual increase in the amount of Latin and Greek required for admission to college, which we should strongly deprecate: "A special difficulty," says Dr. Taylor, "in the way of critical classical study in the elementary course is found in the amount which the requirements of the colleges make it necessary for the scholar to go over before his admission. In the time usually devoted to preparation for college, the amount is much greater than can possibly be studied with success and profit. It is not implied by this that the actual requirements are too great - I could wish they were increased, if the increase could be in the right direction it is only meant that, in the time allotted, very few can study as it ought to be studied what is required. This I believe to be the experience of the best teachers. The feeling, therefore, becomes too prevalent with the pupil that there is so much to be read, while the true object of the reading is often lost sight of. Such is the importance which I attach to this subject, that if this were an association of classical teachers, I would move that the consideration of it be laid before the Faculties of the New-England Colleges, with the request that some modification be made in the requirements, either by diminishing the mere numerical amount, so that what is to be done may be and must be done with a much greater degree of thoroughness, or at least by making it an essential condition of admission, that, in addition to the present requirement, the candidate be obliged to sustain an examination of the most critical character on two orations in Cicero, and on one Book in the Anabasis, the examination to involve a thorough acquaintance with all forms, idioms, constructions, and all other topics properly belonging to the portions named. Either of these modifications will at once indicate to the pupil that he has much to attend to besides the mere reading of his authors and a general knowledge of syntax, and will give a new and much-needed incentive to thorough classical study in the preparatory schools." We heartily commend the beautiful volume of Messrs. Hanson and Rolfe to the attention of our classical teachers.—[ED. The Sunday-school Teacher, a monthly magazine, devoted to the interests of Sunday schools, No. 1, Jan. 1866. Chicago: Adams, Blackmer, & Lyon. A new magazine of 32 pages, of very neat appearance. The present number, besides reading matter, has a map of the Bible lands, and a page of music. Questions on the Principles of Arithmetic, designed to indicate an outline of study, to incite among pupils a spirit of independent inquiry, and especially to facilitate a thorough system of reviews; adapted to any text-book, and to all grades of learners. By JAMES S. EATON, M.A. 12mo. pp. 47. Boston: Taggard & Thompson, 1866. We heartily recommend this little work to the attention of teachers. The name of its lamented author is a sufficient guarantee of its quality, and no object can be so important in the teaching of mathematics as the substitution of a clear comprehension of principles for a dull, mechanical rote-method of " ciphering." HOOKER'S CHILD'S BOOK OF COMMON THINGS. For the use of primary schools. New edition. New Haven H. C. Peck, 1866. THE CHILD'S BOOK OF NATURE. Part I., Plants. Part II., Animals. Part By the same author, HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. Designed for colleges and the higher classes in schools, and for general reading. 12mo. pp. xi. and 454. Sheldon & Co., New York, 1865. We believe this is the most complete series of school-books on natural and physical science published in this country. Dr. Hooker is doing brave service in a department which, of all others, most needs it. We have long been satisfied that the foundation of the instruction in our public schools should not be literature, but science; and science not merely abstract and theoretical, but practically applied to meet the common, every-day wants of the people. We have recently spoken somewhat at large on this subject, and find ourselves in singular agreement with Dr. Hooker.* We cannot do better here than give the following excellent statement of his plan and object from his own preface. With his views on the importance, and on the right method of teaching physical science, we most heartily agree. "The natural sciences should be made prominent from the beginning to the end, [of school education,] not only because they are of practical value, but also because they are as useful in their way for mental discipline as the study of mathematics and of language. They can be taught to some little extent to the * Dynamic and Mechanic Teaching: a lecture read before the American Institute of Instruction, and printed in its volume for 1865, and separately. Cambridge: Sever & Francis. youngest pupils. There are facts about air, water, and the various objects that they see around them, which they can understand if they be presented in the right manner. And the busy inquiries which they make after the reasons of the facts, and their appreciation of them if stated simply and without technical terms, show the appropriateness of such teaching. Children are really very good philosophers in their way. They have great activity not only of their perceptive but of their reasoning faculties also, to which due range should be given in their education. Beginning thus, not a year should pass during the whole course when the pupil shall not be engaged in studying some one of the physical sciences to some extent. This continued attention to such studies in a reasonable amount, so far from interfering with the due prosecution of the other studies deemed so essential, will so promote the pupil's advance in them as to more than make up for the time that is taken from them. It will do this not only by the genial influence which such studies exert upon the mind, but by the contributions which they make to the knowledge of language and mathematics; for language is largely built up from natural objects and from the acquisitions of science, and there is an abundance of interesting applications of portions of the mathematics in the facts which the physical sciences develop to us. I have said that the teaching of the natural sciences in our colleges is generally a failure, and it always will be so as long as the present plan is continued. In order to have it successful there must be the same gradation in teaching them that we have in teaching language and the mathematics. The college student needs to be prepared for the lectures which he hears on natural philosophy, chemistry, etc., and for his study of those branches, by previous familiarity with the simpler portions of them acquired in the school-room. There is another very important reason for the early introduction of the physical sciences into education. By far the larger portion of pupils in our schools stop short of the college, or even the academy and high school. That they should go forth into the world with no knowledge of the principles that lie at the basis of the arts in which so many of them are to engage is a shame and a wrong, if the communication of such knowledge be indeed practicable, as it undoubtedly is. Even those who are not to engage in these arts will be greatly benefited by this knowledge, because in addition to its constant practical applications in the management of life, it will contribute to their mental power, and, what is no small consideration, to their enjoyment; and it is in fact requisite to constitute them well-informed persons. If the views which I have presented be correct, there should be a series of books on the natural sciences carefully adapted to the different periods of the course of study. Those intended for the young beginner should be exceedingly simple, and should not attempt to present anything like a full view of the subjects treated. They should deal largely with familiar facts or phenomena. The terminology of science and formal statements of principles, such as we often see in so-called compendiums, should have no place in them, but should be gradually introduced as the series advances, and should be made complete only in the concluding books." We have never used Dr. Hooker's books in the school-room, and cannot, therefore, speak of their merits in detail, but we should judge, from a cursory examination, that he has an excellent faculty for bringing down the truths of science to the level of a child's comprehension, and of describing scientific facts in plain and familiar language, a gift not so common as might at first appear. We feel very sure that public sentiment will demand continually, more and more, the introduction of this simple elementary teaching of the great laws of the physical world into our primary and grammar schools, that even the children who carry their education no farther, may learn the rudiments of what will be so useful in after life, and may have a curiosity aroused, which, long after schooldays are over, they will contrive to find means in this country of cheap books, and the universal diffusion of information, to satisfy.-[ED. MARIA STUART EIN TRAUERSPIEL VON FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER: Mária Stuart, a Tragedy, by Frederick von Schiller, the original German-text, with an Introduction and Notes for translation into English. By Dr. ADOLPHUS BERNAYS. Annotated German Text-books; German series, vol. 10, 12mo. pp. 175. Boston, De Vries, Ibarra & Co. A very elegant edition of one of the best and most interesting of all pieces for the beginner in the German language, who has mastered its elementary difficulties. Spite of Mr. Froude, the fortunes and fate of Mary Stuart, as depicted by the great German dramatist, will continue to draw tears from many eyes, and advocates enough will still be found to side with all good Scotchmen in her defence. No modern language presents such claims upon a teacher's attention as the German. Not only does the study of it, from its close relationship to our mother tongue, throw great light upon the English language, but, not to speak of its wealth in every other department, Germany possesses the best, almost the only educational literature extant. The acquisition of a tolerably good knowledge of the language is not, with all the modern helps at our command, a matter of such difficulty as, from the forbidding aspect of German types, would at first sight appear. Messrs. De Vries, Ibarra & Co. are to be commended for their enterprise in bringing out these manuals in such a beautiful style.—[ED. MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. By EDWARD BUCK, of the Suffolk Bar. 12mo., pp. viii. and 310. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. "In this volume," says the author, in his preface, "I have attempted to collect and arrange, in convenient form, for reference, The Ecclesiastical Laws of Massachusetts, which lie scattered in profusion among the Statutes and Reports of the Commonwealth. . . . . Something has been done towards tracing our present ecclesiastical laws and usages to English sources. . . . The reader will trace with satisfaction, the manner by which painful decisions of courts have led to a complete separation between Church and State." No higher guarantee of the accuracy of the work can be had, than the fact that it was read in manuscript to and approved by the late Chief Justice Shaw. The work is handsomely printed, has a copious Index, and a list, filling nine pages, of cases cited. We should think it would be a valuable addition to a legal or a parish library. |