REVIEWS 



Outlines of Chemistry with Practical Work. First Part. Second Edition. By 

 Henry John Horstman Fenton, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S. [Pp. viii + 410.] 

 (Cambridge : at the University Press, 1910. Price gs. net.) 



We are grateful to Dr. Fenton for this book — it is more than refreshing to meet 

 with a teacher who makes some attempt to be logical and who ostensibly 

 advocates freedom and breadth of opinion, for the world to-day is in a strange 

 state : owing to the influence secured by school-master and school-marm and by the 

 press, one uniform tone of thought — perhaps it were better said of thoughtlessness 

 — is beginning to possess the nations. Over the great North American continent, 

 for example, the boys all wear clothes of like pattern and the girls all seem 

 to be framed in the same pair of stays— there is no other way of accounting 

 for the similarity of figure and deportment that meets the eye north, south, east 

 and west ; no matter how hot and sunny the weather may be, the straw hat is 

 doffed on the first of October in obedience to a rigid public opinion. Little 

 wonder that a people that suffers hand-me-downs and has developed no philosophy 

 of clothes should lack the sense of freedom and the courage to deal with the 

 social abuses by which it is hampered : hence perhaps the value of a Roosevelt 

 and the admiration accorded to his masterful ways. 



Science so-called offers no exception to social habits — civilised Europe and 

 America too are at present all but dominated by fashions set by a certain clique 

 of "scientific" leaders, who are as little guided by broad philosophical conceptions, 

 such as the early fathers followed, as are the Worths of our fashionable world. 

 In the days of Liebig, science was studied at the bench : to-day it is spoon-fed 

 to students in lecture rooms and from text-books. An age of idolatry is once 

 more upon us — we have discovered a new Baal in the Examination Demon and 

 worship him furiously, the offerings being the fees paid by parents and the spoiled 

 lives of examinees —sacrifices more real perhaps than those of olden times. 



Dr. Fenton is a sort of chemical knight-errant, his attitude being one of protest 

 against the modern spirit of idolatry. The manner in which he deprecates the 

 development of dogmatic habits is certainly most unusual, his " pay-your-money- 

 andtake-your-choice,-gentlemen " attitude being delightfully inspiring and in 

 marked contrast to that of writers of the modern intolerant, unobservant chemical- 

 physical school, whose books unfortunately flood the market at the present time 

 and make all genuine "inquisitive" practical study of our science impossible. 



" As regards those subjects about which there is any reasonable difterence 

 of opinion, the attempt is made to adopt a wholly impartial attitude. It will 

 be generally admitted that one of the peculiar advantages of a chemical education 

 lies in the opportunity and encouragement that it affords for originality and 



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