will be, and is desired to be, but incidental. Furthermore, urged on by its own peculiar political traditions, the United States has, from the beginning, taken the position that the welfare of these insular peoples may best be advanced by educating them as rapidly as possible in the art of self-government. In carrying out this purpose, admittedly a very difficult one because of the political characteristics and history of the peoples concerned, our country, by the exercise of what we must grant to be a very considerable amount of political self-restraint, has, to a degree, deliberately sacrificed immediate administrative efficiency in order to secure the politically educative effect of placing a certain. amount of governmental responsibility upon the natives themselves. Thus in Porto Rico the inhabitants have, since the establishment of civil government there under the Foraker Act, been allowed to elect their own lower legislative chamber, and to have a minority representation in the council or upper house. In addition, they have retained in their own hands the entire administration of local affairs, subject only to the supervision of the central or "insular" government. Also, as is well known, steps are being taken as rapidly as possible to endow the Filipinos with substantially similar privileges. In carrying out this selfimposed task, it is, of course, in the highest degree necessary that the American people should have an accurate knowledge of the elements of the problem which they have to solve, and to meet this need, so far at least as Porto Rico is concerned, the work under review has been prepared, and excellently does it realize its aim. To the advanced student who is perhaps interested in the more technical and special details of our colonial problem, the work may prove disappointing; but for the general intelligent reading public, it does all that a work of its comparative brevity could do. Lucidly, concisely, and accurately it not only explains the steps by which the transition from military to civil government was effected, the constitutional relations between the island and the United States as defined by the Supreme Court, and the political machinery, insular and municipal, that has been established, but in so doing makes plain the conditions that have controlled the policies that have been pursued, and the difficulties that have been, and still have to be, met. One important fact the work makes especially plain, a fact that possibly the American people do not sufficiently recognize, and that is, that the very crux of the colonial problem lies not so much in the establishment

of a central or "insular" government as in the provision of satisfactory local institutions. For it is after all the local governments which most often and most directly touch the people, and which therefore should be most closely adapted to their peculiar characteristics and needs. In Porto Rico the eminently wise policy has been pursued of placing the responsibility for good local administration primarily upon the Porto Ricans themselves. Only in cases of misuse or non-use of the powers thus granted does the insular government interpose with its veto or correcting command. Thus this very power which is reserved by the central government, which, through the governor and council, is under the control of the Americans, operates as an instrument to point out and compel the recognition of honest, efficient principles in the exercise of political powers. In conclusion, it should be said that Professor Rowe has enjoyed exceptional opportunities for obtaining an accurate knowledge of the subject with which he has dealt, having served as a member of the commission to revise and compile the laws of Porto Rico, and as chairman of the Porto Rican code commission.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

W. W. WILLOUGHBY.

AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION : being the History of the Society for the Education of the Poor of Ireland, generally known as the Kildare Place Society, 18111831. By H. Kingsmill Moore, D. D. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxii, 350.

Dr. Moore is right in believing that his book deals with a movement which has been generally forgotten, and we are grateful to him for his appreciative and interesting account of this early attempt to provide elementary education in Ireland.

The Kildare Place Society was founded in 1811 on a very wide basis. "Members of the Irish Church, Roman Catholics, and Nonconformists joined hands, and labored zealously together for the common good." (P. 4.) The work undertaken had a wide scope, and touched every kind of school need. "Their books at the reduced rates, which barely covered the cost of production, were available everywhere. Their Training School was thrown open to properly recommended teachers, no matter what their schools, provided they or their patrons were willing to pay their share of the expense. Their inspectors were encouraged to visit

any school upon their route which showed a willingness to receive them. Their office was made a bureau of educational enquiry and information, to which correspondents from all parts of Ireland were encouraged to apply." (P. 41.) For a time it seemed as if the problem of elementary instruction in Ireland was to be solved, and the government marked its appreciation of the work of the Society by grants of money which by 1824 amounted to £30,000 for the

year.

But the Society contained in its constitution the germ of its own decay. Both by its wide basis and the scope of its activities it was bound to be undenominational in religion. Unfortunately it did not limit itself to that true undenominationalism which is necessarily negative, but insisted on the positive form of reading the Bible in schools "without note or comment." This was bitterly opposed by the Catholics, and the Commission on Irish Education of 1824 "endorsed the reasonableness of the hostility." (P. 97.) In practice it seems to have been not infrequently evaded, and when observed, its results were acknowledged by the Society's own inspectors to be absolutely worthless, even in the Model School itself. (Pp. 144-154.) That men so intelligent and liberalminded as the leaders of the Society undoubtedly were should have thought it their duty to sacrifice their whole work rather than yield on this point, is a significant instance of how formulæ and prejudice blind the mind to facts. It is perhaps too much to hope that this object-lesson in the worthlessness of mere Bible reading, without interpretation, will be taken to heart, but it is the chief lesson the history of the Kildare Place Society has for the present day.

THE UNIVERSITY, LEEDS.

J. WELTON.

THOUGHTS ON ULTIMATE PROBLEMS. By F. W. Frankland. Wellington, New Zealand: W. J. Lankshear, 1904. Pp. 19. THEISM FOUND WANTING. By W. S. Godfrey. London: Watts & Co., 1903. Pp. 40.

THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL. By Lilian Whiting. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1905. Pp. 182.

From New Zealand, from London, and from Boston have come to us recently three answers to the ever-recurring question, Whither are we bound? Mr. Frankland, a metaphysician and mathematician of considerable repute, publishes in pamphlet form

his speculations on the problem of the theodicy. He holds "as an indubitably proven fact that all existence is necessarily psychic," and on this fact as a basis he proceeds to elaborate a number of epistemological and theological theorems, the upshot of which is that an all-inclusive Personal Intellect, behind Time, is working itself out by a necessary, logical evolution, into pure moral goodness.

Another pamphlet comes from a pronounced atheist, formerly a clergyman-Mr. W. S. Godfrey. It bears the title "Theism Found Wanting," and is an honest denunciation of theistic beliefs as destitute of any philosophical support and positively warping to the soundest ethical sense.

In an entirely different mood is Miss Lilian Whiting's "Outlook Beautiful" conceived. It is a rhapsody, a carnival of spiritual joy. It would be invidious to point to flaws in Miss Whiting's logic or slips in her science. The book wishes to be neither logical nor scientific. Edification is its purpose, and it wll prove welcome, no doubt, to those who love to be swept along in the rapid serenity of Miss Whiting's spiritual confidence.

DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY.

NEW YORK.

THE SUPREMACY OF JESUS. By Joseph H. Crooker, author of "Religious Freedom in American Education." Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1904. Pp. 186.

Frankly accepting the most radical conclusions of modern New Testament criticism, the author of this essay attempts to vindicate a real and abiding authority for the great teacher whom so many centuries of orthodoxy have worshiped as "very God." The influence of Jesus, he contends, has been a more abiding and more vivifying influence on the world than that of Aristotle, Mohammed, Buddha, or Confucius, because it has been, not simply disciplinary, exemplary, or didactic, but rather an intensely personal influence. To call Jesus "inspired" or to name him "God" does not signify at all our appreciation of him; in fact, it may simply be an avowal of the renunciation of the effort to appreciate him. The only way to understand Jesus is to search for the secret of that personal, compelling force in him which is witnessed not only by the gospel records, but also much more by the doctrine of his followers to-day.

It is interesting, by the way, to notice that Mr. Crooker's view

of the relation of the real Jesus to the gospels duplicates that of the greatest of living authorities on the historicity of the earliest Christian literature, Prof. Adolf Harnack, of Berlin, who in his lectures on "Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Evangelien," maintains just this thesis of an "original Jesus," distorted by the interpretations of the heirs of the messianic prophesies and the missionaries of Hellenic thought. DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY.

NEW YORK.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

THE LOGIC OF HUMAN CHARACTER. By Charles J. Whitby, B. A., M. D. Cantab. London: MacMillan & Co., 1905. Pp. ix, 226.

THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION. By T. Raymont, M. A., Professor of Education in University College, Cardiff. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1904.

PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL PEACE. By A. C. Pigou, M. A., F. S. S., University Lecturer in Economics, Cambridge. London: MacMillan & Co., 1905.

A PECULIAR PEOPLE THE DOUK HOBÓRS. By Aylmer Maude. With illustrations. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1905.

PRISONS, POLICE, AND PUNISHMENT: AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES AND TREATMENT OF CRIME AND CRIMINALS. By Edward Carpenter. London: Arthur C. Fifield, 1905.

A MODERN UTOPIA. By H. G. Wells. London: Chapman & Hall, 1905.

GEISTIGE STRÖMUNGEN DER GEGENWART. Von Rudolf Eucken. Der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart dritte umgearbeitete Auflage. Verlag von Veit & Co., in Leipzig, 1904.

KANT'S ETHIK: EINE EINFÜHRUNG IN IHRE HAUPT-PROBLEME, UND BEITRÄGE ZU DEREN LÖSUNG. Von Dr. August Messer, A. O. Professor der Philosophie zu Giessen. Leipzig: Verlag von Veit & Co., 1904.

POSITIVISTISCHE BEGRÜNDUNG DES PHILOSOPHISCHEN STRAFRECHTS. Von Bruno Stern. Berlin, 1905. Pp. 97.

SCHOOL TRAINING. By R. E. Hughes, M. A., B. Sc. London: W. B. Clive, 1905.

THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF FROEBEL. By Jessie White, D. Sc. London: W. B. Clive, 1905.