Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/430

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416
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

How we Live; or, the Human Body, and how to take care of it. By James Johonnot and Eugene Bouton, Ph. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 162. Price, 50 cents.

This book presents an elementary course in anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. Its method is deductive, each new topic growing out of the one that precedes it; and it aims to present the laws of life in such a practical and reasonable way that they will become a guide to living. In the treatment of each topic, function is considered before structure, and the endeavor is made to present the relations of part to function in such a way that the hygienic law applicable to the case shall follow as a matter of course. As an incentive to study, the authors have appended at the close of each chapter a list of questions on subjects suggested by the text, which will prompt the pupil to think and observe for himself.

Book of Cats and Dogs and other Friends, for Little Folks. By James Johonnot. New York: D, Appleton & Co. Pp. 96. Price, 20 cents.

The object of this book, with its entertaining stories, its extracts from Mother Goose, and its beautiful illustrations, is the pleasure and the instruction of children, and it is well adapted to it. Through their love of pets, of stories, of jingle and fun and incongruity, says the author, their little opening minds "may be led to careful observation, comparison, and descriptions—steps at once necessary to mental growth, and leading up to the portals of science. By insensible degrees, play may be made to merge into study, and fun take on the form of fact. Upon these ideas of the basis and method of thought, this little work has been constructed." The "other friends" include horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs.

The True Issue, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, pp. 70; and Wages and Tariffs, pp. 47, by E. J. Donnell, New York, Wilcox & O'Donnell Company. Price, 10 cents.

In the former of these pamphlets, Mr. Donnell maintains that industrial depression and political corruption result from the existence of great monopolies which are fostered by the tariff. lie endeavors to show that the wool-tariff is suicidal, the tariff on manufactures a sham, and that there has been no steady, genuine prosperity since the present high protective policy began. He calls iron the key to the arch of monopoly, and says it is the article with which tariff reform should begin. He suggests that, if a bounty should take the place of the tariff, the people would see what protection costs them, and whether the return justified the expenditure. In "Wages and Tariffs," which is an address delivered before the Brooklyn Revenue-Reform Club, May 8, 1884, he gives some account of protective legislation in this country, aiming to show that its effect, especially on wages, has been mischievous.

Outlines of Roman Law. By William C. Morey, Ph. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 433. Price, $1.75.

The importance of the Roman law as a part of liberal education has been strongly emphasized of late years in England, and has received some recognition in this country. It seems now to be a well-established fact that the history of modern systems of law, and the principles of comparative jurisprudence, can not be properly understood without some knowledge of that branch. The validity of this statement, which we give almost in Mr. Morey's words, becomes obvious when we reflect that the Roman law comprised a highly perfected and elaborate system of jurisprudence that covered the whole extent of the empire through many centuries, and which avowedly constitutes the foundation of the legal systems of nearly all civilized states. The law of all Europe, except Russia and England, is built directly upon it. Recent investigations have shown that it has had much more to do with the structure of English law than the old text-books taught, and that the common law, though further removed in descent than the civil law, was in its essential features a legitimate outgrowth from it. In the United States it appears in its full force in the jurisprudence of Louisiana, which is of the civil and not of the common law, and in modified forms in the institutions of the other States, derived from the common law. Professor Morey's treatise is first historical, considering the growth of the Roman law