BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Applied Biology. — It is the good fortune of the authors of this book 1 

 to have produced a text that, in larger measure than any other text 

 yet published, meets the requirements of a high school course in biology. 

 In the first place the title is not a misnomer. It is a book on biology, 

 and not two books in ooe binding, one on botany and the other on zoology. 

 It is also, in a broad and scholarly way, "applied." The author recog- 

 nizes that there are applications of fundamental importance in other 

 than the commercial sense, and which have reference "to human life in 

 its combined intellectual, aesthetic, economic, and hygienic outlook." 

 The entire book is, in effect, a protest against the unfortunate present 

 day tendency to commercialise the high school course of study, and espe- 

 cially the science portion of it. 



In Part I (pp. 1-144) the pupil is introduced to the Principles of Biol- 

 ogy; in Part II (pp. 145-298) he studies illustrations of these principles 

 as embodied in types of plants; in Part III (pp. 299-454), as embodied 

 in types of animals; and in Part IV (pp. 455-573) as applied to human 

 structure and life. It is of interest to note how a different order of topics 

 is handled with equal pedagogical advantage in Parts II and III, the 

 stud}- of plants proceeding down the scale from higher to lower; that of 

 animals, up the scale from lower to higher. The Gordian knot of the 

 best order of topics has been cut, — the only way Gordian knots are ever 

 successfully gotten rid of : it ought now to be recognized as non-existant 

 for every one. Doubtless the author would be among the first to assert 

 that his treatment might have been reversed with entire success, going 

 from the structurally complex to the structurally simple with animals, 

 and vice versa with plants. 



No doubt the above encomiums will have more force if attention is 

 called to a few unpraised points, ferreted out of the mass of good with 

 some difficult}". On pages 6 and 7, element, molecule, and atom are 

 used, but so far as the reviewer can find, nowhere in the book defined. 



1 Bigelow, Maurice A. and Anna X.. Applied Biology: An Elementary Textbook 

 and Laboratory Guide. Pp. xi +583, figs. 166. New York, The Maemillan Com- 

 pany, 1911 ($1.40). 



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