Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/534

518 illustrations by which they are accompanied. Light and electricity are dealt with in an equally complete and satisfactory manner, ample details being given with regard to the nature of light, its sources, reflection, refraction, the solar spectrum, spectrum analysis, the effect of light, and the relations of light and heat; while in the chapter upon electricity there are very full sections upon statistical and galvanic electricity, electro-magnetism, magneto-, thermo-, and animal electricity, and the relations which the several chemical agents bear to each other."

abundance of correct information about the habits of noxious insects should be diffused among farmers is a thing of capital importance. Many insect-pests, which in former times ravaged the fields and orchards with impunity, are now easily held in check, or exterminated, owing to the enlarged knowledge derived from the researches of scientific entomologists. For instance, after it is once known that the parent Hessian fly makes its first appearance in the latitude of Missouri, about the beginning of September, and usually disappears before the end of that month, the prudent farmer will preserve his grain from the attacks of that destroyer by deferring his planting till October. In like manner, the army worm may be defeated by burning up her eggs with the grass-stalks in which they are deposited. Or we may enlist in our service the natural enemies of the various insect-pests, such as birds, toads, snakes. But their greatest foes are "those of their own household," predaceous or cannibal and parasitic insects. The study of the habits of these insect allies and insect enemies of the husbandman is the occupation of the practical entomologist. The importance of entomological research is now more generally recognized than it was a few years ago, when Dr. Asa Fitch, of New York, was the only State entomologist in the Union. New York, it is true, no longer employs an entomologist, having very unwisely abolished the office two years ago. Other States, however, have instituted the office, and their example is likely to be imitated throughout the Union. The States at present employing entomologists are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, and Missouri, and Mr. Townsend Glover is attached to the National Department of Agriculture, in the same capacity.

Mr. Riley's very able report is in itself perfectly satisfactory evidence of the value of such studies.

We are pleased to see incorporated with the report a succinct treatise on entomology, intended to give the intelligent farmer an easy introduction to the science.

This report contains a good deal of important matter that has a more than local value. Besides many instructive details relating to the management of the St. Louis schools, their accomplished superintendent, Mr. W. T. Harris, gives us his views on grading and classification in a system of schools, on the course of study for the public school best suited to modern requirements, and on the important subject of school discipline. On the practice of whipping in schools, he quotes from Superintendent Monteith, as follows: "The indiscriminate use of the whip in school is a practice which is to be condemned as barbarous, cruel, and wicked. It is a wonder that society is so indulgent toward that which, if applied to animals instead of children, would not be tolerated for a moment. I regret to say it, but it is true, that a 'society for the prevention of cruelty to children' could find work for humane hands in many Missouri schools. The case is aggravated when we consider, further, that about two-thirds of the whippings which school-children receive are inflicted for offences for which they are in no way responsible. The crimes they commit, upon which pedagogical vengeance is wreaked, when stripped of the color given to them by unmeaning and senseless rules, are simply the crimes of being a boy and being a girl. They are too often crimes which are incited by bad air, cold feet and shoulders, overwork, and long confinement. They are crimes which the parents of these same children are accustomed to excuse in