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Kuhns : Germans and Siviss of Pennsylvania Si 5 method here employed of keeping tab on the subject-matter, even of pop- ular books. It is high time that English and American writers of trea- tises should cease to pose as infallible oracles by ignoring the sources from which they draw. Besides being an exasperation to the intelligent reader, such oracular books are a waste of time to the busy investigator. While Professor Kuhns does not claim originality in the way of in- vestigation for his book, he has, nevertheless, in addition to the feature of good method noted above, made a new contribution to the subject in the chapter on the Pennsylvania-German family names, a subject to which he has given special attention for a number of years. Among the features specially worthy of note are : The clear presenta- tion of the origin and relation of the various German sects in Pennsylva- nia, for the general reader the best statement of the subject in English ; the description of the German farmer ; the felicitous comparisons of the Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz) and Switzerland with German Pennsyl- vania ; references to parallels in German literature, particularly in the case of the Pennsylvania-German proverbs and the clear presentation of the attitude of the Pennsylvania Germans toward education. If the book were not such a good one, we should be inclined to find fault with a few points, such as the following : The exaggeration of the importance of the Mennonites as compared with their Quaker neighbors (pp. 175 f.) and the exclusive use of the term "Reformed Mennonites" instead of the happier and more local term " New Mennonites " ( " New- Mennists " ) ; and the statement that the mysticism of Kelpius was an excessive form of pietism (p. 159). Of course this mysticism has its roots farther back in Jacob Bohme and in the earlier mystics of the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries. It was rather a parallel development with pietism from the earlier impulse. Pietism finds its prototype rather in Luther and Tauler, while mysticism in the same period is represented by the disciples of Bohme, Kuhlmann, Knorr von Rosenroth and their •kind (cf Koch, Geschichte des Kirchenlieds, IV. 175 ff). The state- ment on p. 81 that Germans as servants did not come till late in the eighteenth century seems open to question. The line between " redemp- tioner " and " servant " seems not to have been so strictly drawn, even in the seventeenth century ; as appears from Benjamin Furly's " Collec- tion of Various Pieces Concerning Pennsylvania " {Penn. Mag. Cf. also " Indentured Labor in Pennsylvania," thesis in MS. by C. A. Herrick ; and F. R. Diffenderffer's treatment of the Redemptioners in Proceedings 0/ the Penna. German Society, last volume). In the discussion of flowers and horticulture we note no refer- ence to the works of John David Schoepf, Materia Medica Americana, etc., Erlangen 1787, and Reise diirch einige der mittlern siidl. Vereinig- ten nord-amer. Staaten, 1J8J-IJ84, Erlangen 1788 ; or to Fr. Ad. Jul. von Wangenheim's Beschreibung einiger nordamericanischen Holz- und Buscharten, mit Anwendung auf teiitsche Forste, Gottingen 1781, and Beytrag ziir teutschen hohgerechten ForstnnssenscJiaft, die Atipflanziing 7iordamericanisclier Holzarten, etc., Gottingen 17S7, folio, with excel-