telligible account of the aristocratic side of English life by explaining the parts and general working of the scheme. He desired to make the American reader understand the facts in such a way as to avoid injurious prejudice and favor an intelligent judgment. His subject is by no means a trivial or frivolous one. Aristocracy is a phase of society in some of its forms universal; and the English aristocracy is the best-preserved and most perfect and powerful in the world.
The author of this volume is a thorough-going democrat in the sense that he is no believer in aristocracy, and condemns it of course unsparingly; but he is unbiased enough to give a trustworthy account of its mechanism and workings. For this he seems to have very well prepared himself. Besides wide reading and special study of its various elements, he has had a dozen years' direct observation and experience of it in the diplomatic service.
It is the care with which he has availed himself of these opportunities that gives, perhaps, the most attractive feature to his book; he is full of anecdotes, incidents, brief personal sketches, and vivid delineations of the working of the various social parts in the aristocratic life. General Badeau has not attempted a philosophical book. While his volume is full of instructive lessons, he runs into no deep disquisition, and has struck the happy medium that will make it entertaining to all readers. The subject is not only a fascinating one, but a most important one, and, if we may venture to say so, a good deal more important than would appear from General Badeau's treatment of it. The author confines himself, in accordance with his plan, to descriptive details of the social operations that English aristocracy involves, and this probably prevented him from dealing with some of the remoter influences of the aristocratic policy. But the problem of the influence of aristocratical organizations in England on the whole subject of education for several centuries, and at the present time, is one of the most pregnant that the student of modern mental development has to deal with. General Badeau's book is an excellent introduction to this subject, but the author does not enter upon it.
The Jugurthine War of C. Sallustius Crispus. Edited, etc., by Charles George Herbermann. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 272. Price, $1.12.
The editor has aimed, in preparing this volume, to assist the student, as far as possible, with all the resources of modern scholarship; and, in compiling the notes, he has endeavored to omit nothing in the way of historical illustration that can aid the learner to obtain a fuller and clearer insight into the meaning and spirit of the author. The text of Jordan, which is in the best repute in German and English schools, has been adopted, while archaisms and variations in spelling are avoided, as only likely to perplex students. Besides the notes, an introduction giving the life of Sallust, observations on his style and syntax, and historical information respecting the kingdom of Numidia and the Jugurthine war, has been added; and a convenient vocabulary saves the necessity of encumbering one's self with a separate dictionary.
A History of Education. By F. V. N. Painter. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 335. Price, $1.50.
This is the second volume of the "International Education Series," which D. Appleton & Co. have projected, to be prepared under the editorial supervision of W. T. Harris, to provide works of a useful and practical character for the libraries of teachers and school managers, and text-books in normal classes. The author is Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Roanoke College, Virginia; and the preparation of this history was suggested by him while examining the German works on the subject in the library of the University of Bonn, in view of the poverty of our literature in educational history. In it he views the history of education from the point of the philosophy of history, or history of civilization, and traces it in its relations with the social, political, and religious conditions of each country. The system of education in each nation is regarded as conformed to its religion, art, social customs, and form of government, but most of all, generally, to its religion. Hence, a new phase of civilization, giving new ideals in these domains, demands a new system of education. The systems that have prevailed from the remotest
