toward eye-strain must thus be carefully avoided. Reading or studying for several consecutive hours should not be encouraged, but periods of rest for the eyes allowed. One way of resting the eye while at close work is to occasionally change the focus by looking at some far object. The book may be held about the distance of the elbow from the eye; some writers consider sixteen inches as approximately the proper distance. If the chill requires the printed page near the eye and assumes a stooping position, it is an evidence either of poor light or near-sightedness, and the case should be investigated.

A proper position of the chair and desk are important in this connection, and will be spoken of later. The print must always be clear and distinct, and the paper should have a dull, smooth finish, with thickness enough to prevent any impression from the type on the opposite side of the page. A suitable position of the body, as well as the eye, is favored by employing the vertical rather than the slanting style of handwriting, and the paper or book should be parallel with the edge of the desk. The source of light should be as far as possible above the floor; hence it is best to have the windows reach closely to the ceiling. A skylight is a very effective means of brightening a room. Desks must not be placed directly in front of windows; a side-light from as high a source as possible, so arranged as not to throw a shadow from the body and arms upon the work, is desirable. It is usually considered preferable to have the light come from the left side. Windows should not be supplied with curtains or woodwork that will obstruct the free entrance of light, especially in the upper sashes. If some part of the room requires artificial light upon dark days, care must be exercised that the children's eyes are not subjected to conflicting lights between the natural and artificial sources of light. At the same time, every corner of the room must be so plainly illuminated as to allow reading without any strain of the eyes; but in striving to accomplish this we must try to avoid conflicting or glaring lights. The color of the school room wall should be of some neutral tint, preferably light gray. Even when all the conditions of proper lighting are fulfilled, the teacher must keep a watchful oversight over the children. If any pupil has eyes that become red and watery, or if complaint is made of headache or pain in the eyes after application, it is an evidence that the child's

eyes are being overstrained. The work ma then be lessened, and a physician consulter. The furniture of a school-room may have an important influence upon the child's health If the seats and desks are too high or too low, or not in proper apposition, the children will be obliged to work in constricted, uncom fortable positions. In a recent examination of one thousand children in one of our public institutions, the writer found that a little over ten per cent. of the pupils had a beginning curvature of the spine.

Rapidly growing children are prone to develop this condition, which is encouraged and often actually produced, by faulty posture during school attendance. The seat should be of the height measured from the knee to the foot, so that, when sitting, the soles and heels of the feet may rest easily upon the floor. The desks are often too high above the seats, which favors a lateral curvature of the spine. The back of the desk should be at about the level of the elbow when the child is sitting upright. The inner border of the desk should reach about one inch over the front of the seat. This compels the child to sit up straight, and prevents the curving forward of the spine too much. The desk should not overhang the seat more than two inches, as freedom of movement may thus be impeded. Sometimes it may be sufficient to have the inner edge of the desk vertical with the front edge of the seat. The slant of the desk may be at an angle of from fifteen to twenty degrees. It is best to have. the desks and seats single, and it will add to the comfort to have the front edge of the seat curved. The back may also have a slight backward curvature.

Where the children in a school come from tenement-houses, care must be exercised in the use of slates, slate-pencils, and sponges. As these agents may be responsible for the spread of disease, especially of the throat and mouth, it is often safer to depend on pads and pencils. Among this class of pupils, the books that are taken home should be covered with browa manila paper. Careful inspection of the drinking-cups must frequently be made to insure perfect cleanliness. Here, again, extra care must be enjoined when large numbers of tenement-house children are massed together in one school, owing to the prevalence of sore throats and mild diphtheria. On this account the New York Board of Health has recommended that a numbered cup, to be kept in each class-room, shall be

sued to each pupil, and no interchange of ips to be allowed. The strictest cleanliness £ floors and furniture must be the rule in very class-room. In crowded schools, the oors, stairs, hand-banisters, doors, and knobs ay be washed every week with a soda soluon, containing one-half pound of washingoda to three gallons of water. This not nly induces cleanliness but destroys possible isease germs.

A suitable place to hang outer wraps and oats, where they will be freely exposed to he air, should be provided in every school. These articles must not be shut in closets hat are poorly ventilated, and garments of lifferent children should be hung so as not o touch. Of course, children with any comnunicable disease must not be allowed to attend school. Many common conditions are more or less infectious that may not be appreciated by the laity. Thus, sore eyes, granular lids, ringworm, and all kinds of sore throat may spread through a school by one pupil infecting another. No child that has not been vaccinated should be allowed to attend school. Any child that is apparently ailing should be closely questioned by the teacher, and sent home if there is any uncertainty as to the nature of the trouble. In cases of measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, all pupils from the home had better be excluded from school during the course of the illness, unless the teacher can be assured that rigorous isolation and disinfection are being practiced. It is hardly necessary to say that closets should be scrupu

lously clean, well flushed with water, properly trapped, and well ventilated. Each closet should be inspected every few hours to see that hygienic conditions are being observed. The temperature of the school-room in winter should not be lower than 65° F., or higher than 70° F., a good average being 68° F. In order to keep track of this point, it is well to have a card placed in every room, where the temperature is to be registered at stated times during the school day. The heat may be supplied by a good hot-air furnace or by steam. Direct steam heating, with radiators in class-rooms, is not desirable. When stoves are used, they should, if possible, be supplied with fresh-air inlets. Open fires are more desirable for ventilation than for heating.

Much of ill health among school-children comes from want of proper oversight at home. In the matter of clothing and nourishment, parents are often very careless. No child should be allowed to leave for school until a nourishing breakfast has been taken and provision made for a suitable lunch or dinner. If the lunch is taken during school recess, sufficient time must be allowed to comfortably eat, and the child forbidden to play and eat at the same time. The labor of the school must not be so engrossing as to prevent two or three hours' play and exercise in the open air. In reference to the whole matter of the education of the young, physicians should be more frequently consulted. If they were oftener asked to serve on Boards of Education, many mistakes so commonly seen might not be committed.

-Adelaide A. Procter.

Books of the Week

[Most of the books mentioned under this head were received by The Outlook during the week ending December 9. Prices will be found under the head of Books Received in the preceding issue of The Outlook. This weekly report of current literature will be supplemented by fuller reviews of the more important works.]

HISTORY

Every one who has Sir Walter Besant's delightful books, "London" and "Westminster," will be anxious to possess his new volume, South London. Sir Walter lingers with a feeling of strong affection about the ancient monuments and buildings still to be found on the far side of the Thames; and reconstructs with close knowledge and lively fancy the scenes of former times in that part of the great metropolis. Every novel-reader knows how pleasantly Sir Walter has made use in several of his stories of Old London ways and Old London places. This volume, like the two preceding ones, has much of the interest of those novels. The book is admirably illustrated with an etching by Francis S. Walker and many unusually good drawings by Mr. Percy Wadham. (The F. A. Stokes Company, New York.)

A large part of the history of this country has been necessarily summarized in the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. The ten substantial volumes in which these important state documents are published are of exceeding value for reference. They include not only the annual, special, and veto messages of the Presidents from Washington down, but also inaugural addresses, proclamations, executive orders, and, incidentally, much important secret correspondence of the State Department. This bare description is enough to show that the work is of positive and serious value to a careful student of the political history of the United States. The ten volumes were printed at the Government Printing-Office, under a Joint Resolution authorizing the compilation of the work by the Hon. James D. Richardson, and the publishing of 6,000 copies for the use of the Senate and the House. As we understand it, subsequent to the distribution of the Government copies, permission was granted for the issuing of a number of copies to be offered for sale to the general public, under private auspices. Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, former Librarian of Congress, is

the general secretary of a "Committee on Distribution" at Washington; and from him information may be had as to the price of the work as well as to its character and contents. It does not appear, so far as we have observed, exactly what this " Committee on Distribution" is; and it seems to us that it would have been better for the publishers of the present edition to have stated the facts about the method in which it is now published more fully in their circulars, or in a preface. At present the inference might be drawn that the work was sold directly by a committee acting for the Government, which we suppose not to be the case. If it were the case, some unfavorable criticism might be made with justice on the sale by the Government of Government publications. We are sure that a plain statement of the facts as to the way in which the book comes to be offered for sale would in no respect detract from its undoubted value. Excellent portraits add to the interest of the work.

The second series of the "Half Moon" papers, which are, as readers of The Outlook will recall, studies of Historic New York, edited by Mrs. Goodwin, Miss Royce, Miss Putnam, and Miss Brownell, contains monographs on Slavery in New York," "Tammany Hall,” "Bowling Green," "Old Taverns and Posting Inns," "The Doctor in Old New York," "Early Schools and Schoolmasters of New Amsterdam," and other kindred themes; and among the contributors are Talcott Williams, Mr. Spencer Trask, Dr. F. H. Bosworth, and Harrington Putnam. These monographs have been carefully prepared, they are very beautifully printed, and they are of value as contributions to the knowledge of the metropolis. The historic sense in New York needs development; and this series of papers ought to aid materially in that process. One of the most important agencies for the development of that community-spirit which New York has so conspicuously lacked is a strong his torical sense-a sense of historic values as they exist in the streets and localities with which we are familiar. This series promises, therefore, to aid in the enrichment of our municipal life. The publishers deserve commendation for the admirable and tasteful form in which they are issuing these volumes. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.)

NOVELS AND TALES

Mr. Julian Ralph has few superiors as a describer of that which he has seen. His short stories have had the same merit found in his descriptive articles; that is, they have presented types of character and social traits with which he had made himself familiar. Now, however, in his novel An Angel in a Web, he chooses to mingle the purely imaginative and supernatural with the real, and the experiment is not, to our taste, a success. Du Maurier could do this sort of thing (although "The Martian" showed that he could not always reach the height of "Peter Ibbetson "), but Mr. Ralph's talent lies in another direction. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

The New God is a translation from the German of Richard Voss. It is a tale of the days immediately following the crucifixion of Christ, and deals particularly with the later life of Pilate. Dramatic intensity is not lacking. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

Rembrandt: A Romance of Holland, by Walter C. Larned, has a high standard of idealism and shows refinement of thought. As a novel it is too diffuse in the dialogue and occasionally a little high-flown, while the semblance of antique diction sometimes bores the reader. Excellent reproductions of Rembrandt pictures illustrate the story. (Charles Scribner s Sons, New York.)

Doomsday, by Crabtree Hemenway, is a strange, overwrought tragedy of island life, in which figure a half-crazed prophet of the coming of doom, some deluded and frightened fisher-folk, a drunken and brutal husband and his sorrow-worn wife. The author has some imaginative power, but his story is too continuously painful. (Copeland & Day, Boston.)

It is distinctly comical to find an earnestly hortatory novel from Mr. Rider Haggard's pen-although he did once write a decidedly comminatory novel in denunciation of the ill-treatment of authors by wicked publishers. This time, in Dr. Herne, his voice is lifted against the anti-vaccinationists, his villain being a leader in the movement, who in the end basely vaccinates himself to save his life. But in a small-type foot-note Mr. Haggard magnanimously grants that there are some conscientious anti-vaccinationists. We commend to him Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's recent book on "The Wonderful Century," in which the great scientist, who, like Mr. Haggard, is rather lacking in humor, takes a large part of his space to show that

the century is not wonderful on account of the discovery of vaccination, as he believes that to be a delusion. (Longmans, Green & Co., New York.)

Five books come from the press of Drexel Biddle (Philadelphia). The Laurel Walk, a ghost story, by Mrs. Molesworth, has the usual background of English country life. A love-entanglement adds to the interest, but it is an unobtrusive love-story that lays the ghost. Paving the Way, by Simpson Newland, is "a romance of the Australian bush." Mr. Newland, an Englishman, has been Treasurer of South Australia, and a resident of that land for many years. The book is a romance, not a recital of adventure. The Woodly Lane Ghost, and other stories by Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, is a collection of twenty-four short stories, grave and gay, and at least one," How Not to Propose,” humorous. Word for Word and Letter for Letter is called by the author "a biographical romance." The story is extravagant and uninteresting; the superprominence of the ego may be responsible. A Prince of the Blood, by Julius A. Lewis, illustrated by C. W. Snyder, is a story of an attempt to find the heir of Charles Stuart in New York. Kidnapping, attempted murder, and all the accessories of an attempt to right the wrongs and return to England the heir to its throne are present.

TRAVEL AND EXPLORATION

Few novels of adventure can compare in fascination with Sir George Robertson's Chitrál: The Story of a Minor Siege. In Great Britain's small wars of the last halfcentury there have been no more inspiring and brilliant acts of daring, heroism, and endurance than those in the Chitrál campaign, shared in alike by the English and Scotch soldiers and by their native allies. This record of plain attested fact reads like a romance, and stirs the blood constantly. One learns from it what frontier war means, and how the maintenance of empire rests in the end on individual courage. The author tells this stirring story with literary force and in clear narrative. (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.)

Camping and Tramping in Malaya is an illustrated record of the journeys and adventures of Mr. Ambrose B. Rathmore in the western part of the Malay Peninsula. The author has been engaged in pioneering and exploring in Malaya for about fifteen years,

and has traversed wiae regions of country absolutely unknown to Europeans. His comments on the Malay character have special interest to Americans in view of the large number of Malays in the Philippines. The book is a carefully written record of close observation. (The Macmillan Company, New York.)

Charles Scribner's Sons (New York) issue the second series of Mr. James A. Symonds's Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, being, as readers of The Outlook will remember, a reprint, with a new and more logical arrangement, of some of Mr. Symonds's most interesting papers.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

The Bible Dictionaries that embalmed the best scholarship of the last generation are passing over with their editors to join the majority, and we greet from time to time their successors enriched with the latest discoveries. An excellent specimen of a onevolume work of this kind is the Dictionary of the Bible, by Professor J. D. Davis, of Princeton. It is specially rich in maps and plans, many of them new and original, and is amply illustrated. In points of Biblical criticism it bears the Princeton watermark of resistance to the uttermost against any concession to views in conflict with traditional belief, but it states the views it controverts with an apparent fairness. (Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia.)

That Mr. Herbert Spencer has been able, under the adverse condition of his health, to complete the first volume of the final edition of his Principles of Biology is most gratifying to the sympathetic watchers of his protracted and strenuous toil. The lapse of thirty-two years has required numerous additions to the work we are familiar with-whole chapters, as well as chapter sections, among which we have Mr. Spencer's latest word of comment on "Recent Criticisms and Hypotheses." Minor changes in the process of revision have been numerous, and many of those have been made by the aid of scientific friends named in the Preface. In the new chapter on "The Dynamic Element in Life" Mr. Spencer frankly confesses the great secret of biology. "We are obliged to confess that life in its essence cannot be conceived in physico-chemical terms." The required principle of activity cannot be represented either as an independent vital principle, or as inherent in living matter. "Our explana

tions bring us face to face with the inexplicable. The Ultimate Reality ... transcends conception." We regret that right here Mr. Spencer can go no further, through antipathy to the conception of GOD. (D. Appleton & Co., New York.)

In following up his recent collection of brief addresses, entitled " Mornings in the College Chapel," with another, entitled Afternoons in the College Chapel, Professor Peabody, of Harvard, has conferred a benefit on a circle of interested listeners far wider than the College grounds. The Thursday afternoon Vesper Service at Harvard has a sort of historic flavor to those who recall what an institution the Thursday lecture was in the Boston of colonial times, though the tenminute limit of the address is an immense departure from the historic pattern. Probably as much or more truth may be effectively conveyed in the briefer form. The address upon "Gideon and the Angel" is a model for the effective illustration of universal experience by the naïve supernaturalism of the Old Testament. The address on "The Greater Puritanism" is to be commended to any who imagine that there is religious degeneracy at Harvard. Professor Peabody holds that" toleration is not compromise; it is insight. . . . Liberality in religion is waiting, not for men to believe less, but for men to believe more." (Houghton, Mifflin & Co, Boston.)

The motif of the little book by Dr. Jefferson, of the Broadway Tabernacle Church in this city, entitled Quiet Talks with Earnest People in My Study, is in the conviction that laymen and ministers would co-operate more effectively could there be a more appreciative understanding between them, particularly of the minister by the layman. For this the author, saying that he was a layman himself for ten years and "has never recovered from it," and still thinks laymen the best people on earth, sets himself to talk with imaginary visitors to his study about the other class of people he knows well-viz., the ministers. All the sore spots, weak spots, and dark spots are touched in a succession of brief conversations in a plain but pithy, bright, and breezy way, which lights up the whole situation with a large and genial good sense. The book deserves wide reading in all the denominations, but particularly by "the Lord's foolish people." (T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York.)

Theologia Pectoris, by Dr. James Muscutt