364 



NA TURE 



[August 18, 1904 



portrayal of domestic subjects reminds us how 

 peculiarly they are a woman's province. 



If all elder girls are taught that the air, food, cloth- 

 ing, washing, rest, and exercise of a baby must, to 

 ensure its health, conform to lessons of experience, if 

 this teaching be based upon reasoned explanations, not 

 only will babies benefit, but young mothers will not 

 discontinue to use their reasoning for the wants of 

 the growing child. 



The more liberal views recently adopted by the 

 Board of Education should expedite this reform. 



Boys would welcome any teaching that explained 

 how they can best gain and keep strength, and if 

 incidentally they arc taught that the habit of drink- 

 ing more than a pint of beer a day may entail a penalty 

 on health, even if a long-deferred penalty, they will 

 have learnt a fact not one working man in twenty 

 is conscious of to-day. The recent actuarial evidence 

 (if the United Kingdom Provident Institution proves 

 that the duration of an abstainer's life, age thirty, is 

 1 1 per cent, longer than that of the ordinary temperate 

 insurer. 



Teaching will also probably do more for a pure milk 

 supply and for the benefit of a rural population than 

 legislation. Neglect of all subjects bearing on rural 

 occupation in rural school teaching is in itself a lesson 

 to the rustic to ignore such study. How many farmers 

 have heard of cooperative credit, or even know the 

 meaning of the word tuberculosis? 



It is pleasant to read how some attempts at amelior- 

 ation are commencing in the vivid descriptions of the 

 teaching of domestic subjects, the out of school re- 

 creation classes, the different systems of physical 

 education, and the practice of physical culture in 

 elementary schools. 



Knowledge of the health of the growing child should, 

 we agree, be gained by genuine and efficient observ- 

 ation ; as Dr. Bulstrode writes: — "if an officer were 

 appointed to test sight and hearing, detect deformity 

 and reduce the hours of working of the physically 

 and mentally unfit, the harvest would speedily be so 

 abundant that further action would follow in a similar 

 direction." 



It is to be hoped this useful and interesting work 

 may come out in a cheaper form, so that it may instruct 

 a wider circle. 



Prof. Mosso has long taught us the principles of 

 physical education in his work upon " Fatigue," and 

 in 1803 he published a brief comparative study of the 

 practices in vogue among Continental nations and in 

 England. The present work extends over a wider 

 field. Its nucleus consists of three lectures, part of 

 a course of lectures upon physical education recently 

 instituted in Turin for teachers of gymnastics ; they 

 are " Origines et Decadence de I'Agonistique et 

 de la Gymnastique," " L'Agonistique moderne," 

 " L'Education physique dans les Universit^s," and 

 chapters have been added upon the training in ancient 

 Rome, State control, " pedagogic," on the physique 

 of the scholar, and on women's education in America. 



Prof. Mosso is an entertaining writer; he sees 

 equally the picturesque side of physical education 

 NO. 1816, VOL. 70] 



whether in the palsestra of ancient Greece or at 

 Wellesley College among American girls. In many 

 countries has he travelled, made inquiries on the spot 

 and studied their literature. Accordingly, a broad- 

 minded attitude prevails in this book, and the problems 

 of physical education are viewed from a multiplicity 

 of aspects ; but the theme of his title is not system- 

 atically developed. 



One gathers generally that the early da)'s of Greece 

 and Rome with the American student of to-day re- 

 present the best combinations of physique and 

 intellect. 



Games in the open air are to be encouraged rather 

 than exercises in a hall ; the former will include more 

 moral and intellectual improvement. For these games- 

 Prof. Mosso adopts the term " agonistique," which 

 has hitherto been applied to the rivalry of athletic 

 sports rather than to the larger congregation who- 

 should join in the recreative game. The change of 

 meaning in this hitherto little used word is to be 

 deprecated. 



It is pointed out that the word recreation may convey 

 its literal sense if one recognises that those same cells 

 of psychomotor centres which have been engaged in 

 thought and inhibiting motor impulses are re-animated 

 by recreative exercise after study. In devoting them- 

 selves to motor activities, the reaction is one that 

 regenerates these nerve cells. 



The book affords a pleasant general discussion upon 

 the physical side of education. 



Hugh R. Beevor. 



FISH-PASSES AND FISH-PONDS. 



Fischwege und Fischteiche. Die Arheiten des 

 Ingenieiirs ziim nutzen der Fischerei. By Paul 

 Gerhardt. Pp. 147; 142 woodcuts in text. 

 (Leipzig : Wilhelm Engelmann ; London ; Williams 

 and Norgate, 1904.) Price 5^. net. 



IT is a strange thing that in the articles upon river 

 engineering in the latest edition of the " Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica " there is no reference to the con- 

 struction of fish ladders, nor is there, we believe, any 

 comprehensive work upon this subject which has been 

 produced in Britain. The present work is intended 

 primarily for the purpose of instructing engineers in 

 that branch of fresh-water engineering which concerns 

 fishery matters. 



The author rightly insists upon the necessity of 

 engineers who propose to undertake the planning and 

 building of fish passes or ponds knowing the habits 

 of the fishes concerned, and in his " Einleitung " of 

 nineteen pages sets out concisely the necessary inform- 

 ation in this direction. His statements in some cases, 

 however, for example with regard to the habits of 

 the salmon in the sea and in the river, appear to us 

 somewhat too " cut and dried " considering the 

 speculative condition of our knowledge upon the 

 subject. 



The second part of the book deals with fishways, 

 and after a general dissertation upon their importance 



