October 28, 18S7.] 



SCIENCE. 



215 



tance, and then attempting to repeat the motion. The general re- 

 sult was, that the reproduced motion was larger than the original, 

 when the motion was made on the hand's own side, — for the right 

 hand on the right side, and for the left hand on the left. 



In conclusion. Dr. Loeb asks the question, " On what basis 

 does the mind conclude that the motions of the two hands 

 are equal.'" He answers that it is due to the time element. 

 There is an unconscious attempt to translate space into time, be- 

 cause we can judge the latter more accurately ; and, in several 

 series of experiments in which the time was recorded, it was found, 

 that, even when the two hands moved quite different distances, the 

 times of the two motions were approximately the same. The 

 mind, then, judges two motions to be the same when they are in- 

 nervated by equally intense impulses, and consume equal times ; 

 and the asymmetry is referred to the fact (due to increased practice, 

 or what not) that an equal impulse vvrill impart a larger motion to 

 the one (the preferred) hand. That other factors enter into the 

 problem is not to be doubted : for example, if one thread is rough 

 and the other smooth, the same distance on each will seem longer 

 on the rough thread, by more frequently stimulating the skin. Dr. 

 Loeb promises a continuation of the observations. 



False Testimony of Children. — The trial at Tisza-Eszlar 

 is probably sufficiently well in mind to serve as a type of the false 

 evidence given by children. Dr. A. Motet has collected a number 

 of similar cases, and shows very distinctly that the children in 

 question are quite generally the subjects of morbid tendencies. 

 Frequently they are the offspring of a degenerate stock, and are 

 characterized by weakness of will, and a love for excitement. The 

 analogy between these suggestions accepted and elaborated by 

 these children in a waking condition, and precisely the same phe- 

 nomena in hypnotic states, is evident. Dr. Motet suggests several 

 hints by which such testimony can be prevented from imposing 

 upon the courts, and urges that a careful physician be summoned 

 v^fhen any such suspicious testimony by a child is deposed. It il- 

 lustrates anew the close connection between responsibility and 

 nervous affections as well as between the doctor's study and the 

 court's dictum. 



Smell and Touch versus Sight. — Dr. Fauvelle calls at- 

 tention to the inverse relation between the development of the 

 visual and the olfactory apparatus, and holds that smell, when sup- 

 ported by touch, can in some forms of life outweigh sight. The 

 snout, when it occurs, is always at the most anterior portion of the 

 body in progression, and through this heralding position becomes 

 endowed with a most delicate sensibility, often of mobility too, and 

 at the same time brings into prominence the olfactory mechanism. 

 The changes in the form of this naso-labial organ of touch follow 

 all the changes in the prominence of the organ of smell, and pre- 

 vent a special development of the organ of vision. In man and the 

 primates this loses its miportance and yields to sight, which superi- 

 ority is assigned to the parallelism of the visual axes, and establish- 

 ing of the biped position, where the organ of smell is no longer at 

 a prominently anterior position of the body. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Industrial Education, a Guide io^ Manual Training. By Sam- 

 uel G. Love. New York and Chicago, E. L. Kellogg & 

 Co. 8°. 



It is inevitable that there should spring up in the earlier stages 

 of a movement for educational reform a large literature. Some of this 

 will naturally be good ; but much of it, owing to superficial knowl- 

 edge or misconception, will be bad. Public opinion on the reform 

 in question is in large measure formed by these early books, and 

 for that reason, if for none other, the critic should scan them with 

 great care. 



Mr. Love's book is one of the first in this country that undertakes 

 to explain in detail what manual training really means ; and, as a 

 great many people are just now asking the very question which it 

 professes to answer, it will naturally have a large number of readers. 

 But it is extremely important that only correct information should 

 be given concerning manual training, and that one or two sources 

 of general confusion as to its purpose and aim should be removed. 



We have read Mr. Love's book carefully with these points in 

 view. The book is divided into five parts and an introduction. The 

 first part discusses the claims of manual training, and the second 

 describes what has been done in Jamestown, N.Y., — in which town 

 Mr. Love is superintendent of schools, — in development of this 

 training, and gives the course of study pursued therein. The third, 

 fourth, and fifth parts discuss the organization and carrying-out of 

 manual training in the various grades of the primary, grammar, 

 and high schools, respectively. Mr. Love has worked conscientious- 

 ly, and has beyond question accomplished a great deal of good. 

 His fellow-citizens seem (pp. 27-29) to approve his work, and to 

 be in harmony with his ideas. But, we regret to say, taking Mr. 

 Love's own language as the expression of his ideas, he himself is 

 still very much in the dark as to what the movement in favor of 

 manual training really signifies. 



Those persons who have an insight into the real aim of manual 

 training know how difficult it is to make others understand that 

 the manual training urged is mental training: for no one who 

 understands our public-school education would for a moment urge 

 that any thing which is not purely and simply educational should 

 find a place in it. Manual training would not train the hand -per 

 se, but the hand as the servant of the mind, and as one of the 

 mind's agents of expression. Manual training, which is technical 

 and not mental, must be provided for, but apart from and not in the 

 public schools. This has been insisted upon so often lately, that 

 we had hoped the point was clear to all, and it is extremely dis- 

 couraging to find Superintendent Love marking off his manual 

 training as something foreign to mental training, as he explicitly 

 does in several passages of his introduction, and impliedly does 

 throughout the book. In fact, the author's idea is that manual 

 training should be added on to the school course, as a matter of 

 privilege. The correct idea is that manual training should be in- 

 corporated in the common-school course as a matter of right. 

 The two conceptions differ widely in theory, and still more in prac- 

 tice. For example : the clear-sighted advocate of manual training 

 would never urge, as does the author (p. 7), that it should be in- 

 troduced because " very many children dislike books." This 

 argument, if pursued logically, would create havoc in any system of 

 education. 



Every once in a while the author seems to approximate the 

 proper point of view, as when (p. 33 et passim) he classifies writ- 

 ing, drawing, gymnastics, and card-board work together under the 

 head of manual training. But when we turn to his carpentry 

 course, and see how wholly bhnd he is to the proper relation of 

 drawing to constructive work, we despair again. 



Minor criticisms might be passed on various portions of the 

 book, but this fatal misconception of manual training in general 

 renders them unnecessary. 



Superintendent Love has proved to the satisfaction of himself and 

 his townsmen that the old-fashioned curriculum does not satisfy 

 the educational demands of to-day, and in adopting manual train- 

 ing he did a wise thing ; but his book proves that he adopted it for 

 the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. 



Philosophy of Theism. By BoRDEN P. BowNE. New York, 

 Harper. 8°. 



Professor Bowne's reputation as a thinker rests on a secure 

 foundation, and that alone would entitle this his latest volume to 

 careful consideration. But the ' Philosophy of Theism ' will com- 

 mand attention and respect on its own account, for it is in many 

 ways a remarkable book. 



In the first place, it is a new evidence of the interest now being 

 taken in the philosophy of religion, and may well take a place 

 beside the volumes of Flint, Diman, Fisher, and others as a masterly 

 exposition of the theistic argument. It is superior in profundity to 

 the recent philosophico-religious books of , Royce and Abbott, 

 although we miss in it some of the flashes of brilliancy which make 

 the latter books such interesting reading and constitute so much of 

 their charm. 



But Professor Bowne's aim in the work before us is not, as it 

 seems to us, wholly religious. He aims to show that both theism 

 and modern science stand upon a common substructure ; namely, 

 the philosophy of belief or faith. Indeed, the author goes even 



