Book Notices

Elementary Algebra. By Frederick H. Somerville. Mr. Somerville, who is connected with the William Penn Charter School, has planned his book to meet every real need in teaching elementary algebra in secondary schools, including the present requirements of the College Entrance Examination Board. So many are the elementary algebras now offered the teacher and so varied are their features, it would seem that there was small room left in which to prepare a book that would embody new and inviting characteristics in this extremely important subject. Yet in Professor Somerville's book we have striking features which are at once novel and valuable, some of which are: the statement of problems by a consistent use of the idea of "translation"; the natural order and the grouping of the type-forms in factoring; the logical plan of the introduction to fractions; the economic arrangement of simultaneous equations; the introduction and the classification of the new forms in the theory of exponents; the consistent and teachable presentation of quadratics; the clear introduction to and the practical treatment of logarithms; practical exercises and problems in physical formulas. In arrangement of subjects, treatment of topics, lucidity of exposition, clearness of definition, freshness of problems, abundance of exercises the book presents itself a model as a text-book in elementary algebra. The tyro is inducted into the subject by the most carefully arranged steps, his progress being graded to a nicety, full appreciation being had of the difficulties besetting and confusing the young student. We hazard no risk in predicting a thorough appreciation and extensive use of Mr. Somerville's admirable textbook. American Book Company.

New Worlds for Old. By H. G. Wells. The author is an enthusiastic socialist, and in this clear, logical and readable book he sums up the modern doctrine of socialism, showing its attractive and helpful side. He brings out clearly the responsibility of every community as a whole, and of each man, woman and child in the community. He believes that the community as a whole should be the owner and administrator of the land, all raw materials, all values and resources accumulated from the past; and that all profit and property should revert to the community on the death of the individual. In one chapter the author attempts to set forth the actual conditions of life when the social doctrines spoken of in the book shall have been fully carried out. He makes this very concrete. For instance, he shows what the public school-teacher's life would be in relation to his home, his work, his recreations and his relations to the community. He describes the life of a married couple, showing the difference that children will make in the home, and the financial and economic position of woman in the socialistic state. All this prophecy makes interesting reading. In fact the book as a whole is a very entertaining one. The Macmillan Company. Price, $1.50.

Specimens of Modern English Criticism. Chosen and edited with an Introduction and Notes by William T. Brewster, Professor of English in Columbia University. The author's viewpoint is that of rhetoric rather than of literature. He wishes to furnish an agent to stimulate rhetorical study of

intellectual discipline, rather than a means to follow out the course of Literary History. He represents an analysis of a variety of selections that may be fairly classified as examples of literary criticism. The arrangement of the essays is from the simplest to the more general and abstract. The book therefore presents a progressive course of mental training and is excellent as a text-book. The old idea that criticism is mere fault-finding is disproved. The student is taught to appreciate the good points in the authors whose selections make up these chapters. The book produces a similar effect to that gained by sitting down with a well-prepared teacher to talk over the great writers of modern times. There are many readers outside of the class room who will enjoy and profit by the expositions found in these pages. Macmillan Company. Price, $1.00.

I.

Literature and the American College. By Irving Babbitt. The author of this attractive essay gave it the sub-title of Essay in Defense of the Humanities. Some of the papers have appeared elsewhere; as in the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, the Harvard Graduate's Magazine, etc. The following table of contents may indicate the trend of the discussion. What is Humanism? II. Two Types of Humanitarians: Bacon and Rousseau. III. The College and the Democratic Spirit. IV. Literature and the College. V. Literature and the Doctor's Degree. VI. The Rational Study of the Classics. VII. Ancients and Moderns. VIII. On Being Original. IX. Academic Leisure. The author has spoken frankly in reference to certain modern scholars, as for instance where he has somewhat fully discussed the policy of President Eliot's administration at Harvard. It seems to us that the special value of his essays is in their power to stimulate careful thought and impart the gift of insight to other minds. Doubtless no reader will accept all of the author's conclusions, but he has the merit of incisive originality and a contagious enthusiasm. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, $1.25.

In the Merrill's English texts we have A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb. The former is 634 pages, and is edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. Price, 50 cents. The latter 589 pages is edited by J. H. Castleman, A.M. Price, 50 cents. Also Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. Three hundred and thirty-six pages. Price, 40 cents.

Periodical Notes

Not least among the good things given us in the Atlantic Monthly for April, is a racy little squib on the present enthusiasm over German Scholarship. The article will be found in the Contributors' Club Columns, under the surprising title of "No Time for a Wife."-We would call the attention of those who have the future of the South at heart, to an article in the April Review of Reviews entitled, "The Moral Dignity of Prohibition in the South."-The April Century gives its readers an able article by Dr. W. A. Newman Dorland, "The Age of Mental Virility." Workers and thinkers alike will find the cheerful optimism of this unusual article really stimu lating. "The Time and the Task" in the April number of Lippincott's Magazine is the second of a series of articles whose general title is "Educating our Boys." Joseph M. Rogers, the author of this series now appearing in Lippincott's, is a well-known journalist, and these care. fully prepared papers are the result of many months of labor, and may be regarded as authoritative.

Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature

of Education

VOL. XXVIII

JUNE, 1908

Forms of High School Recitation

WALTER LIBBY, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

T

No. 10

HE following pages contain a simple statement of the writer's observation of classroom work of secondary schools in this country and elsewhere.

HISTORY

(1) In the teaching of history the high school visitor welcomes deviations from the methods that prevail. One of the variations observed might be described as a successful combination of the recitation and oral methods. The teacher has the floor. He questions the class sharply on the lesson prepared,—the Roman constitution. He fills in freely and without hesitation from his own full information gaps left unsupplied in the text. At the same time no lack of continuity is observable; the teacher's knowledge does not betray him into prolixity or digression. His statement is a link in the development of the lesson, and is followed by a question relevant to the matter in hand. Moreover, a line of cause and effect binds together the parts of the recitation. After a question of information comes a question calling for historical discrimination or practical judgment of political affairs. "What were the duties of the tribunes?" "What was to prevent an offended patrician some dark night from stabbing one of these tribunes in the back?" It is needless to say that during this clear-cut recitation every pupil has

his eyes riveted on the teacher conducting it. This brief account indicates some of the salient features of one of the most virile, interesting and effective lessons the writer has seen in the Middle West.

(2) Of course not every person could or should teach in this way. One must develop the method that suits his personality. Another happy combination of the recitation and oral methods, more diffuse and easy, less brisk and succinct than the preceding, comes to mind. The teacher is a mature man, a magazine writer of scholarly disposition. He treats, out of the wealth of his knowledge, the crisis of 1789 in American history. His desk, at which he remains seated, is supplied with marked reference books and copies of original documents, which he invites the pupils to consult. His questions on the text-book are a trifle indifferent, because he knows its limitations. He talks freely in a conversational tone about the lines of connection between the American crisis of 1789 and the French crisis of the same year. He is perhaps a little discursive in speaking of Franklin. The pupils are not so keenly attentive. But this teacher has the historic sense and the taste for history that must warm into enthusiasm every kindred mind. His method strikes one as suited to the older and cleverer pupils.

(3) A third type of history lesson omits completely recitation from a text-book, and proceeds by a series of special reports and short talks. The students have been assigned side reading -some topic to look up or some article or book to consult. Each speaker is listened to with more or less interest, according to the style and contents of his report. One girl's report, given in an animated and somewhat polemical way, evidently on a point that had previously been up for discussion, excites and amuses the class. After the reports have all been given and commented on, the teacher announces, "Well, I promised to tell you to-day about the Scotch-Irish," and the class settle themselves to listen with close attention to something good coming.

(4) In a fourth school the visitor was taken by the principal, some time after the bell had rung, into his American history

class. The pupils were all busy with their notebooks, working in different ways on the same subject, namely, the forces that tended after the War of the Revolution to weld the states into a federal union, and the opposing forces that tended towards a looser form of confederacy. The written statements were accompanied by illustrative drawings. One girl had a wheel with lines running from it to represent as centrifugal and centripetal forces the tendencies making for union and for state supremacy. She considered her work a failure. Another had represented merely the unifying factors, and these as branches of a federal tree. When it was suggested that these factors were rather roots than branches, she very smartly turned the notebook upside down. A boy, regarded as the humorist of the class, had left his cartoon, so he said, at home. He described it as a double picture, in which a brood of chickens were being in the one case called together by the hen offering certain inducements; and in the other case dispersed by a hawk uttering certain warnings. The order of the chickens representing the states showed the comparative readiness or reluctance to enter the Union. In their notebooks the pupils had also drawn maps, colored or shaded, to represent the British, American, French and Spanish territories at different epochs of American history. Before the close of the period the teacher left the room, and the class quietly resumed their individual occupations.

(5) In a fifth form of history recitation, for the success of which the writer can vouch, an outline, say a series of six or seven headings of the subject to be covered, is written on the board by the teacher or one of the pupils. The teacher takes a place at the back of the room and, frankly recognizing the difficulty of retaining in memory a piece of complicated narrative, says in effect, "Come, let us work it out together." The dull pupils are asked first to make some contributionany contribution. Materials are brought forward, arranged, supplemented; logical relationships are established; historical recollection dependent upon association is exercised, and the retention of the brilliant pupils is able to furnish the details. It would be better to end with an outline than to begin with one, but the actual, not the ideal, is described here.