difficulties, of hundreds of learners of all capacities, doing the work over and over again under the critical direction of intelligent, practical teachers, who were bent upon finding out the best method of doing each thing, and the best method of teaching others how to do it. Not a single item necessary to perfect the required process is omitted. The steps are separated, and given in numerical order, so as to enforce attention to one thing at a time, and the right thing at the right time, while the precautions against mistakes are so careful that even the dullest can hardly go wrong. Each receipt in the volume is not only the formula for a dish, but it is also a lesson in a practical process, so that in the preparation of every article of food something is gained toward greater proficiency in the art of cooking well. "A few words in regard to the origin of the school in which it was produced will still further illustrate the character of this work. A vigorous movement has been made in England to elevate this branch of domestic economy by establishing schools for training pupils in the art of cookery. These schools have grown immediately out of the need of greater general economy among the working-classes, as it was seen that the high prices of provisions were seriously aggravated by not knowing how to make the most of them in their kitchen preparation. The attention of the managers of the South Kensington Museum of Arts in West London was several years ago drawn to the subject; and, feeling that something required to be done, they established public lectures on the preparation of food, with platform demonstrations of various culinary operations. But it was quickly found that mere exposition and illustration, though not without use, were wholly inadequate to the object in view; because a cooking school, to be thorough, must provide for practice. Lecturing, and explaining to pupils, and barely showing them how things are done, are sure to fail, because cookery, like music, can only be learned by actually doing it. As well undertake to teach the piano by talking and exhibiting its capabilities as to teach a person how to make a dish properly by only listening and looking on. Provision had therefore to be made for forming classes to do themselves what they at first only saw others do. one. "But this task was by no means an easy There were no preëxisting plans to follow; qualified teachers and suitable textbooks were wanting; it was an expensive form of education; the public thought it a doubtful innovation; and educational authorities discouraged it. But the parties interested decided that the time had come for a systematic and persistent effort. They felt their way cautiously, and in 1874 organized classes for graded courses of practice. The object was to give women the best possible instruction in practical cookery, and for this purpose the school was open to all. But, to make its work most largely useful, it was constituted as a normal school for training teachers to go out and establish other cooking-schools in different parts of the country. This has been since done with the most encouraging success, so that there are already a large number of cooking-schools in England connected with the national or common school system. "As no cook-book to be found was worth anything to aid the practical instruction proposed, the teachers had to take this matter in hand at the outset. They began by drawing up a careful set of directions to be followed by the learners in doing their work. For each lesson in all the grades each pupil was furnished with a printed sheet of these directions, stating the ingredients of each dish to be prepared, the quantities and separate cost of these ingredients, what was to be done first, what next, and so on through the whole series of operations, nothing being assumed as known, and all the minute steps being indicated in the order that was found best. These guides were necessarily imperfect at first, and were subject to constant revision and extension as experience suggested corrections; in fact, they embodied the progress of the school in the successful attainment of its object. At each new printing the improvements that had been made were incorporated, and only after years of trial were these guides to practice at length combined and issued in a book-form. The lessons or receipts of this volume were all slowly elaborated in this painstaking manner, and the mode of working proved perfectly success ful with the pupils. It was easy and pleasant, yet careful and thorough, and secured a rapid and gratifying proficiency. "In saying that the South Kensington Cooking-School has been successful, I speak from direct knowledge of it. I was a pupil there for several weeks, and carefully observed its operations. The classes showed the most extraordinary mental and social | diversity. There were cultivated ladies, the daughters of country gentlemen, old housekeepers, servants, cooks, and colored girls from South Africa, together with a large proportion of intelligent young women who were preparing to become teachers. They worked together with a harmony and good feeling that, I confess, somewhat surprised me, but they were all closely occupied and thoroughly interested in a common object. There were teachers to provide materials, to plan the daily work, to direct operations, and to be consulted when necessary; but the admirable method adopted left each learner to go through her task with but a small amount of assistance. Indeed, the completeness of the directions in hand seemed to assure the success of every pupil from the start. There was, of course, a difference in dexterity, and in facility of work previously acquired; but raw beginners went on so well that they were astonished at what they found themselves able to do. and it is now republished because its success there has been demonstrated. Many hundred persons totally ignorant of the subject have become efficient and capable cooks by pursuing the mode of practice here adopted-by going through these lessons-and the same results can be obtained by pursuing the same method anywhere. American housekeepers who have any real interest in home improvement, and are willing to take a little pains to instruct their daughters or their servants in the art of cooking well, will find the volume an adequate and invaluable help toward the attainment of this object. It will prove a useful text-book in the cooking-schools that are springing up in this country, and classes could be advantageously formed in it for kitchen practice in every female seminary in the land." Appended to the volume is an admirable essay on "The Principles of Diet in Health and Disease," by Dr. Thomas K. Chambers, one of the highest living authorities upon that subject. This is a most valuable addition to the work. As food is prepared in order to be eaten, as the subject of cookery is therefore in close relations with that of diet, and commonly receives too little attention on the part of housekeepers, it was an excellent idea to furnish an authoritative summary of the facts and rules of the most recent dietetical science. Good cookery and rational diet are equal conditions of healthfur enjoyment.. ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY, FOR 1877. By S. F. BAIRD. New York: Harper & Brothers.. Pp. 494. Price, $2. "American ladies, when looking over these lessons, are apt to smile at their extreme simplicity and triviality, but it must be remembered that the difference between good and bad cookery is very much a matter of attention to triffes. Slight mistakes, small omissions, little things done at the wrong time, spoil dishes. The excellence THE "Record" for 1877 is considerof these lessons consists in their faithful- ably less voluminous than its predecessors, ness in regard to minutiæ, and the habits and the reduction in size has been effected they enforce of attention to trifling particu- by summarily omitting one of the two main lars. They make no claim to literary merit. divisions of the work, namely, that conThe receipts are homely, direct, and meant taining abstracts of notable scientific paonly to be easily and distinctly understood. pers. In truth, it would be simply imposThey are full of repetitions, because pro- sible to compress within the limits of an cesses are constantly repeated, and it was ordinary volume an intelligible synopsis necessary that the directions in each re- of the important scientific papers annually ceipt should be full and complete. They contributed to the proceedings of learned are not enticing reading, because they were societies and the periodical press. Hence, made to work by. The book, in fact, be- we cannot but approve the action of Prof. longs in the kitchen where cookery is done; | Baird in omitting that feature of the “ An nual Record." By so doing, he is enabled, widely from President Porter in his estimate to give more space and fuller treatment to of the philosophical position and influence the "Summary of Scientific Progress," and of Herbert Spencer. For, while to the Presithe result is a remarkably satisfactory re- dent of Yale College Spencer is little betview of the scientific work of the year in ter than a pretender and a verbal trickster, the various departments of research. Each whose illusive reputation is destined to vanparticular science, and, in some instances, ish so speedily that the world will wonder particular departments of a science, are how the delusion lasted so long, the Italian treated by writers eminent in their respec- professor, on the other hand, accords to him tive specialties. a regnant place as the commanding mind of the most vigorous and powerful philosophical school of the present age. He says, "Modern psychological inquiry reaches its highest degree of development in Herbert Spencer." He closes an elaborate account THE ETHICS OF POSITIVISM: A CRITICAL STUDY. BY GIACOMO BARZELLOTTI, Professor of Philosophy at the Liceo Dante, Florence. New York: Charles P. Somerby. Pp. 327. Price, $2. THIS book, the first edition of which appeared in Florence a few years ago, and is now translated into English and printed in this country with a new introduction by the author, is a study of those more recent aspects of philosophy which have culminated in the British school of psychologists. It seems to have been written with a principal view of instructing the Italians in regard to the great modern movements of thought that are going on most actively outside the limits of that country. But the writer's object is by no means purely expository of current thought: he dips into controversy with opinions of his own, and avows his aim to be to defend "the principles of morality against the attacks of an empirical utilitarianism." The appellation of positivism, which the author connects with his discussion, he informs us has been criticised by leading authorities as inexact, and we think the objection was certainly well taken. At any rate, the propriety of the term, as designating the English school of thinkers with which he is chiefly dealing, has been so strenuously contested as misleading by prominent members of that school, that it seems somewhat assuming in Prof. Barzellotti to persist in this questionable or disputed application of the word in the title of his book. The work is similar in scope to Masson's "Recent British Philosophy," and its topics are discussed in an excellent spirit and in an intelligent and instructive manner; but it will be more valued as a delineation of a system of ideas than for any contribution it offers toward their further development. We notice that Prof. Barzellotti differs very of the doctrines and methods of this thinker as follows: "Such is in outline the psychology of Herbert Spencer. The idea that rules it is that of a harmony of things which extends by degrees from one form of life to another and culminates in mind. It is not an original idea, but it acquires particular aspects when thus treated according to the positive method; and, in the intermediate path which Spencer pursues, between popular empiricism and a priori speculations, the conception of an evolutionary process certainly assumes an original character. Spencer has been led into this course by his closely inductive genius. He is opposed to too abstract generalizations, and likes generalizations to imply carefully-observed facts; but, by a bold synthesis, he surpasses all that his predecessors have achieved by analysis only. This equilibrium of faculties makes Spencer worthy of being considered in more aspects than one. He marks in the history of psychological inquiry the latest stage that the inductive method has attained in England by the work of a powerful mind imand this is not less true, although some traits, and pressed with the refinements of modern science; particularly a certain metaphysical touch in the works of this most distinguished philosopher, remind us of Schelling and Hegel. The tendency of the method of the English school, as it is applied by Spencer, seems to become ever more and more distinct from the general tendency of psychological studies on the Continent, and marks in him the climax of the course of thought exhibited, in successive phases, by James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and Alexander Bain. It is a movement of thought, implying the tendency to find the basis of mental science in the knowledge of concrete facts, and the progress of that tendency we can estimate by the successive ad vances made in psychological analysis by Hart ley, James Mill, Bain, and Spencer. The inquiry into the facts of the world of consciousness, as we have indicated, had no definiteness in the vague mechanism of Hartley and James Mill; minute in Bain, and is to-day broader and more it was more logical in John Stuart Mill, more comprehensive in Spencer, who is the one so far that has brought the theory of the reduction of psychological facts to the finest point. But with respect to the substance of method and details of analysis he has, in common with Mill and Bain-in fact, with all the school-that which constitutes the organism of English psychology and gives it a physiognomy of its own in contemporary history." ELEMENTS OF DYNAMIC. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MOTION AND REST IN THIS little book plunges into depths where only mathematicians can follow; but its opening sentences are so characteristic of the author's clearness of perception and statement, that, as they involve no formula, and are withal instructive, we quote them: "Just as geometry teaches us about the sizes and shapes and distances of bodies, and about the relations which hold good between them, so dynamic teaches us about the changes which take place in those distances, sizes, and shapes (which changes are called motions), the relations which hold good between different motions, and the circumstances under which motions take place. "Motions are generally very complicated. To fix the ideas, consider the case of a man sitting in one corner of a railway-carriage, who gets up and moves to the opposite corner. He bas gone from one place to another; he has turned round; he has continually changed in shape, and many of his muscles have changed in size during the process. "To avoid this complication we deal with the simplest motions first, and gradually go on to consider the more complex ones. In the first place, we postpone the consideration of changes in size and shape by treating only of those motions in which there are no such changes. A body which does not change its size or shape during the time considered is called a rigid body. "The motion of rigid bodies is of two kinds; change of place, or translation, and change of direction or aspect, which is called rotation. In a motion of pure translation, every straight line in the body remains parallel to its original position; for, if it did not, it would turn round, and there would be a motion of rotation mixed up with the motion of translation. By a straight line in the body we do not mean merely a straight line indicated by the shape or marked upon the surface of the body; thus, if a box have a movement of translation, not only will its edges remain parallel to their original positions, but the same will be true of every straight line which we can conceive to be drawn, joining any two points of the box. "When a body has a motion of translation, it is found that every point of it moves in the same; so that to describe the motion of the whole body it is sufficient to describe that of one point. When a body is so small that there is no need to take account of the differences in position and motion of its different parts, the body is called a particle. Thus the only motion of a particle that we take account of is the motion of translation of any point in it. "A motion of translation mixed up with a motion of rotation is like that of a corkscrew entering into a cork, and is called a twist. "Bodies which change their size or shape are called elastic bodies. Changes in size or shape are called strains. "The science which teaches how to describe motion accurately and how to compound different motions together is called kinematic.” The volume is a college text-book, and the genius and position of its author are a sufficient guarantee of its originality and excellence. Prof. Clifford has broken down so sadly in health that he has been compelled to suspend work at University College, in London, and leave England for the more genial climate of Southern Europe. His work on the "Fundamental Ideas of Mathematics and Physics explained to the Non-Mathematical," with which he has been long occupied for the "International Scientific Series," is well advanced, and it is to be hoped that he will recover his health to complete it, and carry out the other important intellectual projects of which his teeming head is full. PHYSICAL TECHNICS. By Dr. J. FRICK. Translated by J. D. EASTER, Ph. D. With 797 Illustrations. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Pp. 467. Price, $2.50. TEACHERS of physical science and students who are without the aid of competent instructors and good laboratory apparatus will find this a very useful manual. The volume, in the first place, contains a great deal of valuable, practical instruction for making experiments in physics. The manipulation of apparatus, the construction of apparatus at the least possible cost, the points to be considered in the purchase of instruments, on these and many other like topics the author supplies a good deal of common-sense information, gathered in the course of his own experience as a teacher of science, and selected from technical manuals. Having aided the student in choosing his apparatus or constructing it, and given him some insight into the secrets of physical manipulation, the author, in the second part of the book, gives directions for | BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL making experiments illustrative of the principal laws of physics, as the equilibrium of forces, motion, acoustics, light, magnetism, heat, etc. The work appears to be very well adapted to meet the wants of the reader for whom it is intended. CURRENT DISCUSSION: A Collection from the Chief English Essays of Questions of the Time. Edited by EDWARD L. BURLINGAME. Vol. II., Questions of Belief. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 360. Price, $1.50. THE first volume of this new series of reprinted contemporary discussion was devoted to international politics, and very naturally gave special prominence to the treatment of the Oriental question which has latterly excited so much attention. It consisted of a judicious selection of the most important papers that have appeared in the English reviews by distinguished writers on the various aspects of Eastern politics. The second volume, devoted to what the editor terms, somewhat vaguely, "Questions of Belief," is occupied with radical speculations in theology, most of the space being taken up by the Symposiums from the Nineteenth Century that have appeared in THE POPULAR SCIENCE SUPPLEMENT. There is an article on "The Course of Modern Thought," by G. H. Lewes; one on "The Condition and Prospects of the Church of England," by Thomas Hughes; and the paper of W. H. Mallock entitled "Is Life worth living?" Nothing needs to be said in commendation of these able discussions, and they are brought out in a neat and attractive shape by the publishers. FERNS OF KENTUCKY. By J. WILLIAMSON. Louisville: J. P. Morton & Co. Pp. 154. $2. THE Collector of ferns in Kentucky will find in this neat little volume a guide to the principal localities in which the different kinds occur, and a key for determining the different species which he meets in his rambles. The volume further contains hints on the cultivation of ferns, and on the proper method of drying and preserving them. Sixty full-page etchings and six woodcuts serve to illustrate the ferns of Kentucky. AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES, F. V. HAYDEN, Geologist-inCharge. Vol. IV., No. I. Washing. ton: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 311. ""The THE memoirs contained in this number of the Bulletin are all on zoological subjects, viz. "The Ornithology of the Lower Rio Grande of Texas; " "Fishes from the Cretaceous and Tertiary, west of the Mississippi; "three papers on "Tineina; Noctuidae, chiefly from California; " North American Species of Alpheus; "Mammals of Fort Sisseton, Dakota;" "American Herodiones;" "Butterflies from Southern Utah;" "Herpetology of Dakota and Montana; ""Consolidation of the Hoofs in the Virginian Deer;" "A Breed of SolidHoofed Pigs;" "Prof. Owen on the Pythonomorpha." MANUAL OF THE APIARY. By A. J. Cook, Professor of Entomology in the Michigan State Agricultural College. Chicago: T. G. Newman & Son. Pp. 286. Price, cloth, $1.25; paper, $1. A LARGE edition of this "Manual" having been sold within two years of its first publication, Prof. Cook was encouraged to revise the work and make it more complete in both its scientific and practical aspects. The result is a handsome volume, elegantly illustrated, and containing all the information needed by those who desire to keep bees. We have received, from the same author, a pamphlet on "The Hessian Fly," giving its natural history and habits, and describing the methods of protecting the wheat-plants against its ravages. MANUAL OF THE VERTFBRATES OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES. BY DAVID STARR JORDAN, Ph. D., M. D. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co. 1878. Price, $2.50. It speaks well for this book, and for the growing activity in natural history studies, that it has grown to become so useful an apparatus in its own line. It is barely four years since that novel brochure appeared of Jordan and Van Vleck, "A Popular Key to the Birds, Reptiles, Batrachians, and Fishes, of the Northern United States, east of the Mississippi River." Soon came as an outgrowth the "Manual of the Verte |