Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/574

558 that, in a work of the character of the one before us, we think something more should have been said to show exactly what this attitude is, and to exhibit more fully the nature of the operations of our minds in believing or disbelieving anything. We consider that here Mr. Sully has carried condensation too far.

But as the main purpose of our author's work is in its educational applications, so in these lies its chief merit. There is a great deal of interesting observation about the development of the child's mind—as regarding imagination and reasoning, for example; and there are many fruitful suggestions respecting the proper methods to be adopted in promoting the growth of the mental powers and strengthening them. The whole subject of control of the emotions and their various uses is admirably handled. The pleasures of knowledge, the development of aesthetic taste, the erection, maintenance* and following of moral standards—all receive ample illustration with many precepts of practical value. We are glad to see the uses of obedience in childhood, as a means to self-control and to a well-balanced character, so correctly stated. We are very apt to find either the contention that there should be little exercise of authority on the one hand, or on the other that authority should still be controlling as an end in itself throughout adult life. The former idea leads to anarchy, the latter to despotism. This is what Mr. Sully says: "As already pointed out, an indispensable step in the formation of a sense of duty is the assertion and exercise of authority over the child, the making him feel that there is a higher will over his which he has to obey.

"It may safely be contended that obedience in the sense already defined is in itself a moral habit—forming, indeed, one chief virtue of childhood. . . . Nevertheless, it is a common and fatal error to regard obedience to personal authority as an end in itself. The ingredient in childish obedience which constitutes it a moral exercise is the dim apprehension of the reasonableness and moral obligatoriness of what is laid down. And the ultimate end of moral discipline is to strengthen this feeling, and to transfer the sentiment of submission from a person to a law which that person represents and embodies Commands are a scaffolding which performs a necessary temporary function in the building up of a self-sufficient habit of right conduct" (pp. 393, 394). This is very sensible and wholesome doctrine.

Altogether, Mr. Sully has produced an excellent book, of unique character in psychological works. There is no doubt that it supplies a genuine, not a fanciful need, nor is there any question of the scholarship of the author, or of his fitness to point out practical methods in education. He is himself an educator, and has the experience of the teacher in addition to the accumulations in knowledge of one who has made of the subject of psychology a life-long study. He has done his work so successfully that our thanks and our praise are very cordially, and, as we believe, deservedly, bestowed.

has produced a very readable book, and one of which an American has reason to be proud as the tribute of one of her adopted citizens. The title suggests a panegyric, and the text does not belie it. The unparalleled material progress of the republic is recounted in the most exultant strain, and its political institutions are given unstinted praise. In comparison with those of the mother-country he finds the advantages all with us, and earnestly hopes that it will not be long before England will be remodeled upon our basis. The magic which has transformed a continent and given the world the strongest and wealthiest of nations he finds in the political equality of the citizens, and this is the thing he deems needful for England if she is to keep abreast of her young and powerful rival. He writes in no spirit of antagonism to England in recounting the triumphs of the English-speaking people upon this side of the Atlantic, but only wishes for her a future as pleasing. The relation of mother and child is the one he continuously holds up, and the drawing closer together of all English-speaking communities expresses his most ardent wish.

The volume would have unquestionably gained in value had Mr. Carnegie written in a more critical spirit, but it is perhaps just