THE best method of training electrical engineers will probably remain a subject of discussion so long as the profession continues to be a profitable one. Whether recourse should be had to the factory or to the technical college; whether a combination of these two is desirable or necessary, and if so, in what manner they should be combined; and whether the course at the technical college should be entirely by lecture and experiment, or should make free use of that royal road to excellence, the text-book; these and kindred questions will always be discussed and will never be settled. Whilst the discussion goes on the writers of text-books continue to flourish until the difficulty of deciding whether to have recourse to textbooks or not is overshadowed by the greater difficulty of deciding which would be the most profitable to read. The three books before us illustrate how the budding electrical engineer may be caught when he is yet fresh in knickerbockers and led by easy steps to a complete mastery of his profession. Mr. Ashford's “Electricity and Magnetism” is a school-book; it starts by assuming that the pupil has no knowledge of the subject at all, and, leading him by a path of experimental inquiry, ends by leaving him well fitted to begin on Mr. Crapper's more advanced treatise. This read, and the fundamental principles of continuous current circuits mastered, it only remains to study alternating currents in the work of Messrs. Ryan, Norris and Hoxie. Electricity and Magnetism. By C. E. Ashford (London: Edward Arnold, n.d.) Price 3s. 6d. Electric and Magnetic Circuits. By Ellis H. Crapper (London: Edward Arnold, n.d.) Price 10s. 6d. A Text-book of Electrical Machinery. Vol. i. Electric, Magnetic and Electrostatic Circuits. By H. J. Ryan, H. H. Norris, and G. L. Hoxie. (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1903.) Price 2.50 dollars.