29 JANUARY 1910, Page 25

Sertoor,Boose.—A Greek - Boy - at - Home. By W. H. D. Rouse, Litt.D. (Blackie and

Son. 3s. 6d. net.)—This is one of the very best school-books we have ever seen. Let us hope that it may help to stay the ebbing tide which tends to render Greek continually less and less a school «abject. The idea is to make a Greek boy tell the story of the life about him. He is a certain Thrasymaehos, one of the three children of Thrasyllus and Eurydice, and he lives with his brother Thraeystomos and his sister Helene on the farm. So here he tells us about the farm-work, about the garden, about his neighbours, about Athena; in short, about scores of things and persons that a Greek boy would come into contact with. The book is good to read by any one who knows enough Greek ; an old schoolmaster will be greatly interested in it; any one who is teaching now will find it something of a revelation. One advantage it certainly has : no one can possibly use it who is not qualified. The teacher who is a lesson or two ahead of his class would be quite out of it. This book is a new departure and implies a new system of +Peeling —An excellent example of a more familiar type is Lisp, Book IX., Edited, with Introduction, Notes, &c., by W. B. Anderson, MA. (Cambridge University Press, 2s. 6d.) The ninth book deals with a time which is within the limits of history proper—it relates, among other events, the disaster of the Candine Forks—but it presents not a few difficulties. This makes Professor Anderson's discussion of Livy's character as an historian especially interesting. He was absolutely unscientific. Original authorities that were manifestly within his reach he did not care to consult; he never got beyond a sense that a contemporary witness was to be preferred to one of later date. But he applied no itical test to any one. The idea of inspecting a battlefield to make the details of the tactics intelligible never occurred to him. Professor Anderson's Prolegomena are of considerable value.— Another volume in which a very difficult task is attempted with considerable success i8 Characters and Scenes from Hebrew History, by Hetty Lee (National Society Depository, Is. (Id. net).—We have also received from Messrs. Blackie and Son Teaching of Geography, by Lionel W. Lyde (1s. net) ; First Principles of Preach Pronunciation, by Emile Seinen and E. R. Holme (2s. 6d. net) ; and Advanced German Commercial Corres2ondence, by Alfred Oswald (3s. 6d.)