212 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 711 



consideration of the results of llorgan and 

 Seeliger, and especially of those of Godlewski, 

 would probably have modified the deduction 

 drawn from Boveri's experiments on the fer- 

 tilization of non-nueleated fragments of 

 echinoderm eggs, as to the all-importance of 

 the chromosomes in inheritance; and, simi- 

 larly, no notice is taken of the work of 

 Herbst and Doncaster, whose results antago- 

 nize those of Vernon on the influence of over- 

 ripeness of the germ cells in the determination 

 of the two parents in inheritance. But these 

 and the few other imperfections that might be 

 noticed do not interfere materially with the 

 value of the book. It fulfils its purpose as an 

 " introduction to the study of heredity " ex- 

 cellently well, it is rich in illustrative facts 

 and judicious criticism, and is written in a 

 style which is clear, consecutive, forcible and, 

 at times, even picturesque. 



It should be added that there is a goo(J 

 index, a bibliography of representative papers 

 on heredity occupying forty-eight pages, and a 

 very useful subject-index to the bibliography. 



J. P. McM. 



Mind in the Making. By Edgar James 

 Swift, Professor of Psychology and Peda- 

 gogy in Washington University, St. Louis. 

 New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. 1908. 

 Pp. viii + 329. 



Professor Swift's book is of real value to 

 both investigators in educational psychology 

 and students of college grade. The former 

 class will find in it data of importance on the 

 youthful delinquencies of people whose adult 

 lives were decidedly above the average in 

 conventional and probably in real morality, 

 on the variability of intellectual achievement 

 and on the influence of the knowledge of one 

 or more foreign languages upon the learning 

 of another. This last set of facts is espe- 

 cially important because it represents the co- 

 operation of a teacher in service (Mr. William 

 W. Hall, of the Yeatman High School in 

 St. Louis) with a psychologist in an experi- 

 ment conducted under class-room conditions. 

 Such school-room experiments, comparable to 

 the scientific work now being done in hos- 



pitals or on experimental faiTas, are a most 

 hopeful sign- that education is to be rational- 

 ized by science. 



The data reported by Professor Swift sup- 

 port the conclusions: (1) that youthful ir- 

 regularities in the way of theft, intemperance 

 and the like are distributed amongst individ- 

 uals continuously from a condition of com- 

 plete lawlessness to that of complete " goody- 

 goodyness," (2) that their presence then is 

 consistent with a higher than average re- 

 straint from crime in adult life; (3) that 

 individual differences in intellectual capaci- 

 ties are so great as to be of great practical 

 importance, and (4) that the influence of 

 training with one foreign language upon effi- 

 ciency in learning another does not consist, 

 to any considerable extent, in a subtle dis- 

 cipline of general mental functions. These 

 conclusions, though doubtless acceptable to 

 observant and matter-of-fact thinkers, have 

 all been contradicted by theorists concerning 

 education and by the practises recommended 

 by leaders in educational administration. 



Competent students of education in college 

 classes and amongst teachers in service will 

 profit by the study of these data and those- 

 repeated from Professor Swift's more familiar 

 researches in the psychology of learning. For 

 such the book contains also a descriptive ac- 

 count, with illustrative cases, of the influence 

 of defects in vision, chorea, 'hysteria and the 

 like upon education, a review of certain as- 

 pects of brain anatomy and physiology, a 

 critique of the rigidity and narrowness of 

 present curricula and methods of teaching,, 

 and a chapter on the nature of the educative- 

 process. All of these should be very useful.. 



The influence of the report of cases of 

 eminent men and women who did not succeed 

 in schools is more doubtful. It tends, prob- 

 ably without the author's desire, to give the- 

 impression that failure to achieve in school 

 is a sign of success out of school and even 

 that failure in early life is a sign of success- 

 later. The discussion of the criminal tenden- 

 cies of boys may also, if taken too naively,, 

 lead to the expectation that juvenile delin- 

 quency is per SB a healthy stage in a desirable; 



