Jajtoaet 8, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



77 



EDUCATION AND THE TRADES 



To THE Editor of Science: I was much 

 interested in the letter of Stella V. KeUerman 

 in your issue of November 13, in relation to 

 "Education and the Trades." Her words 

 " Only by teaching honestly what the world 

 needs, and can use, may the schools accom- 

 plished their lofty aims " should be taken as 

 a motto by educational leaders and authori- 

 ties the world over. I should like to ask 

 a question which I hope some day to see 

 answered in Science : 



Suppose a poor man is enabled by close 

 saving to send his son to a high school " to 

 get an education." 'the boy does not know 

 what he is " going to be," has no ideas of any 

 trade, business or profession, but he wants 

 to be "educated," and is an average student. 

 There may be hidden in this boy a Lincoln, a 

 Carnegie, an Edison or a Rockefeller. He 

 may have it in him to become a book-keeper 

 at $1,000 a year, or a good mechanic at $3 

 a day. No one knows. By the time he gets 

 through high school he may have acquired the 

 ambition to go to college, or he may be tired 

 of school and want to " go to work " at any- 

 thing that turns up. This is the average high 

 school hoy. 



What should be the high school curriculum 

 for such a boy? If the elective system is in 

 vogue who shall make the election for him, 

 and on what basis or theory shall it be made, 

 so as not to waste the time of the boy while he 

 is in the high school? Wm. Kent 



THE NEW YORK SERIES 



To THE Editor of Science: In view of the 

 fact that my article on revision of the New 

 York Series' is apparently much antedated by 

 Dr. Grabau's paper before the New York 

 Academy,'' may I ask space to explain that my 

 manuscript, exactly as printed, was submitted 

 for publication the last of December, 1907, one 

 week before Dr. Grabau's paper was read. A 

 comparison of the two papers will reveal the 

 changes necessary in my table to give proper 

 recognition to the names introduced by Dr. 



'Science, No. 715, p. 346, September 11, 1908. 

 ' Science, No. 694, p. 622, April 17, 1908. 



Grabau, which thus acquired priority of pub- 

 lication. George H. Ohadwick 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 A Text-hooh on Boads and Pavements. By 

 Fredercik p. Spalding, Professor of Civil 

 Engineering, University of Missouri, Mem- 

 ber American Society of Civil Engineers. 

 Third edition, revised and enlarged. New 

 York, John Wiley & Sons. 1908. 

 This book was first issued in 1894 while 

 Professor Spalding was connected with Cor- 

 nell University. A second edition was pub- 

 lished in 1903. The many changes in methods 

 of construction and maintenance, due in part 

 to new traffic conditions, has made it neces- 

 sary for the author to practically rewrite 

 several chapters for this the third edition. In 

 this, as in former editions, the author dis- 

 cusses the principles involved in the construc- 

 tion and maintenance of the various kinds of 

 streets and roads. The first chapter, on road 

 economics and management, contains, among 

 other things, some interesting paragraphs on 

 tractive resistance, in which is given a valu- 

 able table showing the relative loads a horse 

 can draw on different kinds of roads and on 

 grades from one to fifteen per cent. This 

 chapter also contains articles on the economic 

 value of better roads, sources of revenue and 

 systems of road management. The second 

 chapter deals with drainage of streets and 

 roads and contains a table showing the propor- 

 tions and dimensions of materials used in 

 building reinforced concrete culverts of dif- 

 ferent sizes. This table should be of especial 

 value to highway engineers and road builders. 

 The third chapter relates to the location of 

 country roads, and is treated from an engi- 

 neering as well as from a practical standpoint. 

 Chapter four, on the improvement and main- 

 tenance of country roads contains informa- 

 tion on the building of earth roads, the use of 

 the split-log drag, best methods of building 

 gravel, oil, sand-clay and burnt-clay roads, 

 and the advantages of wide tires. Broken- 

 stone roads are considered in chapter five, 

 which contains articles on the macadam and 

 Telford methods of construction, rock for road 

 building, methods for testing materials, main- 



