The Young Catholic’s Illustrated Table-Book and First Lessons in Numbers. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren St. 1875.
This is a very simple and attractive little book, designed to make the beginning of arithmetic, which certainly is rather a dry study in itself, interesting and capable of fixing the attention of the very young children for whose use the work is intended. We do not remember having seen any prettier or more practical little text-book for beginners, and cannot recommend it too highly. It is also very nicely illustrated.
Sadlier’s Excelsior Geography, Nos. 1, 2, 3. New York: Wm. H. Sadlier. 1875.
As a first attempt in this country to prepare a series of geographies adapted to Catholic schools this is deserving of great praise. The type is clear, the maps and illustrations, and the mechanical execution generally, are excellent. It is based, to some extent, on a geographical course originally known as Monteith’s, and adapted by the insertion of additional matter interesting to Catholics. What we should have preferred, and hope eventually to see, is a series of geographies and histories entirely original, and written from the Catholic point of view, and pervaded by the Catholic tone which we find in this.
Sevenoaks: A Story of To-day. By J. G. Holland, author of Arthur Bonnicastle. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
It gives us great pleasure to express, with slight qualifications, our entire approval of this work, so far as its moral purport is concerned. Its plot and incidents are all within the range of ordinary life and experience, and therefore not calculated to foster in the youthful reader extravagant anticipations in regard to his own future. There are many good hits at the weaknesses and inconsistencies of human nature, and faithful pictures of the vices and miseries to which an unscrupulous ambition leads. Selfishness and injustice prosper for a time, but eventually reap their reward; while integrity and true manliness, even in the rude and uncultivated, are recognized and appreciated.
The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
“Almanac,” when applied to this publication, seems to us a misnomer. The popular notion of an almanac is a thin, badly-printed pamphlet, containing incomprehensible astrological tables, delusive prophecies as to the weather, tradesmen’s advertisements, and a padding of stale jokes or impracticable recipes gathered from country newspapers; whereas the Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac is an annual of 144 pages, containing each year enough solid, well-digested information to furnish forth an ordinary volume of three hundred pages, to say nothing of the many fine engravings—and this, too, at a price which should extend its circulation to equal that of the once-famous Moore’s Almanac (published in England about the beginning of the XVIIIth century), which is said at one time to have sold annually more than four hundred thousand copies.
The several volumes of the Family Almanac form a valuable manual for Catholics, containing, as they do, articles of great interest to the literary student, the antiquarian, and the archæologist. Much of the information could be gathered only from exceedingly well-furnished libraries; some of it appears here for the first time in print.
In the Almanac for 1876, among other good things, we find an extended and very interesting biographical sketch of His Eminence Cardinal McCloskey; also, biographical sketches of Cardinals Wiseman and Altieri, of Bishops Bruté and Baraga, of Rev. Father Nerinckx and the Cura Hidalgo—the Washington of the Mexican revolution—and of Eugene O’Curry, the eminent Irish scholar—all of these being illustrated with portraits. The approaching centenary has not been forgotten, for in “Centennial Memorials” is shown the part—a glorious one, which received the public endorsement of the “Father of his Country,” as will be seen by perusal of the article—taken by Catholics of Irish origin in the Revolutionary struggle. In the same article are numerous statistics showing the temporal growth of our country during the century just closing; the article closes with an account of the wonderful growth of the Catholic Church during the same period—the whole being valuable for future reference. “About the Bible” and “The Bible in the Middle Ages” contain information of interest to every Christian, and which is to be got elsewhere only by much reading; the latter article also contains an ample refutation of the old slander that the Catholic Church of the middle ages kept the Scriptures from the laity. Besides the foregoing, there is much curious and entertaining prose and verse, and several pictures of churches and other edifices (among them one of old S. Augustine’s Church, Philadelphia, destroyed in the riots of 1844, and toward the building of which, in 1796, Washington contributed $150; Stephen Girard, $40; George Meade, father of Gen. Meade, $50; and Commodore Barry, $150), a complete and authentic list of the Roman pontiffs translated from the Italian, the American hierarchy, and the usual astronomical and church calendars, postal guide, etc.