The youthful victim is admitted to the Tower by the Muse of Wisdom, who presents to him the horn book. Once admitted he begins the toilsome progress through various chambers of the tower which correspond to the twelve books of the treatise, namely, the first eight to the seven liberal arts, grammar being given, not only two chambers but two entire floors. The first chamber is devoted to Donatus, whose “Eight parts of speech,” written about 400 A.D., formed the traditional approach to all studies for many centuries. So nearly universal was the use of this part of Donatus’ larger work on grammar, that the term _donat_ came into frequent use as a synonym for an introduction into any subject. Donatus continued very popular into the 16th or even 17th century, though its popularity was successfully contested by many later works, especially that of Alexander de Villa Dei of the 13th century. The second chamber is devoted to Priscian, whose more elaborate work on grammar (from about 526 A.D.) formed the source of much of the common literary knowledge of the middle ages. Priscian was one of the works most frequently issued from the early press, and yet exists in more than a thousand manuscripts. In all Priscian quotes more than 250 authors, several of them more than 100 times, the “Æneid” of Vergil more than seven hundred times. Thus the study of Latin grammar was of far greater significance than the modern conception of the term indicates and justifies to Reisch the assignment of two floors of the Tower. From the study of grammar the youth proceeds to the study of rhetoric and poetry, the middle one of the three rooms of the third floor. Cicero is here the presiding genius. From rhetoric the student proceeds to the logic of Aristotle, thus completing the trivium. The first subject of the _quadrivium_ is arithmetic, represented by Boethius. The remaining three subjects of the quadrivium form the fourth floor. These are astronomy, represented by Ptolemy; geometry, by Euclid, and music by Pythagoras. Following the quadrivium come the subjects which no doubt represent “the additions to known things” in the mind of the compiler. These are the physical sciences, typified by Pythagoras, and Moral Philosophy, by Seneca. Crowning all comes the study of theology and metaphysics, represented by Peter the Lombard, whose “Sentences” had been the orthodox theological text now for two centuries. The symbolic illustrations which accompany the book of the treatise on these several subjects are of no less interest than the tower of knowledge itself; for these go into great detail in exposition of the aim and characteristic features of each study. Such illustrations present in a concrete way the curricula and the methods of school work in the past. Recent History The Situation in Great Britain BY JOHN HAYNES, PH.D., DORCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS.