848 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and Jane, badlv. Each of these would- 

 be teachers and guides of the young 

 knew that he, or she, was "guessing" 

 in the most shameless manner — that is 

 to say, practicing one of the very vices 

 to wliich school-children are most prone, 

 and which it is the duty of their teach- 

 ers most earnestly to reprehend and 

 repress. 



Of course, it will be said that the 

 worst cases of ignorance and incom- 

 petency were culled out by the exami- 

 nation ; but the language of the article 

 referred to indicates clearly enough 

 that the general average of the candi- 

 dates was low; and, if so, it may be 

 assumed that many very poorly quali- 

 fied persons crept through and got their 

 certiticates. And this is how the sys- 

 tem is working to-day, when so many 

 improvements on the old order of things 

 are supposed to have been made. We 

 greatly fear that, between the politics 

 that make good teachers insecure, and 

 bad ones secure, in their positions, and 

 examinations that are largely farcical in 

 their character, the interests of the ris- 

 ing generation are not being very intelli- 

 gently or conscientiously studied. Good 

 men and women no doubt there are, 

 and many of them, engaged in tlie State 

 schools ; but these, we fear, can not 

 avail to save the whole system from 

 gravitating to that low point of effi- 

 ciency which marks governmental ac- 

 tion in all matters which lie outside the 

 necessary and natural functions of gov- 

 ernment. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Animal Magnetism. By Alfred Binet and 

 Charles Fkrk. " International Scien- 

 tific Scenes," Vol. LIX. New York : D. 

 Applcton&Co. Pp.378. Price, $1.50. 



Mesmeri.sm, hypnotism, or animal mag- 

 netism, has bad varied fortunes. Forced 

 into the field of scientific discussion about a 

 century ago by the elaborate pretensions of 

 Mesmer. it has been alternately cultivated, 

 condemned, and neqlected by scientific men, 

 and has been fostered chiefly by quacks as 



a ready moans of exciting the admiration 

 and opening the purses of the curious. At 

 present the subject is one of growing in- 

 terest. It is receiving respectful attention 

 generally in the scientific world, and is 

 being studied in a conservative manner by 

 certain specialists. The exceptional advan- 

 tages for the study of nervous j)henomena 

 afforded by the medical practice in the Sal- 

 petri^re, the great hospital for women in 

 Paris, have been employed with important 

 result?. The observations and experiments 

 recorded in the present volume have been 

 made in that hospital, and in accordance 

 with the method inaugurated by M. Charcot, 

 the chief of the school of the SalpetriJsrc. 

 The book aims only to give an account of 

 these researches, and, notwithstanding their 

 number and variety, the authors do not feel 

 that enough material has yet been collected 

 to base general conclusions on. In the first 

 three chapters a history of the subject is 

 given, after which the investigations of 

 Charcot and his pupils are taken up. These 

 observers recognize three chief states of 

 hypnotism : catalcp.«y, lethargy, and arti- 

 ficial somnambulism, the modes of produc- 

 ing which, together with their symptoms, 

 are described. Then follows a study of 

 suggestion, or the power of an experimenter 

 to make a hypnotized subject speak, act, 

 think, and feci as it pleases the former to 

 dictate. Hallucinations affecting each of 

 the senses may be impressed upon the sub- 

 ject, and even unilateral hallucinations may 

 be produced. Suggestions of acts to be 

 performed at once or at some future time 

 may be given, and, though the acts may be 

 repugnant to the subject, he can not refrain 

 from performing them. Insensibility to 

 touch, and even to the pain of a surgical 

 operation, may be produced by suggestion, 

 and motor paralysis as well. All these 

 phases of the subject arc illustrated by a 

 great variety of cases. Attention is called 

 in the two closing chapters to certain appli- 

 cations of hypnotism. First, hypnotism may 

 become a valuable curative agent for real 

 diseases caused by the imagination, which 

 appear in persons liaving a certain weak- 

 ness of the nervous system. This fact 

 throws light on the subject of miraculous 

 cures and mental healing, which has recent- 

 ly attracted so much attention. Second, it 



