European Schools. By L. R. Klemm, Ph. D. International Education Series, Vol. XII. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 419. Price, $2.
Rarely has a book for teachers appeared containing so much that can be used in the school-room. It is not a ponderous and repulsive budget of statistics of school attendance, examination marks, illiteracy, etc., with courses of study and descriptions of departmental machinery. It is an account of the notable features observed during a trip of nearly a year among the educational institutions of the continent of Europe, or, as the author describes it in his sub-title, "what I saw in the schools of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland." The first device described in the book is an expedient which was employed by a teacher in Hamburg, and is called by the author "a master stroke." A stupid boy could not see that the difference between plus six and minus ten is sixteen. The master explained the problem and illustrated it with marbles, but in vain. Finally, he cast his eyes about the room, and they fell upon the thermometer. In a moment he had this before the pupil's eyes, and readily made him comprehend that the difference between 6 above zero and 10 below zero is 16. A box of movable letters, a board with a slit in it through which letters making words are shown, a scheme for ventilation, a mode of teaching home geography, and a sketch of an efficient city school system, follow within the compass of a few pages. Methods of teaching drawing in different schools are described in several parts of the volume, and singing, knowledge of nature, mensuration, and language are only a few of the subjects dealt with. A notable section is that devoted to "a separate school for dullards," an idea which started in Rhenish Prussia at Elberfeld and has spread to other cities. This is not a school for idiots, but is intended for those unfortunate children whose dullness acts as a drag on their classes and brings ridicule and discouragement upon themselves. Here they receive patient instruction, and learn much more than they could in schools adapted to brighter pupils, while the latter are freed from impediments to their progress. The account of girls' industrial education at Cologne, comprising knitting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving, sewing, lace-making, cutting out garments, mending and patching, and accompanied by drawing, will be found interesting and suggestive. It is impossible to mention here all the subjects touched upon in this book; they cover a wide range, and each is presented in sufficient detail to give a definite idea of the method employed. The style of the book is clear and enthusiastic; the language is simple and, in humorous passages, even colloquial. It is a very readable volume one which the teacher can take up at odd moments even when tired, and study without a sense of laboring. A notable feature of it is its abundance of illustrations, there being five hundred and twenty-three figures showing drawing models and outlines, articles used in teaching, plans of school-buildings, maps made in teaching local geography, articles and patterns made in manual training schools, etc., etc.
The Journal or Physiology. Vol. X. Edited by Michael Foster, M. D., F. R. S. Cambridge (Eng.): Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company. Pp. 576. Thirty-three Plates. Price, $5 a volume.
There are two papers in this volume on "The Regulation of Respiration," by Henry Head. The first details experiments made to ascertain the effects on breathing produced by dividing the vagi, by altering the volume of the lungs, by artificial respiration, and other means. Many observations were also made on the forms which the apnœa pause produced by artificial respiration assumes under various conditions. Nine plates of curve tracings accompany this paper. The theoretical conclusions from these experiments are embodied in the second paper. C. A. MacMunn contributes an account of experiments from which he infers that "bilirubin and biliverdin are produced in the liver mainly from effete hæmoglobin; these are acted on in the small intestine by the digestive and putrefactive ferments, and some, at least, changed into simple metabolites like the urobilin-like substance of bile." Stereobilin, formed in the intestines from derivatives of bile and haematin, may be taken up and excreted in the urine as pathological urobilin. Some "Observations on Human Bile obtained from a Case of Biliary Fistula," by S. M. Copeman and W. B. Win-
