well as with useless, restrictions and requirements; relics of a cumbrous past. In administering them it has seemed to us there was often a sad confounding of merely technical with moral offenses, and frequently an altogether unnecessary entanglement in discipline. One of the most long-winded Faculty investigations we remember, attended with reprimands and even one or two suspensions, grew out of five minutes. merely thoughtless kicking of a foot-ball in the space between two college buildings. We remember another case in which a dull professor did his best to make a case of discipline, but failed. A military company was parading on the green near by, when two college lads of seventeen appeared in disguise as Falstaff and Prince Hal, en militaire. They were greeted with shouts of laughter, and there would have been the end of it. But the vigilant professor came forth, crept round in the crowd, and at length made a dive at the lads. But as his legs were of the same heaviness as his other understanding, and as honest Jack had not forgotten how to run since the road by Gadshill," here was a case of discipline marred in the making. Pity that many others had not been spoiled as early and as easily.

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It is a matter of regret that college expenses have increased so enormously within a generation. The increase is out of all proportion to other changes of cost. Much of it we fear is arbitrary and unnecessary, caused by a false sentiment, the result of extravagant habits. It nevertheless rests as imperatively and as heavily on those who can ill afford it. We can not look for the time when Dr. Samuel Woods drove his cow to Hanover, and, though no calf he, lived mainly by her good offices. But we grieve to see the time go by when the ministers and small farmers could send their sons to college, and when a young man with some aid could even push his way, though by the hardest. These were the classes from which MEN came. That time is nearly past. It takes a man of some fortune to educate a family of sons in college now, at the cheapest of good New England institutions. Alas for it.

We only add for the benefit of the inexperienced, that lite

rary institutions have always found it as impolitic as it was dishonest to appoint a President or a Professor for any other reason than precisely his literary fitness for the place. We have seen the experiment repeatedly tried, but it always was a failure. We have seen a man appointed Professor because he could raise his endowment; but he could not. We have known an appointment made in the hope that a rich father would provide for the son's chair. So he did, but only for the time of its occupancy. We have known Presidents appointed chiefly because they could raise money. But it was dear money. And when the money was raised, he would neither die nor go.

The attempt to manage literary institutions on any other basis than their own legitimate principles by providing by some one's friends or otherwise has always proved a blunder.

THE BOOK TABLE.

MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Henry Fawcett, M.A., M.P., Prof. Pol. Econ., Univ. Camb., England. London: Macmillan. Pp. 533.

The author of this book is somewhat better known just now for having voted, "solitary and alone," against the dowry of the princess who has become Marchioness of Lorne, than as a writer on Political Economy. To Englishmen he is better known as the parliamentary leader of what are called “Political Dissenters,” i. e., those who would overthrow the Establishment for political rather than religious reasons. He is a frequent and effective speaker in the House of Commons on all questions of administration and of reform. Like every other true English Liberal, he is earnest in advocating national education. In the literature of political controversy his pen is not idle. He is well approved as a university instruct›r. Such a man could hardly make a book on Political Economy which would not be valuable. This volume is the best representative, within manageable compass, of the best English thinking. It is portable, c ›mpact, not to large, clear in its order, unusually lucid, easy, comprehensible in style, written in simple, unpretending English, and ab ›undiag in apt examples and illustrations. Many of the titles show how thoroughly English it is; e. g, "The classes among whom wealth is distributed," "Rents as determined by competition," "Peasant proprietors," "Metayers and Cottiers, and the Econo mical Aspects of Tenant-Right," "Trades Unions," Over-production," "the Income-Tax," "the Land-Tax and Poor-R+tes," "the Poor Law." Such discussions as those on Pauperism, and on National Education as a remedy for low wages, could never occur in an American work.

One point in which Mr. Fawcett's style of thinking differs from that of American authors is in considering the subject entirely and only in the light of the total wealth of the community. Oue of our authors- especially if of the school of Carey - starts with the individual; he shows at the outset how di tribution of labor, exchange, etc., come to be primarily possible. A British writer ignores all that; he starts with the British empire, whose opulence, grea'ness and glory are, in his view, the end of Political Economy. Thus, Prof. Fawce t's first book -94 pages-is on the Production of Wealth; but it is wealth in which the real producer-the English laborer - has no share. Land, labor and capital are its three requisites, and but a small and diminishing class of Englishmen can have either land or capital. So when he comes to discuss "Foreign Commerce or Interna

tional Trade" (Book III. Exchange. Chap. VII.), his great argument for "free trade" is that it increases wealth-i. e., the wealth of capitalists a d land-owners, for no others in England have any "wealth" to be incre-sed. Much that he says of the advantage of interchanges of commodities is true, irrespective of the controverted questions. The laborer's interest in the matter is put in this way: "Foreign commerce economizes labor and capi. tal, and therefore must exert some tendency toward increasing the nominal wages of the laborer." The economy of labor and capital here meant is secured to England, for example, by driving foreign industry out of occupations that compete with English ones. When the author says: "Free trade enables the labor and cap tal of each country to work with maximum efficiency," he means in incr asing aggregate wealth. But who can show that the increase of England's aggregate wealth—the present relations of "classes" continuing - would be a blessing? So when he admits that particular classes of consumers may be injured by for ign commerce-i. e., by importing instead of producing certain articles-this is evidently no objection to him, if the inass of wealth in the hands of the wealthy classes is increased. He recognizes the int rest of Englandi. e, of her overwealthy classes in having " free trade" adopted by other nations, and that in "almost every other country" the opposite do trine prevails, and even "the great body of the workingmen are ardent protectionists."

On the whole, this is the best English treatise on the Science of Political Economy we have ever seen.

SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY. AND RELIGION: Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston. By Prof. John Basc m, Williams College. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1871. Pp. 311.

This interesting and able volume illustrates the fact that on great themes many accomplished writers may publish books, all of which shall be attractive and profitable. The theme has room enough in it for large discursiveness. There is range for a vast amount of penetrative and instructive thought. Such topics as Dr. McCosh discussed in his Lectures on Positivism are here thrown into new lights and relations, and illustrated with much greater freshness and force. It strikes us as far the best written of Prof. Bascom's publications. In former volumes we confess to some disippointment. The promise they made was hardly fulfilled. The thought contained less that was satisfying than we had been led to expect. The author set out upon a journey in which he came short of the goal in view. In the present work, though the title is of course too ample to be exhausted in so small a book—twelve lectures, yet the first lecture hardly gives notice of the depth and richness of thought that succeed. Prof. Bascom is specially felicitous, moreover, in comparison and figurative elucidation. The style, too, is neat, but affluent, often combining unusual strength and elegance. One exception is the use of the word “unbeknown,” — barely recognized as colloquial.

Mental Philosophy is here vindicated and exalted, from first to last, as

standing between Natural Science and Religion, giving validity and form to each. It is treated as, par eminence, Philosophy. After a general defense of it as inevitable to mind and necessary to progress and character, Prof B. discusses the relation of Primitive Ideas, or Intuitions, to Knowledge, and then "Space, the field; Causation, the law of facts;" Matter, Consciousness, Right, Liberty, Life, Mind, and the Interaction of Forces, closing with the Classification of Knowledge as related to Mental Philosophy. Comparing lecture with lecture, the IVth, in which the proposed substitute for Causation of Mill, Spencer and Bain is exploded, strikes us as the most complete and satisfactory. It is entitled "Resemblance not the Sole Law of Thought." The analysis is acute and clear, the reasoning strong and convincing. The points made are: 1, The primitive charac'er of causation; 2, Its exclusive application to physical events; 3, Its absolute necessity for their apprehension; 4, The impossibility of substituting any other idea for it; 5, It is a common ground of activity between us and God. The subtlest and most dangerous modern assault upon relig on so gathers about this intuition of Causal Power that a successful exposition of it is a grand service done to the Truth; and Prof. Bascom's is eminently successful. His discussion of the intuition of Right involves some consideration of Dr. Hopkins's style of Utilitarianism. There is hardly a form of new scientific thought—like the views of Huxley, Darwin, etc.— but is touched from its metaphysical side the side on which their errors are weakest and truth is strongest. Such books show that the old New-England keenness and power in higher philosophical thought has not oozed away yet.

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SUBSTANCE AND SHADOW, ETC., ETC.: An Essay upon the Plagues of Creation. By Henry James. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. Pp. 539.

Plunging into the middle of this volume of antique type and unique thought, we found the author belaboring two men of such size in philosophy as Hamilton and Kant. The next discovery was that the book was written to show that Swedeuborg is the great physical and metaphysical philosopher to whom all others should bow. As an essayist Mr. James has achieved considerable reputation. He has critical power, literary skill, taste, acuteness, and force; but his best qualities do not shine in this attempt in the field of speculation. He does not always preserve intellectual dignity. One of his running titles is, "Sir William Hamilton degrades Philosophy into Snivel.” Another is, "He finds the cause of a thing always on the thing's own Intestines." Another is, "The stupendous antics of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel." Another is, "Sir William Hamilton runs Kant's Doctrine into the Ground." He calls Science intruding into the domain of Philosophy, a "mousing owl." Dr. Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural is said to "stand in the same relation to our ordinary characteristic theology that an ox fed on oil-cake does to average beef." The orthodox theology is caricatured and misrepresented—e. g., it is said to "make creation a mere impromptu spurt of the Divine Power, as essentially wanton or capricious as that whereby an idle horseman with a stroke