“They exhort to public-spirited endeavor in the cause of rural education and they tend to foster a wholesome love of the soil and to replace the restlessness and discouragement of the country-bred boy and girl with a reasonable contentment and an impulse to improve existing opportunities.”
| + + | Country Calendar. 1: 330. Ag. ‘05. 90w. |
“Some of the passages are delightful. Nor is it a one-sided view of life that is presented.”
| + | Critic. 47: 479. N. ‘05. 250w. |
[*] “If there is nothing altogether new in the book, there is nothing that is not sensible, and very little that is not also inspiring.”
| + | Dial. 39: 312. N. 16, ‘05. 370w. | |
| + + — | Nation. 81: 306. O. 12, ‘05. 590w. | |
| N. Y. Times. 10: 573. S. 2, ‘05. 500w. |
“His exhortations ... are hearty, spontaneous, and optimistic, and full of the love of nature which he wants all the world to share.”
| + + | Outlook. 80: 886. Ag. 5, ‘05. 70w. | |
| Pub. Opin. 39: 188. Ag. 5, ‘05. 120w. |
Bain, Alexander. Autobiography. [*]$5. Longmans.
“The autobiography, as Professor Bain left it, ended with an account of the events of the year 1890; a supplementary chapter, relating to the last thirteen years of his life, has been added by his literary executor, Prof. W. L. Davidson. The chief feature of interest in this volume is its clear and candid account of the stages in the writer’s mental growth, under the circumstances of the time.” (Int. J. Ethics). His early religious life was one of unrest and doubt, but coming under the influence of Comte’s teachings, he soon rejected all theology, and found himself a thorogoing empiricist. His greatest originality lies in the realm of analytic psychology, and his works on this subject are among the classics. In logic, he was a close follower of Mill, also his two volumes show some important advances on the Mill method. In ethics, too, he is consistently empirical and utilitarian, believing that “General happiness or welfare is a sufficient statement of the final end.”