Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.
By Oliver Optic.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.
This volume, the third of the series published under the title of Young America Abroad, continues and concludes the travels and adventures of the naval cadets on British soil and in British waters. London, Liverpool, Manchester, the Isle of Wight, the Lake District, Snowdon, the Menai Straits, etc., are visited, affording an opportunity for the introduction of a great deal of miscellaneous information regarding the physical geography and history of many interesting localities. So far the book is unexceptionable. The adventures of the students, however, are, in Oliver Optic's usual style, exaggerated to the very verge of credibility; and though they will doubtless be relished by the class for which they are written, we no less decidedly think that, as mental food for youth, the selection is not the most judicious, and that the author could very easily, with equal credit to himself and greater benefit to his juvenile readers, serve up something else more nutritious, if less palatable, or not so highly seasoned. As regards the students themselves, it seems to us, also, that the author has not yet hit upon the golden mean: the good boys are almost too good, the bad equally untrue to nature. Our experience with boys—and it is by no means slight or superficial—tends to prove that with those who, from an indisposition to submit to an "iron rule," are commonly known as "wild," such impatience of restraint generally springs from exuberant animal spirits, and is seldom, if ever, met with in connection with meanness, much less vice. Per contra, the greatest sycophants are, as a rule, the meanest and most depraved.
Chaudron's New Fourth Reader.
On an Original Plan.
By A. De V. Chaudron.
Mobile: W. G. Clark & Co. Pp. 328. 1867.
Exteriorly, this book presents a by no means pleasing appearance; hence, the greater our surprise, and, we may add, our pleasure, at the variety and excellence of its contents, in which respect it is nowise inferior to any of those in use in our public schools. While we cannot expect for Mrs. Chaudron's Series of Readers an extended circulation in this city, in view of so many and generally deserving rivals already firmly established amongst us, we do with confidence recommend them, if in their general features they resemble this, the only one of the series submitted to us.
Imitation of Christ
Spiritual Combat
Treatise on Prayer.
Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 816. 1868.
Decidedly opposed to small type in books of a religious or educational character, we can cheerfully overlook its use in this instance, giving us, as it does, complete in one volume and in bulk not exceeding the average size of prayer-books, three such admirable devotional works.