Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/448

 43 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

solid basis for statistical conclusions. Examples are given of generalizations relating to the connection between physical conditions and mental traits and achievements.

The importance of study of defects of sight, hearing, and the incidents of devel- opment in arranging plans of education, is illustrated by many facts derived from study of children in Chicago, Washington, and elsewhere.

Instruments used in physical examinations are described and figured, and their uses explained. Several pages are devoted to examples to show the nature of hypno- tism and the uses and dangers of suggestion in medical and pedagogic treatment.

Generalizations as to growth, sight, sound, memory, skin, taste, and smell, move- ment, attention, volition, and moral sense are given to show the value of results already reached. The notes on criminology are largely made up of former publications of the author. At the end is a bibliography of child study. ARTHUR MACDONALD, Senate Document 400, 57th Congress, ist Session. H.

Some Divorce Statistics. Dr. Friedrich Prinzing, it the Zeitschrift fur Social- wissenschaft, gives some interesting divorce statistics. The number of divorces in different countries depends, of course, largely on creeds and laws, as well as on national temperament and morals ; but, on the whole, the proportion of divorces to the sum total of married life is remarkably small among the European nations, ranging from 0.42 and o.n per thousand married couples. In Japan divorce is much more common, and in the United States the negroes largely swell the number. Every- where it seems on the increase. A significant feature in Germany is the growing number of divorces granted on the ground of mutual agreement. For the five years ending 1897 there were in Berlin alone 173, 302, 324, 416, 457. Children, as might be expected, are the best preventive of voluntary divorce. In Berlin, in 1897-98, in one thousand divorces the surviving children were as follows : no children, 54 P er cent.; one child, 21.3 percent; two children, 13.8 per cent.; three children, 6 per cent.; four children, 2.6 per cent.; five children, i.i per cent.; six children, I per cent. a strong argument for large families. Early marriages among the poor cause much misery in our large towns ; they are also the least-enduring unions. The vast proportion of divorces is among those who married under twenty years of age. As marriage has grown later, the ratio of divorces steadily decreases. Divorce rules highest in the sixth or seventh year after marriage. Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation (London), July, 1902.

Municipal Milk for the Children. There are very few questions of a more serious nature than that of the great loss of life among infants. During the years 1891-1900, of every 100,000 births in London, 28,102 more than a quarter of the whole died before reaching the age of five. So far, only one local body in London has particularly set its mind to deal with the question. The Battersea Borough municipal council has opened a depot for sterilized humanized milk, to combat diar- rhoea, one of the chief causes of the death-roll. The experiment has proved a decided success. Customers come from all parts of the borough. During this year there have been only twenty-four deaths from diarrhrea among children, as compared with 150 last year, and only in one case was the child receiving milk from the depot. It cannot be said that the depot is entirely the cause of this drop, but we think we are thoroughly justified in saying that it has in some small measure been responsible for the improved death-rate. Municipal Journal (London). R. M.