420 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



very difPerent from action initiated by the teacher. While he insisted that 

 the child's individuality should be respected, he did not advocate giving the 

 child license to do wrong. The teacher should be able to transfer the child's 

 interest from what is wrong to what is right. He wished to banish coer- 

 cion ; he " would have the control of the mother and kindergarten so thor- 

 oughly in harmony with the spontaneity of the child as not to be felt by 

 it." He fully recognized the educational value of ijlay, and was the first to 

 use it systematically as a means of mental and moral training. His pro- 

 found sense of interrelationships made him a pioneer in the correlation of 

 studies. The same characteristic caused him to look beyond mere percep- 

 tion on the part of the learner, and to insist on apperception. Froebel was 

 an evolutionist before Spencer and Darwin, and he was the first to make 

 systematic use of manual training in distinction from industrial training. 

 The supreme aim of his educational system is character-building, and " he 

 applied precisely the same laws to the revelation of ideals of right, justice, 

 duty, and will that he applied in the general development of the child." In 

 stating Froebel's views Mr. Hughes makes large use of quotations from 

 Froebel's Education of Man and Autobiography, and from the Baroness 

 von Marenholz-Biilow's Reminiscences of Froebel. The book is eminently 

 one to stimulate the teacher's growth. 



GENERAL NOTICES. 



In Telepalhy and the Subliminal Self we 

 have an attempt to put certain occult phe- 

 nomena on a scientific basis.* The author, 

 rejecting all ideas of the supernatural, ap- 

 proaches his subject from the point of view 

 of a scientific observer who does not specu- 

 late with the intangible, but who has a defi- 

 nite theory, that shall account for certain 

 mysterious occurrences. The subjects he 

 takes up are Telepathy, Mesmerism and Hyp- 

 notism, Clairvoyance, Double or Multiplex 

 Personality, Somnambulism, Dreams, Autom- 

 atism, Planchette, Crystal-gazing, and Phan- 

 tasms. He explains most of these phenomena 

 by means of the subliminal self. This mys- 

 terious personality lies hidden away deep 

 down below our ordinary self, coming to the 

 surface only on special occasions, or when 

 called up without our knowledge by the hyp- 

 notizer or mesmerist. And it does not seem 

 to be given to every one thus to project this 

 inner being into the outer world of sense; 

 although apparently this other personality is 

 latent in us all, only the "sensitive" can 



* Telepathy and the Subliminal Self. An Ac- 

 count of Recent Investigations regarding Ilypno- 

 tism, Automatism, Dreams, Phantasms, and Re- 

 lated Phenomena. By R. Osgood Mason, A. M., 

 M. D. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 

 Pp. 343, 12mo. Price, S1.50. 



manifest it. The author deduces his theory 

 from a number of experiments and " experi- 

 ences " recorded by the English Society for 

 Psychical Research, the French therapeutic 

 hypnotists of La Salpetiere, and of Nancy, 

 and others, both physicians and laymen. The 

 chapters on Double or Multiplex Personality 

 and Natural Somnambulism give a number of 

 cases in which the subliminal self stands plain- 

 ly revealed. Some instances, however, might 

 very well be classed under temporary aberra- 

 tion of mind, as for example that of Ansel 

 Bourne the evangeUst, who, leaving his home 

 in Rhode Island, went to Norristown, Pa., 

 and after keeping store there for two months 

 under the name of A. J. Brown, suddenly 

 awoke to find himself in a strange place. 

 One of the most curious chapters in the 

 book is that on Crystal-gazing, a species of 

 divination somewhat akin to clairvoyance. 

 The chapters on Phantasms sustain perhaps 

 most fully the author's theory of the sub- 

 liminal self. He does not pretend to go 

 over the whole ground of psychic phenom- 

 ena, leaving untouched, for example, the sub- 

 ject of the return of the departed, and other 

 spiritualistic manifestations. But " confining 

 ourselves within the limits as.=igned, if the 

 series of alleged facts which has been pre- 

 sented in the preceding chapters be true, 



