Mr.TIUBS, in his Knowledge for the People, or the Plain
Why and Because, has now completed the Zoological series. He has ransacked a good many authors, and has collected a number of facts respecting the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fish of the sea. This Knowledge for the People is minced into nice little morsels, none of which are too large for any intellectual maw, however small. We do not, ourselves, see the utility of putting these facts in the form of question and answer, which very gene- rally is but a tedious form of repetition ; but we know that there is among instructors a great prejudice in favour of the supposed simplicity of the method, and an idea of its practical utility. For such persons this little book will be well adapted ; but we would ask, if there is any body to read the question at all, why he should have it printed, as all that such questionist has to do, is to put the fact in an interrogative form. For example, the question, page 31—
Why do cats bury their excrement
"Because of an instinct of distrust resulting from their wild state, lest the strong smell of their excrements might reveal their retreat, and the abode and asylum of their young, which are to remain concealed. Thus, it is not from cleanliness, as generally supposed.—Jameson's Journal."
Suppose the fact were nakedly stated, any teacher could put the why to it: if there is no teacher, then whythe interrogatory? fora student, whether child or adult, in solitary study, is in no respect that we see assisted by having a fact put two ways before him, first interrogatively and then affirmatively. This line—and in many cases the question is continued in several lines—is so much space lost.
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