This volume not only shows the reader--the general as well as professional reader--the large scope embraced in a proper study of history, but it also demonstrates that naval archaeology is not a mere idle amusement, suited to the elegant leisure of the scholar. It has a great and practical value, enabling an officer to understand his own profession the more thoroughly in all its branches. Commodore Parker has conferred a material benefit on his profession by the valuable contribution he has made to its literature. He has, moreover, by his straightforward narration, pleasant style, and copious illustrations from standard authorities, rendered agreeable and entertaining to the general reader what otherwise might have proved technical, and of too special a character. * * * * * Mr. Perkins's book[12] almost disarms criticism by its very character, for it is impossible to make a selection of books that is at the same time limited in size and adapted to diverse and contrary necessities. Private libraries want the best books, public libraries the books most called for by the general and often undiscriminating public. "The Best Reading" contains the titles of about ten thousand books, and as that is less than half the number printed every year, the work is confessedly incomplete from whatever point of view we look at it. Still it is useful to librarians, of whom there are several hundred inexperienced ones in the country, and to professional essayists, or magazine writers, a class that must contain thousands of persons. With every allowance for unavoidable imperfections, we think Mr. Perkins can revise the list with advantage, taking out some obsolete writers and putting in some new ones in their place--Herbert Spencer for example. [12] "_The Best Reading_: Hints on the Selection of Books, on the Formation of Libraries, Public and Private, on Courses of Reading," etc. With a Classified Bibliography. By FREDERICK BEECHER PERKINS. G. P. Putnam's Sons. * * * * *