Outlines Of Composition.
Designed to simplify and develop the principles of the Art by means of Exercises in the preparation of Essays, Debates, Lectures, and Orations. For the use of schools, colleges, and private students.
By H. J. Zandee, and T. E. Howard, A.M.
Boston: Published by Robert S. Davis & Co.
New York: D. & J. Sadlier, and Oakley & Mason.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.
Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co.
St. Louis: Hendricks and Chittenden. 1869.
We take pleasure in noticing this Manual as an effort in the right direction. In all the experience of school-children there is nothing more difficult or perplexing than the art of composition; and few, even of the most diligent, attain to any degree of ease in its exercise until maturer years have taught them the lesson which these outlines are intended to convey, namely, that knowledge precedes speech, and thought goes before expression. The years which elapse while the young writer is learning "what to say, and how to say it," will, in our view, be materially diminished by the use of such works as this, and we are glad to see, by its imprint, that publishers appreciate its value.
Gray's School And Field Book Of Botany.
Consisting of "First Lessons in Botany," and "Field, Forest, and Garden Botany," bound in one volume.
By Asa Gray, Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University.
New York: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co.
Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1869.
The works of Professor Gray have been too long before the public and enjoy already too wide a reputation to make necessary any extended notice of this new and collected edition. The volume now before us is a fine octavo of more than 600 pages, and contains both the principles of the science, and the classification and description of various plants, to the number of nearly three thousand species. The illustrations are very numerous and of superior character; and the care which is displayed in the revision of the work, and its adaptation to the latest advancements of science, as well as the mechanical execution of the book itself, recommend it to all lovers of "the Field, the Forest, and the Garden."
Charlie Bell, The Waif Of Elm Island.
By Rev. Elijah Kellogg, author of Spartacus to the Gladiators, Good Old Times, etc.
Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1868. pp. 325.
This book will assuredly suit those for whose special pleasure it was written. It abounds in stirring incident and thrilling adventure on sea and shore, which, though sometimes some what exaggerated, will not render it less acceptable to its juvenile readers. A good moral lesson, although not made obtrusively prominent, is taught in the gratitude of the orphan Charlie to his kind protectors. How true, too, and how boylike his remark to his "mother," on her expressing doubt as to his ability to accomplish a certain project, "O mother! when a boy gets anything in his head, he is bound to do it, by hook or by crook."