SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 707 



not only for use in the bringing up of other children, but also because of 

 the light which it may throw on the more difficult problems of general 

 psychology. These thoughts have been brought to mind by a reading of 

 Dr. Sully's Children's Ways.* The book consists of selections from the 

 author's recently published Studies of Childhood. The somewhat abstruse 

 discussions and the technical language of the psychologist, which were 

 present in the first work, have been done away with, and the style and 

 subject-matter adapted to the needs of the general reader. The book may 

 perhaps be summed up imperfectly as a popular study of the various in- 

 stincts, emotions, and habits of mind of the average child as exhibited in 

 the several stages of his progress to a realizing sense of his true relation to 

 his surroundings. The results and dangers of certain thoughtless modes of 

 treatment and early education, and the means which should be taken for 

 eliminating, as far as possible, the numerous barbarous atavisms which are 

 manifested in the human young one are pointed out. Regarding the much- 

 discussed question of the moral nature of the child, Dr. Sully very happily 

 says: " So far from saying that child nature is utterly bad or beautifully 

 perfect, we should say that it is a disorderly jumble of impulses, each push- 

 ing itself upward in lively contest with the others, some toward what is 

 bad, others toward what is good. It is on this motley group of tendencies 

 that the hand of the moral cultivator has to work, selecting, arranging, 

 organizing into a beautiful whole." Some amusing stories, which are told 

 as illustrating various typical characteristics of childhood, form a charm- 

 ing adjunct to the more strictly practical text. The book is extremely inter- 

 esting reading, and should prove suggestive and instructive, especially to 

 mothers, who are as individuals most unfortunately prone to look on the 

 latest comer as simply " my baby," and to lose sight of the future in the 

 immediate emotional pleasure of pleasing him. Dr. Sully suffers some- 

 what from this same fault of over-enthusiasm, occasionally allowing his 

 interest to get the better of his judgment ; but many will consider this a 

 happy fault in these extremely practical days. On the whole it seems to 

 us that this condensation of the " Studies " was well conceived, and that if 

 it gains the circulation its importance deserves we may look to see a marked 

 improvement in the observation and training of children. 



A better characterization can hardly be made of Mr. Means's sober book 

 on Industrial Freedom t than that given by Mr. Wells in the introduction 

 which he furnishes to it. Its aim, he says, is to show that no good can come 

 out of the proposals that are made for legislative interference between em- 

 ployer and employed or out of socialistic schemes. " The author considers 

 the existing methods of distributing the products of human activity by 

 means of the wages system, and demonstrates that it tends to establish 

 working people in a state of independence rather than of subjection ; to 

 promote industrial freedom and not to produce 'industrial slavery.' He 

 shows how intimately the welfare of laborers is connected with the pros- 

 perity of their employers, and how the attempts to diminish the wealth of 

 corporations may diminish the fund of capital out of which laborers are 



* Children's Ways. By James Sully, M. A., LL. D. New York : D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 

 193. Price, $1.25. 



t Industrial Freedom. By David MacGregor Means. With an Introduction by the Hon. David A. 

 Wells. New York : D. Appleton and Company. Pp.248. Price, $1.50. 



