Arithmetic so widely suceessful. The fundamental idea is that the imaging of magnitudes is indispensable for successful work in arithmetic by children. Mr. Hall says: "When the pupil is required to solve consecutively a large number of problems in which the magnitudes are similarly related. he quickly falls into the habit of leaving the magnitudes out of his thot, and turns his entire attention to the mechanical process. But when the problems are unlike, that is, when the magnitude relations are constantly shifting, he must imagine magnitude or fail." Hence the operations begin with small numbers of sense magnitudes. The grading is based mainly on increase in the variety of magnitudes and the size of the numbers employed. The pupil is made familiar with the terms peculiar to mathematics by their use rather than by definition. Concrete problems are furnished in abundance. The paging arrangement is like that in the Werner Arithmetics, divided into ten page groups distributed among seven topics. The merit of the plans seems established by the success of the other series, and many teachers will welcome this briefer course on the same plan.

-ADVANCED LESSONS IN HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE, by Winfred E. Baldwin, (400 pp.; 80c. Werner School Book Co.), deals with physiology as a preparation for understanding the laws of health. The various subjects are so developed as to lead on connectedly from one to another. Pupils are encouraged to form conclusions of their own, to which they are guided by practical questions following each chapter. Part two, about one-fourth of the book is devoted entirely to hygiene. The treatment is clear, and as untechnical as possible, and the illustrations are numerous and excellent. Proper attention is given to stimulants and narcotics.

Miscellaneous.

—LABORATORY MANUAL, experiments to illustrate the elementary principles of chemistry, by H. W. Hillyer, (200 pp.: 90c., The Macmillan Co., N. Y.), has been prepared for the use of college students, part one for beginners and part two for students with some laboratory training who may take this in place of the work offered in part one. -PRACTICAL PHYSICAL EXERCISES, for public and private schools, by Louis Lepper and William H. Wiley, (120 pp.; Soc. Inland Publishing Co., Terre Haute, Ind.), presents calesthenics and wand exercises arranged in series for the grades of the elementary schools, given to music, with full instructions for the management of the work. The book is practical, simple, beautifully printed and fully illustrated an excellent manual.

It con

-ARTS FOR AMERICA is the interesting monthly publication of the Central Art Association of America. tains in every number several attractive full page illustrations, articles upon the history and theory of art, studies, art notes, etc. The movement which it represents is an important one, which has already attained a remarkable growth, and promises to do much for the development of art and a taste for art in the northwest. The monthly is sent for the low price of two dollars per year. Address, Arts Publishing Co., Fine Arts Building, Chicago, Ills.

-ART STUDY PICTURES, is a semi-monthly publication consisting of ten reproductions from famous art works for the use of clubs and schools. The pictures are 71⁄2 x 91⁄2 inches, and very excellent. The number for July 15th is before us and contains eight pictures from Julien Dupre. Haymakers' Rest, Milking Time, The Escaped Cow, Cows at Milking Time, The Cow, Tossing the Hay, Haymaking, Haying Time, and also Vuillefroy's Return of the Herd, and Lerolle's Shepherdess. The price places them within the reach of all, and their value for the school is apparent. 935 Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Ills.

LITERARY ITEMS.

-The publishers of the Atlantic Monthly announce that Mr. Walter H. Page has resigned editorship of that periodical to accept a prominent post in the direction of the literay work of the allied houses of Harper & Bros. and the Doubleday & McClure Co. His successor in the editorship of the Atlantic is Mr. Bliss Perry, known as the author of two novels and a number of essays and stories.

-One of the interesting developments of the year is the announcement by Harper & Brothers that the price of Harper's Magazine will be reduced to twenty-five cents a number, or three dollars a year. The improvements in printing, paper making, and above all, in picture making have so reduced expenses of publication of late as to make the change of price possible. The success of the various cheap monthlies may also have something to do with the policy.

-What has been done of late in the educational world in the way of advance, and what lines the immediate future advance is to take, are two cognate and related subjects treated in the Educational Number of The Outlook (August Magazine Number), by two of the foremost educators and writers on educational topics-Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia, and President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University. The two articles form a memorable and unusual contribution to the literature of American education. ($3.00 a year. The Outlook Company, New York.)

-Appleton Morgan concludes his examination of the last five years of legislation against drunkenness in the September number of Appleton's Popular Science Monthly. He shows that, despite the various laws which have been tried in nearly every state of the Union, drunkenness still persists, and if not increasing is at any rate not diminishing. He believes that the most satisfactory arrangement yet devised is that of a high license, with local option.

-"Moulds, Mildews and Mushrooms" is the alliterative title of a guide to the systematic study of the fungi and mycetozoa and their literature by Prof. Lucien Marcus Under wood of Columbia, author of "Our Native Ferns and their Allies," to be issued shortly by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. They also announce for immediate issue Kingsley's "Book of Vertebrate Zoology," by Prof. J. S. Kingsley, of Tufts College, a well-known writer on natural history, whose "Elements of Comparative Zoology" was recently issued by the same house. This new book is very fully illustrated and can be used as a companion to McMurrich's "Invertebrate Morphology."

-In the American Monthly Review of Reviews for August the editor comments on educational conditions in the South, with reference to the future of both the white and colored races. In the same magazine is the address delivered at the Capon Springs, W. Va., conference in June by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, one of the foremost educational leaders of the South, and an active executive officer of the Peabody and Slater funds.

-"Neera's' romance, "The Old House," now in course of publication in The Living Age, will be followed, early in September, by a story entitled "Dame Fast and Petter Nord," which Dr. Hasket Derby has translated from the Swedish of Selma Lagerlöf, the young writer whose "Gosta Berling" and "Miracles of Antichrist" have attracted so much attention.

-The most striking feature of The Century for September is the first installment of Captain Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World." This is the narrative of a daring voyage of circumnavigation, undertaken by the author in 1895, in a forty-foot sloop built by himself in Buzzard's Bay, and taken back and forth across the Atlantic and thence around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, without assistance or companionship. The distance traversed was 46,000 miles, and the accuracy of the navigator's landfalls throughout was a thing to marvel at, his chronometer for most of the time being a little tin clock of the cheapest kind.

-Houghton, Mifflin & Co. announce the publication, during the coming school year, of the Riverside Art Series, the initial number of which on Raphael will be ready very early in the fall. This book, which the other volumes of the series will follow in general plan, contains a portrait of Raphael and fifteen excellent reproductions in half-tone of pictures which best represent the artist's most interesting characteristics and which most directly appeal to the imagination. For each picture there is an appropriate and simple text description of the story, but not critical from the artist's point of view. Such pictures as The Madonna of the Chair, Abraham and the Three Angels, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, St. Cecilia, The Transfiguration, The Sistine Madonna, etc., show the scope of the work.

Vol. XXIX.

No. 10

FULL high schools, some of them overfull, that is the word which comes from all parts of the state. The causes are many. Employment is not on the whole so easily obtained by young people as when our communities were newer; sharper competition requires more serious preparation for positions of responsibility; more easy home conditions make it possible to give greater advantages to the children; and so on. With this condition comes, as a consequence, the rapid growth of our colleges and universities, which we are now witnessing, and which seems likely to go on for some years to come at least. And these conditions are not confined to Wisconsin; they prevail all over our land. From many states come reports of largely increased enrollments in schools and colleges. We shall certainly fail to

recognize what is probably the most important cause of this growth, if we do not dwell upon the remarkable strengthening of these institutions in all their work, which has grown out of the enlarged views and policies developed by the discussions of the last fifteen years. The full high schools are a fruit of our present remarkable educational awakening.

A REVISION of the high school courses recommended by the State Superintendent has been issued during the summer which at first sight seems a much greater innovation than it is found to be on examination. There are five of these courses, the first of which, called the "English and General Science Course," corresponds to the old English course. It is apparent on inspection that this course in accredited schools will not admit to the science course at the university. The so-called "German course" corresponds closely with the former science course, and affords the necessary preparation, if history is continued in the third year as permitted. The obvious purpose of the revision is to make a place for instruction in teaching in all the courses and to strenghen the work in English. A brief review of arithmetic and grammar is provided in all of them near the close of the high school course, which seems also to have reference to teaching and to preparation for the normal schools. The evident drift of things is towards making four exercises per day the type instead of three. Obviously, too, much more vigor and definiteness of aim must be put into the English teaching, if the first course is not to become even weaker in comparison with the others than it has been hitherto.

DEFINITE requirements as to the minimum teaching force for conducting these courses seem to be absolutely necessary, and are indicated in the new circulars in connection with each course. For the first course two teachers are indispensable even in a small school, since it implies from twelve to sixteen class exercises per day. It seems to be the intention to require an additional teacher for each additional course offered, altho this is not distinctly stated. Thus three teachers, it would seem, are allowed to conduct the first or English and the modern classical courses; but with

these two in operation, no additional classes would be absolutely required for carrying on the "German" and the "Latin" courses, since all the work prescribed for these would be in operation in the school. In our opinion, however, it is clearly undesirable that these courses should be attempted with less than four teach

ers.

However this is to be interpreted, it will, we believe, be generally recognized that the time has come when it is desirable to check the multiplication of courses without the provision of adequate teaching force, and the act of the last legislature doubling the amount of state aid to this class of schools seems to offer the appropriate occasion for initiating such regulation.

SEVERAL valuable reports have now been issued by committees of the National Educational association. At the head of these we should put the report of the committee of ten, which has done great service in rendering definite and rational the work of secondary education, and initiated that forward movement which is destined in time to make it obsolete. Second to this in value, we should place the report on college entrance requirements, made at the Los Angeles meeting, of which we have given some account in the September number of the JOURNAL. The report of the fifteen on elementary education, and that of the twelve on rural schools are well-known and very useful. Two of these reports, that of the ten and that of the fifteen, are now issued by the American Book company, and are generally accessible.

The sec

retary of the association, with the approval of the executive committee, has made arrangements by which we can furnish copies of the other reports on receipt of the price, which is twenty-five cents each for that on College Entrance and that on Rural Schools, and fifteen cents each for that on Normal Schools and that on Public Libraries. We shall be glad to send one or all of them to any of our readers on receipt of the price.

THE MATHEMATICAL OGRE.

When the traditional classical course of studies gave way before the pressure of the new knowledge of science, and the growing vigor and range of modern thot and modern. life, a solution of the conflict of studies was formed by the creation of parallel coursesscience courses, modern language courses, and so on, by means of which Latin and Greek were made elective, and thus got out of the way of those who sought modern culture for modern life. One study of the old curriculum

was, however, able to hold its own, and mathematics thus has remained athwart every avenue to liberal education. Nothing is more clear than that there are students of good abilities for whom this study has no charms; there are some who seem really to detest it, and a good many who tolerate it merely, as a drudgery which has to be gone thru in the process of "getting an education." It would be easy to name among the detesters of mathematics many men who have attained worldwide fame, men therefore of marked abilities. The lack of a taste for mathematics is thus no proof of inferior abilities or inferior energies. Why then have our institutions so persistently insisted upon mathematics, that the whole of secondary education and the first year at least of college work force it upon every student, whether he likes it or not? Why has there not been some way opened by which the unmathematical may reach advanced training without undergoing the waste of time and patience involved to them in such studies?

Two answers may be made to this question, both of which we believe to be mistaken and unsatisfactory. The first alleges the superior utility of mathematics. Prof. Sylvester is quoted as saying, "For most people a very little mathematics goes a very long way;" and reflection will convince any educated person. that for three-fourths of our secondary students the mathematics they learn in the high school is of no appreciable practical value whatever. They never have occasion to use algebra, and what of geometry (very little to be sure) they find of utility they ought to have learned observationally in the elementary school. The utility of the mathematics for subsequent studies is then alleged; but we venture to affirm that even this utility is limited to physics and engineering, branches that but a very small number of them ever pursue. We believe, therefore, that we understate the case when we affirm that high school mathematics have no practical value to at least threefourths of the students who are compelled to pursue them.

But, the defence immediately alleges, the studies are of the highest disciplinary value. We are not disposed to deny this argument, but affirm that its bearing is totally misapprehended by those who urge it. "It would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy of nature," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, if one kind of culture were needed for the gaining of information, and another kind were needed as a mental gymnastic." With this the Committee of Fifteen seem to be in entire agreement, when they affirm that in the choice of studies