April 14, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



545 



vestigation , either systematic, structural or 

 pli3'sioIogical, is to destroy originality and 

 keep narrow the ground on which future 

 generalizations must be built. It is accord- 

 ingly plain that to limit a student's oppor- 

 tunities for biological instruction to a 

 specialized coui-se along some one line has 

 not even the single justification it at iirst 

 seemed to possess. The present extreme 

 tendency toward ' laboratory^ work ' and 

 away from actual contact with nature on 

 the part of beginners in biology is without 

 doubt a temporary condition. Not every 

 one who sits behind a battery of reagents 

 in a laboratory is an investigator, and not 

 all investigators are thus equipped. 



At the cost of an equal amount of labor, 

 which would command the general prefer- 

 ence, an acquaintance with the more com- 

 mon plants of one's neighborhood or a mass 

 of facts about plants in general, but appli- 

 cable as a whole to no plant in particular ? 

 Organs, tissues and functions have been 

 named and classified ; knowledge in these 

 directions is becoming extensive and com- 

 plex, and the specialists are zealously trying 

 to keep the beginners up with the times. 

 Recent text-books written from structural 

 and physiological standpoints contain a 

 mass of definitions and au amount of classi- 

 fication equalling or exceeding that of the 

 other extreme in systematic works. This 

 classification is, indeed, not what promi- 

 nently bears that name, but it is classifica- 

 tion none the less, though artificial and 

 based on abstractions instead of afiinity or 

 phylogeny. The details of structure and 

 life history are arranged iiuder such heads 

 as 'Growth,' 'Reproduction,' 'Nutrition,' 

 ' Irritability ' and ' Symbiosis,' and the 

 emphasis is not upon the facts in nature, 

 but upon the mechanical or chemical con- 

 siderations which must be invoked to ex- 

 plain the various special problems. 



A complaint has been voiced that these 

 so-called modern methods of instruction are 



atal to the interest and spirit which actu- 

 ated the naturalists of former days, and 

 this is not difficult to understand. Such 

 work is preparatory only for chemists, phy- 

 sicists and physiologists. Its interest is 

 not in nature, primarily, but in matter and 

 mechanisms. Under the extreme system- 

 atic method we had introductions to plants 

 of which we knew nothing ; by the avow- 

 edly unsystematic method we learn facts 

 about plants which we do not know. 



O. F. Cook. 

 U. S. National Museum, 

 Washington, D. C. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Text-Book of Oeneral Physics for the Use of Col- 

 leges and Scientific Schools. By Chakles S. 

 Hastings, Ph.D., and Fkederick E. Beach, 

 Ph.D., of Yale University. Boston, U. S. A., 

 Ginn & Co. 



Apart from the obvious distinction between 

 good and bad, text-books in Physics may be 

 divided into two well-marked classes. In the 

 oue the main point of view is to consider the 

 study of Physics as a training of the mind; as a 

 subject which requires the use of logical pro- 

 cesses and which ought to develop mental ac- 

 curacy and habits of thought better than any 

 other science. 



The other class of test-boolvs does not lay so 

 much stress upon logical methods, hut calls 

 attention rather to the phenomena of Nature 

 which are illustrations of the great fundamen- 

 tal laws, and to the experimental methods by 

 which these laws have been discovered. 



The continued success of such text-books as 

 those of Gauot and Deschanel shows that there 

 is a great need in American colleges and 

 schools for the class of text-book which comes 

 under the second head, just mentioned. The 

 most recent text-book, this by Hastings and 

 Beach, is distinctly one of the same order. It 

 treats the subject, however, in a thoroughly 

 modern manner and is free from the inaccura- 

 cies of the earlier treatises. One's first im- 

 pression on opening the book is of great sat- 

 isfaction. The paper, type, illustrations, ar- 

 rangement of matter, everything which per- 



