As this subject is of growing interest, we quote the following account of this method of educating children :

64

According to Dr. Douai, the fundamental idea which led the great educator Frederick Froebel to the invention of the Kindergarten was, to render the first schooling attractive, to connect learning with pleasure, and to make mental food as much conducive to mental growth, as bodily food is to bodily growth. At the same time, moral education was to be facilitated by making the youthful learners as happy as possible, so that they should need the least possible discipline from without, their occupation disciplining them from within and prompting them to create order.

The first condition thereto was, of course, association of children with children. Man being a sociable creature, and children even more so than adults, the former can be really educated, that is to say, developed into veritable men, men in the full and harmonious exercises of all their faculties, solely by association with other children under the guidance of an educator.

etc.

The second condition was, that the place of assembly should be attractive, inspiring and congenial to child-like instincts, a little garden and, adjoining, a large room, lofty, airy, adorned with greens, flowers and, if possible, a fountain, pictures, The above condition may, under existing circumstances, be dispensed with to some degree, and may be considered as fulfilled, if the room is large enough, if it contains, besides sufficient seats, little chairs or low settees, an adequate number of low tables, and space enough for gymnastic exercises and running games. As far as means allow, the hall may be adorned with flowers, or garlands, flags, pictures and other attractive objects, chiefly from nature--but this is not a matter of primary importance.

The third and most indispensable condition is an affective lady Kindergartener, who has studied the science and art formulated by Froebel.

The fourth and last condition to successful Kindergartening are good toys, playthings and games--presented in a serial order. They can be had from E. Steiger, or may be imported from Germany in any selection which is preferable, according to means and the number of children in the class. The great variety of plays invented by Froebel, with building blocks, colored papers, sticks and chips of wood, sticks or wires and soaked peas, worsted-stitching on perforated thick paper, weaving of strips of one color into slitted paper of another color, etc., tend to develop the sense of form and proportion to such a degree, that the inventive faculty is imperceptibly developed, so that the children may soon draw on slates, or model, in some pliable substance, a great variety of objects so as to be recognizable. This important ability must be encouraged by preserving the best models and drawings and exhibiting them.

The idea, however, of making the first school as attractive as possible, was not the only one with Froebel. All the amusing plays and games are in themselves to contain elements of instruction and discipline. Nor did Frozel overlook a most material circumstance in the training of children, for he designed that every mother should be an educated Kindergartener. In infancy and early youth there can be no educator like the mother. Here is a province left almost solely under feminine control, and the impressions then made on the tender, plastic mind evidence a permanence of character and an intellectual supremacy seldom accorded to the harder sex. Dr. Douai has successfully illustrated this department of Kindergartening."

The Presbyterian Board has issued the following, which will serve for good general reading, and are unexceptionable for Sabbath-school libraries :

Across the Desert, A Life of Moses, by Rev. S. M. CAMPBELL, D.D., with maps and other pictorial illustrations; and

Trye's Year among the Hindoos, by JULIA CARRIE THOMPSON, the object being to " place before the minds of the young a few pictures of the North India of to-day."

Uncle Ben's Bag, and how it is never empty,-a tract showing how economy and charity may be mutual supports.

Play and Profit in my Garden. By Rev. E. P. ROE. New York: Dodd & Mead.

The author here displays that vivacity and graphic power which, in his "Barriers Burned Away," have just won for him decided rank among American novelists. This book, while bright and lively in style, deals with facts which are made at once instructive and entertaining.

The book, however attractive in other respects, seems to us most important in its bearings on ministerial support. If Mr. Roe can teach his brethren how to imitate him, and gain $2,000 a year from two acres of land, he will have done more than any other man towards solving the vexed question of ministerial sustentation. Making all allowance for his nearness to market and other special advantages, if he can show his rural brethren how to obtain any proportionate results as effected by their location, he will have done an inestimable service. Horticulture is quite congruous with student and pastoral life, giving heathful but not exhausting open air exercise.

GENERAL LITERATURE.

I Go A-Fishing. By W. C. PRIME. New York: Harper & Bro's. Mr. Prime has produced a delightful volume for summer travel and recreation. The Adirondacks and the White Mountains are the principal places which he describes. But he also brings in memories and scenes from distant lands, with not a little of learned lore from rare books and authors. The literary skill shown is of a high order; the style is finished and appropriate, while imagination and emotion fill out the pictures and give them life. It is a book that will beguile many a tedious hour.

The Fishing Tourist. Angler's Guide and Reference Book. By CHARLES HALLOCK. Illustrated. Same publishers. Mr.. Hallock's book passes in review the most noted salmon resorts of our country, from the Western Lakes to Nova Scotia. It is agreeably written, with the enthusiasm of a practiced fisherman, and contains useful practical directions, besides many good illustrations.

The Harpers also publish Lord Lytton's (Bulwer's) last novel, Kenelm Chillingly, which shows that the author had lost none of his powers. They also reprint A Strange Story; Liela, or the Siege of Granada; and Godolphin.

J. R. Osgood & Co., of Boston, publish Mr. BROWNING'S Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, or Turf and Towers,-a notice of which is deferred.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED.

Harper & Brothers have sent us:

Grif,"

London's Heart. A Novel. By B. L. FARJEON, author of "Joshua Marvel,' ""Blade-o'-Grass," &c. Illustrated. 8 vo, paper, 75 cents. Harper's Hand-Book for Travellers in Europe and the East. Being a Guide through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Great Britain and Ireland. By W. PEMBROKE FETRIDGE. Twelfth Year. With nearly 100 Maps and Plans of Cities. Large 12mo, Half Leather, Pocket-Book form, $6.00.

Armadale,"

Wilkie Collins' New Magdalen. The New Magdalen. A Novel. By WILKIE COLLINS, Author of "The Woman in White," " "Moonstone,' ""Man and Wife," &c., &c. 8 vo, paper, 50 cents.

Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1872. Edited by Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD, of the Smithsonian Institution, with the Assistance of Eminent Men of Science. 12m0, over 700 pp., cloth, $2.00. (Uniform with the Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1871. 12mo, cloth, $2.00.)

Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper: Containing Five Hundred Recipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, many Directions for securing Health and Happiness. Approved by Physicians of all Classes. Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

Old Kensington. A Novel. By Miss THACKERAY, Author of "The Village on the Cliff," &c. Illustrated. 8vo, paper, $1.00.

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. have published the promised Index to Dr. Hodge's System of Theology, completing this indispensable work. To meet the needs of the National Sunday-school Sessions, they have published an abridged edition of Lange's Matthew, by Dr. SCHAFF, and new editions of the works of Alexander and Owen on Matthew. All of these are in their way excellent.

Art. XII.--THEOLOGICAL AND LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

GERMANY.

In Oct., 1871, Perthes, of Gotha, began the publication of the Deutsche Blätter. Its title page described it as “ A Monthly for State, Church and Social Life." The editors have from the first announced their Review as loyally German, and at the same time loy ally Christian and Evangelical. They say in their prospectus: "The German people has a right to the future only so far forth as it remains the vehicle of a living Christianity." In this spirit their Review is to deal with political, religi

ous and social questions. In respect to one of the chief social problems of the day, they say: " All will depend on the degree in which employers and employed allow themselves to be penetrated by the spirit of Christ, to become just, one to another, in love and fidelity." The editor, Dr. Füllner, of Gotha, has thus far had the cooperation of about forty contributors, among whom we may name Pro's. Christlieb, Lange, Von der Goltz, Sack, Schäfer, Nasse, and Hälschner, of three different Faculties at Bonn; Ebrard and Von Hoffmann of Erlangen, Geffken of Strasburg, and Kähler of Halle; together with scholars and pastors like Weber of Barmen, H. Krummacher of Brandenburg, Schneider of Berlin, Meyeringh, etc.

The numbers, averaging 70 pages, contain from three to six articles each, on such subjects as the following: The Peace of the Church in the German Empire; Alsace and its Importance to Germany; French Society; The Importance to the Present of the Study of Ancient History; The Franco-German War and the Law of Nations; The Universities in the New German Empire; The Crisis in Church Politics; Reminiscences of Madame de Stael; Papacy and Monarchy in Italy; The National Character of the French and Ultramontanism; The Labor Question; Carl Bernhard Hundeshagen: The Moral Estimate of Political Characters; The History of Joseph and the Egyptian Monuments; Baron F. C. von Stockmar; Character and Problems of our Time; The Philosophy of the Unconscious; Comparison of the Older with the Present Rationalism; The Spiritism of the Present; The Disestablishment of the Evangelical Church. The numbers usually end with a concise resume of the latest phases and developments in Ecclesiastical Politics.

The Theologisches Literaturblatt, published at Bonn and edited by Prof. Reusch, has naturally been of late the critical organ of the Old Catholics. The books reviewed are assigned to, or taken in hand by, competent men, whose critiques are frequently extended and valuable discussions. The numbers for the present year have contained reviews by representative men like Von Schulte, Michelis, Reinkens (the Bishop elect of the Old Catholics), Langen, Knoodt, and Reusch. The range and style of their criticism enhances our respect for the ability, culture, learning and intended fairness of the men, and makes the magazine (which is issued fortnightly' useful in its indirect as well as its direct service. Döllinger recommended it to a friend of ours as the most thorough and valuable publication of its kind in Germany.

Dr. Bud

Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie. Part 1. 1873. Weizsäcker, of Tübingen. continues an historical investigation begun in a previous number, and under the title, The Decretal Licet de vitanda," discusses the irregularities in the elections of Popes Alexander III. and Victor IV., and the law concerning papal elections promulgated by the Ecumenical Synod which assembled in the Vatican A.D. 1179. Recent debates in the Church of Rome, and the prospect of an early vacancy in the Chair of St. Peter, give a special interest to the facts here brought out. densieg, of I ondon, in a short article "On an Ante-Mosaic Account of the Deluge," discusses the recently discovered cuneiform inscriptions found and deciphered by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, and made known to the public in December last through the London Society of Biblical Archæology. Schmidt, Stuttgart, continues his discussion of "The Resurrection of the Lord, and its Import to his Person and His Work," with special re:erence to Keim's theories, and in part in reply to Keim's strictures on his previous article. The careful literary criticisms which are characteristic of this Review, occupy as usual nearly one-third

of the number.

Theologische Studien und Kritiken. Part III. 1873. The essays are two; one by Mücke, on Luther's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper, prior to 1522, and one by Kähler, on the Discourses of Peter in the Acts of the Apostles. Weiss, of Kiel, comments briefly on Grimm's article (in the Studien for October, 1872) on the Problem of the 1st Epistle of Peter. Rönsch continues his review of Keim, and Möller reviews Nitzsch's Outline of the History of Christian Doctrine, awarding it, on the whole, high commendation, especially as a book for students.

Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie. Part III. 1873. Two of the articles are valuable contributions to the history of the periods to which they relate. Dr. F. Brandes gives the first of a series of articles on Duplessis-Mornay, the Huguenot Pope, as he was called, in whom the author says that "the good genius of France was embodied, and that this was repudiated when Henry IV. rejected his counsels, to throw himself into the arms of those who from that time have had the ascendency in France," etc. R. Albert, with a marvellous fullness and minuteness in the citation of his authorities, discusses the question, "On what ground did John Eck debate with Martin Luther in Leipsic in 1519?" The minutest scrutiny into the spirit, aims and methods of this great debate, which was one of the crises of the Reformation, turns all the more to the advantage of the Reformer.

Strauss's "Der alte und der neue Glaube," and its supplementary preface, are having a large circulation and developing a considerable literature about them. The extreme positions of the author, and the characteristic boldness with which he renounces the very name of Christian and propounds a new faith, invite a prompt and sturdy grapple, which has not been declined on any side. Beyschlag and Ulrici, Huber and Knoodt, Philippson, Weis, and Spörri, are among those who have, in pamphlets or elaborate articles, undertaken criticism of the arch-critic, and they speak from the side of Protestantism, Judaism, Old Catholicism, and Natural Science.

An interesting group of recent biographies is made up of Beyschlag's Nitzsch, Nippold's Rothe, Christlieb's Hundeshagen, and Bratuschek's Trendelenburg. The men commemorated were among the men of their time, and these memoirs contain much material illustrating the theological, ecclesiastical and philosophical movements of the last forty years.

Otto's Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum is, after a long delay, completed by the publication of the 9th volume. Vol. II. of the System der Christlichen Gewissheit, by Prof. Frank, of Erlangen, completes the work. Part II. of the ProtestantenBibel neuen Testamentes, edited by Schmidt and Von Holtzendorff, with the cooperation of Bruch, Hilgenfeld, Holsten, and others, completes a modified version of the New Testament, with concise, popular notes in the interest of the critical school. Steinmeyer has brought out another (a fourth) of his valuabie apologetic treatises in defence of important parts of the Gospel history. This last work treats of "The birth of the Lord, and his first steps in life." Another monograph, from the critical side, is Weiffenbach's Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, in which he discusses what the synoptical Gospels say with reference to Christ's second coming. Keim's last is his edition (with translation and commentary) of Celsus's True Word, the oldest (extant) treatise in opposition to Christianity, written A.D. 178. Hilgenfeld has published an edition of the Latin Version of the Shepherd of Hermas.

Von Decker, of the Royal Press at Berlin, is bringing out, in parts, in elegant style, Potthast's Regesta Pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno post Christum natum