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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stractions, and make of them what 

 he or she likes; it requires a more 

 philosophic mind and vastly more 

 patience and attention to deal with 

 concrete facts and organic systems. 

 Mrs. Johnson's book will repay a 

 careful perusal and reperusal. What- 

 ever errors she may have fallen into 

 upon points of detail and it is al- 

 most impossible that, dealing with so 

 vast an array of facts as she has 

 done, she should not have fallen into 

 some she has got to the root of the 

 matter. Her formula for man and 

 woman is not, as with the suffragists, 

 3?a, but 06, each the coefficient of the 

 other, and both together forming 

 a compound unity. Her book rests 

 on the solid ground of Nature, and 

 will survive many dreary diatribes 

 of the 2a school of social reformers. 



THE DICTUM OF A PHILOSOPHER. 



MR. THOMAS DAVIDSON is by all 

 accounts a philosopher. He is pro- 

 found in Aristotle and Bosmini, and 

 can tell to a shade just where Kant 

 failed to grasp the problem of hu- 

 man knowledge. He has written 

 magisterially on the subject of edu- 

 cation. He is therefore a man whose 

 utterances ought to be marked by a 

 very superior wisdom, particularly 

 on the subjects which he claims to 

 have made his own. Strange to say, 

 however, we fail to see any great 

 wisdom, or even, to put it plainly, 

 much sense in a remark in which he 

 indulges in the July Forum. He 

 there discusses the changes that have 

 taken place in England during the 

 last sixty years, and, in doing so, 

 takes occasion to say that " the edu- 

 cation of children, which formerly 

 was let out to teachers as the wash- 

 ing of clothes was to washerwomen, 

 is now regarded as a matter demand- 

 ing the careful attention of par- 

 ents" If this means anything it 

 means that the giving of clothes to a 



washerwoman to wash may be taken 

 as a typical instance of a matter that 

 does not receive careful attention a 

 matter about which people are pro- 

 verbially indifferent. 



Now, we do not claim a very pro- 

 found knowledge of the household 

 diplomacy which results in the mak- 

 ing of treaties with washerwomen; 

 but, so far as any echoes of the pro- 

 ceedings have reached our ears, we 

 have received an impression that very 

 considerable interest is taken in the 

 choice of an efficient washerwoman, 

 and that the subsequent performance 

 of the person selected is watched 

 with close attention. We have 

 reason to believe that questions are 

 very frequently raised as to whether 

 the clothes have been properly treat- 

 ed in the washerwoman's hands ; and 

 that if they come back unsatisfactory 

 in color, badly ironed or folded, or 

 showing signs of excessive use of al- 

 kali, sharp remonstrances are made. 

 If the case is serious, the clothes are 

 not again given to the inefficient or 

 destructive operator, but search is at 

 once made for one who will do the 

 work better. If we are not up to 

 date in our notions on this subject, 

 we are sorry for it ; all that we can 

 say is that it used to be so. What 

 are we to say, then, to the learned 

 professor's typical example of slip- 

 shod indifference ? Only this, that 

 it was very ill-chosen, and that the 

 professor is evidently more at home 

 on the dizzy peaks of a transcen- 

 dental philosophy than in the region 

 of domestic economy. 



The real truth is that, in these 

 advanced days, a contrast might well 

 be drawn between the care and sense 

 of personal responsibility people 

 manifest in getting their clothes 

 washed and the easy-going confi- 

 dence and careless irresponsibility 

 with which they send their children 

 to be educated. One reason for the 

 difference is that they pay directly 



