656 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 486. 



know and love their environment and to 

 feel their kinship with the life of the world 

 in body and spirit. Out of this work 

 greater uniformity and better correlation 

 will proceed naturally. 



For pioneer conditions must pass. I 

 once had a teacher of arithmetic who had 

 a failing for the duodecimal system; that 

 system had its beauties and its educational 

 utilities also ; but it has had to go. As it 

 is no longer permissible to pasture one's 

 cow on the common or to pick strawberries 

 in any fence row, the time is sure to 

 come when it will not be permissible for 

 any teacher to teach what he pleases and 

 when he pleases, according to the exi- 

 gencies of his situation, the limitations of 

 his knowledge or the prevailing fashion of 

 his university. But it is this very freedom 

 that allows the development of the possi- 

 bilities of the subject; elimination will 

 come later. May it be natural elimination, 

 and not the forced kind that education suf- 

 fers when 'men of violence take it by force.' 



What is best for life is not completeness, 

 for that is unattainable ; not so much great 

 knowledge, as a little knowledge rightly 

 attained with an appetite for more. One 

 danger in programs is that knowledge will 

 be the chief end sought. But another and 

 perhaps even greater danger is that they 

 will be arranged from the standpoint of 

 the specialist without due regard to the 

 standpoint of the learner. How often has 

 it been forgotten already that we had fin- 

 gers before forceps, eyes before lenses, 

 lenses before microscopes, jack-knives be- 

 fore scalpels, scalpels before microtomes. 

 I have never found a truer statement of 

 this matter than the following one from 

 Professor J. Arthur Thompson: 'A cireui- 

 totis course of study followed with natural 

 eagerness will lead to better results than 

 the most logical programs, if that take no 

 root in the life of the student.' 



I can not help feeling that science teach- 



ing, while it has earned its place, has fallen 

 far short of accomplishing that public 

 good for which we may reasonably hope: 

 the diffusion of honesty and directness of 

 method and respect for the simple truth; 

 the abandonment of dogmatism and super- 

 stition. Perhaps it is because of the es- 

 sential conservatism of human nature ; per- 

 haps it is because this teaching starts too 

 late and finds scant lodgment in soil al- 

 ready stocked with the notions of an un- 

 scientific age; perhaps it is because that 

 teaching is not yet direct and forceful 

 enough to take hold upon the life and to 

 touch the springs of conduct. But ulti- 

 mate failure in these respects would rest 

 especially upon biology, because of the inti- 

 mate relations it bears to the life of the 

 people. James G. Needham. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



REPORTS OF THE BELGIAN ANTABCTIC EXPEDITION. 



Besultats du Voyage du 8. Y. Belgica, en 

 1897-8-9, sows le commandement de A. de 

 Gerlache de Gomery. Eapports Scien- 

 tifiques, publies aux frais du Gouvernement 

 Beige, sous la direction de la ComTnission 

 de la Belgica. Anvers, J. E. Buschmann. 

 1901 (et seq.). 4to, with plates and text- 

 figures. 



After the return of the Antarctic expedition 

 on the Belgica, in December, 1899, by royal 

 mandate a commission was appointed under 

 the presidency of General Brialmont to super- 

 vise the publication of the scientific results. 

 It is proposed to issue these in ten quarto 

 volumes, the edition to be of 500 copies, ex- 

 clusive of separate copies of the several papers, 

 which, being issued with individual pagina- 

 tion, dates and covers, may appear as promptly 

 as possible after preparation; the assembling 

 into volumes being a subsequent arrangement. 

 Quite a number of these papers have al- 

 ready appeared, so that it seems desirable to 

 give our readers some idea of what has been 

 accomplished, although considerations of space 

 will restrict our comment to the utmost limit 

 of brevity on the present occasion. In a gen- 



