A GENERAL HISTORY OF EUROPE, 3.',0-1900.
A General History of Europe, 350-1900. By Oliver J. Thatcher, Ph.D., and Ferdinand Schwell, Ph.D. (John Murray. 9s.)— This book, the work of two Assistant Professors in the University of Chicago, has, as we learn from the title-page, been " Edited and Adapted for use in British Universities and Schools" by Arthur Hassell, M.A. We should be inclined to see the chief value of the volume in its appendix. Tables, chronological and genealogical, are of necessity compressed; but the compression of a history which can afford little more than the third of a page to each year, this space being yet again divided by the number of countries included, is quite another thing. Then there is an excellent supply of historical maps ; these number eighteen. And more valuable than these additions is the "Short List of Useful Works Concerning Mediaeval History." A student should begin by reading the smaller lists prefixed to the several chapters—we do not say all these, for that would be a counsel of perfection—but a selection made by some competent adviser. This done, he might with considerable advantage go on to the " General History." The prospect of a wide range of country becomes really interesting when you know it. We wonder whether the authors or the reviser is responsible for the strange understatement of ten thousand (two thousand in Paris, eight thousandin the provinces) as the number of victims of the-St. Bartholomew. ' The lowest estimate is De Thou's thirty thousand. —Mr. Arthur Hassell is the author of A Class-Book of English History (Rivingtons, 35. 6d.) This might, we conceive, be very useful to a teacher, who should fill in from his own reading the outlines which it furnishes. If a "class-book " is a volume to be put into the hands of a class—i.e., of learners—we should question its usefulness. The danger of these books is that they are often made ends, not means to an end. Themselves the outcome of wide reading, they too often become substitutes for them. But it is bard to blame the learned writer for this abuse.
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