er another generation a poet shall again undertake
to express the village life of my home, what will he perhaps find?
Flowers bloom in all times out of the German soil, and Beauty will
in all times bloom out of the German soul.

* * * * *

OF late years there has been a tendency to abandon the exhaustive
"manuals" which once formed the only style of school and hand-books
known, and to use in their place books which contain only so much of a
science as is taught in some one well-proportioned school. The change
is based on the rational supposition that whatever suffices for the
thorough instruction of students should also satisfy the wants of an
ordinary practical worker. Mr. Ricketts's "Notes on Assaying"[16]
belong to this modern kind of text-book. They contain what the students
in the School of Mines in New York learn, and as a thorough knowledge
of assaying is obviously necessary to a mining engineer, the author
considers that the same course if honestly worked through should
suffice for practice outside the school. The book covers both dry and
wet assaying, and gold parting, and there are chapters in which the
apparatus and chemical reagents are described. A few condensed notes on
blowpiping finish an extremely concise and useful book, always
available for reference, and in which the self-taught workman may find
his way without confusion.

[16] "_Notes on Assaying and Assay Schemes._" By PIERRE DE
PEYSTER RICKETTS, E.M. New York: The Art Printing Establishment.

--Under the pressure of incessant examinations for admission to and
promotion in many fields of human activity, from the Government service
to apprentices' workshops, English literature is receiving important
accessions to its facilities for teaching science. All kinds of
positive knowledge are condensed into class books, sometimes by the
very master minds of scientific research, sometimes by experienced
teachers. Of the latter kind is Mr. Lee's "Acoustics, Light and
Heat,"[17] which he has written to meet the wants of students for the
Advanced Stage Examination of the British Department of Science and
Art. Excellence in such a work requires that the main principles of the
science should be sufficiently covered, explanations be clear,
illustrations sufficient, and language as simple as possible. Mr. Lee's
book appears to us somewhat over-condensed, but otherwise conforms to
these requirement