;i6 



NATURE 



[February 2, 1905 



Mr. Woodward's descriptions of the various counties 

 contain rather too much matter that could be discovered 

 from the maps themselves. Though dealing with 

 a land of most fascinating variety, they do not always 

 rise to the demands made by the salient scenic 

 features. Yet these are the features that strike the 

 common traveller, to whom this work must always 

 be a boon. From his point of view we have read 

 the account of Gloucestershire a second time, and, 

 of course, discover nothing to add, while we are 

 grateful for a good deal of graphic description, tersely 

 worded. The matter probably only needs a new 

 arrangement, so that the reader who descends in 

 imagination or in memory from the steep side of the 

 Forest of Dean, and wonders at the great scarp of the 

 Cotteswolds, facing him ten miles off across the 

 Severn, is not dragged aside to learn that Coal- 

 measures were discovered in the Severn Tunnel, and 

 the irritating fact that " sulphate of strontium is 

 worked at Wickwar in the Keuper Marl." The 

 traveller wants to move forward; the open landscape 

 lies before him; when he has gained his first broad 

 physiographic view, he will condescend to search for 

 fossils, and to rejoice in geodes of celestine. 



The exceptional knowledge of the country possessed 

 by the author is apparent in all these careful pages. 

 He has added, moreover, exceedingly practical de- 

 scriptions of the geology that is to be learned along 

 the main lines of British railways. His views on the 

 nomenclature of fossils are known from his published 

 writings ; but, while most of us are sadly inconsistent, 

 he yields perhaps too little to the purists. If Mr. 

 Woodward goes so far as Doryderma and Ccelo- 

 nautilus, where none will blame him, why does he 

 retain Ammonites and Goniatites as unrestricted 

 generic names? Why Echinocoryx scutatus, which 

 seems to surpass the historical acuteness of Mr. C. D. 

 Sherborn (see " Index to Zones of the White Chalk," 

 Proc. Geol. .Association, June, 1904), and, side by side 

 •with it, Galerites albogalerus? We doubt also 

 Protocardium for Protocardia ; but these matters are 

 outside the main intention of the atlas. As a com- 

 panion in Great Britain, this handy book is to be re- 

 commended to every traveller. The complete revision 

 of the Scotch map, which is now so admirable, despite 

 . its comparatively small scale, makes us hope that 

 Ireland, as a country of equal interest and variety, may 

 be included in the next edition. G. A. J. C. 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 

 The Preparation of the Child for Science. By M. E. 



Boole. Pp. 157. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1904.) 



Price 2S. 6d. 

 Special Method in Elementary Science for the Common 



School. By Charles A. McMurry, Ph.D. Pp. ix + 



275. (New York : The Macmillan Company, 1904.) 



Price 3^. 6d. net. 



A GREAT change in the character of the books 

 concerned with the teaching of science has taken 

 place during the last twenty years or so. A quarter 

 of a century ago the claims of science to a place in the 

 school curriculum were being advocated vigorously, 

 NO. 1840, VOL. 71] 



and men of science had still to convince reigning school- 

 masters that no education was complete which ignored 

 the growth of natural knowledge and failed to re- 

 cognise that an acquaintance with the phenomena of 

 nature is necessary to intelligent living. Speaking 

 broadly, it may be said that most classicists even 

 admit now that there are faculties of the human mind 

 which are best developed by practice in observation 

 and experiment. One consequence of the success 

 which has followed the persistent efforts of Huxley 

 and his followers — to secure in the school an adequate 

 recognition of the educative power of science — has been 

 that modern books on science teaching are concerned 

 almost entirely with inquiries into the best methods 

 of instructing young people, by means of practical 

 exercises, how to observe accurately and to reason 

 intelligently. 



Mrs. Boole deals with the earliest education of the 

 child, and gives a great deal of attention to the years 

 which precede school life. Her book may be warmly 

 recommended to parents anxious to adopt sane methods 

 of educating their children and to teachers responsible 

 for the training of the lowest classes of schools. Mrs. 

 Boole rightly insists that the development in the child 

 of the right attitude towards knowledge is of more 

 importance during early years than the actual teach- 

 ing. We agree with her, too, that " the best science 

 teacher is usually a thorough-going enthusiast in the 

 science itself, who in the intervals of regular teach- 

 ing, gets his pupils to assist him in his own investi- 

 gations or pursuits." But, unfortunately, the teach- 

 ing profession is at present hardly attractive enough 

 to secure the services of a sufficient number of 

 ordinarily well educated men, and we shall have to 

 wait a long time before we can expect to find many 

 men of science engaged upon origihal research also 

 teaching science to children in schools. Mrs. Boole's 

 little book deserves to be read widely. 



Like many other .American educationists. Dr. 

 McMurry attempts to do too much for the teacher. 

 The larger part of his book is devoted to " illustrative 

 lessons " and " the course of study," minute instruc- 

 tions being given as to what science subjects should 

 be taught in each of the terms of each of the years 

 spent by children in the elementary school. The 

 teacher will deal most satisfactorily with those subjects 

 of science he knows best, and in which he is most 

 interested. From the point of view of the British 

 teacher at least, it is inadvisable to attempt to impose 

 a detailed scheme of work drawn up by somibody in 

 another district and unfamiliar with the precise con- 

 ditions and environment of the school in which the 

 science teaching is to be done. Even if this were not 

 the case, Dr. McMurry's scheme of work expects the 

 class to accomplish far more in a term than can be 

 studied satisfactorily in that period. Moreover, sub- 

 jects too diverse, and hardly at all related one to the 

 other, are prescribed for a single term. But Dr. 

 McMurry's ideal is better than his practice ; he says : — 

 "it is easy for us to expect too much from formal 

 method. The atmosphere which the teacher diffuses 

 about him by his own interest and absorption in nature 

 studies is more potent than any of the devices of 

 method." A. T. S. 



