7 o8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



more exact knowledge, a point mathematicians, ever in search of more rigorous 

 proofs, will appreciate. Scripture was merely taught as a development of the sense 

 of right ; stress was laid on the importance of learning language rather than 

 languages. Mathematics was taught as a single branch of knowledge, and pupils 

 encouraged to state problems as well as to solve them. Geography and history 

 were regarded as two parts of one and the same problem, the interrelation 

 between man's environment and his activities ; physical geography proper went 

 with the science lesson, and mathematical geography with mathematics. Science 

 was taught as a whole and regarded as an outlook on life, and the practical was 

 always taken as a basis for the starting of new work. 



Thus the study of the formation of rocks and soils in the geography of the 

 world was rendered real by an analysis of the commoner rocks and soils, specimens 

 of which were collected from different parts of the country. These samples were 

 utilised for experiments in plant life, and finally flower fertilisation was made to 

 lead up to eugenics and the teaching of sex. Insistence was laid on character 

 training being a positive thing, and not the mere acquisition of a certain number 

 of social tabus. Morality was further taught not by ignoring the savage who 

 lurks in the soul of every child, but by explaining to the latter that this primitive 

 self needed training and manners to fit the individual for civilised society. 

 Natural history was thus utilised to show its relation to morals. Highly interesting 

 as the experiment was, and containing much of great value, it broke down for 

 what appears to us a very simple reason. While having largely solved the 

 problems of imparting general culture, Ford had not seen the necessity for the 

 school to provide a preparation for livelihood as well as for life. 



Cloudesley Brereton. 



A Short History of Science. By W. T. Sedgwick, Professor of Biology, and 

 H. W. Tyler, Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, Cambridge, New York. [Pp. xv, with 14 illustrations.] 

 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1917. Price 12s. bd. net.) 



The motto of this book is a quotation from Sarton, that "The history of science 

 should be the leading thread in the history of civilisation." One would think that 

 every man and woman should be so proud of the achievements of mankind in 

 science that they would prefer to read of its triumphs rather than to read of the 

 slaughter of their fellows, the actions of brigands and buccaneers, and the silly 

 doings of the nobodies about whom novelists like to tell us so much. The fact is, 

 however, that not one person in a hundred knows anything about even the greatest 

 epochs of scientific history. 



The subject is a large one, and the present book pretends only to be a short 

 history ; but. we can heartily commend it, not only to the perusal of young persons, 

 but for the libraries of men of science. The authors generally adopt the plan of 

 considerable quotations from leading authorities on each part of the subject, and 

 we are very grateful to them for inserting a short bibliography at the end of each 

 chapter. They also give an excellent appendix containing transcripts of some ot 

 the most important scientific pronouncements, such as the oath of Hippocrates, 

 Newton's Preface to his Principia Afatkematica, Jenner's Enquiry into Cowpox, 

 an extract from Lyell's Principles of Geology, and so on ; and add a table of the 

 most important dates in science and in general history, literature, and art. 

 There is a good index. The book itself begins with a brief account of the early 

 civilisation as disclosed by archaeology and anthropology. Surely the authors are 

 very modest in ascribing an age of only 250,000 years to mankind, and there 



