t authors and publishers have made out of text-books a profitable
business and good incomes. In all sciences and arts there exists a
quantity of material which is common property, which is disposed of now
in one way, now in another. The majority of compendiums can be
distinguished from each other only by the kind of paper, printing, the
name of the publisher or bookseller, or by arbitrary changes in the
arrangement and execution. The want of principle with which this work is
carried on is incredible. Many governments have on this account fixed
prices for text-books, and commissioners to select them. This in itself
is right and proper, but the use of any book should be left optional, so
that the one-sidedness of a science patronized by government as it were
patented, may not be created through the pressure of such introduction.
A state may through its censorship oppose poor text-books, and recommend
good ones; but it may not establish as it were a state-science, a
state-art, in which only the ideas, laws and forms sanctioned by it
shall be allowed. The Germans are fortunate, in consequence of their
philosophical criticism, in the production of better and better
text-books, among which may be mentioned Koberstein's, Gervinus', and
Vilmar's Histories of Literature, Ellendt's General History,
Blumenbach's and Burmeister's Natural History, Marheineke's text-book on
Religion, Schwegler's History of Philosophy, &c. So much the more
unaccountable is it that, with such excellent books, the evil of such
characterless books, partly inadequate and partly in poor style, should
still exist when there is no necessity for it. The common style of
paragraph-writing has become obnoxious, under the name of
Compendium-style, as the most stiff and affected style of writing.--

Sec. 126. A text-book must be differently written according as it is
intended for a book for private study or for purposes of general
circulation. If the first, it must give more, and must develop more
clearly the internal relations; if the second, it should be shorter, and
proceed from axiomatic and clear postulates to their signification, and
these must have an epigrammatic pureness which should leave something to
be guessed. Because for these a commentary is needed which it is the
teacher's duty to supply, such a sketch is usually accompanied by the
fuller text-book which was arranged for private study.

--It is the custom to call the proper text-book the "small" on