October 27, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



561 



The position of curator in paleontology -at 

 Columbia University, made vacant by the 

 resignation of Dr. Elvira Wood, has been 

 filled by the appointment of Felix Hahn, 

 Ph.D., of Munich, who began his work at the 

 university in August. Dr. Wood has gone to 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cam- 

 bridge. 



Dr. J. D. Falconer, late principal officer of 

 the Mineral Survey of Northern Nigeria, has 

 been appointed to the lectureship in geography 

 at Glasgow University, vacated by Captain 

 Lyons, F.E.S. 



DISCUSSION AND COBSESPONDENCE 



TEXT-BOOKS AND REVIEWING 



Among the numerous text-books which ap- 

 pear every year, some are critically and care- 

 fully reviewed, but others are treated super- 

 ficially, or scarcely noticed. Without having 

 compiled any statistics, I have the impression 

 that the condition of affairs is on the whole 

 very unsatisfactory, especially with regard to 

 books intended for the secondary schools. 

 Having for many years been interested in 

 high-school biology, I have had occasion to 

 look at many text-books and read many re- 

 views, and it seems to me doubtful whether at 

 the present time the high schools are pro- 

 tected, as they ought to be, from bad work. 

 It may be said that the teachers themselves 

 should know enough to avoid the use of badly 

 written books, or to correct the errors in 

 those which are on the whole meritorious; 

 but any one acquainted with actual condi- 

 tions will know that this is much more diffi- 

 cult than it seems. The one necessary thing 

 is that responsible writers shall deal adequately 

 and frankly with the books in responsible 

 journals, making it impossible for anything 

 unworthy to escape the criticism it deserves. 

 Text-books stand on a somewhat different 

 footing from other works. An original mono- 

 graph may be praised for its good qualities, 

 and its faults (there are always some!) for- 

 given. It is judged by the actual advance in 

 knowledge it represents. A text-book should 

 be scrutinized so carefully that all errors are 



eliminated, save those due to the unwitting 

 ignorance of present-day science. Criticisms 

 which may seem ungracious in respect to 

 original works, are justifiable and necessary 

 when dealing with text-books. I will even 

 suggest that Science might do worse than 

 open a column headed " errors in text-books," 

 to which teachers should send signed notes 

 pointing out the mistakes they find from time 

 to time. These corrections would be espe- 

 cially valuable when concerning texts in con- 

 stant use and of known merit. 



The immediate occasion for these remarks 

 is a book by Dr. E. Davenport, of the Univer- 

 sity of Illinois, entitled " Domesticated Ani- 

 mals and Plants" (Ginn & Company, 1910). 

 A copy of this work reached us at the Uni- 

 versity of Colorado early in the present year, 

 and was examined with more than usual in- 

 terest, on account of the need for something 

 of the kind in our high schools. It was seen 

 to be of convenient size, well printed, pleas- 

 antly written, and well illustrated. However, 

 about the first thing to strike the eye on turn- 

 ing over the pages was a good picture of a pas- 

 senger pigeon, with the extraordinary state- 

 ment that it is the " wild parent of all the 

 domesticated sorts that have been developed 

 by selection." On the next two pages are fig- 

 ures of twenty kinds of domestic pigeons, with 

 these legends : " Types of pigeons developed 

 from the rock or passenger pigeon shown in 

 Fig. 13 " ; " Additional types developed from 

 the passenger pigeon, by selection and breed- 

 ing." This astounding information is out- 

 done, if that is possible, by some of the defi- 

 nitions at the end of the book, as "zygote, 

 that portion of the gamete which determines 

 a unit character " ; "gamete, the fertilized 

 ovum or ovule." Fairly dizzy, we turn over a 

 few more pages and discover that (p. 163) 

 " every individual transmits all the characters 

 of his ancestry," a statement considered so 

 important that it is italicized. The amount 

 of error in the book is well brought out by 

 Mr. Richard Lydekker, who reviews it in 

 Nature, March 23, 1911, p. 107. Taking up 

 the one section on cattle and sheep (eleven 

 pages) he finds a whole series of blunders. 



