February i8, 1909J 



NA TURE 



455 



interest of his general treatment of the strength of 

 ships. 



The book will be heartily welcomed by all connected 

 with the design and construction of ships; the appear- 

 ance of the second volume will be awaited with 

 interest. • W. H. White. 



HEREDITY AND EDUCATION. 

 Eiliicntioii and the Heredity Spectre. By Dr. F. H. 

 Hayward. Pp. xv+ 147. (London : Watts and Co., 

 1908.) Price IX. net. 



WH.AT Mr. Bernard Shaw means when he says 

 that " the bubble of heredity has been pricked '* 

 is that the theory that the moral characters acquired by 

 an individual during his lifetime are transmitted to his 

 descendants has been exploded. We are all, including 

 the author of the book before us, pretty well agreed 

 that this is so. It is not supported by the scanty 

 evidence on this point which the biologist has collected. 

 Nor need we grieve that it has gone. For, if it can 

 be maintained that a belief in it was an incentive to 

 virtue, it is equally certain that such a belief was an 

 excuse for vice, as was clearly seen by a little girl who, 

 when told by her nurse that if she was naughty her 

 grandchildren would be naughty too, pointed out that, 

 If that was true, the reason that she was naughty was 

 that her grandmother had been. 



The conclusion reached by Mr. Shaw as to the bear- 

 ing of the pricking of the bubble on education is that 

 " the vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a 

 child's character." That reached by Mr. Hayward 

 is the diametric opposite of this. He is a Herbartian. 

 Herbart asked : — 



" Does a human being bring with him into the 

 world his future shape, or does he not? In respect to 

 his body he doubtless does ; but that is not our ques- 

 tion. We speak of the mind, the character, the entire 

 disposition." 



-And Herbart's and Mr. Hayward's answer is that he 

 does not ; and that, that being so, it is not merely 

 legitimate, but desirable, to attempt to mould a child's 

 character. 



But before we proceed further we must make sure 

 that we keep two questions, which are probably 

 puzzling our mind at the same time, perfectly distinct. 

 One is a question for the biologist, the other for the 

 educationist. The one is, " Can a child's character 

 be moulded? " the other, " Is it desirable to do it de- 

 liberately? " With regard to the former question, the 

 answer given by Dr. .Archdall Reid, who has devoted 

 much thought to this point, is " Yes." According to 

 Dr. Reid, all the attributes which distinguish a civilised 

 man from a barbarian (the two terms are relativ'e, of 

 course) have been acquired by the former during his 

 lifetime. If this is true, an English boy brought up 

 from birth in a Zulu kraal will, when a man, have 

 the morals and ideals of a Zulu. He will onlv differ 

 from the other inhabitants of the kraal in having a 

 paler skin and the other physical characters which 

 distinguish the two races. Such experiments may 

 have been made, but it is highly unlikely that they 

 have been accurately recorded. The presence of anyone 

 capable of doing so would spnil the conditions of the 



NO. 2051, VOL. 79] 



experiment. But even if this view of the nature of 

 our morality is correct, it does not follow that it is 

 desirable to attempt to mould a child's character. It 

 rather shows that we cannot help moulding it by 

 everything that we do, and that any little deliberate 

 attempts that we make will count for so little in com- 

 parison with what we have already done, and will go 

 on doing, that they will not make much difference. 



From the educational side the book is well worth 

 reading, and the subject discussed is of first-rate im- 

 portance ; but our author is not a biologist either by 

 sympathv or achievement. Was it worth while to poke 

 fun at Mendel for his researches on green peas (p. 134) ? 

 People lay so much too much stress on the material 

 that is dealt with in an investigation. Personally, we 

 set more value on a man who discovers, not every- 

 thing, as some Mendelians hold, but, say, " a rough 

 quarter " by experiments " with green peas," than on 

 one who discovers practically nothing by an excursus 

 on man. We quote the whole passage :— 



" (3) Mendelism. 

 " The question of hereditv has entered on a ncwphase 

 during the past ten vears', owing to the unearthing of 

 Mendel's researches on green peas. The plant again ! 

 We are to discover the laws of human nature by the 

 study of heredity in non-conscious, non-moral plants." 



Does Mr. Hayward really think that we investigate 

 natural processes for the benefit of those who apply the 

 information which we give them? The reason that 

 Mr. Hayward dislikes the plant so is that, according 

 to him, the non-Herbartian doctrine of education is 

 based on what he calls the " plant " metaphor. 



" The future form of a plant is admittedly determined 

 in advance. True, there are ' variations ' and ' muta- 

 tions,' the laws of which we are likely, sooner or later, 

 to know; true, also, even plants' are plastic in a 

 measure, to environmental influences. Broadly, how- 

 ever, we niav sav that the fate of a plant is fixed by 

 the nature of the' germ from which it springs." 



We quote this to show that Mr. Hayward's biology 

 is shakv. For it is now generally recognised that one 

 fundamental difference between animals and plants is 

 the much greater susceptibility of the latter to environ- 

 mental changes. 



RECENT STUDIES IN ATMOSPHERIC 

 ELECTRICITY. 

 Die I.iiftelektrizitdt. Methodcn iind Resiiltatc der 

 neiieren Forschung. By Prof. Albert Gockel. Pp. 

 vi + 206. (Leipzig : S. Hirzel, 1908.) Price 6 marks. 



OF late years there has been great activity in this 

 country in investigating electrical phenomena in 

 gases and in advancing and discussing theories as to 

 the nature and properties of ions. But this work has 

 been mainlv done in the laboratory or by mathemati- 

 cians. In central Europe, thanks largely to the influ- 

 ence of Exner and of Elster and Geitel, there have 

 been many workers studying the electrical phenomena 

 presented by nature. Amongst them Prof. Gockel 

 takes a distinguished place. In the present volume 

 he gives an exceedingly up-to-date account of our 

 knowledge of atmospheric electricity. The amount 

 that has recently been written on the subject will 



1 The Italics are ours. 



