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In Nature study Dr. John Rennie of the University of Aberdeen provides a guide for teachers in the whole field of elementary botany, zoology and meteorology. (Baltimore: Warwick & York, 1915. 351 p. $1.10.)

Readings in American history is a serious book of more than usual scope and variety. The author is Professor David S. Muzzey of Barnard College, Columbia University. The selections are from the earliest period in American history down to the discussions of contemporary problems. (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1915. 594 P.

594 p.

$1.50.)

An exceedingly good basic book for the study of chemistry is Foundations of chemistry by Professor Blanchard of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mr. Frank B. Wade of the Shortridge High School, Indianapolis. (New York: American Book Company, 1915. 448 p. $1.25.)

Teachers of general biology in high schools will probably have their attention attracted by a volume entitled A civic biology by George W. Hunter of the DeWitt Clinton High School of New York City. It has every merit of a good textbook; material is well chosen, the order of topics is capital, illustrations good, and the material for assistance and direction of the teacher is all that could be desired. (New York: American Book Company, 1915. 432 p.)

For those who wish to review algebra with some speed and with particular reference to submitting themselves for examination for admission to college, nothing could be better than A Review of algebra by R. H. Rivenburg of the Peddie Institute, Hightstown, New Jersey. A number of recent college admission examinations in algebra are included in the volume. (New York: American Book Company, 1915. 80 p. 30 c.)

In the well-plowed field of plane geometry there is a new textbook which represents what is best in recent knowledge and experience in this subject, written by Edward R. Robbins, formerly master of the Lawrenceville School, and is entitled New plane geometry. (New York: American Book Company, 1915. 264 p. 80 c.)

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NOTES AND NEWS

Two great school Two of the chief ornaments of American superintendents education have been the two greatest superintendents of schools that this or any other country has produced. The first of these, the late William Torrey Harris, superintendent of schools in the city of St. Louis from 1867-1880, was the philosopher-superintendent and quite without an equal in this or any other land as an interpreter of the fundamental philosophical principles which underlie and condition all sound educational theory and practise.

The second is William H. Maxwell, superintendent of schools in the City of Brooklyn, New York, from 1887-1898, and first city superintendent of schools for Greater New York from 1898 to the present time. Dr. Maxwell is the statesmansuperintendent with clear vision as to the needs of the schools and with astonishing sagacity and skill in organizing the available forces of opinion, of scholarship and of material resources to meet those needs. Like Dr. Harris, Dr. Maxwell is in his field without a peer. The two men have represented two different, two complementary and two commanding types of educational leadership.

There have been rumors that it is the intention to endeavor to supplant Dr. Maxwell, on the expiration of his present term of service, with a superintendent of newspaper-made reputation. It must be that these rumors are without foundation, for the greatest and most important city of the country is hardly ready yet to have its hundreds of thousands of school children deprived of the leadership and guidance of a really great public servant, and made a sacrifice either to an unreasoning folly or to a blind ignorance. It is safe to say that so long as Dr. Maxwell lives

and enjoys even a modicum of that vigorous physical and mental power which he has given without stint during a lifelong service in the public interest, the intelligence and public spirit of New York will demand that he be kept at the post which he has both adorned and made famous.

The Annual Report of the President to Brown University the Corporation of Brown University contains the President's own résumé of the work of the academic year 1914-15 with which it is concerned together with recommendations for future action, and the usual supplementary reports of administrative officers and heads of departments of instruction.

President Faunce recalls with a justifiable satisfaction the notable exercises in connection with the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the university, which he says left for them "a permanent deposit of insight and understanding." Those who were present as the guests of the occasion can readily join with him in saying, as he does with conviction, that no public function was ever conducted with greater dignity and with better management. As one of the first fruits of the celebration, the report announces the appointment of a large standing committee of the faculty to consider during the next two or three years the relation of the university to the community.

Another important occurrence during the year was the dedication on the day preceding Commencement of the Arnold Biological Laboratory. Preeminently the three great events of the year, according to the report, in their effect upon the university as a whole, were the establishment of the "Loyalty Fund," designed to provide an annual income from the alumni in place of campaigns to secure specific endowment; the decision of the Corporation in the matter of a long contemplated revision of the charter; and the new agreement with the alumni regarding the nomination of Trustees. In accordance with this agreement, the alumni are hereafter to nominate candi

dates for every alternate vacancy occurring in the Board of Trustees, until twelve alumni Trustees have been elected, the remaining places on the Board to be filled by the Trustees themselves. Of the twelve alumni Trustees, the provision is further made that seven shall be Baptists, one Quaker, two Congregationalists, and two Episcopalians. Alumni trustees are to hold office for six years, but are to be eligible to reelection.

The report notes the stimulating influence upon the academic body of graduate students who are doing advanced and independent work, and states that their presence "is an inspiring force in every library, laboratory, and classroom, and a determining force in the academic atmosphere."

An interesting innovation of the year is the establishment of a course of lectures given once a week on the "Orientation of Freshmen," which all members of the class are required to attend. The lectures are delivered by a teacher, not necessarily a member of the faculty, and deal broadly with the meaning and scope of college life: the purpose of the American college; the aims of the various departments of instruction; the use of different studies and their subsequent application to the purposes of life; the scale of personal expenditure; the use and abuse of fraternities; the proper place of athletics and the various student activities; the method of taking notes at lectures, of using the library, of constructing a daily program of work-as the report in part enumerates the "subjects on which a little instruction at the start may save many from irretrievable blunders." The student registration for the year, according to the report, was 1037: 711 in the college, 204 in the women's college, 122 in the graduate department.

Brown University enters upon the second half of her second century admirably equipt in material facilities, in teaching force and in student body, and with a record of accomplishment which not many of our institutions of learning, large or small, have surpast.

Higher education

The Report on Higher Education in the in New York City State of New York for the school year ending July 31, 1913, separately reprinted from the tenth annual report of the Commissioner of Education and issued as Bulletin 591 of the University of the State of New York, contains a full record of the educational activities of the state along the lines described for the year under review. The report, prepared as usual by Augustus S. Downing, Assistant Commissioner for Higher Education, contains general facts relating to the higher education as they are found in the published proceedings of the various important conferences and associations and as they are at hand in the other states of the union, but primarily concerns itself, in the nature of the case, with the universities, colleges, professional and technical schools of the state itself with full statistics from various aspects of its educational conditions.

The writer of the report particularly emphasizes as an event of supreme importance during the year the first award by the regents of the university of the state scholarships in the liberal arts and sciences; a testimony to the fact, as the report itself phrases it, that the state, which has stood in the past for elementary and secondary education, now consistently pledges its support to higher education as well. The report is justly enthusiastic as to the effect of these three thousand scholarships upon the selected students who are to receive them; upon the better adjustment which this control by the university not only makes possible, but inevitable, of the curriculum of the college to the secondary school; and, as an ultimate result, upon the cause of enlightened citizenship in the state and in the nation.

During the year, the regents incorporated or amended the charters of thirty-three institutions, and issued no less than 2651 licenses for admission to practise in the state in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, as druggists, in veterinary medicine, optometry, chiropody, for the registration of nurses, and the certifying of public accountants and shorthand reporters.

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