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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 919 



sympatliy. But my long experience witli 

 faculties has led to the belief that they are 

 made up, for the most part, of very imprac- 

 tical men. They seem to me to be childlike 

 in their selfishness and their idealism. I be- 

 lieve that this is largely due to the fact that 

 they have been kept in childish bondage, and 

 this simply means that they will have to be 

 entrusted vpith large administration gradu- 

 ally. I certainly disapprove of the autocracy 

 of the American university president, since I 

 have ceased to be one. No developed institu- 

 tion needs any such dictator. It is not right 

 for any man to hold such a relation to his in- 

 tellectual peers. The details of your various 

 propositions may be open to discussion, but 

 their general bearing seems to me to be sound. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Outlines of Applied Optics. By P. G. Nut- 

 ting, Associate Physicist, Bureau of Stand- 

 ards, Washington, D. C. P. Blakiston's 

 Son & Co. 1912. Pp. 234. 

 A generation ago text-books on physics, or 

 special sections of physics, came for the moat 

 part from those who were connected with the 

 higher educational institutions of the country. 

 They were usually written by men who were 

 teachers besides being physicists, and who in- 

 stinctively assumed that the reader demanded 

 a consistent presentation of mutual relations 

 rather than of results. 



With the development of large and well- 

 equipped laboratories, some of which are whoUy 

 independent of educational aims or limita- 

 tions, a new range of scientific literature is 

 becoming developed, in which specialization of 

 function is not limited to the author, but as- 

 sumed equally for the reader. The non-tech- 

 nical reader is attracted by a title, and is as- 

 sured by an introductory glance that the book 

 contains much of value. He is not disap- 

 pointed, but is perhaps temporarily dis- 

 turbed by the necessity to shift his customary 

 view-point. 



The author of the present volume announces 

 as his keynote the question of securing the 

 best possible results in optical work. He calls 

 attention to the fact that applied optics is 



practically untaught in any university. This 

 statement is perhaps a little sweeping, but it 

 is applicable to many of the institutions that 

 in America are called universities. He says 

 frankly in his preface, " the book has been 

 prepared for the worker in applied optics 

 rather than the student; for the men in the 

 field designing instruments, measuring color, 

 examining eyes, identifying illuminants, etc., 

 who may find a suggestion of how to obtain 

 better results or ready information on nearly 

 related subjects." 



No one would be apt to open a book on 

 optics who has not already some knowledge of 

 the subject, such knowledge as would cause 

 him to recognize the formulas most commonly 

 in use, besides recognizing the application of 

 principles that are thoroughly established. A 

 well chosen summary of some of these prin- 

 ciples occupies much of the introductory chap- 

 ter, including the formulation of laws con- 

 nected with names of such investigators as 

 Lambert, Bouguer, Fresnel, Kirchhofi, Stefan, 

 Planck and others. Discarding some obvious 

 typographical errors, and the use of a few 

 words which need explanatory introduction for 

 most readers, the chapter is welcome and in- 

 teresting. 



The second chapter is on the theory of 

 image formation, a subject which bristles with 

 difficulties for the student who aspires to 

 master the various aberrations and the means 

 to be applied for their elimination. The satis- 

 factory presentation of such a subject requires 

 much pedagogical skill, apart from knowledge 

 of the mathematics involved. PedagogicaUy 

 the author has not always kept in mind some 

 of the principles which every successful teacher 

 must habitually and almost automatically 

 apply, if he wishes to assure himself that his 

 auditors or readers are acquiring power rather 

 than accepting underived formulas on trust. 

 Technical terms are used without adequate 

 definition, and various equations are set forth 

 without deduction. Assuming that the intel- 

 ligent reader has already studied the subject 

 in detail elsewhere, the chapter constitutes a 

 condensed summary; but to assure himself 

 that he understands everything while reading. 



