of a mingling of chemistry, geology, botany, entomology, physiology, bacteriology, and other sciences in so far as they have any bearing upon agriculture. He has aimed in this book to include only the first principles of these various sciences, and to show their application to the art of agriculture. The subject is treated as it relates, consecutively, to the plant, the soil, the crops of the field; the garden, orchard, and vineyard; livestock and dairying; and, under the heading of "other subjects," bees and birds, forestry, roads, and the rural home. The appendix contains lists of trees and of weeds, and an article on spraying mixtures. Questions to be answered by the reader are attached to most of the chapters. The illustrations are well chosen and good.
Considerable information about the Philippine Islands and their inhabitants is given by Dr. D. G. Brinton in a pamphlet entitled The Peoples of the Philippines. Dr. Brinton's point of view is the anthropologist's, and accordingly, after a few paragraphs about the geography, geology, and history of the islands, he takes up their ethnology and describes their various peoples as they have been studied by the masters of the science and by travelers. Much valuable as well as interesting information is given respecting their manners and customs, languages, and literature, for the Tagals have had a written language from the earliest known times, and though their old literature does not amount to much they are to-day exceedingly facile versifiers.
The Open Court Publishing Company (Chicago) publishes The Lectures on Elementary Mathematics (Leçons élémentaires sur les mathématiques) of Joseph Louis Lagrange, "the greatest of modern analysts," in a translation from the new edition of the author's collected works by Thomas J. McCormack. These lectures, which were delivered in 1765 at the École Normale, have never before been published in separate form, except in the first printing in the Journal of the Polytechnic School and in the German. "The originality, elegance, and symmetrical character of these lectures have been pointed out by De Morgan, and notably by Dühring, who places them in the front rank of elementary expositions as an example of their kind. They possess, we might say, a unique character as a reading book in mathematics, and are interwoven with helpful historical and philosophical remarks." They present with great clearness the subjects of arithmetic and its operations, algebra, equations of the third and fourth degrees, the evolution of numerical equations, and the employment of curves in the solution of problems. The translator has prefixed a short biographical sketch of Lapouge, and an excellent portrait is given.
A book of Observation Blanks for Beginners in Mineralogy has been prepared by Herbert E. Austin, as an aid to the laboratory course, and is published by D. C. Heath & Co. (Boston, 30 cents). The laboratory course is intended to make the pupil familiar with the characteristics of minerals and the terms used in describing them by directing him to observe typical specimens and describe what he sees, and to develop his faculties of observation, conception, reasoning, judgment, comparison, and memory. A description is given of apparatus that may be home-made. The blanks follow, containing spaces for the insertion of notes under the heads of Experiment, Observation, Statement, and Conclusion.
In Volume No. XXX of the International Education Series—Pedagogics of the Kindergarten—a number of Froebel's essays relating more especially to the plays and games were printed from the collection made by Wichard Lange. A new volume of the series, Friedrich Froebel's Education by Development, includes another selection from Lange's publication, in which the gifts are more thoroughly discussed. "Again and again, in the various essays," the editor of the series says, "Froebel goes over his theory of the meaning of the ball, the sphere, the cube, and its various subdivisions. The student of Froebel has great advantage, therefore, in reading this volume, inasmuch as Froebel has cast new light on his thought in each separate exposition that he has made. . . . The essays on the training school for kindergartners and the method of introducing children's gardens into the kindergarten are very suggestive and useful. In fact, there is no other kindergarten literature that is quite equal in
