isted then and there. For determining the optimal degree of relationship that is favorable, of course we have no norm. In many statistical studies important data, even the degrees of relationship, are often omitted. One of the best of these by George Darwin1 in which the results of the marriage of sisters' children appears, shows but surprisingly little deleterious effect. The best data are from the studies of special diseases; but often here methods are still unsatisfactory and consumption, e. g., is so very prevalent everywhere that it is difficult to obtain a reliable basis of comparison. The best of all recent studies are those by Mayet? who compiled his data from 150,000 inmates of Prussian institutions and who showed that for even such diseases as simple insanity, paralysis and epilepsy the effect of the consanguinity of parents was extremely slight, if indeed it was a factor at all, although for imbecility and idiocy a slightly better case was made out. Even though we may doubt the full effects of consanguinity per se, such marriages are, in fact, usually unfavorable and may be highly so in civilized lands to-day because they involve a greater liability to similar deleterious circumstances, while mixtures tend to eliminate hereditary effects, for we cannot escape the fact that in a general way destiny is ancestry. Die körperliche Misshandlung von Kindern durch Personen welchen die Fürsorgepflicht für dieselben obliegt, von PFARRER A. WILD. Rascher & Co., Zürich, no date, pp. 162. Wild, in a laboriously compiled essay crowned with a prize by the University of Zürich, collects a most painful anthology of the mistreatments of children in the past and present; how the Roman father sometimes sold and could even slay his offspring with impunity; how infants have been butchered wholesale even in the cradle in times of war, and orphans, waifs, paupers and the sick and unprotected have suffered; how children have been exposed, tortured, burned as witches or to compel confession, hung up by the limbs for a long time, worked to death, flogged, clubbed, and in some cases killed by angry pedagogues (one of whom left a record of having inflicted over 64,000 blows with the rod), together with many other forms of punishment. Some of these tortures to which children have been inflicted in ancient times are too inhuman to report. Then follow many specific cases of cruelty from court records of children whose parents or guardians broke bones, cut off eyelids, mutilated and mistreated in horrible nameless ways, of children stolen by beggars and made cripples to excite pity as they begged, cut and blistered with blows, sexually outraged, hair pulled out, starved, enslaved under farming out systems, killed at birth when illegitimate to conceal the parents' shame, left in filth, covered with vermin, tied and shut up in darkness, cold and without food or clothes, made to eat insects, offal, and done to death in every conceivable way. From these horrible details the author classifies the causes of cruelty to children in the following order of importance, anger, hate, greed, alcoholism, Old Testament ideals, and psychic morbidity. Illegitimate children suffer most. Instead of this martyrdom the author would forbid all corporal punishment, both in home and school. After giving a digest of laws upon the subject and describing in a concise if somewhat imperfect way child-saving and protecting organizations and institutions in Germany, Austria, Italy, the United States and Switzerland, he presents a programme for the future designed to safeguard every child 1 Die Ehe zwischen Geschwisterkindern und ihre Folgen. Leipzig, 1876. 2 Jahrb. d. internat. Vereinigung für vergleich. Rechtswissenschaft, etc., Bd. 6, Berlin, 1903. from cruelty, neglect or exploitation which shall encourage and not supplant private initiative. Patrons, inspectors and guardians should not only enforce the law but encourage all existing institutions to do their utmost, and should stimulate charity in all possible ways and favor the organization of new institutions, some of which are now necessary. All this work should be organically connected with that of public education. Court sentences for cruelty should be heavier and family relations should be everywhere approximated in the public care of children. Norms are given for the families into which such children are entrusted. Childless parents and orphans seem providentially provided for each other. The juvenile court is the chief contribution of the United States to this subject. Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Sozialpädagogik, von PAUL NATORP, Erste Abteilung: Historisches, FR. FROMMANNS VERLAG. Stuttgart, 1907. 510 p. Contents: I. Platos Staat und die Idee der Sozialpädagogik. II. Condorcets Ideen zur Nationalerziehung. III. Pestalozzi unser Führer. IV. Pestalozzis Ideen über Arbeiterbildung und soziale Frage. V. Pestalozzi und die Frauenbildung. VI. Pestalozzis Prinzip der Anschauung. VII. Herbart, Pestalozzi und die heutigen Aufgaben der Erziehungslehre. VIII. Kant oder Herbart. IX. Neue Untersuchungen über Herbarts Grundlegung der Erziehungslehre. Professor Natorp, the eminent German pedagogue, whose "Sozialpädagogik" has been called the classical work in German social pedagogy, has at present probably the largest following among German sociologists. The editions of several of his principal works have been so quickly exhausted that the present attempt to publish the more important of his writings collectively seems not at all surprising. The first volume which has just appeared, as its contents indicate, is a collection of his historical investigations. Aside from their scientific value they are of special interest because they obviously constitute the background in which Natorp's social pedagogical views germinated. The influence of Kantian thought on his philosophical foundation of pedagogy is easily recognized. As a matter of fact, in the Kantian maxim, "always act so as to use humanity, in thy own person as well as in that of others, as an end and never as a means," Natorp thinks we must acknowledge the solution of socialism as ethical idea. His demand for a national school points back to Plato and Condorcet. In Plato's social pedagogical conception of the state we have, accordto Natorp, the classical view of that indisputable truth "that while community, on the one hand, presupposes human culture and is conditioned thereby, on the other hand, community conditions and determines human culture." The school, so to speak, is the state on a smaller scale and thus serves the purpose of accustoming the pupil to the social orders. For that reason the school must appropriately conform to public life and be organized accordingly, that is to say, as a national school. From this principle the whole content and method of school education can be derived. Pestalozzi has been to Natorp a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration. It is due perhaps to no small extent to his Pestalozzian studies that the world to-day begins to appreciate the magnitude of Pestalozzi's pedagogical insight; the fact that his real greatness rests in the socialistic spirit of his pedagogy, in his recognition of the close connection between the social problem and true human culture, and at a time when a social problem did not even exist, or rather when it had hardly risen above the threshold of human consciousness. In No. IV, for instance, Natorp's views are principally based on Pestalozzi's "Meine Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts," a work which Pestalozzi himself judges very severely and which to his contemporaries remained a book with seven seals. But, writes Natorp, in radical acuteness this work comes up to Rousseau, in depth of conception, in power of abstraction and in philosophical insight it surpasses him. The development of merely social to ethical right; the gruff declining of all philanthropy in the form of alms and hospitals, by which right. "is buried in the dung-pit of mercy:" the social political and social pedagogical import of physical work in the community; his religion, which is "nothing else than the divine spark of my nature and my power to judge myself within myself,-to condemn and to absolve;" all this acts, in the prophetic poetry, and force and depth of foresight, as one great appeal to the present age. While seven articles of this collection are reprints, two are new publications: (1) No. VI, "Pestalozzi's Prinzip der Anschanung." Herein, after reviewing several Pestalozzian writings, his plea is to judge him not by the later works of a weak and broken down old man, but by the views which he entertained in the days of Stanz and Burgdorf. The second and third chapters tend to establish Pestalozzi as an original thinker and relatively independent of Rousseau and Kant. (2) No. IX is essentially a continuation of Natorp's polemic against Herbartianism. He merely supplements and completes here his previous discussions of Herbart's views and at the same time defines more clearly his own. M. W. MEYERHARDT. J. G. Fichte's Sozialpädagogik, von S. HIRSCH GUTMANN. Scheitlin, Spring & Cie, Bern, 1907. 100 p. Fichte usually receives scant justice in histories of pedagogy, probably because it is commonly supposed that his pedagogical ideas are contained only in his earlier writings and chiefly in his "Addresses to the German Nation." As Dr. Gutmann, however, points out, Fichte's works throughout are interspersed with pedagogical and social pedagogical suggestions. To present these in perspective is obviously the aim of the present pamphlet and this purpose may be said to have been most successfully accomplished. After tracing the history of Sozialpädagogik and discussing the array of eminent men of the 18th century with pronounced social pedagogical tendencies, the writer dwells at some length on Pestalozzi as Fichte's immediate predecessor. Between these two he not only establishes several points of connection, but also many differences, and concludes his discussion of their relation by expressing the opinion that, notwithstanding the great influence of Pestalozzi on his thoughts, Fichte never was a mere disciple of the former, or if a disciple, only in the sense in which Nietzsche says that "every master has only one, and that one must become unfaithful because he is destined to mastership himself." Turning, next, to Fichte's views, he classes the plan developed in his "Addresses to the German Nation" as "elementary Sozialpädagogik," as opposed to everything else from his pen which as "Sozialpädagogik for adults" is Sozialpädagogik in the proper sense of the word. Particularly during his first period, when he is still purely Kantian and as such looks on education from a cosmopolitan point of view, are his doctrines fully and wholly social. Compared with this standpoint his later nationalism is to be regarded as more or less of a contraction. The discussion in detail is divided into the following chapters: The Scholar as social pedagogue, Nature and tasks of the Scholar, The Scholar as ruler, and his duties, Nature and duties of public officials, Religion as an educational institution and its leaders as popular teachers of morals, The artist as social pedagogue, Universities as educational institutions, University Seminaries, Classification of students, Social pedagogy from the standpoint of Fichte's philosophy of rights. M. W. MEYERHARDT. Pupil Self-Government, Its Theory and Practice, by BERNARD CRONSON. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1907. pp. 107. This work treats first the genesis of the movement and the causes of its success and failure and its relations to the teachers. Obedience as its means, apperception its method and life activities its material. As to conditions, there must be a proper ideal, competent principal, and teachers, gradual introduction of the scheme and power to enforce it. Another chapter treats of the immediate preparation, the preamble and charter. Another discusses legislative, executive and police departments, the mayor and the various squads and assembly, truant patrol. Then comes the department of health, savings, education and judiciary. The scheme in perfection is seen in morning assemblies, courts and in truant cases. Another chapter discusses the ethics of the movement, its relations to life, at home, out-of-doors, in school, to individual welfare and its influence in enforcing obedience to law, its relations to citizenship, common welfare, the government, and especially the rise of representative government, are treated, and there are eight full-page illustrations and plenty of blank sheets for notes. A History of Commerce, by CLIVE DAY. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1907. pp. 626. The first part, after some general expressions on ethical obstacles, risks and political restrictions, treats of the oriental period, Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Persian, Jewish, etc. Then follows the Christian period, then the Roman. Mediæval commerce begins with about the year 1000 and trade in town, on land, in fairs, by sea, the Levant trade, commerce of Southern and Northern Europe, the development of mediæval organization and commerce and politics and the later Middle Ages. Part third, the modern commerce, begins with the history of exploration and discovery, then the development of economic organizations, credit and crises, the modern state and the millenial system, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, England, commercial development, exports and imports, shipping policy, France, Germany, Italy, and minor States. Part four, on recent commerce, discusses its relations to coal, machinery, manufactures, railroads, navigation, the wares of commerce, its policy, the modern organization, England's commercial development down to 1900, reform of commercial policy and then a survey of each of the European countries. Part five begins with the United States since 1789, treating first the organization of production, then internal trade, foreign commerce, policy, national expansion at its various periods, exports, imports, the direction of commerce, national development, the direction of commerce down to 1900. Hygiene of Nerves and Mind in Health and Disease, by AUGUST FOREL. Science Series. Authorized translation from the second Our mental life, according to this author, is an expression of a brain life, and hence all phenomena must be considered from the point of view of brain hygiene, while social hygiene and ethics are more special. Popular hygiene should enable an intelligent layman with a fair education to so govern his life as to avoid disease and abnormality for himself, his fellowmen and his offspring, and to promote the health and strength of all in every way. Hygiene should not supplant the work of the expert physician, although it should make the occasions of his assistance as rare as possible. Hygiene, where it is not understood, may do great harm. With this premise, the author treats of brain and nerves, their physiology, anatomy, relations to mind, race history, mental and nervous pathology. Part second treats of pathology of nervous and mental life, together with abnormalities and various disturbances, while the third part discusses nerves, hygiene in general, inheritance and also childhood and pedagogy are included in his comprehensive survey. Plant Anatomy from the Standpoint of the Development and Functions of the Tissues; a Handbook of Micro-technic, by WILLIAM CHASE STEVENS. P. Blakiston & Co., Philadelphia, 1907. pp. 349. This book makes the subject of plant anatomy indeed a rich and alluring field because it reveals how, under exacting conditions, plants have met and solved the problems of their existence by achieving the power and habit of cell differentiation and association into tissues and in many other ways. It is indeed true that every student of anatomy works "at distinct disadvantage if he is not constantly reverting for enlightenment to questions of origin and function and he will find the outcome of his work more worthy of his efforts if he has sought out the physiological impression of his anatomical finding." This book attempts to show how plants triumph over the conditions and forces that make up their environment, and thus come to achieve by evolution of the different physiological tissues their various systems. Thus the work falls into the following chapters: The plant cell, differentiation of the tissue, secondary increase in thickness, protection from injuries and loss of water, the plant skeleton, the absorption of water and minerals, circulation of water and soil solutes, intake and circulation of gases, construction of the plant's food, its circulation throughout the plant, storage of food and water, secretion and excretion, preparation of sections, use of the microscope, micro-chemistry of plant productions, defections or adulterations in foods and drugs. Telling Bible Stories, by LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON. With introduction by Rev. T. T. Munger. Charles Seribner's Sons, New York, 1905. pp. 286. This very interesting work is made up of chapters entitled The Old Testament and the Child, The Morning Stories, More Morning Stories, Before the Flood and After, A Patriarch Story, Other Patriarch Stories, Hero Tales, Romance Stories, Purpose Stories. The authoress does not attempt in this volume to give stories, but rather to characterize them and to tell the spirit and method with which they should be told to children of different ages. For the lowest classes all should be mere narrative, of course, the ethical beginnings to come out later. Progress is described as from the method of the historian McMaster up to the method of John Fiske, the latter being more interested in the ideas than in the facts. It is difficult to give an adequate idea of this very suggestive book, the merits of which will come out most clearly when a teacher has occasion to actually do this work. Administration and Educational Work of American Juvenile Reform Schools, by DAVID S. SNEDDEN. No. 12. Columbia University Contributions to Education, Teachers' College Series. New York, 1907. pp. 206. This is a particularly timely monograph. The author states the |