700 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stimulation of virtue or the building of 

 character ? 



Still, we quite hold with those who 

 consider that the schools ought to aim 

 at the production of good citizens, and 

 that, for this purpose, they should teach, 

 with such resources as they can com- 

 mand, the principles of right conduct. 

 The book before us will be useful to 

 those who desire help in this direction. 

 Mr. Gilman has excellent chapters on 

 " Life under Law," " Obedience to 

 Moral Law," "Self-control," "Truth- 

 fulness," etc., etc. ; and Mr. E. P. Jack- 

 son, who contributes the second half of 

 the book, throws his discussion of very 

 much the same topics into the form of a 

 series of dialogues between a teacher 

 and his pupils. Each writer has done 

 his work well, and the teacher who has 

 the will to teach his or her scholars 

 what is right will find the whole book 

 very profitable. 



We return, however, to the point 

 with which we set out, that parental 

 influence to-day in the moral education 

 of children counts for too little. Mr. 

 Gilman tells us that " numerous edu- 

 cators " object to giving any special in- 

 struction in morals, alleging that that is 

 the parent's business. He might have 

 told us, we are persuaded, from his own 

 knowledge, that still more parents are 

 disposed to shuffle off all responsibility 

 for the moral education of their children 

 on the schools. What the effect of the 

 double disclaimer of responsibility is 

 likely to be may readily be determined. 

 If the clergy, instead of making futile 

 demands for the teaching of theological 

 dogmas in the schools, would try to 

 rouse the minds of their adherents and 

 followers to a sense of their personal re- 

 sponsibility for their children's charac- 

 ters, they miglit accomplish a more use- 

 ful work. This is something which they 

 should preach in season and out of sea- 

 son ; and if they would do so with the 

 earnesrness which the occasion demands, 

 the effect might in a few years be seen 

 in the altered moral tone of a portion of 



the public-school teachers themselves; 

 and thus, concurrently with the eleva- 

 tion of the home, we should have a 

 notable improvement in the work of 

 moral education as carried on in the 

 schools. Keform the home, and the 

 whole face of society will be reformed. 



EVOLUTION AND INTELLIGENCE. 



We publish in another column a let- 

 ter from a correspondent who thinks 

 that, in our article entitled Evolution 

 and its Assailants, in the January Table, 

 we cast a slur upon the intelligence of 

 those who do not, in the fullest sense, 

 accept the doctrine of evolution. The 

 following is the statement to which 

 our correspondent objects : " Every 

 man within certain limits is an evo- 

 lutionist, and we have little hesitation 

 in saying that the limits within which 

 each man is an evolutionist are the real 

 limits of his intelligence." We hardly 

 thought this would be misunderstood, 

 but it evidently has been by one per- 

 son at least. The word "intelligence" 

 has two very familiar meanings. In 

 one application it means the power a 

 given individual has of comprehending 

 things in general, and thus expresses a 

 personal quality. This is the sense in 

 wliicli we did not employ the word. 

 Again, it may mean the act or function 

 of understanding, and this was the sense 

 in which we did employ it. To say in 

 this sense that " the limits within which 

 each man is an evolutionist are the real 

 limits of his intelligence," is to say that 

 beyond those limits he ceases to tinder- 

 stand. We wonder that a man who 

 professes to be so widely read In phi- 

 losophy and science as our correspond- 

 ent should not have perceived that this 

 was our meaning, and not that a man 

 begins to be stupid T^ust where he ceases 

 to believe in evolution. The passages 

 which our correspondent cites from some 

 of his favorite authorities prove that we 

 were exactly right in the position we 

 took up, for they all go to show that, in 

 the chain of events which make up the 



