Mat is, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



773 



tiling doing.' All calamity-howlers to the 

 contrary notwithstanding, the canal is as 

 sure to be built as a natural law is certain 

 of fulfilment; and those who to-day busy 

 themselves trying to find arguments against 

 it are going to be ashamed and sorry when 

 the seas are eventually linked by the great- 

 est engineering undertaking in the history 

 of mankind. For a canal which saves nine 

 thousand miles of ocean journey between 

 San Francisco and New Orleans, six thou- 

 sand miles between Yokohama and New 

 Orleans, two thousand miles between Hong 

 Kong and New Orleans and six thousand 

 miles between Sydney and New Orleans, is 

 an agency in bringing mankind nearer to 

 mankind too vastly important to evade the 

 sight of God and escape the desire of na- 

 tions. But just now, rather than any state- 

 ment of cubic yards excavated in August 

 or September or October, one finds the fol- 

 lowing figures significant: 



In June, 1905, there were 62 cases of 

 yellow fever on the isthmus; in July, 42; 

 in August, 27 ; in September, 6 ; in October, 

 3. In August, 1905, with a force of 12,000 

 men at work, the death-rate was two thirds 

 of one per 1,000, whereas under the French 

 regime, in Aiigust, 1882, with a force of 

 1,900 men, the death-rate was no less than 

 112 per thousand. These figures will ap- 

 peal to the citizens of a community whose 

 recent fight against yellow fever has been 

 the admiration of the civilized world and a 

 great object-lesson to uncivilized humanity ; 

 an object-lesson in civic self-dependence, 

 public spirit and uncommemorated heroism. 

 A city that can pass through such an or- 

 deal, a city that faces a great crisis as New 

 Orleans faced the yellow-fever epidemic, is 

 the surest guarantee that the nation of 

 which that city is a part will do her duty 

 by civilization, and build, expeditiously 

 and economically, the Roosevelt Canal. 



FULLERTON L. WALDO. 



THE MOVEMENT IN PRUSSIA FOR TEE RE~ 

 ORGANIZATION OF THE INSTRUCTION 

 IN MATHEMATICS AND THE NAT- 

 URAL SCIENCES IN THE SEC- 

 ONDARY SCHOOLS. 



For over a decade, there has been a note- 

 worthy movement in Prussia aiming at the 

 improvement of instruction in mathematics 

 in the secondary schools.^ The aim is not 

 an increase of the amount of time given to 

 mathematics, but a reorganization of the 

 subject matter of the mathematical cur- 

 riculum so as to bring it into closer con- 

 formity to the needs of the times, in par- 

 ticular by giving more attention to the ap- 

 plications of mathematics, and by laying 

 less stress in the earlier years on those more 

 abstract phases of the subject which over- 

 tax the pupils' powers at that time. The 

 most prominent leader in the movement is 

 Professor Klein, of Gottingen, whose views 

 are most readily accessible to American 

 readers in a recent book collecting various 

 addresses and papers of his on the teaching 

 of mathematics.^ He is a pronounced ad- 

 vocate of the introduction of the elements 

 of the differential and the integral calculus 

 into the work in mathematics in the sec- 

 ondary schools of Prussia. 



This agitation has borne fruit in the new 

 Prussian curricula of 1901, wherein de- 

 cidedly more stress than previously is laid 

 on concrete beginnings, on graphic meth- 

 ods, on deferring the more abstract phases 

 of the various subjects and on applications 

 throughout to the affairs of practical life 



' This term is used as indicating the closest 

 American equivalent. The Gierman term is 

 ' higher schools.' Pupils are admitted to the 

 schools at the age of nine, the course of instruc- 

 tion covers nine years, and the normal age of 

 graduation is nineteen or twenty. In mathe- 

 matics the ground covered is approximately that 

 of our grades, secondary schools and freshman year 

 in college. 



' F. Klein, ' Uber eine zeitgemasse Umgestaltung 

 des mathematischen Unterriohts an den hoheren 

 Schulen,' Leipzig, 1904, pp. ii + 82. 



