750 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



cation lias come to be so much a mat- 

 ter of demagogism and popular flattery 

 that it will not be easy to carry out re- 

 form in this particular; but we wel- 

 come the indications that here and 

 there appear, of a recognition of the 

 existing evil and the need of its remedy. 

 The following passage, which we have 

 seen quoted from the late annual report 

 of the able State Superintendent of 

 Schools of Illinois, Mr. Newton Blake- 

 man, although perhaps somewhat san- 

 guine, at any rate rings out the truth : 



" The era of shams, and cheats, and clap- 

 trap, in education, will have gone hy. Ee- 

 warda, and prizes, and other artificial and vi- 

 cious incentives to study, will no longer he 

 known, and with them the arbitrary, unjust, 

 and preposterous practice of pretending to 

 note a student's intellectual, moral, and de- 

 portmental rank and standing hy a mechani- 

 cal system of marks will also be numbered 

 with the discarded rubbish of an obsolete 

 educational dispensation. The hopes that 

 have been crushed, the hearts that have 

 been stung, the irreparable mischief that 

 has been wrought by that puerile and abom- 

 inable system, should have sent it to the 

 moles and the bats long ago." 



Equally encouraging is the action 

 of the New York Board of Education 

 in passing a resolution that hereafter 

 no medals or prizes shall be accepted 

 as awards to the students of the Nor- 

 mal College, except such as may have 

 been previously founded, or from such 

 persons as granted prizes prior to 1873. 

 If this resolution be proper that is, 

 if the policy abandoned be bad pray, 

 why not abolish the existing prizes ? 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Chemistry of Light and Photogra- 

 phy, in its Applications to Art, Sci- 

 ence, and Industry. By Dr. Hermann 

 Vogel, Professor in Berlin. 100 Illus- 

 trations. Pp. 290. D. Appleton & Co. 

 No. XIV. of the " International Scien- 

 tific Series." 



At the International Convention of Pho- 

 tographers, held in this country a few years 

 ago, Dr. Hermann Vogel, of Berlin, was the 

 distinguished German delegate, and was 



much honored as one of the most eminent 

 and successful cultivators of the subject in 

 both its scientific and artistic aspects. Per- 

 haps no man in any country was so well 

 prepared to make a thorough presentation 

 of the principles and practice of this beau- 

 tiful process, and, upon being applied to 

 to write a book upon the subject for the 

 " International Series " he consented, and 

 the volume now before us confirms the 

 wisdom of the application. It is worthy the 

 reputation of the author and the interest of 

 the subject, and is beyond comparison the 

 best popular treatise on the chemistry of 

 light, and the present state of the arts, that 

 have grown out of it, that has yet been pro- 

 duced. The history of the efforts, by sci- 

 entific men, in the early part of the century, 

 to fix and preserve in some way the images 

 formed by light, is familiar to all. Davy 

 and Wedgwood, of England, made the ear- 

 liest attempts, in 1802, to secure such last- 

 ing impressions. Their results, however, 

 were very imperfect, and from time to time 

 the problem was attacked by other chem- 

 ists, and was finally solved by Niepce and 

 Daguerre, and the process was given to the 

 world in 1840. In the light of all that has 

 been done in the past thirty-five years, the 

 little pictures of Daguerre, with their " ugly, 

 mirror-like dazzle, which prevented a clear 

 view of them," are now regarded as insig- 

 nificant, but they were at first contemplated 

 with wonder. When, however, the process 

 was once securely possessed, it was rapidly 

 improved aud extended, until it has now 

 become an important element of civilized 

 life. As Dr. Vogel remarks, photography 

 has " spread over almost every branch of 

 human effort and knowledge, and now there 

 is scarcely a single field in the universe of 

 visible phenomena where its productive 

 influence is not felt. It brings before 

 us faithful pictures of remote regions, of 

 strange forms of stratification, of fauna, 

 and of flora ; it fixes the transient appear- 

 ances of solar eclipses; it is of great utility 

 to the astronomer and geographer ; it regis- 

 ters the movements of the barometer and 

 thermometer ; it has found an alliance with 

 porcelain- painting, with lithography, metal 

 and book typography ; it makes the noblest 

 works of art accessible to thosp of slender 

 means. It may thus be compared to the 



