92 



NA TURE 



[July 21, 1923 



child is rather more intelhgent, vivacious, and self- 

 assertive and considerably more athletic than the 

 less healthy, but the physical characters (head measure- 

 ments, hair, eye colour, etc.) show no relation on which 

 stress could be laid. In the course of the work the 

 author sums up in general terms what the statistics 

 show to be the athletic and the popular child. The 

 latter is intelligent, conscientious, athletic, healthy and 

 good-natured or quick-tempered rather than sullen : 

 self-assertive children are a little less popular than the 

 shy. Red-haired boys and wavy-haired girls enjoy 

 a large share of popularity but in other respects appear- 

 ance seems unimportant. The athletic child may be 

 summed up as a " healthy, reasonably intelligent, and 

 fairly conscientious, if somewhat self-assertive and 

 undoubtedly noisy child who is quick-tempered, but 

 not sullen ... in several respects better, in none 

 worse, than the average child." 



No one will, in all probability, cavil at these results, 

 but Prof. Pearson before reaching them had to examine 

 the effect of age on the various characters, and in this 

 part of his work he comes to conclusions which, he 

 seems to think, will find less ready acceptance. These 

 conclusions are that general intelHgence and a variety 

 of psychical characters seem to be unchanged through- 

 out school life, that general health changes exceedingly 

 little during the same period and the statistics do 

 not support the " widely-spread opinion that Health 

 is a governing factor of temperament." Our surprise 

 is not so much at the results as at the expectation of 

 disagreement. As general intelligence is described as 

 a measure of capacity and not of acquired knowledge, 

 the teacher's work is, in a sense, eliminated from the 

 calculation, and surely any masters or mistresses may 

 feel satisfied if school influence teaches control of temper 

 although it cannot make the quick-tempered child 

 into an even-tempered one. The author's analogy 

 is to the point : you will need to harden, temper, 

 and grind your chisel if it is to become efficient for 

 its task, but no amount of treatment will permanently 

 convert bad steel into good steel. With regard to 

 the conclusion that general health changes little with 

 age, this might have been anticipated, because rates 

 of. mortality and sickness increase but little with the 

 age during the years of school life, and the " widely- 

 spread opinion " to which reference is made by Prof. 

 Pearson is perhaps the outcome of a kindly wish to 

 make excuses for the temperamental shortcomings of 

 an unhealthy person. But, after all, the only practical 

 way of reaching conclusions on such matters is by 

 collecting evidence from samples of the population 

 as Prof. Pearson has done, and the conclusions so 

 reached are preferable to those general impressions 

 on which people form their opinions regardless of the 



NO. 2803, VOL. 112] 



fact that few of us take account of all the cases that 

 pass before us, but are tempted to rely on the relatively 

 small part of the experience, which by its rarity rather 

 than its frequency creates an impression. \ 



The Memoir was prepared as a lecture, and while 

 giving a careful discussion of the statistical problems, 

 etc., it contains remarks intended to make it attractive 

 to a listener : these lighter touches make it easier, 

 but no less pleasant reading than some of the more 

 severely mathematical work that has been published 

 in the same series. 



This brings us to another aspect of the Memoir to 

 which we may direct attention. It is the latest of 

 a very large number of productions that bear the name 

 of the Drapers' Company. For twenty years or so, 

 papers have been written and issued from Univer- 

 sity College with the help of this Company. The 

 Memoirs include much original work on the theory 

 of statistics ; the three volumes on albinism with 

 which Nettleship and Usher were largely concerned — 

 a storehouse of information — monographs on anthro- 

 pometric subjects, many technical papers, studies 

 in fertility and disease, and, in some respects as 

 important as any of these, the tracts for computers 

 and the volume of tables for statisticians. It would 

 have been a great output for the period for any depart- 

 ment — even if its other activities were ignored — but 

 it would have been an impossibility if there had been 

 no financial help available. The Drapers' Company 

 has helped science in other ways, and it must be 

 gratifying to such generous givers to see the help 

 used to so good a purpose, and to know, as surely the 

 Company must, that its gift is appreciated, for the 

 help it affords to scientific research, by many people 

 besides those connected with the Department or the 

 College to which the grant is actually made. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Hutchinson's Splendour of the Heavens : a Popular 

 Authoritative Astronomy. Edited by T. E. R. PhiUips. 

 (In about 24 Fortnightly Parts.) Part i. Pp. 48. 

 Part 2. Pp. 49-88. Part 3. Pp. 89-128. (London: 

 Hutchinson and Co., 1923.) is. ^d. net each part. 



The name of the editor of this serial, the secretary of 

 the Royal Astronomical Society, is a sufficient guarantee 

 of the excellence of the work. As collaborators he has 

 gathered together a band of observing members of 

 the Society, each an expert in one or other of the 

 subjects which will constitute the work. The salient 

 feature of the parts which have appeared is the 

 beauty of the plates and of the illustrations which 

 are scattered so lavishly over their pages. Sources 

 both ancient and modem have contributed a veritable 

 picture galler>- of the science. This will appeal to 

 both young and old, to the student, and not less to 

 the adept. 



