The author of this volume has evidently spent much time in the school-room, and has not spent it in vain. He writes like a practical man, in a clear, vigorous style. As he says in his preface, he takes "a pretty free range over the whole practical field of inquiry among professional teachers, and presents to us thoughts suggested in the school-room itself in short, detached chapters." The work is not a _philosophy_ of education, but rather a laudable attempt to contribute something toward it. In the first chapter, on "What is Teaching?" he brings out forcibly the truth that teaching is not simply telling, nor is talking to a class necessarily teaching, as experience shows that a class may be told a thing twenty times over, and talked to in the most fluent manner, and still make little advancement in knowledge. {133} This truth deserves more attention from those engaged in teaching. The work of universal education which is required in our country is so vast, that necessity has forced many to assume the office of teachers who have very little knowledge of what teaching is. "Teaching," as the author well says, "is causing one to know. Now, no one can be made to know a thing but by the act of his own powers. His own senses, his own memory, his own powers of reason, perception, and judgment must be exercised. The function of the teacher is to bring about this exercise of the pupil's faculties." The second chapter, on "The Art of Questioning," states that a "most important and difficult part" of the teacher's art is to know how to ask a question, but he gives none of the principles that underlie the art. The earnest reader will say: If so much depends on skilful questioning, why does he not tell us how to do it? The little work of J. G. Filch, M.A., on _The Art of Questioning_ appears to us much more philosophical and satisfactory. According to him, questions as employed by teachers may be divided into three classes, according to the purposes which they may be intended to serve. There is, first, the _preliminary_ or _experimental_ question, by which an instructor feels his way, sounds the depths of his pupil's knowledge, and prepares him for the reception of what it is designed to teach. There is, secondly, the question employed in _actual instruction_, by means of which the thoughts of the learner are exercised, and he is compelled, so to speak, to take a share in giving himself the lesson. Thirdly, there is the question of _examination_, by which a teacher tests his own work, after he has given a lesson, and ascertains whether it has been soundly and thoroughly learned. By this method, as an eminent teacher has said, one first questions the knowledge into the minds of the children, and then questions it out of them again.