462 



NATURE 



[August 15, 19 18 



the Scotsman, and having in the University 

 many true friends, -among whom Prof. Masson 

 shines out conspicuously, the women students 

 were finally driven to seek redress in the courts. 

 One is appalled by the lengths to which an in- 

 stitution existing to riiinister to the desire for 

 education went in its efforts to thwart and repress 

 it. The University defended the suit, ultimately 

 with success, on the ground that it had ex- 

 ceeded its legal powers when in 1869 it 

 framed regulations admitting women ! These 

 legal proceedings form not the least instructive 

 chapter. The womeh first won, but by a bare 

 majority In a court of thirteen judges lost on 

 appeal, the University being absolved from all re- 

 sponsibility to its matriculated women students, 

 who were mulcted in the costs. As one of the 

 dissenting judges ruled in his judgment, this puts 

 the onus of defending the laws of the University, 

 when their lawfulness is challenged, on the 

 student who obeys them rather than on the 

 authority that framed them. The University 

 Court which framed the regulations it after- 

 wards prayed to have declared illegal contained 

 many learned in the law. To quote the Times 

 letter already referred to : " It is a tolerably strik- 

 ing instance of ' the glorious uncertainty of the 

 law ' that the two highest judges in the land 

 should concur in an action which is subsequently 

 declared by a majority of their brethren to be 

 illegal." Thus the Edinburgh battle ended. After 

 Parliament had intervened and London University 

 and the Irish Colleges had led the way, the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh twenty-five years later, in 

 1894, reopened its doors to women without further 

 demur. 



It would be diflficult, after reading these pro- 

 ceedings, to retain much faith in the essential, 

 integrity of our laws and institutions and their 

 suitability for the existing age. Were it not that 

 precisely similar tactics are still available when- 

 ever an ancient university is confronted by a 

 modern need, one could wish that the author, 

 as she must often have been tempted to do, had 

 given up the task of putting this indictment on 

 record. As it is, a perusal of the book will serve 

 to explain to many how it is that the ancient uni- 

 versities can lag so far behind the spirit of the age, 

 and can drag the country with them even to the 

 brink of national extinction. At a time when it 

 is imperative for a century of arrears to be made 

 up and great numbers of really educated men and 

 women to be turned out to carry on and modernise 

 the State, the old universities remain much as 

 they were, paralysed by the past, and probably 

 even less well disposed to change than they were 

 fifty years ago. The exuberant, strange, and new- 

 vitalities which the growth of human knowledge 

 and power has called into being within the 

 last century hammer away at them from without. 

 Monuments of bygone days, they remain change- 

 less and resistant as marble, owning no law other 

 than crystallised convention, no logic save that of 

 the stricken blow. Is it always to remain a dream, • 

 Pygmalion-like, to desire them alive, the brain 

 NO. 2546, VOL. lOl] 



im- 

 bert 



and heart of the age resident within their walls, 

 and the elements of growth fostered rather than 

 exorcised? The hardihood of the aspiration, 

 rather than any hope of its fulfilment. Is the abid- 

 ing impression left by this record of pioneer 

 achievement, epic of "progress" and "victory" 

 though it be. Frederick Soddv. 



APPLIED BIOLOGY 

 (i) Mind and the Nation: A Prdcis of Applied 

 Psychology. By J. H. Parsons. Pp. 154. 

 (London: J. Bale, Sons, and Danielsson, Ltd., 

 1918.) Price 75. 6d. net. 

 (2) The Third and Fourth Generation: An Intro- 

 duction to Heredity. By E. R. Downing. 

 Pp. xi+164. (Chic, 111., Univ. of Chicago 

 Press; London: Camb. Univ. Press, 1918.) 

 Price I dollar net. 

 (i)"\^7ITH special reference to present and 

 ,* » minent problems, Mr. J. Her 

 Parsons makes a plea for the more strenuous and 

 widespread study of psychology — " the Cinderella 

 of the Sciences ' '■ — as a basis for clear thinking 

 and progressive action. He sketches the evolution 

 of behaviour, the ascent of man, the development 

 of the individual mind, the growth of social con- 

 sciousness, and the general trend of human 

 history. With this impressionist survey as a 

 background, he proceeds to show how the results 

 of analytical and genetic psychology may be 

 utilised towards an increasing understanding and 

 an improved organisation of education, industry, 

 and politics. To control effectively we must first 

 of all understand the facts of the case, and we 

 are handicapping our understanding by paying too 

 little heed to psychology. .Between biology on 

 one hand and sociology on the other, psycho- 

 logy has a role of essential Importance. Mr. 

 Parsons states his case temperately and clearly, 

 and we heartily recommend his timely volume to 

 all interested in reconstruction and reorganisation. 

 It is not for learned just persons, who need no 

 repentance, but it will be useful to humbler people 

 who wish to face the facts. It would be valuable 

 to biologists of the materialistic school, who think 

 that the psychological aspect is an efflorescence 

 that does not count, and also to politicians who, 

 while recognising that ideas have hands and feet, 

 do not think a resolute study of social psychology 

 necessary. 



(2) Mr. Downlng's excellent introduction to the 

 study of heredity Is an encouraging sign of the 

 times. It is one of the "constructive studies" 

 Included in "The University of Chicago Publica- 

 tions in Religious Education," the editors of 

 which are convinced that "faith must not operate 

 apart from knowledge." We read in the editors' 

 preface that " nothing can be more important in 

 religious education than to train young people to 

 use the careful methods of science in ascertaining 

 the facts upon which their conclusions, not less In 

 morals and religion than in other fields, are always 

 to be based." The book has been prepared for 

 young people's classes, and it would serve effec- 



