Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/873

Rh and in education his influence has "been powerful beyond measure." He may fairly be called the father of modern pedagogy, despite the fact that most of his positive teachings have been rejected. This has been brought about by the stimulus he gave to thought and to the revision of the old theories and methods, to which extent "his work was invaluable."

A comprehensive and instructive book, and, withal, curious and various, is Prof. Alfred C. Haddorn's The Study of Man which forms one of the volumes of G. P. Putnam's Sons' "Science Series." The author, though accomplished in the sciences does not offer the work as a treatise on anthropology or its methods, but merely as a collection of samples of the way in which parts of the subject are studied. The book is not intended for students or for scientific experts, but for the amateur and the "intelligent reader." The author's wish has been not merely to interest his readers but to induce them to become workers. Accordingly, being so completely versed in the subject that he is able to do so without abating one jot of scientific accuracy, he divests his style of conventional formalities and, becoming a friendly guide, makes various excursions into the subject, "not with the object of attempting to learn something about anthropology, not for the erection of an academic study, but for the simple purpose of explaining ourselves to ourselves. Our immediate object, then, is to try and discover what the immediate significance is of certain of our bodily peculiarities, and of a few of the innumerable objects and actions that we see around us" The theory of evolution throws a bright and far reaching light on the problems of anthropology; and though we may not be able to explain the processes of or the reasons for evolution, there can be no doubt as to the fact of its occurrence. The vast importance of the study of children is recognized. From the nursery we are taken by the author to the school and the playground, endeavoring to discover in them evidence as to the direction of man's upward progress. Then reference is made to primitive survivals in child life, showing the persistence of savage psychological habit in children, and of savage and barbaric practice in their singing games. Other vestiges of the evolutionary pi ogress are found in the backward people among ourselves. These features, after the discussion of the general subject and of the facts given by physical measurements, mark the general outline of the author's treatment. As special features and illustrations, we have chapters, highly suggestive, on the evolution of the cart, the Irish jaunting-car, toys and games, cat's cradle and kites, tops and the tug of-war, the bull-roarer, the singing games of children, courting, funeral, and other games, showing how these severally embody in themselves the history of steps in man's advance from savagery up. The last chapter embodies practical suggestions for conducting ethnological investigations in the British Islands.

For several years much interest has been taken in American schools by British and Canadian educationists. Ontario has repeatedly found it profitable during the past twenty-five years to take notice of the school work done in many of the neighboring States; and our educational men have frequently been invited to address conventions of teachers in the province. In furtherance of the acquaintance thus sought, the author of this book visited various places in New York for the purpose of gaining a knowledge of the schools of the State, and also studied the methods of some of the more important centers. Besides reporting what he saw of the work of the normal schools, high schools, manual training schools, and kindergartens, he has thought it well to combine with that object some description of the educational system under which they are conducted. The author thinks that no part of the republic presents a more valuable study to one interested in education than New York, and that no other part of the Union has made so much progress in education within the past dozen years. Yet the Canadians generally, and some others, regard their system