A PRACTICAL TEXTBOOK,* IN An Arithmetic of Citizenship Messrs. E.
and J. Riley have produced that rare thing, a sensible school book. It is sensible for two chief reasons. First, the authors have realized that the children in upper classes of elementary and middle classes of secondary schools will actually take a great deal more interest in problems about wages, family budgets, income taxes, rates, &c., the things they hear discussed at home and realize as vital questions, than in the usual uninspiring difficulties of the man who swims upstream for three miles at a certain rate of speed and is overtaken by a steamboat half a mile up. Secondly, the authors have dealt thoroughly, concisely, and clearly with problems which will always be of the utmost practical importance to the future citizen or, for that matter, to the present citizen, for the reviewer must confess that he himself has learned a great deal from this little book. This is not to say that Messrs. Riley have entered into any meta- physical explanation of such thin a: as rent. They have left theory completely alone, and have simply considered the various economic functions of the State and of the individual from the objective and practical standpoint of the ratepayer. This method of explaining the principle, say of insurance, giving an example, and then setting questions arising out of the complications of insurance is not only an efficient way of teaching numerical calculation, but should serve to clear up a great deal of muddle- headed thinking on the questions of home and national economy in future generations. The present reviewer sincerely wishes he had been brought up on such a text-book. How much simpler life on a modest income would then have been !
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