the Boston Public Library. The public spirit of the Boston Public Library, which made possible the compilation of this bibliography, and its wider circulation as a library document in addition to the part which it plays as a companion volume to Dr. Ripley's book, deserves praise.

Dr. Deniker's task in his outline of Anthropology and Ethnography is well executed and his book is likely to give much more definiteness to the general reading and study of this subject on the part of those who do not intend to make it a specialty. After a brief discussion of ethnic groups and zoölogical species, we have two chapters given to the Somatic characters, special attention being paid to the distinctive morphological characters, stature, teguments, pigmentation, cranium, proportion of the body and various organs; then two chapters to physiological and ethnic characters, respectively, giving chiefly under the term "ethnic," linguistic characters; three chapters, covering about one hundred and fifty pages, devoted to sociological characters, in which is discussed: (1) Material Life (alimentation, habitation, clothing, means of existence); (2) Psychic Life (games, recreations, fine arts, religion, myths and science); (3) Family Life (sexual relations and child sociology); (4) Social Life (home life, social organization, international organization, war and commerce).

The remainder of the volume, covering six chapters, is given up to a discussion of the classification of races and a description of the peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceanica. Deniker's classification is really based upon the description of existing varieties rather than upon a consideration of the problem of grouping these varieties into a few racial categories. On this point Professor Ripley's Appendix D (page 597) on Deniker's classification of the races of Europe is worthy of note and what he there says will apply with almost equal force to his classification elsewhere. Deniker's work might have been made even more useful by some condensation. Especially would this have been possible in the earlier chapters on Morphological and Physiological Characters. The detail into which he goes is rather confusing to the class of readers for whom he is writing.

University of Pennsylvania.

SAMUEL MCCUNE LINDSAY.

China, the Long-Lived Empire. By Miss E. R. SCIDMORE. Pp. xv, 459. Price, $2.50. New York: The Century Company, 1900. Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology. By ARTHUR H. SMITH, D. D. Pp. 360. Price, $2.00. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.

Overland to China. By ARCHIBALD R. COLQUHOUN. Pp. xii, 465. Price, $3.00. New York: Harpers & Bros., 1900.

The dramatic and mysterious course of events in China during the last few months has naturally excited tremendous popular interest in the "sleeping giant of the East" and evoked from the publishers a flood of literature on all phases of the Chinese question. Until within the last two years most of us have known and cared very little about China. The so-called "yellow peril" has seemed remote. Our concern with the Orient has been one mainly of markets, and has not led to any close study of the life of the people or of their political condition and prospects. Many intelligent readers, therefore, are for the first time opening books upon China, and are looking especially after reliable information concerning the remarkable eruption which the newspapers have declared to be the signal for the dismemberment and partition of that great empire. Such readers must be warned that no one book will tell them all they want to know. In fact, if they begin with the new books now coming from the press and read them all, they will probably feel that they have taken hold of a hopeless subject. Men might as well try to learn something about color by watching the whirl of a kaleidoscope as to expect to get an understanding of China by reading the books that have been published this year. The subject is itself so vast, the institutions are so unlike anything which the occidental reader is familiar with, the Chinese point of view is so incomprehensible and apparently contradictory and irrational, the motives, the ideals, the morals, the religion, the instincts of the people are so at variance with our own ideas of what is natural in those fields, that few readers have the impartial patience necessary to get all around the subject. They either seize upon a few characteristics of the people, thinking that in these they have a clue to the whole, or they give up in despair, feeling that the Chinese question is a sort of "13-14" puzzle, and that the earth would be mightily benefited if those 400,000,000 unspeakable barbarians could only be put in one bag and dropped in the middle of the Pacific. The wise reader will go a little back of the present in his search for literature. He will read Dr. Williams' "The Middle Kingdom," Arthur Smith's "Chinese Characteristics," and the books by Wilson, Curzon and Colquhoun. Then he will find that many of the books now appearing are not worth a moment's time, and the few good ones just published will really mean something to him.

The most interesting of recent books on China, and the one which will probably prove most satisfactory as a first book on China, is Miss E. R. Scidmore's "China, the Long-Lived Empire." Miss Scidmore has made seven different journeys through China and seems to have

seen everything that a woman can see. Being a woman, she is closely observant of hundreds of little things which escape the male observer; being also a well-informed and much-traveled woman, well read in the literature of the East, she has written a book full of life and color, and at the same time not lacking in sensible generalizations. She does not profess to give us a complete and satisfactory account of the Chinese Empire and its people. In fact, she expressly avows her inability to do that. That "oil skinned mystery," the Chinaman, is a conundrum which she has given up. She admits that she understood him less on her seventh visit than she did on her first, and does not know whether he is a boneless or a sleeping giant. Her book will certainly not inspire any passion for travel in China. "The mere tourist," she says, "the traveler without an errand or object beyond entertainment, finds that inner China does not entertain, amuse, please or soothe him enough to balance the discomforts. Nothing Chinese seems worth seeing; one has only a frantic, irrational desire to get away from it, to escape it, to return to civilization, decency, cleanliness, quiet and order." Miss Scidmore, however, had an errand and she stuck manfully to it. She paid a visit to all the important provinces, talked with various classes of the people, and everywhere insisted on seeing everything which a generous distribution of bank notes would render visible. Her book was evidently written before the recent outbreak, and is perhaps all the more trustworthy on that account. It contains descriptions of the cities the names of which newspapers have made familiar to the public in the last few months, reviews vividly the astonishing career of the' Empress Dowager, describes the work of the missionaries in China, and gives many interesting glimpses of the occupations and manners of the people. The now infamous Prince Tuan is referred to as a rabid anti-foreign conservative and leader of the secret societies opposed to foreigners and western progress. The word "Boxer" does not occur in the book; yet the reader will feel that he has a much clearer idea of the motives and purposes of that bloodthirsty order than he has been able to get from the newspapers. The book is profusely illustrated, the author having made bold and diligent use of a camera. The illustrations are fresh and original. They picture just the things which a bright woman would either admire or laugh at, and add greatly to the charm of the book.

Dr. Smith's "Village Life in China" deserves the highest praise. In it he is at work on the same study that engaged him in his excellent "Chinese Characteristics." He does not attempt to solve the Chinese question or to predict the future course of development, but gives the reader a clear and most interesting description of the whole

life and occupations of the masses of the people. The economic future of China does not depend on its resources, but on its civilization. Is the Chinaman improvable, can he be developed into a large consumer? Can he be organized into armies of labor? Can the myriads of China be made to do their full share in the world's work? Can they be brought to accept western invention? Will they ever overtake the swift chariot of western progress? While these questions are not answered by the author, he gives most of the materials for their solution. He has crowded into this book a prodigious mass of highly suggestive and detailed information concerning the daily life of the people among whom for twenty-two years he worked as a missionary. In his vivid pages we see the Chinese village, the Chinese farm, the Chinese temple, the Chinese system of education, the homes, roads, fairs, theatres, weddings and funerals of China. In short, we get a look at the real Chinaman. We understand the strength of the iron bands of conservatism which bind the Chinese present to the remote past. We learn the causes of the tremendous pressure of population which has turned the country into a vast kitchen garden. We are able to explain the utter lack of public spirit, the cruel individualism to which charity and sympathy are unknown. Above all other things, we learn the difficulty of regenerating China, and we learn, on the other hand, the strength of China when once regenerated. I am disposed to go even farther than qualified praise would permit, and echo the comment of the critic which says of this book: "There is all the difference between an intaglio in onyx and a pencil scrawl on paper to be discovered between Mr. Smith's book and the printed prattle of the average globe-trotter. Our author's work has been done, as it were, with a chisel and an emery wheel. He goes deeply beneath the surface." "Village Life in China" cannot be too highly recommended. The answer to the "Chinese Question " lies behind its pages.

Mr. Colquhoun's "Overland to China" gives us a look at the Empire from another point of view. Miss Scidmore pictures all that the experienced tourist can discover; Dr. Smith furnishes data for the sociologist and student of racial traits; Mr. Colquhoun writes for the man of affairs, both public and commercial. The title is really not altogether appropriate. It might well have been named "The Russian Bear in the Orient with Pointers to the British Lion." The first half of the book is descriptive of Siberia and the Siberian railway. Mr. Colquhoun is convinced that Russia is destined to absorb the Chinese Empire, and apparently believes that it will succeed in its purpose without any great cost to itself and with only feeble protest on the part of the rest of the world. "While the sentimentalists in

Britain and the United States," the author says, "have scarcely dried their tears of Christian joy over Russia's magnanimous and selfimposed mission of peace maker to the world, Russia's statesmen are busy on the task of stirring up a world-wide coalition against England, the tyrant." In the other half of his book the author describes the people and resources of Manchuria, Eastern Mongolia, the Yang tsze Valley, Southwest China, and Tong King. The hostility to foreigners, Mr. Colquhoun attributes to the policy of the Manchus. They themselves are foreigners, and yet are the rulers of the people. It would appear that the real Chinaman hates a Manchu quite as much as he does a European, and the Manchu himself has no real love for a Chinaman. Furthermore, the Manchus, being fearful of results should western civilization get a foothold in China, have deliberately sought to prejudice the people against the western world, and so have indirectly stimulated a passion which may result finally in their own overthrow, for to the Chinaman all outsiders are foreign devils. It will surprise many Americans to learn that in Mr. Colquhoun's opinion the United States occupies a much better position in China than Great Britain. Lombard street may furnish the money for Chinese railways, but the profits of construction and operation are going to New York. He criticises severely Great Britain's abandonment of the initiative in China, and her failure to get definite concessions and treaty rights, in place of vague spheres of influence to be maintained only by force. The reader will find this book and “China in Transformation," by the same author, an enlightening introduction to the political and economic phases of the Eastern question. Jos. FRENCH JOHNSON.

University of Pennsylvania.

Pp.

Exercises in Economics. By W. G. LANGWORTHY TAYLOR. 120. Lincoln, Nebraska: The University Publishing Co., 1900. The injunction on the title page, "Write Your Own Political Econo. my," indicates the purpose of the work. The book is not intended to be placed in the hands of students; it is to be used by the teacher to aid him in leading each student to develop the subject for himself. After each chapter are several essay topics to be assigned to students and a list of suggestive questions which appeal to the student's experience. A list of standard reference books is given with each topic, but the author advises that "it is better in all cases of doubt, that recourse to text writers be discouraged, and that only in exceptional cases of strong and advanced minds in whom the critical faculty has some development such reference be permitted." The method is