At least one novel book has been issued among the recent holiday volumes. It is “One Year’s Sketch Book,”[D] a collection of engravings following the birth, growth, and death of a year. Flowers are made to interpret the changing phases of the seasons by the artist, for, though she weaves in many landscapes, they are almost always as backgrounds, for now a bunch of ox-eyed daisies, a bouquet of blue violets, a loose cluster of roses, a spray of clematis, or a bunch of bitter-sweet. She deals more sympathetically, too, with flowers than with other subjects, and her work on them shows much more finish. There are several anachronisms in the book that are annoying. March is made to follow May; the page called the end of spring-time bears a cluster of trailing arbutus as its emblem, a flower which belongs to the birth of spring; and in her preface, she makes her newly wedded birds hesitate between nest building in the locust, with its “drooping white blossoms heaving with sweetness,” and the apple trees with their “pink and white glory blushing against the sky,” forgetful that the “pink and white glory” has fallen to the ground before the locust flower has come. The pictures are quite as beautiful, however, as if placed in strict calendar order, and the make up of the book is delightful. Probably the most suggestive work on education ever written is Rousseau’s “Emile.”[E] It is the work to which we owe the common sense and the thoughtful training which more and more characterize our system of education. It is the work which aroused Pestalozzi and Frœbel, but it has been for many years practically a dead volume, particularly to English readers. Old, poorly translated, long, and with many tedious digressions, teachers and mothers who ought to have been reading it were repelled by these difficulties. Some time ago M. Jules Steeg removed these barriers from his French countrymen by arranging a volume into which he gathered the most valuable portions of Emile, and now one of our country-women has removed the difficulties from English readers by a clear translation of Mr. Steeg’s work. It is a book worth possessing, and educators ought to welcome this practical and satisfactory arrangement of Rousseau’s great book.