126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



most significant services has been ren- 

 dered at the Fair by the psychological 

 exhibit and laboratory, over which 

 Prof. Jastrow presides, in the Antliro- 

 pological Building. Here, amid the 

 most extensive collection of appliances 

 ever brought together in America, quan- 

 titative tests of faculty are made: the 

 effect of this new science of experi- 

 mental psychology on education must 

 be to sift out good methods of instruc- 

 tion from bad, and in the fullness of 

 time to awaken and direct in the indi- 

 vidual mind the ambitions which to-day 

 either remain unaroused or ignorantly 

 run riot. 



In some respects the most audacious 

 and the least satisfactory part of the 

 programme at Chicago has been the 

 Auxiliary Congresses. Assembled seven 

 miles from Jackson Park, in a building 

 directly abutting on a noisy railroad, 

 filled with smoky and dusty air from 

 locomotives and factory chimneys, the 

 sessions have often been too much for 

 human endurance. With utterly inade- 

 quate means the president, Hon. C. C. 

 Bonney, has been unable to provide fit- 

 ting attendance, or to give suitable pub- 

 licity to the daily proceedings. Never- 

 theless, despite shortcomings on every 

 hand, the Art Institute has during the 

 past five months given a hearing to nearly 

 every eminent American teacher, and it 

 has opened its doors to Prof, von Helm- 

 holtz, and to other men of science from 

 abroad scarcely less illustrious. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Sevkntii Annual Report of the Commis- 

 sioNKK OF Lahou, 1891. Carroll D. 

 Wright, Commissioner. Washington : 

 Govermnent Printing Office. Pp. 8-11. 



It is the duty of the Department of La- 

 bor to provide for reports, at intervals of 

 not less than two years, on the general con- 

 dition, so far as production is concerned, of 

 the leading industries of the country. A 

 shorter period is prescribed than that fixed 

 for the taking of the census, in the belief 



that a fairer average would be shown in the 

 run of consecutive reports of short terms 

 than could be obtained from reports made 

 every ten years, any two or more of which 

 might be, relatively to the intervening years, 

 exceptional ones. Two years from the or- 

 ganization of the department, however, 

 brought it to the census year 1890, when its 

 report would be merged in or superseded 

 by the census returns ; so that it was not 

 deemed expedient to establish the system of 

 reports contemplated till 1892. A method 

 has accordingly been under organization for 

 securing proper information relative to the 

 leading industries of the country which will 

 enable the public to make comparison with 

 the census reports of 1890 as to the move- 

 ments of production. The department was 

 represented at the Congress on Accidents to 

 Labor held in Berne, and at the Congress of 

 the International Statistical Institute, held 

 at Vienna, in 1891 ; and it is believed that 

 the experience of American statisticians 

 with reference to labor statistics and the 

 influence of the American i-epresentatives 

 prompted the introduction and unanimous 

 adoption of the resolutions of the institute 

 recommending the adoption of similar meas- 

 ures in other countries. The present report, 

 the seventh, continues the investigation of 

 the cost of production in leading countries 

 of articles dutiable in the United States, 

 which was begun in the sixth report and 

 applied in it to iron, steel, bituminous coal, 

 coke, iron ore, and limestone, extending it to 

 the textiles and glass. The facts inquired 

 into include the different elements of cost or 

 approximate cost, the wages paid in the in- 

 dustries involved, the comparative cost of 

 living, the kind of living, etc. All feasible 

 means are used to secure complete informa- 

 tion, and, in order that no establishment may 

 be embarrassed by having its inner concerns 

 exposed to the public, the names of all 

 companies and persons who have contributed 

 to the value of the investigation are care- 

 fully kept out of sight. The department 

 has aimed to make a judicious selection 

 both as to representative concerns and rep- 

 resentative facts ; but it does not presume to 

 flatter itself that it has given everything 

 that everybody will want. Two hundred 

 and seventy-eight establishments are repre- 

 sented in the tables, of which forty-nine are 



