tical teacher. The first essay, "Scientific Culture," and the eleventh, "Scientific Culture; its Spirit, its Aims, and its Methods," present directly the predominant idea of the book; but the various other papers present the view taken in an instructive and impressive manner. The several biographical articles are of extreme interest in illustrating the mental training and development of scientific men; while the papers on the Greek question are designed to meet immediate issues in relation to collegiate reform. The article on "The Elementary Teaching of Physical Science" is of especial value, for, although Professor Cooke has not devoted himself practically to this field of work, his statement of the scientific principles it involves is forcible and timely.
But, while the volume is full of sound suggestions on the general subject of science-teaching, yet its leading title, "Scientific Culture," embodies the fundamental conception which it is designed to bring out; and this is nothing less than an unqualified avowal of the extremest claim put forth in behalf of science as a new educational basis. The adherents of the old traditional system of scholarship are ready enough to admit that there is a certain usefulness and importance in scientific studies, which entitle them to a place in the collegiate curriculum; but they strenuously resist the idea that science is to give rise to a new "culture." Here they make a stand, and here the battle of progressive education is to be fought, with heavy odds, it must be confessed, against the reformers. For "culture" has come to be a very potent word, representing, as it does, all that is most excellent, dignified, and revered in a system of education that has prevailed for centuries in the leading civilized countries. In fact, the chief capital of the classical party to-day, in their struggle against the new education, is the powerful spell of a single term, which has come mainly to imply a critical knowledge of the dead languages, because, by all our scholastic traditions, no man can lay claim to "culture" who is not familiar with Latin and Greek. The term has no doubt become widened in recent times, so as to embrace other languages and the general subject of literature, but the party of tradition is sharply jealous of any extension of it that will make the term "culture" applicable to proficiency in distinctively modern studies.
Professor Cooke takes no narrow view of his subject. He concedes the value of that genuine mental culture, whatever the instruments employed to attain it, which confers intellectual power by the vigorous and systematic exercise of the intellectual faculties; and he recognizes that this may be secured by the thorough study of languages, and the literatures they contain. He draws a distinction between erudition and scholarship, the former implying the simple accumulation of stores of learning, and the latter a discipline of the intellect and an enlargement of mental power through the process of independent inquiry. The same thing holds in science. The cramming of books—the erudition of science—is of but little worth; while the independent exercise of the mind upon the problems of science—the assimilation of acquisitions into a real knowledge—is the true scholarship of science, and the highest form of mental cultivation. Professor Cooke shows conclusively that the "culture" of science is a broader conception, and involves a more varied and a completer mental training, than can be obtained from the exclusive study of language and of literature, because science has for its object the study of nature, and the whole scheme of phenomena and law in the midst of which human life is carried on.
The Religious Aspect of Philosophy: A Critique of the Bases of Conduct and of Faith. By Josiah Royce, Ph. D., Instructor in Philosophy in Harvard College. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 484. Price, $2.
If the test of a system of philosophy is, as Ferrier says, that it must be "reasoned," then is Dr. Royce's work entitled to this rank, for it is undoubtedly an ably "reasoned" system. He has written an independent and suggestive book, lively and vigorous in style, and which is certain to be appreciated by those who have a taste for metaphysical inquiries.
In his preface the author describes the work better than we can: "This book sketches the basis of a system of philosophy, while applying the principles of this sys-
