RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 583 



Human Brain during Growth " (Journ. Comp. Neur., vol. xxx, Aug. 1919) ; 

 Moore, " On the Physiological Properties of the Gonads as Controllers of 

 Somatic and Psychical Characteristics : II, Growth of Gonadectomised Male 

 and Female Rats " (Journ. Exp. Zool., vol. xxviii, July 1919) ; Murray, " The 

 Development of the Cardiac Loop in the Rabbit, with Especial Reference to 

 the Duodo- ventricular Groove and Origin of the Interventricular Septum " 

 (Amer. Journ. Anat., vol. xxvi, Sept. 1919) ; Myers, " Studies on the Mammary 

 Gland : IV, The Histology of the Mammary Gland in Male and Female 

 Albino Rats from Birth to Ten Weeks of Age " (ibid., July 191 9) ; Plant, 

 " Factors influencing the Behaviour of the Brain of the Albino Rat in Midler's 

 Fluid " (Journ. Comp. Neur., vol. xxx, Aug. 1919) ; and Takenouchi, " On 

 the Resistance of the Red Corpuscles of Albino Rats at Different Ages to 

 Hypotonic Solutions of Sodium Chloride " (Anat. Rec, vol. xvi, Sept. 1919). 



General. — Danforth has put forward " Evidence that the 

 Germ Cells are Subject to Selection on the Basis of their Genetic 

 Potentialities " (Journ. Exp. Zool., vol. xxviii, July 1919). 

 The method employed was to get fowls of known genetic con- 

 stitution to inhale alcohol vapour, which in the lungs probably 

 passes directly into the blood, and so may be carried to the germ 

 cells. It was found that the relative proportion of certain 

 traits, brachydactyly, Polydactyly, and white colour in the off- 

 spring produced during periods of control and during periods 

 of treatment differed. This selection was found to be more 

 rigorous the more severe the treatment. 



Other papers include : 



Harvey, " Mitotic Division of Binucleate Cells " (Biol. Bull., vol. xxxvii, 

 Aug. 1919) ; Massopust, " A Simple Method of preparing Daylight Glass for 

 Microscopic Work" (Anat. Rec, vol. xvi, Aug. 1919) ; Sumner, "Adapta- 

 tion and the Problem of Organic Purposefulness " (Amer. Nat., vol. liii, 

 July 1919) ; and Castle, " Piebald Rats and Selection " (ibid.). 



EDUCATION. By A. E. Heath, M.A., University, Manchester. 



vSince the publication of Bain's Education as a Science there 

 has been a great change in educational opinion. There used 

 to be a not altogether unreasonable fear, which that work 

 did little to dispel, that any stressing of the science — as opposed 

 to the art — of education would tend to fetter tentative and 

 pliant methods in the bonds of a rigid mechanical schematisa- 

 tion. But that fear was based on a false view of scientific 

 method. Systematisation in any concrete field only proceeds 

 side by side with the empirical garnering of experience ; and 

 thus knowledge of any field of endeavour (and of cognate 

 domains) helps practice, not by presenting it with a set of 

 a priori principles or rules from outside, but by turning the 



