REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 



293 



"Plant Life: Studies in Garden and School." By H. F. Jones. 

 8vo. 260 pp. (Methuen, London.) 85. Qd. 



This book makes no pretence of teaching botany in schools on the 

 usual system, but it is an excellent work for the practical department 

 of it. The author does not say if botany is otherwise taught to his 

 pupils, and the only reference to the structure of flowers is of species of 

 LiliacecB and Graminece. The book has much the same value as all 

 others on " nature study," in consisting of more or less independent 

 matters of interesting information, but it has the additional advantage 

 of being all on one subject, or plant-life. Hence it is more instructional 

 than most books of this class, which so often deal with isolated facts of 

 all the three kingdoms of nature. 



The great educational value of botany lies in the cultivation of the 

 observing powers — and practical work is eminently qualified for securing 

 this — and if everything observed is always described in writing, the 

 second use is the acquisition of accuracy of thought and habit. 



The usual methods of describing plants in fall, from root to flower, 

 coupled with their classification, cannot be surpassed. Moreover, when 

 the flower — as it should always be — is examined with the view of ascer- 

 taining its method of pollination, a good deal of thought and judgment 

 is brought into play, as well as in determining its position in classifica- 

 tion. This must always be the basis of school botany. A feature which 

 is not alluded to in this work — viz. the use of its organs to a plant as it lives 

 in nature or ecology. This word is not in the index. As public examiners 

 in botany now ask direct questions in ecology, and expect candidates 

 at least to know what it means, we maintain that the applications of 

 " plant-life in the garden and in the school " should always have ecology 

 as their aim. A good teacher can always bring his experiments to bear 

 upon it. Excellent, as far as it goes, as this book is, the absence of any 

 ecological aim in it is a decided want. 



If, however, a teacher in any school on the old and sound plan of 

 plant description and classification as his basis will carry out the experi- 

 ments herein given — as representing the practical department— and then 

 always add the ecological bearing of the observations made in the school, 

 and illustrate them in walks and excursions — then, with these additions, 

 we can thoroughly recommend the book. 



" Life and Matter : A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's ' Kiddle of 

 the Universe.' " By Sir Oliver Lodge. Fourth edition. 8vo. 200 pp. 

 (Williams & Norgate, London.) 2s. Gd. net. 



We are glad to welcome this little book. Others have attacked 

 Haeckel's theories from the biological side ;* but Sir 0. Lodge, being an 

 expert physicist, is able to supply crushing replies to questions raised by 

 Haeckel's theories, in which he invades an almost term incognita to him. 



The author proposes to confute two errors. The first is that " because 

 material energy is constant in quantity therefore its transformations . . . 

 are not susceptible of guidance." The second is that the specific guiding 

 power, i.e. " life," is a form of material energy or a form of force. 



* E.g. Henslow's Present-day Rationalism critically examined. 



