458 



NA TURE 



{March 17, 1887 



found. An able lad gains much valuable knowledge, and, 

 most important of all, self-knowledge, by contact with 

 those who are his equals not only in talent but in years. 

 It would be better, by a system of scholarships, to give 

 the youth of country districts an opportunity of learning 

 what competition means in a flourishing College, than to 

 foster a large number of half-equipped and struggling 

 institutions, which cannot reasonably hope to attract 

 students of more than average capacity in numbers 

 sufficient to justify their claim to being centres of the 

 higher learning. 



To encourage in their initial stages promising edu- 

 cational enterprises ; to determine, if need be after 

 fair trial, whether any given institution can do most 

 good as a centre of elementary, secondary, or higher 

 instruction'; to afford to institutions of each grade help, 

 the amount and continuance of which depend upon the 

 educational results they attain and upon the increase or 

 withdrawal of local support, — these are the general lines 

 on which the State may aid secondary and higher educa- 

 tion. It would thus encourage the performance of good 

 work in each educational stage at those points where in 

 the nature of things good work of that kind could best 

 be done. It would be led no doubt into expenditure, 

 but in this, as in so many other cases, the old induction 

 holds good. " There is that scattereth and yet increaseth," 

 is true of nations as of individuals, and most true of 

 national expenditure on education. 



PRACTICAL ZOOLOGY 

 Ati E/c-iiicn/ary Course i>i Practical Zoology. By B. P. 

 Colton, Instructor in Natural Sciences, Ottawa High 

 School, Illinois. (Boston : D. C. Heath and Co., 1886.) 



^'HIS volume is one of the latest additions to the 

 stock of laboratory hand-books based upon the 

 well-known type-system. It is more comprehensive, 

 but, in detail, much simpler and more elementary, 

 than any of its predecessors, while it differs from them 

 in its method of treatment. The objects and scope of 

 the work are set forth in a short introduction, and the 

 detailed matter is embodied in thirty-two fasciculi, each 

 devoted mainly to a consideration of some one type of 

 organisation. Of these, ten are devoted to Insects and 

 three to Crustacea — this, however, for a special purpose 

 to which we shall allude. Practical hints dealing with 

 methods and the like are incorporated with the text. 



Certain emendations will be necessary in a subsequent 

 edition, and to these we shall refer duly. In not a few 

 cases the descriptions of the structural features of a 

 given animal have been prefaced by a brief account of 

 its habits and movements. An arrangement, this, of 

 which we heartily approve. It must not be imagined, 

 however, that the book stops short here. The author 

 sets himself " to aid the student in getting a clear idea 

 of the animal kingdom, as a whole, by the careful study 

 of a few typical animals," and he reminds us that " a 

 definition thought out by the student himself, imperfect 

 though it be, is of more value to him than a perfect 

 definition learned from a book, which often appeals to 

 mere memoiy. Definitions made in the way these pages 

 require are good as far as they go : they should be cor- 

 rected and supplemented by the instructor. It develops a 

 boy more to earn a dime than to receive a dollar as a gift." j 



The contents of the work are well arranged, the style 

 is clear and concise, and the facts are presented in logical 

 sequence, nothing being anticipated ; but despite the 

 assertion quoted above, there are far too few facts 

 recorded. Some of the descriptions are meagre in the 

 extreme, while others are so brief as to be useless. For 

 example : on p. 8 the nervous system is introduced to the 

 beginner for the first time (and that in the grasshopper) as 

 consisting " mainly of a white cord extending along the 

 floor of the whole body-cavity. In most of the abdo- 

 minal rings the nerve-cord has enlargements called 

 ganglia, from which nerves branch to the surrounding 

 parts." The like is to be said of the descriptions of the 

 spider's organs of respiration (p. 22), of the clam's kid- 

 ney (p. 52), and other organs which could be named ; 

 while those of the dorsal vessel and " liver" of the earth- 

 worm demand early rectification. On p. 30 the author 

 says of the "line of division between the head and 

 thorax " in the crayfish : — " Huxley pLices it between the 

 second pair of maxillK and the first pair of maxillipeds. 

 Hyatt places the division between the first and second 

 pairs of maxilte, as the space between these is mem- 

 branous entirely across the sternal region, while back of 

 this line the parts are hard and firmly soldered together." 

 One primary object of a book of this kind should be that 

 of imparting a sound training in methods by way of 

 systematising the work of the student, and every con- 

 scientious teacher of zoology knows that by no means 

 the least formidable difficulty to be encountered is that 

 of teaching his pupils how much, and what, they shall 

 leave aside. Bearing this in mind, we would fain see al] 

 matters which involve differences of opinion such as that 

 alluded to above, eliminated from an elementary work. 



The author has evidently been struck with the fact that 

 there has manifested itself, under the growth of the type- 

 system, a tendency to produce a lop-sidedness in the 

 mind of the student. He is by no means alone here, 

 but he sets himself to rectify the matter. This he does 

 by extending and considerably modifying the said sys- 

 tem ; with what amount of success, has yet to be seen. 

 He, and others who have since come into touch with him, 

 must bear in mind that the type-book is, for the most 

 part, but a tool in the hands of the student working (as 

 does he for whom the author prescribes) under the 

 guidance of a teacher, whose bounden duty it is person- 

 ally to direct the work in all its details. He, and he 

 alone, is to blame for this apparent defect. 



One charge frequently brought against the type-system 

 is that of apparent neglect of classification. The author 

 meets this difficulty in a praiseworthy manner, by first 

 describing a given animal as fully as his case demands, 

 and then dealing with certain alhed forms sufficiently to 

 bring out the nature of those comparisons upon which 

 our existing classifications are based. He introduces the 

 subject of classification (p. 12) in an absolutely dogmatic 

 and empirical manner, which, while it does not do justice 

 to his intentions, exposes at the same time the dangers of 

 the method adopted. He supplements the afore-mentioned 

 chapter for chapter. Writing on p. 44, he says : — " Ani- 

 mals are ranked according to the number of things they 

 can do, and do well. The earthworm has many parts, but 

 they are nearly all alike, and do not enable it to do many 

 different things. A part of an animal having a specia 



