Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/440

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420
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the United States Bureau of Education as one of its "Circulars of Information," among which it forms one of a series of "Contributions to American Educational History," under the editorial direction of Herbert B. Adams. In this essay, as Commissioner Dawson remarks, the writer has traced the genesis and development of education in North Carolina from the first settlement of that State to the present time; and for that purpose has examined the colonial records, the early laws of the State, works in pubic libraries, and private collections and personal correspondence, by the aid of which he has made a very satisfactory presentment of the story. While the history of primary and secondary instruction has not been neglected, the higher education has been principally treated in the sketch. The influence of certain classes of immigration and of institutions outside of the State is shown. Facts concerning noted educators are brought out. A full account of the University of North Carolina and of its influence on the South is given. In the picture of the present status of education in the State, we have been particularly interested in the story of what has been achieved since the war, and with the accounts of education among the colored people. One flourishing institution, Livingstone College, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, is wholly the product of their effort. The views of buildings, which are prominent in the volume, help illustrate how fast a hold the architectural idea still keeps in education.

Another of the Educational Bureau's circulars comprises a paper on Industrial Education in the South, by the Rev. A. D. Mayo. A general discussion of the conditions of American and Southern life leads to a consideration of the need of industrial training to improve those conditions, not only in the shops and on the farms, but in the home too; and to a review of the provisions that have been made to furnish such training. These seem to be good, so far as they have been made, to be distributed with fair evenness among the States, and to be afforded in such institutions as Tulane University and Washington University on a liberal and efficient scale.

Included in the Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, at its meeting in Washington in February, 1888, are papers and discussions on "Manual Training in the Public Schools," "County Institutes," "Elocution," "Qualifications of Teachers," "Normal Schools," "Moral Training," "Can School Programmes be shortened and enriched?" "Alaska," the relations of "Superintendents and Teachers," and "National Aid to Education."

The Massachusetts Society for promoting Good Citizenship (Boston) issues as its first "Circular of Information" a report of the Committee upon Courses of Reading and Study on Works on Civil Government. The report contains a list of text-books recommended for schools, each accompanied by a descriptive and critical note, showing the scope and value of the book; a list of other text-books, with notes; a list of brief commentaries and similar books recommended; and a list of less valuable or more bulky commentaries and books of reference.

The fifth of the "Monographs" of the Industrial Education Association consists of a study, in the history of pedagogy, of Aspects of Education, by Mr. Oscar Browning. The author reviews the various shapes in which interest in education has manifested itself since the middle ages, with the factors which have influenced or worked to change them—ending with the present aspect, which he seems to regard as largely the following of Dr. Arnold's labors at Rugby School,

Hints for Teachers of Physiology, by H. P. Bowditch, M. D. (D. C. Heath & Co.), is No. 14 of the Boston Society of Natural History's "Guides for Science-Teaching." It furnishes suggestions for supplementing the instructions of the text-books by means of simple observations and experiments on living bodies or on organic material, for which teachers will need no other apparatus than is within their easy reach. Price, 25 cents.

The Training of Nurses, an address before the Michigan State Board of Charities and Correction, by Dr. Hal C. Wyman, gives a clear picture of what the ideal nurse should be, and of the manner in which she should perform the duties of her office.

The Seaside and Wayside series of readers, by Julia McNair Wright, has reached its third number (Heath, 55 cents). The present volume is similar in character to the