Septembeb 16, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



37T 



four lines of No. 5. Proposition 6, also, is a 

 good one. Propositions 7, 8 and 9 seem to 

 me will eventually go by the board, as either 

 unnecessary or wide of the mark. No. 8, for 

 example, is an impossibility, as has been 

 pointed out by Professor Magie. 



I also find myself in agreement with those 

 who would readily dispense with any high 

 school physics for college students provided 

 the student is mature, earnest and of general 

 good training. It is not a question of having 

 a previous knowledge of physics, but of ca- 

 pacity for plenty of hard work and of close 

 application. 



I am also inclined to sympathize with Pro- 

 fessor Mann's position that the best judge of 

 what a high school course in physics should be 

 is the high school instructor himself. After 

 all, is not the problem of high school physics 

 one that the high school instructors should be 

 allowed to work out independent of any over- 

 lordship on the part of the universities ? There 

 is, I believe, a justly growing resentment and 

 impatience on the part of high school in- 

 structors at the dictation of the universities. 

 The colleges and universities can well afford 

 to let them work out their own four years' 

 problem, asking only that such examples of 

 their product as come up to the universities 

 be creditable representatives of their labor. 

 I am sure that the high school instructors are 

 just as ambitious as the universities and col- 

 leges to show results, and I am inclined to 

 believe that a good deal of the dictation on the 

 part of higher education to the secondary 

 schools handicaps instead of helps them. I 

 am also inclined to believe that in letting the 

 high school instructor have free scope with his 

 high school course he should stop asking col- 

 leges and universities to give advanced credit 

 to the high school students. It is for these 

 reasons that it seems to me that propositions 

 7, 8, 9 and 6, also, are unnecessary, as well 

 as the latter part of proposition 5. 



The question of dynamics in section 9 is 

 one which I hope the high schools would 

 answer by teaching and not by omitting the 

 subject of kinetics. It seems to me unfor- 

 tunate for high school students to pass out 



into the world with no attempt at quantitative 

 ideas in this subject, and that the high school 

 teacher is likely to gain rather than lose by 

 meeting the issue squarely instead of evading" 

 it merely because it is hard. While this is 

 my view, I would be perfectly willing to leave 

 the solution of this question, with all the rest 

 of the high school course, to the high school 

 teachers. 



In closing I would express a hope, as does- 

 Dr. Hall, that the discussion may go on and 

 not be closed even with his most excellent 

 discussion. John C. Shedd 



Olivet, Mich. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Ancient Plants. By M. C. Stopes. Pp.. 



viii-t-198, figs. 122. London, Blackie & 



Son, Ltd. 1910. 



This well-written and well-illustrated little 

 book furnishes another striking illustration 

 of the difficulty of writing in a non-technical 

 way about a technical subject. As is usually 

 the case, some aspects are made too primer- 

 like while others are highly theoretical and out 

 of place, as for example the concluding discus- 

 sion in the present work regarding the prob- 

 able future evolution of plants. 



The work is well planned and the facts pre- 

 sented seem in general to bear close scrutiny,, 

 although many of the geological statements,- 

 while true for Great Britain or even western 

 Europe, hardly apply to the rest of the world. 

 The book is typically English, and will no- 

 doubt prove a very useful elementary text in 

 that country. The author's frequent use of 

 the phrase " microscopical standpoint " well 

 serves to illustrate the point of view and ex- 

 plains her statement in the introduction that 

 Williamson was the foremost contributor to 

 paleobotany. No one will dispute William- 

 son's well-earned renown, but it is very doubt- 

 ful if he would be considered the foremost 

 contributor to even Carboniferous paleobotany 

 outside of England, and his influence is more 

 or less responsible for the neglect with which 

 the splendid Tertiary floras of the south of 

 England have been treated. Again Lindley &' 

 Hutton's " Fossil Flora of Great Britain " is 



