These dangers are not only imminent but actual. The whole effort to support a Christian education in the public schools is sometimes called a "bootless wrangle." One section is thrown over towards secularism, pure and simple, in recoiling from Church-education exclusive and reactionary. The leading of the little child, the favorite indication of the millennium's arrival, is frustrated amid the clamor of the free thinkers and the uncertainty of the Church and the necessities of the State. We are slowly but surely, if we go on in this way, taking our children out of Christ's arms and our youth from beside His footsteps. And that is at once the most fearful sin against Him, and the most terrible injustice to them, we could possibly commit. Who can do anything to stay this destructive tendency? "God bless him," I would say in Livingstone's spirit, "whoever he may be," that will help to heal this open wound of the world. I think Mr. Barker's little book will help. It supplies much information carefully collected from scattered sources, given in brief and explicit statements. Its range of themes is wide and upon them all some standard thoughts are given. It is addressed to all readers and should find them among parents (whom it should make patrons), among those who have hearts to pray and those who have hands to help. It will prove to be of rare interest to all whose duty it is to teach, and it has much wise counsel for those who are to study. The treatment of the function of the College for the cultivation of the moral and spiritual nature (Chapter IV) deserves special attention. Its declarations are firm, its ideals high and its selected opinions apt and forcible. It ought to end the reign of any institution in which religion is not put at the center and kept as efficient as human instrumentalities can make it. The demand for professors of pronounced Christian character and convictions is timely and is fearlessly made. The discussion of the currents and counter-currents of influences in college life cannot but be useful, with a possibly increased emphasis against the secret societies and a caution against organizations of undergraduates for active partisan work in politics. The time for these fruits is "not yet." Admirably the author shows that we have the best College material in the world and that it behaves itself best. And there can be no lack of agreement as to the arousing arguments and the closing chapters concerning the usefulness of colleges to the individual and the community. May it serve to kindle and to extend when kindled the wholesome enthusiasm its respected author manifests both by word and work. SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL. The University of Wooster, July 9, 1894. COLLEGES IN AMERICA. I. THE RISE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE OLD WORLD.