500 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 92. 



some doubt as to whether the case described by 

 Mr. Lennox can be considered an immediate 

 effect of cross pollination, I think everyone 

 critically examining it will admit. If due to 

 reversion, graft hybridization or cross pollina- 

 tion, the same characters will probably appear 

 on the tree again next year, so that further 

 studies may be made. It is to be hoped that 

 Mr. Lennox will be able to test the validity of 

 his conclusions experimentally. 



Horticultural literature has become so filled 

 with descriptions of supposed cases of the im- 

 mediate action of pollen where insufficient evi- 

 dence is given to enable one to judge the mer- 

 its of the case, that it behooves observers to be 

 exceptionally careful in regard to all conditions 

 if any final conclusions are to be reached. 



Herbert J. Webber. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



THE DEFINITION OF CIVIL ENGINEERING. 



There is an error in my paper on the Ar- 

 tistic Element in Engineering which I should 

 like to correct. Following the lead of other 

 writers, I have ascribed the classic definition of 

 civil engineering to Telford instead of to Tred- 

 gold, whom I have recently learned was its 

 author. See B. B. Gazette of December 28, 

 1894, page 883, or of August 28, 1896, page 602. 



I am indebted to Mr. H. G. Prout, of the 

 Gazette, for calling my attention to the matter. 



F. O. Marvin. 



University of Kansas. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Studies of Childhood. James Sully. New 



York, D. Appleton & Co. 1896. 



This book is a series of topical or classified 

 studies of certain phases of the psychology of 

 child life, covering, upon the whole, the period 

 of life from two to six years of age, with quite 

 a marked preference for those phenomena which 

 dawn or are at their height in the second and 

 third years. The topics covered are : The im- 

 agination of childhood ; its reasonings, includ- 

 ing a study both of the process and the more 

 marked and characteristic processes ; the be- 

 ginnings of language ; the emotion of fear ; 

 some phenomena of morality, including a study 



of children's egoism, altruism, lies, and an ac- 

 count of their reactions to the moral injunctions 

 of their elders ; and a study of the child's 

 aesthetic nature as manifested in his instinctive 

 expressions and in his primitive drawings. The 

 book concludes with a detailed individual study 

 (covering about 100 pages) of one of his own 

 children ; and a very interesting study of the 

 childhood of George Sand, drawn from the lat- 

 ter' s autobiography. In this connection it may 

 be remarked that a distinct feature of the book 

 is not only the author's own style, which is 

 literary rather than 'scientific,' but his wide 

 acquaintance with autobiographical allusions to 

 childhood and his apt use of such reminiscences. 

 Euskin, Dickens, Quinet, Tolstoi, Stevenson 

 and many others figure in these pages. 



This topical character of the treatment prac- 

 tically makes any synopsis of the book, beyond 

 such a bare scheduling of headings, out of the 

 question. An immense number of relevant ob- 

 servations of childhood, gathered from practi- 

 cally all available sources, supplemented by 

 Mr. Sully's own observations, and enlivened by 

 judicious remarks upon the salient qualities of 

 childhood, make the book what it is. The 

 hypercritical will probably conceive that the 

 running commentary is sometimes discursive, 

 occasionally dangerously near the padding 

 point, and frequently of no great importance. 

 But I confess myself sufficiently grateful in 

 finding a book to review which is interesting to 

 read as well as technically instructive. 



The impossibility of summarizing the material 

 content of the book makes it advisable to direct 

 attention to the method, both what Mr. Sully 

 himself says about method and that which he 

 actually employs. As to the former, Mr. Sully 

 devotes considerable space in his introduction 

 to the objects and difficulties of child study, 

 and to an account of the equipment necessary for 

 observation and interpretation. The interest 

 in child-study he finds to be partly due to the 

 general development of natural science and 

 partly to specifically psychological needs. The 

 infant is, so to speak, more obviously a natural 

 phenomenon than the adult ; and the evolu- 

 tionist in particular finds in him obvious signs 

 of close kinship with the animal world, both 

 in the foetal and early post-foetal stages. The 



