416 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cation to national interests. Dr. Harris has 

 chosen an excellent tutor for them in M. 

 Fouillee, an eminent scholar and one of the 

 race in which the national spirit is notably 

 strong. Assuming that each nation has a 

 continuity of character, mind, habits, and 

 aptitudes which forms an organic heredity 

 and identity persisting from age to age, the 

 author inquires how education can be made 

 to assist in perfecting this v "'national nature. 

 After a word on the importance of physical 

 education he states that the chief objects of 

 intellectual education should be — first, the 

 moral; second, the beautiful; and last, the 

 true. The reader should be cautioned against 

 accepting fully M. Fouiilee's representation of 

 the effects of the study of science. In various 

 places, and especially in the chapters on the 

 Scientific Humanities, he denounces the pres- 

 ent teaching of science as if it actually rep- 

 resented this field of knowledge at its best, 

 and declares that science has been weighed 

 and found wanting. He ignores the fact 

 that science has been taught often by un- 

 sympathetic teachers, without suitable mate- 

 rials, and for a very short period at all. In 

 his chapters on the Classical Humanities he 

 is much more sympathetic, recommending 

 these subjects as the very best means of fos- 

 tering a national spirit. He criticises se- 

 verely what is known in France as a modern 

 education, and proposes a reformed system 

 of secondary training which should embrace 

 these studies : 1, the literature of the mother 

 country ; 2, Latin literature ; 3, general his- 

 tory; 4, the elements of mathematics and 

 physics. Where diversity arises, it should 

 be in only the following special subjects : 

 Greek, secondary science subjects with ap- 

 plied science, and modern languages. In 

 conclusion, he maintains that all education 

 will prove defective from the national stand- 

 point unless it includes moral and social sci- 

 ence, and unless its several parts are unified 

 by philosophy. Programmes illustrating the 

 author's views are given in an appendix. 



A Contribution to our Knowledge of 

 Seedlings. By the Right Hon. Sir John 

 Lubbock, Bart. New York : D. Apple- 

 ton & Co. In two volumes. Price, $10. 



The results of a wide-reaching botanical 

 research are embodied in these two substan- 

 tial and copiously illustrated volumes. The 



subject of this research is the forms of coty- 

 ledons, which not only differ greatly in dif- 

 ferent plants but are generally much differ- 

 ent from the forms of the ordinary leaves in 

 the same plant. Some cotyledons are broad, 

 others narrow; those of the mustard are 

 kidney-shaped, of the cress three-lobed, of 

 the beech fan-shaped, of the sycamore shaped 

 almost like a knife-blade, of Eschscholtzia 

 divided like a hay-fork, of the bean or acorn 

 thick and fleshy. The shape of the seed 

 seems to have an influence on the shape of 

 the cotyledons. Where the cotyledons are 

 narrow and lie straight in a long, narrow 

 seed, the relation is simple, but such cases 

 are few. Often narrow cotyledons are found 

 coiled in orbicular seeds. In many broad 

 seeds we find two fleshy cotyledons laid face 

 to face, and occupying almost the whole of 

 the seed. In the nearly spherical radish 

 seed the cotyledons are laid face to face and 

 then folded along the middle. In other spe- 

 cies one cotyledon is larger than the other, 

 or the halves of each cotyledon are unequal ; 

 still other cotyledons are lobed, emarginate, 

 auricled, etc., and for all of these features 

 the author has found probable causes in the 

 shape of the seed or the way in which the 

 cotyledons are packed within it. A general 

 statement of these points occupies the early 

 part of the first volume, while the rest of the 

 work is devoted to descriptions of the seed- 

 lings in a large number of genera. In pro- 

 curing the seedlings for these descriptions 

 the author has been permitted to make large 

 use of the resources of Kew Gardens. A 

 valuable feature of the work is the carefully 

 drawn illustrations of seedlings, sections of 

 seeds, etc., of which there are six hundred 

 and eighty-four. An index and a bibliogra- 

 phy are appended. 



The Theory of Wages and its Application. 

 By Herbert M. Thompson. London and 

 New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 140. 

 Price, $1. 



This is a piece of close and clearly ex- 

 pressed reasoning upon one of the great prob- 

 lems of political economy. The author says 

 that his economic statements are, for the 

 most part, those accepted by the economists 

 of to-day. These statements he sets forth 

 in the first chapter, and upon them he bases 

 the proposition that " the universal product 



