LITERARY NOTICES. 



73 



in the main good. Here the work is least 

 anachronistic. We are glad to see that Dr. 

 McCosh enunciates clearly that sensation 

 and perception go together, there being 

 no sensation without perception. We wish 

 he had also made evident the fact that 

 there can be no perception without repre- 

 sentation. There is some useful informa- 

 tion in the finer print notes, and the student 

 ought not to overlook it. This last is true 

 of other parts of the book as well. 



However much fault we may be disposed 

 to find with this treatise, considered as a 

 scientific account of the cognitive powers, 

 we think no one can deny that it contains 

 much valuable moral didactic. The dangers 

 of novel - reading are vividly portrayed ; 

 " some even of our Sabbath-school stories " 

 tend " to dissipate and weaken the mind." 

 Attention is called to the fact that " those 

 who would allure the thoughtless know well 

 how to set off sin and folly by theatrical ac- 

 companiments, by the setting of cut flowers 

 which look pretty by night, but which are 

 faded on the morrow " ; and warnings are 

 uttered in great profusion against evil hab- 

 its of all sorts. This is, of course, very ex- 

 cellent. It makes the book a safe one to 

 put in the hands of youth. It also adds to 

 its merit that we can unreservedly say, as 

 the critic whom Leslie Stephen quotes in 

 the preface to his " Science of Ethics " re- 

 marked of Dr. Watts's sermons, that there 

 is nothing in President McCosh's work 

 " calculated to call a blush to the cheek of 

 modesty." 



Manual Training. By Charles H. Ham. 

 New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. 

 403, with Illustrations. 



Mr. Ham is evidently an enthusiastic 

 believer in the full efficacy and competency 

 of manual training habitude in the use of 

 tools and the execution of designs to work 

 out the solution of social and industrial 

 problems. He regards tools as the great 

 civilizing agency of the world; believes 

 that " it is through the arts alone that all 

 branches of learning find expression, and 

 touch human life " ; and accepts as the true 

 definition of education u the development 

 of all the powers of man to the culminating 

 point of action ; and this power in the con- 

 crete the power to do some useful thing 



for man this must be the last analysis of 

 educational truth." A study of the methods 

 of the manual training department of Wash- 

 ington University at St. Louis brought him 

 to the conclusion that the philosopher's 

 stone in education had been discovered 

 there. He wrote constantly on the sub- 

 ject for three years, and in the mean time 

 the Chicago Manual Training-School was 

 established. The account of this institution 

 and its operations forms the basis of this 

 work, which includes also a kind of general 

 survey of the whole theory and histery of 

 education from the point of view which 

 the author has described himself as occupy- 

 ing. In the book are included descriptions 

 of the various laboratory class processes 

 of the Chicago school during the course 

 of three years ; arguments to prove that 

 tool practice is highly promotive of intel- 

 lectual growth, and in a still higher degree 

 of the upbuilding of character ; a sketch of 

 the historical period, in order to show that 

 the decay of civilization and the destruction 

 of social organisms have resulted directly 

 from defects in methods of education ; and 

 a brief sketch of the history of manual 

 training as an educational force. The dis- 

 position to exalt the " new education," which 

 is one of the most striking characteristics 

 of this book, is deserving of all honor. That 

 education, most men will admit, has been 

 too much neglected in our times, and is un- 

 appreciated and discouraged to-day by the 

 very men who ought to be most interested 

 in upholding it the artisans themselves, as 

 represented by their trades-unions. It is 

 well for it to have an advocate whose heart 

 is full of it. Another disposition, and a 

 still more striking characteristic of the 

 book, is not so commendable : we mean the 

 disposition to decry the old education and 

 its fruits. To say that the value to man 

 of the services of such a statesman as Mr. 

 Gladstone who is undoubtedly one of the 

 best fruits of the old system of education 

 is relatively unimportant, while that of Mr. 

 Bessemer's services is " enormous, incal- 

 culable," is rank nonsense ; and this we 

 may say without underrating the benefit 

 mankind have derived from Mr. Bessemer's 

 invention. The old education, which ha3 

 given us Mr. Gladstone and the statesmen, 

 and numerous artists and illustrious invent- 



