In a leaflet issued by the State Council of Defense, July, 1917, announcement is made of a course of instruction to be given for health aides in several of the larger hospitals of the state. The plan is to offer six months of intensive training to young women in order to prepare them to care for the civilian sick when the regular registered nurses are drawn into military hospitals. The cost of training, board, lodging, and laundry bills will all be paid by the State Council of Defense. In return for this instruction each of the successful candidates is required to sign an agreement to attend the sick in the state of Wisconsin for a period of two years after completing the six months’ course. The first training school was opened at the Milwaukee County Hospital, Wauwatosa, July 1, 1917. SOME PUBLICATIONS MERK, FREDERICK. _Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade._ Publications of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin _Studies, Vol. I._ Published by the Society, Madison, 1916. Pp. 414. The Wisconsin Historical Society has inaugurated its series of _Studies_ by the most elaborate work of constructive history it has published, which is also the most comprehensive treatment of the economic history of any state during the constitutional period, taking rank with Bruce’s _Virginia_ and Weeden’s _New England_. The author has produced a book which is of interest not only to the state with which it deals, but to every student of American history. The American state, at least today and in the West, is an artificial unit, whose political separateness barely justifies that exclusive devotion of the historical student which the vastness of the United States seems to render necessary if the roots of our life are to be discovered. To recognize the influence of national conditions, without making the treatment national, to individualize the community without making it appear a detached entity, requires a variety of skill which can not be produced by scientific study alone, but demands also real literary ability. This skill Merk clearly possesses, and he has created an impression of an economic life, distinctly confined to the area of the state, yet part of that of the Union, and in touch with that outside the national limits. He is fully conscious of the importance of Wisconsin wheat in our relations with Great Britain, and of the interstate functions of a medium of exchange, but he is not betrayed into a discussion of diplomacy or of national banking.