March 18, 1887.] 



SCIEJSrCE. 



255 



of Dr. Paulsen's concluding chapter, and to apply 

 its sentiments to the discussion as to the nature of 

 the curriculum of the future. We are several 

 thousand miles farther from Berlin than our 

 English co-workers, yet Dr. Paulsen's name and 

 thought are well known here. In fact, the 

 Academy pubHshed recently, in the form of a 

 supplement, a complete and very excellent trans- 

 lation of Dr. Paulsen's now celebrated final chap- 

 ter. We cannot understand the English ignorance 

 of Paulsen's work and status, unless that people 

 fails to read all educational literature published 

 off the Island of Albion, which is an opinion we 

 shall be very sorry to hold. Professor Paulsen is 

 one of the most popxilar professors in the Berlin 

 faculty, and he lectures to large audiences of stu- 

 dents. He is also a councillor of state for educa- 

 tion and one of the state board of examiners of 

 the candidates for licenses to teach, and has in a 

 variety of ways exercised a wide influence on 

 Prussian education. His philosophical writings 

 are of a very high order, and he is surpassed by 

 no one in his critical mastery of the history and 

 philosophy of education. 



The double number of the Library journal, 

 bearing the date January and February, will be 

 very valuable for future reference because of the 

 tables it contains concerning the libraries of the 

 United States. The statistics are taken in the 

 first instance from advance sheets of the forthcom- 

 ing I'eport of the bureau of education, and an ad- 

 dition is made of the names of the librarians and a 

 classification of the libraries according to size. 

 The government list comprises all libraries having 

 300 volumes or over, and contains 5,338. The 

 Library journal, however, only reprints the in- 

 formation concerning those of 1,000 volumes or 

 over, and these number 3,981. Forty-seven of 

 these have over 50,000 volumes ; and among the 

 forty-seven are the public libraries of Boston, 

 Chicago, and Cincinnati, and the libraries of 

 Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, and Brown 

 universities. These forty-seven libraries aggregate 

 5,026,472 volumes ; and the whole list of 5,338 

 libraries aggregates 20,622,073 volumes, or one 

 volume to every three persons in the country. 

 In round numbers, the United States has one 

 library to every ten thousand of population, though 

 in many states the proportion is far greater. New 

 Hampshire, for example, has a library to every 

 2,700 persons. The neighboring states of Massa- 



chusetts and Coimecticut furnish a library to every 

 3,134 and 3,479 persons respectively. California, 

 Colorado, Wyoming, and Michigan stand well up 

 on the list. The southern states, as might be ex- 

 pected, make the worst showing, Arkansas bring- 

 ing up the rear with one library to every 50,158 of 

 population. 



A TENDENCY is observable on the part of many 

 young teachers, whose enthusiasm and imagina- 

 tion are roused by the great discoveries of modem 

 science, to substitute in their instruction the 

 method of discovery for the method of exposition. 

 Excepting for advanced students, in university 

 courses and the like, the substitution is rather con- 

 fusing than beneficial. The young child cannot 

 rise to an appreciation of the relations between 

 isolated facts save as these are used in illustration 

 of a principle. There must be some support on 

 which to hang the facts in question, if the child 

 is to grasp their significance. For this reason we 

 believe that there is a stage in education when it 

 is preferable to state a simple principle, and then 

 illustrate it fully, than to present the pupil with a 

 congeries of facts with the request that he ascer- 

 tain their relations and causal dependence. Yet a 

 great many young and well-instructed — save in 

 pedagogics — • teachers, understanding themselves 

 the value and purposes of the method of investi- 

 gation, demand of their pupils what the latter are 

 not able to give. The fact should be recognized 

 that the method of exposition has a determined 

 place in education, and should be awarded it. 



Dr. Lucy M. Hall, physician to Vassar col- 

 lege, in a short paper in the Popular science 

 monthly, brings to the discussion concerning the 

 higher education of women inaugurated by Dr. 

 Withers-Moore — to which we have alluded several 

 times already — some conclusions deduced from 

 statistics gathered by herself concerning the num- 

 ber of children born to women who have pursued 

 a course of higher education. The statistics were 

 gathered for the purpose of measuring the great 

 faUing-off in numbers in the American family, 

 and, though by no means complete, they bear di- 

 rectly upon the question at issue. The data were 

 taken from all grades of American life save that 

 found in exti-eme poverty. The women were, as 

 a rule, simply educated. A few were more highly 

 educated, and the figures show that the largest 

 families of the present generation belong to the 



