266 NEW BOOKS. these blanks cannot now be filled ; and they in no way detract from the value of the matter that is here presented to us. True to the Robertsonian tradition, Mrs. Rhys Davids has consulted the convenience of the student, and has added to each of the manuals an admirable index. WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON. Juvenile Offenders. By WILLIAM DOUGLAS MORRISON. London : T- Fisher Unwin, 1896. Pp. xi., 317. This strong book deals widely with its subject. Juvenile crime is first studied with reference to its extent and distribution, then as conditioned by the sex, age, physical and mental state of the offender, as well as by his family history and economic position. The treatment of juvenile crime is the subject of the second part, which is divided into sections dealing with admonition, fining, corporal punishment, imprisonment, and corrective institutions. Much of the work is based on statistical returns, but the author uses figures with discrimination, neither losing sight of the variety and complexity of the conditions which rule a resulting total, nor neglecting to give a convincing impression of the unit. We have here a wide knowledge of the subject from the official point of view, in- formed by an intimate practical acquaintance with convicted boys and girls. All the present methods of treatment are studied and all new sugges- tions are made under one view of the juvenile offender that he is a child whose character (rather than his isolated acts) is a danger to society, and whose character must be stimulated and educated into normal constitution. However crime should be treated in adults, certainly the treatment of children must be therapeutic, and it is. perhaps the chief interest of this work that it enters fully into every part of its subject under this point of view. The author finds many features, of our present system to be radically evil when they are tried by this satisfying criterion. " The habitual criminal is in far too many cases a product of prison treatment. . . . The value of prison regulations is not to be tested by the behaviour of prisoners within the prison walls." A thoroughly therapeutic treatment means an individualised treatment, and the great practical difficulties which beset this individualisation are the chief barrier in the way of a satisfactory advance in our methods. This point, which recurs in several places but is chiefly worked out in relation to the interdiction of certain localities of abode, notably large cities, and in relation to the treatment of children in corrective institu- tions, is made to yield certain valuable suggestions. Corrective institu- tions should be small ; when unavoidably large they should be divided into sections, and each section should be placed in charge of a superin- tendent who will be able to acquire a thorough knowledge of the capacity, disposition, and aptitudes of every individual child ; the bodily and mental condition of every child should be the subject of a thorough examination at stated intervals. Juvenile Offenders is easily read but not easily forgotten, and it will be of service to many who take serious interest in social matters. G. SANDEMAN. Philosophy of Theism. Being the Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Edinburgh in 1895-96. Second Series. By ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, LL.D. Edinburgh and London : Blackwood & Sons, 1896. Pp. xiii., 283. The first series of Prof. Eraser's Gifford Lectures was published last year, and noticed in our April number. It was intended to " evoke our
