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OcToBER 2, 1913] 
NATURE 
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graphs for the specialist than as treatises for the 
general student. The detailed investigation of the 
more intricate telegraph systems is, in fact, prob- 
ably outside the range of the general electrical 
engineer’s ambitions. M. Berger’s book is the 
more comprehensive of the two, not only because 
it deals with a somewhat wider subject, but also 
on account of the broader method of treatment 
which has been adopted. The subject is handled 
more theoretically, and there is very little purely 
descriptive writing. M. Pendry, on the other 
hand, deals mainly in description, and the book 
lacks something from the absence of the theoreti- 
cal side. The descriptive writing is, however, 
clear, and numerous illustrations help to the 
better understanding of a very complex subject. 
Maurice SoLomon. 
THE TEACHING OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
(1) The Learning Process. By Prof. S. S. Colvin. 
Pp. xxv+336. (New York: The Macmillan 
Co. ; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1911.) 
Price 5s. 6d. net. 
(2) Introduction to Psychology. By Prof. R. M. 
Yerkes. Pp. xii+427. (London: G. Bell and 
Sons; New York: H. Holt and Co., 1911.) 
Price 6s. 6d. net. 
(3) Experiments in Educational Psychology. By 
Dr. D. Starch. Pp. vii+183. (New York: The 
Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., 
Ltd., 1911.) Price 4s. net. 
(1) ROF. COLVIN’S book is written from 
the point of view of “thorough-going 
functionalism and pragmatism.” “All learning,” 
we are told, ‘both expresses itself through ad- 
justment and is acquired through adjustment.” 
Now it is possible to give too narrow a meaning 
to the term adjustment. The solving of a problem, 
however theoretical, is adjustment in the impor- 
tant sense. That movement, on the other hand, 
is not the one thing needful has been made evident 
once for all by Mr. Squeers’ pedagogic system :— 
“W-i-n-d-o-w, window, go and clean it.” In 
short, the essential thing is that every piece of 
school work should be capable of being felt as a 
stage in the working out of a problem. 
Prof. Colvin, it is true, does not definitely 
commit himself to too narrow a use of the term; 
indeed, in places he clearly guards himself against 
it. Yet one cannot but feel that these passages 
come rather as qualifications than as explanations 
of other earlier ones. 
One problem which lends itself particularly well 
to treatment from this functional point of view 
is that of the expression and suppression of deep- 
seated emotional and conative tendencies. An 
NO. 2292, VOL. 92] 
interesting account is given of some of Freud’s 
main positions, and sympathy is shown with the 
view that the attempt simply to suppress funda- 
mental instincts is apt to be disastrous rather than 
merely futile. The problem of sex education is 
recognised, and the possibility faced that child- 
hood may not be so completely asexual as has 
been supposed. That the existence of any problem 
has been so completely ignored is certainly 
strange, but, as things are, is perhaps hardly an 
unmixed evil. The child has in this domain at 
least been spared the interference of the many 
well-intentioned, the parents, parsons, and peda- 
gogues, who would otherwise surely have rushed 
in, fearing to tread as little as any bull in a china- 
shop. 
Many other topics are interestingly and instruc- 
tively discussed—the economy and technique of 
learning ; the main results of recent work on testi- 
mony ; the problem of the transfer of training ; the 
comparison of child and adult as to memory and 
reason; “hard” versus “soft” pedagogy, and 
so on. 
The book is clearly written, and gives, without 
ostentation, a large amount of information based 
upon modern experimental work. 
(2) The most original feature of Prof. Yerkes’ 
book is its scope and arrangement. It is intended 
to be an introductory outline as distinguished from 
a manual, that is, to arouse interest and indicate 
the problems with which psychology deals rather 
than to give a systematic account of the main 
facts and theories. It has the defects as well as 
the qualities of this plan. On one hand it con- 
tains much interesting material not commonly to 
be found in elementary books. On the other, its 
treatment is of excessively varying thoroughness. 
Excellent features are the texts which head each 
chapter, consisting of quotations, often of some 
length, from some more advanced book or clever 
piece of research, and the practical exercises, in- 
tended, however, exclusively for class work, with 
which the chapters end. 
Special topics of which the treatment seems less 
satisfactory are: the difficult question of the exact 
theoretical difference between introspection and 
“external perception”; the criticism of the “tri- 
partite division” of consciousness; the use of 
“sentiment ’’ in the sense of ‘“‘an emotion which 
attaches itself to a particular object.” A sentence 
on the final page is apparently incomplete. 
(3) Prof. Starch’s little book aims at providing 
a course of experiments in educational psychology 
for a small class, the work to occupy two hours 
weekly through one semester. For its purpose it 
seems to be excellent, though the verbal material 
| of the experiments, having been selected from an 
