LITTLE BOOKS FOR LITTLE FOLKS.
IF the rising generation does not learn now, one would imagine there is only the innate depravity of the flesh to blame ; for never was there such variety, such taste, and let us even say, such reason, applied to please the eye or to stimulate the mind of the young. Those of our readers who remember the outward and visible form of their juvenile libraries, remember something not neatly simple, but, as ladies-say, "downright plain ;" or if decoration was affected, it reminded one of the tawdry !leery with which ingenious ginger" bread-bakers encase the mooarch of the dunghill to please the rustics at a fair. The spiritua; part of the majority was on a pat with the external garb : the best were old and indifferent in matter, childish in language and tone ; the worst boomed written by twat'. dlers for the use of simpletons: a few undoubtedly rose above these standards, yet, with exceptions barely sufficient to prove the rule, the most eminent were strongly imbued with the veriest common- place. The March of Intellect, if it has done nothing else, has changed all that. The school-books of the new sera never, like those masses of absurdity the Westminster Grammars, put obsta- cles in the pupil's way; and they do their best, with various de- grees of success, to facilitate his progress. We have frequently had occasion of late to point attention to the taste with which little volumes designed to instruct the young, though not formally intended for the school-room, have been got up, and the pains- taking skill with which they have been executed. A batch of booklings are now before us, of which the majority exhibit an ele- gance of exterior and of type that might almost vie with the most beautiful of our embellished periodicals ; whilst some of them, like the Spain Yesterday and To-day, frequently ri e to a higher tone than is usual even in modern children's books. The writers seen to have thrown themselves heartily into their work,—which has given it an air of vitality not often met in compilations of this kind : the knowledge, where practical instruction is aimed at, is new knowledge; and the cast of thought and mode of diction be- long to the present time, and is not the dull reflection of somet thing which is dead or dying.
The number of tomes which have given rise to these remarks; is a dozen save one. The respective classes will be shown more conveniently in a table.
HISTOInt, SERIOUS,
Tales of the English—DP Alldui. Banks of Jordan.
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Garden.
Short History of the Old and New TO? SCIENCE. tomcat. Lessons in Arithmetic for Junior Memoirs of American Missionaries. Classes. The Theological Class Book. Lectures at Home. MIIICELLANEOES,
Gleanings from Many Fields.
Tales of Distaut Lauds.
It is not expected that. we can afford space to review all these it will be enough to mention their descriptive characters. The Tales of the English is an attempt to exhibit the manners, cus- toms, and opinions of the yet unatnalgamated Normans and Saxons during the reign of HENRY the Second. The author has, confessedly, made no attempt to exhibit in action the character and spirit of the age ; but has represented what might have been. —perhaps what were—the thoughts and feelings of the times, in modern language : and in her anxiety to afford instruction, she has sometimes suspended the progress of her story ; but there is a story, and an interest, notwithstanding. The period treated of in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes is told by its title. The work consists of short notices of the sufferings of some of the Protestants who were persecuted under that cruel and impolitic act of the devout debauchee Louis the Great. Lessons in Arith- metic is one of OLIVER and BOYD'S workmanlike affairs ; and contains much fundamental information clearly expressel, a va- riety of useful tables, and some progressive and well-arranged exercises on the rules of arithmetic up to the Rule of Three, and all for sixpence. The only objection we suggest—and we do it doubtfully—is, whether the treatment is not somewhat ahead of . "junior classes." Lectures at Home is an historical and practi- cal account of Glass-making, and of the different arts depen- dent on it, illustrative of Optics. The object of the author is to furnish the young with sufficient elementary knowledge to enable them to comprehend and profit by public lectures ; where she has noticed, "that for want of previous information, the younger part of the audience do not receive all the pleasure which that popular mode of imparting knowledge is calculated to afford." , This is accomplished in a plain and interesting manner ; though ' the lectures now and then require the animation of the living voice to relieve an occasional diffuseness arising from the intro- duction of extraneous matter. We will quote a specimen, and take a description of the manner of making plate-glass. If any one desires to see the sight, and has not interest to get admitted to a factory, let him turn Excise-officer : he may then not only be • present, but interfere with all the processes.
When the glass is melted, it is poured out upon a table, which should be of metal, perfectly level, and furnished with iron ledges of the same thickness as the plate of glass is intended to be: the ledges are to confine the fluid glass to the size proposed. A heavy copper roller then passing over it, pushes the soft glass before it, and presses it into a smooth, level surface. The newly-formed plate, when sufficiently hardened by cooling, is slid into a furnace, or kind of oven, where it remains for a fortnight ; care being taken that it should cool very gradually. The plates thus formed are afterwards ground to a more exact level with sand ; and then polished with emery, triopli, and putty, till they ac- quire that beautiful surface we are accustomed to see. I have said that we are indebted to the ingenuity of the French for the art of casting plates of glass. At Ravenhead, in Lancashire, they are now cast in seek perfection as to equal, in every respect, those that are made in France. A num- ber of persons have formed themselves into a company, to defray the great ex- pense and share the profits of the undertaking. They have an iron casting, table fifteen feet long, nine feet wide, and six inches thick. This enormous table is so heavy that it is supported on castors, for the convenience of moving it close to the mouth of the ovens, in which the plates of glass are to be gradually cooled. The room in which this great table stands is said to be the largest under OM roof that has ever been built in England. It is even larger than Westminster Hall, being three hundred and thirty-nine feet long, one hundred and fifty-five feet Wide, and proportionably lofty. The melting-furnaces are ranged down the middle, and occupy about one third of the apartment. The ovens, in whiehlbs glass plates are gradually coaled, are pissed ija two rows aloes tkosidoswala of the room. Each of them is sixteen fret wide and forty feet deep. Their floors are just level with the top of the great casting-table; so that when all is ready, the table may be rolled up to the mouth of the oven, and the plate slipped in without delay. It is a great favour to obtain admission to a plate glass manufactory. Mr. Parkes, who was permitted to witness the casting of a large plate, describes it as a grand and interesting sight. A vast body of melted glass, of the finest and purest materials, is poured at once from an immense crucible: when the large copper roller has passed over it, the glass is spread out into a sheet of uniform breadth and thickness, and its surface exhibits a variety of colours. At least twenty workmen are employed in the operation. All are busy ; but there must be no bustle—no disturbance of any kind : even the opening or shutting of a door must be avoided, till the glass is tolerably hardened, lest the motion of the air should cause a wave or wrinkle on the surface, and thus lessen the value of the plate.
We must be light with the " scria." The Visit to the Banks of the Jordan is a collection of original and selected pieces in verse and prose, the latter for the most part consisting of pious narra- tives, concerning pious little people. The Garden is also a selec- tion of serious pieces, but of a more miscellaneous and a somewhat higher character. The History of the Bible contains a sketch of the most striking and interesting events from the Old and New Testaments, told, where practicable, in the language of Scripture. The two next are Glasgow reprints from American publications. The Memoirs contain the lives of forty-two Missionaries, com- piled under the superintendence of the (American) Missionary Society and the Andover Theological Seminary. They are brief, clear, and not without interest ; but have little of individual portrai- ture, save when the heroes occasionally speak in their own person. - The Theological Class Book is a Catechism of Divinity ; plain and intelligible, but, from its form, its bulk, and the class of minds it is intended for, very axiomatic, and occasionally assuming the truth of that which is in some sense the point at issue. It may be remarked, that the first three are prettily got up—the Garden and the History of the Bible beautifully. The two last have a Republican plainness of garb : perhaps the object in view is an extensive religious circulation, and cheapness a sine qua non. We come to the gems of the whole collection, Gleanings from Many Fields, and Tales of Distant Lands—two elegant, and what is better, two most pleasing little books. The framework of the Gleanings, is a family party, who at their evening meetings dis- cuss instructive questions, or tell short stories, and comment upon them : for instance, we have an account of Sievio PELLICO'S impri- sonment, and a comparison between SOCRATES and a Negro un- justly condemned to death, and the palm is awarded to the Chris- tian. The Tales of Distant Lands consists of five short papers, each conveying much pleasing information respecting far-off countries, brought down to very near dates. The mode of manufacture is clever : a personal narrative is selected as the basis, such as nEAD'S Journey across the Andes, or the Adventures of the Crew of the Commerce in the Great Sahara ; the most striking and interesting parts of the originals are given in a compressed and simplified style, but apparently in their own language; a brief description of the country is prefixed ; and information omitted in the greater work interwoven here and there; whilst the whole, by fusion and revision, is worked up to a uniform pitch.
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