SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.1
Oxford and Cambridge Review, No. 2. (A. Constable and Co. 2s. 6d. net.)—Perhaps the most notable article in this number is that on "Oxford's Antiquated Machinery" by "Jam Senior." It is temperately written, and it goes straight to the point. The general purpose is to magnify the University, and to deliver it, so to speak, from the domination of the Colleges. Detailed criticisms and suggestions we cannot discuss. One matter, however, may be specified. It is the teaching of natural science. This has been centralised, at vast expense, at the University Museum. That Colleges should set up laboratories of their own seems undesirable, except there is correlation among them, as "Jam Senior" puts it, and the University point of view is preserved. The subject is so large that Colleges might take up special work, as the teaching of assaying or agricultural chemistry, but to attempt a general teaching is a gross waste. We cannot give equal praise to Mr. John Pollock's "The Law's Delays." The sweeping charges against the efficiency of the Inns of Court system of education are made far too lightly. What, too, can one think of a writer who makes this stupendous blunder in nmatter of fact ? "In every term that the student keeps, he is charged 41 2s. 6d. for dinners. As he must keep thirty-six terms, he thus pays in all 440 4s." The arithmetic is wrong,—it should be 440 10s. But the blunder is in the thirty-six terms. This is the number of the dinners. In terms it means nine years. That would be a " delay " indeed ! "Devolution in Austria-Hungary," by Mr. V. Hussey Walsh, is an interesting argument against Home-rule drawn from the experience of the Dual Monarchy.
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