IVA T Crore 

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 10915. 
SCHOOL SCIENCE, 
Elements of General Science. By. Dr. O. W. 
Caldwell and W. L. Eikenberry. Pp. xiv+ 
308. (London: Ginn and Co., n.d.) Price 
4s. 6d. 
N every school in this country there is found a 
small percentage of boys or girls who have 
a decided bent towards experiment of a thoughtful 
character coupled with a thirst for knowledge of 
natural phenomena. The science master who 
knows his business will speedily recognise such 
a boy and apply the appropriate treatment, which 
usually consists in the suggestion of extra prob- 
lems to be worked out in the laboratory, and of 
extra reading, selected to fit the need of the 
moment and create further needs for future satis- 
faction. Guided, but not overhelped, these boys 
will soon be fit for enlistment as recruits to the 
army of scientific investigators. When framing 
the syllabus of the general science course of the 
school, there is no need to provide for the training 
of specialists. There is need, and very great need, 
to provide a course of science work for the 
average boy and girl which will (1) be in touch 
with everyday experience, (2) deal with matters 
of wide interest and importance, (3) give some 
appreciation of what scientific experiment means 
and of what scientific synthesis is capable. At 
the end of the course, if the pupil wishes to know 
more and has acquired some power of satisfying 
that wish by his own efforts, if his attitude to- 
wards the opinions and labours of specialists is 
one of rational respect, the work may be pro- 
nounced a success. 
The authors of the school-book under review 
have clearly had in mind the needs (1) and (2) 
stated above, as they have throughout dealt with 
live topics of major importance. The contents 
table of the book shows a richness in the quantity 
and quality of the topics—beginning with air and 
the barometer, and concluding with heredity and 
environment—which makes the ordinary syllabus 
of an English school appear poverty-stricken by 
comparison. Unfortunately, the third requisite 
for a satisfactory school course is not fulfilled— 
there is nothing in this book which teaches the 
meaning of experiment, and consequently little 
hope that it will educe an appreciation of scientific 
method. The material accomplishments of applied 
science will not fail to be acknowledged; but of 
the human interest of investigation (apart from 
its results) and of the beauty of a universe lawful 
to its core, there is no revelation in these pages. 
Prof. €. H. Judd, of the University of 
NO. 2380, VOL. 95] 



391 
Chicago, an “Introduction” to the book, 
speaks of the “inhibition of science” in school 
organisation. Have we not in England also ex- 
perienced some disappointment with the results of 
school science? A comparison of American and 
English methods suggests that their merits and 
defects are complementary, that while America 
still hustles her pupils through a pemmican meal 
of dogmatic information, England keeps hers 
practising the goose-step of “determining the 
density of the given solid.” In neither country 
is there sufficient real experimenting, and proper 
correlation with mathematics, geography, work- 
shop practice, and art is too often to seek 
English teachers might gain by pondering the 
valuable content of the lessons in this book; while 
we venture to hope that more regard for heuristic 
principles, even at some sacrifice of information- 
getting, may help to remove “the inhibition of 
science”? of which Prof. Judd complains. 
Gs BoD: 

in 

PRACTICAL PLANT PHYSIOLOGY: 
Ernahrungsphysiologisches Praktikum dey héheren 
Pflanzen. By Prof. V. Grafe. Pp. x+4094. 
(Berlin: P. Parey, 1914.) Price 17 marks. 
HE books dealing with the practical side of 
advanced plant physiology are so few in 
number that any addition to them is very wel- 
come. As the title indicates, Prof. Grafe’s work 
deals only with the metabolic side of plant physio- 
logy, the phenomena included under the term 
irritability being excluded from the scope of the 
work. The book differs from all previous works 
on practical plant physiology in its size—it is a 
quarto volume of nearly five hundred pages—and 
also in its purpose, since it is designed mainly 
as a help in research work, rather than for teach- 
ing purposes as are the well-known works of 
Darwin and Acton, Detmer, and Ganong. 
The author is well known for his chemical work 
in plant physiology, so, as we should expect, the 
biochemical aspect of the subject is the one that 
is most elaborated. He states in his preface that 
the book has arisen in response to the need for a 
guide in his own chemico-physiological practical 
work, and that it is meant to stand midway 
between such practical books as those already 
mentioned and Abderhalden’s ‘‘ Handbuch der 
Biochemischen Arbeitsmethoden.” The work, 
however, is more than a mere practical book, for 
under many of the sections we find, besides a 
description of the methods to be used, also a 
statement of the results obtained by such 
methods. 
The book deals first with the swelling of the 
‘ seed and the effect of external conditions on ger- 
Q 
