BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Civic Biology. — We believe that the appearance of this book^ sets 

 a new mark in biological pedagogy, for until now no work has appeared 

 so bold as this in attack, so intensely practical, so oblivious of the 

 aesthetic and cultural. 



After five months review and personal reference to it we are frank 

 to say that for a beginning course in biology or for work with younger 

 pupils it is unfit because its bacteria are all pathogenic, its insects are 

 all noxious, its mammals are all pests, its plants are nearly all weeds, 

 and living is entirely a series of problems. Some years ago experience 

 with a similar course led us to say, "Never again." It is too morbid 

 for first impressions with pupils or students of any grade and its treat- 

 ment is unfair to general biology, being highly specialized in certain 

 phases and omitting completely certain other subjects and types. 

 For example, the honey bee gets one page of text, ants seven ; the silk- 

 worm none, mosquitoes twelve; weeds, drugs, and medicinal plants get 

 nine pages while the apple, wheat and corn are only casually men- 

 tioned. In one short paragraph occur these terms; phagocytes, 

 opsonins, autogenous bacterins, and opsonic index. In a later sen- 

 tence are listed seventeen diseases now curable by a/i^i-treatment ; in 

 the context this is statistical rather than educational. Page 348 

 quotes an agnostic newspaper article by an unfrocked minister in itself 

 remarkably good, but, we opine, entirely unfit for immature thinkers. 



While it is possible that enthusiasm for the subject has led the au- 

 thors to incorporate material of debatable interpretation, as Bezzola's 

 work on alcoholic conceptions, yet they have license, for altogether 

 too long have schools, teachers, and lay readers ignored the practical 

 and the personal applications of scientific knowledge. Civic Biology 

 will tend to counteract this. Personally we wish that the authors had 

 done more with genetics and eugenics, for material is now available; 

 the origin and treatment of the pauper, deficient, and criminal classes 

 are surely civic problems. Since this is not a book for secondary 



'Hodge, C. F., and Dawson, Jean. Civic Biology, pp. 381, figs. 166. Boston, 

 Ginn and Company, 1918 ($1.60). 



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THE PLANT WORLD, VOL. 21, NO. 10 



