June 8, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



271 



The house became a board with another slanted against it ; then 

 it was two briclcs and a board on top. A bit of wood suggested to 

 one of the boys a horse, and that became a horse ; others being 

 made like it, at first very rude, and afterwards with all the refinements 

 that a scroll-saw could add. Cattle were made and added to the 

 houses, there being a remarkable conservatism in adhering to an 

 original model, though the boys were able to do better work. Be- 

 fore many summers there was a community modelled quite closely 

 after the village in which they lived : crops were raised, stacked, 

 and sold, as in town. Furthermore, the men and women of the 

 ' sand-pile ' were named Bill Murphy, Charles Stoughton, Peter 

 Dana, etc., — names of real men in the village ; and the personality of 

 the real individual, that of the puppet and of the boy who owned 

 it, — for other boys had been admitted by this time, — were 

 strangely confused. If the real Farmer Murphy had done any thing 

 disreputable, the boys threatened to suspend the boy who owned 

 the puppet Farmer Murphy from the ' sand-pile.' The boys take 

 their men along in their pockets on a pleasure-trip, send them in 

 letters to distant friends to have them returned, and be said to 

 have seen distant places. " The best man has travelled most, 

 keeps his farm in the best order, has most joints in his body, 

 keeps dressed in the best coat of paint, and represents the best 

 farmer in town, and is represented by the best boy." 



The industrial evolution of this agricultural community strikingly 

 reminds one of the real evolution in the history of the race. The 

 plough, the wagon, and so on, can be seen in the several stages 

 paralleled by the relics in museums. The political organization 

 reflects that of the town, as well as that of primitive communities. 

 ?4oney was first made of a kind of card-board, but, owing to the 

 possibility of counterfeiting, felt gouged out by an instrument was 

 substituted. At the beginning of the season ninety dollars and 

 fifty half-dollars were given to each boy. So real were these coins 

 to them, that silver is said to have been refused for the felt, the 

 varying intensity of the play-spirit being recorded in the silver value 

 of the felt money. When a grocer — the youngest boy — failed, 

 he was at first aided, and then meetings held to consider the case. 

 " One proposition was a general pro rata subscription ; another 

 was a communistic redistribution of the money of the community. 

 These schemes were successfully opposed, however, and it was at 

 last agreed to inflate their first currency by issuing enough money 

 to give each boy an additional sum of ten dollars. While this 

 matter was under discussion, and redistribution was expected by 

 some, prices were affected, and a few sales were made at prices so 

 high as to cause embarrassment later." 



As the boys grow older, the institution begins to lose its reality, 

 and the circle of their interests changes. Moreover, " the golden 

 age of this ideal little republic has already passed," and "a period 

 of over-refinement and enervating luxury " is likely to end its 

 career. Self-consciousness and the desire for approval replaced 

 natural interest. The parents regard the educational advantages 

 of this ■ sand-pile ' as outweighing the eight months of school- 

 work : it cultivates co-operation, justice, and reflection ; leads to 

 industrial skill, saves idleness, and prevents bad habits. Its edu- 

 cational import is thus characterized by Professor Hall : " Had the 

 elements of all the subjects involved in the ' sand-pile ' — indus- 

 trial, administrative, moral, geographical, mathematical, etc. — 

 been taught separately and as mere school-exercises, the result 

 would have been worry, waste, and chaos. Here is perfect mental 

 sanity and unity, but with more variety than in the most hetero- 

 geneous and soul-disintegrating school-curriculum. The unity of 

 all the diverse interests and activities of the ' sand-pile ' is, as it 

 always is, ideal." 



Head-Growth in Cambridge Students. — Mr. Francis 

 Galton makes an interesting report on measurements of the heads 

 of Cambridge (England) students, which we owe to Professor 

 Venna {Nature, May 3). What is called a 'head-product ' may be 

 fairly regarded as representing average brain-volumes. It is ob- 

 tained by multiplying the maximum length of the head by its 

 maximum breadth and its maximum height above a certain plane. 

 This result represents the contents of a rectangular box that 

 would just fit over the head. This is only rudely proportional 

 to the brain-mass in individuals, but would be closely proportional 

 to it in the average of many cases. The result of the measure- 



ments, which have been taken within the last three years, is as 

 follows : — 





c 

















S 6 



m 1 ^ 



s s 





"o ■= 







.a ttJ 



S E - 



S> j; 





^ rt 



a 



m c 



1 ^ 



D'2 1 



E S 



rt _. 



E £ 





d a 



1 i 



3 rt 

 2 Ji 



<£ 



II 





j:: 



s 



S? 



s 



" 









5 













19 



241.9 



17 



237-1 



70 



229.1 



52 



20 



244.2 



54 



237,9 



149 



=3S.> 



102 



= 1 



241.0 



52 



236 4 



117 



240.2 



79 



,2 



248 1 



5° 



241.7 



73 



240.0 



66 



23 



244.6 



27 



239.0 



33 



235.0 



23 



24 



245 -s 



25 



251.2 



14 



244.4 



13 



23 1 















and \ 



248 9 



3^ 



239.1 



^ 



243.5 



26 



upwards. 





258 





476 





361 



In spite of many irregularities, the following conclusions 

 may be fairly deduced from these figures; (l) that while, 

 in the population at large, brain-growth ceases after the age of 

 nineteen, this is not true of university students ; (2) that men 

 who obtain high honors have considerably larger brains at 

 nineteen years than those who do not ; (3) that this predominance 

 is reduced to about half its extent at the age of twenty-five, the 

 brain of the ' high-honor ' man increasing by about three per cent, 

 that of the ' poll ' man by about six per cent, in this period ; (4) 

 that the ' high-honor ' men are presumably a class both more 

 precocious and more gifted than the others. 



An Interesting Memory-Test. — Mr. H. H. Ballard pub- 

 lishes in the Jozirnal of Education for May 3 the result of a test of 

 the memories and receptive powers of school-children. The sen- 

 tence, " Your redemption from the distress into which you have 

 fallen is in your own hands, and in no wise depends on forms of 

 government or modes of election," was carefully read to one of ten 

 selected pupils, who repeated it as exactly as possible to the next 

 scholar, and this one to the third, and so on to the tenth. The 

 tenth pupil wrote down what he received from the ninth. In one 

 case the sentence emerged from this process as, " The redemption 

 of your distress is in your own hands ; " in another it was, " The 

 invention which has fallen into your hand ; " and the sentence had 

 dwindled into this already at the sixth pupil. In another case the 

 sentence was whispered instead of distinctly read, and the process 

 of calling on the imagination when the senses give no clear impres- 

 sion is illustrated in the result, which was, " The attempts into 

 which we have fallen during the government election are very low." 

 In the Pitlsfield, Mass., High School the sentence reduced to, 

 " Redemption is in your own hands, and depends upon no formal 

 government nor love." In the senior class of another high school, 

 in which the average age of the pupils was eighteen years, the re- 

 sult v/as, " Our redemption for our destruction has nothing to do 

 with us." In still another high school it was, " Your distress into 

 which you have fallen is by no means the fault of government." A 

 set of eight-year old pupils reduced it to, " The redemption that 

 lies in your hand is done ; " and the first class of the high school 

 in the same town made it, " Your redemption into which you have 

 fallen is your own fault." In one school the experiment was modified : 

 two pupils from each of five grades were selected, and the sentence 

 clearly read aloud to them all. After a minute's interval, each of 

 the ten wrote down what he could of the sentence. The sentences 

 written by one pupil of the highest, one of the middle, and one of the 

 lowest grades were these : " Your redemption from the distress into 

 which you have fallen lies in your own hands, and in no wise de- 

 pends on the government or manner of election ; " " Your redemption 

 from the distress into which you have fallen is in your own hands, 

 and depends in no wise upon the forms of government or the 



