NEW EDITIONS OF OLD FAVORITES AND SOME

OTHER BOOKS.

RAB AND HIS FRIENDS, AND OTHER DOG STORIES, by Dr. John Brown. Among the innumerable animal heroes whose biographies crowd the bookshelves, Rab will always shine as a star of the first magnitude; a canis major, indeed. The other canine friends of the lovable doctor are less well known than they should be, tho their fame did, long ago, reach over to America, for we read on one page that, "I was greatly pleased when Dr. Cotting of Roxbury came in yesterday, and introduced himself to me by asking 'Where is Dick?' To think of our Dick being known in Massachusetts!"

The individuality of these familiar pets is described in the same irresistible, quaint, simple, confidential style that so charms us in "Rab" and "Marjorie Fleming." Dogs of high and low degree, big and little, well disposed and ill disposed, publicans and sinners, he knew, and found something lovable in each one, cur or aristocrat. His clever pen does not spare their weaknesses, as it does not fail to record their many virtues and delightful idiosyncrasies. And back of every sentence we can feel the great, warm heart of the good physician, so well known and so well loved in his city of Edinburgh; a rarely winning personality whose genuine manliness and delightful spontaneity and understanding of dog and human nature will forever attract and hold the boy. ish heart; one that it is well for boys to meet with in their early, impressionable years-true and tender without a trace of sentimentality. The delightful little biographical sketch by Professor Veitch of Glasgow is therefore an important part of the little volume. There are included also explanatory notes giving the meaning of the troublesome Scotch and Latin words, and Dr. Brown's "Plea for a Dog Home;" also suggestions for teachers. Simple but vigorous drawings by Angus MacDonall illustrate the text, which is further enlivened by reproductions of comical but vigorous little sketches drawn by Dr. Brown for the entertainment of his youthful friends. Published by Rand, McNally Co., in the Canterbury Classic Series; 25 cents.

NORSE STORIES, retold from the Eddas by Hamilton Wright Mabie, has been a delight to children for many years. There is no better antidote for the weaknesses arising from the character of our strenuous life of today, than to live for awhile in the strenuous, outdoor life of the hardy heroes of long ago. There are few boys and girls but will be the better for a reading of these tonic pages which recount the marvelous achievements of the old Viking gods. Their cunning and duplicity sometimes trouble us, but these failings are more than offset by their glad acceptance of hardship and danger, their courage and honesty, and the other simple, sterling virtues that are the substance and the glory of all true living. Mr. Mabie's version of the ancient myths is warm with the fire that thrilled in the hearts of the Northmen; it is vigorous as is the swing of Thor's hammer, and beautiful with the truth that inheres in all man's early efforts to interpret nature. He helps us to glory as did they, in the lightning's flash, the tempest's thunder, the mighty power of the rushing, raging waters. Children of our temperate zone, with its extremes of heat

and cold, will readily appreciate and thoroly enjoy the Viking's stirring, poetic picture of the war forever going on between the powers of the frost king and the gentler forces of Balder the Beautiful. The latest edition of these charming tales is published by Rand, McNally Co. as one of their Canterbury Classics. There are many editorial notes, glossary, etc., and a few delightful pages on Norse mythology, by Katherine Lee Bates, from which we quote the fol lowing paragraph, that serves as a kind of key to the spirit of the old pagan religion:

The Odin faith did not lead men to regard the gods as unfailing sources of pleasant gifts. Children first look upon their parents so, but when the son realizes, by some swift and sudden forecast, that those who have been so strong for him must meet their time of weakness and call upon his strength, a deeper, purer love springs in his soul. In such a spirit the old Norsemen looked forward to the "Dusk of the Gods," to "Odin's Need," more loyal than selfish worshipers could comprehend, to the lost cause of Asgard, and to the "Sorrow of Odin, the Goth."

We are irresistibly reminded, as we read Mr. Mabie's last chapter on "The Twilight of the Gods," of Story's "Io Victis" and Whitman's, "To Those Who Have Failed." Published by Rand, McNally Co.; 40 cents.

WAYS OF WOOD FOLK AND WILDERNESS WAYS, as described by William J. Long, make town ways seem tame and uninteresting by comparison. We can fairly see the frolicsome capers of the rabbits in the moonlight on the green, and the lesson on hurdle-jumping given by the caribou mothers creates a sense of kinship with these wise and gentle teachers that is most mysteri-. ous and most gratifying. There are splendid, stirring passages that make one glory in the bond that unites all life, whether of high or low degree. Every boy will rejoice in the chapter on "Cloud Wings the Eagle," from which we quote the following passage:

There he is lost in the blue, so high that I cannot see any more. But even as I turn away he plunges down into vision again, dropping with folded wings straight down like a plummet, faster and faster, larger and larger, thru a terrifying rush of air, till I spring to my feet and catch the breath, as if I myself were falling.

There are few wielders of gun or glass that can boast, as can Mr. Long, of having actually touched a wild, free eagle, gazed upon its eaglets in the nest and then permitted it to go, unharmed. His facile pen brings to us a sense of the freedom and the mystery of the wilderness, and of the innumerable forms of life that are hidden in its depths. The books will not only fascinate boys and girls alike, but are of the kind that stimulate a desire to become familiar at first-hand with some of the delightful ways of the wood people. The stories are true to fact, and while the writer is awake to all the beauty and the nobler traits of the wild creatures, he sees the cruel and remorseless side as well, and does not hesitate to describe it, believing, as he says in his excellent preface, that "sympathy is too true a thing to be aroused falsely, and that a wise discrimination, which recognizes good and evil in the woods, as everywhere else in the world, and which loves the one and hates the other, is vastly better for children, young and old, than the blind sentimentality aroused by ideal animals with exquisite human propensities." A feature that makes the book especially attractive is its recognition of the fun and joy that

form a large part of the existence of the wild animals, and which we must believe vastly outweigh the tragic side. The two volumes are prettily bound, and are illustrated. Published by Ginn & Co., Boston; 60 and 50 cents respectively.

MOTHER GOOSE PAINT BOOK. Illustrated by J. M. Barnett. A paintbrush and five cakes of water color paints, inserted at one end in a stiff cardboard case, distinguish this book from all others that we have yet seen. The idea is a clever one that is executed but indifferently well. The paints are not the pure colors, that it is desirable to place in the hands of a child, and the drawings do not offer that pure fun that is most suited to a child's impressionable fancy. They cannot be said to adorn the pages of the book, and appeal neither to our sense of beauty or of true humor. The pictures are too commonplace to be poetic and some are too coarse to be amusing. The lazy looking loafer with his booted foot resting on the footboard of the bed is not a pleasing conception of "Deedle, deedle dumpling"; the insolent twentieth century dude, twirling his moustaches, who questions the milk-maid, is a poor rendition of the quaint, old-fashioned little dialog. It is a pity that so pleasing an innovation as this paint book offers should not have been more happily wrought out. Aside from the original idea, as conceived by the artist, the drawings are in fault themselves in that they are not true, whereas in working outlines, which the children are supposed to fill out with color, special pains should have been taken with the line sketches. There is not a really winsome child in the entire book. It is true the humor that is expressed in exaggerated feet or diminutive calves or awkward postures may raise a smile upon the face of many children, but if we wish our young people to appreciate good drawing, and genuine fun that carries with it no sting, we must encourage a demand for the books that stand for bright, harmless mirth, and sketches that express an ideal even in their fun. The Saalfield Publishing Co. does not seem to be happy in the selection of its artists.

UNDER SUNNY SKIES. The title is an attractive one and charming are the sketches of strange and picturesque life over which they arch. The sketches appeared originally in the Youth's Companion. They represent the impressions and reflections of different writers, each one qualified for the task by power to observe accurately and sympathetically, and to record these observations in vivid and charming English. They afford, therefore, valuable and interesting supplementary reading for home and school. Louise Chandler Moulton reviews the beauties and wondrous charm of old Toledo, Cordova, and that dream of architectural glory, the Alhambra. Olive M. Eager describes the chestnut farms of the Apennines, growing high beyond the graingrowing region, and sole source of food for multitudes of ill-fed peasants. The names of some of the other chapters, i. e.: The Tuscan Peasants, the Macaroni Country, the City of St. Marks, Young Greeks of Today, the Education of Young Turks, Across the Desert, Syrian Sweetmeats, etc., indicate the variety in material. Grace Ellery Channing, S. S. Cox, so long our minister to Turkey, and Mrs. Lew Wallace, are among the names of the authors that attest the charm and value of the treatment of the subject-matter. Ginn & Co., Boston; 25 cents.

LIFE EVERLASTING. By John Fiske. Momentous as is the subject of his brief essay, Mr. Fiske handles it so simply, so lucidly, that we follow his arguments and arrive at his conclusions scarcely realizing the length of the road we have traveled, nor the amount of research and learning that lie back of this masterly presentation. It is to evolution that Mr. Fiske goes for his line of argument. "Belief in an Unseen World, especially associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the genesis of MAN, and had played a predominating part in his development ever since." Such a belief is also coexistent, wherever man is found and, Mr. Fiske argues, "must be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is negatived by all that we know of the habits and methods of the cosmic process of Evolution." His further evidence and his replies to the arguments of the materialist and to the data of the physiological psychologist are original, striking, and thought-compelling. The probabilities of a John Fiske are more convincing to the soul than the so-called proofs of other reasoners. Tho science write "unproven" after his conclusions, yet, as he clearly shows, the same verdict will apply to the arguments of the materialist. Mr. Fiske puts the burden of proof upon the latter, thus: "Until we can go wherever the testimony may, we are not entitled to affirm that there is an absence of testimony." We miss in this volume a noble and forceful comparison employed by Mr. Fiske in one of his former lectures. He tells there how, æons ago, in response to the light of the sun, there appeared in some primitive creature the rudiment of an eye. The sun reacted upon this crude organ and a higher, more complex development ensued. Thru countless ages this action and reaction continued till the human eye in all its wonderful complexity, with its miraculous powers and beauty, was duly formed. The sun was ever there; the eye was perfected only thru long centuries of gradual growth. So with the thought of God and immortality. In response to such a belief, and the continual reaction of such a belief upon the life of man, the first crude ideas and the first crude life have developed into the spiritual conceptions that now rule so many noble lives. The eye developed in answer to a reality. Mr. Fiske believes that there is a reality back of the belief that has thus ever urged "men's minds to vaster issues." The essay was originally delivered at Harvard College in December, 1900, under the terms of the Ingersoll lectureship founded by Miss Caroline H. Ingersoll, according to whose will a lecture upon the "Immortality of Man" is to be given annually.

KING ARTHUR AND HIS COURT. By Frances Nimmo Greene. A brief introduction describes the principal features of feudalism and chivalry, the training of a knight, the tournament, etc. The old, old Arthurian legends with their high idealism and their undertone of melancholy and tragedy are here retold for the children in simple, dignified style, such as characterized the age of chivalry. Tennyson's version of the oft-told tales is the one followed. Ginn & Co., Boston.

Busy kindergartners who cannot find time to browse among the bookshops, will find the review and advertising columns of the KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE a partial substitute. Book reviews may well be counted as mental show windows. The October, November, and December issues are especially valuable as such.

IN the Manual Training Magazine for July is Dr. G. Stanley Hall's address on "Some Criticism of High School Physics and Manual Training and Mechanic Arts High Schools, with Suggested Correlations." The long, heavy title gives little hint of the rich suggestiveness of the article. The arguments for the correlations named are supported by an appeal to the law of race-development, the history of physics and the mechanic arts, the present waning interest in these studles in the high schools and colleges, the natural interests and capacities of boyhood, and the success of those schools of the Hampton type, which, he says, "Altho often for Indians, negroes, or juvenile delinquents, are, I believe, the very best schools in the country, if judged by the annual growth in mind, morals, health, ability, and knowledge of the pupils."

Those not already irrevocably attached to a scale of occupations from whose plan there can be no deviation, will be interested in this fling at the socalled schools of work:

No boy ever really puts his head into his work unless he is full from start to finish with the thought and the desire of using what he is making, and to my mind there are few more ghastly products of pedagogic art than the socalled graded models-iron in their inflexibility and wooden in their intelligence and with the vitalizing idea of utility, and that from the boy's standpoint carefully dissected out.

Dr. Hall believes that in many fields "very much thoroness and perfection violates the laws of youthful nature and of growth." The normal boy in his teens "wants and needs great wholes, facts in profusion, but few formulæ." For the lower grades in manual training Dr. Hall suggests, as he has for the kindergarten occupations, "Curricularized toy-making. . . and this should merge over in the high school grades to the construction of apparatus illustrating scientific principles." He speaks of observing toy-exhibitions in European countries to see how much could really be taught thru them in the line of manual training, and a knowledge of fundamental, scientific principles. The article will well repay thoughtful consideration. We would not be surprised if it inaugurated a new procedure in both scientific and manual training for children in the grades and high schools.

JEAN MITCHELL'S SCHOOL. By Angeline W. Wray. Miss Wray has made a very attractive story out of the elements afforded by a country school, the trustees, the pupils, parents, and last, but by no means least, the charming, wide-awake, versatile and consecrated teacher, her perplexities, ambitions, and successes. The story follows Jean Mitchell thru her school year, and as she is a happy spirited, creative genius, and since her program for each month is given in a charming, sympathetic, and picturesque style, the teacher of almost any grade will find it full of information and containing innumerable practical suggestions. A parable will often convey a lesson that a plain statement of fact will not, so, placed in the hands of a skeptical school trustee or parent, the story of Jean Mitchell's eminently successful school will undoubtedly accomplish what a treatise on the new education might fail to do. It is evident that the author writes from practical experience. It is also clear that she loves nature, and has keen eyes for the lovely things of field and wood that many would pass by unobserved. A pretty gift to give a teacher-friend. We have known several children of seven to ten years to be delighted with it. Illustrated. Public School Publishing Co., Bloomington, Ill.