150 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 761 



failed to comply with my request. Mr. Lloyd 

 is no doubt correct in attributing the decrease 

 in attendance at a number of the institutions 

 to the financial and industrial depression of 

 the preceding year. 



I might point out in this connection that it 

 seems rather unfortunate that separate enrol- 

 ment figures for the technological schools are 

 not given in the annual reports of the United 

 States Commissioner of Education, such as 

 are given, for example, for theology, law, 

 medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc. I appre- 

 ciate the difficulty of distinguishing between 

 pure technological students and academic stu- 

 dents who are candidates for a degree in 

 science, but it seems to me that it would be 

 eminently worth while to prevail upon the 

 reporting institutions to make this distinction 

 in future. A table illustrating the changes 

 in the attendance on the engineering schools 

 of our country similar to that found on page 

 777 of volume 2 of the Eeport of the Com- 

 missioner of Education for 1908, which covers 

 theology, law, medicine, dentistry and phar- 

 macy, would be of great value and deep 

 interest. Eudolf Tombo, Jr. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Psychotherapy. By H. Munsteeberg, M.D., 



Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D. New York, Moffat, 



Yard & Co. 1909. Pp. 401. 



In an article touching on the popular propa- 

 ganda for child-study, Miinsterberg wrote ten 

 years ago in the Atlantic Monthly^ 



I have always found psychology silent as a 

 sphinx when I came to her with the question of 

 what we ought to do in the walks of practical life. 



He has now turned to a very different atti- 

 tude. In a series of books he discusses, for a 

 wider public, the practical applications of 

 modern psychology. The present volume deals 

 with the relations of psychology to medicine, 

 and aims to reach a wider public, physicians, 

 ministers and all who are in practical contact 

 with the important question of psychotherapy. 

 It is not meant to have the form of loose pop- 

 ular essays, a form preferred where wide atten- 

 tion is to be attracted to a new topic, as in last 



^Vol. 85, p. 601. 



year's presentation of the work of Stern and 

 Jung and others as psychology applied to wit- 

 nesses. It is to deal with the whole cycle 

 of the over-popularized problems of psycho- 

 therapy " in a serious systematic way and to 

 emphasize the aspect of scientific psychological 

 theory." A worthy aim is to strengthen the 

 public feeling that the time has come when 

 every physician should systematically study 

 psychology, the normal psychology in the col- 

 lege years and the abnormal in the medical 

 school. Scientific medicine should take hold 

 of psychotherapeutics now, or a most de- 

 plorable disorganization will set in. 



This is a rather complex and difficult prob- 

 lem. Psychotherapy is in the air and wildly 

 exploited in the book-market and in maga'- 

 zines. Every new book is devoured with 

 avidity by a heterogeneous set of readers 

 prompted as a rule by curiosity or eagerness 

 to get a few helps to bolster up their own 

 theories and exploitations. I see the book in 

 the hands of utterly untrained persons, whose 

 " practical contact with these important ques- 

 tions " is chiefly the desire for self-help or the 

 promptings of curiosity. This is inevitable 

 for a series of books " for a wider public." 

 Miinsterberg says in his preface: 

 To those who seek a discussion of life facts 

 alone, the whole first part will, of course, appear 

 to be a tedious way around; they may turn di- 

 rectly to the second and third parts. 



I can not help feeling that the average 

 reader will go directly at the chapters with 

 the records of cases only, so that we should 

 really review the book from three standpoints : 

 Its efficiency (1) as a serious unit; (2) as a 

 presentation of facts for those who would as 

 well forego the trouble of a careful digestion 

 of the real principles, and pass over a really 

 most valuable part of the book, and (3) the 

 efficiency of the book from the point of view 

 of a collection of case records. 



This may make the author responsible for 

 the inevitable. But where the author himself 

 realizes that he invites certain readers to make 

 a partial use of the book only, his responsi- 

 bility is admitted. I must leave the verdict 

 to him and the critical readers. 



