2260 
dexpérience” and his pot cultures to demonstrating the 
effect of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, &c. What- 
ever happens to this sort of teaching in England, we 
hope the primary school will be left uninvaded by theories 
of manuring. Practical farmers have sometimes de- 
nounced the whole race of agricultural teachers as 
advertising agents for the artificial manure makers, and 
if when they happen to visit the village school, they hear 
little lads of twelve and thirteen glibly reciting scraps 
about nitrates, kainit and the like, there will only be one 
strong prejudice the more against “education.” 
All the programmes set out by Mr. Brereton and Mr. 
Medd are based too much on chemistry, which in an 
elementary school is necessarily academic instruction, 
and too little on botany and zoology, which can be made 
real, and interwoven with the child’s daily experience of 
field and garden. Nor is there any indication of work 
done by the children themselves ; the instruction seems 
wholly didactic. 
But after all a syllabus should only be regarded as a 
series of boundary walls; it should say, “do what you 
like within these limits, but don’t think yourself called 
upon to do it all.” It does harm when it becomes a 
stereotyped substitute for the teacher's judgment. On 
the teacher the whole thing depends, and this is 
thoroughly recognised in both reports. It is because the 
current generation of teachers is not prepared for the 
work, either in England or France, that the work of 
vitalising the instruction of the village school must 
proceed slowly. France has the advantage of a properly 
organised system of training colleges through which 
all their teachers pass, and in them a course of agricul- 
ture is given by the departmental professor. In Mr. 
Brereton’s opinion he has so many more pressing duties 
that this part of his work is performed in a somewhat 
perfunctory fashion ; the teaching is too academic, and 
not enough use is made of the garden for practical 
instruction. It is difficult to see the value of “a lot of 
hard digging” for students when the gardener is left 
with the more ticklish operations that follow. We do 
not gather that the training colleges have arrived at any 
conception of a “normal” course in these studies bearing 
on agriculture and horticulture, which would practice 
the teacher in the very experiments, indoors and out, that 
he will want to pass on to his scholars. No one is in 
more need of this kind of drilling, for the primary 
teacher’s training is always disposing him to think that 
if he knows how to describe an experiment he knows how 
to do it. Mr. Medd found a teacher who was afraid to 
do experiments lest his boys should meet with accidents 
and he himself be involved in claims for compensation ; 
and Mr. Brereton records how unsuccessful the manure 
experiments, either in the open or in plots, were apt 
to be, which indeed is only “pretty Fanny’s way.” 
However it is clear that the crux of the whole problem, 
lies with the teacher. Turn him out with an adequate 
preparation, keep him encouraged on the right lines by 
the inspectorate, and let him work out his own salvation. 
Uniformity is the least of virtues in this matter; the 
spirit the teacher puts into the task alone tells, and his 
individuality ought to be reflected in the instruction he 
gives, until each school has a special character of its own. 
We trust these reports will be widely circulated and 
widely read ; they will show what can be done, and may 
save us from expecting too rapid a progress. Mr. Medd 
speaks, perhaps, with more knowledge of country life, 
more experience of thesame kind of thing at home, even 
if his enthusiasm does lead him to see things rather as 
they are meant to be than as they are. Mr. Brereton 
has the keener pedagogic eye for the place where the 
organisation becomes paper only. But both reports are 
eminently readable. Mr. Brereton is not afraid of letting 
his own personality appear, and if the final homilies 
which he addresses to the farmer, parson and squire sug- 
NO. 1705, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[JuLy 3, 1902 
gest that Mr. Brereton is young, and knows the country 
chiefly e” dzcyclette, those poor sinners are too chastened 
already to take his advice otherwise than with a smile. 
ALDH 
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION: ITS 
DOCUMENTARY AISTORY:: 
{pes Smithsonian Institution, the great scientific es- 
tablishment at Washington, which, in many re- 
spects, is to the United States of America what the 
Royal Society is to this country, was founded under the 
will of James Smithson (b. 1765), a son of Hugh 
Smithson, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, by 
Elizabeth Macie, a cousin of the Percys. The story of 
how it came to be founded, and of its great work for the 
United States and for the world, has been more than 
once recounted in this Journal. An article contributed 
by the late Dr. G. Brown Goode (NATURE, vol. lili. pp. 
257, 281) in January, 1896, contained a very full account 
of the origin of the Institution and of the system of its 
administration ; and, when the same writer edited, under 
the auspices of the Institution itself, a work on the 
“History of its First Half-Century,” we took occasion in 
reviewing it to give a comprehensive outline of the rise 
and progress of this great centre of scientific energy 
(NATURE, vol. lviii. p. 271). 
The work at present under review does not perform 
the same function as that of Dr. Goode. It is not a 
history of the Smithsonian Institution, but, as the title- 
page declares, it is a collection of ‘“ documents relative to 
its origin and history.” In fact, it brings down to date a 
volume with the same title which was published in 1879. 
In the latter volume the documents relative to the 
inception and organisation of “the Smithsonian ” from 
1835 to 1837 were printed, and the present volumes 
cover the whole period from 1835 to 1899. 
In compiling and editing these documents, Mr. 
William Jones Rhees, the keeper of the archives of the 
Smithsonian Institution, has very admirably performed a 
most arduous task. A compiler is not called upon to 
produce a work of high literary art, but he is called upon 
to give with faithfulness and accuracy all that comes 
strictly within the scope of his compilation, and this 
Mr. Rhees appears to have done. He has given us two 
classes of documents : first, the will of James Smithson, 
with correspondence, &c., relative to the bequest, and, 
secondly, a full reprint of those congressional proceedings 
which contain legislation relative to the establishment of 
the Smithsonian Institution. The extraordinary minute- 
ness of the information preserved in these documents, 
especially of the first class, is sometimes almost amusing. 
Not only have we the will of James Smithson and the 
documents in the Chancery suit brought by the U.S. 
Government against the British Government, but we 
have the lawyers’ bill for costs of the suit and the full 
account of the expenses of Richard Rush, who came 
over to fetch the money. We not only have a list of the 
stocks transferred by decree of the High Court of 
Chancery and a schedule of the personal effects of 
James Smithson, but we have all the details of 
Smithson’s tea-service—12 cups and saucers, 6 coffee 
cups, teapot, slop basin, sugar basin and lid, &c. 
Indeed, such a mass of material, important and unim- 
portant, as is printed in these two volumes would be 
overwhelming were it not accompanied by a good index. 
But this, by the editor's care, has been given, and those 
who have had experience of biographical or historical 
authorship and who have sighed over the lack of parti- 
culars which so often belongs to the early stages of a 
history will not quarrel with a minuteness of detail 
1 “The Smithsonian Institution : Documents relative to its Origin and 
History, 1835-1899.” Compiled and edited by William Jones Rhees. 2 vols. 
(Pp. liil. + 1044 and xvi. + 1045 to 1983-) (Washington, 1901.) 
} 
