May 15, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



723 



taught directly, not by the subterfuge that 

 they could only follow from religious acts, 

 therefore it is necessary to teach religion — ^but 

 if made a part of the curriculum I should like 

 to know how large a place our professors would 

 be likely to assign them. Would a three 

 years' course seem too short, or a four year, 

 perhaps, too long to teach a boy that honesty 

 and good habits are right, and the opposite are 

 Wrong? Or would such things be assumed to 

 have been taught during childhood in the only 

 proper place — at the mother's knee ? 



Since Chancellor Strong lays emphasis on 

 the statements, that " after all . . . ours is a 

 Christian civilization," and " Historical Chris- 

 tianity is the basis of our whole life, and we 

 as a nation shall stand or fall with it," he 

 must then mean by the " moral and religious 

 problem confronting education in Kansas as 

 elsewhere " the question of how to bring about 

 the teaching of Christianity by compulsion 

 and at national or state expense, an attempt as 

 out of joint with the times as with the purpose 

 of the founders of the country, that church 

 and state should be forever separate. 



Henry K. White 



Catonsville, Maryland 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



THE EASTMAN-ZITTEL PALEONTOLOGY 



The appearance of a second and very much 

 enlarged edition of Dr. Eastman's English 

 version of Zittel's " Paleontology " (Volume 1, 

 Invertebrates) may be accepted not only as an 

 acknowledgment of the usefulness of the work 

 but also as a response to a growing interest in 

 the study of ancient life. It is very probable 

 that the justification for the revision of this 

 expensive and elaborate work comes chiefly 

 from the American demand, and, if this is 

 true, the demand may perhaps be counted 

 among the first fruits of the efforts made by 

 The Paleontological Society to encourage and 

 widen a deeper concern in that field. While 

 this statement has reasonable worth, yet the 

 fact stands out clearly that the Eastman- 

 Zittel " Paleontology " is by far the best, prac- 

 tically the only satisfactory general guide- 

 book and compendium of the science. Even 



the first edition was a more useful book than 

 the German original because of its greater 

 detail and closer analyses, though we have 

 been given to believe the innovations in classi- 

 fication introduced by the first collaborators 

 were not altogether acceptable to the lamented 

 and distinguished author. Professor Zittel. 

 But in a science which covers the whole field 

 of life, progress must be rapid; new encyclo- 

 pedias soon become old as new lands are ex- 

 plored and old ones more closely scrutinized, 

 and old philosophies and classifications give 

 way under the burden of new knowledge. No 

 one person could to-day successfully do what 

 Zittel did — write a book covering the entire 

 field of ancient life. Versatile as he was in 

 many departments of paleontology, competent 

 to expound as he did the structures of sponges 

 and dinosaurs, to-day such diverse efforts 

 would be looked upon with a grave hesitancy 

 by students generally, that would assuredly 

 weaken the voice of authority. 



So, in this new book, there is a divided au- 

 thority, even more pronounced than in the 

 first edition, and the American author. Dr. 

 Eastman, modestly withholds his own name 

 from any acknowledged responsible share in 

 the separate chapters, which leaves us to infer 

 that he did all the work the others did not do 

 (no small amount when one analyzes the allot- 

 ments) and of course did the real work on the 

 rationale of all the combined chapters. 



In giving to Science a notice of this work, 

 it seems appropriate to restrict it essentially 

 to the new material, either in the form of 

 accretions from later discoveries or of revised 

 classifications, and to present these new fea- 

 tures succinctly and with precision the re- 

 viewer has asked most of the contributors to 

 briefly state the differences between the old 

 and the new in the chapters with which they 

 have been severally charged. 



In the 1899, or first, American edition there 

 were 12 collaborators; in this edition of 14 

 years later there are 17 coworkers, and but 

 three names of the first list remain on the 

 last: Dr. Dall, Professor Schuchert, Mr. 

 Clarke. The increase in the number speaks of 

 greater refinement of knowledge as well as of 

 wider activity of research in the later years. 



