not appear that the elder poet made use of this metrical device, or irregularity, in any two successive lines of the heroic pentameter. Tennyson, on the other hand, in the passage so triumphantly adduced by Professor Skeat in support of his contention (which I am not prepared to dispute), departs from the normal pentameter in a dozen successive lines, and shortly afterward plunges into far wilder metrical irregularities. All this he does, as every attentive reader must surely feel, deliberately and with definite artistic purpose. In the normal pentameter couplet the dance of sin could never have become so "fast and furious." There is a world of difference between such artistic irregularities as these and Chaucer's occasional and apparently aimless anacrusis. That a scholar whose life is devoted to subjects of this sort should seem impervious to a distinction so obvious, is very strange. It is perhaps still stranger that the lynx-eyed reviewers of two hemispheres should, for ten years, have allowed such a nugget of criticism to slip through their sieves. MELVILLE B. ANDERSON. NEW BOOKS IN PEDAGOGY.* There are two commonplaces in pedagogical science nowadays that no writer thinks of questioning. Subjectively, the end in education is training rather than instruction; objectively, it is the promotion of the material sciences. To write an interrogation point after either of these dogmas, is to commit the unpardonable pedagogical sin. The supremacy of the material sciences may be called the American idea in education. It has made us what we are, and is daily making us more so. A moment's thought will show that these two principles supplement each other. From the kindergarten up, the attempt is no longer to instruct the pupil in a body of accumulated knowledge, but * STUDIES IN PEDAGOGY. By Thomas J. Morgan. Boston: Silver, Burdett & Co. THE COMING SCHOOL. By Ellen E. Kenyon. New York: Cassell & Co. EUROPEAN SCHOOLS. By L. R. Klemm, Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. By Richard G. Boone. New York: D. Appleton & Co. MONOGRAPHS ON THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION: I.-History of Education in North Carolina, by Charles Lee Smith. II.-History of Higher Education in South Carolina, by Colyer Meriwether, A.B. III.-Education in Georgia, by Charles Edgeworth Jones. IV.-History of Education in Florida, by George Gary Bush, Ph.D. V.-Higher Education in Wisconsin, by William F. Allen and David E. Spence. Washington: Government Printing Office. ences. to hasten as much as possible the development of his mental activity. An endless series of object lessons teaches him to perceive, to observe, to recognize new likenesses and differEvery promise of spontaneity is carefully nursed. Originality, inventiveness, research, are studiously encouraged. To train the memory, that psychical balance-wheel holding us down to the past, is an antiquated custom. The individuality of the pupil is studied and reverenced. Variations are fixed and perpetuated, and the process of mental evolution is hurried onward. hurried onward. Such an education produces keen observers, shrewd classifiers, original thinkers, the very qualities required to promote the physical sciences and push forward our material development. Professor Morgan's "Studies in Pedagogy may be called a thesaurus of pedagogical maxims representing the orthodoxy of the "new education.' It is a good book full of good things. It is not, perhaps, a book that will find midnight readers, for one seems to have heard these maxims before. Training not instruction, things not words, thought not memory, activity not receptivity, are principles having a familiar sound; but as long as pedagogical theory is so far in advance of pedagogical practice as it is at present, all lovers of humanity will welcome these thoughts, whether offered in the polished and naive manner of Professor Morgan, or shot at us in the pessimistic fashion of Ellen Kenyon. We are especially grateful to the author for the chapter on Training in Music. We wish every educator would recognize as clearly the elevating, purifying, and harmonizing power of music, and the duty of the state to provide educators in it. The Greek conception of musical education cannot be overpraised. It is the very thing we most need in American schools. Only in this way can our growing eye-mindedness be checked, and the noble voice and ear saved from defeat in their present unfair struggle with the hand and eye. It would seem, however, that Professor Morgan has not appreciated the real psychological basis of this need of musical education, for in his chapter on examinations he produces ten arguments in favor of written examinations, and seems to encourage instead of correcting the vice, so prevalent in our public schools, of making the pupil a mere writing-machine. On the training of the senses, nothing could be more harmless than his little chapter of eight pages devoted to this vital subject. The ideal schoolmaster, Professor Morgan characterizes as a manly man, a philanthropist, a patriot, a scholar, a philosopher, an artist, and a Christian. Quite in contrast to these pretty pedagogical generalities are the burning words of Ellen E. Kenyon in a little book called "The Coming School." It is the passionate outcry of a practical school-teacher against formalism in method and shams in practice. The author has caught the spirit of Pestalozzi and Rousseau, reminding us of the latter by her earnestness and of the former by her "enthusiasm of humanity." She is a lover of childhood and of nature, a hater of cant and form. So long have the Froebelian principles of education been known and approved, so little are they realized in existing schools, that sarcasm is the only expression adequate to the author's indignation. Everywhere we see the cramming, hot-house, memory method, whose end is the graduating examination, whose ultimate cause is the political unprofessional school-board. But our female pessimist is also an optimist. The "coming school" will offer remedies for these defects. Its focus will be the primary grade. Here, at that critical moment when the mind of the child first expands, will be found the welltrained and best-paid teachers, instead of the tyros. Here will be studied objects, objects, objects, not words. Here will evermore be trained perception, not memory. Here the method will always be from the known to the unknown. Shall we proceed from the whole to the part? Not always. That is the way to study the apple, but not the earth. The latter is somewhat too large for the child to get a percept of. Here, in the "coming school," a box lined with blue satin, and filled with specimens of spar, ore, and other minerals, will be not only the text-book for teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, government, finance, grammar, composition, drawing, painting, and modelling, but also the means of training the attention, judgment, reasoning, imagination, and the emotions. Here, to build character more than to impart knowledge will be the teacher's aim. Here, sympathy, courtesy, and heroism will be taught before reading, writing, and arithmetic. This woman is in such dead earnest, the abuses she attacks are so apparent, the reforms she advocates are so urgent, that one hesitates to criticize the extreme character of the changes she would introduce, or her too trustful following of Colonel Parker and the Quincy methods. One is disarmed, One is disarmed, too, of literary criticism by her preface, and forbears to notice her remarkable combination of more remarkable words. Dr. Klemm, the author of 66 European Schools," a late issue in the "International Education Series," is to be envied for having written the very book that we wanted. Those of us who have searched in vain through libraries for some brief and intelligible account of what German schools actually are to-day, will welcome with delight Dr. Klemm's handy little volume. In America we have led the world in so many things, that we forget to follow where others are leaders. Germany is admitted to have the best educational system in the world; but to the present hour our ignorance of German methods, and particularly of German schools, is dense. The author does not profess to write a systematic account of European schools. His book is more like a rambler's notes. He uses his pencil as freely as his pen, so that we really see the German school both within and without. He has no method but a geographical one, and his style is so free and easy that it sometimes becomes jaunty. Side by side we find a discussion of Herbathian pedagogy and a description and sketch of a simple device for a map-holder. Nevertheless, the book is readable-almost too readable to lay down unfinished. On German methods of teaching, Dr. Klemm says: In his famous report, Horace Mann said: In Germany I never saw a teacher hearing a recitation with a book in his hand, nor a teacher sitting while hearing a recitation.' This holds good still. I passed through six rooms repeatedly during the day I spent in the Duisburg Mittelschule,' and saw or heard nine lessons or recitations, but not once did I see a teacher with a book in his hands, not even during a lesson in reading and literature. I expect you to read so that I may understand you instantly,' the teacher said to the class; and they did it, to be sure." In the German primary schools no text-books are used in teaching arithmetic, algebra, geometry, botany, zoology, or geography. A compassionate smile was the questioner's answer when he asked whether a text-book in grammar were used. Originality in method, freedom from formalism, the study of objects, characterize the German schools. Over there one hears little of "keeping school, hearing recitations, setting tasks, assigning lessons." In method, the German primary school is a miniature German university. The teacher gives his pupils his own knowledge, in the form, if not of set lectures, yet very often of chalk talks. Next day the pupil is quizzed, and in turn recites with crayon in hand, sketching as he talks. Training in music is more thorough and more extended than in America. The teacher plays the violin, leads the singing himself, and gives instruction in original composition. Thus far, Germany is doing something to train the ear and voice. Nevertheless, the whole tendency of education there, as here, is to increase the prevailing eye-mindedness of the age. Our author complains of the inability of Germans to talk on their feet, saying that in their stumbling attempts to express themselves orally in public, they compare not at all with Americans. This is not wonderful, however, when we reflect that from the kindergarten to the university the boy is required to express his thoughts more and more by writing and drawing, and less and less by oral statements. The pedagogical discovery of our age is that it is easier to impress the mind through the eye than through the ear. Whatever the subject, the teacher writes it on the board and illustrates it by a figure. The pupil copies it in his note book, and on examination day writes it out on paper. Grammar is taught by a diagram and political economy by a curve. Blackboards and maps cover the walls; globes, figures, models, physical and chemical apparatus, cover the tables. No wonder that the graduate from those schools finds himself tongue-tied, and limited to the ambition of writing a book. In the reaction from the old routine memory methods, the voice and ear and memory are neglected, and a certain finer culture connected with these is lost. For the last ten years, the time given to drawing and modelling in our schools has been steadily and rapidly increasing. There has been no proportionate increase in the time given to the more humanistic subjects of music, conversation, and oratory. In the same series, Professor Boone has written a book of permanent worth, entitled "Education in the United States." It is a concise account of the rise, progress, and present condition of American schools, colleges, and universities. Part one treats of the Colonial Period, and describes in a most interesting manner the first educational effort in New England, and the founding of Harvard and Yale colleges and the college of William and Mary. In part three is traced the development of the whole American system of education, in all its branches. The subject is a vast one and the treatment necessarily brief. It embraces the creation of school funds, the district system, state, county, and city supervision, normal schools and pedagogical departments in colleges, the college curriculum of study, state colleges, privately endowed colleges, denominational colleges, professional schools, reformatory schools, governmental departments of education, etc. In the chapter on "Education of Unfortunates," we find, for instance, ten pages devoted to a condensed and convenient account of Indian education. The author's plan, indeed, is too comprehensive for his space, as is shown in his chapter on "The General Government and Education," when he goes so far afield as to treat, of course in the briefest way, of the coast survey, the signal service, and related subjects. In a teacher's handbook, however, even those hasty references may be useful. The chapter on the "Gradation of Schools" shows the present existence of 544 kindergartens, with 25,952 pupils. Of these schools, 158 are supported by public funds. In the history of education, a most valuable work is in progress by the indefatigable young workers at Johns Hopkins University. These contributions to American Educational History are edited by Professor Adams, and printed by the National Bureau of Education. Monographs on the History of Education in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin have thus far appeared, written for the most part by young men from their respective states and studying at the Johns Hopkins University. University. Their monographs are complete histories of education in the several states named, the motives of the authors evidently being to treat the subjects so exhaustively as to preclude the necessity of anyone undertaking the same work after them. G. T. W. PATRICK. -a trans MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF'S JOURNAL.* The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff,lation of which has just appeared in America, although the original was published over a year ago in Paris, is one of those books which immediately become a part of the soul of the reader. That ambitious, morbid, suffering girl gives to us in this wonderful book, which appeals to the deepest and most natural feeling of the human heart, that exquisite emotional thrill which tender music rendered by a master, noble sentiments uttered by a great orator, or the magnetic voice of a Patti or a Gayarré, sometimes gives. When we put aside this * MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF. The Journal of a Young Artist, 1860-1884. Translated by Mary J. Serrano. Illustrated. New York: Cassell & Co. 66 record of a daily life so intense in every line, revealing a nature containing such possibilities of greatness, we are oppressed with a feeling of indescribable sadness. The writer says somewhere in her Journal: It would be curious if this record of my failures and of my obscure life should be the means of procuring for me the fame I long for, and shall always long for." Exaltée, beloved, beautiful, talented, her book has made her famous, but too late. Marie Bashkirtseff was born in Pultava, Russia, on the 11th of November, 1860. She was very beautiful, with delicate exquisitely modelled features, golden hair, and gray eyes curiously deep and sweet. Her face was an intellectual as well as a beautiful one, but it lacked repose. A shadow of unrest, as delicate as might be left by the wing of a bird, always At fifteen she already dreamed rested there. of being famous. She says: "I am ambitious-that is my greatest fault. The beauties and the ruins of Rome make me dizzy. I should like to be Cæsar, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Caracalla, Solon, the Pope; I should like to be all these, and I am nothing. Ah! how weary I am of my obscurity! I am consumed by inaction. am growing mouldy in this darkness. Oh, for the light, the light, the light!" I "A delicious repose, a sweet book to read, a walk in some open and solitary spot, a conversation in which one discloses all one's heart, a strong emotion that brings the tears to one's eyes and makes the heart beat faster, whether it comes of some tale of generous action, or of a sentiment of tenderness, of health, of gaiety, of liberty, of indolence, there is the true happiness, nor shall I ever know any other." This ideal of the sage of the 18th century would not have contented our 19th century hot-house blossom. She writes: "To count neither on friendship, nor gratitude, nor loyalty, nor honesty; to elevate one's self courageously above the meannesses of humanity, and take one's stand between them and God; to get all one can out of life, and that quickly; to do no injury to one's fellow-beings; to make one's life luxurious and magnificent; to be independent, so far as it be possible, of others; to possess power!—yes, power!-no matter by what means!--this is to be feared and respected; this is to be strong, and that is the height of human felicity, because one's fellow-beings are then muzzled, and either through cowardice or for other reasons will not seek to tear one to pieces. "Is it not strange to hear me reason in this way? Yes, but this manner of reasoning in a young creature like me is but another proof of how bad the world is; it must be thoroughly saturated with wickedness to have so saddened me in so short a time. I am only fifteen." This cynicism at fifteen might revolt us, were it not the cynicism of a noble heart tortured by doubt, and not that of corruption or experience. Marie Bashkirtseff, like Alfred de Musset, was a true child of the nineteenth century,believing in yet haunted by "the shadow of belief, disbelief "; passionate, seeking for noble ideals, yet shackled by the chains of environment, analyzing every emotion until it rose up like a Frankenstein to terrify her, enjoying even her own sufferings and her own tears. She says: "I love to weep, I love to give myself up to despair; I love to be troubled and sorrowful." Alfred de Musset expresses the same sentiment in the pathetic lines: "Le seul bien qui me reste au monde She sighed for happiness, but, like a will-o'- Tant d' éléments si peu d'accord ? " Marie had a pure and correct literary taste, and loved the strength and virility of the classics. She says in her Journal: When No melodrama, no romance, no sensational comedy of Dumas or of George Sand, has left so clear a souvenir and so profound and natural an impression upon me as the description of the taking of Troy." Plato was always open on her desk. she left Nice, she says that she took with her "the encyclopædia, a volume of Plato, Dante, Ariosto, and Shakespeare,"—a curious library for a girl of fifteen. she loved Italy. Like all people of poetic and artistic nature, 66 Life is not the same there as elsewhere. It is free, fantastic, large, reckless and yet languid, fiery yet gentle, like its sun, its sky, its glowing plain." However, in the autumn of 1877, Madame Bashkirtseff, Marie's mother, said to have been one of the most beautiful women in Russia, decided to live in Paris. At first Marie writes: her life was a constant struggle between ambition and disease. She worked many hours a day, and in a very short time showed a true genius for her art. The presentiment of an early death still seemed to haunt her, even in the midst of success, and she writes in 1878: "To die? It would be absurd; and yet I think I am going to die. It is impossible that I should live long. I am not constituted like other people; I have a great deal too much of some things in my nature, a great deal too little of others, and a character not made to last. If I were a goddess, and the whole universe were employed in my service, I should still find the service badly rendered. There is no one more exacting, more capricious, more impatient, than I am. There is sometimes, perhaps even always, a certain basis of reason and justice in my words, only that I cannot explain clearly what I want to say. I say this, however, that my life cannot last long. My projects, my hopes, my little vanities, all fallen to pieces! I have deceived myself in everything!" Again she says: "I do not fear death, but life is so short that to waste it is infamous. Art! I picture it to myself like a great light shining before me in the distance, and I forget everything else but this, and I shall press forward to the goal, my eyes fixed upon this light." As her malady progresses she becomes slightly deaf, and this causes her the most profound discouragement. She writes: "I shall never recover my hearing, then. It will be endurable, but there will always be a veil between me and the rest of the world. The wind among the trees, the murmur of the brook, the rain striking against the window-panes, whispered words, I shall hear none of these. I am accustomed to it, but it is none the less horrible." Her most successful picture, "A Meeting," was exposed in the Salon of 1884, and was the picture most talked of that year. Marie could scarcely believe in her success. She says in her Journal: "Ah! I begin to believe it a little, but for fear of believing too much I do not permit myself to feel satisfaction but with reserves of which you have no idea. Enfin! I shall be the last to believe that the world believes in me." Though oppressed by physical weakness, she still works continually, but writes: "Oh, this dreadful lassitude! Is it natural to feel thus at my age? In the evenings when I am tired out and half asleep, divine harmonies float through my brain; they rise and fall, like the strains of an orchestra, but independent of my volition. If we only knew what there is beyond-but we do not; and then, it is precisely this feeling of curiosity I have about it that makes the thought of death less terrible to me." Her friendship with Bastien-Lepage,-whom she describes as "not a painter only, a poet, a psychologist, a metaphysician, a creator."— was a very tender one. He too was doomed to an early death; and when she was dying, he was carried to her house to spend the few hours remaining at her side. It is a pathetic picture, the shadow of death over them both; and yet they still desired to paint, the artistic spirit almost surviving the soul itself. She writes: 66 I am un Bastien-Lepage goes from bad to worse. able to work. My picture (La Rue) will not be finished. Here are misfortunes enough! He is dying, and he suffers intensely. When I am with him, I feel as if he were no longer of this earth; he already soars above us; there are days when I feel as if I too soared above this earth. I see the people around me, they speak to me, I answer them, but I am no longer of them. passive indifference to everything, a sensation somewhat like that produced by opium. I feel a Yes, he is am indifferthat is all. dying, and the thought does not move me, I ent to it; something is fading out of sight And then everything will be ended-everything will be ended. I shall die with the dying year." Two weeks before her death, she writes ; "I have not been able to go out for the past few days. I am very ill, although I am not confined to bed. Ah, my God! and my picture, my picture, my picture!" Marie Bashkirtseff died at the age of twentyfour, October 31, 1884,—just eleven days after the last entry in her Journal. She left over one hundred and fifty pictures and sketches, and this phenomenal book. GENEVIEVE GRANT. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS. THE exterior of Miss Edwards's "Untrodden Paths and Unfrequented Valleys" (Routledge) is so coarse and tawdry, its cover design of mountain. cliff, ocean, and sky, is so forbidding, that except for the attraction of the author's name one would scarcely be tempted to open the book. But Amelia B. Edwards is a name of charm, and more than ever just now while her presence in this country is adding fresh laurels to a reputation already famous in so many different directions, that she may be pronounced the most versatile woman in the best sense of that much-abused word versatile now before the public. As long ago as 1853 she began writing for magazines and prepared an abridgement of French history and a school history of England. Two years later she began novel-writing with "My Brother's Wife"; and the list has since included The Ladder of Life," "Hand and Glove," "Barbara's History," Half a Million of Money," "Miss Carew," Debenham's Vow," In Days of My Youth," "Monsieur Maurice," and "Lord Brackenbury." But in America she is less known as a novelist than as a scholar, organizer, traveller, art critic, and lecturer. The Egyptian Exploration Fund, of which she is vice-president and honorary secretary, derives about half its income from this side of the Atlantic. Largely through her immense |