no doubt some infant woman hugged to distraction, took to bed at night and woke in the small hours to dandle. Is not this persistence of the doll in what may be called with special appropriateuess "early history" a proper justification of the scheme of to-day's educationists to provide dolls as pegs for instruction in the elementary schools?

Greek boys, at a more advanced age at any rate, showed a tendency to regular street-arab ways. Perhaps the most boy-like thing, though the disks were probably used by older people, is the use first of abusive words--for which "slacker" and "scored off" may serve as translations-on a set of draughts. But what most suggests street corners is the wealth of knucklebones, mostly real knuckle-bones, though some are of more precious make. We do not know whether knuckle-bones quite hold their popularity, but they have been one of the commonest boy amusements for six centuries at any rate, and in the terminology have been traced some almost prehistoric phrases. Perhaps some English parents have not disdained to take a hand at the game, but there is probably no modern parallel to the custom illustrated by a statuette-to be seen in another part of the Museum-of two ladies of fashionable mien, squatting opposite each other in the excitement of which should first ring the complete changes without an omitted note. We missed from the collection the ball-what was it made of?-with which Nausicaa played. Indeed the collection contains no spheres except marbles, and these are in all sorts and sizes, some even The Outlook.

far from round. They too were a man's as well as a boy's game in Southern Europe; and not SO long ago-as time in the British Museum counts-the undergraduate at Oxford was SO devoted to the game that a special statute had to be passed forbidding him to play on the steps of Queen's! What a theme for some popular exploiter of folklore would be "the evolution of the ball" from the earliest times to "the leathery duke" that swelled and swelled into the bounding bladder of the Harrow School song. It were a plausible contention that the discovery of indiarubber, by altering our games, has permanently affected the character of modern peoples, just as chess (and the Museum has some wonderful examples of chessmen) is said to have developed in the Chinese their slow immovable temperament. Yet, when all is said, the store of old toys is small. Is it because, as to-day, children always did break up their toys, or because then as now they chiefly delighted-dolls and knuckle-bones always excepted-in real things, things that were not meant for toys:

But of all my treasures the best is the king,

For there's very few children possess such a thing;

And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,

Which a man who was really a carpenter made.

We think the Greek child must have harbored that sentiment when the rough pestle and mortar came into his hands with some real corn to bray into real flour.

The London papers publish an appeal for funds for Cambridge University, issued by the Chancellor, which discloses an amazing state of things at that ancient institution. Cambridge is but indifferently endowed all round, and among the more pressing needs are adequate representation of modern languages, Oriental studies (including Japanese), economics, architecture, agriculture and forestry. The Sedgwick Museum of Geology lacks alike an adequate staff and endowment. Last, and not least, there is no Professor of English of any kind, and the University Library (which now includes Acton's collection of books) cannot afford necessary expansion.

Owen Wister's skit, "How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee," though its fun falls flat now and then, will furnish a good many hearty laughs for the conservatives in the spelling reform discussion. It pictures a convention of college professors, assembled at the call of a magnate who seems to be a caricature of Rockefeller and Carnegie combined, to formulate a set of rules for simplification. The phonetic method being agreed on, each proceeds to make out his blackboard list of words spelled according to the pronunciation of his own section, and the confusion that results is amusingly described. "But what is grantha?" whispers one. "Can it be a breakfastfood?" answers another. The Macmillan Co.

The current interest in the theme which Henry Thomas Colestock essays in "The Ministry of David Baldwin"the dilemma confronting a young clergyman of advanced views who finds himself in a church whose leaders are ultra-conservative-will ensure his story a certain popularity at once.

Considered as fiction, its construction is faulty, and its characters wooden, and as a picture of real life, the candid reader will find it distorted, often to the point of caricature. But as a partisan presentation, it has its effectiveness, There are some undeniable "hits," as when the Divinity School Professor, suggesting for a va cant pulpit a candidate inclined to sociology, adds "We are beginning to make a specialty of this type, as it is freer from theological eccentricities, and less apt to dwell on disputed doc trinal questions." Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

The Academy remarks:

It is surprising that some of the best bibliographies which are being issued to-day should be produced in the University of California. The latest to come before our notice is a "Survey of Scottish Literature in the Nineteenth Century (with some reference to the Eighteenth)." The author is Mr. James Main Dixon, who, we notice, is a graduate of St. Andrews University and also holds an Edinburgh degree. His bibliography is full of interest. From it we learn that there have been about nine hundred separate editions of the poems of Robert Burns, complete or se lected. Scott is the next author in point of popularity. Bibliographies are given of, among other authors. James Hogg, Robert Tannahill, John Leyden, whose works would surely be worth republishing, Thomas Campbell. John Galt, the literary progenitor of J. M. Barrie, Lockhart, Motherwell. Hugh Miller, Henry Glassford Bellof whom it is remarked that his "Me moir of Mary, Queen of Scots" has had no little effect in forming popular opinion the subject-John Stuart Blackie, who was sinking into unde served oblivion, John Brown, and George Gilfillan. The document will be found useful far outside the University of California.

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