Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/291

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LITERARY NOTICES.
279

school system with methods as advanced... and discipline as effective as in the justly famed schools of New England." As early as 1867 the public-school commissioners acted in concert with the Freedman's Bureau to extend education to colored children. The report for 1888 shows an enrollment in the schools of 98,919 colored pupils, with salaries paid to colored teachers amounting to $183,933.97. Among the State institutions enumerated as educational is the Alabama Insane Hospital. The classification is scarcely warrantable, although the leading forth and restoration of mind rest on the same psychological basis. The institution is worthy of note on its own account. Under the care of the distinguished alienist, Dr. Boyce, 1,011 patients are managed without mechanical constraint, healthful and varied occupation having been substituted for irrational confinement and isolation. This pamphlet is fully illustrated with views of colleges, library, and laboratory interiors.

In the preface to A Report on Medical Education, Medical Colleges, and the Regulation of the Practice of Medicine in the United States and Canada, it is asserted that there has been greater progress in the direction of a higher medical education in the year 1889 than in the preceding five years. Various States have made obligatory a preliminary examination of those intending to pursue medical studies, and three additional States have passed acts requiring, as a condition of practice, evidence of graduation at a medical college in good standing, or, a satisfactory examination by an authorized board. Twenty-seven colleges now insist upon four years' study and three annual courses of lectures, while only four made such requirement in 1889. It is suggested that the standard will be further advanced in seven institutions by the provision of four annual series of lectures. The total number of colleges now in existence in the United States and Canada is given as one hundred and thirty-nine; forty-seven of these are open to both sexes. More than a hundred colleges have chairs of Hygiene and Medical Jurisprudence; lectures on bacteriology are given in six colleges and two post-graduate schools, while a large number afford laboratory practice. The information furnished by the pamphlet includes titles, locations, addresses of corresponding officers, curricula of study, fees, number of matriculates and graduates. The records of a large number of fraudulent institutions are also given. The data are arranged in alphabetical order as to States; but a full index is appended, by means of which any medical school may be readily located.

In the Educational Value of Manual Training, Prof. C. M. Woodward dissects the arguments contained in a report on the subject made to the Council of Education in July, 1889. To ground the reader fairly in the debate, the report itself is printed in full, also a critical review of it, by Gilbert B. Morrison. The author fears that the report, which has been published many times, may lead to wrong inferences concerning manual training. It is the fugitive side-discussions and incidental definitions to which he objects. He discusses the curriculum of the manual training school; school tool-work vs. trade work; the age of pupils; relation to social evils; comparison with pure science; intellectual powers; the economic value, and the argument against liberal culture in tool-work. The gist of the matter appears to be that, while the committee considers manual training per se, Prof. Woodward urges that the system of manual training—i. e., intellectual, scientific, and manual combined—shall be the subject of investigation.

The spread of educational interest is illustrated in A Short History of the Educacational Society of Japan, 1890. It is published by the society, and printed at the Tsukijo Kwappan Teizösho, Tokyo, Japan. The present association is the resultant from the union of two former societies, and it has been in existence six years. Its outlook is flourishing. It issues a journal, of which 331,559 copies have been published and has a library of 28,140 volumes, including 750 European books as well as Japanese and Chinese works. Rules for the government of the society are given, and to these is added a list of the patrons, officials, and members. His Imperial Highness Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, is honorary president of the society.

A course of Progressive Exercises in Practical Chemistry has been prepared by Dr. Henry Leffmann and Mr. William Beam