Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/868

850 and are in sum that "children must at once be introduced to real knowledge, be given something worth their efforts, and treated as rational human beings, who ought not, even if they could, be made to greatly care for the symbols and shows of learning in the absence of the real substance, nor led to imagine that they were being mentally and morally nourished—that is, educated—when fed on chaff mainly." This part deals with the Quality of Studies, the Order of Studies, the Effects of Studies, and the Ends to be served by Studies—all with the view of producing a fully rounded, keen-eyed, alert, and self-dependent man or woman, able to do his share in the world's work, and to fill his place in the social order—in short, to attain to his highest development while fully sympathizing with the endeavors of his fellows. The doers of mankind are to be developed; the dreamers find no place in the author's scheme of education.

Part III gives some details about the teaching of special subjects, including Science, History, Literature, Language, Mathematics, Industrial Training, Means of Expression, and a chapter for mothers entitled At Home, indicating in what ways a mother may awaken her child's powers of observation. Part IV gives some suggestions about the atmosphere of the schoolroom. The experiment was made in 1881, when "natural-science studies had not been made an integral part of any primary schoolroom, and literature and history in such grades were mostly unthought of." Long strides in advance have of course been made in the sixteen years intervening; still, the book can not fail to arouse into more thoughtful activity many teachers, and it should especially appeal to mothers and to educators who advocate individual instruction. What may by some be considered an objection to the system is that it makes enormous demands on the ingenuity of the teacher, for in place of the routine of the schoolroom it puts individual thinking.

Mr. Moore's brief treatise on the Philosophy of Art is a thoughtful study, by a man who has had time and opportunity to give full attention to the subject from the literary rather than the evolutional point of view, of the origin and nature of the arts, which he classifies as those appealing to the sight and to the hearing. The author regards them all as primarily the outgrowth of necessity, and esteems as the most interesting feature of his inquiry the paradoxical nature of the transition from the original condition and purposes of art to its later and present uses.

A new work on geology, both suitable for a college text-book and very attractive to the general reader, has been written by Prof. Scott, of Princeton. The author's plan has been to make a book dealing principally with American geology, after the style of Sir Archibald Geikie's Class Book. Its American character is a marked feature of the present work. It is clearly advantageous, the author remarks, that we should make use of our own country in selecting typical facts for study. Accordingly, the formations that he describes and figures are nearly all American. Prof. Scott has had the use of a great deal of material collected for the United States Geological Survey, and a large part of his nearly three hundred figures are reproduced from photographs taken for the survey. Prof. Scott does not make much use of diagrams, evidently preferring to show the reader the actual appearance of the examples that may be seen in the field. The value of field study is strongly emphasized by him. Dynamical geology is the first of the large divisions of the subject that he considers, beginning with igneous agencies, but for students who begin a study of the subject in the fall he advises taking up other chapters first. He makes a special division of the work under the title Physiographical Geology, in which he has three chapters dealing with the changes in topography effected by geological agencies, and the clews which topographical features give in tracing past geological operations. A little more than one third of the work is devoted to historical or stratigraphical geology. Here, while both American and foreign formations and fossils are described, the foreign are always placed in a separate paragraph after the American