686 



NATURE 



[January 27, 192 1 



more than one and a half miUion pounds — almost 

 exactly the amount that friends of McGill Univer- 

 sity recently collected in the same number of weeks 

 as the result of their appeal for further endow- 

 ment. The benefactions to university institutions 

 in the United States amount annually, indeed, to 

 at least ten times what is received from private 

 sources in our islands for like purposes. It can- 

 not be said, therefore, that the field of private 

 benefaction here has been exhausted, but only that 

 it has not yet been stimulated into action as it has 

 been in the United States. Whatever the reason, 

 our millionaires, with few exceptions, have not 

 shown that belief in higher education which is 

 common across the Atlantic, and of which every 

 week brings us further examples. 



These are difficult days in which to extract 

 support for higher education from local rate- 

 payers, yet something might be done to adjust the 

 charge more evenly in some parts of the country. 

 County authorities often leave the boroughs in 

 which university institutions exist to bear the 

 greater part of the burden, though students from 

 their areas partake freely of the advantages 

 offered. The time has come when a complete 

 survey should be made of the present position as 

 regards the provision of higher education in all 

 parts of the country, the habitations of the 

 students, contributions of local authorities, and 

 related matters. It might then be possible to 

 secure equitable payment in rates for benefits 

 received. 



Failing substantial gifts from private benefactors, 

 and with the ratepayer unwilling to add to his com- 

 mitments, universities must turn to the Treasury 

 for further support if they are to continue to exist. 

 The Civil Service Estimates for 1920-21 included 

 a total grant of i,ooo,oooZ. to be paid out of the 

 Exchequer for the maintenance of university in- 

 stitutions in the United Kingdom. This grant is 

 inadequate to enable the universities to fulfil effi- 

 ciently the duties w-hich have been placed upon 

 them. The bulk of the students — more than 

 25,000 out of 40,000 — are ex-Service men receiv- 

 ing maintenance grants from the Government. 

 The State has undertaken to provide for the train- 

 ing of these students, and the universities ought 

 not to be left to face the financial difficulties in 

 which they are involved chiefly because of the 

 additional provision they have to make for means 

 of instruction. Assuming the expenditure to be 

 as economical as efficiency will permit, it would 

 seem but an act of common justice for the 

 Treasury grant to be increased to meet it while 

 NO. 2674, VOL. 106] 



the ex-Service men are under training. While we 

 trust that the recent appeals will meet with m6st 

 generous support from rich citizens, we suggest 

 that the State should also accept more fully its 

 responsibility for the desperate condition in which 

 many university institutions now find themselves. 



The Theory and Practice of Psycho- 

 analysis. 



(i) The Elements of Practical Psycho-analysis . By 

 P. Bousfield. Pp. xii -f 276. (London : Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Trubner, and Co., Ltd., 1920.) 

 Price 10s. 6d. net. 



(2) Psychoneuroses of War and Peace: Thesis Ap- 

 proved for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine in 

 the University of London. By Dr. Millais 

 Culpin. Pp. vii-t-i27. (Cambridge: At the 

 University Press, 1920.) Price 10s. net. 



(3) A Manual of Psychiatry. Edited by Dr. A. J. 

 Rosanoff. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged. 

 Pp. XV -t- 684. (New York : John Wiley and 

 Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 

 1920.) Price 225. net. 



THE subject of psycho-analysis is one that is 

 looming very large on the psychological 

 horizon at the moment, and as these three books 

 have a considerable bearing on the matter, a few 

 words on the general principles involved may not 

 be out of place. 



Meaning literally an analysis of the mind, the 

 application of the term has come to be limited to 

 a special technique originated and elaborated by 

 Freud and his followers. It has long been known 

 that the mind is capable of many activities which 

 may be quite outside the consciousness of the in- 

 dividual concerned, and Janet, the French psychi- 

 atrist, pointed out that the curious losses of memory 

 and other symptoms occurring in cases of hysteria 1 

 were due to a splitting up or a dissociation of | 

 the mind. This dissociation was regarded as 

 a purely passive disruptive process owing 

 to the difficulty found by the individual in making 

 a satisfactory adjustment to certain environmental 

 factors. Freud, however, introduced the concep- 

 tion of an active process of splitting of the mind 

 which he described as repression. His theory was 

 to the effect that an unpleasant experience which, 

 if retained in the memory, would disturb the equi- ^ 

 librium and peace of the conscious mind was liable 

 to be repressed, and thenceforward to be retained 

 in the unconscious mind with the limitation of 

 being unrecallable to consciousness. 



Such repressed ideas or memories still, however, 

 had the power of influencing the stream of con- 

 sciousness, and particularly if they were associated 

 with the experience of a vivid, emotional reaction 



