FOREIGN AND DOMINION NOTES. FRANCE. That observant France deplores the moral state of France in general is abundantly plain, and how the Sexual Education. cancer of immorality affects the nation is set forth in such books as that of M. Paul Bureau on the "Indiscipline des mœurs." It is relevant to the low birth rate, and the low birth rate is relevant to the policy of France with regard to Germany. What can the school do in a matter so important? In the Revue Pédagogique (xxxii. 1) M. C. Chabot writes on "L'enseignement sexuel"; we look to his article for a light on French opinion. Both sexes are concerned. In France, as in England, there is a certain revolt of the women apparent. Whereas Christianity imposes chastity on men and women alike, and that too in the marriage relation, in modern theories there is a hesitancy between morality and naturalism, and practically a license is conceded to men which is denied to women, as if impulses pronounced irresistible in the one sex were controllable in the other. The women claim the same moral standard for themselves as that by which men are measured. To stay the general corruption we must look to education-to education not merely in hygiene as prophylactic of disease, but in sexual laws and sexual morality; we must teach that 'la débauche est une perte considérable de force sociale et une déchéance personnelle; elle est la négation de l'amour aussi bien que de la dignité." It is the prevailing opinion that, instead of leaving a child to flounder in ignorance to discovery, the genDifficulties of the Teacher. erative process should be revealed to him calmly and objectively. But the teacher who relies on this form of education by instruction will necessarily fail. It rests on a psychology too purely intellectual; the most terrible, the most brutal, of instincts cannot be subdued and disciplined by mere knowledge, nor is the most learned scientist the least prone to sexual indulgence. Again, if the teacher is to deal with his pupils by classes, since the time of ripeness varies, he will mostly come either too soon or too late with his revelations come so soon that he is charged with tainting the innocent, - or so late that the mischief to be prevented is already done. No one, says M. Chabot, can individualize "sexual instruction, and choose the moment for it, so well as the parent, who in the intimacy of family life gains the confidence of his child. Sexual enlightenment is the province of the parent. But the teachers can reinforce the instruction Obligation on the Parent; Help and Stimulus from the Teacher. with moral influence. Ils peuvent occasionnellement en telles ou telles leçons, dans une classe qu'ils ont bien en main et aux moments où elle se livre, toucher à ces questions avec le sérieux et la gravité familière qu'elles comportent; l'effet de quelques paroles heureuses, d'un mot, d'une attitude, d'une réponse brève, peut-être considérable." And the life and the home of the teacher, exemplifying purity and Above sweet domesticity, may be auxiliaries of great worth. all, the teacher can impress on parents the duty incumbent on them and guide them to the fulfilment of it. In fine, M. Chabot lays down that sexual transgressions are to be checked not by a mere knowledge of the dangers they involve, but by a rich moralizing influence of school and home. His article seems to us worth reading as indicative of a revulsion from the crudely materialistic views hitherto dominant in France with such fatal effect. The sexual relation, we have continually pleaded, must be studied with reverence, and explained with a delicacy that does not destroy for man the mysterious charm of the woman. of Nations. If the League of Nations did not exist it would be yearned for; existing, its utility should be emphaThe League sized and its powers invoked. The French university group affiliated to the Fédération Française des Associations pour la Société des Nations has issued an eloquent appeal on its behalf. What, it is asked, is the Société des Nations ? The only organization capable of realizing the ideal of Peace, of establishing justice and solidarity among the peoples of the earth. Why has it not justified legitimate hopes? Because its authors have feared to give it the needed force, and governments too rarely have recourse to it, whilst the public lack interest in its work. Students, who can awaken interest and who will dominate the future, must make it their duty to créer dans tous les foyers d'enseignement des centres d'action et de documentation. English universities would be acting opportunely if they followed this French lead. France has been celebrating another centenary, that of Ernest Renan, born at Tréguier (Côtes du Ernest Renan. Nord), February 27, 1823, and the celebration is the more honourable to the dead man in that when alive he never flattered her. It is sixty years since he published his "Vie de Jésus," execrated once for its destructiveness, but living always by virtue of its beauty. Renan, for all his learning (although his scholarship has been attacked), was as strangely employed in the grim business of criticism as Shelley would have been in investigating the universe by crushing specimens of rock; the creative poet in him was stronger than the analyst, and to sceptical minds it seemed that, with his double aim, to discover the truth and make it live," he accomplished nothing but the substitution of one fiction for another. At least it was a merit of his fiercely denounced book that in it he sought what was venerable, with a soul capable of veneration. Outside the field of religious history he is memorable for the impulse that he gave in France to Semitic studies, and it was his Histoire générale et système comparé des Langues Sémitiques that earned for him membership of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres at the early age of thirty-six. What he held and taught about education is set forth in a recent article (L'École et la Vie, vi. 23), having the superscription "Ernest Renan et l'Éducation rationnelle." condition primordiale d'une éducation sérieuse," he said, "est la subordination du matériel au spirituel "; and with him the sphere of education was no less than the whole sphere of philosophy. "He pleaded persistently," as an English writer tells, "for a reform of the higher and highest education of France, for more freedom in its organization, more elasticity in its methods." Yet it is not as a critic, as a scholar, as a promoter of education, but as an exquisite literary artist that Ernest Renan survives. The best of what he wrote is fixed everlastingly among the glories of French literature. About Universities. UNITED STATES. " " "La It cost 6,045,071 dollars to maintain Harvard University last year, and there was a deficit-Harvard believes in a good working deficit "-of 77,536 dollars. The endowment fund of the University was increased 4,500,000 dollars during the year, to a total of 53,000,000 dollars. Columbia reports very large enrolments at Teachers College and in the School of Practical Arts. The connexion, drawn steadily closer, between the university and practical life is as noteworthy in the United States as in England. Thus Princeton is establishing a library of industrial relations "-enabled to do so by a gift of 60,000 dollars from John D. Rockefeller, jun. ; whilst the University of Chicago publishes a University Journal of Business, to stimulate intellectual activity in commercial institutions. The encouragement of research in agriculture is another subject of concern in the United States, since for two decades of years food production has not kept pace with the growth of the population. In New York a novel function has been assigned to the university. By a new State law it is laid down that no person shall become entitled to vote unless such person is able to read and write English," and the Board of Regency in the University of the State of New York has been empowered to issue certificates of literacy and to examine for them. We confess to hankering after some educational test as preliminary to the exercise of the franchise. Teaching English. " " In America continued and increased attention is given to the teaching of English. An article in the Educational Review (lxv. 2) recommends the "direct method as the best mode of teaching English whether to the children of foreigners or to those born of Englishspeaking parents. Again, teachers of English are gaining a new sense of solidarity. Various State Associations of English Teachers, such as those of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa are working vigorously with conferences and publications. From the Wisconsin Association we have received English Notes, a brightly written little journal upholding, among other things, that " 'social teaching of composition with which the name of Mr. Sterling A. Leonard is honourably associated. to the Tenth Soviet Congress, showed in it that the number of elementary schools had sunk from 82,000 in 1921 to 55,000 in October, 1922-8,000 fewer than in 1911. Every Russian child was promised a place in the school; the actual attendance was found to be but 38 per cent of the children of school age, that is to say, not more than eleven years old. In the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm a number of higher educational institutions (called in German Hochschulen) sprang into existence; the Report told of 49 closed, and 24 amalgamated with others. As to the teachers, the conditions in which they lived were described as appalling; for they received but 12 per cent of an estimated minimum living wage, so that many were forsaking the school to escape starvation. Whilst it had been proposed to abolish all school fees, the Soviet Congress decided to allow the imposition of them, at least as a temporary measure; and indeed thirty-one provincial Governments had already reverted to the system of payment. Private schools, the nurseries of a privileged class, the Congress refused to tolerate. SLOVAKIA. A recent article in the Prager Presse by the Minister for Slovakia, Dr. Joseph Kallay, exhibits the Some Statistics of Progress. progress made in the country since it won independence in union with the CzechoSlovakian Republic. As to education, it appears that in the four years that have elapsed from the time when the new State was founded, the Czecho-Slovak Government has reorganized entirely some 800 national schools and provided them with no fewer than 1,000 additional teachers; whilst it has established or reconstituted about a hundred elementary municipal schools and equipped eighty-five of them with teachers. Yet there is a shortage of teachers, although the number of students attending at Teachers' Training Colleges increased in 1921-22 to 1,757, from 1,432 in the preceding year. Noteworthy is the advance made in respect of municipal schools, the school population of which grew from 5,602 in 1918 to 27,253 in 1922. Of these schools thirty-three could be reopened only by the immediate dispatch to Slovakia of more than 300 men teachers. There are now forty-five such schools, the language of instruction in thirtyfive being Slovak, in eight Hungarian, and in two German, whilst eight have parallel classes for Germans and Hungarians. The number of scholars attending at secondary schools was 12,490 in 1920-21, and 14,211 in 1921-22. According to nationality of the scholars 8,404 were Czecho-Slovaks, 1,179 Germans, 3,831 Hungarians, and 722 Jews. The increase in numbers is due to a large enrolment of Slovak pupils, necessitating the formation of thirty new parallel classes. There is also a rush to technical schools, inadequately accommodated as these are. At the Bratislava University Bratislava is now a flourishing port-the number of students has grown in an encouraging way, though here, too, the lack of accommodation, particularly in the Faculties of Arts and Medicine, is little less than a calamity. Of the State in general, the Minister says that in four years of freedom Slovakia has rid herself of the fetters that bound her to Hungary and consolidated herself firmly as an integral part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. A Triumph for Afrikaans. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. South Africa is to be, like Mr. Lloyd George, bilingual; and one of the languages that it will speak is English. What shall be the other? The Education Gazette seems to supply an answer to the question. It has hitherto been published in English and Nederlands. But lately the Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie took a vote on the subject, and established to the satisfaction of the Education Department that the majority of its members would prefer Afrikaans. Accordingly, Afrikaans will henceforth take the place of Nederlands in the Gazette. EDUCATION AND CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS. IT By G. M. SARGEAUNT. T seems a thankless thing to say that Oxford and Cambridge are killing the Classics as a mode of humane education. Of course they are not doing so in the literal sense, for it is largely the number of classical scholarships which those Universities offer for competition that keeps a certain number of boys as specialists in Classics in the big schools. And yet by a curious irony it is the peculiar nature of the proficiency demanded in these scholarship examinations that does much to choke off many boys from continuing the Classics after reaching a fifth form standard, and to kill interest in those who still continue them without having much chance of reaching scholarship standard; and it seems possible that even the scholars themselves are not always improved by the large proportion of dust mingled in their intellectual meat and drink during their last years at school. The higher classical work in schools is regulated almost entirely by the papers set in the scholarship examination. Greek and Latin as true educational subjects groan under the burden of composition. In the scholarship examinations there are generally eight papers, four compositions, two unprepared translation papers, a general paper and an essay. Latin and Greek verse composition is becoming more and more neglected; at Cambridge a subject for Latin or Greek essay is set as an alternative, which is not really much improvement upon verse composition. At Oxford there is in general no alternative, but good verse composition carries considerable weight. The gradual passing away of verse writing is little to be regretted, but prose composition maintains its traditional prestige. The exact mental value of composition has never been stated in such a way as to remove all doubt that the same mental benefits might not be produced by methods not quite so parching. Successful composition depends largely on assimilative and imitative faculties of the mind. The assimilative power must be possessed by any one who wishes to distinguish himself intellectually, but it is not exclusively produced and developed by the practice of composition. The imitative faculty is probably a gift, and not a very high one. The final delicacies of composition depend on this gift of imitative and refined parody; the taste of the examiner has to be titillated by a suggestion of the original authors, some hint, for instance, in elegiacs of Ovid's "Ludit et in pratis luxuriatque pecus," orSemibovemque virum semivirumque bovem." Prose composition also depends, though not so mockingly, on this gift of cultured reminiscence. But the chief burden of prose composition is the necessity of reading models for style. Oxford practically always sets an oratorical piece, Cambridge sometimes offers a piece of historical narrative, but anyhow the chief models must be Cicero and Demosthenes. If any good result is to be shown in composition, a great deal of time must be given by scholarship candidates to these authors during the last year at least before their examination. The diet is inhuman. The intellectual content of the speeches to be read is trifling. Demosthenes inspires a certain amount of moral enthusiasm and patriotic energy into his utterances, but most of the time spent on learning composition from him would be much more wisely employed in learning something of the great Macedonian age, to which he prevents access as long as boys are to be compelled to listen to him trying to make the dry bones of the fourth century city state live again with his "resistless eloquence' that "Shook the Arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece." The appreciation of eloquence as a form of art is most How difficult, even after considerable literary training. few people study our own classical orators! The ephemeral element in it, though touched by genius, makes it a most frigid and austere pleasure, far beyond the powers or the inclinations of boys who are only just beginning to have a literary sense and are more eager to realize the development of life in history and the vital movements of thought. And when they have won their scholarships, they still have to pursue this ignis fatuus until Moderations or Part one of the Classical Tripos, or a successful rendering of some very purple patch of flamboyant oratory in a university scholarship, closes the tale of the many hours spent on this humane learning. It would not be overestimating the time spent at school on reading or composing oratorical prose in both languages to four hours a week during the last year or two years of preparation. I should say this is a very moderate estimate. During terms when Cicero or Demosthenes are read as school books it must be considerably increased. Composition cannot be neglected because of the place it holds in the examinations. Therefore other authors and subjects which might be included in the programme have to be curtailed or omitted. At Oxford it is said that one sound paper has a good chance of obtaining recognition; but one cannot on that account risk too low a standard in composition, nor can form teaching be conducted if the various members of the form are specializing in particular sub-divisions of the general subject. The speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero are no real education for a boy at that age. If composition must be kept, why not demand an "historical style"? That would at least set Thucydides free for more frequent use, as well as Livy and Tacitus ; and Livy would become a much more profitable author if he could be read largely and swiftly. Herodotus would be spared the stigma of dialect and Plutarch the reproach of lacking the classical style. History both in the original texts and in selected parts of standard modern historians would be good not only for the scholar, but for the ordinary boy, who cares enough for literature and reading in general, to wish to stop on what is still the most literary side of a school. Nor is there any reason why certain periods of modern history should not be taken with ancient history, dwelling on the social and political aspects of the epoch and the conceptions of progress that show themselves in the ancient and modern world. The reduction, or the limitation of style, in composition would also afford an opportunity of reading a little more Plato than is usually possible at schools; not the difficult dialogues, nor such a work as the Republic, which is possibly best left until it can be read right through, but many of the shorter or earlier writings and such an admirable introduction to political theory as the third Book of the Laws, which can well be read by itself, and the very simple and noble prelude to the fifth Book. And from the Ethics of Aristotle the character studies in the third and fourth Books are quite within the grasp of intelligent boys. This extension of range would do so much for the ordinary classical boy who is going to the university without a scholarship, and still more for the boy who is not going to the university, but who still exists in small numbers, which might be increased, if only something more attractive than an eternal round of compositions and unseens and uninteresting authors lay before him, when he has to decide which way he shall go at the end of his "middle years." Nor can examiners declare that without compositions they could not test the merits or differentiate sufficiently between boys. Any one who has corrected papers of unseen translation knows that there are few quicker and better tests of ability. It would be easy to have one or two more unseen papers of a harder standard than those now set so as to ensure that authors should be read carefully as well as widely. And it would still be possible to exercise the test without falling back on passages from Apollonius Rhodius and the Latin Epics of the Silver Age. This tendency of examiners always ends by making those authors into scholarship class-books, while the more valuable authors have to be neglected. The final classical school at Oxford is called Litterae Humaniores, and there is no doubt that it is an excellent school for humanizing, widening, and sharpening the intellect. But why should this process be held back so long? Why should Classics, which certainly can be both a humanizing and a sharpening power in their more elementary parts, be deprived so largely of this faculty in the interests of the pure scholar? By rigid adherence to the educational system of those ages when ability to speak and write Latin was essential to a man of culture, we have produced the type of pure scholar and his system of rewards in university scholarships and medals for all kinds of composition; but he will cease to exist when the nature of the scholarship and prize examinations is changed, and I do not think universities or nations will be any the worse without him. And he need not be swept away; let him begin his career as a "pure scholar" at the university, if he wishes and feels his strength lies in that direction. There is no real need for the refined iron of composition to enter his soul before he leaves school. He must of course learn grammar and accuracy of method at quite an early stage. That is an absolute essential as an intellectual discipline and for the appreciation of language as literature. It can always be tested and exacted in translation. At present the position of Classics in the big schools is not satisfactory; there is perhaps a slight tendency to increase in numbers, but the appearance of prosperity is probably artificial, arising from the hope of getting monetary assistance from scholarships at the universities. There may be a stronger return to the classical side when it is found that science cannot provide all her “ votaries with a substantial living, but the prospect is not really encouraging, because it is so clear that in spite of all university reforms in these matters the real difficulty has not been touched. Books of apologetics on behalf of classical studies appear from time to time, mostly written by university teachers, who want to save the situation but persist in decorating their house in the style of the sixteenth century and demand the appropriate costume from those who would enter. What is not a narrow form of education has acquired a specialized form and is becoming a prey of specialists. When the remains of classical antiquity were discovered in the fifteenth century, men felt the breath of a new life passing through them, strengthening their physical no less than their mental powers. A life free from the arbitrary prescriptions of state and church was revealed to them. The position in the twentieth century is not very different. There has been an immense growth in the consciousness of the possibilities of life; the assistance that education can give in the direction of this force is very considerable. Apart from practical aims, what should be really valuable to those who have received any form of higher education is a disposition to be interested in life beyond their own bodily satisfaction, to realize that there are problems to be solved and positions to be thought out for oneself instead of accepting a ready-made cure of journalistic prescription. Position and means should bring within the reach of such people the possibility not only of a sound development of their brain capacity, but of a general preparation for life beyond the conventional ideal of good work and good play. The Greeks approached the problems of life presented in their simplest forms; they infused their own vital interest in life into their literature and art, and it is the presence of this spirit in their remains that gives them a tonic power in more complicated ages. This is admitted in the various defences of a classical education. Those therefore whom chance or taste has embarked on the Classics ought to be given something more satisfying and lasting than the husks of a pure style from the literature, art and thought of a people who were so intensely practical and centred all their art and literature on the forms of life. An experience of that civilization at its best will not give any magic word to solve our problems, but an open and interested attitude to life, and a belief that it is a necessary part of man's nature to develop and use his thinking powers in the cause of human progress and not to devote the whole of his powers to the earning of money. The greatness of Athens was a combination of the practical and ideal; and the value of a classical education depends on how much of that spirit can be absorbed and remain permanently in the mind. Rome is great in other ways and her influence has come to us through other channels as well as literature; but the practical educational value of those two civilizations is still far from being properly utilized under the present system of classical scholarship. The opponents of that system often jest about the dead languages and ask: Why search for the living among the dead?" If they would consider a little more carefully the literature of those languages, they might ask with much justice : Why hide the living behind the dead?" That seems to be what the cult of classical composition in scholarship examinations is doing at the present time. " REVIEWS. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH AND EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION. The Life and Work of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth. By F. SMITH. With an Introduction by Sir MICHAEL SADLER and a Chapter by Lord SHUTTLEWORTH. (18s. net. Murray.) It is a true instinct which has led various training college authorities in this country to prescribe the history of education in England during the nineteenth century as a regular portion of the student's curriculum. Whether a person will be interested in the history of education in remoter periods will depend much on his interest in history generally. But a teacher can hardly fail to derive both pleasure and profit from the study of a period which saw the evolution of the whole of our elementary school system, and of much of our secondary school and university system. Mr. Frank Smith's extensive study of Kay-Shuttleworth is the latest, and we think one of the most important, contributions to that part of the literature of the subject which helps to an understanding of the development in our midst of the elementary school. To some readers Mr. Smith may seem hardly justified in writing so big a book about a man so little known to fame. But the closer student of the period will not agree with that opinion. For it was the firm grip, the clear vision, the unfailing courage, and the moral earnestness of Kay-Shuttleworth, first secretary of the old Education Department, which gave both form and substance to the enlightened policy of that Department in the years that preceded the famous, or infamous, Revised Code. When Kay-Shuttleworth came into office the monitorial system still held sway in the State-aided schools, and he was one of the few who saw through its ridiculous pretensions. He saw that if public money was to be spent on education at all, a good deal of it must be spent upon producing more efficient teachers, and that only so was the best progress possible. He took the only course that lay open to him at a time when secondary schools conceived on modern lines did not exist, and when modern universities were yet to be. He established the pupil-teacher system, the sinews of English primary education," as M. Arnold afterwards called it, and he developed those residential training colleges which were solely responsible for the preparation of the primary teacher until the universities were ready to join in the work. And after he had relinquished office he displayed prophetic insight in his denunciations of Lowe's plan of " payment by results." During the past five and twenty years our progress in education has in its essential features been a gradual return to the methods and ideals of Kay-Shuttleworth, with the difference of course that later administrators have had better materials at hand upon which to work. To have created the pupil-teacher system and to have developed the training colleges was the very best that could have been done in the 1840's, and it was Kay-Shuttleworth who did it. So enlightened a man would almost certainly have joined in the subsequent undoing of the pupil-teacher plan, if he could have lived to see the modern State-aided secondary school. Mr. Smith has sifted his materials thoroughly, and has elaborated them with praiseworthy literary skill. Sir Michael Sadler's introduction and Lord Shuttleworth's concluding chapter enhance the value of what will probably remain as the definitive biography of a very remarkable man. GENERAL SCIENCE TEACHING. The Teaching of General Science. By Prof. W. L. EIKENBERRY. ($2. University of Chicago Press.) Never before, we are told in the preface to this book, has there been so insistent a demand for a more thorough and comprehensive system of instruction in practical science. Three kinds of books are proposed by the "projectors "—(1) source books, (2) pupils' texts, (3) books on the teaching of the various science subjects. The volume under consideration belongs to the third class, which is larger in the United States than in England. It is an attempt to show the character of the general science movement, its connexion with the past, and its relation to the present and the future. At the end of each chapter is a bibliography, and at the end of the book fifteen pages are devoted to a list of titles of the periodical literature of general science. In the body of the book itself will be found many tables giving statistics of the percentages of pages devoted to the different branches of science in various text-books, and of the groups of topics selected by their authors. The psychology of various methods, the problem method, the project method, the aims and the organization of the subject are discussed, and the book concludes with a chapter on the qualifications and training of the general science teacher. It may possibly be an advantage to British science masters to know that there are six educational functions, each of them developing a specific type of conduct-control, and three educational aims, viz.: social-civic, economicvocational, and individualistic-avocational; that an act of thought proceeds in five distinct stages; and that a project is a "whole-hearted purposeful activity proceeding in a social environment." They cannot fail to be impressed by the formidable list of books published in the U.S.A. dealing with general science in all its aspects, or to be astonished by the statement in the author's preface that the great masters of popular scientific exposition of the past century-Tyndal, Farraday, and others have left few followers." It cannot be from want of trying, and if the numerous authors followed these masters far enough to find the correct spelling of their names, they might go on to try not to be dull. WORLD HISTORY. A Short History of the World. By H. G. Wells. The organization of the instruction in history is, we believe, one of the most vulnerable points in the school system of this country. Again and again we have met young people who have "done" the Tudor Period or the Stuart Period, one such period perhaps twice or thrice, but who have the haziest notions of what went before and what came after, even within the limits of English history, and hardly any notions at all, except what are sometimes picked up in Bible lessons, about history in its broadest sense. We certainly have no wish to imitate the German plan of prescribing syllabuses by authoritative decree, but we do wish that some general understanding could be arrived at as to what history should ordinarily be taught year by year in schools of different types; and in particular we wish that teachers of history could approximate to an agreement as to the relative places of general outlines and special periods. For any sort of training in historical method, the special period, based partly upon contemporary documents, is of course essential. But the vast majority of intelligent people need above all, for the sake of their outlook upon life, the kind of history which consists of interesting information, well written and well illustrated, concerning man's general fortunes on this earth. Meantime it looks as though, just as it was reserved for the Chief Scout to show teachers more clearly how to get at the real boy and to understand him, so it is left for a distinguished layman, in this case Mr. H. G. Wells, to force to the front, and to help in the solution of, one of the gravest problems of school instruction. We do not mean that his "Short History of the World" can be used as a school-book. It is intended rather for the general reader who was probably brought up on short periods of insular history, and who wishes to extend and arrange his" fragmentary conceptions of the great adventure of mankind." All the same, the book is significant for the school, because it will help teachers to see what place can and ought to be given in their schemes to general history. The book before us is not an abstract or condensation of the author's more colossal “Outline of History," but is an independent work, written for a different purpose, though serving as an introduction to the fuller and more explicit Outline" for the reader who desires to proceed thereto. It is a fine thing to have the courage of one's convictions, and it did need courage to attempt to give in one volume an idea of our present knowledge of history, from "the dark backward and abysm of time" before man appeared on the earth, right down to the Great War and its terrible consequences. That the book is clearly and vigorously written, that it reads like literature, and that its varying style is in subtle sympathy with its varying theme-all this is what we should naturally have expected. Experts may differ as to Mr. Wells's selection of material. All we can say is that we envy the younger generation of the present time their opportunity of gaining a broad grasp of man's story. Their task will be lightened by the ample illustrations with which the book is provided, and they will thank the printers and publishers for their share in its production. MINOR NOTICES AND BOOKS OF THE MONTH. ART. Architectural Student's Handbook: A Guide to the Profession of Architecture. By F. R. YERBURY. Second Edition. (7s. 6d. net. Technical Journals, Ltd.) BIOGRAPHY. Tennyson: Aspects of His Life, Character and Poetry By H. NICOLSON. (12s. 6d. net. Constable.) CLASSICS. Early Latin Verse. By Prof. W. M. LINDSAY. (28s. net. Clarendon Press.) Prof. The object of this book is to determine Plautus' and Terence's (and presumably Cicero's) intonation of the sentence. Lindsay has published it in the hope that it will clear away a great deal of rubbish which has been piled, both by English and by Continental scholars, upon the subject of Plautine prosody. After this book we shall certainly hear no more of the metrical rule of brevis brevians! Prof. Lindsay's sanity and common sense may well be illustrated by his treatment of the shortening of a normally long vowel. It is refreshing after the polysyllabic inanities of German phoneticians to read (p. 73): Our readers need not be startled by this phonetic mystery. Let them ask themselves why sheep' takes a short vowel in shepherd,' know in knowledge,' goose' in gosling,' goshawk,' and apply the same explanation to si and siquidem." A like sanity pervades the whole book and, in fact, preserves its laborious and careful scholarship from becoming mere dry-asdust erudition. Apart from some valuable appendices, the volume consists of four main chapters which deal respectively with the Saturnian metre, Plautus and Menander, hiatus, and early Latin metres. Needless to say, it is a work which supersedes all others on the subject, and its findings will have to be taken into account by all future editors of Plautus. T. Lucreti Cari. De Rerum Natura. Liber Primus. Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Index, by J. D. Duff. (4s. Cambridge University Press.) A new edition of the first book of Lucretius-in many ways the finest book-was certainly needed, for much has been done, during the half century since Munro's third edition, for the interpretation of the poem. The present modest little volume has a very full commentary (nearly 100 pp.), but it chiefly deserves a word of praise for the excellent appreciation of Lucretius and his work given within twelve pages of the introduction. Cornelii Taciti. De Vita Agricolae. Edited by H. FURNEAUX. Second Edition, Revised and Largely Re-written by J. G. C. ANDERSON. With Contributions by the late Prof. F. Haverfield. (7s. 6d. net. Clarendon Press.) This is an important historical edition supplementing the work of Furneaux (first published in 1898, when, as Mr. Anderson remarks," the use of the spade had hardly begun ") by the wealth of evidence which the progress of archaeological inquiry has brought us. In it is incorporated much of the work of the greatest authority upon Roman Britain-the late Prof. Haverfield, and both introduction and commentary are profusely illustrated with photographs, maps, and diagrams. All students of Roman Britain will be very grateful to Mr. Anderson for giving them in such a handy volume a scholarly and trustworthy summary of the great amount of work which has been done in their field since 1898. Macrobius: Or Philosphy, Science and Letters in the Year 400. By T. WHITTAKER. (ás. 6d. net. Cambridge University Press.) By Our Debt to Greece and Rome. Latin Prose Rhythm: A New Method of Investigation. H. D. BROADHEAD. (15S. Deighton & Bell.) Horace and His Influence. By Prof. G. SHOWERMAN. (5s. net. Harrap.) Euripides. The Medea. Partly in the Original and Partly in Translation. With Notes and Introduction by F. L. Lucas. (3s. 6d. net. Clarendon Press.) ECONOMICS. Finance. By A. R. PALMER. Vol. I.-Banking, Stockbroking, These two volumes conclude the series of Bell's Handbooks of Commerce and Finance. Vol. I gives a strictly practical explanation of the technical operations of the money and stock markets, suitable for the advanced commercial student, together with over four hundred questions and examples. The author has spared no pains to make the book clear and serviceable, and the diagrams, facsimiles, and typography in general are Vol. II deals almost entirely with mathematical excellent. processes. The Substance of Economics: For the Student and the General Reader. By H. A. SILVERMAN. (6s. net. Pitman.) N. It would not be far wrong to describe this concise and yet reasonably exhaustive text-book as a miniature encyclopædia of economics. It is hardly suitable for continuous reading, as the author has confined himself, wherever possible, to a brief enumeration of salient points, and has made extensive use of classifications, headed paragraphs, and typographical devices that facilitate study. But to the student, and perhaps even more to the teacher preparing a lesson, it will be of great value. Banking and Currency. By W. J. WESTON. University Tutorial Press.) (5s. 6d. There is a rambling diffuseness about this book which detracts seriously from its value to the examination candidates for whom it is primarily intended, being based on the syllabus of the |