Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/431

Rh a composite picture, as it were, of the thing or quality. In discussing wages and profits he represents these two terms as essentially identical and makes compensation for risk a separate thing. They are paid with the residue of production after the service of land and capital are requited. The wage-earner's assurance, he says, of receiving the approximate value of his product rests solely upon the effectiveness of competition among employers. His wage is, however, guaranteed from falling very low by his own power of producing directly for the market. This in turn is limited by his lack of capital. Prof. Davenport accounts for international trade like exchanges between individuals on the theory that each party finds he can satisfy his desires at less sacrifice by making one kind of goods and exchanging the surplus for the surplus of the different kind of goods produced by the other party. In measuring the "sacrifice" or cost, however, other than material things often have weight. The latter portion of the work is devoted to practical economic questions of the day. Here he discusses the competitive system and the remedy which is claimed to lie in socialism. He sees a promising field of usefulness for trades unions in establishing emergency workshops between which exchanges could take place by barter. Other topics that receive attention are State ownership of transportation and other industries, the social function of the rich, race improvement, the economic influence of fashion, taxation, various labor topics, and the currency. His general method of treating these matters is to point out the conflicting considerations that bear upon them, but without assuming to declare which outweighs the other. If the work resembled many others, in presenting one view of each topic as the only correct one, it would be much easier to describe, but we can not say that it would be as useful to its readers.

While fully appreciating the value of Froebel's kindergarten work, Mr. Hughes wishes teachers to realize that Froebel laid down principles of the greatest worth in more advanced education. He has accordingly, in this volume, set forth the philosophy of Froebel's system, giving a chapter to each of its most prominent features. Comparing Froebel with Pestalozzi and Herbart, Mr. Hughes says: "Pestalozzi was instinctive and inspirational, Froebel was philosophical and investigative. . . . Pestalozzi's pupils were reproductive; Froebel's were creative. . . . Herbart studied the child to mold it; Froebel studied it to guide it in its growth. . . . Herbart saw the need of control much more clearly than the need of freedom; Froebel saw the harmony between freedom and control." Froebel's fundamental law, according to our author, is that of unity or inner connection." He saw the unity between knowing, feeling, and willing, between analysis and synthesis, between thought and life. He saw the unity or inner connection of all created things so clearly, that he made the reconciliation of opposites an important element of his system. He believed this law of unity, inner connection, or vital interrelationship to be universal, and made it the fundamental law and the ultimate aim of all true educational effort." The most fruitful of Froebel's principles was that of self-activity on the part of the child—"the spontaneous effort of the child to make manifest to itself and others the inner conceptions and operations of its own mind." This is