Reform in the West, the burden of which is the installation of science and the elimination of all religious teaching in all the schools. (The Commonwealth Company, Boston.)
The character of the Essays included by Mr. Henry Smith under the general title of Religion of the Brain is indicated by the frontispiece, which pictures an ivy-grown tree with the motto, "The Ivy has nearly killed the tree. Theology has all but destroyed religion. Science will kill Theology, then Religion will revive." Submitting to theological teachings during half of his life, he professes to have found them barren. Then he turned to science, and, while it took from him the hope of heaven, it taught him how to make this life happy; it took from him theology, and gave him natural religion. He sets forth in this book how he accepts the teaching of science and declines that of theology. (Watts & Co., London. Price, 2s. 6d.)
Karl Heinzen the author of a volume on The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations, published by Benjamin R. Tucker, Boston, is described by Karl Schmemann, editor of this present edition, as "one of the most enlightened and humanitarian spirits of our time, whose libertarian and reformatory labors were not limited to his German fatherland and our republic, but extended to the entire civilized world by their unique and masterful many-sidedness." The author advocates, with great freedom and little reserve, the complete emancipation and independence of woman, with "liberty to choose her companion and liberty to change."
Instead of a Book is published by the author, Benjamin R. Tucker, because, he says, he was "too busy to write one"; that is, to give orderly arrangement, finish, symmetry, and due subordination to his thoughts on the cause he champions. He has been for twelve years editor of a journal called Liberty, in which he has expounded the principles of "Philosophical Anarchism." Pending the arrival of the man having time, means, and ability to produce the book that is desired in maintenance of this cause, he has put forth "as a makeshift" a partial collection of his writings for his journal. The volume opens with a paper on State Socialism and Anarchism, which represents, in a way, a summary of the entire scope of the work. In the sections, or groups of essays following this, the fundamental principles of human association (as he regards them) are dealt with; applied to the two great economic factors, money and land; the "authoritarian social principles that go counter to them" are dealt with; and the methods by which the championed principles can be realized are discussed. Other articles, less subject to classification, follow. While the work is highly objectionable from the conservative point of view, it is not at all wanting in vigor and earnestness. ($1.)
In preparing his Standard Arithmetic for schools and academies, President William J. Milne of the Normal College at Albany, has aimed to secure together in the student skill in numerical computations and a proper understanding of the reasons for the steps in the explanation of processes and the solution of problems. Either can be acquired without the other, but the student will not then be a full arithmetician, while with both he is qualified for any work. The book, therefore, contains examples to promote accuracy and rapidity, and exercises to train the analytical powers and develop the reasoning faculties. Business methods of computation are preferred to the processes of the schools. (American Book Company.)
Mr. R. Lachlan's Elementary Treatise on Modern Pure Geometry, and the Elementary Treatise on Pure Geometry of Mr. J. W. Russell, cover substantially the same ground in very similar manners. Pure geometry is defined in the new regulations for the Cambridge Tripos as "namely, Euclid; simple properties of lines and circles; inversion; the elementary properties of conic sections treated geometrically, not excluding the method of projections; reciprocation; harmonic properties; curvature." Mr. Lachlan has brought together in his treatise all the important propositions—bearing on the simple properties of lines and circles—that might fairly be considered within the limits of this regulation; and has at the same time endeavored to treat every branch of the subject as completely as possible, in order to attract a larger number of students to the science. Mr. Russell has attempted in his treatise to bring together all the well-known theorems and examples connected with harmonies, anharmonies, involution, projection (including
