214 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8::,— May, 1912 



The present writer has undertaken to summarize our knowl- 

 edge along these several lines and indicate the educational bearing. 

 The book contains extensive quotations from writers on these 

 subjects grouped under chapters discussing the school activities. 

 Chapter XI is on nature work as an objective basis and includes 

 pages 170 to 179. This states the results of the familiar studies 

 of Earle Barnes and of Edward R. Shaw, and quotes from a few 

 other writers who have expressed opinions as to subject matter 

 and methods in nature study. It calls attention to the value of 

 first hand experience, but on the whole is too brief to be more 

 than suggestive of what we need to know in order to have any 

 adequate pedagogy of nature-study. 



Chemistry, An Elementary Text-Book, by Morgan and Ly- 

 man. Pp. XIV+439. The Macmillan Co. $1.25. 



In the preface of this book the authors state: "In the prepa- 

 ration of this text the authors have been actuated by the feeling 

 that the student should never be allowed to get the idea that 

 chemistry is a science that dwells inside laboratories and acts chief" 

 ly in beakers and test tubes. He should be conscious continually 

 of its presence about him on every hand, in nature, in the home, 

 and in the whirring world of industry. * '•' * Consequently, 

 the authors have tried to bring out the humanistic side of the 

 science, to use as far as possible that material which is laden with 

 intense human interest because of its significance to the race." 

 The advance notices of the book led us to expect a text-book of 

 chemistry that would be of large value as a source book for 

 teachers of nature-study who desired to introduce some elemen- 

 tary chemistry into the grades. In this respect, however, the 

 book is a disappointment. It seems, however, to be a clear", well 

 written text-book of chemistry intended for High Schools, and it 

 has many explanations of common chemical phenomena, as well 

 as attractive illustrations of the same. It is, however, the old 

 type of descriptive chemistry, with these additions in the interest 

 of a comprehension of some of the more common commercial 

 chemical processes. The reviewer has a vivid recollection of an 

 elementary course in chemistry presented from the nature-study 

 point of view, where the object was not so much the accumu- 

 lation of a mass of chemical information as it was the develo])- 

 ment of a scientific method of apj^roach. It is to be hoped that 

 a text-book on elementary chemical nature-study may some time 



