N0\-EMBEE 1, 1889.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



15 



world, so far as at present known, but during its progress 

 the British material accumulated to so great an extent 

 that it became necessar_y to omit the greater number of the 

 foreign species. These are briefly described in the present 

 supplement togetlier with all the new British species 

 which have been discovered during the last three years — 

 that is, since the issue of the main body of the work. 

 Thus the future student of this group has the great advan- 

 tage of having the results of preceding investigations 

 incorporated in a single book of reference. While regard- 

 ing with great satisfaction the successful completion of so 

 great an undertaking, we cannot but share the regret 

 expressed by Dr. Hudson that Mr. Gosse, whose name will 

 probably be always more closely associated with these 

 wonderful little creatures than with any other forms of 

 aquatic life, did not live to see the completion of an enter- 

 prise that occupied so much of his thoughts. That his 

 work did not slacken towards the close of his life is evident 

 from the fact that no less than sixty of the species here 

 described are new British forms discovered by himself. 

 Four beautifully executed, double-page plates, from draw- 

 ings by the author and his late colleague, contain 

 representations of about 1.50 species, or almost all that are 

 included in the supplement. The descriptions are fre- 

 quently accompanied with interesting notes as to the 

 habits and movements of the animals. Special interest 

 attaches to two species of ('rilliidiun here included, on 

 account of the strangeness of their habitat, which is upon 

 the leaves of Juniicrmannin', growmg on the trunks of 

 trees, the needful supply of water being obtained from the 

 raindrops which trickle down the furrows of the bark. 



Ili'jiortsoii F.h-nicnUinj Sc1im,h. 1852-1882. By Matthew 

 AuxoLu. London : Macmillan k Co. 1889. — During 

 the thirty-five years that Mr. Matthew Arnold was an 

 Inspector of Schools, successive Administrations never 

 troubled to ask whether he was not being employed in 

 work which might well have been committed to men of 

 coarser fibre instead of liis wide experience bemg utilised 

 in administrative educational reform. If the author of 

 HiiijiriliKlcs on Ktiiii and 'J'lii/r.^is bi'ought little zeal to 

 the examination of needlework and the great problem 

 as to the best kind of desks, he brought conscientious- 

 ness into the round of duty and made his i-eports 

 vehicles of wise suggestion and penetrating criticism. 

 Some of his reconnuendations have borne fruit ; much 

 that he sought to improve remains unaltered, nor will there 

 be nnich approach made to his ideal of " an aim to train 

 generally all who are born men to all which is human," 

 while the system of "cram" and of payment l)y results is 

 rampant. That grave defect, initiated by the Revised 

 C'ode of 18H1, it is hoped the New Code of 1889 will tend 

 to abolish. In the note with which Sir Francis Sandford, 

 to whom our thanks are due for rescuing the more im- 

 portant of Mr. Arnold's re])orts from the oblivion of H.M. 

 Stationery OIKce, pri'faces this volume, a becoming tribute 

 is paid to the lamented author's woik, the results of which 

 " are written in much of our past educational history, and 

 in tlie present working of our schools." What words of 

 wisdom, what incisive touch of defects in home as in 

 school training, lie scattered through this book, the follow- 

 ing extract from the report for 1852, the year after Mr. 

 Arnold's appointment, will exemplify : — 



I iiiii convinced there is no cliiss of chiklron -so indulged, so 

 generally brouKlit ")> (at liomo at least) witliout discipline — that is, 

 without habits of ro.-pect. exact obedlenco. and self-control— as the 

 children of the lower middle class iu this country. The children of 

 very poi.r parents receive a kind of rude discipline from circum- 

 stances, if not from their parents ; children of the upper classes are 

 genoi-ally brouKht up in habits of regular obedience, because these 

 classes are suUlcionlly enlightened to know of wlmt beiielit such a 



training is to the children themselves; but children of the class I 

 am alluding to receive no discipline from circumstances, for they are 

 brought up amid comparative abundance ; they receive none from 

 their parent-', who are only half-educated themselves, and can under- 

 stand no kindness except complete indulgence; and, in consequence, 

 nowhere have I seen such insubordination, such wilfulness, and such 

 a total want of respect for their parents and teachers, as among these 

 children. 



In the same report, speaking of pupil teachers, he refers 

 to "the utter disproportion between the great amount of 

 positive information and the low degree of mental culture 

 and mtelligence which they exhibit." In conjimetion with 

 tliis notice should be given to a useful Report on Commer- 

 cial Education, which was presented some two years ago 

 to the Associated Chambers of Commerce. Although it 

 urges reform in our present miseral)ly abortive system 

 chiefly on the ground that we should be driven out of the 

 world's markets by our better- framed rivals abroad, the 

 taking of this lower level at starting is necessaiw, since 

 what is taught at school should be designed to best fit a 

 youth for the battle of life. " AVe must all either work or 

 steal," as Carlyle says. Exercises in rapid calculations, 

 their ajjplication to business transactions, a general know- 

 ledge of books used in the coimting-house, a familiarity 

 with the atlas, a knowledge of French and German or 

 Spanish, are not exclusive of studies which shall so elevate 

 and humanise that the leisure wliich follows the day's 

 work be not spent over the last sensational novel or in the 

 degrading atmosphere of the music-hall. Certain it is — 

 and "we speak that we do Imow " — that the majority of 

 youths who offer themselves for business appointments, 

 and on many of whom hundreds of pounds liave been 

 spent, are ill-equipped, knowing little, and careless about 

 knowing much. They write badly ; they cannot add up a 

 column of figures correctly, and the answers which they 

 give to the simplest questions in geography, and to such 

 elementary questions as the size of the earth and the 

 cause of day and night, equal in their painful drollery 

 some of the famous examples in KiniHsJi ,ix She ix Tiintiht. 



E. Clodd. 



Farm Lire Stock of lireut liritain. By Prof. Eobert 

 W.-iLL.4^CE, F.L.S., &c., Prof, of Agriculture and Rural 

 Economy in the University of Edinburgh. (Oliver & Boyd. 

 1889.) This is a handbook of the difJ'erent breeds of cattle, 

 sheep, pigs, and horses found in the British Isles, with 

 useful directions for their management in health and 

 disease. No one interested — and who is not ? — m farm 

 animals, and the history of their improvement under 

 scientific treatment, will fail to acknowledge a debt of 

 gratitude to Prof. Wallace for his volume, with its 

 numerous very beautiful photographic illustrations, which 

 one might at first mistake for steel engravings. Prof. 

 Wallace has, by a new process of photographic repro- 

 duction, presented us with a series of truthful por- 

 traits of representative prize-winners in the leading 

 classes of show animals. They are not all equally good 

 from an artistic point of \ie\v, as the facilities for photo- 

 graphing animals at our public exhibitions are not what 

 they might be, if the importance of keeping such a 

 register were recognised by tlio judges. We are, how- 

 ever, provided in Prof. Wallace's volume with a gallery of 

 the most interesting and instructive diaracter, by which 

 a comparison can be instituted between the pomts of the 

 principal breeds. The autiior has aimed at condensation 

 throughout -as was indeed needed in such an extensive 

 subject — but we should have been glad if he could liave 

 spared us a little tartlier space for tlie liistorical part of 

 his subject. 



A list of the most important herds of each breed might 

 also be added, with advantage, to the next edition. 



