and of similar passages in other writings, while the remaining chapter takes up the difference between natural morality and the religious systems of ethics. The author's estimate of Christianity is as follows: "The Eastern world was fortunate in possessing many great moral and religious teachers; and it was out of their doctrines, ever increasing in perfection as time went on, that was gradually and naturally built up the most complete and beautiful religion of all. Hence (we may say) it was necessary that, in the process of evolution, this development should be reached, and that Christianity should come: yet this is no reason why we need hesitate to add—but blessed be he through whom it came." Moreover, he considers that the evidence brought forward tends to show "that much of Christ's doctrine was necessarily of only temporary and local value; but that the Church has greatly hindered the progress of knowledge and scientific morality by insisting that her founder's teaching is final on all points," and "that science is now proving the origin and nature of man to be entirely different to those assumed by religious teachers, and thereby contradicting much that is essential to their doctrines."
Eve's Daughters; or, Common Sense for Maid, Wife, and Mother. By Marion Harland. New York: John R. Anderson and Henry S. Allen. Pp. 454. $2.
A book of sound principles on the instruction and training of girls and women with reference to the principal function of their life. That it has met a large demand and approval by the public is attested by the fact that it is now in its twentieth thousand. The subject of the book is the training and treatment of woman, in respect chiefly to her physical well-being and moral culture, in every age and condition of life—as an infant, as a girl at play, as a school-girl, "young lady," wife, and mother. The infant is commended to the mother's personal nursing and care, and to an enlightened régime, in order to give which the mother must seek the necessary knowledge. For the girl are claimed the freedom of action that will secure to her the best development, and the instruction and the sincerity of instruction that will best help her to make herself a true and sound woman. As the school-life period approaches, and the critical period of the woman's life with it, more attention is required to secure a proper development of the physical and mental functions than even in infancy, and the subject receives a correspondingly greater particularity of treatment. The calling of the woman to be a housekeeper and the trainer of a new family and the bearing of her education to those ends are given their proper prominence. We have also chapters on what women who have grown up to be young ladies should do for their mothers, on dress, on the cure of gossip, on the period of marriage and the duties of the expectant mother. The book is a woman's book on a woman's subject, in which the plainest truths are presented in the most forcible manner, yet with the most fully refined delicacy; and it is a book that will help women, and in helping them will help the human race.
Legal Provisions respecting the Examination and Licensing of Teachers. Washington: Government Printing-office. Pp. 46.
This pamphlet, published by the Bureau of Education as one of its "Circulars of Information," gives summaries of the rules prevailing in the several States for ascertaining the qualifications of teachers preparatory to giving them licenses. While the Commissioner of Education has no desire to call undue attention to examinations, and deprecates the cramming and the danger of making them an end in education which it is likely to induce, he hopes to secure a good purpose by showing how it has seemed best to the people of the different States to determine whether the teacher has the qualifications required; for which no better general way seems to have been found than some system of examination.
Bacteria and the Germ Theory of Disease. By Dr. H. Gradle, Professor of Physiology, Chicago Medical College. Chicago:' W. T. Keener. Pp. 216. Price, $2.
Since this book consists of medical lectures, the treatment of the subject is naturally technical rather than popular. It is a presentation of the results so far attained in researches as to the nature of germs, and their action as agents of disease.
