insist that the school boards must be elective, if the schools are to be entirely dependent on taxation for their support. This step will be bitterly opposed by the managers of the Church schools, and the Conservatives will probably offer some form of compromise. The outcome will be watched with interest in this country, where a contest on the religious question is plainly impending.

Commissioner Harris's suggestion that a series of informal conferences on specific points in educational theory or practice, be held at Toronto during the meeting of the National Educational Association, is bearing fruit. Four or five such conferences have been arranged, and the subjects are very hap pily chosen. The plan is to discuss informally certain topics. with a view to formulating conclusions regarding them. These conclusions will be published as part of the proceedings of the Association, and will mark such real progress as is made from year to year.

To one accustomed to attending educational gatherings, the amount of chaff mixed with the wheat is very discouraging. The same platitudes, the same professional readers of papers, the same veteran voices are heard year after year; there is a good deal of what is called "inspiration," but precious little progress. It is hoped and expected that the Round Table Conferences at Toronto will accomplish something.

The season of college commencements is near at hand, and there will be the attendant and familiar outpouring of fervid oratory and crude thought, on profound problems of every sort, by inexperienced and half-trained students. It is urged in defense of this practice-for nearly everybody admits that it needs defense-that Commencement Day is peculiarly a students' celebration, and that on it they should be put forward as prominently as possible. This argument does not occupy a very elevated point of view, and, in addition, confuses two distinct things-the students, who are temporary, and the institution, which is permanent.

Each Commencement Day marks another mile-stone passed in the history of the college or university, as well as the formal severing of academic relations by a class of students. If the latter event needs celebration it should find it in Class Day,

which is peculiarly and properly a students' institution that has come to be recognized everywhere. Commencement Day, however, should be reserved for more important and significant things. In addition to the announcement of degrees and honors, the college or university should, by some of its officers, make to the world its report of progress accomplished. Some advance in science or some triumph of literature should be announced, criticised, or commented upon. The teaching body is the college, or university either, and its representatives, not those of a class of callow youths, should be heard at commencement. The dignified celebration of Commemoration Day at the Johns Hopkins University might well serve as a model for Commencement Day elsewhere.

Although the Harvard Overseers have negatived the proposals of a majority of the faculty looking to a shortening of the time necessary to take a degree, and to certain correlative changes, their decision cannot be regarded as final. The position of President Eliot and those who agree with him is too strong, and the needs they are striving to meet too real, to let the matter rest indefinitely as it now is. Already the students. are acting upon the new idea. Each year an increasing number present themselves for the baccalaureate degree after a college residence of but three years. Hard work and faithful use of the long vacations make this possible.

It will probably be found that most, if not all, of those who thus bend their energies toward reducing, by one quarter, the term of college residence, are on their way to a professional school. For such students seven years of training-four in the college and three in the professional school-are too many, beyond any question. If the college course is not shortened, it is very probable that the so-called Columbia plan will come into general use at those institutions that are colleges and universities combined. For the student who does not expect to pursue a professional course, the college curriculum. will remain four years in length. For the student who is preparing for the law, for medicine, or for the church, the more elementary and general professional studies will be accepted as part of the requirement for the baccalaureate degree, and thus the desired reduction in time will be accomplished. Signs are not wanting that this will be the outcome of the present movement.

VII.

REVIEWS.

Animal Life and Intelligence.-BY C. LLOYD MORGAN, F.G.S., Professor in and Dean of University College, Bristol. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1891, pp.

xvi. 512.

Students of education will be interested in this volume for two reasons: because it treats of a range of topics the outcome of which will seriously affect educational views and methods, and, secondly, because it is itself an excellent educational help for securing a knowledge of these problems. Professor Morgan's volume deals with the central problems of modern biology, life and intelligence, and he brings to bear upon them all that is interesting and suggestive in the recent studies of these ever new questions. The opening chapters describe in a style attractive and popular, without sacrifice of accuracy, the general characteristics of the animal world, the origin and growth of functions, the variety of adaptations by means of which life. is molded and continued. We then have three important chapters dealing, under the headings of "Variation and Natural Selection," "Heredity, and the Origin of Variations," and "Organic Evolution," with the typical factors of the relation of organism to environment, and of the forces by the action of which modification and progress is possible. The second portion of the work opens with an admirable chapter upon the senses of animals, in which the point is well emphasized that a correct understanding of sense-function must consider the immediate, useful applications of the senses under natural conditions. A brief exposition of the chief forms of mental processes is then given, clearly stating the prominent distinctions and the reasons for their hierarchical arrangement. The powers of animals then come up for detailed consideration under the usual division of the intelligence, the feelings, and the will. A final chapter on mental evolution, in which a general theory of the relation of mind to matter is offered, completes the work.

It will thus be seen that we have here, between the same covers, a convenient treatise on the general problems of comparative biology and comparative psychology; and this connection is significant. It places the emphasis upon the

view that the two are inseparable, and that no knowledge of mind is either complete or correct that neglects the wide range of mental phenomena in the animal world, and the purely natural conditions by which these functions are conditioned. While much of the volume is in the main expository, there is considerable originality both in the mode of treatment and in the putting forth of novel views and combinations of ideas. It is in every way a work evidencing ability, skill, clearness of statement, and a desire to be useful. It may safely be recommended, with assurance of interesting reading, as the best single work whereby to gain an insight into the chief problems of life and intelligence.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.

JOSEPH JASTROW.

Psychology.-BY MICHAEL MAHER, S. J. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890, pp. xvi, 569.

This book, by the professor of mental philosophy at Stonyhurst College, is the latest addition to the series of Catholic manuals of philosophy. It is a sober, scholarly, and important book. The author's conception of psychology is not that of the contemporary school of experimentalists. They rest content with describing psychology as a natural science, and deny to metaphysics any entrance to its domain. Professor Maher stands on the ground occupied by his scholastic predecessors and sees in psychology a science, to be sure, but an integral part of philosophy as well. His view is that if psychology is to justify its title to be considered a department of philosophy," it is bound not to be satisfied with mere generalizations of facts; it must pass on to inquire into the inner nature and constitution of the root and subject of these phenomena; it must ascend from the knowledge of the effect to that of the cause (p. 3)." Empirical psychology must, then, be interpreted by rational psychology. From this standpoint and by the only method open to him, the author constructs a treatment of psychology that is simple, logical, and graceful. His definitions are clear and precise, his style is crisp and nervous, and his knowledge of the literature of his subject is very considerable. Professor Maher might easily have passed by entirely many of the modern doctrines as immaterial to his treatment of psychology; but he does not do so. Some of

the well-known positions of Wundt, Mill, Bain, Spencer, and Sully are stated and considered. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, however, weigh more with him than do the modern investigators who see in rational psychology and metaphysics only a stumbling-block.

It must be borne in mind that the author's general philosophical views have determined for him in advance the standpoint and method of this work. He holds that philosophy must and does dominate science, whether mental or physical. His position is perfectly intelligent and intelligible, whether one sympathizes with it or not. The prevailing view, and as 'it seems to me the truer view, of psychology is a different one. Nevertheless the careful study of Professor Maher's book will suggest many difficulties and apparent inconsistencies in the more usual mode of treatment that it may prove troublesome, or even impossible, to remove. However this may be, it is certainly instructive to attend to a careful discussion of familiar facts from a standpoint at variance with that which we usually occupy. It would be valuable if it only served to lessen the conceit and intolerance that have sent so many of our modern scientists into the ranks of the dogmatic philistines.

In one of his foot-notes the author puts very clearly an interesting suggestion of the physiological psychologists. He says, in reference to association by similarity and contiguity: "The physiological counterpart of the law of similarity probably lies in the increased facility of the same nerve-centers to act a second time, that of contiguity in the tendency of groups which have acted together to do so again."

N. M. B.

New York: G. P. Put

Switzerland.-By LINA HUG and RICHARD STEAD. nam's Sons (Story of the Nations Series), 1890, pp. xxiii, 430. The authors in their preface say that an account of the early history of the people who founded the Swiss League, in 1291 A. D., should be given. It must be admitted that no history of Switzerland can be considered complete that does not embrace in its pages somewhat of the history of those times when Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, the Zaerings, the Kyburgs, and the Houses of Savoy and Hapsburg were prominent in the battles and struggles of the people who inhabited Switzerland