April 27, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



655 



by placing the bar close to the average 

 period of beginning sexual maturity, or 

 approximately at the ten or ten-and-one- 

 half-ineh length. 



Francis H. Herrick. 

 Westebn Reserve Univeesitt, 

 February 12, 1906. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Congress of Arts and Science, Universal 

 Exposition, St. Louis, 1904. Edited by 

 Howard J. Rogers, A.M., LL.D., Director 

 of Congresses. Vol. I., Philosophy and Math- 

 ematics. Boston and New York, Houghton, 

 Mifflin and Co. 1905. Pp. ix + 626. 

 On account o£ its comprehensiveness of 

 plan, the large attendance of foreign scholars 

 of the first eminence, and the picturesqueness 

 (in several senses) of its attendant circum- 

 stances, the Congress of Arts and Science of 

 the St. Louis Exposition was doubtless the 

 most memorable and impressive scientific 

 gathering ever held in America — as it was 

 certainly the most creditable and original 

 thing connected with the exposition. The 

 more permanently valuable of its results will 

 come less from the preservation of the papers 

 read than from the stimulating influence of 

 the actual assembling of so many great spe- 

 cialists for the comparison of methods and 

 conclusions; from the informal discussions of 

 workers in kindred fields, over restaurant 

 tables or in the barracks where so much 

 learning was housed in the midst of amateur 

 soldiers, flying-machines and blanket-Indians; 

 from the closer acquaintance brought about 

 between scholars of a dozen different nations; 

 and from the manner in which the congress 

 brought home to the consciousness of a part 

 of the world not hitherto adequately awake to 

 such ideas the dignity of productive research, 

 its central place amongst the functions of 

 universities, and the primacy of its office in 

 relation to all the work of modern civilization 

 and to the increase of all forms of human 

 power and wealth. Eor all this American 

 men of science are in no small measure under 

 obligations to all concerned in the organiza- 

 tion and management of the congress — espe- 



cially to the officials of the exposition, to the 

 exposition's committee on congresses, to the 

 boards responsible for the determination of 

 the plan and scope of the congress, and to the 

 foreign scholars who entered into the plan, 

 often at considerable sacrifice of personal com- 

 fort and convenience. Much mention of per- 

 sonalities would be invidious; but it appears 

 that the most distinctive features of this con- 

 gress are to be credited to Mr. E. J. V. Skiff, 

 director of exhibits, who insisted ' to the ex- 

 ecutive committee of the exposition that the 

 congress work stand for something more than 

 an unrelated series of independent gatherings,' 

 and induced the committee to appropriate a 

 sum sufficient to make practicable a project so 

 extensive; to the late Mr. E. W. Holls, who 

 suggested the idea of selecting and remuner- 

 ating the speakers; and to Professor Miinster- 

 berg, whose imagination conceived the de- 

 tailed plan finally adopted, and whose energy 

 provided much of the driving power that made 

 it possible to carry the plan through. 



The present volimie, the first of eight, con- 

 tains a large amount of prefatory matter: a 

 history of the congTCSs by the editor of the 

 series. Dr. H. J. Rogers; a paper on 'The 

 Scientific Plan of the Congress ' by Professor 

 Miinsterberg ; and the eloquent opening ad- 

 dress of the president. Dr. Simon Newcomb, 

 on ' The Evolution of the Scientific Investi- 

 gator.' Then follow the proceedings of ' Divi- 

 sion A ' of the congress — sixteen papers in 

 philosophy and eight in mathematics — cover- 

 ing the field of what is called ' Normative 

 Science.' 



Miinsterberg's classification of the sciences 

 for the purposes of the congress has already 

 been pretty widely criticized. No imaginable 

 scheme of arrangement could fail to have its 

 own special disadvantages. But there unde- 

 niably seems to be a supererogatory amount 

 of perversity, and a needless sacrifice of prac- 

 tical convenience and naturalness of connec- 

 tion, in an arrangement which, e. g., widely 

 separates esthetics from psychology, theoret- 

 ical from experimental physics, the philosophy 

 from the history of religion, while bringing 

 an edifying but rather preachy exposition of 



