month at farthest. The children are very hun- | gry. The case is exceedingly pressing and desperate. The writer has no claim to urge except that of common humanity, and is await-ciety, Wendell Phillips arraigned the college, ing in hopeful and prayerful expectation the return of the wife, who has consented to undertake the thankless office of bringing the letter.

of Xenophon and a few lines of the Iliad, let that suffice as now. But if, instead of the Greek, he select a modern tongue, although no mercy be shown him in the examination, let him not be repelled contemptuously as now. The orator would not object to demanding two of the modern languages in place of the ancient, and an examination adequate to show that the applicant has command of them as working tools.

As he ended his clear and strenuous plea the worthy son of Harvard and of sons of Harvard might well have said, "If that is treason, make the most of it." But his demand was not a mere protest, it was the ripe and ripening conviction of many who heard him, and who feel that mere tradition has been too powerful in regulating the college course of study. The Phi Beta address of Mr. Adams was but another voice of the spirit which has within a generation changed the head of a college from an elderly clerical recluse to an active man of affairs. The change is symbolic and prophetic of that which he advocates, and which must not be mistaken as a demand for easier and more superficial studies.

On the contrary, his argument and that of "the modernists" is that nothing is more shallow, sloppy, and superficial than the present college study of Greek, and consequently nothing more ludicrous than the solemn assertion that it is an admirable intellectual discipline. Accuracy and thoroughness are indispensable in any method or pursuit which is to train the mental faculties. But these, he insists, are the fatal want of the college study of Greek, and it necessarily depletes instead of

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disciplining the intellectual powers. Those who are familiar with Mr. Adams's interest in what is called the Quincy system of commonschool instruction know that he states the aim of that system to be accuracy and thoroughness. Its strongest criticism upon the ordinary system is that it neglects that very precision and clearness of apprehension which is the essential condition of really available knowledge.

This want of accuracy in education is illustrated in the vague and visionary apprehension of the most familiar facts and objects by school-children, as strikingly shown in a recent paper in the Princeton Review, by Professor Stanley Hall, one of the most thorough and accomplished living students of pedagogy. Of two hundred or two hundred and fifty schoolchildren in Boston, twenty-one per cent. did not know the right hand from the left. Thirtythree per cent. did not know a chicken, and thirty-five per cent. had never observed the clouds.

The Quincy method, the investigations of the Pedagogical Society of Berlin and those which Professor Hall and others have stimulated in this country, and the Phi Beta orations of Mr. Phillips and of Mr. Adams, show that it is from the college that the progressive movement proceeds, and that it is educated men who purge and advance the methods of education. That such addresses are now delivered at Commencement is one of the signs of the fact that the closer the relation of the college to actual life, the more thorough and accurate will be its scholastic training, and the greater the respect and confidence in which it will be held.

Editor's Literary Record.

edition, and comprises the fifth and sixth volumes of the French edition, without abridgement, and it has been carefully translated and edited by Colonel John P. Nicholson, of Philadelphia, who has also appended foot-notes, sparingly and only where they are really need

HE two prime qualifications of a historian, dispassionateness and thoroughness, are everywhere manifest in the History of the Civil War in America,' by the Count of Paris. Unsparing and successful in his exertions to collect the materials that are necessary to throw light upon the entire period, or to afford cleared, in correction of casual errors into which and consistent views of particular passages in it, both civil and military, its author is also singularly calm in his judgments, temperate alike in his praise and censure, and earnestly desirous to deal justly and fairly with both sides of the great conflict and the actors in each. However his recital may be criticised or his conclusions controverted in special instances, these qualities will be conceded to him, and the great merits of his work as a whole will be generally and cordially recognized. The volume of this extensive work now published is the third of the American

the author had fallen, or explanatory of passages that were liable to misconstruction. The period covered by the volume is the eventful year of the rebellion, 1863-a year which comprised operations and battles that were destined to exert a decisive influence over the results of the war. In the earlier portion of this year the principal theatre of the war in the East was on the Rapidan, where in May the campaign closed with the disaster to the Army of the Potomac under General Hooker at Chancellorsville, which so greatly disappointed the expectations of the North and so greatly elated the hopes of the South. Concurrently with the operations in the East, the movement upon Vicksburg and the attempt to open the Mississippi had been made in the West, and it too

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the military telegraph, the system of railroad transportation for military purposes, the soldiers' homes, and the Sanitary and other commissions. The Count of Paris is not a florid or an ambitions writer. He indulges in no rhetorical flights, and enters upon no profound or philosophical speculations. Evidently his aim is not to display himself, but his great solicitude is to write impartially, and with a full knowledge of his subject, and to impart his knowledge to his reader in the simplest, clearest, and most straightforward manner. His style, however, is not entirely devoid of the graces and adornments that are requisite in order to relieve a history as minute in its details as his necessarily is of the tediousness and monotony that are inevitable without an occasional relaxation of its strictness. Constantly in his narrative the reader comes upon descriptive and illustrative passages whose beauty and vivacity are the more relishing and refreshing for their brevity and unobtrusiveness. The independent relation which he bears as a foreigner to both the great parties in the conflict, and also to individuals on either side, enables him to divest himself of passion or prejudice, and if he errs in any matter, it is not on the side of partisanship, but is chargeable rather to an ignorance or misapplication of facts. Such errors, however, are exceedingly rare, and never, thanks to his industrious research, his soundness of judgment, and his honesty of purpose, of a radical or important kind.

had failed of success; so that the result of all the operations, up to and including the month of April, had been generally adverse to the arms of the Union. But the months immediately succeeding put a new aspect on things. Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania was signally and abruptly terminated early in July by the battle of Gettysburg and the retreat of the rebel army to Virginia, where it finally took its stand in the position in which it was to be encountered by Grant in the following year; and almost simultaneously General Grant had overcome the almost insuperable natural and other obstacles that were interposed in his way, and had become master of Vicksburg, the key of the Mississippi, thus preparing the way for his liberation from the West and his translation to a new scene, where he was destined to measure his strength with that of General Lee, and to confront the heart and flower of the rebellion in Virginia. The 3d and 4th of July, which respectively witnessed the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg and the capitulation of Vicksburg, as the Count of Paris aptly suggests, have been days of destiny for America. Less than a century before, on the 4th of July, the tocsin of American independence was sounded, and now again the 3d and 4th of July became a critical and decided epoch in the history of the war for the Union, dividing it, as it were, into two parts, in the first of which the fortunes of war had favored the Confederates, and in the last the tide turned in favor of the armies of the Union. The remainder of 1863 was marked by no decisive actions, but each side was exhausting itself in a supreme effort to marshal all its resources for the prosecution of the conflict on an enlarged scale in the coming year, and preparatory to this both were exerting all their strategic skill to gain such positions of vantage, for offense or defense, as would enable them to conduct the war with the utmost vigor to decisive results. The Count of Paris elaborately describes the events of this year of conflict and preparation and concentration, from January to December inclusive, in four books, under the general heads of "The War on the Rapidan," "The Mississippi," "Pennsylvania," and "The Third Winter," under each head giving a minute account of each siege and battle, and even of each skirmish of importance, together with a comprehensive view of the entire field of operations, and of the military and strategic movements in each portion of it. He also pays close attention, in a thoughtful and highly interest-state papers at Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, ing chapter, to the legislation, administration, finances, resources, temper, and condition generally of the North and the South during the critical period that intervened between the partial successes of the Confederates in the early part of the year and the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and in this connection gives valuable and succinct accounts severally of the organization at the North of the signal corps, the medical and hospital service,

THE publication of a series of historical studies by the Duc de Broglie, now collected in a volume entitled Frederick the Second and Maria Theresa, unveils some important facts in the secret history of the eventful first two years of the careers of Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa, immediately following the accession of the former to the throne of Prussia, and of the latter to the sovereignty of Hungary and Austria, which will necessitate a radical revision of the histories of the period which have been accepted as standards, and more especially of the estimates that have been placed upon the character of Frederick, in the face of the innumerable mean trickeries and treacheries in which they had detected him, by Carlyle and other hero-worshippers. The Duc de Broglie gives us a clear view sustained in large part by hitherto unpublished documents discovered in the treasure-houses of

and Paris, and in part by three highly valuable recently published volumes-D'Arneth's History of Maria Theresa, Droysen's History of Prussian Policy, and The Political Correspondence of Frederick the Great-of the combined cowardice,

2 Frederick the Second and Maria Theresa. From hitherto Unpublished Documents, 1740-1742. By the Duc de Broglie. Translated by Mrs. CASHEL HOEY and Mr. JOHN LILLIE. "Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 78. New York: Harper and Brothers.

selfishness, and perfidy that led France to vio- Or the many popular compendiums designed late its solemn engagements to carry out the to assist the intelligent general reader to a agreements of the Pragmatic Sanction, confirm- fair knowledge of the history of English litering Maria Theresa in her possessions and dig- ature, one of the most comprehensive and nities as Archduchess of Austria and the head serviceable is Mr. Henry J. Nicoll's Landmarks of the empire, and to assist Frederick, in the of English Literature. Its survey embraces the face of the equally solemn engagements of more than five hundred years that have elapsed Prussia, in the dismemberment of a mutual from the advent of Chaucer to the present day, ally with whom both were at peace, solely be- and its résumé of the authors who have been cause she was weak and defenseless. The Duc most influential in developing the richness and de Broglie's account of this shameless instance power of the English language, and in givof the application of the code of the highway- ing form and character to English style and man by two great and powerful nations to the thought, during this long interval, omits few possessions of another weaker and friendly na- names that are really representative. Necestion is couched in a tone of such honest in- sarily, where so many were to be considered dignation, coupled with such a keen sense of within restricted limits, many writers of secshame for the part borne by his own country ondary magnitude, who may be favorites with in these ignominious transactions, as to arouse some classes of readers, are barely named, or all our sympathies; and it is written with so are passed over with slight recognition, and much vivacity, and is illustrated with so many many more, whose productions belong to what spirited portraitures of distinguished or illus- may be termed the bric-à-brac of literature, are trious personages, and so many graphic pic- omitted, while here and there one of these, or tures of the complications of the court and even of an inferior grade, is accorded a degree diplomatic life of the Continent in the earlier of attention disproportionate to his merits, behalf of the eighteenth century, as to rivet the cause he specially marks some historical fact attention of the popular reader, no less than or feature in the progress of our literature. that of the historical student, and prevent his As a rule, however, the attention is conceninterest from flagging even for a moment. trated on those who by their eminence in any The character of Frederick as unmasked by branch, or by the influence which they have the author, and indeed as reflected in the mir- exerted, constitute the real "landmarks" of ror of his own correspondence and in the English literature; and of nearly all such brief scarcely less faithful mirrors of the corre- and tasteful biographical sketches are given, spondence of his ministers and of the diplo- together with copious summaries and judicious matic agents of the governments he by turns critical estimates of their principal produccajoled and threatened, cheated and betrayed, tions. Mr. Nicoll is neither a profound critic is a thoroughly despicable one. Selfish, bru- nor a highly original or philosophic thinker, tal, and relentless; a systematic hypocrite, a but he has good taste, a sound judgment, a deliberate liar, and a ruthless and sanguinary graceful style, and a thorough acquaintance robber; a false friend, a perfidious ally, an en- with his subject. His literary judgments fairemy without chivalry or honor, and intently reflect the settled opinion of the best scholsolely upon carrying out his own ends by any ars and critics, whether they relate to the inmeans, but preferably by such as were mean trinsic and relative merits of individuals or of and crooked or cruel and malevolent-it is im- periods. possible for any sentiment of hero-worship to survive for him as a man or a sovereign, as we read the list of his treacheries and note the crafty smile and mocking leer that are ever present on his ill-favored countenance. It is a satisfaction to read in the Duc de Broglie's honest and manly pages the record of the humiliation that was visited on at least one of the parties to the base conspiracy against Maria Theresa, when the treachery of France was repaid by a treachery greater though less cowardly than her own. It is a still greater sat-possible under Mr. Nicoll's extended plan. Conisfaction to dwell with him upon the heroic figure of the dauntless Maria Theresa when in the toils of her enemies, and to trace the sweet womanly virtues that irradiated her queenly character. The memoirs are still further interesting for the political analogies which the author traces between the events of the eighteenth century and those which in our time have culminated in the establishment of the German Empire at the cost of the humiliation of France.

As its title indicates, Mr. Bayard Tuckerman's History of English Prose Fiction* treats of one branch only of a single department of that broad field of English literature which was considered in the volume just noticed, and naturally his closer and more exclusive study of this comparatively small division of the subject affords him an opportunity for greater expansion and elaboration, and enables him to give greater prominence to details than were

fining himself to prose fiction, Mr. Tuckerman traces it from its germ in the early legends and romances which had their origin in tradition, and in the practices and institutions of chivalry, through all its stages of development, severally, under the influence of the so

3 Landmarks of English Literature. By HENRY J. NICOLL. 12mo, pp. 460. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

A History of English Prose Fiction. From Sir Thomas Malory to George Eliot. By BAYARD TUCKERMAN. 12mo, pp. 331. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

as a lawyer, a statesman, and an orator. The chapters devoted to Webster's childhood and youth, to the consideration and analysis of his qualities and characteristics as a lawyer and legislator, to an account of his share and influence in the great nullification debate, and to a description of his last years, are ably and brilliantly written. Throughout the volume Mr. Lodge shows a large familiarity with the great public issues, both foreign and domestic, which Mr. Webster's powerful will and transcendent intellect were influential in shaping, and a knowledge of which is essential to an

cial, religious, and popular movement of the | and short-comings, in general forms a just and fourteenth century, reflected in Chaucer's tales discriminating estimate of his virtues, his and romances, and in the popular tales of the abilities, his services to his State and to the yeomanry; in the Elizabethan age and the half-nation, and of his most notable performances century preceding, under the quickening influences of the phenomenal literary, political, and physical activity of that period; during the years that witnessed the rise and dominance of Puritan modes of thought, life, and conduct, and the succeeding reactionary chaos of license at the Restoration; and under the literary revival of the eighteenth century, till the culmination of the modern novel. In his animated and close retrospect, Mr. Tuckerman lucidly establishes the historical relation of prose fiction, at each stage of its growth, to the social, political, religious, and physical aspects of the times, and points out with great clear-intelligent comprehension of the man and of ness how far it was inspired and influenced by these, and to what extent it reacted upon and modified them. His work is one of substantial value, alike for the breadth and fullness of its historical outline, the spirit and fidelity of its epitomes and paraphrases, more especially of the earlier examples of English prose fiction, and its minute and capable analyses and estimates of the most conspicuous productions of each period.

the times in which he moved. Mr. Lodge has largely followed the biography of Webster by Mr. George T. Curtis, but he widely differs from and forcibly traverses several of that able writer's conclusions, and also introduces much fresh material which places some interesting particulars in a new light.

ALTHOUGH there may be a diversity of opinion as to their pre-eminent title to be considered "representative" Americans, the Twelve Americans whose lives Mr. Howard Carroll has pleasantly sketched in a volume that has just issued from the press of the Messrs. Harper have been before the country long and promi

lic, and have played their parts with enough of ability in distinct and varied spheres to be entitled to recognition as in a limited degree fair exponents of the workings of our institutions, and of the traits and resources of American character. The Americans whose portraitures Mr. Carroll has outlined are Horatio Seymour, Charles Francis Adams, Peter Cooper, Hannibal Hamlin, John Gilbert, Robert H. Schenck, Frederick Douglass, William Allen, Allen G.Thurman, Joseph Jefferson, Elihu B. Washburne, and Alexander H. Stephens, of whom all, with the exception of Mr. Cooper and Mr. Stephens, are still living, and all save three have earned such distinction as is coupled with their names chiefly in the field of politics. Mr. Carroll's choice of the professions or pursuits of those who are the subjects of his sketches was doubtless accidental, but nevertheless, and indeed all the more pointed

THE more closely we approach our own times, the more difficult becomes the task of analyzing and passing judgment upon the life and character of our public men. Even where there is a resolute determination to rise su-nently enough in capacities more or less pubperior to the personal and political predilections and animosities that once passionately moved or still exert a strong influence upon us, it is well-nigh impossible to do so, especially if they had their origin in a conscientious conflict over principles involving earnest convictions of moral duty or political obligation. Under such circumstances even men of the most judicial mind and temper are prone to be swayed, and while desiring to be candid and impartial, unconsciously arrive at judgments | and conclusions which are more or less colored by their prepossessions or their antipathies. When, therefore, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge undertook the preparation of a sketch of the life and character of Daniel Websters for the "American Statesmen Series," he essayed a task difficult in itself, and far more delicate and difficult than any that his predecessors in the series had attempted. And although he makes no pretense of sinking his politically on that account, the inquiry is naturally feelings, but persistently keeps them in view and frankly announces them, he never degenerates into a blind or acrimonious partisanship, and from his point of view gives a fair and manly outline of Mr. Webster's public and private life and career; and despite a tendency to fasten attention upon and unduly to magnify the great New-Englander's defects

suggested whether the pursuit of politics has a strong inherent tendency to develop great men or representative American citizens; whether, in fact, it really does produce greater men and proportionally more of them than any other pursuit, and is more affluent than all others combined of those who are distinctly representative of our national character

6 Twelve Americans. Their Lives and Times. By HOWARD CARROLL. With Portraits. 12mo, pp. 473. New York: Harper and Brothers.