him by adult scholarship. The school should not require the pupil to devote his energy wholly to memorizing ready-made facts and to acquiring habits of industry and obedience. For quite as valuable as any of these is the development of a truly social spirit which is just as ready to follow as to lead, and which is fundamental to the successful working of democratic institutions. I believe Dr. Scott is right when he suggests that the only hope for a democracy like ours is the extension of social education.

There can be no question, then, that the movement which he discusses with so much ability and eloquence is of the first importance. The school should be so organized as to produce that rational coöperative spirit which is necessary for the safe-guarding of justice, liberty, and equality of opportunity for all. Of course it is difficult to apply in practise the author's lofty ideals, but in emphasizing the need of social education and in helping teachers to look at the school from a social point of view, Dr. Scott has performed a patriotic service. Illuminating as it does the problem of socializing pupil activities in school life, Social education deserves a wide reading by superintendents, principals, and teachers.

SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

WILBUR F. GORDY

A textbook of experimental psychology-By CHARLES S. MYERS, Lecturer in Experimental Psychology in the University of Cambridge and Professor of Psychology in King's College, University of London. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909. xvi+432 p. $2.40 net.

Here we have a textbook of a sort that has long been needed. We have had a wide choice of introductions to general psychology, and a considerable variety of laboratory manuals, but no book, of an elementary character, which set out to tell the results as well as the methods of experimental psychology. The introductory textbooks have taken scant notice of experimental work, and the laboratory manuals have treated of methods rather than of results. We have needed a work which should show something of what experiment has accomplished-a book on the lines of the usual

text in other sciences-and now, thanks to Dr. Myers, we have one. Still more, we have a good one, written by a psychologist who knows the subject at first hand, who is judicious in his choice of material, and duly critical in his use of it.

The book is not free from faults, in either matter or presentation. The author expresses regret that exigencies of space have compelled the omission of many topics, such as animal and child psychology. Other topics of interest which might well have received fuller recognition are reading, eye movements, and the effects of practise. The treatment is fuller on the side of sensation and perception than on the side of the higher intellectual processes. Yet the disproportion between the two sides is not nearly so great here as in many treatments of psychology, and, on the whole, the ground has been covered as well as could be expected. As to the manner of presentation, the main criticism is that the book makes rather stiff reading. The reviewer has tried it on college students of experimental psychology, and found it rather severe for them. Its difficulty arises mainly from condensation. The results of quite an extraordinary number of researches are reported in this relatively small volume, and the author's skill in succinct and accurate presentation of the main facts is by no means slight; but a little more elaboration of the meaning, here and there, would certainly have aided the reader's progress. In addition to this matter of condensation, there are a number of passages which are carelessly and obscurely exprest. These difficulties are however by no means sufficient to unfit the book for use by classes beginning experimental work, or by the educated reader who is desirous of gaining a knowledge of the aims and accomplishment of experimental psychology.

It

It would be impossible to give, in the brief compass of a review, any adequate account of the contents of the book. is distinctly not a treatment of systematic psychology, some knowledge of which is, indeed, presupposed in the reader. The author does not lose himself in the discussion of general problems, nor has he pet theories to exploit. His treatment

is admirably objective. His method can be judged, perhaps, from an outline of the two chapters which he devotes to memory. He brings together under this head the work which generally passes under the names of “imagery" and "association," as well as what are usually classed as experiments in memory. His treatment of imagery and association is decidedly brief. He then proceeds to an analysis of the different methods which are employed in experiments on memorizing and on retention, and follows this up with a statement of about twenty-five different matters in memory that have been investigated. In about ten of these twenty-five instances, he describes the original experiment, tho not in much detail, and sometimes gives a sample of the numerical results. One is surprized-if one has not followed the recent progress of work on memory-to see how much has really been discovered regarding this function.

The book may be said to consist of three parts. The main text consists of about 275 pages. In addition, the text contains, in many chapters, bracketed paragraphs, which are to be omitted on first reading, and which add up to about sixty pages. An appendix of eighty pages is devoted to laboratory directions for 155 experiments. These are not described in great detail, for the author recognizes that each teacher is likely to have his own preferences as to the special methods to be used in a given line of experiment.

The work is especially welcome as an index of the good start which experimental psychology has at last made in England. It may confidently be predicted that it will be found extremely serviceable in America as well.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

R. S. WOODWORTH

Autobiography-By JOHN STUART MILL. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. 191 p. 50 cents.

It is a distinct satisfaction to see a well-printed and cheap edition of this genuine English classic. It has been customary to poke fun at John Stuart Mill and his father because of the amazing precocity of the child, and what appears as the extraordinary pedantry of the parent; but nevertheless few mod

ern lives are better worth reading about than that of Mr. Mill. He tells his own story of his mental development with singular clearness, frankness, and charm. In these pages one reads the story of nineteenth-century English radicalism, growing swiftly in the friendly soil of philosophic and economic literature, and in the presence of stirring social and political problems. No well-read man or woman in the English-speaking world is unfamiliar or at least ought to be unfamiliarwith Mill's Autobiography. We gladly call attention to this new and attractive edition.

The land of promise: an account of the material and spiritual unity of America.-By RICHARD DEBARRY. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. 311 p. $1.50.

Of making books upon America, there is literally no end. The writer of this book is apparently an English clergyman who first visited America in search of a climate favorable to his health. Whatever his purpose, he used his opportunities to good advantage. His generalizations are much sounder than those usually found in books of this type, and altho the writer was over-imprest by certain emphatic, but not very profound or representative, personalities, yet on the whole he saw straight and well. It is particularly to be noted that he did not get his view of American life and society in the usual formal ways. He lookt wisely and well in many directions and he shrewdly divined the true meaning of not a few movements and personalities. The book is agreeably written, and well worth while.

The first two numbers in the series entitled Riverside Educational Monographs are exceedingly attractive. The series is edited by Professor Suzzallo of Columbia University. The first issue is Emerson on education, and the second is Fiske's Meaning of infancy. The selection of these two distinctively leading contributions to the American literature of education gives the series a noteworthy distinction at the outset. Professor Suzzallo's introductions are helpful and dignified.

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909. 76 p.; 45 p. 35c. each.)

The warm reception that has been given to the textbook on economics by Professor Seager of Columbia University, makes almost certain that his new Briefer course in economics will be found acceptable by high school and college teachers. The Briefer course contains some material not found in the larger work, and the bibliographical material is full and useful. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1909. 476 p. $1.75.)

We are not particularly imprest with the value of History of common school education by Lewis F. Anderson of the State Normal School at Marquette, Mich. The study of the history of education is of extraordinary valuelessness unless it is treated from the standpoint of Culturgeschichte. There is nothing of this in Mr. Anderson's book, and the literary form, or rather the lack of it, is not agreeable. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1909. 308 p. $1.25.)

After a few years it is not likely that pragmatism will have any other than a purely historical interest, but just now while its advocates are active and insistent, there ought to be a large body of readers to profit by Professor Pratt's interesting book entitled What is pragmatism? The book contains a number of shrewd critical observations and its style is enjoyable. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909. 256 p. $1.25.)

The latest addition to the Macmillan Pocket Classics is a well printed edition of four books of Knickerbocker's History of New York. The editor is Professor Greenlaw of Adelphi College. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909. 288 p. 25c.)

A delightfully printed edition of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus comes from the Sturgis & Walton Company of New York. (78 p. 45c.)

Famous poems explained is the title of a book, the very type and conception of which are deterrent. Famous poems. ought not to be "explained." (New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldridge, 1909. 236 p. $1.)

Mr. W. L. Courtney, well known as philosophical writer and editor, has made an undoubted success of his Literary