Not only in science do we find this stolid indifference or active hostility to new ideas, but in matters of the simplest character and most obvious utility. For example, this country is now enjoying the benefits of fish culture, but why did we not enjoy it a hundred years ago? The process was discovered by the Count De Goldstein in the last century, and was published by the Academy of Sciences, and also fully illustrated by a German named Jacobi, who applied it to breeding trout and salmon. This seems to have been forgotten until in 1842 two obscure and illiterate fishermen rediscovered and practised this process. The French government was attracted by the success of these fisherman, Gehin and Remy, and thus the lost art was revived. Even so simple an invention as the percussion cap, invented in 1807, was not introduced in the British army until after the lapse of thirty years. The founder of the kindergarten system, Friedrich FROEBEL, is one of the benefactors of humanity. How narrowly did he escape from total failure and oblivion. The "Reminiscences of Frederich Froebel," translated from the German of the late Mrs. Mary Mann, gives an interesting account of his life and labors, upon which the following notice is based: "Froebel died in 1852, and it is possible that his system of education would have died with him--to be resurrected and reapplied by somebody else centuries later--only for a friend and interpreter who remained to give his teachings to the world. This friend, disciple, and interpreter was Madame Von Marenholz. His system of education had this peculiarity which made it different from any other plan of teaching ever given to the world--it was first grasped in its full significance by women. They, sooner than men, saw its truth to nature, and its grand, far-reaching meaning, and became at once its enthusiastic disciples. But the German women are in a bondage almost unknown to their sisters of the other civilized races, therefore Froebel's reform progressed only slowly. Had his principles been given to the world in the midst of American or English women, they would most likely have been popularly known and adopted long ago. "Froebel did not see any very magnificent practical results flow from the "new education" in his time. While he lived the ungrateful tribe of humanity abused, misrepresented, and laughed him to scorn, as it has done everybody who ever conferred any great and lasting benefit on it. A touching illustration of this is given in the anecdote narrating Frau Von Marenholz's first meeting with the founder of kindergartens. The anecdote begins the book, and it is the key-note of the sorrowful undertone throughout.