August 5, 1920" 



NATURE 



•07 



Our Bookshelf. 



Die Gliederung der Australischen Sprachen : Geo- 

 graphische, hibliographische, linguistische 

 Grundziige der Erforschung der australischen 

 Sprachen. By P. W. Schmidt. Pp. xvi + 299. 

 (St. Gabriel-Modling- bei Wien : Anthropos, 

 1919.) 



In this reprint from Anthropos Father Schmidt 

 discusses the structure and classification of the 

 AustraUan languages. Of these he distinguishes 

 two main divisions, the South Australian and the 

 North Australian. The former comprises the 

 languages of the southern halves of Western and 

 South Australia, of Victoria and New South 

 Wales, and the greater (southern) part of 

 Queensland. The North Australian occupies 

 North-west and Central Australia, the Northern 

 Territory, and Cape York Peninsula. The 

 southern languages are subdivided into twelve 

 groups, the northern into three. 



The establishment of the South Australian is 

 based mainly on the likeness of grammar and the 

 occurrence in the languages of similar words for 

 names of parts of the body and personal pro- 

 nouns. The differences in the various subdivisions 

 are found to run parallel with the sociological 

 grouping. They consist chiefly in the character of 

 the finals, which are vocalic where the purely two- 

 class system and mother-right prevail. In the 

 west, north-east, and centre the finals l, n, r are 

 found with the four-class system, and the two- 

 class system in the south-east is found where the 

 languages have final explosives and double con- 

 sonants. 



The northern languages are similarly grouped 

 according to their final consonants. In the north- 

 west and north, consonantal finals are common, 

 around Carpentaria I, n, and r are found as finals, 

 and vocalic endings are common in Central Aus- 

 tralia and Cape York Peninsula. But isolated 

 members of the groups are found all over 

 northern Australia. 



Father Schmidt's work is a valuable summary 

 and exposition of the tangle of Australian lingu- 

 istics. But the nature of the material is so un- 

 certain that there will always be a doubt as 10 

 whether the similarities of the South Australian 

 languages here formulated may not be due to 

 their geographical contiguity, one language bor- 

 rowing vocabulary from others, and all alike 

 gradually assuming the same morphological form. 



S. H. Ray. 



A First Book of School Celebrations. By Dr. 



F. H. Hayward. Pp. 167. (London: P. S. 



King and Son, Ltd., 1920.) Price 55. 

 This is a sequel to "The Spiritual Foundations 

 of Reconstruction," and shows in further detail 

 how some of the suggestions of that interesting 

 book will work out in practice. It may be recalled 

 that the authors — Dr. Hayward and Mr. Freeman 

 — there insisted on the obviously sound idea 

 that in school education more should be made 

 of the emotional, artistic, dramatic, and social 

 NO. 2649, VOL. 105] 



approach. They believe, indeed, in scientific 

 and historical wall-charts, the gist of which 

 seeps in to the mind through the eye ; they believe 

 in lessons that appeal to the reason — the lessons 

 which bear so little fruit that many of us are 

 often inclined to disbelieve in them ; but their 

 hope is in a vast extension of the principle already 

 embodied in Empire Day, Shakespeare Day, and 

 St. David's Day celebrations. Dr. Hayward 

 looks forward in the present book to a national 

 school liturgy of the Bible, literature, music, 

 and ceremonial. The ceremonials would be 

 predominantly oral rather than visual, con- 

 sisting largely of reading and recitartion, song and 

 story ; they will be memorial, expository, seasonal, 

 and ethical. It must not be supposed that the 

 author's suggestions depreciate the appeal to 

 reason or propose to codify the emotions ; what 

 is suggested is wise and well thought out. We 

 know a little about schools, and our conviction is 

 that the methods suggested would grip in a way 

 that nothing except the teacher's personal influ- 

 ence has hitherto done. They would grip because 

 they are psychologically sound. The celebrations 

 outlined are skilfully devised, but individual 

 teachers would of course vary them. They deal 

 with Shakespeare, the League of Nations, Demo- 

 cracy, St. Paul, bards and seers, world con- 

 querors, Samson, eugenics, temperance, com- 

 merce, summer, flying, Chaucer, Spenser. The 

 author has made a notable contribution to the 

 experimental study of education. To test the 

 value of this contribution is an urgent duty, for 

 the school is not very perfect as it is. 



New Zealand Plants and their Story. By Dr. L. 

 Cockayne. Second edition, rewritten and en- 

 larged. (New Zealand Board of Science and 

 Art. Manual No. I.) Pp. xv -1-248. (Welling- 

 ton, N.Z. : Dominion Museum, 1919.) Price 

 75. 6d. 

 The earlier edition of this book, published in 1910, 

 was described as the first attempt to deal with the 

 plant life of the New Zealand biological region on 

 ecological lines. The second edition is virtually 

 a new book. As an instance, the number of 

 photographs which form so helpful an addition to 

 the text has been increased to ninety-nine, and 

 fifty of these did not appear in the original work. 

 But the author and his subject are the same, and 

 no one is so well qualified to describe New Zealand 

 plant ecology as Dr. Cockayne. 



An introductory chapter gives an account of the 

 history of the botanical exploration of the islands 

 from the first visit of Banks and Solander in 1769. 

 Successive chapters are devoted to the various 

 phases of vegetation — the sea-coast, the forests, 

 the grass-lands, high mountains, and others — and 

 a brief account of the vegetation of the outlymg 

 islands is given. The author discusses the changes 

 which have taken place in the vegetation since 

 the advent of the British, and strongly opposes 

 the idea that the original New Zealand flora is in 

 danger of being crushed out by European immi- 

 grants. On the contrary, practically " no truly 



