side, and does not make the mistake of pinning his faith exclusively to one while sneering at the other. He begins by describing "the nervous mechanism at the disposal of the mind," for he regards an elementary knowledge of the action of brain and nerves as a necessary groundwork for the pupil's images of mental action. He then takes up the faculties of mind in succession—consciousness, presentation, representation, imagination, thought, emotion, and will. The several ideas that he sets forth under each subject are contained in distinct paragraphs, each with its own heading.
The scope of the book includes applied as well as pure science. The consideration of each of the faculties above mentioned is followed by a chapter or part of a chapter on the cultivation of that faculty. "Laws are of little use," Mr. Halleck believes, "unless they are applied; hence these chapters are of the utmost importance to all who have not passed the plastic age." He aims not only to show his pupils how the mind acts, but to aid them in making their own minds act more efficiently. The volume is indexed, and the chapter on the nervous system is illustrated with several well-executed wood-cuts.
There can hardly be a volume in the Library of Useful Stories that will touch everyday life more closely than The Story of a Piece of Coal does.[1] In telling this story the author has so mingled scientific, technological, and general information about a familiar substance as to produce a remarkably readable little book one that is instructive without being oppressively learned. He begins with an outline of what has been learned about the formation of coal from plants, and then tells how the coal beds lie among other rocks and what sort of animal remains are found between them. In the next chapter he shows the relationship between peat, lignite, bituminous and anthracite coals, graphite, and the diamond. Passing to the industrial side of his subject, Mr. Martin describes the coal mine and its dangers, the making of gas, and the preparation of those many valuable products derived from what was formerly the waste of the gas works. The derivatives of petroleum, which is closely related to coal, are also dealt with. How long the coal supply of the world is likely to last is a question that has been anxiously asked, and we find some interesting computations of the time in a chapter describing the distribution of the deposits. The closing chapter is devoted to the coal-tar colors, which were briefly referred to earlier in the volume. The thirty-eight illustrations show many of the plants and animals of the coal formations, and some of the structures and apparatus used in mining and gas-making.
President Jordan, of Leland Stanford Junior University, has collected into a volume[2] seventeen addresses relating to higher education which were delivered at college commencements and on other occasions. Several of them have already appeared in print in this magazine and other periodicals. In his address to the class of 1895 of Stanford University, which gives the title to the volume. President Jordan declares emphatically in favor of individual education. "A misfit education," he says, "is no education at all." A training that enables each man to give play to his strength is the best safeguard against the seeming predominance of the weak and ignorant in democracies. Among the subjects whose broad aspects are presented in one or another of these addresses are The Nation's Need of Men, The Higher Education of Women, The Training of the Physician, and The Practical Education. We find in these pages stimulating and luminous thoughts following each other in rapid succession. Thus in one place Dr. Jordan says, after giving words of encouragement to the poor student: "It is not poverty that helps a man. . . . It is the effort by which he throws off the yoke of poverty that enlarges the powers." In another place he warns against mistaking the cant of investigation" for the true thing. As to a young man's chance for a career, he affirms: "If he can do well something which needs doing, his place in the world will always be ready for him." To
