1 882.] 
Analyses of Books. 
239 
text are to be repeated by the student, and as he advances he is 
gradually introduced into the practice of the physical laboratory. 
Thus he will become not a mere reader, but a worker in Science, 
and, if his opportunities and faculties allow, he may finally stand 
forth as a discoverer or an inventor. 
The author seems to recognise the great truth that Physical 
Science is needed in education for the discipline of the hand and 
the eye, — objects for which the utter impotence of classical and 
mathematical studies must be at once admitted. By discipline 
of the eye Dr. Wormell evidently means training in the art of 
observation — a point till lately completely overlooked in English 
education, primary as well as secondary. Admitting that different 
branches of Physics may serve equally well as agents of mental 
discipline, he thinks that electricity has peculiar claims and ex- 
ceptional advantages, from the hold which it has recently obtained 
upon the attention of the general public, and from the important 
applications which it has recently received. However little a 
man’s duties and tastes may bring him in contaCt with what are 
called scientific subjects, he will find it unpleasant to be ignorant 
of such inventions as the telephone, the microphone, Faure’s 
accumulator, &c. It is scarcely too much to say that a person 
to whom these novelties are unknown or unintelligible will find 
himself as much perplexed in modern society as would a man 
ignorant of Greek and Latin in the days of incessant classical 
quotations. 
From its clearness of exposition and arrangement, as well as 
from the fulness and systematically progressive character of the 
experimental evidence set forth, we feel warranted in giving this 
work our warm recommendation. The chief deficiency we note 
is in the index. A person running his eye over it might be led 
to the mistaken conclusion that, e.g., Geissler’s tubes, Wheat- 
stone’s bridge, and other recent devices, had been overlooked. 
