178 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 710 



important " Mink Legend " and tHe " Trans- 

 former Legend." The former occupies about 

 eigLty-five pages, and the latter about seventy 

 pages, of the series. The texts, so far as 

 published, were recorded by Mr. George Hunt, 

 and were revised from dictation by F. Boas. 

 Thus it happens that the whole series of texts 

 published in the Jesup Expedition are re- 

 corded by Mr. Hunt. That the bulk of this 

 work was intrusted to Mr. Hunt is due to the 

 fact that the Kwakiutl mythology is enor- 

 mously extensive, and must be obtained from 

 representatives of all the different families to 

 whom the family traditions belong. The 

 writer of these lines, who is responsible for 

 the collection, could not undertake this work 

 himself, and for this reason he taught Mr. 

 Hunt to write Kwakiutl, and, by carefully 

 controlling his work, trustworthy material has 

 been gathered. 



From a broader ethnological point of view 

 a series of this kind collected by a single 

 native recorder is of course unsatisfactory, 

 because the critical insight into style and con- 

 tents require more varied material. For this 

 reason I have collected a considerable amount 

 of material from various sources, largely in- 

 tended to control the results obtained by Mr. 

 Hunt, and also to present different styles of 

 story-telling and differences of dialect. It is 

 a matter of regret that this material has not 

 been included in the present volume which 

 thus would have gained very much in scien- 

 tific value. 



Franz Boas 



The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, 

 with a review of the history of reading and 

 writing, and of methods, texts, and hygiene 

 in reading. By Edmund Burke Huey, 

 Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Educa- 

 tion in the Western University of Pennsyl- 

 vania. Pp. xvi + 469. New York, The 

 MacmiUan Co. 1908. 



The experimental studies of the last dozen 

 years in the physiology and psychology of 

 reading constitute an interesting and an im- 

 portant line of advance in experimental psy- 

 chology. Motived partly by logical, partly by 

 linguistic, partly by pathological, and partly 



by pedagogical, as well as by purely psy- 

 chological interests, the investigations of the 

 reading process have materially increased our 

 knowledge of the visual processes, both central 

 and peripheral. They have enriched our ex- 

 perimental technique, and have furnished un- 

 usually satisfactory data for an investigation 

 of the higher mental processes. Historically, 

 physiological psychology received one of its 

 most important early impulses from an in- 

 vestigation of speech defects. The lamented 

 Wernicke found a discussion of the linguistic 

 processes a convenient introduction to the 

 more general discussion of mental life, and 

 many another teacher of related disciplines 

 has found it convenient to follow his example. 

 It is not uninteresting that language seems 

 destined to supplement its former services to 

 psychology by furnishing us with the best 

 available technique for an experimental an- 

 alysis of the more complex elaborative 

 processes. 



Eeciprocally it would be surprising if any 

 real advance in our knowledge of the linguis- 

 tic processes should be without influence on 

 language itself and the teaching of language. 

 I regard it as fortunate that, as far as read- 

 ing is concerned, these practical deductions 

 have been drawn thus far mainly by those 

 whose experimental work guaranteed real in- 

 formation and a scientific attitude. 



The present work is made up of four parts : 

 Part I. is a resume of experimental and 

 analytic researches in the physiology and psy- 

 chology of the reading process. It occupies 

 about one third of the book. Part II. is a 

 compact account of the history of reading and 

 of reading methods, pp. 76. Part ILL. con- 

 tains an illustrated discussion of the more 

 important theories and practises in teaching 

 reading, pp. 119. Part IV. discusses the 

 hygiene of reading, fatigue in reading, suit- 

 able tjrpe, length of line, etc. The con- 

 clusion contains some interesting speculations 

 as to the future of reading. The book 

 closes with an excellent bibliography and an 

 index. 



One of the most striking characteristics of 

 Huey's style is his unusually careful recog- 



