or in Hungary, on account of the inextricable union of government and local appropriations, endowments, etc. The report shows that in 1889, the state appropriation for all grades of education amounted in Austria to $8,307,774 and in Hungary to $3,643.762. The latter was applied as follows, 1.08 per cent. for elementary schools, 24.2 per cent. for secondary, 67 per cent. for higher. About the same proportions obtain in Austria. The state, it will be seen, bears but a small portion of the expense of elementary education, leaving that obligation to local districts.

FRANCE.

Medical inspection of schools was made obligatory in France by the law of Oct. 30, 1886. Since that date many official circulars have prescribed the measures to be used for preventing contagion through schools; nevertheless every year 60,000 children are swept away by epidemics, (diphtheria, scarlet fever, etc.) It is believed that more stringent measures in the schools would lessen this number and also mitigate the evil effects of myopia, strabism, etc. From an investigation made in 1887, it appeared that sixty out of the eighty-seven departments in France had not established medical inspection over the schools. Since then, it is stated, fifty departments have complied with the law, but as the service is for the most part rendered gratuitously and poorly organized it is not effective. A bill is now before the Chambers having for its object the extension of the cantonal medical service which corresponds to our public dispensary. If this bill be passed, it will greatly increase the available agencies for the medical inspection of the schools. In the discussions of details the rulings of the prefect of the department of Loireb are referred to as a precedent to be followed. These place the inspection of schools upon a money basis allowing three francs, (58 cents) for every visit to a school of fifty pupils and one franc extra for every additional twenty-five, this with travelling expenses calculated at half a franc per kilometre. In Paris, where the medical inspection of schools is thoroughly organized, the annual cost of the service has reachad $20,000.

Manual training. - Paris has gone farther than any great city in the development of wood and iron work in connection with primary schools for boys. In 1890, shops had been attached to one hundred schools, leaving sixty-five to be thus provided. The present inspectorgeneral of manual training, M. René Leblanc, has recently taken action against this provision. The work in wood and iron he regards as valuable only to those destined for particular trades, whereas all primary school exercises should, in his judgment, have a general pedagogic value. He would cut off this special feature and increase the work in drawing, modeling, paper folding, weaving, etc.

Congresses. Belgium was the scene of several notable congresses during the past summer. Among those bearing directly upon education were the congress on gymnastics held in Brussels, September 5th and 6th, that on manual training in the week preceding, and the congress on primary instruction held at Antwerp at the same time as the first named. The proceedings in all three were characterized by earnestness and the discussion of practical issues, but nothing particularly new was suggested. In the congress on manual training the fact was brought out that experiments in iron work in the schools of Brussels had proved so unsatisfactory that they had been discontinued. Pedagogic conferences were held in several provinces of Spain during the month of August and an important congress was convened in Madrid during October, in which Portugal and the South American States were also represented. The subjects assigned for discussion show a deep interest in the chief movements of the day. Prominent among these we note the preparation of teachers; school hygiene and the education of women, including their aptitudes for teaching and other professions and the best system for their physical training.

University Notes. - According to recent information certain professors of Edinburgh university enjoy princely incomes from their chairs. A professor of chemistry realizes $16,000 a year; of anatomy, $15,000; of medicine, $13,000; natural history and pathology, each, $12,000; botany, $11,000. Oxford has 424 professors whose joint salaries amount to $800,000 a year, or an average of $1,900; Cambridge 483 professors with a total income of $660,000, or an average of $1,370. The average salary of German professors is placed at 5,534 M. ($1,300), the minimum being $359, and the highest 12,600 M. ($2,999). This last is the salary of the professor of law in Göttingen.

A. T. S.

AMONG THE BOOKS.

In this the final number of the INFORMATION READERS we have what is probably the most interesting and instructive volume of the series. It treats of subjects which are of immediate and vital interest to every one, be he man or boy. The author, in simple yet graceful language, tells his readers about the days of barter, the early forms of commerce, the railroads, their history, etc., tunnels, money and its manufacture, canals, making of paper, lighthouses, and a score and more of interesting subjects. With these books for supplementary readers in our schools teachers will no longer have cause to lament the lack of interest in the reading lesson, and our boys and girls will become more intelligent men and women by their use. Boston: Boston School Supply Company. Price, 60 cents.

A LIFE OF GROVER CLEVELAND WITH A SKETCH OF ADLAI E. STEVENSON, by Geo. F. Parker, will be found interesting reading by those who are fond of campaign literature. Cassell Publishing Company. Price 50 cents.

The aim of the TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION is to set forth, upon a strictly scientific basis, the laws of sound as applied to articulate speech. With this in mind the author, Maria Porter Brase (Mrs. Kimball), treats each of the topics, pitch, force, quality and time, from a three-fold point of view, the physiological, the physical and the psychological, and makes a text-book valuable alike to teacher and student. Although the book has less than one hundred pages it needs an index or table of contents. Boston: Leach, Shewell & Sanborn. Price, 40 cents.

Dr. H. H. Belfield, Director of the Chicago Manual Training School, has edited several of De Quincey's most famous essays and with explanatory notes has made a valuable text-book for high schools. The essays selected are Joan of Arc, The English Mail Coach, Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow, and Dinmer, Real and Reputed. In the Introduction the editor gives a brief sketch of the life of De Quincey and his style. The notes are few and are mainly explanatory. Dr. Belfield is a painstaking, judicious editor, and his book should find prompt use in academies and high schools. Boston: Leach, Shewell & Sanborn. Price, 42 cents.

Anything written by Dr. Sauveur, the eloquent lecturer, the indefatigable teacher and writer, is sure to be welcomed by all students and teachers of the French language. LA PAROLE FRANCAISE, by Dr. Sauveur and Dr. Van Daell has just come out in a new and enlarged edition. Many of the old exercises are modified and new ones added. It has also a verb drill, a vocabulary and a comparative table of French and English sounds. It would seem that one following the easy, conversational method portrayed in this work would learn to speak French as readily as he learned his mother tongue. Published by Dr. L. Sauveur, 6 Copley street, Roxbury, Mass. Price, $1.00.

PREMIERES LECONS DE GRAMMAIRE FRANCAISE, by Marie Louise Sauveur and Susan C. Lougee, is a small but comprehensive manual designed for pupils during the first year of their course. It is by no means a collection of uninteresting rules, but the carefully selected exercises for oral and written work illustrate those points most essential to a broad and practical study of French. It was intended to be used in connection with "Petites Causeries" and other books in Dr. Sauveur's educational series, but all teachers who follow the Natural Method, will find it adapted to any text-book of reading or conversation. Retail price, 95 cents.

In a volume of 394 pages only fifteen pages are given to notes on the text. This clearly shows that the editor throws upon the student the real work of research, he does not do for him that which he ought to do for himself. Mr. Samuel Thurber has edited SELECT ESSAYS OF MACAULAY, and with his fifteen pages of notes and three pages of introduction, has given students a model textbook. In the introduction Mr. Thurber gives his theory and method regarding the use of such works in schools, and his views will find immediate recognition among all good teachers of English literature. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Price, 80 cents.

A Series of POCKET MAPS, in process of publication by Geo. H. Walker & Co., Boston, giving accurate outlines of roads, hills, lakes, public buildings, etc., of Cape Cod and vicinity, southern New Hampshire, coast of Maine, city of Boston, etc., etc., will be especially useful to bicyclists and other travelers. Price, 25 cents.

PRINCIPLES OF THE ALGEBRA OF PHYSICS is the title of an exhaustive paper read by Prof. A. Macfarlane, LL. D., Professor of Physics in the University of Texas, before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and now published in pamphlet form.

Ruth Ward Kahn, a versatile and pleasing writer, has written a poem of eighty-five stanzas under the title of GERTRUDE. The poem will well repay reading. The story is interesting, and its setting charming. Leadville, Colo. : Published by the author.

The phrase which modifies the title of Harriet Mathews's book on language ENGLISH GRAMMAR, with Continuous Selections for Practice, tells more than any thing else of the character of the work. Miss Mathews goes to the root of the matter. She gives the rules for the use of words in a sentence, treats the sentence as the unit in grammatical study, and then furnishes selections from the best writers to supplement the rules. The technical part of the book is admirably arranged, the aim of the author having been to reduce the classifications and definitions to the smallest number that can clearly teach the necessary truth. The most valuable feature of the work is to be found in the selections which consist of finished productions, extended extracts, entire poems and carefully chosen sentences. The book should find immediate favor with teachers of English; it is one of the best that has appeared and it marks a distinct advance in teaching English grammar and language. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Price, 80 cents.

Somewhat out of the beaten tracks made by the average tourist, along lines not much known to the general reader, Mrs. H. C. Hayward, in her charming book, FROM FINLAND TO GREECE, takes the stay-at-home traveler. She starts from Stockholm, goes to the Arctic circle and observes the sun circling the heavens, always in sight, goes then to St. Petersburg, Moscow, Poland, Vienna, down the Danube to Budapest, thence to Constantinople, through Bulgaria, Servia, Roumelia, and on through Greece to Corfu. It is a delightful record of travel, intensely interesting, free from guide-book statistics and “padding,” and elegantly illustrated. New York: John B. Alden. Price, $1.00.

An arithmetic of four hundred and twenty-eight pages! But the author styles it STANDARD ARITHMETIC, and makes it cover a complete course for schools and academies. The author is Dr. Wm. J. Milne, and is well known as a writer of mathematical text-books of great value and extensive use. Dr. Milne has employed the inductive method in developing the various subjects in his work and has exemplified the method logically and scientifically. The arrangement of subjects is somewhat novel, the problems are for the most part new and are not too difficult, the definitions are concise but lucid, and the whole book a model text-book in arithmetic. It will find favor with all teachers. New York: American Book Co. Price, 65 cents.

Prof. W. B. Lindsay, of Dickinson College, has revised and brought down to date the incomparable manual of QUALITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, by C. W. Eliot and F. H. Storer, and originally revised by W. R. Nichols. The manual has long been in use in chemical laboratories, and it has stood the test of over twenty years as a text-book. The additions and alterations by its latest editor add much to its utility. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

ADDISON'S CRITICISMS ON PARADISE LOST have been edited with an introduction and notes by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English Literature in Yale University. In the preface the editor says his purpose will be accomplished if the work does something to rehabilitate Addison in the status of a critic worthy of respectful consideration, and to facilitate and deepen the study of Paradise Lost. The introduction is, like all in Professor Cook's annotated works, masterful and exhaustive. It compares admirably in style and matter with the writing of the author whose writings he edits. Boston: Ginn & Co. Price, $1.00.

PERIODICALS.

For sixty-two years Godey's Lady's Book enjoyed an enviable popularity. By the modern process of evolution Godey's Magazine appears before the public, claiming all the good points of its predecessor and several of its own in addition. We note in the October number a complete novel by John Habberton, and interesting contributions from Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, D. H. R. Goodale, Mattie Sheridan and many others. The new dress of Godey's is becoming.- -The November Overland Monthly contains an instructive article on the Lick Observatory, by Millicent W. Shinn. The Fisheries of California, by President Jordan, and other articles of interest to lovers of the great western land. Harper's Monthly, Weekly, Young People and Bazar all show in perfection the well-known features for which each is celebrated. The Harper's periodicals have become almost an essential part of our American life and together they reflect with remarkable faithfulness and fullness the life of the entire globe. Prof. S. Ruge, of Dresden, contributes a deeply interesting and scholarly paper to the October Harper's Magazine, on the character and achievements of Columbus.--"Lady Lorrimer's Secret" is the first thing to attract attention in Cassell's Family Magazine for October. As the plot develops the story grows in interest. "How a Wilderness became a Garden" will be attractive to the numerous suburban readers who have a bit of land about their dwellings. The various departments of this well-edited magazine are instructively entertaining.- -The Forum is doing a good service in deepening the intelligence and broadening the knowledge of the people on the profounder problems of practical politics. The November number has an article on "English Views of the McKinley Tariff," by Sir Thomas H. Farrer, for many years Secretary of the English Board of Trade. Lord Masham, President of the Fair Trade Club, writes on "Has England Profited by Free Trade?" and tries to show that it has not. These are only samples of many help. ful articles.An "American Patriotic League," with such men as Edward Everett Hale, Dorman B. Eaton and John Hay in the "Council," has been formed, with headquarters in New York City, and is one of the signs of the times. Its object is the pronotion of good citizenship through educational agencies. A fund has been placed in the hands of the League by a number of public spirited men by the use of which a series of Letters to Young Americans will be published, furnishing the means for "a thorough understanding of the essential principles of the science of the government." A three years' course of reading modeled after the Chautauqua plan is a part of the League's programme. Such movements cannot be too highly commended.-Dr. William Win. terburn and Mrs. Florence Hull will edit a new magazine called “Childhood" devoted to the entire interests of our young people, physical, mental and spiritual, during the period of youth,—from five years old upward. It is to be first-class in every respect and will have many well known writers among its contributors. The first number will be out in November. It promises to become an indispensable help to parents in wisely bringing up their children.