which has previously appeared in this way. The greatly added interest and pleasure which the merest smattering of natural history gives to out-of-door rambling is not generally appreciated, and if Mr. Ingersoll's book has no other result than that of pointing the way for some amateur scientists into a field of almost inexhaustible variety and beauty it will amply justify itself. There are nine special animals and their families described, the first place being given to the squirrels. The puma or American panther, under the title of The Father of Game, is given a long chapter. An exceedingly interesting but somewhat unusual section in such a book is entitled The Service of Tails, and describes the various useful purposes served by this appendage. Among the forms discussed perhaps the most curious is that of the opossum, which serves both as a "hand rail for the young family" and as a fifth limb for the mother. Another strangely useful tail is that of the king crab or horseshoe. It is used as a pry or lever, and seems quite essential to the preservation of the life of its owner. The hound of the plains, or American prairie wolf, is described in the fourth chapter. Other animals taken up are the badger, porcupines, the skunk, "calmly considered," woodchucks, and "coons." The sketches consist mainly of descriptions of appearance, habits, and food, with whatever of anecdote or fable the author may have found clustering about the animals among the Indians or elsewhere. The illustrations are fairly good.
Mrs. Frank's adaptation of Hauschmann's Origin and Development of the Kindergarten System[1] is not strictly a translation, but rather an account of the contents of the book, with such omissions, curtailings, and transpositions as seemed necessary to render the material practically useful to kindergarten students and others interested in the training of young children. Her work has been done under the impression that no other book in kindergarten literature presents so complete an account of the progress and development of Froebel's educational thought. "It shows what kind of a man Froebel was, and how he came to elaborate his system, and is made the medium for tracing the growth and development of the Froebel idea from its very beginnings down to the establishment of the first kindergarten." The translation has been made with Mr. Hauschmann's permission, and he has assented to the changes the translator has thought it proper to make. The curtailments consist chiefly in making as short as possible the account of certain periods in Froebel's life already in the hands of the English reader, and in summarizing some of the passages.
It does not take the serious student of French literature long to learn that it is very large and various. Much of it is also very brilliant. Each of the periods, from the middle ages down, into which criticism classifies it offers its store of books, than which no other literature exhibits a fuller one, and is distinct in its characteristics; while in every department, except poetry, it possesses works which are not excelled. A suitable and well-adapted presentation of the subject, such as Mr. Dowden[2] gives us, can not fail, therefore, to be a valuable and in every way desirable addition to the library of manuals. For making such a presentation the author confesses to having the most essential qualification—love of the subject. Thorough acquaintance with the whole of it he can not have, for that is beyond the power of any one man, and he especially observes that the latest attempt at its full presentation is the combined work of specialists, of whom there is one for each chapter. He, too, has had his collaborators, "the ablest and most learned students of French literature," who have written each a part of the book; but he has consulted them, not in the flesh, but on the shelves of his library. Five periods are recognized, with subordinate classifications by forms, etc.—the middle ages, of which the amount of production that has survived is astonishing; the sixteenth century, the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century, and the period from 1789 to
- ↑ The Kindergarten System: Its Origin and Development, as seen in the Life of Friedrich Froebel. Translated and adapted from the Works of Alexander Bruno Hauschmann for the Use of English Kindergarten Students. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.; Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 253. Price, $2.
- ↑ A History of French Literature. By Edward Dowden. New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Literatures of the World Series.) Pp. 444.
