850 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nary work to be done before any such 

 ideal can be embodied, and this is the 

 very practical work of enlightening 

 public opinion so as to bring it to bear 

 in improving the existing educational 

 system. There are great impediments 

 to change. Institutions are conserva- 

 tive, and tend to assimilate and subju- 

 gate the men who othcer them. The 

 noisy reformer is generally quenched 

 by an appointment. His ideals are 

 dissipated in the presence of refractory 

 facts. A great machine system of pub- 

 lic instruction, established by the State, 

 and supported by general taxation, is 

 too strongly intrenched to be easily 

 altered. It resists improvement by the 

 inertia of established habits, by official 

 sluggishness, and a foolish pride that 

 will not acknowledge defects. That 

 upon which millions have been spent, 

 and out of which thousands get a living, 

 is sure to be strenuously defended and 

 carefully conserved. Reform must be 

 forced from without, and nothing but 

 a better instructed pubhc opinion can 

 give us better schools. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



THE INTERNATIOXAL SCIENTIFIC SE- 

 RIES, NO. XXVIII. 



The Crayfish : An Introduction to the 

 Study of Zoology, with 82 Illustrations. 

 By t. H. Huxley, F. R. S. Pp. 371. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. Price, 



The purpose of this book will probably 

 be better brought out by an inversion of 

 the title so that it shall read, " The Study 

 of Zoology as exemplified in the Crayfish." 

 The work is a contribution to scientific edu- 

 cation in the biological field, and conforms 

 to the modern and now well-settled method 

 of passing from the study of concrete de- 

 tails to the investigation of general princi- 

 ples. Instead of beginning with proposi- 

 tions which are the outcome of past inquiry 

 concerning living things as a whole, the stu- 

 dent, on the other, hand, commences by 

 making himself familiar with some one par- 



ticular organism, and, having mastered the 

 elementary facts by direct acquaintance and 

 actual knowledge, he then uses this knowl- 

 edge in extending the range of his studies 

 to other organisms and their relations in 

 the animal kingdom. Professor Huxley has 

 taken the crayfish as the creature best suited 

 for the accomplishment of this object. The 

 information in relation to it is full and val- 

 uable, but the book has not been made 

 merely as a monograph on the natural his- 

 tory of this crustacean. Its aim is to lead 

 the student through a large portion of the 

 field of scientific biology, in such a way that 

 he will certainly and thoroughly know the 

 subject ; and the crayfish is chosen to attain 

 this end because, all things considered, it is 

 the best-fitted animal to do this. It would 

 be misleading to represent this book as in 

 the ordinary sense a popular one. It un- 

 doubtedly contains a good deal of informa- 

 tion pertaining to natural history which will 

 be read with general interest, but it was the 

 well-defined purpose of the author in its care- 

 ful preparation to make a book for biological 

 students that should introduce them aright 

 to the pursuit of their science, and, as the 

 author says, they can only gain its intended 

 advantages by going through the volume, 

 " crayfish in hand." Immense labor has 

 been bestowed upon the work in bringing it 

 into its proper, simphfied, and thoroughly 

 methodical shape, and no doubt Professor 

 Huxley could have written a work for the 

 " International Series " with half the efPort 

 he has here expended. But he has chosen 

 to avail himself of this channel of communi- 

 cation with different countries to give a new 

 impulse and higher direction to the study 

 of that comprehensive and most important 

 science to which he has devoted his life. 

 Mere book-education and half-knowledge he 

 would, no doubt, admit to be better than 

 nothing, but he would maintain that they 

 are only tolerable as they tend to prepare 

 for genuine and soUd scientific acquisi- 

 tions. 



Huxley's " Crayfish " will at once become 

 the text-book of classes which desire to en- 

 ter the field of natural history by the right 

 path ; and it may be very strongly recom-, 

 mended to groups of young people forming 

 clubs or voluntary classes to pursue the 

 study by the method of self-instruction. It 

 is a book, indeed, better suited than any 



