eae i 
. 198 NA TURE 
[Fuly 10, 1873 
amateur. It must happen that the professor (so called) 
will be constrained to give up the whole of his time to 
the duty which is most expected of him, and that original 
research will suffer both in quantity and in quality. The 
most general principles of political economy are sufficient 
to show that in a wealthy and moderately enlightened 
country the remuneration of teaching had better be regu- 
lated by the equitable standard which impartial compe- 
tition will not fail to establish. It is for those subjects 
which, though of essential importance to the welfare of 
the country, are in themselves naturally unremunerative, 
that the old endowments for the promotion of education 
and knowledge, whatever may have been the particular 
means by which these ends were originally to be attained, 
are now required. Among these subjects disinterested 
application to pure Science is manifestly the chief. 
In a subsequent article we propose to show that the 
funds of the Colleges cannot be more consistently applied 
than to this purpose, and that the progressive well-being 
of the Universities mainly depends upon the degree to 
which they are concerned in the advancement of know- 
ledge. c 
THOME’S LEHRBUCH DER ZOOLOGIE 
Lehrbuch der Zoologie. Von Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé ; 
Pp. 416. (Brunswick; 1872.) 
F Germans wonder, not without reason, who buy our 
m anuals of microscopic mounting, Englishmen may 
equally wonder for whom such books as Dr. Thomé’s are 
written. We have technical treatises on special branches 
of zoology, and we have popular natural history books, 
but a manual like this would find a poor sale in England. 
It is a school manual, and its existence is explained by 
the introduction of zoology to some extent into the cur- 
riculum of the German gymnasia and much more into 
that of the Realschule, which more or less correspond to 
the “modern side” of our public schools, or may be de- 
scribed as answering in intention, though of course 
immeasurably supepar in performance, to English “ com- 
mercial schools.” Whether zoology ought to form a 
regular part of school work, even whee room is made by 
giving up Greek altogether and Latin more or less, is an 
important question. As a part of education in the proper 
sense of the word, it is so inferior in exactness, in con- 
ciseness, in facility of demonstration, and convenience 
for observation and experiment to such rivals as botany, 
physics, and even chemistry, that its claims may practi- 
cally be ignored. Moreover, looking at school work from 
another point of view, it is obvious that any scheme of utili- 
tarian zzstruction which is good for much must include ig- 
norance of the greater part of human knowledge, in order to 
provide for acquaintance with the rest ; and the first ad- 
dition to the indispensable elements of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic would probably be claimed for geography, 
political economy, or the rudiments of hygiene, as 
more useful branches of knowledge than zoology. A boy 
with a bent for natural history would gain far more good 
from reading the bits of zoology in such books as the 
“Voyage of the Beagle,” the “ Malay Archipelago,” or 
“ Kosmos,” and by collecting bird’s eggs or butterflies, than 
he would by painfully wading through the details of Dr. 
Thomé’s closely printed pages. And when zoology is 
taken up as a serious study by older students, most 
teachers will agree that the best plan is for them to begin 
by a careful study of a particular branch of the subject, 
with the help of such a peo as Flowers’ “ Osteology 
of the Mammalia.” 
Looking to the object of the book, the reader 
will find Dr. Thomé’s work fairly done. The first 
hundred pages are devoted to a popular sketch of 
human anatomy and physiology, from which all notice of 
generation and development is excluded. Otherwise it is 
as complete as the space will allow. The remainder of 
the book describes the several classes of animals, begin- 
ning with Mammalia and following the arrangement into 
seven types—Vertebrata, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Vermes, 
Echinodermata, Ccelenterata and Protozoa—which is 
now generally accepted among German naturalists. A 
diagram of these types is given, which might serve for a 
genealogical tree ; but no hint of this intention is given. 
The sub-division into classes and orders is not particu. 
larly good. Thus among Mammalia the Sirenia are con- 
founded with the Cetacea, Ray’s obsolete distribution 
into Ungulata and Unguiculata is preserved, and the 
orders Ruminantia and Pachydermata appear, as if 
nothing had been done to clear up the real affini- 
ties of these groups since Cuvier published the 
“Regne Animal.” The classification of birds is not 
more unsatisfactory than that of other writers ; and in the 
class of fishes Miiller’s orders are commendably fol- 
lowed. Tunicata and Bryozoa are of course excluded 
from Mollusca, and help to fill the lumber-room of — 
Vermes. A very large share is, as usual, given to the — 
account of insects, while marine zoology and the Protozoa 
receive comparatively little attention. 
Three hundred and fifty-eight woodcuts'makelan impor- 
tant feature of the work. Most of these are good in them- 
selves and well printed. Those illustrating human anatomy 
and histology are the best, and almost all borrowed from 
Henle. No indication of this or any other source is given, 
but it is easy to recognise that some of the figures have been ~ 
taken from the admirable cuts in Bell’s “ British Reptiles,” 
others from Forbes, Milne-Edwards, and other well- 
known works ; while some of the Mammalia appear to 
have been drawn from children’s toys. Fig. 350, of a 
sponge, is a curiously modified reproduction of the original 
drawing in Grant’s “ Outlines of Comparative Anatomy” 
(p. 312). Of the thirty-one figures of birds, twenty-seven 
represent European species, and of these all but four are 
copied from Yarrell’s British Birds. One excellent addi- 
tion to each figure is a note of the relation it bears to the 
actual size of the animal represented, or of the average 
length of the latter. There are not many figures of 
anatomical details, but almost all are good, some being 
taken from Gegenbaur’s “ Vergleichende Anatomie.” 
To compare Dr. Thome’s book as a whole with serious 
scientific treatises even of the second class, like that of — 
Claus, would be unfair : but even as a “cram-book” it is 
inferior to Nicholson’s Zoology: and it gives far too 
little space to descriptions of the habits and character of — 
well-known groups like mammals, birds, and insects, to be — 
really popular. Such books as Knight’s “ Museum of 
Animated Nature” are much more interesting and quite 
as scientific, Tete eee 
