The unsuitability of wood as a paving material, from the sanitarian's point of view, cannot be too frequently insisted upon. It is contended that the porous nature of the material causes it to absorb readily the moisture which falls upon its surface, and so to become saturated with the noxious liquids and filth common to every road. In order to last as long as possible, the blocks are set with the grain of the wood vertical, and this intensifies the propensity to absorb moisture. It is said that in dry weather, under the sun's rays, disagreeable odors are given off by the saturated wood; and, worse than this, the dust which is produced by the wearing of the blocks carries the germs of disease and noxious products into the nostrils and lungs of the populace. There is reason to think, too, that in narrow streets, fenced in by buildings so high as not to permit of the action of the sun on the surface of the pavement, the pestilential character of the absorbed filth remains still more pronounced than in the broader thoroughfares, where the sun and air are able to exercise their purifying agency.

The voice of the American child of to-day, says a writer in "The Outlook," contrasts unfavorably with that of other nationalities, and why? Aside from the influences of heredity, climate, and the tension of life in this country, the influence of imitation upon the child's voice cannot be overestimated. This influence begins with the first word the infant utters, which is an imitation of mother, nurse, or other companion, in form and tone. Yet how many of our cultured men or women are fitted thus by example to instruct the child during the formative period in the expression of the impressions received? Our language is called harsh, unmusical, and inexpressive; this is owing to our ignorance in presenting its beauties of tone and modulation, as the English know how to do. Monotony of speech forms the basis of many nerve-tiring voices and much of our poor reading, and should be corrected when it first appears in the child.

"No statesman of our time," says a recent writer, with reference to Prince Bismarck, "has made so much history, and none of his contemporaries has learned so much from history. He has not Mr. Gladstone's knowledge of the classics, his Latin was found deficient in taste by his tutor, and he has openly avowed his preference for Russian over Greek. But his familiarity with history is probably unrivalled among practical politicians of the first rank. Even as a child he devoured history in the form of stories. He knew the 'tale of Troy divine' off by heart, and entered into the spirit of the nar rative with such zest that his schoolfellows christened him the 'Telamonian Ajax.' The uncongenial studies of the University had no interest for him, but no sooner had he shaken the dust of the schools from off his feet, than he devoted all his spare time to independent historical reading. Years after, as the result of his own vast experience, he expressed the opinion that a properly directed study of history was the essential foundation of all true statesmanship."

The use of salt as a condiment, says the "Journal of Hygiene," is so general and so universally believed in as necessary that we rarely

hear a word against its excessive use, but there are a multitude of persons who eat far too much salt; eat it on everything-on meat, fish, potatoes, melons, in butter, on tomatoes, turnips and squashes, in bread and on a host of foods too numerous to mention. To so great an extent is it used that no food is relished which has not a salty taste, and this hides more or less the real taste, which is often very delicate. Now, the amount of salt required in the system is comparatively small, and if the diet has been rightly compounded, very little is necessary.

In 1866 steel rails cost $165 per ton. In 1884 they had dropped to $34, in 1893 they were $21 to $24 per ton, and in 1897 even less. See how that has expedited the building of railroads which now cover the country like a network and without which modern enterprise could not be carried on. And the same is true of steel in all its forms. So that to-day we build steel bridges, steel vessels, steel cannon, steel frames for cur buildings and for farm implements, and use steel nails. Inventions and improvements have so reduced the cost of steel rails that already, during the year 1897, the United States have sold 100,000 tons to Europe.

The election for civic officers of the first administration of the Greater New York resulted in a victory for the entire Tammany ticket. Van Wyck's (Tam.) pluralities, as nearly as can be estimated, are:

Van Wyck polled about 228,688 votes; Low (Ind.), 148,585; Tracy (Rep.), 101,571, and George (Jeff. Dem.), 19,864. Though it failed, very gratifying, it will be seen, is the strength of the anti-Tammany vote.

In 1860 the per capita consumption of iron in the United States was only 62 pounds. In 1870 it had increased to 102 pounds; in 1880 it was 240 pounds; and in 1890 it rose to 334 poundsan increase of more than five-fold in thirty

years.

A report on Spanish finance says that the Budget for 1896-97, as finally passed, showed a revenue of £30,771,450, and an expenditure of £30,456,584, and the estimated surplus was in fact slightly exceeded. For the current year the estimated expenditure is £34,954,635 and the revenue £35,331,150. The extraordinary Budget for 1896-97 gave an expenditure of £9,360,000, largely intended for naval development. The public debt is £353,265,771, including over seventy millions of Cuban debt, and the interest amounts to almost fourteen millions sterling. Last November an internal loan of £16,000,000 was floated, and was over-subscribed. Among the new measures for the current year are an increase, not exceeding ten per cent., on every item in the Budget; a petroleum monopoly and one of gunpowder and explosives, and a tax on railway and tramway tickets. A loan on the quicksilver mines of Almaden is also proposed. The extraordinary Budget for the current year amounts to nearly nine millions sterling, more than half going for military and naval expendi

ture.

THE WORLD OF THOUGHT:

Good History of Germany

Readers of SELF CULTURE have more than once desired of us some information respecting the best available history of Germany, in popular form, for the use of the American student. To these inquirers we have pointed to several works, such as Menzel's History, issued in the Bohn Library (3 vols.), Baring-Gould's "Germany Past and Present," and Bayard Taylor's well-informed sketch, based on David Müller's History. We have also referred the student-inquirer to the notable works dealing with epochs in the national history, such as Gindely's "The Thirty Years' War," and to recent narratives of events, memoirs, etc., that tell the story of national unification, with biographies of the great characters who have figured in the later German annals. For the wants of the general student perhaps no better work exists, however, than the "History of Germany from the Earliest Times," prepared by Prof. Charlton T. Lewis, on the basis of Dr. David Müller's History of the German People (New York: Harper and Brothers, price $1.50). Mr. Lewis's work is an interesting and valuable compendium of the history, and to those who are drawn to German annals, in the course of their historical studies, Lewis's manual will be found useful and adequate.

Apart from the special interest all Englishspeaking people should feel in the history of Germany, there are weighty reasons why it ought to occupy a prominent place in any course of historical reading. Conceding to our own history an educational precedence, we should be disposed to rank next and, if possible, parallel to it, the tangled web of German story. It is to the great Teutonic stock we owe the backbone of our language and of our laws, the freedom of our political system and of our religious worship. Without, however, going farther back than the Carlovingian dynasty, what a record is that of Germany for more than a millennium! Of the four early dynasties, each had its distinctive feature and its representative man. Leaving Charlemagne out of the reckoning, Arnulf is the man, and the final severance of the Frank and Teuton powers, the characteristic. Of the Saxon Emperors, Otto III., whose fanaticism led him to seek a foothold in Italy, is the foremost figure. Under the Franconians, the deadly struggle with the Popes for supremacy, the war concerning the episcopal investitures with the names of Henry and Gregory VII., and then with the Hohenstaufen house, we encounter the

crusades, the rise of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, and the gradual breaking up of German unity. These were the days of Frederick Barbarossa, Richard Cœur de Lion, Saladin, Innocent III., and Arnold of Brescia.

Following the old dynasties we arrive at the purely feudal period, the independence of the barons, their private wars and their oppressions; the rise of the cities; the emancipation of Switzerland and its struggles for liberty. These were the days when there were at one time three rival emperors, and two and sometimes three rival popes. The House of Hapsburg had risen in the person of Rudolph. Sigismund and the Council of Constance, the violated safe-conduct and the burning of Huss, pass before us as precursors of the dawn. Everywhere there was disintegration. The Empire was powerless, the nobles uncontrolled, the Judicial circles and the Imperial Court of Justice impotent, the Diet an additional cause of confusion.

Then follow in grand succession the Reformation, the Peasants' Wars, the Thirty Years' War, the rise of Prussia, with the great Elector and the greater Frederick, the Seven Years' War, the Partition of Poland, the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon I., the humiliation of Germany at Austerlitz, Jena and Wagram, the war of Liberation in 1813, and Waterloo. Finally, the grand epoch which culminated in the establishment of a new German Empire and consolidated German unity upon the ashes of France. Varied, however, and interesting as the incidents of this history are, they only form a portion of its value. The social life of a people where serfdom continued to exist till Stein put an end to it at the beginning of this century, the religious struggles and controversies, orthodox and rationalistic, the philosophy and science, the poetry and romance of this deep-thinking and hard-reading people—all form in combination a subject unequalled perhaps as a study of individual, social and national life.

Mr. Lewis's book is a most praiseworthy effort to supply a want long felt by English readers. Perhaps with the exception of Kohlrausch, which was accepted faut de mieux, we had no fairly readable and fairly accurate elementary manual of German history. Mr. Lewis's history is not too much encumbered with detail; it is clear and lucid in style, orderly in arrangement, and on the whole accurate in statements of fact. The author did well to take a good German manual; by doing so he has imparted to the narrative the warmth of color and the glow of

patriotism which give life to the soulless chronicle of historic deeds. That his work is so useful and so animated we owe to the strong national feeling of Dr. Müller. No man can write a country's history as a native can write it. He may be prejudiced and, consciously or unconsciously, warp the facts occasionally in the interests and for the reputation of his nation. These are blemishes which must be corrected by more extended study; but, after all, they are cheaply purchased when they are attended with the warmth and vitality of a deep, an almost religious love of country. When we read the story of the War of Liberation in this volume, we know that Dr. Müller has left his mark there. In Germany at the present time the fire of patriotism is at its height, and men write history with vigor because they have acted it in earnest, sword in hand. We can read the history of England's great civil war of the Revolution of 1688, and even the triumph at Waterloo, with cold-blooded equanimity, without a quickening of the pulse. It is not so in Germany. The struggle of 1813 is not forgotten, and Sadowa, Wörth, Weissenburg, Gravelotte, Sedan and Paris represent in contemporary events the conflict for national unity and national independence and their final triumph. We may partly appreciate if we fail to realize the feelings of Germany when it has at length secured the boon for which generation upon generation has sighed and prayed and bled in vain.

Not the least of the merits of Mr. Lewis's history are the chapters on the state of society at the close of each period. The sketches given of the social condition of the people, the progress of science, art and literature, are models of accuracy and conciseness. Every notable name is represented by a short biography and, in the case of literary men, by a brief account of their chief works. The volume is illustrated by engravings of the effigies of all the emperors from Charlemagne A.D. 800 to William I. A.D. 1871. There are also two maps, representing Germany as it was under the Hohenstaufen dynasty and under Wilhelm I.

A word or two on the other side. It seems to us that the space allotted by Mr. Lewis to the Reformation and to the Thirty Years' War is inadequate. By retrenching the preliminary book, which attempts to cover a vast subject which cannot be fully considered in a work of this sort, the periods of which we speak, infinitely more interesting to the reader, might have had more elbow-room. We do not think that Wallenstein's character has full justice done to it. That he was as bad as Mr. Lewis portrays him there can be no doubt, but we do justice to the Corsican and why not to the Bohemian ad

venturer. One thing is certain, that to this day Wallenstein is remembered with gratitude by Germany as the first apostle of national unity, and when Schiller, in his two dramas, selected him as the hero of the historical drama, he did so advisedly.

It would perhaps be hypercritical to complain that Mr. Lewis has followed the older writers in censuring Frederick the Great for the first partition of Poland. It is proved beyond question that Frederick's own account of the matter was the correct one. He wanted peace after the terrible struggle of the Seven Years' War, but he wanted the Russian alliance to enable him to secure it.

We have only to repeat our commendation of this history, because we believe it to be, on the whole, the best manual of German history at present before the public.

Prof. Hart's "Composition and Rhetoric "

There has hitherto been no greater desideratum, in educational manuals treating of the construction of our mother tongue, than a good and rational textbook on English composition. Many of the ambitious works we have met with have been of little practical value, since the subject cannot effectively be taught from rules - one of the vices bequeathed to us by the old-time study of the Latin and Greek classics. The tendency has been to make the art of writing the language as difficult, rather than as easy, as possible, and to discuss and elaborate general principles, instead of illustrating these by clear and practical examples. To our mind, the most useful method of teaching composition is by setting before the learner good models, and if specimens of bad English are given him, care should be taken to indicate explicitly why they are bad, and wherein they violate the cardinal principle of all composition -the clear, unambiguous transmission of thought from one mind to another. It should also be shown him wherein the examples involve some absurdity, readily perceived by every one who has read much. Of the manuals we have seen, we have always thought highly of Dr. Hart's class-book, being rich in examples. Though comprehensive, it was worked out on perspicuous and intelligent lines. A revised edition of this work (Eldredge and Brother, publishers, Philadelphia) has been issued by Prof. J. M. Hart, of Cornell, who has added no little to the merit of the book and specially adapted it to the practical wants of students. The chief additions are those on Paragraphing and on Composition-writing, which are dealt with by one who has manifestly had much to do with the practical teaching of English.

The volume, as a whole, may safely be put into the hands of those for whom it is intended.

"A First Book in Dr. E. H. Lewis, Professor of Writing English in the University of English" Chicago, has done a good service to language and literature students in issuing this common-sense text-book on the writing of English. The work, which is published by The Macmillan Company, New York (price 80 cents) approaches very nearly to the excellence of what, in our judgment, is the best of all aids to students of English-Dr. E. A. Abbott's "How to Write Clearly." Dr. Lewis's work is methodical and well arranged, and cites examples of solecisms and improprieties in the construction and use of sentences, with aids to the avoidance of the same by the learner. Chapters VI and XI, on "Well-Knit Sentences,” and on the "Right Number and Skilful Choice of Words" are good instances of the value of the book to the student, as are those on "Grammatical Phases of Writing English," and on The Mastery of a Writing Vocabulary."

44

"Lessons in

Plant Life"

The design of this little volume is to interest the young in Botany, to make plain to them, in an entertaining and instructive way, how plants grow, and to excite wonder and observation in the beautiful processes of plant life. The book is quite elementary, and its methods those of child-talks, designed to impart some simple knowledge of the subject with which it deals, and at the same time to train the power and encourage the habit of observation. The use of the work, by mothers at home as well as by teachers at school, cannot but be interesting to young folk, and a delight to those who would have their eyes opened to the beauties and marvellous adaptations of Nature. The work, which is usefully illustrated, has been prepared by Mrs. H. H. Richardson, and is published by the Johnson Publishing Co. of Richmond, Va. In "Santa Claus's New CasA Holiday Book Gift tle" (Columbus, O., Nitschke Brothers), Maude Florence Bellar has provided a delightful holiday treat for little folk, with illustrations that will brighten the most drowsy, and gladden the most wide-awake eyes. This seasonable little volume is of the type of the Christmas fairy tale, and relates how Santa Claus set off with his team of reindeer, "Blizzard and Whirligig," to choose a site for a snow castle in the far North. Here, in the last belt of timber near the Pole, he manufactured his toys for Yule Tide and made everything ready for his sly annual visits to the homes of little children as the good génie of the joyous season. The book tells what hap

pens during these visits, and especially relates a touching story of an orphan child whom Santa Claus found peering wistfully into a well-filled and attractive store window. What interest Santa found in the little chap, and how he disposed of him, making glad the heart of a child of wealthy parents who wished as his Christmas present the companionship of another child who would belong to him and would be his playmate, the young among our readers must discover for themselves in the charming little volume to which the kind-hearted authoress has introduced them.

"Little Hearts"

Under this attractive title we have one of the most delightful book issues for the coming holiday season it has been our fortune to come across. There is a pleasing union of pictures and reading matter, much of the latter being in verse of a tripping kind, while the pictures (many of them charmingly colored) form a pretty album likely to make brighter the little eyes that look at them. The book is the joint product of Florence and Bertha Upton, and is published by George Routledge & Sons, W. 23rd St., New York.

"Voices of Doubt and Trust"

Under this title [New York: Brentano's], one of the many troubled minds of this perplexed age has compiled, under the evident pseudonym of "Volney Streamer," an anthology which gives expression, chiefly in beautiful and artistic verse, to "a soul's search for Truth, ranging from the darkness of hopeless Doubt to that radiance that fills the heart in sublimest Trust." The collection is unique in its way, grouping, as it does, a choice number of those finely expressed thoughts, in prose and verse, from eminent though sometimes fugitive sources, which have voiced a truth-seeker's aspirations and soul-experiences, now in wistful questionings and anon in staying, comforting and trustful hopes. The aim of the compiler, as he tells us, has been "to give to a larger audience certain of those clear, strong words that have been hitherto sounded for the few only," in the expectation that "the casual reader may perhaps find some new thought, or some new expression of an older hope, that may revive his sinking courage, or give him a moment of cheer." The extracts, which are representative of an age of distracting mental and spiritual problems, are drawn from writers such as Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Emerson, Tennyson, John Morley, Huxley, Omar Khayyam, Whitman, Trench, Faber, George Eliot, Goldwin Smith and others, and will, no doubt, be widely appreciated in their compact form and very tasteful dress. G. M. A.

IN these days of practical moneyseeking men and women these days when the breadwinners are many, and the knights and their ladies are growing to seem but creatures of fancy, it may sound strange to assert that figurative language is the language of people in all walks of life. Indeed, if one of our boys or girls, students of etymology, should tell a business man that his style of speech is highly figurative, he would smile and reply that metaphors and similes are for Whittier and Longfellow and Tennyson; but if our student should tell him, as he could in truth, that there is a similarity between his language and his business methods, both being concise, vigorous and forceful, he would smile again (a different kind of smile) and say:

"I fear you are trying to flatter me."

"Flatter," did he say? Is he not figurative when he uses that word? Flatter in its root means "to stroke with the flat of the hand," and suggests the act of some furry animal. Such stroking is Such stroking is literally (according to the letter, or "spread over" meaning) soothing to the body, not to the mind.

"I detect your meaning" is a common expression and is suggestive of a house in the Orient, for does not detect mean, literally, "to unroof" and whither would you go, except to the Orient, to find a man lifting a part of the roof to get into a house, which had proven difficult of access in the usual way? See Mark 2:4. "Detect your meaning," then, is, by interpretation, "I have got at your meaning only by unroofing it."

"You inculcate your ideas well," says one, but is not inculcate a strong word to use here? It means when translated, "To drive in with the heel."

Yes, a little strong. How would this do: "Your meaning is obvious"? That is better. "Obvious"-merely "thrown in the way" of the mind. Via, a way,"

you see.

"Good night" we often say, and what do we mean? This is a good "breaking away" of the day.

Then there is the word, "bombastic,"

as applied to the manners of an individual. It means "inflated to a bulky, showy appearance, like a quantity of raw cotton."

We speak of dilapidated houses, and the word comes from di, "in different directions," and lapis, "a stone"-stones

thrown down or fallen here and there in different directions.

Those were wise men who adapted our words from other languages. Ponder, for example, is a pleasing word. It implies that the mind is a set of scales, on which to weigh thoughts. "Mary kept all these sayings and pondered (weighed) them." But it is a deplorable fact that through prejudice, anger or ignorance, we allow the scales to become untrue in their records.

In contrition is to be seen one of our most forceful faded metaphors, for its literal meaning is, "a grinding to pieces," and perhaps no mental state puts us "through the mill," to come out ground to such small pieces, as does that of contrition.

Then there is disaster, with its suggestion of the wave of astrological study that swept over the land during the Middle Ages. Dis is a prefix denoting oppositeness, adverseness (dis-please) and when coupled with "aster" from astrum “a star," it carries the thought of the astrologer an adverse or unlucky star; hence, a disastrous event, is, in its astrological meaning, one projected under an unlucky star. An odd variation in its meaning lies in the fact that it once looked to the conditions surrounding the event in its start, while now it looks to the outcome of the event.

A good expression is that one, "a cordial greeting," meaning one "from the heart."

Town is a word that suggests remote days, when the tun was the enclosure belonging to the lord of the manor, and, later, a collection of houses, walled in, for the sake of protection from the surrounding tribes. Towns are no longer towns in the first meaning, for they are no longer walled. Equally great has been the change in the meaning of the word, extravagant, which once suggested a wanderer, "beyond bounds." Vagrant