January 14, 1887.] 



8CIENCK 



43 



and not accomplish its objects. The more extreme 

 the character of the measure, the surer it is of 

 non-enforcement. " 



"If organized labor takes a fair legal chance 

 for prosecuting the grievances of individuals, it 

 simply gi pes those individuals a fair chance be- 

 fore the law ; if organized labor does not prose- 

 cute such grievances, it gives the employers an 

 immunity from interference at present, but at the 

 risk of almost revolutionary consequences in the 

 future. 



"There is nothing to prevent the knights of 

 labor, or a trades-union, from being incorporated 

 under the law of the state of Connecticut at 

 present. Though not generally understood, this 

 is a fact." 



" Such legislation may help in raising the 

 standard of the community. But let it be clearly 

 understood that it is a rough process, and not a 

 smooth one ; that it frequently bears hardest 

 where we should wish to see it bear least ; and 

 that it is hopeless to attempt to enforce it, until 

 those whom it is designed to benefit — or, at 

 least, a large part of them — have risen high 

 enough to reap the benefit, and are sufficiently 

 convinced of those benefits to use their own per- 

 sonal efforts for its enforcement." 



The last portion of the report which we can 

 mention is that which deals with the credit sys- 

 tem. Professor Hadley discusses in order the 

 practicability and the desirability of weekly pay- 

 ments and the best means of securing their en- 

 forcement. To most of his argument we give 

 our hearty assent, though we think even more 

 weight should be given to the objections to week- 

 ly payments advanced by certain manufacturers, 

 who submit, that, from the very character of their 

 work, its product cannot be properly estimated 

 and paid for every week. We are glad, too, to 

 see that Professor Hadley appreciates the fact 

 that for the best employees weekly payments 

 would be useless, and for the worst they would 

 be worse than useless. The average workman is 

 the one to be benefited by them. The report 

 summarizes this discussion thus : — 



" 1". The system of cash payment is a real ad- 

 vantage to the workman. 2". The difficulties of 

 weekly payment are not so great as is commonly' 

 supposed. 3°, But; there nevertheless remain a 

 sufficient number of cases to which a weekly 

 payment law could not well be applied, to 

 constitute a serious reason against making the 

 system compulsory. 4°. The same general result 

 could be reached more surely from another direc- 

 tion, by abolishing the factorizing process. This 

 would necessitate a system of cash payments as a 

 rule, and the exceptions to it would regulate 



themselves in such a manner as to involve less 

 difficulty. 5°. We therefore recommend that the 

 legislature pass a law exempting the wages of all 

 mechanics, journeymen, or laborers, from attach- 

 ment for debt ; with such additional legislation as 

 may be necessary to prevent its effects from being 

 evaded by the systematic assignment of wages on 

 usurious terms." 



With reports such as this of Commissioner 

 Hadley, and those of Carroll D. Wright of the 

 national and Massachusetts bureaus, before us, we 

 can conscientiously commend the sagacity of Dr. 

 Engel, one of the most eminent statisticians in 

 Germany, and late chief of the Royal statistical 

 bureau of Prussia, when he said that his ambition 

 would be satisfied if he could accomplish in Ger- 

 many the same work that was being done by some 

 of the American statistical bureaus. 



SEDGWICK AND WILSON'S BIOLOGY. 



The old and thoroughly vicious notion that 

 " the power of repeating a classification of ani- 

 mals with appropriate definitions has any thing to 

 do with genuine knowledge," is slowly disappear- 

 ing before the advance of a rational method of 

 teaching biology ; namely, that of bringing the 

 student face to face with the objects of his study. 

 Much of this reform is due to Huxley and Martin's 

 'Elenaentary biology,' which appeared some ten 

 years ago. In the book before us two of Profes- 

 sor Martin's former pupils undertake to elaborate 

 and improve his plan of instruction, intending it 

 to serve as a factor in general education or as 

 "a basis for future studies in general biology, 

 botany, zoology, or medicine." 



After a general introduction, and chapters on 

 the composition of living organisms, on proto- 

 plasm (which contains several pages on organic 

 chemistry), and on the cell, then follow the long 

 and very careful accounts of the bracken-fern and 

 earth-worm, the typical examples selected of 

 vegetable and animal life. The anatomical, physi- 

 ological, and embryological aspects of the sub- 

 ject are (for an elementary work) treated with un- 

 usual fulness of detail. The authors have done 

 wisely in not following Huxley and Martin's order 

 of treatment, which begins with the unicellular 

 organisms. This is the logical order, but it is 

 beset with practical difficulties. As a matter of 

 fact, most teachers will agree that beginners take 

 most interest in, and succeed best with, forms 

 which they are accustomed to see around them. 

 The structure and functions of microscopic forms 

 are really much more difficult for the beginner to 



General biology. By William T. Sedgwick and Edmund 

 B. Wilson. Part i. : Introductory. New York, Holt, 1886. 8" 



