to the rather older readers, of whom I trust there will be a great many,
I will venture to say that the advantage they will gain in the subject
having been so treated as to be brought within the comprehension and
adapted to the tastes of a child, is pretty nearly incalculable. The
quaintness and drollery of the illustrations with which difficult
scientific facts are set forth will provoke many a smile, no doubt, and
in some young people perhaps a tendency to feel themselves treated
_babyishly_; but if in the course of the babyish treatment they find
themselves almost unexpectedly becoming masters of an amount of valuable
information on very difficult subjects, they will have nothing to
complain of. Let such young readers refer to even a popular
Encyclopaedia for an insight into any of the subjects of the
twenty-eight chapters of this volume--"The Heart," "The Lungs," "The
Stomach," "Atmospheric Pressure,"--no matter which, and see how much
they can understand of it without an amount of preliminary instruction
which would require half-a-year's study, and they will then thoroughly
appreciate the quite marvellous ingenuity and beautiful skill with
which M. Mace has brought the great leading anatomical and physical
facts of life out of the depths of scientific learning, and made them
literally comprehensible by a child.

* * * * *

There is one point (independent of the scientific teaching) and that,
happily, the only really important one, in which the English translator
has had no change to make or desire. The religious teaching of the
book is unexceptionable. There is no strained introduction of the
subject, but there is throughout the volume an acknowledgment of the
Great Creator of this marvellous work of the human frame, of the daily
and hourly gratitude we owe to Him, and of the utter impossibility of