phrases. The book is not large, and will not carry the pupil very far; but, as far as he goes with it, he will be on a solid foundation, and will know what he has learned. (The Author, New York.)
Guns and Cavalry, by Major E. S. May, R. A. (Roberts, $1.25), may serve as a text-book for military schools or find a place in the library of any one who has an interest in military affairs. Much of the matter that it contains has been given by the author in lectures at the famous English military school at Woolwich, but little, if any, of it is too technical to be appreciated by the civilian. The work is mainly devoted to the employment of horse artillery, and especially its cooperation with cavalry. The teachings of the book are illustrated by many details of historic battles, some of which are accompanied by maps, and there are sketches of the careers of noted European artillery officers, with portraits of several. In a closing chapter, on machine guns, the author cautions his readers not to expect from any mechanical contrivance what can be accomplished only by courage and skill.
The thirty-eighth volume of the International Education Series is a description of The School System of Ontario, prepared by the Hon. George W. Ross, Minister of Education for the province (Appletons, $1.50). It includes the general organization of the system, the regulations in regard to school premises, the training and qualifications of teachers, inspection, religious instruction, text-books, libraries, and the special rules concerning high schools and the provincial university. The book is far from being a mere compilation of laws. Thus, in the chapter on the general organization, the policy of having an educational system under the control of a political head is freely discussed, and in various cases the purpose of a regulation or the way in which it has proved to operate is given. Criticisms that have been made upon some features of the system are stated and answered. Since Roman Catholics are more numerous than Protestants in some localities in Ontario and in most parts of the adjoining province of Quebec, denominational schools are a part of the system. The first chapter and the last are historical, describing the rise and growth of Ontario's schools. The volume is offered to educators in the United States in the belief that they will be aided by a study of the plan for popular education that has been worked out by a people of similar origin with ourselves, but who have had a different history.
The Fifteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey covers a year following one of reduced appropriations. In the preceding year field work was almost stopped, and the energies of the force were devoted to preparing accumulated material for permanent record or publication. The advanced condition of office work thus obtained and an increase of funds made it possible to prosecute a large amount of field work in the year 1893–’94, nearly all of which was tributary to the preparation of the geologic atlas of the United States. The reports of the director and the chiefs of divisions are accompanied by six papers: On the geology of common roads, by Nathaniel S. Shaler; the Potomac formation, by Lester F. Ward; the geology of the San Francisco peninsula, by Andrew C. Lawson; the Marquette iron-bearing district, by Charles R. Van Hise and William S. Bayley; granitic rocks in the Piedmont plateau, by G. H. Williams; and central Maryland granites, by C. R. Keyes. At the close of the year covered by this volume Major J. W. Powell retired from the direction of the national geologic work which he had carried on for a quarter of a century.
It is an unflattering illustration of the tone of our civilization that President Eliot should have felt called upon to argue seriously in his address at Chautauqua last summer and in the Atlantic Monthly that war is not desirable. The unreasoning outburst of indignation against Great Britain which we have witnessed during the past year does not speak well for the American balance of mind. These facts make peculiarly timely the publication by the Putnams in their Questions of the Day Series of America and Europe: A Study of International Relations, which contains three papers bearing directly upon these points by three eminent American publicists. In the first of these papers. The United States and Great Britain, Mr. David A. Wells shows—to our shame that it should
