New Publications [pp. 280-288]

8E NW F UBLICAT TIONS.
novel he has transformed it, so that what he produces is not a
novel at all. Consequently the people who want novels will not
want Mr. Howells'; and this is surely a relief to know. Mr.
Howells will be read only by a species of scientific and hard minded people, which we are led to understand flourishes best
in Boston; and this species is past harming. But such a class
of readers would be just as well, if not better, satisfied if Mr.
Howells called his work by its right name —a treatise and not
by its pseudonym; and it would simplify matters if the scientific
school generally were to label their books "Treatise on Com monplace People," "Treatise on Drabs," "Treatise on Drunk ards," and so on, as they went through the catalogue.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SUMMA PHILOSOPHICA JUXTA SCHOLASTICORUM PRINCIPIA. Complectens
Logicam et Metaphysicam. Auctore P. Nicolao Russo, S.J., in Bos toniensi Collegio Philosophize Lectore. Bost.: Apud T. B. Noonan et
Soc. I885.
It is very difficult to make a good compendium, especially so in philosophy. Such a compendium is, however, necessary as a text-book for students who must complete their course in one year. Father Russo's reason
for preparing his new compendium is, that he has not found any one of the
existing ones to suit him in teaching his class. Some, he says, are only
the large text-book of some author condensed, so that in respect to matter
and method they are equally ill-adapted to the juvenile mind with the
uncondensed work; we should add, even more difficult and unsuitable.
Others, again, do little more than make an index of questions treated in
text-books-an analytical abstract, from which the pupil learns what topics
should have been but are not treated of in his little philosophical sum.
Father Russo's plan is to treat of the topics of greater moment and necessity in a somewhat diffuse manner, in a style made as plain and simple
as possible, omitting or barely noticing others. Thus he has made a textbook which can be finished in one year, containing the results of his own
personal experience as a teacher. We think he has succeeded very well in
accomplishing what he wished and intended. His philosophical doctrine
is in most respects the same with that of the faimous and admirable textbook of a three years' course by Father Liberatore. Directors of studies
in colleges where a course of one year in philosophy is made with a Latin
text-book will do well to examine carefully this compendium.
An English compendium of the same kind is very much needed. A
mere translation of a good Latin compendium would not, however, perfectly answer the purpose.
We must not omit to praise the excellent and creditable manner in
which the publishers of Father Russo's book have fulfilled their work, so
280
[Nov.,