Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/459
SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 419
of a form bounded by unequal faces, etc. The various modes of using tbe gifts, which are depicted in illustrations, suggest many movement piays, and these Froebel describes, giving also the M'ords of songs to accompany them. He also describes a pleasant way of learning to write and read. Froebel was a pioneer in child study, and in his description of kindergarten plays he is constantly calling attention to the development of the child's faculties which the attentive kindergartner may observe.
In the other two volumes we have Froebel's Mutterspiel and Koselieder reproduced in English. Froebel indicated how each of the mother-plays should be played by means of a group of pictui-es surmounted by a " motto ' consisting of eight or ten lines of verse. These quaint pictures and the mottoes in the original language are reproduced in each volume. The first, which may be called the mother's volume, contains also free ren- derings of the mottoes in English verse, by Mrs. H. R. Eliot, together with prose translations, by Miss Blow, of the commentai*ies that accompanied the plays. Miss Blow has also furnished an introductory essay on the phi- losophy of Froebel, and, that nothing of the master's thought may be lost through rendering his homely lines into English verse, she has given prose translations of the mottoes in an appendix. The companion or children's book contains the same pictures with short ]neces of verse on their subjects by Emily H. Miller, Emilie Poulsson, Laura E. Richards, and other writ- ers. Following these is music for them and for some others to the num- ber of eighty-three in all. In this volume many of the pictures in the groups are repeated on a larger scale, so as to bi*ing out their details more clearly. Many of the melodies originally used in the mother-play having been pronounced unsuitable by competent judges, other music is here sup- plied from sources of recognized merit. In every part of these two vol- umes the directing hand of that able kindergartner. Miss Susan E. Blow, is apparent. Kindergarten teaching can be conducted by those who have a genius for it without such helps as these books afford, but it is hard to imagine that a teacher who had once used them would be willing to give them up.
In his work on Money and BanJcing* the editor of the New York Even- ing Post gives connected form to the principles of finance which he has studied and discussed for many years past. His method is that of the his- torian who accounts for an event by circumstance, pressure, ignorance occasionally by knowledge fortunately joined to coiu*age. His book is a mine of sifted fact, with clear and convincing deductions wherever these are warranted, with a judicial presentation of both sides of a case where a decision is as yet to be found.
Stripped of its entanglements the money question is simple enough. Mankind has chosen precious metals among commodities as means of ex- changing all the rest and as standards of value. Real money, then, is metallic coin, authenticated by the stamp of a mint as to quantity and fine- ness. For generations down to 1873, both gold and silver circulated to- gether in civilized countries at a ratio of about one to fifteen, the fluctua- tions from that ratio being too inconsiderable to cause serious difficulty. With the discovery in 1873, and since, of new and rich deposits of silver,
- Money and Banking illustrated by American Hietory. By Horace White. Pp. 488, 12mo. Bos-
ton and London : Ginn & Co. Price, $1.50.
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