BOOK REVIEWS 71 



One wishes all schools were Hke the Rock Hill School where 

 "there are days when the entire school goes out into the woods 

 and fields to gather specimens for the museiim and to observe 

 wild nature; days when similar excursions are made to see what 

 rivers are, and lakes and hills and valleys, or to study the relics 

 of local history." 



Withal it is an exceedingly quotable book and it is a tempta- 

 tion to add more of the pithy passages. Perhaps this is enough 

 to make the reader ready to spend his dollar and buy the book. 

 It will be a wise buy even for the impoverished pedagogue. 



The Meaning of Evolution, Samuel C. Schmucker, p. 298. The 

 Mac Millan Co., $1.25. 



This is an eminently successful attempt to express in simple 

 language the meaning of evolution, to state the proofs and to out- 

 line some of the theories that attempt to account for the process. 

 The author has an attractive and vivid style that makes the 

 book easy reading. Still one must come to the book, it seems to 

 the reviewer, with a fairly good fund of accurate notions of plants 

 and animals if the book prove wholly intelligible. There are few 

 illustrations so that an author must be very apt at word painting 

 to give the reader correct ideas of the objects under discussion. 



Chapter I is historical, dealing with Evolution before Darwin. 

 The next one is biographical with Darwin as its chief subject. 

 Then comes a discussion of the factors involved in Darwinism. 

 Adaptation for the Individual and for the Species next receive 

 consideration. Just why these two chapters are introduced is 

 not clear. The author says as their beginning "As between 

 design in the universe in the usual sense of the word, and a purely 

 accidental connection of events in the universe, there can be no 

 doubt as to the choice. The truth is far better expressed by the 

 word design than by the chaos which is the alternative idea in the 

 average mind." The numerous cases of adaptation described may 

 illuminate this thesis; there is no serious attempt to prove it. 

 Chapters VI and VII are on the Life of the Past and How the 

 Mammals Developed, proofs of evolution, respectively, from 

 paleontology and embryology. The next chapter takes up in 

 detail the fossil evidence of the evolution of the horse. Chapter 

 IX discusses evolution theories since Darwin. Chapter X is on 

 Eugenics : its caption is the Future Evolution of Man. The last 



