October 21, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



557 



illustrate: "The ordinary exercises in draw- 

 ing are, beyond doubt, useless and harmful. In 

 its best aspect it is merely muscle- exercise, but 

 even as such it is, partly from its cramped and 

 spasmodic position and movements, decidedly 

 deficient. In almost all cases it is the crudest 

 sort of caricature that represents and portrays 

 nothing. It leads to no good, and it develops no 

 ability, but, on the contrary, elevates wrong and 

 vicious presentments into undue prominence. 

 When it is ' directed ' it is, if anything, worse ; 

 for then it receives the badge of authoritative 

 affirmation. Unless it is the ' graphic record of 

 of a perceived fact ' it is worse than valueless. ' ' 

 (The writer has italicised.) 



It is certainly a most excellent and needful 

 thing to emphasize freedom and spontaneity in 

 the early years of school work ; but the prac- 

 tical question is constantly forcing itself upon 

 educators : When shall we require coordina- 

 tion ? How early shall all the powers of the 

 child be concentrated upon a given task ? If 

 the author would elaborate his treatise on 

 the primary school, going into greater detail, 

 and base all his conclusions upon clearly evi- 

 dent scientific facts, it would be of incalculable 

 benefit to education. But if matters are left in 

 the form in which they are in this chapter it is 

 to be feared that more distraction and discour- 

 agement than anything else will be the result. 



It is cause for regret that the author is so 

 hopeless about education as it is at present con- 

 ducted. And it is not so much what he says 

 explicity as the feeling which his words inspire. 

 It seems as if every teacher was to be blamed 

 for some grave error. The reading of the 

 chapter makes one feel that Dr. Oppenheim be- 

 lieves in the fall of man, instead of in his con- 

 stant ascendency from lower to higher things. 

 When one gets this latter point of view, he is 

 apt to be more sympathetic toward the failure 

 of the race to realize in practice the highest 

 present ideals in education or in other matters. 

 He sees that we are eternally progressing, and 

 when he criticises his words do not have such a 

 sting ; they do not arouse so much antagonism 

 within one as they are otherwise liable to do. 



The chapters upon The Child's Development 

 as a Factor in Producing the Genius or the 

 Defective and the Child as a Witness in Suits at 



Law are both interesting and important for edu- 

 cation. In the first is pointed out clearly the 

 danger of extraordinary development in some 

 narrow channel which may produce a genius, 

 but which is liable to bring forth an unbalanced, 

 defective personality. In the second chapter 

 the inability of the child to observe critically 

 and report truthfully concerning the things and 

 phenomena which he witnesses is convincingly 

 discussed. The absurdity of accepting the testi- 

 mony of the young child in important suits at 

 law is a matter which has escaped the at- 

 tention of people too fully in the past. The 

 chapter upon The Place of Religion in the De- 

 velopment of the Child seems, for the most 

 part, to be thoroughly reasonable and of prac- 

 tical value as showing how fruitless, not to say 

 vicious, much of our religious teaching is ; al- 

 though it appears to the writer that the author 

 here departs in one respect from the primary 

 principle which he has been emphasizing 

 throughout the book — namely, that in the train- 

 ing of the child we are at all times to accom- 

 modate our instruction to his stage of develop- 

 ment and not try to force him up into the 

 atmosphere of the adult by too rapid degrees. 

 But Dr. Oppenheim contends that it would be 

 better to teach the child ethics and a rational 

 (rational to the adult, that is) notion of religion 

 at the outset, rather than the mythological per- 

 versions which he is apt to acquire as a result 

 of present methods. But is not an ethical view 

 of the world the product of the highest forms 

 of civilization? and, hence, is it not preceded 

 in ontogenesis, as it was in phylogenesis, by a 

 mythopeic conception of the universe ? Is it 

 not necessary, then, that the child should pass 

 through a stage of nature- worship and animism 

 before he can be introduced to the relatively 

 abstruse and unintelligible propositions of Dr. 

 Oppenheim's religion and ethics ? It seems al- 

 together likely that the only way to attain the 

 higher reaches in this, as in other matters, is 

 by way of the lower strata. 



On the whole, this book will be of the great- 

 est worth to education in and out of school, 

 and it is to be hoped that it is but the forerun- 

 ner of others of the same general character, 

 presenting in comprehensible manner the phy- 

 sician's knowledge of the laws governing the 



