and allied topics.

Vol. III provides "Easy Lessons for Developing Body and Mind," and deals specially with the maintenance of physical health, temperance, and mental training. The concluding Vol. IV is devoted to "Easy Lessons for Teaching Morality," and is perhaps the most valuable of the series. It treats of such questions as companions, amusements, etiquette, honesty, and thrift. The concluding chapters set forth the essentials of moral training and the sure basis on which we must build up powers for the establishment of the child's happiness. These highly original volumes are lucid in their exposition; simple, direct and appealing in their presentation; and will afford parents and teachers much material which will be of the greatest practical service in dealing with children. We wish also to direct attention to the "Practical Child Training Chart," which has been prepared by Professor Ray Beery, and is intended to be used in the home in connection with the course elaborated in the four volumes above described. The chart admirably summarizes the most important points in tabular form, and under the heads Physical, Mental, Moral, Vocational and Social, while a blank column is left for notes on the individual case under observation. The chart is a directory, and provides a means for record in the progress, study, and training of a new life from birth to the coming of age at twenty-one. We warmly commend these suggestive volumes and this helpful chart to all parents and other workers among children and adolescents, for if studied with judgment and used with discrimination and sound common sense they will prove of real value in assisting conscientious and open-minded men and women to render the greatest of service to their day and generation-the making and moulding of a better race.

EDUCATIONAL GYMNASTICS. Increasing attention is wisely being directed to all matters relating to physical training, bodily culture and gymnastics in connection with the educational work of colleges and schools. Every centre where children and adolescents and young developing men and women

are undergoing training in mind and body for a serviceable life career should have available an efficient, sympathetic and judicious medical adviser, and he or she should work for the general weal in loyal co-operation with the director of physical training or officer responsible for the organization and administration of all agencies relating in any way to educational physical training. A very helpful book on "The Theory and Practice of Educational Gymnastics, embracing Free Exercises, Rhythmic Steps, Track and Field Work, Games and Apparatus Work," has been issued by William A. Stecher, B.S.G., Director of Physical Education in the Public School of Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. The work is published by John Joseph McVey, 1229, Arch Street, Philadelphia. The first part enumerates the objects of physical training, and discusses the selection of material, games and the like at different age groups. Part II provides details regarding arrangements for the various school grades. Part III is devoted to descriptions of useful exercises on apparatus, gymnastic games and the like. Part IV deals with dancing steps. Part V sets forth the principles underlying the selection and arrangement of movements. Part IV describes dancing steps. Part V exercises. Part VII consists of accounts of gymnastic positions. Parts VIII, IX and X provide typical complete lessons for all school grades. In an appendix are notes on corrective gymnastics, and these might well be elaborated into a complete part in the next edition. We have enumerated the chief contents of this informing guide in order to indicate the practical character of the work. It is plentifully supplied with illustrations. The book only needs to be known and used to be appreciated. The price is $1.50 net.

THE BOSTON WAY.

Under the title of "The Boston Way: Plans for the Development of the Individual Child," the Special Class Teachers of Boston, U.S.A., have compiled and issued a practical manual through the Rumford Press, Concord, N.H., which all interested in the instruction of mentally defective, backward and exceptional

children should make a point of studying. It is a handbook which will be invaluable to all classes of teachers of young children. "The supreme need of one who would teach or train a little child is the power to put oneself in his place to go as far as the actual point of meeting with his actual need. What avails it that the teacher is strong, learned, skilled, if she cannot link her strength to her pupil's weakness, her knowledge to his ignorance, her skill to his lack of skill?" These sentences in the Foreword indicate the spirit and purpose of this serviceable manual. It is a book intended essentially for special class instructors, primary class and rural school teachers, but it will be of the greatest value to nurse-teachers, governesses and mothers undertaking the mental development of young children and desirous of progressing along lines of freedom and in accordance with methods best calculated to establish individuality. There are between thirty and forty sections, dealing with sense and motor training, physical exercises, games, folk dancing, music, reading, spelling, language, penmanship, arithmetic, history, geography, hygiene and human body lessons, drawing, domestic science, garden and farm work, paper work, weaving, reed, raffia, and leather and wood work, cobbling, brush-making, sewing, knitting, crocheting, manners and social reactions, &c. The volume is full of practical directions, helpful hints, wise suggestions and reliable signposts. Added to some of the sections are serviceable bibliographies. A copy of the work may be obtained on application being made to Miss Mary C. Culhane, Somerset Street School, Boston, Mass., U.S.A. The price is $1.00 net.

A WONDER BOOK.

Under the title of "The World's Wonder Stories for Boys and Girls," Mr. Adam Gowans Whyte has prepared, and Messrs. Watts and Co. have published, a really admirable volume for adolescents. It forms a splendid introduction to a general science course of training. The work sets out to provide answers to the How? Why? When? and Where? of children's interrogations. It seeks to explain in a simple but reliable

manner the evolution of the world, and the animals and plants and men found upon it. There are also helpful explanations to the recurrent queries: Where did all the religions come from? When did the Bible come? Where did right and wrong come from? How do things happen? The volume is admirably got up, with numerous illustrations and thirty-two plates. The cover has been designed by Mr. H. S. Tuke, R.A., and the clever diagram of the Tree of Life has been prepared by Mr. T. A. Brock. The price of the volume is 6s. net.

THE RECOGNITION OF RANK.

Messrs. George Philip and Son, Ltd., have published a most practical and serviceable little manual, entitled "Ranks at a Glance in the Army and Navy." By means of a series of cleverly designed and coloured diagrams there are demonstrated the various ranks in the Army and Navy, the Air Services, R. N.R., R.N.V.R., R.N.D., Royal Marines, W.A.A.C., W. R. N.S., &c. The badges of the United States forces are clearly indicated. Interesting and helpful descriptive notes are also furnished. The arrangement is admirable, and there is a good general index. We advise every teacher to procure a copy of this timely and informing manual. Our sons and daughters should be brought up not only in a spirit of patriotism, but with knowledge regarding those who serve and sacrifice for their defence. This handbook should be within the reach of every British patriot whether in uniform or working in civilian life. The price is Is. 6d. net.

THE FLY AND THE CHILD.

In bygone days the house-fly was often used as a text for moral and other instructions given to children. Now with the progress of scientific knowledge parents, nurses and children should learn that the common house-fly must rank among the enemies of child welfare. The fly is a carrier of disease, and in the dissemination of "summer diarrhoea," typhoid fever, septic affections, and other infectious diseases plays an important part. It is essential that during these

THE EDUCATION BILL.

Mr.

The great Education Bill of 1918 should speedily be on the Statute Book. The foundation stone on which educational work in coming days must be built has been well and worthily laid. H. A. L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education, has proved himself a seer and a statesman, and his name will have a permanent place in British history as one of the great leaders in educational progress. Mr. Fisher has recently addressed a fine message to teachers, which all workers for child betterment may well ponder: "None would question the appropriateness of teachers at the present crisis dedicating themselves anew to the national service. Every teacher worthy of the name must have a vocation in the religious sense of the word, though, as a great teacher once said, he should not often talk of it. He must have caught some glimpse of truth and of the inward freedom which truth alone can give, and must be inspired by the desire to turn the eyes of others to the light which he has himself seen. He must have faith-faith in his pupils and his work, and faith, despite all discouragement and difficulties, in the power of ideals to transform human nature. There never was a period in our history when teachers had a greater opportunity or a heavier responsibility. The nation is awakening, as never before, to the possibilities of education and to the necessity of combating ignorance in all its forms -physical, mental, and moral. The War is burning into all the value of knowledge and ordered discipline, of devotion to a great and common cause; but there is the danger that in reaction consequent upon peace and in the turmoil of material reconstruction the spiritual truths enforced by the War may be forgotten or obscured. It will rest largely upon the teachers to secure that these truths become part of the inheritance of the com

ing generation and that the full influence of education may be directed to the training of men and women imbued by lasting ideals of public service and self-sacrificing citizenship."

PARENTS AND CHILD

WELFARE.

All child welfare work should begin with the parents and in the home. In these days reformers are inclined to take the road which seems the smoothest and to follow the line of least resistance.

Such a course oftentimes appears expedient, but it is not always the best. Children are the offspring of parents, and parents are the first who should be held responsible for the care of lives they have brought into the world. Children have many rights, and the community have many duties to insure their wellbeing, but the first claim for service should fall on the parents. Many parents are peculiarly difficult people to deal with, and an Englishman likes to speak of his home as his castle, a dwellingplace secure from the invasions of friends or enemies. There is certainly a danger of much of our child welfare work developing without the adequate co-operation of parents and in centres outside the home. Some parents are apathetic, ignorant and neglectful, and others are cruel, immoral, defective, delinquent and diseased. Numerous so-called homes are not fit cradles for infants, nurseries for children, and training places for youths. And large numbers of our coming citizens are fatherless, and some too are also motherless, and homes must be found for the homeless. In spite of all, however, wherever possible our first and great endeavour should ever be to keep the child in close association with its parents and to help to make its home a safe shelter, a real playground, a true school for the development of civic virtues. In all ranks of life child welfare

workers should concentrate on the parent and the home. Many valuable books dealing with problems of parentage and the protection of the home are now available. We here direct attention to some new works which have recently reached us: "The Mother and Her Child," by William S. Sadler, M.D., Professor of Therapeutics in the Post-Graduate Medical School of Chicago, and Lena K. Sadler, M.D., Associate Director of the Chicago Institute of Physiologic Therapeutics, published by Messrs. George G. Harrap and Company, 2 and 3, Portsmouth Street, Kingsway, W.C.1 (price 6s. net), is a notable volume, prepared by a father and mother who are both members of the medical profession and have enjoyed long and exceptional experience in the study of child welfare problems, the training of students, and the direction of parents and patients. The work has been addressed primarily to American readers, but it is almost equally applicable to British parents and workers for child welfare. The volume is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the instruction and care of the mother from the beginning of expectancy to convalescence after labour; the management of the baby from birth up to weaning; and the development, safeguarding and nursing of the child both in health and in sickness up to youth. The work is reliable, detailed, explicit, thoroughly practical, and the subject matter is presented in a form which can be understood by any sensible mother. There are a number of instructive full-page illustrations and figures in the text. The book is one which workers in connection with schools for mothers, maternity and infant centres, health visiting and like enterprises will find of much service. It is a manual which medical practitioners may well recommend to expectant and young mothers. Doctors will find the volume helpful in preparing lectures for nurses and others in training.

It is only recently that attention has been conspicuously directed to a consideration of the psychological problems of infancy, childhood and youth. A particularly suggestive and helpful collection of essays on this aspect of child welfare has been prepared by Dr. H. Addington Bruce under the general title of "Psycho

logy and Parenthood." The work is published by Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company, 443-449, Fourth Avenue, New York City (price $1.50). Several of the sections have been reproduced from leading American magazines. Some idea of the nature of the work will be indicated by an enumeration of the chief titles: "The Importance of Environment,” “Suggestion in Education," "The Secret of Genius," "Intensive Child Culture," "The Problem of Laziness," "A Chapter on Laughter," "Hysteria in Childhood," and "The Menace of Fear." Dr. Addington Bruce has sought to review and unify in non-technical language the chief conclusions of modern psychology which bear on laws of mental and moral growth in childhood and youth. Educational, medical and social psychologists have accumulated much valuable data which afford means for the detection of defects and disabilities and the correction or lessening of innate and acquired morbid conditions which hinder and hamper natural development. Dr. Bruce contends that "through proper training in childhood it is possible to create a race of men and women far superior morally to the generality of the world's inhabitants to-day, and manifesting intellectual powers of a far higher order than the generality now display." The views so effectively expounded in these interesting and cleverly constructed essays merit the serious consideration of all engaged in the intellectual training and moral instruction of children. Dr. Bruce's conclusions are full of encouragement as well as warning for parents, teachers and child welfare workers: "What a man is and does depends, as a rule, not so much on the gifts or defects of his heredity as on the excellences or shortcomings of his childhood's training and surroundings. If these are favourable, even the dead hand of a bad inheritance may be arrested, and he may develop surprising strength of intellect and character; if unfavourable, mental and moral inferiority may be looked for, no matter how good the heredity."

Heredity is a factor in the shaping of human affairs which is still enshrouded in perplexities and uncertainties. The modern study of heredity and the educational endeavours which have been con