SOME SCHOOL BOOKS.
' In this stimulating little book a well-known teacher looks back at recorded history in a very steep perspective. Ancient and mediaeval times are treated in bare outline, but the Great War and its aftermath are described at some length. For the author's immediate purpose this allotment of a modest space-less than four hundred pages-is much to be commended ; sketches of world-history usually err in the opposite direction by stamping the last century or two, of which" he ordinary reader knows least. Mr. Smith comments freely and vigorously as he goes along, and is never reduced to dullness by the masses of facts and dates that have to be mentioned. His chapter on the settlement after Waterloo is particularly interesting : he might have instituted a parallel between the conduct of France in 1823, when she deliberately backed reaction in Spain to flout us, and her pronounced Turcophile policy of a century later. The extension of Western civilization is the subject of another thoughtful chapter, and the immediate problems of to-day are clearly indicated. For the student there are bibliographies and some comparative date charts which are uncommonly useful.
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