SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, MAY 4, 18 



The suggestions which Dr. Gouverneur M. Smith makes, in 

 an article contributed by him to the Nezu York Medical Record, 

 an abstract of which we give in this number of Science, are most 

 ■excellent, and, so far as we are able to judge, are also entirely prac- 

 tical. The two things which are especially lacking in the lives of 

 those who live in tenement-houses are fresh air and sunshine. 

 This is especially true of the invalids, so many of whom are found 

 among the poor and unfortunate of all large cities. While those of 

 this class who have health and strength may find recreation and an 

 ■opportunity to expand their lungs in the parks, the sickly ones must 

 remain, often year after year, in the confined, and not infrequently 

 ■dark bed-chambers of a thickly populated tenement-house. Many 

 such could be transported to the roofs, while they could not be 

 taken to the public pleasure-grounds ; and if these were so con- 

 structed as to admit sunlight and fresh air, and at the same time to 

 exclude the wind and the rain, and were made attractive by the 

 presence of a few flowering plants, the results could not but be 

 beneficial, and repay a thousand-fold the money expended in mak- 

 ing the necessary alterations. There is at the present time one 

 serious impediment to a general adoption of such a plan. The 

 sewer-system of New York, and of other cities as well, contem- 

 plates the extension of soil and waste pipes of all dwellings to the 

 roof, so that the foul air, produced by the decomposition of the 

 filth which they carry, may find a ready escape into the outer air, 

 and not obtain an entrance into the dwelling-rooms. In many cases 

 these pipes are trapped from the street-sewer, in many others they 

 are not ; and in either case the gases which escape at the roof are 

 offensive, and undoubtedly detrimental to health. The writer recalls 

 a case of continued fever, which was contracted by a young man 

 who, unable to leave the city during the summer, was in the habit 

 ■of spending his evenings on the roof of his dwelling. The soil-pipe 

 untrapped from the sewer, extended above the roof, and the odors 

 which escaped therefrom were often so offensive that he could not 

 remain on the roof with comfort. In a thickly settled tenement 

 ■district this evil would be greatly magnified. In the elaboration 

 of any plan, therefore, for the arrangement of the roofs of our city 

 houses so that they may be utilized as pleasure and health resorts, 

 this important element of ill health must not be overlooked. We 

 shall be glad to open the columns of Science to the discussion of 

 this subject, and to reproduce any feasible designs which architects 

 or others may devise for the carrying-out of the plan suggested by 

 Dr. Smith. 



The French educational world is discussing with interest 

 a recent innovation at the College de France, to which we have al- 

 ready referred in Science. That institution, ranking as the represen- 

 tative of the higher education, and having connected with it some 

 of France's most eminent scholars, has converted a chair at the 

 college into a chair of ' experimental and comparative psychology.' 

 This is a very high tribute to the new psychology, and this illustri- 

 ous example will, it is hoped, induce other institutions to take a 

 similar step. M. Paul Janet contributes an extensive article in the 

 Revue de Deux Mondes, outlining the interests which the new pro- 

 fessorship is to represent, and defending it against certain misrep- 

 resentations to which it has been laid open. The occupant of the 

 new professorship is Th. Ribot, whose name is well known to Eng- 

 lish readers, and all of whose works have been translated and edi- 



tions published in America. His three monographs — upon the 

 ' Diseases of Memory,' the ' Diseases of the Will,' and the ' Dis- 

 eases of Personality ' — are most admirable introductions into the 

 studies with which they are concerned. His work upon the psycho- 

 logical aspects of heredity is of standard value, and his compilations 

 of the systems of English psychologists and of German psycholo- 

 gists are hardly less serviceable. M. Ribot will in his new sphere 

 be able to still further widen his useful influence by imparting to 

 young men the same enthusiasm and liberality of thought which 

 he has shown in his works, and nowhere more than in his able ed- 

 itorship of the Revue Philosophique, whose founder he is. The 

 opening address of his course Professor Ribot {Revue Scientifique, 

 April II, 1888) devoted to a brief survey of psychological work in 

 Europe and America. He finds everywhere encouraging examples 

 of good work by scientific methods, and draws a very hopeful picture 

 of the strides that this young science seems destined to make in the 

 near future. The step that the College de France has thus taken 

 is an indication of the raison d'etre which scientific psychology has 

 already proved for itself ; and a similar reform is doubtless to take 

 place elsewhere. It is gratifying to add that the educational insti- 

 tutions of this country are beginning to realize the propriety of such 

 a step, and of having a representative of the new psychology in 

 their faculties. 



No DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL RESEARCH is more fascinating 

 to the biological investigator, or more transcendently important to 

 the human race, than that one of comparatively recent development, 

 the study of micro-organisms and of their agency in producing dis- 

 ease. It is to be regretted that Dr. Sternberg, who was employed 

 by the government to make the inquiry in regard to the existence 

 of a yellow-fever germ, and the feasibility of securing protection 

 from that dread disease by inoculation, was not permitted to pur- 

 sue his investigations to a more satisfactory conclusion. His report, 

 as it is, will be a very important one, although it will afford no en- 

 couragement to those who are striving to account for every known 

 disease by the germ theory, and to look to inoculation as a preven- 

 tive. 



A VERY INTERESTING FEATURE of the Washington experiment 

 in manual training in the public schools, a brief account of which is 

 given elsewhere in this issue of Science, is the great amount ac- 

 complished with a small amount of money. The sum available for 

 the current school-year, aside from the salaries of teachers, was 

 only five thousand dollars. With this, four carpentry-shops, two 

 schools of cookery, and one turning, moulding, and forging shop, 

 have been fitted up, the last with a steam-engine, shafting, etc.; and 

 all the material used in them, and in the teaching of sewing to the 

 girls in all the grammar grades, have to be paid for. The number 

 of pupils, boys and girls, enrolled in the two higher grades of the 

 grammar-schools in which it has been attempted to introduce man- 

 ual training, and in the High School, was last year 3,807, and it is 

 probably a little larger this year. The number of the pupils com- 

 prising the manual-training classes is 1,243. I' i^ true that the 

 most of these are receiving only one-half as much instruction as is 

 desirable, and that a much larger amount of material could be used 

 to advantage ; but the fact that .Superintendent Powell has accom- 

 plished so much with so small a sum proves that the expense of 

 making an experiment in manual training in connection with the 

 public schools, at which so many cil.LS have hesitated, need not 

 deter them. 



